“This is impossible!” Archmage Duris exclaimed, more in anger than awe.
“Of course, it’s possible, Duris,” Archmage Gamwen said. “It’s just that no one’s ever done it with a Kaedor mapping spell.” He turned to Sciona in fascination. “How did you achieve this, Highmage Freynan?”
“Well, I didn’t use a Kaedor mapping spell, per se. The spell is Kaedor in structure, but some of the lines are pulled from Stravos’s writings, with my own modifications to adapt his work to the spellograph.”
“Of course the Leonite modified a Kaedor spell,” Archmage Mordra the Ninth said in disgust.
But Gamwen made an impatient shushing motion with his hand and pressed, “Which lines, Highmage Freynan? Can you explain your process?”
So, Sciona went through the Stravos-Kaedor spell line-by-line for the Council. Some of them seemed uninterested except to shake their heads in disapproval. Archmage Bringham beamed, and Archmage Gamwen took notes like a boy in school. For a moment, wrapped in the beautiful minutia of the work, Sciona could almost forget that they were dealing with human lives on the other side of that luminous screen. Almost. But not quite. The real presentation was still ahead of her.
“Well,” Archmage Orynhel said, openly pleased. “If these spells of Highmage Freynan’s hold up under review and testing, we should be able to move forward with the expansion on our earliest timeline. And you believe these mapping spells are ready for integration with the barrier expansion action spells, Miss Freynan?”
“Yes, Archmage Supreme.” In fact, she already had integrated them with barrier expansion spells and left the work sitting on her spellograph in the widow’s house with Thomil. But no one in this chamber needed to know that spellograph existed. According to their records, it had been scrapped and melted to steel ore by now.
“Brilliant work, Highmage Freynan,” said Archmage Orynhel. “You may have a seat.”
“Thank you, Archmages,” Sciona said with a glance at the great clock above the Council. Less than ten minutes until noon. The weak winter sun was rising, bleeding red light through the windows. “But what I demonstrated doesn’t actually represent all my findings.”
“It doesn’t?” Archmage Orynhel said in surprise.
“I’ve composed a second spell that shows the Otherrealm in even greater detail—detail I believe to be unprecedented in the history of Tiranish magic.”
She didn’t wait for permission this time. Noon was only minutes away. Quickly swapping the sheaf out of the spellograph, Sciona activated her second mapping spell.
This one was the Freynan Mirror, adapted from Stravos’s witch magic. It displayed the same coordinates as the first spell but in color, as though through clear glass. Sciona had chosen the location carefully. It was far south, where winter was brighter and not as brutal. This was a forest full of life: strange furry creatures pawing about in the leaf litter, birds flurrying about, and a small human settlement exposed by a gap in the tree cover. People were just visible through the lattice of bare branches—men carrying wood and women tanning a deer hide as children chased around their legs.
Silence had fallen behind the Council desk. Bringham looked like he might be ill. Duris and Mordra the Ninth looked offended. All looked utterly astonished.
“Wh-what is this?” Archmage Thelanra stuttered at last.
“It’s the Otherrealm as it would look to the human eye, Archmage.” Sciona stepped back to face the Council. “That is to say, of course: this is the Kwen.”
Ripples of confusion broke out among the highmages. Not all of them had served in the High Magistry long enough to know.
“Miss Freynan,” Archmage Gamwen started. “I don’t think—”
“When we siphon energy for our spells, plants, animals, and human beings die beyond the barrier. Only some of my peers know this.” Sciona turned and gave an apologetic nod to the highmages on the benches all around her. “But the Magistry Council has always known. They’ve known since our forefathers laid the foundations for Tiran. They’ve chosen to keep it quiet.”
As Sciona turned back to the Council, the expressions there still ranged from shock to rage. No hint of guilt to be found.
“How dare you!” Thelanra stood, his wispy beard trembling with rage.
“You dirty little Leonite—” Archmage Duris started, but Gamwen, the only Leonite currently seated on the Council, cut him off.
“Watch yourself, Duris.”
“Oh, spare us, Gamwen!” Renthorn the Second snarled. “The girl is out of line in her claims and her spellwork. It’s a disgrace. And you!” He whirled on his son, who had begun laughing. “That’s quite enough of that!”
“Why, Father?” Renthorn the Third was wearing a look of total delight—the same one he had worn as he pounced on Sciona in the library. “She’s only showing you the bare, beautiful truth of our art! Why deny our power? Why deny our superiority?”
“Silence!” the Second snarled. “Or, by Feryn, I will have your research seized and passed to a mage of worthier character. Archmage Supreme, excuse my son’s outburst. Freynan obviously speaks heresy and nonsense.”
“It’s easy for you to call it nonsense,” Sciona said. “It’s easy to deny the truth when our mapping only deals with bright shapes on a gray backdrop. I think the Founding Mages knew this. That’s why Faene the First retroactively forbade the modification of standard mapping spells years after Leon and Kaedor were dead. Faene realized that Leon and Kaedor’s forms of mapping would never show their descendants the real cost of magic. But there was one mage in history who knew how to open a clear window to the lands we falsely call the Otherrealm. Andrethen Stravos knew. Now, there is a second.”
Sciona indicated the human settlement milling in irrefutable color before the High Magistry, then leveled her gaze at Orynhel.
“Archmage Supreme, may I ask why you’ve allowed this to continue? The mass murder and the lies surrounding it?”
“Insolent child!” Thelanra spat. “That is not for you to ask, as it is not for us to ask of our glorious forebears! For shame, young lady! For shame!”
Sciona lifted her chin to the quivering old man. “If there is shame to bear here, Archmage Thelanra, it is not mine. I’ve used my talents to seek God’s Truth for my entire career. Can you say the same?”
“You dare—” Renthorn the Second started, but Orynhel held up a hand. The Archmage Supreme’s answer was calmer than the others’。
“I see your pain, my child, and I understand your confusion. But the Founding Mages were wise in their decisions, and Faene the First was wise in his teachings. God gifted us the Otherrealm and bade us use it to prosper. To neglect that bounty would be an insult to Him. The Founding Mages nobly took the pain of knowledge from their children so that we might please God as pure souls in clear conscience.”
Sciona took a breath to steady herself. “But human lives can’t possibly be treated like bounty. Mass lies can’t possibly please the God of Truth.”
“Tiran is God’s city and His treasure,” Archmage Orynhel responded with serene confidence—not just addressing Sciona, she realized, but all the highmages in attendance, some of whom would be new to the truth about the Otherrealm. “All that benefits Tiran pleases God. I am sorry that the burden of knowledge has come upon you too early, before you were ready to bear it. But bear it we all must. Now, close this window, Highmage Freynan. And if you value that brilliant mind and good heart of yours, do not look through it again until you can face it.”