A Succession of Bad Days

by Graydon Saunders

  Chloris, between Dove and Zora, floats. I can’t tell if the floating is annoying Chloris or the degree to which Dove and Zora don’t. Creek thing, social thing, Chloris thing, maybe Halt knows.

  I smirk at myself, and Dove raises an eyebrow at me.

  “Question I couldn’t answer, caught myself thinking maybe Halt knows.”

  Dove outright grins.

  A little while later, it’s a serious exercise of will to get out of the tub, get dressed, and start walking back to the tent. The heat really helped, the walk is just endless, rather than fatal.

  Can’t say we sleep like the dead, not really, but I’d believe it if you told me the dead could hear Kynefrid snoring.

  Morning hurts.

  Not as badly as I think it ought to, but enough to notice. It’s wet, too, a persistent clammy mist more than actual rain.

  Hunger wins.

  Zora and Dove wait for me, a little. I have to scuttle to catch up. They seem to find the general fragility of non-Creeks mostly amusing, in a must-be-tough-to-be-you sort of way.

  I don’t, I doubt any of us, need to think about getting into Westcreek Town; our feet know the way. Not being in someone else’s hurry makes for a restful morning, mist or no mist.

  Outside the refectory is, well, I don’t know. Six little legs, three a side, and one huge one at the back. The huge foot looks like there was some sort of collision between a chicken and a rabbit. The creature has thick practical teeth that could eat anything at all. Looks like it masses five hundred kilos or more, up past the low end of cow-sized.

  It’s completely dead. Dead, and slung from a pole, and surrounded by sixteen armoured people, hefty even for Creeks.

  Most Creeks have this impression of general amiability, the way an ox or a draft horse often will; it hasn’t got anything to prove, you couldn’t possibly make it try, and besides there’s some work to do around here somewhere. This bunch look a bit scuffed, despite the armour and the spears and the mist, but it’s scuffed like the finish on an axe.

  Someone comes out of the larder door; a senior cook, and somebody adult, they’re in armour, and too small for a Creek. Really little, in the Creeks, slight and shorter than me. Everybody around the dead critter-thing straightens up, just a bit. Right. Large-critter critter-team, and a non-Creek team lead. Nobody’s acting like that’s odd.

  The cook’s looking attentive while the team lead is saying something about how the critter’s really tasty even in the bland cooking. I’d expect the phrase “bland cooking,” to earn a dire look, but all I see is puzzlement.

  Right about then, someone notices us, or Dove, maybe, and they all get a bit straighter than they already were. Dove smiles sort of sideways, and nods back at them. The team lead makes a kind of formal wave. Dove straightens up a bit to return it, more formal still.

  We’re in to the refectory proper before Zora says, “What was that?”

  Dove says “That’s half the colour party of the Wapentake of the Creeks.”

  As names go, that’s outright historical. I have to think for a second to remember what a wapentake is, I thought was, from school.

  Zora snorts, and makes an elbowing motion at Dove, something I wouldn’t do, and says “The critter!” in aggrieved tones.

  Dove shrugs and keeps walking without pause toward the sideboard. Or possibly the porridge vat. “Captain says it’s tasty.”

  Zora makes a face. I’m, well, I figure if we’re getting fed and not even being asked to do dishes I don’t get to complain. Not that it’s likely a false claim. Anybody making team lead for a critter team, never mind that critter team, any kind of team so traditional and so risky you call the team lead Captain, can’t be in the habit of making huge public mistakes.

  Wake’s sitting alone, surrounded by a bunch of empty chairs. Given that we get a direct look and a wave, yeah, Wake’s been waiting for us. There’s a narrowing of eyes as we head over, and the next wave of Wake’s hand has, well, structure. I don’t know how that could possibly be true, it’s not like Wake’s bones have moved or there’s a change in the consistency of the air, but my brain insists it’s structure.

  My brain insists that the floor, the sensation of standing on the floor under my feet, the actual feeling of my own weight on the soles of my feet, sounds like the rustle of dry leaves in a wind, too. Half of being a wizard is probably knowing when to pay attention to your relentlessly unhelpful brain, and when you can drive yourself crazy by trying to figure out what something means.

  I’ve got my foot hooked around a chair leg before I realize that not only am I dry, I’m clean. Clean like the clothes I’m in were never dirty, once, ever. Since these pants were the ones I was displaced in, seventeen days from the Township of Wending to wherever it was at the bottom of the easternmost valley of the Folded Hills, and have been going to sorcerer school in since, that’s, I wouldn’t have believed it at all before I woke up in the hospital here.

  Zora’s grabbed the end of a braid, looks worried while rolling the last bit of hair between thumb and forefinger, and then relaxes a little.

  Wake smiles. “Grant me a little wisdom.”

  “Is this a next-year thing?” I try not to sound flustered. Maybe putting the plate and the bowl and the other plate and the mug and the handful of spoons down will provide enough plausible flustered. Dove and Zora wait for my hand to get away from the spoons before grabbing theirs with the relaxation of a day off.

  Different smile from Wake. Wake has a large stock of smiles. “Not all Independents may them so do. I should not you held this a reason to suppose you shall not learn it in time.”

  Not next year, and maybe not the year after. Repeat as necessary. Right.

  Wake’s drinking coffee; doesn’t eat much, and I’m not sure Halt eats at all, beyond tea and the tiny scones of ritual. Blossom eats like the wolf of legend, so maybe it’s an old Independent thing, rather than an Independent thing.

  All three of us get through the first plate before Wake says anything else. Which I suppose shows a certain seriousness about the wisdom.

  “Firstly, Zora, Grue functions as supervision; if you have a reason or desire to exercise the Power in Grue’s company, you may.”

  Zora nods, chewing and wide-eyed with happiness. Being able to heat an oven by yourself in a minute or two has to be an attractive idea.

  “Secondly, you — ” the movement of Wake’s coffee cup involves all of us — “may well have questions. Déci is a good time to remind you to ask them.”

  Dove stops eating, cutlery neatly arranged on the edge of the second plate. “Anybody else ever gone to a sorcerer school run like this one?”

  Wake’s head shakes no. “Not within the span of our historical knowledge.”

  “Blossom, Grue, and five others went through a predecessor approach, that attempted to maintain a balance between the traditional approach, with the pre-eminent teaching of precise control before all other matters, and the novel idea of teaching indirect and externalized invocation of large amounts of the Power as the pre-eminent skill. Those concerned with the training of sorcerers in the Commonweal have been arguing about the results ever since.”

  Dove’s looking really thoughtful. I’m thinking that the applesauce is suddenly less attractive than I thought it was.

  “When I write home, what do I tell my mother?” Zora’s voice won’t hold all the feelings behind, it comes out flat and shaky. “Sorcery is dangerous, that’s why there are rituals, so you do the important part consistently. Everybody who has ever made preserves and sterilized the jars knows that.” Wake nods. Plain boiling won’t get everything, not after however many tens of thousands of years sorcerers have been trying to kill each other, anyone who won’t obey them, or anything else that annoyed them.

  “There are only five of us; the fifty-fifty odds have to be from the traditional teaching style. So do I really say, Oh, Hi, Mom, Aunts, Uncles, everybody, this magic stuff is all kinds of fun and it’s really interesting and I’m wo
rking hard and it’s not impossible that I’m going to survive it?”

  Wake takes a deep breath, stops, does the chin-pointing thing toward where Kynefrid and Chloris are wandering in together. Can’t tell if they wanted some tent-time, or if they just had that much trouble waking up. Even without the careful warnings we get about eating, there’s no way they want to skip breakfast.

  Zora nods. I go back to the applesauce, Dove gets up and comes back with a whole pot of tea, just ahead of Kynefrid and Chloris. Tough to keep up with Dove even when you’re not balancing plates.

  Kynefrid and Chloris sit down. Wake starts talking. I’m really not sure if Wake let the deep breath out at all between pointing and starting talking. “Zora has asked what truth there is, communicable to concerned family, regarding a student’s survival chances, given that the novel training model in which you are engaged has not been used before, leading to a dearth of valid statistical expectations.

  “I think, Halt thinks, it is more likely that you will survive the use-of-the-Power part of your schooling. The emphasis on external working removes a source of risk, even as the scale of Power use adds one, and on the balance we believe it will be to your favour. The traditional approaches to training sorcerers emphasize control so harshly because they must; a significant error, when the operation of the Power is taking place within your brain, suffices to kill you. The approach you are following, that your teachers are taking with you, means a significant error will be worse for the landscape but maybe better for you.”

  “We can try new things, and it’s not a disaster.” Zora sounds thoughtful, hopeful, something like that.

  “You very nearly must try new things; of all the many things we know that sorcery might accomplish, we know how to accomplish only a very few in the style of Power use we are teaching you.”

  “So why go to more trouble to get worse sorcerers?” Chloris emerges from breakfast that far, and dives right back into it, though clearly listening.

  “A sorcerer of traditional habits co-operates poorly with other sorcerers. Not as a necessary matter of intention, but as a matter of ability; the complex channels of rigid control you develop are not, cannot be, like anyone else’s, just as no two trees grow their branches precisely alike or no two people have the same pattern of veins in their hands.”

  Dove puts an empty teacup down, sits up very straight, and smiles like the end of the world. “Halt’s after dynamic high-precision willed focus instantiations.”

  Wake’s returning smile is full of approval. “Halt and some others.”

  I must look stunned. Dove looks across at me. “A focus creates an artificial mind. Everybody joins in, you get this new thing that’s greater than the sum of its parts.”

  “A really dumb one.” Kynefrid sounds like someone startled into understanding Dove’s point.

  “Yeah, it’s a plough, it’s a dredge, there’s nothing else in there. Even the Line standards aren’t really flexible, they’re just more complicated, like a dog that knows more tricks. So if you want to melt a mountain or obliterate a sorcerer, it works great, but if you want to do something detailed you can’t.” Dove doesn’t say any of this like it’s the least bit open to debate, and with magic, ‘rocks fall when you drop them’ is open to debate.

  Chloris looks puzzled. “There was all that copper.”

  Dove makes a face. “Got by melting everything in a tailings hill and shaking the melt a bit. You could make glass, too, but probably not pipe to a size and certainly not those foamed glass tanks.”

  Zora’s head is being held tipped over so far it’s practically touching a shoulder. “Isn’t there an enchantment?”

  I know this one, from being around machinery discussions at the collective. “An enchantment’s a — ” there is no other word — “spell that’s been given a fixed form outside a mind. If you’ve got it, you can just shove Power into it, you don’t need the skill to make it. We already cast a spell together, with the Tall Woods. Nothing says we couldn’t do the kind of spell that’s usually put in a focus.”

  Wake’s look of approval has moved over to me. “Only not a fixed one. The executive could move, the expertise could alter.”

  I’m still trying to get my head around that when Zora says “So,” in a lingering way.

  Zora takes a deep breath. “If I say we’re doing a different kind of training, and it’s because Wake and Halt think there’s a way to get actual sorcerer-teams, that can do better stuff with the Power, and that it’s still not precisely safe but it’s probably not worse than the old way, I won’t be lying to my mother?”

  “You will not be lying to your mother.” Wake says that firmly, and then actually takes a swallow of coffee, instead of just waving the cup. “If your mother is especially concerned, I will, or Halt will, be pleased to speak with any of your family about why, in the entire absence of statistics, we believe your odds are at least as good.”

  Zora nods a little, the nod is tentative but Zora’s looking much more cheerful.

  I’m thinking that there’s an uncounted multitude of voracious hell-things between the Second Commonweal and the First, so I shan’t be sending my mother any letters. Not even to say I’ve found better work.

  “It’s the transition, isn’t it?” Kynefrid’s gaze is fixed on an empty plate. “Use-of-Power stuff isn’t what makes an Independent, it’s not any different, not really, from learning a different bunch of charms from the sorcerer three townships over.”

  Wake nods, with a kind of ‘do go on’ overtone to it.

  “Sometime, days ago — ” we all smile — “someone said something about the point of the transition being to be able to handle the Power without lighting yourself on fire, the lifespan is a side effect. And we’re wandering off into a Power-handling style no one else uses.” Kynefrid isn’t sounding hopeful.

  Wake’s head tips from side to side. “Blossom’s style of significant Power use is solely this one. Grue is fully capable of it. So it’s not a complete paucity of example.”

  “But we still — ” and Kynefrid stops, I think from not knowing what the words are, not from not knowing what it is there is to say.

  Wake’s chin points at Dove, coffee cup swinging wide to let the gesture be clear. “Flame-thrower.” Zora. “Wreaker, probably life-tweaker.” Kynefrid. “Yaldre.” Chloris. “Seven-to-three on summoner, ten-to-one on tagmat, four-to-five on necromancer.” Chloris looks appalled.

  Zora says “Edgar?”

  Wake shrugs. “We have no idea. Edgar’s agency with the Power gives an impression that’s reminiscent of Halt, but is otherwise unknown.”

  “Scion of the spider-god.” Dove’s grinning at me, and it’s not at all unkind as grins go.

  It would still be my turn to look appalled, even before Wake says “That is the most favoured hypothesis.”

  “So the style will get us through?” Kynefrid’s doubts, well, if they’re not all emerging in voice tone there are enough for three people.

  “Style gives us some understanding of what is required for success.” Wake makes an oddly precise gesture. We get something, shining brown and green, on the air down the table. A few people at other tables look, curious.

  A part of the construct, I don’t think it’s a diagram, blinks. “Success requires seven things; you must be able to invoke, actually gather, a sufficient quantity of Power as a reliable matter of capacity and skill. None of you can do that this morning.”

  “You must have a stable expression of skill, a common and habitual pattern of belief concerning the functioning of your talent. Your flesh must have adapted to the density of the Power. Your metaphysical part must have expanded to support the necessary reflexes, which will not arise from the flesh.” Blink-blink-blink.

  “Having done that, you would function at the level necessary to survive as a professional sorcerer; if the magnitude of your talent placed you in the right tail of the main distribution, you could stop there and all should be well.” Wake produces a remarkable
grin. “Except possibly for the boredom.”

  “To become an Independent, you must wilfully and consciously alter your flesh, binding your life to the Power.” Blink. “You leave the food ecology and enter the metaphysical.

  “You must alter your being so that the primary locus of your self becomes the metaphysical part, rather than the flesh, of your brain.” Blink.

  “You must secure the acceptance of the Shape of Peace.” Blink, and then it stays bright. “This requires that you perform the previous step in such a way that you emerge sane. Most especially, that you accept the authority of the laws of the Commonweal.”

  “You — ” this is suddenly not the abstract ‘you’ Wake has been using — “do insist on being an advanced class.”

  The construct parts gain glowing cyan letters. Fourteenths. Fifty-fifty means we’re looking for seven of them.

  Shape of Peace’s the hard one; three-fourteenths. The Power-raising step is one; the next three, together, are one. Right. Being a village sorcerer isn’t just safer, it’s easier.

  Primary-locus into the metaphysical part has a zero, apparently that never kills anybody. Altering the flesh has a two. Three, one, one, zero, two. Seven, all right.

  “The Shape of Peace is fussy.” Dove thinks that’s funny. I don’t, I can’t possibly, know that, but I can’t make myself doubt my interpretation of tone.

  “It is not enough to follow the laws; you must believe in their necessity.” Wake produces, not a usual grin, but a terrible smile. “If Halt can do that, any of you can, but it requires thought and work ahead of time, rather than delight in how mighty you have become.” The coffee cup’s rise stops long enough for, “It is a seductive joy.”

  “Moving your mind out of your brain is easy?” Zora doesn’t believe it.

  Wake’s head shakes no. “It is a consequence of altering your flesh, it very nearly happens on its own. It has the zero because it contributes to the attrition from the flesh-altering and the Shape of Peace, since there is no guarantee that your metaphysic mind will be sane or reasonable. No one can justly assign the proportions, so we give that step a zero.”