by Guy Antibes
That sounded confusing. “You should think a bit before you claim you dislike something to others,” Ricky said. If Frank always spoke so negatively, no wonder he didn’t have any friends. “I got into a habit of doing that, and those who knew me quickly put a stop to that. In some communities, disparaging other’s activities can be dangerous.”
“You mean the community of thieves?” Frank said, disparagingly.
Ricky shook his head. “The community of paupers. It works the same way for political communities.”
“Oh,” Frank said. He sat back and narrowed his eyes in thought. “I hadn’t thought of speaking out in those terms.”
“You don’t have to agree with everyone. Sometimes, many times, you just need to be silent.”
“I see.”
Frank seemed to understand what Ricky had just said. If his study partner got it, then that would be payment for a few tutoring sessions, anyway.
“But I can’t change the way I think,” Frank said.
“It’s not always about what you think, is it? Let me tell you what just happened to me.” Ricky told Frank about his sparring match with Saganet and about his not fighting back when attacked.
“I couldn’t do that,” Frank said.
“Neither could I, right now, but I’m going to think about it and get conditioned to fight if I need to. You can practice keeping your opinions under control the same way.”
“I suppose I can try.”
“Good,” Ricky said. “Now, I wrote down the words I need some help on.”
They spent the next hour going over Ricky’s reading. When they finished, Frank didn’t look so put out.
“Could I do some conditioning with you? Maybe I’ll need more strength to fight off trouble.”
“Anything specific?” Ricky said.
“Victor Taranta.”
Ricky laughed, but Frank seemed to take offense.
“He’s a problem for me, too, and a lot of other students.” And for Saganet, thought Ricky. “Every day, an hour before we meet here, at the academy gymnasium.”
~
Two days later, Frank showed up. He gazed around at the inside of the training floor as if he’d never been here before, and Ricky quickly found out he hadn’t.
“I don’t want to learn how to use a weapon, I just want that conditioning you spoke about.”
Saganet walked up to both boys. “I’m glad you’re here, Franken,” he said. “Ricky is a bit stronger than you are, but we can just modify his program so you can keep up.” He launched into a description of the benefits of conditioning and exercise that he probably had given thousands of academy students. “For you two, I’m going to modify what I usually do. Is that suitable?”
“It is for me,” Ricky said.
“I don’t know what to expect, so it’s fine with me, for now,” Frank said. He looked a bit uncertain.
Saganet instructed both of them about what they’d need to do for the next week. He wrote down their exercise plan on two pieces of paper. “Some of these exercises can also be done in your rooms at night.”
He showed them what to do and left them to complete the assignment. Twenty minutes later, both of them were finished.
“I thought this would take an hour,” Frank said.
“It will when we get more used to the exercises. Saganet wants us to build up our strength and condition. I’m giving you a warning. We will be using weapons as weights to build stronger muscles.”
Frank frowned, but then said, “As long as I don’t have to fight.”
“You only have to fight when you need to. It doesn’t hurt to be able to defend yourself.”
Frank nodded, but it didn’t look like Ricky’s words convinced him.
Later that night, Ricky took a fire poker and began to trace out the simple exercises that Saganet had set them to do. Saganet’s experience didn’t seem to affect his friend, but Ricky couldn’t get Saganet’s beating out of his mind. He did two more sets of the exercises that the pair had done earlier in the day.
Saganet walked in as Ricky put back the poker.
“Fending off attackers?”
“Additional work. I want to work harder than Frank. He doesn’t seem to have his heart in improving himself,” Ricky said.
“Frank comes from an unusual family. Let’s head over to the commissary for dinner tonight.”
They walked across the quadrangle through the cooling air of a fall evening. Ricky thought he needed get a coat to wear in the future. He enjoyed the clear air and the occasional whiff of wood smoke.
Ricky followed Saganet to the buffet line. Everything smelled enticing to Ricky. After three months at the academy, the food still thrilled him.
Saganet put his tray down on an empty table in a deserted corner of the commissary. He looked at Ricky as he broke a morsel of bread and popped it into his mouth.
“You do remember our conversations about the Duke?”
Ricky nodded and looked about him.
“Frank’s parents are rumored to oppose the Duke, but we found they are pacifists, and no one likes pacifists.”
“They won’t fight?”
Saganet nodded. “It’s their religion. They worship Harla.”
Ricky had never been near a temple or a church in his life. He struggled to think of what the Harlans believed, but he finally shook his head. “I don’t know what makes up their religion.”
“It’s a nature cult. Harla is an Earth Goddess. There are four Earth Goddess cults in Paranty alone.”
“So?”
“Harlans don’t believe in violence. They believe in peace and a drive for contentment.”
Ricky scratched his head. “Don’t most people want peace and contentment?”
Saganet smiled, but his was a condescending smile. “There are some who yearn for it and some who are willing to fight for it.”
“And they won’t fight?”
“Not with weapons.”
Ricky thought for a bit. “Then they are in danger, too.”
Saganet nodded. “They are if they become too vocal about the Duke. Ultimately, they could be dragged away to the Duke’s dungeons or killed.”
“What religion are you?” Ricky asked, knowing he had crossed into the personal realm with his guardian.
Saganet chuckled. “The Order of the Curled Fist.”
Ricky made a fist out of his hand and laughed. “Just the thing for a weapons master.”
“No, there really is an Order of the Curled Fist, and I’m a member. We believe in freedom, but it’s not a religion. It’s a creed that we follow. The membership is not restricted to weapons masters, though. When you are ready, if you ever are, I’ll tell you more. It’s sort of a secret organization.”
“It’s not something I should tell anyone else?”
“Not unless I give you permission.”
Ricky nodded. “I’ll keep it to myself.” He held up his hand. “Don’t tell me any more.”
Saganet smiled. “I’m glad you understand. You are a bright lad. Now, about Frank, I’m teaching him to defend himself, even though he doesn’t fully realize it. I want your encouragement. We are doing it under the guise of conditioning, but to be honest, I’d use weapons as exercise equipment either way.”
“That’s because you are an expert in fighting with weapons.”
Saganet peered at Ricky’s eyes and then looked at his full plate. “Eat up.”
~~~
Chapter Nine
~
“I t is time for your first test,” Professor Dari Calasay said. She folded her arms and pointed to a spot on the floor as she looked up at the tiers of students. “You have been practicing matching resonance with your will the past two weeks. You are assigned to hum the proper resonance, and will a tiny flame so you can try to light a candle. Don’t be discouraged. It 's hard to match resonance with the appropriate amount of will. Only a few of you will fully succeed.”
“Finally,” Ricky said to the girl who arrived
late to class and plopped down next to him.
She looked at Ricky sideways. “You think so? Do you believe you can do what she says?” She seemed to make the question more of a challenge.
He looked at the girl. He had noticed her before, Loria Mansali. She was smart, if a bit bossy. He wondered if she knew she sat next to an audit student.
“I can if you can,” Ricky said, making their test a contest.
She ran through a scale of tones like others were doing. Her voice sounded more mature than her fourteen years. Ricky thought she was only months older than him, but she acted like a twenty-year-old, or how Ricky thought a twenty-year-old would act.
Ricky tried the same scale. That scale was all the voice Professor Calasay taught her students. The resonance needed to light a candle was different for each sorcerer, so everyone had to know the scale. He actually felt that his voice was as accurate as Loria’s, but not as pretty. Pretty didn’t count, the Professor said. Control. Control determined how much resonance a sorcerer developed; converting resonance to power was the difference between a sorcerer and a singer.
A sorcerer used that power to express external effects, so the resonance needed to be pure. Different tones changed the effects of that inner power, and the force of will produced the magic to cause a physical manifestation. The amount of time it took to develop consistent tones surprised Ricky. His first few months in the course had been more of a vocal class than sorcery instruction since they hadn’t done a thing with resonance until the last two weeks when they had to find the ability to create a flame.
Frank was one of the first tested. He couldn’t do a thing, just as Frank had claimed. He trudged up the stairs and nodded unenthusiastically to Ricky. Loria was second to last, so Ricky had ample opportunity to observe so many students fail. Every time a student lit a candle or made the wick smoke, there were some oohs and ahs. Ricky looked at Loria’s face, which was twisted with determination. He knew that determination was part of the sorcery equation, but tone and resonance were first necessary to build up the power that will would channel to the outside.
Finally, the line began to dwindle, and only a few classmates were left. Ricky looked around the lecture hall to see about six people remaining. Professor Calasay looked bored as she wrote down fail after fail with just a few successes.
In a few minutes only Loria, Professor Calasay and Ricky stood down in the lecture well. The previous student was halfway up the steps to the doors above. It was Victor Taranta, who had finished with his test. Ricky hadn’t paid attention to how he did. Victor sat on the steps to watch.
“My two brightest students,” she said.
Ricky didn’t know if she was making a pun about the task, if Professor Calasay was sarcastic, or if she was serious.
“You’re next,” she said to Loria.
The girl took a deep breath and focused her eyes on the candle wick. Then she shut her eyes and opened her mouth. She chose a low tone to sing. Her voice filled the room with a rich sound. After a moment, she opened her eyes and pointed to the candle. The wick burst into a tiny, steady flame.
Professor Calasay grinned. “I knew you could do it.” She looked at Ricky. “Your turn.” The woman glanced up at Victor. “You may go, Taranta,” she said, pointing to the door. “Valian, you are last. You only audit the course, so you don’t have to try if you don’t want to.”
Ricky glanced at Loria and knew immediately she wouldn’t let him get out of their little battle.
He stepped up to the candle and narrowed his eyes as he began to hum scales, trying to find the pitch that felt right. When it came, he let the sound fill him. He lifted up his finger and pointed. Ricky willed a flame out of his finger, and a flame two inches long appeared going straight out with a little curl up at the end. He heard a gasp but ignored it as he put the flame to the wick and lit the candle. He blew the fire from his finger when the heat began to build on the skin. Ricky felt weak but happy.
Professor Calasay took a step back and whistled.
Ricky heard a door close and looked up. He grit his teeth as he realized that Victor had seen his performance. He couldn’t trust Victor under any circumstances.
“You won,” Loria said, her eyes still wide at what she had witnessed.
“I did, didn’t I?” Ricky said with a smile.
Professor Calasay scribbled something on her list of students. “I’ve never had a beginning student exercise so much control. Have you ever done that before?”
Ricky shook his head. “I pictured a lighting stick, and it made sense to use my finger. The visualization helped me exercise my will. I did what you taught me. I am sure I can do it the way the others did.” He hummed and blinked his eyes to exercise his will. By the time he opened his eyes, he smiled as he saw the candlelight.
“But the control…”
Ricky thought for a moment. “When I ate at the commissary with Master Crabacci for the first time, we were served by a girl who had used too much of her magic. Her face had been burned and her hair singed, so they had to chop it up. I didn’t want that to happen to me, so I concentrated on keeping the flame low.”
Professor Calasay looked at Ricky with new eyes. “You certainly succeeded.”
“Can you learn from him, Loria?”
‘Loria’? The professor always called everyone else by their last name, but she obviously knew his classmate.
“I am more than happy to do it. I could tell Ricky had good vocal control when we warmed up, but he is beyond me,” the young student said.
“Good. I want you both to continue to sit together on the back row. I’ll also want you to show Dean Doubli how well you both did. You are dismissed.”
Ricky nodded. He walked up a different aisle than Loria. Ricky looked over and nodded to her. How could he show Loria anything? He was just an audit student. What did he know? But that wasn’t true. He had done something no one else in the class could, and it was easy for him to do it. The thought alarmed him.
What if he really were a sorcerer? Would that change his life? He still carried the image of the injured server who had damaged herself with a spell in his memory. Perhaps if his power was so strong, he needed to learn all he could just to stay alive. Creating magic while humming when he gardened certainly hadn’t been a coincidence or a fluke.
Ricky worked himself up into a state of consternation, and by the time he reached the commissary to go over his lessons with Frank, he had to force himself to concentrate on something other than magic.
By the time they finished their session, magic had been pushed far away from the front of Ricky’s mind. He might be good with magic, but that would do him little good in his other courses. Even sorcerers had to know how to read well. At least Frank complimented him on his writing. It was a small consolation to the fact that Ricky needed to learn so many words.
At least after they finished their joint study, Ricky would be on firmer ground when they walked over to the gymnasium for their conditioning session with Saganet.
When they walked into the training building, about twenty students were spaced out in twos on the exercise floor. Ricky dragged Frank along with him to Saganet, who stood with his hands on his hips observing two older boys facing each other with staffs.
Saganet turned to them. “Ah, there you are. I thought you might like some company, so I opened up the gymnasium for an extra hour. Now you have some company when you exercise.
Frank took a step back, looking at all the activity.
“Look at them,” Ricky said. “They are so self-absorbed they won’t even notice us. Let’s get our exercises done, and then you can get out of here.”
Saganet looked out at the other students. “Ricky is right. You two haven’t progressed much past twenty or thirty minutes. Go ahead. I won’t watch you, so that will keep most of the eyes away from you.”
Frank nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.
“Over here,” Ricky said. He stowed his books on a table and began walking
towards an empty corner. He grabbed two practice swords on his way.
Frank reluctantly followed.
“They are all sparring, so we won’t, okay?” Ricky said. “All we need to do is carry these while we exercise.”
His friend nodded.
By the time they finished their workout, the gymnasium had emptied out except for Saganet, who watched the last pair leave. He rubbed his hands and walked over to them.
“Why don’t you spar for a few minutes?”
“You said I wouldn’t have to fight,” Frank said.
“Sparring doesn’t have to be fighting. Think of it as exercising with each other instead of individually. I’ll help you combine your exercises.”
Saganet lined them up facing each other. “Do the first exercise.”
As they went through the motions, at two points their swords collided. Ricky caught on, but he didn’t know if Frank did.
“Oh,” Frank said. “This is like a pantomime at the theater.”
“Pantomime?” Ricky asked.
“That’s right, you’ve never been. Between magic presentations, or sometimes in the midst of them, there is dancing. There are also pantomime battles, which is like a dance with weapons. Music plays, and the opponents or teams of opponents fight artistic battles on the stage. It’s considered very sophisticated,” Saganet said. “Sometimes the swordsmen are sorcerers and combine effects with their pantomime.”
“Can you teach us how to pantomime?” Frank asked, his eyes suddenly coming alive.
“I’ve consulted in the past. You have to be in better shape to do an entire performance, and I’d be having you do the same routines to get conditioned. Both of you will have to work harder.”
“I will!” Frank said.
Ricky still didn’t understand what the difference was, so he would ask Saganet later, but anything to get Frank interested.
Saganet had them go through their second set of exercises. He clapped his hands for every move. The action was too slow for Ricky, but Frank’s eyes lit up with excitement.
“That’s enough for today,” Saganet said. “Ricky has to sweep out the gymnasium before he is done for the day.”