The Demon and the Fox

by Tim Susman

  Cott would certainly be amenable, Kip thought, but why was he not to be consulted on his own apprenticeship? Did Odden want to be rid of him? What of searching the ruins? And least important to his master, of course, but most important to Kip, what about his friends? In terms of education, he was learning a great deal about fire and spiritual holds, if not very much more about demons, and he felt confident that he would in the course of another month be an effective military sorcerer (if he wasn’t already), but the power he was gaining didn’t make him miss Emily, Malcolm, and Coppy any less. It was hardest in the dark hours between dinner and sleep, when the workshop was silent and Kip was left alone to re-read Emily’s letters with only his thoughts and the ever more elaborate fantasies of his imagination filling in what was left unsaid.

  Would Emily entice Coppy to the cause of the revolutionaries? Would Master Windsor drive Coppy mad? Would Peter, having lost Kip, turn to Coppy as his confidant? He tried to hold their scents and their voices in his head, and more than once he woke in the morning reaching out for the comforting solid bulk of the otter only to find a cold stone floor. On those mornings he comforted himself with a fire, losing himself in its depth until Cott arrived to begin his lessons.

  He did take dinner at the Darby several more times, but only twice encountered Albright. Each time, they had a pleasant meal during which Albright asked whether he and Cott had made any progress (they had not, Kip reported), and then the sorcerer excused himself, again without giving Kip cause or occasion to attempt his spell to escape a spiritual hold. Kip’s fur still prickled to think about their first meeting, but Albright did not seek him out, so there was little for him to investigate.

  He visited the Isle of Dogs once more in December, striding through the streets where the residents were putting up candles for a Christmas holiday. He found Coppy’s family easily and spent an hour talking to them about their son, and that gave him great comfort. Toward the end of the hour, he looked up and there was Abel in the doorway, leaning there and listening, and when Kip met his eyes, the other fox smiled.

  Afterwards, they walked back to the docks together. Kip asked Abel whether the calyxes met regularly, and the other fox said, “Not all of them,” but wouldn’t elaborate beyond that. He did, however, invite Kip back to dinner in January, which Kip gratefully accepted.

  On December 21, Kip visited Master Gugin for what was to be his last lesson before leaving, and Gugin praised him on his progress. “If you are as quick a study in fire as you are in spiritual holds, Cott may have some competition in a few years,” the sorcerer chuckled. “He will hate that.”

  “I’m doing well enough,” Kip said. “But the whole reason I came here, we haven’t touched that in a week or more.”

  “What was that?” Gugin asked, and when Kip hesitated, the sorcerer said, “You may as well tell me what the glass beads mean. I can see them in your thoughts plain as the nose on your face.”

  “Why not just read what they are, then?”

  Gugin shook his head. “Would mean delving deeper into your mind and like as not learning a great deal too much. Rather you tell me what’s pertinent.”

  “Then why look into my thoughts at all?” Kip asked.

  “How else,” Gugin said in all seriousness, “would I know if you planned to kill me?”

  Kip had no rejoinder for this. So he explained the glass beads as succinctly as he could. Gugin listened attentively, and when Kip was done, he rubbed his cheek, looking up at his raven. “Something familiar about that, eh, Scar? Glass beads, turning people…it was from a long while ago, but let me ponder it.”

  Even though there was nothing substantial, Kip returned to Cott’s workshop excited, cursing himself for being so careful. Why had he not told Gugin as he’d told Albright? The more people who knew, the more might be able to solve the mystery.

  And, he reminded himself in the cold, lonely darkness, Albright had tricked him into telling him—perhaps, probably—and thus set Kip on his guard. Besides, the more people he told, the more chance they might alert someone who’d helped plan the attack. If someone at the College had carried it out, it was not inconceivable that someone at King’s had assisted. The thought discomfited Kip enough that he started a fire just to have some company, and it was at that moment that a sheet of paper popped into being in the air and fluttered to the ground.

  He read the note from Emily with a smile. In large part, it read: “I know this note is not necessary as we will see you in three days, but we are all very excited to see you and besides, Master Argent says the more practice I get, the better.”

  As he put the paper aside, however, the thought struck him that Emily might use his return home to pressure him into meeting with the revolutionaries again. Patris had been furious last time, and Kip didn’t feel strongly enough about revolution to risk the Headmaster’s wrath again. But he would worry about that problem when he faced it, he supposed. Perhaps independence too observed the Christmas holiday.

  A rattle of wings drew his attention to the window, where a black shape alit. Scar opened his beak and said in Master Gugin’s voice, “I have assembled as much of the memory as I can. May I share it with you?”

  “Er. What do you need—”

  “I can cast the spell quickly if you return to my chambers now.”

  Kip got to his feet. “I haven’t any more ale.”

  The raven’s beak opened in a laugh, but the sorcerer’s voice that issued from it remained as serious as usual. “As this is a request from me, you needn’t bring any. But you should always have some on hand. It’s salutatory.”

  Kip chuckled as he followed the raven through the air and over to the Astronomy Tower, this time going directly to Master Gugin’s office. When he set his feet on the carpet and pulled his tail over the windowsill, Master Gugin, already on his feet, stepped forward.

  “You permit me to share this memory?” He asked the question in the same tone he used to ask permission to cast a spiritual hold, which he had every single time after the first night.

  Familiar with the protocol, Kip said, “Aye.”

  Gugin lifted his hands, murmuring under his breath. Kip braced himself, but what happened was nothing like what he’d become used to in a spiritual hold. The world didn’t change. None of his thoughts were different. But Gugin lowered his arms and said, “There.”

  “I don’t feel any different.”

  “But now if I ask you about glass beads, what do you think of?”

  The bead safe in his perfume vial. The work he and Cott had done. Finding the beads with Nikolon. Coming across a mention of glass beads in an ancient book lying on a thick oak table with the musty smell of books all around him, weaker than he was accustomed to in libraries.

  “Wait,” he said, and Gugin smiled. “That memory isn’t mine.”

  “Easier than trying to tell you all I remember.” Gugin grunted and sat back on his couch.

  “That’s amazing.” Kip relived the memory again. “I didn’t even notice anything. I feel like it was me there in the library.”

  “Some differences, I imagine.” Gugin looked as pleased as Kip had seen him.

  “Scent, mostly.”

  “Ah well, someday you’ll have to allow me one of your memories so I can know what it’s like to have a nose as long as your head.”

  Kip bowed. “Of course, sir.”

  “Right. Now, go make what you will of that.”

  It was clearly a dismissal, so Kip turned back to the window and stepped out, then flew back to Cott’s workshop.

  There he sat, summoned a fire to help him think, and examined the memory more closely. A book in a library, some mention of glass beads in cribbed, foreign text. Enemies being imprisoned in glass beads by fire, something like that. It was just the thing Kip and Cott had been looking for. Which library was it, then? Which book? He scoured the memory for details. Normally he would rely on scent to pinpoint his location, but the scent wasn’t strong or familiar enough in the memory.
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  Or was it? The two places he knew Master Gugin had been were Prince Philip’s in Georgia and here. If this were in Prince Philip’s, then the library, the book, everything was destroyed. That wouldn’t help him. But the library in his memory was old, austere. The book under his gloved fingertips (his human fingertips; he ignored that detail) was ancient parchment that he had to handle with great care. That pointed to London, King’s College, hopefully. So he had to gain access to the library and then figure out which of the thousands of books Master Gugin had read as a student several decades ago.

  Kip sighed and stared forward into the fire. If solving mysteries was easy, he supposed, they wouldn’t be mysteries.

  MacDougal appeared, as taciturn as ever, to bring Kip home. Having deposited the fox in Master Odden’s office, he turned just as Kip started to say, “Thank you,” and was gone before Kip had finished the first word.

  “How did you find Master Cott?” Odden asked.

  Kip breathed in Odden’s scent and the specific musty smell of his books and scrolls under the phosphorus of his elemental, slumbering in the brazier. The fox’s tail wagged as the familiarity of the setting sank in, and with it the knowledge that Coppy and Emily and Malcolm were here in this building and he would be seeing them in moments. He composed himself as best he could and answered his master’s question. “Challenging,” he said, his enthusiasm at being back lowering his caution, and then flattened his ears. “I’m sorry. He’s quite brilliant as regards fire. He seemed to be very afraid that some of the other people in the college would not like a Calatian apprentice among them.”

  “He may not be wrong.” Odden rested his elbows on his wide desk and leaned forward. “But I would like to see what he has taught you.”

  So Kip called up a fire and then three more, precisely placed in a square. Then he took one of the practice branches Odden still had—by the look of it, one that Kip had gathered before he left. He set paper among the branches and conjured a fire that burned the paper but left the branches intact, then burned specific branches, fed the fire so the wood fell to ash in minutes, then put all the fires out.

  “Exceptional,” Odden said. “How have you worked with larger fires?”

  “I put out one very large one.” Kip did not feel like recounting the circumstances around the warehouse fire. “And we worked with larger fires in Cott’s workshop because he had more space there.”

  “Have you burned non-flammable materials yet?”

  Kip shook his head. “He spoke of attempting earth and stone, but not for several months.”

  “Do you feel you could attempt that?”

  “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”

  Odden held up a hand as Kip raised his paws. “Not here in the Tower.”

  “Right. I’m sorry.” Forrest’s reaction to the fire near his orchard was likely nothing to how Peter would feel if Kip tried to burn the stone he was living in, not to mention how furious Patris had been when he’d only thought Kip had set fire to his tower. “But you think I could do it?”

  “I think you will be able to eventually, yes. And who knows when ‘eventually’ may be?”

  “Thank you.” Kip told Odden about the colored fire effects and the other work he’d done, and then about the slim lead he had on the glass beads.

  Odden stroked his beard. “I'd be very interested to see what you find in the library. Should you need more assistance, I can vouch for you.”

  “That might help. Thank you.”

  A knock came at the door of the office, and when Odden said, “Come,” Master Vendis walked in.

  Surprised, Kip stood straighter. “Good morning, sir.”

  “Good morning, Kip. Ready?”

  “For what?” Kip asked.

  “He’s ready,” Master Odden said. “He is making excellent progress in the study of fire.”

  “All right.” Master Vendis came forward and took Kip’s arm.

  “Wait,” Kip said. “Where are—”

  “—we going?” He spoke the last two words in a breeze smelling of old leaves and swamp, his paws in a brittle stand of grass.

  “Welcome to Prince Philip’s,” Master Vendis said.

  They stood in a wide meadow where the grass was still green, the air cooled rather than froze Kip’s ears, and stands of trees rose around them, some with unfamiliar glossy green leaves though it was the middle of winter. Closer than the trees, one near and two far, sat three mounds of rubble that Kip did recognize. Up at Prince George’s, they were covered in canvas, but he knew immediately that they were the remains of three college buildings.

  “The town’s down this way.” Master Vendis began to walk.

  Kip remained standing. “I wanted to see Emily and Coppy and Malcolm,” he said, but not loudly.

  Master Vendis stopped and turned. “What was that?”

  There was a moment when Kip felt the urge to set his feet in place, to refuse to move until Master Vendis took him back to Massachusetts. He had endured all of Cott’s obsessive behavior and the warehouse and the sadness of the Isle, the isolation in the workshop and the anxiety over Albright, his patience worn down to the skin. Coming home, he’d hoped to be able to relax and regain some control over his life. And yet here was Master Vendis, whom he’d known for years, treating him just as everyone else had.

  In the next moment, he remembered that his father was waiting, and his feet carried him forward to follow Vendis down the path.

  If there had ever been gates as in New Cambridge, they had been dismantled and little trace remained of them. Kip thought they might have passed a large gatehouse-sized patch of clear ground, but he could also have been mistaken. “Where are they building the new college?” he asked as he caught up to Vendis.

  “Just on the other side of the town.” The sorcerer pointed as they came through a small copse to reveal the buildings of Peachtree.

  Whereas in New Cambridge the college overlooked the town from Founders Hill, here the path from the college wound down a gentle slope, and within fifty feet they were passing shops, their large front windows bustling with humans and Calatians alike. Both the shops and streets sprawled across wide spaces, so that even though the street was busy, it didn’t feel crowded. Farther down, a small church nestled among a cluster of homes, each with a small plot, and beyond those, a river burbled, its scent strong on the breeze. Kip tried to see where on the other side of the town there might be construction, but beyond the stream everything faded to indistinct shapes.

  He turned his attention back to the sorcerer striding just in front of him. “Master Vendis, might I be able to see my friends in New Cambridge before returning to London?”

  Vendis gave a sharp nod. “I don’t see why not. I’m to come and fetch you back after Twelfth Night. If you don’t mind waking early, you should have a few hours before MacDougal returns to take you to King’s.”

  “Thank you. I haven’t seen them in ages. And is there a sorcerer’s post from here to there?”

  “Not yet, I’m afraid.” Master Vendis sighed. “Your Emily is the best candidate to take over that post, but she won’t be ready until next year. I come down every few days to collect news, and if you have correspondence, I can carry it back.”

  They had reached the houses, and here the crowds thinned, though the scents remained of many different Calatian species in addition to all the humans around. Kip was about to ask whether this was a purely Calatian neighborhood when one of the scents set his ears straight up and his tail wagging. No longer needing Vendis’s guide, he ran to one of the small houses and knocked excitedly on the door.

  When his mother opened it, Kip fell into her arms. A moment later his father joined the embrace. “Happy Christmas,” Max said.

  “Happy Christmas.” Kip let go, keeping one paw on his mother’s arm. “It’s so good to see you again.”

  “You didn’t bring Coppy?” Max asked.

  Master Vendis, just arriving, shook his head. “Odden only asked me to bring Kip. I b
elieve Master Windsor wanted to keep Coppy for work over the holiday.”

  “Even on Christmas Day?” Kip asked.

  Master Vendis sighed. “I will inquire.”

  “Thank you so much,” Max said. He draped an arm over Kip’s shoulder. “You understand that he is as much a part of our family as our son.”

  Vendis’s expression softened. “Yes, I see that. Max, a word before I return?”

  The two of them stepped out of the house as Ada escorted Kip into it. “You see,” she said as Max closed the front door, “we have only been here a month, but already it feels like home.”

  “You’re not coming back to New Cambridge, then?”

  “Oh…no.” She flattened her ears. “We bought this house from the sale of the shop license.”

  They’d sold the shop. The place where Kip had spent so much of his childhood, gone. “I see. Dad didn’t tell me.”

  “It’s all been very busy.” Ada took Kip’s paw. “We had an offer and your father thought it best to take it. It allowed us to buy this house rather than renting at the Inn.”

  “That’s good.” Kip let his paw lie in his mother’s. “I’m glad. The house looks wonderful.”

  If he put his feelings about the shop aside, that wasn’t even a lie. With its large windows open, a pleasant breeze came through, and the earth out front had been turned for a garden. A large one, too, like the kind his mom had always talked about wanting one day.

  “The weather is so temperate here,” she said. “Of course, the air is moist and my fur looks terrible.” (It didn’t.) “But the town is a little smaller and everyone is quite friendly.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Kip clung to that one word, unable to come up with any other positive ones but wanting very much to be happy for his parents.

  Max and Vendis returned from the living room—Kip assumed, having only been in the parlour thus far—and clasped hand to paw. Vendis then raised a paw to Kip and said, “Happy Christmas, everyone. I’ll return in a fortnight.”