“Even today,” Rignar continued, ignoring the comment and making his own cautious but steady progress towards a flat outcrop of rock ahead, “no one is entirely sure of the fundamentals of the art. One thing is clear, however, facets are the key.”
“Facets?” Shamil flattened himself against the cliff face as another sideways step sent a scattering of pebbles cascading into the clouds. “How so?”
“Complexity. The inner composition of every crystal is a matrix of flaws and channels far beyond the ability of any mortal mind to comprehend in full. I believe it is this complexity that lies at the heart of crystalmancy. Somehow”—Rignar grunted as he hauled himself from the ledge to the outcrop, turning to offer Shamil a hand—“those of us who possess this particular form of mage gift can channel it through these endlessly complex but tiny labyrinths to produce the desired effects.”
“So”—Shamil took a firm grip, wrist to wrist, before levering himself to Rignar’s side—“the magic doesn’t reside in the stones? They are a conduit rather than a source?”
“That, my friend, brings us to a philosophical debate that has raged amongst mages for centuries. And to illustrate, I have a present for you.”
Rignar fished in his satchel to retrieve what at first appeared to be a trinket fashioned from one of the many fragments of white quartz in his chamber. As Rignar placed it in his hand, Shamil saw that the stone had been chiselled into a rough cylinder and fixed to an iron cap with copper wire. Looking closer, he also saw faint tendrils of light within the stone, much like in the carnelian the mage had used to heal him.
“I currently spend perhaps six hours a day making these, along with various other deadly instruments,” Rignar said. “I think you can spare an arrow for a demonstration, don’t you?”
Shamil nodded as understanding dawned, unslinging his bow and taking an arrow from his quiver. He used his dagger to snip off the arrowhead and fitted the quartz fragment in its place, twisting the copper wire to tie it to the shaft. “I’ll need a target,” he told Rignar, nocking the arrow to his bowstring.
“Oh, that’ll do, I think.” The mage pointed to a jut of rock some thirty yards away, from which a small tree sprouted. Shamil drew the strongbow’s string to his lips, sighting on the tree, then pulled back the final few inches until the heel of his palm brushed his ear before letting fly. The arrow’s flight was straight and fast, Shamil reflexively raising his arm to cover his face when a bright, violent explosion obscured the tree and the rock it stood on. Scant smoke accompanied the blast, just a white circle of expanding light that blinked out of existence almost as soon as it appeared, leaving a cascade of shattered rock and a blackened, leafless tree in its wake.
“Power enough to kill three men contained within a crystal no bigger than my thumb,” Rignar commented. “The power to destroy and the power to heal. The essential contradiction at the heart of crystalmancy.”
Lowering his bow, Shamil experienced a pang of regret at visiting destruction on something that had contrived to flourish despite the unfriendly climate found at such a height.
“Trees are hardy,” Rignar said, reading the thoughts on Shamil’s face. “Don’t worry; he’ll grow back, probably stronger than before. Here”—his hand disappeared into the satchel again, coming out with a larger trinket, this one fashioned from a triangular piece of yellow topaz set into a silver clasp—“another gift, for your whip.”
“Doesn’t explode, does it?” Shamil asked, regarding the item with a dubious eye as Rignar handed it over.
“No. But it would be best to exercise due care when using it.”
Shamil unfurled his whip, fixing the device to the tip with the clasp. As he swirled the handle in preparation for an experimental strike, he noticed Rignar take a long backward step, raising a hand to shield his eyes. Grinding his jaw in mixed trepidation and irresistible curiosity, Shamil drew the whip back, then up and round, causing it to lash with cobra-like speed. The topaz tip flared as the whip reached its maximum length, birthing a ball of shimmering light that resembled a cage fashioned from lightning bolts. It faded along with the echo of the whip’s crack, leaving an unfamiliar taint to the air that for some reason put Shamil in mind of the sea.
“When propelled to sufficient velocity,” Rignar explained, “magically infused topaz releases a particular form of energy potent enough to burn the very air and separate it into its constituent gases.”
“Potent enough to kill?” Shamil enquired, coiling up the whip and peering at the crystal tip. The topaz seemed to have suffered no injury, although there were a few black smears on the silver clasp.
“A man, certainly. As for the fearful creations spewed forth by the Maw . . .” Rignar trialed off, glancing over his shoulder at the smoking spectacle of the great orifice beyond Sharrow-Met’s statue. “Well, if they’re fashioned from flesh, then it will surely do them injury, or at least cause some severe annoyance.”
“My thanks,” Shamil told him in sincere appreciation, returning the whip to his belt, “for an excellent and powerful gift, one I doubt I’ll ever be able to return in kind. But I confess I fail to see how exploding arrowheads and energetic topaz relate to your philosophical quandary.”
“Because they inevitably lead to a singular and important question: Did I unlock such power from within the crystals or place it there? I suspect the latter, but many of my fellow mages insist on the former, quite passionately too. Crystalmancy, they argue, requires no inherent knowledge on the part of the wielder. You can be as ignorant as a stump and still craft a stone capable of blowing your head off if you’re not careful; therefore, the magic must lie in stone not body or soul.”
He fell silent, eyes narrowed as he surveyed the sheer face of the cliff above. “Ah,” he said, pointing. “There it is. I knew it couldn’t be far away.” He moved to the cliff face and began to climb, rapidly scaling several feet and moving with a fluent surety that told of a familiarity with this corner of the mountain.
“You’ve been exploring, I see,” Shamil observed as he found a handhold and began to follow the mage’s course.
“No,” Rignar replied. “Never been here before. It’s the mountain, lad. It speaks to me.” He paused to smooth a hand over the granite, and Shamil saw the glitter of tiny crystals in the stone. “Clear as any map.”
“Wouldn’t that contradict your argument? If the stone possesses the power to guide you, doesn’t that mean the magic resides within it rather than you?”
“A fair point. I can see you’re education included logic as well as archery. But, it stems from an unproven assertion that the stones possess some form of agency, some desire to guide me to my goal. Whereas I, as a being possessed of reason, may be utilising my gift to call upon knowledge contained within the crystals in this mountain. Knowledge and power may equate as a metaphor, but not in the literal sense.”
Shamil came to a halt, feeling a brain-stretching ache behind his eyes that begged for a change of subject. “Speaking of goals,” he said, resuming the climb, “what exactly are we looking for?”
Rignar didn’t answer immediately, speaking only when he had climbed to the lip of a horizontal crack in the cliff face. “Something I was told to find,” he muttered. “Though a part of me hopes we never do.”
With that he climbed into the crack and disappeared from view. Shamil followed to discover that what had appeared to be a narrow crack in the mountainside was in fact a cave mouth. Venturing inside, Shamil found himself in a cramped and dark hollow dribbled by rivulets of water from some hidden spring. He could see little until a blue glow flared into life, illuminating the sight of Rignar with a shimmering crystal in his hand. The mage muttered to himself as he moved about the cave, eyes scouring every inch of rock.