Chapter 84: Honing The Edge

Chapter 84: Honing The Edge

The next three days passed slowly in the library and quickly outside of it. Truth’s knowledge of possession was now alarmingly broad, and while his knowledge of baptisms was less so, he had come to some curious conclusions about them. A lot of magical rituals were, to his slight surprise, indistinguishable from religious rituals. They were, in fact, the same thing, just done for often quite different reasons. The tragic story of Magus Lorenz was a good example.

Under almost any other circumstances, Magus Lorenz would have been remembered for his modest contributions to the field of animal husbandry. If he was remembered at all. The majority of his contributions consisted of minor technical improvements to the process of cleaning and then washing wool before it was processed into yarn. Even amongst drapers, it wasn’t the sort of research that set the world on fire.

Keenly aware of and despairing over his mediocracy, Magus Lorenz was determined to make a grand achievement. In the manner of those with limited imagination, he immediately convinced himself that the secret to greatness lay in the very cleaning and washing equipment he studied. The vast machines took the sheered wool and pulled it along an assembly line. Bound imps “skirted” the wool, removing any stuck-on bits of unpleasantness before the wool was dragged into the purification vats.

The vats had a single function. They were magical devices for the purification of the wool, removing all disease and evil influences from the material before it was worked into yarn. A quite common and necessary step when one considers just how far the fabric made of cursed wool might travel before being identified and destroyed. The magical technology was quite well-tested, and even the most current, sophisticated models would be immediately recognizable to a factory worker three hundred years ago. Bluntly, it was a technology that did not need improvement.

Naturally, the purification vats were the focus of Magus Lorenz’s frenzied research. He worked with the half-bright logic his limited ability afforded him, searching in libraries for things that were both “purifying” and “baths’ or “vats.” He quickly discovered that the so-called perfected technology of the purification vats was an inferior knockoff of even older technology! He had been lied to, talked down to by the greedy, venal, thuggish bean counters who wanted only more of what they already had. But he, he would show them all. He would show that these vats were more than the unlovely and unloved components of assembly line manufacturing. They were the future of good health and skincare. And he would prove it to the world.

Magus Lorenz, in a fit of immense spite and poor judgment, chose to use the same exact religious purification ritual that was used as the basis for the purification vats. He didn’t recognize the faith, but he assumed that meant that there would be no one to complain or contest the patent rights later. And while the baptismal ritual was intended to purify a sheep before it was sacrificed, Magus Lorenz was a man of modern magics and industrial thinking. Magic was a tool, the vats a component. Does a hammer care if it hammers nails or noggins? It does not. Therefore only a small-minded, superstitious fool would care about the original designer's intent.

Magus Lorenz was good enough to create the magical tools necessary for the ritual. The bath was etched and enchanted. The formation was laid out around it. Reagents, expensive but still just affordable, were carefully processed and added to the boiled spring water. He gathered his wife and children to be the ritualists and carefully submerged himself in the bath. He arose a new man.

His skin no longer draped loosely over his soft flesh. His back straightened, eyes brightened, and he breathed deeply and easily for the first time in years. Decades. He was a man reborn. With just a little refinement and a lot of legal work to secure his rights, he would be rich. Not everyone could afford the elixirs and time needed to reach higher levels and extend their life. This method would at least give them the look and feel of youth. No small thing.

A week and a day after the ritual was cast, Magus Lorenz’s wife and children turned themselves in to the police, weeping miserably or staring in numb horror at their hands. They explained how Magus Lorenz quickly fell to madness. How he drove them, with blows and cruel words, to stitch pure white fleece to his arms and back. Shaving his head and suturing wool along his neck and scalp. How he insisted on being bound hand and foot. How his wife felt unable to resist the compulsion to slit his throat. How his sons knew to build the pyre and lay their spasming, smiling father upon it.

And so Magus Lorenz earned his immortality in history.

Truth had to think for a long while on that. The forms of things mattered because, without them, the cosmic energy couldn’t interact in the desired way with the material world. But intent mattered. Both the caster’s intent, the creator of the spell... and apparently, that of the entity providing the power.

It was no wonder that modern magic stripped away as much of the divine or infernal as possible from their spells. They might be weaker, but they were vastly more reliable.

He briefly tried to hold it during a conversation with Jember but directly gave up. It was too much distraction. He couldn’t keep the forms even loosely in mind. Shame. Watching Pitz and trying to hold the spell was a fun challenge. It struck him as more realistic. Lots of movement, lots of noise. He tried to keep it in mind, attempting to cast it when players made a strong move on the ball.

No success, but he could feel it inching closer and closer.

He explained to Merkovah what he was doing during one of their study sessions, and the old monster strongly agreed.

“Let's try something. I will attack you momentarily. Try to cast Incisive before I do.”

The beardy and deceptively young-looking exorcist sat back in his chair, slipping his hands into his pockets. It occurred to Truth that the exorcist’s semi-formal clothing had a suspicious number of pockets, now that he thought about it. Truth pulled together the rough outline of Incisive in his head and tried to steady his breathing.

There was no visible change in Merkovah, but Truth was suddenly, absolutely sure that the man was about to attack. About to kill him. Truth desperately cast Incisive as he attempted a draw cut.

It will come from the left. Truth shifted to the right as he drew and stepped into the blow.

The angelic blade stopped a hand’s width from Merkovah’s neck. The sense of murderous intent had vanished like a shadow at night. The old monster grinned at Truth.

“Congratulations! Well done!”

“Thank you, Teacher. It’s thanks to your support.”

“Of course! But still, you have worked hard. Now. Keep it up! Tomorrow, we are off to the mountains. We will not return here for some time.” Truth nodded and left.

He hadn’t mastered Incisive. Barely touched the threshold of it. But it was a start. Truth smiled. It was a start, and he could see the way forward clearly.