Dal stopped and faced the class again. “But we are also servants of fire. Because fire is the most common form of energy, and without energy, our prowess as sympathists is of little use.” He turned his back to the class and began erasing formulae from the slate board. “Gather your materials, and we’ll see who has to knock heads with E’lir Kvothe today.” He began to chalk up a list of all the student’s names. Mine was at the top.
Three span ago, Dal had started making us compete against each other. He called it dueling. And though it was a welcome break from the monotony of lecture, this most recent activity had a sinister element too.
A hundred students left the Arcanum every year, perhaps a quarter of them with their guilders. That meant that every year there were a hundred more people in the world that had been trained in the use of sympathy. People who, for one reason or another, you might have to pit your will against later in life. Though Dal never said as much, we knew we were being taught something beyond mere concentration and ingenuity. We were being taught how to fight.
Elxa Dal kept careful track of the results. In the class of thirty-eight, I was the only one to remain undefeated. By this point, even the most thickheaded and grudging students were being forced to admit that my quick admittance to the Arcanum was something other than a fluke.
Dueling could also be profitable in a small way, as there was a bit of clandestine betting. When we wanted to bet on our own duels, Sovoy and I placed bets for each other. Though as a rule I usually didn’t have much money to spare.
Thus it was no coincidence that Sovoy and I bumped into each other while we were gathering our materials. I handed him two jots underneath the table.
He slid them into his pocket without looking at me. “Goodness,” he said quietly. “Someone’s pretty confident today.”
I shrugged nonchalantly, though in truth I was a little nervous. I had started the term penniless, and been scraping by ever since. But yesterday Kilvin had paid me for a span’s work in the Fishery: two jots. All the money I had in the world.
Sovoy began to rummage around in a drawer, bringing out sympathy wax, twine, and a few pieces of metal. “I don’t know how well I’ll be able to do for you. The odds are getting bad. I’m guessing three to one is the best you’ll get today You still interested if it gets that low?”
I sighed. The odds
Dal clapped his hands and everyone rushed to take their proper place. I was paired with a Vintish boy, Fenton. He was one step below me in the class ranking. I respected him as one of the few in the class that could pose a real challenge to me in the right situation.
“Right then,” Elxa Dal said, rubbing his hands together eagerly “Fenton, you’re lower on the ranks, pick your poison.”
“Candles.”
“And your link?” Dal asked ritualistically With candles it was always either wicking or wax.
“Wick.” He held up a piece for everyone to see.
Dal turned to me. “Link?”
I dug into a pocket, and held up my link with a flourish. “Straw.” There was a murmur from the class at this. It was a ridiculous link. The best I could hope for is a three percent transfer, maybe five. Fenton’s wicking would be ten times better.
“Straw?”
“Straw,” I said with slightly more confidence than I felt. If this didn’t tip the odds against me I didn’t know what would.
“Straw it is then,” Dal said easily. “E’lir Fenton, since Kvothe is undefeated you will have the choice of source.” A quiet laugh spread through the class.
My stomach dropped. I hadn’t expected that. Normally, whoever doesn’t pick the game gets to choose the source. I had been planning on choosing brazier, knowing that the quantity of heat would help offset my self- imposed handicap.
Fenton grinned, knowing his advantage. “No source.”
I grimaced. All we would have to draw from was our own body heat. Difficult in the best of circumstances, not to mention a little dangerous.
I couldn’t win. Not only was I going to lose my perfect rank, I had no way to signal Sovoy not to bet my last two jots. I tried to meet his eyes, but he was already caught up in quiet, intense negotiations with a handful of other students.
Fenton and I moved wordlessly to sit on opposite sides of a large work-table. Elxa Dal set two thick stumps of candle down, one in front of each of us. The object was to light your opponent’s candle without letting him do the same to yours. This involved splitting your mind into two different pieces, one piece tried to hold the Alar that your piece of wicking (or straw, if you were stupid) was the same as the wick of the candle you were trying to light. Then you drew energy from your source to make it happen.
Meanwhile the second piece of your mind was kept busy trying to maintain the belief that your opponent’s piece of wicking was
If all of this sounds difficult, believe me, you don’t know the half of it.
Making it worse was the fact that neither of us had an easy source to draw from. You had to be careful using yourself as source. Your body is warm for a reason. It responds badly when its heat is pulled away.
At a gesture from Elxa Dal, we began. I immediately devoted my whole mind to the defense of my own candle and began to think furiously. There was no way I could win. It doesn’t matter how skilled a fencer you are, you can’t help but lose when your opponent has a blade of Ramston steel and you’ve chosen to fight with a willow switch.
I lowered myself into the Heart of Stone. Then, still devoting most of my mind to the protection of my candle, I muttered a binding between my candle and his. I reached out and tipped my candle on its side, forcing him to make a grab for his before it did the same and rolled away.
I tried to take quick advantage of his distraction and set his candle aflame. I threw myself into it and felt a chill bleed up my arm from my right hand that held the piece of straw. Nothing happened. His candle remained cold and dark.
I cupped my hand around the wick of my candle, blocking his line of sight. It was a petty trick, and largely useless against a skilled sympathist but my only hope was to rattle him in some way
“Hey Fen,” I said. “Have you heard the one about the tinker, the Tehlin, the farmer’s daughter, and the butter churn yet?”
Fen gave no response. His pale face was locked in fierce concentration.
I gave up distraction as a lost cause. Fenton was too smart to be thrown off that way. Besides, I was finding it difficult to maintain the necessary concentration to keep my candle safe. I lowered myself more deeply into the Heart of Stone and forgot the world apart from the two candles and a piece of wick and straw.
After a minute I was covered in a clammy chill sweat. I shivered. Fenton saw this and gave me a smile with bloodless lips. I redoubled my efforts, but his candle ignored my best attempts to force it into flame.
Five minutes passed with the whole class quiet as stones. Most duels lasted no longer than a minute or two, one person quickly proving himself more clever or possessed of a stronger will. Both my arms were cold now. I saw a muscle in Fenton’s neck twitch spastically, like a horse’s flank trying to shake loose a biting fly. His posture went rigid as he suppressed the urge to shiver. A wisp of smoke began to curl from the wick of my candle.
I bore down. I realized that my breath was hissing through my clenched teeth, my lips pulled back in a feral grin. Fenton didn’t seem to notice, his eyes growing glassy and unfocused. I shivered again, so violently that I almost missed seeing the tremor in his hand. Then, slowly, Fenton’s head began to nod toward the tabletop. His eyelids drooped. I set my teeth and was rewarded to see a thin curl of smoke rise from the wick of his candle.
Woodenly, Fenton turned to look, but instead of rallying to his own defense he made a slow, leaden gesture
