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Magic is a balance
-The First Tenet of Magic, Priest-Empress Lilit, Year One of the Empire of Charn
They are three together when the long death of the world begins.
The world did not exist then as it does now. Oh, the long, slanted rays of the red sun still cast their chill light, and the city still spreads, but here it sparks with life, pulses as a place of monument and glory, a testament to the rise of magic.
For magic is everywhere, in everything.
It lives in these three, as it does in all the people of Charn the glorious, Charn the magnificent, Charn the Red City, from the Emperor high in his palace down to the lowliest of street sweepers, and from this ever-replenished font of living magic, Charn draws its strength. Magic raises its buildings and paves the roads that fan out to the far reaches of the Empire; magic seeds its crops, lights its homes, soothes away pains and lightens all manner of work.
Charn feeds upon magic, she says, her voice low but resonant. And magic feeds in turn upon Charn.
The men she speaks to nod solemnly, though she is the daughter of a silk-weaver and they are the sons of the Emperor. In Charn, mastery of magic defines stature, and she is the highest of the high, plucked from the trade district when her blazing power became apparent, risen now in the ranks of priests to rarified heights.
That is why we have the Balance, the first man says; he is the elder of the brothers by some minutes, and tends to speak first. All that we take must be given back.
Yes, she says. But the Balance is a delicate thing, fragile as starflowers in a summer storm. She sighs, seeing they do not understand the import of her words - though she loves them dearly, though her belly swells with the child of one or the other of them even now (none of them mind which, for this is the way of love in Charn, and a child of the Empire must be strong and nurtured, beloved above all else), their grasp of magic is less than her own, and ever will be.
Our world is dying, she says flatly. It may go on for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years still, and yet - it dies. The Balance cannot be maintained. Even now it shifts.
That this much is true, her beloveds cannot deny. A dozen reports more arrived in the city today from the outer reaches of Empire, reports of more children born without magic, born with their connection to the planet’s lifeblood severed. They will live short, hard, empty lives - a century perhaps, or even less - and then wither and die.
I believe that as the world ages, more of these stills will be born, she says. The younger of her lovers gives her a look - he has always been the more inquisitive of the two, the one who seeks her out with questions as often as kisses, who delights in her knowledge as much as her power - and she knows what he means to ask without words, for that is part of their gift. I have seen it.
And what will happen then, he asks, asking with words this time, for benefit of his brother, who lacks their telepathy.
I do not know, she says simply. Perhaps magic will simply fade away altogether, and the people will grow weak and mute, their senses limited to that which the body can perceive alone, and Charn will go down into darkness, like all worlds that have come before. Or perhaps...and here she hesitates, her hands folding in the sheer silk over her belly. Perhaps magic will coalesce, will seek what outlets it still may, and the Balance will fall into the hands of a few. They shudder at this, they who have spent all their lives connected, not only lover to lover and brother to brother, but to all the souls in Charn, to their collective pool of magic; the worst curse in their tongue translates to may you spend your life in solitude.
Silence lies between them then, still and deep, familiar to the ancient walls of the palace temple, walls that have borne witness to millennia of silence before them, and will stand to absorb the silence of all the millennia to come, until the world’s ending.
We should kill it, the elder says, breaking the silence, his voice sounding flat and harsh, echoing in sudden bursts from the pillars of the hall. If magic would kill Charn, let us kill it first.
The younger takes a quick, indrawn breath, as if to protest, and the priestess looks between them, helpless, for the idea is unthinkable - it is magic that has kept them alive for centuries, magic that courses in their veins, that sharpens their senses and heightens their passions. Yet for all that, is not merely living more important than living well?
She looks to the floor, its delicate patterns of silver inlaid in the marble, for she cannot bear to meet the eyes of the younger, he who has always loved magic the best of all of them.
That is why I have brought you here, she says. I believe we could end the Balance with a word, and halt all magic, and save our world.
They watch her as she explains, three faces sharing the same dream, the same soul, the same magic entwined.
Inside her, their child stirs.
***
The great ash cloud choking the sun grows thicker. War rages in the provinces, with each day bringing reports of new atrocities, casualties and famine. This morning word arrived through the telemancy beacon from the province of Yutka, where the Emperor’s scouting party had traced the origin of this great disaster. They found a smoking caldera still churning with lava where the city of Yutka once stood - half a million people wiped out in an instant. They say the air was thick with poisons for miles around, their path cleared only by the strength of their wind-mancers. They found a sole survivor of the city’s collapse - a tall young woman with fierce eyes and a strong talent for geomancy, who claims she stilled the earth and contained a greater calamity from overtaking all of Charn. The Emperor has ordered her brought back to the city, over my strong objections.
-From The Annals of Charn, Priest-Scribe Malat, E.C. 2954
***
A person defines magic; magic does not define a person
-The Second Tenet of Magic
They are two together when the the death of the world spins, hanging on a thread, waiting on a breath to set it in motion.
The city has grown closer to the end along with its people; Charn is a world of war and strife, its cold red sunlight running like blood over the darkened marble of the city.
And the pale twins rule from the palace, their slim fingers maintaining a vice grip on the magic that has allowed them to live, and kept their lives worthwhile.
Our uncle has attacked again, the younger says, pacing a circle before their thrones, the bone-white ornaments in her hair clicking and snapping in her circuit. What does he hope to accomplish? His magic is a weak and frail thing.
The elder says nothing, her hands still on the arms of her throne as though she is made from the same stone, her eyes all that separate her from a statue, following her sister’s furious cycle.
We should kill him, the younger says, coming to an abrupt stop, the sun-red of her hair tossed back. Kill him and be done with it.
Family is sacred, sister, the elder responds, a thin smile slashing her face. This is their way, violence and restraint, push and pull. Balance, she thinks, before shaking the word loose from her mind, an unpleasant tickle of something she cannot quite remember. Magic is in our blood, and we do not kill magic.
But I have found it, her sister says, her slight frame blinking up the stairs too fast to follow, until she stands over her sister, hands covering hands on the cold stone. I have found the Word.
The Word is a myth. Flat, even, smooth.
It is real, the younger insists, and her voice crackles like flame. And with it none would stand against us. Those who came before spelled it out to control magic, before they discovered it would do much more. They would not complete the spell because they lacked the fortitude needed for sacrifice. But I do not.
We do not, her sister corrects, still soft, still smooth, still stone. And we cannot be certain what result this ancient spell you have unearthed will bring. Perhaps its creators feared it for good reason.
They were weak. The younger withdraws a book from her vest; small, ancient, so entwined with power that the elder is loathe to touch it, even as its binding falls open and the letters stare up at her as clear as the day they were written (for enchanted inks do not fade, and in Charn of old, all things were enchanted). The Word to Still the World, she reads, and then no more, closing her eyes and the book both, hands wrapped tight over her sister’s.
Together we are strong, she says. We do not need ancient spells, only one another. We will bring our uncle to heel, as we have all the others, and we will bind him, as we have all the others, and use what meagre power he holds for our own glory, as it should be.
Her sister’s eyes narrow, and there is a moment where she thinks- but it is just a moment, and moments pass.
Then I will bind the spell, her sister says, with a flick and a clatter of her hair, bone ribbons rattling echoes down the hall. And we will swear an oath upon blood and bone, you and I and all our children to come, never to seek it again. If I cannot use it, no one will.
As you like, the other says, sinking back into stillness, into control. But bind it well, sister.
Nothing ever escapes my bonds, sister. You know that well.
Nor mine.
A promise and a threat; a fading clatter, and the hall fades back to silence.
***
To the Great and Glorious Lady Sira, Fire-Wielder -
I fear the rumors are true. Your husband and sons are murdered, along with all the others. The King has made the palace into a slaughterhouse; they are all ash on the wind now, seven hundred or more magic-users consumed by his madness. The nobility of Charn is gone. You must flee, as must I, for writing this is my death warrant. Sun help us both.
-Letter from Telemancer Jertah to Lady Sira following The Banquet of Retribution, E.C. 3796
***
Magic cannot incite love
-The Third Tenet of Magic
She is one alone in the end, among all the world.
Yet it was not always thus.
Once, Jadis knows, as she sits dreaming on her silent throne in the silent hall, in that formless place between memory and magic, there were three.
“There are some spells even you cannot learn, Jadis,” Pizna says, and the scorn drips from her voice like the venom Jadis imagines would drip from her fangs, were her sister a serpent, as surely her true form must be.
Samath turns between them, a thin and gawky little boy, made lovely to her eyes only through the adoration shining in his. “Jadis could learn any spell,” he insists, ever loyal, ever true. “She could!”
“Children should refrain from speaking of what they do not know, little brother,” Pizna says. “Even Jadis cannot learn what is forbidden; she has sworn the Oath against it, as have all who bear the Blood.”
“Why have I not taken it then?” Samath demands. All the books scattered at his feet, Jadis thinks, all the time she has taken to teach him, and still he is a fool. A dear fool, but a fool nonetheless.
“You have no magic,” she says, sharp and quick, before Pizna can cut in. “The Deplorable Word would be of no use to you, and you no use to it, even if you were to find it.”
“In other words, you may as well be a commoner - you do not matter,” Pizna says, for she must always have the last word. “That is what she means.” She sweeps away then, thinking herself no doubt too old for the schoolroom, though she is younger than Jadis by more than a year, not even fully grown yet. But she is weak, and careless, Jadis thinks, Jadis who never tires of learning, of seeking, of honing her power.
“Is it true?” Samath asks, tipping his head back to look up at her (for he is so very small, the runt of their litter, and already she is tall), dark hair falling away from his pale face. She proudly notes the lack of babyish tears in his eyes, no petulance in his voice, merely the request for truth; perhaps he has learned some lessons after all.
“Only power matters, here in Charn,” she says, for with Samath alone she never lies. “And you will never have any power. But,” she finishes, one long, strong hand rifling his hair, “I will tell you a secret, little king - you matter very much to me.”
At this, he smiles, and goes back to his reading, and Jadis frowns, and falls back into dreams.
In the end, there were only two; only she and he, as the cycle turned, and spun out again, down to its end.
“I found it,” he tells her, his voice hushed but barely contained, threatening to burst. “I followed it down the years, though diaries and letters and dusty old journals and- oh, you don’t care about all that, but the point is - I found your spell, Jadis.”
She hardly knows why he bothers to whisper; only he and she are here now, in the great hall with its empty thrones. Her soldiers ring the city against Pizna’s advancing army, and her servants flit through the shadows like the frightened ghosts they will soon become.
“You are a marvel, little brother,” she says, “and a better scholar than ever I was.” He blushes at that, still awkward, still gawky, still a boy in a not-quite-man’s body.
“You only love what is useful,” he says, and shrugs. “If I have made myself useful, I am pleased.”
(This is not true; Charn respects nothing but power, and so Jadis loves nothing other than power.)
The book he hands her is small, old, and thrumming with such power Jadis longs to devour it like a beast, then and there.
She reads silently, for she must force the translation, the sinuous strokes of ink seeming to resist her eyes as she reads out the spell, before the handwriting changes, growing bolder, sharper, finishing the spell in a manner than even Jadis, removed by millennia from its writing, knows is far less elegant, less refined, less well crafted than the beginning - and yet. It will work. This she knows in her bones.
And ah! There is the Oath, laid out bold and black below the spell, a taunt to any that would find this book, she supposes, a gift that can never be used.
But Jadis is not merely anyone, and she knows the ways that oaths may be broken and survived, so long as one is willing to pay the price. Willing to sacrifice.
“I know what it says,” Samath says, louder than he meant to, she thinks, for his voice echoes along the hall, making her start, fingers slipping on the page. “It is a blood spell. And only blood can pay for blood, like for like. It is a balance.”
“I have always appreciated your support, brother,” she says, rising, drawing the long white knife at her side. Her voice sounds hollow, echoing off the stone, empty as her words. As her heart must be.
He does not run, for he is ever faithful, her first supporter and her last, even as her knife slides up to the hilt between his ribs, up through the place where his lifeblood beats.
“My little king,” she says, easing his body to the floor, smoothing the hair back from his brow one last time. “You were of use at last.”
She sits there in the hall, skirts pooled around her, Samath cooling in her lap, and she does not weep, does not whimper, does not regret. She is a Queen, and will allow none of those things.
Instead, she withdraws her knife, and presses her bloodied fingers to her lips, and mouths a word.
The end has come, and Jadis dreams, and waits under Charn’s dying light to begin again.