There is heat and light buzzing through me, making my insides shiver, unpleasant but not overtly painful. The disorienting, flickering impression that I’m outside again, hovering in mid-air with the desert far below.
With a grunt, I focus enough to pull. Themutalis-coated gate opens and I stumble back, shuddering as I release it.
“Come on.” I mutter the words, head still clearing but focused enough to remember the urgency of our situation. “Come on.”
Ahmose is looking at me as if I am a monster. Or perhaps a god. Reverence and fear in every line.
But when I slip through the narrow opening and urge him to follow, he does.
The gap is barely wide enough for a person and Ahmose slides past with intelligent caution, looking queasy as he nears the bars. I reach out and steady him, pulling him through, then grit my teeth and pull the gate closed again. The sensation is no less pleasant the second time, but it’s not crippling.
The sound of footsteps echoes from the tunnel we just left. Ahmose needs no encouragement to flee after me around the corner, the two of us moving as quickly and silently as we can.
We race down the stairs, and into the vast, unfamiliar expanse of Duat.
XXVI
“NOW WE GET TO SEE HOW YOU FARE WITH IMBUING,”says Tullius briskly, shading his eyes from the scorching sun as I reach him. We’re heading for the opposite side of the track this time, weaving our way between the various other tests still taking place. He considers me with a sidelong glance as I again rub absently at my chest, the pain there only seeming to have increased over the past hour. “Give yourself a moment at the beginning, Catenicus. Make sure your mind is clear. This is more mental than physical, and you’re being judged only on efficiency, not speed.”
“Thanks.” He’s gruff, but the advice sounds genuine. I’ve earned some respect with my previous performance.
We come to a stop next to a long pile of stones, arranged neatly in increasing size. Some are smaller than the one I had to hurl earlier, but the largest dozen are enormous, rough cubes that are all at least taller than me by a head. Tullius indicates the closest one, wax tablet and stylus at the ready. “Imbue this, then lift it without touching it.”
I nod, trying not to show my unease. I know, theoretically, that I can do this. But the boulder weighs at least three thousand pounds. Even having seen similar feats plenty of times before, it seems ludicrous.
I rest my hand against the stone’s brown, sun-warmed surface. It’s the largest one of the lot. That makes sense: the physical tests have given Tullius an idea of my pyramid’s strength, so he knows I have enough Will to lift this weight. But imbuing—the act of transferring Will from yourself into an object, in order to manipulate it in some way—is as much about mental acuity as strength. A poorly trained mind, as we were so constantly reminded at the Academy, can lose up to half of any transferred Will simply in making the connection. And then half again when attempting to apply it.
Efficiency, not speed. I take my time. Ignore the burden of expectant gazes from the stands and pace deliberately around the stone, committing it to memory. The academic term isretinentia: taking a mental image of the object to be imbued, learning its every line in order to make the imbuing as economical as possible. I’ve never heard anyone outside the Praeceptors call it anything sopompous, though. Amongst ourselves we just called it “memorising,” and no one ever got confused.
Satisfied, I stop and place my hand against the stone again. Carefully envisage the entire boulder, and exhale. Lock it in my mind, just as we practiced again and again and again at the Academy.
An immediate sense of connection. Of extension. Like another limb has suddenly appeared, strangely natural and unnervingly not. It’s easier than I expected, so much so that I almost lose concentration from the surprise.
I don’t move for a few seconds, mentally examining the extrasensory pulse that now emanates from the stone. There’s not meant to be any other feedback to suggest the extent of my success, no easy indication of exactly how much Will I’ve managed to imbue. Another advantage of my strange new ability, it seems.
I let my hand drop to my side. Step back. The boulder is still there, an extra appendage. Disconcertingly similar to the way I still feel my arm, sometimes.
I keep my focus razor-sharp, and command the stone to lift.
It rises.
My shock at how easily it moves is again almost dangerous to the process. It feels nothing like lifting the stone myself; my muscles don’t heave with exertion, don’t even twitch. I’m concentrating, true—concentrating fiercely—and I know from my lessons that this is how it’s meant to be. Even so, it feels unnaturally effortless. Far more akin to moving a limb than picking something up.
I watch as the boulder raises a foot off the ground. Two. Three. I can sense the weight of it: This is near the limit of my strength and just as if I was physically shifting something heavy, I can’t reposition it quickly or with sharp, start-stop motions. It’s immediately intuitive how its own momentum would make it move gradually faster if I propelled it in a single direction—but also that it would then take effort to slow down again, be impossible to stop at a moment’s notice. Natural forces aren’t obviated here. I’m simply using the strength at my command to push the thing around.
I lift the massive stone until it’s ten feet off the ground, then let it hover. Still marvelling at the simplicity of it. The Academy was geared almost entirely toward training us for this. This, more than anything else, is the ultimate application of my last eighteen months.
“High enough?” I ask it calmly. I can hear murmurs from the hillside again. People are impressed.
“Yes.” Tullius’s voice betrays no such astonishment, this time. Good. I need for people to expect me to do well, not be surprised by it.
I lower the boulder until it touches gently back to the sand, ensuring it all happens in one smooth, clean motion. I’m not sure if I’m being assessed on control, at this point, but there’s no harm in putting some on display.
“Take your Will back.” I do as instructed, touching the stone and erasing its image from my mind. The pulsing in it vanishes. It’s all very simple. All exactly as I’ve been taught.
“Now we’ll try this one … this one … and this one.” Tullius moves down the line of boulders, singling out three smaller ones of significantly differing sizes. At a glance, they probably combine to make up roughly the weight of the one I just lifted. Perhaps are even a little heavier, overall.
I meticulously examine all three again before starting. This is where things become challenging. Each stone is a different weight; I’m going to have to ration my Will unevenly between them, ensuring I imbue enough into each to lift it—but not waste too much on any single one. All while making multiple efficient connections. “Can I test how much Will they need before starting?”
