“Well, we’ve certainly learned something,” I remarked into the air.
Amorphia. The stuff of chaos. According to some, the stuff of life; according to others, the basic building block of all matter and energy. I didn’t know; I wasn’t a magical philosopher, and I’d certainly never studied the ancient, illegal, and frightening branch of sorcery devoted to such things.
I’d used amorphia once, and since then had skimmed a couple of Morrolan’s books to pick up useful-looking spells, bur I’d never studied it.
I had used it once.
A long time ago, in the heart of the city, trying to save the life of Morrolan (who was dead at the time; don’t ask), faced by several sorceresses of the Bitch Patrol—the Left Hand of the Jhereg—I had called upon abilities I didn’t know I had, I had hurled something at them they could not have anticipated any more than they could counter it. Yes, I had done it once.
I let that memory play around in my head, remembering the feel of a tavern floor against my face, and a sense of desperation; a desire to do something, anything, and the explosive release of power I had inherited because, once, my soul had been close to the soul of some idiots who played around with that power. That day, I had been an idiot, too, and had been rescued by Aliera before I dissolved myself and a section of Adrilankha into the basic component of all matter and energy, or whatever it was.
I remembered that day, years ago, and separated from me by so many experiences that it might as well have happened to a different person.
Only I wasn’t, really, a different person. And, try as I might, I couldn’t shy away from the implications of that.
“Boss—”
“Not now, Loiosh. Let me work it through on my own; there are too many angles to this thing.”
“All right.”
If anyone asked me if I knew the Elder Sorcery, I could say no with a clear conscience. I didn’t know it, in any meaningful way.
But—
The Elder Sorcery is, perhaps, the most difficult branch of magic, at least until you try to throw them all together and tie them up in some object where you also keep your soul so you get to call yourself a “wizard” for whatever satisfaction that will bring you. I had once harbored illusions about learning sorcery as it was practiced before the Empire, before the Orb, before what I’d call civilization. I had a sort of start, owing to an accidental relationship in my past life. I abandoned the study early on, because not only was it difficult, and scary, but I just had damned much else going on in my life at the time. But I did have a pretty good memory of step one—that is, the first and easiest spell, the one necessary to continue on to the more difficult spells. And this spell, if I could pull it off, just might prove useful.
My brain raced, and worked at a few of the angles until it ran down, by which time I had already opened up my small pouch of witchcraft supplies, and dug around for a bit. I didn’t have a lot of stuff with me, and everything I did have was valuable, but what can you do? I picked out the ceramic bottle of dira juice because it wasn’t too hard to come by, and the main use it had was treating a particular jungle fever that I’d so far managed to avoid. I poured the contents on the ground. I noticed Teldra looking a question at me. I shook my head.
I found a loop of leather and hung it around the neck of the bottle; then I walked over to the bank where the amorphia flowed like water.
Teldra cleared her throat. “I was just wondering,” she said, “how you’re going to keep the bottle from dissolving in the amorphia you’re trying to capture.”
“Oh,” I said. “You’ve known Morrolan a great deal longer than I have; haven’t you read any of his books?”
“Not on the Elder Sorcery. Have you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Oh.” She considered. “And you learned how to do whatever it is you’re doing?”
The questions were a bit intrusive for Teldra, but I couldn’t blame her; hanging around while an incompetent plays around with amorphia is worth at least a couple of innocent questions.
“More or less,” I told her.
She bit her lip and didn’t ask anything else, for which she ought to have received whatever sorts of medals her House gives out.
I started the bottle spinning in a wide, slow loop, directly in front of me, about a foot over the stream. “It really isn’t that difficult,” I said, “if all you want to do is capture some of it. It’s just a question of speed.” As I spoke, I started spinning the bottle a little faster—not much. “Amorphia will take, uh, some measurable fraction of a second before it begins to operate on matter that comes in contact with it. The trick is just to get it before it destroys or alters whatever vessel you’re using to capture it.” I glanced at her. “Move a couple of steps to the right, please.”
She did so, silent.
The other trick is the little matter of the spell.
There isn’t a lot to say about it. It’s a pretty simple spell, really—well described by the book. You just draw the power through your link to the Orb ....
Yeah.
There’s the catch. The whole “link to the Orb” problem. I was currently missing one of those.
To the left, however, there were alternatives, if you were willing to risk interaction with unfettered, raw amorphia. I happened to have a supply of that near to hand.
I stared at the stream.
Do you know how hard it is to look at water? To see it, When it’s flowing past you? You see foam, or swirls, or crests, or whitewaters, or maybe the streambed, or maybe the reflection off the surface, but it is very hard to actually see the water. It is even harder when it isn’t actually water, but amorphia, the quintessence of formlessness; it is hard to see formlessness, because what we see is form. Try it sometime, if you have any raw chaos lying about; it is simultaneously too much and too little to grasp.
But I kept trying, staring at and then past the subtle color shifts, rigorously refusing to believe in the shapes my mind tried to impose on the shapelessness. And at length—I don’t know how long it was—I began to seep into it. Those sorcerers who spend a lot of time working with amorphia say that every such experience is a step closer to madness. Judging from Aliera and Morrolan, I think that is probably true. But fortunately, I didn’t have to go too far, just enough contact for one little spell.
I felt a response within me; something like and yet unlike the first feelings that a spell is working. To the right, I felt as if I were secure and comfortable and relaxed, and to the left I felt as if I were on the edge of a precipice and one small step, or the loss of my balance, would send me hurtling over into insanity.
The balance issue was a good metaphor, and also quite real, because, as I readied the spell, I leaned over the stream. Should I slip in, it would be a quicker death than many that I’ve come near, but it isn’t how I choose to spend my last measurable fraction of a second.
I changed the angle, so instead of spinning parallel to the stream, it was almost perpendicular. I timed the spin—it was just over a second for a full loop. I wished I remembered just what the measurement on that measurable fraction of a second was; at the time, that hadn’t been the sort of detail I was interested in, not being able to imagine being in this situation. Was it around half a second? A little less? I sped up the spin just a trifle, then let my breath out slowly.