Michael Manning - The Archmage unbound

She smiled then, flashing teeth like white pebbles, “That is true also, but the ground beneath your feet has no desire to speak or debate topics of human knowledge. It was given this knowledge by Moira Centyr and it acquires the desire to speak from your own living will.”

“So I really am speaking to the earth.”

“I am the earth, but I am not its voice… I am an echo of a woman who has passed beyond the knowledge of how to be human,” she said. It might have been my imagination, but I almost heard a hint of wistfulness in her voice as she said it. I felt intuitively that her words were true, but I doubted they were the final truth.

A question popped into my mind suddenly. “Are there others?”

“Others?”

“Other impressions, memories left behind by previous archmages, like you…,” I clarified.

“Not that I am aware of,” she answered simply.

The answer disappointed me and left me more curious, “Why not? Are you the only archmage to have… er… been lost… or joined with the earth?”

“No, when I was alive I was taught that several had been lost in this way before.”

“So why do you exist?” As the question left my mouth it occurred to me that it was a deep question that could just as easily be applied to myself.

“I was created to guard and preserve certain things, the Centyr family has always had a peculiar talent not found in the other great lineages.” she said. Her voice had an almost hesitant tone to it, as if she answered reluctantly.

Of course that begged the question, “Such as?”

Her blue eyes bore into mine, “What you see before you… I am a ‘splinter’ of the original Moira Centyr, a weakened copy if you will.”

The idea intrigued me, “This was something unique to your family? Were all of the Centyr mages able to do this?”

“The ability to create a living body is something only an archmage could manage and there have been few of those among my ancestors. However Centyr wizards were frequently able to create semi-sentient enchantments of objects to contain knowledge… I am merely the extreme extension of that ability. As far as I know I am the only example of… whatever it is you would label me,” she gestured to her body as she finished.

“And what was your creator’s intention when she made you?”

“The preservation of knowledge, to help you… Although I have no will or power to act remaining to me I can teach you what I knew, if you desire my wisdom. And…,” she began to say something else but stopped.

“What?” I prodded.

“Nothing.”

“It didn’t sound like nothing, what else is there?”

“I am not ready to share everything yet, not until I know your purposes better… not until I am sure you can survive,” she stated bluntly.

“I thought you acted according to my will,” I inquired, “How can a simulacrum be stubborn… or cautious?”

“Some things we are driven to protect so strongly that the desire can survive even this…,” she gestured at her earthen form, sweeping her arms delicately downward.

I had the feeling I wasn’t going to get anywhere trying to pry an answer from her at this point so I mentally shelved the question for later. A larger question loomed before me, “You said others had been ‘lost’ like you were… how did you wind up like this? More importantly could this happen to me?”

She smiled again, “A good question… and part of the reason I was created. It involves the fundamental difference between wizardry and what an archmage does. A mage uses his own power to effect change in the world around him, just as a normal man might use the strength of his arm and an axe to fell a tree. A mage wields his power and causes things to happen, in contrast, an archmage listens to the world.”

“That doesn’t sound very useful, or powerful. The histories say you defeated a dark god, surely you didn’t do that by ‘listening’,” I insisted.

“Correct, I didn’t crush Balinthor by just listening, and that is why I became as I am now. I sought power beyond human comprehension, the power of the earth entire, and I gained it,” she stopped there.

“I’m confused,” I admitted.

She stared intently at me and I found myself fascinated with the light glinting from the deep sapphires that served as her ‘eyes’. Finally she opened her mouth to speak again, “An archmage does not wield power, Mordecai. An archmage becomes that which they seek to wield.”

Moira Centyr, or rather the creature I called Moira, watched me for a long moment, waiting for her words to sink in. I blinked several times as my own experiences over the past year shifted within my mind, reorganizing in light of what she had just told me. Several things clicked into place as I looked back, and my memory of the voice of the wind and the sensation I had had… of losing my ‘self’… stood out clearly in my mind.

Just a few days ago I had nearly taken to the skies… just to track a man a few miles further than my regular senses would follow. What if I hadn’t come back? What if Ariadne hadn’t gotten my attention? Would I have become a zephyr? A part of the wind… lost forever between the clouds, with no memory of my prior life? The implications were startling.

“Could that happen with the wind?” I asked her suddenly.

“An archmage can become anything,” she replied, “It is both a blessing and a curse… a strength and a weakness.”

“I think it nearly happened to me the other day,” I added.

“I am not surprised,” she said.

“Why?”

“You are particularly sensitive, in my time you would have been guarded carefully by a meillte,” she said. The word meillte was familiar to me already, it being the Lycian word for ‘watcher’.

“What did these ‘meillte’ do?” I asked.

“Their job was to make sure an archmage did not go too far. Most of them were mages of limited ability. If the one they were watching became lost they could speak to them directly, mind to mind, to try and draw them back to the world of men,” she explained.

“Did you have watchers? And if so… why didn’t they bring you back?” Even before I said it I wondered if the question might be too sensitive, but I had to ask anyway.

“I did, but some things cannot be undone. I knew the price and I made my choice, which is why I tried to preserve my knowledge for the future, before I lost myself.” She answered plainly, and if the question bothered her she gave no sign of it.

“You say I am ‘sensitive’, what does that have to do with it?”

“Everything… sensitivity is the way we used to look for possible talents in this regard. In general, once a young mage first showed his power he would be watched carefully. After a year we would test his sensitivity, primarily by checking the range of his mage-sight,” Moira said.

“Does that range or sensitivity give an indication of a mage’s power?”

“Not really. Many powerful wizards were too lacking in sensitivity to become archmages… most of them in fact. Conversely, some archmages were fairly mediocre in terms of pure wizardry. I myself was only considered a ‘moderate’ when my personal power was tested, but my sensitivity was very high. I was closely watched from the time my power first manifested until the time I chose to surrender my life in the attempt to stop Balinthor.” She said this with a certain amount of pride.

Needless to say the conversation had taken a fascinating turn for me. I had read about things such as ‘emittance’ and ‘capacitance’ being used to characterize the differences between wizards and channelers, stoics and prophets… but what Moira was discussing was more particular to my own situation. “How did you measure sensitivity?” I asked her directly.