The Provost raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think there’s anything like that among our current course offerings, but if you spell it for me, I can have someone look it up.”
“No need, Provost,” the Princess said. “If you offer it, I’m sure Michlos teaches it, and its title could be almost anything—other than what it actually is, of course.”
“Alas, today I am not so much teacher as errand boy,” Michlos said. “Could I interest Your Highness in an urgent message from the Crown, or do your misgivings extend to those as well?”
The Provost glanced from the Princess, to Michlos, and back. “I’ll just head in to get some lunch, then. When you are finished, you are both welcome to join us.”
The Princess inclined her head. “Thank you, Provost. I expect to be along presently.”
Michlos stepped aside as the Provost disappeared into the dining hall. “Shall we head somewhere more secure?”
“Lead on.”
Eager to get out of sight, Michlos led her away from the commissary.
“Where are we going?”
The steeple rising above the treetops ahead caught his eye. “I thought we’d try the church.”
“The church? I was told that was off limits—something about it no longer being safe.”
Michlos laughed. “That’s one way to put it.”
“Oh? Are you suggesting there may be a better way?”
“No, come to think of it, that probably was the best way, under the circumstances.”
“I don’t suppose Miss Merinne happens to be traveling with you?”
“I’m afraid not. Why do you ask?”
“Because I find I am a much more enthusiastic ally when I know what’s going on than I am when I have the impression I’m being kept in the dark.”
Michlos paused. “I mean no disrespect, Your Highness. It’s just that some matters are best discussed with at least a modicum of privacy. They were correct when they told you the church is generally off limits, and it happens to be set off from the rest of the grounds by a fence. While it’s not perfect, it’s far more private than the dining-hall door at lunchtime.”
“Very well, but once we get to the church, I expect your little sermons to start serving up some meaningful revelation. And, please, you can dispense with the formalities.”
“As you wish, Highness.”
The Princess sighed and let it drop.
A short walk brought them to the gate in the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the old churchyard. The individual bars were taller than Michlos could reach, each topped with a fleur-de-lis that came to a wicked point. The gate, also of wrought iron, was set between two massive stone pillars replete with decorative finials and intricate floral designs. A large padlock dangled from a heavy chain through the latch. As Michlos took it in his hand, it fell open.
“You made that look effortless,” the Princess said.
“It was.”
“Remind me not to let you anywhere near the royal vault.”
“No, I mean I didn’t do anything to it except lift it. The lock was already open.”
“Careless caretaker, perhaps?”
“Maybe. They must be getting lax. This would never have happened on Stuart’s watch.”
“It’s just as well. We’d have had to find a way to open it to get through anyway, unless you were planning to give your sermon here at the gate.”
“I was thinking perhaps the old cemetery next to the church would be good. We should be quite a distance from prying ears there.”
“The church itself wouldn’t be better still? Is it really that dilapidated?”
Michlos opened the gate and stepped through, followed closely by the Princess. He left the lock hanging as it had been when they arrived—open, but seeming closed.
“At the risk of sermonizing,” Michlos said with a smile, “the church isn’t all that dilapidated.”
“But the Provost said—”
“That the church wasn’t safe. That’s true enough, but you assumed the danger arose from age and lack of maintenance.”
“Are you suggesting it was made unsafe deliberately?”
“In a manner of speaking. The building has been repurposed. Before students can graduate from the Academy, they must go through a rigorous set of tests to determine whether they are ready to face challenges a Santine is likely to encounter. Some of those tests are most conveniently carried out in a large indoor space.”
“They’ve converted the church into a heretic testing station?”
“That’s one way to put it.”
The Princess frowned. “Has the heresy become integral to the structure, or can it still be removed?”
Michlos shrugged. “I only know how I was tested. When I was here, we were led to believe that the Magisters tailor each examination to the individual student, but I expect all the exams have at least some elements in common. In principle, anything they’ve done should be reversible, but you’d have to talk to them to be sure. Why do you ask?”
“A good landlord tends to worry even about the little things. What do they do in there that’s so dangerous?”
Michlos thought for a moment. “Say, for example, your mission is to neutralize a renegade Phrendonic who is expecting trouble and has had time to prepare defenses. That sort of thing would be fair game.”
“They litter the place with traps?”
“They’re generally not as dangerous as the real thing. And they’re not all traps, either. In fact, one of the toughest tests they gave me was the Eye of Moravidos, which isn’t really a trap at all.”
“What was it then?”
“I’ve told you about Amulets, right?”
“The talismans the Santines use to quench the magic of their adversaries?”
Michlos nodded. “Well, they were modeled on the Eye, but they’re weak imitations at best.”
“So, this Eye quenches magic too?”
“Indeed it does, and very effectively, as I found out.”
“I don’t understand. Either the Amulet quenches or it doesn’t, right? Why would the Eye be any stronger than an Amulet that does the same thing?”
“It’s not quite that simple. What most people don’t realize about Amulets is that they each have a certain inherent strength. If you’re strong enough and if you put enough effort into overcoming an Amulet’s quenching effect, sometimes you can overpower it. However, no one has ever managed to overpower the Eye.”
“What makes it so strong?”
“No one knows. You’d need to use magic to study it, but no one has been able to get magic to work on it. If you’re the superstitious type, you might subscribe to the legend that it was created by an ancient god.”
“So how did they test you?”
“I was to ring the church bell twelve times.”
“That’s a test?”
Michlos leaned back against a tree. “Well I admit it didn’t seem like much of one at first. But I’d had to pass other parts of the examination to get to that point, and I was already tired. Once I got there, I found the bell rope had been removed, which meant I had climb up into the steeple. Imagine my surprise when I found Stuart already up there waiting for me.”
The Princess settled on a nearby stump.
“He was there to prevent me from ringing the bell. At first, I was puzzled, since I was well aware he didn’t know the slightest thing about the Phrendonic arts. I asked him politely to step aside, but he just as politely refused. I then realized he must be part of the test. I shrugged and worked a spell to put him to sleep—which he promptly ignored.”
“That’s where the Eye came in?”
“Yes, but I hadn’t realized it yet. I thought maybe the Magisters had given him an Amulet to test my ability to overpower it. You see, the decision to overpower an Amulet is always a difficult one, particularly if you might need your abilities once you succeed.”
“Why is that?”
“Because if you don’t know how strong the Amulet is,
your best chance for success is to put everything you’ve got into the attempt. But if you do that, you’ll be too exhausted to work any other spells for some time after that. On the other hand, if you do less than your best and keep some reserves, your attempt might not be strong enough to succeed.”
“What did you decide?”
“I kept reserves and tried again. I couldn’t afford to assume that getting past Old Stuart was the final part of the test. I was devastated when he brushed that off too—I thought I’d made precisely the wrong choice.”
The Princess reached up, removed her diadem, and shook her head. Her auburn tresses tumbled down around her shoulders. “Ah, that’s better. What did you do then?”
“I was getting desperate. I’d nearly used up my biggest advantage, and it looked like what little I had in reserve was going to be equally useless. It finally dawned on me why they’d chosen Stuart for this task. Unlike me, he was no stranger to manual labor; there was almost no chance I was going to overpower him physically. The Magisters had skillfully driven home their point—I tended to rely too heavily on a single skill set and was at a loss when it was taken from me.”
“Did you fail?”
“I really don’t like to fail. Once I understood the point of the exercise, I considered what other skills I could bring to bear. I was not confronting an adversary in the usual sense. His goal was not to thwart everything I tried, but to make sure I didn’t do one specific thing. I couldn’t Sleep him, and I couldn’t fight him, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t talk to him.”
“What did you say?”
“We chatted for a long time. Although he’d been at the Academy the whole time I’d been there, it was the first time we’d had much of a conversation. He’d had what most would consider a hard life, but he survived it with a wry wit and a refreshing perspective on what really matters. I’d never met anyone quite like him before. In retrospect, I probably learned as much from that talk as I did from the entire examination.”
“So, in the end, did you convince him to let you ring the bell?”
Michlos laughed. “No amount of persuasion could have shaken that man’s loyalty once he’d given his word. I didn’t insult him by trying. Instead I used one other advantage I had over him.”
“Which was?”
“Youth. I was used to studying into the wee hours, while Stuart was generally asleep at dusk and out of bed again by daybreak. Once it got dark, it didn’t take long for him to start nodding off, but that didn’t seem to worry him much. No doubt he was counting on the first ring of the bell to wake him up in plenty of time to prevent me from finishing the rest.”
“Wasn’t he concerned you might knock him unconscious while he slept?”
“And maybe accidentally kill or maim him? I don’t think the Magisters would have graded that a success, and I wouldn’t have risked it anyway—not even to pass the exam. I’d already found out from questioning him that the Magisters hadn’t given him an Amulet, and that told me there had to be something else operating in the steeple. Once he fell asleep, I was free to use his lantern to search the area.”
“And that’s when you found the Eye?”
Michlos nodded. “Near the bell was a pedestal resembling a sundial with a broad brass face numbered from one to eleven and an odd little crank sticking out of one side. The Eye was mounted on the face of the dial where the number twelve should have been—appropriate for a midnight-black star sapphire with twelve fully defined rays. The gem was as wide as my thumb—and instantly recognizable from descriptions I’d heard.”
“It must be worth a fortune.”
“Perhaps, to a rare private collector. The problem is that Phrendonic artifacts are subject to confiscation by the Church, and possession would probably lead to accusations of heresy. A prudent man wouldn’t take the risk.”
“So, how did you pass the test? Pry the gem out of the sundial and throw it away?”
Michlos shook his head. “I had nothing to pry with, but I did find something I could use—some old beeswax candles.”
“I thought you already had a lantern.”
“I did, but the candles weren’t to help me see—they were going to help me inactivate the Eye.”
“Didn’t you say the gem couldn’t be overpowered?”
“With the beeswax I didn’t need to.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Displacement-cast magic such as that on the Eye penetrates gasses well, but solids and liquids poorly. Regardless of their strength, the Eye’s spells should not have been able to circumvent that basic law. I simply softened the wax with the lantern and molded a cylinder to place over the Eye, making sure I carefully sealed the bottom where the cylinder contacted the sundial.”
“Couldn’t you just have molded the wax over the Eye?”
“The seal needed to be airtight. This way, when I used Stuart’s water bottle to fill the cylinder, a leak wouldn’t stop me—I’d have at least until the water drained to do what I needed to do.”
“Did the plan work?”
Michlos grinned. “I graduated, didn’t I?”
She arched an eyebrow. “That doesn’t answer the question—perhaps they pass unduly smug students just to be rid of them.”
“I admit things didn’t go quite as I’d expected. Getting the water bottle was easy enough—Stuart was a sound sleeper. But the instant I filled the cylinder, I realized my mistake. I’d forgotten the cardinal rule for dispelling Dispels: First make sure you aren’t thereby activating something you would rather keep inactivated.”
“What happened?”
“With a loud click, the sundial dial rotated slightly. Instinctively I jumped back, but in doing so I accidentally put out the lantern. And then, the bell tolled. I could hear Stuart scrambling in the darkness, but my eyes hadn’t yet adjusted, so I couldn’t see him. I thought about trying to evade him but decided the risk of falling out of the tower was too great.”
“He caught you?”
“Not before the bell tolled again, but he had me pinned so quickly after that it made my head spin.”
“The bell rang by itself?”
“No, the sundial contraption was doing it. The Eye had prevented its magic from working.”
“The sundial was doing your job for you?”
“Yes, but there was just one little problem—I had no way of knowing how many times it was going to ring. Still, after four or five times, it started to seem at least possible that I might actually succeed.”
“You mean he just held you there and let the bell ring?”
“Here’s where his lack of training was a disadvantage. He had promised to keep me from ringing the bell, but now, despite having me pinned, the bell continued to ring, and he had no idea why. The longer it went on, the more confused he got.”
“And the rest, I suppose, is history?”
“Not exactly. Fortunately, it was dark enough that he couldn’t see me sweat. All he would have had to do was knock over the wax cylinder, and I would have been done for. I had to keep him away from the mechanism at all costs.”
“How?”
“I did the only thing I could—I talked. I thanked him for participating in my exam and told him how much I’d enjoyed our little chat. I even offered to take him to dinner to celebrate—anything to keep him from meddling with the sundial or counting how many times the bell tolled.”
“How many times did it ring?”
“Eleven,”
“So, he stopped you after all?”
“When the twelfth ring didn’t come, I let out a whoop—as though I’d just succeeded.”
“And that worked?”
Michlos shrugged. “Apparently, he’d lost count, because at that point he helped me up and shook my hand to congratulate me.”
“But you weren’t done yet.”
“No, but he didn’t realize that. And he seemed very puzzled as to how I’d rung the bell while pinned. So, I did what any gracious competitor would have done.�
��
“You waited until he turned his back and put him to sleep?”
Michlos put his hand to his heart. “Highness, you wound me.”
“You mean you didn’t?”
“Of course not. Instead, I offered to show him how I’d done it.”
“Don’t tell me he actually fell for that?”
Michlos rubbed his knuckles on his chest. “One short turn of the crank later, and I had officially passed.”
“What did he say when he found out he’d been duped?”
“Funny, that specific topic never came up.”
“Amazing what you can get away when you fail to mention the relevant details, isn’t it? Speaking of which, just how long do you intend to fail to mention that urgent message from the Crown?”
“Ah yes, that. The Crown would like to know your plans regarding the Academy.”
The Princess began tucking her hair back under the diadem. “The Crown would like to know? Or you would?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me.”
“Don’t close it,” he said softly.
She turned away. “You think I want to?”
“Why, then? Why, after you’ve accomplished so much?”
“You think I’m blind? This island is little more than an insignificant barnacle adrift in a sea of chaos—we currently survive only by the grace of some great sea creature that tolerates our presence. What happens if that sea creature flounders? Worse still, what if it foolishly wakes the leviathan and is consumed? What choice do we have but to cleave to another and pray we are not noticed?”
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing. Is this really the same woman who braved the wrath of that very same leviathan for the noble cause of artistic freedom?”
“Back then I had the luxury of a stable and reliable ally.”
“That hasn’t changed.”
The Princess rounded on him. “Really? Then look me in the eye and tell me this Inquisition poses no serious threat to the Crown.”
Michlos paused—then sighed. “There may be some danger if the situation is mismanaged. But that doesn’t change the Crown’s commitment to the Colony.”
“And you didn’t think I needed to know that?”
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