The crack of the bamboo ruler across the hand of the young man caused him to start from his hypnotic reverie.
“Focus” his aged master hissed. “You inattentiveness just turned a ‘bird’ into a ‘frog’ with that inappropriate ‘na’ stroke.”
Indeed, Parish had, while he was reaching into the realm of Abstracts, failed to complete the glyphic word properly and would have, if a bird had been available, been converted into a frog. “I’m sorry, master.” Parish focused, waved his hand and the runic sand fell clear and smooth, awaiting a new glyph.
“Don’t be sorry. Don’t do it. I have been teaching you for eight years, surely I can expect such simple things to be within your grasp by now.” Jatembe returned his bamboo ruler to its ready position behind his back and he turned away from his only pupil.
Though he appeared displeased with the boy’s progress, secretly he also hid his amazement at the skill and facility the boy possessed with the Runic Words of Alteration. If he could control his wandering mind, he might be one of the greatest students Jatembe had ever taught. If.
Sitting down at his desk, the aging master of ninety summers, drew a sigil into the air and a book appeared. Parish had not begun drawing his next word. He stole a look at his master and noticed a book he had never seen before.
“I know you’re looking, boy. It’s okay. Put that down for now and come up here.” Jatembe waved his hand absentmindedly and Parish slid from behind his strangely contorted desk with a boneless ease. He stopped to draw a binding rune onto the back of his chair preventing the use of the chair from anyone unfamiliar with the magic. The chair and desk twisted further and flattened itself with the writing sands hidden from view.
Parish contained his glee at being asked to come up to his master desk and strained to make his movements, controlled and contained, as every mage should comport himself. “Never early, never late. A magi is where he is supposed to be at the time he appears,” was what Master Jatembe taught him early in their relationship.
The master waited patiently noting the boy’s reishi, his spiritual power, flickering ahead of him, desperately wanting to move faster, but held in check by his charge’s desire for propriety. Excellent. He is controlling the power, it is not controlling him.
As the Parish drew alongside, he saw from the side of the desk his master sat on the book was much larger than it appeared on his side of the desk. Now that he thought about it, he realized it covered his entire field of view. Gone was the classroom and instead a vast vista of the night sky appeared, filling the entire room with the view. “Until now,” Jatembe began, “I have taught you the nature of the world. Everything had a name, everything was associated with a word, and if you knew the True Name of a thing, you could bring forth powers and abilities for you to harness.”
“Do you remember The True Name for stone?”
“There is no true name for stone, master. Each stone has its own individual name and most are too sleepy to share it.” Parish knew the answer to the question because it was something that vexed him when he first wanted to learn magic. The tales of children always had magi turning stones into weapons, water into wine and there didn’t seem to be anything preventing them from creating whatever they wanted. Parish had learned not only was this not true, but that the nature of magic seemed quite limited requiring great thought to go into every effort. Sometimes, he had learned, it was simply easier to do the job without using magic at all.
“Very good. Do you remember the realm of Abstracts? What is the most important thing about that realm?”
Parish had learned this lesson, but it took considerably more effort. “Everything exists there and if a mage has sufficient imagination, he may create anything visualized there. But there is always a price. In time, in effort, in energy. Nothing comes from the Abstract realm for free. There is always an exchange of one sort or another.”
“Correct. This is why magi learn a craft or three to ease the creation of new ideas from the Abstract Realm. Craftsmanship gives objects greater capacity this way.” Unfortunately, many magi failed to realize the creation of magical objects would cause fear, envy and greed among the non-magical populace. Which is why Jatembe was forced to train Parish in secret.
Jatembe looked at the young man whom he had raised from an orphan at the age to three to thirteen and saw the potential within him. The final test was about to be administered. If the boy passed, Jatembe would introduce him to the final linguistic magic. If he failed. The magic would wreck his mind and Jatembe would turn him into a humble house-servant with the mental capacity of a five-year old.
The old master found himself conflicted. What if he was wrong? It had been a long time since anyone had been able to get past even the very first form of Linguistic Magic, the Sound of Words. It took an ear for language, a memory for sounds, a talent for mimicry since even an imperfect rendering of a magical sound can have devastating results. Parish’s memory for sound was near-perfect and his skill at producing the Old Magic was impressive.
After only five years, at the tender age of eight, Parish had learned three languages in addition to the Tongue of the Great Wyrms and the Old Tongues of the Sidhi. There had been a few other students at that time but their lack of memory doomed them before they could progress to the Shapes of Words. Here, the child has proven far less adept. Perfect pitch was an asset during the Sounds of Words, but could not help his visual acuity or his inherent palsy.
Jatembe had attempted many cures and managed to correct the boy’s abysmal vision with the aid of a local healer. Though their magics were incompatible, their willingness to cooperate had allowed them to discover why the child’s vision was so poor and make permanent corrections. Nothing could be done about his palsy except to proceed slowly and hope he would outgrow the seizures that accompanied it. Parish’s hands, at thirteen, shook less than they did when he was younger and his seizures also diminished as his control of his reishi, his personal inner stores of mystic power, came under his control.
The aged master, presumed it was the reishi’s desire to be released which caused the boy harm and as he had been using his magic, his tremors and seizures had become lessened over time. As his physical afflictions decreased, the young man had become more adept at his work as a scribe and had become the preferred scribe for several of the guilds. His future looked bright. Was it right for Jatembe to push such a young man into a realm of magic, few had ever survived?
His answer was a pain in his chest and back. A hotness that reminded him his time was short. He was the last living master of the Akashic Records. He must pass on his legacy. “What do you see?” Jatembe asked Parish with uncharacteristic kindness.
“Look harder. Use your third eye.”
“Loti.” Parish intoned perfectly. Jatembe could see the third eye forming on the young magi’s forehead. A muted gasp followed. “I don’t understand, master. What am I seeing? How is it I have never seen any of this before?”
“You are standing in front of one book of Revelations, a slice of the Akashic Record. It reveals to you as a magi, that nothing you know of as reality, is in fact, real.”
“How could I have not seen this?” Parish asked incredulously?
“Because you did not wish to see it. You did not understand what you were seeing. Your knowledge was imperfect, so your view of the world would be as well. You saw the world in terms of sounds you could understand, with language you could understand. Now that you are able to see the world as it truly is, a construct of reishi, comprised solely of spirit, you are now confronted with the truth of our world and our universe in general.” Jatembe said nothing further, hoping the boy could come to the proper conclusion on his own. This would be a pivotal moment.
The correct albeit limited assumption. Now comes the dance. “You are somewhat correct. It does not exist. Not the way you think it does. It exists in the same way the Realm of Abstracts exists. At one point, something, somewhere decided that it should and altered the reishi in the Universe until it did. All of the connections between each thing, between the Sun and our world, our moons and our world, all of the nearby Aspect Realms, all of these things are real. Yet not.”
“What holds it together? Why doesn’t the reishi fly apart and discorporate like magic does when I stop concentrating on it?”
A good question. He may as yet survive. “Our belief that it should exist. We all believe the world exists. It is our consensus, the consensus of the Great Wyrms, the consensus of the Sidhi and the Rattan Warrens, and the Humans, everyone who lives here ads to the consensus we exist. Thus we do.”
“Would it be possible for a mage to make it cease to exist, by simply willing it?”
No. He is taking the wrong line of questioning. The Records will blank his mind rather than have him consider deeply the possibility it should not exist. Should I lie? No. I have to trust he will make the right choices. “Yes. But he would have to have the consensus of an entire world of creatures whose vested interests lie in maintaining their existence.”
“Good. I would hate to unmake the world from a nightmare. Then this consensus is what keeps the world the way that it is. Why rocks are rocks and birds can fly and fish swim. Because we believe it to be that way. Then where did monsters and other exotic creatures come from?”
“Mages and scientists who challenged the world as we knew it. Whose knowledge and willingness to tap into the Realm of Abstracts to find the possibility those things could exist and make them reality.”
“This vista is real isn't it? We aren't sitting in your classroom any more, are we?”
“No my boy. We aren't. Do you see what I have been trying to prepare you for? What your true responsibility is?”
“Yes, master. A mage’s responsibility isn't to use power to reshape the world exclusively for his pleasure. His true responsibility is to keep other less scrupulous men from doing so.”
“Once, men like us, used their power indiscriminately, without restraint and broke the world. The Akashic Records responded and destroyed everything, because you see, they too are an aspect of our consensus and they have the power to protect themselves from harm. But only at great cost to everyone living in our realm. We must use our gifts, our language, our talents, our training to help everyone to make better choices. Not using force, because, force begets greater force. There is only one such test left for you. Take us home.”
“Yes, Master.” Parish looked at the glade they sat in and realized everywhere and everything was connected. He could feel the sigil on his desk, he could know it, remember it, see it and in that instant fold this space into that one. “Locus.” The room reappeared, though night had fallen.
Looking around, he could not find Master Jatembe. A momentary panic set in as he rushed out of the classroom in the back of their bookstore and upstairs to their living quarters. He could sense the perfect reishi of his master within his room. With a thought, the doors gave way to Parish’s need.
“Now, now, my boy. You mustn’t go about opening doors with the wave of your hand. People gossip. Gossip leads to fear. Fear leads to treachery. People must think of you as they always have, a humble scribe with a swift and exotic stroke, capable of rendering their documents beautiful and functional in record time.” Jatembe’s phlegm filled-coughed sounded loud in the dark.
“Master. You’ve been keeping secrets. You’re very sick.”
“You saw that, did you? I thought I had hidden it better.”
“You did. I’m a mage now. I see things as they are, not as we would like them to be.”
“That you did, my boy. I am dying, but you will not be rid of me so quickly. You have much to learn and no time to learn it in.”
“Then we are in consensus. No dying for you, tonight.”
“Agreed. Know that your lessons will be harder and more terrifying than anything we have done up till now.”
“It is customary, for a master to give his student a new name upon the review of the Akashic Records. Are you okay with this tradition?”
“Yes. It would be my honor to receive this tradition.”
“I will call you Uriel. A name of great tradition. It means the ‘Light of the Prime Mover’. You have stared into the Light and come away better for it. Now go and get your Master, a glass of water.”
Master Jatembe survived, he said, on their mutual consensus, for another sixteen years. Uriel would deny the calls to corruption other magi would make to him, and remained true to his teachings.
It would be the introduction to the warrior woman, Radi, Mistress of Thunder, which would start him on a path which would challenge all that he knew.
A Mistress in Thunder © Thaddeus Howze 2014, All Rights Reserved
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