Peacekeeper's Plan

by Wayne Meyers

He was silent for a time, his eyes distant and his lips pressed thin, until I wondered if he had forgotten what we were discussing. Then he roused himself and rose to his feet. His voice was kind, but his words cut like daggers. “I see I cannot appeal to your intelligence, not with young hormones at play. It would be a waste of time to try. Still, I have faith in your love for the guild and believe it can conquer these internal longings I remember so well, before I must take drastic measures.”

  I leaped to my feet, my face ashen. “What do you mean?”

  He held both my shoulders and stared intently into my eyes. Lines of worry etched across his face like cracks in a window pane. “She has been here for three months. I will give you three more to overcome this. If you cannot, then I will take you from the classes with her and Spaldeer, and keep you away from her. The guild is large and there are many of us; you will not see more than a glimpse of her, and this foolishness will leave you by omission.”

  A seething panic flooded through me as I realized I was in danger of never spending time with Babette again. A part of me felt disappointment that Journeyman Krellus would not support me, and I used this wound to justify the lie upon both face and tongue. “That won’t be necessary. I do know you are right; therefore, I shall conquer this distracting silliness and prevent my mind from wandering from my studies.”

  Journeyman Krellus exhaled, and then chuckled as he patted my shoulders. “Good, good. Now show me how easy that will be and run through the form again, but slowly this time. When you are older, I will reward you for this sacrifice.”

  “How?” I asked. Despite myself, I was curious.

  He waved his hand vaguely in the air. “Er, we will discuss it then.”

  I dismissed this comment from my mind as I concentrated upon the form, my incentive for excellence now a thousand times more important than only pleasing myself. I could not risk losing time with Babette!

  Chapter Nine—A Desperate Search

  You there, apprentice,” snapped a journeyman. It was Journeyman Themptus, The High-Master’s personal assistant.

  I was standing on a tree stump with one leg held motionless in the air, my fists jammed against my sides with elbows back. A sun dial sat next to the stump in the loose dirt, leaving me another fifteen minutes before I could obey my screaming muscles and allow my extended foot to drop. Five minutes were granted for me to stretch and then it was back on the stump with my legs reversed. Journeyman Krellus said it built both strength and balance, but all I felt was pain. Fiery spams coursed through both legs from toe to hip, and my extended foot drooped far below the hip height it needed to stay at. Every time I raised it higher my thigh muscles trembled, and it slowly lowered once more, inch by inch.

  Journeyman Themptus appeared impatient, making me wonder if I should stop what I was doing to talk with him, or continue regardless. He didn’t give me a chance to decide. “You’re Hofen, correct? The one looking after that new apprentice, the girl?”

  Maintaining my position, I replied, “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  My forgotten leg dropped to the stump as I stared at the pensive expression on his face. Something was wrong. “She should be in regular classes with High-Apprentice Wohl. Journeyman Krellus took me from there only an hour ago.”

  The journeyman’s teeth clenched before he spoke. “She was summoned by the High-Master from there and left. The High-Master sent another messenger shortly after, demanding to know why she had not been released from class. When he learned she had left the class but never arrived, he sent me to find you to see if perhaps she had grown worried by the summons and sought your counsel.”

  “Babette isn’t worried by anything,” I said, jumping down from the stump. My legs tottered for a moment before the aching muscles settled. “Did anyone check her room? Perhaps she wanted to clean up before seeing the High-Master.”

  Journeyman Themptus brightened. “Yes, that’s a girlish thing to do, isn’t it?” He turned on his heel and started off, then abruptly stopped and spun back. “Do you know which room she’s in?”

  “Yes, sir. Follow me.” I led him back to the low-apprentice dorm building, a short walk from where Journeyman Krellus had stationed me. She must be there, I thought to myself, struggling to keep the worry from my face. Silly girl. She’s just washing up.

  But she wasn’t. We checked her room and the bathrooms on every floor. No one had seen her since she left for breakfast that morning, after which she had attended Apprentice Wohl’s beginner’s class. Babette had vanished somewhere between the class, held in the courtyard outside the high-apprentice dorm building, and the short walk across the campus to the administration building.

  “Let’s retrace her steps,” Journeyman Themptus said. “We’ll start from the training courtyard where she left and follow the most direct route.”

  Dutifully I followed him to the beginner’s class where I had started my day. Wohl had the class paired off facing each other while drilling various blocks. One person would punch in a controlled, careful manner and the other person would apply the appropriate block. After a while, Wohl would call for a switch and they’d reverse roles. The more advanced apprentices, such as Spaldeer, punched and blocked much faster than the new batch of apprentices.

  The class stirred when they saw the journeyman and me walk toward them, stop, and turn around to face the direction of the administration building. I heard Wohl yelling at them to ignore us and get back to work as he walked over to where we stood.

  “You still haven’t found her?” Wohl asked, a note of worry creeping into his voice.

  Journeyman Themptus shook his head. “When she left here, which path did she take?”

  Wohl’s forehead creased. “To be honest, I did not pay attention but went back to my class. A moment.” He turned back to his class and barked the same question, but none of his students had watched her depart either. “I’m sorry, Journeyman, but we were doing tumbling facing the opposite way. I never thought I needed to escort her—”

  “No, no, Wohl, do not worry. I’m sure she simply wandered off to—smell the flowers, or something else that girls like to do. Return to your charges.” His tone was light and breezy, but his eyes had narrowed.

  “Babette would not stop to smell flowers if the High-Master was waiting,” I said once Wohl was out of earshot.

  “Which way would you go if you were heading to see the High-Master?” Journeyman Themptus asked me without appearing to have heard my comment.

  This made me stop and think, for I realized his dilemma. A journeyman could take the most direct route by walking through the middle of a class, but an apprentice would give them a wide berth and try to stay clear of older apprentices who might wish to have some sport with a low-apprentice out of sight of journeymen and masters. Now I understood why he had thought to bring me along.

  We were standing in the southwest courtyard, which was between the south high-apprentice dorm and the south mid-apprentice dorm. The southeast courtyard lay on the other side of the south mid-apprentice dorm, after which came the low-apprentice dorm. Across a wide brick-lined pathway called Apprentice Row was an identical setup of buildings and courtyards between them that were labeled north instead of south.

  On the other side of the north low-apprentice dorm was the administration building, separated by a long, wide avenue called Apprentice Way that ran north to south from the guild wall front gates past four more buildings. These buildings were the administration building, the library, the masters’ suites, and a cryptic building known among the apprentices as the special training building. Here High-Master Chendor gave me an herbal bath to heal the wounds Artelus inflicted on me when I had attacked him over a year ago, before my official training began.

  To the north of the north apprentice buildings was a rough strip of uneven ground covered in weeds and thickets up until the guild wall. To the immediate south of the south apprentice buildings were sprawling lawns of short cut grass scattered with flow
ers and trees. These eventually gave way to snarls of trees, weeds and overgrowth, and rotting broken branches. I wasn’t sure what lay between that and the Great Wall to the southern border of the guild as I’d never had an opportunity to explore that far.

  Frowning while I passed all of this through my head, I pondered which way Babette might have gone. Facing the direction of the administration building, I could go either right or left to circumvent the south mid-apprentice dorm. Right—or south—would take me along the manicured lawn the masters sometimes assembled everyone on for special announcements. Only a few months past when the summer was warmest, we had had a wonderful picnic there. The hospitality guild had outdone themselves, providing a succulent feast of roasted meats, creamy fish salads, cheeses, fruits, and towers of sweets prepared by the baker’s guild.

  To the left—or north—was Apprentice Row, which connected into Apprentice Avenue and provided the quickest footpath to the administration building, which was across Apprentice Avenue after turning left for a short bit. It was an easier walk on the brick-paved road but more populated and would lead directly past an advanced apprentice class across Apprentice Row.

  “She went this way.” I pointed toward the lawn where we had held the mid-summer picnic.

  “Are you certain?” The journeyman eyed the other route while stroking his chin. “The other way is easier.”

  “And more crowded,” I replied. “She would have taken the quieter path, which would have brought her to the High-Master just as quickly if she hurried.”

  “Very well, then.” He nudged me forward with a hand on my back. “We shall travel the same path, then. Keep your eyes open for anything that might make you think she would have altered this route.”

  Torn with worry, I didn’t require any further prompting to move swiftly. We hurried to the southern side of the south mid-apprentice dorm across cropped grass and paused to look about. Nothing seemed amiss, so we continued east toward Apprentice Avenue, first walking past the south mid-apprentice dorm, and then the south low-apprentice dorm.

  Journeyman Themptus paused once we reached Apprentice Avenue. “I can’t imagine anything happening to her if she made it this far. There are too many peacekeepers walking about.”

  Indeed, there were quite a few peacekeepers walking on the brick paths that bordered both sides of the wide, dirt-packed avenue. It was broad enough to take a horse and cart, but High-Master Chendor had restricted its usage to foot traffic only to avoid manure cleanups outside the stables.

  He turned back the way we had come, the dorms now on our right, and started slowly forward. “Come, we must have missed something, I fear. Look closely toward the buildings and I shall focus on the lawn and undergrowth beyond.”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied. The red brick dorms stood three stories high, but around their base was a swath of clipped grass interspersed with flower beds and tightly woven shrubbery. To see behind the sections of shrubs I had to walk onto the grass and peer behind.

  About halfway along the south low-apprentice dorm I noticed something shiny on the grass behind the shrubs and bent over to pick it up.

  It was Babette’s bracelet, the green and red gems sullied with dirt.

  “Journeyman Themptus!” I shrieked, waving the bracelet in the air like a flag.

  He hurried over, staring at my hand. “That belongs to Babette?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He brushed past me and looked carefully around. “Look, broken branches on the shrub, trampled grass. A struggle took place here.”

  Staring at the back of the shrubs I could barely notice where the thin branches on one section were pointed in different directions, not neat and concise like the rest of it, and the short-cut grass seemed to me the same everywhere I looked, though I did see several crushed flowers.

  “Let me see the bracelet.”

  He gave me a grim smile after I handed it over. “The clasp is unbroken. She had presence of mind to leave it here for us to find as a clue.”

  Babette didn’t wear the bracelet during class so it had likely fallen from a pocket, but I supposed it was still possible she had discarded it on purpose. Either way, it didn’t matter—all that did was prove she had been taken, and right within the middle of the guild.

  “What now?” I asked, biting my lip.

  The journeyman’s eyes smoldered. “This act took peacekeeper skills to pull off. Now that we’re sure about her disappearance, I’ll inform the High-Master. You let the peacekeepers watching the front gate know that no one is to enter or leave until he gives leave. If they won’t listen to you, tell them the order comes directly from me.”

  My fingers flexed and unflexed. “Then what?”

  He looked surprised. “That is all you need to concern yourself with other than your studies. Return to them once you’ve carried out my order.”

  My face flushed. “But—”

  He turned away and glided toward the administration building without further heed.

  Realizing that whoever had taken Babette must not be allowed to leave, I ran after him, turning left onto Apprentice Avenue but continuing past the administration building and stables, until I arrived at the front gate and called up Journeyman Themptus’ order to the peacekeeper journeyman stationed there. To my surprise he did not challenge me. I suppose no apprentice would have dared relay such a message falsely.

  After that, there was nothing else I could do but sulk back to where I had been practicing earlier with worry over Babette stabbing into my heart with every step.

  Chapter Ten—A Dangerous Choice

  My fork speared through a chunk of beef covered with brown gravy, but I never lifted it to my mouth. Instead, I shuffled it around my plate amongst the mashed potatoes and carrot slices with blind ambivalence. Spaldeer sat across from me at the cafeteria table chewing thoughtfully. Marcos and Brentor sat next to him, eating and talking between themselves in hushed tones instead of their usual flamboyant exchanges.

  The entire cafeteria was much quieter than usual, for that matter. Three days had passed since Babette’s disappearance and though nothing official regarding the incident had been announced, measures had been taken. There was a mandatory curfew following dinner where all apprentices had to be in their rooms for the remainder of the evening. Any late classes had been cancelled indefinitely. During daytime classes, the apprentices were always required to remain in sight of their classmates and instructor, and had to walk in between classes, their dorms, or the cafeteria with at least one other apprentice. If another apprentice was not available, then they had to remain with their class until a journeyman could be spared to accompany them.

  Master Banton had announced all of this the evening after Babette was taken, threatening grave consequences should any apprentice ignore any of these rules. Also, all mock apprentice attacks against lower apprentices were suspended. The masters did not wish for one apprentice to choose an isolated path to avoid another.

  Though Master Banton refused to answer any questions and did not mention specifically what had happened, everyone knew. Every so often someone would look over to my right where Babette usually sat and shake their heads. Whether or not they had been pleased by the arrival of a female peacekeeper, it was clear they were angered by her abduction. Someone had plucked her from our guild’s bosom, and there wasn’t a single peacekeeper in all of Solace who wouldn’t have joyfully slain whoever was responsible if given the opportunity to do so.

  When I asked Journeyman Krellus how the investigation was going, he told me to worry about my training and leave such matters to the masters, but the lines around his eyes and mouth were tight and his mind seemed far away from the exercises he had me do.

  “It’s the nothing that bothers me the most,” Spaldeer said after swallowing his mouthful.

  He had been talking to me, so I looked up. “What?”

  Spaldeer offered me a gentle smile. “I was saying how I’m not sure which would be worse. Knowing the details of their investig
ation or hearing nothing at all. I decided that hearing nothing bothers me more. I’d rather know the details and their failures instead of this…vacuum.”

  I pushed my tray aside. “I want to help. They won’t let me do anything, and that is worse than both of those.”

  He pushed my tray back toward me. “You need to eat to keep up your strength. Well, what would you do, anyway? These are adult matters and we’re just children to them.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “I’m over fourteen years old.”

  “So am I.”

  My mouth clicked shut as I focused on his face. Spaldeer’s eyes were red-rimmed and his cheeks pale. Lost in my own misery I’d forgotten he was Babette’s friend too. He was right, as usual. There was nothing I could do to help, but not eating would only make me frail. This was not a guild where one could afford to be weak. Snatching up my fork, I choked down as much of the beef and vegetables as I could stand. It all tasted like sawdust.

  “Hofen.”

  I would have jumped in my seat if not for the firm hand on my shoulder. Glancing back, I saw Master Voralius standing by my side. “Master?”

  His voice was as smooth and calm as his movements, like silk over steel. “Step outside with me if you please.”

  We threaded our way around the chaos of tables and apprentices until we stood by the dining hall entrance. My eyes widened when I saw High-Master Chendor standing there with his hands behind his back and forehead creased.

  He smiled at me. “I thought perhaps if I left my office, we might have a more auspicious outcome. It seems we’ve nothing but trouble meeting inside.”

  “Or perhaps the High-Master has slipped away to avoid any interruptions,” suggested Master Voralius drily.

  “No, we are both incorrect, unfortunately.” High-Master Chendor heaved a sigh as he peered into my eyes. “There is a task I must ask of you. It presents some risk, which is why I decided not to trouble Krellus and have our good Master Voralius here instead. Krellus would insist you remain uninvolved, but we’ve been given no choice.”