Future Dreams (4 page)

Having said the words, Jame thought she would feel better and wondered why her uncertainty was stronger than ever.

“OH DEAR. OH dear,” Minchof muttered as she scanned the contents of the scroll in her hand.

Her small band of apprentices blinked up from their spell practice and witnessed their mentor jiggle in a little dance.

Minchof held up the scroll. “Do you know what this is?”

“A scroll?” Yana, a fifth year apprentice, had a twinkle in her eyes.

“This, my dear apprentices, is an invitation from the Military Tribunal at Ynit.” Minchof grinned at her pupils’ puzzled looks. “They’ve invited me to create a spell that will forever erase the knowledge of how to enhance a soldier and to make it so no one can ever stumble upon the secret again.”

“Is that possible?” Renar, a first year apprentice, asked.

“Everything is possible.” Minchof rewrapped an airy shawl around her ample shoulders. “But not everything is easy. I won’t be able to do this alone. I’d be lucky if the research alone took less than a season. It’ll also require me to go to Ynit to study these Guards first hand and to learn how they were turned into Guards.”

“Ynit?” Yana cried. “That’s such a long way from here.”

“As much as I want to take all of you with me,” Minchof bestowed a fond look on her pack of apprentices, “I’ll only be able to take a few. So I can choose fairly, only those who get the highest marks on the next quarter exam will demonstrate to me the skills and dedication needed to create this spell.”

Minchof smiled at the faces already set with the desire to work as hard as necessary to be chosen to go to Ynit.

“Excuse me, Minchof,” came a quiet voice from the corner of the room. Goodemer, just fourteen, sat on a stool—her wolf head amulet clutched in her hand. “Will the apprentices with more experience have a better chance of going than us beginners?”

Minchof smiled at the tall, gangly girl with the red-brown wavy hair. “The highest scores, no matter the level, will guarantee a trip to Ynit.”

TIGH STARED AT her door for several heartbeats, knowing she was supposed to go to Pendon Larke’s office after her morning meal. Despite her slow and deliberate consumption of the food, the tray sat empty outside the door. Unsettling evidence that she had to be on her way.

She inspected her face in the tarnished mirror. She looked a little better than she had a few days earlier. At least she didn’t look like Bal’s ghost. She straightened to her full height and studied the spotless white tunic and leggings. The nervous lad had brought a clean set for her with the meal. White was not as utilitarian a color as the black she had gotten used to and the cotton weave was harder to keep clean than good leather. The clothing’s lightness made her feel vulnerable and that was the last thing she wanted to feel.

She turned to the door. She had to leave soon or they’d come and get her. In her army that would be humiliating and Guards didn’t react well to humiliation. She swallowed down the memories of that person she used to be and searched within herself for the sword-strong backbone she had once possessed.

“I can do this,” she muttered. “It’s just a door. I’ve walked through thousands of doors without a thought. It’s not like I have to go outside.” Her breath caught as she pushed down a panic attack.
What did they do to me that I fear walking in the sunshine and fresh air?
“You’ve as much backbone as a newborn lamb. Just step through the door. You can always turn back.”

Soothed by that thought, she took a step and fell into a Guard trick by raising her consciousness to a state that felt as if she was floating outside her body, removing herself from her actions. She was out the door and staring down the corridor without even realizing she had moved.

The assistant healer gaping wide-eyed at her from his little table at the end of the corridor helped her relax. People staring at her in fear was as familiar as her favorite boots and the healer’s stare made her forget the Elite Guard was no longer within her.

She walked down the corridor, concentrating on stretching her leg muscles. As far as she knew, she hadn’t been on her feet for any length of time during the past several weeks and her legs screamed from the neglect. She glanced through the barred doors of the cells that had once belonged to her comrades and confirmed she was the only one left on that floor. She wondered if watching over this floor was considered a prime assignment or a punishment for the assistant healers.

Tigh stopped a few paces in front of the table. The assistant healer looked as if he was trying to say something, but all he could manage was a straggled noise in his throat.

“I was told I have to sign in and out,” Tigh said.

The assistant healer stopped his efforts to communicate with visible relief and nodded. “Here.” He pushed his chair to the wall, pointed to a ledger, and snapped his hand out of the way.

Tigh picked up the pen, scribbled her name, and, after glancing at the sand clock on the wall, the time. She straightened and captured the assistant healer’s eyes with her own. His wide brown eyes brimmed with near panic. “I’ve been down the corridor with my door unlocked for two days. You’ve no reason to be frightened of me.”

“That’s what Pendon said,” the assistant healer said in a shaky voice.

“He should know. He helped cleanse me, after all.” Tigh raised an eyebrow and turned down the short corridor to the central stairs. The clatter of the chair dropping back on all four legs echoed behind her. The world was as afraid of her as she was of the world. The thought was not comforting.

She paused at the top of the large stone staircase. Her mind flashed to the last time she had walked down those steps, when she had to fight against the surging flow of black clad
Guards in full battle gear. They had been on their way to the plains of Hillian for what had been the last campaign of the war. She fought back memories of that bittersweet event that had marked the end of her career as a Guard and the start of her two years as a fugitive.

The fall of her soft boots on the worn stone stairs penetrated the silence of the stairwell. She could almost see and hear the Guards huddling on the steps, jogging up and down the flights to keep in shape, testing the echo with midnight drunken vocalizations . . . the central stairwell had been a living place. Tigh couldn’t remember it ever being empty or silent.

She walked numbly down two flights. The silence overwhelmed her with a profound sense of loss, and she collapsed onto the glacial step. The idea that she would never see her comrades again or raise a sword in battle alongside them brought on a wave of grief the depths of which felt bottomless. Five years of her life, filled with the heightened reality that the Guard enhancements gave her, had been stolen from her. She loved being a warrior and a Guard. Nothing compared to the feeling of invincibility in battle or the elation of victory. Even if she couldn’t face Tigh the Terrible’s ruthlessness, her heart ached for the company of her comrades in arms.

She clenched her fists in anger. That life had been ripped away from them by the Federation Council in an act as ruthless as anything Tigh the Terrible had ever committed. Their victory had not been celebrated with parades and they never received sashes of honor. Their reward had been a relentless hunt to capture them and strip them of the life they had loyally given to the state.

Tigh snapped her head up. She wiped away her tears with her sleeve and knew she’d been there far too long. The last thing she wanted was to be found sobbing like a lost child. She concentrated on settling her thoughts and emotions and made it down the remaining flights of steps.

As she stood in the main entry hall of the fortress, she realized she didn’t know which office Pendon Larke had taken over. Gray-robed healers and a few Guards in white tunics passed by, but she wasn’t ready to talk to any of them yet. Her legs moved from habit and she found herself at the threshold of her old office. Through the opened doorway, she was puzzled to see Loena Sihlor behind her old work table.

Loena looked up and put on a welcoming smile. “Good morning, Tigh. Pendon is expecting you. He’s the next door down.”

Tigh stared at her, still fumbling with the idea that this was no longer her office. “Thanks.” She shuffled to the next opened door.

Pendon, seated behind a table, looked up from his work. “Come in, come in. Sit.” He waved a bony hand and Tigh slipped into the office, glanced around it in search of something familiar, and sank into the visitors chair. “Good, very good. And on the first try, too.” The wrinkles around Pendon’s eyes threatened to obscure them as he grinned.

“First try,” Tigh said.

“Sometimes it takes days for a cleansed Guard to make that first step outside their room,” Pendon said. “You made it on the first try in only a few sandmarks. Good work.”

Tigh sat back and stared dumbfounded at Pendon. The compliment did nothing to lessen the pain those few sandmarks had brought. If this was an example of the healers’ blind attitude toward cleansing then it was a miracle a Guard got through rehabilitation sane, much less alive.

JAME SIGHED AS she adjusted the fragile bracer clinging to her wrist—a gift from Argis. She envied the time when Emoria had been a young territory, and the Festival of Flowers had been a simple celebration of spring. Generations had added meaning to the festival and it soon became a time when couples took the first tentative steps of courtship by attending it together. Identical bracers fashioned from flowers, leaves, and sinewy green stems showed off their togetherness.

Three days spent with her old friends had been enjoyable and Argis had been an attentive shadow at her side. Argis was far from talkative and Jame had never been bothered by her silence when they’d been younger. But now she felt an odd discomfort when Argis’s quiet was coupled with expressions that alternated between unconcealed adoration and puzzled questioning. Argis didn’t seem to have any problem that two years had passed since they had last been together and that both of them had matured and changed.

She seems to be certain about her love for me.
Jame felt guilty at the joy on Argis’s face when she’d delivered the bracer to her early that morning. She realized this was a dream coming true for Argis and had been her own dream just two years earlier. They had whispered about it while exchanging soft kisses in the night-shaded grottoes of the city gardens.

“Laur’s waterfalls.” Jame mentally kicked herself. Argis had expected her to be at last year’s festival. She could only imagine the disappointment Argis had felt when she hadn’t returned to Emoria. What was worse, Argis had most likely kept her feelings to herself, like a good warrior.

Jame tried to remember what she’d been doing at the time. The last two years had been an intense blur of case after case of Guards passing through the rehabilitation process. Most of the Guards had been captured in that first year and the healers and arbiter apprentices had been overworked to exhaustion and beyond.

Now she felt bad for not even sending word to Argis. But, on the other side of the sword blade, that should have told Argis she hadn’t put much importance on the seriousness of their relationship. By all rights, Argis should have broken off whatever understanding they had.

Jame sighed. “But she didn’t.”

A gentle rap on her door startled her out of her thoughts. She tried to look cheerful and opened the door.

Argis, holding a five-petal purple
flower, stood gaping at Jame.

Jame had chosen a spring green cloth tunic and leggings that matched her emerald eyes. A garland of flowers rested on her sun-bleached hair.

“You’re beautiful.” Argis held out the flower.

“Thank you.” Jame took the flower, sniffed it, and tucked it into her garland. She smiled at Argis and took in her light brown cloth tunic and leggings that clung to her muscular body in a way that any Emoran in her right mind would find appealing. Argis’s dark wavy hair was crowned with a garland, somehow adding to the nobility of her features. “You look nice yourself.”

Jame waved Argis into the chamber and closed the door.

“Before we go out there,” Jame carefully gathered together her words, “I just wanted to apologize for not being here last year and for not sending word that I wasn’t going to show up. That was a time when hundreds of Guards were being captured and cleansed. We worked without stopping and barely paid attention to the days and moons, much less the passing seasons.”

Argis’s face transformed into a picture of pride and affection. “We’d heard about the heroic efforts you faced in giving up all your time and skills so you could return the Guards to society as quickly as possible. I wasn’t disappointed or upset that you weren’t able to make it to the festival last year. Just the opposite. I was so proud of you, I thought I was going to burst from it. I was the envy of last year’s festival because I had given my heart to someone who was doing what the rest of us have only dreamed of doing. Fighting against all odds for the greater good.”

Jame was speechless. Argis placed a gentle kiss on her cheek and offered her an arm.

Jame absently took the arm and Argis escorted her into the corridor. All she could think about was how deep a mess she was in.

“SHE’D BEEN DOING so well.”
Pendon shook his aged head as he sat on the overstuffed chair in the small parlor off of Tigh’s former office. Loena handed him a mug of tea before easing into the chair opposite him. A fire crackled in the small fireplace. “Far better than any of the others, in my humble opinion.”

“So she suddenly decided she wasn’t ready for the next step,” Leona said.

Pendon sighed. “There hasn’t been any indication that she’s been resisting therapy. She’s been a model patient. She’s done everything we’ve asked without question and with diligence as far as I can tell.”

“Yet she doesn’t feel she’s ready to continue,” Loena said. “Tigh has always been a special case. I guess it was too much to expect this situation would be any different.”

“I don’t understand it though.” Pendon paused to compose his thoughts and took a long sip of tea. “We’ve perfected this procedure. Every Guard has developed the proper amount of optimism to continue the process.”