Chapter 3 – Part 7 – Summoners
Anrui let the waves lull him as he waited for his students to finish their lessons with Grale, digging his fingers into the sand of the south beach and closing eyes heavy and gritted with exhaustion. The Moorish Regulator was working them long, clearly; Anrui had been waiting here long enough for the sun to begin to fail behind Jag Har’Oah’s rings far off to the south. Even the mighty rings of the God were cutting the sea on the horizon, speaking of a cool, long night. The long linen sarong he wore snapped in the wind, the sleeves of his open tunic tugging and playing with the heavy Bangles on his wrists. An hour before, he had abandoned his heavy black Shaped cloth cloak and his thin journal. He’d even left his Athama in his quarters; he wouldn’t need those things out here. The Bangles were enough.
The first week of training had gone well, so far. The Blackcards had arrived late, and many of them were still arriving or working on finding and shaping their first Athama. It had turned out that, after the storm, the ship had wrecked in the harbour, along with two fisher boats and a garbage scow. With the late arrival of Sahren Kesnell and her obvious talent for shielding, Anrui felt confident his crew would meet the Seasonals’ requirements. Six weeks left before those. Anrui already knew which three would end up as team captains for the Seasonals. But perhaps a new genius would come among the last few to arrive.
The weaver raised his hand, and called the Mists. About his outstretched arm burst a small measure of colourless gas, neither vapour nor smoke. Scholars had once tried to liken the Mists to things, to study its nature in the state before the act of Shaping, but had given up after fits of madness tore through their ranks. It simply was, and was not, until it was shaped into existence. This measure, Anrui drew about his arm and grasped, like a goblet. It merged, wended, formed and welded to itself, and became a small, round glass stone. A trinket, which the Regulator wound back and threw into the waves. The stone shivered and skipped over the water, letting out bursts of radical colour as it flew.
Many envied the Regulator’s ability to Call without the aid of gems and crystals. To Anrui,
though, it was simply part of life. The Mists were part of him. Some of the old Mages he had met felt the same way, but none ever did by his age. He remembered how hard it was to learn when he was studying under the old master of the college, Beispel Borlan. Even with all the talent he had, and all of the Accord Council’s vast knowledge, the difference between Anrui’s Weaving and Firehand’s Shaping was just too much. The young Regulator sincerely hoped at least one of his students this year would prove astute enough to learn his ways, so he wouldn’t have to explain over and over again. The Regulator loved teaching. It was the teaching-so-others-can-learn that was hard.
He leaned forward, turning his head at a shadow behind him.
“Come to bug your teacher have you? Don’t blame you. I’m a wide open target here on the sand.”
“Grale dismissed us,” the smallish girl behind him said slowly as she ambled up beside Anrui, still wearing the bandages of the day’s training. Today had been the first round of shielding work, which of course meant that most of the Blackcards would be incapacitated. Mireya was a major Talent, perhaps even a Warder or a Negator, it was too early to be sure.
“Two of the others have blows to their heads, and six wear casts for broken bones.”
“How many are walking still,” Anrui enquired.
“Just Rhayd Khalenn and myself. And that Sahren girl. By Rahrin, she’s good.”
“I expected as much of her. And of you. I’m surprised Rhayd is up and about, though.”
“Well, he’s walking, but not up. One of the field mages showed him where the public house was.”
At that, Anrui could only laugh. Someone always showed the new cadets where the drinking holes were, and one or two students always ended up sucked in nightly.
“We’re not doing too well, are we?” Mireya muttered, staring out over the waves. A rogue melancholy struck her and she found herself retrieving a small pebble and making a feeble attempt to skip it with her off hand. “It seems like none of us are making any progress. We’ve been at this for a week now, I feel like I’m not living up to the talent I’ve been sent here to foster.”
“To be perfectly honest, cadet, I hadn’t expected to see any of you Calling more than a few motes for nearly a season. You’ve shown talent – a few of you have.” The man smiled softly, choosing another stone from the ground and bruising at it with his thumb. “Time reveals all, child. Within a few weeks more, you should be seeing some changes in teaching styles, and I won’t be your sole instructor any longer. Not after today. Some of us are good with certain talents, but none of us are good with everything. I’ll have to ask that you simply be as diligent as you can for now, and watch how things progress. Who knows, one or two wild talents among you may show through, and won’t that change things?”
“Wild talent? I thought all talent was wild?” Mireya was clearly confused.
“No,” Anrui said, turning to face his student finally. “I mean that some talents burgeon faster than others. Sometimes, in the presence of limited training and extreme need, one’s true abilities come to flower with such grace and alacrity that often one feels as though the power has been there all along. It’s the blooming of these talents I’m here to oversee. Ones like my upperclassman, Emura Garan. He’s a slouch, son of a noble house from Lorn– a Regulator, actually, one of my teachers from years ago. But you wouldn’t believe some of the things he’s capable of when put in the presence of sapphire and jade. His healing power is immense, and his proficiency with elemental flame is frightening. Only Calenhad Firehand himself among the current batch of instructors here knows more about the elementals than Emura, and he hasn’t even passed his third seasonal examination here yet. Can’t get past the Ethics.”
“Ethics,” Mireya huffed, frowning. “I thought we were here to learn magic.”
“Never confuse magic with Weaving,” Anrui countered, raising his hands and calling another small glass stone into being. “Magic is a trick. Any of a thousand ways of deceiving the mind or body of another. Many Weavers incorporate magic into their Weaving, but no mere magician could ever haul down a building with sheer mental force, or create so much as a small stone such as this. Some of the most powerful among us may even create new living creatures, dependant on their will alone for survival, without the need of food or other sustenance.”
“Summoners?”
“Yes. Summoners.” Anrui turned, snapping the rock out into the waves. “There hasn’t been a fully fledged Summoner at the academy for nearly twenty years. The last, Zolo Andalerom, chose to follow his heart rather than the duty he was handed, and left for Borland’s Chain and a minor posting as Arbiter there. Before then there were perhaps a dozen recorded since the institution of the Regulators. Ansolen Lemiticron, the Duke of Merdol and the instigator of the War of Ascension, was also a Summoner some believe.”
Mireya shook her head. It was hard to believe such a stunning power could exist so little, and even worse, that the talent seemed to fall into such undeserving hands. She said so.