Chương 38: Chapter 37: The Joys of Parenting

++Siblings were a novelty for me following my rebirth, but one that I quickly learned to appreciate. They were such useful, potential assets. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E One of the reasons I had actually wanted to return home was to study the leyline that supposedly existed near my family's estate. This was more from idle curiosity than ambition, however, I had already had a chance to examine these magical structures long in the past.

I mainly just wanted to know how much they may have changed in the modern age, if at all. Unfortunately, like every other action that it was theoretically possible for me to take, it was considered too dangerous by my family. This was a recurring theme, I had found. Agrian could do as he wished, naturally, and my father could certainly manage the leyline, but when it came to me, I was simply too delicate.

I had actually read an account, written some fifty years ago, about how certain men were fearful of allowing women to ride trains moving faster than a sprint, because they believed that the speeds would damage our wombs. The fact that women can ride a galloping horse, which is over double their own sprinting speed, did not appear to occur to them. Of course, women were not actually allowed to ride properly either. Sidesaddle my mother had called it, sitting with both legs folded over one flank of the mount.

Because women were apparently too delicate to minimize their risk of falling six feet onto their head, as well. I was quickly tiring of Lachfel, at least in the Winzorth Institute people had, if begrudgingly, still given me much-needed information. But I still had my books, and despite the best efforts of my family I still had time to read them. Without my lessons in the specific fields of magic ongoing, I had a lot more free time while waiting for my Vessel to recover from its training.

I used it for theoretical study instead, something I had neglected for far too long. Unfortunately, magical theory was not much more understood now than it had been in my era. There were certainly more hypotheses, but precious little proof of anything. This did not mean I stood to gain nothing from it, only that I was largely forced to simply read through accounts and draw my own conclusions. Thinking about it more, however, this was actually very good for me.

If the rest of this world had yet to work out many hard answers, it just meant that there were still that many answers for me to find. And yet, I was only one person. Could I truly do what entire generations of magicians before me had not managed? A ridiculous question; of course I could. I was Lord Dread, and however short my arms and legs had gotten, my mind was still that of the King of Liches. Or queen? I quickly discarded that question as pointless.

I was a skeleton, and every moment spent covered in repulsive meat was torture, regardless of what particular shape that meat was made into. I would simply call myself whatever was socially convenient. And hopefully, others would soon be calling me the magical genius who advanced theory by a century. I got to reading. The first few texts I read about modelled mana as a form of unseen energy.

Something that was undetectable by any physical means save for an intelligent creature's mind, but that could be directed by those minds to act on the world. Mana, in this version of reality, was an otherwise-inert substance that simply existed and could be focused through unknown means by certain people. I did not find this explanation to be complete, because it left far too many unanswered questions. The Gods were first among them.

I knew more about divinity than perhaps any human ever had, and I was aware that the minds of divine beings are different from those of humans. I was actually not sure if they even had minds. They acted like they did, seemed to grasp language, recognise patterns, predict things, but I was unsure whether this was anything more than just an incredibly advanced simulation of real thought. What I knew for a fact was that the Gods were trapped into certain ways of acting and behaving, in ways that humans were not.

It was not simply stubbornness. Maketa, the Goddess of the Underworld, could no more go against the basic tenets of life and death than a human could keep from recognising colour or breathing. It was not a choice for her, she simply could not help herself. And this was not just automatic, it was not just some mental block keeping her from acting in that way. In my millennia of observing them, I had found that the Gods were simply unable to even think in certain ways.

Their minds just did not comprehend notions that went against their natures. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! But the magic they controlled was beyond anything a human could master. That was what I had never understood; what was divine power that made it so unfathomably strong? And more importantly, how did I go about mastering it myself? Sadly, the people of Garamon had made no more progress in answering that second question than I ever had.

This, at least, was not a surprise. Garamon was an Empire of the Gods, made from the ground up to serve their interests. Of course its scholars were not uncovering a way to rival their strength. That just left another opportunity for me.

I flicked through more flawed or poorly thought-out hypotheses, pausing only to stare in bafflement at one particular Professor who appeared to have claimed that mana was 'evil magnetic energies' produced by 'undisciplined women' and that it was paramount to destroy all women in order to get rid of it, before finally stumbling onto something that, if nothing else, was interesting to me.

'The question of what mana is has been going on since before Garamon was even a united nation, let alone the Empire it is today, and we may never get an answer. The Gods alone know, and they are miserly with their secrets. It may simply be unfit for human understanding. But I do not know that. I cannot be certain what the Gods do or do not wish me to study.

Many of my peers say that I should veer off this topic entirely, for fear of angering our Lords, but I would retort to them as I always do; if the Gods do not wish me to study this, they may communicate that fact at any time. Until such time as they do, I will work as I always have to widen my knowledge. Such is how they made me. And that begins with an observation. Magic works when perceived.

Not just consciously, under the direct control of a magician, but even in naturally-occurring events, magic seems motivated by human perception.' I read on, and grew more fascinated as I went. This was an idea that had occurred to me long ago, too, but the writer of this work—one Alicia Rayoshini— had the benefit of a lot of historic examples that simply did not exist during my own time to substantiate the idea.

Still, it was not proven, but there were far more detailed ways to apply it now that it had been completed this much more, as a theory if nothing else. I would have liked nothing more but to continue reading and go about some of those proofs, but unfortunately that was the end of my free time.

"Isabel!" Victoria yelled as she rushed into my room, making me jump and almost hurl a spell at her on sheer reflex. Perhaps my repeated near-kidnappings were having some effect on my nerves after all.

"What?" I asked, placing my book down and carefully out of the reach of her goblinoid fingers. She did not seem to even glance its way, however, so I need not have bothered.

"Agrian and father are out tonight, and mother says I'm allowed to stay up late since you're here, let's play!" Ah, I had forgotten how excited Agrian used to get when allowed to stay up past his 'bedtime'. I should have known my younger siblings would respond similarly.

"I am busy at the moment, Victoria." I expected the girl to argue, but instead her eyes went wide.

"Busy doing magic?" she asked, almost reverently.

"... Studying magic," I corrected her.

"Yes."

"Can you show me some?" she asked.

"Will you leave me alone if I do?"

"Yes yes!" She actually started stomping her feet, like it was to punctuate the promise.

"Very well then." My Vessel was still somewhat sore from the daily training, but I was powerful enough by now that parlour tricks, magic just over the threshold of making physically observable results, was essentially no effort at all on my part. Light bloomed up from the palm of my hand, and it danced along my fingers down to the tips. I had to focus a bit, but I was even able to try out something I had mastered just a few months before.

Breaking the magic of my Vessel down into not just white light, but a technicolour display that shone around and made its way up and down the whole visible spectrum. Victoria, of course, adored it.

"Pretty!" she grinned.

"More!"

"More…light?"

"More magic!"

"I thought you agreed to go away once I showed you this." She scowled at me.

"This isn't a FULL magic, show me more magic and I leave." Putting aside the odd note of pride I felt at seeing my little sister already bargain like one of the fae, I mustered another thread of magic to do as she wished. This latest trick was new even to me, something I was improvising on the spot out of curiosity as much as anything else. My aether was usually transparent, thanks to my innate control over mana. Being able to visually see the stuff of magic meant that there was essentially no waste when I used it.

But what if I wanted waste? Yes, as I had thought, it was incredibly easy to bind mana into different coloured granules of aether, then make those granules into blocks, into crystals, into whatever form I wanted. I ended up settling on a multicoloured flower, each petal glinting in the light with a different colour. Victoria stared at it, transfixed.

"Pretty…" she muttered, then leaned forwards to bite down on it. I jerked my hand back quickly.

"It is not for eating," I told her. Instantly the girl's eyes flooded with angry tears.

"But I want!"

"I do not care, now I have fulfilled my end of the bargain—" —"I want!" Victoria was yelling louder, starting to give even me a headache.

"You cannot eat it you ignorant worm, it will…" I paused.

"I do not even know what it will do because I have never heard of a creature stupid enough to eat aether because I have never encountered you before." Victoria stared at me for a long moment of silence, then burst out into full crying. She did not say anything, simply vented emotion uncontrollably out in all directions like a ruptured sewer pipe. It took quite some time for the situation to resolve itself, and it ended up doing so only once one of the servants heard the ruckus and called on our mother.

The Baroness escorted Victoria out of my room and to bed, shooting a glare my way as she did.

"You really must learn to have a defter hand with children, Isabel. You'll have your own one day." Now that was a repulsive thought.