Competitions

by Sharon Green

  That thought made Jovvi shiver, and so did the one that followed immediately after. Conditioning like that didn’t happen by accident, and didn’t have to when there was such a thing as a nobility. There were a large number of people who called themselves lord or lady, but compared to the number of people in the general population, they were very much in the minority. And it had to be remembered that the children of the nobility didn’t attend schools with their low-class age-peers. Did that mean those noble children weren’t conditioned at all, or simply in some other way?

  That newest question disturbed Jovvi even more, but there was no time now to think about it and consider ramifications. The building had been filling with observers during the time Jovvi was lost in her thoughts, and now there seemed to be very little room left. The rumbling mumble of muted conversation also filled every part of the large room, at least until Lomad stepped out of the crowd and across the line to hold up both of his hands.

  “Friends, please give me your attention,” he called, and one after the other the muted conversations stopped until there was silence. “Thank you, my friends, and welcome to one of the last basic competitions of this year. Today we have ten participants, and they’re seated right over there.”

  Some few people in the audience applauded politely, but most just turned to stare. Jovvi shared the discomfort felt by the two nervous men, but not from simply being looked at. As a courtesan, Jovvi had never minded being inspected by men; after all, that was one of the things she’s been there for. But a moment earlier she’d glanced across the room, and had seen a familiar face.

  The man who had been there when she’d taken that very first test; he was here again now, but seemed to be staying as far from her as he could while still being in the same room. He’d also moved out of sight behind others when he’d seen her looking in his direction, just as though he didn’t want her to know he was there. But hadn’t he said something about intending to see her again? Why, then, would he try to hide…?

  “As many of you know, this basic competition is very simple,” Lomad continued when the polite applause ended. “The six subjects will be cued to exhibit five different emotions, with only one pair sharing the same emotion at any one time. Our participants will be given a list of those emotions in a set order, and will need to change each subject from the emotion he or she exhibits to the next emotion on the list.”

  A burble of comments erupted at that, and at least Lomad had enough ability to tell that the outburst was caused by confusion.

  “Perhaps I’d better explain in more detail,” he said, and the noise died down again. “The five emotions being used are fear, love, hatred, amusement, and anger, in just that order. What our participants must do is take the subject showing amusement, for example, and change the emotion to anger. The one showing fear has to be changed to love, and the one showing anger has to be changed to fear. Each of the six subjects must be put through all five of the listed emotions in the listed order, but not all five at the same time. Whichever emotion the subject starts with, the next one on the list is what he or she must be made to feel next.”

  This time the murmuring had overtones of being impressed, and the two nervous men grew even more nervous. Jovvi felt tempted to join them in that as well, since the exercise would be the most complicated thing she’d ever tried. Five different emotions ranged through six people, and the differences would have to be maintained even while they shifted position. And to add to it, a large clock was being prepared not far from where they sat. At least it looked like a clock; Jovvi couldn’t be completely sure, as its face was turned away from them and toward the audience.

  “And, of course, each participant’s efforts will be timed,” Lomad added, causing one of the two nervous men to moan low. “At their level we expect all of them to be able to perform the exercise, but just how quickly they do it will be another matter entirely. We’ll begin as soon as I’ve given the participants the order in which they’ll compete.”

  Lomad left his position in front of the audience to walk toward the place where Jovvi and the others sat, but Jovvi felt nothing of the urge to stiffen with anticipation which held the two nervous men. She’d already formed the basis of a guess, one she would have bet gold on. Her name would be first on the list, followed immediately by the two other potential Highs. Their scores alone would be of interest to the watching nobility, and the other seven people probably weren’t even going to compete. They’d try to hide that from her and the two men, of course, but Jovvi didn’t yet know how they’d do it.

  “All right, people, please pay attention,” Lomad said when he reached them, pulling a piece of paper out of one pocket of his coat. “I’m going to speak a name and then a number. That will tell you when it’s your turn to compete, so please don’t forget the number.”

  He began to read his list then, and Jovvi smiled sourly when she learned she would have won her bet. Her name was first, and from their reactions, the two nervous men were listed right after her. They didn’t seem to understand why her name came first, but Jovvi did. She was supposed to perform at her absolute best in an effort to outdo the men who had made no secret of their low opinion of her, and her effort was meant to spur them on to keep from the humiliation of being beaten by a woman. Very neat and tidy, but it still meant that she would have to go first.

  Which she hadn’t wanted to do. Jovvi forced herself to examine the problem calmly while Lomad finished reading off his list and then turned to speak privately to someone. Going first meant she couldn’t know how strong the two men were, and therefore she would also not know what was needed to just win. There had to be something to give her a hint…

  The urge to be frantic was in the midst of trying to overwhelm Jovvi when she realized that the answer was staring her in the face—or, to be exact, not staring her in the face. That clock, the one which had been set up where only the audience could see it… If it was a special clock, one meant to be reset for each participant, then the outcome was obvious. No one would know how well he or she actually did until the testing people announced the results, and those results could be anything they wanted them to be. It would even be possible for them to say that all three of the real participants had tied for first place—if they’d already chosen all three participants for membership in various challenging Blendings.

  Jovvi took a deep breath in an effort to calm her rampaging thoughts. Most of the “answer” she’d gotten was sheer speculation, and fairly wild speculation at that. Taking guesswork as fact was dangerous, most especially in a situation like that. If she was proved wrong, she could find herself out of the residence and out of luck. But something told her that showing her full strength to people who were watching carefully was more dangerous still, so she had to take the chance. Maybe the worst that would happen would be her exclusion from the reception at the palace…

  “All right, Dama Hafford, please come with me,” Lomad said suddenly, dragging Jovvi back to her surroundings. “You are first, you know.”

  “Yes, I do know,” Jovvi muttered in answer, wishing it were possible to find somewhere to hide. Instead, she rose and followed Lomad, who took her to the white line painted on the floor.

  “Please remember that you must remain behind this line at all times,” Lomad told her. “Those who cross it are disqualified, but I’m certain that that won’t happen to you. Once the subjects are cued, you may begin as soon as you feel able to do so. Do you remember the order of the emotions to be used?”

  “Fear, love, hatred, amusement, anger,” Jovvi answered after glancing over her shoulder. The clock was a special one, meant to be stopped and started at specific times, and that helped her to make up her mind. She would take the chance of losing, and hope with all her might that she wasn’t outsmarting herself.

  “Yes, that’s completely correct,” Lomad told her with an approving smile, and Jovvi had to remind herself that he meant her recitation of the list of emotions. Everything else was still pure speculation,
and would remain like that until the results of the competition were made known.

  Jovvi set herself solidly behind the line while Lomad moved behind her, and then someone was cueing the six subjects. The immediate and varied range of induced emotions would have knocked Jovvi over not long ago, but now she simply found herself aware of them. To her further surprise she also discovered that she could begin the exercise almost at once, but the caution of her plan kept her from being that foolish. She had to remember not to be too strong, and responding too quickly was part of that.

  So she waited through a slow count of seven, then began to change the emotions of the subjects in the prescribed way. She could have done all six of them exactly at the same time, but a tiny lag in reaction time seemed wiser. Once each of the subjects had gone through the entire range, Lomad stepped out in front of her again while the audience applauded.

  “All right, my dear, you’re finished now,” he said with a smile as he took her hands in his. “You’ve done marvelously well, and should be very proud of yourself.”

  “Just how well did I do?” Jovvi asked, immediately pretending to be really tired. “I’ll need to sit down for a while, but first I’d like to know.”

  The way her hands were held had kept her from turning to see the clock, and by the time Lomad released her it was too late. Turning showed Jovvi a clock which had already been reset, and Lomad chuckled as he put an arm around her shoulders and headed her toward the door.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until the competition is over before you find out how well you did,” he said as he handed her over to another man. “That won’t be for quite some time yet, so you’d be wisest if you went back to your residence to wait. You’d be much more comfortable there, and there are no penalties for not being here for the announcement. Have a cup of tea while your carriage is being summoned, and we’ll certainly meet again at the next competition.”

  And then he was gone, heading back to the white line and the next participant while the strange man helped Jovvi to the door and out. So that was how they kept the real participants from knowing what was happening, she thought as she let herself be helped along. One by one they were sent home, and then the rest of the “participants” would be free to leave as well.

  Jovvi’s escort sat her at a table and ordered tea for her, then presumably left to send someone for her carriage. Her being ejected from the competition building was really quite encouraging, something that let her enjoy the tea when it came. She wasn’t nearly as exhausted as she’d pretended to be, but that wasn’t to say her strength hadn’t been drained. Real or not, that competition was hard, and Jovvi didn’t mind the idea of going home at all.

  Two things arrived together: the last of the tea in her cup, and the man who had gone to see about her carriage. The speed in getting her vehicle back made Jovvi feel even better, so much so that she assured the man she could make it outside alone. He stood and watched her head for the way out, but his presence disappeared from Jovvi’s awareness almost immediately. Her main worry now was how the others would do, hopefully neither too good nor too bad. If there were only some way she could get word to them … assuming, of course, that it wasn’t already too late…

  Jovvi paid very little attention to her surroundings as she approached the carriage and began to climb inside, but seeing people already in the seats took her attention away from worrying. She also paused in entering the carriage, but that did very little good. Someone appeared behind her without warning, lifted her and thrust her inside, then followed to close the door and block it.

  “Oh, do sit down and behave yourself, child,” a female voice said as Jovvi began to struggle. The coach had also begun to move, which left the practice area behind. “We have a long trip ahead of us, but at the end of it you and I will settle up.”

  Jovvi looked up from the floor of the coach where she’d been pushed, her blood beginning to run cold. There were two men present, Ark and Bar, and sitting there with a triumphant smile on her face was none other than Allestine, the woman who had been her sponsor and who had sworn to take her back to her former life as a courtesan!

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Rion spent his breakfast time floating through a dream of going to see Naran with gold in his hand, which meant the others barely registered with him beyond being presences. Once the coach arrived, though, he was forced to notice how slowly Coll and Ro moved, suggesting they might be reluctant to face what he looked forward to so eagerly. Insensitivity to the feelings of others was something Rion had never worried about, which probably meant he was often guilty of the oversight. If he were going to grow into a human being worthy of having friends and knowing a woman like Naran, it was time to change that.

  “We should all do very well this morning,” Rion said after he’d taken his seat beside Coll and across from Ro, trying to sound open and encouraging. “No matter what that competition consists of, we’ll certainly be able to handle it … handily.”

  He tried to chuckle at his little joke, but discovered how difficult it is to chuckle alone. Coll looked out of the righthand window and Ro did the same with the left, and Rion almost felt that he was alone in the coach. He also felt at a loss about what to say next, but inspiration suddenly visited.

  “All right, so you don’t think I’ll win my competition,” he said with a sigh, leaning back and putting a hand over his eyes. “Well, you’re probably right and I’m just fooling myself by trying to believe otherwise.”

  “Rion, there’s no reason you shouldn’t win your competition,” Coll said at once, responding the way Rion had hoped he would. “I’m the one who probably won’t win, and that will be that.”

  “If anybody’s goin’ to mess this up, I’m the one,” Ro said next, sounding extremely depressed. “It hurts to get this far before bein’ thrown out, but that’s what’s bound to happen.”

  “Would they really throw one or more of us out after all but forming us into a Blending?” Rion asked after dropping his hand, and not only to keep them talking. They were suddenly discussing a very important point, one Rion hadn’t fully considered. “As I mentioned last night at dinner, this ‘competition’ could very well be nothing more than their effort to find out what sort of strength we possess. In that event, their objective will be measuring rather than disqualifying.”

  “But if we don’t win, we don’t get to go to the reception at the palace,” Coll protested. “Doesn’t that have to mean the competition is important?”

  “No, I think Mardimil is right,” Ro contributed slowly, nevertheless looking more animated. “Until now it was clear that failin’ to pass meant bein’ booted out, but now if we don’t win we don’t get to go to a party. I haven’t been seein’ that part of it, and now I’m wonderin’ why they want us to try so hard. If there’s still a chance of us gettin’ thrown out, why wouldn’t they say that instead?”

  “They would use the party instead only if they know we’ll be going up against their noble groups, and want to find out just how good we are.” Coll’s agreement was laced with anger, his gaze moving back and forth between Rion and Ro. “If that’s the case, I don’t see any reason to give them what they want. If it means surviving a confrontation with the nobles, I’m willing to give up a chance to see the palace.”

  “But what about the gold?” Rion protested even as Ro nodded his concurrence. “If I hold back and don’t win the competition, I also won’t win the gold. I can’t bear the thought of going to Naran with hat in hand like a beggar…”

  “Rion has met a lady, and means to see her tonight,” Coll explained quickly to a puzzled Ro. “Tamrissa and I have agreed to help him avoid the notice of the people his mother has following him… You’ve made a good point, Rion, but there’s another one to consider which may be even better: if those people learn enough about your ability to let someone do you harm, won’t that ultimately be worse for Naran?”

  “And here’s somethin’ I learned the hard way,” Ro added. “If a l
ady loves you for your gold, it isn’t you she loves. If she wants to be with you even without gold, you’ve found somethin’ beyond price. Keepin’ yourself safe for someone like that is more important than supplyin’ what she never asked for in the first place. Or did she ask?”

  “No, actually, she never did,” Rion said, delighted to have an experienced man like Ro confirm the wisdom of his attraction. “I’m the one who wants to have gold for her, but you may be right. Putting myself at a disadvantage to get it doesn’t make much sense.”

  “You know, we’ve just decided to lose the competition, but that might not be as easy as it sounds,” Coll mused, again looking between the other two men. “I had to stretch myself to gain those masteries, so I can’t pretend to have no strength at all. I was thinking I’d just hang back behind the strongest of those we’ll be competing against, but how do I tell who that is or how strong he is?”

  “And what happens if we don’t all perform at the same time?” Ro put in, now looking as disturbed as Coll. “I was picturin’ us doin’ the thing like the foot race they mentioned, but that doesn’t have to be. They could have us perform one at a time, and the only ones we’d know about would be those who went ahead of us.”

  “And if one of us happens to be first, he’ll have a real problem,” Rion added, closing the circle. “I can judge the approximate strength of others of my aspect once they begin to use their ability, but how am I to tell before that? If any of us falls too badly below the level we’ve risen to, they’ll know we’re holding back.”

  “And that just might get us tossed out,” Ro said with a nod. “So we’ll just have to decide how much to hold down what we can do, and stick to that level no matter what happens around us. If we don’t make it too low, nobody should notice. At least not that part of it.”