House of Ill Repute

An extract from lecture notes by Bishop Wainwright, Order of Michael

Good morning Novices. Today I want to talk to you about the most fundamental knowledge to all Adepts, the relationship between the Dark and the Light sides of our world.

Of course, all of you have the potential to be Adepts. One of the users of magic, able to cast spells and activate spell foci. But where does this power come from? For all Adepts, this power, the mystic energy that drives all magic, is drawn into our world from the Dark.

In order to understand our world, we need to use an analogy. One I prefer is to think of a vast glass sphere, filled half-way with water. The upper half of the sphere is filled with air, and this is the world we exist in. We call this the Light, a place where humans and the other creatures of the known world live.

The lower half of the sphere, filled with water, we call the Dark. This is the realm of magic, filled with powerful beings such as Mares and Elementals.

Between these two halves is a thin layer, part water and part air, that separates the two worlds. This is the Boundary. The exact position of the Boundary changes, with ripples and splashes moving the level up and down.

Imagine a rock thrown from the air into the water. Water splashes up into the air, and air bubbles are driven deep into the water. Yet both the air and the water will eventually return to their equilibrium, once the ripples have settled.

The Boundary between the Light and the Dark is like that. It moves in response to actions from one side or the other, but eventually stabilises once again. But for brief moments, we have water in the air, and air in the water.

As an Adept, your magic uses the water. Consider yourself a cup full of water, using your water to cast spells. As your cup empties, you lose the ability to cast magic. Luckily for you, at the end of each day, as the light fades to darkness, your cup is refilled with more water.

Some Adepts are able to dive into the water and draw back into our world powerful beings to use as servants. These are creatures of water so to speak, so they are vulnerable in our world. To keep them here, they need to be bound into a protective vessel.

To use the water analogy once more, a creature like a Mare is liquid. To avoid falling apart in the air, it has to be stored in something like a bottle. The bottle keeps the Mare from evaporating back to its own form and returning to the Dark. As long as it stays in the bottle it is safe.

Using the Mare means the bottle has to be opened. This is when such creatures are vulnerable and are most easily destroyed or banished.

There is a lot more we can talk about regarding the relationships between the Light and the Dark, and the Boundary that separates them. But for now I want to leave you all with a teaser for next time.

What exists outside the glass sphere?

End of Part 8 of Millie the Gunsinger