Sorcery (Millennium’s Rule)

Sorcery in the Millennium's Rule series of books by Australian writer Trudi Canavan is based upon the collection, manipulation and application of accessible ambient magical energy in a world by a human agent, also called a sorcerer.

Magic
In the Millennium's Rule universe, magic is a form of ambient background energy inherent to different worlds (planets). Some people, called sorcerers, are capable of collecting this ambient energy with their minds and then spend the energy to cause different effects; this is called sorcery.

When magic is collected from the surroundings by a sorcerer, it leaves an absence of magic that can be sensed by people with sorcerous ability (or even people with potential sorcerous ability). The magic surrounding the absence will move in to fill out the absence, giving the appearance of something appearing and then shrinking into nothingness rather than an absence; this behavior is reminiscent of the behavior of gas in a container. Different worlds give different names to these pockets of absence, like Soot or Stain.

Different worlds have different amounts of magic, which depends upon how much has already been used up by sorcerers. In a world with low levels of magic, some techniques of sorcery are impossible. A world might even became devoid of any magic, which for example is a possible consequence of great wars using sorcery. In such a world, any sorcery would be impossible.

In the world, there exists a type of person called Makers. A Maker is a person with an inherent ability to create new magic energy when performing great tasks of personal creativity, like art or crafts, dispersing the new magic energy into the surroundings, slowly increasing the amount of magic energy in the world. Thus, even worlds devoid of magic might recover with time (probably centuries, though). Great sorcerers aware of this effect have a great appreciation of artists and craftsmen, and might even 'collect' them.

Sorcerers
People who are able to sense and manipulate ambient magic energy are called sorcerers. Three factors decide how powerful a sorcerer is; their location, their reach and their natural talent for sorcery. Different worlds have different amounts of magic, and some sorceries are only possible in worlds with enough magic energy. A sorcerer's reach refers to how far they can expand their magical senses to collect ambient magical energy; the more energy a sorcerer has a hold of, the more they can do with it. Natural talent varies among sorcerers, but skill and knowledge can make up for a lack of talent to some extent. A sorcerer without access to magic energy is no different from a non-sorcerer.

Applications
Teachers throughout the worlds divide magic into five applications: movement, stillness, world travelling, mind reading, and pattern shifting.

Moving or stilling
Moving or stilling are the most basic uses of magic. Moving cause movements among matter and stillness stops movement among matter. Thus, moving produces heat and stilling creates cold. Moving can for example be used to increase movement in something burnable until it catch fire, and stilling can be used to trap air molecules into place and thus create shields against physical attacks or air constructs used to levitate the sorcerer.

Mind reading
A sorcerer has natural telepathic abilities, as long as they are in a world with enough magic to allow the ability. With it, sorcerers can read a persons mind, even at a distance, and communicate mind to mind. A sorcerer is able to shield his mind against other sorcerers reading it, but this only works against sorcerers of lesser ability than oneself; stronger sorcerers can read ones mind anyway. This ability is useful to overcome language barriers in different worlds a sorcerer travels to.

World travelling
World travelling is the application of sorcery where a sorcerer travels between worlds. It requires more magic than all the other applications, but as much skill and knowledge to do it safely. Apparently, a sorcerer who world travels make themselves, and others they are in direct contact with, go out of sync with normal space-time into a form of 'between' dimension. While there, the sorcerer is susceptible to planetary gravity from whatever world is in the vicinity. A sorcerer who knows how, may 'push' against gravity and propel themselves into other planets gravity fields, where they may chose to enter normal space-time again and materialize in whatever world they have propelled themselves to. Thus they can move between worlds. The 'between' dimension does not contain anything physical, including air, so a sorcerer is only able to travel for as long as they can hold their breath.

World travelling is potentially very dangerous. Without they right knowledge, a sorcerer might materialize in worlds with hostile environments where human life is impossible, materialize where there used to be a world that is now gone (possible through catastrophes involving the planets suns and other space hazards), or materialize in worlds where there isn't enough ambient magical energy left for the sorcerer to use the world travelling technique to leave.

Pattern shifting
Pattern shifting is a form of sorcery where the sorcerer uses magic to alter the very substance of the worlds. For example, it can change the properties of objects, or when applied to humans or animals, for example heal any wound or change their appearance or age. Pattern shifting takes very little magic once a sorcerer grasp it, but it is the hardest of the applications to learn. One prominent use of Pattern shifting is to make a sorcerer ageless; forever maintaining a state of a particular age and perfect health. This take much magic to perform, so much that some sorcerers may have depleted whole worlds of magic energy and still fail to make themselves ageless.