Authors: Fiona McIntosh
Kirin slumped down next to him now. As usual he tried to buoy his friend’s spirits. ‘We’re being moved again.’
‘Where to now?’ Clovis enquired half-heartedly.
‘Into Penraven apparently.’
‘So the mighty Valisars have submitted to the barbarian, too.’
‘It’s no surprise. Penraven should never have waited to send troops. But we’ve had this discussion before. I would guess that, unlike our realms, it’s had sufficient warning so its people could take precautions, flee to safer lands.’
‘We had so little warning in Vorgaven.’
‘And in Cremond our royals seemingly couldn’t wait to give up their throne. How humiliating for their people.’
‘Ah well, it could be viewed a number of ways. At least their people didn’t suffer. If I lived in Cremond, my Corin would be alive.’
Kirin sensibly did not respond to this comment. ‘Loethar has sworn only to kill those who bear arms against him. It’s a pity his henchman and those Green warriors haven’t heard those orders clearly enough. If it were left to them there’d be no people remaining to rule.’
‘He certainly seemed to enjoy making my family suffer,’ Clovis replied, his voice choked. He rallied, cleared his throat. ‘And Loethar’s called for us to be brought to Penraven?’
‘So it seems. They’re marching us to Brighthelm — the main palace and fortress — within the hour. It may only take half a day’s walk.’
‘I’m not sure I care,’ Clovis replied, hanging his head between his knees as the vision of Corin’s arms reaching up to him just before her death threatened to undo him once again.
‘Rally your spirit, Clovis,’ Kirin urged.
‘Why? I have nothing to live for.’
‘Nothing worth dying for here, either. Wait until there is something you value enough to give your life for. That’s not him,’ Kirin said, pointing at their barbarian guard. ‘Or him,’ he added, pointing at another.
‘They’re just going to use us. Why don’t we just kill each other here and now?’
‘I won’t give him anything of me, Clovis, least of all my blood. If just for the memory of my slain parents, I’m going to defy him and live.’
‘Brave talk,’ Clovis said, uncharitably.
Kirin made a clicking sound with his tongue. ‘So you’d let the person who slaughtered Corin in cold blood have your life as well … before you even began to think of revenge?’
‘It’s easier that way.’
‘But it’s not courageous. And you make light of her life if you don’t fight back on her behalf.’
‘My talents don’t stretch to killing.’
‘There are many ways to skin a cat. Revenge doesn’t always require bloodletting.’
‘So what’s your plan?’ Clovis asked, finally raising his head and looking at his young friend.
‘I’m going to lie. You should too.’
Clovis frowned at Kirin. ‘Well, that’s very daring. I’m sure that should bring the entire barbarian nation down.’
Kirin smiled, unperturbed by the sarcasm. ‘Listen to me. Let’s make a pact that we lie about our skills. I know that you are a master diviner because you told me. Do they know that?’
Clovis shook his head. ‘They haven’t asked.’
‘So they’ve discovered your skills how?’
He shrugged. ‘Word of mouth, I suppose.’
‘So second, third, possibly fourth hand news to some barbarian guard who told someone else and you were picked up.’
‘Possibly.’
‘Not possibly. More than likely, given the circumstances of the war being waged on our realms. Nobody had a list of the empowered that I remember.’
‘And so?’
‘And so they believe you are empowered but they probably don’t know how or to what extent. If you told them that you grew donkey ears at each full moon they’d probably believe it if you were convincing enough.’
‘And kill me for being a useless twot after all.’
‘Well, at least then you’ll have died defying them.’ Kirin grinned sadly and Clovis felt his spirits lift ever so slightly. ‘Listen, all you have to do is downplay your skills. Don’t tell them what you’re really capable of if they don’t already know.’
‘You speak as though from practice! And if they do know?’
It was Kirin’s turn to shrug. ‘Then dilute it. Lie through your skills. Bend the truth at every opportunity.’
‘Do you know I don’t even know what it is you can do.’
Kirin hesitated.
‘The truth,’ Clovis urged. ‘We must trust each other, if not anyone else.’
The young man nodded. ‘It’s hard to describe. I can see inside people.’
‘Inside?’
‘If they’re sick I sense what’s wrong,’ the younger man said cautiously.
‘There’s more, I think?’ Clovis prompted.
Kirin sighed. ‘Their minds. I can, well … enter them sometimes. It’s not easy if they’re closed to me. Some people have the ability to shut themselves off. It’s easier if I can touch them, and at the very least I need to be looking at them. It’s called prying.’
Clovis was stunned into silence. ‘I’ve only heard that term once. I was told it is impossible,’ he finally said.
Kirin shrugged.
‘I don’t believe you,’ Clovis dismissed.
‘I wouldn’t believe me either.’
‘People’s minds can’t be read or eavesdropped upon,’ Clovis pressed. ‘Impossible, I say.’
‘Then why have a term for it? Actually you’re wrong in your description. Thoughts are like explosions in the mind. I see them ignite, spark into colour. Everyone’s different, of course.’
‘You’re telling the truth?’
‘I have no reason to lie to you. Prying exists but it is very rare. I’ve never encountered anyone else who possesses such a power but I’m sure they exist, no doubt hiding it as I do. I’m originally from Cremond and my parents took me to a sage. She lived on the very tip of the coast — a wild and unforgiving place it was, too.’ He saw Clovis frowning in consternation. ‘Well, anyway, she confirmed that I had the skill to pry. I was only ten summertides then but she gave my parents a chilling warning that my power would be the death of me if I didn’t guard it. She cautioned me that I must keep this power a secret from all and avoid using it ever. I took her warning to heart. We ended up starting a new life in Dregon and so my secret was safe. No one knows the truth but my parents, the sage — who is in all likelihood dead — and now you. The sage said there was more I could do with my abilities but she never explained what, exactly.’ Kirin shrugged. ‘I was never curious enough to ask.’
‘Surely?’
‘No, I swear it. And the woman told me I’d work it out one day.’
Clovis was genuinely taken aback. He had often caught himself feeling smug about his ability to look into the future, to see things that had the possibility of occurring. It was not precise and it was fraught with the danger of giving the wrong guidance but he always proceeded with caution and could honestly say he’d never advised anyone so wrongly that it could come back and bite him. In fact it was his judiciousness and subsequent success through that cautious approach that had earned him his solid reputation as a genuine practitioner. He had heard of prying, obviously, but thought it was akin to the Valisar Enchantment — something people spoke about and yet had never seen any solid proof of. He was sure it had been a Set myth! Perhaps charlatans claimed they had the prying ability but even now, despite the earnestness of Kirin’s words, he doubted it truly existed. Looking inside people just seemed too far-fetched. If he were honest, too, he would admit that it offended his own sense of worth to think that this young man thought he possessed a talent that made Clovis’s fortune telling seem like a circus act!
Kirin must have taken his silence to be apprehension. ‘I don’t relish this talent but I have been blessed with it by Lo. There’s more to it, though.’
‘Even more?’
Kirin grimaced, ignoring the wry comment. ‘Do you pay a price for your skill?’
Clovis glanced at him quizzically. ‘The other way around,’ he said, smirking. ‘People pay me.’
‘I didn’t mean that. You see if I use my magic simply to do parlour tricks, the effort is minimal. But if I draw upon my true power — prying — I think I lose a bit of myself.’
‘What?’ Clovis asked, his face clouded with confusion.
‘I can’t explain it. Sometimes I can lose time even after a simple “trickle”. Once when I was younger and brash about my talent, using it unwisely, I became very sick.’
‘So you can just enter someone’s mind, know what they’re thinking?’
‘I have no idea any more. I really don’t make use of it. I haven’t …’ Kirin gave a soft gesture of helplessness. ‘Not in fifteen years or more have I used my full power. It frightened me, as I explained, and still does. I’m scared it will send me mad. The last time I used it without any care I didn’t even know my own name afterwards. That sort of repercussion is a great deterrent.’
Again Clovis looked at him with incredulity.
‘It’s true,’ Kirin continued. ‘I had to re-learn my name, I didn’t recognise friends. I was young and I think because I was still growing my body seemed to work out how to heal but the sage warned me that it could not repair itself indefinitely.’
‘So you haven’t used your full power since you were ten?’
Kirin nodded. ‘I use only part of it. I made a promise to the seer, to my parents, to myself. I’ve had no need to make full use of it. Call me odd but I’m just not curious by nature. And now that I’m older and can see how sinister it is, I have no desire to make full use of it. It’s been so long I probably can’t even remember how to use it.’ He gave a soft deprecating chuckle, and then his face darkened. ‘No, that’s not true. I can never forget how to use it. But I have no need for it. I can resist it. It doesn’t call to me and sometimes I can forget that it’s even there.’
‘So, what, this other stuff you do is a different sort of magic?’
‘I have simply learned how to borrow from the real source. It’s as though I have a secondary link to it — a far less dangerous one — that allows me to siphon off some of the power. It doesn’t hurt me too much this way and when I was younger I earned a living with the gypsies — you know, telling people how many fingers they had up when I had my back to them, or which card they’d touched on the table.’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘It wasn’t a career but it was a living. More recently I’ve settled down in Cremond at the Academy of Learning.’
Clovis was impressed. The Academy at Cremond was effectively the seat of learning for the whole Set. All the talented young scholars ultimately passed through the doors of the Academy on their way to being physics, astronomers, poets, artists, mathematicians. ‘You’re a teacher?’
Kirin shook his head. ‘No, but I helped students to discover what they would be good at learning. Some came in believing themselves to be excellent at arithmetic and I could tell after not very long in their company that they might be more suited to astronomy, or another may have wanted to pursue literature and yet I could tell very quickly that he has the hands and the mind to be a great physician. Often just talking to them will reveal much of this but a trickle of my magic is always especially helpful.’ Kirin sighed. ‘I liked my job. It was well paid and solid. I loved the quiet of the Academy and the joy of being around learned people. It seems even using just a shred of my power has incriminated me with the barbarians.’
‘I’m intrigued. You said everyone is different?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘So some people are very open to your power.’
‘Mmm yes, from what I can recall some are transparent, others can be murky … silent, as I said.’
‘Do those people not think?’ Clovis asked, stretching.
Kirin put his head to one side as he considered the question. ‘They think, but their thoughts are buried deeper. As an adult now I think I can understand that they may wish to hide things from themselves. They may also be adept at shielding their thoughts.’
‘But why shield private thoughts?’
Again Kirin shrugged. ‘Some people are very private. They don’t want their facial expressions to reflect what’s on their mind, so they teach themselves how to separate the two. I could take cues from both, of course and with the right questioning to someone who is not suspicious, I feel sure I would know what is prevalent in his mind. And then there are others still who are genuinely blank, maybe through age or illness. But I would be able to sense that instantly.’
‘Does the work at the Academy ever get you into trouble?’
‘I’m very careful. My employers simply believe I am a skilled scout. And Clovis, as I’ve warned, very few people know what I can really do. I’m sure you’ve gathered that it’s not something I am especially proud of — no one likes an eavesdropper.’
‘Unless they can use you for something they need to hear, of course,’ Clovis qualified.
‘That’s right, and that’s the time when it would feel most wrong, somehow shameful. But after what’s been happening, perhaps I can put it to some good use at last.’
Clovis shook his head. ‘So you’re going to bring down the barbarian all on your own with your hidden talent, eh?’
‘I’m not delusional,’ Kirin admonished, his tone suggesting that his companion’s constant disdain was wearing thin. ‘But I don’t intend to help him ruin the Set either. I don’t want to die. And neither should you; you have more to gain by taking revenge. I’m going to be clever about this, that’s all.’
Clovis turned to fully face his new friend now. He scratched his beard. ‘Tell me.’
A sly grin stole across Kirin’s face for a moment, before he looked quickly around, banishing it. He spoke softly. ‘They’re not keeping us alive out of charity. My guess is that the marauders want to make use of us as you rightly assume — why else would they be gathering all the Vested? If Loethar was scared of magic, he’d be killing us. Why keep us alive? Why march us across the Set, adding more to our number as we move around the conquered realms? He has a plan for us. We can work against it from within.’
‘Spy, you mean?’
Kirin stood, wiping his dusty hands on his trousers. ‘Of a fashion.’
Clovis joined him, stretching his legs. ‘For whom? Who’s left to spy on behalf of, to fight for?’
‘We’ll find someone. Ourselves if we have to. But we cannot capitulate, especially those of us who do possess magic. The fact is we’re off to Penraven, the seat of power for the entire Set. It’s the right place to be for any sort of uprising.’