Robert Adams - The Patrimony

The tests devised by him and by Aldora and administered under their constant supervision had shown positive results inall three cases. The ancient High Lord was inordinately pleased and showed it plainly.

“Giliahna, Neeka, you’ll both love the new capital, Theesispolis, and especially the palace there. My wife, Mara, designed it and oversaw every step of its construction. And, speaking of Mara, she’ll be more than overjoyed to see you. She and Aldora, they … well, Aldora is seldom happy or contented for long and she envies Mara so much that about twenty years ago she tried to drown her—that being one of the few ways our kind can be slain. Since then, the two have consistently and most wisely avoided being in the same city at the same time.”

“I am, perforce, often in the western mountains on campaign and poor Mara grows lonely with only old Drehkos for company.” He took a long draft of the brandy-laced wine and clapped Tim Sanderz on the shoulder.

“As for you, Tim, you’re the incarnate answer to centuries of prayers. You enjoy campaigning and warfare. You’re good at it. You’re a natural leader and, moreover, you’re an experienced commander of organized troops, so presumably a good tactician. If you prove out as a strategist, as well, I may finally be able to get a few years of rest.”

“With Drehkos to govern the settled lands—something he’s quite skilled at—and you to command the armies and the frontier, Mara and I might go away for a while. We might sail out to the Islands or even clear across the Eastern Sea to the lands beyond—Ehspahneeah, Gahleeah or even Pahl’yos Ehlahs—it’s been centuries since either of us has seen those lands, or even been much beyond the borders of our own.”

Tim’s blue eyes were wide with amazement. “But … you mean you’d trust me with your entire military establishment, my lord Milo?”

“Tim, you’d better start remembering to call me Milo and comport yourself as the equal, the peer, that you all truly are.”

“With luck, we’ll have many centuries together, and even a single hundred years is a hellishly long time for one man to defer to another.”

“Yes, I’ll trust you with the armies … when you’ve proved you can handle them properly, win victories without too high a butcher’s bill, think for yourself, yet have the good sense to know when to accept and defer to the advice of your staff. But that will be five or ten years from now, Tim.”

“Immediately we all go back to the old capital, Kehnooryos Atheenahs, for the winter, you three will enter the Confederation Mindspeak Academy and we’ll then learn just what active and latent talents you each possess. But you’ll not only be studied, you’ll be taught, as well.”

“You’ll learn the many different levels of mental communication, and how to speak on two or three at the same time. You’ll be taught how to get around or through closed mindshields and, if you own the innate ability, how to do it without the shielded mind even knowing it. You’ll be taught to far-speak, and your range—with and without the added power of other minds—will be meticulously measured and recorded.”

“You may—one or two of you, anyway—learn to far-gather, though I confess we’ve had precious little success in teaching that highly esoteric skill. Those who have been able to learn already possessed the rudiments. The Academy simply honed an existing edge, as it were.”

Neeka shook her head slowly, then asked, “Lord, what is this far-gather? I’ve never heard the term.”

After long years with the arrogant, outspoken, bull-headed and often violent Aldora; with his loving but self-assured and frequently argumentative wife, the Undying High Lady Mara, Milo had felt instantly attracted to this quiet, humble and unassuming, basically gentle, raven-haired beauty. Though they two had been sharing a suite and a bed for some weeks, her public manner toward him remained one of humility and deep respect. He was becoming more and more fond of her and was seriously considering marriage to her after a few years, if Mara approved.”

“Far-gathering, Neeka, is the rare ability to mentally detect danger at distances and through many barriers. It is most applicable to soldiering and warfare and most useful therein. In the century or so of the Academy, the number of actual occurrences, either natural or induced, of real strength in its use has been pitifully small. All of those, saving only one, have been men.”

“That single exception was our present host’s first wife, Rahksahna Morguhn—Ahrmehnee-born, now deceased. Bili, himself, owns the strongest far-gathering talent ever recorded, yet none of his brothers so far tested has the power to any degree, and his three children by Rahksahna lack it entirely. I am now hoping against all the odds that Tim and Gil, as they both had the same mother as Bili, will prove latent far-gatherers.”

Milo drained off the other half of his goblet, then refilled it, continuing to talk while reaming his pipe and packing it with tobacco.

“You’ll learn to mindspeak with animals, not just horses and cats, but all manner of beasts. You’ll learn to see with others’ eyes, hear with their ears, smell with their noses, taste with their tongues and feel with their skins.”

His eyes caught Neeka’s and she lowered her gaze, flushing darkly, a small smile tugging at her lips. In their nights together, he had already commenced her education in those particular and erotically pleasurable directions.

“Finally, when you’ve absorbed all the Academy has to offer you, you’ll start learning languages and dialects. All of you know Mehrikan—Neeka knows one dialect, Gil two, and Tim five, but there are more than a dozen all told in the Confederation alone. You all can read and write and speak Southern Ehleeneekos, and Neeka knows the Northern dialect, but you’ll all have to learn the Island dialect, which differs markedly from mainland Ehleeneekos.”

“Tim and Gil speak a passable Ahrmehnee, already, and Neeka can quickly master it, no doubt, but you’ll all have to learn to read and write it, and that will take time, since they use an alphabet entirely different from Mehrikan and only distantly related to Ehleeneekos.”

“Neeka reads and writes Zahrtohgan, but she can’t speak it. Tim speaks Kweebehkeekos and Nyahgrahee, which are almost the same language, and a bastard pidgin-Zahrtohgan. The only language that at least one of you doesn’t have is English.”

All three looked puzzled at the unfamiliar word. Before any could frame the question, Milo explained.

“English was the language that was spoken and written by the people who dwelt on this continent almost a thousand years ago. The gullible and the superstitious of our time call those long-dead people gods, but they were not, any more than am I or are you. The Witch Kingdom, so called, deep in the southern swamps, is the only place that English still exists as a spoken language, though all the many Mehrikan dialects are its direct descendants.”

“If, after you’ve mastered all the more needful languages, you want to learn to speak English properly, fine, I’ll be happy to teach you … and I’m the only man outside the Witch Kingdom who can. But you must all learn to at least read English. Now and then, one or two or more of the ancient books turn up somewhere or other, my agents obtain them by hook or by crook and they are rushed to Theesispolis to be carefully preserved in the great library there, along with the volumes of my personal journal, which is also in English.”

“These books contain, oft-times, knowledge which has, does and will prove invaluable to us and our people over the centuries. So we must all have the ability to partake of it.”