“What must I do?’’
Pug got off his stool and went to stand before Talon, while Nakor and Robert moved so that one of them stood on each side of him.
“Do you swear to give first fealty to the Conclave of Shadows, Talon of the Silver Hawk? Do you enter our ranks freely and of your own will? Do you swear to obey those given dominion over you and to protect with your life those given to your care? Do you swear to keep those secrets entrusted to you? Answer to all with affirmation, or be silent. All or nothing, Talon. What do you say?’’
Talon was silent for a moment, then he took another deep breath and said, “Yes, I will serve.’’
“Good. That is good,” Nakor said. He placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder and produced another orange.
“Want one?’’
Talon took it. “Thank you.’’
Robert said, “Well then, I suppose I should tell Magnus to close down that little hut of his and join us here. Talon’s education is about to begin in earnest.’’
And with that, he left the room.
“Nakor,” said Pug, “show Talon where he will be staying. Put him in with Rondar and Demetrius.”
Nakor nodded. “Come along, boy.’
After they had gone, Pug stood alone for a long minute, then he said as if into the air, “What do you think?’’
From the shadows in the farthest corner of the room there came a voice: “I think you gave the boy no choice.”
Miranda stepped out into the light.
“What else could I do?’’
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back in Magnus’s hut. Magnus could have told him some story about a fall from the bluffs or a wild animal. With the right suggestion, the boy would have accepted it.’’
Pug nodded. “You’re right.’’
With a wry smile she came and slipped her arm around her husband’s waist. “I’m always right.’’
“Of course, my love,” said Pug, returning the smile.
“So, the question remains, why did you give him no choice?’’
Pug was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I don’t know. A sense of something in him. I think he’s going to be important to us.’’
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I only know that lately our enemy has grown subtle. Those death-dancers were unexpected.
They remind me of years gone by.’’
“They fear Magnus’s growing power.’’
“Well they should. He may eventually be the most powerful magic-user to have set foot on this world.’’
“If we can keep him alive,” Miranda said with a mother’s worry in her tone.
“Those death-dancers are more in keeping with the days when we were attacked with armies or demons.’’
“Something’s got them annoyed.’’
Pug laughed. “Magnus destroying that death cult’s temple down in southern Kesh might have irritated them enough to try something like this.’’
“Death-dancers are not trivial magic, my love. If I had the inclination to practice that sort of foul art, and three humans willing to give their souls to create them, it would still take me months to do so.” She regarded her husband quizzically. “And I am better at that sort of thing than you.’’
Pug smiled. “I know. But that’s why I think Talon may prove important.”
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“Why?”
“Because while wolves fight over the carcass of a deer, a mouse may slip in and grab scraps.’’
“Wolves eat mice,” she reminded him.
“Only if they know they’re there. But while our enemies are attempting to destroy our son, they won’t see Talon coming.’’
Miranda snuggled closer to her husband as if suddenly cold. “For the boy’s sake, I hope you’re right.’’
“Which boy? Talon or Magnus?’’
Miranda sighed. “Both.’’
__
Talon followed Nakor down the corridor, his small bundle of belongings clutched to his chest. His body still felt weak, but the stiffness was leaving him. They passed a series of doors, most of which were closed, but through a couple of open ones Talon saw beds set up, four to a room.
As he passed one room, he could see Alysandra sitting on a bed, engaged in a low conversation with a dark-haired girl who was giggling, her hand covering her mouth. Both girls glanced up as Talon went by, and Talon heard both girls start to laugh.
An irritated feeling rose up in him, a feeling Talon couldn’t quite place, save that the giggling seemed somehow inappropriate given that he had just made a solemn vow placing his life in the service of an organization whose purpose he hardly understood.
Eventually they reached a door which gave access to a room slightly larger than the others. As in the other rooms, four beds had been placed in it. Nakor waved for Talon to sit on a bed farthest from the door on the left, while he sat on the bed opposite it. “Well, here’s where your new life begins.’’
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Talon shrugged. “My new life began when Robert found me, I guess.’’
Nakor shook his head. “No, your old life ended that day. What you’ve been living these last two years has been an existence. You were healing and learning, but you had no purpose.’’
“Now I have a purpose?’’
“A far greater purpose than you suppose,” said Nakor.
“There is much to learn, but you have time. I remember the impatience of youth,” he added with a grin. “You appear to me to be more patient than most boys your age, yet I know you still want questions answered, positions made clear, and motives revealed. But all in good time.’’
“Since coming under Robert’s care I have felt as if I were moving in a direction unknown to me,” Talon said. “I have grown, I think—’’
“Much, according to your teachers.”
“Are you now one of my teachers?”
Nakor shrugged and stood up. “We’ll see. Now, I hear your new companions returning, so I’ll leave you to get to know one another.’’
As he reached the door, two young men of roughly Talon’s age entered the room. Seeing Nakor, they stepped back to let him pass, bowing their heads slightly in respect.
“You have a new boy to share your quarters with,” Nakor said as he passed.
“Yes, Master Nakor,” said one of the two boys, a fair-haired, broad-shouldered boy with green eyes and a dusting of freckles across his nose.
The other young man had dark hair but was fair-skinned, and Talon couldn’t tell if he was attempting to grow a man’s beard or if he had just done a poor job of shaving the day before. He had almost black eyes, which narrowed slightly at the sight of Talon. He threw himself 9261.01 3/13/03 12:53 PM Page 183
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down on the bed against the same wall as Talon’s, while the lighter-haired boy took the bed opposite.
“I’m Demetrius,” he said. He pointed to the dark lad and said, “That’s Rondar. He doesn’t talk much.” They spoke the King’s Tongue, which seemed to be the preferred language on the island.
Rondar nodded, but kept silent.
“I’m Talon,” said Talon.
Demetrius returned the nod. “Heard of you. You managed to avoid being killed by three death-dancers.
Impressive.”
Talon sat back on the bed, leaning against the wall. “I don’t even know what a death-dancer is.’’
Rondar said, “Bad.’’
“Very bad,” agreed Demetrius. “Conjured beings, using the souls of the damned. One mission, to kill a spec
ific person. Very hard to avoid one, but three . . .”
“Impressive,” said Rondar.
Talon said, “Have you been here a long time?’’
“Five years,” Demetrius replied. “My father used to make potions and poultices in a village down in the south of Kesh, near a city called Anticostinas. Well, it was hardly a city—a big town, really. Some priests of Guis-Wa denounced him as a ‘heretic’ because he was ‘using magic,’ even though I didn’t see much magic involved, just a lot of herbs, plants, and common sense. But one night some drunks from the city came out and burned the house to the ground, killing my family. I wandered around for a while until I ran across Nakor, who showed me some tricks.
“Turns out my father wasn’t a magician, but maybe I am. So I’m here to learn.’’
“I lost my family, too,” Talon said. He looked at Rondar, who looked at Demetrius and nodded once.
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“His father is the chief of a band of Ashunta horsemen down in northern Kesh. Very good horsemen—”
“Best,” added Rondar.
“—good hunters—’’
“Best,” repeated Rondar.
Talon grinned. “We’ll see about that!’’
“—and otherwise a bunch of opinionated, unwashed barbarians who treat women like cattle and cattle like pets.’’
Rondar shrugged. “True.’’
Talon’s grin widened. “How does he get along with Miranda?’’
Demetrius laughed. “She’s educating him as to the proper respect to show to women.’’
Rondar’s expression darkened. With a sigh of resignation, he rested his chin on his arms, and said, “Painfully true.’’
Talon said, “How’d you get here?’’
Rondar rolled over. He was quiet for a moment, and then spoke as if talking at all was a trial to him. “My people are horsemen. If you can’t ride and hunt, no women. No women, no children.” He put his arm across his eyes as if remembering was fatiguing. “Men who can’t ride are . . .
less. Less than men. They gather firewood, help with the cooking, raise the boys.’’
Talon glanced at Demetrius. “What do the women do?’’
Demetrius grimaced and said, “They’re property.”
“They make babies. Men raise boys.’’
Demetrius said, “It’s a close thing as to what’s worth more to an Ashunta horseman, a good horse or a woman.’’
Rondar said, “Depends on if there are more horses or women around.” He rolled over again and leaned on his elbows. His dark eyes looked hard at Talon. “We have our ways,” he said. “I’m not a good rider, but the shaman says I have talent. So, I go live with the shaman.” He looked as if 9261.01 3/13/03 12:53 PM Page 185
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he had reached the limit of his patience and said to Demetrius, “You tell him.’’
Demetrius made a wry expression and said, “The home of the Ashunta is in the west of the Empire, rolling grass-lands no one else wants, but a good way for slavers and renegades to move around without running afoul of the Imperial army. Our friend and his master were off gathering herbs for some sort of ritual when a band of slavers happened on them. The shaman was too old to be worth anything, but our strapping young friend here was a prize for the auction blocks.’’
“Nakor bought me,” Rondar offered. “He talks too much.’’
Talon smiled. “Who, Nakor or Demetrius?”
Rondar said, “Yes.’’
Demetrius reached over and gave Rondar a playful slap to the back of the head. “Our taciturn friend here is actually a very good fellow, despite his pretense of being a man of few words—he’s glib enough when one of the girls is in the mood to listen to his nonsense.”
Rondar lifted his head and grinned. “True.’’
Talon said, “About the girls . . .”
Rondar and Demetrius exchanged glances, then with one voice said, “Alysandra!” and burst into laughter.
Talon felt himself flush, but kept his smile fixed on his face. “What about her?’’
Demetrius said, “I heard she’d been in to tend you from time to time.’’
Rondar said, “Every boy wants her.’’
“You two as well?” asked Talon.
Demetrius said, “Everyone has a try when they meet her. She’s different. But she has a way of making you a friend and making you feel like an idiot for trying to get her off alone somewhere.”
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Rondar signed. “She’s worth a lot of horses.’’
Talon laughed. “You sound like you’re in love.’’
Rondar said, “True. Everyone’s in love with her.’’
“Who is she?’’
“No one knows,” said Demetrius. “Or at least, no one who knows is talking. She’s been here longer than either of us, and she’s obviously someone special. I’ve heard her talking to a lot of outlanders in their languages, and she spends a lot of time alone with Miranda.’’
“Why is that special?” asked Talon.
Demetrius rose as a bell sounded. “Supper,” he announced. “We’ll talk on the way.’
They left through the door, with Rondar a step behind.
Talon moved carefully, but could keep up as long as Demetrius kept to a casual walk.
“You know Miranda is Pug’s wife?” asked Demetrius.
Talon nodded. “I know their sons.’’
“Pug is the . . . ‘ruler,’ for lack of a better word, of this place. But Miranda is his equal in just about every way. And some say she’s a more powerful magician. All I know is she spends a little time with every student here, but a lot of time with Alysandra.”
Talon said, “So, that’s why she’s special.’’
Rondar said, “Took a lot of words for you to get it, Talon.’’
Talon laughed. “I know.’’
“So, if you want to take your chance with Alysandra, no one is going to blame you.’’
“True,” said Rondar.
“But don’t expect to get anywhere.”
Talon caught sight of Alysandra ahead, talking to two other girls. To his two new friends, he said, “One thing my father taught me: there is no reward without risk, and you can only fail if you don’t try.’
“Hug,” said Rondar.
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“What?” asked Talon.
Demetrius shook his head. “No, kiss on the cheek.’’
“What are you talking about?’’
“Alysandra will let you court her, my friend,” supplied Demetrius. “I think she’s secretly amused by the attention.
And she’s very sweet. I don’t think she has a mean thought in her, but by the end of the first evening you court her, she’ll have you swearing that you’ll be just like a brother to her, and you’ll know that you’re never going to get your arms around that slender waist, and just before she turns you around and points you back to your own quarters, you’ll either get a tiny hug, one so brief you’ll barely feel her next to you, or a fluttering kiss on the cheek, with her lips hardly touching your face. A kiss on the cheek is considered a badge of achievement among the lads here.’’
As if sensing she was the object of this conversation, Alysandra looked back over her shoulder. When she saw Talon and the others, she smiled.
Talon glanced at his friends, both of whom were avoiding eye contact with the young woman. So he returned his gaze to her and gave her the broadest smile he could. She held his gaze for a step longer, then dropped her eyes and turned back to her companions.
Rondar said, “I’ll wager a copper it?
??s a hug.’’
Demetrius said, “Done. I wager a kiss on the cheek.’’
Talon lowered his voice. “I’ll take both those wagers, for I’ll have more than a kiss on the cheek from her.’’
“Determination,” said Demetrius. “I like it!’’
“Humph,” was Rondar’s inarticulate comment.
Talon watched the slender girl as she entered the common building where the students ate their meals. “I’ll have much more,” he said quietly to no one but himself.
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ELEVEN
PURPOSE
The horses raced across the meadow.
Nakor and Magnus watched as Talon kept low against the neck of his mare, pushing her as much with will as with any skill as a rider. Rondar’s gelding pulled slowly away as he stayed fluidly poised on two stirrups, his back straight and his hands light upon the reins.
Nakor said, “For someone who was counted a bad rider by his people, Rondar seems to know his way around a horse.’’
Magnus nodded as he said, “You know more about the Ashunta than I do, but aren’t they counted as the finest horsemen in the world?’’
“Best light cavalry, certainly. The Empire had to bring fifteen legions into their lands to subdue them in the end.
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that.” Nakor studied the riders, while Demetrius stood whooping and cheering a short distance away. “Talon will be a very good horseman soon.’’
“This I understand, Nakor”—Magnus waved his hand slightly in the direction of the two riders—“Talon learning languages, riding, swordsmanship, the rest—but why are you including him in the classes on magic with the others?’’
Nakor grinned at his former student. “Magic? There is no magic.’’
Magnus tried not to laugh, and failed. “You can debate that with Father until the universe ends, but we both know your ‘stuff’ is just another way of looking at the process of using magic.’’
“It’s more than that, and you know it,” said Nakor. “It’s a way to free the mind of preconceived notions. Besides,”