accept what I intend for you to do.”
He leaned back again, his gaze drifting off into the shadows of the room. “Lariana’s worked so hard with you. Tell me. Do you like her? It appears that you do. A great deal, in fact. Isn’t that so, Reyn?”
“I like her a lot,” the boy answered. There was no point in pretending otherwise. Surely Arcannen knew as much. “But you already know that, don’t you.”
He made it a statement of fact rather than a question. Arcannen laughed. “I do. And I’m happy for you. But let’s leave that subject for later discussion. The wishsong, then. The wishsong appeared centuries ago, an aberration created by Wil Ohmsford’s wrongful use of the Elfstones. It first manifested itself in his children. We’ve discussed this. What matters is that the sister, Brin, could make use of his gift in almost any way she chose. With it, she could change the world around her, altering the look and feel and behavior of other living things. She could literally bring a seedling to bloom or cause that very same bloom to wither.”
Arcannen paused. “Do you see what I am saying? She had the power of life and death at her command. What she could do to flowers, she could also do to humans and animals. There were no limits to her abilities. I think it likely there are no limits to yours, either.”
Reyn shook his head. “I don’t want that kind of power.”
“But you already have it! You’ve already exercised it, willingly or not. You’ve shown you can impact people by using your magic. You’ve caused people to die! Even if you didn’t intend it, you can’t deny the fact. You command power enough to cause people to explode at the sound of your voice. If you chose to, you could cause them to wither like flowers. You need to accept this, and then you need to find a way to control it. Because sooner or later, it’s going to break free again. If you recognize how it works, you have a better chance of being able to manage it. And not through manipulating images, but through contact with actual people, working through your difficulties by discovering how they can be managed.”
The boy just stared at him for a moment, trying to take in what he was saying. “You’re talking about experimenting on people? Testing my magic on them?”
“That’s it exactly. That’s how you learn. Fortunately, we have the right subjects for you to test yourself against. Men and women who believe in testing themselves against others, although mostly against those who can’t fight back. Imagine their surprise when they come up against you.”
“The Red Slash.” He shook his head vehemently. “I won’t do it.”
“Oh, I think you will.”
“You promised me I wouldn’t have to kill anyone! You gave me your word!” Reyn felt a surge of desperation wash through him. “Did you lie to me about everything?”
Arcannen looked offended. “I lied to you about nothing. I’ve tried to help you. I’ve tried to teach you what having your magic requires of you. I’m still trying. We just need to advance your methods beyond make-believe.”
“But you promised! You said I wouldn’t have to kill anyone!”
“Did I say anything about you killing anyone? Are you listening to me or not? What I said was that you learn how to manage your magic through contact with real people, not through projecting images. I’m not asking you to hurt anyone.”
Reyn shook his head. “That was what you said the last time. Look what happened there! These are trained soldiers; they’ll have experience I don’t! They won’t let me do anything to them. They’ll get behind me or slip past me, and then they’ll kill me or I’ll have to kill them! They’ll come for me and you won’t be there!”
He was practically hysterical. He could feel his control over himself slipping; he was on the verge of crying, already shouting in dismay. He was beginning to shake. But Arcannen reached out, took him firmly by the shoulders, and held him fast.
“You won’t have to kill anyone—and I won’t let anyone harm you. I will be right there with you, standing at your side the whole time. We won’t be fighting our way through mist and darkness. We won’t have to deal with rabid beasts and wild-eyed predators of the sorts we encountered before. The Red Slash and Dallen Usurient are soldiers. They’ll come at us like soldiers, and we will treat