“I have a question,” said Sardec.
“What is it?”
“What really happened in the Serpent Tower? How did you overcome Ilmarec?”
“You would not believe me if I told you, Lieutenant.”
“Please try me.”
So Rik did, leaving out many of the darker details. He talked about the ancient Serpent Man he had found within the Tower, and the way it had helped him. He spoke of the Nerghul and how it had fought with the Tower’s defenders. He talked of his last meeting with Ilmarec and his escape with the Queen in the flying coffin. Sardec listened politely enough but Rik was not sure whether the Lieutenant believed him. In Sardec’s place, he was not sure he would have.
“I saw what happened to the Tower,” Sardec said eventually. “And I wondered how such a potent structure could be destroyed. I know now. Thank you.”
He let out a long cloudy breath. It billowed like dragon-smoke from his nostrils. “We live in an older and stranger world than we think,” he said eventually. “The Elder Races possessed powers beyond our understanding.”
“Yes, they did.”
“I pray I never witness the manifestation of such powers again. Once in one lifetime was enough for me.”
“I am with you on that, Lieutenant,” said Rik. He was cold now, and Sardec’s presence had robbed him of the solitude he had been seeking. “If you will forgive me, I would go below now.”
“By all means, Good night.”
“You look very thoughtful,” Asea said, as Rik walked into her cabin. Karim sat cross-legged in the corridor outside the door, a naked blade in his lap. Rik closed the cabin door behind him. Asea erected her privacy spell.
“I just encountered Lieutenant Sardec,” said Rik. “He treated me almost as if I was sentient.”
Asea laughed. “Sardec is not as bad as you think he is, Rik. He is just very young, very proud and he does not know himself or the world very well yet.”
“I still don’t like him.”
“In this life you will find you often have to deal with people you dislike. You’ll just have to get used to it.”
“You said you wanted to teach me this evening.”
“I do. After your encounter with your dear half-sister I have decided that I need to accelerate your training.”
“Are you going to teach me to fight like her? I would not have thought there was room in this cabin.”
“This is no joking matter, Rik. Poisons are common among the Terrarchs, many and subtle too. You need to be able to deal with them. You need to be able to heal yourself too. I am not always going to be around to patch you up after your adventures.”
Rik thought he detected a note of sadness in her voice. She sounded like a woman forced to contemplate her own mortality. He told himself he was imagining it. He could not possible judge the way one of the First thought.
“You are going to teach me healing spells?”
“First I am going to teach you how to heal yourself and how to purify your body of toxins.”
“Will I be able to heal others?” That would be a useful talent. She shook her head.
“The spells will work only for you. It is easier to stimulate your own body to heal itself than to heal others.”
“Why should that be?”
“It may be because we are innately selfish, Rik. It is easier to spend our power healing ourselves than to heal somebody else. It may just be the range is less and so less energy is lost in transmission. Like so much else about magic, Rik, there are many theories and few concrete explanations. I could spend the rest of the night explaining the theories to you, or I can show you how to do it. Which is it to be?”
“I have one more question. I will try and make it my last.”
“Go ahead.”
“You told me that in this world drawing on magic drains our body, I thought magical energy came from the Deep.”
“The energy needed for most magic is immense and it is drawn from the Deep, but you still have to make contact with it, to dig the well as it were. That is what draws on our own life-force.”
“What shall we do now?”
“I have much to teach you and little time to do it in, so I must use forced learning.”
“How will you do that?”
“We will need to use drugs and mindtouch to grant you the knowledge quickly. It can be dangerous and tiring and painful but I will try to be as gentle as I can. Once the seed is planted you will have to practise by yourself to make it grow. “
“Dangerous? How?”
“Some minds cannot accept this method of teaching. They break under the strain.”
“They go mad, you mean?”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“Do you think…”
“I think you will be fine, Rik. You are very strong-willed. Honesty compels me to tell you that there are other reasons this method is not much used by sorcerers.”
“And what would they be?”
“You must open your mind to me. You will be vulnerable in the most terrible way possible. Most people cannot stand that either — without being forced. Their minds instinctively rebel against it.”
“You mean you can alter my thoughts, lay a geas on me.”
“Theoretically, yes. I could implant memories and compulsions as easily as knowledge.”
“But you would not.”
“I would not hesitate to do so, Rik, if there was anything to be gained by it, but it does more harm than good. A mind is a very delicate thing. Altering one memory can have terrible and unforeseen consequences.”
“You are saying you need me whole.”
“I am. And it has to be said that unless imposed with brutal and overmastering power, such compulsions rarely hold for long. The natural tendency of the mind draws it back towards its original path over the long run. Now that I have told you this, do you wish to go through with it?”
“You are giving me a choice?”
“Not much of one. I suspect that unless you get the knowledge I want to give you and quickly, you are going to die. There are many people who will want you dead before we are finished, and they have many ways of making that happen.”
“Still, you are saying that if I do not trust you, if I do not wish to learn this, you will not force me?”
Her smile was sad. “I already have, Rik, and we both know it. Not by magic either.”
Rik considered her words. There was truth in them. He needed her. And he was forced to trust her judgement. As far as he knew she had never lied to him, and if she thought his life depended on him acquiring such knowledge then it was most likely so.
“I will trust you,” he said. “Let us proceed.”
They settled down facing each other over a glowing crystal sphere. She burned opiated incense and chanted the words of the spell over and over again. As the drug took hold, the rhythm of the words drummed into his brain, regular as a heartbeat, and something inside him answered. He found himself repeating her words, and mirroring her gestures. Under the influence of the drug and the sorcery, time seemed to slow and the night lengthened to near infinity.
The narcotic loosened his mental defences, making possible a mystical connection between him and her. Knowledge flowed between them on a subtler level than words and gesture. There were times when he connected to the vast chambers of her mind, caught glimpses of the enormous store of strange knowledge there. Perhaps it was the truth. Perhaps it was hallucination. He was in no position to judge.
His vision turned inwards, and it seemed to him that the nature of his vision changed too, until he could see through his flesh to the muscle and bone and blood beneath. If he concentrated he could see the small sentinels that protected his body from disease and repaired damaged tissue. By pulsing magic through his blood and flesh he could heal it. He could expel stuff from his blood and his belly that was not supposed to be there.
Only afterwards, when his brain had recovered from the strain of all the mediations, incantations and visualisations she forced it through, did he wonder at the desperation with which she forced him to learn, as if she really believed that his life and most likely hers depended on it.