by Sharon Green
“As a matter of fact, I did,” Jovvi agreed with an immediate frown. “And it usually works a good deal better than this, as you obviously know. Let me see what the problem is… Of course, how could I have missed it? He’s been conditioned to continue being frightened. Tell us what your orders were, my friend.”
“I—I was s-simply told to deliver this envelope,” the man replied, his speech still disjointed and uneven, his arm still outstretched. “I d-don’t know anything else, I s-swear I don’t!”
“He’s telling the truth about that part of it,” Jovvi said, something Lorand already knew. “Whatever the rest is, no one saw the need to let him in on it. There seems to be a trap here, but what sort of trap?”
“It has to do with that envelope,” Tamrissa said at once, not the least doubt in her voice. “People tend to dismiss those who are frightened, automatically considering them of no threat in any possible way. That would extend to what the frightened offer, so we’resupposed to take that envelope without questioning it.”
“Which means the danger is in the envelope, not in the man carrying it,” Rion summed up, staring at the thing the way they all were. “Why don’t you open it for us, my friend, and then we can see what’s inside.”
“No—oh no—I can’t open it!” the servant responded, fear now clearly turning to panic. “I—I’m not supposed to do anything with it but bring it out to you, I’m not even supposed to think about opening it—!”
“All right, then I’ll do it for you,” Rion said amiably, and the envelope came free of the man’s grip—but didn’t fall to the ground. “Take yourself over there to those guardsmen and stay with them, and if we require your presence we’ll summon you to return.”
The man hesitated for a moment, clearly uncertain about what to do, but fright won over duty and he hurried over to where Captain Herstan and his men were chasing off the last of the people who had come through the gate. Lorand kept half an eye on the man until Herstan had him under guard, and then he was able to give the message itself his full attention.
Rion, obviously using his talent to handle the envelope, broke the seal and opened it. It was now possible to see the paper inside, and one look was all Lorand needed.
“Watch out for that faint, yellowish coating on the paper,” he warned sharply. “It’s a poison, and a rather nasty one. It works just as well if you breathe it in or get it on your skin, and the antidote for it isn’t easy to make.”
“Don’t worry, I have a bubble of air surrounding the whole thing,” Rion said in a distracted voice while the others made sounds of understanding or annoyance, depending on their individual personalities. “I’ve just discovered that I can work through the bubble, even though it’s hardened enough to keep whatever is on that paper from reaching us. Now let’s see what the note says —if anything.”
The paper slid out of the envelope with the same ease as the envelope had been opened, and then it unfolded itself. Inside there was indeed some writing, and Tamrissa stepped forward to read it aloud.
“‘To those who dare to challenge our properly earned positions,’” she recited, scorn in her voice. “Oh, right, properly earned. ‘We tell you now that you haven’t a chance of besting us any more than you did the first time we faced one another, especially as we’ve decided not to oppose you as a Blending. If you insist on continuing to break the law, you will have to do it as individuals. That won’t be quite as easy as hiding in a group, will it? Of course it won’t, which is why we refuse to meet you any other way. If you have the stomach to face the defeat which awaits you, come ahead and meet your fate. If not, just go back to the gutters you came from.’ And it’s signed, The Seated Five. As the old saying goes, they have more nerve than an aching tooth.”
“They’redeliberately baitin’ us, and I’d like to know why,” Vallant said, more thoughtful than angry. “If I had to guess I’d say they don’t want us to leave, otherwise they would have given us a more dignified way to withdraw. Leavin’ now would be ‘goin’ back to our gutters,’ and no one who got this far could be expected to do that.”
“I agree with that completely, but the reason behind it is perfectly clear,” Jovvi said, a small line of thought between her brows. “They don’t want the threat we represent hanging over their heads, so they’ve decided to vanquish us right now. There are certain to be more traps waiting for us inside the palace, but what I don’t understand is this part about us meeting them individually. Why would they insist on something like that, and why would they think we would believe them and do the same?”
“If they’redoing it, it’s because it gives them some sort of advantage over us,” Lorand said, offering the only possible—and logical—answer. “They know something—or believe they know something—we don’t, so they’reinsisting on individual combat. And as far as why we would do the same goes… If we know for certain that they won’t be Blending, can we Blend against them? It would hardly be fair, and even if the rest of the world believes we bested them fair and square, we’ll know better and hate ourselves.”
“So the main question now is, will they be Blendin’?” Vallant said, looking around to see that everyone agreed with Lorand as reluctantly as he clearly did. None of them liked the idea, but none of them was able to argue with it. “And if they don’t start out Blendin’, how can we be sure they won’t change tactics in the middle of those ‘individual combats’?”
“We couldn’t be sure, so we’d have to take precautions,” Jovvi said, obviously as reluctant as everyone else. “We would keep a light link between ourselves, while one of our secondary Blendings kept a careful watch on the proceedings. If our enemy tried to Blend and attack us without warning, the secondary could delay them while we ourselves Blended. That’s if we do decide to go through with this because we believe they’ll at least start out facing us individually.”
“Do we have a choice other than to take them at their word?” Rion asked, his expression wry. “I would sooner take the word of an animal in a barnyard, but I believe that our aim is to prove that their place rightfully belongs to us. How else are we to manage that, save by defeating them no matter how badly they cheat?”
“I wish I had an answer to that question,” Tamrissa said with a sigh. “I trust them even less than the rest of you, but there doesn’t seem to be another way out. Let’s admit defeat in the idea department, and get on with telling the other Blendings what we intend to do.”
“But let’s have all the secondary Blendin’s watch what happens,” Vallant said with one hand raised, his words stopping the general movement which had begun. “That way if one of them is distracted, the others will be there to take over. And we all have to be ready to Blend even faster than we usually do.”
Once again there was nothing for the rest of them to argue with, so Vallant had Captain Herstan’s men open the gates to let the rest of their people in. Lorand was the first to notice that it had begun to drizzle, which meant they all walked the rather long distance across the front lawns to the palace, went inside, and then had their discussion. Or, rather, their lecture. Vallant told everyone what they were about to do and why, and what they all wanted the rest of them to do. A few members from the other Blendings told them they were crazy, but none of them refused to help and all of them assured the group that they would watch with every ounce of attention their entities were capable of.
“I suppose that does it,” Lorand said once there was nothing left to tell or ask anyone. “Now what we need is a guide to where the wings of the palace separate. That is where we saw those five, isn’t it? In their individual wings? The entity moved too fast for me to remember what direction it took.”
“I can direct us that far,” Rion said, his hand wrapped firmly around Naran’s. “I’ve been here often enough to know that much—but there’s no need for Naran to go with us. You can stay here, my love, with the others, and—”
“And keep myself safe while you risk your life?” Naran interrupted, for once not t
he least softness visible in her expression. “No, Rion, that isn’t the way it’s going to be. I’ll be there right beside you, and what happens to you will happen to me. I insist.”
Rion looked at her with raised brows, but Lorand couldn’t help grinning. There was really very little difference between Naran and the other women of their Blending, but Rion was only just now finding that out.
“Very well, my love, if that’s your wish,” Rion surrendered with a sigh. Then he put his arm around her and began to lead off, and Lorand hesitated only a moment before following. Now it started … the beginning of the end…
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Jovvi walked close to Lorand as they all moved up the very wide corridor of the palace, feeling better just from being near him. The last time they’d been in that place there had been dozens and hundreds of other people around, guests like themselves at the party, servants by the score, guardsmen standing their posts. Now the entire palace felt empty to their senses, the marble halls echoing to the sounds of their footsteps but otherwise silent and dead. There were other living beings in that vast and neatly laid out maze, but not close enough—or large enough in number—to make much of a difference.
But Rion was there to guide them through the wide halls, and he did so with an offhand ease that delighted Jovvi. He was well on the way to becoming a marvelous human being, one who enjoyed the strength of his skill but who never flaunted it or used its presence as a claim to superiority. Naran was the perfect match for him, and for the rest of them as well. Now that Tamma and Vallant seemed to have gotten past most of their personal difficulties, they all did blend as well in their lives as they did with their talents.
Which added another leg to the claim that they were the Chosen Blending, the ones spoken about in the Prophecies. They’d all tried to avoid thinking and talking about that, but that didn’t make the claim go away. Nor did it tell them what they were supposed to do afterward, if they managed to have an afterward. They were in the process of trying to unseat the Seated Five, but not one of them really wanted to take their place. If another group stepped forward to be Seated, that would be perfectly fine with them. As long as they could all stay together…
Jovvi sighed as they turned into a cross corridor, fairly certain that if they survived they would not be allowed to live private lives. People were strange when it came to something like a prophecy, most especially when “things” happened to show who the people involved were. Of course there would always be those who doubted, but how much good that would do them remained to be seen. All the rest would insist that they become a traditional Seated Five, doing things in what had become the customary way.
But one of the customary ways entailed there not being any children born to a Five. Jovvi wanted children, and was reasonably certain that Tamma and Naran felt just as she did. If any individuals told them that that couldn’t be, those individuals would change their minds just as fast as Jovvi was able to take control of them. But it wasn’t possible to take control of an entire city, not to mention an empire, and Jovvi wouldn’t have done something like that even if she could have. If people really wanted them to be the new leaders of the empire, those people would have to be prepared to accept change rather than tradition…
Considering the tenor of her thoughts, Jovvi felt the urge to laugh at herself. Although they’d been walking for quite a few minutes, they hadn’t even reached the place where the various wings began yet. After that would come the confrontations, and only if they survived those would the questions of change and acceptance become relevant. To think about those questions now was more than foolish, it was downright dangerous. If she let herself be distracted now, she could very well be doing herself out of a later.
So Jovvi made the effort to put all extraneous thought out of her mind, and concentrated on what lay before them. At the moment there was nothing but more empty corridor, but five minutes later that abruptly changed.
“This is the area where the wings of the Five radiate away from the public areas of the palace,” Rion said, nodding toward a wide, round lobby with five corridors leading off in five different directions. “The last time I was here, there were a dozen or more servants moving on errands or standing around waiting to do things for those with power and position and access to the Five. There were also guards, and somehow I expected at least that to have remained unchanged.”
“They must have done somethin’ really good to chase away the entire guard force,” Vallant commented as he looked around. “And they are all gone, or our entity would have noticed them. So which of them is in which wing?”
“That I’m afraid I don’t know,” Rion admitted, also looking from one radiating corridor to the next. “That woman usually left me here while she called on whichever of the Five she’d come to see, and the servants were kept busy fetching ice cream and sweets to divert me from the wait. And the wait was never less than two hours, many times twice that. I often wondered why she brought me along if all I was permitted to do was to sit twiddling my thumbs, but now, of course, it’s perfectly obvious.”
“She always needed someone to be impressed with how important she was, even if that someone was only her supposed son,” Jovvi said, impressed herself by how far Rion had come with finally seeing the woman he’d grown up thinking of as his mother. “She really is pathetic, Rion, and you’remore than fortunate to be able to understand that.”
“Oh, I do understand, but I’m not certain that I’m able to forgive her,” Rion said, as openly as always. “That old saying which claims that to understand all is to forgive all is nonsense, as it can’t possibly apply to human emotions. That woman stole something from me which can never be replaced: the possibility of growing up in a normal way with a parent who really loved me. It’s possible that my father wouldn’t have loved me, that he might even have abandoned me, but because of her I’ll never know. Even if the man is still alive and I somehow manage to find him, I’ll still never know.”
“If we survive this, maybe the Guild will be able to help us locate him,” Lorand suggested as he put a hand to Rion’s shoulder, and Jovvi could feel the echo of empathy in Lorand’s mind. “It’s something we’ll have to remember, but for right now we need a way to decide who goes to which wing. Of course, we can find out easily enough if we Blend for a minute or two…”
The way Lorand let his words trail off, it was perfectly clear that he already knew the reason why Vallant shook his head.
“If we do that, someone can claim we were cheatin’,” Vallant said with a sigh. “If we’regoin’ to do this we have to do it right, otherwise we might as well just Blend and destroy them from here. Those of the nobility who are left will be lookin’ for an excuse to regain their power by puttin’ us down, and if we ignore them and just forge on ahead we’ll be startin’ a habit of people gettin’ what they want by breakin’ the rules. It doesn’t make much sense to go through all this just to have the empire fall apart because of a bad example.”
“So how are we supposed to know which way to go?” Tamma asked, somewhat less belligerently than usual. “There aren’t any signs over the archways saying which wing belongs to which aspect.”
“Maybe I can help,” Naran said, her tone odd as she looked from one to the other of the archways. “I’ve been standing here watching … almost-ghosts of all of us, each of them taking a different corridor. The odd thing is that the picture is almost clear, showing that there’s very little chance of our doing anything else. We could take one direction together or turn around and leave the way we came in, but the probabilities say we’remost likely to each take a different direction. Shall I point out who goes where?”
“You might as well,” Tamma told her with a partial smile, not as confident on the inside as she tried to show on the surface. “If we don’t find some way to make the decision, we could end up standing here until we die of old age.”
“I doubt if that’s one of the likelier possibilities,” Lorand said to Tamma with a
grin, then he turned to Naran. “Why don’t you show me my direction, and then I can start us off.”
Naran complied by pointing to the left, so Lorand nodded his thanks then reached over to take Jovvi in his arms.
“I’m rushing things because I want this over with and behind me as quickly as possible,” he told her in a whisper before touching her lips with his. “Be as careful as you possibly can be, my love, and don’t let them get away with anything. I want both of us to survive this.”
Jovvi smiled and nodded, and then joined Lorand in a temporary kiss goodbye. She couldn’t have spoken for anything imaginable, not with that terrible burning in her throat, and then, after a final embrace, Lorand was gone. Jovvi watched as he strode into the corridor Naran had pointed to, and after a moment he disappeared into the distance.
“Well, I’m next,” Tamma announced, glancing around to show that she was definitely not prepared to hear argument on the subject. “The sooner we begin, after all, the sooner we’ll be finished.”
“Don’t be in such a hurry that you get finished,” Vallant said after Naran indicated the proper corridor, turning Tamma around to face him. “We have some unfinished business waitin’ for us, and if you don’t show up I’ll just have to start thinkin’ of you as a coward.”
“Anything but that,” Tamma came back with a grin, putting up one hand to touch his face gently. “Besides, I think you’regetting to the point of needing another really close shave. Just make sure that I’m the only one who gives it to you.”
Vallant matched her grin for a brief moment, and then they were in the midst of sharing a kiss and an embrace. Unfortunately for Vallant the kiss didn’t last any longer than Jovvi’s had, and then Tamma was hurrying away in the proper direction without looking back.
“All right, it’s now become my turn,” Vallant said gruffly as he forced himself to take his eyes away from where Tamma had gone. “And the rest of you better be just as careful as I told her to be. We still have a lot to learn about Blendin’, and we’ll only be able to do that if we all get out of this in one piece.”
