Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 166

by Neil Clarke

  She still felt very weak, but no longer heavy as stone. She could speak. “I’m fine,” she said with only a modicum of effort.

  “Don’t overexert yourself.” He paused. “It all went very smoothly.”

  She wanted to laugh, but she could not manage more than a cough. “It didn’t feel that smooth to me.”

  “Trust me, we’ve seen worse.” Did she glimpse a twinkle in his eye? He looked down and ran a hand over his overcoat, even its muted aubergine a burst of color in the bare white room. When he spoke again, his voice was sober. “You are well-suited for this kind of transformation. I’m very satisfied with the results so far.”

  “You mean, we should’ve done this sooner?” She fought an urge to grin at him. She felt giddy.

  He cleared his throat. “We could’ve done this sooner, yes. Still, I am satisfied.” Again, a pause. “There is attrition at every stage. Every stage you pass is an accomplishment in itself.”

  She closed her eyes. “I didn’t really do anything.”

  “That’s precisely the point. You did not offer resistance. It will only get harder.”

  She thought of all the recordings, the logs in the Oral History Archives, running them through her mind. She finally grinned as the familiarity of the situation dawned on her. “Is this the point where you ask how well I can tolerate pain?”

  “You know I only ask that to get a rise out of people.” He sounded vaguely entertained; or was she imagining it? She opened her eyes to look at him. Still she wasn’t sure.

  “To get a rise out of people and to watch for their reactions,” she remarked. Watching for his reaction.

  “That too.” He was unperturbed.

  She chuckled.

  He leaned back in his chair, stretching. “So, tell me, how well can you tolerate pain?”

  Oyārun was still slightly unsteady on her feet; her body was still slightly unfamiliar. Heavier, but just a little; definitely firmer. She still habitually poked at the implants protruding from her skull, her spinal column. Not enough space to squeeze everything into the body, she surmised. She didn’t change the way she tied her headscarf. Some of the protrusions showed, but she didn’t particularly mind. She had not ventured outside yet, and she was curious about the looks she would get, if also somewhat intimidated. Admiration mixed with apprehension? Patriotic pride? She could not begin to guess at people’s complicated feelings.

  Aramīn pushed her to start practicing almost as soon as she could get around unassisted. He came for her, led her into a small room designated for the purpose.

  “I’ve seen the results of the tests, but let’s just do another round,” he said in a way that sounded oddly measured, even from him. He instructed her to raise māwal, focus it in specific parts of the body, outside the body. She complied. What was he getting at? Her apprehension grew, even though everything he asked for she could do with ease, and with a smoothness that surprised even her. Maybe this really is my path, she thought. She was caught up in the routine, at home within it, fitting in.

  He came to an abrupt halt, fell silent. “I should’ve tried to get a rise out of you,” he said quietly.

  She blinked at him, feeling her eyes grow large. “Yes?” What was he getting at?

  “There are many kinds of pain,” he said, his words cautious, feeling their way ahead. “Most we can decrease, manage. But there is a kind of pain that is tied to the essence of the self, and that’s intractable to medical manipulations. It’s tied to the māwal, and . . . ” He looked down at the mats covering the floor with no gap between them, fitting together like puzzle pieces. “The only way is to simply get used to it. Nothing else can be done. It cannot be minimized.”

  She didn’t understand his distress. “I’m all right with that,” she reassured him, to no effect.

  “Not everyone can get used to it.”

  “You expect me to fail,” she said with forced nonchalance.

  “You’ve done well so far,” he said, a trifle too fast. “But even the . . . exercises we can perform do not compare to a live run.”

  He really did expect her to fail. He thought he’d been too lucky to have her? Things had gone too smoothly so far? She didn’t understand. He’d done this so many times before. What was different this time? On occasion he felt weary to her. Was it the repetition? Was he feeling his age? It puzzled her, and she grew impatient.

  “Expectations shape reality,” she snapped.

  He looked up, stared at her dead on. “Then show me you’re stronger than me.”

  This time she was the first to look away.

  She could feel his disappointment; faint, but still present. I’ll show him, she thought and gritted her teeth.

  “We can induce this kind of pain. Gradually at first, as much as this can be done gradually. As we raise the thresholds, we can get more and more māwal throughput. Until you’re ready for a live run.” He rubbed his face. “As much as people can be ready for a live run. Nobody is.”

  I will show you, she thought at him with newfound ferocity.

  He opened a section of the wall. She could see the equipment stored inside. “You might’ve noticed that this room was soundproofed.”

  “Most rooms in the Institute are,” she said.

  “Exactly.” He pulled out a red ring of tape. He opened it, clapped it around his wrist. “We can be explicit about everything, we need not have smoke screens and obfuscation, like in the times of the old seers and magicians. More understanding doesn’t break the process.”

  He walked to one end of the room, opened another segment, and pulled out a tall, thick pole of some sort, almost like a column. He walked with it to the center of the room and began to affix it; there was a shape precut into the mats that he could simply pop out to fix the pole to clamps on the floor below. He twisted and something popped out on top, attached itself to the ceiling. He grabbed the pole and pulled at it strongly. It held.

  “I have no wish to humiliate you, to degrade you. I only need to cause you pain. Unlike the people of old, we know this is sufficient. What they did to the Imperial Seers was not only inefficient but actively harmful.” He unclasped the ring from his wrist. “This time, I’m going to tie you to the pole.” He gestured for her to step closer.

  She stepped to the pole, put her back to it, obediently allowed him to tie her hands behind the pole. “The world axis, if you will,” he said. “The tree connecting the worlds. Many mythological parallels.”

  He proceeded to make sure she would not be able to slump and injure herself when her muscles gave in.

  “Inisayu’s ordeal,” she offered weakly.

  “Inisayu was hanging from the tree upside down, according to legend. I’d rather not risk popping a blood vessel in the brain, it’s still quite soon after surgery.” He turned away and went back to the locker, behind her. “Before you get carried away, know that I have knives and a whip, and I intend to use them.” A sound of cloth on cloth—what was he doing?

  When he walked again in front of her, she saw. He’d removed his trademark overcoat. He still wore a richly decorated dark blue vest over a loose shirt and implements like knife handles hung from his belt. A harness was also hanging from it, housing what looked like a long, yellow, softly glowing tentacle.

  He unclipped a handle from his belt and grabbed it in his palm. A glowing blade—some kind of force field?—sprung from it. She recognized the tool as the one he’d jammed into his palm. His own reaction had been strong enough that it physically hurt her, even though his face had remained impassive. “I can see you remember this,” he said.

  Her muscles spasmed. Her body remembered it before her mind.

  “Yes.” He smoothed over her forehead with his free hand. “You definitely recall that.” The touch strengthened the memory, and it hurt—

  “Focused pain can throw the system off-balance in the desired way. It can overactivate the māwal-raising process . . . ” His voice drifted away. “We can try. We will go slowly at first. Allow me
to demonstrate. Very slowly at first. I am going to put this into the chest center.” He indicated the position in the middle of her chest with a long finger. She knew he could not see the way the māwal flowed throughout her body, but he must’ve done this so many times it was second nature. He pointed at just the right spot. “Then we can do the other centers, but first I want you to be familiar with the sensation.”

  She nodded assent. He plunged in the blade, through her clothing—the force field did not wound, only—

  She screamed, strained against the bindings.

  “I’ve pulled it out. That was the lowest setting, and only for a moment. We will need to increase both the duration and the amount, slowly, but surely.”

  Her entire torso felt like it was on fire.

  “Do you think you can take that for a bit longer?”

  Her thoughts clumped together, and her tongue tripped over the sounds she wanted to make.

  “Bgh—bh—ah—I think.”

  “Excellent.” Did he sound more satisfied than ever before? “Then let’s do it again. Eight seconds, do you think you can take eight seconds?”

  She could.

  She gasped for air once it was over. Her limbs twitched.

  “Once more. Maybe we can try sixteen seconds. I’m counting.”

  She drew in a deep breath.

  “Exhale. If you keep in air, it makes it worse. Try to breathe slowly, evenly. A few breaths before we start . . . ”

  She exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled again. Inhaled.

  “Good. Not very deep, you don’t want to hyperventilate. That can come in handy at times, but it can also cause unwanted complications. It’s best to be careful.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m starting. One . . . two . . . Breathe evenly. Four. Five.”

  Her entire body was tense like a closed fist. The world narrowed to one burning point in her chest. Her consciousness floated, back and forward, out of sync with her body.

  “Eight. Nine.”

  She could do this. She could do this.

  The māwal ran through her in large shudders, the air thickening. She found it harder and harder to breathe. Fire to rend the flesh from the bones.

  She could do this. She had to. She struggled to build a balance. She thought she could take this for longer. Not indefinitely, but longer. Longer.

  “Twelve. Thirteen.”

  Almost over. Almost over.

  “Fourteen. I think you can take more.”

  She nodded, genuinely believing she could. Aramīn pulled up her chin with one quick and practiced movement, pushed her head against the pole. Her eyes widened in surprise.

  Aramīn stabbed another dagger into the middle of her forehead.

  Later, she did not even know if she had screamed. The world collapsed around her, the searing and yet immaterial flames of the māwal licking at the walls, filling the chamber with a ferocious thundering noise. Everything rushed through her, all at once, and her consciousness blinked out.

  When she came to, she was still tied to the pole.

  “There, that was doable, wasn’t it?”

  For a long while, she was unable to respond.

  Oyārun was lying on a slab, tied down tight. The right sleeve of her white shirt was rolled up above the elbow.

  Aramīn was putting daggers through her right arm, one after another. He kept up the talk.

  “The first one goes into the center of the palm. An important location. The second just below the wrist, where the radius and the ulna meet. Another in the middle of the forearm. Yet another in the inner elbow. Remember, it works through fabric, but this time I want you to be able to see the sites.”

  She was taking short, gasping breaths.

  “Good, you are doing good. I’m not going to do anything sudden this time. You’ve made a lot of progress. It’s time to rest.”

  Tears were streaming down her face.

  “This is something you can do for yourself. Just one arm. Either the right or the left. I’m going to take these out and untie you, and then you can try.”

  She sat up, trembling. Her fingers closed around the handle of the dagger, but without any force, and she dropped it in her lap, wincing even though it was turned off.

  Aramīn picked up the dagger, handed it to her again. Calmly, patiently, without any urgency.

  She fumbled the catch again. A sob wracked her.

  “There’s no need to hurry. Take your time.”

  She managed to hold the blade on the third attempt.

  “Good. That’s a good first step.”

  She turned on the field. Pushed the blade into her palm, all the way to the hilt. Her fingers closed around the handle automatically.

  “It’s not going to come out unless you pull it out. You don’t need to worry about it. I can give you another one . . . Here. There, I can show you the spot.”

  He gently guided her hand. “Good, now push.”

  She did.

  “Two more. All right? You could take that when I was doing it.”

  She nodded, forcing out her words from between clenched teeth. “That was . . . easier.”

  “Yes, passivity is easier for some people, and that’s fine. I’m making you do this for a reason.”

  She nodded again, her neck muscles painfully spasming. She pushed away the impulse to rub her neck. Two more.

  She looked at her arm, the hilts of the four daggers poking upward. She held down her arm with her other hand, tried to steady the shaking. Tried to calm the māwal, reroute the disrupted flow, deal with the excess.

  “Great.” He praised her so much these days, she thought, but always in such a detached manner . . . She cradled her arm to herself. It felt like it was becoming a burning white conduit for all the power in the universe. She wasn’t sure she could keep this up for much longer.

  “Relax. Just a few moments . . . Good. Now you can try to remove them. Very slowly. One by one. No rash movements. You know what rash movements lead to, right?”

  The inside of her forehead lit up with the memory of an excruciating feeling. She was very, very cautious.

  “There. Now you see you have control over the process.”

  “I—I thought I was supposed to be helpless,” she offered. Even her lips felt numb, worn out from stimulus overload.

  “You’re going to be helpless, that’s inevitable. Nothing can persist in the face of the raw stream.” He glanced away for a moment. “But it’s imperative for you to understand that you do have control, as much as it’s possible, even if you are helpless, even if you are made helpless, you have some measure of control.”

  He had taken to repeating himself, she thought. Was this some kind of technique, too?

  “I am going to give you that control. And then I’m going to make you helpless, and you’re going to hold on to what you have left. Once this is over and you’re standing in that point, nothing of you is going to remain, nothing, except this. This will remain. This will remain.”

  “The—the shaking isn’t stopping,” she said, and he sat next to her, held her trembling body to himself.

  “It’s going to pass,” he said.

  She broke down in sobs.

  “Shh.” He cradled her head in one hand. His touch was unexpectedly soothing. “It’s going to pass.”

  Eventually, it did.

  “I’m always worried that one day you’re going to just walk out, leave me there when I’m all tied up and the blades are in,” Oyārun said as they were preparing for another session. He was busy with the pole—the bottom catches did not want to hold.

  “I’m not leaving,” he said. “I’m going to be here. Even when you’ll have to face the stream, I’m going to be there.” The catch finally clicked in place. “I cannot be there in the mind, but I can be there, taking care of you, what of you exists in physical reality.” He straightened up, looked at her. “That’s going to make it a fraction easier. Just a fraction, but easier.”

  “Thank you,” she offered in
a wavering voice, even though she knew he was not doing this for her sake—he was doing it for the sake of success. Or was he?

  Her world was the chamber, poles and slabs and circular and rectangular frames and the four walls. Chained to a wall. Tied to a frame.

  Sometimes she threw up, sometimes she spat blood. Her blood was no longer red; it was opalescent and colorless.

  The floor drank up everything, the stains disappearing at a speed discernible to the naked eye.

  The world was a burning tree of fire and she was chained to the tree and stabbed with knives of ice. The world was a swirling circle of storm clouds and she was tied to the circle and whipped with lashes of lightning.

  She lost control. Over and over again. At times they had to interrupt—the first time it happened, Aramīn said the wards in the walls wouldn’t hold, and she realized there was some kind of māwal technology inside the walls, hidden from casual observation, redirecting the excess. She only hoped the walls wouldn’t come down one day. Surely Aramīn would not let that happen—he had control over her nervous system, he could shut down her consciousness if the immediate need arose.

  “You won’t allow me to bring down the Institute, right?” Oyārun was feeling especially discouraged that day.

  “Hmm?” Aramīn turned to her. “What do you mean?”

  She spread her hands. “There’s . . . there’s so much destructive power.” In me. She could not bring herself to finish the sentence, say the words out loud.

  “You were not built to destroy,” Aramīn said. “You were built to sustain.”

  Oyārun lifted the whip, a long plastic tentacle, gingerly wrapped it around her lower arm—it didn’t have a handle. The pain burned, but it was manageable.

  A thought struck her. “With this one, the user can’t help to feel pain, either.”

  “Exactly.” Aramīn nodded.

  She made a little lashing motion, little more than a wave. “But that means . . . ” She pursed her lips.

  “Yes, I also feel pain when I’m using this one.” His face was smooth, unexpressive.

  “You don’t mind?”