Challenges

by Sharon Green

  “The challenge now begins,” the robed man who had spoken earlier announced after stepping up to the side of the square. “Watch carefully and witness the talent and might of the victor, whomever he may turn out to be. The challenger is to begin.”

  If the way the challenger stiffened in shock was any indication, he hadn’t been told that he was required to start things off. Just one more edge for the Seated High, another brick in the wall built against his opponents. Well, the challenger might be badly prepared, but Lorand wasn’t in the same position.

  The nervous man in white opened himself to the power and began to touch the contents of each container in a tentative way, obviously trying to figure out what to do first. That he hadn’t considered the matter sooner couldn’t possibly be his own fault, but Lorand found himself briefly startled. The man had more strength than a Middle would be expected to show, which had to mean he was one of the lesser potential Highs Lorand had theorized about. And that in turn probably meant the last challenger would be the same only weaker, with the true Middles in the middle. Start and end the show properly and the fools watching won’t notice the slight of hand in between.

  It took the challenger a full minute to decide what to do, but then his determination firmed up his actions. He touched the soil in one of the containers with his ability, and sent a wide cascade of it toward the Seated High. It wasn’t clear to Lorand what the cascade was supposed to do, and that most likely meant the man had no real plan. He was probably tossing a handful of dirt in the face of the man he challenged, so to speak, in order to provoke the man into responding. Very often reacting to a response is easier—and less dangerous—than launching an all-out attack yourself.

  The High Practitioner’s expression never changed, which told Lorand that the man had to be ready to divert the soil around himself. The attack was slow and not in the least intense, so his response could, and probably would be, the same. The only thing the man wasn’t counting on was Lorand, who hadn’t had any trouble at all in deciding what to do first.

  As the challenger threw the soil, Lorand slipped his own ability in behind the other man’s. Quite a few people in the hall had opened themselves to the power in order to follow the confrontation in more detail, so Lorand’s doing the same wasn’t likely to make him stand out. And his hiding behind the challenger’s ability, something he’d discovered how to do the night of the ball at the palace of the Five, would obscure things even more. So rather than simply observing, Lorand helped. Part of the cascade of soil sent at the Seated High was diverted from his waiting shield—right into his smallclothes.

  To say the man was startled and distracted would be a masterful understatement. The gravelly soil entered his undergarments a good handful of seconds before the cascade reached him, bouncing around a bit against his privates before settling down. The no longer languid man yelped and jumped, and then the cascade hit him full in the face and upper body. His attention had been diverted from shielding just long enough to let the leisurely attack accomplish the most it possibly could.

  Surprised laughter erupted all over the hall, and when the Seated High threw the dirt away from his face his rage was very easily seen. He also removed the gift in his underclothes, but despite the wielding of a respectable amount of power, he didn’t seem able to rid himself of all the grit at once. It took a second, even more furious attempt before the final grains were removed, showing how sloppy the man had grown—assuming he hadn’t always been that way. When your position is handed to you and then protected by gameplaying, it’s undoubtedly natural to just let things slide.

  The challenger had no idea why his attack had succeeded, and he certainly wasn’t prepared when his opponent tried to retaliate. Surprise had diverted the challenger from any defensive plans he might have had, a lack the Seated High tried to take immediate advantage of. His talent freed the soil from both end containers and sent it toward the challenger, but not with the intent of dirtying his white clothing. The soil was still tightly compacted, and Lorand realized it was going to be used to bury and smother the challenger.

  But that was something Lorand wasn’t about to allow. His shield was in place around the challenger before the man had any idea about what was happening, so his ability to breathe went undisturbed. But so did his ability to be frightened, especially when he found himself unable to move the mass of soil away from him. A flash of terror reached Lorand through his link with the power, and then the man was shouting, “I yield! I yield!”

  The Seated High was still too angry to drop the soil immediately, his inability to smother the challenger adding to all the rest. Lorand could feel the man’s desire to destroy the pitiful specimen who had dared to insult him, and strangely enough there was nothing of suspicion showing. He should have wondered why someone strong enough to hold him off couldn’t also force the soil away from himself, but apparently the man’s anger was turning him stupid. And stubborn. The challenger kept trying to yield, but he refused to hear the man.

  It took the intervention of the official in the colored robes before the Seated High turned loose. The official spoke to the High earnestly in a voice too low to overhear, probably telling the damn fool to control himself—but in a nice, pleading way. After a moment or two the High let himself be persuaded, and the soil was returned to the two containers. The challenger looked ready to pass out from fright by then, and as soon as he was released he ran stumbling to the door he’d come in by and disappeared permanently.

  “What’s the name of this Seated High?” Lorand asked Meerk after a brief intermission was declared. “I don’t remember seeing it on the placard announcing the challenge.”

  “I don’t know his name, ’cause it ain’t made public,” Meerk responded in a soft rumble. “Don’t know why, but it ain’t.”

  “It’s supposed to be because the office, and not the individual, is the important thing,” Tamrissa supplied, leaning forward to add the soft comment. “None of the Seated Highs or their seconds are named, a point they usually make quite a to-do about. It’s supposed to show how selfless and dedicated to the empire they all are.”

  “I’d be more inclined to believe that it’s done to hide the fact that at least two of them are probably related—and nobles,” Lorand said, his disgust with the situation rising again. “Not to mention how well it does in hiding just how long these superlative Highs have held their positions. This one shouldn’t even be called an Adept, but I’ll bet he’s been the Seated High for more years than the general public realizes.”

  “You sayin’ th’ system’s even more crooked than we thought?” Meerk asked, his expression filled with disturbance. “Considerin’ what we thought, that’d be real hard, but—I c’n see fer m’self that he ain’t nowhere near as strong as you. Why’s he sittin’ up there, then? No, never mind answerin’. He’s sittin’ there ’cause he’s one of them there nobles.”

  “Exactly,” Lorand agreed. “We found out for ourselves that the nobles have their own in most of the important jobs related to the testing procedure, and most of them don’t have enough talent to ‘light a stove or wet one down.’ That’s a really old saying, but in this case it fits all too well.”

  Meerk’s face tightened with that, but he sat back rather than add anything else. Lorand exchanged a glance with Tamrissa, who shook her head sympathetically. They both knew how hard it is to lose illusions, even when the illusions aren’t many or sacred. Disappointment always follows the loss, and it takes a while to adjust your thinking.

  But it didn’t take long before the Seated High was ready to continue. They’d given him something to drink along with a small snack, as though he’d really expended strength with what he’d done, and now he was properly refreshed. Hat was gestured to by the official, the gesture telling him to take his place on the dais, and Lorand watched his friend stand slowly. Hat wore an odd expression, as though he were disturbed about something, and he even went so far as to glance at Lorand. But then he seemed to get a better hold on
himself, and simply walked to the proper place on the dais without any further delay.

  Lorand had learned a lesson with the first challenger, and this time refrained from playing practical jokes. The first man had actually been stronger than Hat, but without Lorand’s help he would have died. So Lorand stayed alert just to protect Hat from serious harm, and also stayed hidden behind Hat’s ordinary Middle talent. Strangely enough, Hat seemed to calm down, just as though Lorand’s hidden presence were something he was used to. That wasn’t possible, of course, but—

  Suddenly Hat reached for the power, and then his ability was splintering some of the wood blocks and slicing small curls of metal from the iron ingots. Slicing metal like that should have been beyond him just as Lorand believed it was beyond his own talent, but things were happening too fast for Lorand to stop and think about them. Once Hat had a good supply of splinters and curls, he began to throw them at the Seated High in an almost purely random way.

  Which should have given the Seated High something of a problem. It was necessary to change the … nature of your ability’s touch when different materials had to be handled, and first, of course, you had to know which material it was you’d be handling. By throwing the splinters and curls randomly, Hat obviously hoped to confuse his opponent enough that one or more of the missiles would hit, disconcerting the man enough to allow a more direct attack. Lorand and Hat used to wrestle with their talent regularly as boys, at least until Lorand began to win all the time…

  And at first the strategy of the attack seemed to work. The Seated High actually raised an arm along with his talent’s shield, a sign that the man knew he might have trouble stopping the missiles with ability alone. Lorand was able to feel Hat’s glee as the smaller man began to increase the speed of his attack. He really expected to win, Lorand realized, just as he’d often won as a child. Obviously he still didn’t know that most of his early wins had been gifts from his friends.

  And then it also became obvious that Hat’s mother had neglected to tell the Seated High how sensitive and delicate her son was, and therefore he should be allowed to win. The Seated High somehow divided his talent, setting up a screen with one section behind the other in front of him. The screen was invisible, of course, but to the eyes of Lorand’s talent it was plain as day.

  Just as the screen’s purpose was. The first section of it stopped the wooden splinters and the second stopped the iron curls, but to the naked eye it looked as if both kinds of missiles were being stopped at once. Lorand felt Hat’s shock at that, as if his friend were unable to perceive the double screen. Or maybe it was just that Hat considered the defense unfair, a variation he was unprepared for and which therefore shouldn’t have been used on him.

  The Seated High waited calmly behind his double shield until Hat used up all of his prepared store of missiles. When that happened Hat tried to prepare more, which was definitely a fool’s move. The Seated High attacked the smaller man talent to talent, clearly knowing that Hat would be unable to match his strength. He hadn’t gone up against the first challenger directly until he’d gotten angry, which emotion had evidently added to his strength. Now the noble seemed dismissive, the small smile on his face making that perfectly clear.

  And Hat, of course, wasn’t able to resist the attack. He immediately tried to bring his full strength to the wrestling match, and he succeeded—but his full strength simply wasn’t enough. Lorand noticed that he himself had automatically raised a shield of some sort between him and Hat, which made him realize that Hat had somehow tapped into his strength to begin with. It had to be something Hat had learned to do as a child, and something that Lorand had learned to shield against.

  But Lorand wasn’t the only one who had learned to do it. He felt Hat reaching for the Seated High’s strength, which caused the man to raise an immediate, conscious shield. The Seated High seemed to know all about the ability to borrow strength, and simply refused to permit it. Instead he bore down on Hat, forcing his ability flat under the greater weight and strength of his own.

  Lorand shifted in his seat with indecision, wondering if he ought to drop his own shield. Having Hat win to the position of Seated High wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen, but all it would really accomplish would be to cause trouble. He couldn’t very well stay with Hat from now on, and the first time someone stronger challenged Hat for the Seat, Hat would lose. Better to let it happen now and get it over with, when he would be there to keep Hat from being too badly hurt.

  The Seated High kept adding pressure until Hat dropped to his knees from the effort of defending himself. His breathing grew hard and ragged and sweat covered his face, and it quickly became clear that he couldn’t continue. The small challenger finally raised a reluctant hand and gasped out, “I yield!”

  This time the Seated High held his opponent in place only a moment before releasing his grip, and Hat dropped to all fours for a minute, doing nothing more than breathing with his head hanging low. After the minute Hat straightened and struggled to his feet, then glared at the Seated High.

  “Okay, so you got me that time,” he announced belligerently, just as he used to do as a boy. “Next time I’ll be the one doing the getting, so let’s go to it.”

  Murmurs of astonishment broke out all over the hall, and most of the people around the dais looked at Hat as if he were crazy. In point of fact he had to be crazy, since it was perfectly obvious that it was one try to a challenger. The Seated High ignored Hat completely while he reached for the refreshments being brought to him, leaving it to the robed official to gesture to the others in similar robes. Three of the men came up to Hat, one of them speaking to him quietly, but Hat gestured a dismissal of whatever he was being told and simply continued to stare at the Seated High.

  The three robed men ended up having to carry Hat out. Hat shouted and fought and tried to stay where he was, and his agitation turned him so wild that it wasn’t possible for the three to put him to sleep. Lorand considered helping them, then grudgingly decided to stay out of it. This time Hat would have no choice but to accept the fact that he’d lost, and it would be no kindness to shelter him from the truth. He was finally being forced to admit that he was as guilty as Hat’s mother of overprotection, and it was past time to cut the apron strings.

  “I would appreciate it if you would do me a favor,” Lorand said to Meerk in a murmur once Hat was carried out. “See if you can find out where Hat goes once they release him from here. He still needs to be able to go home, and I’ll pay for his fare if I know he won’t cash in the ticket to get permanently drunk again.”

  Meerk showed a faint smile and agreed with a nod, and then they sat back to watch the rest of the challenge. Leaving now would make them far too conspicuous, something they had no need of. Especially since Hat had been shouting about the whole thing being a setup and a cheat. They certainly didn’t need to be linked with that, not when they had their own plans to get around the cheaters.

  But Lorand couldn’t shake the guilt he felt. He’d deliberately let down a friend, something he’d never done before. He seemed to have picked up new habits in Gan Garee, and only time would tell if the worst ones had managed to establish themselves too firmly to be shaken loose…

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  We got back to the residence about an hour before lunch, with me talking at Lorand and him working manfully to ignore me. We’d stayed for the last three challenges, but could have left without missing anything. None of the three even came close to defeating the Seated High, and once we were back in the coach Lorand told me that only the last challenger had had anywhere near the talent to do it. But for some reason that one hadn’t used all his talent, and it had seemed as though something were keeping him from it.

  “But it wasn’t a shield,” Lorand added as he leaned back on the coach seat. “I looked carefully to see if there was one, but there wasn’t. I don’t mind admitting that that bothers me.”

  It had bothered me as well, so much so that once Lorand
“escaped” from me, I went to my own apartment and thought about it. It was always possible that the man had been drugged, but since he didn’t act drugged they might have done something else to him. I sat in a chair and tried to imagine what that something could be until a servant came to announce that lunch was ready, at which point I gave up the useless line of thought. There was too much I didn’t know, which made my thinking wasted effort.

  But before leaving my apartment, I took a moment to remind myself how I was supposed to be feeling about the others. Jovvi had wrongfully accused me, Rion had been uncaring about my nervousness, Lorand had begun to avoid my company, and Vallant was the same hateful man he’d always been. I especially had to remind myself about that last point, since I’d caught Vallant staring at me once or twice. Half the time I wished I’d never told Lorand the truth about how I felt, and the other half… I rose quickly and left my apartment before thoughts about that made me forget about lunch.

  When I stepped into the hall, it was to find that I’d been wise to restructure my emotions before coming out. The others were also leaving their bedchambers, and two servants were busily dusting and polishing in the midst of it all. There was no question that their work absorbed them completely, so they must have missed the very chill atmosphere that both Jovvi and I projected. The men were more aloof or standoffish, and we made a silent parade down to the dining room.

  The meal was just as silent, despite Warla’s appearance with an attempt to jolly everyone into a better mood. She began by bidding us all a good afternoon, and when I was the only one who returned the sentiment, her face fell.

  “Please forgive me, dear people, for intruding during a time that must be filled with anxiety for you,” she said with apology and compassion as she looked at us. “I merely came to say that word has been sent and your mentor will be here shortly after lunch, so some of the uncertainty is now gone. Not long after the meal, it will be my honor to share a residence with a real, true Blending!”