“I… I’m not sure,” the doctor confessed. At last, a flicker of introspection.
“And therein lies the problem with alchemical thinking! I know this feeling in me can’t be transmuted into something positive any more than I can be transmuted into a stable woman. But who said we must treat emotion as matter, Doctor?”
“Archmage Ayermen, obviously,” Mellier almost laughed, “the father of modern alchemy.”
“Alright, but what if Ayermen was wrong?”
“Um—” The doctor just shook his head, the suggestion clearly not computing.
“What if we don’t treat emotion as matter?” Sciona continued. “What if we treat it as energy? Not as a poison, limited in its potential, but as a power source, infinite in its potential?”
“There’s no precedent for that. It’s not in the teachings.”
“No, but there’s ample precedent outside the teachings. Consider: This irrepressible energy you call mania. I’ve always had that. Now, maybe it is a defect. Maybe it isn’t good for my body or my tender female soul, but it can’t be transmuted into womanly subservience because it fundamentally lacks the necessary characteristics. Maybe there’s nothing an alchemist can do to remedy mania short of destroying a woman’s mind. But I’m not an alchemist; I’m an energy siphoner! And an energy siphoner can apply mania to greatness—which I have. Obviously.” She spread her arms to indicate her white robe. “It’s how I got where I am.”
“None of what you’re saying is consistent with Ayerman’s model.”
“No, it’s better than Ayerman’s model!” Finally, finally, Sciona’s prison was splitting open as she put the thought into words. She could breathe. “You see, in my model, the nature of the emotion isn’t important—just as the nature of the energy one siphons isn’t important. Only the power. If I just think of this problem like an energy siphoner, I don’t need to stop feeling this way. I just need to take control of the energy it’s created inside me. Then it won’t matter what’s in my heart.” She put a hand to her chest with passion where before there had only been only pain, fingers crunching the lacy front of her nightgown as she finally drew a deep breath. “What I’m experiencing—this evil feeling—doesn’t have to matter if I can just do tangible good with it. Maybe Heaven isn’t out of reach.”
“That is not how God measures goodness, Highmage.”
“Not the god of Tiran, no,” Sciona said, “but some god somewhere.”
“Highmage Freynan, if you speak heresy, I am legally obligated to treat you for mental instability.”
“On the contrary, Doctor: all this—everything that’s happening to my mind—has been in pursuit of Truth, the holiest of God’s ideals. This feeling is energy, and this hollow in me is just…” What had Thomil called it? “The valley,” Sciona whispered. “Vakul.”
“It’s what?”
“Waiting for the river.” Sciona smiled. “So, in the end, my dear cousin was onto something. The question isn’t: how do I stop feeling this way? That’s stupid. I can’t. The question is: what can I do with this feeling? That’s something I can work with—because I’m not bound like you are by your limitations of matter, or sex, or Ayerman’s Godforsaken model. I can do anything I want. Anything! If I just find the right action spell.”
“What does your affliction have to do with action spells?”
“God, you’re obtuse,” Sciona muttered under her breath.
“Excuse me?”
“I thought that, as another advanced magic user, you’d make a serviceable standin for my assistant, but God, it’s no wonder the baker’s son jumped to his death. You must be the dullest conversation partner I’ve ever met!”
Except that wasn’t true. Doctor Mellier was a very typical conversation partner for a mage of his standing, no different from the prescriptivist snobs who had attended the university with Sciona. There was a reason that, before Thomil, she had rarely ever bounced her ideas off anyone. Having spent a few months in the High Magistry, she had let herself forget that, outside the ranks of Tiran’s top innovators, a man could get to a very high level of magic without ever having an original thought.
“Highmage Freynan, I have never been spoken to this way in my life!” Doctor Mellier had started to rise, but Sciona held up a finger, and he faltered.
“Think about your career, Doctor. And don’t be upset. You’ve done good work here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this talk has been helpful. It’s made me realize something.” Generic magical platitudes weren’t going to be any help where Sciona was going. If she was going to move forward, she needed an incisive tongue to prick her on, to cut ruthlessly into her ideas until she knew all their weaknesses. She needed Thomil.
A little shudder ran through her.
“What’s the matter, Highmage Freynan?” Mellier asked, clearly worried that any shift in her demeanor meant she was about to drop backwards to her death. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”
“You have a vial in there for transmuting a man’s hatred to some other sentiment?”
“That’s not how these treatments work.”
“See what I mean?” Sciona scrunched her nose. “Alchemy? Not the best model for treating emotional woes, is it?” She dragged a hand over her tired eyes and let out a low groan. “I guess I have to figure this one out on my own, too.”
“Figure what out?”
“You’re free to go, Doctor,” she said instead of wasting any more breath explaining herself. “And don’t worry. I won’t try to hurt myself again.” Not physically, anyway. Her next conversation with Thomil would surely not be painless.
“How can I be sure of that?”
“Because I have work to do.”
Thomil said that a woman was weighed at the gates of Heaven by her actions and their impact. Well, Sciona was going to leave an impact. Whatever happened next, whether it led to Hell or Heaven, she was going to have a hand in directing it. Sick or sound, good or evil, she was still Sciona Freynan. And Sciona Freynan didn’t slow down.
Sciona Freynan would be remembered.
“The immigrant Kwen’s greatest vice—graver in my estimation than his predisposition to sloth, slow-wittedness, and addiction—is his slavish attachment to the primitive culture of his origin. In this treatise, I will enumerate my criticisms of contemporary Kwen integration policies; namely their focus on housing and employing Kwen without instilling in them the moral virtues that give rise to an industrious life.
The only Kwen who can hope to responsibly handle gainful employment or civilized living quarters is the one who has first committed himself to good Tiranish ideals. By contrast, the Kwen who holds to the ways of the wild is a wretched creature, a curse unto himself more than anyone else. I have in my heart tremendous pity for the lonely and prospectless Kwen who cannot assimilate, and I believe we do him no favors by allowing him to persist in his backward ways.”