A Succession of Bad Days

by Graydon Saunders

  Couldn’t be a cloudy day.

  That doesn’t take a vote, no member objects, there’s a collective nod and it’s done. I stand and walk forward. Halfway there, it feels like Dove’s hand releases mine.

  “Parliament is proposing to kill Dove. Dove and Chloris and Zora, in order from certain to possibly not.”

  No one turns away. Not one pleased face.

  “Sometimes people have to die. I’m not seeing Parliament’s reasons as good ones.”

  I’m dead anyway.

  “I displaced into the Folded Hills so I could stay with my collective, not my gean. The gean dissolved, most of the people, all the movable value, that displaced northward. My mother and my sister and nearly everyone else I knew went north. I’d spent my whole youth trying to not be useless, and I’d finally almost succeeded, and I stayed with that possibility of utility.”

  Not trying to speak loudly. Have to try not to speak loudly.

  “Then I woke up in Westcreek Town, in a better life. It’s…harder work, but a much larger lack of uselessness. The thing that makes it so much less useless — ” and I stop, because there isn’t any way to explain.

  Have to try.

  “If you’ve had reason to read the reports about the Old Lake Canal, you’ll know we walked into the hard old stone. Nothing any of us, any of the students, could possibly survive ourselves, by our own skill, if it went wrong. We’ve been doing that kind of thing for a year together. It works, making it work means a decision to trust each other entirely. We don’t have defences against each other in the Power. Wouldn’t work if we did, it’s the same thing as foci, you have to really want to do it or it doesn’t work, we have to be people the rest of the team wants to get the job done with more than they want to have defences against.”

  I think that made sense, that there’s enough experience of focus work in Parliament.

  “It’s not safe, school spends all that time on the impossibility of being safe, it’s supposed to help you make better decisions and not crumple when something like those wound-wedges happens and people just die. It works. It’s safer with each other, instead of trying to be safe from each other and failing.”

  How much safer, or why, or what that feels like, I don’t think Parliament has the ability to understand. I don’t have great ringing words for them, that will make them see there’s something there to understand.

  “That’s how it’s supposed to work, get together, even things out, keep the good luck. There’s a lot of good luck in being a salvage class and working this well, in being our improbable selves in this one time and place.”

  It’s a whisper, there’s no will behind it. Still sounds like the sensation of breaking glass, when you have to wonder about slicing and pain.

  You who would harm these who are of my particular concern, be entirely undone.

  Even without weight, words of that language wish to alter the world. Half-audible whispers run back to me, tales of substance out six, seven hundred metres, some rising from the impermeable slow curve of the ward masking where the Shape of Peace isn’t, deep in the rock, the strange taste of the fear of others.

  Halt stops knitting, nods firmly, and starts ripping back a dozen rows. All the faces go pale, seeing Halt undo knitting, there’s the ghost of a snicker from Dove, from Blossom, something that’s almost a squeak from Grue.

  “I have the strength. I have the wit to know there’s no peace that way. The Peace Established is more important than I am, than Dove is, than any single injustice.”

  They’re mostly staring, clerks, Parliament, the Speaker, wide of eye.

  “It is still entirely an injustice, what Parliament proposes.”

  I turn around and walk back and sit down next to Dove.

  Between Dove and Chloris. There’s some sorting of arms.

  Do you think that helped? Zora says, worried, half-angry, half-affectionate.

  Can’t get anywhere ignoring why they’re afraid.

  There’s this moment of lean.

  Halt would be sad, maybe the Captain would be sad or Wake would be sad, it’d have worked, that’s not really Power.

  Most of the problem, right there.

  Parliament the idea would be fine, it’d be there in the future, individual members aren’t Parliament forever. Worthless empty gesture, to really do it. Blossom’d be very sad, but not because of being my death. Too much like trying to kill Dove, Blossom would have had the bubble.

  The Captain would be sad Dove says, in a tone to produce the most utterly traumatized battlements in the history of the world.

  Halt would be sad, Halt says. No one will ever believe I didn’t let you do that, Edgar.

  I suppose not.

  I can’t help smiling. Lots of people go their whole lives without surprising Halt once. Whole populations, cultures. If Parliament hangs me, at least I did that.

  There’s a Hmph noise from Halt, somewhere between amused and understanding. Chloris looks at me, Spook puts both front paws on Chloris’ shoulder to look at me better, Zora’s perception leans forward, Dove says my Edgar, holding on briefly tight.

  The Member for Westcreek gets up, and stands there. I think the Shape of Peace has to prod the Speaker before the Member for Westcreek gets acknowledged and takes the floor.

  “When I was first elected to Parliament for Westcreek, my predecessor made a point of telling me that there were two kinds of embarrassment involved in making laws. The kind when you were doing something that you, as a private person, should never do, but which was still something Parliament needed to be doing, and the kind where you were doing something nobody should do. It’s not easy to tell those two kinds apart.”

  There’s movement, there’s a good bit of angry, half, maybe, of the members are angry enough to not really care what they’re angry at.

  “We’re talking about the necessity of executing an apprentice in a way that certainly kills someone else, someone whose actions can’t possibly be said to merit killing. When the wizard-team they’re all on is closer than you’d expect from a weeding-team.”

  There’s a noise of protest, several waved hands.

  “They are a weeding team, they’re the best single weeding team we’ve ever had by a ridiculous ratio. First-year apprentices or not.”

  The Food-gesith gets up and gives the ratio, which means twenty minutes of supporting statistics to quell disbelief. Not what you want, waiting to die.

  Helpful statistics, Chloris says. Everybody’s worried about food.

  The Lug-gesith has things to say about the Old Lake canal, too, and different statistics. The major constraint on canal expansion in the Creeks might now be qualifying lock-clerks, the barge supply’s nearly enough and easier to fix. The Folded Hills, the problem’s still mountain ranges.

  The Lug-gesith and the Food-gesith between them think we’ve, the Old Lake Canal, not just us, we’re not pushing the barges through it, have avoided something like twenty thousand deaths from privation, it’s not all the twice-displaced, it’s taking load off food and transport in the Folded Hills.

  I think that was the point the Member for Westcreek wanted to make, that we’re useful. Picking up the rest of the argument gets tripped up when a member from the Folded Hills wants to know how it was possible for me to use the Power in a threatening way.

  “Neither the Power, nor an attack,” Wake says, voice full of diminishing mountains. “Further, apprentices are not constrained beyond returning for judgement.”

  There’s a pause. Everyone keeps looking at Wake.

  “We by no means understand the entirety of the process of becoming an Independent. Nor should we seek to increase the already lamentable loss rate.”

  That produces five attempts at a question, and the Speaker sorts out who goes first. They use a lot more words, but it comes down to asking if being a full Independent would prevent me from doing something like that.

  “No,” Blossom says. “Question of scale.” It’s an even sound everywhere,
Blossom’s doing that, not the Shape of Peace.

  The whole area of Parliament warms, maybe five degrees, cools ten, goes back to the way it was. “The Shape of Peace would object to lighting you on fire.”

  That would be an attack on Parliament, objectionable whether it’s the Power or somebody with an axe. This one thing the Shape of Peace watches over directly.

  That would be another tangle, everyone reminded there must be a definition of attack somewhere, but Halt gets leave to speak.

  “The Shape of Peace uses names,” Halt says, “real ones. Death for going naked above four hours would be simple enough for everybody. Not wearing plaid. The rules come down to no demons, no making people, nothing else from beyond the world, never lie to Parliament, and come when you’re called.”

  Some thin edge of Halt’s will leaks into the list of rules.

  Less than your whisper, Dove says.

  People shudder, and shudder more.

  I’m not Halt.

  Halt pauses, adjusts hat and eyeglasses and posture. It looks like not gesturing with needles presents challenges just now, Halt’s knitting is back in the bag, the bag’s closed and sitting on the rock, not Halt’s lap.

  Halt’s shadow doesn’t look like Halt, it looks like the spider, but a composed spider, sitting and still.

  “Rules about compulsion or killing are law.” Perfectly clear, but entirely normal spoken words, no overtones at all. “The unconsent of the possessed being entirely sincere.”

  Halt takes the view that the member for Westcreek loaned the right to speak, and gives it back.

  The Member for Westcreek waits for the Speaker to nod.

  “Ninety-three times in the last five hundred years has Parliament been asked if some living thing is legally a person.” The Member for Westcreek’s doing calm well, it’s making me calmer. It’s making Zora calmer, which is a great deal right now.

  “It would have been a mighty achievement for the Founders to predict each of those, and the answers.”

  Nods, a few, everyone’s getting back toward their job from frightened.

  “Nor should we seek to prevent sorcerers of whatever degree from using the Power in lethal ways. It would be a worse present day had these students as a whole been unable to weed, or if Chloris had not been able to extirpate wound-wedge spores over a wide area.”

  The Food-gesith’s statistics sit there in recent memory and keep anyone from arguing. People want to argue, you can feel that, it’s obvious, but they admit they can’t, not on facts.

  Someone finds a way. Member for Second Mills stands up and asks how to evaluate risk. There’s been three other entelechs born in the five centuries of Commonweal records, none of them lived past six. There’s no statistical basis for judgement, there’s no way to prove I can’t take over the Shape of Peace somehow, it’s not precisely the Power, there’s no way to prove a negative.

  My turn again, Dove says, getting up.

  Not like last time, there’s the whiff of metal fire across the Power, and it gets stronger. There’s a definite ripple, there isn’t a Creek side of Parliament, no one wanted that, never mind traditions about geographic seat ordering, but all the Creek members get a common look watching Dove walk forward.

  Not the apprentice, Chloris says, half wistful. Zora makes a faint silent sound of despair, and scrunches over to lean on me. Dove had a lot of reputation before cutting the hearts out of demons, and nearly all of it frightens Zora.

  The Speaker recognizes Dove.

  “Entelechy affects the material world.” There’s a mass look of confusion.

  “I asked Halt. Parliament’s already decided it trusts Halt.” Real cheer in Dove’s voice.

  Lots of faces go wry, appalled, shocky, some of the wry might be embarrassed.

  “In terms of the Power, I’m much stronger than Ed. I’m not at risk. I can walk around in Ed’s mind, all of it, just like Ed can walk around in all of mine. The potential for surprise is low.”

  A short pause, waiting for everyone to digest the idea, to recognize none of that statement’s metaphorical.

  “It works, we’re happy with it, it’s mutually beneficial, we did it on purpose. It’s not supposed to be, the life cycle’s supposed to be some sort of necro-parasitic mind-eating horror.”

  Dove stops, pauses, you can feel Dove being happy, Parliament can, I can see their faces change.

  “Not what we got. Not what we made.”

  Another pause, that sinks into quiet.

  “Everybody knows what happened to my children. Hardly anyone knows that I didn’t know they were dead, I knew they were unrecoverable but I didn’t know they were dead.”

  Everybody didn’t know, all the Creeks didn’t know. There are whispers, noises of surprise, the sense of Parliament going vague between horrified and sad.

  “So, yes, Dove’s gone all hopeful again. Hasn’t kept me from doing the needful thing before.”

  Dove stands up a bit straighter, takes a formal sort of breath. “Needs must, that job gets done, too.”

  No one’s confused. Zora’s horrified, but no one’s confused.

  “I do so attest by the Peace and my name within it.”

  There’s an entire silence. Dove nods to the Speaker, comes back, sits down, warm with the smell of burning. I tip my head back onto Dove’s shoulder, Dove who I wouldn’t want to be anyone else.

  The member for Westcreek gets up, stands into the remaining silence. There’s a question, what’s this member’s particular concern?

  “When you get letters about over-worked apprentices,” the Member for Westcreek’s tone is collegial, “usually someone’s angry with the teacher. When you get fifty-some letters about over-worked apprentices from gean-offices, refectory leads, team-leads for a range of collectives, and members, former and current, of the Wapentake, those apprentices are your problem, and never mind what the law says about the keeping of the Galdor-gesith.”

  Parliament understands that. There are nods, looks of commiseration, one short barked laugh.

  Never mind cousin Eirene, Dove says. We’ve been adopted.

  Not my cousin, back to Zora’s spike of surprise.

  Chloris is starting to shake, just a bit, and Spook looks hunched and miserable.

  “Many of the letter writers have been taking meals beside Edgar, beside Dove, beside Zora and Chloris. I have not been asked about the risk from them, only the risk to them. Which should say something to Parliament, if the judgement of citizens is to be valued, since it is most certainly a risk which their host-gean has discussed.”

  At immense indirect length, Halt says, when we’re all but Dove surprised.

  “Parliament has a choice, we, each and severally, have a choice. If we wish to maintain the Peace, we needs must choose what keeps the Commonweal in the better future. I say that future contains this functioning wizard team.”

  There’s a debate, three different members bring up unicorns, the almost-hypothetical, there’s been two cases, neither went well, of a unicorn agreeing to live within the Peace.

  “Edgar has never lived outside the Peace,” gets pointed out, and that goes round a bit and eventually must be agreed to, since I avoided harm, not legally different from getting vehement and pounding on the table, alarming but not damaging. “Fear is not the same as harm,” someone says, supporting ‘not damaging’ and that goes round. Trying to create persistent fear, sure, that’s harm, that’s seeking dominion and not tolerated, but feeling fear isn’t of itself a harm.

  The Line-gesith points out the armour foci were apprentice-work, that we can’t be valued solely on moving dirt and doing what we’re told with respect to weeding, those are new and valuable and the Line would certainly prefer to have more, the technique may well extend across metal-working’s divers uses.

  The member for Thines gets up and points out we took risks to get the canal built, that it was clear we were appropriately concerned for the fate of the twice-displaced, yet we didn’t do an utterly uti
litarian job, there was still a concern for aesthetics and quality of work in the haste, that if this is all somehow pretence it’s entirely acceptable, there being no practical difference between the substantial pretence of good conduct and good conduct.

  The member for Circle Lake gets up and expresses doubt; very mighty, few Independents of comparable strength, and outside the obligations of Independents. Could not these apprentices be put into Independent constraints?

  Ongen gets up from the Maintainer’s place and explains all four of us, any apprentice sorcerer, are in the middle of a ritual, an admittedly slow ritual, and there is, by careful design, only one way out. Being evaluated for Independents now would not go well; the requirements are not met.

  Doesn’t this worry the Maintainer?

  Ongen looks at the member for Circle Lake and asks, in what are clearly amused tones, “How angry would you make Halt?”

  The member for Circle Lake takes that several ways, can’t decide which way Ongen meant it to be taken, and is making faces of doubt and confusion.

  “Wake? And Blossom? And Grue? There’s little left to be afraid of, sorcerously, at the end of that list,” Ongen says, “even before disappointed’s worse than angry.”

  The member for the Blue Hills gets up, moves a vote, defend or dispel.

  The Speaker rules it out of order on grounds of ambiguity and applying to an individual, promulgates three replacement questions.

  Are the members of a wizard-team legally distinct persons?

  Can an entelech exist as a citizen within the Peace?

  Is this particular wizard-team, with this precise composition, a permissible entity within the Peace?

  Parliament strikes the second question, ninety-eight to two. No one wants to banish Halt; the two 'nays’ to striking wanted the formal precedent. Most of Parliament wants more time to think. No one wants to claim they think I’m scarier than Halt.

  The Peace-gesith proposes that the appropriate answer to the first question is ‘not when they are actively working, but otherwise distinct’, by precedent from focus-teams. That passes unanimously.

  The third question fails the vote, thirty-nine to sixty-one.