Burning Night: A Tale of the Everburning City

Chapter 10, Part 3: Tabitha

Very few apprentices understand the purpose of the First-Year Papers.

The papers weren't an opportunity to present a new bend of research or to present theories rich with original thoughts to impress a prospective master. Very few nineteen-year-olds were going to strike a graduated Crafter with an idea that hadn't been discussed a hundred times before.

These papers were an opportunity for apprentices to present themselves as a disciplined mind with a sense of concern for others. Which is why the most impressive essay Tabitha had come across so far was a simple, unembellished suggestion that fire-pipe construction should be reviewed in light of the discovery of cold-stone. It was a concise, focused suggestion, decently argued, and it fit on a single piece of paper.

Paper is expensive, and some of these apprentices were wasting more ink then Oversight uses in half a week.

Ink is scarce right now, Tabitha recalled. Which is why she wasn't reading the fourteen pages of nearly black paper that now sat on top of the pile. Not that she had an interest in 'The societal advantages of Crafters in positions of authority'. It was an absurd topic that Crafters often circulate to help maintain the stink of smug superiority that always permeated the Guild Hall.

Tempting to simply burn the paper and let the poor girl live out her life as a reject.

Tabitha decided to scan through some of the titles, hoping to narrow down the candidates a little.

Let's see, 'Undiscovered secrets of the Maesters'. Spare the City such insipid stupidity.

'Why the Walls'? This paper was supposed to be a burning research paper, not an opinion piece.

'Building heat-sinks in Valkyries'. Here, Tabitha grinned. Not a bad subject. The idea has been rejected a dozen times in the last five years, mostly since using enough cold-stone to make any difference can extinguish the ammunition, but it suggested the author wasn't an imbecile. Tabitha placed it on top of the paper about pipe construction and pulled up the next essay.

'The advantages of electric light, in favour of piped flame'. Two pages. Not bad. Into the potential pile.

'To find the Maesters'. Eleven pages. Large, loopy calligraphy. Tabitha was a little surprised to find burn mark in the bottom corner until she realised that she probably made it.

'Arm the Crafters'. Done by an apprentice, they wouldn't know Combat Crafting was a branch of study in the Guild. Nor would they ever, if she had any say in the subject.

'Burning Crops to increase Yield.' Simple subject, but if he thought he could outdo the Bureau of Agriculture, Tabitha would find him if only to slap him in the face with his paper.

'The Gloam'. Okay...

Tabitha seethed in astonishment, and ran her finger over the single page just to confirm what she saw. Burn me, she thought to herself. It's not written in ink.

A first-year apprentice wrote this with the Craft. He could have covered the page in childish doodles of oversized genitals and Tabitha would have been impressed enough to put the author at the top of the running. The author used only one page, no ink, and there were only two spots where he burned through to the back of the page.

Tabitha glanced at the bottom of the back, to read the name.

Gerald Raeth. Not bad, kid.

She leaned back to read the paper, and the first two paragraphs seemed reasonably innocuous. 'The Gloam is the most understudied subject in the City'. Superfluous wording, but since it's still one page and he didn't use any ink, Tabitha decided to not hold it against him.

She kept scanning through it, not particularly surprised so far. 'Intractable foe', 'greatest enemy', 'strangely reluctant to study it', all of which was true and common knowledge.

Then a sentence hit her in the gut hard enough to make her gasp.

'The Gloam is a Craft'.

Exploding fury of the heart of the Abyss itself! That was utterly impossible!

She kept reading. She nodded, accepting the author's use of the Maester's argument about the branches of study to suggest an expansion of the definition for 'Craft'.

Citing first-hand accounts from Crafters during the invasions. Additional citations from ordinary folk using torches to shield themselves while surrounded by the Gloam. He also mentions the report of three Crafters who spent six days trapped in the Gloam, and the malevolent presence they felt, linking it to the awareness of a willed flame.

Surprising, Tabitha thought to herself. She could accept the premise; it was well argued.

It went on. That, too, was surprising. The premise alone would have been enough to make it a worthy paper. Tabitha already knew she wasn't going to be more impressed by anything else in the stack of apprentice papers.

Interesting. The author continues about the implications of the Gloam being a Craft. Okay, Tabitha mused to herself, burn me for being curious.

He talks about the Gloam being a singular Craft next. He asserts that it's impossible for a single will, even with strength orders of magnitude above a Crafter's. Tabitha smirked a little, wondering how strong the boy was. But the premise wasn't difficult to accept. The Gloam covered everything up to the ends of the world. It might even have spread across the oceans by now. No human could possess a will capable of that.

'Either a singular will is augmented by some means, or something beneath the earth has taken an active hand in trying to kill us', he argues next. Solid argument. But impressively, he then asserts 'an augmented will is more plausible since something beneath the earth need only take hold of the Spire to annihilate us. 'A will augmented, likely, by the only known source of fire capable of creating and maintaining a Craft powerful enough to cover the world, and enduring enough to last the hundreds of years the Gloam has covered the world for'.

The only source capable of creating and maintaining an immense and eternal Craft? Not human; not even the combined efforts of every Crafter that has ever lived could maintain something on the scale of the Gloam.

Tabitha glanced out the window and grinned. The obvious answer was outside, casting light across the entire City.

Burn me! Tabitha nearly jumped out of her chair in excitement.

We're looking for a Bore!

Tabitha's heart started pounding in her chest, and the grin on her face widened into a smile. Her hand, involuntarily, rested on the notes for her project, and she felt something she never expected to feel from reading an ash-touched first-year paper.

Hope.

A Bore would be an easy thing to spot. You probably had to travel a tenth of the entire world to fail to see the Spire. If they could move safely above the Gloam, if she could get her invention to work on a useful scale, she could find this Bore.

Spite the abyss and defy the endless grind of time! She could end the siege!

But it was at the end of the paper, just before the customary 'I hope this offering demonstrates the use I could be to the City', that her stomach nearly dropped to the floor. The hope didn't fade, but what she read was absurd, even impossibly dangerous.

She set the paper down on her desk, stood up, and grabbed her coat. The red one, this time. The symbol of her status, and the unspoken threat of her power.

She stepped out, and locked her door, before heading towards the train. The Apprentice Hall was only a half-hour trip, and hopefully, she should find him in under an hour.

Which left her an hour to decide if, and how, she was going to kill him.