Intrigues

by Sharon Green

  “When people have opinions about something, they tend to think that what they approve of is the only right way to do that thing.” Lorand now took over, his tone gentle and friendly rather than pompous and lecturing as he looked at the city people. “Everyone should have the right to have his or her opinion heard, but they must also understand that what’s fitting for them isn’t necessarily just as fitting for others.”

  “In other words, we’ll be doin’ what we consider fittin’ for a while,” Vallant added in the same friendly way. “If, for one reason or another, our ideas don’t work out, we’re willin’ to change them for somethin’ that does work. We’re tryin’ to be reasonable, but that doesn’t mean we’re easy to push around.”

  “There are those who don’t understand the difference between reasonable and biddable,” Rion put in, taking his turn, but not sounding quite as friendly. “We appreciate the fact that many people want to see us succeed by doing the proper things, but their definition of proper and ours don’t quite agree. As my brothers have said, for the time being we’ll be doing the defining.”

  The city people were looking like a group of children who had been taken to task by their elders. Some of them shuffled in place, others wore disconcerted expressions, and still others sighed a bit. Not one of them, though, made the extremely unwise decision to argue, not even the man Relton Henris. Henris looked as if he wanted to argue, but there must have been an adequate store of common sense in him somewhere.

  “And now the rest of our people seem to be ready, so we can get on with the ceremony,” Jovvi said after glancing back. “Please follow us.”

  Jovvi walked to the doors and waited until the rest of us were in a line to both sides of her, and then we all walked out together. The group of city people followed right behind us, and ranged behind them were the link groups and other Blendings. Naran’s link groups usually tended to stay together and off to themselves for the most part. But today a number of them were walking with some of the other Blendings, and everyone involved looked pleased with the change.

  Stepping out into the bright sunlight after being inside in the dimness was hard on the eyes, but once the adjustment was made I could look around at an arrangement I hadn’t expected but should have. The chairs on the platform faced our side of the amphitheater, and everyone seated in the tiers was crowded into places where they could see the front of those chairs. At first I wondered how they’d found enough room, and then the truth came to me. There was enough room because there weren’t any nobles who had to be accommodated.

  As soon as we appeared the crowd began to cheer, the noise increasing as the rest of our people came out behind us. Tolten Meerk still stood on the platform all by himself, and the way he held himself suggested that the calm he showed was only on the surface. I would have put gold on the fact that he was raging inside, hating the way we hadn’t obeyed his unspoken command to come out sooner. I had no idea what his problem was, but my mood refused to let me worry about it.

  By the time we reached the platform, the crowd noise was close to deafening. I felt tempted to look around for the guardsmen, wearing ordinary clothing, who’d been stationed in the stands, but that would have been a waste of time. I already knew they were in places near those hidden bows, handily available to catch the people who were assigned to use the weapons. With all the losses to his ranks that Ayl had lately sustained, he was hopefully close to running out of people to use. Hopefully…

  The sand was annoying to walk through, but we’d done it before with a lot less confidence and company. During our approach Meerk had been … gathering himself, I suppose you could say, and when we finally reached him he gestured with his right arm.

  “The members of the Blending are to stand to my right, with the city leaders behind them,” he directed without hesitation, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd noise. “I’m afraid there isn’t room on the platform for all those others.”

  “Those others will be ranging themselves around the platform, so don’t worry about it,” I told the man as we all stepped up to his level. “It’s unfortunate that you chose not to come back inside after getting the sixth chair put in place, or you would have heard the latest. We’ve decided that the Seated Blending ought to speak to the people directly rather than through someone else, to keep people from thinking we consider ourselves too good to notice the unimportant peasants. That means we appreciate your efforts on our behalf, but we’ll take over now.”

  “You most certainly won’t,” Meerk said with a small laugh, as if he thought I’d been joking. “There has to be someone to present you to the people, and I’m that someone. Presenting yourselves is completely out of the question.”

  “And why would that be, Dom Meerk?” Naran asked suddenly in a soft voice, studying the man intently. “Possibly for the reason that the man presenting the new Seated Blending is tacitly accepted as the leader of all the Blending’s other supporters? The simple act of presenting us will give you an enormous amount of prestige and power, eliminating the need to struggle for position.”

  “And even beyond that, the presentation will let you say whatever you care to, won’t it?” Jovvi added while Meerk paled and stared at Naran. “You intend to make yourself the one everyone else has to go through in order to reach us, for the supposed reason of keeping us from being bothered by time-wasting nonsense. You expect to surround us with your cronies, and cut us off from anyone who doesn’t go through your very proper channels.”

  “In case you haven’t yet gotten the picture, that isn’t going to happen.” I put in my own oar, feeling more disgusted than I had in quite a while. “We aren’t going to let anyone make themselves the new nobility, not when we’ve only just gotten rid of the old ones. Your brother ran from guardsmen with us, fought beside us, and died for one of us, Dom Meerk. What have you done to earn even half the power you want?”

  “What I did was spend most of my time bowing to those useless nobles when I was ten times better than the best of them!” Meerk retorted in a growl, his complexion now dark with anger. “I lived a lie waiting for them to be brought down, and now it’s my turn! I can make this empire run more smoothly than it ever has, with everyone in the proper place and doing what they’re supposed to. I can make it happen, and I will!”

  And with that he turned away from us, raising his arms as though asking the audience for silence so that he might speak. How he meant to make himself heard without the help of Highs in Air magic I have no idea, but the question became moot. Jovvi looked at him, and suddenly all the frenzy in his actions disappeared into true calm and serenity. He lowered his arms and stepped back away from the edge of the platform, and Jovvi shook her head.

  “Doing nothing but waiting for someone else to change things entitles you to the exact same nothing, Dom Meerk,” Jovvi told the man softly. “You can’t let other people make the effort and sacrifice, and then step in and take over just because you think you deserve to. That’s the way the nobility thought, and a million people could have died because of that mindless outlook. If you think we’ll give it a second chance to destroy us, you’re completely insane. Now go and stand behind the others where you belong.”

  Meerk turned and walked toward where the city leaders were standing and looking shaken, moving behind them as he’d been told to do. Once again we were faced with people who knew little or nothing of what we could do, a truth Wilant Gorl had pointed out a short time earlier. Well, hopefully that would soon change.

  “You ladies are making the rest of us feel superfluous,” Lorand said to Jovvi, Naran, and me with a teasing grin. “Rion, Vallant and I are thinking about taking a nap while you finish up the rest of this.”

  “I know you older folk need to nap, but try to hold off for a short while,” I countered while Jovvi and Naran chuckled. “Those people in the stands with the hidden weapons haven’t made a move yet, and it’s time for me to make that speech. Are you ready to help me, Rion?”

  “My link group
s will also be helping, Tamrissa,” Rion answered with his own amusement. “This place is the least bit bigger than the ballroom we had the party in.”

  “Yes, the least bit bigger,” I echoed in a mutter, making myself walk to the edge of the platform. The crowds seemed to have grown even larger somehow, and they’d been quieting down ever since Meerk held his arms up. Now they were all but completely silent, waiting to hear what I had to say. Speaking up when angry has never been a problem for me, but I couldn’t help noticing that anger is never around when you really need it.

  “Hello,” I began in a really weak way, hearing the word echo to every corner of the amphitheater. “Thank you for coming today.”

  The sudden roar of delighted voices was accompanied by thunderous applause, a reaction that was encouraging in spite of being rather startling. A glance back showed all my Blendingmates smiling, so I held my hands up a bit and in a moment or two I had silence again.

  “There are a number of things we have to tell you before we actually get to the Seating ceremony,” I continued, finding it slightly easier to get the words out. “The first thing, I think, ought to be the fact that we’ll only be Seated for a year. Next year the competitions will be held again, and the winner of them will be Seated for five years instead of twenty-five. Making people wait half a lifetime to compete for the place of strongest Blending just isn’t fair.”

  This time the applause was composed of surprise and startlement, but it was also strong and supportive. Most people obviously thought we’d just continue on with what the nobility had started, and were clearly finding themselves pleased that that wasn’t so. I just hoped they’d continue to be pleased – with everything.

  “The next thing you have to know about is the training classes that will start tomorrow,” I said once I had enough quiet. “Offices are being opened throughout the city today, and anyone who wants their talent trained can go to one of the offices and register. Classes will be filled on a first-come, first-served, basis, but don’t be upset if you aren’t in one of the first classes. The initial training won’t take more than a few days, and then new classes will be started. That will continue until everyone who wants the training has gotten it, but no one will be forced to take it. If you’re not interested, then you’re not.”

  There was applause again, but only a smattering as most people seemed more interested in commenting to the people next to them. It was hard to tell what the comments were about, but I decided not to let that distract me. There were more things to tell them before we would all be able to go home.

  “Once everyone who wants to be trained is trained, we’ll go on to the next step,” I said, and the ripple of talk died down to a bit of muttering. “Those people who want to learn how to be part of a Blending will be shown the way, preferably with others whom they feel they can get along with. You don’t want to be part of a Blending with just anyone, not when the association is closer than anything you can imagine.”

  The crowd noise rose almost to its original roar, and most of the people I could see looked downright shocked. We’d been hoping that word of our intentions would spread, but obviously it hadn’t spread nearly far enough.

  “The leader of our empire is supposed to be the strongest Blending, not the only one,” I said, and somehow Rion and his link groups made my voice loud enough to be heard over the noise. “There will also be minor competitions during the year, to let people know how strong they are in comparison to others, and to give them chances to practice. When the real competitions are held a year from now, everyone will know that the Blendings competing really are the best of the best."

  The comments and exclamations coming from all around now sounded as if they were filled with excitement, and the shock I’d seen a minute ago had changed to expressions ranging from wild elation to deep worry. More people seemed to be pleased than worried, though, definitely a positive sign.

  “Please try to calm down,” I finally said when the uproar refused to end, my voice echoing all over the amphitheater. “There are still a few more things to say, and I’d like to get to them.”

  “Wait, wait just a minute,” a voice called as a man left his place to walk a short distance onto the sand. It should have been impossible to hear the man, but somehow his voice managed to reach us.

  “He’s a Middle talent in Air magic, and has a few other Middle talents helping him,” Rion said from where he stood, a faint smile on his face. “They’re not using the proper pattern, of course, but their effort is quite credible. Do we want to hear what he has to say?”

  “Of course we do,” Jovvi said at once, looking around at the rest of us. “We need to know what people think, people who aren’t appointed leaders as well as those who are. Does anyone disagree?”

  “Of course not,” I said, as the rest of our Blendingmates smiled or shook a head. “If he says he hates our ideas and everyone else here agrees with him, we can go home that much sooner.”

  “Then for that reason, if no other, I’ll give him a hand,” Rion said, returning his attention to the man. From what I could see the man was dressed in simple clothing, clean but not very new. He was of average height and build, but his hair was light and his face was on the square side.

  “All right, I’m waiting,” I told the man, and the noise died down just a little. “What did you want to say?”

  “I wanted to say – “ he began, the words chopping off when the volume of them surprised their speaker. It took a moment or two for the man to recover, but then he smiled wryly.

  “Thank you for that,” he said as he gestured with one hand, obviously referring to the fact that everyone could now hear him. “I don’t know why I was surprised, but I guess I’m no more used to being treated like I’m actually worth something than anyone else here.”

  There were a lot of garbled comments made by the crowd at that, but all the comments clearly agreed with him.

  “What I want to say first is something not everyone here may have heard about,” the man continued after a moment. “Friends, on their way here, our new Blending was attacked by some crazies who threw etching acid at them. The acid didn’t reach them, of course, but it did manage to splash onto quite a few people who were watching them go by. The guard escort wanted the Blending to ride away to some place safe, but they refused to do that. Instead they got off their horses and tended the hurt, and people who would have been blinded or scarred are now going to be all right.”

  Here and there exclamations of surprise sounded, but for the most part the crowd seemed to know all about our little mishap. The others and I exchanged glances of surprise over how the story had managed to get there and spread so quickly, but we weren’t given a chance to ask about it.

  “Now we’re told that we’ll be given the chance to do something none of us had even dared to dream about,” the man went on. His attention was on those of us on the platform, but his words seemed to be addressed to everyone in the amphitheater. “I’m tempted to think I’m dreaming, but if I am then a lot of other people are having the same dream. I don’t know what we did to deserve you people, but whatever it is I hope we never stop doing it.”

  Pandemonium broke loose at that point, and the man who had spoken just stood there smiling at us while everyone cheered and screamed out their agreement. I felt tempted to simply accept that approval and enjoy it, but I knew all too well how quickly approval could turn into condemnation. My parents had been delighted with how well I learned to act like a lady, but their approval disappeared when I began to act in a way they hadn’t told me I could…

  “I think you’d better hear the rest of what I have to say before you decide how happy you are to have us here,” I said when the cheering and shouting finally died down. “We’re going to do something else that hasn’t been done before, and your city leaders aren’t very pleased with that something. You’ll do well to hear about it before you say something you may regret.”

  “Unless you’re planning to murder all of us, I can
’t see myself changing my mind,” the man said while a concerned buzz circled the crowd like bees considering the benefits of a rampage. “Go ahead and say what you have to, and then we’ll see.”

  “Yes, we will, won’t we?” I agreed with the faintest of smiles. “All right, here it is. You’ve probably been wondering why there are six chairs on this platform instead of five, so here’s the answer. We have a sixth member of our Blending, a full, useful member with a talent called Sight magic which you haven’t heard about before. Some of our associated Blendings have also taken the same kind of sixth, but that doesn’t matter. We’ve decided that either we’ll be Seated as a Six or we won’t be Seated at all, and the decision about that is yours.”

  This time there was a moment or two of silence before the buzz began again, wilder than before. The noise rose to a true roar, and after a short time the man on the sand shook his head.

  “Wait a minute, everybody, wait just a minute,” he said, holding up his arms toward the crowd. “I never expected to hear anything like that either, especially the last part of what she said. There are going to be six of them no matter what, but if we decide that what they’re doing is wrong they won’t be our six. Is that what you want? To find someone not as good as them, not as good to us, just as long as they’re five instead of six? For myself, I don’t care if there are ten or a dozen of them, as long as they keep on making my dreams come true. So what do the rest of you think? Do we want them to walk away?”

  “No!” the crowd roared, taken up and carried away on the words the man had spoken. “No, no, no!”

  Other people said other things as well, but for the moment it was perfectly clear what the general opinion was.

  “So there you have it,” the man on the sand said, his smile now filled with satisfaction. “There are a lot of damned fools in this city, but most of them seemed to have stayed home today. We want you Seated no matter what your number is.”