The Talented (22 page)

Pieter correctly
interpreted the confusion on Adrienne’s face. “When I use my
Talent, the tool or object I am creating functions better if I
think about the person who will be using it, but it won’t work as
well for anyone else as it will for its intended owner.” He looked
as puzzled by the strange side effect of his Talent as Adrienne
was.

“
What if you don’t think of
anyone?” Adrienne asked. It seemed that there were limitations and
strange turns with just about every Talent she had learned about so
far. No one could do quite the same thing in the same way with the
same result. It was frustrating, and Adrienne was as fascinated by
it as Louella was with blood particles. Every new thing she learned
only served to make her more anxious to discover her own
Talent.

“
My tools still work if I
don’t concentrate on anyone as I shape them,” Pieter said, “and
they don’t break, and knives and such don’t require sharpening, but
people tell me they aren’t as easy to use as even regular tools
unless I fashioned the tool with the user in mind.”

“
The knives in particular
cause problems,” Louella said. “I’ve had to mend cuts from a few of
his knives that slipped unexpectedly.”

Adrienne knew that knives
slipped, but she sensed that the incidents were more than the
typical accidents that tended to occur with the use of sharp
objects. “Have you gotten any of the tools back?”

Pieter laughed. “Dozens.
Now I know to think of the user, and I have made replacements for
the people that wanted them. It’s all a matter of discovering your
Talent and
all
of
its effects.”

Most of the Talented
besides Louella and Pieter avoided Adrienne, including Maureen, so
Adrienne spent much of her free time helping Louella with her
studies or with Pieter, sharing with him the little she knew about
weapons-making while learning more herself.

Studying with Ben took up
several frustrating hours a day, and Adrienne had begun teaching
Thom basic fighting moves to alleviate some of that frustration.
They used no weapons, just hands and body and feet, and Thom had
none of the talent Jeral had promised almost from the first, but it
was a fun diversion from the rest of what Adrienne was doing in
Kessering. Although she had told herself at the beginning that it
would be good for the boy to know how to handle himself, she
acknowledged now that she got a twisted pleasure from teaching
someone in Kessering how to fight.

Thom had been sworn to
secrecy when it came to their training sessions, and Adrienne
believed he would keep quiet. She had made it plain that the
sessions would stop if anyone found out, and the boy liked the
lessons too much to jeopardize his chance to learn more.

Adrienne genuinely enjoyed
the sessions with Thom. He was bright and entertaining, and his
enthusiasm for training helped Adrienne to ward off some of the
loneliness she had felt since leaving Kyrog.

She spent a few hours a
day working on Oneness, and tried her best to keep busy. Studying
the books from the library helped. Whispers about the tension
growing between Samaro and Almet and hints at the Dark Mage were
intriguing and occupied her mind even after she’d left the
library.

Only at night did she
allow herself to think of Kyrog, of Ricco and Jeral and how much
she missed them.

Adrienne banished the tug
of nostalgia and brought herself back to the present, looking down
at the magnificent sword still in her hands, then back at Pieter.
“I want this, but I wish I could make some sort of
payment.”

Pieter looked thoughtful
for a moment. “I would like your old sword,” he said at
last.

“
What?” Adrienne’s voice
came out high and tight, and she coughed to loosen her throat.
“Why?” she asked in a voice that sounded more her own, if a bit
strained.

“
To hang in my shop,”
Pieter said. “I know you are attached to that sword, and I won’t
sell it, but I would like to have it just the same.”

Adrienne was torn by the
unexpected request, but finally she nodded and began unbuckling the
sword belt from her waist.

“
Pieter, people aren’t
going to like you having a sword in your shop,” Louella pointed
out. “It might hurt business.”

Pieter grunted in
acknowledgement of the petite blonde. “If people have such a
problem with it, I don’t want their business. I don’t have a
problem with soldiers, and Adrienne is one of us now. If they don’t
like that, they can find a different blacksmith.” He gave Louella a
hard look. “Do you have a problem with it?”

Louella’s smile was
beatific. “Of course not. Adrienne is my friend.” She turned her
smile on Adrienne. “I would hang something of yours in my shop, but
I think it might seem contradictory to have weapons in a healer’s
shop.”

“
Thanks anyway,” Adrienne
said awkwardly, unused to such open declarations of affection. In
Kyrog, she might receive a slap on the back or a nod of approval,
but Adrienne had never been part of a group that vocalized
emotions.

Maybe that was the
difference between civilians and soldiers.

Adrienne handed Pieter her
old sword in its scabbard, and he unsheathed it and, keeping the
sword, handed the scabbard back to her. “I don’t need this. I will
buy my own.”

Adrienne thanked him and
put the scabbard back on her belt, then slid the new sword home. It
fit perfectly.

Louella clapped her hands
together. “Well, I’m getting hungry,” she said brightly, breaking
the tension the exchange of weapons had caused. “Let’s go get some
dinner at the inn down the road aways. I’ll buy.”

••••••

Adrienne scanned the grove
more from habit than for any other reason. It was clear that no one
but she and Louella were around, and from the look of it, Adrienne
thought it had been awhile since anyone had visited the small
cluster of trees two hours outside of Kessering. The sun was only
halfway to its zenith, and the day was already growing insufferably
hot. The shade under the trees offered some relief from the heat,
but Adrienne was not looking forward to the walk back under the
blazing sun.

Louella was down on the
ground, combing her fingers through the dry and brittle grass.
Adrienne crouched down for a closer look and decided that there
might be other plants mixed in with the grass, but she couldn’t say
what they were. The only forms of vegetation she could identify
were plants that would cause rashes or were poisonous to men or
horses, and none of those were present here. Most other plants were
a mystery to her, and Adrienne was content to let it stay that
way.

“
What are you looking for?”
she asked.

“
My pot of
pierna
has reached its
limit,” Louella said, reaching into the pouch she wore for a small
trowel and a stiff leather bag. “I need a fresh plant.”

Adrienne did not know
what
pierna
was
or what it did, but she assumed it was one of the herbs Louella had
been planning to collect when she had invited Adrienne to accompany
her on her trip outside the city. After too many days spent doing
little more than reading centuries-old books, Adrienne had readily
agreed to go with Louella on her foray outside of Kessering, even
if it was to collect plants in the small grove located on the
otherwise featureless plains.

“
Don’t any of the other
healers have some you can borrow?” she asked, looking down at the
brittle plants skeptically. The twiggy plant with brownish-green
leaves hardly looked worth the effort of collecting.

“
It’s best if I have my
own,” Louella said. “
Pierna
is useful for breaking a fever and alleviating
aches, especially in the bones and joints, but it works best
freshly cut, not dried, so I don’t want to borrow any.”

Adrienne didn’t know what
use Louella had for herbs now. With her Talent she had little use
for the various medicines used by regular healers, and what Louella
could not heal with her Talent, other Talented healers could.
“Aren’t there other herbs that do that?” Adrienne asked.

“
Yes, but I prefer
pierna
.” Louella
carefully deposited the plant and rootball she had dug up into the
leather bag so that it could be transplanted when she returned to
her shop. “And you think I’m being ridiculous,” she said when she
caught the look on Adrienne’s face.

“
I think,” Adrienne said
slowly, “that were I to come down with a fever while in Kessering I
would find a Talented healer to help me, not have someone dose me
with
pierna
.”

Louella laughed as she
stood up and brushed dirt and grass from her dress. “Yes, I suppose
it is habit more than anything that brings me here,” Louella said,
looking around the grove. “When I was an apprentice healer, the
woman I trained under would bring me out here and make me identify
each of the plants and their medicinal properties.” Louella’s blue
eyes looked wistful. “I guess sometimes it seems that my Talent is
taking away everything I spent years learning.”

“
Don’t think that way,”
Adrienne admonished. “What you can do now is amazing. Surely you
don’t want to go back to stitching wounds shut and applying
poultices and casts, hoping that it heals clean.”

“
No, I suppose not,”
Louella said. “But think about it this way: if you discover a
Talent that could be used as a weapon, a highly effective weapon,
would you be happy to put away your sword in favor of
it?”

Adrienne’s hand went to
the weapon in question. Just touching the hilt of the Talent-forged
sword sent a tingle of power up her arm. The connection she felt to
the blade Pieter had forged was palpable, and Adrienne could not
imagine giving it up.

Giving up any sword in
favor of whatever Talent she might develop seemed inconceivable,
yet Adrienne realized that is what Louella and the other healers
were doing. Unlike Pieter, who used the skills from his profession
along with his Talent to become a better blacksmith, the Talents
most of the healers had developed were replacing everything they
used to do.

“
I don’t know,” Adrienne
said, reluctantly letting go of the sword.

Louella offered a soft
smile before heading over to root around under a dense bush, though
Adrienne could not imagine what plant of any usefulness would grow
in such a dark place. She leaned against a nearby tree and watched
as her friend gathered plants that she no longer had a need
for.

A faint breeze stirred the
hair that had escaped from Adrienne’s thick black braid. Even in
the open meadow breezes were rare, and Adrienne turned her face
into the wind, keeping her eyes closed. She moved slowly through
the familiar motions of her morning routine, welcoming the dawn of
a new day as she welcomed the breeze.

Her mind cleared, but
there was not emptiness. She was aware of more than her own body.
She felt the wind, the grass beneath her booted feet, the tree
behind her. More than anything, she felt the magnificent blade that
Pieter had forged while using his Talent resting several paces away
in its scabbard against the tree. It was a beacon, and like a light
it shown and brought awareness to everything around
Adrienne.

She opened her eyes, but
the spell was unbroken. Even with her eyes open and her thoughts
racing, she was still aware of everything around her. She could
still feel her connection with the universe, the Oneness she had
been searching for, like an extra sense. It was thrilling, this
level of awareness without effort, and she knew that she was ready
to move on to the next step in her training.

Holding on to that sense
of connection, Adrienne strapped on her sword and headed back to
the massive library where she would find Ben. The same clerk was
watching the door as usual, but he did not try to stop her as he
had on some of her previous visits. He had learned that she would
not be detained by the likes of him. Adrienne could sense the clerk
as though he was an extension of herself, and wondered if she could
really feel his resentment or if it was only her
imagination.

When she got to Ben’s
study, Adrienne found him hunched over his desk, studying a scroll
that was yellowed with age. His delicate features looked irritated
when he asked why she was there. Adrienne knew he did not like
having his studies interrupted and preferred to send for her when
they were to meet outside of their set training times, but she
figured that this time would be an exception

“
I’m ready to move on,” she
informed him, smiling. Her connection to the universe was still
firm, feeding her sensory input from everything around her. It was
an exhilarating experience to feel so much, and she wondered how
she had gone so long without feeling this way.

“
What?” he asked, blinking
owlishly, caught between whatever he had been studying and what was
happening around him now.

“
I can maintain Oneness
now,” Adrienne said. “I feel connected to everything, even now,
standing here talking to you.” She closed her eyes and moved
unerringly to the other chair in the room. For once the chair was
free of the clutter of books and parchments, and she settled
herself into it before opening her eyes. “I’m ready.”