Path of the Magi (Tales of Tiberius)

by Stuart, Richard J

“Whatever you think best, sir,” Tiberius said. Truth to tell, he didn’t understand. After all the waiting to get to this point, it seemed like a very strange turn in his education. He wondered if Dallen was still simply grieving over Ian.

  Dallen gave a brave smile, though, and answered as if he’d been reading Tiberius’ mind. “Don’t worry, you’ll be learning plenty of magic from now on. It just won’t be all that you learn. Anyway, your classes at Queen’s College won’t start until the fall. We have the whole summer to get you started on magic. Tanyia will stay on for a bit to go though some of the basic elemental effects with you, while I run into town to get your application squared away. Tanyia is an expert elementalist, Tiberius. Far better than me at the sort of direct applications of energy you’re looking to learn.”

  “Oh, tush, you throw a mean fireball,” Tanyia said, bounding into the room on cue and accepting a plate of bacon and eggs from Mr. Eumaios. “You were just looking for an excuse for me to come visit you. But as long as you’re too lazy to do this yourself, I’m willing to lend a hand.”

  “That would be most appreciated,” Dallen said with a smile.

  After breakfast, Tanyia led the way to the mansion’s backyard, beckoning Ti to follow. “Well, come on, let’s have some fun.”

  Spying some marked hay bales set up a short way across the yard, she gave a gesture and effortlessly sent a small fireball across towards one of the targets.

  “Earth, air, fire, and water are what we might call the poetic elements. Not much use today if you’re doing chemistry. But all good magic is poetry and the ancient concept of elements resonates though the human soul. It really isn’t as far off the mark scientifically as some suppose. Plato understood that mathematics would reveal the structure of the world. By now Dallen’s taught you the true names of fire, lightning, and so forth. Now that you understand these things you can use the concept of elementals as a shortcut in your spell casting. Note the Asian elements are similar. Earth, Fire, Water, Wood, and Metal. Elemental metal is a very useful concept if you want to add a bit of oomph to an attack. Like so.”

  She gestured again and this time she sent a spray of small spinning metal disks into the target. They made some impressive slashes though the target, then vanished back into the air where they’d come from.

  “Then we have the modern elemental forces,” Tanyia explained. “Electromagnetic energy, the unified forces, light, gravity. The ancients used to think that lightning was a form of fire, and in some ways it is. But we get better results now that we more know the true name of lightning.” So saying she let rip another spell; this time a very impressive blast of lightning arced across the lawn and set one of the targets on fire.

  “If you are doing something more complicated it helps to have a substantial quantity of the element around.” This time she had to concentrate a bit, but she had a manlike form of earth rise out of the ground. “There’s an earth elemental for you. He can fix the target for us. It’s a sort of temporary clockwork like Mr. Eumaios, only not so sophisticated. We keep the artificial intelligence fairly simple with these things. I can show you how to do walls and such as well. Well, you get the idea. Let’s see what Dallen’s been teaching you. Then you can go over your formulas with me and I’ll show you where he’s gone wrong.”

  “Flamoj frapu!” he said, sending out a rather small, weak fireball.

  “Don’t try and rush it,” she said. “Give yourself time to draw in enough energy.”

  “If I can’t do it quickly on the battlefield, it won’t be much use,” Tiberius protested.

  “One thing at a time,” Tanyia laughed. “Learn to walk before you run. You’ve only just learned to use magic. Speed will come with practice. For now lets work on form. No good developing bad habits.”

  Tiberius tried again, spending more time to draw in more energy. It did feel better this time, and he sent a bit more respectable blast of flame across the field.

  “That’s not bad at all, for a beginner. Try some water next?” Tanyia said.

  Tanyia spent the next few weeks going over the basic elemental spells with Tiberius. It was a lot to absorb, but he was making real progress now.

  Singh watched as Tiberius practiced throwing fireballs at the target one morning.

  Again and again, Tiberius stood back, called “Flamoj frapu!” and sent a small burst of flame across the yard.

  “You know, I think you have the hang of that,” Singh observed.

  “It still takes too long,” Tiberius said. “A good longbow man can put twelve arrows on target in a minute. It takes me about thirty seconds. If I can’t catch up to that I’m not really much use. How long does it take you?”

  “I’ve never timed myself. A spell doesn’t have to be fast to be effective. There are other issues. Armor penetration, damage, range,” Singh noted.

  “I’m picking up speed. I just need practice is all.”

  “No one can doubt your dedication. It’s traditional to start a duel with defensive spells anyway. You don’t need to worry about speed if your opponent’s arrows can’t hit you.”

  “I'm just trying to nail down the basics. Tanyia says she’ll show me some more sophisticated attacks later on. Multiple spells, indirect attacks, and so on.”

  “I gather you think this will help with your specialty?”

  “Combat is my specialty,” Tiberius observed.

  After a few weeks of working with Tanyia, Tiberius was somewhat relieved when Dallen announced over breakfast that he would be covering the lesson for the day. Ian’s death had strongly affected Dallen. Tiberius thought he could see new lines on Dallen’s aged face. How old was Dallen, he wondered sometimes. After a few weeks though, Dallen seemed to have mostly recovered. As Tanyia put it, Dallen was a tough old bird.

  After breakfast, Dallen walked Tiberius out into the back yard. “Now that Tanyia has shown you some basic attacks, it’s time we worked on your defenses. Sad to say but people are not always friendly. You’ll also find that while some fairy folk are beautiful and friendly, others are downright hostile. The wise magus is prepared to defend himself.

  “Each day to confront the servants of the enemy we put on the armor of God. In our case, rather literally. The spell I call the Armor of God creates a basic force field around the magus. You’ve seen my notes by now I presume?”

  Tiberius nodded.

  “Good. Well lets give it a try, shall we?”

  He concentrated on the formulas he’d studied and spoke the key words. “Mi forĝu Kiraso de Dio!” he said.

  There was a faint purple glow around him for a moment, then it faded. Dallen looked him over with approval.

  “Not bad.” He gave him a rap on the shoulder with his staff. There was a faint purple sparkle where the staff struck. It felt to Tiberius much as when he was protected by his old suit of militia armor, save that this was obviously much sturdier.

  Dallen gave a faint smile of approval. “You’ll get better at forming the cold plasma field around you with practice. I think you’ll find that will protect you better than the finest suit of plate armor. I wouldn’t wear any sort of metal armor while you're casting it. The cold plasma field is basically electromagnetic in nature and a suit of metal armor underneath will just weaken the spell.”

  Dallen continued, "It’s served me well over the years. It should give you substantial protection from any sort of direct attack. Unfortunately you will also find that the enemy has other ways of inflicting harm besides direct physical attack.”

  Tiberius nodded. “Obviously there are indirect attacks. A witch could cause an explosion or drop rocks on you, but I assume the defense for that would be the same shield spell.”

  “Correct,” Dallen said. “Your basic armor spell will protect you from any sort of physical harm, including to resistance to basic environmental effects. It will give you some protection against even dragon fire, but I wouldn’t rely upon it for that sort of heat. It’s also gas permeable or you couldn’t breathe. No I was re
ferring to more subtle forms of assault. Mind control, transformation, environmental, biological and chemical attacks including poison.

  “I’ll let Messura cover advanced toxicology and so on. For now you can rely upon the shield spell protecting you from poison darts,” Dallen continued.

  “Psionics defenses are mostly a matter of spiritual strength. That’s one reason we devote so much time to your classical education. To resist any form of mental domination, we teach you how to think. We give you a solid background in theology and the liberal arts. You’re well along with that. That is how you create the sort of strength of will that you need in direct mental combat.

  “The other thing I want to cover today is the basic defense against transformation attacks or direct magical ‘curses.’ Any sort of ‘curse’ is an attack that must, in some way, try to alter you. Whether it’s trying to lock up your nervous system in a paralysis attack, or just outright kill you with a ‘death’ spell, the effect is the same. The attacking warlock has to make some sort of involuntary transformation of your personal space.”

  “This isn’t to be confused with poison or environmental effects. You can be paralyzed by a chemical effect from a toxin. What I’m talking about is another witch or warlock taking the direct approach. Trying to directly turn you into a frog or something.”

  “How do I stop that?” Tiberius asked.

  “Spiritual strength is important, but this is a case where we can also use spiritual leverage.”

  “Spiritual leverage?”

  Dallen nodded. “Some things are obviously more difficult to do than others. It’s easier to shove people downhill than uphill. It’s obviously easier to use psionic suggestion to get a man to eat just one more crisp, than it is to get him to pick up a knife and kill himself.”

  “That makes sense. But, how does that help in resisting transformation?” Tiberius asked.

  “Any form of transformation attack has an intrinsic weakness in that it must alter the character of space that is already occupied by another spirit. If that spirit is trained to assert its spatial dominion, it can resist the most powerful transformation effects. The tiniest mouse can stand up before Satan and state that he is a mouse as made by God. An attack that tries to alter your spiritual space is a losing prospect for the attacker if you’ve got a sense of what’s going on.”

  “That sounds ok in theory,” Tiberius said, somewhat uncertainly.

  “You’ll understand more once you feel it. I’m going to try and turn your skin blue, and you’re going to resist. It’s a simple transformation, but the principle is the same as if I was turning you to stone or ordering you to die. Let’s try it. I’ll do it very slowly at first. You should be able to sense the encroachment of your spiritual space and throw of the suggestion.”

  Dallen brought up his staff. “Ready?”

  Tiberius took up a relaxed defensive stance. “I guess.”

  Dallen gestured with his staff and Tiberius saw the tips of his left hand start to turn blue. The color change started creeping down his hand and onto his arm. He could sense that something foreign was interfering with his spirit. Concentrating, he was able to slow the change and finally stop it, though it was covering most of his left side now. Slowly concentrating and with effort he was able to push back the change, till finally his skin returned to his normal color.

  “That was rather slow; could you sense the intrusion?” Dallen asked.

  “Yes, sorry, I got a bit distracted. It’s a pretty shade of blue and I’ve never seen my skin change color like that before,” Tiberius said.

  “It’s easy to get caught up in the wonder sometimes. Let’s try it again and this time concentrate,” Dallen said.

  Again Dallen made a gesture and this time Ti was ready. Almost as soon as his fingertips started changing, Tiberius felt the change and started pushing back. It barely got to the base of his wrist before the change reversed and went away.

  “Better. You’re strong willed to begin with so you should master this art. We’ll try it again.”

  His fingers turned blue for a second then suddenly snapped back to normal.

  “Much better,” Dallen said. “You got the trick of it there.”

  Tiberius nodded. “Not so much, ‘no’ as ‘not here,’” he said.

  “Yes, exactly,” Dallen said.

  Again the staff waved and again, Tiberius improved. His fingers flashed blue for barely an instant. After a couple of more tries, Dallen nodded approvingly.

  “Great, you have the hang of it. The other important thing to keep is mind is that as Christians we are filled with the Holy Spirit. That’s a powerful defense against the enemy, especially in this sort of transformation attack. Knights who use no magic of their own make that a powerful defense against magic attacks. Paladins can’t be affected by magic because they are filled with the Holy Spirit and have an intuitive sense that no form of magic should alter their personal space. Of course a paladin could be hurt by ‘magic’ in the sense that a magician can use magic to summon fire and then fling fire at a paladin.

  “But I digress. Remember that we are all shaped in the image of God and we can use that knowledge and the knowledge that we are touched by God to further strengthen our resistance to unnatural transformation effects. Keep that in mind this time. I’ll change the effect a bit. I’ll try and alter the texture of your skin.”

  Tiberius nodded. He understood the principle now. A combination of putting on the natural spiritual armor of God with the leverage that another’s command to alter himself could never be as powerful as he own desires for his own space. To stay in the form and image of God was simple.

  Dallen threw another spell at him and he easily now shrugged it off. Dallen tried a few more times. Finally Tiberius, just willed the attack back away from him.

  Dallen gave a start. “Good one, Tiberius! You managed to reverse that spell! I hadn’t intended to cover that today.”

  “It just seemed natural, sir. The whole thing’s kind of a spiritual aikido. It’s not a question of ‘resisting’ the spell, so much as using the high ground to shrug it off and let it roll away from you. I’ve worked with Sensei Okubo on judo and aikido moves so much that it’s perfectly natural to me to redirect energy that I’m shrugging off.”

  “Excellent, yes, wonderful. You understand perfectly.

  “Not every attack will be that easy. Experienced magicians won’t try to affect you directly that way. You can immobilize someone just as easily by throwing ropes around them as trying to paralyze them, and it’s much more effective against an experienced magician as you aren’t trying to play with their spiritual space directly. Still, you are doing very well. We’ll try it a few more times. Then we’ll work on forming your basic shield spell some more."

  ∴

  Another early project was constructing a staff. Singh led Tiberius out back with a large collection of pieces of wood in various lengths.

  “There are various types of magical implements,” he explained. “For the magus, though, a basic staff serves as a source of power. It’s a catalyst to your magic. It helps you draw power from beyond the mortal plane. Wood is generally the preferred material, but you can use bone or shell. Sometimes there is some silver or magical materials attached. Dallen’s is tipped with a silver bird, as I’m sure you’ve noted. I think Tanyia has one tipped with some sort of crystal. Length doesn’t matter much, not once you get beyond a meter at any rate. Still, results vary with the individual. Some people don’t like too much power channeling though them at once. They prefer a smaller wand or staff.”

  “What do you use?” Tiberius asked.

  “Depends on what I’m doing. If I have to fight I’ve got a good long six foot staff with a natural gnarled look. Kind of my personal shillelagh. I like to have that feeling of power. For most applications I use a wand of snakewood. The rings serve as a natural measuring stick for me. I prefer the smaller power flow if I’m doing precision effects.”

  “You have more than
one staff then?” Tiberius queried.

  “Oh yes. A staff isn’t that important for us. It’s a tool, helpful but not essential. Dallen’s shown you the spell for attuning yourself to a staff. It’s just really extending your energy into the staff, then letting it flow back in. Here, this is an acacia-wood rod. Same stuff they made the Ark of the Covenant out of. Very magical. Try it on this.”

  Tiberius did so.

  “How does it feel now?” Singh asked.

  “Good. It does seem to help energy flow into me. Not sure about this length though. It feels a little awkward somehow.”

  “You can’t expect perfection your first time. You’ll want to try a variety of shapes and woods. There are a lot of types of wood in the world. You’ll want to do some research. You’ll need to find a combination of length, wood, and accents that suits your personality.”

  Tiberius looked though the assorted shapes which Singh had brought, but he couldn’t see himself using one of these short rods.

  “Could I just use one of my bo staves?” he said.

  Singh thought for a second. “I don’t see why not. As long as it’s one piece of wood, not some composite or laminate. I’m not so sure about bamboo either. Might be interesting to try.”

  “What about a bow?” Tiberius said thoughtfully.

  “If it’s a good English longbow made of one piece of yew, that would be fine. But many bows are composites and that’s no help. The other problem is that the staff attunement puts a strong energy field down the center of the staff. It would make it a real challenge to draw the bow after you’ve done that, to say the least.”

  “I can see that would be a problem. Lets stick to the bo and jo staves then.”

  Tiberius went and got one of his oak bo staves. He decided to pick one he didn’t care for that much. He tried attuning to it and found it worked quite well.

  “That’s more like it. Yes, definitely something a bit longer, more balanced.”

  “Makes sense in your case. A staff should feel like part of you. You’re practically part of those things already.”