Mage Journeyman: Ordained Magic: Book Two, page 12
He’d also targeted water towers for destruction, so several places were not only cut off from the city water supply, but the millions of gallons of water had flooded the area. D.C. was basically a swamp at the moment. The buildings near the towers had been utterly destroyed by the flood.
I figured between all that, which was horrific, and my interview about human sacrifice and demon summoning, mages weren’t exactly being lauded by anyone at the moment. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t fair, it was just how it was, scared and angry people would lump us all in the same pile.
The backlash in riots and protests was just getting started. I hoped the mages in the affected areas took action to clean it all up fast, but I kept telling myself to focus on keeping San Antonio safe and put my efforts in there. They had their own mages, a lot of them, and there was a political aspect in that as well. They weren’t my cities, and the groups there might take offense if I stuck my nose in.
The second reason was I feared not all of Carpenter’s group had been captured or killed. There was no denying that I was the one that ruined their plans. Most people would see that as a good thing, considering what they’d gotten up to, but they wouldn’t. So I was on alert so to speak, if any of his people had survived and were bent on revenge, then there was no doubt they were coming my way.
Hopefully the worst was behind us now, I’d always known it was just a matter of time for the central government to fall in this new age of magic. Between what Carpenter’s group did, and the destruction on their way out, and mage leaders decrying the idea of rebuilding the central government, the United States was pretty much done.
I could see the governors getting together and forming a confederacy of cooperation, but that was probably the best case scenario.
At the moment I had my air elemental flitting between the power stations and water towers, just in case those agents of revenge did exist, they might come after the city before taking me on. It could be at all of them several times a second, so notification of an arriving mage bent on mischief would be immediate.
Perhaps in the future I’d set up alarm wards on those places, looking out for mages of ill intent. It hadn’t been something I’d done yet, simply because I’d never imagined anyone as evil as Carpenter and his if I can’t have it no one can scorched policy.
It was me, Rosa, my mother, Liam on my lap, and Carlos sitting in the living room and watching the media coverage. I also had an active commune spell running with Brett, Violet, and Jessica. We’d probably leave it up for the rest of the day, just to ensure quick response if any of us came under attack.
There was a thunderstorm and despite being summer it was dark as night outside. It didn’t occur to me the storm might be unnatural, not until a staccato barrage of lightning strikes hit the house’s protections, and was safely grounded. I did however feel the magic forming the tornado in the backyard.
I immediately shot off a dispel magic glyph enhanced by raw elemental earth magic, even as I handed Liam to Carlos and had my elemental take me outside. I was sure there was a mage or mages nearby, but they were obviously under a hidden magic spell so I couldn’t detect their aura. Rosa followed me, and Brett, Violet, and Jessica told me through the commune spell they were on the way.
Rosa and I sent out a second dispel into the storm, and while the magic forming it was revealed and ripped away, the storm still went on. It would only naturally dissipate like any other natural thunderstorm at that point.
Two water elementals supported by air magic attacked simultaneously to fire and air spells. Rosa and my shields flickered, and held, barely, with our elemental’s support.
It was coldly sobering to realize my protections would’ve been overwhelmed by the attack, even at three times my power, if I’d been alone. They could’ve killed one of us at a time, but I imagined they never thought we had shields so powerful and effective, not just three times as powerful as my base power, but shields that were efficiently tuned against their attacks.
I immediately enhanced my air elemental with fire and by intent had it attack one of the water elementals, while Rosa did the same. Not so much a pre-meditated plan, as I’d been the one to train my little sister on all things magic. The elementals were around evenly matched, it’d take a long time for a victor to be determined. Which left us plenty of time to directly duel our enemies spell for spell without fear of interruption. Whoever lost, the other side could easily overwhelm their elementals by adding their magic to their elemental’s attacks.
The second attack, an enhanced elemental spell, was easily handled by our protections. The mages out there were strong, but an elemental spell enhanced only came out at one and a half times as powerful, so my protections were more than enough to handle it alone now that their elementals were occupied with ours. Even if they both attacked me now, I was fairly safe from direct magic.
Speaking of indirect magic.
Tracking where the attacks came from revealed my attacker, above us in the clouds. We still couldn’t see them, so I couldn’t target either of them directly. I lifted my hand and cast a spell to greatly enhance the lightning potential with air and earth glyphs, and lightning rose up out of the ground and hit the cloud. All that dirty water vapor made a wonderful conductor, which hit their shields and outlined them for me to see.
The bright coruscating lightning would’ve been blinding, if it hadn’t been for my protection spell, and I followed through with a second spell, as did Anna.
Their protections were enhanced by water, but not doubly enhanced like mine were. Still, more than powerful enough to counter my dispel enhanced by raw elemental fire. Except, Rosa’s dispel was added to my own. The targeted one had their protections stripped away. He immediately recast his protections, but before he could cast the second enhancement spell, both mine and Rosa’s sleep spells nailed him and shattered those renewed protections.
He fell toward the ground.
Brett, Jessica, and Violet showed up a split second later, and launched three spells at the remaining attacker. His shields were overwhelmed and he was knocked out.
A double levitation cast caught the falling men, while Rosa and others finished off the enemy elementals. Then I sent my elemental to get them and bring them down to us.
“Thanks for coming.”
Brett grinned, “It seemed you two had it well in hand.”
I sighed, “We got lucky, it seemed they hadn’t ever conceived of triple power protections before. If they hadn’t been sure they could take us out together, things would’ve gone differently.”
Brett nodded, “True.”
Violet did a double take, “Hey, isn’t that Carpenter and his lieutenant?”
Rosa tilted her head, “He must’ve faked his death with illusion spells when they took down his group in D.C.”
I made a face, that meant he’d personally set off all that destruction in D.C. and along the eastern seaboard.
Brett took out two magic suppression implants, and put them in our quarry.
“I’d hate to be him when news of this gets out.”
I wasn’t a proponent of the idea, but I wasn’t naïve enough not to realize there’d be a ton of mages out for his blood. I wasn’t keen on the idea of protecting him from that vengeance either, not after all he’d done. But I would, if only because Brett would put his life on the line to do so, not to mention it was the right thing to do. Texas still had the death penalty anyway, and people deserved to see him go through the process for closure.
We all headed back into the house, and a quick cleanse spell took care of the water we dragged in, along with the mud on our shoes.
Brett said, “We need to go, but let’s keep up the commune spell until tomorrow morning, just in case others are still loose.”
“Sure, and thanks.”
Him and Violet left to do whatever they had to do.
“Jess, want to join us for dinner?”
Jessica smiled, “Love too.”
The mages did get a handle on it, by dinnertime. The flooded areas were quickly water free, and power was restored within four hours thanks to some earth magic repairing the targeted power stations.
Of course, that didn’t stop the riots or protests, and the invectives leveled against the evil mages. It seemed we were back to square one, though I’d like to believe San Antonio trusted the mage society, there was always one in the crowd. And that one had a very loud voice…
Chapter Fourteen
The next few weeks saw a lot of riots across the continent, with everything going on. Not much else happened, though I’ll mention a few things.
First, I went ahead and warded critical infrastructure areas and buildings, just in case some other sick nut decided to destroy civilization.
Second, my confidence was shaken by the fight with Carpenter, luck and lack of information, along with my preparation, had been what kept me alive that day. A lot of luck, really, which bothered me on a deep level. I’d always been ahead of the curve and rather content in that position, leading the way in magical discovery and teaching others. Carpenter had been very close to my expertise on it, and greater in base power.
Which all came down the fact if I continued to drag my feet and put off communing with the terrifying gods, the next person might match me, or even exceed my level. I came to the conclusion I’d mastered magic, the basics, anyway. One glyph or two glyph spells, enhancements, combinations, compounded, enchantment, and all the rest.
It was past time for me to claim the rest of it, and truly start on my mastery of magic. Though I couldn’t in that moment say what that path would look like, I was sure I’d have a good grasp of it after the communion.
It was Wednesday morning and I was out of the city, by the mage society building. No one else was around, I was the only one there as I sat in the grass behind the building, and cast the commune spell.
All while focusing on the gods, their oppressive and unreasonably powerful auras. The sense of being crushed by them on a metaphysical level, and the intensity of having them focused on me. Nothing was so humbling, as realizing you could be squashed by a bug, quite by accident. Fortunately, I didn’t think the gods of light, neutrality, and darkness made mistakes. At least, not the crushing the life out of a mage on accident mistake.
It felt like hubris to ask for their knowledge, and I felt like a humbled supplicant as the gods appeared before me. It took me a moment to breathe past the lump in my throat so that I could speak.
“If I’m ready for the rest of the knowledge, please teach me.”
My own voice sounded hollow and tinny in this place.
The three gods acted in succession. Unlike last time, nine spells at a time, it was more like I was remembering a whole lot of things I’d forgotten, but of course I’d never known it. They took it in succession. It was more than just the rest of the knowledge of magic, but all the knowledge associated with it.
The rest was the framework. To carry on the language idea, since the glyphs were language in a real way, they not only filled in all the other words, like conjunctions, adverbs, and the like, but also the rules of composition. Magical grammar, if you will.
But it was also far more than that, in a real way I learned that day how the universe really worked, not the science but the essence of it as felt by magic. From the creation of stars and worlds from the god of light, to the raw nature of the universe from neutrality, to decay and entropy from darkness.
That really, just scratched the surface of it. It was profound on a level far past my ability to relate it in words.
The one glyph spells were just beginner magic, the enhancements and all the rest I’d done so far with wards and enchantments, was intermediate magic.
True mastery, or what I now call master spells, are comprised of tens, even hundreds of glyphs for a single spell.
My defenses for instance, was seventeen glyphs with nine control wards. A master spell using conjunctions to join it all together with multiple embedded rules or control wards, would make my protections one spell.
Add more glyphs, lengthen the master spell, and there was no technical limit at all to the power of those protections. Since each glyph within the master spell would be cast with my full power behind it. I could even integrate hidden magic within it, without lessening the power of the spell’s purpose.
It was also extremely complicated, but understanding was implicit in the teaching. It was also true that mastery was required, mostly because it require absolute focus throughout the casting, or the spell could destabilize and possibly cause an explosion.
The first glyph words would define the layout of the spell and containment, so the meat of the spell would be contained and held in abeyance, as more and more functions and actions were added to the spell. The closing glyphs combined the results and then and only then released the spell into being.
The mastery of the universe law part, was that I’d be able to develop master spells to create portals, teleport, and otherwise bend space to my will. Being carried around by an elemental would be a thing of the past.
Of course, I couldn’t just come up with a master spell of hundreds of glyphs off the cuff. It would take time, focus, and forethought, as well as designing the spell which would take time.
Lastly, I quickly came to the conclusion I would never teach these truths, and not just because I was forbidden to do so. I could share master level spells if I wanted to, I could see where that would be useful for others that don’t take the same route I had. But they’d be limited to master spells in a library, if they didn’t commune with the gods and ask for the whole package.
The gods had also laid down some ground rules.
The first was to never speak about them or reveal their existence, or passing on knowledge about them to anyone save who they directed me to.
The second was that the future generations wouldn’t be getting the same dream sequence and intro to magic. It was up to us, the first generation of mages, to teach the basic principles of magic as well as the ward spells. To bring them to mastery of the basic and intermediate magic use, and once seen as masters, we could share master level spells we created, if not the process and knowledge on how to create more.
I supposed that’s where taking an apprentice would come in.
The more mages using magic the more powerful the gods, but I got the idea they didn’t want to be worshipped, revered, or reviled. It was patently obvious to me some are so terrified of the gods, and their reluctance to speak of them is obviously pressed on them from without. Me included.
It seemed likely to me the gods didn’t want anyone suspecting them of doing that. Not because it was wrong, but because for some that knowledge would be harmful to their psyche.
I got the idea not all masters would get an invite to commune with the gods, and further that only a very small percentage of who did would be brave enough to ask for a comprehensive knowledge of magic. The invite would be an opportunity, but only for the clever and brave minded.
I also wasn’t holding my breath on that one, I wouldn’t be asked to extend that invite for years. Since all of the mages in the first generation knew about the gods which was troublesome, none of them needed the invite when they rose to master. They kind of already had it, and all they had to do was ask. It was the second generation of mages that we trained to master, that didn’t know about the gods at all, which would prompt the gods to tell us to make an introduction.
As the commune spell cut off, I also considered what kind of master level spells I’d share. The potential in fact was limitless, but realistically it would be limited by the human mind. The spells could only be so big.
Still, it wouldn’t take me long to blow up San Antonio now, so creating offensive spells on that level seemed like a really bad idea. We were already unrivaled weapons of mass destruction even limited to single or double spell glyphs. Even just for my personal knowledge I decided not to do it, never mind making master spells like that available to anyone else.
I would rebuild my personal protections with a master spell, and greatly increase the power behind those protections, but I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be sharing that one either. It would be undetectable, and able to ramp up in power to defend against any threat. Direct threat, and any indirect ones I include in the master spell, anyway.
Master convenience spells, something useful and not related to combat seemed to be the way to go there. I’d only be sharing those with master level individuals in the mage society, and perhaps I’d share master spells with the leaders of groups that had also reached mastery and let them disseminate them to their people.
Just off hand, I could think of teleportation, portals, replaying memories as three-dimensional illusions with sight, sound, and scent, which would be useful in law enforcement. Record creating from memory via paper and ink or a computer file. A spell to build an entire home from foundation to eaves including water and electric, and all the furniture inside of it with a single master spell.
The simplest master spells like my protections would take hours to map out and write up the spell, and be less than thirty glyphs, while a complicated one would take weeks to plan out, map, and build.
Master spells could also be enchanted, which would be the safer way to cast them, honestly. A loss of focus would mean a pause in enchanting, and not a disastrous imbalance and magical explosion. Of course, an enchanted master spell would be locked into a single purpose without variables.
Although narrowly defined variables were possible, a mage could create an enchantment of teleport, and merely modify the enchanted glyphs relating to the location to teleport to before activating the sequence. That would still be tons faster than casting it a glyph at a time, and it could be done by anyone of master level. I expected teleport and portals to be in the hundreds of glyphs.
Master spells to conjure items, the item you forgot at home, or to duplicate something or even create something from nothing.
The possibilities were endless for master spells of a non-tactical variety, but I’d probably focus on things I’d use in the day to day. One-time spells were a possibility too, based on a rare circumstance and need, but I’m not sure they’d be worth the effort and time involved to make them.
