by Sharon Green
Twimmal began to pat at his pockets, obviously looking for something. It took him a moment to locate the something in an inner pocket, the item turning out to be a small sheaf of folded papers. He removed one sheet from the sheaf before returning the rest to his pocket, then put the sheet on the table near his hand.
“You’re to practice these exercises once a day, and at other times you’re to rest, relax, and enjoy yourselves,” he said then. “Ten gold dins will be delivered to each of you, and you’re to spend them on new clothes, fine meals, and enjoyable entertainments. When you go out you need not go as a group, as what one of you finds amusing may not be to the taste of the others. After the competitions there will be another twenty gold for each of you, so spend the first ten with an open hand.”
“Are you saying that if we win the competition, all we’ll get is another twenty gold dins?” Tamrissa asked with her nose wrinkled. “Goodness, somehow I thought it would be much more than that.”
“Ah … yes, you’re quite right, child,” Twimmal said as he struggled to his feet. “If you win the competitions you will certainly get a good deal more than that. I will be by later tomorrow, so that you’ll be able to practice once before I arrive. I’ll expect a report when I do arrive, not a demonstration.”
With that said he headed for the door, actually opened it by himself, and waddled out. Since he didn’t close the door again it was possible to see him going toward the front door, and a moment later he was gone. The servant who let him out also disappeared quickly, so Lorand was able to look at everyone else and grimace.
“Oh, yes, dear children, if the impossible should somehow come about and you win, you’ll certainly get more than twenty gold dins. But no one really expects the impossible, so why bother even discussing it?”
“The man really is almost a true idiot,” Jovvi said while everyone else made sounds of agreement. “He forgot that we aren’t supposed to know we’d be losing, but that’s the least of it. Taking him over to find out what he knows has become unnecessary, because we already know what he knows.”
“I have no trouble believing it,” Rion commented dryly. “The more I see of his sort, the happier I am that I no longer need to associate with them. But what exactly do we know?”
“There’s no doubt that he believed everything he told us,” Jovvi answered, sounding faintly annoyed. “That ‘mind vortex’ nonsense was presented to him as fact, and he passed it on in the same way. They probably did it like that so we would believe it too, and refrain from experimenting.”
“Why experiment when you can be out havin’ a good time?” Vallant asked sourly. “They’ll be givin’ us all that gold, after all, and to waste it would be a cryin’ shame. I wonder if they’re encouragin’ their noble groups to carouse instead of practice.”
“With most of the noble groups, they probably are doing the same,” Jovvi said as she rose and walked to the table holding the sheet of paper which Twimmal had left. She picked up the sheet and glanced at it, then shook her head. “‘Practice one,’” she quoted. “‘Immediately after Blending, the Air magic member is to manipulate a volume of air to form a solid stairway. As soon as this is accomplished, the Blending is to be ended.’”
“When it gets to be my turn to practice, will I actually be permitted to light the logs in a fireplace, or must I touch only the match?” Tamrissa asked with a snort. “And since we’ll supposedly be Blended, why is the Air magic member supposed to do anything? Why isn’t it the Blending performing the practice?”
“Obviously because they don’t want us to be a Blending, just pretend to be one,” Jovvi answered with her own sound of ridicule. “We’re on our own as far as figuring out what to do goes, but we can take advantage of the freedom they’re pressing on us to contact the other common Blendings. Maybe one of them will discover something we miss—”
Jovvi’s words broke off abruptly as she turned her head to look at the open door, and when Lorand did the same he saw the servant approaching. It was the friendly servant who had been calling them to the door when visitors arrived, and he entered the room and stopped before Jovvi to bow.
“Please excuse the interruption, Dama, but this arrived for you while you were closeted with your noble visitor,” he said, holding out an envelope. “It’s addressed to the Spirit magic member of your group, which I’m told is you.”
“Thank you,” Jovvi said, taking the envelope. The servant bowed again as she opened it and took out its contents, and he really was a good servant. By the time she looked up from the page, he had already left the room.
“I don’t know where this comes from, but if it’s the truth it’s the most important gift we could have been given,” she told them all slowly. “I’ve been cautioned not to look at the second page of the letter immediately, because it’s supposed to contain the phrase we’ve all been keyed to respond to. If we can find someone we trust, they can use the keying phrase to free us from it for good!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“What?” everyone demanded at once and in different ways, almost giving Jovvi a headache with their surprise and shock.
“Yes, I know exactly how you feel because I feel the same,” Jovvi threw into the cauldron of comments, repeating it two or three times until they actually heard the words. “I have no idea who sent this because it isn’t signed, and it isn’t possible to know if it’s a trick until we try it. But we can’t try it until we have someone here we can trust.”
“Why should that be?” Vallant demanded. “If we’ve got the keyin’ phrase, we can just use it on each other and neutralize it. If it isn’t the right phrase, nothin’ will happen.”
“That’s what I would have thought, but the letter says differently,” Jovvi replied with only some of her disturbance showing. “It says that our simply seeing the phrase will trigger it, and then we’ll just stand there and wait for orders. If those orders don’t come from the one who triggered us…”
“We’ll just stand and wait forever,” Tamma finished when Jovvi didn’t. “I hate the idea that those miserable people can have this kind of power over us, and I want to see an end to it. Who can we trust enough to test the phrase with?”
“That’s easily answered,” Rion put in, his anger just as great as Tamma’s. “I have someone upstairs whom I’d trust with my life, so I’m obviously the one to try this. Once I’m freed, the rest of you can be done the same.”
“I wonder if it’s possible to resist a command like that when we’re Blended,” Lorand commented while everyone thought about Rion’s offer. “It’s too bad we can’t afford to do research on the point … but I agree with Rion. Right now Naran is the only one we can be sure of.”
“Because of the questions we put to her last night,” Jovvi said with a slow nod. “I’d almost forgotten about that, but now that I’ve been reminded I also agree. Does anyone disagree?”
Jovvi looked from Tamma to Vallant and back again, but both of them shook their heads to show they had no objection to the idea. Apparently they also remembered the questioning, and even Tamma, still obviously touching the power and exhibiting a stronger than usual mind set, couldn’t find fault with the idea.
“That settles it, then,” Rion said with a satisfied smile as he rose. “I’ll caution Naran to be alert in case there’s a trap of some sort involved, but if there isn’t I’ll return a free man in just a few minutes.”
“If it is the keyin’ phrase, see if she can order you to resist somethin’ like this in the future,” Vallant suggested as Jovvi handed Rion the letter. “It may not work, but it shouldn’t hurt to try.”
“That’s an excellent idea,” Rion said as he glanced through the letter. “And in case anyone is interested, I would guess that this fascinating missive comes from a member of the nobility. Not only is the paper above average in quality, the phrasing used in the letter itself suggests an upper class education. That causes me to be suspicious in an automatic fashion, but it also makes inarguable sense. Who be
tter than a member of the nobility to manage access to information of this sort?”
“The answer is no one, so you’re undoubtedly right,” Jovvi decided with her own slow nod. “The next question, however, has to be: what noble do we know who would do something like this for us? The names on that particular list have to be incredibly few in number.”
“Maybe it was done by that noble who all but announced that he meant to claim me,” Tamma suggested dryly. “He’s suddenly discovered that he’s fallen madly in love with me, and chose this as the best way to impress me.”
“Maybe it was done by Eltrina Razas,” Lorand countered after making a small sound of ridicule. “She’s suddenly discovered that she’s fallen madly in love with one of us, and so wants to make sure that her beloved wins the competitions.”
“And maybe this was done for someone else’s benefit rather than ours,” Jovvi said, the idea coming rather suddenly. “The only way that would make sense is if someone knows we’re scheduled to face the chosen noble Blending first, and wants us to get rid of them for them. Then the way would be clear for them to become the chosen Blending, without having to defeat the others themselves.”
“But that would mean they believe themselves able to defeat us,” Rion pointed out as everyone frowned. “Do they know themselves to be that much stronger, or have they some unmentioned secret that will allow them to get the upper hand regardless of relative strength?”
“I hope they’re countin’ on bein’ stronger,” Vallant put in with an exasperated headshake. “If they found out the keyin’ phrase they probably also got to those test results—the ones where we all held back some. If they’re expectin’ to be stronger, they could be in for a nasty shock.”
“Unless it’s something else they’re counting on, like our ‘secret’ problems,” Lorand suggested slowly. “Those problems are without doubt part of our records, including the fact that our Fire magic member isn’t very aggressive. And don’t forget that our Air magic member doesn’t really fit in, because he’s a noble with no experience in mixing with anyone, not to mention commoners.”
“I’d say they’re definitely in for a shock where our Fire magic member’s aggressiveness is concerned,” Tamma stated, all but showing the reflection of flames in her eyes. “How we’re associating with our Air magic member is another story, though, since we all go out of our way to avoid him. If that’s all we have to worry about we’ll do fine, but I really don’t trust those people. They could be planning something we haven’t thought of.”
“If they are, I hope the one doing the planning is the same one who wrote the letter,” Lorand said, an odd expressionless expression on his face. “His not signing the letter suggests that he’s trying to hide his identity, but he made no effort to disguise or remove his trace from it. If he walked in right now, I’d know him immediately.”
“That’s not in the least surprising,” Rion said while Jovvi—and the others—made sounds of incredulous disbelief. “The noble mind set dismisses everyone it considers beneath it, and commoners certainly fall into that category. Why bother to do more than exclude a signature, when it’s lower life forms one is dealing with?”
“Put like that, it makes perfect sense,” Jovvi agreed without the least hesitation. “They intend to use us for their own purposes, then brush us out of their way. Let’s see if we can’t make that brushing a lot harder to do than they expect it to be.”
Rion nodded with determination and headed for the door, and once he was gone Jovvi sat back with a sigh. As if things weren’t complicated enough, they now had to wonder if there weren’t some hidden trap in the information provided. They ought to have the answer to that fairly quickly, but considering all the negative ways they might get it…
“… been thinking about the situation, and I’ve made up my mind,” Jovvi suddenly heard Tamma say, and looked up to see that she spoke to Vallant. “You and I still have to lie together in order to make the Blending as strong as possible, but that will be as far as it goes. Becoming involved with someone leads to nothing but trouble, so I’ve decided not to do it.”
“Just like that?” Vallant countered, his sudden distress painfully clear to Jovvi. “You’ve decided against gettin’ involved, so you’ve just turned off all your feelin’s for me? Well, I don’t think you can, so don’t expect me to try the same.”
“But of course I can do it,” Tamma replied with a faint smile. “Making decisions and carrying through on them is much easier when I’m touching the power, so I’ll just have to keep touching the power for a while. After that I’ll have accepted the situation, so I’ll be able to let things go back to normal.”
“If your definition of normal doesn’t include me, I won’t be acceptin’ it,” Vallant stated flatly, stubbornness now flowing out of him. “I said I wasn’t goin’ to be changin’ my mind about you again, and I wasn’t lyin’. If any mind gets changed, it’s goin’ to be yours.”
“And I refuse to change my mind,” Tamma told him calmly, but with growing anger beneath. “What do you imagine you can do about it?”
“That’s somethin’ you’ll have to wait to find out,” Vallant said, then he deliberately turned away from the very clear danger in her stare. “I don’t think touchin’ the power so much is terribly good for you, but I won’t argue with you when you are. We’ll each do what we have to, and then we’ll see.”
“Yes, I do think we will,” Tamma murmured, still clearly determined. But beneath the determination Jovvi could detect … something that didn’t quite fit. Hopefully it would be enough to keep real trouble from developing, Jovvi thought as she exchanged a worried glance with Lorand. If it wasn’t…
Jovvi sighed again as she got up to ring for a larger tea service. Why couldn’t something easy happen for once, like being in the middle of a tornado, or having the ground open up and swallow them…?
* * *
Rion hurried upstairs and to Naran’s door, where he stopped to knock. She appeared almost immediately, and smiled that beautiful smile when she saw him.
“Oh, my lord, I’m very glad it’s you,” she said, stepping aside to give him room to enter. “It’s been very disconcerting this morning, beginning almost as soon as you left. Someone would knock and I would answer the door, and the person knocking would turn out to be a servant. But the servant would walk right past me as though I were invisible, even if they brought a tray of food or came to pick up the empty dishes.”
“Now we know what instructions Jovvi gave them,” Rion said with a chuckle after sharing a brief kiss with her. “To them you are invisible, although I’d be curious to know how they regard your emptied tray. I’ll certainly try to remember to ask, but right now there’s something I must ask of you.”
Naran raised her dark and lovely brows, so Rion explained about the orders he and the others were certain they’d been given after passing their very first test. That necessitated an explanation about Puredan, which made Naran angry.
“How vile of them to do something like that, but how typical of the truly incompetent,” she declaimed. “They’re unable to keep their places fairly through their own efforts, so they’ve found a way to cheat. How can I help?”
“By using the keying phrase to be found in this letter,” Rion replied, handing her the folded sheets of paper. “None of us can so much as read the words without being affected, but the same won’t be true of you. Once the phrase has me in its power, you’re to order me not to respond to it ever again, nor to anything of the same sort. Then you must attempt to return me to normal.”
“Attempt to return you to normal,” Naran echoed, her full agreement and willingness coming to an abrupt halt. “Are you saying I might not be able to accomplish that? Whyever not?”
“We suspect there might be traps of some sort,” Rion admitted reluctantly as he took her hand. “If there are, they can have been placed there when the original key was implanted in our minds, or they might be woven into the phrase somehow by the one wh
o sent it. We have no way of knowing, but the risk must be taken. Without freedom from their control, our lives are forfeit in any event.”
“Unfortunately, that’s perfectly true,” Naran murmured, her thoughts clearly turned inward. “They might well have planned for the possibility of your learning the key, and have done something to negate that accomplishment. Let me think for a moment…”
Rion failed to see what there was to think about, but still made no attempt to interrupt. Naran would always have whatever was in his power to provide, so giving a handful or two of minutes was hardly to be considered a burden. He would, in truth, have waited as long as necessary, but after no more than a rather long moment, Naran smiled again.
“No, I’ve decided that the original nobles are much too arrogant to believe that anyone—especially commoners—would learn what they’d done,” she announced. “As for whomever sent this letter, they simply haven’t the ability or knowledge to incorporate a trap. That means using the phrase will be perfectly safe, so let’s get it done.”
Rion was too relieved to see her worry disappear to complain—or explain—about making decisions based on little or no real information. The experiment had to be attempted in any event, so her lack of distress could only be a benefit. She pulled him to a couch where they both sat down, and then she released his hand so that she might open and read the letter.
“All right, I believe I’m ready,” she said after having finished the page—and then turned to the next. “I’m going to speak these words, and then I’m going to give you the first and last commands I ever mean to.”
Rion began to chuckle, but the next instant he seemed to have forgotten what it was that he’d found amusing. And Naran simply sat there looking at him, which wasn’t the way things were supposed to have gone.