by Sharon Green
“What about the rest of it?” Tamrissa asked, her brow furrowed with disturbance. “Is that also imagination?”
“The rest of the major Prophecy says, ‘In this time of crisis there will appear a Chosen Blending, and there will be no doubt of their identity. They will stand against the reemergent evil, and will do their utmost to triumph.’” Mohr looked around at all of them again, and his smile softened. “That part I interpret as there being no doubt to the Guild.”
“Which means what?” Lorand asked, taking his turn to speak for all of them. “Why would your people in particular have no doubt?”
“That goes to what I said earlier about our ability,” Mohr replied, and Rion noticed that two of Mohr’s companions were paying very close attention, as though what was being said was new to them as well. “Those of us who are of the Guild are actually able to see the strength of those who practice in the various aspects, and we have a scale we use for our own private files. Each level of strength, Low, Middle, and High, can be broken down into first, second or third level of intensity, with first level being the lowest. When people—other than Guild people—talk about a strong Middle, they’reusually referring to a third level Middle.”
“I’d be curious to know how the present Seated Blending was rated,” Jovvi said, her expression neutral except for a … gleam of sorts in her eyes. “Or hasn’t the Guild been allowed to rate them?”
“It isn’t a matter of ‘allowed,’” Mohr replied with a shrug. “As long as one of us is within range of them, they’rerated whether they want to be or not. And to answer your question, they’ve been rated as third level Highs.”
“And we must be rated the same,” Lorand said musingly. “But one thing I don’t understand is, why hasn’t the Guild come forward before this? Surely you and your people knew that the various Seated Blendings over the last hundred years or so haven’t been more than Middles? Why didn’t one of you tell someone?”
“To what end?” Mohr asked, his face set in lines of seriousness. “Most people, noble or not, consider Guild members freaks, so who would have believed us? If you and these others hadn’t tried your hands against the current Seated Blending, would you have taken my word for the fact that you’remuch stronger than they are? In the beginning we wouldn’t have been believed, and in these latter years the nobility would have kept us from spreading the word very far. Most of us would have been killed, and only those of us too frightened to disobey them—or those more than willing to work for them—would have been spared.”
“You now touch on a question I’ve had, High Master,” one of the three men with Mohr put in, drawing his attention. “In the past the Guild has done nothing but perform its job, but now your people move through Gan Garee, spreading the word that the Seated Blending was seated through trickery rather than through honest endeavor. Why have you suddenly changed tactics?”
“Surely you jest, Dom Ambor,” Mohr replied with a short laugh. “With the changed situation in Gan Garee… But forgive me. I meant to introduce everyone as soon as we entered, and the matter simply slipped my mind. Excellences, may I introduce Dom Gorlin Ambor and Dom Mirist Koln, the chosen representatives of the merchants of Gan Garee. The third gentleman there is Master Holdis Ayl, my second in command in the Guild.”
Rion joined his groupmates in nodding politely to the three men, also joining them in noticing that Mohr still addressed them as “Excellences.” Clearly they hadn’t yet convinced him of their … decoy status, which surely meant they must work harder at doing so.
“I’m familiar with the names of two of those gentlemen,” Tamrissa said to Mohr, showing an odd kind of satisfaction. “My father considered them his greatest rivals and yet completely unworthy of being his intimates, which is the best recommendation they can possibly have as far as I’m concerned.”
“Your father, lady?” Gorlin Ambor said, surprise in the question. “I wasn’t aware that we knew your father.”
“Oh, you know him all right,” Tamrissa said with a very unladylike sound. “His name is Storn Torgar, and my late husband was Gimmis Domon, who was worthy of being his intimate.”
“You have our deepest condolences, lady, on both accounts,” Ambor said after exchanging a glance with Mirist Koln. “No merchant with the least amount of integrity—or the slightest amount of self preservation—would ever have considered doing business with either of those two. They tend to prey upon those who are unfamiliar with their practices, a group which is unfortunately rather large. But I would appreciate your returning to my question, High Master. What has the changed situation in Gan Garee to do with the change in your Guild’s behavior?”
“That should be rather obvious, Dom Ambor,” Mohr said with more amusement than chiding. “With so many of their members dead or missing, the nobility is very much in a confused uproar. Oh, their agents still prance around pretending that everything is the way it used to be, but that’s utter nonsense. Most of the really powerful nobles are gone, and the majority of their heirs aren’t up to truly taking their places. Even the competent ones are having trouble finding out everything their fathers were involved in, and that sort is in the minority. The majority of the heirs are simply spending the gold they’ve come into, without worrying about how they’regoing to replace it. Their lackeys are busy trying to educate them, so there’s no one watching us as closely as they used to. We are, after all, no more than freaks, and who cares about what freaks do?”
“And now the people are believin’ you?” Vallant asked, a point Rion had meant to put if no one else did. “If your people are still freaks to them, and the trouble the nobility is havin’ shouldn’t change that, what makes the difference?”
“The whispering campaign makes the difference,” Mohr replied with satisfaction. “Right after the last competition we started the rumor about the Seated Five having cheated, and spread it all over the city. We waited a short while to let the rumor be spread, and then we staged ‘forced admissions’ in a number of places. Two of our people would go into … say, a tavern, separately, of course, and then the first would ‘recognize’ the second as a Guild member. The first would then demand to know if the rumor was true, and the Guild member would reluctantly admit that it was. Then the Guild member would look frightened and leave quickly, and that would convince everyone who heard him.”
“Now I understand why I noticed so many angry … mobs, I suppose you would have to call them,” Koln put in, the first words the man had spoken. “That was just before we left the city, and now I wonder if they’ve tried to do something about their unhappiness.”
“If our plan is working properly, they haven’t,” Mohr said, again speaking soberly. “We’ve also spread the word that ordinary people haven’t got a chance if they go up against the usurpers alone, and they need to wait for the Chosen to lead them. That part of it will hopefully save lives, because most of them really don’t have a chance against the usurpers, not by themselves.”
“They should make an impressive force once we get the real Chosen into the city,” Vallant commented, obviously making an attempt to reestablish their stance. “With enough ordinary people—and, hopefully, members of the guard—behind them, it might even prove possible for them to oust the usurpers without any fightin’. There have been enough lives lost in this, and we mustn’t forget about the army comin’ from Astinda. Takin’ over in Gan Garee won’t help any of us if that army follows us in and pulls it down around our ears.”
“Then there really is an army?” Holdis Ayl, Mohr’s second, asked, his face having paled. “Messages have come in by pigeon from some of our people, but they seemed disjointed and were hard to read. We were hoping it was just a rumor without any validity behind it…”
The man’s voice trailed off in partial questioning, but Vallant’s headshake killed the faint spark of hope.
“No, unfortunately it’s no rumor,” Vallant said heavily. “Our own army—which we weren’t supposed to have—has been destroyin’ large par
ts of Astinda, and now their army means to return the favor. We’ve learned that they have more than one Blendin’ in it, so we’regoin’ to need all the help we can get to keep our country from bein’ completely destroyed.”
“But we have to settle matters in Gan Garee first,” Jovvi added as the four men exchanged disturbed glances. “When the time comes for the Chosen to turn and face the intruders, we don’t want them to have to worry about what’s going on behind their backs.”
“I think it’s time I returned to that explanation of what the Guild actually does,” Mohr said with a sigh, apparently ignoring Jovvi’s comment. “It should help to clarify matters… Well, as you know, we begin to examine what talent people have when they reach the age of five. No five year old has ever come anywhere near his or her potential, of course, but there are certain … echoes of what that potential will be which become obvious to the trained Guild member. The echoes are examined carefully while the children are put into one of the five categories—or six, if you count the ability of Guild members, but certainly not seven. Those who have unfortunately been born nulls are … eased away from their parents and sent to one of the preserves, where they’retaught to live as normal a life as is possible for them.”
Rion looked down at his hands in discomfort, a reaction everyone else in the room undoubtedly shared. It was considered very much in bad taste to discuss the crippled, those who were born without any ability whatsoever. That sort was quickly sent to a place where normal people would not be disturbed by their lumpish, talentless presence, and that was very much a kindness for them. To do otherwise would have exposed them to taunting ridicule from their peers while they were children, giving them pain over something that couldn’t possibly be considered their fault. Even sweet Naran tightened her grip on Rion’s hand, showing her disturbance at the topic under discussion, and Rion patted her hand encouragingly.
“Now, those echoes I mentioned are only hints,” Mohr continued, his expression showing he was partially lost to distraction. “They suggest what the child might become as he or she matures, letting our people know who should be watched most closely over the following years. We have files on every third level High in this empire, files which have been updated as the Highs grew older and more adept. Over the years it’s been possible to detect and delineate the upper level of every single one of them—except for you five. We were looking for the Chosen, you understand, so we were extremely careful and thorough. That’s why the Chosen can’t be among those following you; there are any number of Highs who have approached your strength, but none have ever matched it. If you five aren’t the Chosen, Excellences, then no one is.”
Rion added his silence to that of his groupmates, also refraining from exchanging glances with them. Mohr seemed to have them trapped, but there might still be a way out for them. The plan of Naran’s which Rion had mentioned to Jovvi and Lorand, the one they hoped would bring Vallant and Tamrissa closer together again… Possibly that could now be used for a double purpose…
“Excuse me, sir, but I believe you’redeliberately overlooking something rather important,” Rion said into the awkward silence. “Those minor Prophecies you mentioned earlier, which you never went into fully. Unless I’m mistaken, I have seen something in writing referring to them, and one segment has stuck in my memory. It’s the part about the Chosen blending in their ordinary lives as well as they do in the Blending of their aspects. Is that part, at least, accurately recorded?”
“Yes, it so happens it is,” Mohr replied cautiously, as though he had no intention of agreeing to anything which would destroy his beloved theory. “But I’m afraid I’m missing the point. I’ve seen your group interacting, and there’s been nothing to indicate that that condition doesn’t exist.”
“Unfortunately, sir, that doesn’t happen to be the case,” Rion said, this time glancing briefly at Jovvi and Lorand, whose sudden alertness told Rion that they knew exactly what he was in the midst of. “Most of us are quite close and friendly, but two of our number are having … difficulties of a personal nature. Not that anyone can blame him, of course. She’s being quite unreasonable in all ways, giving him no choice but to respond as he does.”
“I’m afraid she’s rather more than unreasonable.” Jovvi took up the explanation smoothly, exactly as Rion had hoped she would. “She’s deliberately torturing the poor man, callously ignoring his feelings as she tramples all over them. And he simply accepts the cruelty of her treatment, making very little protest. I’ve been feeling terribly sorry for him…”
“Yes, we all feel sorry for him, but there’s nothing we can do to change matters,” Lorand put in, deliberately speaking heavily. “She’s completely heartless and cruel, but she is one of our Blending so we have to try to overlook that. Changing the composition of our group now would be extremely difficult.”
Mohr looked close to being shattered at the news, especially since the stricken look on Tamrissa’s face and the shock on Vallant’s told their own stories confirming, in a way, what had been said. Tamrissa had turned mute with the weight of what she’d heard, just as Rion had hoped she would, and that should do it as far as convincing Mohr went. The discussion would continue after they’d gotten rid of their “guests,” and then Vallant would hopefully respond the way they all expected him to. But not now, not when they were so close to convincing Mohr and the others that they were mistaken—
“No!” Vallant suddenly shouted, surging to his feet and causing Rion to groan. He wouldn’t respond to the ploy now, not when they were so close! Surely he wouldn’t…!
CHAPTER TWENTY
Vallant had tried his best to help the others to convince the man Mohr that he was mistaken, but it didn’t seem to have worked. Mohr’s explanation of what the Guild people did, something which had obviously gone unmentioned until now, stopped them all in their tracks. Vallant was in the middle of racking his brain for another idea when Rion spoke up, mentioning part of the minor Prophecies. Then, when Mohr agreed that what Rion had said was true, Rion continued in a way that at first made Vallant believe he was hearing things.
“Unfortunately, sir, that doesn’t happen to be the case,” Rion said, referring to Mohr’s agreement on the relationships the Chosen were supposed to have. “Most of us are quite close and friendly, but two of our number are having … difficulties of a personal nature. Not that anyone can blame him, of course. She’s being quite unreasonable in all ways, giving him no choice but to respond as he does.”
Vallant immediately decided that Rion had chosen to lie about Tamrissa in order to throw Mohr off the scent, which was a reasonably good idea. But Rion did sound awfully convincing, and then the shock worsened when Jovvi spoke up.
“I’m afraid she’s rather more than unreasonable,” Jovvi said, also sounding completely believable. “She’s deliberately torturing the poor man, callously ignoring his feelings as she tramples all over them. And he simply accepts the cruelty of her treatment, making very little protest. I’ve been feeling terribly sorry for him…”
Sorry for him. The phrase clanged in Vallant’s mind as a faint echo from his own thoughts agreed with the sentiment, but that was pure nonsense. Tamrissa wasn’t callous or cruel, it simply wasn’t in her to behave like that. Jovvi must be doing nothing more than agreeing with what Rion had said, supporting his try to—
“Yes, we all feel sorry for him, but there’s nothing we can do to change matters,” Lorand put in, the heaviness of his tone telling Vallant that the man spoke reluctantly—but was supplying what he considered the truth. “She’s completely heartless and cruel, but she is one of our Blending so we have to try to overlook that. Changing the composition of our group now would be extremely difficult.”
For a brief moment Vallant couldn’t move, let alone speak. Naran, who sat beside Rion as usual, wore an expression of complete agreement, supporting what had been said without using the words. That was bad enough, but Tamrissa, the woman Vallant loved with every ounce of his being—
Tamrissa looked absolutely devastated. She, too, had seen that everyone was apparently speaking what they considered the truth, and the painful bewilderment in her beautiful eyes brought Vallant a stab of agony. Their groupmates were horribly wrong in what they’d said, and someone had to set things straight—right now!
“No!” Vallant shouted, rising to his feet with the intensity of his feelings. “None of that is the truth, and you all should know it! I’m the one who’s responsible, the one who’s too afraid to say even a single one of the words he should. Not even knowin’ she might be in danger from actin’ too recklessly has been able to make me tell her she’s the most important thing in the world to me. If she refuses to listen, the way she has every right to do—and the way she probably will, knowin’ me for the coward I am—I’ll never be able to go on. It isn’t her, you fools, it’s me—”
Words abruptly failed Vallant, and were replaced with an overwhelming need to be alone. For that reason he strode out of the sitting area with the idea of returning to his room, but that was a place he’d be expected to go. If someone decided to follow him and tried to talk about what had happened… No, he’d never be able to stand that, so he’d be wise to find a different temporary refuge.
At a time so close to dinner, the inn’s entrance area was completely deserted. Vallant strode through it and then outside, barely pausing even when he realized it was raining. Realized it consciously, that is. He’d known about the rain even before it had started, and had been thinking that it was a good thing their sentries didn’t have to stand outside in order to keep watch. The second Blending had had an early dinner, and by now were probably fast asleep. He and his groupmates were available again to take their place…
A large and leafy tree stood not far from the inn’s front entrance, and Vallant walked slowly through the dripping rain until he reached the partial shelter of its branches. It had turned cool and a sheet of rain tried to mist his face and clothes, but he’d already removed the dampness from himself and now disallowed a return of it. The moon was invisible behind the thick dark of the rain clouds, a perfect match to the mood now on him. Dark depression, self loathing, a mewling helplessness…
