“Skill with magic was once taught in apprenticeship to another. These days, finding another that can listen, let alone manipulate the energies, is so rare that most are forced to learn their craft alone,” he gave a single shake of the bell and a tiny metallic note rung.

  For a moment, Val thought the sound would unremarkably fade to silence, but there was a drone that carried a little longer at the end of the note. The slightest of feelings that almost itched in her nose. The Vigilant watched her twitch in reaction and held out the bell for her to take and inspect with her own hands.

  “The first skill is listening. We don’t have a specific sense for magic, if we did it has faded from disuse as the magic around us also did. So our other senses pick it up where they can. Most commonly hearing - sound and magic self-propagate through similar mechanisms, so they are like siblings. Next is usually touch. Sound and touch are also alike, they are phenomena of pressure after all. Both can be trained to sense magic more keenly and accurately, just as an artist trains his sense of color and shape, or a cook trains his tongue to the nuances of taste, or…” the Vigilant looked Val up and down, “how a warrior trains his sense for his own body. An understanding of how and when it moves, how to feel each muscle and coordinate them in unified action.”

  Val found nothing unique about the bell, turning the small metal body in her fingers and watching the little clapper roll about inside. She passed the bell back to the Vigilant, and settled to sit by the bench cross legged on the ground.

  “I am not as good as Jed,” the Vigilant gestured to his prickly companion, who immediately turned and continued tinkering with his project as if ashamed to be caught listening, “but I can crudely listen in my own way.”

  The Vigilant rang the little bell again, the note struck cleaner, sharper, and carried the drone with it this time rather than on the trailing edge of the sound. It had the conscious, feeling awareness she had sometimes felt within the music of the bells, and Val felt the way the pulse reverberated through the room, sending the natural web of energy thrumming with its passing.

  “As you move on from just listening, you can supplement your knowledge with careful manipulation designed to reveal more information about the shape and feel of the world around you. Although be aware that those who listen can tell you probe,” said the Vigilant carefully.

  “How does the compulsion work?” asked Val, “is it the same as the Laons?”

  The Vigilant raised an eyebrow in shock, then gave a gentle smile, “The compulsion is my skill, I learnt it from observing them. The diminishing affects all things a little differently, for us humans - we became hume - numerous and vigorous as a species, but deaf to and disconnected from our original grandeur. Other species often kept some part of their connection, but instead have suffered in other ways - fading into the dark and quiet parts of the world or disappearing entirely. The living energies are a part of all life, it can be used to manipulate the self and others in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. The Laons use compulsion, better described as a transformation of thoughts, on instinct - but I suspect their culture and biology contribute as well. I think it likely that any compulsion you speak, or any from their species better connected to the energies and consciously aware of the magic they work, carries a far more powerful and uncomfortable weight.”

  Val frowned, and reflected on the reactions many Laons had when she spoke or ordered them - discomfort or anger. What could be gentle guiding hands, and nudges, within their own species, may have been a clumsy and violent urge wielded without skill by herself. A dark thought entered her mind, and she wondered if it could be used on humans.

  As if sensing her, the Vigilant spoke in a hushed voice, “I am not proud of it. But I cannot choose the path the Weave bought me on, I was given tools for a purpose to protect our Chapel. I would encourage you to avoid honing the compulsion as a skill…”

  “What else can I do then, with this living energy?” asked Val, she leaned back on her hands to make herself a little more comfortable.

  The Vigilant shrugged, “Transformation of the self into other shapes was the greatest skill, although that has long since been lost. I can lend you books to read more?”

  Val slumped her shoulders, and shyly looked away, “I wouldn’t bother.”

  “You will learn faster if you do so, I can recommend some.”

  “I can’t really read well,” admitted Val hesitantly.

  “Ah,” the Vigilant seemed equally awkward at this admission, and he turned his attention to the keyboard of strange wooden pegs and pedals now instead. “You say you can listen, and you have the natural advantage of species for learning to manipulate the living energies. Show me what you can do with the non-living?”

  Val lifted her hand, and just as she had done in the tunnel willed out the flame from her core to her palm. As easy as exhaling a breath, the fire unfurled and sparked gently, lighting up the bell tower with its yellow glow. The Vigilant at her side exhaled an excited breath, and even had some color return to his sickly pallor. The Laon soldier in the corner watched on with stiff awe.

  The Vigilant who tinkered put down their tools and came close, cupping her hand with his own to study the flame. “You use your body too much,” he commented, tipping her palm about to watch how the flame adjusted.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “We cannot exactly claim the higher ground, we both must use music to help our own manipulations,” chastised the Vigilant who sat on the bench, but was equally curious. “I suspect as a warrior first, your understanding of your body makes a better conduit to focus your will. Have you tried to summon flame without moving?”

  Val shook her head, and closed her fingers to extinguish the fire, “It feels like it flows through me, from a center in my chest. I don’t know how I would even try to imagine it? But I do know I have when I have not consciously controlled it.”

  The Vigilant nodded knowingly, “Having something to give you focus for your will is common. Something more easily understood by our mind, that we can use as a metaphor of sorts.”

  Val lowered her head, unsure how much she should reveal but knew she had to take advantage of their knowledge if she could, “It feels like a sleeping beast within me. Waiting for my call. There is a great force of it somewhere, and when I open to it too freely it sears away at me and takes me with its passing. I fear overuse could kill me.”

  The Vigilant was grim, “You are likely not wrong. The living and non-living energies are like sound and light, there are similarities in their mechanisms that give them shared traits, but otherwise they are independent of each other and the rules of one do not apply to the other. I can offer you no guidance. You should seek out others who can use it, and be careful in your own experimentation. We know from books that there was considerable variation in the purity of the spectrum users had access to…”

  “Spectrum?” asked Val, uncertain what the word meant in this context.

  The sickly Vigilant turned their head to the other, struggling to find words to explain, “Can you imagine a string vibrating such that it makes sound?”

  Val nodded, and he continued, “The qualities of the sound a string makes change with the physical properties of the vibration. Faster and shorter, slower and longer, they change the sound accordingly. These all form a spectrum of different sounds. Energies are the same, there is a spectrum of manifestations blending from one to another but with places where they are most pure and others where they are weakened by the transition, and two ends that grow more and more dissimilar from each other rather than circling back to the other.”

  Val’s expression must have betrayed that this concept was too complicated for her, and the Vigilant tried again. “The nonliving spectrum starts with earth, and then transitions to water, air and finally fire. At one end there are dense, heaving things, slow and inert, and along the way it becomes quicker, more volatile. But there are states in between, like ice as a manifestation between earth and water.”

  Val thought on this, “Or water can be boiled to become air?”

  “Yes, they transition from one to the other, a spectrum,” explained the Vigilant, happy she was catching on, “Users of non-living magic have only some aspect of the spectrum they can access granted by their bloodline, and unrelated to their strength and practice. Breeding was so important because as the spectrum slipped to less useful regions, it became less useful to the practitioners. I suspect you have a very pure spectrum of fire - untainted by the edges where it manifests as something lesser, and not only that but a deep well of innate strength to draw from. You should be careful.”

  “How can I learn more, if it is so dangerous on my own?” asked Val, her eyes lowered. She needed to do this, for Dorius, for herself, but it seemed there was so little help.

  The Vigilant looked sad, and suggested, “I would try listening. You can hear the living spectrum in its fullest - you are yourself alive and a part of it. But the non-living you can only hear in the spectrum that matches your talents - you may learn more by listening to fire and understanding what you hear. Otherwise, there is a lot that can be learnt by just observing a little more carefully.”

  The Vigilant turned on his bench, and bought a single fist, his odd fingers clenched, down on a wooden peg. The mechanism behind shifted, and with a subtle delay, above a bell gave one great and lonely toll. He shut his eyes, and with fists on the pegs and feet on the pedals, began to play.

  Bells cascaded into one another, a torrent of sound that crashed and echoed and surged again with the magnitude of an ocean. The whole tower shook with the sound, the stone trembling and vibrating with the force of the resonance. In counterpoint to the music, Val felt the energies surge with it, elated and joyous in perfect opposition to the somber, minor overtones of the bells. Outwards on the music it rode, like leaves in the current of a stream. Val felt herself diminish, a silent observer to the symphony.

  Close to the keyboard, Val could hear the click and rattle of the mechanisms and wires. Rather than undermining the experience, she found herself transfixed in awe that someone could build such a mechanism to control so much sound. The other Vigilant carefully watched with the precise eye of an artisan, coming to one side of the keyboard to observe the wires from the back. But as the music swelled they shut their eyes too and let themselves drift like Val did.

  Finally, exhausted and drained by his casting, the Vigilant ceased playing, but the song hung in the air, lingering still. Val could almost feel the cold bells above her vibrating yet, passing beyond the spectrums of sound she could hear. He slumped in his seat, completely drained and panting, pale with sweat and weakly flexing his hands and wrists within the range of what limited movement he had. His companion caught him, and said sternly, “You have tired him out. We have done as asked, and spoken with you, now be on your way.”

  Val flinched, and still feeling a little shaken by the bell’s song, climbed to her feet and beckoned her Laon guide.

  “I’m sorry,” she said meekly, “I didn’t ask you to play.”

  “You can see he is unwell, yet you stay so long!”

  “Jed, I am fine. You are welcome to visit again, but I must rest,” his companion helped him stand, and he half hopped and dragged his feet towards the bed again, each movement slow and deliberate, “It has been long weeks, playing the compulsion daily. I am told your Prince arranged our current relief, but I am still drained. Come back one day.”

  “Come back never,” hissed the other.

  Val climbed to her feet, casting them a hesitant eye, and returned to the access hole and ladder to climb back down the tower, leaving only a quiet “Thank you,” behind her.