Acting on the world

attempting, and paying the passage

An armored barque breaks apart in mid-air, its black portholes turned toward us; figures still hold the gangway among the debris and the smoke.

The iron bursts under the fire, and the noise runs at once into the cries of the crew. I get up, I run for the outer gangway. Flames and smoke: I understand nothing of what is happening, only that I have to get out of here.

To my left, the emergency parachutes. I pull one on and I jump.

In the fall, I hear more fire. But I am too busy watching the trees come up at me.

Jumping from one roof to the next, forcing a door or picking it, standing your ground, searching a room, setting a machine down in the wind: the moment your character comes up against the world and the outcome is not written, there is an action, and the world answers.

If you know it will go through, it goes through. This is your character, he knows how, and making him prove it is a waste of time. And if the failure produces nothing but a “no,” do not toss: you would have brought the to a halt for nothing.

◆ Resolving an action — two poles, and the coin

The moment you attempt something uncertain, you resolve an action. For that, stretch two poles, and toss the :

Heads, the first, is what you want;
Tails, the second, what happens when the world resists.

These are the two poles of part 1, and each must give you something to write. I snatch the sheet against I do not snatch the sheet is no action, it is a closed door. I have it, and he knows it against I miss it, and I am out in the open is one: both carry the scene forward, and one of the two costs you.

◆ The card that says how

Lying flat on a flying machine hurtling down a street, a man grips the handlebars with both hands, its thrusters spitting behind him; passers-by draw back as he passes, and one of them turns to look.

The coin says what happens, but it does not say how. If the how is missing, draw a card — one only, and at either end of the toss:

Before, it says how you go about it. You know what you are attempting, not in what manner: the card gives you the move, and you stretch your two poles around it.
After, it says how it turned out. The outcome has already fallen and the card has nothing to settle: it explains — where it went through, what it broke on.

Either way, it is the suit (part 4) that speaks: Wands, the impulse and the dash; Swords, cunning, words, the line that cuts; Cups, the and what touches; Pentacles, mass, inertia, the weight of things. A weighs no heavier — it gives the moment a matter no would have given.

Nothing obliges you to: not before, not after, not both. An action that tells itself needs no further card, and drawing one anyway does nothing but slow the hand.

◆ An action played — the stolen page

A card before for the move, a card after for the break, and the coin between the two. An ordinary defeat, which you take.

Regiord, in the corridors of the school whose door he slammed behind him. A Mistress Arcanist let him in on one condition: no brawling inside the grounds.

I walk toward the White Crab dormitory, mechanical, decided.

In front of the dormitory, Malias is talking with three students. He sees me and pulls out his staff by reflex.

Three students, a drawn staff: I could make an affair of it. But “no brawling” — the order comes back to me. A quick action, and never mind the rest.

I want the sheet sticking out of his pocket. How I go about it, I do not know yet: I draw.

The Five of Wands — the scuffle without order, the dash that does not reckon.

No finesse, then: I charge into the disorder, counting on the confusion of the four. Two poles: I have it, and he knows it; or I miss it, and there I am out in the open in front of everyone.

Heads — The action of the stolen page — missed.

Tails — The action of the stolen page — missed.

Missed, then. On what? I draw again.

The Nine of Pentacles — mass, inertia, numbers.

Pentacles: it is not Malias who stops me, it is the numbers.

A student trips me; I stumble, my hand closing on nothing.

I swallow my rage, I step back, collar up. The page escapes me — never mind. Better an empty hand than a face given away.

◆ An action is played once

In the street, a woman grips with both hands the shaft a uniformed guard holds raised above her; around them the passers-by draw back, and one is already fleeing.

If what you wanted slips away from you, the scene goes on differently, and you do not attempt the same thing again in the same conditions: another angle, another moment, another price.

What dies is the means — never the thing. Nothing runs out, there is always a way left.

◆ Two actions played — what dies, what waits

A single thing wanted, several roads to reach it. A card before here, a card after there — nothing obliges you to draw both. Two actions lost one after the other, no fate: nothing comes to an end, and yet something closes.

Nera, at the starport of Nandésis. Her skyglider broke up on landing; she has a long convoy to run before the end of the week.

The simplest door first — repairing it. The graveller at the refuge of the Petite Lune is willing to lend me her bench. With what hands, that I do not know: I draw.

The Page of Pentacles — the diligent apprentice, who does well what he does not know how to do.

Diligent, serious, and not of the trade. Two poles: the wing holds, or I open it a little further.

I set about stitching the wing. The graveller pulls up a stool and sits down to watch my hands. I am making good progress, I am almost enjoying it. Then she shouts “watch out!”. Too late: I had chocked it badly, it slips off the bench and tears a little further.

What has just died is the repair — not the skyglider. It is still there, on its cradle, right beside me. And I will not come back tomorrow with the same tools and the same appetite: an action is played once. The price, for its part, has gone up by a notch: the wing is more open than before, and now I know that I do not know how.

Second door: borrowing one. Kamalia owes me a night of storm and two silences; hers is sleeping in the shed. Two poles: she lends it to me, or she refuses — and a refusal, from her, says something.

Kamalia does not deny her debt. She looks at her hands. “Not that one, Nera. Not right now. Ask me for something else.”

She will not say what is holding her. I drew nothing to set about it — asking a favor calls for no particular manner — but this refusal I want to understand.

The Nine of Swords — what keeps you awake at night.

Swords, and by fear: something would cost her too much. It shows well enough.

Two doors, two deaths, and the skyglider has not moved an inch. What is left is what I was keeping so as not to think about it: hiring on aboard a starship, and carrying freight under someone else’s orders.

There is what the third loss would have taken from me. Not the skyglider: the right to fly for myself. I close the scene there, on the quay, without having pushed that door. It will wait for me; that is exactly what worries me.

◆ Chaining actions

Two figures in long coats cross blades in the middle of a city street, a lit lamppost on either side; at the far end, in the white light, a few passers-by watch without coming closer.

What resists does not always yield in a single move. The flight through the storm, the siege of a door, the duel that rebounds: play several actions one after the other, each resolved like the first — two poles, one toss, you read, and you move on.

Each action is read for itself, and what it has just said decides the next one. The world stopped you by inertia? Then the next one is no longer played on that ground: you have learned something, and that is the cadence.

Only know when to stop. If you need one more toss to obtain what the scene has already given, you are holding it open by hand.

◆ Play your first action

Have your character attempt something uncertain: haggling in a shop, flying a machine, jumping from one roof to the next. Stretch two poles that each give you something to write, then toss the coin. If the how is missing, draw a card and read its suit: before the toss for the move, after it for the break. If the world stops you, take it, and go on differently.