Germination 18

September 3rd, 2032.

Ultima clapped her hands to get my attention, and I stood up straight with a cough.

“Kiddo, so you’ve got a pretty huge collection of glyphs, am I right?”

“A total of eleven glyphs so far, each providing a connection to the different understandings of magic.” I clarified, folding my arms over my chest.

Ultima cracked a toothy grin. “Which means there’s so much more depth and breadth now accessible to you my little noble raven.”

I blushed. “Yes.”

Ultima nodded, and with a snap of her fingers summoned a chalkboard with a total of seven images. “We can go over the sources of magic in more detail. Beyond some basic textbooks, and exploring the wilds.”

I felt a smile come unbidden. “Learning?”

“Learning,” she continued with a smirk. “As you know the first witches learned how to yield elemental magic.. This would become our first foray into the forces of Reality, as we developed our ability to use the energies of the soul.”

“The Violet, the Blue, the Green and the Red.” I added, buzzing with excitement.

Ultima pointed to the glyphs for each element and source. “We will start with the Blue, the primordial chaos, the inherent madness in the deep forces of the universe. At its simplest, it’s tied with fluid, flow, and forms, cycles, combinations and manipulations.”

I nodded. “But it’s more than that?”

My teacher smirked again. “The Blue involves shaping one’s perception, riding the flow of the chaos of reality. It’s about finding the underlying patterns in chaos. The Gifts it offers are powerful and yet narrow, a chaotic complex.”

“Like the king’s… telekinetic attack?” I hadn’t known that was possible, the spell had been a terrifying feedback loop, like a butterfly flapping its wing to unleash a hurricane.

“He’s a Boomsinger, it’s in his blood,” Ultima explained. “Weaves of the Blue involve budding off portions of the chaos within the thinking minds of the universe.”

I furrowed my eyebrows, thinking back to how I used the water glyph. There was a certain sense of… putting part of myself into the water, of getting caught within the current of the element.

“Like thoughtforms?” I questioned her, as my own foray into magic from back home came into play. “I remember delving into some chaos magic traditions when I was younger.”

Ultima blinked. “Huh… you know I think I remember reading into that and wondering if maybe some humans had made contact with witches…”

“Did they?”

Ultima shrugged. “I never really got an answer, since most folk on this side keep to themselves or to select human institutions.”

“So the Blue is about reaching into the primordial chaos both within and without. Turning it into a complex we can come to work with and understand on a conscious level.” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Yep. They can manifest as individual or collective thoughtforms, the latter is common when it comes to Gifts inherent to a species or folk.” She pointed to the glyph once more. “The Blue is delusion and madness, dreams and nightmares. The faeries are beings of primordial chaos, never forget that.”

“Then the Green?” I guessed as I knew it was often complementary despite their oppositions philosophies.

She pointed to Erset. “The Green, the primeval order, the inherent order in the deep forces of the universe. At its simplest it represents hard, solid objects, grounding, cultivation of energy and energy embedding. The Green is about finding order in Nature, about finding those patterns, those rules and imposing them on reality.”

“So shapeshifting… is about imposing the rules of Nature onto one’s own body,” it explained why werewolves were largely a Gift of the Green. “They can hunt and grow, as earthly beings.” I responded with a rapid blink.

Ultima beamed at my theory. “Not bad, where the Blue is the law of chaos, the Green is the law of order. Tradition and persistence, many of its Gifts lie in things of the earth and of nature. You learn the rules of reality and build something out of them that lasts.”

“So things like alchemy, or forging magical weapons might draw strongly on the Green?” I asked. I had noticed that when Hakim built his tools, he drew on the patterns around him. “The Blue and Green… why aren’t they opposites?”

“Who says they aren’t, or that they can’t have more than one opposite? Simply think of the elements.” She said, and it made me pause.

Air opposes Earth. Water opposes Fire. But Air and Fire are opposing energies and tactics, while Water flows and Earth stands.

“I think I understand, what next?”

Ultima pointed to the glyph for fire. “The Red, the promethean spark, the inherent dynamism in the higher forces of the cosmos. It can represent the energetic, forceful, moving things in the world. Along with consumption, heat, fuels, energy transfer and thermodynamics. The Red is about using your Will, creating new patterns in the world, a messenger of change. Burning the weave of the old to make way for the new.”

“It’s the law of… dynamism?” I asked with a blink.

“You can also call it the law of will. Though in that case the Blue is the law of perception, the Green is the law of thought. The Red is about creating your own patterns, using your will and conviction to shape the energies of the world. So it’s pretty good when it comes to manipulating energy, in creation and destruction.”

“Well it explains Hakim again, he can both use and create patterns. So that leaves the Violet?”

“The Violet, the primal expanse, is the inherent motion in the deep forces of the universe. It often represents things which expand, and have freedom of movement. It deals with air, kinetic energy, static energy, free energy and directed movement. The Violet is about using information and knowledge, creating formulas, becoming a grimoire of information to overwrite the rules of reality.” She explained.

“So where the Green is practical, the Violet is… theoretical?” I questioned, sorta guessing at the relationship.

“Yes. In simple terms, they are Memory, Perception, Thought, and Will. Which leaves the last three…”

“Three?” I boggled at the implications.

“The Black, the White, and the Gray.” She gestured to the three linked glyphs. “You already know what those two are called… so let’s think about Gray.”

The Noachian Potentiality…

“The Noachian Potentiality.” I blurted out.

Ultima quirked an eyebrow. “You’ve thought of it hmm?”

“Yes.” I lied as easily as I breathed. “I’ve been… trying to use it to figure out the amulet. No luck.”

“I’ll come up with something, especially since I’m pretty certain it kept you…”

“Alive when I was kidnapped by a godling.” I said dryly.

“Yes. Anyways the core sources seem to be linked together,” she circled the three glyphs. “The Black is the law of simplicity, the White is the law of complexity, the Gray… is the field upon which they both play. I’m guessing the Gray is the law of possibility. So Imagination. I can’t say more than that. It’s not my Gift.”

“I wonder…” I responded with a nod.

My golm-speaker started to cry, and without a blink I pulled it out. It was Hakim.

I flinched at Ultima’s stare. Shit, I did that without thinking.

“Take the call, we’ll continue the lesson after.” She smiled at my sheepish nod.

----------------------------------------

I blinked rapidly at Hakim, who looked especially nervous at my reaction.

“You’re saying interest in glyph-tech has exploded?” I asked with a bug-eyed stare at the empty stand where we were experimenting with selling flashlights.

“There are a few clans interested in giving out loans to expand our glyph-tech business.” He said while looking like he was riding high, pupils lensing out. “I’ve got way too many polite letters in the mail, and the idea of our mail coffers overflowing is terrifying.”

“Mail coffers?”

“Oh, our postal system offers public financial services, since they’re integrated with alms. Bed and Food rights, you know?” He said with a nod.

“Right, your kingdom has a universal safety net. I forget that sometimes, so the mail stations save your… savings?”

“They can also give us basic loans while clans and merchant families can do the same.” He explained with a casual shrug. “There are a lot of fiddly rules and regulations constructed by the Koza, thousands of pages worth of the Laws. Petty tyrants do exist though.”

“I wonder if they’d accept any ideas from Earth on that…” I thought aloud, rubbing my chin.

“You’re kidding right?” Hakim’s gaze was full of disbelief. “Celia, they made you a sifain. You Ended the Other who had been terrorizing us for two centuries, and… ended her control over her slaves.” His voice sounded hoarse. “I know it wasn’t all you, but you still made it possible.”

“I guess that’s true, I just never really put much thought into it.” I said with a shiver. “I guess that means we can get more funding for some of our experiments maybe? Maybe work on how we can have witches working in organized labor groups to build things?”

“Oh. Collective magic could work that way!” Hakim said with shining eyes.

“You’re right!” I slammed my hands down, as the idea percolated into my brain. “Ultima has told me about collective magic, pooling together energies and strength to perform amazing feats. We could have witches performing different steps all at once, flowing together into a single great weave.”

“We’re also getting inquiries on our welding magic device, after we figured out the right modifiers.”

“I’ll be honest, the fact there are so many ancient runes is a gigantic headache and a half.” I admitted with a shrug of my shoulders, glancing around the shop. “Seven glyphs appear to serve as classifiers, which indicates the source or sources we’re affecting. The glyph of earth forms a connection to the Green, the glyph of water lets us reach out to the Blue. Runes amend their meaning, shaping their weave.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The welding spell was a fire glyph with runes for ‘fuse’, which means using the Red to fuse materials. Which essentially means using willpower and energy to fuse and bind materials together. Each little sigil, each little rune was something to ruminate on, a concept to understand through the lens of each Source.

“Let’s see what we can build shall we?” I clapped my hands, letting tendrils of the void caress my skin.

Hakim’s smile was positively devious.

----------------------------------------

September 7th, 2032.

I groaned with a pounding headache, muscles aching and hands cramping from designing new glyph arrays, experimenting with weaves in nature and replicating their form on paper.

But that wasn’t the problem now, it was having people talk to me on a regular basis. Glyph-tech had exploded in popularity, and Hakim and his father were making glyph-welders in batches due to their precision and ergonomics. I had people asking questions about glyphs, about magic, about how I made my spells, about the things I could make with them.

I had told people a fair bit at least, how glyphs could be found in the world around us. Acting as symbols for the endless weave of concepts within Reality, with the glyphs connecting me to the sources of the occult.

It didn’t end the questions, there were always more, and while trying to formulate the answers was difficult. It was enjoyable to teach, to tell others how I saw their world and their people and their Gifts. I had also been experimenting with the individual components of glyphs.

The ultimate baseline of a glyph was the circle, which serves as a guideline, as paths for the forces of magic to flow into. Adding the specific markings of a glyph then told the universes what forces were being guided.

Which means there are seven baseline symbols for each source of magic, with all others being derivative… oh.

“Althea!” I called out to my friend, who was laying down on the soft grass surrounding her house. Her home’s fields extended for acres upon acres, her family working on the fields with their Gifts. Althea had done her part, speaking with the crop-spirits to strengthen their harvest.

There was a natural grace in her motion as she rolled onto her feet, hips swaying smoothly with every step.

“What did you find?” She asked, curling a bang around a finger.

“So far I’ve discovered a total of eleven glyphs. The question I’ve been asking myself is what makes a glyph a glyph?” I said that while nudging her with my hip. “So far I know runes can be used to alter the behavior of a glyph, but I think it’s more than that. I hypothesize that runes are the basic components of glyphs, and they can be divided into objects and actions. With some though not all runes being composites of categorical runes.”

“And how do you plan to prove that?” Althea asked, crouching down as I drew in my glyph grimoire, tearing out a sheet, which would regrow according to the rules of the Green.

“Easy. Lightning is clearly derivative of fire, and chain is clearly derivative of earth and void. The law of order and the law of possibility, and I’ve seen both appear to be individual runes in that dusty runes book. So if the individual sigils are runes, I can place them in the same circle to form a sub-circle instead of a more elaborate array. I’ll test this with frazo and engua, Fire and Water, Red and Blue.”

I flicked out my pen, and carefully drew out a circle, adding the three dashes of fire, and doublet circles for water. The glyph seemed to sing to me in my mind, the

dancing waves of the holy ocean, and the burning heart of divine fire.

I flicked out my tongue while I gripped the glyph with my fingers, and it sprung to life. I heard the call of chaos, the war cry of will, and steam burst out of the glyph in droves.

I held superheated steam in the palms of my hands, pulsing to the beat of my own heart. But it was more than just vapor and mist. It was heat and overpressure, transformation from one state to another, it was rising emotion, like rage and fury and energy aching for a purpose. Rising to the winds, a veil of the spirits, a thousand little correspondences in every molecule.

“Heh, another confirmed hypothesis, now it comes down to practical work.” I said my goals aloud, flouncing around Althea, my gorgeous wolf. “I already had an idea of this difference between objects and actions. But I assumed they were modifiers.”

I turned a page on my glyphs and runes book, beginning to find an interesting pattern. There were seven categories within the object runes, which means there are seven categorical runes, then there were seven subcategories, and seven subcategories within those—

I rubbed my head with a sigh. Okay, don’t get lost in a magic dictionary.

“Which means that there could be thousands of derivative object glyphs, each pulling on a different aspect of the Sources. Which in turn can be formed into recursive loops and knots of magic.” I said my explanation with a proud and prim face posture.

“Is that her?”

My ears picked up a sharp sound on the wind, and without thinking I drew it in with a circling motion of air. I could see a few people on the outskirts of her family’s land, clan and clanless.

It was a younger member of the Weyl, closer to my age than not, with hair the brightest shade of emerald, walking alongside his companion, a local catfolk girl with white fur and orange spots.

“Yes, that is the Voidbearer.” The boy seemed to be showing off, and I was off put by the title. Voidbearer?

“She’s different from what I would expect of a sifain,” the girl said, placing a callused hand against her cheek. “The rumors say she’s a witch of great power and might but she seems so… so normal.”

Should I be insulted?

The boy shrugged. “Looks can be deceiving, and strength is not always a matter of power alone. My father was there, and said it was a victory won through strength of mind more than strength of arms.”

I stood up without thinking, gathering all my stuff with a gentle weave of mass manipulation.

“Celia?” Althea had a very solid, I’m very concerned sort of tone. “Are you alright?”

“Just anxious, no worries.” I said with deepest anxiety, dripping down into even my magic.

I practically scurried off with my tail between my legs, over to the porch Ultima was resting upon. The older lady firmly sat her ass down on a rocking chair, like some old grandmother instead of a badass witch.

I escaped to the outdoor couch-bench thing which was made of grown wood. It had nice cushions made of weaved together leaves and grass. Very nice.

“What’s wrong?” She asked without a moment of hesitation. That soothed my anxiety.

“People just keep… looking at me, like I’m something special or great. I don’t like it.” I twitched, my heart pumping faster with the touch of anxiety and nerves etched into my person.

Ultima looked both sympathetic… and nostalgic? “You want my help with that?”

“Yes.” I said dryly. “But how?”

Althea scooted up next to me, so I leaned into her touch, resting my head on her warm shoulders. She placed her hand down on my head, claws curling into my hair.

Ultima snorted, and I stuck out my tongue. “Bleh.” I spat.

“How about a story?” She said with a clap of her hands. “One about a girl of the Mau clan, special in every way that mattered.”

“Sure.” I said, wondering what it was about.

Ultima’s gaze was a sad one. “Once upon a time, there was a girl named Ultima Mau, the heir to her great clan…”

----------------------------------------

This is the story of the great shaming of the Mau, told to me by Ultima of no clan, her story, and the story of those she would call kin and kith. A story she had told to her once before in part to her adopted son, a child of the Dark. And now a story she tells to her student, her disciple touched by the Void.

It started like this. Forty two years ago on the thirteenth day of the fourth month was born the firstborn of the clanhead family. Friday the thirteenth was always an auspicious day for the birth of witchlings, blessed children of the Titan under their feet.

Ultima clan Mau, born of Merzhin clan Mau and Esther clan Mau was an exceptional child. She was clever and wild, able to shift and warp reality to her whims, preferring the practical to the theoretical. She was a chaos child, so three years later a child of order was born.

Adalise clan Mau was a curious little witch, her magic less potent but her mind so broad, seeing and hearing the world with hands and eyes and ears. She loved rules and logic and laws, whether of magic, of nature and people and more.

Back in those days, the grip of the Pale King was finally beginning to tighten on the kingdoms of Danab. Even as their own people cultivated a sense of community and honor, of taking care of their own, of helping those in need. The Chantry in turn cultivated suspicion and fear of those who would destroy that honored tradition and way.

Wild witches, the lawless ones would not honor their ways or their laws, they would not provide shelter and food, simply take and horde and fight in meaningless wars for their own sick amusement. It was the greatest honor to join the Circles of the Chantry, to bind oneself to the False Martyr. With it was sown the seeds of our destruction.

Ultima and Analise were close since near the very beginning, balancing each other out with their own attributes. Fire and darkness, water and light. Mirrored sisters, whose paths would diverge.

As Ultima grew her keen interests were drawn to the wild, to the deep dark secrets held within all things. She didn’t care for the prestige and honor of the Chantry witches, or about her status as heir. She practiced magic freely, exploring the boiling seas and many islands, learning from experience. She learned from the spirits, from the greatest of beasts and the song of dead gods.

As Analise grew, she became hyperfocused on the path of a Chantry witch, wanting to make her parents, her clan proud for joining the greatest of witches. Fueled by the attention her parents gave to her sister, she grew ever more intelligent, ever more drawn into the deep fanaticism of the Ways of the Pale King.

And then one year, Ultima learned the truth.

The Chantry was not a loving organization, spreading the lore of their mother and father and originator. They were the arms of a machine fueled by endless waves of blood and sacrifice. They were not all kind clerics and knights and holy warriors. They were stripping the world of its ways, for their way, slaughtering Elders, burning books and holy texts, slaughtering entire peoples for fighting back. They had made a horror of the world, and they would never be free of it.

Her own sister learned her own truth, joining the Circle not just as an adherent but a true member, rising through the ranks, mastering their ways, learning of their most profound knowledge and grimoires. She received from them what her own parents would not give her, as they preyed on her deepest insecurities and fears.

In the end both sisters made their mistakes.

Ultima was passionate but selfish, too-focused on herself to not realize she was drifting away from her sister. Analise was focused but too selfless, unable to realize she was destroying herself for others.

At eighteen years of age, Ultima refused to be bound along with her circle of friends, and the Chantry labeled her a lawless witch. The Mau clan was disgraced and forced to disinherit her, leaving Analise as the heir. The eldest left for the edges of their kingdom while Analise carried the weight of clan, nation and religion.

They didn’t see each other for ten years, and when they did it was on the battlefield. Magister Mau led the battle against the Wandering Abyss, and the town of Manak fell to ruin in their wake. Both took different paths, and both would pay for it.

Ultima lost her family, and Analise lost herself. The eldest nurtured the flame of the Old Ways, while the youngest burned her own lifeblood for the New Ways. One was free to grow while the other was made to wither on the vine, as her strength was bound within a cage of the Chantry’s making.

Four more years would pass before the sisters would see each other again and it would be the last. Ultima was guarding her new child, her little Arali from the great threaded ones when her sister arrived.

Bedraggled, obsessed with protecting her people, her clan, her church and god. Sacrificing her own life over and over, she would fight the threaded ones with reckless abandon, diving into their very nest, even as her cage burned her soul alive. Driven by the madness of her cult, of endless self-sacrifice weaved into every word and law.

And it would kill her.

That day, Ultima broke as she saw her sister's eyes close for a final time, and fled to the wilds to grieve and mourn. While her clan faltered with the death of their two heirs, elections called over and over to find a new clan head.

…

The story settled in my gut, the pain and horror of it striking me like a sledgehammer. Ultima looked so much older, a deep old pain in her eyes.

“I made many mistakes in my life, we… Both of us made our choices in the end. I know this kind of pressure is awful, I want you to choose what makes you happy. To make choices that won’t leave behind a trail of regret.”

“I’m going to give you a hug.” I said without hesitation.

I fling myself off of my seat, Ultima catching me with a cough when I squeezed her like a teddy bear.

The question then was, what did I want?

Did I want to uncover the roadmap that led to today, the symbols that led to four hundred years of senseless bloodshed? The why of it all, the questions that needed to be asked to shake the foundations of the world.

I had seen how I had changed others, how I had woken them up, made them question the why of things. Dinah had changed, Althea had changed, even the kingdom was changing.

How would I change when I learned the truth, forced to see the way of things?