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Arram sighed. In truth, he didn’t see how doing it would get him into any worse trouble. He drew in his breath and let it out, then shaped the signs in his head. It wasn’t the kind of spell that could be worked with smelly oils or signs written on the floor, not if a fellow wanted to go unnoticed, anyway.
At first nothing happened. He was too nervous. Had he used everything up with the water spells? He glanced at Cosmas, who nodded at him in a comforting way.
He drew in a breath, bringing his Gift up from his belly, and released the air. He imagined himself drawing the signs on a great chalkboard inside his head. His hand quivered, or his imagination did. When he looked down, half of him was invisible, and half of him was not.
‘Relax, lad,’ Master Sebo told him. ‘That’s good enough for now. Release it.’
Arram looked at her. ‘I can do it right,’ he protested. ‘I work it all the time.’
‘We know you can,’ she said, glaring at the big mage in the chair across from them. ‘And if Master Yadeen weren’t so busy glaring at you, I imagine you would have done it properly.’
‘I wasn’t glaring,’ retorted the big man. ‘My face is always like this!’
Arram saw what Yadeen meant. He had the kind of eyes that looked as if they were set in an intimidating stare. ‘It’s just hard to concentrate,’ the boy explained. ‘Not because of Master Yadeen, though. I’m tired from the mess I made in class.’ A couple of them smiled at that.
‘By his account, he doesn’t use the spells we teach the older students,’ said a very beautiful master with glossy black hair and big brown eyes. She had introduced herself as Dagani. Arram was fascinated to see that she wore brown paint around her eyelids and crimson paint on her mouth. If he hadn’t met Varice, he would have thought this woman, in a stomach-baring gold silk top and skirt under her robe, was the most beautiful female he had ever seen. The woman continued, ‘Indeed, I have seen no masters use such a spell.’
Chioké sniffed. ‘The structure is archaic.’
This time Yadeen did scowl. ‘What is archaic is new to those who have never seen it, Chioké. Most defences against such spells would not be able to counter it.’
Master Cosmas stood and rubbed his hands together. ‘I think it’s time we had lunch. Arram, you may drop the spell and join us.’ He opened the door. Kitchen servants trooped in with all manner of plates and pitchers, setting everything that was needed on a long side table.
Watching the adults, Arram saw he was to take an empty plate and choose whatever appealed to him, then carry it to the main table.
Sebo and the beautiful mage, Dagani, added their own selections to Arram’s plate. He also found himself sitting between the two women at the table. They made certain he ate the greens and the fish they had given him, as well as hummus dip with bread. During the meal, Dagani got him to talk about his family and his normal day. She and Sebo exchanged looks when he admitted that mostly he read or walked in the gardens by himself.
He finally got the courage to ask, ‘What is this about? Will I be dismissed?’
‘Cosmas!’ Dagani called, rapping her spoon on her plate. ‘My dear sir! This poor lad thinks you mean to send him away!’
Arram sank into his chair.
Dagani tugged on his arm. ‘Up,’ she ordered, smiling. ‘You look like a turtle.’
‘Young man, I am sorry,’ Cosmas said when Arram stuck his head over the table. ‘I thought you knew what we were about. I will not send you home – that’s the last place a lad of your talents should be. When you came to us, your Gift was sufficient for the basics, but – for the most part – dormant. Sleeping. Now, however, your body has begun to change. With it, your Gift will unfold. You should have been reexamined before, frankly. We questioned you so thoroughly to see where to place you next.’
Arram groaned. They were going to shift him again? ‘Sir, that’s the third time in three terms!’
‘Speak to the master with respect,’ Chioké told him severely.
‘Don’t be hard on the boy,’ Dagani chided, her eyes flashing. ‘He has not been taught to expect the extraordinary, as has Ozorne. He doesn’t understand.’ She turned to Arram. ‘Did they tell you, when they moved you ahead these last two terms, that no two young mages grow at the same rate? Just as no two young bodies grow at the same rate—’
Arram nodded. He had noticed it among the older students.
‘It is the same with their Gifts. And Gifts continue to change for years.’
‘As will your mind,’ commented a heavyset, broad-shouldered man with grey-brown eyes and short, tight-curled light brown hair. Unlike the other masters, he had said nothing during the meal, but scribbled in a notebook as he ate. He’d been introduced as Ramasu the healer. ‘Surely you knew you were exceeding the reach of your fellows when you crept into libraries to read books that were not for you.’
Arram gulped. Those eyes were unnerving. ‘But there were parts that I understood, sir.’
‘We shall bring you to the level of those parts that you could not comprehend,’ Master Cosmas said. ‘And there are other students in your position. You will share classes with them. It will be some time before you are ready for the Upper Academy, but with these courses you will feel your curiosity properly challenged.’
‘Out of the new mage classes,’ Sebo began, ‘are your students all to have masters as instructors? That will be a pretty bit of schedule adjustment.’
‘You did load us up royally this term, Cosmas.’ Arram sat upright. Master Lindhall Reed was going to take part in his education? He had seen him before on visits to the menagerie, wandering in and out of the enclosures. Lindhall was a tall, lanky Northerner with reddish-tanned skin, blond hair bleached nearly white by the Carthaki sun, and long, ropy muscles. His blue eyes were large and pale, his mouth wide and expressive. Another student had told Arram the foreigner was brought specially from the North and paid extravagantly by the emperor to oversee menageries in both school and palace.
Now Master Lindhall tucked fresh fruit and vegetables into his robe’s pockets as he continued, ‘I can’t take another student this term. His Imperial Majesty requires that I overhaul the animal enclosures at the arena, gods help me.’ He looked at Arram. ‘And this lad is too young. You know I don’t use anyone younger than seventeen.’
Arram slumped in his chair as Master Cosmas said, ‘Then consider who can instruct him in animal life next term.’ To the others he said, ‘If you have a promising student, see if they can instruct Arram singly or with the others after Midwinter.’
He looked at Arram and smiled. ‘We will sort matters out so you have a more engaging schedule. In the meantime, you must be shifted to quarters better suited to your current status. They’ll be quieter, for one thing.’
Arram looked down to hide a grin. He’d often thought that studying in his dormitory was like studying in a barn, particularly when he was trying to read the more advanced books he slipped out of the library. This was a good thing!
‘Off you go,’ Cosmas said. ‘The servants will come to move your belongings. I should have a new schedule on your door before you leave for supper.’
Arram scrambled to his feet. Not knowing what else to do, he bowed. ‘Yessir, thank you, sir,’ he babbled. ‘Thank you, all of you! I’ll do my very best!’
Sebo caught him at the door. Arram skidded to a stop in front of her. ‘If you please, Arram Draper,’ she said, looking up at him steadily. ‘I believe you have something that belongs to the university.’
‘I would never—’ he began to protest. Then the copy of Bladwyn’s Book began to jiggle inside his shirt. He had forgotten it was there. He always kept it with him in case his roommate searched his things. ‘Oh.’
‘Indeed,’ she said, her wrinkled face grave. ‘Oh.’
‘I was going to take it back,’ he said hotly.
‘I will relieve you of the chore,’ she replied.
Her full, dark eyes were as ungiving as stones. He sighed and wriggled until he could reach under his undershirt. The book practically leaped into his fingers.
‘I didn’t even get to the best parts,’ he grumbled as he passed it over.
Sebo patted him on the chest. ‘You will one day. Now scat.’
He scatted. He didn’t tell her about the little copybook in his carrybag – the one in which he’d written down several of Bladwyn’s most interesting spells.
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_c6be6e48-349b-5dce-a5cb-c9b852086ad0)
October 14–16, 435 (#ulink_c6be6e48-349b-5dce-a5cb-c9b852086ad0)
By midafternoon, servants had moved Arram’s trunks and books to his new home in the next wing to the north, closer to the library and classroom wings. Even on the ground floor, students slept only four to a room, not twenty-six. Most of the residents were teenagers hoping to move to the Upper Academy within the next year.
For now, Arram’s room was shared by only one other person. His roommate plainly came from moneyed people; that much was visible in the fine wood and lacquered finish of the bow and quiver that hung by his window, accompanied by a good sword in a sheath studded with topazes. The boots tucked under his bed were nearly new, well-stitched leather with a glossy polish. Not only did this fellow possess a trunk made of fine teak, but beside the window was a matching cabinet. Arram dared a peek behind the wall that separated their cubicles – the desk matched the trunk and the cabinet, as did the chair. All four pieces had been carved by a master’s hand. His envy over the furniture vanished when he saw the contents of the three shelves over the desk. This boy left his schoolbooks there. The books on the shelves were very different, showing none of the battering and spots on the school volumes. Arram spotted Si-Cham’s Principles of Consistency and Edo Clopein’s Quick Defence, bound in fine leather with gold trim. Other classics, nearly as fresh as the day they’d been printed, occupied the shelves. His fingers twitched with greed; he actually whimpered.
Someone tapped on the outer door, and he jerked back into his own cubicle. He didn’t want his new roommate to think he was a snoop. ‘It’s open,’ he called, his voice squeaking.
‘I can see it’s open,’ Sebo called. ‘Come out here and meet someone.’
Her purpose, Arram quickly learned, was to introduce the floor’s housekeeper to her newest charge. ‘This is Irafa,’ Sebo informed him with considerable pleasure. ‘You are to do precisely as she says, understand?’
Arram looked up at the housekeeper and gulped. Irafa was tall and imperious, dressed in the red-on-red headcloth and wrapped dress of the northwestern Oda tribe. She smiled at him with satisfaction. ‘Say thank you to Master Sebo,’ she said. ‘And be sure you do your bed up properly every morning, because I will check it.’
Arram bowed to Irafa and to Sebo, then retreated to his cubicle. He would have to wait to see how far he could open his window. In the meantime, he began to make up his bed. All was not yet lost. Tucked among his belongings was another small volume he had bought on a rare visit to the city’s markets, one titled On Coming and Going by Rosto Cooper the Younger. He had already successfully worked two of the spells for walking around the campus without being seen. He slid it under his mattress as he made his bed, reminding himself to find a better place before the housekeeper’s morning inspection.
He was pleased with his situation. His window commanded a view of a broad kitchen garden, and the ledge was low enough that hopping out would be easy. The scent of new herbs freshened the room when he left the shutters open.
He was arranging his books when someone else knocked politely on the open door.
Not only did the lovely Varice stand on his threshold, but she had a friend with her. The friend looked to be as old and as pale as the girl, and he was a couple of inches taller. Like most Carthakis, he wore a calf-length tunic, though he had skipped the shoulder drape due to the heat. The white cotton was embroidered at the hem, collar, and sleeves with green signs for health, protection, and wisdom. For adornment he had gold studs on his sandals, three gold rings on his fingers, and gold and gem earrings. His glossy brown hair was tied back in a horsetail. Just as Arram looked him over, he did the same, inspecting the younger, shorter boy from top to toe. His eyes were clear, straightforward, and curious.
Varice elbowed her companion. ‘I told you it was him.’ She smiled at Arram. ‘When they said a boy was being advanced, I told Ozorne, “Depend on it. That’s the one I met.” This is your new roommate, by the way. Ozorne Tasikhe, this is Arram Draper. Arram, this is my best friend, Ozorne.’
Ozorne offered his hand with a crooked smile. ‘How do you like the place? Unless Cosmas produces another child wonder, we should be safe with the whole thing to ourselves.’
‘I’m not a child wonder,’ Arram retorted, stung. ‘I’m eleven!’ Then he gulped, recognizing the name. This was the member of the imperial family called the leftover prince. He had just snapped at the emperor’s nephew!
Ozorne’s crooked smile changed into a real one. ‘Are you? And I am thirteen, and Varice is twelve and a half. We shall take the world by storm, see if we don’t.’
Varice sat cross-legged on one of the empty beds across from Arram’s, while Ozorne dragged his desk chair over and slouched in it, smiling. ‘You’ll get used to her,’ he told Arram, who sat gingerly on his own bed. ‘Once she’s decided you’ll be her friend, she assumes command.’
Varice sniffed at him. ‘You’ve never complained.’ To Arram she said, ‘Ozorne and I are in the same classes most of the time. We’ve been friends for two years, I think.’
‘So, what horrible thing did you do to end up in classes with us?’ Ozorne asked. ‘Varice said I had to hear it straight from you.’
Arram gulped. ‘I flooded my classroom.’ He got to his feet and looked out the window. ‘I didn’t do it on purpose! It just happened …’ He faced the two older students again. ‘I still don’t understand why Master Cosmas is promoting me instead of sending me home.’
Ozorne smiled. ‘What was my misdeed, Varice?’
The girl tapped her forefinger against her chin. ‘We were in one master’s gardens, stealing cherries, and you saw a bird you didn’t recognize. You called to it, and called, and – well, I saw a great flood of your Gift roll from your hand, and the next thing I knew, the garden and every tree and plant in it was covered in birds! And then the master came, the one who managed the garden. He wanted us thrown out of the school for its ruin, because the birds refused to leave. I was laughing so hard I was crying by then, and Ozorne wasn’t even listening because he was able to hold any bird he wanted …’
‘All I had to do was point and call, and the bird would come to sit on my hand,’ Ozorne said, dreamy-eyed. ‘Even the hawks!’
Arram sat back down on his bed, fascinated. ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing. In The Magic of Birds by Ayna Wingheart, she writes that the magical nature of birds is such that only the most powerful mages can control more than ten or so, and that even she could handle no more than twenty-three or twenty-four at a time.’
Ozorne smiled at him. ‘What’s this? A fellow bird scholar?’
Arram chuckled and drew a pattern on the coverlet. ‘Oh, no, it’s just for fun. I can’t say I’ve studied.’
Ozorne got to his feet. ‘Well, study or no, let’s have a look at the bird enclosures in the menagerie! Varice?’
She stood and shook out her skirts. ‘I never turn down a visit to the menagerie.’
The two older students were at the door when they stopped to look back. ‘Aren’t you coming?’ Ozorne asked.
‘I wasn’t sure you meant it,’ Arram explained.
‘Anyone Varice likes is fine with me,’ Ozorne said. ‘And you still didn’t tell me how you flooded your class, the Gift of it. We’ve both done that stupid spell, but we didn’t get those results!’
When she saw Arram had a tendency to lag behind, Varice tucked her arm in his and forced him to keep up. To his delight, Arram discovered that the students who cared for the menagerie animals were well acquainted with his companions. Ozorne in particular was a favourite in the areas set aside for the birds. Once he had vouched for Arram – which Arram thought was taking a great deal on trust – the three young people were admitted to the big enclosure that housed the birds who could get along. When the students handed each of the young people a cloth bag, birds flew down from their perches to land on their arms, shoulders, and heads, just as the pigeons did in the city squares.
The bags contained the food specially made up for the birds: small bits of vegetables, fruit, and fat, as well as seeds of all kinds. Arram ended up scattering his to the birds that swarmed around his feet while he watched Ozorne and Varice. They knew the animals so well that they could get them to do tricks for a bite of something.
One large golden peacock strutted over to Arram. To the boy’s surprise, the other birds backed away from him. A student attendant who had been keeping an eye on them all hurried over. She passed Arram another bag of feed. ‘This is his,’ she said, nodding to the bird. ‘His lordship doesn’t like to share with the others.’
Arram poured the bag’s contents into his hand to find it was mostly brightly coloured food: melon, squash, orange, and bits of small golden fish. ‘He’s very particular, isn’t he?’ he asked.
Ozorne wandered over. ‘One day I’ll have a menagerie of my own, and I’ll have all of them,’ he announced. ‘They’re called goldwings. They come from all the way across the Emerald Ocean.’
‘I only see this one,’ Arram said, looking around.
‘We have two here, and the emperor has the other four. Now, come, have you seen ordinary peacocks before? I’m sorry, your lordship,’ added the prince, bowing to the goldwing, ‘but you have to admit they’re pretty, too. Or at least the males are.’ Ozorne hooked Arram’s arm and dragged him off to view birds with more colours in them than he’d ever seen in his life.
They barely made it to supper on time. Varice had refused to go until she’d changed her gown. Boys might be happy enough simply to dust themselves after birds had shed all over them, she informed her two friends, but she was not. They made it to the dining hall just before the monitors closed the doors.
‘Close one,’ a monitor chided as they skidded into the huge, noisy room.
Ozorne grinned at the older boy. ‘Close still counts!’
Arram had thought they might have trouble finding a table, particularly with him in tow, but it seemed that Varice was as confident in the dining hall as Ozorne was in the menagerie. She swept through the lines of serving plates and dishes, not only making sure of her own choices, but seeing to it that the boys took proper foods as well. Then she led the way to a small, shockingly empty table near one of the doors that led to the outdoor tables and a garden. The door was open, but no one took advantage of the tables outside: the air was cooling off. Instead Varice and Ozorne sat at that empty little table and pointed Arram’s new seat out to him. Only when everyone had eaten at least half of their dinners did Varice allow Ozorne to open the subject of water magic.
It was the best evening Arram had enjoyed at the university. Ozorne had some clever ideas on how to harness the power that had gone wrong that morning. Varice gave Arram some spells and charms for the manipulation of water she had learned from cooks and cook mages. If he worked hard he’d have them memorized by the end of the week. The water spells wouldn’t get away from him any more!
They chattered outside one of the school’s many libraries until the end-of-study bells told them it was time to get back to their rooms. The boys escorted Varice to her building, where she was housed with older girls, then ran for their dormitory. Ozorne showed Arram a shortcut by way of the gardens behind the buildings. They were approaching their own place when Ozorne held out his arm to stop Arram. They halted in a grove of lemon trees planted in the edges of the garden. Two figures in the brown shirts and breeches of the university stable and field staff were standing at Ozorne’s window. The shutters were open; Ozorne had told Arram he always left them that way.
‘I’ll get the guards,’ Arram whispered.
Ozorne put a hand on his arm. To Arram’s shock, the older boy was chuckling softly. ‘Just wait,’ he murmured.
One of the would-be thieves boosted himself up and over the ledge. The second followed. There was a yelp.
‘Come on!’ Ozorne said. He raced for the door to the building; Arram followed, wondering if he knew any battle spells. He’d learned Ozorne had fighting lessons after university classes four days a week, but he’d had nothing of the kind.
When they entered their room, Ozorne produced a ball of light, one of the few magics they were allowed to do outside class. Arram gasped. Two ragged men lay on the floor. They looked as if they’d fallen into bronze spiderwebs and been rolled up in them.
Curious, Arram went over and poked at the substance. The man inside it spat at him. The webbing itself was far thicker than spiderweb and not sticky, but these men would not be going anywhere until they were freed by a mage. He looked at his new friend.
‘I thought we weren’t allowed to cast anything but tiny spells in our rooms, and only with permission,’ he said, curious and awed.
Ozorne chuckled. ‘Silly lad, I know that. But the university understands I might be a particular temptation to those who don’t value their positions here.’ He walked over to the other bundled thief. ‘Master Chioké cast this trapping spell for me. Would you let the housekeeper know we’ve caught fish in our net?’ he asked Arram. He nudged the man with a toe.
Arram was at the door when he heard his new friend ask softly, ‘Are you Sirajit? I’ll know if you lie.’
That’s right, Arram thought as he knocked on the housekeeper’s door. Ozorne’s father was killed fighting Sirajit rebels. Arram had only been in Carthak for a year then, but he remembered the student in black, and the memorial celebrations for the hero father. Even though Siraj had been part of the empire for years, its mountain people still resisted imperial rule and frequently tried to fight it off.
When he returned with watchmen, Arram found Ozorne still questioning his captives. As far as Arram could tell, the men were unharmed.
Feeling himself to be in the way, he retreated to his own part of the room as the guards chained the would-be robbers and took them out. Ozorne followed them to the door and slipped a few coins into one guard’s hand. ‘For your trouble,’ he told the man.
