The Talented

by J. R. McGinnity

  One of the balls of flame tossed by the man set a tuft of dry grass on fire, and another man ran over to it and, waving his hand above the smoldering grass, sent a spout of water shooting from his fingers to quench the flames. He shouted something at the man tossing fire, and the woman with the knives sent one flying toward him to come to a playful stop a few inches from his face.

  In the background, another woman was walking amongst bleeding and dying people, and where she passed they rose unharmed, lively and laughing together as though nothing had happened.

  A man flew overhead.

  Adrienne started up from her bedroll with a gasp. The dream had been incredibly vivid, and her heart was hammering.

  Tam had told her of the tales that had sparked the commission’s research into other paths that would end the conflict with Almet, and some of those tales had been incredible. People who could control fire, or water, and others who could control objects with their minds, or heal wounds and illnesses.

  Tam had never said anything about people flying, but after that had been incorporated into her dreams along with the other tales, she couldn’t help but wonder if it was possible. In her dream, nothing that had happened had surprised her, and she wondered if there were any limits to the abilities Tam had told her about.

  The tales he told had seemed incredible, like the tales she had been told as a child. Karse had told her stories and Adrienne had the vaguest memories of her mother doing the same. But Tam had presented them as being reality, and Adrienne wasn’t sure that she could believe that.

  People couldn’t control the elements, or heal the sick with their minds, and yet—and yet Tam had told her that there were recordings of such events in old tomes found deep in the libraries of Kessering and other old cities. Adrienne knew that there were fairy stories about such things, just as there were fairy stories about King Death and his ghostly court, and the Golden God and his seven sisters that were immortalized in one of the brightest constellations in the sky. But Tam’s stories were more along the lines of Amyria the Healer, and he had told her that these books were not written as fairy tales; they were written as fact.

  Adrienne settled back down in her blankets, deciding to put the tales out of her mind for the night, but as she started to turn over she heard the sound of a twig snapping underfoot.

  Most of her life had been spent in soldiering camps, but Adrienne had been on enough hunts, both for food and other, more dangerous game, that she could interpret the night sounds of the countryside. That sound had undeniably been the sound of a human walking through the woods. Deer would step on dry twigs, but even the proudest buck would not produce the absolute hush that had fallen over the forest as the night animals froze in response to one of the ultimate predators: man.

  She concentrated on keeping her breathing even and quiet, straining to hear another sound that was out of place in the night. When it came, it was in the form of fabric brushing against leafy branches, snagging on one and snapping it back into place as the fabric released the branch.

  Adrienne freed herself from her blankets and rolled to her feet in one smooth motion. She drew her sword and called to Ilso and Tam to wake before springing toward the man in the trees.

  The light was dim, and she relied on instinct and senses other than sight to find the one who had been creeping into their camp. Her sword proved superfluous, as he was armed only with a knife, and she quickly disarmed him with a chop of her hand to his arm. The knife skittered away into the dry underbrush and the man let out a shout.

  “What’s this?” Tam asked, bumbling through the forest until he found Adrienne pinning the man to the ground. “Adrienne, what are you doing?”

  “This man was sneaking up on our camp,” Adrienne told Tam. She relaxed her grip on the stranger slightly, assured that he would not try to escape now that she had defeated him so easily and taken his knife. “From his looks, I hazard he planned to slit our throats and steal our things.”

  “I didn’t,” the man stammered, turning first to Tam and then to Ilso with bright appeal in his eyes. “I wanted only to join your camp, perhaps share a meal with you.”

  Ilso cast Adrienne a withering look, and Tam too looked disappointed in her assessment of the man. “He has no bags,” the scholar pointed out. “He was probably hungry, and perhaps cold as well. Company is not an unusual want for a wanderer. It would be natural for him to seek us out.”

  Adrienne shook her head fiercely. “Then why did he try to sneak into our camp like a thief instead of calling out to us in welcome?” she asked.

  “I did not wish to wake you,” the man said. “Truly.”

  Adrienne stood up in disgust. She knew the man to be lying, and that he was a danger to them all, but Tam and Ilso would never allow her to deal with the man in any forceful way. The best she could do would be to take him away from their camp and hope that he did not double back and try again to kill them. “Stand up,” Adrienne ordered.

  The man smiled uncertainly and did as he was told, brushing the dirt and dry grass off of his clothes.

  “You will show me to your camp,” Adrienne said. “You will gather your things, and I will see you off in another direction before the hour is up.”

  “I have no things,” the man said piteously, directing his words at Tam.

  Adrienne had to give the thief credit for picking his mark well. Tam obviously believed the man wholly. “Adrienne, this man said that he was coming to our camp to share our supplies,” Tam reminded her, moonlight glinting off his bald head as he nodded vigorously. “We will let him stay here with us. It is good to have company on a journey, and perhaps learn some news. Where do you come from?”

  The thief’s small, sly smile made it obvious just how dangerous that would be, but Tam saw no threat from a lone man, and listened attentively as the stranger shared information that he had picked up in the last town. Adrienne was disgusted. The man might be alone now, but she doubted even a man who would murder three people in their sleep would wander the countryside by himself.

  “No,” Adrienne said to Tam, cutting off his conversation with the man. She met the scholar’s eyes levelly. “You may come with me, and when this man shows us to his camp, you will be satisfied that he is a liar and a thief, and we will continue on to Kessering without him.”

  Tam looked unhappy, Ilso doubtful, but Adrienne stood firm. She knew the thief’s mind, knew that he planned to lie and lead them nowhere, but was sure that she could outsmart him.

  She gripped his arm hard, and whispered in his ear as Tam made ready to accompany them. “You will not lie to me,” she hissed. “Do so, and I will gut you like a boar,” she assured him. “I will not hesitate to take my knife and open you belt to breast. Do not deceive yourself that you could kill me first. Now show me to your camp.”

  “I have no camp,” the man said, and Adrienne gripped tighter, tight enough to leave bruises on his arm that went deep into the muscle and would pain him for days to come.

  Her face remained calm despite the pain she was inflicting, and she saw a spark of fear light in the man’s eyes. “You will show me to your camp,” she repeated, her tone hard as steel.

  “I’ll show you,” he promised, and led Adrienne and Tam to where he had stored his goods before seeking to take theirs. When the would-be thief revealed where he had stashed his bags, Adrienne sensed Tam’s confusion and disappointment, though he said nothing.

  “Can you find your way back to camp?” she asked Tam.

  “I should be able to.” He looked back the way they had come, and Adrienne had a feeling of trepidation. She had no interest in leading the thief away only to spend the rest of the night searching the forest for Tam.

  “Wait here for a moment,” she told Tam before dragging the thief off a little ways into the woods.

  “Where are your friends?”

  “What friends?” Adrienne drew her knife and held it against his stomach. “I could kill you now and no one would be the wiser.”


  “Ah, those friends. There was a signal I was supposed to give if things went well. When they didn’t hear it they would have left.”

  “I assume you set up a meeting point with them?”

  The thief nodded.

  “Go there and convince them to leave. Now. If I see any signs of you come the morning it won’t be only your belly I’m splitting.”

  The man looked pathetically grateful as he nodded before scampering away.

  She went back to gather Tam so that they could return to camp. Ilso was there waiting with their things, and Tam just shook his head at the other man before returning to his sleeping roll.

  Adrienne stayed up the rest of the night listening for signs that the thief had not heeded her warning, and didn’t breathe easy until the sun dawned.

  Tam handed Adrienne a heavy book. “You’re fortunate that I brought this along,” he told her. “There aren’t many copies, and most of them are in Kessering. It is required reading for anyone being taught what you will be.”

  Adrienne examined the book. The pages were yellow and curling with age, and when she flipped through them she saw that the writing was small and cramped. “Why?” she asked, wondering if the book contained more of the tales he had told her before.

  “So that you can understand the accounts and theoretical knowledge that led to the discovery that people can develop extra-ordinary abilities,” Tam said in a way that suggested it should have been obvious to her.

  “And why would I believe this book?” she asked, hefting it doubtfully. “Why should I believe what you told me? Saying that the stories I heard as a child are true doesn’t make them so.”

  “You seemed to believe yesterday.”

  “I listened yesterday,” she corrected. “And after last night, I don’t know why I should believe anything you say.”

  “Watch your mouth,” Ilso snapped.

  “You’d both be dead if not for me,” she snapped back. “That man last night—”

  “Believing the best of people does not make me wrong,” Tam said. “I have seen these abilities with my own eyes. Seen people healed in instants.”

  “And I’ve seen men swallow fire and juggle knives,” Adrienne said. “Travelling performers, nothing more.”

  The dream last night had made such abilities seem momentarily possible, but Tam’s gullibility when it came to the thief cast a shade of doubt that she could not dispel.

  “Read the book,” Tam said again. “I have seen many incredible things. More than just people being healed. I’ve seen blacksmiths forge unbreakable tools, scholars able to read and remember in ways I would have thought impossible.”

  “You told me all of this yesterday.” And yesterday it has fascinated her. Now it just made her tired.

  “But I’m not the only one. These abilities are centuries old. The book describes this, and the theories behind it all.”

  Adrienne felt herself softening. What if she was wrong? And Kessering was still weeks away. “Is knowing the theories necessary? At this point in my training, I mean?”

  Tam looked appalled by her question. “It is essential that you know why myself and the other scholars came to the conclusions we did about people being able to learn these abilities. You must understand the process we went through in making this discovery. If not, how can you understand why the training is necessary? How can you understand why anyone needs these abilities at all?”

  “Over the years I have learned the process of weapon making,” she told Tam, “but I was able to use weapons long before that, and I understood the purpose of weapons even earlier.”

  “This matter is hardly as simple as swordplay,” Tam told her.

  The scholar was proving to be an enigma. In many ways he was extremely intelligent. His knowledge of history was greater than that of anyone Adrienne had ever met, and she had even managed to engage him in a philosophical discussion on the second day that had made their long stop for lunch pass quickly. But when it came to the subject of soldiers and fighting, Tam’s opinion that they had little purpose and were hardly more than dumb brutes was proving unshakeable.

  Adrienne considered defending the intricate nature of swordsmanship to Tam, but she didn’t waste her breath. Tam did not respect anything but knowledge gained from books. “I can see the differences,” Adrienne said sardonically.

  “I realize the mental activity of reading such an old book might be difficult for you, but it is necessary.” Tam muttered something more under his breath, but the only word Adrienne caught was “translation.”

  “What language was this originally written in?” Adrienne asked.

  “Old Samaroan,” Tam said. “I believe the knowledge to be more apparent in the original, but few besides scholars now know more than a couple words of Old Samaroan, so we must content ourselves with the translation.”

  “I know Old Samaroan,” Adrienne said. She still wasn’t sure why she needed to read this book on theory herself, instead of Tam teaching her the pertinent details, but she would show him that she was not stupid. “Mental activity” was not beyond her.

  “You do?”

  Adrienne nodded and explained how she had come to learn the language when she was just a child. Her explanation was delivered in Old Samaroan, perfect but for a rather rough accent. “I would like to use the translation as a reference,” she said in the common tongue, “but if you have a copy of the original, I would prefer to work with that.”

  Tam looked confused. His response was slow, as if he did not know what to do with the new information. “Ah, yes, I did bring a copy of the original text, though I intended it for my own study.” He frowned. “Are you sure you know enough of the language for the book to be useful?”

  “Yes.”

  Tam nodded, then turned to search one of his numerous bags for the book. As he searched his movements became quicker and a smile spread across his face. Whatever doubts he’d had about her, it seemed that the new information had replaced them, at least for the moment. “If you really can read and understand Old Samaroan, I believe this will give you a tremendous advantage.” He handed the book over and rubbed his hands together eagerly. “This is marvelous. Incredible.”

  He smiled at her, and there was no reserve in it. Adrienne thought for the first time that Tam’s attitude toward her might not have been intentionally harsh. Unlike Ilso, whose dislike of soldiers seemed real and well developed, Adrienne realized that she could very well be the first soldier Tam had ever been in close and sustained contact with. With no real frame of reference, and with Ilso as his companion, it could be that he had no way to relate to her.

  “I’d like to talk to you about it tonight,” Adrienne said. She still wasn’t sure if she believed him, but there was no reason to antagonize him, or to try and understand the book alone.

  “Of course, of course,” Tam said, rubbing his hands together. “Of course.”

  Adrienne left and wandered over to the top of a low hill to begin her studies. Since there was no shade to be found, a view and the chance of a breeze seemed the best choice. After an hour of exhaustive reading she was disheartened to see that she had made only minimal progress. Her only consolation was that the translation was as difficult to understand as the original text written in Old Samaroan. The book had not been written as a manual on theory, as she had supposed, or as instruction on how to develop and use the amazing abilities Tam had told her about. Rather, it was a journal written by an unidentified person—Adrienne thought it was probably a man, but that was only a guess—and abilities such as those Tam had spoken of were often mentioned only obliquely, and rarely in a positive light.

  Those who use these unnatural means generally behave as though they are superior to their natural brethren. These people speak of a ‘connection with the universe’ while simultaneously committing acts that go against the natural laws of the universe. Their high-handedness affronts more pragmatic individuals with true and natural concerns. These people will no doubt lead us into anarchy
given the opportunity.

  There were some words in the journal that Adrienne needed the translation for, and she hoped that no important nuances were getting lost. She could not be sure how good the translation was, or how the informal nature of a journal might be coloring the reality of the abilities it spoke of.

  Many passages in the journal gave incredible insights into the author’s desultory nature, in Adrienne’s opinion, but little insight into the people who could do these “unnatural” things, and even less about what those things were. They did serve to make Adrienne more curious about the people the author was referring to, however, and she became even more grateful that Karse had taught her Old Samaroan in an attempt to entertain the young girl who had been left primarily in his care.

  She had learned that reading Old Samaroan was easier when she fully immersed herself in the reality of the text. As she spent more time reading the journal, Adrienne began to understand why Tam and the commission referred to the people in the book as Talented. How else could she describe people with such amazing abilities, such Talents?

  “Connection with the universe” sounded like some of Tam’s theoretical knowledge, and Adrienne wondered why the Talented thought they were more closely connected than others. And if they truly were more connected, how did they gain that connection? Was it inborn, or something learned?

  Adrienne wished more of the journal was focused on the Talented, rather than chronicling the author’s days and beliefs.

  After the report of riots to the south came in, there was debate about what the response should be. Some are calling for a military response to preempt an act of rebellion. This show of strength, as some are calling it, might suit the brutish minds of some, but those fools do not understand the real issues. These times require a government led by the enlightened, not by men who think that swords will solve every problem.

  If Adrienne had not read his previous entry, she might have been sympathetic to his beliefs, but the “riot” he described had resulted in twenty-one people dead and dozens more injured. His dogmatic beliefs about an “enlightened government” over a military-and-defense minded one were terribly naive.