Magic Does Real

Magic is real. I don’t get a ton of information from my higher-ups at Redoubt about how it works, so my context is super-patchy for the whole thing. My mentor, Soror Smirk, enchanted me enough for me to do my new job, and gives me just enough information to make that possible.

Magic’s not too much like what you’ll find in the New Age bookstores. For all I know, this may well exist, too, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It also isn’t much like a fantasy movie. There don’t seem to be any cool werewolves or vampires. I haven’t gotten to see anyone shoot fireballs (besides the liquor).

But magic is somehow real, even if I don’t understand it.

I’ve been told by Smirk, my personal liaison, trainer, and manager, that magic goes all the way back to pre-human ancestors, actually. That is, frankly, badass. I guess someone has even done experiments and found that a few complex primates can connect with magical forces in a rudimentary way. Maybe any being with a little bit of a mind can tap into it, given enough effort?

In a lot of fantasy novels, you get this thing where only certain people can learn magic, like it’s inherited, or you have to be born with the capacity. I guess you’d have to be the most special snowflake in that case, or you couldn’t cast even a mediocre spell.

Redoubt (well, my trainer, Smirk) has informed me that this isn’t true. I guess magic isn’t something you can be born with? That’s a damned good thing, too. I know there’s no magic in my family, just a lot of assholes.

Redoubt itself exists to control magic, to keep it from the hands of the power-hungry and the masses. I guess. Something like that. They're obtuse? I think that's a good word for it.

The particular explanation I got was during training, during the pandemic, and was very vague. They said something about how dangerous it would’ve been if someone like the Zodiac Killer, Hitler or L. Ron Hubbard had gotten access to magical clout. They kept saying that magic is dangerous, not only in the wrong hands, but when it becomes too ubiquitous.

They said that they were always training people like me to stop that from happening. I don’t exactly trust Redoubt, but damn, I’m curious enough to throw away my cares. The pay isn’t bad, either, and I do want to learn magic.

Magic, you see, flows in currents. I don’t understand how this works, but people create these currents by tapping into the unseen dimensions of reality and making contact with spirits and other arcane powers.

These forces grant them abilities, and that forges the current in our physical dimension, passing into the person. The person can then pass that ability on to other people through weird initiations, some big, some small. Yes, Redoubt did something like this to me. It wasn’t difficult or scary, just strange, and it felt usual in my head, to say the least.

The thing is, most of these currents have been flowing through human society in secret for centuries, if not longer. At very least, most are decades old. I talked to a guy from Chicago very briefly. He said something about currents in South America and Italy that go back over a thousand years. That might be true, or he might’ve been making it up. I was really zooted at the time but I think it was legit.

Redoubt doesn’t seem to like new currents being forged nowadays. I’m not quite sure why, but I can only assume it’s because they just find them hard to control. There are still people who have no magic, know about it, and want it, though.

These people seek out contact with the unseen on their own, hoping to create their own current. If they succeed, we call them sorcerers. In contrast with mages, who joined an established current, I guess. Supposedly, some of my job here will involves “monitoring” the area for “sorcerous activities.” I’ll be making sure there’s no evidence of anyone trying to start their own currents here in my own town, I guess.

Before I ran into these people, I’d never even considered the possibility magic could be real, yet I was able to pick up most skills necessary to do my job within a matter of months. I guess they’re right when they say any job can be taught, even being some kind of weird occult informant.

The magic I use is powered by celestial phenomena. It involves working with planets, but mostly with stars. I’m not sure why they chose to give me celestial (star-based, actually) occult powers. I got the impression there were others they could’ve offered, and other people seem to have different ones. Smirk doesn’t tell me very much, in case you didn’t guess.

I, though, got my abilities, apparently, from the star Sirius. Yes, I’ve researched Sirius a bunch but it didn’t tell me a lot, and Smirk isn’t telling me more than I really need to know, either. They did this last December. I don’t know how this worked in theory, and I dunno if I should explain the ritual in practice. Yes, there are rituals - they’re just weird in a boring way.

(Example: I once spent days learning to knit a scarf for one single spell to obfuscate my activities from my housemate, Dwayne.)

Sounds fun and quirky, huh? Couldn’t possibly be legit, tho? I was surprised, but everything I’ve been taught by Smirk seems to work, and better than I could ever imagine. In terrifying and disturbing ways, at times, but I’ve grown accustomed to it after a while. Every job has downsides, especially if it’s… like this.

He said that it doesn’t matter if someone else knows about the spells and rituals themselves. Only an actual, enchanted mage can perform them, and only within our current. Still, I’m not sure what they’d do if I explain too much. They made it very clear that they could probably ensure “nobody would ever believe me” anyways, so it hardly matters.