The autumn term settled back into routine, with only the threat of examinations and the Midwinter celebrations to disturb Arram’s peace of mind. His studies in healing expanded to include healing wounds, a process he wasn’t certain he liked. He listed it as his second-to-last favorite, the worst task being lancing and cleaning boils. It always took some time for the stink to clear his nose. His favorite was diagnosing a patient’s illness, something he had gotten very good at with the use of Ramasu’s spells,
One Saturday morning after a night at the infirmary he went to the market where good secondhand shirts were reasonably priced. The term’s classes were hard on his clothes: these days he could go through five clean shirts a day. He reminded himself to give the school laundry women good-luck stones for Midwinter, since they did so much work for him. He was deciding on which stones to give them when Preet crashed into his chest.
“Preet!” he cried. “I almost killed you, silly bird! What were you thinking?”
Rising into the air, she gripped a lock of his hair in her claws and pulled him down an unfamiliar alley. Much to his surprise, they emerged at a side entrance of the cemetery dedicated to the Great Mother in her guise of the Crone. Devout women of the university were buried here.
A hundred yards in, a group of women gathered around a funeral pyre. Arram halted beside a tree, not wanting to disturb them, no matter how insistent Preet was. Then one of the women looked up and drew back her headscarf.
It was Sebo. She tapped her neighbor, who turned: it was Dagani. Arram also recognized the girl who had lived with Faziy. A couple of the other women were senior students and masters. One of them wore the black robe and torch insignia of a Daughter of the Temple. She carried a burning torch in her hand.
Sebo beckoned Arram forward. He hesitated, not sure if he was supposed to intrude on a women’s rite. Sebo beckoned again and scowled. In the distance, thunder rolled. The breeze twisted around, blowing full in Arram’s face. The stink of rot filled his nose. Preet landed on his shoulder and bit his ear. Wincing, Arram forced himself to walk to the pyre.
As he left the trees, a group of men walked out of the temple: Cosmas, Yadeen, Ramasu, and Chioké. Each carried cypress boughs to cleanse the dead. At the pyre, they placed their branches on the linen-wrapped corpse, covering it from top to toe. Arram nearly panicked, having no offering, until he remembered the vial of meadowsweet essence in his healer’s kit. He used it to calm people who were upset. Here it would bring his wishes for peace to this dead woman.
Placing the bottle on the corpse’s chest, he saw why Preet had brought him here. Pinned on the linen where the body’s neck would be was a familiar jade-and-silver necklace. This was Faziy’s funeral.
The Daughter bowed to a short figure all in black who now joined them. A servant of the Black God of Death, the newcomer spoke the hopes of the faithful that Faziy would be remade in the Peaceful Realms, free of pain and sorrow. As she talked of the god’s kindness, she was forced to raise her voice. The storm was rolling in fast, lightning flashing ahead of it. Quickly the Daughter of the Temple lit the four corners of the funeral pyre. Once it was blazing, the witnesses retreated to the temple—all but Arram.
Arram shook his head as Cosmas and Yadeen tried to tow him inside. Instead he locked his eyes on the boiling clouds above.
The lightning snakes came. They twined themselves around the wood and the dead woman, weaving everything together into one blazing heap. It shrank into a hard, tight knot—
And was gone, wood, body, and bone.
The Daughter seemed to be angry with Yadeen. Arram caught some of her words: “snakes,” “never, never,” and “never.” Arram let the master yell and looked for Preet. She had tucked herself under the temple’s eaves, where she, too, seemed to screech “never, never” and “never.”
Finally Arram could hear properly. He looked at Cosmas. “Who killed her?” he asked. “We’re a citadel of magecraft—surely we know who did this. Why didn’t you bury her before? You thought you could work out who killed her. You know, don’t you?”
“If he were my student,” Chioké said, “I would lock him in a magic-less room on bread and water for a week.”
Arram turned to scowl at Chioké. He was about to tell Ozorne’s master that no one had asked for his opinion, when three sets of invisible hands clapped over his mouth. “I shall deal with my students—and my instructors—as I see fit,” Cosmas said mildly. “Arram was very fond of Faziy.”
“He needs schooling in courtesy if he is to strut at court,” Chioké retorted. “And so I shall tell my student. An ill-bred lout does his prince, and his masters, little good.”
Sebo stood next to Cosmas as Chioké gathered several of his friends and left the temple. “He gets more troublesome every full moon, Cosmas,” she remarked. “Perhaps you should send him on an exchange to the City of the Gods. He needs to cool down, and that’s the perfect place.”
Cosmas patted Arram’s shoulder. “Avoid Chioké, Arram,” he cautioned. “He’s every bit as likely to have sunk those ships as Faziy—and make it look like her work.”
Arram and his friends survived the Midwinter festivities and began the spring term. Arram, Varice, and Ozorne began to help Lindhall’s people with minor healings at the university and imperial menageries, while Hulak began to teach them how to make the most-used medicines for animals. Arram’s schedule changed not at all, except to grow harder.
When marks were posted, Tristan had his credential in war magic. He remained a fourth-year student in siege magic, fire magic, and air magic, and a third-year student in healing and other required classes.
“Just a matter of catching up,” he said carelessly, looking over his marks. “If I bear down on those third-year courses, I should be able to move ahead into all fourth-year classes next year and start my schooling for my master’s stone.” His friends, even Arram, clasped his hand in congratulation.
Gissa reached fourth year in most of her classes; Ozorne and Varice received top marks for the third-year courses. They were well beyond any students of their own age, studying with people who were in their late teens and early twenties on average.
Since Arram was taking mostly solo courses, he was amused by the titles his teachers had created for them. “Gems in Combination with Other Substances” was Yadeen’s contribution. Sebo’s was less helpful: “Manipulation of Water.” Arram supposed it was easier than explaining they had spent the winter shifting currents in the Zekoi to scour out silt that had built up in the main channel. Dagani’s description of their lessons was one word: “Creation.” Whatever his masters said they had taught him, they gave him top marks in all seven subjects.
He heard someone scoff, “He’ll end up in the libraries all his days, writing books no one will read!”
Except for one or two other complaints about “the pet boy,” the other students left Arram alone. By giving his classes odd names and keeping him out of the view of most students, his masters had made him too odd to torment. Arram, relieved, walked away from the boards of marks to join Varice and Ozorne for an afternoon’s laze.
They were given a splendid treat in their free week. Princess Mahira obtained an imperial barge and invited Ozorne and his friends on a four-day journey up the Zekoi and back. They feasted on very good food, lounged in the sun or in shade cast by silk canopies, played chess or knowledge games, and visited temples and ruins on the river’s banks.
At night there was music and dancing. Preet sang so beautifully that even Mahira was impressed. She gave the bird a thin gold ring that just fit over her claws to dangle around one thin leg. Preet was so thrilled with the gift that she soared in elegant loops around the masts, as if to prove it couldn’t weigh her down. Then she perched on the arm of Mahira’s chair and sang just for her.
“Strong little thing,” Ozorne murmured in Arram’s ear.
Arram nodded.
The company also invited Arram to juggle. For this more jaded audience, and also because he hadn’t brought his juggling equipment, Arram worked as he had in the typhoid infirmary and used anything at hand. Even Ozorne’s imperious mother laughed and applauded.
On their way home, Arram leaned against the rail and studied the part of the river and its banks upstream from the imperial palace and the university. He saw the slip where the imperial barges docked. And on the university side he saw the dock used by the emperor when he wanted to attend the games. If Arram looked down the road that led from the dock, he could see the tall white mass of the arena itself. It filled him with dread.
Before his holiday began, Ramasu had taken him aside. “A week after the start of the term, you will accompany me for two weeks at the gladiators’ camp,” he told Arram. “I spend time there with an assistant during every gladiatorial season. We treat people for injuries and ailments, and for wounds taken in the arena after the games. Make sure the kit you put together once classes begin is ready—I’ll inspect it before we leave. The people in infirmary supplies know you’ll be coming.”
Looking down that road, watching the sun bathe the area, Arram shuddered. He had done his best to avoid most of the games. Now he would be up to his elbows in it. Worse, he knew he could get out of it. All he had to do was tell Ramasu he couldn’t bear to do it. Ramasu would understand.
But healing mages must learn wounds and surgery. What if he was confronted with someone who needed help one day, and he lacked the knowledge to save that person? He had to go. If he fainted, he was sure Ramasu would give him another try. He doubted the master would give him a second try if he said no now. Ramasu was a very yes-or-no sort of person.
He turned his back on the arena. He would see more than enough of it soon.
By the time the barge touched the university dock, Arram wanted to run to his room. He was weary of people. Soon classes would begin, and all of his masters had promised to work him like a field laborer. He believed them. He meant to sleep until then, in peaceful solitude—or as much solitude and peace as residence in Lindhall’s quarters supplied.
He thanked Princess Mahira as elegantly as he could, told Ozorne he’d had a wonderful time, and hastened up the path, well ahead of the others. His bed called.
For the next three days Ozorne dragged him to meals. Lindhall requested his usual help with the animals who shared their quarters. Beyond that Arram kept to himself. He cleaned cages and boxes, restored stocks of seed, bandages, dishes, perches, and splints, and mended leashes, gloves, and hoods. The other students who had the duty over the holiday were happy to leave him to it.
Ozorne did insist that Arram join him on the flat rooftop of the building the night before the start of the term. Sergeant Okot himself took the guard position on the stairwell that led to the roof. He placed one of his most trusted soldiers on the stair, assuring Ozorne that neither of them was within sight or hearing of the two youths. Once he had taken his position, and Ozorne had checked both men himself in his scrying mirror, Ozorne produced cups and a bottle of his mother’s wine. Arram spread the thick blanket he’d brought for protection from the gravelly roof. A loaf of bread and a bowl of buttermilk cheese followed. Ozorne set his prizes on the blanket, together with a knife for the cheese and a pair of napkins. Forewarned, Arram had filched grapes from supper.
“A feast!” Ozorne proclaimed it, and poured out the wine. “The only thing missing is Varice, but the girls are having their own gathering.”
“Careful with that wine,” Arram warned. “Don’t start summer with a hangover.”
“Worrier,” Ozorne retorted.
They ate and drank, and at last Ozorne remarked idly, “Mother wanted to talk future brides with me while the rest of you were visiting the temple of the Crocodile God upriver.”
Arram listened to a bat as it fluttered overhead before he asked, “And?”
Ozorne sipped his wine. “I convinced her that Uncle might take it ill if she was trying to find me a brood mare. Cousin Mesaraz is still very much alive and well and, I assume, capable of siring his own heirs. And Uncle himself isn’t in need of his heir just yet.”
“Did that work?” Arram asked. He was trying to ignore the goosebumps that prickled over his arms and back at such casual, almost contemptuous talk of “brood mares” and “siring.”
“With a little persuasion.” Ozorne’s voice was calm in the summer twilight. “She doesn’t think sometimes. She doesn’t see how it might look to someone as jumpy as Uncle. I’ve heard gossip that Stiloit perhaps didn’t drown—or if he did, it was before the ship actually sank. If Mother pushed for me to marry, Uncle might wonder if she was trying to advance me in the ranks of heirs. That Stiloit didn’t die accidentally.”
“Do you believe that?” Arram asked, goosebumps of a different kind racing all over his body.
Ozorne chuckled. “Are you joking? I was given a copy of what the men who survived told Uncle’s examiners. The storm came up fast and hard, so hard they lost sight of the other ships. When it passed off, the mages identified what remained of the lost ships. The rain gods were irritable last winter, that’s all.”
“We had the same storm,” Arram reminded him. “I saw it. And it had no lightning, Ozorne. No lightning and no—”
Ozorne lunged and clapped his hand over his mouth. “Don’t say it,” he whispered. “What if someone believed you? I saw them—didn’t see them—too, remember? You, me, Chioké—and Faziy. And she’s dead.” Arram stared at his friend. “That was in Uncle’s report, too,” Ozorne whispered. “Chioké told them she was dead, weeks dead, when she was found. But others knew she was supposed to be able to get lightning to come when she called. He vouched for you and me—that’s why we haven’t been called before the examiners. Forget them, Arram. Forget her. Forget lightning snakes.”
Arram nodded. Ozorne was right. There were too many ways someone might think they had a part in that murderous storm. Stiloit was gone. Faziy was gone. What did he know of murder and emperors?
“I believe in ugly storms and the mortality of men. It was poor Stiloit’s time, that’s all. No one killed him.” Ozorne refilled his glass and swallowed deeply. “May the Black God show him and those who died with him every mercy he can show.”
Including Faziy, Arram thought. Even if she used the lightning that sank those ships, or got the lightning snakes to do it, surely her own death paid for it. I only wish I knew why.
They watched the brightening stars and the rising moon in companionable silence. In the university below they could hear students laughing and shouting, enjoying their last free night for the next few months.
Finally, since they had skirted the possibility already, Arram asked softly, “What would you do? If you were emperor?” He drank a little of his wine and made a face.
Ozorne sat up and looked in the direction of each of the guards. When he saw no sign of them, he sank back and whispered in return, “I’d build a statue to my father in Imperial Square.”
Arram nodded, then remembered he was a shadow against other shadows. “What else?”
His friend chuckled. “I’d build Mother a palace at least two hours’ ride away.”
Arram choked, then said in reproof, “I’m serious.”
“So am I,” came the answer. Ozorne was quiet for a time. “I’d build two more universities, one in Ekallatum Province and the other toward the eastern borders. Students will be able to study early before they need to come here. Or they can get their certificates at those schools. Our strength is in our mages, that’s what Father always said. And two big schools for magecraft—ours and the one in the City of the Gods—isn’t enough. Too many people with the Gift are forced to make do with bits and pieces, when they could learn greatness.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Arram said, awed. He hadn’t even thought of that for the future. “Have you thought…about the slaves?”
“What about them?”
“Freeing them. The North manages without slaves.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought it through, but…it’s different with our people, surely,” Ozorne replied slowly. “So many of them are uneducated—taken from the inland tribes. They can’t care for themselves. Their masters do that.”
“They could be taught,” Arram said. “The ones in the Eastern Lands managed.”
“But that area, those Eastern Lands, they don’t have the open ground we use for crops,” Ozorne said, amused. “They don’t have the acreage along our northern coast, let alone what’s in the south and the east. We have hundreds of thousands of slaves. They had nothing like that number! Besides, they freed them a few at a time.”
Arram exhaled with impatience. “You could start with the children.”
“Maybe,” Ozorne drawled. “I would really have to think and talk with others about it. Why don’t you do the same? We need to avoid what happened in the Eastern Lands when they freed their slaves. People lost fortunes paying former slaves to do their old jobs—you read the same books I did. The great lords rebelled against their king—”
“Unsuccessfully,” Arram said impatiently.
“It would take time and careful planning. Years of it.” Ozorne filled Arram’s glass. “You are an idealist. Someone has to be practical. Not that we’ll get a chance to try any of this.”
Arram sighed and sipped the wine. It tasted even nastier. Why did so many people like the stuff? “You’re right,” he told his friend. “I don’t wish your uncle or your cousin ill, after all.”
“Me neither,” Ozorne replied, putting down his own cup. “If anything happens to them, I’ll have to work. There’s a dreadful fate!”
Preet descended through the dark and lit on Arram’s hand.
“Come here,” Ozorne begged. “Let me scratch that wayward little noggin of yours.” Preet complied. As she began to make her happy chirring noise, Ozorne asked, “Do you know what I’d really like to do? Or were you just pulling my hair over slavery?”
“Of course I’d like to know,” Arram said.
Ozorne sighed dreamily. “Southern Tortall or the Copper Isles. I’m not sure which I’d take first. I’d have to see what condition the navy is in. The lords of the Copper Isles have better ships than the Tortallans. It should be the Kyprish holdings, though. Once you have the Isles, Tortall is at your mercy, and the Yamani Islands. Get Tortall, and the Yamanis and Scanra are nothing. And once you have those four, you can sweep the Eastern Lands.”
Arram sat up straight, staring at his friend’s shadow. “You’ve put a great deal of thought into this.”
“I have to do something with all those history and military history lessons, don’t I?” Ozorne scrambled to his feet, making Preet flap over to Arram. He walked to the edge of the roof to stare toward the lights of Thak City. As he went, a wave of his Gift billowed out to form a dome over him and Arram: a privacy spell to keep Okot and his colleague from hearing. “Think of it, Arram,” Ozorne said quietly. “The emperor who did that would be known forever as the one who reunited the original empire, the Eternal Empire of the islands, the Eastern Lands, and the Southern Lands. One great empire—and one great emperor.”
Arram petted the bird for a moment, then forced a light note into his voice. “So what comes after that? The moon?”
Ozorne laughed and returned, rolling up the privacy spell with him. “Just dreaming, dolt. Let’s pack up and head off, before we fall asleep here. It’s not the most comfortable of beds.”
As he cast some light over them, Arram packed away their dishes. And you’ve given me an uncomfortable night, he thought. Whatever happened to the country villa, with Varice and me as your servants and counselors? It seems you have a far bigger household in mind.