I hoped he would disappear up the street in merry pursuit of a satisfyingly long trail, tail wagging and ears flying all the way. To my dismay — though not, I admit, to my surprise — he merely dashed around a corner, galloped several feet up a narrow alleyway in between the Academy building and its next neighbour, and stopped.
End, he said.
And I sighed, because so abrupt an ending to the trail could only mean one thing.
Susa’s abductor might be a partial or full-blooded Lokant, but either way she had access to a Lokant Library. She had taken the girl downstairs — presumably prepared to convince anybody she encountered that it was me they saw, in order to preserve the illusion that Susa had merely transferred into my school.
But the moment she was outside, she had translocated off-world into some Lokant Library somewhere, taking poor Susa with her. The girl was far, far away by now, and how could we possibly guess where?
12 IV
Gio found me earlier today in my favourite parlour, where I was sitting with Tren. We were going over the details of a funding agreement with an independent contributor (who prefers to remain nameless, so I may not document her generosity here). His purpose was to lament my lack of relevant study materials, and I could not blame him for doing so. How was he to teach any improving course of study without suitable books?
In my defence, what was I to do? ‘It is true that I have helped myself to a range of texts from Limbane’s Library,’ I told him.
‘Thirty-seven of them,’ put in Tren.
‘Thirty-seven of them,’ I confirmed. ‘They are mostly relating to the draykoni, though, and those with any relevance to Lokantkind are unlikely to be of use to you. I have one or two general histories, a few language primers, that kind of thing.’
Gio sighed. ‘It is difficult to teach any subject when the only resource at hand is the contents of one’s own head,’ he complained. ‘The random recollections of any private individual tend to emerge in no organised state, and I am bound to forget all kinds of things.’
‘I apologise,’ I informed him. ‘No, I do. I fully understand the problem. If I had happened to see any texts lying about with titles like A Conveniently Simple Account of our Own Arts, or maybe Lokant Skills and How to Use Them, I assure you I would have snagged them with alacrity, for they would have been of great help to me.’
‘Snagged?’ said Tren, one eyebrow raised.
‘Snagged,’ I repeated, with infinite dignity. ‘It is a perfectly respectable word.’
‘I wonder if Harwell’s Dictionary would agree,’ murmured he, returning his attention to the documents before him. I was not deceived. I could feel his mischievous smile, even if he had concealed it behind a casually raised hand.
‘I am not in the habit of being dictated to by a book.’
‘Not even an especially authoritative one?’
‘No. Harwell is a sad, hidebound creature, stuck forever in his paltry traditions and accepted conventions and deplorably reluctant to keep pace with the developments of modern language. I, however, am a woman of linguistic vision.’
Tren removed his hand, having by then mastered his expression, for he gave me a sober look and murmured, ‘Very true.’
I stuck my tongue out at him.
Gio was staring at us both with palpable perplexity. I recollected that he is unused to banter, and feared he might believe us both mad — or at best, impossibly frivolous. I regretted the sticking-out-of-the-tongue incident accordingly, but it was done for sound reasons. Best to move on.
I composed my face into a grave expression to match Tren’s and returned to the topic at hand. I smiled encouragingly at Gio. ‘If I give you a great deal of paper and ink and a few very good pens, do you suppose you might be able to make do?’
Gio’s response was to dissolve into consternation. I appear to evoke that feeling in the poor boy rather often. ‘I… yes, probably,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Only I do not think it will be ready before your first students arrive.’
‘Your first students, Gio,’ I reminded him with a smile, in response to which he merely turned paler.
My attempts at encouragement having summarily failed, it fell to Tren to salvage the situation. ‘You are not trying to turn out top scholars,’ he said. ‘There will be no tests for your students to pass, no examinations, no dissertations required. They merely need to develop a sound, practical knowledge of their abilities, and a degree of confidence in using them.’
‘So that we may milk their fledgling aptitude later,’ I put in, beaming.
‘And,’ Tren added with a quelling look at me, ‘It is unlikely that your students will develop a grasp for all of the possible Lokant arts. Typically, a partial will display ability for some one or two things only. So you see, you will not be teaching all things to all students.’
Gio looked a little mollified, or at any rate less likely to descend into total panic. I wondered briefly what manner of schooling he had received at Sulayn Phay, and how far he expected to follow his own pattern of education in teaching our fledgling partials.
‘Ask Ori to help,’ I suggested. ‘He has brain enough for at least six people, and motivation to match. He will have half your programme written before you can blink.’
I was pleased with myself for this idea, as it brightened Gio up immediately, and gave Ori something useful to do. I had no doubt of the truth of my words, either. Those two young men would make a formidable team at most things, I am sure, and anything remotely academic in particular. Away Gio went, taking with him the promised sheaf of paper and supply of ink and pens and what-not.
‘Cunning,’ Tren complimented me.
‘I know,’ I agreed.
‘Almost fiendishly so.’ He looked me over in an appraising way, and there was a certain gleam to his eye that made me regret the busy programme of work I had given us for the day.
‘It is why you love me.’ I returned the look, gleaming more than a little myself, and seriously considered ripping up my list of tasks-for-the-day and burning the pieces.
These budding plans — undeniably fiendish — were interrupted by the arrival of a missive. It was delivered, rather originally, by bird. I guessed this because Hayes, my butler, appeared in the parlour after a discreet knock upon the door, a slip of paper held in one hand and an expression of distaste upon his elegant features. The paper in question was curled as though it had spent some little time rolled up, and when I accepted it from him I noticed at once the traces of… aroma about the message.
I handled it with care.
Your first student arrived at headquarters, eleven hours and thirty-seven minutes past the Cloaking hour.
‘Lovely,’ I said, delighted, and passed the message to Tren. He accepted it dubiously, and discarded it upon the table-top the moment he had read it. ‘I wonder which of them it is?’
The message, I conclude, was sent by Adonia Marle, who I have installed to act as a general assistant at our new bureau building. Secretary, welcomer-of-new-arrivals, handler-of-paperwork, that kind of thing. I admit, her choice of message delivery vehicle was unexpected.
‘Let us go and meet her,’ I said, rising from the table at once.
Tren’s brows went up. ‘Are we finished here?’
‘Yes.’ I mentally swept the competing demands of paperwork aside, delighted, I confess, to have a justifiable reason for doing so.
Tren was no less so, for he rose with alacrity and followed me from the room.
It was not, perhaps, strictly necessary to take a detour to my dressing-room prior to departure, for my choice of gown was adequate to the occasion. Nor was it necessary to take Tren with me, or for either of us to take so very long about it all.
We were happier for the delay, however, so I make no apology.
Adonia Marle is not your typical administrator (supposing there can be said to be such a thing). Her choice of courier may seem odd at first, but seeing as she is a graduate of Summoner school, it is not all that surprising.
Her ability at the art is not sufficiently profound to permit her to pursue a career as a summoner, but it is not without its uses to have such a person in charge of our offices.
In other respects, though, she is somewhat… erratic. Eccentric, shall we say? She is a trifle more disorganised than one would typically prefer, though I have hopes this will improve as she grows more accustomed to her new role. Her style of dress I make no objection to, for what can it possibly matter what she wears? If she feels at her happiest, most comfortable and most confident wearing a gown of jonquil and ebony cotton, trimmed with lace and teamed with striped black-and-white boots, far be it from me to object. Happy people make for the best employees.
Today she had selected a pale green shirt of a style more usually chosen by men, paired with dark trousers (my fault there; I have become somewhat famous for my adoption of the trouser for ordinary daywear). Her abundant brown hair was swept up into a cloudily bouffant arrangement decked in violently green ribbons, and she wore a lip tint of matching hue. Her choices are startling, I admit; I have never seen her wear the same ensemble twice, either, in spite of what must be a modest budget for clothing. I cannot help admiring her boldness, or her imagination, however much my eyes might sometimes protest the combinations.
Tren and I found her in the little office we had assigned to her role. She was not sitting at her desk so much as on it, cross-legged at one end of the neatly cleared surface with a cup of tea in her hand. Seated at the opposite end was a stranger, presumably our new student. The two were sipping tea and talking animatedly with one another, and it was nice to see them getting along so well, even if their choice of seating arrangements did puzzle me.
I exchanged a bemused look with Tren, and finding him no more enlightened than myself as to what was occurring in there, I decided to ignore it.
Adonia saluted us with her tea cup as we walked in. ‘Bosses,’ she said, characteristically laconic. At least, she is usually so with us. How our new arrival managed to get her to talk so freely, I still do not know.
The lady in question put down her tea cup and spun around to face us — without uncrossing her legs or getting down from the desktop. ‘Ah!’ she cried. ‘Lady Glostrum and Mr. Warvel! How many times have I seen you both in the news! You are far more splendid in person than I dared imagine.’
This last reflection appeared to be directed more at me than Tren, as her eyes swept over my cerulean silk-velvet gown and bejewelled hair in a perfunctory once-over. I was not able to gather anything about her opinion of my splendour, for her expression gave nothing away.
She appeared to be a little older than Adonia and Tren, somewhere in her late twenties. Her hair, of course, was white, and tied back in an elaborate braid. She was soberly dressed, so much so as to look drab beside Adonia’s bedazzling ensemble. She had a pleasant face, though, and an air of cheerful friendliness which I found promising.
‘Miss Nallay?’ I hazarded.
‘Miss Heliandor Rasset,’ she corrected me. ‘Or preferably, Heli. Formality was never popular with me, and Heliandor is such a mouthful, is it not? Far too many syllables. Cannot think what my parents were about in bestowing such a name. My brother’s is still worse, would you believe? And no, before you ask, his hair is sky-black all the way through. Not so much as a single whitish strand on his whole head. My parents are the same. I am the only white-haired oddity we have, which is strange indeed, do you not think?’
She delivered herself of this speech so rapidly and with so little apparent thought, one might be tempted to dismiss her as a brainless talker. But her eyes were busy as she spoke: watching me, watching Tren, taking note of every detail of our appearances, and without losing track of Adonia in the process. I detected a shrewd appraisal going on, and concluded that, far from being vacant-headed, she had a sharp intellect.
I also mentally adjusted my estimate of her age, upwards by a few years.
‘I apologise,’ I said. ‘We are expecting two arrivals in the next day or two, but I rather thought Miss Nallay would appear first, having the least distance to travel. You have come all the way from Orstwych, have you not? I hope you had a tolerable journey.’
Pleasantries were exchanged all round, and since they were predominantly of the very smallest kind of talk, I will not bore you with them. Tren, of course, invited her to use his short name right away. I did not. It can be unwise to establish too casual a relationship early on, if one expects to be properly attended to later.
Heli did not descend from her perch atop the desk and neither did Adonia. Eventually I was able to lure the former down by proposing to show her to her quarters. The house is large enough to provide accommodation to our students on its upper floors, at least for the time being.
With Heli settled and Adonia restored to the performance of her duties (at least in theory), I had leisure to consider the problem of Miss Faronni Nallay. I was genuinely surprised to find Miss Rasset arrived first, for Miss Nallay had given her address as Amori Tovia, a town only a few hours’ carriage-ride from Glour City. What could be keeping her?
‘Perhaps she is delayed,’ Tren suggested. ‘She did not give any projected date for her arrival, did she?’
‘Not that I recall. But her letter arrived days ago — six, I think, or seven?’
‘She has a life to leave behind. It can take time to effect such a transformation of circumstances.’
He was right, of course, so I quieted my fledgling alarms and focused on the matter of introducing Gio to Heli and assisting them with the awkward business of beginning their teacher-student relationship. Gio has yet to fully accept himself in that role and began much too diffidently. Fortunately, Heli was absolutely awed by him.
Not at all to my surprise, I might add, for Gio can be an awe-inspiring figure. He appears young, but he has the gravity of a much more mature man, especially when he is uncomfortable and, consequently, reserved. He is also spectacularly good-looking, which might be considered an obstacle more than an advantage for a teacher, but it seemed to operate upon Heli in more or less useful ways. Once she had been given a demonstration of his abilities — abilities which, with time and study, could be hers — she lost her tendency to rattle on and soon became a sober and attentive student. Gio gradually remembered that he was not absolutely obliged to maintain a stiffly imposing manner at all times, and lessons proceeded apace.
I was proud. And a little excited, as juvenile as it may seem. Our bureau was operational! Our school was functional! We had premises, funding, recruits, employees, students, everything!
‘Next step, the world,’ said Tren, observing my enthusiasm with an indulgent grin.
‘At least,’ I agreed.
19 IV
It has been a week or so since the commencement of Heli’s lessons, and Ori and Gio have contrived to have their supporting materials completed, which pleases everybody. Except perhaps Heliandor herself, for they have produced seemingly endless pages between them, all of which she is expected to read in due course.
I, however, am delighted. Such excellent work, and in so short a time! I have been most effusive in my praise.
But Faronni Nallay still has not arrived. I confess myself troubled, for we have received no word from her either — no notification of delay, no estimate as to her probable time of arrival. It is as though she never existed. I have even retrieved her letter once or twice and perused it afresh, just to reassure myself that I did not imagine her altogether.
Under ordinary circumstances, one would assume the most mundane of all possible explanations to be the true one. She is delayed by some mind-numbingly ordinary occurrence. She forgot to write to inform us, or her letter went astray somewhere in between Amori Tovia and Glour City. She will turn up tomorrow, or perhaps next week, and there will be an end of it.
On we would all go with our lives.
Consider, though, the fate of Susa, and then tell me that my concern is misplaced. We do not appear to be enjoying the blissful dullness of ordinary
circumstances.
I may not have any idea, as yet, why somebody might consider it worth abducting a penniless ten-year-old girl from Sorcerer School. But in impersonating me at the time, whoever was responsible for it created a link between Susa’s disappearance and my new school. That person is worryingly well informed about our doings, has clearly been paying close attention to our activities, and I cannot imagine that such surveillance has been undertaken lightly, or without clear motive.
We must consider, then, the possibility that Faronni Nallay’s failure to arrive is not the fault of some commonplace happenstance. If, as I fear, she has been abstracted from Amori Tovia in the same way as Susa was removed from school, then she is in need of assistance and it falls to us to provide it.
I considered this full reason enough to abandon all other duties earlier today and depart the capital at once. Tren accompanies me. We go to Miss Nallay’s home in search of her.
I write this en route, though the swaying of the carriage does render it a tricky task, and my penmanship is not up to my usual standards. No matter; it is legible. I have some hopes of arriving at Miss Nallay’s house to find her still in residence, urgently occupied with the task of removing to Glour City. Tren’s disposition is more sanguine than mine, more optimistic, less cynical. He considers it likely, even, that we will find her hale and well and, above all, present.
Let us hope this shall be a victory for optimism over cynicism, for in my experience the opposite much more frequently proves true.
Spoken, of course, like a true cynic.
20 IV
I write from the best inn Amori Tovia can offer, which is not bad at all in spite of the town’s modest size. We are installed here for but one night, for our search tomorrow will soon take us beyond the borders of the town, I have no doubt.
You will guess from such a statement that Tren’s sanguine hopes were proved sadly unfounded. Let me describe the events of yesterday, as best I can.
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