Esar, Age 11

26 years ago

As he made his way through the dim, abandoned halls of the university, Esar couldn’t shake the feeling he was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, breaking some rule. All of the students, as well as most of the professors, had left for the New Year’s festivities. But, Esar reminded himself, he was supposed to be here. He had an appointment. Right on the other side of this door.

Professor Etherret Maisk

Chair, Department of Innate and Ambient Vitricial Sciences

He read the placard twice, just to be absolutely sure that he'd come to the right place, before knocking on the door. The sound echoed down the empty hallway.

“Come in,” the professor called.

Esar slid the door open, wincing at the awful sound it made as it scraped along the floor.

“Sorry about that, haven't got around to asking maintenance to fix it,” said the man behind the desk. He straightened a pile of papers and set it aside, staring at Esar all the while. The office was large, but it felt cramped nonetheless. Books overflowed from the shelves that lined his walls, and boxes stacked on the windowsill nearly obscured the view of the outside. If Esar had wanted to sit down, he wouldn’t have been able to, as the chairs were occupied by papers and some half-disassembled device he could only guess at the purpose of.

Esar fidgeted under Professor Maisk's piercing gaze. He'd expected someone older, someone more organized. Surely it would have taken a lifetime of research to put together all those theories in one grand volume that had taken Esar weeks to read. But Professor Maisk didn't have a single strand of gray in his hair or beard. In fact, he didn't look much older than Esar's own mother, who had just turned thirty.

“So. You're the brilliant young Tresuan.”

The compliment did nothing to set him at ease. “I'm . . . not brilliant.”

The professor smiled. “Ah. But you raised some very good questions in your letter, demonstrating a level of understanding that I would expect from one of my university pupils, and you're—how old are you? Twelve?”

“Eleven,” Esar admitted. He wouldn’t be twelve for another month.

“Eleven!” Professor Maisk repeated, and Esar studied the floor. He still felt like he must be in the wrong place, receiving praise that was meant for someone else.

"And I am afraid that I don't have any good answers for you.” The professor got to his feet and circled around to stand in front of his desk, leaning back against it as he continued. “I have been scouring my resources, but the information is extremely thin, and none of it comes from primary sources. You are quite correct. You, and your powers, are inexplicable.”

Esar winced. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—”

“No need to apologize!” Professor Maisk said quickly. “I should have said, your powers are inexplicable at our current level of understanding. And that's thrilling! Here I was, smug in my certainty that I had cracked the code of vitricity and uncovered every secret of the ambient field, when your letter arrived and smacked me in the face with the gaping hole in my understanding. Can you imagine how dull the world would be without questions to be answered, without problems to be solved? You present such a fascinating opportunity!”

Esar tried to smile, but this was far from the result he'd hoped for. He'd written to Professor Maisk because he wanted answers, not to raise more questions. He just wanted to understand how his dreams worked, and how to harness his powers, so he wouldn't be such a disappointment. But if even the most renowned scientist in Elorhe had nothing to offer, where else could he look for help?

“I expect that any primary sources regarding the abilities of the Tresuan were lost with Bhadrat," the professor continued, speaking at Esar without really speaking to him. "But there are some tantalizing references in the records from the old university. It seems that the masters of Vas were tearing each other apart, searching for spies in their midst, because how else could Bhadrat anticipate their every move? I expect your ancestors had something to do with that, eh?”

Esar nodded, wishing he could share some of Professor Maisk's enthusiasm. The man sounded downright gleeful as he went back behind his desk and opened a folder.

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“But in the absence of substantial documentary evidence, we would need to conduct original research. I have some ideas for a few studies we could carry out, nothing so formal as a protocol just yet, but if you're willing to participate I believe that we could discover the answers that you've been looking for.”

***

"I can't believe that you went to Maisk without telling me!" Esar’s mother exploded. “No. Absolutely not. What were you thinking, going to him?”

“I thought he could help!”

“You thought he could help.” Alzyn Semfrey put her hand to her forehead and groaned. "At what cost, Esar? Did you give any thought to that?"

Four days had passed since Esar’s meeting with Professor Maisk. It had taken that long to work up the courage and find an opportunity to present his mother with Maisk's proposal, and she'd shot it down as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Esar was accustomed to his mother's disapproval—he’d anticipated that—but for her to show any real anger was so rare, it knocked him completely off-balance. Esar floundered, trying to grasp at one of the arguments he'd run through in his head to prepare, but none of them would come.

Alzyn went on. “You don't get it, do you? If you go ahead with this plan, you'll be giving power over your visions to somebody else. Bending your foresight to their will. You would be giving up your dreams to him, and that would be the end of our freedom as Tresuan. Do you have any idea what our ancestors gave up for our freedom?”

“Actually, I don't,” Esar said softly. He longed to hear the story, and all the history that his mother had promised to teach him “some day,” but she never seemed to find the time. Perhaps now would be different. Perhaps he'd screwed up so badly this time that she'd have to—

But all she gave him was one sweeping, dismissive word. “Everything.” She turned her back on him and headed for the door. Before leaving, though, she paused to add, “Let me hear no more of this. Our dreams belong to us, and no one else. Do not forget that, Esar. I will make sure Etherret Maisk remembers it as well.”

“Who do my dreams really belong to? Me, or you?” Esar murmured, but he waited until he was sure his mother was out of earshot to say it.

It was New Year's Day: the spring equinox, a day for new beginnings, a day for celebrations. A fine new tunic had been laid out for him, made of stiff black fabric with gold embroidery over the fasteners that ran down the right side. The high collar felt like a hand around his throat.

His mother waited for him by the front door. She had nothing to say, and neither did he. Esar followed her out to join the crowd of people flowing down the Grand Avenue. Bright banners rippled from the gates of each mansion they passed, displaying the hometown loyalties of the dignitaries who came from all parts of Elorhe to make their second homes in the palace district.

It seemed like everyone in Thaliron—and a good many more people from all over the continent—had come out that day to see the final matches of the New Year's Games. Bits and pieces of various languages caught Esar's ear, and he practiced attuning the Current to understand what they were saying. It was hard to do in the chaos of the crowd. For a moment, a bit of meaning would resolve, but then he'd lose it again in the tumult of unfamiliar sounds.

The stadium was just north of the palace. The field surrounding it, empty for most of the year, was filled with rows and rows of tents, stalls selling food and memorabilia. After a week, the paths between them were trampled and muddy, in spite of the groundskeepers' best efforts. Esar breathed in the scents of pakora frying in oil and watched dosas sizzle on an enormous skillet. All around him boys and girls near his age wandered the stalls in groups, shopping for snacks or souvenirs, with colorful loyalty ribbons dangling from their shoulders or tied into their hair. He tried to listen in on their excited chatter until he overheard the word "Tresuan" in the middle of a sentence that he only half understood. Someone was pointing out his mother.

The crowd seemed to part before her, clearing the way to the stadium stairs. Esar, though only a few steps behind, still had to weave between people to make his way through. The two of them climbed the spiral staircase, past the general admission benches to the very top floor, where an attendant with Talmuir ultramarine loyalty ribbons on her sleeves nodded to Alzyn and opened the door. From there, it wasn't far to his family's reserved box, where twelve reclining seats were arrayed in two rows. All the seats were empty.

Esar went straight to the front of the box and leaned over the guard rail. The wind filled his ears and blew his hair into his face as he peered down at the dizzying drop to the field below. Someone came to take their order for food and drink, and Esar thought of the dosas on the stand they'd passed earlier. He wondered if they tasted as good as they smelled, but he didn't say anything. His mother didn't ask what he wanted before placing the order for them both.

The benches were filling up, though the day's matches wouldn't begin for a while yet. Each day, he saw more and more green and white in the crowd—the colors of Heniscau province. The colors of Danthan Keir, breakout star of the year's games, the favorite to take the circlet for swordplay that afternoon. Some of their excitement even reached Esar, whose heart beat faster as something like anticipation kindled within it. Part of him wished he had a Heniscau ribbon, but it would have been unseemly, to say the least, for a Tresuan to show any favoritism in the games. He continued to scan the arena.

The boxes for the wealthiest spectators made a ring around the top of the stadium. Only a few remained reserved for Elorhe's waning nobility, while the rest were open to anyone who could afford them.

"I see my dad," Esar announced.

"Oh?"

Esar pointed across to another one of the private boxes, about a quarter of the way around the circle, where he'd spotted his father speaking to one of the Yasoh twins.

"May I go say hello to him?"

"Go on. Don't be too long." Alzyn waved a hand in dismissal.