[Terquem]

Chapter 1 Part 2

The Tower was quiet now, as if it had no more to say to her.

When she had first entered the tower, she was greeted with a warning, but Lisa had assumed that that was an old spell left to frighten less intelligent creatures, those who could understand the words, away. It wasn’t until she had reached the top of the stairs at the second floor that it began to dawn on her that the Tower that was talking.

She was alone and so had no way of knowing if she was hearing the Tower’s messages in her own mind, a type of magical message, or if somehow the Tower was able to make sounds of its own. If the Tower was truly a sentient being of some kind, it must have a way to tap into the magic of the moor itself and use that magic to talk. This was a rare kind of magic. It was not uncommon for inanimate objects to possess this magic, a gate was the most common type of object of this kind, but to be sentient (unlike a Gate, which worked on set parameters established by its creator) was rare.

She had told no one where she was going, when she left, and had kept her destination a secret along the way. There were common stories about the tower across the moor. The stories never intrigued her, but Duncan's warning about the tower had always made her curious. Stories about curses and evil spells that were the sort of stories parents would tell children to encourage them to be well behaved, were of no consequence to Lisa.

“Don’t make bad choices,” the stories would always say, “or you will go to the tower where people are never seen or heard from again.”

She wondered why Duncan had never warned her that the Tower was a being that could access magic itself. He must have known, she thought. Although the working of spells was not common, among average folk, the understanding of how magic worked was well known by nearly everyone.

“There are two kinds of magic in the world,” Duncan had told her the first day of her training, when she was just a girl of thirteen. “Both kinds of magic,” he said, “where created by tapping into what most people would call strength. A living thing has a life force, or strength of life, and as long as the thing continues to live that strength is a measure of the life force of that being. A living thing loses some of its strength when it works or exerts itself beyond simply existing, pushing itself, or when injuries or illness take a toll on the life force, sometimes leading to death.”

It was this training, Lisa recalled, that she found the most interesting of all. She learned simple spells easily enough, but this life force, this strength and how it is manipulated, fascinated her. The casting of a spell required a wizard to use some of their own strength, channeling this into energy that can be something physical outside of the body, or something only perceived by other living things, illusions, the most powerful and difficult to control magic of all. A wizard could not use up their own strength to the point that they would risk death, but they could easily use enough of the strength they had to drain them so powerfully that their body was rendered unconscious, and then death might be an unintended consequence.

Strength, while the body is not injured or suffering from illness, poison, or disease, returned to all living things over time. This was another thing that Lisa had wanted, all her life, to understand. How much strength does any living thing have, she wondered? Could it be measured?

And how, exactly, does a non-living thing, like the Tower, have, or access, strength, the life force that is the source of all magic?

The second kind of magic that Duncan had taught her about was wild magic. The magic that exists, often, within some living things that have a magical nature, or some forms of magic that can come into being simply because the world is full of living things. There was great magic in the moors, and in the highland moorlands, the place called the Aben Moor, the magic was very strong indeed. Living things there would sometimes grow to enormous proportions well beyond what nature intends. Some places in the moors have ongoing magical effects that create lights, sounds, smells, weather even, that cannot be explained.

The wizard learns to tap into their strength to cast spells. The number and kinds of spells was not great. Most wizards know a few of the most common spells, while a few know many more. But spells are controlled things. A wizard learns the proper way to cast a spell and the results of these spells are almost always the same, no matter who has cast them. These are the spells that most folk are familiar with. Sorcery is something different.

Lisa had learned the spells that Duncan knew. He taught her the way to cast a spell, how to tap into her own strength. He also taught her the secret of the Aben Moor, and the way to draw strength from the life force that is in all things. This magic could not be used to cast those simple spells. This was a secret handed down from immortal beings to the first sorcerer of the moor a very long time ago. With this magic the Aben Moor sorcerer could understand, see, and hear, and interpret the animals and plants of the moorlands. With this power they could know what was needed to heal the sick, aid the injured, restore the growing vibrancy of things, and with focus, transfer the strength of one living thing into another, if needed. This was the gift of the Aben Moor, and the power of the Aben Moor sorcerer or sorceress, to know life and channel its gifts.

If the Tower had strength, and if there was a connection between the moor and the Tower, any sorcerer that mastered that strength could be the most powerful wielder of wild magic in all the world.