# Document — Anothen/.gemini/tmp/apps/tool-outputs/session-2834ac85-277d-41eb-9df1-483069fa296b/run_shell_command_1773275936598_0.txt Output: (1-28-16 This is the official first chapter of the book. Text in red are notes that must be reviewed in order to ensure consistency throughout the story. Words with strikethroughs should beMust remove all references to Zhandugheen horns, replace them wDUDE! ACK. Thou must go through and alter all spoken sentences in Kaerick to reflect the word 'Ye' instead of 'You' where it addresses the subject. YOU is object – who it is being done tKal Dehkoo – The Long Dry. Is there a place it should be mentioned? An impact it's had on the world? Updated pages 1,2,3,4,When Evan was three years old, he began to show a knack for strucity, though his mother, Aerlynne, always said calling it a knack was akin to calling “a whoppin’ tree but a wee sapling.” That day was the first day the boy was to go to market into town with his father alone. There had been a powerful conflict raging argument regarding this separation of child and mother, but his father, Haergoff, had risked life and limb put his foot down at the end of it, refusing to let the force of his wife's ranting tantrum overcome him into silence; a rare occurrence to say the least. When she had finally stopped shouting long enough for him to get a word in edgewise, he'd whined in his strong Kaerick accent, “Now darling, thou knowest he can't hang upon thine apron strings forever, aye? Thou must permit him to come with me today. Thou simply must permit it. I beg of thee. We shall be fine.” It wasn't her husband's wheedling that convinced her, though, half so much as it was that she could hear her father's voice in the back of her mind saying the same thing – and her mother's firm foot stamping in support of it. With squinted eyes and a searing glare, she began laying out the ground rules for the journey. If it was going to be done, it would Though six years had passed since the heptad famine had ended, and things were mightily improved from the years of scarcity and borderline starvation, loading the wagon wasn’t as bountiful as it had once been. Those seven years of hunger had settled a whole new mindset upon the land. As Haergoff packed the crates, his wife stood behind him, her anxiety at the coming separation exhibiting itself in her tone as she micro-managed every move. “Naw, now take that one down. ‘Tis too many! Art thou trying to starve us again? Exactly how much of our food wilt thou be selling? Hast thou no love in thine heart? Shall we go hungry that thou mightest get rich?” Haergoff kept his head down and mouth shut. Though it was true that care must be taken to keep an ample supply of preserved food on hand, she was more than overdoing it, but he knew one wrong word, a tone taken out of context, a posture that might be misunderstood, could derail the entire trip. Since this might be his only chance for a month or more, he simply followed orders obediently until the wagon was sparsely loaded with a salted ham, some honey and a few bags of dry corn. Her anxiety only increased as Evan was fed, dressed and bundled against the late winter weather, but as he was taken into his father’s arms, she ran out of words, her eyAnd so, amongst grumblings and poutings, the wagon was loaded with salted ham, honey, and a few bags of dry corn. Then Evan was fed, dressed and bundled against the late winter weather, anNow, little Evan was a sharp lad, and though the argument regarding the separation from his mother had happened in private, the behavioral queues given by his Mama and Papa were inescapable. Every time Papa had looked at Mama, he seemed a little afraid. That meant Papa was waiting for Mama to say something that would keep him from...what? Well, keep him from going through with something she disapproved of. Mama, who was always kind and loving (to him), had been more kind and loving than ever before, encouraging him, eyes moist, near tears, holding him close...something was terribly wrong. He felt His anxiety had begunThen Papa took Evan from Mama – odd. Mama began to cry – very odd. Papa turned and began to walk away...and Mama waved. Mama waved? She wasn’t coming? Fear shot through the boy with an electric tingle. He turned and saw that they were headed toward the wagon. He turned back again and saw Mama, curly red hair sticking to her damp cheeks, waving with one hand while the other clutched her apron with a brave look on her face - and Evan began to scream. Tears flowed down his chubby cheeks, both hands reached for his mother, clasping and unclasping, and he cried out for her with all the energy a child who feels the worldHaergoff held tight and hurried away before his wife changed her mind. It had to be done. The boy was, after all, a boy, and needed to begin to learn how to survive. If he was going to be a contributing member of the family, it was never too early to begin learning. It was late, in fact. This parting should have taken place a year ago, but with an overly protective wife prone to fits of anger, especially when it came to her baby, it had been impossible to try and have this conversation then. For goodness sake, it was well-nigh impossible now. With resolution he walked to the wagon, squirming child and all, mounted up with some difficulty, took the reins in one hand while holding the child safely in a steel grip with the other, and away theThe second Evan couldn’t see his mother anymore, the world as the three of them knew it changed forever. One moment they were riding into the woods just father and son, the next moment Aerlynne was sitting on the seat beside her husband with her son iThe shock of it all nearly caused that trip to end there, and end badly. Evan was instantly unconscious and limp as a rag doll. Aerlynne was completely disoriented and violently sick to her stomach, and so utterly startled that she could do little but gasp and burble as though she’d just been sucked out of existence in one place only to reappear in another without any warning. Haergoff roared with startlement, and then moved with lightning reflexes to catch his son who had tumbled off his mother’s lap, onto the floor board, and was within an inch of falling beneath the wagon and its iron rimmed wheels, saving him from tMomentarily blind, her mind stunned and reeling, it took Aerlynne several seconds to get her thoughts to act cohesively again, and even then, the surrealistic sense of dream around her was so strong she had a very difficult time adjusting to the idea that this was reality and not simply her having a shocking nightmare. When her husband, now clutching little Evan to his chest, reached for her, she slapped his hand away with another shoutThen there was some shouting on both of their parts as Haergoff tried to figure out what had just happened and Aerlynne, stomach churning, tried to grasp reality once again, and some vomiting on her part as the contents of her stomach spontaneously sprayed from her mouth inches from her husband’s face, and some dodging on his part; but soon enough the wagon had been brought to a halt and both of them were frantically bent over their uncoEvan wasn’t coming out of it, and by that evening, it had been decided that trading goods would have to wait. Rather than riding from where they lived on the outskirts of Murn to the market at Senthrol, which was a two day journey, they rode straight on through to Tylenthael, which was a six day journey. In Tylenthael there were remediacs and fisiciens, someone, anyone who might explain to them what had happened to mother and son and how it might be fixed. They made the six day trip in four, dripping milk into their unconscious son’s mouth to keep him alive.At the hospitium in Tylenthael they spoke with a medick who, after learning that they had nothing to trade but ham, honey, and corn, recommended to them Raelin’s Remediacs, a group of philanthropic fisiciens that worked for little or no payment. As fortune had it, Raelin himself was in town and happened to be between visits at the time, and so Haergoff and Aerlynne were usheRaelin was a hulk of a man, towering nearly six and a half feet tall and built like an oak tree. When he reached for the child, Aerlynne instinctively shrunk back, thinking that there was no way a man so massive could possibly be gentle enough with her tiny boy, who had been fragile even before he’d been taken by this coma. Raelin smiled at her and said, “Not to worry, ma'am. Oft do I receive such a response. I assure thee I shall brAs he took the limp bundle into his arms, he said, “So tell me Aerlynne and Haergoff began speaking at the same time, but Aerlynne, eyes filled with tears, slapped her husband’s arm with her handkerchief (eliciting an eyebrow raised look from him) and began again, with her other half now silent. “Mine husband was (husband = 3rd person, so the 'was' here shouldn't be 'wast' which would be second person, and it's not 'wath' in as much as wath isn't a word.) taking the wee lad from me, and the boy's fragile and tightly knit to me, and it broke his wee heart, and he cried out for me, but Haergoff continued nonetheless withoutHaergoff, slightly flustered, attempted to break in with, “WellAerlynne raised her voice so that she might continue, and her husband, eyes wide and mouth drawn, shut his yap. “And then they got on the wagon, and then next thing, and I’ll not be kidding with thee, the next thing I was wrenched right off my feet, poofed from where I was standing and sitting next to me heartles“...and my boy was next to dead all of a sudden, and limp as a rag doll in my arms, and ‘tis dark magics, I tell thee. And we need both a fisicien to heal my little Evan and an action guard to come and arrest the foul donnybrook that’s been working maNow, Raelin was a very experienced fisicien, and had been all over the civilized world in both Kyaur and Khazaval, and heard many yarns about magic and strucity, most of which were either sleight of hand or the misperceptions of the illiterate masses. Aerlynne, very agitated, placed her hands palms out in front of her face and then brought them quickly apart. “Poofed,” she whispered. “Poofed out of the doorway of our farm and onto the wagon seat beside mine husband. Like the tales of old wherein they that worked strucity could make the impossible possible, pulling me from one place and forcing me into another and without so much as a warning! The shock of it all – the shock of it, it took the life out of my child. He hath always been fragileRaelin looked to the husband to see if he was rolling his eyes, but the man’s face was slightly ashen, eyes wide, head slightly nodding in agreement. The fear in their eyes was unmistakable. Raelin looked the boy over, listened to his heartbeat and breathing, checked him for bruising or contusions and found that everything was in order. Four days like this? Any blow that would put a child in a coma for four days would likely have killed him, but without a doubt it would have left a mark or swelling. There was nothing visibly wrong with the child. His heart went out to these simpletons; quaint and uneducated rural folk. Even if he was able to rouse their child from his coma, he would be a babbling idiot from that day forward. They’d have been luckier if the little one had died. As to their story, it was possible, sure, but more than unlikely. There might be a handful of men in this world that could work such a powerful strucity form, but the odds of them wielding it to ‘poof’ a mother to her child was absolutely nil. There was a mystery here, th“Well, there happens to be a strucitor visiting from the Grand Strucity Conlegium of Xinthanix who shall be conducting a lecture at the hospitium later this evening. I think I may be able to introduce you to him after he hath finished, and mayhap we cHaergoff said, “We thank thee, sir. Anything I have is thine if only thou canst save my boy. He’s our only child. Please...” His eyes welled up with tears. “Please, I beg of thee. GivRaelin smiled compassionately at him. “If it can be done, thou hast brought him to the right place at the right time. We’re very fortunate to have a strucitor in town, a construcitor at that, and a maven at the strucity conlegium nonetheless. Take cIt wasn’t often that a strucitor would come all the way from the southern end of Khazaval to the neighboring nation of Kyaur for a lecture, but when they did, it was usually at the capital city of Civitas Loam Brigges, a full six days’ journey to the southwest of Tylenthael, where Aerlynne and Haergoff had brought their boy. This time, however, the strucitor wasn’t just a member of Khazaval’s Grand Strucity Conlegium of Xinthanix, he was Maven Arlot, the Khazavalic ambassador to Kyaur, and visir to their queen, Loara. He had traveled from his temporary residence at the palace in Kyaur’s capital to give the speech in Tylethael, which wasn’t just rare – it was a first. The lecturer, Maven Arlot, was a high ranking member of the Grand Strucity Conlegium of Xinthanix and. Though it was a mystery as to why he had chosen to travel this far north, especially in winter, the whole city was excited to have him. Normally lectures were given only to a select group of men and women, but this day was a unique one in which the lecture was not only open to the public, but was expressly targeted to children. The topic of lecture this evening was ‘Strucity - Science, not Magic’. A promise of sweets and toys at the end of the lecture had the city’s entire population of children bubbling with excitement and expectaAfter situating mother and child comfortably in the hospitium away from the day’s chill air, Raelin began the walk to the other end of the campus where the lecture hall was. At first he found it odd that there were so very many people on the grounds and wondered where they were all going. All of them seemed to be heading for the same place he was. Soon enough, he was no longer able to make it easily through the streets, and shortly after that they came to a wall of humanity, crowding around the lecture hall and filled with the giggles and shouts of children – something unheard of on the hospitium grounds. There was no Raelin frowned. Turning to Haergoff he said, “Come then, frienBacktracking to the main hall, Raelin passed the nurse on duty with a nod, and worked his way down the hallways and into the back where only employees, volunteers and interns were allowed. Coming to the back door that led into the lecture hall’s offices, he was more than a little surprised to see a haft guard and a pommel guard standing at the door. When he went to walk pasRaelin scoffed. “I am a major contributor to this establishment. Raelin, proprietor of Raelin’s Remediacs. Stand aside now.” With that he moved to walk through the door, and found a hanRaelin bristled, his huge form rising tall and he glared down at the man in front of him as though he were a gnat. “Standest The man didn’t move, though his compatriot suddenly seemed quite disconcerted. He had the look of a man who might bolt for thThe haft guard didn’t seem half so concerned as his underling. “I care not who thou art nor what orders thou mightest choose to issue. I am certain thou thinkest thyself someone important, and perhaps in thy world ‘tis truth, but in this world, right here, right now, thou art nothing. Move along, or thou shalt “P-P-Pally?” Raelin spun on his heel. “Thy days as a haft guard art short, sirrah. Thou shouldst expect to spend some time in the city sewers swabbing the people’s ordure before the week is finished!” Blushing with embarrassment he marched toward the hospitium’s offices. It was time to issue a complaint and bring reinforcements with him. Poor Haergoff, wide-eyed and farAs they left the building and turned the corner with Raelin allHe turned to look for who was speaking, and was startled to realize it was Evretant, master fisicien of the hospitium, standing near the back of the crowd. “Sir, I was just coming to the offices in the hopes I might speak with someone regarding the atrocious treatment I have received from a guard at the door to the lecture hall and its offices.” His face scrunched with mild surprise and confusion. “What...what art thou doing here, sirEvretant grimaced. “Thou wouldst not believe it, but when I got to the lecture hall’s office doors, I was turned away. CanstRaelin gasped. “Even thee?” (“Thee” is correct, because he references the head of the hospitium’s having been turned away here, making him the object of the experience – the one having itEvretant shrugged. “Indeed. I went and spoke with the maven personally in his quarters after, to complain of course, and his answer was a plea. He said that he had something special he was doing tonight, someone he was looking for, but that he only knew it wasn’t someone of renown, rather, that it is an unknown person. He was very...dodgy. Wouldn’t give me details, only Evretant shrugged. “Aye. It has my curiosity aroused. Be at peace and stand with me. Let us play our part in the maven’s game. Come, I have a spot being held in the line that is close enough to the door, I think, to permit us entrance and to get oRaelin shrugged. It was a cold walk through the press of the crowd to where the line was at, and no small feat working their way through the throng in the chill winter air, but they were able to arrive at their destination, were greeted by two fisiciens that were holding their place for them, and the three of them stepped over the ropes into the line. Behind them someone shRaelin turned, raised up his massive frame, put his hands on his hips, and glowered over the crowd behind them. Whoever had sThe lecture hall was designed to hold 400 people total, but that night there must have been at least 1500 crammed into that room. The only free space was a wide, roped off section of floor at the front of the hall against the stage, protected by a row of guards from the city’s battlery. The heat from the mass of bodies battled the cold that tried to seep in, and frankly the chill was no more a match for the people inside than the people outside were a match for it. The temperature kept climbing, and the sweat began to run, and with it a smell that reminded the attendees more of walking into an arena changing room after Finally, when the room couldn’t hold one person more without spilling over into the roped off area at the front of the stage, the lamps around the walls were doused (awkwardly and with many a, “Pardon, sir. ‘Scuse, ma’am. Sorry ‘bout that,”) and the room darkened so that the only light able to pierce the gloom was that which came in at the opened doors, and even that was dull and lowering. The room dropped into silence, and the expectant curiosity of the crowd was tangible, like static in the airSuddenly there was a flash of tall red fire on the stage with a shocking boom accompanied by a cloud of thick white smoke. The startled audience shouted with surprise. Over the next several seconds the lamps at the front of the stage brightened to illumine the cloud as it dissipated, revealing a man crouched at the center of the stage, wrapped in a dark gray cloak. Slowly he stood up, the hood hiding his face. One hand reached out from beneath the cloth, took hold of a brooch clasped at the neck, and flicked it open. Then, in a single smooth motion, his right hand holding the left side of his cloak at the neck, he lifted his arm up and over his head and pulled it from about his shoulders, revealing that the inside of the cloak was dappled with stars as if reflecting the night sky. Swinging it around, causing the cloth to billow out in a wide arc, he threw the cloak into the air to his left with it now spread open like an enormous fan and the glowing inside facing the ceiling. It spun as it sailed into the air, and the man turned to it, drew both hands back to his shoulders and then threw his upper body forward, arms reaching out toward the spinning cloak as he shouted, “HIt came to a stop, as if hung on the air itself, hovering several feet above the stage. The audience gasped. The man stepped toward the cloak and said in a loud voice, “Now rise, oh celestial bodies of the night! Rise up, and let us see you shine!” The stars that had covered the cloak lifted, some a few inches, some a foot or two off the cloth, gleaming and shining as if they were made of glass, glinting in the firelight, many of them shining gently with a subtle green or blue light. A wave of awe washed over the audience, and even the walls of the room seThe man turned back to face the audience, the cloak and its stars frozen in the air beside him. As a spotlight from above brightened on him, the rest of the stage dimmed. He chuckled softly and the attention of the room moved largely from the cloak to him. He was not a tall man by any stretch of the imagination, crowned with balding white hair, a bushy but neatly trimmed beard, and dressed in a thigh long, pin-striped, blue and gray jerkin, long-sleeved ivory doublet and loose black leather breech“I love that trick,” he said to the audience in his thick Khazavalic accent. “Wows ‘em every time. By combining my title as maven with your expectations and adding a bit of showmanship, I can convince you that I am capable of working magic, that I am no ordinary man, but rather a worker of thaumaturgy, a wizard. Your eyes tell you that I have done the impossible, because you expect to see great things and have already lent me your belief that it can be done, albeit a future belief, but your future belief becomes my present confidence, and in it, were I to truly wish for it, I have the power to do what you think to be impossible. I can toss a cloak into the air, freeze it in time, and cause the stars that are within it to lift into the air andHe took a deep breath and a mischievous look came over his face. “But what if I were to tell you that magic is pure myth? That no such thing exists? What if I were to tell you that we live in a world ruled by science and the laws of physics, and that the puff of smoke and hovering cloak and the shimmering starsHis hand went inside his jerkin and pulled out a pair of scissors. Walking over to where the stars hung above the cloth, he reached out and snipped the air over one of them...and it obediently fell into the palm of his outstretched hand. He lifted it up. “Coated in bioluminescent goo, it glows nicely for me in the dark. See? It’s nothing more than a glass bead. Oh! And look here – an entire patch where the strings got tangled and never rose off the cloak.” He reached out and clasped what appeared to be empty air and lifted, pulling several stars up off the cloak a couple of inches by strings invisible to the audien“As to the cloak itself? Frankly, it’s only good for show, ribbed with thin boards sewn inside the cloth, it acts much like a fan does. Handle it properly, and it opens, locks in place, and soars no differently than any flying disc. Of course, it’s attached to a rod on a swivel, so all ‘soaring’ is deception as well. Frankly, makes it quite awkward to throw the thing, but my assistant (do I need to show him later when everyone's talking about taking Evan away, is he in the coach?) working the mechanism above has done a fine job this evening. The rod hangs from above, thin and painted to match the curtain behind me, half-shrouded in darkness so that you don’t notice it, and what with your attention held by the cloak itself, you have a piece of clothing that will fly through the air and freeze on command.He cleared his throat. “All of you here have heard of strucity, but most of you, I would venture to guess, believe it to be magic; believe that when a strucity engineer works a strucity form, that he has cast a spell, that he is a warlock. However, there is a reason we are called engineers and reject being called warlocks; strucitors and not wizards. That is because learning to manipulate strucity is done through science...and the forms it takes, though they may be remarkable and outside common daily experience, are nothing more than a restructuring of matter and energy, no different than building a house or lighting a “Strucity is called such because it’s the structure of all that exists. Think of it as the labyrinth which the universe travels along with infinite hallways branching off, changing direction depending on the choices we make. Now, it is common knowledge that we control matter with our choices from one second to the next. For example, I choose to speak with you, my body responds to my will, and out come the words, moving across the air to you. Each of you willed yourself to walk here this even, and your body responded by using your legs to move you where you desired. In the strictest of definitions, those are both examples of strucity forms; speaking, walking. However, our force of will isn’t limited simply from consciousness to body, but for those who have explored the labyrinth of strucity, we are able to extend our consciousness to influence the world we see aro“Now, there are two realities about working strucity that are pertinent to all of us – the first is that anyone can create strucity forms. In fact, there isn’t a person in this room that hasn’t done so, to lesser degrees, and not just speaking or walking. Many of us practice physical disciplines that permit one to breath more slowly, or calm one’s heart rate, or perform feats of strength that appear super-human. Reaching beyond that, though, to altering the aether around us, igniting fire or freezing to ice by sheer will, moving objects without touching them, healing wounds and curing illnesses in the absence of poultices or medicine – these are all strucity forms any of you could perform. The second truth, however, is why there are so few strucitors out there, why it is that not more than one in a thousand actually practices willful strucity. You see, it is very d“To be precise, it takes the ‘stuff’ of the aether to wield the power of creation, to break and build by extending beyond your body into the world around you. When you engineer a strucity form, you are bending and twisting the stuff that all the universe is made of. In the example of speaking or running, the energy used up is already there and available in your body, waiting to be tapped. You put it in there by taking it out of the food you eat; but when you reach beyond your body, you’re no longer able to access the nutrients derived from eating and drinking, and must tap into a different energy source. If you fail to do this properly, then the energy that is consumed by working “This most common and deadly of all strucidisiacal mistakes is terribly easy to make, and even advanced strucitors with decades of experience behind them make it – and pay the price. We as humans are very used to not having to focus on what energy source we want to access. Frankly, it is utterly foreign to our instinct and personal nature to have to focus on using any particular energy source at all. In addition, the mind of the strucitor must be able to multitask, focusing on, at the very least, the strucity form one is trying to create while maintaining a draw from an external energy source at the same time. This is no simple task, considering the depth of understanding of the physical world and the laws of nature it takes, keeping every step in mind in its proper order, applying the will, drawing the energy, managing any talismans involved, shaping the form...and if you slip up in the slightest way, the entire form is useless at best and the energy is wasted. Of course, then there’s the possibility of creating a vortex when the form collapses, or having the energy explode, in addition to the risk of being paralyzed or killed by having sucked your own essence dry...but I He took a deep breath and muttered, “Where was I? Oh! Yes, “Our body is designed to use energy without our attention, and the only control we have over it is when our body says, ‘Ok, put more nutrients in now.’ We get to choose when that happens, but not how it is disseminated. It is that thing that is the very problem with altering strucity. Our mind doesn’t know any more about accessing energy sources when working outside our bodies than it does when using energy from inside our bodies, and so what happens is that the energy is taken from sources outside our control, but from us nonetheless. And when extending your mind to manipulate things outside our bodies this is always a bad thing, as in, the body never naturally or accidentally taps into healthy energy reserves that can be refilled with a meal. The energy needed to engineer a strucity form is made of entirely different stuff. Fail to tap an external energy source, and a body’s functions begin breaking down, and it works differently for each person, but this results in all sorts of physical debilitations; including long-term exhaustion, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, difficulty concentrating, nausea, joint pain, wasting disease, tremors, dizziness, blindness, para“So, though many might try to become strucitors, most of them don’t try for long, either because they find they have done something horrible to themselves and quit while their ahead, or because they fall into a coma or collapse from a heart attack, or are blown to bits, or sucked into a vortex, to name a fraction of the different horrible consequences to strucity manipulation gone wrong. It is incredibly easy to lose focus on tapping an alternate energy source other than one’s self, one’s essence. Becoming a strucity engineer takes an immense amount of focus, and that kind of focus must be taught and trained over years, and even then there are those few who are able to tap into that“However, let us pretend that you have found or been taught the scientific blueprint of the strucity engineer, and you have learned how to tap alternate energy sources, such as steam, or for the more adventuresome and confident, tapping the plasma of an open flame. What then, you might think? Can you simply reach out and twist a tree as you’d like, ignite fire from nothing, heal a scar? No, you cannot. Why? Because you’re not working magic, you’re working in a tangible world with laws that rule the way things work. You cannot simply ‘wish’ a wound well and have it heal. You must know what the wound is made of, what process must be taken to heal it. There are things a body does to heal that you must know about, and know about extensively, if the wound is anything more than cut skin. Your body goes through many different processes when healing a cut, and the wise construcitor follows the same path the body does in healing a wound rather than trying to invent a new path. New paths are dangerous things that result in gross mutations that are usually more harmful than good. Many a strucitor has chosen to take the short cut and wound up causing great damage rather than learning how the world works, following that path, and healing a wound properly. In fact, that is the way most destrucitors are born, loving immediate satisfaction and the love of destruction more than the long-term benefits of creation, because of the am“Now, in all that I’m telling you, it is assumed that a strucitor has already gained the level of confidence necessary to be able to work a form – which is absolutely necessary in order for a form to work. In the realm of outer-consciousness, simply going through the motions doesn’t equal success like it might in normal existence. For example, you don’t have to believe that cutting a tree will make it fall over in order for it to fall when you’ve cut through it; but when you begin to reach beyond yourself, it is more than simply willpower that permits a form to be worked – you must believe it will work, and stacked against you is anyone’s disbelief. For example, I might have worked a particular form a thousand times – let’s say levitation. I know I can do it, I have done it. I summon the will, I tap an energy source, I believe I can do it, and up I go, but now we add another person to the mix, a person who believes that levitating is impossible. I summon the will, I tap an energy source, I believe, and nothing happens. Why? Imagine that the strucity form of levitation is equal to me lifting an empty box. My belief is my power, but when another person is there, their unbelief is equal to them sitting on the box. I try to lift, and can’t get it off the ground. I still use the energy – maybe more energy, even – but I get nowhere. Add more disbelievers, and the problem becomes greater and greater, stacking more and mo“Now, don’t let me mislead you. Belief isn’t equal to physical muscles. One person’s belief can be so deep, so profound and pure that a thousand people’s disbelief is no match for it, two thousand people’s disbelief, but disbelief is still a very debilitating thing. And the disbelief doesn’t have to be conscious for it to counter the strucity form, though conscious disbelief is significantly more binding than the unconscious. Of course, this weighs on the strucitors belief, and a careless strucitor can become convinced he is no longer able to work a form that he is perfectly capable of working as a result of having tried to work the form in the presence of disbelievers, whether he knew it or not. Nobody’s disbelief is so powerful against a s“Of course, the power of belief works just the same in reverse. If a skilled, practiced, prepared, focused strucitor works to engineer a strucity form, and with him are believers, their belief works in unison with his, acting to lift the box together. And this can indeed make things interesting when you have a gathering of believers and a gathering of disbelievers in the same room, for the success or failure of the form depends on who wins the struggle between those working to lift the box, and th“So! That is the basics, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your time and attention, and may you all have a great night.” The disappointment in the room was tangible. Where was the magic, or strucity, or whatever the maven wanted to call it? Where was the show? The cloak and the stars...that was it? A deception was all they got? Oh, that and a boring speech. Who cares? Where’s the good stuff? Somewhere in the audience someone shouted, “Oy! Give us a trick, then!” Someone else who had evidently been listening to the speech shouted, “We believe in ye, maven! We believe you can do it!” The room as a whole begaCame the voice again, “Give us a bloomin’ trick, lad!” The croArlot held up his hands for silence, and slowly the room quiete“A trick, eh? Hmmm. Let me think now. A trick.” Pause. “A trick trick trick trick trick. A trick, a trick, a trick. TriThe maven held one elbow and tapped his chin with the fingers of the other hand, as though deep in thought. The audience waitSuddenly Arlot’s face brightened. “I’ve got it! Let’s make the city’s battlery guard polite for a day. What say you?” The audience half-chuckled, until the maven said, “No no, that’s not possible. I’ll have to think of something else.” Then they laughed (no one with more vigor than Raelin), perhaps a bit longer and harder than was wise, if the looks on any of the guardsHe smiled and said, “Ok then. Enough jokes, but I’m going to need your help. You must believe in my power – and let this one be no trick, but a real strucity form, and since my visit is bound to be a one time deal, let us make it something... signifiThe room quieted down with expectation. Arlot walked to the edge of the stage and shouted out, “Are there any children here tThe room was quickly filled with the shouts of the city’s younger generation. Arlot didn’t appear to hear them. “Any at all?Arlot smiled. “Ah! I hear one or two of you. Moms and dads, would you please be so kind as to work your way to the front with your little ones, any children between three and ten. Take your time. We’re in no hurry. Let’s get all of the children tThe following was no small endeavor. With more than three times the number of people in the room than it was designed to hold, squeezing 700 parents and children to the front took awhile, and was accompanied by more than a few complaints and cries, but after several minutes, it had been accomplished. The guards at the front began ushering the children in behind them into the roped off area so that they could all line up close to the st“Ok, children,” said Arlot, “would you like to help me with a sThe kids were terribly excited, and it showed in their energeti“Ok,” said the maven as he crouched down, his hands on his thigThe children cheered. Arlot smiled widely, but put his hands out, motioning for silence. “Here’s what we’re going to do. All of you, your parents, the people of the city, know that I am a maven from the strucity conlegium. All of you know that I evince strucity forms, and so this should be easy. Lend me your belief, and I will find amongst you he with the greatest talent for struciforms, and we will, together, lift him into the sky. Now, mom and dad, don’t fret, I need only your children’s belief. All of the actual evincing will be conducted by me – no one need worry that they’ll be at risk of untying themselves. JAgain came the cheers and the applause, roused, energetic, boomAnd indeed they could. The cheers and shouts, screams and yells, clapping, stomping and bellows nearly blew the roof off the auditorium. Arlot reached toward them, motioning upward, encouraging the cacophony to continue, as though he were conducting an orchestra, and then reached to a small stone that hung from a necklace that lay just beneath his shirt. His eyes closed, his head tilted back, and his fingers rubbed the stone as his mouth began moving in silent words. The stone began to glow ever so slightly, and whilst his one hand clutched it, the other began to lift skyward slowly, palm up, as though beckoning to a bird that it should take flight. All eyes searched, looking forAnd the search continued. Arlot’s hand reached its apex, having lifted as high as his arm could extend, but nobody took to the sky. Slowly, he opened his eyes ever so slightly, peeking at the crowd to see who it was that would be raised into the air, and then he scowled. By the volume of the crowd and the depth of their enthusiasm, there was little question as to how ready they were to see the form constructed, to watch a little person take to the skies, little doubt as to whether or not they believed it could happen, but...nothing. The crowd thought that the maven must be playing with them still, and much laughter andHe took a deep breath, frowned with deep concentration, and tilted his head back again, the muscles of his jaw clenching and unclenching as he poured all of the focus and determination he could muster into the form, the necklace stone now glowing so brightly it illuminated the faces of the children pressed against the stage. He swept his arm down and again lifted it roofward slowly, motioning for the child he knew was here, now, to lift into the air, the child he had come seeking, the gifted one. He had to be here. ‘Rise up, child,’ he thought to himself, and then refocused his thoughts so that he didn’t slip from tapping the energy that poured out from the talisman at his neck to his own essence. With so many long years of working toward this moment, waiting and practicing, learning an entire new class The audience began to wonder what was going on. Their cheers were not so energetic as they had been a moment ago. The children were all looking expectantly around at one another, but as nothing continued to happen, their faces tended more and more toward disappointment. Arlot could feel the weight of building disbelief weighing down on him, binding his form as his outer-consciousness reached around the crowd, seeking for the boy’s ethereal fingerprint, and he began to panic inside – and instantly he released the form. He knew better than to try and evince a form even he did not believe he could work. The crushing weight of the audience’s doubt bore down on him, and he quickly cut off his outward reaching, retreating back within himself alone. The necklace stone winked out, and his hands dropped to his sides. The audience fell into a hush. This didn’t look like aThe scope and scale of his disappointment and sudden crushing fear were so massive he felt his knees wobble for a moment, and he staggered. That was it, then. Hope was lost. Without anotRaelin turned to look at Evretant, and Haergoff looked to Raelin. Evretant shrugged his shoulders, and then when Raelin realized that Haergoff was looking expectantly at him, he passed the shrug along. They turned their eyes back to the now empty stage and, along with the rest of the crowd, waited to see what was next. They waited a few seconds, then several seconds more. Nothing was next. People began to mutter, and a voice cried out through cupped hands, “Aye, gettest thee back here! Where’sThe disappointment from earlier, that had been used as a tool to set the crowd up for a greater joy in fulfilled expectation now served to provide a potent support for their more forceful disappointment. Another voice joined the first, and as the disapproval of a disillusioned audience began to build, not the least of whom was Evretant, Raelin said to him, “Sir, I brought this man to see the maven. Thinkest thou that thou couldst take Evretant scowled deeply. “Indeed. I must needs speak with him also, methinks. Come, let us make haste before the entire crowd realizes the show is over and decides to leave at the same time we do.” To himself he thought, ‘Or worse yet, decide not to leave and start breaking things like they did at the last faiIt was a short distance to the door and out into the evening air, and Raelin, Evretant and Haergoff were all suddenly thankful that they had been so far back in line that they were only just able to squeeze into the room when the lecture began. With some significant amount of pushing by Raelin, who tried to be polite about it, but was not always successful, the three of them worked their way through the packed crowd toward the hospitium's guest quarters. The crowd was curious, and shouts traveled from outside to inside asking what had happened, and shouts could be heard in answer saying that the show was over. This served to inspire Raelin to be a bit more hasty, to try and stay ahead of the herd. They were not the only ones from inside that had given up on the show and were headed out. The volume of boos and disapproving shouts inside began to grow as the audience expressed their disappointment in no uncertain terms, and the feeling of the crowd began to move from festive to hostile. Evretant glanced uncomfortably over his shoulder, the first signs of fear showing on his face and said, “Gar, they sound pretty Raelin, more used to the common rabble and their excitement about causing a ruckus, didn’t bother sharing his pessimism about his outlook, but notched up the speed with which he worked his There were still minutes of pushing through the midst of the throng, but Raelin’s size and willingness to move forward whether the person in his way moved or not, worked. They were able to get out of the thick of things before the volume from the crowd changed from disappointed to angry, and from angry to chaotic. Once free from the press of humanity, however, it was a shorAs they approached the guest quarters, they saw several dozen soldiers hurrying toward the lecture hall behind them, some of them barking orders, all of them looking ready for a fight. Haergoff, being country bred and raised, looked quite terrified. As the door closed behind them, and the shouting became muffled, Raelin saw the man’s face and clapped him solidly and chummily on the shoulder, startling the poor fellow nearly out of his wits and eliciting a frightened cry as though he’d been bit by “No need to be frightened, man,” said Raelin. “’Tis a common enough experience here in Tylenthael. Both the crowd and the guard are used to it. A little violence gives us something to doThey marched past the watchman at the front counter, up the stairs and to the maven’s quarters where Evretant knocked soundly and not so politely on his door. Raelin, suddenly looking a bit worried for him, leaned forward and whispered in Evretant’s ear, “Sir, not to tellest thee thy business, but ‘tis the queen’Evretant frowned with displeasure, but, as the door opened, suddenly snapped to attention, his attitude altering from angry and fierce to tame and ingratiating. A young man stood in the doEvretant, his smile stiff as a board and as warm as snow, said,A moment later and the young man holding the door was replaced Evretant had come prepared to say, “Look, thou daft fool, thou canst come and command the entire city’s attention, bring the rabble to mine hospitium, build up their expectations, and then dash them to the ground. Willest thou be paying for the cost of repairing the buildings and the medical bills?” What came out of his mouth instead was, “Good even, maven. A pleasure to sArlot’s head bobbed ever so slightly as he waited for the man to say something that mattered. Evretant seemed stumped, and stood there with that wooden smile glued to his face. As one second of silence turned into three, the master of the hospitium began to become uncomfortable, and a look of impatience began toRaelin stepped in to save the day. “Good even, sire. We beg thee to forgive our intrusion, but the master has brought us herArlot looked at him and said, “Just because I reside in the king’s court doesn’t make me nobility. Don’t call me sire. Who is this man?” His tone was sharp and impatient. Evretant was suddenly quite glad he’d brought Raelin along and meekly ducked Raelin replied, “My apologies, maven. This man is Haergoff, a farmer from the village of Murn. He and his wife have ridden hArlot interrupted, “Forgive me, sir, but I really have terribly important business to attend to, and no time for a meet-and-greet. I mean no offense, but there are matters at work here that dwarf your cares as well as mine, and I must attend to them.”Evretant’s face flushed in response to being so casually discarded, but the maven didn’t seem to notice. He went to close the door in their faces when Haergoff, frightened and out of his element, said, “Please, sir. I beg of thee a moment of thy timeThe door quit closing, and Arlot sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that evening. He glanced over his shoulder to where his assistant was packing, and then back at the trio in front of him. “You know,” he said, his voice suddenly much softer, “it dawns on me just now I won’t be able to leave until morning no matter how quickly we pack.” Then speaking to himself, “Not that it will make a difference now.” Opening the door widThere were two chairs in the room, one at the small desk that all the guest rooms had, and one at the vanity table in front of the mirror. Arlot pulled one chair out and motioned for Haergoff to take a seat, and then took the other for himself. “TellHaergoff, unable to bring himself to sit with so many men of high estate standing around him, left the chair empty. He started with, “Well, I, uh. Thank thee, sir, for seeing me, er, speaking with me. I wanted, or, it’s such an honor getting to meet thee, thou knowest, and ‘tis truly thy pleasure that, OR, ‘tisArlot smiled and shook his head. “Good man, no need for all that. Master Evretant and Fisicien Raelin are no small company to keep. If they have brought you here, it is evident to me that some great issue is at stake. Let’s get past the formalities and to the business at hand. The question on the table is, hoArlot was a kind man at heart, if a bit out-of-touch with the realities of common life and a bit spoiled by living at the castle and being waited on by the queen’s slaves. He was not willfully proud, nor did he consider himself better than others, even the commoners, most of the time, but he was more aware than most people of the part he played and was to play in the development of a kingdom, and how his life touched not hundreds or thousands, but hundreds of thousands, if not millions of other lives in the decisions he made. He turned with a look of surprise and mild annoyance at Evretant and Raelin, two men who should know better, who should themselves be reluctant to be taking on the troubles of one commoner’s son with the depth of responsibility and the size of the job each of them had in life, and saiEvretant, his focus suddenly called away from the depth of annoyance he felt at the maven’s cosmic disappointment, looked rathRaelin held a different view on the world than did Arlot, or Evretant for that matter. Raelin, though quite proud, was a man who believed that the greatest power anyone could have in this world was the power to heal, and he believed, truly and deeply, that there was no such thing as a man so unknown or uninvolved in kingdom matters as to not warrant the attention of any other man, whether commoner or noble. He believed that everyone was equally important, and that those with the faculties to watch over the masses had a responsibility akin to that of a shepherd for his sheep. He was also an intelligent man, and understooHe said with a tone designed to present himself as a dumb fool with no idea why in the world Arlot was asking the question, “He’s here to ask thee to help his son. Thou seest, he’s in a coThe maven waited for more explanation, holding Raelin’s gaze, but Raelin kept a perfectly innocent, clueless look on his face, and Arlot finally summoned a deep sigh as he arranged his patience. None of these men had any idea how important this night had been, how the course of the future had been unaltered, that one of the few glints of hope for this world had winked out. To Haergoff he said, “What do you feel I can do for you that thHaergoff replied, “I’m sorry sir, I know not what thou dost, nor what a Fettle Former is, nor what these men think thou canst do for me that they couldn’t, only that when I pled for my son’s life good Fisicien Raelin said that thou wouldst be here, and that there was hope in that.” Though he said it, he didn’t beRaelin said softly, “Tell him about how thy son fell into a comHaergoff stared at the floor, despondency beginning to wash over him. “I do not know what really happened. I know that I was on the wagon riding toward town with my son beside me, the first time he’d ever been apart from his mother. She had stayed behind as she always does to keep up the farm, but, then she suddenly just appeared next to me, out of thin air, and my boy wasPoor Haergoff’s heart began galloping like horse and, eyebrows raised high, he leaned backward in the chair, his mouth suddenly drawn tight with startlement. “I’m not making it up, sir. S“Yes, yes. I heard that the first time. And the boy collapsedHaergoff didn’t understand the man’s response, and looked frighArlot shook his head as though he’d been punched in the jaw, and had to shake it off. “Where, man? Where is ‘with his motherRaelin, who had thought the evidence of such a powerful strucity form in the tale would elicit a response, but had no idea why this large and energetic of a reaction, was feeling both smug at being so right, and was now quite curious. He said, “She’s When Haergoff opened the door to the room he was greeted by an odd sight. His wife was on the bed, bent over their son, her hands on either side of him, looking for all the world like she She heard the door to the room open and, with her face still tucked down, said with a fear etched voice, “Where hast thou beenShe shook her head. “Nay. Nay, he’s not.” She began crying, Haergoff ran to her, placed his hand on her back trying to get Still speaking to the bed, Aerlynne said, “Something’s got him, some cruel spirit, taken ahold of him and tossed him about whilst thou wert gone, as if...as if there were two spirits fighting over the lad, one that works to keep me with the boy, and one trying to take him from me. I told you not to take him from “Thinkest thou about it; when first thou didst attempt to take him from me, I was poofed from where I was standing and appeared out of thin air at his side, taken by a spirit that knew I shouldn’t be apart from the lad and brought me to him. But the wicked spirit saw his chance and put him in a coma. Then, whilst thou wert with me, nothing for days, but once thou hadst left, the spirit that wants to take him from me came and fought battled me for him! Tore him from me arms and scooted him about the ceiling as though...as though...oh, I don’t know. I only know that I had to get on the bed to reach him and pull him down, and no sooner did I get him to my lap, but up he goeth again, the spirit tossing him about on the ceiling a second time. I tried to get him down again, but this time he was held so strongly I was afraid that if I pulled any harder, I’d yank his wee arms out of their sockets. So, I stood beneath him and followed him about the room, and then all at once, the spirit let him go and he dropped like a stone. Thank goodness that I was following him! I caught him, and here we’ve been ever since, waitinMaven Arlot, who had looked more and more embarrassed and uncomfortable as the story went on, grimaced. “Oh dear. I’m so sorAerlynne looked up for the first time then, only having just become aware of the other men in the room. “Who art thou? Canst thou help us? We must find a way to stop the spirit that tormA dawning look washed over her face, and suddenly Aerlynne’s eyes got very big. She whispered, “Dost thou know what’s happeniArlot shook his head. “No. Well, no and maybe a bit of it, yes. The flying around the room part might have been me, but I swear I didn’t know. At least, I expected the boy to be at the Aerlynne interrupted. “But canst thou make it stop? Please, dArlot shook his head and put both his hands up, palms out. “No no, we won’t hurt the boy. In fact, we want very much to help“No no. Not worst, but biggest. We want to help him very, verArlot nodded. “I believe so – at least, the flying part I can make stop for sure, if this boy is the one I’m looking for.” He chuckled nervously for a moment. “I mean, it would be preeeetty coincidental if the boy started flying around the room at the same time I was trying to make a boy fly back at the auditorium, and it not be me being the one to make him fly around. Not a lot of people fly, you know.” He chuckled again. He was tArlot took a deep breath. “Your boy, if he’s the boy we’re looking for, is a very, very special boy indeed – and I think it a near certainty at this point that he’s who we’re looking for. I’m not at liberty to go into great detail, but if I can verify that it is him, that he’s the one, then he has a bright futurHaergoff asked, “What,” but Arlot raised his hand. “Let me explain, at least, as much as I’m permitted. I am in the employ of Her Majesty, Queen Loara, as her Court Visir. As I’m sure you’re aware, she is an Antuvliaen, descended from the ancients and imbued with the gift of auspication – the ability to see through her ancestors and descendants eyes, hear through their ears, feel through their skin. Just recently, while I walked with her in the palace garden, she was struck with a vision, and in it she saw me and your son speaking with one another. I am not at liberty to divulge the details, but I can tell you that, if your son is the boy from the auspication, then your son is very, very special indeed. I am here on direct orders from the queen, to find the boy she saw and to bring him back to the palaThe direction of the conversation had become frightening. AerlArlot stopped. After a brief pause he said, “Well, I guess that’s true. I suppose then we’ll have to test him, and find out.Haergoff wasn’t much liking the sound of where this conversation was going either. Back to the palace? To be raised? The palace was a long way from Murn. Raised by whom? He opened his “Well, ma’am,” Arlot laughed a high-pitched laugh quietly and Aerlynne’s voice was high pitched and whining as she asked, “WhArlot answered, “I am sorry about earlier. I didn’t think about him not being at the hospitium lecture hall. I was so sure he’d be there, what with all the queen saw; though it all makes perfect sense now, him at the hospitium, sure, but in guest quarters while his father was in the lecture hall – I knew I felt his appellative, but it’s very difficult to tell a child’s appellative from his parents, especially son to father and mother tHe looked up at Haergoff and Aerlynne (who was still crouched over her child) and saw the looks of ‘I-have-no-idea-what-thou-art-talking-about’ on their faces, with a firm mixture of doubt “Let me back up a bit. Each of us has a ‘life signature’ of sorts, a particular wavelength...er. Let me simplify. You know how you know each other’s voice? You don’t have to see your wife or your husband to know it’s them speaking, because their voice is unique to them. Or, each person has a face that is their face alone, and though there may be others who look the same, there are always differences. Well, in the realm of aether – that’s the stuff that makes up everything; light, stone, stars and earth and all the stuff in between them and of them – each person has their own ‘aether face’, and it’s called their autogenous appellative. That is, there’s a way to know who a person is if you see them as an adult even if the last time you saw them they were an infant, because a person’s appellative doesn’t“Well, I found your son’s appellative (Plotline? Evan or Azoth or some other is able to sleuth that, the only way for Arlot to obtain Evan’s appellative would be through contact, and since it was through the queen’s auspication, it would have to have been done via strucotenancy), but because I didn’t know what he looked like, or even exactly where he would be at,” he laughed nervously again and said, “Obviously... But I was able to find his appellative, and then I had my work cut out for me. Knowing basically where he would be, in the area of the lecture hall at Tylenthael, here on the hospitium's campus, and exactly when he would be there, I was able to devise a way of finding him, a needle in a veritable haystack. I would gather together all the children of the city into one place, and then find this boy by moving his appellative away from the center of gravity. Of course, a person goes where their appellative goes just as much as they go where their face goes, you see? It’s not really ‘flight’, it’s just that flight comes out of it.” He looked quite pleased with how clever he’d been. “So you see, I gather the child to me, out of a sea of children I make him fly, and bam, I have found the child from the auspication.” He smiled anAerlynne said, “Is there maybe another way to be sure thou hastArlot shook his head. “No, I can’t be sure. Appellative’s are tricky things and, it’s frankly astonishing that I was able to find it at all in the first place, but you see, having never had my appellative touch his, there’s no way for me to know him when I meet him. The only way was to tangle the aether near him with his appellative, and then move that aether. That means I can’t know the boy except by whether or not he flies when I create the strucity form that moves the aether which is tangled with his appellative, which moves him away from the gravity of the earth, which makes him fly. I have spent several long years researching how to do this, practicing and perfecting it. I cannot tell you the amount of effort and time spent in it, and the complexities involved. I can only tell you that I must make him fly, or I will not know for sure it’s him. Under most any other circumstances, I’d be happy to take the fact that he was flying during the lecture as proof enough, but – I cannot tell you how important this boy is. I cannot afford to be wrong. I must see it with my own eyes. I must know one hundred percent that he is the one, that it wasn’t some bizarre coincidence.His mother, looking very concerned said, “Canst thou make him fly a bit more gently, maybe? Maybe he doth not need to touch tArlot nodded. “Oh, of course. Yes yes. No problem there. Just a foot or so will be sufficient. Just enough to know beyondAerlynne removed herself from covering the boy and tenderly scoArlot considered him. There was nothing remarkable about the way that he looked, no tell-tale signs of superiority, nothing spectacular at all...quite the opposite. What could the boy do for the world? Was it a power he had, a gift of some sort? Was it a place he knew of, or would know of? A person he knew? There was no telling; such a short glimpse through the queen, s…smoke over the rubbled wall, and somewhere the crackling of flame. The maven, a burlap wrapped book clutched so tightly in his fingers that his knuckles are white, hands trembling, stands, thrusting the book into the boy’s chest. He is shouting now, trying to be heard by the boy over what sounded like rolling thunder, roaring, getting louder and closer. “It’s the end of all we know! The remnant of this kingdom may well be in your hands. I wish that I’d met you when you first had been in Tylenthael. How many more might we have saved? There isn’t time now to share with you all you should know about strucity forms, to give to you a lifetime’s worth of knowledge and experience. Take this book, run from this place, run for your life!” Suddenly a look of realization washes over his face, shock and profound surprise. He turns and looks directly at me, and fear hits like an ocean wave. I’ve been caught! “The lecture hall in Tylenthael, winter of fifteen-seventy-three, during Freosemens on the 13th day!” (This passage taken from Antuvliaen AuspicatSo cryptic. Arlot had already been to every library he could find and searched through all of them, looking for the odd burlap binding on the book from the vision, but to no avail. He knew it was a fool’s errand, but with ‘the end of all we know’ and, ‘the remnant of this kingdom may well be in your hands’ on th“This won’t take but a moment,” he said, and reached to the talisman at his throat. He had very little to worry about as far as belief went – the mother’s belief alone would have been sufficient even had everyone else in the room been convinced that the boy’s flight was impossible, but of course, they believed too. The stone began to glow gently, and Arlot’s lips moved softly, soundlessly speaking. His hand began to rise, and with it,Aerlynne cried out and instinctively caught him again as he rose up off her lap, but Arlot was already done. It was all he needed to know. With a deep sigh of relief, he gently released the strucity form and the boy settled back into his mother’s lap“I believe I know what happened to your son,” he said to Haergoff and Aerlynne, “and if I’m right, I think I can, indeed, help him. First, take comfort in knowing that I have seen your boy in a vision, years from now fit and healthy. Secondly, I don’t think there are any spirits moving you or making your boy unconscious. I highly suspect he himself is the one that moved you to him, and that he is unconscious because he nearly killed hArlot smiled. “Because I suspect he is a strucoproclivite, a natural strucity engineer.” Turning to Haergoff he asked, “You said that the day this all happened was the first day the mothe“And the missus has made it plain to me that there is a powerful bond between the two of them.” He nodded at Aerlynne. “The “You see, though it is true that, in order to become a strucity engineer one must study long and hard, there are instances in which we might work struciforms instinctually. It actually happens all the time, all around you, but most people are unaware of it, because the forms are miniscule and commonly accepted by all. Anyone who has a bond with their pet, where the animal almost appears to understand complex thoughts and statements, as if they were a part of the conversation, knows what I’m speaking of. Or cooks who seem to know exactly how much of what ingredient goes into a cake without measuring it. Or consistently finding items lost by someone else with ease, or ‘feeling’ someone nearby though you did not hear or see them, or seeing an event you’re just certain you’ve seen before – because you have. Or one of a thousand, thousand other little things that all seem a bit odd when thought about logically, but are accepted as a part of reality because of how frequently they happen. Not all of those are strucity forms at work, but we at the conlegium have learned that quite often they are. Some people are far more gifted at it than others, and they work strucity forms regularly and are completely unaware of it. We call them strucopro“I thought thou didst say ‘tis always bad to work a form without – uh – knocking on energy, and that never do we accidentally Arlot smiled. He was pleased. This commoner had been listening. “True! True. I did say that, or, very close to that. Allow me to clarify. When you put your mind into a strucity form, go out of your way to create it, using your will, the power of choice, then creating a strucity form without tapping an energy source is always bad. BUT, if you are a natural, you might work strucity forms without willing it, simply as a course of action throughout your day, no different than breathing or blinking. There are times in those instances where your unconscious mind, the same part of you that knows to access the muscles around your lungs to suck in air without you having to think about it, uses ethereal ‘muscles’ to change the outer world around without having to think about it, and when that happens, then yoHaergoff said, “I’m sorry, but whatever happened to my son wasnArlot looked compassionately at the child. “I see that. That is because your son did far more than mix ingredients for a cake. You cannot know this, but there aren’t more than two or three men alive today in all the world that are able to do what I think your son did. It takes an enormous amount of time, effort, energy and knowledge to teleport even inanimate objects. To move a human out of one place and into another without crossing the distance between is...extraordinary. One could study for a lifetime and still be working on how to transmit all the processes of a body...I won’t go into detail, but to give you an idea of what happened, it is equivalent to moving an entire city a hundred miles one brick at a time and having it look and behave exactly the same as it had before. Possible? Yes. Extrao“No, your son appears to have moved his mother to him out of raw desperation. There are tales told at the conlegium where similar events happened in the distant past, usually with a deadly conclusion for those who worked the forms. It has been a long, long time since the last it was observed on such a startling scale, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility, just probability. If my suspicions are correct, then it explains in part why your son is showing up in the queen’s auspications. Again, I must test him to be sure and I can’t do that here. In addition, if it was the boy that brought his mother to him, then the reason he is in a coma is the result of over-extending and untying himself. There is a way of rejuvenating those who drained too much of their aether composition, but again, I can’“He will need to come to the palace at Civitas Loam Brigges. where I have the equipment to discover for a certainty if his malady comes from draining himself. If it is the case, then we will have to take a trip to the conlegium where we can revive hiArlot nodded. “Only for awhile, but that is the only place where your boy can be revived. (Note that making an abomination does the same thing for Evan much later in the series, so this would be a great place to insert… Arlot paused as the thought ran through his mind, “Well, not the ONLY way.” If so, you’ll need to change the words ‘place where’ above to the word ‘way.’) Then we will return to the palace in Civitas Loam Brigges for his training. The queen does not want him far from her and theBoth she and her husband, who was thinking exactly the same thing she was, that being, ‘You’re not taking my son anywhere withHe smiled at the two of them kindly. “We all leave in the morning.” Arrangements had already been made at the palace for as many as 20 people to come along, if it had been necessary, and they were prepared to make arrangements for more. Arlot was relieved that it wasn’t. “Get your things packed up and I will be by when I’m ready to go. I’ll be early, so please be prepareAerlynne and Haergoff nodded in agreement, both looking more than a little shell shocked, but not anywhere near as pale or frightened as they were before the maven came. With that, the gathering began to wrap up. Evretant and Raelin shook their hands and cordial thanks and good-byes were said. The maven, a man used to pomp and circumstance, was startled to find himself in a bear hug from the father and blushed when the mother kissed his wrinkled old cheek. Then the three officials left the couplAs they parted ways, the maven heading toward the staircase, the other two for the doors leading out into the courtyard, they all three paused. What? What was that noise? It sounded like...like an angry mob shouting in the distance, accompanied by muted wood cracking and shattering glass. Arlot turned to the hospitium’s master and said, “I declare, what is that?” As Evretant’s shoulders slumped and he took his head in his hand, the maven walked over to a window and peered out it across the campus to the lecture hall. Suddenly startled, he turned back to the men and said, “I wonder what’s going on! You’re never going to believe this, but there appears to be a riot going on in thEvretant responded flatly, “Thou dost not say...” Process Group PGID: 168720 --- ## Canonical spine (M_L) **PRIMUS:** Willful avoidance of harm of self and others equally. **SECUNDUS:** Willful seeking of healing of self and others equally. **TERTIUM:** Willful pursuit of benefit of self and others equally. Love is the sole logic that produces mutual prosperity without a zero-sum trade. - Full paper: `MASTER DOCS/PAPER/Another_Paper_Draft_v1.md` - OSF preregistration: https://osf.io/qa54c - Corpus phase: extract v0.1 (mined from local Braid archive)