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The Magic Goes Away
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The Warlock's Era (The Magic Goes Away)
The fictional setting of Larry Niven's logical (as opposed to high) fantasy series. Treating magic as a non-renewable resource and set in 12,000 BC, the stories detail how magic was replaced by engineering. In the series, mana is the source of magic. The stories also serve as an allegory for the energy crisis.
Contents
- 1 Plot summary
- 2 Main characters
- 3 The Golden Road
- 4 Magical Creatures
- 5 Gods
- 6 The Warlock's Wheel
- 6.1 Variants of the device
- 6.2 Consequences of the experiment
- 7 Other stories set in the Warlock's era
- 8 References in other literature
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Plot summary
The powerful magician known only as the Warlock discovered that
mana was a non-renewable resource and was slowly being depleted by the use of magic over time. He developed a magical device (the
Warlock's Wheel) consisting of a
copper disk with an open-ended enchantment that caused it to spin at an ever-increasing rate, with a secondary enchantment holding it together against centrifugal force. This pointless but high-powered usage of magic would rapidly use up the mana in the local area, causing the disk to explode when its structural enchantment failed and leaving a permanent magic-dead zone.
It was eventually discovered (in The Magic May Return) that mana was originally carried to Earth and the other bodies of the solar system on the solar wind, replenishing mana slowly over time. However, at some point in the "recent" past (a few thousand years ago) a god created an invisible shield between Earth and Sun that intercepted the solar mana and caused the eventual decline of magic on Earth.
Main characters
- The Warlock - One of the world's foremost magicians. He devised a simple experiment to explain why a magician's power would fade over time, a device called the Warlock's Wheel.
- Clubfoot - The Warlock's apprentice. A Native American named after a deformity of his foot that he could have cured long ago but it would have cost him half his power.
- Wavyhill - The first Necromancer. Exploiting the mana inherent in murder, he invented necromancy. His name comes from his practice of building his houses under magically supported overhangs; when the local mana is depleted by a battle, the hillside collapses, trapping his foe and eliminating the evidence at the same time.
Other characters
- Orolandes - A Greek soldier, survivor of the sinking of Atlantis.
- Mirandee - A powerful witch, formerly Warlock's lover.
- Aran - A werewolf who assisted the Warlock in defeating the necromancer Wavyhill.
The Golden Road
Also set in the same universe as The Magic Goes Away is the Golden Road series, co-authored with long-time Niven friend and collaborator, Jerry Pournelle. Set some 60 years after The Magic Goes Away the series begins with The Burning City which takes place on the future site of Los Angeles.
Whandall Placehold is a resident of Tepp's Town, a town that every few years is gripped in a madness that causes the inhabitants to burn much of the city to the ground under the influence of the fire god Yangin Atep, one of the few remaining gods.
His daughter
Burning Tower is the main character of the second book, set in Meso-America.
The planned title of the third book is Burning Mountain.
Magical Creatures
Some creatures' metabolisms are based on heat, like humans. Others, like dragons, are based on magic. Some use a combination of the two. Many of the explanations given are firmly tongue-in-cheek.
- Goo - Named after a child's first word, amorphous blobs, these were the first creations of the gods. Once fearsome predators, they grew to be as large as a house, but as magic dwindles so too have they. Eventually they become so small that they are invisible to the naked eye. They are probably supposed to represent bacteria.
- Dragons - Intelligent allies, when magic fades they die and their bones turn to stone (to be mistaken for fossil dinosaurs in modern times).
- Unicorns - In absence of magic, their horns shrink to almost nothing and they become ponies.
- Pegasus - A winged equidae. In mana-poor regions they resemble donkeys with vestigial wings.
- Rocs - Fearsome raptors. In absence of mana they have become neotenous, turning into modern-day ostriches.
- Werewolves, Werebears, Werewhales, Mermaids, etc. - Animals that use magic to adopt human form. Without magic they return to their original state. Werewolves become wolves, Mermaids become dolphins, etc.
- Centaurs - Half-human, half-horse, they perish in mana-poor regions.
- Trolls - Hairy hominids, thought to be extinct.
- Zombies - Corpses animated through necromancy. They burn a great deal of mana just walking around.
- Frost Giants - A race of 18 foot tall men, guardians of the god Roze-Kattee.
- Afrit - They survive in magic jars waiting for someone to release them. They grant 3 wishes, but their favorite sport is trying to trick humans into making bad wishes.
- Mammoth - Use magic to create an optical illusion which causes them to appear much larger than they actually are.
Gods
Most of the gods have gone mythical. But in the far corners of the world some cling to life, just barely.
- Roze Kattee - The God Of Love And Madness. Its power lies in the taking away of love or madness. Enemy Berzerkers are suddenly rendered sane, those who do not worship Roze Kattee never find mates, etc.
- The World Worm - Its spine composes all the world's mountain chains, the Andes, Himalayas, Rockies, etc. It consumes its own tail, along with anything that might be living on it.
- Yangin-Atep - A fire god.
- Coyote, Loki, etc. - A trickster god for many cultures.
- Zoosh - Once a powerful patriarch.
- Left-Handed Hummingbird - A Mesoamerican god.
The Warlock's Wheel
The Warlock's Wheel was constructed by the Warlock as an experiment to determine whether the supply of mana powering magic was limited. It consists of a copper disc with two enchantments placed on it. One endows the disc with virtually infinite tensile strength, while the other gives it a spin that accelerates without limit, putting it under ever-increasing structural stress. These effects continue until the local supply of mana is exhausted.
Variants of the device
Three known variants of the Wheel were constructed:
- The original Warlock's Wheel. This is a copper disc with symbols inscribed upon it. While its size isn't stated explicitly, comparative references in the books featuring it suggest a diameter of four to eight inches (ten to twenty centimetres). When activated, it hovers in place, with the disc's spin increasing until it glows white-hot. After a period of on the order of a minute, the local mana is drained and the disc explosively disintegrates.
- A smaller version of the Wheel, designed to orbit along a predetermined path (or possibly be directed along an arbitrary path). This version was created by the necromancer Wavyhill, who used it to create a narrow magic-depleted zone around his castle as a defense. The smaller size of this variant of the Wheel reduced its radius of effect, creating a "wall" of null-magic.
- A magic spell that depleted mana within a cylindrical or conical region emanating from the magician casting it. This spell, also created by Wavyhill, was intended as an offensive weapon against other magicians, especially those who relied on longevity spells for survival.
Consequences of the experiment
The discovery that magic was a non-renewable resource caused great concern among the magicians at the time of the novel's setting, as it was through their magic that nations enforced their wills both internally and abroad, making magicians powerful both directly and politically. The widespread diminishing of magical power in The Magic Goes Away triggered a quest on the part of the most powerful of the magicians of the time to harness a new source of magic (the Moon), resulting in the events described in the book.
Other stories set in the Warlock's era
| Title | Published | Collection
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| "Not Long Before The End" | 1969 | All The Myriad Ways
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| "Unfinished Story" | 1970 | All The Myriad Ways
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| "What Good Is A Glass Dagger?" | 1972 | The Flight Of The Horse
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| The Magic Goes Away | 1976 | (novella)
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| The Magic Goes Away | 1978 | (novel)
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| The Magic May Return | 1981 | (anthology)
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| "The Lion In His Attic" | 1985 | Limits
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| "Talisman" | 1985 | Limits
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| "The Portrait of Daryanree the King" | 1989 | Playgrounds Of The Mind
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| "The Wishing Game" | 1989 | Playgrounds Of The Mind
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| The Burning City | 2000 | (novel)
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| "Chicxulub" | 2004 | Asimov's Science Fiction, April/May 2004 (not yet collected)
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| Burning Tower | 2005 | (novel)
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References in other literature
- The collectible card game Magic: The Gathering has a card called Nevinyrral's Disk, which is a reference to the Warlock's Wheel. This card roughly has the effect of removing all spells, while leaving mana sources intact. 'Nevinyrral' is 'Larryniven' spelled backwards.
