AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“She will be fine once she sleeps,” Lindhall assured the youths as he ushered them out of the workroom. With a wave of his hand he dismissed the light from the glowing lamps overhead. The room was left in darkness as he closed the door. Arram thought he heard a last, faint peep and bit his lip.
Something chimed delicately nearby.
Lindhall halted the conversation he was having with Ozorne, saying, “Ah! It’s an hour before dawn.”
“What made that sound, Master?” Ozorne asked.
“A wonderful device sent to me from Jindazhen. It can be spelled to chime any hour you wish—very convenient for heavy sleepers, which I am not, or for those who lose track of time, which I so often do,” Lindhall replied. “If you two hurry off, Arram will have time to bathe before his lesson with Yadeen. Oh, and lads…”
The two were about to leave. They faced him.
“Keeping Preet here is a stopgap. I suggest it only because examinations are coming, and she will be distraction enough without Arram having to care for her all day as well as all night. Before the spring term begins I shall make more liberal arrangements for your housing, Arram.”
The youths looked at each other, panicked, but said nothing. Lindhall was a master; they were students. They knew they’d been lucky to room together for so long.
“Now run along,” Master Lindhall ordered as he began to clean up.
“Thank you, Master Lindhall,” Ozorne said. No matter how upset he might be, he never forgot his manners.
“Oh!” Arram exclaimed. “Yes—yes, thank you, Master.”
Lindhall called after them, “There is a door to the hall around the corner.”
They took it.
The time until the autumn examinations sped by, thanks to Preet. Ozorne and Varice tried to study with the little bird in the room, but they found her too distracting, and they soon abandoned Arram to her care. Arram didn’t find Preet distracting in the least, even when she insisted on perching on his shoulder as he studied.
The only time she made a fuss was late on the fifth night he tried to return her to her cage. As he opened its door, she flapped her wings and squalled. When Arram clasped her to move her more easily, she dug her tiny claws into his sleeve and screeched louder. Master Lindhall arrived, clad in his nightgown, bleary-eyed and unhappy.
“Preet!” he snapped. She silenced. “I spent my day with cases of hoof rot! I have earned my rest! Continue this and you will go to the birds’ menagerie, do you understand me?”
He stormed out and slammed the door after him. Arram waited a few precious moments, thinking, He’s just like Ozorne when Ozorne can’t sleep.
When he was certain the master would not return, Arram looked at the bird. She had turned herself into a fuzzy ball. “He didn’t mean it, Preet. But I have to sleep, too.”
She raised her head and quietly squawked.
Arram looked at her. “Is that it, then?” he asked, his voice croaking with weariness. “What if I roll over and mash you?”
Preet simply regarded him with her wide, sparkling eyes.
Arram sighed. “I have to put you back in the cage in the morning, understand? No yelling from you. No argument.”
She cackled.
Arram took the cloth that was supposed to cover the cage and made it into a nest beside his pillow. “There.” He placed the bird on it and blew out his lamp; he was still unable to call small fires or extinguish them without disaster. “Good night, trouble,” he murmured as he pulled the blanket over his shoulders.
She chuckled softly. He was asleep in an instant.
Lindhall’s predawn waking device played its musical tune, forcing a moan from Arram. He didn’t know which he hated more, that delightful sound or the fact that he was wide awake before he’d heard it. About to sit up, he halted. Something made him wary. Sensing weight against his neck, he gently placed a hand there and touched feathers. Preet twittered at him.
“How long have you been there?” he demanded as he put her into her cage.
Preet did her best to tuck her head under her stubby wing and pretend that she was slumbering. Arram smiled grimly. “Very well—you may sleep with me, since you managed to stay unsquashed,” he told her. “But if you misbehave during the day, or refuse to stay in the cage when I’m not here, I will put you back in the cage at night and wear wax earplugs, understand?”
She made a small chuckling noise, almost like a tiny stream bubbling over rocks.
“That had better mean yes,” he told her.
She made the sound again. Satisfied, Arram straightened his bed. Then he ran to bathe and change into daytime clothes.
The weeks progressed in the same fashion, for the most part. Ozorne and Varice always insisted on visiting Preet for a short time after supper before they adjourned to a library to study for examinations. Arram and Lindhall’s students, the ones who worked inside his quarters and across the hall, devised a bargain in which they could visit when the clocks chimed the hour to meet and marvel over the new bird. They stayed only for the turn of a very brief timing glass so that Arram could return to his studies, and they never came after the next-to-last hour of the day, so he might get a good seven hours’ sleep. Lindhall popped in now and then to see how Preet was doing.
It was a quiet time of year. Students were always well behaved as term wound down to examinations: even the mischief makers had their noses in their books or their pens glued to papers, trying to make good marks. Even the dining halls and dormitories were calm.
The Friday after he’d spent his last four nights at Lindhall’s, Arram came by his own room after supper. He needed clean clothes and to put his dirty things in the basket for the laundresses. The older boys were already in their cubicles, studying, he assumed.
He was turning, having gotten what he required from the large chest by his bed, when a pair of hands slammed into his chest. He was knocked backward into his chair. His clothes flew; the chair struck his spine and skull a painful blow.
Laman popped out of his cubicle. “Hekaja and Hag, what’s this?”
Arram ignored him. He glared instead at Diop. “What is your failing?” he shouted. He struggled to his feet, trembling from the surprise, the pain, and the dirtying of his best shirt for tomorrow and an outing with Prisca.
Diop advanced, his fists raised. “You’ve spent every night this week somewhere else, toad pox!” he snapped.
Arram put his own fists up. He’d have preferred to use his Gift, but the penalties for that were far worse than they were for physical brawls. Ozorne had been trying to teach him how to fight. It seemed it was time to put his friend’s teachings to the test. He wasn’t going to back down. “What business is it of yours?” he demanded of Diop.
“Did you read Master Girisunika’s new rule? If we don’t report you, we’re in trouble, too.” He swung. Arram ducked out of the way and punched back, hitting Diop in the chest. He’d been aiming for the older youth’s belly. When he straightened, he met with a fist to the eye. He swung again wildly and missed. His third punch hit Diop’s arm, while Diop managed to get him in the belly. He threw up on Diop’s expensive crocodile shoes.
“You disgusting—!” Diop cried, grabbing Arram’s hair. “Do you know what these cost?”
“That’s enough.” Laman grabbed Diop by the shoulders and pulled him back. “You risk us getting kicked out or put to chores for a term or whatever tortures Girisunika devises.” He then murmured something in Diop’s ear.
Arram had kept a hearing spell in his own ears since an instructor gave him a month of chopping feces-smelling jackal plant for missing an instruction. Now he heard Laman’s whisper clearly: “Remember what she said the last time? It’ll be an Empty Room for you.”
Arram shivered. Empty Rooms were supposed to be horrible: no one could work their magic in one, or feel its presence. Even sight and hearing were muted in Empty Rooms. Either Diop had done something truly bad, or Girisunika was overblown.
The two older boys looked
at him. Arram opened his trunk and extracted fresh clothing. “Don’t come back!” Diop called as he walked toward the door. “You’ll think what you got was a love tap.”
Arram flinched, but he kept going. The only thing I could say that’d even worry this pig’s pizzle is if I threatened to tell Ozorne, he thought. I’m cursed if I’ll do that. I’ll fight my own battles.
He was tying his shoes when he thought, Or I could tell Enzi that Diop wears boots made of crocodile leather.
Despite the pain, he grinned.
Twice on the way he stopped to put cold water from the fountains on his eye, but it did little good. By the time he reached Lindhall’s fourth floor, all he wanted to do was curl up on the pallet Lindhall had found for him and feel sorry for himself. Every time he dared to touch the bruise, the thing seemed fatter. He hadn’t been able to see through it since he walked out of his room.
And I can’t sleep or hide, he thought. I have to study. I should have kicked both of them in the gems, even if it isn’t well bred.
Lindhall’s study was empty, for which he was very grateful. Much to his dismay, the hall was not quiet. Preet was screaming at the top of someone’s gigantic lungs, because such a tiny bird was not capable of so much noise.
Stop it! he thought at her as he tried to hurry down the corridor without being heard. Stop, stop, stop—
He thrust open the workroom door to find an irate Lindhall, a laughing Ozorne with his fingers in his ears, and a frantic Varice trying to soothe the small bird in her hands. The moment Preet saw him, she halted her dreadful noise and emitted an actual growl.
“Stop it,” he ordered, keeping his face down so the humans couldn’t see his bruise. “I couldn’t help the delay.”
“I believe we had an understanding that you would be here after your supper as…” Lindhall gripped Arram’s chin with a broad hand and gently forced his head up. “What happened? Please don’t lie to me, lad. I was properly cross a moment ago, and I can retrieve it quickly.”
Arram shook his head. Preet was scrabbling at Varice’s sleeve with her beak and a claw; he took her from his friend and let the bird tuck herself by his ear. Clucking softly, Preet nibbled gently on his earlobe, as if making certain for herself that he was not badly wounded.
“I see no reason why you can’t tell us,” Lindhall said.
“Perhaps it’s pride,” Ozorne suggested. “It would be for me.”
Arram tried to glare at his friend, and found how painful that was when one eye was well swollen. “Can’t I keep some things to myself?” He flinched and looked at Lindhall. “Meaning no disrespect, sir. But I’m almost grown. If I’d stayed with my family, I’d be making a man’s wages by now.” He glanced at Varice. “I could even be married. Surely I can keep some things to myself if they aren’t magical, or they don’t interfere with my schooling. Sir.”
Lindhall said nothing at first, thinking about it. “I understand. Do you still mean to study?”
“We had better,” Ozorne said. “Examinations start on Sunday.”
“Very well. Arram, why don’t you and Preet work in my study? It will be far more comfortable there. Ozorne, would you wait for a moment?” Lindhall asked. “I’d like to write a pair of notes for you to give my runners.”
As Ozorne waited for Lindhall, Varice and Arram settled in Lindhall’s study. Varice sat on the study chair Arram had chosen and ran a soft, cool hand down the side of his face. “Shall I poison their breakfasts?” she asked. Her eyes were as hard as sapphires.
“Wh-who?” he stammered, but he could tell she had guessed the source of his bruises.
“I wouldn’t poison them a lot,” she reassured him with a sparkling smile. “Just enough to keep them vomiting all during examinations. Just so they’ll have to spend Midwinter making them up. I can do it. And I needn’t even use magic, so I won’t get caught.” She shook her head, looking sad. “So many kinds of sickness this time of year.”
He grabbed her hand. “Don’t,” he said urgently. “What if you get the wrong—”
“Stop it,” she said fiercely. “Don’t even try. Ozorne and I know poxy well who they were—”
“Well, then, you don’t, because one stopped the other,” Arram whispered hotly. “And I can handle the other one myself! I’m grown now!”
“Varice,” Ozorne said as he walked back into the room. “Leave be. What were you talking about?”
“Poisoning,” Varice said brightly.
“Oh? Let him do his own poisoning when he gets to it.”
“I don’t see how you two can joke about such things,” Arram retorted, shaking. He thought he was going to be sick.
“That’s because we’re old enough to have developed senses of humor,” Ozorne replied. “Maybe you’ll get one for your birthday.” Gently he ruffled Arram’s hair. “In the meantime, relax. We won’t poison anyone unless you ask us to, will we, sweetheart?”
Varice sighed. “Very well, but it would have been a lovely diversion from examinations. One can only remain wound up over books for so long before one has to do something wild.”
“Ozorne!” Lindhall shouted.
“My master calls,” Ozorne complained, and ran.
Varice picked up Arram’s hand and kissed it. “Don’t be angry with me,” she said. “I was trying to take your mind off the pain.”
Whether it was her suggestion and his panic, or her lips and perfume, she had certainly done that.
Preet croaked for food. Varice laughed. “Aren’t you a jealous thing!” she chided, removing a scrap of bread from her pocket. She offered it to Preet, who gobbled it. “You’re an even more jealous mistress than Prisca!”
“Prisca isn’t my mistress,” Arram said automatically—how absurd, to be thinking of mistresses at his age. Then he added, more woefully, “And she never gets jealous.”
“Because she knows you’re too honorable to cheat on her,” Varice reassured him. “Though only because she doesn’t understand you’re devoted to a scrawny little tree mite.” She walked down the hall as Preet screeched at her. “I said ‘tree mite’ and I meant it!” she called back over her shoulder.
“She’s the most amazing girl,” Arram murmured, picking Preet up on a finger so he could stroke her. The little bird preened.
Lindhall returned from his office. “I’ve sent a runner for a healing mage,” he told Arram. “I take it you don’t want to rouse questions from your teachers with that eye.”
Nausea welled up from Arram’s belly. He had to wait to swallow, and wait again, as Lindhall watched with concern. When he tried to speak, the master held up a hand and disappeared into the small kitchen down the hall.
When he returned, he bore a cup of tea. “Ginger, cinnamon, lemon, spearmint,” he told Arram, handing the cup to him. “It will soothe both your nausea and the aches from your eye and belly.”
Arram drank in tiny sips until the liquid was cooler, then in gulps. “It’s very good,” he said when he finished it.
Lindhall nodded. “I think you’ll find your head and belly to be far better in the morning. In the meantime, you may undertake the studies you can manage out here—with your friends, if they are willing. When you are ready to sleep, I’ll have one of the students manage Preet.”
Arram felt he should protest all this trouble being taken on his behalf, but he was rather sleepy—too much so to protest. He nodded off in the chair, waking only briefly when Ozorne returned to gather Preet. A blanket was placed over him at some point. He remembered nothing until the musical sound told him that it was an hour before dawn.
All the next day, in the classes they shared and when they met between classes, Ozorne complained. It was always the same thing: he didn’t understand how Arram survived each day without collapse if he woke frequently in the night to feed a tiny feathered tyrant. Ozorne informed them he could hardly stay awake. By the time they sat down for supper, his sorrow made Arram laugh so hard that tears came to his eyes.
It was there that Diop
found them. Laman was nowhere in sight.
“What did you do, bribe someone?” he demanded hotly.
Varice looked up at him and frowned. “Goddess bless me, who bit you today?”
“Never you mind,” he snapped at her.
That brought both Arram and Ozorne to their feet. Varice exhaled. “Boys, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Diop, for all your bragging about your splendid family, you are a guttersnipe,” Varice said. “My apologies to guttersnipes.”
Diop glared at her, then demanded of Ozorne, “Well? How did you do it? Who did you bribe?”
Ozorne gently brushed off the front of Diop’s robe until the older youth knocked his hand away. “I have no idea what you’re ranting about,” Ozorne murmured.
“No idea, he says,” Diop told everyone at the tables around them. The other students were doing a bad job of pretending not to eavesdrop. “No idea of a clutch of oafs coming into our quarters without permission, packing up the leftover prince and his bum boy here, leaving things all over the floor—no idea! You’re to be lodged with the masters, they said. You, no more than first-years in the Upper Academy, and not even legitimate first-years at that! Who did your sainted mother bribe, Prince Ozorne? Or did—”
Using a move Varice had taught him, Arram got Diop’s hand in his and shoved it up against the older boy’s wrist. Diop gasped: he seemed not to have known how painful a wrist could be when bent into a U.
“Walk,” Arram whispered to Diop. “Let’s walk to the door before the proctors get here.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Varice and Ozorne rise to intercept the proctors. “Don’t call out,” Arram cautioned, “or I might get excited and break something.”
With all of his digging and juggling, his hands had gotten broad and strong. He might not have been able to trade punches with Diop, but his grip kept the older youth’s attention. Holding Diop’s hand in both of his, he steered his former roommate toward the nearest exit from the dining hall. When Diop opened his mouth to speak or shout, Arram pried the captive little finger away from the others, bending it backward. Diop gasped.
