The Current and the Ways

The Working of the Ways in the North

Issued by the The Siar Conclave for the instruction of scholars, mages and apprentices.

 

Preface

The Conclave sets down what is seen and proved in the lands of Orien’Dar. We are Elven in study and custody, yet we weigh all manners of working without favour. What follows is a field account of how the Work is brought to hand in Orien’Dar, with cautions for novices studying this work.  

I. The Three Ways of Working

As ratified by the Siar Conclave

The Conclave recognises three manners by which the Work is brought to hand.
 

1) Divine-Way (the Elven Way; the Currents)

The Divine-Way is the canon of the Currents, set down in manuscripts and kept by measured signs. It is the Way taught by our patrons to our people, precise in form and orderly in rank. The Divine-Way answers best upon hallowed ground and at the spires raised over the strongest nexuses. It is exacting and proud; when over-pressed, it shears catastrophically.
  • Favourable ground: Practice Halls, ground before Spires, nexuses.
  • Best practice: a small Circle with a sound Focus.
  • Caution: do not mingle the Divine-Way with untutored workings.  

2) Wild-Way (the Sorcerous/Ley Way)

The Wild-Way draws upon the world’s hidden veins—ley that runs beneath soil and sea. It is quick and useful, but fickle to the untaught, and steadies only with discipline and witness. Novayan sorcerers and druids favour this Way.
  • Favourable ground: upon a leyline; at lesser nexuses.
  • Best practice: measured breath, name the Way, start with small works before increasing their scale.
  • Caution: the Wild-Way runs wayward near Wounds and falters in Nullplaces.  

3) Oath-Way (Oath-Song)

Breath and memory given shape by public vow—truth kept because many ears hold it fast. The Oath-Way shows little spectacle but great keeping: bindings, remembrances, and prohibitions that endure. It is spoken into truth by the shamans of the Siar Clans and the Athrukar, and is strongest before witness, in hall and under banner.
  • Favourable ground: halls, greens, courts—any place of witness.
  • Best practice: name the vow, call a Circle, set a witness-stone.
  • Caution: Break not an oath sworn in this manner less you reap ruin.
     

II. Lines, Nexuses, and Towers

The land is veined with lines of unseen virtue. Where lines cross, they form a nexus. Much is made easy upon a line; what is impossible becomes merely dangerous at a nexus.
  • Quietplace — off the leylines. Simple works hold; great workings oft fail.
  • Leyline — upon a leyline, words bite deeper; works flourish.
  • Nexus — a crossing of leylines. Great workings prove possible if caution is maintained.
  • Wound — a torn nexus. The current is untamed and unpredictable. Avoid.
  • Nullplace — dead current. Even masters achieve only middling success.    

Concerning the Spires.

The Spires stand upon the strongest nexuses. While other orders dispute their origin, the Conclave’s inquiry holds they were forged by the First Elves under the guidance of Halenth and Lorintha. What is known with certainty: they stabilise and magnify Leyworking across a wide country—whether of the Divine-Way or the Wild-Way—and errors near them do not end small.    

III. Circles and Focus

• A Circle is peoples aligned in breath, step, and word so the crafting of a work may be aided by other practitioners. A circle amplifies strength, but also risk. • A Focus is an instrument that tells the currents the working’s shape and suffices on its own.    

IV. The Ways

Specialities upon one Current

The Conclave teaches one substrate—the Current. The Ways are habits of shaping upon that single stream. Name the Way aloud; it steadies the hand. A worker may employ any Way, yet most keep to one primary Way and a familiar second. Two Ways in one working is a mountain path in rain. Three is vanity and hazard.  

Flame

Fire, heat, zeal, and the giving of edge. Flame quickens courage and bites through.
  Tokens & Focus: ember-bowls, sun-etched rods, charcoal sigils.
  Common workings: searing gouts; brands that ward; edges tempered with heat; walls of shimmering blaze.  

Wind

Breath, voice, command, echo, and the sudden shock. Wind lifts, stills, or unthreads speech.
  Tokens & Focus: bells, fans, flutes, wind-ribbons, feather cords.
  Common workings: binding by spoken name; bursts that shove or clap; lightness of step; echo and hush.    

Tides

Water, cold, the pull and return, the keeping of cycles.
  Tokens & Focus: shell basins, salt cords, tide-glasses, water rods.
  Common workings: calling rain and fog; frost laid like paint; undertow that drags or holds; ebbing of fever and fire.  

Decay

Wither, rust, endings, hunger, and the rightfulness of release. Not evil, but final.
  Tokens & Focus: bone dust, rusted rings, wormwood sachets, gravecords.
  Common workings: rot to loosen bonds; blights to tire the strong; unmaking of tools and wards; the hush of spent fields.  

Renewal

Growth, mending, shelter, and the setting-right.
  Tokens & Focus: seed-cords, greenwood staves, laurel knots, mender’s spools.
  Common workings: knitting of flesh and fiber; living palisades; stones strengthened and straightened; vigor returned.  

Shadow

Veil, forgetting, remembrance, and the echo of what was.
  Tokens & Focus: black cloths, mirror shards, memory beads, shadowsigils.
  Common workings: glamours and misdirection; stolen footfalls; names coaxed from the hush; the cooling of anger and the stilling of thought.  

Conclave Guidance.

• Keep to one primary Way; borrow a second with care.
  • The Divine-Way, Wild-Way, and Oath-Way are methods, not fuels; any may shape any Way where ground permits.
  • A proper Focus is sufficient; a Circle is not required, though it lends steadiness and potency when the work is weighty or the ground is doubtful.    

V. Witness and the Hall

Manuscripts praise sigils and measures and forget people. We do not. • A vow spoken alone is a thread.
  • The same vow under witness is a rope.
  • The same vow sung before hall and banner is a chain that holds in storm.   We observe: workings kept before a crowd last longer, fail less, and bind truer—most of all those of Wind and Shadow. Hence our insistence on public swearing and the keeping of records
  Field Note: An illusion endures until it is named false by many. Once named, it unravels like wet twine.    

VI. On Skyreach

In the twelfth year of the Imperial count (12 IE), the city of Skyreach, capital of the Imperial League, was unmade in a single working by Vonketrol, archmage of Halentha and master of forbidden canons. What followed is recorded here so that apprentices may learn caution, not glory. Witnesses speak of a second sun erupting from the city’s heart, heat so fierce that stone ran and sand vitrified to sky-glass, a shockfront that levelled halls for leagues and a pillar with a dark crown rising over the ruin, its shadow blotting noon. For days the ash-wind blew along the Velvet Coast. Those who outlived the flash carried a creeping Woundsickness, burns that would not heal, hair falling as leaves, a blight that lingered upon land and flesh alike. When the glare faded, only shadows etched in walls remained where people had stood. The Conclave holds that Skyreach is now the deepest Wound known. A torn nexus whose Current runs wild, whose memory clings to sound and step, and whose airs corrupt the unwary. The place breeds eldritch horrors and wayward echoes; maps drift, stories drift faster.  

Edicts of the Conclave (binding):

• Approach not the Wound save under seal and necessity.
  • Attempt no grand ley-working there—neither Divine-Way bridges between nexuses nor Wild-Way feats.
  • Gather no great Circles. If work must be done, keep the Circle small (no more than three) and sober; break crowds and gatherings.
  • Trust no Focus that has stood long within the ash-wind; wood splits, metals pit, and tokens take a false virtue.
  • Draw no water, take no food, and do not sleep.
  • Mark the signs of peril: fused stone, soot without flame, silent lightning at dusk, ink that runs in a closed book, and shadows that persist against the sun. Let it be remembered: this was no accident of untutored hands but a deliberate over-pressing of the Ways to catastrophic end. Skyreach remains a wound in the world; until it is gentled or closed, the Current there is not to be trusted.    

VII. Failures and Their Signs

When a working is mishandled, it fails in familiar fashions:
  • Backlash — the bite comes home: sear, shock, voice to ash, limbs to lead.
  • Bleed — the world pays: grass withers, frost creeps, whispers gather like flies.
  • Echo — the working repeats later or clings to the wrong throat or place.
  • Taint — the worker is marked by the used Way  

Rules for the apprentice:

Name the Way. Breathe from the belly. Keep a good Focus. Call a small Circle if the ground is doubtful. If your hands shake, stop.    

VIII. Prohibitions and Permissions

• Do not mix three Ways in one working save under Conclave warrant.
  • Do not call great crowds before Spires or upon a Deep Nexus.
  • Do not make strong emotion a spectacle. Public frenzies lure danger.
  • Do ensure works are witnessed and records kept
  • Do prefer call-and-answer over unison when tempers run hot; it holds the work while dividing danger.