Leek’s reminded Taro of Craiven & Boors: the smell of rotting wood, the creaking floorboards that bent under his weight. But where Craiven & Boors dealt with magical items, there were few of those here. These walls and shelves were stuffed with ornate crystal work and jewelry.
“With you in a minute,” a haggard voice called from the other side of the room. He was the thinnest man Taro had ever seen. His arms were like toothpicks, and each of his ribs showed through his shirt. His clothes hung off him like a wet rag, and he held a spoon-like instrument over a furnace. Inside were flakes of melting gold.
While trying to keep his wobbling hands steady, he hacked into his sleeve and a bit of the gold spilled from the spoon.
“Damn it.” He set it down onto a scorched block of cedar. “Can I help you?” he said forcefully.
“I’m looking for Leek.”
He pulled his furnace gloves off. They were much too large for his bone-thin fingers. “You’ve found him.”
Taro sat The Witch of the Well on the countertop and slid it toward Leek. The man spun it to face him and ran his fingers over the binding.
“I need a loan,” Taro said simply.
“And you want to use this book as collateral?” Leek mumbled to himself, as he looked over the book in greater detail. “It has some value,” he said, after a pause. “Is it stolen?”
“If it was, I’d be looking to sell it, not pawn it.”
“I’m not really one for literature. The binding’s real silver though, and the decals on the cover are gold. I could give you fifteen crowns for it.”
Taro fought off the urge to scoff. “It’s worth eight times that.”
“Fifteen crowns is what I can get for the metal if you don’t pay me back.” Leek sized him up. “What’s a kid like you need with so much money?”
“Trying to bail a friend out of jail.”
Leek pushed the book back to Taro. “If you’re going to lie to my face, you best leave now.”
“It’s for school,” Taro said carefully.
“Lots of schools in town.”
Taro decided to press his luck. “It’s for my tuition to the Magisterium.”
Leek rubbed his thin, wrinkled chin. “You’re right to not go blabbing that around Lower. Tell me, what kind of tuition did they saddle you with?”
“Fifty crowns, for me and my sister.”
“Well, you ain’t gettin’ fifty crowns, so get that mess out of your head right now.”
“It’s worth more than that.”
“For the right buyer, maybe. But the term starts tomorrow, if I ain’t mistaken. Can you find someone by then?” He tapped his nose knowingly. “That’s the question.”
Taro quickly added his and Nima’s money in his head, and realized they could eke out with less than fifty, if they stretched it. “How about thirty-six?”
“Fifteen crowns’ll be my limit. Listen, I want to help you, but this ain’t a charity.”
“Sorry to waste your time.” Taro took the book and started for the door. Just as he touched the knob, he remembered that he had something else of value. He rushed back to the desk and dug his aurom out of his pocket. “What if I add this?”
Leek snatched it from Taro’s hand and examined it closely. He bit it with his teeth, tapped it on the table, and rubbed the surface with his thumb. “You must have some talent to get one of these.”
“The book and the aurom for thirty-six crowns.”
“And how will you get past the Midway without your aurom?” Leek asked. Taro was surprised he knew so much about the Magisterium.
“My sister has one, I’ll have to share.”
Leek let out a long sigh and bit his lip. “Damn it, Leek, you’re gettin’ soft in your old age,” he said to himself. “Fine, fine. Thirty-six crowns at fifty percent interest. Six months. But I swear by the Sun King, I’ll melt ’em down if you’re half a second late.”
Leek retrieved two ivory boxes from beneath the counter. Inside the first was more money than Taro had ever seen in his life. Stacks and stacks of glimmering crowns and sovereigns. Leek carefully counted thirty-six crowns onto the counter.
“I’d suggest you not linger in the Lower City,” Leek said as Taro gathered the coins. “You wouldn’t be the first recruit to get robbed on his way back.”
“You’ve done business with other recruits?”
Leek unlocked the second box and turned it to face Taro. Inside were dozens of aurom. Brass, silver, and gold. At the top of the pile was even a wooden one.
“Let’s just say business is steady,” Leek said, with a toothy grin.
“You take wooden auroms?”
Leek took the aurom and shut the box. “This one wasn’t pawned. Back in the day, it was mine.” He set it on the counter. “I’ll let you borrow it, if you’re interested.”
Chapter Nine
Bernard
Ven was the best kind of friend. Bright-eyed, energetic, and able to sum up an entire person in a single quip. Were it not for him, the first few days in the Magisterium would’ve been hell.
Taro stared down at his course schedule as he followed Ven up a ladder and across a tilted hallway.
“Not much farther,” Ven said. He moved so quickly that Taro kept losing him behind bends in the hall.
Magister Veldheim’s classroom took up the entire eighteenth floor. The air was thick with hot steam, the tiled floor was soaking wet, and in the center of leaking valves and pipes was an enormous aquarium. Veldheim was nowhere in sight.
Nima was sitting on a copper pipe near the aquarium and waved to him. She looked like she’d just run a marathon, and beads of sweat ran down her neck. Beside her were other younger recruits, including Sikes, all in similar states.
“Tough class?” Taro asked Nima.
Nima breathed hard. “I feel like I’m gonna die. Why didn’t you come?”
Taro shrugged. “Woodcroft said I didn’t need it.”
Not far from the tank was a workstation covered in glass beakers bubbling with black ink. Beside these were logbooks with names listed in one column and a quantity listed in the next.
While Taro leafed through the lists, Sikes approached the tank and pressed his face to the glass.
“Get away from it,” Taro whispered.
“Piss off,” Sikes said, and continued to stare into the murky water.
“You should listen to him. It ate Veldheim, it might eat you, too,” Ven said.
“What’s in there?” Taro asked.
Ven shrugged. “Could be anything.”
“Haven’t you done this two years in a row?”
“Veldheim’s a kook. He doesn’t plan out lessons, he just takes you along on whatever crazy project he happens to be working on. He’s mostly harmless; none of his students have died in a long time.”
The tank rattled, and water splashed out from the open top. A giant tentacle swung up, clutching a tiny man in a diving suit. It slammed him onto the tiles, but not only was he uninjured, he was laughing as he rubbed his bruised body.
It was Magister Veldheim. The recruits tried to help him, but he shooed them away. “I’m quite all right.” Veldheim lifted the goggles off his eyes and cracked his back. In his left hand he clutched a long tube with a point at the end of it. It was filled with the same ink that was on the table.
He emptied the tube into one of the beakers. “When did class start?” he said absentmindedly.
“Ten minutes ago,” Pipes said, with a mote of irritation.
Veldheim touched his fingers to the bottom of one of the beakers and the contents began to boil. “We’ll just let that sit for an hour or two.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be teaching us something?” Ven said.
“Oh, you’re back again.” Veldheim hung on to the word again for a long moment. “What a pleasure. You’ll make a perfect volunteer for this. Let’s see, who else.” Veldheim pointed to Taro. “You.”
Taro glanced at the tank. “What are we going to do?”
>
“You’re going fishing.” He pointed to two doors across the deck. “Boys left, girls right. Inside, you’ll find appropriate diving suits. No running though. Remember: safety first.”
The diving suits were steel-gray and made of tight, stretchy fabric. Along the seams were metal loops, and on the back was a large hook. Half the suits had chunks taken out of the arms and chest, tears in the fabric, and had been re-stitched several times.
When they returned to the deck, Veldheim called them to his workstation. “Gather ’round.” He stuck his finger into the hot ink and smeared it onto a piece of parchment. “Inscription is a magister’s most powerful tool. It’s the lynchpin that holds magistry together. And the ink you use matters a great deal. For example, most magistry lanterns, such as the ones used to light the tower,” he pointed toward the red orbs on the ceiling, “are most effective with a specific type of ink. One-third black carbon, which we will provide, one-third Dionaea acid, which you’ll acquire in your next lesson, and one-third ink from an Architeuthos Magnus.” He pointed a thumb to the tank. “His name’s Bernard.”
The aquarium rumbled and a tentacle pressed against the glass. Each of the hundred suckers on the ends were the size of a fist.
“Gods below,” Taro said, his heart clenching in his chest.
“Don’t be afraid; you’re perfectly safe, so long as I’m around. Bernard’s provided thousands of gallons in ink in his time. Now, Ven and Taro will go first, to show you that it’s perfectly safe.”
“And if they get killed, we’ll clean out the tank and pick two new test dummies,” Pipes snickered under his breath.
“Each of you choose a ladder.” They did so, and Veldheim attached a cable to the loops on their backs. “Suri, could you bring me that case?”
Inside the case were more ink collectors and ceramic U-shaped devices with runes across the top. When Veldheim touched them, they glowed.
“These are of my own design. It uses an ink composed of augwerd seeds and gryphon bone marrow. They will allow you to breathe underwater for seven minutes.” He walked to the slate chalkboard and scribbled out a diagram of the creature. Ten tentacles, two bulging eyes, and a bird-like beak. “Ven, you’ll distract Bernard while Taro sticks him right here.”
Taro and Ven hesitantly climbed the ladders, on opposite sides of the tank, and put their goggles on. When they got to the top, the water went completely still.
Ven took a deep breath and plunged, headfirst, into the tank. Taro tried his best to follow him in, but couldn’t bring himself to move. It was like his legs were frozen solid.
“Now,” Veldheim shouted up. “Hello? Go ahead, hop on in.”
The ladder shook, and a hand pressed against Taro’s back. “In you go,” Veldheim said, pushing him in.
The water was thick as soup. Every few seconds, he caught a glimpse of the giant squid, moving sluggishly across the tank. It seemed like Ven was doing his job, trying to distract it, so Taro had to do his.
He saw an opening in the flailing tentacles and swam toward it. Two eyes stared back from the enormous creature, and beneath them was a black beak that could’ve taken an arm off. Taro saw his target, an ink sac not far from the snapping beak. When he pricked it, the glass cylinder filled within seconds.
From the corner of his eye, Taro saw that the squid had caught Ven. He thrashed and shoved against the tentacles, until one managed to wrap around him and to knock the breather from his mouth. Ven was quickly running out of air, and it looked as though he was only seconds from passing out.
Taro stabbed Bernard with his ink collector and the squid released Ven. Taro grabbed him under the arm and swam, like a madman, to the surface.
The boys climbed down the aquarium ladder and sprawled out onto the tiles, gasping for air and coughing out a pint of water.
Taro chucked the ink collector at Veldheim’s feet. “Screw you.”
Veldheim picked it up and wiped the blood off it. “You were never in any danger.”
“Sure didn’t feel that way,” Taro said.
“If you can’t take a little bloody nose, run back home and crawl under your bed.” He turned to the other students. “That goes for the rest of you. Bernard’s a goldfish compared to what I’ve got in store for you.”
Veldheim glanced down at his ledger. “Edrin and Suri, you’re up next.”
Chapter Ten
Flesh-eating Flowers
Magister Veldheim made it clear that nobody was leaving without collecting their ink. By the time they were done, three recruits had sprained their wrists and one had to have Veldheim restart their heart. They each received a vial of ink and were instructed to continue to their next lesson on the fortieth floor.
Entering the classroom was like stepping into a vast woodland. Trees and bright green grass went on for miles, over rolling hills and forests. A gentle breeze caressed the foliage, and a stream of crystal-clear water trickled from a mountainside into a bright lake.
The doorway stood in the middle of the air and disappeared when all of the students were through. The ceiling and walls looked like a summer sky, and it was impossible to tell where the room ended and the magic began.
“It’s an enchantment.” Ven picked a stone up off the ground and tossed it at where the wall should’ve been. The stone struck the sides and sent ripples throughout the room.
“Where’s the instructor?” Taro asked.
“Antherion shouldn’t be hard to find,” Suri said.
The group walked through the forest close together. Leaves crunched underfoot, birds chirped overhead, and—for a moment—Taro forgot where he really was. At the end was a clearing with tilled land and various plants sprouting in rows. Gardening tools, clay pots, and wheelbarrows lay in a pile beside the soil.
Taro lay in the grass and stared up at the clouds rolling overhead. It felt like a lifetime since he’d seen a day like this. In Ashwick, every day was a different shade of gray, and the rain never ended.
When he closed his eyes, he felt the earth rumble beneath him, and realized it was footfalls. When he opened his eyes, his heart felt like it would jump out of his chest.
Towering over him was a verifiable, true-to-life dragon. When he was younger, his father told him stories of dragons and their flying brood-city. He even claimed to have seen one once, but even at the age of five, Taro suspected this was a lie.
This dragon’s scales were slick and silvery-orange; its green eyes were like fist-sized emeralds with black slits. Hot, moist breath exploded from it when it opened its mouth and revealed its thousand razor-sharp teeth. Then, it spoke.
“Sleeping in my class will not be tolerated,” it said calmly.
Taro stammered. “Y-Your c-class?”
The dragon slumped beside the tilled land onto its belly. “Magister Veldheim kept you late?”
“Yes, sir,” Ven said. He looked like a tiny spec staring up at the gigantic creature. Taro still couldn’t believe what he was seeing. This was Antherion. “He wouldn’t let us leave until everyone had finished.”
“He simply has no respect for my class,” Antherion bellowed. “We’ll have to make do with the time we have. I’ve prepared a special lesson for you today, children.” He pointed his tail toward a rack of shovels and gardening gloves. “Grab a pair and we’ll begin.”
Ven, Suri, and some of the older students went for the gloves without hesitation, but Taro and the newer recruits were stunned still. Antherion seemed annoyed that his polite requests were met with fear.
He sighed so hard, it felt like a hurricane. The trees rustled and he stood on his hind legs. “Every year, I swear.”
Antherion stretched his wings their full span; each was as long as his body from head to tail. As he did, his scales shimmered and glowed until the light enveloped his entire body. He grew smaller and morphed into something resembling a human—two legs, two arms, and he stood upright, but his wings remained, as did his glowing eyes and booming voice.
“Can we please pr
oceed with the lesson?” His wings tucked neatly behind him, and he cracked his knuckles. “Yes, I’m a dragon. No, I’m not going to eat you.” He was much less intimidating when he wasn’t four stories tall, and the recruits did as they were told.
Antherion picked up a handful of moist soil and rubbed it between his long, scaly claws. “Do you know what this is?”
“Dirt,” Sikes said.
Antherion motioned for Sikes to hold out his hand and dropped the scoop of soil into it. “This is the most precious resource in the kingdom. This soil is what made Endra the envy of the world. Even the Dragonkin don’t have this.”
“You don’t have dirt where you’re from?” Sikes said.
“Endran soil was exposed to the Arclight for thousands of years. It’s got properties that cannot be found elsewhere. Plants used to spring up overnight. Regrettably, the soil outside is frozen solid. Here, in the Conservatorium, we use it to grow many required herbs.”
Antherion retrieved a leather sack beside a tree; inside were peach-sized bulbs. He handed one to each of the recruits and had them plant it, apply fertilizer, and bring it water from the stream.
“What you’ve just planted is called Dionaea Maltris. It’s a carnivorous plant from the jungles of Kadrek.”
“Carnivorous?” Taro said.
“No need to worry. These will take a week to grow large enough to even take off a finger. Now, that’s a fair bit better than their normal year-long growing time. Once they sprout, we’ll replant them in the shade—that’s where they enjoy hunting.” Antherion waved the recruits along. “This way, don’t fall behind.”
Taro whispered to Ven as they marched deep into the woods, “Did he say hunting?”
“Hands in your pockets,” Ven said.
The trail from the farmland through the woodland was well-traveled. There were many plants and fungi along the path, each of them with a tiny label pegged into the ground nearby indicating what they were, along with notes and warnings ranging from DANGER: SEVERELY POISONOUS to DO NOT EXPOSE TO DIRECT SUNLIGHT and DO NOT CULL ON TUESDAYS.
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