01 - The Price of Talent (39 page)

              This was quite true. Most of our practices since I had joined the initiates were centered on learning the bow, crossbow, sword and mace. Basic weapons that weren’t too much of a burden to carry around with you. It had been many weeks since any practice had been done with either the bolas or a spear, let alone a man-catcher.

              For those of you unfamiliar with these particular armaments, the bolas is simply two or more weighted balls held together by rope which, when spun and thrown at the legs, tangle up a person or animal causing them to trip and fall. A man-catcher is like a spear, but instead of a bladed or pointed end, it has two hooked arms designed to go around the torso of a human and hold him in place. Think a large two pronged fork, like a “U” with the prongs on the inside to prevent escape.

“Since safety is our priority, the man-catchers will not have prongs or points on the inside,” said Alfieri. “Similarly, the bolas will have fairly light weights on the end. This is to try and prevent any accidental broken bones.”

              The rest of the afternoon was spent practicing throwing bolas at the man shaped targets on the practice field and then spent sparring with each other using no-pronged man catchers. This was fairly amusing as mostly this involved clashing with the stave portion, getting the person off balance and then using the man-catching end to trip your opponent and pin them down. For my part, I spent most of the time being used as a dummy. I was told to run at groups of initiates and try to avoid them. They in turn would try to catch me or trip me. I didn’t get to have a turn at the catching part unfortunately. But then, I wouldn’t be doing that during the exam either. Fortunately, even Alfieri thought that throwing the bolas at live targets was too dangerous to do in practice, so I was spared the many bruises that this would have entailed.

              After practice and dinner, I decided it would be nice to spend the evening in my room working on my flying. I began like I had in the past, floating between my bed and the floor. I was doing quite well now with the dual focus needed to both float off the ground and move in a particular direction. Stopping gently was still a challenge though as it required switching my second magic focus to the opposite direction in which I was traveling with slightly less power so that I slowed down to a gentle stop. Too little power and I wouldn’t stop in time, too much and I stopped too soon. This is why I picked my bed as a stopping point, so if I messed up, I had a softer landing. Also, thanks to all my practice, the amount of time I could sustain my flight had increased too. It still took a lot of effort to do, but now was no longer exhausting to fly short distances, even with repeated flights across my room.

              All this required quite a lot of concentration. As my practice continued, I did make some improvements in my control. I was starting from a cross legged seated position on the floor and moving onto the bed. I did this while maintaining my cross legged seated position for two important reasons. One, it gave me a larger surface area to push off the floor with; and second, it meant I did not have to pay attention to where my legs were while floating across my room. I’m not sure how long I had spent doing this when I was interrupted by Meredith.

“I see you’re still bound and determined to knock yourself out again,” she said, surprising me midflight.

“Ghaaah!” I believe I said, startled.

              With that brilliant rejoinder, I fell down onto my bed a little sooner than I had intended. Fortunately, Meredith had waited till I was safely over my mattress before breaking my concentration.

“How long have you been doing this?” Meredith asked.

“Well, you saw my earlier attempts,” I replied.

“No, I mean tonight,” she replied.

“Oh, I don’t know, since after dinner I suppose,” I said. “Why, how late is it?”

“Late enough that I’m back from the hospital,” she said.

“Huh, I guess time flies when you’re having fun,” I said.

“Does it?” she asked. “Fly I mean.”

“Well, it passed quickly while I was flying anyway,” I replied.

“Looked more like floating to me,” she said. “Especially compared to birds. You weren’t doing much flapping or riding air currents.”

“Yeah, it’s mostly me creating all the currents,” I said.

“Impressive though, and that’s saying something, considering I’ve seen you trying to fly before,” she said. “You’ve clearly been busy.”

“If we’re going to get out of here, I’m going to need all the skill I can muster,” I said. “They’ve hunted me down now on multiple occasions, and with bad outcomes both times. I don’t want something bad to happen to you, I mean us, because I was not diligent enough in my studies.”

              I caught my slip of the tongue almost immediately, but I was worried I had perhaps revealed too much. I hoped that she had missed it, I didn’t want feelings to interfere with our plans.

“Thanks Tyr, for what it’s worth, I don’t want anything bad to happen to you or us either,” she said with an arched eyebrow and a smile.

              Well, she hadn’t missed it. Either that or I read too much into her response, but I hoped she meant that she cared about me too, and that she wasn’t going to let it complicate our escape any either. Time enough for awkwardness when we didn’t have a job to do. At least it indicated that our kiss wasn’t entirely to avoid detection. I had been worried, since she had not mentioned it since then.

“Well, uh, thanks,” I said awkwardly. “Are we all set on the plan for escape?”

“It wouldn’t hurt to run through it once more,” she said.

“Ok,” I replied. “From where we left it last time, I’m going to be squirrelled away in the castle, supposedly heading out to the practice ground. Instead, I’m going to make my way to the stables and wait for you there.”

“Yes,” she said. “While you’re doing that, I’m going to be skipping out of the hospital early, making my way to the storerooms in the castle, charming the guards, and getting the winter gear we need from the storerooms. Then I’m going to sneak out, and make my way to the stables as well.”

“And from there,” I said. “We’re going to steal a cart and dress as merchants leaving after making a delivery. There should be quite a few of these, given it was exam time. Then we leave the castle while the inquisitors are still looking for me, and before anyone notices you’re gone.”

“Exactly,” she said. “And if either of us gets caught heading to the stables, you’re going to make it seem like you’re avoiding detection by the inquisitor initiates who are looking for you as their exam, and I’m just getting supplies for the hospital.”

“Once we’re on the cart, that will be harder to explain,” I said.

“At that point, we may need to rely on plan B,” she said.

“Which is?” I asked, not having heard of a plan B before.

“Improvise!” She replied with a smile.

“Okay….” I said, not being entirely comfortable with this idea.

“And from there we head north, pretending to be merchants,” she said.

“Have we come up with a way to procure some vegetables or something to pretend to sell once we get to Nordshire?” I asked.

“I thought we could pick some up on the way north,” she replied. “There’s bound to be a few small villages along the way that will have things for sale.”

“What about money?” I asked.

“I think we’re going to need to improvise there too,” she said. “Because neither of us have any.”

“Could we pick up any from your Dad’s house in Forsburg?” I asked.

“Unlikely,” she replied. “Whoever the Church put in charge of the town in my father’s absence likely is living there now. Still, if we did drop by under cover of darkness, we could pilfer a few things to trade.”

“All right, improvise it is then,” I said.

“I should probably run, Tyr,” she said. “I have a long day ahead tomorrow.”

“I thought all classes were done, and tomorrow is supposed to be spent studying?” I said.

“It is, but I’m not involved in the testing, and with that many initiates sparring there’s bound to be accidents,” she replied. “So I’m scheduled to spend all day at the hospital.”

“Oh,” I said, not realizing that this was the last I was going to see her before we made our escape attempt.

“Don’t worry, Tyr,” she said. “They won’t see this coming. Also, I’m not sure when Claudius is going to collect you tomorrow evening, to prepare you for the exam, but I should probably not be around when he does.”

“Good point,” I said. “The less suspicious we act the better.”

“Yup!” She said. “So, till I see you at the stables…”

              And just then, she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. I was a little surprised, but not displeased.

“Don’t be late…” She said, before heading for the door and leaving.

“Yeah, I’ll try not to…” I said, likely with a stupid bewildered expression on my face.

OOOooohhh! Look who has a girlfriend! I hope I’m invited on this honeymoon you have planned.

As if I could ever get rid of you. Besides, if anyone catches up with us, I will have need of your… uh… professional services.

Oh, you mean besides destroying practice dummies and being a decoration in the corner of your dorm room?

Yes, the kind that involves real fighting.

Well, it’s about time. There’s only so much entertainment one can derive from breaking inanimate objects and watching you float around like a leaf caught in an up draft.

I thought you might be entertained watching me bump around trying to stop in the right place.

Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy watching your bumbling attempts to mimic a canary, but you’ve gotten good enough at it that there is hardly anything worth mocking you about.

Well thanks, I think.

You’re taking that as a compliment?

A lack of scorn is always appreciated, and from you means I really am getting better.

I’ll have to work harder to find things to make fun of you about. Fortunately, your dumb expression after getting kissed should keep me giggling for a while.

You can giggle?

I can be amused, and for me that’s good enough.

Aside from mocking me, do you have any last minute insights into our escape plans?

To call them plans is a little generous. Basically, she’s stealing you gear, you’re escaping an exam, then you both steal a cart and ride off in disguise. It’s not the most ingenious of plans.

True, but if it was too complicated, it would be too easy for something to go wrong and fail.

Even in an uncomplicated plan things can go wrong. You have been especially good at failing to escape from the grasp of the church.

Well, third time’s the charm. Or so we hope.

You’re relying on old expressions and luck to escape? I might as well just stay here in the corner, you’ll be back soon enough.

Do you really think we’re going to fail?

Ok, just this once, here’s my honest opinion: I give you even odds at failing.

Oh, why is that?

Well, one, because you aren’t exactly a master thief or spy. Two, because on the day you will be escaping you will have an entire castle of initiates trying to capture you so they can get a good grade on their exam. And three, because I think Claudius has plans for you and he’s smart enough to keep an eye on you.

Well, then here’s hoping he’s distracted.