“Arcanists have always used eight of the nine Schools of Magic. The fruit of their labor is what modern scholars call the Circle System, with the addition of a ninth Schooclass="underline" Thaumaturgy. Under the Circle System, spells are classified into one of five Circles based on the spell’s power and required level of relative mastery. It’s roughly an exponential progression; a Second Circle spell is about twice as powerful as a First, but a Third Circle spell is roughly three times as powerful as a Second. Now, many today believe that the Circle System is an evolution of magic into a safer and better system. That point of view is also utter rubbish. The Circle System is a dilution; there is no way a Fifth Circle evocation cast by a mage will ever be as powerful as the weakest Word of Evocation invoked by a competent wizard.”
“I guess I don’t understand magic well enough,” Gavin said, “because I don’t see how it’s a dilution.”
Marcus gave Gavin a small smile as he said, “The explanation of ‘why’ is the focus of today’s lesson: the nature of wizards and wizardry. I explained this a little bit when we first met. Wizards have within them a core of power; it is something they are born with, and we have never been able to understand why we have it. There’s no rhyme or reason to who will be born a wizard that I’ve been able to determine, either. I’ve seen children of two wizard parents born with no power whatsoever, and I’ve seen powerful wizards born to families that have no hint of power for generations. The Great Houses of Tel, at least, seem to have at least one wizard per generation, thankfully, though Andrin Mivar is a bit of an outlier. To make it even more difficult to understand, the strength of that core of power varies from wizard to wizard. All magic manipulates reality, whether you’re a wizard, a mage, or one of Ovir’s clerics, but arcanists manipulate reality at the most fundamental level.”
Marcus fell silent for a time, and his face developed an expression Gavin didn’t understand. After several moments, Marcus sighed.
“Gavin, I thought we would have more time. Ovir told me the Lornithrasa were active again when he first told me of your arrival in the city, but I underestimated the threat they posed. I had planned to start slowly and present small, concrete examples for each progression of learning. Now, I fear we must accelerate things a bit.”
“How so, Marcus?”
“In my youth, it would have been unheard of for a mentor to discuss this next topic with an apprentice still so new to the Art: composite effects. A composite effect is created when a wizard invokes multiple Words at once, but to understand what that means, we must address the one, essential truth: the effect is shaped by the wizard’s intent.”
Marcus turned and, gesturing for Gavin to follow, strode across the arena to stand within the ring. He produced a scroll from within his robe and lifted it to shoulder level.
“This is a scroll of Fireball. Fireball is a Second Circle spell of the Evocation School, and it is woefully overused. It seems like every budding mage simply has to learn how to cast it.”
Marcus took the scroll in both hands and unrolled it. He read the words scribed upon the parchment and, upon his successful completion, pointed his finger into the air. A single pin-point of light the color of classic, red-orange flame shot upward some forty feet and expanded into a thirty-foot sphere of flame.
“Every fireball cast by a mage is the same, because what you just saw is all that the spell can create. But what if a wizard wants a fireball?”
Marcus spoke a Word of Power and pointed once more with his finger. Gavin felt the invocation through his skathos as a sphere of red-orange fire the size of a peach pit flew into the air. It reached a point about fifty feet up and violently erupted into a solid sphere of flame before it dissipated.
“That,” Marcus said, “was a wizard’s fireball. Did you feel the difference?”
Gavin nodded. “The scroll felt like a small stone thrown into a pool. That felt like a boulder.”
“Good. When I was a child, I slipped into the blacksmith’s place at my father’s estate and put a piece of copper in the forge. The heat was such the copper caught fire long before it reached the coals, but what fascinated me the most was that the flames produced by the burning copper were green. Watch.”
Marcus spoke the Word once more and pointed up. Gavin felt Marcus’s power slam against his skathos again and watched as another peach pit of fire flew upward and exploded in flame. This time, though, the flame was green. Gavin stared in silence.
“Some things produce blue flames when they burn,” Marcus said and repeated the invocation to create a blue fireball, “but all this fire is making me a bit warm. How about some ice?”
Marcus repeated the exact same Word, only this time a thirty-foot sphere of ice was the result, which dissipated into a mist on its way down to the wizards.
“Marcus, that is amazing.”
“A mage could not do what I’ve just done. This is the ultimate expression of the one, essential truth. We’ll start with illusions; your first illusion will be a static image of a horse; everyone knows what a horse looks like.”
As it turned out, Gavin didn’t know what a horse looked like…or maybe he was having trouble translating what he saw in his mind into the static illusion. His first attempt left him doubled over, hands on his knees and gasping. The image in front of Gavin was a most anorexic animal, barely more than a stick figure. Gavin did a decent job envisioning a horse’s head, however, making the image even more absurd.
“Well,” Marcus said as he scratched his beard, “I see we have some room for improvement.”
Chapter 18
Marcus stood on the quay overlooking Tel Mivar’s harbor, and a stiff breeze blew down the river valley, slowing ships’ progress into the harbor. Marcus’s thoughts strayed to his apprentice back in the Tower, who was (hopefully) pursuing his studies. He almost regretted not asking Gavin to accompany him down to the docks, but then again, the boy was quick-witted. It was altogether possible Gavin would see enough to start assembling the pieces to puzzles he shouldn’t even know exist yet.
A ship flying a Vushaari flag coasted into the harbor, towed by a longboat filled with strong oarsmen. The deck crew already had the fenders cast over the side to protect the ship and dock from each other, and Marcus watched the longboat’s crew bring the ship within reach of the line-handlers on the dock. The ship’s crew threw lines to the men waiting on the dock and removed the tow line supplied by the longboat. The longboat rowed out of the ship’s path before returning to the harbor for the next ship as the line-men pulled the ship the last few yards into dock. Within moments, the gangplank was down and the passengers disembarking.
A man in simple traveling clothes walked off the ship in the middle of the small crowd. The crowd around him had chatty women, parents with children, and well-dressed businessmen and business-women. The man almost stood out in how unremarkable he seemed. He kept his dark hair well-trimmed, and a thin beard came down from his sideburns to run along the line of his jaw and circle his mouth. The clothes failed to conceal the man’s muscular physique.
The instrument case in his right hand protected one of the finest lutes in the known world, and his left held the thick straps of the gray canvas duffel bag slung over that same shoulder. He scanned the area around him as he moved, and though his eyes found Marcus at once, his vigilance did not cease.