[Flashback] Thoughts Manifest

[Hadrian]

1st Winter, 507 A.V. "Just a moment, just a moment," came a quavering old voice from behind the door after Hadrian's polite rapping had to be followed with what amounted to pounding. The young enchanter-in-training was rather sure that the man making his slow way to the door was one of those people who exhibited 'selective hearing', because he had already helped him with his interviews of various fishermen about certain tales that most deemed mere tales. For his help, the Graphomancer Alaihi had offered Hadrian lessons in glyphs. He was ecstatic under his usual stoicism. This was an opportunity of a lifetime, he thought, as the old man was only in Zeltiva until Spring brought more ease in sea travel. The door swung open, revealing the wizened old man in unbleached linen robes. "Come in, come in," he bade the young scholar, beckoning with corded, crabbed old hands. "Come, come. Sit, sit." But instead of chairs, Alaihi had laid out two places for calligraphy on the floor. He quickly lowered himself onto the one set up with a pillow, leaving Hadrian to kneel on a thin reed mat. The old man said nothing of the discrepancy, and Hadrian thought it better not to question him overmuch. It would likely be seen as bad manners. "My way of approaching the divine, in the form of Qalayah--may her name be praised--has been through calligraphy and glyphs, writing down important things and the search for the perfect meaning of each word. A single glyph requires us to distill in it all the energy it contains, as if we were carving out its meaning. Incidentally, when sacred texts are written, they contain the soul of the man who served as an instrument to spread them throughout the world. And that doesn't apply only to sacred texts, but to every mark we place on paper. Because the hand that draws each line reflects the soul of the person making that line. "Most people don't have the patience for this; most people write things without much thought being given to what they are writing. There is a sort of grace in the ability to give thought form such that it is recognizable to others. Thought manifest." "I would certainly like to try, master," Hadrian said with due humility. "Good, good. Write for me, if you will, your name." Hadrian looked to the special brushes and took one, dipping it in ink, and then writing out his name on the paper: Hadrian Aelius. His handwriting was clear and precise, if not elegant. "Again." He repeated it. "Again." He did. This continued until Hadrian had to pause to rub his lower back. "Don't you think you would be better off finding something else to do?" Alaihi asked. "No, master," Hadrian said, chlorine blue eyes shot to his old face with the sudden fear that he had done something wrong and would be denied this teaching. "I need to do this. It's like meditation, and I haven't learned yet what you have to teach me." "Patience is the first lesson. Your name again, if you please. In Nader-canoch this time. You know it, yes?" "Yes." Hadrian knew where this was headed, at least in theory. The old graphomancer had many lessons to teach him, he was sure, but someday, if he was a practiced enough a glypher, he might discover his Name, the glyph that signified his particular soul out of all the atoms of creation. But that begged an obvious question: Who am I?

[Hadrian]

8th Winter, 507 A.V. After a week, Hadrian had begun to write out poetry in the ancient tongue, beautiful to look at as well as to hear. Alaihi dictated each letter, forcing Hadrian to concentrate on what he was doing rather than trying to observe the larger patterns as he was wont to do. He had grown accustomed to this new way of learning, and certainly his calligraphy was improving, but he wanted to move on to magical glyphs and sigils. Writing was wonderful, and writing beautifully was more wonderful still, but he wanted to be able to encode his work in magical symbols. "Once," he said, when they were taking a break for tea, "someone told me that when Rhaus created music... Or when we created music and Rhaus, depending on who you talk to... Well, people found that by moving to it, they grew closer to the gods and more in touch with themselves. For a while I assumed that was true, but now it seems like you're teaching me the opposite. Slow down. The truth is in stillness. Why is patience so important?" "Because it forces us to pay attention, Hadrian my boy." "All right, but... with magic... I see it as a sort of... It's like learning to be like the gods. So the more I know, the closer I can be to them. Potentially. I don't mean power, but awareness of how the world works, I suppose. So magic... the djed, it's important. The soul is the greatest manifestation of the djed, isn't it?" "Of course it is," the old graphomancer replied, sipping on his tea. "But if your soul could communicate with your brain, you would be able to change even more things." Hadrian continued to take dictation, his hand growing surer with each passing letter. It was in some ways easier to be accurate by going so slowly, but in other ways it was more difficult: he had time to be more critical of his work. When they moved on to glyphs, his excitement was whetted by greater understanding of the task at hand. Simple glyphs became more difficult, but also more powerful. Fire. Air. Water. Earth. Meanwhile, Alaihi spoke over him. "Before the word comes the thought. And before the thought, the divine spark that placed it there. Absolutely everything on this earth makes sense, and even the smallest thing is worthy of our consideration." "I've educated my mind to manifest what's in my soul," Hadrian said, after completing a circle with each of the elements in its cardinal point, and at the center: spirit. There was a faint sheen of perspiration upon his brow from the effort. He sat mesmerized by what he had done, watching the djed play over the glyphs with his auristic Vision. He could only see so much with his limited skill, but even he could tell that his glyphs were increasing the level of order he was imposing upon the ambient djed. "Now you must educate only your fingers," Alaihi said, a soft-spoken but exacting taskmaster, "so that they can manifest every sensation in your body and mind and soul. That will concentrate your strength." "Are you a teacher?" Hadrian asked, tearing his gaze away from his work to peer curiously at the highly ordered aura of Qalaya's priest. "What is a teacher?" he responded. "I'll tell you: it isn't someone who teaches something, but someone who inspires the student to give of his best in order to discover what he already knows." Hadrian considered this for a while, then nodded. "We begin a new cycle. I want the glyph: Initiation."

[Hadrian]

15th Winter, 507 A.V. Alaihi taught Hadrian calligraphy techniques and applied them to glyphing, but he also tried to pass on to him a bit of the philosophy of the calligraphers. Hadrian wondered if this were some sort of test, whether he was under consideration for gnosis of some sort. He could only hope. If he became even half as facile with the quill and the brush as the Graphomancer, his magical endeavors would become increasingly more potent and ordered, and he would be able to record such wonders... But he was learning to focus, and so he called himself back to that meditative state. Finally, after two weeks, he was beginning to chain glyphs together into actual, functioning spells. Previously, he had worked with aching precision on the glyph: fire. When it was perfect, he felt a sense of achievement, but all it did was change the quality of the djed around it. That djed became hotter somehow, charged but inactive in any usable sense that he could fathom at this point. His water glyph was so potent that the paper grew damp, but then, water was his element as his initiation into reimancy had shown. Now he was working on a chain of glyphs that could be invoked as a specific, functioning spell. His brush was still slow, but its movements were surer. Star, he wrote, and the djed sparkled in his auristic vision. It was easier to maintain his augmented sight while in an almost meditative trance like this, allowing energy to flow into him even as he expended more of it than usual. It also helped him see how each nuanced brush stroke affected the djed. Bright, he added with an augmentative flourish. Then Direction, but linked to a stylized arrow rune to increase the intuitive use of the spell. "The brush with which you are making these lines is just an instrument," Alaihi said, always teaching. "It has no consciousness, it follows the desires of the person holding it. And in that it is very like what we call 'life'. Many people in this world are merely playing a role, unaware that there is an invisible hand guiding them. At this moment, in your hands, in the brush tracing each letter, lie all the intentions of your soul. Try to understand the importance of this." Hadrian did, even as he continued to focus on his work. Alaihi didn't like it when he interrupted his work to listen. Multi-pointed concentration, he called it. "I do understand," Hadrian said, his voice calm and measured in his meditation, "and I see that it's important to maintain a certain elegance. You tell me to sit in a particular position, to venerate the materials I'm going to use, and only to begin when I have done so." Clearly, respecting the tools he used made him realize that in order to learn to write well and glyph effectively, he had to cultivate serenity and elegance. "Serenity comes from the heart," Alaihi continued, as if reading his mind. Perhaps he was, at that. "Elegance isn't superficial; it is the way we have found to honor our life and our work. Just so, when you feel uncomfortable in that position, you mustn't think that it's false or artificial. It's real and true precisely because it is difficult. This way both the paper and the brush can be proud of the effort you're making. The paper ceases to be flat and colorless, instead taking on the depth of the things you place upon it. Elegance is the correct posture if the glyph is to be perfect. It's the same with life: true perfection is not achieved when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away, when we have stripped a thing down to its essence. The simpler and more sober the posture, the more beautiful it will be, even though, at first, it feels uncomfortable." Hadrian continued in his work when Alaihi lapsed into silence. Darkness, he wrote with as exquisite form as he could manage. He added the marker Not to give the spell intention: banishing darkness. With a grace he didn't know he had, he carefully dipped his brush into the inkpot and withdrew it along the glass rim to remove enough so that it wouldn't drip ink over the parchment. "There are two kinds of letters," Alaihi mused, as if to himself. "The first is precise but lacks soul. In this case, although the calligrapher might be a master of form and technique, he has only his craft. He will not evolve, but merely repeat himself. He will not grow, and one day he will give up because it has all become a humdrum routine. "The second kind requires this great technique, but it involves the soul, as well. For this to occur, the intention of the writer must be in harmony with the word. In this case, the saddest verses cease to be tragic and are transformed into simple facts. Also, in this case, glyphs are transformed from simple tools into larger, more universal things." Hadrian nodded to himself, wondering if the seed to his name-glyph was in each stroke of the brush. He finished his scroll and set his brush aside that Alaihi might inspect his work.

[Hadrian]

22nd Winter, 507 A.V. "All right, teach me the basics," Alaihi said, sitting down in his chair, fingers interlaced and resting gently over his belly. A cup of steaming tisane sat on a little tray at his elbow. "Well," Hadrian said, looking up from the sigil he was constructing of ink and paper on the ground. "I wouldn't call it magic, per se. It's considered a discipline of world magic, though. Runes, glyphs, and sigils are used to alter magic, for example, storing spells, deflecting or channeling djed for more intricate purposes... Many wizards use glyphs to store spells into scrolls for later use, or encrypt their magical secrets that way. In pre-Valterrian magical schools, it was considered a requirement and was often taught before actual magical disciplines..." "You have studied, yes?" "I read it in a book," he admitted a bit sheepishly. "And professors have elaborated a bit." "Continue," Alaihi said mildly. "Well, there are some runic systems that were used to write in the Nader-canoch tongue, but many wizards develop their own system of glyphs. Ultimately, I think, they become symbolic in the wizard's mind and the wizard's intention is imprinted in the djed. Some do work better than others, though. Sigils are technically a collection of these glyphs, arranged and linked to perform specific tasks when a spell, or djed, are run through them. "Sigils are made up of," he continued, taking a breath and reciting by rote, "focii, barriers, triggers, paths, and switches-" "Yes, yes," Alaihi interrupted, nodding, "you know the basics. Good. The basics are what you need. Intricacy comes with greater practice, but those are the tools with which you will work when glyphing. Some wizards claim to have created or discovered new concepts, but others point out that they are merely combinations of what you have said already. I do not claim to know. They split hairs. Semantics." "But isn't that important, Master?" Hadrian asked. "I mean, if it is our mind that empowers the sigil, that shapes it, does it not follow that semantics would be important? Words are symbols, too." Alaihi's wizened smile was pleased and conspiratorial. He tapped his nose. Hadrian smiled involuntarily. "You have been listening, too. That is gratifying." Alaihi motioned to the paper spread out on the ground before Hadrian, and then assumed his lecturing tone. "You know what effort it took to sit in the correct position, to quiet your soul, keep your intentions clear, and respect each brush stroke. Our time together is almost at an end for now, young Hadrian. Perhaps we will meet again. I do not know. I record the past, but you are young and should look to the future. Meanwhile, keep practicing. After a great deal of practice, we no longer think about all the necessary movements we must make to write a letter, to draw a glyph; they become a part of our existence. Before reaching that stage, however, you must practice and practice and repeat and repeat. And even then, that is not enough; you must practice and repeat again. "Look at a skilled blacksmith working steel. To the untrained eye, he merely repeats crude blows with his hammer, over and over, but now that you have been trained somewhat in the arts of calligraphy and glyphing, you know that each time the blacksmith brings down his hammer, the intensity of the blow is different. The callused hand repeats a gesture, but in that controlled fall, it understands that it must touch the metal with more or less force. It is the same thing with our repetitions: it may seem the same, but it is always different. There will come a time if you are diligent, young Hadrian, when you no longer need to think about what you are doing. You will become the letter, the ink, the paper, the word, the glyph, the idea. "Now finish that sigil before you go," he said with cheerful bossiness. Hadrian looked down. The focus he had drawn was simple: fire. Around this he had constructed a circular barrier, but it was, one might think, incomplete. In fact, it was complete, but somewhat permeable. He smiled, imagining the full force of the fire attempting to escape with the trigger, but all that energy being transmuted through the barrier as light rather than heat. He hoped it would burn brightly for an hour, eliminating the need for a lamp, but he would have to find a competent pyromancer to charge the focus. Ah, well. He put the finishing touches on the trigger. It was only an exercise for now, anyway. "Master?" "Yes?" "Forgive me if the question is impertinent, but if any dedicated wizard can do all this, then what is the particular grace granted by your goddess?" When he looked up, Alaihi was smiling. END

[Book__wyrm]

Hadrian: 3 Calligraphy, 4 Glyphing, 1 Auristic Lore: Philosophy of glyphing, Use of calligraphy in glyphing I was a little hesitant to give you Auristic experience, since as far as I can tell, there was only one small mention of using it. If you intended to gain experience in Auristics, then perhaps you should make a little more mention of it. Appart from that, I think we’re all good.