Completed Initiation

[Ornea]

Initiation
Timestamp: Day 70 Winter 503
Location : The Enclave, in Mount Skyinarta

Ornea is 20 years old. The ancient Ritva finally considers her impatient trainee ready for initiation.

It was silent in the Enclave this winter evening when the metalsmith Ornea arrived there for the meeting with her reimancy teacher, an old woman named Ritva. The wizard had booked one of the rooms there and this was where Ornea’s initiation as wizard and reimancer would finally take place, this very evening. Finally!

Ornea had imagined her initiation to happen in a more dramatic place. But it was typical for Ritva to choose the enclave. This was where they had been meeting for the recurrent lessons during Ornea’s studies of the theory of magic. The enclave, always the enclave, with it’s library and meeting rooms. A scholar’s place, the old wizard’s favorite hangout.

“We will start with the preparations”. Ritva’s voice was like a calm whisper. She sat on one of the chairs, her hands resting on the top of the table in front of her. It was hard to know exactly how old she was. Ritva didn’t tell people, but there wasn’t a single red hair in her white hair and her solemn face was wizened, wrinkled and furrowed, with the hyperpigmentated spots of high age. Her body was thin and frail and she was nearly always complaining that she felt cold, no matter how warm it was in the mountain. This evening she was dressed in her katinu, indoors. Her hands on the table looked gnarled, but mostly fragile.

Ornea knew better that to try to rush her teacher. It she was impatient, the wizard would start a long tirade about the importance of being patient. The energetic and passionate young woman wasn’t particularly patient, and she didn’t want to be scolded for it. And especially she didn’t want to take the risk that Ritva would change her mind and decide that Ornea wasn’t ready for initiation after all. That had happened before. Initiation postponed, orders to return to the library, study more and comtemplate the things she had learnt.

She sat down on a chair and waited for her teacher to start the preparations. The wizard was eccentric and unpredictable and although she was a friendly old woman most of the time she could sometimes be somewhat scary. It was best to not anger her. And the best way to not anger her was to stay calm, show patience, wait. As far as Ornea knew this could be some kind of test. She never felt totally sure of what was going on when she was with Ritva. Never totally sure.

Time passed.

Ornea felt her own heart beat.

Finally the wizard spoke, her voice still low. “First question. What is magic?”

This too was typical for Ritva. She asked the question like she asked to for the first time and like Ornea was an absolute beginner who was tasked with guessing at what magic was. As Ornea was used to it and had expected this kind of thing she wasn't surprised. She had answered this question so many times that she had lost count of it long ago. Still she was asked to answer it again. She knew only one thing; she would answer, with all the knowledge she had after years of theory studies, just to be told that no, she hadn’t understood what magic was. This happened every time. Every time.

Ornea thought of all the explanations she had learnt, all the words, the wizard’s own words. She knew the answer to the question, but Ritva wouldn’t accept it. Normally Ornea would repeat the words she had leant from her teacher despite knowing this predictable outcome. But this evening she felt her patience with the question come to its end. Perhaps it was because Ornea was at edge due to the excitement and the nervosity she felt, both for the initiation and for the risk that Ritva would once again postpone it. Maybe the reason was something else.
But whatever caused it, she felt the words of the right answer die on her tongue and instead she said something else.

...

[Ornea]

The question hung in the air. The old wizard sat silent, waiting for her trainee to answer.

What is magic ...

“You have told me about magic many times” Ornea said. “And you have asked me this question many times. And every time I answer and tell you what I have learnt, exactly the way you have explained it to me, in your own words I took note of and memorize a thousand times. And every time you dismiss the answer and tell me I still have a lot left to understand.”

She made a short pause and searched for words to express what she wanted to say. “And these words, your words, your explanations, are still the only answers that I have, but I already know they are no answer. They are just words. Things you said. Things I heard, or thought I heard, things I thought I understood when I listened to you. But by now I’ve realized that these words are insufficient. You spoke about magic but speaking about magic seems to be like speaking about death. It’s possible to say things about magic, but although the words address magic, they are not describing it for real. “

As she had started, and was already destroying her chances, she could as well continue and say some more, she thought to herself. “All I know is that magic is something else than your explanations and your words. Perhaps I’m unable to understand it. After all this time I have studied it, I feel like I know less about it today than I thought I knew at the time I started at it. I have ended up feeling like there is an answer, but it eludes me and I can’t understand it. To me magic seems to be something unknown and invisible, something beyond the grasp of my mind.”

Ornea sighed, tired of herself and how she was falling short once again. She decided to end her ramblings there, dissatisfied and disappointed with what she had said. “Magic is like death. It has power. But it is impossible to explain in words.”

If she had had a choice. If she could have chosen another teacher and not this impossible old woman who so loved to play her eccentric mind games with her trainee, Ornea would have been a wizard long ago, with magic at her fingertips and wonders within reach. Instead she had been given this ridiculously lengthy training, the riddles, the impossible to answer questions and the wait. There had always been this disturbing feeling of being toyed with and denied things she didn’t even know what they were. But not more. She was done with this now and she would never become a reimancer. Her time and effort had been wasted, her talent coming to nothing. These were the thoughts that came to Ornea’s mind while she waited for Ritva to dismiss her and end the meeting.

“Good” the old wizard said after a while. “You have finally gained insight. You finally understand how little you know and understand. Sometimes your words are not enough. And each time you describe magic in words, it will be like a child’s drawing of a face, reducing something of huge complexity to just a few simple lines. But we will still need words. A simple drawing with a few lines leaves out most of what there is to see of a face, and words leave out most of what there is to know about magic, but it still tells us something. Your words told me something right now. They told me we will go on with the preparations for an initiation, as your way of thinking seems to have matured a bit. Perhaps enough to really be initiated. I can’t know yet. I have more questions for you.”

Ornea looked blankly at her teacher, speechless and surprised.

She had passed some kind of first mysterious test. She felt a feeling of unexpected success and victory, but this would only last until Ritva spoke again.

“The second question” said the wizard. “What is magic?”

...

[Ornea]

What is magic …

Again, this question had been asked, and everything was back to scratch. The wizard had shocked Ornea many times before with her unpredictable and hard to understand words and actions, but she had still been unprepared for this. She had never before had her answer to this question accepted. And she had never before got the same question again. But now it had come back to her, like it didn’t matter at all that she seemed to have succeeded at answering, or so it had seemed.

Her success had been temporary and to be honest she wasn’t totally sure what it had consisted in or if it had even been success. All she knew what that when she had said what came to her mind instead of trying to repeat the words she’d learnt from her teacher, it had led to a new response from the wizard instead of the usual well known dismissal.

So what now ?

It was no idea to go back to answering with the words she had learnt.
And if she repeated what she’d said a few chimes ago, this would most likely take her back to the same question a third time, if the wizard would find it worth the while to ask her a third time. It cold also lead to the initiation preparations being closed and the initiation being postponed again. This was utterly hard to even guess at, as it was meaningless to try to predict what Ritva would say or do.

What is magic ...

Ornea searched for the answer to this question inside herself. She ought to know the answer, as she was attending the preparations for her initiation as reimancer, and it was simply ridiculous that she still wasn’t able to answer this question in a way her teacher would accept. She felt frustrated, to say the least. It would be a lie to say she didn’t ask herself if this was really the way to do an initiation.

She thought of how she had heard stories about how other people were just initiated by some wizard who decided to have a go at them for the sake of it and pow they were initiated whether they wanted it or not. These stories were often terrible and seemed violent and traumatic, but in comparison to Ritva’s methods it had started to seem unpleasant but easy. No long period of training, no enigmatic wizard to plague you with odd things that were hard to get, no unwillingness to share the magic, not withholding of knowledge and power, no particular preparations.

The quick and easy way existed.

But not with Ritva.

Ornea found many answers in her memory. Her memory was full of words, words memorized and stored in order to make her knowledgeable and able to answer questions just like this one. All Ritva’s words were there and Ornea found them, and her own words were there and she found them too, but all those words had turned out to be worthless and proven to take her nowhere.

This was unfair, simply just unfair !

“I cannot answer” she said, and there was a distinct streak of anger in her voice as she wasn’t able to totally conceal the frustration she felt now. “You have asked me this question a thousand times and you keep asking it over and over again, and the answer I give you will never be right, no matter what I am saying. Your own words isn’t the right answer, and my words aren’t right either. I am starting to think there’s no answer that would satisfy you, and I’m starting to feel like you have been pulling my leg for years, just for fun. Why in Ivak’s name can’t you do as other wizard’s do and just initiate me to the art? All you need to do is infuse me with djed, I know as much !”

Ivak, Ivak, she was about to lose her self-control. Ornea reined herself in, not without some effort. If she insulted her teacher this could mean not only the end of this initiation, but possible the end of her reimancy training too. “Forgive me my impatience, I don’t want to be at odds with you” she said. “I will try to answer, although ... but very well.”

Feeling aggressive but turning the aggressivity into a wish to show that she was good enough, Ornea settled for an extremely serious answer. She was going to tell Ritva absolutely everything this time, everything and more. She had nothing to lose. She could as well ramble on and roll out all those words and explanations until the last thing she had to say. And she was going to do it.

“You could say that magic is the art of change. The wizards can use it, not to create tings out of complete nothingness, but to reconstruct and change what already exists and transform it to something new. There are various forms of magic but we use to say there are three main kinds of magic. There’s the personal magic which is called personal because it builds on the wizard’s personal life force, the djed. There’s world magic that builds on knowledge but draws it’s power directly from the world around us and it’s matter, and not from the wizard personally. Finally there’s the magic of the gods, divine magic, which is beyond reach bar for those who are chosen by the gods themselves, and this we call the gnosis of the gods.”

Ritva wasn’t saying anything and her wizened face didn’t reveal anything. She just watched her trainee silently and waited. When Ornea met the wizards calm gaze she felt like the old woman was looking right through her. It was unsettling, but she was used to it, as Ritva’s gaze and her way of seeming to look right through Ornea was one of the few really constant things with the wizard.

Ornea steeled herself and with a feeling of passionate determination she drew breath to continue her recitation of the facts she had learnt about magic so far.

...

[Ornea]

The wizard, old Ritva, said nothing at all. Her calm and piercing gaze rested calmly on her trainee.

Ornea continued to speak about magic.

“Magic isn’t common, but the knowledge about some kinds of magic are a bit more common in relation to more rare forms of magic that are seldom seen in Wind Reach. The forms of magic most often seen are five. These are reimancy, flux, shielding, alchemy and glyphing. The reimancy, the flux and the shielding are what ‘s called personal magic; as I already mentioned this kind of magic uses the wizard’s personal life force, the djed, as it’s starting material. This personal magic comes with a direct risk to the wizard’s soul, which can also be true about the magic the gods bestow on their chosen one’s, it’s said...the personal magic and the divine, both are embedded in the wizard personally, powerful and also dangerous. But Alchemy and glyping are magics of the world, the magic of craft ... “

“Powerful and dangerous” said Ritva, who had suddenly found reason to interrupt Ornea. The old woman’s reply cut Ornea’s recitation short and as she continued her voice too on a tone of voice that could only be called aggressive. “Dangerous and powerful. These are the attributes of the personal magic and even more of the divine, and of the one’s who carry them in their souls and bodies. You know nothing about this, neither the personal magic nor the divine. You know what you have heard and read. Like a parrot, you are enumerating what has been enumerated to you. What do you think you will achieve ? Have I not told you many times before that this will not get you anywhere? Or? Why are you here, and taking up my time, if you aren’t listening to what I’m saying? ”

Ornea groped desperately for something to say before the wizard would cancel the initiation. Her first try to answer had seemed more successful, so she jumped back to her previous reasoning and the wizard’s reaction to it.

“Wait” she said. “I was just looking through the limitations to the knowledge and insight I have gained. I do understand how little I know, as this is mere theory. What I said was that magic is like death, unknown and not possible to understand in theory.“

Sometimes her words were really not enough. But she used them all the same. Necessity is the mother of invention and sometimes it makes people come up with thoughts, insights and ideas they didn’t know they would be able to come up with. This happened to Ornea now, The pressure she was under, and the aggressivity of her teacher, triggered her thoughts and made her speak on about things that she was actually saying for the first time, phrasing as she spoke.

“Djed is the force of life” she said. “The wizard draws on life to create a power that isn’t death, but unknown as death, except to those who carriy it, in their souls and in their bodies. As I don’t know how that is, or how it feels, I can only speculate. But for a start, I imagine all living beings are able to feel they are alive. And this feeling is the common people’s experience of djed, just feeling alive, as something that just is there.”

She had been speaking fast and now she drew her breath again. She felt slightly crazy as she hurried up and spoke again, irrationally feeling like if she could just keep turning her thoughts to words before she even knew what she was going to say and keep the words flowing, she would be able to keep the wizard at bay and avoid a cancellation.

“But how does it feel to a wizard? I can’t know. But I imagine it to be different. The djed would maybe feel the same and maybe like something else. It’s still the same. But it’s also something else as it’s not just life force any more, it’s a power that can be used for deliberate ends, if you have the knowledge to use it the right way. “

The old wizard laughed out loud when she heard this. Her thin body was shaking with unbridled mirth and for a few ticks it looked like she was about to fall from the chair she was sitting on. She laughed and laughed and Ornea found herself just staring helplessly at her teacher. There were moments when the old wizard’s mental health could certainly be questioned, and this was for sure one of those unnerving moments.

“Why are you asking me that question over and over again ?” Ornea said, and the patience in her voice was strained. “You keep asking me about things I know I can’t know. What’s the purpose of going on with it?”

The wizard laughed even harder. “Why do you keep answering ? What’s the purpose of going on with it? “

Ornea had been reining in her annoyment and tried to keep her self-control, but now she felt it slip. Rage flashed up inside her as she retorted angrily: “There is no purpose ! It’s just insane. Crazy! This whole conversation is crazy. Your question is insane. And my answers are nothing else than a total madwoman's ramblings, because another madwoman’s ramblings is what I’m enumerating. Can you hear the echo of your own words, of was everything you ever old me random nonsense? Magic is about being perfectly wacky! Mad, crazy, bonkers and nuts!”

She really was "screaming like a madwoman" at the end of this outburst.

The wizard had stopped laughing and sat there as composed as if nothing had happened. “Now we are speaking” she said solemnly. “Do you still want to be initiated to this madness named magic?”

...

[Ornea]

Did she still want to be initiated to this madness named magic?

The question hung in the air between them.

Several ticks passed.

The old wizard spoke again, repeating what Ornea had said. “Magic is about being perfectly wacky. Insane, crazy, bonkers, nuts.” A far too wide smile spread over her wizened face. “Did you think power over the very reality we live in didn’t have a price? This is the price. It comes with the pontential to make you perfectly wacky. And the initiation means to be changed. Magic is a one way path. Once the initiation is done, and you carry the seed of possible power and risk for madness in your body and soul, there’s no way back.”

Ornea knew this already as it had always been a favorite topic of her teacher. Old Ritva was a true croaker, Ornea thought to herself. But right now, after her own ramblings and tantrum, these so familiar words seemed to have taken on a brand new meaning. Ornea had always assumed madness was only a metaphor, but for the first time she had now started to see that it might actually not be a parable, but literally madness. Real madness.

“But you aren’t crazy” she said in a try to dismiss this notion. “I mean, you lead a normal life and do the same things as everybody else in Wind Reach does. It’s not like you are a madwoman.”

“Am I not?”

“You look sane enough.”

“Do I?”

An odd silence descended over the two women, the thin old crone with the piercing gaze and the white hair, and her energetic and impatient young trainee. The air seemed to move around the wizard, a slight rippling movement, like the ripples on water, though now it was ripples in the air. It was soundless and surreal. And slowly, slowly the air started to take on a dim and foggy quality. It wasn’t sudden and it wasn’t massive. It was just the faint shimmer of a hazy halo around the old crone, the res, which was the visible presence of her djed.

The wizard was calling forth her res. Ornea had seen this before. Nevertheless she felt awed.

“You can see my madness stand out from me like mist in the air around me” whispered Ritva. “You have told me magic is like death. And it is. It’s like death of the one you were before initiation and the one you will be afterwards. And you have told me magic is like a recitation of words you don’t really understand. It is this too. Finally you told me magic is madness. You are right. In which way do you find this meeting and our conversation normal? There’s nothing normal with it. You want power, the kind of power I too have strived for, and just like me you are prepared to offer your soul and body as carriers. Just like me, as I was before the initiation, you know nothing about what it means to carry magic.”

Ornea found this a bit exaggerated as she had been told about this for several years and not a single word of it was new to her. “You have told me about this many times” she said. “You have showed me what you can do with your djed too, many times. You have warned me for absolutely everything. In this way I find our meeting and this conversation totally normal. Repetitively so, even.”

“Normality is repetition. Repetition and to deliver the behaviors, attitudes and thoughts people have seen before and come to expect, is what normality consists of. Habit.” Ritva turned her hands and they rested on the table with the palms turned upwards. The haze that was her res slowly started to gravitate towards her hands like smoke being blown in that direction by an invisible wind. “What can you tell me about habit?”

Ornea wasn’t keen on answering questions again. But she obliged. “Habit makes us stop thinking and take it for granted that there’s only one option for what can happen. Habit makes us expect things to be like they always use to be and it gives us a false feeling of control. Habit is a wizard’s worst enemy, as it makes people lose focus and forget to think, and this opens for the sweet whisper, the wish to use magic for the sake of it. “

While she spoke she watched her teacher. Nearly all the res had gathered in the old wizard’s hands and it looked like she was holding a wobbly globe of fog.

As Ritva didn’t say anything, Ornea continued. “You will need to supervise yourself constantly for the rest of your life, lest you fall for temptation and lose control. Temptation is a sweet whisper, a sweet whisper to give yourself over and bask in the power, it’s always a sweet whisper, this. Some fall for it and overgiving gets them. But even those who are strong of mind will find it hard to never go too far.”

The wizard looked at her. “And this is why it’s important to have a strong mind. Otherwise ...” The old woman shrugged. “I have never asked you why you want to become a user of magic Ornea” she said. “But I’m asking you now. What makes you want it?”

...

[Ornea]

Yes, what made Ornea want to learn to use magic and be initiated to reimancy, really ? She didn’t like this question. It touched upon things that weren’t totally clear to herself, but that felt vaguely dubious and maybe not totally acceptable.

“Magic has reshaped our world” she said after searching for words for a little while. “Magic has reshaped everything the humans and the other races knew in the old times before the Valterran. After hundreds of years they came out of hiding and found a new world, with new continents and oceans, full of new life, new flora and fauna.”

This didn’t give her an answer. Ritva just sat there, silent, and by experience Ornea knew this meant she hadn’t said enough and had to continue. She spoke on and added a bit more. “We, the Inarta, are a product of this huge transformation; though we are human, we are a new kind of humans, with our racial abilitites and our connection to the wind eagles. And change still goes on, albeit slower nowadays. It’s the doing of the gods. But the wizards participate in it; using their knowledge in magic, they develop the world, transform it and change it. They are part of the power which creates the future. They make a difference. And that’s why I want the magic. It would empower me to participate in the creation of the future and make a difference for the world.”

“Power !” said Ritva.

“Power, Ornea! Reimancy is power over the elements. Power to use earth, fire, water and air can be used to destroy things as well as create them. Change and destruction are more closely connected than most people are aware of. It’s often necessary to destroy something existing, in order to create something new. And there’s often no guarantee that new creations will not be destructive. You take it for granted that change is for the better. But what if it isn’t?”

The globe of res started to rotate slowly between the wizards hands, much like a wheel spinning on it’s axis, just more complex as the res seemed to move in all directions at once. Ornea watched it, so fascinated that she nearly didn’t pay any heed to the wizard’s next words.

“Change isn’t like a straight line going from today to the future. It’s like a wheel and it can move two ways and take you up towards the peak of your success or down to the depths of failure. Like the res in my hands, it spins up and down and to the sides and around. How can you even know where you are at the moment and if change will be for the better or for the worse? Perhaps you are just in the beginnings of glorious success and from where you are right now, change will lift you to heights you weren’t even able to imagine. But maybe you are at the peak of your life right now and all change from now on will be for the worse.”

“I’m only twenty and not at the peak of my life in any way” Ornea said, surprised and confused. I have only been counted as adult and out of the Yasi for four years. Four years and avora, most of it as novice apprentice in metalsmithing, no noteworthy achievements in particular, no eagle, no children. It can hardly be called the peak of one’s life! “ She was getting really impatient and wondered silently why Ritva was lingering on this topic for so long time. A true croaker, she was, no less. “Much as I can see that change could be for the worse as well as for the better, I think it best to assume the world will progress and develop and become better and better eventually. Aren’t we all working for this all the time, day after day, trying to improve our lives and our conditions? Isn’t it a good thing to use magic to support this?”

The old wizard sat silent for a while and watched the swirling, spinning res. The silence stretched out and started to feel insufferable to Ornea, but finally her teacher resumed her ramblings.

“You are speaking about good intentions. But good intentions can mean many things. Even evil people can consider themselves to have good intentions, within their own twisted way of thinking. But I get the meaning of what you are saying...you aren’t somebody that would deliberately use magic to be destructive and do damage. At least you aren’t right now. But as I said, change can often destroy something existing, when we create something new. This is also what initiation to reimancy means. In order to create the new wizard, the person you were before will be destroyed and replaced with your new magic infused self. ”

Ornea nodded. “I know that magic changes a person” she said. “You have told me so before, many times. But if there was no magic in the world, what hope would we have to ever make it a better place to live in? Magic, used in a good way, could be used to improve so many things once humanity learns more about it and how to use it. I think this is great. Just think of all the good things one could do. Isn’t this a positive thing? Isn’t positive intentions something good ?“

Ritva could sometimes be utterly hard to persuade regardless of having taken Ornea on as her trainee and her apprentice in reimancy to be. It was like the old woman guarded her knowledge about magic jealously and resented sharing it. Like she hesitated to teach it, bar in scraps and crumbles one had to coax out of her with extensive rhetoric and enduring persuasion.

...

[Ornea]

After a short silence, Ritva spoke again. “You tend to take a romantic view on magic. You think of great wonders and achievements and see the benefits and glory you hope to get, but disregard the drawbacks and the risks. But you are not the only one. Optimism is perhaps the common hallmark of all wizards and the thing that drives them to become what they are. All aspirants are eager to get power, master it and bend the world to their will. They think this will be a success. But the world is more complex than meets the eye, and much harder to understand and control. And magic is more complex too. Whatever your driver is before initiation, it will not be the same afterwards. This too will change. Once you are initiated the sweet whisper will at least partly be what drives you. And for some it becomes the one and only driving force, to feed that whisper’s desire. ”

The wizard held her thin and wrinkled hands around the swirling globe of res and watched it while she spoke. Her expression had gone as thoughtful and the tone of her voice. She seemed to be thinking aloud, and not really speaking with Ornea. “You are very persistent. You have been training with me for several years. You will not give up, whether it’s good for you or not. I can see that you will stop at nothing in order to get access to the power of magic. “

Ornea tried to get in an objection and say she wasn’t like that, not at all, but he wizard ignored her and spoke on, in the same thoughtful tone. “If I refuse to initiate you, you will turn to somebody else. Sooner or later, in a bad or a good way, you’ll get what you’re looking for. And you are not alone. No matter how and why the initiations is done, once it’s done the new wizard will embrace the magic and want more of it. I believe there’s no such thing as a totally pleasant initiation to reimancy. But there’s the sound way to do it and the twisted. And I think that odds for you ending up at the constructive side of magic is better if the initiations is done as it ought to be done, not as the kind of turbulent, violent change some wizards create, due to themselves being on the destructive side. Not that there are sides, really, but people have their inclinations ...”

Ritva’s voice had dwindled to a mere whisper, like she was talking to herself and had forgotten her company, the res that was floating in the air between her hands and the reason she was there. She feel silent and seemed to get lost in musings of her own. Ornea studied the old crone, listened to her words and observed all this. She felt a little bit annoyed, but mostly worried. If this would draw out, there was a risk that Ritva would get tired, cancel the meeting and withdraw to rest. It had happened numerous times.

“Are we not going to start soon?” Ornea asked. “You said you were going to initiate me.”

“I said I was considering to do it. It wasn’t a promise.” The wizard looked up and her gaze met Ornea’s. “It’s easy to just do as you like” she said in a matter of fact tone. “Anybody can do as they like. And lots of people do it too. In particular if they have power. Gods have their kind of power, wizards have the power of magic, and some prominent people of the world have other kinds of power. Within the limitations of the power they command they can do as they like. That is really simple.”

Ornea nodded. She was unsure what this was about.

“It’s the other thing that is hard.”

A few chimes passed by nothing more was said, until Ornea lost her patience and asked what Ritva meant.

“Taking responsibility for what you do. You will find out what this means to a wizard. You will understand, one day. At least I think there is chance you will understand. You asked about it, and not all wizards ask about what’s hard. Many content themselves with the easy thing and simply do as they like just because they can.”

After this, Ritva’s voice changed and when she continued it sounded surprisingly full of power. “I have made up my mind. Let us begin the initiation. I think you know the ritual. Take my dagger...at my belt. Make the wounds. Kneel. ”

...

[Ornea]

Ornea took the dagger and using the tip she made a small ritual wound on each palm. Blood trickled over the skin, and she let it trickle. She put the dagger on the table, rose from her chair and kneeled in front of her teacher, ready to receive the res that would invade her through the wounds as well as throught all other ways it could find into her body. Magic would by magic be awakened. This was how the reimancy was transferred from wizard to initiate; the res carried the ability and it was by contact with the res and the effect of being invaded of it that Ornea would become a reimancer.

She knew that much. She also knew that she wouldn’t be able to do much at once. The initiation would just give her the basic ability to use reimancy. After this she would need to train, learn more, practice and develop her skill at using it, or else it would come to nothing. But all that was a later questions and she was completely convinced it wouldn’t be any problem to do it. She was very interested and ready to put in effort so what could go wrong? She didn’t even think of this.

Ornea had expected Ritva to proceed and send the res on her. It was already there, the res, between the wizards hands, ready to use. But Ritva did nothing. Instead she started to speak again and give unexpected instructions she had never mentioned before.

“You can start at once at taking responsibility for the power you want to acquire” she said calmly. “I will not leave you the option to say it was my doing, that I made you a wizard. Too many wizards are already pointing to other people and saying they were made wizards by somebody else. This can be true in some cases when some wizard who was a seriously mentally disturbed freak abused a person. That is unusual though. Sharing the power of magic is no small thing. Normally it’s actually not at all easy to make a wizard teach magic and initiate others. The opposite, as you well know. So becoming a wizard is nearly always about the initiate being extremely persistent about it the way you have been. Those who don’t have strong dedication give up. Only the really tenacious ones succeeds to get as far as you have come now, to an initiation. It’s your own doing that you are about to be initiated. It’s the result of your own efforts.“

Ornea waited. She didn’t know what to answer and had no idea what Ritva was thinking of now. But as the wizard continued she would learn it.

“So. This means I’m not going to do anything to you. If you decide you want this initiation you may reach out and take this res and invite it to merge with you and change you. Afterwards, remember this. It was your decision. Nobody else did something to you. What you will do to yourself is all your own doing, I am only providing the means. There will be nobody else than yourself to blame if you come to regret this one day in the future. So, proceed now if you like, or stop this if you change your mind. This is the first time you do as you like with the magic. And take responsibility for it.”

A tick passed in silence, two ticks and three.

Ornea sincerely thought she grasped what her teacher was telling her, but truth was there was no way for her to really understand what they meant. To her this seemed very simple and not much to think about. Little did she know that later in life these words would become something she always would think about, words that would haunt her, no matter how plain they seemed to her right now. It would come days when nothing would be very simple any more, and then these words would shine in her mind and leave her now peace.

But this was still in the future and unknown to her. Ornea was twenty years old and eager to get the initiation done, so she stretched her hands into the swirling gas globe that was Ritvas res. At first she just felt a tingling feeling in the ritual wounds on her palms; not at all as bad as she had feared. She felt relieved. But when she relaxed and just received the res, magic took over. Suddenly she was like a leaf on a wild river, torn away and swirled around, helplessly drenched and carried away. It was like a whirlwind had invaded her and was blowing away everything in it’s way. There was nothing she could do except experience. She could barely, remember who she was and what was happening, but she felt this awareness was hinging on a thin thread as her identity seemed to dissolve when the onslaught of res that didn’t belong to her started to trigger a rejection from her own soul and body. The reaction was automatic, beyond her control, as her natural defenses kicked in and made ready to fight the unnatural presence of her teacher’s substance.

A battle raged inside her. She found herself reaching into her own djed, the very essence of her life, for the power to withstand and repel the intruder. Under the extreme pressure of the invading res her focus narrowed down to nothing else than just this : make her own inner force surge and hit back, make what wasn’t her leave her body, leave her soul. It was win this inner battle or die, as it felt to her vaguely in what residual of thoughts she had left. Win, she thought, adding a hard won drip of deliberate will to the mix. Win, win, win.

And there, somewhere, she felt a streak of something start to flow and obey her, do her will and send the intruding res on retreat, glowing faintly when it left her, as she willed it to ignite and made it burn. It was her own res, she realized in distant euphoria. She had done it, tapped into her own djed, called forth her own res and was pushing the enemy out of her. This was all she thought about, until the process was complete.

Ornea opened her eyes. She lay on the floor in front of her teacher who still sat on the chair. Their gazes met. The old wizard came to her feet, moving somewhat stiffly. “It’s done” she said. “I will leave now. I am tired. We will speak later, when you have had time to compose yourself.”

Ornea felt weak and stayed where she was for a while. She felt the djed inside her. The force of her life. But hadn’t she always felt it? Was it any different now? And most of all, what had she done to herself and what would it mean? She had only questions and no answers. Her thoughts were scattered and incoherent. The true knowledge and certainty she searched was evading her, and left her to wonder if she was crazy and just imagining things.

And slowly, slowly a question started to glow in her tired mind, a question harder than ever before.

What is magic ?

...

[Brandon Blackwing]

Ornea

XP Award:

• Rhetoric +5
• Observation +4
• Socialization +1
• Persuasion +3
• Weapon: dagger +1
• Reimancy +1
  

Lore:

• The answer to the question ‘What is magic?’
• Ritva: Unpredictable old wizard
• Initiation to reimancy: there is an easy and quick way… but not with Ritva!
• The different types of magic: Personal, world and gnosis
• The madness that is magic
• Habit: the wizards’ archenemy
• Magic brings change in many ways
• The theory behind magic
• The dangers of magic
• Bearing responsibility for your own initiation
• Ornea’s initiation to reimancy
  

Notes:
Wow, this was quite a read! You really managed –in my opinion anyway- to do the lore justice when it came to having to persuade and negotiate with the wizard before they are willing to initiate the pupil. The conversations and the whole story itself were very enjoyable to read. Great work!

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credit goes to Adelaide Sitai