Briar's Book by Tamora Pierce

YA Fantasy

Published in 1999 by Scholastic

Book 4 of The Circle of Magic Quartet

Example of a soft magic system

While visiting the city, Briar discovers that his "street rat" friend Flick is sick with a mysterious illness. As the epidemic spreads through Emelan, Briar, his housemates and his teacher Rosethorn work to find a cure.

Things to Emulate

Magic is central to The Circle of Magic quartet—it's right there in the title. Magic is the catalyst that brings the four main characters together. It is the glue that holds them together throughout the series and the subsequent Circle Universe books. But even though magic permeates every inch of this word, it remains ambiguous. We know that Briar's magic is with plants, Tris's is with weather, Daja's is with metal and Sandry's is with cloth, but how their magic works through these everyday things is never explained. Because of this soft system of magic, Pierce is limited in how magic can be used to solve problems. Instead, magic fills the world of Emelan almost like air. Always present and integral to the worldbuilding.

The use of magic in Briar's Book falls into four categories: the first is scenic. This is where magic helps to create the world the characters inhabit:

Going to the door that led outside, Briar opened a small speaking-window set in the wood at adult-eye level. It was covered by two lengths of finely woven sheer cloth, one fixed to the inside of the opening, the other to the outside. Both screens radiated a touch of magic. Holding his hand palm-out to the closer one, Briar found that someone had written magical figures on the cloth, the signs for health and purity. Smart, he thought. This way folk that're cooped up here can talk to outsiders without making them sick. (Chapter 2)

There are lots of little touches like this, reminding the reader that this is a world filled with magic. It helps to distinguish the world of the Circle Universe from our own. In Emelan, magic determines a person's path in life, as well as the kind of training they need. The two kinds of magic systems, ambient and academic, are mostly used as a classification system to explain a mage's training. Those with ambient magic comes from outside the mage and requires specialized training that includes craft work since their magic is tied to specific, non-magical skills. Academic magic comes from within the mage and is more general in its uses.

The few descriptions given of magic being used are poetic, full of adjectives and imagery that creates a mood more than a functional explanation.

Briar drew away and thought about his own magic. So he was a queen willow now, was he? Better to be a king willow, he thought privately, trying to see it. Inch by inch he shaped himself: pale heartwood, gray bark riddled with fissures, long and wistful branches, lance-point leaves. His power shaped him and made the veins in his leaves shimmer. The basket turned as clear as fine glass to his power; he settled himself in its contents, feeding the dry, weak bark as if it were his own. (Chapter 6)

When using of magic, so much depends on the imagination of the characters that it feels limitless.

The second thing magic is used for is character development:

With a sigh Tris let her magic seep through the boards and plaster between her and the ground floor. Lark slept heavily, the warmth of her magic lower than Tris had ever felt it. Sandry was in the same shape. They had worked hard, putting their strength into the masks and gloves for Crane and his staff. Tris found Little Bear's life force, that of a dozing animal with unhappy dreams. He had to be sleeping in Briar's room again: her sense of him was nearly overpowered by the magic that radiated from Briar's shakkan. Over its one-hundred-forty-six-year existence, the miniature tree had been used to store and build upon the magic of its earlier owners; its green strength pressed on her own power. There was curiously similar feel to the shakkan and to Little Bear, a kind of sadness. They missed Briar. (Chapter 5)

Magic creates an easy entry into the thoughts of non-viewpoint characters without straying from the close third narration. Magic also connects the four central characters, allowing them to speak mind to mind and therefore access to each other's thoughts. This allows a more omniscient viewpoint than is usual for close third narration without the downside of head hopping.

The third use of magic is as an obstacle: magic creates or intensifies problems. While this is the least used function of magic in Briar's Book, it is also the most significant. Magic creates the blue pox, the major obstacle to be overcome in the plot. But this detail is held back to give the development of the disease and the discovery of the cure multiple roadblocks. Initially, the characters are simply faced with the disease. Then they discover a hint of magic running through the blue pox.

As carefully as if she handled feather-thin glass, Osprey opened the metal catches that locked a jar and raised the lid. Tris leaned close to look; Briar did the same. Inside the jar was glazed white. It was half full of the yellowish, oily-looking blue pox essence.

Briar saw an assortment of silver glints, a shimmer that faded. Slipping through their magical connection, he gazed at the essence through Tris's eyes. To her the silver was no rapidly fading glimpse, but a steady, pale gleam. (Chapter 9)

This discovery means that they have to start their work to find a cure from scratch, but it also gives them more information about the disease and a direction towards finding a cure. However, Pierce is careful to not have this discovery result in an immediate resolution. Magic adds to the difficulty of finding a cure.

The final category is functional. This is where magic is used to accomplish a task. With a soft magic system, leaning too heavily on magic can feel like a cheat. Pierce avoids this by tying the use of magic tightly to concrete skills. The success of Daja's and Sandry's magics are dependent on their skills as a metalsmith and seamstress. Tris's and Briar's magics are a little more broad, but because they are dealing with nature (the weather and plants respectively) they are bound, more or less, by the physical rules that govern our world. In Tris's case, the bulk of her magic is for small things, like keeping the rain off of people around her or pushing the water back in the sewers so they don't have to walk through it. Briar can encourage plants to move and grow, but they still need soil, water and light to thrive.

When magic is used to solve plot problems, it feels more like science than magic. To find the cure for the blue pox, the mages use methods very similar to how scientists go about producing vaccines:

"To craft spells that unlock the nature of this disease, a mage needs samples of matter from the sick person. It's drawn from the inside of the mouth, sores or sweat, blood, dung, and urine." Rosethorn sat next to Flick. "For you, the blood part is easy." She pressed a cloth square to Flick's mouth, where a crack in her lower lip bled sluggishly. "Bag," Rosethorn told Briar. He took the small bag that came with the square by the edges and held it open. When Rosethorn dropped the square in, he pulled the drawstring tight. "Stick out your tongue," Rosethorn ordered Flick. Briar watched, holding and closing the bags, as Rosethorn pressed a square to Flick's coated tongue and made her blow her nose into another. She helped the street rat into the privy for dung and urine. (Chapter 3)

Magic might be the method, but it is built on the scientific method. We still have no idea how magic works, but many people have no idea how physics or chemistry works. Having this as a grounding point makes it easier to accept that magic can solve problems in ways we can't understand simply because it is part of the physical world of the Circle Universe.

The "scientific method" becomes clear as the characters search for a cure. Those who work with the disease are all gowned, gloved and masked, just like scientists in our world would be, even if these items are treated with a magic oil to enhance their effectiveness. This oil feels more like something to help differentiate the world of Emelan from our world as opposed to a magical aid. The presence of the PPE is much more prevalent in the reader's mind.

The actual search for the cure reads like scientific inquiry. Mages distill the disease to its essence, test how it reacts to different substances and take copious notes. The fact that magic is one of the tools/substances they are using feels inconsequential since any reader with a basic understanding of the scientific method feels like they understand what is happening. Magic reads as just another chemical.

To Well numbered 1 Add 2 drops liquid from Bottle numbered 1.

To Well numbered 2 Add 1 liquid from Bottle numbered 2.

To Well numbered 3 Add 1 measure powder from Bottle numbered 3. …

Glancing at the tray as Osprey drew liquids or powders from the numbered bottles and slid them into the wells, he saw that a number was cut into the stone beside each well. There were seven in a row, which meant they tried seven possible cures on the pox liquid from three different people, all on one tray. (Chapter 8)

"Osprey showed me. I just follow the slate," Briar said, cutting off the lecture before Crane could give it. He got to work, adding liquids and powders in the proper wells as he kept hands and arms clear of the tray itself. Though he'd never had to do this particular job before, Rosethorn's demands for her medicines and herbal mixtures were every bit as precise as Crane's. Briar moved from bottle or jar to tray steadily, barely hearing Crane's fusses about being careful and watching where his fingers went. Once he finished the entire tray, he opened an inkwell, took a reed pen, and carefully noted the date on parchment labels glued to the edge of the tray. (Chapter 9)

Pierce also uses magic as a facilitator to the solution not the solution. While magic is how characters can speak over great distances, communication is still necessary to achieve their goals. While magic is how the kids reach out to Rosethorn as she is dying and allows them the chance to bring her back, it is Briar's stubbornness and her love for him that actually saves her, not his magic.

And then Pierce gives herself an out for not explaining the finner details of how the kid's magic works:

Moonstream shook her head, then looked at Niko and Lark. "It would be a very good idea if no one ever talked about this," she said quietly. "A very good idea. This—" She motioned to Rosethorn, who nodded. "This has never happened. I don't know how it did happen, and I don't want to know." (Chapter 13)

Since Pirece has tied magic so tightly to science throughout the book, it gives her more leaway to push the boundries of what magic can do without fully explaining. There are plenty of things scientists know to be true without fully understanding why and if magic is Emelan's science, then it is not a stretch the same is true of magic. If this feels a little like justifying a deus ex machina within the story world, it kind of is. That doesn't mean it isn't effective.

The the grand act of the kids saving Rosethorn is the weakest point from a structural perspective. But Pierce knows how to make her readers care about her characters. By focusing on the emotional centre of Rosethorn's death and what she means to Briar, it's easy for a reader to ignore the seemingly impossible act of Briar chasing Rosethorn into death.

It also helps that one of the central themes of the Circle of Magic books is discovery. Part of the fun of them is discovering what the kids and their magic are capable of. It's a clever way to avoid the reader feeling cheated when magic saves the day without explanation. As Niko, one of their teachers, states in the final pages:

"I expected to pick up some young mages, find them teachers, and go on my way. I never thought to endure earthquakes, pirates, forest fires, and plagues with them, or to be forced to revise my knowledge of how magic is shaped. I had forgotten that there is never a point at which we stop learning, or needing to learn. You remind me of that every day—whether I wish such a reminder or not.” (Chapter 13)