Threads of Magic, by Stephen Tigner

Story name: Threads of Magic
Author: Stephen Tigner
Publication date: January 6, 2001 (TSA-Talk)

Date: late 690s (several months)
Location: Yamato, Aelfwood, Midlands, Metamor Keep

Overview

Kishu learns magic while seeking a cure for his transformation, eventually traveling to Metamor Keep.

+ Story info (Spoilers!)

Summary

For a long time, Kishu has been looking for a way to separate himself from Rakurai, his unicorn companion. They visit a wizard he hopes can help, a healer and animal caretaker. Kishu explains the situation to him. Genshi is too busy to go to Yamato, but he sees great magic potential in Kishu and agrees to teach him magic. He first teaches him magesight (which Kishu realizes he has already learned since becoming a centaur) and how to identify the various threads of magic, and how to weave these threads into basic spells.

After several months, Kishu learns everything that Genshi knows. Genshi tells him that he should seek out western magic, and should go to Metamor Keep, where many great mages have gathered.

No one is able to tell him how to travel to Metamor Keep, and Kishu continues west. After travelling several days in the Aelfwood, they are met by a curious centaur. Rakurai is able to speak to him, and from the centaur they get directions to Metamor, and are lead to the fields of the Outer Midlands.

After a long journey, Kishu is met by the awed citizens of Metamor. A mage at the gate cannot pronounce Kishu's name, and suggests calling him Ross, the local translation of Kishu's name. Kishu begrudgingly accepts, and asks to be taken to the library.

Characters

Main Characters:

• Kishu: A samurai from Yamato, who resembles a centaur after a wizard fused him to his unicorn friend Rakurai. He is seeking a cure for himself and other victims in Yamato. He is taught magic by Genshi, and moves to Metamor Keep to continue researching a cure.
  • His name means "horseman".
  • As a "centaur", he is very tall. He is unable to use his samurai training in this form, but he seems to have received a talent for magic in the process — he had spontaneously learned magesight since he became a centaur, yet before he met Genshi.
  • He has learned how to speak the western tongue, yet he occasionally slips into his native tongue. By the time he arrives in Metamor, he has also learned to read the western language.
  • Most people have treated Kishu as a freak — both for his appearance, and his talking to himself (to Rakurai).
  • Rakurai agrees that Kishu was pure of heart prior to meeting him.

Supporting Characters:

• Rakurai: A unicorn who has been fused with Kishu, but can still speak telepathically to him.
  • He is able to see Kishu's magic sight.
  • He is able to read people's surface thoughts and emotions.
• Genshi: A wizard, known as a healer and caretaker of the local plants and animals. He teaches Kishu how to use and weave magic, and directs him to study more magic at Metamor.
  • He is of middling height.

Minor Characters:

• A centaur from the Aelfwood. He meets Kishu and learns his story of how he became a half-unicorn centaur. In return, he gives Kishu directions to Metamor Keep, and leads him to the edge of the Aelfwood.
• A mage at Metamor Keep. He mangles Kishu's name, and suggests "Ross" as an assumed name.

Cameo:

• A stealthy figure who watched Kishu and identified him as a half-unicorn, made by magic. They informed the centaur who came to interact with Kishu.
• A sentry in a lookout post along the main road near Metamor.
• The sentry's commanding officer in the lookout post, who decides to treat the centaur like any other visitor, asking their business.
• A soldier at Metamor's gate, who escorts Kishu, now "Ross", through Metamor.

Referenced:

• The wizard who changed Kishu and several Yamato villagers.

Locations

• Genshi's cottage is in the middle of a clearing of tall grass by a small brook. It is small, with flowers growing in the ground and in pots around it.
• The Aelfwood has at least one centaur living in it,

Society

• Centaurs had mostly been known in the Midlands in stories as hotheaded, cruel, bloodthirsty monsters.
• Merchants and travelers in the Midlands give contradictory advice on traveling to Metamor (see Rider and Rurouni Ryuo for similar depiction, suggesting it is business competition and distrust).
• Mage sight is an early skill taught to magic novices. It helps some to close their eyes and focus on the unseen. Teachers can assist their students with a mental nudge.
  • Genshi and Kishu visualize magic as a set of elemental threads, each element having a certain color attached to it:
    • Red is fire.
    • Blue is water.
    • Green is ice.
    • Black is earth.
    • White is air.
    • Brown is "tech".
    • Purple is life. This is the only element that can hold other elemental threads together.
  • All magic spells require either a thread of life magic, or to consist entirely of only one element.

Chronology / Story Connections

• This story takes place after A 'taur's Tail, and before the Battle of Three Gates.
  • Kishu spends months at Genshi's house learning magic.
  • He then spends an unknown length of time traveling to Metamor Keep, including several days in the Aelfwood.
• The magic system taught by Genshi is the same that Rois teaches her pupils in Triplets.

Behind the Scenes

• On this wiki, Stephen Tigner has expressed a change he wishes to make in a revised version of this story: Kishu no longer receives the name "Ross" at the gates. Instead, Kishu goes by his name until after the gendermorph curse, when she names herself "Roisu", shortened to "Rois" when spoken casually.