'Not sure yet,' Jace admitted. 'I know I'm supposed to 'test his abilities,' but… I mean, the guy's not even a mage.'
'Wow, you noticed that? You're as smart as Tezzeret said you were.'
'My point,' Jace said, ignoring the jibe, 'is that it seems like more of a Kallist thing. Why does Paldor want me testing him?'
'Maybe,' Baltrice told him, 'figuring that out is another test.'
It wasn't, of course. Baltrice had specific instructions for Beleren; she just hadn't bothered to give them to him.
She could always claim she had, of course. He was the only mind-reader, after all, so it wasn't as though Paldor could prove otherwise. And he wouldn't dare ask Tezzeret to subject her to one of the artificer's truth elixirs; not Baltrice.
She grinned after Jace as he shrugged and departed the balcony, ready to invisibly follow
Sevrien (Serien?) home and conduct his own test. No, a failure here wouldn't cause much in the way of lasting repercussions. But every little disappointment was a black mark in Tezzeret's eyes.
Her grin faded and the old fear returned to gnawing at her gut as Beleren vanished. Good as she was at her job, there were always plenty of people who could kill, a few even as efficiently as she could.
But only one, so far as she knew, who could read minds.
And despite her many years of service, she wondered deep in her soul which of them, should it ever come down to it, Tezzeret would consider the more expendable.
'… know what I was supposed to do,' Jace lamented bitterly, flopped in a thickly upholstered chair in his quarters. 'But Paldor certainly didn't seem happy with me, even though he decided to let Sevrien join up.'
Kallist nodded, leaning against a bookcase on the far wall. 'What did you do, exactly?'
Jace shrugged. 'Sort of an obstacle course. A bunch of illusions, popping up out of nowhere. Tested reactions, accuracy, that sort of thing.'
'Hmm. You know, Jace,' Kallist offered thoughtfully, 'there are other illusionists in the Consortium. Maybe you were supposed to do something a little more, well, uniquely you? Read his mind?'
'Looking for what?'
'How do I know? Or maybe you were supposed to prod at him. Test his willpower. His pain tolerance. Or see how quickly you could read his mind! That sort of information could be useful to know about an operative, right?'
'Oh, please, Kallist,' Jace scoffed. 'What would be the point of that? Of course he couldn't have stood up to me. He can't even wield magic.'
'You know something, Jace?' Kallist said after several long breaths. 'If Tezzeret's training you to be a dromad's ass, you're certainly shaping up to be a great student.'
'What? What did I-?' But the door was already slamming behind his friend, before Jace could finish the sentence.
'You're late, Beleren,' Tezzeret snapped without preamble as Jace entered the stone-walled room beneath the streets. 'I'm sure you have every reason to think that my time is yours to do with as you will, but believe it or not, the business of running an inter-planar organization actually requires a little attention.'
'Uh…' Jace all but fell back before the sudden tirade. 'Sorry,' he continued. 'I lost track of the time.'
'Did you now? And what were you doing that was so important?'
'Mostly getting chewed out by Paldor, with a side of irritating my best friend.' 'Ah. And will I be hearing about this chewing out from Paldor?'
'Probably.'
Tezzeret nodded, motioning Jace to move away from the doorway. 'Then we'd best get your practice out of the way before I've any further reason to be angry at you.'
Jace moved in, glancing around at the now-familiar steel walls-once more in their oval configuration-and at the table that had been placed in the room's center. It was a great stone slab, easily the size of a small bed.
Or perhaps a coffin.
There were no chairs, and sitting on the floor seemed foolish beside the looming table, so Jace just stood, his posture one of mild confusion.
Tezzeret rapped an etherium knuckle on the steel slats. The entire wall chimed like the inside of a bell, and before the reverberations had faded, one of the steel walls slid aside, allowing fetid wafts of old sweat and human waste into the chamber. A quartet of guards followed after, carrying a filthy, unconscious man. His body was covered with an array of brutal burns and recent scars, his hair was slicked to his head by sweat and oils, and he was clad only in gray trousers. Jace, with a growing nervousness in his gut, only barely recognized him as the records-keeper who'd sold them out to Ronia Hesset.
The man he'd turned over to Paldor's mercies, and whom he'd assumed had been killed those many months ago.
'We kept him alive,' Tezzeret answered Jace's unspoken question. 'Paldor wanted to be sure we knew everything of value, every secret of ours he'd sold. We thought of having you draw it from his mind, but Paldor seemed to feel you wouldn't take kindly to that. Since he really wanted the chance to punish the man, I let it go; Paldor takes betrayal almost as poorly as I do.
'But from here on out, you don't escape the hard stuff anymore. Today,' Tezzeret said as the guards dropped the insensate form on the table. 'We're going to talk about the mind. Touch his thoughts, Beleren.'
'I… You said you'd learned everything. What am I looking for?'
The artificer shook his head. 'Nothing yet. Don't worry about reading it. Just make contact.'
With an uncertain nod, Jace directed his attentions to the man on the table.
'All right,' he said, a moment later, not turning back toward Tezzeret.
'Good. Feel his mind.'
'What?'
'His mind, Beleren. You read minds, you can talk to them. And as you showed Alhammarret, you can destroy them.
'The mind is its own presence! It's real, no less so than the mana you and I both drink from the world around us. Feel it! See it!'
And Jace did, though he had to close his eyes to blot out the physical world around him. For the first time, Jace felt the mind of another living being not merely as a source of images to be read or as an engine to be turned off, but as something far more. Something all its own. In his own mind he felt the other, turned it, examined it like a jeweler with an unfamiliar stone, prodded at its contours.
'Good.' He heard Tezzeret's voice, heard the honest pleasure and perhaps even pride within. 'You see?'
'I… I do.' Still he kept his eyes squeezed shut, fearful of losing the ephemeral image, or the feather-light touch of the other mind on his own. 'But what… What's this for? What am I doing?'
'Whatever you want.' There was something ugly in Tezzeret's voice, a viscous toxin dripping from each word. 'Isn't that the point? If the mind is an object, you can manipulate it as an object!'
Jace found himself shaking, and he felt the first stirring of bile rising up the back of his throat.
'Don't just read his thoughts!' Tezzeret urged, so close now that Jace could feel the artificer's breath on his neck. 'Control them! He lies unconscious, but you hold his mind in yours!'
'No…'
'This is what power over the mind truly means, Beleren! Reading thoughts? That's child's play, a feeble game for the man who can control thoughts! You can make him move as you wish. You can shape his memories!'
'No!'
Jace staggered away, his eyes flying open, and allowed all contact with the limp form before him to lapse. He spun on Tezzeret, fists clenched.
'No?' Tezzeret asked, his voice deceptively mild.
Could he make Tezzeret understand? Could he possibly explain how revolting a notion it was, the thought of reaching into someone's thoughts and stirring them like a pot of soup? Could he make Tezzeret understand just
