by Adam Bennett
Something small pressed against his head, just behind his ear.
“Step out into the hallway, slowly,” someone said in a tone that precluded any debate.
Roran raised his hands and came out from behind the tapestry. The thing pressed to his head shifted, and he chanced a quick glance. It was a maple branch, twelve inches long, twisted and knotted and polished to a mirror shine. A wand.
“Let’s have a look at you,” the voice ordered and he turned around, coming face to face with Natira, one of the juniors. She was wearing a knee length coat of supple leather and tall riding boots over a sensible tunic and trousers. Her raven hair was tied back in a no nonsense bun, exposing high, sharp cheekbones, and her wide blue eyes were hard and serious. She arched a thin eyebrow.
“What are you doing up after curfew, pretty boy?” she asked. “Freshmen aren’t allowed passes.”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Roran said. “Juniors can’t get them, either.”
She kept the wand level while her eyes flitted over him, pausing briefly on the satchel. “You’ve been stealing.” It was not an accusation.
“You’re not wrong.” Roran shrugged, then indicated the green gem hanging around Natira’s neck on a chain of spun silver. “That looked better displayed on the eleventh floor. What’s it do?”
“It makes people see things that aren’t there.” She smiled, and Roran understood.
“The armour thing—cute.”
She bowed her head slightly before turning serious again. “This is fun, but I need a patsy to cover my tracks. Let’s go talk to the Watchers.” She waved down the hallway with the wand.
“You’re breaking curfew, too,” Roran said.
“You’ve got a bag full of stolen goods. They’ll be grateful I apprehended you.”
He took two steps back into the junction. “Solid plan. Sorry to make you work for it.” His whole body tensed.
She brandished the wand. “Don’t try it. You’re not fast enough. Not by half.”
“You’re not that good a shot,” he smirked and bolted down the corridor out of sight.
Natira stood for a moment, pointing her wand at the empty air. “Son of a bitch.” She stowed the wand and ran after him.
He was already gone. She raced down the corridor, skidded to a halt at the next junction, played a hunch and turned down the new hallway. Seconds later she caught a glimpse of movement to her right and slipped into a roll, coming up facing the way she came, a thin curved sword flashing into her hand from a hidden sheath on her back.
Roran, arms folded, nodded approvingly next to a portrait of a long dead academician. “Good guess,” he said.
She lowered the sword and stabbed a finger at him. “You didn’t use magic,” she said, “not to fight back, or to escape. You just ran.” She paused, her face scrunched up. “You can’t use it, can you? You’re a fraud.”
Roran smiled. “Guilty as charged.” He cocked his head to one side. “On the other hand, you didn’t use the wand, you chased me the old-fashioned way and you haven’t raised the alarm. I’m not the only one living a lie, am I?”
She deflated and wrinkled her nose. “I thought I had this patch to myself.”
“And I thought no one else had noticed how incompetent Professor Garamond is.” Roran said.
Natira knitted her brow. “I heard that the Grand Magus accidentally turned Garamond’s father into a baboon, so she gave him a job to prevent a career-ending complaint with the Department of Mysteries.” She paused. “How did you convince him that you have the Gift?”
Roran grinned sheepishly. “I pulled a coin from his ear. You?”
“Pick a card,” she said quietly. “He really is an absolute bellend.”
“An astounding moron,” Roran agreed. He pointed at her amulet. “What do you feed that thing?”
“Blondes,” Natira replied evenly.
“What?”
She rolled her eyes. “A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.”
That was no answer, but time was a factor, so Roran changed the subject. “You know this is a stalemate, right?”
“We know each other’s secret,” Natira said. “Nobody wins if the Watchers catch us.” She waited a heartbeat. “What if we join forces?”
His raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t you just threaten me?”
“It wasn’t personal.”
“Assuming I agree, what’s our play?” he asked.
She pointed to his satchel. “They’ll divine that stuff as soon as they know it’s missing, so we have to get it out of here and inside a null-magic zone before morning.”
“I know a zone and I already have a way out,” Roran replied.
“Bullshit you do,” she countered, counting off obstacles on her fingers. “The windows are warded, the doors are mage-locked and the entire Academy is shielded against teleportation.”
Roran held up the guidestone. “There’s another way out, and this will show me the way,” he said.
She narrowed her eyes. “Seems you have everything figured out. Where do I fit in?”
“Where indeed?”
She snapped her fingers. “We work together after we escape. With your skills and my amulet, we could get away with anything.”
“I could just take the amulet,” he said.
“Which one?” She sneered and her neck was suddenly encircled by a dozen identical amulets, green and glowing. She swished her sword through the air. “You only get one pick.”
“I see your point,” Roran replied, watching her arcing blade. “I get seventy percent of the take.”
“For this job, sure. Then we go fifty-fifty,” she said.
“I’m doing the heavy lifting here! You didn’t even have a plan to get out!” he whined.
“I do now.” She answered with a grin, thrusting an open hand at him. “Deal?”
He scratched his chin theatrically before grasping her hand and shaking it firmly.
***
Roran stood overlooking an immense atrium. Three stories below, the dining hall stretched fifty yards wide, eerily silent at this late hour. He pushed his cap back to wipe his brow, ignoring the heat of Natira’s glare on his back.
“We’ve already been here,” she hissed, “We’re going in circles!”
“We were one level up before,” he lied, uselessly shaking the guidestone. It jittered indecipherably in his hand.
Another loud sigh got his hackles up, so he put the guidestone away and tramped off, pretending to know where he was going. He went ten paces, turned sharply to his left and took three more steps before blundering directly into a Watcher’s breastplate.
Roran blinked at his burnished reflection then craned his neck to look past the gleaming cuirass to the open faced helmet with its visor of smoked glass. Beneath the visor, the Watcher’s broad nose flared angrily above his scowling mouth.
Natira caught up and stopped dead. “Oh, shit,” she said.
“You are in violation of curfew!” the Watcher bellowed. “You will submit to search, seizure and detention!”
Roran raised his hands. “Sir, I can explain—”
“You may present your case to the appropriate authorities!” the Watcher roared. “You will be detained!”
Natira pointed her wand at Roran. “Watcher,” she said, “I was pursuing this miscreant. Having aided in his apprehension, I request clemency.”
Roran turned to her. “That is stone cold.”
The Watcher’s lip curled in disgust. “There is no clemency! There are only the rules!” Roran wondered where they found these guys.
Natira twisted and suddenly the sword reappeared in her hand, pointed at the Watcher’s chest, a needle set against a block of iron. Roran admired her pluck.
The Watcher sucked in a furious breath. “Threatening an officer of the Arcane Watch is punishable by expulsion! Drop your weapon at once!” Spittle flew from his lips and he balled his hands into fists that crackled with blue-white lightning.
Roran u
sed the distraction to reach into his satchel for a tiny brass hammer, etched with miniscule runes. Grasping it with thumb and forefinger, he rapped it sharply on the Watcher’s chest.
A thunderclap threw the Watcher down the hall with the kind of force generally reserved for mine collapses and siege engines. He landed heavily and rolled several times, leaving long striations in the floorboards before finally coming to a halt flat on his back, smoke rising from his dented armour.
Natira grabbed at her head and cursed. “You bastard! A little warning next time! Where did you get that?”
“Ninth fIoor labs. It’s from Xynnar!” Roran shouted back over the ringing in his ears.
“What fuels it?”
“Fear, I think.”
She shook her head incredulously. “Those people are crazy. No wonder they’re at war with everyone.”
The sprawling Watcher moaned, limbs moving unsteadily, muttering through gritted teeth. Natira and Roran looked at one another. “Time to go,” they said in unison.
***
“We just made a deal!” Roran complained as they ran down the hallway. “And you immediately tried to double-cross me!”
“It was a distraction, and it worked,” Natira said.
“This will be reflected in your performance review,” he pouted.
Roran had the guidestone in hand again and for once it was cooperating, pointing consistently in the same direction. In his relief, he did not consider what that implied.
There was a sound like a cat being torn in half, so sudden and shocking that it stopped them cold. The nearby wall shimmered, seemed first to collapse and then expanded to comic proportions before birthing the still-smoking Watcher into the hallway. He fixed his visor on the two thieves and raised a lightning-wreathed fist.
Natira stepped forward with her head down, hands clasped to her chest in feminine contrition. “We surrender,” she said, but her lips kept moving after she finished speaking, and there was a soft green glow between her fingers.
A ground shaking roar rent the air and a snarling chimera crashed through a nearby window. Its serpent’s tail rattled dangerously, the goat legs stamped, and the lion’s head bared fearsome fangs and coughed fire.
The Watcher turned and threw a flurry of punches, each jab sending an eldritch blast at the monster. Natira grabbed Roran by the arm and hauled him away, dashing round the next corner as the chimera spat a gout of flame.
“We’re gonna die!” Roran wailed.
Natira shook her head. “It’s not real, and the Watcher is going to figure that out any second. We need somewhere to hide.”
Several closed doors lined the hallway. Roran peered at one door, then at the perfectly still guidestone in his sweaty hand and back at the door. “I’ll be damned,” he breathed. He shouldered the door open and stepped into the lavatory.
There was a row of privies along one wall, and a long mirror before them. Evenly spaced gargoyles stood ready to vomit water into waiting hands at the trough-like sink under the mirror. Natira locked the door behind them while Roran paced anxiously.
“How did he do that?” he demanded. “I thought teleportation was blocked in here.”
“There’s an exception for Watchers,” she explained. “You wouldn’t believe how much paperwork he’s going to have to do. Now focus.”
Roran exhaled sharply and slid under the sink between the third and fourth gargoyles. He pressed his ear to the wall and tapped it gently with his knuckles.
“Tell me: how did you pull this off for so long?” he asked. “I’ve managed to cry off all my exams so far, pleading the flux and such—but you’ve been here, what, three years?”
Listening at the door, Natira answered quietly. “Professor Ellandra.”
“What about her?” Roran asked.
Natira sniffed. “She gives me answers for the written exams and helps me fake the practicals.”
Roran grunted, impressed. “Very clever. So you get help cheating, what does Ellandra get?”
“Orgasms,” Natira replied. There was a short exclamation as Roran hit his head on the sink.
He cleared his throat as his ears went red. “So you weren’t kidding about how the amulet works?”
She winked at him and he chuckled. “Okay,” he said, returning his attention to the wall, “why have you stayed all this time?”
“I… wasn’t ready to leave.”
“Hiding from something?” He asked it without judgment, but she still ignored him.
“The Watcher’s coming,” Natira announced suddenly and slipped under the sink next to Roran.
Heavy, deliberate footfalls came to an ominous stop outside the door. The handle rattled experimentally. Natira placed a hand on her amulet, murmured something unintelligible and gave a soft sigh. The gem on her neck glowed green and a translucent wall appeared, sealing them under the sink. She looked at Roran, a finger pressed to her lips.
The door unlocked itself and swung languidly open. The Watcher filled the doorway, his fists like ham sized tempests, his mouth a bridge of rage linking both sides of his stubbled chin. He marched into the lavatory and took a long look around. At a sharp wave of his hand, all the privy doors slammed open at once. The Watcher studied each empty seat.
He turned, and Roran could feel the baleful gaze as it seemed to settle on him. But after an interminable moment, the Watcher heaved his shoulders in frustration and plodded out of the lavatory, slamming the door behind him.
Natira exhaled slowly through her nose and said, “We need to get out here. Now.”
“I’m trying!” Roran pleaded, gesturing helplessly at the wall.
Natira clicked her tongue and lifted the brass hammer from Roran’s satchel. Ignoring his protests, she struck it smartly on the stone. With a bowel shaking thud, a small section of the wall simply ceased to be, revealing a wide, wet shaft.
Roran glared at her. “The Watcher will have heard that.”
“Then we best not be here when he returns,” she replied.
He backed into the opening and took a couple of steps down. It was a long climb, but with plenty of footholds. Satisfied, he began the descent. Natira followed closely.
“When we get to the sewers, watch out for alligators,” he said to the soles of her boots.
“There are no alligators in the sewers,” she said.
“Have you ever been down there?” he demanded.
“Well, no. Have you?”
“No,” he admitted. “Meaning that there’s equal evidence to support both theories. So…”
“So what?”
“So, watch out for alligators.”
***
The storm had passed, but Seameet’s sewers were still engorged with rushing rainwater. It stank less than expected, but it was hard to stay upright.
Roran slogged through the knee deep flow, holding the guidestone in one hand and an oil lantern in the other. The artefact was back to its old, fidgety ways, which Roran took as an indication that he was in no immediate danger. Natira splashed behind him, carrying a torch she had pulled from the wall.
Roran trudged to a heap of fallen masonry to rest, and set the satchel, guidestone, and lantern on it. Natira joined him, leaning carefully against the slimy wall.
The rush of water began to ease, and Roran heard a long, low rumbling hiss, like a troll failing to hold in a fart. The most primal part of his brain sent ice running through his veins.
Roran turned slowly and scanned the water. The lantern light reflected off a pair of huge knobby eyeballs set atop a long, scaly head that was cutting through the water towards him.
His mouth opened, but no sound came out. His brain was sending so many conflicting signals—run, fight, scream, shit, die—nothing could get through.
The alligator’s gaping jaws revealed rows of teeth like alabaster daggers. It gave a booming roar that reverberated through the sewers and launched itself at Roran.
He stumbled back, slipped on something fleshy that ruptured beneath
his foot, and flopped inelegantly backwards. “I told you!” he shouted at Natira, who was backing away, a soft green glow on her chest.
As he hit the water and the alligator bore down on him, Roran found one of his knives and pulled it free. He screamed and stabbed desperately at the beast.
He found himself battling the water and the air—the alligator had vanished. Soaked, he sat up and twisted wildly around for his foe, but it was gone. He was alone.
Quite alone, in fact. He whirled, looking for Natira, but she was gone as well, along with his satchel and the guidestone. Only the lantern remained where he left it. He sloshed over to pick it up and noticed something freshly scratched into the masonry.
Heart, comma, ‘N.’
He sighed. All that fine work, wasted. Pickles was going to be so angry.
“Son of a bitch,” he said.
His voice echoing through the gurgling sewer was the only reply.
Cœur du Dieu Mécanique
Lannah Marshall
Tick tock.
Kello tapped a single copper finger against the smoky glass, but the plant inside the bell jar stayed perfectly still. So, she listened.
Tick tock.
Tick tock.
Tick Tock chimed her little mechanical heart, but no sound issued from the plant within the bell jar.
“Do not play with it,” said Master Pennifold from his desk. His hands were pressed against his balding head, fingers playing with his web-white hair, as he scanned the pages of his book. “It is the last of its kind.”
Kello sat back, clockwork joints clicking as she rested her weight on her bronze heels. The plant still did not move, but it had grown since last night. It had a new shoot from its thick green stem, and its leaves had turned ever so slightly to face the single ray of sunlight in Master Pennifold’s study.
It twisted upwards, tapering off into three thick leaves and a pinkish bulb. It looked like many of the plants in Master Pennifold’s books, all illustrated delicately to best portray their patterns and veins.
