"What?" Merrin startled. Her discourse—those words named him a liar. "I never had any such intention. Your need had been accepted, and the intention for it was always there."
"Then why in the mist have you angered the excubitors!" Her voice pressed with fury. And Merrin felt cold to it.
"I don't know." He said, "It was a choice. That, or the death of my witnesses."
"Witnesses?" she sneered, "So you claim godhead to the ignorant. You call yourself savior when you are only a caster? You lie, you anger the Guardsmen, and you risk my freedom!" Her voice deepened in rage, but her face, now that was an image of calm normalcy. "I hate such stupidity."
Yes, I am stupid. "But think of what I have created."
She turned to him.
"I have made power. The mines are my power. With them, I can force the clan to obey."
Catelyn laughed—a brief expression. "What happened to showing exceptionalism?"
"That also exists, but…" he paused for a moment. "What if the clan refuses? There are many powerful casters—many potential ones. What amount of exceptionalism can I gain in mere days to rival the countless others? No. The plan had no way of happening. It was a failed thing. Even if I were to become sacred."
She gasped, but Merrin dismissed the curiosity.
"Even if I became sacred, the question is, is my worth greater than the entire mine?"
She frowned. "What does this have to do with the entire mine?"
"I plan to save them all."
"Ah!" Her eyes widened. "I knew it. A stupid Martyr."
"Yes." Merrin said, "But it's still my decision. This is what I want. And even if it wasn't, my witnesses are a must. They must be freed. Now, would the clan allow for that? Think of the problem they would see this as? For darkCrowns to gain such a win over the brightCrowns, that would mean anyone could do it. They would not allow. They would want to suppress it by any means."
"A despondent outlook," she said.
"Maybe." Merrin said, "But anyone would do that, as no other alternative would present itself. To counter that, I need the spear and shield. A weapon to force my silence. They would see the mines, the possibility of revolution, and would grant my want."
"But they will never allow for the entire mines. They would destroy most to quell the other."
Merrin went silent, and Catelyn sneered at this. "What a fool. You lie to yourself. You know you can't save them all, so you counterplan to use most to save the few. Your witnesses."
Merrin remained silent.
Catelyn turned her gaze to the distance and said, "I don't care, regardless. What I want is my freedom. If you can guarantee that, then I have no qualms with the nonsense you decide to revel in."
"And you shall have it." Merrin said, "As long as you teach me."
She looked at him. "That was the bargain, was it not?"
Merrin now basked in her silence —her scent, and found his chaos settling into serenity. How was she able to do that? For a moment, he wondered whether she, too, was a caster.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Catelyn crossed her arms and said, "Symbols are fundamentally a chaos to understanding. Knowing them is a thing that changes with the stimuli of moments, scenes, and events. A symbol can be this now, and be another sometime else. Some might see this and grasp the larger everything as deeply unknowable and void to probing attempts. It is not. At least in some manner. Certain laws are known to govern symbols—for one, events create their symbols as symbols create their events. It is a sort of relationship that requires both consent to function. Though some would say event-made symbols are a fusion of corresponding or similar symbols. This theory creates the division of symbols into three levels. lowerMind, middleMind, and higherMind.
"This division creates the concept of power difference within symbols and states upon itself that more intricate symbols are formed, thus from the combination of lower—less complex ones. The lowerMind symbols are seen as the easiest. The most common. The most castable. They are known as the first face of reality—the hands, the mouth. The simple things. If a man were to run, his running is the most understood in its complexity, and so is the lowerMind symbol, as even idiots could understand it. The lowerMind is flexible—movable and the most perceivable by the eyes of latent casters." She peered at him. "Do you understand?"
"Yes."
She continued. "The lowerMind are the first symbols casted by vested casters—though as Acolyte they might, at a great peril, cast a higher one. They normally die or lose their minds. This is not their fault, but more something born of ignorance and force sight. "
Merrin recalled the words of the sister, leaned forward, and saw the expressive recognition from Catelyn, which told him that she fancied his attention. She heaved a breath and said, "The lowerMind possesses on itself lesser mind-numbing knowledge—even normal beings could peer at them and not suffer the most grievous consequences. However, to understand what symbol is a lowerMind is often a tricky thing for one of immense force. Force, in its nature, is a buffering power. It holds back the complexity of symbolic knowledge by enhancing the mind—granting it means through mentation to know and understand the symbol.
"As such, the higher ones force, the greater the amount of the gentling effect. Cognitation grows stronger—more devise, and at a high enough rank, the mind becomes able to grasp the most complex and maddening knowledge ever conceived and don by the symbols. Force is the mind, and the mind is what dominates the symbols. Some casters, by luck, snap into immense force—a gift in some regards, but a threat in many others. This amount breeds recklessness, and they see themselves as invisible and able to achieve all things. Many times, they lose awareness of the amount of force held within, leading to an outcome of true force depletion. In such moments, they become weak—mind fogged, and subject to death through the simplest means. More so, if at the point of casting, the symbolic knowledge would no longer be buffered, and such would come upon them with such immensity that their mind would break under its weight.
Because of this, many casters often go mad."
Merrin shuddered and felt again great terror for this phenomenon which he drew familiarity from. What terrible consequence would he have faced if not for Yoid…the strange fellow.
Catelyn continued. "For that, casters are to learn control over their force—a simple thing by definition that many find hard in actualization. Simply, one is to understand force as a will—ones will. Would one require to exert oneself to get a child to listen? No. A small amount of force can cause that. That is the same with symbols. See your will as an extension of self-energy, and know not all things require a burst of it. Just enough can achieve that, too. Just enough to bend it. Just enough to control it. Because of this, high-level casters are masters of low expenditure. This is the first thing learned by acolyte—potential casters." She craned her neck, an action Merrin attributed to pain from looking down on him.
"middleMind symbols, on the other hand, are far complex than the lowerMind. Normal minds can still draw some understanding, but those potentialities are a rarity. And they are often seen as geniuses. In the normal pattern of training for clan casters, one would need to be at least a devoted caster before knowledge of middleMind symbols is given to them. After all, the knowledge of symbols makes first-time casting easier. middleMind symbols are far dangerous—their knowledge is more complex to grasp, and casting them is more difficult as they tend to resist force strongly. Now, for the higherMind symbol, that one is far more difficult to explain, as my attempts are more guesswork. So keep that off your mind."
Merrin obeyed.
"Any questions?"
Merrin nodded. "I want to know more about the orders, and how one would know a middleMind symbol?"
"The simple things to know are that there are 11 orders, each owned by a clan, and the rest, the church. The orders are so to create a pattern for similar symbols that a caster can cast. This is because it's known that certain symbols are so repulsed by certain casters that normal amounts of force grow ineffective against them. This is not a testament to the symbol's might, instead, it's a repulsion and resistance to bend. The reason for this is unknown, but the creation of the order is a useful tool for pattern.
The order dictates what symbols a caster can likely and easily cast. A path of sorts with less resistance than others. It also acts as a buffer against discord—a fancy term for madness. Madness as an outcome stemming from symbolic knowledge, purposefully intense due to the repulsion. Because of this, all casters are required to be one of the 11 orders."