20 - A merchant of wonders

“The events that led to the Breaking of the Moon aren’t clear to me.

I know, however, that the Alliance lied. The actions they attribute to Grandmaster Ikelejon, and to me, did not happen.

I know that Grandmaster Keidesek, too, lied, both before and after the Breaking.

I don’t know their reasons. I don’t know the truth.

But I know that, catastrophic as it was, the Breaking was, it could have been much worse. The Veil is cracked, but not entirely torn.

The artifacts found on Selenopolis are immensely dangerous, and could destroy the Veil entirely. As long as the truth isn’t clear, I can’t allow anyone I don’t personally trust to interact with them.

The One World Alliance is built on lies. Its persecution of mages, on baseless hatred.

I won’t let them, or their puppet Council, to set foot on the moon.

I’ll keep seeking the truth, until all lies are exposed.

With my loyal mages, I’ll keep control of the Moon, until the truth is found and the sky is mended.”

Declaration of Archmage Tainedorian to the One World Alliance, in the aftermath of the Moonbreaking

“Even if you have little affinity for the Path of Wind,” Iketek says, solemn, while floating cross-legged in midair, “you should practice its basics. Juggling - or more properly, telekinesis - is one of the most powerful and versatile arts a mage can master. Also, it’s very useful if you ever need to fight a ThauCon agent.”

“Useful how? Isn’t Else-Fire better for fighting?” Daravoi asks. He acts all level-headed, but the word fight always gets him interested.

Iketek smiles. Her eyes glow a warm gold, but something about her smile is cold and sharp.

“ThauCon uses silver and theta disruptors to weaken our connection with the Else. Hurl Elsefire at them, and it fizzles. Stab them with Elseglass, and it melts,” she explains. “But if you send something heavy flying toward them at extreme speed, it’s not magic that keeps it going. It’s physics. Silver armor is no better than regular armor against a projectile - actually, it’s a little worse.”

She raises her hands, and a dozen shapeless blobs of snow rise to float in midair, dripping golden light.

Peeking in the Else, I can see the strings pulling the snow. Iketek tried to explain how she does it - something about speed being meaningless except in a reference system blah blah. It didn’t work for me - the Else looks very different to the two of us.

“So, practice time,” she says. “It’s easier to work on a moving object, at first. Try to push the snowballs away before they hit.”

She jerks her hand, and a flurry of snowballs flies toward me and Daravoi.

I make shitty shields, but even those would stop snowballs. We’re trying to practice telekinesis, though.

I could reach into the Else, grab the snowballs like physical objects, and try to move them. Daravoi uses that trick to filch mobile phones and the like. But when I try it, I barely manage to make stuff wobble.

My instinct is to try, fail, and shrug. That’s my standard approach in life. But the very idea makes me angry – I’m not going to half-ass magic like I half-assed everything else.

So, I dive deeper into the Else. The world dissolves into a sea of azure light and spiraling possibilities.

Time doesn’t exactly slow in the Else, but it ceases to matter as it does in the Here. The snowballs keep flying to me, very fast, but they’re also still, a scene frozen in amber.

The broken statues of the Thaumocracy fortress are vague outlines in the Else, but Iketek shines a deep gold, her image as crisp and real as in the material world. She smiles at me, and as she smiles a small, hairline crack forms across her face.

I file that away for later. I look at the snowballs she’s pushing. They’re bright and golden in my vision. In different possible futures, they hit my face, they narrowly miss me, they throw me down on my ass.

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They are connected to Iketek by a number of threads. But they’re not strings, I realize. She’s not moving the snow like a puppeteer. Those threads are Lies.

She doesn’t realize it, but she convinced the snow it should fall toward me, she made it believe it’s the way the world works.

I can play that game too. I Summon a world where the snowballs narrowly miss me, where they were never aimed at me.

Except snow doesn’t have a mind, so it won’t believe lies, if I don’t help it a little. But Iketek taught me the trick. I weave power with my fingers, knot it into the basic Glyph of Juggling, and Lie to the snow.

In the physical world, light-blue light flashes in front of me, and half the snowballs veer sideways, missing me. One still hits me in the face and two on my chest, strong enough to send me sprawling on my ass. Snow pours into my collar, drenching my t-shirt and leaving me breathless with cold.

At my side, Daravoi raises a hand, and violent thorn-like slashes of red light cut through each snowball, making them melt and sizzle. Almost none of it touches him.

“That wasn’t Juggling, Daravoi, it was your usual Ruin. That said, it was quite skillful,” Iketek says, mildly reproachful. “As for you, Korentis, this was much better than your last attempt. Mostly because that was dreadful. Given your exceptional talent for Lies, I’m a little surprised that you have such a hard time with the basics of every other path.”

I shrug, getting back to my feet.

I don’t feel bad about failing to stop all the snowballs, though - I think I got the trick. Telekinesis will never be my strong suit, but if I can turn it into a Lie, I can learn it.

“Look,” I say, patting snow away from my trousers. “The real surprise is that I have one skill instead of zero. I always thought being weird was my only talent.”

“Don’t say that,” Iketek says, surprisingly harsh. “You’re smart and capable, with a singular talent for Lies.”

I trail off, because I was obviously joking. Right? But answering I know I’m smart sounds so wrong, so out of character. “I… it was only a joke, really,” I say, surprised. I’m supposed to be self-disparaging, it’s half my charm. “Or half a joke. I meant nothing by it.”

“Untrue,” she says, forceful. She looks at me, golden light still shining through her pupils. “You must understand this, Korentis. In the Else, thought and action are the same. There’s no such thing as just a joke, if you keep walking the Path of Lies.”

“I…” hey, I barely listen to what I say, let alone believe it, I’m going to say.

But the truth is, now that Iketek said it, I see that… there is something like a Lie in my self-deprecating jokes. Why would I do something like that, though?

“I’ll be more careful,” I answer, instead.

She nods, mollified.

“You should both practice more telekinesis, and I’ll teach you some more specific glyphs for movement and deflection - I’m not familiar with those you’re using, though, so we’ll need to work on the details,” she says, looking critically at Daravoi and me. “But on the other hand, you managed to defend yourself without disturbing the Else too much, even if I gave you little warning. I think you can use minor magic reliably from now on, with no risk of being detected.”

Woah, she’s right. I avoided disturbing the Else, like she taught us, without even thinking. It’s all about slicing cleanly across the Veil, in and then out, instead of thrashing back and forth.

“It was a very weak spell,” Daravoi says, but he makes a satisfied smile.

“That’s all you need for now,” Iketek says. “Korentis can use minor magic to change your appearances in public. You can use it to filch items in a market - which would practice Juggling too, so I encourage it. With some care, you can practice your powers with no risk of alerting ThauCon. We won’t need to come here anymore unless we want to practice stronger magic.”

Daravoi looks fondly at the ancient fortress. “Pity. It’s peaceful here.”.

“Fucking finally,” I say, “I hated this place, I hated coming here, I hated walking everywhere! Like any reasonable person would.”

Daravoi rolls his eyes, and silence falls. There’s a note of unspoken tension between us now - Iketek did her part. She taught us how to use magic without risking detection.

We said we’d assist her with a job, in exchange for a book. But we needed the book to learn how to hide from ThauCon. So… we kind of don’t need it anymore.

“Good. Can we meet your boss now?” Daravoi asks, nonchalant. “There’s some shit we need to steal from the University, right?”

Iketek relaxes a fraction. I relax, too, because now we’re committed – at least to hear about the job.

Should we have given it more thought? Tried to change our agreement? Maybe. But we’re stupid. And anyway, I’ve no intention to stop here with my study of magic. Watching Iketek use her powers made clear how much I still have to learn. Also, she helped us - we owe her to at least hear about the job.

Would a real, serious criminal worry about gratitude?

I don’t care. Maybe I’m becoming a real mage, but I do not want to become some hardened criminal who backstabs people for no reason. I realize, now, that I should be careful about the stories I tell about myself-even in my own mind.

“You definitely have the required skills, and I’m quite confident you’re not undercover agents,” Iketek says, after a moment. “So, let’s go back to the city and meet my associate, who is not, I should stress, my boss.”

***