Why not? How much stranger could this day possibly get? Whatever was happening, this Ironfoot fellow had gone through the same thing. Some kind of initiation ritual, perhaps? Silverdun thought about the bone, and the ash.
He looked toward the pit, but inside all he could see was darkness.
He stripped off his clothes and pulled on the black robe. It was made of silk. It made him feel like a part of the night.
'Walk to the edge of the pit,' said Jedron. Silverdun did so. He squinted, still seeing nothing.
'Look down and tell us what you see,' said Jedron. He said the words as though they were part of a ritual, with a musical cadence.
Silverdun looked down. At first he saw nothing, but then he noticed something moving, something barely distinguishable in the glint of the torchlight. But it was only black on black. Perhaps it was nothing.
'Perrin Alt,' said Jedron, 'what do you see?'
'Nothing,' said Silverdun.
Jedron and Ironfoot pushed him then, hard, into the pit. There was something inside, waiting for him. It received him. Enveloped him.
The pain that came next made the touch of cold iron seem like a lover's caress.
For reitic energy compressed into a contained binding, the formula is consistent regardless of the specific physical Gift involved, be it Motion, Elements, or even Folding. There is a practical limit to the amount of energy that can be compressed in a given container, as the required binding energy increases exponentially with the volume of the container. For any given volume v, the required binding energy is Y2ev2, regardless of the bound form. Thus it is recommended that when large energy bindings are required, sufficient space is allotted in the design.
Since it is often impractical to contain energies of multiple Gifts in a single binding, the problem often arises when it becomes necessary to mingle the products of multiple Gifts prior to the full unbinding of a closed system. Students often attempt to rechannel such products across a binding in order to avoid the difficulties that arise with nested binds. Unfortunately, this is not possible.
To understand why it is impossible to channel one Gift through another, it is necessary to understand the formulae for channeling Gifts through a medium. The standard formula for that energy is, in its most basic construction, c = 2/(e - m)r at any point during the transition, where c is the required channeling energy, e is the energy to be channeled, m is the total energy of the channeling medium, and r is the inductive resistance factor of the channeling medium.The problem that arises when both e and m are reitic energies is that during the channeling, e inevitably increases at the sourcepoint of the channel, while m inevitably decreases, such that at a determinable point during the channeling process, (e - m) = 0. At this point, the equation fails, as the bottom term becomes undefined.
It is tempting to imagine that one might avoid this problem by channeling ever greater amounts of energy into e, but regardless of the value of m, the required value of e will inevitably approach infinity before the sourcepoint completes the transition.
-Dynamics, chapter 8: ''Channeling Methodology in Closed Bindings'
A shopkeeper from one of my villages came to me with a problem; he'd been advertising an opening in his shop and had thus far received only two applicants. One was a penniless drifter, the other a retired mestine.
I counseled him to hire the drifter, his being the slightly more reputable profession.
-Lord Gray, Recollections
he first rehearsal following a tour was always the worst. The props had been put away roughly after the final show in the last city, and the sweaty costumes were dumped in trunks without being washed or folded. Everyone was sick of it all, and nobody wanted to come back to work.
The Bittersweet Wayward Mestina had finished its sweep of the southern cities and had finally returned home to Estacana after four weeks on the road. They'd then taken a well-deserved week off, having done a brisk business while away. But now the week was over, and it was time to get back to work.
Faella let herself into the theater early and stepped up on the stage, alone. The theater was called The Snowflake, and it had been her father's dream. Father, however, hadn't lived to see it.
