CHAPTER 22

POV - Azra'il

There was a fundamental difference between learning something quickly and learning something well, and most people confused the two categories with a frequency I had learnt to classify as structural optimism about the nature of learning.

Sylphy was learning quickly and well.

This was, objectively, irritating for at least one of the other people present.

We had begun with incantations a few days earlier, which had seemed the most reasonable entry point for someone with no prior experience of formal magic. Rudeus had explained the basic principles with the enthusiasm of someone who had discovered they enjoyed teaching, which was a revelation I had filed away for future use. I had supplemented with the theoretical framework missing from his explanations, which had produced in Sylphy the expression of someone receiving information from two simultaneous sources and managing to integrate both without conflict.

It was a rare ability. I had taught adult cultivators who could not manage it.

On the third day with the incantations, Sylphy had executed an intermediate-level spell with a fluency that had made Rudeus stop breathing for a second and a half.

"You learnt faster than Rudeus did," I said, with the neutrality of someone making a factual observation.

Rudeus looked at me.

"It is objective information," I said. "Not an opinion."

"It is objectively unnecessary to mention."

"Knowledge is never unnecessary."

"Azra'il."

"Rudeus."

Sylphy was watching the two of us with the expression of someone who had realised they had done something that had initiated a process and was not certain how to interrupt it.

Rudeus went quiet for a moment with the expression of someone arriving at a conclusion. Then he stood with the particular posture of someone who had identified a strategic exit from an unfavourable situation.

"Magic without incantation," he said.

I looked at him.

"We will teach her magic without incantation," he continued, in the tone of someone presenting an idea they had had some time ago and were simply choosing the right moment to introduce. "It is harder. Will probably take weeks."

〈Territorial recovery via increasing the difficulty of the next challenge.〉

[Predictable, but functionally reasonable.]

"All right," I said. "We will teach her."

The problem with teaching magic without incantation was that magic without incantation did not appear in any instructional text in this world for a simple reason: it was sufficiently rare that nobody had systematised the learning process in a form that could be transmitted.

Rudeus had learnt through sensation. Through intuition. Through that particular process of doing and redoing until the body understood what the mind was trying to communicate.

His explanation to Sylphy reflected exactly that.

"It is sort of like... you can feel the mana inside you, right?" he said, his hands describing shapes in the air that presumably represented something to him. "And then you... direct it. With intention. Like you are pointing with your thoughts."

Sylphy was listening with the attention of someone trying to turn a metaphor into a procedure and encountering difficulties in the process.

I did not blame Rudeus. It was exactly how Paul had taught swordsmanship in the first months: by instinct and demonstration and the implicit expectation that the pupil's body would arrive at the same conclusions the teacher's had reached by undocumented routes. It worked for some people. For others it produced confusion and frustration in varying proportions.

"Mana," I said, when Sylphy had blinked twice with the particular expression of someone losing the thread, "exists in everything that is alive. Including you. You have already felt it without knowing you were feeling it, every time you used the incantations over the past few days. The incantation is a structure that organises intention and directs mana towards the desired result." I looked at her. "Magic without incantation is removing the intermediate structure. You direct the intention straight through, without the scaffolding. The result is the same. The route is shorter and harder to find the first time."

Sylphy processed this with the attention of someone reorganising a mental map.

"It is like the difference between following a marked path through the forest and making your own," I said. "The destination is the same. But without the marked path, you need to know where you are going before you start walking."

Rudeus was looking at me with the expression of someone who had said the same thing in a completely different way and was evaluating which version had worked better. The answer was visible in Sylphy's posture, which had relaxed slightly with the particular quality of someone who had found the map they were looking for.

"Try it," said Rudeus to Sylphy, with the enthusiasm of a teacher that had been replaced by something closer to the enthusiasm of a spectator. "Start small. A tiny water droplet. Just one."

Sylphy closed her eyes.

We were quiet for a moment.

After a few minutes, a small droplet appeared. Then another.

Thirty minutes later there was a row of water droplets floating around Sylphy with the consistency of something that had found its pattern and was following it in an increasingly natural way. After an hour, the droplets had grown into reasonably sized spheres that floated and moved with the direction of her intention without any incantation.

Rudeus was crouching on the ground.

He had crouched deliberately, with the movement of someone arriving at a conclusion about the situation and choosing to process that conclusion closer to the Earth's centre of gravity.

He was drawing circles in the dirt with his finger.

〈How long did it take Rudeus to produce his first water sphere without incantation?〉

[Approximately a little over two weeks of consistent practice.]

〈And Sylphy?〉

[One hour and twelve minutes.]

〈Documented.〉

I approached Rudeus crouching in the dirt with his circles and stood beside him looking at the circles for a moment.

"Perhaps Sylphy is exceptional like you," I said.

Rudeus looked up with the hope of someone finding a way out.

"Or perhaps you are not as exceptional as you thought," I continued. "Both options are equally valid epistemologically."

Rudeus returned to the circles.

[You are enjoying this.]

〈Moderately.〉

Sylphy had come closer with the water spheres still orbiting her with the lazy orbit of small planets, and the expression of someone who had done something and was still processing that they had done it. She looked at Rudeus on the ground. Then at me.

"I only managed it because you both taught well," she said, with the particular sincerity of someone who genuinely believed what they were saying. "Both of you." The red eyes went to Rudeus on the ground. "You explained it in a way that made sense to me. The part about sensation and intention. I wouldn't have managed it without that."

Rudeus stood slowly. The expression had shifted, that residue of wounded competitiveness giving way to something closer to genuine satisfaction, the kind that has nothing calculated about it.

"We had a good pupil too," he said, in the tone of someone who had arrived at a conclusion and was willing to communicate it.

Sylphy went slightly pink with that quality of someone unaccustomed to direct praise and not entirely sure what to do with it.

I went to her and placed my hand on the green hair with the movement my fingers made from memory.

"You did very well," I said.

It was a simple sentence. It was also true, which for me was the necessary and sufficient condition for saying anything.

Sylphy went a little pinker. Then she smiled with that smile she had when something surprised her in a good way.

It was then that the sky decided to have an opinion about the afternoon.

The rain arrived with the particular speed of weather events that had not been announced and for which the local world had no adequate forecasting infrastructure. One moment there was low, pleasant sunlight, and the next there were clouds that had clearly been waiting for an opportunity.

"Let us head back quickly," I said, assessing the situation with the objectivity of someone who had survived storms at scales that made this rain irrelevant in absolute terms, but inconvenient in practical ones. "If we stay here we will get back drenched."

"Our house is the closest," said Rudeus, already evaluating routes with the pragmatism of someone who had developed a reasonable sense of direction over the past months of regular outings.

"Then we run."

We set off down the hill quickly. The problem with running during rain that had decided to be serious about the matter was that the distance to our house was sufficient for the rain to win on speed. We arrived at the back door in a state I would classify as drenched with distinction, my white hair plastered to my face and the clothes carrying the particular weight of fabric that had absorbed more water than it was designed to absorb.

Sylphy was blinking water out of her red eyes with the expression of someone who had arrived at a destination considerably wetter than planned.

Rudeus's hair was in a state that made the morning tentacle nest seem like a fond memory.

Lilia was at the door with the expression of someone who had heard the rain begin, assessed where we were, and made preparations before we arrived.

"I have prepared a bath," she said, with her customary efficiency. "All three of you, quickly, before you catch a chill."

The upstairs room had a wooden bathtub with hot water that Lilia had prepared with the supernatural timing she had developed for domestic emergencies. The steam rose with that quality of something at exactly the right temperature.

Rudeus assessed the bathtub. Then Sylphy. Then the bathtub again.

"We can get in together," he said, with the casualness of someone proposing something entirely obvious. "There is room for three."

Sylphy went still.

There was in her expression a particular quality I recognised as the panic that occurs when a situation develops in a direction the processing system has not anticipated and is attempting to find available exits in real time.

〈Eos, how many weeks have passed since we first met Sylphy?〉

[Approximately three.]

〈And Rudeus still has not worked it out.〉

[The consistency of the specimen is remarkable.]

〈It is a disappointment.〉

Rudeus had begun removing his own shirt with the naturalness of someone who had shared baths with siblings for as long as he could remember and had not considered that the situation might have relevant variables he had not thought through.

Sylphy was standing still with her hands closed at the sides of her own shirt with exactly the same finger-on-the-hem posture she had had on the morning she had first appeared at our door.

"You do not need to be shy," said Rudeus, not looking at Sylphy, still untying something on his boots. "If it is because of Azra'il, you do not need to worry. She might look like a girl, but she has that part underneath that is similar to ours."

Sylphy stared at me.

I looked back at her.

There was in her expression the particular confusion of someone who had received anatomically ambiguous information about a person she had believed to be a girl like herself and was trying to reconcile that with what Rudeus had just implied without apparently realising what he had implied.

[He referred to your intersexuality without understanding what he was saying to someone who has no context to process it adequately.]

〈In summary: he created confusion in two simultaneous directions without the faintest idea or basic sense.〉

"Pay no attention to what he said," I said to Sylphy, with the composure of someone closing a subject before it could develop in worse directions. "It is complicated and irrelevant to the current situation."

Sylphy nodded with the expression of someone who had decided to file the information away for later processing.

Rudeus had finished removing his boots and was looking at Sylphy, who was still fully dressed with her hands still on the hem of her shirt.

"Are you getting in?" he asked, with the genuine bafflement of someone unable to identify the obstacle.

Sylphy did not move.

Rudeus assessed the situation with the available resources and arrived at the wrong conclusion with the efficiency that was characteristic of him in this type of scenario.

"Oh," he said, as though he had discovered something. "You are embarrassed about showing your 'little friend'?" He took a step towards Sylphy with the expression of someone about to helpfully resolve a problem. "Let me help—"

His hand moved towards Sylphy's shirt.

The punch arrived before his fingers touched the fabric.

It was not hard enough to cause serious harm, but sufficiently above what a five-year-old's punch ought to be to communicate a considerable quantity of information in an unambiguous manner.

Rudeus stepped back two paces with his hand on his arm and the expression of someone who had been wronged.

"Why—"

"Sylphy is a girl."

The room went completely silent.

Rudeus processed the sentence at the speed of someone cross-referencing what they had just heard against the entirety of the conclusions they had reached over the past six weeks.

Then he looked at Sylphy.

Sylphy was standing still with her eyes slightly brighter than they should have been, the kind of brightness that happens when someone is holding something they do not want to let out. She nodded, small, with the quality of someone confirming something they had been waiting a long time for and which had not become easier with the waiting.

"I am a girl," she said, in the voice of someone who had said that sentence more times than should ever have been necessary.

Rudeus looked at her for a moment with the expression of someone whose internal map was being rewritten in real time, with implications he was still calculating.

Then he had that expression.

〈The chubby little pervert is realising what he almost did.〉

[The processing speed is acceptable given the circumstances.]

I left the room, went to the corridor, and called Lilia in the voice of someone with a specific logistical request.

She appeared with her customary punctuality.

"I need another bathtub with hot water in my room," I said. "And clothes that will fit Sylphy. Mine should work reasonably well."

Lilia assessed the situation with her eyes, arrived at the relevant conclusions in under two seconds, and nodded without asking questions that did not need to be asked. It was one of the qualities I most appreciated in her.

I went back to the room. I placed my hand on top of Sylphy's head and began stroking the green hair, this is becoming a habit without my wanting to admit it.

"Follow Lilia," I said. "She will prepare a bath in my room. You can use my clothes while yours dry. And pay no attention to my foolish brother."

Sylphy looked at me with those eyes that were still slightly bright but had stabilised. Then she smiled with the corner of her mouth, small, the kind of smile of someone who is all right even when she had not been all right two minutes ago.

"Thank you," she said.

She followed Lilia down the corridor.

Rudeus was standing in the middle of the room without his shirt and the expression of someone who had reached the end of an assessment process and was not satisfied with any of the available conclusions.

I removed my own soaking shirt with the practical movements of someone who had a bath to take and had not planned to turn it into an event.

We had shared baths more times than I could count, which was the inevitable result of being the sibling of someone with whom you shared a bathroom in a house of medieval dimensions. It was functional. It was efficient. It was something I had accepted with the particular resignation of things that are inconvenient but not sufficiently inconvenient to justify the alternative confrontation.

Rudeus had learnt early that there was a line that was not to be crossed in my presence, a line that had been established clearly on a single occasion with a punch he had taken considerably more seriously than today's, and since then he had maintained behaviour I would classify as appropriate with the caveat that the baseline for comparison was quite low.

He was seated in the bathtub with his knees against his chest and the expression of someone reaching the end of an analysis that had taken longer than it should have.

"She is going to hate me," he said.

"Probably not," I said. "At most she will be annoyed that you thought she was a boy for three weeks. Which is a legitimate annoyance, but distinct from hatred."

"I almost—"

"You did not cross the line," I said, with the objectivity of someone conducting a technical assessment. "You received rather physical information from me before crossing it."

Rudeus looked at the water for a moment. "How long have you known?"

"Since the first day."

He looked at me. "How?"

"Experience," I said. "Unlike someone who died a virgin as you did, I have sufficient references to make the distinction without ambiguity."

Rudeus opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again with the expression of someone who had been struck on two simultaneous points and was assessing which one to defend first.

"How do you know I died a virgin?!" he asked, with the indignation of someone who had chosen the wrong point to defend.

"I did not know with certainty," I said. "Now I do."

The silence that followed was the particular silence of someone realising they had walked into a trap that had been constructed in real time and had not noticed until it was too late.

"That is not fair!" said Rudeus.

"It was efficient."

"They are different things."

"Sometimes they coincide."

He sulked in the bathtub for a moment with the expression of someone who had lost an argument and was thinking through the implications of the defeat. Then, with the subtlety of a hay cart, he changed the subject. "And you? Have you ever been with anyone?"

I considered the question with the attention it deserved.

"Yes, I have," I replied.

"With men or with women?"

"With both."

Rudeus appeared surprised by that. "Both?"

"Experience accumulated over time tends to broaden the available spectrum of references."

"And you... prefer?"

There was in the question that quality of genuine curiosity Rudeus had when he was actually interested in something rather than being a pervert out of habit. It was a distinction I had learnt to make.

"I have a preference for women," I said. "Not exclusive. But a preference."

"Why?"

I considered the why with the honesty of someone who has no reason to distort the answer.

"My first love was a woman," I said. "With a personality I would describe as electrifying if I did not find the word insufficient." There was in that thought a particular texture I rarely allowed to surface. "It established a standard that is difficult to ignore retroactively."

The silence was different from the previous ones.

Rudeus was looking at me with the expression of someone who had received more than they had expected to receive and was treating the information with corresponding care.

Then, with the particular timing of someone who had processed and arrived at a conclusion: "You are interested in Sylphy!"

The flick was calibrated to communicate precisely how incorrect and outrageous that conclusion was.

"Ow!" Rudeus raised his hand to his forehead with the expression of someone genuinely surprised by the intensity of the result. "How can a flick hurt that much?"

"Training," I said, without elaborating. "And you are an oblivious chubby pervert with no sense whatsoever."

"I am not a lolicon—"

"Unlike you," I continued, "I do not go after children. I have a type. And that type does not include anyone who is underage and whose personality is still forming."

Rudeus looked at me. "What is your type?"

"Women who could put me in my place if I let them," I said, with the direct honesty of someone describing a preference so well established there is no reason to ornament it. "Strong. With a personality that does not ask permission to exist. The kind that walks into a room and the air changes density."

Rudeus was quiet for a moment, processing that.

"You like dominant women," he said, in the tone of a discovery.

"I am dominant," I replied. "It makes sense that I am drawn to someone who can be the same with me. The other options are unbalanced in ways that become tedious very quickly."

"That explains a lot about you."

"It explains some things about me. I am considerably more complex than any romantic preference can capture."

Rudeus looked at the water with the reflective expression of someone organising new information. Then, with the corner of his mouth rising in the way I had learnt to recognise as the precursor to something I was probably not going to want to hear:

"So you need someone who can give you a good—"

"Rudeus."

"I am only concluding logically—"

"Finish that sentence and you will discover in practice why provoking someone physically stronger than you is a poor idea."

He closed his mouth.

His wisdom was selective, but it existed.

〈Eos, note that the warning was sufficiently clear.〉

[Noted. With the observation that he was clearly attempting it and the restraint represented considerable effort on his part.]

〈I acknowledge the effort. It is why he is still in one piece.〉

The steam from the bathtub continued rising with the particular indifference of hot water towards the human dramas around it. Somewhere on the other side of the house, Lilia was probably ensuring Sylphy had everything she needed with the efficiency that was her hallmark.

Rudeus was quiet for a reasonable length of time, which for his standards was a considerable achievement.

"Do you think she will forgive me?" he said at last, in the voice of someone who had returned to the point that actually concerned him.

"Sylphy?" I said. "Yes. She is more pragmatic than she appears. And you did nothing irreversible." I paused for a moment. "But it might be worth offering a genuine apology without trying to explain why you did not know."

"Why without explaining?"

"Because the explanation will sound worse than the silence," I said. "Trust the process."

Rudeus nodded with the quality of someone filing away advice they intended to follow because the available alternatives were worse.

The water was cooling with the gradualness of things that eventually come to an end.

It was, in its way, a productive afternoon.

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