Chapter 192: Nine Full Breaths

Chapter 192: Nine Full Breaths

Sebastien

Month 4 Day 17, Saturday 9:45 p.m.

After allowing time for her burning eyes and shaky breath to settle, Sebastien had done her homework while considering what to say to Ana. She worked slower than usual.

When she finally confronted the other young woman that evening, Ana nodded her head easily. I did deny his contract. You know I can forge my fathers signature. She frowned suddenly. Is that a problem? I did it so that I could offer you something valuable in exchange for your help, even if indirectly. Did you have a personal investment in that sub-commission? I thought, in the worst-case scenario, I could forge it again, well, just like I ended up doing.

You did it because everything is transactional with me?

Ana reached forward and touched Sebastiens elbow. I shouldnt have said that. Its not actually true. You do plenty of things without being paid for them. And what I was requesting Only an idiot like Damien would agree to commit a crime against a member of the Thirteen Crown Families without reservation. She chuckled. I did it so that I could offer you a favor. I thought it would be very gauche to write you a cheque or something. Sebastien, whats wrong?

Sebastien shook her head quickly. Nothing. She stepped away, just in case Ana got it into her head to give Sebastien her second hug of the day.

Anas eyes narrowed. Lord Dryden was upset about it, she deduced. Did he cause problems for you, Sebastien? Do you need help?

Sebastien let out a choked laugh. I think I can handle it.

Ana pursed her lips doubtfully. Youd let me know if you did need help, though, right? I have some power now, you know? She plucked pridefully at the collar of her shirt.

In the end, she ushered Sebastien back into the dorms, and somehow drew all of her friends into Sebastiens small cubicle with a few subtle words and the reveal of a package of tiny butter cookies. They didnt leave until one of the faculty shut off the dorms lights, despite Sebastiens several attempts to get some solitude.

After that, the week passed so quickly Sebastien didnt even feel it slipping through her fingers. There had been no divination attempts, no sudden emergencies or disasters, and her only immediate source of frustration was the ongoing feeling of discomfort when she tried to release her iron grip over the idea-source of transmogrification spells. It felt wrong to ask for darkness and get a strange, almost unreal sensation of cold to go along with it. She hated the lack of precision and specificity. She hated the knowledge that her spells were being, in some small part, controlled by the minds of a hundred million random people. It didnt feel safe, and more than that, it didnt feel right to give up her grip over any part of her magic.

But at least her spells were working. She hadnt even been suffering from flashes of nightmares trying to break through the shields of her dreamless sleep spell, as long as she recast it halfway through the night. She guessed it might be because her Will was growing stronger. If she worked hard enough, maybe she could outpace the next disaster and actually be ready to face it.

On Wednesday, Sebastien completed the second repetition of the guiding light ritual. She had done a second, thorough search for similar glyphs and found nothing concerning, but what really convinced her to continue was the fact that shed had no trouble the first time, even with Will-strain.

And again, the second repetition of the ritual gave her no cause for concern, despite her watchfulness.

And now, Sebastien was riding around in a fancy carriage with a man and woman who were paid to show her houses and apartments available for long-term rental. It was not going well.

The man was like a self-righteous pencil who sniffed judgmentally every time he saw a bit of dirt, and the woman laughed at everything Sebastien said, even though she hadnt made a single joke. They had shown her three apartments and two houses already. Each was overly fancy, unreasonably priced, and in the parts of town where the coppers regularly patrolled. One even included private guards, and their upkeep was part of the rent.

As their carriage stopped in front of the sixth place of the morning, Sebastien took one look at the building and shook her head. No.

No? the pencil man repeated in his overdone high-class accent.

No, Sebastien confirmed. They had stopped in front of a two-story house covered in windows. There was barely enough space between it and the houses on either side for a broad-shouldered man to walk. At the house on the right, an elderly couple sat in rocking chairs on their front porch. At the house on the left, children played in the front yard, and their mother looked out of the window and waved at Sebastien with a pleasant smile. The lawns were manicured, and the street clean.

Across from Sebastien, the woman laughed awkwardly.

I am serious, Sebastien said. Dont you have any cheaper options? Perhaps in the poorer parts of town? Or a place with a lot of privacy. A small cottage surrounded by a high fence. Or an apartment with thick walls and no windows. I dont care if its a little run-down.

Really, Sebastien was hoping for some place where the neighbors werent the type to make friends or notice a bit of strangeness, where she could make modifications to the structure without anyone noticing or complaining that she had no permit, and that certainly wouldnt be frequented by coppers or guards.

Nowindows? the woman asked, laughing uncertainly.

The two housing agents shared a look, and then the man opened his ring binder and began to flip through listings. I have no listings without windows. His tone of disdain said that they were a reputable company and didnt represent people who would try to rent out hovels. Might I suggest a thick, light-blocking curtain? Perhaps velvet. If both privacy and price are also a concern He huffed, as if Sebastien had given him an unreasonable request, but finally picked up the little bell hanging by the carriage door and spoke into it to give the driver a new address.

They traveled south for the better part of an hour in a silence that the woman gave up on filling. But the apartment they finally reached wasnot bad. It was an attic apartment, the third floor above a house that had been divided vertically into two other units.

On the eastern side lived two men who shared the rent. They were either not at home or felt no need to peek out of their two small windows in curiosity, so Sebastien only knew this because the agents told her. In the western side lived an extended family packed in tight. Apparently a couple had taken in other family members after a tragedy, leaving them with three adult women, one man, and several children of varying ages.

I have heard tales of shamans whose minds become lost forever in the spirit world, leaving their bodies an empty shell, soon to die. This may seem somewhat counter to what you are asking, but recent advancements in shamanry among research-dedicated agents of the Red Guard have them attempting to create wards of a sortwalls and protective structureswithin the spirit world itself. A futile effort, like building castles of sand before the waves. But, if the anchoring were successful, a spirit-walking shaman could protect their mind against erosion within this structure, perhaps. Some have hypothesized that the soul is, in fact, separate from the bodyand specifically separate from the brain. There is no corroborated evidence of this, to my knowledge. But if it was indeed the case, and the soul contained information, then perhaps a shaman could continue to exist in some coherent form within the spirit world, even after their body had died from neglect.

This is not my area of expertise, and I must warn you against being known to explore this path of magic. Even if it does hold the answers you seek, it is possible that activity within the spirit realm could leave traces, and the Red Guard does not allow experimentation along this path. It is too dangerous.

Or, perhaps you are speaking of something more unambiguous. A way to somehow strip a being from their body and condense their consciousness into information, then encode it into the form of a memory? Memories are never forgotten, but by breaking all connective bonds of recollection, one could force forgetfulness and thus lock the memory, and the consciousness, away.

The last would require some ability to isolate what creates consciousness, which, as far as I am aware, is yet beyond us. But an advanced simulacrum of consciousness, of intelligence, could be possible.

If you wish for more detailed information from me, I will require more information about the nature of your curiosity. As it is, I am speculating blindly within a vast cosmos of possibilities, and my usefulness is limited.

In return, I have a question of my own. Are you truly Siobhan Naught? And if so, were you always? Tell me of yourself.

Furthermore, since you hinted at it, now you must tell me the trick to Myrddins journal.

Siobhan memorized the letter easily enough, then lit it on fire and watched it burn away to ash. Professor Lacers response had ignited her thoughts in a greater blaze than the paper itself, but it was less directly helpful than she had hoped. She didnt know enough detail to guide her questions.

And what about shamanry could be so dangerous that the Red Guard actively forbids people from experimenting with the spirit world? It must be very easy to become an Aberrant from doing the wrong thing. It made a certain kind of sense, because shed heard the spirit world likened to a dream realm that intruded upon the thoughts even as the thoughts spilled out into the surroundings. It probably took an exceedingly strong Will to safely do more than visit.

Resolving to think on the matter for a while before replying to him, she locked up her new apartment, having left the two warded chests behind. Each was hidden separately and doubly warded with a trigger that would alert her if they were disturbed. One held Myrddins book, the other her trove of stolen celerium.

Sebastiens life continued on with a suspicious lack of problems or obstacles, which only made her attack the few that she could still do something about with more rabid intensity. She researched the web of connotative connections. She asked others what they thought, what they felt, when given concepts like light or darkness. She cast her transmogrification spells over and over, hoping that her feeling of discomfort would abate.

It did not abate. And then she realized, in a sudden epiphany while eating dinner on Wednesday, that she had been going about the whole thing wrong. Maybe some thaumaturges could give up control to the ephemeral amassed understanding, easily and willingly allow a hand on the reins other than their own. But she could not. And she should not have to.

While transmogrification spells were not meant to use her as the idea-source, that did not mean she had to give up guidance or control. Perhaps the spells should not use her ideas directly, but those ideas should still be the guidelines for, as well as the borders of, what it drew from the greater common consciousness.

She stood up without finishing her meal, rushed back to the dorms, and set up the spell that would allow darkness to descend from the component of an autumn leaf. I am the master, she said to herself, applying her Will with every word, though she channeled no power yet. Darkness will descend, as I command it, pulled from every idea of the long dark winter that exists or has existed. Every memory, every thought, every dream. Darkness from above, exactly. No more, no less. Heed me, she snarled.

And when she cast, night spilled over the upper bounds of her Circle, like an egg of ink cracked over a dome. It flowed down quickly, and so thick that she could barely make out the leaf within. There was no chill wind, no eerie sense of death or solitude, no foggy impression that she had given up complete and utter domination over this small half-sphere within her Circle.

Sebastien stared at it for a while, her heart pounding with exultation, and then she let the spell drop. The sun had not yet set. She stood up and left the dorms, heading to her special clearing in the Menagerie with ground-devouring strides.

When she reached it, she rolled her shoulders and stretched her legs, thinking of all the things the light-refinement spell was meant to do. The filtered light would heal, repair, and energize. It would refine her, just as she refined it. And not only her body, but also, and most importantly, her mind. It would strengthen her mind, shore up her natural defenses, and bring her clarity. It would anchor her Will to something too robust to strain, too powerful to break. It would reduce her need for sleep.

The light will heal me, rejuvenate me, but it will also make me more. I will refine it, and be refined in turn, Sebastien announced, once again filling her words with her Will. Heed me. She fell into the first stance of the movement.

She had practiced this spellthe humming, the precise movements, the purposefulnessuntil she could complete the entire sequence three or even four times without collapsing. Usually, she would start to see a visible mote of light around the time that she finished the first repetition.

Now, it appeared after only nine full breaths.

She had thought she understood how the spell workedsome sort of energy conversion from light into something her body could use, that also burned away impurities. Energy that would speed her mind and fill her cells with vigor. But that had only been her rationalization.

She did not understand how this spell worked or what it was really doing to her body and mind. But she thought she understood, now, what it meant to call upon the weight of an idea so pervasive that it had worked its way into everyday simile and metaphor. It is not true, some part of her thought. But it does not need to be true. It is real, and this accumulated force of conviction has true power behind it. And one day, I will understand not only how to control it but how it works. Genuine understanding.

It was a promise steeped in hubris, but with hair-thin lines of light trailing her every movement, hanging in the air, and flowing in through her forehead, she meant it.

Her veins seemed to fill with molten honey and her mind with the song of the cosmos. All she could see were the ever-refining patterns of light. All she could hear was her own humming, which traveled through the folds of her brain before doubling back like ripples in a pond. Where each wave passed, filaments of brightness grew, tiny stars exploded into children that grew into stars themselves, and the illumination revealed the weight and gravity of the space surrounding it, which was not empty but filled with her Will. It was not water, but still seemed somewhat like an oceantoo small to be called such, but determined and crushingly inexorable despite its weakness.

She stopped, finally, not because she grew tired, but because the last sliver of the sun had slipped over the horizon. She panted, her body drenched in sweat, every cell bursting with life.

Oh, she said into the darkness of the Menagerie.

And then she laughed.