03 - A lesson traded

“The Path of Lies shall not be described in this text, beside the narrow scope of the knowledge required to effectively counter it. That is because together with the Path of Mind, it is forbidden by law, even for Council Mages.

This might be surprising, given that the immensely destructive Path of Ruin can be legally pursued. But the reason for this ban is the subtlety of those Paths. A rogue Ruin-mage can cause immense damage, but they’d be immediately identified and neutralized by loyal Council members.

A Liar, or a Telepath, could work subtle subversions over the years, before they are discovered. If the Council used, for any purpose, mind-altering powers, the mere possibility of misuse would quickly erode the vital trust it built with the Alliance’s institutions and population.”

* Introduction to Thaumological Manipulation

“So, now you know the basics of being a criminal,” Daravoi says, “plus, uh, a couple of things normal people know even if they aren’t criminals.”

I throw my hands up. “How should I have known that you’re not supposed to start eating food at the supermarket before you pay for it. I always did that.”

And people always looked at me in confusion at the store, now that I think of it, but they often do that anyway.

“I honestly can’t tell if that’s because you’re rich, because you’re weird, or because you’re fucking with me,” Daravoi says. “Anyway, what about doing some magic?”

“Finally!” I say. “Let’s go to the ice-skating rink and make a Lie so everyone sees sharks moving under the ice. I’ve always wanted to try that.”

Daravoi looks at me, exasperated. He’s so patient, I can’t help trying to get under his skin. “What would be the point of - no, wait don’t tell me,” he says, with a sigh. “Once again, stop using your magic for stupid shit. Unmaker’s tits, you’ll draw the Agency’s attention. I meant that we should practice some useful magic. You could show me what you can do, with that book of yours.”

“But wouldn’t that attract ThauCon?” I ask.

“We’ll go to Lake Vkar,” he says. “ThauCon magic detectors work well only at short range, so they keep them mainly in cities. You can get away with more magic in the wilderness. That’s one of the few things I know for sure. ”

“But I hate the wilderness,” I say. “And it’s cold as fuck. Can’t we go to some wilderness with indoor heating? Also, how can we move out of the city without ID chips?”

He rolls his eyes. “Shut up and come with me. You’re such a rich kid. And a city kid, too. Black Liar fuck me, you’re just the worst.”

Daravoi was shy and apologetic with me at first. Like most people, he started insulting me pretty soon - he’s known me for a week, and is already well-versed in my many flaws.

We walk to the vac-train station, but instead of the usual platforms for passenger trains, we take a passage I’ve never used before, and arrive at the loading bays of the station. It’s mostly underground, all drab concrete corridors, swarming with forklifts loaded with containers, plus creepy spider-like drones which carry cargo boxes on their backs. It’s busy enough that no one gives us a second glance.

“We hide with the cargo?” I ask. It sounds dirty and uncomfortable, but also exciting.

“You don’t have to commit every crime just to be sure, you know,” he answers. “Transport companies are always short on haulers, because the pay is shit. So they hire a ton of illegals, and don’t scan chips. We help load the wagons, we ride with the cargo, no one asks questions.”

“You mean we should work?” I say. “The only lifting I ever did in my life was shoplifting.”

He sighs. “Exiled’s ass, I’m starting to hope ThauCon gets you. Come, at least pretend to help me lift some crates.”

Soon, he has a quick conversation, in Kalestran, with a burly man who’s unloading crates from pallets. He has a strange tattoo on his cheek, looking like a snarl of snakes - Daravoi has one like that on his arm.

Daravoi always looks extra gloomy when he talks Kalestran. Probably because the language sounds like munching gravel.

The man looks at me, skeptical, and I smile. He looks even more skeptical, but Daravoi gives him a long speech, and finally the big man shrugs, then points at the pile of crates he’s unloading from a container.

After a couple hours of grueling work, where I tug vaguely at crates and Daravoi actually pushes them into the cargo wagon, we get our ride to Lake Vkar - ten boring minutes sitting on a bunch of boring metal crates. The carriage doesn’t even have windows. Is there a place where you can review illegal activities? I’d give one star to hitching a ride on a vac-train.

Finally, we reach Lake Vkar. We don’t even get to see the lake: it’s completely frozen over, and covered in snow, so it just looks like a boring, white plain surrounded by a spruce forest. It’s supposed to be beautiful, if you, I don’t know, like cold and snow, and think the cold and snow in the city are somehow insufficient.

In any case, it’s full of families pretending they enjoy spending time together in the cold, and we have to walk under the trees for ages before Daravoi is happy we’re far enough from other people to do some magic. Then we leave the lake’s bank, and trudge through the snow and spruce trees until we are a few hundred meters inland.

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We climb atop a rock jutting out from the snow. I’m wearing the warmest clothes I could steal, but still, at one point I sank into the snow to my chest, and now I’m drenched, freezing and miserable.

“Well, hope you can do some magic to dry us,” I say.

“Come on, it’s not even cold,” Daravoi says, smiling as if he were loving the trip. He’s definitely faking it just to annoy me though. “And this place is beautiful! Relax! Also, I can set stuff on fire, but don’t have much control, so I wouldn’t try drying us. Can’t you do it?”

“I practice the Path of Lies,” I say. “I could make my clothes feel dry and warm. But I don’t think it’s a great idea, making myself ignore the cold.”

“You can only do illusions?” He sounds surprised. “I mean, you’re really good at that. But I didn’t think magic was that specific?”

“They’re not just illusions. And yeah, I can do other stuff. It’s more difficult, though.”

He looks at me, expectant, and I feel a weird kind of pressure. Usually, people don’t expect much from me - I’ve been a consistent disappointment to parents, siblings and teachers, after all. I don’t like people expecting anything from me, and my instinct is to tell him I changed my mind, I’m not in the mood for magic.

But we have an agreement. He did teach me some useful street wisdom already. I didn’t take the council book with me, so I can’t tell him to study by himself.

“Let’s see if I can make some heat,” I say. “I use that to warm my hidey-hole in the subway. But I can’t keep it up for long, yet.”

I close my eyes, and when I open them again, I look into the Else, a vast ocean of power and possibilities just beneath reality.

I still see the real world - the trees, the snow, the lake - but it seems flat, unimportant, colorless, just a layer floating over the bright azure ocean.

In the Else, Daravoi shines, a swirling fractal of images and color in a vaguely human shape - all people look like that. But his eyes look like purple glass, real and in sharp focus among the chaos. That means he’s looking in the Else, too.

The Else is possibilities, the Else is realities that could be. An endlessly branching tree. If I look at Daravoi for a while, I see possibilities blooming from him like flowers - a version of him looks healthier and smiles a big smile, one is gaunt and angry, one is scared, has a silver tattoo on each cheek, proclaiming mage, criminal.

The Else is made of beautiful lies. Beauty beyond anything I’ve ever seen or even dreamed in the real world, complexity so wonderful that the idea of getting silver tattoos and living without magic seems unthinkable, I feel like crying only at the thought.

But the Else is also power, the raw power of creation, heat and light so terrible, they could burn the physical world to a cinder.

“Magic,” I say, trying not to sound like I’m quoting from a book while I quote from a book, “fundamentally comes in three steps. The first is Reaching. Uhm, if you don’t count Focusing. But that doesn’t count, I think, that’s just the part where you look into the Else. The cool stuff begins with Reaching - the act of breaking the Veil.”

With my fingers, I cut through the Veil - it resists, hard and smooth like glass, but if I push at just the right angle, something shatters, and then it’s like moving my fingers through a thick, burning fluid.

“Once you reach into the Else, you do the Summoning. This is where you take something - power, possibilities, or matter - from the Else, and take it Here. This is where you give magic shape, and with shape, purpose.”

I draw from the raw power of the Else, and a string of burning, sky-blue fire dances between my fingers. With my hand and my will, I mold it into the shape I saw while reading the book, and I start to understand why it should be like that- it’s like knotting a string of power so it forms a loop.

“Finally, you have three possibilities. You can take the Essence from the Else and use it for some immediate effect, like making fire or light or Else-Glass - that’s called Casting. If you want an ongoing effect, like my Lies, you need to keep the connection to the Else open, while you use the magic - that’s Channeling. It’s supposed to be more difficult, but honestly, this is the one I can do by instinct, while I still struggle with Casting.”

“So, when you make a light, for example,” Daravoi asks, “you’re Channeling?”

I wiggle a finger. “I was getting to that! You’re spoiling my lecture! Anyway, no, that’s not channeling. Like, I could channel a light, but there’s no need to keep the tear in the Veil open. What I do is… sort of tie the spell to the Here. The book had fancier words for it, but that’s the gist. It’s called the Binding - a bound spell will endure in the Here, still subject to your will, but without needing you to reach into the Else. I think I should be able to Bind a Lie too, so I don’t have to actively keep it up, but the stupid book doesn’t cover Lies, so I’m not sure, and I haven’t managed it yet.”

I pull back from the Else, fighting a split-second reluctance, like waking up from a pleasant dream. Blue light and heat spew from the rock where I traced the pattern with a finger. It’s not really fire - it looks like spirals of blue light breaking into more and more spirals, but it shifts and flickers like fire. And it’s hot, like true fire.

It lasts only a few seconds before the knot starts coming loose, the heat dims and fades, the light stops with a last bright flash. A fractal pattern of spirals is etched on the stone, sizzling with heat.

“Ok, that sucked,” I say, “If I draw a pattern to use as a reference I can sustain it longer, but…”

“That was amazing!” Daravoi says, clapping his hands. His eyes are wide, he looks like someone who just witnessed a miracle. “How could you… attach it to the stone? That was the Binding, right? Look, the only thing I can do is this,” he says, and purple fire engulfs his outreached hand.

I yelp and flinch back from the flames - I barely manage not to fall from the boulder. Daravoi’s Elsefire looks much more similar to true fire, compared to mine - his flames are just a little too sharp and glassy-looking.

“Sorry,” he says, sheepish, “I should have warned you.”

His flames disappear immediately.

“Stop apologizing when I’m an idiot,” I say, “I just did the same thing, it’s just that… look, it’s the first time that I’ve seen magic that is not my own, at least this close.”

He looks surprised - he didn’t give me details, but I know that he has met another mage, at some point.

“Anyway,” I say, “You’re better than me at summoning Elsefire. You didn’t even have to close your eyes. There are tricks to bind it to an object, you need to find, or make, an Anchor - I’ll show you.”

He nods, very serious. I’m ill at ease again - people aren’t supposed to take me seriously. But I can hardly back down now, so I start telling him about the Veil, and the Paths, and how to tie the Else in a knot to bind magic to an Anchor.