I squinted my eyes, trying to see what other items were gathered around the tree. “I suppose I’m not allowed to ask what the proper choice is.”
“There are many proper choices, and many more improper ones. It is different for everyone. The item you bring back reveals much. What you do with the item afterward reveals much. How you comport yourself reveals much.” She shrugged. “All these things Shehyn will consider before deciding if you are to be admitted into the school.”
“If Shehyn is the one to decide, why are all these others here?”
Vashet forced a smile, and I saw anxiety lurking deep in her eyes. “Shehyn does not embody the entire school herself.” She gestured to the distant Adem standing around the sword tree. “Less does she represent the entirety of the path of the Latantha.”
I looked around and realized the handful of non-red shirts were not light, but white. These were the heads of other schools. They had traveled here to see the barbarian take his test.
“Is this usual?” I asked.
Vashet shook her head. “I could feign ignorance. But I suspect Carceret spread word.”
“Can they overrule Shehyn’s decision?” I asked.
Vashet shook her head. “No. It is her school, her decision. No one would dispute her right to make it.” At her side, her hand flicked. However.
“Very well,” I said.
Vashet reached out and gripped my hand in both of hers, squeezed it, then let it fall.
I walked to the sword tree. For a moment the wind eased, and the thick canopy of hanging branches reminded me of the tree where I had met the Cthaeh. It was not a comforting thought.
I watched the spinning leaves, trying not to think of how sharp they were. How they would slice into the meat of me. How they could glide through the thin skin of my hands and slice through the delicate tendons underneath.
From the edge of the canopy to the safety of the trunk couldn’t be more than thirty feet. In some ways, not very far at all. . . .
I thought of Celean darting wildly through the leaves. I thought of her, jumping and swatting branches away. If she could do it, then certainly so could I.
But even as I thought it, I knew it simply wasn’t true. Celean had played here all her life. She was skinny as a twig, quick as a cricket, and half my size. Compared to her, I was a lumbering bear.
I saw a handful of Adem mercenaries on the far side of the tree. Two of the more intimidating white shirts were there as well. I could feel their eyes on me, and in a strange way, I was glad.
When you’re alone, it’s easy to be afraid. It’s easy to focus on what might be lurking in the dark at the bottom of the cellar steps. It’s easy to obsess on unproductive things, like the madness of stepping into a storm of spinning knives. When you’re alone it’s easy to sweat, panic, fall apart . . .
But I wasn’t alone. And it wasn’t just Vashet and Shehyn watching me. There were a dozen mercenaries and the heads of other schools besides. I had an audience. I was onstage. And there is nowhere in the world I am more comfortable than on a stage.
I waited just outside the reach of the longest branches, watching for a break in their motion. I hoped their random spinning would, just for a moment, open into a path I could dart through, striking away any leaves that came too close. I could use Fan Water to keep them away from my face.
I stood at the edge of the canopy and watched, waiting for an opening, trying to anticipate the pattern. The motion of the tree lulled me like it had so many times before. It was beautiful, all circles and arcs.
As I watched, gently dazed by the motion of the tree, I felt my mind slip lightly into the clear, empty float of Spinning Leaf. I realized the motion of the tree wasn’t random at all, really. It was actually a pattern made of endless changing patterns.
And then, my mind open and empty, I saw the wind spread out before me. It was like frost forming on a blank sheet of window glass. One moment, nothing. The next, I could see the name of the wind as clearly as the back of my own hand.
I looked around for a moment, marveling in it. I tasted the shape of it on my tongue and knew if desired I could stir it to a storm. I could hush it to a whisper, leaving the sword tree hanging empty and still.
But that seemed wrong. Instead I simply opened my eyes wide to the wind, watching where it would choose to push the branches. Watching where it would flick the leaves.
Then I stepped under the canopy, calmly as you would walk through your own front door. I took two steps, then stopped as a pair of leaves sliced through the air in front of me. I stepped sideways and forward as the wind spun another branch through the space behind me.
I moved through the dancing branches of the sword tree. Not running, not frantically batting them away with my hands. I stepped carefully, deliberately. It was, I realized, the way Shehyn moved when she fought. Not quickly, though sometimes she was quick. She moved perfectly, always where she needed to be.
Almost before I realized it, I was standing on the dark earth that circled the wide trunk of the sword tree. The spinning leaves could not reach here. Safe for the moment, I relaxed and focused on what was waiting there for me.
The sword I had seen from the edge of the clearing was bound to the tree with a white silk cord that ran around the trunk. The sword was half-drawn from its sheath, and I could see the blade was similar to Vashet’s sword. The metal was an odd, burnished grey without mark or blemish.
Next to the tree on a small table sat a familiar red shirt, folded neatly in half. There was an arrow with stark white fletching and a polished wooden cylinder of the sort that would hold a scroll.
A bright glitter caught my eye, and I turned to see a thick gold bar nestled in the dark earth among the roots of the tree. Was it truly gold? I bent and touched it. It was chill under my fingers, and was too heavy for my single hand to pry up from the ground. How much did it weigh? Forty pounds? Fifty? Enough gold for me to stay at the University forever, no matter how viciously they raised my tuition.
I slowly made my way around the trunk of the sword tree and saw a fluttering piece of silk hanging from a low branch. There was another sword of a more ordinary sort, hanging from the same white cord. There were three blue flowers tied with a blue ribbon. There was a tarnished Vintish halfpenny. There was a long, flat whetstone, dark with oil.
Then I came to the other side of the tree and saw my lute case leaning casually against the trunk.
Seeing it there, knowing someone had gone into my room and taken it from under my bed, filled me with a sudden, terrible rage. It was all the worse knowing what the Adem thought of musicians. It meant they knew I wasn’t merely a barbarian, but a cheap and tawdry whore as well. It had been left there to taunt me.
I had called the name of the wind in the grip of a terrible anger before, in Imre after Ambrose had broken my lute. And I had called it in terror and fury to defend myself against Felurian. But this time the knowledge of it hadn’t come to me borne on the back of some strong emotion. I had slipped into it gently, the way you must reach out to catch a gently floating thistle seed.
So when I saw my lute, the welter of hot emotion brought me crashing out of Spinning Leaf like a sparrow struck with a stone. The name of the wind tattered to shreds, leaving me empty and blind. Looking around at the madly dancing leaves, I could see no pattern at all, only a thousand windblown razors slicing at the air.
I finished my slow circuit of the tree with a knot of worry tightening my stomach. The presence of my lute made one thing clear. Any of these objects could be a trap someone had left for me.