The Rifts of Psyche by Kyle West (popular e readers txt) 📗

He was walking toward the main part of the village when he noticed an old man sitting by the light of one of the lakeside torches. As Lucian got closer, he recognized Elder Erymmo. Lucian wondered what he was doing down here.

Erymmo turned from where he had been staring at the lake and stood at Lucian’s approach. His long gray hair, beard, wrinkled skin, and thin form made him look quintessentially wizard-like, what Lucian thought every mage looked like before he learned he was one himself.

“Lucian,” he said. “Walk with me. There are things we must discuss.”

It was as if Erymmo had been waiting for him. He remembered something Elder Ytrib had said about Lucian being tested for signs of fraying, so maybe that was happening. Lucian fell in beside the elderly man, and they made their way back toward Lucian’s hut. Neither said a word, though Lucian’s curiosity was stoked when they walked beyond the hut, and the Elder streamed a light sphere by which to see.

The trail grew rougher as the path descended deeper into the cavern, following the fast-moving stream. Elder Erymmo set a fast pace, and Lucian was hard-pressed to keep up.

“Where are we going, Elder?”

Lucian’s only answer was silence.

The trail branched off, and they found themselves in a grove of rocks and underground growing plants, mostly glowing mushrooms growing in damp corners. Water ran down the walls in small rivulets, the tiny streams joining a tributary that trickled toward the main flow of water.

Erymmo nodded toward a small, fist-sized rock at the center of the grove. “Lift that rock using Binding.”

Lucian reached out his hand and reached for the Binding Aspect. He anchored the rock and set a focal point on the stalactite-encrusted ceiling. The rock lifted, following a thin tether. About halfway up, Lucian slowed the stream, where the pull of the focal point equaled that of gravity pulling the rock downward. The rock levitated, remaining perfectly still.

“That’s a beautiful tether,” Erymmo commented. “Steady. Sure. And you didn’t stream more than necessary. You may release your stream; I don’t wish to exhaust you.”

In fact, Lucian was nowhere near exhausting himself. He could feel the Binding Aspect pulsing with power, but he wasn’t even tapping into the Orb of Binding now. The ether flowed as steady and clean as the stream in this cavern. He cut the stream, and the rock fell to the ground, seemingly in slow motion due to the lower gravity.

“Now,” Erymmo said, “do the same thing, but with a Psionic stream. You need not hold it steady.”

Lucian reached for the Psionic Aspect, streaming a burst of magic, focusing it on the underside of the rock. It shot into the air, bouncing of the ceiling before falling back down.

“Good. A light sphere?”

Lucian took a deep breath. He’d never had to switch between Aspects this quickly, but he found it good practice. He streamed the sphere, weaker than Erymmo’s. Once he’d held it about five seconds, Erymmo nodded.

“That’s all your primaries and secondaries,” he said. “Your streams of your secondaries are fairly clean. But the purity of your Binding stream is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Not in all my years.” Erymmo’s bushy gray eyebrows shot up, as if demanding an explanation.

“How are you able to follow my streams so closely?” Lucian asked. “I was never taught to do that.”

“That’s quite elementary,” he said. “So long as you aren’t being blocked, you can reach your Focus to another mage’s stream and follow it. You can even allow the other mage to control your Focus as well.”

“Why would I ever do that?”

“Two streaming as one can be more powerful, and it can allow a more experienced mage to take the lead. But it also requires a great deal of trust. Joining streams is called confluence.”

“Of course,” Lucian said. “I think I’ve locked onto another mage’s stream before without realizing what I was doing, but I didn’t know it was possible to add to another’s stream. What about blocking, though? Others have been able to cut off my magic before, but I don’t know how they did it.”

“That is advanced, a subset of a technique called branding,” Erymmo said. “It’s quite simple to stream a Psionic ward to counter that. I’d be happy to show you if time allows it. But for now, it’s more important that you learn about wards. You must understand those before you can learn brands.”

Lucian hadn’t expected this impromptu lesson, but he welcomed it. He would have had to wait for years at the Academy to get access to this knowledge. “What’s a ward, then?”

“A ward is what we call a passive stream. It exists without your active engagement for a certain amount of time – from hours, to days, or even longer for more powerful ones. Wards require a portion of your total ether supply. It’s a trade-off. You’ll have less ether overall to use for active streams, but you will also be defended from attacks of the Aspect the ward is designed to protect you from.”

“I see,” Lucian said, wondering if a Psionic ward could have kept the Queen from paying him a visit in his dreams. “So, how do I do it?”

“Wards require two streams at a minimum. A Psionic ward, for example, needs to be set with a Gravitonic or Binding shell, each coherent to the other. The coherence allows the streams to push each other along, so to speak, allowing them to last in the world without actively streaming it. Think of wards as insurance to make sure another mage doesn’t catch you unawares. Of course, it requires judiciousness. If you know another mage’s strengths, you can create wards that counteract that strength ahead of time, since most enemy mages will choose to attack you with their primaries, or if they’re strong enough in them, their secondaries.”

“What is Fergus’s primary?”

Erymmo chuckled. “Worried about our dear captain?”

“A little.”

“Fergus is a gifted Radiant, and the most powerful mage in our village. His