Chapter 20: Magic is the Simplest Thing
The next morning the tent was moved out of Yazuac. Nobody wanted to risk other urgals happening upon them when they had wounded. The tent was pitched up against the bank of the Anora river near where their boat landed, hidden in a copse of trees. Brom and Eragon were both seriously injured. Despite Harry's quick healing actions, the old guy was getting old. The many injuries he had recently received were adding up. Between a Ra'zac bite and two deep side wounds, it was a wonder Brom was alive at all, geriatric as he was.
Eragon was in much worse shape. It had taken him two days just to wake, two days in which Saphira sat a silent vigil. She did not eat nor sleep, she scarcely breathed. The instant the rider woke, she growled and mentally berated him.
"Foolish little one. If you continue to show a lack of even basic self preservation, I shall have to do it for you, even if I must pin you to the ground and never let you up."
"Magic, Saphira! I can do magic!" The boy had exclaimed.
Saphira had poked him with a long talon. "You can kill yourself with it, too. If you wish to use this skill, ask the old one to teach you. I'll not see you die of a foolish mistake when you could have unbent your pride and learned from your elders."
Now it was nearly a week later and Eragon had finally recovered. Arya and Harry had not stopped training during their convalescence, training and sparring daily with swords, (Harry got humiliated every time) and archery. (He did a little better there.)
Brom gathered them together once they did. "Now that you have discovered magic, Eragon, it is prudent for me to teach you, if only so you do not kill yourself. The ability is the most dangerous one to possess in Alagaesia. It is because magic has very few rules, yet the penalty for breaking any of them is the same: death."
They gathered outside the tent. Harry conjured a few lawn chairs around a campfire, and Saphira was curled around behind Eragon.
"Magic in Alagaesia is inextricably tied to the ancient language. To use it, a magician must immerse themselves in the flow of their magic and state that which they wish to happen. For most, they are limited by their vocabulary. The more skilled the magician, the more they can do with less words. A true master might say something like water and affect something seemingly unrelated like a pearl. The master would see the connection between the concepts and use it as the focal point of their power."
Harry frowned. "How does the language invoke the concept of what it labels? Incantations from my world are not important per se, it's about the thought behind them. When someone understands the underlying concept beneath, say levitation, they can somehow bind their understanding of the idea to a word and use it to cast spells."
Arya watched silently. "It is because the ancient language is the language of truth," Brom explained. "You have noticed by now it is impossible to lie when speaking it, something which has the very useful side effect of binding unbreakable vows?"
Eragon interjected. "What do you mean you cannot lie? Everyone lies, a language can't stop that."
Brom snapped, "If you knew more about this than me, you'd be teaching us, not recovering from nearly killing yourself with magic." He composed himself. Switching to English, he spoke to a bird perched upon a nearby tree.
"Bird, I promise not to hurt you if you land on my hand." A sparrow flitted down from the tree and perched on the storyteller's weathered knuckle. "Do you see Eragon? The ancient language forbids falsehood." He shooed the bird off carefully. "The bird knew I could not lie and so did not feel wary of landing on my hand."
Harry was curious. "How did the bird understand? They hardly have the mental faculties to comprehend a human language."
The old man's eyes gleamed. "That is the other remarkable ability of the ancient language. It has the ability to describe the true nature of things. This is what allows magicians to cast spells so easily with it. Brisingr, or Fire, is not just a word for fire, it is the word. The word is the concept."
The revelation shocked Harry. "That would certainly do it," he mused. A realization dawned on him. "Whoever bound the language to truth must have been incredible. Everything must have a name, including things which have not been discovered." Crossing his arms, he regarded Brom. "What are the cardinal rules of magic, then?" Harry asked.
"They are as follows: one," he ticked off on his fingers, "the cost exacted for any task done by magic is exactly the same as the task would cost through mundane methods. Two; magic is affected by distance. The further away you are from the effect you cause, the more it will cost. Three; magic is permanent."
"Permanent?" Eragon asked curiously.
Brom nodded seriously. "It means once you immerse yourself in the flow of magic and speak, whatever spell you cast will happen. It does not matter if you lack the strength. The magic will simply draw from you until you are a corpse. Once cast, there is no taking back the magic. It cannot be recanted, undone, or ended. The only way to stop it is to cast another spell directly countering it. For example, were I to say 'Light that man on fire,' Harry would certainly be set alight. He could survive however, by using his own spell, something like 'Cool me down' which would directly counter my magic." Brom puffed on his pipe, fiddling with his beard.
"Because you cannot take back spells once cast, there are a few sort of impromptu rules in addition to the cardinal ones. Attempting to do any of these things will cause certain death. One cannot create something from nothing, nor can they make nothing from something. One cannot pierce the veil of time, and finally, one cannot raise the dead."
Brom sat back on the lawn chair, observing their reactions carefully. Arya must have been taught this already, for she was both silent and unsurprised. Harry pondered Brom's words. There were differences between their systems of magic, for sure. But how many of these limitations were hard rules, and how many merely tasks they had not found out yet how to do?
He stood up quickly. "I'll be right back," he promised, and dashed into the tent. Moments later he returned with an armful of long rectangular cardboard boxes. Each one had a little parchment tag affixed to a corner, tiny writing scrawled on it with a name, date, and composition. He conjured a table and laid the assortment out, flicking his wand to open the cases simultaneously.
Each box had a bed of velvet upon which rested a polished length of wood. They were varied in color, varnish, wear, length, and size. "Here, take one up and wave it. Move along until one really speaks to you," Harry said.
Eragon eagerly picked up a wand and swung it like a sword. Harry ducked in panic when torrents of pink pain spewed out. "Nope," he grinned. Eragon made his way down the row, eventually choosing a ten inch red oak wand with a unicorn hair which once belonged to Josefin Ingegerd, a woman who married into the Potters some centuries ago.
Brom watched the whole affair affecting dispassion, but his eyes betrayed him and he verily leapt to his feet to find his own wand. A few brief disasters marred the campsite before he was finished, but the old man wound up carefully inspecting and marveling at a polished length of fir.
Arya perused the wands, trying out and discarding each in turn. She continued through the entire row, expertly masking her disappointment. Harry merely brought out another row of wands and laid them out as before. The elf tried many wands before settling on a beech wand. When she caught sight of the tag upon the box though, her face grew thunderous with rage. "You dare slaughter dragons like cattle for parts!?" she exclaimed angrily. The dragon heartstring wand was clenched tightly in her hand.
Harry backed up. "I do nothing with dragons," he defended. "I will be the first to admit that the wizarding society where I come from is fundamentally broken, but I left before even getting my first job! And I don't think they are raised like cattle. My best friend's brother Charlie worked at a dragon reserve. His lifelong passion was to care for them and he'd hardly do that if the reserves were inhumane!"
She scowled, but subsisted. Arya caressed her new wand with awe. "It's alive," she marveled. "Brom, reach out with your mind, this should not be possible!"
The old storyteller's eyes bulged. "How does this have a mind when both the wood and hair are dead?" he breathed, marveling.
Harry smiled. "There's a reason beyond the ease of magic that wizards always use their wands," he reminisced, "I got mine when I was eleven at Ollivander's, and it's seen me through all sorts of mortal peril." Harry withdrew his holly wand. He wasn't able to actually read its mind or anything, but he got a sense of happiness, loyalty, and eagerness from it. The wand wanted to serve its master, eager to wield magic. He also got the sense of competitiveness, like the holly wand was trying to prove itself better than the Elder wand. He tried to send back reassurances. The wand of destiny might cast more powerful spells, but it often felt cold and aloof, and it reveled in destruction far too much for Harry to be comfortable.
Stowing the wand, Harry cleared the table and sent back the other wands. "I wanted to see if our magic was compatible," he explained. "Because some of your rules make no sense."
Brom scowled. "So the countless elves, humans, and riders who've died challenging these rules mean nothing, boy? You think you know more than some of the greatest magicians now that you have five minutes of magic under your belt?"
Harry raised his hands placatingly. "I'm only saying, beyond the language, our magic seems fundamentally the same. Understanding a concept grants power over it. You simply have the ancient language as a crutch, one which has understanding written into it directly. The benefit is that you need only know the words rather than understand or use premade spells, while its tradeoff is the lethality and permanence."
Summoning a certain ring, he continued. "I know you are wrong because I can violate nearly all those rules." With that, he twisted the stone thrice.
AN: one more chapter left and then we start learning magic!