Nathan and Saul had reached a residential area. The houses only had small grounds around them, but were reasonably large. None of them were designed to be very secure, mostly built from brick and wood with lots of windows. Saul even saw windows on the roof of the house they approached. When they got to the door of the house, Uncle Nathan just opened it and walked in. Saul didn’t follow.
“They know we’re here, come on,” Nathan said over his shoulder.
“That’s fine, but I’m not entering a stranger’s home without their permission.”
A minute or so later, Nathan returned with a short…woman? She was maybe six inches shorter than Saul with silver-blond hair, green eyes, and wearing unpleasantly brownish-orange flannel. At first glance, she appeared to have no ears.
“Do come in,” she said, extending a hand, “you may call me Nadine.”
Saul did the hand shaking greeting and found her hand cold and smooth.
“I’m so happy to finally meet you, Nathaniel has told me so much about you and your sisters. Come, sit.” She led them through her aggressively autumnal house, everything with color in shades of yellow, green, and orange.
When she turned to lead them, Saul saw that she did have fairly long, pointed ears, but they lay so flat against the curve of her head that they were virtually invisible from the front. They climbed a set of stairs and entered a comfortable sitting room with plush chairs and windows covering two walls and the ceiling.
“What do you think of Chelou so far?” the elf asked, settling into the chair opposite him.
“It seems nice?” Saul replied, “it isn’t that much different from Enchre, other than the people, but they aren’t that different. A lot of what I’ve read mentions elves as being strange and unnatural, but I haven’t seen any of that.”
“Yes, people are people, be they human, elf, or goblin. When a country isolates itself from other races and cultures, irrational fear and rumors are inevitable.”
“I suppose so. I knew that there were historical records with an intentional slant in them dating back to the war, but scholars even today writing with so much clear bias is unacceptable.”
“Scholarship is often a luxury of the privileged, which in Oriawell is the nobility who are required to be human,” she pointed out. “Though they could travel to experience other places for themselves, such nobles frequently do not. Take even yourself; are you here to broaden your horizons, or do you have an objective?”
“Woah, woah, woah,” Nathan interjected, “let’s not jump straight into whatever this is. Saul, Nadine here has a mirror icon like I mentioned, she’s lived in Chelou over a century, and is largely responsible for communicating with other elven cities. Nadine, how’s Natalie doing?”
“Come now, Nathaniel dear, I would hardly engage a guest in a discussion which makes them uncomfortable,” the elf gently rebuked. “The young man is clearly quite intelligent and in an introspective mood. And Natalie is doing fine, if still a bit sore about not being a Wizard.”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about how this city compares to home ever since I…entered the city,” Saul clarified.
“Ok, sorry to interrupt,” Nathan said, sitting back.
“Speaking of the mirror icon and cultural differences,” Saul asked, “what combination do you have? Most humans that use it just get Guardian.”
“I have a somewhat uniquely elven set,” Nadine replied, “Mirror, light, and dark. I am a fully specialized Oracle.”
“Really? That’s new! What can an Oracle do exactly? Something about communication?”
“Even a specialized Oracle fills many roles. Surveillance and detection, long distance communication, divination, instruction. I frequently act as an advisor to people who need direction, be they Councillor or cook.”
“Divination? Oh, actually,” Saul shuffled around in his satchel and pulled out a folded sheet of vellum, “when you say you advise people who need direction, does that include literally? I’m not sure I trust this map now that I know how much else the records I read got wrong about elves.”
“This is, hmm. Your map is perfect. Where did you get this?”
“I was given it directly by a senior priest of the Scholar.”
“I see.” She frowned at the vellum, then looked back at Saul, “have you been blessed by a Saint?”
“No? I was offered some kind of less-restrictive priest position last year, but I declined.”
“How interesting.”
“Right, well,” Saul put the map back, “I was going to ask what you meant by ‘divination’. Can you properly see the future? Or is it some kind of prophesying like you see in stories?”
“Such things are the realm of higher immortals and the divine. Mortal divination is a matter of finding what actions are most likely to lead to desirable outcomes.”
“That would be the figurative giving directions.”
“Precisely,” Nadine said. “Learning about what has happened in the past is also possible, though simply sensing things that are currently happening is the easiest by far.”
“Which you use for surveillance and communication. Where does instruction come in? Did you just mean advising people?”
“While I can just tell people what my abilities allow me to learn, with complex information it can be time consuming and imprecise to explain everything. I have an ability that allows me to impart information directly in a couple different ways.”
“That’s a great power!” Saul leaned forward eagerly, “I’ve read about something similar in the Scholar Idol. What kinds of knowledge can you share? I know it tends to require some compartmentalizing of memory.”
“What do you want to learn?”
“Other than every mirror cantrip? Maybe a less biased history of elvish-human relations? If you’re offering.”
“Every mirror cantrip?” she repeated with a small smile, “I could probably teach you one or two, any more than that with the history lesson might start diluting your sense of self. You don’t even have two decades of memories yet.”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“You really can teach cantrips you know? That would be amazing, you would save me weeks of trying to get a feel for each one.”
“Could I get in on this?” Uncle Nathan put in, “my brother is starting a training regimen for the family requiring us all to pick up a new cantrip to practice and I need to help set an example apparently.”
“I can do much more than help you get a ‘feel’ for a cantrip,” Nadine said, “but that is all I will do for you, Nathaniel. Some practice refining your will would do you good.”
“Oh, no complaints about that part.” Nathan waved dismissively, “I don’t mind the work as long as it’s for a good reason. I mind the week or so I’d spend wasting my time for no reason trying to get a feel for the elusive thing in this dreadful environment.”
“I appreciate it, but maybe I should get the same?” Saul asked, “I’ve only learned two cantrips in the past year. I could probably use more training.”
“You still have many cantrips to learn, having one handed to you on a silver platter will do more good than harm,” the elf reassured him, “especially if it’s the one I plan to give you, and me giving it.”
“What does that even mean?” Nathan complained theatrically, “what will I be missing out on? It’s so unfair! I’m wounded!”
“Child, I am about to demonstrate by setting fire to your obnoxious shoes,” Nadine warned, and he subsided with a smug grin. “So, would you like to learn a cantrip now, or come back tomorrow? I know that you’ve only just gotten here, and I would be glad to entertain you both longer, but Guillaume is nearly ready to host your dinner party over at the magistrate.”
“Will it take long?” Saul asked, too curious to just leave it at that.
“That is the convenient part about directly bestowing information; if it needs extra context or preparation, I can just give you that information first. I do need your permission, however. How are you most comfortable indicating respect and agreement? I usually use a handshake, but that wouldn’t work for you.”
“Maybe bowing? Or just a nod of the head?”
“If that’s what feels familiar, it will work,” she said, “just give me a nod you might give to someone who gave you a gift.”
Saul nodded gratefully.
Incandesce was a cantrip common to the fire, heat, light, and mirror icons. It caused the target to glow by heating it to the point that it did so naturally. The Architect had spent considerable time and effort preparing a package of self-contained knowledge and experience about how to use the cantrip because it was one of the most effective for self defense they had ever found. Over half of elves chose the light icon as their coming of age icon provided by the Temple of Light. If an elf or part elf needed some power to defend themself, it was likely the Architect would offer the knowledge of Incandesce. The package of knowledge incorporated power from a gnomish ancestral trait that enhanced memory to remain fresh at the back of the mind even over time. For people with little understanding or interest in cantrips, the information could be wielded as a blunt but effective weapon. In the mind of someone with the training and inclination, nuances of execution could be teased out to make the cantrip more efficient, and the realization of how far a cantrip could be developed often led them to improve in other areas. The recipient should conceptualize some version of their own mind that would make keeping the knowledge separate within it easier. When ready, simply shake the Architect’s hand again.
Saul blinked and looked around the sitting room. Everything was the same. It felt oddly like he had left for a moment. They needed to go soon, so he quickly got back on task. How to visualize his mind? Probably something with books? When he was ready, he nodded to—
I jerked my hand out of the way as a large ornate tome appeared above my writing desk and landed heavily on the page of memory I was writing. That new package slot in the ceiling was already making a menace of itself. Worse, it was inaccessible from the inside. I hefted up to tome to get a better look at the cover, but it was blank. Opening to the first page I could see the title, Incandesce, apparently by The Architect of Reciprocity, et al. and another credit, “Bound by Warmwick.” The binding was some clear resin that had saturated the pages, rendering them near impossible to tear. What I wouldn’t give for a pot of the stuff. No more faded ink or pages sticking together. I folded the long page that had come through the slot earlier in half and tucked it between the cover and title page of the tome. There was no point in getting a bookshelf if I couldn’t make books like this, so the tome would go in the cantrip pile when I had some time to move things around tonight. For now, I tossed the oldest short notebook in the trash and put the tome under the other four. Now, where was I?
Saul’s eyes finally refocused, and he stopped bobbing his head up and down. Uncle Nathan continued tapping out an accompanying beat on his knees. Saul glanced his way.
“Incandesce”
Uncle Nathan’s lurid pink right shoe glowed for a split second before bursting into flames.
“Gah!” Nathan jumped out of the chair and hopped around with perfect balance on one foot while wrenching off the offending shoe. He held the burning footwear in his bare hand and waved it at Saul, “you could have set Nadine’s carpet on fire!”
“Wool is very hard to burn, and will often extinguish itself,” Saul replied.
“Oh. That was a good one, then.”
“Indeed,” the elf said, “the knowledge I gave him includes the flammability of a variety of materials. How does it feel, young man?”
“I don’t have a better word for this than strange,” Saul answered, “I don’t so much know what to do as feel it. The exact state of mind I needed just occurred to me as I used the cantrip, and I barely seemed to lose awareness of my surroundings.”
“Don’t be afraid to dig into the roots of those instincts, learning from them will be valuable for using other cantrips more easily.”
“It’s like there’s a balance I wasn’t aware of before, in my mind. I can use the power more easily if I shift the balance so that the fulcrum is further from me and closer to the weight I’m lifting…” he trailed off.
“That's a good way of thinking about it,” she praised, “such quick insight is something to be proud of. As your understanding develops, perhaps you can apply some of that feeling to other cantrips you know well.”
“MIRROR”
A distortion rippled out of Saul, passing through the room. His clothes, his chair, the carpet, the other four chairs, the end tables, the wooden floor, and the bottom half of the walls all became reflective surfaces. Nadine and Uncle Nathan, and even their clothes, were unaffected.
“Well.” The elf looked around the very shiny room. “It seems you conceptualize that cantrip like a liquid. It’s surprising that worked so well, given the incongruity.”
“Urgh,” Saul sagged in his still plush, shiny chair, “it feels like I pulled a muscle.”
“That isn’t how cantrips work, you need to refine the physical part of what you conceptualized, or ideally remove your physical self from it.”
“What in the world were you picturing?” Nathan asked, highly amused.
“Back when I learned it, the visual that worked was painting the Mirror on the target.” Saul said, “I’ve refined it; removing the paintbrush, tossing balls of paint, that sort of thing. Just now, I imagined putting a bucket of paint on one end of a balance, then grabbing the other end and yanking it down as fast as possible.”
“That’s ridiculous, I love it! Why didn’t that turn the ceiling into a mirror instead of the floor though?”
“Don’t confuse conceptualization with effect.” Nadine replied, getting to her feet, “the two are neither fully related nor fully distinct. The force applied to the balance represented increasing the scale of the effect, but the liquid nature of the paint was reflected in how it spread.”
“Yes, yes, very complicated,” Nathan rose as well, “this is why I stick to using real abilities. Much easier.”
“Nathaniel Ficial! This concept is universal to efficient power use, which you know, because I taught you. The long way. Do we need to have lessons again, like when you were in your twenties?”
“Saul, we need to get back to the magistrate, don’t want to keep them waiting!”
Saul watched him slip out the door, then turned back to Nadine, pulling out the schedule that he really hadn’t expected to use much on this trip. “So, is there a good time for me to come by tomorrow? Noon or evening would be best, I’m unexpectedly busy.”