Chapter 460: Fire

After a while, Kael said, half to the flame and half to Bruce:

"I am going to learn fire properly. Not just techniques. The theory. Whatever the old soul did with cooking, I want to do with fire. Find what fire really is, in this realm, beyond the throwing of fireballs."

"That’s good," Bruce said.

"It will take a long time."

"It will."

"I want to do it anyway."

"Then do it."

Kael nodded to himself. He extinguished the small flame. He lay back on his bed, hands folded across his stomach, and was asleep before Bruce could say anything else.

Bruce did not sleep immediately.

He lay in the soft soul-stone dimness of the room and turned the day over in his head. Three days. Twelve hundred and forty-seven points down to four hundred and forty-seven. A spatial ring on his finger. Two alpha kills. A senior clerk who had recognized him. A B-rank guard who had noted him. An S-rank cook who had warned him. Several quiet observers somewhere in the city, watching, recording his face and his companions.

He had been in Xiltra for three days, and the city was beginning to take him seriously.

He thought of Sophie.

He thought of her sitting in the labyrinth beside his still body. He thought of how many times she had now made stew or soup or whatever she made to pass the time. Sophie always cooked when she was waiting. He thought of how she would be holding the wait. With purpose, with rituals, with small rearrangements of the space. He thought of her hand, briefly, the way her hand looked when it was resting on something she was watching over. He had a clear image of that hand resting on his still chest.

He sent the wordless thought along the thin thread.

I am all right. I have a ring. I have friends. I am being noticed and I am being careful. I am all right.

He thought, deeper than the words: I miss you. I will come home.

He did not know if it reached her. He had stopped pretending to himself that he knew. He sent the thought anyway, every night, as a discipline. The same way he had once said quiet things to patients under anesthesia who could not hear him. The saying was part of the work even when the hearing was not guaranteed.

He closed his soul-body’s eyes.

He slept, eventually, with the soft light of his ring’s binding sitting quiet on his finger and the city of Xiltra murmuring its night-sounds outside.

The third day was done.

Tomorrow there would be a hunt, an alpha flank prepared by a master cook, possibly the first approach from one of the quiet observers, and possibly, if the integration held, Bruce’s first rank advancement to E.

The climb had become visible.

The climb continued.

Bruce woke to the sound of someone outside the window calling a delivery.

It was early, earlier than he had woken on the previous days, and the city was in that particular stage of morning when the night-shift workers were finishing and the day-shift workers had not yet started. The voice outside was a soul calling out the names of fish from a cart, presumably to the small market a street over. Bone-snapper, river-glider, two-stripe. The names meant nothing to Bruce. He filed them, the way he filed everything.

He lay still for a few seconds, listening.

Then he got up.

Kael was on his back with one arm over his face, exactly as he had slept the night before. Theron was curled the same way too, on his side, scythe condensed, breathing slow. Both of them were deeply asleep, neither one stirring. Bruce had a few minutes of quiet to himself before the day started.

He took it.

He sat on the edge of his bed and opened the spatial ring’s interior the way he had practiced last night. The small clean room presented itself to his inner sense, the soul-seal paste jars, the spare butchering blades, the hide bindings, the bark-cloth for wrapping cuts, all in the positions he had placed them. Everything where it should be. Everything within reach. He took out one of the soul-seal paste jars, examined it, put it back. The motion was clean and easy. The ring’s interior held its contents without any drift.

He thought, briefly and warmly, of his physical-realm ring on his still hand in the labyrinth. The two rings were nothing alike in capacity, his physical-realm ring was enormous, this one tiny, but they sat the same finger and they did the same kind of work, and there was something about wearing this small ring that made him feel, for the first time since the descent, like himself.

He filed that. He went to wash.

When he came back, Theron was awake.

The young man was sitting up on his bed, summoning and dispelling his scythe slowly, once every few seconds, in a quiet meditative rhythm. The blade appearing, holding for a beat, dissolving cleanly. Appearing, holding, dissolving. He was, Bruce understood after watching for a moment, exercising the talent’s reaction speed. Making the appearance of the scythe smoother and faster each time, the way an old surgeon practiced the motion of opening and closing his hand to keep the fine articulation sharp.

Theron noticed Bruce watching.

"It’s faster than yesterday," he said quietly. "I can feel it. Last week I needed two seconds to summon it. This morning I’m at half a second."

"That’s a real improvement."

"And dispelling is almost instant now. I think, I think the talent rewards practice the same way muscle does. The more I summon it, the easier the summoning gets."

"That tracks. Most things in this realm seem to work that way."

"Like your ink."

"Like my ink. It comes faster than it did three days ago. The shapes form with less effort. Yesterday the net cost me a real chunk of energy. By next week, I expect it’ll be like writing my own name."

Theron nodded thoughtfully. He summoned the scythe again, held it for a beat, dispelled it. Repeated.

"I want to start meditating with it," he said, after a while. "Not just summoning it. Holding it and listening to it. The way you described, what should be cut. I want to find out what it has to say to me when I’m not using it to fight."

"That’s a good practice."

"After the alpha meal tonight. Before sleep. I’ll start tonight."

"I’ll do something similar with the ink." Bruce sat back down on his bed. "I want to try writing, actual writing, not just shapes. See if the talent can put real words into the air. The old soul talked about food and bodies being the same subject. I think for me, words and constructs might be the same subject. I want to find out."

Kael, from his bed, without moving: "You two are both doing weird talent-meditation in the morning quiet and it is making me feel lazy."

"Then get up," Bruce said.

"In a minute."

He got up in a minute. The three of them stretched, washed, packed their gear into the rings. The frames went into the corner. They would not need the bulky carrying frames today, with the rings on their hands. They could move lighter. They could move faster. They could go further.

Bruce checked his window before they left.

Soul Points: 447

He closed it. He had not yet decided exactly how he wanted to spend the day’s earnings, beyond paying for the alpha meal, beyond the next week’s rent which was due in three days, but he had options now in a way he had not had before. He noted that and let it sit.

They went down the stairs and out into the morning.

Breakfast was the same morning stew at the same stall.

The heavyset woman with the burn-scarred arms had their three bowls ready before they reached the counter. She had clearly memorized them. She did not say anything beyond the price. She gave Bruce a small nod when he paid, and a slightly larger nod when she noticed the new ring on his finger. She did not comment. She had seen many hunters get their first ring. She had also seen many hunters fail to last long enough to wear one a second week.

Bruce understood the second nod after a moment. Don’t be one of the ones who doesn’t last.

He ate his stew.

The woman went back to her pot. The city did its morning bustle around them.

Halfway through the meal, Theron said: "Stone dungeon today, or heat?"

"Stone," Bruce said.

"Why?"

"For me. I want depth-essence today. The heat dungeon gives width. Yesterday’s alpha hit me with a lot of depth all at once, and I want to build on that direction rather than balance back to width. We can do heat tomorrow."

"And the alpha hunt today?"

"Yes. We try to find another alpha, a stone-dungeon alpha. If we can take a second alpha today, the rank advancement to E might be possible. Even if we can’t find one, the regular dungeon work plus tonight’s alpha flank meal should push at least one of us over the threshold."