The Emperor's Mage

by Clark Bolton

  With this new detail noted, he started walking again. It wasn’t until his feet started getting tired that he considered giving up. He then decided to find a quiet place to sit down and think. From where he sat he could see some of the markings on the buildings around him, which designated their locations, he knew.

  He then thought back to the markings on Lu-Bod’s building, which were very different from his own. Both started with the first syllable of a word for a color: his was red, and Lu-Bod’s was gold. He had seen only one other color referred to on the building, and that was silver. The school itself was divided into these same colors, and so must be the building, he concluded.

  Standing up, he looked around again at the building codes. He had never been in a silver building, least not that he could recall. In fact, he had been in very few gold-designated buildings. From there he stood he could see both silver and gold designations, which he found confusing.

  “Must be a pattern,” he muttered to himself. “Just need to find the cells for the silver boys.”

  The climb to the massive third tier of the school had been as high as Ich-Mek had ever been since coming to the school. Here the vast square, now stretched out before him, was normally where the great celebrations within Key-Tar-Om took place. On the other side was a wide set of steps that looked like a hundred boys could climb up it at once. The tier the steps led to contained another square, though perhaps smaller than the one he stood on.

  Deciding he best not stand idle, he began walking quickly across the square toward the steps. It took many long minutes to get there, and as he climbed them for the first time, he began to see a different part of Key-Tar-Om. Here the stones of the steps and the higher square were less worn and looked more like tiles than bricks.

  Daring to walk onward to a far set of stairs that led up to where he assumed the administration buildings lay, Ich-Mek began to pass trees and other plants that looked to be finely groomed. Fountains bracketed the fifth set of steps, and these had brightly colored fish in them. Half way up he turned to look back toward the quarter of the school that had been his whole life.

  “Not high enough,” he told himself in disappointment.

  He could see many, but not all, of the dormitories and classrooms. Turning around once more, he climbed to the top of the steps, finding himself on a wide path leading through a garden. Again, more manicured plants, and now even a shrine or two.

  The next set of steps went up several tiers and had stone benches along the way. As several Pus-Don came down, he did his best to ignore them and go back to looking like he was heading toward the administration buildings. Some of these where vast beyond belief.

  From the dormitories these buildings had looked more like temples, and he still found it frightening to believe he stood so near them. The largest, he guessed, would be the one Tang would want him to enter, but he didn’t know if it was this one that contained the record books. the vast open foyer reminded him vaguely of a childhood memory. Like all children on their first day, he had stood there in awe as he and the other new students were categorized like livestock.

  Stepping behind a tree, he then looked back toward the dormitories again. Now he could see that the buildings varied slightly in color. Red, gold, and silver were intermixed, but still there seemed a pattern. It was a set of lotus flowers, he realized. The silver represented the lily-pads – four of them. The gold was the flower petals of the great central lily, and around the whole thing were a set of red lilies – seven of them.

  He knew now where to search, and as he began to descend toward the dormitories he pondered why no one had ever mentioned the lilies.

  Chapter 6

  “Shouldn’t you go at night so no one will see you?” Rish asked.

  Ich-Mek shook his head. It was dusk, and they could see the Pus-Don delivering the morning cakes to the dormitories. His friends had insisted on meeting him here, just below the main square, before letting him go on alone.

  “No, I think everything would be locked, and I would be noticed by the guards. If I go now only the Pus-Don will be there.”

  They knew from experience that the instructors ate breakfast together in the great dining hall. Unlike their students, the masters were given an early hot meal, and so, he assumed, were most of the important administrators. If he was lucky the Pus-Don would be opening the administration buildings about now while everyone else ate breakfast.

  “What if we don’t see you again?” Bose asked sadly.

  Ich-Mek turned to him and did his best to smile. “I have to go. I know now I’m one of the three.”

  In his search the previous day, he had found only one other dormitory like the one he and Lu-Bod lived in. It had been enough to convince him that he was destined to be one of the three dragon-boys.

  “They won’t expel him,” Rish proclaimed, and not for the first time that morning. “Tang is right, I think.”

  Ich-Mek left his two friends still discussing this point, and climbed up the first set of steps, then the second. His feet, still sore from the previous day’s hike, started to badly hurt again. Lines of people looked to be coming down from the upper tiers toward the dining hall, and so he chose a path that kept him at a distance.

  As he approached the vast administration building, he passed numerous instructors and Pus-Don, but no one paid the least bit of attention to him. He climbed the seven steps leading to the covered foyer and found it nearly deserted. A single man looked to be arranging chairs, sweeping with a long broom as he went.

  Swallowing hard, Ich-Mek then tried to think of where to go next. The open chamber was easily a hundred steps across and had seven or eight doors leading into the building itself. Most were closed, but at least two looked open. Calming himself, and thankful that the man so far hadn’t noticed him, he cast the first spell in his plan.

  As the ecstasy faded, he concentrated on bringing up an image of Tang in his mind along with the great book they both expected to contain a record of Tang’s time here at Key-Tar-Om. One set of large double doors glowed as he did this, and he could hardly contain his excitement.

  He had practiced the spell over several days, and so knew this meant that what he sought was beyond those doors. A small door looked like it might also lead to the same general area. It was open, but was near the man who still had his back toward him.

  Walking quickly, he did his best to ignore the man and to look official as he walked through the open door. He counted his heartbeats as he waited for the man to question what he was doing. When instead nothing happened, he began exploring the large chamber he was in now. Massive freestanding cabinets lined this room; the type that held important documents, he was sure. Concentrating again, he found one of the cabinets glowed.

  It was locked, he saw as he approached it. Looking back over his shoulder to make sure he was still unobserved, he then cast the second spell of his plan: it was an unlock cantrip, one that would only work on simple locks – this he had been told by Tang. A satisfying click told him it was enough.

  Inside the cabinet were long shelves housing impossibly wide books. One of these on the topmost shelf glowed when he concentrated again. He couldn’t reach it, so he frantically looked around for a stool. Finding one, he dragged it noisily over to the cabinet, then froze when he realized how clumsy he was being. Still no one came to question him.

  He struggled to retrieve the heavy book from the shelf then made his way hurriedly to a table, where he set it down with a soft thud. It took him a while, but he found the page he was looking for. The glow of the page was difficult to discern when looking at the book from the side, so it had taken many attempts before the book was open to where he needed it to be.

  Taking out the carefully folded piece of blank rice-paper from his pocket, he then set it on the book, just below the row that detailed Tang’s existence. The next spell came easily, and again the ecstasy pushed all concerns from his mind for several brief moments.

  The copy spell had done its job pre
cisely. Though the book had one long row devoted to Tang, the smaller rice-paper copy had many, but every part of the record looked to be there. Quickly he refolded the rice-paper, then opened his robes a little.

  He had purposely chosen the thinnest rice-paper he could find; his friends had insisted on it. This way he could do what he was doing now, which was to shove the tiny folded page high up between his legs.

  That done, he then began searching for the row that contained Tang’s friend, the supposed dragon-boy who had died all those years ago. He found he had to cast the location spell again, which, instead of ecstasy, brought fatigue with it this time. It worked, though, and so he quickly did his best to memorize the entries for the boy named Naun-Bu before closing the book. As he lifted the book and walked back toward the cabinet, he could hear several people talking. He never quite got it back on the shelf.

  __________________________

  “Why were you looking at the record book?” the administrator asked forcefully again.

  Ich-Mek had been made to sit on a low stool near the center of a large room not far from where the book had been kept. The question had been repeated over and over during the past hour or two.

  “For my mother, master,” he replied meekly.

  He had tried to explain that he no longer believed she was well, and had come to look at the record in hopes of confirming this. It was true in a way, he knew, which he prayed would foil any spells they might use on him. He had intended to look at his own record before being discovered, if for no other reason than to help confirm he was indeed a dragon-boy. Also, he wanted to know about his family.

  The administrator never accused him of lying, which Ich-Mek took as a good sign. At least a dozen other administrators and some instructors had passed through the room by now. Few asked him any questions; instead they just looked at him accusingly before going off to discuss him in hushed voices.

  He kept expecting the Regent to show up. Expulsion had already been threatened, but this had occurred before, apparently, they realized who he was. They didn’t say dragon-boy, but he caught the gist of their distant conversations. It had thrown the staff into disarray at one point, with people literally running past him to deliver the news elsewhere, or so he assumed.

  A crowd had gathered now in an adjacent room, and to this the administrator was called. Ich-Mek couldn’t see through the wall of people when he dared to glance that way. When the administrator came back he was told, in no uncertain terms, that if this occurred again he would be expelled.

  “Yes, master,” he replied as he let tears form in his eyes.

  He was truly frightened and so tears came easily as he thought about his family and his future in the school. As he stared down at the carpeted floor, he did his best not to think about the rice-paper he was sweating all over. They had searched his pockets and taken his sandals, but nothing more than that.

  “Go to your morning class, Ich-Mek,” the administrator finally told him in an emotionless tone.

  “Yes, master,” he said as he bowed many times before daring to rise from the stool.

  He hardly remembered the walk back to his dormitory. After laying for a time in his cell, he realized he still needed to remove the rice-paper, and get to class. It was then that he took a moment to smile at his reflection in the ice-cold bucket of drinking water at his feet.

  __________________________

  Ich-Mek had waited two days before daring to contact his friends for fear he was being watched closely. He could tell by the behavior of his instructors that they had heard of his actions, though they never said anything about it openly. When Bose and Rish read the copy he had made, they all three agreed Tang wasn’t going to be pleased by it.

  “What do you think they meant by ‘remittance’?” Rish asked as the three of them stopped just inside the cave.

  Ich-Mek had shown his friends the copy only briefly before they all decided they should take it directly to Tang. It was just after dark now, and the cave was alive with restless boys. It seemed that the closer graduation grew, the more popular the place became.

  The last entry in Tang’s record contained the phrase Remittance refused, and the entry before that had read Remittance requested. Ich-Mek had pondered the meaning of these entries for two days now, and Bose agreed with him that they definitely weren’t likely positive.

  “Return of the money, I think,” Ich-Mek suggested.

  “You mean what they paid his parents?” Rish asked.

  “We think so,” Bose answered.

  “Can they do that?” Rish asked with concern. “I don’t think my parents could pay! They spent that money, I’m sure.”

  Bose and Ich-Mek didn’t respond, and so eventually all three of them turned their attention back to the ruckus that was occurring around the mountain: several boys had taken the high ground and were refusing to let anyone pass on either side. This effectively kept anyone from entering or leaving the cave.

  They could see two boys had attempted to pass, and were now licking their wounds. One was crying while the other looked to be attending to the boy’s lower leg. They effectively blocked the path leading to Tang, and so Ich-Mek and his friends quickly became impatient.

  “Watch out,” Ich-Mek told Rish as he pulled him back out of the way so he could step closer to the two boys.

  It was too dark to tell the extent of the injury to the one boy who was kneeling and crying, so Ich-Mek cast a glow cantrip. Bose followed it up with another, and so soon the two boys were bathed in greenish light. Blood was all over the one boy’s sandal, and on parts of his robes.

  “Take him out,” Ich-Mek urged the uninjured boy, who nodded his head, then ducked down to avoid flying slate.

  Looking up, they could all see that leaving was problematic now, as the boys on the mountain were targeting the entrance exclusively. Chunks of slate the size of a man’s head were now raining down repeatedly as the boys atop the mountain hooted and hollered joyously.

  They considered taking the mountain again in the same manner as before, but decided that was maybe too extreme. Boys had been badly injured last time, and so they decided it best just to scare them a bit. It took only a few push and cloud cantrips to convince the boys atop the mountain to retreat for the moment.

  “Go!” Ich-Mek yelled.

  The injured boy, with help from his friend, hobbled quickly toward the cave mouth, while Ich-Mek and his friends headed in the other direction. Not a single stone came his way, until other groups of boys were encountered. These they handled in a similar fashion, either casting the cloud cantrip again, or using a number of others, including blind, which only worked about half the time, and only for a few moments.

  They felt lucky to make it to Tang’s ledge without injury. Climbing up his ladder again, they were confronted by the energetic hermit, who couldn’t wait, and so snatched the copy from Ich-Mek’s hands before he could unfold it. Lighting a candle with a cantrip, Tang then held it above the page while he scanned the contents frantically, over and over.

  “OHHHHH!” Tang screamed and dropped both the candle and the rice-paper, before collapsing to the ground.

  Tearing at his hair the man began to roll wildly about on the ground, as he continued to wail incoherently. At one point the visitors feared he would roll off the edge, and so ran to pull him back. This seemed to invigorate Tang, who kicked and swung widely at them until they pulled back.

  The wailing went on for minutes, watched pitifully by the three students, huddled to one side. When Tang finally lay still, they dared not move for fear of setting him off again.

  After a time Rish began asking his two friends in a whisper, “Should we go, or tell him about Naun-Bu?”

  “Let’s wait,” Bose whispered back. “I don’t think he cares right now.”

  A silent minute passed before Tang spoke suddenly as he lay on his side with his back turned to them. “Tell me about Naun-Bu,” he said emotionlessly.

  Ich-Mek swallowed hard before lookin
g to his friends for support. They both nodded their heads and so Ich-Mek told them all what he had read. “It said ‘Remittance paid…one-hundred gold coins’.”

  Tang started sobbing when he heard this, and when he started to rise they feared another fit was coming on. Instead he actually turned to display to them the saddest of smiles. Crawling over to a large stone he used as a bench, Tang sat, then motioned for them to come closer.

  “His family was very poor,” Tang said in a melancholy tone. “My family could have used the money as well,” he then said before starting to sob again. “…I failed them.”

  Ich-Mek looked at his friends before daring to ask, “What does the remittance mean?”

  Tang eventually got a hold of himself enough to say, “Happiness for Naun-Bu’s family…debtor’s prison for mine.”

  “No!” Bose objected. “How could they?”

  “How could they!” Tang parroted with a crazed look on his face. “I abandoned them…I abandoned my post…even before I had one.”

  Ich-Mek thought he understood now. Tang had disappeared, which meant one provincial governor didn’t receive all the mages he was promised. What’s more, Tang had been on the prime path most of his time at Key-Tar-Om, which meant he was among the most valuable of graduates. Tang’s parents were financially liable now, at the very least for the money they had been given when Tang had been sent to Key-Tar-Om.

  “But debtor’s prison!” Bose exclaimed softly. “Are you sure?”

  Tang nodded his head. “The Emperor’s mages pay a high price for failure.”

  Ich-Mek could see now that he was doomed. If he managed to flee the school somehow, he would leave his family to the same fate as Tang’s. Debtor’s prison would be their death, he was sure. If his family couldn’t pay, his father – and maybe his mother as well – would be imprisoned for the rest of their lives.