The Master's Chair (The Chronicles of Terah) (19 page)

Chapter 14

Specialties Emerge

The next morning, Kalen dragged the chests down from the attic and his guests spent several carefree hours trying on clothes before selecting the outfits they would wear. The men’s clothes were similar to the ones that Kalen and Duane wore: tight leggings, tunics that fell to mid-thigh, cloaks, and hats. Some of the tunics were made of wool, but most were made of a material that felt like cotton. The cloaks were knee length, warm, and had some type of slick finish that Kalen said would keep them dry during rainstorms.

The dresses for the women had full, floor length skirts, and although most were lightweight, a few were quite heavy. Some of the skirts were made like culottes, and Kalen pointed out how much more convenient those would be when riding horseback. The women’s cloaks were similar to the men’s except that they were ankle length and had hoods.

Kalen suggested that they choose clothes for all seasons since they would be on the road for a year before they reached Camden, but since space was limited, the Tellurians decided to concentrate on what they would need to reach Nandelia, and worry about the trip next winter later. As they selected clothes, Kalen marked any repairs or tailoring that was needed and set them aside.

After those few light-hearted hours, things turned serious.

Drusilla arrived that afternoon and immediately took charge of Theresa. The rest of the Tellurians spent their days with Duane and Kalen, training for combat. The evenings were devoted to writing and practicing songs.

By the end of the first ten days, Kalen was getting concerned about Theresa spending all of her time with Drusilla because she wasn’t getting any self-defense training. On the morning of the eleventh day, he cornered Drusilla in the kitchen.

“We need to talk, Dru.”

“Can’t it wait, Kalen? Theresa and I need to gather herbs this morning. They take a while to dry and we don’t have a lot of time left if they’re leaving in ten days.”

“That’s my point. I feel like Theresa needs to spend some time learning to protect herself. She hasn’t been in any of the training sessions since you got here, and she can’t use any of the weapons. How is she going to defend herself?”

“Kalen, I’ve traveled all over Calandra and I’ve never needed to defend myself against any type of attack. I really don’t think she needs to worry about that.”

“Dru, you’re a Sister! Your pendant protects you! No one would dare attack a Sister.”

“I know. So why are you pushing self-defense for Theresa?”

“She’s not a Sister!”

Drusilla just raised her eyebrows and looked at Kalen.

After a couple of moments, Kalen said softly, “You mean she is?”

“I would never share all my knowledge and skills with anyone who had not pledged to the Sisterhood. You should know me better than that.”    

“How? When? I mean …”

“I initiated her when I first got here. I didn’t have to spend more than a couple of hours with her to know that she’s a healer.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think it was necessary to inform you. You asked me to come, didn’t you? ‘To work with her’, I think your message said. What did you expect?” Drusilla was on the verge of anger.

“No, no, that’s quite all right. A Sister of Healing. Does she understand her obligations as a Sister – no, never mind. That was a stupid question. If you initiated her, you made sure she knew what she was doing,” Kalen said. Then he leaned back against the counter to watch Drusilla prepare lunch for herself and Theresa. She was beautiful. He’d never been attracted to any other human female, and in the 500 plus years of his life, he’d been around plenty of them. But Dru was different. The sun made her hair look like spun gold, and her eyes were the blue of an October sky. She was slim, delicate, almost fragile in appearance, but fierce as a tiger when riled. She was kind and tender to those who needed her help, but stubborn and shrewd when opposed. Kalen had felt that Dru should have been born a dwarf ever since he’d first met her.

Drusilla finished packing their lunch. Then she turned to Kalen and said, “A healer rounds out the group pretty well, don’t you think? If she’s ever in any danger, the Sisterhood will come to her aid, and to the aid of those she protects.”

“While that’s usually good, it could be bad in this case.”

“Not really. We don’t tell our secrets. You know that,” she said as she walked out the door.

When Kalen stepped out into the yard, Duane looked at him and raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t worry about Theresa. She’ll be fine,” Kalen said in answer to his unasked question.

Duane nodded and went back to grooming the horses.

~ ~ ~ ~

The work on the minstrel act was going better than anyone had expected. Steve was their source for legends and stories. Theresa and Chris made a pretty good lyrics team, and Joan found tunes to fit the lyrics. Drusilla taught them four popular folk songs and served as a music critic for the ones they wrote. After ten days, they had a collection of about twenty songs on paper.

While the others were busy writing songs, Karl, Darrell, and Kevin worked on instruments. So far, they had a fiddle and bow, several flutes, a couple of drums, a set of bongos, and a cymbal, but the guitar was proving to be a challenge. All of them, except Kevin, were beginning to identify with the new roles they were playing. They weren’t just preparing a minstrel act; they were becoming minstrels.

All of them except Theresa and Kevin were performing better physically than ever before, and they were improving more in one day on Terah than they would have in a month on Earth. They were becoming adept at hand-to-hand combat and competent with all of the weapons, but each of them had discovered that they had special talents in one or two areas.

Darrell adapted his talent for throwing a football to throwing spears and knives, and his martial arts skills made him a formidable opponent in hand-to-hand combat. Chris’s boxing background gave him an edge with the sword and with all types of close combat. Thanks to his experience as a sharpshooter for the military, Steve excelled with all of the bows, but he was especially proficient with a long bow. Joan’s skill with the long bow was second only to Steve’s, but she really came into her own when she was fighting with a dagger.  Karl had used a crossbow on Earth, so he preferred that over the other bows, but like Steve, his aim was true with all of them, and his skill with throwing knives was second only to Darrell’s. Along with their new skills came a conviction that they could handle whatever Terah had to offer.

Theresa was learning how to use the power in her hands to heal, and knowing that her skills were recognized and valued gave her a level of self-confidence that she had never experienced before. She had not simply adjusted to Terah; she felt that she belonged more to Terah than to Earth.

One morning near the end of the second week, Kevin walked out into the yard a little earlier than the others.

Xantha said,
“You don’t really want to work out this morning, do you?”

“No, I don’t. I know I’m not any good at any of this, but I have to try.”

“None of this has anything to do with you.”
Xantha pawed the ground and tossed his head. 
“Come on. We need to talk. I’ll tell Kalen we’re going off for a while. You need to learn more about your family.”

“You know my real family? Why haven’t you said anything before?”

“Didn’t think you were ready to listen.”
Xantha walked over to the edge of the clearing.
“Get on my back and hold on. You can’t fly yet.”

Kevin wasn’t sure that this was such a good idea after all. He had enough trouble trying to ride a horse that stayed on the ground.

“What do you mean, can’t fly yet?” Kevin asked as he tried to get up the nerve to mount Xantha. “Am I going to have to learn how to fly?”

“Sure, if you’re good enough.”

That didn’t sound too good to Kevin either, but since he could never tell whether Xantha was serious or not, he decided to assume that the pegasus was joking. He took a handful of Xantha’s mane and asked, “Where are we going?”

“There’s a lovely meadow with some sweet grass not too far from here. We won’t be disturbed there. Come on, let’s go.”
Xantha knelt down to make it easier for Kevin to mount.

As soon as Kevin was settled, Xantha spread his wings and Kevin shut his eyes.

“Don’t worry, Kevin. I won’t let anything happen to you,”
Xantha said with a snort.
“We need a live sorcerer, not a dead accountant.”

A few minutes later, Kevin slowly opened his eyes and looked around. They were soaring above the clouds. Calm settled over Kevin as memories flooded back. He’d done this before, but only in his dreams. As a child he’d always felt safe and free on Xantha’s back, and some of that feeling of contentment settled over him now. It was the first time he’d relaxed since landing on Terah.

All too soon, Xantha swooped down and landed in the meadow. He started grazing while Kevin stretched out on the ground in the sun.

“I’m expecting to wake up and find out that this has all been a dream. Maybe I’m unconscious. Maybe I’m the one in a coma,” Kevin said. “I might be lying in a hospital bed right now, hooked up to monitors, waiting to come back to life, my life, my reality.”

 “I’d worry if I thought you really believed any of that,”
Xantha said.

“The day that you arrived with Duane, our first full day on Terah …”

 “Yes?”

“Were you reading my thoughts then? Is that why you showed up outside the window?”

“I was in your mind. I knew what you were trying to do.”

“Yeah, well, it didn’t work,” Kevin said quietly. Then he added, “I recognized you as soon as I saw you. Were you really there, in my dreams all of those years, or were you just a memory from long ago, from the time before I went to Earth?”

“You were on Earth before you were a week old. I seriously doubt that even a sorcerer’s memory goes back to the first week of life,”
Xantha said with a snort.
“But to answer your question, yes, I was actually there, at least mentally. The first time I appeared in one of your dreams, you were only a couple of years old. Something was chasing you and you couldn’t get away, so I helped you out. Since then, I’ve dropped in on a fairly regular basis. I’m not sure how much humans remember about their dreams, but I knew you’d recognize me when you saw me.”

“Why were you reading my mind when I was two years old?”

“I set up a mind link with you before you left the castle.”

“Do you have to have a  mind link to read someone’s thoughts?”

“No. I can read anyone’s thoughts if I want to. A mind link means that the channel is always open. I’m always in your mind. All of your thoughts flow through to me.”

“You’ve always known every thought I’ve ever had? How I’ve felt about everything in my entire life?” Kevin sat up and stared at Xantha.

“Of course. I had to be sure that you were all right and that you were coming along as you should. You had to be worthy of your destiny.”

“What about my rights to privacy?!”

“I respected your privacy. I never once told anyone what you were thinking or feeling. All I did was reassure your father that things were going along just fine.”

“As if he cared.”

“He does, very much. You’ve never been far from his thoughts.”

“
If he cares, why did he give me away when I was born? Just because my mother died?”

“No. That had nothing to do with it. If she had lived, you would have stayed with them until you were about a year old, but he would have had to foster you out by then.”

“Why?”

“Because you are a sorcerer’s son. Sorcerers have to foster their children out to keep them away from magic while they’re growing up.”
Xantha wandered over to a fresh patch of grass and began grazing again. “
Children tend to mimic adults, and a sorcerer uses magic on a daily basis. If a child were around magic all the time, and had the ability, he would just have to experiment. And uncontrolled magic is not a pretty sight. Control, absolute control, is necessary to make magic safe, and children just do not have that much control. Most sorcerers don’t even begin to study magic until they’re about twenty-five years old.”

“Do all of the sorcerers put their children on Earth?” Kevin asked.

“No. As far as I know, you’re the only one that’s ever been sent to Earth. Most of the time children are fostered with non-magical friends. Seated sorcerers have to be a little more careful about protecting their children while they’re growing up, but since there are usually quite a few of them, they’re relatively safe. Of course, not all of the children inherit the magic strain, like Laryn, your father’s sister. When it became obvious that she was non-magical, her parents brought her back home to live with them, but Badec had to live with his foster parents until he turned twenty-five. If you had not been an only child, Badec would have done the same with you.”

“Wasn’t he an only child as far as magic was concerned?”

“No, he has three brothers and two sisters who are sorcerers, too.”

“Why didn’t my father remarry after my mother died? Doesn’t this world allow it?”

“Yes, but no other woman has ever interested him for more than a few days, and since you were safe on Earth he didn’t feel like he had to remarry.”

“But anything could have happened to me, a car accident, a fire, anything.”

“I know. I tried to tell him, so did Laryn, and probably quite a few other people, but apparently Yvonne had told him that you would be the heir, so he didn’t worry about it. The rest of us did though.”

“Laryn is his second, right? I don’t really understand the idea of a ‘second’.”

“A second is ‘second in command’. A second’s more than a secretary, more than an advisor, more than a best friend. A second is the highest position a non-magical human can achieve. Even the governor of a province answers to the seated sorcerer and to the second.”

“Will Laryn become my second?”

“No. Whenever a sorcerer dies or retires and the heir takes over, the second must retire. The heir has to find his or her own second.”