Convergence (64 page)

For a while Lorand seemed to move in a dream, aware of nothing but the three patterns he had to produce. Distantly he realized he was bathed in sweat, but only when Toblis appeared outside his cubicle to beckon with one finger did Lorand
raise
an arm to blot his face on his sleeve. It took some effort to release the power and stand, but by the time he reached the place near the door where Toblis waited he was on the way back to feeling normal again.

"Congratulations, Coll, on managing to qualify," Toblis said, now sounding distantly amused. "I was certain you would, but didn't think you'd go so far as to produce the patterns four times rather than twice. But I suppose it's one way to be certain that you won't be here tomorrow for your—friend—to glare at."

"Where will I be tomorrow instead?" Lorand asked, turning to see that Drowd still struggled with braiding three strands. It
would be
nice to be away from the man tomorrow; too bad the same thing couldn't be accomplished tonight.

"Tomorrow you'll be introduced to what the competitions are all about," Toblis answered, then waggled his fingers. "Run along back to your residence now, and get as much rest as you can. I promise you'll need it."

Toblis walked away from him then, so Lorand left the session room and headed for the front of the building. Only half of the afternoon was gone, but hopefully he'd be able to get the coach to take him back to the residence now rather than later. He needed badly to use the bath house, and then he would find Jowi and get to that conversation he meant to have. Tomorrow would bring new situations and new problems, so he'd be smart to take care of the old ones before the new ones arrived.

Even if he
was
already dreading what he'd need all that rest for.
 
. .

THIRTY-FIVE

My stomach tried to do flip-flops when I walked into the session room, but I managed to quiet it with less effort than it usually took. Yesterday I'd been terribly afraid of coming back here to try again, afraid that I'd fail and lose everything. Now . . . now I seemed to have more assurance, borrowed in part from Jowi and, surprisingly, Rion Mardimil.

Rion had been distracted during the drive this morning, which was only to be expected after what he'd gone through with his mother last night. Once we were out of the coach Beldara Lant took off without a backward glance, but apparently Rion heard Jowi trying to assure me that I could do anything I cared to. He hesitated in the midst of walking away, then turned back to come over and take my hand.

"Dearest lady, you mustn't entertain a lie which detracts from your golden strength," he said softly and gently, looking down into my eyes. "Anyone able to face Mother the way you did last night is clearly much stronger than I am, and I expect to have no trouble at all in qualifying. If you use the same protectiveness for your own benefit, your difficulties will be even less than mine. Please tell me you will."

I couldn't help blushing as I nodded with a smile, noticing for the first time how really handsome Rion was. Jowi agreed with him enthusiastically, and the two of them walked me almost to the door of the session room. I knew they would be disappointed if I failed, so I had to succeed for their benefit as well as my own. I'd never had anyone care about me before, even in passing as their concern probably was, and I just couldn't let them down.

So I followed Adept Forum to my cubicle with more determination than ever before. Beldara already sat in her original cubicle among the four men we'd been with yesterday, but this time I ignored her as thoroughly as she'd been ignoring me. I had things to do, the first of which was to run through the braiding exercise again. Starting with three strands warmed me up, so to speak, and then I was ready to try four.

It had been unexpectedly easy to work with three strands, and opening to more power let me do almost the same with four. There were three separate exercises to go through that weren't as difficult as they looked, and when I finished them the second time I opened myself to the power again to try five strands. I was well on the way to finishing the first five-strand exercise, when a double scream, the second following swiftly on the heels of the first, almost made me lose control of the fire in my talent's grasp. I quickly anchored the strands in place,
then
hurried to the door of my cubicle to see what had happened.

"All right, now, let's settle down," Adept Forum said as he came through, heading for the cubicles in back. "This does happen from time to time, tragedy though it is. It's not likely to happen to the rest of you, or it would have done so already. Settle down, I say and let the men do their job."

The men he referred to were right behind him, six men who went past the point where he stopped. They entered the two cubicles involved, two men in one and four in the other. Those who had come out of their cubicles moved back to give the men room, but that number didn't include Beldara Lant. She still sat in her chair with an expression of scorn and superiority on her face, unlike the two remaining male applicants left in the area. They both looked ill, and they returned to their chairs to sit slumped in dejection and fear.

"Yes, I know exactly what happened," Adept Forum said to one of the men in my own area who had obviously gone over to him to ask the question. "That fool sitting there staring at a world he'll never come in contact with again is burned out, and he did it to himself. In all this time he hasn't even been able to coil two strands, but he obviously decided to change that. I felt him open himself wide enough for a herd of horses to pass through, showing he had no sense of judgment at all. You do have to walk before you can run, but what he tried was to fly."

Adept Forum and the other man had to step into an empty cubicle to let the two men leading the burned out one to go by, and I couldn't stop staring until it was no longer possible to see the slack face above the stumbling body. A small shiver passed through me at the sight, but nothing I couldn't cope with. The man was now beyond anyone's ability to hurt him, a condition
1
considered quite comforting. The other one, though . . . the smell was definitely beginning to turn my stomach.

"As you can see, the first man's scream caused that second fool to lose control," Adept Forum went on once he and the other man were back in the hall. "The power was freed to do as it willed, and what it willed was to burn him to cinders. It will take hours to clear away the results, so just go back to whatever you were doing."

The man he spoke to glanced at the horrible mess the four men were trying to clean up, then he took his pale face and trembling hands back to his own cubicle. The stench of burned flesh was trying hard to make me ill, but beyond that I felt strangely untouched. Both men were free of having to worry about what the world would do to them next, a luxury I didn't share. The thought of failure brought me greater fear than the possibility of death, and that was what I still had to fight against.

After returning to my chair I finished the first pattern with five strands,
then
did the other two. Running through all three for the second time was easier yet, and then Adept Forum was gesturing to me through the cubicle's clear resin wall. I rose and followed him out, not to the area near the door but through the door to the open floor of the building.

"Ah, that's much better," Adept Forum said once the door was closed behind us. "That smell was beginning to give me a headache.
But now on to more pleasant matters.
You're due congratulations, my dear, both for qualifying and for surprising me. I surely expected you to be too deeply upset by the incidents to finish qualifying today. I'm sure you'll be delighted to know that you needn't return here tomorrow."

"You're right, I am," I responded, really detesting the man and his manner. "Where do I go instead?"

"To the competitions, of course, something your driver will know," he answered, interest flickering through his eyes as he examined me. "I expect you'll enjoy yourself rather more than most, which pleases me. Perhaps we'll meet again, my lovely."

His bow was as sarcastic and condescending as the rest of his attitude, but I ignored it as I turned and walked away. It was almost lunchtime, and I had no intentions of taking the meal there. I wanted to be home, and I only had to find our coach to make it happen.

Stepping outside felt wonderful, as though I'd been released from some invisible
shackle,
and a pleasant surprise was waiting. Jowi and Rion stood together to one side, and when they saw me they waved me over.

"Tamrissa, you did it!" Jowi enthused once I was close enough, then her smile dissolved as she studied me. "I mean, you did do it, didn't you? You're out of there early, but you look a bit on the pale side. Is everything all right?"

"For me it is, at least so far," I responded, hurrying to reassure the both of them. "And I don't doubt that I look pale. One of our people exercised very bad judgment, and managed to burn himself out. His scream distracted another man, making him lose control of the power. That one ended burned
up
instead of out, but I swear the Adept was glad it happened. That smell will eventually drive everyone out of the room, either by making them qualify or making them give up."

"What about Beldara?" Jowi
asked,
her hand to my arm and the words very quiet. Rion also looked disturbed, but no more than I felt. "She wasn't the one who . . . exercised bad judgment, was she?"

"No, she just sneered, then went back to what she'd been practicing," I replied with a headshake. "She seems to be finally getting the idea of what she's been doing wrong, so she ought to qualify in another day or so herself. If she does, I doubt if any of the others will manage it along with her."

"I know precisely what you mean," Rion said with a nod. "None of those others in my session room will ever qualify, not if they try for the rest of their lives. They
should
be able to do it, but for one reason or another they don't. I was told that those with true potential always qualify by the second day, at the very latest, by the third. That leads me to believe the sessions won't go to week's end, even if they claim it ill."

"I got the same impression," Jowi said, then waved a hand beyond the steps. "There's our coach at last, so let's not

waste
any time getting to it. We're supposed to relax and enjoy ourselves today, and that's what I mean to do. I get the impression that tomorrow will be harder than anything we've faced so far."

"I'd consider that an understatement," I said as I joined her and Rion in heading for the coach. "All those people who tested and passed and qualified before us have been practicing and competing for who knows how long, and they're the ones we'll be going up against. In order to get anywhere at all, our names would have to be written in the Prophecies. If we're ever going to need a plan of action, this is the time."

"I don't care how good they are," Rion said after helping Jowi and me into the coach and then following. "I need the gold that winning a competition will bring, so I intend to win. Plan or no plan, I
will
succeed."

"I wish I had your confidence," I told him with a smile, speaking nothing but the truth. "It would be nice to believe that I'll turn out to be the strongest one competing in my aspect, but that's not very likely to be the case."

"Why not?"
Jowi asked, turning in her seat to my right to look at me. "
Someone
has to be the strongest, so why can't it be us? We're not competing against each other, after all, so why can't all of us be best? I think we
can
be, so that's what I'm going to expect."

"And I," Rion agreed with a merry grin, just about the first I'd seen him show. "The idea is marvelous, and I agree with it completely. We're all the best, and when we win positions as Highs, we'll have parties and invite only each other."

"That would make for very small parties," Jowi said with a laugh. "I think we ought to invite everyone who ever gave us trouble, and dare them to try it again. Then we could watch their feeble efforts and laugh."

"Yes!" I agreed, finally letting myself share the enjoyment of the silliness. "And if they try to give
too
much trouble, I can singe their bottoms to make them jump. Then we'd have no need to hire dancers and acrobats."

They both laughed aloud at that,
then
tried to find other things we would do to those we disliked once we became Highs. Daydreaming is supposed to be a useless waste of time, but those who say that are wrong. On the one hand, making the dreams come true justifies the time spent. If it doesn't involve something that's likely to come true, simply enjoying the faint possibility justifies it on the other. As long as you don't try to live your life in those dreams, there's a lot
more good
in them than bad.