by Brian Fuller
Weariness finally mastered worry, and he slid into sleep and dream. Before him were three men, strong in body and wise in demeanor, warriors all. They stood before the altar of a grand Church, grander than any Gen had ever seen. The whole edifice was built with white marble swirled with gray. The highly polished floor reflected sunlight streaming in through clear glass panes high on the walls of the long Chapel. Carved marble statues of holy men stood solemnly in recesses beneath each window. The ceiling arced high above, terminating in a round stained glass window depicting Eldaloth with his arms extended to embrace the world. Sunlight streamed through the glass, coloring the light that fell upon the altar and choir loft. Gen approached where the men stood, passing dark wooden benches and thin, ornate columns as he traversed the center aisle.
The three soldiers before him regarded him for a few moments. Two were human and one an elf, all dressed in black save for silver moons embroidered on their tabards. Though stern and grave, nobleness and kindness showed in their eyes. Kingly they seemed, though modest in dress and adornment. All wore swords at their sides, and the elf and one of the humans also had longbows. Gen wondered if this were a memory or if he had been pulled into their time somehow. Or perhaps neither.
“Another comes before us. The youngest yet.” This came from the man with a bow. He had short brown hair and was clean-shaven. He was thinner than his human companion, giving the impression of speed. Of the three, his brown eyes were the most kind.
“I don’t suppose he understands us. No one has for a long time. I wonder how the ancient tongue was lost so easily.”
They did not speak the common language, but Gen could understand them nonetheless.
“I understand you,” Gen said, though he was surprised to hear a different language come from his mouth. The three soldiers raised their eyebrows.
“Well, this is unexpected,” said the first human who spoke, “though a welcome change, indeed. I am Samian Birchwood, Captain under Lord Tolgorth of Audrien.” Samian bowed and returned to lean on his massive longbow.
“And I am Telmerran Fourtower, General to the Lady Aisbeth of Thorwane.” Telmerran was bald, having thick arms and legs and standing a head taller than Gen. His eyes were the color of the sky, and a long black beard hung from his chin. Gen thought the sight of this man on the battlefield would set any intelligent enemy to running.
“I am Elberen Wis’wei,” the elf said. He was thin and tall with a sharp face, gray eyes, and long silver hair. “I am Commander of Ewena’s Third House of Wind Marchers. It is a pleasure to again be able to speak to one of our pupils. What is your name and your house?”
“Gen. Of no house of note.”
“Welcome,” Elberen said. “Before we begin, we have some questions for you. First, why are we all together? It should not be so until the end of the training.”
“I do not know,” Gen replied, “other than my . . . teacher . . . said there wasn’t enough time.”
Samian’s eyebrows raised and he spoke excitedly. “The marriage approaches, then? Has the Ilch been seen?”
“The marriage is supposed to happen in a little less than two years. As for the Ilch, I haven’t heard anything.” The three warriors seemed pleased.
“Then our service is nearly at an end,” Elberen said, face happy. “I have longed to be released. You, Gen, will likely be the last we train, though there is time for another, if pinched. Is your master the Blessed One’s father?”
“Yes.”
“And are you to protect the Ha’Ulrich or the Chalaine?”
“I don’t think I am to protect anyone.”
The three were stunned, and Gen explained how he had come to the training and what Khairn’s purpose was. All were angry, but Telmerran was livid.
“I did not let myself be imprisoned in these stones to provide fodder for some mad Shadan’s sport!” He swore and raged for several minutes before Samian and Elberen could calm him down.
“What are we to do, Telmerran? Teach him nothing and let him be butchered?” Samian argued.
“He’ll be butchered either way!” Telmerran countered. “It’s unlikely the Shadan will let him get skilled enough to be a threat to him! I wish I could jump out of this rock and throttle that. . .”
“Calm yourself,” Elberen commanded. “If you’re going to jump out of these stones, there is only one way, and that is through him. He can understand us, which means he will learn faster and better than his predecessors. If he can mask his knowledge, he might just slay Torbrand and perhaps we can find a new master, or release, soon.”
Telmerran considered this for a moment and then relented with a nod. Samian stepped forward and put his hands on Gen’s shoulders, eyes sympathetic.
“Gen, each of us left behind those who were very dear to us to enter these stones and commit ourselves to the service of the Chalaine and the Ha’Ulrich. It grieves us that our knowledge should be put to such perversion, but we will not leave you a helpless victim.
“I am sure you understand that this will not be easy. You should learn from each of us one at a time, but our hand has been forced and what we will show you will not be pleasant. We can offer you little comfort, other than the hope for your freedom and the freedom of those you love. May Eldaloth help you.”
Samian stepped back and joined his companions, each standing with displeased but resolved faces.
Elberen locked his gray elven eyes on Gen’s. “Open your mind. Let us begin.”
Chapter 10 - Battle Within Battle Without
The return trip to Tell proved a little less difficult for Gen. Going through the Portals upset his stomach less than it had when they came, and he dealt with the cold with more control. Climbing from the dog sled up the ladder to the Portal room at the top of the wooden tower was the hardest. The going was slow, and he nearly fell as numb hands gripped the last rungs of the ladder. Floating up through the murky, freezing water proved easier than trying to sink into it had, and, as they dried themselves by the fire and changed clothes, Gen felt his excitement build. He would see Rafael and Regina again, and he was fit to burst with things to tell them.
Near dark they left a grumpy Udan at his cold camp and headed into the woods with the aid of a lantern the Shadan had Gen carry from the forest pool Portal. The night was chill, but the wind spared them as they trudged along in a halo of yellow light that cast tree trunks into long shadows. The Shadan led him a different way back, and Gen wondered if Torbrand was trying to prevent him from remembering where the Portal was.
At last Tell came into view, a clump of lifeless buildings squatting in the dark. Due to the late hour, all lights had been extinguished, and only thin wisps of smoke rose from the chimneys, the pleasant smell something he associated with home. Patrolling guards acknowledged the Shadan expressionlessly.
The Shadan opened the door to the Showles’s home. “Get to bed. We start early tomorrow.”
Gen wanted to see Regina and Rafael but didn’t wish to cross the Shadan. He went to his room and slept but got none of the benefit of it. As soon as his eyes closed, a torrent of images and instructions flowed by, and the lessons were far from comforting.
It started with a catalog of weapons, monsters, and armor. Each item was accompanied by bloody and brutal memories that wrenched Gen from sleep and sickened him to the point of retching into his chamber pot. The stories of war he had learned as a bard hadn’t prepared him for corpse-strewn battlefields where orphans wandered in search of fallen parents, or helped him understand the clenching fear of facing down a demon dragged up from the underworld. The songs he knew did not truly reflect of the actual ache of seeing friends torn limb from limb, or the deep sadness of watching as hated enemies trampled beloved people and beautiful places.
Before first light, Khairn woke his disturbed and exhausted pupil. Gen was surprised to see the Shadan happy and relaxed, but he stood quickly anyway, not wanting to test the Shadan’s patience.
“How did you sleep, Gen?” he inquired with
a sardonic grin.
“Poorly,” Gen replied tersely. Torbrand laughed and led him into the great room. Regina was there preparing the morning meal. Her presence comforted Gen. Something about her seemed different, though he couldn’t say what. She gave him a questioning look from behind her veil as she set hot rolls and sliced apples before him, and Gen just smiled a reply, not wanting to talk in the Shadan’s presence.
Torbrand let him eat as much as he wanted and then led him out into the chill, gray morning. A snowstorm blown in during the late hours of the night had stopped, but heavy clouds still obscured the sky. The guards they met in town snapped to attention as their Shadan passed, and Gen noticed the hint of questioning in their eyes as the Shadan led him into the woods after collecting a lantern from the street. The snow was deep, up to Gen’s knees, and the bare branches of the trees were heavily enshrouded in white. Gen wondered what Khairn was up to but didn’t have the courage to ask.
After an hour of walking they came to a forest pool that Gen had swum in on many a summer day. It was frozen over and buried with snow.
“Clean the snow off a section and knock a hole in it.”
Gen obeyed, though the snow and ice were thick and it took him almost half an hour to accomplish it with rocks and sticks. Afterward his hands were bruised and numb. He shivered in his wet cloak, desperately hoping Torbrand didn’t expect him to get in the water.
“There are few people who really know much of what they look like besides murky reflections they glimpse in the water. Even fewer know what they look like when they laugh, or cry, or scream out in pain. But we know others’ looks well, even to the point where we can tell when they are lying or hiding something they don’t wish to tell. Today I will teach you that you must master the way you look. An intelligent enemy can learn a lot from the face of his opponent, so those that fight must learn absolute control of how they appear. In a fight you must be faceless. Every expression is information that aids the enemy. In a face, an opponent can see fear, arrogance, diffidence, cleverness, and dissembling. And if an opponent knows how you feel, he can exploit your emotion and kill you with it.
“So look at yourself, Gen, and tell me what you see. What can you tell from your face?”
The water was a poor mirror, but there in the wavering pool was a face framed by brown hair, punctuated by two green eyes. It was an ordinary face—a face most wouldn’t remember well or look at twice. A face that made people he’d never seen ask if they had met him before. Above all, though, he saw sadness and weariness, every bit of how he felt etched into his features.
“I see someone who is tired,” Gen replied.
“Good, but easy enough to tell. Before she left for Iron Keep, I asked my daughter Mena what she could divine about you from her brief time with you. She is a perceptive girl. Would you like to know what she told me?”
“Yes, sir,” Gen said, turning away from the pool and sitting on the ice. His master brushed the snow off a nearby stump and sat, hands on his knees.
“She said you are someone used to laughter and smiling. You are polite. You are witty. You have had a good life. You were well fed, cared for, and loved. She knew you were learned before she heard you speak. You will find that those who have been taught to read and think have a different look to their eyes than those that haven’t. She claims that your intelligence has bred some arrogance into you. You leap to defend the weak but cannot suffer a fool with equanimity—regardless of station—which is odd in your country where people are forced to fawn on those of rank, even if they are idiots. I applaud the trait, however, and would thank Bernard for teaching it to you.
“Now I will tell you some things I know. You care for Rafael more than anyone, even the girl. You see her as a young man would, with longing, anticipation, and a little fear. Since I have come, you have indeed grown tired, a sadness and desperation have settled in you as you have realized that no one is coming to deliver you or your village. You have wisely learned to fear me and know, usually, when to hold your tongue. Mostly, however, there is a cold recognition creeping into your soul and sapping your strength—you are coming to accept your death. How do I hit my mark, Gen?”
“Squarely, sir.” Gen felt more depressed than ever. He felt violated.
“And so, by now, you have likely figured out how each thing I have learned about you could be used to control or destroy you. Take Rafael and Regina, for instance. If I wanted to keep you from escaping, even if I hadn’t laid the stones upon you, all I would have to do is keep the old man alive and hang his safety over your head. Perhaps if I wanted you to do something, I could promise you that I would free Regina or not kill her. Without intending to, you have made those you love tools for accomplishing my purposes, chains with which I can enslave you.
“So what must you do to prevent this from ever happening again? You must be the master of your words and feelings and the master of body and face. Every slump of the shoulder, every creasing of the brow, every flippant comment, every wide-eyed glance at a passing girl is an arrow in the enemy’s quiver. Do you understand this?”
“I do. But how. . .”
“Quiet, Gen. The lesson is just beginning. Look into the pool and watch your face.” Gen turned back and stared at his countenance wavering in the makeshift mirror, wondering what to expect. He barely caught the flash of the Shadan’s blade before pain erupted from a shallow cut along his back.
“Your face! Look at it! Do you see? Nose scrunched, eyes squinting, mouth drawn back. When I see that look on an opponent’s face, I know I have won.”
Gen slumped to the ice in agony, barely hearing the words. In a moment, the pain faded, replaced by comfortable warmth. The Shadan had healed him and only bright red stains on the snow and the rent in his shirt and cloak remained.
The Shadan sheathed his blade. “So today you will learn control of your expressions, how you stand, how you sit, how you eat. The stones will help you train your mind and your body more quickly than normal, but it will not be easy. Your face shows emotion more than most, part of being a good bard, I suspect. But now you must put that training behind you. A bard seeks to be the center of attention. Now, you must find how to be anonymous. The deadliest snake lies under the rock, unseen and unnoticed, until it strikes. Let’s begin.”
The rest of that day was spent doing things Gen took for granted, the Shadan pointing out things Gen had never suspected he was communicating with acts as mundane as walking. Khairn would correct him sharply, explaining how walking too fast or too slow meant something and that a nice even gait attracted no attention. From time to time during the day, Khairn would unexpectedly cut him and then chide him for the way he reacted to it. After letting him bleed, Khairn would heal him and then have him do something else, like fetch firewood, stand on the side of the road, or drink water.
That night, the Shadan left him, Regina, and Rafael alone as he inspected his troops, and Gen told them everything about his trip, his friends amazed at the tale. Regina’s mood was muted, though she asked many questions as Gen told his story. As he explained the stones to them, including the limitations they placed upon him, Rafael frowned.
“We were going to come to you in secret tonight and tell you,” Rafael whispered, inviting him to draw closer. “While you were gone we discovered the general schedule and rotation of the guards. This house is guarded by two guards at the front door. There are none at the back during the night, though a brace of soldiers circles the town every half an hour, passing about fifty yards back. We have been greasing the back door, and, if we time it right, we can be gone a little after dark and no one may know of our passing until morning. But those stones complicate things.”
Ruined them, Gen thought, feeling disappointment and fear; he was disappointed that the stones had undone their plan and he feared that they would leave without him. Rafael noticed his distress.
“Don’t fret, Gen. We’ll figure something out. There has to be a way to get those stones off your neck!”
They tried to lift them, first singly then together, but they simply wouldn’t budge, as if they weighed more than Gen himself. The Shadan’s return sent them scrambling back to their rooms, though Gen suspected that Torbrand had wanted them to talk.
That night the lessons he learned during the day were reinforced in his mind by Samian, Elberen, and Telmerran. The next day, he had difficulty focusing as the Shadan set him to a variety of exercises meant to increase his stamina and speed, still slicing him at random intervals and healing him later.
If the lessons had stayed as they were, even with the cuts, Gen figured he could have survived and kept up hope. But each day grew steadily more brutal. Once Torbrand was satisfied he could do mundane things without giving away anything, and once he saw Gen could take a cut or two without flinching, he began to teach him the sword.
The thought of learning the sword from Khairn, a renowned master, excited him, but little did he know how the half-mad Shadan would school his student. Along with the expected training on how to stand, move, defend, and attack, Khairn would maim him and show him how to fight while injured. Although the injuries were always painful, at first they were at least comparatively tame. A broken finger, a bleeding gash on the forehead, a turned ankle. Khairn would always heal him in the end, but the daily pain and restless nights slowly sapped Gen of his will.
And it only got worse.
Soon came fighting with a shattered arm, then a shattered leg. One day Khairn had one of his soldiers smash his pelvis with a war hammer. Gen spent the whole day writhing in the snow as Khairn taught him how to attack and defend from the ground should such an eventuality occur.
The dreams at night were little better. Samian taught where to aim arrows to quickly butcher every kind of creature that walked Ki’Hal. Telmerran’s lessons on quickly overtaking a village in the dark were made even more poignant by the memories of Tell’s own fall. Elberen’s memories of ruthlessly destroying Uyumaak camps and infantry lines had Gen’s mind swimming with gore for a week.
