Trial of Intentions (70 page)

“Defense first,” Odea called, her voice carrying with a single echo. “Simple barriers to deflect what's thrown at you. And remember, it won't always be an attack on your body. Smart opponents will try to cause change around you to distract and disrupt what
you
are doing.”

The woman nodded and turned back toward the five scarecrows, preparing herself.

Odea gave one last instruction. “Once you've withstood their initial barrage, strike back. Keep it focused and specific. Conservation of energy, remember. This is one fight. You could have several in a day.”

The woman nodded, and slightly raised her hands.

A moment later, the tops of the wheat whipped, as though a gusting wind traveled along a narrow chute. With immense speed, a burst of energy cut toward her in a straight line. She got her left hand up, but not in time to begin a defense. The attack knocked her back hard on the ground. She stood fast and saw another racing line of disturbed wheat tops. This time she got both hands up and partially defended against it. Partially. A deep-toned boom sounded when the renders met, causing the wheat around her to whip outward. She was knocked back, but kept her feet.

Two of the Sheason standing near the scarecrows made small, coordinated gestures with their fingers. This time, no wheat stirred. Thaelon watched as the woman's breath began to plume on the air. Thin at first. Then thicker. And a few moments on, her coat began to whiten with thick frost.

She lifted a hand, rotated it—a rendering indication for warmth. The frost ebbed, then returned, thicker. The woman dropped to her knees, shivering.

Odea held up a hand. The attack stopped. Two Sheason rushed forward to help the woman back to the group. Odea didn't speak to her, and motioned for another Sheason to step into the meadow.

This man was well into middle age. He had a calmer face.
The confidence of years,
Thaelon thought, and was eager to see how this one would perform.

Odea didn't repeat her instructions with him. She said simply, “Begin.”

The air shimmered, like the look of a long plain baking in the heat. The man's hands went up, but not to render a barrier. He grabbed his head as if feeling a sudden sharp pain behind his eyes. He gathered himself, and pushed his hands out as though meeting the resistance of thick cords trying to constrict him. Once his arms were fully extended, he focused on one of the scarecrows and clenched his fists. The figure shattered into splinters.

A few of the Sheason near Thaelon commented on the strong counter. But the man wasn't through. He whirled to face another of the scarecrows and pointed. A crack sounded, but was cut off when the earth beneath the man's feet shifted violently, causing him to fall.

Rather than try to stand, he got to his knees, his shoulders and head visible above the wheat. He swept his arm out.
He's creating a rendering blockade.
Direct attacks wouldn't reach him. It was a simple defense, but effective. While the man concentrated on his next action, the earth beneath him softened to thin mud. He sank to his neck. Then the earth hardened again, fixing him there. To prove a point, the wheat around him lay down over his head, suggesting he could have been buried alive.

The attack stopped. Again a few Sheason went forward. They got the man free and helped him back to the group.

Odea held her comments. The Exemplar of Battle was letting these failures do the instructing. For now.

Sheason after Sheason went forward. All with little success in defending against the varied attacks. Finally, Odea seemed to have reached the limit of her patience.

“Tuomas.” It was all she said.

A young man, perhaps near his thirtieth year, walked to the center of the meadow. His head slowly rotated as he noted the exact positions of the scarecrows. There was no call to begin or whipping of wheat or low boom of clashing Will. What came was silent. And something Thaelon only saw because Tuomas flashed in and out of view.

An immense rendering of force pressed down on him. Compaction. If he wasn't up to the task, his every pore would begin to leak blood. In response, Tuomas stood still, focused on the scarecrows. The young man was exerting great Will in a protective layer against a weight that could crush him. Clearly his attackers knew his level of skill.

When Tuomas no longer flickered—the first attack over—he widened his stance. He made no effort at counterattack. He waited. But not long. A funnel wind descended, ripping at his cloak, stirring leaves and wheat stalks and small stones in a painful spout that began to riddle his body and obscure his vision.

The young man extended a hand, creating a bubble inside the spout. He didn't try to end the wind, just survive at its center.

Moments later the funnel wind dissipated, rocks and torn wheat falling in a sheet around him.

The ground softened. Tuomas floated a hand's width above the ground.

The air grew chill. Tuomas sped his heart to pump blood faster, warming himself.

Arrows were fired. Tuomas brought them to a full stop in the air just an arm away.

Painful memories reared. Tuomas brought to mind simple images of kindness.

It was as impressive a demonstration as Thaelon had seen since … well, since Vendanj.

The attacks let up, for a moment. If the pattern held, things would escalate. Tuomas apparently had no intention of waiting on that. At a look from him, the scarecrow on the far right splintered and exploded. The next one had a sudden break where its neck would be, the head lolling back, held only by a bit of green bark. The next scarecrow blackened, seared with heat. Smoke rose on the air. The scarecrow to the far left began to spin. It gained speed until it hummed. Until it was torn apart by the force of its own spinning.

Then all fell to silence. Tuomas slumped. Spent. The Sheason who'd been attacking Tuomas all sat where they'd stood, then lay down, disappearing in the wheat.

Odea turned to the group of Sheason around her, finally seeing Thaelon. Her face told the story of her disappointment.

“Tuomas is ready.” She pointed at a woman on her far left, who Thaelon hadn't seen tested. “Glenna is ready. The rest of you would die if you went to battle today. I know you understand strategy, tactical offensive and defensive measures. I know you study war. And you appreciate the ramifications.” She looked them over, her stare hard and telling. “But understanding these things from books is different from understanding them in practice. We've been to the meadow a dozen times. From most of you, the progress is unacceptable. Pair off. Keep it simple. Keep testing each other relentlessly. The pressure of constant defense will create the right habits. Go until you've no more energy for the exercise.”

The Sheason dispersed, finding areas of the meadow to begin their sparring. Odea gave Thaelon a sour grin. “How did you like that?”

“Tuomas was impressive,” he said.

“And he has Leiholan talents, too. I use him to shame the others.” She looked back at the many Sheason behind her. “Mostly it doesn't work. There's a sense in which this kind of rendering is something you're born to. Or not.”

Thaelon came up beside her, surveying the crop of Sheason. “I don't believe that. Where survival is concerned, most will find the mettle they need. We just have to find a substitute for real threat to help them reach that deep inside themselves.”

Odea gave a laugh. “You sound like the books I'm asking them to leave behind.”

Thaelon smiled. “Maybe I do, at that. But have more faith in them. It's been a long time since Sheason were needed this way. They'll answer just fine.”

She sighed with a bit of exasperation. “These are basic tactics. We mostly use attacks that travel. And we do it here where they can see it coming.” She pointed at the wheat field that had been stirred by many of the renderings. “This is like learning to pluck a single string on your way to playing a symphony.”

“We all start by plucking a string,” he said, pretending to do just that. “And the only gift you possess that matches your rendering is hyperbole.”

“That must be why you're Randeur,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

She gave him a genuine smile this time. “Your optimism. What will it take to see your pessimistic side?”

He shook his head. “Oh, I've my share of that. Visit the intention trials with me if you don't believe it.”

They stood in silence for a time, watching Sheason test their ability to defend against one attack or another. Many fell. Many stopped to rest. The sun made the training a hot affair. This, along with the trials, and the envoy to Recityv … they were doing the right things. And he relaxed long enough to take in the smells of wheat and pine and aspen. He enjoyed the sounds of rustling grasses and humorous falls as Sheason failed some defense. This high mountain meadow above Estem Salo had helped him focus. There was work to do, but he trusted Odea would get them there.

“I want to show you something,” she said.

She led him back beneath a large quaking aspen and produced a ledger from a bag. She opened it as they stood together.

“What am I looking at?” he asked, scanning page after page of names.

“A list of Sheason,” she answered, seeming to wait on his questions.

“And the circle beside some of these?” Thaelon turned several pages, noting that few bore the circle notation. Maybe one in twenty.

“The circle means they're ready to fight.” She placed her finger beneath one circle, which had a line drawn horizontally through it.

“And the line?” he asked.

“Means they've had their Trial of Intention, and been found guilty of sympathizing with Vendanj.” She looked up at him. “They've been divested.”

Thaelon's stomach sank hard. “We're eliminating our own best defenders.”

“Not just defenders,” she clarified. “But those who can actually render the Will to fight. In a manner that would be helpful, anyway.”

He looked up to where Tuomas still sat, resting. “Do you know the leanings of those who can fight but haven't yet been through trial?”

Odea hesitated. He could tell she wanted to say something larger than she finally did. “My sense is that seven of ten who have the ability to use the Will in combat … sympathize with Vendanj. I can't say whether they've had some kind of training I don't know about, or if there's just a fighting nature to those who believe as he does. But if we're preparing for the possibility of war with the Quiet, your Trials of Intention are drastically reducing our numbers.”

“Do I hear dissent?” he said with a slight smile.

She gave him an incredulous look.

Thaelon took a deep breath. Shook his head. “We're not gods, Odea. We don't satisfy our whims. What we do can't start from selfishness. Or personal desire.” He held up a hand before she replied. “But it can be done with power. And indignation, if need be.”

“You want me to teach them to be indignant?” she said, jabbing a thumb at the practicing Sheason.

“With you as their instructor, I assumed indignation was a given.”

They shared a quiet laugh over that. But when the laughter faded, Thaelon found himself staring at Tuomas, wondering what side of all this the young man would take. Wondering about sides. And hating that he had to question the intentions of his own people.

 

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

A Quiet House

Wherever you think the bottom is, it's usually deeper. And darker.

—Familiar commiseration used by coastal laborers, believed to have originated on the decks of Wanship trawlers

T
he sun had not yet set, the skies bright with streaks of red as sunset came. Soon the blue and grey of twilight would fall, and a chill would rise on the air. Sutter was spent. He'd visited other orphanages, hearing more stories about these “walks.” And now he made his way back toward the king's keep. He had no appetite, and no desire for company. So he said goodnight to Yenola and returned to his room alone.

They'd moved his things. A house servant said something about the king wanting Sutter in a middle room—no windows. He guessed Relothian was simply being cautious, and followed the attendant to his new quarters.

By lamplight, he undressed, propping his Sedagin blade against the wall beside his bed, and stowing the Draethmorte's pendant beneath his pillow. After blowing out the flame, he stared up into the dark for only a moment before sleep took him. And for the first time in he couldn't remember how long, he dreamed. Nothing sobering or evocative of all the revelations he'd had today, or even of his pageant wagon parents.

Instead, he dreamed of twilight in the Hollows as seen from the porch of his boyhood home. He saw light-flies dancing near the trees, winking here and there. He smelled the sweet, tangy smoke of his father's pipe lazing around them. He heard his mother singing a soft tune, neither mournful nor merry, but simply lending a gentle accompaniment to the end of day.

He tried more than once to join her, but always made bad harmonies that got them laughing with each other. His father had prepared his special drink, water flavored with several sour fruits and a stem of spearmint.

And as light fled the sky, the crickets began to whir, laying in a soft chorus to his mother's song and their unhurried chatter about whatever crossed their minds. Vaguely, they remembered Renae, his sister who died in the winter of her fourth year. And without feeling somber about her absence, they mentioned how good it would have been to have her there. His father raised his cup to her memory and sipped at his drink.

The western rim slowly lit with an array of scarlet, auburn, and orange hues. Clouds came to look like puffed-up, colored lanterns near the horizon. And his father would begin to rock in his chair, which meant he was about to share a story.

And so, with the labors of the day fading from their muscles, Sutter listened, feeling contentment settle inside him—