A young woman struggling to find a use for her magical powers in a modern world without need of them looks for purpose in the Royal Army, as an Ork insurrection rages across the sea.
"Sundorian" Proper noun
From the Old Albish "sundor," meaning "beyond." A person with metaphysical/magical capabilities
Example: "Ever since he found out he's a Sundorian, he's used his powers every chance he can."
See also: sorcerer, magician, metaphysically-abled
1.
I just got diagnosed with magical exhaustion syndrome, so that's a thing now.
There's nothing fun about being seated in a doctor's waiting room, even at the best of times, when you can look around at all the other patients and be pretty confident that you're going home with the best news out of all of them. That's not what happened here. Even though I'm not under any threat of death (yet), my future's taken as big a pounding as if I'd just gotten a terminal diagnosis. That's exactly what it could turn into if I carry on the way I'm going, said Doctor Huntington; keep pushing myself the way I'm going, and "extreme energy depletion and metabolic stress," he said, could bring me to the brink of organ failure. That's something you're really meant to avoid. I wanted to argue, but he had his PhD on the wall, and I found it a bit intimidating. What would I have said, anyway? That I understand what he's saying, but I have to carry on with my spellcasting come what may because among the things I might eventually conjure up is a future? But I suppose there's not much of a future waiting for me if I'm dead.
The drive home is awkward; it always is when Mam's driving. She just sits in total silence the whole way and never even attempts conversation. If I turn on the radio, she turns it off again – it "perverts our mindfulness." Of course, she only says so once she's out of the car. I find it a bit offensive that she never even asks what my news was, but I guess she doesn't want to pry, or can just see the disappointment etched all across my stupid face. The face of someone who will never, ever be a sorcerer, at least according to the kindly magiatrist at the community health centre. Without much else to do, I stare out the window smeared with bird droppings at the dales of Auckshire as they pass by, sprinkled with fluffy sheep, tufts of cotton in a soft veil of mist. When I get bored of that, as Mam aims the Homestead pickup into the carriageway's empty oncoming lane to overtake a lorry bearing the purple logo of Summit Freight Group, I start snapping my fingers, despite my exhaustion still trying to lure a ball of light to burst into life.
"Pack that in," Mam mutters. I look at her with more than a touch of surprise – she's speaking in the car! This is massive!
"Pack what in?" I ask, dumbly.
"You really think it's smart trying to light up the car while I'm driving?" I can't argue with that, so I do as I'm told and pack that in. There's a rattling coming from somewhere in the pickup's undercarriage, and I wonder if I should point it out, but I'm sure I'll just annoy her even more, so I say nothing and try to fall asleep for the last five minutes of the journey home, as the fields turn into houses. But exhaustion isn't tiredness, and sleep doesn't come.
Despite being dead on my feet, I'm soon queuing at the high street chemist, watched by posters about the warning signs of gestational diabetes and how you shouldn't punch the staff. Hour after hour of my every evening spent washing crockery and I'm spending the crowns on Vitamin B supplements. Priorities. The queue shuffles closer and closer to the counter as my ankles ache and my head rages with storms.
"Morning, Sally," says the cheery pharmacist with the Elisa name badge. No seventeen year old should be getting recognised at the chemist. It's just not right.
With vitamins tucked into my puffer jacket pocket, I'm back out on the cobbled Cochrane Street and passing the video rental shop – I glance inside to see if Neil is working but I can't see past all the plastic cases of Chop Shop 4 – and the laundrette full of grubby students and snoozing pensioners. A military recruitment advert bears down on me from a billboard on the side of the Brilliance supermarket; a group of delighted blue-uniformed people my age, of all genders and species, are caught in mid-laugh while a multicoloured slogan entices me to "Join the Royal Defence Force – It's For Everyone." I ignore it and continue on my way as the Number 6 bus to Westergate pulls up and a young mother struggles to get her pram aboard. With a flick of my wrist, despite all medical advice, I try to do a good deed and take some of the strain – but nothing happens. I down a supplement and, uneasy about doing so on an empty stomach, dive into a bakery to fetch a spicy sausage roll. They've gone up to one crown fifteen but I don't leave because that'd be awkward.
My route back home goes through the harbour and every time I go, it's like I see someone else I went to school with now wearing bright yellow neoprene overalls and hauling lobster traps. Had I not stayed past sixteen and become a senior, I wonder, would I now be on one of those rocking boats, so vulnerable in the infinite expanse of the steel-grey Evermore? I imagine, for a moment, how I might use my powers to scoop up fish without ever having to cast a net, then my headache reminds me how far away I am from such marvels.
After passing between the lifeboat station and the always-noisy Driftwood alehouse, I follow the narrow path between cramped terraces of old cottages built at a time when everyone must have been halflings, until it slowly turns to a gravel track snaking between fields empty but for the occasional forlorn-looking Hengrone pony. And then, from behind a cluster of golden-brown beech trees, emerges Sandpiper; the cottage my parents bought when they were young and carefree and which they can barely afford to keep from collapsing around our ears. Dad's van is gone and a woodpigeon is hooting from the telegraph pole as I come in through the side door – we always have the front door locked for reasons that I've never quite understood. Mam's cleaning under the stairs and the television has been left on. Cautiously ascending the stairs, trying my hardest not to dislodge dust into Mam's eyes, faint echoes of the news broadcast debating the King vetoing the hanging abolition law follow me. I don't really have a dog in that fight so I don't stick around to listen.
Once in my bedroom, the smell of lavender incense lingering no matter how much Mam might scrub, I toss my coat onto the bed and make a beeline for my desk mirror to check for whiteheads – my rusty ginger hair is as unruly as ever and the whiteheads are hard to find among my constellation of freckles, but they're always there. It's only in the reflection that I notice what's different – peeking out from under my coat is a small pile of papers. Pulling my coat aside, I sigh at the sight; a collection of university prospectuses, printed on glossy paper, stare up at me expectantly. There's five of them – Lurganborough, Speedholt, Amberpool, Lisbreen Cynelic, and the National University campus in Darkhead Water. I've seen the rankings and I know that none of them crack the top twenty; how optimistic for her daughter's prospects my own mother is. I fill my cheeks with air as I flick through them, at all the posed images of blissful students in lecture theatres or peering at gas burners, and try to picture myself among them, having surrendered my dreams to go into the workforce as a good little office drone, a cog in the corporate machine. It just isn't fair. 0.004% of people have magical abilities strong enough to do anything with them – once upon a time, in the days before humankind even needed to invent things, it was as high as seventy or eighty until the temporal walls tightened and only the most powerful could still do it – and I won that lottery. So why am I condemned to mediocrity? Why can't I be the person I want to be? I don't dream of anonymity. The one opportunity the cosmos granted me is the best one it ever could and it's still not enough. I come up with a poem and quickly scribble it down:
As I peruse the images, a sigh
Escapes my lips; my dreams are all deferred.
Why, with magic's gift, should I obey
Fate's decree, to be but unobserved?
Eventually, I put aside the prospectuses and instead go to my new copy of Wizardry Weekly, which lies on my bedside table. After a moment of staring at the cover image of Nightshade, that enigmatic combat mage who they somehow convinced to pose shirtless, I flick through the crumpled pages to find the same paragraph I've been reading and re-reading for the past four days, authored by Professor Richard Clutterbuck. Naturally, despite its utterly impenetrable jargon, I decide to torture myself and read it again:
"In the burgeoning domain of neuroscientific inquiry, the conceptualization of magical powers' instantiation has evolved to be regarded as an extension of an individual's intrinsic psychic potential, intricately governed by the nuanced interplay of neurophysiological substrates and their interaction with the quantum structure of reality. Within the intricate orchestra of the human brain, a constellation of interconnected neurons engineer the complex symphony of psychic phenomena, each neuronal ensemble contributing to the mosaic of cognitive and perceptual experiences. Leveraging state-of-the-art methodologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography, researchers have delineated the neural underpinnings implicated in the expression of psychic abilities, elucidating the dynamic interplay of neural networks spanning regions associated with perception, cognition, and consciousness. It becomes patently evident from empirical investigations that the potency of an individual's magical prowess is characterised by a profound degree of heterogeneity, with only a minuscule fraction possessing the requisite neurobiological architecture to engender significant manifestations of magical abilities.
This spectrum of magical potency is underpinned by a complex interplay of multifaceted determinants, encompassing the individual's neurophysiological milieu and the intricacies of metabolic dynamics. Psychic phenomena, predicated upon the orchestration of intricate neural circuitry and energy-intensive processes, mandate the optimal functioning of neural ensembles and the judicious allocation of metabolic substrates. Yet, individuals endowed with diminished psychic acumen may evince compromised neural efficiency and suboptimal energy homeostasis, culminating in attenuated manifestations of magical capabilities.
To surmount the barriers impeding the realisation of their magical potential, practitioners are compelled to embrace a comprehensive regimen integrating cognitive and physiological modalities. Cognitive optimisation strategies, such as mindfulness-based interventions and neurofeedback training, offer avenues for augmenting neural plasticity and fortifying the connectivity of neural networks, thereby fostering the emergence of resilient neurobiological substrates amenable to the expression of magical phenomena. Moreover, individuals can fortify their metabolic reserves through lifestyle modifications, encompassing dietary interventions, sleep hygiene practices, and physical exercise regimens, culminating in the potentiation of the body's energetic resources and the facilitation of sustained psychic exertion.
In summation, the actualisation of one's magical potential resides at the confluence of intricate neurophysiological dynamics and metabolic resilience. Through the judicious integration of cognitive augmentation strategies and physiological optimisation modalities, individuals can transcend the constraints of their innate psychic acumen, unlocking the latent reservoirs of their magical prowess and ushering forth a new epoch of personal exploration and mastery."
All those words, all that terminology, just to tell me to meditate and get more sleep. Maybe, just maybe, then I can be a real sorceror, too. If I'm lucky. I put down the magazine, sit on the end of my bed, and pick up the prospectuses again. But not with my hands – just to prove to myself that I've still got something special about me, even if I do lack "the requisite neurobiological architecture," I reach for the pile and, with more concentration than I really have the energy for, force the prospectus to come to me. I catch them in my hands, creasing every page, and smile. Then I run to the bathroom to dry heave.
