The Fourth Gate: Chapter Nine

I had never been within the second layer of the soul, called the soulself, yet. Mental mages could open it early, and I suspected that it would be theoretically possible with death, but that my mentors hadn’t pushed for me to take those spells due to them being too much of a trade-off. Knowing Orykson, he probably even considered my early access to soul mana to be something of a waste, even if I didn’t think it was. 

As I faded through the floor of my mana-garden, though, I got a good look at my soulself, and what I found was both similar and different to the Flock’s. The Flock had rings of script in an impossible language in the cavern ceiling, and a branching cave system that went outward, tracing beneath the mana-garden. It had a version of itself suspended in a liquid that was not water, but looked like water, and threads of purple that siphoned the water up above into the spells. 

My own soulself did somewhat bear a resemblance to a cavern, but it was far more well-lit, and less dank. It was almost more like a pueblo, or another bit of stone architecture. There wasn’t a clear origin for the source of light, nor for the faint wind that gushed through the four passages that split off from the central chamber where I was now standing. 

Within the center of my soulself, there was a version of myself, one that looked remarkably like how I looked now. There were a couple of minor differences, but I suspected that my full gate spell’s linking of spirit and body was the reason I looked so much like the version of my soulself. The Flock’s had been a more perfect version of itself, but mine clearly had flaws, and was far too short. I wondered if that was a good thing or not. Was I flawed on a fundamental level? Or was I just more aware of my flaws, rather than believing I was perfect. I didn’t know.

The version of myself wasn’t suspended in a liquid like water, but instead enshrouded by a mist. The mist was white, but had a slightly pearlescent sheen that almost seemed to dip into greens and purples at times. I ran a hand through it, but nothing happened, then I glanced up at the ceiling. There was none of the script that the Flock’s ceiling had etched in, since I wasn’t an Arcanist, and hadn’t formed my Origin of Power, Clarity of Purpose, or Intrinsic Limitation yet. There were, however, four roots, each of them as black as ink, twining through the ceiling of the cavern. The glossy, pearl-like mist flowed into those, where they’d go up into my spells. 

But there was something else on my soulself’s ceiling, and one that I knew wasn’t good. I had a decent sense of my own soul thanks to my Concentrate Spellpower’s ingrained effects, and I’d known there was something wrong with the placement of the Beastgate in the center of my ungated mana. Now I could see it, at least in part. There were cracks and stalactites dripping from them, in the spots where the arch was, and space seemed unnaturally warped there, as if I was trying to compress an entire additional system of passages within those thin cracks. 

“Well, that isn’t good,” a voice said, and I whirled around to see a man who somewhat resembled a spider, playing with threads of fabric that spun between his hands. It almost reminded me of someone playing with string to make a cat’s cradle. 

“You can speak?” I asked. “That’s… weird. Does that mean you’re really here? Like a clone of you, so to speak?” 

“No, I can’t actually speak, not for real. I’m just a copy of bundled instincts, subconsciousness, and Will. You’re the one who gave a voice to that bundle, and are shaping the words in accordance with the copy’s general impressions. I don’t have any actual information for you, nor any real thoughts of my own.” 

“Huh,” I said, not really sure what to make of that. Was it normal for me to personify something like this? I supposed that I did give a lot of personification to ghosts, more than they probably actually had. 

“Should we get to it, then?” the Autumn Weaver asked, tossing me the bundle of threads. It seemed to transform mid-flight into a ball, and I caught it from the air, studying it. A moment later, another one hit me in the face, and then a third. It was soft, like yarn, and hadn’t been thrown especially hard, but I scooped them up and gave an odd look to the weaver. 

“What am I supposed to do with these?” I asked. 

“Juggle them,” the man said, making a gesture like he was juggling. I didn’t know how to juggle, but I did my best, and as I did, I felt something start to flow into me – presumably the will and instincts mentioned. The Autumn Weaver tutted and produced more balls of fabric, then began to show me how to juggle, starting from the beginning. 

“It’s all in the wrists,” he said. “Well, okay, no, not all in the wrists. But they have a lot of the motion’s fine control. Here, copy me.” 

He began to juggle, very slowly, and I started trying to mimic him. At first, I was terrible, absolutely awful, but I found after a while that I was somewhat over-complicating it. Rather than trying to keep my eyes on all three of the balls, I only needed to focus on my hands. I couldn’t control the ball in the air, it was already in motion. But I could control the balls in my hands, and where I moved them to catch the falling ball. Of course, realizing I needed to let go and actually doing it were two entirely different tasks, but I got there eventually. 

“Good, good, you learned it well. You must have some experience with keeping multiple points in your mind at once,” the Autumn Weaver said, nodding. With a jolt, I realized that the Pinpoint Boneshard training I’d done with Orykson had lent itself surprisingly well to juggling. Learning to keep patterns and mentally set points like he’d shown had translated, at least in part, to the points that were my hands. The motion of the bone shards as they moved to the next point were like the ball in the air – already in motion and immutable, but controlled by the throw that had launched them. 

“Something like that,” I agreed. “Now what? More balls?” 

“No, no, nothing of the sort. Now we walk.” 

He began to walk forward, maintaining his effortless juggle while he did, and I tried to follow… only for the ball to hit my chest and fall to the ground. 

“Ah, shame,” the Autumn Weaver said, walking closer while still juggling. “Try again, there’s nothing wrong with failing on the first try. Or the first thousand, for that matter.” 

I did try again, and failed, and tried. Slowly but surely, I was able to take a step before dropping, then two. Before I knew it, I could take stuttering steps during the time the ball was in the air, and then I was able to smooth it out, until eventually I was walking just like the Autumn Weaver was. 

I was sure that there was something strange going on with time, as well as with my soulself, as the lessons moved on. It felt like weeks had passed, but also like no time at all had gone by, and my soulself seemed to be applying the lessons too broadly. I didn’t doubt that juggling had been part of the Autumn Weaver’s training, maybe even the first or the most common thing, but it was diffusing into other things far too effectively. Both had to be byproducts of the headstone’s nature.

Once I had mastered walking while juggling, the Autumn Weaver waved a hand, and paper fluttered into my vision, containing text. The balls fell to the floor, and the man grinned. 

“Now your task is simple: you just need to read while walking and juggling.” 

Despite his promise of simplicity, the task was anything but, but in time, I mastered it. From there the Autumn Weaver added in a breathing technique. After that came a mana training technique, getting my five types of mana to dance, despite the dance being out of sync with the breath pattern, my walk cycle, my juggling, or even my reading speed – and somehow, every time I accidentally synced the mana dance to something else. 

“Great! Now it’s time for one more!” the Autumn Weaver said one day, though I wasn’t sure any time had passed, or that it hadn’t been months, or longer still. I thought, at first, that he meant that it was time to add another ball to the juggling. And he did, but he also meant that I needed to jog, read from two pages by flicking back and forth every word, add another pattern to follow after the first breath pattern, and add more steps to the mana dance. The worst part was that he quizzed me on the texts he was showing me – I couldn’t simply flick my eyes back and forth, I had to actually focus on the thrice-cursed words!

It felt impossible, but it was less impossible than it had once been. It did absolutely strain my mind, and I was all but sure that as soon as I emerged from the headstone, I’d have an absolutely throbbing headache. I’d barely mastered four balls and had moved on to five when I felt time beginning to draw to a close, and I pushed for more. It was hard to manage without risking additional spiritual damage to myself, but I needed to master five. I didn’t care if I didn’t make it to six, but there was no point in half-training with five. 

I dragged myself through, until at last, I managed to juggle five balls while rapidly dancing, reading three pages of text in rapid succession, answering questions about the text, using a complex breathing pattern, and making my mana dance in a unique way. I was certain I could only do it due to not being limited by a physical body at the moment, and as I faded away, I just hoped I’d pulled enough training out of him. 

I expected to emerge from the artifact, but to my surprise, I was instead suspended in a whirl of soul mana. It was similar to my own, but different as well. Still soul mana, but not my soul mana. Purer, certainly, and stronger. More of it. And also more… something. I wasn’t sure exactly what to call it. Directed, perhaps? It flowed into my spirit, into my own third layer where my soul mana was, and converted into my own. I wasn’t sure what benefits it was offering – there was no spike in mana density or recovery, nor anything else I could feel. But it was certainly improving something, albeit inefficiently, as it had to convert into mine. 

I felt myself grinning as I split a thread off from the stream entering my soul mana, and directed it toward my beast core. Finding it was hard, but there were sections where Dawn’s power had created channels for me, and I began to press some of the headstone’s soul mana into my beastcore. I felt my own reserves expanding gradually, while the mana itself became richer and more viscous. 

Then the headstone cut off the flow, and I returned to my own body.