by Sever Bronny
“That’s it? That’s all we know?”
Leera nodded grimly. “Rumor is the Canterrans ruled out two dig locations, which is why a bunch of people have returned. Their search for whatever it is they’re looking for continues on in the other dig sites though.”
Augum glanced past her at Cry, who stared at his quill as if not knowing what it was.
“Now fill me in on what’s going on with you,” Leera pressed.
Augum quickly did so, glossing over details in order to hear more about Cry.
“So now they have Pedworth too,” she said when he finished.
“What do you mean?”
“Gonzalez never showed up to her History class. And guess what? Iron Byron’s gone as well.”
“What?”
“A student saw Count Vintus Von Edgeworth along with like ten overseers escorting him out of his office. He was quietly begging for the lives of his children. Begging, Augum.”
“They teleported us out to the middle of nowhere,” Cry blurted, speaking softly and slowly, staring at his quill. “Started under the Black Arena. Then they moved us to Malevant, then to Horren’s Keep, and finally to Southspear. But we didn’t find it. Night and day, all we did was dig and search, dig and search. Deeper and deeper. They called us barbarians and animals. They made us sleep underground in holes we dug. All we ate was moldy bread. When we were thirsty, they splashed us with water. It was so cold. So cold. They whipped the Ordinaries. Some died from the whipping, others from the cold. But they weren’t allowed to touch us warlocks. They promised it would all end when we found what they are looking for, but I think they’re saving us for something worse.”
“And you don’t know what you were looking for?” Augum asked, unable to help himself.
“Whatever it is, it’s big. Really big.” Drool ran from the corner of his mouth. Bridget noticed and dabbed it with a cloth, whispering, “You’re all right. You’re back now, Cry. Your parents will be very happy.”
“Hey—!” Gray Beard barked, interrupting Flagon’s lecture. “You know the rules, no touching between sexes.” He strode up the aisle as the girls dropped their heads. “I want all of you barbaric wenches on the other side of the class. Now.”
While the girls meekly got up, Katrina turned around at the front, folded her hands on the backrest of her chair, and rested her chin on top, smirking as she watched. Carp and Elizabeth awkwardly mimicked her.
Leera purposely brushed Augum’s knees as she passed, though kept her gaze averted. But as Bridget walked by, Gray Beard grabbed her robe and yanked. “And you will pay a fine of ten crowns.”
People gasped at the staggering sum. Brandon shot to his feet, breathing rapidly, only to slowly sit back down when Gray Beard frowned at him. Katrina’s smile widened. When she glanced at Brandon, he looked away, red-faced.
Gray Beard returned to his prey. “I said ten crowns!” and gave Bridget a violent jerk for good measure.
“All … all I have is two, sir,” Bridget said, head low.
“No you don’t. You lent us a bunch,” Isaac interrupted. “Here, let me return them to you,” and he dug out two crowns from his satchel and handed them to her. Then he made a pretend-angry face at Caireen. “Come on, girl, you know you owe her two as well. The rest of you too. Cough them up.” He shook his head at The Path Disciple, muttering, “Pfft, women, right?”
A gaping Bridget soon had enough to pay the ten-crown fine. She dutifully held out the handful of coins. Gray Beard pinched the coins one at a time so his skin wouldn’t touch hers. Then he snarled as he hypocritically shoved her away. She tripped and almost landed in Augum’s lap, but he telekinetically caught her, for she probably would have been fined again had she touched him in any way.
“Thanks,” she mouthed, and shuffled past. She, Leera, Laudine and Caireen sat at the far end of the row, leaving Augum and Isaac to sit gawking stupidly, while Cry merely sat in between, numbly keeping his eyes low. As Gray Beard returned to his spot in the corner, Augum took Leera’s seat while Isaac took Bridget’s on the other side of Cry.
“Bastards,” Isaac muttered under his breath.
“Tell me Bridget made a breakthrough at least regarding the Arcaner course,” Augum whispered as the lesson resumed.
“Uh, well, sort of,” Isaac replied. “You can discuss it at lunch with her.”
“I’d love to, but there’s a problem. We’ve got company.”
“We’ve got a plan for that, don’t worry. Raise your hood.”
“What? Why?”
“Trust me on it. Look, the girls already did.”
Augum glanced over to see that Bridget and Leera had raised their hoods while they casually took notes. He suspected what they all had in mind, and so raised his hood as well.
“Now switch satchels with me under the desk,” Isaac murmured while shuffling schoolwork around and pretending to be paying attention to the lesson.
Augum levitated his satchel over to Isaac’s feet, and then grabbed Isaac’s.
“Hide my satchel until we leave class. At that point, we’ll throw a little distraction, I’ll raise my hood—as will Caireen and Laudine—and we’ll all reveal our switched satchels. Since we’re all loosely the same height, they’ll hopefully follow the wrong set. Us imposters will lunch and then hit the library, while you three do your Arcaner thing and follow Bridget’s scroll. I know I’m taller than you, but not enough for someone standing twenty feet back to notice. Also, I’ll float my satchel like you do. Well, it’s your satchel, but you know what I mean. Anyway, make sense?”
Augum nodded. “Think so.” It was a clumsy plan, but it might just work.
“And we’ll hit Ollie’s after the worship ceremony concludes,” Isaac said. He reached over and adjusted Cry’s grip on the quill, which had threatened to fall to the floor. “I know you’ve always been a pain in the butt,” he told him, “but we’re in this together. Really could use your help, you know, seeing as you’ve got that herald mind for details and all. Anything else you can tell us? Even the smallest bit might—”
“They’re all Rivican constructs,” Cry blurted.
“Huh?” Augum and Isaac chorused.
“Where we dug. Where the others are still digging. All the digs are in spots that have ancient Rivican constructs. And no, I don’t know why.”
Augum glanced past Cry at Isaac, as if the answer might appear on his wry face.
“Fleiszmann!”
“Yes, Arcanist Flagon?”
“Wake up. What are the core principles to a successful Chameleon casting?”
As Isaac answered, Augum unstopped his square ink bottle, dipped his raven quill into the ink, and scratched out a parchment note in tiny writing, stating, Cry reports they’re only digging in ancient Rivican sites. That explains why they’re digging under the academy as it was built on Rivican ruins. And the other day Gonzalez mentioned something about Rivicans taking slaves. He blew on the ink, surreptitiously tore a large piece from his scroll, folded it in his lap, and telekinetically sent it to Bridget, who was closest down his row. She secretly opened the note, looked up at him, and showed it to Laudine, Caireen and Leera. The girls quietly discussed the matter. Bridget then replied on the same note with her peacock-feather quill, before telekinetically returning it.
Cai and Laud said that will greatly help narrow down their history research, which Haylee has made progress on. Has Isaac told you the plan?
Augum replied as quick as the ink allowed. He has. I’m in. I suspect Katrina and her aunt are making money from Castle Arinthian Trainers but aren’t charging Canterran military warlocks a copper. Also I think the Canterrans are following us around because they’re waiting for something. But what?
He sent that message along, watched the four girls confer, and soon received Bridget’s answer.
That explains why the Von Edgeworths wanted the castle. As to why they’re following us, I suspect it has something to do with the Arcaner path. They don’t really fear us now t
hat they know the scions were destroyed. So that leaves us with only two possibilities: they think we might start an insurrection, or they want something from us related to Arcaners. If they feared the first, they would have arrested us on the first day.
Augum hid the note as Gray Beard wandered up the aisle to check on them. The man bit his lower lip with two buck teeth, giving him the appearance of an angry badger. He tapped at his bald head as he glared at Augum, silently asking, Why the hood?
Augum grabbed himself and made an exaggerated shiver, mouthing, “It’s cold,” only to realize the man probably couldn’t see his face from within the large hood. Warlock hoods were traditionally large and loose, meant to convey mystery and spookiness to Ordinary enemies.
“Barbaric hoodlums,” Gray Beard muttered, making his way back down the steps, huffing.
“At least he didn’t ask you to reveal your face,” Isaac muttered.
To avoid getting fined, Augum decided to stop his conversation with Bridget and instead took notes.
“Cry,” he murmured under his breath as he scribbled some inanity about the Sleep spell he already knew. “Are they following us because we’re Arcaners?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know?” Cry wheezed, descending into a coughing fit.
Friendly as ever.
Flagon looked up from a scroll he had been reading aloud. “Ah, Pupil Slimwealth,” he said in his perpetually disappointed tone. “Have we rejoined the land of the living then?”
Cry’s eyes narrowed at Flagon’s attempt at humor.
“Good, then perhaps you can inform the class how the Pupil Code of Conduct applies to casting standard 8th degree spells on academy grounds.” He removed his reading spectacles, fastened with a leather cord, and let them dangle at his chest. “Come, come, just because you’ve been given a reprieve from class does not mean you cannot be held accountable.”
Cry’s voice was weak, but he made an effort. “The Pupil Code of Conduct strictly forbids the casting of Sleep on other persons except in the cases of willing training participants, or when sanctioned by an arcanist. As to the Chameleon spell, it is forbidden to use against another student if the intention is deception. And as to the Strength spell, it can be used lawfully to move things around, carry things, or train with, as with the others, but it cannot be used against another person in any malicious or ill manner. Breaking these rules can result in disciplinary actions undertaken against the offender, such as fines, whipping, or expulsion.”
“Correct. Stone—”
“Yes, Arcanist Flagon?”
“And what about the 7th degree Minor Illusion spell?”
“What about it, sir?”
A few chortles rang out.
“What are its ethics boundaries in relation to the Pupil Code of Conduct?”
Augum knew that’s what he had meant, it’s just that he needed to stall to give his brain time to tackle the problem. “The 7th degree Minor Illusion spell cannot be cast in such a manner that can be interpreted as being cast to deceive someone.” Making it essentially useless in the academy. Not that anyone would bother casting the spell in the first place as it was stupidly difficult to get right. He and Leera had passed their 7th degree exam on it by a whisker. It was a spell that caused many a warlock to hit their ceiling.
“Unnecessarily wordy, but essentially correct. Now let us turn to chapter nineteen and review the ethical limits to all three spells as used beyond the academy.”
Augum caught Leera’s eye. She had to be thinking the same thing. Why couldn’t this class be over already?
By the time the noon bell finally sounded, concluding the two-hour class, Augum’s heels ached from anxiously tapping the floor. He made sure his hood was snug around his face and waited for the girls to join him and Isaac, wondering what the distraction would be. Bridget and Leera soon joined him, their hoods up, satchels reversed so no one could tell what the outside looked like.
Cry was luckily strong enough by then to walk on his own, albeit slowly. As Augum and his friends bunched up in a group by the door, waiting to file out, a tall shelf of books crashed down in the opposite corner of the room, drawing everyone’s attention. Caireen, Laudine and Isaac raised their hoods and flipped their satchels, as did Augum, Bridget and Leera. Then they hurried out of the room before anyone knew what was happening.
Except, standing out in the Hall of Rapture, was a white-robed Darby, flanked by a retinue of ten imposing sapphire-robed overseers.
Darby moved two fingers and Augum’s hood slid from his head. “Ah, the old ‘distract and sneak off.’ A classic.” He eyed Augum’s satchel—which was really Isaac’s—with an amused expression. “You three stay. Your friends go.”
Isaac, Caireen and Laudine hesitated.
“I will not repeat myself.”
They began walking off.
“Ah-ah, are we forgetting something?”
Augum pressed his lips together as he removed the satchel strap from his shoulder and held it out for Isaac. Bridget and Leera did the same. They wordlessly exchanged satchels before their friends departed with bowed heads. The remaining students from the class skittered by, some on tiptoes. Except for Katrina, who flashed Augum an amused look, chin a balcony of arrogance. Flagon strode by with a warning glare at the trio.
Darby, hands folded behind his back, stepped toward Augum. “I think you know what this is about.”
The two missing overseers and Path Disciple. But Augum kept his face plain and tried to keep his heart from hammering a hole through his chest.
“Follow me.” Darby turned on his heel and led the trio toward the portal. His overseers flanked them. Augum noticed these ones were trained well, for their heads swiveled this way and that, scanning for threats. They were no doubt high-degree military warlocks.
A blizzard raged in the courtyard, forcing the trio to raise their hoods and tuck their heads into the crooks of their elbows. Darby walked with his shaved head exposed, hands behind his back, as if to send the message that he was above such trivial things. Yet he winced against the snow.
They stepped through the yawning portal that led to the Student Wing, where the trio dropped their hoods and shook the snow off their shoulders and satchels, while Darby brushed the sleet off his head.
Students scurried out of their way. Some turned right back around when they entered the castle-like halls, while others bowed like servants, hoping to go unnoticed. Even arcanists gave them a wide berth.
As they continued on to who knew where, there came the sound of raucous singing. And the singing got louder as they neared its source, a room up ahead. Darby’s hands, still behind his back, closed into fists.
“… and we all went down with them!” the song concluded, the words sung with a slur.
Darby stopped outside the academy’s Disciplinary Hearing Room where Augum had faced the Disciplinary Committee last month. The door was open. Nostrils flaring, he turned to three of his overseers. “Drag them out.”
“Your Worship,” the three overseers said in unison, and strode into the room.
“Hey, we’re singing here!” shouted a man. A scuffle followed. “Let go!”
“Senna dormo comma—” whined another in a heavily slurred voice, only to interrupt himself with a hacking cough.
The stench hit them before the men emerged. Even the overseers recoiled. It was a mixture of vomit and drink. At last, the three overseers emerged with two smaller overseers and a Path Disciple, the latter three thoroughly drunk. Augum instantly recognized them as the three they had captured and hidden away in the Healing Ward. Vomit was on all three of their robes, and their eyes had a hard time focusing. They were red-eyed and pale.
Darby’s voice was cold steel. “Explain yourselves.”
“Jus’ havin’ a wee pint,” The Path Disciple blurted, clumsily patting his pockets then withdrawing an empty flask. Even as an overseer held him up, he tried to tip the bottle to his lips.
Darby turned to the trio and mass
aged his neck as he considered them. They stood mutely together. Bridget and Leera hadn’t raised their heads once since leaving the classroom. Augum did the looking for them; he’d pass on any worthy details later. Darby finished massaging his neck and placed his gaze on Augum. “You are attempting to resurrect the Arcaner course with parlor tricks.”
A cold wave washed over Augum.
“You’re wondering how I know.” Those golden eyes danced with glee at seeing Augum squirm. “This is why it is important to study one’s enemies. The answer is rather simple and underwhelming—deductive reasoning. You chose the Arcaner path, and your history tells me you intend to follow through on that path. And after additional study, it has been revealed to me that that particular path intersects with one of the reasons we Canterrans are here.” Darby watched Augum closely. “Understanding has not dawned on your face. Rest assured, all will be revealed to you shortly.”
Darby nodded at the three drunks. “Put them to the question.”
“Your Worship.” The overseers roughly took the three drunks away. Augum wondered where they were being taken to. He hoped that Arcanist Ordrid had covered his tracks with whatever memory impairment he had administered. Augum knew enough about arcanery to know that, given enough skill, such a thing was possible for a higher-degree warlock, but risky. One missed memory and the game was up.
“Those who aided you will be found and punished. I would put you three to the question myself, but we have other plans for you.”
Augum still did not reply, deeming any position a losing position. It was better to stay mute. Besides, he had a feeling they were about to find out why they had not been arrested yet.
Darby smugly turned his back on the trio and led on, taking them through the huge oaken double doors and into the foyer of the arcanist dorms. A similar foyer led to the student dorms, where students from distant villages or foreign kingdoms slept.
