A Mage Of None Magic (Book 1) by A. Christopher Drown Page B
Authors: A. Christopher Drown
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decaying home to fraud and duplicity, and then be so inconsiderate as to wage war upon it. The Apostate would bring them all to their knees just as all the nursery rhymes claimed, and in the process somehow finish the task begun by Uhniethi a thousand years ago.
Storybook characters keep busy schedules, she thought.
She smiled at that and stretched, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand, then mused with impish pettiness whether the Lord Elder resented being unable to garner accolades for having penetrated so deeply into Herahm’s enigmatic work.
So, a mage of none magic. A commoner? An apprentice?
Thaucian had concluded the former. She conceded it made sense someone destined to rise up against the College would be unindoctrinated by it, but to Ennalen it made more sense that a person posing any credible threat would require at least minor training as a magician.
That was where she would begin.
A few dozen freshmen arrived each semester, so conducting a meaningful person-to-person investigation without sacrificing discretion would be impossible. That meant the coin in the button barrel suddenly seemed a diamond in the snow.
Or a sliver of gemstone on the Black Plains , she thought.
The first principle impressed upon young Magistrates implored them never to ignore the obvious, no matter how inconvenient it might be to their preconceptions. Even with her robust doubts, Ennalen could not simply dismiss the coincidental timing of Thaucian’s request.
The Apostate, as proffered in the text before her, likely represented nothing more than the growing senility of a very old man. Then again, as she had earlier contemplated, the task put to her by Denuis might be a twisted ruse to distract her from her scheme.
Until she determined which was the case, if either, she would play the role expected of her and learn what she could. If she found Thaucian’s work had merit, then she would have acquired advance knowledge of the most serious conceivable threat to her intentions: to take the College by force and position it for the greatness to which it, and she, had been so long entitled. If she found otherwise, then at worst she would have bought time to fortify her own plans.
For the time being, it looked to Ennalen the quickest way out would be through.
She yawned again, stretched, rose from her desk, and despite the cold stepped barefoot out onto her balcony, taking up the ancient book she had left on the shelf near the doorway.
Leaning against the ledge, she brooded a short while until a tiny, dark shape appeared on the walkway below and approached the Ministry of Law.
Her pulse quickened.
Finally.
Ennalen clutched her book as every trace of her previous doubt and consternation suffered a swift demise. A wide smile pushed across her face from an uninhibited rush of genuine excitement, and a sing-song thought suddenly pranced about her head:
A mouse barely able to budge a weight was about to move the world.
***
As a whole the Membership detested, and thus willfully disregarded, the fact that nearly all humans, peasant and lord alike, exhibited at least some small aptitude for magic, much as most people cannot play a musical instrument but when the mood suits them can adequately whistle a tune. Even that unconscious capacity creates a detectable aura about a person, referred to by magicians as one’s shine.
As a magician grows stronger in Canon he becomes more adept at perceiving the shine of others; some elder Members were able to do so even without benefit of incantation. However, every so often the odd person turned up having not the slightest aptitude for magic, thus lacking even the dimmest shine—someone deaf to magic, as it were; one who cannot help whistling off key, provided he can whistle at all.
The utter absence of magical capacity in a person often had a convenient corollary for magicians: that individual’s higher sensitivity to ensorcellment. Rass was such an individual.
Ennalen happened upon Rass
Storybook characters keep busy schedules, she thought.
She smiled at that and stretched, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand, then mused with impish pettiness whether the Lord Elder resented being unable to garner accolades for having penetrated so deeply into Herahm’s enigmatic work.
So, a mage of none magic. A commoner? An apprentice?
Thaucian had concluded the former. She conceded it made sense someone destined to rise up against the College would be unindoctrinated by it, but to Ennalen it made more sense that a person posing any credible threat would require at least minor training as a magician.
That was where she would begin.
A few dozen freshmen arrived each semester, so conducting a meaningful person-to-person investigation without sacrificing discretion would be impossible. That meant the coin in the button barrel suddenly seemed a diamond in the snow.
Or a sliver of gemstone on the Black Plains , she thought.
The first principle impressed upon young Magistrates implored them never to ignore the obvious, no matter how inconvenient it might be to their preconceptions. Even with her robust doubts, Ennalen could not simply dismiss the coincidental timing of Thaucian’s request.
The Apostate, as proffered in the text before her, likely represented nothing more than the growing senility of a very old man. Then again, as she had earlier contemplated, the task put to her by Denuis might be a twisted ruse to distract her from her scheme.
Until she determined which was the case, if either, she would play the role expected of her and learn what she could. If she found Thaucian’s work had merit, then she would have acquired advance knowledge of the most serious conceivable threat to her intentions: to take the College by force and position it for the greatness to which it, and she, had been so long entitled. If she found otherwise, then at worst she would have bought time to fortify her own plans.
For the time being, it looked to Ennalen the quickest way out would be through.
She yawned again, stretched, rose from her desk, and despite the cold stepped barefoot out onto her balcony, taking up the ancient book she had left on the shelf near the doorway.
Leaning against the ledge, she brooded a short while until a tiny, dark shape appeared on the walkway below and approached the Ministry of Law.
Her pulse quickened.
Finally.
Ennalen clutched her book as every trace of her previous doubt and consternation suffered a swift demise. A wide smile pushed across her face from an uninhibited rush of genuine excitement, and a sing-song thought suddenly pranced about her head:
A mouse barely able to budge a weight was about to move the world.
***
As a whole the Membership detested, and thus willfully disregarded, the fact that nearly all humans, peasant and lord alike, exhibited at least some small aptitude for magic, much as most people cannot play a musical instrument but when the mood suits them can adequately whistle a tune. Even that unconscious capacity creates a detectable aura about a person, referred to by magicians as one’s shine.
As a magician grows stronger in Canon he becomes more adept at perceiving the shine of others; some elder Members were able to do so even without benefit of incantation. However, every so often the odd person turned up having not the slightest aptitude for magic, thus lacking even the dimmest shine—someone deaf to magic, as it were; one who cannot help whistling off key, provided he can whistle at all.
The utter absence of magical capacity in a person often had a convenient corollary for magicians: that individual’s higher sensitivity to ensorcellment. Rass was such an individual.
Ennalen happened upon Rass
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