The Tower and the Fox: Book 1 of The Calatians

by Tim Susman

  A rustling above made Kip’s ears flick back, but he stared down at the book, not up at the ravens. The spell was “Basic Translocation,” and the explanation was straightforward: he would recite the syllables, hold the target object as if it were a physical spell, and visualize the destination. The magic would push the object through a non-visible plane to appear elsewhere instantaneously.

  But when he attempted the spell, the marble he was staring at did not move. He tried three times, and then Argent took the book back. “It is not easy,” he said. “Try the alchemical.”

  Kip leaned over to the second book, in which the spell was to condense water out of the air. Here he had a little more success; the marble acquired a damp sheen, though not the puddle he had hoped for.

  “Excellent work.” Argent took that book back and closed it. Above, feathers rustled again.

  There followed fifteen minutes of questions about magical theory and famous sorcerers, to which Kip mostly knew the answers. Then he was dismissed without any indication of his performance other than Master Argent’s smile.

  He looked up as he left the tent. A single raven remained on the perch, its dark eyes following him as he left.

  The sense of accomplishment and relief at being finished with the testing kept his tail high and his smile fixed when he rejoined his friends. Emily and Coppy looked similarly relaxed, and Malcolm had at least done better than he’d thought he would. All of them reported that multiple ravens had watched their progress, but only Coppy thought he’d seen as many as ten. “Naturally they’d be more interested in us,” Kip said.

  “I wonder if you’re more proficient because you’re made of magic.” Malcolm extended his hands toward Kip. “Anyone ever try drawing magic out of you?”

  “I don’t feel I was very proficient,” Coppy said. “But Master Argent said that summoning magic was quite good for an applicant at this level.”

  “You’ve heard the Church of God Sorcerer, haven’t you?” Emily gestured above her. “They go about in these big tents preaching that God created humans by sorcery as well, that we’re all magical beings.”

  “Tripe and nonsense,” Malcolm retorted. “God is God. He created man out of Nothing.”

  “Just because someone thinks something different does not mean you should dismiss them out of hand.” Emily’s voice dropped several degrees, though Kip had thought her of similar mind, from her tone.

  “If humans were magical, though,” Kip said, “why would the sorcerers need Calatians to help them with their rituals?”

  She nodded slowly, her manner thawing. “I don’t know the answer to that. But I’ve found that one can rarely ask people logical questions about their religion.”

  “Personally,” Coppy spoke up, “I always believed in a God who made man, and a man who made Calatians, but it’s all of the same stuff, innit? I mean, we’re made of whatever God made man of, and magic on top of that.”

  “Humans don’t hold much with that.” Malcolm grinned at him. “You’ll give us a complex, you will, or turn us all into fanatical tent-dwelling cultists.”

  “You mean men don’t hold with it.” Emily sat up straighter. “The Bible says Eve was made from the rib of Adam. So when you get right down to it,” she went on over Malcolm’s beginning objection, “it isn’t so different from the Calatians, except that it was that mage Calatus rather than God.”

  “And he mixed man with animal,” Coppy pointed out.

  Malcolm seemed confused, not by the argument, but by Emily’s vehemence. “I never meant offense,” he said. “And you made that comment about his nose just the other day.”

  “And I apologized for it directly.” Emily looked down her nose at the Irishman, which was difficult as they were all sitting cross-legged on the grass, but she managed it nonetheless.

  “I’ll say this,” Malcolm said. “At this moment I feel more akin to the Calatians than I do to women. At the least I understand them better.”

  Kip thought Emily might have a chilly retort to this as well, but she let it go and talked instead about the other students, wondering how much sorcery they were able to perform. “Maybe we’ll be allowed to talk to the other groups now,” Kip said as a raven flew over croaking that dinner was served.

  Smith hadn’t come out to join them yet, but they got up from the grass and walked over to the dining tent, leaving Cobb to wait for him. On the way, they got their answer, as Adamson joined them.

  “Good evening,” he said, glancing behind him. “Ah, they’ve lifted the silence.”

  “So it would seem.” Kip was not sure how he felt about Adamson now. The boy was friendly, but had also spent three days in the company of Farley, and Farley had not hit him. In Kip’s experience, Farley divided the world into “people who needed a beating” and “people who helped administer beatings,” and that Adamson was not in the first category meant he was likely in the second. It was possible, though, that someone as smart as he was could navigate the treacherous shoals of Farley without foundering.

  “How do you feel you fared in the examinations?”

  “Reasonably well.” Kip indicated his companions. “We all do.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it.” Adamson linked his hands behind his back as he walked. “I too feel that I have made some significant impression on the examining masters.”

  “I’m certain you must have.”

  As soon as he said it, Kip felt bad, but Adamson didn’t pick up on any double meaning he might have read into the fox’s words. He inclined his head and said, “You’re very kind.”

  “How did you do in the sorcery test?” Kip wanted badly to know if someone who could not call on magic at all would be admitted to the college.

  Adamson walked two steps before drawing in a breath to answer. “I feel that I covered the basics of sorcery and the necessary knowledge to explore the foundations of a magical education.”

  Behind him, Malcolm snickered and quickly covered up the sound. Kip felt guilty at his own rush of pleasure that the privileged boy would not be able to force his way into a college. If he’d demonstrated no aptitude for sorcery, how could they admit him? And yet, the college was desperate. Perhaps they would see in him a project, someone who might be trained to learn magic. Still, in the past several years he had presumably tried and failed to gather it himself.

  And yet, even as Kip said, “I’m sure they will give you a chance,” he envisioned a scenario in which Adamson with his human face was admitted, while Kip and Coppy were sent home despite being well able to cast spells.

  He nearly missed what Adamson said after that, something about Farley, even though his ears were perked toward the other. He kept listening, and when Adamson said, “Therefore I believe that his admission will depend on his grasp of history,” Kip deduced that Farley had done well enough on the magic portion.

  “He never had any magic in him when I knew him growing up,” Kip replied. “Farley has a great command of the physical without any magic necessary.”

  “You might not have heard about the incidents. It seems his mother did not approve of sorcerers and might have hidden any indication of his magical talent.” Adamson stared fixedly ahead, his jaw set. Was he jealous?

  “His mother shops in our store.” She was a large, loud woman who did not mind giving her money to Calatian businesses, but who made it known that she thought they had made a “devil’s bargain” with those sorcerers up the hill. She blamed the sorcerers and the French for her husband’s death, but blamed nobody but him for the failure of his business.

  “I presume he doesn’t get his views of your people from her, then.” They were approaching the dining tent, and Adamson slowed his steps. “He won’t talk much about his father.”

  Kip told him shortly how the elder Broadside had died in the war, which story brought them to the tent flap. “Thank you,” Adamson said. “That will be most helpful in tempering his views.”

  “Will you eat with us tonight?” Kip’s other friends walked
in behind him and took up seats at their customary table.

  Adamson watched Emily and Coppy, and then his eyes slid to the back corner from which Farley and Carmichael watched him. “I suppose I could,” he said. He moved toward their table with Kip.

  Malcolm, who’d sat at the end of their table, got up when he saw Adamson approach. “Ah, seems I’ve sat at the wrong place. I’ll just slide over here, shall I?” And he set himself next to Smith, across from Cobb, at the adjacent table.

  “You can sit here.” Kip indicated the seat beside him, but Malcolm affected not to hear him, and the fox didn’t want to press the issue. He enjoyed the dinner less, though; he, Emily, and Coppy all felt an unspoken reluctance to share too much with Adamson, not only because of his association with Farley, but because he hadn’t been a part of their group for the last three days and hadn’t gone through the examinations with them. Emily in particular spoke little and often looked distracted.

  After the meal, Adamson stood and walked quickly over to Farley as the thick-set boy was leaving. Kip heard Farley say, “pelt-lover,” and Adamson say, “you know better” curtly in return. He wanted to listen further, but Emily pulled him aside.

  “I have to talk to you,” she said, “and quickly.”

  He followed her around the side of the dining tent, walking through the damp short grass away from the babble of the candidates leaving dinner, down to the long, thick shadows of the oak trees in the dying light. “What’s the matter?” Kip asked as Emily slowed and looked around her.

  “Was that something moving?” She peered into the shadows, down along the line of trees.

  Kip followed her gaze to where a small orchard grew, whose apple trees he could distinguish from the wild oaks of the forest by their uniform height and regular rows. He heard rustling, but saw nothing amid the shadows. “I won’t see better than you until after sundown,” he said. “There’s something moving there, but it might be an animal.”

  “All right.” She turned back to face him, and her eyes traveled over his shoulder, rising to the tower behind him. “This is what I was thinking. You should levitate yourself to the top floor of the Tower on this side and listen in on the Masters discussing the candidates tonight.”

  She said it so calmly and reasonably that Kip nodded for a moment before he stopped. “Uh, no. That sounds like a terrible idea.”

  “It’ll be fine. They won’t expect you to be there, so they won’t be looking for you. And anyway, they’ll all be in the meeting.”

  “They have ravens.” As if to illustrate his point, two ravens that had been perching in the dining tent flew away from it. “I’m sure they will be watching out.”

  “They won’t expect it,” Emily said again.

  “Master Argent knows I can levitate. Most of them do, by now. Why wouldn’t they expect it?”

  “Because…” She sighed. “They just won’t. I mean, they probably don’t think you can control it properly.”

  “Anyway,” Kip said, “why should I? We’ll hear the results tomorrow morning no matter what. What’s the use of hearing them early?”

  “I’m not interested in the results,” Emily shot back. “I’m interested in the discussions, and we won’t ever hear that unless we listen in.”

  “Unless I listen in, you mean.” Kip folded his arms, his tail switching from side to side.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know where it is?”

  She tossed her head. “Argent told me. I asked if I might happen across him and the other masters deciding our fates, and he laughed and said ‘not unless you’re taking a walk around the top floor of the Tower.’ I laughed too. I don’t think he really thinks we’ll do anything about it.”

  Kip didn’t share her confidence, but he wasn’t going to sway her; he knew that already. “What’s so important about their discussions?”

  Her grey eyes met his. “I think we’re both reasonably qualified, probably moreso than most candidates they get in a normal year. I think you think so, too.” He nodded. “So if they tell you tomorrow morning, ‘thank you very much but go on home and don’t bother with those dreams of being a sorcerer,’ wouldn’t that upset you?”

  “Yes,” Kip said, “but—”

  “And,” she pushed on, “wouldn’t you want to know whether it was because you’re not fit to be a sorcerer, or…”

  He read her meaning before she said it, but she went on anyway. “Or because you have a tail?”

  6

  Admissions

  “I don’t have a black cloak,” Emily said, “but this grey one might match the Tower’s stone.”

  Kip eyed the cloth she was holding out. “If they spot me, they’ll spot me. I don’t think any camouflage is going to make a difference.”

  “I don’t suppose it’d hurt.” Coppy took the cloak from Emily and draped it around Kip’s shoulders. They’d told the otter about the plan on Kip’s insistence that he would prefer two lookouts to warn him if anyone were approaching. The real reason was that he wanted Coppy to be included; only as they were walking toward the Tower’s south side in the dim twilight did he realize that included also meant implicated, assuring that the otter would be expelled with him and Emily if they were caught.

  But Coppy had been quite happy to help, and likely would have followed Kip to the Tower anyway. So here they were at the base of the Tower facing the empty dining and admissions tents, and Kip turned his head to look up the rough stone wall behind him.

  He didn’t want to touch the Tower again in case the same rush of magic overwhelmed him and was somehow perceptible to the sorcerers inside. But he told himself it was better to touch it here on the ground than accidentally seven stories up, and so he’d reached out and touched his fingertips to the stone, now chilly in shadow.

  Nothing had happened. He’d left his fingertips there, then pressed his whole paw to the wall, and still nothing. No voice, no rush of magic; the blocks of stone remained solid, unmoving, unmagical.

  He regarded the stone with the same sense of vague disappointment now, a few moments later, as Coppy settled the grey cloak around him. No ravens flew overhead that they could see, no movement interrupted the evening here. Kip could still, very faintly, hear the conversations carrying through the humid air from the candidates on the other side of the Tower, and he could smell the remnants of dinner from the dining tent.

  “Go on,” Emily said.

  “You’ll make the whippoorwill call if you see something?”

  “Yes, yes.” She motioned impatiently.

  “All right.” He took a breath, reached out, and gathered magic into himself.

  There came the familiar tension, crackling in his fur, the purple glow around his paws. He spoke the spell confidently and then filled it with magic and pushed. His feet left the ground, tail dangling behind him as he rose through the air.

  He stayed close to the wall, one paw out for caution. But he kept himself steady and his paw remained half a foot from the rough stone as he rose past one floor, then another, and another. He passed dark window after dark window, rising toward the top floor even though none of those windows were lit either. As he passed the sixth floor, he heard voices to his right, and he pushed himself in that direction until they grew louder.

  Just outside the window where the voices were loudest, he stopped. Curtains inside blocked most of the light and muffled the sound, but he could make out Patris’s distinct growl, Master Argent’s milder voice, and Master Windsor’s gruff tone. They were discussing one of the candidates he didn’t know, a boy named Davies.

  Kip crossed his legs in the air and floated next to the window, out of sight of the people inside. Probably nobody was peeking out through the curtains, and the evening had grown dark enough that they likely wouldn’t notice him there even if they did, but he could hear well enough and did not want to take the chance.

  After Davies, they went on to Forester, Middleton, Plant, Smith, and then Wormwood. Each boy’s merits were discussed
in similar tones, Master Patris giving about the same assessment of each, Master Windsor describing their knowledge of history in colorful negative adjectives from “execrable” to “depressingly average,” and Master Argent kindly saying that some were “teachable” while others “displayed the spark of connection to magic.” Each of the boys was grudgingly admitted by the group, in a chorus of yeas mixed with one or two nays from a high-pitched reedy voice and a clipped, sharp bark of a voice. Only Potterfield was denied entry, largely (Kip thought) because Master Argent said, “He has no magical spark whatsoever.” Even then, one of the other masters asked if they could afford to refuse anyone interested.

  “Now,” Patris said finally, “we come to the unusual candidates. In alphabetical order, Miss Carswell first.”

  Kip leaned in close. The tips of his ears were cold, but otherwise he was well-insulated from the night-time chill. Patris’s voice came clearly to him. “Her grasp of mathematics and science is tenuous at best, as one would expect from a woman.”

  “She evinces a surprisingly well-rounded grasp of history.” Master Windsor’s endorsement provoked surprised mutters that even Kip could hear.

  “Her magical talent is beyond dispute,” Master Argent said. “She is the third most talented of the candidates we review tonight, and more talented than the average candidate admitted to the College.”

  “In your five vast years of experience,” Patris said.

  “I hardly think his experience is relevant here, Patris,” rumbled an unfamiliar voice. “Question is whether a woman can be a sorcerer.”

  “Surprised she can do magic at all.”

  “The Indians have witches who can do magic.”

  “Not proper magic.”

  “Master Ousamequin would have objected to that.”

  A silence followed here. It took Kip a moment to deduce that Master Ousamequin must have been one of the sorcerers killed in the attacks. The voices resumed a moment later. “But does she have the discipline to follow it through?”