Challenges (39 page)

“Very commendable, I’m sure,” Twimmal commented dryly, obviously unimpressed. “Now all you have to do is perform in accordance with your decision. Would you care to take your places in the formation and make the effort?”

The fool of a man was too dense to notice the heavy anger coming from all of them, something Lorand had no trouble feeling for himself. He also felt the urge to do something outrageous to the man—like making him lose control of his bowels for a moment—but instead followed the others into the proper formation. First they needed to establish themselves as truly important in the governmental scheme of things, and then there would be time for some of life’s little pleasures.

“Oh, by the way,” Twimmal added negligently, “Air and Water should be standing more to either side of Spirit. I thought there was something wrong with your formation yesterday, but I was simply too distressed to realize what.”

Lorand had seen that Rion and Vallant had taken their places to either side of Tamrissa, just as they had yesterday. When Twimmal corrected them there was another general flow of anger, this one a bit stronger than the last. If positioning was as important as they’d been told, the fool’s “distress” could have kept them from Blending.

But they weren’t there to play the what-if game, so Lorand opened himself to the power and simply waited for Jovvi’s touch. When it came he returned it, and then all of them were Blended again. That same sense of excitement and delight also returned, as well as a strong sense that the world was finally right again. He breathed out his satisfaction while at the same time keeping himself from sinking more deeply into the meld, and Twimmal looked up sharply.

“Two or three of you sighed at the same time,” he observed, almost in accusation. “Does that mean you’ve actually managed to do it? Are you Blended?”

“Yes, we’ve Blended,” Lorand said, only faintly surprised that all of the others spoke at precisely the same time using exactly the same words. They were, after all, almost completely a single entity.

“Excellent,” Twimmal commented, just in passing and as if by rote. “You’ve done your duty and have certainly made your peers proud. Now you must dissolve the Blending at once. There are cautions you must hear, and instructions you’re to be given.”

*
Let’s find out what he’s talking about,
* the Vallant portion of their Blending suggested, which made good sense. They would certainly be Blending again later, and right now they needed to know what Twimmal could tell them. Lorand withdrew himself from the meld just as the others did the same, and then he also joined them in finding places to sit where they could all see Twimmal easily.

“You all are certainly to be congratulated, but from now on you must be very careful,” the fool said pompously as he looked around at them. “There is a terrible danger awaiting the unwary, something described to me as a mind vortex. I’m told that the second time you Blend you’ll become aware of its call, but you must ignore and resist it. Those who don’t will surely become enmeshed, and shortly after that will be unable to pull free again. Your minds will be trapped while your bodies remain unmoving, and shortly thereafter you will all die.”

“I don’t think I’d enjoy that much,” Tamrissa said with a frown that didn’t look at all real, apparently having decided to play less-than-bright. “Will we really be caught right away? Even if you step into mud, you can always pull your foot out again.”

“You can pull your foot out again, child, only if you haven’t advanced too far
into
the mud,” Twimmal replied, seemingly taking the comment perfectly seriously. “If you’re right near the edge of the mud puddle you can play at stepping in and out, but one of those times you can step out too far. Once that happens there’s no going back, because dry land is out of your reach.”

“So you’re saying we should ignore the pull from the very first time we feel it,” Jovvi put in, sounding thoughtful. “That’s good to know. Is there anything else we have to careful of?”

“You must remember not to stay Blended too long, nor should you Blend more than twice a day at most,” Twimmal replied with a nod. “The condition is actually rather bad for your health and general well-being, and if you indulge too often you may not have the strength to compete. The most effective exercises have been written down for you in the form of instructions…”

Twimmal began to pat at his pockets, obviously looking for something. It took him a moment to locate the something in an inner pocket, the item turning out to be a small sheaf of folded papers. He removed one sheet from the sheaf before returning the rest to his pocket, then put the sheet on the table near his hand.

“You’re to practice these exercises once a day, and at other times you’re to rest, relax, and enjoy yourselves,” he said then. “Ten gold dins will be delivered to each of you, and you’re to spend them on new clothes, fine meals, and enjoyable entertainments. When you go out you need not go as a group, as what one of you finds amusing may not be to the taste of the others. After the competitions there will be another twenty gold for each of you, so spend the first ten with an open hand.”

“Are you saying that if we win the competition, all we’ll get is another twenty gold dins?” Tamrissa asked with her nose wrinkled. “Goodness, somehow I thought it would be much more than that.”

“Ah … yes, you’re quite right, child,” Twimmal said as he struggled to his feet. “If you win the competitions you will certainly get a good deal more than that. I will be by later tomorrow, so that you’ll be able to practice once before I arrive. I’ll expect a report when I do arrive, not a demonstration.”

With that said he headed for the door, actually opened it by himself, and waddled out. Since he didn’t close the door again it was possible to see him going toward the front door, and a moment later he was gone. The servant who let him out also disappeared quickly, so Lorand was able to look at everyone else and grimace.

“Oh, yes, dear children, if the impossible should somehow come about and you win, you’ll certainly get more than twenty gold dins. But no one really expects the impossible, so why bother even discussing it?”

“The man really is almost a true idiot,” Jovvi said while everyone else made sounds of agreement. “He forgot that we aren’t supposed to know we’d be losing, but that’s the least of it. Taking him over to find out what he knows has become unnecessary, because we already know what he knows.”

“I have no trouble believing it,” Rion commented dryly. “The more I see of his sort, the happier I am that I no longer need to associate with them. But what exactly do we know?”

“There’s no doubt that he believed everything he told us,” Jovvi answered, sounding faintly annoyed. “That ‘mind vortex’ nonsense was presented to him as fact, and he passed it on in the same way. They probably did it like that so
we
would believe it too, and refrain from experimenting.”

“Why experiment when you can be out havin’ a good time?” Vallant asked sourly. “They’ll be givin’ us all that gold, after all, and to waste it would be a cryin’ shame. I wonder if they’re encouragin’ their noble groups to carouse instead of practice.”

“With most of the noble groups, they probably
are
doing the same,” Jovvi said as she rose and walked to the table holding the sheet of paper which Twimmal had left. She picked up the sheet and glanced at it, then shook her head. “‘Practice one,’” she quoted. “‘Immediately after Blending, the Air magic member is to manipulate a volume of air to form a solid stairway. As soon as this is accomplished, the Blending is to be ended.’”

“When it gets to be my turn to practice, will I actually be permitted to light the logs in a fireplace, or must I touch only the match?” Tamrissa asked with a snort. “And since we’ll supposedly be Blended, why is the Air magic member supposed to do anything? Why isn’t it the Blending performing the practice?”

“Obviously because they don’t want us to
be
a Blending, just pretend to be one,” Jovvi answered with her own sound of ridicule. “We’re on our own as far as figuring out what to do goes, but we can take advantage of the freedom they’re pressing on us to contact the other common Blendings. Maybe one of them will discover something we miss—”

Jovvi’s words broke off abruptly as she turned her head to look at the open door, and when Lorand did the same he saw the servant approaching. It was the friendly servant who had been calling them to the door when visitors arrived, and he entered the room and stopped before Jovvi to bow.

“Please excuse the interruption, Dama, but this arrived for you while you were closeted with your noble visitor,” he said, holding out an envelope. “It’s addressed to the Spirit magic member of your group, which I’m told is you.”

“Thank you,” Jovvi said, taking the envelope. The servant bowed again as she opened it and took out its contents, and he really was a good servant. By the time she looked up from the page, he had already left the room.

“I don’t know where this comes from, but if it’s the truth it’s the most important gift we could have been given,” she told them all slowly. “I’ve been cautioned not to look at the second page of the letter immediately, because it’s supposed to contain the phrase we’ve all been keyed to respond to. If we can find someone we trust, they can use the keying phrase to free us from it for good!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

“What?” everyone demanded at once and in different ways, almost giving Jovvi a headache with their surprise and shock.

“Yes, I know exactly how you feel because I feel the same,” Jovvi threw into the cauldron of comments, repeating it two or three times until they actually heard the words. “I have no idea who sent this because it isn’t signed, and it isn’t possible to know if it’s a trick until we try it. But we can’t try it until we have someone here we can trust.”

“Why should that be?” Vallant demanded. “If we’ve got the keyin’ phrase, we can just use it on each other and neutralize it. If it isn’t the right phrase, nothin’ will happen.”

“That’s what I would have thought, but the letter says differently,” Jovvi replied with only some of her disturbance showing. “It says that our simply seeing the phrase will trigger it, and then we’ll just stand there and wait for orders. If those orders don’t come from the one who triggered us…”

“We’ll just stand and wait forever,” Tamma finished when Jovvi didn’t. “I hate the idea that those miserable people can have this kind of power over us, and I want to see an end to it. Who can we trust enough to test the phrase with?”

“That’s easily answered,” Rion put in, his anger just as great as Tamma’s. “I have someone upstairs whom I’d trust with my life, so I’m obviously the one to try this. Once I’m freed, the rest of you can be done the same.”

“I wonder if it’s possible to resist a command like that when we’re Blended,” Lorand commented while everyone thought about Rion’s offer. “It’s too bad we can’t afford to do research on the point … but I agree with Rion. Right now Naran is the only one we can be sure of.”

“Because of the questions we put to her last night,” Jovvi said with a slow nod. “I’d almost forgotten about that, but now that I’ve been reminded I also agree. Does anyone disagree?”

Jovvi looked from Tamma to Vallant and back again, but both of them shook their heads to show they had no objection to the idea. Apparently they also remembered the questioning, and even Tamma, still obviously touching the power and exhibiting a stronger than usual mind set, couldn’t find fault with the idea.

“That settles it, then,” Rion said with a satisfied smile as he rose. “I’ll caution Naran to be alert in case there’s a trap of some sort involved, but if there isn’t I’ll return a free man in just a few minutes.”

“If it is the keyin’ phrase, see if she can order you to resist somethin’ like this in the future,” Vallant suggested as Jovvi handed Rion the letter. “It may not work, but it shouldn’t hurt to try.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Rion said as he glanced through the letter. “And in case anyone is interested, I would guess that this fascinating missive comes from a member of the nobility. Not only is the paper above average in quality, the phrasing used in the letter itself suggests an upper class education. That causes me to be suspicious in an automatic fashion, but it also makes inarguable sense. Who better than a member of the nobility to manage access to information of this sort?”

“The answer is no one, so you’re undoubtedly right,” Jovvi decided with her own slow nod. “The next question, however, has to be: what noble do we know who would do something like this for us? The names on that particular list have to be incredibly few in number.”

“Maybe it was done by that noble who all but announced that he meant to claim me,” Tamma suggested dryly. “He’s suddenly discovered that he’s fallen madly in love with me, and chose this as the best way to impress me.”

“Maybe it was done by Eltrina Razas,” Lorand countered after making a small sound of ridicule. “She’s suddenly discovered that she’s fallen madly in love with one of
us
, and so wants to make sure that her beloved wins the competitions.”

“And maybe this was done for someone else’s benefit rather than ours,” Jovvi said, the idea coming rather suddenly. “The only way that would make sense is if someone knows
we’re
scheduled to face the chosen noble Blending first, and wants us to get rid of them for them. Then the way would be clear for
them
to become the chosen Blending, without having to defeat the others themselves.”

“But that would mean they believe themselves able to defeat
us
,” Rion pointed out as everyone frowned. “Do they know themselves to be that much stronger, or have they some unmentioned secret that will allow them to get the upper hand regardless of relative strength?”

“I hope they’re countin’ on bein’ stronger,” Vallant put in with an exasperated headshake. “If they found out the keyin’ phrase they probably also got to those test results—the ones where we all held back some. If they’re expectin’ to be stronger, they could be in for a nasty shock.”