The End of Magic - Chapter 17
Jul. 7th, 2021 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desastristaThe End of Magic is an original multichaptered fantasy work that I am currently publishing on both AO3 and Dreamwidth. You can find the master post of all chapters here or just click the "end of magic" tag. (AO3 link here)
They returned home with rather less spectacle than they had left. Nadide watched the streets uneasily, feeling suddenly exposed without even a cloak to hide behind. But she kept her head held high. She had done what needed to be done to uncover Savaner kishah's secret. If it took sacrificing her dignity or her reputation -- well, she was willing to sacrifice those and more if that was what it took to stop the man.
Now she just had to make her brother believe the same.
Ozal was waiting for them when they returned. He sat on a cushion in the middle of the room with his cane resting across his knees. As always, Kadim stood dutifully behind him.
"That took longer than I expected," he noted dryly as they entered.
"We had to perform a burial," Nadide responded. She saw her brother’s eyes widen, and she hurried to explain about the body of the Mucevhed they had found. When she had finished the story, Ozal just shook his head.
“I do not know what to think. I’ve never heard of a Mucevhed being killed by his master drawing magic from him. Some minor injuries, maybe, but usually only when a magician is young and inexperienced.”
"Savaner kishah is many things, but he is not inexperienced,” Ahmad growled. He had started pacing back and forth along the back wall of the room. Nadide eyed him warily; she saw his Mucevhed doing the same. The desert magician had all the energy of a trap about to spring. “Ozal, you mentioned suggestion spells before. You said the truth-telling spell can become a suggestion spell.”
Ozal nodded slowly. He made no attempt to conceal his skepticism about this line of questioning. Nadide, however, swallowed heavily. She suspected she knew why Ahmad wanted to know.
“Can a magician use a suggestion spell to kill?” Ahmad asked.
Ozal sputtered. “If you are thinking about -- if you are trying to --”
“Ozal, please,” Nadide said quietly. “I do not think that is what Ahmad bajedi had in mind. But can it be done?”
Regret wound around her chest and tightened her breath. She should have struck Savaner down when she had the chance. She hadn’t realized what she had been seeing, what he would do, what he could do --
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Ozal huffed. But then he stopped and seemed to reconsider. “Although -- actually, I suppose, it is possible. It would not be easy. The most common kind of suggestion spell -- the kind of the truth-telling spell would become, with bad intent or an inexperienced caster -- is largely harmless. An idea is planted in the mind of whoever it is cast against, but not all plants take root. If the victim does not want to do something, truly does not want to do it, even a very strong spell will fail.”
Something about that explanation must have pleased Ahmad. She saw him smile -- but there was an anger that lived at the edges of that smile and sharpened its bite. Mahir’s frown deepened. The words, however, meant little to Nadide; she still needed answers. She turned back to her brother. “You say that is the most common kind. But are there other suggestion spells?”
Nadide half-hoped he would shake his head. Dismiss her fears. Instead, he hesitated. “I have heard of another kind of spell in the same family. Much more fickle, much more difficult to cast, but much more dangerous. This spell does not create an idea; it changes the mind. Overrides it. A suggestion spell where the victim does what the caster wants because he now wants what the caster wants.” Ozal drummed his fingers against his cane, intent on a problem that only he seemed able to see. “I believe -- yes, I think it is possible, depending on what the caster wanted from the victim --”
“This caster wanted magic, as much magic as possible.”
The blood drained from Ozal's face. No doubt he had preferred when the problem was cast in merely hypothetical terms. “But,” he replied shakily, “what you are discussing is the magic of a Mucevhed’s collar. That spell is completely different. Of course, it’s not a branch of magic I am very familiar with, but I cannot imagine --”
“I saw Savaner kishah cast a spell on his Mucevhed’s collar,” Nadide said quickly. More words weighed on her tongue. If only I had known. But regrets would do nothing for her now. “I did not recognize the spell at the time. But I think -- I have never seen a suggestion spell being cast, but I saw the truth-casting spell Ahmad bajedi performed. I think there were certain similarities.”
Ahmad muttered something under his breath, while Ozal just asked, “When did you see this?”
“Before you confronted Savaner kishah in front of the Imperial Magician.” Nadide had expected it, but the betrayal in her brother’s eyes still felt like a fresh wound. Another regret. Of all the things she was willing to lose to stop Savaner kishah, she had hoped a brother would not be one of them. But what was done was done. She could not apologize to Savaner kishah’s Mucevhed; she would not apologize to her brother now for the secrets she had kept.
Ozal eventually turned back to Ahmad with a shake of his head. “This is a serious misuse of magic. The Stand must be told.”
To Nadide's complete surprise -- and, it seemed from glancing around the room, everyone else's too -- Ahmad actually laughed at the words. It was a harsh and bitter thing and even though it only lasted a moment Nadide was still glad when it was over. Then Ahmad asked, “Why? So they can ask him to teach them?”
"He murdered a child!" Ozal practically spat back. "You really think all the magicians in the Stand will want to do the same?”
Ahmad stopped pacing.
“If it meant they had magic like Savaner kishah today?”
For once, Ozal seemed at a loss for words. A hush fell over the room and noise from the street slowly drifted inside. Kadehir, it seemed, was still celebrating.
Nadide pinched the bridge of her nose. "You know what they will say, brother. The kishah did stop a war today."
“A war of his own creation!” Ozal protested. “If the Imperial Magician just knew that --"
Her brother had spent years in service to the Stand. He believed in it in a way that Nadide knew she never could. But while Ozal was loyal, he was also not a fool. She could see the doubt settling across his features. And then he grimaced. "It won't matter. Everyone will say that this is the magic of the settlers. It will change magic in Kadehir."
“It will change magic in Kadehir,” Ahmad agreed. “The only cost is a slave’s life.”
The disgust in his words was so thick that Nadide wondered how Ahmad did not choke on them. But this time, Ozal did not respond. He seemed distracted. "The magic of the settlers," he muttered half to himself, "Of course. It always comes back to that. If there was just a way to make them see --"
"If there was just a way to make them see," Ahmad repeated with a shake of his head. "You always say that. You always believe that. After everything, you still want to defend the Stand."
Nadide saw Ozal bristle. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
"A man dies, and the Stand does not try to find his killer. A man and his family suffer for months because of a curse, and the Stand does not even ask if one of their own is responsible. You try and you try to make them see, but they do not want to.”
The muscles in Ozal's mouth twitched. For a minute, his expression was unreadable. But then his features recomposed themselves, and when he spoke, it was with a clipped impatience. “This is Savaner kishah’s doing. He has poisoned the mind of the Imperial Magician. At least the Sheikh of Magicians was able to see through him. We should thank the Gods for that, who knows what influence he might have had over the Stand if he --"
He was interrupted by another laugh from Ahmad. There was no bitterness in it this time. It was full instead of pity, and that, Nadide thought, made it all the worse.
"Savaner kishah is not a poison to the Stand,” Ahmad shook his head. “He is exactly the man the Stand created. They want more magic, stronger magic, and that is what he gives them. If people die -- if Mucevheden die -- they do not care."
Ozal’s knuckles went white around his cane. He was quiet for a moment but then he scoffed, “What does a man from the Outer Provinces know about the Stand?”
“I know the Stand raises children as slaves,” Ahmad pressed. “I know you tell them that is all they are because you think that is the only way you can have magic. I know all this, and now you are going to sit here and tell me you think that the Stand will reject Savaner kishah’s way of getting magic -- of getting the magic of the founders -- because now the Stand worries so much about these children?”
Nadide had seen Ozal angry before. She’d seen him lash out, throw or break things. For a brief moment, she wondered if he was going to lose his temper now with Ahmad. But instead he just went very still, and Nadide could see the fury in that too.
With deliberate and measured calmness, he answered, “I did not know you had such concern for Mucevheden. After all, you travel with one. And if it were not for him -- a Stand-raised Mucevhed -- you would never have travelled to Kadehir. You would still be in the backwaters of the Empire.”
It was Ahmad’s time to scoff. “I do not know what you mean. I freed Mahir in Bak Liwahar. He travels with me because he wants to, not because I make him. Is that right, Mahir?”
Ahmad turned to his Mucevhed. All eyes were suddenly on Mahir, and from the way that Nadide could see him swallow heavily, the sudden attention was far from welcome. “I --” he started uncertainly, his eyes darting between his master and Ozal.
Ozal just made an impatient noise. “You embarrass him. You do not even know how to treat your Mucevhed.”
Ahmad gave a smile that bared his teeth. “I am glad I do not know how to treat him like a Stand magician does.”
There was rage in Ozal’s eyes and regret in Mahir’s. Even Kadim looked on with concern. Nadide had to do something. “Enough of this, both of you.” She took a step forward and was greeted by both magicians with withering looks. Still, Nadide swallowed heavily and held their gaze. “Savaner kishah killed a child today and is being celebrated as a hero, and yet all we have done is fight among ourselves.”
“Too right,” Ozal said, too quickly. Nadide almost regretted speaking up.
Ahmad, however, stayed quiet a little longer. He continued to stare; she shifted her weight uneasily but refused to lower her gaze. Finally, he said, “This does not end with the kishah. You must know that.”
Nadide felt her breath hitch. Of course Ahmad was going to say this. He'd been clear: his quarrel was not with Savaner kishah, or at least not just with him. Ahmad had implicated the entire Stand.
But if he got his way, how would the Stand change?
If he got his way, would there even still be a Stand?
Nadide thought of the time she had spent alone in the house waiting hopelessly for Ozal to wake. Those months had been miserable; she had whispered all the curses she knew at the Stand and the men who could do nothing to help her brother. If Ahmad had asked her then, she would not have wasted a breath defending the Stand.
But she was not alone now, and she could not help but think of her father, his father, and even his father before him. Nadide came from a long line of magicians, all of whom had been educated by the Stand. She had grown up in the shadows cast by the Stand’s walls. Perhaps it was easy for Ahmad, who had not even seen Kadehir until he was already a man, to imagine a different role for the Stand or even life without it. But Nadide had never left the city. The Stand was all she had known. It would be easier to imagine a world without the clouds in the sky or the waves in the beach.
But there was something she could imagine. Something that felt real and felt tangible. And if they were not careful, it would slip forever from their grasp.
Nadide took a steadying breath. “However it ends, it begins with us deciding how we plan to stop Savaner kishah.”
Ahmad shook his head in disbelief. “You are right,” he muttered nonetheless, half to himself.
“I think I know where we can start.” Ozal’s voice lacked some of its earlier resolve. Nadide turned to look at her brother and saw him running his hand through his beard, half lost in thought. “I said it before -- Savaner kishah has many admirers in the Stand. But there was one man he never managed to impress. And if he takes our side, his word will matter more than Tolga bajedi’s or anyone else’s in the Stand.”
Nadide felt the blood leave her face. “Do you mean --"
Ozal nodded. He gave a thin smile. “I have to find the Sheikh of Magicians.”
They returned home with rather less spectacle than they had left. Nadide watched the streets uneasily, feeling suddenly exposed without even a cloak to hide behind. But she kept her head held high. She had done what needed to be done to uncover Savaner kishah's secret. If it took sacrificing her dignity or her reputation -- well, she was willing to sacrifice those and more if that was what it took to stop the man.
Now she just had to make her brother believe the same.
Ozal was waiting for them when they returned. He sat on a cushion in the middle of the room with his cane resting across his knees. As always, Kadim stood dutifully behind him.
"That took longer than I expected," he noted dryly as they entered.
"We had to perform a burial," Nadide responded. She saw her brother’s eyes widen, and she hurried to explain about the body of the Mucevhed they had found. When she had finished the story, Ozal just shook his head.
“I do not know what to think. I’ve never heard of a Mucevhed being killed by his master drawing magic from him. Some minor injuries, maybe, but usually only when a magician is young and inexperienced.”
"Savaner kishah is many things, but he is not inexperienced,” Ahmad growled. He had started pacing back and forth along the back wall of the room. Nadide eyed him warily; she saw his Mucevhed doing the same. The desert magician had all the energy of a trap about to spring. “Ozal, you mentioned suggestion spells before. You said the truth-telling spell can become a suggestion spell.”
Ozal nodded slowly. He made no attempt to conceal his skepticism about this line of questioning. Nadide, however, swallowed heavily. She suspected she knew why Ahmad wanted to know.
“Can a magician use a suggestion spell to kill?” Ahmad asked.
Ozal sputtered. “If you are thinking about -- if you are trying to --”
“Ozal, please,” Nadide said quietly. “I do not think that is what Ahmad bajedi had in mind. But can it be done?”
Regret wound around her chest and tightened her breath. She should have struck Savaner down when she had the chance. She hadn’t realized what she had been seeing, what he would do, what he could do --
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Ozal huffed. But then he stopped and seemed to reconsider. “Although -- actually, I suppose, it is possible. It would not be easy. The most common kind of suggestion spell -- the kind of the truth-telling spell would become, with bad intent or an inexperienced caster -- is largely harmless. An idea is planted in the mind of whoever it is cast against, but not all plants take root. If the victim does not want to do something, truly does not want to do it, even a very strong spell will fail.”
Something about that explanation must have pleased Ahmad. She saw him smile -- but there was an anger that lived at the edges of that smile and sharpened its bite. Mahir’s frown deepened. The words, however, meant little to Nadide; she still needed answers. She turned back to her brother. “You say that is the most common kind. But are there other suggestion spells?”
Nadide half-hoped he would shake his head. Dismiss her fears. Instead, he hesitated. “I have heard of another kind of spell in the same family. Much more fickle, much more difficult to cast, but much more dangerous. This spell does not create an idea; it changes the mind. Overrides it. A suggestion spell where the victim does what the caster wants because he now wants what the caster wants.” Ozal drummed his fingers against his cane, intent on a problem that only he seemed able to see. “I believe -- yes, I think it is possible, depending on what the caster wanted from the victim --”
“This caster wanted magic, as much magic as possible.”
The blood drained from Ozal's face. No doubt he had preferred when the problem was cast in merely hypothetical terms. “But,” he replied shakily, “what you are discussing is the magic of a Mucevhed’s collar. That spell is completely different. Of course, it’s not a branch of magic I am very familiar with, but I cannot imagine --”
“I saw Savaner kishah cast a spell on his Mucevhed’s collar,” Nadide said quickly. More words weighed on her tongue. If only I had known. But regrets would do nothing for her now. “I did not recognize the spell at the time. But I think -- I have never seen a suggestion spell being cast, but I saw the truth-casting spell Ahmad bajedi performed. I think there were certain similarities.”
Ahmad muttered something under his breath, while Ozal just asked, “When did you see this?”
“Before you confronted Savaner kishah in front of the Imperial Magician.” Nadide had expected it, but the betrayal in her brother’s eyes still felt like a fresh wound. Another regret. Of all the things she was willing to lose to stop Savaner kishah, she had hoped a brother would not be one of them. But what was done was done. She could not apologize to Savaner kishah’s Mucevhed; she would not apologize to her brother now for the secrets she had kept.
Ozal eventually turned back to Ahmad with a shake of his head. “This is a serious misuse of magic. The Stand must be told.”
To Nadide's complete surprise -- and, it seemed from glancing around the room, everyone else's too -- Ahmad actually laughed at the words. It was a harsh and bitter thing and even though it only lasted a moment Nadide was still glad when it was over. Then Ahmad asked, “Why? So they can ask him to teach them?”
"He murdered a child!" Ozal practically spat back. "You really think all the magicians in the Stand will want to do the same?”
Ahmad stopped pacing.
“If it meant they had magic like Savaner kishah today?”
For once, Ozal seemed at a loss for words. A hush fell over the room and noise from the street slowly drifted inside. Kadehir, it seemed, was still celebrating.
Nadide pinched the bridge of her nose. "You know what they will say, brother. The kishah did stop a war today."
“A war of his own creation!” Ozal protested. “If the Imperial Magician just knew that --"
Her brother had spent years in service to the Stand. He believed in it in a way that Nadide knew she never could. But while Ozal was loyal, he was also not a fool. She could see the doubt settling across his features. And then he grimaced. "It won't matter. Everyone will say that this is the magic of the settlers. It will change magic in Kadehir."
“It will change magic in Kadehir,” Ahmad agreed. “The only cost is a slave’s life.”
The disgust in his words was so thick that Nadide wondered how Ahmad did not choke on them. But this time, Ozal did not respond. He seemed distracted. "The magic of the settlers," he muttered half to himself, "Of course. It always comes back to that. If there was just a way to make them see --"
"If there was just a way to make them see," Ahmad repeated with a shake of his head. "You always say that. You always believe that. After everything, you still want to defend the Stand."
Nadide saw Ozal bristle. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
"A man dies, and the Stand does not try to find his killer. A man and his family suffer for months because of a curse, and the Stand does not even ask if one of their own is responsible. You try and you try to make them see, but they do not want to.”
The muscles in Ozal's mouth twitched. For a minute, his expression was unreadable. But then his features recomposed themselves, and when he spoke, it was with a clipped impatience. “This is Savaner kishah’s doing. He has poisoned the mind of the Imperial Magician. At least the Sheikh of Magicians was able to see through him. We should thank the Gods for that, who knows what influence he might have had over the Stand if he --"
He was interrupted by another laugh from Ahmad. There was no bitterness in it this time. It was full instead of pity, and that, Nadide thought, made it all the worse.
"Savaner kishah is not a poison to the Stand,” Ahmad shook his head. “He is exactly the man the Stand created. They want more magic, stronger magic, and that is what he gives them. If people die -- if Mucevheden die -- they do not care."
Ozal’s knuckles went white around his cane. He was quiet for a moment but then he scoffed, “What does a man from the Outer Provinces know about the Stand?”
“I know the Stand raises children as slaves,” Ahmad pressed. “I know you tell them that is all they are because you think that is the only way you can have magic. I know all this, and now you are going to sit here and tell me you think that the Stand will reject Savaner kishah’s way of getting magic -- of getting the magic of the founders -- because now the Stand worries so much about these children?”
Nadide had seen Ozal angry before. She’d seen him lash out, throw or break things. For a brief moment, she wondered if he was going to lose his temper now with Ahmad. But instead he just went very still, and Nadide could see the fury in that too.
With deliberate and measured calmness, he answered, “I did not know you had such concern for Mucevheden. After all, you travel with one. And if it were not for him -- a Stand-raised Mucevhed -- you would never have travelled to Kadehir. You would still be in the backwaters of the Empire.”
It was Ahmad’s time to scoff. “I do not know what you mean. I freed Mahir in Bak Liwahar. He travels with me because he wants to, not because I make him. Is that right, Mahir?”
Ahmad turned to his Mucevhed. All eyes were suddenly on Mahir, and from the way that Nadide could see him swallow heavily, the sudden attention was far from welcome. “I --” he started uncertainly, his eyes darting between his master and Ozal.
Ozal just made an impatient noise. “You embarrass him. You do not even know how to treat your Mucevhed.”
Ahmad gave a smile that bared his teeth. “I am glad I do not know how to treat him like a Stand magician does.”
There was rage in Ozal’s eyes and regret in Mahir’s. Even Kadim looked on with concern. Nadide had to do something. “Enough of this, both of you.” She took a step forward and was greeted by both magicians with withering looks. Still, Nadide swallowed heavily and held their gaze. “Savaner kishah killed a child today and is being celebrated as a hero, and yet all we have done is fight among ourselves.”
“Too right,” Ozal said, too quickly. Nadide almost regretted speaking up.
Ahmad, however, stayed quiet a little longer. He continued to stare; she shifted her weight uneasily but refused to lower her gaze. Finally, he said, “This does not end with the kishah. You must know that.”
Nadide felt her breath hitch. Of course Ahmad was going to say this. He'd been clear: his quarrel was not with Savaner kishah, or at least not just with him. Ahmad had implicated the entire Stand.
But if he got his way, how would the Stand change?
If he got his way, would there even still be a Stand?
Nadide thought of the time she had spent alone in the house waiting hopelessly for Ozal to wake. Those months had been miserable; she had whispered all the curses she knew at the Stand and the men who could do nothing to help her brother. If Ahmad had asked her then, she would not have wasted a breath defending the Stand.
But she was not alone now, and she could not help but think of her father, his father, and even his father before him. Nadide came from a long line of magicians, all of whom had been educated by the Stand. She had grown up in the shadows cast by the Stand’s walls. Perhaps it was easy for Ahmad, who had not even seen Kadehir until he was already a man, to imagine a different role for the Stand or even life without it. But Nadide had never left the city. The Stand was all she had known. It would be easier to imagine a world without the clouds in the sky or the waves in the beach.
But there was something she could imagine. Something that felt real and felt tangible. And if they were not careful, it would slip forever from their grasp.
Nadide took a steadying breath. “However it ends, it begins with us deciding how we plan to stop Savaner kishah.”
Ahmad shook his head in disbelief. “You are right,” he muttered nonetheless, half to himself.
“I think I know where we can start.” Ozal’s voice lacked some of its earlier resolve. Nadide turned to look at her brother and saw him running his hand through his beard, half lost in thought. “I said it before -- Savaner kishah has many admirers in the Stand. But there was one man he never managed to impress. And if he takes our side, his word will matter more than Tolga bajedi’s or anyone else’s in the Stand.”
Nadide felt the blood leave her face. “Do you mean --"
Ozal nodded. He gave a thin smile. “I have to find the Sheikh of Magicians.”
