“There you are,” Blossom says.
Halt motions at a chair, Blossom sits down, picks up the correct provided spoon to an undertone chorus that doesn’t get past No using, and says “The scalded brewers should be entirely well in a couple of seasons. Zora and Grue are agreed that if they have to know what you four did, please use dispassionate technical language.”
Blossom grins at us, student us. “I’m delighted.”
“Parliament’s pleased about people not dying, confused about what happened, and upset that the kids were fighting.”
“They asked,” Blossom says, when Halt looks just a tiny amount disappointed. “Specifically.”
Halt nods, accepting.
“I pointed out that one is not always in perfect control of such situations.” Blossom’s tone is very dry.
Wake chortles.
So does Halt.
“In five hundred years, are we going to know what you’re actually like?” Chloris says, perfect still voice somehow between hope and despair.
“Not entirely, Chloris dear, not unless something goes very wrong.” Halt can do gentle.
“It’s not complete, not as far as” — Blossom chin-points, utterly superfluous — “the venerable members of the family go, we’re stuck in ruthless circumstances, not the same thing as social compulsion.”
Chloris nods. “Didn’t expect ice cream after killing someone.”
Chloris spoons up some ice cream, stops.
“Even that someone.”
Chloris isn’t precisely regretful.
Nothing like pleased, but I think that’s mostly that there was someone willing to make a new plague.
“Necromancers who delight in killing are brief within the Peace,” Halt says.
Chloris nods, we all nod, Blossom, Wake.
“Your education has been abrupt.” Halt shrugs. “It is not kind, but we need the help.”
“Nobody gets to do just as they please,” Chloris says, slowly.
“Least sufficient means,” Dove says. “Which is the same as saying if you won’t do that, you don’t want the result, it’s just a preference.”
Blossom smiles. “The Line discourages having a preference for victory.”
“Edgar?” Halt’s voice is light.
“Someone was saying Mama?, confused or worried, after Wake finished, we finished, the ritual. There were a lot of dead Commonweal citizens there, for a little while.”
I really might not be a good person.
“Can’t see how it even starts to be an ethical question, can’t be any tougher to build flood control channels than to make diseases.” Or bring the terrane the heads of everybody left whose stupid idea trying to chain it was, and apologize, which has to be at least worth trying.
“What kind of question is it?” Wake sounds honestly curious.
“Technique? Don’t know if I did that neatly, if anyone who saw it will know how to block that if I ever try it again, don’t know the information cost.”
“Very low, dear,” Halt says. “Possibly nothing.”
Nobody’s going to postulate a necromantic entelech. Blossom’s grinning across all our minds. Not even if they got a good look and ought to.
“We did that well, for us?” Dove asks, and Halt nods.
“Abrupt, focused, excessive, and economical,” Halt says. “I am pleased with you, children. Victory excuses much, yet there is nothing to excuse.”
Dove blushes a little, never mind Chloris.
Halt’s produced tiny, half-centilitre, crystal stemmed goblets, I think it has to be goblets, there’s the wide bottom curved shape despite the facets. The liquid in them is transparent, and precisely a familiar shade of blue.
Everybody picks theirs up.
“Hold the field,” Halt says. It’s a toast. It echoes across the Power.
We all repeat the toast, drink.
Chloris’ confusion fades. “Battlefield, not farm field.”
“Stricken field,” Blossom says, in the terrible clear voice of the Goddess of Destruction.
It’s not alcoholic at all.
Tastes like the ward collapsing.
Victory, Dove and Wake and Halt and Blossom say it all together.
Chapter 35
Edgar
The thing Wake does with distance, that’s called “taking a long step,” formally “a stride between the heights of mountains,” in Wake’s culture of origin. Wake does the signs. Not many Independents can do it, not many sorcerers, either. Most sorcerers in a hurry shapeshift, if they can shapeshift that well, into something fast.
Halt sees no reason Zora can’t learn it, no reason why Pelōŕios shouldn’t try.
Not the most reassuring thing, Halt saying “might as well try.”
What you’re doing, the reason why it’s dangerous, you’re making a decision about where you are. This isn’t as crazy as it initially sounds; walking, running, rolling down a hill, there are lots of regular ways to make a decision about where you are. Those have the advantage of being material, you can’t take a material step quick enough to leave your head behind.
With the Power, you can. That’s the considerable deficiency of the technique, you’re using your metaphysical self, and it can believe it’s somewhere your physical self is not. If this becomes true, with the Power belief is most of everything, you die.
There’s three or four kinds of displacement shock to go into, too, no ethical way to do experiments, but people just die. Most have a metaphysical component, and getting it displaced from the physical even a small distance kills.
There’s a few known cases of someone with below-average talent, focus-filler to the unkind, who is fine; they’re sure who they are, or something. “Serene,” Wake says. More cases, more attempts so more data, of high-talent people just falling dead, a few cases of body-smear, which is much more horrible than it sounds.
No good map available, the cartographers haven’t caught up with the Folded Hills. Can’t be precise. We went something like five hundred straight-line kilometres in, oh, twenty seconds, if it took that long. Which is why people still want to learn how to do this.
“A useful skill,” Wake says.
“Not what you usually do,” Dove says to Blossom, and Blossom grins.
“Nope.” There’s a gesture of ambivalence. “I know how, Grue knows how, it’s a useful thing to know. Grue usually runs, I usually do something else.”
There’s the ghost of a sigh from Chloris.
“Names have power, Chloris dear, if not quite the way many who say so mean.” Halt’s packed up the table, watched the howdah carefully stack the five prisoners in the back of itself. The howdah’s long arms look spindly. The prisoners aren’t especially small people, and the howdah picks them up with one hand, and holds them metres in the air while sorting out the previous prisoner’s position.
“Before you can see what Blossom does to move about, it were rash to mention.”
Chloris nods. “It really doesn’t ever end, does it?”
Halt smiles. “Not for the living.”
“Now, colleagues, children, I shall convey the prisoners to Parliament.”
Wake nods, Blossom nods.
I’m confused. Dove doesn’t get it, which is worse.
I’m here to run cover for you while you learn striding. Blossom’s cheerful. Best to learn while the memory’s fresh.
Why? Chloris isn’t more puzzled than I am.
Lamentable statistics of unknown causation, Wake says.
Painfully vague, as good reasons go.
Makes us a tougher target, well away from Halt. Dove’s less confused.
Wake nods.
“Utility resides in a habit of precaution.” It’s an amused benevolent, that’s a school proverb in different words.
School means stuff like remembering your face shield and not working alone.
Not wrong, even if not what the Book-gesith’s clerks would have been thinking.
It’s disturbin
gly easy to do.
All that nervousness, all the concern, the truly mournful statistics, the idea of anything whatsoever that needs to be called body-smear, and it’s, well, easy isn’t right, let me say natural. Not any too much harder than swimming, there’s nerving yourself up, there’s committing to the new medium, there’s a bit of thrashing and splashing, and then you can do it. Not very much practice makes it work a lot better, too.
Be a long while before I can keep up with Wake. It’s a bit like trying to swim after a fish. It might amuse the fish, but you’re not gaining.
Not just thrashing and splashing, we can do about half a kilometre, blink. Gathering up all of yourself, it goes with Block’s exercises, nearly all of Block’s exercises, that part’s habitual.
Probably why Halt wasn’t worried.
The reaching out, finding a spot, finding a stable spot, not just the dirt, but the air and the water, not anything fluid, Wake says fluid’s possible but “highly undesirable in the novice,” we all know that tone of voice. Don’t push it, you’ll hurt yourself.
Not pushing it’s still really fast. Four seconds to the kilometre, this isn’t noticeably effortful, you don’t have to take a physical step, we still all are, much easier, if we were actually traversing the distance, there’d be a wind, there isn’t, but it’s short enough steps my mind keeps wanting to believe I am, there’s the imagination of great speed.
We all sort of precipitate out across the end of an empty stopping place, carefully distant from each other. Spook falls out of Chloris, starts diligently washing a paw, Chloris stretches and grins and looks agelessly happy.
Dove smiles at me, I’m smiling back, this is the most fun Dove’s had in months. Coming up on time to go back to the Shape, somewhere down there it worries Dove. Own-work and Chloris’ metabolic transition left, Zora’s, hard to tell about Zora, but certainly Dove’s. Transition might be the worrying part, or it might be grief for something that hasn’t happened yet. Dove loves her family, Grackle, Hawthorn, the neeves she barely really knows, and somewhere underneath her daily thoughts can’t stop thinking about losing them all.
Something slams out of the sky, surrounds Dove, surrounds me, metaphysically, claws, shrinks, bounces back, starts gnawing.
Dove’s over there, physically, the link’s not down, not working properly, this was aimed at Dove, the thing is trying to get Dove into a bubble, prying at the link. It can’t manage the bubble, too much fire, can’t hold it all. Consonance’s not managing proper Power flow, no manifest Constant, information, I know Dove’s not hurt yet, start prying at the thing.
Chloris is right there, we’re not having much luck with the energy creature, thing, I don’t know, slippery, intractable.
White-hot pulse of fury, warding, Blossom, Chloris linking up with Blossom, nothing in common but anger and worry for Dove. It works, the thing gets less … something. Still will, still external will, acting through it, this isn’t solvable with that malice there, with the ritual pushing.
Somebody, somewhere, shreds, dies.
Another, and another, it’s a big ritual, distributed, lots of long-term planning, but I’ve got the sense of the ritual and Chloris, Blossom, both right here, we don’t think about taking a risk, no attention on our bubble, the perimeter, all that push and the ritual dies.
Not the wielders, mostly not, the ritual itself goes entire.
The thing trying to gnaw on Dove’s alive, they made something actually witful as a weapon, then flung it into the Commonweal.
Trying for Halt Blossom says, dispassion over the smell of burning rock, that’s real, there’s a lot of Power getting tossed around.
Take a deep breath, reach, reach for the circulation, reach for the sunless sea, reach for Dove, I refuse to believe some idea of noisy malice can encompass a wall between us.
There’s a shriek, a lot of shriek, a very long way away, Chloris saying YES and I’ve got a grip on the malice-mind, so I eat it.
Dove’s right there, the link’s right there, me, Dove, Constant’s presence coheres, Chloris, Blossom, reconfiguring around Dove’s anger like sliding on ice on a slope. The whole thing goes wide, power draw like inhaling a cataract, something structured and burning and specific flung between space.
More distant shrieking, lots more, expanding, Constant’s clear voice commanding the whole of the spell to exist forever.
I get physically beside Dove just in time to take her hand before she crumbles into ash, falling away from a smile.
The distant shrieking’s still there.
Blossom says, admiring, Nasty.
There’s a bit of enchanter-notation, Blossom assuaging Chloris’ worry that forever is in a context of planetary rotation, not the lifespans of targets.
Wake looks, not battered, not rumpled, like the Wake we can stand to look at’s not entirely in place.
“Many demons,” Wake says.
Halt looks understanding. Don’t think the howdah ran.
I’m not sure what hit Dove was even half what was meant for Halt.
I stand up and say “Need to get back to the Creeks.” Dove’s ashes rise and contain themselves, Blossom and Chloris linking again.
Halt nods and says “Yes dear. Blossom dear, would you go with them, please?” and Blossom nods.
The distant shrieking’s not stopped, faded, just a bit, and Halt’s formal beaded shawl’s been set on the howdah, Halt’s started undoing cuff buttons.
Blossom’s eyes widen, Blossom pales a little, watching Halt’s sleeves start being rolled up.
By the time we’re back, well, not quite back, to the Round House, the Tall Woods, we’re up to ten-kilometre steps. I’m carefully not thinking at all.
Guests are still there, not dinner time yet, Chloris says something, I can’t, I’ve got, well, wood, iron, gold, vanadium, rhenium, molybdenum, tungsten. Blossom’s taking enough time away from trying to be a comfort to Grackle to insist about the vanadium, the vanadium is important.
Metal makes the fire more work, even with some leaves, a couple kilos of deadfall wood, out of the Tall Woods, holy and enchanted.
Wood won’t burn iron by itself.
Dove takes my hand, steps out of the fire on to the square tile, glazed golden. One of Wake’s example pieces from the work sheds, Pelōŕios sprinted off and brought it, cool and shining and half a metre on an edge.
Takes Dove nearly an hour to cool to hugging temperature.
Well, almost. I manage to ruin my shirt.
Talking was pointless, a hiss like a forge fire and an indescribable sound from the impulse to giggle. Doesn’t bother us any, but it’s a hard wait for Grackle. Hard wait for Hawthorn, Dove’s neeves. Mikka’s looking overwhelmed, Zora’s trying to be comforting. Halle sits down between Pelōŕios’ front feet and neither of them move the whole time.
Chloris stands there the whole time, too, holding a smock and a pair of Dove’s shoes and being the soul of patience, even when Dove hugs me again before bothering with the smock.
Takes a little while more before Dove’s really down to regular Creek temperature inside, can talk, can say anything to Grackle, hard on a mother to see their child condense out of a fire. Grackle’s having a hard time even so. Hawthorn’s almost untroubled, really so, I think, Blossom’s helping keep a grip on Hawthorn’s kids, well back from the fascinating fire. No matter how done I think the ritual is, that fire gets to burn down on its own.
“You can do a lot with more than four dimensions, Mama,” doesn’t, it helps, it’s obvious it helps, but it doesn’t explain.
Though I’m not sure how I’d explain. It’s not complicated, but there aren’t words.
Constant hasn’t got any, Constant’s intact but not feeling able to be social, Dove’s abrupt metaphysical transition alters the consonance.
“They aren’t two separate people,” Chloris says. Grackle believes this is Dove, Zora believes it, I don’t think Chloris ever didn’t believe it, I don’t think there’s a question. Dove�
��s always been right here. But it is hard to explain. “Killing Dove means killing Edgar, or vice-versa; if you don’t, the one’s still in the other, they don’t die.”
“Embodiment for an Independent is a question of getting the mystical part something to move in the world.” I didn’t notice Grue arriving.
There’s a tiny quirk of a smile on Grue’s face. “Still the correct average number of hearts,” Grue says, quietly.
Zora looks pained, and then smiles and smiles.
Grackle takes a deep breath, and nods, and hugs Dove again. “Only Dove isn’t, not yet?” Grackle says.
Blossom smiles, taking Grue’s hand. “Physically, one and four hundred and fourteen thousandths of one.”
Blossom gives Dove a look I can’t describe. More sisters now than they were. “Entirely not how you’re supposed to do that.”
Dove grins, the real, proper, things get warmer Dove grin. “Bit of a rush.”
Blossom nods, Grue nods, Chloris gathers me and Dove up and hugs both of us.
We lose a bit of time.
Chapter 36
The Captain
The standard of the First rests behind me.
Chert, out of what’s probably tact, left the army pennon outside; my operational area, my meeting. The whole people-pennon’s formally an army colour party, so there’s Chert’s messenger company round the waystation, keeping the watch with the First’s colour party.
Crinoline’s got the Fourth of the Twelfth west and north to just south of Headwaters; the First’s in the fourth valley on the Hills high road, Chert’s here and will be going back to their narrow perch on the road across the second valley after. Battalions where it should be brigades, but if Reems does try a physical arrival we can get two battalions in front of them anywhere they can come.
Battalions, and some help. Wake’s the same as ever, with eyes. The standard shows Wake blurred with the wreathed smoke of murdered demons.
Halt’s hands glow across the knuckles the way hot iron does when you bend it and flake off the scale. It can’t be real heat, or the wool going over the needles would crisp and smoulder.
Chert had only nodded when Halt explained where Blossom was, and why. “Blossom can link up with the children” should have moved Chert’s face.
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