A Succession of Bad Days (25 page)

No one gets fried. Definite
progress. Catching Blossom’s casually-produced head-sized spheres of white light goes right on making me expect an abrupt demise, but I can do it.

The first décade of punch drills is wretched and the second décade of it isn’t much fun, but after that it turns into a regular part of the day, even as Block starts easing the weight up. Sometime in the middle of the winter Block decides we’re no longer
utterly incompetent and we start hitting things. Illusory things, initially anonymous squishy illusory things.

The first time it’s an illusory thing with eyes and a density gradient something goes off in Chloris’ head and the punch, which is done hard and badly. We all hear the wet crack from Chloris’ wrist breaking. Block’s eyes narrowed microscopically before showing Chloris how to hold their
injured hand to reduce the risk of further injury, sitting out. “Not yet a sufficiently advanced class,” Block says, not entirely to us.

The rest of us keep going. Grue shows up and, rather than fixing Chloris’ wrist, teaches Chloris how to manage the pain well enough that it’s possible to pay sufficient attention to Grue, somewhere between teaching and explaining, how to fix it. “I’m not going
to damage any of the rest of you for teaching purposes,” Grue says, “but pay attention, it might be easier when it’s your turn.”

Chloris’ wrist is fine by dinner time, as both Grue and a Creek doctor carefully confirm. Chloris has a long talk with Wake after dinner, I think, I’m guessing, part of it is being surprised someone who is such a pure necromancer, talent-wise, can heal anything.

The
next day, Chloris punches the back out of the illusion, and gets this look. If none of the teachers were there, I’d be backing away.

Figured out we’re allowed to hit things,
Dove says, and I find myself nodding. Chloris gets scary, after that, at the block-and-strike part of what Block’s teaching us. I don’t care if fellow Creeks think Chloris’ a bit ethereal, willowy, whatever the polite term
is among Creeks for someone who floats, Chloris is a substantial person, and even without being an incipient necromancer the intensity would be unnerving. Since, well, all those ghosts, there’s a question about
incipient
, not
necromancer
, Zora tries making a ‘fist of death’ joke, and gets Block doing a tiny solemn nod. “An expected outcome of the training for one such as Chloris,” Block says.
Whatever’s going on in Chloris’ head takes that in stride and goes right on being scarily intense.

Before anybody can get to being scarily intense, we had to live through the first day of thousand-punch-drill. Dove managed not to wince, eating lunch.

We head back up to the Round House: it’s getting to be the usual pattern, do something strenuous in the morning, do something studious in the afternoon.
We’ve been been doing a lot of hydrology and geology with Wake. All the thousand things mud is made out of have names. It’s drifting into chemistry. None of us have figured out how you make illusory diagrams stick to the page yet, though we’re assured we’ll get it eventually.

Up by the path-pillars, right on the edge of the big ward, there’s Grue, feeding chickadees cracked sunflower seeds out
of an open hand. There’s nothing involving the Power about that; aside from the seeds, it’s mostly holding utterly still. Grue can smile and hold completely still.

Grue’s wearing a loose white wool tabard-thing, and nothing else, not even shoes. That’s the Power, or at least being comfortable doing it.

The ward itself has been getting stronger, we’re all getting better at adding to it, so even
without Kynefrid it’s strengthening. Wake assures us Kynefrid’s name will stick so long as the ward itself endures. In a few centuries, it’s going to be a memorial for many names, as well as a ward, the way Independent half-lives go.

Grue hardly
has
to wait outside the ward, Grue’s entirely one of our teachers, can walk through the ward or the front door alone. Grue’s got an odd sense of politeness,
claims, cheerfully, that it goes with the utter lack of tact.

Everybody says Grue and Blossom did the same thing, used the same ritual, for how they became magical life forms, but the results don’t look much alike. Blossom’s appearance of flesh is an obvious manifestation, something put on about like you’d put on a coat to go out. Grue’s invisible to the Power; you can get a sort of halo, you
know there has to be something happening from the eddies, but you can’t get any direct view of Grue. No amount of knowing that keeps Grue from looking entirely real, in a way I lack words to describe, it’s got something to do with not looking contained, which is silly if I think about it. Grue’s an Independent, and there’s that complex warding, Grue might
be
the complex warding. It prevents at
least freezing, melting, catching fire, being crushed, or clawed by ocelotters, I’ve seen the last one, and Grue still looks entirely physical in a way that Halt or Blossom don’t. Even Wake, if you pay attention, it’s obvious the dominant presence is the intangible presence.

Watching Grue walk through the snow barefoot makes me uneasy; I know Grue’s at much less risk of freezing than I am, but
it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like I’ve got boots and a fellow-citizen doesn’t, even if Grue looks like the snow has incidentally failed to be cold. Grue’s breath doesn’t smoke on the air, Grue’s bare feet, for all they leave prints, aren’t melting any snow at all.

Must be a lot of uneasy, because I get my shoulder patted. “Ask Blossom about the glacier sometime, Edgar.”

I wonder if the glacier
survived.

All of us with boots get our boots off, we get something to drink and perch, at Grue’s indication, on a windowsill. Two metres deep, two metres high, twelve metres on the curve. I keep thinking there should be a better word than ‘windowsill’.

Grue goes right on smiling, but is suddenly serious. No idea what changed, Grue doesn’t look different. “This is the first difficult thing we’re
going to teach you.”

Certainly gets my attention. Chloris makes a faint sound of despair, half for the form of the thing.

“Everything else you’ve been able to pick up in a couple of tries. This is — ” suddenly Grue is Blossom, then Dove, then me, than Chloris, then Zora, then Grue again — “shape-shifting, and it takes practice.”

I look really silly in a white wool tabard too long for me. It’s
the only thought I can get in my head for a second.
White’s not your colour,
comes into my head, in gentle good humour.

Grue’s doing the tabard belt back up. “That’s the demonstration, not of what you’re going to do, but that I know what I’m talking about.” Still smiling. “In terms of talent flavour, I’m a shape-shifter, which is not something much discussed even inside the community of Independents.”

Most people really don’t like shape-shifters. Even the poor folks who have some kind of hereditary shape-strong thing going on, simple and obvious and limited to the one other shape. Grue, Grue’s reputation as a life-mage is considerable. Must make it easier to keep people from worrying about the patch of mist or a passing crow.

“There aren’t any shape-strong Creeks,” Grue goes on, “so I’m going
to mention the main feature of the stories about the shape-strong, which is that you do it a little bit wrong, you get stuck in the other shape. Since it’s hard to stand for an Independent when you’re stuck in the form of a swan, the first thing you learn is to turn into yourself.”

We’re learning. Everybody thinks about that before they say anything. I can’t get it to make sense.

“From yourself,
into yourself?” Chloris sounds like this is the least implausible plausible possibility, but not like it seems in the least convincing.

Grue nods, all cheer. “Your happy, rested, hale self. You should have lots of contrast to work with.”

Lots of motivation, too, which is likely why thousand-punch-drill and shape-shifting start the same day. One of the reasons why, anyway. We’ve all got this consistent
ache to motivate us.

“Stuck means, no one can help, stuck?” I try not to sound too worried about that.

Grue nods, smiling away. “Commonweal law forbids turning other citizens into anything. There are a few, tightly supervised, participatory medical exceptions, but those, aside from taking a committee and a year or two to set up, wouldn’t help, because shape-shifting, like life generally and the
Power specifically, isn’t reversible. If you’re a swan, you’re really a swan, it’s not like changing your hat. You don’t have a default state, you’re an ongoing process. Being alive means your metabolism tries to stick to a fairly narrow range of states, but there’s still no default Edgar-thing to turn you back into.”

Grue stands up straighter and looks completely serious. “Shape-shifting is optional.
You’re going to make irreversible changes in yourself, and while just not dying does that, shape-shifting does it very much faster. It’s an important skill, it makes parts of becoming an Independent, transitioning to a metabolism based on the Power, much easier, but this really is an optional class.”

Dove? Figure it’s worth it?
We’ve figured out how not to be overheard, at least not by fellow
students. They can both tell we’re talking if they pay attention, but it’s a bit less annoying for Zora.

There’s an actual pause, not rhetorical, really thinking.
Got a pretty good notion of who I am,
comes back.
I’d say you’re taking the larger risk.

Well, if I wasn’t risking both of us, but Dove’s extremely polite about not pointing that out.

Being a big spider’d limit my social opportunities.
Kinda want a recovery option.

I can feel Dove’s smile right through Chloris.
Good point.

Zora sighs, directs a very-best level of martyred look at Grue. “No slumping, they’re in. I’m in.”

Not completely less annoying.

“Dove?” Grue says.

“We’re in.” Dove smiles, one of the rare just-happy smiles. “Could stand to shed some years, the way Block’s notion of training’s going.”

Grue nods, smile a little
wider. “Block’s consistent.”

“Could I turn myself into someone with no talent?” Chloris says, looking straight ahead.

“Not anymore,” Grue says. “It’s possible, there are well-attested incidents, but it’s extremely rare and you’ve got too much metaphysical self for that to work. There are some Bad Old Days things that removed talent by alteration of shape, instead of name, but those didn’t work
reliably, and you can’t do them to yourself. It would take someone really strong, too, you need a great deal more Power than the person you’re doing it to.”

Chloris, it isn’t sighing, it’s a long exhale, Chloris goes foggy for a few seconds. “I’m in.”

There’s a little bit of a pause from Grue, looking at us. “Good.”

“Two rules, you have to think about them. You’re going
forward
. You don’t think
about
how
.”

No
how
, well, I don’t know
how
I do anything with the Power, not really. I know how I think about it. Having to think about all of how my insides work at one time, even if I knew, if anyone knows or could know, not going to do that. Not with a thousand years to build a mystical brain for the specific purpose.

Forward, forward has to be — “We’re talking about forward, as in keep the
metabolism going forward?”

Grue shimmers through a male, rather more muscular, version, an apparently normal self except with a tide of glowing hair to the floor, something bipedal and mostly green, normal self again with black hair that fades, in about twenty seconds, to its usual old-gold colour.

“Am I the same?”

“More different than just living through that span of time?” Dove says, slow and
perplexed.

Grue may do half a head-tip, there isn’t a lot of movement, I think it’s the angle of the light, you can feel the question even if Grue doesn’t move much.

Dove having realizations makes me blink, there’s the impression of a bright light. “Discontinuous, it
has
to be more different, you didn’t stay human, whatever that green thing was, there has to be a discontinuity of metabolism.”

Grue nods, pleased.

“No discontinuity?” Chloris. “While we’re practising?”

“Muscles that don’t hurt?” Zora sounds doubtful. “Quickly? Pack the next three days into five seconds, muscle-tissue wise? There’d be a
fire
. Something jumps.”

Grue nods. “Something jumps.”

“Forward’s a direction.” I get a ‘go on’ motion from Grue.

“Changing shape’s free, the Power does it, if you ask right, we’re not
supposed to think about that part. I mean, I think Zora’s right about the catching fire, we’re doing something discontinuous, but thinking about gaps isn’t going to work, everything we’ve done has been either results or intent, some kind of pressure.”

“So I figure it has to be
right now
, I don’t want,
me
, the awareness I have of myself, I don’t want that to blink in and out, that’d be bad. So
right now has to go forward, but right now is a point, there’s this theoretical single momentary point in time. Only now it needs to be an ellipse, stretched, something. Leaning out more into the not-past.”

Grue nods. “Chloris, Zora, that work for you?” It might not work for Dove, precisely, but Grue can be certain Dove knows what I meant.

“Maybe.” Zora’s voice has room for a lot of maybe.

Chloris’ head shakes. “If I’m thinking of passing breath to the future, the me-exhaling isn’t the me-inhaling, is that the right kind of thing?”

Grue nods again. “That should work.”

“One last thing,” Grue says. “Self-image runs behind. You can’t shape-shift yourself out of your talent, but shifting out of the last three months of exercise is just as easy as shifting out of the muscle-ache.”

Grue
produces an impression of vast glee. “Or the hangover, shifting does have compensations.”

Serious again, like a lid came down. “Spread out from each other a bit, you don’t want to hear each other breathing, and try.”

Breathing with intent is automatic by now, it takes concentration to notice that’s what I’m doing. Power, there’s easily more than I want to apply to my own flesh. Don’t want to think
of anything as slices or stirring, either, this is me, not some rocks. Best thing I can think of to try is still the elliptical now, make now lean into the future where I don’t hurt and am as fit as the muscles healing would have left me.