“That’s good,” Lodo breathed. “But this isn’t the sort of test you can fail.”
Again, Sal almost dropped the scourge. “You--what?”
“Quiet.” Lodo closed his eyes and pulled the rope tight between them. “I’m concentrating.”
Sal barely had time to think--
He’s reading my mind!
--when suddenly the ground was pulled out from underneath him, and he was falling--
--or flying--
--down into the molten heart of the Earth--
--or up through the incandescent eye of the sun.
He let go of the scourge. He felt its coarse weave slip through his fingers, and he shrieked with fear. But he couldn’t get it back, no matter how he clutched. He was being pulled away from it--
--or someone was pulling it--
--and the heat was burning, burning, all around him, sucking the air out of his lungs.
The shriek died on his lips as the pain hit harder than anything he’d ever experienced, more piercing than a thousand knives, flaying him until his nerve endings were bared, then flaying each of them in turn: burning and burning and burning until he thought his mind would shatter like glass and explode into a million tiny fragments--
--yet he could think that, and that surprised him.
“Good,” said Lodo as the flames sucked him back down--
--or up--
--and the pain was gone. The heat was gone. All he felt was coolness, as though he had been dunked in a cold lake, except there was no water. Only air, thin and wintry, curling around him, embracing him with chill limbs, holding him tight. As the heat radiated from his skin and he felt ice leaching in, he realized that the cold hurt as much as the fire. His skin seemed to peel back and shed tiny crystals, eroded layer by layer until his bones were exposed, cold and hard and frozen like rock, right down to the core--
--right down to his heart, which stopped in mid-beat.
And everything was still for a single, timeless moment. There was no light, no dark; no cold, no hot; just a single, deep note humming far off in the distance, like the sound a sleeping mountain might make turning over …
“Again,” said Lodo. Sal’s heart beat once more. He gasped for breath, took two desperate gulps of bitter wind deep into his chest--
--then the air was gone.
--there was dark. Something wrapped around his face and throat--and his shoulders and chest and arms and stomach and waist and thighs and knees and feet--and gripped tight. He was being squeezed by a giant, rock-hard fist. He couldn’t move his jaw to open his mouth, let alone his chest to inhale. The stone was rough and warm against his skin, and as implacable as granite. He would never be able to shift it a millimeter, let alone dig his way out. He would die encased in rock like a living fossil, a modern dinosaur to puzzle future miners--
--but again he wondered how that could be. If there was no way out, that meant there was no way in, either--
--and if that was so, then he wasn’t there at all.
“Very good,” said Lodo, into his head. “Now, this is the last one.”
Suddenly his mouth could open and his chest move. He gasped for air, but only water poured into his lungs, thick and choking, filling up every oxygen-starved corner of his chest. He jackknifed, vomiting fluid out of his throat and sucking still more back in. This was worse than when he had fallen off the jetty. Here, there was no light and no way up. His body went into spasms and his mind recoiled from the realization that unless something happened soon, unless someone saved him again, he would surely drown.
Yet somehow, through the panic and the pain, a bubble of calm appeared and began to grow, enveloping him. It numbed the pain and the panic; it soothed him, drew him down, deeper, into serenity and darkness. He accepted the descent with gratitude. Somewhere, he knew, his body’s spasms were becoming weaker; its resistance was ebbing--but he was safe. He was no longer afraid. He was--
--at peace. There was only him and the distant hum--and as time itself faded away, he began to doubt that even he was real.
“Wake up,” said Lodo.
Sal’s eyes jerked open. For a moment he didn’t understand what they were showing him. The messages of his senses, too, he could hardly accept. All felt wrong--as though the world around him had become translucent and he could see behind it to another reality. Another reality that faded as his mind cleared, leaving behind tantalizing fragments like scraps of fog boiling away at sunrise.
He was standing upright in Lodo’s workshop holding the silver end of the scourge in both hands.
“Welcome back,” said the old man.
“What …?” Sal let go of the scourge and ran his hands over his face. His skin was tingling all over. He remembered the pain of burning and freezing, being buried alive and then drowned, as vividly as though it had actually happened to him. Yet it so clearly hadn’t. He was alive and unharmed. He hadn’t even moved.
“The Change comes from one single source,” said Lodo. His voice was firm, an anchor on which Sal fought to find stability. “What that source is, we don’t know, but it is no different in a Stone Mage than in a Sky Warden. There are simply different ways to teach it--at least two--and which path a student takes depends to a large degree on the student’s temperament.
“Like a river on its journey to the sea, the Change is guided by the shape of the banks and the strength of its source. The scourge helps us determine the former, at least. Without measuring your temperament, I wouldn’t know how best to proceed.”
Sal’s legs were beginning to tremble with delayed shock, but he forced himself to stand still and silent.
“In the first examination, your heart chose air and your head chose fire. In the second, your mind revealed a natural predilection for stone over water. This surprised me, I’ll admit.” Lodo smiled slightly. “But it is good news. I can guide you along the path of fire and stone.
“Shilly, you might be interested to know, is the other way around in both cases. If she had the Change, I would have been forced to finish her teaching by a completely different method. As it is, she can use my power in ways that I cannot, and is unable to do some things I find simple.”
Lodo stopped and frowned. “Are you feeling all right?”
Sal tried to keep his voice level. “Yes.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You can barely stand upright. Sit down before you force me to catch you.”
Sal stumbled to a cushion and collapsed gratefully into it. His muscles were weak and his eyes heavy. Lodo brought him a lukewarm drink that tasted faintly of limes, and he felt better almost instantly. The memory of the scourge began to fade.
When Lodo spoke again, his voice was firm. “Let this be your first lesson, Sal. Don’t ever be afraid to speak your mind, because I can only read it on odd occasions and it’s a chore to do your thinking for you at any time. I want a pupil, not a puppet. Understood?”
Sal nodded.
“Good. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Your temperament. A bad beginning leads more often than not to a bad ending. Even though I’ll probably never complete your training, it’s important to begin the right way. But one thing the scourge can only hint at is your lineage. Given what I can guess about your parents, I’d say you’re an odd blend of Earth Clan and Cloud Line, with the Cloud coming from your father.”
“But Dad doesn’t have the Change.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.”
Lodo’s gaze evaded his. “Well, he may not, but he must carry the trait, even if it’s recessive. Otherwise you wouldn’t have it. It takes two with the trait to make a Change-worker, you see, and one must always be active. Two latents are no good. All you get then is another latent, weaker than either parent. There are occasionally throwbacks, yes, but never as potent as you seem to be. You’re a true match if ever I’ve seen one. You
r mother, I suspect, was very potent indeed.”
Sal absorbed this. Among the many things his father had been silent about was the possibility that the Change ran in his family. It was an odd thought, to be related to the Sky Wardens he had been afraid of all his life, since that was what it meant to belong to one of the Lines. And Lodo thought he belonged to a Stone Mage Clan as well! The thought seemed too bizarre, at first, to accept, an impossible mix of bitter ice and searing fire.
“What about Shilly?” he asked, seeking to draw attention away from himself. “Does she come from a Line, too?”
Lodo shook his head. “No. She’s a free latent talent--an Irregular, as some people call them--sprung out of nowhere and bearing no sign of Line or Clan. I took her in because, as a toddler, she exhibited enough flashes of the Change to disconcert her foster parents. They didn’t know what to do with her, and I doubt anyone else in her village would have, either. Her talent burned out before she was seven, but the pathways are still there, getting more sophisticated every year. Whoever and wherever her real parents are, they don’t know what they’re missing.”
Sal glanced at Shilly, who was still pretending not to listen, and thought of Elina, the child who had given him the illusory flower. This was the first time he had heard Lodo compliment Shilly, and he thought she looked faintly smug.
“She told me,” Lodo went on, “about what happened in the Ruin. I’d like to hear it from your point of view. What did you feel when she used your ability? How did you feel afterward? Did you feel that you could do it on your own at any point? Were you ever afraid that you might lose control of the Change?”
Sal thought to recall everything he had experienced. He described the way the air had seemed to buzz, and how something simultaneously hot and cold had crawled up his spine when Shilly had called forth light from the carved stone. The illusions had been less of a strain, but had left him exhausted afterward. Not physically exhausted, or even mentally. He didn’t have the words to describe how he had felt. As though he had become thinner, perhaps, less substantial. As though, every time he used the Change, a piece of him was taken with it.
Lodo nodded at that. “That’s the truth of it, more or less. Having the Change won’t give you access to boundless reserves of energy. All you have is as much as you are, and no more. Take too much, and you risk losing yourself. You’d become like a ghost, or the opposite of a ghost: a body without true life, a shell of yourself. A golem, as some call them. Many Wardens and Mages have fallen into this trap over the centuries; some still exist, and they can be dangerous. Empty vessels can sometimes be filled by other things. Most Change-workers are aware of the risks and take precautions. There are places and times when reserves can be replenished, when the ambient Change is strong and can be drawn upon. This ambient level, the background potential, can also get in the way, however, by interfering with the senses, as it did for you at the Ruin. It is therefore both a resource and a nuisance. You must learn to control it before you can learn to control yourself.”
Sal nodded slowly, hoping he understood even half of what the old man was saying. He could feel the Change all around him, yes, but had no idea how to tap into it, or to ignore it.
“Give me your hands.” Lodo leaned forward. Sal placed his hands in the old man’s, noting the callused, leathery skin, and the blood-red jewels where Lodo’s littlest fingernails had once been. In the roughly circular space enclosed by their arms, a cloudy white glow appeared. It had no definite form or shape, but stirred restlessly.
“This is a simple, contained version of the background potential,” Lodo explained. “It’s easier to control than the real thing, and easier to study your effects upon it, since you can see it. Ultimately, you must learn to intuit the Change, rather than use your normal senses. First, I want you to find this cloud with your mind and make it part of you. Can you feel it?”
Sal frowned, concentrating. “I’m not sure …”
“Be sure, either way. I can’t describe how it will feel to you, because everyone is different in that respect. But you may sense it through sound or balance. A buzzing, like at the Ruin, perhaps?”
Sal closed his eyes. Yes, he could sense something. Like a noise on the very edge of hearing, or the touch of a mosquito’s legs. There was something …
“Good,” he heard Lodo say, and he opened his eyes.
There was a dent in the top of the cloud, as though a finger had poked into it. He gasped with surprise, and the invisible finger withdrew. But it had been there, and he was encouraged by that fact.
“Try again.”
This time, Sal kept his eyes open. As he found the sensation again, he saw the cloud deform once more, this time on its upper left flank. As Sal concentrated on the sensation, the dimple drifted across the cloud, as aimless and jittery as the floaters visible in his eye when he looked at the sky. If he concentrated harder, he could make the dimple bigger, but he was apt to lose control of it that way. When Lodo asked him to try to poke right through the cloud, the dimple flailed wildly left, then right, then disappeared entirely.
“Never mind,” said Lodo, in response to Sal’s crestfallen look. “It happens to all of us, the first time. Shilly, come and join us.”
Without a word, Shilly unfolded herself from her cushion and joined them in the middle of the room. Lodo let go of Sal’s right hand, and she filled the gap.
Instantly, the cloud expanded to fill the larger space enclosed by the three of them.
“There’s a simple game new Stone Mages learn,” said Lodo. “They call it Blind: Double Blind with two players, Triple Blind with three, and so on. The object is to pin down your opponent’s will using nothing but your own. Shilly and I will demonstrate.”
Instantly, two tendrils of fog appeared, rearing like snakes on the surface of the cloud. They danced around each other, pulling forward and retreating, until one of them struck the other--or attempted to. The second tendril retreated back into itself, turning inside-out in the process. Transformed into a mouth, it engulfed the striking tendril and closed shut around it.
Shilly grimaced. Another tendril appeared, this time terminating in a circular loop, like a lasso. A copy appeared on the far side of the cloud and swept around to meet it, pulling free at the last moment and attempting to jump through the loop of the first. The first ducked nimbly aside, and tried to jump through its opponent’s loop as it returned to the cloud. This maneuver failed too, so they went back to circling each other, with Sal watching their every move.
The rules of this particular engagement seemed to be less permissive than the first, in that the loops never transformed into another shape, but flexed and dodged in order to avoid an attack. The melee was therefore more intense, as each loop fought for an opening in the other. The end came when one of the loops--Sal couldn’t tell whose it was--feinted a jump to the left but instead jumped to the right. The opponent, for a split second taken off-guard, then crouched down to avoid the leap, and leapt up to pass through the hole of the loop jumping over it. The victor instantly doubled in size, while the loser vanished.
Shilly pulled another face. Her hand in Sal’s clenched a little tighter.
“Have a go, Sal,” Lodo said. The winning loop sank back into the cloud, leaving the featureless pseudo-sphere between the three of them. “There are no rules in free-form, which is the way Shilly and I first played. Your goal is simply to capture or subdue your opponent any way you can. Show us what you can do.”
Sal concentrated, searching for the cloud hanging before him with his mind--or whatever sense it was that registered its presence. Instead of simply prodding it, he tried to draw part of it away from the rest. He visualized teasing a yarn out of a bale of raw wool. To his amazement, something very similar happened on the surface of the cloud before him. By concentrating harder, he found he could make a vortex the size of his thumb stand out from the rest.
But it wasn’
t going anywhere. It just wobbled unsteadily to one side of the cloud. Sal willed it to move--any direction would do--but nothing happened.
Then, from the far side of the cloud, a wave swept over his vortex and swallowed it whole. Sal felt as though he too had been swallowed. The part of his mind controlling the vortex was tugged away from him, and he staggered forward, his balance thrown.
Lodo and Shilly steadied him with their hands. The cloud wobbled for a moment, then firmed.
“Sorry,” Shilly said with an evil grin. “I’ll go easier on you next time.”
Sal fumed to himself and went back to concentrating. The vortex popped up again, a little stronger than before. This time Shilly’s wave encircled the vortex and began to close in on it. He could feel her mental wall contracting around him, and he struggled to escape the only way he could. Squeezing its base, he managed to detach the top of the vortex from the cloud an instant before Shilly’s ring slammed shut below. The remainder of his vortex, now a rough ball, hung in the air above the cloud, skittering nervously every time Sal tried to move it. When Shilly’s wave reappeared, this time as a mouth reaching up to gulp him down like a fish snapping at an insect, Sal’s panicky mental impulse sent his sphere swinging around the cloud. It survived two attacks that way, but was captured on the third. Again he was tugged forward when she swallowed him. This time he was ready for it and managed to stay upright.
“Okay,” said Lodo. “You’re improving. Now we’ll make it a little more interesting.”
Sal wondered what he could mean, but was completely unprepared for what happened. The three stones illuminating the room abruptly went black, plunging them into darkness.
“I asked you to make the cloud part of you.” Lodo’s voice came strongly from nearby. “That’s what I want you to do now. Don’t see the cloud. Feel it. Be it.”
The Stone Mage & the Sea (Books of the Change Book 1) Page 14
