Thawed Fortunes (12 page)

As Va'del came back around to where Tim'i was
practicing, the smaller boy lowered his weapons.

"I'm done, can I go now?"

Va'del suppressed a smile. Tim'i was trying
so hard to fit in--it wouldn't do for the younger boy to think one
of his teachers was laughing at him. If any of the other students
had told Va'del they were done so quickly he would have told them
to do another twenty repetitions, but Tim'i was so painfully honest
that Va'del believed he'd actually done the full hundred.

Va'del nodded. "That you may, I'll see you
here bright and early tomorrow."

Tim'i smiled. "No questions for me
tonight?"

"No, I haven't had time to
finish the last assignment you gave me out of
Teachings
, but I'll get to it
tonight, and then you can pay me back for all of the mean things I
make you do out here on the practice floor."

The younger boy rolled his eyes, but it was
obvious he was thinking about something else already.

"Va'del, were you scared when you faced off
against the bandits?"

For a second he was tempted to dismiss the
question, but Va'del stopped himself as he realized there was
something more than just glory-seeking motivating Tim'i.

"Not when I was actually fighting them.
Things were happening so fast there wasn't time to be scared. I was
terrified before though. The whole time we were following the trail
I was scared. Scared I'd die, scared Jain would die, or that I'd be
too late to stop them from doing terrible things to her. I was even
scared Cindi would die because I'd convinced her to follow me."

"You didn't like her very much, did you?"

"No, she had been very mean to me up to that
point."

Tim'i seemed to process that idea for several
seconds.

"Why did she help you then?"

Va'del remembered a time
just a few months previously where he'd likewise been too
inexperienced to wrap his mind around the idea of someone he didn't
like doing the right thing just because it
was
the right thing. It did seem to
be human nature to assume that the people you liked were good and
the people you hated were bad. Getting older seemed to help a
little, but Va'del was starting to suspect that the tendency never
really entirely disappeared.

"Because she knew it was
the right thing to do. That's why we both went. Not because it was
right in the sense that the
Teachings
necessarily talk about,
but because Jain was our friend and trying to save her was the
right thing to do."

"Was it hard?"

Va'del wasn't quite sure
where Tim'i was going, but he somehow knew that the boy wasn't
talking about the actual fighting. "Yes, it was hard. People didn't
like me much when I got back, but I should have expected that.
Doing the right thing is usually hard, otherwise we'd all just do
the right thing all the time and we wouldn't need the
Teachings
to tell us
what to do."

Instead of laughing at Va'del's attempted
joke, Tim'i nodded absently and then walked away looking even more
grave than usual.

Over the next half cycle, the other boys
trickled by, either singly or in pairs, to ask for permission to
leave. Va'del politely released them, all the while trying to
figure out the cause for Tim'i's questions.

As Va'del racked his practice blade, Mich'a
walked over. "Fi'lin asked me to let you know that he had to leave
early. He's already left word with the blade smiths though, so you
can just go down there by yourself and even if he ends up not being
able to meet you Master Arnold will start the fitting process."

After thanking the young Guadel for passing
on the message, Va'del picked up his sword and headed out of the
practice room using the same exit that Tim'i had taken.

There was no question but that Fi'lin was
right; Va'del was quickly outgrowing his old weapon. Still, he was
going to miss the sword that had seen him through so much. It was a
little sad to think of it going back to the armory, one more
anonymous blade with no indication it had been part of something so
ludicrous as a half-trained boy and the Guadel he'd come to hate
cutting down half a dozen bandits to save the girl he loved.

Va'del hadn't ever been down to the
blacksmith levels, and had only a vague idea how to get there, but
everyone was hurrying off to lunch, so he was reluctant to ask for
directions until he saw Jain walking by herself.

The modifications to Va'del's bones were
essentially done, and he wasn't straining his muscles as severely
now that the testing was through, so Ah'bi had ordered Jain to cut
back how frequently they saw each other. These days they were lucky
if she could sneak away once a week to see him.

Jain's eyes lit up just like Va'del was sure
his did when he caught sight of her.

"What are you doing here? I've never seen you
this far from your room."

"I'm trying to get down to the blacksmiths,
but I suspect that I'll end up more than a little lost."

After checking to make sure nobody else was
around Jain wrapped her arms around him. "I'm so glad to see
you."

"Rough day?"

"The worst, but we can talk about that later
tonight. Let's see if we can get you down to the blacksmiths."

"I could always take the long way down the
central corridor, but there's supposed to be a shortcut here that
will save me a half cycle of walking."

Jain nodded as she looked around. "I know.
It's stupid that they leave so many of the corridors around here
unmarked. They claim it's because nobody uses them, but I think
it's because the Guadel want to have quick access to places like
the blacksmiths without having to worry about us all wandering
around and getting into trouble. Not like it stops us, it just
makes it into a game for the candidates and Daughters to try and
figure out what goes where."

"I don't want to get you in trouble."

"It's okay, nobody will see us. I'd take you
the whole way, but I can't afford to miss lunch, so I'll just get
you partway and give you directions from there. I can never
remember whether I turn right or left at the second juncture
though. Both routes look the same, but one leads you to the
blacksmith's area and the other takes you past an endless parade of
storage rooms."

Jain grabbed a pair of tiny glow stones from
a nearby shelf and then set off at a sedate pace. The pair walked
in companionable silence past a number of narrow service tunnels.
Va'del was just reflecting on how nice it was to see Jain during
the day, when a crash and a muffled scream burst from one of the
tunnels to their left.

Worried someone was hurt, Va'del lunged into
the tunnel. He expected to find a cook's assistant or maybe some
other apprentice trapped beneath fallen supplies.

I didn't expect to find this.

The storeroom was surprisingly big, and
completely empty save for the three people in the far corner. As
Va'del and Jain entered the room, Be'ter looked up from where he
had pinned Tim'i to the ground, his hand around the smaller boy's
throat, while Mali watched.

The fear in Tim'i's light-green eyes told
Va'del all he needed to know and he lashed out with a kick to
Be'ter's ribs, knocking him off of Tim'i before anyone else could
move.

Tim'i scrambled to his feet sobbing
incoherently, but Va'del made out just enough to understand that
the younger boy had refused to do Mali's homework for her.

Jain suddenly screamed and Va'del looked back
just in time to see Be'ter get to his feet and draw the sword that
he was allowed to wear about the Capital now that he was a
sub-Guadel.

Va'del was just able to raise his
cloth-wrapped sword in time to block the blow before Be'ter's sword
would have taken off his head.

Be'ter's eyes were so full of hate and anger
that Va'del took an involuntary step backward as he shook his sword
free of its cloth wrappings and clawed at I'rone's dagger on his
right hip.

The fight that ensued was vicious and by the
second exchange Va'del knew Be'ter wouldn't be satisfied with
anything less than killing him.

Mali was huddled in a corner screaming each
time it looked as though Va'del might penetrate Be'ter's guard, but
Be'ter seemed completely unable to hear her cries as he
relentlessly attacked Va'del with combinations that the younger boy
had never seen before.

Va'del improvised responses that managed to
keep Be'ter's blade from his vitals, but his quickness wasn't quite
enough to keep him unmarked and he soon bled from a pair of slashes
on his chest.

It wasn't until Be'ter had
tried to drive him to the right a second time that Va'del realized
the older boy was trying to get past him.
He wants Tim'i or Jain.

The thought of Jain dead or Tim'i lying in a
pool of his own blood filled Va'del with a cold fury that gave his
limbs renewed strength and he managed to start pushing Be'ter back
away from the entrance to the storage room.

Be'ter's heavier weapon flashed towards his
opponent again, scoring a deep cut on Va'del's leg, but although
Va'del couldn't twist entirely away from the blow, his own sword
bit into Be'ter's left arm, rendering it useless.

Va'del couldn't dodge anymore, there was too
much chance his wounded leg would collapse under him, and for a
second he worried that Be'ter would go around him to get at Jain
and Tim'i, but the enraged sub-Guadel instead screamed in pain and
renewed his attack.

Va'del's lack of mobility turned out to be
slightly less hampering than the loss of his dagger was to Be'ter,
and for a few seconds the fight tilted towards the younger boy.

A brief glimpse of Mali between blows showed
Va'del that she'd stopped screaming. Instead, the beautiful,
symmetrical features that were the envy of nearly all her peers
were twisted with hate so strong it defied comprehension. Va'del
had a split second to wonder what he'd ever done to the
tear-streaked Daughter, and then she closed her eyes and Be'ter
suddenly attacked with a speed and strength that wasn't human.

For a heartbeat Va'del's mind refused to
believe Mali had linked with Be'ter. That disbelief nearly cost him
his life as his dagger didn't make it up in time to completely
parry the bigger boy's strike. A rod of agony tore through Va'del
as Be'ter ripped his sword free of Va'del's chest.

Can't breathe, must be a collapsed lung.

Be'ter drew back for what both of them knew
would be a killing blow, and suddenly Va'del felt a warm, familiar
presence inside his mind as new strength flowed out to his
limbs.

There was no doubt but that Jain was doing
her best to save him, but Be'ter's blow was still too fast for
Va'del to bat it completely out of the way, so he didn't even
try.

Va'del's dagger, the one that had originally
belonged to I'rone, slipped out and brought the point of Be'ter's
sword down just enough for it to pierce his stomach instead of his
heart, and then his own sword whipped through the air towards
Be'ter's head.

Be'ter's momentum carried
both of them to the ground, and Va'del's last thoughts were to
wonder why he'd twisted his sword at the last second so that flat
would impact instead of the blade.
I guess
I wasn't ready to kill him yet.

On'li tried to pay
attention to the Council meeting, but her mind kept wandering back
to what Va'del had said.
 
Javin had kept an eye on
Va'del and reported that he seemed to be settling into his role as
one of Fi'lin's assistants quite well, but On'li couldn't get past
the fact that everything that the boy had been forced to suffer
through really was poor thanks for what he'd done for the
People.

The Council was currently taking a report
from Vi'en, the wife of the last Guadel casualty they'd taken
cleaning out what was left of the bandits. After all that they'd
been through it felt like things should have stabilized, but the
bag'lig problem was actually getting worse. Whatever had been
driving the creatures up the mountain hadn't stopped, or even
slowed in the slightest that On'li could tell.

On'li forced her thoughts back to what Vi'en
was saying and was struck by how much the newly-widowed woman
reminded her of Cindi. Both were so absolutely positive they were
always right. On'li was pretty sure Cindi had started out that way,
but Vi'en probably had been pushed in that direction after
marrying. The men of her bloodline all tended towards forceful
personalities, the women all had to develop something similar or
spend their years supremely unhappy.

Vi'en finished her report and before leaving
bowed stiffly, first to Va'ma and then to the rest of the Council.
More than any other, Va'ma ran his bloodline like the Guard. On'li
couldn't remember even a single instance where one of his people
had broken from the official stance. She'd heard stories of some of
them carrying out orders that would have led to some kind of coup
in most other bloodlines, but Va'ma's people just nodded and did
what they were told.

A'vril stood, and had just opened the floor
to a discussion on what to do about the increasing numbers of
bag'ligs making their way into the higher elevation areas claimed
by the People, when a loud disturbance in the antechamber
interrupted her.

On'li took one look at the anger on Fi'lin's
face as he strode into the Council chamber, and found herself
reaching out to link with Javin so that they could fight off what
had all the indications of a coup. From the way Va'ma leaped to his
feet, it was obvious he and his wife were fully linked, but
A'vril's booming command caused everyone to stop before blood could
be spilled.