Challenges (13 page)

“Try to ignore that outburst,” Kambil was in the process of saying to Rigos, acting like the fool that he was. “I’m sure you can tell that not all of us feel the same way, so—”

“No,” Delin interrupted, this time letting his voice quiver the least little bit. “Don’t lie to the man, Kambil, not when you have to know that I feel just the way Bron does. If admitting that I’m uneasy being in the same room with Rigos makes me less of a man, then so be it. I may not have had the nerve to say the words first, but now that they’ve been said I’ll certainly stand with Bron behind them.”

Rigos’s color still hadn’t come back, especially since Homin and Selendi were studiously avoiding his gaze. It probably hadn’t occurred to the pair at first that Rigos’s father might have used his gold and influence, but once suggested, the idea was more than possible. Everyone who heard that particular accusation would believe it, and the truth would be entirely beside the point. Delin watched Rigos being forced to accept that, and a small thrill of pleasure ran down his back.

“I—won’t lower myself to argue the prejudices of fools,” Rigos said at last, his voice unsteady and his gaze on his hands. “I came here for a purpose, so let’s get on with it.”

Delin caught Kambil’s minute headshake, which hopefully meant that Rigos was lying about deciding to be unaffected. There was very little else he
could
have said, which made Delin love the entire idea.

“I’m here to inform your group that tomorrow you’ll be formed into a Blending,” Rigos continued, still looking nowhere but at his hands. “You’ll pay very close attention to what you’re told, and you’ll follow directions exactly. If one or more of you decide to do things your own way, you probably won’t Blend. You’ll—be given more information when your mentor arrives, so make sure you’re here and ready to work with him.”

Delin had the impression that there was more Rigos had meant to say, but instead of saying it he simply got up and headed out of the room. Kambil waited a moment before following, and when he returned after another moment he was in the process of shaking his head.

“Well, he certainly didn’t stroll out
this
time,” Kambil announced. “He was barely in the carriage when he ordered his driver to go, and the man obeyed immediately. I think if he’d stayed here even five minutes longer, he’d have broken down and cried. I got the impression he was afraid this would happen, and now that it has he’s devastated.”

“Devastated enough to resign his position?” Delin asked, trying not to hope too hard. “Bron can’t be the only one who will feel that way, and if we’re lucky he won’t be the only one who says it. And I thought the loathsome little deficient hadn’t been affected at all by what happened to him.”

“He almost had me fooled as well, but I could tell that something wasn’t quite right,” Kambil said as he stopped in the middle of the room. “There was an … expectation inside him that was mainly composed of fear. If this happens to him even one more time, he might very well resign.”

“He should never have come back in the first place,” Selendi pronounced as she got to her feet. “It isn’t as if he murdered someone unimportant, after all. Come on, Homin, let’s go talk about something more interesting.”

“Of course, Selendi,” Homin said with a smile as he got hurriedly to his feet. “Anything your lovely little heart desires. All I want to say is … I’m still grateful.”

Homin’s final words were addressed to Delin, who knew that the fat little man meant he was grateful to Rigos for having killed Elfini, the woman Homin’s father had married. Delin could understand that, but his estimate of Homin went up a grudging notch. He obviously wouldn’t have minded working with Rigos, but had kept silent for the sake of the group.

“What now?” Kambil asked softly after Homin and Selendi were gone. “Trying to soothe the man was a mistake on my part even if the attempt was automatic, and I’m grateful that you were able to correct it. Now I’d like to know what our next step is.”

“The first has to be finding out how the members of the other groups feel,” Delin said, smiling easily at the wonderful luck they were having. “If necessary we’ll stir things up against Rigos, but hopefully it won’t be necessary. One way or another we should be rid of him soon, and—”

Delin paused to take a deep, excited breath, feeling very much like a child with a gift. “And tomorrow,” he finished, “tomorrow we become a Blending!”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Lorand returned to his bedchamber briefly after breakfast, and when he came downstairs again he found Tamrissa waiting for him in the hall, just as she was supposed to. She examined him as he descended the stairs, and smiled as he approached her.

“See?” she said, still looking him over. “That shirt and coat look perfect on you, worlds better than they ever did on my husband. Don’t you feel silly now for being reluctant about taking them?”

“Yes, of course,” he muttered, pretending to be extremely unenthusiastic, with underlying shades of being put upon. “Let’s go for that walk now.”

Tamrissa agreed with the sort of insensitive burbling
she
was pretending to feel, but they only got to start for the door. They’d barely taken two steps when Warla appeared.

“Oh, dear, you’re not going out, are you?” Warla asked at once, all but blocking the door. “It’s going to rain just any minute, and you’ll both end up soaked through.”

“Better soaked than staying in this house a minute longer,” Tamrissa replied after only a tiny hesitation, stiffening enough for Warla to notice. “That woman refuses to confine herself to her bedchamber, which means I’m not even free to walk through my own house without taking the chance of running into her. And with the men ready to snap at each other at any given moment, my nerves are almost shredded. We’ll probably be back for lunch, unless it does rain and we’re trapped somewhere.”

Warla continued to protest, but Tamrissa simply led the way around her and out the door. Lorand followed without saying a word, more than relieved that he hadn’t had to refuse the girl himself. Warla looked on the very brink of tears, and Lorand had always been helpless against women’s tears.

Once outside, Lorand saw that Warla had been right—to a large extent. Clouds were dark and heavy in the sky, floating low overhead in a definitely threatening way. Tamrissa looked at them with a small shiver, then took Lorand’s arm in an obviously possessive way.

“At least we should have time for me to show you off to my neighbors,” she said, making no effort to keep her voice down. “One or two of them kept trying to introduce me to men after my husband died, as though they considered me incapable of finding a man for myself. This should show them.”

She then pulled Lorand down the steps with her, which was a lucky thing for him. He’d almost laughed aloud at the excuse she’d come up with for their taking a “walk” even in the face of the coming storm. He continued to pretend reluctance, but once they were away from the house he let his grin show.

“How interesting that your neighbors live in another world,” he murmured as they made their way down the drive. “Anyone who could believe even for a minute that you would have trouble finding a man … even our secret watchers might not believe it.”

“But that part happens to be true,” she protested softly, her cheeks coloring a bit. “I didn’t have an immediate line of men waiting to propose, so two of my women neighbors decided that that was because I didn’t know how to find them. It took me two invitations to dinner to understand what they were doing, and then I stopped accepting their invitations to dinner.”

“Well, you can feel free to parade me past them whenever you like,” he said with a chuckle. “In fact, you ought to take Mardimil and Ro past them as well. Then, the next time you see those women, you can casually mention the harem you’re beginning.”

“Lorand, stop it!” she hissed, clearly fighting to keep from laughing aloud. “If anyone sees us really enjoying ourselves, they’ll know we were putting on an act earlier. Do you want to be thrown out of the residence for getting along too well?”

“Put in that ludicrous a way, I’ll have to admit you’re right,” Lorand conceded, fighting his expression back into one of boredom. “I’ll behave myself, at least until we’re in the coach.”

“I hope it’s waiting where it’s supposed to be,” she said, deliberately making no effort to look through the hedges surrounding the drive. “If not, at least I hope it gets here before the rain does.”

“We have almost an hour before the rain starts,” Lorand told her, automatically checking everything around him again. “The trees and birds and small animals have an excellent rain sense, and that’s what I’m getting from all of them. The rain is coming, but the length of time expected to pass until it does feels like just under an hour.”

She accepted that with a nod, taking his word for it without question. Lorand remembered when a girl had doubted him once, and had ended up missing a fun time with their friends because she hadn’t wanted to get her hair wet. It was impossible to picture Tamrissa doing something like that, not even when they probably
would
end up getting wet. It had been her idea to dress him in clothing that would not immediately mark him in some way. Both his practice outfits and his original country clothing would have made him stand out, but the maroon shirt and coal gray coat combined with his lighter gray practice trousers to make a perfectly ordinary outfit.

And ordinary was what he’d been warned to be. Meerk had stopped by the previous day to say that he’d found Hat, but he hadn’t been prepared to offer any details. He said he’d be by this morning to call for Lorand, and hadn’t been surprised when Lorand told him not to come to the door. There seemed to be more than one benefit in dealing with a man whose doings weren’t always legal.

When they reached the end of the drive, Tamrissa firmly pulled him to the right. They’d decided the day before that if she turned possessive and he became reluctant, the testing authority watcher would be delighted to see them together. And they’d needed
something
, because she’d insisted on coming with him and he’d been glad she had. He had an obligation to find and help Hat if he could, but the time wasn’t likely to be pleasant.

Just up the street a short way, a private coach stood waiting. He and Tamrissa pretended not to notice it until they got close enough to see Meerk inside, and then they hurriedly climbed in. Lorand had had his senses spread wide the entire time, and was relieved to find no human lurking in their vicinity and watching. The house watcher wasn’t likely to have followed them outside when the rest of the group was still indoors, but that didn’t mean the watcher couldn’t have an outside confederate…

“I wish this business was over and done with,” Lorand said once he and Tamrissa were settled in the coach and it had begun to turn around. “I’m beginning to imagine spies behind every tree. Good morning, Dom Meerk. Are you ready yet to tell us where we’re going?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” Meerk answered in his usual growl. He was a big man with a square face who was dressed slightly better today than usual, and he eyed Lorand in an odd way. “I don’t need you tellin’ me I’m crazy, which you’ll prob’ly do until you see fer yerself. That’s a whole lotta power you wus handlin’ just now. You ain’t thinkin’ about pullin’ a fast one?”

“The only fast one I’m pulling is on the people watching us,” Lorand said, trying to reassure the man. “I have the feeling we’re going somewhere public so they won’t be fooled for long, but then they should have only half the story. As long as you don’t volunteer any details for the other half, our business arrangement should work out just fine.”

“I wouldn’t give them nobles th’ right time even fer gold,” Meerk growled, the disgust heavy in his voice. “I done some checkin’, and found out who wus standin’ behind your bunch. I thought maybe you din’t know they wusn’t on yur side, but now I c’n see you ain’t
that
dumb. Not like some others I culd mention.”

The last of his words were muttered, and when Lorand tried to find out what he meant, Meerk simply shook his head and refused to elaborate. Lorand exchanged a glance with Tamrissa, who shrugged a little to offer the silent opinion that they’d just have to wait and see. Meerk’s comment probably referred to Hat, and although the possibilities made Lorand nervous, there was no way to push for an explanation without starting a fight.

So he just sat back and watched the scenery from the coach window. They now traveled in a familiar direction, which was into the city and toward the business district. Their first place of practice lay in this direction, and when they finally reached their destination it wasn’t far beyond the practice buildings.

The stone edifice they stopped near had a large rendering of the Earth magic symbol, and broad slate steps led up to oversized double doors which stood open. A rather large number of people streamed up those steps, but none of them looked like members of the nobility. They were ordinary people, then, but what were they doing here?

“Come on,” Meerk said, moving to the coach door and starting to get out. “It ain’t far, an’ you won’t even hafta go in if you don’t want.”

Lorand got out and helped Tamrissa down, and then they followed Meerk up the broad slate steps. The husky man had stopped in front of a glass-covered placard near the open doors, and when they joined him Lorand felt shocked. The placard announced that a series of challenges for the position of High Practitioner in Earth magic would take place this morning, and a list of five names appeared under the heading of challengers. The second name on the list was Hattial Riven.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“That must be what he meant the last time he was at the house,” Tamrissa said softly when she saw the name. “He insisted he was going to be taking the test again, but I don’t understand why this would be happening. If he’s only a Middle talent, how can he challenge for a High position?”

“He can do it if he’s allowed—and encouraged—to do it,” Lorand replied in a growl very much like Meerk’s. “And a good reason for doing those things with him is that he can’t possibly unseat the Seated High. You don’t see
my
name on that list, do you? I’ll bet everything I own that the other four challengers are also no stronger than Middles.”