8FOLD: Darkhorse # 5, "The Vicious Air"

[Tom Russell]

On Sunday, June 12, 2016 at 5:50:15 AM UTC-4, Drew Perron wrote:
> On 6/5/2016 2:33 PM, Tom Russell wrote:

> >    "I have an idea," says Rainshade.
> >    "I'm not going to like it, am I?"
> >    "No," says Rainshade. "You won't. That's why we just did it."
> >    "Wait, what?"
> >    She stands up. "I've just acted as a conduit for a mnemonomancer of
> > my acquaintance."
> 
> Oh wow. :D (And it's probably Donald, isn't it)
> 
> > "Whole lot of them are
> > standard-issue mancer conspiracy nuts, ranting against this
> > non-existent Company.
> 
> (it's definitely Donald)

Donald's mnemonomancy is limited to erasing memories, not fishing them out of dead people. Think of each mancer within a discipline as having a somewhat narrow, yet fuzzily-defined focus. One pyromancer might be able to start fires, and another might be able to control them once they've started. This is different than out-and-out sorcery or "magic" as used in "Beyond the Fields" or "Empress of Pages". It's more about an innate connection between Venus and the person, about magical energies being channeled directly into and through that person's body. Being a mancer is much more limited and specific.

Also, I can confirm that this is taking place after "Headhunters"-- so Donald has been murdered, and his mancer's mark was removed after killing him, which means that the magic is gone. You'll recall that in "Headhunters" Lydia had to remove the bibliomancer's mark while we was still alive in order to preserve the mark's connection to Venus. So if Rainshade was working for the Company, she wouldn't have access to his abilities. It would have to be another mnemonomancer at the Company if that's what's going on. Or a mnemonomancer within the secret circle (the anti-Company "good" mancers). Or a completely unrelated mnemonomancer-- you have to remember that the Daylighters are first and foremost a sort of ill-defined social network, so it would make sense for Rainshade to develop an overlapping social network of mancers, probably somewhat apart from the core Daylighters network due to paranoia on the part of the mancers themselves. So while the only mancers we've seen so far-- other than Skin of Snake-- are either working for the Company, or "bad guys" like Gareth trying to take down the Company, it doesn't mean that the Company is the beginning and end of who can be mancers, not by a longshot. So I wouldn't assume right from the get-go that Rainshade is necessarily channeling a Company mancer.

It's going to become explicit later in the series, but Rainshade is a metamancer, so her magical gift is the ability to use/channel the gifts of others. So, technically specific and limited, but in practice, quite broad and powerful. The umbrella is what she uses to focus/direct her latent talent that energy.