Okay, so. I finished Dry Water. As promised, here is a complete write up for the story.
There are three characters Dry Water explores the lives of that would potentially be worthwhile to follow. All of them are the heroes of their own story, and the villains of the others. They've all done bad things for good reasons, and all had a hand in changing the world for a future they fear.
The first I've already mostly covered, but they intertwine down the road.
Larry Ngitis, the protagonist, goes through life and love and loss and comes back to himself a dozen time, having lived others' lives, and gained so much from having done so. He's learned secrets of sorcery, of faerie magic, even bits of necromancy- the art of calling up and binding spirits, of traveling to other dimensions. He's crossed the river of time and reincarnation, and over the course of the book become... himself, but more.
He experiences bad things, the woman he loves dies in his arms- but that isn't the end, because Death isn't the end. He meets her later, shares time and love and life with her, before she passes beyond his grasp, but never his reach.
He learns how to be with her, without the spiritual journey, without the mythical water, he learns how magic and imagination and dreams and contentment are tied together- and ultimately it leaves him in a much better place, ready to begin the next adventure.
The powers he comes out of the end of the book with are:
1. Precog. He has a second sight related to threats and endings, can he see/sense death that would come to people he meets, and understand the context associated with it. He can see the death that would come to objects- motors breaking down, pens running dry. He can see the death that would come from the actions of another- not easily or simply, but with effort and experience.
2. Sorcerous Sight. Larry learns how to see the weave of power, can can tell when someone has it or not.
3. Veracity's Blade. A rapier, later a Saber, basket hilt and all, the light of its blade shows the truth both to the wielder and anyone who the wielder directs to see it. They do have to see the blade- if they aren't looking at it, it won't work. It can blind (blinded by the truth was never so literal), it can force understanding upon others, making a revenant realize they are the dead, and depart, and it can show the past actions of another who the wielder has encountered. It's also a very excellently crafted blade and virtually indestructible so long as the wielder learns how to make it their own (Larry does over the course of the story).
4. How to move without moving. It's a memory of a specific shape, a path, a pattern through the tesseract of possibilities- a wormhole leap through space from one place to another. It hinges on personal connections- places, experiences, lives, love- but lets its user leap across vast distances without crossing the intervening space. Probably the hardest of the abilities Larry learned to use.
5. The binding of souls and spirits. Larry lived the Necromancer Judzyas, student of Socrates' life, from birth to the present, some thirteen dozen generations. Although most of that knowledge slipped away, too much to grasp or retain, Larry held onto the ability to summon, bind, and command spirits- both of the dead, or those who were never corporeal- spirits of nature, life, wind, and dust. As part of this knowledge, Larry learned how to bring his body to the edge of death, and slip its cord, traveling through other realms in astral form- before returning to his body. The Necromancer used this technique to jump between bodies, leaving his original when its death came, and move to another very near death, healing and reinvigorating it with his power.
6. Shifting possibilities. An application of #3, Larry can choose to see beyond the world, to see other facets of things that exist or may yet become real. He uses this power once to enact a permanent change on a swiss army knife with three tools visible in our world, but six in worlds beyond, changing it, shifting it. The knife becomes rippling gold, and another tool unfolds a blade of seven diamond slices, sharper than anything made by man, capable of cutting through leather and stone as if they were butter, and a pen that writes on the air in golden ink. He uses this power a couple more times for minor purposes, once on a gun.
7. The Dry Water, an airy liquid that seeps out from the cracks in reality, representing pure possibility, energy, imagination, it lets one walk the shores of the great river, the path to heaven, the wheel of reincarnation, where time has no meaning. The river isn't really a river- it's time. The water isn't really water, it's the life threads of all who have lived, and all who will live. Through searching and knowledge, through connection, one can find the paths of others- even those yet living- and join them as an echo, a childhood imaginary friend, a familiar on their journey through life, learning and experiencing all they do. It is the ultimate source of perspective, and Larry experiences three very different lives through it, gaining maturity, contentment, and knowledges ranging from child-rearing, bread baking, home making, fluency in latin, italian, spanish, and french, skill in manipulating people and systems, understanding of love and loss and forgiveness- and more.
8. The bullet of one Mathew Carlson, a racist, rapist, murdering outlaw from the Wild West, who was killed in his drunken sleep with $2.50 in his wallet and half a bottle of booze. Over the course of the story he goes from unlikable to a friendly, reliable companion, made manifest to Larry through physical contact with his bullet. Specifically, Larry coated the thing in epoxy and chews on it (the magic says it has to be inside you). Matt can step inside Larry when the latter is shooting, giving him something of his emotions (SAN alert!) but also perfect accuracy. He can also cause bullets and guns of all kinds to go awry. Over the course of the story he goes from hilariously racist (Larry is 1/8th Chinese) to a dependable friend, and unlike so many other fictions ghosts, who are locked into their last moments, Matt genuinely changes himself for the better.
Next up is the Spirit Whisperer, Raja, a girl born in the far past and taught by elemental shadows, emenations of great spirits of cold and ice. She was taken from her home by a man who sought to use her, who sold her into slavery to the priests of the valleys, who worked her near to death, sought to bind her power and fuel their own with it- but one night she escaped, and traveled far into the mountains, into the ice and snow, perhaps to die. Instead, she found the great spirits who had whispered to her as a child, and they taught her how to survive, how to tie her natural rhythms to the seasons, her power waxing in the summer and waning in the deep of winter. She studied with them for a lifetime, before traveling down from the mountains and walking the world, studying with shamans and acolytes of every type and color.
Her powers are primarily:
1. The powers of the spirits. Whereas the Necromancer Judzyas relied on words of power and sigils of binding to command spirits to do things for him, Raja learned how to take their powers for her own, not just calling upon spirits of nature, love, and life, or the art of sigils and bindings, but to manfiest terror and wind, storm and lightning of her own power.
2. Enchantment of objects to overpower defenses, to pin the soul, to unweave the form, to see beyond the walls of the world, far without distance, through hearts and minds. She is a crafter, using sigils and artifice, forging life and limb, tree and stone. She made a living cross to bar a shaman who was her enemy from returning to the world, she had a pool of water she used for scrying, distance seeing, truth divining, and all her casting. She made a coin to spy on an enemy, and a marble to snare the soul of a pawn, a stake to bind the necromancer to this world, to his death inescapable.
3. The Dry Water. Raja uses the water in a way similar to Larry, but thinks too simplisticly. She changes the past, changing time, thinking much like the SI authors of our own website- that she can 'fix it' and everything will work out. She stops Columbus from finding the new world, and expects this will give her centuries to bring the natives of the americas up to a technologically enlightened power that keeps their traditions strong and will change the pace of the world. Instead, the French find the new world two years later, and everything turns to grimderp technohorror. Oops.
4. A Subtle Touch. Defeated in her schemes by Larry's efforts, Raja learns to tread more softly, to act subtly upon the world. She uses her last dose of the Dry Water not for herself or to attempt to change time again, but welds its magic to the magic of her scrying pool, creating a branch in the great river, letting some of the wonder and imagination of the past pass through her realms. Through this she gains access to the summerlands, a realm of wonder and time gone by, the world of the faeries of nature and of life, and a doorway to pass between the world and the realm. This allows her to travel there to reinvigorate herself, even in the height of winter, and when she returns, to bring a little more wonder into the world, a little more imagination and hope- changing the world for the better littly by little.
5. Sorerous Sight. Raja can see the weave of power, and tell when someone has it or not.
Lastly we have Judzyas, the necromancer- or for much of the story, known as Nikolas, or 'Nick'. He was born long ago, and was Socrates' most faithful student, but another student wiped his name from history *cough*Plato*cough*. Socrates did not fear death, for his patron, a many angled one from far beyond the world, promised him life everlasting in realms beyond the mortal coil. But before he passed, he conveyed his information to Nick, and the latter traveled and found the beginings of power- but also the beginings of a future that burned the world to dust. Like Raja, he was too short sighted, too small minded. He saw colleges burn, he saw change, and he saw power- and he came to the realization that Prophets, those who can see the future, or perhaps just those who have what it takes to change the world, are behind these great times of strife, and so he made it his personal duty to end them before they can bring the change they were born for. He takes every failure upon himself- Alexander the Great, Joan of Arc, even Oppenheimer, and rededicates himself to his cause.
Over the course of the story, he eventually learns that the reason we aren't all sorcerors living in a gilded golden wonderful post scarcity society can be laid singularly at his own feat, by his own hand- for it was true. A prophet would bring the world to ruin- and in all those other visionaries he saw echoes of the true threat. When they died, he was always too late- for the other Prophet he sought had changed the world yet again.
That prophet, the one he couldn't quite see?
It was himself. He was the threat to the world, and through his actions, the world nearly came to ruin.
His powers are primarily:
1. Binding Spirits. He binds spirits of the sickened dead to physical form to serve him, a spirit of an electrical operator with a knowledge of the physics of electricity and a command over its elements, who can stir the clouds to storm, and summon lightning to strike. He binds spirits of the dead and beyond, summoning their power, their knowledge, and making them into his weapons. His power grows as winter does, strengthens in that time of death.
2. Sigils and Bindings. Though not as powerful as Raja, whom he once shared a lifetime with, he is an adept hand with these, both for binding spirits and other sorcerors, for forging traps and weapons against his enemies.
3. Traveling the Netherrealms. Those other dimensions, beyond the world- while Raja remained firmly on Earth, despairing of the future, Nick was off exploring beyond this realm, taking care not to catch the attention of the many-angled ones, but learning how to tread lightly, how to pass between bodies, how to live forever, how to identify and bind the powerful ghosts from the weak.
4. The Dry Water. The novel leaves his fate open- he drinks of the water and leaves himself open to possibility. He walks the shores of the great river, and goes to experience the first life that Larry did, the life of Anne-Marie, the girl who saw the faeries, who lived and loved and lived well, to gain his soul back from the figurative cluthes of death and ennui. Perhaps he continued experiencing lives, rebuilding himself from lives well lived, rather than a life dedicated to hunting the specter of his own actions. Perhaps he returned to the world, to pick up the pieces of his life- or even let his spirit travel beyond, to the cycle of reincarnation once more.
5. Sorcerous Sight. Nick can see the weave of power and tell when someone has it or not.
Each of these characters experience powerful revelations that affect their character for the better. They learn new applications of magic, but the real lesson is not to be so small minded, so simplistic in their thoughts. There are solutions, yes, but they are not simple or easy, they require effort and work. Raja in particular fell into the same trap Eden did. They were both too focused on that wonderful future they would forge, that had everything they wanted- to see that they hadn't truly set it in motion yet. All three of them become better people over the course of the story, and earn a measure of contentment and awareness and sanity.
That said, of the lessons learned and the order of positivity and self awareness, I would say that it is ordered as follows:
Larry
Nick
Raja.
Raja learns the least, and she's totally unreprentent about her bullshit. She doesn't do as many horrifying things as Nick does- from a pure SAN perspective- but she's still a total asshole and finishes the story basically congratulating herself on pulling a fast one on Larry.
Nick learns a lot- but he starts off a much worse person, and all the shit he does with necromancy of spirits would probably lead to a lot of SAN hits before the resolution and enlightenment brings an awakening to a better self. Also the book starts off with him getting murdered by Raja (moreorless) and he doesn't pop back up until much later, so I don't think he's necessarily the best choice, although he's probably better than Raja at least with Taylor's sanity in mind.
Larry is, I think the best choice- and while Nick is better than Raja- Larry experiences Nick's life, even if most of those details are forgotten. The key points stand out, and although Larry retains only a smattering of that knowledge, in this case I think it's very good, and even essential that he forgets the rest because it means that, so too will Taylor- and thus Nick's life will be overshadowed by the other two lives Larry experienced.
Those lives were Anne-Marie, the girl, mother, grandmother, who saw faeries and learned something of their magic, and another- Arturo, the Spanish Patron of Christopher Columbus.
Lots and lots of information and knowledge there, all of which Larry- and thus Taylor- would retain coming out.
The big thing is that these lives gave Larry the ability to really appreciate his own life. They didn't overwrite or overshadow his own life, but complemented it- and so too, for Taylor, these experiences would help her immensely, giving her a bulwark, a bastion of sanity in a pool of uncertainty, teaching her to trust herself, but also how to understand what it is she's feeling, what emotions she's unfamiliar with look like- love and life and loss.
And remember: Sadness is not SAN loss. Experiencing sadness is necessary to truly comprehend joy, and to give context to the passage of time and life- Taylor's used to bottling things up inside, but what she really needs sometimes is a good cry. Larry goes through loss- but also gains his losses back, and gains so much more. The powers are nice- sure- potentially very useful- but it is the personal lessons, the awareness, the understanding of life and emotion that really matter here- they give us a chance to give Taylor stability and the maturity to handle the horrors she may yet experience.
There's also a good chance that living three lifetimes and then her experiences as Larry himself will probably totally overwrite the long term phobia from the Monkey King, or at least make a major dent in it.
