Allit looked at me sideways, trying for guile but failing. “But you still do it. Why’s that then?”
I wasn’t going to be totally honest with him – I’m not even totally honest with myself most of the time – so I said, “Because sometimes even I have to. Like now. We make the magic, make the Glow or we all die. That simple. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
He gave me the sort of “Yeah, right” look that only works when teenagers try it. To distract him from the fact he was dead on right, I started him on another bit of practice.
We hadn’t worked out what his talents were exactly. Not yet. Every mage has a Minor and a Major. Took me years to figure out that what I’d thought was my Minor – the way I could mould my face to look like other people – was in fact part of my Major, and the rearranging of things was just a matter of wanting to enough, and being able to stand the pain I needed to make it. My Minor – finding people, how I’d made my living in the recent past – didn’t hurt so much, which is all relative because it still hurt like a damn bitch. But Allit hadn’t figured out what either of his talents was yet – all he’d managed was moving a cup about an inch, which might mean everything and nothing. As it went, not exactly helpful, though he could probably work it up to something useful in time.
We needed him to find out what else he could do, round about yesterday. As Dendal’s and Pasha’s more logical methods hadn’t worked, I was getting him to try anything we could think of to see if we could stumble on it by accident.
I’d started by looking at the sorts of spells he’d accidentally cast when his magic first showed itself. Around about puberty, a proto-pain-mage knocks himself, or gets hurt in some way, and the magic leaks out, often in a way that might give a clue to his emerging talents.
Allit hadn’t shown anything much, or not much he’d talk about anyway. There were other ways of finding out, but they weren’t so pleasant, and I had a soft spot for cocky little Allit, whose bravado was covering up a whole shedload of fear. So we tried everything else, and it was slow, very slow. We didn’t have time for slow.
After another few fruitless attempts, I had him stop before his thumb started squirting blood all over me. A boom-shudder rocked us, harder than the comforting rumble of Trade. Perak said he was working on it, which filled me with bone-deep dread. Another reason to be out here freezing my arse off with Allit. I didn’t want to think what shit Perak was going to drop me in this time – the tunnels had been bad enough.
“All right then, Allit,” I said. “Look out over the city. Really look at it. What do you see?”
He muttered under his breath, something about it being “unfair”.
“Tell you what I see. I see Top of the World, where Ministry looks down on people like us because of where we’re from, see us as just ways to get them what they want, money, power, all that happy horseshit. I see Clouds overhead, stealing our sun. I see Heights, see the people there look up with hope. I see Trade, see what made us great and also made us arrogant and led to us being weak. Look down, though, Allit. Look down at No-Hope Shitty; further, look into Boundary, in the Slump, the Stench, all the other crappy little places full of people with crappy little lives just doing the best they can to stay upright. See all those poor bastards down there. No sun, no food, no fucking hope. People like us. Well, like you perhaps, because the only hope they can find is to believe in a ministry that’s done little except squeeze them dry, sucked their souls, made them want what it offers whether they like it or not. Whether it’s helpful or hopeful or not. ‘Believe in us,’ they say, ‘believe in us, do as you’re told, get a nice life from the Goddess after you’re dead, there’s a good boy.’ Well, don’t know about you, but I’d prefer a nice life right now, and I believe that the Goddess is a crock of shit.”
I swallowed the bile back down – it was getting easier to do that, or maybe I was mellowing a bit in my old age – and sneaked a look at Allit. His mouth hung open like I’d just told him I liked to bugger goats. I used to hide it, the fact that I don’t believe in the Goddess, in all that Ministry tells us. Mainly because Ministry had this distressing habit of disappearing anyone they didn’t like, and they really didn’t like disbelievers. I used to hide it, hide a lot of things, but I was done hiding now. It hadn’t done me a whole lot of good.
“But, Rojan —”
“But nothing. Just look. Look up, then look down.”