Chapter 3
Souls and Ice
A minute or so after Goatha left a woman in a tailored blue dress floated down from a balcony. Her hair was beyond the whiteness of Bianca's, it was completely colorless. The same for her skin. And the redness of her eyes was not only a lack of sleep, but made her complete lack of pigmentation clear. “Was it difficult?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Bianca. “More than I thought it would be.”
“I monitored the pattern of Wills from up there, as you asked. But even with good templates, the readings were confusing.” She sounded apologetic.
“Thank you, Lilly,” said Bianca. “I understand why now.” She moved her hands and drew from herself a spider web of bright tendrils. From Moss's encased body she drew out another. “It isn't just a question of the pattern being strong or weak. The patterns actually merge and change.” She demonstrated and distorted each pattern towards the other.
The two of them talked for some time of this. Butterfly like patterns, in various shapes, hung around them as they described and examined the interactions and conjectured what the reasons were and what possibilities arose.
“I think this is not unlike the effect the Mackheath sword has on those it has come near,” said Lilly. “It has been hard to find because we have been unable to locate a strong presentation of the pattern of its Will. Perhaps that is because it just bends the Will of those whom it influences rather than imposing its own Will upon it.”
“It is not how the Ævatars work,” said Bianca. “Their Will has no pattern until you impose one on it.” She rubbed her eyes. “Perhaps I have been working with them too long.”
“We have all been working too long,” said Lilly. “There is too much to do.”
Bianca nodded, and with a wave dismissed all of the summoned patterns. She started towards the door to the warehouse and Lilly fell in step next to her.
“Do you remember?” asked Lilly. “Before?” Bianca shrugged. “We would do things. Other than work. Jesca would turn up, and drag us to something. Somewhere. I find the details hard to recall.”
They stepped out into the bright sunshine. Soldiers and townsfolk busied themselves about their business. Once, an older soldier noticed them after they passed, stood up straight and gave them a respectful salute. The endless line of carts full of irontree bark chips moved slowly down the main street. Tended by teams of troglodytes as they moved towards the forge built around the immense hollow irontree trunk the town was built around. Its roar formed an unchanging backdrop.
“Jesca is Queen now. We, too, have equally important duties.” Bianca shook her head. “We don't have time for... ice skating.”
“Yes,” said Lilly, looking around her as she walked. “I remember now. Mistress Devonshire accidentally froze the harbor. The fishermen were quite cross. But Jesca found irons to strap to our feet and we skated.”
“But what good came of it?” asked Bianca, watching the ground as she walked.
“I drew some interesting conclusions about rotational energy which helped with some of the naval wind summoning spells,” said Lilly.
“Well then,” said Bianca. “When I can make an Ævatar walk we shall freeze the harbor again, strap skates to it, and test its manual dexterity.”
Lilly nodded. “Yes, that would be a good test.”
Bianca looked sidelong at her. Lilly, like herself, almost never joked. But she seemed in an odd mood today. “Is there anything in your work with Devonshire on reincarnation that you think might help strengthen the bond of the Soul?”
Lilly pondered. “Perhaps,” she said finally. “Our main challenge has been Soul transference and acceptance, rather than binding. But knowing one may lead to another.” She paused briefly and watched some children playing. “We have a shortage of children, though.”
“Is that really all that hard to solve?” asked Bianca, also watching them.
“Reincarnation involves the transfer of a Soul that has departed from its previous life into the empty vessel of a forming life. The younger the child, the greater the chance that is has not precipitated a unique Soul of its own. Fetal is the best bet.” She moved on. “Only we have to find a willing parent. Using money as an inducement has moral implications. As well as failing at our task. Since Souls only form in intelligent life, there is no way to experiment on animals.”
“Morals,” snorted Bianca.
“Yes,” said Lilly. “They have mistress Devonshire in quite a tizzy. She is having difficulty weighing the greater good. Individualism versus collectivism.”
“It's an Elfin thing,” said Bianca. “Tell me what you have learned of transference and what is acceptance?”
“The best analogy,” said Lilly “is that a body has a metaphysical chamber within it for housing a Soul. This has a particular shape to it. In a mature individual, such as you, the shape of the chamber is exactly the shape of the Soul. If a magical force displaces the Soul, it is naturally attracted back to the chamber matching its shape.”
“That is why after the Ævatar attempts to draw my Soul into it, that my Soul returns without having to be emplaced,” said Bianca.
“Exactly,” agreed Lilly. “In the case of a new life, it has the chamber, but no Soul. Our theory is that when the Souls were not being taken to the land of the gods, there were enough around that a compatible one was attracted to the chamber and became the child's Soul. Now that they are not there, the vacuum of the chamber seems to spontaneously generate one, or attract one from somewhere beyond.”
“It would stand to reason,” said Bianca, “that an Ævatar has such a chamber, but the scale of it means the pull is strong and not as particular.”
Lilly pursed her lips. “If that is so, then it is the first created living thing I am aware of that can house a Soul. If we were able to replicate it, then we might have something to experiment with that didn't have moral entanglements.”
“That would require a deeper understanding of the Book of Creation,” said Bianca hesitantly. “It may come to that, but I'm not ready for that yet.”
“What is your plan for creating more Ævatars?” asked Lilly. “Don't you have to come to that understanding sooner or later?”
“The other two we have are not in good shape,” admitted Bianca. “But I have hoped that with a pattern and reconstruction spell that they can be restored. Reports were that they have some regenerative capability anyway.”
They had come to the Academy of Magic. A magical twitch passed over their bodies as they crossed the threshold of the wide gate with a nod from the guard. The ever present roar of the forge died away as the magical dampers kicked in. The only sound was their feet on the gravel.
Bianca looked sidelong at Lilly. “You've ridden the Ævatar,” she said. “Do you have any insight?”
“It seems so long ago,” said Lilly. “So much has happened. I have a Soul now. I could not do it again.”
“I understand that,” said Bianca. “I'm just asking... what the experience was like.”
Lilly paused a long time. “The smell was unpleasant,” she said. “It was hard to concentrate. You really didn't have much of a sense of operation. If you wanted it to walk, you thought of walking. I'm sorry, I don't remember much more.”
Bianca nodded. “It's further than I've ever gotten.”
“It is too risky for someone with a Soul,” said Lilly. “But troglodytes and many Underground species have spirits, not Souls. You have never experimented with those?”
“No. Too risky. Too little to gain,” said Bianca. “If their spirit can be bound, then the Ævatar would have a spirit we could not control. If they could control it, it would be of little use. Those without Souls cannot work magic. It would be insufficiently powerful to fight the gods.”
“Much thought has been put into this,” said Lilly. “It seems unlikely that the answer will be easy.”
“And yet Moss came up with the rectifier in an idle moment,” said Bianca. “I need such a moment.”
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“Then you need more idleness,” said Lilly. She mimed ice skating.
Bianca came as close as she ever did to smiling. “It has been a pleasant walk,” she said. “I'm afraid that will have to do for now.” She looked up at the sun and stretched. “But someday. Soon. If the gods don't attack, we should do something idle.”
“Yes,” said Lilly. “Lets.” She looked up at the sun as well. “It is nearly noon. Mistress Devonshire will probably be up by now. She said she was going to try uncompressed sleep for once, to see if it cleared her head.”
“Let me know if that works” said Bianca. “One of the students optimized the spell and worked out how to remove the need for sleep altogether with only a slight loss of efficiency. However, it’s probably not worth the two extra hours for us.”
“Probably not,” said Lilly. “I once used Jacques multiplexer to animate several bodies at once. But it only allowed me to do basic tasks quicker. I didn't think any faster.”
Bianca pushed open the door to the main tower and the two entered. The in-house teleport had a sign on it reminding people to conserve mana where possible. Bianca looked down the steps and Lilly looked up.
“Good luck,” said Lilly.
“You too,” replied Bianca.
They went their separate ways.