Resenting the Hero (2 page)

Other effects were even less positive. The bond seemed to search out inherent emotional characteristics of the partners, drawing them out and amplifying them, and the wrong combination of such characteristics could be disastrous. Some partners hated each other, and this could be a serious problem, for once the bond was formed it was permanent. There was no separating, no working with anyone else. And the death of one meant the death of the other, the bond was that powerful.

Without training and emotional preparation the bond could be destructive, resulting in obsessive love or hatred between the partners, drawing them into each other and rendering them incapable of dealing with the rest of the world in a rational manner. So young unPaired Sources and Shields were segregated from the rest of society and each other until they were Chosen, the best that could be done to prevent spontaneous pairings. It was impossible to eliminate all instantaneous pairings, for some Sources and Shields remained undiscovered for years, and not all such Pairs were afflicted with emotional instability, but everyone felt the separate academies were the best way to keep such unfortunate Choices to a minimum.

I had been sent away to one of the Shield academies when I was four years old, and had remained there for the following seventeen years of my life. It was the only home I could remember.

And so I stood in the Matching Circle with most of the members of my class and a handful of older Shields who had not yet been Chosen. We stood in a single long line, side by side, waiting. We were watched by friends, family, and former instructors. We had been placed in alphabetical order according to our family names.

I was Dunleavy Mallorough. I was somewhere near the middle.

A door creaked as it opened. Heads whipped around. I felt the Shields around me stiffening, standing straighter, standing prouder. The Sources had arrived.

They filed into the Matching Circle silently, and I had to admit they looked a little eerie, black figures floating over the white floor. Most of them didn't look at all nervous, which I found irritating. This night was as important to them as it was to us, and they had no more control over the results than we did. They should have been as apprehensive as we were. More so. They were Sources, after all. They were supposed to overreact to everything.

I was not nervous. To be nervous was to waste one's strength on a fruitless emotional reaction. I was calm. I was always calm.

Really.

I would not wipe my palms against my trousers. I would not shift my feet. I would not flick my hair off my shoulder. I would be calm, I would be serene, in success or failure.

But I wouldn't fail. I would be Chosen. This was a certainty. That I was standing with fourteen others who were just as firmly convinced of their success was irrelevant, because I was right. I was always right.

Damn it, I couldn't feel the floor against my bare feet. That wasn't good.

All Shields were rather insensitive to physical sensation—to better enable us to concentrate solely on our Sources, it was said—but I'd always been particularly insensitive. Which was an endless source of humor for my classmates. I had been taught to feel things, of course, as all Shields were. It was just that sometimes I sort of forgot.

The floor was wood. Sanded so smooth it felt like cloth. Cool and almost soft against the skin, as incongruous a thought as that seemed.

The door was closed behind the last Source. I looked them over discreetly, noting the differences between the portraits we'd been shown and the people standing before me. We waited.

Another, smaller door opened in a dark corner of the room. An elderly man, wearing the black braid of a Source, stepped in, followed by an elderly woman wearing the white braid of a Shield. Source Ivan McCrae and Shield Emil Cloudminder, the Presiding Pair of the Match. They walked between the row of the Shields and the row of the Sources, ascending onto the low dais at the other end of the room.

Cloudminder cleared her throat. “We would like to welcome you all to this, the third Match of the 573rd year of recording.” Her voice was clear and surprisingly strong for a woman of her age and stature.

Silence greeted her words.

“It is perhaps best, at this time, to acknowledge our origins,” the Shield continued. “To remember that nearly seven centuries past, our ancestors arrived here from another world, brought here in huge ships that flew between the stars. And in this world they saw beauty and wealth, and they thought to settle here.”

I had been warned to expect this, the recital of our history. As though we didn't already know it. Waste of time.

“We are told that they brought with them great tools. Tools for speaking to each other over great distances. Tools for traveling with rapidity and without effort. Tools for raising buildings and tilling soil. Even, it was written, tools that controlled the sun and the sky.”

This was where the story always lost me. I believed in the tools, in their existence. A professor at the academy had shown me articles made of strange, light metals, the use for which no one could guess. But controlling the sun and the sky? That couldn't be possible.

“Yet for all the wonder and power of these tools, this world was stronger still. The tools lost their power here. This world resisted their use, with earthquakes of such ferocity, with cyclones of such destructive force, with volcanoes of such frequency and reach, that these tools were largely destroyed and swept away from all hands.

“The destruction did not end there. The great cities of the ancestors were leveled. Their crops, stretching wide, were laid waste. Their high dams were swallowed whole.

“Our ancestors decided they could not shape this world as they wished. Those who were weak left our world, returning to their own.” And the Shield made a dismissive gesture with one trembling hand. “The strong remained to build a new life, one more suited to this world. But that life was hard. One might almost feel that the world was angry, that our ancestors dared to use such tools against it. Cities built with nothing more than human hands were quickly torn down again. Our modest crops were destroyed by droughts and floods. Many, many died. People fell into despair and became certain that the planet would kill them all. Yet they strove to survive. They rebuilt. They sowed new crops. They had children.

“One of these children was a boy named Bora Zaire. A very odd young man, who spoke nonsense, and was prone to tears and fits of rage. An idiot, many thought. And one day, a cyclone approached his settlement. While others fled in fear, this young man stood in the strengthening winds, staring as though in challenge. And the cyclone faded in strength and size until it disappeared.

“And Bora Zaire died.

“He was only the first to die in this way. The same happened in other settlements. An event would threaten, and some young man or woman—always one who was considered strange and odd—would stare the event down. The event would disappear, and the young person would die. No one could understand why.

“We know now that these young people were Sources. We now know that these were people with a special talent, an ability to feel the approach of an event, to reach into that event with their minds. They could draw the forces of the events into their very bodies, draining the events of all their power until they simply disappeared. The forces of these events could be directed away, harmlessly.

“This we call channeling, and we now know channeling the forces is fatally hard on the body. The heart beats too fast. The mind tears itself apart. The forces are displaced in a manner most unnatural, and they curve back on the Source to crush that fragile human shell.

“We know this now, because this is what Shields tell us.

“Nirah Kadaf is the first Shield we have in the history books. A quiet, serious young woman who couldn't like another young woman in her settlement, a strange girl named Mandir Olsworth. When their settlement was threatened by a tidal wave, and Mandir felt compelled to stand out in it, Nirah stood beside her. The tidal wave sank harmlessly into the soil. And neither woman died.

“For while Sources can reach into the heart of an event, Shields can reach into the minds of Sources. They can slow the heartbeat of a channeling Source, calm the mind, and erect their own barriers around a Source to protect that Source from the curling forces.

“Stories of this pair of women spread wide and reached the ear of Sylva Westphal, a holder of the north. She sent men out to collect these two women, and others to search for more of their kind, to bring them to her hold. And once they were there, she hired healers and people of learning to study these young people and determine what they were.

“Years of study revealed little. There was no one physical or mental characteristic shared by all. The talent did not appear to be inherited. Nor could it be learned by others. It was something inborn and completely unpredictable.

“What was learned, however, was that Sources and Shields, when they were brought together, bonded. And bonded Sources and Shields worked better together than those who were not bonded. And the bonding was as unpredictable as the talent itself.

“Holder Westphal continued to search for people of these talents. She housed them, fed them, and then charged for their services. Those with the money to pay the fee could have their homes and settlements protected from the natural events of this world. Those who could not were destroyed.

“Many protested of this to the Empress, for all perceived the talents of the Sources and Shields to be vital to the survival and prosperity of the whole world. So the Empress demanded that all Sources and Shields be turned over to her.

“Holder Westphal refused.

“The Empress called on her Imperial Guard.

“Holder Westphal assembled an army of mercenaries.

“The Sources and Shields, foreseeing a lifetime of servitude to either the Holder or the Empress, declared they would hide themselves in some deserted place and let the world shake itself to pieces.

“And so a compromise was reached.

“The Holder would be pardoned from all charges of treason and be permitted to keep her lands and tenants in exchange for releasing her claim on the Sources and Shields in perpetuity.

“The Empress would fund the education of all Sources in Shields, in perpetuity, with the vow that no monarch would attempt to control them.

“The Sources and Shields would be self-regulating, with the understanding that they were obligated to protect all who needed it, with no payment.

“All others were obligated to house, feed, and clothe all Sources and Shields as it was demanded of them, without payment.

“And thus was born the Source and Shield Service.

“Those before us are embarking on the most honorable of tasks, high in privilege and equally high in responsibility. Many can claim to hold the future prosperity of this world in their hands. Only we can say so with literal intent. Without us, cities fall, oceans will swallow the fields, and this world will be laid waste.

“And because of this, we are held high in the esteem of others, and we are freed from the day-to-day burdens others carry. Some feel that our higher responsibilities also free us from the laws others must follow, from the notions of duty and honor that bind others.” I could have sworn she looked right at Creol then. “This is a fallacy. On the contrary, we have higher expectations placed upon us, not less. The honor of the Source and Shield Service rests on all of you as you take your places in the world beyond the academies. Remember this.”

There was a moment of silence. I wondered if I would feel irked, were I a regular, to be so thoroughly chided when I hadn't even done anything wrong.

“Sources,” said Cloudminder, “Choose your Shields.”

Finally.

Source Black stood in front of the first Shield, Patrick Addington. They looked at each other. One exchange of glances was all it took. If nothing happened then, nothing was going to happen, ever.

Nothing happened. Though Addington was no doubt disappointed, no one would know it by looking at him. Good man. Black took one step down to face the next Shield. Source Bradford, Sebastian, stood before Addington.

I hoped, desperately, that Creol would not Choose me. For some reason a part of me was certain that he would. The fear had been lurking under my skull for months, ever since I learned that he hadn't Chosen anyone at the last Match. I repressed a shiver. Refusing a bond was not only physically impossible, it simply wasn't allowed. Sources and Shields were pretty much owned by the Triple S, and once a Pair had bonded, they worked together, no exceptions.

Unless they were titled. An aristocrat with a title was considered even more valuable than a Source or a Shield, though not nearly as useful. Unfortunately, I was strictly merchant class, and Creol, he was too crazy to be granted a title. If he Chose me, I was stuck.

There was a cry of delight from the beginning of the line. Bradford, Sebastian, had found his match in Liam Everette, an excellent Shield. Almost as good as me. A bit of a ponce for a Shield, too, so I had thought he would be the most obvious Choice for Karish, but these things couldn't be predicted. Everette and Bradford left the line and moved to one side of the Matching Circle, out of everyone's way, talking animatedly. And the Match went on.

Black stood in front of me and looked me in the eye. A nice strong, solid look. I was surprised to find myself holding my breath. One moment slid by, and then another. How long was it supposed to take, anyway? Surely it took more than a fleeting glance. Maybe we were supposed to wait a little bit, make sure nothing was going to take hold. It couldn't be exactly the same for every Pair.

But Black seemed fairly confident nothing was going to happen. He moved to the Shield on my right, and I smothered my disappointment. Two of my preferences were down.