Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter. Cathy’s First Letter.

19 June 1025, L’École du Sorciers

My dearest cousin Armand, 

How wise you have become since we were small and you and Jack nearly drowned in the pond in Wickshire! It is of all things the most surprising!

You surmised that Dr. Tillotson’s experiments with the Iturian Relay would succeed only if he had seen the destination node, and further that either he or Octie could operate the relay just so long as he himself was present. Your argument was that the wizard’s intent is an essential part of the spell, that the precise destination must be part of that intent. Or, in other words, that although Jérôme’s formed nodes can provide the magical power for the spell they do not replace the wizard’s intent in casting it.

Octie and the good doctor tested both these theories this past month, all unwittingly as I had not had time to share your theories with them, and you appear to be correct.

It seems that Dr. Tillotson stumbled over a tree root and sprained his ankle rather badly, and was quite unable to walk across broken ground for some weeks. This was a setback, as they have been purposely avoiding settled areas. Still, they continued their work, keeping close to the roads and driving from one end of the relay to another in Octie’s gig (for they have no “air carriages” in Nexinghamshire), and by this means were able to extend their relay to a distance of eight miles.

Beyond that distance the roads of Nexinghamshire are not so accommodating, and Dr. Tillotson perforce had to send Octie out to position the destination node for the ten-mile trial on his own. And, as you surmised, it didn’t work. On each attempt the target object—a small pasteboard box, painted bright red and filled with enough paper for a handful of letters—either refused to disappear or vanished, never to be seen again. 

I rather expect that over the next few seasons the countrymen round about will stumble upon a number of these boxes under trees or caught in bushes and be quite perplexed as to what the quality have been up to.

Of course, in each of these cases Tillotson was at the source node and Octie was at the destination…which the good doctor had never seen.

Tillotson immediately began to wonder about your first point, and so the pair of them conducted a test where both nodes could be near the road. Dr. Tillotson was at the source node, and Octie drove off and positioned the destination node five miles away, in a spot Tillotson had never seen. Tillotson sent the box at the appointed time, and Octie returned to tell him that it had failed to appear at the destination.

They prepared the source for another trial, and this time Dr. Tillotson drove the gig to the destination. At the appointed time Octie activated the source node, as he had done many times in the good doctor’s presence…and nothing happened. The box was unmoved.

Dr. Tillotson returned in great distress, for he had been confident that the box would appear now that he had seen the location of the destination node. He rather took Octie to task and asked him to show exactly what he had done. Octie was rather affronted, and of course he was frustrated as well, and pointedly activated the source node in what he described to me as “the most cavalier way possible”.

The box disappeared immediately, and the pair of them found it sitting at the destination just as it ought.

The last Octie wrote me, they are now quite clear on both points: that Tillotson must necessarily have seen both ends of the relay for it to work, and that Octie cannot activate the relay in Tillotson’s absence. And further, that the good doctor has no idea why this was the case.

You have surmised that it is the wizard’s intent that is missing, and speaking as a master of the Fleuve de Johannes I am sure you are correct: intent is everything in Provençese wizardry. I am equally certain that this has not occurred to Tillotson

On the Cumbrian view, the wizard’s role is to set up the spell and then fill it with magical force. The set up includes the arrangement of nodes and the connections between them, all mathematically calculated and balanced to avoid such complications as I experienced in Wickshire some years ago. And then, when the spell is supplied the needed magical force, it simply does what it was designed to do. The only role the wizard’s intent plays is in designing the spell and choosing when to supply that force.

That the wizard’s intent might have a further effect on how the spell functions is an unwelcome, I might say alien, thought. Indeed, the whole project of Cumbrian wizardry is to so constrain the spell that the wizard’s intent no longer matters. This is such a commonplace that it is no longer much discussed at Edenford, but if you look at the earliest books on Cumbrian wizardry—as I have—the desire to tame the wild magic of other nations is quite clear.

You may be assured that I will copy your letter and send it to Octie and Dr. Tillotson posthaste.

Also, you may tell Amelie that our little George is no longer a pudding but has transformed into a cranky little ball of bright-eyed wanting, and that Maximilian and I are delighted with his progress.

Your doting cousin,

Amelia

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