Thawed Fortunes (15 page)

Most people wouldn't have noticed the way
Per'ce's posture suddenly stiffened, but Fi'lin breathed a mental
sigh of relief that someone else had realized the possible
ramifications of having a Master of the Guard who resented the very
people who he was supposed to be taking orders from.

"What kind of training would you put him
through if he were to end up in the Guard?"

Garth reflected on Per'ce's question for a
moment. "He's already coming along nicely in tactics and weapons
work, but we'd switch him into our courses and then put him through
an advanced officer training class. Your people by and large don't
need that kind of seasoning. Your sheer abilities help. Also your
wives tend to balance out the stupidity inherent to young men with
something to prove. My boys on the other hand generally need some
extra instruction in that regards."

There were smiles all around as Garth's
normal manner reasserted itself. "I'd rather expect he could be
ready to be shipped out to one of the larger villages in half a
year as some kind of junior officer. Beyond that, if he fulfills
the promise we all see in him, and is able to overcome the
bitterness at having failed after coming so close to reaching his
goal, he could possibly take over my job in a decade or so."

Fi'lin felt his eyebrows creep towards his
hair. "That's strong praise."

"He's got the potential, and I don't plan on
living forever."

Va'ma's booming laugh echoed around the
cavern as he slapped Garth on the shoulder. "Of course not. Nobody
remembers any stories about warriors who grow old and retire. Much
better to die doing something suitably heroic and leave a glorious
legacy."

Fi'lin gathered up his equipment and made as
though to follow, but Per'ce shook his head. Only after the other
two had been gone long enough to be out of earshot did he speak.
"What is your honest opinion of the boy? Is he ready for
advancement?"

Fi'lin felt a sigh trying to escape and
stifled it. "My belief hasn't changed. He's been through more than
any of the rest of us ever faced at his age, and done it without
complaint. His instructors all report a good native ability, even
in the subjects in which he still needs more instruction. The women
are all still jumping like pregnant gurra over the fact that Cindi
refused to link with him again, but I fail to see why that matters
when young Jain seems so ready to marry him."

Where others might have paced while deep in
thought, Per'ce simply took two steps, unintentionally placing
himself on the dividing line where the circle of light spheres
started losing their battle with the darkness. After several
seconds of silence, Per'ce laced together long, slender
fingers.

"That is precisely what I fear. The candidacy
process is meant to do more than just instill knowledge and
weaponry skills. There is a revealing process, in which the
sponsoring family is given the chance to see their candidate
respond to a variety of conditions and stresses."

Fi'lin knew that there were those among his
bloodline who felt his sponsors had made a decided mistake in
choosing him, that he would have been much better served among the
warriors of Va'ma's bloodline, or even among Stephens, as vicious
as they could be, but it was times like this that renewed his faith
in the fact that he was in the right place.

No other bloodline, no other group inside the
People or out, had access to such extensive knowledge regarding the
Goddess or the events from the time immediately after her
disappearance.

"Va'del has in essence bypassed most of the
things designed to gain a true feeling of his character, and
despite this, has advanced at a rate far and away greater than what
is normal. We've seen in Be'ter that it's possible for the right
kind of candidate to fool the system, and yet we're rushing so many
of them through before they're properly ready."

A slender hand forestalled anything that
Fi'lin might have been thinking of saying. "The real question is
whether Va'del is in some way Be'ter's antithesis, or merely a much
better actor whose facade hides something even worse."

Fi'lin took the opportunity to reaffirm his
belief in Va'del's innate goodness. "After all he's suffered for
the People, doesn't he deserve a chance?"

The worry in Per'ce's green eyes was just
visible in the darkness. "If I knew him to be a threat, knew his
violence would harm innocents, my path would be clear. If he'd been
through the normal course of testing my path, although entirely
opposite, would still be entirely clear. I've always been uneasy
with Javin's willingness to embrace harsh measures in pursuit of a
goal, but am I allowing my distaste to mar my vision? The Goddess
anointed Stephens as one of her chosen warriors. Does that mean
some of the more apocryphal histories are correct, that she was as
much a destroyer as a creator and healer?"

##

Jain slipped into the dark room and nearly
tripped over Va'del. It seemed impossible that the commotion
wouldn't wake him, but he hardly stirred, obviously much more
exhausted than she'd expected.

Jain pulled off her shoes and dangled her
feet into the hot water before closing her eyes and reaching out to
the power. As always it cut and tore at her very essence, but she
only needed the barest trickle of energy for what she was doing
now, so it was easy to ignore the familiar pain.

His muscles were dangerously depleted.
Another day or two without rest or some kind of magical assistance
and he'd find himself on the floor with convulsions. The bones
hadn't changed since she'd last looked at them though, so there was
some good news. Hopefully nothing too complicated was going to
occur if he put on another growth spurt. She understood most of the
theory now, but was a little nervous about having to actually apply
it.

Jain completed her survey of his person and
clucked her tongue in disbelief. So many bruises and almost all of
them bone deep. It was a good thing they'd gone ahead and
strengthened his bones or they would have almost certainly been
broken.

What did they do, line up and take turns
hitting him?

After she'd done all she could to put things
in balance and speed the healing process for Va'del's abused
muscles, Jain opened her eyes and conjured a small sphere of light.
Even bruised and dirty as he was now, she could still look at him
for cycles.

Her fingers reached out to trace the thin
white line on his arm, one of the many scars that the healers
hadn't been able to make completely disappear after his fight with
Be'ter. Jain still sometimes had a hard time believing someone so
special loved her. He always did the right thing, no matter what it
ended up costing him.

Jain looked away for a second, and when she
looked back a pair of heart-wrenchingly clear blue eyes were
looking up at her.

"I'm sorry I fell asleep. Have you been here
long?"

Jain shook her head and cupped Va'del's face
in her hand. "Just long enough for your weekly checkup. All those
bones and muscles are still doing what they are supposed to."

Va'del groaned. "I thought a couple of times
that some of them were broken today."

"They would have been if we hadn't
strengthened them like we did. As bad as the bones are though, your
muscles were in even worse shape. Did you have any idea how close
they were to seizing up on you? You can't exert yourself at that
level indefinitely without consequences."

Jain watched Va'del try to shrug and then
give the effort up as being too painful. "I figured as much with
the way they were putting me through my paces. I think maybe Fi'lin
made an invitation to several of the Guadel to come see for
themselves that I really do know which end of the sword is the
pointy one."

Jain frowned. "That doesn't sound like what
they did for the first batch of people who were tested."

"It wasn't as bad as it could have been. I
half expected some of them to show up with their wives and link up
before coming after me."

"That couldn't have happened, at least not
today. I think every female Guadel in the Capital was busy making
their presence felt at Mali's disciplinary hearing."

Something about her voice must have tipped
Va'del off to the unhappiness the memory brought Jain. The teenager
pulled himself into a sitting position and hugged her. "What's
wrong?"

"They didn't kick her out of the Daughters,
but they pretty much made it clear that she should become a healer
since the odds are that most of the Guadel won't marry her at this
point."

"So they didn't exile her like they did
Be'ter?"

Jain shook her head as she tried to sort
through her conflicting emotions. "No, they loaded her up with
chores. It will be months before she has even a minute of free
time, but I think they didn't want to lose someone with such
potential power. She's the most powerful out of all of us right
now. I keep thinking that it isn't fair, that she almost got you
killed and should have really been punished. Then again, it could
have been me up there in her place, so part of me was glad that
they didn't burn her out and exile her like we all thought they
would."

Va'del went silent for a moment and when he
spoke there was a huskiness to his voice. "I'm so sorry. I should
have said so earlier, but I'm sorry that you ran that kind of risk
for me. Sorry and grateful all at once. You saved my life."

"I'm glad I did, and I think I would have
done the same thing even if I'd known it would lead to having my
gift removed and then being exiled. I just don't know what to think
anymore. Everything is all jumbled in my head. I feel guilty for
wanting her punished even though I think she deserved worse than
she got."

It was obvious that Va'del didn't know what
to say. In the end, he probably picked the best response and simply
held her close with his aching muscles while Jain cried out all of
the guilt and fear.

On'li leaned forward against the stone table
to better hear Jo'sep's report. "In short it appears that rather
than decreasing as we'd expected it to, the bag'lig presence has
steadily gotten worse."

Ja'dir shook his head. "That doesn't make any
sense. I wouldn't have thought there were that many bag'ligs in the
whole mountain range."

Va'ma shot the other man a look of disbelief.
"You've been on the caravans we send down to trade with the
lowlanders. We don't send so many of the Guard and the Guadel down
just to protect ourselves from the lowlanders. Bag'ligs have always
more or less controlled the band of the mountain range between us
and them."

The bag'ligs had always served as a welcome
buffer between the People and the outside world. On'li knew there
were more than a few lowlanders who thought that the Capital was
paved with gold and diamonds. The bag'ligs had always guaranteed
that a small group couldn't make it up the mountain to the areas
the People claimed as their own. Of course a large group, suitably
outfitted, was a whole different proposition as recent events had
proved.

Ja'dir's wife, Hom'ly, looked at Va'ma in
confusion. "But why are they moving up now when we've never had any
major problems with them before?"

Per'ce looked like he was as unsure whether
to really attribute the comment to Ja'dir's incredibly timid wife,
or whether to just assume it was something her husband had put her
up to. "Normally migrations of animals occur because of some kind
of change in their environment. Climate changes, or a population
explosion or implosion, either of them, their prey, or their
natural predators."

Va'ma shook his head. "There haven't been any
reports of a drought anywhere nearby, there isn't anything up here
to eat, and bag'ligs don't have much in the way of predators other
than man."

Ja'dir slammed his hand
down on the table. "I'm tired of you all insinuating that our
allies in the lowlands are responsible for this. They are not. In
fact, they are encountering significant pressure from the bag'ligs
themselves. It's all my people can do to convince
them 
we 
aren't driving the bag'ligs down towards them. I'm sure this
is just some kind of cyclical anomaly that will sort itself out if
we wait long enough."

A'vril let the discussion proceed for another
half cycle, and then reined everyone in before they could start
coming to blows. "It's obvious nobody has anything constructive to
add. I move that we continue to increase the size of our patrols
and food caravans whenever possible and also move that a search of
our written records be undertaken to see if there is historical
precedent for something like this happening."

On'li quickly seconded both motions, and
discussion then turned to the results of the last batch of
candidates to be tested for sub-Guadel status. For the most part,
the most promising candidates had been selected for testing in the
initial group, so it wasn't surprising that the majority of the
boys had proven unready for advancement.

The lack of discussion regarding motions to
disqualify all of the other boys was no more surprising than the
intense discussion that surrounded Va'del's eligibility.

Ja'dir turned an amazing shade of red as he
realized just how many of the Councilors seemed favorably inclined
to support the idea of Va'del advancing. "This is ridiculous. The
child hasn't even been a candidate for two full months and you are
actually considering advancing him?"

Per'ce interrupted Ja'dir.
"That
young man
has been taking classes with the candidates for far longer
than that, and has accomplished more before becoming a candidate
than some full Guadel currently out on patrol."

Va'ma opened his mouth, and the cracks that
had been starting to show in his alliance with Ja'dir lengthened
slightly as he nodded at Per'ce. "We need more people out on patrol
right now. Not just warm bodies that will be killed by the first
bag'lig they run into either. The boy is as good with a weapon as
any of the other batch we just promoted. In fact, he'd serve as a
decent training partner for just about anyone here, and we'd lose
nothing by getting him out where he can do us some good."