Page 46 of The Sundered Realms

I wonder how many underwater species we lost in the Sundering. But I also wonder if those that remain feel the limits of the space now available to them like a fish in a bowl.

Liris’ first class was an introductory intensive workshop. She sat high up toward the back of the lecture hall so she could see how other students behaved.

It was her first day without Vhannor, and she was not going to mess up.

She hadn’t had a chance to take stock of much in Embhullor yet: most of her time since meeting Princess Nysia had involved filling out forms and, back at Shry’s house, creating more teaching materials for Thyrasel. While learning spellcasting was important, that was the one task she couldn’t let slip: both for demon hunting reasons and to prove she was worth the icy Lord of Embhullor’s professed faith.

“Why do spells use patterns?” the lecturer asked.

Liris watched several students lift a single arm in the air, and the lecturer pointed at a few of them to offer theories. So, that was the proper way of responding, though apparently none of them was correct. But it didn’t look like there were any consequences for that; at least not immediately.

The lecturer continued, “A spell, ultimately, is an action. The easiest thing in the world for magic to do is move, and change. So why doesn’t it?”

Another round of answers, and this time a student got it right. “Exactly: Magic exists everywhere within the Sundered Realms, but it’s spells that shape it to purpose. Which means that lacking human will, it doesn’t do anything.

“A spell is will made manifest. In theory, a spell can do anything; in practice, it is constrained by two things. Yes, that’s right: power and specificity, both of which are determined by the complexity of the pattern.”

Other students began writing on their pads, but Liris wasn’t sure what—she focused on processing.

Effectively, the more difficult the spell pattern was to create, the more powerful it was. But the other component a spell needed was specificity.

A very specific task might not take much power: the challenge was figuring out how to express the goal specifically enough for it to actually work at all. Whereas a vaguer goal—say, “shield”—was so abstract it would require huge amounts of power. Spells were usually constructed around a language for the specificity and incorporated additional layers for the power.

Thyrasel was such good bait for a caster because it had all that at once.

Half an hour into the lecture, the doors to the hall burst open. The woman who entered strode confidently to the front carrying a small board that Liris identified after a stunned moment as a skimmer.

Liris had never seen one in person before.

It was unobtrusive, an innocuous board a person could hold in one hand that folded up even smaller, with foot holds and a raised circle in the center to key the controlling spell pad to. But while it was inconspicuous in theory, seeing a device that enabled a person to fly, hovering off the ground above earth and sea alike, made Liris feel like someone had landed a kick right to her head.

Skimmers were rare and horrendously expensive, which was the reason Serenthuar didn’t have any—and didn’t have the raw materials to make their own—because of the incredible complexity of spellwork to make them work.

But they also required advanced spell licenses to use, which meant this person was a caster, and probably one with a high clearance level.

That could be her.

After the visitor conferred with the lecturer, they turned back and addressed the whispering class.

“We have a special exercise for you now,” the lecturer announced.

Liris sat forward.

By the new thrum of excitement in the air most of the room appeared to already know what this was, but thankfully the lecturer explained while the woman began sketching a pattern on the paper behind the lecturer’s head. Liris squinted. That looked familiar...

“Occasionally a deployed field team can’t identify part of the pattern,” the lecturer explained.

The stranger with the skimmer was a field operative.

Like Liris was going to be.

She’d always hoped to be a passenger on a skimmer someday, once the spellcraft advanced enough to make that possible, but it occurred to her for the first time that she could learn to fly her own.

The lecturer continued, “The field teams send these questions back to Special Operations. If a student at the University of Embhullor can identify the pattern faster than the research division, their reward is to accompany the team back to the field to observe the mission firsthand.”

Perfect. Time to start proving she was prepared to be Vhannor’s partner.

And maybe get her own skimmer.

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