Trickster Sun rose over the Bottoms like a deep crimson magic lamp. Three Sisters adorned the sky in a mosaic – the silver moon waxing crescent, the yellow waxing gibbous, the peach as a full moon. In the time of early night dusk, long shadows wavered and blurred, and houses and streets took on reddish hues.

Nua was standing on a roof, watching passersby as they hurried to the local flea market. Bottoms lived under the purview of Sa’Utu - when the harsh reign of the Great Sun relented, his itinerant younger brother accompanied people as they traded and roamed about, drinking in taverns, spending their time in brothels and poppy resin smoking houses or just enjoying the chilly outside.

Anki told her to choose an area where she could freely jump from one roof to another without spectators. That condition was impossible to fulfill. For one instance, people used roofs as the top floor. When the weather was warm, they slept there. Other than that, they were full of laundry racks, pots where sun-tolerant plants grew, sheets with herbs left to dry, and even – rarely, because not many could afford it - small chicken coops.

So she just found an area with so many people around, traveling both on the ground and along the rooftops, that nobody paid attention to an overly active street kid, and picked the least cluttered place. At the same time, the alley she needed to jump over was one of the most cluttered. Nothing like a heap of compost to break your potential fall.

“You did that before.”, Anki said once again. “You can do it once again.”

“I wasn’t reinforced.”, Nua answered. Ether prickled in her infused muscles. “I have no idea how that changes things.”

“It’s not like you’re able to calculate vectors and momentum, so you might just as well do it. Practical sorcery, Nua.”

“Easy for you to say that. If I fall, it’s my butt that’ll be sore.”

“As your local adage goes, no pain, no gain.”

She drew air in and pulled back her shoulders.

“All right. Here it goes.”

It was her first time consciously using the ether on another occasion than the repetitive and relatively peaceful work. By now, she got accustomed to the feeling, and she was able to keep it up for several long ticks. Doing it in fast motion was an entirely different thing, though.

She started from a crouch, which was the best way to speed up. She felt her feet hitting the clay surface and muscles tensing, working hot ether through her toes, calves, and thighs. Her breath was catching in her lungs, arms synchronized with her legs. She bounced from the edge and then realized she was overshooting the jump.

She panicked, lost hold on the ether, and barely managed to roll over, avoiding a direct confrontation of her face with a large amphora.

Several colorful words flew in the air. A moment has passed.

“Now that you vented, try again.”, Anki reminded.

“Stuff yourself.”, she replied, but she dusted off her pants and followed his directions. Only now it occurred to her that she’d probably done better if she had a certain part of the wardrobe that until now she thought useless. It’s not like her size impeded her too much, but it was a distraction, and, apparently, she was looking forward to a lot of jumping.

She sighed, then infused herself once again and started out.

This time, she was able to measure the distance correctly. She landed on the opposite roof with a predator’s grace, in a low crouch, one hand touching the floor. She breathed in and out.

“Did you see that, Anki?!”

“Yes, and with a jump like that, your Technique will be atrocious. Once again.”

“Hey, I held the ether in. At least say something nice.”

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“Something nice. Try once again. Bring yourself up to a stand after the jump.”

Ten more tries followed, and then some more, but at that point, Nua stopped counting. Each time, there was a detail that Anki corrected. Her balance, or the position of her legs when starting out, or the finish. Right when she began to think that she was jumping wrong all her life, he stopped giving advice.

“Three more just like that.”

She nodded. Usually, she wouldn’t be able to exercise for that long, and right now, only some weariness was spreading in her body. She had no idea if that's ether or excitement. True, she was repeating the same thing all the time, and Anki was grumbling at her, but there was something exhilarating in cutting the air under the light of the evening sun.

“Good.” he said, at last. “Now, the hard part.”

“What?! I am doing the Technique, am I not?”

“No. These were only reinforced jumps. But”, Anki seemed to smirk. “Ether remembers. Whenever you perform an action reinforced by the ether, you form traces in the structure of the universe. These traces can be fortified into an imprint, and that’s what you use as a Technique. We’re making an imprint now. That’s called a Matrix, by the way, and the same basic rule applies to pretty much everything sorcerous, although it gets more complicated along the way. So, sit down. In your mind, run through every good jump you made and add some ether as you go. Imagine them at me, so I can make more corrections. We will make them even better. At some point, they will meld into a Matrix. You’ll see when it happens.”

“That… sounds complicated.”

“It is, and I don’t expect you to get there this night. If I wasn’t here to help, with me correcting your posture before, and you directly relaying your thoughts, that first breakthrough would take you months.”

Nua sat down. There was a lot of thinking involved this time, and so she expected to fumble. But somehow, she didn’t lose concentration. The memories were fresh, they felt good, and they involved physical movement. She was good at movement.

And she seemed to be good at sorcery, too. Just like Anki was saying, ether left traces, red and golden afterimages that were not visible at the time of running and jumping, but they readily came to her when reliving the memory. And because she was doing them in quick succession, she couldn’t separate them one from another, not really. In her mind, they were just one long movement.

Something seemed to click. The movement became a form welded from the traces, one that contained not just all of them, but their very essence, every variation that could happen – the distance, the speed, the momentum. She watched it in her mind’s eye. To her amazement, it was not gold like Anki’s ether. More like, bluish silver. She gasped.

“Can you see that?”

“Good heavens. I told you to think at me before you create the Matrix, not after.”, Anki sounded shocked.

“Is it bad?”

“No… not too much. It’s… in fact, it is a neat form.”, he said with astonishment, then added quickly. “Now that we have it, try jumping again. Just this time, funnel the ether directly into the Technique.

Nua backed up to the start line, then crouched. With the Matrix prominent in her thoughts, she fed it ether.

At once, she was flying. She had barely registered when she had started to run, but when she did, time slowed down, and all the possibilities revealed themselves before her eyes. She didn’t need to pack ether into her muscles to have it carry her, reinforce her, hint her where to go. She could jump twice as high or run twice as fast. She could change the direction in the air. She could perfectly control the landing. If she wanted to, she could also fumble with a theatrically engineered flair.

After all, it was her Technique.

She landed. She gave out an exhilarated yell. In her ears, blood was humming. Every bit of her was conscious of the surroundings, the touch of cool air, the smell of garbage, the rough surface of the clay roof.

And the elderly lady, looking at her in a distance with scorn of disapproval.

“Quit that infernal noise!”, the grandma shook a broom. “Pack up your arse and go do your circus tricks somewhere else! Children are trying to sleep!”

“I am terribly sorry, madam!”

“Shoo! That is not even your house! I am calling the vigiles!”

“I am going, like, right now!”, Nua hurriedly started to climb down. “What a crone. She’s spoiling my victory, Anki.”

“Yes, and a victory that is, indeed...”. The spirit’s voice was thoughtful. The girl noticed it but dismissed it right away. Today, he seemed to be in some kind of a mood.

“This was so… this IS so powerful.”, she said in amazement, sliding along the roof gutter. “And it stays. Anki, it stays in my mind, I am not forgetting it!”

“I told you. Ether remembers.”

This, on the other side, sounded a bit sinister, but she discounted that as well.

“Oh, Anki. I just thought of something. Can you pile up a Technique on a Technique? I mean, make another form when you use a form?”

“I forbid you to try it right now. It’s too early for that.”

“Was it my turn to spook you out? Hah!”

The spirit puffed up.

“Am I spooking you out, Nua?”

She laughed. “So now what, we’re stealing back the Cat?”

That made Anki pause.

“You have the quality, but not the quantity.”, he sighed. “Ether, I mean. For refueling the ushumgar, so it can go back to the Temple.”

“That’s your plan, then.”

“Yes.”

“So, more training.”

“Yes.”

“Let us go find somewhere else, then.”

And so they went. The Trickster Sun beckoned.