“Sleep.” He said the word experimentally, easing off the windowsill. “That I can do. And then?”
“Then it’s back to work. I’ll start our week fresh, seeing as I wasn’t working in good faith till now. And I’ll think over how best to help you.”
“So we’re back to a week?”
“For now, yes. At the week’s end, you can make your offer again.”
“You can count on it.”
She patted his cheek. “You have to survive the next week first. It won’t be easy. Best get some sleep.” And with that, she vaulted out of the window and dropped out of sight to the ground below.
Chapter 19
True to her word, Naomi took his training more seriously in the days that followed. She eschewed night-time visits altogether to greet him at First Clay, to sit cross-legged and guide him through his Coal manipulation techniques, the room filled with dark, bloody light from the still warming up sun-wire.
“You intuitively went with a paddle,” she began on their third day, tone surprisingly non-judgmental. “At the higher rankings, Great Souls don’t require such visualizations, as they can interact with mana directly, but for now, that works. But you don’t need to limit yourself to that image—in fact, if you use it for too long, you’ll find it imprinted upon your spirit, and it will become an obstacle to your long-term growth. So try using different ideas to work the mana around.”
“What do you use?”
“It’s different for me as an Emberling, but now I imagine a vortex, like the kind of funnel that forms in water over a drain. I use that to pull the mana directly into my Heart. But that wouldn’t have worked for me as a Char; it would have been like trying to suck sand up through a straw. When I was at your stage, I used…” She narrowed her eyes, trying to remember. “I would imagine a great wind blowing through the mana like it would through the ash ivy outside my bedroom window.”
“A great wind,” he said softly, gazing through her now and at his Igneous Heart. Which, he noticed, was appearing with greater facility each time. The room was filled with sooty smoke, but instead of trying to stir it, he sought to summon a blast of wind, to surge through the heavy clouds like a gale.
But the image didn’t connect; he sensed soft ripples pass through the clouds, but nothing more.
“Whatever you imagine is just meant to be a metaphor that you connect with,” she said, tone patient. “In the end, we’re all just using our will, but right now, knowing that does nothing for you. You have to give your will shape. I’ve heard of people imagining hands molding clay, or slicing chunks out of the clouds with scythes or shovels. Some Great Souls imagine their Hearts at the bottom of huge pits, so that the mana falls down toward it, while others cast nets over the clouds, using the mana’s own resistance as a means to drag it closer. You have to experiment. See what works best for you.”
He spent the morning attempting different visualization techniques, working at every metaphor he could imagine, but in the end, nothing worked so well for him as the idea of the great paddle, dipping down into the black clouds as if he stood on a skiff above them and was making his way across a lake.
That afternoon Naomi led him to a sunken ballroom that tilted drunkenly toward one corner, the roof haphazardly cracked, the floor turned into an obstacle course by huge fallen blocks.
“We’ll train here instead of out in the open. There’s no longer any sense in trying to break you through a fear of falling, is there?”
He forced a smile in return. “Ha, right. You’re most kind.”
“My father had me train in the martial arts since I was young.” She slipped into a combat stance, resting her weight on her back leg, front leg bent, the ball of her foot lightly touching the ground. “I loved it. But eventually, I had to wonder: what does learning how to hit people and defend yourself have to do with the power of the Igneous Heart?”
Scorio warily moved to stand before her, falling into his own combat stance, presenting a three-quarters profile, arms up, legs slightly bent. His body was a mass of bruises, his muscles stiff, his knuckles swollen, but he forced the pain from his mind.
Only to realize she was waiting for an answer. “You said nothing concentrates the mind like pain and avoiding death. The more real the fight, the greater the benefits.”
“True. But think—when I’m in my nightmare form, do I really need to know how to do this?”
And she sprang forward, light and athletic, only to leap up and spin, leg scything around in a wicked arc. Her foot missed his face by an inch.
Scorio leaned back, a fraction too late to have avoided the blow, and felt the rush of air as her foot swished past him.
“I… I guess not? But surely it helps?”
She’d landed lightly, fallen easily back into her combat stance, backed away. “It does. But then half of all Great Souls who pass their first trial develop ranged attacks that require no melee skills at all. Yet still, they train. Why?”
Scorio resisted the urge to rise out of his stance. “Something about the act of training the body itself?”
“Close,” she said, nodding her head in approval, and despite himself, Scorio felt a rush of gratification.
She illustrated her next words with three carefully controlled roundhouse kicks, executing them slowly and with great precision, one low to the knee, one to the stomach, then one high, to the chest. “Advancement through the ranks requires one thing and one thing only: ambition fueled by an inexhaustible will. Training the body by learning martial arts hones the will by forcing you to learn discipline, self-control, and focus.”
Scorio watched her retract the last kick and then slowly, with great control, lower her foot back down to the ground. “Makes sense.”
“So.” She smiled, and he didn’t like it. “You’ll learn to fight so that you can learn to manipulate mana with the same force of will and determination. Yesterday you showed me you already had good instincts; you move well, remain aware of your surroundings, and know when to press and when to back off.”
“Didn’t seem to help me any.”
“Didn’t help you at all, but then, it wasn’t a fair fight. But your technique was raw, almost sloppy, your movements too loose and predictable, and you have virtually no stamina.”
“Well, that seems a bit harsh. Virtually none?”
“Virtually none,” she said with finality. “From now on, you’re going to start each cycle with a run which won’t end till First Clay becomes First Rust.”
“All of First Clay?” He tried and failed to hide his disappointment.
“Then you’ll meditate till Amber, working on your Coal manipulation. After that, you’ll meet me here, where we’ll work on your forms and technique. And in the evenings, we’ll talk. I don’t know much, but what I do know, I’ll share.”
Scorio inclined his head gravely. “Thank you. I couldn’t ask for more.”
“Just shows your ignorance. You’ll finish the day cycle with a run that’ll last all of Second Clay. But since we’re already here, you can warm up with fifty laps of this chamber. And to keep things interesting, I’m going to follow behind you in my nightmare form. If you slow down, I’ll punch you in the kidneys. Go.”
“Go?” Scorio’s eyes widened in surprise, but when she began to shift into her gaunt, horrific form, he took off, tripping and stumbling as he navigated the room toward the far wall.
He didn’t look back, but he knew she was right behind him. Not because he could hear her footfalls, but because of a low, terrifying chuckle that seemed to whisper directly into his ear.
1
On the fifth night, Scorio built an actual fire in his chamber out of desiccated wooden fragments he’d found in a collapsed building during his morning run. He carefully leaned the slats against each other to form a pyramid and stuffed the hollow beneath with dried moss and dead ivy.