The Last Talisman (15 page)

Ido shied from his touch. He knew it was a vile thing to do, but Malerba's nearness was simply too painful. “As am I, thank you. Now get going.”

The dwarf scuttled out of the room like a crab, his eyes locked on Ido, and closed the door.

Ido buried his gaze in the room's bare walls, in the bed's hard mattress, listening to the confused chatter of Makrat as it leaked in through the window.
Well, we're off to a good start. …

Work began the following morning. Parsel came to wake him bright and early.

“I thought I'd find you on your feet already. The sooner we get this over with, the better,” Parsel lamented.

So it starts bad and then it gets worse. …

Ido dressed and readied himself in a hurry. Parsel's bitter greeting had killed his appetite, so he skipped breakfast and headed directly for the practice ring.

Parsel was already waiting for him. From out of a looming dust cloud emerged the figures of three hundred students, nearly half of those enrolled at the Academy. There seemed to be no consistency among age, and Ido suspected that these were not young soldiers nearing the completion of their training, but students plucked from the lot at random.

“Did you choose these students?” he asked Parsel.

The teacher shook his head. “No more than ten of them. The rest were chosen by their respective teachers.”

Ido let out a heavy sigh. It was going to be a long and tedious process.

Between themselves, Ido and Parsel divided up the students and began the selections. To make the first cut, they observed the students in duels. Each examination lasted at least half an hour, and the two teachers were forced to stick to a strict schedule, bringing all normal Academy activity to a halt.

A sour mood swept over the grounds. Teachers were exasperated by the daily interruptions and, in turn, many of the students were irked by their teachers' impatience. When he wasn't busy with the selection process, Ido holed up in his room, his nerves worn thin by the tension.

Even when it came to his new assignment, he was less than enthusiastic. Beyond the burden of responsibility, beyond the sense that this was some trial along the way toward proving himself to Raven, Ido basically saw the assignment as simply one more hassle with which to deal.

As far as his future students were concerned, they did nothing but glare at him in vexation. It was clear—the whole incompetent lot had no respect for him.

Nonetheless, Ido did his best to judge without bias. He observed the students carefully, taking the snide remarks and bitter glances for what they were, even dispensing a few words of advice here and there, though his council was often met with stubborn groaning.

Whenever he made his cuts, he noticed one or two students turn red in the face with fury.

Strange how they're all so eager to jump back in when it's still practice, but then whenever it's time to battle, their courage vanishes
.

Of the one hundred and fifty students under Ido's examination, only sixty remained after the first week. Parsel, meanwhile, had narrowed his bunch down to one hundred—but it was only the first cut, after all. As a final test, the two teachers would duel with each student separately, in order to assess their full capabilities.

After the first round of selections, tension at the Academy only increased. As Ido walked the halls, everywhere he looked he saw clusters of students muttering underneath their breath. He'd had enough of their idle chatter and snobbish glances.

Parsel, on the other hand, never suffered such treatment. The occasional student walked away with bitter feelings, but it always ended with a handshake and a friendly chat. Ido's decisions, meanwhile, were under constant critique.

But the dwarf wasn't one to keep his troubles to himself. If he felt an itch, he scratched it.

And so, one evening, the tension came to a head.

Ido was sipping his soup in the cafeteria, doing his best to tune out the usual chatter around him. To listen, he knew, would be to catch wind of one or two rather unpleasant discussions, and he was in no mood to waste his time bickering. He wanted only to finish his assignment and get out of there. Two students, however, were whining far too loudly, and at far too close a distance. He remembered them well—they'd completed their tryouts the night before. One of them, a spindly boy with hair so blonde he might have been an albino, hadn't made the cut.

“He cut me in the first round of selections. …”

“Don't let it get to you; you'll have another chance soon enough.”

“Yeah, like the war's going to wait for me.”

“The war is far from over.”

“You're only saying that because you were selected. That guy got me all wrong. I've been the best swordsmen in my class since the day I got here.”

“
Shh
, keep your voice down, he'll hear you. …”

“So let him hear me, the idiot. I'd have been better off if I'd ended up in Parsel's group.”

Ido set his spoon down and turned casually toward the student. “Do you mind repeating what you just said?” he prompted him, his voice calm.

The two boys went back to eating.

The dwarf stood, walked over to the table, and set his hand on the student's shoulder.

A tremor shot through the boy's body. Feigning indifference, he turned to face Ido. He was a bright-eyed boy, with nervous hands and a smug look on his face.

“Now then, would you be so bold as to tell me the same thing you just told your friend.”

The entire cafeteria went silent.

For a moment, the boy remained doubtful; then his face lit up with assurance.

“What I said was, you were wrong to cut me after last night's tryout,” he asserted. His friend gave him a nudge, but he ignored him.

Ido smiled. “I would have never guessed that you knew more than me, after forty years' experience on the battlefield, about the merits of a warrior.”

“All the experience in the world couldn't help a mediocre knight.”

At a nearby table, another teacher rose to his feet. “Dohor! Is that the way you speak to a superior?”

“No, let the little runt say his piece,” said Ido, a smile still planted on his face. He turned back to Dohor. “Did anyone ever tell you that you should save your courage for the battlefield, rather than waste it all bragging about yourself.”

Dohor stood. “I'm not bragging. I know my own strength perfectly well and I know I'm ready for battle. And everyone here can tell you I'm the first in my class. Everyone here knows my skill with a sword and they're all thinking the same thing I am—that your selections are a complete sham.”

The silence was nauseating.

“Your speech, son, is intolerable!” the teacher thundered.

“I'll handle this,” Ido replied calmly. He looked Dohor in the eye. “I thought I made myself perfectly clear on the first day of selections. I don't deal with dandies like you, who fight with a textbook in one hand and a sword in the other, a head full of blather about duels and honor. But now it's clear you're even dumber than I thought. Fine, you think I made the wrong choice? Well, I'm always open to testing my own judgments. Grab your weapon and follow me outside.”

The boy did not move.

“Did you hear what I said? Let's settle this in the practice ring, where you can show me exactly how skilled you are.”

Dohor turned to his teacher, who was seated around a table with other instructors, but he received nothing but perplexed glances in response.

Parsel was the first to step in. “Ido, this boy has obviously showed you a lack of respect and he'll be punished for his behavior. Don't lower yourself to his level. …”

“I'm not lowering myself to his level,” Ido answered back. “So he wants a second chance? Fine, he can have one. If he's really the great warrior he claims to be, he'll prove it and step outside with me. In fact, why doesn't everyone come outside and judge for himself.” He turned again to Dohor. “I'll be waiting for you in the practice ring in ten minutes.” With that, he left the cafeteria and went to grab his sword.

As he paced the empty halls back to his room, he felt neither offended nor inflamed. He was calm, or if anything, slightly saddened. He could spend his whole life on the battlefield, and it still wouldn't be enough to win the respect of others.

In less then ten minutes, he was outside. The ring was already filled with onlookers, but Dohor was nowhere in sight.

At last, the boy arrived, pale as a ghost. He wore leather justaucorps, and the sword dangling at his side bore all the signs of a classic family heirloom. Ido's intuition had been right—this kid was the spoiled spawn of some pompous commander.

Parsel made one last effort to intervene. “Ido, you'll gain nothing but your own embarrassment. … He's just a boy, a kid who went a little overboard, that's all. The other teachers don't exactly approve of this little show of yours.”

“If any one of you had done the same, you'd all be applauding his educational methods. Spare me the sermon. You know what I'm doing is right, and you know damned well this isn't just a matter of one hotheaded kid.”

Without a word, Parsel nodded and stepped back.

The student halted at the center of the ring and stood there awkwardly.

“Well then, do you plan to fight or what?” Ido provoked him.

“You're not in the ready position.”

“When you're fighting a Fammin, you don't … Never mind. A great warrior like yourself should already know. Come on, then; raise your weapon.”

Dohor led off with a powerful lunge; Ido stepped to his right, dodging the attack readily. Rattled by his own overzealous attempt, the boy must have recognized the hopelessness of such a head-on strategy, for he aimed his next blow at the dwarf's side. This time Ido merely leaped, sending his opponent teetering off-balance, and immediately brought the tip of his sword to the boy's throat.

“Look at that. It appears I've already won. But perhaps you were distracted. You didn't have enough time to demonstrate your immense skill. Why don't we make it best of three; what do you say?”

The boy nodded, though with the reluctance of someone just realizing how deep a mess he'd gotten himself into.

The two split off and prepared for the second bout. This time, too, Ido stayed put and let Dohor play the aggressor. He came in from above, but the dwarf shifted to his side and dodged the attack. Not once since the start of the duel had he needed to use his sword. Time and again Dohor came at him, but Ido was as lithe as a ferret. In a flash, the dwarf clashed his sword against the boy's, sending it flying through the air. Once again, he brought his blade to Dohor's throat.

“Your grip, I think, is a little weak.”

Dohor was panting in terror a few feet away.

“Two out of three, boy. That makes me the winner. But that's no matter, I'm feeling generous today. Let's do it this way—if you win the next one, you'll have yourself a spot among my troops. Agreed?”

“I—” he tried to object, a pleading look in his eyes, but Ido gave him no time to finish his sentence.

“Excellent, so it's settled. I may be generous, but I'm not stupid. This time, I'll do the attacking.”

Ido and Dohor split off again. The moment Ido saw his opponent take the ready stance, he launched an attack. As always with the dwarf, it was all in the wrist. His short, stout legs—a particular source of amusement for the horde of spoiled students—were fixed firmly to the ground, and his torso, too, was all but immobile. His arm did all the moving.

Dohor was at a loss. He tried guarding himself, but Ido's blade was lightning quick and came flashing at him from all directions. The boy was giving it all he had, and still he was on his heels, backing up until only a few steps from the fence. Panic overtook him. He tripped and fell to the ground. Once again, Ido's sword was at his throat.

“Case closed, no? Now how is it that someone of your skill couldn't manage to block a single one of my strokes? Any ideas?”

Lying breathless on the ground, on the verge of tears, Dohor said nothing.

“You needn't waste your breath. I'll tell you what happened. What happened was you're not ready yet, and like a fool, you think too much of yourself. And if you weren't so busy being arrogant and cocksure, you might even have some talent. You still have plenty to learn when it comes to swordsmanship, never mind your dueling strategy. Rather than whine all day that I didn't pick you, you should be thanking me for having saved your life. Out on a real battlefield, you wouldn't have lasted even the time it took to fight this little duel of ours.”

Amid the heavy silence in the ring, broken only by Dohor's angry and shame-filled sniffling, Ido sheathed his sword and returned to the cafeteria.

After the episode in the practice ring, the atmosphere around the Academy changed dramatically. The students began to regard Ido with fear, and the other teachers kept their distance. It wasn't exactly the effect he'd been hoping for, but then again he couldn't complain—fear was at least a step up from ridicule.

His behavior that evening, however, also brought a few unpleasant side effects, as Ido discovered on the first day of the second round of selections, when the students who'd been chosen were called upon to duel with their respective teachers.

The dwarf entered the ring dressed for battle, his long sword hanging at his hip. His students were already gathered there, eighty of them in all. The ring was silent. Too silent, Ido thought, and scanning the faces lined up there before him, he saw nothing but fear.

He began by describing the challenge, rambling somewhat to delay things a bit, but under the scrutiny of so many frightened gazes his feeling of uneasiness persisted. At last, he decided it was time to get a move on.

“You, in the front row there, we'll start with you.”