by Matt Laney
The youngling coughed up water and gasped to catch his breath. When he had recovered, the sage spoke. “Tell me, what did you want most of all when you were underwater?”
“Air!” the youngling gasped.
“That’s right,” said the sage. “And when you want Alayah as much as you wanted air, you will find what you are looking for.”
The story concludes and the vision evaporates. I’m relieved to find myself totally alone.
Almost.
As usual, a character is left behind. The sage, life-size and wraithlike, crouches at the edge of the pool. She is the same story-being who appeared with Oreyon, the hunter, by the fire in Border Zone Eight. Covered in her tattered robe, she reaches for me.
“Take my hand!” she commands.
Forget it. She’ll probably try to drown me, too. Even if she weren’t a phantom, she’s too old and frail to pull out a soaked youngling.
“Give me your hand!”
I ignore her and kick to the side of the pool. There’s a place to insert my foot, but I slip and my muzzle slaps a rock.
I yowl.
The sage’s annoyance turns to amusement. My second attempt is more successful. With trembling arms and legs I break the surface and tumble onto the ground, shuddering from the cold.
The sage lingers over me, shaking her head. “Foolish, foolish youngling. If I didn’t need you to send me back, if you weren’t so important, I would throw you right back into that pool!”
Here we go again with the “sending back.”
“I didn’t ask you to come here,” I stammer, breathing hard, “and I don’t know how to send you back.”
“You don’t need to know. You only need to be willing. When the time is right, you will learn. I will wait with the others.” Her arm makes an arc as if to suggest an audience.
I look around. “What others?”
“Those who have come into this world because of you, of course! They are all still here, and let me tell you, most of them are very frustrated with you!”
This elder is crazier than I am. “I don’t see anyone.”
“Because you commanded them to disappear, and so they have! They stay hidden, waiting for you to speak their name and to call them into service. Or to be sent home. But you have done neither!”
“I suppose you want me to know your name?”
She bows. “My name is Vishna.”
“And I can call on you whenever I want a lecture?”
Vishna flashes her broken-toothed grin and straightens to her full height. “I have a bit more to offer. How do you think your leg healed so quickly?”
“That was you?”
“I could have healed you much faster if you had spoken my name. In this halfway state,” she adds, gesturing to her airy, transparent form, “my healing arts are more limited.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. I’m okay for now. You can go.”
“As you wish, Eliyah. Remember Vishna if you need someone with my skills, but know this: When you say my name, I will be visible and real to one and all.”
And then she is gone.
I look around and take stock of my new surroundings. I am on a narrow shelf of land between tall rock walls on my left and the sea to my right. Behind the place where Vishna stood, a path snakes around the bluff. There is an old, weatherworn sign bolted to the cliff with an arrow pointing down the path. The sign reads:
Academy This Way.
Maybe it’s because I grew up in a castle, but this shabby little sign hardly seems worthy of the Royal Academy of War Science.
I shake the water from my head, arms, and legs and squeeze out my tail. I follow the slender path around the cliff until it dead-ends at yet another soaring wall of rock.
Did I miss something?
I search for a door or a ladder. I press my hands to the surface of the cliff where the path ends and push, half expecting an entrance to appear. None does.
I lean against the rock wall, my wet fur smearing the surface. A few letters, carved into the rock, are made visible by the water stain. I wipe the area with a damp forearm. Two sentences emerge.
Looking for something?
Give a roar and help is yours.
My roar isn’t anything to roar about. My dignity won’t even allow me to try. I could call for Oreyon or Vishna or even Kensho and ask them to roar for me, but that carries the risk of making them visible. How would I explain that to whoever from the Academy might be watching right now?
I have no choice.
“Please help me with this,” I whisper to no one in particular.
I breathe deeply, tilt my head skyward, part my jaws, and—
On most days, my roar sounds like a squeaky door. This time there is a crack and boom of thunder. For a moment, I’m pleasantly shocked by what my vocal cords have produced, ripening just in time for my entrance into the Academy. Then a second blast of thunder sounds, not from my mouth but from black clouds rolling in over the sea. There is nowhere to take shelter on this barren chip of land; I’m going to get thoroughly drenched.
Again.
“Better get up here!” a gruff voice calls.
A thick rope drops from the cliff and whacks me on the head. It sways like the tail of some unseen beast above.
I grab the rope before it can vanish as quickly as it appeared.
A whoosh of wind, herald of the coming storm, fingers its way through my pelt and urges me to climb. I reach the top, some twenty meters up, and roll over the cliff’s ledge.
I’m not alone.
There is a broad, stocky Singa, not much older than me, dressed in deerskin leggings and torso cover, with a short blade strapped to her back. A patch of fur has been ripped off her upper arm and shoulder, exposing damaged skin.
“Who are you?” I pant.
“I’m 24-2.”
Her name is a number?
I gesture to her wounded arm. “What happened there?”
“Slaycon.”
“Did it bite you?”
She scowls. “If it bit me, I wouldn’t be standing here, would I?” She tosses me a pair of deerskin leggings, identical to the ones she’s wearing.
“Put those on,” she says flatly.
Remembering my state of undress, I scramble into the leggings and tie them off. A good fit.
“Where is the Academy?” I query. There’s not much to see except the ocean on one side and more rock cliff on the other, with another rope dangling from a ledge far above.
She coils the first rope and lays it by a metal ring anchored to the cliff. “This way.” She trots to the rope hanging from the next ledge and begins to ascend. In spite of her size and wound, she’s a good climber.
“Now you,” she calls from the ledge. I grasp the rope, lift my feet off the ground, and go nowhere fast. Getting out of the pool and that last climb have sapped the strength from my spindly arms.
“Coil your legs around the rope and hold on!” 24-2 bellows.
Thunder echoes from across the sea, and the rain begins.
I twist the rope through my legs and lean against the line, its bristly surface poking my cheek. Moments later, the rope wobbles and the rock wall flows downward as I steadily rise. I can’t see 24-2 because of the ledge, but I know what’s going on.
She’s hauling me up.
I’m grateful. And afraid.
Does she have help up there? What if she gets tired or has to let go? Suppose the rope slips out of her hands? I’d drop like a stone and leave this world as a bloody splat mark on the ground, washed away by the rain.
Before I can contemplate my military career ending before it starts, I see the next ledge within arm’s reach, and I’m dragged over the lip onto solid ground.
“One more climb,” 24-2 says, coiling up this rope and nodding toward yet another rope hanging from a section of cliff.
“I need to rest. Just give me a minute.”
24-2 tilts her face to the angry sky. “No time.” She grabs me, lifts me over he
r head, and lays me across her rain-soaked shoulders. I’m too tired to complain. She takes the rope and, hand over hand, begins our ascent. I close my eyes and hope no one sees me enter the Academy like a cub on his mother’s back.
This last cliff top comes quickly. And not soon enough.
She pauses at the precipice. “You first.”
I scramble up 24-2’s shoulders and throw myself onto the level ground, accidentally stepping on her wound in the process. She yowls and snarls.
“Sorry,” I whimper.
24-2 hefts herself over the edge, coils the rope, and lays it near the anchor, just as before. Our fur is matted to our bodies. Water drips from our muzzles. I check our surroundings, searching for more ropes to climb and finding none. We’ve reached the top, a table of land a hundred meters above the ocean. Behind us is a triangular peak of rock, punctured by a short tunnel.
Thunder shakes the earth and clouds unleash their cargo in great sheets of water.
24-2 hastens to the tunnel. “Over here!”
I follow and we huddle together, waiting for the squall to pass.
“Won’t last long,” 24-2 says. “Storms that start fast end fast.”
Soon there is only drizzle spiraling in the wind as the storm blows off to drench some other piece of land.
Exiting the passageway, we come to the rim of a vast circular canyon. It’s like standing on the edge of an enormous bowl or, better yet, on the edge of a gargantuan, upside-down tortoiseshell. The sloping sides are sheer canyon rock. The bottom is a patchwork of fields with a cluster of buildings at one end, newly washed by the rain. Looming high over this little village is a fortresslike structure built into the canyon, much like the castle of Singara. Hundreds of cadets are sprinkled over the fields in company groups, practicing combat drills. Their weapons flash in the sunlight poking through the retreating storm clouds. At the far end of the canyon, a waterfall plunges into a misting pond. Except for the castle I call home, this is the most magnificent place I have ever seen.
24-2 smiles faintly, amused by my dumbstruck expression. “Welcome to the Academy,” she says. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Chapter 13
Small minds are conquered by misfortunes; great minds rise above them.
—Sayings of the Ancients
watch 24-2 pick up a conch shell and raise it to her lips.
“What’s that for?” I ask as a horrible sound, something like a dying karkadann, erupts from the shell. Far below, all cadets cease their exercises. More pour out of buildings. Every head tips up.
To us.
Looks like I won’t be making a quiet, subtle entrance. Maybe no one does.
Cadets swarm around the central path stretching from the castle at one end of the campus to the waterfall at the other while 24-2 jogs to a ladder. The top of the ladder is at our feet, and the bottom rests on a ledge fifteen or twenty meters below. She descends and waves her tail for me to follow.
I’m impressed by the Academy’s simple security system. No one can climb up from the seaside without someone throwing down the series of ropes. Even if an invader managed that, without these ladders leading into the canyon, they would be stuck at the top, with no way down.
We descend ladder after ladder after ladder.
On the final ladder, I notice the cadets, perhaps five hundred in all, positioned like statues on either side of the central path. Several dozen adult instructors, identifiable by their royal armor and taller stature, fall in behind their students. The cadets wear deerskin leggings like mine, and perhaps torso covers. The standard weapons are strapped to their backs, hips, and legs.
24-2, having reached the ground, growls to get my attention. Her whiskers twitch with impatience. I descend half of the wooden rungs and pounce to her side.
“Walk three meters behind me,” she instructs. “When we get to the path, just keep walking no matter what.”
“No matter what, what?”
“It’s called the gauntlet,” she says over her shoulder, as if that clears it up. “It’s how we welcome new recruits. I did it last week; don’t flinch, don’t stop—just keep walking and you’ll be fine.”
She reaches the rows of cadets and waits. On the steps of the great house, at the opposite end of the path, an instructor roars: “Weapons, ready!”
Weapons?
Simultaneously, each cadet draws a weapon or two and assumes a combat stance, facing the path.
I don’t like the look of this.
24-2 walks down the path between the lines of waiting cadets. No one moves, and my hopes are momentarily lifted. Then I pass the first cadet. She huffs a little roar and thrusts her blade at my head. I instinctively dodge the attack, and a cadet from the opposite line sweeps my leg, sending me crashing to the ground.
“Get up!” he barks.
I rise blearily and resume my march. The next cadet comes at me with his blade, this time a jab to my ribs. I bend my body around the blade, and a different cadet from the opposite line once again sweeps my leg and drops me.
“Get up!” this one says. I lie in a cloud of dust, wondering how anyone makes it to the other end. The instructions I got from 24-2 come back to me: “Don’t flinch . . . just keep walking.”
I wobble up to my feet and shake the dirt from my pelt. Eyes closed and using only my sense of smell to keep me on the path, I take a step. To my left, a cadet snarls, and I feel a breeze pass over my muzzle. With another step, a blade whistles behind my head and down my back.
Step by step, cadets from both sides of the line attack, coming within centimeters of my body but without nicking my pelt or whiskers. I quicken my pace and the attacks accelerate like a mini cyclone of wind and metal.
All at once it stops. I open my eyes and find myself standing before the instructor, who glares down at me from the fortress steps. He is tall, with thick arms, a barrel-like chest, and almost no neck whatsoever. As with most soldiers, his armor is old and battle worn. 24-2 stands in the shadow of this mountainous soldier. Next to her is a scruffy, lanky cadet with sharp features and a short mane that sticks out in every direction.
“Where are your manners, newcomer?” the soldier growls. “Bow in greeting to your superiors.”
I’ve never bowed to anyone, not even to the Kahn. I’m used to everyone bowing to me. I bend awkwardly at the waist.
The soldier rolls his eyes, unimpressed. “Get down on one knee.”
I take a knee, my body still aching from those two tumbles.
“Rise, cadet, and tell us your name.”
“My name,” I say with as much nobility as I can scrape together, “is Leo, prince of Singara, grandson of Raja Kahn.”
“No!” He scowls and leaps to the ground before me. “That is not your name here! Your name is 24-4 because you have been assigned to the fourth position of quadron 24. If you ever speak your birth name again, you will be punished. What is your name, cadet?”
“My name is Le—” The expressions of 24-2 and her companion stop me cold; 24-2 shakes her head.
“My name is 24-4.”
“And I am Jakal,” the soldier says. “Chief instructor of the Royal Academy of War Science. Your quadron-mates, 24-2 and 24-3, will take you to Alpha,” Jakal commands.
24-2 steps forward along with the other cadet, who must be 24-3. He bears a scab-covered wound across his chest like a sash. The injury appears to be a week or two old. Slaycon, no doubt.
“Come on,” 24-3 says. “Let’s get this over with.”
Two cadet guards open the doors of the fortress. Unlit candelabras dangle in a spacious foyer. A set of leaping platforms, mirror images of each other, curve to a balcony.
“She’s up there,” one guard directs.
Before we bound up the platforms, 24-3 studies me thoughtfully. “Are you really who you say you are?”
“Don’t I look like a prince?”
“No, not really,” 24-3 says.
How fortunate, I say to myself, echoing Oreyon, the hunter.
If I don’t look like the prince, I have a better chance of blending in and avoiding trouble.
“Listen to me,” 24-3 counsels in a low whisper. “Prince or not, you have to watch your step with Jakal and Alpha. If you cross them, they will put a foot so far up your dirt hole, you will cough out a big toe.”
On the balcony level, we find a Singa sitting behind a bulky desk. She wears an elegant bejeweled garment, a combination of light armor and ceremonial dress. Pen in hand, she works with brisk, alert movements, too intent on her stack of papers to take any notice of us.
We lower ourselves to one knee.
“Come,” she says without looking up. “Who do we have today?”
We approach the desk in a clumsy little line.
“We are the three newest recruits. Quadron 24,” 24-3 offers. “Or we will be a quadron when we have a captain.”
Her pen stops midstroke. She peers over the edge of the paper in her hand. “Did you say 24?” Her muzzle is frosted with gray, matching her silver eyes—the sort of eyes that can shut you up fast with a single look. Like now.
24-3 nods.
“From Company F, is it?”
He nods again.
“Ah yes,” she says, shifting her attention to me. “You must be . . . the fourth. Welcome to the Academy, 24-4.”
“Thank you,” I reply. “Who are you?”
It seemed like a simple question, but my two companions simultaneously jerk their heads at me. Their expressions are inflated with fear.
“Who am I?” she says, eyebrows raised. “Who am I? Well now, let me see.” She glides around her desk until she is towering over us. “I am the mistress and master of the Academy. I am the mind and heart of this canyon, the law and the judge. I am the shaper of Singara’s military might, the author of our present and future glory. I am the creator of captains, commanders, legionnaires, and generals. I can make your time here as gentle as an afternoon breeze or a mountain of misery. I can cover you with meat for dinner or withhold food and drink for as long as I like. I can make you stand up all night in the rain or let you sleep all day. I will teach you discipline, honor, duty, and how to move like a cold wind through the tumult of war. That’s who I am! You may call me Alpha.