There are few sensations like that of still being alive. I felt about two stone lighter, and suddenly and instantly exhausted, like if I didn’t sit down right away I’d fall down where I stood. It goes without saying, it’s as dark as a bag inside a tower (who needs windows when you’ve got lux in tenebris?) I sort of melted down onto my knees and stayed there for a while, relishing breathing. Then I heard something.
Another feature of the blockhouse towers is sanitation and pest control. Dust doesn’t gather inside a tower, and there are positively no rats, mice, cockroaches, spiders, vermin of any sort. I dread to think what happens to them; they just aren’t there. The only thing that makes a noise inside a tower, therefore, is people.
I kept very, very still. I hadn’t moved the door coming in, so maybe the noise-maker didn’t know I was there. Logic, that annoyingly unhelpful friend, was telling me that it could only be one of our lot, since nobody else would go inside a tower in Boc. Also, stupid Logic insisted on telling me, even if it’s someone nasty, inside a tower, you’re enormously powerful; the tower will enhance any offensive or defensive form you care to use, and will of its own accord shield you from any physical attack from a non-adept. There’s nothing to be afraid of, Logic said. Well.
“Hello?” said a voice. “Is there someone there?”
In my defence; it was a female voice, and she sounded terrified. It’s a sort of assumption you make; that the enemy is never scared. The enemy, as we imagine him, is a sort of ice-cool, nerves-of-steel super-predator, every fibre of whose being is concentrated with absolute intensity on killing you. So, you tell yourself, if the voice sounds petrified with fear, it can’t be the enemy. Bullshit, of course. I’ve been the enemy loads of times, and I’m permanently terrified.
“Hold on,” I said. “I’ll get us some light.”
Towers are really good at some things. I’d got as far as lux, and the lights came on.
A BRIEF DIGRESSION on the operating system of blockhouse towers.
As previously noted, we know almost nothing about them, or the people who built them. The leading hypothesis says that the interior of a tower isn’t real-time physical space. Instead, when you walk through the door, you’re automatically transported to a Room—third-floor, most likely, since that’s where most of the shareable Rooms are; also, the few characteristics of towers we know about are consistent with the behaviour of third-floor environments. Take, for example (the hypothesists say) the furniture issue. When you enter a tower and turn up the light (possibly before, but how would you know?) the interior furnishes and decorates itself according to your wishes or, more usually, your preconceptions—just as a third-floor Room does. The alternative explanation (that the tower-builders had forms capable of materialising solid, real tables, chairs, curtains, footstools, bookshelves, candelabra, dinner services and spittoons out of thin air) is basically untenable. Anything solid you find in a tower is therefore only Room-real, which is why you can’t take it outside with you. Quite convincing, except it doesn’t explain how you can live on the food.
THE ONLY WORD to describe it was—
“Hello,” I said.
She looked at me. Her eyes were so wide open, it must have hurt. Twenty-seven or so (but I’m useless at women’s ages); thin face, mousy hair, very pale.
“It’s all right,” I said. “You’re perfectly safe.”
—vulgar. As in ghastly taste, as in tart’s boudoir, as in—Well. Pink marble floor, for crying out loud. Little spindly-legged occasional tables, painted white, with ivy leaves. Enough red velvet to make curtains for the sky. Those pink-blue-and-white porcelain vases. Even a silver-gilt incense burner in the shape of a begging dog.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I really didn’t know I was—”
“Trespassing?” I gave her an idiot grin. “Me too. How did you get in here?”
“The door was open. I—”
It suddenly occurred to me that I was wearing a lot of mud and not much else. On the third floor, you just have to think, and—
She screamed. Well, fair enough. I’d just materialised a knee-length pale grey Brother’s habit out of thin air. My trouble is, I don’t consider the consequences of my actions.
“It’s all right,” I said. “It’s not how it—”
“You can do it too.”
IT’S NOT THAT I mind being stupid per se. It’s the embarrassment that gets to me, the frustration at the time I waste, the idiotic messes I get myself into, the long, dreary business of sorting them out, explaining, trying to undo the damage.
Why had I been sent to Boc in the first place? To track down an untrained natural. Well, then. A man of normal perspicacity, a non-idiot, would’ve made the connection as soon as he heard a noise inside a blockhouse tower. Only a talented could get inside a tower. At any given time, there are very, very few talented in Boc, and we know all about them; we go to inordinate lengths to find them and get them out of there safely. Therefore, a talented discovered unexpectedly inside a tower in Boc must be an untrained natural—probably some poor kid from a village who knows he’s different but not why; terrified, of course, desperate; as a very last resort, he makes a run for it and holes up in a tower, without the faintest clue what a tower is or what it does. True, her being a she might tend to confuse the issue, since it’s an article of faith that very few women have the talent; but it’s far from unknown, probably much commoner than we’re led to believe. I should’ve figured it out much, much earlier. What can I say? I’m an idiot.
“IT’S ALL RIGHT,” I repeated. “You’re perfectly safe.”
(See above, under idiot.)
“You can,” she said—a curious blend of terror and triumph, a real collector’s item. “You can do—”
“Yes, but we don’t call it that. Certainly not in BocFlemen.” I paused for breath. “You and I can both do some stuff that other people can’t. It’s no big deal. It’s like some people are double-jointed. That’s all it is.”
She looked at me.
“But,” I went on, “your people have a—well, let’s say they have a different attitude. It’s not like that where I come from. I’m from the Studium, in Politeia Thaumasta. Actually, I came here to find you.”
She blinked, as though I’d shone a bright light in her face. “Me?”
I nodded. “We look after our own,” I said. “I came to find you and ask if you’d like to come back to the Studium with me. The people there are all like us, so you wouldn’t have to be scared any more. If you want—it’s entirely up to you—we can show you how to control the gift you’ve been born with, and use it to do good, useful things. Obviously you don’t have to come with me, but I really do think you should. I know it’s difficult to accept, but you’re not safe here.”
“I know that.” Well, I have The Speech off by heart, and I get all tongue-tied and hopeless if I try and adapt it to circumstances. “You’ll take me away? To—”
“Thaumasta. It’s on the far side of the mountains. We could be there in four days.”
She frowned. “What would I have to do? I haven’t got any money.”
One of the Frequently Asked Questions; much better. I knew what to say. “That’s perfectly all right,” I said. “The Studium pays for everything. You get board and lodgings and clothes to wear, and like I said, if you want to learn we’ll teach you, no charge. It’s what we’re for. We’ve been doing it for two hundred years, so we know how to look after people.” I paused. She was still looking at me. “I don’t want to hurry you,” I said, “and I know, you want time to think about it, but please don’t take too long. We’re perfectly safe so long as we stay in this tower, but outside it could be dangerous, so if you’re coming, the sooner we leave the better.” I never know how to finish that particular speech. I just tail off and try and look sincere. I suspect I’m not very good at it.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I’ve been here a very long time.”
“You think you have,” I corrected her gently.
“These towers are funny old places. Time doesn’t work quite the same in here. It’s like—” I glanced at her. The next bit should’ve been, instead of time being a straight line, think of it as a spiral, a spring you can stretch out, or you can squash it flat and the coils touch each other. The look on her face reminded me ever so much of a rabbit. “It’s different,” I said.
“I don’t think I could leave,” she said. “It wouldn’t be safe.”
“It’s all right,” I heard myself say. “You’ll be with me.”
ONE PROBLEM WITH wars between factions of the talented community is that they’re unwinnable. Invariably, after a brief initial phase marked by high levels of spectacular activity and collateral damage, both sides retreat to invulnerable fortified positions and exhaust themselves engaging in long-range area bombardment, whose only effect (apart from general devastation of the surrounding area) is to make sure that the other side can’t leave their bunkers. Only when resources and patience run out does one side take the fairly desperate risk of trying to storm the enemy positions with ground forces. More often than not, the side making this move loses; too many of its people die in the attempt, until the point is reached where the losses cross the threshold into unacceptability, and there’s no option but to cede the disputed territory and withdraw. In other words, victory almost always goes to the side that keeps its nerve longest and is prepared to tolerate the most damage.
Which probably explains why we tend to fight our wars in other people’s countries. It’s so much easier to keep one’s nerve when the villages and fields getting burnt into glass belong to some stranger. A strategist must, above all, avoid the distractions of sentiment and emotional involvement, which must inevitably cloud his clear view of the true objective, victory.
Another problem is that our wars never end. We tell them to, but they rarely listen.
“FINE,” I SAID. “Let’s just stay here for now, get to know each other a little better, and when you feel like you can trust me, we’ll go. How does that sound?”
She looked at me with her head slightly on one side. “I don’t think I can—”
“It’s all right,” I said quickly, “we’re not going anywhere. For now. Meanwhile—” I tried smiling. I really shouldn’t. “How about something to eat?”
It was as if I’d said something inappropriate. “I looked when I got here,” she said. “There was no food anywhere.”
“Ah.” Big grin. “That’s because you didn’t look in the right place.”
“But I looked everywhere.”
“No you didn’t.”
All right, party trick. Cheap party trick. In towers, like in third floor rooms, there’s always a stone jar (grey, ordinary looking, about yay high) in the east corner. Just think of what you want and lift the lid—
“Here we are,” I said.
—except it can’t do cheese. Nobody knows why. I put my hand down inside the jar and produced a loaf of bread, two of those air-dried Vesani sausages and four apples. “Here,” I said, throwing her an apple. “Catch.”
She didn’t even try. It hit the wall next to her, bounced and rolled ridiculously across the floor. “I’m not hungry.”
Impossible. Refugees and fugitives are always hungry. They snatch the food out of your hand and eat like dogs. “Ah well,” I said, breaking the loaf in half. “I’ll put yours here and you can have it when you feel like it.” I’d just realised that I was a refugee and a fugitive, and I was starving. I crammed bread into my face and chewed violently until it was all gone.
Long silence. She was watching me. I hate that. I got up, crossed the room and picked a book at random off the shelf. It turned out to be Anthemius’ Principles of Metallurgy. I’d read it before (obviously, or it couldn’t have been there) I sat down beside the fire and started to read.
Literacy is a wonderful thing. Not only does it communicate the wisdom of the ages throughout all time, it also helps you avoid those soul-destroying staring matches when neither of you has anything to say. I read two whole chapters before she finally admitted defeat.
“Where you come from—”
I closed the book and smiled at her. “Yes?”
“They can all do—you know—where you’re from?”
“No,” I said. “Most people can’t, like most people aren’t double-jointed. But those who can aren’t feared or persecuted. We all come together in the place where I live—the Studium—and we learn to improve our skills, we study, and we help people.”
She frowned. “I was told you hurt people.”
Ah yes, I thought. “We don’t,” I said. “I mean my lot, the Studium. But talented people—that’s people like you and me, the ones who have the gift—sometimes they do some pretty nasty things; just because they have the power, because they can. They did some really bad things here, in BocFlemen, a long time ago. It doesn’t happen any more, because the Studium doesn’t allow it, but the Boc people don’t trust us. Why should they, after all? One day, we hope, they’ll change their minds, but until then all we can do is try and stay out of their way.”
“But you’re here.”
I nodded. “I was sent to find someone,” I said. “I was sent to find you.”
Her eyes opened wide. “Me?”
I nodded. “I was told to come here and rescue an untrained natural—that’s what we call people like you, people who have the talent but have never been taught to use it. If they’re left on their own, they can hurt themselves, or other people—not through malice, but accidentally, or from not knowing their own strength. Or they’re in danger just for being talented, like in Boc. Well, we didn’t have much to go on, just that this untrained natural was somewhere in this part of Boc—”
“Someone told you?”
I shook my head. “We can sort of feel these things,” I said. “It’s a bit complicated. Anyway, I came, and here you are.”
“You came to rescue me.”
I didn’t sigh. It takes a while in practice before you realise; talented doesn’t necessarily mean smart. Especially your untrained naturals. Some of them are as thick as bricks. “That’s right,” I said patiently. “That’s the only reason I’m here. To take you to where you’ll be safe.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think there’s any such place,” she said.
It’s a bit like getting the pig to go in the cart. The more you try and drag, shove, chivvy, crowd it in, the more it digs in its trotters and walks backwards. So instead you chuck a couple of apples in and go away, then sneak back two minutes later, when the pig’s climbed aboard and is happily munching, and slam the tailgate shut very fast. I smiled at her, picked up the book and started reading. Curiously, the book was now Themistocles on Animal Husbandry. I turned to the bit about keeping bees, which I rather like.
“What sort of things can you do?” she asked.
I put the book down. “Ah,” I said. “Now that’s an interesting question.”
She listened attentively as I did the usual spiel—what we can’t do, followed by what we can, followed by what we won’t do, followed by what we actually do. I no longer need to think while I recite, so I spent the time observing her reactions, hoping for a tiny crack in the ironclad reserve, into which I could drive the wedge of urgency. Something odd there. Normally—as in 99 times out of 100—the usual spiel is competing against inherent disbelief, distrust and fear: Is this strange man really what he says he is, is he really going to help me or is he the kettlehats in disguise? This time, it was as though she was ticking things off on a list, preparatory to making a decision that wasn’t the one I was trying to get her to make.
I USED THE term ground troops earlier. I suspect I’ve misled you into thinking that it refers to adepts, talented, us, being sent in to slog it out toe-to-toe with the enemy. That’s not actually how it works. Adepts—all adepts, even me—are valuable assets; a great deal of time, money and resources has been spent on us by the time we graduate, and there are few enough of us to begin with. We’r
e simply too precious and rare to waste. Wars among the talented are utterly devastating and ruinous, but nobody actually dies.
None of us, at any rate. For any warlike activity that involves physical activity (such as actually being there, within a two hundred mile radius of the combat zone) we employ, conscript, commandeer suitable bodies from the local untalented population to act as our proxies. Naturally we prefer volunteers, lured by promises of substantial payments to them—or, more realistically, their next of kin—but it’s rarely possible to get enough people of sufficient calibre to be useful. A proxy, after all, needs to have a mind big enough and strong enough to hold and withstand the things we need to put in it. There are also intense physical demands. A proxy must be capable of surviving sustained periods during which his heart beats at twice its normal pace and his ribcage is subjected to extreme internal pressure. Saloninus once said that acting as a proxy is the equivalent of running twenty miles up a steep hill carrying someone heavier than yourself in your arms without waking him. I have no idea if that’s true, but nobody’s seen fit to refute it in an official publication.
About eighty per cent of proxies don’t survive. Those that do tend not to live very long, for which they and those close to them are probably quite grateful. A very few come out of the experience monstrously enhanced, both physically and mentally, and live to a ridiculously old age. It’s fortuitous that most of these fortunate few go on to develop a remarkable level of serenity and inner peace, which many an adept would envy. Most of them.
Fighting a war via proxies is almost, not quite but almost, as hard on the adepts who wield them. The mental strain, so I’m told, is debilitating. In extreme cases, it can lead to severe damage to, or even loss of the adept’s talent, which must surely be the proverbial fate worse than death. You can see why even enlightened people such as us would go to any length to avoid it.
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