by Tony Roberts
“Oh, she’s keener on him than he is on her. He’s put off by her being all over him all the time. Thing is, the more he distances himself the more she tries. He’s got a lot of trouble there with her.”
“And Grange? He wants her, clearly. What does Pappis think of that?”
Limkel chuckled. “Let me tell you how I think it goes; Pappis would rather Quenia go off with Grange, for that’ll clear the way for him to try to go after you.”
Faer rolled her eyes. “Oh no… and I get the impression he won’t take no from me.”
“You got it, Blade.”
“But what about you? You said yourself you wouldn’t mind getting together with me. Oh, this is too complicated for words!”
Limkel shrugged. “Dunno. It might change if you and I were serious, like, but you’re still keeping me off at arm’s length.”
Faer thought for a moment. Then she looked at her companion. “If Pappis thought you and me were serious, then he’d let me go and go off with Quenia?”
“Maybe, yes. Might cause a problem with Grange but that’s their problem, not mine or yours.”
“Alright Limkel. How about this? You know we can’t get serious, what with the chance you’ll go out of your mind over me. But if we go round as if we’re together, hold hands and all that, people will think you and I are seeing one another. You mind that?”
“Kisses?”
“Oh – really, I don’t know.” She thought back to Markus. He didn’t seem to have been affected by the kiss. “Yes, sure. Kisses. Just that though – I won’t let it go any further. I trust you to keep it like that too, yes?”
“Great,” Limkel said. “How about trying one out now? I mean, we got to practice.”
Faer looked at him, then broke into a laugh. “You’ve got a lot of nerve. Alright, practice.” She took him by the shoulders and pulled him to her. She looked at him, smiling, his eyes dancing with excitement. Taking a deep breath, she pressed her lips to his. She felt his arms go round her and their lips linger together. She held it for a short while, then broke it. It felt good, a tingling going round her body, and a warmth spreading from her body into her arms and legs. It was like a rising heat. She steeled herself to stop it. She looked into his eyes. Was there anything different about him?
“Lovely,” he breathed. “You know, I could do with lots of practice at this kissing thing.”
“Mmm, maybe another time. Let’s go find your friends and just be natural about it, eh? Don’t draw attention to it. Let them work it out what’s going on.”
“Yes, sure. They’ll be in the auditorium I expect. They asked if I was going there earlier on.”
“Auditorium? What’s that?”
“Oh it’s a circular room over by the offices dedicated to music or theatre. Been to any?”
Faer confessed she hadn’t, so he led her, holding hands, over to the place. They climbed a few stairs, passing some of the other more senior students. Nobody made any remark that they were hand in hand. The entrance to the auditorium was through two doors that swung in and out either way, and Faer found they were at the top of the seating area, arranged in a semi-circle that sloped steeply down to the performing area, a square stage in front of a flat wall with open archways in two places, clearly for the entry and exit of the performers.
There were seats for over two hundred, but only perhaps forty were filled. Limkel looked round and tugged on her arm. “There, over there,” he pointed, and led her across to the right. On the stage were four people speaking, part of a play, apparently, or so Limkel said as they made their way down and across.
Their approach was finally noticed and Pappis looked in surprise at the two holding hands. They sat down together and smiled a greeting. “Well, you two look pleased at something,” Pappis said.
“Are we?” Faer replied and put her head against Limkel’s shoulder. Limkel grinned and stroked her hair.
“Ahhh,” Pappis nodded. “Love has struck, boys and girls.”
Quenia looked pleased. “Good for you, Limkel. I think you look the perfect couple.”
Grange grunted. “All because he cut you cheese? You’re easily swayed, Blade.”
“I’m such a pushover, really,” she answered.
“Yeah; just see what she does when I hand her some fish.” Limkel laughed.
“Don’t want to know,” Pappis said, waving a hand at them. He snaked an arm round Quenia who snuggled up to him and sank a huge kiss onto his lips. That one lingered for some time.
“Don’t forget to breathe,” Limkel said.
Pappis waved his fingers in an obscene gesture. The waving of the three middle fingers was considered extremely socially offensive around the lands of the continent Gorradan sat on. It roughly translated as a request to go away and perform a sexual act with oneself.
“Well, that’s nice,” Limkel said. “I don’t think we should let these two break the all-time record for a kiss at the auditorium.”
“What is the record?” Faer asked, still amazed at the endurance test next to them. Grange’s scowl was a picture.
“It’s being set as we speak,” Limkel nodded at the other two. “Come on, want to be an observer or a participant?”
Faer smiled and bent her head, allowing Limkel to kiss her. This time she was prepared for the heat rise and pushed it back, keeping the moment as an enjoyable if slightly detached one. She had the feeling that if she allowed the heat to take over she’d lose control and then who knows what might happen.
They had been seen however and Faer and the others were summoned to the office of Senior Swordstudent Evendar the next morning. Evendar was one of the oldest students and was a sort of prefect, a trustee given over to maintaining discipline. He was a dull, unimaginative type with blue eyes, brown hair and protruding teeth. Everyone called him The Horse behind his back.
“The auditorium is not the place to carry out acts of romance in. People were there to watch a performance of Jerl’s Midnight Love’s Lost, not two couples from the junior student ranks trying their own Midnight Love. The performers were mightily offended and, may I add, so were some of the audience.”
“Ah so not all were then,” Limkel quipped. Faer kicked his ankle.
Evandar frowned. “I don’t think you should treat this lightly, Initiate Limkel. I have even been sent a letter of complaint by the Blademaster himself. You four are in serious trouble. You are to report to the armoury. Full armour and kit on and then to go the main gates. You’re to go down and up the entrance road from the river bridge, all by lunchtime. If you are late you miss lunch. Go!”
Faer remembered the punishment as a nightmare. Going down, dressed in heavy armour and with a pack full of stones was bad enough; returning from the wide wooden bridge crossing the river was worse than anything she could have imagined. That with a screaming senior student assigned to make sure they suffered on top of that was unbearable.
The road twisted and turned and doubled back on itself, rising higher and higher as it clawed itself towards the great entrance of the fortress. Pappis led the way, being the fittest, and he soon left the others behind. Quenia was suffering particularly and lagged at the back. Faer kept on casting anxious looks behind her as the red haired girl fell further and further behind. She stopped, bent double, hands on thighs, and looked up at Limkel. “Keep going,” she rasped, her breath sawing in and out rapidly. “Don’t show them you’re going to give in to them!”
“What – of – you?” he replied, pain etched across his face. “You’ll be made fun of if you don’t make it in time.”
“Don’t care. I’m going to help her,” Faer nodded to the stumbling Quenia, enduring a torrent of abuse from the senior student who had decided to pick on her.
“I’ll help,” Limkel said, turning round.
“You will not!” Faer snapped, getting further upright. “Don’t let him beat you!” she nodded at the climbing Pappis. “Go!” she kissed him on the cheek and turned to face the struggling Quenia who was nea
ring but on her final reserves of energy by the look of things.
She felt Limkel resume his climb, cast a quick glance to confirm that, then stepped down towards the sobbing girl. The senior student was roaring scorn at her alongside the girl. “You’re not fit to be in this school! You should be able to run up this slope! This is nothing!”
Quenia sank to her knees, head bowed, wanting to die. Her lungs were on fire, her head was pounding, her legs like water. A pair of hands grasped her and pulled her up. A voice whispered in her ear. “Come on Quenia, let’s suffer this together. Hold onto me. All that matters now is we finish this and look at their faces when we cross that thresh hold. They don’t think we can do it – together we will!”
Quenia looked up at the sweat-soaked face of Faer. The half-elf smiled at her. Quenia gripped her companion’s arm for a moment, nodded, and then, arms round one another, began to stagger up the unforgiving road, the loose stones that threatened to trip them over, the slope that tried to throw them back down.
The senior student screamed in outrage. “You’re not meant to help her! You’ve got to make your own way up without helping weaklings! You disobedient initiate, you’ll do this again by yourself once you get to the top!”
“Good, if it means you have to accompany me. Anything to make your life uncomfortable,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Shut up! Shut up!” the student raged, spittle flying from his mouth. “I’ll sort you out when we get to the top!”
Faer chuckled through her pain and winked at Quenia who grimaced, but it might have also been a smile, it was debateable. They clung on to one another and put one stubborn foot in front of the other while the sun reached its zenith overhead and then began to drop away to the left, away from the fortress.
The heat was unbearable; the armour was acting like an oven. Faer wondered if it was possible to get any wetter. The prospect of a swim in the springs underground was becoming more and more appealing. Her vision swam and she fell onto one knee. “Think I’m going to throw up,” she muttered.
“I’ve done that already,” Quenia panted, the remains of her breakfast down her armour.
“Oh, didn’t notice that. Shame it wasn’t over him,” Faer replied, forced her leg up, and pulled the half-conscious girl with her.
“Get going! Don’t stop! You pathetic excuses! How do you think you’re ever going to pass as warriors with this useless performance?”
Faer stopped and vomited over the ground in front of her. Heaving, she spat out the remains and wiped her nose, lips and cheek, then continued.
“E-E-Equ-al – now,” Quenia said in a dry, husky whisper.
Faer grinned, then hugged her closer, putting her head against the other girl’s. “Smell – wonder-ful. Boys – go – mad – ov-er – us,” she replied.
Quenia made an odd sound, trying to laugh but she wasn’t up to it. Her face was grey and she looked terrible. Faer looked up. The gatehouse loomed before them, although why it was leaning to one side like that she didn’t know. She ignored the latest abuse from their tormentor and stepped forward. One…two…three. She got to twelve when the shadow of the gatehouse covered them and they staggered through, falling together in a pile just inside the courtyard.
Faer lay on her back, her mouth open like a landed fish. Just to her side was Quenia, face down, crying into the stone flagged surface. People gathered round, silent. The senior student walked away, looking forward to his late lunch. He knew it would have been saved for him; he’d done his job as requested.
Someone threw water onto the two. Faer groaned. It felt wonderful, cascading over her face, throat and sinking down her chest, melding with the sweat there. She opened her eyes. Swordmaster Seltonas peered down at her, his expression one of disgust. “Hello, Master,” she panted. “Sorry I’m late for our lesson; got delayed.”
“You are incredibly flippant; I am simply not prepared to have you in my hall in that state nor smelling as if you’ve mucked out the sewers all day. Go clean yourself up and report to me in an hour.”
“Master!” Faer breathed and closed her eyes. No rest for the wicked; and I think he believes me to be the most wicked of beings on the continent. She groaned and levered herself up into a sitting position. One of those crowded around her made an unkind observation about the vomit on their armour. Some of them broke out into laughter.
Surprisingly, Seltonas came to her – or, rather, their – defence. “If any of you find this amusing, then I can easily arrange for you to don the same armour and packs and do what these two have just achieved; I think you will find it quite some feat. They may be undisciplined and disrespectful, and deservedly received this punishment, but they have courage and determination; something I trust all of you will take note of and seek to emulate.”
He glared at the circle of people who fell silent, then strode away, his cloak fluttering in the breeze. Faer got onto her knees and unfastened her armour, allowing it to fall to the stonework. It was an old rusty set that had seen better days, about a hundred years ago. The relief! Her sweat-soaked chemise was plastered to her body and got quite a few interested looks from the male onlookers. She ignored them; they could look as long as they didn’t touch as far as she was concerned. She touched Quenia on the head. “Sit up; I’ll unfasten this cooking pot wrapped around you.”
The girl nodded and struggled upright, and allowed Faer to unclip the breastplate and the back plate and the arm braces. Freed from the metal, Quenia raised her head to the sky, leaned back and closed her eyes in utter relief. She was a little more voluptuous and eyes switched from Faer to Quenia. The half elf smiled to herself. Quenia’s face was bright red, but not through embarrassment.
“Matching face and hair, Quen,” Faer noted, her eyes full of amusement.
“Oh by the gods; I’m boiled! Think I’m cooked all the way through.”
“Feel up to a swim in the springs? Let’s go grab a bag of fragrance, a couple of drying cloths and clean clothes from our rooms. We’ve got an hour.”
Quenia got up, nodding. “The climb up I’m not looking forward to though.”
“Hah, nothing compared to what we’ve just done!”
Her companion couldn’t disagree, and they made their way, slowly and painfully, across the courtyard. The group broke up. A few picked up the armour and put it in the armoury, still soiled. Let someone else sort that one out.
Faer met Quenia at the entrance to the springs. As it was early afternoon, nobody was around. It would be busy later. They passed into a narrow cave entrance. Torches in wall brackets lit the way down. The ground was a long flight of rock cut steps, and the tunnel big enough for single file passage.
After a few minutes, with the sound of water growing louder, they came out into a cavern. To one side the bucket and rope of the well dangled from a cut hole in the roof, and the steps ended at a wide platform of cut rock. There had even been steps cut to the surface of the water. A few wisps of steam rose in places, and bubbles marked the spot where the water rose from the depths of the rock.
Rumours went that Kaltinar was built on an old extinct volcano, and certainly the area of the fortress looked like an old caldera.
Faer threw off her clothes, every stitch, and stepped into the water. “Ohhhh yessss,” she said very loudly and sank in over her head. She surfaced, blowing water out of her mouth, and pushed herself onto her back, propelling herself over to the far side. The pool was twenty feet long and ten wide. She ended up against the rocks on the other side and waved Quenia in.
The redhead was a little reluctant but finally divested herself and slid in quickly, making sure she was covered up to her breasts. Faer reasoned she was a little shy. They relaxed in the warm water for a few minutes, on opposite sides of the pool, soaking their aching bodies and feeling the filth slough off.
Faer stole a sneaky look at Quen a few times; the girl was clearly building herself up to saying something, but couldn’t quite summon enough courage. So she decided to break the i
ce. “That was one of the most insane things I’ve ever done in my life,” Faer said, laughing. “Any more of those and I’ll have legs bigger than a runner-bird.”
Quen smiled, then hesitated. Finally she spoke. “Thank you for helping me, Blade. I didn’t think you’d do that, especially after I’ve not been friendly to you.”
“It’s not been too bad, Quen, so don’t go worrying about that. I’ve had far, far worse. Sixteen years of it, in fact. Being ignored is probably the best thing I could have hoped for in my home village. Instead I got names, spitting, trips, pushes, doors shut in my hands and face… oh I could go on.”
Quen looked shocked. “What? Who did that?”
“Oh, just about everyone in the village. All because of this,” she tugged the tip of one of her ears, “and this,” she pinched her dark skin, “and this,” she touched her slanted eyes. “Mud-face was one of the kinder things they called me.”
“Oh, that’s horrible!” Quen said, and pushed off, swimming over to her. “I’d never say things like that!”
“I know; you’re just crazy on Pappis, and I don’t blame you – he’s a handsome boy, but a bit selfish. Go careful with him; he might break your heart, you know.”
She sighed. “Yes but he’s just so good looking, and tall, and the best in our class. I wish he’d take more notice of me when you’re around. I’m so jealous of you.”
Faer looked surprised, then stared hard at her companion. “What? Of me? What for?”
Quen looked at the water, then up at her. “You, you’re so – pretty. You should hear the boys in my class talk about you. It’s disgusting. All they think about is – well, getting you in their beds.”
“And nothing about my sense of humour or being able to climb Blade Mountain or liking plays by Jerl.”
Quen giggled. “You’re so funny. I’m ashamed how I behaved towards you the first day or so.”
Faer grinned. “So – friends?”
Quen nodded. “Friends.” They embraced.
The climb back up the fifty feet or so wasn’t as bad as what they’d endured that morning, and they went to their rooms to put their fragrances away, then to the laundrette to hand in their cloths and clothes. Finally Faer and Quen split up and went to their respective lessons.