Sunstone - Dishonor's Bane (Book 2) (6 page)

He sat down for his first day in Political Theory. Since Shiro only had a command of the common language that all Ropponi spoke and the basic alphabet that comprised the phonetic basis of that language, his first few weeks concentrated on using a bit of his talent to learn languages. There were two other Ropponi languages, one for merchants and another for the nobility, each with their own special alphabets.  There were four other languages spoken in the world of Goriath and those would follow after the apprenticeship ended.

The instructor for this course looked like a scarecrow, thin and skeletal. His shaven hair revealed tattoos of some kind that Shiro couldn’t decipher. The man perpetually sported a disdainful scowl as if he had a battle staff up his rear end.

“Why is the Ropponi political model superior to that of all other countries?” the professor began one day.

No one raised their hand to respond.

“Shiro?” he said.

After he waiting for his frustration at being singled out to diminish, he nodded to the instructor. Without any idea, Shiro rose and bowed to the professor, as did every student for every question. “I’m unfamiliar with the political systems elsewhere. Aren’t they kingdoms?”

The bald head turned red and the professor’s eyes narrowed. “Are you truly that stupid that you would ask me for the answer?” The man turned to a shelf and lifted up a thick book to show the class as if it were a stick to beat Shiro.

“I give you one week to read this and write out the answer to your own question in court language. You are dismissed until you return with your work.”

Shiro bowed and received the book with both hands extended. He took three steps backward, facing the professor before he turned around and left the room. Other apprentices gave him dirty looks or evil grins. Their reactions were no different from fellow students in other classes. He hadn’t done anything to these apprentices. No power was required for this course, yet his classmates still jeered. Maybe they also called him ‘farmer’ behind his back.

~

“You’re so much the outsider, Shiro. You are older than many apprentices and more proficient than all of the sorcerers when they were at your level. Even the Guild members aren’t excited that you’re here,” Boreko said as they sat in a small court. “You are here to learn and I suggest that you absorb all you can. As for your assignment, I think it a blessing. Read the book and I will discuss the political systems with you. The true worldview might be a bit different than what is written.”

Shiro wondered what that might be, probably more cynicism. Mistokko didn’t hide his very well, but Boreko assumed a more circumspect attitude except for the one time he talked about using one’s Affinity in arms.

Boreko left him sitting. Shiro tried to think of what kind of perspective he’d need to apply to his assignment. He walked to the commissary and brought a rice bowl and a pot of tea to his room, before he began to study for his report. He took a sip of tea before putting the pot on a tiny warming brazier. One heated the brazier with talent at the Guild.

He took the book and felt the heft of the pages. A book that thick must be very expensive, just from the cost of the paper. The Guild had riches to spare, he supposed. Shiro bowed his head and said a prayer to his family god. He had no idea how many Ropponi prayed to this same god since each family kept the identity of their ancestral gods secret.

With the book open, Shiro used Affinity to open up his mind. He sought a way to interpret the words and fix the meanings in his head. As he read, the words began to merge into phrases and then the meanings he sought, until he read paragraphs at a time. Within two hours, he closed the book, finished, and sat back. Closing his eyes he let the entirety of the book flow through his brain. He grabbed a thread of a concept and then joined it to others. It seemed like a puzzle as he fought with all of the information to make sense of it.

He began to write on strips of bamboo for insertion into a scroll. Evening became night and night became dawn by the time Shiro finished. He stood up and massaged his back. He looked out of his window at the tiled roofs below, fading into the mist, enjoying the serenity of early morning.

The history of Roppon had become like a tapestry of crazy threads. Red ran through much of it—the blood of hundreds of thousands. It sickened him to know how obdurate the political system of Roppon had remained through the centuries. The conclusions in the book didn’t fit the connections that Shiro had made, but he understood that he had cut through the posturing and found a truer version than what the author had intended.

Roppon was a closed society. Growth frowned upon. All activities were devoted to carrying on ancient traditions within the authority of a rigid bureaucracy. The inflexibility prompted a higher degree of control. The nobles who reported to the emperor in Boriako were vassals and existed to enforce the continuation and preservation of traditions. The Emperor viewed all change as a threat to his position.

Now he knew why his father had left this city to go to a far end of Roppon. A remote villager had the most freedom since the bureaucracy didn’t really care what happened on a village level and a distant village in a peaceful prefecture wouldn’t even be subject to army levies. Guild tests were another matter. Shiro cursed in the dawn’s light for his ill luck.

The Guild had insinuated itself into the bureaucracy. All allegiance to the empire meant total loyalty to the moribund bureaucracy. Sorcerers weren’t really killed or displaced by the lords at a whim, despite what Boreko had told him, but by their actions against the interests of the bureaucracy. Shiro looked at the scroll sticks on his desk. He’d have to rewrite his words. The assignment, as written, wouldn’t just be unacceptable, but it would be dangerous.

He threw the sticks in a little bucket of water and said a simple spell to agitate the water sufficiently to erase his characters. Shiro laughed. He had written them in the common alphabet and would have to rewrite them in the noble tongue anyway.

A knock on his door stopped his train of thought. He stooped down to see if the sticks were clean. They were.

“Shiro is present. You may enter.” He said the greeting that all used.

The door slid open revealing his mentor. Boreko smiled and presented Shiro with a little bow, his hands held a tray of food.

“May I bring breakfast? Knowing you, the book consumed your evening.”

“Night and early morning. I finished it all,” Shiro said. “I need to talk to you about what I wrote.”

Boreko’s eyes drifted to the bucket full of scroll sticks. “And you erased it all?”

“All.” Shiro looked into Boreko’s eyes.

“I’m an old man,” Boreko said. “Carry this tray. We will eat in the garden where I will put a listening barrier into place.”

Shiro followed Boreko out his door. They descended cold stone stairways, only inhabited by a few bleary-eyed apprentices, and exited the dormitory building into a garden quadrangle they had never met in before. Here dark interlinking ponds provided fish for the guild. This place of contemplation was unknown to apprentices. Shiro had never seen such beauty on the Guild grounds.

Boreko led him to a bench out in the middle of small raked gravel clearing. His mentor closed his eyes and Shiro could feel a shimmer of magic and then nothing.

“We can speak privately. It’s not unusual for listening barriers in the gardens, but it’s not done in the dormitories. Sometimes being open to observance is a defense against the assumption of more fanciful motives.”

Shiro understood. He couldn’t help but give his mentor half of a smile. The very act of putting up a shield would call attention to their conversation anyway.

Boreko uncovered a big bowl and ladled a helping of chicken soup and threw a handful of rice into his smaller bowl. He ate a few spoonfuls, encouraging Shiro to do the same. “Now what has you so upset?”

“I’m not upset,” Shiro said, his eyes narrowing. How did Boreko know?

“Your face. Your face shows a night spent struggling with unpleasant concepts. Your smile is unusually reluctant to emerge this morning.”

Shiro pursed his lips. He had thought about cynicism before, now he felt immersed in it. “Roppon is not a nice place to live.”

Boreko shrugged, not even pausing while he ate.

“The bureaucracy runs the empire, even the emperor. The Guild enforces the rules of the bureaucracy just as the armed forces of the lords fight futilely for dominance.”

“Wonderful insight. Your thoughts are not for open company, you know. This kind of thinking isn’t supposed to arise until you are too deep in the clutches of the system that you have no choice but to submit to it. You still have lots of choices.”

Boreko’s attitude shocked Shiro. How could he be so blasé about it all? His mentor obviously joined him in his views. “But you aren’t killed!”

“Once I retired from carrying a sword and killing people and breaking things, I decided to show my talent. I had successfully evaded the Guild Test and learned of my power while under Tishima’s command. He had enlisted Mistokko some time before, even though the captain is much younger than I. The Guild needed a new weapons master and Tishima retired to take the post, dragging me along with him. Eleven years ago, I took training as you have. Can you imagine a fifty-year-old apprentice? By then I had mastered how to dissemble. I have retained my mastery.” Boreko smiled wistfully at Shiro. “It’s not an easy existence, knowing that your life supports the Guild. Every sorcerer is a potential assassin. Every order is a command, with failure bringing possible death. Such things don’t happen often, but they do happen.” Boreko clicked his tongue and said, “Not an easy existence at all.” Boreko’s visage turned hard and grim. The happy indulgent mentor had disappeared.

“Can’t you leave?”

Boreko pulled another helping of rice out of his bowl with eating sticks and popped a tiny tomato into his mouth, looking out at the garden. “I could, but I’d be subject to Yushidon’s command at any time. Only a few have truly broken from the Guild. Mistokko could be called to serve any time he puts in at a new destination. As long as he sails his ship from port to port,” Boreko shook his head, “the Guild doesn’t know where he might be. If he settled down in Roppon for any length of time, he’d end up in their clutches. Yushidon is the real power on Roppon, any time if he chooses. He guides the bureaucracy, even though the lords don’t know it. If he wanted to go to war and do something idiotic like invade Besseti, he could.”

Shiro’s breath shortened. The feeling of panic, of desperation grasped his lungs and weakened his legs. He knew the guild acted as a force in the government, but nothing so significant. “So what can I do?”

His question met with another shrug. “My advice still remains the same. Learn as much as you can and be ready for whatever happens. You won’t be assigned to a lord, not being of noble blood. I’m sure the Guild Council doesn’t know what to make of you, yet. Try to keep your head down. Your scroll sticks?”

“What about my sticks…” Shiro understood and nodded. “Rewrite them as the professor would expect them to be.”

Boreko smiled and nodded. “Precisely. You used your talent to read and understand the words. I’ve read that book. The feckless author didn’t realize the truth rested so plainly between the lines that he wrote. You’ve done a wonderful job since all of the nuance that you caught was written in the court tongue.”

Shiro forced down more breakfast. He couldn’t taste a thing in his upset state. “I should have never read it.”

“You didn’t have a choice. Now you have to learn acting. It’s not a class taught at the Guild, but you’ll have to learn to act if you wish to survive. Those who advance to your level of understanding, that do not fit in, disappear either before or during your Final Test.”

The sun broke through the mist and Shiro’s forehead warmed in the light. Generally he’d smile at the first kiss of the sun, but now it only seemed like a fever.

“I have classes. I think I’ll take my time writing the report… perhaps a week. I have enough to think about.”

“Don’t shirk your other duties. I noticed you’ve been assigned to Advanced Affinity. You start next week. Propitious timing don’t you think?” A ghost of a smile slid across Boreko’s face. “Learn. Learn well, my son.”

My son. Boreko had never used that term with him before. It brought tears to Shiro’s eyes. He felt so isolated despite Boreko’s intimate advice.

“I won’t disappoint, Master.” He returned a never-used honorific to his mentor.

Boreko grasped Shiro’s shoulder. “I don’t expect you to. Now go!  I’ll return the tray. I wouldn’t mind a bit of your uneaten portion if you don’t mind.”

An image like a bursting iridescent soap bubble flashed through Shiro’s mind as Boreko broke the listening barrier. Shiro quickly returned to his room. On his way, he passed Roniki scowling at him from a side path in the garden. Boreko had been wise to protect them from unwanted ears.

~~~

Chapter Six

~

S
mugness. That dominated the faces
of those who Shiro passed on his way to the only open seats in Advanced Affinity. He sat on one of the few cushions left. He scowled that it had to be on the front row. The tall spare sorcerer read with his back turned to the students. He turned and sneered at Shiro. Why did Roniki have to teach this class?

Shiro would definitely dampen his talent during this course, but that notion fought with his desire to learn. He squinted at Roniki and brought out his inkpot, brush and scroll sticks from the same kind of bag that all students carried.

“We’ll start our class with a legend about magic on our world of Goriati. Over two thousand years ago, a great wizard-ruler of the entire world created four stones that could collect power to communicate to the four emperors who ruled over each continent. Imagine that, stones that possessed Affinity.

The Moonstone went to the Zarroni Emperor, A Serytari. The Bloodstone served the Overlord of the petty kingdoms on Besseti. The Sunstone—ah, the Sunstone—let our beloved Emperor communicate with the wizard-ruler from Roppon. As for the wizard-ruler, he took the Purestone to his capital in the center of Ayrtani continent.”

“Shiro, do you know what happened from there?”

Did Roniki call on Shiro to expose him as an ignorant farmer? It wouldn’t happen, since the story had been written in the book that he had read the previous week. “The Emperors used their stones to talk to each other. The Besseti Emperor fomented a rebellion.” Shiro knew that wasn’t the true story from the context of subsequent events as inferred by the book’s writer. “The wizard-ruler destroyed his own stone, the Purestone, and cut off the communications. Ayrtani became cursed, cut off from Affinity as a result. We know the story is somewhat true. The Moonstone was in the Zarroni dukedom of Bomai until fifteen or twenty years ago and the Bloodstone has long been the possession of the rulers of the Red Kingdom on Besseti. The Sunstone was forever lost. Ayrtani is certainly cursed without any active nexuses on the continent.”

“So the legend says,” Roniki said. “Good for you Shiro.”

He didn’t think Roniki could bring himself to compliment him, but it seemed genuine.

Roniki turned his back to the class and turned dramatically to face them. “The importance of the warstones is a lie. The Bloodstone and Moonstone are aligned with the nexus, but we have other charms that do the similar things. They are artifacts, but carry no special powers other than to focus Affinity. Emperors and sorcerers alike have sought out the Sunstone. It has never been located in the hundreds of years since the Emperor banned it from Roppon.” Roniki shook his head. “Magic has been part of the fabric of our world for millennia. It is strongest here on Roppon, with nexuses so concentrated on our isles.

“That’s all we need to know. Our power is the strongest and that’s not even in dispute. We’ve never been invaded by foreign powers because of our power and we’ve never bothered to expand our power beyond our isles. Why would we? How can other countries compare to the great traditions of Roppon? It’s all because of our magic. If our magic was ever threatened by this myth,” Roniki snorted, “then we would act. But it is a myth, so we have no reason to look beyond our lands. Our magic makes us strong, not some silly stones.

“In this class you will learn the secrets that only guild members know. When you complete this class, you will be ready for your Final Test.” Roniki waved the thought away, but Shiro looked around and the prospects of the Final Test unnerved them all. Roniki began to talk of the magic of the elements.

Most Ropponi magic came from the earth. However, as Mistokko demonstrated and taught Shiro, one could harness the air to create winds. Because of the rarity of that talent, those who exhibit Affinity to the air were assigned as wind masters to ships.

Despite Roniki’s self-assurance, Shiro knew the man merely spouted Guild dogma. The books and scrolls that Shiro had gone through contained the same ideas, but not as absolute fact. The other apprentices gobbled up all of Roniki’s words and took them to heart.

Occasionally, Shiro had thought about the prospects of becoming a respected sorcerer and this class showed him that it would not happen. Not due to his lack of Affinity, but because he doubted if he possessed the political skills to change his peers’ dogmatic views. A culling looked more and more like a release from all of this madness. He’d have to have some frank discussions with Boreko.

Shiro did his best to restrain his magic until the third week of class. All exercises were done on a practice yard where benches were set up fifteen feet apart. A student asked Roniki why fifteen feet?

Roniki never smiled at Shiro, he sneered. This time he gave Shiro an evil grin as he walked to the center of the practice yard.

“Why fifteen feet of separation? Let me tell you a story. Once there was a tradesman in a remote village. No sorcerers served anywhere near this village. The young man married soon after his Affinity blossomed. He never knew he had power, so he kept up with his trade. His wife bore him children, but as his work became extraordinary through his power, his family’s health worsened.” Roniki paused for effect and then turned and pierced Shiro with his gaze. “It became so bad that his wife died and his children died, leaving the poor man alone. In despair he killed himself when sorcerers finally tested him and found him with Affinity. Magic kills those around you, students. It can kill all around you, until you learn a few tricks that I will show you.”

Silence darkened the practice yard as if thick clouds had rolled in. Roniki walked past Shiro and said quietly, “Do you need a suitable length of rope to hang yourself for what you have done, farmer?”

Shiro’s mouth dropped open. He recoiled from the sheer malice of his professor. The shock that Roniki observed wasn’t the devastation from the revelation of why his family died, but the astonishment that the man held Shiro in such contempt. He’d done nothing to merit such intense hatred.

“Now, for your last assignment of the day, I want you to raise your benches, turn them over and put them top down on the ground,” Roniki said.

Most of the apprentices could easily levitate the benches, but turning them over ended up a challenge for all as the benches began crashing to the ground. None were able to do as Roniki asked.

Shiro’s anger at Roniki thinned his control. He took a deep breath after a few moments. After the others had finished, he used his power to throw his bench high above the rooftops of the Guild and twirl the bench as it descended stopping a few inches from the ground before being gently lowered the rest of the way. For Shiro, it had been as easy as doing it with his physical body.

Roniki’s face reddened as Shiro turned to him. “Assignment complete,” Shiro said as he gave his instructor a bow and left the practice ground without another word.

~

“Not a prudent move, Shiro,” Boreko said that evening. “Word of your demonstration is now on the tongues of every sorcerer and apprentice. The levitation is not unusual, but the control of bringing the bench down and lowering slowly to the ground.” Boreko shook his head. “That’s sorcerer level.”

“Eighth level or higher? That’s what Mistokko said.”

Boreko laughed. “How would Mistokko know? He wouldn’t know an eighth level sorcerer from a fish dead for a few weeks. Your lowest sorcerer level is a five. Mistokko would be rated as a fifth level sorcerer because he’d never really been trained after graduating. His Affinity to air might bump him up to a six since he can levitate using air. As for me, I’m a hard-earned eight. So is Tishima. Training increases your rating. I don’t really know where you fall. Twelve? Fifteen?  Theoretically, the levels go all the way to twenty. I would say maybe there are no level fifteens in existence. No more. Yushidon is a twelve. Roniki is probably a level ten. Council members must at least demonstrate a level ten competence, but levels are not something politely discussed.

“Your talent is so raw, yet so easily learned. You learned to levitate yourself using air on board the Wicked Wind. Initial levitation at the Guild is taught by repelling the power in the earth. The control—”

“You mentioned the control and sorcerer level.”

Boreko nodded. “Learning control like you displayed generally takes years of study. Only the most promising apprentices are able to do what Roniki asked after some help from their mentors. Most of the rest will spend the rest of the course mastering that exercise as well as a few others that I am sure you can do with a few hours practice, if that much. It took Mistokko years before he could levitate as you did on your first try.”

“If he only hadn’t told my story.”

“What about your story?”

Shiro took a deep breath. “He provoked me. In front of the whole class, he told my story. He termed me a tradesman, but we both knew whose story it was. He described how my magic came to me after I married and how I killed my family. In his version, I despaired so deeply that I took my own life. He asked, as he passed by me, if he could supply the rope to hang myself.”

Boreko blinked his eyes in astonishment. “Oh. I didn’t think his jealousy ruled him so much as to hurt you out of such sheer malice.”

“Jealousy? You said jealousy?”

His mentor took a deep breath. “The power that you possess only comes once every few generations to those born into noble families. If you were noble, you would certainly be on a path to vie for the position of Guildmaster after Yushidon retires. I am not supposed to tell you that. Roniki has designs on that position. He’ll never get it, of course. A man that ambitious attracts enemies like flies, but still, he is on the Council and you aren’t. Although the Council doesn’t hate you like Roniki does, it would never let a farmer lead them. You lack the political skills, Shiro.”

Shiro wondered about his parents. “I’ve already come to that conclusion. Perhaps my mother was noble. My parents came from Boriako.”

They both sighed. “No one would know now, Shiro,” Boreko said. “You grew up in a remote village and have no ability to prove your lineage. It doesn’t matter at this point whose blood flows through your veins, my son.”

Boreko grasped Shiro’s hand. “Another thing between us, Shiro? Don’t repeat today’s performance. It is vital that you control yourself. Roniki will think he has devastated you. Act that way. Show him that you are sorry for yourself. Show him despair. Use that as the excuse that you performed so well. That would be the kind of victory that Roniki seeks. Give it to him, all the while soaking in his instruction. Despite it all, he knows as much about magic instruction as any in the Guild. Learn it so at some later time, if the circumstances arise, you can use it against him. Of course, you didn’t hear me say that either, did you?” Boreko winked at Shiro and shoved him in the shoulder.

“I’ve been deeply disturbed that I killed my family from the moment that Mistokko inadvertently told me, but that is my fault and no one else’s. It doesn’t move me to kill myself, but I will always regret losing my wife and children. It will always tear at my heart.”  Shiro found that Roniki had, indeed, re-opened up the wound that would never heal.

~

Desiku led Shiro to a far corner of the practice yard with two wooden practice swords under his arm. “I know you practiced arms with a certain seaman who knows how to augment his technique. I want to know how much he taught you.” He tossed a sword to Shiro and then assumed a fighting stance. “Show me your best.”

Shiro hadn’t handled a sword since he started weapons training. He stepped back to perform a few quick forms to loosen up. Desiku stayed in his position. He didn’t know Desiku’s technique, but he assumed it would be better than Mistokko’s. He frantically sought the memories of what the captain had told him and remembered one of the keys was to exercise restraint.

The whirlwind of attack from his opponent took Shiro by surprise, but his power gave him endurance, while he successfully fought off the onslaught. Slash, parry, slash parry, and slide to the right, dance to his left. The match took on a rhythm of it own. The focus came and Shiro’s actions both physical and magically enhanced became automatic. He made sure that he sipped power to maintain his strength and wind as the match progressed.

Shiro vaguely became aware of silence in the practice yard. He heard Tishima yell close by and, thinking the comments might be for him, he paused. Desiku took advantage of Shiro’s momentary distraction to give him a hard blow on his wrist. The sword flew to the ground and Shiro stared at Desiku, ashamed in defeat, and bowed.

With the match over, Shiro looked back at the practice yard. All of the students had gathered to watch their match. Not a word had been spoken and perhaps Tishima had reproved a student for speaking. It didn’t matter. Shiro put his defeat down as a question that he had yet to find a solution for. How did one maintain focus and still have an awareness of the surroundings? If he had fought in something other than a duel, an outside player could have killed him without Shiro’s awareness.

He bowed again to Desiku. Tishima spoke to his students. “Now you might understand why Shiro learned other weapons than the sword? He fought my assistant for more than five minutes to a draw. Of course, Desiku prevailed, but who of you would have? Take this as an example of what level of expertise you seek. Go on now, practice the focus that you saw Shiro, our farmer, display.”