Nannade, Meredith and Carryl shuffled into the hall for their second day of lectures, having left much ugliness behind them. Meredith pushed directly towards the spot she had gotten those good seats the day before and Carryl followed her, but Nannade stayed behind, apparently planning to sit in the topmost row of the tall hall, but Meredith turned around to her.
“Come on, Nannade, sit with us, won’t ya?”
Nannade looked confused, “Are you sure?”
“You invited us to a tea house, the least we can do is invite you to sit with us.” She finished with a smile as wide as her face.”
Nannade accepted and followed them, squeezing along them to the centre of the middlemost row of benches.
Slowly, the lecture hall filled and soon, Professor Tominet entered again from the door at the back of the stage. “Sit down, listen up and we can get started.” He threw the chalk again at the blackboard and it started to write the subject for the lecture.
Abominable Magics
“Among all the things that are forbidden for a mage to do, many of them are forbidden in their own right. Theft, deceit, murder, all of these are illegal whether with magic or not. But the abominable magics are by themselves forbidden because of their very nature, can anyone here name the three abominable magics?”
A short silence was in the lecture hall, then a few hands went up, unsurprisingly to Carryl. Children of gifted bloodlines are frequently warned of the abominable magics.
The Professor picked one girl to answer and the one to stand up was Teresa. “The three abominable magics are blood magic, soul magic and deals with demons.”
The Professor nodded. “Very well, you may sit, Mademoiselle. But it seems I have neglected to teach you all the proper terminology.” He turned to the board, threw his chalk again and it wrote a worde in its centre.
Daimones
“Some of you may have grown up with different names for the being from beyond the veil; pixies, fairies, nains, bugges, spirits, angels or demons, there are as many words for them as there are names for people, but the term that is used in academic society is daimones or daimon. You may wish to insert them into some kind of hierarchy according to your practice of worship, but here, all those beings from that unknowable realm are called daimones.” He caught his chalk and immediately threw it back to the board while also retrieving something from behind the lectern.
Blood Magic
“This is by far the easiest to explain, both in its method and its wrongness.” The object he retrieved from behind was a lectern was a jute bag. “This is five pounds of grain, living things that want to sprout into stalks of wheat. This will and the energy are called volit viva and vis viva, the will of life and the energy of life. In older times, this distinguishment was not made and it was simply called life force, a now archaic term that obfuscates the dangers of blood magic. It is the energy that empowers our spells as it flows through our bodies like a river that turns the wheel of a mill.” He undid the string keeping the bag closed and poured out its contents.
The grains spilled across the floor, flooding towards the frontmost rows of students, jumped and bounced beneath their feet, kicking up dust and bran. Chatter arose but the Professor bid silence immediately with a raised hand, then he reached into a pouch at his belt and presented a small pile of that dark blue iridescent powder on his flat outstretched hand. “This is one handful of flux, coarseness three.” He moved to show the frontmost row better the small pile. “The amount of vis viva in these two is equal.”
With a stomp of his staff and a snap of his fingers, the iridescent powder went up in that blue flame, the grain fell to dust, and from both rose a wind to his hands, like swirling light that condensed into two spheres. Glowing, even, white they hovered above his hand, equal in brightness and size. There they stayed as a few students murmured and Meredith let loose a “My my, so beautiful!” until the Professor dismissed the spheres with a flick of his hand.
“Flux powder as we know it was invented by alchemists in the process of sequestering the vis viva in the grain from its volit viva and distilling it into a solid, compact form. It is easier to transport, clean and universal. However, in some cases, mages forego the use of flux or grain and instead go for a form of life force that is bright and warm in its will.”
Professor Tominet pointed his staff at a large wardrobe at the back of the lecture stage, then directed forth a rolled-up canvas that flew to the front of the speaker’s stage and unrolled itself at a swirl of the Professor’s staff for all to see. It showed a stone altar in a forest clearing, a druid kneeling before it with bloodied hands lifted to the sky, a goat sliced up on the altar, from which arose two flames shaped like the horns of a goat.
“Magic can be cast not just with the vis viva contained in fresh blood, but also the volit viva, using the will to life within the blood to empower one’s spell to create equivalent effects. But it is this very will of life force that will be your downfall.”
Professor Tominet swirled his staff above his head and the canvas rolled itself back up, stowed itself in the wardrobe and was replaced by another. This one showed a seemingly young mage with a knife in his right hand and a flame in his left, springing from a wound in his palm. He held it at arm’s length, frightened looking upon a burning line that ran up his arm along his veins, as if erupting from inside, spewing boiling and burning blood before his terrified face.
“It happens from time to time, that an overambitious, young mage thinks he can subdue his on volit viva, only for it to backfire. It takes hold of the spell and turns it on itself, propagating whatever effect the mage sought throughout his own body, continuing itself with whatever vis viva it can find. A quick death for himself and nothing else is the best possible outcome, taking his foolishness with him into the grave, but sadly, a continued spellstorm might spring from this and continue after his death, requiring action and sacrifice from mages who did not deserve such a fate.”
Another gesture from Professor Tominet summoned the next canvas; it showed a building of the city engulfed in what seemed like fire and lightning at the same time, flame licking up walls and arcs jumping between pillars, humanoid shapes seen in burning windows.
“Take this as your only and a sufficient warning: to cast spells either with or onto living flesh and blood is the first step on a road towards ruination and death, by your own hands or that of the law.”
Professor Tominet sent away the canvas and summoned the next, which showed a new scene: a slave market where a man was being sold who was held not by iron chains but by a collar of runes on his neck.
“Just as evil as casting magic with blood is casting it on blood. By subduing a living being’s volit viva, one can assume control over their life under threat of pain and death. The sigils of slavery are a dark mark upon the practice of magic and the evils of slavery itself are being fought to this day by the League of Exalted Academies, but this shameful practice retains pockets even on this very continent, as close as Nisumski just north of this land.” The way the Professor straightened his back and tensed his arms spoke to Carryl of a man who had fought against these evils he talked about himself, a man truly ennobled by Exaltation. “We have a long way to go if we wish to bring our Exalted values to those most in need of them.”
The Professor dismissed the canvas and turned to the board again. “Now that you know of blood magic, let us move on to a less understood abominable magic: soul magic.” He wanted to direct his chalk to write the subject on the board when he was interrupted by Meredith’s voice.
“But what about the healing arts?”
Meredith had barely stood up, only leaning over as if the few inches closer to the Professor would aid in understanding. The Professor meanwhile had halted in his movement and turned to the crowd to see who had spoken up. When he saw Meredith there, he raised an eyebrow. “Did you ask that, Mademoiselle?”
Carryl poked Meredith with her elbow as Nannade did the same. “You stand up and address your superior properly!”
With fright in her eyes, Meredith shot up straight. “Yes I did, Professor Sir, excuse me, Sir Professor.”
A moment went by in which the Professor did not say anything and all eyes in the lecture hall looked on in tension as to what might happen next. Then the Professor started to roll up his right sleeve and clenched his fist. The gesture drew a murmur from the listeners until he raised his arm up, a movement that seemed to draw the air out of Meredith’s chest. On his otherwise hairy forearm was a streak of naked, shiny skin, a scar tensed over his muscle and tendon.
“You are correct, Mademoiselle, a mage taught in the healing arts did once cast a spell on my living flesh and blood, mere minutes after a buccaneer’s cleaver had cut down to and into my bone.”
As it was obvious he would not raise his voice again in such a manner as before, Meredith exhaled.
The Professor lowered his arm again. “But all of this was done by a trained and accomplished healer of the League of Exalted Academies who knew to not just tame my volit viva but also use it to guide the healing process, which is of course my flesh’ living will to do. This permission is granted only to the most trustworthy and disciplined of mages who can tame the volit viva like a rider can tame a wild stallion. Those who are allowed this know so. You are not allowed.” He pulled his sleeve back down. “Now sit back down, Mademoiselle and do not dare to interrupt me again, even with such fitting questions. Here on this continent, you raise your hand and wait for me to call you up, not babble into the midst like in some dirty hut. Wear your robes with appropriate countenance.”
Meredith nodded and brought forth a half-choked. “Yes, Professor Sir.” Then she sat back down and while she had her head hanging, Carryl looked to Nannade and it seemed to both of them that they understood the same thing: this would not be the first misconduct of etiquette that Meredith would have to face.
Professor Tominet resumed his lecture. “Now, we come to the next type of abominable magic: Soul magic.” Again his chalk wrote the subject on the board, but he did not summon another canvas from the cabinet immediately. “The question what the soul is, is more than just somewhat difficult to answer. What we know for sure is that its presence and wholeness is required to have free will and that it so far has not been successfully described in its entirety. One could say that as blood flows through our body to grant it animation, so does our soul flow through our mind to grant it free will and that is why to manipulate it is abominable: the sanctity of the mind is violated through this touch of mere mortals, a realm none of us should dare to assume control over.”
Professor Tominet now swirled his staff again and summoned the next canvas from the cabinet. When it unfurled, it showed a man in a dark robe standing in a crypt, sending tendrils of green light over the bones in a sarcophagus pried open like a treasure chest.
“Necromancy is one of the most well-known forms of soul magic and it does not matter whether the necromancer fashions a facsimile of a soul from the bodily remains it once inhabited or whether he assumes control over a still living one, it is abominable in all cases. Neither the necromancer nor we have a full understanding of the soul, but we do not need to understand fire to know its danger and we do not need to know the intentions of the perpetrator to condemn his actions.”
A new canvas flew forth and unfurled, this one showed a woman being enthralled by the same kind of glowing tendrils sent forth by a similar mage in a dark robe, the eyes of the dominated woman being void of pupils or direction as she cast off her robes before the mage. “Subduing a soul might have once been seen as permissible in some circles of mages; some saw it fit that the mind of a gifted individual should dominate the mind of an ungifted one, or that the more timid souls of animals should be subdued so that they may serve man better, but eventually, the whole will of the League prevailed and this practice was forbidden in its entirety.”
He turned back to the board.
“But this too, is with one exception.”
Instead of throwing his chalk at the board for it to write by itself, he used his staff in wide-sweeping strokes to instead direct it himself. With these movements, he made a sign consisting of just a few lines and immediately recognizable by anyone with eyes. Its meaning was immediately apparent to Carryl and would have been so even if she had never seen it before: The brand of the Sinner.
“The brand of the sinner is universal. The Church of Her Holy Radiance calls it the shadow of Her wrath, the cultures of Lmakahir call it the mark of truth. How it works, no one knows, where it comes from no one knows, but what we do know is that if it is imprinted onto someone’s forehead, they are forever marked in the depths of their souls with their sin. They cannot deny it, they must answer when asked about it, but they are also protected from any further punishment of it, all of which can be seen as violations of free will, which is why the League of Exalted Academies only applies it after long deliberation and only to spare death in an act of great mercy. Nonetheless, even the study of this symbol is restricted to only the most worthy scholars that have proven that they can delve into these depths. Some may say it is important to discover the truth about a symbol that is seemingly so fundamental to our very world, but moral purity in the most powerful is more important than the power itself.”
He commanded an eraser to wipe away the symbol and a slight sigh went up from the lecture hall, like a thorn being pulled out of a finger.
“Let us now come to the last abominable magic: daimonic dealings.” The next canvas presented itself as all the previous had and this one showed a woman kneeling with her back to the observer before a pillar of smoke that rose from a circle of runes on the ground. From the smoke, glowing red eyes and many horns penetrated as if from another realm. The woman opened her clothing to the being in the smoke like an offer. “What exactly the beings from beyond the veil are is impossible to know, for they are not part of our reality, they are their own and that is exactly why you should not deal with them. Only those born with the elusive mystic gift may even perceive them with any ounce of truth to it and converse with them. To all else, it will seem like you understand them, when in reality, they are merely snaking their thoughts into your head. They will offer you knowledge and power in return for fulilling their demands, eventually offering you a final blessing that would see you become eternally powerful. But in truth, it is their path to their ultimate goal: ingress into our material world, so that they can feed off the life force of the living to fill their bottomless hunger.”
Professor Tominet summoned forth the next canvas. It showed a simplistic diagram of various beings partly human: A man assuming the guise of a wolf, a naked woman with wings and a long tongue, a gnarly little man with long arms and claws on hands and feet, a creature with hooves and horns, a skeletal horse fused to its rider; all creatures Carryl recognized from stories and legends, monsters that needed to be hunted down and killed.
"Werewolves, succubae, fosseggrim, nuckelavee, many pacts have been made and many monstrosities slain. These creatures are feared, but they have no remnants of their former souls, they are merely monstrosities, not even deserving of the mercy and forgiveness that a wild wolf wou-”
“IIIIEEEEEEEH!”
A sound from right behind Carryl tore through the lecture hall. All eyes turned around and saw a female student in the row behind them standing up, almsot crawling up backwards the row behind her, pointing forward. “SNAKE! A SNAKE IS THERE!” She pointed right at Nannade’s collar, where a small, mottled-brown head of an adder poked out from beneath her robes, surveying the room. “GET IT AWAY FROM ME!”
Nannade turned her head only slowly, her eyes weighed with annoyance. Before she could speak to the girl, Professor Tominet had already spoken up.
“Mademoiselle Nannade of Sturreland, is it? I was told of your attendance.”
Nannade got up, nodded and bowed. “Yes, Professor.”
“Do you care to explain this? It is a rather fitting point in my lecture.” The Professor’s voice had a playful intonation, not a scolding one.
Nannade sighed and pulled the snake gently from beneath her robes to then hold it aloft for all to see. The snake flicked her tongue into all direction as it turned its head around the lecture hall, warranting many interested gazes from the other students, merely the girl behind them was still in trepidation. “This is Ssil, my familiar. She is not dangerous or beastial, She is quite timid and will not go against my wishes. Anyone could hold Her and be in no danger. There is nothing to fea-“
“May I hold her?”
Meredith’s voice surprised Nannade. She blinked once, twice stupefied.
“What?”
“You said anyone could hold her. May I?”
Nannade lowered her arm to Meredith. “Sure. Go ahead.” The snake slithered off onto Meredith’s outstretched hands where she curled up into a spiral. Then Nannade turned to the girl behind her. “See? No danger. You can stop your....” she made a gesture without meaning towards the girl. “You can stop behaving like that now.”
The girl followed only hesitantly, still leaning back away from the snake that had crawled up Meredith’s sleeve, much to the latter's delight.
The Professor assumed control of the lecture hall again. “Thank you Mademoiselle Nannade, you may sit.” Once she had, he addressed the students again. “The druids and seers of the Lodge of Sturreland are trusted by the Exalted Academies. They have taken up the practice of binding spirits of nature into their native vessels and bind them to the will of the medium in question, such as Mademoiselle Nannade here. The Exalted Academies allow this form of dealing with daimones because it fulfils three important requirements: First, it does not twist flesh, for the spirit is in a body pertaining to its nature and nourished by it as a normal animal would. Second, it guarantees subservience to the medium in question because the binding is performed not with blood but with a portion of their mind. Third, it is not permanent, as with the death of the medium, the mind releases the familiar back into immaterialism.”
Carryl looked at Nannade and saw that she was raising her eyebrows. ”What is it? Is he not right?”
Nannade was surprised, as if she had not thought she would be caught. “Well... he left out a few things. It’s nothing important, I guess.”
“Such as?”
“Oooh... I have met familiars that are plants, not animals, so that’s a possibility.”
Meredith meanwhile was delighted by the snake poking her head out of her collar now. “Plants? Like talking trees?”
“Not like that, but sort of.”
A stomp of the Professor’s staff on the stage shut Nannade’s whispers up and he continued.
“The punishments you may face are harsh, not despite but exactly because you stand under the special jurisdiction of the League of Exalted Academies. We would not be able to justify our status if we did not make sure to apply it justly and appropriately.”
Carryl tried to pay attention, but her thoughts drifted off. She did not think that Nannade’s answer was sincere, or the whole truth. Could they actually trust this girl? Had she not exploded at Carryl at the dormitory, she might have been interested in talking to this person for various reasons. People of Sturreland had no reason to visit Halonnes University, the Lodge trained their mages and seers themselves, but she seems to be without a seal from the Lodge, so she had not gone through this education. Her race was another oddity. Crolachans were rare in Sturreland, almost nonexistent. Their kind was much more common on the Gimean island or the western mountains of the continent, maybe a few wandered inland from there, but her name, Nannade, fit no culture on all of Ackarom, it was definitely from Nagnastam, that island home of her kin to the far west. And then why should a bearer of the ymstic gift from there go to Sturreland, be educated partially there and then attend Halonnes University. None of it made sense. She looked at the crolachan, the way her earstwitche dleft and right, turning into all directions but forward, as if she was not entirely listening to the lecture. Then Carryl remembered words she had once spied her father speaking.
“Damn those savages.” It had been late at night, past her bedtime, and little Carryl had snuck out to wander the halls on naked feet. Through the slit of the door, a line of light had fallen onto thec carpet of the dark stone corridor. “They dare do this to me? Every time I want to move even a single messenger through their blighted lands, they crawl from the woodworks like bugbears.” If there was one thing Carryl ever saw her father get angry at it was being amde to ask someone else for permission. He hated that more than losing a battle. “They talk all high and mighty about their idols and demons, believe they can tell the future when they just dance to the tune of their own shadows on the wall. Then they cover themselves in blood and mud and fornicate in their forests and swamps like animals!” At that point, he had pounded the desk so hard it made little Carryl jump. “The League should allow me to gather my armies finally and stomp some civilisation into the dark spot on the map! Tear their backwards ways from the valleys and make them actually use the vastness of lumber and ore they squat on!” Then he had thrown something.
The Lady Mother had then spoken up. “You could pay this tribute every day of every year to the end of your reign and not come close to the cost of a war like that. If the old Pliranti knew to leave them alone then you should hold to their wisdom.”
After that, the talk devolved into politics and history that little Carryl did not yet have the education to understand, but she did try to look up what fornicate meant in the library the next day. She did not ask her mother because she knew when words were not meant for her.
“Is something the matter?”
Carryl awoke from her thoughts as Nannade addressed her.
“Pardon me?”
“You keep staring at me like that?”
Carryl’s mind stumbled and tumbled in search for an answer. “I guess I... I just never saw a crolachan up close. At least not a woman one, I suppose.”
Nannade seemed not convinced by that answer but turned back to the lecture nonetheless and Carryl tried to follow, but could not. Cases of abominable magics or other crimes committed with magic, their punishments, and much more. Cases meant to serve as examples to the yet young mages to be.
When the lecture was over, Nannade, Carryl and Meredith left their mantles on their places, to mark thema s theirs, while pushing to enjoy the sun of the summer during their short break. Despite the snake still being underneath Meredith’s clothes, the girl behind them leaned away and stayed clear of Nannade, as if it was the crolachan herself that could strike out and bite her at any moment.
The three of them found a spot beneatha tree at the edge of the campus green. Meredith was still deeply fascinated with letting the snake crawl over her arms. Nannade sat somewhat distant from them and Carryl enjoyed the sun. She thought she would just read in her book some more, but the fatigue of getting up so early drove her to simply enjoy the sun on her face instead.
“Say Nannade.” Meredith spoke, not taking her eyes off the snake. “What does a familiar actually do? What’s her purpose to you?”
Nannade inched only little closer. “Many things, I suppose. Think of her not unlike a pet. Like a dog that helps a shepherd to keep his flock under control, look for lost lambs and scare off wolves. He could do all these things himself with some more effort, but the dog is simply better at it. Similarly, a familiar can do such things for me in the spirit realm without me having to immerse myself there first. It allows me to focus on the real world while she keeps watch.”
Meredith hung at Nannade’s lips and Carryl could not withdraw herself either, still too tired to ask questions herself.
"So then, Nannade, why a snake then? Why not a cat, or a raven? Or do you not choose that at all?”
Nannade remained silent for a while. “Well,... it’s really har dto explain.” She scratched her neck and when Carryl looked, she saw that the crolachan’s claws had been cut and filed down to nubs, undoubtedly in response to their unfortunate clash the day before. “No, a medium does not really choose their familiar, but they also do. A spirit and a medium are attracted to one another. I guess I like hiding and observing, similar to a snake. But the witch that did train me had a cat herself as a familiar and they always thought I would come have a cat too, but... things turned out different. Some might say having a flying messenger at your disposal is more powerful, but I have no issue with her. She remains hidden much better. Imagine if I sat in the lecture hall with a bird on my shoulder.” She snickered, an odd sound with a hoarse note to it.
Carryl thought about that mention. A flying messenger. And her previous remark about plants as familiars. She could not stop herself from asking. “If any bird or any plant could be a familiar, does that mean, that in Sturreland, everything could be a spy of the Lodge?”
Nannade grinned at that question, bearing ehr shiny white fangs at Carryl in a way that seemed almost threatening. “Oh, that is a question of a king’s daughter, is it not?” She added a glint to her grin.
“What is that supposed to mean? Are you belittling me?”
“Of course not, daughter of King Maoldonaich III, on the contrary, your awareness praises your bloodline. I can tell you this much: whether it were the colonial spearhead of your own nation’s efforts or those of the patricians of old Pliranti, they all failed to gain a significant hold for the same reason: Because they did not realize that it was not the rulers of Sturreland they were fighting, or even the people of Sturreland, but the land itself. As a centurion of Pliranti once said: Where do you run, when the ground itself is your enemy?” Nannade seemed to say that last part if a perverse form of joy, as if she was revelling in the misfortune of those that were sent to conquer and reap that fertile and rich land.
Carryl wanted to bore deeper into that remark, but the bell of the campus clocktower interrupted them, it was time to return to lectures. Nannade’s smirk was gone, her glint was dull, she was again that odd but not truly abnormal girl.
Meredith handed Nannade back her familiar and pointed to her mane. “Nannade you have to show me how to make those braids.”
Nannade smiled “Sure, tomorrow we got time.” Carryl slowed down and observed the two walk ahead. She felt as if she had intruded upon what had always meant to be a friendship of two.
