Peace be upon you, may your days under this sun last. I don't know why I am addressing this to you, and why I am writing at all. Apparently, this is the will of Providence. Maybe it will just be easier for me if I speak to at least someone.
I am taking a great risk by sending this letter. You can say I'm signing my own death warrant. But my condition is already such that I have become indifferent to death. I guess I'm just too tired.
I ask you to take this seriously - too much has been put into this letter. I will use common terms, although we call all these things differently. This will make it easier for you.
The idea to write me was prompted by those advertisements that some newspapers print. In them, naive simpletons are asked to teach them the art of magic, promising to be "diligent students", etc.
I don't want people to think of magic as an easy road to happiness and power. Understand that this world is arranged in such a way that nothing is given for free. For some time I was pondering how best to bring this to your consciousness, and I came to the conclusion that there is no better reason than my own story.
My teacher found me when I was 13 years old. Just at the time when the formation of a person takes place, when he determines his further path, often without knowing about it. After 2-3 simple tests, he realized that I fit him. For some reason he inspired me to trust, then I understood why. I lacked a goal to which I could devote myself, to which it would be worthwhile to apply my abilities. This goal was the desire to master everything that the teacher showed me at the beginning of my studies. I devoted all my free time to self-improvement in this regard. The best student was probably hard to find.
The basis of magic is its Laws, which must be followed by all magicians, regardless of origin, color and skill level. The Third Law says: none of the magicians, never, anywhere, under any guise, should open themselves to anyone. Hence the simple truth: all those who publicly declare that they are sorcerers and magicians, in fact, are not. Because the punishment for breaking any of the Laws is death, and sometimes something worse. The only exceptions to the Third Law are teacher-student and magician-magician combinations. But the second is rare - except in special cases, we prefer not to communicate with each other …
The core of the applied aspect of magic is spells. These are long, meaningless phrases in any earthly language. None of us know what their mechanism of action is. But the fact is that these sounds have a very definite effect on real things. Some of the spells are effective only at a certain point in time - the season, the location of the planets, part of the day, or in one place or another. Sometimes it is necessary to take a certain pose, most often to fold the fingers into a cunning figure. Spelling the spell text incorrectly is fraught. At best, it just won't work; at worst, the consequences are dire. It is believed that spells are the remnants of some legendary Ancient Speech, but no one but me has yet been able to find patterns in them, even with the use of modern computing technology. A few daredevilsthose who tried to compose and pronounce their texts ended badly. One of them was my teacher …
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Thus, the qualification of a magician largely depends on how much he knows spells and how quickly he is guided in the possibility of their use. I learned this quickly. And he crammed until he fainted until he trained his memory.
The longer I practiced magic, the more strange things I noticed. Some of them were pleasant: in physical education, I easily began to overtake athletes-classmates. Small abrasions and scratches healed on me instantly. At will, he could stay awake for a long time, while remaining vigorous. Once I stuck my head into the water and timed it. When I felt the first signs of suffocation, I got out and looked at my watch - the sixth minute passed … But I really believed in myself when I fell from the fourth floor and escaped with a couple of bruises.
However, problems began to arise. I began to struggle with direct sunlight and heat. Once we with a group of classmates decided to go to an Orthodox church. The closer we got, the worse I felt. Headache, nausea, sudden weakness came. It became difficult to breathe, every joint burned and twisted. The closer we got, the worse I got. And when the light from one of the crosses, flashing brightly, blinded me, I screamed with a hoarse out of incomprehensible horror, turned and ran …
The first time I really applied my knowledge like this. There was one disgusting type in our class who constantly pissed me off. From 6th to 10th grade, every school day. Shaved bald, healthy as a bull. constantly surrounded by the company of the same as himself. As the prom was approaching, I learned that he was going to do something special to me on it. I did not wait for this. I managed to get some hair from his head, as well as some other ingredients. At my current level, it would not cost me anything to kill him with a snap of my fingers, but there was no need to - there are many ways to remove aggression without resorting to such drastic measures. But then I did not know it, and, besides, I was seized with rage. The most difficult thing was to get the blood of a virgin, in general it is always difficult to get blood. I solved this problem,slightly cutting the arm of the sleeping younger sister.
And so, plunging both hands into the disgusting brew, trying with all my might not to go astray, I recited one of the few spells I knew then that brought mortal harm. When I finished, the sweat ran down my face in streams, and it felt like after a day of good work. To such an extent I was afraid of being wrong.
The next day he did not come to school. And the next one. It was a thrill - not expecting sudden meanness. And then we were sadly told that our classmate had died untimely from a heart attack. I guess no one regretted him, everyone breathed more freely, even his friends. I could be proud of my handiwork.
Only one thing overshadowed my success - how will the teacher react to it? I expected catching up, condemnation, in a word - negative reaction. However, he just looked at me with his icy, but expressionless eyes somehow especially intently and said only: “Good job. However, you used an overly complex formula. Let's see how it can be done faster, easier and better."
And we took it apart. As it turned out, several dozen methods of murder are known in the world, and this is not the limit.
As for the eyes, all magicians have them like that - empty, cold, expressing nothing. This is a professional trait. With the right skills, you can read everything in the eyes, even hidden thoughts. Therefore, it is important that nothing can be read in them. This is especially important in sapien - a one-on-one duel between a magician and his fellow craft. This, although rare, does happen. One of the last sections that I learned under the guidance of a teacher was sapien. In training, it looks like this: two sit opposite each other, one begins to speak a spell with the goal of sending the other to another world. The task of the second is to determine the spell before it ends and, having uttered a reflective one, go on the attack yourself. More than once I toppled over on my back, gasping for air, with blood gushing from my nose, and the teacher slowly sipped: “Bad. Let's do it again. It was difficult,but then it came in handy to me. It is hard in training - easy in battle, but you stay alive.
As time went. I finished school, entered the university. There were no problems - I extracted answers to questions from the heads of the examiners themselves. I didn't get along with my classmates, and I didn't have any friends at school either. Finally, one day in sapien, I outplayed the teacher and knocked him to the floor. And then he said to me: "You are ready for the last lesson." And in the evening, by candlelight, in a mysterious and solemn atmosphere, the teacher said words that will not be forgotten, something like the following: “I taught you a lot, even more than I intended. But all this constitutes the surface level of true magic. Now I will transfer into your hands a few of the Great Spells that I myself know: Transformations, Reflections and others. But remember that you should not change a single stone, not a single grain of sand, until you know for sure all the consequences of your actions, good and bad. Everything is in balance. Person,possessing the Transformation ability can upset this balance. This power is dangerous, very dangerous. Its application requires a lot of knowledge. It can only be used if absolutely necessary. After all, light casts a shadow …"
And I memorized them - two hundred words, most of which I never spoke. Transformation and Creation, summoning spirits and turning to the Invisible and much more, which has no analogue in ordinary language.
“Goodbye,” he said then. - You will reach the rest yourself, further - your Road … You no longer need me. When I tried to object, he stopped me with a movement of his hand and, looking not at me, but somewhere in my direction, said quietly and firmly: “Don't think of anything about affection. I am absolutely indifferent to you. I studied with you only because this is the Fourth Law,”and stood up. I got up too. "Daihard …" - he said and disappeared. "Daihard," I answered almost silently, but he was gone. I never saw him again.
By the way, magicians always say goodbye like this: "dayhard". In English it means something like "die hard." But I suppose it has a different meaning. Maybe this is even the word of Ancient Speech. It has many meanings: both "goodbye" and "die", and this word also denotes the number 729.
After the teacher left, I was given complete freedom. Nobody controlled me. There was nowhere to wait for help, but there was nowhere to be condemned. Power corrupts, but I resisted it with all my might, although sometimes I amused myself as best I could. I remember that one of my favorite pastimes was, being invisible, to walk the streets and arrange children's pranks like knocking off hats or clinging to some respectable Maine's kitten on the back of his coat. I gave up this occupation when I was hit by a KamAZ - you can't blame the driver, I was invisible, and he didn't notice anything, so the car shook - that's all.
Finally, I found true pleasure in self-improvement in the art of magic, for there is no more beautiful pleasure for human nature than creativity, art, passion and a sense of beauty. Developed nature, of course.
Anyone who thinks that you can be a magician and not know mathematics is thinking wrong. I had to study a great many books on higher mathematics and applied astronomy. You must always make calculations yourself, not trusting all these astronomical calendars - they are always full of errors, because of which the effect of the spell can be directly opposite. I remember it reliably … after one incident.
In addition, I had to study Latin - each language contains a certain number of words of Ancient Speech, but especially Latin. Then I had to expand my knowledge in the field of anatomy, biology, physics, chemistry and many other sciences. I was sorely lacking basic knowledge, I had to bitterly regret that I had lost time at school. And I also had to make up for it all.
I traveled around the country in search of new knowledge, getting it right or wrong. I met with many magicians and learned everything new - where in exchange, and where by force, deception or in another way. Something to which he reached. There were, of course, overlaps, but rarely. Nevertheless, I have scars on my back that cannot be removed by any spell, and I have had to restore my right eye twice.
Knowledge is everywhere - come and take it, you just need to see. At a village grandmother, I found the Shamrock spell, whose words were part of a meaningless text in Russian. She treated them for bloating in heifers - it's like hammering nails with a microscope. Blatant ignorance! Twice I had to deal with the same as myself, "gatherers of knowledge". With one we parted, like best friends, after half an hour of mutually fruitless exercise, and the second left me those very scars. That guy was good, but he didn't know what Black Palm was, and it cost him his place in the sun. In short, I sent him to the forefathers.
One way or another, I have grown very much in the art of magic in the two years that I spent traveling. I think I surpassed my teacher at the moment of separation. I learned a lot of new things, and what I knew before, I perfected and brought them into a kind of system. And then I began to create …
I was in those places that are called parallel worlds. Only skill and training saved me from severe traumas of the psyche, because there is no logic and color, space and time, breathing and consciousness. I have watched the majestic flow of the Ancient Powers upon which the world rests. And here, for example, the ability to watch the rise of Saturn on Titan does not seem like a great achievement, although it took me several months of work, and then a couple of hours of terrible fear to observe it for the first time. But this is really one of the finest paintings in the world.
My trips to Nowhere also had a practical side - I found new spells there that further strengthen my arsenal, and it was constantly enriched, causing, in turn, new streams of secret words, and so on. I was reckless - my first mistake could have been my last mistake, but I was more confident than ever.
There were also annoying episodes that separated me from my research. My sister and I parted a long time ago, and so I received a telegram stating that she was seriously ill. I arrived as quickly as I could and found her in a very serious condition. But this did not surprise me - her energy goals were savagely crushed and torn by some scoundrel familiar with spoilage. It took me about an hour to get it back to normal. Then I carefully questioned her relatives and found out that lately one “terribly unpleasant guy” who had received her resignation had been whipping up after her.
Forty minutes later I walked through the door of this villain's apartment and ran into him nose to nose. Unshaven face, washed-up face, dirty T-shirt … He immediately understood from my eyes who I was and why I had come, and rushed to run. Maybe he wanted to jump down from the third floor, I don't know. I wiggled my fingers, and he fell to the floor with a swing, but immediately, somehow sobbing like an animal, he jumped to his feet and began to whisper incoherently a spell that was supposed to break my cervical arteries. Closing my eyes and raising my clenched fists up, I read the Mirror spell to myself, turned and left. When I left, he was already spitting blood with might and main. I don't think he survived - the scoundrel got what he wanted me.
Perhaps it is worth saying something about the political-hierarchical structure of the Brotherhood. As such, there is no clear system, leadership or any other attribute of any organization. There is a Circle, which includes 17 of the best magicians on the planet, which can contact any of us at any time. The circle has no clear function or obligation. He monitors, for example, the implementation of the Laws, of any violation of which he immediately becomes aware. A wish is immediately expressed to all the magicians who are closest to the apostate to take measures to disintegrate him, that is, to kill and destroy the body. What is being done with success. Impromptu teams are created, usually 5-10 people, and the sentence is carried out. Enlargement, to make it more reliable, and sometimes among the apostates come across quite nimble types, like me.
In especially difficult cases, in order not to lose people in vain, they resort to the help of specialists in the applied aspect, sometimes real luminaries of their field. I had the opportunity to meet with such teams and even once trained in one. There I realized how little I actually know about sapiens - all good masters always have a moment when they suddenly realize that everything they own is very insignificant compared to what nature can create and offer.
The head of the team, the Japanese Hirogushi, a small, calm man, exuded soft kindness and peacefulness, seemed so harmless. But the whole team was dying with laughter as they watched me try to stop him. He softly, in the bud, extinguished any aggressive action. An elastic cloud seemed to spring around him - when you try to attack, it spins and throws you out without causing harm, and the desire to attack immediately disappears. But this style is rather an exception, most vigilantes (as professional performers are called) prefer the fast, brutal style of anticipatory strike.
The circle fulfills another mission - it keeps the planet's eco-balance on itself. The fact is that according to some of the equations of Shogoy that have come down to us, a certain mass of inorganics can contain no more and no less living organisms than it is determined. The growth of the population of people, as well as pollution, cause a blind response from nature to its discharge. So far, this reaction has been suppressed, but the further, the more difficult.
For a long time, in some areas of Africa, it was possible to localize the disease known as AIDS. Now there has been a breakthrough, but not before it - new troubles. There was an outbreak of a disease that we called "oror", like AIDS, only transmitted by airborne droplets and proceeds an order of magnitude faster. It was possible to completely eliminate it, but all the magicians in the world know what it cost. Over the past year, there have been two Avrals, when the Circle requires the combined power of all the magicians of the planet for operations to maintain control. For several minutes, I worked with countless others, feeling the vibrating energy around me calm down.
Now I am over thirty. However, I look twenty years old, and this does not pose any difficulty for me. I can look as much as I want, my body remains strong, agile, the freshness of early youth, eagle's eyesight, all teeth are intact. My body is a model of perfect health; it does not wear out over time. My soul wears out and gets tired. It's not about the functional features of the brain - I remember every day of my life as yesterday. The point here is spiritual and moral fatigue, which oppresses me more and more every day.
The first time I tried to amuse myself with the appropriate spells, but when their effect ended, it became even worse. Alcohol and drugs have no effect on me, so I can't even afford to go into a binge like a normal person. I’ll probably go crazy soon - and this will be something new: I’ve never heard of a crazy magician …
And time did not stand still, and at some stage I felt that my knowledge needed to be systematized. In addition, I became slower, more solid, I began to think for a long time before actions, I began to take risks with reluctance. I have some ideas about the connection between magic and the traditional sciences. Despite the intensive studies, I felt a lack of knowledge and skills in the field of higher algebra. I had to count a lot, and then I found one guy, also a magician. He was not a good magician, but he was a good programmer, and things went better.
We learned from each other. In general, these metal boxes with electronics, which are called computers, have a great future. Often we sat at night at the display, spoiled a lot of paper and time, but things got better. We found some similarities of patterns in the texts, clarified the constants, calculated special tables to facilitate the use of spells.
I was distracted from my studies by the illness of my beloved grandmother, who had already turned ninety. She had been ill before, and with jokes and jokes I averted occasional ailments from her. Now the matter was more serious
- just expired her life on Earth, and I saw how her chains go out - do not flow out, do not break, but simply go out. Here I could not do anything with ordinary words. Beyond the last point, a person's life can be extended artificially only at the expense of another person's life. This is how our world works. Moreover, for each year of the object's life, the donor loses about 8.54 years of his life. More precisely, this constant is 8.5388488832, and this is still the maximum precision with which it was possible to calculate it. In general, it is quite common in spells and equations.
I could not take the risk and expose the death of an unknown person, even for the sake of my grandmother. And if it is a child, if it is a happy mother, if …? Even if this is a simple person, he also has the right to life. All I could was to make her death easy and quick, she died with a happy smile on her lips.
I lost interest in work. This letter is the fruit of a futile attempt to keep oneself busy. I have not revealed anything here that could harm the Brotherhood, which is why, probably, I am still alive. I have to ask you. If this letter doesn’t disappear without a trace, but reaches you, then print it so that people, guys, girls can read it - don’t ruin yourself, don’t do magic, don’t give ads like “answer, magicians are black and white”. Suddenly someone from the Brotherhood will not disdain and will find you, and you will suit him, and he will begin to teach you This … Live yourself quietly, when there is nothing to choose from, the road ahead is so simple and clear - home, family, work, children, as much as 70-80, or even more years of serene existence.
What a simple happiness - it is no longer destined for me. I have forgotten how to love, I have no relatives, friends, a love affair - so why would I then this immortality, which in my life I was awarded by practicing magic?
When this letter reaches you, I still won't read it on your pages anyway, because today, at the right time, if I was not mistaken in my calculations, my voice will take me to the World of the Nameless. If it suddenly comes out, I may be back, but this is unlikely - no one has ever returned from there.
May your Road be clean.
g. "On a free evening" No. 39