Marduk considered birthdays an accounting problem.
"You arrived during storm season."
"Which storm?"
"The large one."
"Very precise."
"It broke three windows."
"On an island where storms routinely remove roofs."
"Fourteen, then."
That was how my age was settled.
No cake.
No candles.
Marduk handed me an iron hammer before sunrise and told me to report to the forge.
I suppose traditions have to begin somewhere.
The iron sphere from the night before sat in the middle of the workbench.
Cold. Black. Unremarkable.
I reached for it.
Marduk slapped my hand away with a pair of tongs.
"Forge first."
"You've spent several years complaining that I ask too many questions. Now you've put a mysterious iron ball in front of me and expect restraint."
"Yes."
"Optimistic."
He pointed toward the furnace.
I went.
The forge had been built against the stone wall behind the cabin, close enough to shelter us from the sea wind but far enough away that one mistake wouldn't burn our home down.
Marduk claimed this represented planning.
I suspected he'd learned the lesson through experience.
Several stones above the furnace were permanently blackened.
One ceiling beam had been replaced.
He refused to discuss either.
I worked the bellows until the charcoal bed turned orange.
Then hotter.
The air dried the inside of my nose. Sweat gathered beneath my shirt despite the morning cold.
Marduk placed a short bar of dull iron into the coals.
"Watch."
"I've been watching you ruin metal for years."
"Then today should feel familiar."
He waited.
That was important.
Marduk rarely taught with explanations when materials could embarrass you more efficiently.
The iron changed slowly.
Dark red.
Then brighter.
He pulled it free and set it across the anvil.
"Strike."
I raised the hammer.
"Where?"
He stared at me.
"Useful lesson."
I looked at the bar.
One end had been flattened previously. A hairline split ran along the edge.
The center remained thick.
If I struck directly over the fracture, I'd widen it.
I shifted.
Hammer down.
Clang.
The shock traveled through my wrist to my elbow.
Again.
Clang.
The third blow landed poorly.
The hammer face struck slightly off-center and twisted in my hand.
Marduk tapped my ankle with his staff.
"Feet."
"My hands appear to be at the other end of my body."
"Unfortunately, they're connected."
I reset my stance.
Left foot slightly forward.
Knees loose.
Hips behind the strike.
Another blow.
Better.
The rebound shortened.
"Again."
We did this for an hour.
No magic.
That seemed deliberate.
Every time my shoulders began doing more work than my hips, Marduk stopped me.
Every time I tightened my grip too early, he stopped me.
Every time I tried to increase speed before correcting alignment—
"Again."
By sunrise, the word had become personally offensive.
I dropped the hammer onto the bench.
"My technique is adequate."
Marduk picked it up.
"No."
He struck the bar once.
The sound changed.
Mine had been sharp.
His was deeper.
The metal spread cleanly beneath the hammer face.
He handed the tool back.
"Again."
I stared at the iron.
Then his feet.
His knees.
Shoulder.
Elbow.
Wrist.
Chessmaster assembled the pieces automatically.
Not numbers.
Not glowing lines.
Relationships.
His heel loaded before the swing.
His hip opened a fraction.
His shoulder followed.
The hammer arrived last.
A chain.
I copied it.
Clang.
Better.
Again.
Clang.
Better.
The third strike failed.
My wrist rolled.
Marduk caught the hammer before I dropped it.
I frowned.
"I repeated the movement."
"No."
"I did."
"You repeated what you saw."
There was a difference.
I disliked that there was a difference.
Marduk pushed two fingers into the inside of my forearm.
Pain sparked through the muscle.
"You're exhausted."
"I'm tired."
"Your grip disagrees."
"I can continue."
"No."
He took the hammer away.
The conversation appeared to be finished.
I disagreed.
"I've trained through worse."
"That's why your right forearm shakes when you're angry."
My mouth closed.
He turned toward the water bucket.
I looked down.
My fingers were steady.
I made a fist.
Still steady.
Then I held my arm halfway extended.
There.
A faint tremor.
Marduk had noticed before I had.
That irritated me considerably.
He plunged the hot iron into water.
Steam rose between us.
"Sit."
"I'm fine."
"Then sit impressively."
I sat.
He tossed me a heel of bread and a strip of dried fish.
I caught both.
"If the grand lesson of adulthood is breakfast, I'm underwhelmed."
"Eat."
I did.
While I chewed, Marduk returned the iron sphere to the middle of the bench.
I watched it.
He noticed.
Naturally.
"What do you think it is?"
"Iron."
"Excellent. Fourteen years of education justified."
"You want something more interesting."
"I usually do."
I picked it up.
Heavy enough that one hand could hold it comfortably, though not indefinitely.
The surface had been polished smooth.
No rune.
No obvious crystal.
No inscription.
"Training weight."
"No."
"Test object."
"Everything is a test object if you're sufficiently unpleasant."
His expression didn't change.
I smiled.
"Fine. It has no visible enchantment. No alchemical seal. The density feels ordinary. You put it here immediately after mentioning what I've been sensing."
Marduk leaned against the bench.
"So?"
"It's related to weight."
One eyebrow moved.
Tiny victory.
I continued.
"You've known I notice changes in pressure."
"Sometimes."
"The floor when you move behind me. Falling objects. Occasionally tools feel... wrong before I touch them."
"Wrong?"
"That's the best word I have."
"Bad word."
"Then provide a better one."
"No."
Of course.
I rolled the sphere between my palms.
"You manipulate weight."
Marduk said nothing.
That was an answer.
Not a complete one.
But enough.
I leaned back.
"Gravity."
His eyes sharpened.
I regretted the word immediately.
Not because it was wrong.
Because I had said it too confidently.
"What?"
"The pull between masses."
Marduk's expression did something rare.
Confusion.
Real confusion.
"Masses."
"Objects."
"I know what a mass is."
"Wonderful."
He took the sphere from my hands.
"And you think that's what I'm doing?"
"I think that's one description."
"From where?"
There it was.
The dangerous question.
My memories of my previous life had always been easier to manage when I kept them general.
Metal.
Medicine.
Politics.
Navigation.
People.
Explaining a scientific vocabulary that didn't belong to this world required more care.
"Old knowledge."
"Whose?"
"Mine."
Marduk waited.
I smiled.
He didn't.
Neither of us moved.
Eventually he put the sphere down.
"You have too many locked rooms in your head."
"Everyone should have a few."
"Someday you'll forget which one you're standing in."
He turned away.
Conversation finished.
Again.
This time, I allowed it.
For perhaps twelve seconds.
"Can you teach me?"
He stopped.
"Not today."
"Why show me the sphere?"
"To see if you were ready to ask the right question."
"And?"
"You asked four wrong ones first."
I laughed.
He didn't.
That was the morning.
The afternoon smelled considerably worse.
Marduk brought home a marsh-runner with one leg dragging.
The animal resembled a long-bodied deer until you looked at the jaw, at which point nature's sense of humor became evident.
It had bitten through a branch as thick as my thumb while Marduk carried it.
Alive.
Angry.
And bleeding from a wound high on the hind leg.
He tied it to the examination post outside the laboratory.
I kept my distance from the teeth.
"Trap?"
"No."
"Predator?"
"No."
"Then?"
"It fell."
I looked at the leg.
Swelling.
Heat.
The animal refused to place weight on it.
"Fracture."
"Maybe."
I crouched.
The runner snapped at me.
I moved back.
Marduk watched.
"Very cooperative patient."
"It dislikes your face."
"Excellent instincts."
I waited for the animal to settle.
Its breath came too quickly.
Ears twitching.
Eyes following both of us.
The injured leg trembled whenever it tried to shift position.
I didn't touch it immediately.
Observation first.
One thing my old life had taught me was that people—and bodies—often told you the truth before you asked.
The swelling was wrong for a simple break.
Too diffuse.
The skin above the joint had discolored slightly.
I looked closer.
Two tiny punctures.
"Something bit it."
Marduk crouched beside me.
"Maybe."
"You already know."
"Maybe."
I gave him a look.
He enjoyed this.
"I need to examine the tissue."
"It won't let you."
"Sedative."
"No."
"Why?"
"You tell me."
I considered.
The runner was already breathing rapidly.
Possible shock.
Unknown toxin.
A sedative could worsen either.
"Fine."
I took a long strip of cloth from the bench.
Marduk shook his head.
"What?"
"You're thinking like a physician."
"Terrible habit."
"Think like prey."
I looked at the runner again.
It was tied.
Cornered.
Two predators—us—approaching.
The jaws weren't the problem.
Fear was.
I untied the front rope.
Marduk immediately grabbed my wrist.
"That wasn't permission."
"It needs room."
"It needs treatment."
"Then stop making treatment look like an execution."
His grip remained.
Interesting.
I looked at him.
He looked at the animal.
Then released me.
Independent decision.
Not agreement.
A trial.
I loosened the tether enough that the runner could turn its body.
Then I moved to the injured side where it could see me.
The snapping slowed.
I placed food three paces away.
It ignored it.
Expected.
Then water.
The runner smelled it.
Its head lowered.
I waited.
When it drank, I touched the leg.
The muscles contracted violently.
I withdrew.
Again after a moment.
This time two fingers.
Heat.
No obvious instability in the bone.
I pressed higher.
The animal jerked.
There.
The tissue around the punctures was harder.
"Venom."
Marduk made a noncommittal noise.
"Not a fracture."
"Didn't say it was."
"You let me think it."
"I let you think."
An irritating distinction he loved.
I took a sample of fluid from the swollen area using a hollow thorn.
Cloudy.
Dark.
Back inside, I placed one drop on stone.
Another on copper.
Another into a diluted solution of marsh-root.
No dramatic color change.
No smoke.
Which meant very little.
Mana-sensitive reactions were often quieter than chemistry.
I held my hand near the sample.
A faint prickling reached my fingers.
Marduk stood behind me.
"What do you feel?"
"Residual activity."
"Meaning?"
"Something is still changing."
"Good."
The marsh-root mixture turned slightly opaque.
I reached for another reagent.
Marduk caught my hand.
"No."
"Why?"
"Wrong one."
"Based on?"
"Experience."
"That's not replicable."
"Neither is death."
I looked at the bottle.
Bitterglass extract.
It should have bound certain classes of venom.
At least according to the notes I had compiled.
"You used this last month on the river-cat."
"Yes."
"Similar symptoms."
"Yes."
"Then—"
"Different venom."
"How do you know?"
Marduk sniffed the sample.
Of course.
I hated answers that simple.
"Odor?"
"Among other things."
"What other things?"
"You're asking instead of looking."
I turned back.
Chessmaster reorganized what I had seen.
Puncture width.
Distance between marks.
Location.
Swelling speed.
The runner's breathing.
Local species.
But several candidates remained.
No certainty.
Marduk watched me reach that conclusion.
I disliked his satisfaction.
"Three possibilities."
"Five."
"Name them."
"No."
"You're impossible."
"Fourteen years and you finally noticed."
I ignored him.
Bitterglass would help two likely venoms.
It would worsen one.
Unknown risk.
I needed another discriminator.
I examined the fluid under a polished crystal lens.
Tiny structures drifted through it.
Not cells.
Mana precipitates.
They clustered near the edge when exposed to heat.
I moved the lamp closer.
The clusters tightened.
Cold?
I placed the slide against a chilled iron plate.
They dispersed.
There.
I knew that pattern.
Not the animal.
The behavior.
"Heat-dependent binding."
Marduk's face changed slightly.
Now I had his attention.
"The venom isn't merely circulating," I said. "It's using the animal's own heat to attach to tissue."
Marduk leaned closer.
I continued.
"If we use Bitterglass, it might bind the free portion, but it won't remove what's already attached."
"What will?"
"Nothing directly."
He waited.
I reached for the pale marsh salt.
"Cool the limb first. Slow the binding. Treat the circulation second."
Marduk stared at me.
For once, a long time.
"Where did you learn that?"
"I didn't."
That was true.
Not exactly.
I knew principles.
Temperature.
Reaction rate.
Binding.
But not this organism.
Not this venom.
This solution belonged to both lives.
Which made it mine.
Marduk took the salt.
Smelled it.
Then handed it back.
"Try."
That single word mattered more than praise.
We worked for the next two hours.
Cold compresses first.
Then a diluted binder.
Then rest.
No miraculous recovery.
The swelling decreased slightly.
The runner's breathing slowed.
It still refused to use the leg.
But it drank.
Later, it ate.
Marduk stood by the doorway.
"You were right."
I looked up sharply.
"Could you repeat that? Slowly."
"No."
"I'd like it written."
"Never."
"Signed?"
"Die curious."
I smiled.
Then he ruined the moment.
"You were also lucky."
"Naturally."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
He pointed toward the animal.
"You assumed cooling the limb wouldn't damage its mana circulation."
"I monitored it."
"After."
I stopped.
He was right.
Again.
"If its channels responded differently, you could've saved the tissue and crippled the leg."
The satisfaction drained out of me.
Marduk saw it.
Good.
He should.
Success without understanding its edge is simply an accident preparing to repeat itself.
I made a note.
Temperature response unknown.
Channel sensitivity unknown.
Never repeat without test.
Marduk nodded toward the page.
"Better."
That evening he destroyed one of my preparations.
I found the empty clay vial beside the sink.
The residue smelled faintly of pine resin.
My experimental stimulant.
Three weeks of work.
Gone.
I turned toward him.
He was cutting onions.
Very badly.
"What did you do?"
"Cooked."
"Not the onions."
"Then be specific."
"My stimulant."
"Disposed of it."
"You had no right."
He kept cutting.
The slices were different sizes.
A crime in itself.
"I live here."
"That doesn't make my work yours."
"It does when your work makes your hands shake."
I stepped closer.
"You tested it."
"No."
"Then you don't know."
"I watched you."
"You watched me drink one controlled dose."
"I watched you sleep three hours in two days."
Silence.
"That was temporary."
"You forgot the north snare yesterday."
"I remembered."
"After I reset it."
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
He kept cutting.
The blade struck the board.
Slow.
Uneven.
I looked at his hand.
Perfectly steady.
"I had it under control."
Marduk stopped.
Then looked at me.
There are lies told to deceive others.
There are lies told because the alternative would require admitting something unpleasant about yourself.
That sentence belonged to the second category.
"You always say that," he said.
"Because I usually do."
"No. Because you like the sound."
That irritated me more than shouting would have.
"You threw away three weeks of work."
"I did."
"It improved recovery."
"It hid fatigue."
"Useful distinction when something is trying to kill you."
"Useful way to die during training."
I leaned against the table.
"You're afraid I'll damage myself."
"I'm afraid you're arrogant enough to call damage adaptation."
There it was.
Not affection.
Marduk rarely displayed affection without disguising it as an insult.
But the underlying choice was obvious.
He had destroyed something valuable to me because he judged the cost unacceptable.
Without permission.
I should have understood the irony.
Instead, I catalogued the lesson.
If you care about someone, control the dangerous variables before they can choose badly.
A terrible idea.
Extremely convincing at fourteen.
The next morning, Marduk took me to Raven's Peak.
The climb began before dawn.
No chains.
No thrown stones.
No theatrical cruelty.
Just rock.
Which was enough.
The lower wall sloped gradually, fractured by roots and old erosion.
Higher up, the surface became smooth and cold.
Marduk climbed ahead.
Slowly.
Efficiently.
I followed.
My fingers found narrow cracks.
Boot against stone.
Push with legs.
Don't pull with arms unless necessary.
Breathe.
Every six movements, check.
Feet.
Hands.
Route.
Reserve.
The adult part of my mind hated the body I had.
It remembered being heavier.
Stronger.
Older.
It remembered what certainty felt like when muscles obeyed without negotiation.
This body negotiated everything.
Grip.
Reach.
Recovery.
At twenty paces above the lower shelf, my forearms began tightening.
Marduk noticed.
"Down."
"I can reach the next ledge."
"Down."
"I can see it."
"Congratulations."
I climbed another step.
His staff struck the rock beside my hand.
Not me.
The sound stopped me.
"Down."
I looked up.
He wasn't angry.
Worse.
Certain.
So I descended.
On the ground, I paced while sensation returned to my fingers.
"I had another twenty paces."
"No."
"At least ten."
"No."
"You can't know that."
"I know when your grip starts compensating."
"My grip was fine."
He held out his hand.
"Knife."
I gave it to him.
"Take it back."
I reached.
My fingers closed around the handle.
He pulled.
The knife slipped from my grasp almost immediately.
I stared at my hand.
Marduk returned the blade.
"Your mind had ten paces."
He tapped my forearm.
"This had two."
He tapped my chest.
"And your mana channels had none."
I frowned.
"I wasn't using mana."
"You were."
That stopped me.
"When?"
"Every time you thought you were about to slip."
I replayed the climb.
Pressure behind the eyes.
The strange sense of weight.
Small corrections that had felt instinctive.
"You think I've been casting?"
"No."
"Then what?"
Marduk sat on a stone.
"Sit."
I did.
He placed the iron sphere between us.
The same one.
He rested two fingers on top.
"Lift it."
I picked it up.
"Again."
I set it down.
Lifted.
"Again."
We repeated this until annoyance replaced curiosity.
"Do you have a point?"
"How heavy?"
I considered.
"Perhaps four kilograms."
"Bad answer."
"You asked for weight."
"I asked how heavy."
I stared.
He waited.
I lifted it again.
Weight was not merely a number.
It was the strain in my fingers.
Pressure across the palm.
Effort in the forearm.
The acceleration required to move it.
The way my shoulder compensated.
I closed my eyes.
"Heavy enough that the wrist begins compensating after perhaps forty seconds."
"Better."
Marduk placed his hand over mine.
"Now."
The sphere changed.
Barely.
For half a second, perhaps less.
My fingers rose too quickly.
I opened my eyes.
"You reduced it."
"Maybe."
"Don't start."
He almost smiled.
I took the sphere.
"Again."
He did.
This time I watched him instead of the object.
Breath.
Shoulder.
Eyes.
Fingers.
Nothing.
Chessmaster searched for relations.
No shift of stance.
No visible strain.
No rune.
No word.
No motion to copy.
Again.
The sphere felt lighter.
Again.
Nothing.
Again.
I closed my eyes.
That changed everything.
The sensation wasn't in Marduk.
It wasn't even in the ball.
It was between them.
A faint distortion in the way my hand expected the weight to arrive.
A mismatch.
Tiny.
Gone immediately.
"Again."
Marduk didn't move.
"You're done."
"No."
"Your channels disagree."
"I felt it."
"Good."
"Again."
"No."
I reached toward the sphere.
He put his staff over it.
"Move the staff."
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
"I need repetition."
"You need breakfast."
"I can eat afterward."
"No."
"Old Man."
"Raymond."
"I finally isolated the sensation."
"And you'll still have it tomorrow."
"You don't know that."
His eyes hardened.
"Neither do you."
That was the problem.
I hated abandoning useful data midway through acquisition.
In another life, one lost opportunity could mean a body in an alley, an account emptied, a witness gone.
Control required acting before the window closed.
I grabbed the sphere anyway.
Marduk sighed.
Then let me.
Mistake.
Mine.
I tried to reproduce the sensation.
Not the outcome.
The relationship.
My reserve shifted.
I felt mana move from somewhere beneath my ribs into the channels along my shoulder.
Too quickly.
The iron sphere became—
Nothing.
Exactly as heavy as before.
But pain flashed behind my eyes.
My hand opened.
The sphere dropped.
Marduk caught it before it struck my foot.
Then he struck me.
Not hard.
Two fingers against my forehead.
I sat down abruptly.
"Idiot."
My vision pulsed.
"I was close."
"You pushed mana into your arm."
"Apparently."
"Gravity isn't in your arm."
"I had gathered that."
"After trying."
I breathed slowly.
The headache faded from sharp to dull.
Marduk crouched.
He pressed two fingers along my wrist, then elbow, then shoulder.
Diagnosis.
His face remained neutral.
"Any numbness?"
"No."
"Vision?"
"Annoying."
"Double?"
"No."
"Nausea?"
"Only conversationally."
He ignored that.
"You're finished for today."
"I can still train physically."
"No."
"Alchemy?"
"No."
"Reading?"
"Sleep."
"It's morning."
"Remarkable. Sleep works then too."
He made me walk back.
Slowly.
I hated every step.
Not because of the headache.
Because I had been wrong.
I had assumed that once Chessmaster isolated the variables, execution would follow.
It usually had.
People had tells.
Markets had pressures.
Organizations had weak links.
A structure could be mapped.
Options arranged.
Probabilities narrowed.
But Chessmaster did not create missing knowledge.
It could only organize what I possessed.
And my body possessed almost nothing about gravity.
That distinction would save my life later.
At fourteen, I found it offensive.
By afternoon, the headache had faded.
Marduk allowed me out of bed.
Under supervision.
I found him outside repairing a leather strap.
The marsh-runner stood nearby.
On all four legs.
Barely.
The injured one remained stiff, but it held weight.
I walked toward it.
The animal moved away.
Ungrateful creature.
"Your patient dislikes you," Marduk said.
"Recovery has destroyed its judgment."
I crouched at a distance.
The swelling was lower.
"How much treatment?"
"None since morning."
"Good."
Marduk glanced at me.
"Don't sound proud."
"I am proud."
"You almost damaged its channels."
"But I didn't."
"This time."
I looked at the runner.
The victory felt smaller now.
Better.
Smaller victories are easier to measure honestly.
Marduk returned to his strap.
I sat beside him.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then:
"Teach me properly."
"No."
I turned.
"Excuse me?"
"Today you learned properly."
"I dropped a ball."
"Yes."
"I learned that mana can hurt."
"Should've learned that years ago."
"Marduk."
He put the strap down.
"Magic isn't a recipe."
"Everything has rules."
"Rules aren't instructions."
"Then give me the instructions."
"No."
I laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
"Why?"
"Because you'll follow them too well."
That surprised me.
He continued.
"You copy quickly. You analyze quickly. You improve quickly."
"This is becoming uncomfortable. Are you ill?"
He ignored me.
"You also think improvement means adding more."
"Usually."
"More force. More repetitions. More information. More control."
He picked up the iron sphere.
"Gravity punishes that."
I watched his hand.
"What does it reward?"
He placed the ball in my palm.
"Listening."
I nearly complained about the mysticism.
Then stopped.
The forge.
The hammer.
I had copied what I saw.
Not what the body was doing.
The venom.
I'd nearly treated the name of the problem rather than its behavior.
The climb.
My mind had twenty paces.
My grip had two.
Different systems.
Different truths.
I closed my fingers around the iron.
Didn't push mana.
Didn't try to make it lighter.
Just held it.
Pressure on skin.
Pull through wrist.
Shoulder answering.
Feet adjusting under me.
Then, faintly—
That mismatch again.
Not active.
Potential.
The awareness vanished as soon as I focused too hard.
I opened my eyes.
Marduk was watching.
"I felt something."
"I know."
"How?"
"You stopped trying to look clever."
Cruel man.
I almost smiled.
Then Marduk coughed.
Once.
Dry.
He turned his head away and cleared his throat.
Nothing remarkable.
Not then.
I let it pass.
That would bother me later.
At sunset, he made stew.
I watched carefully.
He noticed.
"What?"
"Your history with food suggests vigilance."
"Cook your own."
"I did last night."
"It was terrible."
"You ate twice."
"To confirm."
"Scientific rigor."
He grunted.
I chopped roots while he stirred the pot.
My right hand still trembled faintly when I held the knife too long.
I switched hands.
Marduk saw that too.
He saw everything I wanted hidden.
Or perhaps I merely thought he did.
That was another mistake waiting patiently for its turn.
After dinner, I returned to the forge alone.
Not to train.
I wasn't suicidal.
Merely disobedient in more refined ways.
The iron sphere remained on the workbench.
I didn't touch it.
Instead, I took charcoal and began writing observations on a scrap of cured hide.
Weight perception increases under instability.
Mana movement precedes headache when forced through arm.
Sensation seems relational rather than local.
Visual observation insufficient.
Fatigue reduces accuracy.
Reserve finite.
Recovery mandatory.
I paused.
Then added:
Chessmaster cannot infer absent mechanism.
That sentence irritated me.
So I underlined it.
Marduk appeared in the doorway.
Of course.
He looked at the notes.
Then at me.
"No training?"
"Documentation."
"Disturbing maturity."
"Don't worry. It won't last."
He walked inside.
His gaze settled on the last line.
He read it twice.
"Keep that one."
"I was planning to."
"You forget it often."
"I forget nothing."
Marduk gave me a look.
Point taken.
He turned to leave.
"Old Man."
He stopped.
"Tomorrow?"
A pause.
Then:
"Tomorrow you learn how to fail without injuring yourself."
I leaned back against the bench.
"I was hoping for gravity."
"You are learning gravity."
"This is a remarkably inefficient curriculum."
"You're alive."
"Low standard."
"The only one that matters first."
He disappeared into the cabin.
I remained by the forge.
The iron sphere sat within reach.
For perhaps a minute, I considered touching it.
Testing once more.
Just once.
I didn't.
That was progress too.
Outside, waves broke against the lower rocks.
The cabin lantern glowed behind me.
My forearm ached.
My head still carried the dull residue of misuse.
And for the first time since coming into this world, I had encountered a problem I couldn't bully with intelligence.
Gravity didn't care how experienced I had once been.
Mana didn't care that my mind had already lived a lifetime.
This body was fourteen.
Its reserve ended where it ended.
Its channels tolerated what they tolerated.
Its muscles recovered at their own pace.
No argument changed those facts.
For years, I had believed limitations were usually failures of information.
Find the missing piece.
Move the right person.
Apply pressure at the right point.
The world would yield.
Marduk was beginning to teach me a less pleasant possibility.
Sometimes the information was complete.
Sometimes the plan was correct.
And sometimes you simply were not strong enough yet.
I hated that lesson.
Which was probably why I needed it.
Before going inside, I lifted the iron sphere normally.
No mana.
No experiment.
I held it until my forearm began to shake.
Then I put it down.
Tomorrow, Marduk would make me start again.
And eventually, I would make that weight change.
The interesting question was what it would cost me when I finally did.