Vergence Read Online Free Page A

in the kitchen with Fidela, Ebryn made his way back to the morning room where he'd left Conant and his guest.
    Located between the library and kitchens, the morning room was one of the warmest in the building. Even with the onset of winter the room still managed to capture some heat from the low sun and the wall which backed onto the kitchen ovens. Scattered around the room were a number of short tables and an assortment of uncomfortably low couches, and chairs.
    He discovered Quentyn there alone, staring out of one of the windows. South-facing full-length windows provided a view of the gardens and, through a gap in the trees, a distant glimpse of the sea.
    An untouched roasted wood-fowl lay on one of the tables. At another, next to Quentyn, sat a small device which appeared to be assembled from a bundle of finely drawn silvery wires, with five projecting a short way up like small horns.
    Quentyn turned as Ebryn approached and moved to a seat nearest the strange device. It looked like some oversized metallic insect crouched there facing him, and emanated something which charged the air around the table like a developing storm.
    “Ah … sit down. This won't take long,” he said, pointing at a chair opposite.
    Ebryn nodded at the device opposite him. “What's that?”
    “— Just be quiet, I'll tell you what to do.”
    Quentyn fiddled and fussed with the device for a while, and at first Ebryn watched with interest. As time went on his attention wandered to the sunlight filtering through the window. He tried hard not to yawn.
    After a span, in which the light seemed to shift around the room, Quentyn sat upright with the fingers of both hands resting on the depressions amongst the wires.
    “Now try to tell me what you feel happening,” Quentyn said.
    “What do you mean?” Ebryn said, staring at the bundle in Quentyn's hands.
    “The prongs, if you feel something at the top of the prongs, you tell me.”
    Ebryn held out his hand towards the device.
    “Don't touch.”
    “Sorry,” Ebryn said, pulling back. “When should I start?”
    “Um, now.”
    Nothing seemed to happen, and after waiting for a while he glanced up at Quentyn. He was about to ask again when he felt something move at the terminus of one of the spikes. There was nothing visible, but it felt to him as if he was being drawn invisibly, almost as if tugged, to a point a thumb's width above one of the points.
    “That one,” Ebryn said
    Five more times he felt himself drawn to one of the points, a different one each time, and once to an indentation near the base of the contraption, at which point Quentyn released the device and sat back in his chair, mopping at a faint trace of perspiration with his long sleeve.
    “What's next?” Ebryn asked.
    “The test is complete.”
    “Is that it?” Ebryn asked, disappointed. The whole thing amounted to nothing. He'd been expecting something more impressive.
    “Yes, finished,” Quentyn said, not looking Ebryn in the eye.
    Ebryn waited a few moments before he realised Quentyn wasn't going to say anything more.
    “How did I do, did I pass?”
    “You were … adequate. You may choose to accompany me back to Vergence, if you wish.”
    Ebryn stared at Quentyn. “What, today?”
    “When arrangements have be made — a day or two. Now, I saw a few promising books in the next room, anything to make the wait bearable, hmm.”
    Once in the library Quentyn showed no sign of leaving. And although Ebryn felt some sense of obligation to the man, both as a guest and now, he thought, a fellow caster, his efforts quickly waned.
    Quentyn wandered around the library, ignoring Ebryn and examining books, all the while making odd noises. He cleared his throat constantly, hummed in a high pitched tone and made clicking noises against the roof of his mouth with his tongue.
    Ebryn wanted to sit somewhere quiet and digest the day’s events, and as soon as he thought he'd remained the minimum time to be polite, he excused himself.