039 – Pactical Magic And Fight Training

Journal of Steven Caplan: Day 38

At last, a high mountain range. Got to watch for late season avalanches.

Rox entered the work room to clean it, and found bits of cord and string laid out on the work table, arranged by size. Yesterday had been an extensive conversation on what The Sorceress called resonance. Part of the summary was that material things had a kind of memory about them that magic could use; for instance small bits could be used to magically emulate the effects of having and using the whole, spells could be transmitted from one bit of a broken thing to another bit of that broken thing. A previous lesson was that many times small bits of stuff were used to focus the mind, and better organize the energy of the magic. Rox guessed that today would be a drill on using the bits of cord to magically emulate the whole cord, or to put magic on one part and pass it to another.

As Roxanne swept the room, she came back to the dressing mirror under the silk cover. The Sorceress had essentially confirmed that, while being itself magically inert, the mirror was used in some of her spells from time to time, including looking at things a distance away. She had yet to teach Rox how to do this.

Rox wanted to try to see Diana and Alex with it, as well as Steven. But still did not yet know if she knew how to do so. She felt that she began to understand feeling the energy, ‘mana’ The Sorceress called it. Then forming the idea in her head, clearly, of what she wanted to have happen. The problem she kept encountering was that she kept jumping over intermediate steps to the conclusion. The Sorceress was trying to teach her all the intermediate steps, and the why's, not just the how's. So the desire to see had to wait.

A secondary issue in the lessons had to do with The Sorceress herself. Her specialties and perceptions were focused in energy. She always in every lesson stressed control of energy, which for her was easy from practice, and also a necessity. For Rox, this was more a lesson in focus and management. In the theory lessons, The Sorceress had mentioned that a disciplined practitioner could both control the flow in their own use, but also the control of others flows of energy. One could control the direction and volume and block this flow. This could be used to dispel spells, or patterns of energy, or to create spells, or patterns of energy. These patterns ranged from destructive, through neutral, to empowering.

After lunch, The Sorceress came and began first by drilling Rox on the types of cord she had. Each was made of a different fiber, and good for specific things. This Rox already knew, if only innately from growing up, and what Steven had taught in their time together. As expected, they drilled both on using the bits to emulate the whole, and on using the bits to pass energy on to the other parts.

But this part of the lesson went quickly, and then The Sorceress went into an explanation of what the cord bits could be used for, as ingredients of more complex spells.

She then had Rox collect a few ingredients from prior lessons.

“Now, hold them in your hand. What are they and what are they for?” The Sorceress had moved Rox to the middle of the room.

Rox looked at the bits. “Fine fiber cord, elastic, good for climbing. A small metal hook, good for securing things. A bit of resin, good for making things sticky. A bit of thread, good for binding things together.”

“Good. Now look up. See the ring. That is your target.” The Sorceress pointed at a ring secured to the keystone of the vaulted arch two stories above them in the center of the room.

“Now, pull together the mana; using the objects and ideas about them create a climbing line: a grapnel at the end, the cord secured to it and tied closed by the thread, and tacky enough to hold onto via the resin.”

Rox concentrated chanting quietly in the language she spoke with The Sorceress instead of English, she gathered energy, feeling it flow as a trickle of tingling through her, and focus and swirl around in her hand, going through and organizing in the four things in her hand. She had a question, and almost lost her concentration. “Do I need to physically toss it?”

“Only if it helps to actualize in your mind. Otherwise you just need to shape it as there with your mind. Let it draw as much mana as it needs, don’t try to force it, just be a conduit.” The Sorceress stood face to face with Rox.

Rox focused, felt a flow of mana-energy through her, and there the line was, large enough to comfortably wrap her hand around, hanging in front of her from a hook in the ceiling. It glowed slightly, and tingled in her growing sense of magic. She noticed that the thread, resin and cord were gone from her hand, but the hook remained.

“Now, climb it.” The Sorceress backed off, giving Roxanne room.

Rox dropped the hook as she took the rope in hand, and felt a tingle rather than the rough surface of a fibrous rope. A rational part of her mind was telling her that this was impossible. But over the last weeks that part of her mind had increasingly been put to silence. Rox took the rope in both hands, and pulled her feet off the ground, then pinched the rope between her feet, and reached up to pull again. As she went to release her second hand, to start up in earnest, Rox felt her concentration slip, the energy of the rope dissipate and she fell a short distance to land on her feet, and collapse to sitting, hard. Her back hurt briefly from landing on the stone floor.

The Sorceress gave Rox a moment to collect herself then asked “What happened?”

Rox got to her feet. “I am not sure. I started to climb, and then the spell dissipated.”

“Were you concentrating on the spell, or on climbing?”

Rox thought a moment. “Climbing, my lady.”

The Sorceress nodded, remembering her own struggles in school. “That is why you fell. You let go of the spell and it ceased.”

Rox rubbed her rump, aching slightly where she had landed hard.

The Sorceress moved back to the table, trying to decide what to do next. “You needn’t worry to hard yet. This is a lesson that I had to go through several times as a school girl, before I was good enough at dividing my attention to keep a spell going and do something else. Like juggling, eventually it gets to be natural.”

Rox picked up the hook from the floor. “How high did you get?”

“The first time I did it, I did not even get to where I could fall. It took a month of practice before I could get my own height off the ground and keep the spell going. After that, I got to the bell the instructor had set up. There was one girl in class who realized she was afraid of heights, and broke her leg falling from that high after getting up there.”

Rox put the hook on the table. “My lady, where did the cord, thread, and resin go?”

The Sorceress “You noticed. Good. Most un-living organic stuff disintegrates as a spell is cast through it. The best theory is that it looses it physical cohesion as its pattern is put into the spell. Metals and most rocks don’t. It is figured it has to do with the way the matter is organized in it, and that stone and metal was never alive.”

Rox though about this. “Metal is essentially a crystal; I suppose stone is similar, whereas the organic stuff is a cellular arrangement. I guess that if something is alive, it has energy to draw on to maintain its form? So while the cellular stuff can be rearranged by life, metals and stones are not rearranged thus. So the magic disintegrates the organic in copying its pattern, but not the inorganic.”

The Sorceress nodded. “That is the theory.”

Roxanne turned and leaned against the table. “You have taught me a bunch of fundamentals, how to do a handful of house keeping spells. I cobbled together a spell on that jar that reassembled it to its base, wherever the bulk of it was, though that has dissipated. I just climbed half my height up a magic rope. What else do I need to know to use that mirror?”

The Sorceress turned to face the mirror, under its cover, putting aside the other idea that was not forming despite her efforts. “You want to see your kids.”

”And if possible, my husband.” Rox almost stepped toward the mirror.

The Sorceress thought for a moment. ”The spell I have just taught you, about the rope, is a second year student’s spell. Using the mirror is something that many adults can’t do correctly. But you are determined. How much do you know about light?”

Rox sensed meaning more than the surface in this question. “Insofar as its interaction or governing by magic, I can’t say that I know anything.”

The Sorceress smiled. “Admitting your ignorance is always a good start. I do not have the spells to use it as you wish memorized. It will take me some time to find where I have them written. Tomorrow, after your chores, you may look through my index…”

Rox interrupted. “My lady, I have not been taught your script. While I can read and write in my own language, I cannot in yours.” Rox felt her own hopes smothered as she said this.

The Sorceress, unused to being interrupted watched as Roxanne slumped. She started again. “Perhaps so, but if I write out the characters surely you can compare them.”

The Sorceress watched Roxanne perk up a bit, at this. “Now, about light…”

The lesson went on for a while, and Roxanne learned several new ideas, and a few old ones that she had always considered to be preposterous or new age mumbo-jumbo.

*          *          *

Caspian, Steven, and Abey hunted their way through the mountains, keeping as many pelts as they could. Steven lost three bolts, but managed to take down and harvest the local equivalent of a deer. This had required making a larger frame to stretch the hide on, and a travois to carry the usable meat. This was all a bit awkward to carry. As they crossed the highest pass of the range they encountered snow, and a brief spring snow storm. This only caused discomfort rather than actual hindrance. When it was time to camp Steven and Caspian would build a lean-to and all three would huddle under it keeping each other warm in their blankets and accumulated scrub.

They descended into the foot hills and the farms, and warmer climate, a bit dirty from their traveling. They kept the pelts and other usable pieces of what they harvested to have something to sell. After a day of travel past the farms, and small villages, they approached the outer walls of a city.

*          *          *

When Linell next showed up for her lesson, she had a black eye, and favored her right foot. Rox took her to task for this.

“Well, there are a few bullies in the older pages.” Linell acted like all children telling something that she was afraid she was going to be in trouble for.

Rox stood with her fists at her hips, waiting. “And?”

Linell tried to melt into the floor. “At lunch yesterday, one of the older ones tried to bully one of the younger ones.”

Rox waited patiently. Linell did not want to say more.

“Don’t the Guards or people in charge of the Pages, or other stewards move to stop this?” Rox asked, not knowing anything about how this might be handled, or even where the Pages took lunch.

Linell shook her head. “No, in some cases the bully’s are recruited by the army, or navy. Others simply graduate from the pages and go home, as we all will when old enough.”

“So how did you get a black eye?” Rox asked patiently, practicing the patience she had learned dealing with her own children.

But Linell did not want to tell.

“Were you the bully?”

Linell moved her head in what Rox had come to recognize as the negative answer. “No. the bully tripped my little brother, so I stood up and slugged him. The bully’s friend hit me then, knocking me into the table. I got back up and kicked him. Then the Page Master came and had to pull me off him. I was told that if I get in another fight, I will be sent home.”

Tears were starting to well in the girls eyes.

Rox put her hands down and knelt, to look at the girl closer to eye level, and wrapped her in a hug. The girl went formally stiff, and Rox let go, and let the girl move back to arm’s length.

“What happened to the bullies?” Rox let go of the girl, who seemed more comfortable standing in front of her.

“The one that I kicked had to go see a healer. The other just got up and was told to leave me and my brother alone.” Linell seemed a bit more relaxed, since Rox was not trying to punish.

Rox looked at Linell. “So, do you want to learn how to block punches, so that you don’t get hit in the face again?”

Linell had sore forearms when she left.