Working the Eleventh · of lanterns and long dark
The Kindling of a Borrowed Flame
A minor working by which a lamp may be persuaded to burn on memory rather than on oil, for the space of one night and no longer.
There is no fire in this working. What the practitioner kindles is a likeness of fire — a warmth remembered by the wick from some earlier burning, coaxed back into the room by patience and by naming. The lamp will give light enough to read by and no heat whatsoever, and it will not take to cloth, nor to thatch, nor to the hem of a sleeve. This is its chief virtue and the reason it was set down here rather than in the Liber Ignium, where the honest fires are kept.
Begin at the turn of the evening, when the sky has gone the colour of weak tea and the birds have stopped arguing. Sit with the lamp until you can describe its last real flame without hesitating. That description is the whole of the spell; everything that follows is only a way of saying it slowly enough that the lamp can hear.
The Circle of Seven Namings — touch a glyph
Seven namings, spoken widdershins. Each glyph answers to a marginal gloss.
The order of the working
- Trim the wick to the width of a thumbnail and no more. A long wick invites a real flame, which will not come, and the lamp will feel the slight.
- Set the circle in chalk or in flour, seven spans across, with the lamp at its centre and yourself outside it. You are a witness here, not a participant.
- Name the first six in the widdershins order, allowing a full breath between each. Do not hurry the fourth; it is the longest and the one most often clipped.
- Hold the seventh — that is, say nothing at all for as long as it took to say the sixth. The light arrives during this silence or it does not arrive.
- Close the circle by scuffing the chalk with the left heel. An open circle will draw the borrowed light out again before dawn.
Cautions and known failures
| Sign | Likely cause | Remedy | Peril |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light green, guttering | Circle drawn sunwise | Erase, wait one hour, redraw | Slight |
| Lamp warm to the touch | A true flame has answered instead | Extinguish at once; do not name again tonight | Grave |
| Light persists past dawn | Circle left open | Scuff the chalk; the light departs within minutes | Moderate |
| No light, wick smoking | Wick trimmed too short | Rewick and begin the following evening | Slight |
| Second light, unattended | Another lamp in the room remembered too | Remove all other lamps from the chamber | Grave |
What the working asks of you
Reagents & requisites
One lamp, previously lit
Brass or clay. The older the better; a lamp with a long history of burning holds the likeness longer.
Chalk, or fine flour
Enough for a circle seven spans across. Flour is kinder to floorboards and easier to scuff.
An unhurried hour
The single reagent most often omitted, and the omission most often fatal to the working.
…and having closed the circle,