Competitions

by Sharon Green

  “I don’t need any tea this morning,” Lorand answered shortly, and for the first time truthfully. He didn’t need any stimulants or excuses designed to waste time, but even more he didn’t intend to chat with Hestir as though the man had done nothing unusual yesterday.

  “Then it’s my honor to lead you to the building,” Hestir said, looking and sounding as if “terror” would have been a better word than “honor.” “Please follow me.”

  The man turned and walked off at a pace that should have been dignified, but the fact that Hestir would have preferred running was much too obvious. It turned his stride choppy, and Lorand followed a bit more easily while wondering why Hestir’s terror didn’t bother him. It had to be because of the man’s actions, which proved that Lorand wasn’t as forgiving as he’d considered himself. Being feared should have bothered Lorand, but in Hestir’s case it didn’t.

  Much of the crowd was heading toward the building as well, and Lorand walked inside to find that it was already fairly well filled. Hestir led the way through the throng toward the back of the building, where a man stood in front of a curtain, talking to a woman who seemed to have just arrived. As Hestir approached, the man directed the woman to a seat among others who were just a few steps away, and then he turned to the newest newcomers.

  “Sir, this is Adept Lidim,” Hestir said over his shoulder to Lorand with a gesture toward the man. “Adept Lidim is in charge of the competition, and—”

  “And this must be Dom Coll,” Lidim interrupted with barely a glance for his brother Adept. “That’s all, Hestir. You may return to your other duties now.”

  Hestir wasted no time in obeying that command, bowing briefly before disappearing back into the crowd. Lorand wanted to watch him go just to be sure he was gone, but Lidim put a distracting hand to his shoulder.

  “Listen to me, now, Dom Coll,” he said, sounding brisk and very efficient. “We’ll be starting very soon, and you need to know how things will work. Participants will be called up one at a time to tackle the exercise, which I’ll explain to the audience and yourselves once we begin. Each participant’s performance will be timed, but you and the others aren’t to know how anyone else has done. That goes for your own time as well, and once you’ve completed the exercise you’ll leave the building and return to your residence. The winner will be notified—and given his or her gold—as soon as all the results are tabulated. Any questions?”

  “One,” Lorand responded, unsure about whether or not he liked this man’s abrupt manner. “I can see the clock standing right there, in front of those seated people. What happens if I turn away from the exercise too soon and do manage to find out my own time? Will I be executed, or simply banished forever from the realm?”

  “Very droll, Dom Coll,” Lidim replied with the faintest smile Lorand had ever seen. “Neither thing will happen, of course, as I expect every contestant to be properly circumspect. Now, if you will take a seat with the others, I’ll be able to begin.”

  It was no surprise when Lidim gestured to the people seated behind the clock, since they were the only ones in the room who were unable to see what the clock would show. Lorand gave up trying to rattle Lidim and shrugged his agreement, then made his way over to the last remaining empty chair. In addition to the woman and himself there were seven other people, but only one man looked as nervous as the woman. The rest seemed … almost bored, but Lorand decided he must be mistaken. Even he wasn’t bored, and he meant to lose.

  “Attention, everyone, give me your attention, please,” Lidim called out almost as soon as Lorand was seated, holding up one hand as he spoke. “We’re ready to begin, so if everyone will settle down, I’ll explain what this exercise consists of.”

  The crowd shifted so that everyone faced the area Lidim stood in front of, and once silence settled over them Lidim gestured. Two men came forward to remove the curtain blocking sight of the area, and once they were gone Lidim gestured again, this time behind himself.

  “The large cube that you see there is the main basis of this contest,” he said as a murmur went through the crowd. “The cube is made up of various layers, each of which is a different sort of material. The competitors will each be provided with a cube, the various components arranged in different orders, and their job will be to disassemble the thing layer by layer until it’s gone. They’ll need to discern what each of the materials is, of course, and remove the entire layer at once. And now for our first competitor.”

  The girl drew in her breath a bit sharply when Lidim put out his hand to her, but she still rose and went to join him where he stood. Lidim positioned her behind a thick white line painted on the floor, spoke to her briefly and silently, then left her alone. The girl took a deep breath as she examined the four-foot-square cube where it rested on a low platform, and then she began the exercise.

  Lorand watched her take apart the first layer of the cube, which was made of heavy leather. The leather came apart and crumbled to nothing at all at once, and her effort impressed Lorand to the point of raising his brows. The girl was strong, much more so than the so-called Adepts around her, and Lorand couldn’t help wondering what it would take to be better than her. Not that he wasn’t glad he wouldn’t have to be, of course. Trying to pull in enough power to top someone else was a good way to destroy yourself.

  The layer of leather had been painted a splotchy orange and tan, making it look like some cheap and gaudy cloth. The girl had had no more trouble telling that it was leather than Lorand had, but she paused briefly before tackling the next layer, which showed itself as green and purple diagonals. It turned out to be copper and quickly went the way of the leather, but Lorand took careful note of the girl’s pause. No matter how quickly he figured out what something was, he’d have to remember to pause just the way she was doing.

  The girl went through half a dozen layers in the same way, and every time she dissolved one the cube dropped a short distance to the platform, showing that all six sides were being taken apart at the same time. The cube also shrank, of course, until it disappeared with the very last layer. A smattering of polite applause broke out then, and Lidim walked over to the girl and spoke to her softly again. Lorand noticed the way she deliberately kept her back turned to the clock until someone came over to join her and Lidim, and then she followed the newcomer away without hesitation.

  “And now we’re ready for our second competitor,” Lidim announced, gesturing to the man who had been sitting next to the girl. “It’s too bad for him that the young lady did such a marvelous job, and now he’s in the position of needing to do better or lose to her. But I’m sure he’ll try his best, and will be able to say that honestly if he does happen to lose.”

  A ripple of amusement went through the crowd as the man stood himself where the girl had been. Lorand saw the stiffness of the man’s stance and the way he’d squared his shoulders, those two things, among others, speaking of how determined the man was to keep himself from embarrassment. Lorand knew just how he felt, but also knew he would not be standing like that. No matter how distasteful the matter would now be, Lorand was still determined to lose.

  Lidim spoke to the man softly for a moment, then left him alone to begin the exercise. A second cube had been brought in and wrestled to the low platform, and its top layer was orange and red and yellow, like a fire gone flat and crazy. The man at the white line studied it a brief moment, then dissolved the layer of camouflaged wood.

  Lorand couldn’t help but notice that the man’s pause wasn’t to confirm an immediate impression, but to figure out what the substance was in the first place. He was neither as fast nor as strong as the girl had been, which worked out fairly well for Lorand. Now no one should question the matter when he lost as well. The man was trying harder and harder to match the girl, but his desperation showed that he knew he wasn’t making it.

  From an outside point of view, everything went perfectly well until the man was two layers from finishing the cube. During the time the man worked,
his increasing frustration and distress said he knew the girl had done significantly better. That awareness had worsened the man’s performance rather than bettering it, of course, and finally it caused disaster.

  After pausing to assess the fifth layer, the man attempted to dissolve it. Lorand knew it was a mild steel painted a lead gray, but the color must have misled the man trying to take it apart. The steel shuddered and pitted here and there, but didn’t even come close to dissolving completely.

  “No, that can’t be right!” the man protested at once, his voice wild as he looked to where Lidim stood watching. “People are holding the layer together and blocking my work, trying to make me look like a fool! Stop the clock and make them pull back, and then I’ll be able to continue.”

  “No one is blocking you, and stopping the clock in the middle of a performance isn’t permitted,” Lidim told him, loudly enough for everyone to hear. “You merely mistook the composition of the material, but if you hurry you can correct the error and possibly still win.”

  “Now you’re trying to make me look like a fool!” the man shouted, clearly losing even more control of himself. “I can’t win now, not when she didn’t hesitate at all! Your trying to convince me otherwise says that you’re the one behind the plot! Well, your friends may get away with it, but you certainly won’t!”

  And with that the man sent his ability toward Lidim, obviously intending to take the man apart the way he’d done with the first four layers of the cube. People shouted and screamed all over the room, but Lorand had already put his own talent between Lidim and the man who had cracked under the pressure. The attack had been a very strong possibility from the moment the man began to shout, and Lorand had been ready.

  The man screamed when he couldn’t reach the cringing so-called Adept with his ability, but he wasn’t permitted to take more than a single step in Lidim’s direction. Lorand became aware of a large number of people linked together who touched the man at the same time, and then the man collapsed. They’d probably touched the part of the man’s mind controlling sleep, and had forced him into the state. It had taken a very large number of people with Earth magic, simply because the man was that strong. Not as strong as the girl or Lorand, but definitely a potential High.

  And a potential High who was probably no longer in the running for any sort of position. The man’s mind had collapsed under the pressure, and it would take the efforts of a very capable physician to see him well again. Lorand thought about that as people carried the man out, compassion for the poor pawn strong inside him. That could have happened to anyone put through what the testing authority considered “qualifying,” and it was the man’s bad luck that he had turned out to be the anyone.

  “I’d like to thank whoever added their strength to mine in shielding me from that madman,” Lidim suddenly announced, still looking shaken. “I didn’t require the assistance, of course, but I’d like to personally thank whoever was thoughtful enough to try. Would that person please acknowledge the considerate gesture?”

  Lorand joined everyone else in looking around curiously, not about to admit that he was the one who’d done it. Lidim had lied about not needing the help, since he hadn’t tried to erect even a feeble barrier. Someone with decent strength would have been able to recognize Lorand’s efforts as soon as he began to do the exercise, but with Lidim involved, Lorand had nothing to worry about.

  “Well, my attempted benefactor is apparently too modest to claim his due in recognition,” Lidim said after a moment or two of no one coming forward. “I’ll simply repeat my thanks, then, and we’ll continue with the competition.”

  People began to settle down again with that, and Lidim gestured to Lorand to show whose turn it was. Lorand stood and came forward while a new cube was brought in to take the place of the uncompleted one, and Lidim stepped closer.

  “You aren’t permitted to move over the white line, Dom Coll,” he said rather quickly, obviously eager to return to where he’d been standing. “And I hope you understand that there’s really no plot involved here. Just a competition, which anyone is free not to compete in.”

  “Thank you, Adept Lidim, and I certainly do understand,” Lorand assured him, trying to speak warmly. “If I do happen to fail, it won’t be anyone’s fault but my own. You have my word that I won’t be attacking you.”

  Lidim simply nodded and hurried away, so it was time for Lorand to pay attention to the exercise. The top layer of his cube was a dark blue with larger and smaller green and white spots, making the thing look rotten with mold. The coloring didn’t change the fact that the material was a hard baked clay, though, so Lorand set to work.

  The exercise turned out to be a lot of fun, and Lorand had to constantly remind himself not to hurry to see what the next layer would be. He dissolved the cube one layer at a time, reflecting that they should have required that all the layers be done at once, and found himself surprised and a bit disappointed when the cube abruptly disappeared completely. There was scattered applause, and then Lidim was beside him again.

  “Wonderfully done, Dom Coll, really marvelously done,” Lidim said, sounding as if he simply repeated memorized words that he didn’t mean at all. “You’ll be free to leave in a moment, and here’s the man to accompany you now. If you like, you may have some tea while your coach is being sent for.”

  Lorand nodded and followed the man who had come to lead him out, not even glancing at the clock which had probably already been reset. He was rather anxious to get back to the residence, but would definitely have that cup of tea while waiting for the coach. And at the same time he would try to figure out why he was no longer as happy as he’d been. His relief had disappeared somewhere, and Lorand couldn’t quite tell what it had been replaced with.

  There were a number of empty tables available in the eating area, and Lorand chose one after looking around. The girl who had performed first in the competition was nowhere in sight, which probably meant she’d already left. The man accompanying Lorand also looked around, then excused himself after saying he’d be back when Lorand’s coach arrived. Lorand nodded absently at that, because the servant he’d rung for was approaching.

  After ordering tea and anything in cake that happened to have a cream filling, Lorand sat back and began to try to figure out what was wrong with him. He’d just reached the point of understanding that the competition had been some kind of disappointment to him, when someone sat down at his table. Thinking it was Hestir, Lorand looked up ready to order the man away. The words floated off, however, when he saw that it wasn’t Hestir.

  “That’s right, friend, don’t say nothin’,” the man cautioned, his large friend standing closer to Lorand than to him. “I told you I’d be back, an’ now that yer done with that there competition thing, I’ll have m’gold.”

  It took a moment for Lorand to make himself believe that the man Hat owed money to had had the nerve to show up here. He obviously had good enough connections to find out about the competition today, and also the fact that there would be a large number of strangers about. That had clearly let him saunter in and hang around with no one demanding to know what he was doing here, and now he thought he had Lorand cornered.

  “The competition isn’t over yet, so no gold has been paid out,” Lorand told the man mildly, finally remembering that his name was Meerk. “But even if it had been paid, none of it would be going to you. I’m willing to lend Hat the money, and what he does with it is his business.”

  “Look, you, don’t you try coddin’ me around,” Meerk growled, coming across even rougher and meaner in the daylight. “That friend a yours is gone, crawled into th’ woodwork somewheres, an’ I ain’t got the time ’r patience t’dig ’im out. You come up with th’ gold right now, ’r you’ll get what I woulda give that little drunk. You get me?”

  “Oh, I understand you perfectly,” Lorand said, suddenly fighting to hold a flame-hot temper. He’d just remembered he wasn’t going to be getting any gold, not after deliberately lo
sing the competition, and he didn’t believe the man. Hat hadn’t simply disappeared, the lowlife could well have done something to him, and that meant Lorand had to do something of his own.

  “And since I understand you perfectly,” Lorand continued, “let’s see if I can make you understand me. Do you have any real idea of what sort of competition is being held today?”

  “Why would I give a damn?” the man began, gesturing aside the question impatiently. “All I wanna know is—”

  The words disappeared as the man choked, his friend staggering and choking in the same way. They’d both gone pale, of course, and Lorand smiled faintly.

  “This was—and still is—a competition for potential High practitioners in Earth magic,” he said, leaning back at ease in his chair. “The reason you can’t breathe very well is because I’m strangling you two from the inside, where the strain marks can’t be seen. If I don’t release the hold you’ll die, and all the officials here will do is get rid of your bodies and say nothing. Do you doubt that?”

  Meerk shook his head spasmodically while the other fell to his knees, no longer able to stand. They both thought they were dying, but even as angry as Lorand was, he couldn’t kill two human beings in cold blood. At the moment he was simply blocking off some of their air, and the worst that could happen was that they’d faint. But he didn’t want them to know that, not when he hadn’t yet gotten what he wanted.

  “You’re smart to understand that I’m more important to these people than two useless troublemakers,” Lorand went on with the same small, cold smile. “I’m really tempted to get you out of my life once and for all right now, but luckily for you I have a job of work I want you to do. If you’re interested in taking that job of work, tell me now.”

  Both men immediately nodded even as they continued to gasp and choke, and Lorand let his smile widen just a little.

  “That’s really very wise of you,” he commended them. “It saves everyone involved a good deal of trouble… Now, what I want you to do is find my friend Hat, and then bring him to me at my residence. If you hurt him in any way I’ll know it and return the favor, but if you bring him to me unharmed I’ll see that you get your gold. Are you still willing?”