THE RULES OF MAGIC - 21

Never take on someone more powerful than you.  It’s bound to end in tears!  Always establish just how powerful someone is before you even think about tackling that someone.  This is particularly important in a world where telepathy is in common usage.  Always keep your thoughts to yourself.  If you don’t want someone to find it out, don’t think it.  There are always those who misuse telepathy to eavesdrop on private thoughts.  Magic can make land barren if concentrated bursts of it hit the same spot over and over again.  The Queen and her Council will take an extremely dim view of those who try to stir up magical battles again.  The Kingdom has had quite enough of those.


The idea of magic is to help keep the peace and to act as a deterrent against would-be invaders.  The Queen and her Council acknowledge this has not always happened in the past (!) but that’s no reason to give up on the idea now.  Those using magic deliberately to cause trouble for the government will face the death penalty.   Naturally this would be carried out magically.  The Queen has given orders that every settlement should display in a prominent place the official warning notices.  Her attitude here is that you have been told.  She wants magic used for honourable purposes.


Attention is drawn to the fact that magic is dangerous and it must be used in such a way to cause as little damage to the environment as possible.  Evil witches and the like are reminded it isn’t really in their interests to totally destroy the magical world – where else would they go? – so, be warned, the Queen and her Council will actively stop you wrecking the Kingdom’s natural beauty.  They also intend to put erring sprites to work cleaning up areas that had been spoilt in the past, long before the studies on how magic damages land were carried out.  Now people do know, there’s no excuse for it to continue.