Shine - Apparatus Of Change

  Soul of Unity

  Available Power : 4

  Authority : 8

  Bind Insect (1, Command)

  Fortify Space (2, Domain)

  Distant Vision (2, Perceive)

  Collect Plant (3, Shape)

  See Commands (5, Perceive)

  Bind Crop (4, Command)

  Shape Metal (5, Shape)

  Know Weather (4, Perceive)

  Nobility : 6

  Congeal Glimmer (1, Command)

  See Domain (1, Perceive)

  Claim Construction (2, Domain)

  Stone Pylon (2, Shape)

  Drain Health (4, War)

  Spawn Golem (5, Command)

  Empathy : 5

  Shift Water (1, Shape)

  Imbue Mending (3, Civic)

  Bind Willing Avian (1, Command)

  Move Water (4, Shape)

  -

  Spirituality : 7

  Shift Wood (1, Shape)

  Small Promise (2, Domain)

  Make Low Blade (2, War)

  Congeal Mantra (1, Command)

  Form Party (3, Civic)

  Distant Trajectory (6, Arcane)

  Form Caravan (5, Civic)

  Ingenuity : 5

  Know Material (1, Perceive)

  Form Wall (2, Shape)

  Link Spellwork (3, Arcane)

  Sever Command (4, War)

  Collect Material (1, Shape)

  Tenacity : 6

  Nudge Material (1, Shape)

  Bolster Nourishment (2, Civic)

  Drain Endurance (1, War)

  Pressure Trigger (2, War)

  Blinding Trap (5, War)

  -

  Animosity : 0 - -

  Amalgamate Human (3, Command)

  Congeal Burn (2, Command)

  Trepidation : 1 -

  -Follow Prey (2, Perceive)-

  -

  Avarice : -

  Consume Ecology (3, War)

  It takes surprisingly little time to become accustomed to the knowledge that Know Weather plucks from the sky and places into my thoughts.

  Perhaps a season ago, I would have struggled with it. Back when I was still reeling from Know Material and Bind Insect, two tiny portals into the world that let me pretend at a facsimile of sensation. Then, I am sure, I would not have been prepared for this. I do not think it is anything that has been imbued into me from whichever force happens to oversee my magics, but rather, simply that I have had so much practice with exercising these different tools I have been granted.

  Now, with all the time I could ever ask for, no one battering down the walls, and no looming threat of disease or starvation? The conditions to learn are practically luxurious. The scholar had whole academic libraries available, and I think their filament-lit shelves and polished floors never felt this relaxed.

  Local humidity at a forty percent daily average. Ambient atmospheric pressure is at point nine five. Daily average temperature of three marks below baseline. Information, clean and simple.

  But as I pour more and more into the working, the area I cover grows in leaps and bounds. Soon I am seeing not just our fort, or our valley, but a swath of the map that I believe might honestly encompass over half of the Green, and a good chunk of the neighboring kingdoms as well. And as the area grows, so too does the depth and predictive power. Pressure fronts and natural wind speed convert almost automatically through the spell into knowledge of when it is going to rain, or if the skies will be clear. And then, a threshold is crossed, and the predictions fold in active stormsun events.

  It is like having an ever unfolding tome within my mind, showing me every small chain of events that a single galesun point causes. The causal twine that leads to the erratic conditions of the fall season, a thousand thousand different tiny impacts sending the skein of weather patterns into disarray.

  In at least two lives, this was a known phenomena. That our world only saw weather away from the suns for three of the five seasons. And even then, perhaps the effect was simply harder to measure. The scholar has memories of a spirited debate on if it should be called ‘natural’ weather or ‘sunless’ weather; an argument that almost came to blows and later did earn a stern talking to by a loreist from the academy. It seems so far away and small now, to worry about such things, but the memory is a fond one for me in these trying times.

  At the amount of nothingness I need to use to fuel the spellwork, I can maintain it at this heightened state for less than a candlemark. And yet, that is all I need. Because beyond simply telling me what the stormsuns are doing to the world, it also begins to predict where the stormsuns will next touch upon our planet.

  A candlemark, and a map I can mark upon, are all I need. After that, my day becomes a much more even paced task of Fortify Space and Distant Trajectory. Firing an overgun meant to save instead of kill, splashing the paint of my domain across the Green like a frantic artist desperate to share their vision.

  My vision is an empty storming. A year with no fall. At least for us here in the Green, this year. The weather can return to normal when it is no longer a threat to everything I hold dear.

  And so, I have turned to assistance from a surprisingly educated source within the fort. Because Distant Trajectory does not give me inherent mathematical knowledge, and there are so, so, so many points I need to strike. Which is why I have Muelly here with me, as well as three of the soldiers who were sappers, working together with the renewable supply of smoothed wood that they are making calculations on. Mela is in the room as well, playing with an inkrat like it is actually alive, and pretending she isn’t distracting Daurthy, one of the two other demons helping me determine ranges and firing solutions.

  Without another apparatus encroaching on me, there is little risk of the domain being eaten for power. I think that the one that was making those enormous fire breathing ants died at some point, though to what, I could not say. I have seen no trace of them in the interim with Distant Vision.

  I have seen traces of the one that makes mud glimmerlings. But it seems to be actively moving deeper into the Green, and I would rather have a neighbor that ignores us than one trying to kill us all. If it wishes to give up, I will let it. Of the apparatus we first fled from, that produced hordes of dirt creatures - likely not glimmerlings themselves, but certainly something odd - there is no trace. Its pylons still stand in concealed places through the Green, but they are idle when I spot them.

  And besides all of that, I think perhaps if they tried to breach my Fortify Space pools, I could take the opportunity to talk to them. Call for a truce, of sorts. Even an apparatus may be killed, and the galesun certainly enjoys flinging rocks at lethal speeds. I think they might agree to allow me my work, if they are still alive.

  In the office, Muelly silently offers me a page with the group’s checked calculations on it. Or rather, she offers it to one of the inkrats I have started using as eyes here in place of bees; the bees hare more valuable things to do with their own personal time.

  Reading and understanding, I compose a Distant Trajectory. Load the needed magic, and loose the invisible arrow out over the walls of the fort and toward an unseen horizon. Neither Know Weather nor Distant Vision have the stamina to let me see if it hits, but then, I wouldn’t see anything regardless. I will only truly know if it has worked later, when the predicted stormsun point fails to coalesce. And it will fail, if I aimed well.

  Thank you everyone. I think a break is in order, for all of us. I write to the room.

  ”Oh good!” Muelly exhales with the force of a gunshot. “I was going to ask if you could just murder me instead of going through all the torture. This is so much easier.”

  The human and demon soldiers sitting next to her both give alarmed glances around my private space, and I am reminded that they are, and may never truly be, comfortable with my existence. One of them, the human who I know is named Matan, seems at least more comfortable with the other demons due to their shared fear of me, and clears his throat to speak. “Should you tempt things like that?” He asks nervously.

  ”Didn’t you actually try to get her to kill you a month ago?” Mela asks from where she is laying on the floor, juggling inkrats that I refuse to look through overhead as she waits for her friend to finish doing actual work. Mela is supposed to be on bed rest. An order she has ignored, because short of my use of Drain Endurance, there is no one available to keep her down anyway, and I think even my spell might simply play into her heroism more than actually stop her. “Like, you really asked. And she still said no!”

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  ”Please stop talking.” Muelly says, her eyes pressed closed as if plunging herself into darkness and lowering her head will mean that she can hide from the comments. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about that.”

  ”Yeah, you thought that!” Mela says happily. “I, however, have been patiently biding my time!”

  Mela, don’t antagonize our friend. I write, purposefully choosing to use that word. Also I am not devoid of either emotion or humor. I know a joke - bad as it is - when Muelly makes one.

  ”Thank you!” Muelly says as she reads my words. “Also, that is very rude!”

  One of the other demons stands up and stretches, her bones popping and cracking as she moves. Daurthy is still missing a limb, which I have not yet found a way to repair, but she is in surprisingly good spirits compared to the others. I think Mela’s presence helps. “I don’t think I’ll ever really get used to how casual you are.” She tells her fellow demon. “But… I’m glad you aren’t going to kill us if we ask.”

  Again, contrary to what Muelly has to say, I do know how to not be rude. I write with a secret inner smile. The afternoon, with everything around the fort within two hundred lengths secure against gale- and rainsun both, is peaceful. There is time to be playful, and I cherish the small moment. Murder would be a social folly.

  Muelly turns to the young human soldier that is staring at my words with yet further alarm. “That’s a joke.” She explains to him with patient words.

  But when he turns to her, the look on his face doesn’t really change. “You asked it… to kill you? Why?”

  Muelly sighs and stands from her own chair. I feel quite satisfied with the quality of seating I have been able to produce overnight, with my newly empowered spells. I only wish the comfort wasn’t offsetting the mentally taxing labor I ask of them. “I had a pretty good life, before.” She says by way of explanation. “I wasn’t in my own head by the time we got here, and…” her dark furred hand brushes through the air with a polite dismissal. “I thought I could at least be useful, because I was going to die anyway.” She mutters.

  ”She’s kind of an idiot.” Mela calls up from the floor.

  “I’m not-!”

  While Muelly has already started to snap back, and I can practically feel her considering if she should try to kick Mela across the smoothed floor, I have already begun writing my own counter. She isn’t foolish. I etch across their table. Despair is a powerful thing. Much harder to kill than a silkspinner or a corpse soldier. Part of why despair is so dangerous is that it makes it very easy to forget that other people might want you to live.

  Muelly’s mouth twitches, one hand idly playing out her nervous habit of scratching along the side of a horn as she reads, and then starts to walk away. “I’m going to enjoy the sun.” She says simply as she leaves, extending an arm so that her companion bee can alight on her as if it was another long ingrained habit of a lifetime.

  ”Tar. She going to be alright?” Daurthy asks the room. The other two look down at Mela, neither of them having an answer.

  The hero pulls herself into a sitting position. “I should go check.” She says.

  I will speak with her. I write. For now, my magic is exhausted. Please, everyone, you really may take a rest. Mela, Kalip is looking for you. While the others stand and stretch and make to leave my space with their quiet and overly polite goodbyes, Mela takes one look at the news that she is being pursued, nods, and then makes an exit out the unshuttered window of my office.

  ”Take two steps left.” I tell Kalip through Amalgamate Human. The man does so without question, even though I have perfected my change to the spell that makes conversation without command possible. “Thank you. On your left.” I pull back from our connection just as Mela lands in the courtyard next to him.

  ”Good timing recruit. Are you ready for a day of gloriously designed imperial exercise?” Kalip asks with a cruel glee in his voice. Mela’s panicked yell is followed by a number of rude things she has to say about my betrayal, most of which are simply not true.

  She betrayed herself. If she’d waited I could have told her not to do that. Mela will also get no further help from me, unless she signals her companion bee for my attention.

  Because my attention is needed elsewhere.

  Are you alright? I ask Muelly, writing at eye level on the wall ahead of her as she walks through the halls.

  ”I don’t know.” She tells me, giving the bee curled on the fur of her shoulder a quiet glance before she keeps moving and I erase the words behind her. My control is getting sharper along with my speed, which makes this kind of conversation much easier. “You weren’t wrong.” She adds.

  But it was personal. And I did not ask. I cut to the root of the problem as she deftly dodges aside, Ruuet and Zhoy sprinting at full speed for the small children as they round a corner heedless of any petty obstacles like ‘other people’ in their way.

  Muelly smiles after the children, pausing near my quickly receding words to answer. “I’m not even really mad.” She says. “Not at you anyway. Maybe at Mela.”

  Ah. Would it make you feel better to know that Kalip has found her?

  ”Yes.” Muelly answers quickly. “But I thought she’d understand better. It felt like Matan understood better, and he’s… I don’t know.”

  Human?

  ”New.” Muelly answers. “Supposed to be an outsider. He’s an imperial. But I guess Yuea and Kalip were too. Have I been fucking up, keeping the new ones away?”

  I don’t think so. There were certainly some of them that would have slit your throat simply because it was under a furred coat when they arrived. The worst are gone, from both sides, and there is a bond of survival among them now, but only time and constant pressure can truly remove a lifetime of hate.

  ”Do we have that?” Muelly asks after she finishes reading, and starts walking toward the fort’s rear stairs. I love Muelly very much for being one of the select few people who don’t make their way to the ground floor by throwing themselves out of windows. “Time, I mean. I saw… well, you know. I saw. And I know you say we’re doing okay, but are we?”

  Food, shelter, protection, the critical needs are being met. But, I can’t leave it there, not when she asked directly. I write in small letters on the corner of a door as she approaches. But we have no resources, no industry. I can fill some roles, but never all of them. What we need cannot be found in a small isolated fort that we dare not risk expand.

  Muelly’s expression pulls tight. “The Green.” She says. “That was part of my lifetask education, you know? Every five or ten years, someone decides that it’s just rumors and myth. Someone tries to cut it back, for lumber, or to found a new village. Then they just vanish, and the Green’s edge is a mapspan closer.” The demoness pushes her way outside as I wipe the wood clean at her passing, looking up at the half-clouded sky and the warm sunlight creeping through. “That was going to be part of my job, when I was old enough. Finding people who didn’t read the records, and summoning the hunt on them if they tried anything stupid.”

  I take a moment to search for somewhere to put my words. And yet. I write when I find one. This place.

  ”This place.” Muelly agrees. “You can see magic, can’t you? What is keeping the Green from eating it?”

  I ask the bee to lightly bop her on one of her horns. You know that I cannot. The most I can see is plumes of… I will call it change I suppose, as my Fortify Spaces deflect the galesun. It is interesting in its own right, however! Even from this distance, with the amount being kicked up from the world, I can make out the outlines of things like trees. I think it is because they would have been unchanged themselves, and so the motes that are drawn to me slide around them. Interestingly, I have begun to see trails of motes from the bees as they fill their new roles for those who-

  “Shine, I am very, very sorry.” Muelly says, and I watch her through two glimmerings on the walls as she bites back a laugh. “But if you want to tell me about the bees, you’re going to need to write that book for later.”

  I will leave it by your bed. I promise with my own perverse amusement, already tasking a pair of inkrats to move the stack of wooden panes that I have written my thesis on the modified honeybee behavior upon to place it on the small newly shaped table that abuts Muelly’s shared sleeping space.

  The demon doesn’t take my threat seriously as she crosses the mustering courtyard, currently holding a few scores of soldiers who are either exercising, sparring, or playing some kind of game with stones and lines carved in the dirt. I should make them better boards for that. Assuming it is a game where boards would be welcome. “I am okay.” Muelly reassures me as she heads toward the gap between the barracks and the main hall of the fort’s internal buildings, moving toward the garden behind the kitchen. “You don’t have to spend your whole afternoon on me.”

  If it makes you feel better, I am not. I tell her. I have many projects that require some attention, but not enough to stop me talking.

  Currently, those projects are producing more Stone Pylons to generate a continual supply of glimmer and mantra for everyone here, using Spawn Golem as a workshop to design something that is both affordable to the magic and useful to our community, pouring power through Bind Crop on this very garden that Muelly is approaching to experiment with how I can change plants to our purposes, working with Yuea and Follow Prey to actually hunt prey animals to restock the food supplies for some of the non-herbivore residents, and of course, continual and endless uses of Imbue Mending to keep our very finite supply of clothing from falling apart, though even that magic cannot make something from nothing, and there will come a day when the last thread of any given shirt has left us.

  Small tasks. But ones that mean that these people, already survivors of too much horror, are not overwhelmed. There is surprisingly little work to do by hand, though many find themselves with something to do. But never too much, and I make sure my bees tell me if anyone does become too drained.

  “How far can you see?” Muelly asks me quietly as she moves among the rows of person-sized leaves that one of my experiments has produced overnight. The rest of the garden is much more manageable, the simple traveler’s grain, some yams, and a batch of peppers grown from salvaged seeds from the fort’s supplies. With Bind Crop, even if I don’t change them, I can ensure plants grow fast and healthy.

  But Muelly’s question is what I really focus on. And I let her have a quiet moment with Jahn as she stumbles across him helping with tilling a new row and getting a pair of the gobs to help import fresh soil to add to the small cultivated space. It gives me time to really consider how I answer.

  Her bee pokes her, and Muelly takes a moment to set her personal wood slate aside so that the bee can focus on it and let me write her a longer message. By the time she’s done getting her hands dirty with one of her partners, and getting to know the two newer gobs that are happy to have something valuable to do, I’ve given her my response, careful to not write out spell names lest I pierce the wood.

  Much farther. I start with. Much, much farther. Past the outlying villages that border the Green. Far enough that I can begin to match things to the fort’s maps. I consider stopping there. But I’ll be telling the whole fort soon enough, and Muelly deserves the truth from me. Far enough to see that the arrival of my kind is not isolated. Some unconnected places have survived simply by being missed, but almost every township or waystation on one of the old roads has been taken. My reach extends just far enough to see the port city of Wavewatch.

  From what I know from our small conversations, Wavewatch was the next place Muelly would have been going for her betrothal. It was only chance that she was five thousand lengths south with her family in a small fishing village, filling the arc of her wedding journey with what should have been a meaningless stopover.

  She sees my reply as she returns, and the bright smile Jahn has drawn out of her slips away. “Is it still there?” She asks.

  It is. I tell her. Its walls hold. There are people alive within. Refugees and survivors make their way there by the day, even through the perils of storming. But something is wrong, and I cannot fully observe it. My vision at that range is clouded.

  ”Something stopping you? Or… no, the old wards!” Muelly bleats a relieved laugh. “They said the city was protected, and it was… it was a fisher story, you know? No one thinks it’s real. But… but maybe?”

  But maybe, indeed. I answer back.

  But maybe the wards the demons thought were stories still work. Maybe there is some old magic left. Maybe, maybe, there is hope out there.

  ”Do you have a plan?” Muelly asks.

  Also maybe. I joke back with my friend.

  ”I’ll do whatever you need.” She tells me, without a trace of mockery or hesitation. “I can call up half your magics on my own. If you need me, if you can make use of me…” she laughs again as she slowly clops her way up the stone steps to stand atop the rear wall of the fort and look out over the pitted ruin of the field between us and the valley cliff face. “I don’t want to die, Shine.” Muelly whispers to me through her companion bee. “But I don’t want to be useless either.”

  What I need is for you to be at your best. I say. Rest and eat well. Do not ruin yourself out of guilt. The healing is just another part of the battle. And when everyone is recovered as best as I can aid with, it will be time to send our own delegation out. To see if it is safe, to hold the rest of us.

  Because, I do not say, the fort is not just people who would be instantly welcome in a demon city. No matter how much I wish that they have learned the same things those here have.

  And yet there is something burning in Muelly as she leans on the parapets and makes conversation with one of the human soldiers keeping watch from the golem spearthrowers I have built. The same thing that I feel myself. The one thing I have been trying very hard to not let take over my actions and draw me into a rushed half-plan that would only cause further misery.

  Hope.

  We aren’t alone. And maybe that’s going to be enough.

  That night, just before the sun sets, guided by a Small Promise, seven more people stumble into our safe valley and are brought to the fort’s gate. Human, demon, and gob. None of them are soldiers, none of them are having a good time, but all of them are alive.

  And maybe that, too, is going to be enough.

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