Once we said our goodbyes and he’d left, I brooded. In front of the fireplace, slowly sipping on ale. No need to drink it all at once, now. And lost in thought. Perplexed and, if I’m being honest, a little bumd out.
Other than Etienne, I couldn’t talk to anyone about what we’d discovered in the runes on my back. Non-mages couldn’t understand, mages would attack . And Etienne couldn’t talk about it.
So, why’d he discuss the rune with ? The only reason to do that, that I could think of, was to test my knowledge. Certainly not to show off his own, since doing so would apparently end his life. And I fell for it. Maybe I should just co clean to him.
Would that help? Probably not. It wouldn’t allow him to explain magic to . But that thought made wonder, can a geas be broken? Sothing I had to look into, if ever I got the chance, got near their libraries.
Despite understanding the representation, looking at the inscription on my back didn’t really help, as I didn’t have anything to compare it with. It was like soone handed the Rosetta Stone and said, ‘Here, work out these languages.’
Yes, I could say, those are definitely languages. Probably human ones. Without knowing one of them, so reference point, all of them were untranslatable.
I sort of understood the barest minimum of the concepts. The fact that I’d seen hypercubes and knew what they looked like. Not what they do, though. Or how that translates to magic.
So, this line of reasoning was effectively a dead end for , until I had access to sothing like a dictionary of magic. It did make wonder, though, as it seed to that the math might explain why I didn’t have mories. Because if the rune wasn’t a fourth dinsional polygon, but a fifth dinsional one, it might reduce in size as it got bigger. That’s one of the crazy features of fifth dinsional math.
Stolen novel; please report.
Unless I never had mories from the beginning. I shuddered. That was a distressing idea.
Everyone knows 2D math. Two tis six equals twelve. Whatever you multiply, the end result is bigger. And the sa is true for 3D math, which is volu. Two tis six tis ten. Bigger number. 4D math is nonintuitive, though, and seems to give objects more than one spatial location, at least in 3D representations. When you add that extra dinsion for 5D math, through multiplication, the end result can be smaller. Instead of two tis six equaling twelve, you’re getting two tis six tis ten tis ten tis ten and getting four. No, it doesn’t make sense and no, humans don’t do this kind of math in their heads. Unless they’re smarter than . Or supercomputers. Or gods.
So, that sorta proved I wasn’t one.
Regardless, that math seed to like my mories. Assuming I had a life before this one, and I really, just really thought I did, most of it was lost to now – smaller. Was that a coincidence or a product? Maybe I was brought here by such math. Such awful magic.
And if ti was one of those five dinsions, then ti could actually go backwards. That’d break causality, though. Or, the annoying voice in my head calmly said to , it wouldn’t. Not If the information – , my mind – ca from another universe. Causality couldn’t be broken if there was no returning. That could an Bechalle called here to my new present, with a future and everything as long as I could stay alive, but to a mont in his past.
If only I’d t him earlier and killed him! Then I wouldn’t be here. Ok, alright, maybe it would break causality. Unless the special parts of the equation put too far away to interact with him, then it wouldn’t. But, magic – it violates other physics, why not ti, too?
Screw it. I stood up, going in search of whiskey. This was just too damn complicated.
And I guess it didn’t matter. No amount of turning it over and over in my mind would give real answers. I needed a dictionary. And the only way to get a dictionary would be to train as a mage. Or, in my case, as a ruler forbidden such things, overpower every other mage on the planet and take their goddamn dictionaries by force.
That was likely impossible. But, as Sisyphus surely said, it was nice to have goals.
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