Part 7 (1/2)
His last words were on the dry side, as was his glance in my direction. He hadn't enjoyed my calling him a barbarian, and was trying to make me feel ashamed.”Oh, good, another prince,” I remarked, wanting him to see how much good his attempt at shaming had done. ”Just what we needed around here.”
”Prince Ijarin isn't just another prince,” Fearin corrected mildly while the barbarian looked at me with no amus.e.m.e.nt whatsoever. ”He's a Crown Prince, and if I'm not mistaken also a follower of the G.o.ddess Istiel. I've heard that those dedicated to Istiel are invisible to other G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses. Do you know if that's true, Prince Ijarin?”
”It's what I've been told,” the barbarian said with a shrug. ”Since I've never spoken to any other G.o.ds or G.o.ddesses I can't confirm or deny it. And yes, I am dedicated to Istiel.”
”Well, then let me present you to the others of our group,” Fearin said with a very suspicious heartiness. ”After that you'll have to excuse us while we confer about the conquest we just made, but you'll be welcome to join us for dinner tonight. If you don't need to leave immediately, that is.”
”No, I have no immediate plans,” he answered with a bland smile that wasn't quite sent in my direction. ”Dinner tonight with all of you will be fine.”
”Good,” Fearin said, then he took a moment to direct a drying spell toward Ranander and me as well as our new guest before beginning the introductions with Lokkel. The Healing Master sat in a chair between Talasin and Garam, who were introduced together to avoid any damaged feelings. Ranander came after those two and then Fearin himself. I, who of all of them should have been left out of it, was dragged in last. The barbarian had been very cool and formal with Garam, but didn't seem interested in treating me the same.
”So you're a Kenoss,” he said with brows raised, but no sense of surprise in those very blue eyes. ”That explains a lot of things. Looking at you, I wouldn't have guessed.”
”There are a lot of things about me it isn't possible to guess by looking,” I said, drawing my now-dry and mudless feet up to the left in my chair. ”A wise man would understand he would be wasting his time trying.”
”I'm told that wisdom comes with age,” he returned, giving me a polite smile. ”I guess I'll just have to wait. And speaking of waiting, Master Fearin, do you have some place for me to wait while you and the others confer?”
”I'll have some of the guards take you to an empty apartment,” Fearin responded at once, gesturing toward the door his guest had come in by. ”If you need anything, just let one of them know.”
The barbarian nodded to the rest of us before going along with Fearin, and we didn't have to wait long before the man of Power was back. He returned with a deep thoughtfulness to his expression and stride, and finally looked up to find us all staring at him.
”You seem to have proved he can't be one of us,” Garam said for the entire group, working to sound moderately polite. ”If you're keeping him around because you want a pet, I've always found dogs to be superior to barbarians.”
”He has a tie here that could very well make him extremely useful to us,” Fearin said with faint distraction. ”I'll have to find out if my feelings are in line with what's wanted, but I don't expect to be disagreed with. If he joins us for reasons of his own, his being invisible in the sight of all G.o.ds but his own could be worked to our definite advantage.”
”But only if that tie encourages him to stay, something she won't be doing,” I said, annoyed enough to make the statement in front of everyone. ”I don't like him and I don't want him anywhere near me.”
”If someone else disagrees with you, you'll have to learn to like him,” Fearin said, all distraction gone from the blue eyes that held to me. ”And there's something more to this, something you aren't mentioning. Why is he being so persistent? Does he imagine himself in love with you?”
”Hardly,” I said to the accompaniment of Garam's snort of ridiculing laughter. ”I'm not the sort to inspire men to feelings like that. Other feelings, yes; that sort, no.”
”Then why did he tell me you're looking too gaunt to be really healthy?” Fearin countered.”He said he'd take it as a personal favor if I was able to fatten you up a little.”
”The answer's perfectly obvious,” I said, keeping my expression straight. ”He has a weakness for fat women, and hopes that once you make me one he'll then fall in love with me. Barbarians are like that, I understand.”
”That's very amusing,” Fearin said, showing nothing of amus.e.m.e.nt himself while ignoring the chuckling from most of the others. ”You're saying you don't know why he's here, and have no interest or intention of finding out. I'll be checking that point later on as well, and if someone else wants you to find out I think you will.”
Having threatened me with Diin-tha I thought Fearin was finally ready to get on with our reason for being together, but I was wrong.
”And since we're on the subject, I'm told that Prince Ijarin isn't the only one to notice how badly you're doing with eating,” Fearin continued. ”I want to see you fill up a plate and start eating, and I want to see you do it now.”
”Do you,” I said, beginning to get really angry, but then a thought occurred to me. A want for a want ought to work, and then the waiting would be over. ”Well, I'm prepared to do just as you asked - if I first have your word that at the end of this meeting everyone will be told exactly what happened last night in the Guest Pavilion. Do we have a deal?”
He hesitated as he studied me, thoughts chasing each other around behind his eyes, and then he nodded.
”All right, it's a deal,” he agreed. ”You have my word, so the next thing you'll have is a meal.
Do it now, so we can get on with this meeting.”
He actually waited until I got up, filled a plate with the still-fresh food, and then returned to my chair. The others were watching us both with interest, curiosity, and lack of understanding, but no one said or asked anything. They seemed to feel they could wait, and didn't yet know how right they were.
As soon as I was seated again Fearin began to talk about what had already been done in the city, and then he got to what still needed doing. In two days half our troops would be started off early toward our next objective, and later on the rest of us would follow. The city and its people had to be a settled issue by then, no excuses and no mistakes.
I let the talk swirl around me without really listening, giving most of my attention to the food I was actually almost enjoying. In a very short while everyone would know the truth about me, and then all the friendliness and concern would be over. I would be back to the position I was destined to be in for the rest of my life, and that would be that.
”... have Ranander examine them first thing tomorrow,” Fearin was saying to Talasin as I put my emptied plate aside. ”As soon as he tells you a group of men are being truthful about their willingness to be loyal to us, have them moved out of confinement and merged into our army.
They'll march with the first group, and no more than three of them will be a.s.signed together.”
Talasin nodded without looking up, his hands and eyes busy with the notes he made on a rough piece of paper with a cloth-covered bit of charcoal. Garam also had notes which he was already studying, but Ranander and Lokkel had none. When Fearin had said something to Lokkel about healing those of the city we needed for a specific purpose, Lokkel had simply nodded.
”All right, that should cover it for now,” Fearin said, turning away from Talasin. All the rest of us were sitting but the High Master had stayed on his feet. ”Tomorrow I'll need your services, Aelana, or sooner if the rain should stop. One of the Chief Administrator's people escaped our net, and has to be hiding in the city. I need that man, so you'll have to find him.”
I took my own turn at nodding, realizing that Fearin had done some research into my abilities as he'd said he would. Once the rain stopped I should be able to find his fugitive, and that no matter where the man was hiding.
”Wouldn't it be more effective if I a.s.signed men to quarter the city in a regular search pattern?” Garam asked, back to frowning at me. ”As a former slave she may know most of the bolt holes there are, but we have no guarantee the man is in one of them. After all, he wasn't aslave.”
”That has nothing to do with why Aelana will be the one leading the search,” Fearin answered, finally going to an empty chair to Garam's left and my right and dropping into it. Ranander now sat between us, and was suddenly paying even more attention than he had been. ”It has to do with Aelana's abilities, which it now seems time to discuss. I'll want some of your men going with her, Prince Garam, but she'll be in charge.”
Garam nodded automatically, his frown still with him, his eyes, like everyone else's, directly on me. It was finally time, and I suddenly wished Fearin would hurry up and get it over with.
”I'm sure you heard it mentioned at our last gathering that Aelana is Shadowborn,” Fearin said, apparently more than ready to grant my wish. ”Even I didn't know precisely what that meant, but ever since I've been finding out. A little here, a little there... ”
He let the words trail off very briefly, making me think he'd changed his mind, but he was apparently only taking some care in choosing his next words.
”I still don't know anything like all of it, but here's what I've gotten so far,” he went on after the short pause. ”There are a people called the Inadni, who centuries ago began to a.s.sociate themselves with the Kenossi. All Kenossi young are called Life Seekers, and they're trained from infancy to compete against one another for the privilege of life. They're tested every year at a different level, and those who haven't learned their lessons well enough don't survive the testing. At p.u.b.erty the children take the hardest test of all, and if they survive they're accepted as adult Kenossi and allowed to reproduce themselves.”
Talasin and Lokkel looked at me as though needing verification of what had been said, but I didn't understand why. Fearin had been accurate enough in his summation, even though he hadn't told it all.
”At the p.u.b.erty rites is where the Inadni come in,” Fearin went on. ”Once a year they choose three Kenoss youths and take them away to be trained as Shadowborn. What happens to the chosen ones after their training isn't known, but the three are always from among the best of the winners. In her own year of winning, Aelana was chosen.”
”I thought I heard somewhere that only men are chosen,” Garam said, frowning in an effort to recapture the memory. ”No one seems to know more about it than that - except for all sorts of unbelievable rumors - but that part was certain even though where the men came from wasn't.”
”I understand that Aelana is the only exception to that,” Fearin said with a nod. ”She tells me no one knows why she was chosen, and the Inadni didn't bother to enlighten anyone. She stayed with it until she'd reached the twenty-fourth level, and then she turned her back and walked away. The Inadni apparently couldn't stop her, but the G.o.d Bellid wasn't pleased. That's why she ended up as a slave and had so much trouble escaping.”
”You're still not telling them about last night,” I said, ignoring the knowing looks I was getting from the others. They all understood what it meant to have a G.o.d angry with you - or thought they did.
”I'm getting to last night,” Fearin said with forced patience, barely glancing at me. ”They have to hear the background first, to understand why you were a.s.signed to the protection of the girls. I could have put men at that door, but it wouldn't have been the same.”
”I still don't understand why not,” Garam said, questioning rather than arguing. ”A dozen men should have guaranteed success a lot more thoroughly than a single girl.”
”A single Shadowborn who, legend has it, is worth more than a dozen men,” Fearin corrected.
”Shadowborn are given the Learning, which lets them change from what they are into whatever they must be. Some of you may have heard that five men tried to get past Aelana last night, four of them armored, all of them armed. I have no doubt that they really did try, but none of them lived long enough to do it. Their bodies were still there when our own men reached the Pavilion to relieve Aelana.”
”There's been some whispering among the men about that,” Talasin said, curiosity in the comment. ”No one would tell me the details involved, and I decided not to upset them more bypressing. Is that the reason the guard obeyed you earlier, Aelana?”