Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter.
14 May 1020, L’École du Sorciers
My dearest cousin Armand,
Using Johannine wizardry to burn my signature into a plaque of wood is far more difficult than I had anticipated. I cannot seem to do it without scorching the wood, and too often the plaque bursts into flames and is consumed in moments.
You will tell me—as Maximilian tells me—that this proves that the Masters of L’École were quite right to summon me in such a peremptory fashion! And you are quite right to do so, I know you are, but it is all so aggravating!
Receiving no sympathy from my beloved husband, I of course turned to my friends here at L’École.
Janine Allard, who is usually so soft-spoken, inquired acidly as to how many of my acquaintance I wished to disfigure. At which Claude Bergeron turned red and looked away…just after he nodded in agreement and said, “C’est vrai.”
Jérôme, for his part, laughed at me outright—as he well might, I fear, for the Masters have been leading him an equally merry chase.
Though they permitted it as a body, some of them disapproved of his vanishing to Armorica to study the Stream of Belazel, as he calls it. Dr. Guisman has admitted that your craft of forming might indeed be the long-lost wizardry of Belazel; but others of the Masters are unconvinced, and some believe it to be a myth. They have set him to researching all that is known about the Stream of Belazel, in fact to completing an index and catalog of every tome and passage in L’École’s library in which Belazel is mentioned; after which, I believe, they mean to send him to the Bibliothèque d’Université to do the same.
Which is just what he would prefer, save that he must also attend to the same lessons and exercises as I, he also being a student of the Fleuve de Johannes. I am quite torn between sympathy and envy.
His signatures are much better than mine; and he informed me with great condescension that forming requires just such a close and deliberate attention to detail, and so it is not surprising that he is ahead of me. It is beyond irritating!
If I did not owe him such a great deal, I should have been inclined to—
Well, no. I should not even think of using my wizardry in such a way.
At least I am having less difficulty with the absurdly lofty prose in which Johannes and his followers insisted on writing of their skills. If I cannot bring myself to approve passages such as “The dove cries boldly, and molts in tandem with the brown bear,” at least I am beginning to acquaint myself with the symbolism and need not reach for my concordance to construe each sentence. (The above simply means that although the wizard can do many powerful things, even he must work with Creation as it is, rather than as he would like it to be, lest he come to ruin—the brown bear being a symbol of the intransigence of earthly things.)
I shall try not to be bitten by bears during my current studies; and it seems—I hope that it is true—that I am scorching my scraps of wood less blackly this week. I turned nothing to ash today, which I must grasp at as though it were a major triumph.
Dr. Laguerre tells me I must slow down, must consider every jot and tittle, and that I must not concern myself with speed until I have learned proper control. Each time she tells me this, I wish to ask her how long that will take, but I have not dared.
It is my one consolation, Armand, that she does not seem in any way impatient with my progress. Stern and implacable, yes, but serene.
Your far-from-serene cousin,
Amelia
____
Photo by Carl Tronders on Unsplash
Zymurgia House 