The eerie rickety bridge had to be held up with magic. Even with my magic hands, the entire structure seemed feeble and on the verge of collapse. Even through my magic hands, I could feel the strange texture on the ropes and planks, as if the entire bridge had been dunked in a pit of tar and hung up over the lake to dry. I asked the others to use their magic hands as well, just in case something went wrong and they had to hang onto the bridge themselves.

Below my feet, I could see the dark waters of the lake. I had an uncanny feeling looking into the lake that seemed to be able to absorb the light that fell onto its surface. Yet, I could not allow myself to look away. If there was something down there, I could not afford to be surprised by it. I had cast invisibility on us just in case, but anything that lived in waters as dark as those, would not use sight as their primary sense anyway.

Watching Taoc and Kol use their magic hands to steady themselves as they crossed the bridge made me think back to their training. Not only had they learned this spell in record time, they had also finally begun learning a few spells from my new magic system, although the spells they had learned had not been very powerful. Still, the mere fact that my new magic system was up and running, filled me with hope. Finally, there was a way to fight against the Immortals. All that was left was to find out if our efforts had been enough.

I had gone off on a strange exploration of ideas in order to invent my new magic. Aristotle thought the best way to organize society was to pursue the ‘Telos.’ Telos is the inherent purpose or full potential of an object or person. When asked who should receive the best flute, he would answer that it must be the best flute player. Not because this would ensure that everybody can enjoy the best music, but because Aristotle thought that the right thing to do was to ensure that both the flute and the flute player could fully meet their purpose and potential.

On my Earth, most people did not think about the world in that way anymore. We might give the flute to the best flute player, but we would do so to maximize the utility of flute playing. More people would find the music enjoyable if it was played by the best flute player. Or we might decide only to give the flute to the flute player if they wished to play it, respecting their individual liberty and freedom to choose.

But Aristotle’s way of my old world had proven useful to me in this one. Many of my earliest spells were based on assumptions made by classical philosophers like Aristotle, such as the many assumptions that underpinned the elemental magic system that I had invented. There too, looking at the world through the lens of ‘purpose’ or an ‘end goal’ had helped fuel a lot of the speculation about the elemental makeup of different objects. Something could have the fire element inside it because its purpose was to burn. Some animal may possess the water element because its purpose was to swim. And so, when I was faced with the idea of examining why I was the only person who seemed to be able to invent spells, I was naturally drawn to the idea that there was something special about me that might have made it possible. Perhaps, my ‘purpose’ or ‘end goal’ was to invent magic spells in this world.

Putting aside any objections relating to freedom of choice or the intervention of others, this outlandish idea did seem to have at least a kernel of truth in it. After all, if I had created the fundamental basis for others to be able to invent their own spells, and I even taught them about the spells using the same logic and experiments that I had used to invent it, shouldn’t they also be ‘reinventing’ the spell instead of merely learning it from me? And yet, I had proven from before that they were always only learning from me. This was why my first experiment on this journey had been to try and teach Kol and Taoc a spell through experience and a simple explanation of the fundamental forces at play, rather than by trying to teach them the spell itself. This meant that these relatively intelligent and capable people were lined up perfectly with the net, but could not figure out how to score. I was missing something important and this something had to be related to my ‘purpose’ or inherent potential as somebody who had come from another world.

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I was also certain that this reason had to be specific to my world. I had not forgotten that Madness was probably a visitor from another world as well. That was how the elves’ stories had described him and it was also how the other myths and legends described him. He had even perhaps mentioned it before. And yet, Madness seemed to control magic and spells in the same way the other Immortals did. He embodied certain principles and abstract ideals, and could govern those domains absolutely. I did not think he could come up with spells from outside of his domain, or he would have completely defeated the other Immortals with that power.

And it was this train of thought that had led me to my new magic, and to the methods that I used to teach the others in record time. Kelser, who had learned some of these spells over several weeks, had been almost jealous of Kol and Taoc because of how much easier it had been for them to learn. Noel had also taken a longer time to learn these spells so I hoped she would not be expecting these two to be involved in our battle at all. After all, if they had not been able to do anything during my fight with Noel and Alek at the Republic’s capital, then surely they would not be able to do anything about it today.

And yes, everything would be going down today. We had arrived precisely on the day of the ceremony. I had overheard from the Council and other generals that the ceremony was supposed to take place at sunset, which meant we had to infiltrate the temple and retrieve the Book of Annihilation before the sun hit the horizon. Considering that we were in the mountains, sunset came very quickly and suddenly. It was morning now, but we would probably reach the temple at noon. There wasn’t enough time.

I was also expending a lot of energy to cross this bridge. After all, the bridge had been too small to carry Paris, the massive Fil Tusker. That meant I had to take a deep breath and lift Paris above my head to bring her across. For her part, she had been surprised but quiet. Even as we walked over the rickety bridge, she did not let out a sound. And since she was invisible like the rest of us, she did not cast a shadow down onto the water. I did wonder, however, if it would have been best for all of us to cross the bridge by flying across. Somehow, the thought only crossed my mind when we were almost all the way across.

I took a step on the other side of the bridge and looked back. The water was still, as always, but I frowned. Why had I wanted to walk across the bridge? And why did this feel like the mind control or emotional manipulation magic that the Immortals had used before? No, it could not have been that. I could resist both of them. This felt more like an instinct, a primordial feeling that pushed aside rationality and compelled people to do something strange.

This lake was more terrifying that I had assumed. I also felt, once again instinctually, that this lake did not have anything to do with the Immortals. The lake was ancient, perhaps as ancient as the Immortals themselves, and it might even be an entity itself. I could feel, in the corner of my mind, a hunch that said the lake knew that we had been crossing over it, and that it had let us cross over it in peace.

I stopped and turned to the lake. I bowed a little and made the others do the same. They gave me curious looks but followed my lead. We then turned to walk up the path leading up Mount Smoke, and I told everybody in our party that they were not to, under any circumstances, turn their heads until we were far out of sight of the lake.