Chapter 18 #3
“Petra isn’t broken,” Benedict insisted, gaze darting between Aasta and Pluck’s new form. “And when we catch Thoth, we will find out what he did and repair it.”
Aasta waved a hand, mimicking my dead mentor perfectly. “There’s no fixing that,” the shadow pronounced, and Pluck’s shoulders rounded. “No field, no magic. How can she do anything if she can’t even touch dross?”
I curved my fingers to hide my burned palms, and Pluck lifted his chin, his green eyes hazing into a mist. “The mage is right,” he insisted, his voice holding that same faint accent it had had when in Cameron’s coma.
“Petra isn’t broken. She can hear what no weaver before her has.
Our thoughts mingle without my touching her, or she me. ”
The beads in Aasta’s coiled hair weren’t real, but they clinked as she squinted at me.
“Threads,” she said, and Benedict leaned into me, tugging me closer.
“There are threads between you. I can see them in the sun.” Her hand stretched out, and I shuddered when she curved her fingers in one by one as if plucking them, and an odd sensation shivered from me to Pluck—echoing back and forth. “How?”
Maybe…I thought as I squinted at the light between Pluck and me. It wasn’t anything I could see…But something was there. I could feel Aasta tugging on it.
“It has been such since yesterday.” Pluck glanced uneasily at me.
“When she lost her ability to create fields, she gained the ability to see the threads making the universe’s weft, to manipulate dark matter.
She might not be able to weave it anymore, but last night, she tuned dross dust to energy as if she was a shadow.
” He took a slow breath he probably didn’t need.
“It was only to find relief from the pain, but she did it. No weaver has ever done that.”
Aasta dropped her hand, and both Pluck and I shuddered as something fell back into place. “Truly.” The shadow’s gaze lifted to the lodestone around my neck. “You turned dross into energy? Stored it?”
Benedict’s hand on my shoulder tightened, and I leaned into him, needing his support. “Um, I lost it at the end…”
“Because you took too much,” Pluck said quickly. “But you tuned it. Stored what you could. Your skill will grow. I did not arise knowing what I do now. None of us did.”
Shadows had a beginning, I mused, and Pluck fizzed an absent agreement, his thoughts clearly focused on Aasta’s agitation.
But the shadow remained unmoved, her head slowly shaking in denial, beads clinking.
“You cannot gain enough skill in a hundred lifetimes to best Thoth,” she said to me, and Benedict took a breath to protest, hesitating when her green eyes narrowed on him.
“His hatred is all-consuming. Thoth will snuff out your existence if you continue your goal of finding balance. And you…” She focused on Pluck.
“You will be alone, scavenging for scraps like the rest of us.”
Benedict leaned to whisper worriedly in my ear. “Petra…”
“Not this time.” Pluck’s edges hazed, then returned all the sharper.
“Thoth took something from her, but now she can hear, and see, and manipulate dark matter. Aasta, if she can do that, maybe she can be what we’ve been missing.
Maybe she is what’s needed to finally catch Thoth and stop him.
She can see the threads holding the universe from collapsing and still withstand dross to some extent.
It burns, but it does not consume. That means something. ”
Aasta’s shoulders slumped. “You would risk your weaver in a yeth’s hope.”
“It’s not a yeth’s hope,” Pluck insisted, his gaze holding a hard determination. “Not if she can create dark matter from dross.”
Benedict shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “You made dark matter from dross dust?”
“Yes, I guess,” I said as I fingered Pluck’s old amulet. “Last night. But what good is it if I can’t make a field to do magic with it?”
Aasta’s hope vanished. “Even your weaver knows it’s a yeth’s dream.” Head down, she shuffled to the stairs. “She is one. You are alone.”
“She is not alone!” It was a thunderous, icy statement, and I winced at the soft headache beginning at the base of my skull at Pluck’s cry. The shadow shifted awkwardly as he glanced at Benedict, then me, a soft pleading in his eyes. “We will find five.”
One stick, two sticks, three, four, five. Stand them straight to stay alive…“That’s right!” I said, gaze darting to Benedict. “We almost had him with three sticks. If we could find five balanced sticks—”
“There is no strength in five!” Aasta blurted, an old pain crossing her. “That’s a myth, a story to console ourselves. We have tried and failed before.”
She already knows? I wondered. Then it’s not just a nursery rhyme. Pluck?
Pluck pressed forward, his eyes alight. “Aasta, together we will bring him to task. We can catch him within a circle of five. Petra is not broken. She is the linchpin, the catalyst that will make it possible. What we have been missing.”
The shadow made a bark of laughter. “Thoth will break any weaver or mage you send at him, like he broke Petra.”
“I am not broken!” I exclaimed, and Benedict’s hold on my shoulder strengthened even as Pluck’s emotions flooded mine, spikes of cold stabbing through the last of my doubt.
I might not be able to make fields, and dross broke on me, giving me bad luck and burning my skin, but I could wield a long-stick and tune dust to energy.
That wasn’t broken. That was just…being different.
“Those able to touch dross and make fields were never able to catch him,” Pluck said, and Aasta spun away, clearly done arguing with fools.
“Weavers always failed. But by trying to damage Petra, Thoth has given her something that might snare him. He doesn’t know her skills.
Blending it with others might be enough.
” He stared at me, his enthusiasm diluting my doubt until it was gone. “Five can snare him.”
“It’s a fable!” Aasta shouted, voice echoing, and Pluck stiffened.
“It’s a promise,” he vowed, but Aasta became only more agitated.
“A promise of failure,” she said bitterly. “We tried five shadows and all were lost. Five weavers were the same. Spinners, mages, any combination. It makes no difference. We have tried every permutation. It only ever adds up to death.”
“We have never tried with her,” Pluck said, his surety fizzing through me. “She is something new. Five aspects of magic. We have only ever had four. It will work with her.” He took a slow breath. “I know it.”
Shadow, weaver, Spinner, mage, and whatever I am? I thought, feeling Pluck’s enthusiastic agreement blending with my desire for this to work.
You are the medium, iced through me, and I stared, wondering if I could see the threads connecting us after all.
“I don’t need to be able to touch dross to wield a stick,” I said, and Benedict groaned softly.
“We almost had him before,” I added, pulling away to see the mage’s desperate worry that I was going to hurt myself beyond recovery.
“No, listen,” I protested. “Even if he had only allowed us to trap him knowing he could break free at will, we almost had him. Benedict, you were there. Tell me I’m wrong. ”
Benedict hesitated, then nodded. “Perhaps if the sticks had been a balanced set.”
Aasta huffed. “If you believe that, then you will die beside her.” Motions holding an arthritic stiffness, she took the stairs slowly, woven skirt swaying. “I will not be a part of this.”
“We’ve never had a weaver who could tune dross to dark matter,” Pluck said, and Aasta waved at him dismissively. “She will master it,” he added firmly.
“She is broken. There’s nothing to master.
” Aasta walked through the empty orchestra pit, a disparaging huff coming from her.
“You are fools,” she added as she began to make her way back up the low steps between the rows of chairs.
“We will abandon St. Unoc. To stay invites destruction as mages target us again.”
At the last row of chairs, Darrell’s image began to rock, her gaze going distant as the shadow started to pull from her.
“We wanted to believe, and now pain lives with us again. No hope is worth this. No love is worth the grief it leaves.” She took a breath, hunched in heartache.
“It will destroy us.” Darrell began to go misty, Aasta spilling from the rez like a dark fog.
“Why are you afraid, Aasta?” Pluck shouted, shaking almost, and I winced as ice stabbed my skull. “You have nothing left to lose, and still you will not hope?”
“Aasta, wait,” I pleaded as Darrell’s image blurred, but she was gone.
As if a switch had been thrown, the apparition was empty now, soulless eyes staring at nothing, and the rez began to weep, a great gash in her forehead trickling blood into her eyes.
It was just a rez now, repeating its empty litany as it slowly vanished.
Benedict took a slow breath, exhaling in relief. “At least she took the rez off the stage before leaving it,” he said softly. Smile waning, he brushed the hair from my eyes. “You okay?”
“Ask me tomorrow.” I glanced at Pluck, his stance stoically stiff. His emotions twining in mine were in turmoil. “Pluck thinks this will work, and so do I.” I took Benedict’s hand, my grip tightening when Pluck noticed and looked away.
Benedict nodded as he tried to pull me into the sun. “Five sticks carried by five aspects of magic. Shadow, weaver, Spinner, mage, and…you.” His hand slipped from mine when I refused to step into the light. “Are you sure?” he said, his worry obvious.
“She’s not broken,” Pluck practically growled. The shadow had settled himself on the edge of the stage, feet dangling.
“No, she’s not,” Benedict agreed. “Hey, thanks for animating a rez so I could hear you.”
Pluck’s shoulders misted as he shrugged, the shadow clearly distracted.
“That’s not a rez,” I said, my worry twining about Pluck’s making it worse.
Benedict’s eyes widened. “You can become a person now?”
Pluck didn’t shift his gaze, and a hidden pain drifted through me. “I like the dog better.”
“Mmmm.” Benedict glanced at me, then Pluck. “Me too.”
Pluck listlessly threw a spiny chunk of inert dross into the chairs. He was positively depressed and I didn’t know why. So what if Aasta didn’t help us?
Worried, I went to sit with him. Pluck never glanced up as I lowered myself, but I knew he felt my question twining in his mind.
“I shouldn’t have chastised Aasta,” he said, the shadow watching Benedict stare at the hole in the ceiling. “She has a right to doubt. To be afraid. I don’t want to talk about it.”
I reached out until my pinky touched the haze of his presence. Ice cramped my hand, but I didn’t care. “Maybe Aasta is right. If it’s too much of a risk, we could hide.”
His form dissolved into a bright haze and I jerked my hand away, silent as the black sparkles fell back into Pluck and he coalesced into his more usual dog form.
Not again, fizzed angrily through me. I can’t let Thoth ruin what we have started.
We are so close. Thoth might have taken your ability to make fields, but you’re stronger without them.
You can hear the universe chime, see the threads of dark matter forcing it to expand so time moves as it should.
You have tuned dross dust, turned it to dark matter so as to build your strength. No weaver has done that before.
Strength I can’t use, I thought as Benedict gave me a bottled water. “Thanks, Benny.”
Not yet, Pluck thought as the mage heaved a sigh and sat down on my other side. The man clearly knew Pluck and I were talking—and he seemed content with that. But you will.
“I don’t even know what I am anymore,” I said aloud to both of them. “I can’t be a weaver if I can’t touch dross.”
“It’s okay, Petra.” Benedict bumped my shoulder, the cheerful man probably trying to shake me from my pity party. “I can’t touch dross, either. That’s why they invented dross-cored sticks.”
You can touch dross, Pluck fizzed, a part of him melting to nothing when Benedict curved an arm around me and tugged me closer. It may burn and break on you, but you can already tune more than I can. With practice, you might regain your ability to touch it entirely.
Like changing it to dark matter instead of fixing it inert? I questioned. It felt a little close to using dross as an energy source, but that was what shadows did.
Thoth left you alive to take the blame for his actions. He’s never done that before. It’s given you skills he’s becoming afraid of. Aasta is too mired in her memories to help, but you will not face him alone. We will find others.
“We will find a way to catch him,” Benedict whispered as he felt me tense. “Once Thoth is in a bottle, he will reverse whatever it is he did to you or burn in a vat of dross.”
It was a rather grim thought for Benedict, gaining a heady agreement from Pluck, the sentiment flowing through me as the shadow dissolved into a puddle.
Oozing away, he left me to find solace with Benedict.
Sighing, I pretended that Benedict was right to hope if for just a moment as I molded myself to him, my head pressed into his shoulder.
There was no going back, only forward. I had heard it in Aasta’s words, certain and hard. Pluck was right, though. I wasn’t facing Thoth alone. Together we were stronger than our sundry skills. If it took five balanced sticks, we’d find five balanced sticks and the magic users to wield them.