“You can fend?” asked Laudon, glancing around. “Then why did you let me…. ” He clamped his mouth shut.
Why did I let him in here? Interesting. So the fending he did was supposed to work farther than just a micron’s depth of air surrounding his body. Jam had never tried to push things farther away than that. He tried to do it, to use the fending to push outward.
It was like when he decided to try to wiggle his ears. He had already noticed that when he grinned, his ears went up. So he stood in front of the mirror, grinning and then letting his face go slack, trying to feel the muscles that moved his ears. Then he worked at moving only those muscles, worked for days on it, and pretty soon he could do it — move either ear up and down, without stirring a muscle on the front of his face.
This was the same thing, in a way — not a muscle, but he did know how to fend a little. Now he isolated the feeling, the thing he did to make the fending happen, and pushed it outward from himself. At first he had to move his arms a little, but quickly he realized that this had nothing to do with it.
His shirt, twisted up on the ground with the beans inside, began to roll away from him. The garden hose snaked across the grass. Laudon took a step back. “You don’t know what you’re doing here, Jam. Don’t attract the attention of powers you don’t understand.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand,” said Jam. “You said the stone was nothing but a collector, but that’s not true. That’s what you are, gathering whatever magical power your students have. Rhonda had a lot of it, didn’t she? But you don’t know what I have.”
“I know you fainted when you touched it.”
“I never touched it,” said Jam.
“And I know it’s here. Somewhere close.”
Jam gathered his fending power and made a thrust toward Laudon.
Laudon staggered back. He looked frightened. Now Jam was sure that Laudon himself was no wizard. He tried to bully Jam only as long as he thought Jam was powerless, just a kid who stole something. Now that he knew Jam had some power — apparently more than Jam himself had guessed — it was a different story. Laudon was frightened.
“The emperor will hear of this.”
“As if you ever met the emperor,” said Jam contemptuously. “All you’re good for is gathering power for somebody else. And not the emperor.”
“A servant of the emperor,” said Laudon. “The same thing.”
“Unless it isn’t. Didn’t you take history? Don’t you know how this works? How do you know the one you serve, the one you’ve been gathering power for, how do you know he’s really loyal to the emperor? How do you know he isn’t gathering power to try to challenge him?” Jam gave Laudon another shove, which knocked him off his feet this time.
This is cool, thought Jam.
He flung the hose at Laudon now, and it went after him like a flying snake, hitting him, splashing him with the dregs of water left in the hose.
“I’ll report this!”
“What can you do to me that’s worse than was already done? My brother’s lying in there like a vegetable, and you think I’m worried about the treasonous wizard you serve?”
“He’s not treasonous!” But Laudon looked worried now — about a lot more than a garden hose or a few grass stains on his butt. “You don’t know who you’re messing with!”
Which was true enough. Jam had no idea who the emperor was, or who Laudon’s master was, or anything but this: He had a stone inside his skin, and now when he touched Gan, his brother came to life under his hand.
He also knew that when he made wild accusations about Laudon’s master, he got more anxious and fearful. So maybe there was some truth to it.
I shouldn’t mess with this, thought Jam. I’m out of my depth. Whatever Laudon’s afraid of, I should be afraid of it too.
Or maybe not. Maybe I shouldn’t let fear decide what I’m going to do. Gan never showed fear of anything.
Then again, Gan ended up as a vegetable for all these years, trapped inside a body that couldn’t do anything. What might happen to me?
What will happen to me — and Gan, and Mother — if I don’t do anything?
“Who is your master?” demanded Jam.
Laudon rolled his eyes. “As if I’d tell you.”
“I’ll ask Gan.”
“Yes, yes, go ahead,” said Laudon, taunting him now. “If he knew, do you think he would have let down his guard? You don’t know anything, little boy.”
“I know that you don’t know anything, either. In fact, you know less than nothing, because the things you think you know are wrong.”
“It’s the madness of power on you, boy. You think you’re the first? You realize you’ve got something that nobody else has, you realize you’ve got your hands on something powerful, and suddenly you think you’re omnipotent. But go look at your brother. See what you think about his omnipotence!”
“No, I don’t think I’m powerful,” said Jam. “Just more powerful than you.”
“But not more powerful than the one I serve. Never more powerful than that. And every word you say, every push you make with that fending power of yours will only draw attention to you. Attention you truly do not want.”
“But I do want it,” said Jam. “I want the emperor to come here! I want the emperor to judge between us!”
Where had that idea come from?
Gan? Was it Gan, telling him what to say?
“You tell the emperor who your master is, and how he trapped Gan, and how he’s using you to gather power.”
“It’s for the emperor, I told you, all the power I’ve gathered.”
“Then let the emperor come, and I’ll give the stone to him!”
“So you do have it.”
Jam rolled his eyes. “Duh.”
“That’s all I needed to hear,” said Laudon. He stood up. Started walking toward Jam.
Jam fended him. Laudon didn’t even pause. “I can feel your little pushes, boy,” he said. “That made it easy to pretend you had power over me. But you don’t. You’re like a baby with a squirt gun.” Laudon reached out and took Jam by the throat. “Where is it? Not in your head — though that wouldn’t stop me, I’d have your head, it belongs to my master just like everything else does.”
“Nothing belongs to your master!” cried Jam. “It all belongs to the emperor!” Or at least it would if this magic society worked like feudalism.
“Do you think the emperor cares what happens to you?” Laudon ran a finger down Jam’s neck and chest until it rested directly over his heart. “Which arm?” he asked. Then his finger traced out and down to Jam’s right hand. “I’ll have that back now, thanks.”
“No you won’t,” said Jam. He rammed his knee into Laudon’s groin.
“Owie owie,” said Laudon, sarcastically.
“I should have known,” said Jam. “You gave your balls to your master along with everything else.”
“Open your hand.”
“Open it yourself.”
“Right down to the bone if I have to,” said Laudon. Then he pulled a sharp piece of obsidian from his pocket and prepared to slice Jam’s palm open.
So all his bravado had come to nothing. And yet there was a power that could save him — or destroy him — but what else could he call upon? He had only just learned that there was an emperor, and yet somehow he knew all about him. No, he knew nothing about him but his true title — and the only other thing that mattered. That Jam could trust him.