41.8 Dead End Fundamentals

General Summary

Day 685

After shopping, we retire for an evening of conversation about magic. Liliales tells us that the style of magic practiced here is akin to going down a dead end - a useful and interesting one, but a dead one nonetheless.   Rainbow had told us that systems of magic with rigid rules make magic easy, but less flexible. For Southern magic, the cultural understanding is quite formal and they develop what we consider ‘utility practices’, such as magic circles, into entire fields of studies. It would be like Qing Chen learning inscription and only ever being able to inscribe things, never use other means of magic or affect things that couldn’t be accessed via inscription.   The spirit crystals we have seen used as currency are also commonly used in magic as spirit arrays, sort of like gem circle nets. The entire structure of the magic is stored in how the stones are arranged - the ‘caster’ does not infuse any of their own intent or will into what they’re doing. Someone who has stumbled upon the right information and the right crystals could, if they were precise, create the same effect as someone who had spent their entire life studying the arrays. It is thus also very dangerous, as the precision required is quite high and mistakes can be disastrous. Consequently, masters will often leave out a piece of their array when recording them. Only someone learning directly from a master (or clever enough to fill in the gap) would be able to use whatever they find. Their magic is stored jointly in books and oral traditions.   It is also transferrable, as an array can be created and then given to someone else to activate with their energy. But in this, too, a gem circle net could be a better solution. If I spent some time on it, I’m sure the sheer intent of free magic could be stored in something transmissible.   He compares it to math, that people can experiment and come to discoveries by understanding the fundamentals of the field and trying new things. But it still doesn’t explain how those fundamentals came to be in the first place.   At this point, Magdalena tells us that it is tiresome and boring and useless to learn about these rules. It’s millennia of people blindly bumping into rules and writing them down rather than coherently experimenting and discovering the fundamentals. Magdalena remarks that neither she nor her younger brother worry about the creation or loss of notable magic in this area. It’s a casual enough statement given what I know, but Qishali looks both confused and concerned at this statement.   Qishali also tells us about ‘flags’, or ways to channel magic through the array. For large workings, masters will use flags to direct their magic and thus even disturbing a single flag will disrupt the entire array. Apparently they are used to capture spirits quite often, and she knows about them in the way that a thief knows about locks, rather than how a locksmith might. Disrupting flags is a very efficient way to destroy an array, and so masters must protect them carefully.   When it is her turn to shared, Qishali teaches me more about using lightning to create objects or weapons, like the sword she showed me earlier. The lightning bow, for example, would let her combine her knowledge of archery and lightning to let her target something more precisely with a shot. It is less useful for me, as someone more skilled with magic than any weapon I could create, but I am curious at what an instrument made of lightning might do.   Objects made in this way become both energetic and physical, which she demonstrates by capturing a thrown knife out of the air with a net of lightning. She helps me try it myself, in a very strange way - guiding the magic through me and showing me how it ought to feel before releasing me to try it myself. Her teaching style is so interesting - as a spirit, it’s so instinctive for her but she can still show me how it should function.   The green lightning, evidently, prefers to be alive and rampaging, and my bow is not very effective. While, flails, and moving weapons are typically better suited to Jade lightning, she tells me.   That night, Lyssa visits. We are both so deeply immersed in our respective, unrelated tasks that the updates are minimal, and the happy comfort is easy to fall into. I’m glad I was able to learn this lightning magic so quickly, because seeing Lyssa’s face when I conjure a bow of sparking green energy is better than anything I could do with the weapon itself. I expect that when we next have to fight together, she will have figured out how to form bows of any colour and intent that she needs.   She is still causing trouble for the Ventarri, many of whom inflict cruelty when they don’t even understand how cruel they are being. They’ve taken a few towns and are teaching Drettir how to read and do taxes and sums so they can resist unscrupulous tax collectors. It sounds like it is slow work, but worth it. And they’re sending people back to the Valley, which I think will heat up the Cold War these two nations have been fighting for so long. A steady stream of dedicated refugees is sure to annoy the Domain. There is some comparison to be made between the Drettir who are seen as ‘less than people’ and the spirits in the South who are so clearly sapient, but are still viewed as tools. With endless time stretching out in front of me, it doesn’t feel ambitious in the slightest to think that both of these cruel cultural norms might change in my lifetime, and probably by my family’s hand.   As we often do, the Dream ends as we drift back to a real sleep in one another’s arms.  

Day 686

We spend the next day refining the last bits of the antidote. Qing Chen seems a little back to normal and is able to help with inscriptions on the amulet. He is clearly still shaken but I’m sure time will heal it.   Detoura being present also helps, because we can experiment on him. By the end of our work, we think our amulet will work and let Cantha get back to normal until her next cycle.   Unsurprisingly, Detoura feels just as indebted as Cantha did, if not more. But it is my pleasure to watch Liliales brush him off and tell him that friends and brothers simply don’t keep track of ‘debts’ like this. I’m sure he and Cantha will compare notes when they finally reunite.  

You’ll only get happy songs out of me if you make me a good drink.

  That night, Detoura plays hopeful music. In his songs, I hear the transformation from despair to hope, and the ability to hold onto both and respect the feelings for what they are. There is a depth of feeling that the Fae of Seasons and of Day and Night simply don’t have, and I’m sure it is at least significantly because the Fae of the Red Thorn are more like Osyr than any other race we have encountered. They are so long-lived and magically intense, and it is no wonder. The weaker fae are killed by their own trees while they sleep. It is not a strength I envy.  

Day 687

Preparations for our banquet consume the entire day, and as dusk falls, we welcome at least 200 people into the space we have created. Reportedly only 27 of them were directly saved by Liliales, but of course they have brought friends and family and companions. Many seem genuinely grateful and offer thoughtful gifts and tributes while others still seem resentful of their ‘debt’. Both Liliales and Detoura garner plenty of cautious attention as fae, and I see Qishali hard at work running interference for all the young women intent on flirting with my son.   No one brings parents, but many have clearly brought their ‘guardian figure’, who is there looking after the young adventurers. Ausha and I get to form the ‘grown ups table’ and reminisce about youth and adventure with all the comparatively wizened elders who’ve come to supervise the young ones.   The night is winding down when Mireen makes an appearance and comes directly to me, asking for a private conversation. Her grey goose attendant offers me a beautiful gift of a magical tea set with many enchantments to facilitate the steeping process.  

It is my hope that we could have tea together frequently.

  I am naturally suspicious of her and she admits that she does want to travel with us in order to learn about our people and customs. I can’t tell if this is some sort of manipulation that she hopes to make in order to pursue Liliales, and it hardly matters. I tell her quite honestly that I think it is inappropriate to ask me directly about travel, given that there is such a strange relationship between her and my son.  

I accounted myself poorly.

  She says of her behaviour in the Dream world with Liliales and Qishali. She says that she doesn’t want to come between them, but confesses that she does want to win a place in his heart. The way she describes her situation is so pitiful, for someone who others view as blessed and powerful. The culture here, as I’ve surmised, is for powerful men to form harems and wives and concubines. Mireen has always felt that as long as she ranks at least fifth in a harem, she could be happy with this. After all, it is normal for women here to compete to join a harem and then continue competing for their partner’s affection and favour.   The way forwards is already very clear in my head - she should travel with Bran, Vaneili, and Yneir. The three of them can teach her what she needs to know about our culture, about the form that even ‘harem-like’ relationships can take, and about being a powerful entity in her own right.   But to begin, I tell her about Mistress, Doraal, Lyssa. I tell her about elvish relationship structures and how it is much more love-based than political, how my people don’t think of relationships as competitive or transactional.   As we talk, I’m struck by how young she seems. When we last met, she gave off an effective air of being self-assured and masterful of her own fate. But now that I have the opportunity and privacy to investigate further, she seems like a child. The way she describes her own magic (gathering up luck and directing it towards situations) is the way that young children start discovering their magical talent. No shaping, no intent, no structure, just energy being pushed towards something interesting.   Indeed - she is 120. And her people presumably live much longer than that. I have to laugh at this, for it transforms her entirely from a conniving Fatespinner into a confused apprentice. All the more reason for her to travel with my contingent of Fatespinners. She could learn so much from them about her own magic as well as culture and behaviour.  

When I was trying to help Liliales and Qishali rescue people, I felt so incompetent. Usually I’m good at seeing what is to come, and I can bring bits of good luck to make things work out better. It’s never a guarantee, but it usually works out. He told me that was being ‘haphazard’ and that I was a ‘bumbling klutz hoping for the best’. That if all I could do was throw luck at a situation, I had no business making promises or interfering in people’s lives.

  It is crueller than what I would have said, and I’m surprised to hear that such things came out of Liliales. But maybe that, too, is the energy of youth. If I saw a peer behaving so recklessly, maybe I would be the same…my mind calls back to the Dread Lord I imprisoned with Bran and Rosalia (Rosalia…) so long ago.   But he has a point, and I tell her so. Such haphazard magic might be workable for protecting your own life and being subject to the flow of fate around you, but it is not enough to make a difference in other people’s lives. At least Yneir knew to tug in a particular direction.   I am all the more resolved to send her to Bran, and I tell her to come back tomorrow for directions if she chooses to go find him. As I dismiss the two of them, the grey goose quietly thanks me for saying what she needed to hear.   It is such a curious remark. I wonder if Mireen has had a wise advisor this entire time.