A School for Sorcery (Arucadi Series Book 6)

by E. Rose Sabin

  It didn’t matter. Headmistress was still talking as though this entire horrific ordeal had been no more than a training exercise.

  It could not have been. She looked at Gray, whose hands still covered his face. He’d been hurt so deeply; Wilce, too, though he seemed to be handling it better.

  Oryon—the original Oryon—was dead, as was the original Tria. Oryon’s surviving shadow had much to recover from. She herself was no longer sure of her identity or of her reality.

  Abruptly sickened, Tria whirled and fled the room.

  She’d run only a short distance down the long hall when she collided with Veronica, nearly knocking the little maid off her feet. With a mumbled apology, she steadied the woman, then tried to edge around her.

  Veronica caught her arm and held her. “Running away from your triumph, miss?”

  “Running away from Headmistress’s hypocrisy,” Tria answered through sudden tears. “Tell me this wasn’t just a cruel test,” she begged.

  “All of life is a test,” Veronica said. “And it is often cruel.”

  “So this was planned? A training exercise? A game?” Tria was perilously close to hysteria.

  “It was not planned in the sense you mean,” Veronica said. “Oryon, you, the others, were all presented with choices. You chose freely, and the choices you made—each of you—set other events in motion that then required the making of other choices.”

  “Like a game,” Tria said, calmer but still bitter.

  “The game of life,” Veronica responded. “Some play it better than others. Some win and some lose. None has the option of not participating.”

  “But Headmistress—she implied that everything that happened was no more than a means of bringing me to a higher level. Doesn’t she know what we all went through?”

  “Oh, indeed she knows,” Veronica said sharply. “She did not cause your pain, and though you think she could have prevented it, she could not, except by taking away your freedom to choose. Would you have wanted that? Miryam—that is, Headmistress—suffered with you and grieved for you, though she conceals her sorrow, as she must. Had you failed, it would have caused her untold anguish.”

  “So we could have failed?”

  “You need not ask that question. Look within yourself. You know too well how close you came to failure.”

  Tria felt suddenly ashamed. But there was one more thing she had to ask.

  “What of you, Veronica? What is your place in all of this?”

  The little maid smiled. “My place, miss? I just came here to remind you that it’s time for dinner. You’d best hurry downstairs.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  PANTHER

  Tria looked at the clock and sighed. Time for her visit to Lina. These daily visits were becoming harder and harder to face, and today she was already depressed. Another failure to call Lina back to human form would depress her more. Yet she had to try.

  The first time, fresh from her success at restoring Wilce and Gray, full of confidence, she had entered the cage where Lina was confined and called for help from her mysterious mentor, the being from the sphere. He had not answered. Nor had he spoken since in her mind, though at times she felt his presence. And nothing she had done on that day or on all the successive days to the end of the school year had brought Lina back; the panther remained unchanged.

  She knew her unseen counselor had not deserted her. When during the time of spring rains a child on a nearby farm fell into a deep well, Tria had gone with a rescue party and had used her power to lift the tot from the narrow shaft in time to save him from drowning. She had sensed her mentor augmenting her strength. The grateful parents had insisted on paying her tuition for the coming term. Could her mentor have had a hand in that decision? She liked to believe so.

  During the two months’ vacation between the spring and fall terms she had returned home, a glowing commendation in hand from Headmistress. Her mother had been overjoyed, but it was her father’s unexpected reaction that pleased her most. He told her he was proud of her and would pay her for her summer’s work on the farm. So her second year’s tuition was taken care of, and she had fulfilled, at least in part, her promise to her mother.

  At the beginning of the new school year she again felt the presence of her benefactor from the crystal sphere. It had to have been he who helped her break up a fight between Taner and a first-year student. Taner had returned with restored power but without a dagger to replace the one she’d lost. Often angry, quick to take offense, Taner might have killed her less-talented opponent. She had the power to do so without the use of a dagger. But Tria had been led to use her power to deflect Taner’s, an act for which the island girl had thanked her when her anger faded.

  On such occasions, her mentor’s presence had been clear to her, yet he still refused to make his presence known to her when she was with Lina. Nothing she or others did to try to restore Lina accomplished anything. Rehanne’s mind-probe, Verin’s healing touch, Taner’s peremptory demand, Wilce’s soft coaxing were all as futile as Tria’s attempts. Oryon had tried to use the feeble power that had returned to him. His effort had failed like the rest. Only Kress had made no effort to help, and Kathyn confided the thing that Headmistress had told her when they’d all gotten into trouble after the power duel: Kress had almost no gift of his own beyond that of drawing power from others. Now that he was abstaining from stealing others’ power, he could do almost nothing.

  Tria thought of the list she’d made of her talents. It had grown longer; the items she’d added included mindspeaking. But not that one or any other had served to help Lina. Perhaps it had been as Veronica suggested the night Tria had rescued Lina: the panther had been healed, but Lina had perished. Yet Tria refused to abandon hope. This day she’d try again to find the key to recall the catgirl to her human nature.

  She looked around the room for something to take with her that might help. Her first selection was Lina’s talisman for breaking wards, though she had tried it many times in the hope that its magic would have some effect. Nubba had found it lying in the hall near the washroom the day after Oryon’s defeat, had shown it to Tria, and Tria had claimed it for Lina.

  The green scarf spread over the two trunks caught her eye. Had she taken it before? She thought she had, but she’d try again. She swooped it off the trunks and folded it, thinking as she did so of the day she’d met Lina. The recollection of the contest they’d had evoked a sad smile. She hadn’t known she could shrink or enlarge objects until in a fit of temper she’d easily reduced Lina’s trunk to the size of a matchbox and kicked it under its owner’s bed.

  On sudden impulse she duplicated that feat, picked up the doll-sized trunk, and carried it with the other items.

  She hurried downstairs and out through the patio to the faculty residence hall where Lina’s cage occupied a spare room next to Veronica’s apartment.

  The large cage filled most of the room. The panther paced back and forth, head swaying, green eyes baleful. “You’re edgy today,” Tria said, leaning against the bars of the cage. “So am I.”

  The panther continued its prowling.

  “Look, I’ve brought your talisman.” Tria held the golden, jeweled circlet toward the cat, which ignored it.

  “Take it. It’s yours.” Tria hurled the talisman at the panther. It struck the animal’s flank. The panther whirled and charged toward Tria, snarling.

  Tria jumped back from the bars. “Well, at least that got your attention. Look at this.” She shook out the scarf. “You always said you liked green because it brought out the color of your eyes.” Tria tossed it the scarf.

  The panther caught the green silk in its jaws, shook it, dropped it, and shredded it with its claws.

  “You are in a nasty mood today. Let’s see what you do with this.” She threw the miniaturized trunk past the panther.

  It landed near the rear of the cage. The animal crouched and sprang toward it. As it pounced, Tria expanded the trunk to its original size. Throw
n off balance, the panther toppled backward.

  It twisted around, regained its feet, and turned its back on Tria. Tail twitching, it stalked to a corner of the cage, where it settled and licked its paws.

  “Well, I wounded your dignity, anyway. Come on, Lina. Rescue your trunk.” Tria shrank it again, picked it up with her power, and pitched it at Lina.

  Wary, the cat backed away from it. Tria pushed it closer, expanded it again, this time to twice its correct size. The panther reared back, yowling, circled the trunk, vaulted onto it, and clawed at it. Tria reduced the trunk to fist size, sending the panther crashing to the ground.

  “Enough of this!” Lina rose to her feet, dressed in the short, white cotton smock she had been wearing when Tria last saw her, the night they’d summoned the Dire Woman. Green eyes flashing, she caught up the trunk and hurled it through the bars at Tria. “Leave me as I wish to be!” she shouted.

  Tria dodged the flying trunk and stared in amazement as Lina reverted to panther form. The panther yawned, stretched, and lay on the floor, its back to Tria.

  Tria gripped the bars of the cage. “So, you’re choosing to be an animal, are you? To laze in a cage all day eating all you want, having people make a fuss over you. No books, no classes, no tests to study for, no work detail.” She frowned, thinking of all she knew of Lina and recalling the night when the Dire Woman had abducted her.

  “No, it’s more than that. You’re avoiding something. That night when you summoned the Dire Woman and we both chased her into the hall and you shape-changed, I thought you’d leap on the Dire Woman and try to stop her. You leaped on Gray instead. I thought it was because he was protecting his mistress, but it wasn’t that, was it? You didn’t want to attack the Dire Woman. You wanted power from her, the kind Oryon had. Your own greed made you a captive.”

  The panther lay unmoving but breathing too rapidly for sleep. One ear twitched. Lina was listening.

  “No one will hold what you did against you. We all made mistakes, but the whole incident with Oryon is over and forgiven. It’s a new year, now. All anyone cares about is passing courses and discovering the way to the next level.

  “Lina, I miss you. I haven’t taken another roommate. I’ve waited for you to come back, and I’ve kept all your things in the room, but it seems empty without you. I get lonely; I even miss the arguments we used to have.” Tria rested her forehead against the cool steel bars a moment, gathering courage to go on. “Lina, everyone’s been standoffish since I won the challenge. All of them—even Rehanne and Wilce—treat me like some kind of goddess. I know you wouldn’t do that. I need a friend. I think you need one, too. Come back, please.”

  Tria’s voice trailed off into silence. Tears leaked from her eyes and trailed down her cheeks. She didn’t have the energy to wipe them away. Slowly she turned toward the door. Her hand touched the latch.

  “Wait. Get me out of this cage. I’ll come with you.”

  Tria whirled around. Lina stood at the front of the cage. “I guess my power’s not all gone,” she said. “I could make the transformation. But I don’t have enough left to bend these bars. That’s the main reason I haven’t changed: I couldn’t face being helpless.”

  Tria called up a surge of power and spread the bars apart. Lina stepped through. Tria threw her arms around her and hugged her. “Your power will come back. Oryon’s was stripped by the Dire Women, too, but he’s gradually getting it back. I’ll tell you about it, but first let me get your trunk.” Her power brought the trunk through the bars and set it in front of Lina. “Better get something out of it to wear instead of that smock. You can’t go through the school in just that. You’ve been a panther so long you’ve forgotten about wearing proper clothes.”

  Lina looked down at her scanty garment and laughed. She unlatched the trunk, opened it, and pulled out clothes. When she’d dressed, Tria reduced the trunk, picked it up in one hand, and slipped her other arm around Lina’s waist. “Come on, roommate,” she said. “I’ll catch you up on all the news.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THE GIFTING

  It was time to go. Lina had left several minutes earlier to find a good seat in the audience; she would not graduate for another year. The assembly hall would be full for once, crowded with students, families, and friends come to watch the Gifting of the graduates. Tria’s parents would not be there; the trip was too long and too expensive to permit them to come. They’d sent their regrets, their congratulations, and assurances of their love for her and their pride in her accomplishments.

  Tria didn’t have to worry about getting a good seat. She’d be in the procession of graduates. It was time for her to join that procession, but instead she stood in her long white gown and stared out the window.

  The school had become her whole world. For the past two years she had not left it except to make short trips into town. She did not count the forays into the paths between the worlds and, in her second class with Aletheia, brief visits to two or three of those alternate worlds. She could never decide whether those journeys took her away from the school or whether the school encompassed the other worlds and the paths between them. She understood that the three buildings of yellow brick that she had seen on her arrival and explored during her first months in residence were mostly illusion. The real school was much larger, more beautiful, more complex than the fictitious representation in the brochure that had drawn her here. She could not yet guess its true extent or complexity.

  She had expected to be here four or five years before satisfying the requirements and reaching third level. Instead, she had attained the mandatory level before the end of her first year, but courses remained to be taken and exams to be passed. She’d finished her second year and thought to go on to a third, but a week before the end of the current term, Headmistress had told her she was to be graduated. She had instructed Tria to attend the Gifting Ceremony along with the other graduates. The prospect of receiving from the hands of Mistress Blake the parting gift that would focus and define her talent excited her. But Tria couldn’t get used to the idea of leaving the school.

  Another glance at her clock made her gasp in horrified disbelief. An hour couldn’t have passed since Lina left. The Gifting must already have started.

  She dashed into the hall, bounded down the steps, and sped through empty corridors. Too many empty corridors.

  Where the first floor hallway should have been, she faced another flight of stairs, a wide, curving cascade with gold runners and crystal risers. Her hand caressed the gleaming brass banister; here was a stairway begging to be descended slowly and gracefully. She pointed her toe, brought it to rest daintily on the first step, then paused. This was not a time for self-indulgence. She was late!

  Dared she fold time? A mere tuck would supply the needed minutes. She pressed her fingertips against her closed eyelids and stretched her mind outward. The disorientation that preceded time-shifting was beginning when she remembered how she had accidentally moved time back an hour on her first day in the school. The stern prophecy of Headmistress rang out in her brain: “You will be required to return the hour you took.” She was suddenly sure that time had come, and she was being required to return the hour at this critical point. She dared not upset time’s balance even if it meant missing the Gifting.

  Tria withdrew her concentration, opened her eyes, and charged down the stairway, hitting every other step.

  At its end was a wide, carpeted hall she’d never seen before.

  To steady her nerves, she recited the first theory lesson, spoken in the dry, pedantic tone of Master Tumberlis. “The worlds are born of dust and the tears of the gods. How many worlds we cannot comprehend. The dimensions of existence are infinite, yet most of our race experience no more than three or four.”

  Now, with the Gifting Ceremony under way, she was experiencing those other dimensions. Open doorways offered tantalizing glimpses of lavish parlors, winding stairways, and branching corridors, none of which she had time to explore. She
had to find the quadrangle.

  Maybe she could place-shift. She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated, visualizing the solid oak door that opened onto the courtyard. She opened her eyes. The door loomed in front of her. She reached for the handle, jerked it open, and darted outside. Organ music drifted from the assembly hall. She gathered up her long, white graduation gown and raced across flagstones and flowerbeds. A leap over a rose bush sent her sprawling, her gown snagged on a thorn. She picked herself up and ruefully disentangled the hem of her dress from the bush’s grasp. Rearranging the folds of her skirt to conceal the jagged tear, she muttered, “Should have known shortcuts always turn out to be the longest way to where I’m going. Haven’t I learned anything these past two years?”

  She hurried to the fountain to wash the dirt smudges off her hands and dress. A tousled head popped up over the opposite side of the fountain. Dark gamin eyes peered at her. “See my boat, lady? It runned away.”

  This must be a visitor’s child. Tria followed the direction indicated by a muddy finger. A roughly carved wooden boat bobbled perilously close to the fall of water from the fountain.

  “Catch it for me, please?”

  She leaned over the rough stone edge, soiling her dress again. The wind caught and billowed the paper sail on its twig mast, sweeping the tiny craft beyond her reach. The loud chords of the processional rang out, reminding her of the time. She straightened.

  “Please, lady!” The anguish in the child’s voice caught at her heart. She focused her attention again on the toy boat. Sunlight glinted off the fragile sail; for an instant, her vision blurred. She saw before her a great sea. Men rushed across the slippery deck of their wave-tossed vessel, shouting as they struggled to furl the mainsail.

  She blinked. A jet of water deflected the wooden ship, spun it toward her. She reached out, grabbed it, placed it in its owner’s eager hands, and ran toward the assembly hall.

  Thudding up the wide marble steps, she stopped short at the sight of a figure huddled on the top step. She knelt beside the crumpled form and placed her hand on the brown hair. From within the hall the organ music continued to chart the progress of the service.