"Damaris!" Varden strode into the high mothers receiving room like he owned it.
The large dome ceilinged room was on the ninth and lowest floor of the Sanctuary. It housed the silver seat, the outward sign of her control of the Sanctuary. It was a very basic chair, no ornamentation, no glitz or glamor. But it was a powerful symbol in its very plainness. Made from solid silver it was rubbed to a luster that caught the light for the many candles spread throughout the room.
This far down no artificial light was allowed. The only modern convenience that was conceded to was the state-of-the-art air filtration system which sucked all the candle smoke from the air.
Catherine walked shoulder to shoulder with Varden as they closed the distance to the high mother. The walk brought her back to another time in this very space. A time that had nearly got them both killed.
"Come on Varden, she'll be so surprised. No one has seen what you are in over two thousand."
"Yeah, but what is this place, anyway?" Varden had asked as I dragged him by the arm.
"This is high mother Damaris' receiving room. It's where she gives all her rulings and meets with guests. Oh, she is going to be so surprised." I was so naïve at the time. I thought Damaris would welcome him with open arms, I should have known better.
"What is the meaning of this!" Damaris had screamed the instant her eyes fell on Varden. "Guards, kill them both. That... thing," she'd pointed at Varden. "And her, for bringing it here."
"High mother you don't understand," I'd pleaded as the guards approached. "He's not what you think. If you'd just stop and listen to me for a second."
"SILENCE child! There has never been a male in this receiving room in any one of its one hundred and fifty-six years of existence. He may be the first, but he is going to be the last!" I tried to tell her why I'd brought him but wasn't given the chance. It's hard to talk with a sword swinging at your throat.
Damaris leapt straight at me, sword out in front, her face twisted with rage. Bringing my rapier to parry I glanced over my right shoulder to see the two guards advancing on Varden from two sides. As much as I wanted to defend him, I knew it was going to be all I could do to keep my head attached to my neck.
Across the room we fought, the high mother attacking and I always retreating. When I had the chance to risk a glance over at Varden I was shocked to see he was still weaponless yet still holding his own against the two women.
"You idiot, defend yourself or they're going to kill you!" I screamed at him.
"But you told me not to hurt anyone here" That stupid cockiness was in his voice and his grin was as broad as ever as he caught one of the women by the sword arm and hauled her off her feet.
Letting her go I watched him leap into a graceful back flip that left about fifteen feet between him and his assailants. Just as the high mother charged me again, I caught sight of him forming his blade, its blue shine casting a brilliant sapphire glow across the room. Damaris faltered at the sight of that blue blade and pulled up short.
"Guards, halt!" She shouted but her guards didn't have the time to lower their guards, Varden was all over them.
His blue blade whirled faster and faster until its brilliance outshone the candles. He pushed both women back with a series of weaving flourishing thrusts that sent their weapons wide while reaching for their hearts.
"Varden stop, don't hurt them!" My voice rose above the shrill noise of crystal upon crystal.
In retrospect it wasn't my best choice of words. I had just insulted the high mothers' guards, the best fighters in the Sanctuary. By telling Varden not to hurt them I had told the two of them that a male was capable of the feat, and both of them knew better.
Yet even as they ramped up the speed and strength of their attacks Varden began to grin, and only then did I realize what his εγγενή ταλέντο was, he effected emotions. The two women were getting madder and madder the longer they fought, and Varden was very good at goading people into mistakes.
The first came when he winked at Patricia, and she lunged forward to take his head off. She overextended as Varden stepped back and leaped into a jumping roundhouse. His foot caught her chin with a boom as loud as a shotgun and she went bone limp before she hit the floor.
Tracy charged in, her weapon at shoulder level and was on him before his feet touched the floor. Her broad sword was harder for Varden to defend against, and she slammed it down on his defense again and again trying to batter her way through where finesse had failed. With a long flowing overhead swing she smashed down on his blade hard enough force that his own blade left a gash in his shoulder and for the first time in the fight he was forced to give ground.
So Varden revised his tactics. Instead of trying to meet Tracy strength to strength he began to pick at the edges. You see, Tracy's style has always been built upon a foundation of straight-ahead march. If anything came from the side, you pivoted to meet it. But what happened when your enemy came at you from more than one side at once.
Varden was like a panther, he came at her from all sides yet retreated after every attack, never giving her a chance to set her feet. He backed away until he was pressed back against the wall. Smiling Tracy drove hard, meaning to pin this insignificant male to the wall.
I had to hide my smile when her blade descended and hit nothing but empty air. Varden had lured her into a trap. Jumping up and back clearing her blade by inches he sailed twelve feet into the air where he planted his feet against the wall, crouched and jumped straight back down at her. His blade knocked hers to the side as she raised it and instead of striking, he threw his into the floor where it dissipated into a blue mist. In the absence of his blades glow he grabbed Tracy by both shoulders and took her off her feet. His momentum carried them both into the floor where her upper body was slammed into the floor bouncing her head against the cold marble.
"You're lucky I'm a nice guy," he nodded to his shoulder where blood continued to well up from under his shirt.
"Varden, are you okay?" I asked when I reached him. My breach in protocol not going unnoticed.
"Tracy, are you injured?" I offered as Damaris approached.
"I'm fine," she swatted my hand away and tried to get to her feet.
Damaris caught her when she pitched forward, her balance gone.
"We need to get you to the infirmary, after that knock you took you most likely have a concussion." The high mother told her when she saw four more women run into the room swords drawn. She had turned to the both of us as soon as Tracy was lifted from her shoulder.
"As for you," her eyes fell on me. "Why didn't you think it wise to tell someone before you brought him here?" She then turned to Varden, and her eyes softened. "I have waited for almost two thousand years to see another of your kind. Who were your parents, why weren't you raised here, with us?"
I had prepared Varden for the many questions he would be bombarded with, but I didn't know him well enough to expect what he'd say in return.
"That was quite the welcome you give. If that's how you treat the guys around here, I think I'll pass."
It only got worse from there.
"Every the irreverent one, aren't we?" The voice that floated from the silver seat hummed with quiet control.
"Does the name Ambrosio mean anything to you?" He asked without any fanfare or caring about to whom he spoke.
Both of us saw her flinch at the name, but with a very long lifetime of practice she hid it well.
"It's an ancient Greek name for male children, what of it?"
Varden threw the scrap of paper in her face. It fluttered down in front of her until it landed on her dress with the one word facing up.
"Because Agnus scrawled that it on that piece of paper as she died."
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Eγγενή ταλέντο: Inborn talent.
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