The Circle of Magic (Spoilers all books incl City of Dragons)

[Farseer]

Will we see a true RotE 'mage' emerge , if we haven't already?

Nothing too significant to add except this other, small reference to a mage, with regard to just the Skill this time, from the very beginning of Chapter Three, 'The Quest' in AQ:

...It can lure the practitioner into an addiction to Skilling, one which eventually saps all mental and physical strength, to leave the mage a great, drooling babe.

Given this and my previous references to a 'mage' in this thread, it seems apparent that we already DO have mages within the RotE, despite the term not being overly common/used throughout the realm eg Neither Fitz or Verity etc consider themselves 'mages' as far as I can determine?

While this suggests that all who have a Skill ability are mages, a mage could obviously be the term given to anyone who has an ability in any of the 'greater' magics?

['thul]

The reference to "mage" is probably one that wasn't filtered out during editing, but it referred to the most well-known of the higher magics, the skill... The description is very familiar to the act of drowning uncontrolled in memories...

[Farseer]

It sounds like it could be something worth looking deeper into. There is the reference I made in the Mythical Creatures thread regarding "dangerous sorcerers spell-locked in caves of gems" - does the cave simply have gems in it or is it the gems themselves that form a part of the spell? All very interesting!

I came back here to this thread for an altogether other reason but just had a bit of a lightbulb moment after reading this ^ old post of mine...

From the foreshadowing from the text (I think it was from a chapter-beginning passage written by Fitz), I have long thought that we will one day soon discover these “dangerous sorcerers spell-locked in caves of gems” within the RotE and their link to the end of the Elderlings and dragons. Suddenly though, I find that my whole definition of “sorcerer” has been turned on its head!

In Chapter One of City of Dragons, where we discover that the Duke of Chalced’s throne is situated in the centre of a circle of five black stones, it says: “It was said that beneath each stone there was a square pit into which the sorcerous enemies of ancient Chalced had been confined to die.”

Of course, we know those five “black standing stones” with “their evil magic vanquished” and “the ancient runes on them obscured and defaced” to actually be Skill Pillars and those “sorcerous enemies” of Chalced to be the Skilled Ones and/or Elderlings of old.

This use of the word “sorcerous” can then shed light on the identity of the “dangerous sorcerers spell-locked in caves of gems” as written of by Fitz. They must be Elderlings and/or Skilled Ones...surely?

As to the gems, it fits any or all of the jewel-face description of Sa, the scaling of an Elderling/dragon or the wondrous gems eg flame gems that the Elderlings of old possessed...and likely more besides. “Caves of gems” would even fit a warren-like location as simple as Trehaug, with its Elderling memories and treasures, if not a specific cave used to trap and hold Elderlings.

The main point I wanted to make though…these sorcerers I’ve been waiting for, I may well have known about for many, many books!

On a tangent but just a further thought on those five Skill Pillars that have been toppled and are thus now laying flat, “flush to the grey flagged floor” and facing "the five corners of the known world"…it puts a chilling spin and truth to the warning Fitz gave to Fool or his other fears about going through a Skill Pillar and being caught under/in the ground. You know more than you think you do, dear Fitzy!

Will be back soon re why I came here in the first place...

['thul]

If a destination pillar is buried, its departure points won't work.

[Farseer]

Yes, indeedy...or so Fitz tells us/seems to believe. This was why he was so concerned when Fool was retelling the story of how he came to be on Aslevjal in FF...how Fool had run to the Witness Stones and then ended up at the memory stone quarry with Girl-on-a-Dragon who then flew him on her back over to the Out Islands. Fitz was aghast when he'd heard that Fool had gone through the Skill Pillars of the Witness Stones as Fool could just as easily have gone through a Pillar into the earth and this would have meant he could not return. I recall that Fool had smiled at Fitz because his concern was entirely out of order given that Fool had obviously survived the ordeal and was sitting with Fitz retelling the story!

There was at least one other time that I know of when Fitz relayed concern about ending up beneath the ground when using a Skill Pillar, and I have a feeling that it was when he and Dutiful had used them a couple of times in quick succession to Others Island etc. In his desire to escape both the Piebalds and the Others, he worried that he may choose a wrong rune face and thus end up chosing a destination under the ground.

I often wondered how Fitz had come to this conclusion and why he was concerned about such a scenario, especially given that no Skill Pillar he'd ever seen before had suggested the danger of this happening to be real, but here we have such Skill Pillars in Chalced. Given the quote I posted previously, the Elderlings, as enemies of ancient Chalced, had certainly died or been trapped or "confined" in such a fashion....just as Fitz had feared that Skilled Ones could be trapped with no way of returning.

Interesting that it is written that it was Skillmaster Treeknee who had ordered the defacing of the runes of the Witness Stones etc to prevent unexperienced Skill users from using the Pillars. The quote above, from CoD, suggests that it may have been the Chalcedians who'd done the defacing. Hmm...

Heading over to another old thread to confirm a previous thought...

['thul]

you're mixing things together, Farseer...

Those were two separate events in separate locations...
Chalcedans hated the skill as a whole, Treeknee wished to disable the pillars from easy use to protect weak skill users.

Because the pillars are complex, designed things, there will be safety measures to prevent ending up underground. If you recall the elderling hold on aslevjal, in particular the map of skill stones, you'll recall that many were dull due to not functioning. either from being buried, broken or otherwise. proof of safety features.

[Farseer]

you're mixing things together, Farseer...

Those were two separate events in separate locations...
Chalcedans hated the skill as a whole, Treeknee wished to disable the pillars from easy use to protect weak skill users.

With you 'thul beings in the mix, I should remember to only ever put down one point per post and never tack on another thought to the end ...I always seem to do the tacking on and you beings always seem to only go with the tacked-on bit! The bit about Treeknee was simply an afterthought...a little wondering if possibly Skillmaster Treeknee was not actually all he was thought to be or all he appears to be....a little "Hmm?" that both peoples beheld defaced Pillars. A link between the two events/supposed reasons or just a coincidence? A little opening for discussion...

It's highly likely that they are two separate events, yes, which occur at two totally different times... especially depending on how far back the "sorcerers" in Chalced were confined...

...but does not even the sniff of a possible conspiracy jump out at you? If Galen could do as he did as Skillmaster, if Kettle could do as she did as a part of a Coterie...well, could not Skillmaster Treeknee have been capable of assisting with a Chalcedian plot to subvert other Skilled Ones? I think it unlikely, yes, especially if the Pillars in Chalced were defaced long, long ago during the time of true Elderlings, but possible? Maybe he was not simply wishing to disable the Skill Pillars to protect weak Skill users. Maybe, just maybe, he was up to something more sinister. Or maybe not...

As for safety measures, certainly there may have been some, but what if one does not know of those safety measures (in the case of Fitz) or one is not able to see that there is something wrong? eg the map tower in Aslevjal *did* indicate which Pillars were supposedly functioning and which ones weren't, but there is not a map tower or even a map available at every Pillar point. Who is to say that something hasn't happened to a Skill Pillar just prior to, or during, someone going through it?

I was going to throw some more theories into the mix but you beings will want to choke me...!

It's 3:17am...I have to sleep!

['thul]

Galen, though genetically not proven as so, was more chalcedan than six duchies. Of course he would view the skill as at most a necessary evil.

There's no evidence of any earlier skillmasters opposing the skill. Where you see conspiracy, 'thul see the need to protect the careless.

As for accidents to a pillar just prior to stepping through = not work.
as for while someone is in transit = lost in current, possibly permanently, possibly until fished out. Alternatively tossed out in random functional spot.

Chocking is such a bothersome measure. I might see if you taste better than you theorize though, little human.

[Farseer]

Galen, though genetically not proven as so, was more chalcedan than six duchies. Of course he would view the skill as at most a necessary evil.

[quote=''thul' pid='11191' dateline='1335031855']
There's no evidence of any earlier skillmasters opposing the skill. Where you see conspiracy, 'thul see the need to protect the careless.

True but Treeknee was a Wit-hater, from memory, and that's enough for me not to like him, Skillmaster or no...and to want to look for conspiracies concerning him where they may not be...

As for accidents to a pillar just prior to stepping through = not work.

How then do you suggest that the Chalcedeans confined the sorcerers if the Skill Pillars stopped operating once they were downed? I'd have expected that the Chalcedeans would have defaced the runes, placed the Pillars on the ground so that the rune which would afford the Elderling/Skilled One an escape would be facing downward and thus inaccessible as a departure point, and in the meantime they would be trapped within the square pit beneath the Pillar? To add strength to the dungeon-like pit, they'd have created the florring around it so there was no way to 'dig' out. Not that I've overly thought about it all, mind you. My main thought in all of this was simply that the so-called sorcerers were, in fact, Elderlings or Skilled Ones.

Of course, rather than being confined in the pits to die, the Elderlings/Skilled Ones could simply have chosen to lose themselves within and permanently become part of the Skill stream. A far better fate than starving to death!

Chocking is such a bothersome measure. I might see if you taste better than you theorize though, little human.

Little human, pah! I am a *Farseer* and your dragon glamour or threats do nothing for me!

EDIT: Argh! About a thousand edits later...what are you DOING, Farseer?!

['thul]

Quite simple. Defaced glyph up, left or right. Pit down. result = pit trap.

That tree-knee hated the wit indicates that he was after the time of the piebald prince. or perhaps even during that time. Because the six duchies folk did not understand, or at least forgot, the link between the different magics, they were treated differently. the wit, was by many seen as bestial, the skill "high", hedge magics and such as strange/occult.

if you want one of those crazy theories, then imagine that the skillmasters knew perfectly well what the wit was and did not dislike it for being bestial but for being used on the wrong targets. If a magic is designed for dragon communications, would you not find it abuse if it was used to talk to a mere dog/horse/cat/etc?