Family Business 61 (Patreon)

Family Business

Chapter 61

-VB-

Garen followed Marr as his brother led him to his supposed magic weapon and armor-filled armory.

“So magical weapons, huh?” he tried.

“It is a natural part of researching magic. It’s a little bit like researching new tactics and strategem. Just as a general might find new methods of flanking and tricking enemies when he hears that a new stirrup invention allows the cavalrymen to ride harder and faster, so too do magicians and mages, however you like to refer to us, when it comes to all things magic. We like to think of ways to heal people, make life easier, make new products, and wage war.”

“Spoken like the spokesman of magic.”

Marr stopped and turned to look at him.

“Spokesman of magic?”

“It is the title the Noxian diplomat saddled you with when he heard about how hard you have been working to get magic accepted in Demacia. He also called you a genius.”

He looked surprised. “I did not know Noxians had such a high opinion of me. Neat.”

“You didn’t know? Everyone assumes that you are capable of looking into the future at the rate that you expanded your power.” Some people did. Most others, including Garen himself, thought that Marr had an extensive spy network that used the commoners in the Great City. This was plausible because Marr’s work with his magical healers who provided cheap healing made him not just a hero but their savior.

Garen had learned very quickly that magic might make someone fear but when the decision was to trust in it to save one’s child when there was a proven record, people were very quick to forget past preconceived notions and bootlick the healers.

He snorted. “Looking into the future is stupid and anyone who does is untrustworthy,” he said as they began walking.

“Oh? Why do you say so?”

“The future is never set in motion. The desperate, the powerful, and gods can try all they want, but what they are seeing is nothing more than the possibility of what they seek. In truth, all future you can imagine are the truth. However, you can see how my phrase there has a lot of problems.”

“It is … confusing, yes.”

“But so is the fact that wind that you feel on your face is nothing but million, million particles moving very, very fast.”

“What?”

“What I just said now is the truth, a science called physics that anyone can learn and make tools to use,” Marr continued without stopping. “It is confusing until you study months and years to know how the world works. Similarly confusing is the fact that future is not set in stone. How can it be? What we are experiencing, Garen, is the present. You are nothing but what you are at a moment. Your brain thinking, your muscles moving, your body coordinating, and all of that is you. Memories and plans are merely your brain storing information for future use but those memories themselves are not made up of the past but is of the present.”

Garen forgot that Marr was smart. He had forgotten that once someone got Marr talking, he just kept on talking. He didn’t quite understand what Marr was saying in detail but he got that Marr was being fancy about saying “here and now is the only thing that matters.”

“So if you and everyone around you, magic included, is nothing but actions and states that exist in the future, how can anyone claim to see the future? No, if you do use magic or some divine power to see the future, you are not looking at a future but the possibility of that future. However, it is not the only future because, with enough will, you can change it. After all, is that not Demacia was born? A city of magic-less peasants who were told time and time again that they are weak, but look at us now. We are one of two premier powers that decide the future of Valoran… if someone else doesn’t rise up to take our place, that is.”

“So you don’t see the future?”

“No. Besides, life will lose its meaning if you see that far into the future.”

Now, that was a new one. He never heard someone say that about looking into the future.

“How so?”

“If you knew tomorrow’s breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. The next breakfast. The next lunch. The next dinner. The breakfast of your wedding day. The dinner of your first child’s birthday.” He paused. “Your final meal.” He turned and looked at Garen with dead eyes. “If you knew everything that would happen, then what’s the point of it all? Am I nothing but a puppet that moves as the fates dictate? Do I even have a purpose? Do I have a will? I have seen and tasted all I will ever taste. There will be nothing new. There will be nothing different. What is there to life when all you have is all you will ever have?”

That did sound horrible.

“By looking into the future and being able to actually see it, you have effectively already lived it, and thus … your life is complete. You become nothing more than a puppet, and if you “fight” that vision of the future, you either help it happen or you do “win” against fate, which only means that the vision you saw was never a vision to begin with but a hallucination of whatever power that let you see such a thing.”

“... You have put a lot of thoughts into this.”

Marr paused. “Maybe. Some of it is from other people.” Then they stopped in front of a large door. “Well, this is it. The Academy Armory.”

“The Academy?”

“Right. I have an academy for magicians to learn magic safely and for their and Demacia’s sake, remember?”

“Right…”

“Well then, let’s see what you can use in here.”