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Authors: Graydon Saunders
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“Your reaction to holding something hot.” Blossom pulls a big floppy sun-hat out of clear air. It’s green, and it’s got an amazing purple feather. Blossom waves it gently, it bends in the air as itought. “Nothing here but Power; same with your mitts.” The hat vanishes, no ripples, nothing, it just goes away.
“Get good enough and you can make things that move and speak, but it’s still just illusion.”
Zora gets this look of mad glee; the oven mitts get embroidered cuffs, something mostly in red, run up past Zora’s elbows, develop fingers, and vanish. There’s a distinct pause, and the wholething reappears, vanishes, reappears, sticks while Zora’s fingers wriggle, and the gloves vanish again.
Blossom’s voice goes teacher. “Anything you make like this that you’re not paying attention to has a tendency to vanish, before anyone gets hopeful about clothes.”
Kynefrid gets a very thoughtful look.
Blossom points at Kynefrid and Chloris, a chin-lift, but it’s obvious. Sorcerers don’t seemto point at things with their fingers. At least our teachers don’t.
“You two didn’t lighten lunch, so you get a water-cask off the waggon and back here.”
“How?” Kynefrid, who looks like someone who has a good sense of how much a full hundred-litre cask weighs.
Blossom looks at Dove.
“The Line trick is a rolling loop of the Power; you balance the weight on the top of it, and roll it along. Bigsquishy loop.” Blossom shrugs. “Probably want to imagine the loop lifting the cask before you move it.”
You can move big things, barges and houses, big things, or huge boulders, with the right kind of sixty-four-person focus, but I never knew how they did it.
“Zora?” Blossom says.
“Steam said not to think of the cans as heavy, so I didn’t.” Zora’s shrug is very similar to Blossom’s. “I don’tknow why it worked.”
“Direct lift force,” Blossom says. “Works better on small things; you don’t want to be trying to balance anything large that way, where
large
is
I’d really like a wheelbarrow
.”
“And we already know Edgar rolled up gravity like a sock.” Blossom has the grin back.
I really wish I knew if I’d been clever or stupid.
Chloris and Kynefrid get the cask back over here, a stand, anda bucket with a spout. The cask gets up on the stand, too, and nothing gets dropped. Both of them seem surprised by that.
We all go through the wet-the-drill step, how to check you’ve got all the chips and dust — “Don’t want to pad the rock ahead of the drill,” says Blossom — and then it’s back to drilling with the next length up.
Dove hands me the hammer. All the magnetism is out of it, quietlyenough that I didn’t notice Dove doing it at all.
“Not used a five-kilo sledge much,” gets me a grin, and a “Start slow,” so I do.
Not much like tapping window brads, but there’s an arc there, and I can get my sense of the Power into it, like running my hand up the nap of flannel the slow way. It’s a bad idea to try to swing the hammer
down
on an inhale, that was like punching myself in the gut,it’s up with the in, out, in,
down
for awhile, before I can manage up with in, hold,
down
.
It works, pretty much entirely to my surprise. It sparkles and feels chewy but it doesn’t smell of anything but sweaty people and stone dust and mud.
After a couple of decimetres, it’s stop, pour, pull, and back. Dove reminds me to drink; one of the ten-litre cans each is indeed just a bucket of water. It’snot that warm out, it’s a pleasant enough day but it’s getting late in the year, and I might still need all ten litres.
I don’t hear what Kynefrid says, it’s quiet, might be an offer to switch with Chloris after they’ve pulled their first drill, but the results are hard to miss.
“Not frail — ”CLANG — “not delicate — ”CLANG — “if I must — ”CLANG — “do this unseemly — ”CLANG — the way Chloris
“Your reaction to holding something hot.” Blossom pulls a big floppy sun-hat out of clear air. It’s green, and it’s got an amazing purple feather. Blossom waves it gently, it bends in the air as itought. “Nothing here but Power; same with your mitts.” The hat vanishes, no ripples, nothing, it just goes away.
“Get good enough and you can make things that move and speak, but it’s still just illusion.”
Zora gets this look of mad glee; the oven mitts get embroidered cuffs, something mostly in red, run up past Zora’s elbows, develop fingers, and vanish. There’s a distinct pause, and the wholething reappears, vanishes, reappears, sticks while Zora’s fingers wriggle, and the gloves vanish again.
Blossom’s voice goes teacher. “Anything you make like this that you’re not paying attention to has a tendency to vanish, before anyone gets hopeful about clothes.”
Kynefrid gets a very thoughtful look.
Blossom points at Kynefrid and Chloris, a chin-lift, but it’s obvious. Sorcerers don’t seemto point at things with their fingers. At least our teachers don’t.
“You two didn’t lighten lunch, so you get a water-cask off the waggon and back here.”
“How?” Kynefrid, who looks like someone who has a good sense of how much a full hundred-litre cask weighs.
Blossom looks at Dove.
“The Line trick is a rolling loop of the Power; you balance the weight on the top of it, and roll it along. Bigsquishy loop.” Blossom shrugs. “Probably want to imagine the loop lifting the cask before you move it.”
You can move big things, barges and houses, big things, or huge boulders, with the right kind of sixty-four-person focus, but I never knew how they did it.
“Zora?” Blossom says.
“Steam said not to think of the cans as heavy, so I didn’t.” Zora’s shrug is very similar to Blossom’s. “I don’tknow why it worked.”
“Direct lift force,” Blossom says. “Works better on small things; you don’t want to be trying to balance anything large that way, where
large
is
I’d really like a wheelbarrow
.”
“And we already know Edgar rolled up gravity like a sock.” Blossom has the grin back.
I really wish I knew if I’d been clever or stupid.
Chloris and Kynefrid get the cask back over here, a stand, anda bucket with a spout. The cask gets up on the stand, too, and nothing gets dropped. Both of them seem surprised by that.
We all go through the wet-the-drill step, how to check you’ve got all the chips and dust — “Don’t want to pad the rock ahead of the drill,” says Blossom — and then it’s back to drilling with the next length up.
Dove hands me the hammer. All the magnetism is out of it, quietlyenough that I didn’t notice Dove doing it at all.
“Not used a five-kilo sledge much,” gets me a grin, and a “Start slow,” so I do.
Not much like tapping window brads, but there’s an arc there, and I can get my sense of the Power into it, like running my hand up the nap of flannel the slow way. It’s a bad idea to try to swing the hammer
down
on an inhale, that was like punching myself in the gut,it’s up with the in, out, in,
down
for awhile, before I can manage up with in, hold,
down
.
It works, pretty much entirely to my surprise. It sparkles and feels chewy but it doesn’t smell of anything but sweaty people and stone dust and mud.
After a couple of decimetres, it’s stop, pour, pull, and back. Dove reminds me to drink; one of the ten-litre cans each is indeed just a bucket of water. It’snot that warm out, it’s a pleasant enough day but it’s getting late in the year, and I might still need all ten litres.
I don’t hear what Kynefrid says, it’s quiet, might be an offer to switch with Chloris after they’ve pulled their first drill, but the results are hard to miss.
“Not frail — ”CLANG — “not delicate — ”CLANG — “if I must — ”CLANG — “do this unseemly — ”CLANG — the way Chloris
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