spells

“Have you ever cast a spell before?” he handed her a wand.

“Not directly, no. I’ve seen people do it, and I may have helped channel energy into runes, but I haven’t used a wand.”

“Oh, channelling is the simplest spell!” He crossed off a line on the slate he held. “Casting spells is just turning magical energy into some other form of energy.”

“Or turning yourself into knives, or bringing a rope to life.”

“All different forms of energy.”

“No it isn’t. Energy has a precise definition, it’s force across a distance. How does that translate into turning yourself into knives?”

“…Uh. Well. Huh. Did you read the books you were delivering?”

“A bit.”

“Well, you’re right, magic is a bit more complicated than that. And energy is a bit more complicated than force-distance. A lot of it is visualization.”

“No, I know someone who doesn’t see any images in her head, but does gravitational manipulation purely geometrically. 12 noltons, 45 degrees downward.”

“I’m not a magic expert, but the way I had it described to me, you’re speaking some language to the universe, and as long as it understands you, you’re probably okay. And wands help cut down on the noise.”

“So, the ‘universe’ has some sense of ‘being’, then.”

“Well… yes. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be here.”

“But there’s a difference between me throwing a rock and me willing a rock to be thrown.”

“Well, one is more direct, and energy efficient.”

“No, more than that. We learn we can throw a rock, because we see a rock,” she picked up her knife, “we feel an arm,” she bent her arm, “and we impart force over a distance.” She halfheartedly lobbed it at the floor. Vincent cowered. It landed on its hilt and skittered to a stop. “But, say, there was a blind man, he’d learn to identify a rock by its feel. Or, maybe someone loses one of their arms and has to learn how to throw with their sinister hand. Would the universe consider all of these to be ‘throwing’?”

“Probably?”

“So there’s a god god, then, and they’re who decides what counts as a throw, and decides whether someone is correctly doing a throw spell.”

“Uh… well, not necessarily. There are some who believe each spell primitive is based on the effects of each action. If one throws a rock with a left or right hand, even if you’re blind, it still results in a rock flying through the air and hitting something. Because each of these actions had the same result, they’re grouped together as a ‘spell’ which can be discovered.”

“Do more physical instances of an action cause a spell cast in that way to be easier to do? If I were to repeatedly throw something over my shoulder, would casting the throw spell in an over the shoulder manner become easier?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how it works. Most people who study magic just grab a book, a wand, and start visualizing and waving. And if it works for them, it works, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.”

And the list went:

“I notice there’re a lot of missing numbers between the primitives,” said Samantha. “You go P₂₋₁ to P₅.”

“Yeah. Those are ones that are a lot more expensive, and not really beginner-friendly.”

“Such as…?”

“Uh, P₃₋₁ would be stretching space. P₄ is lightning… P₈₋₁ and P₈₋₂ are time dilation… P₁₁ is an animism bridge… P₁₂ is conditional…”

“Conditional? What’s a conditional?”

“A different sound will play in your head based on something in the world. P₁₂₋₃.₈ says ‘Yes’ in your head if your eyes are closed, ‘No’ otherwise.”

The phrase ‘prophecy machine’ came to mind. “…Huh…”

“It goes up to 22 in the Merl interpretation. We get golems using P₁₂₋₇, P₁₄₋₂, and P₁₉. That is, Condition Zero, Loop Do, and Chain. Though, again, it’s super expensive.”

Blink. Blink. Blink.

“Uh.”

Blink.

“Samantha?”

Blink. Blink.

“I have a class to teach in 20 minutes, I’ll leave you to your thinking.”

“Vincent.”

“Yes?”

“Granted, this is expensive. Maybe it takes years of study to get good at, maybe it uses so many thaums it can’t be done very often before recharging. Maybe few people have interest. Maybe few people are actually literate enough to understand this, maybe they don’t have the ability to think abstractly about this.” She paused. That was Quincy talking. His conclusion would’ve been, ‘but, it’s doable, so it would’ve been done.’

“Okay?” Smile.

“I’m from Penbarrow. They excavate stone by hand and chop trees by hand. They grow wheat and corn and harvest by hand. And they bring these to Felkner, by horse, and sell it, and then head back and do it again. And people build buildings by hand and enforce the law by hand and collect taxes by hand.”

“Oh. Why aren’t they using golems?”

Blink. Blink. “You go to your lecture.”

“Okay!”

She sat in silence for a few minutes, glanced to her remaining letter(s), and decided to follow him.