Chapter 15 Training #2
“Most Cryptics will have more legs than you,” Luc said. “And more teeth. And more everything.”
He snapped a whip, and Rolan reacted too slow, swinging his sword and missing.
The whip nearly sliced his cheek, but Luc’s aim was always careful, and it missed Rolan by a hair.
He was quicker to respond to Luc’s next whip, twisting his sword and blocking the lash.
It wrapped around the blade and pulled taut.
Luc yanked, jerking Rolan off balance, and swung his other whip.
It twisted around Rolan’s leg and he fell with a shout.
“Ow!”
“Never compromise your weapon if you can help it,” Luc said.
Pushing himself up, Rolan wished they were practicing with daggers, which he was good at, or the bow, which he was terrible at, but at least it didn’t land him in the dirt.
“Time for a spelling test,” said Luc.
Nodding grimly, Rolan braced his feet on the ground and steadied his sword in his hands.
“Parry,” Luc barked.
With a grunt, Rolan whipped his sword up, knocking aside the stone Luc suddenly hurled his way. Then dutifully he recited, “P-A-R-R-Y.”
“Dodge!”
Rolan rolled, narrowly avoiding the next stone. “D-O-D-J-E.”
“D-O-D-G-E,” Luc corrected. “Strike!”
Rolan bolted forward, closing the distance between them in seconds. He brought his sword up and planted the tip against Luc’s broad chest. “S-T-R…” He paused. “… I-K-E.”
Luc grinned. “Very good.”
Stepping back, Rolan couldn’t help but return the smile. He felt good. Better than he ever had in his life. Nearly two months of steady meals, a warm place to sleep, and enough exercise to exhaust him by dinner, and he was practically a new person.
Only three dark spots remained in his life.
The first was that he still hadn’t figured out the trick of balancing on the wobbly pole.
No matter how many hours he spent struggling to stay atop it, he never made it past two minutes.
Never mind discovering whatever in truth’s name waited at the center of the world.
He couldn’t focus on that when he could barely focus on keeping upright.
The second dark spot was the fact his pa still had not come looking for him. Did Rabb know where he was? Why had he not come or found a way to send a message? What was he waiting for? Rolan found he could not probe this question too deeply, or it began to ache like a bad tooth.
Finally, there was the absence of Anaya. There were so many things he wanted to tell her, show her. What would she think of his new skills with a dagger? What would she say if he told her he could read now?
Despite their last argument, he’d hoped Evaine and Anaya would return as they’d promised. But they hadn’t. He could only assume they’d given up on him after all, and that Evaine wouldn’t try to take him from Luc again.
It left him feeling confused and conflicted. He didn’t want to leave the Arcanist. But he also didn’t want Evaine to give up on him. He certainly didn’t want to lose Anaya.
Later that day as he balanced precariously atop the pole, he gazed toward the city in the distance and sighed. The sigh cost him, as his foot slipped, his stomach lurched, and he landed face-first in the mud. Again.
Groaning, Rolan shoved himself up and hopped back onto the pole.
He would master this.
As he wobbled there, three feet off the ground, arms and free leg flailing for balance, he thought again of his pa. Maybe he doesn’t know where I am. Maybe Hoff and the duke never told anyone. But, no… half the city saw me riding off with the Arcanist that day. He must know.
Rolan yelped as he toppled backward, adding a mud stain to the rear of his trousers.
Back up on the pole he went, just as the clouds gave way above, releasing a steady rain.
Every thought is a rope binding you to the surface, Luc had told him, weeks ago. Cut the ropes.
Rolan shut his eyes and forced out all thoughts of his father. He tried to imagine himself sinking into inky darkness as raindrops ran down his face and his clothes grew sodden, clinging to him.
But he thought of Anaya.
And he fell again.
He thought of the itch on his elbow.
And he fell again.
He heard Supper bleat and hoped the goat wasn’t eating the carrots.
It was Rolan’s job to be sure Supper did not eat the carrots.
He inched one eye open to check, and fell again.
At least his startled shout frightened off the goat, who scampered toward the barn with a half-grown carrot dangling from his teeth.
Rolan dragged himself up inch by inch out of the mud, and with a weary sigh, he hauled himself onto the pole. This time it took a few attempts to even climb atop it. His leg was trembling with fatigue.
Where was Luc, anyway? The Arcanist no longer watched as Rolan struggled to master the balancing pole. He’d probably given up all hope that Rolan had a chance, and was no doubt cozied up by the fire in the house, warm and smug as a dog with a bone.
The next time Rolan fell, his jaw slammed the ground first, and his ears rang and his vision blurred. He scraped mud from his eyes, punched the ground, then clambered up the pole again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
For the thousandth time Rolan forced himself to make the short jump to the top of the pole. He landed on the ball of his left foot and slowly, slowly straightened. Weariness made his eyes water. Fatigue wrapped heavy hands around his ankles, threatening to pull him down to the ground yet again.
What waits at the center of the world?
If you can find the answer… he heard Luc’s rumbling voice. It shifted into Hoff’s. If you ever straighten yourself out… Then Evaine. If you would just go to school… Anaya. If you would stop being an idiot for five minutes…
His pa. If you could make yourself useful, boy, maybe I’d finally have a use for you!
But you can’t. You can’t. You can’t.
“SHUT UP!” Rolan roared.
Rolan pressed his eyes shut and pushed away all the voices, the doubts, and accusations from the people he hated and the people he loved.
He spread his arms wide and tilted his face toward the pouring rain, eyes shut and jaw tight.
Cut the ropes. So he did, snipping each one until finally, finally, all went quiet and still inside his head.
Rolan sank.
Slow and gentle, resisting any thought that tried to snag his attention.
He slipped down into the quiet dark and breathed, in and out, feeling soft and warm silence spread through his body.
Whenever a word or image floated into his brain, he made his thoughts go blank, refusing to let anything take hold of his mind.
Before long those stray thoughts grew less and less, as if he really were sinking into water so deep, no sound or light could reach him.
He began to feel weightless, as if he were floating, not falling.
Without even noticing it, he’d lost all sense of his physical body.
No longer could he feel the rain on his face, or the heaviness of his soaked clothes hanging off his frame, or the pressure on his foot where it balanced atop the pole. It was like falling asleep.
He had the sense of hanging in midair, suspended in a vast, infinite space of pitch black.
But instead of being afraid, he felt safer than he’d ever been before, as if he’d found some hidden back door inside his mind and had escaped through it to a place where no one could find him or hurt him or demand anything from him.
In this quiet, absolute dark, he simply was.
And then he saw… something.
In his periphery, suspended just out of sight, there was a form—a shadow darker than the dark all around it. Slowly, Rolan nudged his consciousness, trying to bring the thing into focus. As it drifted into the view of his mind’s eye, it grew brighter, taking on color and texture.
An apple.
Red, shining, and round, with splotches of brown and green.
He marveled at it, how it seemed more real than any apple he’d ever seen, its color brighter and its surface more textured.
It didn’t occur to him to wonder where it came from or why it was there.
It just was, the same as him. He stared at it and felt certainty settle deep in his chest.
Rolan’s eyes flew open.