The Tower of Sorcery f-1

by James Galloway

  "I did notice that this place is a bit different," he said.

  "There are reasons. The glowglobes tend to distract Initiates as they practice, and the room has nothing in it other than what needs to be here. That prevents accidents. Remember when I declined to teach you about Sorcery as we travelled?" He nodded. "I did that because it was necessary. We do not allow those with the Gift to come here with any sort of prior knowledge, because your first impressions of your power are very, very important. You must be allowed to explore your connection to the Weave in a way that lets you form your own opinions, else you will always be shackled by your own preconceptions."

  "I don't understand," he said.

  "In simple terms, dear one, you must come here with an open mind," she told him. "In reality, at first, I will not be teaching you. I will only show you how to come into touch with your power, and then explain the sensations you feel and the things that you see. It is very much a personal process, and it differs slightly from Sorcerer to Sorcerer."

  "Oh," he said. "So, if I read a book about a Sorcerer and how he does his magic, I'd always remember that," he said.

  She nodded. "And if his techniques were incompatible with your power, it would seriously hamstring your ability." She patted his paw fondly. "Now then, let us begin."

  For almost the entire day, Tarrin did nothing but learn mental exercises. He learned techniques to clear his mind of unnecessary thought, and techniques to create calm when emotion threatened to overwhelm him. That, he was told, was important, for the first real taste of the Gift often terrified the Initiate. The trick to gain center, as he called it, he already knew. His father taught him that for archery, and it was a part of his mother's fighting training. It was also very important in the Selani style. To be one with the opponent. Not to be distracted by unnecessary thoughts, not to let fear rule the mind. Tarrin discovered that Dolanna's techniques were somewhat different, and they were also very effective. By the early afternoon, after a short break for lunch, he had gained proficiency in her techniques, and she moved on to the next stage.

  "Very good," she said as he leaned back in his chair. "Now then, to show you exactly what you'll be doing." She made a gesture, and he felt that peculiar sensation of drawing in. Then several opaque strands of some sort of wispy material slowly faded into view. Two of them came from the ceiling, one from the floor, and the other three from the walls. They crisscrossed the room in seemingly random patterns, but two of them intersected. Where they touched, a tiny ball rested. The strands were white, and they varied in size. One of them was as thin as a grass stalk. One was as thick around as his wrist. They weren't straight either. He noticed that one of them had a definite curve, and the two that connected were bowed towards each other where the ball of intersection rested. The other three were arrow-straight. Tarrin turned in his chair to follow one of them out of the room with his eyes, seeing it disappear into the wall leading into the hallway. "This, dear one, is the Weave," she said in a grand voice. "This is the source of our power. It is what we use in order to create our magic."

  "Strings and ropes?" Tarrin asked. "What are they?"

  "They are magic, dear one," she said. "Pure magic. They are called strands. They are all connected together in a a great matrix which covers our world. This is the magical conduit through which all magic travels, even the magic of the other orders. Think of them as strands in a spider's web so vast that it cannot be seen by only one person." Dolanna pointed at one that ran beside them, and Tarrin watched as it seemed to unravel before his eyes. Six smaller strands pulled away from the white core, each smaller strand carrying a color. Red, yellow, orange, blue, violet, and indigo. "Do you recognize those?" she asked.

  "Yes, they're the six spheres," he replied in wonder. "Where's the seventh one?"

  "I cannot draw that sphere out," she told him. "In fact, no one person can. It requires Ritual Sorcery."

  "Why?"

  "We will explore the why of it later, dear one," she told him. "You have much to learn before we reach that point. Each strand is made up of the seven spheres. They are jumbled all together, and the presence of all of them are what makes the strands what they are. You can see that the six smaller strands, which we call flows, are connected to the strand from which they were drawn." She made a pointing gesture, and the red flow extended across the room and connected to another strand near the wall, then it separated from the original strand from which it had been pulled. "A flow usually cannot exist unless it is anchored to a strand, but, as you can see, you can transfer a flow from one strand to another."

  "Did that one lose its red?"

  "No, dear one," she said, having the red extend out again. "Not all the Sorcerers alive have enough power to totally deprive a strand of one flow. I only borrowed the tiniest fraction of the flow from the strand, and it will get that back, because this strand is connected to that strand within the great web of the Weave," she pointed to the two strands she had affected in turn. "There are ways to make a flow stand alone, but we will get into that after you learn the basics. Each flow is independent and unique," she continued, as the red flow and the blue one extended. They touched, even wrapped around themselves, but they didn't join. "They are like oil and water. They will not mix with flows from other spheres. But flows from like spheres will merge," she said. Another red string flowed out from a different strand, and the instant it touched the first one, they joined. The extra bits at the ends of each one simply vanished, and the now-single red flow formed a straight line between the two strands.

  "As you can see, strands are not all the same size. This strand, which is small," she pointed, "is no less powerful than that strand, which is large." She pointed to the wrist-thick strand. "But they are different in how fast you can pull the flows from them, and the power that those flows can hold. It is much like having a bottle and a bucket, both full of water. You can draw the water out of the bottle, but it pours much more slowly than you can get the water from the bucket."

  "Ah, so I can't draw out magic as fast from the little one as I can from the big one?"

  She nodded. "Most Sorcerers do not just draw from one strand, even a larger one," she told him. "We draw flows from all of them around us, all at once. To draw from just one strand would make even the tiniest magical task take hours."

  "So, how do you make these little magic ropes make things catch fire?" he asked.

  She smiled. "Ever to the point. I have missed you, dear one." She lifted her hand with her palm up, and Tarrin saw little red flows streak out from the strands in the room, and into her. Then he saw red strands flicker from her hands and form into a reddish ball of something in her hand, and then a small lick of flame appeared in her cupped palm. Tarrin saw that the lick of fire was still connected to the strand with tendrils of red, tendrils that danced like smoke in a gentle breeze. "Doing our magic is not quite as easy as most believe," she said. "It requires two very different steps. First, you draw in the magical energy from the Weave. Then, once you have it, you weave the flows you have drawn into a specific effect. This weave," she held up the small lick of fire, "is very easy to create, for it is only one flow. You can see the flows that tie it to the Weave, which continue to fuel its power. If I cut off that flow of energy-" the tendrils vanished, and then the lick of fire winked out-"the weave is disrupted, and it disappears. Other weaves require many flows used together in order to function, such as Healing. That is a combination of Fire, Water, Earth, and Divine power. They can get very, very complex."

  Tarrin leaned back in his chair and thought about it a minute. "So you draw in the magic, then while it's inside you, you put it together in a way that makes something happen, and then you just let it go?"

  "Generally speaking, yes, dear one," she replied. "We generalize the process at first, but that is the core of what we do."

  "It seems easy."

  "It is easy," she said, "if you know what you are doing. Some, like you and your sister, have enough raw potential to seem to be
able to use your power unconsciously."

  "Hold on," he said. "You said the magic is all in this Weave, right?" She nodded. "Then what makes me any different from anyone else? Everyone keeps saying how much potential I have, but how does it make me different? I mean, if the magic is all outside, why are Sorcerers not equally powerful?"

  "A very good question," she said with a smile. "There are several answers. A great deal of a Sorcerer's potential depends on three things. How closely he is tied to the Weave, how much power he can hold, and how much he can safely manipulate. Two of those aspects change with experience. One does not. As a Sorcerer learns more about the Weave, and practices, it brings that Sorcerer in a more intimate contact with the Weave. That Sorcerer can draw energy from it faster, from a wider area, can weave flows together quicker, and can even directly affect the Weave without drawing in. The amount of power a Sorcerer can manipulate also increases over time, as he grows into closer contact with the power that he is controlling. But the amount of power that a Sorcerer can hold, the raw amount of energy that he can safely build up inside, never changes. That is purely an aspect of the person. Some magical weaves require vast amounts of power to be woven correctly and have them work. Those weaves the Sorcerer can learn, but if he was to try to use them, they would kill him. His body would simply burn up trying to contain more power than it can withstand." She shuddered. "That is probably the greatest danger you face as you learn. We call it being Consumed, and it is a ghastly way to die. You are destroyed from the inside out, and nothing, not anything, can stop it once it begins. Those lucky ones that realize what is happening kill themselves before it overwhelms their reason." She patted his hand. "Anyway, what makes you so strong is just that. You have awesome potential, Tarrin. You can hold more power than four Sorcerers linked."

  "That still doesn't make much sense," he said dubiously. "I mean, if you can never do some things-"

  "I did not say never," she smiled. "There are some very advanced techniques we can learn to allow us to weave spells beyond our natural ability to create. Channeling is the most common. But we still cannot exceed that very basic limitation that our own bodies place upon us, and many of our techniques only allow us to step just so far above that natural limitation."

  "Oh, alright," he said. "That makes sense. No, wait. If you draw the magic inside you, and then you weave it together and release it, then why didn't the strands come out of you when you unravelled that strand over there?"

  She laughed lightly. "My dear one, you make this so easy. You see immediately what I must work to make others understand. Remember when I said that one part of the Weave is connected to all others?" He nodded. "I become a doorway of sorts, dear one. The power I draw in is a direct proportion to the power of the Weave that I can directly affect. When I draw a flow into me and build up its energy, I can release that energy wherever I choose. Magic is a very simple power, Tarrin. It will follow the path of least resistance. If the place I choose is closer to another strand than it is to me, the magic will travel to that strand and then push out the flows to that point." She reached up a hand and put it through the strand over her head. "When we draw in our power, when we touch the Weave, we become a living part of it," she told him. "The flows that draw from the Weave and enter me also connect me to the Weave, and magic will flow much easier through flows and strands than it will across empty air. Almost always, you will see weaves extend from strands to the point of effect. That energy must flow through me and to that place, and if it a shorter distance from that place to a nearby strand, then that is the path that the energy will take."

  "Why do you have to build up power, when it's already there?" he asked.

  "How do you mean?"

  "You say that you build up power inside you, then it leaves you and then goes where you tell it to go. Then you weave that power together and form a spell. Why not just try to weave it together over there in the first place? That way, you don't have to draw anything in."

  "A thought, but it will not quite work, dear one. When I weave together flows somewhere else, I'm trying to affect the magic over there with the magical power I have inside me. In effect, I'm pushing a line of blocks, trying to get the end block to fall off the edge of a table. By pushing at this end, I can make the block on the far end fall off the table. The Weave measures the power I have inside me against the weave I'm trying to build, and if it is enough, I can push out that energy and weave it together to do what I want it to do. I cannot push any more power into the Weave than what I currently hold, so, to again put it in terms of water, the water I carry in a bucket cannot fill up a barrel. If the weave I am trying to build requires a barrel of water, it will not work. If it only requires a bucket, it will work. If it only requires a glass of water, and I try to fill it with a bucket of water-"

  "It overflows."

  She shook her head. "It never gets the chance to overflow. Because the weave is triggered once it has enough power and I weave it together, the excess energy has nothing to do, and it is disspated through the Weave. The proper term is that it is absorbed by the Weave."

  "So…to stay on the water, it's like filling a glass over a waterfall," he said. "The water that flows over the glass just drops back into the stream."

  "Precisely," she said with an approving nod. "You do suffer a bit of a backlash, because that power partially rebounds back into you. It is not pleasant, so you learn quickly not to try to put more magic into a weave than it can safely hold."

  "Safely?"

  She chuckled. "Yes. If you charge a weave's flows without weaving them together and allowing them to expend the energy you charge into them, they can release that energy in totally random ways. It is called a wildstrike, and the effects can be spectacular. The power of the Weave itself can blow through a ruptured flow, like a torrent of water blasting from a hole in a dam. That is one of the reasons this room is so bare. And these walls are sufficiently reinforced by magical wards and physical buttressing."

  "And that's the danger you warned me about," he surmised.

  "One of them, yes," she said. "Toying with Sorcery without experience or guidance can be deadly.

  "You seem to understand the generalities of weaving flows, but there are some restrictions of which you must be aware. There are only three true strictures when it comes to weaving flows, Tarrin," she said. "Firstly, you cannot weave where you cannot see. That is our range. While you can weave some flows without seeing what you are doing, and indeed there are many that must be woven inside objects, where you cannot see what you do, but you cannot direct them at anyone or anything unless you can see it. You cannot weave flows trying to paralyze someone on the far side of a closed door, nor can you weave in the dark unless you can see your target's location. You do not necessarily have to see his face or form, but you must be able to see enough of him to know where he is. But no matter what, you cannot create flows at great distances, whether you know someone is there or not. The reason for this is complex, but it comes down to perspective. Since you are 'seeing' the flows woven together, it means that flows that are exceptionally tiny are impossible to create. People at great distances appear tiny, so to affect them from such a distance means that, in relation, you are trying to weave flows in a tight space."

  "In other words, Dolanna, accuracy is dictated by distance. The farther away a target is, the harder it is to hit it. And once something is outside of bowshot, you just can't get anything there. It always falls short."

  "More or less, though it is a bit more complex than that," she agreed. "Secondly. Flows exist in a state of partial independence from the Weave, and from other flows from different sphere, but they actively merge with flows of the same sphere. Once they are drawn from a strand, you cannot use other flows to try to affect them without considrable danger. In effect, you cannot mop up water with more water. There are indirect ways to do this, however. You can unravel another Sorcerer's weaving by trying to control his flows directly, or attack the Sorcerer directly with Sorcery to
make him stop, or attempt to cut that Sorcerer off from the Weave, but you could not send flows out to untie his flows. If you do, the like flows simply merge, you get a tangled mess, and it often explodes as a wildstrike. Thirdly. Because the flows cannot affect flows, and like flows merge and disrupt themselves, that means that we cannot weave flows upon ourselves. When we are weaving, we are living extensions of the Weave, but we are only filled with certain flows, and the flows of the weave we are creating interfere with the power of the flows we are holding inside. We cannot heal ourselves, or weave any weaves that would affect ourselves. The flows merely enter us, touch the power within of the same sphere, then rush out down the flow and go back to the strand. We lose the power from inside, which takes away our ability to push it against the weave, and then it simply fizzles out. Fortunately, any attempt to weave flows on ourselves simply fizzle, and do not form wildstrikes. That prohibition starts at your skin and goes inward. It also means that you cannot weave any weaves against or for another Sorcerer who is actively in contact with the Weave. But mind you, that means those weaves that affect the Sorcerer's body directly. Sorcerer's Fire can burn a Sorcerer just as quickly as it can burn anyone else, because it is an external effect that comes into contact with that Sorcerer."

  "What would happen if you try? Wouldn't it kind of ruin his spell?"

  Dolanna smile broadly. "Yes and no," she told him. "The energy you are exerting against him is pushing towards him. Once it comes into contact with him, it comes down to who is stronger. If the attacker is more powerful than the target, he can reverse the energy of the flow and drain off any energy inside him, or he can pump power into the victim, exceed his ability to hold it, and force him to release his touch on the Weave in order to avoid being Consumed. If the target is more powerful, then he can block off that flow, literally drawing in so strongly that the attacker cannot overcome the force. Or he can simply allow the attacker to feed him that power without drawing in. If the target can hold more than the attacker, then the attacker could never force the target to let go of the Weave. Either form weakens the target's ability to weave flows, for he must dedicate a portion of his attention and his power to controlling the attacker's energy, but it cannot stop him."