Meraude
The girl’s name was Egreet, Meraude had learned. Eleven other Blest, females only, stood in the circular room, each taking covert looks at each other when they thought they weren’t being watched. Like the lean Egreet, each had had their hair cut close and were dressed in flowing white linen trousers and fitted leather vests.
“Sit,” Meraude said, motioning to the wooden benches in the center of the room.
Everyone took their seat at once, except for Egreet, who seemed ready to run for the door where General Tindra stood, hand clasped around the grip of the sword that hung from her side. The girl seemed to think the better of running, however, and took the bench in the back row.
Meraude studied them for a moment and then announced, “You must be hungry. Eat.” She motioned to the feast that had been set out before them on the floor.
The girls hesitated, regarding Meraude with unbridled curiosity and then fell upon the feast without ceremony. All did this, except for Egreet. She did not move.
“It’s not poisoned.”
Egreet clenched her jaw and continued to sit there, undecided, then closed her eyes and frowned in apparent concentration. Her eyes moved behind their shutters, and her face registered several different expressions. She opened her eyes and looked at Meraude, cautious yet curious. Then, with a shrug, the girl rose and skirted the others, reached her hand in, and snatched a few slices of smoked ham, which she ate slowly.
Few talked and fewer still watched Meraude, only stealing glances at the general by the door. Those who did look at Meraude were curious more than anything. The look she trained on them in return was bored, though secretly she was on the watch for any signs of potential like she had seen in the arena the day before. These had better be the best of the clans.
Each clan was comprised of different Blest women and their keepers, and each came from a different school of thought and ability. Elsted, a girl Meraude observed snatching food out of the hands of others, was a trained warrior whose mother had imbibed from the Enduring Goblet. At the same time, the girl on her left, whose name Meraude had not bothered to commit to memory, was an untrained Sightful whose mother had drunk from the Seeing Goblet. Some of the Blest were second generation, their mothers being Blest themselves plus having drunk from a Goblet. Only two in the group were doubly Blest. There was Egreet, untrained and raw, and Ing, who had been trained to control her brawn if not her foresight. The latter regarded Egreet with a wary eye as she ate, as if sensing this girl, too, was special.
They had been allowed to eat in peace long enough, Meraude observed. It was time to test their dispositions. Closing her eyes, Meraude latched on to a girl’s slice of bread and Dismissed it when she had looked away.
The girl glared at her neighbor, a trained Endurer, who was scarfing down her own bread. “That’s mine,” the first said, attempting to snatch it from her.
Meraude concentrated again and Summoned the bread onto the Endurer’s lap.
“I took nothing from you,” said the Endurer.
Egreet’s eyes went to Meraude and she frowned. She started to speak, perhaps to inform the others of what was going on, but seemed to think the better of it and backed away.
“That’s mine,” said the untrained Sightful again as the other held the bread out of her reach.
“There’s plenty to be had,” said Ing. She had apparently not looked ahead, not like two other Sightfuls, who jumped out of the way.
Meraude did not need to possess the gift of foresight in order to determine what was to happen next: sixty years, three attempted armies, and two cleansings had taught her what to expect from the expression on the untrained Sightful’s face.
After failing to get back what was hers, the girl lunged at the Endurer and started clawing at the other’s face. A howl of pain went up from the Sightful, whose nails were now bent and bloody.
The Enduring child looked bored and without a scratch on her face. “I told you, there’s plenty more.”
Meraude focused for a moment and Dismissed all the food, eliciting a few screams from the girls, who had apparently heard nothing of the Summoning Goblet. All eyes went to Tindra, who quirked an amused smile.
“Don’t look at me.” The Endurer flashed her rotting teeth and the girls slowly turned their focus back to the front of the room opposite the door, where Meraude stood.
“How’d you do that?” Ing asked, her eyes narrowed.
“How’d you do that, milady,” Meraude corrected her.
The child scoffed, something Meraude would handle later, and said, “All right. How’d you do that, milady?”
Meraude Summoned a chair behind her and perched on the edge. “What do you know of the Goblets Immortal?”
Most of them exchanged confused glances, though Ing’s and Egreet’s eyes met each other, their expressions unfathomable. The Endurer who had been attacked raised her thick arm after a moment, and Meraude pointed to her. “Goblets? You mean like drinking goblets?”
“She said they were immortal, dummy,” said a trained Sightful. “That means they can’t die.”
Before the others could speak up with their ridiculous assumptions and ideas, Meraude raised a hand. Unlike the soldiers under her command, the children did not quiet. They will have to learn the hard way, I see. “Silence.” Meraude flicked her wrist, and the one talking loudest suddenly found her jaw dislocated.
The girl screamed, and the others backed away from the example in their midst.
“When I tell you to do something,” said Meraude, her tone measured and just loud enough to be heard above the injured girl’s whimpers, “you do it without hesitation. You do not want me as your enemy. Understand?”
The others nodded mutely.
“General Tindra,” Meraude said to the woman at the door.
The general stood more erect. “Milady?”
“See this chatty girl to the infirmary and then return to your post.”
Tindra bowed and motioned for the girl to follow her. “Come, child. Dawdling won’t heal you.” She nodded once to Meraude as the girl scurried over. The child was clutching her face and whimpering, and only after the door had shut again did she continue screaming.
The group was unsettled, to say the least. Perhaps now they would listen.
“Would anyone else care to join her?”
All of them shook their heads, and a few muttered their dissent. “No, milady,” said Egreet and Ing, avoiding her gaze.
Meraude hid her surprise, which was instantly followed by suspicion. “Good. Now, we were discussing the Goblets Immortal.” She sat back in her seat and motioned for the girls to resume sitting on their benches, which they did posthaste. “There are six Goblets: the Seeing Goblet, which some of you have experience with, the Drifting Goblet, the Enduring Goblet – another one familiar to a few of you – the Summoning Goblet, the Questing Goblet, and the Warring Goblet. Each of these magical vessels was made from molten wizard blood. By themselves, each fuels whosoever drinks from them with different abilities. Unite all the Goblets, and the drinker becomes invulnerable and undefeatable, with powers beyond any wizard’s for a time.” So, they haven’t heard. “Are you with me so far?”
The girls nodded and a few followed Ing and Egreet’s example by murmuring a hasty “Yes, milady.”
Meraude inclined her head. “There is a war coming,” she said after allowing them to stew on this new information for a few moments. “Wizards walk the land again, and it is up to us, the Blest, to make certain the magical vessels do not fall into their dangerous hands.”
Ing frowned and raised a hand, speaking once Meraude had nodded her permission. “What would the wizards need the Goblets Immortal for? Don’t they already have enough power?”
She rewarded the girl with a sad smile. “The Great Wizards lost the Great War, but one fought with the rest of magic-kind. I believe he now regrets that decision and that he and the remaining, lesser wizards wish to rule us all again, like in the Dark Age. You see, magical beings are considered chattel to wizards, especially the Blest.” Meraude rose and took to strolling about the room, the hem of her white gown whispering on the polished floors. “If they were to possess the Goblets Immortal, they would destroy them.”
“So? What would that do?” an Endurer challenged.
Meraude smiled. “That is a good question, one that I never hope to have the answer to. No one knows what would happen if the Goblets are destroyed. No more Blest could be created, that is for certain.”
Ing’s hand shot upward again, and again Meraude called on her. “How would one destroy the Goblets Immortal?”
It would sound like a harmless question to anyone else, but Meraude knew there was no such thing. She ceased turning about the room and folded her hands in front of her. “Fortunately, the usual methods of fire and blunt instruments do not work. The Goblets, after all, are imbued with the powers of those who created them, and most wizards are difficult to kill.”
A look passed between Ing and Egreet, one that Meraude did not like but did not acknowledge. The two had never spoken and yet they seemed to be in league with each other. Cursed foresight.
Egreet, who had remained silent, raised her hand and spoke without permission. “Has anyone drunk from all the Goblets Immortal?”
The room stilled. Girls exchanged concerned looks, but Egreet’s eyes remained on Meraude, whose lips curled up into a sad smile. “Not to my knowledge, Egreet. We are still working on uncovering a few before the wizards can get their hands on them.”
“Are you certain?” she said, her tone measured. She sounded innocent, too innocent.
“Quite. One of the Goblets has never been seen since its creation around five hundred years ago.” Meraude Summoned a water bladder into her hand and took a swig. “As long as there have been wizards walking the lands of the Saime, there has been power too great for mere humans to handle.”
A few of the young women frowned, and one said, “So, we aren’t human.”
Meraude inclined her head. “We are more. That is why we have to make certain the Goblets do not fall into mortal hands, not again.”
“Again?” said Ing, dropping the pretense of polite deference. “What do you mean ‘again’? This happened before?”
It would seem the situation was about to bubble out of control. Good. Let them test me and see what I am made of. She held up her hand, the way she had when she broke the Sightful’s jaw, and the room quieted. “We shall discuss the Circle and their treachery another time. For now, know that humans cannot be trusted, nor can wizards or other magical beings. The former would use us for their own ends, and the latter would see us destroyed as abominations. “This,” she said, lowering her hand, much to the group’s apparent relief, “is the reason we must work together. We are all very much alone, apart from one another.” She let those words settle over the room before taking her seat again. “Now, among you younger Blest there are five Endurers, products of the Enduring Goblet, and five Sightfuls, products of the Seeing Goblet.”
One of the girls, the Endurer who had had her face scratched at, frowned and murmured something below her breath, and then raised her hand. When Meraude nodded for her to speak, the girl said, “But there are twelve— well, now there are only eleven of us.” She cringed and Meraude knew she was thinking of the girl who had been sent to the infirmary. “What of the other two?”
“An astute observation,” Meraude said dryly. At that moment, she sensed Tindra’s Pull approach the door to the room.
The general knocked once, entered, and resumed her post with a slight nod.
Meraude ignored the gesture and continued. “Five of you had mothers who drank of the Enduring Goblet, which has imbued you with extreme strength and a thick hide, as you noted earlier.” She looked at the girl with the bloody nails, who flushed bright red. “Five of your mothers drank from the Seeing Goblet, which has given you the ability to see parts of the future. But two of you, and you know who you are, had mothers who drank from both. You are doubly Blest.”
Egreet, Meraude noted, had become restless and was ready to attempt something drastic. The girl did not like Meraude, not one bit. Ing seemed to feel the same way, but she was striving better to hide it. The former raised her hand. “I’m not feeling well, milady,” she said, her tone gruff.
“General Tindra,” said Meraude, “see this girl to the infirmary. We can’t have anything spreading among the girls.” She gave her head a subtle shake and pulled on her braid, a pre-arranged signal that Tindra noted and responded to in kind. “Follow the general, Egreet.”
The young doubly Blest nodded and got to her feet. No one watched her as she left except for Ing, whose eyes had closed slightly, a sign that she was attempting to look ahead.
“Ing,” said Meraude sharply, “eyes on me.”
Ing jolted, her eyes opening wide.
“Thank you, Tindra.” Meraude turned her attention back to the girls, catching glimpses of Egreet moving for the door as she continued teaching. “In a few minutes, we are going to divide into two groups: trained Endurers against Sightfuls. And just for a lark, I’ll allow Ing to choose which side she feels she belongs in for the—”
There was a loud grunt and the sound of a body hitting the floor, followed by metal clanging. The class turned just as Egreet charged toward them, General Tindra’s blade in her hands. The girls froze as the powerful Blest leapt over one of the benches and brought the blade down on Meraude, who sighed.
The blade shattered as it struck Meraude on the shoulder. Shards flew across the room, and those who were Endurers remained unharmed, and those who were Sightfuls had dove out of the way as soon as Egreet had snatched the blade.
Egreet stood there, staring at the haft in her hand and then looking at Meraude, curiosity burning in her eyes. It was a start.
Meraude snapped her fingers, and the remains of the sword disappeared. “Before you attack, be certain of who you’re dealing with,” she said calmly. “Know your opponent and adjust your plans accordingly. You have the gift of foresight. You could have avoided this humiliation if you had thought to look ahead, like Ing.” She nodded to Ing, who lowered her gaze and seemed to be trying to make herself as small as possible.
All eyes moved to the other doubly Blest.
“Ing is more subtle. She was perhaps planning something not quite so dramatic, yet perhaps quite as ineffective. A poisoning, maybe?” The look on the girl’s face betrayed her. “But you found out something, didn’t you, Ing?”
The girl was sweating. Meraude swore she could smell it from where she stood, seven arm-reaches away.
“Answer me, Ing.”
“The threads.”
Meraude nodded once, and some understanding began to dawn on the faces of the Sightfuls in the room. The pure Endurers, however, frowned. “Enlighten the rest, child.”
Ing looked at Egreet, who still hadn’t recovered her wits from her failed attempt, it would seem. “There are threads that make up the Veil that separates past from present and future from both. Each thread is an element attached to a potential happening with hundreds of connecting threads that make up a possibility, which is perhaps a small patch in the Veil.” She looked at Meraude, wonder in her eyes. “Past threads are dead threads and can’t be accessed by any Blest. Present threads are alive and plentiful. The more threads you see, the more ways there are to get to one outcome or a totally different one.
“I tried looking at this – the threads surrounding her ladyship here, but they are very tangled. Too tangled. Which must mean….” She flushed. “Well, besides it being too risky to attempt to kill her outright, I don’t exactly know what it means.” Her eyes sought Meraude’s, and the mage queen shook her head.
“That is for me to know and for you all to discover.” Her attention turned to Egreet, though her words were for Ing, “I believe you deserve an extra food token, Ing.”
Egreet scowled at that, and the others took to murmuring among themselves. Good. Meraude knew she had everyone’s attention.