A Child of Great Promise: An Altearth Tale

by Ellis L. Knox

  “I thought you might calm down after some exercise, but I see I must do that for you. Be prepared to defend.”

  She took a defensive stance, but instead of waiting for him to advance, she leaped forward and launched into another furious assault. He parried, but he revisited almost every blow back on her. Her attacks became steadily wilder. Her forehead had begun to bleed, and she felt light-headed.

  “Enough,” Jehan said, and took three steps back.

  “Never,” she snarled. Her conscious thought had almost vanished, leaving her a panting animal, all claws and teeth, and with a bestial cunning.

  She invited him to attack.

  He stepped forward, the concern on his face shading into anger. She saw his third eye flicker, saw his attack coming.

  Not this time, elf. I am a hummingbird. I see every move and I’m gone before you even begin. Her every muscle quivered, ready to move in any direction.

  “Why are you grinning at me?” she asked. “You look ridiculous.”

  Then she realized he was looking up.

  At her.

  She looked down to see she was hovering six feet off the ground. She looked again at Jehan, her eyes wide, then she tumbled down in a heap.

  “A new move,” Jehan observed.

  “Ow,” Talysse said.

  They grinned foolishly at each other. Jehan extended his hand and helped her stand.

  “Did you plan all that?” Talysse asked, brushing dirt and twigs from her clothes. “To provoke me?” Exhaustion was washing over her.

  “I did not,” Jehan replied. “You woke up provoked, I do believe.”

  She nodded, sheepish. “I did that.” The staff was still in her hand. She planted it like a flag. “I’ve never done that, Jehan, hung in mid-air like that. There’s not even a wind.”

  “A small one,” Jehan said. “Fitful. You’ve never done that, you say. Shall we see if you can do it again?” He paused, then added, “Unprovoked?”

  She took up her opening stance and nodded once.

  “Not now,” Jehan said, “alas. We must get back, for the karwan will leave soon.”

  Later, she told the others about it as Detta fussed over the cut on her forehead.

  “I did it without thinking,” Talysse said.

  “It must have been quite the sight,” Gonsallo said. “Not you flying, but the look on Jehan’s face.”

  “It was,” Jehan said. “Now we have a new thing to practice.” He gave the trovador a wry look. “The flying, I mean, not the smiling.”

  “Tomorrow,” Talysse said.

  “And every day,” Jehan said. “This gift must be explored and put to good use.”

  “I would think any attacker would stand dumbfounded,” Gonsallo said.

  “Jehan did,” Talysse grinned.

  “I stood,” Jehan said, “but I was not dumbfounded.”

  “Truly?” Gonsallo asked.

  “I was delighted. If she can harness this power, Talysse will be a formidable opponent. She may have to be.”

  “You must let me see this,” Gonsallo said. “So I can make it into song.”

  “Not yet,” Jehan said. “We will explore what she can do. I do not want rumors to run ahead to the ears of our enemies.”

  “Are they so close as that?” Detta asked.

  “You make her anxious, Jehan,” Talysse said.

  “I do not know how close they are, madame,” Jehan replied to Detta, “and so I am cautious. But even a wizard might… stand dumbfounded, as the trovador says, if he sees a girl with a quarterstaff attack from the sky.”

  He spoke soberly, but Talysse was beginning to learn the signs of humor in the elf, however slight. She was glad not to have an audience. She was eager to learn, not to hold a Demonstrandum. She only hoped she would be able to do it again. Unprovoked.

  After the news about the pursuit, Jehan held their training sessions close to the karwan, and only in the hour of dusk. Talysse did not care of this, for she knew the elves watched her, making every session feel like a Demonstrandum. The wagoneers themselves helped, though, by being critical.

  “She is only a girl,” was the statement she heard most often, a petty sentiment that still bit at her like a gnat.

  “This is a dangerous indulgence,” someone argued. She listened because she heard Neus’ voice in reply. She stood outside the circle of wagons, which were proving to be helpful in the business of eavesdropping.

  “Have you seen her fight?”

  “That’s irrelevant,” said the other man.

  Of course he would say that. He’s a man, she thought.

  “How so? She learns to fight; all fighting implies danger.”

  “She is female. It is unseemly for a woman to learn manly arts. Or would you have me learn to birth a child?”

  “You never know what you might learn of value, Tenif.”

  She never learned which routier was Tenif, but with that exchange Neus moved onto her list of favorite people. He had not needed to defend her, and this was a new experience for her. That someone could like her for no other reason than her own self struck her as extraordinary.

  Jehan liked her—she supposed—because of his quest. Detta liked her because she was Detta, and a compagnon. No one truly understood a gnome’s bonding. Remigius liked her, or she had always believed he did. That was a thing without cause or reason, a fact of the world as true as Trumbert hating her.

  Saveric disturbed this uncomplicated view. She did not think he liked her, but he pretended (or was it real?) to admire her. But in the way someone might admire a jewel, wishing to take it for their own.

  Talysse shivered. She did not want to be possessed.

  Then Gonsallo, who was kind. Did he like her? Or did the Catalan care for her the way he would for any injured creature?

  And today, Neus, defending her, why? Because he thought it was just? Because he defended a friend, though he barely knew her?

  It was all too complicated. She folded up all these thoughts and put them away, like folding a cloak and putting it in a chest. She took her quarterstaff and gave her mind over to her body, telling her heart to be quiet.

  Flying came easily. The difficulty, she discovered, lay in being able to fight from up there.

  Each evening Talysse hopped out to find a grove of trees, or even just a tumble of rocks, where she could practice her newfound ability.

  At first, every move sent her tumbling. She had to start her training all over again, with the most basic moves executed slowly, carefully.

  “Two steps forward, one step back,” as Detta would say. Except this is two steps forward and one step up.

  Jehan set his quarterstaff at the ready. Talysse stood opposite him, her own staff in a similar position, held across her body. Jehan nodded.

  For the past hour it had all been defense. She could now move backward, up, or to either side to her own satisfaction. They worked for a while on doing just enough.

  “Don’t fly to the tree tops,” Jehan told her, “when all you need do is avoid the end of a stick.” Or a sword, she added to herself.

  This was more difficult. Her instinct was to get well away from a threat; she had to force herself to stay closer, which mean risking the occasional whack. Jehan was not holding back any more. Two bandaged fingers on her left hand were testament to that.

  Now it was time for an attack. He had given her no instruction; she was to come at him “as you please.”

  Get a touch. That was her first aim. If she managed that, she would see if she could knock him down.

  The two advanced toward each other. The elf moved in an easy glide, smooth as a snake. Talysse coiled within herself without breaking stride. She reached for a current and sprang forward.

  Her leap carried her only knee-high from the ground, but she covered fifteen yards in a single bound, staff held forward like a lance. At the last moment she reversed it and punched a blow at Jehan’s ribs. His quarterstaff caught it. He did something and Talysse tumbled headl
ong. She had barely the time and wit to recover and land on her feet. But she was facing away, stumbling, and she was not surprised when she felt the end of the quarterstaff press against the back of her neck.

  “The leap was from too far,” Jehan said, lowering his weapon. She turned to face him.

  “It gave you too long to react.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Wouldn’t a foe be surprised by it?”

  “Once, perhaps. Not twice.”

  She glanced downward, ran her thumb along her staff.

  “Do not be downcast. That was a good maneuver, done well for having been done mid-air,” Jehan said. “Had I not been prepared, had you struck from closer, I believe you might have scuffed my armor.”

  She looked up. There it was, just the slightest movement at the corners of those thin lips. She smiled in return.

  “Again,” she said.

  “Again,” he agreed.

  “I have an idea for another move,” she said.

  Over the next few days, as the karwan made its way past Béziers, Talysse explored the range of her powers. At first, she failed often, for this was not at all like flying. She quickly learned she needed to use the quarterstaff as well; she could not rely solely on her ability to fly.

  “It’s more like jumping,” she said to Detta on the first day, “but without the coming down part.”

  “Only it’s not really like that,” she said to Jehan, “because it’s different.”

  “Don’t think what it is like,” he told her. “Think what it is.”

  After each time, success or failure, he asked what she felt and thought. What muscles did you use? What was in your mind? Did you feel anything just before? Just after?

  “Search those thoughts and sensations,” he said. “Grab onto them when you can. If you can catch them, you can control them.”

  “I don’t know.” She was frustrated. “It’s not anything I can explain. It’s just a skill I have.”

  “No, you don’t. A swordsman has a skill. When he jabs, the blade goes forward. Every time. When the archer draws his bow, he knows the arrow will fly. A skill is reliable. You have a gift, but you do not yet know how to use it. We will practice until you are reliable. Then you will have a skill.”

  She wanted to think he was being mean, or at least rude, but she knew he was right. Which was worse. So she nursed her bruises and cuts, and tried to get a good night’s sleep. She looked forward to every next training session, while the same time dreading it. The only way forward was to get better.

  “Get hit less.”

  Brasc squeezed every minute of light from each day. Some of the drivers complained: The horses were tiring, the wagons wore down, supplies ran low. No one openly suggested they leave Talysse by the roadside, but when she walked through the camp a silence greeted her and whispers followed, until she spent whole days in the convidat, even taking her meals within. All agreed that something would be decided at Carcassonne.

  The combat practice continued, even when spring storms raced overhead, soaking them in downpours that raced up from the south or hailstorms that rattled the wagons with sudden violence. The winds were swift and fitful, and Talysse worked mostly on tight control, learning to hover close to the ground, to use the sudden shifting wind to make quick movements. The whole world around her rushed as if eager to be somewhere else. In these wild currents Talysse was mastering how to grab hold, to stand atop them, as grand as a Poseidon upon the waves, and to use her staff to deal a blow in any direction.

  Jehan still parried her strikes, could still knock her from the air if he tried, but no longer did he lecture her while they sparred. He saved his breath and concentrated. He spun, dodged, lunged, using all his senses and every skill. When a session finished, sweat shone on his brow and he leaned upon his staff.

  But he did not relent.

  Talysse tried to explain to Detta why she was learning to fight.

  “All the time I have to be careful.”

  “That seems wisest,” Detta said.

  “I don’t want to be careful, tante. I left the cenobitum for something grander, not for more of the same.”

  “The wagonmaster seems upright.”

  “Yes, yes. He’s no Trumbert, I’ll grant that. So it’s not exactly, precisely the same here, but look: See the wagons? Are they not a kind of wall? Am I allowed to fly? And, oh tante, am I any closer to my parents?”

  Detta stroked Talysse’s hand as if the girl had a fever. “There now,” she said, “calm yourself. It’s no good being a storm in a bottle.”

  “But that’s what I am. ‘A girl of great promise’ means I’m all promise but no reality. I have to go out and do something, anything, even if it’s the wrong thing, or I’ll never be more than a promise.”

  Detta patted and stroked and clucked, but no reassurance came from her. Even so, the familiar motions had their effect.

  “There I go again, don’t I?” Talysse said. As quickly as that, the storm passed. “When I lived at Saldemer, I could lose my temper and it didn’t matter—those walls really did protect me, in a way.”

  Detta’s face was still compressed with worry. She continued to hold Talysse’s hand.

  “But I’m out in the wide world now, and I can’t be throwing my temper around or I’m liable to hit someone.” She drew a deep, steadying breath. “I have to be smart as well as brave. Especially when I’m mad.”

  She smiled, which made Detta cock her head, wondering.

  Talysse laughed.

  “I won’t say not to worry about me.” She now took Detta’s hands in her own. “I like when you worry about me. But have faith as well. We have a plan. We have friends. We even have a champion.”

  “The elf chevalier,” Detta said.

  “The elf chevalier.”

  “He is a great warrior.”

  “Indeed,” said Talysse.

  “And very handsome.” The gnome ducked her head.

  “Why, tante, have you fallen in love?”

  “Don’t tease,” Detta said.

  “I’m not,” Talysse said, though she was. “He is handsome. And noble, and every girl should be in love with him.” She smiled again, and now she was patting the gnome’s hand.

  “Are you in love?” Detta asked.

  “No, strange to say. I am not. I don’t quite know why. He feels more like an ally—he called me a comrade. I think I am not quite a real girl to him. I am more of a thing, a geas. Uff, what a clumsy, unattractive word.”

  “I’m glad he is with us.”

  “As am I. I am a fierce opponent. My enemies should fear me. But I’m not a fool. I need allies, all the help I can get, and even that may not be enough. I’m up against a wizard, after all.”

  “Oh, you will find your parents, Lyssie. I’m sure of it.”

  “Even after what Gonsallo said?”

  Detta looked down and said, “Even so.”

  The road passed between rugged hills that were covered by a thin gauze of new heather. Rocks stuck out across the landscape, decorated with lichen, like gray skulls beneath hair of yellow and green. They were two days from the Aude River. Across that river, Brasc assured her, lay safety.

  The land fascinated her with its hills and colors. The sky looked different—clearer, somehow. The clouds had an edge on them. The air moved differently here, felt strange. Back in Saldemer it came in waves as wide as the sea itself, as if a giant over in Africa had exhaled. Or it came in torrents from the north, pouring out to the sea in rivers. In these foreign hills the wind surged or scurried or swirled—the rounding of each hill brought surprise.

  It was exhilarating. She had lived life under a blanket. Now it was thrown back and she blinked, amazed, in new light.

  Rocks astonished her. Saldemer was a place of sand and water, and solid ground was a hard-won rarity. Here in the land of Narbonne, solid ground was plentiful and water was rare, and the bones of the earth poked through everywhere. In some places, where the hills crowded close and th
eir sides became as steep as walls, stone came right up into the road.

  The karwan stopped. Voices called out, carrying questions and orders and curses in equal measure. Talysse was learning this meant the road was blocked or that a wagon had broken down. They would be stuck here for a time, either way. The hillsides rose steep, forming a gray hall with a blue roof. The air hurried by as if anxious to be gone. Voices sounded hollow, echoing from the rocks.

  Talysse glanced at Gonsallo, who was standing to see what had happened.

  Thunder sounded from an unseen place far away. When it sounded again, though, she reconsidered. The sound did not boom like thunder. Closer now. It did not rumble like thunder. Closer still.

  It growled.

  She watched, frozen, as a creature bounded down the steep hillside. She tried to put a name to it—dog, bear, wolf—but nothing served. Nothing made sense.

  It was too big, for one thing, as big as the bulls in the arena at Arles. It had no horns, but it did have teeth. She saw these plain enough when the beast leaped at the horses. The poor animals had scarcely begun to react when it hit. They reared and screamed. The traces groaned and snapped, then the monster was on them, its long-fanged mouth tearing open the neck of the nearest horse. The second horse plunged and the whole wagon went over on its side. Talysse barely managed to leap free, tumbling onto the hard ground. The impact stunned her, knocking the staff from her grasp.

  The sound of flesh tearing and bone crunching sounded close to her ear. Her mind supplied the image, terror the spur. She scrambled to her feet, snatched up the staff, and clawed her way up the hill in a blind panic. She stopped only when the cries of men and women penetrated her fear. She turned. The hill was so steep she had to lean her back against it to keep from sliding. Beneath her, carnage churned.

  Both horses lay dead, tangled in the traces, flesh showing red and white at neck and belly. The beast stood amidst them, its face and body smeared in blood. Routiers rushed toward the scene. The monster eyed them as if deciding which of these annoyances to kill first. As she watched, someone darted in from behind, jabbing with a blade. The beast yelped and spun. The attacker got away with inches to spare. She heard jaws snap shut. The attacker reached a safer distance and turned. It was Gonsallo.