Rosemary Kirstein - Steerswoman 04 (31 page)

“No.” He leaned forward, intent. “Not the way you think. I
mean
really.
Everything …
is
power.”

This made no sense. “I think,” she said cautiously, “that
you’re using that word in a way I don’t know. Some things
have
power—”

“Everything has power; and everything also
is
power.”

She rubbed her forehead. “I think that even six years won’t
do it. We’re only at the first sentence, and already I’m lost.”

He sat back, struggled with his thoughts. He tried again.
“Power,” he said, “is what everything is made of. You, me; the fire; rocks and
trees; the world, the sun, the stars.”

“But, I am made of matter … so … Matter is made of
power?”

He shrugged, helplessly, almost apologetic. “Yes.”

Take it as
a
working
hypothesis,
the steerswoman
instructed herself. “Very well. Go on.”

“All magic,” he said, “is movements of power, or transformations
of power. In fact,” he admitted, seeming a bit surprised at the thought,
“everything that happens at all is movement or transformation of power. And
magic is what happens when you have a very close control over the movement or
transformation of power, and can use it to do something complicated and
difficult, something that wouldn’t happen naturally, all by itself.”

She was reduced to repeating his most incomprehensible
statements. “Everything that happens is movement or, or transformation of …
power?”

He was more certain now. “That’s right.” He considered. “The
sun,” he said, “sends power down to the world. And a flower on the ground will,
will gather up part of that power and use it to—well, to do whatever it is that
flowers do to keep themselves going. I don’t know a thing about flowers, except
that. And you, and I, we take in food, because we need the power that’s in the
food to keep ourselves going—”

I thought it
was
the
food
that I
needed;
but
she did not say this aloud. “Go on.”

“And that’s a movement of power, from the food to you.”

“But,” she said, “a rock doesn’t take in anything, it
doesn’t need power …”

“Except to exist. It’s made of power. And”—something came to
him—“you can give it more.” He searched the ground around him, found a stone.
“If you take a stone, and lift it,” he did so, “and, say, put it on top of a
boulder and leave it there,” he indicated it with his other hand, “you’ve given
it some of your power, and the power is stored there. And if, say, it then fell
off—”

Rowan immediately recognized an example from her earliest
training: a demonstration, with attendant calculations, of potential and
kinetic

“Energy,” she said.

He blinked. “Yes. But, not in the usual sense, like
liveliness, or get-up-and-go—”

“You mean,” she said, and stressed the word, “energy.” He
sat up straight, suddenly glad.
“Yes!”

And they looked at each other, each immensely relieved. They
shared, apparently, at least one technical term.

“The energy of the wind,” Rowan said, “is transferred to the
_sails—
^,,

“And the ship goes forward.”

“And you tie a donkey to the turning bar of a mill—”

“And the donkey moves, and its energy is moved into the millstone—”

^“
—so it goes around—”

^“
—and you place your grain between the stones,
and the energy, the power, crushes your grain.”

“The energy from the stone, from the donkey, from … the
food the donkey ate.”

“Hay. A plant. Which took its energy from the sun. Most power
comes from the sun, in the end.”

“But,” she said, and paused to consider all that had been
said, “Will, none of these things is magic.”

He took a breath to speak; but she spoke for him. “The
division is not as clear as we think it is. There are steps between.”

“A dozen,” he affirmed, “a thousand. But it’s just a
question of degree.”

A continuum. A line that one could walk, step by step, from
the familiar to the more and more arcane. And at the end: magic.

Not impossible, not mystical, but natural and logical, as mindlessly
logical as the swing of the stars, as the fall of a stone.

She had asked for principle; he had given it. She said: “Now
something specific, to demonstrate. Something magical, in detail.”

“I don’t know how to begin, really …”

Her own context would be much the same as Willam’s had been;
and he would know best how to teach in the way that he had himself been taught.
“Let’s start with your blasting-charms.”

The stone was still in his hand; he laughed, tossed it into
the campfire, and a spray of sparks flew upward from the pulsing orange heart
of the wood. Willam watched with pleasure. “Lady,” he said, his copper eyes
reflecting rising glints, “they’re fire. They’re just fire.”

They began, then, with fire—according to Willam, one of the
purest examples that existed of the transformation and movement of energy.

They spoke of substances, and the way in which fire acted
upon them; and the differences between the substances, and their inner
nature.They touched briefly upon where to locate certain of these substances,
and under what conditions they might be found; Rowan was familiar with some of
these facts.

Optimal substances were identified. Specific quantities were
named, and proportions, and the actions needed to combine them. And here, the
matter seemed to the steerswoman as straightforward as a recipe.

Then speed appeared. Speed was the key. Heat caused expansion—and
some things burned very fast indeed.

When the amounts of substances used were no longer specified,
proportions naturally transformed themselves into ratios …

Speed spawned derivatives: acceleration, and force. Force
was large.

Substances became symbols.

Actions became abstract operations.

Symbol, operation, symbol, result …

And the result, in the end, was wild, raw power.

At a pause, when Willam built up the fire again, Rowan attempted
to quickly copy into her logbook the scrawled writing in the dirt that she and
Willam had generated. And it was only in the act of writing them down that she
noticed: she was copying a series of mathematical equations. She realized then
that for some time, she and Willam had been speaking almost entirely in
formulas.

She looked about. Willam was breaking small branches across
one knee, tenting the kindling and logs. The fire would burn quickly, but brightly.
They needed the illumination.

Down at the riverbank, reeds rustled in a light wind; stars
shone on the river, not mirrored, but transformed into quick flickers by the
motion of the water. The loom of trees behind Rowan, the sound of the horses
breathing and shifting in the dark: all were sharp, clear, fresh.

Rowan felt she had been on a journey: a distance long, but
quick, and quicker as the countryside grew ever more familiar.

She and Willam had been hurrying at the last, not from urgency,
but from the sheer joy of the speed.

The new kindling caught, new flames leapt. Willam watched
the campfire for a moment, almost fondly.

Then he settled beside the steerswoman again, and they went
on.

They slept as late as they dared, breakfasted as quickly as
they could, and made the best speed possible back to Donner.

The did not converse on the way. Willam seemed thoughtful
and absorbed. Rowan remained alert. Jannik had been given reason to hurry to
the dragon fields, and may have left at first light. Rowan and Willam might
actually encounter the wizard on the road.

But there was no sight of him during the open stretches of
the journey. When they came into closer landscape, among trees and turning
roads, Rowan took the precaution of tucking her chain inside her vest. Should
the wizard pass by, there was no need to advertise herself as a steerswoman.

The day grew cooler yet, under a clearing sky. Other than
this, all seemed as on the previous day, as they approached the city’s limits.
Rowan’s concern relaxed.

They took a different route into the city proper, swinging
to the east, then down along the harbor. Rowan caught sight of
Graceful
Days,
out past the shallows. The ship rode heavy, now; two transfer barges,
light on the water, were crossing the shallows back to the wharves.

“Ahoy!”

Rowan shaded her eyes against the late-afternoon sun.

“Gregori!” she called back, and slowed as he approached the
riders.

He was in the company of Enid, who served as supercargo on
Graceful
Days:
a small, weathered, sun-bleached woman, who peered about with a sharp
blue gaze, as if constantly calculating the mass and volume of every object her
eye fell upon. She and Rowan had shared many a conversation on the
voyage—somewhat limited in scope, but enjoyable nevertheless.

“Now, I didn’t know steerswomen rode,” Gregori commented as
he and his companion fell in beside Rowan’s mare.

“We do,” Rowan said. “We can. We’re taught to. But we rarely
use horses in the general course of our work.” It was one matter to request
free food and lodging for a solitary wanderer, occasionally for weeks on end;
quite another to include a large, hungry animal. Also, a horse was a tempting
target for bandits.

Enid and Gregori turned curious glances at Rowan’s companion,
and before they could ask, he provided: “Wiliam. Rowan and I have been out
riding in the countryside.”

The steerswoman completed the introductions. Gregori regarded
Will with obvious speculation; Rowan’s poorly suppressed grin seemed to please
him. Enid studied Wiliam openly, as if trying to determine how much heavy labor
he was capable of. “Your eyes aren’t pink,” she said to him.

“Urn … no …”

She had obviously thought that he might be an albino. “Good.
Otherwise, you’d fry on the deck on fair days.” All Enid’s interactions with
the world at large were filtered through her evaluation of their potential use
to her ship, regardless of whether or not any such consideration actually
applied.

“I hadn’t expected to see you again,” Rowan said to Gregori,
as the four of them, on foot and on horseback, continued up the street past a
chandler’s, a ropewalk, a shipping office.

“Some cross-shipments were delayed. But we’re loaded now.
Wood from upriver, wine and preserved fruits from Donner. Some of the Alemeth
silk stayed aboard. Rice from up north.”

“Don’t like carrying rice,” Enid grumbled.

“It’s not like we’re filling the hold with it,” Oregon told
her. Rice, if it became wet, would expand and burst its sacks. In a hold
otherwise closely packed, this could cause serious difficulty. Rowan took a
moment to explain the matter to Willam.

“When do you leave?” Rowan asked the captain.

“Noon-tide tomorrow, or the day after. Take that much time
to gather up the rest of the crew; what with the delay, who knows where they’ve
wandered to?”

The literal-minded Enid chose to answer the rhetorical question.
“The mate knows.”

“Yes,” Gregori said patiently. “And she’s waiting for us at
the Dolphin.” The first mate was Gregori’s eldest daughter, sister to Zenna. An
idea occurred to the captain. “Rowan, you and your friend come along; I’ll
stand you both drinks.”

“That happens to be exactly where we’re headed, as a matter
of fact. I’ve been lodging there. I don’t suppose you’ve seen Bel about?”

This took him by surprise; he obviously did not know that Rowan
and Bel no longer needed to behave as strangers to each other. “Can’t say I
have … Enid?” The supercargo made a disgruntled noise in the negative. During
the voyage from Alemeth, Bel and Enid had acquired a mutual dislike. Bel had
found Enid stolid, limited, and unimaginative; Enid, for her own part, had
never forgiven the Outskirter for a particularly clever satirical poem the supercargo
had inspired.

At the stables, there were no grooms about, but it was near—

ing dinnertime. Willam and Rowan removed the tack, found
cloths for a quick rubdown, and left the mares tied in the yard. They entered
the Dolphin by the back door, and the captain and Enid paused outside Rowan’s
room while she and Will dropped off their traveling gear.

Inside, on the table beside a new bouquet of dried roses,
was a letter.

“Who knows you’re here?” Willam asked.

“Zenna, and Steffie,” Rowan said, bemused, “and everyone
else in Alemeth …” She picked up the letter, whose paper was of high quality,
and read the address:

Rowan, Steerswoman,

or

Zenna, Steerswoman

The
Annex, Alemeth.

“That explains it. It must have come through the harbormaster’s
office. They’ve remembered my name, and found out I was staying here.” Rowan
did not recognize the handwriting, but it was very clear, and formal, likely
the work of a professional scribe. There was no point of origin indicated on
the envelope. She turned it over. “Ah.” Only a seal, with a signet showing a
crest: a ship, and a wolf’s head.

Rowan held it up to show Willam. He recognized it. “Artos.” The
duke, in Wulfshaven. “And I guess I know what it’s about.”

“I suppose I do, as well.” News of Willam’s escape was bound
to catch up with him sometime. And Rowan had specifically requested that Artos
befriend Willam, so that the apprentice would not lose touch with the common
folk. She set the letter back on the table. “Did you spend much time with
Artos?” she asked Willam as they left the room.

Will looked regretful. “At first, some,” he said. “Later …
things got busy …” He could be no more specific in the company of Gregori and
Enid.

Rowan led the others down the angled hall, up the narrow
back staircase. Gregori found the tangled and inconvenient route amusing. Enid
peered at the walls suspiciously, as if being indoors, on land, was an
experience entirely new to her. Rowan knew this was not the case.