“So... Is what I'm doing considered forbidden magic? I could shoot every one of these balls at you and you could deflect them with a level one mana skin. If they even reached you.” A great mage could deter entire armies, but he was like a child playing with a lit match. He didn't understand why they were so amazed at this, even after the explanations they'd... Sort of given?
“I don't want to insult you in any way. Understand that. Essentially, you are simply ignorant – but truthfully so am I. A shaper is one who uses the aptly named and poorly understood 'shaper magic'. I have heard of this before, but it's not common knowledge. For example, Kael?”
Kael shook his head. “I've never heard of it. How did you?”
“Because of my father. He dedicated his entire life to studying this form of magic in particular. As you know, every race has their own unique brand of magic best suited to them. Why else do you think that the academies are near universally human?”
“Well sure, that's obvious.”
“Indeed, mana requires control and understanding. It's a fine science, but Hastur thought otherwise. He claimed, when we were still speaking, that shaper magic was the truest form of magic. Not necessarily better for our purposes. It's never that simple, but it was capable of astonishing things. An explanation for why the authors of the black books were so legendary among their peers. He said that these mythical figures were no myths at all. That they'd discovered something via unknown means, leading them down a wholly separate path of magic. A realm giving them new perspective, making advancements much easier for them.”
Tyr let the orbs of mana disperse harmlessly in the air, fading away. Only about to summon the mana, not physical components like a rock or ball of water. That would've been handy, sixty four fist sized rocks had a use at least. “Hastur is a shaper.”
“Truly?” Lernin asked, sagging at the shoulders. “That is bad. That is very bad. If he can do what you can do...”
“He can't.” Tyr replied. He had a lot to think about. A lot to accuse Abaddon of withholding from him when the lazy bastard woke from his 'long slumber'. Whatever race he belonged to, his 'naps' could last several months or even years according to Valkan. “He can use the magic, but it's like...”
Hastur dominated it. Bent it to his will. It was like Tyr's, but their relation to it was far different. Nala had said as much, and he agreed. He could not force himself on the elements and bring them into being. They either would or would not obey him. He could ask, and sometimes they wouldn't respond at all. It had taken him days worth of effort before he'd found a way to commune with anima, and it was a frail thing. Nothing like the feeling he got when fire answered. As one might expect given the system of 'prime elements' and personal affinities, the fire was the only thing that answered each and every time.
“The difference between a real mage and a man with a wand. I get it. Both can use magic but one uses it as a tool and the other has it inside of himself. The warlock paradox.” Lernin nodded. “How does it work, exactly?”
“I...” Telling his friends and trusted companions was one thing. Telling Lernin and Kael, both of which had barely anything in terms of character development for another thing. They were shoe ins for the generic overworked headmaster, and sarcastic, rude, yet exceptionally talented professor. The guy who truly cares for his students and genuinely wants to see them become great successes.
Huh...? Tyr was left wondering why he had thought that way all of a sudden. Kael was a piece of shit...
“I don't cast spells.” He concluded. “It's an easy word to use, but I – and presumably all shapers – weave them. I was born like this, I have no ability to use your magic and therefore no reference to explain it better. Everything I've done has been a shoddy emulation of human magic, I was born this way presumably so I can't experience both sides.” It was an excuse, and a great omission of truth, but they accepted it. Tyr was able to consistently cast level two equivalent human spells, but going beyond that would throw the balance away and it'd be a fifty-fifty shot whether he blew himself up or the thing he was pointing at.
Human magic was, if anything, astonishingly consistent. But Tyr had several times in the not so distant past tried to light a campfire and only emitted sparks. In the inverse, he'd go for something weak, a candle sized flame – and nearly blow his hand off. Because it was so dangerous, he didn't often use it indoors, nor did he make great use of it anywhere else.
“That makes sense. And? What do you weave these spells with? Other elements? Do you use meta magic, or do you cast in a way that is outside the standard conjuring or evoking of mana?” Kael asked this time, looking ready to drool. Falling out of his characteristic state of irascible arrogance and returning to the bright eyed academic desperate for knowledge and power he'd been in his youth. “What is the nature of it? Do you still transit mana along your circuits? What are the rules of it?”
“If I knew. And I don't, but that doesn't really matter.” Tyr held up a hand, stopping him short in what was sure to be a wholly unnecessary string of meaningless dialogue. “Why would I tell you? All of the authors of the black books were shapers, the headmaster said. Or rather, that his father had ample evidence to say that with a confidence. If this knowledge were free to the public – I would be manufacturing madmen and monsters, no?”
“As disappointing as that is, you're probably right.”
“Beyond that.” Tyr added. “You'll have to chalk it up to a secret of the primus'. How many black books have either of you read?”
“What? Are you serious? None!”
“Exactly. I have read two to completion--”
“Hush! Never tell anyone that! Are you insane, how did you even manage to get your hands on the scribbles of those lunatics!” Kael choked, but Lernin didn't seem overly surprised. Sometimes, it was hard to separate the thickheaded boy in front of them to see to his true identity. That of a primus. Someone above the law and humankind as a whole. A near divine existence capable of things that few lesser men would know, and none could experience.
Lernin had been offered the chance to read Veda's Opus, and he'd denied it. Rumors or superstition be damned, it didn't matter if they were real or not. Every single author of a black book had met a bad end, and there was proof of that. Done terrible things, most of them. There was knowledge that some men were not meant to access, and he wouldn't take the shortcut.
If his doom came and he was damned to suffering in judgment, it'd be at his own hands – not their enchanted tomes. Necromancy, anima, blood magic. Three related disciplines, each known to be capable of granting gifts to any mortal that could grasp them. But they came at a terrible cost, and even the most avaricious mages would avoid their advanced studies like the plague. Those that did almost always ended up killing themselves, or breaking their own minds and become vegetables. Advanced level necromancers very commonly reached too far into darkness magic, dying, or losing control of their constructs and being murdered by them.
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“Okay, okay.” Lernin surrendered. Kael clearly wanted to hear more, but they had no real bond or trust between themselves and the young student before them. Expecting him to reveal what could very well be information only primus' should be privy to might be suicide... “Can you kill my father? Hastur, I mean.”
“No, I didn't even come close. I doubt the combined archmages in all of Amistad could either.” Tyr replied. As honest as ever. He recounted their showdown in Milano and how he had been treated like a bug. Nothing about Hastur had been 'evil'. He wasn't some caricature of a villain, he had a goal. Something needed doing. He thought he was right, but most men did at the end of the day. “He is far more powerful than I am. He's immortal, incorporeal, and his mastery of mana may very well be approaching the level of Solomon. I don't know, and I don't care. One day it'll happen, I'll find a way.”
“Then why do you chase him?” Kael asked, arching one of his golden brows in bemusement. “If you know you're going to lose, why fight?”
“Because I have to. My father will ignore him, the other primus' too – but I won't.”
“Delusions of a hero.” Lernin chuckled softly. “I was the same, when I was your age.”
“Nothing like that.” Tyr replied. “He wronged me, and so I'll wrong him. I'll either kill him, or he'll kill me.” He shrugged. “That is the way. I'll see how much steel is in him, and if he wins, then so be it. I made an oath to the gods, to myself, and to Hastur. It will be done, one way or another. Now, can I go?”
There was such a cold ruthlessness to the boy's words that Lernin could do nothing but nod. A primus asked, and a primus got. Whether it be Octavian, or Jartor, or Alexandros, or Tyr himself. Better not to tempt the fates and be on the receiving end of his psychopathic death march when he figured out how to use that mana of his in the right way. Forcing him to stay would be making a future enemy. Not smart to make one of those, of a boy that couldn't die.
“That kid has got serious problems.” Kael frowned hard. “I like him, but he's definitely got a screw loose. Who talks like that? It's very... Ah, cringe...”
“We all had our edgy phase, old friend. Just hope his doesn't end so early. For both our sakes, all we can do is hope that he fulfills that oath of his.”
–
The roadways were quiet. Quiet because of the plague and because half the forces normally patrolling them, or more, were off in fields afar quelling what disturbance remained. The countryside had been left in ruins, wild and left to rot as the relatively small successor states fought to regain some semblance of peace.
Haran was different. Soldiers were everywhere here. All of the legions had been marshaled and through swift action, most of the crisis had remained contained. Mages were not exactly rare, but they were spread all over the empire, which helped. Quarantined as they were before the advent of Hastur's plague, solving it had been a simpler thing for them. A few of the creatures cropped up in the periphery villages, finding a horde of torch wielding peasants all to willing to stomp them out.
Hard men and godly ones at that who would bury a plow in their loved ones skull and burn their corpse as was their custom to ward against the depredations of the undead. Riverwood was fine, but Tyr only observed. Passing through the border checkpoints undisturbed and racing north.
He was given very little time to peruse the two black books he was given. 'Veda's Opus' and 'The Arcanum Altrimar'. That seemed to be consistent, if all others were not. Ellemar for spatial, with a smattering of enchantment, Solomon for anima, Altrimar for darkness, and Veda for light. Each and every book he read seemed to be a piece of a bigger puzzle, but he had little of the perspective necessary to put it all together.
Six days, with Okami's incredible speed. Six days and he managed to return to the capital, the great wolf frothing but refusing to quit. Tyr asked, and he did. Infinitely thankful for his partners willingness to struggle on without complaint. Only stopping for a brief meal twice a day, neither slept or rested beyond that. Nobody disturbed him at the gates, allowing him to sail right through them, but they'd never catch him even if they'd tried.
The capital was quiet. A rare thing, so early in the day. At any other time, it would've been a flurry of activity, but people were as vigilant as they were scared. Seeing the wolf taller than any of their horses ensured Tyr was not bothered, and that the soldiers had no need to check his papers. Making him thankful for his unique looks, the color of his hair identification enough in these parts at least.
Docks and streets alike were near empty. Only the nonhuman races plying their various wares or tending to their tasks. Invulnerable to the change as men were. Soldiers were everywhere though, enough to communicate that the third and first legions were at large in the capital. Once in a while he would pass by the shattered frame of a door leading into an abandoned building, a red circle with a line through it. Perhaps indicating it was cleared of any abomination. The inns were closed and so was the market, everything delivered to the front stoop of residents to prevent any crowds from building up. Ruthless, but efficient. People more than willing to sacrifice what freedom they had for a bit of safety.
It didn't take him long to reach the palace. Riding straight through the gates and up the stairs in a beeline to his fathers throne room. Memories flooded back to him of his time in this place, the clean scent of washed stone, the oil rubbed into wooden furniture. The sights and sounds of the servants going about their task. He didn't miss it, but he'd didn't not miss it either. It still felt like home, even if a poor excuse for one. Too sterile and cold, nothing like his warm estate full of laughter these days.
“I've come as fast as I could.” He said. Tyr, Charlotte, and Jartor. The only denizens in the normally thronging chamber where public court was held. “...Oh. That's very impressive of you father, but I hardly see why another daughter requires my presence? Congratulations, by the way. I never thought you two would've consummated.”
Bizarre, indeed. Jartor was a man of his word, and had said to both he and Charlotte that Signe would be the last to bear him a child. Tyr's mother. And yet here he was. A wife holding a newborn baby and a husband hunched in stony faced contemplation on his throne. There was an angry look in his eye, but otherwise he was still.
Charlotte stared at him with pity. Pity? He felt uncomfortable making eye contact with her, it was clear that she'd been crying. She was the equitable sort and had always been relatively kind. Trading barbs lightheartedly and returning that which he gave. It seemed so long since he'd last seen them. Only now did Tyr realize he'd felt a bit of homesickness all the time.
“Not my daughter.” Jartor rumbled, a heavy shadow stretched over his hard features. “A son.”