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

7 January 1026, L’École du Sorciers, Toulouse

My dearest cousin Armand,

I grieve to hear what you have to say about John Gamble. He was kind to me when I first came to Nexinghamshire to meet Maximilian’s family, and cast a lovely illusion for us at our engagement ball. I found him charming, if eccentric.

From what Cathy has told me since, it has always been difficult to detach him from his current hobbyhorse, and he has always grumbled when distracted from it, but it seems that it has grown worse over the past years. I am heartily sorry for it. I must assume that his kindness at our first meeting was due to being reunited with Max, the boon companion of his youth.

I rejoice that Cathy is out of his hands, though I expect that it was her influence keeping him on a more even keel. And more, I rejoice that he is in a position where those keeping him functional can be adequately recompensed for the task as Cathy was not.

All of that was a prelude to this: you have said outright that John’s whirligigs have earned him his keep indefinitely, and that you expect similar notions from him in the future. You, or I should say Tuppenny Wagons, is housing him and paying for his upkeep already. Ask yourself: where does he spend his time? You will find, I am sure, that he spends the vast bulk of it in his workroom. I should not be surprised if he eats his meals there as well, surrounded by the detritus of his obsessions.

Therefore, I propose you do this: instead of moving poor Dr. Tillotson out of the village and into spartan housing at the wagonworks, move John there. He needs only a work room, a cot, a modicum of space for his wardrobe and personal things, and someone to bring him food and keep his quarters from degenerating into a beast’s lair. Assign a servant to these duties—or perhaps two, in rotation, for kindness’ sake. Master Bastien and Master Luc can continue to work with him as they have done, providing him with materials and feeding him ideas.

Perhaps it might be wise if these quarters are away from the center of things, as John’s creations sometimes perform in unexpected and destructive ways; but Cathy assures me he has burned nothing down since his early twenties. Proper care might require moving him a second time this coming spring, but though he will complain bitterly when he is required to move, he will forget all about it once he is once again immersed in his current endeavor.

Once he has been moved, give his house a thorough cleaning; and then you may leave Dr. Tillotson there in comfort until your college is a going concern.

In other words, John is the problem, not Dr. Tillotson, and should be the one to suffer.

Jérôme is continues to work on his notion of separating the formed nodes in each Iturian relay into two parts, a small linking block and a much larger gathering block. He tells me the signs are promising, and that he expects to have something by next week.

Max, Jérôme, and I have made it a point to meet for afternoon tea most days, to talk about our work and our progress. One perennial topic is how the classic Six Streams relate to forming and to Cumbrian wizardry. We think we have come to a proper understanding.

We have long agreed that what you have termed effort is identical to what Cumbrian wizards have simply called magic. This has clearly been proven by the success of the Iturian Relay, by means of which you have received this letter.

But magic is a horribly ambiguous term, and effort is not quite right either. Instead, we are choosing to use the term vigor. As we see it, effort is about the act of performing work; but vigor is that which you expend when you are performing it. Further, vigor has a sense of life, or of liveliness about it; we associate it with youthful strength. This is important, as you will see.

We conjecture that every wizard—indeed, every human being—concentrates vigor in their own person to a greater or lesser degree. A person might receive vigor from the environment around them, or it may simply be a normal concomitant of being alive. Indeed, having vigor may simply be what it is to be alive.

A wizard—or a former—is then someone who is able to expend their vigor for some magical purpose: someone who concentrates excess vigor that would otherwise go unused. We conjecture that a person’s usual concentration or quantity of vigor is what separates those who can become wizards from those who cannot.

A Provençese wizard expends his vigor directly, in the moment, as directed by his intent. The Six Streams are simply six different ways, or perhaps six different domains, in which a wizard might do so.

A Cumbrian wizard constructs a network of physical nodes, binding his intent to them so that when filled with vigorthey produce the desired effect reliably and repeatedly. The nodes are not formed, doing nothing on their own but serving only as scaffolding to hold the wizard’s intent. Once constructed, any wizard of sufficient strength can direct vigor into the network, producing the desired effect.

But a former—a former is one who imbues his intent and vigor into physical objects so that they themselves take on a kind of life. A formed object can consume vigor to produce physical effects (your greedy objects) or convert physical effects into concentrated vigor (your generous objects); and once formed they do this all on their own. A wizard of any stripe can do marvelous things; but now it seems to me that the oft-derided craft of forming is more truly magical.

The Iturians must have mastered all of these notions to some degree to build their relays. We believe that the current state of affairs is due to their knowledge being lost during the Iturian Cataclysm, and then slowly rebuilt. Provençese wizardry, we think, came to be due to the founders of the Streams, who were so gifted with vigor that they were compelled to expend it. (I sympathize.) Forming either devolved into a craft or was rediscovered by the lowly. Cumbrian wizardry came last, as the result of Cumbrian practicality reflecting on Provençese techniques.

We think it possible that wizardry of all sorts, but most especially anything like Cumbrian wizardry, was suppressed by the survivors as the root cause of the Cataclysm. That is something to dwell on as we move forward.

I apologize for lecturing; it has become an occupational hazard.

Your lecturing cousin,

Amelia

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