there was the Manciple’s Library.
Stuck in an out-of-the-way chamber, the Manciple’s Library was where the more rare works on the more obscure branches of magic were kept. It was kept under the care and authority of the manciple, not the principle archivist, for reasons of tradition and academic feudal obligation that Tyndal didn’t quite understand.
But he tracked the man’s student assistant down in his closet-sized office just off the school’s large buttery and begged the key from him, after confirming that it was the campus’s only repository of Blue Magic texts. The library was located in a spare tower that didn’t look useful, nor particularly decorative, a chamber built for some forgotten purpose and then re-purposed repeatedly over the years.
Now it was the dusty home to hundreds of volumes unlikely to be regularly consulted by the normal students. Advanced students would sometimes find their way here, but the place was almost unused.
Tyndal surveyed the scrolls and books around him after floating a bright magelight in the air, and he was suddenly glad that the place was warded against insects and pests. It was creepy enough as it was without spider webs. He pushed a pile of scrolls off of the main table in the small library and created a space in the dust, pulling a rickety stool into place.
Then he got to work. The Main Library archivist had given him the names of a few books or monographs on Psychomancy he could start with, including the helpfully-named Primer On Psychomancy , by Master Loden, whoever he was. Tyndal found the book after ten minutes of searching, and then pounced on it like a free meal.
Quite against his nature he learned he was fascinated by the magic of a man’s mind. He learned how many common spells had a psychomantic component, but that the discipline as such was rarely taught, due to its obscure nature and dubious use. The well-trained Psychomancer, Master Loden frequently pointed out, could be a menace to society if he lacked good moral character.
Tyndal hoped they weren’t too specific about that.
Blue Magic was the study of the conscious, the subconscious, the dreamworld, the Other World, and of course such basic factors as memory, recollection, learning and knowledge.
Tyndal found himself in awe of the idea of the mind being an objective thing for study, like carbon or pinecones.
Tyndal found himself staring off into wonder as he appreciated the scope of the discipline. Master Loden wrote that human consciousness is merely the accumulated aggregate of experience and memory . And that made sense to Tyndal. We begin life as an empty sack, he reasoned, and along the way our mind picks up what it needs. He could relate to an empty sack.
The art of Psychomancy was how to put things into – or take them out of – that sack. And it was, he discover quickly, much, much harder than merely producing flame out of thin air or manifesting a light in the darkness. Compared to the human mind, the mechanics of the basic magic of manipulating mass and energy were children’s games.
Part of the problem, as Loden explained, was that the Alka Alon, the masters of magic on Callidore, had no cognate for the discipline; the human mind worked differently than the Alka Alon mind, and so outside of some basics in common with both cognitions, they had little to give the humani in that regard. What had evolved into Psychomancy was largely of human invention.
As was (it was pointed out repeatedly in the text) the science of Theurgy: the magic of the Gods. The gods of the humani were the aggregate subconscious expressions of humanity clustered around a psychomantic architecture of abstract symbols, based on the needs of humanity. The human gods could take material form on Callidore, when conditions were ripe and the need was great. Some had even played a role in history.
The gods of the Alka Alon or the gurvani, by comparison, were more hallowed
Stuck in an out-of-the-way chamber, the Manciple’s Library was where the more rare works on the more obscure branches of magic were kept. It was kept under the care and authority of the manciple, not the principle archivist, for reasons of tradition and academic feudal obligation that Tyndal didn’t quite understand.
But he tracked the man’s student assistant down in his closet-sized office just off the school’s large buttery and begged the key from him, after confirming that it was the campus’s only repository of Blue Magic texts. The library was located in a spare tower that didn’t look useful, nor particularly decorative, a chamber built for some forgotten purpose and then re-purposed repeatedly over the years.
Now it was the dusty home to hundreds of volumes unlikely to be regularly consulted by the normal students. Advanced students would sometimes find their way here, but the place was almost unused.
Tyndal surveyed the scrolls and books around him after floating a bright magelight in the air, and he was suddenly glad that the place was warded against insects and pests. It was creepy enough as it was without spider webs. He pushed a pile of scrolls off of the main table in the small library and created a space in the dust, pulling a rickety stool into place.
Then he got to work. The Main Library archivist had given him the names of a few books or monographs on Psychomancy he could start with, including the helpfully-named Primer On Psychomancy , by Master Loden, whoever he was. Tyndal found the book after ten minutes of searching, and then pounced on it like a free meal.
Quite against his nature he learned he was fascinated by the magic of a man’s mind. He learned how many common spells had a psychomantic component, but that the discipline as such was rarely taught, due to its obscure nature and dubious use. The well-trained Psychomancer, Master Loden frequently pointed out, could be a menace to society if he lacked good moral character.
Tyndal hoped they weren’t too specific about that.
Blue Magic was the study of the conscious, the subconscious, the dreamworld, the Other World, and of course such basic factors as memory, recollection, learning and knowledge.
Tyndal found himself in awe of the idea of the mind being an objective thing for study, like carbon or pinecones.
Tyndal found himself staring off into wonder as he appreciated the scope of the discipline. Master Loden wrote that human consciousness is merely the accumulated aggregate of experience and memory . And that made sense to Tyndal. We begin life as an empty sack, he reasoned, and along the way our mind picks up what it needs. He could relate to an empty sack.
The art of Psychomancy was how to put things into – or take them out of – that sack. And it was, he discover quickly, much, much harder than merely producing flame out of thin air or manifesting a light in the darkness. Compared to the human mind, the mechanics of the basic magic of manipulating mass and energy were children’s games.
Part of the problem, as Loden explained, was that the Alka Alon, the masters of magic on Callidore, had no cognate for the discipline; the human mind worked differently than the Alka Alon mind, and so outside of some basics in common with both cognitions, they had little to give the humani in that regard. What had evolved into Psychomancy was largely of human invention.
As was (it was pointed out repeatedly in the text) the science of Theurgy: the magic of the Gods. The gods of the humani were the aggregate subconscious expressions of humanity clustered around a psychomantic architecture of abstract symbols, based on the needs of humanity. The human gods could take material form on Callidore, when conditions were ripe and the need was great. Some had even played a role in history.
The gods of the Alka Alon or the gurvani, by comparison, were more hallowed
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