~~~
“When can we go again?” Tarin sat beside Bayan in the Dining Hall. The room buzzed with dozens of newnik conversations, making it hard to hear each other. “I’m ready for another cold night of fun.”
Calder raised his eyebrows, but Eward only grinned. “I knew the solitary would be good for you.”
Tarin grinned back and ripped her slice of bread in two. “You’ve no idea. When do you think we can—”
“—Not interested!” Doc Theo’s voice rang out from the row of tables behind the one they occupied, near the staff end of the room. Tarin paused, and Bayan saw in her eyes a flash of concern for Doc Theo. Most students gave the disturbance no more than a glance, but the teachers’ voices were loud enough for Bayan and the others at his table to hear everything.
“Doc Theo!” Diantha gripped the loose fold of his sleeve. “Doc Theo, please sit down.”
Doc Theo promptly stood up, raising his glass. “I’d like ter propose a toast,” he slurred, “to our very own greedy bastard: our dear Master Iggy. He’s selfishly stolen from hunnerts of good, honest students, an’ from the campus itself.” Ignoring calls for him to hush and sit, he turned and saluted Master witten Oost with his glass. “I dunno ‘bout you, but I’d be more ‘n happy to observe the great master p’form his superior tricks an’ return us our time, respect, an’ all the favors an’ things that done got sucked into the dark hole of his pers’nal greed.”
“Theo! That is enough!” Headmaster Langlaren was also on his feet.
“No, no, it’s all right,” said Master witten Oost. “He’s clearly disturbed, Headmaster. I’ve sensed it for some time, and I’m aware of Diantha’s failed healing attempts. He’s only getting worse. Perhaps we should consider giving him a respite.”
“I’d be happy to step up and handle the Chantery while Doc Theo recovers,” Diantha offered. She repeatedly batted away Doc Theo’s fingers as he attempted to stick them into all the wine glasses he could reach.
Langlaren sighed. Even his bushy white sideburns seemed to droop. “That might be necessary, yes. I’ll arrange for one of the junior chanters to look in on him—”
“I’m sorry, Headmaster,” witten Oost said. “I’m afraid you misunderstand. I’ve received the sense that Theo’s condition is being caused by too much time in a direct magical clash. In short, being around elemental magic, being here on our very campus, is affecting his mind. It won’t be long before it affects his magic as well. I believe the only place that can help Theo now is the Temple of Ten Thousand Harmonies.”
“Send him back, like damaged goods?” Langlaren asked. “Theo has saved the lives of untold hundreds of duelists. Before that, he roamed the empire at the will of the emperor, giving his services wherever they were needed, and was especially vital during the Raqtaaq Wars. The man can be credited with the success of four separate battles all by himself. I am not shipping him off. We can request a singer to portal here, if you think it will help.”
Master witten Oost frowned. “I can see how you’d think that will be a sufficient substitute, Headmaster, but the Temple is perfectly suited to Theo’s needs. He doesn’t need us. He does need the singers. In fact, he specifically needs to avoid us. You, me, and every other duelist in the room—our magic is what’s causing this problem.”
Langlaren sent a stricken look at Doc Theo, who had allowed himself to be distracted into arranging his peas into concentric circles on his plate. Fingering the stem on his glass, the headmaster shook his head. “I’ve never heard of such a malady. I’ll want to conduct some research before I agree to any such order.”
Witten Oost pursed his lips. “Very well, Headmaster, if that is your decision. But I fear your delay may cause further irreparable harm. That is all I shall say on the matter.”
Diantha led Doc Theo from the table, promising him chocolate when they reached his home. Since Bayan’s table was next to the one that seated the staff, he doubted any other students had heard much of the teachers’ discussion. He looked into the faces of his hexmates. “Is there anything we can do?”
“I canna tell if we should do anything,” Calder whispered back. “You remember what he was like. What Diantha said.”
Bayan poked a fragment of cabbage with his fork and swirled it through its sour dressing. “Kiwani would be devastated if he left.”
Tarin took a drink from her cup, then nodded as she swallowed her lemonwater. “Aye. He saved her life the night you two dueled.” Eward added a more critical point in a whisper. “And he’s the only person in the empire, aside from Kiwani’s parents and us hexmates, who knows everything about that night.”
Bayan remembered the blond assassin, Kiwani’s blood on the rocks, and the secret not even Kiwani saw coming, revealed in Doc Theo’s emergency healing session on the floor of his home: she possessed no Waarden blood, and was not her parents’ daughter, nor the child the old emperor Hedrick had blessed and made a ceremonial ward. Such a secret possessed political ramifications that, in the wrong hands, could weaken the emperor’s image and give power to his enemies at court.
With Doc Theo potentially leaving campus, taking with him Kiwani’s secret and the knowledge of how to deal with it, Eward’s point drove painfully into Bayan’s mind. “I’ll talk to Kiwani about it when she comes back. It’s her secret.”
~~~
Overnight, a lot more changed on campus. Bayan, Eward, and Calder woke to rumors shouted up and down the hall, though to be fair, they were being shouted by Taban and Cormaac as a way to wake everyone up a little early for breakfast.
Someone kicked repeatedly on the door next to Bayan’s, then Cormaac’s boisterous voice rang out. “Did you hear, you lazy ingrates? Doc Theo’s killed the headmaster!”
Eward slipped off the edge of his bunk with an annoyed growl and yanked open the door. Bayan and Calder joined him. Taban gleefully ignored them as he ran past, thumping his fist on all the still-closed doors. “No, you moron. He’s gone crazy since he witnessed the headmaster killing the Master!”
“No one can kill the Master,” Cormaac called back. His voice migrated from right to left as he pounded down the barracks’ second-story hallway. “It’s he who killed Langlaren, and now he’ll rule us all!” The boys’ gruesome laughter receded down the stairwell, leaving Bayan, his hexmates, and the other Avatar students standing in their doorways, grumbling tiredly.
Calder rubbed at his eyes with pale fingers. His motion stretched the flame-shaped scar that marked his right cheek. “None of that better be true.”
“Any of those choices would be horrific for the whole campus,” Eward said.
“Aye, but I’m more interested in pounding Taban for lying at this unsintly hour of the morning,” Calder replied.
Since there was no more sleep to be had, the three got dressed and headed across campus for breakfast. The dining hall was abuzz with rumor when they arrived, though; most tables were surrounded by talking instead of eating.
Tarin slapped her tray down on the table. “Have you heard?”
“Aye, we’ve heard it all, and then some,” Calder replied. “Trouble is, we can’t tell what’s fancy and what’s fact.”
“What have you heard?” Eward took a bite of his porridge.
Tarin sat, then leaned forward conspiratorially. “I passed Instructor Wekshi talking to the other elemental instructors in the tunnel to the Chantery. She said something about starting an interview process for a new Hexmagic instructor.”
“What happened to Master witten Oost?” Bayan asked.
“Good morning, students.” Master witten Oost’s voice boomed from the staff table behind them. Bayan spun on the seat of his chair, surprised by the instructor’s stealthy entrance. His eyes narrowed as he saw the master standing before the headmaster’s chair.
Witten Oost spoke again. “I’m afraid I have a few solemn announcements for you. If everyone could please give me your attention.”
~~~
Bayan stood with his hex in the san
d of the Shock Arena. Other hexes clustered up nearby as they awaited Instructor Ithrakis’ belated appearance. They muttered about qualifications for leadership and true masters needing freedom. No one made a real effort to warm up. “This is a nightmare. How could Master—Headmaster—witten Oost get all those changes made overnight?”
“He is a Master Duelist, Bayan,” Eward said.
Bayan let out a frustrated sigh. “No, I mean, shouldn’t there have been a review, a committee, a vote, something? You can’t just boot the Headmaster of the Duelist Academy. He’s a Hexmagic Duelist, for Bhattara’s sake. He doesn’t belong in charge of Peace Village. And witten Oost practically banished Doc Theo! Sending him all the way to Pallithea in his condition, despite Langlaren’s perfectly reasonable suggestion to try and treat him here, seems… well, it just doesn’t make any sense. But it seems ‘Master Iggy’ just waved a finger, and the world changed for him.”
Tarin cleared her throat and kept her eyes on the coarse sand underfoot. “I think that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work for Master Duelists, Bayan. Their magic is stronger—different—than ours.”
“It’s not right, though, what happened,” Bayan insisted. “Why is it acceptable to change the world to suit your own needs? What about those lives you’d disrupt? Shouldn’t a Master Duelist be looking out for all the empire’s citizens?”
“Bayan, Master witten Oost dinna ask for the position of Headmaster. The emperor gave it to him.”
Bayan gave Tarin a look of disappointment. “And you don’t think a Master Duelist could change the emperor himself, so he’d do exactly that?”
Eward twitched his Wind avatar, a thin corridor of sound-carrying air that snaked down the arena tunnel. “Snort says Ithrakis will arrive in ten beats,” he warned. The gossiping Avatar students began to spread out, ready to begin class. “What do we do about Master witten Oost’s new no-off-campus-excursions rule?”
“It’s only for our safety,” Tarin said.
A hot flash of alarm shot down Bayan’s spine. “Are you saying you’re done with Savantism?”
Tarin flushed and shook her head. “I’ve no idea what would happen if I stopped now. And passing Avatar is too important.”
Bayan nodded. So many things were suddenly too important. But at that very moment, after one of his mentors had been ripped from his life, probably never to be seen again, it seemed that the wrong person’s important things were taking place.
~~~
“And leave Bayan to his training, please,” Kipri added as the newniks streamed out the door of his classroom. “You don’t want to be responsible for his, or any of his hexmates’, failure to pass their Avatar exams.”
Several of the girls flushed and giggled as they left. None of them tried, anymore, to touch or shove the young eunuch instructor, thanks to the new crossed-arms pose he had adopted. He had Tarin to thank for that suggestion, in addition to the more authoritative tone he found himself using with his students. If he hadn’t run into her at one of the solitaries one night, he might still be stumbling around and trying too hard to relate to everyone.
“Liaison Kipri?” Sivutma had stayed behind, only approaching when the rest of the newniks had left. “I know many of my classmates idolize Bayan for being a hero. But didn’t you play a part in saving the emperor, too?”
Kipri felt his cheeks warm beneath his coppery skin, even as he registered that she hadn’t sworn once. She was already fitting in. “I did.” At her prompting, he detailed how Philo had learned of a mysterious plot and arranged for Bayan to spy on the conspirators in Muggenhem. Kipri had been the messenger, delivering Bayan’s instructions, but he’d unwittingly become part of the action when he discovered his own uncle was among the rebel assassins. He’d told Bayan what his family’s history of rebellion meant for the emperor in time for Bayan and his hexmates to save the emperor’s life.
Sivutma listened with rapt attention. When Kipri finished, she said, “What do you see in your emperor, in your empire, that makes you choose them over your own blood?”
Kipri felt an itch beneath his Waarden wig. He knew it marked him in Sivutma’s eyes as merged with their people’s conquerors. His hand, about to scratch, returned to his side. His words would be foreign enough to her. “The Raqtaaq culture puts its emphasis on loyalty to family and society, but my family betrayed my father, and me as well, to save themselves. Because of that, I grew up in the Waarden culture. It’s not perfect either—don’t get any illusions about that— but the eunuchs took me in and gave me a proper education, work experience, and now this new job. They’ve made me feel useful, which is more than I felt when my family sacrificed my father to their own ambition. They discarded me at five years old. I can’t respect that.”
Sivutma frowned as if she were in pain. “I know that feeling. My father would have killed me with a filthi—with a melon machete the very day he found out I was cursed.”
Kipri’s expression softened. “You’re not cursed. Your magic is a talent that you must learn to control.”
Sivutma clanked her iron bracelets together. “These help with control? They make me feel like a slave.”
“As I said, the Waarden Empire is not perfect. But you and I both know that you’ll have more opportunities within its borders than you’d get at home. All you need to do is work toward them instead of fighting the system.”
She pouted in thought. “I admit, it is hard to accomplish things if you’re dead. I will consider your advice, Liaison.”
~~~
At Bayan’s next Flame class, he noticed one of the students was out of uniform. “Why isn’t Aleida dressed for class?” Bayan asked Taban.
Taban, warming up with overhead stretches, wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Topped out, didn’t she? Managed five avatars—couldn’t get the sixth.”
Shocked at the suddenness of a long-time Avatar student’s sudden departure, Bayan wasn’t sure what to say. Taban didn’t seem to notice, though. He spoke almost to himself. “Guess that puts our hexes on equal numbers again. Unless Kiwani ever comes back.”
A desperation for certainty flooded Bayan. Kiwani had to come back. He—the hex—needed her. “She’s coming back. Sint Rolf’s Day is five days from now.”
A wry smile tried to lift the corner of Taban’s mouth. “Well, I’ll be feathered. You’re learning all the holidays too! Like as not because one of them belongs to you, aye? What’s an old tutor to do, when the student begins to eclipse the master?”
Instructor Takozen, tall, lean, and dark, stalked into the arena, feral smile in place. He waved Aleida into the arena center from where she stood against the inner wall next to two large travel cases. The curly-haired Akrestoi girl approached, her expression tired and downcast. “Good morning, class. Before we begin, let us take a moment to bid a farewell to one of our own. Aleida has completed as much training as she can at the Academy. She has also accepted a position in southern Aeolis, at a newly built duel den. The town is very excited to receive her.”
Takozen turned to Aleida. “We thank you, Aleida, for your training and generosity, within your hex and here with all the Avatar students. Your past efforts will continue to aid those who remain on campus for as long as they train here. Remember your legacy to these fellow duelists as you step into the emperor’s service. These are your brothers and sisters in talent and in duty. And whether we meet again in peace or in war,” he concluded, giving the traditional Academy farewell, “know that we will stand with you.”
Aleida managed a smile and thanked him, then her hexmates and all the other students, before climbing the stairs into the arena seating. She sat for the remainder of Flame class and watched Bayan and the other students perform their spells. When class was over, she picked up her travel cases, and bade each of the Avatar students a kind farewell.
“Nae, nae,” Taban said, when she tried to hug him goodbye. “I’m walking you to the edge of campus; you canna escape that easily.” He took her travel cases from her; his smug look dared
her to try and take them back.
“I’m coming too,” said Tarin. “Aleida, you’ve always been a great sparring partner. I’ll miss your Wind avatar.”
Bayan, Taban, their hexes, and all the other students ended up accompanying Aleida to the edge of campus, where the road wound toward Peace Village and the sheer valley below. As they crossed the roundabout, Bayan wondered when his last moments on campus would come. Would he leave in triumph, like Aleida, who had a new life awaiting her in a town where people welcomed her with open arms? Or would he leave in shame, like Odjin and Braam, members of his and Taban’s hex who had dueled illegally and been sentenced to potioneering for the rest of their lives?
At the last corner before Peace Village became visible, Aleida paused and turned back, taking her cases from Taban’s hands. She gave him a peck on the cheek, then grinned as he cleared his throat, flustered. “Thank you, everyone, for my life here. I wish you all success in your careers. I hope I see you soon. But not too soon!”
Another round of hugs and farewells, and Aleida, Elemental Duelist at the pleasure of the Waarden Emperor, walked out of Bayan’s life.
Secrets in the Labyrinth
When Bayan, Calder, and Eward finally returned to their room that evening, battered by yet another day of wrangling avatars, Bayan was surprised to see Kah perched on his platform in the corner.
“Kah, you’re back!” The bird cocked his head and fluttered his wings in greeting, then flew to Bayan’s shoulder and pecked his head once with a blunt beak. “Stop that. I missed you too. What’s this?” Bayan felt something in addition to Kah’s claws digging into his shoulder. He wrestled a shiny ring from the protesting bird.
Calder peered at it too. “Maybe Kiwani’s giving us a souvenir of her trip, aye?”
“This ring is carved from a pearl turtle’s shell. Kiwani said she had one of these at home.”
Eward frowned at Kah and shooed him off Bayan’s shoulder. “Stupid bird must have stolen it from her, and he’s hiding here so he won’t get in trouble for it.”
Traitor Savant (Second Seal of the Duelists) Page 7