Honor's Price

by Sever Bronny

  Isaac shrugged. “Got off easy. What was it they added to my profile again? ‘Potentially subversive barbarian’? Pfft.”

  “Gods, how awful,” Laudine whispered from beside Haylee.

  Something clicked for Augum. “They found The Grizzly’s trove of intelligence.”

  The friends looked at him.

  “What do you mean?” Leera said.

  Augum spoke as if only to himself. “Last month he said it was his business to know everything. His office kept tabs on warlocks in particular seeing as we’re human weapons. And like he always says, warlocks are forever—” He opened his hands.

  “Locked in war,” the others dully chorused.

  “Exactly. We’re a threat to those in power, always have been. Anyway, yesterday he told me the Canterrans raided his office, meaning the Canterrans seized all that information.” He glanced at each of their grim faces in turn. “That’s why they know so much about us.” And that explained why The Grizzly thought this was all hopeless. He knew the Canterrans held all the cards—if necessary, they would resort to the age-old tradition of hostage-taking.

  For a while they sat in glum silence as people took their seats.

  “And you know what else they asked us at the constabulary?” Caireen said. “How many crowns we think we can bring in before we exhaust our sources.”

  “Right, forgot about that,” Jengo muttered.

  “They’re estimating how much they can squeeze out of us,” Haylee said. “What did you tell them?”

  “As many as it took,” Caireen and Jengo chorused.

  Caireen leaned across Isaac to punch Jengo’s shoulder. “Jinx, you gangly Sierran bastard.”

  Jengo rubbed his sore arm. “Play nice, you Tiberran ball of hair.”

  “ ‘Fair friends becometh fairer in hardship,’ ” Laudine quoted.

  “More like she’s been annoying me the whole time,” Jengo muttered. “When she wasn’t talking about her homeland she was secretly pawing Isaac.”

  Isaac, who had been rubbing his chin in thought, perked up, jesting, “I’ll accept her offer of marriage when I’m good and ready.”

  Caireen flicked his ear. “Don’t be a twit, Isaac Fleiszmann, and don’t belittle matrimony.” Then she looked past him to Jengo. “And it just so happens that I miss Tiberra. Is that all right with you? Anyway, who knows how much longer we’ll be free. I say get your pawing in while you can.”

  Leera pointed at her with both index fingers. “Now that’s my kind of attitude.”

  Laudine placed her wrist to her forehead and tilted her head back. “Cease all this talk of debauchery or I shall swoon.” This elicited a snort from Caireen and Leera.

  Jengo tried to draw his long legs up into a cross-legged position on the chair, but being too tall, sighed and gave up. “We also saw them doling out fines left, right and center when we were out. For the stupidest reasons. One Ordinary couple got dinged a crown simply for holding hands!”

  “It’s either to raise a huge army or for that dig project of theirs,” Isaac said. Then he leaned forward and dropped his voice. “Oh, we also talked about that special quest to snatch you-know-what from you-know-where. Nothing solid yet, but we’re working on it.”

  “Keep it up,” Augum said, “because when the time comes, I want to turn the academy into a fortress.”

  Isaac stuck a finger in each ear and made a show of cleaning them out. “Come again?”

  Augum explained how they could either get Byron or a committee of seven warlocks to shut down the academy, pointing out that Byron was already compromised.

  Their silence was telling. More than one person chewed on a fingernail in anxious thought.

  “I know how dangerous it will be,” Augum went on, “but we won’t have a choice unless we all want to die in some mine, or who knows what. They’ll whittle us down until there’ll be too few of us left to do anything about it.”

  One by one, his friends nodded in agreement.

  “We’ve come this far, let’s go all the way,” Haylee said. “Whatever it takes. For the kingdom.”

  “For the kingdom,” the others echoed.

  “Good. Good.” Augum glanced between Haylee and Laudine. “Did you two dig up anything on the Memorial Ceremony?”

  “You bet we did,” Haylee said, retrieving a tightly rolled scroll from her satchel. She handed it over to him. “Everything you need to know is inside. Took us a while to assemble it, but we wrote detailed instructions. Just make sure to follow them exactly. As for your other assignment, Laud and I got nowhere looking for historical discrepancies. Sorry, but that task’s impossible.”

  “That’s because you have zero interest in history,” Leera muttered.

  “And you do?”

  “Fair point.”

  “So was it all for nothing, or did you three dig something up in Archives?” Isaac asked.

  Leera withdrew the scroll Bridget had sacrificed so much to retrieve.

  “It was all for this,” she said. “We were waiting for Bridget to wake up to examine it, but like I said, she’s out until tomorrow. So let’s study it now while this dull ceremony takes place. She’ll understand.”

  “This is interesting and all,” Haylee began, trying to keep a straight face, “but let’s delve into the real issue. What sorts of shenanigans are you miscreants planning for my womanhood ceremony tomorrow? I refuse to work underground before I become a woman.”

  The group nervously chortled, as if knowing they needed to laugh but had forgotten how.

  Laudine pressed her fingertips together and made them dance. “Muhahaha, our plans will be revealed to you in due time, sweet sacrificial lamb.”

  A hush fell over the theater as Darby confidently strode out onto the stage, making the friends settle down. His golden eyes swept over the crowd before he launched into a sermon about the need for women to know their place so men can concentrate on crafting a life for them. The group of friends shared eye rolls, before secretly gathering in the darkness to examine and discuss the scroll Bridget had unearthed.

  But there was one problem.

  “What the hell is this?” Leera hissed while Darby spoke. “ ‘A Teenager’s Tutorial on How to Dance to My Song of Comic Heartbreak, “Dork’s First Conquest Blocked,” by Headmaster Charles Chauncey the Third.’ It’s nothing but a stupid dance number?”

  Sure enough, there was a detailed description of the steps involved, paired with a set of simple lyrics which Leera read aloud.

  “ ‘You played with my heart like a toy, when you left me for another boy, ’cause you saw me as a nutty dork, bouncing, bobbing like a cork.’ ” She flipped a hand questioningly, face contorting as if she had stepped in manure. “ ‘I saw you dancing with that preening snob, just ’cause I’m a zit-faced chunky blob, and so you let him sweep you off your feet, leaving me gaping and drooling on the street—’ Gods, I can’t believe Bridget almost died for this drivel!”

  Jengo hid his mouth behind his hand, trying not to laugh. “It’s a quirky song and dance about a failed courtship. How, uh, quaint.”

  “Seems like a really weird song for a headmaster to write though,” Isaac said.

  “Not to mention off-color,” Caireen muttered.

  “There has to be a secret message hidden in it,” Haylee pressed.

  “Not necessarily,” Laudine said. “My Drama teacher Arcanist Fungal has written dozens of kooky songs like this. ‘The Nosepicker’s Shuffle,’ ‘The Gassy Jester,’ ‘Juniper’s Berries,’ and so on. Besides, it’s academy tradition for the headmaster or headmistress to make fun of themselves at the end of every term in a school banquet.” She frowned. “That said, it’s still possible there’s a secret message hidden within.”

  Leera snorted. “Yeah, the message is, and I quote, ‘Just ’cause I’m a bit of a pork, don’t mean you stick me with a fork, everybody put your hands together and twelve times sing, dork, dork, dork—’ and I want to gag because there’s nine more dorks after that!”
<
br />   Laudine raised a helpful finger. “That means it’s the chorus. It’s a real song, no doubt about it.”

  “Yeah, great, thanks. Then there’s instructions on where to plant your feet. ‘Two steps forward, three steps back.’ Story of this whole damn debacle.” Leera slapped the parchment against her face and spoke through it. “Ugh, at least we have something to perform at the next academy talent show.”

  “Don’t give Laudine ideas,” Caireen said with a snicker.

  Laudine, who had brightened and looked like she was about to reach for the parchment, awkwardly cleared her throat and instead fixed butterfly-motif clips in her hair.

  “Look it over anyway, Lee,” Augum said. “There has to be something in it.” Bridget couldn’t have sacrificed herself for a stupid song, could she?

  Leera groaned and focused on the scroll, only to shake her head after a while. “Nothing. Laud’s right, it’s a regular old song. Whatever she saw, she must have put together in her mind, and this was the final trigger. Whatever’s on here likely has nothing to do with whatever she solved in that brilliant brain of hers. It’s probably just a stand-in reminder note or something.”

  “You mean this scroll is out of context for us,” Laudine offered, “but not necessarily for Bridget?”

  Leera shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Well, that’s a bust,” Augum said. “Don’t know if it will help, but while I was carrying Bridget, she mentioned that there might not be living teachers of the order. Don’t know what to make of that though.”

  Leera crinkled her nose. “That makes about as much sense as this dance number. Teachers of what order? The Arcaner order? Obviously there were teachers, otherwise no one would have ever learned a thing.” Leera returned her attention to the scroll. “What in Sithesia did she see in this?”

  “I don’t think we’ll find out until she wakes up,” Isaac muttered, despondent.

  Augum’s hopes crashed. Had it all been for naught? Would Bridget even remember what she had put together in her mind? She hadn’t even sounded like herself, and her mind had been ablaze with efficient ideas that made sense to her in context. But would that context survive the foggy side effects of Centarro?

  Augum numbly watched Darby drone on about propriety and submission to authority, and then go on to exalt himself for showing mercy to a “lowly, barbaric, foreign wayward.” At one point, the golden-eyed coward stopped the ceremony to point at an older female warlock. “She looked at me,” is all he said. No less than ten overseers descended upon the hapless woman from out of nowhere, and dragged her while she screamed, “I did not look at His Worship! Gods hear me speak the truth, I did not look at him—!” An overseer muted her, and the only sound everyone heard was her frantic feet kicking at the ground before they lifted her and whisked her out the door. But then Darby pointed at a male student. “That one there just cast an unauthorized spell.”

  “No I didn’t, I swear!” But he too was muted and dragged off by overseers.

  Augum rubbed his forehead, too exhausted to think. How long until the Canterrans discovered a Path Disciple and two overseers were missing? And how would they react? He looked over at Leera, who was poring over the scroll with the others. And how long until they struck at her? He felt like a trapped animal and wanted to lash out. If he had any daring he’d march up to Darby and challenge him to a duel in the old way, break the damn coward’s neck in front of everybody, then call for an insurrection. Maybe that was the best hope they had, especially with the Canterrans snatching Solian warlocks by the hour. But he knew he couldn’t act without better defenses and a solid plan, which meant Dreadnought armor and the academy fortifying itself.

  The others soon gave up on the scroll and sat stewing in glumness. Nobody wanted to be dragged out to who knew where.

  Augum glanced back at the entranceway and saw that the overseer who had been tasked to check on Bridget—or at least who he thought was the right overseer, for they all looked alike from this distance—had returned and was milling about, bored, suggesting he had confirmed that Bridget was indeed sick in the healing ward, and nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

  As Darby yammered on about his fake cult, and as the group of friends sank deeper into their seats from sheer boredom, Garryk Garroom, a 5th degree air warlock with ambitions of becoming an arcaneologist, strode by their row, perhaps on his way to the bathing room. He dropped a piece of parchment along the way. Jengo, who was sitting closest, was about to hiss at him when he read the inscription. He snatched the note and surreptitiously passed it along until it reached Augum and Leera. The inscription read, For A and L.

  “Augum and Leera,” Augum and Leera chorused in a whisper. They opened it.

  Meet me by the Steps of the Crescent Moon after the ceremony.

  —E

  “That’s got to be Eric,” Leera whispered. “Wonder what he’s discovered.”

  “Well, whatever it is,” Augum replied, stuffing the note into a pocket, “let’s hope it’s good news for a change.”

  Eric’s Revelation

  The friends split up after the ceremony, with Augum promising he’d share whatever news Eric delivered. Jengo went to the healing ward to catch up on his studies and help watch over Bridget. Caireen, Isaac and Laudine headed to the library to continue searching for historical discrepancies between the Canterran and Solian history books, as well as work on the plan to steal the Dreadnought armor, all under the guise of staying late to study. Haylee joined Augum and Leera to help with the Memorial Ceremony scroll she had compiled for him. He was planning on asking their mentor, Jez, to lead the ceremony later.

  “Look at how defeated everyone looks,” Haylee said as she limped beside Augum and Leera in the torchlit Student Wing.

  Augum noticed it too. Students strode by with downcast faces, rarely speaking a word to each other. Almost all had rings under their eyes.

  “And look who it is,” Leera said, nodding at a white-robed figure shuffling along, looking lost.

  “The traitor in the flesh,” Haylee declared loud enough for Brandon to hear.

  “Was it worth it?” Leera asked. “Was it worth selling out your friends?”

  Brandon glanced over with dull, vacant eyes. His hair was disheveled, face slack, and he wasn’t carrying his satchel. He was in such a state that the trio stopped, yet he shuffled by without a word.

  “He’s a ghost,” Haylee noted.

  “Deservedly so,” Leera snapped. “Has to live with his guilty conscience.”

  But an idea came to Augum, and he strode after Brandon.

  “What are you doing?” Leera asked. “We’ve got to meet—”

  “Brandon!” Augum called. “Brandon, I need to talk to you—”

  Brandon stopped but did not turn around. He stared at his feet as if pondering whether he should continue on or stay and listen.

  Augum stepped around to stand before him, soon flanked by Leera and Haylee, who both glared at Brandon even though he was a Path Disciple. Brandon refused to look up.

  “Look,” Augum began, trying to formulate the right words. “You screwed up. You know you did. But there’s more at stake here than our personal differences.” He reluctantly put a hand on Brandon’s shoulder. “Bridget’s in trouble.”

  Brandon’s head catapulted up, eyes full of worry and alarm. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? Unnameables strike me down where I stand, is she all right?”

  Augum withdrew his hand, uneasy with comforting Brandon just yet. He needed to hear him speak on the matter first. “It’s not your fault, and she should be fine tomorrow. I know there’s remorse inside you for what you did. I know it.”

  Brandon’s face glowed with hope. “You think … you think she’ll take me back?”

  “I don’t know, and to be honest, I doubt it. But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you.”

  Brandon’s face fell again. “What do you want to talk to me about then? Did you want to rub in how badly I screwed up? Humiliate me furthe
r? There’s nothing left to humiliate, Augum. I’m finished. I’m a shell. Katrina snapped me like a twig in front of the entire academy. I’ve never been humiliated like that in my entire life, not even close.”

  Haylee and Leera looked away, as if the sight of him was hard to take in.

  “I know,” Augum replied. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry all this happened. But I wanted to talk to you about The Path.”

  “You sure about this, Aug?” Leera asked. “How can we possibly trust him after—”

  “You can trust me,” Brandon pleaded. “The gods know you can trust me. Please, I … I have no one, Leera. I have no one and nothing, not even my dignity. You don’t understand what that feels like. You’re so damn strong. You always took the abuse they heaped on you in the heralds, the songs they sang about you, the curses and rude gestures and vicious whispers and you kept your chin up. You can take it, but I can’t. I can’t take it. I …” He shook his head as he stared at the floor. “I’m broken. I’m weak. And I’m a coward. If I had any guts I would …” The dullness returned to his eyes as he looked up to stare beyond them. “I should erase everything about me. I should—” But he couldn’t say it. Instead, his chin trembled as his mouth feebly opened and closed.

  Augum gripped Brandon’s shoulders and gave him a gentle shake, willing him to look him in the eye. “Don’t do that. Don’t do that …”

  Brandon burst with a sob. He stared at the floor as tears welled and rolled down his cheeks. “I miss you all so much,” he gurgled. “I miss Bridget. I can’t tell you how much I miss her.” He placed a hand on his heart. “It hurts inside here. It’s like molten steel, burning a hole through my soul. But I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to fix any of it.”

  Augum drew Brandon into a hug and patted him on the back. “It’s all right, old buddy. It’s all right.”

  Brandon sniffed hard into Augum’s shoulder for a time, even hugged him back tightly, before gently pushing away. “Gods, this is so incredibly embarrassing. They’ll think we’re wayward.”