His grandfather worked with Fintan all day to increase his strength, stamina, and resilience. They didn’t return to his other Skill as if repeated failure would only sour his attempts.

  By the end of the day, he was too tired to attempt the candle. The wick was a metal composite and took a lot of energy to create. His grandfather cautioned him about using his Skills when he was tired.

  “Most of what we feel and think is actualized in the world around us. If you get too tired, no one will be able to wake you until you make a full recovery. You will be vulnerable.”

  “How?” Fintan asked. What he really wanted to know was what could happen when he was vulnerable, but he shied away from the thought. His imagination did him a disservice. He didn’t want to voice his ideas because that would give them power over him.

  His grandfather picked up on his feelings immediately.

  “They could lock you in an iron cage and poke you with a pointy stick until you manifest what they wanted. Everyone can manifest, but it’s an effort. By the time you got free, you might throw yourself in the river.”

  “Does that really happen?”

  “I’ve seen it, boy,” his grandfather said angrily. “Don’t go try saving anyone from that trap. They are already dead. The quickest way to incarceration is getting involved with local politics. If you mind your own business, no one will care what you are up to.”

  The old man was tired, but this was a different side to his grandfather. He remembered the doctor who always wanted to help people—time in the afterlife had changed him. His grandfather said they couldn’t learn new Skills in the afterlife, but it was obvious that by the end, they were different people. Would he be used up and cast into the river? All the more reason Fintan needed to find a way back.

  They slept, and Fintan didn’t dream. The sounds in the night did not wake him, but he was up before his grandfather. He sat on the edge of the wood bed. His grandfather had been meticulous about its construction, and Fintan removed the tarnish from the flexible slats that worked as springs and the gell mattress.

  It was strange seeing something as high-tech as a gell mattress in a cabin with mostly low-tech tools. They didn’t have plumbing or a bathroom. They didn’t need it. So far as Fintan could tell, he didn’t dedicate himself, although he knew enough about animal feces to manifest a pile if he wanted to.

  His pretend plasma rifle leaned against the bed, and he picked it up. Most of the internals were made of wood. There was quite a bit of plastic and some glass. Everything but the metal seemed inconsequential, so he willed it into the mist. It wasn’t much effort, but the rifle, now only a barrel, was directly in his hands. Working at a distance seemed to require more work.

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  The barrel was a different matter. It was metal, and he’d almost collapsed, manifesting such a large piece. A handgun would have been more practical, but there weren’t many handguns in the Union because the AI that made sure the shot was legal was bulky for a handgun.

  He didn’t want to waste the metal, but he didn’t have a purpose for it. Maybe he could reshape it into a sword?

  He focused on the metal barrel, directing the mist to turn into a sword like his grandfather’s, but the metal resisted.

  “It takes almost as much effort to change the shape as it does to create it,” his grandfather said.

  “I guess I should just throw it away. It will turn back to mist eventually.”

  “That would be wasteful,” his grandfather sighed. “There’s a better way.”

  The old man beckoned him out of the log cabin so he wouldn’t accidentally “destroy anything.” Fintan was over two decades old, but his grandfather still treated him like a child. If time really worked the way the old man said, then his grandfather would have been here a long time, so fair was fair, and Fintan didn’t want to destroy anything. It wasn’t as if they could go to the store and buy a replacement.

  He rounded the corner, following the old man, and suddenly, a kiln appeared out of thin mist. The rocks were glowing red with flames, but they started to cool immediately.

  “Work the bellows, boy,” his grandfather said, pointing to a bellows that appeared to inject air into the bottom of the kiln. His grandfather used a pair of wooden tongs wrapped in fiberglass to hold the bar over the fire. He heated it, melting the steel into a large clay cup before dumping it into a form.

  Fintan’s thrashing at the bellows wasn’t the only thing heating the flames. Whenever the old man thought the steel was cooling, he focused on the fire, and the inferno became white hot.

  When the form was full, he took the clay and broke it onto the ground. The still red hot short sword sucked in the mist, and an edge appeared, although no one touched it.

  His grandfather wobbled, and hastily, Fintan manifested a chair for him to sit in. It was a complete reproduction of the old man’s easy chair with overstuffed cushions in taupe leather, complete with a symbol of a longhorn on the armrest.

  Fintan was proud of his reproduction and even more curious about his grandfather’s creation. It was still on the ground but no longer seemed warm.

  “You can pick it up any time. It’s hard to get burned and even harder to stay burned. It’s a good deterrent, but you will find the most pushback on fire. Compared to cold steel, it’s a puny attack.”

  Fintan picked up the sword. It was the same material as before but felt dense. It was smaller than the gun barrel. The gun barrel was empty on the inside, but the short sword was solid.

  “Couldn’t I have just manifested this?” Fintan asked.

  “You could, but it wouldn’t be the same. When it goes through the transformation, it absorbs more mist.”

  “It’s so dense that I can’t banish it.”

  Now he understood. He could get trapped in iron.

  “We don’t banish. We recycle. Recycling is valuable, but it always takes more energy. You can’t recycle your way out of a problem. I’m beat. You test the sword. If you want, try to make some more metal. If it doesn’t turn out, you can always practice recycling. Start with a belt buckle; those are useful everywhere.”