Farmers & Mercenaries Read online

  When they entered the hall, most of the benches sat empty. A few girls, his two little sisters included, scurried about cleaning off dirty dishes and wiping down tables. Tary’Ona, the younger of his female siblings, beamed at him without pausing in her work.

  Two tables, however, still held food plates and clean place settings. Siln pointed to the one Mag’Oella leaned over as she set down the skillet of eggs their Ma had given her. The boys headed for it.

  A large man sat on the bench opposite the spot they chose. “Morn, Siln, Arderi.”

  “Morn, Mir’am Toln.” Both young men eyed each other for having said the same thing simultaneously, and then settled themselves onto the bench. “Where is Riln?” Arderi added this once they were seated.

  “He ate at first-serving this morn, same as the last few days. I think he is taking being a man more to heart.” Sorn Toln shoveled a spoonful of turnip mash into his mouth.

  “Good for him.” Arderi looked down at the food spread out on the table.

  Of course, when you find out what your son has really been up to… well, I would not want to be Riln at that moment. Which reminds me, I need to figure out what he has been up to, in case his harebrained scheme includes me somehow.

  Mir’am Toln pointed his spoon at Arderi. “You are less than a tenday behind him, are you not? When is your big day?”

  Siln sat next to Arderi, stuffing himself as if he had not a care in his heart.

  “Aye, Mir’am Toln, tis this day.”

  “Well, good for you! Everyone is excited about your Test! Just think, you might be even more gifted with the Essence than your older brother, Alant. You parents are so proud!” Mir’am Toln leaned forward with a serious look. “Now you watch out for whatever your Ma has planned for later this eve, hear?”

  Arderi knew only too well that his Ma would not pass the day without some fanfare. He remembered what his two older brothers were forced to endure on their sixteenth naming days, and he was not relishing what this eve may bring. Pushing the unpleasant image from his mind, he turned his thoughts to filling his stomach.

  In addition to the fresh pan of fried eggs Mag’Oella had just delivered, plates of smoked pork strips, turnip mash, rice pudding, and that wonderful smelling, fresh-baked bread lined the table. He loaded his plate with some of all of it, scooped out a glob of butter from the center dish, and forgot all about Riln Toln, and whatever mischief he might or might not be up to. He pushed away thoughts of any impending ceremonies his Ma may have planned for him as well.

  I hate being the center of attention.

  After the last man had left the table, Arderi buttered one more piece of bread and stuffed it into his mouth. Most of it still stuck out between his lips as he raced out of the dining hall and down the passage to the main entrance. Hurrying out the wooden doors, he stopped long enough to mumble morn to the elders who sat on the porch for their daily gathering, before sprinting down the cobblestone street toward the fielder’s gate.

  Rounding the bend, he was relieved to see the wagons still sat at the gate, and slowed to a jog. A light morn breeze fluttered past, mussing his sandy brown hair, and he drank in the cool air. It reminded him how much he loved the early springtime of the Northron Plains.

  The air is always fresher here at the gate than deeper within the walls of the stead.

  “I see you finally decided to drag yourself down here.” Siln, sitting in the back of a wagon next to their father, was grinning like a fool as Arderi ambled up.

  Their father, Tanin Cor, leaned down and extended a hand to Arderi. “Well wishes, Son.”

  “Well wishes, Papa.” Arderi took his father’s hand and hopped into the back of the wagon.

  Tanin was a good-sized man. He kept his face clean-shaven, and the sandy brown hair on top of his head, now showing a sprinkling of gray, cut short. Not the tallest nor broadest man in the stead, he stood a bit over two paces. Wide shoulders and strong arms gave him a look many mistook for that of a guarder instead of a simple fielder. He did not even have the gut many fielders his age developed. Most agreed that Arderi, of all Tanin’s sons, favored his father in looks and build, and would soon be the tallest in their family.

  “How do you feel this morn, Papa?” Arderi plopped himself onto the bench next to his friend, Riln Toln, who flashed him a sly look and that wait-till-you-hear-what-I-did grin of his.

  I must figure out what he has been up to these past few morns.

  “Fine, fine.” Arderi knew his father would not have admitted it, had the man been dying of pain. “The Shapers delivered a Crystal from Alant this morn. He is to leave Mocley to be schooled now in Hath’oolan.” Mir’am Cor raised a hand to forestall Arderi’s questions. “He did not say the reason for this, yet says he is well, and sends his love.”

  “Hath’oolan!” Arderi blurted once he was sure his father had finished speaking. He could not believe his ears. Hath’oolan, the capital city of the fabled Isle of Elmorr’eth, was the birth home of the Elmorians, the most powerful Shapers on the entire Plane.

  Some say it is the birth home for the Essence itself, with all its power flowing from there!

  Arderi’s mind raced. “Alant must be more powerful than even the Grand Master Shaper suspected! Do you have the Crystal with you, Papa? Can I draw upon it now? Please?” Unable to hide the plea in his voice, he chastised himself for sounding like a babe in swaddling clothes.

  Tanin chuckled, and a smile stretched above his strong chin. “Nix, Arderi, I would not bring a Crystal to the fields. It is safe at home. You may draw upon it this eve, and hear for yourself what Alant has to say, and see what he has imbued on it.” He patted Arderi on the shoulder. “Are you excited about being Tested?”

  A lump formed in Arderi’s throat and he made a sound he hoped his father would take for an affirmative answer.

  Leaning against the back wall of the wagon bed, Tanin smiled at his son. “Aye, I know you are scared, son. Yet, keep in mind, everyone your age must be Tested. And we all survived. Besides, think of how wonderful it will be to follow Alant to Mocley and be trained as a Shaper.”

  “Move out!” The guarder captain, a grizzled looking man by the name of Flinnok Nime, shouted the command from his horse at the front of the small caravan.

  One by one, the wagons lurched as the teamsters urged their horses forward. Arderi rocked back with the motion of the wagon as it started down the road toward the fields.

  They did not have far to travel. The field they were going to work lay close to the stead, only one section past the animal pastures that surrounded the outer walls. Not wanting to think about the Test, Arderi gazed out over a herd of sheep grazing near the road, and to a group of herders who lounged beneath the shade of an old oak tree resting near the fence. He felt a pang of jealousy toward the men sitting around in a circle talking.

  As if Riln had read his mind, he leaned over close to Arderi. “Do not envy those lazy herders.” His whisper had a conspiratorial edge to it. “They have a surprise in store for them.”

  Arderi shot him a quizzical look, yet Riln held his tongue for once.

  Letting his eyes linger on the group, Arderi wondered once more what Riln had been up to. Herders occupied public houses on the opposite side of the stead from the fielders. They tended the many animals that lived within the walls of the stead. Even though Arderi did not envy them for how long their day was—having the job of taking all the animals from the protection of the stead walls and leading them to pasture morn after morn, as well as bringing them back inside eve after eve—he still saw their aurns in between as ill spent. “I do not think they work as hard during the day as we fielders do.”

  Arderi was speaking to no one in particular, although Riln chimed in. “Because they are lazy!”

  “I would not be so fast to judge.” Shaking his head, Tanin gave Riln a disapproving look. “Remember the saying, first to ris
e, last inside, a herders day is long.”

  “Mayhaps.” Arderi glanced over at his Papa. “Yet they sure do sit a lot during that long day of theirs.”

  His father grinned back at him. “It is only what you see on the ride to and from the fields, my boy.” Waving a hand, the older man indicated the vast pastures that hugged the stead’s wall. “They also handle all of the slaughtering and skinning. I do believe you enjoy the meat they provide. And do not forget the wool and hides that you wear.” A guarder, one of many accompanying the work detail, trotted by on a horse, and Tanin nodded to him before turning his attention back to the boys. . “Aye, they may sit a lot during the day.” Tanin raised one eyebrow. “Alas, remember we fielders let our fields run fallow during the winter season. Herders are still out there, day after day, season after season, regardless of the weather.”

  Arderi pulled his feet under him and sat up for more comfort on the hard, wooden bench. “It is not as if we fielders do not work during the winter moons.”

  “Aye.” Tanin nodded sagely. “Alas, most of our day is spent on inside work, mending or making tools and the like. Not out in the cold, wet weather.”

  “I never thought of it that way, Papa.” Glancing back down the road, Arderi stared at the small group of herders as they faded from view.

  “Nix!” Riln’s whisper was sharp, and he directed it into Arderi’s ear so as not to be overheard. “I know it was some stinking herder who dumped the load of dung in my sleeping room. I still have to leave the window open for the smell. Yet, soon…” He sat back and smiled, bobbing his head like a fool in rhythm with the bounce of the wagon.

  Leaning over toward his friend, Arderi kept his voice in the same conspiratorial whisper. “At halfmeal we shall steal away. You must tell what you have planned.”

  Riln nodded, his eyes twinkling.

  Flopping back to enjoy the warm spring sun, Arderi followed the one stray cloud drifting high in the clear blue sky.

  What a perfect day. Not too hot, nice cooling breeze. A shame this day is not Holiday. At least the tenday is more than half-gone, and Holiday will be here soon.

  Reality appeared skewed—akin to peering through a kaleidoscope. A mish-mash of colored points of light floated in Alant Cor’s field of vision, swirling and bouncing all around him.

  Like opening my eyes under water, yet instead of a wavy view, everything looks crisp and clear. I just cannot tell what anything is!

  “Now, Alant, focus. Bend your mind and see me.” The voice of Sier Sarlimac, one of Alant’s teachers here at the Chandril’elian of Mocley, came from somewhere in front of him. “Tell me what I am holding.” Strain as he might, Alant could see no difference in the sparkle of colors spinning around him.

  Focusing on the voice, Alant let his mind relax, allowing the floating swirls of colors to differentiate from one another on their own, as he had been taught. Within moments, his eyes adapted, adjusting to the foreign sight they beheld. Nothing changed in the dots themselves, yet his Sier’s face extracted itself from the surrounding background. It did not change colors, nor did it take on any real shape or form. Rather, Alant saw that the colored dots of Sarlimac’s face connected, interacting in a way he did not quite understand, distinguishing themselves from the dots surrounding his teacher’s face. Soon, patterns emerged and the contents of the room took shape before him in the eerie, multi-colored Sight of the Essence.

  Finally, once Alant was certain he grasped what he saw, he was confident enough to answer. “You hold a book.” Then more details became clear. “And you are not even looking at me!”

  “Impressive.” His instructor chuckled. “You outpace your classmates by at least two turns of the seasons.”

  Alant realized that Sier Sarlimac no longer stood in front of him, although he had not noticed the old man moving away. “You have moved.”

  “Yes, I now stand by the marble lab table.” The voice came from his right. “Can you see me?”

  As Alant twisted his head toward where he assumed his instructor stood, the suddenness of his movement caused the dots that created reality as he now saw it, to shift violently. He could no longer separate the colored dots into the patterns that made up his surroundings. Everything once again became a maddened mingling of indistinguishable points of color. Out of reflex, he whipped out a hand to steady himself on the stool.

  I am like a blind man. A dizzy blind man!

  “Do not lose the Sight, Alant. Here, I will take your arm.”

  A hand grasped Alant’s elbow and helped him rise from his stool. He let the Sier guide him the few steps to the table. As they walked forward, the colored dots spun out of focus and everything blurred in a way that made his stomach queasy. If not for Sier Sarlimac holding his arm, Alant feared he would fall.

  “Easy. Easy now. There you are.”

  They stopped walking and the dots snapped back into sharp focus. One moment they were like a swarm of buzzing bees whizzing around him in an angry mass, the next frozen in midair about him.

  “Now, the marble table sits in front of you. I want you to focus on it if you can. You know what it looks like with your normal sight—now see it as it looks in the Sight of the Essence.”

  Alant let his eyes adjust once more, his mind fighting to make sense of the chaotic image before him. “Aye, Sier, large and flat.” He studied what he saw. “Nothing is on it.”

  “I will add something now. Tell me what you see.” A rustling sound permeated the room.

  “A book.” Alant was quick with his answer.

  “Look closely.”

  “Aye, Sier, not a book, not enough there to be a book—” Alant paused. The pattern appeared the same as a book, yet also somehow different. “Some parchment, then?”

  “Yes, good.” Sarlimac held the tone in his voice that made Alant feel like a happy puppy dog. “Now I will add a second piece to the right, do you see it?”

  “Aye, Sier. At first, it too looks like a book. Then I see there is not enough interaction. It is like seeing water in a large puddle and thinking it is deep—only to realize later that it is shallow.”

  “A perfect analogy.” Sarlimac chuckled. “Now, I will light one piece of parchment on fire.”

  A lantern shutter squeaked. Alant was silent as the colored dots moved about and shifted hues. “The parchment on the right has changed, Sier.” He took another moment to better understand what he saw. “It does not seem any brighter, however, only altered.”

  “Yes, the Essence shows everything at the same luminosity. It is for you to see how the Essence of the parchment is changed by the fire.”

  “It is different, Sier, like the colored dots—”

  “Spectals.” Sarlimac voice had an exasperated edge to his correction, and Alant chastised himself for the slip.

  “Aye, Sier, the Spectals move slower now, and the parchment has more blue in it.”

  “Very well done.” Off to Alant’s left he heard the leather of one of the plush chairs in the room groan under the weight of his instructor. “And now what does it look like?”

  Alant studied the two collective piles of colored dots.

  Not dots! Spectals.

  “They both still have the look of parchment, Sier. The one you burned, however, seems smaller, somewhat constricted now. Oh, and very blue. Its Spectals move even slower now, hardly at all.”

  “You may release the Sight now, Alant.”

  The Essence slipped from Alant’s eyes like water passing over a sheet of glass. A grayish, shadowy chamber materialized around him. The strain of the shift forced him to rub his eyes. After a moment, the room became clear; in his normal vision, everything seemed dark compared to viewing it with the Sight of the Essence. He stood where he had assumed, a few paces from the large, black-gray marble table. The only light in the room spilled from the few lanterns that hung in its corners. The piece of parchm
ent Sier Sarlimac had burnt still lay on the table, crumpled and black.

  A useless pile of ash.

  The small lab, where Alant had spent more sessions in private lessons than he cared to remember, was lined with bookshelves stuffed with bound books, rolled parchment, and anything else that would fit upon them—dried and bleached skulls, as varied in size as in style, pieces of colored glass or crystal, small carved statues, and more that Alant had never been able to identify, even up close. A set of four leather chairs, a half dozen stools, and the large granite table was the only other furniture in the room.

  His instructor, Sier Sarlimac, was a plump old man with a shaggy, white-gray beard that did not quite cover his chin. He sat lounging in one chair, his dark blue robes stretched tight over his ample belly. Golden starbursts lined the cuffs and hem of the robe, marking Sarlimac as a Master Shaper. “You see, Alant.” The teacher motioned for Alant to sit in the leather chair opposite him. “As you have learned, the Essence resides in all things. We see it as Spectals, this you know. It is a fact that can never change. What we can change is the item’s potential here in the physical Plane.” He pointed back to the table. “Could I burn the burnt parchment again?”

  “Nix, Sier.” Alant lowered himself into the plush chair. “It would not catch again.”

  “Why?”

  “You cannot burn it twice, Sier, everyone knows this.”

  “Can you write on the burnt parchment?”

  “Nix, Sier, it is now ash.”

  “Is that so? Did it change to the pattern of ash while you watched it using the Sight of the Essence?” Sarlimac put his hands in the form of a steeple and placed the point under his chin on a spot that had no hair, as he often did when lecturing. Several coarse bristles of his beard stuck out at odd angles.

  “Nix, Sier. When I looked upon it with the Sight, it seemed to remain parchment. The Spectals simply changed color, most turning blue… And they moved more slowly.”