“What is it?”
“My friend and ally, Ta’ak Enselti, has been slain.”
Dhojakt knew Enselti, a noble merchant with great landholdings surrounding the city, a supplier of much rice to the kingdom. “Slain? By who?”
“This is the hard part,” Nibenay said. “By another acquaintance, the son of Myklan, of the House of Thrace, a simpleton by all accounts but still of noble blood.”
“They had a rivalry?”
“Not that I’m aware of. I didn’t know they had ever met. No business interests in common. The story Djena told me is that Ta’ak was taking an elf woman for his consort, and the simpleton, Pietrus is the boy’s name, stabbed them both to death.”
“An upsetting business, to be sure,” Dhojakt said. In truth, he hadn’t the least concern about humans or elves being killed. They were bothersome, for the most part, only worthwhile as long as they paid their taxes and didn’t get in his way. “I’ve heard something upsetting as well.”
“What is it, my son?”
“That half-elf you sent on the expedition to Akrankhot?”
“Yes, what was his name?”
“Aric, I believe.”
“Right, Aric. What of him?”
“He has apparently had some misunderstanding with your wife Kadya. She intended to kill him, but he found out and ran away. Now he’s on his way back here, with some sort of story. Kadya wanted Siemhouk to know, so that she could prepare you with the news that his story would be a lie.”
Nibenay scratched his bulbous cheek. “Which can only mean …”
“That it’s the truth,” Dhojakt finished.
“Or that it resembles truth.”
“So when Aric returns, whatever he tells you about Kadya might be true. But Kadya—and Siemhouk, for reasons of her own—don’t want you to believe it. Were I you, I would make sure that whenever Aric arrives in Nibenay, he is brought to you forthwith.”
“Yes, I think you’re right. Thank you for this, my son. This is good to know. I will think on it, and give your suggestion every consideration.”
“The most I can ask. Thank you for your time, my sire.” Dhojakt backed out of Nibenay’s presence—not only the polite thing to do, but the safest, he had learned. Anyone who turned his back on the Shadow King was asking to be struck down where he stood.
Dhojakt had no illusions that mere blood relation made any difference at all in that regard.
You all know, of course, that the potential for psionic power, an affinity for the Way, exists within each of us, within every being who tastes the breath of life on our world.” Tenavry Ki’ot’shon, Corlan’s instructor at the Academy of Fierce Purpose, paced when he lectured, most frequently with his hands clasped together. He wore a long silken robe, even on the hottest of days. He was one of the thinnest human beings Corlan had ever seen, with limbs like the branches of a sapling, and his face seemed to have been artificially widened by the long, wispy white hair that grew from nearly every surface: cheeks, chin, lower lip, eyebrows, and of course from the top of his head. He knotted that hair in several places, and he had given the class some explanation of what those knots meant. Corlan had long since forgotten it. Sometimes it was all he could do not to burst out laughing at the man’s appearance, even though he knew Tenavry was a skilled and powerful psionic who really did impart much wisdom.
“You further know,” Tenavry went on, “that to truly harness the power within—your power, the power that is your birthright, it is not enough to want to practice the Way. You must deserve the Way. To deserve it you must live the right kind of life; a life of service, a life of dedication, a life of commitment. Psionic abilities are available to all, but those who misuse those gifts often find that their abilities wane with time. Those who use the Way properly, in the process of living in accordance with the principles you’re being taught here, are those who continue to develop and strengthen their gifts as time goes on.”
Tenavry stopped pacing and unclasped his hands, lifting them toward the ceiling of the vaulted chamber. The students sat cross-legged on the stone floor, with small, sculpted creatures before them. Suddenly, hovering an inch above Tenavry’s hands was a ball of golden light. Just as suddenly, that ball of light broke into a million shards. They scattered, and there where the ball had been was a creature not unlike the sculptures sitting in front of each student. Tenavry’s had scalloped wings, a birdlike head, a set of tiny, muscular arms that could have been human but for their size, and rear legs with powerful haunches, like a beast that jumped long distances. It was covered in fur of a bright purple, spotted with yellow and red rosettes. It floated above his hands for a moment, then flew away from him, cutting lazy circles above the class.
“A psionicus is not, may I say, the ultimate expression of your psionic abilities,” Tenavry said. “For many, it’s little more than a plaything. But if you live right and truly follow the Way, it can be not only a companion but a source of information, a messenger, a friend and sometimes a lifesaver. It is an indication that you are on the right path, not that you have arrived at any destination.” He folded his hands again, regarded his students, and harrumphed. He was good at that. Coming across as both condescending and demeaning at the same time was, in Corlan’s experience, a rare skill at which Tenavry was a master. “For some of you, I’m sure that’s the best one can hope.”
For all their personal failings, Tenavry—and his fellow instructors at the academy—were brilliant and accomplished psionics, which made the tuition worthwhile. Or so thought Corlan, who struggled with his classes sometimes but genuinely wanted to learn.
The psionocus before Corlan, sculpted during previous sessions, was eleven inches long and stood eight inches high. He had given it a maned head, not unlike an aviarag, but with a more pronounced and pointed snout and a lower jaw that curved to meet the upper, as if his created beast might have wanted to carry smaller animals around inside its mouth. Its torso was smooth and sleek. Eight limbs extended from it, the upper two with humanlike hands, the others clawed. It stood on its bottom pairs of legs, and a long, sinuous prehensile tail stretched out behind it. Birdlike wings were folded along its back. He had chosen a bright color scheme for the thing, bright green for limbs and torso, crimson for the mane, cobalt blue for the face and the wings. Its tail was also green, but with a series of black and yellow stripes ringing it. The students had designed and sculpted their own individual psionoci, using clay and paint provided by the academy.
Today—if they were ready, or so insisted Tenavry—they would bring the beasts to life.
Tenavry walked among the students, examining their creations. “Good,” he told one. “Not very aerodynamic, but it’ll fly,” he said to another. “Don’t let that thing bite you,” to a third. When he got to Corlan’s, he picked it up, turned it around. “That’ll be noticed wherever it goes,” he said.
When he concluded his inspection, he returned to the front of the room. “Very well,” he said. “Now the time has come. You created these beings with your own hands, so you have already established a mental link with them. You need to open your minds to your psionoci, find that link, and will life into them. Let’s begin.”
Corlan picked up his creature. He stared at it for a minute, then closed his eyes, trying to picture it in every detail. He searched his mind for that mental link. But concentrating proved difficult; his mind wanted to dance around from one thing to another to a third, without reason or warning. The psionocus of the girl next to him, who had been sculpted so unevenly it almost fell over every time she set it down. The breeze that had blown through Nibenay that morning, cooling and sweet-scented. An argument with his father, two nights before.