Book Two of the Travelers (14 page)

F
or the next six months Alder trained day in and day out. Wencil never took on any more students. He simply led Alder into the forest and trained him from dawn till dark. There were no chores, no sweeping, no cooking, no fetching things. Just train, train, train.

At first Alder suspected that Wencil was a fraud or just crazy. Whenever he ran into anybody from the academy, that's exactly what they said about Wencil. He was a quack, a liar, a lunatic, a has-been, a never-was. Some said he wasn't even a Bedoowan. They had no shortage of insults. Everyone knew Master Horto was the only teacher qualified to instruct anyone in the deepest secrets of Bedoowan knighthood.

And yet Alder saw quickly that Wencil's teaching was more practical, more…well…
real
than Master Horto's. There were no ceremonies in his teaching, no complex formal exercises, no long dancelike routines, no elaborate drills, no arcane terminology. It was simple techniques, repeated over and over and over.
And over. And over. And then those techniques were tested in practical, hard, relentless sparring. Unlike at the academy, where sparring was discouraged as too dangerous, too undignified, too “unknightly.”

Alder's shoulders hurt all the time. His feet were sore. His hands grew calloused. His arms and legs were covered with bruises.

But one day he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and he realized that something had changed. His muscles were stronger. The layer of baby fat that had earned him so many cutting remarks at the academy had started to disappear. Even the shape of his face had subtly changed.

Each day as he dragged himself back to the castle, dirty and tired, he invariably ran into someone from the academy on the way home—often Eman or Neman. At which point he was sure to get teased.

“Nice stick. When are you going to get a real weapon?” “What are you and that crazy old man doing out there? Gathering flowers? Dancing with the fairies? Playing hide-and-seek?” The jokes went on and on.

Alder was too exhausted from his training to even reply. He simply shuffled back to his tiny, windowless cell in the castle, fell into bed, and slept.

One day Wencil said, “Why do you think they took advantage of you at the academy?”

“Because I didn't have any money?”

Wencil shook his head. “No. It was because you didn't take responsibility for yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“You showed up every day. You did as you were told.
But you left your destiny in the hands of others. You were being lazy.”

“Lazy?” Alder spluttered. “But I worked hard. I did what they told me to!”

“It's possible to work hard, and yet be lazy.”

Alder squinted, trying to puzzle out Wencil's meaning. Wencil came out with this sort of infuriatingly confusing statement all the time. “Well…how?”

“If you work hard doing the wrong job, is it really work? Or is it some kind of fakery?”

Alder didn't know what to say. He had never been one to question things very much.

“But…all the others had money! I didn't. So they made me work.”

“They made you clean the floor and serve drinks because you let them.”

Alder didn't understand.

“A Bedoowan knight doesn't prove himself when things are easy. You prove yourself when things are hard. The ipo tree grows in wet, sandy, bitter soil, soil that's too miserable for any other tree to grow. It grows slowly and painfully. Many ipo trees simply die and sink under the water. But the ones that make it? The ones that make it are stronger than any other tree. Because they have been tested.”

Alder nodded. He was getting it now. Sort of.

“You are destined for something greater than this.” Wencil pointed his gnarled cane at the castle. “These knights, they strut around, all puffed up with pride because they can tell a handful of Novans and Milago what to do. But this…this is nothing.”

“What do you mean?” Alder had always been taught that the castle was the center of the universe, the most important place on the territory.

“You'll see,” Wencil said. “There is a great struggle going on in Halla. You'll be part of it. But to play your part, you must be like the ipo tree.”

“Halla? What's Halla?”

Wencil spread his arms wide, his cane in one hand. He swept them in a slow circle, taking in the river, the castle, the forest, the dark mouth of the glaze mine—seemingly taking in even the clouds and the suns and the distant, unseen stars. “This,” Wencil said. “Halla is
all
this.”

Alder looked around. He had never traveled more than a day's journey on horseback from the place they were standing. It was hard to take what Wencil was saying all that seriously.

“I just want to be a knight,” Alder said.

Wencil laughed. “Of course you do. And for right now, there's no point in worrying about Halla.”

“So when
will
I be ready to be a knight?” Alder said.

“Back in my day, you had to undergo an ordeal. A
true
ordeal. Now the ordeal is just a ritual.”

At the academy every prospective knight had to go through what was called the “Grand Ordeal.” It was not much of an ordeal though. You ran a gauntlet of the other students, who whacked you with padded sticks. The whole thing was over in about five seconds.

“What would a true ordeal be?” Alder said.

“Oh…I would say that going down into the glaze mines, finding a chamber marked with a star and
retrieving a special ring—that would probably be the right test for you.”

“The glaze mines! But everyone says Bedoowans die if they go into the mines for more than a few minutes!”

“Well, it wouldn't be much of an ordeal if you didn't put your life in danger, would it? Besides, that's just a tall tale”—Wencil frowned thoughtfully—“I believe.”

Alder swallowed. Was he serious? It made Alder a little mad that Wencil was making fun of him.

“What if I went right this minute?” Alder said.

The old man shrugged as if he didn't care one way or the other.

“Okay! Fine!” Alder said. “I'm going.”

He started walking down the path that led toward the mouth of the glaze mine. “Don't try to stop me! I'm really doing it! I'm going now!”

He kept hoping Wencil would stop him. He didn't really want to be poisoned to death in some dark mine. But Wencil just smiled and waved, then looked up at the sky as if he were wondering whether it might rain.

The path to the mine was about a mile or two long. Plenty of time for Wencil to catch up to him and tell him it was all just a joke. After a couple of minutes Alder paused and looked back. Wencil was nowhere to be seen.

Alder kept walking, as slowly as possible, pausing now and again, pretending to stretch or adjust his pants. But each time he snuck a look back—no Wencil.

And the dark, forbidding mouth of the mine drew closer and closer. There were a series of small hills on the way to the mine. Each time he came into one of the little valleys, he felt better. Plenty of time for this
charade to end. And each time he crested a new rise, the black hole grew larger.

As he walked, he thought of all the stories he'd heard about the glaze mines. The Milago were undoubtedly inferior beings to Bedoowan knights, but they did have some kind of strange capacity to withstand the poisonous gases in the mine. Gases that could kill a Bedoowan in a heartbeat.

Or so they said anyway. No Bedoowan had been into a mine for generations. So who could say for certain?

While Alder was having these gloomy thoughts, he came over the final rise before reaching the mine. Alder was pleased to see that there was a small knot of young men standing between him and the mine entrance. They were doing something—though he couldn't make out what it was.
Maybe,
he thought,
whatever's happening here will give me a reason not to go into the mine.

As he drew closer, Alder recognized two of the boys. His heart sank. It was Eman and Neman. He had been serving guard duty with them regularly. And they had used every opportunity to torment him. The third boy was obviously a Milago—he had dark hair and the pasty white skin that marked him as someone who spent much of his life underground.

Eman had the Milago boy by the collar of his grimy, threadbare shirt. Both he and Neman were much larger than the Milago boy.

“What were you doing sneaking around near the castle?” Eman was saying.

“I wasn't sneaking!” the boy said. “I was just gathering mushrooms for food!”

Eman pushed the boy into Neman. “Stealing the king's mushrooms?” Neman said. “Oh, that's a very serious crime.” He shoved the boy back at Eman.

“Did you just shove me?” Eman said to the boy. “Neman, did you see that? This little Milago just intentionally bumped into a Bedoowan knight! I'm shocked!”

“Hey, guys,” Alder said. “What's going on?”

Eman and Neman turned. Eman rolled his eyes. “Hey, look who's here!” he said with a big fake smile. “Thank goodness. We've caught a very dangerous Milago rebel, and we may need those scary fighting skills you've been picking up out there in the forest with Grandpa Wendy.”

“Wencil,” Alder said. “His name's Wencil.”

Eman and Neman snickered.

“Whatever,” Eman said. “Anyway, we got it under control, trainee.”

Alder could have kept going. But the mine was scarier than Eman and Neman.

“Please,” the Milago boy said, appealing to Alder. “I didn't do anything. I was picking mushrooms. Everybody in the village does it. There's no law against it.”

“Is that true?” Alder said. “He was just picking mushrooms?”

Eman gave Alder a hard look. “I told you, trainee, we got it under control.”

Eman punctuated his speech by giving the much smaller Milago boy a hard shove.

“I don't know,” Alder said. “To me? Looks like you're just making trouble with the boy for no reason.”

“Oh, really!” Neman said, smiling coldly. “Let me get this straight, Alder. Are you—a mere trainee—supporting
a Milago, over two full-fledged Bedoowan knights?”

Alder cleared his throat. “I, uh…” He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He thought back to all the speeches Wencil had given about how Bedoowan knights were supposed to be defenders of the poor. “Well, uh, yeah. I guess I'm saying I think you're just troubling this poor boy for no reason.”

Eman looked at Neman. Neman looked at Eman. Their eyebrows went up comically. “Did I just hear the trainee correctly, Eman?”

“I believe you did, Neman!”

“Just let him go,” Alder said firmly.

“You are joking, right?” Eman said.

Alder had always felt like his oversize body was a hindrance rather than a help in his quest to become a knight. But suddenly it occurred to him that he was by far the biggest of the four boys. He drew himself up to his full height. “I'm not joking. Let him go.”

“Or what?” Neman said.

“Or else…
this
.” Alder pulled the ipo stick from his belt.

Eman and Neman laughed derisively. “Hold the Milago,” Eman said to Neman, “while I teach this weakling a lesson.” He put his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Alder had the strangest feeling all of a sudden. It was as if he were watching himself. He would have expected to be scared. But he wasn't. He felt calm—almost eager. He had seen the training at the academy for years now, and he knew that it couldn't hold a candle to what Wencil had been teaching him in the forest. “Enough talking,” Alder said.

Something flashed in Eman's eyes. Alder could see what was coming a mile away. It would be the standard gambit that Master Horto taught—a drawing cut, followed by a downward slash, and then a thrust. Alder put his left hand in his pocket. He was suddenly determined not just to beat Eman, but to make him look like a fool in the process.

Sure enough, Eman drew and cut. Alder sidestepped, the sword flashing by him. On the downward cut, he blocked. On the two thrusts that followed, he effortlessly parried. Eman paused, blinked, swallowed.

“What,” Alder said. “That's all you got? I would have thought a full-fledged knight would be more impressive.”

Eman forgot all about the standard fighting routines he'd learned from Master Horto. His face flushed with anger, he attacked Alder wildly, thrashing away. To Alder's surprise and satisfaction, he realized that Eman had nothing. Every move was awkward and predictable. He could see what Eman was going to do three moves in advance.

“All day,” Alder said, easily parrying cut after cut. “All day.”

“Little help here, Neman,” Eman hissed from between clenched teeth.

“What about the Milago kid?”

“Forget about him!”

Neman quickly slid a rope around the boy's wrists, tying them behind his back. Then he lashed the rope around a tree, unsheathed his sword, and leaped forward. At which point, Alder realized he was overwhelmed. Eman was the big talker of the two. But it was clear within seconds that Neman was the superior swordsman. What
had been an easy one-on-one fight suddenly turned into a two-on-one battle royal.

Fighting with his hand in his pocket wasn't going to hack it, that was for sure. Alder began fighting for all he was worth, using every trick that Wencil had taught him. But it wasn't quite enough. Alder saw that the Milago boy was furiously trying to free himself from the rope. With his hands tied behind his back, he was having no luck.

“Who's the smart guy now?” Eman said, slashing wickedly at Alder's leg. He was using the flat of his sword, not trying to cut him. Just trying to punish him. As Alder blocked the slashing blow, Neman stepped behind him and caught him with a hard rap on his back.

Alder whirled, caught Neman's elbow with a sharp blow. His blade went flying. But then Eman gave him another whack. That one stung!