White Hall (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 10)

by Donald Wigboldy

  “Niklaus was a cat and a mouse, I think; but how he was managing the changes without returning to human is beyond me though.”

  Job looked at his friend as if he was confused. “Your brother has been practicing changing forms. My guess is he figured out how to go from one animal to the next, but what happened after she threw the mice back?”

  “He climbed back into the ducts and started to make his escape until he was dumb enough to look through a vent and met Katya’s eyes. I think she used her magic on him, but whatever she did threw me out of his mind,” Piotr stated as he turned to place his feet on the floor.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to see if her magic helped to catch him,” the boy said pulling his boots back onto his feet.

  Job joined him and the two boys headed towards the girls’ bathhouse where they discovered a crowd had gathered. Girls were talking excitedly at the disturbance and a few of them were still shaky from being startled.

  When Katya spotted the two boys, she slipped through the crowd to confront them and ask, “Where’s your stupid brother? I know he was behind it. I could feel it when I looked at that mouse and the way he snuck back up through the ducts so quickly required a human mind. Mice would just hide for a bit until the danger to them passed.

  “He actually looked down from the vent to get another look! I thought I got him with my magic, but he’s disappeared,” the girl finished still appearing angry. Her hair was still wet and in a twist as if she had merely wrung out what she could of the water from her interrupted bath, but the girl was dressed and ready to catch the culprit involved.

  Unsure of what to say to avoid incriminating himself, though he had simply been an unwilling passenger, Piotr shook his head and said, “I haven’t seen him. We came looking for him because I sensed him using magic.”

  The girl’s eyes narrowed slightly looking between the two boys. While Piotr thought he had told enough of the truth to avoid looking guilty, Katya’s eyes lingered on Job for a moment before she frowned and asked, “And how much did you see?”

  Looking confused, he hoped, Piotr countered, “What do you mean?”

  Stabbing him with her finger at the left side of his chest, Katya didn’t let him off so easily, “When you two looked through a bird’s eyes to see us changing, you lost your ability to hide behind a fake look of innocence with me.

  “You know that I have diplomatic tendencies, now spill it. I am tired of you two seeing me naked. It isn’t like either of you volunteered to be my boyfriend, you know.”

  He wasn’t sure if Katya was necessarily offering to be their girlfriend at the moment and was pretty sure that it wasn’t the time to ask. Even in the single month of working with her mentor, the girl’s magic had strengthened greatly and the boy feared how well she could use her coercion magic now. Whether he fought to keep himself out of the mix or not, Piotr was pretty sure the girl could make him spill everything he knew in an instant, if he didn’t just come out and say it.

  “I honestly had nothing to do with it this time, really. Niklaus did this on his own, probably as a prank knowing him. He caught some of the Delanne girls skinny dipping in Turtle Lake between our house and the town once and stole their clothes as a joke. It is just his sense of humor.”

  Folding her arms, Katya began to tap her right foot impatiently.

  “Anyway, he opened the vent in the janitor’s closet and transformed hijacking my mind in the process. I couldn’t do anything, honest. Job was there when it happened. We were just in our room studying.”

  “He looked like he fell asleep midsentence,” Job nodded quickly looking glad that he had no involvement in the stunt.

  Piotr echoed the nod and continued, “He climbed the duct shaft as a mouse or rat or something like that, then moved across as a cat to scare some mice into the bathhouse.”

  “He was one of those mice too, wasn’t he?” Katya demanded as she revealed her talent in seeing through Niklaus’ attempt at deception.

  Piotr nodded.

  “I knew it. So you two were trying to ogle naked girls again? I know you’re boys; but grow up already,” the girl complained with a sigh.

  “He definitely looked, but it wasn’t a long look since you used that air spell so quickly. You looked... good... though,” he finished meekly.

  “Shut up!” she retorted blushing with embarrassment. “Since you know your brother so well, where do you think he went?”

  “I was only connected until you hit him with your magic in the vent when he was stupid enough to try to get a last look. Since he isn’t here, I am guessing your spell didn’t last long enough to make him turn himself in. He probably retreated back to the battle mage side or went to lunch.”

  Katya looked a little surprised that her magic had managed to split the boys’ minds from each other, but kept her mind on track and said, “Ok, you two, we’re going to find that delinquent brother of yours and I’ll make him tell a teacher what he did. I’ll figure out a better way to get back at him one of these days, but at least we can get him to serve some time for that prank.”

  The two boys looked to balk at the order, but her stern green eyes revealed that she would brook nothing less than their obedience in this.

  Heading down the hall towards the front staircases, the trio came upon the janitor’s closet and looked for evidence of the crime. Everything in the room was as they expected it. The vent was replaced and nothing else seemed unusual, though none of them had any real familiarity with the contents of the closet.

  “Have you learned to track and follow scents?” Katya asked since the private lessons between mentors and students in the afternoon were rarely shared. It wasn’t that they held secrets so much as the lessons were geared towards the magic they were best at and those of other talents would probably know little of the spells until they branched out as mature wizards.

  Piotr started to shake his head, but stopped. “I haven’t been shown that, but maybe I can copy what Niklaus has done enough to check?”

  His confidence weakened thinking of the spell he had seen, but never tried; the boy wasn’t sure that he should try something like that without a mentor around to help him. Katya looked more confident than he was and she demanded, “Then try it. You can use a hound or something similar that can identify scents?”

  Thinking of one of the hunting dogs kenneled in the zoo for both research and training, Piotr slowly nodded hoping that he was right. “I’ve never tried his spell. I can’t say that I’ve attempted the wizard version I’ve only read about either; but I can try.”

  The novice tried to focus his mind in the way he had used his magic to send his consciousness into animals like Bandit on the farm. It was obviously a similar mindset, he assumed, since it had been the magic which led to Niklaus shape changing that first time.

  “Mind to mind, hound,” the twin thought as he closed his eyes visualizing one of the dogs in particular. A wolfhound, it had the senses necessary, and the one he knew had been trained to hunt game by scent so he knew it had the skill.

  Repeating the spell a second and third time, the wizard suddenly felt his world begin to change. His eyes opened as he started to fall forward. Landing easily on newly formed front paws, Piotr could see a long canine nose protruding from his face, but his eyes felt wider apart making the world feel even stranger. As he tried to lock into his new sense of sight, his other senses threatened to overwhelm his mind with input.

  First, he felt like he could hear the entire school, though it was really just an increase in levels from human hearing. Echoes from down the hall as the girls were just beginning to break up from their fright in the bathhouse, came from one direction. Teachers giving lessons and young wizards speaking to one another in their rooms carried to his ears as they turned and moved trying to get a fix on each little sound.

  Second, was the smell in the air. The cleaners in the janitor’s room mixed with the scents of dozens of humans both those near him now and the man
y that had passed nearby through the hall in the past.

  While he couldn’t say that he had ever intentionally sniffed his brother to get his scent, living with a twin for fourteen years in the same room meant there was a certain amount he could easily identify as being uniquely Niklaus. Sniffing around the room, the wolfhound pushed past the other two watching him and speaking to each other in surprise at his accomplishment.

  Looking at them as he picked out the freshest scent, the large hound began to walk down the hall to the front stairs. Piotr was surprised at how odd going down stairs felt as a dog, but his concentration never lost the smell on the stone he was following. It was amazing at how obvious the trail was to him. The novice wondered how humans could be so in the dark compared to such an animal.

  It was like reading a book on the person he followed. He knew the steps taken, the placement of a hand against the wall or on the rail descending the stairs and in the hall. He could smell the worry and excitement put out by Niklaus’ pores as his twin hoped to get away with his prank without getting caught.

  The minutes passed and the wolfhound led the other two to the dining hall doors. Piotr spotted his brother already in line having gathered his lunch.

  Releasing the wolfhound spell, the nature novice stood up looking at Katya and Job who had paused behind him. They hadn’t spotted Niklaus yet, and it was Piotr who had to gesture towards the opposite side of the room.

  “It looks like he is trying to blend in and pretend that he wasn’t there at all,” the twin said of his brother getting ready for a burst of anger from the girl. It was to be expected, but Katya nodded as she spied him as well.

  “Now to think of how to best mess with him. A prankster deserves a just reward, don’t you think?” the little blonde said holding her left elbow with her right hand. Tapping her lips in thought, Katya looked less sure of her course of action now that they had nearly cornered the culprit.

  They watched as he took his food and sat down. Shortly afterwards, Jeraan joined him with a handful of other mages. Niklaus’ stunt with turning into a bear to defeat Krevahs had garnered him some notoriety with the other mages in particular. Even the wizards knew of the boy who had accomplished a spell no other battle mage had and relatively few wizards as well. At least Piotr knew that he could do it as well, even if it had been to avoid the girl’s wrath, which he figured was best not to admit to anyone.

  Making sure to stand to the side of the doorway watching Niklaus enjoying himself and talking with his friends, Piotr asked, “What do you have in mind then?”

  “That’s the problem,” the girl replied with a sigh. “I’ve never really pulled pranks. Since I’ve always found them annoying, though maybe that comes from my older brothers who picked on me as the youngest; I never really gave a thought to pranking others.”

  The two boys were perplexed and Piotr stated, “I’m not much for them either. It’s always been Nik’s thing. Sometimes he’d make me help, but if he didn’t need me, Nik didn’t ask.”

  Job ventured, “Well with Katya’s magic, she could get even by maybe making him go streaking through the courtyard. A little magic to coerce him into doing it is all it would take.”

  Wrinkling her nose at the idea, Katya shook her head, “No, first off, no one wants to see that, I think. Second, using my magic on him like that is only likely to get me into trouble and he might just be made into a martyr for it. No, we need something that points the finger at him or just give up and make him confess.”

  “We could tell the teachers to check the janitor’s closet and they should be able to use a spell that would let them know it was him, right?” Piotr asked and realized that he was now conspiring against his brother. Did he really want him to get into trouble or get away with it? While the twin could have kept his knowledge of the prank to himself, Katya already knew it was Niklaus at fault.

  He could have stayed locked up in his room and that wouldn’t have changed that, though her evidence would have been less concrete. The janitor’s closet and his subsequent following of the cadet’s trail may or may not have been discovered at all.

  A slight smile played at the girl’s lips. “Maybe it would be better just to let him think that they knew?”

  Both boys looked at each other in confusion.

  “He looks like he’s beginning to feel comfortable that he got away with it. Even if he thinks I could say something about it, it would be his word against mine. He looked like a mouse and the teachers would probably say that if he didn’t turn himself in after I tried to hit him with a spell; then I could be wrong.

  “Though seriously, how many other people can shape change at all let alone like that?”

  They knew she was being rhetorical and kept their silence as the girl began to work something out in her mind.

  “Would telling him that I told the other girls in the bathhouse who did it make him squirm if he thought that they were coming to lynch him for being the little pervert that he is?” She looked at Piotr and Job with a probing gaze. “Can either of you act enough to sell him on the teachers having discovered evidence in the janitor’s closet? Piotr would make the better one to do it.

  “Tell Niklaus that you saw through his eyes and know what he did. Tell him that you were in the hall and saw teachers in the janitor’s closet talking about knowing who pulled the prank.”

  “But I’d be lying about the teachers. I’m not sure that I can fool him,” Piotr replied and wondered again whose side he was actually on now. Certainly Niklaus had done something wrong, so he supposed his brother deserved whatever Katya could think of to do to him and she wasn’t contemplating harming him at least. That he would have worked to avoid.

  The girl mulled the problem over and replied, “I think that I may be able to help with that, but let’s find a better spot to work on the problem.”

  Taking his hand, Katya began to drag the boy away. Seeing Job undecided in where he should be, the girl ordered, “You too, Job, come on!”

  Chapter 23- The Confession

  Piotr rushed across the dining hall floor looking worriedly from one side to the other followed by an equally harried looking Job. Both boys had spent only a few minutes with Katya and her magic. She called it suggestion magic and had spoken to the two as they sat in one of the empty classrooms.

  Like a storyteller, the girl had spun a story similar to what she had suggested earlier when asking if he could fake the worry he would need in trying to fool his brother. As magic laced her words, the story seemed to manifest in the boys’ minds and take life. If someone were to ask him, Piotr would say that he had indeed seen teachers milling around the janitor’s closet looking stern and discussing the punishment for someone who had snuck into the girls’ baths using magic.

  Niklaus saw the two hurrying towards him and frowned in confusion. Most of the people in the lunch room couldn’t help looking at the panicked looking boys as they launched straight for the cadet.

  “Niklaus, you are in so much trouble!” Piotr started lowering his voice as he squatted down at the end of the table as if trying to hide what he had to say. Job’s head was nodding as he joined the other novice. The other cadets all began to look at the boy to whom they spoke. Word hadn’t made it to the dining hall about the disturbance in the bathhouse. Most of the girls involved were still trying to get their stories out to the staff that had come running to find out what had happened.

  Niklaus patted the air and tried to hush his brother even more as he looked around to see how many had noticed the two panicked novices. There were more eyes than he appreciated, but most didn’t seem overly concerned so far. “I’ve just been practicing my magic all morning with the other cadets.”

  “You’ve been practicing magic, but Katya knows that you did it. Those mice weren’t enough to confuse her. She saw the change to a cat as well.”

  “Now there are wizards searching the janitor’s closet you used too,” Job nodded quickly.

  “What do you mean?” the cadet cont
inued to try playing off the situation as if the other two were confused about what they were leveling against him.

  Piotr frowned, “You hijacked me from my room when you changed, idiot. I saw the whole thing up to Katya hitting you with her magic. She knows and told the teachers the whole thing!

  “They’re going to think I had something to do with it, I know it!” the twin brother exclaimed a little louder than he meant to drawing more looks.

  “Keep it down,” Niklaus hissed waving for the two boys to be quiet. The attempt only seemed to draw more eyes and ears, Nik thought looking from his brother to the other students around them. “If you don’t say things like that, they really have no evidence to connect me to anything.”

  “But they know about the janitor closet and they have magic to discover the truth,” Piotr retorted doubting his brother’s argument.

  His twin looked less convinced until his eyes suddenly noticed a small group of wizards and mages standing near Katya in the doorway. The girl looked his way before turning to speak to her mentor Ylena and the other gathered teachers.

  The boy cursed and began to sweat. Those at the table noticed the gathering which seemed to be increasing slowly. More of the girls from the bath house joined the group and Katya seemed to be explaining something to them. Her eyes flicked to Niklaus again making the cadet want to run, but he had nowhere he could really hide. Running would simply delay the inevitable, the boy realized. That was the trouble with getting caught in White Hall, the school wasn’t large enough to escape notice forever once they knew it was him involved.

  Katya had used her magic on Piotr and Job for a reason. Neither one of them could be convincing as actors. Niklaus also knew them too well to believe them if they tried to lie, not that either of the boys was particularly good at that either of course. That wasn’t a bad thing normally, Katya wanted to laugh at the thought; but if she was going to get Niklaus to stew enough to give himself away, they would have to be more convincing than they would be on their own. She put the fear of being blamed into the nearly innocent twin, and the incentive to try and protect him into Job.