082 - Rox's Morning

Roxanne found herself waking in the hotel bed. Reviewing her recent memory, she wondered how she had gotten from the porch behind Master Iver’s shop to here, and how much time had passed. Looking herself over, she was in her own usual sleeping garb, with her clothes laid over a nearby chair as had become her custom. So she had probably got herself here.

Cyrril chirped from the lintel over the fireplace. The little dragon looked at her quizzically.

The light direction and intensity said it was morning. She was scheduled for some fitting with Masters Eklund and Senisith. This was not supposed to be long. Then she would spend the majority of the day with Master Iver.

Rox bathed, then dressed; she had the white off-the-shoulder-gown as her dress for the day. Cyrril disappeared while she bathed.

She put her local underwear and a shoulder less shift on as foundation for the dress.  As she was putting the dress on, there was a knock at the door. Roxanne adjusted the shoulder and sleeve on her right arm. She wrapped the front over her bust and under her left arm, and back around to her right shoulder. The top corner of the panel slipped through the buckle-ring at her shoulder, and back through itself, holding snug. The wrap around panel closed at her right side from under her arm to her waist by a sequence of tiny buttons under a fine flap.

The door was knocked on again.

Rox walked over, adjusting the dress as she walked, to settle it to her torso.

Caspian waited with a breakfast cart, Cyrril on his shoulder. “I thought you might need to be woken up. When you went right to bed before dinner yesterday, you looked a bit distant.”

Rox ushered Caspian in, standing aside for the cart, and then closed the door.

“I don’t remember yesterday evening. Last I remember was being at Master Iver’s, with the Talent, Macsam.”

Caspian had not been kept explicitly up to speed on the goings on, and paused as Roxanne said this. He watched as she stepped over to the dressing area, and used a stool to put each foot on as she put on some slippers that then tied with ribbons up around her lower leg.

As she came back to the table, he arrayed a plate for her, and opened the few dishes that the hotel had arrayed, with the usual assortment of fruits, cheese, bread, and juice. Caspian then held the chair for her as she sat, and then stood aside as she helped herself to the food.

After a moment, waiting to get her with a clear mouth he spoke. “Are you sure you are awake yet?”

Rox looked over the fruit and selected some more. “Yes. I am aware of here and now, but feel that my memories are a bit scrambled. I dreamed in the local language; I remember something about circles and shapes and writing. Also something about fluids, mediums and controlling them.”

“Are you aware you are speaking the local language?” Caspian watched carefully, with all his senses, to gauge her reaction.

She paused. “Am I?”

He nodded. “Yes. With your own accenting to the words, but yes.”

Rox concentrated. “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy red dog. Mare’s eat oats, and doe’s eat oats, but little lambs eat ivy.”

This was said in English.

“The river ran down hill, through the crags and over the cataracts. You can fish from it.”

Rox said this in the language she had learned in Veradale.

Roxanne then ate some fruit, and started to spread some cheese on a hunk of bread.

Caspian watched. Cyrril leaped and flew over to the window, and started to preen in the sunlight.

Rox gestured to the food. “Going to join me?” She was back in the local language.

Caspian declined. “No. I ate already. I was up before dawn. What are you up to for the rest of the day, looking so primped up?”

Rox swallowed. “First another fitting. Then the rest of the day with Master Iver, and magic practice.”

The fitting was non-eventful. Mostly it was trousers.

Upon arriving at Master Iver’s, he commented briefly on her white gown being a bit more formal than necessary. Once able to get the lesson going Roxanne talked with Master Iver about what had happened the afternoon before, and her lack of memory. He explained that Macsam had transferred, effectively copying, knowledge from Master Iver’s mind to Roxanne. That they were both a bit disoriented was expected. However, Roxanne now had several decades’ worth of magical experience, instruction, and experimentation in her head. Now her mind would catalog and process it, and she could then access it and base her own use on this. It is not the recommended way compared to personal practice but it worked in a pinch, as they had here. As for the language, she had already acquired it once; now it had been written in again, in a more permanent form.

To prove his point, Master Iver spent an hour drilling Rox on various formulas and theories of magic. In retrospect, it was like a comprehensive math final that covered college algebra, geometry, trigonometry, pre-calculus, and calculus, on the second day of high school, and discovering that she could ace every subject without consciously remembering the lessons the information came from.

But Roxanne knew from her own teaching and martial arts training: knowledge did not equal experience. So Rox continued her magic training under Master Iver’s watch.

She stood in the practice room watching him construct and cast a spell. He had a large wood disk on the floor of the room, with about a quarter of his stuff sitting on tables or shelves arranged around the edge of the disk, leaving the center free. She was aware of the mana, and sensed him put the pieces together. First he arranged a container defining the limits. Next the failsafe for bleed over energies. The matrix for the spells final action. Then the energy that would drive it. All this was done by chanting, moving his hands in specific patterns, and concentrating his will to move the mana. And then the disk with his tables and stuff slowly lifted a hand span off the floor.

Roxanne paid most attention to the energies and least to the physical actions. The disk settled back down, and then it was her turn. She had been taught the actions, and words, and had been given a telepathic crash course on the elfin language, in addition to what Caspian had magically done for her. But try as she did, she just could not follow in the path Master Iver was showing. Three times he had worked the levitation, and two times she had failed.

This time, she was going to try a different tact. One suggested by The Sorceress. Roxanne concentrated, not on constructing the components, but on them simply already being.

“Float,” she said under her breath in the Veradale language, focusing on the end result, letting the magic find its own way. Suddenly the room was full of floating objects. The disk was still on the floor, but everything else was moving.

Rox almost panicked, as did Master Iver’s Assistant who had been puttering in the front of the building.

“Try it again. Float.” She mumbled through clenched teeth, reaffixing the idea in her mind.

Suddenly the disk was pushing against her as it jumped to her own waist height in the air, and all the stuff flew back to their places with a clatter. Roxanne felt the power flowing around her, and bending to her will. It was hard to hold, and near intoxicating to feel. She realized that she was holding her hands out to her sides, and formed a new image. As she lowered her hands, the disk settled back to its base.

Master Iver looked around and then at her with evident concern. “Do you know what you just did?”

“I made the disk float.”

“Before and during that?”

“I used magic to float everything else, and then corrected myself to just float the disk.”

“You used force of will alone to shape and hold a spell. Without any buttressing or support to bleed off or control excess.”

“I thought that was what magic was. What you were doing,” Rox replied

He continued. “Magic IS bending the world to your own desires, by your own authority. The ONE Single Difference that really matters between this and having God’s Power, is whose authority it is being done by. Built on to this are a few ideas, among them are these; magic is always temporary, God’s power may be permanent. There are other arguments about the principles these are based on, and why, which lead into a religious discussion; this is not the place for that.”

There were no chairs in here, so Rox stood to attention facing him as he continued his lecture.

“God by His authority said ‘the laws the worlds are run by are thus…’ Magic says ‘that’s fine, will you please do it this way for a while?’ Doing as you did, shaping the spell by will power alone, risks impinging on the powers and realms of God. Most magic users who work this way eventually get intoxicated; overpower a spell, and self-destruct. So there are trappings about magic. They are there for only one real reason – the safety of the spell caster. A lesser reason is the safety of everyone and everything else around the caster. Others will build ritual and rites out of this, and claim in their pride that these are more important. But that is not so. Others, including myself, will say these are aids in focusing the mind and will. That is a corollary to safety.”

Rox interjected. “Do it right and it is safe to do it again.”

Master Iver continued, with pleased tones at her comprehension. “Ultimately it all boils down to individual safety. Now watch.”

He cast the levitation spell again, but instead of just a hand span, he lifted the platform to his waist height off the floor, and held it there, with her standing on it.

He held the spell as he looked at Rox. “Now, use your senses and reason. What is happening, and why with this spell?”

Rox gathered her skirts, hopped off the disk, and opened her magic senses. Still being raw to these senses she had to focus to use them. Slowly they resolved.

She spoke. “I sense energy, mana? swirling about floor level, into a pillar about half the diameter of the disk. This is the levitation part.”

She cast her senses about. “I sense part of the energy is flowing over the rest of the stuff in the room, holding it in place, before flowing into the column.”

Rox knelt, sensing under the disk. “I sense the column spiral out under the disk, and up around its edges. I think this is stabilizing it, keeping it level and still.”

She looked across the disk. “I sense some of the energy holding everything on the disk in place. Then it flows into a column that spirals up off the disk and dissipates out above head level. I am not sure what this is beyond venting the energy.”

Master Iver appeared pleased, and spoke. “Elementary physics; the energy needs a place to go. Also the upper column is pulling the disk up, to balance the pushing underneath. There are two more components you have not mentioned. One is around me, to push excess energy away past me, so that I do not get hurt by any surges. Another is within me, so I can control how high the push and pull of the columns are.”

Rox spoke as she reviewed her own immediately previous efforts. “I just wanted the disk to lift. Then was nervous as I felt I was trying to balance on a ball. It’s apparent I did not do so complex, or as safe a spell as you are.”

Master Iver lowered the disc, and the flow disbursed. For a moment Rox could sense the natural flow of energy through the room without effort. Then like a surge in a river, it was passed and the flow returned to its normal unnoticed level.