Rebel Elements (Seals of the Duelists) (16 page)

“Like what?”

“That steel will kill duelists on contact. Or that it drains our powers into the metal, so that anyone wielding a sword that’s killed a duelist can use it to wield elemental magic. Scary stuff like that.”

Bayan sat up in alarm. “Is any of that true?”

Calder snorted. “No idea. The firedust historians who used to talk me to death know as much as the Academy instructors, as far as I’ve noticed. But if any of it were true, I’d expect de Rood to warn us in one of his lectures.”

Bayan pursed his lips. “But, there must be something to the rumors, right? Otherwise, every housewife and butcher in the empire would have knives of steel. If it’s really that much better than iron, the empire should have snatched it up. It does that with everything else that catches its eye.”

Calder lifted his eyebrows. “Aye, true enough.”

“Does the empire have any steel at all? I’d like to get a look at some.”

“Be careful what you wish for, at least until you know what it might do to you. I think there might be some in war museums, but if so, it’d be guarded very well.”

“Makes me wonder how Helma de Rood defeated her enemies, if they all carried steel. If she could figure out a way to defeat steelwielders, steel can’t be half as bad as the rumors say.”

“That’s the spirit,” Calder said. “Now, get that interested in Adrian de Hond, and you just might pass our next exam.”

~~~

Bayan sat in the dining hall for supper on a bright summer day that baked the campus grounds with unexpected heat. With the constant crush of Instructor de Rood’s essay load added to his already-packed daily schedule of meditations and form work, the days had run like water, carrying spring away like a brief dream of flowers and shade and bearing him through an endless, hot gorge whose walls were scrawled with names and dates, spell motions and counter-motions. He hadn’t dreamed of Imee in a season. He barely had energy to dream at all.

“We did it in the snow once,” he said to his table mates, between bites of potato mash and a nameless brown meat with brown sauce.

“And once we did it in the reservoir creek above campus. Nae, we did it there twice,” Calder added.

Odjin swallowed his bite of fowl. “You remember the one time we did it all night long?”

Bayan struggled not to laugh. “Calder and I have done that more than once.”

“Not true, Bayan.” Calder waved a wheat roll at him. “You quit early. I’m the one who lasted until dawn.”

Tarin and Katje walked by on their way to another table in the dining center. The scandalized looks they gave the boys at the table were priceless.

“What?” Calder called after them, as the girls sped up. “You were there too! You enjoyed it as much as we did!”

Odjin and Bayan laughed into their cups of cool cider.

“Meaning, not at all,” Bayan said. “Katje cried, she was so cold last time. No achieving the Void for her.”

Calder grinned, turning back to them. “I think one of the worst times was when the avatar students came over and shot fireballs over our heads, made it snow on us, then baked us like fish, all in just a few breaths.”

“Their laughing, it didn’t help. They thought it was funny.” Odjin grimaced.

“Well, I suppose they knew they’d get to repay us for what got done to them when they were trainees,” Bayan said, though he didn’t care for the sentiment.

Calder pouted. “Aye, but they dinna have to enjoy it so much.”

“Well, I’ll enjoy it when it’s my turn, that’s for sure,” Odjin said.

“I canna sleep through the night anymore.” Calder leaned on his elbows. “I’m always dreaming that Greer’s shaking me awake for more meditation practice, and I wake up for real to see if it’s true.”

“You’ve found the Void.” Bayan imitated Greer’s voice. “Yet you fear it also. This dichotomy must be overcome. It is why we practice in such harsh conditions.”

Odjin stared at him. “You’re scary.”

“No, Greer is scary. He likes meditating in blizzards and heat waves and icy water. Me, I enjoy meditating late at night, lying down in my nice soft bunk, with the heat stone glowing a nice golden color. I contemplate the inside of my eyelids and am at one with all that is.”

The other two laughed as Bayan made a serene, snoring face.

“When this semester is finished, I’ll be so glad,” Odjin muttered. “Between adding that third form training class and meditation session to our day since Sint Baan’s Day—and we get a Greer favorite every day now, it seems—it’s a wonder I can still climb into bed sane and in one piece.”

“Aye,” Calder said as Bayan slumped on the table.

They finished their meal and trudged through the blessedly cool evening to the barracks, where Bayan half-heartedly looked over his homework for the next day and fell into bed. The sun was barely down.

As he was falling asleep, Bayan had a troubling thought, one he’d had several times before.

My Void doesn’t sound like the Void I should have. But it’s the only one I’ve ever found. And letting it surround me does distract me from all the cold, heat, noise, and everything else that Greer throws at us. Everything Greer and the others teach us says that we should be calm and aloof in the Void; that’s the whole point. But I’m not. I always feel this urgency to act, to strike. That can’t be right.

But I don’t want to make Greer go back on what he said about me finding the Void. The other trainees are nicer to me now that I’m not slowing down their training, and the teachers see me trying to learn. If I tell Greer that I’m not actually in the Void this whole time, that’ll ruin everything. But eventually, someone’s bound to notice.

~~~

Bayan, Calder, Eward, and Odjin sat on Bayan’s bunk after lunch and shared the latest bag of taffies from Surveyor Philo as they pored over the imperial lineages of the Shawnash Confederation, which had once existed to the south of the First Waarden Empire. Bayan felt it unfair that some of the Shawnash history was taught alongside Waarden history, due to their strong alliance, but the instructors did not teach about the Clan Chiefs of Gallenglaas or the Hegemons of Pallithea from the time before they joined the empire, let alone anything about the Danatus of Balanganam.

Excited students’ voices filled the hallway outside the common room, babbling about an announcement. With a look across at Eward and Odjin, who seemed equally curious, Bayan walked to the doors and looked out, Calder and the others close behind him.

“What’s going on?” Odjin asked into Bayan’s ear.

Taban, Braam, and Cormaac—the third boy in their hex, with short black hair like Taban’s—stood with their backs to the common room door. While Braam and Cormaac told the gathering crowd to quiet down and listen to Taban, other students demanded to know what was going on.

Taban looked around the hallway with a smug expression. “I’ve just come from my invitation-only class with Instructor witten Oost. And he’s informed me that he will take the Master Duelist test in a few days.”

Cries of amazement and awe surrounded Bayan.

Braam turned around at the sound of the trainees’ stunned exclamations and saw Bayan’s blank look. “I think the muckling didn’t hear you. Too much swamp in his ears.”

Taban smirked, but he pivoted halfway around and explained. “There aren’t any Master Duelists in the whole empire. In fact, there hasn’t been one for a hundred years. The last one was—”

“Helma de Rood!” several students chorused.

Bayan’s eyes widened. Helma de Rood was a Master Duelist? She fought the steelwielders… maybe you have to be a Master Duelist to take on steelwielders. But she died in that battle. Maybe not even a Master Duelist can take on that much steel and live.

“Aye, Helma de Rood,” Taban finished. “Thank you all, so much. I must have forgotten such an important fact in the very short walk from class to the barracks. What would I do without you?”

Braam clapped Taban on the shoulder. “That’s what hexmates are for.” He pushed his way through the buzz of conversation and pounded up the stairs after Cormaac.

“So,” ventured Eward, “when is he testing? Can we all watch?”

“Don’t know when.” Taban shrugged carelessly, as if still absorbing respect from the barracks crowd. “He’s in seclusion, meditating. When he comes out, he’ll test. As to whether you can come, I’d say nae. All that power might scare you into wetting yourself, and nothing throws you off your focus like training in wet smallclothes.”

Bayan sighed in disappointment, but Taban barked a laugh and slapped him on the shoulder.

“Fortunately for you newniks, it’s not up to me. Instructor Aalthoven said the whole campus is invited. Now go back to your nose-picking, or whatever you were doing in there. The big boys have important things to avoid doing.”

With a final smirk, Taban loped up the stairs.

As the trainees trailed back to their bunks and the study tables along the walls, Eward griped, “Taban’s so smug. He’s more irritating than an itch I can’t scratch.”

“He’s not half so bad as Braam,” said Jaan, rubbing a finger against his thin nose.

“Aye, well,” Calder said. “Cormaac’s just Braam’s mindless toadie, kissing his boots because his blood’s a little wispier than ours. At least Taban has the sense to think for himself.”

As the others discussed the older hex members, Bayan sat back down on his bunk. He supposed seeing a test that no one else had seen in a hundred years would be interesting. But in a little while, it would be time for yet another workout class, and his legs had barely recovered from sketching endless circles on the pad with his toes that morning.

~~~

Bhattara was kind; it was Instructor Mikellen’s turn to drill the class that afternoon, and since she was the instructor for Earth, there would be no circles involved. Instead, Bayan and the others got to work on the Earth motion—the cross. The sacred motion enabled portions of spells like Ridgestrike, Cragroot, Tremor, and Mudslide, as well as cross-blocks which, if executed immediately before a spell was performed, could rebuff the attacking spell with a blast of stones.

When class was over, Bayan and Calder limped to the kitchens to feed Bituin a few mice that the scullion lads had trapped in the flour room. As they dropped the dead rodents into Bituin’s two medium-sized pitchers, Calder pointed out a scratch inside one pitcher’s pot.

“Someone dinna want to wait for the seerwine to ferment, maybe?” the Dunfarroghan wondered aloud.

Bayan shook his head. “I think we’d have heard about it if someone had tried the raw sap. It’s a hallucinogen if you drink a little, and it can kill you if you drink a lot.”

Calder’s eyes widened. “And you’re just telling me this now?”

“Well.” Bayan shifted his weight. “It doesn’t taste good. I figured you were smarter than to drink something that gives you an aftertaste of bitter greens.”

“Oh. Well, that’s all right, then. Still, you might want to tell Doc Theo, in case someone does try some.”

“Hmm. Good point. Not everyone’s as smart as you are.”

“It’s true. Can you believe it about Instructor witten Oost? We’ll get to see a real live Master Duelist test. Do you think he’ll pass?”

“You’re asking me?” Bayan raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t be able to tell if he passed or not.”

“Me neither. I hope I get to see his avatars. I hear the stronger you are, the bigger you can make your avatar, so his should be huge.”

As Calder prattled on, excited by the prospect of finally watching some epic magic-making, Bayan couldn’t help absorbing some of that excitement. True, he hadn’t wanted to be at the Academy in the first place. But he couldn’t leave campus without the emperor’s blessing and the achievement of at least one of the duelists’ seals. He was stuck. The more he learned about the magic he would be doing, the more excited he got.

Or at least, part of him got excited. That deep, dark part that which seemed unlike anything any other trainee possessed. What would happen to it, to him, when Bayan finally got to perform magic? Bayan didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to ask. But he was looking forward to witten Oost’s test. Maybe it would answer some of his questions.

~~~

Hahliq huffed to a halt at the treeline. “No sign of pursuit.”

Savitu drew his threadbare silk robe around him and folded his arms against the chill of the shade. The cluster of wide-eyed loyalists, decked out in the best clothing they could loot or borrow, lent little body warmth. “It seems we got dressed up for nothing.”

“We can’t use the overland route. Not after this.” Mitlik’s eyes scanned the dirt road behind them. It wended along the base of one of a thousand nearby scrubby hills.

“There is no other route.” Savitu’s voice rose higher with stress. Nostrils flaring, he clamped his lips together.

“Let’s not argue here, my princes,” Hahliq said. “The caravan master won’t be the sentries’ prey.”

Savitu felt his shoulders hunch with tension as the group trudged back to the wagon. He’d waited a score of days to meet with the caravan master. In the next score of days before he could slip away from the commune again, who knew how many caravan masters the sentries would warn about seditious rebel elements? An entire set of options wiped out by a single misfortune.