Not just me with Raj, Pocket, and Jesus, but the whole of Ultra Class ’09.
One last time.
All of us had viewed the building from the outside before, but no one had ever been inside the doors, not even Welf with all his connections and bribes. Mr. Old Mancy didn’t have a clue what was inside. “So Welf,” I asked him, “thrilled to have Root’s Constructs buggering you for the next three years?”
He scowled, but didn’t respond.
Hope did. “You cannot imagine how much joy I felt this morning, Foul Mouth. An epiphany the likes of which I’ve never had: I won’t have to put up with your rude comments in class ever again.”
“Oh the Frozen Twat doth cackle mightily. Is that the fierce surge of motherhood I hear?”
Hope’s face went immediately ashen. “How does he . . . Heinrich, how does he know about that?”
Welf made sure to walk ahead of us and to pretend like he hadn’t heard her as well.
Me, I scooted right next to Hope. “Who you think he bought it from?”
“Why am I not surprised?” she hissed between her perfect, genetically-modified teeth.
Wonder if she knew she’d been created and not left up to the capricious chromosomal mixing of Fate’s blender, like the rest of us poor mortals?
I doubt it.
Given the way she reacted when I finally told her about it.
“Don’t worry, Hopemeister, we’re on the same side after that party in Denver. Daddy Boris got on his conspiracy and we’re all BFFs now.” I put up a fist for her to tap, knowing she wouldn’t.
She hissed some more, “Like I would touch you.”
I dropped my fist. “Yup, feeling is mutual. Like my cock attached to my body, ya know? Anyway, glad you ain’t pregnant. You’re too high-strung to be a mother . . . even one that comes with three or four Swedish maids for your hubby to hump on the side.”
“Leave . . . me . . . alone . . . before . . . I . . . have . . . Jason . . . break . . . your . . . bones,” she managed to push out.
Jason. Guy kept getting bigger. Towered over my tiny ass still, even with my own growth spurts. Had his arm around Quinn Walden’s shoulders. She was like five-foot-three if she was lucky. They’d been on and off at the Asylum, more numerous than even my debacles with Boomworm. How do they have sex without him ripping her in half though?
Vaginas . . . why are they so magical?
Guess I really haven’t covered the love details for awhile. Ain’t a whole lot of difference to that first blast of chemicals and pheromones during our inaugural Winter Ball. Estefan was still with Debra due to the electromancer thing. Welf was still with Hope since they’re too caught up in each other’s popularity to realize they’re a horrible couple.
Rick Brown and Robin White still sang their Mormon-Girl-Meets-Grudge-Lover duet. Eva and Miles broke up; Miles was with Nizhoni now—Eva’s best friend—which was awkward.
Jessica Edwards and Sandra Kemp decided they were lesbians and in love at the end of last year . . . that was a new one. I asked and apparently lesbians ain’t as interested in threesomes as porn would have us believe, go figure.
My boys Raj, Pocket, and Jesus played the Intra field.
What else?
Ah, Miranda had a thing with Leonardo Sarducci last year. Guy must have really good gag reflex.
Val’s single after my colossal fuck up, but wouldn’t be for long. She never was. Always some guy getting himself burned by trying to touch the star.
Isabel and Athir had this weird thing going on that I’ve never understood. Guess there’s some variety when your girlfriend has a different body every other week. Wonder if she changes her vagina for him too?
As for King Henry Price . . .
All alone.
With hillbilly crabs.
Don’t feel bad for me, kiddies.
I wouldn’t be alone for long.
Neither would the hillbilly crabs…
[CLICK]
The Graduate Building was built as a circle, with a huge gate guarded by a secretary who reported directly back to Admin. She had a check list with our portraits, names, Mancy types, even our student ID numbers on it. We had to go through one by one.
It didn’t have the feel of a bank or an airport or anything dangerous, but of exclusivity, like I imagine some famous fraternity at Harvard or Oxford felt. Get out of our coat room, you fuckin’ plebs. It was a fraternity after all. Ultras. Only one of us in a quarter million people. Only thirty-thousand of us on the whole planet.
At the Asylum, only thirty new kids walked through those gates every year.
I glanced around me; saw the expressions of awe and pride and accomplishment. Finally here. Finally really an Ultra. Yeah, I guess. I smiled at least, to see those faces. Thirty teenage kids starting together and we’d all made it through. Fought, loved, fought some more, loved some more.
We made it.
To those gates.
Ultra Vires.
It was etched on them gates.
Beyond the Powers.
I threw my arm around Jesus’ shoulder and put a hand on Pocket’s, it being so much higher. “To think I never got expelled even temporarily, eh?”
Pocket roped Raj into the huddle. “Moment of no return, dudes.”
Val popped up at Raj’s side and Miranda at hers.
Pretty soon all of Ultra ’09 was in the huddle.
Oh fuck me, I started a Hallmark Moment.
“Anyone else think it’s crap we don’t get to defend our Winter War title?” Estefan asked us, grinning like the gregarious pretty boy he was.
“Quads wouldn’t stand a chance,” Curt Chambers pointed out.
“Could bring back the Three Queens for a rubber match,” Estefan proposed.
Silence at that thought.
“Or not,” Estefan admitted. “Three Time Champions it is.”
Welf cleared his throat. A few people groaned at the approaching speech, but Welf read the mood of the crowd correctly for once. “Even if you are alone in there, even if we are in different rooms . . . remember we will still offer support if you need it; especially everyone with a Queen in the room. Asa, Val, Miranda? We are there for you.”
We broke up the circle and went inside the gates, one by one.
All thirty of us.
It would be twenty-eight by the end of the year.
Yeah, that’s some blunt foreshadowing.
It’s a blunt kind of memory.
[CLICK]
There were thirteen different rooms, all with their own doors, facing a central courtyard open to the sky. Some real Roman villa type shit. Each room had a golden star over its door and on the star was engraved the Mancy type taught inside. Necro. Geo. Aero. Pyro. Hydro. And so on.
A few of the mingling Hexs nodded at me, but no Three Queens or Blackjacks were in sight. I suppose they were too busy with their student-advising and would pop in and out as able. I know when it was my time advising that Plutarch complained fiercely about me not being around enough. He still complains about me not being around . . . funny that, given how our relationship started—but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Thirteen golden stars, on the stars the Mancy type and under the stars the title of the Ultra discipline. Each doorframe decorated with symbols associated with the type.
Bonegrinder.
Firestarter.
Winddancer.
Riftwalker.
Stormcaller.
Winterwarden.
Beaconkeeper.
Shadeshifter.
Forestplanter.
Beasttalker.
Facechanger.
Mindmaster.
.
.
.
Artificer.
On the left were mountain peaks, as expected, but also desert sands, fertile cropland and deep caves glistening with mineral formations. Mankind’s love of the earth made an appearance on the right with marble statues, ornate jewelry, and even the steel frames of unfinishe
d skyscrapers.
No glass.
Huh.
Some of the doors were open, inviting. Mine . . . not so much. Mine looked like it hadn’t been opened in five years. Because it hadn’t. I was the only Artificer at the Asylum my entire time, after all. A Hep graduated just before my arrival, he was a Canadian-born transfer student named Nolan Nicks who went pure cog-mode straight to the Guild. Just after I left, a pair of Single Artificers showed up. Ceinwyn was pretty happy about that accomplishment.
For whatever reason, the Mancy threw out all the Artificers born around me to the four ends of the Earth, not at Elementalism’s heart at the Asylum. Just me, just King Henry Price.
I felt nervous standing before that door.
Not an emotion I’m used to.
I’m so ready to jump into the pool of sharks and dare them to bite me, so ready to accept new realities, no time to be nervous about either. First day at the Asylum, I was nervous then. Asking Val out . . . sure. But never before meeting a teacher. Just a teacher right? It’s the enemy. Only thing King Henry Price can show to an enemy is defiance, be it with brilliance or stupidity.
Never nerves.
Not like Miranda or Val or Raj or Welf or so many of the others in my class.
My eyes surveyed my class as they entered their new homes. Asa and Sabine gave each other a hug by the Riftwalker door—Sabine would be happy she wasn’t alone with Mary O’Connell now. Leo shook Raj and Hope and Ronaldo’s hands, one after another, by the Winterwarden door. Estefan, Debra, and the electromancers formed a little cuddle pit, all happy as can be, even a couple early arriving Blackjacks in the mix.
Pocket, Naomi, Sandra, Nick, and Tamiko joined a huge group of Forestplanters, same for Jesus, Rick, Jessica, and Robin with the Beasttalkers—complete with various beasts accompanying them, though usually said beasts were dogs and cats, no crazies like Alfred Pemberton.
It did seem whole lot more enjoyable for the Second and Third Tiers. Was more like a new class, a new family to teach you, for the First Tier it was much lonelier. Val, me, and Welf were all alone. Val would have to put up with Teresa Garcia showing up later, so she probably preferred the quiet time, but Welf . . . he looked lonely. Poor fucker always looked lonely. Lonely and nervous and uptight, even in the middle of his circle of friends and hangers-on. Could almost feel bad for him . . . if he wasn’t such a huge douchebag.
I flipped him off out of principle.
He scowled back, but still didn’t respond.
Val’s new Firestarter teacher, Nigel Rowland, appeared to greet her warmly . . . too warmly for my liking. You want your ex-girlfriend’s new teacher to be some fugly crone with burnt lady whiskers, not a thirty-year-old, dapper, well-groomed British guy with coal-dark hair wearing a black pinstriped suit with a red silk tie.
For once, both Welf and I scowled at the same person.
More people disappeared inside.
The Three Queens and the full might of the Blackjacks arrived fashionably late. Catherine Hayes stepped right up beside Miranda, invading personal space in such a way to let Miranda know she was nothing but a new play-toy for the other Winddancer. There was a third girl in that class, a Hex from Ultra Class ’08. She seemed relieved to not be the only target in sight.
I got Miranda’s attention and nodded at Catherine. “I’ll kick her ass if you want me to, free of charge.”
Miranda smirked, but said nothing, though her hideously pale green ginger eyes were thankful.
She looked weird standing next to Catherine. Average height and more-than-average curves, with red hair and pale skin, Miranda never seemed aeromancer to me. The firecrotch being a Firestarter with Val would’ve made more sense, but then that’s Fate for ya.
Catherine Hayes though—tall and willowy with a dancer’s grace and a model’s face—she was the embodiment of the winds. Winds gone wrong. Ceinwyn’s eyes let you know she’d play with you and it would be fun, Catherine’s let you know there would be blood and not hers.
Their teacher, Antigone Hyde, was a flighty woman in her 50s that both flinched at wind gusts and became caught up in watching leaves blow slowly across her path. She wasn’t all there, something of a savant. But then, teaching other aeromancers given the way the Mancy made them antagonize each other, you’d need to be a little insane to keep at the job for very long and Antigone Hyde had been at it for almost twenty years.
She walked past the three girls without saying a word to them. Catherine pushed Miranda inside and the other Winddancer girl followed.
I turned the other way, expecting to find just me and Welf left, but even he’d gone inside with Mordecai Root. I peeked about the courtyard, realizing I was all alone.
Where the fuck was this Plutarch asshole?
[CLICK]
After five minutes of pooling, I broke into the Artificer classroom.
If you leave King Henry Price outside of a locked door for a long enough time the probability of this occurrence becomes one-hundred percent.
Curiosity, kiddies, got to know what’s on the other side of that door.
Age was on the other side of that door.
The room that time forgot.
I expected it to have maybe four years of dust, but it was more like twenty or thirty years of dust. Cobwebs here and there. Scuttling of little rat feet. The hiss of cockroaches. Mummified body of an adventurer killed by a poison dart trap.
Heh.
Just fucking with you.
It was dusty, but ain’t like it was some forgotten tomb or the like that Indiana Jones was about to go balls deep defiling. Just a classroom that no one used and none of the janitors were allowed to step inside.
Artificer books ran along the entire wall opposite the door. I clicked on a light, happy to see the bulb still worked—though it would need replaced—and slammed shut the door behind me. Plutarch wanted to be late? He could be late. I read through the titles, occasionally slipping a book from the shelf to leaf through it.
Fuck yes!
Some of the books were on conversion mathematics, others on working with each anima type, others on materials, and some even had schematics for famous artifact designs. King Henry Price happy over a trove of books, what has the world come to?
On another wall there were charts the same as the ones at the back of the Artificer book I’d stolen and read three times over summer break. Standard stuff for an Artificer to know apparently, one about conversion formulas and the second about geo-anima strength multipliers needed to contain other anima types.
Double dumbfuck yes!
A teacher’s desk stood against a corner, four student desks across from it in a simple two by two square. I rummaged through the teacher’s desk, came up blank on anything useful or interesting. Was really hoping for some naked pictures of the Lady when she was younger or other blackmail material . . .
It was a classroom, an Artificer classroom.
But nothing out of the ordinary.
This room was part of the Nice, Quiet One Asylum. The part faking being normal.
Yet . . .
There was another door to a second room.
I turned around, staring suspiciously at the entrance door. Still no Plutarch. He was like . . . half an hour late. Have to guess since the stupid clock is dead to the world. New light-bulb, new battery for the clock, some wet rags for the dust . . . the teacher to actually show up.
I left the second door alone for now and opened up the entrance again, sticking my head out. A quiet, mostly empty courtyard greeted me. The Forestplanter classroom had their door open and laughter could be heard from inside. Next to my class was the Firestarters and I’m pretty sure I smelled smoke. But other than that . . .
Maybe he died, I thought.
Maybe he died and no one noticed.
Plutarch was supposed to be a hermit. Barely left his house, had food and newspapers delivered, ate raw potatoes and roasted chipmunk, that kind of shit.
Lots of rumors.
Old, not as
old as the Lady, but up there. Very powerful and imposing. Fought beside Fines Samson in the Counter-Culture War against the Vamps. Was wounded. Plutarch was a nickname, everyone knew that, but no one knew why. Real name was Paul Nixon, so stands to reason he’s some serious WASP motherfucker. Who likes Roman and Greek history?
Why else you get named Plutarch?
Least the Lady of the Lake has a badass origin story; this guy just gets named after a moldy ass historian.
I shut the entrance again, pooled for five minutes, and broke the second door’s lock.
[CLICK]
“So I’m rich if I ever decide to rob the place and I’m thinking hard about it, since apparently I don’t have a fucking teacher like the rest of you guys,” I say at the dinner table, almost seven hours later.
Seven fucking hours later.
Seven.
Fucking.
Hours.
Later.
Miranda couldn’t stop snickering at me. Val at least had the grace to keep her enjoyment of my misfortune to only a smile. Raj, Jesus, and Pocket—being guys—laughed openly.
“It’s not funny,” I complained, “I had to read . . . it was awful.”
Miranda snorted at my act, words harsh, “Your whole ‘King Henry hates academics’ facade stopped being believable when you graduated second in the entire year.”
“I’m naturally gifted. Just like you’re naturally annoying,” I snapped, before diving into my meal to pretend she didn’t exist. My month out with Ceinwyn had spoiled me, but it’s hard to top the Cafeteria’s mashed potatoes and gravy and the half plate of ribs accompanying it. Suppose for most the plate goes the other way around, but not for a geomancer.
“Well, I had a great day, dude,” Pocket told me in an unapologetically happy tone. “Sorry about the no show.”
“Growing ferns?” I asked.
“Not quite . . . it was mostly an overview for us Pents, about what Ultras can do with the Mancy that Intra floromancers can’t and what we’re expected to learn by the end of Hep and all that,” Pocket explained.
Raj nodded. “Same for me. For Winterwardens it’s all about how cold we can make temperatures go, especially solidifying water instantly. Plus, Miss Yukimura had us step into this massive freezer room, to show us we couldn’t be frozen.”
The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist (The King Henry Tapes Book 5) Page 9
