A tentative trace of plum, cool and sweet, touched my tongue. It beckoned me to linger on the taste, much pleasanter than the oven beyond the windows. I pushed the thought away and continued to admire the trees as they stood motionless in the nonexistent wind.
“Well done,” Errol commented from his place behind his desk. Considering the topic of study, he had allowed a temporary lifting of the no talking ban. “You can release the image now.” He closed the book as I slowly withdrew my focus from the heat. “You have now mastered the ability to block Thought-leading with Image-fixation. Well done.” He scribbled something in his notebook before setting it aside.
“Now let us try shutting out completely. This will be your first line of defense. Image-fixation, Mental-blocks, and Safety-zones are all tools for when they have gotten through your defenses, which are Walling, Sealing, and Shuttering.”
“And these are all defensive forms against interrogation?” I asked to make sure I was clear of what to use when.
“Correct.” Errol readjusted himself in his seat. “Walling is a defensive measure that talents in precarious positions use at all times. Within their thoughts, they build a wall around certain topics. For example, a talent who is undercover among other talents must wall off all topics, facts, and ideas that are not in keeping with his persona. By doing so, he protects them from detection by a mind brush, random thought exchange, or sending.”
“So the Sept Son must use this.”
“Constantly,” Errol agreed. “Now choose a thought that you do not want me to access.”
Choosing the image of Selwyn watching Candra hammer a nail, I carefully built a mental stone wall around it.
“Ready?” Errol asked.
I nodded. Instantly, plum filled my taste buds. I watched with interest as he skimmed my thoughts, nudging gently at some, while completely avoiding others. Then suddenly he was at the wall.
“Well done,” he sent. “That is the best first attempt I have seen in a long time.”
He poked at the wall, and then pushed. Finally, he shoved. I felt the barrier shudder, but it didn’t give.
“Very good. Now, seal it.”
I obeyed. It was harder than I expected. I visualized pouring mortar in between the bricks and over the top, shutting off the thought from the others that roamed across my consciousness.
Again, Errol prodded the defenses, checking for cracks, holes, and weak spots.
“Now shutter it.”
I obeyed and suddenly the defenses and thought were no longer detectable. I wouldn’t have known it was there, except I had been the one to cloak it.
Plum filled my thoughts as Errol looked for the Shuttered thought. After a few moments, he withdrew. “Now, maintain that until Korneli comes in the fall. I will have him look for it and we shall see if he can break your defenses.”
He made some notes in his log and then reached for my code book. I interrupted his movement with a question. It had been bothering me since we began studying the defensive training a week ago. “When am I ever going to need this? Are you planning on me being undercover or something?”
Errol pinned me with an amused glance. “This is standard material, Zez. Every talent trainee covers this stuff.”
“But what are you planning for me to be?”
“You already know the position opportunities available: Trainer, Assistant to the Sept Son, Defender, Tester, Recruiter, User, and other odd jobs.”
“But you and Selwyn have something specific in mind for me,” I pointed out.
Errol raised an eyebrow in my direction. Every aspect of his body language and facial expression spoke of innocent surprise, but I knew better. Somehow an essence of concerned fear flickered in my mind’s eye. He was trying to hide the fact that I was striking close to home. They did have plans for me, but I was not going to get them from him.
“Open your code book, Zez. It is time again to copy the allowed and disallowed offensive uses of the talents.”
I complied, flipping the heavy tome to the appropriate page and taking up my quill. However, my thoughts were not on the words I was writing. They were caught up in trying to figure out why Errol didn’t want me to know what he and Selwyn had planned.
“OVER HERE,” CANDRA answered my call from her perch on top of the tree house. “Could you come up? I am on the last row of thatch.”
“Go ahead and practice lifting yourself up,” Selwyn suggested as he poked his head out of the window below Candra. “I am here to spot you.”
I waited until I felt the tentative brushing of his energy around me. With my newly mastered energy-sight, I could see his field around me, floating grey specks in my peripheral vision. Touching my amoveo, the refreshing rush of the liquid energy flooded my being. With practiced care, I extended the field as Korneli had taught me. My own energy filled my senses, mingling my green with Selwyn’s gray.
Flicking slightly against the ground, I pushed off toward the overarching branches of the oak. I reached out toward the edge of the roof with my hands, checking my upward motion when my shoulders cleared the lip. The interaction between the physical and amoveo forces had taken me weeks to master, but now I could confidently use them both interchangeably and together.
“Do you need help?” I asked Candra.
Looking down at me from beneath her arm, Candra shook her head. “Not at the moment.”
“Then I will go help Selwyn.” I swung my feet toward the window sill, catching it with my bare toes. With practiced ease, I slipped in the window and landed firmly on the rough wooden boards of the floor. The darkness blinded me after the brightness of the outside, but I could still see Selwyn’s energy speckled among my green.
