The Wise Man's Fear

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX The First Stone

I spent the next three days with Magwyn. It wasn’t bad, especially considering my left hand was still healing, so my ability to talk and fight was rather limited.

I like to think I did rather well. It would have been easier for me to memorize an entire play than this. A play fits together like a jigsaw. Dialogue moves back and forth. There is a shape to a story.

But what I learned from Magwyn was merely a long string of unfamiliar names and unconnected events. It was a laundry list masquerading as a story.

Still, I learned it all by heart. It was late in the evening of the third day when I recited it back flawlessly to Magwyn. The hardest part was not singing it as I recited. Music carries words over miles and into hearts and memories. Committing Caesura’s history to memory had been much easier when I’d started fitting it to the tune of an old Vintish ballad in my head.

The next morning Magwyn demanded I recite it again. After I made it through a second time, she scribbled a note to Shehyn, sealed it in wax, and shooed me out of her cave.

“We had not expected Magwyn to be finished with you for several days yet,” Shehyn said, reading the note. “Vashet took a trip to Feant and will not be back for at least two days.”

That meant I had memorized the Atas twice as quickly as their best estimate. I felt more than a little pride in that.

Shehyn glanced at my left hand and gave the barest frown. “When did you have your dressings removed?” she asked.

“I could not find you at first,” I said. “So I went to visit Daeln. He said it has healed quite nicely.” I flexed my newly unbandaged left hand and gestured joyful relief. “There is hardly any stiffness in the skin, and he reassures me even that will fade soon with proper care.”

I looked at Shehyn, expecting to see some gesture of approval or satisfaction. Instead I saw exasperated irritation.

“Have I done something wrong?” I asked. Confused regret. Apology.

Shehyn motioned to my hand. “It could have been a convenient excuse to postpone your stone trial,” she said. Irritated resignation. “Now we must go ahead with it today, Vashet or no.”

I felt a familiar anxiety settle back onto me, like a dark bird clenching its claws deep into the muscles of my neck and shoulders. I’d thought the tedium of memorization had been the last of it, but apparently the final shoe was yet to drop. I didn’t like the sound of the term “stone trial,” either.

“Return here after midday meal.” Shehyn said. Dismissal. “Go. I have much to prepare before then.”

I went looking for Penthe. With Vashet gone, she was the only one I knew well enough to ask about the upcoming trial.

But she wasn’t in her house, the school, or the baths. Eventually I gave up, stretched, and rehearsed my Ketan, first with Caesura, then without. Then I made my way to the baths and scrubbed away three days of sitting and doing nothing.

Shehyn was waiting for me when I returned after lunch, holding her carved wooden sword. She looked at my empty hands and made an exasperated gesture. “Where is your dueling sword?”

“In my room,” I said. “I did not know I would need it.”

“Run fetch it,” she said. “Then meet me at the stone hill.”

“Shehyn,” I said. Urgent imploring. “I don’t know where that is. I don’t know anything about the stone trial.”

Surprise. “Vashet never told you?” Disbelief.

I shook my head. Sincere apology. “We were focused on other things.”

Exasperation. “It is simple enough,” she said. “First you will recite Saicere’s Atas for all gathered. Then you will climb the hill. At the first stone, you will fight one from the school who is ranked of the first stone. If you win, you will continue to climb and fight someone of the second stone.”

Shehyn looked at me. “In your case, this is a formality. Occasionally a student enters the school with exceptional talent. Vashet was one such as this, and she gained the second stone at her first trial.” Blunt honesty. “You are not such a one. Your Ketan is still poor, and you cannot expect to gain even the first stone. The stone hill is east of the baths.” She flicked her hand at me: Hurry.

There was a crowd gathered at the foot of the stone hill by the time I arrived, more than a hundred people. Grey homespun and muted colors vastly outnumbered mercenary red, and the low murmur of the crowd’s conversation was audible from a distance.

The hill itself wasn’t particularly high, nor was it steep. But the path to the top cut back and forth in a series of switchbacks. At each corner there was a wide, flat space with a large block of grey stone. There were four corners, four stones, and four red-shirted mercenaries. At the top of the hill stood a tall greystone, familiar as a friend. Beside that stood a small figure in blinding white.

As I came closer, I caught a smell drifting on the breeze: toasted chestnuts. Only then did I relax. This was pageantry of a sort. While “stone trial” had an intimidating sound to it, I doubted very much that I was going to be brutalized in front of a milling audience while someone sold roasted nuts.

I entered the crowd and approached the hill. I could see it was Shehyn next to the greystone. I also recognized the heart-shaped face and long, hanging braid of Penthe at the third stone.

The crowd parted gently as I walked to the foot of the hill. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a blood-red figure rushing toward me. Alarmed, I turned and saw it was none other than Tempi. He hurried toward me, gesturing a broad enthusiastic greeting.

I fought the urge to smile and shout his name, settling instead on a gesture of joyful excitement.

He came to stand directly in front of me, gripping me by my shoulder and jostling me around playfully, as if congratulating me. But his eyes were intense. Close to his chest his hand said, deception where only I could see. “Listen,” he spoke quickly under his breath. “You cannot win this fight.”

“Don’t worry.” Reassurance. “Shehyn thinks the same, but I might surprise you.”

Tempi’s grip on my shoulder grew painfully tight. “Listen,” he hissed. “Look who is at the first stone.”

I looked over his shoulder. It was Carceret. Her eyes were like knives.

“She is full of rage,” Tempi said quietly, gesturing fond affection for the crowd to see. “As if your admittance to the school was not enough, you have been given her mother’s sword.”

That piece of news knocked the wind out of me. My mind flickered to the final piece of the Atas. “Larel was Carceret’s mother?” I asked.

Tempi ran his right hand affectionately through my hair. “Yes. She is enraged past reason. I fear she would gladly cripple you, even if it means being thrown from the school.”

I nodded seriously.

“She will try to disarm you. Be wary of it. Do not grapple. If she catches you with Sleeping Bear or Circling Hands, submit quickly. Shout it if you must. If you hesitate or try to break away, she will shatter your arm or pull it from your shoulder. I heard her say this to her sister not an hour ago.”

Suddenly, Tempi stepped away from me and gestured deferential respect.

I felt a tapping at my arm and turned to see Magwyn’s wrinkled face. “Come,” she said with quiet authority. “It is time.”

I fell into step behind her. As we walked, everyone in the crowd gestured some manner of respect toward her. Magwyn led me to the beginning of the path. There was a block of grey stone, slightly taller than my knee and identical to the others at each corner of the path.