Competitions

by Sharon Green

  “Excuse me, sir,” a voice interrupted his thoughts, and he looked up to see a trembling Padril standing there clutching something. “I have your eight silver dins and your master’s bracelet.”

  The servant was also coming with his food and tea, so Rion put out a hand to Padril.

  “Give me the dins, and then explain about this bracelet thing,” he ordered the Adept, making sure his tone was as cold as it had been. “And make sure your explanation leaves nothing out.”

  “Yes, sir,” Padril responded at once, still looking gray from his ordeal. He handed over the dins and watched while the servant put the food and drink in front of Rion, but only glanced at one of the empty chairs at the table. He hadn’t been invited to sit, and obviously knew better than to try it anyway.

  “The master’s bracelet takes the place of the applicant’s identification card,” Padril began as soon as the servant left. “It marks the wearer as a full participant, firmly beyond the level of applicant. There’s really nothing more to the matter, since it’s only a higher-status indicator.”

  “And how many of those testing previously earned their higher status despite interference?” Rion put bluntly after sipping at his tea. “Some of them? Most of them? All of them?”

  “Please, sir, you must understand how late in the year it is,” Padril whined, all but squirming in agitation where he stood. “It’s been our experience that those applicants with so short a time for practice rarely do anything more than get in the way of those who have an actual chance to attain the various positions. ‘Helping’ them to drop out does a service to both them and us.”

  “Allow me to say that I don’t think much of your ‘service,’” Rion told him dryly, then waved a hand at him. “Go away now and allow me to eat in peace, but don’t go too far. I have questions about what happens next, and I’ll expect you to be available to answer them before I leave.”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll be right over there,” Padril responded, indicating the table with the rest of his cronies. “Just raise your hand when you want me, and I’ll return immediately.”

  When Rion nodded absently he scuttled away, looking as if he’d just narrowly escaped death. In a manner of speaking he had, for Rion knew that if he and Arnot had made the mistake of attacking him directly rather than just trying to block him, the end result of his efforts would have been a good deal less pleasant for them. He’d been victimized for enough of his life; from now on he meant to make up for that.

  Rion picked up his sandwich and began to eat it, but his thoughts were on things other than food. He would have to be sure to discuss his suspicions with the others, to warn them that everything might not be as open and aboveboard as some of them believed. And then he’d be able to plan his visit to Naran, which he now had the silver to pay for. Naran … one day soon he would have gold to spend on her, and no one would be allowed to stand in his way, no one…

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Lorand felt like a personal servant by the time he left the coach. First he’d had to wake up Mardimil when the coach reached his stop, and then he’d had to do the same for Ro. Both men had been deeply into their thoughts, but Ro had also seemed to be brooding. Holter had only been partially distracted, but enough so that Lorand had felt that he rode alone in the coach.

  And it wasn’t as if he didn’t have his own things to brood about, he thought morosely as he left the coach. He’d wanted to talk to Jovvi again, and after the celebration broke up last night he’d managed to make it happen. He’d drawn her aside after everyone else had left, and had smiled down at her.

  “So far things aren’t going too badly for me,” he’d said, trying to recapture the wonderful mood they’d shared when they first met. “Before you know it I’ll have gold and a really good chance to win in the competitions, and then we can start to plan our life together. Or, if you’d rather not wait, we can start the planning right now.”

  “I really do like you, Lorand Coll,” she’d answered with a smile, putting one soft and shapely hand to his face in a gentle caress. “I knew at once that you would turn out to be someone who was important to me, and I’m not often wrong about things like that.” Then her smile had faded, and the hand was gone from his face. “But right now I think it’s time I went to bed.”

  Lorand wanted to ask if he could join her there, but suddenly the suggestion seemed out of place.

  “Jovvi, what’s wrong?” he asked instead, wishing he could take her in his arms. “Have I done something to offend you?”

  “It isn’t you,” she replied with a headshake. “Or at least it isn’t you alone. How can we plan on anything at all, when we don’t even know what tomorrow will bring? A very large part of my childhood was filled with that kind of uncertainty, and I thought I’d fixed things so it would never happen again. Now it’s happening anyway, and every day it gets worse.”

  “All the more reason for us to stay as close as possible,” Lorand had told her, taking her hand despite the presence of the servant stationed near the house. “If we can’t count on anything else, at least we can count on each other.”

  “Can we?” she’d asked, making no effort to pull her hand away but still looking at him oddly. “I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about you, Lorand, because I have a small, distant understanding of your problem. So far you’ve been able to force yourself to move ahead with the rest of us, but what if tomorrow comes and you find that you can’t do it again? How strongly will I be able to count on you if you aren’t here?”

  Lorand hadn’t been able to answer that question, and after a moment he’d released her hand in defeat. He’d expected her to go back to the house immediately, but after an instant’s hesitation she’d put her arms around his neck and kissed him. There was nothing of passion in the kiss, he knew that at once; it felt more as if she were reluctantly kissing him goodbye. Lorand returned the kiss with silent desperation, and a moment later she was hurrying back to the house.

  And now, walking toward the resin walls surrounding the practice area, Lorand still couldn’t argue with what she’d said. It had been nothing but the truth, and even a sleepless night of tossing and turning hadn’t done anything to change that. You can’t count on someone who can’t even count on himself, even if the someone is too thickheaded to keep that fact clearly in mind.

  “Good morning, sir,” a voice said, and Lorand blinked back to his surroundings to see that Hestir, his Adept guide, stood waiting for him. “I look forward to watching you practice this morning, and then perhaps I’ll get some idea about when you mean to test for your next masteries.”

  Lorand was about to say that it would probably be a while before he was ready for the next tests, but the words were never spoken. He’d caught a glimpse of someone over near the first set of practice cubicles, and when he looked directly at the someone he felt jolted.

  “That’s Eskin Drowd,” he all but blurted, beginning to move closer to the cubicles to be certain of that. “But what’s he doing here? The last time I saw him he was having all sorts of trouble qualifying.”

  “Apparently he got past his troubles,” Hestir remarked, having followed along. “He reported here first thing this morning, and after his guide showed him around he went right to work practicing. He seems to realize that he’s the last of his group, and means to make up for lost time.”

  At that point Drowd glanced over his shoulder, then looked again more directly, just as Lorand had done. When he saw that it really was Lorand whom he stared at, the well-remembered sneer appeared in his eyes and on his face. You forgot all about me, the sneer said without words, but I’ve caught up now and I won’t fall behind again. This time it will be you eating my dust, just wait and see if it isn’t.

  And then Drowd turned back to his practicing, complete determination clear in every line of his body. He’d been bested for a while by a “mudfoot,” but he’d sworn to Lorand that he meant to change that. Lorand would have no choice but to stand there and watch that sneering Drowd mo
ve past him, and then Drowd would be put back into the residence and Lorand would be out. After that he’d probably never see Jovvi again…

  “I won’t be practicing this morning,” Lorand heard himself saying to Hestir. “I know what’s necessary, so I’ve decided to go straight to the testing. Let’s begin right now.”

  “But … now?” Hestir blurted, suddenly looking shaken. “I was certain you would decide to wait until this afternoon… Well, if that’s your decision, so be it. I’ll fetch you a cup of tea to drink while I get another Adept to join me in the witnessing. This stage requires two witnesses, you know—”

  “Thank you, but I don’t want any tea,” Lorand interrupted, knowing he didn’t dare give himself time to stop and think. “I’ll go with you to find that other Adept, and then we’ll get straight to it.”

  “If you insist,” Hestir agreed after a brief hesitation, now looking considerably less calm and pleased. “My associates are over there.”

  He gestured toward a table filled with men drinking tea and talking, then began to lead the way over there. The Adept also seemed to be thinking about something, but Lorand chased too many of his own thoughts to wonder about Hestir’s. He was committed to taking the test now, and backing out simply wasn’t possible. No matter how many doubts and fears he had plaguing him, he had to succeed.

  “Morin, a moment of your time, please,” Hestir said when they reached the table. After a brief hesitation an average-looking man with brown hair and eyes rose and came over to join them, and Hestir gestured toward Lorand.

  “Dom Coll here has just informed me that he wishes to take the next tests immediately,” Hestir said, his voice coming out with an odd, flat inflection. “He’s in such a rush he even refused a relaxing cup of tea, so I’ll require your assistance with the witnessing.”

  “Of course, Hestir,” the man Morin replied in that same odd tone, and then he looked at Lorand and produced one of the coldest smiles Lorand had ever seen. “It will be my pleasure, Dom Coll, since there are very few successes in this area to witness. The exercises are so difficult that far more people fail than pass, but I’m certain you’ll be one of the few rather than one of the many.”

  “Of course he will,” Hestir agreed heartily while Lorand felt a definite sinking feeling in his middle. “Dom Coll understands that it’s simply a matter of using sufficient strength to get the job done. Let’s go over there now, shall we?”

  The restoration of Hestir’s jovial good mood worked to weaken Lorand’s determination even more, since both of the Adepts had chosen to say exactly the wrong thing in an effort to bolster his confidence. If that many people failed to pass the tests, then they had to require a lot of strength, just as Hestir had stressed. That meant—

  Lorand’s fretting came to a sudden halt as suspicion flared like a torch of pitch. Both Adepts had said exactly the wrong thing, and right after Hestir had seemed so disturbed by Lorand’s decision to test. It didn’t make sense for them to want to discourage him, but they couldn’t be doing anything else. While pretending to be on his side.

  Anger grew in Lorand as he followed after the men, burning high and hot for two reasons. The first was that the Adepts seemed to know all about his problem, and the second was that they were trying to use that knowledge against him. As a third it grated on his sense of pride that they obviously considered him too backward to notice what they were doing, too much of a “mudfoot” to discover their little trick.

  And then Lorand wondered if that was the only trick they had in store for him. Thinking back to his first conversation with Hestir, Lorand now remembered the Adept saying he needed “a” witness to his attempts at mastery, not two witnesses. Hestir could have meant a witness in addition to himself, but Lorand didn’t believe that. The two were definitely up to something, and now Lorand had to discover what that was.

  “All right, my friend, we’re here,” Hestir said, and Lorand looked up to discover that they’d reached the proper cubicle. Inside was a vat of thick black liquid, a liquid that came from beneath the ground and was therefore in the province of Earth magic.

  “All you have to do, Dom Coll, is explode this liquid in the same way you exploded the pile of soil yesterday,” Hestir continued, stepping aside out of the way. “It does happen to be more difficult, but I have confidence in your level of strength.”

  Lorand kept his face straight as he stepped into the cubicle, but inside himself he fought to hold his temper. These two were trying to make him fail, so that Jovvi would move completely beyond his reach and Drowd would be able to laugh in ridicule. But Lorand wasn’t going to let either of those things happen, not if he could possibly help it. Death would be better and easier to take…

  Even as he looked at the vat holding the thick black liquid, Lorand’s ability was already spreading toward it as well. Merging with the power had always been an incredibly vital experience for him, and if not for his fears about burnout it would have been the best thing in his life. When he touched the black liquid with his ability, he was able to feel the individual drops that the whole was made of, their viscosity and texture, their weight and natural movement.

  And all of that told him what he would have to do to scatter it the way he’d scattered the soil, to send it fountaining up in a proper explosion. It would take more strength than it had taken to explode the soil, but Lorand was already using that much strength and more. All he had to do was work out the proper addition to the necessary weaving…

  “Have you changed your mind, Dom Coll?” Hestir’s voice came from behind him, so bland that Lorand’s anger tried to rise again. “If you have, we quite understand. But if you haven’t, please begin right now.”

  “As you wish,” Lorand answered with his own blandness, making no effort to turn. “Right now it is.”

  And then he exploded the liquid, sending it splashing up and around with no more warning than that. But he’d first woven a very fine net of soil in front of himself, to keep the liquid from splashing him along with everything else. From the immediate shouts of surprise and disgust erupting behind him, Lorand was forced to guess that the two Adepts hadn’t thought to do the same. They must have moved to stand in the cubicle’s doorway, possibly believing there was no danger in doing that…

  “Hestir, weren’t you and Morin standing behind the resin walls?” Lorand asked once he’d turned, now fighting to put concern in his voice rather than breaking down and laughing out loud. Hestir was spattered all over his left side and Morin had the same all over the right, showing they hadn’t moved out of the doorway quite fast enough. It couldn’t have happened to two nicer people, but it would be unwise to make that opinion visible to the two.

  “It’s a shame your clothing had to get stained, but you were absolutely right,” Lorand burbled on as he left the cubicle, pretending he couldn’t see how angry the Adepts were. “That wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, so I’m ready to tackle the next exercise. But I would advise you men to get those stains out of your clothes right now, before they damage the underlying dyes beyond repair.”

  “We appreciate the advice, Dom Coll, but unfortunately Morin and I haven’t the time to play with stains right now,” Hestir replied through his teeth, having removed the black liquid from nowhere but his face and hand. “We’ll see to the matter later, after we’ve witnessed however many masteries you gain.”

  Lorand shrugged and nodded before leading the way toward the next cubicle, but his thoughts were grimly amused. The two men claimed that they didn’t have time to remove the stains, but Lorand would have bet his chance in the competitions on the virtual certainty that they couldn’t remove them. The black liquid really was difficult to work with, and it wasn’t hard to believe that men who had been appointed Adepts just weren’t up to it.

  All good humor lasted only the few steps necessary to reach the next cubicle. A large wooden device had been built in there, a thing which resembled a strange farm wagon, and inside the device was a bar of metal. Loran
d was supposed to use his ability to take apart the bar of metal, but the metal was steel rather than iron. Lorand had never tried to take apart steel before, but he already knew it wouldn’t be easy.

  “This should be a simple task for you, Dom Coll,” Hestir’s voice came from behind Lorand, once again vastly amused. “You did so well taking apart the iron that I’m surprised to see you hesitate. Taking apart steel requires nothing more than the use of additional power.”

  Being prodded like that brought back Lorand’s anger, which in turn let him pose a silent question: just how much strength did it take to cause steel to crumble? The bottom-line truth was that Lorand didn’t know, so it made sense to find out before deciding he couldn’t do it. And it would take quite a lot to make him admit that, with Hestir and Morin poised and ready to laugh.

  So Lorand reached out to the wooden device and found the bar of steel inside it. The bar seemed to be the main brace for other metal mechanisms inside the wagon, but that part was unimportant. It was the slim steel bar itself that he examined, and despite its general appearance of solidity he discovered pits and weakness lines that couldn’t be found with eyesight alone. Iron was grainy, but steel had all those pits…

  Without stopping to think about it, Lorand poured every ounce of the power he wielded into deepening the pits he’d found. An effort like that couldn’t be sustained long, but it didn’t have to be. Suddenly various parts of the wooden device collapsed or sprang out of line, and Lorand was able to turn a sweat-covered face to the two frowning Adepts.

  “I think that makes two additional masteries,” he said, doing nothing to hide how hard he’d worked. “Is this the end of it, or is there more?”

  “There’s one more exercise which you haven’t seen as yet, sir,” Hestir replied, now looking more disturbed than angry. “If you’ll follow us, I’ll explain the problem once we reach the proper cubicle.”