Chương 33: Chapter 30 ~ Wind, Water, and Fire

09/11/1111 EotTS 02: 00 Gysel awoke in the early hours of the morning with a nagging peck in her stomach: who was Lyma with on the fourth; Lyma had introduced everyone else, and if it was Visi, he certainly would have come into say hello; the only answer was that Lyma was hiding something, but what? Sitting up, Gysel pulled the deck from under her pillow and tucked Kawvel beneath her arm. She went to the desk, sat Kawvel in her lap, removed the deck and gave it a good shuffle.

"Who was Lyma with," Gysel asked the deck in a quiet whisper, as not to be heard through the wall, then drew the top card: it was the Thirteenth Shynashsk, the Conjunction. She stared at it blankly—how does this answer the question? the illustration is of a skeleton and a person resting hands upon each other's cheeks, but what does this mean? life and death? a connection between life and death, a connection between opposites? that would be likely, assuming she was kissing a boy, what if it was a girl?

would the card be wrong? Wyohla has nice lips, those two seem close... but this is not about her, this is about the meaning of the card, no one could be asked about the meaning of the card, because they would request the context before answering, the library would have the answer, it would be best to look in during the day for a book with more in-depth descriptions of all the cards, would there be time to-day?

no, probably not, after class everyone is going straight to Bwouker's for an early dinner because Lyma has work at the sixteenth hour, then it is back to Wyohla... or is it Ardhy's to-day? does it really matter? no, anyway, the library will be searched to-morrow. Adding the Conjunction bottom of the deck, she shuffled it, placed it into its box, and left the desk. Returning to her bed, she slid the box under the pillows, and she got back into bed, going to sleep once more.

09/11/1111 EotTS 10: 20 To-day Professor Sivyk arrived twenty minutes late; his attire was the same, not dirtier, nor cleaner, just the same; same shirt, same pants, same coat, same stains. He ran his fingers down the bridge of his nose and sniffed.

"Hello. Welcome back. I am late, but I am not sorry. My wife made pancakes, I am sure you can understand." Pausing, he surveyed the class.

"That is tragic, there are some of you missing, about three. Do you think their tardiness stems from forgetting my simple request last quarter or from them believing that I would arrive later than I did? We shall see. If you purchased a set of stencils and stamps, please set them in front of you." Gysel joined the rest of the class as they made a rustling din, by digging into their bags or coat-pockets (both in the case of the few who forgot their Sigillography sets) and producing the wood or leather cases.

"Excellent." The door opened and Sivyk paused. Three students entered and hurried to their seats. Once they were seated, Sivyk addressed them.

"Please put the stencils and stamps you have just purchased before you." Two of the men did, the third cussed quietly and left the hall.

"If you struggle to remember things, I recommend recording what you have to do in a small agenda—like I do." He produced a notepad from his pocket and flipped through the pages: each one was covered in doodles.

"Now, let me continue. Today you will be using these stamps and stencils to perform very, very, basic sigil activations. The most basic sigil activations in fact: Fire, Water, and Air." Gysel began to remove the stamps for the four basic elements—he would not forget earth, would he? Professor Sivyk plucked a piece of white chalk from the dusty trough at the bottom of the blackboard. He drew the sigils for Fire, Water, and Air.

Each one was based on the same foundational idea: a triangle with each of the three lines protruding slightly past where the sides bisect; Fire had the point facing up, Water had it facing down, and Air had it facing up, with a line through the center—but he is missing one, where is earth? there are four basic sigils, not three. He would—Gysel's face pinched as she put the stamp for earth back into the case.

Setting the chalk backdown into the trough, Sivyk cleared his throat, tugged on his shirt, and continued: "You might be looking at these three sigils, and, like Gysel Neekhilst—who is here in the front row, very clearly contorting her face in annoyance with my omission of something that the traditional alchemist would view as indispensable—be wondering why I have omitted the sigil for earth.

I will answer that question: you have, as of now, no need to use the sigil for earth, it is pointless to turn dirt, into dirt."

"Now, back onto the topic at hand. These sigils are activated by the completion of the outer-ring, and only the outer ring—the ink you use does not matter because none of it is 'magickal,' only the sigils themselves are.

If anyone ever tries to sell you any sort of substance to increase the effects of a sigil, do not buy it, for if you do, you are no better than a man who rubs the oiled ashes of donkey testicles on his head to stop himself from balding, and so on, and so on—" He seems like he is speaking from experience. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"—these grifts are developed to be sold to people who your Spiritual Magick professor would lovingly refer to as 'Bourgeois Dilettantes.'" Sivyk paused to sniff. The sniffing of Professor Sivyk was becoming annoying; with each sniff, it shattered the focus of the annoyed student in the front row, preventing her from understanding the lecture, and from this breaking of her own conscious stream and focus, she herself sniffed.

"Now, this will be your first exercise. It will be done in class on paper, individually, with the stencils and stamps I told you to purchase. In order to get full points, you need to make the sigils activate." Sivyk removed a piece of blue chalk from the trough and started to write on the blackboard.

"Firstly, you will need three pieces of paper and ink. I first want you to make one piece of paper combust for ten points, one piece wet for fifteen, and one piece of paper float for twenty five. In the case you forget what you are to be doing, it is on the board. You have an hour and I am not at fault if you burn yourselves." Gysel removed only one piece of paper from her bag. Folding it in thirds, she ripped it into three equal pieces, and set them in front of her.

Then she removed a small jar of black ink, and her pen, which she promptly loaded. This would be easy enough: Ardhy had provided wonderfully simple instructions on how to use the fire sigil; an easy ten points for stamping a single sigil and tracing a circle. So Gysel got started, by picking up the stamp for fire from the desk, and fetching the smallest circle from the selection of silver stencils.

She gave the ink a good shake, making sure the fabric pad on the top of the lid would absorb enough ink for her to stamp with. Opening the lid, she dabbed the stamp onto the pad, and stamped the sigil for fire onto the paper, leaving the simple upright triangle behind. Then she set the stencil above it, making sure to line the triangle up in the center of the view-hole in the middle. Once it was lined up, she dipped her pen in the ink, and filled the reservoir, tapping off the excess.

Lining the tip of the pen up with the stencil, she took a deep breath and in one swift movement, Gysel ran the pen around the stencil, and the circle closed. Before Gysel could remove the stencil from the paper, or even set the pen down, the ink ring turned to a smoking orange and then a smoldering black. Hurriedly, she lifted the stencil to watch the sigil work; unfortunately, it was too late, the fire had already consumed the inside of the circle and was working its way out at a rapid rate.

In less than five seconds, only ashes remained. She brushed them into a pile with her hand and moved them into the cover of her desk. She briefly looked around the class; most of the students were finished with the fire, some were finished with water as well. She looked over to Ardhy; he would make light work of this exercise: he sat leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced behind his head, and as expected, was already finished.

Before him, there was a small pile of ash, a small puddle of water, and a piece of paper hovering above the desk, slowly spinning in circles. Water would, assumably, be the same as fire, and swapped the stamps, and repeated the process. It worked in a similar fashion, except, unlike the fire the water coagulated until the paper warped under it and the circle ceased being perfectly round. There was a cussing coming from behind Gysel accompanied by the pattering of water against the back of her neck.

She turned to look at what was causing it: the student behind her was holding his paper with the activated water sigil upside down, struggling to figure out how to stop the flow.

"Rip the paper in half, please," said Professor Sivyk, not looking up from his desk.

"All you need to do is break the circle." The student ripped the paper and the water stopped.

"Go fetch a towel from the janitor and clean that up, please," said Sivyk. The student obliged and hurried from the class, leaving the water to trickle from his desk onto the floor. Gysel stamped the sigil for air onto the paper, and drew a circle around it: nothing happened—why? did the textbook discuss this? yes, it did, is this just a trick question to see who was reading the textbook? maybe, but that is the problem of others, because the answer is known to the astute novice who does her reading.

Digging through the stencils once more, Gysel removed the smallest size of directional arrow, rubbed away a small section of the circle with her thumb, and placed three around the outside at equal intervals, ensuring the points of the arrows touched, but did not cross the circle. She pe-completing the circle and the sigil came to life, blowing a soft breeze directly upwards. Taking the paper, Gysel flipped it over, and it hovered over the desk, only drifting slightly towards the board.

Gysel sat back in her chair, and crossed her arms in front of her chest: the job was done, and with likely a perfect score no less! When the hour was up, Professor Sivyk made a quick round of the class. About half the class got a perfect score, the astute novice in the front row being one of them, and the other half had failed on levitating the paper. Once he had recorded everyone's score, he made his way back to the center of the speaking floor.

"There is a simple transmutation of basic elements going on here," he said, "the paper and the air are the fuel for the fire; the moisture in the air is removed and coagulated into the water than now covers the tabletops in small puddles; and so on, and so one. While these are small, it is always important to understand the basics.

"If you are in doubt the practical application of these sigils outside of heating your home and tea, or giving your hair that desirable wind-swept effect." He ran his fingers through his own thinning hair, much to the amusement of the class. With a tug on his shirt, he continued.

"I encourage you to take a trip north-east over the summer to see that floating city, as it hovers above the islands and water below. I am sorry, but I have forgotten the name, I care very little for geography, but the name really matters little, as the city itself is more than just a name. This is the pinnacle of what is possible with Sigillography—the levitation of an uncountable mass, hundreds of meters in the sky, using only the targeted intake and out take of air.

It is truly one of the highest points of the ingenuity of man.

"Now, as for your first project, I do not have one for you. I do not think most of you, after two lessons, are at a level of understanding to do a project in your spare time unsupervised. So, I..." He paused, gave a pondering tug of his shirt, and a sniff.

"Would like you to pick one sigil, and tell me about its historical uses, any sigil, I do not care what you choose. Dismissed, goodbye, see you all in fourteen days."