The Talented (21 page)

“
I wish I could figure out
how to become aware of my surroundings more consistently,” Adrienne
told her. “I hate that it can be so unreliable.”

“
You’re probably
over-thinking the whole thing,” Louella told her. “Quit trying so
hard, and it will happen.”

••••••

After an hour of trying
and failing to achieve the deep level of Oneness she had first
experienced in Ben’s office, Adrienne left her small room at the
inn and crossed the square to the building where the commission met
and Ben lived, though neither were part of her destination
today.

Today she was interested
only in the library.

The library in Kessering
was vast, much larger than Adrienne would have expected of such a
small city. Most of the books were organized in an orderly fashion,
and there was a man who worked in the library who kept track of
where the books were and what could be found in them. It was an
amazing skill that Adrienne thought could probably rival Ben’s
Talent. Yet when it came to the older books that were kept on the
lower levels, the librarian had little knowledge.

Her Talent continued to
allude her, and both Pieter and Louella had duties that took up
much of their time, so Adrienne had taken to haunting the library
rather than sitting in her room or wandering streets filled with
people who feared her. She stuck to the areas that held the oldest
books, hoping to find another book or journal that referenced the
abilities she was trying so hard to develop. Ben had shown her a
few others, but they were all written after Asmov’s journal, when
Talents were already fading into the things of story and legend.
Surely Asmov’s journal could not truly be the best
reference.

So far she had found no
mention of Talents or anything that might relate to them, but
something else had caught her interest the last time she was in the
library. The books that she had pulled out were written in Old
Samaroan, and she doubted anyone had picked them up in decades
except perhaps to dust them off every decade or so, but to her they
were infinitely more interesting than any of the newer books. They
predated the rift between Samaro and Almet, but something about the
writing suggested that tension had been brewing between the two
countries even then.

There was a table down at
this lower level, long-forgotten but still solid, and Adrienne had
piled books on it. She had brought candles with her, as the
torchlight was too dim to read by, and she picked up the first
book. It was something of a journal, but it was written in a
different style than Asmov’s had been. This journal, though
personal, was more focused. It did not contain the wild anecdotes
and tangents that Asmov’s had. Instead, it seemed to have been
written by the personal servant of one of the Fuiron princes, and
focused almost entirely around political events and other things
that the writer had deemed important on a large scale. The writer
had seemed more interested in chronicling events than capturing his
own thoughts, and despite the fact that the dialect was different
from what Adrienne was used to, she was interested enough to work
through it.

There are rumors coming
out of Almet that are troubling. Prince Zuka has confided in me
that his father is worried, but that the king would not tell him
why. It is not my place to ask, or to try to out-guess the prince,
but I suspect it has something to do with the slaves. One of the
girls went missing the other day, and there were more questions
asked about it than is usual for a runaway slave girl of little
consequence.

I mentioned this to my
uncle, and he reminded me of the slave uprising some months ago in
Almet. It is amazing to me that slaves would rise up and cause the
damage that is said to have occurred as a result, and I expressed
my concerns, but he said that it is unlikely to happen here. The
Almetians are said to treat their slaves like animals, which is no
doubt the reason for the uprising and consequent damage.

I tried to ask my uncle
more in hopes of satiating my curiosity about why there would be so
much interest in the disappearance of one young slave, but he told
me not to ask so many questions. He reminded me that it is not our
place to wonder why our betters do what they do, but instead to
serve.

I will listen for more
clues from Prince Zuka, however. I do not always plan to be a
servant, and knowledge could make all the difference.

Adrienne had never read a
text that explicitly talked about a time when Samaro still had
slaves. It was strange to read of it, and to think that people had
compared the practices of how two countries had treated their
slaves and found one side favorable, when to Adrienne the practice
itself was abominable. She wondered how long after this journal
entry slavery in Samaro had been abolished, and put the journal
into a pile to be read further. She opened another book, and found
that it seemed to be a history. The language was formal, not the
dialect of an intelligent servant, and the words were drier, but it
was the content that had her narrowing her eyes in
concentration.

King Ignatio Fuiron
decided today, the sixty-seventh day of the eighteenth year of his
rein, to confront King Eunice Bell of Almet about the armies
amassing just north of the border. The armies are said to number
upwards of ten thousand, and some reports say that the soldiers
seem to be afflicted by a terrible plague. Three pigeons have been
sent to the Almetian king to arrange for a meeting, and a rider has
gone out as well, should the pigeons fail to reach their
destination.

There is speculation that
the armies are linked to the figure the common people are calling
the Dark Mage, and that is the matter that King Fuiron will discuss
with King Bell at their meeting. At this time, who or what the Dark
Mage is remains uncertain, but there has been an unusual amount of
migration from Almet into Samaro, a large number of them escaped
slaves. This has resulted in King Fuiron temporarily suspending the
law that all Almetian slaves are to be returned to Almet if they
are found and captured until such time that he can discover the
reason for the mass escape.

Rumors that those close to
the Dark Mage die in high numbers are unconfirmed but will be
addressed by King Fuiron.

It is believed at this
time that the Dark Mage is a separate entity from the ruling body
of Almet, and King Fuiron has expressed his belief that the
situation will be resolved peacefully between the two
nations.

The name Ignatio Fuiron
was vaguely familiar as one of the Fuiron rulers, but it was not
that which had her frowning. She had never heard of the Dark Mage
before, and despite her schooling on the conflict between Samaro
and Almet, she had never heard of Almet raising armies before the
rift between the two countries had formed.

She set that book aside
with the page’s journal and began looking through the other books
for more mention of Ignatio or the Dark Mage. She was just setting
aside the third book which seemed unlikely to yield anything
interesting when she heard footsteps coming toward her. She looked
up and saw Ben coming around the corner, a look of consternation on
his face.

“
What are you doing down
here?” he asked in a tone that was dangerously close to
accusatory.

“
Reading.”

“
No one reads these books,”
Ben said. “They’re written in Old Samaroan.”

Adrienne didn’t bother to
sigh or to point out—again—that she could read Old Samaroan as well
as any scholar, perhaps better than some after all of her study in
the library basement. “I wanted to see if anything else was written
about the Talented—about people with abilities,” she clarified. For
some reason she did not fully understand, she was reluctant to tell
Ben about what she was finding in the histories. She did not know
if he knew anything about the Dark Mage, but something kept her
from asking.

And the lie was true
enough. It was one of the reasons she had come back to this section
in the first place, though it was no longer the driving force
behind her study.

“
There’s nothing else down
here,” Ben told her. “The commission looked through all the books
before we began training anyone.” He picked up the book she had
just put down and thumbed through it. “And this book is too recent
for mention of abilities anyway.”

“
I didn’t realize,”
Adrienne said, though she had known that any mention of the Fuirons
would have postdated the original Talented by centuries. “Maybe
I’ll see if I can find some older books.” She would rather let him
believe the lie than explain the truth.

It was clear that Ben
thought that was a waste of time, but he didn’t say anything. He
was probably grateful that she wasn’t out threatening people in the
streets. “Fine,” he said. “Just put the books back when you’re
finished.”

When Ben had left,
Adrienne opened up another book, scanning for mention of slaves,
Zuka, Ignatio, or the Dark Mage. She saw fragments here and there,
oblique mentions of the situation that seemed to be building. These
books, like many others written at the time, had not been written
for reading by someone unfamiliar with the what was happening at
the time. There were no introductions or explanations to what was
written, and Adrienne was forced to make inferences about events
that had taken place nearly a millennia ago.

She flipped a page in a
book that seemed promising and a folded piece of paper fell out.
The paper was yellow and fragile along the lines it had been
folded, but it held together. She moved it into better light, but
was stumped by what she saw.

The language was not
Samaroan, Common or Old. It was strange to her, with only the
vaguest similarities between it and Old Samaroan. Yet it had been
tucked away in this book, and Adrienne could not ignore the feeling
that it could be the key to understanding what she was
reading.

She gently placed it back
between two pages of the book and reached for another book on the
stack. She would come back to it later.

••••••

The edges of the sword
were razor sharp and pierced the skin of Adrienne’s thumb when just
the slightest pressure was applied. Adrienne grunted in approval as
she stuck her thumb in her mouth to remove the blood before she
began to test the balance of the newly forged weapon. She swung the
blade around, testing the resistance, the heft and range of
motion.

It felt as comfortable in
her hands as her own sword.

Adrienne whipped around
and swung the blade deep into the trunk of an old stump. She pulled
it out, and it came as smooth as silk from the tough wood without
any catching or binding. The strange bluish metal was unblemished,
the edges still just as sharp. It was perfect.

“
Hmm,” she said, examining
it once more, narrowing her eyes and looking for the slightest sign
of weakness, the slightest imperfection in the long
blade.

“
You won’t need to sharpen
it,” Pieter told her in his deep voice, breaking into her careful
inspection of his work.

“
Ever?” She looked up into
the brown eyes of the blacksmith who had come to be her friend over
the weeks since their introduction.

Pieter shrugged his heavy
shoulders. “I never had to sharpen one of my blades yet,” he said.
“Not since I started using my Talent, anyway. The whet stone does
no more to it than that old stump did.”

Adrienne ran her fingers
up and down the smooth face of the sword blade. Despite the color,
which had made her doubtful at first, it was a beautiful sword,
perfectly balanced, and apparently indestructible. She looked into
Pieter’s watchful brown eyes. “It’s incredible,” she said
honestly.

“
I’m glad you like it,”
Pieter told her.

Adrienne liked and
respected professional pride, and had no trouble offering praise
where it was due. “The sword I have now was a gift on my fifteenth
birthday, when I was officially acknowledged as a soldier. It was
forged by one of the finest swordsmiths in Samaro.” She examined
the blue tinged blade once again. Pieter had told her the color was
due to the fact that he had used his Talent to forge the weapon,
and that the color came along with the other special qualities his
Talent lent to his work. “This sword is as good.”

“
Better,” Louella argued,
crossing her arms over her breasts.

Adrienne would not know
that until she had used the sword against a proper opponent, but
she did not argue the fact. If Pieter’s Talent had manifested in
such an incredible way that he could forge a remarkable sword with
no prior practice, she was content to be happy with that and
welcome whatever surprises might accompany it.

“
Well, this sword is also a
gift to you, as you are nearly one of us now,” Pieter
said.

Adrienne had hardly dared
to hope that the sword would be hers, although he had used her old
sword as a model, but now that he was offering the weapon to her
she did not think she could accept it. “This weapon would sell for
a small fortune,” Adrienne protested. “I can’t accept something of
this worth.”

“
I have money,” Pieter
said. “And I don’t want to sell it. Besides, I was thinking of you
as I created it. It won’t work as well for anyone else as it will
for you.”