“Right, ma’am,” Thomil said, ever gentle. “For you, it just does. This is the difference in our morality. The Caldonnae and most peoples beyond the barrier weigh a person by their actions and the effect they have on the world. It’s not enough to have meant to do good in the world; if you don’t do good, most gods—those of rivers, the hunt, and the fields—don’t care for your motivations. Why should they?”
“They should care because a man who means to do good can improve,” Sciona said, finally nailing down her underlying problem with Thomil’s logic. “He can do better next time.”
“We call that vakul, and there are certain gods who care for it. Just not most of them.”
“What is it you call vakul?”
“The thing that isn’t good and isn’t evil. The…” Thomil gestured vaguely as he searched for the words. “The absence of goodness that still holds the potential for goodness. You don’t have a word for it in Tiranish… well, no. Actually, you do have the word in the literal sense. Riverbed… or… maybe ravine.”
“Ravine?”
“Yes. Vakul is also a common Kwen word for a valley or depression where a river might flow. There is no river there now, but there might have been once, and there might be one day again. All living creatures have in them some good, some bad, and a lot of vakul. But vakul can’t be all you are if you expect the love of your gods and fellow mortals. A ravine won’t water crops or quench the dying. At some point, there has to be a river, or what good can you really claim? If the man of good intentions never manifests a river, only calamity, should he not go to hell?”
“It doesn’t seem fair.”
“But it’s only fair to the world he leaves behind.” Thomil’s voice had risen slightly. “This is the balance of the universe. It is only right for the world to bring back upon him what he brought upon the world. This is why I can’t worship your god or agree with the way he measures virtue. He allows this gray space for delusion. You take a void and name it ‘goodness,’ and it is so? If you can lie to yourself that you’re a good person, despite all evidence, then suddenly it is so? Then, within this system, anyone with enough self-delusion can admit himself to Heaven. This is nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense,” Sciona protested, “and it’s not about lying. It’s about intentions.”
“I think it’s about convenience—like most mages’ endeavors. It’s much easier to tell yourself you’re a good person than it is to actually be one.”
Sciona slammed a palm down on the desk. “That’s out of line!”
The way Thomil twitched back drove an unbalancing stab of emotion through Sciona. There was that slight rush. Power. Realizing she could knock the fight out of someone physically bigger than herself. It was the intoxicating hum of the spellograph whirring into motion at her command—but tainted with something else. Because Thomil wasn’t a spellograph. He wasn’t a beam of pure harvestable energy. And when he broke eye contact, as always, Sciona felt a little something in her break with it.
“You’re right, Highmage Freynan,” he said to his feet, subdued and devoid of emotion. “I apologize.”
In an instant, he had shrunk back into the thing he had been three months prior, the cleaning man who held his tongue and his smiles. The distance stretched to a frozen wasteland between them, and Sciona belatedly recognized the cracking feeling in her chest as guilt. In the silence, it was too strong.
“It’s been a long week,” she said and found her voice as empty as his. “Clean up the lab. Then you can go home early.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sciona turned from Thomil and leaned into the heels of her hands, wanting to retreat back into the simplicity of her magical puzzles. But her mind wouldn’t start again. It stayed woefully, unprecedentedly quiet. And all that was left was the shuffle and clink as Thomil cleared the fruitless mess from the tables at her back. Like the servant he had been—and still was, no matter how the two of them dressed up and pretended a different relationship.
Thomil didn’t have the status or protections of a regular assistant. Sciona could have him fired with a word, and he would go back to scrubbing floors. Or worse. The uncomfortable reality was that, if she wanted, she could do much, much worse. Have him imprisoned, possibly even killed, with one lie about his conduct. The mage spoke a thing and it was so…
Neither of them acknowledged the power difference while they worked, but it was always there. And Sciona had used it to win the argument… which wasn’t really winning at all, was it?
Truth over delusion. That was the first rule of magical study, of the university, of Sciona’s entire value system. If she couldn’t live by it here in her own laboratory, how could she claim the greatness of Tiranish ideals? How could she call herself a mage? She took a slow breath.
Truth over delusion, growth over comfort.
She turned to face her perfect, infuriating assistant.
Thomil had stacked the ash-filled bowls in the laboratory sink and activated the tap conduit. As he started scrubbing, Sciona threw her white robe over the back of a chair, turned the ink-stained sleeves of her blouse back to her elbows, and joined him. He froze as her hands went into the water beside his, then wordlessly resumed his task.
Beneath the water, Sciona’s fingers brushed his briefly before finding a bowl and sponge. Shifting over to give him space, she started cleaning, focusing on the soapy, circular movement of the sponge as she searched for the words.
“Thomil…”
“Highmage?”
“Don’t stop doing that, please.”
“Doing what?”
“Contradicting me.”
Thomil’s sponge slowed inside the testing bowl he was holding.
“Look, Thomil, I… A highmage can’t improve without someone trying to poke holes in his claims.” To quote Faene the First: “A true scholar thrives on contradiction and—What?” She said when Thomil let out a derisive huff.
“That’s not been my experience of mages, ma’am—or Tiranish in general,” he said to the white swirl of soap in the testing bowl. “I think that contradicting them is a good way to get fired.”
“Maybe that’s true of some people, but not me, alright?”
Thomil resumed scrubbing, looking unconvinced.
“I can’t work with you if we’re not honest with each other.”
“So, I’m fired if I stop contradicting you?”
“No—Stop twisting my words around to sound meaner than they are!”
“I’m not trying to twist your words, ma’am. I’m trying to make sure you mean them.”
“Then we’re on the same page. You want me to be honest. I want the same thing from you, but you can do that without disrespecting me, my discipline, and my culture.”
Thomil was shaking his head. “I can be civil, ma’am, or I can be honest. You can’t have both in their entirety.”
“Why not?”
“Because Kwen truth isn’t civilized, ma’am.” Something heated in his manner, a crackle of lightning in those storm cloud eyes. “It’s bloody, and Blighted, and ugly. If you’re going to let me stay, I can be always respectful or always honest.”