P. Hodgell - Honor's Paradox

“Drie, that’s the wrong kantir,” she hissed at him. “Wake up!”

Timmon’s servant smiled at her dreamily and continued to drift through the forms. Water-flowing was often used to counter fire-leaping as it channeled aside any attack. They were moving fast now, Jame on the offense, Drie on the defense, and others were making room for them. The instructor watched without comment. Drie moved beautifully, fully poised as little as he seemed to be paying attention, tempting Jame to step up her assault. Spin, kick, strike—except for the whisper of contact she might have faced wind-blowing, that most difficult of forms. He slid backward, water over stones, tempting her into an unwisely extended move. In the moment that she wavered, off balance, the Kendar calmly tapped her on the forehead and landed her flat on her back on a rush mat in a billow of dust. Rue looked startled; Brier raised an eyebrow: Jame rarely lost at the Senethar. The class, both Ardeth and Knorth, applauded. So did Jame after a moment of surprise, slapping the floor with an appreciative hand.

“There you see a perfect example of fire-leaping’s weakness,” said the instructor. “What should you have done, cadet?”

Besides disobeying instructions to respond?

“Not over-extended to begin with, Ran, then countered with earth-moving,” said Jame, rising and dusting herself off.

Who but Drie, she thought, could do things his own way and get away with it? Come to think of it, whatever the lesson, she had never seen him do anything except water flowing, and no one had ever called him on it. After his own fashion, he was as much a charmer as his master Timmon.

The morning’s second class was for those Shanir with special links to animals, conducted in the Falconer’s second-story mews.

A gust of welcome warm air greeted Jame and her blind hunting ounce Jorin as they entered. With the onset of winter, the windows had been sealed with oiled linen and fires burned at both ends of the long room, more for the comfort of its avian inhabitants than for the cadets.

The Danior Tarn was already there with his Molocar pup Torvi; the Edirr Mouse with her twin albino mice perched one behind each ear; the Caineron Dure with his secret in his pocket; the Coman Gari, thankfully without any insect horde; the Randir Shade with her gilded swamp adder Addy; and the Ardeth Drie, whom no one could explain.

Jame stripped off her coat and joined Shade by the back wall, away from the others. In general, she wished that all of Tentir could act as much in fellowship as the Falconer’s class, regardless of their house affiliations, but she had a special reason for seeking out the Randir.

Shade looked even more attenuated than she had during the Winter War, as if her very bones had lengthened or perhaps multiplied. Long, white fingers played restlessly with Addy’s gleaming coils.

“How are you?” Jame asked in a whisper as the Falconer turned his attention to another cadet.

Shade gave her a hooded look. “How do you think?”

Jame remembered that strange scene in the Caineron barracks when Shade had held off Fash with Addy twined around her arm—and vice versa. No normal limb bent in such a sinuous fashion. The Randir master-ten Reef had also been there. Jame wondered if Reef or anyone else had been at the right angle to witness the phenomenon.

“I’d be shaken,” Jame admitted. “It’s not something one would expect. I always thought that changers were made in the depths of Perimal Darkling”— like Keral, she thought—“not born free here on Rathillien.”

“Is that what I’m becoming, a darkling changer?”

“I think so, although again how and why baffle me.”

“Born, not made. Is that any better?”

“It is if it makes you an unfallen darkling”—she glanced around; no one was listening—“like me. I grew up under shadows’ eaves, in the Master’s House itself. A lot of it I don’t remember clearly, but I do know that I never submitted to his will. We can’t help what we are.”

“You, a Knorth, tell me this?”

“Not as a Randir. As a member of the Falconer’s class. As a fellow randon cadet. Honor is hard for us, but not impossible.”

“Blood will tell,” said the Randir morosely. She tugged an earlobe and grimaced as it stretched.

Jame was suddenly reminded of Prince Odalian of Karkinaroth pulling his fingers like taffy and laughing hysterically. Another innocent victim, forced into a changer’s role. She put a quick hand over Shade’s.

“Don’t. Not until you’re sure you can return to normal.”

The other gave a crack of laughter that turned curious heads. “Normal. Will I ever be that again? Was I ever, to begin with?”

Jame’s answering grin was lopsided. “First, define ‘normal.’ We are more than blood, Shade, more than our heredity or our past.” One has to believe that, she thought. Oh, but sometimes it was hard. “You haven’t fallen.”

“Sometimes I think that my entire house has, except for the Randir Heir.”

That was harder to answer. Given the pernicious influence of the Witch of Wilden, Shade’s grandmother, how many remained untainted? Jame thought of the silent Randir Kendar standing by the pyre of their young, of Randiroc and of Sargent Corvine who had carved the name of her dead son into her flesh, lest she forget. Then too, there was Quill’s guess that not all Randir were bound to the same lord, or lady. Rawneth had her share of followers, but not all embraced her power. Some clearly looked elsewhere, and not necessarily to her son. It was a confusing situation, especially hard on the innocent.

“There’s honor in your house yet,” she insisted, “however endangered.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. Listen, Shade, what you are becoming is complicated, but no disgrace unless you make it one.”

Shade grunted. Jame didn’t think that the Randir believed her, not that it was an easy thing to accept. The only changers she had previously known, except for Odalian, were the Master’s servants, corrupted by their own will—yes, even Tirandys, however much he had regretted his action and tried to rebel against it. But how had Shade gotten the darkling taint into her blood, and how strong was it?

“Whatever you do,” she told the Randir, “don’t let the rest of your house know.”

“Why?”

“I think your granddam Rawneth has been spying on you through Addy, perhaps to see if you begin to change. You may have broken that bond when Addy bit you, if you’re a blood-binder too, but I don’t know for sure. Does your bond to her feel any different now?”

The Falconer’s merlin had been staring hard at them. Now it gave a jeering cry. Its master’s sealed eyes followed the raptor’s gaze.

“You,” he said, jabbing his sharp chin at Jame. “Repeat the purpose of this class.”

Jame started like the guilty schoolgirl that she was. “T-to learn how to enhance the bond with our bound-creatures, Ran.”

“And are you satisfied with your progress?”

Jame sighed and rubbed the creamy fur of Jorin’s belly as the ounce stretched out beside her, purring. “No.” When upset or frightened, the ounce still tended to withdraw into himself, not that he ever seemed to lose the use of her senses.

“Then pay attention. All of you, focus on your partners.”

Jame closed her eyes and tried. What she felt mostly was hunger, having had little appetite for breakfast, but was that her, or Jorin, or both of them? Smell: the sharp scent of raptor droppings, leather from their tack, a dead mouse in the wall. Touch: the hard floor, warmth to one side where the fire burned, the sudden butt of Jorin’s head demanding more attention. Hearing: the others’ breaths, the dry rustle of Addy’s scales, the Molocar Torvi’s gaping yawn.