Chương 10: Fishing for Memories

Chadwick stumbled in shock as he found himself standing in a field of grass. It was a bright sunny day and he was most definitely not in the tower anymore. It had been quite dark inside the library. The contrast was sudden and jarring. He stumbled in the bright light and caused one of the packages to slip from his grip. This caused a cascade of the rest of them thumping onto the grass. Chadwick jumped in alarm as a voice spoke behind him.

"Is the tower so poor these days that they couldn't stick you in a cart of supplies? Or did you offend the wrong person?" He spun around and there was a tall dark-bearded man with short black hair. He looked to be in his 40's, but very athletic. Like he still led an active life. He was currently sitting on a log next to a fire pit that wasn't lit. Even sitting, he cut a very imposing figure. Though that may have had something to do with one of his eyes being gold and the other black.

The eyes added some scary flair.

"Er…," Chadwick stammered, "a cart?"

"Yes, boy. Big wooden thing. Large wheels. Horses drag them around," said the man testily. Chadwick looked embarrassed for a moment but then stood up straight, "I know what a cart is. But why would I need one for a short trip here? This should be more than enough food for a month. Two if I spread it out."

"You think you will master particle magic in two months…," said the man quietly, then continued, "either you are a prodigy on a scale the world has never seen, or your particle magic instructor has been filling your ears with wool. Which is it? I should know immediately if you tell me who taught you."

"I, well Mage Taverish taught me launching, Sal was my conditional magic teacher, Clara was the reshaper in charge of our class. Though a lot of them got replaced by fresh mages when they left for the war… oh and I finished history with Rissandra, I don't think I knew the previous teacher's name though," answered Chadwick.

"History? No, lad. I'm asking which particle mage was your dedicated instructor," said the man.

"I don't think any of the teachers in the tower had the same affinity as me… there were only around a dozen of them, I think Taverish was a molten rock mage?" responded Chadwick tentatively.

"Only around a dozen teachers… what, in the whole tower?" Said the man, standing and looking annoyed. Chadwick was a little confused by the response but nodded. The man just stared at Chadwick, "but, who on earth has been teaching you to master particle magic then? Lava Mages can't show you how to break down a material into the very bedrock of matter."

"I, well… Taverish just told me to work on controlling smaller and smaller particles. We focused on the same in reshaping. My conditional magic teacher didn't really care what my affinity was, since anyone could trigger the discs we used for the logic puzzle and fill runes. Nobody even knew to call it particle magic until we saw the cover of your book…," Chadwick responded and trailed off at the horrified look on the man's face.

"I see. And one of these teachers decided you were ready to enter my memories for the final polish on your skills?" Asked the man.

"The Chief Mage insisted. I don't think that he knew who you were. The shelf looked like it had never been touched, he just asked me to find the book that called to me," said Chadwick. His voice slowing down as he talked because of the look of concern on the man's face. It was hard to keep explaining straight into the face of horror the man was showing.

"The Chief Mage. Decided a boy. At your age – I assume you are shockingly young and not just very small – should be entering a completely unknown memory book. With seemingly no training in your affinity," said the man flatly, "does that about sum it up?"

"I wouldn't say no training," began Chadwick. The man cut him off and demanded, "break the molecular bonds on that tree so that it wafts away in the breeze." Chadwick stared at him and then the tree, "that would take six months!" The man turned his golden eye towards the tree and then casually waved a hand and the whole thing puffed into what Chadwick could only describe as a pile of dust. Dust so fine that the passing breeze picked most of it up and it floated away.

In moments there was no sign of the tree aside from the stump that was left flush with the ground.

"That. That is what you should have been capable of before you even set foot in this book. While I am expressly forbidden from meddling in the current world, I will say that your Chief Mage sounds like he has fallen far from the standards that were held in my day," said the man. Chadwick barely seemed to be listening, he was still staring at the spot the tree had been. Even Elvera, with her display of lighting had still left a large amount of the tree on the lakeside behind.

He finally turned to the man and eagerly asked, "is that something I can learn to do?" The man waved his hand dismissively, "that part isn't particularly hard lad, if you have sufficient magical weight to throw around. But we have two very important things you will need to solve before you will be able to do that. The first is fixing your eyes so that you can see what I just did." Chadwick was slightly alarmed at the prospect of messing with his eyes, but nodded anyway, "and the second thing?"

The man looked at the packs of food still on the ground and the packs Chadwick was still wearing, "you don't have nearly enough food for the duration of your stay. I hope you like fish boy." Chadwick grinned at that and flipped his packs off, rummaging through them without saying anything. He pulled out the pieces of his rod and joined them rapidly back together as he pulled them out. He was left standing with an open box of flies in one hand and a, once again, whole fishing rod.

The man had his first smile of the whole introduction so far as he saw this, "it seems there is hope for you yet boy." Once he was unpacked and settled into the rudimentary campsite, they went through introductions. The man turned out to be Vander, the same name from the title of the book. He gave his name, but nothing about when he was from or anything about his time in the tower. Something about the rules of the arrangement that let him store his memories in a book.

He asked a few more questions of Chadwick, but mostly as a way to establish baselines of how much he knew. Most of Chadwick's answers to do with particle magic were dismissed as, "something a babe should know." The only time Vander seemed impressed was when they talked about conditional logic and some of the enchanting work Chadwick had been doing. That he was currently working on a 22-point conditional magic problem earned some grudging respect.

However, Vander told him he wouldn't truly be impressed until Chadwick could manage a 30-point enchantment. This was fine as a requirement for Chadwick, as that is what the bag would require, if he was to finish the project Sal had left for him. He was all for reaching such heights. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. The very first training Vander had him do was read three books. It was a bit of a letdown after Vander's demonstration with the tree.

The books were at least interesting. Two on the nature of some very tiny particles that Chadwick wasn't entirely sure existed, and one on changes to organic material. With particular emphasis on the consequences of messing with biological matter. Chadwick didn't really ask for an explanation for why he got given a fancy biology book, but Vander must have seen the confused look on his face when he saw the title.

"Plagues boy. That's what happens to the uneducated who mess with organic matter. Put the wrong thing in the wrong place and you wipe out civilizations. Just be glad that 99% of mages don't have the right type of magic to even attempt such a thing." Chadwick considered this with the seriousness it was presented and asked "from that, I assume you are saying I'm in that 1% and need to take this very seriously?"

"Spot on boy. I have no plans to teach you anything that could cause a plague. But you need to know it's possible and make sure you are doing exactly what you intend to do when you mess with organic matter," answered Vander.

"Sensible," agreed Chadwick. Before diving into his reading, Chadwick asked where the books had come from, since he turned around for a moment and then Vander was holding them. And he was pretty sure there was nothing but a basic campsite here a moment before that.

"This is my memory boy, if I ever experienced something in life, it can exist here," he explained, then demonstrated by seemingly plucking a lit pipe from the air, "now, that doesn't mean I can just summon food for you at will." He took a puff and then pointed at the pipe in his hands, "these are after all, just memories." The pipe became transparent and just wafted away when he blew smoke over it. In just a moment there was nothing left.

"So, I'm in a memory, but I still need to eat? And the things from the landscape can be eaten, but the things you summon can't?" Asked Chadwick. Vander waved away the last part of his question, "nature of the memory books lad. Almost no time will be passing for you in the real world. But your mind believes it needs to eat. It also believes that food I just magic out of thin air isn't real. And what the mind believes is far more powerful in your memory than it is in the real world."

Chadwick considered that, "that makes sense on the food, but what about other things? Like getting hurt? Or falling from a great height?" Vander looked up sharply, "there was a time in the tower when people asked those very same questions boy. And worse ones. I assure you, you would not like the answers or the horrors inflicted to get those answers. Just assume things are as dangerous here as they are in the real world, and you will do fine." Chadwick gulped and returned to his books.

It was almost a week of studying and getting quizzed on his knowledge before Vander said he was ready to start practicing on fish eyes. He would be altering them to achieve new levels of sight. Not that he was entirely sure what that meant. He just copied what the book said to do and Vander would show him where he went wrong. A constant cycle of try, correct, try again. Until finally, Chadwick ran out of things for Vander to correct. There was two different procedures to learn. And each fish had two eyes.

Chadwick kept going until he was perfect. It took three weeks of continuing his practice of the technique on fish before he was brave enough to try it on himself. Three weeks of Vander telling him he had it perfect. Three weeks of memories of fish sacrificing themselves for Chadwick to be fully confident in the process. It was a good thing he had needed to catch fish anyway. His smoking rack was looking very well stocked after the sacrifices of dozens of fish.

When he was ready, Vander had him stand in the nearby creek and remove his shirt. Just in case there was blood. He rolled up his pants, stepped in and turned to face Vander. He was expecting the usual verbal guidance, reminding him of the basic rules to organic reshaping, but Vander was staring at the necklace with his golden eye staring intently, "how long have you had that boy?"

Chadwick was confused for a moment, because the necklace was tight enough that it was out of his sight and he had gotten so used to it he never even realized it was there anymore. Once he saw where Vander was looking, he said, "oh, the day Mage Sloan tested me in my village. He had put that on all the village children before asking them if they had ever done magic. When I answered yes, it shrunk down. Had it on ever since."

"I see," said Vander, staring at the necklace for a while longer, "let's focus on your eyes for now, but remind me after that to show you some additional books on enchanting. You might be able to learn how that necklace works." Chadwick nodded, he had never given the necklace much thought, but he was certainly interested if there was more enchanting to be learned.

"Ok boy, begin!" Said Vander. Chadwick didn't really understand that while he could view the world, he hadn't really been seeing the world. When he finished with his right eye, he could see into the very substance of the materials around him. Reading a book on what he would be doing. Even performing the procedure on hundreds of unlucky phantom fish. None of that really gave him the understanding of what the end result was meant to look like. But he could see it now.

He quickly saw that what he had thought was the smallest possible particle he could work with, was the size of a building compared to what he should have been after. It would take some getting used to, but Vander wasn't letting him get distracted with that yet.

"Now the left eye boy, this is a lot easier if you just get it done all in one go," said Vander. The left eye was a different process altogether. But with the amount he had practiced with both eyes on the fish, he could almost do it in his sleep. This one was designed to let him see the substance of magic itself. He had decided to go with making his left eye be the one that would view magic, since Vander warned him that it would become gold in color. And once he made the choice, changing it was near impossible.

It ended up being the opposite eyes to what Vander had, but Chadwick liked it this way. The symmetry when facing Vander felt right. When he was finished, Vander plucked a mirror from mid air and held it up in front of Chadwick. The face staring back at him still had one blue eye, though much brighter than it had been before. And one stark gold eye.

It actually proved very hard to view himself in the mirror with his new eyes, because his blue eye wanted to keep diving into the substance of the mirror to see what tiny particles it was constructed of. And the golden eye almost seemed to have a life of its own, spinning around to look at every little thread of magic in the air. Vander chuckled, "it will take some getting used to before you can control the Mage Eye lad.

Right now every single little bit of magic you see will cause just that one eye to look directly at it. It isn't really capable of peripheral vision. So, it spins to look directly. It's a reflexive action that is very hard to break. It's why we do that eye second." Chadwick had placed a hand over his gold eye already to stop it feeling like it was going to spin around backwards in his eye socket. The darkness helped calm things down. He had liked what he saw in the mirror, he was starting to look a little grown up.

The disconcerting eyes seemed to help the image of himself that he aspired for. At least, the personal image was good when his eye wasn't spinning out of control. He dreaded to think what he looked like when that was happening.

"These eyes are the signature of the particle mage. Something only we can achieve. And the key to growing your power. You will have to re-do the eyes when you exit the book, since physical changes don't follow you. But the control you gain over the eyes now, will still be time well spent. And should avoid you experiencing the headache, you are no doubt getting right now, a second time," said Vander.

"You said you had some training to help me control them," said Chadwick. Slowly removing his hand from his face. His gold eye seemed to co-operate for a moment and then spun wildly to follow a strand of magic that was whirling around Vander. He clamped his hand back down over his face. Vander looked amused at Chadwick's flailing attempts to control his new eye, "been a while since I had to do them, but I remember the drills. Come."

Vander took them back up to the camp and then summoned up a low table covered in objects made of different materials. The objects were remarkably similar to what the Dean had used when he was helping Chadwick find his affinity. Vander pointed at the table, "your task is quite simple. Find the smallest possible particles in each object. And arrange them in the same pattern you can see in the magic lines above the object. Make each instance of the pattern as small as you can and repeat it throughout the whole object.

When you get it right, the object will disappear. The materials and the patterns get more difficult as you move along the table." Chadwick took his hand away to let his Mage Eye view the table and he immediately clamped it back down. He gulped at the memory of the swirls of magic that had started simple and escalated wildly out of control near the far end of the table. Vander grinned slightly evilly, "that's the first table. Come tell me when you want the next one."

Chadwick could tell this was not going to be quick.