NOVEL NEXT 15. Secret of Magic
Excerpt from Master Mirode’s ‘Elemental Philosophy.’
“Elemental magic has often been considered something of an end result amongst Arcane mages, and as such does not get the attention it deserves. For such a fundament of magic, the six elements and their combinations form a kind of unspoken backbone to all of our understandings of the world. Take Air, for example. Its most obvious form is that of the air that we breathe, or the wind that carries sweet scents up from the bakery. Did you know we can also find wind-aligned energies in the leaves of trees? In the petals of certain flowers, or blades of grass, Air grants a joyous and light quality to the things it touches. So too can one feel joy in their hearts when Air is present…”
Yenna was in no position to go asking the other members of the expedition for help while Chime was speeding to their next destination, so she spent her time recording recent events in her journal and doing some reading of her own. One particular book that stood out was a book about the elements that, while largely dedicated to spells that converted magic to elementally aligned forms, also had some rather fascinating insights in the introduction. One thing it did note that Yenna had overlooked on her first reading was the connection to emotions that the author gave the various elements.
These rambling introductions weren’t uncommon in the world of Arcane writing. It turned out that one’s skill as a mage did not translate to one’s talent as an author—an alarming number of textbooks, reference documents and spellbooks began with the writer’s meaningless musings¹. Yenna had formed a skill in her university days of being able to detect and skip over these sections, and only now realised that she was missing out on the chance to pick diamonds from the rough. The next question was, who in the group could help her learn about Joy?
An hour or two later, Chime scuttled their way into a very small town by the name of Yunhe². More of a meeting place between some large farming areas, it nevertheless featured space for the party to stop, stretch their legs and give their silupker porter a rest. No sooner did Yenna put her hooves on the ground did Tirk appear as though from nowhere to talk to her, a small pouch in his hands.
“Are you feeling better yet? Hirihiri said kesh are really flimsy, which I don’t think is true, but I also don’t know what ‘flimsy’ means, but she also said to give you this!” Chattering away, the boy held up the pouch, and Yenna politely took it. Looking inside, there were a number of bundles of dried herbs, each labelled according to what curative effect they may have if eaten, boiled into tea, mashed into a paste, or any of a number of things. It was a thoughtful gift, but Yenna couldn’t help but giggle at the elderly yolm’s true feelings being passed on with her messenger.
“I’m doing much better. I’m really sorry you had to see me in such a state, Tirk. Thank you for this.” Another thing she couldn’t help was patting the boy on the head—Tirk seemed to rather like the attention.
“Are you gonna learn about magic from the witch lady?” Tirk squirmed out from under Yenna’s hand, looking unreasonably excited.
“Her name is Lumale, and yes–” Yenna stopped suddenly as a thought hit her like a hammer. Nothing made learning to do something quite as easy as trying to teach it to someone else. Looking down at the boy, his head tilted in confusion, a smile broke across her lips. “Hm. Tirk? Would you come with me to speak to the captain?”
They went off and tracked down Eone—a simple feat given her size and propensity for loudness. The captain was talking loudly with Muut and Mysilia about their travel plans, and Yenna couldn’t help but overhear Eone’s rather enthusiastic and overly optimistic ideas about how fast they could move.
“Captain, ye should know that Chime cannot run all of the day, and all of the night.” Muut’s unmistakeable accent and nay-saying seemed tailor-made to tether the captain to the earthly realm.
“Oh, I know that! I’m just thinking if we moved for a few hours more, we could skip over this one little town here and make it to Milur a bit sooner– Tirk, my dear boy! And Yenna! How are you feeling, mage?” Eone scooped up Tirk into a tight hug, nearly knocking Mysilia from her shoulder-perch. The mereu fluttered off into the air with a grumpy chirp, taking a seat on a nearby box.
“I’m quite alright, captain. The mental fatigue I suffered was mostly temporary, and a good rest has cured me. However, I have a question for you, and for Tirk.” Despite trying her best to sound confident Yenna was a little nervous about this, her fingers playing with the brim of her hat.
“For me and
Tirk! Well, little man, we’d best listen closely!” Eone chuckled and lifted Tirk up to her shoulder, almost as though the woman couldn’t abide having it be unoccupied. With the boy looking down at her from up high, it didn’t exactly calm Yenna’s nerves.“Well, the thing is, the witch Lumale promised to teach me her secrets, along with some, ahem, rather incredible discoveries that could revolutionise magic as we know it, you see, and–”
“C’mon, you know I don’t know a lick about magic!” Eone gave a beaming smile. “Whatever it is you need, you got it! If you need supplies, we could make a little detour…?”
“Not if ye want to make it to Milur on time.” Muut’s reminder took some of the wind out of the captain’s sails.
“Ah, yes, there is that. Whatever you need, as long as it doesn’t take a detour!” With a bellowing belly-laugh, Eone nearly knocked Tirk from her shoulder—she seemed as eager to have the spot occupied as she was to buck someone off of it.
Yenna took a deep breath and nearly missed her chance to speak. Realising that everyone was patiently waiting to hear what she had to say, she nearly bit her tongue saying it. “I wand– I want to ask if I could teach magic to Tirk. The boy seems to have, um, some preternatural senses that would be worth investigating, and it would help me collect my thoughts on the new information that Lumale is giving to me. If that’s, erm, alright with you? And Tirk, of course?”
Tirk’s smile shone like the sun, and Eone nearly matched it.
“Y’hear that, boy? You’re gonna be a mage!”
“Ya-ay! Thanks, Yenna!” Eone held the boy up high in the air as both of them cheered, and even Muut couldn’t help but crack a smile at how excited they both were. Yenna felt a pit growing in her stomach as she realised how little experience she had teaching children of Tirk’s age. If Witchcraft was really so intuitive as Lumale insisted, then it should be fine, right?
After a brief period to collect materials and find a suitable location, Yenna eventually settled on a space beneath the boughs of a large tree. Suitably shaded from the sun, it was a comfortable spot with one particular benefit—Chime was able to listen in. The enormous silupker’s serene visage might have put Yenna off a bit, if she didn’t know how wonderfully patient Chime was. It was a slight coincidence that they were able to join in, as the shaded tree was simply right near their head, but it was a nice opportunity all the same.
Yenna retrieved a small folding stool from her pack for Tirk to sit on—she usually used it as a book-stand, but it made a fine seat. He gasped in surprise and even clapped a few times as the mage conjured various other utilities, including a cushion for her to sit on, a board to write on, and a small writing bench. All of the setup drew the attention of Jiin, who in turn dragged Mayi over—it was slowly turning into something of a spectacle, and Yenna was feeling self-conscious.
“Oh wow!” Jiin had stars in her eyes at the sight. “Are ya gonna teach li’l Tirk t’be a mage too?! Mayi! Mayi, c’mere!”
“I am, but if you would like to stay and follow along—oh, you’ve already got chairs. Ahem.” With her class size having quadrupled rather unintentionally, Yenna felt a weird flush of nostalgia. The two yolm women had dragged in stools of their own, Tirk sat starry-eyed in the middle, and Chime loomed motionless to the side. It couldn’t be further from a normal class, but Yenna thought it might be quite fun to have such a strange cohort for once. A far cry from the orderly rows of young kesh she was used to teaching, part of her looked forward to the challenges ahead.
“Now, I was rather expecting only to be tutoring young Tirk here, but, ah, I suppose it’s fine. I just want you all to know, I don’t expect you to walk away from my little impromptu lesson here flinging about spells!” It didn’t take long for Yenna to hit her stride—her mind had swapped to teacher mode. Her warning clearly chipped away at everyone’s enthusiasm, but Tirk had more than enough to go around—Yenna wondered if he would be excited to hear anything if it came from someone new and exciting.
“Okay, I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page to start with—who can tell me what the first step to becoming a mage is?” Looking around, Yenna was met with some blank stares. Changing tactics, she asked a new question. “Then, can anyone tell me why we use wands to activate magical items?”
Jiin raised her hand with a grin. “It’s so y’can put the magic in the thing, otherwise it won’t work!”
“Absolutely correct! Now, have any of you seen me use a wand before?”
More blank stares—Jiin and Mayi muttered between each other for a moment, and Chime turned their massive head to look over at Tirk, who was raising his hand. “Um, don’t you use your rings a bit like a wand? I thought it was kinda like a, um, fancy wand for your fingers!”
Yenna couldn’t help but grin—the boy was quite astute. “Not quite. In fact, you can think of my rings like a magical item of their own—ah, but we’ll talk about those another time! The reason I don’t need to use a wand to activate items or cast spells is because I’ve got the ability to manipulate magic.”
To prove her point, Yenna conjured up a wisp of white magic. It was barely a spell at all to make a scrap of magic coalesce like this—it was the fundamental skill required by all mages. Everyone stared intently at it, and Tirk reached out to grab it. Yenna humoured him, letting him take a swipe at it, knowing full well that someone without magical ability couldn’t do much with this particular kind of magic. To her immense surprise, Tirk’s fingers wrapped around it and caused it to vanish.
“Did I do something wrong?” Tirk noticed her surprised expression and frowned.
Yenna quickly shook her head. “No, not at all! In fact, that was quite a surprising thing—you must have some latent magic in you after all. Well! That should make our next step easier. Today, I’m going to teach you to manipulate magic as mages do! I shall pass to you the Secret of Magic.”
The Secret of Magic was an odd thing, far older and more primal than Arcane magecraft yet no less essential. It wasn’t some set of words or key piece of information—it was a tangible thing that was passed from mage to student, a small ritual to find a place within one’s being and open one’s own body to magic within and without.
After a moment of excited chatter, Yenna managed to get everyone back on track. The actual process was simple, yet simultaneously hard to convey—in fact, Yenna realised it had quite a startling similarity to the way she had split magic earlier. It wasn’t so much of a defined technique as it was something you had to feel, but Yenna had guided countless students through the process before.
“First, close your eyes. Take deep breaths, and focus solely on the sound of my voice.” Yenna belatedly realised that Chime, being a silupker, didn’t need to breathe³, but hoped that they got the idea. “Let the thoughts in your head fade away, and concentrate only on me. All you should hear is the sound of my voice.”
After a few moments, all four of them were perfectly still and silent. Yenna was slightly surprised to see Tirk following along perfectly, but maybe slightly more surprised to see that Jiin and Mayi hadn’t started to bother each other—they were always the sorts to watch out for when attempting this kind of thing.
“In the stillness of your mind, I want you to imagine a door. You are going to step through this door and into your innermost self, a place where your imagination is reality. Here is the place where your dreams live, all your hopes and fears, all your desires and dreads. Step past them now, right past all of it, until you reach the very edge of this place.”
Yenna carefully watched all of their expressions. Chime was, quite predictably, unreadable. Tirk’s face was quite serious, his brow crumpled in concentration. Mayi had a gentle smile on her face that was fading to neutrality, and Jiin’s eyes were softly glowing through her eyelids—Yenna hadn’t even considered what might happen if one were to try and do this while harbouring a spirit, but there was no indication of any danger. Yenna pressed on, though she remained vigilant.
“At the very edge, you will find another door. This is the door to your wellspring of magic, existing at the edge between your mind and soul. This door is held shut by a rope, threaded with glimmering light. All you need to do is unwind the rope, as gently as you can, and open the door to the limitless power of magic. Do this now.”
While she normally would have let this important moment pass without inspection amongst a normal class, this moment of awakening held great significance amongst such a strange group. Weaving a spell to open her magical sight, she inspected the four in turn as they began to open the door to their own magic.
Mayi’s was nothing special—Yenna usually taught kesh, but this was a metaphysical location that transcended things like the bodily form. As expected, the glimmer of her magical being that could normally be seen through this magical sight spell expanded slightly, small tendrils flowing out through the body as it followed long-dry veins that had always awaited this magic.
Tirk’s magic flowed with surprising vigour—the boy was obviously blessed with a powerful wellspring, and could one day become quite the great mage. Yenna was surprised to see magic flow through his horn, where it had not done so at all for Mayi.
Meanwhile, Chime was somewhat peculiar. The semi-real veins that carried magic through the body usually mirrored the real, actual veins in a flesh-having creature. Inside Chime, the magic seemed to follow a strange path through their earthen exterior, forming hexagonal pathways that rippled all the way down the silupker’s length.
The strangest of the four was Jiin’s awakening. The magical sight spell couldn’t watch her like it could the others—Demvya’s presence entirely blotted out Jiin’s own magical being from sight. However, she watched as a kind of fuzzy glow extended outwards from Jiin’s body, and gasped in surprise as the guardian spirit seemed to partially move out of alignment with the woman’s body. It was as though Demvya was now clinging to Jiin’s body, being worn like a second skin or a suit of armour. There wasn’t a hint of distress or pain—in fact, Jiin gave a broad smile and a sigh of relief.
The four of them looked about at each other in wonder, and Yenna envied them their first glimpse of the world as it truly existed—they had opened a sixth sense, able to feel magic around them. This was what the Secret was all about, and Yenna felt blessed every time she could pass it on.
“You can see it all around you, yes? Magic is everywhere—inside us, around us. Go on, take a little bit out of the air. Congratulations, my new students.”
Yenna couldn’t help but smile with pride as each held out a hand—or, in Chime’s case, an antenna—and gathered up a small scrap of ambient magic. Now, the real magic could begin.
¹ - This stands as one of the few things that the mage authors of Yenna’s world and the writers of cookbooks in your world have in common. Another odd universal constant—wherever there is writing, there are a subset of sentients that wish to relay their life’s story along with their technical knowledge.
² - I will spare you Yenna’s page-long, nigh-incomprehensible ramblings about the etymology of the town’s name, and tell you that it translates to something approximating ‘halfway home’. This is on account of it being halfway to the locals’ homes, no matter which way their homes are. Thus, when you are here, you are halfway home.
³ - Silupker, being made of earthenware and poorly understood magical principles, have nearly no processes comparable to the biological. It is notable in that they do not need to breathe, eat, drink, or truly sleep—silupker remain aware of their surroundings even while ‘sleeping’, though to a limited extent.