Kingmaker
Page 13
CHAPTER 13
Zurburan stepped forward into a lighter shadow and threw his hood back, revealing long, black hair with strands of gray in it. A neatly trimmed beard surrounded a face carved from the Sentinel’s Finger itself.
He could be Tirud’s father, Butu thought, then amended, grandfather, maybe. He looked around for Lujo, but no one else was around. Retus was practically bent double in humiliation. Phedam and Nolen hung their heads and slumped, each toward the other. Butu raised his chin and straightened his back, determined to protect them.
“The sordenu woke me from a sound sleep,” the blood priest said, “which means you boys have behaved very badly.” His deep voice carried more weight than any of Karp’s lewd insults. “You are wondering, perhaps, how an adult with no magic of his own was able to see you in spite of your magic?”
He’s thinking of how Karp caught us.
“The more you understand how magic works, the more difficult it becomes to use it.”
“Then I don’t want to know how it works,” Butu said immediately. “I’d rather run through this obstacle course in the dark.”
Zurburan chuckled. He waved a long arm at the field behind him.
“That is exactly what you will be doing if you don’t listen to those who have lost their magic, young man. Whether you seek understanding or not, you will eventually understand. You’ve already begun to think about your magic, else you would not have come to this camp, and Karp’s little chant wouldn’t have tricked you into revealing yourselves if you had not fallen once before.”
The other boys unfolded a little when no physical harm seemed forthcoming. Retus still hugged himself, but he said, “Making us think about it made us unable to use magic.”
Zurburan nodded, but Butu growled out a curse immediately, covering his ears. “Shanubu, be quiet!” He rounded on the blood priest. “You use magic, so you have no reason to take away mine. Set me running in the dark. Make me polish armor and boots. Put a sword in my hand and send me into battle. But don’t take away my magic.”
Zurburan stared at him intently for a long moment. Butu felt his heart throbbing in his neck and head, felt the sweat bead on his back and sides. And he felt the astonished stares of his three friends. Only Nolen seemed to have caught some of his fire, but he said nothing.
“You each have a choice,” the blood priest intoned. “Either listen to what I have to teach you now and sleep before midnight, or run through an obstacle course in the dark until the sun rises.”
Butu didn’t wait for the others to respond before running toward the first obstacle.
I will not forget how to use magic, he vowed as he vaulted a hurdle as high as his chest. He jumped a second one, and then blinked into the night air. I just used magic while thinking about it!
His knee caught the next hurdle and he flipped forward over it, landing in time to receive a mouthful of sand. A pair of boots passed him as he picked himself up and dusted off, refusing to look back at Zurburan — certain the blood priest would be smug. He ducked the next hurdle and jumped the fifth.
Perhaps what matters is that I don’t think about what I’m doing with magic at the moment I’m using it.
Butu focused his attention on anything else he could hold in his mind. He thought of Jani’s mysterious presence. He wondered when his training would begin and whether he would spend another day polishing. He absently noted that Nolen paced him on the obstacle course. He shouted challenges at him, and they raced each other around the circuit.
Each time they passed the start, a whisper of the blood priest’s conversation with Retus and Phedam reached his ears, so he took to singing loudly as he ran.
“This is only the first day,” he told Nolen. “They can’t all be this bad. We just need to be smart about it.”
Nolen nodded, chest heaving.
“What’s wrong?”
Nolen shook his head, motioning Butu to go on. A few minutes later, Nolen caught him up, breathing normally. Butu didn’t press the issue.
As the hour neared midnight, Retus and Phedam left the obstacle course behind and retired to the barracks. Zurburan stood, implacably, and watched Butu and Nolen run.
They fell down many times — mostly brief spills and mishaps as thoughts of magic strayed into their minds. They each slowed, regularly, panting. Then they’d catch another wind and run onward.
Some time later, Zurburan commanded them to stop.
Maybe this was just a warning, like the armory, Butu thought, panting as he and Nolen trotted over to the blood priest. I’m sure Zurburan doesn’t want to stay up all night watching us run.
The blood priest held out clay jugs. Butu could feel the water inside. Sweat drenched his clothes, and the cold desert breeze made goose bumps rise all over his body.
“Drink,” Zurburan said. “Your bodies cannot endure the strains they could when you were children.”
They did so gladly, and Zurburan continued talking amicably.
“Though it takes a hundred mortal blows to kill a first-cycler, you must understand you are not of that age. You might survive a mortal blow or you might not. And if you survive one, you might not survive the next. Therefore, you must care for your bodies and keep them from harm.”
“Stop!” Butu cried, trying to cover his ears in spite of the water jug in one hand. “You said we could either listen to you explain magic or run the obstacle course all night. We chose the obstacle course.”
“You didn’t listen very carefully. I said you could choose to run the obstacle course if you didn’t want to listen for an hour and sleep before midnight. I never said I’d spare you the lesson.”
“Then we’ll just keep running until dawn,” Nolen announced, throwing his water jug on the ground so it shattered into clay fragments and running onto the obstacle course.
“Will you drink?” Zurburan asked Butu with a patronizing smile. “Or would you rather remain thirsty?”
Butu growled low in his throat and followed Nolen. After another hour, he was thirsty and tired, again. He focused on that discomfort to keep from thinking about magic. Nolen seemed to do much the same, but they still fell often.
He felt water sloshing around, somewhere, and licked his dry lips. He blinked, looking around. The feeling got stronger, and so did his thirst. Then he passed Zurburan, shaking the jug.
Shanubu, if I didn’t have this magic I wouldn’t have felt that water.
If I didn’t have this magic, I’d be blind in the dark.
The course vanished to his senses. Butu frantically tried to remember where he was on it, and leapt, thinking he was at the pit. He slammed into the climbing wall face first, crashing to the ground. He felt blood run down his cheek.
Butu lay there for awhile, dazed more by the blindness than the pain.
If I can’t see in the dark without magic, how can Zurburan see us?
He touched his nose and felt a stab of pain from the flat space where his nose had once stuck out. He jerked his hand away and sat up dizzily. He noticed blood had dripped onto the front of his uniform, and then Nolen ran up the wall with only a brief glance.
Butu grinned, wishing for a mirror to see what he looked like. His Turun vision had returned, though it winked out again for just a moment as he thought about it.
He felt Zurburan at his side, offering the water jug.
“It is very dangerous to rely on a magic that could fail you at any moment.”
“You did that deliberately.” Butu was tired. He could hardly get any accusation in his tone.
“I merely shook a clay jug. How did that make you lose your sight? This is the curse of magic. One stray thought, and it will desert you. If you rely on the gifts Mir gives Turu children, you will suffer worse than a broken nose. The next time, it could kill you.”
The next time, I could kill you! Butu thought savagely as he took a long drink from the jug, but he said nothing.
He touched his nose gingerly as he stood up. The blood had stopped flowing, and his nose was back
to its original shape. Without waiting for Zurburan to resume his lecture, he dodged around the wall and continued the course.
Stray thoughts, he thought. The games and rhymes make more sense, now. If I can teach myself to keep my mind from straying, I can keep using magic.
Butu tasted sand again. Smirking at himself, he picked himself up and continued running.
As the night faded into the dark blue of dawn, the blood priest called them to a halt. Butu and Nolen limped off the obstacle course, exhausted and covered with scrapes and small bruises from their falls. Both their uniforms were soaked with sweat and spattered with blood. Zurburan looked ready to go to a formal dinner. Butu scowled at him.
“You have served your sentence with me,” the blood priest intoned. “Do you have any questions before you begin your first day of training?”
“How much time do we have to sleep?” Nolen said, yawning. Butu nodded and yawned also.
Zurburan gestured to the mess, where the cooks had already begun work. A handful of older sordenu warmed up in the training yard. Two others, maybe three cycles older than the boys, appeared on the obstacle course, offering rude comments to Butu and Nolen about their mothers.
“You should eat before you report to morning drill.”
“When is morning drill?” Butu asked.
“It begins when the sun fully breaks the horizon.”
They looked over their shoulders. The sun’s first rays crept toward them.
Zurburan smiled far too sagely. “There are two paths to wisdom — falling down and learning from those who have fallen down. You chose to run through an obstacle course all night long. I’m afraid you’ve earned this fall.”
“But you didn’t tell us we’d have to train today!” Butu objected between gasping breaths. The two sordenu on the course, passing by then, laughed at his tired complaint. When have I ever been short of breath before now?
“You are men, now,” the blood priest intoned. “You will get nothing by whining at me or any of the other sordenu. Those who get caught breaking the rules will be punished. Now, go eat before you must endure morning drill on an empty stomach!”
“Yes, sir,” Butu said, saluting.
Is he saying I can use magic as much as I want as long as no one catches me doing it?
He clung to that thought, determined to understand this twist to the rules.