Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars) (90 page)

Tower in Arroth
: Drudaen began construction of a Tower in Arroth during the Rule of Law, but by then muuren stones of the size needed for a shenesoeniis were no longer to be found. The base of the Tower remained unfinished through the Long War. The base of this Tower still stands.

All of the Towers contained a pirunaen, some contained libraries, others contained other types of rooms, like the High Chambers in Ellebren or the Libraries of Ildaruen in Yruminast. Only the magicians who built or occupied the Towers knew the detailed contents of each.

What is discussed here is the theory of magic as currently codified by the Hormling, who have studied Jisraegen (Erejhen, as we know them) magic without much success other than to record Jisraegen thinking on the subject.

The basic unit of magic is the Word, which exists in time and not in space. All words exist in this dimension alone, though they are spoken and written in space; and they change in this dimension alone, the essence of a word shifting as time passes. The Jisraegen infer from this that thought exists in time alone as well, and therefore consciousness is solely a function of time and occupies no space either.

A magic Word is more energetic than an ordinary word because it is a thought, which is compressed into a smaller span of time and thus made more energetic. The magician accomplishes compression of thought through meditation and study.

The magician seeks to learn to create a smaller and smaller space in the mind in which thought takes place, and to compress thought into a smaller and smaller time span. Since one cannot truly conceive of a time without a space, and since it is possible that each word has a space component that is simply infinitely small, with none of its dimensions unfurled, the meditation necessary to this state begins as a visualization of placing the consciousness into a smaller and smaller space of the mind. This is the equivalent of saying that thought is occupying a smaller and smaller time due to the symmetries of magic which dictate that time is simply a dimension like all that rest, even if it underlies all the rest in terms of our perception. A meditation of this kind has the necessary side effect of slowing the passage of consciousness through time, meaning that time becomes more dense, packed with more thought.

The strength of magic is organized in a quantum fashion, with the magician learning more effective means of meditation to make the process of consciousness take up a smaller and smaller time (visualized as a smaller and smaller space in which the whole consciousness resides). The sizes of the thought-space-time, called the kei, do not exist in an infinite range but the kei is reduced from one level to the next in quantum descents. The energy of thought that results increases by exponential leaps from one level of magic to another. The smaller space-time into which a thought can be compressed produces a more energetic thought, which enables the magician at those levels to say-by-thinking Words of Power.

Eventually the magician may learn to create the minimum thought-space for all the various levels of magic, through the second. Mortal magicians have difficulty reaching any stage of power beyond the sixth; persons who have lifespans of hundreds of years may attain to the fourth level of power with due study; a different manner of training and learning is required beyond that, to reach the Third Circle. No one who is not of that circle knows what is needed to attain it, and, since most societies which are magic-based break down when powers begin to reach the Fourth Circle, relatively few powers are ever created and stabilized at the Third Circle from the ranks of either mortals or mortals with extended life. Nothing is known concerning progress beyond the Third Circle of Magic, where the only powers we know include eternal powers like the Diamysaar and Cunavastar, who are presumably powers of the second order. Eventually Irion attains to this level, and others develop over the long spans of time that are necessary for such a magician to evolve.

Powers of the first order would then be YY and the Other. Their powers are at such a level that they can never be fully stabilized into the scale of the universe but are continuously breaking apart in opposition to one another. Within the smallest conceivable time frames, however, the union of these powers, the All, is also continuously achieved and destabilized, thus preventing the collapse of the universe into disorganized magical vibrations.

SEVENTH LEVEL:

The manipulation of physical objects on the local level, objects in the macro, such as trees or rocks structures, gradual or quick, depending on the level of the celebrant. Extensive use of this magic over time in a limited local area can result in a very strong structure of magical power, the greater in proportion to the size of the space, with a limiting factor that the consciousness of a seventh level practitioner cannot attain the minimum size for the higher levels of energetic magic.

SIXTH LEVEL:

The manipulation of physical objects over long distances, the use of simple focusing devices such as fire, circles of fire or stone; again limited to objects in the macro. For these purposes, a visible fire is considered an object in the macro. The beginning stages of meditation and the focus on the space that the mind makes.

FIFTH LEVEL:

Manipulation of certain energies at the molecular level, including release of energy through chemical processes, though only over a limited area and in limited ways; these are complex processes which cannot be fully directed from the Fifth Circle. The manipulation of complex recording and focusing devices such as gemstones, precious metals, the construction of simple applications that can be effective over long distances; the art of singing without sound and the channeling of the bodies energies and physical energies.

FOURTH LEVEL:

Manipulation of the physical world at the molecular level over great distances through use of hyper devices like the shenesoeniis, a massive storage device for magical applications that enables the magician to use master-words to trigger portions of the tower’s script to come into play, enabling a scale of magic that can manipulate the world on a planetary scale. Mortal magicians throughout Jisraegen history have attained to this level and then were able to use either Wyyvisar, Ildaruen, or the Malei. Kentha Nurysem and Edenna Morthul were powers of this order. The Praeven College in Cunuduerum included four adepts of this circle at the height of its studies, before YY-Mother heard them sing the Great Breaking in their researches, and enabled Falamar to destroy them.

THIRD LEVEL:

Manipulation of atomic forces on the sub-galactic level, release of energy from atomic forces; development and use of hyper devices like the lyri ship which travels from star to star on the ithikan, which forms the basis of the economies that permit the Hormling Conveyance. . Only Jurel Durassa of mortals ever attained to this Circle of Power and stabilized into it; the only other Jisraegen ever to attain it, Falamar Inuygen, had no understanding of the force that he was unleashing and was destroyed by it

SECOND LEVEL:

Manipulation of space-time at a galactic scale. This is the level of attainment to which the Diamysaar were born, though certain aspects of these powers were limited after the women were exiled to Zaeyn. Cunavastar was a magician of this level as well. The Eseveren Gates are devices of the second circle.

FIRST LEVEL:

Manipulation of all forces at all distances, incomprehensible attainment. Capable of manipulation of the space-time fabric on the scale of the universe. The All. It is presumed that this level of power is unstable and would tend to split into two different forces continuously.

LIMITS ON MAGIC:

The magician is limited in the ways and durations for which she or he may control living beings. To see through the eyes of an animal is intensive and can only be accomplished from Fourth Circle or higher. To see through the eyes of another person is only possible if the magician asserts control of the person. To directly control a living thing costs greatly in terms of concentration since once a magician asserts control of any organism, the control must be maintained or the creature will die. To take control by magic of the will of any living being is an irreversible process and the living thing does not survive it. To kill with magic, however, is very easy on every level.

GLOSSARY

APPLICATION: Any formal use of magic to achieve a specific end.

DANCE INTO SPIN: Any movement in space that is compressed in time, that is, more energetic and faster. At the higher levels of magic, this can be very great in velocity.

DANCE: Any movement in space with a patterned purpose. A movement is the equivalent of a Word.

DEVICE: Any object used in an application

EYESTONE: Solid globes of muuren obtained from the Tervan used to focus the shenesoeniis; these must be periodically turned and polished and are equipped with mechanical devices to raise or lower them from the socket in the High Place. Seumren Tower is not equipped with an eyestone. The Tervan price for these stones was astronomical.

ILDARUEN: The language of the Other, the language of unmaking, which can be taught.

ITHIKAN: An application of magic which increases motion forward to the degree that the skill of the magician is able to do so. The ithikan is most often spoken of as a wave and requires an object already in acceleration relative to its surroundings.

KEI: The name of the mind space, the space of the small, in which the ruling languages are spoken.

KIRILIDUR: The central shaft of the Tower, an open cylinder, between the metal chases the Tervan use to make the Tower structurally sound. In Seumren Tower the Kirilidur is bare. In later Towers, spiraling threads of runes run from bottom to top or top to bottom of the Tower; the creation of these threads became very elaborate in the late Towers, and Ellebren Tower contains threads of Wyyvisar that read in harmony from lines in the Malei runes.

MALEI: The derived language made by the Praeven, for use in the chant. The language contains both scientific and magical properties; the Praeven learned to sing mathematics rather than to write it down.

PHYETHIR: The rule of a magician over a High Place; the consequent rule of the High Place over the surrounding land.

SHENESOENIIS: Also, HIGH PLACE, the raised stone platform inlaid with either Ildaruen or Wyyvisar runes. Raising the platform clear of the ground enables the magician to work with greater precision since the earth has a certain quality of magical interference inherent in it.

SPIN: An application of the ithikan to the moves of a dance, required in higher applications like the rune dance of encirclement required to attune a Tower to a magician.

WORD: Any packet of vibration produced within or impacting on the kei space.

WYYVISAR: The language of the One, the language of making, which cannot be taught.

In undertaking this singular project, here at the fortieth anniversary of the meeting of the Hormling and Erejhen peoples, it is only right to record what impossibilities have been juggled and what compromises have occurred in the process. No translation out of the Erejhen High Tongue (for today we know the Jisraegen as the Erejhen, in the ebb and flow of the language) can hope to match the precision of thought possible in it. I have only attempted to tell the story of Jessex Yron as he wrote it down himself after King Kirith crossed the mountains, when that age of life in Aeryn-now-Irion was over. I have essayed to preserve what richness I could. The sounds of High Erejhen cannot be duplicated in our alphabet since the Erejhen hear better and differently than we do, and speak and sing over a different range, and so I have approximated what I can, and have supplied a glossary that translates the names and words into something which can be said that is acceptable. In spellings, I have attempted uses of our alphabet which allow for a look that is something like the grace of the older Jisraegen scripts, the doubling of vowels and the substitution of the “YY” and “ii” spellings for the long “e” sound, which parallels the practice in the days when “Kirith Kirin” was written some nine hundred years ago. Only the spelling of the name of God, analogous to the “YY” which I have chosen, remains unchanged today. The doubling of that particular vowel in archaic High Erejhen always denoted a divine connection to the concept being addressed.

To the author’s clear intent in putting his own story into words, I can add only that any Erejhen child could tell you most of this story by heart, and that the author is the same person now called, like the country, Irion, and who is said to be alive today in the north of that strange place, which has become our destiny. Soon after Yron wrote his book he retired to Inniscaudra and in general closed that part of Irion to strangers, so that a foreign traveler today might find a guide to take her as far north as Montajhena, which has been recovered, as the Erejhen put it, or to Bruinysk, or to the mound of what was once Genfynnel and the tower Laeredon that still stands. Further north no one ventures, or if she does, she simply wanders south again without realizing it, and that is the case as often as she cares to try.