Millennial Mage

Tala and Rane were about to go test some of their new theories in regards to shared authority and enacting their magics through them when a wolf appeared beside them.

For a fraction of a second, Tala thought that the wolf was massive, fur black as the endless depths of space, the tips of each piece of hair glowing with light like a star within that infinite night.

But when she focused on the wolf with her threefold sight, the creature was barely bigger than a large dog with fur almost wool-like in nature and cloud gray in color. Sparks of intelligence—and likely lightning—danced in the brilliant yellow eyes.

“Greetings, Mistress Tala, Master Rane. You may call me Lerra. My mother has requested that I discuss the nature of your existence with you both, if you are amenable?” Her voice was precise—almost clipped—as she spoke. Unlike other members of the pack, her mouth didn’t move in the slightest as she spoke. Instead, Tala watched in fascination as the wolf carved spellforms to create each sound from raw power, forging a sequence of tiny workings that would produce each desired syllable before they each burned out.

It was so inefficient that it was almost insulting. Except…

She was carving spellforms at the speed of speech. It would have been so much more efficient to create a single working that would generate any word the wielder desired, otherwise waiting unused but ready. That’s essentially what Tala did when she spoke, while fully encased in armor. It wasn’t even that difficult of a spellform, and the magic-in-air spellform was widely known. It should have been trivial for any of the Pack to do, but this one didn’t.

Rane’s mouth was hanging open, seemingly pondering the actual implications as well.

Tala swallowed. “Are you… Is that an illusion? Or are you actually generating individual spells for each syllabic sound of our speech?”

“I am. It is excellent practice for rapid spell creation, don’t you think? It was tedious for the first hundred years or so, but I find that I am quite good at it these days. I find it much more tenable than sacrificing the biological structure of my face, teeth, throat, and neck in order to mimic bi-pedal speech, and it is much more precise than any of the generic workings I could utilize.” Lerra yipped happily, looking rather pleased with herself.

Tala was slowly nodding. “I see… Yes, I can understand how it would be excellent practice…” She glanced toward Rane. “Eh?”

He sighed, then nodded. “We can find time to practice that too. Though, we’ll have to get much, much better at manipulating magic within our auras”

Lerra chuffed before her voice sounded forth once more. “If you do it, do it right. Figure out how to do air manipulation magically, then do that to mimic the sounds you wish to create. Don’t try to only memorize a set of spellforms for what you want to say.”

That made good sense to Tala, and Rane seemed to agree, nodding along.

“Now, the lord and lady of the Hunt have determined that the area in which you are most lacking is in your understanding of existence and your place in it. I am the designated instructor of each member of the Pack, after they have reached maturity. You are both much younger than my usual students, but I think we can make it work.” Her eyes sparked again. “I will have to find something other than a good bit of bloody meat or a satisfying hunt to motivate you with, and that will alter the lesson plans marginally.”

The wolf was clearly joking, and Tala found herself grinning at the non-human humor. “That sounds like an amazing idea. When shall we begin?”

“Now.” Lerra’s body pulsed with a blue power, and they were suddenly elsewhere.

The moon overhead was the same, but they were surrounded by aspen trees rather than the cliffs of the arena and the entrance into Ironhold.

The leaves shivered in the wind, filling the air with a soothing rustle. “There, now. Privacy and peace. Shall we begin?”

Tala and Rane were still reeling, however. They hadn’t even felt the movement, let alone had any ability to resist it, even if they’d had any inclination to do so.

Their own authority over their physical position—and ability to change it—had been entirely disregarded or circumvented. They hadn’t even felt that happening, and Tala at least would have fully expected to, even if she hadn’t been powerful enough to prevent it. She hadn’t.

Vidarra probably helped Lerra.

-It was granted authority in the very least, yeah, but I think the power for the action came from the wolf. The more I observe in here, the more I think that Vidarra and Kit have some major differences, even if they are—or even were—the same species.-

Lerra gave them almost precisely as much time as they needed to get their proverbial feet under themselves. She biased a little long, and Tala wasn’t sure if that meant she was being kind—ensuring they had enough time to be ready to proceed—or insulting—implying that they needed longer to come back to themselves.

Regardless, the wolf sat back on her haunches and asked a simple question, “What are you?”

Rane glanced at Tala, and she shrugged. She was more than fine with him responding first. He looked back to their supposed teacher. “Well, we are bipedal, biological beings usually known as humans. We are gated beings, meaning we carry within ourselves a stable, locationally unfixed passage from the next world—the world of magic—and that allows power to flow through into Zeme. We are Mages of the cycling cities. We are Archons, Bound, Fused, and Refined. We are married, bound and one, body and soul. We are guests here, safe and welcomed.” He paused, giving a faux apologetic smile. “I could continue, but I am unsure if I am giving you the answer you are looking for.”

Lerra snorted. “If you didn’t understand the question, you could have asked for clarification.”

Rane raised an eyebrow. “Really? You wouldn’t have responded to such a request with a comment that I could have given some answer before asking for clarity?”

The wolf grinned in return. “Of course not. That would be unnecessarily combative of me.”

Tala found herself grinning along with the other two at the tone of the lupine instructor.

“Now, you did a rather thorough job of covering parts of who you are. Part of me wants to expose you to the fact that you are physically three-dimensional beings in physically four-dimensional space, but I believe you are already at least partially aware of that.”

Tala raised an eyebrow. “Partially? I think we’re fully aware.”

Rane winced, and she instantly realized that she’d been too definitive. She knew that she had a lot to learn and should have been a bit less all encompassing.

Lerra regarded her for a moment. “Your cloud of little eyes is a clever use of the realities of existence, but it hardly makes you fully aware, child.”

“Then, I am eager to learn.” She could have hedged, but it didn’t seem like that would be necessary.

“It seems like that is hardly the case, but regardless, that is not the subject for today.” Still, she hesitated. “I will say this. Be careful if you tread the fourth dimension. Anything you encounter will have effectively infinitely more mass than you, unless you are anchored in a ‘live layer’ such as Zeme, the Lunar Hunt, or even your own bound space. The laws of existence dictate that four-dimensional things cannot exert their essentially infinite mass within a specific three-dimensional slice—at least not fully—else they’d have ripped apart everything long ago. Even so, when you are unmoored, they are able to bring more of themselves to bear. Even we of the Pack only deal with such things with great care and on purpose. We do not allow ourselves to have such encounters by accident.”

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Tala almost pushed back, but then she remembered all that she had seen stone- and starward of the superficial. The wolf’s advice was sound. “I’ll do my best to remember that.”

“See that you do. Now our actual lesson for today deals with the nature of the soul.” She glanced toward Rane. “Incidentally, that was the answer I was seeking. You are a soul, anchored to and in marginal control over a meat puppet. All else is simple decoration. You are the soul.”

There was a pregnant pause during which Tala and Rane exchanged a look. Tala then cleared her throat. “I mean… yes? That’s not exactly revolutionary. Do most wolves—even those older than us—really need you to tell them this?”

Lerra let out an irritated growl. “No, and most of them are wise enough to realize that I might just be telling them something that they can learn from.”

The two exchanged another look, and Rane shrugged. “I’m game to hear her out.”

Tala huffed a laugh. “Well, of course. I am too.”

“Good. Now, you are both likely thinking that you have souls, and that they are simply one of the most critical parts of you. My understanding is that you have even crossed paths with people who lack a soul. Is that correct?”

Tala nodded. “That’s right.”

“Good. That makes things easier. Such a person is not actually there anymore. Their body is continuing, following the promptings of their biology and neurochemistry. They are incapable of volitional action, outside of that prompted by circumstance, and even that is indistinguishable from complex reaction. But that’s the negative side. As just a soul, what are you really?”

Tala shivered. She’d experienced just that less than two years earlier. “My mental magics are set enough that I have a mind to an extent, though in thinking back on it, I think a large part of that was simply echoing the biology that I was no longer connected to. My mind would have splintered and faded soon enough.”

Lerra regarded her for a long moment. “You had a true out of body experience?”

“I did.”

“This experience will make some of what we have to learn more difficult, but I will address that later. Can you explain it to me?”

“Well, a prisoner severed my soul from by body, but I had deep enough natural magics enhancing and augmenting my mental functions that I was able to think. With that thought, I focused on my perceptions of Reality nodes and my connections to others as well as my iron within my flesh, and as a result I was able to reclaim what was already mine by right.”

Rane gave her a look, blinking a few times. “That was… huh. I suppose that’s essentially correct, even if it was highly abbreviated.”

Tala shrugged. “She can ask questions if she’d like.”

The wolf shook her head slowly, looking contemplative. She asked a few quick clarifying questions—which Tala answered—then sighed. “I agree with your assessment. Your mind would not have survived for too much longer in that circumstance. Part of that is the nature of the human thought process, part is that your memories are still stored external to your self, making you vulnerable, and part is because your soul is not something you readily use.”

Rane frowned. “Hang on. What? If we are considered just a soul, of course our memories are stored ‘outside’ our self. They are in our minds. Are you saying that we should be able to ‘remember’ with our soul?”

Lerra’s teeth showed in clear happiness. “Well inferred. Yes. A properly trained and refined soul should be able to store all of the pertinent parts of your self within itself. That includes your memories, among other things. My understanding is that a passive form of that begins to occur sometime after you humans reach the advancement you call Paragon, and volitional control and utilization of it is required if Reforging is to be anything other than an exercise in tedium.”

Tala knew her mouth was ajar, but she couldn’t be bothered. She’d always assumed that people like Master Xeel just had Archive links like she did, that they simply re-loaded their minds whenever they recreated their own bodies, but now that she actually considered it, that made no sense. Of course that made no sense.

If that were the case, Master Xeel wouldn’t be able to think when he was in the form of light. He would be a mindless beam of energy that would recreate a human when it got to the pre decided location. That isn’t how he worked at all. “Oh, rust the stars… So, you’re saying that you can teach us to store our memories within our souls?”

Rane was rocked back on his heels, clearly deep in thought—or deep in argument with Enar—but he refocused to hear the answer to her question.

Lerra gave a lupine grin incredibly reminiscent of her father. “That is but the first step in the proper use of your true selves. Let me see, human development is different than ours… yes. You speak of crawling when I want to teach you to sprint. You ask after burbling single syllables when I want you to compose poetry on the run. You ask if you will ever stand? I will teach you to dance.”

Tala and Rane glanced at one another seemingly feeling interested and skeptical at the same time.

“Both of you have secondary personalities that you’ve magically created, branching off of your soul, housed within your own mind and your Archive, correct?”

“That’s right.” Rane had answered this time after seeming to contemplate the description.

“Good. They will almost assuredly have an easier time learning this than you, and once they do, your soul will learn how to function in this way, thus letting you do so more easily. It will be like slipping into another’s body and tapping into the muscle memory for certain movements. But first, we need to teach you to perceive your own soul—and if we are very lucky—the souls of others. At the very least, you will be able to perceive each other’s soul, as you are bound.”

Soulsight? To go with our growing perception of authority… that could be quite useful.

-Slag me if that isn’t true.-

Tala grinned back at the wolf. “Alright. How do we start?”

“First, you eat these mushrooms.” A pile of variously colored mushrooms appeared in front of the wolf.

Rane cocked an eyebrow, and Tala tilted her head to the side in confusion. “Are you serious? Mushrooms are pretty awful.”

“What? Don’t want to eat the funny plants?”

Rane shook his head. “No, thank you though. Is it required?”

Lerra sighed. “No… I was told that humans were gullible… It seems I was misinformed.”

Tala gave a half smile. “Oh, you are quite correct, but we’re in the domain of a god-beast. We are going to do our best to not approach anything blindly.”

He huffed a laugh. “Yeah, my wife is correct. There is too much new and different around for us to feel comfortable. This is set up for us to be suspicious.”

“Hmmm…” The wolf tilted her head to one side, contemplating. “I will note that to inform future action. Now, what we do need to do is sit in silence, cutting ourselves off from the outside world. Then, we must picture ourselves.”

That seemed reasonable, so Rane and Tala sat, closing their eyes.

-Do you want me to try this too, or keep an eye out? Or do you want to keep an eye out while I try it alone?-

I think you can try it later, where I really can’t.

-Huh… that’s quite fair. Alright. I’ll keep an eye out and fully cut off your senses.- After a moment, Alat added, -I will let you know if she says anything further.-

Thank you, Alat.

-You’re most welcome.-

Tala almost immediately felt like she was surrounded by nothing. Alat had even cut off her sense of touch and the kinesthetic knowledge of her own body.

She trusted that the alternate interface had her body locked down, otherwise she was quite sure that she’d have splayed out the ground almost immediately.

Lerra’s voice came to her, clearly let through by Alat, “Good. Now, picture yourself.”

Tala did so, imagining how she’d look.

“Now, strip off all that would have changed with age and the passage of time were you not Refined.”

She frowned, removing many of her features that she knew would have shifted.

“Now remove all that could be harmed due to an attack. You are still you, after all, even if injured.”

Tala almost argued that she’d just heal, but even if Alat had given her access to her mouth to voice the objection, she realized that such wasn’t the actual point.

What was left to Tala’s imagining was an odd lump of flesh. “Is that still you? Distinctly you? Add back the sense of you, and I don’t mean any of the parts you took away. Make your imagining undeniably you.”

She was at a loss. How could the blob be her? Then, Lerra’s earlier statement came back. I am my soul. My soul is me.

The remainder of the physical fell away, and she was left with just her gate.

Except… Her gate was the hole into the next world. It wasn’t actually the totality of her soul.

She almost laughed. The gate only existed because her soul was broken.

So, what was her soul? What was she? And how did that fit into who she was to the world around her?

She was the ability to choose. She was the choices she made. She was the emptiness through which power flowed to enact her choices. She was her effect on the world around her.

Her soul resonated with that. She’d articulated the framework of the answer. It was time—finally—to fill in the blanks.