Competitions

by Sharon Green

  Vallant thought she was telling them that maintaining a funereal atmosphere while pretending to have a party just wouldn’t do, as even a blind and deaf fool would become suspicious about what they might really be doing. It was an excellent point, and it was quickly proven that he wasn’t the only one to pick up on it.

  “I suppose I should be smiling,” Coll agreed, actually managing something that could be called a small specimen of a smile. “I hadn’t expected to gain those masteries quite so soon, which means I thought I’d have more time before needing to face the next level. There are a couple of things waiting that I’d much prefer not to think about.”

  “But I have to think about what comes next in my aspect,” Tamrissa put in, giving Coll a wan smile. “I’ll need to do the same thing I did today, only this time while I defend myself from attack. And don’t ask me why I’ll be attacked, because I haven’t any idea. My supposed Adept guide will be doing the attacking, and although she isn’t quite as strong as I am, it was hate at first sight for the both of us.”

  “But that’s exactly why we need to celebrate,” Jovvi said, interrupting as Vallant was about to indignantly announce that no one would attack Tamrissa while he stood alive and able. Belatedly he realized what a stupid thing that would have been for him to say; Tamrissa would not have welcomed his interference even if they were getting along, and interfering in any event would almost certainly cost her the mastery. But his sudden worry about her was almost enough to distract him from his own problems.

  “We all have things ahead of us that we’d rather not think about,” Jovvi continued, her glance at him suggesting she’d interrupted him on purpose. “That’s why we ought to celebrate tonight, so as not to rob ourselves of the victories we’ve earned. I want to pat myself on the back tonight, and let tomorrow take care of itself for now. Does anyone else feel the same?”

  One by one they all roused themselves to agree with her while showing at least a small amount of enthusiasm, so the matter was settled. After dinner they would have a party, and in the meanwhile they began to apply themselves to the food. By the time the second course arrived they were beginning to chat with one another, and the serving of dessert found them all a good deal more relaxed.

  Tamrissa had called over one of the servants earlier and had given the man what seemed to be instructions. It seemed odd that it wasn’t Warla, Tamrissa’s companion and temporary majordomo of the residence, who gave the servants their orders, but Vallant hadn’t even seen the girl today. She might be away seeing to personal business, or simply taking a rest from the frantic running-about she’d been doing. But Warla, sweet and helpless little thing that she was, wasn’t Vallant’s primary concern.

  The woman who was his primary concern finished her cup of tea, then rose to tell everyone that it was time they began their party. They all dutifully rose in turn and followed after her, but not to the library, where they’d had their first gathering. Tamrissa led them to the back door and outside instead, then gestured to the garden.

  “It’s such a lovely evening that I thought we might have our party outside,” she said, sounding as though the idea had been spur-of-the-moment and hers alone. “I had the servants light the paper lanterns to make everything look more festive, and a table with brandy and glasses, a tea service and cups, and even some honeyed nuts and sweet cakes has been set up. Let’s go and enjoy ourselves.”

  The others all made sounds of approval and agreement, so Vallant added his own sounds of the same sort and walked with everyone to the white-clothed table which had been arranged for them. With everything already brought and prepared there was no need to have servants under foot, which was the main reason for the party in the first place.

  “This garden is almost as lovely at night as it is during the day,” Jovvi said in normal tones as she looked around, then she lowered her voice without changing expression. “Lorand, can you tell whether or not there are any listeners lurking in the shadows where the lantern light doesn’t reach? That one servant standing near the house won’t be able to hear what we say, but I want to be certain he’s the only one out here.”

  “I hadn’t realized I’d be able to tell,” Coll responded just as softly, but with a surprised expression he quickly wiped away. “But you’re right and I can distinguish plant and animal life from human, and there’s none of it out here but us.”

  “I’m glad to have you confirm my own opinion,” Jovvi told him with one of her beautiful smiles. “I felt nothing in the sense of a human being out there, but it is possible for some people to hide from my perceptions. Blanking your mind completely and simply listening can do it… But that isn’t what we’ve gathered here for. While we each supply ourselves with a glass of brandy, I’ll tell you that I’ve confirmed the guess that we don’t have any time to waste. If we’re going to be part of the competitions, we have to qualify for them as quickly as possible.”

  “What makes you think so?” Coll asked as the group drifted toward the table holding the drinkables. “We all agreed that we have to keep moving forward, but why the sudden rush?”

  “My Adept guide admitted that the competitions are almost on us,” Jovvi said, picking up the bottle of brandy to play hostess. “When I mentioned that everyone at the lower level had to qualify by week’s end or not at all, and that meant the competitions were only a few days away, she corrected me by saying, ‘Well, more than just a few.’ The correction was reluctant so I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate misdirection, but please note she didn’t even say something like ‘two weeks’. She said ‘more than a few’ days, which could even mean less than a week.”

  “It looks like it’s a good thing we all got our first level masteries today, then,” Tamrissa put in after a moment, during which time a heavy silence had begun to form. “I’m not looking forward to having Soonen, my Adept guide, attack me, but I’m certain she isn’t nearly as strong as I am. And neither is that male Adept who witnessed my masteries, which reminds me about something else which should be mentioned. Were the rest of you also treated differently after you achieved the masteries than you were before them?”

  “Yes, I was, and I didn’t like it,” Coll answered, also smiling his thanks to Jovvi for filling his brandy glass. “The man nearly got down on all fours to offer his back as a seat, and that reminds me about something. Tamrissa said her Adept guide was a good deal weaker than her, and so was mine. If that goes for everyone else’s guides as well, why in the world are those people allowed to call themselves Adepts? I can’t quite believe that we’re the strongest talents ever to come by.”

  “But of course we’re not,” Mardimil said with a small laugh after sipping at his brandy. “Those people are allowed to call themselves Adepts because most of them are members of the lower nobility. They were undoubtedly given the positions as repayment for political debts to their families, and they’re the strongest representatives those families were able to supply. All those stronger than them are either members of other families, or uninterested in wasting their time in such a way.”

  “But—that’s stupid,” Vallant couldn’t help protesting, even though the idea of political favors was nothing new to him. “Givin’ somebody a job they should have to qualify for makes the whole system rotten, especially since we almost died gettin’ to where we are. Where do those fools get off handin’ out things like Adept positions while everybody else has to fight just to stay alive?”

  “Not everybody else,” Jovvi corrected, smiling as she lowered her voice even more. Vallant hadn’t actually started to shout, but without the reminder he might have. “Obviously members of the nobility are excused from having to go through what we did, but that shouldn’t surprise any of us. The testing authority is made up of people from the nobility, so they’ve obviously been running things to suit themselves.”

  “Which, as Ro said, is stupid as well as unfair,” Coll told her, clearly as annoyed as Vallant had become. “Everyone claims to understand that natural selection usually produ
ces the strongest and smartest members of a species, even if it’s as far from kind as you can get. By excusing their own people from having to compete or be brushed aside they can only have weakened the nobility, which they ought to be bright enough to understand. But if all this is true, what are you doing here, Mardimil?”

  “That was my question as well,” Mardimil replied wryly, speaking to all of them. “The answer seems to be one of two possibilities, which are one, my mother caused me to be here in order to convince me how horrible the world is away from her side, or two, an enemy of hers arranged my presence, thinking possibly to see me fail, but in any event to embarrass her. Whichever the cause, my presence is no accident.”

  “I’d be willin’ to put money on that,” Vallant agreed, his sense of outrage suddenly turning to come forth on Mardimil’s behalf. “Personally I’m glad you’re here, but that’s one dirty way to treat somebody who’s supposed to be one of your own.”

  “It doesn’t surprise me either,” Coll said with a grim nod. “It takes intelligence and compassion to show a sense of honor, and those testing people obviously have neither. But how does that affect what we were discussing this afternoon, about us being chosen as members of a challenging Blending, I mean?”

  “What’s this?” Jovvi and Tamrissa said almost together, just using different words. “What makes you think we’ll be chosen as members of a challenging Blending?” Jovvi finished for both of them.

  “Well, that was one of the things we meant to tell you right away,” Coll said ruefully, his glance around making Vallant feel as though he and the other men had been keeping secrets. “Holter there was the first to notice that except for Water magic, our residence holds only one representative of each of the five aspects. And if you add to that the fact that when two of our group didn’t qualify as quickly as the rest of us they were moved out, you have at the very least an extremely strong possibility.”

  The ladies exchanged a glance without saying anything, both of them looking faintly stunned, and then Jovvi raised her brows.

  “That would explain why we’re suddenly being treated so deferentially,” she suggested, her tone nevertheless sounding faintly skeptical. “Something still doesn’t feel quite right, though, but I can’t seem to put my finger on it. Well, hopefully it will come to me later, but right now I have a question: why two representatives of Water magic?”

  “Probably because Holter and I have been runnin’ neck and neck until now,” Vallant put in when Holter refused with a headshake to voice his own theories. “They must be waitin’ to see which of us will do better, and then they’ll choose that one.”

  “So we really do have to be as good as possible to qualify,” Tamrissa said, but to the group in general rather than to him. “Sometimes I get the feeling that being too good will ruin our chances rather than help them, but that’s ridiculous. If they’re putting together challenging Blendings, they’ll want the best of the best.”

  “They should want that,” Jovvi agreed, “but sometimes I get the same feeling. We’ll have to try to find out, but let’s not be obvious about it. If the opening to ask a useful question doesn’t come up naturally in casual conversation, don’t anyone bring it up. I can’t get past the feeling that we’re walking a tightrope here, and one misstep is all it will take to plunge us into the abyss. It’s possible I’m just being a silly woman about all this…”

  She let her words trail off as she glanced around, making the statement a question that any or all of them were free to answer. No one accepted the offer, though, so Vallant put in his own copper’s worth.

  “If you’re bein’ a silly woman, then I’m bein’ the same,” he admitted heavily, doing no more than looking down at the brandy he held. “I keep gettin’ a feelin’ very much like yours, which takes the … pleasurable excitement from the possibility of bein’ put in a challengin’ Blendin’. If they’ve been handin’ out Adept positions to people who don’t deserve them, what about the Seated Blendin’ itself?”

  “I’d say that was another matter entirely,” Coll protested while everyone else made sounds which showed their disturbance over the idea. “The general public has no idea about what goes on in these testing facilities, so they can get away with just about anything they please. The major competitions are another matter entirely, which people travel for days to come to see. With anything that public, they have to play it straight.”

  “I’m inclined to agree,” Mardimil said thoughtfully. “I’ve never seen a challenge involving the Blending, of course, but I did attend one against the Seated High in Water magic. The competition took place in front of a very large audience, and there was no doubt about the outcome. The challenger seemed very strong, but the Seated High proved stronger.”

  “So we may have a chance after all,” Tamrissa said, her brows raised in partial disbelief just as Jovvi’s had been. “I think what we have to decide now is whether or not to go for it. Please, Dom Holter, tell us your opinion. You’re the only one of us who seems to have done any real thinking about this.”

  “Yeah, I done some thinkin’ on it, ma’am, but I don’t see as how it helps much,” Holter answered slowly, obviously reluctant to speak but unable to refuse Tamrissa. “It waren’t me who made the real point, but Dom Mardimil there. He said like as not we ain’t gonna get th’ choice, just have it made fer us. That sounds like a purty fair guess t’me, so I’ll jest go along with ’er.”

  “A statement which gives us all something to think about,” Jovvi suggested in a distracted way. “It might be best if we pretend to be partying for a while, and return to serious conversation after we’ve had the chance to consider what we’ve heard. Does anyone think we ought not to?”

  No one spoke up to disagree with the suggestion, so the fairly tight group simply dissolved a bit as people moved a step or two away to drink their brandy and do some thinking. Vallant finally took a sip from his own glass, but just a sip to bolster his courage. The time had come to speak to Tamrissa, and he wasn’t about to play the coward and let it slip past.

  The object of his intentions stood alone just a few feet away, clearly doing the thinking Jovvi had mentioned. Vallant moved slowly and calmly until he stood beside her, his back to most of the others.

  “Before you dismiss me again, you’d better add this to your thinkin’,” he said very softly. “If we do get chosen to be a challengin’ Blendin’, we’ll all have to work together in order to win. If you keep tryin’ to pretend I’m not even alive, you could be the reason we lose.”

  “You’re forgetting about Dom Holter,” she said, still not looking at him but surprising him by responding without hesitation. “He could be the one chosen to represent Water magic, and then there won’t be a problem.”

  Vallant blinked, not having seriously considered that even for a moment. The outlook was no reflection on Holter and his abilities, simply an awareness of Vallant’s own.

  “But what if he isn’t chosen instead of me?” Vallant pursued almost at once. “I happen to like Holter and respect what he can do, but I’m the better practitioner. Once I prove that everyone will be forced to acknowledge it, so I repeat: Are you goin’ to keep on blamin’ me for somethin’ I’m not guilty of and make us lose, or will you listen to reason and bring us closer to winnin’?”

  She hesitated a brief moment, still gazing at the lantern-lit garden, and then she showed a very odd smile.

  “Isn’t it strange how our chances of winning have suddenly come to depend on my listening to you,” she said, a very faint tremor in her voice. “It so happens I don’t believe that, Dom Ro, so please find someone else to tell your tall stories to. This incredulous little girl simply isn’t interested.”

  “But why not?” Vallant demanded, fighting to keep his voice soft and his temper from flaring out of control. “You know I’m not guilty of anythin’, so why can’t we go back to the way things were before two vindictive people forced their way in here and between us?”

  “Because the
… ‘way things were’ should never have happened,” she replied in a whisper, now looking down at the brandy glass in her hands. “I’ve … thought about the whole thing, and I realize now that I was wrong to lead you on. The truth is I’m … involved with a large number of other men, so becoming involved with you as well would simply be unfair. I know you dislike the idea of … sharing a woman, so it would be best if we forgot the entire thing. Please excuse me now.”

  With that she hurried away from him, and Vallant was too open-mouthed with confusion and startlement to even consider following. She’d been “leading him on?” How? By making him all but drag her out for a simple walk in the garden? And was he really supposed to believe that she was involved with a “large number” of other men? He almost wished she was, and with men who would give her pleasure rather than pain. She’d had enough hurt in her life to justify any change for the better.

  But he wanted to be the one to give her that pleasure, along with excellent reasons for letting him be the only man to do it. He’d been raised to understand that the decision should always be the woman’s choice, and it was his place to influence her choice only with superior ability, not with superior strength. He’d never minded rising to the challenge, so to speak, one of the things which had made him so popular with the ladies.

  So where could she have gotten the idea that he disliked having to share a woman? It was true he had no intentions of sharing Tamrissa once he made her his wife, but if she needed something like that to make her really happy… He would do his best to make it unnecessary, but if his best wasn’t good enough and her happiness depended on it… Damn it, where had she gotten those ridiculous ideas?