‘Common phrase spells?’ Steven asked.
‘Exactly,’Gilmour replied, ‘spells with parts of various incantations in common so as to harness exponential power, layered magic.’
‘Good gods,’ Kellin whispered.
‘When you think about it, there were few greater discoveries in the history of Eldarn. It’s the innovation that made magic such a dominant force in our cultural history. You two have never been to Steven’s world, where there’s little history of magical innovation, so the culture there is based on religion, common social values and traditions, the family, and democratic and economic ideals. Magic has played almost no role at all in defining who they are; actually, the extent of its thread through the fabric of Steven’s cultural history is as entertainment, and it appears in a handful of religious stories. But here, Lessek’s contributions to Eldarni history, as a researcher and a scholar, are just that: he made magic one of the building blocks of Eldarni culture. It is a stone in the foundation of who we are.’
Brexan said, ‘So before Lessek, there was no magic?’
‘Oh, there was plenty-’ Gilmour gestured as if the seeds of cultural mysticism were all around them, ‘but its purpose had not yet come into focus. It was potential energy, freely floating, essentially useless until Lessek channelled it together.’
‘So the book is a listing of his spells?’ Brexan jumped ahead.
‘Actually, no,’ Gilmour said. ‘You see, what Lessek did was more than generate an array of spells. By bringing magic to the forefront of Eldarni social development, he started a rock rolling down a mountain. There was no way to stop it; people saw what magic could offer, the role it could play in their lives: in education and medicine, in warfare and yes, even entertainment. Over time, they embraced the notion that magic would be going on around them all the time. It went from something people feared to something they accepted, and a few of them discovered that with training, they could wield it.’
‘The Larion Senators,’ Kellin said.
‘Right,’ Steven broke in, ‘recognising that there were people amongst them who could perform magic – everyday people, neighbours and friends – would have made it easier for anyone to accept magic and its widening impact.’
‘Yes and no,’ Gilmour said. ‘Like anything difficult to understand, magic had its naysayers, and a sad number of sorcerers were outcasts, ostracised by their communities.’
‘But I’d wager they were all there, lined up and waiting for their due, when it came time to heal the sick, to bring in a bumper crop or to revolutionise the shipping industry,’ Steven added.
Gilmour shrugged. ‘People will be people.’
‘Nice to know nothing’s really different.’
‘You sound like Mark.’
‘Go on, Gilmour,’ Brexan said, ‘you still haven’t told us about the spells in the book.’
‘Right, sorry, the book.’ Gilmour waved to Garec through the fog, then said, ‘The book is a spell book, but at the same time, it’s more than a spell book.’
‘Great, that’s helpful. Thanks, Gilmour. Anyone know what’s for breakfast?’ Brexan grinned. ‘I hope you’re going to elaborate a bit for us.’
‘If you’ll give me a chance,’ he said, smiling himself. ‘There are spells in that volume that are evident, while others are hidden, though implied, just waiting for the right reader to come along and take them for his or her use. It is a comprehensive look at the nature of magic and mysticism, but it doesn’t read like a normal book. Granted, the pages are filled with Lessek’s handwriting, but it’s what lies between the pages and within the pages that makes this particular book so powerful.’
‘I still don’t understand,’ Kellin said. ‘So the book carries more than just the words on the pages?’
‘Oh, great gods, yes. That book is the gateway to worlds and worlds of information on magic and mystical energy. You see, Lessek’s work didn’t end with the general acceptance of magic as a fundamental tenet in Eldarni culture. Instead, he went on researching, studying, experimenting and improving his ability to tap into the magics of our world, and of worlds beyond the Fold, as evidenced by our new friends from Colorado.’
‘Stop it; I’m blushing,’ Steven teased.
‘With Lessek’s leadership, the Larion Senate was able to find, tap and retrieve magic from planes of existence, memory, emotion, good and evil that we can barely imagine. It was a boom that so changed Eldarn there was no going back. The Larion Senate, a group of mystics, many of whom had been thrown out of their communities, were suddenly the world’s teachers and leaders. They had to be; no one else could understand, never mind manipulate, that power.’
‘It sounds like things were taking a turn for the worse,’ Kellin said.
‘They would have, if Lessek hadn’t invented a safe means by which to tap into the reservoir of power the Larion Senate had accumulated. With that done, tension and fear in the five lands eased, and Eldarn breathed a sigh of relief.’
‘That was the spell table?’ Brexan asked.
‘Exactly,’ Steven said. ‘It was an elaborate… safe deposit box, for lack of a better term.’
‘So the book tells how to operate the table?’ Brexan said.
‘I wish it were that easy,’ Gilmour replied. ‘No, the book outlines magic’s place in Eldarni culture. It uses Lessek’s spells coupled with aspects of Eldarni history, social innovation, creativity and a variety of other common values and cultural cornerstones to describe the very nature of the magic Lessek and the Larion Senate were able to amass in the spell table.’
‘So, the good and the bad,’ Kellin said, looking for Garec herself.
‘More than that,’ Gilmour said. ‘It describes the possible and the impossible, the nebulous regions between the real and the unreal, the future and the past, the truth as concrete, hard and fast and the truth as malleable, uncertain and out of reach. The book is legendary for sometimes showing what a sorcerer wants to know and other times what a sorcerer needs to know. There have even been times – although I can’t say for certain if this truly happened – when the book showed a sorcerer something false and led the poor sod astray.’
‘Just to be funny? It makes jokes?’ Brexan was confused.
‘Because understanding what is true, real and necessary is often enhanced by one’s ability to recognise something unreal, something untrue. Success can only be recognised as the opposite side of failure; without knowing failures and lies, one cannot appreciate successes and truths. The book understands that, and we, even we sorcerers, cannot dictate how magic and knowledge interact. It is a relationship that they form and that they foster. Our lot as the Larion Senate was to try and understand it well enough to tap its power in service to Eldarn.’
‘And you did,’ Kellin said.
‘For a long time, yes.’ Gilmour sighed. ‘But now, a sorcerer with all the knowledge that I have, with all the experience that I have, and with all the conviction that I have, plans to open the table and use it against Eldarn.’
‘Will it stand for that?’
‘I don’t think it cares.’ Gilmour pursed his lips. ‘That may be the reason Lessek wanted us to understand magic on a comprehensive level. It wasn’t enough to be able to work a few spells and help a few people. We were harnessing an energy source, a power unlike anything we had ever seen, certainly more than most of us could comprehend. Our strongest and most promising practitioner, an old friend of mine named Nerak, pushed too far, and it swallowed him in an instant. It is the energy of life, death, creation and destruction; it is raw emotion and raw power.’
‘Can you read the book?’ Kellin asked.
Gilmour sighed again. ‘To be honest, I haven’t tried in about a Twinmoon.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, the last couple of times I opened it, Nerak knew, and he used my wide-eyed innocence against me.’ Gilmour searched for the right words, then said simply, ‘It hurt… a lot.’
‘Wide-eyed innocence?’ Brexan said.
‘Yes, actually.’ Gilmour was amused. ‘For a two-thousand-Twinmoon-old grettan, I have relatively limited experience with magic on this level. Granted, I spent hundreds of Twinmoons hiding all over the Eastlands, generating and experimenting with common-phrase magic, but before our battle on the Prince Marek, I’d only seen the book a few times in my life. Nerak had it at Welstar Palace. Any other copies, if there are other copies, were either hidden there or destroyed.’