Grand Library
Of course, she wouldn’t; it wasn’t polite to sit like that next to anyone else, especially someone like Orthosophos who she didn’t know very well. He had been really polite to her, and Madeleine didn’t want to be rude. So she kept her back straight and her knees together, and her feet together too, on the floor in front of the chair, and bent her head forward only just a little, to make it easier to read.
Orthosophos was writing, already; Madeleine tried not to glance over at his notes, because it seemed a bit like cheating. Although, she thought, Professor Duplantier hadn’t said they couldn’t discuss just because the assignment was written now; he hadn’t said anything like that. As long as they didn’t write the same thing, Madeleine thought, wouldn’t it be fine?
She read on.
As a start, think about Mosfante’s spell to suspend gravity. Any student who wishes to cast such a spell must begin with a rigorous understanding of what gravity is, what we call its laws. These are the rules which govern the relation of one object to another – in this case, objects on the surface of Vita to the planet itself. The basics, then, encompass not only an excellent understanding of Monite, but also a deep understanding of the rules of the world which we will ask the mona to bend.
Even with this shared basis of understanding, Mosfante’s spell to suspend gravity presents a challenge for many students of physical conversation. The casting asks the mona to suspend gravity – broadly speaking, although his terminology is much more precise – in a given area around an object. The caster must choose, then, where to center the bubble around the object, its shape, and the relevant dimensions. Choosing too large an area wastes one’s strength; choosing too small an area almost inevitably destroys the object in question.
Balance, in all things, is paramount.
Madeleine kept reading. Cathasaigh went on, discussing more about the purity of physical conversation, and its closeness to the fundamental essence of the universe. He discussed backlash further as well, imploring the student to take caution. At the end of the chapter, wide-eyed, Madeleine read the spell which Hedgewood had cast so disastrously, meant to be an example of purity, balance, and danger. She shivered, sitting back; she smiled, rather tentatively, up at Orthosophos.
“What do you think of it?” Madeleine asked, hopefully. “I mean,” she glanced down for a moment, then summoned up her courage, looking up again, and tried a little smile, “if you think it’s all right for us to discuss?”