The Channeler

by William Kline

  “The freedom Lord Micah gives students works well in part because the school is so prestigious. Few students who are given an opportunity to study here wish the squander the chance by failing to meet the requirements.” Another pointed look from the Chancellor had Tommy thinking that maybe the man was suggesting that he was squandering his opportunities, an intimation that Tommy took offense to – he was leading his class in several areas of study, and was at least making the grade in all of them.

  “Lord Nence, however, is not so discriminating in his choice of students,” Chancellor Duvey continued. “Therefore, I think you will find the rules at his school extremely… stringent.”

  The Chancellor went on to detail a long list of rules. Tommy was not to speak unless spoken to by a teacher or school administrator. He was to use proper forms of address at all times, calling all teachers ‘Lord’ be they male or female. He was not to speak to the students of the school, and was particularly not to mention anything that went on at his own school. He was not to use magic in any way, including channeling, unless directed to do so by an instructor. The list went on and on, until Tommy began to regret getting himself into this position, and he started to wonder if he was visiting a school or a prison.

  Finally, the Chancellor ran out of rules to explain, and concluded by admonishing Tommy. “Remember, above all, that you are a representative of the school, of Micah, and of myself. Do not embarrass us with poor behavior.”

  The tone of the Chancellor’s voice caused Tommy to frown. “Wait, do you mean that no one is going with me?” he asked.

  “No, indeed not. This is why it is so important for you to be on your very best behavior. None of us will be permitted to accompany you to the other school. We will meet at a neutral ground, you will go with Lord Nence, and he will return you to the same place at the agreed upon time.”

  Tommy’s nervousness was increasing by the moment. “When is that? I mean, how long?”

  The Chancellor favored him with an exaggerated sigh. “I do hope you remember to be on your best manners, since you cannot seem to remember them with me.” That caused Tommy to blush. It was his nerves talking; he certainly would have remembered to at least be more polite if he wasn’t so on edge. “And the answer to your question is, you will be returned to us after a period of six hours.”

  “SIX HOURS!?” Tommy burst out. “No one said anything about six hours!”

  Chancellor Duvey stopped walking and turned to glare at Tommy. “DO try to control yourself, Mister Nelson!” he barked in a terse tone. “Six hours is the time frame agreed upon. It will be scarcely sufficient, I think, for us to learn all we require from Lord Nence’s representative.” His tone softened somewhat, then. If, that is, a stone could said to be somehow softer than something else, as it still had a gritty, commanding tone to it. “I understand that this is a difficult undertaking for you, Mister Nelson. But consider all that Lord Micah has done for you. Do you not believe that you owe this to him, no matter what the difficulty?”

  Abashed, Tommy said, “I suppose” rather sullenly. He still wasn’t so sure about doing this, anymore. Six hours seemed like a huge amount of time, and the task seemed to be getting more and more difficult by the minute.

  Chancellor Duvey stood regarding Tommy for a long moment before nodding to himself and turning away. Tommy followed with much less enthusiasm that he’d shown previously.

  Finally, they arrived at a door, which the Chancellor opened without knocking. Tommy followed him inside, and found himself in a small, extremely neat office. There was a small desk of dark wood with a thinly upholstered chair behind it. The walls were covered with pictures and framed documents, each of them arranged in precise order to compliment the others. The whole was such that the eye took in all the art without actually focusing on any single picture. Tommy wondered if that was intentional, or a side effect of what was clearly a mind obsessed with order. Clearly, this was the Chancellor’s office; the room practically oozed order and proper behavior. There were two chairs in front of the desk, both of them upholstered as thinly as the chair behind the desk, and lounging in one of the chairs was Micah. Tommy wondered how the man managed to do that – the chairs looked horribly uncomfortable, like the throne he had been sitting in during Tommy’s test, yet Micah managed to make it look like an easy chair.

  Micah rose from the chair as Tommy and Chancellor Duvey entered, and stepped over to clap Tommy on the shoulder. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  Tommy nodded and swallowed over a lump in his throat. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said with a nervous chuckle.

  “Great!” Micah quipped with a grin, laying his hand on Tommy’s shoulder. To Chancellor Duvey he said, “Meet you there?”

  When the Chancellor nodded, Tommy felt a brief rush of magical energy into Micah, who still had his hand on Tommy’s shoulder. Suddenly, the world blurred around him, and a moment later when he managed to blink his vision clear, he found himself standing next to Micah in a small, clean alleyway between two buildings. The buildings both had an architecture style that made them look old to Tommy – there were a lot of fancy carvings and friezes. The sun was high in the sky, but the air was brisk and cool with a tiny bit of bite in it. Tommy found himself grinning and taking a deep breath in spite of his nervousness.

  Suddenly, Tommy realized that the Chancellor was there. Micah nodded to the other man, and the two of them set off down the alley. Tommy had no choice but to follow after them; he jogged a few steps and caught up to Micah so that he could walk next to the man.

  The three of them came to the mouth of the alley, and Chancellor Duvey turned right onto the sidewalk of a busy city street. There was something odd about the whole street – the cars seemed slightly different than the ones that Tommy was used to, and they all seemed much older and battered. Suddenly, Tommy’s eyes found the signs over the various stores along the street. He leaned over and whispered “Micah! Psssst, Micah! The signs are all in Russian!”

  Micah merely laughed and shook his head. “No, Tommy. The alphabet is Cyrillic, but the language is Hungarian.”

  “Hungarian?”

  Micah gave another chuckle. “Yeap, Hungarian. Welcome to Budapesht, Tommy.”

  Tommy furrowed his brow. “Isn’t it pronounced Buda-pest?”

  Micah shook his head. “Actually, only if you are a foreigner. See, the city is made up of two large towns that grew together. Buda, and Pesht. Hence… Budapesht.”

  “Oh.” Was all Tommy could say. He’d never really learned about this part of the world in school. He’d half expected there to be mosques and sand and lots of buildings with pointed domed roofs, but this city looked like pictures he’d scene of New York City in the 1920’s, albeit with a lot more cars. “Why here?”

  “Beg pardon?” Micah replied.

  “I mean, why are we here?”

  “Ah,” Micah said, nodding. “There is an unusual… a conflux, it’s called, in this area. It makes magic extremely difficult to control and manipulate, almost as if it’s somehow more wild here. This means that novice mages cannot use magic at all, and even highly skilled mages have trouble with any kind of sustained magical feat. This makes it very hard for mages to actually fight here, since casting spells is so difficult, so we use it as a kind of meeting place. Like a safe zone, if you will.”

  “Why do you need a meeting place? I mean, I thought this guy was your friend.”

  Micah took a long, appraising look at Tommy as they walked. It went on so long, that Tommy started to feel uncomfortable, and he was just about to apologize when Micah spoke.

  “Tommy… There is a problem with men who have great power. They are always on guard for other men who want to take it away. Even worse, most of the time, they are right – there are always other men out there who want to take their power, or who want to see them brought low. Sometimes just for the sake of seeing the mighty fall. Men like this, powerful men, have been on their guard so long, watching for every possible threat, that they
forget what it’s like to trust someone. Suspicion becomes part of their nature.”

  “But… you aren’t suspicious!”

  Micah laughed at that. “Am I not? Are you so sure? Do you think I fully trust… say, Lord Kalish? Or any of the other instructors?”

  Tommy frowned, remembering Lord Kalish’s warning not to place his full trust in Micah. Could the man’s warning have just stemmed from an innate mistrust? Something that all powerful people had? “I don’t know,” replied Tommy uncertainly. “It seems like you trust him. You trust him to teach, anyway. And you trust Chancellor Duvey.”

  The Chancellor snorted a laugh at that comment, and Micah grinned. “Well, I trust him… and I don’t, if that makes any kind of sense. I trust him fully, but I also keep an eye on him… just to be sure.”

  Chancellor Duvey snorted again. “Mister Nelson, if you had seen the number of hours Lord Micah has spent pouring over my records and books, scrutinizing every detail, you would not be so quick to speak of trust.”

  Micah grinned and clapped Duvey on the shoulder companionably. “You know I trust you, old friend. Besides, you’d be offended if I didn’t stick my nose in your business every now and again.”

  The Chancellor snorted a third time and shook his head, and Tommy felt like he was privy to some sort of private bond between the two men.

  Micah turned back to Tommy. “So, you see, Nence and I are old friends. I even used to call him ‘Nancy’ as a joke,” Micah whispered conspiratorially. “He knows I have no desire to take over his school, and I know he has no desire to take over mine. But there’s always that lingering seed of doubt; the possibility that, if given too much of a chance, if there is too much of an opening, each of us might find the opportunity too great not to seize. So… we trust, but with caution. It is always this way, with powerful men.” Then, with a wink, he added, “And please don’t say a WORD to him about the Nancy thing. He wouldn’t find it funny, coming from you, understand?”

  Tommy nodded his understanding, and pondered on Micah’s words while he stared around at the city around him. He was still staring at the unusual buildings and cars when Chancellor Duvey and Micah stopped, and Tommy took a few more steps beyond them before he’d realized.

  “Here we are,” said Micah, gesturing to a small shop in front of them. It was obviously a coffee shop; if the picture of a steaming cup of coffee over the door didn’t tip him off, Tommy would have recognized it anyway. It looked just like every other coffee shop he’d even seen, with large, plate-glass windows in the front, a large seating area with round tables and low chairs, and a broad counter with numerous brewing implements.

  “Best coffee in Budapesht,” Micah said, and with a sweeping gesture, he led the three of them inside.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The inside of the shop was shockingly warm after the brisk wind outside, and the air smelled overwhelmingly of roasting coffee beans. Micah took a deep breath as he stepped inside, and Tommy followed suit. Although he’d never developed a taste for the stuff, he still found the smell of coffee simply divine. If only it tasted as good as it smelled, instead of being bitter and acidic.

  It was then that Tommy noticed the other occupants of the shop. Besides a young woman standing behind the counter, the only other people there were two men and a woman sitting around a single table. All three of the customers were garbed alike, in a set of robes so dark brown that they were almost black, unrelieved except for a small emblem sewn over the left breast. All three were middle-aged, with one of them clearly older than the others by at least a decade. All of them bore dour expressions that seemed to be fixed on their faces, like they had been so serious and so severe for so long that their faces had frozen in that position. The oldest of the three stood, and the other two immediately followed suit.

  “Nence,” Micah said, stepped forward and addressing the eldest of the three. Tommy could almost hear the implied ‘Nancy’ in Micah’s words, and could it be that the older man’s severe face tightened a bit more? Tommy had to work very hard to suppress a grin.

  “Micah,” the older man replied, the lack of any sort of title made somehow significant by the man’s tone of voice. The two men stared sternly into one another eyes for several moments as the tension rose palpably in the air. Everyone seemed to be nervously glancing back and forth between the two men and each other, and Tommy noticed Chancellor Duvey’s hand start to stray toward his belt. Just when it seemed that violence was about to erupt, Micah grinned and shook his head. “I never could beat you at being serious. You’ve got the look down pat.”

  Lord Nence smiled back, and with a collective sigh, everyone seemed to relax. “Come, enroll in the school, Micah. We’ll teach you how to be serious. For once.”

  Micah chuckled at that. “I tried, once, remember? You turned me away.”

  Lord Nence shook his head. “You were not serious then, just like you aren’t serious now. Some day your sense of humor will be the death of you, I swear it.”

  Micah spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “If there is a better way to die, I don’t know of it.”

  “There are no good ways to die, my friend. There is only dead, and not-dead.”

  “Ah, that’s where you and I disagree. The ‘how’ is almost as important as the ‘why’. You’ll figure it out, some day. When you are older.”

  Lord Nence made a small, annoyed noise at that, and Tommy could see why – the man was clearly older than Micah, quite possibly old enough to be his father.

  “Are we here to banter all day, or shall we make good on our agreement?” Lord Nence replied, clearly tired of the reparte’.

  Micah nodded, and Lord Nence began with introductions. “Allow me to present Katerine, the artificer from my school who will be coming with you, and Sir Duffington, my sergeant at arms.” Each of them bowed deeply at the waist when introduced, so, as Micah introduced Tommy and the Chancellor, Tommy made sure to give his best bow, as well. Tommy got the impression that, by and large, the introductions were for his benefit. All of the adults seemed to already know one another.

  After the introductions, Chancellor Duvey extended his hand to Katerine. “My lady, if you would please come with me?” The woman took the Chancellor’s hand, and the two of them turned and left the shop without another word. Micah watched them leave, shaking his head.

  “Always the charmer, Duvey.” He murmured once the man was out of earshot.

  “He would be mortified to hear you say it.” Lord Nence quipped, and Micah barked a laugh.

  “True story,” Micah added, and turned to Tommy. “Sir Duffington will be escorting you to the school. Obey his instructions as if they were mine, understand? Lord Nence and I have much to discuss. We will be waiting here for your return.”

  Tommy nodded his understanding, and Sir Duffington placed a hand on his shoulder, steering him toward the door. As they left, Micah called after him, “Don’t forget everything I’ve taught you!” Tommy turned to reply that he wouldn’t, but Micah and Lord Nence had stepped up to the counter and were placing their order, and Sir Duffington was holding the door open and looking expectantly at Tommy, so Tommy swallowed the words and stepped back out into the brisk Hungarian air.

  Sir Duffington followed him out into the street but didn’t speak; he merely gestured with an open hand down the street, and then started walking. Tommy was forced to follow the sergeant or stand there in front of the coffee shop looking foolish, so he followed, thinking that he’d been spending entirely too much time trotting after adults. After a couple hundred feet, the sergeant turned crisply on one heel and entered a narrow alleyway – Far too narrow for cars, yet still large enough that the two of them could walk abreast. A hundred feet down the alley, he stopped, nodded to Tommy, and extended his hand. Tommy took the man’s rough, calloused hand, and felt the spinning, dizzying feeling that he’d come to recognize as them moving between two places.

  As usual, it took Tommy a few moments of blinking rapidly and shaking his hea
d to clear his vision and shake off a bit of vertigo. When his vision finally cleared, Tommy found himself in a small room. The floors and ceiling appeared to be wooden, but the walls looked like they were made of earth – not stone, like in his school, but compressed dirt, complete with bits of rock and such. As he steadied himself with a hand against the wall, Tommy found that they were cool to the touch and as smooth as glass. Despite that, the room looked for all the world like a coat room – there were wooden pegs set straight into the earthen walls, and a few of them had grey robes hanging on them. Still without speaking, Sir Duffington held up a single finger to Tommy, clearly asking him to wait one moment, and left the room. Although he was now alone, Tommy was somewhat glad; He was beginning to find Sir Duffington’s refusal to speak eerie and somewhat unnerving.

  However, no sooner had the door closed behind Sir Duffington then it opened again, and a young man much closer to Tommy’s age stepped through. He was dressed in the same dark brown robes identical to everyone else Tommy had met from this school, but unlike everyone else, he quickly flashed Tommy a smile and extended his hand. “Hello, I’m Nick,” the boy said through his grin.

  Tommy took the boys hand and shook it, refreshed to find someone friendly. “I’m Tommy,” he replied. “I think I’m here to teach a spell?”

  Nick nodded. “Yes, so I’ve been told. I hope I’m allowed to sit in on the demonstration. I’m very interested to learn.”

  “I could show you now, if you wanted?”

  Nick shook his head emphatically. “I’m not an instructor, so we can’t channel magic, just you and me.” He paused for a moment. “Didn’t anyone explain the rules?”

  “Oh, yes,” Tommy flushed with embarrassment. He wasn’t even here five minutes and already he’d messed up. “They told me, I just… I guess I just didn’t think.”

  Nick grinned. “It’s ok. We have a lot of rules, here, but… well, it’s better than the alternative, isn’t it?” Before Tommy could ponder the boy’s strange comment, Nick began gathering one of the grey robes hanging on the wall.