by Clark Bolton
Emperor’s Mage
Book 1
The Emperor’s Mage
by Clark Bolton
First Edition
Chapter 1
“For those who measure themselves against a mountain, they shall find themselves small.”
This bit of wisdom was often parroted to the younger boys of Key-Tar-Om School – and indeed to the girls as well, though neither met the other very often. It was the first bit of lore that the boy Ich-Mek recalled from his younger days; the days just after he had come to live in the shadow of Apa-Ton, the Mountain of the Mage.
He remembered also the long road traveled, and even a few of the faces along it, though he was only seven at the time. A great privilege, his mother and father had told him before handing him off to the Pus-Don, who had diligently cared for him ever since. Letters were sent back and forth, three a year, on a precise schedule. And Ich-Mek still thought of his family in terms of how they appeared on the day he had left, some six years ago.
“I’m not sure I’d recognize my mother,” Ich-Mek announced to his friends sadly as he stared up once again at Apa-Ton.
“For those who measure—” began both his friends in unison, before having to leap back to avoid a kick from him.
They all laughed, then quickly quieted themselves as instructors came near. Fortunately for them, there were hundreds of other kids to attend to, and so no reprimands came. Reflexively straightening their dark green uniforms, they went back to standing in formation next to their classmates, for the ceremony was about to begin.
“Double your distance!” came the command from the instructor who stood before the group of sixty-seven boys.
With practiced precision they complied, and so the single odd-boy, the one responsible for keeping things orderly for the instructor, had to do little more than slightly adjust the stance of a boy or two. They normally were arranged this way only when about to exercise, which clearly wasn’t going to take place just before such a major ceremony.
“Girls!” hissed Bose-Quaa, who everyone called Bose. He risked a nod toward Ich-Mek as he said it.
Made sense, Ich-Mek decided as he risked only moving his eyes in response. This was a graduation ceremony after all, and now with double the distance between all the boys, it meant room for the girls. He wondered now if it meant Yi-La was coming. A sudden rustle of robes told him the answer.
Girls had moved in silently from behind them – at least they smelled like girls to Ich-Mek. And then when the line in front of him began to fill in with light green robes, he became sure of it. He dared not turn to look at whoever was now to his left, and so could only ponder if it was indeed Yi-La. If it was, it was the first time they’d met in nearly a year.
So segregated was the school that the girls were rarely even glimpsed by the boys, who for the most part didn’t really miss them; not Ich-Mek and his friends anyway. They were like exotic creatures that were known to someday call for you. When that time came, your family would receive a special letter. And for those who were well connected and had done well at the school, it was possible, even, that mothers and fathers would come for the wedding.
It was odd, he thought; he’d had very few words with Yi-La his whole life; the fact made him suddenly want to say something to her, though he couldn’t imagine what. She smelled nice – maybe he could mention that, but wasn’t really sure if a girl would like that comment.
He was thankful when the command came to sit cross-legged where they stood. He still dared not glance her way as they sat, and when she put her hand on his knee he nearly froze. Quickly he recalled that he needed to put his atop hers. The moment brought with it some sweat, which he prayed wouldn’t show on his face – something an instructor was not likely to overlook.
His palm was sweaty, he now realized, and so he could only hope the girl wouldn’t be tempted to twitch her hand because of it. He tried now to concentrate on the ceremony, where, across the vast square, a group of instructors were speaking, one by one, about the glories of advancement.
The first part of the ceremony ended with a display of magic by some of the more accomplished instructors. Great fire-balls exploded high above the square with a boom, and ghostly dragons swept over the crowd of students, causing even some of the most disciplined among them to duck for a brief moment. It made Ich-Mek wonder if punishment would follow the celebration. He was very proud of the fact he hadn’t even flinched.
Left standing silently as the older and younger groups of students were marched from the square, Ich-Mek fought the desire once again to glance at his partner. It was Yi-La next to him, he was almost positive.
“Re-color robes!”
When the command came, he moved without thought to do so. They had practiced the maneuver, which involved simply slipping off one’s robes over the head then folding them precisely before placing them between your feet, easily a hundred times.
What came next was the hard part. It involved a cantrip, a short spell designed to change the color of robes. They had been warned failure could mean expulsion, and the humiliation that would come with that. Being sent home was worse then death, some had suggested.
All went smoothly for Ich-Mek until he saw the white shift of the girl next to him. She was stooped over and furiously working to get her robes folded just right. Her legs were bare from just below her hips to her ankles, which didn’t surprise him as he was similarly dressed. It was the legs themselves; they nearly caused him to drop his robes.
Finished folding now, he closed his eyes for a moment as he concentrated on saying the few syllables of arcane-script that would turn his green robes a dull red. All thoughts of the girl next to him were pushed from his mind as he cast the simple spell. It was ecstasy to cast magic, and rarely did the instructors allow such.
He could see now that she was a few moments behind him. It made him move imperceptibly slower as he reached down to retrieve his newly colored robes. Again, her legs snapped his mind to attention for just a moment. As he quickly dressed he got one more glimpse of them.
Standing tall and still again, he replayed the brief images over and over in his mind as the instructors went on with the final stages of the ceremony. Why did he like those legs so much, he kept asking himself. He had seen hundreds of bare legs before, though rarely those of girls.
He quickly began trying to categorize this new-found attraction. He loved steamed noodles, but her legs weren’t appealing at all in that way. His bed roll was quite nice at the end of a long day, but again this category wasn’t a fit. Love of reading something engrossing, which involved enchantments, seemed the best fit he could think of for this new feeling.
He forced himself to pay attention again when he realized names were being called out. One at a time, girls were called out to a new formation to his left, while boys were called to the right. It was the re-ordering, he realized. He could only think to pray that he wasn’t made the odd-boy in this newly ordered world.
The form Ich-Mek had belonged to was composed of sixty-seven boys, as were all forms in the school. Always they were arranged in six rows of six followed by three rows of ten. This left the designated odd-boy to join with the last row of six when the occasion called for it. At other times the odd-boy served as messenger, scribe, and, of course, snitch. Thus the position was seen as both honorable and abysmal to have to fill.
Ich-Mek and his friends considered themselves lucky for never having to be the odd-boy. The position in their form had been filled by several different boys over the last six years, and for the last two it had been filled by Wed-Low. He was a brutish boy who tolerated little in the way of backtalk or misconduct. This was understandable as it was often the case where the odd-boy suffered for the rest of them. If no culp
rit or victim could be found for an infraction, the odd-boy was punished by default.
He began to sweat again when he realized they must be getting toward the end of the list of names, and still he hadn’t been called. It meant he was possibly going to end up in the “Tens”! The last three rows of ten in a form were the least desirable as those within were considered the poorest of students; the ones most likely to be lowly placed come graduation from the school.
When his name was finally called, he dutifully took one step back, then turned sharply to the right and began marching quickly. To his dismay, he could see that he was indeed one of the last to be called. What was even more confusing was that he was being directed toward a form containing many older students.
His heart sank when he was placed in a spot among the Tens. What happened next he didn’t come to understand until later when his friends explained it to him.
__________________________
Ich-Mek allowed the crowd returning to the dormitories to carry him along in a daze. When he heard his two friends call his name he finally understood where he was.
“You are the odd-boy!” Op-Rish told him in astonishment as he grabbed his arm to then pull him aside.
“Ahhh!” Ich-Mek exclaimed. His arm hurt terribly where someone had yanked on it only a short time ago. “Don’t!” he whined until Op-Rish let go of him.
“Why did they pick you?” Bose asked in confusion. “You’re not even one of the older boys!”
“Are you sure they did?” Ich-Mek asked as he began to feel sick. “I was in the Tens when an instructor grabbed my arm. Maybe they thought I was someone else.”
His two friends shook their heads in disagreement. “It wasn’t an instructor, Mek!” Bose exclaimed. “It was the Regent!”
“Yeah, Regent Ober-Toss went right for you! I saw it,” Rish told him in disbelief. “He dragged that other boy, the one that was the odd-boy, right to Master Fla and threw him down like this.” Rish then made a sharp movement with his arm to demonstrate the move.
“I thought Master Fla was going to kick him,” Bose chimed in.
Ich-Mek shook his head in shock as his stomach continued to do loops. “It couldn’t have been Regent Ober-Toss,” he whined.
“Yes it was!” Op-Rish told him. “That’s why your arm hurts so much!”
Regent Ober-Toss was the headmaster of Key-Tar-Om, though they had heard he didn’t actually teach classes or perform any other duties of a master. He was a great barrel of a man with voice loud enough to boom across the square above them, without any magical aid whatsoever. He was equally feared by masters and students alike.
“You have to be the odd-boy now,” Bose-Quaa told him. “Master Fla isn’t going to choose anyone else. The Regent wouldn’t stand for it.”
Ich-Mek sat down heavily on the brick pathway and proceeded to ignore the occasional passerby that was forced to step around him. Right now the Tens wasn’t sounding so bad. Maybe he could be an odd-boy, he told himself, but then he recalled the older boys; his new form seemed to be filled with them, some of them clearly two or three years older than he.
“Why are there older boys?” he asked his friends innocently. “Our last form didn’t have any.”
There was a strange silence before Rish announced, “I’m not in the same form as you two anymore. And there aren’t any older boys in mine.”
Bose-Quaa and Ich-Mek looked at their friend with mouths open for a few moments. Neither could think how this could have happened. They had always thought they would be together no matter what. Six years they had slept side by side in the same dormitory, and now this.
“What does it mean?” Ich-Mek asked as he tried hard not to think about his new position. “Why did they move you?”
Rish looked down sadly at the ground then suggested, “Maybe it was you two who were moved. I knew you would always be Sixes.”
Ich-Mek climbed to his feet to hug his friends before the three of them reluctantly returned to their dormitory. They all knew their time together had ended, as only members of the same form were allowed to quarter together. It wasn’t long before an odd-boy came to inform Op-Rish where he would now be sleeping.
“Who’s going to tell you?” Rish asked as he began packing the few personal items he owned. “You’re the odd-boy.”
The answer came a short time later, when Master Fla appeared with a scroll in his hand. With an emotionless look, he handed it to Ich-Mek, then told the boy to gather those listed on it. Ich-Mek had almost no idea where to find the other sixty-six boys listed, save Bose-Quaa.
“I remember her legs,” Ich-Mek admitted when the subject of girls came up later.
He had managed to account for every boy on the list, largely due to the fact they had come looking for him. Now, as the odd-boy, he had the privilege of deciding who slept where in the long single room that housed the entire form of sixty-seven boys.
“When?” Bose asked in disbelief.
“We had our robes off, remember?”
“Yeah, but I was so scared I’d foul up the spell that I don’t remember anything. Least not until we were both dressed.”
Ich-Mek nodded his head in understanding as the two of them lay on their sleeping mats. “They were very pretty,” he said absently, “but…I don’t know why.”
“Guess we are supposed to like ‘em,” Bose-Quaa remarked.
“Yeah, I don’t get that part.”
“I hear it gets worse.”
“Like, what do you mean?”
Bose-Quaa sat up a little bit to see if anyone else might be listening to them before saying, “I’ve heard some of the older boys sneak across the square at night.”
Ich-Mek stared at his friend for a moment before sitting up to look down the long line of sleeping boys. “Not any here?”
Bose-Quii nodded his head yes. “I bet you’re wrong.”
“They better not,” Ich-Mek declared a little too loudly, he thought. “I’m the odd-boy!” he then hissed. “Master Fla will beat me if he found out.”
“Heard they do more than that.”
“How do you hear these things?”
Bose-Quaa craned his neck again, and then motioned toward one of the older boys. “Es-Long, he was talking earlier while you were doing your odd-boy duties.”
Ich-Mek closed his eyes tight and shook his head slightly. “Don’t tell me these things,” he begged. “I don’t want to have to tell Master Fla.”
“You don’t have to!” Bose-Quaa replied quickly. “That’s what Es-Long says. You’re not a green odd-boy, you’re a red odd-boy. They keep secrets.”
Ich-Mek was silent for a long time as he watched the last light of day fade away. “Are you sure?” he whispered to his friend.
Bose-Quaa rolled over to face him. “Yeah…now tell me what Yi-La’s legs looked like.”
“Not sure it was Yi-La,” he whispered
“Doesn’t matter” came the reply.
__________________________
The next morning Ich-Mek found himself standing in Master Fla’s chamber, which was a marvel in and of itself. For the past six years he recalled standing in a master’s chamber not even once. He had only been allowed in the dormitories, the classrooms, the dining hall, or one of the countless open-air outhouses.
Master Fla caught him staring at the peg-board, which contained a peg for each of the sixty-seven boys of the form. The board itself was a zigzag of trails that sported holes for the pegs that traveled them. Ich-Mek had heard countless stories of these peg-boards, but had never been privileged to actually see one before. He found the carved designs on the stained dark wood enticing.
“Your peg is the red one,” Master Fla informed him after only half a glance his way.
“Yes, master,” Ich-Mek replied as he began frantically searching for it in case he was told to point it out.
Nearly every thick peg on the board had a bit of red on it, and it wasn’t until he realized a new brightly painted one was completely red th
at he stopped his search. The new paint meant something, he figured, but couldn’t bring himself to ask what.
“Move it a step up the seventh path,” Fla told him as he looked over at the peg-board.
Ich-Mek stared at the board for a few moments, desperately trying to determine which path was the seventh. It was the engraved figure of a bird that told him. The character for bird in Ibu-Jek looked much like a stylized seven, he knew, plus the path of peg holes leading by the bird was the seventh, counting right to left.
PUUUPHTT.
So intense was the pain that came when he touched his own peg that Ich-Mek fell to his knees. His whole arm, from shoulder to hand, was now numb and essentially useless. As he tried to coax feeling back into his hand, Master Fla walked casually by him. A moment later, a scroll was placed in front of his face; he was forced to grasp it with his left hand.
“A necessary instruction,” Fla informed him before sitting down and turning his attention to other things.
Ich-Mek could see now that the scroll had been retrieved from a sealed cabinet; one that likely required a master’s touch to open. Many of these could be found in various classrooms, so Ich-Mek was familiar with them. Doing his best to unfurrow the scroll with one hand, he eventually discovered its contents. It contained a short spell, a cantrip he suspected allowed one to touch pegs, without suffering the effects he now endured.
“When you’re ready,” Fla said impatiently after a time.
Ich-Mek wasn’t entirely sure he was expected to cast the spell. He had been conditioned not to do so outside of a classroom, and certainly not in a place unfamiliar to him.
“I can’t master, not—”
“The Regent has decreed this! You must not fail, Ich-Mek,” Fla said forcefully, cutting the boy off.
Images of an irate Regent sprang into his mind. So frightening to Ich-Mek was this thought that he had a sudden uncontrollable desire to pee. All he could think of now was finding an opportunity to relieve himself, and quickly.