Chương 20: Chapter 18 ~ Of Sivyks and Sigils

02/11/1111 EotTS 10: 39 The Operative Sigillography professor walked into class thirty minutes late, dragging the heels of his undone leather shoes along the floor. He was an older man with greying hair that had been clearly not professionally cut and a short beard that was nearly all white. His tweed pants were too long for his legs and covered in patches.

"Hello, I am Professor Sivyk, and welcome to Operative Sigillography," he said, as he set his leather bag on the desk, but he did not take off his unbuttoned overcoat. Walking to the center of the speaking floor, he came to a stop under a spot in the ceiling where the wood was cracked and splintered, and where the finish of the floor below had been worn away.

"This is the class where the point is to draw shapes. We will start with shapes with three sides, then four, then five, and so on, and so on. We will also be drawing the very important and simple shape with one side; this is the circle." Professor Sivyk had a nasally voice, with a heavy lisping on his 'S' sounds, turning them into a softly hissed 'SH' sound. He also cleared his throat, or sniffed, more consistently than he paused. Picking up the chalk, he began to write on the blackboard.

"After these shapes, we will move to more advanced shapes, ones you traditionally associate with operative alchemy—the shapes for silver, salt, and the sun, and so on, and so on. These are not shapes; they are sigils. When you take sigils and mix them with other sigils inside shapes, you get more sigils that do things, this is because, sometimes, when you have two things, a third thing happens. Do you see my point?" No one responded.

"Good. This is why you are in my class; by the end of these three semesters, you will see my point." He set the chalk down and tugged at his shirt.

"Anyways, I really don't have much to teach you if you don't have stencils and stamps. I also don't want to be in a room with a bunch of novices trying to draw these by hand. Do you agree, Ardhy?" Ardhy nodded.

"So, your 'exercise' will be to walk into the shopping district of the city or to the academy bookstore, and buy yourself a set of stencils and stamps, and the books that are listed on the board. If you don't want to buy them, there are five of each in the library for you to fight over." Sivyk picked up his bag and started for the door.

"Two-hundred and fifty points if you have yourself stencils and stamps by next class. Does this sound good?" No one answered; everyone was looking at each other in confusion, except for Ardhy, who was quietly laughing, and Gysel, who was writing down the names of the books on the board.

"Great. Next week, I will be going over the three basic sigils, how to use them, and some very basic sacred geometry. Class dismissed. Goodbye." He opened the door and left. Class had lasted less than five minutes, and Gysel was overjoyed. Ardhy stood, picked up his bag, and walked over to Gysel and Wyohla.

"Lunch and then town? Gysel needs the stencils and the stamps."

"Sure." Wyohla rose from her seat and smoothed her long, blue-black-and-silver tartan skirt.

"Do you know him?" Gysel asked.

"I apprenticed under him," answered Ardhy, putting on his jacket.

"Does he always do this?"

"Uh-huh."

"Will his classes always be this short?"

"Yes, they will, he likes to teach in practical activities." Ardhy started towards the door, glancing over his shoulder, seemingly to see if Wyohla and Gysel were following him: they were.

"I like that," said Gysel; practical assignments and exercises always made learning fun, at least, that was what made Operative Alchemy fun, seeing the finished product, and knowing the steps worked. Lyvahn, who was at the back of the class, hurried to join them at the door. They went to the cafeteria.

02/11/1111 EotTS 13: 00 After eating, Ardhy, Lyvahn, Wyohla, and Gysel went to the library, and gathered around one of the secluded tables in the southeast corner, behind the stairs, and next to a large series of shelves containing encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses. Ardhy had decided that it would be best to give Gysel a basic overview of the Sacred Geometry before she got her hands on a set of stencils and stamps, and it would be best to do this in a quiet space.

The others agreed: both Wyohla and Gysel were paying close attention; Lyvahn was reclining in the wooden chair, half-slid down the back, reading a book titled: 'Symbols in the Northern Tragedies.'

"Pass me your notebook for Sigillography, Gysel," said Ardhy, as he loaded his pen, and rested it on the table, then produced a leather case from an inner pocket of his jacket, setting it next to his pen. Gysel dug through her bag and produced the black, clothbound notebook, handing it to Ardhy. He opened the notebook to a blank page and picked up his pen.

"So, first and most basic is the circle. I'm not going to waste page space on this, but the circle is used for activating sigils about ninety-nine percent of the time. Let's say we place the sigil for fire in the center of this piece of paper, and enclose it in a circle, what will happen?"

"The paper will catch fire," answered Gysel.

"Exactly. Why?"

"The paper within the circle counts as fuel for the fire. So it takes the air, and the paper, and ignites."

"Good. Now, what happens if I place two sigils inside their circles, connect the circles by a straight line?" You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"They activate independently of each other and then merge."

"Were you studying this beforehand?" Ardhy spun the pen around and tapped the back end on the open notebook.

"Yes."

"So you know this goes all the way up to a nine-sided shape?"

"Yes."

"And you know that all of these shapes mean and do completely different things in Ritual and Spiritual Magick?"

"Yes," answered Gysel, sophistically; was it known that they did different things? of course, but what they do in Ritual and Spiritual Magick is not yet known: the answer of 'yes' was not quite a lie.

"Good, now onto the tridecagon," said Ardhy.

"This one is interesting, each of the Moons has—""Let me explain this one," said Wyohla.

"I know the most about it."

"We aren't going to explain all of the Maidens to her. Just the shape and what it does," Ardhy responded, as he opened the leather case, and removed a stencil from inside.

"I see it just as much as you do." Wyohla rolled her eyes.

"Just let me explain it."

"Fine." Wyohla stood, walked around the table, and put herself between Ardhy and Gysel. She took the stencil and the pen, then traced the tridecagon onto the page, but her maladroit hand was not as steady as Ardhy's, leading to the lines to come out wobbly. She did not stop with just the tridecagon; instead, she connected the individual points to form a star within the tridecagon. Ardhy groaned, and the light of the sconce behind him cast the shadow of him rubbing his brow across the table.

"Why did you have to make this so much more complicated?"

"It's fine. You use the star far more than the tridecagon anyway." Wyohla tapped the center of the star.

"So, this shape and star are only really used in ritual or spiritual work as it is the basis for Lunar Glyphs and is rarely used in sigils—""If you use it as a sigil," Ardhy interrupted.

"You can end up with catastrophic results."

"Why?" Gysel asked.

"Because it is the Sigil of Luhnylla," said Wyohla.

"It will only activate with moonlight," added Ardhy, "and only concentrate that moonlight within the sigil; it does nothing else, but that does not mean it is not powerful. If you have more moonlight than planned for, it is possible for the sigil to 'over-charge' and all of the excess Shskthalt to spill out. It lasts less than a second, but will vaporize everything in a given area."

"Why does this not happen with the sun?"

"The sun is more consistent, but it is useless to concentrate sunlight for light; it is redundant. The light of the moons changes constantly. If your timing is off, you are as good as dead."

"How is being dead, good?"

"No, well. I mean, if your timing is off, you will probably die," Ardhy paused, and his tone got somber.

"One of the other apprentices under my old master when I was younger was experimenting with this—everyone told him not to, but he did it anyway. He had an attic study, and one night, the cloud cover cleared too fast, and there was this massive blue column—""I saw it from my window about seventy kilometers away," Lyvahn spoke for the first time since opening his book.

"Of moonlight. Twenty-five meters all around the house, gone. Nothing left. No bones or anything, only the shadow of his father burned into their stone path."

"Right, can I continue?" Wyohla said.

"I don't think Gysel wants to hear this." No, this did want to be heard, not the part about people getting vaporized, but the premise was interesting; Wyohla would likely continue either way: Gysel stayed silent.

"So, we mostly use it for glyphs. Each point is related to a maiden, and the whole star is the symbol of Luhnylla. In Ritual and Spiritual Magick—""Magick?" Gysel asked.

"Why do some people call it magick, but others call it alchemy?"

"Because some people are wrong; it's really magick. When you are talking about the ritual and spiritual stuff, just say magick. I doubt there is a pedant willing to argue it outside of the stuff Lyvahn or Visi reads." Lyvahn snorted a laugh.

"Anyways, this is mostly used for divination related to your birthday. If you know your exact time of birth, you can learn a lot about your entire being. You can easily find out what your shadow is and address it. Gysel, what is your exact time of birth?" Ardhy spoke before Gysel could answer.

"Do not give her your exact time of birth."

"I don't know it." Both Wyohla and Ardhy sighed, but they were two different sighs.

"Let's go get you a set of stencils and stamps," Ardhy said as he stood up.

"They sell a good set at the store we were at."

"Let's wait for the others," Lyvahn suggested.

"We can go for dinner after we get Gysel's stuff."

"I do not have money to buy one. I can get them for free from the bookstore." Gysel held up the key to her dorm.

"Those are cheap tin ones." Ardhy shook his head.

"You don't want those; they chip and bend. You want a silver one. I'm sure—""I'll buy it for you," said Wyohla.

"All right, thank you," said Gysel; it was easy to grow fond of this treatment (maybe it would be beneficial to tell Wyohla that her favorite person to spoil's birthday is only a little more than a half-maiden away)—maybe this is how Mother and Father should have given attention to their daughter?

"That Wyohla will buy them for you," Ardhy finished.

"Let's go back to Gysel and Lyma's dorm so we don't miss Lyma. Then go get the others," said Wyohla.

02/11/1111 EotTS 18: 30 It was only another half hour before Sivyk's Sigils closed for the day, and the staff were going through the motions of tucking the store and its stock into bed for the night: turning off all the lighting fixtures hanging from the ceiling, and scattered on shelves around the store; making sure all of the disks had been removed from testing, and display products; and probably other smaller, yet just as important, tasks that would not be noticed by the common customer.

One of the employees, who was on the top step of a ladder, doing the holiest of works by dimming the lights, let out a visible sigh, and his shoulders slumped as his head followed Gysel and the others, as they walked past the window and to the door; Gysel waved to him, and he gave a languid wave back.

"Is this the same Sivyk as our Operative Sigillography professor?" Gysel asked Ardhy.

"His brother owns the store," Ardhy answered as he pulled the door open for Gysel.

"He was the man behind the counter the last time we were here—and the man behind the counter now." Gysel looked to the back of the store; the professor's brother was right where he was last time, reading a catalogue. There was a visible resemblance; he looked like Professor Sivyk, without the beard and a barber.

"They do not speak the same way."

"No… No, they don't." Ardhy shut the door and pushed past everyone. Gysel followed behind him as he hurried to the back counter.

"Are we only here to get a set of stencils and stamps for Gysel?" asked Lyma. Gysel looked back to answer, but did not get a chance.

"No, I need one too," said Thyres.

"Well," said Lyma, "then go with them. I'm hungry,""Why don't we go get a table instead of having all of us just crowd around?" Visi suggested.

"That works." Lyma took Visi and Lyvahn by the arms and dragged them out of the store. Just before the door shut, she said: "Meet us there when you're done." Thyres and Wyohla joined Ardhy and Gysel at the counter.

"How much is it?" Wyohla started to dig through her purse. She produced a black velvet coin purse.

"Five full silvers," Ardhy and the shopkeeper said in unison. The coins jingled in Wyohla's hand before she gave them to the shopkeeper. In return, he gave her the black leather case, which Wyohla promptly handed to Gysel.

"Why don't you come to my place after?" Wyohla said as she leaned down to Gysel's eye level.

"And Ardhy will show you how these work."

"Why don't we bring everyone?" Ardhy said.

"Since we are all already together. And I'm sure Thyres all wants to know." Thyres nodded, then he turned to the shopkeeper and asked if they had any cheaper alternatives.

"Fine by me," Wyohla said with a raise of her hands as she stood back up. She turned to leave, but stopped herself. They waited for Thyres, who ended up getting a cheaper brass set and having to barter the price down, then they left to go to Bwouker's.