158, 1/2

Far ahead, hundreds of shaggy cows stepped lively across the plains, their hooves stomping a steady beat into the ground, flattening the grasslands even further with their passing. They were not alone. They were guarded on all sides by the people of Clan Pale Cow. Cowherds rode to the sides of the herd, and also in front. Half of the people in those small groups were responsible for maintaining the edges of the herd, while the rest had eyes on the horizon, and directly in front, to ensure that there were no upcoming problems, and if a problem should appear, then they would take care of it with a swift application of conjured weaponry and overwhelming force.

Behind the herd, came the clan and their vehicles; a good forty yurts, each trundling along across the plains atop large carts, each pulled by harnessed cows.

The whole organization did not move fast, but it did move smoothly, for every single person who drove the yurts was an old hand at the task. Some of the people who drove the carts were actually the elderly of the tribe.

Erick’s own cart was pulled by four shaggy white cows, harnessed to a large pole that stuck out from the front of the cart. But there was no driver, here. There was no need. These were conjured cows, and they did their job well. The fuzzy beasts easily kept pace with the other caravans, matching the speed of the other, real cows, their tails swishing back and forth as they followed beside the clan.

Erick’s yurt was on the far eastern edge of the caravan, but he was only twenty meters from the nearest other yurt; the same distance as that yurt was from the next, and the next. This was a traveling arrangement that these people had taken from their ancestors, who took it from their ancestors, in a line stretching back a thousand years.

And it was kinda nice.

Erick sat back on his store-bought captain’s chair on the front porch of his mobile yurt, and watched the world drift by in absolute comfort. He had erected a variety of [Ward]s across the yurt for just that reason. [Weather Ward]s, conjured as a dust and debris shield, kept out contaminants but let air flow freely. The normal [Air Conditioning Ward] that he usually conjured at his desert home in Spur wrapped around him and the rest of the yurt, keeping him comfortable. A [Prismatic Ward] stretched across the actual yurt, itself, as well as the air above, so that Ophiel’s perches kept him inside the defensive space, and always Resting.

All of those conveniences of magic were kept as invisible as Erick could make them, too.

Jane sat down on a second chair beside Erick, which was the same as Erick’s, sighing as her butt hit the cushions. “Okay. So this is nice.”

Erick chuckled. “Who doesn’t love a nice road trip!”

“I like that you figured out AI driving.” Jane said, “But the road trip itself is a bit slower than I’m used to.”

Erick smiled wide. “It’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey.”

Teressa came out of the yurt, saying, “Can I make a purchase request?”

Ophiel had been flitting in and out of the yurt, kitting out the place with beds and otherwise, bought from Songli. More than a few merchants had balked when Ophiel presented themselves as an image of Erick, but all of those merchants quickly got with the program and sold the [Familiar] whatever Erick wanted to buy.

“Certainly!” Erick said, “Whatever you want.”

“A proper bestiary, suited for kids.” Teressa said, “They like hearing monster tales but all of mine are too scary.”

With all her faux seriousness, Jane asked, “Did you make one of them piss themselves?”

With perfect aplomb, Teressa defended herself, “Yes, but for completely unrelated reasons.”

Erick wasn’t the only one to laugh at that. Poi just gave a small smile, though.

When the laughter died down, Erick asked, “Anyone else want anything else?” He turned in his chair and projected his voice into the yurt, “Nirzir? You want anything?”

Bleary-eyed, Nirzir lifted her head from her bed, and said, “No thank you!”

She was exhausted from cooking. They had her do everything by hand, but since the girl usually used magic for everything, the physical stress of hard work had knocked her out. Oh, sure, she had 20 Strength and Vitality and all the accompanying Skills to boost her Health, and she had Healing Magic, so she wasn’t experiencing Health Fatigue for just 5 hours of cooking. She was just plum tuckered out!

Erick said, “Let me know if you change your mind!”

Nirzir gave a grumble and tried to sleep.

Erick settled back down in his chair. “Poi? Jane?”

Poi said, “I require nothing else.”

“I’m good,” Jane said.

Teressa sat down in the big chair on the porch—

And Erick held out his hand, wherein white light flashed, and a children’s book of monsters appeared. It was a big book, with large pictures and nice descriptions. He shifted the book toward Teressa, saying, “This should work out well.”

Teressa smiled, exposing her lower fangs as she took the book, saying, “Thank you—” She glanced to the left, then stood up, saying, “I think you’re about to receive a guest. Want me to put on the coffee, or tea?”

“Uh.” Erick looked to the left, and saw Koori walking across the space between yurts. Other people were walking between their neighbor’s yurts, too, but Koori was walking directly this way. She locked eyes with Erick, too. Erick turned toward Teressa. “Tea, please, but be ready to tap a keg. I’ll ask her which one she wants, first.”

Jane asked, “Want me out here?”

There was a hint of questioning danger in her voice; she wanted to know if she was needed to stop a fight, or, more precisely, to end a fight decisively in Erick’s favor.

Erick said, “Nah. You can go inside. I can tell you’re tired, too.”

Jane gave a small smile, then got up, saying, “It’s hard work to milk cows by hand all morning long.”

Poi left the porch, saying, “I’ll be inside, too.”

And thus, alone on his recliner on the front porch, Erick waited for Koori to arrive. He didn’t wait long. Koori rounded a yurt twenty meters away, and came toward Erick’s yurt. Without preamble, but after steeling herself a bit, she hopped up onto the white wood, and looked over at Erick.

Erick said, “Welcome to my yurt, Koori. Want tea? Or beer? I got mead, or a pale lager. I think I have rice wine, too.”

Koori took a moment to glance forward, to where the cows walked themselves and the air was free of dirt and dust. Not many people stayed on their porches when the caravan was underway, except for Erick, apparently, and the people who had to guide their real cows. Then Koori’s eyes passed over the space where the invisible [Ward]s filtered the wind, but instead of speaking of Erick’s open magics, she turned back to him, and said, “Rice wine. Hot.”

“Oh? You drink that hot up here? Okay, sure! Fair warning, I will be using magic around here.” He gestured to a nearby seat, saying, “Please.”

“It is your home. Do as you will.” And then she sat down. After another awkward moment, in which Erick allowed her to collect herself, Koori asked, “What was it like? Your world without magic?”

Teressa came out of the yurt holding two cups in her large hands. She simply gave one to Erick, and the other to Koori. Erick sipped his drink, then thanked Teressa, who wordlessly nodded and went back inside the yurt. Koori stared at her drink for a moment, then took a polite sip.

Erick said, “Earth’s surface is a quarter of the size of Veird’s, but when Jane and I fell to Veird, we had 7.5 billion people, living, working, and somewhat thriving upon that surface. There is no Underworld on Earth. There is only the surface, and what humans built upon it. The population of my home nation, which was a bit smaller than the area of Songli, was home to 330 million humans. Last I heard, and from Koyabez himself, was that Veird has 550 million people, in total.”

Koori listened, attentively, her eyes going wide at the utterance of the God of Peace.

She said nothing.

Erick continued, “Your world is a death world, full of monsters and problems, and always very, very close to the brink of death. Always teetering. Always ready to fall. Except for the monsters, Earth is the same. If nothing changed back there, then in twenty years time, over half the population might be dead due to any number of natural disasters that are entirely man-made, and solvable, but which no single person could ever solve. On Veird, you have the Tyranny of Power, where a few individuals, through their spells or their might, are able to act on the levels of nations. On Earth, we have the Tyranny of Money, where the vast majority of people are slaves in all but name to any number of forces, all of which stem from the power of money when concentrated in a few individuals, or groups of individuals.

“I don’t know what will happen to Earth, but when Jane and I fell here, the corporations of Earth were on the way to destroying our world because of the power in the hands of single individuals and small groups.

“But, that is not all Earth is.

“In many ways, Earth is much more peaceful than Veird. Think of any amenity or small scale utility spellwork that you have ever seen, and we probably had that— But, now that I say that, I know it as wrong. Let me clarify: We had networks of Knowledge Mages, but in our case, their knowledge was kept upon [Viewing Screen]s that you could purchase for your home, for the price of a week’s wages. All the information in the world was at your fingertips. Most people used this ability for puerile interests, or funny pet videos, or niche interests, or stuff like that.

“You could talk to anyone anywhere in the world, as long as they had a little speaking box, and you had a speaking box, as well as the number that identified that other person’s speaking box. You could fly from one nation to another as easy as hopping on a [Flying Platform]. You could go to a store and buy almost anything you could ever think to buy.

“You could not [Teleport].

“You could likely never escape where you were born and the circumstances to which you were born. It was possible, but highly unlikely. If you gave me the side of the street that you were born on, and the income of your parents, I could tell you pretty much the trajectory of your life.

“There were no monsters, or magic, at all.

“There’s a lot more to Earth than that, but those are the broadest strokes. You have questions?”

Koori had listened. “Your world contains… so many more people than Veird… Certainly that is a good metric for if life is good, or not?”

“It is one such metric, sure. In many ways, life on Earth was better than life here. Less violent, for sure. Or rather, less violent for me, in the part of the world in which I lived. There was still violence.”

“But no monsters. And monsters come from magic.” Koori stared at him. “But you still think that magic is a good thing.”

“Magic is wonderful; objective fact.”

Koori shook her head, slightly. “Magic allows the Shades— Allowed the Shades to remain in power. And I’m still not convinced they are actually gone. I won’t be convinced until twenty five years pass and nothing else happens; maybe not even then. Even without them, though, magic enables monsters. Magic is the cause of every horrific act of indecency that happens in this world.” Koori said, “Face stealers. Dragons hiding among us. The spellwork that killed millions of people, all at once, in Songli. I feel I would be happy to live on this ‘Earth’, especially knowing how bad it can be when magic empowers the lowest of people into becoming death walkers.”

“No Healing Magic. No Spatial Magic. No [Cleanse].” And that wasn’t even getting into the idea of nuclear weapons, but since Koori seemed to gloss over Erick’s words that Earth was going to face some serious hard times ahead if people did nothing… Erick glossed over that fact for now, too. Erick asked, “Now, what do you think the loss of these three miracles would do to the people of this world?”

Koori paused, then she stridently said, “We would be better off. Alchemy would advance to include natural healing. People wouldn’t be so willing to harm others. We wouldn’t have wars for people would be scared of injury—”

Erick tried to suppress his grin, but it came out anyway, and with a laugh.

Koori scowled.

“Sorry. But.” Erick owned his social blunder, rhetorically asking, “Wars would end because people couldn’t heal themselves? I know, for a fact, that there would still be wars.”

Koori went hard. “There would still be wars. But obviously less of them, and less dangerous. Your world has billions of people. Obviously I am correct; you just don’t want to see it.”

Erick said, “There are so many reasons that this world is a death world, and the only reason that you all haven’t died out already is because the Script allows every single person to drive back the monsters and to slay those who would kill the world. Don’t lay your woes at the feet of mana, itself. Blame the actual killers out there. Blame those who have purposefully made the world more difficult for everyone, not the world itself. Blame the Shades. Blame the warmongers. Blame the terrorists. And blame the people who stand back and don’t help.”

Koori frowned, deeply, then said, “When I Matriculated, you know what they told me? They gave a speech about helping me to become the best I wanted to be, be my desires toward killing gods, or taking the—” She stopped, She said, “One of my paths was walking to the top of Songli and declaring myself Empress of All. I was stupid and young and thought all of those things good, but now I know better. Now I know how dangerous magic is, and how none of us should have that power, at all.”

Erick readily said, “I agree that too many people have too much magic. But the Script is not a thing laid down by Rozeta. It was made by everyone, and it is an adversarial system. Melemizargo and every other Wizard out there has just as much to do with how the Script functions as all the good Relevant Entities out there.”

Erick did not speak of all the ‘bad’ Relevant Entities; that was too large of a topic for this, right now.

Koori said, “That still doesn’t explain why a Registrar pushed me toward a path of destruction. Not many people are pushed in that way, but some are. You are not the first person I have told this story to. Rozeta’s Registrars are just as culpable for the dangers of magic as is the Darkness. All magic is terrible, and we would be better off without it.”

Erick almost went right on to the next point he was trying to make, but something in Koori’s tone caused him to pause. Backing up a bit… It was when she was listing her possible paths. At first, Erick just glanced over whatever words Koori did not want to say, but now…

She had skipped over something very, very large, hadn’t she?

Erick poked, in a roundabout way, at whatever Koori was skipping over, and asked, “In the upcoming debates: Did you receive word if they’re going to allow orthodox battles? Without magic?”

“… The battles will be to the first limb lost or heart stab, with full use of magic allowed. They have not agreed to orthodox debates. They almost never do.”

“Because you would win those.”

“Yes. Other clans have learned this. Therefore, they do not debate without magic.” Koori said, “That we are crossing orthodox lines is already an upset that I don’t think you understand. But I do not expect you to.”

Erick understood those ‘orthodox lines’; they were blocs of clans that voted certain ways. Most blocs didn’t cross too often, except when Big Deals happened, of which Integration was a Big Deal. Standard grass traveler debates were not orthodox debates, though; they included magic.

He did not fight her on that, though, because she was trying to goad him, to get him away from her weak spot.

Erick went after that weak spot, “I am going to give you a small story. Back when I Matriculated, the Registrar also spoke of terrible fates, and toppling gods. He also listed off one of my options as ‘the best damned farmer on Veird’. I tried to go that first route, thinking I would be able to forgo all the problems of the second. This was back when I was a true pacifist, by the way. No war, no battles. I didn’t want to hurt monsters, either.”

Koori scrunched her face, and then she realized what Erick was saying, and she listened. But at the mention of monsters she scoffed. “Not even against monsters?”

Erick said, “Yes. I was viewing the world through a different lens back then. Perhaps, if I had been a bit more worldly, I would have realized that mistake before it became a mistake. But I made mistakes, and then I learned.” He said to her, “I fear you might be making the same sort of mistake. For whatever reason, you went with your Registrar’s words, thinking them good, but then something happened and you got scared. You went orthodox. You retreated, instead of pursued.” Erick looked right at Koori, and said, “Except not really. You still desire that fate spoken of by your Registrar; you want to become the Empress. You are pursuing that option, right now, with this Integration plan. Do you not see this?”

Koori went pale as Erick’s words struck her core.

Erick continued, “But everyone is using swords, while you’re using your hands. You are hampering yourself. If you think that you can still reach for Integration with half of your weaponry, then… You might succeed. I know I failed when I tried to run while barely being able to walk. Right now, I’m barely keeping ahead of my problems. I’m barely cutting down the enemies before me, before they can cut down everyone else. I’m still learning.

“And if you’re pursuing a grand Fate too, then you’re going to get someone hurt by going at it without your full attention.”

The wind rushed across the plains, carrying silence, and nothing else.

The author’s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Erick added, “But, of course, there are lines one should not cross; I have many, myself. Perhaps I am misreading your situation. Perhaps orthodoxy is a way for you to make a line you will not cross. And that is commendable.” He said, “I don’t truly understand orthodoxy… You would know more about that than me.”

Koori stared at nothing for a long moment, then she looked to Erick, and said, “If orthodoxy succeeds it will be a victory against magic, for the city we build afterward will require people to conceal their power. In the long way, this is better for everyone. Orthodoxy is better than the Void Song which controls through force. It allows people to have power when they need it, but not when they want to show it off. Every single person here can defend against the minions of Darkness. Everyone here can guard the wall.” Koori said, “Power corrupts. Pure power corrupts entirely. And so, by constraining power behind closed doors, people will not become corrupted so easily.”

Erick saw Koori’s entire self, in that moment.

She didn’t want to use her power out in the open, or at all, because she was scared of herself.

Well… Erick wasn’t going to untangle that knot right now, but it was good to know that the knot existed.

Erick talked around the problem, by saying, “And if people are constrained to only having power behind closed doors, then how will you know your neighbor is competent against the darkness?”

“We will know. Everyone knows everyone’s business. This will not change when we have a city.”

Erick shook his head, saying, “If you think forcing people to hide who they are and what they can do is going to make the world that you want, then… I can only say that it’ll work for a while, until it catastrophically does not.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps it will work long enough for you to construct a [Gate] to another world where the vagaries of mana no longer control the lives of all who live there.” Koori said, “If you do get the chance to affect what is to come, then keep in mind those of us who don’t wish for power, except to keep it out of the hands of everyone.”

Now there was a more comfortable topic.

Erick said, “A simple Script that only allows for Healing Magic, [Cleanse], and [Telekinesis], would be fine by me. And maybe not even [Telekinesis].”