by Guy Antibes
Ricky nodded. “Yes, Master Hisso.”
He left and looked at his paper. The schedule said lunch. His afternoon was free, but there was a notation for him to find Master Pisan after he had eaten. Ricky had no idea where Pisan was. Maybe he could catch him at the dining hall.
~~~
CHAPTER THREE
~
L UNCH CONSISTED OF A LIMPID, SOUPY STEW. Ricky couldn’t even tell what kind of meat he ate, but he didn’t mind. It would fill him up. He knew how to make do with not much. He spotted Master Pisan strolling out the door and caught up with him in the hall.
“My map says to see you after lunch, Master Pisan.”
Pisan took the schedule and looked at the notation. “So it does. How was history?”
The man’s expression told him that he had purposely misled Ricky.
“I earned a demerit and am to see Warden Sarini tomorrow morning.”
Pisan furrowed his brow. “Why not now?”
“Master Hisso might want me to help some of his students. He wants to talk to the warden first.”
“Figures,” Pisan said with a smirk. “Tomorrow, then. You’ll get a taste of what detention is all about.”
“Will I get beaten, sir?”
Pisan shook his head. “These days, you have to break the rules for that, not that it doesn’t happen often enough. Come with me.” The man still looked disappointed.
He walked ahead of Ricky who followed him to Building Two where his cell was. An older student leaned against the wall in front of a door.
“My office. Inside, both of you,” Pisan said.
Ricky took a seat on one of the two stools behind an old beat-up desk. Even Professor Calasay’s office was bigger and cleaner than Pisan’s. Ricky looked up at the tiny window.
“This is Gil Bisacci. Gil, I’m assigning you to be the buddy of Hendrico Valian.”
The older boy, probably sixteen or seventeen, glanced over at Ricky and gave him half a smile, barely making eye contact.
“You will show Hendrico around the Home, but not the senior activities.” Pisan shot Gil a look that obviously had a deeper meaning. “Be a pal to him for a few weeks. You can stop when you feel Hendrico has a good feel for the place.”
Ricky shuddered. He didn’t trust Pisan, at all, and Gil hadn’t exactly extended a hand of friendship. He expected he’d have a painful introduction to what the Applian Juvenile Home was really like in the next few days.
“If you will excuse me. Make sure you close the door when you leave.” Pisan said and left both boys looking at each other in his office.
Gil got up and closed the door. He exhaled and sat in Pisan’s seat, putting his feet on the desk and his hands behind his head.
“Let’s get something straight, Hendrico—”
“Ricky. My name is Ricky.”
Gil gave Ricky a mirthless smile and nodded. “Ricky, then. I’m no one’s buddy. This may be the last time we see each other, which would be fine with me. I can’t leave this office without leaving a bit of your blood on the floor, got it?”
The older boy’s attitude miffed Ricky. “What about your blood?”
Gil snorted. “Won’t happen.” He stood up and cracked his knuckles. “Just try. Pisan said you’re just a little river rat.”
Evidently, Ricky’s history was getting around, but he wondered what part of his background the inmates knew.
“One more word of warning.” Gil picked up Pisan’s rod of authority and slapped it on his hand.
He got up and came around the desk. Ricky went to the door, finding it locked from the outside. He wasn’t about to let Gil beat him up with that rod. He shouted and pulled the rod from Gil’s frozen grip and began to beat the boy as hard as he could, hitting everything that wouldn’t show. When he sensed the spell wearing off, he picked up a stool and hit Gil soundly on the head.
In a moment, Gil’s eyes rolled into his head, and he slumped to the floor. Ricky wiped a trace of blood off on Gil’s shirt, replaced the rod on the desk, picked up his history textbook, and rapped his knuckles on the door.
“Master Pisan. I have finished my orientation with Gil. Would you please let me out?”
Ricky heard the key rattle in the lock. Pisan opened the door. His eyebrows rose when he saw Gil just coming to on the floor.
Ricky looked back at Gil. “He had so much fun beating me, that he passed out. I think our being buddies is over now that I have a better feel for the place.” He walked out the door and didn’t look back.
He just wandered through the Home, noticing that hardly any of the older boys were around. Ricky found a girl puzzling over a Parantian textbook. Ricky guessed a teacher wouldn’t have given out a textbook unless the student could be trusted.
“Are you having a hard time with Parantian?” Ricky said.
The girl looked up. She looked so sad and nodded. “I having hard time with it,” she said in broken Parantian.
She had auburn hair and the lightest blue eyes Ricky had ever seen, an uncommon coloring.
“Where are you from?”
“Fisttia,” she said. “My parents entertainers. Died. No place to go. Put here.” Her Parantian was halting at best.
He hadn’t noticed her in the Parantian class, but he was only there for a few minutes. “I’ll help you with that if you will tell me what is going on in the Home. I’m new,” Ricky said. “My name is Ricky.”
“I Kela Torres.” She ventured a tentative smile. “You not beaten yet?”
Ricky shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “They beat you?”
She raised her eyebrow. She didn’t look quite so sad when she did that. “A girl nearly graduated. Couldn’t walk two days.” She showed him two of her fingers.
“How long have you been here?”
“Too long,” she said. “Nearly six months. Didn’t do anything.” She shrugged her shoulders.
Ricky would ask the warden about her. She looked about his age. He had expected all the girls to be as hard as steel, but maybe she was an exception, for now. Another three or four years at the Home might improve her Parantian, but ruin her future life. He didn’t know if he should feel bad for a fellow inmate.
“Where are all the older boys?” Ricky said. “The Home seems nearly empty.”
“Basement training.”
“Training? Training for what?” Pisan hadn’t mentioned anything about any training.
“They won’t tell you, yet,” the girl said.
Maybe that was where they tortured inmates.
“Have you been to training?”
“Not girls!” she said. “Only older boys. You know soon.”
Ricky didn’t think he’d be anxious to find out.
“I’ll see you around.”
“Again, your name?”
“Ricky.”
She nodded and repeated his name. “Bye, Ricky.”
That seemed to be a dismissal. Ricky gave her a little bow and hustled down to the library. He passed a younger boy on the way down the stairs to the basement. The boy turned right and headed towards Building Three.
“Are you going to be a regular? Haven’t had one of those for a few years,” the guard said.
Ricky smiled. “I guess I will be. I’m in for nine months, so I might as well learn a few things.”
The guard seemed to be a bit more talkative. “What are you in for?”
“Murder.” The guard’s eyes grew. “Self-defense. I killed a Lord before he could kill me. The magistrate couldn’t let me go free, so here I am.”
“Why would a lord want to kill you?”
Ricky bit his lip. “Because I was attacked by his son and a bunch of goons. The son died in the fight.”
“You killed him, too?”
Ricky couldn’t tell the truth. “He was killed with the sword of another in my group.”
“And he blamed you?”
“We weren’t the best of friends.”
The guard chuckled. “No one is the bes
t of friends in this place. You watch out for yourself. If you let the other boys get to you, they won’t stop. I’ve seen that happen often enough. It’s one reason I’m down here. I stopped too many fights.”
Ricky stood there thinking. “The teachers and the building supervisors just let the fighting go?”
“They do. The teachers think it’s better to let inmates fight than take their anger out on the guards and them. I’ve never seen that work, but no one listens to me.”
“I’m Ricky Valian.”
“Ricky short for something else?”
“Hendrico.”
The guard laughed. “That’s my first name, too, but folks call me Henni. It’s okay to call me that down here. Up above, my name is ‘Guard.'” He smiled at Ricky. “Gonna read more?”
“It’s better than getting in a fight, I guess.”
Henni nodded. “You guessed right, Ricky. Go on in. You’re all alone now. I had a visitor. Thought he was lost, but he came down on a dare. The boys sometimes scare the young ones into saying the library is haunted.”
“I think it is, in a sense,” Ricky said. “The books are so old that it feels like ghosts are in the writing. Most of the people who wrote the books are dead. The writings of those buried long ago,” Ricky grinned.
“Don’t make me think that,” Henni said, smiling.
“You know, a year ago I couldn’t read or write. I would have never thought that a library would be a refuge for me.”
“Is it a refuge?”
Ricky nodded. “I’d rather read than wander the halls worrying about who’s going to pick a fight next.”
“You’re a smart kid.”
“Only in a few things,” Ricky said. “As I said before, I know a little sorcery.”
“Watch what you do with it. No one in the Home much likes magic. It will get you into trouble.”
Or keep me out of it, Ricky thought. “I’ll be going in.”
Henni waved him on.
Ricky found the old history book and sat down. He sang a light and found an account of a war before the conflagration that changed Parantia nearly three hundred years ago. He read about battles and even found an ancient Duke of Naparra leading a successful charge for the Parantian king.
He sat back and closed his eyes. The darkness closed in on him, and his thoughts became dreamlike. Ricky imagined himself wearing armor and fighting for the rearing horse, the central figure of the Naparran coat of arms. Was it the same then, he wondered? What was sorcery like three or four hundred years ago? Did they have performances? Perhaps he should read the book to see if that were the case.
He started at the beginning and skimmed, catching the words magic or sorcerer. Ricky saw no mention of performance sorcery, but he noticed plenty of references to battle sorcery. He had no idea that sorcerers were so important in an army. No wonder the monarchy tried to eliminate sorcerers. A good sorcerer could turn the tide of a battle, but he also noticed that many sorcerers died on the battlefield, if the words could be trusted. Saganet had taught him to doubt what was written.
Ricky wondered if the battle spells, battle singing one account called it, still existed in the world. Maybe in Duteria, the city-state that practiced the power-linking that saved his life back at the academy. Perhaps the library might still yield up some book that mentioned it.
Henni walked in on Ricky’s musings. “Time for dinner. You’d better head up, or you’ll go hungry tonight.”
“What do you do at night?”
Henni shrugged. “I have a flat close to the Home. A number of the guards live in the same building. I go to a local pub, have a bite and spend the rest of the night talking to my mates.”
Ricky nodded. “It gives me something to look forward to,” he said as he put the book away. After Henni locked the library, he walked up the stairs with Ricky.
“See you tomorrow,” Henni said as he walked through the little gate that kept inmates from strolling out the front door. Ricky saw him exchange a few words with the guard at the door.
He hurried to the dining hall. He heard the sounds of inmates talking amidst the clattering of dishes and utensils. He grabbed a tray, filled a bowl and sat down at an empty table. He saw the auburn-haired girl chatting with a few others. He could see the pain on her face when the other girls smirked at something she said.
He watched Gil gingerly walk into the room. The older boy picked up his food and headed right towards him.
“Don’t you try to beat me again,” Gil said quietly from the other side of the table. “I’ve got a gang behind me that will take care of you.”
Ricky could see a hint of desperation in Gil’s threats. “We can have an understanding, can’t we? You stay away from me, and I’ll stay away from you. I’m faster than you can imagine,” Ricky said.
“I don’t doubt that.” Gil ended up chuckling. “It was nearly worth the thrashing to see Pissy google-eyed like that.” He shook his head. “You were even smart enough to leave my face alone. That will really set the guards going.”
“I don’t hold anything against you,” Ricky said. “You were doing what Master Pisan expected you to do.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Pissy never told me you were in the Home for murder.”
Ricky shook his head. “Not murder. I had to kill someone in self-defense, a member of the Council of Notables. If I didn’t defend myself, he would have killed me.”
“Same as, in my book,” Gil said. “There’s no doubt you know how to take care of yourself. You had Pisan fooled.”
“How did I have him fooled?” Ricky asked.
“He thought you were a ‘goodie-boy’”
“I try to be,” Ricky said, not knowing what a ‘goodie-boy’ was. “But circumstances don’t always let us be what we want, do they?” He looked around the dining hall. “Not many want to be here.”
“There’s truth to that,” Gil said. Someone bumped him on purpose. “I’ve gotta sit with my gang. You’re gonna keep quiet about our little tiff?”
“I have no one to tell, except the warden if she asks.”
“Pissy won’t tell. The first beating is always a set-up like that. The warden doesn’t like the beatings, but they happen anyway.” He nodded and left Ricky sitting by himself.
There was little chance that Gil would stay silent about their encounter in Master Pisan’s office, but the tale might be a little different from the truth, Ricky thought. Gil’s attitude towards his thrashing certainly surprised him. He had to guess there had to be a lot of give-and-take in the Home. If everyone sought revenge, there might be too many deaths. Ricky didn’t like admitting that permitting a certain amount of fighting relieved otherwise murderous intentions.
Victor Taranta might even be too much for the inmates. Ricky saw Frank walk in with his gang. He wondered if Frank participated in the basement exercises as he rose to put his tray away.
Someone shoved him from behind as he was about to dump his tray into the boxes. After another shove, Ricky picked up his spoon at the bowl end and turned around. Frank looked into his eyes.
“You don’t belong here,” he said. “Neither do I, but I’ve got to survive.” He pushed Ricky again.
“I’m sorry, Frank,” Ricky said as he poked Frank in the stomach.
He used considerable force, and Frank fell back on his behind. Ricky stood over him. “I can always give as much as I get,” he said loudly so all of Frank’s gang members could hear. He didn’t know who they were, but they would notice him.
Ricky glanced at Gil, who gave Ricky a bit of a nod. What a strange place, Ricky thought, as he tossed the spoon into the bin and stalked out of the dining hall. He continued and attempted to unlock his door, but found the lock already open.
After taking a deep breath he pushed on the door, ready to chance a shout, but no one greeted him except for his torn-apart cell. His sorcery book had been ripped apart and was now a pile of ashes and a scorch mark on his stone floor. Ricky looked for his clothes, but they were
gone, too.
Welcome to the Applia Juvenile Home, he thought. He sniffed the air and realized that someone had fouled his mattress and the bedclothes. He stripped his bed and would at least sleep on the cold floor with a clean blanket. He didn’t think the mattress was salvageable.
After washing the sheets and the single blanket, Ricky took them back into his room. He used his magic to dry the sheets and the blanket after he shoved the bed against the door to provide him with a little protection. He didn’t know if Pisan would do anything. For all he knew, the building supervisor might have instigated the destruction of his things.
He used his magic to dry the mattress. The stink didn’t seem so bad, but that, he knew, was only temporary. Even the citizens of Shantyboat Town weren’t as vicious as the inmates. He put the burning of the enclave to outside forces, and that made him think that the Taranta’s father and son would have fit right in at the Home.
~~~
CHAPTER FOUR
~
T HE MATTRESS DID, INDEED, BEGIN TO SMELL MUCH WORSE. Ricky moved it out of his room, hoping that someone would replace it. He would see what happened to it. He had nothing else to wear as he descended the stairway to the main floor in the main building.
He had to wait a bit before he could meet with Warden Sarini. He strolled back and forth from the entry hall to the warden’s office, examining what changes had been made when the castle was converted to Paranty’s dumping ground for problem children.
It was easy to see the dining hall took up the space of the former castle’s great hall. The warden’s office and the corridor that Ricky walked on looked newer. The stones were fit better and the mortar lines thinner, just like the wall outside. He noticed Pisan stepping out of the warden’s office glancing at him as he headed towards his building.
“The warden will see you now,” the warden’s assistant said, stepping into the corridor.
Ricky walked in. The warden stood at the small window punched through the wall of the castle. The castle wall seemed to be at least three feet thick. He hadn’t noticed that before.
“You’ve managed to make a splash on your first day at the Home,” Warden Sarini said. “Master Pisan said you beat up a student in his office.”
