You’re expending far more strength than the task warrants, and exhausting yourself prematurely. The waste you shed becomes, in this case, heat.”
“But Hod’s knee didn’t burst into flames!” Fawn objected. Adding after a reflective moment, “Luckily.”
“That was a much greater task, and living beings absorb ground on levels mere objects don’t possess. The cure for the unpleasant aftereffects you experienced, the chill and the nausea, isn’t some special trick. It’s the result of a general habit of efficiency in one’s work. Don’t do with groundsetting anything that can be done physically, or even by another medicine maker; pace yourself, because you never know how soon another patient will turn up; and never use more strength than is truly needed. It’s not merely less wasteful; it’s more elegant.” Arkady rolled the last word off his tongue quite lovingly.
Dag scratched his head in doubt.
Barr sniggered. “I don’t know as Dag does elegant.”
Fawn bristled, opening her mouth to begin some hot defense. Dag interrupted smoothly, “Ground-veiling drills. When was the last time you and Barr did your ground-veiling drills, Remo? Back before Whit and Berry’s wedding, wasn’t it? ”
Remo shot an acid look at his partner. “Yes, sir.” He did not add, You were there, Dag!; some former patrol leader had evidently cured him of any leaning to risky backtalk.
“Now, half an hour. Down on the lakeshore will be a good place. No one will interrupt your concentration there.”
Remo loyally arose, glowered at Barr, and jerked his chin. Barr grumbled up and followed him out, casting a last look of frustrated curiosity over his shoulder. Peace of a sort descended.
Beyond an upward twitch of his silvery brows, Arkady made no comment. Instead, he drained his mug of tea, set it sideways to the table, and with a sharp crack broke off its handle.
“Oh!” said Fawn, startled, then closed her lips tight. She glanced at the door through which the boys had left and folded her hands primly in her lap in a superfluous effort to appear small.
Arkady pushed the two pieces across to Dag. “Try again. Don’t try to contain the whole cup, or even the whole handle, although hold awareness of their essential ground in mind. Think surfaces. Again, let your muscles do as much as possible. Hold the parts together tightly-”
He broke off; a tinge of color heated his cheeks. “Er…”
“Fawn, lend me your hands over here,” said Dag.
She nodded understanding, rose, licked her finger to pick up a couple of tiny fragments still left across the table, deposited them again in front of Dag, and gripped the cup and handle, fitting them back together. “Just like the bowl, huh?” Her dimple flashed at him, as if to say, You can do it.
“Uh-huh.” Dag shot Arkady a challenging glance, but the maker made no comment. Surfaces, eh? Dag closed his eyes, reached out till his hook clinked, and dropped down and in, finding the ground of the bowl, of the handle. Of the two interfaces. This fired clay had a rougher voice than the high chime of the glass bowl, a mumbling little growl.
The recent break still vibrated with the rupture, though the clay was far more inert than the ends of broken blood vessels that Dag had several times worked back together. But they still had a good catch. The two flakes rose through the air, seeking their slots. Catch. Catch. Finer and finer, catchcatchcatchcatch… And finer still…
“Good,” said Arkady. “Stop.”
Dag gulped and opened his eyes.
Gingerly, Fawn released the handle, which remained in place.
Even more gingerly, she grasped the handle and released the cup. The mending held. “It’s warm,” she reported, “but not near so hot as that bowl was, Dag. You could barely touch that bowl, even after it stopped glowing.” She peered more closely. “I can just see a line in the glaze.”
The two crumbs of stray clay were also back in place, faintly outlined.
“How do you feel?” Arkady asked Dag. His voice and gaze were both level.
“Not… bad,” said Dag, a little surprised. “Something’s taken out of me, sure, but I don’t feel dizzy or cold. And my lunch is staying put.”
This mending lacked the soaring exaltation and violent collapse of his prior ones, of the glass bowl or Hod’s knee or Chicory’s head; it was more like… interest and ease. Less exciting, to be sure. But less wearing, I do admit.
Arkady rose and returned with another wrinkled note. He sat, tore it in half, and shoved the pieces across to Dag once more. “Try again. Less hard.”
Dag nodded understanding and aligned the scraps. Fawn slipped back into her chair, still clutching the cup, and watched wide-eyed. In anticipation of another conflagration her hand crept toward the damp dishcloth she’d been using to wipe the table, but then returned bravely to her lap.
This time, Dag deliberately slowed himself down, drawing his ghost hand back until it was barely projecting. He took his time, easing along the rip, peering warily through his lashes for any untoward flash of flame. Finishing, he opened his eyes, staring down at the repaired paper. Good as… old.
“Strange…” he said. “In a way, this is harder than Hod’s knee. The body seems to cooperate with its own healing in ways that dead objects don’t.”
“Huh,” said Arkady. “You already know that, do you…?” Dag glanced up to catch an unblinking frown. Arkady went on, “Do that one more time. More gently still, if you can.”
Dag ripped the page in half himself this round, smoothed it, pulled it back together once more. Handed it to Arkady.
“Good,” said the maker simply. “Something of the same technique works to hold together skin, as well. Best to save it for tissues you can’t reach with a needle, however.”
“That… would be all of them, in my case,” Dag noted gently.
“Ah.” Caught out for the second time, the maker grimaced. “My apologies. Habit, I’m afraid. I’ll try to be more heedful.”
“I’m used to it,” said Dag.
Did Arkady wince? Hard to tell. But he only said, “That does bring up… Have you ever attempted a ground projection from your right hand? ”
Dag shook his head. “It came out from the left side all on its own, seemed like. I thought it was… well, I’m not just sure what I thought it was.”
Fawn said loyally, “To me, it didn’t seem any stranger than the rest of what you did.”
“Yes… it was you first guessed it was something I should have, that got delayed.” He smiled to remember just when she’d said it, too.
“Seems you were square on.”
She shrugged. “Stood to reason, I thought.”
“Try now,” said Arkady. “Right hand.”
Dag did; nothing happened. His ground on the right side remained firmly intertwined with the flesh that generated it, just as always.
“Did Dag mention,” said Fawn, “that at the time his ghost hand first came out, his right arm was busted? All tied up with splints in a sling. Though I had to keep making him put it back in the sling.”
Arkady sat back. “Really? ” It was more a noise of surprise than disbelief.
“That’s… interesting.” After a moment, and another glance at the hook, his brows drew down in puzzlement. “My word. How in the world did you manage everything? ”
“I had a little help,” said Dag.
“Who you callin’ little? ” Fawn breathed at him, dimpling deeply. He couldn’t help smiling back.
Arkady rubbed his brow and sighed.
Dag straightened self-consciously, clearing his throat. “Besides me bein’ so lopsided,” he said, “you talked about doing something to, ah, cleanse my dirty ground. What did you have in mind?” Or was the cure for contamination, like that for the aftereffects of groundsetting, to be simple, tedious self-regulation? Pace yourself could be pretty useless advice, in the midst of some pressing emergency.
“Well… I admit, I don’t know yet. You’re an odd collection of puzzles to turn up at my gate.”
“At first it seemed to me that my ground cleansed, or healed, or remade itself all by itself, over time. The way anyone absorbs a ground reinforcement-or the ground of their food, for that matter. Figured the problem was that
