The Magic of Recluce

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Tamra came up beside me, grinning, and reached for the sword that I had tried twice. Her mouth opened as her hand grasped the hilt. Then she tightened her lips, finally setting the sword down. “Not for me.” A faint sheen of perspiration had popped out on her forehead.

  I repressed a smile and walked down the first rack, looking at the daggers, many of which were finely crafted, even while displaying workmanlike effectiveness. Even running my hands over their hilts told me that the daggers were equally repugnant. I had handled knives before, and I had never felt so repelled. Clearly a spell had been placed on the weapons. But why?

  From the corner of my eye, I could see that Tamra was as vexed as I, and her grin had long since disappeared.

  The spears were only mildly uncomfortable. Next to them were a row of halberds, their axe-blades polished, glittering. But when I lowered my hand to one of the heavy brass halberds, I thought my stomach would empty on the spot.

  Clunk. I pulled away so suddenly that one of the lower and shorter halberds rolled out of its resting place and struck the floor.

  Even Gilberto turned toward me, his eyebrows raised.

  Despite the look, I left the halberd on the floor. Damned if I was about to risk disgracing myself on the spot by losing what remained of my breakfast.

  I waved him off, moving from the edged weapons toward the pistols. I’d never seen one up close, but Magister Kerwin had mentioned them in history, noting their limited effectiveness in warfare because of their unreliability at any distance and the problems created by their complexity, especially their susceptibility to chaos-magic.

  I didn’t even have to touch them. They were just as unfriendly, although I watched Myrten fondling one almost lovingly. So I admired their carved handles and blued steel and barely let my fingers pass over them, walking down that weapons rack toward the next.

  On the next were various clubs. I tried several, relieved that I could at least pick them up. Not one felt comfortable, but my stomach didn’t do flip-flops, either. The metal ones, like the mace and the morningstar, screamed at me to leave well enough alone. After the experience with the halberd, Gilberto’s instructions or not, I left them alone.

  Next to the clubs were some coiled ropes. They felt all right, only faintly repugnant-but what could you do with a rope? How was it even a weapon? Then there were some sort of polished handles connected by heavy cords. Same thing there-I could handle them, but couldn’t imagine how they worked.

  Finally, I came to the staves. Surprisingly, there were two dark ones, of a polished dark brown wood-darkened white oak, rather than black oak or black lorken, like my staff. Also unlike my own staff, which Talryn had suggested most strongly that I leave in my room during instruction periods, none of the staves were bound in metal, although their finish was almost as fine as that which Uncle Sardit had imparted to my staff. One staff, which I took, nearly matched my own in length. The other was somewhat shorter. Both were the first weapons, if a staff were a weapon, that hadn’t made me uncomfortable.

  With the longer staff in hand, I looked at the remaining section of the last rack, which contained truncheons. One, more like a short staff, although it was pitch-black, beckoned almost as much as the full-length staff. I held it for a while, then returned it.

  Tamra walked toward the staves. Her feet dragged, as if she wanted no part of them. Her lips were pressed tightly I together, and she carried no weapon.

  Beyond her, I could see Krystal standing by a brown leather sitting pillow, almost fondling the deadly sword. Myrten sat, examining the pistol which he had taken from the racks.

  Sammel carried a pair of matched truncheons, and Wrynn was still poking around the blades.

  My eyes shifted back to Tamra. Her forehead glistened with a layer of perspiration as she picked up a steel mace with iron spikes. The mace head was nearly the size of hers. Her lips tightened until I could see the whiteness in them even from five cubits away. Slowly, she set the mace back in the rack.

  I had to admire her strength, even if she were far more stubborn than I. But why did she put herself through that kind of torture? It was torture; that was certain. Her hands were almost shaking by the time she finally reached the staves.

  “Think it’s amusing, do you?” Tamra’s voice was like molten lead.

  I shook my head. She didn’t have to prove anything to me, and she certainly didn’t owe any sort of proof to the Brotherhood.

  She looked right through me as she picked up the other dark staff. The tension in her body eased, but the frown remained, like a line chiseled above the ice-blue eyes. Unlike some redheads, or Dorthae, Tamra didn’t darken her eyebrows, and she seemed to scorn any kind of adornment except the colored scarves she wore.

  “Tamra… Lerris… are you finished admiring your weapons?” Gilberto’s voice was dry.

  “Admiring is not the word I would have chosen,” observed Tamra, her voice cold enough now to chill warm fruit juice-instantly.

  Gilberto ignored her comments, stood there waiting, holding a short black baton in his hand, the length of a truncheon, as I scrambled to a pillow next to Krystal.

  Tamra sauntered toward a pillow at the other side of the group, each step slow and deliberate. Gilberto waited. I would have clobbered her… with something. He just gave a slow and lazy smile, and I shivered.

  Tamra smiled back sweetly.

  Krystal giggled.

  Gilberto turned to the group even before Tamra seated herself. “The weapons you have in your hands are the weapons most suited to your temperament.” Gilberto’s voice was dry. “That does not mean they are the best weapons for your defense-right now. If you choose to learn them, they will become the best weapons for your defense.” The weapons-master surveyed the group, as if asking for questions.

  “You keep talking about defense,” asked Tamra. “Is your purpose only to teach us self-defense?”

  Gilberto hesitated, glancing toward the open doorway to the tunnel through which we had entered, as if looking for Talryn. Finally, he answered. “Anything used as a defense can be a weapon. Violence is not the way of Recluce, or of the Brotherhood. You may use what we are able to teach you in any way you wish.” He smiled faintly. “Those who find more joy in using weapons than in avoiding their use will appreciate Hamor or Candar.”

  Once again, one of the Brothers really hadn’t answered the question. I was finding the lack of direct answers tiresome. I might conceivably be a child, but certainly none of the others were. Yet Gilberto treated all of us as if we couldn’t be trusted to understand a complete answer.

  “What do you mean by that?” snapped Dorthae. “You’re not talking to children.”

  Gilberto shrugged, lifting his shoulders with an exaggerated care. “Very few people in Recluce enjoy weapons. The opposite is true in Hamor and Candar. If you enjoy using weapons for more than exercise, you probably belong in Candar or Hamor.”

  Krystal giggled… again. Her hair was up, this time in golden cords, and instead of playing with it, her fingers ran along the sword blade. For some reason, I remembered how surgically she used a knife at meals.

  Wrynn frowned. She carried a brace of throwing knives.

  Gilberto paused while he looked us over again. “Here… you will get exercise, and you will learn weapons, beginning with the ones you have picked out. Not those exact ones, but the same type.”

  “Why not these?” asked Myrten, grasping his pistol tightly.

  “They’re enchanted to seek affinities… which reduces their effectiveness. Now, please put them back where you found them, and I’ll take you to the student armory, where you will be issued a set of weapons based around the one you chose.”

  The whole business seemed odd. Why have us choose weapons at all? Certainly the Brotherhood could have told who was suited for what weapons. Why did they bother? And what was the basis for deciding who was “suited” for what?

  “What is the basis for these ‘affinities’?” I asked, as Gilberto started to turn
toward the other doorway-the one across from where we had entered.

  “Your underlying character is the most important thing. If you have training with a weapon that is not suited to your character, that can confuse the issue, but Talryn indicated that was not the case for any of you.”

  “How would he know?” asked Wrynn.

  Gilberto shrugged. “I just teach weapons. The masters know what they know.”

  He wasn’t telling all he knew, but what else was new? That didn’t exactly surprise me. Gilberto walked toward the doorway, then turned to wait for us to put back the charmed weapons.

  I got up to return the staff. I liked mine better.

  Tamra didn’t look at anyone as she walked across the springy greenish floor toward the racks. Krystal took a long time to let go of the sword.

  Staying more than a respectful distance behind Tamra, I followed.

  The practice weapons were scarred, but sound. The cutting weapons had rounded edges, from what I could see, since I received a club, a truncheon, and a staff. As far as I could tell, only Tamra, Sammel and I received no edged weapons at all.

  XII

  GILBERTO HAD BEEN right about one thing. Training with the weapons was hard, and not just physically. Who ever would have thought about the proper ways to hold a truncheon? The staff… I guess I saw that as more like a sword or an unpointed spear… anything that long clearly required technique.

  Almost all of what I learned was new, and with all the repetition in the lectures, the weapons classes were usually the most interesting.

  “Lerris, used properly, that truncheon is a far more effective weapon than a knife. Used properly… you’re holding it like…” Gilberto broke off and shrugged. “I cannot even make a comparison.”

  Most training sessions were like that. Initially, nothing I did was right. The same was true of almost everyone-except Tamra and Krystal. Gilberto said almost nothing to Tamra, except occasional suggestions. Krystal he paid more attention to, but not much. As far as any kind of blade went, she picked up what he had in mind immediately.

  Me… it was like I had two left thumbs.

  “Lerris, stop fighting yourself… just relax.”

  How many times I heard those words, I don’t recall; but hear them I did, time after time.

  Once we had some basic idea of what we were doing, Gilberto began pairing us off-first against him, or one of his apprentices; then, occasionally, against each other.

  Eventually I found myself facing Tamra, not exactly in the field I had wanted.

  We stood on opposite sides of a white practice circle on the spongy green flooring. Outside, the late summer sky was overcast, which was the exception rather than the rule, and the light filtering through the long and high wall windows was grayish.

  Tamra smiled. Her face lit up when she smiled, but it was not a pleasant light at all. “Rules, Magister Gilberto?” The fingers of her heavy padded gloves tightened on the hard wood of the practice staff-the center part that was unpadded. Not that the padding on the ends was all that heavy. Her eyes were on me, as if she were studying some insect or a painting on a wall.

  A wisp of her flame-red hair peeked from under the leather and wood of the padded practice helmet.

  “Tamra…” began Gilberto. Then he shook his head. “No blows to face, knees, elbows or groin.”

  “I can live with that,” announced the redhead. I thought I could, also, but I didn’t like the look in Tamra’s eyes, or the instinctive ease with which she took her balanced stance. Then, again, I overtopped her by nearly a head and probably had twice her physical strength. And I hadn’t done that badly against Demorsal, one of Gilberto’s apprentices, over the past days.

  Besides, Tamra deserved anything I could land on her, the arrogant bitch. Always so damned superior, as if she didn’t really belong with mere dangergeld trainees.

  “Two to one she takes him…” Myrten’s raspy whisper annoyed me more than the bet. He laid odds on everything. I couldn’t see as well as I would have liked. The helmet restricted my peripheral vision, but I felt as though Myrten had rasped his bet at Sammel. Sammel shook his head.

  “Start when I tell you. And stop at the bell. Do you understand? Ready?” Gilberto stepped out of the circle, then glanced at Tamra. “Tamra?”

  She nodded.

  “Lerris?”

  “Yes.” I nodded without taking my eyes off Tamra. I didn’t see why everyone thought a match between Tamra and me was such a big deal. She clearly had more experience, but I was stronger, and almost as quick.

  Myrten probably bet on her because I’d trounced him in the last round. At least I was halfway decent at something.

  “Go!”

  Tamra circled to my right. I pivoted.

  Thwack. I barely managed to throw my staff up to block her first thrust.

  Thwack… thwack… thwack…

  I danced back, still on the defensive.

  Thwack… thwack… thwunk…

  “… oooofff…” Her last blow crashed into my lower-right ribs. Her staff moved like lightning bolts, flashing this way, forking back, always probing.

  Thwack… thwunk…

  Another blow… to my ribs on the left.

  Thwack…

  Fwooopp… My staff slipped past hers and bounced off her upper leg.

  THWUNK…

  I could feel the floor rising at me, but there wasn’t anything I could do about the momentary blackness and the stars that greeted me.

  “… poor bastard…”

  “… sufficient, I trust, Magister Gilberto?”

  I squinted and sat up, trying to still the swirling inside my brain.

  “Sufficient, Tamra.” Gilberto’s voice was dry. “Are you all right, Lerris?”

  My head felt like a log flayed out of its bark. My ribs were an unbroken ache, and Tamra was almost openly smirking. “Fine. Just fine.” Standing up required most of my remaining strength.

  “Why don’t you take a hot shower?” suggested the weapons-master.

  I didn’t even argue. Most of the time, whether the water was lukewarm or warm didn’t seem to matter. The idea of hot water, another luxury enjoyed by the Brotherhood in Ny-lan, never seemed more welcome.

  “Krystal… Wrynn… long knives… use the wooden ones.”

  My feet found their way, somehow, to the lockers where I stripped off the padding and the loose exercise clothing that I’d been supplied.

  “She was a little hard on you.” Demersal was leaning against the wall.

  “… Ummmmm…” The tunic was halfway over my head.

  “But that’s because you’re fighting yourself, and you don’t even want to admit it.”

  “Not you, too?” I pulled off the tunic. “Just what the hell do you mean? Everyone keeps telling me not to fight myself.”

  “I shouldn’t tell you… Talryn says that we all have to discover ourselves.”

  “Talryn be damned,” I muttered, sitting on the bench and pulling off the soft exercise pants. I was going to be sore-really sore, shower or no shower. “At least, tell me how to keep from getting killed the next time.”

  Demersal grinned. His black eyes twinkled. “I just did.” He wasn’t much taller than Tamra, but she never seemed to lay a staff on him. Neither did I, but he didn’t hit me except lightly.

  “I’m stupid. Tell me in another way.”

  “You got decked when you tried to attack. Every time. Why?”

  I shook my head. I wished I hadn’t, and put it between my hands to keep it from coming off.

  “I’ll ask it another way. Why did Tamra hit you the hardest when you attacked? Why don’t I hit you hard when we spar? You leave openings, you know, especially when you try to attack.”

  “I don’t know,” I groaned. Questions I didn’t need, not when my head was pounding.

  “Because I have the same problem. I can’t attack.”

  About that time I finally realized what he was saying. Finally. “Is that why I wasn’t all
owed edged weapons?” Demorsal looked around the lockers. “You believe in order. You have to. Use of weapons conflicts with order. For you to make an attack, you have to fight yourself first, then your opponent. You can’t help getting clobbered that way.”

  I looked at him. “Tamra uses a staff, and she clobbered me.”

  “She’s a little crazy, but think about it… she hit you hardest when you attacked… and I’ve probably said too much. Hope you feel better.” The senior apprentice turned as I stood up to head for the showers.

  The pieces fit, but I didn’t like it. Then again, I didn’t have to like it. If I wanted to survive, I just had to adapt to my own limitations. But I didn’t have to like it. I certainly didn’t.

  XIII

  WHEN I HAD free time, usually in the afternoon of our rest days-every eighth day of the Temple calendar-I still walked down to the harbor area in Nylan, checking the scattered ships from across the oceans, seeing how many countries traded with Recluce and how.

  Were they using steel-hulled steamers, or wooden-framed square-riggers? I never saw anything resembling a galley, although Magister Cassius indicated some coastal states to the far southwest of Candar, the ones around the smaller Western Ocean, operated slave galleys for coastal defense forces.

  I always looked for the telltale sign of concealing screens and for the black ships of the Brotherhood that no one ever talked about. I didn’t talk about them either, since I wasn’t about to admit I had seen them unless someone else already said something. None of our dangergeld instructors did.

  It was the same old story. If I asked about something and they didn’t want to talk about it, the answers were always platitudes or so vague that I already knew most of what they said.

  Still, I kept visiting the harbor-usually alone-with some of my dangergeld funds, just in case I found something useful. I hadn’t, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t.

  Once Krystal and I went together, on a sunny and cloudless afternoon. A brisk wind was blowing in from the west, so stiff it tugged at our tunics and hair. Krystal had bound her hair up, with the silver cords this time.