The main thing Arram remembered from the spring examinations was his goodbye to Faziy. He had paid Yadeen some of his carefully saved money for the silver materials—slender chain, double loop clasp, setting—and a beautiful piece of jade, both for calm and prosperity. Even Yadeen, who was difficult to please, praised the necklace when it was done. Faziy wept when he presented it to her on the last day of class, and allowed him to help her put it on. She laughed when he showed her the mark he had engraved on the clasp: a tiny lightning bolt.
“I won’t worry about your prosperity,” she told him before he left for Dagani’s class. “I know that one day everyone will know who you are. You should start to think about a mage name.”
“She’s right,” Tristan said when Arram told his friends about it at supper. “Arram Draper isn’t the sort of name to inspire awe. No one is ever going to learn what my name was before I changed it.”
Varice leaned her chin on her hand. “Something dark and mysterious, like you’re growing to be. Though I’ll miss Arram.”
“I’d feel silly with a grand name,” Arram said, feeding Preet bits of fruit.
“And I have to keep mine,” Ozorne said. They gathered up their dishes and left the dining hall to work on their studies. The discussion was over, but every now and then Arram would toy with the idea, trying out new names and laughing at his efforts.
When the marks were posted, Arram was pleased with his. He was even with Ozorne and Varice in the classes they shared, which was all that mattered. Tristan and Gissa did well enough in their own classes that they mustered a group of friends and headed into the city to celebrate. Arram, Ozorne, and Varice retreated to the menagerie, where new leopard cubs had just arrived.
The friends’ week of relaxation was done before they knew it, and Arram was pitched into his new schedule. He dimly realized at some point that he had expected to be making more medicines for Ramasu at the infirmary. In truth, that was part of his work, as was mopping, scrubbing, fetching materials for older helpers, and guiding patients to the rooms where they would be cared for and given a bed if necessary.
He had been there a month when one of the older students grabbed him by the arm and hauled him into an examining room.
Ramasu stood by a weathered, skinny man who sat on the worktable. The man wore a plain old shirt, breeches, and sandals, as well as a thick, dirty rag wrapped around one arm.
“Water, clean cloths, cleansing liquid,” Ramasu ordered.
Arram turned to get those things, but Ramasu said, “Not you, Arram. Gerb will do it.” The student who had brought Arram there left the room. “This is Daka. He is a farmer from one of the villages to the south. Daka, my student, Arram.”
The man nodded shyly to Arram.
“Daka had an accident a week ago, and waited until now to come to us,” Ramasu said with reproach.
Daka glared at the master. “It’s plantin’ time,” he retorted, as if Ramasu had forgotten a central aspect of life. “My woman is near to poppin’ with another babe, so she’s no help. The older two is some use, but she needs them at the house and the home garden.” He smiled. “Him and the girl is hard workers, and a help to their ma.”
“And how did you hurt your arm?” Ramasu asked. Arram was startled. Talking with the farmer, his reserved and aloof master was gentle, even kind.
“Agggh!” Daka growled. “I tripped comin’ in from the field and hit a sharp-edge rock. It wasn’t too deep, so my woman washed it in vinegar for me and wrapped it up. I didn’t think no more of it till the thing leaked through the wrap. I took it off, and the thing were all swole up. I put a clean cloth on it, but it hurts and hurts.”
“Were there herbs in the vinegar?” Ramasu asked. “Bits of leaves or sticks?”
“She puts plants in it for flavor,” Daka snapped. “Everyone does.”
The student Gerb returned with the requested supplies and laid them out on the table, ready for use. “Shall I remove the bandage, Master?” he asked Ramasu.
The master shook his head. “Arram will do it. You prepare a wet cloth. I will be ready to hold Daka’s arm if it is needful.” Ramasu looked at the farmer. “We’re cautious only because this cloth may now be stuck to your arm. I’d like you to hold still, if you would be so good.”
Daka looked at Ramasu, then Arram, gulped, and nodded. He held out the arm.
“Wash your hands in the fountain,” Ramasu instructed Arram. “Use the soap. Touch nothing once they’re clean, until you hold Daka’s arm. Where is the injury?”
Arram could see the swelling of the cloth on the underside of Daka’s forearm, but the man pointed it out anyway. The rising flesh under the bandage reached from the farmer’s wrist almost to his elbow. Arram hurried over to wash. When he finished, he shook the excess water from his hands as he had seen Ramasu do. Then he walked over to Daka and undid the knot on his grubby bandage. Gently Ramasu raised the farmer’s arm until it bent in an L shape. Arram would be able to look directly at the injury when he bared it.
“You should see Arram in class,” Ramasu told Daka as Arram carefully unwound the bandage from the farmer and wrapped it around one of his own hands. “He has a bird—the size of a small blackbird—that goes nearly everywhere with him.”
Arram lost track of what the master was saying. In the lean flesh under the bandage he felt something wrong, just as he felt something wrong when he worked with sick animals. If he went by what he knew of animals, the man had an infection, a bad one. Already he could see yellowish leakage on the bandage, then brown old blood on the last few layers. These were not inclined to come away from Daka’s skin.
The man grunted.
“I’m sorry,” Arram said. “I’ll take one more small pull, and if that doesn’t give, we can soak it a little to—” He tugged gently on the cloth.
“Here,” Ramasu told him. Arram reached out with his Gift to feel what the master did with a touch of his own power and the sigil for release.
The cloth yanked free of the wound, peeling away dried blood and other matter. Pus and blood spurted, splattering Arram’s face and shirt.
Instinctively he kept his mouth and eyes closed until he felt no more fresh liquid. Then he grabbed the cloth over his shoulder and wrapped it tightly around Daka’s wrist, stopping the flow of blood and matter. For a moment none of them said or did anything else. Then Gerb soaked a cloth in the warm water he had brought and began to clean Daka’s arm. Slowly Arram unwound the clean cloth until he could see the wound. It oozed sluggishly, an abscess that would have killed the man without treatment.
“That seems bad,” Daka remarked. He looked at Ramasu, his eyes filled with terror. “If I get my arm cut off, my fam’ly will starve.”
“It’s no cutting matter,” the master said kindly, resting his hand on Daka’s good shoulder. “Watch. Arram, I understand you know the basics for the sharing of power.”
“But that was marble!” Arram cried.
Ramasu nodded. “The combining of our power is much the same—I discussed it with Yadeen a while ago. The difference is in the lines. Instead of fibers within stone, we will work in terms of nerves. And you will not lend power this time. You will work as part of me, learning this kind of mending spell as you go.”
Worried—marble was far less vulnerable to his sort of mistake than a human body would be—Arram glanced at Gerb.
The older student shrugged. “It’s how he dunked me into the river of healing,” he said. “I didn’t drown, and I hear you’re clever.” He grinned.
“You just experienced a small sample and lived,” Ramasu pointed out.
Daka glared at Arram. “If you might get on, boy?” he demanded. “I have chores at home.” He looked at Ramasu. “I’ll be able to do me chores?”
That settled Arram. He knew as well as the farmer that the loss of a day’s work might mean the loss of some part of his family’s meals. Besides, there was a baby coming. “What must I do?”
Ramasu glanced at Gerb. “I will have a poultice, the emphasized honey—”
Before he could finish, Gerb said, “Turmeric, and olive leaf extract, boiled linen poultice, cotton bandage.” He looked at Arram and explained, “He thinks I never remember anything. It’s his favorite mixture for an open wound. In a month you’ll be saying it in your sleep.”
As he walked out, Ramasu muttered, “I do not get my proper portion of respect.”
“Me, I like a youngster with spice,” Daka told him. He was a little gray and beginning to sweat. Without instructions, Arram began to clear the table of the things they had placed there before. One of the shelves was stacked with blankets. Arram took two and placed the first on the table. To his awe, Ramasu picked Daka up in both arms and gently set him on the blanket, then took the other from Arram and covered the farmer with it. Arram kept the wounded arm clear of the cloth and placed it across Daka’s chest when Ramasu was done.
“Now you let us work,” Ramasu told Daka. “When you wake, your wound will be clean and bandaged, and in two days you may remove the bandage.”
Arram yawned and glanced at Daka. The farmer was asleep. “Not you,” Ramasu ordered. “Let us link together.”
It began that way. At the end of the morning Ramasu handed Arram a battered volume titled Master and Student. “It is so slow, the other way,” Ramasu told Arram as the youth leafed through the volume. “I have perhaps a handful of students a year who I can teach this way, and not all of them care for it. We reinforce what we learn through magic with studies you will undertake using this volume and in the infirmaries. You can learn just as much from the nurses and the senior students.” Arram nodded, remembering the staff at the typhoid infirmary. “And it may be that you will decide the medical arts are not for you. If that is the case, I must know right away. I do not have so much time that I can waste it on someone who dislikes the work.”
“Oh, no, Master!” Arram replied, shocked. “This is so much better than things like battle magic, or studying what will earn me a place among the wealthy!”
Ramasu smiled. “You are young. You may change your mind—and if you enter Ozorne’s house, you will labor for him as much as for the sick, remember.” He urged Arram through the door closest to the university’s main entrance. “Have a good meal. You will need it after all you have done today. And read that material tonight!”
When Arram returned to the infirmary in the morning, it was to the knowledge that Daka’s wife had presented him with a new son.
The next month was something of a blur in his memory until he got used to his new schedule. The infirmary and Lindhall kept him moving, and Hulak was all too happy to step up his learning with regard to medicinal plants. Yadeen decided that he’d done so well in making spells that came from magical jewelry that he increased Arram’s studies in that area at the same time that Cosmas began to teach him about the uses of fire in the university kitchens. Dagani brought their small class of three to the next step, that of simulacra of small animals, but Ozorne, Varice, and Arram expected that. There the difficulty lay in the creation of believable simulacra of living creatures. They had done well with birds, but small animals, particularly pets, were more difficult. And Urukut decided that Arram was ready to learn magic from tribes that had vanished centuries before, leaving only their statues and stone markers behind.
Worst of all from Arram’s point of view, Varice was angry with him for three weeks. She told him it was because he had snubbed two girls she had introduced to him. Ozorne told him privately that he simply wasn’t paying attention to her the way he had before that term.
“I think it’s the falling asleep over supper, frankly,” his friend added with a grin.
Arram tried to scowl at him but couldn’t. “What do you suggest?”
Ozorne consulted with the gold bead at the end of one of his braids—that week’s color scheme was gold, dark blue, and black. “She has been admiring the bracelet you wear, and the necklace you made for Faziy.”
Arram looked at the prince with admiration. “Where would I be without you?”
Ozorne chuckled. “Surely it goes the other way.”
A week later Arram gave Varice the most delicate silver necklace he could fashion. Three small gems hung from it. He presented it to her in a silk bag after Hulak’s class one August day. “For love, prosperity, and protection,” he told her as she drew it out. “And there’s no magic on it, because I know you don’t like magic things on your skin.”
Varice untangled the chain and held the necklace up. “You made this for me?” Her eyes were wide and filled with amazement.
He nodded, looking at the ground. “I tried to find a blue stone with the properties I wanted, but this seemed better.”
“Would you fasten it?” she asked, nudging him. “So I can wear it.”
He knew she must fasten her necklaces all the time, but he couldn’t resist her request. He stepped behind her to do up the hook, breathing in her scent as he did so. She wore woods-lily scent today, just the lightest touch. It made him a little giddy.
“There,” he said, facing her once more.
She had taken a mirror from her bag and was examining herself in it. “It’s lovely!” she cried, flinging her arms around his neck. Before he knew what was happening, she had kissed him firmly on the mouth. Preet sang, flying around them, before Varice let Arram go. “I can’t wait until Gissa sees it!” Varice told him. “She’ll die of envy!”
“No, don’t,” Arram said, his head still spinning from her kiss. “She might want me to make her one, and…they’re special, that’s all. It takes strength to make them.”
Varice looked at him. “You said there isn’t magic in it. I don’t feel magic in it.”
He shrugged. “There isn’t, but…I think about them, when I work on them. About the power that naturally goes with the stone, and the metal. Jade and silver for money and protection, silver for the moon—”
“I knew that,” Varice interrupted. “Silver for the goddess, remember?”
He smiled at her. “And jade for love.”
She blushed. “Oh, who needs love? A mage only needs fun—love gets us in trouble.”
“Well, but you might want it someday, and then there’s the love of friends.” Feeling bold, he put an arm around her neck and kissed her hair. “But it’s hard, somehow, thinking about those things as I work on a piece. So don’t tell her it was me.”
Varice sighed. “All right.” She brightened. “I’ll tell her I’ve had it in my things for years and just found it again.” She kissed his hand and unwound his arm. “Ozorne will be wondering where we got to.”
“So he will,” Arram agreed. “And we have papers to write for Master Cosmas.”
To Arram’s pleasure, there were no examinations for infirmary work. Gerb, who oversaw him when Ramasu was away, pointed out sourly that every day in the infirmary was an examination. Arram didn’t mind. That month he had been assigned to work in the infirmary on Friday nights, where he cleaned wounds and healed black eyes in addition to judging more serious injuries and referring these wounded to the healer best at their particular hurts. Friday night, he learned immediately, was the night many of the poor families celebrated being free of work, even if they were too exhausted to attend their temples on Saturday.
What Arram liked was not so much the hectic hours, but the quieter ones, near dawn. He had made a new friend at the infirmary. Okolo was a curvy, lively girl who knew what to do with a shy, lanky boy in a storage closet when the waiting area was empty and the other healers were napping or playing card games. She always knew how to make Arram feel better when a sick or wounded child came in, just as she knew to fetch Arram when a child would not calm down for one of the other healers. She was fascinated by his juggling, and even learned to keep two balls of linen bandages in the air at once.
At the end of the term, she told Arram she was to be reassigned to an infirmary just for children in Yamut, far to the east. “They have so much poverty there, with all the fighting that goes on,” she explained. “But they also have healers from Jindazhen and the Kepula and Natu island countries who come to study and work there. Their ways are different than ours.” She kissed him. “I’d ask you to come with me—we’d have so much fun!—but I know you would never leave your friends.”
He would have protested, but he knew she was right.
The term ended. Arram was released from infirmary duty to travel with Sebo. They took a rented fisherman’s boat through the harbor at Thak’s Gate and westward on the coast. Here they camped in a secluded cove. Over their campfire Sebo talked about the sea and its temperament, the swift way weather could turn, and the glories of the water below the surface.
“You’ll see tomorrow,” she told Arram just before she retired to the tent their crew had raised for her. “Later next year I’ll take you for more extended journeys. It’s good to know seas and rivers. Then we’ll visit lakes and the more vigorous rivers inland. Unless you object?”
“Never!” Arram said eagerly. “It sounds wonderful!”
Sebo eyed Preet. “Stop pouting, bird,” she commanded. “You can’t go underwater with him, and that’s where we go tomorrow.”
Preet croaked at the old woman. To Arram’s ear the sound was very rude. “Preet! Manners!” he scolded.
She glared at him and croaked again, but apparently she was not too vexed. When he settled in his blankets, she cuddled into her usual place under his hair, against his neck.
“I love you, little bird,” he whispered very quietly. He had put his bedroll down a short distance from the others. If he talked in his sleep, he didn’t want anyone to know if he called out, especially if he called out a particular name, like Varice’s.
Walking into the sea with Sebo in the morning required all the nerve he could muster. It was not so bad in the cove, but when he was up to his chest, an incoming wave knocked him over. He fought his way up and a yard forward. It was harder to touch the bottom in salt water, as he found when the next wave knocked him down. He was not going to drown—he wore the mages’ bubble that kept him dry and able to breathe—but he floundered like an infant on a table.
Sebo made a sign in the water, one that glowed with her Gift. Arram copied it and immediately went to the bottom, standing as if he were on land. Walking was more difficult. The sea pushed back at him until he copied Sebo’s walk, turned slightly slantwise into the tide. Now they made progress, avoiding the creatures that lived among the rocks of the bottom and confronting the fish that came to eye them. Arram might have stayed there forever if Sebo had not pointed out that it was getting dark above.
He said little as they rinsed and ate supper. He did tell Preet about it when he couldn’t sleep. “I didn’t appreciate it when I came here,” he told the bird. “But I was ashore then. The gods are truly wondrous, to have created this world.”
“Good,” he heard a voice whisper. He looked around, but Sebo was nowhere near, and that was her voice. “A little piety is a good thing for a boy, and sleep is a good thing for an old woman. Sleep.”
Sebo woke him well before dawn to show him to a great moon tide. It bared the seashell creatures, crabs, shrimp, and slugs that normally hid in water-covered crevices. Arram sketched as many as he could before they were summoned to their boat.
On their way home through Thak’s Gate’s harbor, they saw people screaming and pointing at the water. Curious, Arram went forward. One glimpse at the problem, and he yelled for Sebo.
The immense brownish-green shape in the river rose, revealing its vast upper body. Preet zipped across the river and landed on the monster. Arram called on a spell that would make his voice louder. “He is a god!” he shouted to the watchers on land. “He is Enzi, the crocodile god of the Zekoi.”
Very flattering, the god replied. Preet, if you will devour those insects behind my ears…Enzi sighed as Preet pecked at the flesh where the insects were vexing him. I thank you.
“How sweet,” Sebo said tartly as she joined Arram. “Have you a good reason for terrifying half the city?”
I could not find you on the river, Enzi retorted. You were nowhere near the university, the capital, the palace, or this sewage hole. How was I to know you were jaunting about on all that salt poison?
“Do you have something to say?” demanded Sebo. “If not, I am weary to the bone. I’ve gone out to sea before and you never objected.”
This is different, Enzi told her. Troublesome times are coming. Troublesome for us all, land and water. Danger and death come. You are needed here. Preet rose from his head and returned to Arram. Thank you, child, Enzi said. He glared at Arram. And no, I have yet to find a proper gift. You may continue to look after her. Don’t feed her so much.
“Enzi,” Sebo said, “what kind of trouble is coming?”
What other kind is there? asked the god. Blood trouble. He smacked the water with his tail and vanished.
Sebo sighed. “I will tell those I think are serious and wary. You concentrate on your studies. And offerings to the gods might be a good idea.”
The students insisted that the great storm that broke before the start of school came because the gods were cruel. It lasted all the night before and the final day of vacation, as well as the first two days of school. Like Lindhall’s students, Arram immediately went to help with the animals. They rushed to get the outdoor creatures indoors and calm the nervous ones, as well as check that no rain leaked through to the rooms where the indoor animals were kept. The master himself muttered as he and Arram did their last check of their charges, saying “It’s too early for this, much too early.”
Worried, and perhaps just a little because he wanted to, Arram left Preet indoors during a break on the first day and went to the arena-like circle where he practiced fire magic. Thunder crashed over the university. He knew a circle of protection would do him no good. He simply raised his arms and called to the lightning snakes with his Gift.
He didn’t know how long he stood there as the rain drenched him completely. It was a while, because his arms ached when he lowered them. This first edge of the storm had passed overhead, taking its thunder with it. Puzzled, he climbed up to his room. The animals sleeping there complained when he dripped on them. He apologized quickly and gathered up dry clothing. Dumping his wet clothes in the hall, he tried to remember if he had seen so much as a single bolt of lightning.
He had not.
The next day he asked a number of people, including his masters, if they had seen lightning the day or night before. Some were positive they had not. Others were unsure, but were positive that they must have seen it. And still others demanded to know why he asked such a silly question.
Several waves of the storm, all lightning-less as far as he could tell, passed through before it ended sometime during the third night. Lindhall’s students returned the animals to their normal homes, opening weather shutters to the sun and warmer breezes. For the rest, the university was in session.
Yadeen scowled when a yawning Arram greeted him. “This year we turn to crystals, the tricksters of stone magic,” he informed Arram. “If you give them so much as a moment’s lapse of attention, they will slip your Gift along their surfaces and tangle it into a knot you cannot undo, so wake up!”
Arram covered another yawn. Masters—all masters—did not care for excuses.
Yadeen snorted. “You’d think Lindhall believes you’re his only student. All right, we’ll go slow, but only for today!”
Arram stared at the master.
“You think I was never a student?” Yadeen demanded, his large eyes flashing. “Now.” He opened a small box to reveal an array of bright stones in pink, blue, green, red, violet, and yellow shades. “No magic. Identify these and the magic associated with them, and we’ll work on your juggling. Your cross juggling is still a little awkward.”
Three days later Arram was deciding on lunch when he noticed how whispery the dining room was. He looked around. Everyone seemed shocked. Some girls, and a few boys, were weeping.
He hurried to his table. All of his friends were present but Ozorne. Varice was crying into a handkerchief while Gissa hugged her about the shoulders.
“I barely knew the man,” Varice explained. “But he was wonderful.”
“What happened?” Arram asked everyone at the table.
Varice laid her hand on his arm. “It’s Prince Stiloit, and his vessel, and two other ships of the Western Navy,” she said quietly. “That storm caught the fleet out to sea. Three ships sank. His Highness drowned.”
Along with his crew and those other crews, Arram thought. Was this what Enzi meant by his warning? It must be.
He thought of the prince, so alive and charming. “Black God ease his passing,” he murmured. “And that of his people.” The others murmured their affirmation.
“The imperial escort came for Ozorne this morning,” Tristan said. “Twelve days’ mourning at the palace, poor fellow. He asked if we could lend him our notes.” He looked at Arram. “Too bad he can’t borrow your notes for anything but illusions.”
“Tristan, don’t needle him,” Varice said. “He has no control over where the masters put him. You know that by now. And why should you complain? You two share fire magic and war magic, not to mention weapons magic and spy magic. Don’t tell me differently, because I saw your schedule.”
Tristan glared at her. “You hold yourself very high since hobnobbing with the nobility at the games,” he retorted, his face grown hard and far less handsome. “Getting too good for us peasants?”
“Tristan, enough,” Gissa told him. To Varice and Arram she said, “We’re all upset today. We have to go on mourning food and mourning meditations for— How many days is it, Varice?”
“Twelve, just like the imperial family mourns,” the younger girl replied glumly. “Three for Mithros, three for the Goddess, three for the Black God, and three for the Graveyard Hag. An hour of meditation before supper, and flatbread and butter for meals. Unless you know someone inventive. The kitchens will be closed and locked.”
Tristan leaned on his elbow, flashing a bright smile at Varice. “My dearest, dearest friend!” he said teasingly.
Varice propped her chin on her hand. “Of course, toward the end of the twelve days one’s invention and supplies run thin.”
“We have a Saturday in all that. We can get a meal in the city,” Gissa remarked.
Arram was not listening. He picked at his food, thinking about lightning. If there had been no lightning here at the school, what if it had been over the fleet?
He hadn’t seen it over the university during all that thunder, when Faziy said the two always came together.
Faziy.
She had told Chioké about lightning snakes, and Chioké had found her a job in the city that she would be a fool to resist. Such a favor put her in his debt and took her away from her university friends.
Chioké liked power. He had his eye on Cosmas’s place, but surely chief mage to an imperial heir was better, particularly when bad things happened to the other heirs.
There were only two people who would listen if Arram mentioned it to them.
Sebo scowled at him when he finished. “You did not tell me—or Yadeen—about the incident when Faziy told Chioké about lightning snakes.”
Arram thought of several excuses, none of them good, and shrugged instead.
“Young people and your shrugs!” she snapped. They were sitting on a log that had washed up on the riverbank. Now she picked up her walking stick and walked to the water’s edge. Arram wondered if he should follow and decided to wait instead.
She returned, but she did not sit. Instead she leaned on her staff and frowned down at him. “You saw no lightning in the storm? Felt none?”
Arram shook his head.
“But there was thunder.”
He nodded. “Right on top of me for a bit. Even in little storms I can see flickering in the clouds, but there was nothing this time. And I suppose I do feel, uh, prickling as a storm advances. But only in the ones with lightning. Not the mild ones.”
Sebo stared off into the distance. Finally she asked, “Have you told anyone else? About this storm?”
Arram snorted. “They’d make fun of me and call me—” He was about to say what they really called him, “an ignorant tribesman,” until he remembered that Sebo was born to a tribe. “A fool,” he amended.
She smiled grimly. “You’ll have to learn to catch yourself better than that, if you mean to enter a prince’s service.”
A prince, Arram thought, dismayed. Ozorne. Ozorne will have to live close to court.
She patted him on the shoulder. “Tell no one. Not any masters, either—I’ll decide who should know. It’s not just students who think only ignorant tribespeople believe in the lightning snakes. You were right to tell me, though. I think you know that. Don’t worry about it anymore.”
“But something was going on, wasn’t it?” Arram asked. “Someone else who knew about lightning snakes did something, or got Faziy or someone else—”
Sebo put her hand over his mouth. “And you’ll keep that to yourself, too,” she ordered harshly. “Understand? Or do I have to put a silence on you?”
Arram shook his head.
She took her hand away. “You are too cursed clever for your own good. Learn to hold your tongue. Now, bring up your protective spells. We’re visiting the hippos.”
“Do we have to?” Arram complained, but he stood and did as she ordered. He would think about her warnings later.
In twelve days the locks on the kitchen were removed. The students descended on the dining hall as locusts might on a field of wheat. Ozorne returned that night and piled his plate before joining them. Preet hopped to his shoulder once he’d eaten for a little while and began to inspect him, running her beak through his hair and over his cheek, then wandering down his arm to inspect his hand. Finished, she peeped at him until he stroked her.
“Yes, I’ve lost weight,” he told her and his silent friends. “The emperor is strict in his mourning observances. I was more concerned for my mother’s health than my own. I was finally able to persuade her physician to give her yogurt drinks during the day.” His smile was long and sly. “He discovered he was more afraid of me than he was of the emperor, at least in such close quarters.”
The others laughed. Arram patted his friend’s shoulder, but something about that smile and the flicker in Ozorne’s eyes disturbed him. He dismissed the feeling. Doubtless the healer was made nervous because Ozorne was now second in line for the throne and too powerful to offend.
“How fares His Imperial Majesty?” Gissa asked. “The shock of losing another heir must be dreadful.”
“He does as well as any man who began the decade with seven heirs and now has two,” Ozorne replied. “Now, please, everyone, let me eat.”
The others laughed and obeyed, turning to talk of their classes. Ozorne listened, his eyes alert, even as he devoured the contents of his plate. Once he’d finished, he sat back with a sigh. “You’ll help me catch up, won’t you?” he asked Arram.
Diop, their old roommate, was seated with friends at the next table. He looked over at them, a strange light in his eyes. “There’s a laugh,” he told his companions, his voice loud enough to be heard by everyone nearby. “I’m surprised they don’t arrange for him to take all of His Highness’s examinations.”
Ozorne tapped the table with his finger as he half turned in his chair. “I don’t recall anyone asking you to join our conversation,” he said mildly, despite that tapping finger. “I have yet to hear it said that I have not done very well on my own.”
Diop sniffed. His tablemates were trying to hush him, but his voice got louder. “But now you need not bother. Only command your freak to manage your studies for you, Your Highness.”
“You are even more obnoxious than you were when you lived in our quarters,” Ozorne replied, his eyes not wavering from Diop’s face. His finger still drummed the surface of the table. “For your information, the three of us have shared classes—and work—for a number of terms. I have yet to see you in our classes.”
“Did you have to pay so the other two could share your…classes?” Diop asked, his voice full of rude suggestion.
Ozorne lifted the finger he had been drumming and pointed to the doors. “Out,” he ordered quietly.
Diop stared at him for a long moment. None of the students who were listening seemed to breathe. Then he gathered his book bag. “You’re not emperor,” he said, his voice shaking. “And the three of you are nothing special.” He spat on the table and walked out.
“Well!” Varice’s voice shook. “Somebody sat on a snake.”
“People are jealous,” Tristan murmured with a shrug. “They would like to get to know Prince Ozorne better, but Highness, you limit your circle to Arram, Varice, sometimes Gissa and me, and anyone we may be courting. People grow bitter.”
Ozorne’s eyes glinted sharply. “I won’t have my friendships dictated by the likes of Diop Beha.”
“There is advantage to be had, Your Royal Highness,” Tristan replied simply. “Perhaps not with Diop, but with others. You could use allies.”
Ozorne looked at Tristan but said nothing.
Arram said wistfully, “I should like to know what put the bur in Diop’s anus.” As Ozorne and Gissa choked on their drinks, Arram explained, “He never liked us, but he hasn’t gone after us for months.”
“He was kept back this year,” Varice said, stacking her dishes and placing them tidily on her tray. “At least half of our first-year Upper Academy class has been kept back. Maybe you only looked at your marks, with the fasting and the prince’s memorials, but I look at all the marks. Every fall class is reduced by a good number. The students are held back, or some go home, or switch schools.”
When Arram stared at her, Tristan said drily, “Here is where the winnowing starts. Each term more of us will be left behind to repeat the one before. Not all mages are equal. Surely you knew that.”
Arram had known it in a vague way. Since it never had anything to do with him or his friends, he hadn’t spent time worrying about it. He barely knew what year he was in these days.
“Forget Diop,” Ozorne said, putting a hand on Arram’s arm and on Varice’s. “I’m just delighted to be back where I belong. Tell me all the gossip.”
They talked school and palace gossip until Gissa reminded them of the night’s studying yet to be done. When they scattered, Ozorne looked more vigorous than he had when he’d first sat down at the table.
Late that night Arram woke and found it hard to go back to sleep. Resolving to find the most boring volume on Lindhall’s shelves to put him in the right frame of mind, he pulled on his robe, called up a ball of light, and wandered into the study.
He was shocked to find Ozorne curled up on the floor between Lindhall’s great chair and the table covered with enamel pieces. He had his head on his knees, while with one hand he was scratching Lindhall’s large land tortoise, Sunstone, on the head. The animal was leaning against Ozorne’s side, making soft sounds of contentment. Ozorne, too, was making sounds, but to Arram it sounded as if his friend was weeping.
He reached in a pocket and found one of several handkerchiefs. Gently he poked it through an opening between Ozorne’s free hand and his knees, then sat with the table between them. He didn’t want Ozorne to feel crowded. If he wanted to talk, he would.
At last the prince raised his face and scrubbed his eyes with his handkerchief. “Tell anyone you caught me crying, and I’ll…I’ll tell Varice you fart in bed.” He blew his nose.
“And I’ll remind her that you will say anything if you’re trying to get revenge. Which of us do you think she’ll believe?” Arram reminded his friend.
Ozorne lowered his knees. Immediately Sunstone climbed into his lap. His host sighed and helped the great animal to get his hind feet up, then spread the handkerchief on the table neatly. Tugging the corners into shape, he murmured, “Why did he have to die? I liked him. The others I don’t care about. Mikrom? Well, the less said about him, the less vexation to the gods. He’ll be emperor after all. But Stiloit was always decent when he was around. When I was little he’d take me out on his ships and name all the parts for me. If he caught Mikrom bullying me, or anyone else, he’d give them what he called Sailor’s Brew.” He raised a hand and tapped it lightly against one of his eyes. “And now we can’t even bury him. He’s—” The tears were coming again. Ozorne covered his eyes with his arm. “He’s at the bottom of the sea.”
“I liked him, too,” Arram said. “Even if he kissed Varice’s hand too many times. He was generous with the plague infirmaries, and the children.”
“And a valiant captain in battle,” Ozorne said mournfully. “He would have been so good for the realm if he could have lived.”
“Sometimes the gods take our best,” Arram said. He wasn’t certain that he believed the old saying, but it felt like the right thing to tell Ozorne.
“Don’t blame the gods,” Ozorne told him. “I asked Uncle to have the shipbuilders investigate. That fleet was pronounced fit to sail in the spring.” His eyes flashed in the dim light cast by Arram’s Gift. “If they betrayed Stiloit to an enemy—if they sold good materials and used cheap ones, then pocketed the rest of the money—they will pay for it in blood.”
“Ozorne,” Arram said, hesitating. For the first time he was a little afraid of his friend. “It was a storm. A storm and lightning. You can’t behead nature.”
Ozorne was silent. Arram wished Preet had woken. She could always cheer Ozorne when he got in one of his dark moods. Finally the prince shifted. “Sunstone, my legs have gone numb.” With a grunt he lifted the animal and gently set him on the floor. Muttering, Sunstone set off down the hall. To Arram, Ozorne said, “Where would I be without you to keep me in check? Gods will it, I shall never find out. Give me a hand up.”
Arram clambered to his feet and pulled his friend up one-handed. Ozorne hugged him impulsively. “Don’t ever abandon me, Arram,” he said. “I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t at my side.”
Before Arram could reply, Preet flew in, cheeping imperiously. She circled Ozorne several times, then landed on his shoulder and tugged at his braids. The prince began to laugh. “All right, all right, I’m sending him back to you! Whoever heard of so strict a bird!” He kissed her when he lifted her on his finger and placed her on Arram’s shoulder. Then, with a wave, he left for his own bedroom across the hall.