Tales of Kingshold

by D P Woolliscroft

  Steppen put the balls back into the bag and shook them up, the clacking of the painted wooden balls echoing in the quiet courtyard. Which challenge would it be? Fin was hoping for dart. It was by nature the least potentially deadly of the challenges, and she felt confident in her ability to go unnoticed in the student body and be difficult to target.

  Lady Chalice reached a hand into the bag and pulled out a ball clenched tightly in her fist. Holding her other hand palm up she placed the ball, symbol outwards.

  “It is chest,” she declared. “The trial will be tomorrow, two hours after noon. Anyone caught fighting, poisoning or harming their fellow competitors shall be eliminated. Good luck.”

  Stew again? thought Finabria, raising her wooden tray for the lunch lady to ladle the brown liquid over her boiled and buttered potatoes, as she ignored the looks of the other students around her.

  It seemed like she had become the center of attention.

  That was not something she had expected—she had been thinking more about the potential mortal danger of entering the trial, not the social implications—but she now realized it was not an unsurprising reaction. It was not something she appreciated.

  Fin walked into the dining room and toward the end of the long table where Jilesa and Tom were waiting as usual. They hadn’t been to fetch their lunch yet.

  “Fin, what are you doing?” hissed Jilesa as Finabria sat.

  “I’m eating my lunch. I still can’t understand how you Edlanders eat stew in the summer.”

  “I mean, what are you doing entering the trial,” said Jilesa. Tom nodded along. “That’s for ABTs!”

  “There’s nothing in the rules that says it’s for ABTs only,” said Fin around mouthfuls. “A first year could enter if they want.”

  “But they would die…”

  “Probably. But I’m not going to. I’m as good as those other three.”

  “You’re good, Fin,” said Tom. “But the ABTs have had nearly a whole year of school more than you. What if there is something in the challenge that you don’t know? What if there’s a lock mechanism you don’t know yet?” Tom’s expression suddenly changed from concerned to earnest and he reached out a hand across the table toward Fin. “I’m sure if you go and see Chalice, tell her it was all a terrible mistake, she’ll let you back out.”

  “What!” The noise that erupted from Finabria was rather like a squark, punctuated with a cavalcade of crumbs from the bread she had just been chewing through. The other students in the dining room stopped what they were doing (which she suspected was talking about her anyway) and turned to silently stare at her.

  “Listen, Tom. I’m going to do this. And if I die trying then at least I made the attempt.” She put her hands on the table and pushed herself up, her voice little more than a whisper as the color rose to her cheeks—from anger, not embarrassment, she told herself. “At least one way, or the other, I will escape the crushing boredom of classes and spending time with people like you.”

  Fin snatched the apple from her lunch tray, and stalked out of the dining room. She matched the stares randomly on the way, and it gave her some small pleasure to cause each child to flinch away.

  “Well,” said Jilesa. “I guess she’s not coming to potions and poisons.”

  Finabria was most definitely skipping potions and poisons. She was never going to take another class again. One way or the other. Never again would she have to feign attention and interest when she had already learned what the teacher had to offer from her own independent research at the library.

  The library. The source of so much knowledge about the Hollow Syndicate but frequented by so few of the students. That had been her destination when she left the dining hall; to the histories and treatises that awaited her.

  She had done much research on past trials over the years, thinking about what awaited her at the end of her studies. Each contest was well documented. Who competed. Which trial was chosen at random. Who won, what occurred and what injuries were sustained. And though each contest was different, it seemed there were some constants that she could discern.

  For example, the chest challenge always had a minimum of four chests—more if there were more than four competitors. The weapons that were in the chest appeared to be consistent too—long sword, pair of sai, crossbow and rapier. She felt confident in her martial prowess and the sai were her favorite weapon, she just needed to be able to find them. The problem was that the means of opening each chest was different and they changed with every contest. There could be locks of tumblers, rare rotary combination locks, puzzle boxes without visible means of entrance, pressure plates, swivel panels, and in one case she even saw reference to the chest being trapped. Some of the locks mentioned she hadn’t worked with yet, in particular the more complicated puzzle boxes, and she knew there were possible traps that they had not practiced disarming as yet. The older students could potentially have an advantage there.

  What stood out most though, were two fleeting references to how the chests were identified. In most of the histories the boxes’ appearances weren’t described, they were referred to only by the weapon that were inside them. However, in the two descriptions that had attracted her eye they referred to the chests using symbols. A diamond for the sai. A cross for the longsword. A circle for the crossbow. And a square for the rapier.

  She drummed her fingers on the leather-covered desk.

  Was it reliable? It was mentioned by different authors more than fifty years apart, so maybe it was. If so, it would help her identify her favored weapon; but it didn’t help with whatever would be keeping it inside. The lock definitely seemed to be random. She would need to be prepared for anything.

  Fin closed her histories, stacking them so she could re-shelve them in their correct places, when she noticed that she was under observation. How long had that person sat at the desk in the shadowy recess been watching her? She picked up the books and walked a course that took her close enough to see her spy.

  Sitting at his own desk, books scattered around him, and clearly identifiable from his scarred face, was Dorien. His head turned, following Fin as she walked past, but his face was impassive. She flashed her most brilliant smile to him, the one they had spent weeks practicing in love-craft. He almost jumped in his seat—her smile as unexpected as a slap across his cheeks.

  Getting into the box, fast, was going to be critical. The first trialist to be armed was going to have a distinct advantage. Fin knew she was good at working with locks. She had the steady hand, sensitive hearing and touch to be able to open any mechanism; and she had the patience to keep on trying when the first attempt didn’t work.

  Of course, that was all in a classroom setting; would it be easy, knowing that being slower than the next person could lead to a bolt between her ribs?

  Oh, she’d been out on school jobs in the past. Those contracts given annually to fifth year and above. The students not knowing if it was a real contract or a dummy one that would end with a teacher turning the tables on the student. She’d had three of these contracts, two real and one dummy, and there had been some element of breaking and entering required; but the locks that she’d come into contact with in the real world were not going to be a good proxy for the test conditions.

  These were going to be hard. Real tests.

  And the person responsible for this element of the test had to be Murcher. The Lockmaster.

  Fin knew Murcher well. He liked the students who showed an aptitude for his class, and he liked the girls in particular; so Fin checked his two primary boxes. But the intensity of his stares and his lingering touches made her shudder. She wouldn’t exactly call him her favorite teacher, but she was always careful not to get on the wrong side of any of the faculty. Those relationships could be useful in the future, or in this case, tomorrow.

  The locks classroom was at the end of the east wing and Fin knew there wouldn’t be class at the moment. The perfect time to see Murcher on his own.

  Except, as s
he rounded the final corner before the doorway to the classroom she heard a murmuring of voices. Fin kept to the shadows without thinking, years of study and practice combining into conditioning so complete she could stalk the shadows like a vampire of legend shying away from the sun.

  She could see Murcher talking to another student. Qeturah. That little humming bird had got there before her! Her and Murcher moved around some tables, objects arrayed before them, but it was impossible to hear what they were saying. Their backs kept turning toward her, muffling the conversation and making it impossible to read their lips.

  And then the conversation ended. Qeturah leaned forward and placed a small kiss on the teacher’s cheek, before she rushed out of the room, passing Fin without even noticing.

  Finabria gave it a few seconds before revealing herself, thinking to wait for a longer period of time, but Murcher started to clear away the mechanisms that he had been showing Qeturah.

  “Ahem, Mr. Murcher,” said Fin, pouring sugar on every word. “I was hoping you could help me.”

  The Lockmaster turned at her announcement, looking flushed and he doubled the pace of his clearing.

  “Miss Bracaccia. I heard you nominated yourself for the trial,” he said. “Very commendable. Very… brave to think that you won’t learn anything else in another year of class. But I don’t think it is appropriate for us to be talking. I would not favor one student over another.”

  Fin was momentarily lost for words. He wouldn’t favor one student over another? Liar. She had just seen him with the other girl! But she could hardly challenge him on that fact.

  “Of course, Mr. Murcher,” she said. “I was merely hoping to borrow a new set of picks. I’m afraid that mine may break during the trial.”

  Murcher muttered his agreement. He stopped picking up the various mechanisms and went to a cupboard at the back of the room, bringing out a roll of blue leather that Fin knew would contain tools inferior to her own; after all, her father had paid more than a pretty penny for the set he had gifted her last Wintertide. She had at least managed a few seconds to look at the locks that Murcher had been working with.

  “Thank you,” said Fin, taking the roll of picks and trying her best to leave the deference in her tone when inside she seethed with anger. Murcher is helping Qeturah. It’s not going to be a fair contest. The others probably have help too.

  Well, she was just going to have to help herself.

  “Double helping?” asked Tom, looking at Fin’s tray, their previous exchange apparently forgotten.

  “I’m hungry,” said Fin between mouthfuls. “Busy afternoon. Going to be a long night too.”

  Now that she had made her mind up about leveling the playing field, she knew there was a lot to do. What she had planned might not leave much time for sleep, which was hardly ideal before the trial, but Fin had always been able to substitute food for sleep. And so a double helping of roasted chicken was the boost she needed.

  “Where have you been?” asked Jilesa.

  “Library,” said Fin, tossing perfectly round new potatoes into her mouth.

  Jilesa leaned in conspiratorially, and whispered, “What did you find out? Anything important?”

  And so began step one of Finabria’s plan. Misinformation. She knew anything she told her friends would be around the student body before lights out. It was a long shot, but worth the effort.

  “Well, there was one thing. You promise not to tell anyone?” Fin waited for Jilesa and Tom to nod. “I read the accounts of the chest trials over the last hundred years, and there is a pattern. On each of the boxes is a symbol—a diamond, cross, circle or square—and it relates to the type of lock. The code changes from challenge to challenge but it repeats.” Fin paused and looked around, as if to make sure no one else was listening. She waited for them to bite before continuing. “And I figured it out. Circle is the easiest lock, Cross is the most complex. Square and Diamond in between. If I can get the circle chest open fastest then I’ll be the first with a weapon.”

  Jilesa and Tom did not make a sound though their mouths hung open in tandem, appearing much like carp regarding their own reflections.

  “Remember, don’t tell anyone!” said Fin as she rose from the table. Her friends nodded.

  Finabria took her tray to the kitchen hatch where the staff of the Hollow House waited. She picked up an apple for later and turned to leave the dining room when she came face to face with the tall, dark, handsome form of Argo. And for the first time ever, he was noticing her.

  He looked at her, cocked his head and smiled a thin smile, like the merest scraping of butter on a slice of toast. Behind him hovered a lackey, a boy a year younger than Argo by the name of Barrag; his constant shadow. Argo leaned in toward Fin.

  “I heard what you told your friends,” he said. “Very interesting. Very interesting indeed.”

  Yes! She thought. That was quick work.

  But then Argo winked at her. Not a quick wink. Not a blink and you miss it, I-want-to-sleep-with-you, kind of wink.

  No, this was one of those big obvious winks you gave a child when they thought they were being cunning.

  Crap. Well, that’s one of them that isn’t buying it.

  Sleeping arrangements improved as you progressed through the school. In the first year there was one dormitory for boys and girls, bunks stacked three high and studying done at communal tables. By your third year the group was split into boys’ and girls’ dorms, hormones and contrasting approaches to personal cleanliness creating too much potential distraction. Fin had been in the third year’s boys’ dorm once, and she was quite sure that some girls in ages past had complained about the stench; stale semen and sweaty socks, the two likely related.

  By the fifth year, students shared a private room with a bunk mate and it was only when a student was ABT did they receive their own room, cloistered high away in the steepled attic.

  Fin didn't have a bunk mate though. She had one of the large rooms that were typically shared, but here was another thing she had to thank her father for. She wasn't sure who he had to bribe, but Fin’s roommate was officially a girl called Gharesa—however, she had died two years ago and no one had seen fit to change around the sleeping arrangements.

  Yes, she was very grateful to her father. For Fin, privacy enabled her to excel. She studied when others wanted to sleep. She used the extra space in her room to spar with shadows and practice intricate movements, half dance and half hand-to-hand combat. And her room gave her the privacy to prepare for her evening’s activities.

  From a black lacquered chest, emblazoned with the letters FB (another gift from her father), she took out neatly folded piles of clothes, none of which where her school uniform. No, these clothes weren't for studying. These were for working.

  The maid carried a broom and dustpan, tutting to herself as she hustled past the senior girls’ bathroom. It was an hour to lights out and the maid noticed Qeturah, as usual at this time, wiping away the paint and powder from her face in front of a bathroom mirror.

  Past some third-years, who didn't even give her a first glance, let alone a second, the maid continued to a spiral staircase. Ascending to a small landing containing three doors, one of which was wide open. The maid slipped through the open door, muttering about the dust, though she knew that none of the other rooms were in use to hear her.

  The room was small, but neatly organized. A bed, a small side table, wardrobe, desk and a book-laden shelf were the only furniture. All plain but solidly built.

  The maid went over to the bedside table and inspected an octagonal wooden box a little larger than her hand. Flipping the lid revealed a brush resting on a container of white powder. The maid took out a small spoon and a square of parchment. She delicately scraped away a layer of powder from the box, careful not to take too much, and emptied it on to the parchment. Five times she did this before being comfortable with her work.

  Putting the spoon down, the maid pulled a small glass bottle topped with a vapor
izer from a pocket in her skirts. She squirted it three times, sending tiny rain clouds on to the box’s store of powder, careful not to disturb the fine particles.

  The maid froze from a noise from downstairs. It sounded like Qeturah talking to another student. Quickly she put the bottle back into her pocket, lifted the parchment and its cargo of powder and swept it back into place with the brush from the box.

  The box was back on the table, precisely where it had been found moments earlier, when the rooms occupant appeared in the doorway.

  Qeturah observed the maid sweeping the floor for a moment. “Isn't it a little late for sweeping?”

  “Yes, miss,” said the maid, not looking up from the patch of floor she was cleaning. “Please don't tell, miss. I was running late today.”

  “Don't worry,” said Qeturah. “Come back tomorrow. After the trial of course.”

  “Thank you, miss,” said the maid, hurrying out of the room and down the stairs. Leaving the trialist to her solitude.

  It was a cool, calm night. At least as far as the weather was concerned, anyway. Across the city Finabria could see and hear the evidence of rioting. Voices crying in anger that became a meaningless blare in aggregate. Bonfires illuminated the city in patches.

  She sat atop the pitched slate roof of the dormitory gazing out across the city, momentarily forgetful of why she was there.

  Fin had gone back to her room and changed from the maid’s clothes, temporarily satisfied that stage two of her plan had been executed; though there were still a number of unknowns, so she wouldn't know its efficacy until tomorrow. The maid’s costume went back into her trunk, and out came her nighttime clothes.

  Some girls her age would consider their nighttime clothes to be a cotton gown, adorned with frilly lace. Others might have considered it to be something constricting, and made to present their assets to potential customers. Fin was neither of these girls. She had pulled on black hose and buttoned up her black shirt, wriggled her fingers into the soft leather gloves (also black of course). Her feet slipped into the soft leather boots, the soles thin and supple so her feet could feel for purchase. The black cotton face mask, buttoned at the side of her face, completed the look.