Chapter 34.2: Contributions

Standing on the veranda directly across the hall from Jinkke’s lab, Minkus the Large stared at the ceiling, following the lines of mortar that held the city itself together.

Exhaling deeply, he loosened his too-firm grip on the pebble in his right hand. He could feel the indent it left on his palm.

Tension was not something Minkus was accustomed to. Sorrow? Yes, he understood that. He even had a fair history with disappointment—especially lately. But tension? That was almost foreign. Sure, he had grown a little frustrated from time to time, particularly as a student, but even that had been uncommon. Many asura lived in a constant state of tension, but Minkus just wasn’t made that way. In the years since his departure from the Tarnished Coast, his training in guardian magic had only reinforced that natural tranquility with which he approached life. Royston had taught him to treat his abilities as gifts to be discovered, not power to grab or goals to achieve, and that lesson had felt right to Minkus, natural and right: true of not just magic but almost everything. So what was wrong now? He felt twisted, tight, unproductive, and he didn’t like it.

Minkus glanced back at the steel laboratory door, shut tight against the occasional passerby. Behind it, Jinkke, Wepp, and Professor Vaff were hard at work constructing a defense against the spectral-agony magic he hoped they wouldn’t encounter. Even Penny was contributing to their effort, educating the asura on alternative methods of energy generation. Minkus loved that. He really did. Even now, he could feel his heart jump a little at thinking about it: he’d told her she had something to give, and, despite her skepticism, he’d been right.

Penny, though, was only in this because of him. He understood that she had her own reason for joining him on this mission to Brisban, but in the end, he also knew it was his insistence on his own path that had drawn her into it. The same was true of Jinkke. Maybe even Wepp. As odd as it was, Minkus had to acknowledge that, at some level, he was responsible for getting them all into the coming danger. That was precisely why it suddenly stung so badly to see that he was once again the only one with nothing to contribute, either in the lab or out here, where he’d hoped things would be different.

It had been probably two hours since he’d slipped quietly out of the lab, letting the others carry on with their spirited debates while he sought some way to be helpful. He’d opened with a simple meditation, in which he’d recalled an experience from several days before that he’d nearly forgotten in all that had happened in the days since Ventyr’s traveling party had left the Shiverpeaks. It had been there, when fighting the ice wurm, that he’d cast a shimmering layer of light onto the others to protect them from physical harm. He hadn’t known what it was then—really, he still didn’t—but he did know that he’d made it, and it was something similar to the flow of magic that was always healing him. That day he’d unconsciously produced the barrier, taken it off himself, and transferred it to his friends, just the same as if he’d shared his rejuvenation with them. He’d miraculously survived strikes that should have killed him several times before that, but he’d never really thought about why or what he might be able to do with it, not until that day. That event not only gave him a reason to consider it, but it implied that, whatever the power was, Minkus had some ability to control when and where it manifested. The problem was, he wasn’t familiar enough with any of it to intentionally produce it, even for himself.

It was that realization that had led Minkus to this new exercise—if what he was doing was really a legitimate exercise at all. In truth, it wasn’t getting him anywhere, and that was what frustrated him. He just didn’t know what else to do.

Still standing there with the pebble in hand and what felt like a hundred more on his shoulders, Minkus could barely open himself enough to receive the greater magics at all, but he had to try. After all, if he didn’t try, he would absolutely never get it.

He raised his chin and exhaled, opening himself as best he could and loosening his grip on the little rock. Reaching for the flare of courage he remembered feeling that day in the Shiverpeaks, Minkus brushed his worries as far aside as they would go, closed his eyes, and threw the cracked bit of stone in the air over his head.

Thwap. The pebble hit him square in the forehead and clattered off across the paving stones.

Minkus rubbed his forehead and let his chin fall to his chest.

Just behind him, footsteps approached and a voice spoke up. “I’ve seen you do some weird stuff, but I think this takes the cake.”

Opening an eye, Minkus half-turned. Penny stood in the hall between the lab and the veranda, one eyebrow raised nearly to her hairline.

“So, ah, what the hell are you doing?” she asked with a hand to her hip.

Without thinking, he found himself trying to muster a meager smile. “Training,” he murmured. “Or at least I’m trying to. It’s not working.”

Coming closer, she eyed him curiously and bent down to pick up the little rock that had bounced a few feet away. She rose with it in hand, examining it skeptically before extending it back toward him. “If this is all it takes to get magic powers, I’m going to be real pissed I never got mine.”

Minkus tried to hold that fragile grin but failed. It faded into a sad grimace as he took the pebble from her hand. He shrugged, deflating. “No, Penny, there is no magic here. I wish there was.”

The woman stiffened, still inspecting him as she rose to her full height. Her hair was pulled back in that tiny ponytail that said she’d been working, and the grease smears up her top echoed the same. Cinched beneath her arm, she held a small crate with bits of machinery poking out from its open top, and it was that realization that shifted Minkus’ attention off his predicament. He’d been so focused on his own efforts, he'd almost missed his friend’s.

With a start, he pointed to the box. “What's— where— did they send you to do something?”

“They?” Penny asked. ”Who? The genius club?”

Minkus nodded, the grin returning more fully. He liked when she came up with silly euphemisms.

“No,” Penny huffed. “Those three didn't send me for anything. I needed some air. Figured I’d come out and charge these things.” She rummaged in the crate and pulled out a small, steel device: one of her killswitches.

“I also wanted to see where you were.” She smirked wanly. “Thought you might be having more fun out here.”

“Am I?” He, of course, already knew the answer.

“Gods, no.” Penny grimaced and stepped closer, leaning down to make a show of inspecting him. “Look at you. I'd buy you a shot if I had any clue where to find a pub on this floating rock.”

Minkus let his eyes drift from hers. She was right, of course. This—really, all of it—was anything but fun.

“So?” she pressed. “I ask again: what the hell are you doing?”

“I really am training,” he replied, feeling the draw to reach for his ear. “But it’s not working.”

It was difficult keeping eye contact with her at the moment, for more reasons than he cared to admit. Still, he continued before Penny could respond. He wanted her to understand. “Do you remember fighting the ice wurm in the Shiverpeaks?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” She nodded, her eyes wandering away before meeting his gaze again. “Among other things on that trip I wish I could forget. Why?”

Minkus was suddenly aware of the pebble’s weight in his hand. “Do you remember how it vomited that boulder at you and the others and—”

“And nearly killed us?” she finished. “Yeah, that would be the part I remember. Why? What does that have to do with…”

She stopped, and he could see the light of recognition coming over her. She shook her head. “Oh, your magic-armor thing. That's what you're trying to do here, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he admitted, his eyes drifting to his feet. He gripped the pebble tighter. “My magic-armor thing. I— well, I can’t do it. Not at will. Not even for myself. I feel like I should be able to, but— well, it just doesn’t work the way I think it should.”

Penny frowned, though not unwarmly. “So what?” she asked. “It'd be a handy trick, sure, but no one expects—”

“I do,” Minkus said, interrupting her. It came out sharper than he’d anticipated.

He sighed, tempering his rising frustration. It felt so strange.

“Penny, I— I expect myself to be able. I'm asking everyone—” he stuttered. “I have asked everyone to help me, to put themselves at risk to help me— help me help someone else. And they're doing it, Penny. You’re all doing it.” Minkus gestured toward the laboratory door across the hall. “The four of you are building a machine to keep back that spectral mind-magic, and I— I can't help with that. I have nothing to offer in the lab. Nothing. I— I never have.

“Penny, I— well, this is the only way I know to help right now, to contribute. All I want to do is help.” Now he did reach for his ear, finding a bit of that comfort that came with rolling the tip between his fingers. It made the words come more easily.

“I can't do it, though, Penny. It won't work, not at will. I mean— it's not all my will to do any of the things I can. I still have to open myself to the deep magics for this, the same way I do with healing. I— I’m not really the source of any of it, but I still do have some small degree of—”

Penny raised a hand to stop him, and he could feel himself looking at her with wide eyes now. “Yeah, I get it,” she said. “Magic is complicated. But who cares? Magic or not, you can damn well help in the lab. You helped me in Divinity’s Reach, didn’t you?”

Minkus sighed. “No, I can’t help in the lab. It’s— it’s different here. I’m different. I’m not— cut out for it.” 

Penny’s gaze drifted to the box of equipment beneath her arm and settled there.

With a grunt, she lowered it to the ground and moved forward to lean against the half wall that separated them from the blue sky beyond the veranda. She crossed her arms and blatantly assessed him, her eyes wandering up and down him as though in search of something. It was uncomfortable, he realized: her ferreting something out of him without so much as a word to include him in the process.

But the he saw it. She made a decision.

“Biggie?”

Penny pressed her face into her hands as soon as the name left her lips. “Minkus,” she corrected, shaking her head. “I mean Minkus.”

He blinked. Had Penny just corrected herself? About his name? He’d seen her in a dozen different moods, but embarrassment—that was what this looked like—was not a common one. Minkus was no longer thinking about failing at his exercises.

The woman found her thoughts again, pinching her forehead as she seemed to force them out. “Gods. It’s true, isn’t it?” Minkus raised a finger, about to ask what she was talking about, but she went on before he could. “What your sister told me back at the bookworm castle is true, isn’t it? You’re, ah— you’re not quite as quick as other asura, are you?”