How is it possible for Zalasta to hurl lightning bolts and do all sorts of magic /after/ Cyrgon's dead? You must admit, humans don't carry that kind of power with them (as in Bel/Mal sorcery) except for the Shining Ones - if they can be called human, which is a moot point after tHC - and Zalasta's shield of protection didn't just materialise from nowhere to protect him from 'forces that create suns'. And if it came from Klael, well, how come it didn't last against Anakha, who was after all, a God from Bhelliom? They should be equal in that sense, plus Zalasta's centuries more experience in magic.
This question probably stems from a more general misunderstanding on the mechanics of magic as understood in El/Tam. It sounds pretty simple - as Sephrenia puts it, all magic comes from the Gods, and they allow people to borrow if we ask politely (hence long, complicated spells and routines which made Sephrenia braid her fingers and twist her tongue giving King Soros a cold :)). Sounds simple enough, right?
Here's the part giving purists nightmares ;-) and insomnia (for the luckier ones). Each Styric has his/her /own/ personal God, and it's that one God that powers all their spells. And these Younger Styric Gods don't take too kindly to corruption/abuse of these powers of theirs. They tend to kick out Styrics who do that sort of thing.
So who do these Styrics appeal to when they do what they do after getting kicked out? Zalasta may (theoretically) be able to get Cyrgon to power /his/ spells, but what about the rest? And after Cyrgon dies? Or maybe they could get Azash to power them, while Azash was still alive. But in the Tamuli, Azash is dust :)
I've come up with a hypothesis, highly speculative but covers heaps of ground. Let's think about it in a logical manner. Gods may be able to think about several things simultaneously - perhaps infinite concurrent processes/threads. But that doesn't mean that they have to like it. Aphrael gets fits every time she splits herself up into two persons. Presumably, Gods like taking showers and eating and drinking as much as anyone else does. They like art (witness Setras) and experiments (the Atan God, probably). No one would like it very much if they had to 'put down whatever he was doing and attend to her.' (Betuana's nagging)
So, if you imagine this happening to the Atan God (whose people call on him so rarely), how about the YSG, who have to deal with literally millions of petitions/requests every /day/; each one of them? Yet this seems to be the underlying assumption beneath the questions about God-power /bad/ Styrics. You can see how it goes now; which God will /voluntarily/ power the requests of the degenerate Styrics? And even if some 'curious' Gods may, they won't exactly power Zalasta's quest to kill Aphrael, would they? 'In the death of a God lies the seeds of death of all.' or some such.
Now, on to my hypothesis. The Gods don't like being interrupted every so often. Fine for most Gods (the Elene one doesn't even /get/ interrupted for spells; the Atan God very rarely, and the Tamuls...well, they're childish. :) Edaemus allows His people full access to power w/o His help.). The YSG, however, have to deal with heaps of spells all the time - in most cases, more detailed than the Ferrari.
A simple solution would be to initiate what I call the Magic Request Processor (or the MRP[tm] for short). Set up a spell interpreter with its own spell language. When a Styric starts a spell, the MRP kicks in and 'reads' the instructions provided to it. It then decodes the spell instructions into 'machine' language (so to speak) and executes the spell. Of course, you need to add a layer of security in and potentially see which God a Styric is asking permission from - and get that God's permission/authorisation to execute the spell. You'll see that for the most part, the Gods simply give an auto-authorise. This should save on their brainwork significantly. They maintain this MRP on a subconscious level, and the auto-authorise in the same manner.
This mechanism I've just described above can explain a whole lot of things. It explains why all the detail is needed - the God isn't doing anything but executing the spell. The spell (or program, if you like) must specify everything for it to have the desired effect. When the spell is /personally/ actively attended to, all that specification is needless; (We could use a bit of light now, Divine One.)-style.
It explains why the YSG only curbed the most dangerous of Martel's powers, instead of removing them totally. You can set up a complete bar on all 'dangerous' spells, but to individually add Martel to all 1000 'ban lists' would be most difficult.
The concept of the ban list is probably also good for load balancing. When a God has too many people asking for magic at one time, the more general requests probably go to another God for fulfilling. The Thousand YSG all generally get along and agree roughly what should be done, after all - this takes their cooperation only one step further.
It further explains why the outcast Styrics can still do magic. They're not doing any 'dangerous' spells - just the more esoteric ones. Without a specific God to request power from, the MRP probably simply selects one at random and executes it.
Zalasta can then learn 'all' the secrets of Styricum. Why not? Every God will probably have different ways of doing different things, and if the spell language allows this particular spell to be constructed, then chances are that the spell will be executed.
And if the YSG have grown lax over the MRP, then security measures may not be so tight and certain dangerous spells may indeed be executed - the way Martel did before the YSG got a wake-up call from Sephrenia. Maintenance of the MRP on the God's side may be handed over to a mortal - who only has to streamline it, not provide the power. (A sysadmin rather than a programmer) That's why Sephrenia can mind the shop for Aphrael - she doesn't have to do a whole lot. Another feature of this security is 'flagging' certain spells - like the Death spell. When Sephrenia tried to scare that idiot(what's his name), Aphrael told her she won't authorise it. And as for the Return Klael spell, the YSG probably thought no one would be as stupid as to use it - that's why it wasn't barred.
An interesting consequence of this 'language' metaphor is noting that the Gods can be segregated according to the spell-lang they use, rather than the ethnic group that worships them. Thus the Elder and Younger Styric Gods use the Styric spell language, the Troll Gods theirs and so on.
It would certainly explain why cross-species (Troll & Styric) spells can't be done. It's like trying to execute C code in an Ada program.
by Magus