The Talented (16 page)

“
I was the first to develop
an ability,” the young man said proudly, answering Adrienn’s
unspoken question. “I had been studying and trying different
methods to do so for nearly two years before anything manifested,
but I was finally successful.”

“
What can you do?” Adrienne
asked, giving him a closer study. He did not look different from
any of the scholars, except that he was the youngest and the only
one who was not looking at her with thinly veiled
distaste.

He smiled. “I can
memorize.”

“
Memorize?” Adrienne
repeated. Tam had mentioned this, but she had forgotten it in light
of all the other, more exciting Talents he’d told her
about.

He nodded. “Everything I
read, hear, see, I can remember with perfect recall. These memories
are chronicled in my brain, perfectly organized like a book or the
catalog in a library. It is really quite remarkable. And useful,”
he added in a defensive tone, crossing his thin arms in front of
him. Some of the other scholars looked proud or even envious, but
the non-scholars did not look happy, and Lady Chessing looked
disgusted.

“
A fat lot of good that
does us, Ben,” Lady Chessing said. “All it means is that you will
remember perfectly our utter failure as a commission when the king
finds out what’s happening here.”

“
I don’t consider it a
total failure,” the young man said, stung by the woman’s criticism.
“My ability proved that our methods were effective, and we have
been able to improve them since.”

“
So all you do is
memorize?” Adrienne asked.

The man smiled ruefully.
“That’s all I can do, yes. Other abilities have manifested with
different people, but they all appear to be extensions of the
person’s, well, the person’s profession, you might say.”

“
Like a scholar
memorizing,” Adrienne said, nodding. “A memory such as you
described must be a tremendous asset in scholarly
pursuits.”

“
Exactly so,” he said, his
smile growing and becoming more genuine. “Other scholars have
developed an ability to read with incredible speed, or detect books
without having to search the shelves. The abilities really are
incredibly useful.”

“
Just not for the purposes
of this commission,” Adrienne said with growing understanding. From
what she had heard, this commission had one objective, and so far
the results were not in their favor. “Have people other than
scholars been trained?”

“
Of course,” Franklin said.
“We began training healers after we noticed the pattern in the
abilities scholars were developing. Healers seemed to be the best
choice,” Franklin explained, “as they are intelligent and dedicated
to their craft, and seemed unlikely to abuse any abilities they
might develop.”

“
We did not want to give
power to people who would use it unwisely,” Elder Rynn emphasized.
The wrinkles lining his dark face served to emphasize his hard
expression, and Adrienne began to see why they had a problem with
her, a soldier, being brought in.

Soldiers could be
dangerous.

Adrienne supposed that
choosing the healers for the reasons they had made a sort of sense,
but it also seemed to her that the commission had a somewhat naïve
view of the world. Adrienne had met her fair share of healers over
the years, there was always at least one in Kyrog, and like members
of every profession, there were kind healers and cruel ones, gentle
and spiteful. If they were so concerned with people who might
misuse their powers, the commission would do better to look at
individual personalities, not judge groups as a whole.

“
Did any of the healers
manifest Talents?” Adrienne asked, setting aside the commission’s
apparent mistrust of everyone different from themselves. She had
grown used to that view since leaving Kyrog. Tam had not trusted
her, Ilso had hated her. Even the journal had presented a
consistent diatribe against anything foreign.

“
Oh, yes,” the young man
Lady Chessing had called Ben said. He leaned forward, his
expression animated. “The younger healers, some of them, developed
abilities much more in line with the stories you are now familiar
with.” Adrienne liked his enthusiasm, so different from the other
commissioners’ staid dispositions. “They are able to heal wounds
that should take weeks to heal, even some that would be fatal if
given time.”

“
Some of them can,” Elder
Rynn said. “Like the scholars, the abilities differ from healer to
healer.”

“
Yes,” the young Talented
scholar said, looking somewhat embarrassed to have Elder Rynn
correct him. “Some of the healers with abilities can heal wounds
like I mentioned. Others can mend broken bones in minutes, or break
a fever. The medicine some of the healers make also seems more
effective, usually in healers who were more along the lines of
herbalists.”

Lady Chessing sniffed.
“Why anyone would choose to see an herbalist now when you could get
healed in minutes by a more skilled healer is beyond me. Why settle
for second best?”

Adrienne saw the value in
better medicines. A Talented healer would doubtless be preferable
when one was on hand, but medicine that was more effective would be
a useful asset to someone like a soldier, as medicine could be
carried with the person, whereas healers were much less portable.
But then, some people did not look at the bigger
picture.

“
True, but it is still a
manifested ability,” the young commissioner said.

“
And a wonderful ability,”
Adrienne said. “When it comes to battles, the ability to heal would
almost be worth more than being able to cast fireballs.” Men died
from stab wounds or infections that killed slowly as often, or even
more often, than they died quickly on the field of
battle.

Several of the
commissioners shifted uncomfortably. Lady Chessing huffed, as if
she did not believe Adrienne’s words.

“
Although such abilities
are remarkable,” Elder Rynn said, ignoring Adrienne’s comment as
though she had never spoken, “they are still not what we need to
put an end to this war.”

“
Have you tried anyone more
multipurpose than a scholar or a healer?” Adrienne asked, thinking
that perhaps their careful selection process was what was limiting
the commission.

“
Of course,” Lady Chessing
snapped, her bosom heaving. “I myself tried to learn, along with
just about every young person in this city, provided we found them
of suitable temperament.” By appearances, Lady Chessing was
probably too old by more than a decade to learn, if Ben was any
judge, and from the little Adrienne had seen so far she doubted
that her temperament was suitable, but she did not voice her
thoughts and instead waited to hear the woman out. “It seems that
the only individuals that ever develop any abilities are those that
are in one stupid profession or other. Scholars, healers,
blacksmiths, even a weaver.”

Adrienne wondered what
Talent would manifest in a weaver, and if Tam’s tale about
blacksmiths making unbreakable weapons was true in the present, or
if that was another Talent that had not yet been reclaimed.
However, the list of people able to learn was more important than
the particular abilities at the moment. “Not innkeepers or stable
boys or merchants?” she asked.

“
No,” Elder Rynn said,
sounding unhappy, as though those results were a puzzle he had been
unable to solve. “Though they were all trained as we had trained
the others, not one person in the latter professions developed a
talent.”

Adrienne thought she
understood some of the commonality that Elder Rynn was apparently
missing. Those who had developed abilities were in a demanding
profession where extensive training and practice were necessary.
Healers and blacksmiths typically started as apprentices at a
rather early age, and although she did not know much about weaving,
she figured it was not a skill learned overnight.

Didn’t mothers teach their
young daughters to weave? That was an apprenticeship of
sorts.

She decided not to share
her insight at the moment, though, and from the glint in the young
scholar’s eyes, Adrienne thought he knew or suspected more than he
had revealed to the rest of the commission about this particular
limitation. “There haven’t been any satisfactory Talents?” she
asked.

None of the Talents she
had heard about so far would be enough to end the war. The Talent
for healing came the closest, but it was not the same as an
offensive ability.

“
Not of a sort that meshes
with the old stories,” Franklin said, folding his hands over his
potbelly. “The stories talk about healing, of course, but we
haven’t gotten any of the other sort. Not the kinds of abilities
that we were expecting. And once an ability manifests in one area,
that’s it. A healer might be able to mend a bone, stop bleeding,
and get rid of an infection, but she can’t move anything with her
mind, or find a book in the library without looking it
up.”

“
And I can’t do more than
wrap a bandage and hope for the best,” the young scholar added with
an easy if self-deprecating humor.

“
This is all interesting to
me,” Adrienne said honestly, “but I am confused as to why I am
here. Why go all the way to Kyrog to find someone else to
train?”

“
I would think even someone
like you could figure it out,” Lady Chessing said. “If healers
manifest talents for healing, shouldn’t you develop a way to
kill?”

Adrienne barely kept
herself from wincing. She had killed many times, the last just a
week ago, and she lost no sleep over the necessary death of an
enemy, but she was not a killer. She was not malicious, nor did she
go out of her way to harm others.

But her realization that
those on the commission saw her as little more than a killer was
not enough to outweigh the excitement she felt. She was to be
trained as one of the Talented. It was what she had been hoping
for. Adrienne did not know what sort of Talent she might develop,
but it would not be as cold as what Lady Chessing had implied. A
Talent that could kill someone would be like skill with a
sword—both could kill, but to say they were only for killing was
too simple.

“
We tried training some of
the city guards for this purpose,” Franklin said, “but none of them
developed an ability.”

Adrienne had noticed the
city guards when they were entering Kessering and was not surprised
to learn that no Talented had emerged from that stock. The one at
the gate had barely given her, an armed soldier, a cursory look
when she entered the city. Instead, the guard had seemed bored.
They were no more trained and disciplined in their profession than
innkeepers or merchants. If they had received much more training
than how to strap on armor, she would be surprised. “But you’re
hoping I do get a Talent.”

“
I admit that most of us
were against the idea of using a soldier,” Franklin said, “but it
seemed the only logical option left to us. King Burin wants
something that can help with the war effort.”

“
We sent out two other
parties in search of suitable soldiers,” Lady Chessing told
Adrienne primly, looking down her pointed nose at the younger
woman, “although I have little hope of any soldier manifesting an
ability, no matter how many we attempt to train. I doubt any of you
have the aptitude for it. Soldiers aren’t exactly known for their
high levels of intelligence, after all.”

Suddenly, Adrienne
couldn’t take any more. She was tired. Tired of traveling, tired of
everyone acting as though she was stupid, tired of the furtive,
suspicious glances every commissioner was casting her way.
Defending herself would make no difference, so she didn’t bother.
“I would like a bath and a hot meal before any training begins,”
she said, no longer caring if she sounded rude. “I would also like
to be shown to the place where I am to sleep while in
Kessering.”

Some of the commissioners
looked appalled, and others looked as though they had been
expecting such behavior. Only the young scholar seemed unaffected
by her abrupt change in behavior. “Of course,” he said. “I will
show you around.”

He stood and stepped
around the table, heading out a side door, and Adrienne followed
him into a small corridor. “My name is Ben Ruthford, Lieutenant,”
he said, extending his hand.

Some of Adrienne’s tension
eased at the small show of respect, and she took the offered hand
in her own. His skin was the same shade as hers, a rich tan, and
felt soft against her callused palm. Unlike her own hand, it was
devoid of any scars and felt fragile despite its greater size. “You
may call me Adrienne,” she said. As good as “Lieutenant” felt, she
thought having a friend here would be even better. Especially a
friend on the commission, and one of the Talented as
well.

“
Thank you,” he said. “You
probably want some time to rest, given your recent journey, but I’m
afraid we can’t grant you more than a day or two.” They made a
couple of turns down twisting hallways and finally exited the large
library via a small side door. “We’re putting you up in an inn just
there,” he said, pointing one of those soft hands toward a
moderately sized inn across the courtyard. Its sign proudly
proclaimed it The Golden Trumpet. “That inn will be most convenient
for you and your trainer.”