Gathering of the Titans: The Tol Chronicles Book 2 by Robert G. Ferrell Page B
Authors: Robert G. Ferrell
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them began to shimmer. The RPC went on guard but Aspet put out his hand for them to stand down. Plåk was back.
“I finished analyzing the manuscripts,” he said, as soon as there was enough mouth to talk. “What you’ve got there is a journal of the parasciencers: the ‘protomages’ who suspected magic existed but didn’t know how to invoke it. It is, as far as I am aware, the only extant written records from that ancient period. Even during my youth nine hundred years ago these would have been incalculably valuable historical artifacts. I cannot even begin to image what they are worth now; probably more than the Royal Palace itself.”
“How were you able to decipher the manuscripts? What language was that?” Boogla asked.
“The script is now called Arcanis Symbolis Anciens ; those parasciencers probably invented it. A form of it is still in use in some esoteric magical academic circles, although it is not generally taught in arcane academies as it only applies to some very specialized magic of interest to mages who study early incantation forms and a few others. I used magic to read and comprehend it through the principal of transharmonic coupling, meaning that once I worked out the intended magical effect of any part of the writing I could derive the rest of the meaning by following the harmonic resonance lines of arcane force until I found one that coincided with another magical action on the page. When I made that connection everything between those two points became comprehensible to me. I repeated this process until I understood the entire manuscript.”
Aspet shrugged. “Sounds good to me. So, what does this manuscript say that is of interest to a non-mage?”
“Apparently they had encounters with transient energy streams originating in The Slice which brought them to the realization that magic itself existed. Their early attempts to make use of it seem crude and awkward now, but you have to put yourself in that situation to make sense of them. Imagine living on a world where the air is always perfectly still at the surface. Then one day you notice the smoke from a campfire rising straight up for a certain distance before making an abrupt ninety degree turn and streaming away. You deduce from this that the air at that elevation must be moving. You have just discovered the existence of wind, although you can’t feel it directly yourself. This is roughly equivalent to the philosophical impact of magic on those pioneer mages.”
“I see,” replied Boogla, “They could observe the effects of magic so they knew it existed; they just had to figure out some way to tap into that energy and make use of it under their control.”
“Precisely. I believe that once the manuscript has been studied at length by scholars, it will answer questions that have haunted the magic user community for forty centums: how did the parasciencers make the transition to true mages?”
“Speaking of haunting, that’s how we came to find the manuscript cache in the first place.”
Plåk looked puzzled. “Come again?”
“Haunting,” replied Aspet. “We came down here because strange things were going on that made people think the place was haunted. Objects relocated, doors opening and closing: that sort of thing. I opened a small stone box and these apparitions made of smoke led us to the place where the sealed chest containing the manuscripts was buried.”
“Fascinating. I’ve never encountered that sort of activity before. The dead no longer have access to this plane ordinarily; I wonder what is going on? Mind if I snoop around there?”
“Not at all. I’ll show you the exact spot.”
They led Plåk to the hole where the chest had been. He walked all the way around it.
“There’s a curious linkage here I don’t understand; something magical but not quite transcendental. Oh, and there’s more stuff buried deeper down, incidentally. You only uncovered the top layer. The lower layers are full of some
“I finished analyzing the manuscripts,” he said, as soon as there was enough mouth to talk. “What you’ve got there is a journal of the parasciencers: the ‘protomages’ who suspected magic existed but didn’t know how to invoke it. It is, as far as I am aware, the only extant written records from that ancient period. Even during my youth nine hundred years ago these would have been incalculably valuable historical artifacts. I cannot even begin to image what they are worth now; probably more than the Royal Palace itself.”
“How were you able to decipher the manuscripts? What language was that?” Boogla asked.
“The script is now called Arcanis Symbolis Anciens ; those parasciencers probably invented it. A form of it is still in use in some esoteric magical academic circles, although it is not generally taught in arcane academies as it only applies to some very specialized magic of interest to mages who study early incantation forms and a few others. I used magic to read and comprehend it through the principal of transharmonic coupling, meaning that once I worked out the intended magical effect of any part of the writing I could derive the rest of the meaning by following the harmonic resonance lines of arcane force until I found one that coincided with another magical action on the page. When I made that connection everything between those two points became comprehensible to me. I repeated this process until I understood the entire manuscript.”
Aspet shrugged. “Sounds good to me. So, what does this manuscript say that is of interest to a non-mage?”
“Apparently they had encounters with transient energy streams originating in The Slice which brought them to the realization that magic itself existed. Their early attempts to make use of it seem crude and awkward now, but you have to put yourself in that situation to make sense of them. Imagine living on a world where the air is always perfectly still at the surface. Then one day you notice the smoke from a campfire rising straight up for a certain distance before making an abrupt ninety degree turn and streaming away. You deduce from this that the air at that elevation must be moving. You have just discovered the existence of wind, although you can’t feel it directly yourself. This is roughly equivalent to the philosophical impact of magic on those pioneer mages.”
“I see,” replied Boogla, “They could observe the effects of magic so they knew it existed; they just had to figure out some way to tap into that energy and make use of it under their control.”
“Precisely. I believe that once the manuscript has been studied at length by scholars, it will answer questions that have haunted the magic user community for forty centums: how did the parasciencers make the transition to true mages?”
“Speaking of haunting, that’s how we came to find the manuscript cache in the first place.”
Plåk looked puzzled. “Come again?”
“Haunting,” replied Aspet. “We came down here because strange things were going on that made people think the place was haunted. Objects relocated, doors opening and closing: that sort of thing. I opened a small stone box and these apparitions made of smoke led us to the place where the sealed chest containing the manuscripts was buried.”
“Fascinating. I’ve never encountered that sort of activity before. The dead no longer have access to this plane ordinarily; I wonder what is going on? Mind if I snoop around there?”
“Not at all. I’ll show you the exact spot.”
They led Plåk to the hole where the chest had been. He walked all the way around it.
“There’s a curious linkage here I don’t understand; something magical but not quite transcendental. Oh, and there’s more stuff buried deeper down, incidentally. You only uncovered the top layer. The lower layers are full of some
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