by Tim Susman
“As long as I play by the rules,” he said.
“They made the rules, Kip. They can change them whenever they like.”
He looked to his father for help, but Max’s ears were perked up and he showed no inclination to speak. “I took an oath to defend the Crown,” Kip said. “I can’t break that to fight against it.”
His mother looked away and said, “That’s very honorable of you.”
“You want me to go join the revolutionaries?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I want you to come home.”
They didn’t have another serious talk his whole visit, and when he left the house on January 6th to return to the school, his mother embraced him and said, “Come visit when you learn how to appear in places by sorcery.”
“I’m not being taught translocation,” Kip said, “but I’ll work on it.”
He and Max walked to the site of the old school under a cloudy sky, the air warm and moist. They didn’t speak until they arrived at the wide meadow, and then Max hugged Kip. “I trust in your judgment,” he said. “Choose whatever path you deem wisest.”
“Thank you,” Kip said. “And good luck here in Georgia. It looks lovely.”
And then Master Vendis was there to take him back to college. He held up a paw to his father as Master Vendis took his arm and the warm damp air was replaced with the cold dry winter air of New Cambridge, the snow-dusted grass and bare-branched trees with close stone walls.
“Do you see my father often?” Kip asked as he disengaged his arm.
“Once a fortnight or so.” Master Vendis swept the hem of his robe around his feet, brushing the floor.
‘If I send letters to Emily, might you bring them to him?”
A flicker of annoyance passed over Vendis’s face, but it cleared quickly. “Of course,” he said. “One of our tasks is to reopen the Sorcerer’s Post in Peachtree.”
“And I’ll use that as soon as possible,” Kip said. “But in the meantime…”
“Yes, yes.” Master Vendis shooed him away. “Now, your friends have been told of your return and I believe they are awaiting you in the basement.”
Kip needed no further permission to hurry out and down the stairs. The familiar smells of the White Tower, more than his parents’ transplanted furnishings, called “home” to him. He pelted down the stairs to the Great Hall, empty of desks, and called out a quick hello to the elementals crowded in the fireplace, their bemused replies following him down the stairs to the basement door.
He found it fastened shut, and rapped against it twice. “Hey!” he said. “It’s me!”
A moment later, the door opened to reveal Malcolm’s short-cropped black hair and wide smile. He threw out his arms and hugged Kip. “You’ve cut your hair,” the fox said when they stepped apart.
“Ma did, over Christmas.” Malcolm grinned. “Said, ‘Clothes make the man, but hair makes the face, and you might as soon be a wild man peering out from a forest with those locks.’ And she was holding a scissors, so I wasn’t of a mind to gainsay her.”
“Welcome back.” Emily stepped forward, and Kip hugged her as well. “It’s marvelous to see you. We’ve all missed you.”
And behind her was Coppy, and Kip gave him the warmest hug of all. “How have you been?” he asked.
“Surviving,” Coppy said with a smile. “Master Windsor’s tried me on translocation spells the last week. He figures I should try a little of everything.”
“So he’s not being horrible to you?”
“Oh, he is.” Coppy’s smile didn’t falter. “Only now I’m used to it. And I’m doing better in the lessons. Sometimes I do better with him around than without him, if you can believe that.”
“You told me that,” Kip said, a touch uneasy. “Can you do any translocation here?”
The otter looked around. “I been practicing with papers, so…” He bent and picked up a dusty page, laid it down flat on his paw, and gathered magic. Turquoise flickered around his paws and then the paper vanished, to reappear over Neddy. The phosphorus elemental didn’t notice until the paper settled on him, then he raised his head as it caught fire and spun until it fell off him, leaping at it to devour it.
“Hi, Neddy.” Kip crouched by the edge of the boundary. “How have you been?”
“Feelin’ a mite cold, if I’m perfectly honest,” the elemental said. “Been missin’ the Flower, I have.”
Kip straightened. “It’s been two months. Would you like to go back?”
“Oh aye!” Neddy brightened.
“All right. Easy enough to do.” And Kip gathered magic as well, feeling the stable binding around Neddy and working to dismiss the elemental as the others chorused good-byes. In a moment, the fiery lizard had vanished, leaving his heat behind. With a short rest, Kip gathered magic again and reached into the world of the phosphorus elementals. He hadn’t been back since summoning Neddy, but he slipped into it easily: a world of fire that rotated around a purer, brighter fire that the elementals called “The Flower.” Around it he perceived the spirits that were phosphorus elementals, and with his finer control, he selected one and reached out to it. It came to him willingly, and a moment later, with a pop of acrid smoke, a new lizard, glowing bright, sat in the space Neddy had just vacated.
“Hallo,” Kip said, crouching down. “I’m Kip. What’s your name?”
This lizard had a higher voice. “You can call me Betty if you like.”
“Well, Betty,” Kip said, “we hope you’ll feel welcome here. Coppy and Emily will feed you paper, and if you start to feel cold, we’ll send you right back.”
Betty spun around in a circle and then looked around at all four of them. “It’s right refreshing, it is,” she said.
“Good.” Kip stood and faced his friends. “So tell me what else has been happening here. Do you always lock the door now?”
“Aye.” Malcolm answered, and the smile left his eyes, if not quite his lips. “One can never tell when Farley’s going to test out a new spell on us. Since you left, Adamson seems uninterested in talking to any of us, and we’re fighting every day.”
“Not every day,” Emily said, “but close to it.”
Coppy didn’t speak, but his brave expression struck Kip more than either of the others’ words. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I thought when I left, they’d stop.”
“Oh, he just says, ‘got rid of one, now to do for the rest of you,’” Emily said.
“Only without so much elocution and dropping consonants left and right,” Malcolm added. “And he’s still pursuing Emily in his own charmless manner, but so are half the school.”
Emily waved Malcolm’s words aside. “There’s nothing to it. It becomes a noise like the ocean after a while, and like the ocean it won’t harm me if I don’t wade into it.”
Kip forced a smile, hating the image that brought up. “Have they done anything serious?”
“Farley keeps threatening to summon a demon, but they keep the names well locked up, and even Patris seems disinclined to let him at them,” Emily said.
“Good God.” Kip shook his head, imagining Farley with a demon at his disposal.
“Quite.” She shook her head. “I fancy it’s just talk. All we’ve seen him learn are more and more physical spells. Not even basic alchemy or translocation.”
“But he got a bug up his bum when you got to summon a demon,” Malcolm put in. “An’ he hasn’t let that go.”
“Never mind us,” Coppy said. “We’re managing well enough. I want to hear about London.”
So Kip told them about his time in London, about Cott and Gugin (though not about spiritual holds, still reticent to mention that even in this safe place). He told them about Abel and the Isle of Dogs, and told Coppy all the stories he could remember about his family. The otter leaned against him and smiled. “Tell them I miss them,” he said.
When Kip told them about Cott burning Mr. Gibbet’s office, he had to work back and tell them about his mistreatment t
here. Emily sucked in her breath, and even Coppy clacked his tongue. “Say what you will about Patris, he hasn’t locked us in a closet yet.”
“Don’t think the idea hasn’t passed his mind,” Malcolm chimed in. “Only the closets here are all old and we’d easily break out.”
“I’m glad you’re all healthy,” Kip said. “I’ve been worried about you. I wish we had a better way to communicate than letters. I tried to send a demon here, but if they’re not summoned in the College, they can’t get past the wards on the grounds.”
“Demon’d be right useful.” Coppy stroked his whiskers. “What if we went down to the Inn every other night or so?”
Kip’s ears perked up. “That might be too public, but any place outside the gates would work, aye.”
“Too cold to be outdoors,” Malcolm said. “The Inn’s public room would be fine enough. Just tell the demon to appear as a human and he’ll attract no attention.”
“Won’t Patris wonder why you’re leaving the College every other night?”
“True,” Emily said. “And going to the Inn wouldn’t be good, with alcohol forbidden.”
“The church, then?” Kip suggested.
“Just outside the church,” Coppy said. “Rather not bring demons inside. I mean, you never know. They might be struck down.”
“Just as cold outside the church as anywhere else,” Malcolm pointed out.
“Pity Kip’s not here to make a fire,” Emily said with a twinkle in her eye.
Kip sighed and shook his head. “Rather than set a schedule, why don’t you have Emily send me a note whenever you’re going to be free, and I’ll send a demon if I can?”
“That’s fine,” Malcolm said. “More than fair.”
It wasn’t too long after that that a demon appeared in their basement, a tall, slender taciturn woman with obsidian snake scales for skin. She told Kip that Master Vendis required his presence, and then vanished. “What happened to Burkle?” Kip asked as he stood.
Malcolm shrugged. “We weren’t meant to meet him in any case. I suspect they dismissed him and summoned this new one.”
“Burkle at least got outraged at us,” Coppy said. “We don’t even know this one’s name. She barely talks.”
Kip said his good-byes, hugged everyone and promised to stay in touch, and then ran up the stairs to Master Vendis’s office. He expected to find Master MacDougal there, but to his surprise, Master Albright’s rotund form and wide smile greeted him. “I haven’t been to Prince George’s in an age,” the London master said. “Thought it worth a visit.”
“It’s rather cold at the moment,” Kip said, his guard up.
Master Albright drew his cloak around his shoulders. “I can bear the chill for a short time. Will you show me your college before we return to London?”
Kip glanced at Master Vendis, who gave a short nod. “Of course, sir,” he said.
So he led Master Albright down the stairs, into the library, where Florian greeted them with a dry “hello,” and through the Great Hall, pointing out the fireplace and the elementals. “There isn’t much more to the Tower,” Kip said. “Unless you’d like to see the basement, where I live.”
“I’ve seen it, when I sent your letter. Tell me again why you stay there?”
Kip reached up to scratch his ear. “That’s where they housed us as students. When we became apprentices, we wanted to stay together. The apprentices here lodge with their masters; there isn’t a dormitory room like at King’s.”
“I see.” Albright gestured toward the great doors. “Shall we take a short walk outside?”
Here, perhaps, was Kip’s chance to test his theory again. So the fox pushed open the great doors into the stiff wind of a New England winter, flattening his ears and narrowing his eyes. He held the door for Master Albright before pulling his robes around himself more tightly. “It’s a brisk one today,” he said.
The London master didn’t immediately reply, not for the first few steps out onto the slick stone path. To either side, the shapes of grass were still visible under a light coating of snow, which gleamed white even though the sun had not broken through the thick cloud cover. Kip inhaled the sharp, cold scent of snow, waiting for Albright to say something, and after a moment the sorcerer said, “So I see. Those tents, those are where the buildings stood before the attack?”
“Aye.” Kip nodded. “The near one is the dining tent, the far one a tent we use to practice magic. We did as students, that is. Master Patris forbad us to use sorcery unsupervised in the Tower, so we had to go outside.”
“Curious,” Master Albright said. “The Tower has withstood nearly two hundred years of students practicing sorcery in it. But I suppose Master Patris is justifiably cautious in that regard. Still, it seems a burden to place on the students when the weather can be this inclement.”
If Master Albright had been headmaster, Kip was sure, they wouldn’t have had to practice outside. Master Albright would have taken far better care of all his students, women, Calatians, and Irishmen alike. “For most of the students it was fine,” he said. “They lived near the sorcerers. But we didn’t have a sorcerer near us. It wasn’t that bad, though. The weather was bearable, and I was learning fire, so it kept us warm.”
Albright nodded. “And under there is where you found those glass beads?”
“Yes.” Kip patted the pockets of his robe for the small vial, eager to help. “I can show you…”
His fingers closed around the vial and he realized that the adoring feeling he had for Master Albright was familiar, and not only from their first dinner together. Since then, Master Gugin had put him into many similar holds and had warned Kip that these were the most insidious. It was possible to take actions counter to it once you realized what was going on, unless the caster made a direct request.
With a struggle, Kip forced himself to change the sentence he’d been about to say. “A place where the wreckage is more visible. If you’d like to go around that corner?”
If Albright asked him to show the glass bead, he’d do it. He almost wanted to anyway. And it was silly to think that Albright was casting spiritual holds on him for some nefarious purpose. If he were, he probably had a very good reason for it. Still, Kip thought, best to cast the counter spell anyway. But how to gather magic without the sorcerer noticing? If Albright saw that Kip didn’t trust him, he’d be so disappointed, and Kip didn’t want that.
Last time he’d tried…he walked at Albright’s side, falling maybe a half-step behind him, and clasped his paws behind his back as though casually strolling. This was how he’d done it before, and nothing had changed. Surely nothing would now.
“I understand you’ve also consulted Master Gugin about the beads.”
“Yes, sir.” Kip gathered magic as quickly as he dared.
“Has he been of any help at all?”
He started to tell Albright about the memory, and though he knew he shouldn’t, it was hard to remember why. Truthfully, he told himself, Gugin’s information hadn’t led to anything yet. “He had a vague memory of having seen something.” Kip gritted his teeth against saying anything more, and instead turned his head slightly so he was speaking away from Albright, hoping the wind would cover the soft sound of the spell he was reciting.
Master Albright rounded the corner with him, scanning the snow-powdered lawn. “The orchard is over there?”
The bright surface made it hard for Kip to focus on the rigid black silhouettes of the trees, but Albright was pointing in the right direction and his human eyes were better. “Aye, sir.”
As they approached the tent, Albright’s eyes fixed on the debris visible under the tent flap, even below a thin layer of snow: bricks and boards below the wooden floor of the tent. “You visited him often, Gugin? Why was that?”
Kip completed the spell, finding the heart of himself easier to find as he’d just come from talking to Coppy and Emily and Malcolm, and waited. A breeze ruffled his fur. Was he still worried about disappointing Mas
ter Albright? No; now he wanted to tell the man nothing. He wanted to go back to his basement and tell his friends about Albright. There seemed little doubt he’d been under a spiritual hold.
The sorcerer turned from the wreckage to stare at Kip, and the fox’s heart jumped. Had Albright detected the dissolution of his hold? “Penfold?”
“Sorry,” Kip said, trying to behave slavishly as though the hold were still in effect, which was nearly as difficult as fighting it. “I went to see him because of a spell I’d found, and he was very lonely. I don’t have many other people to talk to in London; Master Cott doesn’t let me out much during the day. So it was a nice evening ritual. He liked me to bring him ale, and we talked about sorcery and the college.’
“I see.” Albright returned his attention to the tent. “And did he teach you any spells?”
“No, sir,” Kip said truthfully. “We only discussed spells a couple times, because I think his specialty was spiritual magic and he said that even in the normal course of things, I wouldn’t begin learning that for a few years, and because I was being taught only fire spells, he wasn’t sure I would even get to spiritual magic in my life.”
It was hard to pretend to be affectionate and garrulous, especially when Kip was aware that any slip might alert Albright to the failure of his spell. But fortunately, Albright’s attention was partly taken by the tent and the debris below it, and so he merely nodded. “Gugin is an odd fellow,” he said after a moment. “I shouldn’t visit him for a little while if I were you. I can arrange for more appropriate companionship in the evenings, if you feel lonely.”
“Would you, sir?” Kip feigned delight. “That would be very kind of you.”
“Not at all, not at all.” Albright rubbed his arms and then set one hand on Kip’s shoulder. “Now, let us get out of this cold.”
The moment he finished speaking the sentence, they were atop the War Tower, the cold afternoon wind replaced by chilly rain in the dark London sky. “Is it night?” Kip asked stupidly.