by Tim Susman
“Ah, I can’t do that,” Broadwood said. “I can’t leave you and the others. I can see doing more than I was ordered to, but I can’t shirk my duty.”
“Very good. I understand. All right. I will go myself.” And before the other could reply or he could reconsider, Kip called magic and an image of the Founders Rest, and he was in New Cambridge and the moon was high.
For once he was thankful for his fox’s form. The sentries at the gate raised their rifles only halfway before seeing the points of his ears, and then they lowered them. “Thought you were all supposed to be inside,” the one on the left said.
“I’m Kip Penfold, sorcerer,” Kip said, and their eyes widened. “I’m here to tell you that there are going to be perhaps a hundred more Calatians arriving here, and you’re to let them into the Tower. We will be here in a day or two to decide their disposition.”
The sentries looked at each other. “Ah,” the one on the left said, “Do these orders come from…”
They bore only a private’s insignia. “They come from me,” Kip said. “Lieutenant Penfold. I’ll thank you to observe them.”
They looked uncertain, but the one on the right said, “Very good, sir,” and that was enough for Kip.
Sending himself back to the barge was tricky, but he keyed in on Alice and appeared next to her. After a quick embrace and explanation, he made his way to Broadwood and told him to start sending people to the Inn with instructions to climb the hill and present themselves at the gates. With that process started and little to worry about from the river, Kip dismissed Nikolon to give the demon some rest from the stress of being in this world.
The next few hours were a haze of locks, translocating, and lovely green countryside. Around the town of Oxford they worried because the shores were crowded with students, but as Malcolm observed, students at University were even more occupied with themselves than most people, and his inattention ward barely had to do any work on them at all.
A little before sunset, the captain warned that they were approaching Lechlade. Broadwood had cleared the deck of the barge enough that they could likely dock without arousing suspicion, but getting the remaining Calatians off the ship would be more difficult. Alice suggested as they floated past an empty green field that they could simply lift the boat over to that field and let everyone disembark, and this the captain flatly rejected.
So in the end, they steered toward a riverbank at an unoccupied part of the Thames that was relatively quiet. A lock was visible up the river, but the captain told them there would be no better option past this point, so Kip had to hope that Malcolm’s wards would work until they got everyone to safety. The riverbank here was low and muddy in the rain, sloping up to a patchy meadow beyond which a small forest of elm trees stood with new leaves.
Abel sent his cubs to the College but refused to go himself; so too did Grinda, whose family remained on the Isle of Dogs because, she said, “I wouldn’t risk some of the last of the wolves to this foolish endeavor.” As she disembarked past Kip, walking the unsteady boards they had put up between the boat and the shore, she gave him a haughty look but did not say a word.
He’d hoped for some approval, having gotten them to this point without incident, but silence was better than nothing. When Abel had seen the last of the Calatians off the barge, he stepped past Kip onto the plank. “Coming?”
“As soon as I’ve paid the captain.” Kip translocated back to his attic room, found the wallet, and came back to the barge. Malcolm was just helping Broadwood disembark as Kip walked over to the wheel and the captain leaning on it.
“Thank you for your help.” Kip held the wallet out.
The captain took the wallet and counted the money inside. “Thank you for the coin.”
“I hope we can count on your silence.”
The man peered up at him. “I’ve no call to talk to anyone about aught but my cargo. Can’t speak for my crew, though.”
“Two days.” Kip held up two fingers. “That’s all we need.”
The captain shrugged. “Did you bring more coin to pay them?”
After a moment of silence, Kip said, “Whatever you can do, we would appreciate,” and when it became clear that there would be no response, he walked across the plank and onto the shore.
In the end, Broadwood sent over a hundred Calatians ahead to the College before fatigue overtook him. Many of them left behind the food they’d brought, so everyone had a dinner of sorts, if not quite as much as they might have liked. After consulting with Abel, Malcolm, and Alice, Kip decided it would be best to strike out for the coast during the night, when many of the Calatians had good night vision and they would be less likely to encounter anyone else. According to the maps they’d consulted, the heavily traveled road from Lechlade ran southwest to Bristol where it met Eastgate, the official beginning of the Road. They could travel south of that road and in forty miles or so they would encounter the Bristol Channel, which the Road ran down on its way to the Atlantic Ocean. From there, it would be another hundred miles along the Road before they were in the open sea where the American ship could meet them.
So, Kip calculated, one night and one day to get to the coast, and then another day during which he and Alice could fly the group of Calatians to the Road, taking turns so as not to exhaust either of them. They both could handle the weight, at least for a short period of time, but their original plan had only accounted for a hundred Calatians, and Kip was not confident in his ability to manage nearly two hundred separate people. If they had something like the boat, it would be easier, but there was no time to find nor build anything of the appropriate scale.
If they had help, though, they could levitate the Calatians for more of the journey than the ocean crossing, and perhaps speed their escape. Kip summoned Nikolon back again and asked whether the demon would be able to help levitate a number of Calatians.
All of those assembled here? Nikolon asked.
Up to that many, yes.
I don’t believe so. A more powerful demon might be able to.
Thank you. Now please scout ahead and make sure we are walking toward the coast and that we are not going to cross paths with any other people or encounter a town or another road.
If a demon could lift the Calatians, that would save them a great deal of time. But a more powerful demon…Kip would need a second-order one, he’d have to use blood to summon and bind it, and most importantly, he would need to know its name. The only names he had access to were fourth-order demons he’d copied out of Cott’s book while studying it, and a fourth-order demon, though he was confident he could bind it, was powerful enough that he probably couldn’t hold it for ten minutes, let alone the time necessary to transport a bunch of Calatians along the Road. Unless…
Nikolon. Could a more powerful demon translocate this group of Calatians?
Not in the manner you mean, no.
That answer startled Kip. In what manner could they translocate them?
A demon could bring them back to the demon home, but we cannot then take them back to your world.
How do you know this?
There was a pause before the answer. All demons have tried to break through to your world unsummoned. We are unable.
What if I banished you without unbinding you and then summoned you again from somewhere else? Could you bring them with you?
You may try if you feel so inclined.
Would a person from my world survive unharmed in the demon world?
Who can say what you consider harm? I have never seen a person from your world in the demon world so I cannot say.
That was not very inspiring. Perhaps another time, Kip said.
Your course is true, Nikolon said.
Thank you.
As he walked, he reviewed his options for finding the name of a second-level demon. The Thames had disappeared behind them when he hurried to catch up to Malcolm. “How are you faring?” he asked.
“As well as someone who’s spent eight hours sl
eeping propped up against a cold rail on a boat and now has to walk twelve more hours, all while keeping two hundred people warded.” His friend smiled. “Conversation helps, though.”
Kip lowered his voice. “Do you have any thoughts on where I might find the name of a second-order demon? Other than in the books that are in places we can’t get to?”
Malcolm thought. “I believe Master Vendis had a few demon names scribbled down in his office. We didn’t go through them very thoroughly, did we?”
“There hasn’t been time.” Kip sucked in a breath. “Time now, though.”
“If you’re sure you’re of a mind to leave this lovely night and this fragrant company. I swear though we’ve left the Thames behind I can still smell it on my clothes.”
“Didn’t your ma or da say something about that?” Kip asked.
Malcolm’s grin flashed white in the dim light. “Me ma and da were very silent on the subject of English rivers in my childhood. What do you want a second-order demon for?”
Kip explained, and his friend nodded thoughtfully. “The time saved is worthwhile. And it would free your attention and Alice’s—well, you’ll still have to manage the demon, I suppose.”
“I trust myself to manage a demon more than to keep nearly two hundred people levitated.”
Malcolm laughed shortly. “I don’t know what I love more, that you said those words or that they make perfect sense to me. But aye, if you’ve a couple hours to make a study of the offices of the masters, you might well find something there of use.”
“It feels presumptive to search the offices of the masters while they’re not there.”
“Then start with the ones who’d begrudge you the least. Vendis, Odden, Argent.”
“Odden kept his demon names in the book, I know that.” Kip rubbed his whiskers.
“Alternately,” Malcolm said, “start with Patris and see if you can’t find something to make him a bit easier to deal with when this is all over.”
“Hah.” Kip’s ears perked. “They cleared out Windsor’s office, didn’t they?”
“I’d guess so. It’s been a year.”
“All right. I’ll start with Vendis and Argent and then see what may happen after that.”
He sought out Abel and Alice to tell them where he was going and to assure them that he wouldn’t be gone longer than an hour, and then told Broadwood to keep an eye on them while he was gone. The young sorcerer objected to Kip leaving enough that Kip promised to come back and check in every half hour rather than simply completing his task.
The sentries at the College were none too pleased to see him again. “Is that all that’s coming in?” one demanded. “We’d like to lock the gates and not open them again every five minutes.”
“There’s just me,” Kip said, “and I may be coming back every half hour or so. Lock the gates while I’m out.”
They grumbled but let him through. He walked down the familiar path to the stately White Tower, not as decorated or ornate as the buildings he’d seen in England, but more dignified in its solitary austerity. It had been a month or more since he’d walked through the great doors in the tower to find the hall empty and the phosphorus elementals gone. Now he stepped into the Great Hall and found no phosphorus elementals, but a thick crowd of Calatians and the miasma of their combined scents.
They rushed to him with a host of questions. Nobody had told them where to sleep. Were they to sleep in the hall here? The other Calatians from upstairs hadn’t known they were coming. Would there be food?
He tried to calm them. “There will be food,” he said. “I’ll tell Old John at the inn to send some up. I can’t arrange more until we’re done getting the rest of your fellows here, and that might be two more days. As for sleeping, arrange it as you would like. Would it help to have a fire in the fireplace?”
Many of the thicker-furred Calatians didn’t care, but some thought a fire would be good for the children; it was chillier than in London. So Kip sparked a magical fire and showed them where the basement was, where there would be fuel and still more room to sleep, if the New Cantabrigians hadn’t also taken that space. He still didn’t want to go down there himself to look.
When he went upstairs to the masters’ chambers, he found them similarly crowded with Calatians, many asleep but some awake and wondering what was happening downstairs. He stopped twice to explain before he arrived in Master Argent’s chambers, where the Coopers had pushed two apprentice cots together and the three of them had squeezed onto the makeshift bed. Kip eased past them into the office.
At least it seemed the townspeople respected the masters’ offices, or else they had been told not to enter them. Argent’s had not been disturbed, and Kip found Vendis’s also empty and dark.
A year and a half ago, Master Odden had set him the task of learning how to hold flame in his paw. He hadn’t mastered it until recently, and he suspected that the way he’d learned to do it was not the way Odden wanted; it was an advanced technique of fire sorcery that he’d learned, where Odden had expected that a student would be able to learn it with little more than a fire spell. Holding a fire in one paw would give him better light but leave him only one paw to search with, so he kindled a magical fire in the brazier and used both paws to search, sometimes taking papers over to the brazier to examine them more closely.
A knock came at the open door. He perked his ears as a familiar voice said his name, and then a fox and hedgehog came into the office: Thomas Cartwright and Bryce Morgan. “Benjamin told us you’d come back,” Thomas said. “Came to get us, actually.”
“He came to get me,” Bryce corrected. “And I brought Thomas along because, well, you’re both foxes. What’s this about bringing another hundred Calatians here from London? How long is this going to go on?”
Thomas’s nostrils flared. “And why are you so wet? I haven’t heard a storm outside.”
Kip raised a paw. “Good evening, gentlemen. I’m sorry to intrude. These are refugees from the Isle of Dogs in London, where it has been raining all day.”
“Are they to settle in New Cambridge, then? We’ll be glad to have them, of course, but the town must prepare—we’ve never had so many come at once—”
“Mr. Morgan,” Kip said. “I don’t know where they’ll end up settling. But we wanted to get them out of England.”
“You see,” Thomas said. “I told you there would be a good reason.”
Whether Alice’s father was defending Kip because of their common species or because he truly respected him now, Kip couldn’t tell. “I know it would be wonderful to have so many more families here,” he said, “but some of them may want to go to Peachtree, or New York or Boston. Some may even want to return to London when the war is over.”
“But they’re refugees, you said.” Bryce frowned, and Thomas’s ears canted toward Kip.
“They’re unhappy with their treatment during the war,” Kip said. “And to get them out, I had to get the support of the Army, so they may be treated as prisoners. I don’t really know. I’m not supposed to be in charge of this, but Colonel Jackson didn’t leave anyone else so I’m making all the decisions.”
Thomas nodded. “I’ll go down with Bryce and we’ll welcome them and make sure everyone has some food. We’ve got a bit left over.”
“I meant to go tell Old John,” Kip said. “I’ll do that before I go. You all should stay here in case there’s another attack. And thank you. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know beforehand.”
The hedgehog smiled. “We’re all in this together, aye? What else did you come back for? Can we help at all?”
Kip shook his head. “I need something to make the rest of the mission easier. We wore out our translocational sorcerer so we can’t send any more people back here, and we’re currently walking across England with two hundred Calatians that I presume the English Army will be looking for any minute now, depending on how long it took the sorcerers to figure out what was going on.”
This alarmed both fox
and hedgehog. “Will they come here looking for them?” Thomas asked.
“No. This place is warded well. And Malcolm is warding the others, and we have demons watching over them. If the sorcerers had an idea of where they were, they might be able to do something, but as it stands they shouldn’t be able to find them. Still, I shouldn’t be gone long. I’m just going to look through some of these offices, then I’ll go down to the Inn.”
“All right.” Bryce disappeared, but Thomas remained behind.
Kip guessed what the older fox wanted. “Alice is with me. Well, not here, but she’s with the mission.”
Thomas nodded slowly. “Take care of her,” he said.
“Actually.” Kip smiled. “She’s been sort of taking care of me. But yes, I promise no harm will come to her if it is at all within my ability to prevent it.”
The fox managed a smile. “You know, I believe you.”
“Could you do me a great favor?” Kip asked. “There are two fox cubs, Arabella and Aran. Their father is a very dear friend of mine. Could you make sure they are safe and well fed?”
“Arabella and Aran,” Thomas repeated. “I’ll gladly do that.” He raised a paw and left the office.
More than the fire warmed Kip as he rummaged through Vendis’s papers. It wasn’t until he opened the desk and found a pile of older papers that he found what he needed: on a scrap of parchment was written the name “Valkuni” with a “2nd” scribbled next to it.
He’d taken the parchment and was about to leave when it occurred to him that he should try the summoning here to make sure that the name was a demon, that it was controllable, and that it could do what he wanted. So he closed the office door, sat down on the stone floor, and performed the summoning, ready to banish it if it turned out to be more powerful than he was prepared for.
Valkuni appeared as a great frost-blue sea serpent in a cloud of icy mist. It was indeed only a second order demon, and when Kip had bound it and asked whether it could levitate two hundred people and carry them for miles, it replied in a crackly affirmative as though talking through the breaking ice of a lake in springtime. He dismissed it and stowed the paper back in Vendis’s desk after committing the name to memory.