The Book of Deacon (59 page)

"So it would seem," he said calmly.

"I suppose you will leave this place soon to
perform your duty to the world," Myranda said.

"You may believe what you wish," he said.

Myranda paused.

"You do intend to stop the war, don't you?"
she asked.

"Is that to be one of your questions?" he
asked.

She only had two, and there was little hope
of any new questions anytime soon. This, though, was quite worth
it.

"Yes," she said.

"Absolutely not," he said.

"What!? You cannot be serious! Lain, it is
your purpose! You were born to do it! You owe it to the world!" she
said.

"I have not finished forcing the world to pay
the debt owed to me. I am in the business of killing. I depend upon
feelings of hatred and loathing, and deeply-seated longings to end
the life of another. Such feelings are not forthcoming in a time of
peace. War is my livelihood," he said.

Myranda was frozen with rage. She could feel
the hope of an end slipping away because this short-sighted,
greedy, heartless
thing
that sat before her refused to use the power
given to him for the one and only truly good purpose in the world.
Her hands trembled and tears formed in her eyes. The stand that
held the training swords they had been using stood to the side in
the room. She grasped her weapon and, shaking, held it up.

"Outside, now!" she demanded.

"I am not prepared to train you now. It is
not yet sundown," he said.

"Lain, damn you, if you will not do your duty
for this world, then you will keep your promise to me! On your
feet!" she shouted.

Myn, who had been roused from a light sleep
by Myranda's entrance, watched in a pleasant daze. When the girl
began to speak her harsh words, the dragon snapped quickly out of
it. Lain grasped his training sword and hoisted himself to his
feet. The pair left the hut, with Myn keeping a close and watchful
eye. She could feel that there was something different about this
fight.

Myranda was hardly at her best. She had only
just regained the strength to walk. She wouldn't be able to fight
nearly as well as she normally would, which wasn't nearly well
enough to exact the revenge she so desired. It didn't matter. She
wasn't in control of her own actions any more. Lain lasted even
longer than she, and he was unaccustomed to the mental fatigue that
she had come to expect at the end of a training day. Perhaps, just
this once, the balance would be tipped in her favor.

The first blows began to be exchanged.
Myranda was slower and sloppier than she had been in weeks. Lain's
speed was not what it had been either, and his movements were, for
the first time, less than graceful. Still, he managed to raise his
weapon to block each attempt. As Myranda's anger stirred, she got
sloppier. Soon she was paying no attention to anything but
attacking. Lain landed punishing blows, hammering her ribs and
legs--but in her mind, the pain was nothing. He had done more
through his single decision to forsake his purpose and allow the
war to continue than he ever could with his weapon.

Myranda put every ounce of strength she could
into each attack. Either through fatigue or lapsed concentration,
Lain's weapon was only barely able to block them after a time. Then
came the moment. Myranda managed a single sidestep to take her out
of range of a mighty swing by Lain. The force of the attack took
him off balance, and there it was. Her chance. Time seemed to stop.
Her weapon was ready and his was not. Before she could even think,
she had struck. With a force that could only be mustered by rage,
Myranda's weapon crashed with a sickening snap into Lain's jaw.

All at once, time came rushing back. Lain
shook from the force of the attack. His face turned away, but his
body remained planted. Myranda dropped her weapon and gasped,
shocked at what she had done. Regret instantly replaced the hate in
her heart. She wanted badly to rush to him, to see if he was badly
hurt. A part of her, though, held her back, fearful of the
consequences of her action. Myn shot between the two, a look of
pure betrayal in her eyes. Lain's face turned to her. He wore the
same stony expression that he always had, but his eyes spoke
volumes. There was respect, pride, and perhaps a bit of pity, but
no anger. A trickle of blood crept from the corner of his mouth,
staining the cream-colored fur red.

"If that were a proper blade, I would be
dead. You have learned all I can teach. When you came to me, you
would not draw a drop of blood from my arm," he said, spitting a
gob of blood and a tooth to the ground. "Now you are capable of
taking my life. The fire is burning inside. You are every bit a
warrior. The rest will come with time."

He knelt and picked up the tooth.

"Here," he said, stepping around Myn and
placing it in Myranda's hand. "Keep it. It will be a reminder of
the day you proved that you were no worse than I . . . and no
better."

Myranda stared at the bloody thing for a long
time. Lain returned to his hut, leaving her to her thoughts. Her
eyes wandered to the practice sword, a stain of blood near its tip.
A deep, dull pain burned in the palm of her hand. The sight of the
stained sword turned her stomach. Myn settled to the ground, her
eyes a window to her conflicted soul. The girl couldn't stand the
questioning stare and turned away, heading slowly toward her
hut.

The walk back was a long one. The distance
was short, but burdened with the reality of what she had done, and
what she had said, it was almost too much to bear. She tried to
remind herself of the anger, that what she had done was justified.
It did little good. As she walked, she slowly became aware of each
and every blow she'd let slip by. Her mind was too taxed to heal
them by itself. She could have gone back to the healers, but deep
down, she knew she deserved what she had received. The fact that
she had let hate turn her into exactly what she hated warranted
every lump and bruise she had and more.

She had not killed him, but the fact that she
could have, the fact that she wanted to, burned her mind.

She entered her hut. Myn was with Lain. The
dragon would need some time to forgive her for what she had done.
The room seemed too empty. Myranda was tired. She should sleep but
. . . no. She couldn't. Not now. The dreams. Silence and solitude
were all she wanted now. A knock at the door broke the silence, and
the man on the other side broke the solitude. She opened it to find
Deacon leaning heavily--
very
heavily--on both the door frame and a staff. It
was clear that the chief white wizard was right. He'd needed at
least another day. He managed a weak smile.

"Hello. May I come in?" he asked.

Myranda would have said no, but he clearly
had put a lot of effort into the trek to her hut.

"Please," she said with a rather unconvincing
attempt at joviality.

He hobbled in, dropping heavily to a
seat.

"My goodness. I haven't had to use a staff in
ages," he said.

"Shouldn't you still be in bed?" she
asked.

"Vedesto evicted me. He caught me trying to
convince one of the apprentices to sneak a book in for me. Again,"
he said.

"I see," she said.

"So, I thought . . . the falls. The falls
have stopped while we were sleeping, and the water in the pool
beneath is gone," he began, his voice wavering a bit. "The way is
open again, and will be for a day or two more. We post people in
shifts to watch for newcomers. In groups of two. I thought maybe
that you and I could . . . is something wrong?"

Myranda shook as she remembered what she had
done, and then she slowly shook her head.

"What is it? I can help, I assure you," he
said, nearly falling over forward in an attempt to place a hand on
her shoulder.

"Nothing, I . . . I passed Lain's test," she
said.

"Perhaps my mind is a bit more addled than I
thought. I would have imagined that was a reason to rejoice," he
said.

"I tried to kill him," she said.

"Did you succeed?" he asked.

"No, but I wanted to. I really did. I
couldn't control myself. I just . . . I hated him so much. I
knocked out his tooth. I may have broken his jaw. He
gave
me the tooth. He
wants me to remember. He wants me to remember that I wanted to
kill," she said.

"What did he do to make you feel this way?"
he asked.

"He won't do it, Deacon. He
is
one of them! He
can
stop the
war, but he won't! He would rather go on profiting from murder than
end all of this!" she said.

"Myranda, no, no. You mustn't trouble
yourself over that. Listen, it does not matter what he says. This
is a matter of fate. What must be done
will
be done," he said.

"I know him well enough to know that when he
gives his word, he doesn't break it, and he promised to answer my
questions truthfully. If he said he doesn't intend to, then he
won't," she said.

"You don't understand. It doesn't matter.
Myranda, the future is not so fragile as to be broken by a simple
decision. The future is
made
of decisions. The spirits speak not to tell us
what to do, but to tell us what will be done. Something will change
his mind and he will rise to his proper place. Until then, just
leave him be," he said.

"I just don't know," she said.

"Well, I do. That's the wonderful thing about
the future. All you ever have to do is wait for it. It will come to
you," he said.

Until the sun set, Deacon kept Myranda
company. He then hobbled slowly home as Myranda went to sleep
without her friend Myn to keep her company for the first time in
ages. The time had not protected her from the dreams. Morning
couldn't come soon enough. When her eyes opened shortly before
sunrise, she made a decision. She would convince Lain to do what he
must, even if it took years. But not today. She could not face him
after what she did yesterday, after what he made her do. For now
she needed something to occupy her mind.

She left her hut, with her mind fully
recovered and her bruises mostly healed. The thundering of the
falls had indeed stopped, Myranda finally realized for herself. It
was odd. The sound had been so constant in her time her that she
had accepted the low rumble as silence. Now that it was gone, the
quiet seemed unnatural. It felt as though there was something
missing. The feeling was deep in her soul. It must be the missing
sound. What else could it be?

She had a meal before seeking out Deacon. It
was odd not being hurried by an impending training session with an
impatient teacher. She supposed that black and white magics would
be next, and she wondered what sort of things those Masters would
have in store for her. No. Gray magic first. She owed it to Deacon
to finish his training. After knocking at his door, she heard
bumping and thumping, as well as a rather insistent voice telling
her to wait. Finally the door opened, revealing Deacon looking a
good deal more disheveled than usual.

"Did I wake you?" she asked.

"No, no. Not you precisely. The door did.
When you knocked on it," he said, trying to set her mind at ease
without really lying.

"You can go back to bed. I know you need your
sleep," Myranda said.

"Not at all. Not at all. I am quite
well-rested," he said, struggling valiantly to hold back a yawn. "I
haven't slept so deeply since I was an apprentice. What brings you
here?"

"I haven't slept so poorly since I was a
frightened little girl. Myn isn't about. I just need some kind of
distraction. Something to pluck up my courage before I speak to
Lain again," she said.

"Well, if nothing more than distraction is
required, I can most assuredly oblige. Please, come in," he
said.

She closed the door and took a seat in the
second chair while Deacon went about pulling books from shelves.
When he had a fair amount, he pulled his chair to the desk and
opened one or two of them.

"If you like, I will teach you a bit more
gray magic. You may have your choice of lessons. Whatever interests
you," he said.

Myranda scanned the books. The names were not
in her tongue, but thanks to a whispered enchantment by Deacon, the
lines and letters twisted and turned themselves as her eyes swept
over the pages. In a few moments it was all quite legible to her.
Eventually she found the most recently scribed of the
enchantments.

"What about this one?" she asked, placing her
finger on a spell marked "Gilliam's Folly."

"Trans-substantiation. That is a rather
advanced one, but nothing beyond your ability, I am sure," he
said.

She had not brought her staff, but Deacon
allowed her to borrow his crystal. Gray magic tended to be quite
different from the elements. Each spell that the fire or wind
Masters taught was much like the first. Gray magic was wholly
different from spell to spell. It was like learning a new
discipline each time.

The pair decided she would begin by turning a
piece of clay into glass. The two substances were fairly similar,
and thus the change would be simple. Myranda worked at the spell
with Deacon's coaching, but it wasn't easy. The sight of the spell
at work was quite unique. Faint waves of energy swept through the
clay, leaving thin bands of glass that faded quickly back to
normal. After an hour or so of unsuccessful attempts, they decided
to rest.

"Well. The falls are quiet today. For now, at
least. Calypso indicated that they would give way sooner than
expected. Perhaps by the end of the day. Nevertheless, that still
leaves time for a shift or two at the fall's edge. It is quite
peaceful there and you and I might--" he began. He was interrupted
by a thunderous slam on the door.

"What was that?" she cried, startled.