Chapter 22: Janus (1)

Some time had passed since the two ventured into the mountains. Because the mountains were so avoided by people, there was no path in sight, no trail to follow save for those left by wild beasts. Trails left by animals often led people into more danger, so the boy and the man were left to climb the mountain following the rocky, uneven terrain. Lucid was still much too young to be able to tolerate such a strain on his body, and he soon found himself drained of his strength, his limbs shaking from the overexertion. Even Pincheno found himself to be struggling. He was old, very old, and weaker than Lucid. The fact that this was his first time trekking a mountain only added to the difficulty, and he couldn’t stop the drool dripping from his mouth. But they could not afford to rest. They had already wasted too much time at the foot of the mountain to stop now.

Lucid glanced around, looking for anything that could serve as a clue or for signs of people. Truthfully speaking, if there were no traces of people here, there was no point in venturing any higher. They had taken the shortest route from the town to the mountains, and the lack of any signs of people meant that no one had come this way. That was what Lucid had wanted to confirm by coming all the way up here. That was the only way he could move forward without regretting anything.

Pincheno stood next to Lucid, who was hunched over trying to settle his breath, and looked up at the sky through the thick canopy. It was still a clear, blue sky, but he could no longer see the sun. Noon had passed, and the sun was now westbound. It wouldn’t be long until sunset.

“But sir. Once you chapter the forma, how do you bring it into the real world?”

“Sorcerers must be strong willed. They shouldn’t be so easily swayed.”

Lucid tilted his head in confusion at Pincheno’s nonanswer. The old man turned to look at Lucid and gave him a small smile. The boy thought it looked rather melancholy.

“Once you chapter the forma in your mental space, then it acquires a specific shape. That’s called “figura”. Materializing this figura into the real world is called “consumme,” and it’s quite a simple process. The sorcerer needs to have will power.”

“Will power? That’s it?”

Pincheno leaned heavily against his cane as he sat down on the ground. Fatigue was taking over him now, and he massaged his sore thighs. Even if he was a sorcerer, climbing a mountain at his age was no easy feat.

“Yes, that’s it. But it’s not just any common sense of will. It takes an extraordinarily strong will, strong enough to amass all the laws and rules of the world and stand above them if that’s what it takes. Strong enough to get rid of all other worries, all other thoughts, and only focus on achieving consumme.”

Perhaps he had spoken too much in one day, thought Pincheno as he rubbed his throat. It was sticky from all the sweat he had worked up. It was quite the unpleasant feeling, and he wiped his hands on his robe.

“Magic… Is rather complicated.”

Lucid turned around to look back at where they had come from. All he could see were trees upon trees, and the path they had taken (if it could be called that) was jagged and rather perilous even in one glance. His heart grew heavy at this. Truly, no one had come through this “path” until now. They would need to take this path again to go back, but Lucid worried about the old man’s condition. Pincheno’s complexion had gone from his natural tan to a rather alarming shade of gray, closely resembling his robe.

Thinking of it, Lucid had been involved in an accident in a mountain just two days ago, but here he was, once again on a mountain, looking down on the land that stretched below. Though it wasn’t raining as it had two days ago, he still felt anxious, as this mountain was much more dangerous than the one behind the institute. He was focusing on chasing away his negative thoughts when Pincheno spoke again, his voice weak.

“From what I can see, there is no indication that people passed through here. What will you do? Do you want to go back down?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then let’s rest a little more before we go.”

Pincheno sighed as he settled more comfortably in his spot. Standing up would be out of the question for a while. Interestingly enough, Pincheno had come all this way with the intention of climbing across the mountains, yet here he was, intent on turning back for the sake of his first pupil in decades. Life was indeed amusing.

“Will I be able to return…?”

“Huh?”

Lucid turned around when he heard Pincheno mumbling to himself, but the old man smiled bitterly and shook his head. Lucid hesitated for a short while, assessing Pincheno’s condition, and carefully opened his mouth to speak. Now that he had found out about magic, there were more than a few things that tickled his curiosity.

“Um, sir. Is it possible to cause lightning or make fire with magic?”

“Why wouldn’t it be? I made water earlier, didn’t I?”

“What’s water’s forma?”

“Wrong question. Water’s forma is water. What you want to know is water’s charactiras. What is water’s fundamental property? But I suppose I should explain something else first. The world is much more complex than you might perceive it to be. Even the simplest of objects has many, many fundamental properties. That’s why sorcerers must study constantly. We must look past an object’s appearance and observe its nature until we achieve complete understanding of it, which is “anagnorish.” Only then can you move on to figura.”

“Anagnorish…”

“You seem to have gotten the gist of it, so I’ll show you one more thing. Look here.”

A rather large basin had appeared on the ground. It was full of clear water, and Lucid could see his reflection on the ripping surface.

“You must look closely.”

The surface of the water shook gently, and it soon began to spin. It was rather slow at first, but it turned more violent as time passed. Water began to splash over the edge of the basin, and a depression formed at the center. Then, just as suddenly, the water stopped its movement, and the surface became still once again, reflecting Lucid’s awestruck face. He turned around and looked at Pincheno, his eyes demanding some sort of explanation.

“It’s a whirlpool of sorts. I wanted to show you that magic isn’t limited to objects. It can also recreate certain phenomena. Were you surprised?”

Lucid nodded vigorously, and Pincheno patted his head gently. He was rather endearing, this one.

“In theory, magic is the power of recreating all objects and phenomena in the world. In theory. In reality, it’s much more difficult to just recreate “everything.” No matter how hard we try, it’s impossible for humans to fully comprehend all of nature. For example, I cannot cause lightning, because I have yet to figure out all the charactiras of lightning. This means that I failed anagnorish. As you just saw, what I’ve trained on ever since I first learned magic is the anagnorish of water. It took almost my entire lifetime to achieve this level of magic. That’s how difficult it is to recognize charactiras and reach anagnorish. Sorcerers are those who take on this challenge and stand up to the impossible. If it is your wish to also become a sorcerer, then you must fully focus on achieving anagnorish of the things and occurrences around you, starting right now.”

Lucid clenched his fists as he concentrated on the task at hand. He felt euphoric.

‘Understand… Everything about everything…!’

“From my understanding, I believe that water has around a hundred different charactiras.” Explained Pincheno.

“What?”

“I can’t be sure, I never really counted. I’m just approximating. What do you think would be water’s charactiras?”

“Water… Flows, for one. It’s pure… And transparent.”

“Yes, water is transparent enough that light goes through it. It doesn’t shine on its own. It does flow, but sometimes it’s still. It has no taste, and it can melt or be mixed with powders or sands. It’s not viscous, so it falls one drop at a time, but sometimes those drops stick to each other. If you boil it, it becomes gaseous, and if it’s cold, it becomes solid. If you look at it closely, a drop of water tends to remain spherical. So, what do you think? Aren’t the fundamental properties of water amazing? But this only a very, very short list of the properties I’ve found. Well then, how do sorcerers figure out these properties in the first place? Through anagnorish. I suppose experiencing and researching and testing it for yourself over time is a process you must go through.”

Pincheno paused briefly to observe the sky before speaking again.

“But sometimes, there are instances in which sorcerers come to understand all those properties at once. It’s considered an omniscience of sorts, which is why we call it true anagnorish, or “diapho.” When diapho occurs, a sorcerer is faced with the forma of Ratio itself, and it’s an honor of the highest degree for us. What do you think, Lucid?”

‘Diapho!’

Lucid thought it was a wonderful word. He once again felt the same ecstasy, the same fluttering in his heart that he had felt last year, reading his first book. In that moment, an image appeared in Lucid’s head. The image of an enormous mouth, deep within himself, that wished to consume all the books and all the knowledge of the world. The satisfaction he felt as he read book after book was no different from the satiety he felt after a good meal. He wanted to learn more, to know more. He wanted to feed more.

The two companions began to make their way down the mountain. Though descending was much more dangerous than ascending, Lucid’s head was filled with everything he had learned today, and he was much too focused on organizing his thoughts to worry about much else.

Forma, the true form of all objects and concepts

Charactiras, the fundamental property of objects and concepts.

Anagnorish, the complete understanding of a forma’s charactiras.

Chapter, the process of shaping forma.

Figura, a specific object made by chaptering an anagnorished forma in the mental space.

Consumme, the act of materializing the figura through a sorcerer’s will power.

And lastly, diapho, which led to the absolute anagnorish of forma.

<Janus (1)> End