Convergence (74 page)

"Yes, you're absolutely right," Rion agreed with a grin,
then
he finished his tea in a single swallow and stood. "First we begin, and then on to greater things."

Padril actually left his tea and simply rose, the man's entire countenance and demeanor showing how pleased and satisfied he was. It felt odd to have a stranger show such deep emotions where
he
was concerned, but Padril obviously knew a man of quality when he saw one. And soon he would see one accomplishing marvels. . . .

Rion followed Padril toward the first building, happier and more at ease than he'd ever felt in his life.

forty-two

I left the coach before Jowi, and my relief at not having to worry about any more conversation with her just about balanced my nervousness about what lay ahead. I'd worried bout that—during the few, brief periods when I hadn't been thinking about Valiant Ro.

As I walked toward the opening in the resin wall, I tried to understand why Jowi would defend the man. During the time he and I had spent together, he'd just about sworn that I was the only woman he'd ever found any real interest in. I'd let myself forget that other people couldn't be trusted, and I'd started to believe him—and then that woman had arrived. I'd suddenly realized that he must have told
her
the same exact things, and that I'd been a fool to even consider believing him. And what hurt the most was that Valiant Ro had put me in a position where my father could embarrass and humiliate me.
Again.

Just inside the smoky resin wall was an open area, with tables and chairs arranged to the left and cubicles of some sort about fifty feet ahead. To the right of the cubicles and another fifty feet beyond them stood a round building made of milky-white resin. The arrangement looked ordinary rather than threatening, and even the cubicles were mostly open and larger than what we'd used during the sessions.

I stopped a short way past the entrance wall and stood looking around, wondering where I was supposed to go next. There wasn't another living soul in sight—until a woman came out from behind a wall to the left, beyond the tables and chairs. She wore a yellow skirt and white lace blouse, seemed to be close to her middle years, and strutted rather than walked. As she came closer I could see that her face was mostly unlined, but wore an expression
of.
. . assured arrogance, I suppose you could call it. Her brown hair and eyes were unremarkable, but her attitude said that could only matter to someone else, not to her.

"Good afternoon," she said rather dryly, stopping about five feet away to look me up and down. "It's about time you got here."

"I got here when the coach did, whose arrival I had no control over," I answered immediately, trying to ignore how fast my heart had begun to beat. "And this is the morning, not the afternoon, but don't bother correcting yourself. Whichever, it isn't particularly good."

"So you're not as much of a little priss as you look," she said with something of a shrug, her tone lightening just a bit. "That will make you easier to live with, but don't expect us to ever be bosom friends. I don't like your sort, and I'm only associating with you because I've been assigned to do it. I'm Soonen, your Adept guide, and you'd better remember what I say because I don't intend to repeat myself."

"Say it clearly the first time, and you won't have to," I countered, really disliking the woman. "And what do you mean by my 'sort.' What sort is that?"

"The sweet and pretty little girl sort," she returned, looking me over a second time. "Your kind never gets anywhere, because it's so much easier to stand there acting helpless until some male fool rushes over to take care of things for you. And don't tell me that that's the way you were raised to behave. It's not a reason, it's an excuse."

"So what's
your
excuse for judging people according to your own prejudices?" I came back, beginning to be too angry to be nervous any longer. "I
was
raised to be helpless and do as I was told, but that never quite agreed with me. For that reason I now do as
I
like, and don't wait for
anyone
to do things for me. If I can't do them for myself, I practice until I
can
do them. You—"

"Okay, enough," Soonen interrupted, raising both hands
pa1ms
toward me. "You talk a good game, but that doesn't mean you can actually do anything. We'll get this tour routine over with, and then you can put your power where your mouth is." Fuming is too calm a word to describe how I felt, but I still lapsed into silence. I did want her to finish up what she described as a "tour," and then maybe she would leave. If he didn't and accidentally got singed at some point, it wouldn't be
my
fault.

"These tables are where we take our lunch and any re-refreshment we might want," Soonen continued, waving a

hand
without looking toward the objects she discussed. "There are bells on the posts scattered through the area, and when you want service you just ring one of them. Now come this way."

She turned and walked toward the cubicles, heading for the one on the far left. There was at least twenty feet between the last of the tables and the cubicles, and when I followed Soonen to the first of them I found out why. "This is where you'll practice," she said, now gesturing to the small rooms which had no ceilings. Some of the others farther down the line also had no back wall, but this one had clear resin closing it in. "The exercises aren't anything like what you've already done, because by now you ought to be able to handle your flames without any trouble. Now you have to learn to handle them along with other things." She turned away from me and walked into the cubicle, then stepped down hard on the end of a long lever. The lever was attached to a wide box, whose lid flew open to allow a shower of dirt to be thrown up into the air. The cloud of dirt spread out even before the lid closed again, but it never got the chance to settle down onto the floor of the cubicle. There were suddenly flames all through the cloud, and when they disappeared there wasn't a speck of dirt left. "Burning dirt isn't easy, but if even one grain falls to the floor you haven't mastered the ability," Soonen said, turning again to look at me with malicious amusement. "There's a technique to doing it, but that's something you'll have to discover yourself. I'm not allowed to tell you what it is."

That might or might not have been the truth, but I wouldn't have begged her help even if I'd needed it. That seemed to be what she was after, wanting me to humiliate myself in order to be told what I had to know. The only flaw in her plan was that I'd already seen what she'd done, having touched her flames automatically with my talent to get a closer view, so to speak, of what was going on. Visually it didn't seem like it, but she'd woven her base fires the way we'd learned to do during the sessions.

"Now, in this second practice area you'll find something different," Soonen went on, walking into the next cubicle. "And if you thought burning dirt was hard, wait until you try this."

This time the lever she stepped on ran up the righthand wall and was attached to a metal tank of some sort suspended above the cubicle. Stepping on the lever opened small holes in the metal tank, which immediately began to leak a fine mist of water. Soonen released the lever and then reached out with her flames again, but this time with a different pattern of weaving. Burned water usually turns to steam, but once her fire had swept through the shower of droplets there was nothing left whatsoever.

"And that's the way it has to be done," Soonen said, looking at me with even more smugness. "Producing any steam at all is a failure at mastery, since any fool can produce steam. Now come in here."

She moved from the second cubicle to the third, which had a pile of wood in the middle of the floor. Each piece in the pile, about a foot in length, was carved into a different shape, and all the shapes and pieces were jumbled together.

"Can you see that long-oval in the middle of the pile, the one with a splotch of orange paint?" Soonen asked, pointing toward a piece that was almost completely buried in the midst of the others. "Well, the object here is to burn that piece to nothing but ash—without touching any of the other pieces. The smallest singe mark anywhere else will be considered a failure, but you'll just practice until you get it right—won't you?"

"Yes, I will," I returned through my teeth, her ridicule immediately grating on my temper. "But why don't you really show me how good you are, and do the exercise rather than talk about it? You did the others, after all, so why not this one?"

"It so happens I'm not in the mood to go after another marked piece of wood," she answered with the same smile, only her eyes showing an instant of raging hatred. "If I destroyed this one I'd then have to bury its replacement in the pile, and I'm not in the mood to dirty my hands either. Let's move on to the next rooms."

She brushed past me in a very firm way, closing the subject of her doing the exercise in a flat and final manner. But
her
back had stiffened quite a lot, showing she suspected that I knew the truth—which I did. This marvelous and high-level Adept who thought so little of me
couldn't
do the exercise, not the way it was supposed to be done. I'd thought I'd felt her straining with the first two exercises, but decided I was imagining things—until she simply described the third.

"These following rooms are variations on the third, with progressively more delicate—and flammable—materials," Soonen said, pointing into the next cubicle without looking at me this time. "Here you'll find wedges of leather, then strips of cloth, and finally a pile of feathers. Mastery there will require you to burn one single feather of a particular color at a time until ten are done, with your examiner pointing out which feathers to burn when."

"And will you be my examiner?" I asked
,
mostly to keep from showing how appalled I felt. Ten
feathers,
one at a time? How was anyone supposed to do
that?

"No, I'm not an examiner," Soonen answered, an edge of bitterness to her tone. "Our aspect has twice or more the number of women than it
has
of men, but the examiners are still all male. Not stronger or better, just male.
How are you supposed to prove what you can do if none of them will give you the chance?"

I almost told her that waiting for someone else to give you a chance was the same as refusing to try because you weren't sure you could do something. I was hardly the possessor of the world's greatest amount of self-confidence, and trying even when you aren't sure is horribly difficult. But it has to be something
you
do, something you make up your mind to try even if you're sure you'll fail. No one can decide on that for you, just as no one can give you a chance. You must find your own chances, or live your life without them.

"You don't have to worry about the last set of exercises until you master these first ones," Soonen continued, now sounding a shade angrier than she had. "They're a repetition of the first set, with the addition of an Adept, in this case me, trying to burn your delicate little toes while you perform each exercise. You must learn to defend yourself while doing something else with your talent, and this is the best way to make an applicant understand the need."

"Best for whom?"
I couldn't help asking, noticing at the same time that her mood had improved. Anticipating all that fun must have done it, fun that I had to fight to keep from shivering over.

"Why worry about something you probably won't ever have to face?" Soonen
asked,
disparagement heavy in her voice and manner. "You're too pretty to actually accomplish anything, and the men will be able to carry you only so far-After that you'll be off the hook, and then you'll be able to relax."

"Does that mean you've decided not to discuss the competitions?" I countered, now fighting to keep from losing my temper completely. "It's always possible that some fluke will occur and I'll master these exercises in spite of your expert opinion to the contrary, so why not humor me and tell me what I'll need to know."

"You
won't
need to know it, but I'll tell you anyway," she said with a sound of derision, the look in her eyes dismissive. "The first of the competitions is you against your level-peers, just like in a foot race. Strength, speed, and ability are what you need to win, but what you win is the interesting part. The prize is the chance to face someone a good deal stronger, this time one against one rather than everyone against the competition itself. The more advanced competitors can kill you, and worse, you might even break a fingernail."