by Tim Susman
Patris had corralled Farley and Carmichael and his shouts carried across the lawn. Kip perked an ear toward them. Patris actually seemed to be angry at Farley; the phrases “never be Selected” and “unconscionable behavior” floated to Kip, and while he couldn’t find it in himself to smile, he did feel warm in his chest. Gone from the college he might be, but at least Farley wouldn’t be remaining here learning sorcery while Kip suffered exile alone.
“You’ll excuse me if I find that somewhat unbelievable,” Windsor said. “Lutris, can you support this story?”
“I only saw the tent catch fire.”
“Did you see the fire go out?” Kip asked. “Because that’s what I did. Twice! They set fire to the tent flap there, and then to the roof. I put it out both times. The raven!” he said, pointing to the top of the Tower. “I talked to Master Jaeger up there! He summoned the two of you. He knows I didn’t set the fires.”
The old sorcerer’s eyes lost their intensity for a moment. He looked up at the Tower, then frowned in concentration. Finally he lowered his head, reached up with one hand, and scratched his short black hair. “I will have to ask him when we return to the Tower. And speaking of returning, you should do it now before Patris arrives here.” The white-maned sorcerer, dragging Farley and Carmichael behind him (figuratively, not with a spell), was indeed storming their way.
“No,” Kip said. “I’ll stay. I should face him on my own.”
“You stand to gain nothing by it,” Windsor said. “This battle is not worth—”
But it was too late already, as Patris roared, “Penfold! Pack your things and be gone from the school by sunset!”
“Watch your temper,” Windsor muttered to Kip. “If you truly did not set a fire on that tent, do not start one here either.” Coppy came up behind Kip and put a paw on his shoulder.
Kip nodded shortly and breathed in, then out, a long plume of white breath. The fire still burned in his chest, but he knew how to hold it in and the support from Coppy and even Windsor bolstered him. He ignored Farley’s smirk and met Patris’s eyes with as much sang-froid as he could muster. “I did not set that fire,” he said. “I took no action save trying to rescue my friend from the people who abducted him, tied him up, suspended him in the air…” His voice began to shake, and he got it under control. “I put the fires on the tent out. Twice. I don’t know how they started.”
“Who else in this Tower has that ability with fire?”
“Master Odden,” Kip replied promptly, and saw the mistake as soon as he’d spoken.
“Oh,” Patris sneered. “So Master Odden attempted to immolate two of our students? Is that your story?”
“Fire can be set by other means,” Kip said calmly. “Someone concealed in the tent could have taken a piece of wood from the Great Hall fireplace and set fires in the tent so that I would be blamed for it. Or there might be a phosphorus elemental—but there wasn’t. I would have smelled it.”
“It seems all very complicated.” Patris folded his arms. “Are you suggesting that Broadside or Carmichael here concocted a scheme to get you expelled from the school a mere week before you will fail to be Selected?”
“No,” Kip said. “I don’t think it was either of them. I think it was someone who was afraid I might be Selected.” He tilted his head. “You seem very sure that I will not be. Have you expressed doubts about that to anyone? Someone who might be friendly with Broadside or Carmichael?”
“Of course not.” But the dark eyes slid away from Kip’s for a moment as he spoke.
“And…” Kip made another connection in his head. “Where is Corimea? Isn’t he under your control? Why wasn’t he watching the gate, witnessing this?”
Windsor winced; Patris turned his furious gaze back on Kip. “What do you mean by that? Are you accusing me of helping plan this?”
“Of course not, sir.” Kip lowered his head. Coppy squeezed his arm, and Kip flicked his tail back in response. “It is unfortunate that the demon who is always here by the gates wasn’t watching, that’s all. Luckily for me, a sorcerer did appear to witness my part in it.”
“What? Who?”
Windsor stepped forward. “Penfold claims that Jaeger was present and can verify his claim that he did not set the fires.”
“Who else would’ve set the fire?” Farley cried, pointing at Kip. “He tried to burn us!”
“Jaeger.” Patris scoffed, ignoring the outburst. “Since when has he taken an interest in anything outside the Tower?”
“You may ask him that yourself,” Windsor said, “but until that moment, I suggest we move indoors. There we can take roll of the students and see if perhaps one is missing.” He met Kip’s eyes.
“Yes, yes, fine.” Patris looked murder at Kip one more time and then swept past him, bringing Farley and Carmichael in his wake. Kip stepped back as the two bullies passed by, and then waited for Master Windsor to follow before he and Coppy brought up the rear. But Windsor stayed in step with the two of them. “What happened, Lutris?” he asked.
“I was asleep…” Coppy hesitated. “I don’t know how they got in.”
“I didn’t lock the door behind me when I left.” Kip cursed. “I’m sorry, Coppy. It’s my fault.”
“They had the gag in and I couldn’t cast any magic.”
Master Windsor kept striding straight ahead. “Spellcasting without vocalizing is an advanced technique.”
“Maybe we should learn it sooner,” Kip said.
The sorcerer glanced sideways at him. “In a week, we will see whether that question will be relevant at all. Given the difficulty in mastering even the vocalized version—”
“Oh, leave me alone!” Coppy cried. “I’ve done my best for weeks, and I was just attacked and hung in the air and smashed into a Tower and I’m sorry if I wasn’t able to levitate a few rocks. It doesn’t seem like that would’ve helped me very much fifty feet in the air, thank you!”
Master Windsor stopped dead in his tracks while Patris and the others kept going. Coppy’s white breath dissipated in the wintry air between all three of them. Kip swallowed and bit his lip, both he and Coppy watching Windsor. The sorcerer’s face had a shocked cast, and he opened his mouth, but then closed it again without saying anything and inclined his head.
Coppy, as surprised as Kip and Windsor by his speech, spoke again cautiously, in his normal tone. “I don’t know why they didn’t just keep beating me against the Tower.”
“I think they were waiting for me. They wanted me to burn the tent.” Kip felt again the flush of shame, that all of what had befallen Coppy this morning had been because of him, that he’d gotten his friend injured and almost more severely hurt.
The otter patted Kip on the shoulder. “It looks that way, but I still don’t understand how Farley restrained himself.”
“Because someone was telling him to.” Kip looked back at the lawn and the still-smoking practice tent as they approached the great wooden doors of the Tower. “I suppose we’ll find out who in a moment.”
In the Great Hall, Patris turned to the five of them. “Wait here,” he said tersely, and then, “Burkle! Gather all the students in this Hall in five minutes. Tell me immediately if anyone is not present.”
“Yes, sir,” came the demon’s disembodied voice, and the peppermint tingle disappeared from Kip’s nose.
He rubbed it and went over to the fireplace to talk to the elementals. They’d roused themselves and were watching the activity eagerly. “What’s the do?” one asked Kip as Coppy came up behind him.
Quickly, he told them, and they shuffled around happily. “Fire, eh?” “Did you start it?” “Was it big?” “Was it hot?”
“Not so big or hot, and no, I didn’t start it.” Kip hushed them as students stumbled down the stairs, watching each one for the familiar blond hair, knowing he wouldn’t see it. Eleven students assembled in the Hall, Adamson nowhere among them, and then Emily joined them from the basement, going to stand next to Malcolm with a questioning glan
ce at Kip and Coppy. The Calatians looked back at their friends and the other students standing where the desks normally appeared for their classes.
Patris counted them, then smoothed down his unruly mane of hair. “Ahem,” he said. “We have had an incident…”
And then one more set of footsteps clattered down the stairs. Victor Adamson hurried into the Hall, smoothing his hair back in a motion very similar to the Headmaster’s. Kip gaped as he took his place with the other students. “Sorry to be late,” he said.
When the fox turned back to the front of the room, Patris’s worry was gone. “Please be punctual in the future, Adamson,” he said. “Now as I was saying, we had an incident this morning in which four of your classmates fought using sorcery. While the level of skill displayed was indeed impressive, the conduct displayed during the fight was not at all what we wish to see from our future sorcerers. As you are taught more dangerous spells, the ability to do serious damage to each other will come in line with the temptation to use it, especially where certain elements are present in the school.” His eyes lit on Kip, and the fox’s fur bristled. Of course, he thought bitterly, Patris would be of the mind that the entire fight was his fault simply for existing. “But,” Patris went on, “the tests of restraint and judicious conduct you face will be as important as the tests you are given in this room. I am sorry to say that the four students involved in this fight have all failed that test today. With the Selection so close, I will levy no punishment other than the full report of their conduct to the body of sorcerers here, so that their character is made plain to everyone who might be considering Selecting them as apprentices.”
Kip opened his mouth to ask how Coppy had failed an examination of restraint by allowing himself to be tied up and flung about, but he caught Master Windsor’s eye as his mouth opened, and the glare from the sorcerer stopped him cold. He balled his paws into fists and looked instead at Victor Adamson as the boy rubbed at his forehead. Adamson was not looking at him, but at Patris, maintaining a composed, almost vacant expression.
“The thirteen of you,” Patris went on, “should not be too pleased, even if you think this improves your own chances of Selection. Any of you might be in the same situation. If you have the good fortune to be Selected as apprentices, your behavior will be held to still higher standards.”
Coppy put a paw on Kip’s shoulder. The fox tried to relax at the friendly touch, but couldn’t keep his mind from leaping ahead. Would Odden still Select him? Would Patris’s lies be enough to convince the sorcerer Kip had thought of as his salvation that the fox would be too much trouble? He looked again at Adamson, and again felt the fire in his chest, stronger even than the blaze at his back. This boy had ruined—or at least severely damaged—Kip’s chances to study sorcery. It didn’t matter that he’d done everything right. Patris needed only the tiniest shred of an excuse to dismiss him, as his father had warned him, and Adamson knew that. And now it was all for naught. His parents’ ruined business, his failed engagement, all of it had come to nothing because of Adamson, Farley, and Patris, three people out of thirty who hated him only because of his fur. At least, he knew that of Patris and Farley. Adamson he could only guess at.
When Patris dismissed them, Kip strode quickly along the carpet, ignoring Malcolm and Emily, and caught Adamson by the elbow. “A word, if you would?” he said tightly. He could still smell the drying milk on his clothes and in his fur, so strongly that he was sure everyone else could, too.
Victor did not so much as wrinkle his nose. “Of course,” he murmured, and followed Kip to the back corner of the hall. Coppy, Malcolm, and Emily followed, but at a distance, hanging back when Kip warned them off with a shake of his head.
“I was afraid things might come to this,” Adamson said when he and Kip reached the wall. “Farley has been talking—”
Kip interrupted him, his eyes fixed on the shiny red mark below the blond hair. The scent of ash and smoke hung all around Adamson, as clear to him as the straw-blond hair or the ice blue eyes. “That’s an unfortunate burn,” he said. “Piece of the tent fall on your head, did it?”
Adamson’s eyes narrowed. “Last night, I was—“
“The mark’s fresh,” Kip said, “and you stink of fire. How did you get back into the Tower?”
Behind Adamson, Coppy stood up straighter, then whispered explanations to Malcolm and Emily. Good. At least they would be able to hear. Adamson either didn’t see them or didn’t care. If anything, his slight smile curved upward. “I’m surprised you have to ask, since you should be intimately familiar with it.”
Stung, the fox asked himself, how would one get into the Tower without anyone else seeing—and then he realized. “The calyx’s entrance.”
“Ironic that I should have to use it.” The boy rubbed at his forehead.
“So all your talk of restraining Farley, of building understanding…”
“Oh, don’t be juvenile.” Adamson leaned against the wall. “I mean you no harm. Though you may not see it, I am doing you a favor.”
“A favor? By trying to get me expelled?” Kip held up a paw as Malcolm started forward.
For the first time Adamson took note of the others. He glanced their way, then back at Kip, but as he spoke, he shot sideways glances at Kip’s friends. “Yes, a favor. You know that progress comes in fits and starts, not all in one grand gesture. Sorcery is all well and good, but there’s no spell that will accustom people to a Calatian sorcerer. You’ve done quite well in your studies here and you’ve proven to several sorcerers that there is no reason a Calatian can’t cast spells. But to earn the rank of full-fledged sorcerer?” He shook his head. “The forces arrayed against you will be vast and merciless. You have not heard the conversations I’ve heard among the sorcerers here, the shocking sentiments some of them have expressed. You think Farley is bad only because he wears his hatred like a tunic for all to see, but I tell you there are people in the school who feel twice as strongly and have ten times the power he does. If you leave now, you will be able to serve as a very valuable calyx to any—”
“I’ll never be a calyx,” Kip said. “Never.”
“Whatever path you choose, you’ve opened a door for others to walk through. In a generation, perhaps another Calatian will come along with a truly extraordinary talent and your short stay at this college will inspire him. The sorcerers will remember you and the otter and will say, maybe this time one of them will succeed. More will rally to support him, and he may even be Selected.”
“I could’ve been Selected if not for your interference.”
Adamson reached out to Kip’s shoulder, but the fox brushed his hand away. The blond boy let it fall to his side. “Perhaps you could have, but history is not kind to the pioneers, the trailblazers. Look at those who squawk of revolution in Boston now. Do you think John Adams would dare to be so vocal if not for his late cousin’s words of thirty years ago?”
“I hardly think that his cousin’s execution eased his path.”
“It inspired him. Kip, I like you. Why else would I have given you the chance to get rid of your hated enemy?”
Kip stared. “You wanted me to kill Farley? Your friend?”
Adamson’s expression remained neutral. “The opportunity was there. You’d be leaving the school either way.”
“I’d be tried for murder!”
“It’s a moot point now.” Adamson spread his hands. “It’s over, Kip. Let another Calatian bear the next burden. You’ve done enough.”
Kip stared back into the blue eyes. He was no dab at reading people’s faces, but he knew enough to tell the difference between the genuine friendship Emily and Malcolm held for him and the calculated words of this intellectual. “Not yet,” he said, and stomped across the hall to fetch Master Windsor.
Windsor did admit that Adamson smelled of smoke, waving away the boy’s objections and silencing him more effectively than anyone else Kip had seen attempt that feat. “It proves nothing save that he might have been there
,” he said. “But Master Jaeger did indeed testify in your favor to Patris, for all the good that will do.”
“How much good will it do?” Kip asked bitterly.
Emily, Coppy and Malcolm came up around him, standing close as if the smell of milk didn’t bother them. “He didn’t start any fires,” Emily protested before Windsor could respond. “Coppy was attacked and Kip reported the attack to a Master! What else could they have done?”
“Not been Calatian,” Malcolm said.
Emily rounded on him and began furiously, “If you’re not going to help—”
“He has the right of it,” Windsor interrupted. “Perhaps it is not yet the time for a Calatian sorcerer.”
“I can’t accept that.” Emily looked Windsor in the eye. “There’s no rules, no institutions deciding it. There are always going to be people who hate them for what they are. If now is not the time, then when? When they’ve been kept under heel for another hundred years? A thousand years? Who decides when it’s time if not them?”
“Times are made by people,” the master replied. “If you’ve learned nothing else from my history lessons then I hope you have at least learned that. For great change to occur, great sacrifice is required, and in addition a measure of luck and timing and all the right people as well. There will always be those who fight against change, and when there are enough fighting for it to overcome those fighting against it, then the time is right. But not before.”
“I think there are enough here,” Emily said.
“Today’s events would appear to prove you wrong,” Windsor said. “I am sorry.”
“If you think we have potential,” Kip said, “then you can…”
But he trailed off as Windsor shook his head. “That I am sorry for your departure does not mean that I am fighting on your side. I hope that we may maintain our acquaintance following your departure. I will see you in history class this afternoon.” With that reminder that today was a school day and classes were to start soon—unnecessary, as Burkle was arranging desks behind them and Patris had taken his place at the lectern—he turned and left them.