Deciding not to make things more complicated, Danla redirected the conversation. “Mistress Halima will protect me. You’ve seen what she can do.”
“Yes, but had we not been here when—” Pendr began to say.
“But you were,” Danla said. “And from what I heard, we will be moving our camp next to a group of soldiers. We will be there for mutual protection.”
Pendr frowned. “Why were you so far away before? It seems like an unnecessary risk.”
“I asked the same question, back before I knew what Mistress Halima could do,” Danla said. “She said the answer for keeping the men and women separate while training was quite simple. Can you guess it?”
She watched as Pendr tried to puzzle it out. After a moment, she understood he probably would not come to the answer on his own. It’s not who he is. “I’ll tell you,” she said finally.
“Thank you. Aside from what Halima said about women not being able to train men, and the other way around, I can’t think of a good reason,” Pendr said.
“Young men do stupid things around young women to try to impress them,” Danla said. “More than once has a soldier in training been hurt from trying to do more than he was prepared to do from showing off.”
The answer failed to satisfy Pendr, based on his continued confused expression. Eventually, he shrugged, accepting it. Maybe it’s because his best friend has always been a girl. That is when Danla recognized that explained much about Pendr, as well as her feelings toward him. They were as brother and sister, yet different. They had always been close, yet that changed somewhat once they grew older. They did not grow apart once their bodies began to mature, though he began to treat her with more respect.
“I guess you’ll be able to practice your healing skills more if the soldiers get hurt while trying to impress you,” Pendr said. His lips displayed a smile, though it did not touch his eyes.
Danla poked him in the chest. “If there are young women where you will be training, don’t be one of those doing stupid things.”
“Of course not,” Pendr said. He looked genuinely surprised she would even suggest a thing. “And to be honest, I’m not even sure what kind of training I’ll be doing.”
He made a good point. Danla’s training consisted of breathing and concentration exercises, but that was to help her develop her skills with the green myelur. She knew little of the blue version of the power, aside from what Mistress Halima had demonstrated recently.
“Whatever it may be,” she said, “I know you’ll do well. You’ve always succeeded when you put your mind to something.”
Pendr’s gaze moved to the earthen floor beneath them. “That may be true for things I’ve wanted to do …”
“Does this newly discovered talent scare you, Pendr?” Danla doubted she would have been bold enough to ask anyone else the same question. Still, she knew him well enough to know he would not take offense.
For several heartbeats, Pendr said nothing. His brow furrowed a little, and he continued not to meet her eyes. “It does, yes. I didn’t ask for this, nor did I want it.”
“Is it because you see it as a weapon? A way to hurt people?” Danla suggested.
“I guess that’s a big part of it, yes.” At this moment, he lifted his head enough to look at her. “I’ve seen things, Danla. Terrible things. Light help me, I’ve done some of these very things.”
She reached out and placed her right hand on his muscular arm. “You did what you must to defend yourself as well as others. You didn’t seek to hurt people. You saved all of us here in the camp. How is that a bad thing?”
Pendr did not have a response for that. If anything, it made him even more pensive. Once again, he averted his eyes.
“Pendr, look at me,” Danla said.
Reluctantly, he did so.
“Think of our families back in Logs Pond,” she said. “If we don’t stop the enemy here, they will be at risk. They are depending on us.”
“And when the war is over?” he asked. “We will return, yes?”
For the first moment since they began talking, she saw something appear which had been missing in his eyes before: hope. After learning more about the larger world around her, Danla was quite certain she had no desire to return to the small village of her birth. But to tell him now would not be wise. He needed hope.
“Yes, Pendr,” she said. “Once the war is over, we can return.”
He smiled at that, a smile which Danla found to lift her spirits.
“Pendr! Time to go!” a voice called from the far side of the camp. It was Eladrel, standing next to a handful of men wearing the king’s colors.
“I’ll be right there!” Pendr answered, waving to the men. Facing Danla once again, he said, “I’m going to miss you, Danla.”
Her response surprised even her. Stepping closer, she wrapped her arms around him, at least as far as they could reach, and hugged him tightly. With her head resting on his chest, she said, “I’ll miss you as well. Now, go. Learn all you can about your gift. Become strong. We’ll need your talent to end this war as quickly as possible. Will you do that, Pendr? Will you honestly do your best, even though it might fight against your natural tendencies?”
He hugged her back, gently, as if he was afraid he might break her. “I will, Danla. I will.”
Chapter 32
Nestov watched the sunlight flow through the clear crystal—a gemstone cut with sharp angles to produce a specific effect. Though the sunshine shone through a window in the abbey, the particular beam which fascinated Nestov had been redirected by a curved mirror, narrowing the beam.
“What do you see, Nestov?” Friar Janus asked. His gray, bushy eyebrows raised toward the heavens. His dark robes were a contrast to his nearly alabaster skin.
The white light entered the crystal on one side, yet something different appeared from the other side, as displayed on a blank sheet of parchment affixed to a wooden box at the end of the table. “Red, green, and blue,” Nestov answered. “The crystal has changed the sunlight into other colors.”
“But how can that be?” Janus asked as he walked closer to where Nestov sat on a stone bench, facing the crystal placed upon a limestone table. Small, metallic prongs, formed to make a sturdy base, held the crystal in place. “The light from the sun is white. The crystal is clear. Then, pray tell, from where does the red, green, and blue light come?”
Three winters previous, Nestov had come to the capital city of Virqyna to become an initiate for the church—as was the custom for the third boy in each family. The first lesson he learned was a simple mantra: “Nothing comes from nothing.” Truth be told, it was the only thing taught for his first moon cycle. Each day he would arrive for training, alone, and each day Friar Janus would say the same thing, “Nothing comes from nothing. Meditate on that principle.”
Naturally, the first lesson Nestov gleaned was that something must come from something, yet the more he reflected on the mantra, the more he considered the nuances. A child comes from two parents, something from something. Simple in concept, but not complete. The same parents could create more than one child, and not every child was the same. The different traits—from eye and hair color, height and thickness, and even gender—each of these had to come from somewhere.
Using that as a guide, Nestov considered the light. “It takes both the sunlight and the crystal to create the separate colors,” Nestov said.
“Oh?” The friar did not elaborate.
“Yes. Remove either one of the elements—the light or the crystal—and the effect disappears.” Nestov placed his hand between the sunbeam and the crystal, and indeed, the parchment went blank.
The friar’s expression remained impassive. “But which of the elements contains all three colors?”
Nestov looked again more closely at the three distinct hues on the parchment. Each color was separate, yes, but where they converged, he could see evidence of even more shades. Still, that did not help him pick one element over the other.
When faced with new things in the world around him, Nestov learned to relate them to things with which he was familiar. Creating a basic foundation of understanding allowed him to seek into deeper unknowns.
But what can I use to compare? The room was warm, and Nestov and the friar had been at this for some time. While he considered the friar’s question, he recognized his body began to thirst. At each meal, novices were given a glass of juice created from the vineyards located on the abbey’s grounds. It was one of Nestov’s favorite moments of the day. The juice.
The drink served with their humble meals was created using grapes, but not before the seeds and pulp were filtered out. Thick cloth allowed the juice to pass during the creation process, while at the same time retaining the other elements. It’s the grapes from which the juice comes, not the cloth.
“The light, Friar,” Nestov said. “The light contains blue, red, and green. The crystal acts as a filter.” He tried to sound as confident as possible in his answer, though even he heard a hint of uncertainty in his voice.
“Of this, you are certain?” Janus asked.
Instantly, the third mantra sprang to Nestov’s mind. “A hesitant answer is always wrong.” Of the first three mantras, this one gave Nestov the most trouble. Certainly, a correct answer to a question was always correct, even when given hesitantly—or so he thought. In moments of crisis, he learned, inaction could create more problems than a wrong answer. If asked a question when immediate action was needed, like on a battlefield, a hesitant answer could produce doubt in the mind of those needed to act. Therefore, even a correct answer could not have the needed result if given too late.
More than that, often there was more than one correct answer, and the only way for it to be successful was for people to believe in it. Or so that is how Nestov understood the third mantra.
Nestov was approaching his eighteenth winter which made him one of the youngest novices to face this particular test. He wanted to be successful, as well as make the friar proud. There was only one way to do that.
“It is a certainty,” Nestov said, this time, stronger than before. “The light is the source. The crystal is the filter.”
In response, Janus said nothing. Instead, he reached inside the box to which the parchment was attached. He removed another crystal, different in shape and shorter than the one which already sat on the table.
Carefully, the friar placed the second crystal a specific distance from the first. The light from the sunbeam now went through the first crystal, and then partially through the second crystal. The blue light still appeared on the white parchment, but instead of green and red below it, the light was a vibrant yellow.
“And what make you of this?” the friar asked.
Nestov ran through the first three mantras once again in his head in an attempt to understand what his eyes saw. The yellow has to come from somewhere, but what of the red and green? Where did they go?
In the moon cycle previous, Nestov had been given a similar test with colors, using paint instead of light. In that lesson, however, he learned that any color could be created by combining red, blue, and yellow—not green. When adding enough of each color, the result was black. There has to be a reason the friar is showing me this. What lesson does he want me to learn?
Why would the friar use two different methods to teach the same lesson? It was not something Nestov had experienced from his teacher previously. Something was different. But what? Perhaps that is the point of this test. At that moment, an idea popped into his mind—a possible solution. Recalling the third mantra, he reached out and picked up the second crystal.
Janus made no attempt to stop him as Nestov lifted the second crystal a bit higher, and closer to the first. The result, as clearly displayed on the parchment, was white light.
Speaking with as much fervor as possible, Nestov proclaimed, “Like paint, different colors of light can be combined to create new colors. Unlike paint, it is red, green, and blue—and the result is white, not black.”
For the first time since he had known Friar Janus, Nestov saw an expression on the elderly man’s face yet to be displayed. The old man smiled.
Chapter 33
For three days Rheq made his way south. The land rolled with hills and forest, making traveling slow. Still, it offered ample cover to protect him from being spotted. By fortune or chance, Rheq had yet to come across another band of enemies.
Yesterday, not long after his mid-day meal, Rheq found the Timber River. Before being conscripted into King Viskum’s service, this waterway had been as far north as he had traveled. It was not hard to understand from whence the river earned its name. Red maples, harvested upstream, were placed in the river to be transported to the south and the east, where such wood was scarce. Even now, during war, Rheq could see men on flat boats using long poles to guide the timber downriver.
Rheq had to wait until nightfall to cross one of the high, stone bridges which spanned the Timber. Once again, he made it undetected, again by either fortune or chance. Or perhaps neither. I am a skilled hunter, after all.
Unsure of who claimed ownership of the bridge, seeing that war reigned upon the land, Rheq thought it best not to approach any of the men in the meager dwellings which were common on either side of such a man-made crossing.
From there, the land became more familiar, and Rheq’s confidence grew that he would make it back to Umstead safely. By his best guess, he would arrive by the morning of the following day if he were to remain undetected.
The provisions he had poached from the enemies’ camp ended up being exactly what he needed. A mixture of salted pork, hard cheese, and rock-like biscuits allowed him to keep his strength. The streams found everywhere in this part of the land made water a non-issue.
Pushing hard, Rheq made it to Fairmont, a hill of decent size, and one often used as a landmark for travelers. Southwest of the hill contained a small village, not much more than a trading post, though it did have an inn.
Rheq was tempted to find room indoors. Sleeping in the wild, especially with the thunderstorms which occurred almost nightly, drained him. For the most part, he knew where to find dry shelter among the trees and hills, but few things were as relaxing as sitting in front of a blazing fire found in a common area of an inn while rain pounded the roof. I’m too close to home. I can’t risk it.
Up until the sun fully set behind the tree line in the west, Rheq debated about the inn. His survival instincts won, though he questioned the victory more than once when rains came that night—falling harder than any day previous.
At first light, Rheq set off again. He ate as he walked, and considered what he would do when he first returned to Umstead. The answer came readily enough: he would make sure the enemy did not occupy the town. If soldiers from Sothcar patrolled the streets, he would have to slip in undetected. I know my hometown far better than any enemy. Getting in would not be a problem. What to do after that? He would leave that to his father. His older brother, Groq, had experienced enough winters to avoid being conscripted. Both his father and brother should be in town, and both of them would know which course of action to take.
With Fairmont a good distance behind him now, Rheq felt a sense of excitement that he was nearly home. But I must remain vigilant. No use getting caught this close to my destination.
Instead of traveling by the main road which led to the heart of town, Rheq skirted to the north and picked up on a hunting trail he and his brother would frequent. It was isolated enough that Rheq felt he could approach undetected.
More familiar landmarks appeared as he continued to travel. A mossy stone, shaped roughly like a pear, was one of the first. A thick tree r
oot which spanned the trail, worn down in places from being stepped upon over the seasons, meant he was nearly home. And that was when Rheq smelled it. Ash.
The scent was not unfamiliar, especially from all the campfires which Rheq had sat around during his lifetime. But this was different—and stronger. Never before had such a smell been present at this part of the trail, even when all the hearths were ablaze in town during the colder times of the seasons. Something’s not right.
Rheq pulled the bow from over his shoulder, removed a feathered arrow from the quiver, and nocked it. Crouching, Rheq moved ahead more carefully, looking for signs of others in the forest around him. He saw none.
Each step closer to town increased the smell of ash, and with it, a knot in Rheq’s stomach grew. At last, he came to the final knoll before town. Once he ascended it, he would be able to assess what caused the unwelcomed odor.
Carefully, Rheq climbed the small hill, still keeping his bow and arrow at the ready. When he finally reached the summit, it became clear why he smelled ash.
Umstead was a smoking ruin.
Only stone chimneys stood taller than a man’s height. Everything else—the bakery, smithy, tanner, homes, all of it—were piles of charred wood.
Rheq’s mind shouted for him to be cautious, though the message did not make it to his legs. He ran to where his home had stood, dropping his weapon on the way. They couldn’t have been here when it happened. They couldn’t!
The fire even destroyed the rough wooden fence erected at the front of their property. Rheq jumped over the remains of the barrier easily enough. His mother’s garden was gone, uprooted, leaving an empty hole which had teamed with vegetation for as long as Rheq could recall.
He wanted to cry out, to call for his family. This time, his mind was able to override his natural reaction. The destruction of his town was no accident. This damage had been systematic, and enemies could still be within listening distance.
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