Chained Adept

by Myers, Karen

  “Ah. So it is more than language, is it?” he asked, mildly, and watched her cheeks redden. Through his soft mind-touch he could feel her chagrin. The flickering light from the lantern hanging low overhead from the central bow supporting the canvas cast deceptive shadows over her face, but her mind was not so easily disguised.

  “So,” he said. “Can you show me?” More softly, “Will you show me?”

  She exhaled and lifted a finger as if to ask him to wait a moment. “When you said it was hard for a student to find a mentor if he couldn’t mind-speak, what did you mean? How do you use it with your teacher?”

  “The teacher shows the student what to do, how it looks, from the…”

  “From the inside?” she suggested.

  Zandaril nodded.

  “What about private thoughts?” she said. “Unintentional sharing?”

  “That is not done,” he said, drawing himself up.

  “Isn’t done, or can’t be done?” she persisted.

  On the point of sputtering a reply, Zandaril caught himself. She deserves an honest answer.

  “It is not proper to try, but I cannot say that it is impossible. There are rumors of wedded couples, close friends…”

  She smiled faintly.

  “But there are also rumors of powerful men, misuse…”

  She nodded as if he had confirmed something for her.

  “When Aergon and the others began to examine me, three years ago, they asked me to show them what I could do. I should have asked them to go first, but I didn’t know any better. I… scared them.”

  She looked away from him and cleared her throat. “After that, I couldn’t find anyone willing to learn from me or to teach me, not in that way.”

  She stuck two fingers inside the front of her collar chain as though it were too tight and she wanted to loosen it, and then glanced back his way. “I wouldn’t want to scare you, too.”

  Zandaril’s skin chilled. Do I trust her in this? How badly do I want to know? What secrets do I have that really matter? I don’t know what she can do—maybe she can kill me and escape. Do I think that likely?

  He tasted her mind again and felt a stubborn loneliness and the bitterness of old failure, but not deception.

  “We will try this thing, bikrajti,” he said. “Please, can you describe it?”

  “I can’t tell you what it will be like for you, only for me,” she said.

  “Of course.”

  “For me, it’s as though there were different layers. At the top, I can touch a mind, over a distance, and know something of the person by its flavor. If I’ve met him already, I can identify him.”

  This was familiar, and he nodded. “I showed you Chang last night that way, and you picked him out of the others.”

  “That’s right. That’s simple. Then, if they are capable, I can mind-speak with them, as I have done with you. Most can’t, and it’s like talking to a deaf man—the inability to hear is obvious.”

  Zandaril squeezed the corner of his bean sack in a clenched fist, on the side she couldn’t see. “Not the same for me. I cannot know a person is mind-deaf—only he himself knows when the mind-speech fails to come to him.”

  “So, someone could lie about it, claim to be mind-deaf and then eavesdrop on a conversation?”

  That was a disturbing thought. “Maybe he could pretend, but you can’t overhear mind-speech the way you can spoken words.”

  “Are you sure about that?” she asked.

  “Yes, of course. I mind-speak to someone, not to the air.”

  “Hmm,” she said, noncommittally. “Perhaps.”

  “You do not agree?”

  “I haven’t tested it, but I wonder if a mind-cry for help to whomever could hear it wouldn’t work.”

  That jolted him. Ah, like in the old tales. “There are stories, for children…”

  She nodded. “I wanted to experiment with that in the Collegium, but…”

  “They wouldn’t allow it.” He could picture prim and affronted elderly bikrajab reacting to such a request.

  “It would’ve been like shouting in the library. I just couldn’t do it.”

  They shared a smile.

  “And, then,” she continued, “there aren’t very many there who can mind-speak at all.”

  “No?” he asked, startled.

  “Hardly any. In fact, you’ll find if you terrify half a dozen, you’ve pretty much run out of experimental subjects.” A sardonic grin flickered across her face.

  Oh. This paints an unflattering portrait of the great school of wizardly knowledge. Mind-deaf like the Kigaliwen.

  “Truly?”

  “Truly,” she confirmed. “Anyway, what I’ve described is the top layer, as I think of it. Below that…”

  She looked at him directly as if to judge his reaction. “I cannot see a man’s thoughts, only his emotions, because he doesn’t know enough to suppress them successfully. Like a deaf man babbling, he doesn’t realize he’s giving himself away. But the things he’s learned by rote, the things he’s an expert in—those things are deeply part of him. And I can share in that, to some extent.”

  No man I know can read another’s thoughts, but how would I know if she is different?

  “Language,” he said.

  “Yes, the earliest thing he learns that way. Reading, too. But only m’mind knows it, not the body. I can read your wirqiqa-Zannib script, because you can, but writing it would be difficult, my fingers clumsy and the letters ill-made. I speak with an accent, because my mouth is not accustomed to forming the sounds the same way that you do.”

  He nodded. “Compared to your native tongue.”

  “I have no native tongue,” she spat. “I have nothing more than three years old. I’ve had to work all this out experimentally.”

  She pulled at her collar chain again.

  “Why not take that off if it bothers you?” he suggested.

  “Ha! How?” She leaned toward him and held her hair up off her neck. “I would be grateful if you could remove it, believe me.”

  Zandaril bent forward at the waist and ran his fingers along the outside of the chain, careful to avoid touching anything else. He could feel no clasp, no break in the perfect links. It was between gold and bronze in color, but did not have quite the feel of either metal. It left no mark on her bare skin, as brass might. The thick links hugged her neck without apparently impeding her ability to breath.

  “Jewelers cannot cut it?” he asked, as he sat back again.

  “No, nor blacksmiths. Nor any devices we could come up with. It came with me.”

  “What about your clothes? Any clues there?”

  “It was me, a collar, and a great deal of cold, wet snow. Quite the spectacle.”

  She grimaced and gathered her hair again, finger-combing it off her face and holding it back with both hands. “And before you can think of a polite way to ask, the ears came with me, too.”

  She sat stoically while he leaned forward again for his first good look. They were furred all over, the outside dark brown and dense as her hair and the inside paler and sparser. They stood upright and pricked, but attached to her skull where normal ears would be, not high on her head like a hound, and not too large to be hidden by her thick hair. As he watched, one swiveled to focus on a footstep passing by outside.

  He eyed the tension in her posture and sought a way to return the mood to the joking conversation of earlier in the day.

  “Why, this is better than any story,” he said, and applauded lightly. “Tell me, quickly now, is there more? A tail, maybe? I’ve always wanted a tail.”

  It startled a smothered laugh from her, as he’d hoped it would, but a shadow crossed her face. There is something else, isn’t there. What?

  She let her hair drop again. “Where were we? Ah, yes, expertise. Do you play a musical instrument?”

  Her eyes narrowed a moment and, before he could answer, she said, “I see that you do. I can tell what stops on the strings produce which note
s, and what the positions are for certain chords, but my fingers would be like sausages, trying to play. There’s no shortcut for the body to learn things deeply, in the muscles.”

  As she continued her lecture, her voice cooled. “There are other kinds of expertise. If I’m in reach of a doctor,” she tapped her forehead, “I know more about medical symptoms. A sword-smith’s mind can inform me about the folding and welding of a blade. I may not be able to do what they do, but I can know a lot about it. The longer I borrow their expertise, the more it becomes my own, at least the mental part.”

  “And a military commander?” Zandaril suggested.

  She assented soberly. “Yes, him, too. From someone like Chang, I can learn what to look for in junior officers, or how to read a landscape for defensive positions. But not actual troop movements, or what his orders are. Or what he had for breakfast, either.”

  He smiled. “And how do we know that?” he asked.

  “Yes, that’s the problem. Why should you believe me?”

  She sighed, and they stared at each other a moment. “I can show you, I think, if you are willing.”

  “I said I would try this,” Zandaril said, and bowed briefly from the waist.

  “Then let’s begin with language.” She scooted herself around the rug until they were sitting more side by side than facing each other. He let her set the conditions as she wished.

  An evening breeze rattled the canvas around them, and he tasted the remains of his dinner, the wishkaz he had added to give more flavor to the sauce. How did she scare the wizards of the Collegium?

  She placed her right hand on his left knee, palm up. “It’s usually easier if we touch.”

  He swallowed and laid his left hand down on top of hers, loosely. She made no attempt to clutch it.

  *See. The surface of my mind touches the surface of yours. Nothing more.*

  It was a strange sensation, as if their heads were joined, but there was no sense of invasion. Would I be able to tell? Did she hear me thinking that?

  *Let’s look together at someone in the camp.*

  Penrys sent her attention outward from the wagon, letting it unfocus to cover a wide area and bringing him along somehow with her. The mind-glows of the humans were scattered across the near landscape, in a way familiar to him, but this was more crowded. He recognized the herd of horses by its direction. So that’s what animals feel like. And horses, so different from mules, and both from cattle.

  With that clue, he found the camp dogs, and even some of the smaller life, in the thatch of the grasses.

  *So. Let’s pick someone.*

  She settled on a person nearby. *He’s not moving. In his tent, maybe. What is he?*

  Quietly she inventoried him. *Kigalino. Feel the language flow?*

  It was the difference between describing a wine and drinking it, the difference between his painfully studied knowledge of the language and this unimpeded stream.

  *I understand,* he told her. *But I don’t think I can do this myself, bikrajti.*

  *Maybe all you need is to be shown. What else do we know about him?*

  He felt her somehow weigh the man’s skills. *Whittling. He carves things, toys. And he has the common joy of singing, how to harmonize. I can feel him juggling, which might as well be magic to me. And, of course, he knows how to ride and set up a camp, how to fight, how to care for horses.*

  He believed her, but he couldn’t feel it, not the way he did the language. She’d gone beyond his ability to follow. *Did your wizards of the Collegium do any better keeping up*

  *They all fled in panic before getting this far. You’re doing well.*

  His internal snort of disagreement was ignored.

  *Let’s see if we can find another language speaker, one whose language you don’t know already.*

  *That will be difficult. They will surely all be Kigaliwen in this camp.*

  *But not you or me. Maybe there are other strays.*

  He could feel the humor underlying the thought. He tagged along as she cast widely again, quickly filtering out all the minds whose flavor was, to her, “Kigali-yat speaker.”

  *Ah. Here, near the horses. One of the herdsmen, perhaps. What language is this?*

  He perceived it, as she did, but it wasn’t until he tasted the elaborate consonant clusters that began the words and felt the distortion in his mouth as he tried to pronounce them that he recognized it.

  He snatched his hand up in surprise and broke their link. “That’s Rasesni,” he said, scrambling to his feet. “Can you find him, on the ground?”

  She blinked at him, and he stretched out a hand to help haul her up.

  “Leave the book,” he said, as she bent to pick it up. “Hurry. We can’t let him vanish on us.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “Where is he? What direction?”

  At Zandaril’s urgent whisper, Penrys pointed again, like a hound aligning her body along a scent trail. They were striding through the evening camp, back toward the horse herd, as quickly as they could without attracting attention.

  “How can you be sure he isn’t just from some border family?” she asked.

  “The horses… This expedition would be useless if something happened to the horses. Bad place for him to be, if he is really Rasesni.”

  He spared her a glance as he all but dragged her along. “I have to see what he’s doing.”

  “Don’t you think you could use a little help?” She gestured at the bodies by the campfires all around them.

  His mouth quirked, just visible in the reflected firelight. “Well, and I may be wrong.”

  He pulled at her sleeve. “You find him again.”

  “I could show you how to do it.”

  “No time.” His stride lengthened as the campfires became more sparse, and she had to stretch her legs to keep pace. They left the conversations and laughter around the supply wagons behind, and the tents, glowing from inside, were fewer. She had to watch her step now, the pools of darkness on the ground hiding ankle-turning hummocks. She concentrated on the mind she’d picked out from Zandaril’s wagon.

  If I could stop a moment and catch my breath, I might be able to find out more about him.

  “Slow down. Give me a chance to think,” she said, and dug in her heels.

  Reluctantly, Zandaril stopped, peering off into the darkness as if he could see their target.

  She bent over at the waist and breathed deeply. When she straightened up, she concentrated on the Rasesni-speaking mind. Horses, he understands horses. What else? The turns of his knowledge seem familiar—what is it?

  Then she realized—he reminded her of Vylkar, the wizard who had found her. It was wizardry this mind knew.

  “Hurry up,” she said, and trotted past a surprised Zandaril.

  They crouched together outside the picket of riders walking their quiet circuits around the grazing herd. Zandaril peered through the darkness.

  “That’s him,” Penrys whispered. “On the gray.”

  The horse glimmered faintly in the starlight. There was nothing suspicious about the scene, but what was a wizard, of any sort, doing riding night watch?

  “Now what?” she said.

  “Don’t know. Didn’t think that far,” Zandaril whispered back. “He’ll have to change horses, to give the one he’s on a rest. We can stop him then.”

  “Just the two of us? What do you plan to use for weapons?”

  He made no reply.

  She persisted. “Why not tell Chang and have him do it right, with a mounted squad?”

  He gave her a frustrated look.

  Oh. Of course. If he fetches Chang, that leaves me on my own. Or, worse, able to contact a possible enemy. If he sends me, maybe I’ll just escape. If we both go, this horseman may vanish. If we both stay, how does he know I won’t side with the enemy?

  She chuckled. “You have yourself quite a problem,” she said, and he glared at her.

  *We will wait until he goes to swap horses and confront him oursel
ves.*

  The horse shied, as if its rider had jerked on the reins, and his head went up. The guard turned to face them, then took off, away from the herd, at a gallop.

  They stood up and watched him vanish, the hoofbeats drumming on the soft turf until lost in the distance.

  “Can you follow him? Track him?” Zandaril asked, frustration and chagrin in his voice.

  “Not forever. He’ll be out of range soon enough, if he doesn’t stop.”

  They lingered there for several minutes. The scents of the quiet night and the peaceful shifting of the dozing horses filled in the gap where the horseman had been.

  Finally, Penrys sighed. “He’s gone.”

  “There aren’t any others? You’re sure?”

  Chang was not pleased with them. Penrys spared a bit of sympathy for Zandaril, who was withstanding the worst of the Commander’s wrath, currently in full spate. He’d admitted his fault, that he’d been more eager than prudent, and he was now standing, head bowed, waiting for the flood to pass.

  “I couldn’t find another native Rasesni-speaker in the camp,” she said, diverting some of Chang’s ire.

  He eyed her as if considering an appropriate punishment, but passed on to the Horsemaster, whom Zandaril had had the foresight to fetch along with them before reporting the disaster.

  “What was a Rasesni doing with the herdsmen?” Chang thundered.

  The short, stocky gray-haired man said, “And how was I to know? He had no accent, and he was willing to stand night watch. He called himself Mu Wenjit—good Kigalino name. There’s no way to screen all the civilians. And a hard time we have getting them, too, sometimes. Not everyone wants to hire away for months.”

  It’s tough to tell if Chang’s actually grinding his teeth, with that bit of a beard in the way.

  She fought to keep the smile off her face.

  “It’s clear he was up to no good, by the way he fled after he heard us,” she said.

  “Not ‘us.’ Me,” Zandaril muttered. “My mind-speech, he heard.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  Zandaril looked at her and rolled his eyes. “We do now.”