The Stricken Field

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Authors: Dave Duncan
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expected. That rankled. He still found it hard to believe that fate should have been so unkind. He might very well remain a lowly archivist all his days. Like Mearn.
    Like Mistress Mearn, who had summoned him to this stupid meeting. Would he become bitter, like her? He hoped not. Mearn had never married, which suggested that she had been a sourpuss even in her youth. Her crabby disposition might also explain why she had not been promoted to higher rank, for her power was certainly adequate, much greater than his. Another possibility was that no one else had ever wanted her job as Mistress of Novices. He knew from personal experience how the old cat enjoyed bullying the kids; he still found himself deferring to her. Mearn undoubtedly had enough power for higher rank, even if she lacked the temperament. Power depended on Faculty. Faculty was something one was born with, or without.
    The Thaile child, for example, had considerable Faculty. Even a single word of power-one feeble, attenuated "background" word-had given her an astonishing talent, an occult talent, not just some useful mundane ability. With three more words, she would undoubtedly be a very puissant sorceress. Forty years from now she would likely be an archon. If she was truly extraordinary, she might ultimately become Keeper. Why did she have to be such a stubborn little minx about it? How could Jain possibly have known that she would run away instead of coming to the College as he had directed her? She had not been plotting rebellion that first day he had met her. He was certain of that.
    It was not his fault that the archivists had not noted her absence for so long. He had still been a recorder then.
    It was not his fault that she had gotten herself with child in the meantime, sired by some nonentity of a peon not even from a Gifted family.
    And it was certainly not Jain's fault that she had refused to go to the Defile with the other novices last night. Everyone went through the Defile! He shivered. The Defile was not a happy memory for anyone, and it would undoubtedly be worse for her with her strong Faculty than it had been for him, but she could not know that.
    Stubborn little harpy!
    Then the Way had brought him to the Meeting Place, and there it became only a mundane path again. Again he became conscious of the ambience, the other-world, the shadowy plane of the occult.
    All around the clearing, spring flowers flamed in brilliant fresh hues. White swans floated on the lake, and the grass was green enough to hurt the eyes. Here and there people strolled or lounged on benches-gossiping, flirting, relishing this fine morning. Perhaps a score of them in all, spread around the glade, none looking more than twenty-five or thirty, young and finely dressed and happy. In the ambience he could see them as they really were, and all the repair work done on gray hair and sagging breasts and wrinkles.
    Mearn was standing on the far side of the lake with a blocky-shaped man Jain did not recognize. He set off along the white gravel path toward them. He supposed Mearn would be her usual well-dressed self, but she was too far off for him to make out details of her dress without using farsight. In the ambience her occult image was nasty and scrawny, admittedly very solid-seeming, which was an indicator of her Faculty. She had well-pointed pixie ears, but that was about all she could boast of. Her hair was piled neatly on the top of her head to make her dumpy form seem taller, but her eyes were an ugly brown, sort of mudcolor, not good pixie gold. Today they conveyed undoubted worry. Novice trouble was Mearn trouble.
    Probably do her a lot of good, humility-wise.
    Her husky companion had remarkable eyes, large and very slanted and pure gold. No, Jain had never met him before. That was surprising, but a sorcerer did not forget faces. The man's image was unnervingly solid, like rock. There could be no deception in the ambience-he truly must be as young and husky as he seemed, yet

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