Convergence (17 page)

The slender flame I'd kept alight didn't relieve more of the darkness than what was immediately around me, but I had the impression of a rather large area. It took a few moments before my trembling and agitation were under control, but once they were I intended to use enough light to see everything in that place. I was just about to start when the room began to brighten from a different source, so I let my last flame die and looked around.

Lamps were being turned up all around the room, but they stood in little niches high up in the resin walls behind windows of dear resin. And I'd been right about the room being big, I could now see, but more in its length than its width. Behind me was the door I'd come in by, to the left and right were the side walls about twenty feet
apart,
and ahead about fifteen feet was another door. I could see that door beyond the large U of metal standing between it and me, a construction that seemed to have no purpose. And the door seemed to have a bar of some sort on it, something to keep it closed rather than something to help open it.

"I sincerely hope you've regained control of yourself, ma'am," a voice said, and I looked up to see the man who'd pushed me into the room. He now looked out of a small door high in the wall, and he seemed almost as shaken as I felt.

"I demand that you let me out of here at once," I said, fighting to keep my voice from shaking. "I came here for a reason, and being manhandled wasn't it."

"You came here to have your talent tested, and so it shall be," the man retorted, now sounding
more sure
of himself. "Your task is to find a way to free yourself from there, and if you fail at the task you will die. If this test seems harsh, consider how harsh most failure is. In this instance, you will
not
live to regret the defeat. Good luck or goodbye."

He drew back and closed the small door again, and all I could do was stand and stare at the place where he'd been.
This
was the test, and if I didn't pass it I would die? If I didn't pass I would want to die, but what was there in this room to harm me? And in what possible way could my talent be tested?

That was when I heard the rumble and felt the vibration, and looked around to see that the walls to my left and right had begun to move inward! Each wall had ten feet to cross, and then they would meet in the middle of the room! Panic flared as I looked wildly from one moving wall to the other, but then I realized the two
couldn't
meet. That strange U-shaped thing of metal in the middle of the room would stop them.

Hope rose in me briefly, only to die out again as I made some mental calculations. The U of metal was narrow, so narrow I would barely have the room to stand when it stopped the walls. And I certainly would find it impossible to pass the U in order to reach that second door. Not that reaching it would help. The moving walls would end up covering most of it, hiding it behind the resin I could do nothing against.

Terror came again as those walls rumbled steadily toward me, a terror that screamed at me to
do
something! I wanted to do something, anything that was possible, but nothing was. I put my hands to my mouth to keep from screaming aloud, the words of defeat ringing in my mind: there's nothing to do! Nothing to do! Nothing to
do
...
!

TEN

Valiant Ro felt stiff as he climbed down from the upper coach seat at what had to be his final destination. He was a man used to the freedom of the seas, so first he'd been stuffed into a box of a coach, and now he stood before a massive wall with guards at all of its openings. Someone had apparently decided to see just what it would take to break him, and that someone was actually making a damned good start.

But it still wasn't going to happen. Valiant's basic love of life pushed its way through his depression, making him smile faintly with self-ridicule. No one was trying to break
him,
they just didn't understand what true freedom meant. To them what they did was ordinary and everyday, not an imposition on a man's right to be unencumbered. Valiant could have felt sorry for them if he hadn't been working so hard not to feel sorry for himself.

"Just take what's left of yer ticket to them guardsmen, Val," the coach driver, Ennis, said as he handed over Valiant's sea bag. "They'll tell ya what t'do next."

"What I'd
like
to do next is go home," Valiant grumbled as he took his bag, then he held his hand out. "Thanks for makin' this trip better for me, Ennis. I've enjoyed knownin' you."

"Same here, Val," the driver responded with a crooked-toothed grin, taking Valiant's hand. "Ya made
th
' run a lot shorter with all them stories you got. Hope t'hear the rest of 'em some day."

"If we meet again, I'll see that you do," Valiant assured the man as they shook. "Most people back home have stories of their own to tell, so I always have to wait my turn. Take care, Ennis, and try to remember not to believe everythin' you hear."

Ennis laughed aloud at that, obviously remembering how he'd swallowed every tall tale Valiant had come up with at first, and then he went to climb back up on his coach. That left Valiant with nothing to do but head for those guardsmen, so he tightened his grip on his seabag and did just that.

"I'm told you need to see this stub," Valiant said to the guardsmen when he reached them, handing over the item. "What would have happened if I'd thrown it away?"

"You would have spent more'n a week waiting for somebody to get here to identify you," the guardsman answered neutrally as he handed back the stub. "You'd be long out of coin, livin' on the street, an' real hungry by then, but you'd still have to go through with the test. Use the second archway to the right of the one directly behind this gate, and give
them
the stub. They'll tell you what to do next."

Valiant grunted noncommittally and headed for the gate, glad he'd asked the question even if he hadn't liked the answer. Without the ticket stub he wouldn't have starved or had to live on the street, not when the bank his family used had its main office there in Gan Garee. It was the extra time he would have wasted that made him glad he hadn't tossed away the means of identifying him when Ennis had first told him about it. The tickets bf applicants for High were special and different, and that's why those who were sent to Gan Garee weren't left to buy their own.

The sun above him told Valiant it was just about noon, and the people hurrying in and out of the large building he walked toward seemed to be ready for lunch. Valiant had already eaten his at Ennis's suggestion while they were still on the road. He'd bought the food at the roadhouse where they'd stopped for breakfast while the horses were being changed, and the sliced beef sandwich had been kept fresh because he'd thought to form and hold some ice around it.

He'd done the same for Ennis's sandwich and the driver had returned the favor by heating both sandwiches and melting some cheese on them when he and Valiant had been ready to eat. Lucky Ennis's coach guard had taken sick at the beginning of the run and hadn't been replaced. That had let Valiant ride on top of the coach rather than leaving him cooped up inside. . . .

The building was large on the inside as well, which came as a relief to Valiant. Small areas and crowded buildings tended to make him uncomfortable, especially when there was no easy access to the outside. His cabin aboard the Sea Queen wasn't enormous, but it had large bow windows which he usually left wide open. This building didn't have much in the way of windows, but its very high ceiling and open floor let Valiant ignore that fact as he walked up to the table a short distance from the archway he'd used to enter.

"I believe this is supposed to be given to you," Valiant said to the man behind the table, once again handing over his ticket stub. "And I would also appreciate knowin' how long I'll be here. After a week on a coach seat, I could use some place stationary to stretch out for a while."

"They won't be keeping you for any unreasonable amount of time, I'm sure," the man answered with a glance and a smile as he went through a box filled with papers. "I'll have your identity card filled out in just a minute, and then you'll be able to get on with it."

Valiant watched for not much more than the specified minute while the man wrote on a rectangle of heavy paper, attached a thin chain to the rectangle,
then
handed the combination to him with instructions to put it on. Valiant removed his cap before doing so, and by the time he'd replaced it there was a woman standing beside him.

"Vosin here will take you where you have to go," the seated man said, gesturing toward the woman. "You must wear your identification at all times, and you have to hand over these papers when you reach your destination. Good day to you."

The man was being polite about it, but Valiant knew a dismissal when he heard it. He looked for the woman who was supposed to guide him, and felt annoyed when he discovered her already on her way to the far side of the building. She kept going without a backward glance, and

Valiant had to
stretch
his stride a bit in order to catch up with her. That was something of a surprise,
since
none of the inn and roadhouse girls along the way had been that unfriendly.

But he wasn't here to involve himself with women, after all. He was here to fail a test and then head home, so he followed along behind the pretty little thing without complaint. If he wondered what she might look like under that very plain gown she wore, it was only to give
himself
something to occupy his mind. So far his first trip to the legendary Gan Garee was even more boring than being becalmed.

The woman led Valiant out of the large building and across the outer walkway, obviously heading toward a group of odd-looking buildings standing in a circle a short distance away. They passed two of the buildings before the woman stopped, and the relatively small doorway she gestured to wasn't particularly encouraging. But the door had the
sym
bol for Water magic on the wall beside it, and it was standing open. That was enough to let Valiant walk inside, which he did without giving the woman more than one final glance. But she was already on her way back to the large building, so Valiant shrugged and forgot about her.

This smaller building immediately made Valiant uncomfortable, but not so much so that he was willing to show it. He walked up to another man seated at another table, and handed over the set of papers he'd been given.

"Good morning, sir," the seated man said with a friendly smile as he took the papers. "You've obviously traveled quite a way to be here, so we'll get right to the questions we have without delaying you very long. You can leave that bag here with me and go through the doorway on your far right, and they
'
ll
take you to a place where you can sit down."

Valiant
tried not to hesitate very long before handing over his seabag, and a glance at the curtained doorway helped. Curtains were easy to go in and out of, and there were probably even windows in the room they would take him to. Ignoring the sweat beginning to bead his brow, Valiant went to the curtained doorway and through it. Beyond was a very narrow hallway, and
if
there hadn't been three people in an alcove to the left,
Valiant
might well have turned and run out. But he couldn't do that
with
people watching, especially since one of the three was a woman. He'd just have to grit his teeth and think about the windows the room he'd be taken to would have . . .

"Please follow me," one of the men said, and began to lead the way up that horribly narrow hall. Valiant followed, giving all his attention to the man rather than what they walked through. And it wasn't even a very long walk. In just a couple of minutes the man stopped and opened a door on the left, so Valiant immediately passed the man and plunged into the room. His breath wanted to come in gasps to match the whirling behind his eyes, but as soon as he found those windows he would be fine. He just had to shake his head hard enough to clear his vision . . .

And that turned out to be the biggest mistake yet. It took a moment for him to be able to see that room, but the first thing he noticed was the absence of windows. The room was fairly large and more than ordinarily high, with lamps burning in niches covered over with clear material. There was no sign of another door, and when Valiant turned back to the one he'd come in by, he found it closed. He lurched over to it, nearly frantic to get it open again, but there was nothing to hold to. He wanted to claw at the edge of it where it met the jamb, but there wasn't room in between even for his fingernails.