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CHAPTER 9 - The Invisible Circle (II & III)

CHAPTER NINE

The Invisible Circle

II

Wilburn wasn’t paying close attention to Iddo and Alfajean’s discussion; he was busy looking for the colors that weren’t part of the rainbow. His eyes were closed. He could’ve sworn that he was looking with his mind… He couldn’t see doodly-squat. I can’t see a doodly-squat, he thought to Iddo, eventually.

With practice, my boy. Here—Iddo broadcast his own vision of the temple on their private mental channel, even as he continued to speak to Alfajean. Wilburn caught his breath. It was… it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his entire life. A vast sculpture of impossible colors surrounded them in metaphysical space. There were new colors! Wilburn couldn’t believe his mind’s eye. The whole thing was like a sunflower or the center of a daisy, a spiraling fractal-patterned dome knit from a bazillion hair-thin filaments of color. Like lasers, Wilburn would’ve thought, if he’d known what lasers were. And the more he looked the more saw: every detail collapsing into greater and still greater detail upon scrutiny. A feeling of awe rose up within his chest. Did people make this? he wondered.

People? Certainly. What you really want to know is whether humans made it, and that’s much trickier to answer. If so, it is among the greatest achievements of your species, the work of many generations of magicians who devoted their lives to the project of their ancestors and passed it down unfinished to their descendants.

How can you tell?

The recursiveness of these meta-energy circuits, for one thing. They’re a bit like tree rings. We don’t have time to get into the theory of it now, but whenever you see spell patterns like this, you can be fairly certain you’re dealing with cyclic repetition, one of the the key elements of ritual magic. In this case, I estimate that dozens of different rituals were performed thousands of times over at precisely targeted intervals, determined by… I can’t say exactly, perhaps the cycle of the seasons and the orbits of the celestial spheres. Not, in any case, the sort of task at which mortals typically excel. It would require a continuity of culture unprecedented in the modern age. We’re talking about the combined magical output of a whole society of magicians, over the course of—

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

But the thought was cut short by Alfajean saying loudly, “What in world are you doing to my trousers, Wilburn?”

“Huh…?” Wilburn took inventory of himself. “Whoops—sorry!” The silky fabric of the angel’s pant leg felt so similar to Toukie’s wing that he’d unconsciously been rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger while thought-speaking with Iddo. As soon as Wilburn realized what he was doing, he jerked his hand away as if a snake had struck at it. He was mightily embarrassed.

III

Iddo had gotten out his wizidex and was peering at it quizzically. He didn’t seem to need to touch the thing to use it; the device simply hovered in the air before his nose, doing… whatever it was doing… Wilburn couldn’t see. Then suddenly he could see as Iddo broadcast his perspective on their private mental channel once again. The wizidex displayed rippling silvery blue water, overlaid with a white grid and a few strings of numbers Wilburn didn’t understand, and in the middle was a small, pulsating red dot.

“Well, isn’t that fascinating…” Iddo said. “According to MagiMaps, we’re at the bottom of the North Orfidic Ocean right now.”

Buttrom giggled, causing everyone to jump. It was hard to remember he was there most of the time. “Silly me!” the prophet cried, in a wild voice. “I forgot to pack my swimsuit!” He grinned around manically without meeting anybody’s eye. Then he lay down on the floor.

Now there’s a brittle branch, Iddo thought. But he said aloud, “Buttrom, my friend, only a fool clings to sanity in the face of the impossible. The wise exchange their sanity for the truth, because the truth is impossible. The universe is a miracle, and you’re part of that miracle, like it or not, so you might as well embrace the nonsense and become the madman you were born to be. All the best prophets are mad. Everyone says so. The madder the better when it comes to prophets—wouldn’t you agree, Lieutenant Angel?”

“Oh yes,” Alfajean said seriously. “Yes, the madder the better, Buttrom. Master Bungflower is quite right.”

“You’re both insane!” Buttrom shrieked.

“True,” Iddo and all eight of Alfajean’s voices said in unison.

Iddo chuckled. “That’s rather the point I’m trying to make, Buttrom. It’s much easier to fulfill your function in the universe when you quit trying to pretend the universe is something other than it is. But do have it your way, of course—there’s ultimately no other way to have it.”

“I want to go home,” Buttrom moaned.