01 - The Price of Talent (32 page)

“Well, this is better than my cell…” I said, more thrilled than I would have admitted to Claudius.

“I’m glad you like it,” said Claudius. “And maybe next time you experiment with your powers you won’t fall into a coma.”

“I’ll try not to,” I said.

“But, if I may make a suggestion, if you want to practice, use the practice yard,” he said. “Now that you have seen your room, I will be taking you there. But if you are curious, you can see it out the window near your bed.”

He was right, out the window I could see a large practice yard, much like the garden area, except that instead of vegetables there were archery targets and practice dummies in the fields. I could see a group of initiates and one priest taking turns trying to light a target on fire with varying degrees of success.

After letting me get an eyeful, Claudius then led me out of the room, down the hall and down the stairs, out the back of the dormitory to the practice yard. It was a nice set up. Interestingly, the targets and dummies they had set up looked like they were designed with both magic and conventional weapons in mind.

“Do you train the initiates how to use weapons?” I asked.

“We do some basic training so that anyone we send out into the world can defend themselves from brigands and the like,” said Claudius. “But the training dummies and practice fields are mostly used for the Inquisitors who have to rely on more conventional weapons, being not as gifted in the use of magic as the other initiates are.”

“Do Inquisitors use magic?” I asked.

“Of course they do,” said Claudius, his tone saying that he thought this was obvious. “How do you think they track down other magic users? Their talents and the medallions they wear help attune them to local uses of magical power.”

“If they are magically talented, why aren’t they priests?” I asked.

“Like I said, they aren’t as gifted with magic as you are,” he replied. “They typically have just enough skill to sense magic being used, and the medallion helps them with this, but they usually can’t channel enough even to light a candle. We use the few talented people we find as best we can, but those without much talent we use to help find more talented people. And because they are being sent out into harm’s way, they receive more extensive training in weapons and armor.”

To this I wanted to respond: “And what part of this training involved trying to murder my parents and attacking me in the mayor’s house?", but decided against it for obvious reasons. While I was thinking this I noticed we had stopped in the middle of the field.

“Why have we stopped?” I asked.

“Because before we can have you helping to train the new Inquisitor initiates, we need to evaluate your martial skills,” Claudius replied. “To do this I have asked the master of arms here to run you through some basic sparring moves and then take you to our target practice range to test your archery abilities.”

“Ok, I said,” at first thinking this was a waste of time; then realizing that most of what he had seen me do involved not hitting anyone with the bow and then lighting people on fire.

“I will leave you in the capable hands of Alfieri Marozzo, our master of arms,” Said Claudius.

              With that, Claudius headed back towards the main building in the castle, leaving me standing alone in the middle of the field. As we had been talking, the group of initiates had finished their practice, had dumped water on the few scorched targets they had left behind and had headed inside as well. After Claudius and the initiates had left the field, another man exited the main building of the castle. This man was a bit skinnier than Claudius, and also looked to be a decade younger. His hair was well on its way to gray, and there was enough left that he had pulled it back into a ponytail. Despite being clearly middle aged, there was still a spring in his step. His clothing was different from standard monk robes too. He wore closer fitting attire, and instead of the robes, he wore breaches and long sleeved shirt. All in all, he gave the impression of experience without having been slowed by age.

              As he approached I noticed something else, he was carrying two staves of roughly sword length. I had a good idea where this was going already.

“Good morning Tyr!” Alfieri said with a big smile. “Since we are quickly approaching lunch time, I will keep our introductions short. I am Alfieri Marozzo, your humble master at arms, and I’m here to see if you know the pointy end of a sword from the dull bits.”

“Good morning sir,” I said. “But you don’t need to worry, I have some idea about which end of the sword is the pointy bit.”

“Good! Then we can move on to more interesting things!” He said still smiling. “I’m sure you noticed these staves. We’re going to pretend they’re swords. Catch!”

              He said “Catch!” just as he tossed one of the staves to me. To my credit, I managed to catch the thing and not bobble or drop it.

“Now, let’s see if you know how to hold a sword,” he said. “Why don’t you show me your ready position?”

“Which one?” I asked, trying to show off. “High-guard, mid-guard, or low-guard?”

“Which one?” He asked almost mockingly. “Tyr there are 11 different guards, many that are high, many that are mid-level and a few that are low… Why don’t you show me what you call a mid-guard and we can start from there?”

              His smile was starting to annoy me, and his tone was definitely bordering on mockery. I was starting to dislike the man. So I made my best effort to take a mid-guard as Devlin had taught me.

“Oh ho?! A passable guard position?” he said, still smiling. “This should be interesting. Why don’t I skip seeing the other two and move on to more interesting things?”

“Sounds good to me,” I said, wanting to show the efficacy of Devlin’s tutelage.

“Tyr, I’m going to run through some basic attacks at your guard at half speed and want to see you block them,” he said. “We are going to see how well you know your… Only three guards was it?”

“Fine, block and parry practice it is,” I said, trying not to make it obvious he was annoying me.

              With that Alfieri took the other stave in his hand. He immediately dropped into what I can only describe as a flamboyant fighting stance. He had turned sideways and had his front foot pointing towards me and the other pointing away. His knees were bent and his back hand was tucked behind his back. He looked more like an artist’s interpretation of a fighting stance than a real one. I was hard pressed not to giggle back at him.

              I was a bit surprised then when he began testing my guard with some basic attacks. For all that his initial stance seemed silly, his attacks were quick, precise and on target. It was also obvious he meant what he said about this being half speed, as I had no trouble blocking his attacks. Still, he apparently had more skill than his flamboyant behavior had lead me to believe.

“Good, very good!” He said, after completing his basic attacks. “Your blocks are decent, you clearly have had some training, yes?”

“Yes,” I responded.

“But the style is different…” he said, looking pensive but still smiling. “If I had to guess, the person who trained you had some military experience. While not as sophisticated a style as my own, it is not altogether ineffective either. Suitable to be taught to the rabble who make up the foot soldiers of an army. A guard suitable for mere guardsman.”

              I chose to ignore that little jab. If I was going to have to put up with this man on a daily basis, flying off the handle about insults to my friends probably wouldn’t help foster a good relationship. Still, the fact that he was willing to insult my friends didn’t help my impression of him.

“Now that I have seen you are mildly competent at defending yourself, I want to test your theory that you know the pointy end of a sword from the dull end.” Alfieri said. “So now I want you to attack me at half speed.”

“Half speed?” I asked. “I think I can manage that.”

“Then, when you are ready, if you are ready,” he responded.

              Trying not to let him get a rise out of me, I started with some basic attack sequences. I did them at half speed, just like he said, so he had no problem blocking them. After a few of these he motioned me to stop.

“As competent in attack as in defense? Not bad Tyr,” said Alfieri. “And you didn’t lose your temper either, I’m surprised. Given your reputation I would have thought you to be… more volatile.”

“I’m sorry… What?” I said, not too terribly articulately. “What reputation?”

“Tyr, you’re a killer,” said Alfieri looking at me like I had two heads and both of them had said something extremely stupid. “You have lit inquisitors on fire and evaded capture for the better part of a year… Surely you realize that this has caused no small amount of trepidation in those of us who run this place?”

“You mean, this was a test?” I asked, realizing that of course it was.

              Once I viewed things from his perspective it made a certain amount of sense. I had avoided capture and was responsible for the deaths of a few Inquisitors. From his perspective, I bet using me to train initiate inquisitors seemed like a dangerous risk. Who knows when I would fly off the handle and start lighting people on fire… Again.

“Everything is a test Tyr,” Alfieri said. “But in this case, I wanted to know if I could trust you with my students.”

“So… I passed?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.

“Yes, at least for now,” said Alfieri. “But I will be watching you. Any signs of violent outbursts and I will see to it that you end up back in the pit.”

              And with that he walked back to the main building. Not knowing what else to do, I collected the staves, leaned them against one of the targets and headed back towards the dormitory building. On my way there I was intercepted by Claudius.

“Good timing Tyr,” he said. “Lunch is being served. Shall I show you to the mess?”

“Alfieri didn’t seemed that happy with the idea of my training the Inquisitors.”

“Well, no, he isn’t that thrilled with the idea,” said Claudius. “But in time he will learn to appreciate what you have to offer.”

“He said I had a reputation…” I said.

“Well, Tyr, given your activities in the past year, are you that surprised?” He said. “Alfieri has trained all the Inquisitors that have been through here for decades. The people you killed were all former students of his.”

“I… See…” I said.

              While it was nice to get confirmation of my suspicions, it was also less than thrilling as well. If I was ever going to escape this place, it would be helpful if I wasn’t being watched by people like Alfieri. I guess I just had to try and win him over as well. At least enough so that I could plan my escape without arousing suspicions.

              Claudius led me back to the main building of the castle. Once inside, he led me down a hallway, past the kitchens and into a large banquet hall. Inside were a bunch of tables at which quite a few initiates were sitting around eating. Claudius chose an unoccupied table over by where we came in to sit down. Shortly after, a member of the kitchen staff brought out a couple of sandwiches and some beer for Claudius and some water for me.

              The meal was taken in relative silence. The students kept to themselves, only occasionally looking over at our table. I couldn’t tell if they were just curious or if there was actual animosity in their stares. I decided not to think about it. After our meal was done, Claudius led me back out to the yard. Once there he ran me through a few warm up drills, like lighting a candle without blowing it up and moving a few small objects with telekinesis.

“Ok Tyr, now that you have had a little warm up, I want you to light one of the targets on fire,” said Claudius.

“Uh, won’t that destroy the dummy?” I asked.

“If it does, it will just be replaced,” he said. “But you raise a good point. Why don’t you aim at one of the straw archery targets, they’re cheaper to replace.”