Fantastic Schools: Volume One (Fantastic Schools Anthologies Book 1)

by Christopher G Nuttall

  “What’s the deal with a familiar?” Mr. Ferguson asked. “The kids are supposed to bring a pet?”

  “Not a pet,” Topher corrected. “Familiars are animals with a capacity for magic, just as sorcerers are people with a capacity for magic. Conjuring requires the assistance of a familiar, and they can also be used to help with warding and have other protective uses.”

  “So, how do you know the difference between a regular animal and a familiar?”

  “Most families raise their own or consult a breeder,” Topher answered. “There’s one in Chase we could talk to.”

  Topher promised to make an appointment for the Fergusons to meet the breeder in Chase and answered as many of their other questions as he could. They talked well into the evening, making various plans to order uniforms through the catalogs, reserve school books with the campus bookstore, and make a trip into Anchorage to buy more mundane supplies at the end of the summer once the sales started.

  Temmy laughed as he rolled around in the double litter of Alaskan Malamute puppies. At this rate, he looked like he would never pick one to be his familiar. The breeder Topher and his mother had taken them to, Duke Kaiser, had released every available dog at once and instructed Temmy to take his time and find the dog that spoke to his heart.

  Duke was an old fashioned romantic when it came to dogs. He had been pleased to meet the Fergusons and help the two new Roanokeans find the familiars they would need for school. He had first talked to Temmy at great length about the dogs they already had at home and whether there was one who loved Temmy above all other people. Bonding with a familiar would be very hard on such a dog, and Duke wanted to spare any animal that kind of pain. If Temmy already had a dog at home, it would be better for him to choose a bird or squirrel for his familiar so the dog did not think it was being replaced. Thankfully, Temmy loved all the family dogs, but he had no special favorite.

  Sappho, meanwhile, picked-up and petted any puppy that wandered away from the fray. She liked dogs well enough, but expected a gentler one would speak to her heart, if any did, perhaps a runt. Unlike her little brother, whose familiar was covered by his scholarship, she also had to be conscious of the expense. She wondered if her family could afford a specially-bred magical dog. They had already budgeted for college textbooks, dorm supplies, a few new clothes, and moving expenses but this was something very different. Normal pure-bred dogs could cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. How much more would a familiar be?

  Sappho and her mother discreetly asked Duke about price. There was no drop in price for small pups since the duties of a familiar were mostly companionship and magical assistance. The dogs’ physical prowess was not as much of a concern to most of his customers as long as it was healthy. Any dog she chose would be far beyond her ability to buy.

  “Topher,” Sappho sidled up next to him and whispered after the conversation with Duke, “I can’t do this.”

  “Oh, um,” he blushed as he searched for something to say, “there are other options.”

  Topher hadn’t meant to get her into such an awkward situation. He had been trained to work with families who had all the resources of the O.I. scholarship. He hadn’t given that much of his attention to how to help someone find a familiar without either financial or family resources. Now, here she was, looking up at him with her large blue eyes full of doubt.

  “The school will let you borrow an animal from the Menagerie, so you can get through the required Art classes,” he assured her.

  “You won’t need to borrow a familiar, Little Lady,” Duke addressed Sappho encouragingly. “You will be able to call a wild one. Ask Nancy at the Apothecary to mix you some of her Dreamer’s Blend, then go out and sing what you dream. Your familiar will be the animal that comes both when you are dreaming and again when you are awake.”

  “How,” Sappho started, chagrined that Duke had overheard them, “do you know I will be able to do that?”

  “I am good at what I do because I can read people as well as dogs.” The twinkle in Duke’s hooded eyes seemed to give her more confidence than the words alone, “I also have some magic of my own.

  “Now, if you will excuse me, I need to tell Themistocles and his familiar that it is time for them to get ready to go home.”

  “He finally decided which one he wants?” Sappho asked.

  “Oh, he knew almost right away,” Duke answered. “He’s just been playing for the last half hour. The pups love it, but I need to get them kenneled again so I can go into town.”

  They collected Temmy and his new puppy, whom he named Archimedes, and rode the Evans’ flying umbrella platform back to the village park strip of Chase. The family flying umbrella looked like a square picnic table with four built-in storage benches with an umbrella rising over the table. They parked it next to several other umbrella tables in front of Sokolov’s Market, then found Nancy in the Apothecary.

  The Apothecary was an alchemical shop. Half of the inventory looked like it belonged in a tea shop while the rest resembled fly-tying materials for fishermen. Nancy understood exactly what Duke had recommended. She set some chamomile tea to steep while she arranged a variety of herbs and objects in a triangular mirrored device on her work table in the back of the shop. When the tea was ready, she took the large rock sugar crystal from the center of the device and dropped it into the brew to dissolve. She instructed Sappho how to use the elixir as it cooled enough to go into a stoppered bottle.

  The Dreamer’s Blend would allow her to keep her presence of mind when she dreamed. This made it much easier for people to use dream magic or just remember their dreams upon waking. In Sappho’s case, she needed to drink it right before sleeping to allow her to call a wild familiar while she dreamed. When she woke, she would remember the kulning she sang in her dream that summoned the familiar. The wild animal would remember the song as well when it heard her in the waking world and come.

  “Make sure you dream yourself into a safe place before you begin,” Nancy told Sappho. “You don’t want to call the wrong thing. I don’t know why Duke would tell you to try this before you knew what you were doing. Do you have someone who can protect you while you sleep?”

  Sappho’s eyes went wide with the warning, and she turned to Topher.

  Topher nodded to her solemnly. His mind raced through all the magics he currently had at his disposal to perform such a service. He had been involved in riskier exploits with his friends from school. He was certain he would be up to the task by the time she was ready to try to summon a familiar.

  “You need to be careful with Sappho, Topher,” his mother warned him as he helped her cook dinner that evening. “You are going to hurt her very deeply if you just keep treating this like a job.”

  “What? I…” Topher’s mouth gaped open incredulously, and his vegetable peeler slipped off his carrot.

  “Topher,” his mother chided, “you must have noticed that she has a crush on you.”

  “I made a fool of myself in front of her,” Topher countered.

  “Some girls think dorky is cute,” Jenny Han Evans answered with a mischievous smile as she continued to wash the salad greens.

  “Thanks, Mom, that is so encouraging.” Topher rolled his eyes and then paused, “Dad’s not a dork. He’s an architectural kenomancer.”

  “Have you ever seen him dance?”

  “No,” Topher answered skeptically.

  “Let me just say that I know where your awkwardness comes from,” his mother replied and prompted him to finish peeling the carrots.

  “She hasn’t talked to me about anything except the school or Chase all summer.”

  “You are at least interested in her, aren’t you?”

  “Mom, this conversation is getting weird and embarrassing. Do we need to talk about this?”

  “Think about things from her point of view,” his mother persisted while she started to slice the onions. “You are the one shepherding them through a very confusing and exciting experience. It makes you look c
onfident and sophisticated. Being clumsy in front of her just makes you look accessible and kind of cute. It keeps you from being beyond her reach. Now she turns to you when she needs someone to protect her. You are treading on very thin ice, Topher.”

  “When you put it that way, it sounds like I would be taking advantage of her if I asked her out.”

  “That’s stupid,” his mother countered bluntly. “Her situation might intensify her interest, but it wouldn’t make her feel something for you that wasn’t there already.”

  “We haven’t been friends for years, Mom. We don’t even know each other anymore.”

  “There is nothing to stop you from getting to know each other again now,” his mother encouraged. “It looks like that is exactly what Sappho wants to do.”

  “Nancy was right, Mom. Using dreams to summon a wild familiar could be really dangerous. Who else is Sappho going to turn to?”

  “I know that just as well as Nancy does,” his mother answered. “My point is that Sappho turned to you, not an experienced adult like Nancy or me or Duke.”

  “This is not the most dangerous thing I have dealt with.”

  “Are you talking about that thing that almost got you expelled?” his mother asked.

  “That was just the time we were really in over our heads.”

  “Are you ever going to explain what happened? The dean made it abundantly clear that your friends’ political connections were the only thing that kept you from getting kicked out of school.”

  “I told you, Mom, part of the deal was that I can’t talk about it.”

  Topher’s mother pursed her lips in consternation but let the subject go.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” Topher offered. He put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the head, enjoying the height difference. “Hey, I know this is a bad time but I need to make a call. I’m going to take the truck down into cell phone range.”

  Once he was in the pick-up, Topher turned on the radio and drove aimlessly for half an hour. The call he needed to make didn’t require cell reception, He just needed to be alone with his thoughts for a while before he could talk to anyone. His mother had left him in a state of mind that was not conducive to accomplishing any serious work. By the time he was ready to face practical matters again, he realized he had headed north and was lucky he was not halfway to Fairbanks.

  Topher found a good place to park and shook a black bracelet out from under his sleeve.

  “Hey, I know it’s late where some of you are, let me know who’s available,” Topher said aloud while thinking of his circle of friends who each wore a similar bracelet.

  “I am still awake,” Lucy Westenra answered first, but then, she probably never slept.

  “I am at dinner,” William Locke answered, “I will return your call within an hour.”

  “I can get away from dinner if this is really important,” Jenny Dare offered, “I am not with William, so my dinner is obviously not as interesting.”

  “I am asleep, in Cornwall, which is nine hours ahead of you,” Gaius Valiant grunted, “so this had better be important, Topher.”

  “Proceed Evans,” Vladimir Von Dread, the crown prince of Bavaria commanded, “we are listening.”

  Well, that answered that.

  “I need to arrange for a safe dream space for an untrained summoning. While I am intellectually aware of the precautions one can take to make such an activity less than deadly, they are outside of my areas of specialization.”

  “Who is summoning what, Topher-honey? You don’t count as untrained, even if you don’t know how to summon the thing you want,” Jenny chattered in her typical bubbly fashion.

  “One of my recruits was encouraged to try to call a wild familiar. My mom or I could probably play the summoning spell if we knew what we were getting, but she was told to call in dreams and again in waking, then see what comes both times.”

  “Who is offering such ill advice to an inexperienced Unwary sorceress?” Naomi Coils inquired in her typical detached and slightly acerbic tone.

  Naomi had not previously made her presence known but she was clearly paying attention. Topher wasn’t sure where she might be at the moment. She was from a prominent Wise family with close connections to the founders of Ouroboros Industries.

  “The local dog breeder who raises familiars,” Topher answered. “He’s Yup’ik. I am not familiar with their traditional dreaming magic. Everything I have heard about it centers around vision quests or spiritual comeuppance.”

  “Were you thinking of following this girl into the dreamlands? Zoe Forrest is the only one I know who can do that for people. It could take me a few days to track her down during summer,” Gaius offered sleepily.

  “You do not need to physically follow her into the Dreaming,” Lucy corrected. “You are dealing with the paths between the conscious and the subconscious. You will want to ward the dreamer’s body in a highly-ritualistic manner with iron or salt in addition to your familiar’s assistance, while she is conscious but susceptible. That way she will be warded both in the waking world and in her dream. As long as you each carry matching talismans designed to bridge the ward, you will be able to follow her into the same dreamscape.”

  “That’s some pretty complicated spellwork,” Topher observed.

  “You are the one who wants to protect an untrained girl from creatures out of deepest nightmare while she opens her soul to whatever comes,” came Lucy’s retort.

  “Yeah, that’s what I want to do.” Topher sighed and finished the call. “Thanks, I think I can take it from here.”

  In the following days, Topher convinced Sappho to wait to try calling a wild familiar until closer to the end of summer. In the meantime, he taught her how to achieve the right state of mind to ensure that the wards he used to protect her body would also protect her sleeping self and learned how to make the right talismans so he could follow her into her dreams. That part made both of them more than a little nervous. Still, he would rather do that than risk her trying to do this on her own.

  Topher spent much more time consulting Lucy over the next few weeks than he liked. She was pretty spooky, but she was the only expert on hypnosis and altered states of consciousness he knew. Sappho would only need to use the Dreamer’s Blend and sleep. Topher would have to put himself in a meditative trance that would allow him to dream without completely leaving the waking world.

  The talismans took longer to make than Topher had expected. Sappho was understandably anxious the last week of August when he was still putting the finishing touches on them. Topher was anxious, too, truth be told. By the time he finished making the magical tools, they had only days left before classes started at Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts.

  Topher and Sappho reviewed the plan again before putting everything in place to really cast the spell. They would each carry their talismans, small identical dream catchers with handles that made them look like a mini tennis rackets decorated with magpie feathers. Sappho would sleep within a six-foot diameter warding circle, so when she found herself dreaming, she needed to make sure not to move beyond it or scuff any of the lines. Topher would station himself just outside it but within a larger concentric circle so that anything that wished her harm would have to get past two wards and him to reach her. Since most of Topher’s attention would be on Sappho’s dream, Sod would stand watch in the waking world armed with a high caliber rifle and a shotgun loaded with special rounds packed with rock salt and iron pellets.

  “What if nothing happens?” Sappho asked nervously.

  “At the very least, you have received a preview lesson in warding and will get to experience lucid dreaming. Nancy’s elixir will definitely work, so you will have the presence of mind to sing in your dream, like Duke told you to do and when you wake up, you will remember everything that happened while you were dreaming,” Topher assured her. “Ideally, you will summon the dream version of a familiar and then wake up to do the same thing again, and it will all be as uneventful as
Duke described. Then, you can tease me for making such a big deal over nothing.”

  “What do I do when it comes?”

  “Wake up, I guess,” Topher shrugged. “This isn’t really the kind of magic I have been studying.”

  “What do I do to wake up?” she asked.

  “That part usually takes care of itself.”

  “What do I do with my familiar once it comes for real and we are finished?” Sappho persisted.

  “You care for it exactly like any normal animal of its kind. How you take care of it normally depends on what comes. Are mountain goats the only animals that usually respond to you?”

  “Kulning was originally used to call cattle and goats and sheep. My great grandfather slowly gathered and bred our herd of mountain goats when he settled here. People have also been known to attract swans and coyotes and foxes, sometimes even geese or ducks or other curious wild animals.”

  “Well, there you go,” Topher offered, “you could be dealing with just about any type of animal by the time we are done. Just know that familiars are not quite like wild animals, nor are they tame. Once one bonds with you, it will be yours for the rest of your life, or until you release it. The bond will extend the animal’s life to match yours.”

  “Oh,” Sappho blinked, “that… sounds nice.”

  “You ready?”

  Topher took a fortifying breath and went with Sappho to go get Hesiod and do this thing. Sappho had chosen her favorite place, a clearing on the far side of the orchard at the base of the hills. It was big enough for Topher to mark out all of the circles of the concentric wards. It was also peaceful and green and warm on this particular sunny day at the end of August, and everything smelled ripe and ready to harvest.

  Hesiod took a position under a tree and prepared to watch and wait. Sappho helped set out a few supplies before settling on a picnic blanket in the center of the clearing and drank her elixir. Topher described the significance of everything he was doing with each step until he needed to keep silence. He hoped that the sound of his voice and the repetition of the warding lesson would help Sappho preserve her sense of the wards as she dreamed, just as Lucy said they would. Sappho blinked a few times as if she were trying to be sleepy and then settled down for her nap. Topher, meanwhile, sat in the western gap between the two circles and slowed his breathing until he could put himself in a meditative trance and focused upon the dream catcher talisman in his hand. With luck, this would be all Sod saw until the two of them woke.