The chieftain held out a small, cream-colored rectangle with her name and Warg Incorporated’s address stamped on it.
“Uh, thank you,” said Mrs. Hrurk, patting her pockets even though she knew she didn’t have a card to offer back.
“The home you spoke of running does not seem a good use of your power, noble as it is,” said Asherzu. “I would be honored to have you at my side. Send a sprite to our office should you wish to have a new job.”
Feista was stunned. A tumult of thoughts swam in her mind, but the ones that bubbled up to her mouth were all a litany of excuses that she stammered to the chieftain; she had the pups to think of, and the people at the home relied upon her, and the renovations in the kitchen needed constant attention, and—
Asherzu dismissed these concerns with a wave of her hand. “Yes, surely each of us has a destiny to attend to,” the Orcess said. “Call upon me if ever you decide to seize the one awaiting you in finance.”
“When observed from a close perspective, how can destiny be distinguished from coincidence?”
Jynn Ur’Mayan posed the question to a small, plain room crammed with desks, most of which were occupied with students in gray robes. The omnimancers-in-training took notes in small ledgers as the archmage lectured.
“Up close, fate looks like tiny connections. Moments of serendipity. Tragic accidents. And yes, coincidences large and small,” Jynn continued, pacing back and forth in front of the students. “Yet theoretically, from a distance, one could see a continuous chain running through otherwise disparate events to a planned conclusion. Time streams toward these destinations as though through grooves in the great loom, and it takes tectonic forces to change the fates of those caught in the stream. Across history, there have been few people who have tried to harness such powers.”
A student near the front of the class raised her hand. “The Order of Twilight?”
“Indeed, Miss Sabrin, to some degree.” Jynn gave a small smile. “In its heyday, our order dabbled in low magic. But they learned well not to toy with it lightly after they saw the folly of their predecessors.”
A few of the more advanced omnimancers in the room sucked their teeth and raised their eyebrows. “The Sten?” a young wizard ventured.
“Quite right, Mr. Brightstar.” Jynn stepped in front of the large table covered in a wide variety of esoteric devices, stone totems, wands of varying lengths and shapes, and a few items covered with heavy gray blankets. “According to the early work of Nephan, the Sten believed that Arth and its destiny were inexorably woven together. As water erodes a stone, so stone becomes a channel for the river, and so the river carves a canyon. The cause and the effect shape one another. Thus, the Sten believed that by shaping Arth, they could shape their fate.” From the table, the archmage picked up a small, granite totem carved in the shape of a turtle with a tree etched into its back. “They made spirit stones to attract the souls of the dead and speak with the voices of their ancestors.” He nodded toward a twisting array of copper tubes wrapped around colorful crystals. “And they crafted subtle tools to change the flow of fate, and bring them better fortune.”
“Didn’t many ancient peoples make grave markers and good luck charms?” asked a skeptical mage from the back of the class.
Jynn’s smile turned brittle as the class tittered. “Many cultures did, Miss Wardraxon—”
“Wardroxan.”
“Selena,” Jynn amended. He often had difficulty pronouncing names from Faespar. “Still, there is reason to believe those made by the Sten actually brought them great fortune.”
“Before they were wiped out.” The young woman’s skepticism was evident.
“During the eons they reigned over Arth, yes,” said the archmage.
It was Selena’s turn to look nonplussed. “Even if they were fortunate during that time, how do you know it was low magic and not just random coincidence?”
“That is the question I posed, yes. Low magic is often subtle and hard to detect. But sometimes it isn’t.” He paused for dramatic effect, pulled off one of the cloths draped over a sculpture at the center of the table, and smiled in grim satisfaction as a couple of students gasped.
It looked like a copse of tiny trees, carved from black granite and arranged on a stone serving platter. Branches stuck out from the spindly trunks at precise angles and merged into others. A black sphere hovered in the center of the miniature wood, flat and featureless save for a faint blue light that glimmered at the edge of the orb. The sphere intersected the trunks and branches perfectly, so that it looked like a careless god had neglected to mend a hole in reality.
“This,” said Jynn, “is a prophetic vault. It doesn’t react to high magic, and no force can move it from its position amidst the sculpted branches. No scrying can see the inside. It has been sealed for over a week, and its contents will remain locked within, held exactly as they were until the prophecy I wrote comes true.”
“What did you prophesy?” asked Meryl Sabrin.
“‘Upon the gong, as our time in course wanes, the seeker of answers shall stand and wait, and so the vault shall open again,’” Jynn answered.
Confusion and distaste pulled Balorox Brightstar’s features toward the center of his round face, scrunching it into a puzzled scowl. “That could mean anything.”
“Exactly!” Jynn beamed. “Note the esoteric language creates plausible fulfillability, allowing for multiple scenarios where the prophecy could successfully be completed. It also creates uncertainty in the listener, which helps diffuse Novian counterforces and defend against competing prophecy.”
“Competing prophecy?” Meryl asked.
“Of course,” said Jynn. “Just as surely as wizards duel with fireballs and lightning bolts and other forms of high magic, the masters of low magic once clashed to shape the future with prophecies and counter-prophecies.”
Fifteen chairs screeched and groaned as fifteen mages in training leaned forward in their seats, drawn to powerful knowledge as moths to a lantern.
Jynn held up his gloved hand, a single finger raised in warning. “But remember, low magic is the power that gods and demons wield through their temples and cults. This is the battleground upon which cosmic forces fight for the world. It is easy to create unintended consequences when you may not see the results for days, or years, or even within your lifetime. And to make an error with low magic, or to attract the wrong attention, can be the unmaking of a mage, or a whole order, or even an entire people.”
“You think that’s what happened to the Sten?” Meryl looked with worry at the table full of arcane apparatuses.
“Who can say?” said Jynn airily. “Hubris can bring the mighty low.”
“So we’re not going to use low magic then?” Selena looked disappointed.
“What? Oh, no. Of course we will.” Jynn chuckled and waved the concern away. The classroom filled with relieved laughter. “But we’ll be very careful. And we have tools to ensure that we won’t run afoul of any existing destinies. A wand of ebony and nornstone, for example, can help us measure the latent fate in our immediate proximity.” He picked up a midnight wand that was so long it nearly extended from the tips of his fingers to his shoulder. He held it out as if bestowing a sword to the class. Midnight runes glimmered along the wand’s length in a blue so deep they could only be discerned from the dark wood by the reflection of the glowstones above. “It should be a small matter to determine if local events are totally mundane”—he pointed to the base of the wand with his free hand—“or the signs of Arth-shaking prophecies that could define the end of the Seventh Age.” Here he indicated the notch at the end of the wand. “All we need to do is channel air and fire to—oop!”
A blinding burst of blue light flashed as soon as the archmage channeled magic into the wand, leaving nothing but a colored smudge across the vision of those who hadn’t closed their eyes fast enough. A thin tendril of black smoke rose off the wand’s tip.
“What does that mean?” asked Balorox.
“It means that many of the Order of Twilight’s relics have stopped functioning after millennia of neglect.” Jynn waved the wand up and down to extinguish any residual flames, then set it back down with a shrug. “Regardless, our use of low magic will be ethical and sensible, and as the next generation of the Twilight Order, we—”
The archmage was interrupted by a sudden flurry of banging on the wall to his side, accompanied by a muffled storm of angry Ruskan.
“One moment,” Jynn told his students with a short-lived smile. He stepped up to the wall, grabbed a broom that seemed to have been propped against it for no other purpose, and banged on the wall with enough fury to match the assailant. “Enough, Mrs. Ur’Kretchen!”
