His stomach gurgled. Jezzil shifted, then forced himself to remain still. Concentrate! Concentrate!
He stared at the coin without blinking until his eyes began to burn and water, silently willing it to move, to tip …
Nothing.
Finally, with a frustrated swipe of his hand, he knocked the coin over. “I can’t,” he snapped. “I tried, but I can’t do
it.” He reached over, grabbed his crutches, and levered himself up. “This isn’t going to work. I appreciate that you’re trying to help me, Doctor, but you just don’t understand.”
“What do I not understand?” Khith asked.
Jezzil thumped the tip of his crutch into the carpet. “I’m not the type to learn magic! Teach Eregard, he loves poring over books until he goes cross-eyed. I’m a dumb soldier, nothing more. When I try to read things, I fall asleep, or get a headache. I’m no scholar, I told you that yesterday, and I’m never going to be one.”
Khith gazed at him levelly. “You are hardly ‘dumb.’ And Eregard does not have avundi.”
“Well, lend him some of yours!” Jezzil snapped.
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I have been practicing magic for nearly forty years. I recognize when someone has the gift.”
“Gift!” Jezzil echoed. He laughed hollowly. “Some gift. I don’t want such a gift. I’m not the right kind of person to have it!”
“Nevertheless, you possess it,” Khith said. “And you will discover that learning to utilize your gift will be as difficult, or more difficult, than any physical feat you mastered while learning to be a warrior. Now sit down, Jezzil. ”
Jezzil wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but he found himself back in his seat. He looked around, feeling a bit dazed. Some kind of mind magic, he realized. “What just happened?”
“I will teach you to do that, too, in due time,” Khith said.
The Chonao grimaced. “You would have made a good drill instructor, Doctor.”
Khith did not reply, merely silently indicated the snuff and the small straw.
Jezzil took a deep breath as he regarded the substance. Do I really want to do this?
“How do I know it can be done?” he said after a long pause. “All I have is your word on it.”
Khith drew itself up with the first flash of temper the human had seen the creature manifest. “Among my people, truth and knowledge are sacred.”
Jezzil spread his hands placatingly. “Forgive me, Doctor, but it would help me to see it done.”
Khith stared at him for a moment, eyes narrowed, then the Hthras leaned over the table, picked up the straw, and snuffed a strawful of the mixture up one nostril. Jezzil watched as the physician’s pupils dilated until, in the dimness, the healer’s eyes looked like two holes punched into the furred countenance.
The Hthras did not move, but a low, throbbing hum began to emanate from its throat. Jezzil was staring at the healer in fascination when he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.
The coin had risen to the level of his eyes and was rotating slowly in midair.
Jezzil stared at it in shock, realizing for the first time that, despite his own Castings, he hadn’t truly believed in sorcery, or power … or magic. He let out a slow, incredulous breath as the coin moved, still spinning, until it hung right before his face. Then, with a sudden quick movement, it darted forward and gave him a smart rap on his forehead. Before Jezzil could grab it, the coin moved back in a golden flash to hover again over the table.
“By Arenar’s sword!” Jezzil muttered as slowly, delicately, the coin descended until it was once more resting on edge on the tabletop. Jezzil regarded Khith wide-eyed. “You did it. This avundi. It’s real.”
“You did not really believe until just now, did you?” The Hthras straightened in its chair and rubbed a hand over its face. “It has been a long time since I did anything so osten-tatious,” it said, and there was a weary note in its voice.
“When I do magic, it is useful magic.”
“This was useful,” Jezzil muttered, staring at the coin.
“You’ve convinced me it’s possible.”
“Good. Now topple the coin.”
Jezzil opened his mouth, then closed it. Khith eyed him.
“Now that you believe, it frightens you, does it not? Good. Nobody should try to learn what I intend to teach you unless he is afraid. Fear is good, it keeps us from doing foolish things.”
The Chonao nodded slowly. He was trying to imagine himself doing anything like what Khith had just done. All his life he’d felt out of step with others. Back when he’d been a soldier in the Redai’s troops, he’d always been told that he had too much imagination. That he thought too much, and it slowed his reaction time.
Knowing in his heart that he was a coward had set him apart, too. Still, he’d found more true comradeship with Thia, Talis, and Eregard than he’d ever experienced as a Chonao warrior. It had been good to belong. To be a part of a group that valued him.
And now he was about to try and learn a skill that would once again set him apart.
Never disregard a potential weapon …
With a sudden movement, Jezzil leaned forward, picked up the straw, and inhaled some of the powder. He snuffed it up into his right nostril, and it seemed to explode into his nasal passages, straight into his brain. His head felt light, then burning hot. He blinked and gasped, realizing he was holding onto the arms of his chair with both hands. His head was so light that for a moment he imagined he had floated clear off his seat.
The drug expanded in his mind like a sharp-edged blossom of mingled pain and pleasure. The blossom bloomed, then began to shrink, becoming ever smaller, until it was a single, hot point of incandescence in his brain.
Blood rushed and sang in his veins. His brain seemed to throb around that spot of light. Dimly, Jezzil became aware that long, bony, extra-digited fingers were grasping his wrist.
A voice was speaking. “That place in your mind that is illuminated is the seat of your avundi, Jezzil! Touch it! Find it so you can find it again. Use it to topple the coin! ”
Jezzil managed to open his eyes, fixing them on the coin.
The physical rush of the drug had faded slightly, but he could still feel that spot in his mind. He stared at the coin and tried to focus using that part of his brain.
He visualized the coin leaning, leaning … and then falling onto its side.
Sweat gathered on the Chonao’s forehead as he stared, not daring to blink. Over and over he tried to touch that place in his mind, the place that was lit like a candle in the darkness.
Over and over he pictured the gold coin leaning over and falling.
Sweat stung his eyes, but still he did not blink.
Fall, damn you! Fall!
All at once he felt that he’d touched that warm place in his mind, really touched it.
The coin on the table shivered, leaned …
And fell.
Jezzil stared at it, a flat golden disc marked with the image of the King of the Pelanese, lying on its side. Slowly, hesitantly, he reached out to touch it with his forefinger. One touch confirmed what his eyes told him.
A thin-fingered, furred hand reached out, touched his hand, then held it. Jezzil turned to see Khith regarding him with a mixture of pride and happiness. “Excellent,” the Hthras said.
“Excellent, Jezzil. We have made a good beginning.”
Talis was actually relieved when she discovered that she did not have to sell Eregard next Market Day.
Before they’d gone to rescue Thia, she’d written to her father, telling him that she was enjoying the social life in Q’Kal and asking him for funds to buy some new dresses.
She’d hated lying to him, but comforted herself by recalling all the unpaid labor she’d contributed to the farm for years … and that her brothers, not she, had been sent to school.
The day before Market Day, she received
a letter from her father telling her that he had sent a letter of deposit from his bank to be deposited in the Q’Kal branch of the Bank of Kata, in her name. Gerdal Aloro asked her if she’d met any suitable young men, and encouraged her to buy some pretty clothes. There was also a letter for Clo, which Talis opened.
She read it, feeling her temper rise.
The last paragraph read:
As you have seen, my daughter is young and foolish. It is up to you to guard her maidenhood, Clo. Never let her out of your sight. Talis has hot blood, and I do not trust her to stay chaste. Innocence is no proof against a nature that bears the brand of wantonness and rebellion. Guard her virginity, Clo.
With this I charge you …
Wretched, lying old hypocrite!
When she finished reading the letter, Talis slowly, deliberately, stepped over to the candelabra that sat on the dressing table and touched the paper to the flame. She watched her father’s words blaze, blacken, then disappear. It wasn’t until the fire seared her fingers that she dropped it, swearing under her breath, a foul oath, words that she’d heard in taverns but never spoken.
The next day she withdrew funds from the bank, and her conscience troubled her not a whit.
“You’ve gotten a reprieve,” she told Eregard that afternoon. “Unless you want me to take you to the market and put you up for sale.”
He shook his head. “No. I … I want to stay with you.”
Talis’s mouth quirked unpleasantly. Liar. You want to stay with Thia. She had seen the looks that passed between them, and noticed that they spent hours poring over books together. There was no denying Eregard’s educational level.
Perhaps he’d been an instructor at some first-class acad-emy? Once, she’d asked him whether that was the case.
“No, I’m not a professor,” he’d replied gravely. “I told you, I’m a prince.”
Talis had burst out laughing and clapped her slave on the shoulder. “Good one! All right, keep your secrets, Eregard.”
Every day, except when the spring rains brought a downpour, Eregard accompanied Talis to the barn where Falar was stabled. Jezzil had asked Talis to exercise the mare, and she’d told him, with perfect truth, that she would be honored to do so.
Eregard had become an expert groom under Talis’s tutelage. He’d learned when to use a currycomb, and where on the animal it was never used. He learned to pick up the horse’s feet to clean them, and to keep his own feet pointed straight back toward the animal’s hindquarters, rather than carelessly standing sideways. He’d learned to comb and braid manes and tails, and how to clean tack.
When he thought of the army of grooms that had presented him with a perfectly groomed mount whenever he wished to go riding, Eregard had to smile; a faint, ironic smile. At least now I can saddle my own mount, if need be, he thought as he rubbed saddle soap into the stirrup leathers.
I’ve learned a lot since I left Pela.
He had also learned a great deal about Rufen Castio and his rebels, but had no way to get the information to his father. Eregard felt torn. He knew his best chance to regain his freedom lay with being sold to the Governor’s household, but he didn’t want to leave his friends.
It was doubly ironic, he recognized, to think of his owner and her companions as friends. Eregard knew only too well that to Jezzil and Talis, born to wealth and slave ownership, he was a possession, scarcely human.
But Thia was different. She knew what it was like to be trapped, to have no free will. In her life in the temple, she’d been a slave in all but name, doing the exact bidding of the higher ranked priests. Thia had told him about Boq’urak, and Amaran, and the religious texts she’d copied. Eregard was fascinated, especially when she confided that she’d spoken with Khith about Boq’urak.
“Khith says there are mentions of the god in ancient texts, buried in a forgotten city,” she said. “The Ancient Ones didn’t call him by that name, but it has to be the same entity, Khith says.”
“Ancient texts? Lost cities?” Eregard was fascinated.
“Where?”
“In the Sarsithe. Khith told me there are buildings half buried in the jungle, and that deep beneath the earth there are old vaults filled with books and texts and scrolls. Can you imagine?”
“A scholar’s dream,” Eregard said, then something occurred to him. “If there is mention of Boq’urak, what do the old texts say about him?”
“Khith says that He has been around for a very long time,”
Thia said. “The Ancients blamed Him for some terrible ca-tastrophe that befell them.” She frowned. “The doctor says that Boq’urak has meddled many times in human affairs. He has great power, but must work through human vessels.
Down through the ages, Khith said, men and women have lent themselves to the god to be used, as a man uses a horse to take him places.”
Eregard regarded her, half fascinated, half repelled. “So Master Varn wasn’t unique?”
“Not at all,” she replied grimly. “Khith said it found some old journals during its travels north that made a lot of hints and obscure references begin to fall together. They said terrible things resulted from Boq’urak’s meddling, but Khith had to leave its home before it could learn more.”
Eregard’s imagination was fired with the idea of a lost city half buried amidst jungle vegetation. “I’d like to go there,”
he mused aloud. “Think what a resource those Ancient texts would be if they could be taken back to Pela, studied by the King’s finest scholars.”
Thia nodded. “And only Khith knows where to find the place.”
Eregard gazed at her, looking into her dark eyes, seeing her narrow features and her short, silvery hair, wispy and flyaway. She was small-boned, small-breasted. No beauty.
And yet, he found himself thinking, there’s something about her. Something fey. Exotic. He eyed the pale pink curve of her lips, thinking that there was a touch of unexplored sen-suality about her mouth.
“Maybe someday we should go there,” he found himself saying. “You and I, with Khith to guide us there.”
For a moment there was an answering gleam in her eyes, but then she shook her head. “That would be dangerous, I think. Khith has told me that its people have a very strong taboo against exploring those ruins. They are a peaceful people, but Khith had to escape before they could run it down with hunting animals. It’s a strong taboo.”
“Evidently,” Eregard agreed.
At night, before he fell asleep, tired from the labors of the day, Eregard would touch the filed place on his collar and remember the old days, when servants waited on him, when he had but to express a wish to have it fulfilled. If I ran away, he wondered, could I convince Thia to come with me?
He knew the ties between the Amaranian woman and the Chonao warrior were strong, but he’d never had the impression that those ties were anything but platonic. Jezzil had described her at one point as his sister, and they did indeed seem to regard each other as siblings. If she ran away with me, and we could reach the Governor’s palace, he would send us back to Pela in style.
Eregard almost wished he could fall in love with Thia. He certainly didn’t feel about her the way he’d felt about Ulandra, now truly lost to him. The news of Salesin’s wedding had traveled to the colony. Everyone was speculating on how soon the new Princess would produce an heir.
Thinking of Ulandra in his brother’s embrace was enough to keep him awake at night, so Eregard tried hard not to think about it. Still, these days when he thought of Ulandra, it was hard to visualize her face. Sometimes, when he tried, he would find himself picturing Thia, or even Talis.
He wasn’t attracted to Talis at all, but she was a compelling woman, Eregard conceded. He would sit on the paddock fence and watch while she exercised Falar, her face flushed with exertion and fresh air, her brows drawn together in fierce concentration. “She’s so finely trained,” she said, “it’s like she is the teacher and I’m the pupil.”
As Jezzil healed, he began
coming to the stable a couple of times each week and coaching Talis as she rode. Eregard and Thia would watch the two of them together, and, indifferent horsemen that they were, marvel at the bond that could exist between mount and rider.
Eregard would watch Thia as she watched Jezzil, and wonder whether she was jealous of Talis. Talis was a striking
woman, after all. As Jezzil continued to heal and was able to put weight on his leg, they began to exercise and train together.
“All right, now, on the count of three, feint, then thrust!”
Jezzil stood in the center of the practice ground behind the stable, sword in hand. He had given up his crutches, but still used a cane to walk.
Talis narrowed her eyes in concentration, trying to feel the sword as an extension of her arm, as part of her body. “Don’t watch the tip of your weapon,” Jezzil had drummed into her during countless drills. “That’s the way to get killed. Watch your opponent, and make sure your sword is part of you. You have to know where your sword is without having to look at it.”
When she’d first met Jezzil, she thought she was fair at swordplay, but a few lessons had convinced her that she was naught but a beginner. But she was learning. Each day she practiced, repeating all the moves he had taught her, refining her hand-eye coordination, trying to be faster on her feet.
She worked on her balance, her stance, her lunges, feints, thrusts, and parries.
On the day that Jezzil was finally able to walk without the cane, Talis was able to slip inside his guard for an instant. He managed to parry her thrust, but it was a last moment thing.
“Excellent!” he shouted. “Excellent!”
Talis stepped back and saluted her teacher, breathing hard, her face flushed with exertion and pleasure. Thia, who was sitting on paddock fence, watching, while Eregard cleaned stalls, cheered aloud.
Talis’s exhilaration was short-lived, however. When the group returned to the doctor’s house that evening, she found a hired courier waiting for her from her father. She scanned the letter he handed her, her jaw set, lips tightly pressed together.
Talis:
I have made inquiries after you, and discovered that you have lied to me about your reasons for staying in Q’Kal. Blessed Goddess only knows what you have done with Clo, but, according to reports, she has not been seen for more than a month.
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