The Magic of Recluce (9 page)

G
ILBERTO HAD BEEN
right about one thing. Training with the weapons was hard, and not just physically. Who ever would have thought about the proper ways to hold a truncheon? The staff…I guess I saw that as more like a sword or an unpointed spear…anything that long clearly required technique.

Almost all of what I learned was new, and with all the repetition in the lectures, the weapons classes were usually the most interesting.

“Lerris, used properly, that truncheon is a far more effective weapon than a knife.
Used properly
…you're holding it like…” Gilberto broke off and shrugged. “I cannot even make a comparison.”

Most training sessions were like that. Initially, nothing I did was right. The same was true of almost everyone—except Tamra and Krystal. Gilberto said almost nothing to Tamra, except occasional suggestions. Krystal he paid more attention to, but not much. As far as any kind of blade went, she picked up what he had in mind immediately.

Me…it was like I had two left thumbs.

“Lerris, stop fighting yourself…just
relax
.”

How many times I heard those words, I don't recall; but hear them I did, time after time.

Once we had some basic idea of what we were doing, Gilberto began pairing us off—first against him, or one of his apprentices; then, occasionally, against each other.

Eventually I found myself facing Tamra, not exactly in the field I had wanted.

We stood on opposite sides of a white practice circle on the spongy green flooring. Outside, the late summer sky was overcast, which was the exception rather than the rule, and the light filtering through the long and high wall windows was grayish.

Tamra smiled. Her face lit up when she smiled, but it was not a pleasant light at all. “Rules, Magister Gilberto?” The fingers of her heavy padded gloves tightened on the hard wood of the practice staff—the center part that was unpadded. Not that the padding on the ends was all that heavy. Her eyes were on me, as if she were studying some insect or a painting on a wall.

A wisp of her flame-red hair peeked from under the leather and wood of the padded practice helmet.

“Tamra…” began Gilberto. Then he shook his head. “No blows to face, knees, elbows or groin.”

“I can live with that,” announced the redhead.

I thought I could, also, but I didn't like the look in Tamra's eyes, or the instinctive ease with which she took her balanced stance. Then, again, I overtopped her by nearly a head and probably had twice her physical strength. And I hadn't done that badly against Demorsal, one of Gilberto's apprentices, over the past days.

Besides, Tamra deserved anything I could land on her, the arrogant bitch. Always so damned superior, as if she didn't really belong with mere dangergeld trainees.

“Two to one she takes him…” Myrten's raspy whisper annoyed me more than the bet. He laid odds on everything.

I couldn't see as well as I would have liked. The helmet restricted my peripheral vision, but I felt as though Myrten had rasped his bet at Sammel. Sammel shook his head.

“Start when I tell you. And stop at the bell. Do you understand? Ready?” Gilberto stepped out of the circle, then glanced at Tamra. “Tamra?”

She nodded.

“Lerris?”

“Yes.” I nodded without taking my eyes off Tamra. I didn't see why everyone thought a match between Tamra and me was such a big deal. She clearly had more experience, but I was stronger, and almost as quick.

Myrten probably bet on her because I'd trounced him in the last round. At least I was halfway decent at
something
.

“Go!”

Tamra circled to my right. I pivoted.

Thwack
. I barely managed to throw my staff up to block her first thrust.

Thwack…thwack…thwack…

I danced back, still on the defensive.

Thwack…thwack…thwunk…

“…oooofff…” Her last blow crashed into my lower-right ribs. Her staff moved like lightning bolts, flashing this way, forking back, always probing.

Thwack…thwunk…

Another blow…to my ribs on the left.

Thwack…

Fwooopp
…My staff slipped past hers and bounced off her upper leg.

THWUNK…

I could feel the floor rising at me, but there wasn't anything I could do about the momentary blackness and the stars that greeted me.

“…poor bastard…”

“…sufficient, I trust, Magister Gilberto?”

I squinted and sat up, trying to still the swirling inside my brain.

“Sufficient, Tamra.” Gilberto's voice was dry. “Are you all right, Lerris?”

My head felt like a log flayed out of its bark. My ribs were an unbroken ache, and Tamra was almost openly smirking. “Fine. Just fine.” Standing up required most of my remaining strength.

“Why don't you take a hot shower?” suggested the weapons-master.

I didn't even argue. Most of the time, whether the water was lukewarm or warm didn't seem to matter. The idea of hot water, another luxury enjoyed by the Brotherhood in Nylan, never seemed more welcome.

“Krystal…Wrynn…long knives…use the wooden ones.”

My feet found their way, somehow, to the lockers where I stripped off the padding and the loose exercise clothing that I'd been supplied.

“She was a little hard on you.” Demorsal was leaning against the wall.

“…Ummmmm…” The tunic was halfway over my head.

“But that's because you're fighting yourself, and you don't even want to admit it.”

“Not you, too?” I pulled off the tunic. “Just what the hell do you mean? Everyone keeps telling me not to fight myself.”

“I shouldn't tell you…Talryn says that we all have to discover ourselves.”

“Talryn be damned,” I muttered, sitting on the bench and pulling off the soft exercise pants. I was going to be sore—really sore, shower or no shower. “At least, tell me how to keep from getting killed the next time.”

Demorsal grinned. His black eyes twinkled. “I just did.” He wasn't much taller than Tamra, but she never seemed to lay a staff on him. Neither did I, but he didn't hit me except lightly.

“I'm stupid. Tell me in another way.”

“You got decked when you tried to attack. Every time. Why?”

I shook my head. I wished I hadn't, and put it between my hands to keep it from coming off.

“I'll ask it another way. Why did Tamra hit you the hardest when you attacked? Why don't I hit you hard when we spar? You leave openings, you know, especially when you try to attack.”

“I don't know,” I groaned. Questions I didn't need, not when my head was pounding.

“Because I have the same problem. I can't attack.”

About that time I finally realized what he was saying. Finally. “Is that why I wasn't allowed edged weapons?”

Demorsal looked around the lockers. “You believe in order. You have to. Use of weapons conflicts with order. For you to make an attack, you have to fight yourself first, then your opponent. You can't help getting clobbered that way.”

I looked at him. “Tamra uses a staff, and she clobbered me.”

“She's a little crazy, but think about it…she hit you hardest when you attacked…and I've probably said too much. Hope you feel better.” The senior apprentice turned as I stood up to head for the showers.

The pieces fit, but I didn't like it. Then again, I didn't have to like it. If I wanted to survive, I just had to adapt to my own limitations. But I didn't have to like it. I certainly didn't.

W
HEN
I
HAD
free time, usually in the afternoon of our rest days—every eighth day of the Temple calendar—I still walked down to the harbor area in Nylan, checking the scattered ships from across the oceans, seeing how many countries traded with Recluce and how.

Were they using steel-hulled steamers, or wooden-framed square-riggers? I never saw anything resembling a galley, although Magister Cassius indicated some coastal states to the far southwest of Candar, the ones around the smaller Western Ocean, operated slave galleys for coastal defense forces.

I always looked for the telltale sign of concealing screens and for the black ships of the Brotherhood that no one ever talked about. I didn't talk about them either, since I wasn't about to admit I had seen them unless someone else already said something. None of our dangergeld instructors did.

It was the same old story. If I asked about something and they didn't want to talk about it, the answers were always platitudes or so vague that I already knew most of what they said.

Still, I kept visiting the harbor—usually alone—with some of my dangergeld funds, just in case I found something useful. I hadn't, but that didn't mean I wouldn't.

Once Krystal and I went together, on a sunny and cloudless afternoon. A brisk wind was blowing in from the west, so stiff it tugged at our tunics and hair. Krystal had bound her hair up, with the silver cords this time.

Crackkk…thrappp…crackk
…The canvas on the outside trading tables cracked almost like trees breaking in a storm as we walked through the center of the market square. Less than half the booths on the Recluce side of the square were occupied, and but a handful on the outland side. A man in pale green browsed at the woodworker's stall, and the same youngster sat on the stool. I grinned, but he continued to watch the customer.

Just a handful of people, mostly dangergelders or members of the Brotherhood, wandered around the square.

“There's a weapons table.”

“You want to see what's there?” I asked. “It won't be as good as what you have.”

Without stopping, Krystal looked sideways at me, raising a dark eyebrow on a face more tanned than when she had arrived in Nylan. Her natural pace nearly matched mine, despite the difference in our height. “What I have? I have nothing except a belt knife and a small cutting knife. You expect me to step out in Hamor or Candar with those alone?”

“Sorry.”

Krystal stopped in front of the table.

On light-blue felt were laid out a number of blades. A thin man with a waxed mustache, ropy arms, and a gray leather vest sat on a stool opposite us. His expressionless black eyes met mine.

I looked through him. After all, I wasn't shopping for blades.

Crackkk
…The canvas of an empty table snapped in the wind, and the sting of salt air brushed my face.

The proprietor transferred his unspoken demand to Krystal, who had lifted one of the thinner blades, the plainest one on the table. Even to me, it was the best. Not that I really wanted to even touch it.

“You like that one?” His deep voice was flat, almost expressionless, like his eyes.

She set the blade back on the felt. “I prefer this style…to…” she gestured at a scimitar with a swirled and gilded hilt and guard. “Do you have any others like it?”

In the hands of the dark-skinned trader appeared two other blades. Around one glimmered scabrous blood-red force-swirls. Just looking at that unpatterned display turned my guts.

Krystal reached for it.

“No! Not that one.” I spoke before realizing it. But I didn't want her even to touch the blade, not with the real hint of evil embodied in the chaos. For the first time I saw, really
saw
, a clear distinction between honest chaos and true evil.

Crackkk
…The flapping canvas punctuated the moment.

Krystal frowned, but her hand stopped short of the hilt.

“It is said to be cursed,” admitted the trader. His voice was still flat.

My eyes focused on him, as they had on the blade, but discerned nothing, not that I would have known what to look for.

“Try the other one…” I suggested.

“You're telling me about swords?” Krystal's voice was anything but musical, almost waspish.

I shrugged. “The pattern's…” How could I tell her what I saw? How can you say that a pattern of force-swirls that no one else sees says that the sword will lead its wielder from chaos into depravity…or worse? How can you describe a set of unseen forces that are so chaotic that their only coherence is opposition to order? I had to shrug again. “Please…Krystal…just trust me.”

An odd look, one I couldn't identify, passed across her face and was gone.

The trader looked at me. “You are an apprentice master, then?”

His flat voice bothered me. Something was missing, although I couldn't say what. “I am what I am,” was my answer—conceding nothing, admitting nothing.

He inclined his head slightly, but waited for Krystal.

“Lerris…what about the other blade?” This time she made no movement toward the sword.

The second blade, slightly smaller, showed no force-swirls, only the honesty of forged metal.

“It's an honest blade, not turned to any use.”

Krystal took it gingerly, then examined it in more detail, studying the metal in the sunlight. She did all the things with blades that people who like them do to discover whether they might be right for them, like flexing them and waving them around, and balancing them to determine whether they are hilt-heavy or blade-heavy.

She liked it, that I could tell.

So I studied the trader. Assuming most people had a soul, or that inner spark that passes for it, he didn't. There was no life beyond the physical, and I tried not to shiver.

That didn't make his wares either good or bad, but it meant looking them over most carefully, and I wasn't sure I was the one to do that. But the blade seemed all right.

Krystal set the sword on the felt, slowly.

“How much?” I asked.

“Ten gold pennies.”

Krystal looked at the blade. “It's good, but you could buy a Recluce ordered blade and a scabbard for that.”

“It's not ordered.”

I understood immediately. “That's an advantage in Candar, but not for us.” I shrugged, and started to turn.

“Eight…”

“It doesn't matter,” Krystal said quietly.

“Six…”

The west wind picked up, swirling my short hair.

Cracckkk…crackkkk…

“Five and a silver,” suggested the trader.

“Four and two silvers,” I countered.

“Done, apprentice.” His voice was still flat.

“Lerris…”

I ignored Krystal, knowing she could not pay for the blade; but she had not had anyone to help her, and I did not think my mother would have minded.

“But…”

The trader placed the sword in a cheap scabbard.

I dug out the price in coins, marveling that I had even thought to bring enough.

Crackkk…

The trader's eyes kept darting toward me. He took the coins as if he wanted us to leave, without a nod, and I gave the sword and scabbard to Krystal.

“Lerris…” She tried to push it back at me.

I pulled my hands away, gambling that she wouldn't want to drop the blade. “Let's go. We can talk on the way.”

As we started toward the harbor wall, the trader began to pack his wares, hurriedly, but I ignored him, looking at Krystal. I wondered how he had gotten the devil-blade into the square, but that wasn't my real concern at the moment.

“It's yours.”

“I can't take it.”

“It's yours,” I repeated. “You need a blade, and you need it before you end up in Candar or Hamor.”

“I can't…”

“Krystal…you need it. I know you need it, and you know that. Call it a favor. Call it a loan. Call it anything you want.”

She stopped. We were opposite the fourth pier, the one closest to the market square, and only a small sloop without an ensign was tied up. “We need to talk.”

“How about here?” I pulled myself up on the black stone wall. As I scrambled around, I scanned the harbor. Besides the sloop and an old sailing ship with a combination of masts I couldn't identify, the harbor was empty. Not even a sign of a Brotherhood ship.

She set the scabbard and blade on the flat stones and vaulted up next to me. We sat with our backs to the water, facing a two-story building of black oak and black stone. The sign over the locked double doors read, in three languages it seemed, “Supplies.” The first line, in black, was Temple Script. The second was in green, which suggested Nordla, and the third was in purple, edged with gold.

It was funny, when you thought about it, that Candar and Recluce shared the old Temple Tongue, although there were people in all cities who did, since it was the main trade language, while Nordla and Hamor had totally separate languages. I would have expected Candar to have its own language.

I suppose that was why Magistra Trehonna insisted we learn a little of Nordlan and Hamorian.

“Lerris.” Krystal's voice was insistent, breaking my reverie, overriding the
lap, lap, lap
of the waves against the stone seawall.

I shifted on the hard stone, turning toward her, but letting my feet dangle. She was already cross-legged.

“You didn't have to do that. It's not as though…I mean, I see how you look at Tamra…”

“Tamra…what does she have to do with anything? She's an arrogant bitch.”

Krystal smiled faintly, but she didn't giggle. She just waited, and the water lapped against the stones, and the wind gusted through my hair and pulled strands of hers from the silver-cords, softening her straight strong features in the afternoon light.

The sun felt warm on my back, not unpleasantly so, and I waited to see if she had anything else to say. It was simple. She needed a sword, and I could help. I couldn't help the world, and I wouldn't help people who didn't make an effort. I guess I agreed at least partly with Wrynn.

“Lerris?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “Because you don't ask. Because I like you. Because you take me for what I am. Because you don't hide behind half-truths and platitudes. Lots of reasons, I guess.”

She shook her head. “What do you think will happen to me?”

“I don't know.”

Krystal looked down at the rectangular stones, black granite, that paved the road to the piers. The seawall where we sat was made of the same stone. “I don't think I'm meant to stay in Recluce…”

I felt the same way about Krystal, but couldn't say why. So I didn't. I'd seen her lose herself in fencing with Gilberto. Already, he was hard-pressed by Krystal—and he had the experience. “What will you do?”

She didn't answer me. Instead, we sat there quietly.

“It's mine! Mine!”

From around the corner where the supply store faced the pier dashed two youngsters—a boy and a girl. The girl was running lightly ahead of an older or bigger boy, waving something in her hand.

“You give that back…”

The girl stopped at the dark wooden bench before the closed exchange. I wondered how you obtained currency or drafts or whatever traders needed that way on rest days.

“All right. Here's your stinky model. Let's go out on the pier.”

“You go. I'm going home.” The dark-haired boy tucked the model into his near-empty pack.

“Oh, come on.” The redhead smiled at him.

“I'm going home.”

“Just for a moment?”

“Oh…all right. But there's nothing there but that little ship.”

“So?”

The two walked past where we sat with only a passing glance, the girl almost skipping above the stones, the stocky boy plodding after her.

“There we go…” I didn't know why I said those words, but that was the way I felt.

Krystal glanced over at me. She shook her head slowly.

I shrugged. That was the way I felt. “We ought to be going.”

And we did, but neither of us exactly danced back to the dining hall and the chimes that announced the evening meal.