Chapter 5

The magic of Gaen seems closely bound to music and song while at the same time, Magic and Music each seem to be blooms from very different flowers. Beneath everything, they are very much of the same body. Mathematicians and musicians will both tell you this is true.

Wizards will too, if you are in a position to ask them.

Threes and fours, apart and in combination, especially in combination, have strong ties to the magic and history of Gaen. These numbers, especially in combination, seemed to influence my life as well in some ways, and I often found myself reinforcing the patterns driven by that influence with choices I made.

I am not alone in this, it is a thing all wizards experience to some degree or another.

To be a wizard means to be able to see what other men cannot. The basest interpretation of that fact alludes to a wizard's ability to see raw magic itself, the energies of it. Some say that is the power of Gaen itself and some say not.

Less simple interpretations allude to the ability wizards possess to understand how manipulating that energy can produce desired effects. Wizards through the ages have written of their impressions, and in my reading I have found many I share. For some, the understanding comes as pure notes and clear tones. For others, it comes as harmonious chords or as the sound of a particular instrument. For some it is a taste; sweet success or bitter failure are not just clever wordplay for some wizards. Still others perceive it visually, as shades of light and gleaming auras. A few have described it as a sense of weight; the lightness of success and how heavy failure feels.

I have at times known all of these, and more. Some I have studiously avoided knowing. Ancient Arghynn of Sembol spoke of the sexual excitement his successes created. I knew enough of the kinds of magic he preferred to understand I was unlikely to travel the same path he followed. I personally did not think I could be perverse enough to suffer through recreating the workings he recounted in his memoirs.

In my rebuilding efforts since my master had brought me back to the tower after my fall, I had been reinforcing a lot of those patterns, generally and specifically — the inks and passes and patterns in creating my tattoos being the clearest example.

The Cairnheart was a day behind me. I was traveling lighter and faster than I had the last time I'd followed the river in this direction, but I'd had Ilesa with me then, and she'd had Old Loam to divert her. That trip had been one of discovery, with a pace that reflected it. I rode with no sense of urgency, but I knew my way and my purpose.

My master and I had disagreed on the manner of my traveling. I'd wanted to travel alone and he had forbade it. I told him that unless he chose to accompany me himself, anyone he sent with me would not be with with me for long once I'd crossed the river. I had something I wanted to do alone and I would do it, one way or another.

"I am no babe in the woods," I argued. A poor choice of words.

"Yes, that is exactly what you will be!" my master yelled, throwing the crust of bread he'd been dipping in his stew at the fireplace behind me. "As far as wizards go, you will be the very definition of a babe in the woods. You have not even lived out your first life yet!"

"Perhaps so, but I have lived past what should have been my first death, and that counts for something. This is not just some wood I will be in either."

A dark look but no rebuttal encouraged me to assume a victory, and I set out with that assumption. The trip upriver from Trilin had given me no cause to believe my master had assumed differently. I had passed the days since leaving in blissful solitude — Deak, though he sometimes had things to tell me, did not speak.

On my way upriver, I came to Cairncross in the middle of the night, and stopped, spending a few hours visiting with Artuma. It was strange how ancient our acquaintance seemed, given my tender years and his more common span. Perhaps it was his tendency to let the stray Old Cunish phrase slip out now and again.

We sat beside the hearth in his quarters and we spoke of language and seasons and signs. Artuma was almost as great a believer is signs as my master.

"The wolves who follow you within the forest are not to be ignored," he told me after I'd described my encounters with them.

"Do yo think there is a message for me in their appearance?"

"I think you will eventually have to either master them, or kill them. Which or when? I could not say."

"You don't think they are scouting for the unhumans then?"

"How they are being used may have nothing to do with why they are there, Pacasin. You though, are moving yourself at breakneck speed towards an identity that is utterly tied to the north wood. Winter wolves are ... what?" He paused then, trying to find the words. He took a long swallow from the mug in his hand, an ale of some kind.

"Winter wolves are what the swamp men would call Totem animals. There is a significance in what they are, and they carry with them ties into the power of the forest and the snow. These are two things you seem intent on making a part of yourself, so for that reason alone, they are important to you."

"And so, being important to me, I must bind them or destroy them?"

"Or ignore them, but that is the fool's choice."

Fool's choice indeed. I considered my choices in silence for a while. When the silence had begun to grow too comfortable, I chabged the subject.

"Artuma, I have always felt there is something about you, a connection to something I seem to have an affinity for. You use words and phrases from the Old Cunish as if you were from another age. For some reason I find it familiar and comfortable, and I shouldn't, all things being equal."

"All things are equal, my young friend, only when Gaen wishes them to be." Artuma said with a laugh, before leaning towards me across the hearth. "Wizards know that words are merely a way of expressing thoughts, simple enough. Even a school boy could come agree to that, where he to give it some thought, true?"

"True," I agreed.

Not all thoughts can be expressed with the same precision and ease in every language. The swamp men, since we mentioned them earlier, can describe the decay and decomposition of a fallen tree with astonishing precision and using only a handful of words, where it might take you and I quite a few more words, if we could do it accurately at all."

Artuma seemed to be waiting for my agreement again, and I could see the truth in his argument, so nodded in return. "There is truth in your words."

"So by extension, some languages, some ways of thinking are better suited to magic, or to different kinds of magic than others, agreed?"

"Yes, of course," I agreed. This I knew to be very true, and even more so when it came to written languages. Runescir, the language behind the runic inscriptions I used in crafting my healing draught sprang to mind immediately. Though it was something of an artificial language, designed for the task of crafting magical runes, still it was a true language, and I knew it at least as well as I did many of the other, more ancient and natural-born languages I had studied with my master.

"I have ties to the Old Cunish because it is the language of those who followed the Winter King."

"The Winter King?" I asked with some surprise in my voice. "The Winter King died back during the forming of the Wards of the North, and another has never risen!"

"You are right, so far..." Artuma said with some feeling. "But though there is yet no Winter King, there are those who still believe, and those who still wait."

"You are one of those then who waits?" Odd, I'd have never taken Artuma for a worshiper of anything but his trade. Perhaps that was merely a case of me painting him with the broad brush of the usual expectations.

"Indeed I am, and that explains my connection to Old Cunish. The explanation for your connection remains to be seen, doesn't it? Perhaps your destiny being intertwined with the Witch of the North is the reason, perhaps not, but that will come out eventually. All we can do is wait and prepare as best we can. Whether it is men like me, waiting for the return of a lost king, or an apprentice like you, seeking his place in the world."

"Can you teach me Old Cunish then?" I asked, knowing that there were not many men left in the world who were supposed to know it at all, let enough well enough to teach it.

"Me? No, as fond as I am of spouting words and phrases I have learned over the years, I am no student of the language and do not speak it. I know a good many words and phrases, but that is all. I cannot speak it. You certainly can read it better than I can already."

"I feel that I should learn it though," I confessed. "Some part of me wants to know the language better than I do now."

"Of course," Artuma let us drift into companionable silence for a while again, but finally, as he stood and tossed the dregs of his cup into the ashes of the fireplace, he gave me a slight bow. "When you are done with your current business and have some time, come see me again. I may be able to point you in the direction of a teacher."