"Do you feel up to casting?" Meniar asked Rennyn.
She considered how much or little she wanted to peer through the faint mist of rain in hopes of an early glimpse of Port Avecna. They’d followed a cup-like course south, west, then north, making port frequently to take on supplies and trade cargo, and finally to part ways with most of the Sentene. It always seemed they would reach land while Rennyn was sleeping, and she’d been looking forward to Avecna, but knew she was more curious to see the ribs that had given her so much trouble.
Not bothering with the sigils, she touched one hand to her side and the other to the bowl, and considered the image in the water. Finding this too small to be satisfying, she lifted the illusion to the air before her and expanded it to cover all of her from the waist up. Much easier to examine.
"Is this blurring the calluses?" she asked, frowning at the faint dark cracks interrupting smooth bone.
"The part of them that has transmuted to bone," Meniar said, shaking his head at her variation of the spell. "Take a couple of deep breaths, will you?"
Wrinkling her nose, Rennyn obeyed. She’d had to do lots of breathing exercises the last couple of months, which she was told would stave off chest infections and help her lung not collapse again. It still hurt, but nothing like the knife of the first month.
Meniar circled the table for a better look, and nodded, pleased. "There’s definite progression. Another month or so and it should be well knit."
"That’s supposed to be encouraging, is it?" Rennyn asked, then laughed at the way the fleshless skull flapped its jaw. "This would be very interesting cast on a dancer. Or perhaps to use for a Death Day March." She wondered if Seb would be more interested in such pranks, now that they no longer had the pressure of the Black Queen’s return hanging over them, and pushed away the immediate pang. She’d known she’d miss Seb. There was no point dwelling on his absence.
"Do you think you could translate whatever it is you’re doing into a Sigillic?" Meniar asked. "It would be a valuable variation."
"I expect so," Rennyn said, and glanced at her three students. "As a first step to that, each of you can draft your suggestion for how the Sigillic should read. You can have three days. No peer consultation or actual casting attempts, please."
The door opened as she said this, and she smiled at Illidian, who had been on deck training with Keste Faral. He was thoroughly damp, since he didn’t consider misting rain anything more than a useful extra challenge to a sparring session. Usually he returned from practice lightly energised, but Rennyn caught a hint of a frown before the sight of a moving skeleton in the middle of the table distracted him.
"The headland has been sighted," was all he said, wiping one of his duelling swords with a cloth before sliding it into its sheathe.
That was a signal to pack up. Rennyn dismissed the divination, and her small class cleared the table and moved it away from the window seat to where it could be bolted in place. They followed Illidian back through the door, and Rennyn glanced out the window again, but wasn’t tempted to get wet and cold. For her, each day had two halves, and this was the end of the first.
"Your Grace."
Everyone except Kendall and Illidian was still very formal with her, and Rennyn had long since given up reminding her companions her name was Rennyn. Fallon, just like Kendall, was splendidly intractable. But while Kendall was a prickly ball of resistance, Fallon obliged on all but a few points.
"Questions?" she said, easing off her shoes.
"I would like a…an unsparing opinion on whether it is possible for any of us to reach your level of Thought Magic."
Rennyn considered the question then said: "Why would it be impossible?"
"It’s obvious from your approach with Kendall that you feel it necessary to ground her in Thought before moving on to Sigillic. Centuries of mages who started with Sigillic never accomplished more than basic lifting with Thought, before it was abandoned altogether. Have we destroyed our chances of fully embracing Thought because we muddied the waters with Sigillic? Or…is it a Surclere trait? No-one outside your family is known to have achieved this."
"Given the reputation of the Elder Mages, I wouldn’t say that’s true."
"Your family and some near-mythic mages who are long dead, then."
Rennyn considered her family’s past. "The Surcleres possess natural strength, but I don’t believe the line is distinctive in other ways," she said. "There have been those in my family who never stepped beyond basic Thought manipulation, and I would put that down simply to it being difficult.
"Starting with Sigillic increases the probability of you inadvertently killing yourself, since you have more power to do damage, but it doesn’t make it harder to gain control. I can’t guarantee or guess as to how far you’ll be able to progress, or whether any of you have the combination of discipline and…intuition that allows a mage to reliably Thought-cast. Both Sukata and Kendall are progressing well in physical manipulation, but it will be a long time before I ask them to do anything abstract."
"Will I be permitted to begin the exercises, once we leave the ship?"
She nodded. "The delay was only because of the danger to the ship. You’ll make the very early attempts in a clear area so you’re away from others, and if you achieve some measure of control will follow the same series of exercises as Sukata and Kendall. Increasingly complex physical manipulation. You will not attempt anything outside the exercises until I consider you ready."
"Do you—" He stopped, apparently changing his mind about the question. "Thank you, Your Grace." He gave her a slight, formal bow and left, passing Illidian, who had been waiting in the doorway.
Rennyn stripped off her thick woollen socks and wriggled her toes while her husband closed the door. He was even damper than before—he’d doused himself as a makeshift post-practice bath—and she watched him dry and dress himself with the spare efficiency that was so characteristic of him.
"Was that the first time you cast complex Thought Magic before DeVries?" he asked, tidying away his discarded clothing.
"Must be." During the trip, Rennyn had made a point of casting every day, but usually the most minor of things. "I hadn’t seen anything like the reaction you noticed before now."
"He kept it from his face, but the intensity is palpable."
Rennyn nodded. Illidian had told her that Fallon had come close to fainting when she’d first agreed to speak to him. She’d only seen a boy with a clever stratagem to catch her interest, but hadn’t doubted Illidian’s ability to gauge reactions, and had taken the boy as a student at his request. Today she too had glimpsed an overmastering need behind Fallon’s questions about Thought Magic. Desperation. She or Illidian would puzzle out the reason eventually, and hopefully be able to help him. Or stop him, if it was all some complex stratagem of his Uncle’s, as a few had hinted.
"He does truly love magic, but he’s frightened of it as well, which isn’t surprising given the family history. At least that seems to have pushed him away from trying to work Thought out himself. Too many won’t be so cautious, now they know what’s possible."
Illidian drew her to her feet. "You can’t take every would-be Thought Mage as a student."
"I know. Seb kept saying the same thing, and told me I should write a basic manual for the hordes." She leaned into his arms. "Just by being a Thought Mage I’ve started something that I can’t control. The most I can do is be open about my methods and hope people will believe me about making an honest appraisal of a mage’s abilities before any attempt to step beyond basic. Having taken the risk myself, I can hardly forbid them from trying to become…"