Chapter 495: Trying Hard

Bruce did not sleep well.

That was unusual. He had, since arriving in the Soul Realm, slept the deep clean sleep of a soul-body doing honest work. Last night he had lain awake for a long time before sleep came, and when it came it had been thin, the kind of sleep that a physical-realm surgeon knew as the sleep of a mind that had been given something too large to finish processing before rest.

He had been thinking, all night, about being case seven.

He had been thinking, more specifically, about Sophie.

The Library had not just given him the historical pattern of the six previous cases. It had, in some quiet way he had not fully absorbed until he was lying in the dark, put a specific number in front of him. Zero of six had reached SS. Zero of six had returned to their bodies in the physical realm. Every previous case had either died in this realm or lived by choosing not to leave it.

He was climbing toward SSS. He was also more inclined toward going home.

And the mathematics of case seven said that no one before him had ever climbed high enough to do it.

He had lain in the dark last night and thought about Sophie sitting beside his still body in the labyrinth, and he had done something he had not consciously done since the descent began.

He had reached for the thread. The link between his body and his soul.

He was full of resolve, planning not the nightly wordless thought he sent along it. Not the small quiet ritual of ’I am all right, I miss you,’

That was a signal sent along the thread. What he had done last night was different. He had turned his attention to the thread itself and pushed, put his intent into it, tried to move his consciousness along it, tried to travel back toward the body that his soul was tethered to.

Nothing had happened.

The thread had not resisted him. It had simply not carried him. He had pushed for what might have been a full minute, felt the thread’s presence more clearly than he ever had before, a thin warm line stretching away from him, real, connecting him to something that was still his, and then had eventually stopped pushing, because pushing was doing nothing.

He had lain in the dark afterward and remembered.

The Akashic Codex of the physical realm had told him, before the descent. He had almost forgotten it, the memory had been buried under seven days of harvesters and mist and hunts and politics, but it came back to him last night with sudden clarity. The Codex had said the connection between his soul and his body would never truly disappear. It had said that, at some point, after his soul had advanced enough, he would be able to follow the connection back.

He had not been able to last night. His soul was not yet strong enough.

But the Akashic had said at some point. Not never. The connection was still there. He had felt it more clearly than ever, precisely because his rank had grown enough that his perception could resolve it. That was progress. It just was not enough progress yet.

He had eventually fallen asleep. He had woken this morning tired, with the specific tiredness of a soul-body that had spent hours thinking rather than resting, and with the memory of last night’s attempt sitting in him as a small new fact.

He would try again. Not every night, that would be foolish, spending soul-energy on futile attempts. But regularly. He had a new thing to do in the quiet before sleep, and the doing of it was, he understood, lying still, its own kind of medicine.

He was climbing not just toward SSS. He was climbing toward a doorway that would open when he was strong enough to walk through it.

That reframed the climb entirely.

He got up.

Kael was already awake. Bruce was starting to think Kael simply did not sleep the way souls were supposed to, the guy woke earlier than seemed reasonable and used the pre-dawn quiet for the small precise work of his talent’s practice.

Today Kael was doing something new. He had a small flame in one hand and, floating above the flame, a small ball of what looked like nothing, a small clear sphere of ordinary air. But the ball was shimmering faintly, as if the air inside it were being held in some particular configuration. Kael was doing something to the temperature of the air itself, without visible flame.

Bruce watched him for a moment.

"That’s a new one," he said.

Kael did not look up. "Air-heat. No flame. Just the temperature moved."

"Since when can you do that?"

"Since I woke up. It seemed like the next thing to try after the layered flames. If fire is just temperature at extreme values, then temperature without fire should be possible. It works. The cost is higher than fire, heat without a medium is expensive, but it works."

"You can move heat without fire."

"I can move heat without fire. Small quantities. For a few seconds. The cost is higher than fire. Heat without a medium is expensive, but it works."

"You can move heat without fire."

"I can move heat without fire. Small quantities. For a few seconds. It’s a start."

"That is a real advancement of your talent."

"It is." Kael dispelled the sphere. The flame in his other hand went out cleanly. "I have been thinking about the ceiling."

"The ceiling."

"My ceiling. What fire can become at higher ranks. If I can already do temperature without fire at late E, then at D I should be able to do it with more control and less cost. At C, I should be able to impose temperatures on wide areas. At B, I might be able to shift the ambient thermal state of a whole environment. And at S, I think fire stops being fire and becomes something more like the concept of thermodynamics. The whole underlying principle. That is what my talent points toward."

Bruce nodded slowly.

"You have been thinking about this for a while."

"Since we sat with the old soul the second night. When they described stopping at S because S was enough. I have been thinking about what my own S might look like, and what would be enough."

"And?"

"I do not know yet. I do not know if fire-as-thermodynamics is enough, or if I would keep climbing. But I have started to see the shape of it. That matters more than the answer."

"It does."

They were quiet for a moment.

"Bruce," Kael said.

"Yes."

"You did not sleep well."

"No."

"The Library reading?."

"Yes."

"Well you’re pushing yourself to hard on this... But I guess it deserves the effort..."

Kael did not push. He simply nodded and went back to his work, a fresh small flame, a fresh small sphere of moved air. Bruce washed and dressed.

Theron woke a little later than usual. Bruce noticed the slight redness in his eyes when he sat up, Theron had not slept well either, though for probably different reasons than Bruce. The tax-clerk mind, once given a large piece of information about power and mortality, would spend the night rearranging its models of the world.

They did not talk about it. They washed. They dressed. They went for breakfast.