A Succession of Bad Days

by Graydon Saunders

  My dot is more than a metre to the right of Zora’s and Chloris', across the tent, and Dove’s is half again past that, just in the tent.

  Dove shifts forward, the way someone who is trying to decide what to say does.

  Wake smiles, entirely jovial.

  The view gains a vertical gold line. “The median talent of those on the battalion list.”

  It’s to the left of my dot, maybe three decimetres.

  What a battalion has to do with being a sorcerer isn’t obvious at all. Line battalion?

  Wake waves one hand at the canvas in a sort of scrubbing motion, and the graph goes away.

  “It is your collective misfortune to be merely mighty. Any mountains you move shall require long and careful preparation.”

  “That’s a misfortune?” Zora, who doesn’t sound more confused than I’m feeling.

  Wake nods. “Those in the principal distribution have the practical option of ignoring their talent; it may trouble their dreams, alter their luck, but it will acquiesce to disuse.”

  I don’t like where this is going.

  “Much as those who are nulls cannot ignore that fact, and must exist in a world where the direct exercise of the Power cannot benefit them any more than it might harm them, those whose talent exists in the third modality have no meaningful option to ignore it.”

  Wake says this calmly, like it isn’t a condemnation. Maybe if you’re a sorcerer it isn’t.

  “As a customary matter, your training should have started between the ages of twelve and fourteen. Your formal schooling should have started at sixteen. While there are some advantages to approaching training when you are of mature years, and less likely to commit acts of rash enthusiasm, there are two considerable disadvantages. Your talents are more developed, requiring that you manage greater strength with what greater wisdom you have won.” Wake’s tone doesn’t give the impression this is a certain outcome.

  Wake pauses, and something changes. I’m not going to look closely again to try to tell what.

  Wake looks at all of us, individually, taking careful time. “Mastery of your talent, of the exercise of the Power, is not a slight discipline, even under ideal circumstances of development. None of you have that; your brains and minds have already developed, become set to varying degrees in habits that do not involve habitual or extensive exercise of the Power.”

  Wake doesn’t say, but Dove does: “Extensively traumatic process of alteration.”

  Wake nods firmly, looks at Dove. “The rest of Blossom’s advice was just as honest.”

  Wake’s attention comes back to the rest of us.

  “Should you succeed, your continued existence will be constrained by an unfailing adherence to the precepts of the Shape of Peace, to which you will be required to irrevocably bind your lives.”

  Kynefrid’s head comes up, from a gaze bent on sprawled feet. “Isn’t that Independents?”

  “Yes,” says Wake.

  “Surviving major exercise of the Power requires alteration of the self.” Wake grimaces. “More accurately, such exercise produces alteration of the self. Choosing the form of the alteration is preferential in all respects to the results of chance.”

  I’m thinking about breathing, trying not to go too tense. Staring at the grass I’m sitting on doesn’t seem like an especially good idea, the shade of green wavers alarmingly if I don’t not watch it.

  “The lifespan of Independents is in most respects incidental to the alterations of survival.” Wake seems to recognize that this cannot be said kindly, and doesn’t try.

  “Don’t people decide if they want to be Independents?” Zora. I think Zora’s deciding not to be alarmed.

  Wake’s head tips from side to side, neither ‘no’ nor ‘yes’. “Those in the right tail of the main distribution might, yes. It is a true choice for them, to be an Independent, to be perhaps accomplished village sorcerers, to live two centuries, to be at least somewhat socially acceptable, or to be team leads on a large focus and be entirely socially acceptable, with no recognized whiff of sorcery.”

  Wake’s face takes on a more formal cast, less teacher and more, more sorcerer, I guess.

  “It is, strictly, a choice for you as well — the Commonweal does not compel service. It is, simply, that you cannot expect to survive without your studies progressing so far.”

  This isn’t getting better.

  “All of you are solidly in the third modality in your possession of talent; against the statistical mass of the Commonweal’s history, that gives you roughly even odds of surviving to achieve Independent status.”

  “And if we don’t want to do this at all?” Kynefrid, voice full of doubt.

  Wake’s voice is gentle. “You can think of it as having a congenital heart condition. Without training, survival at fifty is effectively unknown; survival at forty is one chance in four.” Out of the corner of my eye I can see Dove sitting up straighter.

  “Supposing you wish to continue — supposing that you wish to live full lives — you five will form a study team together, and training will begin tomorrow.”

  “As that study team,” Wake goes on, voice entirely prosaic, the way it sounds like when you go off somewhere to help with a big job of work and the host gean tells you where you’ll be sleeping, “you will be in my keeping, as a servant of the Galdor-gesith of the Second Commonweal.” Meaning we get fed out of taxes.

  I don’t like that much, and I don’t think anybody else does, either. There’s a moment of not-squirming. Being young and healthy and not working is really embarrassing to contemplate.

  “As that servant, I shall be arranging your lessons and quarters.”

  Wake looks suddenly mischievous. “Any student hijinks you will find yourselves explaining to Halt.”

  I think Chloris, face dropped into hands, is trying not to cry. I’m trying not to gibber, I think it comes out even. Zora has a this-can’t-be-right face on.

  Kynefrid looks alarmed. “Wait, everyone-knows-the-stories Halt?”

  Dove starts laughing like that was really, really funny.

  Chapter 4

  Even in school, after you test out for no talent at all, they stop giving you focus exercises and send you off to do something else.

  For me, that was mostly wood-turning. A big help in getting into the collective I wanted, but no help now.

  Everybody’s stuff made it out to the tent last night; this morning, everybody’s a bit muzzy except Dove. Dove just looks grim. Nobody’s had breakfast. There’s a walk, which helps with the muzzy; having the sun clear the horizon helps more. Cloudy, but I don’t think it’s going to rain.

  The person who got us up goes by Steam; certainly not a Creek, I think maybe about my height, twenty, thirty kilos more muscle and moving the way winch-cables do before the load comes on. Not someone to argue with about needing breathing exercises.

  The walk ends at the front edge of a sandpit. It goes back a couple hundred metres, straight into a hill. There’s a serious lot of sand exposed, it looks like someone dug the dirt off it for a couple hundred metres, not like there was erosion.

  Messed-up sand; chunks of it look fused, and the parts in loose grains look stirred.

  “Does that look odd to you?” I’m not sure who the “you” I’m asking is, but Zora and Kynefrid shake their heads. Chloris says “I didn’t think the glass factory had dug up so much.”

  “The Experimental Battery used it for firing practice.” Dove waves at the distant back edge, the sand left piled up in front of it. “The shot go way back before they stop.”

  “We’re here because if it will stop long shot, it’ll stop anything the five of you come up with.” Steam sounds amused.

  “The point to this is getting good at maintaining a personal awareness of the Power, of the access to the Power your talent gives you. There are a million ways to do that, but if I’ve got to teach it, I’m going to use the one I know best.” Steam still sounds amused.

  We wind up beside ea
ch other in a line, about far enough apart that our hands wouldn’t touch if we stuck our arms out. Further than I expect, all these really tall people. Steam’s gone over how neither talent nor the Power are intellectual things; it’s a whole body thing, like stamina or balance.

  So we’re going to start with breathing: in through the nose, out through the mouth, and visualizing the Power arising in the centre of our guts kinda like a well-pump. Once we’ve got it, the Power is supposed to go all the way around, up the spine and back down and around.

  “If you set your hair on fire, stop,” is Steam’s last bit of advice.

  I feel stupid, worrying about breathing; Steam can call it natural breathing all day, breathing by expanding my stomach doesn’t feel natural at all.

  On the other hand, I may not know about natural breathing but I do know where worrying about how stupid you look and if you’re doing it right goes. Keep that up long enough and you’ve got a face full of splinters and a parting tool up your nose.

  Haven’t torn my nose off yet and don’t want to start now.

  Dove’s to my right and Kynefrid’s to my left, Zora and Chloris are past Kynefrid. Steam’s behind us. It’s an effort to not try to look at how anyone else is doing.

  It gets to feeling like it’s doing something, there’s definitely a change in sensation, and I’ve just decided not to think about whether or not I’m fooling myself when there’s a shriek.

  Zora’s head is fountaining sparks like a dry pine bough just catching fire.

  “Stop,” says Steam, in a voice that could kick open doors, and makes hand gestures, swoopy ones, and mutters something that might be chanting if you did it for serious. All the sparks wind up in a small glowing orange ball between Steam’s cupped hands.

  “That’s pretty good,” Steam says, making a throwing motion and sending the ball of sparks out into sand, where there’s a flash and a pop and some flying sand.

  Zora’s making ‘is it out?’ patting motions, there are still some wisps of smoke. Chloris is looking appalled; Zora looks embarrassed. I can’t see the top of Zora’s head. Don’t know how you tell how much damage happened to coiled braids.

  I’m trying to figure out what to do about the tingly sensation in my hands; Steam’s Stop made me reach for something, the way you do to cut the air to the lathe.

  Steam’s good at looking reassuring. “Everybody lights their hair on fire at least once.” Zora straightens up a bit; Chloris doesn’t look less appalled, and Kynefrid starts. Dove, out of the corner of my eye, is grinning. I really wonder what Dove used to do. Dove’s older, I can’t tell with Creeks how much older, not almost or just out of youth like the rest of us but no telling how far.

  Steam slips between me and Kynefrid, turns around, looks at me again, reaches out and squeezes my hands around the fingers, right and left. It feels like a horrible smell.

  Tingling’s gone, though.

  “Next step is like this,” Steam says, facing all of us and going to a wider, more bent-kneed stance, arms up in front in a curve, palms facing in and fingers spread. “Think of it like holding a big ball. You’re feeding the Power down your arms and into the ball. Keep it in the ball; it’s an accumulation exercise.”

  When my attention lifts off my breathing, I’ve got a four decimetre ball of heavy iron-grey something. It feels like it has mass, there’s drag if I move my hands out a bit, and there’s this uncomfortable smell of whistling.

  Dove’s got something barely a decimetre across, the colour of the smell of oranges, and I can feel the heat on that side of my face, on the outside of my right arm.

  Kynefrid’s effort is intermediate in size, and it stutters in and out of existence, wafting a sensation of falling plum blossoms.

  Plum blossoms that skitter up my arms and neck on little-ant feet. Don’t like that much.

  I can’t tell what Zora and Chloris have managed, but it’s something; there’re odd coloured shadows of their raised arms just visible in the corner of my eye.

  Steam’s voice has got a lot of pleased in it. “We’re going to let go from the left. Give it a count of three from when the person to your left lets go and turn your hands outward.”

  “Zora, one, two, three — ” Steam’s voice doesn’t have any doubt in it whatsoever, which is a good trick.

  Zora’s sphere of energy goes a long way, almost off the sand, and vanishes in a hiss and an itching.

  Chloris’ gets maybe three metres away and vanishes with a bang. A really loud one, with wind. Not just confused senses, an actual explosion. Doesn’t do anything for my nerves. I feel myself inhaling a little deeper, more deliberately. There’s something to this natural breathing stuff.

  Kynefrid turns their hands out just about when the sphere stutters; it goes away, and my hair is standing on end. Steam makes a clucking noise.

  I don’t know why I don’t lose the sphere then, or my breathing. I probably take too long, three full breaths, before I turn my hands out.

  The iron-grey something leaves, I wasn’t sure it would, the sense of mass makes it seem like something you’d have to throw really hard. It goes up, a smooth parabola. When the ball comes down it sits spinning and throwing sand and sinking into the little pit it’s digging.

  Dove’s sphere of energy hangs there, drifting a little, and then Dove frowns at it. It drifts away, rather slowly, but it drops to the sand and vanishes in a spray of what looks like melted sand.

  Quite a lot of melted sand.

  Well, we’re all still alive, and nothing’s on fire.

  Steam moves around in front of us. That seems to be Steam’s take on it, too.

  “Kynefrid, you’ve done lots of specific charm-stuff, like heating the wort kettle?”

  Kynefrid grins. It’s at least half embarrassed grin, but a grin all the same. “That’s beer, not cider, but yeah.”

  “Stop trying to make it do something; this is just getting the Power to show up. Doing something with it is next décade.”

  I have the horrible feeling Steam means that literally.

  Chapter 5

  Another hour of breathing exercises, more melted sand, finishing breathing exercises with ‘Power-scrubbing’, making sure there isn’t any sticking to us where it shouldn’t, then running to the tent to grab clothes, running into Westcreek Town so we have time for a bath before breakfast, the actual bath, which is more like a comprehensive sluicing, and the time required to eat breakfast, are all sort of a blur. I’m there, I notice what’s happening, but it’s enough different from anything else I’ve ever done that it doesn’t want to stick to my head. Dove is emphatic that use of the Power requires a high food intake, and Chloris’ concern that we haven’t used much yet gets met with “This is breakfast; what else do you think is going to happen today?”

  I’m pretty sure Dove has no specific factual knowledge, either, but we find ourselves back at the tent, where Wake is rather contemplatively winding up surveyor’s string.

  “It being the sixth day of the third décade of Vendémiaire, perhaps the first thing we might consider is more weather-proof housing.” Wake is totally cheerful saying this.

  “We’re going to build a house.” Chloris doesn’t say this like a question. Chloris says this as one delivered into the keeping of crazy people.

  “Tents are damp; it gets hard to study.” Wake’s cheer doesn’t alter.

  “The only way I’ve ever made a wall we can’t use.” Dove sounds a little wry.

  “I’ve made a lot of doorknobs, but that doesn’t seem helpful, somehow.” I try not to sound anything other than informative.

  “I know how to make pickles.” Chloris isn’t sounding convinced of anyone’s increase in sanity. “Why can’t we request housing in Westcreek Town?” Rather than wasting material making something new hovers there unsaid.

  Wake’s head tips a bit. Wake’s shorter than me, so way shorter than Chloris, but this won’t stay in your head unless you work at it; Creeks keep talking to a place four decimetres
over Wake’s head. “Housing is short; various of the displaced need to be kept from the wet. Were that not the case, it is considered inadvisable to house high-talent students in established settlements.”

  “Inadvisable, disturbs their studies, or inadvisable, fire hazard?” Zora looks worried.

  Wake smiles. “Inadvisable, smoking crater.” Large hands come up, spread placatingly. “Not a common outcome, but it need happen only once in a very long while to be unwise in an established settlement.”

  “So we’re up here on land close to useless, close enough to town but not too close.” Dove sounds reassured, like the location of the tent finally makes sense.

  Wake nods.

  “Any qualified Independent ought to be able to put up a house.” Zora doesn’t believe something about their own statement, but I think it’s more that qualified will apply any time soon than anything about the abilities of Independents.

  “Or be able to turn into a snowdrift and not care that it’s winter.”

  That one gets Zora a full-on smile of approval from Wake. “We would not consider that a reasonable expectation in your first year of studies.”

  Wake starts handing out stakes, and mallets, and string. Dove takes a mallet and a handful of stakes and starts walking, up over the top of the hill.

  The tent is on the south, town-and-canal-facing side of the hill. It doesn’t get much sun.

  Dove is scuffing at the thin dirt and looking displeased, over on the north side of the hilltop.

  Dove looks up at Wake; the rest of us are trailing behind Wake. “This would have been shale if it didn’t have so much crap in it. Take the crap out, which we don’t know how to do, and you’ve got a carbon fire and still don’t get competent rock.”

  Wake nods, face solemn.

  “Westcreek gets its weather from the southeast. If we’re going to head into town through the snow, that means we want — ” and there’s a specific sort of hand-wave. I think I see, for a flickered instant, an orange line trail over low places in the empty landscape, northwards and down.