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She hesitated. “I should clear away the books and papers in there.”
Master Cosmas nodded. “Very good. Nangla, if you will go to the kitchens? Tell them I will need lunch to be served at the hour past noon.” He smiled at Arram. “That should give us sufficient time to have a good talk.”
The boy left; Master Cosmas led Arram into his personal dining room, where Lyssy had already gone to work. Arram looked around as Lyssy removed piles of books from the long table. There were a number of different chairs: the room was built for large gatherings. Now only seven places were filled, one by Master Sebo. Master Cosmas pointed Arram to the place next to her, then took a big cushioned chair across from them. He did not introduce the other masters seated there, but left it to them to introduce themselves. Yadeen, Chioké, Lindhall—even Arram lost track of them after a short time, because each mage had plenty of questions to throw at him in addition to a name.
Arram thought he had been tested when he first came to the university, but it was nothing compared to what these eight masters subjected him to over the next three hours. They threw questions at his head like his fellows threw balls at him during play hours. Many of them covered material he had studied in the past three years, but others did not. There was plenty he had never encountered, even in his secret explorations. They knew about those, somehow—had Sebo told them? They wanted the tiniest of details about what he had studied—magical and ordinary—at home, and even about things that weren’t studies at all. They asked if he had tried drawing on his own, or building things, or handling animals. They asked if he sang, danced, or did gymnastics.
And then, with Sebo’s eye on him, Arram finally confessed to reading what he could of Bladwyn’s Book.
“Bladwyn’s Book?” That was the master who frightened him the most, a tall, muscular black man whose heavy lower lids made his dark eyes seem huge. He leaned forward, scowling. Like the other masters, he wore a scarlet outer robe. Under it he wore a simple white cotton shirt and breeches, and plain leather sandals. If he did well as a mage, his clothes didn’t show it, though Arram had been at the university long enough to learn that the best mages weren’t always finely dressed. “Bladwyn’s Book?” the big man repeated when Arram didn’t reply immediately. “You were actually able to work spells from it?”
“One spell,” Arram admitted. “A hiding spell.”
The big mage flipped a large hand at him. “Show.”
Arram looked at the floor. “Do I have to?” he asked Master Cosmas.
“If you please,” the head of the school replied. “Then we’ll feed you, I promise.”
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 defenses 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 gray-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.
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 Defense, 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.”
&nbs
p; “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.
