A Succession of Bad Days

by Graydon Saunders

  Reminds-me-of-Halt looks at the Clerk and says “No malice is found. The judgement of Heron stands entire,” and the judicial colleagues nod, very formally, you can really tell with a judge’s hat, might be why. And that’s that. Over. The witnesses look at the Clerk, get a nod, head away, the seated one helped to their feet by the standing.

  Two of the three judges stick around, hats off, as does the Clerk; the assistant clerk gets sent off to get lunch brought, Chloris counts people and creates a table. We get asked about what we plan to do, how the new lake can fill. Everybody, everybody sorcerous, looks at me.

  “Somewhere, not very far away in the chances that make the world, the sea has not receded these last few thousands of years.” Glaciation, Wake says, big sheets of ice covering continents in the northern hemisphere. So much ice it has drunk down the sea. “All we have to do is borrow the chances, enough for the lake we want, it was full over those near hills, you can see the wave-bench shapes further inland.”

  One of the surveyors starts giggling. Arch pats their back, absently. The two judges nod, ask about risks.

  Blossom says “They got clean terrain last time,” and talks about constraining odds. Also explains to Zora, with some thoroughness, that Grue says Zora is to do nothing with the Power for the next four days. Not so much as turn on a light. Zora looks briefly rebellious and then subsides, nodding.

  I am specifically instructed to put you in an enchanted sleep if I even think you’re going to slip, isn’t a threat, it’s not a warning, it’s just what’s going to happen. Blossom sounds worried, in the undertone, Zora’s picking up enough of that to stop believing ‘it doesn’t hurt’, even with the prospect of doing nothing heavy for a couple of décades.

  Blossom explains Grue, the judges want to know who Grue is and how their advice could be sought, it’s not a court question you have to answer but Blossom answers it, describing Grue as a specialist Blossom is able to ask at this distance. Someday I might find out why they’re so secret. Even the idea of hiding Grue’s main talent flavour doesn’t make a lot of sense, it’s not as though anyone would dare ask what their private arrangements were, or particularly care, lasses taking up together’s hardly rare, even if Grue is a unicorn passing for human, started human, which I’m moderately sure Grue’s not.

  “The four of you can really do that?” Reminds-me-of-Halt asks, after lunch, after I’ve started to shake off the feeling of being an entertainment.

  “The three of them,” Blossom says. “This is something you do as a student, it’s a basic skill test. I got thirty thousand tonnes of metallic tungsten and a vicious soil chemistry problem. Haven’t used the technique on landscape since.”

  It really isn’t difficult.

  The four of us, Zora makes a best try at not looking sad, not as sad as Zora is, anyway, put the dam in, first, and, I think it’s a surprise, follow Arch’s recommendations for where to put the locks and the sluice and the fish-ladder, that has to twist a bit to avoid being too steep. We’re going to have to dig out a short canal section, the surveyed route through Morning Vale still has things being moved off it, but we’re promised they’ll have all the structures gone in six days.

  Blossom drops out and goes to sit on a corner of Zora’s bed. Watching, you can feel the watching, but no more than that. Getting more of whatever is in that flask into Zora.

  We’re careful to make absolutely certain Zora’s not in the working.

  We’re careful not to get the ecology messed up, down at the newts and crayfish and smaller things scale you don’t notice in time, careful to get fresh water, not salt, careful to get things that expect the temperatures they’re going to get here and now, careful not to pull across a flock of ducks or something from surface-water to surface-water. There’s one strange moment full of vast leaping toothy shapes, they’re people, and we try to miss them and they leap aside, graceful, and then there’s the sound of one small wave, gurgling back three metres from my toes.

  Some mist, too. Not much, we did fairly well on the temperature match.

  Dam’s fine, lock-gates didn’t even creak. Blossom says Well done, and we’re all thinking What’s next?.

  Chapter 35

  Next is eight days of putting in the surveyed canal.

  Zora, apologetic and severely headachy, goes into an enchanted sleep on the first day. Wanted to know what bird that was, and reached with perceptions. We, Blossom isn’t leaving Zora out of sight of Blossom’s physical eyes, float Zora around in the illusory canopy bed, like a fairy-tale lost in a civil engineering manual.

  It takes half a day before Blossom is convinced we’ve, not excluded Zora from the link, none of us can bring ourselves to do that, it would be too much like abandonment, but moved stuff around so there’s no way Zora will be fed Power through the link. Zora’s there, Zora can tell we’re there if Zora can tell anything, but there won’t be any active Power reaching Zora.

  We do the whole surveyed route, it’s relaxing, just go to the marked spot on the map, move dirt, put in dams and locks and spillways. We do the two side bits, they’re optional but they were surveyed, one double lock so a, well, long marsh, it was a lake, we dredge, put in enough dam they can run the water level back up enough, at least in potential, that barge traffic will be able to get to the far end of it. There’s an orchard thorpe there, part-held by the eccentric descendants of someone who had an impressive knack for breeding cold-hardy peaches. Everyone’s hoping the canal will lead to more thorpes and much larger peach orchards.

  The other one is a straight lift, put a short length of tunnel, two barge lengths, into a cliff, and then a pit, straight up, that’s open. Close the tunnel with an extremely heavy lock-gate, flush all round and rising as a vertical slab; provide a reservoir for the pit, put in pumping water-gates so the pit will empty back into the reservoir. That’ll get a barge up seventy-five metres, slowly, but it gets there. Once up at the top of the bluff, massif, little plateau, there’s not much option for a full-scale canal, we can manage enough basin for four barges, there are mutterings about a narrow canal, because a couple kilometres away from the lift there’s a seriously high-grade iron ore deposit, one that’s got noticeable amounts of vanadium.

  There’s a general decision not to do the outflow dam, over on the Sometimes Stream, not right now; a big discussion needs to happen about water levels and locations, first, some of the locations might get the twice-displaced, I get the sense that the whole population of the township’s deeply torn between ‘strangers’ and ’finally all this work getting done'. Extra hands will be a huge help in Morning Vale. Doesn’t feel like it will go badly.

  We wind up going back on a, well, not a standard barge, a cargo boat, twenty-six metres by nine, local to the Old Lake, taking mostly people, gerefan, the Clerk, some gean-gesiths, down to Thines.

  Blossom’s let the Thines-Meeting know we’re coming.

  The twenty-two kilometres between Old Lake and Sad Goat Lake, three hundred cubic metres of water per metre of canal, more or less, six-hundred-and-sixty thousand tonnes of water. Nothing compared to filling up the lake, but I don’t think we can do the probability trick for the canal, the canal itself isn’t very likely, it’s not a feature of the world.

  The gates to fill the locks, the big floor-gates to keep the segments full, those pass about two hundred cubic metres a second together if they’re full open. Lots against evaporation in a tunnel, more than enough, should be enough on the open segments downhill to the Weed Stream, we put in third gates there, but it’s still two and a quarter days to fill the canal.

  Poor Zora, sickbed and all, winds up in the photograph an assistant clerk is taking of the new, dry, never-used locks into Old Lake, and then in whatever photograph might or might not turn out after Blossom produces a transitory, let’s go with transitory, hundred metre diameter gate with a variable rate of flow, tosses it into Old Lake, this great broad spinning wheel of Power, and gets me and Dove and Chloris to keep it working, Dove’s got the worki
ng and Chloris has position, do not want the thing sinking into mud, I’ve got the push, while Blossom handles the outflow directly, full open we could fill the canal in a couple of minutes but that’d be very messy, all that water in one place. Blossom distributes the outflow way down the length, some next-year sort of technique. It takes a couple hours.

  Pretty much everything works. None of the fill-gates are the wrong way around, we didn’t leave any fill-gates or lock-gates open, a few of the gate-covers are sticky, one of the lock-gates has settled enough into its sill that it just won’t budge until Blossom, alone, having us do anything under water makes Blossom uneasy, somehow slides the upper hinge back and the bottom hinge forward, just enough to change the angle, it’s some sort of subtle mass shift, I want to learn how to do that, but that’s the worst trouble we have.

  The looks we get passing through the tunnel were more embarrassing than the stuck lock gate, especially the couple of clear-roofed sections.

  The Thines Meeting has a barge and a bunch of people there to meet us at the Weed Steam. Didn’t get any spoil on them putting in the channel, and some of the people on the barge are the same weeding team that showed up with seeds for the banks. This time, they’ve got tree seedlings. An awake, healthy Zora would have wanted to help, to accelerate the tree growth, but none of us dare try, it wouldn’t end well. Lots of concern about Zora from the weeding team.

  I see one of the small deer come rustling out of the tall grass, up on the lip of the valley, and down the steep bank. Coming for water, I think, the trees are all back of little aversions, not really wardings. We didn’t leave much for flat banks, it’s only about five metres width raised up each planted bank, we need our four metres and then a bit of depth into the Thines Stream but we needed at least fifty metres width in the channel, too. It looks like it’s enough, lots of room for trees up the banks. Chloris counts pangolins and nods inside and says “Most,” eyes coming back into focus on here-and-now. Pangolins like trees but lurking in the long grass will work, there are bugs to eat there.

  Thines has a very full barge from the Lug-gesith, barge crews can and do turn the winches for the lock-gates but every lock needs a lock-clerk, someone to check draft and count barges and keep track of fines and fees. We wind up back up at the first locks, explaining. I get the strong impression that if it doesn’t all crumble into sand in a year, we’re going to be doing more lock-making. The steel swing bridges, one person is supposed to be able to crank them around but everyone uses horses or a focus or, if they must, eight people on a rope, four each side of the lever. The lock-clerks are talking foci anyway, but just the knowledge that they can swing the thing themselves is making them happy.

  Before or after setting up a collective to make titanium canoes? Dove says to Blossom, about the swing bridges, not really joking. Steel swing bridges can be turned into other steel things, steel’s getting short. The iron ingots in the big piles of ingots will help, but someone’s still going to have to turn them into steel, and there isn’t anywhere to do that yet.

  Let me find out what I’m supposed to be doing, Blossom says back.

  We go home on a barge, with the Township of Morning Vale’s gift of four big barrels of cider, a cask of peach brandy, and two root-wrapped rose-bushes for Zora. They’re rare and bloom lavender. We’d offered to leave Arch’s team the canoes, a survey team would certainly validate the design, and got a polite refusal. Arch gave us a formal evaluation of how well we met the surveyed route up north of Morning Vale. It comes with dry language and a strong sense of approval; we’re three days home before I realize just how official a document it is, it’s a direct copy of what got filed with the Lug-gesith.

  We did a good job.

  Chapter 36

  Zora doesn’t wake up.

  Zora can’t; Blossom hadn’t explained that, embarrassed to realize when we ask, after we’ve been back to the Round House and Westcreek Town for four days.

  Blossom’s notion of ‘enchanted sleep’, it’s not precisely an enchantment, it’s more like a spell that just goes and functions on its own, Blossom learnt it from Halt, Halt says it’s good for at least six hundred years left to itself.

  “Be behind on studies,” Dove says, so entirely mildly Blossom winces.

  Blossom, Halt, and Grue need to be together and settled, Halt’s word is settled, before they try waking Zora up. There’s some paperwork, too, permissions to make alterations if Zora’s metaphysical and physical brains are too different from each other. “An extra décade or two will be all to the good,” Halt says, and just believing Halt doesn’t keep me from worrying.

  Not Dove nor Chloris, neither.

  Our first morning back Block took one look at the three of us, asked us what we’d been doing, found out we’d been working at high output for hours at a time, linked up with Blossom, and sat us down to do what Block describes as balance exercises.

  Really has us sit down, it’s a shock. Block’s analogy is walking: you’re really in a controlled fall, walking, you have to move your feet to keep from landing on your face, but it’s simpler than standing still, you can see this in infants, who can walk, but not stand, not without some external support.

  “External supports,” Block says, “are unsuited to the dignity of an Independent.”

  Figuring out what Block means is easy, once the question’s there to ask. Our internal balances aren’t stable, we’re more, if you asked me for the analogy, it’s more like a stream that’s usually a trickle and sometimes floods and sometimes floods over the banks. Block wants us to switch to a different idea, one where there’s always a quantity of Power there, but not one that’s inherently moving, now that we can, “Reliably gather useful quantities,” is how Block puts it. Apparently we’re going to be something of a fire hazard if we don’t, several other kinds of worse hazard.

  Including to ourselves, Block’s really clear we shouldn’t be doing any kind of ‘vertical circulation’, any exercise where we’re imagining the Power moving inside ourselves. ‘Horizontal circulation’, where the Power is outside us, gives some chance we won’t cook ourselves.

  I ask what’s different between moving dirt and making foci, the armour foci felt like more work than the canal, I’m pretty sure there was more, much more, of the Power being used.

  Block nods. “The most extensive fixed working retains the character of an event. Building a canal — ” there is a detectable, visible, upward quirk to one side of Block’s mouth, it’s only about three millimetres, but for Block that’s enormous — “partakes of the character of a journey.”

  We didn’t do any of the canal segments as single things, the workings moved. So that does make sense, for the values of sense that apply to the Power.

  The Sunless Sea, I hope it’s a really bad metaphor for the Power. Things live in the Sunless Sea, it’s an ecology, I know there’s a Power-based metaphysical ecology, but it’s not that one. Wells, wells run dry, wells need pumps, traditional images of artesian springs make me wonder what the rainfall was like in the mountains above, back of, that spring line.

  Going to have to think about this, all three of us. We can imagine what Block means, why it’s important, but how, the metaphor, the appropriate pattern, that’s not obvious to any of us. Probably shouldn’t decide everything is fire, Dove says, half-whimsical and half sad.

  Block doesn’t say anything, looks at Dove in a quelling way, repeats the reasons why we shouldn’t attempt any sort of internal circulation discipline, metaphorical or otherwise, all of which summarizes as ‘avoid incompetence and death’, and puts us to doing push-hands drills after telling us to consider ourselves the still centre of the Power rotating around us.

  Doing push-hands with Block, we’re about the same size but I don’t usually remember that, it almost works, the discipline Block follows does a lot of externalized Power working. I’ve got to hold back a lot, it’s an unsettling feeling, not the result, the awareness of the need. Block’s over three hundred, and really d
oes punch dragons. I get the idea, and we stop.

  Dove and Chloris, Chloris is not as much shorter than Dove as smaller than Dove, they can get the balance to work, get much better results. Which means there’s a twelve metre disk of what looks like the idea of green ice and another, counter-rotating, disk of pale gold fire above it. After awhile, there’s some kind of shift and the whole thing turns into one disk doing, I need to toss my perception up high and look down at it, one of those balance-of-two-forces images. It gets denser, and keeps getting denser.

  The Power’s very apparently denser, I can feel it affecting the circulation in the consonance, and then about all I’m doing is trying to keep my balance, it’s not a threat, it’s not scary, it’s not as scary as standing in running water past knee-deep would be, which is what it feels like, wading across a stream with maybe too fast a flow to be wading.

  I realize Blossom’s standing behind me about the same time I notice Wake. I think they’ve been there for awhile, my attention’s all on managing the consonance, keeping the joy-fire out of the Sunless Sea, it’s not precisely difficult but I intensely don’t want to get it wrong. Neither teacher looks especially concerned but they did appear out of nowhere. Block’s one comment to them is “Fortunate,” which puts a ripple through Wake’s benevolent look, it’s a benevolent ripple I don’t understand. I don’t think Block means because I’m not overwhelmed.

  Right around the time Dove asks Blossom Hey, sis, now what?_ Wake’s put up a warding, it’s a high round wall, not a dome, nothing overhead. Dove and Chloris are inside it, Block and Wake and Blossom and I are not.

  Let the energy slow and stop and soak into your metaphysical selves, Blossom says, with an indescribable emphasis on metaphysical.

  I’d rather not introduce my flesh to the landscape, Chloris says, tone anything but prim.

  Dove and Chloris do that, it takes maybe half an hour, the slowing process is very slow to start with, no actual friction, I don’t think so, if the Power had physical substance when it was visible like that it would get hard to breathe. Right at the end it goes quickly, I’m wondering if the Power really looks thinner and then it’s obviously thinner and then it’s gone. Dove and Chloris make ‘Woo!’ noises and thump one another’s backs and wind up sitting down leaning on each other.