Tears of Dusk

“After two weeks in the Academy, I hope that you are all now familiar with the school rhythm and well on your way to becoming excellent Pupils,” said Tutor Milwyk.

Despite his age, his voice was still strong enough to be clearly heard across the auditorium. There were twenty or so Pupils present in his class, scattered across the room in groups of two or three. Isyd, as per usual, sat alone in the back of the room next to the window. It was a spot he particularly liked for the light and warmth of the sun.

Chin resting on the palm of his hand, he listened to the lecture of Tutor Milwyk distractedly. The course of Arts: Basic Applications was one of the most important ones within his cursus, but Tutor Milwyk had a habit to go on and on about other topics instead of sticking to teaching his class.

“Anyway, let us move on to the class, shall we,” the old Artyst was saying. “But before I begin, I must make sure that the introduction lessons we’ve been through those past weeks have not been for nothing. Let’s see… Young Leslya, could you enunciate the First Law of the Arts?”

In the front row, a young girl with braided, blond hair stood up. “Yes, Tutor. The First Law is the Law of Ubiquity: “Everything is naturally imbued with the Holy Grace. It can never be created nor destroyed, only altered through the Holy Arts.”

“Thank you, Young Leslya. Hmm… Young Raval, are the Holy Arts the only mechanism by which the Holy Grace can be altered?”

A young man, that did not appear that “young” after a closer look, stood up. “No… er… Some natural processes can also alter the Holy Grace, I think…”

Tutor Milwyk gave him an encouraging smile. “Would you kindly give us some examples of which natural processes?”

Raval shifted on his feet, unable to come up with one.

“That’s alright, Young Raval, thank you,” Tutor Milwyk finally said. “Young Marihan, perhaps you have examples to propose.”

“Yes, Tutor,” a tanned youth answered. “One of those processes is the Graced Osmosis by which humans naturally absorb the ambient Grace in the air and release their own as well.”

“Excellent! Young Boshena, does the Graced Osmosis only occur in humans?”

“I do not know, Tutor Milwyk.”

“Well, the answer is no. The Graced Osmosis occurs with every living organism such as animals or plants. Moving on from the First Law, we arrive at the Second. Young Jadwia, would you so kind as to state it?”

A tiny girl stood up not far from where Isyd sat. “Yes, Tutor. The Second Law of the Arts is the Law of Decay: “All elements of the Arts, once imbued by the Grace, progress inevitably toward dissipation. Thus, no [Spell] can last forever.”

“Very well said, Young Jadwia. Young Letchen, do you have examples in mind of the Second Law being in applications?”

“Er… Isn’t that the reason why we use [Arcane]? Once the [Spells] are written physically, they last longer.”

“Would it be possible to write thus an [Arcane] that makes a [Spell] last forever?”

Letchen hesitated for an instant, searching for the trap in the question. “No, I don’t think it’s possible… It would break the Second Law and the Law of the Arts are unbreakable.”

Tutor Milwyk gave him an appreciating nod. “Indeed, indeed. Calculations say that it is feasible in theory, but the reality is something else entirely… Well, all of this is good, but I feel necessary to ask the fundamental question, the question I should have perhaps started with. Young Isyd, could you explain to us what is the Holy Grace? The definition of Great Artyst Winfhry should do.”

Isyd stood up, but before he could give an answer, another voice rose in the auditorium.

“Excuse me, Tutor Milwyk, but could we move on to more interesting things already. I was told that at the Academy I would master the Arts, not learn things a toddler should know!”

The voice belonged to Olav Kazkan — Isyd had not forgotten the boy’s name after all! He was seated near the front row, surrounded by his friends who followed dutifully everywhere he went and nodded to everything he said.

Tutor Milwyk seemed not to be annoyed by the rude interruption and turned toward Olav with a kind, elderly smile. “I do understand your eagerness, Young Olav, and I am pleased to see it. However, I sincerely believe that my courses regarding the basics of the Arts are necessary. The purpose of the Academy is to teach you the Arts so that you can elevate yourself to greater heights with your knowledge as building blocks. However, no matter how high you go, if the foundations are not solid, everything can and will eventually come crashing down.

“That being said, I hear your complaints, Young Olav, and I agree with you. It is time for us to move on to more serious topics. Remember, any Pupil is free to seek me and ask me questions if one of the subjects discussed in the previous classes is unclear. I would gladly go with you through your notes and check them out. Now… let us begin.”

The old man approached the blackboard behind him and scribbled “The Third Law of the Arts” wide enough for the whole room to see. He used his cane as a pointing stick and tapped the board.

“This will be the cornerstone of this class. While the two previous Laws described the rules behind the functioning of the Arts, the Third Law informs us how to apply the Arts. Once again, I will go with the definition of Great Artyst Winfhry. The Third Law is the Law of Hierarchy: ‘Every [Spell] can be broken down into its composing [Spells] which themselves can be broken down further until what is left are the Commands.’ It is a mouthful and I do not expect all of you to understand immediately the implication of this Law, so I shall demonstrate.”

Tutor Milwyk extended his cane and drew a circle in the air. Blue light followed the movement and formed a circle in which the [Spell] appeared. It flashed once then appeared a spear made entirely out of pure ice. Tutor Milwyk caught it mid-air and showed it to his students for all to see.

“This is a simple [Spell] called [Ice Spear],” he said. “I drew the [Spell] but it may have been too fast for most of you to see it. We will use it as an example and deconstruct it together. First, I must talk about the Classical Essences by which the Grace can express itself. Those are Fire, Air, Water and Earth. Most [Spells] will express themselves in the form of a combination of those Essences. In our case, the [Ice Spear] is Water, thus it will be the main Essence of the [Spell].”

With chalk, he drew a triangle upside down, the symbol of the Water Essence, then added two concentric circles around it. “Now let us talk about the Commands: those are the most basic powers by which you can interact with the Holy Grace. Every [Spell] you have seen, no matter how easy or complex, was simply the combination of those Commands. They are the words, the [Spells] are the phrases and the Arts is the language. The Commands you need to know are [STORE], [ADD], [SUBSTRACT], [RELEASE] and [SHAPE]. I believe that those names are self-explanatory regarding their effects on the Grace. Each Command has a symbol and it is as much the geometric arrangement of the symbols as the Grace that make [Spells] possible.

“Keeping the Commands in mind, we can return to the [Ice Spear] and dissect it further. The Water Essence is the cornerstone of the [Spell] thus it stands in the centre. Then we need to gather the Holy Grace that will fuel the [Spell], thus I draw the Command [STORE] around the triangle; it is the two circles you see there. The [STORE] will concentrate the Grace in the centre. From that point, it must be transformed into the Water Essence, thus I draw the Command [SHAPE] going from the centre to the corners of the triangle. As you can see, the symbol of [SHAPE] is a straight line ending in a U-shape. Now that we have water, we must turn it into ice. This is done with the Command [SUBSTRACT]; we will remove heat from the water until it turns solid. Pay attention, the symbols for [SUBSTRACT] and [ADD] are quite similar and a mistake is quickly made! Both Commands are invoked with the drawing of an arc of a circle, but the [SUBSTRACT] is oriented outward while the [ADD] is oriented toward the centre. In our case, the [SUBSTRACT] will only touch the edges of the [STORE] circle. We still need to specify what to [SUBSTRACT]. We will do so by drawing a line at each corner of the triangle to make appear three smaller triangles; they are the symbol of the Fire Essence and represent in our case the heat removed. Congratulations, you just materialized ice. But [Ice Spear] is not quite complete, we still need to transform this ice into a spear. Again, we will use the Command [SHAPE] for this; the same symbol but smaller and drawn from the tips of the large triangle and going along its sides. Perfect! Finally, the ice is shaped into a spear. All that is left to do is to make it appear or in other words [RELEASE] it from the [Spell] into a physical form. The symbol of the [RELEASE] Command is a darkened circle and a straight line. One could be enough, but we draw six of them to form a hexagon for the sake of Balance. There, you have it! [Ice Spear]!”

All the Pupils were frantically trying to copy and take notes from the drawing in a religious silence. Isyd just watched attentively. It was an easy [Spell] that most people were familiar with. If not the [Ice Spear] specifically, they knew at least a variant of it that followed the same Command Logic. Personally, he wouldn’t have drawn that Spell that way. It had good Balance and was geometrically sound, but it made it more difficult to memorize. In battle, you didn’t have the time to remember precisely what a [Spell] looked like, you just reached for whatever came to your mind. In that sense, the simpler the [Spell], the better it was.

“Now it is time for the question!” Tutor Milwyk said. “Young Boshena?”

“Excuse me, Tutor, but isn’t this [Ice Spear] a [Hex] instead of a [Spell]?”

The old man’s smile was wide. “Good question, Young Boshena! You are entirely correct and I congratulate you for noticing. Indeed, [Ice Spear] would be classified as [Hex] composed of two [Spells]: the first is to materialize ice and the second to shape this ice into a spear. Conventions want us to name anything that is the combination of more than one [Spell] as a [Hex], but you can still use the two words interchangeably. I have now a question of my own: does anyone know how we call the process of combining [Spells] into [Hexes]? Young Kondrad, maybe?”

"I believe we call it Meshing, Tutor,” a dark-haired youth answered.

“That is correct! In the same way, gears are meshed together to drive complex mechanisms, you will Mesh [Spells] together into more powerful [Hexes]. Any other questions? Yes, Young Tatyana?”

“How is it possible to cast quick [Spells] if they demanded so much precision in their drawings?”

“Great question! The easy answer would be experience, but the real answer is something called the Idpulse. It’s a fancy expression to describe the unconscious way by which the Grace will express itself through you. The Idpulse is a force of its own in each Artysta and only grows stronger as you get more and more experienced. As you have seen in my first casting of the [Ice Spear], I do not need to draw the entire [Spell] but only the outline of it. It is because I am so familiar with the [Spell] that as I was casting it, the Grace flowing through me knew intuitively what I wanted and took shape on its own.”

The girl named Boshena rose her hand again. “Does it mean that it is possible to cast a [Spell] without having to draw it?”

“It is possible indeed, but extremely hard. It demands familiarity and experience that only a few possess. It took me around a decade for the Idpulse of [Ice Spear] to get to this point.”

“How do we improve this Idpulse, Tutor?” the man named Raval asked.

“We will discuss it more in the future classes, but I can tell you that most of it comes down to practice. It is often compared to muscle memory: the more you cast a [Spell] the more you get familiar with its shape, with its feels, with the intricacies of the Grace for this particular combination of Commands. You will tweak and adjust the [Spell] to your personal preference, either consciously or unconsciously, until it fits you best and then one day, you will realize that you can cast it without even lifting a finger.”

A wave of excited whispers spread through the crowd of Pupils. Casting a [Spell] without doing anything? Now, that was a thing of legend!

“Any more questions?” Tutor Milwyk said. “No? Well, you can still come to me later on if needs be. For now, I think that it is time for us to practice what we just learned. It will help you familiarize yourself with the Commands. Let us see… Young Isyd, would you be so kind to come in front of the class and try to perform the [Spell]?”

Isyd got up and headed to the professor’s rostrum.

“Maybe another Pupil can come as well… Any volunteer? Oh, yes, Young Olav, you seem eager! Please come as well. Two Pupils are better than one; it will offer a nice comparison for us to discuss. Since you all passed the examination, it is assumed that you are all able to sense and channel the Grace. I will ask you to cast a [Spell]. The best would be the [Ice Spear], but any other [Spell] of the same level should do. Do not fear to fail, you are all here to learn and any mistakes you can make is an opportunity to grow.”

Isyd nodded. This should be easy enough. He was about to cast the [Spell] when Olav stepped in front of him and gave him a sardonic smile.

“Nice opportunity to show you the difference between the two of us, Peasant!” the boy said for only Isyd to hear.

Isyd rose an eyebrow and his lips twitched.

Well, he wasn’t one to refuse a challenge…