The Force of Magic [Star Wars SI]

[Boroda Orka]

"Even if you're a Great Sorcerer, there's still a very good chance you'll blow up your own ass instead of your enemy's if you act first and think later."
© Rung, sorcerer of the Age of Heroes.

---

Damn rain. I'd been sitting in the first cave I came across—or, more accurately, happened to discover by an incredible stroke of luck—for four hours now. First recovering from the brutal g-forces, then trying to figure out what had happened, how it had happened, where I'd ended up, and what I was supposed to do now.

Once again, I cast a gloomy glance at the wall of rain beyond the mouth of the cave. It was coming down in buckets, and something told me it had no intention of stopping.

"If something can go wrong, it will go wrong, right, Hecate?"

The goddess remained silent. The patroness of mages and sorcerers had never been particularly inclined to lavish attention on her flock in the first place. I snorted and kicked a small pebble toward the mouth of the cave. And really, why bother talking to a gathering of pompous know-it-alls, every other one of them loudly proclaiming that they would one day rival the gods in power?

"Even though they've barely mastered the very basics of the Art. Conceited degenerates."

I'd had the habit of talking to myself for a couple of centuries by now. And why not, when most of the time the only person I saw fit to talk to was the one in the mirror?

So, what did we have?

The ritual had worked. Not without errors, naturally, but it had worked. I hadn't expected the pull to be strong enough to drag me into the open portal. To be fair, I hadn't expected the new ritual to work on the first try at all.

How did it usually go? You did the math, ran the calculations, designed the thing, put together the first version—and it fizzled. Or exploded. Or did nothing. Or a demon crawled out. It depended on the number of mistakes, the amount of power put into the ritual... in short, on a great many things.

That was why another construct had been layered on top of it. Its purpose was simple: collect data on whatever effects occurred.

I was, after all, a master ritualist. An experienced sorcerer. I knew a great deal about safety procedures. I had even written an entire treatise on the subject once, and over the course of a few decades it became required reading in every academy of magic on our continent. I'd been revising and expanding it for a good hundred years now, and quite a few educational institutions paid me for it. Sometimes rather handsomely.

Especially for the extended edition, with sections on the schools of Death, Demonology, Chaos, and Darkness.

In principle, everything was dangerous, but those last four were often banned in certain countries, and the clergy tended to look askance at anyone practicing those branches of the Art. That, by the way, was why paladins and clerics had been hounding me for the last fifty years.

Tin-can idiots.

I was sick to death of them. I couldn't imagine anyone worse than those fanatics. Still, there was a grain of common sense in what they said. The danger to practitioners of those disciplines was considerable.

But it wasn't as though I was writing instructions on how to perform a ritual for selling your soul! It was just a safety manual. Follow it, and some idiot mage or brain-dead sorcerer wouldn't be able to sell his soul and trigger a miniature apocalypse at the same time...

All right. I was getting sidetracked.

Wet clothes and the unending rain were adding several heavy strokes of negativity to an already less-than-pleasant disposition. Some young pup would probably have laughed at me. A man who had written a massive book on safety had become the victim of a ritual gone wrong.

I would have knocked every tooth out of that young idiot's mouth for saying something like that, then read him a couple of paragraphs from my book:

"A newly created, independently calculated ritual being performed by a mage for the first time may produce any effect whatsoever, regardless of the result it is intended to achieve if successfully executed. Therefore, such experiments should only be carried out after ensuring the highest possible level of personal safety."

And that was precisely why I was still alive.

It was only thanks to my paranoid concern for preserving my own integrity—both physical and mental—that I was sitting alive who-knew-where instead of being dispersed as a microscopic haze across our entire continent.

A massive magical surge destabilized the first three layers of protection. Then some incomprehensible flow of energy tore apart the Kalman Cage I was inside. After that came a powerful spatial distortion. It ripped away another two protective layers and caused a portal to form at the center of the ritual circle.

The floor gave a noticeable jolt. A small crack appeared in the slab and broke the pattern whose purpose had been to anchor me in space.

Then the pull hit.

It hurled my body into the unknown.

I survived only by straining every last bit of my strength—and thanks to an exceptionally powerful artifact array that had cost me a small fortune and was built into my working clothes.

Thus did such a magnificent sorcerer as myself survive passage through an unstable wormhole.

Glancing down at the immensely powerful artifact that was now hanging off me like a wet rag, I could only sigh in dismay. Its condition was unknown, and for the moment I had no way to check what shape it was in.

The days when I, like so many fools, believed I could surpass the gods in raw power were long gone, but my defenses could have withstood a dozen or so heavy blows from a middling deity. And they could have held out for a couple of hours against some weakling little god—as far as an expression like "weakling" could even be applied to a deity of any level of power.

But the passage—or, more accurately, the violent breach—through interspace had drained me completely.

Just a little more. The tiniest bit more.

And what would have landed so gracefully in that filthy puddle wouldn't have been a vastly experienced sorcerer who had burned through every reserve he possessed and then some, but a heap of minced meat wrapped in rags.

Assuming anything arrived at all.

I burst out laughing at the thought that I really ought to make yet another addition to my treatise, On Ritualist Safety. My laughter echoed off the walls of the shallow cave and drowned in the rain.

No, it wasn't hysteria.

Why should a man be embarrassed about showing his emotions when there was no one around to see him? And I had lived like that for quite a long time, with no one to talk to but my magnificent self and my eternally silent patroness, Hecate.

All right. The portal worked.

That was good.

Once I got home, I'd have to retrieve the data from the analyzer ritual—assuming it had survived—strengthen the defenses even further, and start feeling my way toward a stable method of breaching the barrier.

Once I solved that problem—and I would solve it; it was only a matter of time—the whole world would tremble when an ancient myth became reality!

Portals.

Or rather, the "Arch of Siith," as I would call it.

It would make my name immortal!

Naturally, only after I developed a way to counter it.

I could hardly be called a good man, especially considering the meaning the clergy attached to that word, but I don't want to be the initiator of a "Portal War," which is certain to break out, just like the "War of the Floating Fortresses."

A whim, perhaps. But I wanted my name to be praised as that of a great seeker into the mysteries of magic, not cursed as the man who unleashed a bloody war.

Perhaps I might even become one of those few who, while still alive, were granted the honor of entering Hecate's halls and bending the knee before the wisest of goddesses.

My sweet thoughts of the triumph to come were shattered by a hearty sneeze.

Like everything I did, the sneeze was magnificent. Flawless execution, a powerful rush of air, a graceful movement of the body, and a noble tilt of the head. Truly, it was a sneeze no emperor would have been ashamed of.

Unfortunately, it also reminded me that I was not home yet.

I was still in a cave, wearing a wet black hooded robe that had looked quite imposing before its unfortunate encounter with a filthy puddle. Under it were a good pair of trousers and a shirt. Both just as wet. A protective vest was worn over the shirt. My boots were full of water and squelched with every movement.

In short, there was no scent of triumph or success in the air just yet. I was in something of a predicament, and I would remain in that predicament until my magical core, thrown out of alignment by the strain, returned to something resembling normal. Assuming, of course, that it had not suffered any serious damage requiring intervention in the recovery process.

Fortunately, my sense of magic was still there. So was my sorcerous sight. Those were the clearest signs that my core had not been destroyed.

I was still a sorcerer.

To be honest, as I lay in the puddle that had welcomed me after the transfer, I prayed to Hecate sincerely and with all my heart for one thing:

Let me see the movement of the ocean of magic.

Those two or three minutes, while my senses of the world around me were coming back to themselves, were the most terrifying minutes of my life. By my beard, I swear—I hadn't even been as afraid of dying as I was of losing my core and ceasing to be a sorcerer...

Although...

That was death.

Only far more terrifying than simply losing one's head.

The permanent loss of one's core is, for any sorcerer, a slow, repulsive process filled with hopeless despair. A gradual march toward the end of life. A life without the colors of magic, without the joy of the Art, without the pleasure of sorcery.

The clergy call us addicts—magic junkies—and they are partly right. Any mage can say, "I'm sick of it. That's it, I'm done with magic. I'm going to grow tomatoes instead."

And he'll quit.

Just like he would quit a profession he had grown tired of—which, in fact, is exactly what magic is to him.

A mage is a craftsman.

He'll buy himself a plot of land, start fussing over his garden beds, maybe plant some cucumbers too. And why not? No cramming, no developing his aura, no theory and practice in one of the most difficult disciplines imaginable...

I had even known a dozen or so not particularly advanced mages who simply left the profession, and even one exceptionally skilled specialist who had simply grown tired of his genuinely demanding work. Yes, it was exceedingly rare.

But it did happen.

Sorcerers, though...

For us, magic is an art.

No!

More than an art—it is life.

We see it. We feel it. In every blade of grass, every pebble, every animal, every human, elf, or troll. We feel the ocean of magic flowing through everything, including ourselves.

Magic runs through our veins, setting our hearts ablaze!

Take that away from us, and we will wither. Year by year, the colors of the world will grow duller, while the longing to feel it again—to remember what it was like to be a sorcerer—will only grow stronger.

It would be like suffocating without end, unable to draw a single breath. A thirst as boundless as the desert, with not a single oasis anywhere, would kill far more surely than an executioner's axe.

There is no death more terrible than losing your magic...

So when I felt my sense of magic returning...

No, I wasn't crying.

It was just the rain pouring down my face.

Just rain.

But I was happy, fervently thanking Hecate. The Moon Goddess might have had nothing to do with it. In fact, she most likely hadn't.

Ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent...

But if she had lent a hand and helped me...

Better to thank her for nothing than turn out to be an ungrateful bastard.

Besides, our goddess was the best, if only because she never got on our nerves with foolish whims. Serious minds deserved a serious goddess.

Ha-ha.

All right.

I couldn't use standard spellcasting methods right now. Casting with a damaged core could lead to unpredictable consequences. The mana I produced and passively absorbed was currently going toward healing as well.

Standard diagnostic weaves?

Unavailable.

Rituals?

Impossible. I didn't have the necessary components.

That left meditation and "knowing oneself," as my personal mentor used to say. The memory of the old sorcerer made me think that I really ought to take on an apprentice to help in situations like this.

Only this time, not an idiot.

I grimaced.

My first attempt had ended in a spectacular failure. I'd taken on a young man as an apprentice, and he'd gone and died like an idiot.

But that hadn't been my fault...

Well.

Almost.

I'd been deeply absorbed in my research, and that moron had wandered into a place he had been expressly forbidden to enter.

There was even a sign!!!

In the end, I got so caught up in my work that I simply forgot about him.

Five days.

Just five days!

And that... I don't even know what to call him.

Anyway, he managed to die of thirst, without the slightest flourish or elegance, after getting himself caught in a trap. The most annoying part was that I'd spent a whole four months training him!

Four months!

An absurd amount of time that could have gone toward useful and fascinating experiments!

And what did I get out of that failure?

A rather weak mana reservoir made from his skull and the bones of a novice sorcerer who had died of thirst.

In my defense, the knowledge already stuffed into that idiot's head was more than enough for him to get himself free. He knew what to do.

He simply didn't do it.

You could say that particular chunk of stupidity simply failed the test!

Yes.

Yes, that was exactly it.

Several days spent being an idiot instead of using the knowledge I had hammered into his empty skull...

Even my pet—a chimera-hamster named Quartermaster—managed to survive for nine months after I accidentally forgot him in the necropolis.

Nine months!

He simply ate nine-tenths of the bodies I had prepared for a squad of undead I planned to use to guard my home in the future.

Bones and all, the bastard.

Couldn't even raise them as skeletons afterward.

The armor too.

And the weapons.

The little beast even gnawed through the simpler artifacts.

But he survived!

Clearly, this proves the superiority of an animal over a degenerate human!!!

I think I'm starting to calm down if I'm slipping back into my "everyone's an idiot" mode, I thought with relief.

In truth, the reason for my solitude was my terrible personality. A terrible personality and an utterly excessive sense of superiority over everyone else.

Yes.

As one cheerful young woman I had lived with for many years used to say:

"Siith doesn't suffer from a lack of modesty—he revels in it."

Like me, she had been a fanatic when it came to magic. A mage with a remarkably well-developed mind, one that allowed her to advance far faster than many of her colleagues.

A sad smile touched my lips.

The girl had refused to extend her life. She used to say, "To be born into a world of magic and be unable to see it—that's the loss of all losses. Maybe I'll have better luck in my next life."

As good as my life with her had been, I respected her decision. When her time came, I did not interfere. I kept her young until the very end and gave her such a funeral that afterward I spent two years hiding in the wildest corners of the continent.

The clergy were looking for me.

So were my fellow practitioners.

Very persistently.

As a sorcerer, it was easy for me to understand her longing to become a true daughter of magic. What puzzled me was her strange certainty that she would retain her memories in her next reincarnation.

I did have a few suspicions. But whenever I asked her about them, she would only smile mysteriously.

She had always been...

Strange.

Unusual.

Not like everyone else.

The first time I told her that, she pulled a ridiculous face, bulged her eyes, and declared in that uniquely hers way:

"I'm Divergent."

Then she spent another couple of minutes giggling stupidly.

She was utterly shameless and foul-mouthed, forever making jokes no one else understood and laughing at them all by herself. She used expressions whose meanings she would then spend ages explaining.

At length.

Confusingly.

She told countless stories whose original sources I never managed to find, even after her death. She sang songs and hummed tunes in a language I had never even heard before. She worshiped a deity no one else had ever heard of—the mysterious Sheogorath.

"Because only he knows what PROPER CHEESE is all about."

But she was sincere. A brightly burning star among all those dull, dreary female mages. She admired the Art without restraint and devoted herself entirely to understanding it.

That, in fact, was how the two of us had come together.

And so there appeared in my life someone I came to love just as much as I loved sorcery...

A familiar pang of longing pierced my heart. Before my eyes rose the image of a laughing, black-haired girl with insanely beautiful, bright brown eyes.

Ah, well.

That was all well and good, but it was time to stop thinking and reminiscing and finally start meditating.

It took me about fifteen minutes to enter the proper state.

Fifteen minutes.

An unforgivably long time even for a novice.

Part of the blame lay with my less-than-ideal physical condition. The rest—with the strange way the ocean of magic was behaving.

Echoes of words.

Shadows of images.

Hazy events that had happened to someone other than me...

For the first time in my life, something like this was happening to me. And frankly, I had no idea what might be causing it.

Damage to my core?

Some kind of anomaly in this area?

Whenever another unusual effect appeared, my descent into meditation broke. Again.

It took time before I managed to distance myself from it all and finally enter the state of "contemplating the universe within oneself," as my mentor had so poetically called it.

And then I realized what I could "see"...

The endless ocean of magic was seething. Great currents—the kind that could be counted on the fingers of one hand across my entire continent—were present here in incredible numbers.

From small, feeble streams to mighty torrents.

For several moments, I struggled to balance between remaining in meditation and slipping out of it altogether...

In the end, the latter won.

I found myself sitting on a none-too-warm stone, staring into the rain in astonishment. Realization and understanding battered around inside my head like stupid birds that had accidentally flown into a room and were now throwing themselves against the windowpanes.

This wasn't my continent...

Anomalies like this simply could not exist there!

More than that, magic couldn't behave like this anywhere in my world!!!

By my beard, I swear—that breach had created a wormhole that had thrown me much farther than I could ever have imagined!

---

Original Russian story

You can find more chapters on my Patreon.

The translation is still in progress, and new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.

 

[Boroda Orka]

"When setting out on a journey, one must never forget that sooner or later even a Great Sorcerer will want something to eat."

© Rung, sorcerer of the Age of Heroes.

---

"Well, I'm up to my ass in it. Hmm... Although, as asses go, this one's actually rather nice."

No, I hadn't gone mad, and no beautiful woman with an enticing backside had appeared in the cave. I was commenting on the situation I found myself in and thinking it over.

Crossing into another world is... incredible. Great Hecate, this is far more significant than a portal within a single world!

There are drawbacks, of course... The fucking rain, for one. I cast a displeased glance at the wall of water beyond the little cave. Or the fact that I have only the bare minimum of artifacts with me—the ones I wear while working. Or the lack of provisions and any way to use magic... Or the fact that my home, treasury, component storeroom, ritual hall, necropolis, and soul vault are now lost to me for a long time, if not forever.

Quartermaster, for that matter, is still back there! The little beast will survive, of course. I delved pretty deeply into chimerology and necroconstruction when I created him, so it's the settlements nearest my home that are more worth worrying about than he is. But I'd grown attached to the creature, and I'll miss him... Rarely, of course. But I will!

As for the advantages... First: a new world! A world completely unknown to me! Thousands of new discoveries! Unknown creatures, unstudied plants, new minerals! An unimaginably vast heap of ingredients for potions and rituals whose properties I had yet to discover!

Second: new magical traditions and schools. That was inspiring. Exhilarating, even! The possibilities alone were enough to take my breath away!

And third... for the past couple of decades, I had actually been thinking about moving anyway. I was sick to death of the mountains. And goat meat. And, frankly, I was getting rather tired of living as a recluse.

It was time to remind myself why I disliked the company of other intelligent beings. I'd travel for a hundred years or so, get thoroughly fed up with idiots, cretins, shameless bastards, and all the other "wonderful" representatives of the local intelligent races, and then start thinking about which godforsaken corner I ought to proudly retire to for another few centuries, until the experience lost some of its unpleasant edge.

Although... I could always try being a city sorcerer instead—take some settlement under my protection. A few of my fellow sorcerers had done that, and their reviews had been mostly positive. Apparently, it was especially good for boosting one's self-esteem and gratifying one's sense of importance. Which was tempting... Yes. Very tempting.

As for losing everything I had accumulated—that wasn't much of a problem. A sorcerer's true essentials were his brains, his magical core, and his sense of humor. Everything else could be found again with a little effort.

Besides, I had copied my library onto my right collarbone long ago, turning it into an implanted archive artifact. One of the most tedious and unpleasant pieces of work I had ever done. Burning the pattern into living bone without cutting it open. Enchanting it until the bone became pseudo-living. Implanting miniature mana reservoirs. Transferring the entire library. Stabilizing the enchantments. Creating a query-and-response channel for exchanging information with the parts of the brain responsible for vision.

Brrr... That had been difficult. And the number of little animals that died during testing... I had the whole glacier stuffed with goat meat. I also had to deal with about five bands of cloak-and-dagger professionals. At least they produced a decent yield of useful reagents. And I stuffed their souls into prisons as well, just in case.

Right... Right, right, right... All right. Calm down and get back to meditating. The question of my core's condition was still there, and while meditating I could at least get a rough idea of the robe's condition. If the artifact had been rendered unusable, that would be... unfortunate.

Slipping into meditation came easily now, almost by habit, and I froze, watching in fascination as the currents of magic frolicked before me...

No wonder they call THIS an ocean. An infinity the mind cannot even comprehend... You can SAY that the ocean of magic is infinite, but to truly COMPREHEND it is impossible. Only when you gaze into it—into depths where you will never find the bottom—do you begin to understand something. A tiny, insignificant fragment of the Great Truth.

Old sorcerers always curl their lips into sarcastic smiles when they hear the young and impetuous say things like, "We command magic." Oh, Hecate... Fledglings. Clueless little fledglings who, as they grow, become either wise sorcerers who respectfully bow their heads before Infinity—or full-fledged Idiot Birds who, in their arrogance, die by the dozen. And they are lucky if the only life they lose is their own. Far too often, an unrestrained thirst for power and dominion leads a sorcerer to the lever that opens the doors to great cataclysms.

The calm of meditation softened my thoughts and put me in a somewhat philosophical mood. Moderation matters in everything—in personal ambition born of selfish desires just as much as in altruism. Take a sorcerer or mage who puts a settlement under his protection, for example... There is a reason sorcerers have a rather formidable reputation. Stern but fair, more often than not. Quick-tempered, but quick to cool down. Sometimes even a little mad.

A wonderful, kind mage who helps anyone and everyone for free will either be taken advantage of by some cunning bastards or... starve to death. No, I'm exaggerating, of course, but I seriously doubt people will shower him with gifts and money. They'll thank him sincerely. Uh-huh. But you can't fill your stomach with gratitude! It's one thing when a destitute family comes to you with a sick child. You can always have them work it off afterward. Easy enough.

An old friend of mine, for example, "shamelessly exploited" an orphanage in a provincial town. The orphans, covered in amulets to protect them from wild beasts, gathered herbs for him from the surrounding countryside, while the brightest of them worked in his potion workshop. In return, he kept them in excellent health.

The funny thing was, among the stupid commoners his reputation was that of the blackest demonologist-necromancer imaginable. Not everyone seemed capable of noticing that the orphanage turned out young men in perfect health who knew their way around herbs and even left with a rather expensive amulet to their name. Whenever one of them tried to return it, my friend would merely curl his lip contemptuously and say something along the lines of, "Keep that piece of junk."

Those who finished their potion-brewing "hard labor" could confidently go work as assistants to just about any master. They could even set up a little business of their own brewing simple potions. At the very least, in any village such a young man would immediately become a highly respected member of the community. And they'd marry him off as quickly as possible too, before some busty young woman from another village carried him away.

So... If ordinary folk have nothing else to give, you can accept a simple word of thanks and wave it off. But getting rid of boils on noble asses, or curing them of some nasty disease? No, thank you. They'll shake their jowls and the feathers on their hats, walk away perfectly pleased, and forget all about you until the next time they need something. To hell with that... I mean, let them go to the clerics for that particular pleasure.

So a sorcerer should be frightening. Frightening enough that people come to him only when their problem is serious enough to overcome that fear. And, of course, they should pay. Whatever they can afford. Anything from scrubbing the floors in the dungeons to a purse full of gold.

And the problem should be solved in such a way that the petitioner feels relief twice over—first because his troubles are over, and second because his dealings with the sorcerer are over too.

While I was thinking over the peculiarities of a sorcerer's life in society, I gradually entered the state in which sorcerous sight allows you to look inward, to see not only what lies outside but what lies within as well. I left checking the robe and the rest of my artifacts for later. Right now, the sorcerous core was what mattered most. Strictly speaking, calling it a sorcerous core was incorrect, but the name had come down from olden times, when sorcerers could only feel a lump of warmth in their chests whenever they strained their gift particularly hard—which was nothing more than a phantom sensation. In fact, the sense of magic, the ability to see magic, and even the body's production of magical energy are all properties of the soul.

Debates on this subject have been going on for thousands of years. The soul is the most valuable thing a person possesses. Money, material wealth, even life itself are mere dust compared to the value of the soul to a sentient being. As of today, three main components of the soul are known:

The Indivisible, or Eternal, Core—the indestructible foundation. The part that remains forever, no matter what happens. Neither sorcerers, demons, spirits, nor even gods can damage it in any way. They can only hold it. But for reasons unknown, mortals are forbidden to do even that, on pain of earning the utter disfavor of every pantheon and every demonic plane—and that is no small matter.

Next comes the personality layer. Here, things can go differently. It can be damaged, stripped from the Core, destroyed, or devoured. The last of these is exactly what demons and their minions specialize in. It contains the foundation of a person's identity. No, that does not mean a human—or, say, an elf—cannot be influenced. They can. But a sentient being with a strong personality layer has every chance of resisting the pressure of circumstances without breaking. Decent people who rise from among society's outcasts, or complete scum raised by wonderful parents, are good examples of that. By the way, it's precisely the latter who sooner or later end up as a demon's dinner, losing the foundation of their identity and, once their "painful retribution" is complete, returning to the cycle of reincarnation to start again with a clean slate.

And the final layer is the informational one. It consists of all the personal experience accumulated by a person over the course of a lifetime. It is also called the "food of the gods." Each time a sentient being dies and comes before their patron god, this layer is taken as payment. Memories, grief and joy, the memory of family and loved ones... One might think that is too high a price, but it is not. The gods are unimaginably more powerful than humans, but they produce no energy of their own, relying instead on the power of faith and on the resources gained from "digesting" the informational shells of souls. And that is far from all of it. The most important thing in the process of "eating" the informational shell is understanding. It is our memories that make the gods understandable to us; that is why they are far closer to mortals than any elemental spirit living alongside humans in the mortal world.

But sorcerers differ from everyone else in one respect. It is rather difficult to explain, but our personality layer "grows through" the informational one in the form of a system of mana channels, extending outward until it begins interacting directly with the aura. These "arteries through which magic flows" are what allow us to produce mana, use sorcerous sight, and sense magic. It is a very abstract explanation for a complex of structures that do not exist entirely within three dimensions, but it's the best I've got. And that is the main thing that sets us apart from ordinary sentient beings.

Any mortal can learn to manipulate the magical power spread throughout space and become a mage, but producing it on their own—or sensing it as naturally as a person feels warmth... only sorcerers can do that. By the way, that is precisely why no properly trained sorcerer would ever sell their soul to a demon. There is a theory, and I subscribe to it myself, that losing not only the informational layer but the personality layer as well could bar you from being reborn with the gift for sorcery for a very long time. The gods' cleansing, after all, does not touch the personality layer; it removes only the information. So, according to the same theory, once Hecate has done her work, a sorcerer is always reborn as a sorcerer.

It was precisely by peering into my own soul that I was now trying to determine the condition of my mana channels. Unfortunately, that was extremely difficult to determine by observation alone. To be frank, all I could get at the moment was a rough picture from indirect signs—the "movement" of the mana produced by my soul and the way it filled my aura. And what I saw left me puzzled once again.

As far as the energy my soul was producing went, the picture was basically normal. But the turbulent ocean of magic in this world was forcing its way into my aura all on its own, under such pressure that it washed out my own power. There was no way to gauge the accumulation rate. My mana was simply spread thin through the aura and then pushed beyond its boundaries, replaced by mana from the ocean... If meditation didn't require relaxation and calm, I would have breathed a sigh of relief right then.

The pattern formed by the points where the mana channels emerge into the aura is unique to each person, and as I studied my own, I could see no difference from what it had been before. The worst possibility—some of the mana flows being severed—hadn't happened. As for the rate of production...

After severe overstrain, the production rate almost always drops, though it usually returns to normal within a couple of days. When the reserves stored in the aura begin to run out, the soul starts pumping mana into it at an increased rate—emptiness seeks to be filled. The problem is that the channels have a limited capacity, and too much pressure can rupture them. Building up their resistance to rupture is simple enough: drain the aura's reserve until you feel warmth in your chest, but do it carefully and don't overdo it. In my case, the heat had been so intense that it felt as though a red-hot nail had been driven into my heart, and ruptures were exactly what I had been afraid of.

Thankfully, that hadn't happened... And the fact that there was such an abundance of magic here was actually a good thing. What sets sorcerers apart is both our strength and our weakness. Yes, we see and feel magic. Yes, wherever we are—even in places where the ocean of magic is thinned out so much that it cannot replenish the reserve from the surrounding world—we can still restore it through our own magical core. But a mage can drain every last bit of magic from his aura and remain a mage, suffering no harm at all, while a sorcerer who completely exhausts his reserve will, in most cases, cease to be a sorcerer at all because the system of his magical core will simply rupture.

The unusual sensations came from the fact that none of my own energy remained in the aura. In my world, my own mana would gradually fill it and push the external mana out, but here the ocean was so concentrated, so powerful, that mana from outside was pouring into me even without any effort on my part. Of course, my own mana was easier to control, but having an almost inexhaustible reserve was hardly a bad thing. I would have to come up with new exercises for strengthening my mana channels, though. On the other hand, "inflating" the aura would be much easier now.

Without leaving meditation, I formed the simplest warming weave. Just three blocks: a reservoir, a set-temperature control, and a targeting block. The magical construct manifested as expected. I designated the space around me as the target and immediately felt a pleasant warmth. My reserve dropped by the volume of the reservoir plus the energy spent on the construct itself, but refilled in barely a couple of seconds. To be frank, I was being overly cautious now, since interaction with the reserve took place at the aura level and did not affect the core at all. But this was another world, and anything could happen. So I formed a few more constructs to dry my clothes and warm the stone I was sitting on, all the while keeping a close eye on the processes taking place inside me. I noticed no problems at all and finally surfaced from meditation.

I've never liked the first few moments after returning to the real world. My thoughts seem petty and restless, the sudden dance of emotions irritates me, and I always want something to eat. No, it isn't a rule. It's a quirk. My own personal quirk. After every session of "contemplating the universe within oneself," I feel the urge to stuff my belly. Although... the exquisite roulade performed by my stomach suggested that, this time, I could use a bite to eat regardless of that particular quirk.

I carefully formed a light construct for a surface diagnostic of the robe. The incoming information made me frown. The artifact was in frankly poor condition. Every built-in mana reservoir had become nothing more than a useless piece of bone. The only good news was that the properties of the fabric itself and the internal runic embroidery had survived. Nearly seven months of work was now hanging on me as an almost useless rag—at least a dry one.

"Ohhh... Let's hope that in this new, wonderful..." I cast yet another glance at the wall of endless rain. "Wonderful but wet world, there are Crystal Wyverns. Otherwise, I don't even know who else I could use to make new reservoirs. All right, what about the rest?"

The rest of the artifacts had fared differently. The protective vest—essentially a cuirass made from the hide of that same crystal lizard with wings—was still charged to the brim, though all it carried was protection against direct hits of any kind, from a crossbow bolt to a lightning strike, along with powerful healing, stasis, and regeneration enchantments and a couple of clerical integrations for dealing with poisons and diseases. Interspace had simply never reached it—the robe had protected it.

The dagger, used mostly for sacrifices and for inscribing ritual patterns, had survived as well, since it had been hanging from my belt beneath the robe. There was hardly anything in it that could have suffered in the first place: a sharpness enchantment, a temperature enchantment, a return-to-owner enchantment, and the "Keen Eye" enchantment, which let me throw it accurately even if I was half asleep or completely shitfaced.

The adaptive protection amulet was another matter. The soul of a small-time bandit imprisoned inside it—the one that powered the amulet according to a pseudo-divine principle—was gone, but no great loss. I would have had to replace it soon anyway; the informational layer was almost used up.

True, the little god my involuntary worker is supposed to end up with is in for an unpleasant surprise: most of the work of cleansing away the informational-emotional shell around the soul's Core has already been done, so he'll get mere scraps of energy... Ah well, he'll survive. As long as you don't get greedy and steal souls that bear someone's mark, nobody pays attention to things like that. To a powerful deity, a single soul is too trivial to merit attention, while the relatively weak ones won't bother exerting themselves because they'd spend more than they'd get back even if they managed to catch the thieving sorcerer's soul. So they'll simply strip off whatever remains and forget about it.

Demons, though—oh yes. Those greedy shit-eating bastards will die before giving up, and they'll make your life miserable in the process. So if you see even the characteristic taint of a cultist on a soul, never mind an actual demonic mark—ew, drop it. Let it fly off wherever it likes. Whatever energy you might get out of it isn't worth the headache an offended demon will bring you.

That, by the way, is one of the reasons you should never buy artifacts from dubious characters. You pick up a cauldron that heats itself without a fire, only to discover that the whole thing runs on the soul-prison principle, with the soul of some cultist who worshipped "Great Dozdrogodul, Lord of Butt Plugs" trapped inside. And that's it. Sooner or later, the demon will wonder why the dear little soul hasn't come flying into his greedy clutches and decide to take a look. Or send his minions instead. He'll get angry that someone has grabbed his property and is shamelessly making use of it, and he'll start causing trouble in all sorts of ways... And there you have the legend of a cursed little thing whose every owner dies of constipation.

All right, then! Things are... partly good, but there's one question bothering me now. Do I wait for this deluge outside to end and then walk through the mud, or walk through the mud in the pouring rain? My laziness votes for the first option, while my rumbling stomach—rumbling nobly and melodiously, of course—votes for the second.

"To hell with it," I said, resolutely heading for the mouth of the little cave. "I want something to eat, and no little rainstorm is going to stop me from stuffing my belly... I just hope I don't end up with goat meat. I'm sick to death of goat meat."

---

Original Russian story

You can find more chapters on my Patreon.

The translation is still in progress, and new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.

 

[Boroda Orka]

"Good deeds are most pleasant when they benefit you too."

© Rung, sorcerer of the Age of Heroes.

---

"Damn rain," I said, staring mournfully toward the mouth of the cave I had returned to with my catch. "Does the fucking stuff ever stop?"

A forest stretched all around the little cave, which could really be called nothing more than a large grotto extending only a short way into a solitary outcrop of rock. To be honest, I had been incredibly lucky to get thrown out within direct line of sight of such a shelter. Just as lucky that the "floor" of my refuge lay slightly above the level of the groun... mud. There was so much of it—mud, that is—that without magic, getting around would have been practically impossible. Fortunately, I had done a fair bit of traveling in my time, roaming over almost the entire Continent-at-the-Tail. Not on my own two feet most of the time, of course, but I'd still had to do plenty of walking.

So "Taash's Tread" and the simplest protective dome modified into an umbrella made the walk dreary in terms of scenery, but otherwise perfectly easy. The first was a third-tier spell, while the umbrella-dome was only first-tier. The difference came from how difficult they were to create. In fact, every novice was surprised at first by the way spells were assigned tiers, or levels. The official measure was the complexity of creating the spell, not its power or field of application.

In this case, the protective dome simply created a force field that kept water from passing through. It required almost no power, and the construct was primitive: a block defining its size and shape; a block fixing it in space relative to my brilliant head, modified so that the convex side would always face upward in case I decided to bend over or happened to fall; the force-field block itself; and an energy reservoir to power the whole construct.

The "Tread," meanwhile, was a dual construct and could contain anywhere from nineteen to forty-seven blocks, plus any number of additional ones if modifications were needed. As Mage Taash wrote in her autobiography, she had been inspired by tiny beetles that could calmly stand and run across the surface of water.

The result of her observations and work was this incredibly useful spell. The enchantments placed on the soles create the same kind of force field, but in a somewhat different form. It distributes the wearer's weight over a larger area, allowing one to walk on water as though it were solid ground. The only real problem is waves, which can knock a sorcerer or mage off their feet. The field—though "coating" would probably be the better word here—keeps water out, can provide protection if the mage is traveling barefoot, muffles footsteps, and can even emit a faint glow when needed. All in all, an extremely useful thing for a traveler...

And also for assassins, thieves, spies, and tomb robbers: "nightingale floors" don't creak, pressure plates don't trigger, footsteps are muffled... All in all, Nor'ma Taash's name is now inscribed on the Monolith of Glory in the main temple of the God of Shadow Workers, and she holds honorary membership in the night guilds. Even though she passed into Hecate's keeping almost four hundred years ago.

"Sense Life" and "Search for Intelligence" told me there was plenty of wildlife of all kinds within a kilometer,* but no intelligent species had been detected. With a shrug, I set off for a walk. Since I was already out of the cave, I might as well take a look around with my own eyes.

Oh, Hecate, it was only then that I truly realized I was in a new world. Not a single plant was familiar to me. Not one. Some shared certain features with things I knew, but a closer look made it obvious that the resemblance was only superficial. The possibilities were breathtaking, and for the first few minutes I even forgot my hunger, wandering through the forest and taking in all that magnificence, occasionally giggling like a little boy.

But another musical performance from my stomach reminded me why I had come out in the first place. I headed toward the animal I had picked out. My selection criterion was simple: "bigger than a goat." No, I could have gone to the trouble of making a construct that would fly off on its own, kill the creature on its own, and drag it back to me on its own, but I was frankly too lazy to weave such complicated magic for the sake of a chunk of meat.

To common folk, magic is all huffing and puffing, obscene gestures, filthy swearing, and then WHOOSH—there's whatever you wanted. Yeah, right. As Rung wrote in one of his books: "The only thing that's easy is scratching your ass." Magic is serious business. A spell like that, designed to work properly in a forest with rain interfering on top of everything else, would be fairly high-tier.

So I simply crept up on my prey, spent a moment marveling at the strange-looking creature, which resembled a deer in some ways, and threw my knife into the back of its head. On the way back, I simply levitated the dead animal.

---

The creature turned out to taste like goat... Just my luck. Still, I filled my belly, though I did let out a few disappointed sighs. I was pondering the creation of a spell to wipe out every goat in the world once I finished the portal project, naturally, when an unusual silence distracted me.

With delight and surprise, I realized that the rain had finally stopped, and it had grown considerably brighter outside the cave.

Finally!!! Time to see where the sun was, estimate how much daylight I had left, and then decide whether to start scouting—or, if sunset was close, take a short stroll and prepare for the night. I had no intention of wandering around unfamiliar lands after dark. Who knew what kind of creatures might come out to hunt?

I remembered my adventures with Ir'rina in the Valley of Daytime Joy and shuddered. How the information about the absolute hell that broke loose there every night had somehow escaped our attention, I still have no idea. Although... she was young, I was in love, and therefore rather stupid... As she sometimes used to say, "my bad."

Stepping outside, I drew in a deep breath of the rather pleasant post-rain air. Even the smell of mud didn't spoil it too badly. Tilting my head back, I realized I had celebrated too soon. The sky wasn't completely clear, and judging by a few signs, the rain would start pouring again before long. I had two hours, maybe three.

The sun, at least, was a pleasant surprise: it stood almost directly overhead. If the day here was about as long as in my world, I still had roughly eight hours before sunset. Right... And what's that?

My attention was caught by an object that had appeared in a patch of clear sky. It was flying, though I was having trouble identifying exactly what it was. At first glance it seemed to be moving rather slowly, but that was only because of the great distance. In reality, its speed had to be impressive.

Before it disappeared from sight, I put together a construct that allowed me to see at great distances. Remarkable: there was a brick flying through the sky. No, I'm not joking. In shape, the thing resembled a large metal brick with all sorts of protrusions and assorted whatsits stuck onto it. A floating fortress? But it was flying far too high! There shouldn't even be breathable air up there! Was it airtight?

While I was studying the flying whatever-it-was, I noticed four more of the same things emerge from a cloud. Their identical shape suggested that these mysterious objects had all been built to the same design.

I scratched the back of my head thoughtfully. The objects were too large for flying boats, but too small for fortresses. But... I estimated the direction the bricks were moving and set off the same way. Besides, judging by their course and rate of descent, the things were going to land relatively close to me.

We'll figure it out when we get there. The only other question was how to make contact with intelligent beings without knowing their language, but I figured my level of knowledge should be enough for that. Maybe I'd have to hide out in the forests, or head for the mountains... Again... Back to the goats... In any case, I'd have to decide based on the situation.

---

So. The journey took me only about forty minutes. I was in a hurry, hoping both to find the locals and to get a closer look at the flying bricks. When "Search for Intelligence" began returning markers for sentient beings within a kilometer, I slowed down and started concealing myself in every way I could.

I wrapped myself in optical camouflage, turning me into a blurred patch against any background, concealed my heat signature, and hid my life, soul, and mind. I disguised every magical disturbance as a natural phenomenon: minor anomalies had been common enough in my own world—eddies in the ocean of magic, ancient wandering echoes of great spells, and the like—and on the way here I had encountered something similar about thirty times. So I wasn't particularly worried about attracting anyone's attention.

If the robe and amulet had been in working order, I would have limited myself to optical camouflage; the artifacts would have handled the rest.

A short forced march brought a small settlement into view—one that was in the middle of being raided. A quick look showed that this strange little village was inhabited by humans, while the attackers belonged to a nonhuman species I had never seen before. The humanoids strongly resembled reptiles, but differed from the lizardfolk of my world in having no tails, flatter snouts, and a far more humane attitude toward their prisoners.

At the moment, as far as I could tell, all human resistance had already been crushed, and the reptiles were busy gathering loot and transporting prisoners to their vehicles—which turned out to be those very "bricks." I decided not to take a closer look at them. I might get carried away, and right now I needed to make a decision.

The humans were being sorted into two groups: the young and healthy—and everyone else. As I understood it, the transports had a limited carrying capacity or room aboard, or perhaps they simply didn't want to bother with the "substandard" ones. I had no idea what they intended to do with them. The worst I had seen so far was a couple of solid blows and a shot from some kind of weapon at a man who refused to obey. A quick check showed that he was unconscious but alive. The lizardfolk of my world would already have been gutting a defiant warm-blood, so those who weren't going to be taken away... into slavery, apparently, had every chance of surviving the raid.

After weighing the situation this way and that, I decided to check one important point—one that would have a major bearing on the dilemma before me. Ten meters from one of the lizardfolk, directly in his line of sight, I created a powerful magical surge. No visual manifestation, just a structured knot of magic. No reaction. Which meant that even if the raiders possessed some means of detecting magic, not all of them had it. And that was good.

"And that is simply wonderful," I muttered under my breath, creating a somewhat different version of "Search for Intelligence." First, this one was stronger. Its area of effect should completely cover the entire settlement and the surrounding area out to three hundred meters. Second, I set one of the lizardfolk as the sample mind-pattern. Holding my breath and readying myself to run or fight, I activated the construct.

The raider I had used as the target shook his head... That was it. No other reaction from the lizardfolk. Excellent. Simply magnificent. The spell informed me that there were eighty-seven little creatures whose minds matched the sample. Now I just had to do this properly.

My reserve was already full again, so with a clear conscience I hurriedly began forming a complex construct in front of me, designed to perform an aggressive rapid analysis of a single specimen. Alongside it, I made another hundred similar constructs, but without the analytical module. Then I assigned the targets manually. Rather tedious, but I rejected the alternative of developing additional modules for automatic target assignment as even more time-consuming. That would have required working out the construct's operating logic, and frankly, I couldn't be bothered. Good enough as it was.

For three of the lizardfolk who were sticking together and looked particularly important, I prepared an entangling spell. I'd take those alive. The first would become a soul-battery for my protective amulet, from the second I'd pull part of the informational layer to help me learn the language, and the third I'd keep in reserve. Maybe I'd give him to the locals so they could beat the shit out of him and work off some anger; maybe I'd use him for experiments. I'd decide later.

It all began with a rather funny squeal from the target chosen for analysis. When a lightning discharge hits your spine, it hurts. Those who heard the cry of pain had only just begun to turn when the three presumed leaders dropped into the mud like toy soldiers. The second discharge produced no scream: the test subject fell unconscious, and the third killed him before he had even finished falling.

The readings I'd taken were sent through the network to the other constructs fastened around the lizardfolk's necks and multiplied by one and a half. All the spells triggered at once, except for those I had kept in reserve, and eighty-three corpses dropped across the little settlement.

The humans, herded into two groups, were still looking around in astonishment when I dropped my concealment and headed toward the three raiders sprawled on the ground at a quick but elegant pace. Quick, because two of the three had gone face-first into the mud, and I had no intention of letting prisoners I had plans for drown. As for the elegance, that was simply innate: Siith always looks magnificent. Even beaten and bloodied—you have to keep up appearances.

When I was still forty meters away, I reached out with my aura, and all three lizardfolk rose into the air. I could have used telekinesis, but this method consumed practically no mana, trained the aura, and provided tactile feedback. The moment the three of them lifted off the ground, the constructs returned to me, having spent only two-thirds of the magical power stored in their reservoirs.

And no, this wasn't just force of habit. Having nearly a hundred spells on hand that could easily knock out a healthy man was hardly a bad thing. I began assigning them new targets, choosing physically fit men—just in case they failed to appreciate my gesture in saving them and decided to come at me...

The first humans were only beginning to rise from their knees by the time I reached the trio. Ideally, I should have picked out whoever was in charge among them, but... I didn't know the language, and one more gesture wouldn't hurt. I turned sideways to the people I had rescued and pulled one of the captive lizardfolk closer. A construct designed to trap souls after death settled over him, with the amulet chosen as the prison. I pulled back my hood.

The prisoner said something, but a quick knife strike to the temple... fatally interrupted him. My face remained serious, but a thought that occurred to me brought on a burst of amusement, and a little of it still escaped, curving my lips into a slight smile. Besides, a quick diagnostic of the amulet told me it had already begun restoring all its functions. Ah, if only I could restore the robe as well... But that could wait.

The corpse was tossed toward the prisoners, some of whom had already jumped to their feet and were picking through the lizardfolk's weapons. What I liked was that when one of the younger fellows pointed a strange lizardfolk battle staff in my direction, an older one stopped him, pushing the weapon down toward the ground with one hand. The rest were still watching the performance unfold, and when the body landed, I caught satisfied, bloodthirsty smiles on quite a few faces. Good. That meant I was doing this right.

The second prisoner. This spell was extremely complex. Part of it belonged to Death magic, while another part had been copied from dark priests. It would strip the informational layer from the subject's soul, anchor it in my aura, and set up associative blocks. The thing is that a person is physically incapable of simply copying someone else's memories into their own mind. There is a hundred-percent chance of going insane, and a very high chance of ending up a drooling idiot, blowing spit bubbles and shitting himself.

This spell eliminates that problem, but at the cost of significantly reducing the reserve—by about a quarter in my case. It also cannot be used in areas with a low magical background, because maintaining the informational layer requires a considerable amount of power, but in this world that should not be a problem.

I cast it on the sentient being, who was still saying something rapidly, and he erupted into a wild, shrieking scream. Yes, having your soul torn apart hurts. I even felt a little guilty about it, though not for long. How was I supposed to know what fate these people had been headed for? And nonhuman filth from races like this rarely deserved mercy in the first place. I hated the lizardfolk of my own world with all my heart and killed them whenever I got the chance—so long as doing so wasn't likely to cause me trouble.

Done. The informational layer was deployed. The analytical blocks were now establishing associative links as far as possible. The simplest concepts and words would be available to me within a few minutes. Further improvement would either take considerably more time or require active communication.

My smile widened at the near-complete success of my plan, and I drove the knife into his temple again. I saw no point in tormenting the creature any further: even if I enjoyed that sort of thing—which I didn't—there was no mind left in the lizard's carcass anymore. I simply flung the third one onto his back in the mud so that his face was turned upward, then turned to the humans who had approached.

I studied their faces carefully but with a friendly expression. Four men in their forties or older, and one young fellow of about twenty. They looked wary, but grateful. The young one was grinning like an orc after a good fight. All of them were armed, but they were pointedly holding their weapons any way they pleased except aimed at me.

Strange, really. My appearance tends to make people a little wary: the result of one of my little jokes, which the God of Light disliked enough to curse me for it. Fortunately, nothing serious—he merely turned the whites of my eyes blood-red and made the irises and pupils coal-black. Yeah... I was young and stupid back then. Making fun of the God's high priests in his own temple... was an incredibly dumb idea. Good thing the joke itself had been fairly harmless...

"Greetings, humans," I said in my native tongue, a faint smile playing on my face. In the mirror, I had always thought it looked pleasant and reassuring, but the few companions I'd had invariably asked me "not to do that because it's annoying." No appreciation for beauty, I suppose.

In reply, I got a string of words in an unfamiliar language, their meaning reaching me with a delay of a couple of seconds. It would be like that at first, until my mind assimilated a basic set of simple expressions. After that, there will still be a relatively long road ahead before I master more advanced speech, but even so, it will be far faster than learning the language from scratch. The drawback, of course, is a fairly significant one: the death of the knowledge "donor." But creating or copying parts of a soul is still impossible at the current level of magical knowledge.

The meaning was simple enough: they greeted me, thanked me, and asked whether I spoke Common.

"Greetings. I know language bad. Came to help." I spread my hands in an apologetic gesture, then pointed with one of them at the body lying in the mud. "Gift."

In response, I got a speech that lasted about five minutes. I understood almost none of it apart from the words of thanks. There were mentions of bandits, something about transporting ore, the rain, and that "the Nimbus will be here soon."

I shrugged regretfully and repeated that my knowledge of the language was poor. The results were minimal so far, but for now the important thing was to talk more often—or at least listen to others talking. It would all come with time. For the moment, I followed the gestures of the oldest man in the welcoming group, who was inviting me somewhere. The words "dry," "warm," and the hint of a hot drink in his little speech had caught my interest immediately. I was quite curious to see what the local herbal blends were like.

---

Author's note:

"within a kilometer" — honestly, I don't want to invent any unique units of measurement. Whenever I run into that sort of thing while reading, I end up swearing and converting everything anyway, so let's just imagine that, by an INCREDIBLE COINCIDENCE, the units of measurement are the same as ours in every world.)))

---

Original Russian story

You can find more chapters on my Patreon.

The translation is still in progress, and new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.