The Legend of El Shashi by Marc Secchia

the wise.”
    His reply, a low groan, rattled the shutters in their casements for a span.
    “Ah, forgive me. I assumed you required no grounding in the fundaments. Jyla stole more from you than ever I imagined.”
    Lightning crashed against the tower walls. Yes. I stepped over to the scroll rack and selected a leaf from Eliyan’s writings. An Eldrik of no mean reputation, he had once been Lead Sorcerer of the moderate L’yæm faction.
    I thought, ‘Once torturer, once friend, now long dead.’
    Unfurling the scrolleaf upon the podium, I read:
     
    To the seeker, let it be known of the art and practise of magic:
    Magic is life.
    Magic is all around us–in the air, in the ground, in people, infusing all living things. It takes as many different forms as thought. It has structure, meaning, and flow, and yet consists of nothing that can be measured. It can never be used up. It simply is.
    Magic is neither good nor evil. It is a tool that can be used equally to either end; in itself, it remains devoid of moral imperative. Its use is child’s play compared to the wisdom and judgement required in knowing how or when to apply it.
    The practise of magic depends upon the ability to concentrate and harness this ubiquitous potential. Two key ingredients are required of the student who seeks mastery: time, and sacrifice.
    By sacrifice, I mean that the knowledge of magic is not inborn to either the Eldrik or the Umarite, but learned by necessarily painful and lengthy discipleship, preferably at the feet of a great teacher, who by their ability and grasp of the mysteries may be able to shorten the student’s path to mastery. No person grasps it overnight. There is a great body of lore built up over many gantuls by the labours of dedicated men and women, wherein the grateful student should be immersed. Some learn quicker than others, true. But all learn sooner or later that it is far more difficult to do than to undo. Creation hallmarks mastery. Destruction is the province of the amateur.
    Consider: Great magic requires great time to prepare. It is said that Mata spoke and the world was –only, the word that She spoke was longer and more laden with meaning and infinite minutiae than the sum of all the lifetimes of all the people who have ever lived. But it seems mortal man may never plumb magic’s depths. Granted, magic requires a certain belief in what cannot be seen. But sometimes it takes on a life of its own. Unintended consequences arise. Tiny mistakes create oceans of chaos.
    The condor’s appearance on that fateful day was one such event. Consequently, something inexplicable happened to El Shashi that has not to my knowledge been repeated in any man or woman before, or since.
    In the realm of magic, El Shashi is a creature apart. Ulim’s accursed henchman, I have heard it breathed. For did he not wield power unimaginable? Ay, and was this power his own, or did it belong to the Wurm? To this subject we shall return anon. But it is clear that Jyla intended the Wurm first and foremost to be the vehicle by which and in which a titanic source of magical power should be collected. Never before had a Wurm been raised to this purpose. No person, save Jyla alone, had laid claim to this knowledge.
    Magic is by nature diffuse. To gather it takes effort and care, a task laden with hazard. Magic has no desire to be concentrated in one place, but in theory can be infinitely concentrated as long as the vessel, or the wizard, is powerful enough to keep it thus. A delicate art indeed. It cannot be rushed. A mistake can spell instant annihilation.
    One such artifice for the concentration of magic is the so-named Web of Sulangi …
     
    “Ahoom!” thundered my companion.
    I nodded ruefully. “Indeed, Benethar. Jyla devised a unique way of amassing more magic than has ever been amassed since the beginning, and a means to sustain it over many anna, for her need and ambition required no less than the greatest edifice of magic in