Heroes' Reward (9 page)

Taro winced.
“I’m sorry about that.”

She laughed.
“It’s nice to have an opportunity to get some of the real information behind
all of the rumours.”

Taro sighed. “I
can’t believe there are still rumours about me in the Academy. It’s been
years.”

“Good stories
never die,” Druce said impishly.

Unfortunately.

“And what have
you been doing between Matches?” Taro asked her, as a Source her age was
unlikely to be attending classes.

“Teaching the
new subjects. Law and politics. I find it interesting, but alarming. I’d rather
not understand how badly the Emperor is violating the law as well as I do.”

“You know about
all that?” I asked. “We never heard what was going on when I was in the
Academy. Not about the behaviour of the monarch.” There had been rumours, and
we’d learned about the powers of the monarch and the people she worked with,
but none of the professors actually taught us about the day to day activities
of the Empress.

“They didn’t
teach us much about it, either, until just after this one came in.” She nodded
at Aryne. “Then that was pretty much all anyone learned that didn’t directly
involve channelling.”

How did all of
the changes fit together? Was Aryne’s arrival some sort of catalyst for the
Triple S council? Or just a step in a plan that had been initiated long before
then?

“We hear you’re
teaching people how to cast,” Druce said to me. “Do you think you could teach
us? Aryne and me?”

Hm. An
interesting idea. “I can try, but you know not everyone can cast, right?”

“But Shields are
more likely to be able to cast, I’ve heard,” said Druce.

“Well, a lot of
casters seem to be Shields. I don’t know if that means the same thing, and most
of those Shields aren’t Bonded.” I plucked a blade of grass from the sole of my
boot and gave it to Druce. “All you have to do is focus, as you would when
channelling, and think of a colour other than green, or, uh, brown, and say,

“Calling on
east,

Calling on
west,

Change the
hue of this blade,

At my
behest.”

Druce stared at
the blade and spoke the words, repeating the cast again and again. Nothing
happened. I didn’t feel the little buzz I always experienced at the casting of
a spell. Druce shrugged and gave the blade to Aryne.

Aryne tried far
longer than Druce, with increasing impatience as she continued to fail.
Finally, with an oath, she shoved the blade back into my hand.

“Not many people
can do it, Aryne,” Druce said soothingly.

“It’d be nice to
be good at something,” Aryne muttered.

“You’re
incredibly smart.”

“So? What good
is it to be incredibly smart if I can’t do anything practical with it?”

“You just
haven’t found your talent yet,” said Taro. “Everyone is good at something.”

I didn’t agree
with that, as a general rule, but I did believe it of Aryne. She was strong and
intelligent and versatile and could read people beautifully. There
were
uses for that, including the position she was being groomed for.

Aryne clearly
wasn’t convinced.

“Teach me how to
work the locks,” Taro ordered her.

“Why?”

“Why not? Seems
a handy skill to have.”

And it would be
good for Aryne’s mood to teach someone else how to do something.

“And Druce,” I
said. “You can give us all of the gossip.”

Aryne raised an
eyebrow. “Since when are you interested in gossip?”

“When I was in
the Academy, it was the primary source of entertainment.”

Druce dove into
the challenge, and with a flair for storytelling she wove tales of who was
cheating on tests, who’d been caught drunk in class, who was fighting with who,
and who was sleeping with who. Different names but the same old stories.

It was a relief
to know that there were some things that weren’t changing.

Chapter Ten

I watched the
log shatter into splinters, the black sphere with its jagged jolts of light
immediately fading away thereafter. A nasty spell adequately performed. Well
done.

I blew on my
hands and rubbed them. It was the middle of winter and everyone was finding it
cold, even me. My students resented my insistence on lessons continuing to be
held outside, but I thought flying shards of wood might be a bad idea indoors.
And if anyone didn’t like it, they could just not attend. No one took advantage
of that option. Which was a good thing, because I wasn’t sure I had the
authority to give it.

“Excellent work,
Tob.” He’d been having difficulty with that one.

It was a cast
I’d hated having to teach them. My first exposure to it had been witnessing it
murder people. A sphere of black air and lightning surrounded a person and
slowly killed them, leaving them writhing and screaming in pain. It was a
horrible, disgusting thing to do. Kent’s casters had devised the spell, and if
they had been able to create such a spell, it would be stupid to hope no one
else had, or would.

So Browne had
created a cast that could bring the same results – I have no idea if it was the
same as the cast Kent’s people had created – and had taught everyone in the
casting Circle how to perform it. Every single one of us had disliked learning
it. I felt filthy using it.

But I’d taught
it to the Triple S casters, using inanimate objects as targets. And inanimate
objects were all anyone would be using in my lessons. There had been many
suggestions to use animals, but I couldn’t. I knew I could be hampering – maybe
even endangering – the other casters by refusing. And maybe I was being hypocritical.
I ate meat, I knew animals died for that, so shouldn’t I be able to kill them,
too?

No, not like
that. I hoped the animals slaughtered for my supper weren’t tortured first. I
wouldn’t torture animals. I wouldn’t encourage others to torture animals. That
was it. That was one of my lines. Furniture was less delicate than flesh. If
the cast worked on wood and steel, it was logical to assume it would work on
living things.

The thing was, I
was running out of casts to teach. I’d passed on everything Browne had taught
me, everything I’d read in any book. I didn’t know what to do next.

“All right,” I
said. “We’re good for today.”

They were
surprised. “It’s early yet,” said Hep.

“It’s getting
colder.” The Shields in the group wouldn’t have begun feeling too uncomfortable
yet – Shields often failed to experience physical sensations as much as others
– but not everyone in the group was a Shield. It would be too uncomfortable
shortly.

And I was hoping
to run back to the library and dig up another spell or two.

“Murdoch, could
I talk to you for a few moments?”

Murdoch nodded
and, after everyone was out of earshot, I said, “I have no more casts to teach
them. Almost everyone is up to the same level.”

The numbers of
casters had swelled to over sixty. Every week brought in at least one new
caster, and I’d chosen to tutor them separately to avoid dragging the whole
class down to the barest, easiest casts. But they were now all as good as they
were going to get with my instruction. “Do you have any suggestions?

“We’ve exhausted
my knowledge of casts, too. Beyond that, I have no idea.”

Huh. Well, maybe
I should just admit it. If I had nothing more to teach, I shouldn’t waste
anyone’s time pretending I did.

Maybe they’d let
Taro and me go home. His students, most of them, were doing well with their own
lessons.

Except healing.
No one else seemed able to do that.

Murdoch looked
beyond me and frowned. “Now what is that about?”

I turned. A
staffer was trotting over, bearing correspondence. For me, apparently. And that
just wasn’t good. Letters were usually delivered right to our room, whether we
were there to receive them or not. That this was being brought straight to me
meant it was unusual, and unusual always meant bad news.

I accepted the
letter with thanks. The Emperor’s seal was on the back. “Ah, hell.” First the
Triple S contacted us all out of the blue, and now the Emperor?

“Good day,
then,” Murdoch said quickly. He gestured the staffer away with a jerk of his
head, and they left me alone, giving me privacy.

Very considerate,
but it just made me feel deserted. While most professional correspondence was
directed to me, the Shield, the Emperor usually directed his correspondence to
Taro.

It took me a
while to track Taro down, but I eventually found him in a professor’s chamber
playing a round of slim with one of his students, two staffers, and the
professor.

They were using
coins for stakes. Only the staffers would really be able to use the money, but
Taro always kept some coins on him, just so he could take advantage of any
opportunities to gamble.

Taro was
winning. As usual.

He was enjoying
himself, smiling and relaxed. And I got to be the one to shatter that. “I’m
sorry to interrupt, everyone. Source Karish, I need to speak to you.”

He frowned,
because he could read my tone despite my efforts to keep it bland. “I’m afraid
I have to leave, all.” He gave some coins to each of the other players,
settling accounts, and followed me back to our room. “What’s wrong?”

Only then did I
show him the letter.

“What’s it say?”

“I haven’t read
it yet.”

Taro opened the
letter and was scowling in a moment. “He’s ordering us to Erstwhile. We’re to
leave as soon as we get this letter.”

The bottom of my
stomach dropped. “What the hell for?”

“He says there
are tasks he needs us to perform. That’s all.”

Those tasks
wouldn’t have anything to do with channelling. Gifford probably just wanted
Taro for prestige or entertainment. That was the only reason monarchs wanted
Pairs.

Or to send them
off to the middle of nowhere to hunt down errant family members. I had hoped
that was just a one off.

“Damn it.”

I didn’t relish
the thought of informing the Premier Pair of our news, I enjoyed being outside
their focus since our interview, but obviously it had to be done. We hunted
them down and we were eventually shown to an office where only Sato and Zoffany
waited. This time we were allowed to sit down. I gave Sato the letter.

He read it
quickly and then went straight to the point. “Why would the Emperor want you in
Erstwhile?”

“I have no
idea,” Taro answered. “He hasn’t shown any interest in us for years.”

“Surely you can
venture a guess why such an order might be made.”

“I’m afraid
not.”

Sato spent
several moments just looking at us.

Ridiculous. “For
Zaire’s sake, you’ve already told us we’re rotten liars,” I snapped. “How can
you think we’re lying well now?”

Zoffany
snickered and Taro smirked.

Sato didn’t
actually scowl, but he looked like he was tempted to. “I don’t like the idea
that the Emperor has special plans for you.”

Neither did I.

“You mean
something like sending us off on some kind of mission in another part of the
world?” Taro asked.

“Exactly. If you
are given any such orders, you will not fulfil them. You’ll come straight here.
We’ll handle the Emperor.”

I sighed. “So
we’re going.” Avoiding it had been an unrealistic hope, anyway.

“I don’t think
refusing is an act of defiance that is in our best interests right now. And I
think Source Karish here might be able to charm some people into supporting the
Triple S, right there in the Imperial Council.”

The fury hit
hard and I wanted to leap across the desk and throttle the man. All of Taro’s
talents, and Sato wanted him to flirt?

I looked at
Taro. His expression had settled into a mask. That happened sometimes, when he
was angry enough.

“You will also be
in a perfect position to gather information straight from Gifford himself and
relay that information to us.”

I cleared my
throat so I could sound calm when I spoke. “I was under the impression there
are already people observing the activities in Erstwhile and providing you with
information.”

“They aren’t
part of the inner circle. You’re being invited into it.”

Fiona’s brother,
Tarce, was there, representing her interests to the Council. He had sent Fiona
letters on a regular basis, but I’d never read any of them and Fiona hadn’t
said much about them.

It would be nice
to confirm he was all right, after all of the horrible rumours.

“Any questions?”

Are you insane?

Sato didn’t give
us much time to think of anything. “Excellent. We’ll put some supplies together
and you can leave tomorrow morning.”

We were
dismissed.

We sort of
stumbled out of the room and into the corridor. I felt numb. I felt like I’d
been sentenced with execution. The Emperor was killing people, and we were
supposed to carry out some secret task on behalf of the Triple S right in front
of him.

I couldn’t
panic. I needed to manage it. I closed my eyes and pulled in a long, slow
breath.

It didn’t help.

“That’s better.”
Taro put an arm around my shoulders and a slight sensation of relaxation trickled
into my chest. “You’ll think of a way to keep us from getting killed.”

“
I’ll
think of a way?”

“You’re the
intelligent one, remember?”

“Prat.”

Taro kissed my
temple.

“We’re not
vanishing on Aryne again,” I said. “We’re telling her where we’re going.”

“Of course.”

After dinner, we
waited until we assumed everyone might be asleep, and snuck out of the
building. There was no reaction from anyone that we could perceive. We had done
this several times before, gone to see Aryne at the Academy at night, and no
one had interfered with us.

I didn’t believe
for a moment that they didn’t know what we were doing, but for some reason we
all maintained the fiction that when Taro and I went to bed, we stayed there.
Taro and I never spoke to anyone of our visits with Aryne, and we did everyone
a favour by not going in the middle of the day.

Getting through
the door posed no difficulty. Taro’s students hadn’t been the only ones to
benefit from their lessons. As Taro had challenged them, he had become
accustomed to, among other things, moving increasingly small portions of soil.
This meant he could shift the ground beneath the iron door just enough to pop
it from its frame and push it open.

Every time we
did this, the door was fixed by the next morning.

The streets were
full of drunks and clouded people who paid no attention to us. I liked this.
Taro flagged down a hab with a driver who didn’t resent giving us a free ride.
That was pleasant, too.

We got off a few
streets away from the Source Academy grounds, and walked the rest of the way
undisturbed. Once we reached the gate of the Source Academy, Taro dislocated it
with ease. This gate was also fixed every time we came to it.

I had no idea
whether there was anyone guarding the grounds of the Academy. I didn’t remember
there being any guards while I was a student at the Shield Academy, but
everything was different now.

If there were
guards, they never interfered with us.

I picked up some
pebbles – these didn’t just develop in the area, students scattered them about
for this very purpose – and threw them at Aryne’s window. After only a few
moments, the window was pulled open, and Aryne’s head poked out. Without a
sound or any hesitation, she climbed out the window.

I pulled in a
quick breath. It was still horrible to watch her scale the wall, despite her
skill and obvious comfort. She dropped down from a little further up than I
liked, but she was unharmed.

“So,” said
Aryne, “What’s the bad news?”

“Why do you
assume it’s bad news?” I asked.

“You both look
grim.”

“We’re being
sent to Erstwhile,” Taro told her.

Aryne scowled.
“Why?”

“We don’t know.
We were summoned by the Emperor. He didn’t provide an explanation.”

“For how long?”

“We don’t know
that, either.”

Aryne huffed. “I
don’t like it.”

“Believe me,
neither do we.”

Aryne loudly
sighed, and then we spent a few moments standing in silence.

“I’m sorry,”
said Taro.

“Not your
fault,” Aryne muttered.

“I’m still
sorry.” He kissed her forehead.

She hugged him,
and then it was my turn.