Chapter Text
There are things that 'everyone knows' about magic... truisms and proverbs that any child can repeat:
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'A little magic is a great cost.'
It is fact that most people can do some small magics, but the cost is often not worth it. What benefit is it that a boy can fill a bucket with water if he then cannot work for a day- or two- when he could draw water from a well and then go care for the sheep? For most people, their ability to control the aether around them was miniscule, at best, and those that could? Well, they may only manage small things and either die of intense aether-sickness in the worst cases, or are most commonly left exhausted... Only in a handful of tales are small magics considered 'worthwhile' and often? Those are the tales where a hero died to free his people by opening a blocked door, or producing water enough to live until the rains came...
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'A sharp blade is no use unless you know how to use the sword!'
Many people don't even know that is a truism about magic as well as simple blade craft, but there are enough people in the world that can do small magics- or perhaps one small magic- that IS useful. With training and practice, a small number of people can fill water in a bucket without exhausting themselves utterly, or can make a blade impossibly strong and sharp when it hits in battle, without falling from exhaustion on the field. Noted warrior tribes, great heroic lines, and noble houses of mystic descent all tended to marry among those with such gifts- trying to keep the talent in the line.
A peasant boy who shows such talent, and lives through a battle or two? He will be swept up into the great heroes, rewarded, and often married to the daughter of a great house... There are tales- tragedies- of young men and women who died trying to earn their way out of the muck and poverty by magic.
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'A wizard is for the King's house,' is well known, but the correlate 'A wizard can cost your kingdom,' is often known only to Kings and those who deal with them.
Wizards- or mages, depending on the region that you visit- those that can cast magics that would wither a small talent to dust? They serve great houses, and are sent to war only rarely- and their feats create great tales of fire from the sky, or lightning striking the enemy general...
But...
Every king or ruler who knows their history knows of a kingdom that fell when a court mage reached beyond their strength and died, or when the wizard passed away without training a replacement- or one who lived in any case- and all the other kingdoms fell on that place like wolves on a sheepfold.
Of course, sometimes wizards- for reasons they would not, or could not, explain? simply refused to heed the King's word, and what was the King to do then?
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'There are never two wizards in one Kingdom.'
This truism is... partly true. Two lesser mages may dwell in a kingdom- it is rare, but it has happened. Usually it is that their talents and interests are so different that they simply do not bother each other. A wizard living in the great hall, doing magics 'for the kingdom' and alchemy and war? What has he to do with a mage living in the forest whose entire interest is in herbs and the magics of the woods?
But...
Two great mages? The ones spoken of in hushed tones and told in legends for millennia? Those two- if two breathe the air at the same time- cannot live in the same place. Too often the battles or even an argument between them would lay waste to the countryside, and tales are told of places where nothing grows, or the lake is poison, and it is said that is where two mages once stood.
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Then there are the truths that very few people know or speak. These are the words spoken by wise women, seers, wizards and scholars alone:
'Magic has its own place and time.' Often shortened to, 'Magic has its own will.'
In every era, aether will swell and fade in different places. A great line of the gifted who have dwelt in one place for generations may suddenly find their magics weakened... as there is not enough to sustain them all. Then they must move, scatter to the far winds, or be destroyed by their enemies.
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And then the last truth: one whispered in dread by King's mages...
'In every age, the Great Magi are born, and if you are very lucky they die before they come into their power.'
The Great Magi are those whose magics do not wither them, do not age them- not even a little! Their magics actually give them vitality! And thus no mere mage can ever hope to stand against them. If one claims a city? Then all the lesser mages dwell there at their sufferance and at their sufferance alone.
It is said that often, when a King's mage refused to do something? that a Great Wizard had forbidden it...
Luckily- very luckily- there have never been two Great Magi in one place...
Or if there were? Perhaps no one lived to speak of it, even in tales.
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The two mages met upon the cliffs that overlooked the dark, grey sea. Crashing, white-capped waves broke upon the rocks below, the land barren and empty. The aether that permeated the air and ground was far too thin to allow either to perform any great feats without drawing upon their own life sources; one of the only places that they could agree to meet without the threat of an attack from the other.
"So we are agreed? The challenge will determine which one of us leaves the city." The wind tossed the dark curls of the taller mage into his face, though his steely expression gave no hint at it bothering him.
"Agreed," the second mage smiled, sharp-toothed and sly, holding his hand out for the agreement. The contract was binding, a handshake sealed with magics that would poison the other slowly should they break their end of the bargain; a curse more than anything else.
The first mage took his hand, the magics leaving a mark upon them both.
And with that, the two Great Magi, equal in power, sealed the bargain.