A week went by, during which Kanrel made plans with Y’Kraun and Gar regarding what he wanted to do moving forward, as well as what he would need in, possibly, the coming years. He told them of his plans, for the first time sharing with anyone how he truly saw magic, fully believing that he had finally found people that he could trust with all of his heart. And when he spoke and told everything, he felt as if a heavy weight was shed from his shoulders as if his shadow had become less desperate. The memory of Yirn, for this moment, and the many moments that came after, wasn’t something first and foremost in his mind when he thought about trust.
Kanrel wouldn’t let his cynicism control him just for this one time. And now it was for him to find out if his trust was misplaced or not whether these two Atheians were actually his friends or just two creatures more that were out to get him.
For the longest time, he had wanted to trust. And for the longest time, he had been unable to trust those that he met. It takes a considerable amount of bravery to trust someone, even more so when you’ve been burned before. But burns heal, or so they say.
Kanrel listed things that he needed: a safe place where he would be allowed to practice magic without any interference—away from the many curious eyes that would be interested in his antics; the magic of the Darshi, as well as the research that he was about to conduct. With the help of Y’Kraun, a serf that once served in the mines as well as traversed through the tunnels, where he had found Kanrel, they found a cave that Kanrel could use, and with funds granted to him by Gar, they furnished the small cave that they had found; they made into a facility that would give Kanrel the privacy that he needed. For years to come, it would serve as his home and as the center of his research. They furnished it with that in mind, as well as with the possibility of Gar and Y’Kraun visiting him, bringing him supplies to further his research.
And the other things that he needed were just that: supplies, lots of supplies... He needed pens and ink; books and paper; even crystals and lamps that would serve two purposes, some as a means to light his little cave as well as its entrance; and the other crystals and lamps so that he could study them further. Perhaps he could, by himself, figure out the lamps and the complicated magic they had used to make them; it was just that his knowledge of magical devices was far too little.
Gar was surprisingly wealthy, but it was no wonder; the man was a professor, one that had served as such for over a decade. So far, Gar had lived a frugal life, mentioning that this “fund” that he had given to Kanrel was more wealth spent than during those ten years as a professor. He didn’t seem to mind this, just asking that Kanrel would keep him up-to-date with his research. The two would meet up almost daily, accompanied by Y’Kraun as their translator, until Kanrel would reach a sufficient amount of fluency in the Atheian language.
His little cave, which Y’Kraun dubbed “Man Cave,” was a well-hidden cave about a kilometer away from the city itself. According to Y’Kraun, it wasn’t fully a natural cave; thus, it must’ve been a small vein of ore or possibly crystal that had been mined empty, possibly hundreds of years ago. Y’Kraun picked this mine because of its location; it was near a stalagmite forest, and the road to the west was located so that one wouldn’t easily see what happened near the cave. The only downside according to Y’Kraun was its proximity to the veil, but he figured that it was either way something that Kanrel wouldn’t mind; he just would have to be mindful of Atheian Lamp-Bearers, who would replace the flickering crystals at the edge of the veil, usually once a month.
The insides of the cave had been completely transformed since the first time Kanrel had visited it. At first, it had been bare, with some residue of past activities left behind, namely rusted handles of left-behind tools. This was surprising since Kanrel had figured that the Atheians would’ve instead used magic to mine, but since mining was usually done by serfs, there must’ve been many serfs whose magical ability was far too little for such tasks.
Now, the little cave was more like a little home. The entrance was covered with gray, silken fabric, as constructing a door for the irregularly shaped cave entrance seemed like a hassle and far too much effort for something that would be abandoned when Kanrel was done with his research. A considerable amount of effort was instead placed into enforcing the cave so that it would not burrow or end up collapsing on top of them since there were many modifications that they wanted to do to the walls of the cave and the lesser modifications that they performed on its ceiling. Now, there were shelves engraved on the walls, most of them filled with supplies that Kanrel might need, mainly books and paper. Into the solid rock floor, containers were carved with lids formed from that very same stone, so that he might, if needed, hide more important things; to make these locations more hidden, multiple carpets were brought to cover them.
A fireplace was engraved from the stone and airways, and a chimney so that smoke wouldn’t fill up the cave. Most of the engraving was done by Y’Kraun and Gar, who were more accustomed to such work. Their magic, especially Gar’s, was very effective at this work. Kanrel was mostly left to wonder how they actually did all this engraving.
But when he really thought about it, it became quite easy. One just had to change the properties of the stone that they worked. What if the part that they wanted to remove was made to be soft and just something that they could easily dig out with a simple tool? At times, they would also burn the stone until it would melt. And the more Kanrel thought about it, there seemed to be numerous ways one could achieve the wanted effect. One just needed knowledge and a bit of imagination. If there were problems, then there must be solutions to said problems.
Gar was also gracious enough to engrave Kanrel a place where he could sleep, a location not too far away from the fireplace; he also provided him with the needed bedding so that the human wouldn’t have to sleep on the hard stone floor.
It only took a week. It was as if the two Atheians had done something like this before, but this didn’t seem to be the case. Y’Kraun only had some experience with mining and digging, and Gar with creating shelves whenever he needed more of them to store his private collection of rare books, as well as to store his personal studies and research that was recently mostly about the human language; he dreamed of creating an Atheian-Darshi lexicon, a grand dictionary so that he might be able to teach other Atheians the language. Why? Because this, too, was knowledge that had some value to it. And with him creating such a lexicon, he’d be remembered forever as the Atheian, who had managed to learn a completely alien language—something that had never been done before, or so he suspected.
After that week, for the first time since gods know when Kanrel was left truly alone. Y’Kraun and Gar had bid them farewell after helping Kanrel carry his things to his new abode. They promised to visit him in a day or two to check on him as well as to resume Gar’s and Kanrel’s studies in their respected languages. One could imagine Y’Kraun’s disappointment, for they would no longer have their frequent rendezvous at U’Ran’Ui’s restaurant, but then again, this would give him the chance to visit the place alone, or with just Gar as his company... Would the flowers arrange themselves? Would Y’Kraun manage to give bloom to his garden of a singular rose and finally woo the Atheian woman? Kanrel wondered such questions as he sat examining his notes.
He let out a long sigh and braced himself. So it would begin. He opened the notebook, where he had last time written his plans. What he sought to do wasn’t as simple as it seemed. For what he intended to do was to cast away the chains that held his neck and ankles; to no longer let the shadows on the walls be his reality; to disregard not only the faux sun that was above them but also the possibly tampered and knowingly false knowledge that he had learned thus far. There had been many teachers in his life; many great beings that had offered him their wisdom; many philosophies, beliefs, and duties that he had believed in and lived by. It was time to cast away these "sign bearers" and instead once more find a way to embrace the goodness of the sun that surely awaited him afar above. There’d be reason; he’d free himself, for he had known of a better life...
Even though he was considerably stronger, more capable, and far more knowledgeable about the nature of magic itself, it all still remained a somewhat hazy collection of unfinished lines of insight, knowledge that remained raw and unrefined. His attempts to tame this force and to truly understand it had, so far, been minimal—far lesser in perfection than what he wanted them to be. In fact, they were far from perfect.
And now it was time to perfect what he already knew: the process of coding.
Visualization was indeed key; instead of "fire,” he now thought of it as “F” while coding and performing magic, but he still had to think of the location and see where he wanted to place the fire that he wanted to manifest, as well as the shape of it. This took time, and he wondered if it would be more practical and efficient if he didn’t have to even think of the shape anymore and instead only the location?
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But how would he, exactly, manage something like that? It seemed impossible, in a way. It was almost, as if, producing and using a code with your eyes closed, was it not? What he wanted to achieve was, for example, a long wall of fire that was, let's say, ten meters long, five meters tall, and just a meter in width, all while looking at one location... and not moving his eyes along the area where he wanted to give birth to this wall of magical fire...
He tapped his fingers against the stone table. Creating such a wall of fire with the way he coded was already difficult in itself, mainly because of all the information that he needed to process within his mind and with his own eyes at the same time. Of course, with this, he was already accustomed to, so it wasn’t impossible, but creating such a code—no, a whole line of codes—was time-consuming and something that did still make him feel sick, and that feeling of sickness could be a considerable distraction during combat. It might thwart him from creating a defensive code after it. It might make him lose focus on another code that he had already implemented. For it was difficult to keep too many codes on at the same time; this too was something that he wanted to work on and figure out. Either he would have to become more tolerant of having multiple codes on at the same time or transcend past the need to create multiple codes in the first place.
He stopped tapping the table for a moment and looked at his books.
What if one could execute a whole book of codes with a singular command? As if reading a whole book with just a glance, would such a thing be possible? It was unlikely, but if he was able to reach point A, then surely he could reach point Z one day... Point A was just very far away from point Z. A distance of twenty-four steps that he would have to navigate one by one until he would reach this wild idea, that might as well be impossible. But perhaps in pure theory, such could be possible.
Words and letters; lines and numbers—that is what it all was. The world was constructed as such. Or rather, one could perceive it as such. Thus, he got to work and began to wonder what number or letters could best fit the concept of a shape, or rather, many different shapes.
Kanrel began to draw on an empty piece of paper. What are the properties of a given shape—the characteristics of one? A square has four sides of equal length, four right angles, and two sets of parallel sides. What he first drew was just that—a square. A simple shape, one not too far away from the shape of a wall that he so wanted to create, just not long enough, but he decided to start with something “smaller,” something that would probably take fewer lines of code than what he wanted to create.
What he first thought of was mathematics; it too was a language and one that he could use to his benefit, although his abilities at mathematics weren’t as great as they once used to be, which even in his youth weren’t exceptional but instead just passing. He simply estimated that each side of the square was about four centimeters. It wasn’t quite perfect since he hadn’t used a ruler to draw it, but it would work. Thus, he marked the square as 4^2 (four squared by two).
Kanrel, again, tapped the table and made another marking: F4^2 which would from now equate to “Fire in the shape of a square that has sides that are four centimeters in length.” But this didn’t new line of code didn’t take into account the potency of the flame—how warm or powerful it would be. Of course, F in itself meant just a small fire, one the size of a candle in its potency, but what he wanted was more control. If he were to create a wall of fire, it ought to be powerful and able to burn through armor as well as flesh.
But he thought of a simple fix for this issue: the potency of a given element, be it fire or water, would be from now on indicated by the letter “P” plus a number, so for example, “P5.” This then meant that he would have to, in a way, relearn the way he did coding since for the longest time he had imagined that “F5” would equate to a fire the size of a lit candle with, basically, the potency to burn through metal.
But the following code: F4^2 P5 just made more sense to him. He reasoned that the countless times that he would end up vomiting just because of a minor change to how he visualized magic and thought about magic was worth it; besides, burning the vomit was by now practice in itself, for he had done so since the third or fourth day of practicing magic. It was part of the process for all priests, and when one stopped vomiting after casting a new code, it meant that one had reached a level of "fluency,” or rather "tolerance,” which meant that they had mastered the code they were practicing.
Kanrel sighed. Even if it was almost a tradition, even if it was part of the process, even if it was practice itself. It remained disgusting and, at times, rather painful. He got up from his stone chair, grabbed a notebook and pen, and went outside. He entered the stalagmite forest and looked around, making sure that there would be none to see his attempts.
He braced himself and formed the very first code of his research—his rediscovery of magic, awaiting the visceral reaction that would soon follow. Imprinted in his mind was the new line of code that he had just written down; he selected an arbitrary location on the stone floor of the stalagmite forest; carefully he constructed that code in his mind whilst trying to not think too much about the shape. He released the code and instantly felt the familiar feeling of disgust; his stomach convulsed, and moments later, the ground before him was covered with the familiar substance that could mean only one thing.
Sure, there were no flames at the location that he had picked. But the reaction meant that his code had potential. It meant that he would try again and again. Even if he had to vomit everything that he had within; even if his throat would burn and hurt as if he had a sore throat. He would practice until he could see the flames produced by his code; he would practice until he would see the shape that he wanted to produce. He would practice even if it would take a hundred days or more to succeed. This was the very first step; this was step A, and there were twenty-four steps ahead that he had to take to reach that faraway dream—that concept that most definitely had no basis in reality... Along the way, whilst climbing those steps, he might find one that he couldn’t reach; he might find the ceiling that he was unaware of, but even then taking the many steps was worth it. Because then, there would be at least one human who was aware of the existence of that ceiling. It had to be worth it. It must be so.
Many hours later, and so many tries later, his throat was indeed sore. And the stench around him was unbearable; the smell of vomit was putrid. But that much he ought to bear. He had used his normal way of coding to get rid of the vomit on the ground between each try. But after each try, his old way of coding began to feel more and more unnatural. But even then, there were no flames that he could see. There was no shape of the square that he could recognize, yet as he stopped for the day, the time spent didn’t feel like a waste. Today wasn’t a failure, even though he had failed to bring forth the code that he had devised.
In his weakened state, he almost crawled back to his cave with his notebook and pen in hand, which now had many new-filled pages of text and observations that he had made while trying out his new code. He placed them on the table and soon collapsed on his bed; from there he could see the shadows on the wall. He slightly raised his hand, and the shadow on the wall followed; it too raised its hand.
“A hand,” he mumbled and let his hand fall down, and the shadow on the wall followed his action. Perhaps there would be a day when he would again reach the sun, and his reality wouldn’t be that of a prisoner locked beneath the ground, in a grand cave with other prisoners, many of whom had to wonder what the stars or the trees looked like; did birds truly fly, and was the sky really that blue? Was the world surrounded by water, and was the rain really so cold? Or would he remain here, the shadows of things that he still remembered slowly becoming more distorted and blurred, just copies of a reality one could perceive with one's own senses? Would he one day believe that none of the things that were above could be true? The things beneath the sun, would they remain true in their form or not?
He closed his eyes, his mind drifting away; into a world of numbers and letters; into a world where he wasn’t a prisoner, but a butterfly that was free as it flew beneath the glistening warmth of the sun, going from flower to flower; so free was the butterfly with gilded wings, colored by not only the sun but by the grace of nature itself.