Second Kiss (2 page)

Not Seeing Her Face

X
emion
strained to see her face. But she remained turned away from him, seven rows ahead, her hair tied up in a topknot.
It had to be her. But it might not be.
He trembled at the thought that he may have lost her forever.

“Keep the grip!”

Veneetha Azucena's command reverberated off the ancient stones of the Panthemium. Xemion, along with all the others, stood with his arms crossed in front of him, his hands gripping the hands of those on each side. They had all just taken a vow of obedience. But he would break that vow, he thought. If he could, he'd let go right now and push his way forward to where the girl was standing. He had to see her face to make sure.

“See how you are all bound in and to one another,” Azucena urged them. “This is how we will be bound in the endeavour before us. Not only each to all and all to each but to our ancestors, as well, who also made this grip. Feel it.”

They stood silently; the only sound the rippling of the gorehorse flag flapping first one way and then the other in the crosswinds coming in off the sea.

“This one here,” Veneetha Azucena said finally, pointing to a thin Phaerlander who stood at the front of the assembly, closest to her, “is directly connected to the one at the end.” She gestured over their heads. “Each one sworn to each in alliance and friendship.”

But Xemion felt only hostility from those on either side of him. In fact, he had just that morning publicly humiliated Brothlem Montither, the large, finely attired, slightly perfumed individual currently gripping his right hand. And Tharfen, the younger, shorter red-haired girl on the other side who kept yanking on his left arm trying to get his attention, was someone with whom he'd had nothing but quarrels ever since their first meeting. The fact that a recent collision in the spell-crossed borough of Shissilill had left a small fragment of her inside him only served to increase the amount of discomfort he felt in her company.

“Don't just look for Saheli. My brother may be up there. Look for Torgee, too,” she hissed, jabbing her thumbnail into the back of his hand.

“Now, you will all soon be put to a test, but before we begin there is something I must stress very strongly.” Veneetha Azucena paused and surveyed the crowd before her, the high red feather atop her black headdress bending back and forth in the strong wind. “There are still functioning spellworks to be found in these parts. Mostly these are devices retrieved from newly fallen houses by speculators. Certain Pathan scientists are very interested in acquiring such items. Nothing could be more dangerous to our cause than these. We will not tolerate any kind of traffic in these items. They may not be owned. They may not be kept. And they certainly must not be used. Remember, they have held to their spells for fifty years and are now completely unstable. They must be destroyed. But not by you … by Mr. Glittervein here.”

She pointed to a Nain standing to the side amongst the other faculty members. Like all Nains, he was short and broad of shoulder but well-proportioned. He had dressed neatly for the occasion in a red uniform and wore his long auburn hair so that it covered one side of his face, while the other side gazed handsomely out at the crowd. He gave a little nod.

“As our Provost, he will be in charge of our armaments and provisions. You've all seen the high chimney of Uldestack where he has his forge. Let me tell you, he can build such a fire there as will melt anything, spell crossed or not. So if you have found any spellworks since arriving here, or if any of you have somehow managed to accidentally bring any in with you, I will give you one last chance to surrender them to him today. After today, if anyone is caught with spellworks, they will be instantly expelled from the academy. We are firmly committed to this. And because here in Ulde we are once again in the presence of the Great Kone — the very root and source of the textual magic — do not think there is any intention to return to the easy ways of spell kones and conjuration. I bid you witness me: I will not have even so much as the rubbing of some charm. I will not hear a wish, a prayer, or an incantation from any of you. Our actions are our wishes. Our will is our prayer. Our swords are our incantations. Now, have you got that?” Heads nodded. “Say aye.”

A deep-voiced, solemn “aye” arose from the crowd.

“Many more of you than expected have shown up. But if you are hungry you will be fed, and all of you will be directed to lodgings after we finish here. Mr. Glittervein will have to make more swords, but you will all be given a sword and you will all be taught swordsmanship so that you may learn to ably defend us when these enslavers and book-burners return, as they surely will. In fact, given the treatment which their Prince has this morning so justly received at Mr. Lighthammer's hand, they may be back much sooner than we thought. That is why you are about to be tested. We need to find three dozen of the best fighters to take special intense and advanced training so that we may begin guarding our perimeters immediately. And to find such a number we must trust to the one true compass we know.” She gestured elegantly. “Tiri Lighthammer.”

Lighthammer had once had been a triplicant, but his heroic battle with the invaders fifty years earlier had left him with only two arms and two legs. This caused him to come forward now with a slightly asymmetrical gait. But as he stood before them in his red jacket, his broad shoulders decorated with golden epaulets, he looked powerful and impressive. He ordered that two broad doors leading into the stables under the stadium be opened. Slowly he drew his famous steel sword and held it up in the air. “The test is simple,” he announced. “Can you hold onto a sword or not. First I will instruct you and then I will test you.” These words calmed Xemion down a little. He knew how to hold a sword. And so did Saheli. He had learned the skill from the
Manual of Phaer Swordsmanship
, one of the tiny volumes he carried even now in the little locket library that hung on a chain about his neck. He had practised, and so had she. They would both be among the chosen. He knew it.

Lighthammer turned his blade into the light. “Do you see this hand here? This is the Phaer grip.” Lighthammer stood with one leg forward and bent, the other back and straight, his sword held up before him at a forty-five-degree angle. Despite the slight sense of imbalance caused by the odd placement of his two arms and legs, he looked very forceful and elegant.

“A sword is not a bottle you grip by the neck to break over some drunkard's head,” Lighthammer continued. “It is a deftly balanced scalpel you steer with deadly precision. Grip the hilt, not too tight, with the thumb up the haft resting on the guard. Do you see? Say aye.”

There was a chorus of “ayes.”

“Good then.”

He touched the shoulder of a very large Thrall girl who had emerged from the chamber under the stadium. She wore a bulky grey cloak, but her head was bare. By the look of her bleached white eyes, she was blind. She carried a slightly rusty-looking sword.

“First, arrange yourselves in lines of twenty-four, but keep the grip within the lines. I will start with this fellow at the front. Step forward one by one, and when the first line is done, the line behind shall step forward. Do you understand? Say aye.”

“Aye,” they said in unison, and after a brief shuffle it was done. Seven rows back, Xemion's impatience gathered and his anxiety quickened. It would take so long before he had his turn and she was so far ahead of him. He thought about how she had drunk the water of forgetfulness at the Vale of Two Wells. What if it caused her to forget what had happened between them earlier that morning? To forget their kiss? What if somehow they were apart long enough for her to forget him altogether?

He strained to see her, but now that the crowd had shifted, a group of giant Thralls hid her from view. The same shuffle had, however, opened up a vista on the other part of the front line, and there, no more than a person or two away from where he believed Saheli stood, was Tharfen's brother, Torgee.

He leaned down and whispered,
“I see him.”

“Where? Where?” Tharfen, whose height prevented her from seeing much around her, actually jumped up and down trying to see over the shoulders in front of her. She succeeded only in annoying the burly girl on her right side.

“He's right up the front,” Xemion whispered.

“Well, get his attention,” she demanded, yanking on his arm.

“I can't,” he told her, yanking back on her arm.

“You have to,” she protested, digging her nail into his hand.

“No, I don't!”

Tharfen dug her nail in harder.

“Do it yourself.”

Unfortunately for Xemion, he said these last words a little too loudly. From the front, Tiri Lighthammer's iron-grey eyes found him. “Silence back there or you will be removed!”

On Xemion's other side, Montither turned just enough to sneer at him.

Back at the front, Lighthammer gestured to the first recruit, who stepped forward and laid down the staff he had brought with him. When the blind Thrall girl gave him the other sword, he did his best to grip it in the way they had been instructed. Lighthammer inspected his grip, corrected it, and when the recruit held the sword up before him, disarmed him so quickly there was a gasp from the crowd. “To the right,” Lighthammer directed. The recruit proceeded through the great doors, to the end of the chamber, and then disappeared into a hallway on the right. And so it was with the next fifteen recruits, whether they were male, female, Thrall, or Phaerlander, the sword was stricken from their grip, usually with the smallest of movement on Lighthammer's behalf. After each, Tiri Lighthammer gestured with his sword into the chamber beneath the stadium. “To the right,” he ordered.

Finally, as the front rank was fed into the lightning of Lighthammer's sword, the girl Xemion thought must be Saheli emerged from the shadow of the Thralls and stood unmoving before Lighthammer. Tharfen had by now resumed her pestering of Xemion. “What's happening?” But Xemion refused to acknowledge her in any way. “Tell me, you coward. If he leaves without me … you will be in such trouble!”

When the girl with the topknot took the blade and Lighthammer inspected the grip, he looked surprised and nodded with a pleased expression. He bowed his head courteously. “Are you ready?” he asked. The topknot nodded. “Fine then.” Lighthammer flicked at her sword, but amazingly she held it firmly. Lighthammer was stunned. There was another swift swing but still she held her blade.

“Well, well, well.” Lighthammer seemed truly impressed, almost flustered. He stared at her for a long time, until her head turned a little to the side — almost enough for Xemion to see her face, but not quite. Here, with a final ambush-like flick, he managed to disengage her. “Can you be ruthless?” he asked.

The girl shrugged.

“Well, you will need to be.” Lighthammer raised his voice sternly. “You will all need to be ruthless. You saw the treachery of the Pathan prince this morning. They are not like us. They can only be met with complete ruthlessness. People, we have the first of our thirty-six. To the left,” he said.

Xemion watched the back of her head drop from sight as the girl bent down and retrieved the weapon she had arrived with. Saheli's staff had been made from the hard, hollow stem of one of Xemion's giant sunflowers. It was very distinctive-looking, and if he could just catch a glimpse of it, he would know for sure if it was her. But she lifted the weapon horizontally in one hand only to waist height so that it remained below his line of sight. With that she proceeded straight on into the chamber under the stadium, until she stood in the shadow at the end where the two hallways diverged. If her hair had remained up in the topknot, Xemion would have been able to see her high cheekbones, her full lips as she turned, and he would have known for sure it was her, but all the effort of the contest with Lighthammer had dishevelled her hair enough that one side had released numerous tresses, which now hid her face.

And then she was gone.

In that instant, Xemion's fear that he would lose her increased markedly and his heart thumped double and then triple its pace. It had to be her!

“Tell me what's happening,” Tharfen growled, jabbing her thumbnail into the crescent-shaped wound she had already left in the back of Xemion's hand.

“It's Torgee's turn now,” he hissed. For the first time he squeezed her hand back angrily, using all his strength. With the effort, though, he unwittingly increased his pressure on the hand of Montither on the other side. Until now, Montither had seemed inert, almost unaware, of Xemion, but now with a quick, furious glance he squeezed back and maintained the pressure.

Xemion wasn't unduly surprised when Torgee also held onto his sword. Back in the mountains, Saheli had insisted on teaching him the Phaer grip, as well. Still, when Lighthammer called out “to the left,” Xemion's stomach heaved with a painful emotion that he did not yet have a name for but which the world knows as jealousy.