The Demon and the Fox

by Tim Susman

  Of course Cott was difficult from time to time, but Kip hadn’t lived in close proximity to any master before, even for a few days, and certainly none of the masters at the college were models of civility or stability. Argent seemed the most normal, but he was also the youngest, and even so he had his weaknesses. Here, Albright had been the one Kip felt closest to, but that was based on one dinner, and he’d only been here three days. As Albright had said: patience.

  As Kip settled down with the book and the sheets of paper, a strange thought entered his mind. He hadn’t seen Master Albright pay for his dinner, but he’d been sure at the time that the sorcerer had some kind of account with Bridget, that the meal wasn’t simply taken as due because he was a sorcerer, as Martinet and Farmer had done. But Albright hadn’t said anything of the sort, nor had Bridget. How had Kip been so sure that Albright was a good and honest person?

  His fur prickled. Was that what a spiritual hold felt like? Had he been ensorcelled to believe that Albright was trustworthy? Was that the real reason Albright hadn’t wanted to dine with Martinet and Farmer, and had told Kip not to let Master Cott come along?

  If he were back in New Cambridge, he could talk to Coppy and Emily and Malcolm and they could work out a plan to find out what had happened. But he’d barely even told them about spiritual holds at all, and here he was an ocean apart from them. When it came down to it, he knew a few spells, but was alone in a whole college full of unknown sorcerers who might want to take advantage of him.

  To reassure and warm himself, he conjured a fire. Fires were simple, fires were understandable. When his tail had stopped twitching with anxiety, he set down to copying demon names.

  11

  The Calatians

  Cott’s pique over Kip’s private dinner didn’t manifest in his attitude the next day; he returned cheerful in the morning, startling Kip out of a short nap at one of the workroom tables. “Well, well,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I must return that book now. Have you gotten through all the names?”

  Kip rubbed his eyes and gestured to the book, sitting halfway open. “The writing is so small and cramped. I copied out any demon that mentions fire and is fourth order, but it takes a long time to decipher.”

  “They’re all fourth order.” Cott frowned and looked down at the book. “Some of them may not specify that. Any likely names?”

  “No,” Kip said, and then stared at the two sheets of paper he’d filled. “At least, nothing that mentions glass beads.” Halfway through the night, with only one page filled, he’d decided to try to read through the book and scan for any mention of glass, but each section’s different handwriting forced him to stop and grow accustomed to the way one sorcerer had formed his ‘m’s, another the over-elaborate curled ’s’s. “Why is this not neatly printed like the spell books?”

  Cott bent to examine the writing. “You don’t want demon names entrusted to a printer. Nor even a water elemental, for that matter. Your penmanship is much neater. Perhaps we should commission you to recopy the book, ha ha.”

  “Please, no.”

  “I’m joking.” Cott frowned. “There are more valuable things for you to do. Well, the book must go back this morning, but perhaps we can finish it quickly between us.”

  “How—” Kip slid to one side and swung his tail out of the way as Cott sat beside him on the bench and reached for his sheets and the quill.

  “Go ahead and read off names and any descriptions that have to do with fire. I’ll make a note of them here. There’s no need to copy out the whole description.”

  Kip had tried to summarize, especially since many of the demon descriptions were flowery old speech, like “appeared in a cloud of the scent of horse dung and with the appearance of a large swarthy man entirely black of skin enfolded in bright red cloth, spoke Greek but not Latin with an accent as of a spice trader, evinced a strong affinity for setting fires but did not appear to take any enjoyment from the destruction and loss of life on the battlefield. Fought the binding constantly, such that it became dangerous to hold him for more than about five minutes.” He knew not all of that was essential, but he couldn’t decide which part to leave out. The description? But that might provide a valuable clue to whether they had summoned the demon correctly. The emotional state? Not essential but helpful; a demon that didn’t enjoy destruction might be less likely to be compelled to destroy two colleges. And one that could not be bound for longer than a minute or two would not be able to complete the destruction in so short a time. In addition, sometimes there were two or even three entries under the name, if the demon had been summoned multiple times. Sometimes there was no description, but none of those made Kip’s list because they did not mention fire (though at one point in the night he stared at the book and realized that if someone had summoned one of those demons to destroy the Colleges, of course they would not have written that experience down).

  But Cott didn’t seem bothered by any of that. Kip read a name and description, Cott jotted down a few words and then said crisply, “Next.”

  Kip, caught by surprise, took a moment to find the next time the word “fire” had been written, and Cott repeated, “Next,” more insistently. From then on, the fox read quickly ahead and was ready when the sorcerer finished his short notes.

  They got to the end of the book in an hour and a half, and Cott gathered it up to take it back. “Look over that list,” he said, indicating Kip’s two sheets and his one, and walked across the workroom. At the door to his office, he turned back. “Oh,” he said, “it goes without saying that I haven’t told anyone that I shared this book with you. Technically apprentices aren’t allowed, you know. So don’t mention it to anyone, there’s a good lad.”

  He was gone before Kip had a chance to say anything. A moment later the outer door opened and closed, and Kip settled in to look at the list of names, shaking his head. Before going back to read through the list, he tore off a scrap of the paper and wrote down three names of demons without descriptions that had lodged in his memory. If apprentices weren’t normally allowed to view the ledgers of demons, who knew when those might come in handy?

  And of course, he had a list of demons associated with fire. He sighed and made his way down the list, although he’d thought about them extensively while writing them and none of them matched the memory he’d gotten from Forrest. Then again, it was likely that none of the sorcerers had asked the same kind of wholesale destruction of their demons. Most of the notations came from battlefields, either in the Seven Years’ War or the Spanish War (and one entry from the English Revolution), and fully the last half from the Napoleonic War.

  Kip intended to read through the list, but his head drooped lower and lower, and the next thing he knew, Cott was shaking him awake and the light in the workroom had shifted. “List of names a trifle tedious for you?” the sorcerer asked, though he was smiling.

  “I’m sorry,” Kip said. “I was awake the whole night.”

  “Perfectly understandable. Did any of the descriptions strike a chord with you?”

  Kip shook his head. “There’s no mention of glass beads. Some of them were asked to incinerate whole armies, so there were remains, but…” His paw trailed over the paper. “Nobody mentions the state of the remains.”

  Only then did he notice the plate the sorcerer was carrying, with a good portion of bread and cheese on it. “Lunch,” Cott said, “if your appetite’s not gone off from reading about incinerating people.”

  “Oh, thank you.” Kip’s stomach rumbled. “No, I haven’t eaten since last night.”

  “Yes.” Cott set the plate down on the stone bench with a sharp crack. “Eat up. If you are tired, perhaps it’s not a good idea to pursue lessons today. I’ve business down in London anyway.”

  Kip picked up a piece of bread. “In that case…might I go down to the Isle of Dogs today? I would very much like to deliver my message.”

  “Ah.” Cott opened and closed his mouth, clearly wanting to deny Kip permission
but having lost all valid reason to. “Be back before sunset, then. And don’t fly down to a ship dock. Go directly to the Isle. Use the ferry, preferably.”

  “Yes, sir.” Kip sighed, wondering how long the ferry would take. “Er…if you have a raven, might I bring it along to—”

  “I haven’t a raven anymore.” Whether it was pique at Kip leaving or an unpleasant memory of how he’d lost his raven, Cott turned on his heel and left the workshop and, a moment later, the office.

  Kip had asked partly out of curiosity; most sorcerers in New Cambridge had ravens, and he’d seen a few wheeling about in the sky, but Cott had never mentioned one and there was no smell of raven in his office nor workshop. So there was that question answered.

  The fox wrapped Mrs. Hathway’s scarf around his neck and left the tower on foot, descending the stairs to the exit and passing more apprentices on the way. No; apprentices wore purple robes, and these people were in simple tunics and trousers. Servants then, perhaps.

  He found the small dock at the base of the hill after several minutes spent searching among the unkempt grass and weeds along the riverbank. At least the smell of the grass was pleasant enough, and though the overcast sky was depressingly familiar, at least today there was no rain nor even mist.

  There was also no indication of when the ferry might arrive. Kip scanned the river but could not pick out a ferry from the mix of barges and smaller boats dodging between them. So he sat on the grass and waited, and it wasn’t long before he heard footsteps behind him and the scent of fox wafted to his nose. He scrambled to his feet as a light voice called behind him, “How long have you been waiting?”

  The voice belonged to a fox about his height, dressed in a white tunic and short pants, walking barefoot down the hill toward him. The fox stopped when Kip turned. “I don’t know you.”

  “Kip Penfold.” Kip extended a paw. “I’m from New Cambridge, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.”

  “Oh, a Colonial.” The fox closed the distance between them and took Kip’s paw. “Abelard Ruber. Abel to my Calatian friends.”

  “Pleasure.” As they shook, they brought their muzzles close to sniff each other’s scent. Abel smelled lightly of blood (of course, he must have just come from a calyx ritual) but more strongly of his natural scent, earthy and musky, very vulpine but not like any family Kip had ever met.

  Abel gestured to Kip’s black robe, and his ears splayed to the side. “What brings you to the Isle? And why did your sorcerer dress you in his robes?”

  “Mine aren’t ready yet. Oh.” Kip looked away, his own ears flattening. “I’m—I’m not a calyx.” He didn’t know why he felt ashamed of this. “I’m an apprentice. To become a sorcerer.”

  To Kip’s mild surprise, Abel’s expression didn’t change, even the slight smile. “There were rumors,” he said. “I didn’t quite believe them. A Calatian training to become a sorcerer? We have discussed it, of course, but the wisest among us thought it would be a hundred years or more. But it’s true you’ve no about you.”

  The scent-word for “gloom” put him at ease, the more so because Abel himself had very little of that scent, so it had clearly been meant as a dark joke. Still, Kip didn’t quite know what to say. The idea that a group of people an ocean away from him would be talking about him and discussing his future sent currents of unease through his stomach. “No,” he said. “It’s true. I’m here to receive training in—” He paused. Perhaps mentioning his affinity for fire wouldn’t be the most prudent thing. “More advanced sorcery. Might say I’m .”

  “Oh, so you can already do magic?” The other fox smiled at the scent-word for “sharp,” then lowered his voice. “Could you fly us across the river?”

  “I—yes, but—” Kip looked out across the Thames. “There’s a ferry.”

  “It’ll be the better part of an hour before it arrives, if you haven’t called it.” Abel pointed down to the dock, where Kip only now saw a white flag stuck in the ground, and the tall post a would-be passenger would raise it onto, where it would be visible from the other bank. “You could fly us over in five minutes.”

  “I’m supposed to take the ferry. I tried to fly across once before.” But this time he would be flying directly to the Isle in the company of one of its residents who could vouch for him. It wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

  “What happened? Did you fall in?”

  “No, I—” Kip shook his head. “It didn’t go well. I didn’t know where I was going.”

  “Oh, well, I’ll guide you.” Abel took Kip’s elbow and turned to face him, golden slit-pupiled eyes staring into Kip’s.

  It would be easy enough to say that he wasn’t allowed, but Kip didn’t want to appear so powerless when this fox was accepting his station as sorcerer. And he wanted to impress Abel, too. “All right,” he said. “But it can be disorienting, having someone else fly you through the air. Are you sure—what?”

  Abel was laughing. “The sorcerers have flown me many times. It’s only when they’d prefer not to be bothered that they send us down to the ferry. I’m ready.”

  The confusion of boats on the Thames had cleared somewhat, allowing a clear path to the far bank. So Kip closed his eyes and gathered magic. “Strewth!” Abel exclaimed. His nostrils flared. “What’s happened to your paws?”

  “Magic makes an aura around your paws, or hands, if you’re a student or apprentice. You’ve never seen this?” Abel shook his head. “Masters don’t do it. It’s something you can learn later. To suppress it, I mean.”

  “Expect you’ll learn,” Abel said.

  Despite his protests that he was ready, the other fox did startle when Kip lifted them off the ground. “All right?” Kip asked.

  “Fine, fine. Lovely.”

  Only then did Kip notice that Abel had nothing but a stump for a tail, less than a foot long. He kept his eyes on the other fox’s face, trying not to betray that he’d seen or that the sight upset him. Coppy had told him that many Calatians in London lost their tails to human raiders, but the reality was disquieting. So he smiled as he moved them over the riverbank and said, “You don’t have to hold on to my arm so tightly. I’ve got you with magic even if you let go.”

  “Right.” The fox’s grip loosened but he didn’t let go, casting a glance down at the water barely six feet below them. “I know that. Usually we fly higher.”

  “I’d prefer not to call attention to myself.” The air was warmer down here near the water, though not much. Kip moved them quickly enough that both foxes flattened their ears and narrowed their eyes against the wind.

  Abel didn’t comment on that, but a moment later pointed to Kip’s left. “That way,” he said.

  Kip shifted course and a moment later the Isle resolved out of the low haze of wooden structures. Kip searched for Mr. Gibbet’s dock to his right, but couldn’t pick it out of the four or five that lined the river. “This feels better than when the sorcerers fly me,” Abel said.

  “How so? Because we’re lower?”

  The other fox shook his head. “Better, that’s all.”

  Kip thought that perhaps sorcerers didn’t allow their calyxes to grip their arms, which made him smile and then reminded him that Abel was a calyx. “Do you know the Lutris family?” he asked.

  “Otters? Aye. They live to that side of the Isle.” Abel gestured to the right. “You’ve business with them?”

  “A letter to deliver.” Kip patted the small pouch at his belt.

  Abel squinted at the sun. “I believe Ella should be at home. Marro won’t be back until sundown.”

  Kip focused on the low wooden buildings growing larger before them. “I think my letter is addressed to Dotta?”

  “Oh! Ella’s mum. Yes, she’ll be home too.”

  “There are a lot of Lutrises on the Isle?”

  Abel chuckled, but the chuckle had a bitter edge. “There are a lot of everyone. You’ll see.”

  And indeed, on the shore of the approaching Isle, a multitude of f
igures moved around. Even at this distance he could distinguish rabbits, otters, foxes, from the tail and ears and the way they moved. At the same time, some of them stopped, clearly looking out at the river, and pointed at the two flying foxes.

  Kip pushed on despite the flutter of trepidation. These were Calatians, his people. They wouldn’t hurt him. And yet he shouldn’t even be worried about that. If not for the reaction of New Cambridge’s Calatians, the Cartwrights making him go and plead with them not to break off their daughter’s engagement to him, the silent shunning of his father’s store… He should have felt safe coming to this community of his own people, and yet he was worried.

  When they were close enough to land on the dock, some otters and rabbits did draw back from Kip with their eyes firmly on him, and for a moment it seemed no-one would dare approach. He ended the spell after placing himself and Abel carefully down on the damp, chilly wood. They and the crowd faced each other without speaking for several heartbeats. But then two young foxes ran forward to Abel, crying, “Daddy!” and Abel bent to hug them both.

  “Aran, Arabella, this is Mister Kip Penfold.” He spoke loudly enough to be heard by the crowd, though his muzzle and eyes were aimed at his cubs. “He’s studying to become a sorcerer but he’s one of us. It’s very exciting.”

  Kip couldn’t tell which cub was which; the tunics that hung down below their knees differed only in the size and color of the patches of dirt and tears all over them. But the one who spoke to him had a higher voice, so he guessed that was Arabella. “Does that mean I may become a sorcerer too?”

  “If you know magic,” Kip said when Abel deferred to him. “But it’s very difficult and takes a lot of work.”

  Arabella hung back still, until Abel put a gentle paw on her back. “You may go greet Mister Penfold,” he said. “You shan’t catch fleas from him.” His eyes met Kip’s, and Kip knew that the reassurance had been meant more for him.