by Murray, Dean
Va'del knew that he should try and make some kind of reconciliation, that he should smooth things over rather than offend the one person who might be able get him sponsored, but he suddenly didn't care.
"Now that's a hollow threat if I've ever heard one. We both already know that I'll never be a candidate, and I'll never be allowed to marry Jain. Well guess what, I'm tired of doing all of your dirty work. I'm tired of being the one to do all the things that the mighty Guadel can't or won't do, so you can keep your stupid candidacy. I'm not interested anymore."
The teenager turned and walked towards the door, amazed that On'li hadn't cut him off and slapped him down. "Oh, and you can leave Jain out of all of this, or I'll go straight to the Council and invite them to look me over. I'm sure they'll be quite interested when I tell them it was you that did this to me."
##
After Va'del left, On'li found herself pacing across the sitting room, becoming angrier with each pass across the room. The Guadel knew she'd regret it later, but she even glared fiercely enough to stop Mar'li from speaking on both the occasions when the younger woman looked like she was about to speak.
How dare he threaten her of all people. Her bet was that Jain was involved somehow, although it was possible that he'd just protected her out of reflex. No, On'li suddenly realized she was pursuing the wrong train of logic. The real question was who had done the original work on him. Jain wouldn't have been able to do that, so all that was needed was a list of the people who'd had enough time alone with him to do the initial augmentation.
From that list she'd then need to think through who might have then proceeded to neglect him so badly that he'd arrived at her rooms only days or cycles away from a seizure. Given the way he was twitching, it was actually a surprise that every Guadel he passed didn't immediately realize that there was something wrong with his system.
Suddenly On'li knew who it must have been and she stormed out of the room without a word to Mar'li.
The trip to Ah'bi's rooms was a short one, but there were still people out and about, and more than one of them flinched away from the sight of a Council member who looked like she was ready to kill someone with her bare hands.
On'li clapped as she reached the entrance to the other Guadel's rooms, but she didn't wait for permission to enter.
"How dare you do something like that! You modified the boy knowing full well that if anyone found out about it, they'd come after me!"
Ah'bi looked up from the book she was reading, and for a second it appeared as though she was going to throw it at the older woman, but she regained control of herself with an obvious exertion of effort.
"Please, do come in and sit down."
"Darkness take you!" On'li fought down the urge to swear again and managed a nearly reasonable tone of voice. "Why did you do it?"
"Jain told you?"
Suddenly the absurdity of someone her age trying to pick fights with a woman young and powerful enough to tie her in knots without even breathing heavily sank in, and On'li felt herself deflate. "No, I scanned the boy and saw the changes for myself. After that it was easy to figure out who had to have done it. But none of it makes sense unless you are trying to discredit me, or are hoping that the side effects will kill him and remove the cause of most of the recent problems around here."
Ah'bi laughed bitterly. "No, we aren't trying to get rid of him. Quite the opposite. In fact, Fi'lin may not ever completely forgive me for refusing to sponsor the boy. As for not telling you, we figured the fewer people who knew the better off everyone would be. This way you'd be able to honestly deny having any knowledge of what had happened."
"Fine, that tells me why you handled it the way you did, but not why you did it in the first place."
"You were an instructor yourself once upon a time, you surely must have realized what Be'ter's been doing to the candidates. We were trying to give the other boys someone to look up to besides that bully."
"That is the most ridiculous thing I've heard. There was no need to stack the deck that badly in Va'del's favor. The boy beat Be'ter before, the only reason he lost this last time was because he hadn't fully recovered from being thrown down in that hole."
"Powers, are you really that stupid? His sponsor family had already augmented Be'ter. They must have done it while they were out on circuit. That's why we did the same to Va'del, he was the one playing against a stacked deck, and this was the only way to even things out."
On'li snorted and started pacing again. "That is a typical male response to the situation. You should have shared the information with the Council. We could have solved all of this without resorting to an arms race among the candidates."
Ah'bi looked up at the Councilor with an expression of pure disdain. "The Council wouldn't have done a Powers-cursed thing except maybe to have made them reverse the augmentation, and even that would have taken months. None of you have been able to put a leash on him in all the time he's been here. You're so worried about creating a precedent that might impinge on your ability to sponsor whoever you want regardless of the consequences, that you refuse to do anything to save the few decent candidates we have left."
On'li opened her mouth to defend herself, but the younger woman didn't give her a chance. "You weren't here. You didn't see him coughing up blood and holding onto life by his fingernails. That piece of filth broke most of the ribs on his left side and it's only luck that none of them punctured his heart like they punctured his lungs. I can't bring myself to sponsor the poor thing, but if he is going to bleed to do all the things that we can't, I'll at least do whatever else I can to give him a fighting chance of not dying on Be'ter's blade."
##
A cycle later, On'li stumbled back home and found Mar'li waiting for her. "I'm so sorry, dearest. You deserved better than that."
The younger woman had obviously been crying, but she smiled bravely at her sister-wife. "As long as you really mean it, I suppose I can forgive you."
The two women hugged, and then On'li guided Mar'li over to a chair. "I need a cup of tea, but this time, you're sitting while I make it."
Once the water had been put on to heat, On'li turned back to the woman who'd become her and Javin's best friend in the years since she'd come into their lives. "It was Ah'bi and Fi'lin. I went over there mad enough to strangle someone with my bare hands, and she proceeded to rebuke me for the fact that they had to turn to Va'del as a way of countering the bad influence Be'ter is having on all of the other youngsters."
Mar'li opened her mouth in surprise, but didn't say anything.
"I could rationalize that away. There's a real danger if we start impinging on the ability of individual families to sponsor people who fit with their bloodline, but who the rest of us wouldn't come in out of the blizzard to share a way cave with. That's the real problem we face with Va'del. He's perfect for us, but scares the hell out of everyone else."
The water was hot now, so On'li pulled it off of the heating sphere and poured two glasses. "What I couldn't rationalize away was the fact that Be'ter nearly killed Va'del, and I never even visited the boy to see how he was doing."
Mar'li shook her head violently. "It isn't your fault; you were both in emergency meetings still. I should have gone and visited him."
On'li handed her sister-wife one of the cups and a small teabag. "That isn't an excuse. I wouldn't have let that stop me if you or Javin had been hurt. It wasn't your place to go and I wouldn't have expected it from you. No, it was my responsibility and my failure."
The younger woman dipped her teabag into the hot water and then looked up. "What will you do?"
"I don't know. I want to somehow make it up to him, but I'm afraid he won't give me the chance. He really was right, you know, he's done all of our dirty work, and all anyone does is slap him around for it."
##
Jain closed her eyes and wished she was somewhere else, but when she opened them she was still sitting in the common room and Mali and her friend were still hud
dled five feet away trading gossip.
"I know, he's so gorgeous, and the way he refused to fight Va'del was so brave. That freak is obviously a danger to everyone around him, but Be'ter knew he didn't need to prove anything to me, so he didn't fight him."
More like after he saw Va'del take apart those two jerks, he was worried he might lose, and then where would he be?
Jain stopped trying to read her history book and instead just listened to Mali's simpering voice.
"I know. He'll surely pass the rest of his tests and then he'll propose and we'll be married. We'll have to follow his sponsors around for a year of course, but then we'll lead a group down and create the first ever standing diplomatic mission to the lowlands. He's been studying lowlander culture for months now. Nobody else begins to know who the real power players down there are like he does. It's almost assured with the way everyone's still worried about where the bandits came from."
The conversation continued on in the same boring vein for several minutes, and Jain found herself wondering what had her so out of sorts. It wasn't just the book or the fact that she had to listen to Mali's foolishness. There was something else fundamentally wrong.
Jain had almost decided to retreat back to her room and go to sleep early, when she heard Mali say something interesting. "What would I change about him? I don't know. He's almost perfect except for the fact that he is always asking which of the Daughters is more powerful than someone else. He always blows it off as a joke, but he does it so often."
I'll bet he asks about the prettier girls more often than the plain ones too.
Only Mali and her friends would be stupid enough not to realize that Be'ter was trying to figure out which Daughters would bring the most power into a potential marriage. What a jerk. If there was even the slightest bit of justice in the universe Mali would be the weakest of all the Daughters rather than one of the most powerful in the last several years.
Overcome with disgust at how naive Mali was, Jain stood to go to her room, only to turn and look with everyone else as Ah'bi entered the room.
"Jain, I need to speak with you at once."
Her mind whirling with questions about what she might have done wrong, Jain grabbed a cloak from where it was hanging just inside her room, and followed the quickly-moving woman out into the corridor.
The Guadel didn't say anything until they had been walking for several minutes. "On'li stormed into my room a cycle ago demanding I explain why we'd modified Va'del."
The older woman waved off Jain's protestations of innocence. "I don't think you told her, I don't even think that Va'del told her. If either of you were going to do that you would have done so long ago. All that isn't important. What is important is that I don't think that Va'del is in a good way right now."
Jain felt a wave of worry crash through her, and almost broke into a run. Ah'bi grabbed her student before she could take more than a couple steps. "Hold on you foolish child. I'll take you to his room so that you don't get in trouble. If he isn't there, then it will be up to you to find him, but I can at least get you that far."
The trip to Va'del's room seemed to take forever, but finally they were there, and Jain rushed inside as Ah'bi turned and headed back down the corridor.
Va'del looked up as she came in, and Jain's heart skipped a beat as she took in the incredible pain shining out of the blue of his eyes. Oh Powers, he has the knife out again.
Neither of them had ever talked about the little knife that Va'del had owned for so many years, but Jain knew that he kept it nearby so that he could kill himself if things ever got too bad for him to go on.
"Leave me alone, Jain. On'li knows. I threatened her, but no matter what I do you'll get dragged into it. This is the only way I can protect you."
As she stepped more fully into the room, Jain saw that he already had the blade pressed against one of the veins on his arm.
"What about me? Don't you understand how much I'll suffer if you kill yourself? If you do this, you kill more than just you."
Va'del shook his head, causing tears to fly wildly around the room. "You'll be better off this way than if you continue to get more attached to me. Don't you see? They won't ever let us be together. You told me yourself. If I don't become a Guadel they won't let me marry you, not even if you decide to become a healer. The longer I'm alive the worse everything gets. For both of us."
Tears were making their way down Jain's cheeks now, but for the first time since Ah'bi told her that Va'del might be in trouble, she was thinking clearly. "We still have other options. We can run away, go down to the lowlands and keep traveling until we are far enough away that the Guadel will never be able to find us."
The surprise on her beloved's face would have made Jain laugh in another time and place. "That's right; you don't have to do this. You don't have to kill yourself. You don't even have to remain here in the Capital dancing their tune. We can steal whatever we'll need to leave, and just go."
Va'del started to tremble, almost as if the emotions inside him were too much for his tired body to contain any longer, and then he let the knife slip from his fingers.
"I'm so sorry."
Jain reached out and wrapped her arms around him. "It's okay. You should have come to me before it got this bad, though."
"I didn't want to be a burden. I thought I finally had everything under control after last time, but when On'li turned on me it was just too much."
Brushing dark strands of hair back from his face, Jain kissed him. "It doesn't matter. You aren't a burden. We help lift each other up, that's what families do. And that's what we are, a family."
Chapter 9
Va'del watched Tim'i practice a new slashing combination, and then moved in and adjusted the boy's arms. "You're letting your left arm drop too far after the second movement."
The younger boy nodded, and then tried the attack again. "Like that?"
"That's it, now practice it another hundred times and you can go. We both know you'd rather be in your books than here trying to learn how to stop some bag'lig from making you his next meal. Watch your technique though. Practicing it incorrectly is worse than not practicing it at all."
I never would have guessed that I'd enjoy teaching this much.
After Jain had convinced him not to kill himself, Va'del had been at a loss for what to do next. He'd known that he'd never be allowed to become a candidate, and consequently going to class had seemed completely pointless.
He didn't know if Jain had said something to Ah'bi, who in turn had talked to her husband, or if Fi'lin had just turned up on his own, but the Guadel had strode into Va'del's room early the day after he missed all of his classes and all but dragged him to weapons practice. "You can miss your other classes if you want. I talked to your instructors and they all said you'll do fine studying by yourself, but you will be to weapons practice every day or I'll have both your ears."
The weapons master had then proceeded to make Va'del his third assistant, despite the fact that Va'del wasn't even a candidate, let alone a Guadel like the other two.
Teaching filled up the depressing cycles that Va'del otherwise would have spent thinking about Be'ter's promotion to what everyone was calling a sub-Guadel. With the new position Be'ter no longer had to take a full load of classes, just the one or two that the testers had judged him deficient in.
Not only that, he could start his field work at any time--all of the rumors said he was just waiting to marry before proceeding with the extended tour of the villages that would mark his last real test before being raised to a full Guadel. A year from now Be'ter would be a Guadel unless the majority of the Council refused to ratify the decision, a scenario that was highly unlikely considering that they hadn't gotten rid of him already.
Va'del stopped to show one of his students where to place his foot in the sixth movement of the second form so that the poor boy would stop losing his balance, and then continued his circuit.
Interestingly enough, Jain seemed to think
Be'ter was trying to delay picking a wife. She seemed to think Be'ter was still trying to make sure Mali was the most powerful of the girls his age, but Va'del had wondered once or twice if it wasn't that Be'ter was scared of linking.
Fi'lin walked over and nodded to his newest instructor. "They're coming along nicely."
Va'del felt a small flush of pride. "They really are. I suspect it's more to do with the fact that they are getting more individual attention than for any other reason."
The Guadel shook his head in resignation. "You never will accept a compliment, will you?"
Va'del smiled. "Not if I can help it."
"Did you at least bring your sword with you today like I requested?"
The teenager nodded, pointing to a carefully-wrapped bundle against the closest wall. "It's over there, but I still don't know why you had me bring it."
Fi'lin's dark eyes twinkled. "Well, you may not have noticed it, but unless I'm mistaken you've added another inch of height and near thirty pounds of muscle since you arrived. At this point, you're in great need of a new weapon, something a bit longer and heavier. We'll be meeting up at the blacksmiths as soon as the class is done so we can put in an order and get you a proper sword."
Va'del was speechless as the older man turned and walked away. Only the Guadel and the highest level of the Guard ever got weapons specially made for them. Everyone else picked through the armory looking for something that was a close enough fit to work.
On'li and Javin never would have thought of that. Even as he registered the thought, Va'del felt a little guilty about it. Up until recently Javin and On'li had been too busy trying to get him made a candidate to worry about little things like a new sword. Va'del really should have gone back and apologized to On'li the next day, but he'd still been so hurt and angry. Now, after so long, an apology would be even more awkward and less likely to make any kind of real difference. It was starting to feel like the best thing would be just to hope he didn't run into her.