Fen gave him a dirty look, then went on. He described what he found in the big underground cavern, the bodies hanging from the ceiling, drops of white light running from them into the glowing pool of purple light. He told them about all the little crab-things and then the big one that came out and attacked him after he rescued Ravin from her kidnapper.
“No way,” Noah said in awe. “How big was it?”
“Probably ten feet across.”
Noah whistled. “And it had a stinger like a scorpion?”
“You’re lucky to be alive,” Gage said.
“It’s not luck,” Cowley said. “Next to me, Fen is the best fighter in the squad.”
Sounds of disbelief came from the others and Noah called Cowley a name.
“So that’s where they took those people they kidnapped from Shantytown,” Lukas said.
Fen told them the rest of the story, how the crab-thing chased them up the passageway. But then he changed the details and told them the same thing he’d told Amma: he and Ravin barely made it to the door of the tower when the crab-thing burst up out of the floor. “I guess when it did that it weakened the tower enough that it fell down. We were lucky to get out in time.”
Except for Cowley, the others were all staring at him with wide eyes. Cowley still looked skeptical, but he didn’t say anything.
“Damn!” Noah exclaimed. “We leave town and miss all the fun!”
“You have a strange idea of fun,” Gage said.
“That’s incredible,” Lukas said. “You’re like a hero from one of the old ballads, swooping in, fighting the monster and saving the fair maiden.”
“No wonder she took you back,” Strout said. “She kind of had to after that. Don’t worry. It will wear off and she’ll remember why she left you. I give it a week at the most.”
“You’re just the worst, you know that?” Cowley said.
“Someone has to be the voice of reason here,” Strout replied. “Hero from the old ballads. Gods, why don’t you build him a statue, Lukas?”
“I feel sorry for you,” Lukas said. “I really do.”
“Don’t waste your time. I don’t need it,” Strout said.
“What do you think the pool of light was?” Gage asked.
“I have no idea,” Fen said. He told them his theory that the drops of light draining out of the bodies were their lives.
“But why?” Lukas asked. “What are they doing?”
“Something to make themselves stronger,” Strout said. “Why else? Wealth and power, that’s what it’s all about, boys.”
“It still seems weird,” Gage said. “If they were priests or something I’d say it was some kind of offering to their god, but they say they don’t believe in the gods or they’re all dead or something.” Word about the foreigners’ strange beliefs had spread throughout the city, fueled by the fact that all the temples had been shut down.
“Did you tell the Fist about what you found?” Lukas wanted to know.
Fen shook his head.
“So you’ve got some brains,” Strout said.
“But surely if he found out…” Lukas said.
“I keep telling you, the Fist already knows. Look how much time he spends with them,” Strout said.
“I don’t believe that,” Fen said, but he knew he sounded doubtful.
“Fen saved his girl and smashed the monsters. Leave it at that,” Strout said. “Whatever his reasons, our king has allied himself with these foreigners. Our job is to follow orders. That’s it.”
“But aren’t you worried about what they’re up to?” Noah asked.
Strout leaned back and put his hands behind his head. “Not my job. I’m just a soldier, same as you. Do your job and keep your head down. That’s how you get by in this world. Other stuff only gets you killed.”
“We could look at the good side,” Gage said. “These Ankharans clearly have power. It can’t hurt to have them on our side when we invade Marad. Could save a lot of lives.”
“Now you’re talking sense,” Strout said. “Let’s remember who our real enemies are.”
“But they’re killing people,” Lukas said, sounding outraged. “Samkarans.”
“People from Shantytown,” Strout said dismissively. “Not the same thing.”
Fen noticed how the brothers darkened when he said that. He spoke up. “I’m with Lukas. My oath was to protect the citizens of Samkara. All of them.”
“Look, I’m not saying I like what they’re doing,” Strout said. “But I think we keep two things in front right now. One, our king wants them here. And two, they could be a real help against the Maradi. Why don’t we defeat the Maradi first, then worry about four foreigners?”
“I still say we take them out quietly,” Noah said. “Sneak in one night while they’re asleep and gut ‘em. That’s how we handled things where I grew up.”
“You have a bloodthirsty streak, you know that?” Lukas said.
Noah grinned at him, showing lots of teeth as he did so.
“I hate to say it, but Strout makes a good point,” Cowley said.
“Now you’re taking his side?” Noah grumbled. “My idea is much better.”
“Let me finish,” Cowley said. “Strout is right. We’re marching on Marad soon. Let’s take whatever help the foreigners can give, then see what happens. Things happen in war all the time. They might get killed in the fighting and we won’t have to do anything at all.”
“I like it better when you don’t agree with me,” Strout growled.
“I’ve got room for another best friend if you’re interested,” Cowley said with a wink.
“I’d rather gut you in your sleep.”
Chapter Twenty-five
After Fen finished with his duties the next day he cleaned up and left the barracks, planning on going to talk to the old healer. However, somehow he ended up going over to the palace instead. He found Ravin down in the servants’ quarters, bouncing a baby on her knee. The baby was squealing with delight, his tiny face red with laughter.
For a minute he stood in the doorway watching the two of them. Ravin sang the child a song that Fen remembered from his childhood, a song about a fuzzy caterpillar that climbed up people’s arms. As she sang, she mimicked the caterpillar with one hand on the child’s arm, bringing fresh peals of laughter from the child.
Fen thought that she had never looked as radiant as she did right then. Her face was lit with an inner glow that made her look angelic. He felt as if he could have stood there for hours watching her. But at some point she realized he was there and she looked up at him with a smile.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Only a couple of minutes.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I was enjoying watching you.”
She stood up and put the baby on her hip. “Let me go find his mother. She should be done with her laundry by now.” She gave Fen a kiss on the cheek and hurried out of the room.
Fen heard someone say, “Ooh,” and turned to see two small boys, probably about five, grinning at him. One of them made kissing noises with his lips. Embarrassed, Fen left the room and followed Ravin.
After she had returned the baby to his mother, Ravin and Fen went outside and walked around the castle grounds, hand in hand.
“I have to admit, that when you said my affliction could be a gift, I thought you were crazy. But now I’m starting to see that it might be our only chance to stop the Ankharans. I’m realizing that I have to quit fighting my afflict—I mean my gift, and learn how to control it. The problem is, how? I’ve got no idea where to start, other than going to talk to the old healer, but I don’t see how he can really help. I know how to control my sword during a fight. I know that if I practice hard enough and long enough, if I stay calm and focused, I can make my weapon do what I want it to do. But with this? There’s nothing there to grab onto.”
Ravin stopped walking and faced him. “I think you just figured it out.”
“You need to learn to control your power the same way you learn to control your other weapons.”
Fen frowned. “You make it sound easy, but it’s not.”
“Was it easy to learn to control your sword?”
“No. I had to spend lots of hours working on it. And I’m not done. I still have lots to learn.”
“So this will be the same, don’t you see?”
Fen scratched his head. “I think I see what you’re getting at and I accept it. But I still don’t know where to start. I don’t know what to do.”
“How do you practice with your sword?”
“I learned a series of forms from an old swordmaster. They’re like patterns that you do over and over. They form the basis of every attack and defense in a sword fight. When you do them long enough, they become automatic.”
Ravin thought about it for a minute. “How do you know when your power is starting to wake up? What does it feel like?”
“I get this pressure in my head, kind of like when you get sick, you know? And I feel this heat in my chest, like there’s a fire inside me.”
“What if you tried taking control of your power before it starts rising up?”
Fen shook his head. “I’ve tried. There’s nothing there.”
“What if you tried doing it while you were practicing your forms? You told me before that when you practice your forms, when you are calm and focused, that everything falls away and you get into a special quiet place inside. What if you did that and then tried to reach for your power?”
That struck Fen. He’d never thought of that. “It could work,” he said after a minute.
“At least it’s something to try.”
They talked about other things for a few minutes, but Fen had trouble concentrating. He was thinking about her suggestion, looking it over from every angle, wondering if and how it would work. Finally Ravin patted him on the arm.
“Go.”
“What? But we just—”
“I know that look, Fen. You’re off in your own world, thinking about this. You’ll be useless to anyone until you get a chance to try it out. So go. Now.”
“Really? You won’t be angry?”
“I’ll be disappointed. I hate letting you go. I want to spend every free minute with you. But there’s always tomorrow and I know that this is important.” She got a worried look in her eyes. “I’m afraid the Fist is getting worse. This morning when I brought a fresh pitcher of wash water to his room he didn’t answer when I knocked at his door. I thought he had gone out already and so I went in. He was staring out the window. When I spoke to him he didn’t move or respond. I put the pitcher on the wash stand and as I was leaving he suddenly spun around and yelled at me, asking me who I was and what I was doing there. It was frightening, Fen. The look in his eyes. He clearly didn’t recognize me. And when he started yelling it was like the room suddenly got very cold and I was freezing. It felt like the floor was about to give way underneath me and I was going to fall into darkness.”
“That’s terrible,” Fen said. “It’s whatever he’s learning from the Ankharans. That’s what’s making him act this way. Isn’t there any way you can get assigned to other duties so you can stay away from him?”
“Not really. Besides, that would mean putting someone else at risk and I don’t want to do that. Right away he seemed to come back to himself and then he apologized and left the room, so he’s not too far gone yet. There’s still time.”
Fen hugged her close. “I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do.”
“There is,” she said. “Learn how to use your gift. Find a way to stop the Ankharans.”
╬ ╬ ╬
Fen went to the practice yard. The sun had set, but there was still a lot of daylight left. He drew his sword and moved into the opening position, weight balanced evenly on the balls of his feet, knees slightly bent, sword held up before him in a two-handed grip. He slowed his breathing, concentrating on each breath as it moved in, then out, letting it clear the thoughts from his mind, letting it clear away hopes and fears and desires and weaknesses. The calmness settled in quickly, the result of the many times he’d practiced this. His worries about the Fist, about the Ankharans, his doubts about himself, it all faded into the background.
When his mind felt clear and sharp, he started his forms. Step. Thrust. Sweep and parry. Back step. Half turn, jab, withdraw, slice. The swordmaster had taught him forty-six forms and he worked his way through all of them, each form sliding seamlessly into the next. There was no thought, only smooth action, his body almost operating independently of himself. His vision cleared. His breathing was steady and deep. Everything clicking perfectly into place.
He reached the end of the forms and started again from the beginning. As he did, he turned his attention inward, allowing his body to continue through the forms on its own. He was searching for what was different, the place where the strange power came from.
The minutes passed and he found nothing, but he did not give up. He did not press or try to force it, knowing if he did he’d have no chance at all. While his arms and legs continued the forms, he waited and watched.
All at once he found it, a spot of warmth in his chest, like a faintly glowing ember. It was quiescent, that ember of power, yet he could feel the power contained within it, how strong it was, how quickly it could roar into life.
Now that he’d found it, he wasn’t sure what to do. It occurred to him that his strange power awakened when he was feeling strong emotions, like fear or rage. Somehow his emotions were like adding fuel to a dormant fire. With this idea in hand, he began experimenting. He wanted to feed the energy of his emotions into it, but he didn’t want to make it too strong or he’d have no chance of controlling it. It was like blowing on an ember. He wanted it to come to life, but he knew if he blew too hard that it could turn into a conflagration that would get away from him.
He turned his thoughts to yesterday, reviving his anger at Captain Rouk, trying to feel the anger again. But nothing happened and after a bit he became frustrated. A hitch appeared in his forms and he lost sight of the power. He refocused on his breathing, seeking the calm center. The hitch in his forms disappeared. Calmness returned. He could feel the ember of his power once again.
Maybe he needed a stronger emotion. He brought to mind the moment when he saw Ravin, captive in the cavern underneath the tower.
His power flared up suddenly, surging throughout his body with sudden, bright intensity. The earth shook under his feet and Fen was knocked sprawling. He lay there on his back, his ears ringing. The ground was still vibrating a little as the aftershocks died away. There was a terrible pain in his head and he felt feverish.
He sat up. Blood was coming out his nose. His head throbbed with each heartbeat. Blackness fluttered along the edges of his vision. He wiped the blood away and got slowly to his feet. He staggered and had to use his sword to prop himself up.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Fen turned and saw one of the young recruits standing there staring at him with a look of alarm on his face.
“What happened? You seemed okay and then you just…” He made a motion with his hand of someone falling and hitting the ground.
“I’m fine,” Fen said. “It’s only a headache.”
“That’s some headache,” the boy said. He was probably thirteen, still carrying baby fat, with the wide-eyed innocence of youth. Fen had trained his squad a couple of times and he recognized the boy. He searched his memory, but couldn’t come up with his name.
“I get them sometimes. Don’t worry about it.”
“What you were doing before that, though,” the boy said. He mimed swinging his sword, imitating Fen’s forms. “That’s something I’d like to learn.”
“Keep training,” Fen told him. “And one of these days I’ll teach them to you.”
The boy stared at him, his head tilted to o
ne side. “You sure you’re okay? You want me to get you some water or something?”
“No, I’m good. I just need to sit down for a bit.”
The boy left and Fen went over and sat down against the wall. The pain in his head was already receding. Though he’d experienced the power several times before, this was the first time he’d been focused on it. It surprised him how quickly it flared up and how strong it truly was. Before its implacable power, his own muscle and bone were like nothing, less than toothpicks and easily crushed.
Is that what finally happened to my father? he wondered. Did the strange power simply crush him eventually? Horis had told him that the Shapers were immortal beings who could control the power contained in Stone, Sea, and Sky and that one of the Stone Shapers might have infected Fen’s father with its power. If that was true, then the power contained within Stone didn’t belong in a mortal human. It was too powerful for mere flesh and blood. Fen would never learn to control it, and it would eventually kill him too.
But to accept that would be to give up and fail for sure. He couldn’t accept failure. People were counting on him. He had to find a way to control the Stone power, no matter what it took.
Why did the Shaper do this to my father? he wondered as he slowly got back to his feet to try again. Did the Shaper somehow foresee the coming threat from the Ankharans and infect his father to try and stop them?
Or was some other being involved, someone with a different motive altogether?
╬ ╬ ╬
After that night Fen worked on learning to control his power every chance he got. He got up earlier. He worked on it at the end of the day when his duties were done. He worked on it whenever he had a break during the day. After a few days he learned that he could go inside and observe his power without practicing his forms, simply by clearing his mind and slowing his breathing. Mostly he just observed the power without trying to awaken it. He wanted to become familiar with it, see what he could learn. He knew he couldn’t rush it. The risk of killing himself, or hurting someone else, was too great.
But he also knew his time was limited. Every day that passed brought them one day closer to when the army would march on Marad. If it was at all possible, he needed to have some kind of handle on his power by then. He didn’t have a clear plan in mind for what he meant to do with his power if he did manage to control it, only a sense that in the chaos of war an opportunity might present itself. When that opportunity came, he intended to be ready. He knew that if he had a chance to take down the four Ankharans, he would take it, even if it meant his own death. One way or another they had to be destroyed.
Sea Born (Chaos and Retribution Book 3) Page 30
