Destiny (38 page)

"But even now that I feel rested, I still can't think of anything else to do with Arbon Vand," Honrita murmured to herself as she reached the bottom of the stairs. "That personality of his won't let me change it even a small bit, so I'll just have to continue to control him."

"Talking only to yourself isn't very productive, Honrita," Stelk Faron said from the chair he sat in with a book open in his lap. There had been a teasing quality to his words, and his face wore an odd-looking smile. "If you have a problem, I'm sure the ladies and I would enjoy helping out with it."

"I appreciate that offer, Stelk, I really do," Honrita answered as she walked closer to the man. The change in him was amazing, and she basked in the glow of a job well done. "I was just observing that it would be nice if I could find a way to make Arbon more agreeable, but I don't think I can. Will he be too difficult for you to associate with just as he is?"

"Arbon doesn't believe that what we're going to do is possible," Stelk explained, his patient smile gentle. "Once he learns differently, he ought to be easier to live with."

"I certainly hope so," Honrita said with a sigh, and then she showed her own smile. "Has everyone had breakfast but me?"

"Actually, none of us has eaten yet," Stelk answered, putting his book aside before getting to his feet. "We decided to wait until you could join us, and only Arbon made a fuss over the decision. He's currently sitting at the table in the dining room and brooding."

"Then let's join him, but not in the brooding," Honrita said, taking the arm Stelk offered her. "This is much too pretty a morning to waste it on the dark emotions. Especially since after breakfast we'll be Blending."

Stelk nodded happy agreement and led Honrita toward the house's small dining room.
This is almost like a dream,
Honrita thought as she walked beside him.
Stelk looks strange on the inside where only I can see him, but on the outside he's the nicest person I've ever known. I now have a real
companion
, and I never truly realized how terrible it is
not
to have one. This is worth all the effort I put into it yesterday.

Kadri and Seeli also sat at the table in the dining room, but they sat together at the end away from Arbon and ignored the man. When they saw Honrita they got to their feet, and each of them wore the same radiant smile.

"Good morning, Honrita," Kadri said as she stepped away from the chair at the head of the table. "I was just keeping your seat warm for you, and now that you're here we can eat. Is there anything in particular you'd like to have? It turns out that Seeli here is a truly excellent cook."

"Oh, I'm not
that
good," Seeli protested with a small laugh and a blush. "I just enjoy cooking, so I've learned what it's all about.
Would
you like something special, Honrita?"

"Anything you ladies prepare will be just fine," Honrita said, letting Stelk seat her at the head of the table. "Is there any tea ready?"

"I'll get you a cup while the ladies prepare our meal," Stelk said at once, and then he followed the women into the kitchen. Honrita made herself more comfortable in the chair, but suddenly Arbon voiced a sound of disgust.

"How can you stand to look at yourself in the mirror?" Arbon demanded from where he slouched in his own chair at the other end of the table. "You've stolen those people's personalities and made them over into something
you
consider better, but it doesn't seem to bother you. You're also keeping
me
a prisoner here, but that obviously bothers you even less."

"We're all here for an important purpose, so we all have to make certain sacrifices," Honrita explained to the scowling man. "I know it's easier to avoid doing your duty than facing up to it, Arbon, but isn't it time you stopped being a child and began to act like a man?"

"There-
is
-no-important-purpose-here," Arbon stated, speaking each word slowly as he leaned a bit toward her. "What you're doing can't possibly be your duty, because you'd never be able to run this empire even if you did become the leader of it. You can't even handle the people around you without changing them into grinning idiots. How do you expect to cope with an empire-full of people who disagree with your decisions and don't beam at your appearance?"

"Just because your duty isn't pleasant, you can't decide not to do it," Honrita returned primly, wishing she could get through to the man. "I'll worry about dealing with what comes up when it actually happens. Fretting over it beforehand is a waste of time."

"Well, you're the expert on wastes of time," Arbon replied as he leaned back again, but then he looked at her more directly. "You can lie to yourself about how what you're doing is your duty, but don't bother
me
with that nonsense. You can't simply decide that something like ruling an empire is your duty. No one else
wants
you to run things, so it's a whim you're working on, not a duty. If you really knew what duty was all about, you'd be working against people like yourself. We finally have a decent government in our country, and you're trying to bring it down. If you think you're all that great, tell me what you'd do to make things even better."

Honrita frowned at the miserable man, trying to answer his challenging question. The only problem was, the proper words refused to come. Honrita
knew
it was her duty to take over running the empire, but Arbon's accusations had scattered all her perfectly good explanations. And as far as what she would do to better things went, she would do a lot of things. She just couldn't put any of those things into words at the moment…

Stelk's return with a cup of tea diverted Honrita's attention for a short time, and after a sip or two she had managed to calm herself. It had finally come to her that the Fire magic user in their Blending
had
to be overly aggressive and unpleasant, otherwise their Blending would be ineffective. If it made the man happy to think he'd asked questions and made statements that Honrita couldn't reply to, then so be it. Having an effective Blending was the most important thing right now; Arbon could be shown just how wrong he was once they had taken over.

It wasn't long before the ladies brought out the food, and they all enjoyed a very tasty breakfast. Honrita chatted with her three true Blendingmates, finding the time immensely satisfying. Arbon ate silently at his end of the table, refusing to join them even with nothing more than words, but that didn't matter. He was just as odd on the inside as the others were, and Honrita felt confident that he would join them completely when the time came that it did matter.

They sipped tea for a time once they finished eating, but the excitement in Honrita refused to be held down for long. It quickly grew to the point where she couldn't bear it, so she put her cup aside and stood up.

"It's time, my friends," she said, smiling at all of them. "Let's go into the sitting room where we can be more comfortable."

Everyone including Arbon got up and followed her, and once they were all in the sitting room she turned back to them.

"I know we have to start out standing in a particular way," she said. "Arbon, please tell us in what order we have to stand."

"Fire first, then Spirit, then Earth," Arbon replied in a surly voice. "Air and Water stand to either side of Spirit."

"Are you sure?" Stelk asked Arbon with a small and thoughtful frown. "I was under the impression that there was a very specific place each of us had to be in, but your answer suggests that Air and Water can stand wherever they please. Shouldn't we - "

"It doesn't
matter
on which side Air and Water stand," Arbon interrupted in annoyance. "It doesn't really matter where any of the rest of us stand either, not when you get right down to it. The initial arrangement is simply to help our minds visualize what our talents will be doing."

"Then let's begin," Honrita said before Stelk could add to his objections. Stelk's lack of assurance was returning, but Honrita quickly smoothed it away. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with what they were doing, absolutely nothing…

"Now Spirit reaches out to the rest of us, and when we feel her touch we return it," Kadri said once they were all in place. "It's supposed to be really easy and completely natural, as well as being the most marvelous thing we'll ever experience."

Hearing those words gave Honrita the confidence she needed to begin the effort, the most important effort of her life. More than anything she wanted to be part of something that was
important
, something that mattered. This
had
to work, it simply
had
to…

"I have a list you need to look at, Driff," Idresia said, coming toward the table where Driff sat. He'd been going through reports until his eyes watered, but his efforts hadn't been very well rewarded.

"Another list?" Driff groaned, wondering if he would ever see normally again. "Just put it at the bottom of the stack, and I'll get to it as soon as I can."

"No, this list goes to the top of the stack," Idresia disagreed, stopping to stroke his hair with a clearly sympathetic hand. "There are five names of missing Spirit magic users on it, along with educated guesses as to where the five might be. Or should I say that there are guesses about four of them. The fifth seems to have disappeared completely, so we might be able to cross her name off right away. If she left the city, she can't very well be the one helping Ayl."

Driff took the piece of paper Idresia held out to him, wondering why he'd suddenly gotten a very odd feeling. The first four names on the list meant nothing to him, but the fifth…

"No, I don't think we'll be doing any fast crossing off," Driff said, staring at the name Honrita Grohl. "I've met the missing woman, and I think it's very likely she's the one we want."

"You know the woman?" Idresia asked with brows high. "How did you meet her?"

"She's the last subject Gensie Landros and I tried to work with in the guarded residence," Driff answered with a sigh. "Gensie thought we'd cured the woman of her problem, but I remember being not quite as sure. It turned out that I was right after all, because as soon as we turned our backs on the woman she disappeared from the residence. Someone's Blending was supposed to go looking for the Grohl woman, but with everything we were involved with I forgot to follow up to see if she was found."

"Well, it looks like she
wasn't
found," Idresia pointed out wryly. "What was wrong with her that you think she's the one helping Ayl?"

"At first she was the meek and nervous sort who never said a word out of line," Driff explained, gesturing vaguely with one hand. "But taking classes that taught her how to use her strong Middle talent changed her personality, making her strut around with self-importance. But the feeling of self-importance also made her touchy, so that she considered a passing suggestion from someone an effort to 'tell her what to do.'"

"And she made trouble because of that impression," Idresia said after voicing a sigh. "I've seen that happen to people a time or two, and it's never pretty. They spend most of their lives being beaten down and bullied, and then they suddenly find something that takes them a step above the usual obscurity. That one step always looks a mile high to them, and encourages them to start their own pushing and bullying."

"Yes, well, Gensie and I worked together to heal the damage caused by her upbringing," Driff continued with a nod of agreement. "That healing seemed to bring out a completely different personality in the woman, one that wasn't hampered by doubt and fear and crippled by repression. She thanked us in a very sincere way for helping her, and Gensie's Spirit magic apparently confirmed the Grohl woman's interest in 'helping' our efforts with the rest of the people in the guarded residence."

"But you didn't agree with that opinion," Idresia said, giving her own distracted nod. "You probably felt the Grohl woman wasn't telling the complete truth, but a High in Spirit magic would find it hard to believe that a Middle in Earth magic might know better than her own talent. You didn't press the point?"

"Not when I wasn't all that certain myself," Driff said. "I didn't
know
something was wrong, I only suspected it, so I let Gensie's certainty make me think I was imagining things. Now the Grohl woman is probably after the importance she firmly believes ought to be hers, and she'll be coming at us with a Blending that might even be more powerful than our own."

"What makes you think that her Blending will be more powerful?" Idresia asked, looking at Driff with her head to one side. "If I recall correctly, every Middle Blending our entity has come in contact with so far has been a lot less than our own."

"You're right about that, but you're overlooking an important point," Driff said, reaching for the cold tea he'd been sipping. "Those other Middle Blendings - as well as our own - have all been put together by the people
in
the Blending. The Grohl woman's Blending will have people chosen by Holdis Ayl, a man who can tell the strength of a talent without having that talent himself. I can't quite believe that Ayl will have chosen people who aren't the strongest he could find."

"No, I
hadn't
thought of that," Idresia agreed, now showing a frown. "And you're right about the point making a difference. I wish we knew exactly who it was who'll be in Grohl's Blending."