Convergence (6 page)

Once he had settled himself in the carriage, Fod shook the reins to get the team moving. Fod had driven Clarion often enough to know better than to attempt conversation, so that was one annoyance Clarion would not have to put up with on
the way
to
the depot. Instead his
thoughts dwelled on the fact that he had never traveled
anywhere
alone before except for an occasional drive in the country. He hadn't even gone alone to parties at the homes of those of his class here in Haven Wraithside. Mother had always been there to accompany him, even when she herself, because of the age group involved, had not been invited to the party.

But she'd always gone anyway, and when invitations had stopped coming for him, she'd taken him to the parties
she
was invited to. They were usually dull affairs, with no one even close to his age attending, but his going had pleased Mother so. And after the way she had given up
her
time to play with him as a child, refusing to force him to make do with other children as most parents did, she was entitled to be repaid with pleasure. That she had been too busy with her own affairs to give him a
l
o
t
of time that way was a tragedy she had always regretted, and was certainly not something she should be blamed for.

Nevertheless, Clarion was now in the position of having to travel alone for the first time in his life. The prospect was daunting if not downright frightening, and at first Clarion had flatly refused to do it. Mother had spent the usual amount of time talking him around, but then a strange thing had happened. Rather than sulking over having to do something other than what he wanted to, Clarion had begun to think about being on his own—and the concept had held an odd appeal. As though it were something he'd wanted to do for quite some time, but hadn't
realized
he wanted it.

Clarion sighed as he looked around, noticing that they were almost to the coach depot. He hadn't noticed leaving the neighborhood of elegant homes which was his class's part of the city, but getting to the depot was taking his attention. If Mother had heard that she would have known at once that there was something wrong with him, and there certainly must be. Imagine, ignoring the proper for the highly irregular! What
could
he be thinking of?

Fod brought the horses to a stop in front of the depot,
then
saw to unloading Clarion's trunk while Clarion took his time getting his tall, fairly well-built body out of the carriage. That Lord Astrath was supposed to be meeting him here with the coach tickets and a trifling amount of silver, as though
he
couldn't afford to buy his own tickets even without their silver. Clarion had agreed to ignore the insult when he'd been assured that the law demanded the tickets and silver be provided, but ignoring an insult didn't mean forgetting about it.

Fod touched his cap respectfully before climbing back into the carriage, and a moment later he and the carriage were off back to Mother's house. Clarion had considered ordering the driver to wait at least until Astrath arrived, but then had thought better of it. Every servant in the house knew he had never gone anywhere alone, and having Fod wait with him would have been an admission of fear the whole staff would have gotten a good laugh over. And now that the thing was actually beginning, there was more than a slight taste of anxiety in his throat—

"Look out!" Clarion heard in a shout from behind him, along with screams and the sound of people running. Wondering what the peasants were up to
now,
Clarion turned— then had to move faster than he'd ever thought would be necessary. Someone had created a
fireball,
and if Clarion hadn't jumped out of its path, it would have rolled—and burned—right through and over him.

People were still running and screaming as the flaming thing stopped short and then began to come back again, but

Clarion was too angry to notice. Having to jump aside had mussed his suit, and even worse, his hat had tumbled into the dirt. Just on the day he most wanted to look his best, some
fool
came along and played tricks with a Fire talent. Whoever it was must be the sort to enjoy watching people scurry, but Clarion Mardimil scurried for no one! This time the wrong victim had been chosen, a fact he was perfectly ready to prove.

Just as the fireball began to come back toward him, Clarion reached out with both his hands and his mind. Air was the aspect of his talent, which made his reaching hands doubly foolish; if Clarion had cared enough about the opinions of others, he might have pointed out that he'd developed the habit as a child while playing alone, and had never felt the need to do otherwise. But Clarion didn't care, and no one asked in any event. He simply reached out with two hands and the talent of his mind—and the fireball was stopped in its tracks.

Manipulating thickened air to stop the thing pleased Clarion, but not for long. As soon as he allowed the air to thin again the fireball would be free once more, and even beyond that no lesson would be taught to whomever had formed it. The raging fire needed to be permanently stilled or the "game" would
continue,
an eventuality Clarion had no patience for.

So he immediately began to destroy the annoyance that had caused him to become rumpled. Using the thickened air as "gloves" for his mental hands, he formed a very tall cylinder around the roiling flames and then began to press inward. The narrowing cylinder forced the flames to narrow as well, making them very tall and thin rather than thick and round. They rose higher and higher as they were compressed more and more, but Clarion didn't need to see the top of the flames to keep them encased in thickened air. He knew where every inch of that blazing column was, through its contact with the air around it.

In no time the column was compressed so completely that it would have looked like the dot of
an
i
from above or below. That was when Clarion began to use tiny ribbons of air to separate small sections of flame,
then
he sent a quick breeze across the areas one by one to blow out the tiny fires. In its original form the fireball couldn't have been extinguished with a breath even if it had been a giant doing the blowing, but all stretched out like that
...
As the column shrank it even became possible to see the sparks go out one after the other, an amusing touch that quite lightened Clarion's mood.

It actually took almost two minutes, but at the end of the time there was nothing left of the fireball. Clarion relinquished his hold on the magic that was his oldest and dearest friend, brushed
himself
to rights, then went to see what condition his hat was in.

"Lord Clarion, what's been happening here?" a voice demanded as he frowningly inspected his hat, somewhat relieved to find it dirty but otherwise unharmed. "Some of those people seem to be hurt. Are
you
all right?"

"Apart from being thoroughly annoyed, Astrath, of course I'm all right," Clarion replied, finally looking at the other man. "Although I must say
it's
no thanks to you, not when you obviously took your time getting here. Perhaps, after all this, it isn't beyond hope that today's coach has been canceled."

"The coach is coming now," Astrath replied, glancing over Clarion's shoulder with his own frown. "I have your tickets and silver here, but you haven't yet told me what happened. Everyone looks positively harrowed, but you—"

"But
I
am a noble of family and breeding," Clarion interrupted with a faint smile. "Superiority lies not only in the title, but in the doing, you know. I would love to stay and chat, but I'm afraid the coach personnel might take a dim view of such a pastime and simply leave me standing here. Do feel free to question anyone else in the vicinity. I'm sure they'll be able to tell you everything you want to know."

Clarion put his hand out then, and with the coach actually pulling up beside the curb, Astrath had no choice but to hand over both tickets and silly little purse of silver—
without
asking any more questions. The look of frustration in the man's eyes almost made that whole wretched situation worthwhile, and Clarion was able to climb into the coach with a smile after he directed the depot man in loading his trunk into the boot.

The smile remained on Clarion's face until the coach pulled away from the depot and there was no one about to watch it disappear. The journey had begun, then, with no miracle occurring to save him from it. Now he really was completely on his
own, and by the time he reached Gan Garee he ought to know if he hated the situation—or
actually loved it.

Do you understand now about my comment concerning Clarion's habit of putting on "airs?" With his aspect being Air magic, how could he do anything else? I was punning, you see—
Oh
, all right, so I'm
not
doing this simply to amuse you. You want me to get on with the narrative. That's probably because you missed the pun and now
you 're
annoyed, but that's all right, I'll let you go on simply pretending you're sophisticated. . . .

I'd intended to introduce Valiant Ro next, but for some reason everyone insists the turn should be mine. I'm delighted
I'm
the one writing this narrative all alone, otherwise people might feel free to come by and tell me how to do it. . . Oh, very well, if that will keep them from pestering me for a while. This is the story of me, Tamrissa Domon.

Four

Tamrissa Domon—Fire Magic

My mother said, "Stop being stubborn, Tamrissa. You
will
marry again, since your father means to find you another suitable match as soon as you're home again.
Which will probably be in less than a week.
"

"Meaning you don't expect me to pass the test for High," I responded without turning. "And what do you mean
another
suitable match? The first was a disaster, and I refuse to go through something like that again."

"The first was a matter of
business,
girl," she said slowly and distinctly, clearly speaking to someone she considered unfortunately simple minded. "Gimmis wanted you badly enough that he was willing to leave his business interests to your father as long as there were no offspring from the match. It took gold to buy the information from the man's physician, but we did find out that there would
be
no children from the marriage, nor would it be long before we had our legacy. It all worked out just as it was supposed to, and now your father is probably the
most well
-diversified merchant in all of Gan Garee."

"Well,
good
for
him!"
 
I said with very false enthusiasm, finally turning to look at her where she sat. "And all it took to make it happen was throwing
me
to the wolves. But let's not forget I'll be rewarded for my sacrifice. Now that Father has what he wants, I've earned the privilege of letting him do it to me all over again. Well, guess what? You two may be ready for seconds, but I refuse to participate. This house belonged to my late husband, and since it isn't part of the business interests it now belongs to me. You and Father can find some other fool to sacrifice to his ambition."

"Why, Tamrissa, why do you refuse to learn?" my mother demanded wearily, briefly rubbing at her eyes. "This house doesn't
have
to be part of the business interests for your father to claim it, which he fully intends to do. This is an excellent neighborhood, and the house will bring in a tidy sum in gold when he sells it. That means you
can't
stay here, and we won't see a daughter of ours living on the street. You
will
come home to us, and I won't hear any further nonsense."

"Oh, won't you," I said in a growl, interrupting her preparations to stand. "To you
it's
all nonsense, and you don't care to hear any more of it? What a shame, since I'm really anxious to show off what I learned during the two years of this
'marriage.'"

"Why do you always insist on making a scene?" she began in exasperation, light eyes clearly showing her annoyance. "You know that in the end you
have
to obey your father, the law says so. You tried to refuse the first time, and how far did
that
get you?"