The Tower and the Fox: Book 1 of The Calatians

by Tim Susman

  “It isn’t fair.” Emily almost had tears in her eyes. “I thought at least that Kip and I—I’m sorry, Coppy, I didn’t mean—”

  “No, you’re right.” The otter put a paw on her shoulder. “I’d no expectation of being Selected. Fight or no, I’ve not the makings of a sorcerer, not like the fox here, nor either of you even. But I can at least help build roads and houses, and maybe I’ll be allowed to help with those things back on the Isle.”

  Kip, who had been brooding about great sacrifices being required and trying not to be angry about losing his family, possibly his engagement, and his town all for nothing, looked up at this. “Why would you not be allowed to? We repair our homes without any trouble or permission from anyone.”

  “Aye, but it’s the use of magic, with the Academy so close.” Coppy’s eyes turned up as if looking at the buildings of King’s College. “Course, no Calatian ever was able before, so we’ve no idea how they’ll see it.”

  “If they don’t find out,” Malcolm said, and shook his head, patting Kip on the shoulder. “What about you? Anyplace needing fires lit and put out? Signal fires, maybe?”

  “I might go to Georgia with my family.” Kip walked toward his desk, unwilling to spend too much time speculating about what he would do after the last week.

  Emily took her place beside him and leaned over. “I still think you’ll be Selected,” she whispered. “Because otherwise I’ll be left here on my own, and I won’t stand for that.”

  That, of all things, made Kip smile. “I’d like to believe you have the will to make it happen,” he whispered back.

  Patris was about to start his class, but just before he did, Emily turned to Kip. “I believe you do,” she said.

  16

  Bargain

  That evening, Kip went up to Master Odden’s chambers. He ignored Farley’s taunts and the chilly silence of the other boys and rapped on the wooden door. When the sorcerer opened it, his face was resigned. “Broadside, hold your tongue,” he said to Farley. “If I hear you once more you’ll be sent back home immediately.” Then his eyes met Kip’s.

  “If I could speak to you for five minutes in private,” Kip said quickly.

  Odden sighed and then nodded quickly. “Come in.”

  He closed the door, mindful of the fox’s tail, and that small courtesy heartened Kip. But Odden’s words returned him to desperation. “I know what you are here to ask,” the master said, sitting down at his desk. “You must understand how difficult Patris is making it. That you have a rare talent only makes him more desperate still to, well, ‘keep you in your place,’ as he puts it. He wants Calatians at the side of sorcerers, not standing in their robes.”

  “I won’t become a calyx,” Kip said.

  Odden linked his hands over his stomach and nodded. “No, I should think not. Yet there are many who will, and your success or failure here will mean little to them.”

  “Master…” Kip gestured toward the dais where he’d practiced many times. “I can promise you that I will work harder than any other apprentice.” Malcolm’s words about Irishmen came back to him. “Because I know Patris is watching me, and I must work twice as hard for half the reward. I know that. I—I accept that. But not to be given the chance at all is unfair, and I think you know that.”

  “What I know matters very little in this case.” Odden heaved a sigh.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong in the fight this morning,” Kip said. He let his tail hang down, flicking back and forth, and stood upright. “I came up the hill and Farley and Carmichael and Adamson had captured Coppy and were torturing him, using him to bait me into starting a fire. When I didn’t, they started one that I was to be blamed for. If not for Master Jaeger, everyone would believe I had.”

  “Master Jaeger is no longer Head of this school,” Odden replied tiredly. He leaned an elbow on his desk and rested his head against it. “I have no wish to spend the next three years fighting with Patris, being given the worst of the duties…”

  “You wouldn’t be alone,” Kip said quickly. “There are other masters who favor my case. Master Argent, Master Vendis, Master Windsor—” He faltered, remembering Windsor’s words. I am not fighting on your side. But the master, despite his ill humor, did believe in Kip. He’d said that Kip and Emily had a great deal of potential.

  Odden shook his head. “I will speak to some of the others, but in your place, I would prepare for a life outside the college. I am sorry. It would be best if you did not come and speak with me again before the Selection. I have heard your case, and believe me, I am sympathetic.”

  He didn’t have to add the “but”; Kip could hear it very well in his head. He left the office, walked briskly through the outer room where the students worked, ignoring Farley, and mechanically down the stairs to the Great Hall, his mind blank. Only when he reached the hall did he hesitate, starting to think about his life after Selection—or after a failed Selection. As much as just that morning he’d been thinking that he couldn’t bear to live near a magic school, he thought he might be able to go with his parents to Georgia, to help rebuild the magic school. Maybe one of those masters would give him another chance. Or he could go to the Isle with Coppy, the two of them working to improve the lives of the Calatians there. As a life, that seemed more worthwhile, even if the chance of furthering his education was far more remote there than it would be in Georgia. As of this moment, he felt that if Master Odden didn’t choose him as an apprentice, all his other chances of becoming a sorcerer fell to as close to zero as made no difference, so a slim chance versus a slimmer chance was not a distinction that mattered much to him.

  The elementals in the fireplace greeted him with chuffs of smoke and activity.

  “Hello, fox.”

  “Penfold.”

  “Hello, you all.” Kip leaned against the edge of the fireplace. “I might not be here to see you much longer.”

  They brightened. “That’s wonderful!”

  “Ah, good f’you.”

  “Going home at last.”

  “Blessed Flower.”

  “I’ll miss all of you.” The words spilled out, sincere and unexpected. He would miss the magical fireplaces, the elementals with their strange habits and languages, the mysterious book, and all the things besides the education itself.

  “Aye, it’s been a pleasure to talk to you,” Chez, the largest said. “I reckon I’ll go home m’self before too long. Been feeling a bit cool.”

  “Lucky.” Julienne bit him on the leg, and a short scuffle ensued.

  Kip smiled and raised a paw. “I’ve another week, at least. I’ll see you all.”

  “Aye!” they chorused, and went back to their tussle.

  “Hey,” Hodge, Kip thought it was, said. “Don’t be so down about goin’ home. Don’t you want to see home again?”

  “It’s not that,” Kip said. “I just don’t know if it’s there anymore.”

  “How could it not be there?” Hodge asked, but Kip didn’t have an answer. He waved to the lizards and trudged across the hall to the earthy smells of the basement.

  Master Windsor’s voice greeted Kip as he descended the stairs. “Lutris, it is not that you are unable to perform the spells. It’s that you are unable to perform them consistently.”

  Kip’s eyes widened. Why was Windsor even here? He braced himself and opened the door as the old sorcerer went on. “I know you can do it once because I have seen it. I do not know that you can do it every time, and until I know that—”

  Windsor turned to meet the fox’s eyes as Kip closed the door behind him. “At this point,” he went on, still talking to the otter but watching the fox, “a lesser sorcerer would have given up. But you are still a student here, and I am still your Master, so you will continue to practice under my instruction until you leave this college.”

  Kip walked past the two of them to sit in front of Neddy, who paced cheerfully back and forth at the front of the fireplace. He called up fire for the elemental to play in unti
l Emily came to sit beside him. “At least you still have family,” she said. “I’ll be left here alone.”

  “You’ll have Malcolm,” Kip replied, and she made a face.

  “I’d sooner go to Georgia with you.”

  The thought made him happy and immediately guilty as well. “You could,” he said before he could stop himself. “I mean…you know sorcery as well. We could…”

  “I’ll consider it for certain.” She smiled and put a hand on his leg, and he appreciated the touch and the response even though he knew it to be a lie. “The world is always arrayed against us; you know that as well as I. If only you had something they wanted enough to keep you here.”

  “I might.” Kip’s eyes flicked over to Peter’s journal. He’d thought a lot about what was in it. “But I don’t know if it’s enough.”

  “If there’s anything…” Emily lowered her voice. “Anything at all. Then what harm can it do to try it?”

  There was still a faint chance that Odden would select him. Kip wouldn’t go spouting his theories about ghosts to him. But Master Windsor…

  He turned to look at the sorcerer, still instructing Coppy. His fingers rested on the stone, but no voice came to offer him guidance. All right, he thought, and got up.

  “Master Windsor? Might I have a moment?” Kip gestured toward the door.

  The sorcerer paused, and then looked down at Coppy. “Five more times, Lutris, while I attend to Penfold here.” He swept his robes around him and met Kip on the landing outside the door.

  Kip let the door close behind them before he started talking. “I know Selection is very near,” he said. Out here, away from Neddy’s heat, his breath showed white in the air.

  Master Windsor held up a hand. “I have done all I dare on your behalf.”

  “Dare” or “care,” Kip wondered, but he let it go. He took a breath. “Sir, I might have…I may have come across some information that explains why the Tower was spared in the attack.”

  Windsor’s gaze sharpened. “You know who was behind the attack?”

  “No.” Kip pressed his paws together. “And this theory is…well, it sounds a little crazy.”

  “You have only been at the College for two months.” Windsor’s mouth twitched, almost smiling. “Allow me to judge what is crazy. What did you find?”

  Kip took a breath and looked the master in the eye. “I believe I’m the only one who can properly research this information. And it would take me a while longer, with access to the College. More than is granted a calyx.”

  The sorcerer’s dark eyes flickered and his brow lowered. “I can call Master Barrett or Master Jaeger here to pry the information from your mind. It will be considerably more pleasant if you tell me.”

  “They’re the ones I would need to speak to,” Kip said. “I can’t explain, but I promise you, if Coppy and I are Selected and can remain here, I will tell you everything.” He forced himself to stand tall and maintain eye contact even though his instincts screamed at him to tell Windsor what he suspected. His tail curled between his legs, but he kept his ears upright and his paws still in front of him.

  For the space of three breaths, the cold stone staircase was still. Windsor folded his arms, studying Kip. “You will tell me now,” he said, “and if I judge your idea has merit, I will make one more exertion on your behalf.” When Kip hesitated, the old sorcerer said, “Surely you must know how ridiculous you sound. A magical secret to which only you and Lutris have access?”

  Windsor had misunderstood him and thought Coppy also could study it; that was fine. Kip did not correct him. “Very well.” He wrung his paws together and then let them drop to his sides. If he didn’t tell Windsor, the old sorcerer would walk away. “I think,” he said, taking a breath, “I think that a—a human spirit might have been bound to the Tower. For protection.”

  “Really.” Windsor’s lined face did crack a smile now. “Penfold, I expected better of you. You know that human spirits cannot be bound. You think we have not scanned the Tower for any demon or elemental? And why would you think that only you can investigate this theory?”

  Kip was about to tell him about Peter’s book when he saw another, more elegant explanation. “Because it talked to me,” he said.

  The old sorcerer’s smile vanished like ice under Neddy’s paws. “It talked to you?”

  Slowly, Kip nodded. “When I first arrived. Not since then. Maybe once more, I don’t know. I didn’t understand at first. I thought I might be hallucinating. But I was reading some books from the library about spirits—demons, I mean—and I thought, well, what if…?”

  “What if indeed.” Windsor’s eyes gazed past Kip for a moment, and one hand came up to rub his chin. After a few more breaths, he put that hand on the door. “Penfold, I can promise nothing, but I will at least tell you that I see some value in your thought, which is not something I expected to say when you made your proposal. You have surprised me today, and that is not a feat to take lightly. Patris is stubborn and the hill you have to climb is taller than the one you stand on, but…hm. Hm. You have extended the range of what I dare to do.”

  Again, Kip heard “care” for “dare,” but he followed Windsor back into the basement with his heart leaping with hope for the first time in days.

  17

  Selection

  During the following weekend, Kip stayed at the College the entire time, despite the urge to visit his parents again. They wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye to him, and he had to do all he could to show that he was an exemplary student, to keep alive any faint hope he had of being Selected. He and Coppy both did the best they could when Master Windsor came down to supervise their sessions; the practice tent was off limits until it had been rebuilt, and anyway the weather was getting too cold for even the Calatians to stay out more than an hour. But Master Windsor conducted the sessions as if nothing had happened, as if he expected them to go on forever, and he made no more mention to Kip of the conversation they’d had, even when Kip asked him. Like a small flame, Kip kept his hope burning, but it burned lower with each day of no news. He couldn’t even bring himself to tell his friends about it, for fear of kindling too great a hope in them.

  Their last week of classes before the Selection, too, felt maddeningly normal. Masters Patris, Windsor, and Argent all spoke of what would be covered the following week as though they all would be there for it. Only Patris twice said, “Though not everyone will have those lessons.”

  The second time, Farley said, “If we won’t be here, then can we skip the lesson?”

  Patris turned a cold eye on him. “If you wish to return home and quit the school now, you are free to do so.”

  Farley began to get up, but Adamson, next to him, put a hand on his arm, and the stout boy sat back down. Adamson reclined back in his chair and returned his attention to Patris.

  The blond boy still confused Kip. They hadn’t spoken since the Friday of the fight, but beyond that…Adamson had yet to demonstrate a single act of sorcery. He hadn’t even been able to gather magic the way the rest of them all could (though some only managed flickers of light). And yet he retained an air of perfect confidence, and Patris praised his studies constantly.

  Once during the week, Malcolm had asked if they thought Adamson had any chance of being chosen, and Kip said, “Patris would Select him to keep his father’s money coming in,” and the subject had dropped, because none of them wanted to think of the injustice of magic-less Adamson as an apprentice while the two Calatians were sent home.

  Peter’s journal occupied much of Kip’s spare time that week, but he discovered nothing new about either Peter himself or the ritual that, successful or not, had ended his journal. Peter wrote extensively about some of his lessons and troubles with the other students, but about his Selection he wrote only that “Master Primus did Select me this morning. Many of the other students did cause a clamour, but Primus told me to ignore them and keep my ears upright. The other Masters, though less vocal, did also expr
ess their displeasure with the choice, but Primus paid them no heed and so I did not either.”

  Kip’s own ears stood when he read that. This other fox, two hundred years before him, when Calatians had been newly granted personhood by the church, had been brave enough to stand alone because he wanted to learn magic. Kip pressed his paw to the floor and whispered, “Peter?” No voice answered him, and doubt crept into his mind. Windsor had gone to Master Jaeger or Master Barrett, had asked about Kip’s theory, and the spiritual master had laughed. Windsor had joined in, laughing at the stupid, desperate Calatian. And yet, Master Windsor came down to work with them every night with the same stoic demeanor, and would not discuss Kip’s idea nor the possibility of Selection with him.

  The day before their Selection, Kip took the journal down again but did not open it. Even when he simply held the journal in his paws, he found, his friends forgot to talk to him, almost forgot that he was there. If he carried the journal with him always, could he live in the Tower with nobody noticing, like a ghost? He could tell Emily about it and she could bring him food; he could continue to attend classes and practice his sorcery.

  But that would hardly be a satisfying life, skulking in the shadows, relying on a spell he didn’t understand to keep him hidden. He had seen it work on Master Windsor, but what if some of the other sorcerers could see through it? Master Jaeger, for example, could talk into people’s minds and see into them as well. Kip had still not met a quarter of the masters remaining in the College, unless you counted talking through a raven as meeting Master Jaeger. If he tried to stay behind and was discovered, that could end badly for him. Nonetheless, he kept it in his mind as a remote possibility.

  To the others, he talked again about either going to Georgia with his parents or to London with Coppy, who was quite pleased with the idea and told him he’d be welcome. Kip hoped privately that he might convince Coppy to come to Georgia with him, but that could wait until they knew their fates. Malcolm thought Kip and Coppy were prime candidates for the military, as sorcerers to one of the Calatian units. Kip hadn’t thought of that, but was sure Patris would love to see them facing combat.