And yet, they had also brought a war to our world that has devastated it again and again. They played with the natural order of things and convinced us to worship them as gods. They created another world full of monsters, nightmares plucked straight from our worst dreams. They thought of us as worthless. At best we were pawns to be used in the great war they fought against each other. At worst we were nothing to them, lives not even worth considering. And on a personal level, their war cost me Silva. I may have wielded the weapon that struck the blow, but it was Mezula who directed it. It was Mezula who sent her daughter to die in her place.
It's fair to say the realisation put my head in something of a spin. Distantly, I heard Tamura muttering as he stirred the stew, and I could feel Ssserakis talking, but I was lost in my own thoughts.
"The weapons," I said eventually. "Why is Aerolis so scared of the hammer? Because it can kill him?"
Tamura glanced over towards Horralain. The big thug sat at the edge of the rooftop, apart from us and apparently uninterested in our conversation, despite the topic. "The metal was designed to contain their magic. It would be a poor prison if it did not."
How does any of this help us unlock the potential of the Sources you carry? Knowing where the Rand and Djinn come from does nothing but make you feel superior for the knowing.
The horror wasn't wrong there. Secrets make us feel powerful, and pride in power has always been one of my failings.
"I don't know." There were ways I could use what I now knew. Perhaps leverage with which to extort something else from the Djinn. Then again perhaps it wouldn't care. Aerolis had shown me that memory willingly, he must have known I would have seen the betrayal he and Mezula had planned.
"Consider the stew," Tamura said with knowing nod of his head.
"Aren't we done with the stew metaphor?"
Tamura shrugged and cracked a grin. It was good to see him smile again. For a long time even his spirits had seemed buried beneath mounds of misery. "Stew is varied. So many uses, so many possibilities. Do you know what's in the stew?"
"Rat?"
He shot me a withering look. "And?"
"I have no idea."
Tamura giggled. "You don't want to know."
There is a creature in my world who will answer any one question with the truth. But it only answers each question once, and it may not answer the question you asked.
"What?"
The creature is mad. And so is this one.
"Each ingredient has a flavour, a taste all of its own." Tamura leaned forward and drew in a deep breath through his nose, savouring the smell of the stew. Then he choked on the smell. "Hopefully it will taste better than it smells. Taste better than its parts."
It all started to make sense. You understand this fool?
"The tutors at the academy told us never to mix magic. They said it was dangerous."
Again, Tamura chuckled, shaking his head. "Not all rules are made to protect. Many are there to contain. But perhaps they were right. You have already broken the rules. Are you dangerous?"
He was right, of course. Tamura was almost always right. I just hadn't seen it before. The tutors told us that mixing magic from different Sources was dangerous and volatile, and in some ways, they were right, but they were also fools with little ambition. The magic of Sources, of the Rand and Djinn, was never meant to be used alone. It's in their very nature, in the rules that bind them. They are stronger together than apart. As more of them died, their power diminished. At their height, the Djinn created a world. They did not do that separately, they combined their power, all of them working as one towards a common goal.
The tutors taught us that mixing magic externally is safe enough. It is, after all, the very spirit of Augmancy, placing enchantments on items requires a secondary magical attunement to direct the enchantment. You cannot create a flaming sword with Augmancy alone, it requires Pyromancy as well, applied to the metal afterwards. However, mixing magic internally speeds rejection, and can lead to breakdowns. Both statements are true, but they left out the part where mixing magic internally increases the power exponentially.
And Tamura was right about something else, too. I had already done it; I just hadn't realised it. In my rage and grief, I had assaulted Aerolis with everything I had. Ssserakis and I working in perfect union. Shadow and blade and fire and lightning. It is a fight we would have lost, had Aerolis fought back, but in that frenzy, we staggered the Djinn. We fucking hurt him. When I looked back, I realised how. The Sourceblades I formed at the height of my rage were different. Before, I had created the blades with Kinemancy, then coated them with lightning or fire. But that one time I had mixed the magic inside. The kinetic energy I used to fill those blades was suffused with Arcmancy and Pyromancy. I had not even realised it. Perhaps that is why the rejection struck so soon afterwards. I don't know. What I do know, is that mixing of magic is what allowed me to hurt Aerolis. And I knew I could do it again.
Chapter 13
I took to a new regime of training, cautious at first. It was dangerous and I had to go slowly to make certain I didn't blow myself up, or something even worse than that like blowing everyone else up. Mixing magic inside, then releasing it, shaping it. With no tutor to guide me, and no real hint of direction, I fumbled along like a blind woman in a maze. My first few attempts were met with failure and the wounds to prove it. I almost lost a finger when a Sourceblade exploded in a gout of flame, but I just about managed to direct the fire outward, scorching sand so hot it turned to glass. Lightning was easier for me. It's strange, I have always felt most comfortable with Pyromancy, something about the flames drew me in and made me feel at home. Since the Arcstorm, which I had absorbed and held inside, Arcmancy came so easily. I was the fury of the storm, and it was me. Maybe that was why. The fury. Fire isn't furious or angry, it is simply fire. It consumes, that's what it does. It is slow and methodical. Flames may not be predictable, but fire is. Its course can be directed and controlled. Lightning is different. It is anger and fury and rage. It can be directed, but not controlled. It follows along its own course and strikes faster than a flicker. I was angry. I have always been angry, but it was worse after Silva. I lashed out at times. I didn't mean to, it just happened. The anger was difficult to control. Often, I didn't realise it was there until it was out and the damage was done. Lightning and I shared a kinship, of sorts, that went deeper than the storm I carried. I am not proud of it.
I made some progress at least. Sourceblades that were stronger, lighter, imbued with a fire that could set metal burning. I copied the shield I had seen Silva erect around her, more a bubble really. Infusing that shield with both Kinemancy and Arcmancy, I made it impenetrable to both physical attack and magical. I learned to create a shockwave of energy, expanding out from me, that would be more than useful if I ever found myself surrounded. So many new possibilities opened up to me with the knowledge that magic was more powerful when it was used in concert, when using the principles that bound the Rand and the Djinn together. It was where the Iron Legion's true power came from. The knowledge to use magic in a way no one else fucking dared. He was attuned to over ten different Sources, could probably carry all of them at once. No wonder he was so strong.