Frozen Prospects

by Dean Murray

  The person who finally came into view was the last person Va'del expected, but she was the one person who might not torment him. Jain's never done anything mean to me.

  The pretty young lady jumped a little, her delicate face blushing slightly when she saw Va'del, barely visible in the darkness. "Oh, I didn't see you at first. Why are you sitting here in the dark?"

  Va'del looked up for moment and then to his surprise found himself answering honestly. "I've always like the darkness. Plus I don't want anyone to notice a light and come looking to see who is here so late."

  "I guess that makes sense. Do your feet hurt?"

  Shrugging, Va'del shifted his feet in the hot water. "Yes. Having people step on them all day tends to do that."

  Jain seemed a little embarrassed at the reminder of just how cruel everyone was being, but after a second she walked further into the little cave. "Can I use the pool too?"

  "Is that why you came here?"

  "They made us start learning unarmed fighting today. I pulled my right calf. One of the apprentice miners saw me limping and said I should spend some time in a hot pool. I heard there were a bunch in this area, so I slipped out of the dormitories and wandered around till I found one."

  Va'del slid over slightly to free up room on the ledge he was using as a bench. "Make your self comfortable."

  The pair sat in silence for quite a while, and Va'del had just about managed to quiet his mind enough to practice his mental exercises when Jain spoke up. "Why did you attack Be'ter?"

  Even in the near darkness, it was probably hard to interpret Va'del's expression as anything other than disgust, and Jain's blush said she knew how her question sounded. "I mean after all of the other stuff I see people doing to you that you don't fight back against. I think it's all wrong, but I don't understand why you attacked Be'ter but don't do anything to the others."

  Va'del shrugged, but then decided that answering the question would provide him a chance to learn more about her. "Be'ter didn't just insult me, he insulted the family that sponsored me."

  Jain nodded even though Va'del was fairly sure she didn't really understand. He thought about pressing the issue, but there wasn't anything to be gained by trying to explain further. "Can I ask you a question now?"

  Again a nod even though it was plain she was worried he was about to ask something 'difficult' like why she didn't stand up to everyone else regarding their cruelty. "Why did they make you carry all of that wool by yourself the first time I met you?"

  Jain ducked her head in embarrassment. "I argued with Guadel Ah'bi that day, so she punished me."

  The image of the quiet, seemingly well-behaved young lady next to him arguing with a Guadel nearly made Va'del smile, but he suppressed the desire so she wouldn't think he was mocking her. "Can I ask what the argument was about?"

  Jain dropped her eyes for a second. "She was going on and on about how important the traditions and law around Guadel sitting in judgment are. I told her that it was all fine in theory, but it almost never happened. As long as the villagers are careful when they elected their headmen, they'll have an honest man. If they don't have an honest man for their Headman, then it's their own fault, and maybe they didn't deserve to have a Guadel come in and confirm or overturn the judgment."

  In response to Va'del's look of amazement Jain dropped her eyes again. "She probably wouldn't have punished me, but it made the other girls laugh."

  The pair sat in silence for several more seconds before Jain turned towards Va'del again. "Aren't you going to tell me you think I'm right? Everyone else does when I tell them she made me carry the gurra wool back all by myself."

  Va'del shook his head, "Well you didn't actually have to carry the wool very far because I helped you, but apart from that I think you're wrong."

  For a second it looked like Jain was going to get mad, but then she cocked her head to the side. "Why?"

  "Well, the headmen are elected to such long terms that sometimes the wronged villager wasn't one of the people to vote for him. Maybe they moved into the village after the election, or maybe they were too young to vote when it was held. I don't know that you can say they are always responsible for who ends up as Headman."

  Jain looked more than a little astonished, but nodded after a second. "I guess that makes sense."

  Va'del continued, warming to the subject as he thought about the widow at Screaming Wind Village. "Not only that, sometimes the Headmen change while they are in office. Maybe they started out relatively honest, but over the course of twenty or thirty years started putting the interest of family or friends over that of the village as a whole."

  Jain looked positively surprised now, and Va'del suddenly realized how naive and sheltered she was. They start training the girls as soon as the mage gift shows up. She may have been sequestered away from her family as young as eight, and put into a regimented environment designed to make sure she wasn't exposed to anything before the Council was ready for her and her classmates to experience it.

  "Plus, people are more complicated than just good or bad. Most people seem to have some of both in them. Maybe the Headman is mostly good, but has a weakness where a specific family member is involved. In that case, the fact that the wronged party can request judgment from the Guadel may be the only hope they have. Or possibly the fact that the Headman's decision may be overturned by the Guadel is enough to make him choose correctly to start out with."

  Jain seemed lost in thought, and Va'del let the silence stretch for a few minutes before pulling his feet out of the pool and putting on his boots. My feet are turning wrinkly, and I'm not going to get anything else done tonight. It's time to go to bed.

  "I'm done for the night. Goddess protect you Jain."

  "You too Va'del, Goddess protect."

  ##

  Jain waited while the rest of the girls filed out of the well-lit room where Guadel Ah'bi had just finished up her lecture on the finer points of challenge law. The class had held the girls' attention much better than most of her lectures, largely due to Be'ter's recent challenge of Va'del and the gossip it had spawned.

  When the instructor looked up and saw Jain standing a few feet away from her, she sighed as if expecting another argument about why a particular piece of law was poorly conceived. "Shouldn't you be headed to lunch?"

  Jain ducked her head nervously, "Yes, Guadel Ah'bi, I just wanted to apologize for the other day. Someone pointed out to me that there are many ways villagers could find themselves being judged by a Headman that they had no voice in electing. Then they pointed out that headmen are people too, so it's possible they might change over their term of service."

  The older woman's eyebrows rose a little in surprise but she nodded slowly. "That is true, and I appreciate your apology, even coming as it does so long after the fact."

  Seeing her young student blush, Ah'bi held up her hand. "On the other hand, I owe you a bit of an apology as well. I should have spent more time trying to explain those same things to you and less time assigning punishment. Outside worries shouldn't be allowed to influence my treatment of you girls, and I'm sorry I let them do so."

  Jain nodded, somewhat surprised to hear the stern instructor admit an error. "Guadel Ah'bi, you don't by chance know anything about the ex-candidate Va'del do you?"

  The eyes that had been softening somewhat became hard as flint again. "I wouldn't have thought you one to go looking for more tidbits to feed into the rumor mill, Jain."

  "No, mistress. I've just seen him at training, and the time you sent me for wool. He seems kind, but I don't really know anything about him."

  Ah'bi studied her student for several seconds before finally nodding. "I don't suppose there are many who can say they know much about him. Maybe none who can say as they actually know him well."

  The older woman stared off into the distance as her right hand absently reached up to brush her short brown hair out of the way. "I knew his sponsors well. I'rone wasn't much for speaking, I don't suppose an
y of the Stephens men are, their women are all too prone to pick the boys as have a bundle of hurt inside. For all of that, I don't know as if I've ever met a man with a finer mind. At least not in the area of law. We tried to get him to teach this class, but he kept putting us off. Either because he wanted to be out and about doing things, because teaching would have involved more speaking than he normally did in a year, or because Stephens' bloodline is dwindling so badly that his wives needed to find a lad to sponsor. I suppose it could have been a combination of all three."

  Jain suddenly found herself full of even more questions than she'd started with, but she fought down the desire to ask them, hoping that doing so would lead Guadel Ah'bi to continue talking. It was rare that any of the Guadel shared much in the way of information about their fellows, and Ah'bi was more tight-lipped than most.

  Shaking herself slightly Jain's instructor continued. "I don't suppose as all that really matters except that I had a bunch more respect for him and his wives than most. Whatever boy they picked to sponsor had to have real potential."

  Jain felt a curious flutter in her heart, but Ah'bi shook her head. "That being said, you'd best steer clear of him, girl. A thing like what happened to him changes a person, and he was no doubt a wounded thing to begin with. I suspect that On'li and her husband are thinking they'll try to get him sponsored when Bay'del and her husband get back, but even so there are a powerful group of people who don't want to see that day. Barring that, there are as many or more who'd see him rejected before he could take his final oaths. Not all are as wise as to make sure that the one they want to crucify for something is really deserving of the punishment. Tis too much human nature to want to blame someone when something goes wrong, and not all Guadel or even all on the Council are immune to it."

  Jain nodded, not really sure she understood all that had just been said, but reeling with new ideas regardless.

  "You mind me girl and stay away from him for now. At least till we know as if he's been too damaged by all that's happened. And don't go repeating this to any of those young fools as seem determined to make things worse for him."

  Chapter 13

  Va'del slipped his feet into the hot spring once again and sighed as the familiar ritual finally made it feel like the day was coming to a close. The last couple of weeks had gone on much the same as the previous ones, but the few small changes that had occurred improved his outlook more than he would have believed possible.

  I continue to put more muscle on, and at a rate that bears out the idea that Jasmin really did something to me. Probably more drastic than she made it sound at the time too, Goddess bless her. For making the change and bless her for minimizing it to me. If it wasn't for the fact that I'm now so much stronger than I was, there isn't any way I'd be able to continue weapons training.

  Fi'lin, the Guadel weapons instructor, had gruffly handed Va'del a practice dagger one day and told him to use it before turning back to the Guadel candidates that were his real responsibility. Alir hadn't liked it of course. He'd even stopped providing Va'del the minimal instruction he'd been giving previously. Instead he simply continued to pit the boys against Va'del one at a time. Alir provided each of them with critique of their skills at the end of each bout, but remaining conspicuously silent regarding Va'del's weakness and strengths other than to point out how the other students could use them to their advantage.

  It should have bothered Va'del more than it did, but Fi'lin occasionally mentioned a particular thing 'that young students often need to improve on' in passing. With the Guadel's occasional, subtle guidance, Va'del was steadily improving, and he treasured the fact he was once again practicing with two weapons.

  None of the dedicated guardsmen used two weapons, and the citizen guards who made up the bulk of the cadre were likewise trained only in the use of a single weapon. Va'del's training with sword and dagger, informal as it was, was a sign that he still had a chance to be sponsored.

  Va'del's increased strength also meant that it no longer took him as long to perform his duties at the stable. Callan had started shifting additional duties his way until he realized that doing so was encouraging sloth among the 'real' apprentices. That had promptly stopped, and now that the sheering was done Va'del found he was able to absent himself for a cycle or two in the middle of the day to study law or perform his mental exercises.

  Those spare minutes were prized both because they freed up Va'del's evenings slightly, and because they got him away from the stable apprentices who'd responded to his unique status by becoming even more relentless in their tricks and harassment.

  Things had come to a head when one of them got a little too violent and Va'del had dropped him gasping to the ground with a kick to the stomach. For a second it had looked as if the other three boys who'd been watching would all jump him simultaneously, but Callan was hell on brawlers. In the end, they'd simply picked up their retching comrade and retreated, having finally determined that they could only push him so far. That didn't, of course, stop them from pushing him right up to that line.

  When it came to the candidates and Jain's fellow Daughters, things hadn't changed much, but there were a few who no longer participated in the teasing. I wonder why they stopped. Maybe they saw that Jain wasn't doing it and that was enough?

  Va'del wondered what time it was and then tried to relax. Jain would either manage to sneak out or she wouldn't. Fretting about it wouldn't change things in the slightest. He'd worried a little about a large group of the candidates or apprentices arriving at his secluded pool the first few nights. In the absence of any adults there was no telling what might have happened, but they'd never shown up. Instead, Jain had started sneaking out and coming to the pool several times a week.

  Something had changed between the first time they'd talked and the second. Much of the awkwardness was gone now. Jain had even found another copy of the law book she was studying and given it to Va'del so they could discuss the things she was learning.

  The light sound of footsteps approaching made Va'del smile.

  "Va'del, are you here?" Jain had stopped bringing a glow sphere, trusting in the darkness to help keep them hidden.

  "I am. How was your day?"

  Va'del slid over on the ledge as Jain's footsteps reached him.

  The next cycle or so was even more enjoyable than Va'del had hoped. He could talk to Jain almost as easily as he could have Pa'chi, and they had the added benefit of both sharing an interest in law.

  As they finished up discussing the reading on Council tradition, Jain sighed. "I agree with you, but I think maybe that you may hold too much of a belief in the infallibility of the various members of the Council."

  Va'del considered her point then shrugged, even though he knew the gesture was invisible in the inky darkness. "You're right, but there are already an incredible number of safeguards in place that should hopefully make sure we get the best the Guadel have to offer for those seats. What else could the Goddess have put in place?"

  "I don't know, but what if the best some of the bloodlines have isn't good enough?"

  There wasn't an easy answer, so Va'del didn't try to provide one, instead sitting in silence as he wondered what Jain knew that made her ask the question.

  Jain reached out and placed a hand on Va'del's arm. "Thanks for going over this stuff with me. My scores have gone up a lot since you started helping."

  Trying to ignore the way his heart had sped up at the touch, Va'del cleared his throat uncomfortably. "There isn't any reason to thank me. I enjoy it, and it gives me a chance to keep learning the kinds of things a candidate would be learning."

  "Why do you want to be one of them so badly? All they've ever been is mean to you."

  The question was more personal than the kinds of things they normally talked about. Va'del wasn't sure he wanted to answer, afraid it would somehow change their newly forming friendship.

  "Some of them aren't as bad now. Others are worse, but some of them are getting a little better
for some reason."

  Jain shifted uneasily, and Va'del turned towards her. "You know what changed don't you?"

  "I said a couple of things. Not to everyone. Definitely not to Be'ter, but a lot of the boys follow us girls around whenever they get the chance, trying to win our interest. It gets pretty bad because you're never sure if they like you for you, of if they just are hoping to catch a wife so that they can become a full-fledged Guadel. I told a couple of them that I didn't consider it manly or funny to gang up on someone who hadn't done anything to them. I'm sorry I can't do more"

  It was Va'del's turn to squeeze Jain's arm as he felt tears start to burn in his eyes. "Thanks. There aren't many people who've ever taken a stand to try and help me. It means more than you know."

  The reluctance to answer Jain's first question suddenly evaporated as he finally became sure she wasn't just fishing for information to use against him later. "I guess that there are a few reasons why I want to be a candidate. The most important is that I want to be able to help people that aren't able to protect themselves, and the Guadel do that more than anyone else. They protect them from unethical village headmen, they protect them from snow cats and bag'ligs, they even protect them from bandits."

  Va'del felt his throat closing off with sorrow as he thought about Jasmin, Betreec and I'rone. "I don't think I've ever wanted anything as badly as I want to become a Guadel, but that probably won't happen now. I didn't really have a reason to believe it would, but somehow I kept hoping all of this time. It's been so long now though I don't think it will happen"

  The earnestness in Jain's voice caught Va'del off guard. "No, don't say that. Something one of the Guadel told me indicated that they thought the head of the Stephens bloodline is just waiting for a Guadel pair to return to the Capital. Once that happens, you're sure to be sponsored again."