BECMI Chapter 420 – A Cycle of Elements
“And our keynote speaker is a traveler from a distant world. I’m sure many of you will recognize her, but allow me to introduce the elven archmage, Lady Edge, the Doomrose.”
For just a moment the arguments and shouting in the crowd continued unabated, men in robes of blue and white and gray uttering disparaging remarks at those in colors of red and orange and yellow, both sides flaunting their loyalties.
“Thank you, Cominous. Children, find your seats.”
An ominous hum ripped through the entire auditorium. Spells caught in Valences pulsed and bucked in seeming fear at the sound. Clutching at their heads, elder archmages gasped and scrambled to get to their seats without comportment, clamping their mouths shut at the throbbing behind their eyeballs.
Only when everyone was seated did the thrumming sound subside… but it was not gone. It remained there, tickling at the edge of their thoughts as the great and wise men and women of the Delphan Empire glared, stared, and winced at the alien in their midst.
They were the mightiest of magical empires, Overmagi standing at the apex of mortal power! To be chided like children was humiliating and, and extremely unexpected…
They didn’t know what power she was using to discipline them so absently, either…
“I was invited to this chamber to present to the fools quarreling over the power of Air and Fire. I must say you have not disappointed in displaying the idiocy I was told to expect. An excellent display of sagacious discourse and learned rhetoric, comparing favorably to a congress of rock baboons.”
Any irritation grew higher and yet twisted at the exquisite razors on her tongue. Any thought to cry out was promptly accompanied by the warning throb of their own spells telling them otherwise, and only ashamed silence answered her.
“If this is your standard display of discourse on magic, it is no wonder your empire has managed to stagnate so thoroughly, with such fine examples of intellectual conduct displayed to the young and impressionable.”
Bridling expressions combined with some dripping sweat at the sweet caress of danger in her every word and syllable. The scorn was clear, the superiority was evident, and what were they going to say about it?
“This display of ignorance on the relationship between Air and Fire is most interesting. I believe I can sum it all up as saying one side argues that Air cannot possibly equal to the glory and sheer power of Fire, and the other saying Fire cannot possibly equal the deft versatility and pure flexibility off channeling the rolling might of Air. All else is merely semantics and spell and counter-spell, at least according to the juvenile screeches being thrown back and forth by the elder monkeys of this Congress.”
The strongest supporters of the two factions flushed even more, but the beat in their head seemed to sharpen in warning, and hands moving to somatics and words poised for verbal components stilled sharply.
More sweat dripped, because they could all tell she was watching them, and they were only amusing her more with their antics.
“Air and Fire are but two of the Elemental Planes, but you are all ignoring Earth and Water, which I find most amusing. Water especially is versatile enough to encompass three other Elements within itself, while Earth sits at the opposite of Fire and matches ultimate explosive power with ultimate immovability generating that explosive power.
“Time, I think for some basic alchemy and lessons in dimensional balance.” They all flushed at the unmistakable feeling of being reduced to new students before this alien woman.
A grand illusion swirled into existence above the black and red-clad pale flower that was the speaker, startling some of the wizards there as the most exacting replica of the four Elementals Planes that they had ever seen materialized!
“The Elemental Rings occur in a four-dimensional planar balance around one another. They all border one another, and yet all of them are very, very obviously arranged into a ring, and they are in balance.
“Simple logic, basic alchemy. If one of these Elements were more powerful than the others, would the Inner Planes be in balance?” she asked rhetorically.
And the Elements began to stretch and to bulge, one by one. As each did, the ring distorted, the circle became a pear or melon, elongated to one side, driving the other Elements away and back.
There was silence as suddenly thoughtful mages eyed that display before them. Some started to speak up, to refute what was visible there, but were moved to silence.
“Furthermore, why is it a ring? Why, indeed, does matter, solidity, and Earth border plasma, heat, light, and Fire? Of all the Elements, why is Earth next to Fire, when they are the least alike?
“To this we must go to basic Alchemy.” The ring of Elements unwound, and became a line of effect.
“At one end of the line of Alchemy, we have plasma, the truest Fire. There is no end to Fire. It goes up and up and up, into infinity. If you keep adding energy to something of fire, all it does is get hotter and hotter. There is no limit to this if you do.” Smug smiles started to break out at that citing of their own arguments, but she went on chidingly, “Of course, if you do this, what happens to the sources of this heat?”
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The great glowing length of fire growing ever brighter and hotter began to thin out, while around it, everything started to cool down.
“As Fire condenses and intensifies, it grows smaller, hotter. Infinity in temperature precludes infinity in size, and the plasma which makes ultimate Fire cools, draws together, and becomes the many gasses of the universe.
“Fire cools into Air.”
Pale white vapors swirled around the condensed flame, visibly far, far larger than the area that the flames had filled.
“Air is defined by the fact it expands to fill its container. Even if but an atom per square meter is required to do so, Air will keep expanding. In doing so, Air can occupy far more room than can Fire.” The billowing whiteness around the white-hot flame simply grew bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and the fires remained the same.
“But Air also cools. When Air clumps together and cools, it loses its volume rapidly. This is mostly easily seen when steam is formed and then condenses.”
A transparent teapot boiled and burbled, issuing a plume of steam into a balloon, which swelled, and swelled and swelled, until the teapot was empty and a massive cloud of steam many times its size floated above it.
“Air condenses, loses its volume, cools, and becomes liquids. The most famous of these and easily seen is, of course, water.” The swollen balloon of steam cooled, condensed, fell greatly in size, and when the steam was gone, a small balloon of water remained behind.
“Liquids, as all alchemists know, are transitional states. Of all the Elements, liquid is the most fragile. It cools rapidly to solid matter, it heats rapidly into Gas and air once more.
“This is the function of Elemental Water. The energies of all Elements run through and are balanced by the power of Water. If Fire burns too hot, Water channels the heat to cold Earth, which drinks it in. If Air expands too far, Water condenses its volumes and grows in liquid, while solidifying into matter, what we call ice, or transfers it to Fire, where steam explodes into plasma. Where Earth grows too cold, Water wears it away and throws itself into Fire or Air to compensate.
“Liquid is the state of matter in-between.”
The focus then shifted to the end. “Matter. Solidity. Earth. We have fallen from superheated plasma to cooler gas to colder liquid, and now we reach the frozen end of the material spectrum, which can soak as infinitely much chill to keep itself solid as Fire can generate to produce plasma.
“Matter balances out Fire. Cold, hard solidity against ephemeral and chaotic plasma and heat.
“So, how is this clear alchemical line a ring?” The image bent around to where Earth joined to Fire once more. “This is a clear cycle of Elements, there must be a transfer of state and energies alike!
“The coldest matter does not move at all, a state called absolute zero. How, then, can Matter generate the energy to transfer directly to Fire?” She paused for emphasis as they struggled how to make cold and solid suddenly fire.
“Pressure?” spoke up a solidly built man not in pales or fiery hues, with the beefy forearms and large hands of a smith.
“Pressure,” she agreed solemnly, nodding at him. “When matter cools and collects, it gathers upon itself. Weight presses in from all directly, and matter compresses. Compresses under millions and billions and trillions and more of tons of matter. The weight of worlds come together, and where they grind together, as any smith who hammers them knows, they get HOT.”
A picture arose of a moon, Eilapael, on the far side of Meandral, picturesque and in many beautiful hues of varied gasses, none of which were friendly to humans. It dove in, plunged through clouds and steaming seas of no liquids humans could endure, down into the stone, frozen with ice crystals that were not water, and down into the locked and frozen earth, deeper, and deeper. The rock began to melt, then to run, and finally, at the heart of the placid, lovely cold moon, there existed an inferno of molten rock flowing as fluidly and smoothly as water, even though it was far heavier.
“And when you take the coldest Matter to this extreme, when you compress it with the weight of the greatest worlds, of so much gravity that a teaspoon of matter weighs tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of tons… Matter finally gives up.”
In the heart of darkness, of impossible solidity and weight, there was suddenly Fire, and Matter went directly to eternal flames. Worlds of matter larger than suns and weighing what galaxies did went right to flame, and there, at the very, very bottom of absolute Matter, began the infinite heat and the very top end of Fire.
“The Elemental Ring is complete, and it is true. There is no greater Element. There is only where you are upon the Ring!
“Do not be fools, however. You can no more attain the infinite cold depths and weight of matter than you can the infinite heat and fire of highest flames. The Immortals themselves mess not with such things, as they would but destroy themselves as they attempt to wrestle with infinity, and lo, find they are but finite, in the end.
“This, my congress of monkeys, is your argument of power. You are literally going in circles, and ignoring the existence of the circle and the balance of the Elements. It is very, very funny to watch!”
Cheeks burned at the words, but there was little to say. Arguments gripped with passion suddenly seemed hollow and empty before the plain truth displayed before them!
“The power of the Elements is the power of the wizard who wields them, no more and no less. Attempting to play up the might of your chosen Element to validate your own power is the opinion of a child and a fool.
“Air or Fire is stronger depending on the strength, skill, versatility, and discipline of the Wizards who back in. That same truth would apply to wizards of Water and Earth who cared to be involved in such a subject. Your mono-focus on merely two Elements of the Four leaves you extremely vulnerable to the other two, should there be similar Wizards who will invest time and power into developing them further.
“The true power of the Elements is very simple: it is inferior to the power of the magic you are using to wield them!” her voice washed across them all, making many of them gape in sudden understanding of the point. “Everything you say is power, everything you say is versatility, comes not from the Element you are blathering about like children.
“It comes from the wizard who is wielding the magic, and the restrictions of the magic to wield that Element! All the power, all the wonder, all the glory of the Elements you wield… is not there!
“There is only the magic you are using to wield those Elements, and the limitations and restrictions thereon!
“Nothing more, nothing less. If you want the true Element of power, it is the one that commands the Elements, and that is magic itself!”
My words cut through all the arguments and stunned many of those in the factions at the truth of it, forcing them to look at their powers outside the lens of the Elements, and suddenly realize how much they had restricted themselves...