King Henry Short Pack One (The King Henry Tapes)

by Richard Raley

  Raj’s face radiated concern. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

  “Probably,” King Henry said, picking the book back up and finding his page.

  “I’ll go . . . ask Pocket about it . . .” Raj decided.

  “You do that,” King Henry mumbled.

  I wasn’t ready to fucking surrender! he screamed inside his head where no one could hear it but the Mancy or God or whatever you wanted to call the Powers That Be . . . name don’t matter too much, they all fucking hated him.

  *

  “So what you testing me for this time, Quilt? Syphilis?”

  It was the same Testing Room as always: a mess of equipment you could only guess the use of, computers stacked on top of computers, paper lists tacked to the walls in wherever space wasn’t already occupied by posters each geekier than the last. There were bookshelves but not for traditional books, only for action figures still in their packaging and manga comics that had seen hard use, plus more dungeon master guides from a greater variety of tabletop RPGs than should ever exist.

  How many worlds do geeks need to play in anyway?

  But this time the Testing Room didn’t feel the same.

  Probably because it felt like King Henry was on trial.

  No idea what for.

  No idea what the penalty would be if he was found guilty.

  “It’s been two weeks since your mother’s funeral,” Quilt said, like King Henry hadn’t been aware of every minute that had gone by since he’d seen the Gap, much less being able to count to fourteen. “Students who suffer a loss in the family are required to speak with a teacher about it, to insure their mental well-being.”

  Guess it made sense. For the Asylum being what it was, filled with people each madder than the last, they got by with a surprisingly few number of suicides. One a year. Not that much higher than a normal school. Normal schools don’t give a shit though. Don’t give a shit if a somewhat pretty girl is bullied from sunup to sundown by even prettier girls, called a slut for liking the same guy, called ugly if he dares to like her back; called a whore on the internet for everyone to see, shamed so badly she can’t take it anymore. Don’t give a shit about some gay kid who doesn’t know how to deal with his body and his society telling him two different things.

  They pretended they did, there might even be the occasional cog at the place that tried his or her best, but normal schools didn’t give a shit. Don’t give a shit until after the fact, when the situation has blown up into dead kids that make really uncomfortable newspaper headlines. Long as you’re in your seat, long as you’re earning them some funding . . . it didn’t matter to them how much you’re hurting.

  Ain’t nothing more cruel in this world than locally controlled bureaucracy.

  Say what you will about the Asylum . . . they gave a shit about you. About every single one of the students. The stars, the screw ups, even the most average. Every single one of us, from Intra corpusmancers all the way up the ladder to Artificers. Once you were there, once you signed up, they took care of four-hundred new kids every year. They probably give more a shit about me than I want them to, but . . . guess I’ll have to live through emotional concern for once.

  Ain’t no Pocket equivalent to tell the teachers to leave me be and let me mourn in angry silence.

  They fucking care, you’re supposed to be happy about that.

  But King Henry wasn’t . . . and he wasn’t sure why.

  “Get on with it then,” he said, adding an I-don’t-care shrug for the hell of it.

  Russell Quilt pulled out a clipboard with a list on it . . . he’s Russell Quilt, that’s what he does. For the dementia-bound among you: Mentimancer, Intra, Head of Testing, total geek. Glasses, cords, t-shirt about Lannisters and debts or some shit.

  Quilt was younger than most of the staff and King Henry guessed he was okay for a geek. Quilt always had the best gossip and never noticed when he was spilling it. King Henry liked to spend a few hours playing card games with Quilt just to hear the latest news every Sunday but he hadn’t seen him since . . . since the Gap.

  “How are you feeling?” Quilt asked.

  Simple.

  Easy.

  ‘Fine’ would have done most days. Not now. ‘Fine’ was meaningless now. Not enough. Worthless even. King Henry glared at Quilt. They were at the same table they played cards at. King Henry in a fold-out metal chair and Quilt in a computer chair that had seen better days but he’d never bothered to replace. Nice chair, leather, heavy, could sit in it all day. But starting to crack. Starting to creak and moan and plea for an end.

  Good thing chairs can’t kill themselves or Quilt would be on his ass.

  “I’m pissed,” King Henry admitted.

  “The usual?”

  At society, he meant. At the bullshit of civilization King Henry had so often pointed out to him over the last couple years. “I don’t know. Not really . . . just . . . everything.”

  “It’s natural after what happened to you.”

  “I feel like . . . I’m back where I started.”

  Quilt wrote down something on his list. “How so?”

  “Like I was when I first came to the Asylum . . . maybe worse than that . . . before I even met Miss Dale.”

  “When you were closer to your family?”

  His eye twitched. “I was never close to them . . .”

  “Closer then than you are now.”

  “I suppose,” King Henry said, eye twitching again. “Seeing all that’s left is my dad and I can’t stand the fucker.”

  “Is that true?”

  Yes. No. Both. Guy made our home work six days a week but beat me on the seventh. It was hard for King Henry to know how he felt about his dad. “Yes. Where’s Miss Dale at? I figured she’d be the one to abduct me for this little bout of mandated lovey-dovey-feely time.”

  “The Lady believes C.D. is too close to you to form an accurate assessment of your mental well-being.”

  “Oh.”

  Guess Ceinwyn really did care.

  “She was sent on a month long recruiting spree in Southeast Asia. With C.D. that’s as close as they can come to making her take a vacation.”

  “Oh.”

  No backup if King Henry really fucked things up.

  “I’m still here for you, K.H,” Quilt said earnestly. He was an earnest guy, Russell Quilt. Earnest, but he didn’t understand like Ceinwyn Dale. Quilt stayed in the safe confines of the Asylum with the rest of them. Ceinwyn Dale went out into the field . . . she dealt in the real world. Auntie Badass got King Henry where others didn’t.

  If King Henry really fucked up . . . she’d have gotten him through it.

  Now he had to get himself through this.

  “Are you eating regularly?”

  “Yeah.”

  Check.

  “Are you sleeping regularly?”

  “Only a few hours a night.”

  Notation.

  “Why did you skip classes for a week?”

  So everyone else is safe from me, King Henry finally confessed to himself.

  “I wanted to think.”

  “About?”

  The Gap.

  “Just . . . Mom . . . wanted to remember.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  So he did.

  But not about the Gap.

  *

  “I’m sorry again, but my lady troubles have reached epic proportions!”

  King Henry was back on the Mound, this time with a stolen stack of manga novels to keep him company. As long as he returned them without too much creasing then Quilt shouldn’t throw too big of a hissy fit. King Henry was tired of school books. These had ninjas in them. It made sense at the time.

  Surprisingly lacking in tentacle sex though.

  Son, I am disappoint.

  “What Miranda do now? Take you lingerie shopping, just you two girls’ day out?”

  “I’ve told you—” Raj stopped his complaint halfway out of his mouth. He breathed in really deep, a
djusted his turban, and seemed to gain some of his usual serenity. “Miranda is my friend; I’ve been very clear on this with you for the last few months. I’ve moved on, so please stop trying to draw a reaction out of me.”

  “I bet seeing Miranda in lingerie would draw a reaction out of you—”

  Raj grabbed King Henry by the collar of his coat. Raj gave it a shake. “Epic proportions!”

  King Henry continued like he’d never been interrupted, “—though how you’d see anything I don’t know. Every time we have a swimming lesson in P.E. the reflection off her skin blinds me for three days. Maybe if you were in a dark room with some candles or some shit—”

  Another shake of the collar. “Epic proportions!”

  King Henry put down his ninja comic book. “I’m grieving here, man. You’re always telling me to be nice . . . I’m being nice by not being around all of you. Don’t you get it? Damn teachers even know it. Had me sit down for some psychoanalyzing with Quilt. I’m ready to snap, Raj. I’m barely keeping accidental anima discharges under control. I’m mad at everything for anything . . . I’m thinking about punching you right now. Not just Welf, not just Jason getting in the way, you, my fucking friend, got it?”

  Raj finally let go of the collar. “You wouldn’t.”

  King Henry sighed, not looking him in the eyes. Why do I collect so many people around me with those eyes that expect so much? Pocket, Ceinwyn, Val, Miranda, Raj. Maybe it’s good Miss Dale’s away. She’d have eyes just like Raj does and I’d lash out . . . couldn’t take it.

  “I’m so angry, man . . . I’m not thinking, just acting. And the anger? It’s the only thing keeping me going. If I let go of it . . .”

  “This is all important, and I sympathize,” Raj rushed through his manners before he reached something more important than sympathy: his penis, “I, however, somehow . . . through circumstances that I do not understand . . . have a date with Naomi this Sunday.”

  “Congratulations,” King Henry told him.

  Raj seemed confused. “Why?”

  “It’s Naomi . . . you’re about to get laid.”

  “That’s my point!”

  “How is this a problem—”

  “I’ve never had sex before!” Raj shouted. He nervously eyed the trees like they might spread this information around the campus and with floromancers, you never knew. “I’ve never had sex before!” he repeated at a whisper.

  “Double congratulations?”

  “I don’t know what . . . to do . . .”

  “Ever had an erection?”

  “Every night for the last four years.”

  “You’ll manage.”

  “But—“

  “It’s Naomi,” King Henry reminded him. “She’s had enough practice to know what to do for the both of you.”

  “You really shouldn’t talk about a girl that way, King Henry.”

  “Hey, I don’t got any problem with it. I even support it. It’s just facts: I’ve had Naomi’s vagina described to me so many times, from so many different sources, I could draw it freehand.”

  “But should I even go through with it if she offers? What will . . . other people think? If they found out about it?”

  King Henry picked his ninja book back up. “That is the kind of talk from a man who ain’t over his crush.”

  Raj sighed. “Her red hair is just so . . . beautiful.”

  Eww . . .

  *

  King Henry was walking down a hallway when Val jumped him, naked as can be, and pulled him into a storage closet. Unlike Raj, King Henry wasn’t about to question his good fortune. When Fate gets you fucked instead of fucking you over, you enjoy the rare turn of events.

  Fifteen minutes of some fine grunting and humping later, they caught their breath lying on the dusty ground with some brooms and mops they’d knocked over during their . . . activities.

  Am I a top notch romancer or what?

  Dusty storage closet . . . makes all the ladies moist like a sponge.

  King Henry breathed heavily for a time, staring up at the light fixture.

  “Why are you always naked when you pounce on me like this?” he eventually asked.

  She got a funny little smile on her face. “To better confuse my prey.”

  “Huh.”

  More breathing.

  “This mean we’re back together?”

  Silence for a bit, more like she was working out a problem than fighting with emotions, then, “No. This is just . . . this.”

  “Okay,” King Henry said, but thought, I’ll never understand this girl. He wanted to, he really did . . . but . . . if he wasn’t going to let fortune get between him and it, he surely wasn’t going to let emotion get between him and some damn good impulsive sex.

  “Ready to go again?” she asked.

  *

  He’d been to the Lady’s house a couple times before.

  It wasn’t any different from the other teacher houses. It wasn’t even among the biggest of them; not like Ceinwyn’s cabin at all—big and lonely, more a rest-stop between journeys than a lived in home. The Lady’s house was very close to the school grounds, in one of the first neighborhoods they’d built after founding the Asylum. It might have even been there as long as the school.

  It looked old-fashioned and home-made. Custom designed, back before tract homes were built by committee and laid out in a grid meant to maximize homes per space, all in an attempt to make the most profit with no concern for what living one house on top of the next house did for a person’s psychological well-being.

  She had a yard, with big oak trees, all surrounded by thick grass. There was a pond at the center and a bench next to it. During the summer break, the Lady could be found there, out in the sun. Now it was well into autumn in the Sierra Nevadas, the trees were well past gold, the winds grew cold, and the bench would remain abandoned until spring.

  He found the Lady inside, baking brownies.

  She wouldn’t let King Henry have any of them.

  Based on smell, he had suspicions about what had been added to the brownies.

  But he couldn’t prove it.

  “Every kid with a dead parent get a visit with you?” King Henry asked after he sat down in a rocking chair. There was a knitting basket at its legs, including a half-finished baby bootie. “Or just the lone Artificer at this place?”

  In her house, the Lady didn’t bother with her four-pronged cane, but she shuffled about at the same speed. King Henry supposed if she went too fast one of her tits might flip over her shoulder.

  Could injure someone.

  Best be careful with those free hanging things.

  “Ceinwyn asked me to check on you for her,” the Lady said before sitting in a recliner so close to a TV that you could reach out with your feet and touch it.

  “Quilt said you sent her away.”

  “I did,” the Lady acknowledged. “Ceinwyn gets over-emotional when it comes to dead parents. It reminds her of what happened during her own childhood.”

  “And what’s that?”

  The Lady smiled a wrinkled smile. “That’s for her to tell. It’s a very sad story, sadder even than your own, and it seems like those wouldn’t be good for you at the moment.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “What about your tussle with Jason Jackson?”

  “Could have happened any time.”

  “And what you told Russell Quilt about your emotions?”

  Getting up from the rocking chair, King Henry walked over to a bookshelf. The books were ancient, back before paperbacks even, when everything was made to last, especially books. Too bad it’s nothing but the classical great-novel shit that we have to read in Languages. Hemingway, Twain, Shakespeare, Tennyson . . . shit like that.

  “That was a week ago.”

  “You’re back in control of your anima conjuration?”

  “Mostly,” he hedged.

  “Which means?”

  “I haven’t accidentally poole
d today.”

  “It’s not even lunch time,” she pointed out.

  “Yeah, improvement, ain’t it? Suppose if you want a faster one you shouldn’t have sent Miss Dale away.”

  “I didn’t send her away for your sake, King Henry. I sent her away for her sake.”

  A reminder that he was part of a large world with a lot of moving parts. Most of them cogs in other people’s machines. “I’m fine . . . I’m not hurting anyone, so why do you all care so much? I’m doing my homework, ain’t I? I’m in class again. I do group assignments. I haven’t punched anyone since Jackson. Haven’t done shit . . . so why so much concern?”

  “We’re all very much like our elements however much we want to fight it, don’t you think?” she led.

  Wonder where she keeps all the books on the Mancy? She probably has some good ones. There are plenty of restricted sections in the Library . . . there has to be more than the books they allow us students to see. The Ultras had a wing to themselves in the Library, and the teachers too, how much information could be in there hidden from the world?

  “Theory of Anima Whatever-the-Fuck, so what?”

  “When geomancers are hurting they tend to be very steady until they erupt on you,” the Lady gave as explanation. “We’re merely . . . testing your waters, if you will.”

  “You’d be the expert on waters.”

  “We’re all very sorry about what happened to her, King Henry. It’s a tragedy every time a mancer dies alone.”

  But you didn’t bother to stop it, King Henry silently accused, and you still don’t allow more than four-hundred students. More and more are going to die and you’re just sitting in your recliner, old woman!

  “King Henry, please stop pooling.”

  At least he’d made it to noon this time.

  *

  September turned into October turned into November.

  Everyone at the Asylum looked forward at that time of the year. December Evaluations. Winter Break for the kids with families and good enough grades to get the vacation exemption from the Lady. Then the Winter War once everyone was back.

  Usually that was the highlight of the year for King Henry.

  Especially since Class ’09 had a championship to defend.