First Child |
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Chapter 4 |
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| Meanwhile, Durp himself was thinking about the Choosing as well. ‘If they let me join the Futuretell guild, I’ll clean the privies every day and they’ll realise I can still be useful,’ he said to his friend Flynn. Flynn thought about this for a bit, and then said, ‘Do you really want to be cleaning privies for the next ten, twenty years?’ Flynn’s mother was a beastspeaker and his father a teknoguilder. The great disappointment of his young life was that, while he had developed a strong beastspeaking Talent, he had no Talent for machines. Despite, or perhaps because of this, he was doggedly aspirational and always seeking to prove himself. ‘Well,’ said Durp, ‘The best work has always been reserved for the most Talented people. Expedition managers are always farseekers handpicked by their guildmistress. The Beast Liaison Committee, aside from guildmaster Alad, is made up entirely of coercer-beastspeakers. Even the MFMADG* are all empaths that specifically trained under guilden Angina. It’s a fact of life that the people with weak Talents get the garbage jobs – literally. Have you ever seen any of the Wards on the composting rota or mucking out the animal pens? I’m ready to accept that I’ve been born into a life of second class citizenry.’ ‘Don’t be so defeatist!’ exclaimed Flynn. ‘Think of the Master of Obernewtyn. No discernable Talent at all, yet he’s in charge.’ Durp teased a dried lentil from his knitted vest and flicked it away. ‘But everyone knows that he has some secret powers,’ he said. ‘Latent powers,’ Flynn corrected pedantically. ‘Who’s to say that you don’t have the same?’ ‘Guildmaster Roland, for starters,’ said Durp. ‘I overhead him telling my Da once when I was supposed to be in an Ethics of Probing class.’ ‘Never mind that old fusspot,’ said Flynn. He was secretly quite excited – this seemed like the perfect lead in to propose the daring plan he had been brewing for the last two days. ‘The whole point of it being latent is that you don’t know it’s there until you try it.’ ‘You think I haven’t tried!’ shrieked Durp. He aimed a half-hearted kick toward Flynn. ‘No, no, no,’ said Flynn quickly. ‘I know you’ve tried and tried. But I think there’s another way you could approach this. You know what the Zebkrahn is, right?’ ‘Yes,’ replied Durp. ‘It’s broken and it’s evil.’ ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Machines can’t be evil,’ Flynn said loftily. ‘Besides, it’s not really broken now. I happen to know that there has been a clandestine project to restore it. Now, did you ever hear about how Alexi used the machine on Cameo?’ ‘Um, yes,’ said Durp. ‘It cracked open her head and turned her brain into mush.’ ‘Pshaw! I don’t know where you hear these stories,’ said Flynn. ‘The machine did open her mind, but only to unleash her Talents! I heard that after her final treatment, she was able to coerce Alexi and Vega into releasing her, and then farseek Guildmistress Elspeth to come to her aid while beastspeaking a pack of thirty wolves to keep them at bay. The only reason she died was because she had breathed in too many of Alexi’s cleaning chemicals and it turns out she was allergic to them.’ ‘Really?’ said Durp. He was quite wide-eyed at these apparent revelations, and they certainly had the ring of truth to them. He himself had, after all, once felt quite dizzy after sniffing cleaning chemicals. ‘Yes, it’s all true,’ Flynn said impatiently. ‘But the point is, we might be able to use the machine to unleash your Talents! Imagine that! No one would pick on you again after that.’ ‘Hm, I guess that would be true,’ said Durp said slowly. His hand drifted unconsciously to lightly brush the welt on his inner thigh. ‘But... are you sure it’s safe?’ ‘I’m positive I’m sure,’ replied Flynn. And like most young children, he was. *Moon Fair Musical Artistic Directorate Group |
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