Post-Halloween

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow is working. Very seriously. She is not mooning over her new relationship with Gideon even a little bit; she has too much work to do.

She is, however, wearing a skull with accents of deep, almost black purple, with a starburst or floral pattern just below her temple, that she has never been seen to wear before.

Other than that sentimental embellishment, however, she is entirely focused on Obaeg's Toward a Common Haemographology. She is making copious notes in the margins--courting future simian fury--and thinking that she should have found this for Moiraine before they started working on her weave notation.

Comments

[riddleofthebelow]

"I'm not to conclusions quite yet, but I've made note of a few things that stick out at me. I'd like to go through more thoroughly one more time before I present anything."

[we_bring_hell]

"By all means," she says. "Is there anything I can clarify or answer about the context of the theorems?"

[riddleofthebelow]

"Right now, I'm still in an analytical stage, gathering data from my world to match to the magics of yours. It's been some time since I've researched the necromantic aspects of the Wizarding world."

[we_bring_hell]

She nods. "It is a wide subject--at least, as we reckon it. I gather that what we call necromancy may include arts beyond what your world gives that name?"

[riddleofthebelow]

"There's much overlap with transfiguration and charm work. Changing matter into something else, charming it to do as you wish. The necromancy - the death aspect - itself seems very narrow in scope. I assume that's because on a living world, it would have to be a smaller part of a larger whole."

[we_bring_hell]

"I suppose so," she says. "What unites all necromancy is the source of power--transforming life energy into death energy, or death energy back into a sort of pseudo-life force, or sensing the ebb and flow of these energies."

"I suppose we have learned to use these reactions to drive all sorts of craft that could also be done using thalergenic magic. I know there are things we cannot do, like true healing; and things that are very difficult to do that thalergenic magicians seem to do much more easily."

[riddleofthebelow]

"It's interesting you mention healing. The Dark Arts, which I excelled in once, limits one's effectiveness of healing. Not that I wish to correlate the Dark Arts with necromancy. But I wonder if there is a connection to the ways in which the energies flow."

[we_bring_hell]

"Perhaps," she says. "The key is, well, it is the energy of death. I can use thanergy to repair a bone quite easily; even to scrub out an abused artery or kill a tumor. A flesh magician could do more. But it will always bring the patient closer to death in the holistic sense; it limits how much one can do."

[riddleofthebelow]

"Can you use thanergy to kill? To destroy life?"

[we_bring_hell]

"Oh certainly," she says calmly. "It's much, much easier to use it to kill than to do just about anything else."

[riddleofthebelow]

"One can use the Dark Arts to kill," he says, and, then, after a pause, he adds, "I have used the Dark Arts to kill."

[we_bring_hell]

"I have not killed," she says, almost apologetically. "The Ninth is rather quiet, for the most part."

All the murders happened before she was born.

[riddleofthebelow]

"It's nothing to aspire to, I promise you. It's not something I will hide, but I'm not proud of being a murderer, either. I do wonder though how energy used to power the Killing Curse would compare and contrast with your thanargy."

Not that there would be a way to test it, of course. But he does wonder.

[we_bring_hell]

"I'm not sure," she says. "Wei Wuxian and I have discussed the possibility of resentful energy being an emotional energy used to jacket and control thanergy, to allow spirits to wield it and to move it around. It seems possible that there are commonalities with other forms of magic as well."

"Then again, a sword can certainly kill without using thanergy."

[riddleofthebelow]

"Yes, but in such a... graceless, physical way. Magic is much more elegant."

He realizes this would sound horrifying to most people. Harrow isn't most people, but he still waits to gauge her reaction.

[we_bring_hell]

"I would agree," she says thoughtfully. "But there is a sermon on Necromancers and Cavaliers that has some interesting philosophical arguments about blade and magic balancing one another spiritually and practically."

[riddleofthebelow]

"I can certainly understand that, especially in a world in which the dyad of sword and sorcerer is a cultural norm."

[we_bring_hell]

"It also repudiates the possibility of a romantic tie between cavalier and adept, which I of course do not agree with," she says with a shrug. "But nevertheless I found some insights in it."

[riddleofthebelow]

"Well, that's a sermon for you," says Tom, who hasn't sat through one since he ditched Muggle London for Hogwarts or minions' estates as a teen.

"One or two insights amongst the judgmental dreck."

[we_bring_hell]

The Reverend Daughter of Drearburh smiles oddly.

"I tried to average at least four."

[riddleofthebelow]

"No offense meant, Harrow," Tom says, frowning slightly. "I have strong feelings towards the hypocritical religion forced upon me as a child."

[we_bring_hell]

"None taken," she says. "The priests of the Eighth House are vile like that."

[riddleofthebelow]

"The Eighth House drains their cavaliers like batteries and yet preach their righteous ways? Sounds about right."

[we_bring_hell]

"Precisely. They are the Keepers of the Tome, and entitled to mete out Church justice. I do not deny that perhaps someone should play that role, but in practice, it seems that nothing is illegal if the Eighth House decides it should be done."

[riddleofthebelow]

"Sounds ghastly. When I have time to work more on your puzzle, I'll keep that in mind."

The Eighth House has risen in suspicion in his mind.