The Book of Deacon (46 page)

"So, now I just practice until I feel ready
to take some final test," she said.

"Indeed. You will be getting a flute and a
tune to learn, as well. It doesn't take a prodigy to figure out
what you will be doing with them for the final test," he said.

"I suppose I will be doing a hands-free
performance," she said.

"Right you are," he said.

The pair finished and left the hut. Myn came
trotting up and wedged herself between Myranda and Deacon.

"And where were you? I was attacked and you
were nowhere to be found!" Myranda said, jokingly.

The dragon shot a vicious look at Deacon and
pounced him to the ground.

"No, no! Not him. He didn't attack me!"
Myranda said, pulling the creature off of her friend.

"Well, it would seem that she has gained a
fairly firm understanding of the language," Deacon said, accepting
a helping hand from Myranda.

The creature gave Myranda a questioning
stare. She clearly was awaiting the identity of the real
attacker.

"Well, I am not going to tell you who really
did it because I don't want you to get me in any more trouble,"
Myranda said.

"And thank you so much for assuming I was the
guilty one. I have got to find some way to get on your good side,"
Deacon said. "I am going to start bringing you gifts."

"Well, I don't face Lain again until sundown,
with nothing to do until then," Myranda said.

"I wouldn't recommend doing anything mystic.
Something too strenuous could certainly bring that angry
expenditure back more quickly," Deacon warned.

Little did Myranda know, Myn had made the
decision for her. She sprinted off to nearest building and
scampered to the rooftop. By the time Myranda noticed she had gone,
she was already in the air. Myranda scarcely had the time to brace
herself for impact before the beast collided with her.

An afternoon of doing so left her fairly
bruised, and bleeding here and there from where Myn had gotten a
bit careless with her claws. It was nonetheless an entertaining
time, and a few moments of a healing spell wiped away the
consequences, save a bit of fatigue of both mind and body.

Lain was waiting, as always, when she
approached him.

"I am sorry, Lain. I had a rather rough time
of it today. I may not be at my best," she said.

"All the better. I can think of few times
that I have been fully rested when I have been expected to defend
myself," he said, tossing her the staff. "Now, prepare
yourself."

It was her worst showing since she began. His
blows were on target constantly. On the off-chance that she managed
to block a shot, the force of it threw her off balance. Several
times, she lost her footing and nearly fell into a handful of
blows. Thankfully, Lain's reflexes were swift enough for the two of
them, and he pulled the weapon away in time. By the time Lain felt
she had done enough, Myranda was on the edge of unconsciousness.
The outburst she'd had earlier had most certainly made its cost
known.

"I sincerely hope that you improve your
off-peak performance, or you will fall swiftly in a real battle,"
he said.

"I will work on it," she managed as she
trudged off, Myn keeping a watchful eye on the teetering girl.

She made it back to her hut and fairly
collapsed on the bed. With no sunrise appointment with an
unpleasant teacher, her sleep was doubly deep. No nightmare came,
only the dark, dreamless sleep of pure exhaustion.

#

Myranda was awakened by Myn, rather than the
other way 'round, several hours later than she was accustomed to
rising. Deacon hunted her down during breakfast and provided her
with the flute and music that Ayna had called for. It was a simple
reed flute, and the tune seemed easy enough. After spending a bit
of time practicing, she felt sure she would be able to master it
before long.

Myn was still eager to make her practice
flights, and seemed to feel that without a teacher to steal away
her valuable time, Myranda would be free to act as a landing pad
for the whole of the day. The girl tried to enlist Deacon in
distracting the dragon so that she could spend some time at work on
her wind magic with little success. He brought a few fresh fish and
the rarest of rare, a piece of red meat that he would not
relinquish the origin of. The dragon snubbed them, choosing to eat
them only when Myranda offered them. None were enticing enough to
eat out of his hands.

A compromise was struck when Myranda aided
the dragon in practicing her soaring by providing a constant breeze
to fill her wings. Without a tyrannical teacher pushing her to her
limit, the girl was able to cut her training off while she still
had the clarity of mind to give Lain a real challenge. She found
that predicting his attacks early enough to deflect them required
nearly the presence of mind that magic did.

The next few days passed in much the same
way, and were the most pleasant in recent memory. She found that
her skill with wind was growing at about the same speed as Myn's
flight prowess. At the end of the first week, the dragon could stay
aloft for over an hour, and Myranda felt only the slightest strain
in helping her do so. Deacon had not yet found the item that would
win Myn over, and was running out of ideas.

The least improvement came in her time with
Lain. Over the course of her time with him, she had managed to earn
only a single question, a question so hard-won, she could not bring
herself to ask it. With only two questions, she would only be able
to whet her thirst for knowledge.

While Myranda was having trouble convincing
Myn to allow her to practice her flute-playing one day, Deacon
arrived with a dusty bag.

"What have you got there?" Myranda asked.

"I have tried everything at my disposal that
a dragon might like and Myn still ignores or attacks me. Things
have become somewhat desperate. Thus, I've ventured into the garden
and selected one of each vegetable. Not much to appeal to a
carnivore, but it is my last chance," he said.

While Myn was reluctant to treat Deacon with
anything less than suspicion, she did get a bit curious each day
when he brought around the latest round of gifts to reject. One by
one, he offered carrots and celery and onions. Not surprisingly,
the dragon sniffed once or twice and swatted them away. However,
when Deacon pulled a large potato from the bag, she sniffed with a
bit more interest, and finally took it from his hand, eating
eagerly.

"Potatoes?" the pair said confusedly.

When the beast looked up and rooted around in
the bag for another, he knew he had found his way into her
heart.

"Very well, then, only I give her potatoes.
She already likes you, I'm the one that needs help," he said to
Myranda before turning to address the creature directly. "And as
for you. For every day you don't hit me, I'll give you one of
those. Agreed?"

Myn seemed to be in reluctant agreement as
she licked her lips a few times and sniffed and licked at his hands
in a far gentler way than he was accustomed to. The pleasant moment
was cut short by a voice that they had been mercifully free from
for the past two weeks.

"How lovely, the animals are getting along,"
Ayna said.

"Well, what brings you this far from your
safe haven?" Deacon asked.

"I have been hearing the elegy wafting
through the air with steadily decreasing inaccuracy. It sounds to
me that the time of the final test is near," she said with a
smile.

"As I recall, you were eager to postpone that
date by no less than a year. Why the sudden change of heart?"
Deacon asked.

"I am entitled to test my pupil when I have
brought her to the proper level of knowledge," she said.

"Are you certain I am ready?" Myranda
said.

"Reasonably. If not now, then in a few days.
Certainly before the week is out," she said.

"Oh, I see. She will be ready before four
weeks are up. That is the amount of time that she took to complete
Solomon's training," Deacon said.

"What a coincidence! Well, the performance of
a student speaks well of the teacher, doesn't it? It would be a
shame to see that dragon's name alongside hers in the history books
without mine above it," Ayna said.

"So you are willing to treat her with the
respect she deserves when you have something to gain from it,"
Deacon said.

"If you wish to view it that way, you may.
Oh, and, Myranda, my dear, be well-rested when you come to take the
test. I expect to break more than one record with your help," Ayna
said, slipping away.

"What do you suppose that means?" Myranda
said.

"Well, the air test is largely up to the
discretion of the teacher--more so than most, traditionally. It
also tends to be the easiest. I have a feeling that Ayna's
intention is to end that tendency, thus forcing you into a
record-setting performance that she can claim responsibility for.
It is her first real Master exam; she can always claim that it was
her intention to make the more difficult test the standard for all
of her students," Deacon said.

"Wonderful," Myranda said flatly.

"You have certainly been bringing about the
most inexplicable events since your arrival. However unpleasant it
may be for you, it is at least refreshing for the rest of us,"
Deacon offered.

"At least there is that," she said, with a
heavy sigh.

After a bit more practice to assure that she
was prepared to play the tune, at least, Myranda decided that if
this test were to have a similar effect on her as the last, she had
best put forth a considerable effort to earn a few more questions
of Lain. It would be her last opportunity for a number of days.

Deacon hurried off to secure as many potatoes
as he could while Myranda and Myn headed to the designated place
for training. Upon her arrival, Lain offered his usual pointers and
critiques of her previous performance in lieu of greeting.

"You continue to focus entirely on my weapon
while defending. You must be aware of the whole of my body. My feet
may be the furthest thing from a threat to you, but they tend to be
the greatest indicator of where my next attack will fall," he said,
tossing her weapon to her.

"I may not be able to meet you for a few
days. I will be having my examination in wind magic tomorrow," she
said.

"Very well," he said. "Prepare yourself."

Myranda paused. He had begun each of the
sessions since they began with that simple phrase. Each day, she
disregarded it as a simple warning that battle was about to begin.
Perhaps it was the impending test that Ayna had sprung upon her,
but when the words reached her ears this time, they seemed to take
on a different meaning. After all, Lain had recently revealed
himself to be a man of few words. It was unlike him to speak a
phrase so frequently for nothing. Perhaps she should prepare
herself as she would for one of her mystic sessions. Each day, she
found more and more parallels between battle and magic; it stood to
reason that this was but another. She took a moment to gather her
mind. When she was focused, she opened her eyes and took her
stance.

Lain's attack flashed in with its usual
speed. She shifted her staff and knocked it away. His weight
shifted as his weapon returned. A slight re-angling of the wooden
blade betrayed his next target. Myranda quickly placed the staff
between herself and the strike. His weapon pulled back with
incredible speed. It was this third strike, regardless of its
origin, that seemed to be far too swift to react to. In her focused
state of mind, though, her thoughts could match the speed of the
motion, and even get a step ahead. From his position, there was
only one way to offer a reasonable offensive. She pulled herself
away from the likely target and thrust her weapon toward it with as
much speed as she could muster. The staff collided with the
blade.

Slowly the blade withdrew and Lain looked
upon her with satisfaction. She had succeeded in blocking
adequately only once before, and it was clear even to her that it
was more through blind luck than skill. This had been different.
She had found her way to the block through careful observation.
Without another word, Lain attacked again. She blocked the first
two blows and reduced the third to a grazing one at best. By the
time the session had ended, she had earned no less than a
half-dozen questions, sometimes stringing more than six blocks in a
row. These new questions, added to the two she'd saved, would put a
few of her curiosities well and truly to rest.

"Eight questions. I shall ask them now," she
said, catching her breath.

"As you wish," he said, gathering the
practice weapons and heading to his hut to replace them. "But be
warned. Your third level of training will begin with our next
session. It will be by far the most difficult for you," he
said.

"I had imagined as much," she said.

She pondered for a moment over how best to
spend the first of her hard-earned questions. One thought pressed
its way past all others.

"I have been told that you first came to this
place, and spent a number of years here, over seventy years ago.
Now I don't know anything about your kind, but were I to venture a
guess, I wouldn't place you at a day past thirty. What's more, my
grandmother used to tell me tales of the Red Shadow when I was a
little girl. As far as I can tell, you have been active for easily
one hundred years. How can that be?" she asked.

"I cannot answer that. I truly do not know,"
he said.

"Well, if you cannot answer the question,
allow me to rephrase it," she said. "How long have you been alive?
How old are you really?"

"I am not certain of that either. The only
age I can offer you is that of the Red Shadow legend. His first
victim fell just over one hundred-fifteen years ago. I cannot be
sure of the number of years that passed between that day and my
birth, and I doubt that there exists anyone that can offer any
information to that end," he said.