Brunnhold - The Field of Practical Application
The 21st of Bethas, 2020, Early Afternoon
The 21st of Bethas, 2020, Early Afternoon
T
he handkerchief was clean when he drew it out from the inner pocket of his coat. Hand extended toward his subject he gave it a light flutter. A faded pattern of strawberries fluttered in the chill air. “Here.” He paused a moment, and made another fluttering gesture. “Don’t worry, it is quite clean. Old, yes, and the subject of many washings, but clean as can be wanted.” It would be bad form to let Cerise exsanguinate herself here upon the Field. True, the bright blood on the damp green grass had its aesthetic qualities, but a nose bleed rendered them all moot. “Are you prone to nosebleeds in the aftermath of magic? I myself get pounding headaches and the unsettling sensation that can taste colors and smell time.” Yellows were particularly unpleasant during those moments. There was something unspeakably rancid about the color yellow. Yellow tasted of over-ripe durian; a durian that had led a dissipated life. Yellow tasted of corruption, physical and ethical all at once. In any place he knew his sorceries would be worked, all items of the color yellow, or yellow-green, were removed. Sorcery was dangerous enough.
“Efficenies, Miss Vauquelin, well, they might help with such things.” Help, but not do away with. Nothing he had discovered, no beautiful incantation, no well-chosen word, could take away the threat of consequence. Perhaps that was right and proper. Perhaps that is where all the damned moralizing about magic had come from. “The more fluid and easy your casting, the more precise your words, the less strain you will have to bear. In time, you might find yourself conjuring seven or eight lightbulbs without no more than a vague spotting of blood.”
The pattern of her incantations was competent, more than competent. Still, there had been a harshness, a brittleness, to the later spells. Discomfort at her own creation? Confusion? It was too early to say, and but one observation provided nothing like enough data. There was enough data to begin work.
The notepad. It flashed out of an inner pocket and with furious scribbles he put down the words she had spoken. It was a broad transcription, no tonal contours, no phonation markers. Those he could work out later. There were means of recovering those. The core was there, the words themselves. A stroke of fortune that so many incantations had a strong and prescribed metrical pattern. A pattern like something out of an old epic. In the margin he added a note:
Prof. Skeggmore - Classical Lit. Thoughts on poetic form. Old epics as bastardized incantations?
He looked up from his notes, looked up at that crimson-stained face, and tried to imagine it contorted in the joy of a dueling victory. Would the blood come then as well? It would be aesthetically pleasing, a small gesture to the danger of the sport. A small reminder of where it had come from. “No,” he said at last, “I have never watched a tournament. I have seen scraps between students of course, been in a few of my own. We were all incompetents and mostly embarrassed ourselves. The stakes were nothing. A stupid insult, a supposedly stolen cake, a general desire to be cruel. There was never any art to it.” The worst he had ever done was to confuse the vision of his tormentor, the one who had insulted him, long enough that he could push him into a canal and get away. There had been no report of any body being dragged up by the watermen. He was very nearly sure he was no murderer. “I never made much time for sporting events.” He gave a smirk. “I was too busy drinking cheap wine and listening to the execrable poetry of my friends. In the end, the poems were better than the wine.” A decanter of horrible wine and a night of amateurish poetry would suit him now. The happier memories of his first exile in this place. Students would still do that of course, it was time-honored, but he was in neither the mood nor the position to lurk about them. Better to have Walthamstowe, Pocket Kate, Convivial Plum, and Troutsworth about him. Just like old times. Only Troutsworth had any decent idea of how to be a poet. He’d even published a slim volume. Where was he now? Probably half-drunk and performing surgeries with preternaturally still hands. A skilled surgeon was a skilled surgeon, even if he took a nip or three of whiskey between patients.
The though of surgery, of injury, snapped him out of his memories. “Perhaps,” he said, narrowing his gaze, “it would be instructive for me to observe a tournament. On purely scientific grounds, of course.”
“Efficenies, Miss Vauquelin, well, they might help with such things.” Help, but not do away with. Nothing he had discovered, no beautiful incantation, no well-chosen word, could take away the threat of consequence. Perhaps that was right and proper. Perhaps that is where all the damned moralizing about magic had come from. “The more fluid and easy your casting, the more precise your words, the less strain you will have to bear. In time, you might find yourself conjuring seven or eight lightbulbs without no more than a vague spotting of blood.”
The pattern of her incantations was competent, more than competent. Still, there had been a harshness, a brittleness, to the later spells. Discomfort at her own creation? Confusion? It was too early to say, and but one observation provided nothing like enough data. There was enough data to begin work.
The notepad. It flashed out of an inner pocket and with furious scribbles he put down the words she had spoken. It was a broad transcription, no tonal contours, no phonation markers. Those he could work out later. There were means of recovering those. The core was there, the words themselves. A stroke of fortune that so many incantations had a strong and prescribed metrical pattern. A pattern like something out of an old epic. In the margin he added a note:
Prof. Skeggmore - Classical Lit. Thoughts on poetic form. Old epics as bastardized incantations?
He looked up from his notes, looked up at that crimson-stained face, and tried to imagine it contorted in the joy of a dueling victory. Would the blood come then as well? It would be aesthetically pleasing, a small gesture to the danger of the sport. A small reminder of where it had come from. “No,” he said at last, “I have never watched a tournament. I have seen scraps between students of course, been in a few of my own. We were all incompetents and mostly embarrassed ourselves. The stakes were nothing. A stupid insult, a supposedly stolen cake, a general desire to be cruel. There was never any art to it.” The worst he had ever done was to confuse the vision of his tormentor, the one who had insulted him, long enough that he could push him into a canal and get away. There had been no report of any body being dragged up by the watermen. He was very nearly sure he was no murderer. “I never made much time for sporting events.” He gave a smirk. “I was too busy drinking cheap wine and listening to the execrable poetry of my friends. In the end, the poems were better than the wine.” A decanter of horrible wine and a night of amateurish poetry would suit him now. The happier memories of his first exile in this place. Students would still do that of course, it was time-honored, but he was in neither the mood nor the position to lurk about them. Better to have Walthamstowe, Pocket Kate, Convivial Plum, and Troutsworth about him. Just like old times. Only Troutsworth had any decent idea of how to be a poet. He’d even published a slim volume. Where was he now? Probably half-drunk and performing surgeries with preternaturally still hands. A skilled surgeon was a skilled surgeon, even if he took a nip or three of whiskey between patients.
The though of surgery, of injury, snapped him out of his memories. “Perhaps,” he said, narrowing his gaze, “it would be instructive for me to observe a tournament. On purely scientific grounds, of course.”
