Katabasis by R.F. Kuang is a fantasy novel with a unique magic system based on the combination of willpower, hand-drawn pentagrams, and the “living-dead energy” of the chalk magicians draw with. Yes, chalk!
Regular chalk exists in Katabasis, but magic chalk is what makes this world go round, which makes it the key to annotating the magic system. Magic chalk differs from the regular stuff by the way because it can write on any surface.
A funny detail in this book is that magicians have very strong allegiances to certain brands of magical chalk. Feelings are so strong that “debates over which is superior have ruined friendships.”1 The disputed brands are “Shropley’s Standard” (Peter’s preference) and “Barkles” (Alice’s preference).
You will need 9 tabs to annotate “living-dead energy” of chalk that underpins the Katabasis magic system.
One tab is for your tab key.
TAB Ch 1, p 11
HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:
- “Uttering incantations invoked the living-dead energy of chalk-dust….”
TAB “On Magick,”p 17
HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:
- “The chalk, and whatever remnants of living-dead magical energy lay in the pulverized shells…..”
TAB Ch 8, p 121
HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:
- “Possibly its energy flows are all out of whack and it’s eating the chalk, eating its living-dead energy, instead of glitching against it—”
TAB Ch 10, p 150-151
HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:
- “Something that, at least, could talk—that could tell you what the injection of living-dead energy did to a body. Whether it felt like nothing, whether it burned you up from the inside.” ( page 150)
- “She needed to feel every dip of the needle into her skin, every burn of living-dead chalk.”(p 151)
- “And when he closed the circle and she dropped to her knees, moaning as the living-dead energy rushed through her body, he bent down with her and rubbed circles into her back and gathered her hair behind her head as she vomited blood across the floor.” (p 151)
TAB Ch 15, p 240
HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:
- “It congeals with the living-dead force of the chalk..”
TAB Ch 20, p 324
HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:
- “…with the centrifugal force of millions of years of stored living-dead chalk energy.”
- Chapter 7, page 115 ↩︎
Annotate With Sara 