by Nick McNeil
He tiptoed across the outdoor room with his hand firmly wrapped around the hilt of the warblade. The scratching grew significantly louder, and the scratches picked up their pace, coming in a quicker frequency. Bertly plucked a hair from the back of his head and slowly extended it toward the door, behind which came a growl, and Bertly flinched at the sound of it. He lightly tapped his hair against the door to open it, and he instinctively jumped back and assumed a defensive stance. A larger shadow tackled him to the floor. Two talons pinned Bertly to the ground as he was smothered by an abundance of feathers. Bertly dropped his sword.
“Clia!” Bertly shouted. “What have I told you about sneaking around the castle?”
Clia touched her beak to Bertly’s nose and refused to break eye contact.
“How did you find my dormitory?”
Clia stepped back and hunched forward, as she had before their first flight.
“You want to go for a ride…now?” Bertly asked.
Clia let out a screeching caw that echoed through the room loud enough to startle him.
Bertly lunged forward and grabbed her beak. “Shh, okay. Okay. I guess right now is fine.” Bertly latched onto Clia’s feathers, being careful not to tug too hard on them, and climbed aboard.
Clia attempted to tiptoe through the castle corridors; however, her talons made a clicking noise every time they connected with the stone flooring.
“I can’t believe I’m riding a gryphon, who is supposed to be in Eskos, through the Academy halls right now.” Bertly nudged Clia in the side with his leg. “You do know the main hall is just around this corner?” Clia picked up her pace, but halted and squared up with the castle entrance. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Bertly hugged Clia around the neck and closed his eyes. She erupted into a full sprint across the main hallway, sending the rugs under her feet flying out behind her. Just as they flew through the exit, Clia lifted off into the air. She soared straight into the sky, spinning in circles.
“You know, you can go flying on your own,” Bertly shouted. His arms and legs were wrapped around Clia as tightly as possible. He wasn’t accustomed to riding her yet, and he felt much better if he had a firmer grip. Clia stopped elevating and leveled off. In the middle of her flight, she let out an echoing squawk, tucked her wings in, and dove forward like an arrow.
“Where are you taking me?” Bertly cried. Clia zoomed past a small nest of trees beyond the castle entrance and through a large crack in the mountain—on its west side behind the Academy. The crack was slim at the entrance but quickly grew into a sizable canal. Clia landed gracefully at the base of the mountain.
“Lead the way. You seem to know where you want to go.” Bertly gestured for Clia to walk through the canal, to which she responded by tucking her wings in tightly, crouching her head, and crawling through with more caution than she’d exhibited in the halls of the Academy.
Not long after entering the canal, they exited the other side and emerged into a city that was buried in shrubs, leaves, and other greenery. All that could be made out through the plants were the vague shapes of what were once cottages or shops. Climbing plants grew from gardens and clung onto homes and street signs. Most homes seemed to have found a new purpose, housing animals and providing shade for growing mushrooms. Weeds filled each crack, and fallen trees blocked the roads. The town was surrounded with grass fields, which accompanied a calm lake. The stars shined brighter there than above campus. The town was silent, all the memories and lives of the village long forgotten.
Clia bent her front legs, allowing Bertly to easily slide off her neck. The moment Bertly’s feet touched the ground, Clia took off running. Bertly stood with his legs touching and his arms wrapped around himself.
“Clia, it’s freezing,” he shouted. Clia poked her head from around the corner of a crumbled building and cawed. While still hugging himself, Bertly jogged over to her, trying his best not to lose his balance. When Bertly rounded the corner, Clia was sitting there, waiting for him. She gestured with her beak toward the ground. Buried halfway in and halfway out of the ground was a hefty brick engraved with elaborate writing.
I have no legs to walk, no lungs to breathe, I have no life to live or die. Yet I do them all. What am I?
“Yet I do them all.” Bertly’s teeth chattered. “It’s too late and cold for this, girl.”
Clia puffed her feathers and flared out her wings.
Bertly stepped back. “I was only kidding…lighten up.” Bertly knew better than to anger a gryphon. “Wait, this is easy. Master Alestar tried to stump Polly and me with this one our second year.” Bertly cleared his throat. “Fire.”
The engraved words lit up in a bright, glowing red that certainly resembled fire. The stone safe parted down the middle and revealed its innards to Bertly. Resting at the bottom was a small green whistle attached to a brown piece of string. Bertly examined the stone case for any more items. He found a piece of folded parchment and nothing more. Bertly unfolded the wrinkled paper.
Whistle at own risk.
“Another riddle,” Bertly grumbled.
Clia started to dance around Bertly, gently poking him with her beak.
“Is this what you brought me all this way for?” Bertly’s face lost all expression. “A whistle and riddles?” He felt what he’d dubbed his “angry vein” as it popped out on his forehead.
Clia sat on the ground and stared at him, obviously trying to sit still, but unable to do so because she was jittery with excitement. He could see that excitement reflected in her gleaming eyes. Bertly groaned and blew the whistle, but not a single noise came out. Clia did a backflip and sprang into the air, twirling in circles so quickly she became a blur. She gradually stopped spinning and floated in the air while looking expectantly at Bertly. He blew the whistle, and it was silent once again.
Clia did a corkscrew in the air and flew toward him. She crash-landed on top of him and rested her chin on his chest. Her head was nearly the size of Bertly’s torso. He scratched Clia behind the ear to reward her for what she’d shown him. The whistle was why she’d flown him out there—Clia was the only one who could hear the noise it made.
“This means I will call you if I need you now, okay?” Bertly looked Clia straight in the eyes. “That means no more sneaking around the castle…got it?”
Clia broke eye contact with him and pretended to be distracted by a bird that had been chirping in the background.
“Got it?” Bertly emphasized.
Clia grunted.
“Okay, good. I will use this whistle to call you every now and again.” Bertly used the brown string to tie the whistle around his neck like a necklace. He then tucked it under his shirt. “Can you please take me back to the castle now? I’m freezing.”
It only took two cycles before “every now and again” turned into a nightly routine. Nearly every night Bertly snuck outside to the castle entrance. He had figured out that it was safer going out the entrance than trying to sneak across the castle and to the back stables. Every night Bertly blew the silent whistle and braced for Clia’s greeting. He knew by how quickly she arrived that she was always just around the corner, waiting to hear the whistle of her friend calling her.
***
Bertly and the twins were in room 782, tinkering away on a workbench. They were working on a wooden crossbow. The crossbow had no string, and there were several cracks running down the side of it, as well as a faded black leather grip with a blue snowflake sewn onto the side.
“It’s done!” the twins shouted.
Bertly held the crossbow high above his head. “This may be our greatest one yet.” Bertly’s nostrils flared and the corners of his mouth turned up.
“Hand it over.” Orîn jumped on the table and snatched the crossbow from Bertly’s hands.
“I’m the oldest, I should go first.” From the ground, Orin tugged on the crossbow, which sent Orîn tumbling off the table.
“Sweet Cord
elia, don’t break it again,” Bertly cried. He leaped over the workbench and ripped the crossbow from the twins. “I will do the honors.”
The twins jumped back to their feet. “Yes, sir,” they shouted. Orîn sprinted to the classroom door and pulled the latch, locking them all inside. Orin ran to the corner of the room and pulled out a birdcage with a sheet over it. Orin pulled the sheet from the cage, revealing a blue drizzle bird. Its feathers were dark blue and its beak light blue. It was round like a melon and was no bigger than Bertly’s fist.
Bertly climbed on top of the workbench. “Unleash the beast,” Bertly roared.
Orin opened the cage. The drizzle bird sat on its perch, dead asleep, making its grand reveal less entertaining than anyone was expecting. Orin shook the cage. The bird’s eyes popped open and he flapped his wings profusely. He flew out of the cage, all the while bobbing up and down in the air; he was hardly strong enough to hold up his own weight.
Bertly closed one eye and took aim. The crossbow didn’t have a single arrow loaded into it. He pulled the trigger. A white light formed in the center of the crossbow where an arrow would’ve normally been placed. The light quickly formed into an arrow made of ice. The arrow shot out of the crossbow quicker than a bolt of lightning and flew straight into the gut of the drizzle bird, sending it plopping onto the ground. The bird made a small squeak when its body hit the floor.
“Got him!” Bertly was standing on the workbench with the crossbow thrown over his shoulder. Orin retrieved the bird and brought it back to the workbench for the three of them to examine. The bird was frozen solid.
Bertly examined the bird and then rolled it over onto its other side. “No puncture wound.”
“Check,” the twins shouted.
Bertly tapped the bird. “Frozen solid.”
“Check.”
“And now, we wait…” Bertly stared at the bird, blinking as little as he could. The twins tried their best to match his concentration. The squishy bird lay motionless on the workbench. The ice around the bird eventually cracked. The drizzle bird puffed its feathers and flapped its wings, shaking off all the ice on its body. Orin held up the birdcage, without any hesitation, and the drizzle bird darted right back inside the cage.
Bertly put an arm around each twin. “We did it, boys. A nonlethal freezing crossbow. What should we call her?”
“Snowflake,” the twins hollered.
Bertly’s face went dull. “Very original.”
Bertly strolled across the room and flopped into the chair behind Master Alestar’s old desk. He reached into his knapsack, which was placed behind the desk, and pulled out an apple. He threw his feet onto the desk and reclined in his chair.
“I hope your new apprentice is fun,” Orîn shouted.
“Yeah, they’d better be good with building weapons,” Orin added.
“And making potions, too.”
“And setting gators into the elf’s dormitory.”
The twins burst into laughter.
“Settle down now. We will have plenty of time to corrupt the poor victim.” Bertly took a massive bite out of the apple. “To be honest, I haven’t even met an undergraduate yet.” Bertly continued to take large crunching bites of the apple and proceeded to chew them with his mouth open.
“Are you serious?” Orin cried.
Orîn chimed in, “Isn’t the deadline tomorrow?”
Bertly spit out the pieces of apple he was chewing on. “What are you talking about?”
“How do we know this and you don’t?” the twins shouted.
“I was never assigned an apprentice,” Bertly fumed.
Orin hopped onto a barstool next to the workbench. “A master chooses their apprentice.” Orîn jumped onto a stool next to Orin. “How do you not remember this? You had a huge ordeal over it your first year.” Orin and Orîn started to tinker with the crossbow.
Bertly’s eyes widened. He flew out of his chair. “Oh, sweet Cordelia. What time does the registrar close?”
“At five,” the twins replied. “It’s at least seven now.”
Bertly fell back into his chair. “Blast. I will have to go first thing tomorrow.”
“They’re probably out of students,” Orin replied.
Orîn jumped in. “Every master has most certainly chosen an apprentice by now.”
Bertly took a bite of his apple. “I’m not waiting a year for the next class. I’ll take whoever they have to offer.”
X
Bertly held a book in his hand while he sat on the floor next to the registrar’s office, waiting for the grumpy old dwarf who worked the front desk to open it. Bertly had, unfortunately, had several encounters with her before. The previous encounter of theirs had involved bread pudding and a turkey leg at the dining hall. He somehow doubted he’d be able to persuade her to work in his favor. His nerves hit him harder when he heard footsteps echoing down the nearby corridor.
Rounding the corner was a stubby old woman, who could’ve easily been considered short—even for a dwarf. Her hair was half gray and she wore a chain around her neck with her reading glasses attached. She had a bag in one hand and what looked like tea in the other. “What are you doing here, Bertly?” the old woman grumbled, not bothering to make eye contact with him.
Bertly sprang to his feet the moment she addressed him and hustled over to her, reaching for her bag. “Good morning, Miss Dots. Here, let me grab that for you. Oh, and I don’t know if you’ve heard, but it’s actually Master Bertly now, ma’am.” Bertly bit his tongue, albeit a bit late. He hadn’t intended to lord his status over her. “Not important. I came to see if you had any apprentices left?” Bertly gave her a half smile, attempting charm.
“No,” Miss Dots said simply as she shuffled past Bertly and reached to open the door to the registrar’s office.
Bertly rushed ahead and opened the door for her. “Miss Dots, it would mean the world if you could just maybe take a tiny little peek at the list. See if anything is there.” Bertly gave a slow shrug accompanied by what he hoped was another charming smile.
Miss Dots groaned and hobbled over to her cluttered desk, pushing aside a few books to make a place for her tea. She looked directly at Bertly for the first time. “The deadline is today, Master Bertly. Every student has already chosen their master.”
Bertly put his hands together and gave Miss Dots his best puppy-dog eyes. “Please.”
“You’re lucky I’m a morning person.” Miss Dots blew on her cup of tea and rummaged through a stack of papers. She perched her glasses at the tip of her nose and held the stack of pages out before her, slowly scanning them. Once every few moments she would lick her thumb and flip a page. After what felt to Bertly like an hour, the woman spoke.
“It seems as though we have one apprentice left.”
Bertly scratched the back of his head as he wondered precisely why only one would be left. Why had no one chosen this lonely apprentice? Miss Dots held out a wrinkled transcript and waved the paper in the air, which Bertly immediately snatched from her. “Thank you,” Bertly shouted.
“You should know this apprentice has been turned down the last two years in a row.” Miss Dots calmly took a sip of her tea. Bertly was nearly out the door of her office, but he paused at her last statement.
“Why is that?” Bertly asked.
“He went through six masters in his first year. Bad luck or something,” Miss Dots replied.
“Sweet Cordelia.” Bertly’s eyes widened. “That is awful luck. Maybe I don’t need an apprentice this year.”
“Is that all, Master Bertly?” Miss Dots stared at him while rifling through more papers and continuing to drink her tea. She was already pretending he’d left. Bertly did not care that her patience with him was running thin.
He held his finger in the air. “One more thing—where will I meet my new apprentice?”
“Here. Same time tomorrow. Is that all, Master Bertly?” Miss Dots continued to dig through
her piles of paper.
“Yes, Miss Dots. Thank you again.” Bertly folded his future apprentice’s transcript and put it in his pocket. As Bertly strolled out the door, he could not help but feel a tremendous weight lifted from his shoulders. He was still on track to finish the Mastery program on time.
***
“His test scores are excellent. He scored in the top ten percentiles for nearly every category. The top three in logic and reasoning.” Bertly was scanning his apprentice’s transcript while sharing dinner with the twins and Polly. “He even finished in the top eight at the Clash Tournament. On paper, this apprentice seems excellent.”
“Please forgive me, but what exactly is the Clash Tournament?” Polly asked. Her cheeks reddened a little.
“It’s the Academy’s annual dueling tournament,” Orîn replied.
“One on one. First to submit—or get knocked out—loses,” Orin added. The twins popped up and pretended to sword fight.
Polly stopped eating. “You’re kidding. How barbaric.” From the look on her face, Bertly could tell Polly would not be participating in the annual Clash Tournament.
“It’s tradition,” the twins shouted.
“That doesn’t mean we have to act like animals.” Polly grimaced. The twins plopped back into their seats.
“Polly, this is your sixth year. How do you not know about this?” Bertly continued to examine the transcript, turning it over, trying to find information he had not already read.
“You just pulled a Bertly,” the twins interjected. Polly attempted to cover her smile, but Bertly could still hear her giggling.
“So why is this apprentice still available?” Polly asked. “It seems odd that another master hasn’t tried to request him yet.”
“Good point,” the twins concurred.
“Well, that’s the curious part.” Bertly stopped eyeing the transcript and instead picked at his fingernail. “No one wants him because they think he is bad luck.”