The First Binding, page 18
I didn’t risk nodding lest I bump her with my head. Instead, I reached down and took one of her hands in mine, bringing it up to rest against my chest. The old line went through my head again. “Start with whent.”
“What?”
I tuned her out, retreating to the folds of my mind. My clothing had been freshly cleaned and laid out in the summer’s sun to dry. The image doubled, then again. It wasn’t long until the inside of my head resembled a honeycomb filled with repeated imagery of warm and dry clothing. “Then go to ern.” I held the images, firm, perfect. An unshakeable faith assured me that my clothing hadn’t gone through a storm. It had not been soaked through until cold racked my blood and bones. No.
My skin knew only the softness of fresh clothes and the heat of being out in a nice day.
I felt Eloine’s hand shake within mine. A tug. There had been the slightest moment where she wanted to pull away, but she reined the instinct in. Her eyes widened when she placed another hand on me, rubbing my shoulder down to my sleeve. “The water’s gone. How?”
I smiled. “Answers to questions like that would doubtless be the subject of a story.” I gave her a knowing stare. “My story. If you’re willing to sit and be patient through it all. All good stories are like sex. There’s interest, a promise, teasing, but if you stay with it and build the fire properly, you get your catharsis.”
Eloine rolled her eyes. “Your experience is clearly different than mine, then. A man’s catharsis is seldom felt the same as a woman’s.”
I pulled at my collar, which felt tighter as we discussed this particular topic. “Enshae definitely provided … an experience … and then some.”
“She has that reputation.” Something in Eloine’s voice had hardened, going brittle as kilned pottery.
It took me longer than I care to admit to catch my folly, but I addressed it. “Most people only know the stories about her. I can tell you the truth. There is a difference. But part of being a good storyteller is knowing when a demonstration might help you tell your tale all the better. So, back to my original offer, will you let me warm your clothes?” I reached out slowly, taking a fold of her skirt along the waist between a thumb and forefinger.
Eloine nodded. “Though, you’ll have to tell me why you wanted me out of them when I didn’t see you get out of yours?” Her mouth twisted into something practically lecherous, and I became aware of an all-too-different warmth flooding my skin.
I cleared my throat and took a moment to settle my mind, knowing I couldn’t trust my tongue without first taking pause. “The … sensation of having that binding done to you—around you—can be unsettling. It can also be a violation of a person’s space.”
Eloine pulled her hand away. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Few men ever consider what might be a violation of someone’s space.” She had spoken as if the comment hadn’t been for my ears.
A part of me wanted to place my hands on her shoulders and reassure her, but the tightness of her posture told me it wouldn’t be welcome. She stood quivering like a leaf in a storm, with the promise that the slightest touch would send her flitting away.
So I used my words instead. “We have other kinds of spaces, too. Few ever learn of them, but there are sacred spaces in and outside each of us.” I stretched my arms out wide, sweeping them in a circle around me. “There’s an unseen area we occupy, greater than our bodies. A part of us, which some would consider something close to our soul—but not that—takes up more space than our body does. The binding I wanted to perform touches on that space. I didn’t know how you’d feel about me doing that, is all. That’s why I wanted you to remove your clothes and stand behind the barrier.”
I hoped my explanation was enough to put her at ease.
Eloine gave me my answer the next moment, taking two steps until she was even closer. Her chest pressed against mine, threatening to dampen my clothes. I didn’t mind it one bit. “I’d like to feel it, then.”
That was all I needed to hear.
I closed my eyes, slipping back into the folds of my mind.
You have a subtle awareness of that greater space you occupy. People oft dismiss it, thinking it a childish notion or something superstitious. But it’s true—an extra sense if you will. It’s no different than the subtle and uncanny ability any animal has when it knows it’s being watched.
We are all aware when something comes into that space, even if we stand with our eyes shut, even if we’re blind. We know. And we are acutely aware when something violates that. Their presence is felt.
I took in Eloine’s. She thrummed like a mandolin string that had been plucked and left to vibrate until it came to a natural stop. But something else caught my attention. Another piece of her stood like an iron rod, unbent, tempered hard and hot, refusing to give under anything. Nervous. But strong. Unafraid … of me, or anything else.
I reached blindly to place my hands on her shoulders. She took my hands in hers, guiding them along her sides as I held up the mental picture I wanted to see. “Whent.” Her clothing was without rumple. Dry just as mine and with all the warmth. “Ern.”
She shuddered in my grip but stayed put. “It’s odd.”
I said nothing, holding the binding until I knew it had been completed. My hands slid along patches of bare skin and it felt like she’d been lounging near a fire. I wanted to hold on to her longer, to linger in the touch just for a moment more.
My mind went to the last time I held someone who felt like they’d bathed in the sun, and I instinctually pulled away from her. The collar of my cloak felt tight, and its sides weighed me down as if they’d been sewn with lead. I shook my head clear of the memory. “Sorry about that.”
Eloine seemed to pay me no mind. She looked over her clothing, taking bits of it between her fingers and rubbing them like she was still trying to discover the trick behind it. “I couldn’t feel it happening. Just that it had. There was no transition—no feeling the heat slowly coming on. One moment I’m soaked, the next it’s like a distant dream. There’s no sign I’d ever been anything other than dry and warm. I felt…” She trailed off, waving a hand through the air. “I felt like something around me shifted, almost like it had a current, and that it had been reshaped.”
Clever. It took me a while to catch on to that.
I nodded. “That’s what I meant earlier about the space around us. And we’ll come to the story of that binding, eventually.” I moved to the bed, easing myself down onto it. “But we won’t start with that. I certainly didn’t. Before that, I tried my hand at another, and that’s what became the earliest piece of my legend, depending who you ask.”
Eloine came to sit beside me, staring at me with wide-eyed wonder.
“So, you’ve asked your questions, and bear in mind I’ve earned the right to ask some of you”—I gave her a look that made it clear I intended to follow through with that—“but since I’m playing a gentleman tonight, I suppose those can wait.” I cleared my throat and tipped my staff forward so the head rested an arm’s length away.
A deep breath welled inside me and I imagined it as a current of air strong enough to move clouds and cast waves to swallow ships. “Ahn.” I blew the breath and pictured it weaving around the tip of my staff, binding it into a looping band until I decided to break it. A coil of fire burned inside me and I drew on it, folding my mind like I had done earlier that evening. I pulled on the inferno and spoke. “Whent. Ern.” Flames sparked to life along the racing plume of air and blossomed into a serpentine length of orange light.
“You want to know about fire? About how I can call a flame from no place and bind it thus, and keep it tame? Well, I never learned to birth it like Brahm. So I decided to be bold and steal a piece of my own. Something that burns eternal and is mine to forever hold. That piece of my story is far from where we’ve left off, but we can touch upon what started me down that path. The road that led me to being firecaller, Ari the Unburnt, the one who kindled everlasting flame.
“To learn it, understand it, in ways better than a man knows his own hand, and most certainly his heart and mind: there is an intimacy to be found in that—fire—if you know how and where to look. Back then, I didn’t. But Mahrab set me on the path to mastering it. And I daresay I did it better than any binder before me. But to learn my story with fire, you must learn the story of fire itself, and that is a story of candle and flame.”
I focused on my staff, imagining the firelight dimming from its head until it ebbed and flickered, teasing that it might wink out altogether. But it remained. It bobbed and snapped, a little orb of light, almost like that of a candle in a dark room.
FOURTEEN
CANDLE AND FLAME
“The Athir, Ari, is necessary to being a binder.” Mahrab held up a stone for me to see, shaking it back and forth.
Today’s lesson thankfully took place above the understage on the theater platform proper. I’d had to do another morning’s scrubbing and polishing to earn the right of it, and had suffered a stiff night’s sleep, but it had been worth it. Most of Khalim’s performers spent their day rehearsing in private or out in the quarter. I had the open place to myself for my own studies.
A dull orb of pain flared at my forehead and something slapped into my lap. I winced and looked down to find the stone sitting there. “What was that for?”
Mahrab smiled and scooped up the stone. “You weren’t paying attention.”
I glowered at him but had the wisdom not to lie and argue.
“Like I was saying, the Athir, Ari”—he tapped an index and middle finger to the side of his head—“is the pillar of faith. You need that frame of mind to become a binder. Without it, you’ll fail at performing one … or worse.”
“Worse?” I quirked a brow at that.
His mouth pulled into a tight line and his face hardened. “You can perform a binding and lose control of it. That is dangerous, Ari. We are meddling with the laws and functionality of the universe. Losing your grip on those?”
He didn’t need to go on; I could imagine the severity of a binding gone wrong. When I’d first met him, Mahrab had bound fire to his hand and held it there ready to let loose. What would happen if someone bound a great deal of flame only to lose control of it? They might burn down a building, a quarter, a kingdom.
“Or you can lose yourself, and I’m not sure which is worse, Ari.”
I stared at Mahrab, waiting for him to elaborate.
He raised the stone again. “You remember the exercises with the rocks, yes?”
I nodded.
“Some binders can hold an image so long and well in their minds that that’s all they remain able to see. They slip into the folds of the image, lost forever. Slipping is dangerous, Ari. I’ve seen binders go mad, trapped within their own minds, unable to function. They end up little more than gibbering dolls. And some … slip … then break.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Mahrab held up a finger to stay me.
“Breaking is when a binder is too far stuck in their attempt. It goes wrong, their mind is in a loop of folds and tries to continually employ the binding. They can not only kill themselves from the repeated strain, but imagine someone performing a violent binding over and over without control.”
I wanted to do no such thing. A binder losing their grip was one thing. A binder going mad and repeatedly performing magic without knowing what they were doing? I shuddered at the thought.
“That’s why we’re working on building up your mind first, Ari. The mind. The mind.” He punctuated the last two sentences with a tap against his head. “That is the binder’s weapon, their shield, and their pillar. Without it, you cannot perform and hold a binding. It’s pointless.” He dropped the stone, letting it clatter against the stage to make his point. “The mind needs to be strong enough to shape and hold the folds.”
I licked my teeth, wanting to press for more information, but unsure how much Mahrab would readily divulge. He knew I was impatient, but I’d shown I could listen and dedicate myself to the pursuit of bindings. I took my chance. “What are the folds?”
He shook his head and let out a heavy sigh. “You’re running too fast, too far ahead, Ari. First, the Athir, the pillar of faith. The belief that the image you choose to hold in your mind is the one true shape of things. You need that to be able to affect anything in this world. Without that, you might as well shout at a dog to be a cat and expect it to happen. You’d have better luck. Today, we work on that.”
It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was a damn sight closer than where I had been before. My mind and dreams had been plagued with two mirrors of black reflecting only a pair of stones. When I pissed, I thought of stones. When I changed—stones. A rare bath? Stones. No matter what I did for the past few weeks. Stones, stones, and more damnable stones.
If this kept up, I’d end up swooning over stones.
Mahrab seemed to see my thoughts as he pulled free a tea light from the folds of his robes. “I brought this for you. Today we learn about fire—keeping a flame in mind and in sight. If you can practice this, you should be able to begin holding the folds. Learn the story of fire. If you manage that, you may be able to learn the stories of other things in this world.” The way Mahrab had said it made it clear this held particular importance, but he didn’t bother explaining further.
“Everything has a story,” I said. It was a fundamental truth of my world, and I believed firmly that if you understood the story behind something or someone, you could come to understand them. Easier said than done, of course. “And they’re all worth learning.”
Mahrab inclined his head. “And knowing that gives you a certain standard of faith in your ability to affect whatever you aim at with a binding. Not every binder feels that way, though. But I’ve always believed in the power of story, Ari. It’s why I’m here.”
The hidden tale he and Khalim discussed in private. A story I didn’t know.
There are certain kinds of hunger that have nothing to do with the physical.
My hunger for stories. My hunger for magic.
And stories, like magic, can be a dangerous thing.
“What’s the story about?” I looked up at Mahrab, doing my best to adopt the irresistible nature of a begging puppy. I hadn’t yet learned enough in my youth about the performer’s art, but I’d been able to cultivate enough skill where I needed. Moisture lined my lids and I knew Mahrab could see it.
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, stop it.” He placed the tea light candle between us, pinching the wick between a thumb and forefinger. Mahrab’s lips moved, and even though he sat not more than an arm’s length from me, I couldn’t hear a whisper of what he said. He rubbed the wick rapidly as if trying to light it with the friction between his fingers. Light sparked and Mahrab moved his hand from the candle. The little flame ebbed, snapping to one side then the other as if it couldn’t decide in which direction to burn.
“Watch it. I want you to stare at that flame, Ari, until your mind holds nothing but endless black and a fire inside.” He held up a hand, stopping the question I’d been holding on to. “And in your mind, the fire sits still. It doesn’t bob and dance. It doesn’t flicker and flit. It burns as clear and steadily—unmoving as stone.”
I stared at him, then the fire. “That doesn’t make sense. It does move.”
Mahrab smiled. “It does. But your task isn’t to picture it true to form. You are supposed to picture it as I tell you to. A binder controls what he sees in his mind. If you want to shape the world around you, start with being able to shape what you see in here.” He reached over and tapped the side of my head.
I looked at the flame, its body swaying like a blade of grass in the wind. If there was a rhythm or sense of thoughtful motion in it, I couldn’t see it. It moved almost at whim, like something else stirred the flame and it had no control over itself.
Mahrab rose to his feet and walked away from me.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“To speak with Khalim about stories.”
I almost stood myself, then realized my dilemma. I could sit and attend to what Mahrab had offered, another chance to improve my mind and get closer to performing a binding, or I could harangue him about stories.
It was like choosing between air and water. A learned man would tell you that lack of air will kill you quicker than a need for water. But he’s a fool. Time kills us all the same, so it’s never a matter of quick or slow, but what you need to live. And I needed stories, and I needed to know about the magic I heard in them.
I decided the bindings came first. I’d always be able to pry the story out of Khalim later. Somehow.
I settled myself and stared at the fire until the mote of light burned into my mind. My eyes closed when weariness took over, but I still saw the fire, immobile and bright, in my mind. I held it firmly as I had the stones. Every ounce of my attention was fixed on keeping that fire in sight and as Mahrab had dictated. It didn’t move. It didn’t flit and flicker. It didn’t go out.
I kept it as still as a pillar of orange, contrary to what the actual flame was doing. Pressure built in the center of my skull, quickly mirrored in my forehead. Soon, my entire head felt like a dozen hands pressed on it, working to collapse it. The temptation to give up the mental effort and dizzying pain grew. Sleep called to me, but I warded it off, redoubling my efforts to focus on the candle and the flame.
A trickle of moisture touched my upper lip. I tasted copper and salt. My eyes opened and I reeled, having released the mental image I’d been holding.
A thin stream of blood rolled down my face from one nostril. My head felt like it had been kicked down the street. And despite that, euphoria filled me.
If you’ve ever experienced the tranquility of your own bed after a grueling day of labor, you’ll know what I mean. It was like that. I felt like I’d toiled for days as a bricklayer and my brain had done much the same.
From that effort, my mind strengthened. The space in which I could hold things grew, and if Mahrab spoke truly, what I would be able to do with that space expanded as well.
