Within the pages of the Necronomicon Enchanter book in Lita’s library, the curious may learn the Enchanters’ magical matters. Beware, for the knowledge might drive the reader mad with bitter desire and luscious regret. Today’s chapter covers the Enchanters’ sacrifice in exchange for being the most powerful magicians in Sye.

Previously:

• Evolution of Sole-Source Magic
• Magical Discipline
• Essence Kiss
• Five Schools
• Uslar Rings
• Church Magicians

Powerful Gains

The Enchanters had started as a small enclave of experimenters that distilled weak magical essence from plants and rainwater. They evolved into powerful mages that could see the future and cross Sye in five steps. They gained helpers along the way. The Merchant Guild formalized distribution networks for the Enchanters’ essence charms, and this reduced the attacks from the essence mad.

The Magic Guild became the business arm and handled many routine magical and mundane tasks. The Enchanters were then free to focus on essence-producing spells.

Establishing the five schools also brought powerful gains to the Enchanters. Each school specialized in two aspects of the Enchanter Discipline. The schools allowed them to train future Enchanters, plus educate secular magicians in general magic craft. By using the spells connecting the local Magic Guild to the sentient school, the Enchanters no longer gave essence directly to strangers.

Personal Enchantments

Because of the overwhelming allure caused by essence kisses, the Enchanters became selective in the magicians they picked for their personal companions. Some secular magicians specialized in receiving essence kisses directly from Enchanters, and began the practice of Enchanters’ Consent. Enchanters called their favorite consents Essence Partners. The complete enthrallment of Enchanter kisses made exclusivity impossible. The conservative non-enthralled people of Sye considered the consents’ magical specialty wanton behavior, and the Enchanters lewd opportunists.

High magical essence levels not only improved the Enchanters’ ability to work spells, but also gave them robust health and attractive faces. Essence saturation was especially noticeable in the physical effect called Enchanter-Beautiful Eyes.

Compromises

Not everything was a win. The Enchanters had to compromise. Once the Enchanters trained their bodies to produce magical essence, they had to shed the essence or suffer physical complications. How the early Enchanters concentrated magical essence changed the world of Sye forever. They now had exclusive control producing human-usable essence.

Many non-magicians chaffed at the personal nature of the essence kiss and the Enchanter Consent magical specialty. The recipient’s subjection to the Enchanter was an intolerable moral pitfall. This strife nearly toppled the Enchanters’ hard-won gains with purifying magical essence. The sentient Old Forest trees goaded the Enchanters into creating an equally strong magical counterpart to the Enchanter magical discipline, and that was the Church Magicians.

Although the Enchanters remained the sole source for magical essence, the Church became the moral compass for Sye’s people. The Church Priests’ spells lay the foundation for a network of churches, hospitals, and burial yards in the Enchanter School cities.

Greatest Sorrow

About a year after they established the Church Magician discipline, the Enchanters learned a terrible truth. The privilege of producing magical essence in their bodies, and being the most powerful magicians in Sye, had a dear result for both the male and female Enchanters. They were no longer able to conceive. Even intimacies with fertile non-Enchanter partners failed to create children. On the other hand, magic workers following the Church Magician discipline could produce families.

Some Enchanters abandoned the discipline. They returned their Uslar Rings and stopped eating Old Forest tree essence. Of these, only half were able to procreate a year later. Subsequent essence-free years improved their ability to have children. But some retired Enchanters never regained the ability to produce families.

Sye magicians called this Enchanter infertility the Greatest Sorrow.

Many promising candidates did not become Enchanters because of this reason. For the ones that did choose the Enchanter discipline, the schools and other Enchanters became their home and family.

Next time: Sye’s Magic Today

Find out more about the books in the Enchanters of Sye world:

• Wrath, Prequel to Tredan’s Bane
• Tredan’s Bane
• Ghost Orchid