Chapter 39: Of Magic & Knapsacks

The group worked nearly through the night, pushing to shore up as many potential points of failure as possible while still using the lyssal isolate. They made sure every tube and manifold was capable of bearing a wide variety of flow pressures, even beyond their designed expectations, just in case the logic systems faltered. They broadened the objective matrix’s input tolerances, then applied opposite tolerances to the output parameters so the field would always fall within acceptable levels of permeability. They rearranged components to fit into the pack’s frame, tested weight distribution, and bolted everything in place, putting it on Minkus’ back. The thing was still ugly, clumsy even, but if it worked, no one cared how stupid it looked.

And work it did, eventually. Due to a viscosity difference between lyssal isolate and Seer essence, their first test with the real substance utterly failed, nearly clogging the input manifold with the amount of pressure the new fluid was under. After a slight recalibration though, the second test ran smoothly. The essence flowed in at a slightly higher rate than estimated, but it also generated its field more rapidly than the lyssal isolate had. The field frequency coincided precisely with what Zinn’s tome had recorded. For all intents and purposes, they’d recreated the lost work of a mad genius with little more than reconstituted golem scraps.

Only as the first glimmers of coming sunlight drew across the horizon did they bring their work to a close. They filled the loading canister with every last drop of Seer essence and released a collective sigh, followed quickly by a series of yawns. Minkus suggested they all get whatever rest they could, and knowing it wouldn’t be much,  no one argued; a few hours’ rest before an impossible task seemed reasonable.

Wepp was the first to nod off in a shadowed back corner of the shallow cavern, and Jinkke wasn’t far behind. The duet of his wheezing breath and her occasional lip-smacks put a smile on Minkus’ face as he lay himself down. He didn’t really know how the two of them had drifted off so quickly, but the three engineers had worked themselves beyond exhaustion, and a dangerous encounter likely loomed just ahead of them all, so he was thankful they would find some amount of rest.

He rolled himself over and watched his little sister sleep, something he hadn’t done in years. As a progeny, he’d watched over her more times than he could count, glancing over and around her, wary for monsters that might creep out of the darkness—before he’d learned those monsters weren’t real, of course. In truth, the only real monsters they’d ever fought had been Minkus’ inabilities, and Jinkke had been the one to help him, not the other way around. Mostly, anyway. He knew now that some of her help hadn’t been help at all, and he was still dealing with that knowledge, but he also knew that his sister loved him. He believed her in that.

After all, Jinkke had the least stake in what the four of them were now attempting; whether or not she would admit that, Minkus knew it. She’d done the most critical elements of the team’s work to get that field projector working, but not for herself. Not at all. Wepp was with them to get justice for Skixx, or so he said. Penny wanted revenge or vindication or something—troubled though he was, Minkus wasn’t clear on her motives. But Jinkke? She had no personal connection to any of this beyond Minkus himself. She was there because he’d asked her for help, no other reason. He was grateful—more than grateful—but he also recognized that however adept she’d been at their work so far, she would be out of her depth the moment this all turned to blows. He tried to avoid the idea that it would, hoping they could find resolution without a fight, but even he could see that wasn’t likely, and he had to be prepared; Minkus had to keep his sister safe. She had protected him with her strengths, and he would do the same. Only…

He pinched his eyes shut.

As much as Minkus had practiced, as much as he’d strained, focused, and tried over the last several days, he still couldn’t do what he knew he needed to. Well, he’d done it a time or two in exercise, successfully shielding himself and someone else at the same time. But when it counted, when Crusader Fjornsson had attacked them, it hadn’t worked. Yes, he’d cast that courage shield over himself and then quickly given one also to Wepp, but those hadn’t been the same casting, only rapid successions. Worse still, doing so had drained him so badly he’d needed Jinkke just to help him stand again. A tingle ran up his spine and nearly drew a tear. What if that had been real combat, if she’d followed him into an actual fight? Neither of them would have survived that.

No, he wasn’t good enough yet to keep Jinkke safe. There was one option he could think of, and Jinkke wouldn’t like it. No, she wouldn’t like it at all, and the truth was, Minkus wasn’t even sure how he would do it. How close to Thaumacore would he let her get? And how would he convince her to stay out of what came next? After all, his sister was quite stubborn when she had her mind set on something, especially when she had it set on caring for him.

Fitfully, Minkus fell in and out of sleep, shifting about on his mat as he was pulled in by exhaustion and jerked back out again by worries. He wrestled, and the sun rose, casting golden light down into the cliff-circled valley outside their cove. The sounds of work and chatter slowly spread through the other labs, and after several attempts to shut everything out, Minkus gave in. Yawning, he stretched tight muscles and sat up on his mat. Even for him, the night’s long work and the lack of sleep were wearying, and his usual spark of rejuvenation felt slow.

Jinkke and Wepp still slept, thank the Alchemy, but as Minkus tried to blink himself more fully awake, he noticed something curious. In the morning light that shone through their weathered, rock archway, there was a silhouette, sitting cross-legged and hunched. Minkus didn’t even have to question; it was Penny. Stretching again, he approached.

Silent, she held the orange knapsack, pressing each button and seam between forefinger and thumb as she stared off into the bluing sky beyond the eastern cliffs. Daylight’s glow brought her face and torso into clear relief, a sharp contrast against the deep shadow that had been her back. She seemed to exist on the line between night and day.

Having not heard his own voice for hours, Minkus greeted her just above a whisper. “Good morning.”

Penny nearly jumped, her head snapping toward him as she clutched the bag to her chest. Then she recognized him and shoved the bag just as violently back into her lap.

“My ears, I’m sorry!”

With one hand she waved it off, and with the other she wiped her eye, but her refusal to look at him was evident. “It’s fine,” she said.

Following her vacant gaze, Minkus tried to connect. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

“Yeah, I guessed.” Her glance at him was quick. “It tends to happen when you’re about to do something really, really stupid.” Thoughtlessly, she took the knapsack in her hand again, running fingers across it in her lap as she stared out into the round depression between the cliffs.

Minkus paused, considering. It wasn’t why he’d joined her, but the questions he’d had for days now were lining up in his heart again.  He’d let Penny keep that little knapsack to herself, but he couldn’t ignore that she took it in hand like a talisman every time something bothered her—and plenty lately had bothered her.

“Penny,” he asked, committing to his course, “what is that?” He pointed down at it, contents evident in its folds.

He expected a snap reaction, but she only mumbled at him, “It’s nothing.”

Minkus frowned. “I’ve seen you hold it a lot, Penny. You’re very sweet about it. I don’t think it’s nothing.” Now he really was committed. 

The woman said nothing, still staring off. 

Minkus waited a moment in the uncomfortable and uncharacteristic silence before a thought came to him. He returned to his bag and rummaged in it as silently as he could, not wanting to wake the others. With a grin, he found what he was looking for and came back to Penny, plopping down beside her. It was strange to be at a height with her shoulder, but he stuffed that thought aside and extended the hand that now held his magical focus.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked. 

She glanced down at the object in his hand and then at him, her eyes drifting somewhere between unamusement and annoyance. “All I know is you hold it when you fight, and crazy, magic things happen. I don’t have the first clue what— Wait.” With a raised eyebrow, she looked from it to him. “Gods, was that the thing you wouldn’t leave in the bandit cave? You could have gotten us killed over a—”

“Yes,” he interrupted, glancing back at Jinkke and Wepp’s sleeping forms. Penny’s voice had risen, but they were still asleep.

Minkus went on, “And yes. I— well, I didn’t want to lose it. It’s special. When he was training me, Royston called it a focus.”

Penny released a long sigh, and shifted her seating more to face him. “Fine. Since you’re going to anyway, tell me about your focus.”

Minkus felt himself recoil. He hadn’t expected the conversation to be so simple. “Well, it’s a special object that I focus my magic through.”

“That would explain the name.” Penny looked back out at the butte walls all around them. “Thanks for the lesson on magical things.”

Minkus blinked, working hard not to frown.

“Yes, you’re very welcome,” he said, trying again. “But do you know why it works?”

A pair of asura researchers stepped out of their own stone alcove across the gap, and with vacant eyes, Penny watched them begin their day. Another sigh escaped her lips. “Because it’s magic?”

“Well, yes,” Minkus fumbled. He felt he should have anticipated that answer, but he hadn’t. “It is now. In a way, at least . But— well, it’s really just a simple asuran ultra-magnet. I mean, it was, until—”

“Gods,” Penny groaned, finally coming to life. “What turned the thing magic, Minkus?” 

Somehow the switch put him at ease. “I’ve carried it for— well, years now,” he said, moving his attention away from Penny and down to the device in his hand. “I’ve had it most of my life, actually. Jinkke helped me make it when we were progeny. If she hadn’t, I— well, I would have never earned my progenic internship. I would have never gone to Rata Sum. I would have never been accepted to...” That sentence he couldn’t bring himself to finish. It wasn’t the point of what he was saying, though. “Well, anyway, Jinkke helped me build it. Really, she helped me with everything, always, but this— This is special to me.”

The woman was fully looking at him now, though her face was unreadable. That orange sack still lay in her lap, and she thoughtlessly ran a finger down the length of a strap.

Minkus went on, starting to smile. “It works—I mean, it channels magic—because it was magical to me before I ever knew I could use real magic. Royston— well, he believed the most magical things were the ones that meant more than just the things themselves.” Minkus squinted, trying to read anything in Penny’s expression. “Do you— does that make sense?”

Penny groaned and rolled her eyes again. "Yes, I get it.” Gripping the bag, she lifted it a few inches out of her lap and gestured at it. “But this thing isn’t going to focus any magic, because I don’t have any for it to focus.”

“Oh, no,” Minkus corrected, suddenly scrambling for a way to clarify his meaning. “I didn’t mean that you—”

Penny ran a hand through her hair and gestured at him to stop. “I know. I know. I was just— oh, never mind.” She waved the little knapsack at him, and he heard bits of wood clack about inside. “It was a gift from my old man, OK? He gave it to me when I was a kid, when we moved to the Reach—real magical." She wiggled her fingers in the air sardonically.

Minkus smiled just a little more. She was engaging with him.

"It's a lovely shade,” he observed. “Very bright."

"Sure,” she said. “It’s great.”

“It’s what we went back to your shop for, isn’t it?”

Penny looked away from both him and the knapsack. “Among other things.” 

Minkus wrung his hands. The bag clearly had meaning to her, so why was she being so evasive about it?

“Yes, but— well, you didn’t carry anything else with as much care. You’re carrying it still— with that care, I mean—right now.”

Penny bit at her lip unconsciously, her fingers running across the canvas again.

“I think,” Minkus said, choosing his words slowly, “well— I’m sorry, but you do it when you’re uneasy, don’t you? Carry it, I mean— hold it, touch it.”

She glanced at him again and forced something of a wry grin. “You’re a little too observant for someone atypical, you know that?”

“Can I ask what's inside?” he said, letting his gaze fall back on the bag. “It always looked like there was something inside it. It must be very special."

She gripped it tighter, reeling it in toward her body, and Minkus put up a hand in apology. "I'm sorry. I— I didn't mean to—"

Just as quickly, she pressed the orange sack into his chest. "It's nothing important,” she said with a grimace. “Just some things he gave me a long time ago. Gods, if you make fun of me, Biggie, I swear..." She let the threat peter off into his imagination, but Minkus knew it was empty. It made him smile.

With a gentle hand, Minkus lifted the flap at the top of the knapsack and loosened the drawstring. He glanced at Penny, who now actively looked anywhere other than at the asura holding her treasure.

Minkus widened the mouth of the bag and reached in, fingering for everything inside. The contents, though, were sparse: just a pair of smallish, wooden somethings. One eye on Penny and the other on the bag, he drew them out and held them, one in each hand. She watched him without reserve.

"A centaur and a— a seraph?" he asked, setting the bag down.

"Yeah, that’s right,” Penny said. “Don’t worry about being nice. He was a trash woodcarver."

Minkus shook his head before he thought about it, still turning the two figures in his hands. "No, they're great— Well, maybe not great, but they were made with a lot of— love.”

Penny sneered. "Yeah. Love."

“I do like the bag, though,” Minkus continued. Gently putting the two figures down, he took up the bag again, grinning openly. “The color is very bright, very pretty.”

“Yeah, I guess I liked orange when I was a kid.” Penny allowed herself to sound worn, so Minkus let silence settle between them. Only the sounds of the Metamagicals krewe and the morning serenade of birds in the canopy broke the still air.

Minkus continued to study the bag, as much with his fingers as with his eyes. Patches of its surface still held something of the tight weave Minkus expected from canvas, but the majority of it, front and back, top and bottom, had been frayed into a thin top-layer of fuzz. It was a sure sign of use, and not just in the customary sense. There was no telling how many times Penny’s fingers had wandered the face of that sack in search of something she clearly hadn’t found.

Penny groaned, driving the birdsong back into the distance. “Gods,” she ejected, shaking her head, “he saved for seasons to buy the dye for that thing. He could have spent that silver on anything: a better sword, clothes, a piece of meat now and again—anything. But no, he had to get me that dye, so this bag would be tangerine orange. The damn fool.” The words, cold though they were, lacked any real bite.

Penny stared off again, and all Minkus could do was watch her and wait.

“What?”  she finally asked, meeting his gaze. “He was a fool. Sometimes the man went without food entirely—he thought I didn’t see it, but I did. All so he could pay premium prices for a dye to turn this plain thing the right kind of orange. Torment, any orange was expensive, but tangerine…” She trailed off.

Minkus cocked his head. Her complaints weren’t adding up, at least not that he could see.

“But you kept it all this time?” he said. “Your father must have been at least a little right.”

She met his gaze now, her posture going stiff as she snatched back the bag. “Look, the dye wasn’t his only idiot move, OK? Not everyone gets to have family memories of bare feet and jungle games. Some of us get dumbass fathers who drink away any spare coin.”

Minkus felt torn. Penny had remembered; she’d actually remembered his stories of bare feet and games. But it seemed that his youth was a sharp contrast to hers. She’d implied as much before, but this was the clearest she’d ever told it to him.

“I’m sorry,” Minkus tried. “I— I had no idea he—”

Penny cut him off with a soulless snort. “Oh, that’s not the end of it.” She glared at him. “One day, the asshat grew a conscience, if you can believe that. He started trying to make amends for shitty decisions and dragged me off to Divinity’s Reach—which was probably the one good thing he did do. Then he went and got himself enlisted in the Seraphs, the dumb bastard.”

Minkus had never heard any of this from her, though somewhere inside, he’d always felt the weight of it just below the surface. His lips fumbled for a response, but he couldn’t get there fast enough.

“You know he was a deserter?” Penny asked, pressing on with her thoughts. Her eyes searched Minkus’.

“No, I—”

“Yeah, dear old dad ran away from the Seraphs before I was born—I guess he did two smart things. A decade later, though, he goes running back, to make it right. Only this time he’s dragging a kid along behind him. He wanted to be honorable, to turn a new leaf or some shit. For both of us.”

Huffing, she looked away from Minkus. But just as quickly, the fire stoked in her once more. “So, obviously the best way to do that was to volunteer to die protecting some settlement miles from the Reach. The dumb bastard.”

Minkus sat still as Penny fell silent. She gazed blankly out into the waking world.

“And all he left me was that.” She pointed. “A stupid, orange bag and a couple of shitty toys that I carry around everywhere, even when I lose every other gods-damned thing I own.”

She heaved a sigh. “Gods, I’m as dumb as he was.”

She slipped off into thought, and Minkus tried to take it all in, his eyes wide. Penny had finally entrusted him with something, and Minkus realized just how much and how little he actually knew her.

Penny raised a hand to her temple and gave voice to a new thought. “And now some other kid has to deal with the same, damned…” Penny herself seemed surprised by the idea as she cut it short. “Oh, gods,” she groaned.

Minkus raised a tentative hand across his friend’s back. Everyone, even Penny Arkayd, needed a hug sometimes. “You’re not dumb,” he said, tightening his one-armed embrace.

Penny seemed to want to retort, but nothing came out.

“What do you mean about the other kid?” Minkus said quietly. “Who are you talking about?”

Penny scowled, reaching past Minkus to nab the figures and stuff them back into the orange bag. “Nothing, Minkus. I—”

“No, Penny.” He shot a hand out, gripping Penny’s before she could pull everything back away. Concern welled up, and he couldn’t let her escape this time. “You mean something.”

There were many progeny she could have meant. Several had frequented her shop, he knew. She probably wasn’t talking about herself; that would have been more deeply metaphoric than he could have followed, and he knew he was on the very edge of following this.

“I know you mean something,” he said, struggling to think. “You do.”

And then he had it. “Do you— do you mean Ippi?” Penny recoiled, and Minkus repeated it more confidently. “You mean Ippi.”

Of course she meant Ippi. Minkus had been so caught up in his exercises, and the others so engulfed in their work, that he’d not given nearly enough attention to the motivation that had brought Penny here to begin with. It was the same, he knew; it hadn't changed, but the stark reminder slapped him in the face.

“Biggie, don’t waste your breath.” Penny’s voice was tight but lacked force. “It’s not a debate. This is— it’s why I’m here.” Uncomfortably, Penny pulled her hand out of his. Dropping the sack at her side, she wove her arms tight across her chest, but Minkus couldn’t tell if she was keeping him out or herself in.

Slowly, Penny hardened back into her usual composure, and Minkus let it happen. Another thought came to him, though.

“Did he do it?”

Penny looked at the asura, searching for his meaning. “Did who do what?”

“Your father,” Minkus said. “Did he protect the settlement, I mean?”

Penny pulled back, and Minkus stammered. He cared; he really did. But he could see instantly just how many nerves he’d touched, and he tried to soften the blow. “I know it hurts—it must hurt very much, I mean. But— well, did the Seraph—your father—did he protect the settlement?”

She was rigid now, but she nodded. “Yeah, I guess. What of it?”

“Well,” he said, suddenly grateful she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t think you’re dumb—”

“Yeah, you said that.”

“Well, maybe your father— maybe he wasn’t either.” Penny’s mouth snapped open in budding retort, but Minkus raised an awkward hand. “Not always, I mean— or, maybe not at the end. Maybe he just wanted to help those people.” He shrugged. “I’m sure they were grateful.”

Penny shook her head and got to her feet, taking up the knapsack as she rose. Her voice was still and cold, and she dodged his eyes. “Look, this day’s about to go to shit, and talking about my trash father isn’t going to change that.”

“Penny, I just—”

“Drop it, Minkus.” She started toward the worktable. “I’m going over the projector again: tighten everything down.”

“Penny, I didn’t mean to—”

“You didn’t. Now drop it.”

She continued on, her footsteps quieting as she moved away from him and toward the table, the bag in her hand. She didn’t clutch it as usual, though; it hung limply from her hand by a single strap, swaying with each stride and nearly sweeping the dirty ground. Nearly, but not quite.

Minkus felt an itch to go after her, to make sure everything was alright, that they would be alright. But he knew there was no power in that. If the deep magics affected emotion and relationships the way they did the physical, then nothing restorative would come of chasing after her.

That itch didn’t go away, but Minkus turned back out toward the dawning sky instead. He and Penny would be alright. Deep down, he could feel it.

Slowly his mind returned to Jinkke, to what he had to do for her. If he had any say in it today, Penny, Jinkke, Ventyr—all of them—yes, all of them would be alright.