“You maximized the concentration differential and the active surface area at the same time, is that what you mean?”
“Yes!” He felt a surge of excitement as the ring’s description perfectly captured what he was trying to say. The terms Arrogan used were commonly used in alchemy, which was something entirely different, but they matched what had happened.
“Perfectly normal,” pronounced his mentor. “Most second- and third-order wizards stumble across the technique eventually.”
Will frowned. “You’ve mentioned orders in reference to wizards in the past, but you didn’t have a ranking system for spells like we do these days. That doesn’t make sense to me.”
“People use classifications to make sense of the things that are important to them. That should give you a clue as to the fundamental difference between the wizardry of my day and the wizards of yours.”
He thought about it for a moment. “You’re saying they were more concerned with the skill of the wizard in your day, but now all we think about is the difficulty of the spell? I’m not sure why that would be the case. We still use the same spells, for the most part.”
“But the wizards today are different,” Arrogan pointed out. “Back then spell difficulty didn’t matter because any wizard could manage just about any spell. That’s why we just called them hard or easy but we didn’t bother giving them fancy ranks and orders.”
“And now there’s only one order of wizardry,” finished Will.
“Wrong. Now there’s no order of wizardry.” Will waited, ruminating over the remark, and eventually his former teacher continued, “Remember how we classified wizards. First-order meant the practitioner had compressed his source once, such that it only produced half the turyn of a normal person. Second-order meant they had halved it again, to one quarter, and third-order meant it had been halved a third time, to one eighth. The people running around pretending to be wizards in this degenerate age haven’t compressed their source even a single time.”
“Ahh,” said Will, nodding.
“You know what we called wizards who hadn’t compressed their source yet back in my day?”
“What?”
“Apprentices.”
“I still think it would have been helpful to classify the spells like they do now,” remarked Will.
“Maybe,” admitted the ring, “but you see what I mean now, don’t you? For us it was more important to pay attention to a wizard’s skill level, or at least his potential.”
“I’m not sure I see why. You already said that any wizard could use any spell. What makes third-order any better than first, other than how long they might live?”
“Don’t discount age. It’s an important factor. Your ability will become more refined with time, and the more time you have, the more polish you will acquire. But again, you’re right, based on your limited understanding at least. In my day a first-, second-, or third-order wizard could do most of the same things. None of them were killing themselves by using magic, and almost all spells were manageable by anyone. The big difference between the three orders is in their relative potential, both in the long and short term. Not only does the third-order wizard have four times the number of years to perfect his craft compared to his first-order colleague, but the speed at which he could be expected to improve his control and the heights to which he might rise were also greater.”
“Control?”
“Turyn control,” emphasized Arrogan. “The order a wizard achieves is a very good indicator of how much control he will be able to attain, how well he will be able to manage the turyn within himself and around himself. Back then, most wizards were first-order, and a much smaller portion, perhaps one in a hundred managed second-order. Very few made it to third-order.”
“How few?”
“I only knew of a few dozen. I’d give you a percentage, but that would be a little skewed, since the third-order wizards also lived a lot longer. Suffice to say, it was big news when someone managed to coax an apprentice up to third-order. Most didn’t try.”
“Because of the death rate,” said Will dryly.
“Exactly.”
He still had trouble reconciling the fact that Arrogan’s last journal had revealed his secret grandfatherly feelings for Will, and yet the old man had still pushed him toward something that had had every chance of killing him. The two things seemed to be at odds. Will stayed silent, lost in thought.
“You know I don’t remember the final years, so I don’t know for sure what I was thinking,” said Arrogan suddenly. “But I have a pretty good idea what I must have been thinking.”
Will lifted his chin. “And?”
“Well, given the odds, it’s obvious I was desperate to get rid of you.” A wicked laugh issued from the ring. “Ha! You thought I’d say something sappy, didn’t you?”
He found himself shaking his head. “No, I honestly didn’t. I know better.”
“Then listen up. If I pushed you all the way to third-order it means I had a damn good reason to think you were capable of it. Do you know how many apprentices I lost?” The ring paused for a second, then answered the question. “None. Do you know why? Because I was that good. Maybe I was mean as hell, I won’t argue that, but I knew how to train an apprentice. I wouldn’t have pushed you to try for third-order if I wasn’t pretty damn sure you’d succeed.”
Will blinked, feeling a sudden warmth rising to his cheeks. “How could you tell?”
“Tell what?”
“If you thought someone could succeed, without dying.”
“Intuition and careful observation. You watch enough people learning to use magic and you start to get a sense for those who have talent. Talent and stubbornness were the things I looked for. Lucky for you, neither common sense nor intelligence seem to be important factors, otherwise I’d probably have just traded you for a cow or something more useful and less aggravating.”
“You almost slipped up there. That was dangerously close to a compliment,” noted Will wryly.
The ring ignored him. “So, you seem to be developing a more mature control of turyn, but you said you hurt yourself.”
He described the pain he’d started having after using the point-defense spell at home.
“Sounds like you sprained your will,” observed Arrogan.
“Is that the same thing that happened to me when I first started expressing turyn?”
“I don’t remember the event in question, so I don’t know. It’s helpful to think of your will as a muscle, even though it isn’t. Regular exercise will make it stronger, but if you overdo it you can injure yourself. An injury to your will can range from something akin to a muscle sprain to something every bit as serious as tearing a muscle free of the bone. Any serious user of magic will eventually hurt themselves, but if you don’t learn to avoid overdoing it you could potentially destroy your ability to use turyn—completely.”