Lore | Magic in Astalor

A drop of ink fell from the student’s quill while she waited for Harren to open his notes.

“How does magic work?” she asked, moving her sleeve away from the wet spot.

Sage Harren rubbed the bridge of his nose. Eleven years teaching this course, and the question still came before he had finished the first diagram.

“Close your notebook,” he said. “You won’t need it.”

She blinked. “But the examination—”

“Won’t ask you how magic works. It will ask you what the Academy claims about how magic works. Those are different questions.”

The Elemental Foundations

He stood and crossed to the blackboard, where a faded diagram showed four symbols arranged in a square: water, fire, earth, air.

“The official teaching is this: every mage commands one element. Some grasp a related element with effort. Opposites remain out of reach. No mage commands both water and fire, or earth and air.” He tapped the diagram. “You will be asked to reproduce this exactly.”

A boy near the window raised his hand without waiting to be called. “My grandmother was a hedge-mage in the eastern provinces. She said the village healer could pull water from a well and light a hearth. Same woman.”

The class stirred. Harren studied the boy for a long moment.

“There are accounts, mostly from before the Second Age, that describe exactly that. The Academy classifies them as folklore.” He turned back to the blackboard. “I doubt your grandmother would welcome that judgment. But I cannot check her account against a healer who left no records.”

“But did she—”

“I wasn’t there. Neither was the Academy. Next topic.”

The first student’s quill hovered, uncertain.

The Art of Spellcasting

“What the Academy does agree on is this: casting requires concentration, precise intonation, and something most people lack.” He held up a hand, cutting off the question he could see forming. “No, I don’t know what that something is. The texts call it aptitude, gift, curse, and infection, depending on who wrote them and when.”

“Hold the rune in mind. Keep the prescribed cadence. An error may injure the caster and those nearby.”

He gestured at the quoted passage, carved into the lecture hall’s stone lintel. “That has been there since the Academy was founded. Note what it doesn’t say: why mistakes are dangerous. Whether the danger comes from the spell itself, from the caster’s body, or from something external that the spell attracts.”

He flicked two fingers toward a candle on the lectern. The wick caught, and a cramp drew his little finger against his palm. He straightened it against the wood.

The flame burned blue.

Harren’s hand dropped. He stared at the candle for a beat too long, then pinched the wick dead between his fingers.

“Three schools of thought on the source of risk. No consensus. Next question.”

No one mentioned the color. If any of them had noticed, they kept it to themselves.

Nature’s Role in Magic

A hand rose from the back. “The components, sir. The stones.”

“Ah.” Harren opened the pouch at his belt. “Herbs and extracts have their advocates. The guilds make much larger claims for stones. You have all seen the advertisements.”

He tipped the pouch over the lectern. Three dull pebbles rolled out.

“These are unworked. A supplier may sell you a hundred before one does anything. The guild manual says a useful stone crumbles after a single casting.”

He picked up the nearest pebble to show the class. Pain closed his fingers around it. He set it down and wiped his wet palm against his robe.

“Examine each stone before sale. Reject spent material. The guild accepts no claim for loss after casting.”

“That is the supplier’s notice, not a finding of this Academy. He may be selling you fuel, a useful material, or gravel. The guilds do fight over deposits; that much appears in the court records.” He used the pouch fabric to scoop up the first pebble. “Ask to see what you are buying.”

Divine Favor and Magic

“The temples offer another account.” He pulled the pouch shut. “Their blessings, they say, amplify magical ability. Prayer matters more than the material in your hand.”

He let the silence stretch.

“I have seen things I cannot explain through elemental theory alone. I have also seen priests take credit for coincidence. Draw your own conclusions.”

The Price of Power

“Practice usually makes casting easier. Read the infirmary records as well as the examination results.” He lowered his voice and glanced at the door.

“Overuse leads to exhaustion. Prolonged overuse leads to worse. The senior texts describe madness, seizures, death. They also describe changes that don’t fit neatly into any of those categories.”

He glanced at his right palm. Flexed it once, as if checking. Then continued.

“The Academy doesn’t encourage students to ask what those changes look like. I’d suggest you ask anyway. Quietly.”

The Eight Schools

Harren turned over his notes and read the Academy’s eight headings. “These are the categories you will be examined on. Arguments about the boundaries can wait until you graduate.”

1. Hydromancy (Water): Healing, purification, manipulation of liquids.
2. Ignimancy (Fire): Combat magic, energy manipulation, purification through flame.
3. Geomancy (Earth): Protection, physical enhancement, manipulation of stone and plant life.
4. Ventomancy (Air): Weather, speed, manipulation of gases.
5. Necromancy: Communication with spirits, manipulation of life force, reanimation. The temples call it forbidden. The Academy calls it restricted. The difference is political.
6. Omencraft: Scrying, prophecy, knowledge from sources the practitioners refuse to name.
7. Evocation: Summoning, conjuration, teleportation. Poorly understood even by its masters.
8. Miragery: False sensory experiences, perception manipulation. Some scholars argue this isn’t magic at all, but a form of madness that happens to be useful.

“The infirmary does not sort its patients under those headings.” He folded the list. “I suggest you visit before choosing a tutor.”

The first student had written beneath the inkblot. Harren could not read the words from the lectern.

He gathered his notes with his left hand, keeping the cramped one beneath the desk.

“If your notebook is open, close it.”

It was.

She did.

“Class dismissed.”

The preceding lecture is attributed to Sage Harren of the Academy’s Third Circle. His tenure ended three years later under circumstances the register calls “administrative leave.” The student copy and the approved lesson plan disagree most sharply in the section on stones.

A pouch containing three unworked stones was found in his lectern after his departure. Two were inert. The disposition of the third is not recorded.

End of Lore 1 — continues in Lore 2: Nothingness and the Second Sun