The Roaring Age (nWoD)

Page 57: The Craft of Creation

"If you want to know, you should always ask," her mother said, frowning at Miriam, her hands on her hips. "You don't know what people like to eat, then you don't guess, that's silly."

Miriam nodded. "But what if you can't make what they like?" she asked, which was certainly a potential issue if it came to her own cooking. She wasn't a girl with a huge list of recipes in her head.

"Then you find out what they like second-best," Eliza said. "But you need to know how to make as much as you can, and understand, most people are simple. They go to you, they ask for meat, and you cook some chicken. You don't need to fry it, or do anything special, just chicken breast and gravy is enough for most men." She paused, and gave a sort of secret smile, "People's tastes aren't hard to figure out. Most people worth knowing will eat what's put in front of them if it's not against their religion, and is halfway decent, even when they have tastes."

"Against their religion?" Miriam asked.

"Oh, you don't remember it? I guess you were too young," her mother said, with a sly smile. "Your father brought in a rabbi, who was an ally, with the NAACP, and in all the right organizations. They talked about religion and politics until it was late at night, just talking, talking, talking, and I listened for a while, but…"

She shrugged, as if to say, 'I had other things to do.' If Miriam was that young, then she would have had to be consoled, and talked to, she would have demanded attention, or at least, she would have wanted for it, and all the way up until anyone would call it late? It was a different side of her father, in a way, but she understood it. "And you couldn't have pork, and more than that--"

"Kosher?" Miriam asked. She hadn't spent all that much time memorizing the dietary rules of the old testament, since they no longer applied, but she did know of them.

"Exactly. So I had to go to this Jewish butcher for the meat, and explain to him what I was doing, and that was quite enough. But he liked the beef I cooked up, the steaks." She nodded. "You need to learn more recipes, and you need to learn to know how long they take. When you're cooking for yourself, however long it takes, that's fine. But you need to know, when you have a husband, a child, when you have someone else that needs to eat… when do you start working? Manage your time, Miriam."

"I do manage it," Miriam said. It felt as if she'd been running around everywhere, in every direction, at the same time. And her magic only helped her keep track of things, or at least, do as many things as once as possible.

"And you could manage it more. Just try helping me out a little each day, with keeping this place clean. It's a lot of work, and my knees aren't what they used to be…"

Miriam's heart ached at that. "Of course I'll help!" She knew that her Mom had said that to convince her to help, but that didn't mean it wasn't true. She was young, and more than that, she was capable.

"Thank you," Miriam," her mother said, with a smile.

******

Do a little each day, and you were soon doing a lot. She learned how to scrub, and more than that, where to scrub. What parts of the house were dirty every few hours, and which could be cleaned just once a day. There was a lot of house to clean, but even with all of that, and the cooking, it wasn't enough to fill the day, and so there was the laundry that was done, which Miriam hadn't even thought about, really.

She just put the clothes in the basket and seemed--according to her mother--to imagine that somehow it'd all wind up alright.

It was a very hands-off kind of mindset, and one that was perhaps not proper. So she tried to mend her ways, and that was another thing she needed to learn how to do: mend clothes. She could try all she could to mend a mind, and she had much hope that with magic she could do far more than just mending minds, but for the moment, just sewing up made her think. It made her think about magic, and humanity.

She could imagine an argument that magic was just a tool, but what she couldn't imagine was the sort of person who could argue that. And yet, what if you did with magic what you could have easily done otherwise? Ten minutes carefully stitching it up with your hand, or some complicated Matter spell? Which was which?

It was the same feeling she knew that people must have had about every matter, and every way to do things.

Her mother, knowing nothing about this internal question, just taught her as best as she'd learned how. She talked about her girlhood, and that was a joy to hear, to tease out--like clues in some mystery--the story of her mother.

Her mother had never lacked for much, her parents had been decently off, though they'd worked for it, worked for it all their lives. She'd laughed her way through her girlhood, had learned to play piano for her church, a stately sort of place where the prayers were quiet but meant not only something, but everything.

By those standards, even what had once been, before the migrants, was roughhousing and brutality. They were people like butterflies, who flitted in grace, and did nothing to harm anyone, to hear her mother, meek as the earth itself, and sure to inherit it, which was their one point of pride.

But these meek, well-off people had stood for their rights… and they'd also stood by for a lot, and now the world had changed, and Miriam wasn't sure how to feel about it, hearing about her mother when she was young, because who imagined that? The 1800s were forever ago for her, the subject of history, and her mother, while not even close to old, was like one of those subjects standing up and speaking.

Then what, then, about Anant? She hadn't returned to him yet, but she was planning to, planning on spending a night talking to him.

What would she learn? He was twisty, and he was not human any more technically, no longer alive and thus limited in what he could do and what he could be. But that didn't matter to her, or at least, she didn't think it did, as she cleaned the house and thought about the weekend, and about all that she would ahd could study.

********

The psyche was complex, and the power to truly alter it was what she was practicing now. It was a daunting power, and she felt as if she were standing before a high peak. Why go there? What would she be able to do that wouldn't be manipulative? But then should she care about that? She knew she should and did, but she knew that if she had power she'd have to figure out how to use it.

Her uncle had said that he'd not leave her alone to make the journey to Anant, and that she'd have to take at least one person with her, but she was pretty sure that this wouldn't be too much of a problem.

But what that left was trying to understand the mind better. One had to understand something before one learned to control it or alter it, one had to picture it all in her head, and that was very difficult, perhaps even impossible for her now.

To Fray, to Perfect, to Weave, these were not small tasks when it came to the human mind, and yet there was so much more even than that.

"Do you want to summon Goetic Beings? Then you need to focus," Jack said, his voice sounding almost stern, which was odd for him, because he was usually far calmer. But his voice was hard, and he laid his hand on her shoulder, and her head hurt. "Feel that? With this magic, you can weaken the mind. Perhaps you don't want to do it, but think about how you could make others smarter, make them wiser or more charming? That's what it can do."

It was odd, being so… off. Her thoughts were slow. In fact, her thoughts seemed to chug along so much that she was startled.

Her heart was beating faster, terror gripping at her. "You… how much did you?"

Jack laughed. "That, that's how normal people think. One thought and then another, and no skipping ahead and around by intuition."

Miriam, who felt as if she were almost incapable of doing anything at all, shook her head, "It can't be."

"But it is, dear niece. And if I can reduce your mind, then you can enhance it. You can clear madness temporary, you can speak any language, can speak every language there is. You can control sleep… and you can do something else. If you're good enough to do that, then you're also ready for Supernal summoning. Few your age, or few who have been in the business as long as you do it. However, you're learning fast, and everyone wants to do it, eventually."

"Supernal Summonings?"

"Mages who are strong enough can summon the beings of the Supernal, of the realms invisible above us, the realms of all magic. These beings can only stay for so long, and can only do so much: but they are perfect. The most powerful can do magic that the strongest Mage would goggle at. They're beings of their own kind, but… it's the closest someone can get to returning to their Awakening." He nodded, and said, "It's probably too difficult for someone at your level of experience."

She nodded, but she nodded while leaning forward, and as he thought she would--and as she'd known even stunned in mind like she was now, that he thought--she began to ask questions, question after question, only increasing once the power of the spell wore off and her thoughts sped back up again.

There were Wraiths, and they took the forms of memories and nightmares and old fears. They were beings of the mind, and that is what they attacked, for every Supernal Being has a trial, has standards by which one is either judged worthy or declared unworthy of the aid. Each trial was different, though there were books that listed Supernal beings and their trials, that listed the terms and carefully adjudicated the conditions, all of which towards the singular purpose of no direct gain.

Because as far as she could tell, the Supernal beings gained nothing from the tests and the difficulties, but they themselves were the point. By challenging the Mage, they kept the gates closed for some.

One summoned them, and then one went through a trial, and once that was completed, then there was only so long they could function. Some Supernal beings could attack one's enemies, of course, or be used as any a Spirit or a Ghost might, but others were more important for what they knew.

Wraiths knew about your mind, and the mind of others: they knew the Astral Realm, and they knew it well, and even the weakest of them was strong in a tricky way. And there were beings for each of the Arcana, each different.

They advised and they warned, and some of them could reveal the impossible. He spoke, in quiet tones, of an Cherubim, fameed in legend, that could trace hallows, and tell one just what was going on. It had been used, once in New York, to track down someone who was profaning the leylines and the Hallows with murder and the most barbaric acts. And there were other legends, legends that he wanted to share.

Miriam listed to them with growing awe. Cats that could conquer Kings, and had, though the touch of a Sleeper was like poison to these beings, which had to be carried beyond the Abyss, and would return to a realm above humanity.

Some of them were horrible monsters, but even to those Jack accorded respect, for their power and their nature were related to magic.

"Can I summon an angel?" she asked, for she had heard about the beings of Prime and Force, and how angelic they seemed.

"No. I… did I not tell you? You can summon only Wraiths and Imps. Mind and Space only, at least to start with. There are stories, of course, of people who have, by their Legacy or their mindset, done more than that. But it's not to be considered this early. Even now, it might be some time before you grasp it. Though you're closer. Tell me about your magic… show it to me."

Show it to him? She stepped forward, and grasped his shoulder, and imagined what she could do to him. She pictured the emotions, and then pictured them overwhelming him. She pictured it all so clearly it was as if it hovered in front of her.

He threw himself back, terror eating at him for just a brief moment, though he smiled after a moment and said, "I let that happen. But good. Do it again, and again. You need to learn to use what you have, and then you have to ask how it is that you push it a little further.

So, who to bring along and talk to on the way to Anant?

[] Jack.
[] Wayword.
[] Coniunctio.
[] Marco.
[] ...Virginia?
[] Write-in.

*******

A/N: There we go. It's short, but eh! Short turnaround too.

Page 58: The Bitter Dregs of Life, Part 1

"I don't see how," Jack said, firmly. "Because there's more at risk here than just the possibility that she might not be able to visit it. There are no precedents, the issue has not been studied. But the real problem is that you're a Mage, one of the Wise." Jack seemed far more serious when it came to this. In other matters, he was a gadfly, arguing a position just to see what people said, but when it came time to consider her reputation, and her teaching, he seemed suddenly afraid.

Perhaps his fear made sense. He had been a Mage longer than her, and perhaps he knew that the ice was thin, and so when she demanded to run, he just winced and tried to tell her not to, without forbidding her.

Her instincts warred, those that weren't already turned towards her second mind and its machinations--

She was running through the images of magic, practicing by the art of thinking. It was complicated, but her uncle had given her a list of exercises, of ways to think and ways to be. She was mastering them as fast as she could. All things done for the glory of God. If she wanted to help other people, if she wanted to truly matter, then she needed to stretch out her capacity, though there were limits to any one Arcana. But it came naturally, the twists of the human mind, which worked itself up and dragged itself down, and all according to the designs of God. And when one had a mind, what was distance?

You pulled up a book and read about a journey around the world in eighty days, and the distance shrunk to a handful of pages. It wasn't the truth, or it was only one kind of truth, she decided.

But it was a kind of truth, if she could understand it.

That's what one mind thought, while another warred with itself: he was her uncle, and one obeys one's elders, and one's family, and who wanted to be the kind of girl who was willful and unwise. But she also just wanted to know. Why not? Why not bring her friend. Anant was clearly not someone who was going to be convinced and appeased by Jack. Perhaps not by her either, but she thought that men like Jack, experienced Mages, weren't likely to tell Anant anything he hadn't heard.

Anything he didn't know.

"Yes?" she asked.

"And she is not. She is a Demon-Spawn. That's nothing against her, but the situation will only grow more fraught. No matter what Order you join, they are Orders for humans, and for Mages. They will suspect you, and your friend, if you keep this up." Jack shrugged. "Besides, this might not work at all. But if you want…"

Miriam hesitated, and then bit her lip. She didn't have it in her to start a giant argument, not now, and not like this. "Maybe not?"

Jack smiled. "Very well. How about tonight? I'll stand outside, once we find it. If you want to talk without me. If that's what you want." He smiled wide, "Your poor Uncle, pining for time with his niece, and yet neither Ruth nor Miriam mind him." He swooned slightly, playfully, his eyes closed, until he opens one to see the effect his words have.

Miriam was smiling, amused, and that only meant that he increased his mock theatrics, for why wouldn't he? He was a very amusing man, even if he was also an impressive one, in his way. In many ways, truth be told.

"Uncle," she began.

"Well, if not that, then trust me in this: you need to begin the process of using magic more. If you don't lean on it more, you won't know what to do when you really need to use it. That's why you need to start carrying around as many ritual objects as you can. It alters your life, really it does, but…"

He trailed off and shrugged. "Do you mind that much?"

"Mind what?"

"If you take out a pen at random, pepole might think you odd, they will not know the magic you do, but do you care about that? Do you truly?"

"Not so much," Miriam admitted.

"Then, you could begin a study of Runes and High Speech, how to use it as a language to command and control the world. It is complicated as a matter, and will take some weeks to fully inform you of… I can only lay the ground now, though." He shrugged, "I'd be hung up by my neck if we revealed the wrong secrets to the wrong people. It… is a secret of the Orders, of sorts. Just like the secret behind some of the special rotes, the special ways of doing things. But besides that… I think you could do well with a pocket-knife. It's a weapon, yes, but it's also its own tool. And there are other objects, too, if you want to be able to weigh and measure things. Even the thing I gave you, perhaps there will be a moment where you are desperate enough to realize that it is quality fuel."

"Fuel?"

"That copy of Lincoln's Speech, it could be a very pretty and useful ritual object. You destroy it, and make a spell involving speech, or charisma, or even simply time or destiny which surely ran on to their end with that man… you learn to see the world in the right way. Surely it's started already. Every sign, every symbol, and the world is made of them, if you'll just see it."

Miriam can't now, but she wondered how long it'd take her to. Because it wasn't as if it was hard to realize just how thoroughly these things were symbolic and deeper than she had at first thought. Or perhaps just as much so: she lived in a world of miracles, a world in which God spoke, and acted, in His way. So why not see God in different ways? But then the question remained, how to understand the world and yet not seem crazy or out of balance?

That, that still eluded her.

*******

Around she marched, chanting words she both understood and didn't. It was a language both more true and yet trickier than any she'd experienced. It felt as if she'd learned it in her cradle, and yet she still wasn't sure what she was saying. She'd merely breathed in the mists, and now she walked around and around the great lumpen thing, the seal. Her shoes tapped against the concrete, and she chanted, her throat aching with the effort, with the knowledge that the wrong chant and this wouldn't open up at all.

Now it was her uncle following her in a train, her uncle listening to her as she tried to make her words as self-assured and confident as his had been. Her memory was not perfect, but she'd used her craft well, or so Jack had said. She'd looked at herself in the mirror, while balancing the pen in the other hand, pointing right at him. The meaning was quite simple. It was a memory of her uncle she was holding in her hand, so she pointed the pen at him, but it was also her own memory, and so she stared into the hand-mirror as she did it.

It was easy, and more than that, her mind wrapped around it quickly, with no danger, and it felt as if little or no risk that she'd get a Paradox.

The memory in her head was clearer than it'd been when she'd experienced it, when she'd thought about it and decided to put it down, to think of it later. So she went, around and around and around, and when at last she'd reached where she started, the stone opened up, a door, a pathway.

"And there we go," Jack said. "You're doing well so far."

It had taken time to get here, and she hadn't gone through the same way, that much she was aware. Many ways to many places, and yet all of them ended at the same stone. She walked through the darkness, her uncle at her shoulder, until at last they came to a door.

On it was written a series of phrases. The first read, in English, "There is a house. One enters it blind and comes out seeing. What is it?"

The second read, in some language she could not understand, something that she couldn't quite read.

"French," Jack said. "And below it, Latin, and then German. The first two say the same thing, but the last one says that one enters it seeing and comes out of it blind. The same riddle."

"The same riddle… " Miriam said, and realized the trick. The same riddle, but different answers? She thought about it. Seeing? What was signified by seeing?

I saw the light, I saw the light.

"One of them is a church, I think," Miriam said.

"Oh?" Jack asked.

"Yes. And another…" Miriam thought.

The Enlightenment. You learned, and the metaphor, or the simile, was that you had been brought light, into the darkness of your ignorance. It was in its own way absurd, for it acted as if reason and learning were the only things in the world, when experience brought its own light, and emotion was as much a part of the world as reason. But it made sense to her, the way the next answer would be.

"Another is school."

"And the third?"

"I don't know. Come in seeing, and come out blind?" Miriam asked, puzzling over the words.

"A bar? Alehouse, but when there are some people selling wood alcohol, it blinds you, you know that?"

Miriam stared. "I wouldn't have thought of that."

"No, of course not. But then, in what order?"

"English was school… Latin is the church, and German…"

"Ah yes," Jack said, with a chuckle. "Well, will you say it? The answers are…"

"The answers," Miriam said, hoping that she had the right of her guess, "are a school, a church, and a bar."

She looked at the door. It had been a plain white door, the kind that everyone had, but now it was glowing and changing, it looked like something out of some medieval story, some vast door that could be opened only by sheer strength, and perhaps this was true. But the mind was power as well, she thought, with a smile.

******

Up the skyscraper she went, though it looked a little different, changed and yet also oddly familiar, as she continued onwards. She finally stopped, after a long time, in front of a window. "Alright, Miriam, I'm going to be waiting here. You have about two or three hours, at most, to get back in time."

"Oh," Miriam said.

"It's why people sometimes meditate for days at a time. You could, but not while you're living at your parents. And that situation is going to continue until you're older."

Of course it would.

"Ah."

"Yes. You're young, and that has advantages. Think of the world in four or five years. You'd only be twenty-one, and yet you'd be more experienced than a surprising number of other Mages. That's how it works. You start early, and that gives more chance to apply yourself, and Ruth, you do nothing but apply yourself."

Miriam nodded. "Though that's not what's needed with Anant."

"What's needed?"

"I'm not sure yet. But I know what isn't needed, to talk to him." Miriam nodded once more, and then her uncle held up a hand and, smiling, pulled out a white linen bathrobe.

"Oh yes."

"Just so."

*******

The forest stretched out on all sides as she carried the robe before her, wanting to see when he showed up.

After a minute or two of walking, the animals moving on all sides around her, watching her, there he was. Short and old, withered and yet well-armed with his staff, his skin like bark and his skin partially bark as he advanced on her. "Girl! You show your face again, so soon?"

"It is only polite," Miriam said.

"Wanting through again?" Anant spat on the ground, his old, withered lips puckering as if he were sucking on a lemon.

"No, I'm visiting you."

"Ah, really?" He tilted his head. "Not going to beg for forgiveness, or release from the deal?"

"I haven't started working on that," Miriam admitted, reaching a hand down to run her hand across the ground. It was bitter, dying ground, and it was clear that he was using his magic to maintain it, because the trees couldn't live on their own, no matter what.

He gave a moss-toothed grin as he stumped over towards her.

She looked up at his chest and above, at those rheumy eyes, and offered the bath-robe. "Here, for you to wear."

"Ah, yes. Politeness. Though surely it's nothing you haven't seen before? Or… no, it isn't. You people live so strangely, so bizarrely. Very different from the way we lived, and had to live. Or maybe not." He shrugged, and spat once more, before lowering himself to his knees, tying up the robe around him clumsily, and then smoothing it over his genitals, his thick, still fleshy legs.

"Maybe it's so. It's been a long time," Miriam admitted.

"So it has." Anant looked at her, as if curious about what she would bring up.

And what would she?

What to talk about? (Choose 3)

[] Talk about her life. About what it's like, though with no details that give away… too much.
[] Ask him, and talk to him, about the Orders. He hinted that there were the same orders even back then.
[] Ask him about his own life… no, not that. His own culture. No specifics, just what life itself was like back then.
[] Talk to him about magic, what she has learned, and what she knows. Without asking him for help or tutelage, because she knows that this would be a
[] Ask him if he knows anything about Demon-Spawn, and if not, talk to him about that…
[] Religion is obviously not an easy topic, but she is curious about his thoughts, and is willing to share her own, of course.
[] Talk to him about the Anima Mundi, and what lies beyond there. Her experiences.
[] What are these ceremonies, these rituals, that had brought him here? Why?
[] Write-in.

******


A/N: Short, but quickly put out!