“The end of the first week, hmm? And still no magic from this class.” Uwe was ranting again, pacing at the front of the classroom while the chalk quivered in the air, unmoving. “This is fine, of course. Completely expected. As this lesson is the last I have with you this week, I want it to serve as a sort of… brainstorm. Something to show each of you the sheer possibilities of magic, as well as the many forms it can take.”
This will be interesting, maybe. Alix thought he had a pretty thorough understanding of the different forms of magic. But Uwe might shed some light on how certain spells worked. The man commanded his chalk—still powered by a drained candle by the table—to scribe a vertical line.
“Now, let this line be the axis on which all magic sits.” At the top of the blackboard, he labelled his diagram ‘everything’. But an asterisk sat next to it. “See, in theory, magic can indeed be completely anything. But there are some things that are simply outside its purview. This coincides with our earlier definition, as magic never opposes natural laws. As you know, creating any magical effect requires energy.”
Of course we know that, Alix whined internally. He was doing well at the theoretical part of the class so far but he had still yet to come close to implementing it. Suffice to say, he was getting impatient with his slow progress. Despite what Uwe said about ‘unlearning’, he’d never been really good at magic in the first place. The last time he’d cast a spell was in the sorcery Medallion.
“Here on this axis we have energy,” Professor Uwe explained, marking the line as such, “Up the top here we naturally have very high-energy, very powerful magical reactions. And all the way at the bottom here are the magics that only require incredibly tiny energy transfers. Easiest first; can anyone give me some examples that should go at the top?”
Oh, this is just physics! Alix thought excitedly. His classes in Halicynth’s Mechanics subject hadn’t properly kicked off yet—he’d only been to two lessons—but suddenly he recalled Karsus’ words about how connected magic was to science. In both, being ignorant can get you killed. From beside him, Yuhan put up a hand to answer.
“Motion,” she replied when Uwe called on her. He gave a satisfied nod and wrote it about three-quarters of the way up the axis.
“Motion is a good answer. And an incredibly pragmatic one for such a mage. The movement of objects is something that mages often have to deal with, from arrows to boulders. It’s important to know that the mana required to move an object will increase with the item’s weight, and not anything else.”
Professor Uwe hadn’t implied to take notes, so most of the other students weren’t. Alix, however, was copying the entire diagram down as if he’d been commanded to. This was possibly the most precious lesson of all—where he learned the physical laws that apply to magical interactions.
“Heat,” another student said at the back of the class. Uwe snapped his fingers and put it right up near the top of the graph.
“Correct,” he said, “Heating anything up by an appreciable degree will be an incredibly energy-hungry task. For spells of this type, you will need fuel. Either that, or to condense heat energy from other sources. But this also makes natural heat energy an incredibly useful source to cast other spells from, such as I am doing even with my tiny candle.” He gestured to the glowing wick on his desk, which was single-handedly keeping his chalk afloat. “So the energy of chemicals like fuels is also high. Though magic alone cannot create coal from soot.”
What would be close to the bottom, then? Alix wondered while Uwe wrote ‘fuel’ near the top. Something that can easily fulfil its purpose without requiring much energy. What could it be, then? Being able to condense large quantities of energy for spells was the leading use for magic itself. What can be utilised without changing, without having an impact on the world around it?
Light.
That was it. Reyla put me into total darkness by sucking the light from the room, without even using a source. In fact, she would have been actually gaining magical power as she did it. There must have been a second part of the spell to funnel away excess mana. And she only had to stop the light hitting my eyes, because that’s where it is received. That’s where the information is processed.
The thought hit him. It wasn’t just light. It was information. Not the state of the world that was influenced by movement and heat, but the way the world is perceived. It goes even deeper, Alix realised, Reyla could have blinded me by reaching deep inside my brain and causing me to forget that there ever was light in the first place. Of course, there were practical limits—like the Nexus shielding that applied to sapient creatures—but that didn’t change the core of the answer.
How far could a magic of pure information go, though? Alix couldn’t think of any examples that used exactly zero energy. But there were plenty that used only a sliver. Communications, maybe? Or magical detection of others? That last one seemed especially potent. The only problem was that these were very vague concepts. Alix didn’t even know the extent of the physics that each spell would need as support. He stretched up his hand.
“Light,” he answered the question. Uwe’s contented nod showed that it was the answer he searched for. Not information. Not fantastical magics that can reach inside another’s mind. There were limits—even for the Praetorians.
“Correct.” Uwe scribbled it on the graph. “While beams of light might seem underwhelming, the best solution isn’t always the most obvious. Light can be powerful at higher energies and in tandem with other arts. But even in it’s most basic state, illusions can be incredibly potent.”
He demonstrated with the graph first. Using no obvious energy source, he used an illusion to ‘pull’ the drawing off the surface, The white line and scribbles undulated, projected in midair. It represents the magic of information, Alix realised, It’s completely unable to have a meaningful impact on the real world—I could throw my pen and it would pass straight through—but yet it’s still perceived.
He almost laughed. Because knowledge is the most powerful weapon of all.
“Hey, what’s your next class?” Yuhan asked as they were leaving Unknowing. The lesson had ended quite anticlimactically, with Uwe just telling them to ‘think about it’ and maybe try to apply it to casting magic, if they were at all able.
“Um, biology, I believe?”Alix responded, trying to recall the class without taking out his timetable. “It’s quite far Cityside.” He made sure he was getting it right—which he was—while stepping out of Professor Uwe’s large residence and into the street. An oppressive, grey sky pushed down on two of them. It’s going to rain sometime soon.
“Oh, neat.” Yuhan began tying up her hair with an elastic while she walked. “Defence is in that direction too. I was going to get some food on the Highstreet. Do you want to come?”
“Sure,” Alix said simply. He hadn’t interacted with the other student too much—he’d been preoccupied with school, so it was hardly his fault. Still, I don’t hate her company when we’re headed in the same direction. And she was as diligent a student as any in the one class they shared. Though buying food from the expensive vendors on the Highstreet is going to be another dent in my ever-dwindling funds.
They walked in silence for a while, steadily getting further into the dense, inner districts of Cityside before turning through a small alley and onto the great highway that bisected Lacurna, head to tail. It came all the way from the Crown Bridge to the East, slicing evenly through Cityside before reaching the outer wall. Alix could see the mass of stone and rammed earth from where he was standing. But not the gate, there was too much foot traffic for that.
Bustling people surrounded them everywhere, moving between the mishmash of hawkers and legitimate shops that lined the wide pavement. Carriages and horses were given right of way. But other than that it was the small and steady press of traffic in all directions. He didn’t need to struggle, though; Yuhan easily split the thin crowd with a brusque stride, letting Alix simply slide into her wake. Following Yuhan’s example, Alix bought a grilled vegetable wrap that he ate while continuing to walk down the road.
“Do you think you’ll see any of them again?” Yuhan asked when they were further away from the busy midday rush. The conversation seemed to come out of nowhere. “People you used to know, I mean. Before Halicynth. You could visit them of course. But would it be the same?”
Alix nodded absently while chewing, using the food in his mouth as an excuse to let him think. I can understand where she’s coming from. I just… don’t particularly share the sentiment. Alix wasn’t inclined to overshare with his parents at the best of times. Having an enforced obligation not to didn’t really complicate matters. And friends? Well, I never really expected to keep in touch with anyone after Camherst anyway.
“I didn’t really intend to keep knowing anyone from before,” he replied eventually, shrugging, “I get to choose my friends, right? Why shouldn’t it be the people who are worthy.”
“Oh, right. Of course. I should have expected, with your whole…” she gestured toward him vaguely. “Halicynth’s smoke and mirrors are so Mother-damned frustrating, though. At least some of us aren’t too afraid of our ‘glorious Crown’ to say it outright.”
With ‘my whole’ what? Alix thought. But he didn’t press it; Yuhan seemed to say strange things to him all the time. “Who are you missing, then?” he asked, idly keeping the conversation going.
Yuhan nearly tripped on a cobblestone. “Oh, um, just a friend. A friend I had. At the University. You know how it is.” He really didn’t. But after a moment she added, “We… don’t see each other much anymore. Even though I haven’t actually gone anywhere.” Yuhan barked out a laugh, startling a man nearby.
I think she might be upset about it? Alix puzzled, Why is she mentioning it? Is it just to garner sympathy? Maybe it was just still just idle conversation, used to fill the silence before they split for individual classes. But then why would she bring it up in the first place?
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“Well, I’m sorry about that,” he offered diplomatically, “I have to split here for my class. I’ll see you around.”
Yuhan gave her farewell and the two split, Alix heading deeper into the city. The church-turned-greenhouse was near an out of the way community far enough from the agitated centre of town that it was hard for Alix to feel like he was in the same city. Surprising himself, he was actually early. Pushing his way into the empty greenhouse, the smell of fertiliser assaulted him. He could see the torso of Professor Edda through a small window into the attached classroom.
But then after taking only a step, Alix stopped. No, this greenhouse isn’t empty. Searching with his peripherals brought his gaze to a crouching face off in a corner, tending a plant. Fallon was already watching him.
“Come,” he heard, whispered. Casting a glance to his environment, Alix hurried over after confirming that nobody watched him. Fallon was hunched in front of a tall vine growing over a trellis. Small blue-tinged buds dotted the plant, far from fruition. She snipped off a few growths with a pair of shears before throwing them down and turning to Alix.
“There’s been developments,” she said simply, “We need to talk. Privately.”
“Now?” Alix said without thinking. “I have class.”
Fallon scoffed and stood to glare at him. They were still mostly obscured by the vegetation. “Edda hasn’t seen you yet, right? You got lost on the way here. Or distracted. Or whatever, I don’t care. Save your excuse for later, anyway. I’m going to go talk to her and excuse myself. Wait here for me, then we leave.”
Alix stayed there, obscured, while Fallon went and spoke to his professor. It seems a bit rude, he thought, slightly annoyed, Why does it need to be right now? But after he got over the prospect of missing a single lesson—he could catch up easily—he forced himself to consider that there might actually be an important reason why Fallon was in such a rush—and also so angry, though that might just be her natural inclination.
The death of the Halicynth student, Alix realised, something deeper must have happened in the Burns. Alix didn’t know any of the dynamics between the White Hand and other gangs, but if the situation was as tense as he sensed it might be, then such a clash as that would be like cutting a bowstring. And they have me on a leash. I’m forced to help if they request it. Trepidation built in his chest. Fallon was taking her time returning.
They didn’t speak when she eventually did, instead simply slinking out a sliding side exit to the greenhouse. The white light of an overcast sky followed them down seemingly random streets, until Fallon ushered him into an inconspicuous little patch of greenery between tall, boarded houses. Like a park in miniature.
“Is this related to the—” Alix had tried to speak when they stopped, only to be cut off by a fierce gesture from Fallon. Instead of giving a response in words, she closed her eyes and made small, swirling movements with her hands. It’s magic, Alix realised belatedly, but what for?
Soon she stopped, then said, “Now we have full privacy—as far as I’m capable of, anyway. None should be able to hear us, so we can talk freely.”
Alix looked around, but couldn’t find any evidence of a sound-blocking spell. Though, is it more silent? The neighbourhood they were in was an older, quieter one, so he hadn’t noticed the difference. And who is Fallon afraid of eavesdropping so far out here?
“A Halicynth student was killed, I heard,” Alix went first, “There’s been scattered gossip about it all week.”
“Oh, the social butterfly, you,” Fallon said blankly, “What else is being said?”
Alix thought back to an old conversation with Jayden in the rookery. “That the perpetrator was caught and killed. I don’t know much else.”
Fallon pursed her lips. “Well, your one detail is critically wrong. Let me start from the top. Four days ago, an hour past midnight, a Halicynth student was killed on the way to school housing while being escorted by a pair of Praetorian guards. The assault happened on the Crown Bridge, the middle of the city in the dead of night, and nobody was caught for the act. I don’t know any details about the murder itself, nor even how many people they suspect to be in on the job. It’s caused chaos, to say the least.”
An unknown number of assailants, none of which were caught. Alix shivered. “Do you know the significance of the victim?”
The older woman shook her head. “No, but they must’ve been Mother-damned important. I can only guess that it was a prodigy of one of the Houses, or something like that. Because it gets worse. How much do you know about the gang territories in the Burns?”
Alix thought for a moment. “Almost nothing. I know the White Hand, of course. But do they actually control territory?”
“Not really. The White Hand is much more underground than the typical gang disputes that go on. We only have a few select territories and estates, much more spread out through the entirety of the Burns. No, the real brunt of the ownership goes to a group named the Crowspawn. Do you know it?”
Alix shook his head.
“Well the Crowspawn have de-facto control over almost three-quarters of the Burns,” Fallon continued, “and it’s been that way for ages. Small groups have cropped up, but the Crowspawn control a massive portion of all finance outside the Lacurnan wall—and they have a bid inside it, too. It’s not quite an open secret. But plenty of Redjackets are willing to look the other way if the Crowspawn keep the streets clean and people in line, which they do.”
“But there was a murder. An important one.”
“Correct.” Fallon sighed. “Which served as a massive ‘Fuck you’ to the Crown and gave pretty irrefutable evidence that there were rogue—but more importantly, advanced—mages hiding in the city. So can you think of the first place they go to look?”
“The Burns. The Crowspawn.”
“Bingo.” Fallon spent a moment re-checking that there was nobody within sight. The tiny park was barely visible from the road.
“So now you have the Redjackets investigating the Crownspawn and marching into the Burns,” Alix wondered aloud. Sounds like a good way to start a riot.
“Not just the Civil Guard.” Fallon shook her head. “The Praetorians have massively increased their presence too. Of course, you don’t just see them walking on the street. But sometimes their presence brushes against yours while casting, and it’s all you can do to stay hidden. This is a quiet spell—magically speaking, I mean—so don’t be worried about anyone noticing us now—”
“Sorry, could you repeat that?” Alix butted in, startled at Fallon’s choice of words. He needed to know if he had heard correctly.
Fallon glared at him, put off. “This spell is magically quiet. It doesn’t have much of a footprint.”
Magically quiet. Like magic can create a noise nobody hears. Alix felt the gears start turning in his head. “Do you hear the magic?”
“What? No, it’s an analogy. Quieter magic is harder to detect with mana tracking spells and the like.”
“Oh, sorry,” Alix said. But his mind was reeling at the implication. Tracking spells, she said. Like what the Praetorians who were escorting me thought was being used on them. What is going on in my head? He tried to mentally probe his headache, but it was still the low-level tingle that always accompanied him. Trying to think about the weird feeling didn’t give any results. I need to look into this more later.
“Look, anyway,” Fallon was continuing, seemingly having brushed off Alix’s weird interjection, “Things are tense in the Burns. The Redjackets are trying to investigate the Crowspawn and the Praetorians are there the entire time, sniffing for mages. That means us, the White Hand. And to top it off, even Reyla has no idea who might be behind the attack. Long story short, we need to convene soon and discuss the matter. This weekend, understand? Be at the wormwood estate.”
“Hold on, why do you need me there?” Alix asked, slightly shocked. He definitely didn’t expect that he’d be able to provide counsel to Karsus.
“We’re the ones closest to the Praetorians, remember? And if either the White Hand is destroyed or you decide to not show, your education is over.”
My whole life would be over, Alix lamented. If I were caught for fraud by the Crown’s agents, it would be the end of me.
He swallowed. “I’ll be there. Mark my words.”
“Good.” Fallon nodded primly, “Make sure it’s so.”
Then she dropped the spell. And maybe—just maybe—Alix felt a slight difference in the feeling in his head. Nothing substantial. Not enough to draw a conclusion from.
Alix left in a different direction from Fallon. And immediately after she was out of sight Alix burst into a run back to Mind with Professor Edda. It hasn’t been two hours already. And there’s still classwork I could get out of the way. He received some dirty looks entering the classroom. But when he began to apologise to the professor, she held up a hand to stop him.
“Simply do not fall behind,” she said in a melodious voice, “And don’t disrupt other students by asking for notes. When exams come, do not let this tardiness show on your result. We are covering further bodily fluids.”
And like that, Alix integrated back into the class. He felt a sort of cognitive dissonance sitting there, copying down notes on biology while his mind raced about what Fallon had told him just earlier. But he sunk into the work soon enough. It was only an hour later, when he was leaving the repurposed church that he properly went through all the information he’d been given.
The Crown is enraged. It was what he’d hinted at to Jayden, back when he’d first learned it. Only, Alix had been doing it as a tactic to draw more information out of the man, rather than from a position of knowledge. There’s no way I will tell a single soul about this, he promised himself, even the peripheral information about the increased Redjacket presence in the Burns. He shouldn’t even talk about going shopping for a Beacon—which he still intended to do, after getting more money from the Lanyuras. Though he wasn’t likely to do any of that. I’ve never been much of a gossip.
With the sky so grey, Lacurnan night quickly encroached on the narrow, ramshackled streets that Alix travelled back to the Rookery. With luminescent mana crystals being so widespread, darkness wasn’t nearly as oppressive throughout the city. People milled about now and they would continue to do so well into the night. The lamps were set to turn off an hour or so after midnight, to conserve the power they drew from the sun. Alix watched as the beacons slowly flicked on one by one, detecting the night.
It was a short walk for him to return to the dormitories—nothing to worry about breaking curfew over. Alix scuttled upstairs and lay straight onto his bed without untucking the thin blanket.
Week one: done, he told himself. After five days of strict Halicynth regime, he now had two all to himself. So long as he was back again by next week he could go wherever he wished. Which is what I intend to do. I’ll enter the Burns sometime tomorrow, get some money from Mother and Father dearest, finally get myself a Beacon and meet at the Wormwood estate for whatever the White Hand wants from me. As long as Reyla or Karsus didn’t want him to break a few laws, he shouldn’t see any trouble with the Praetorians. I couldn’t cast magic even if I wanted to, he noted with bitterness. They’ll have no reason to take issue to me.
Barring completely unprecedented outside influences, nothing would go wrong on Alix’s itinerary. And then I can finally practise using a Beacon! Probably not in class, as Uwe would likely take offence, but he could use it as reference for his eventual spellcraft.
Still having obligations before the night’s end, Alix got up, did some homework, greeted Yuhan when she returned—again, unusually—late. The monotony did very little to take away from his budding excitement.