Author: Nate

Old Imperial Year 804 (324 Terran common era)
Island of Obdrest

No one could remember when the first people came to Obdrest, but their descendants knew that they had been survivors who had escaped the from Priest-Kings of Zir and Shir.  The crossing was perilous, and many more had died than had made it through, but it was better than being treated as little better than cattle or sacrificed to their dark gods.

The island was heavily forested, with mountains at the center, swampy in the south, with little flat land for agriculture.  The people there didn’t mind; there weren’t many of them and when they’d gotten there or new ones arrived, they mostly associated growing crops with forced labor at the Priest-Kings’ hands.  So long as they stayed out of the high mountains – where dragons sometimes visited – the island was very safe, free of large predators and of other sentients.  The hunting was good; fishing was even better.   Once in a great while, the tall volcano at the center of the island would erupt, but it was deep inland and far from the people.

Life on Obdrest stayed the same for centuries, until the first Human Empire became strong enough to force the Priest-Kings to release many of their brethren.  Then the Priest-Kings, out of desperation, did something they had never done before. It was a mass summoning, which brought whole cities over together.

Unlike prior summons, who arrived one at a time or in small groups, the new cities kept their own language, governments, and even armies.  They went to war with the Priest-Kings, and the Empire got involved on the side of the summoned cities.

In the end, most of the people from the summoned cities escaped to freedom with Imperial help, but the Priest-Kings defended their territory, took the possession of the cities and enslaved enough of the summoned population to keep their economy running and their dark gods fed.  In time, they would breed many more, as they had in the past.

Of those who avoided enslavement, most migrated north, naming their first city Penrose after their goddess Pennyr.  They would one day establish the second Empire.  A smaller group took ships across the sea to Obdrest.

Although there were not quite as many as the people who were already there, they were a lot of people to arrive all at once.  Unlike the locals, they founded towns and started clearing the forest for cropland. Both populations intermarried, and within a few generations, the summoned people’s language – the shared root of modern Obdresti and New Imperial – had become the norm.

At the same time, both the old and new Obdrestis valued their freedom. They had no Kings, nor any nobility.  Each town had its own council of elders, and periodically elders from all the towns would come together to debate.  If someone did not like how the elders of their town led it, the land and sea remained rich enough that a person could support themself away from the towns.

Under the protection of the old Empire, Obdrest enjoyed centuries of peace.  There was no one moment when the Empire fell; instead, its sphere of influence just shrank and shrank, until eventually the last old Emperor in Kala died, and his son went back to calling himself a King.   Eventually, the Priest-Kings noticed that there were no longer Imperial ships patrolling the seas nearby, and that no armies reinforced their neighbors.  They began to raid their neighbors for slaves, including Obdrest – first a few at a time, and then growing bolder.

Among the Obdrestis, there were only a few strong magic users, but in that generation, there was one who excelled at divination.  She was a priestess to the nature spirits, and worried by the raids, she looked through space at the Priest-Kings’ Harbors.  She saw that they were building a large fleet.  Afraid, she then looked through time, and saw two fleets – one from Zir and one from Shir – coming to Obdrest’s shores, to conquer them and make every man, woman, and child on the island a slave.

Obdrest had no army, although each town had a small guard to protect them from pirates and slavers.  The priestess went to the elders of the largest town, Tramagel, to tell them what she saw.  They, in turn, called on the elders of all the larger towns.  They met, but there was no agreement on how to respond – some folks wanted to fight, others to flee north across the sea to Penrose where their ancestors’ distant relatives had settled.

One of the youngest elders was a man from the less-developed west side of the island, from the town of Lassander.  He asked the Priestess what to do to protect their people, and when she did not know either, he begged her.  Seeing the man’s desperation, she called on all the nature-spirits of the island to ask their wisdom.

“Go to the volcano at the center of the island,” they said through her, “there is a powerful god there who can help you, if you can pay the price.”

The youngest elder went to the volcano and finding a winding path down into the dormant caldera, stood upon the ash and rock and called out for the god who lived there.

And then she came; not an inhuman spirit like most of small gods of the island, but a goddess of humankind – a tall, beautiful woman with golden blonde hair, and sharp eyes that shone with a light so bright one could not meet her gaze.

The man prostrated himself, and said to the Goddess, “I beg you, please take mercy on our people and save us from the Priest-Kings.  I will pay any price you ask.”

“I can do this,” said the Goddess, “but why should I?  Your people brought me to this world and then forgot me.  Here, close to the element of fire, I am still powerful but without worship I am cut off from the world of the gods where I belong.”

“What is your name, Goddess?” he asked.

“My name is Tennia, and my spheres are fire and wisdom,” she said.

“I swear, if you save us, I will devote the rest of my life to bringing praise to your name, and I am sure the other elders will do the same.”

“Very well,” she said, “but I have one other price.”

“You have but to name it.”

“You have a son.  Bring him here and give him to me as sacrifice.”

The elder had a son, not quite a year old. He wanted to ask the goddess what she would do with the child but knowing stories of the Priest-Kings’ magic, it could be nothing good.

“I will do as you ask.”

It was a long road home, and over his wife’s tearful objections, he took his son, returned to the volcano on his son’s first birthday.  He called to Tennia, “I have brought my son, Alexander, to you.  Please save our people.”

The Goddess appeared, and the boy, fearful of the strange woman, cowered in his father’s arms.  “Alexander is a good name.  Bring him to me,” Tennia said.

The elder did so and set the struggling boy in front of the Goddess.  Before he could crawl back to his father, the Goddess froze him in place.  Then, with a burst of light, the boy was gone, as if he had never been there.

“The pact is sealed.  I make you my first priest in this world.  You will know what to do, and you must teach others. So long as you spread my name among your people, and they in turn worship me, I will save them from the Priest-Kings.”

He returned home, and knowledge of what he was to do came to him.  In his town, he had the elders build a shrine on a tall hill just outside of town; they would keep a fire burning there through every night, and at every new moon the town would build a tall bonfire.  The elders did as he asked, and the promise of protection convinced many to join in worshipping Tennia.

Over the next months, he travelled to every large town.  Almost every town agreed to build a shrine, and the number of worshippers grew.  When the next Spring came, and each town sent an elder to Tramagel, the Priestess told them: “The Priest-Kings of Zir well send a fleet in the next few weeks.”

The once-elder, now-priest begged his peers from the last few towns who had not built shrines to send word home to do so.  Without any other way to protect the island, they agreed.  At the end, the entire congress of elders let him lead them all in a prayer to Tennia, and they erected a great bonfire at the shrine outside Tramagel.

As that bonfire started to burn steadily, the great volcano started to smoke.

A few weeks later, as a great fleet of ships appeared over the horizon, the volcano began to emit huge billowing clouds of smoke and ash.  After the first ships anchored in sight of land, when the first longboats of the Priest-Kings’ soldiers reached land, a miracle happened.  The volcano erupted catastrophically, with huge plumes of magma and flaming boulders.  Not a one of them landed on an Obdresti town, on an Obdresti boat, or an Obdresti person.  Most fell harmlessly into the sea, or on the still-broad forests.  Just enough landed, as if guided, on the soldiers and their longboats, and many of the ships at sea were set ablaze.

More of the Priest-Kings ships moved in, and more longboats rowed to land.   Magma or flaming rocks struck every one of them; no soldier from the boats made it more than a few yards up the beach,

After their third attempt, and with a large part of their fleet shattered, the ships from ZIr withdrew.

The elders sent word to their towns, and there were many feasts of thanksgiving.  The eruption subsided, although the volcano still smoked.

That summer, a fleet from Shir attempted to land.  Powerful mages guarded the fleet, and soldiers managed to land for a little longer, but in the end another eruption drove them away.

When the next spring came, the Priestess let the elders know a combined fleet from both nations was coming, and with them a terrible horde of demons the Priest-Kings of both nations had received from their dark gods.

Once again, the Priest went to Tennia’s volcano.  This time, smoke and ash blocked the way into the caldera.  He called to Tennia from as close as he could, and she greeted him in a shimmering vision that floated in the smoke.

“You have done as I asked, and I now have returned to the world of the gods.  I see your people’s plight, and I will do what I can to protect them.  It would be helpful to have the aid of the other gods of your people.  If you can raise more shrines to them, they will aid me.”

When the Priest returned to Tramagel, strangers greeted him.  A ship had come from Penrose, bearing a priest for each of the main gods they worshipped– chief among them Zefrin, the Sun God, and Pennyr, the Moon Goddess.  They built shrines there, and taught others to take their names to the many towns around Obdrest.

When that summer the fleet arrived, it appeared just over the horizon from Tramagel.  Once again, Tennia sent flaming rocks and lava.  The rock and lave destroyed many ships, but some boats made it to shore.  Of those, some were full of demons and the townspeople had to flee.  The Priest himself took up arms, as he had once done against pirates, and he cut a path through the cluster of demons, with a flaming sword in his hands.

At the cost of many lives, the priest and the town guard destroyed the demons and drove the few human soldiers who had landed back into their boats.  The ships, most of them far enough at sea to be safe, did not leave this time.  Instead, a great and inhuman creature with many mouths and even more tentacles, more than fifty meters tall, rose out of the sea, and started to float towards the town.

Three huge human figures, each as tall as the creature, appeared standing on top of the sea outside of the town.  They were a woman and a man with golden-blonde hair and another woman with silver hair, and the Priest knew them to be Tennia, Zefrin, and Pennyr.

For a few tense moments, the creature stopped.  Then, slowly, it sunk below the waves.

With the creature gone, the ships fled.   Zefrin and Pennyr left at once.  Tennia grew much larger and less solid, until she stood as a flickering vision as high as the mountain.  Only when the last ships had disappeared from her sight did she leave.

The Priest-Kings never returned in force, and the island of Obdrest returned to its peaceful existence.

The priest mourned his son for 19 years, and he and his wife never had another child.  He dutifully tended the shrine outside Lassander for all those years.

Then, one day, Tennia sent him a vision in his dreams.  He was to go to the shrine outside Tramagel and then await further instructions.   He arrived there and was amazed at what he saw: the town had grown, with new stone buildings, and the shrine he had helped build had grown – the local priests called it a temple now.

A few days later, on the night of the new moon and what would have been Alexander’s 20^th birthday, the Priest was helping set up the bonfire as they did every new moon.  The moment it was burning solidly, out of the flames stepped Tennia, along with a young man.

The Priest and his colleagues all prostrated themselves.

“Stand up, father,” said the young man.

The Priest did.  The young man’s hair did not match his childhood color – it was now blonde, matching Tennia’s, but otherwise the Priest could see his son in the man before him.  “Alexander?”

“This is your son.  I have raised him in the world of the gods as if he were my own.  I return him to you, and your people, for your faithfulness.  Now that he is of age, I give your island a King.”

The old priest wept, and his son embraced him.

Alexander was a strong and wise king and committed to making the island into a great kingdom worthy of its patron goddess.  His advisors encouraged him to take several wives, as was the custom of the Kings of Penrose, but he had watched his father and mother for many years from the heavens and refused, forbidding the practice entirely on his island.

Instead, he married Claudia, the granddaughter of the diviner-Priestess who had originally seen the coming invasion.  As he aged, his advisors urged Alexander to preserve his life and youth with magic, as had the Kings of Penrose.

He refused, saying that Tennia wished him to live his ordained span on earth and then return to her.  When his wife died, he never remarried, and on his 81^st birthday, he gave his eldest son the crown, and made pilgrimage to the volcano where his father had given him to goddess so many years before.  There she took him once again to the heavens.

Three sons and two daughters survived him; the royal family of Obdrest descends to this day from his eldest son, Alexander Brisséan.  Many of the other noble houses of the island descend from his younger children, most notable among them the Duchess of Lassander and the Duke of Tramagel.

Mon, Sept 14^th, around 1AM
My room

There was someone knocking on my door.  “Hey Mark, wake up.” It was Joel.

“I’m awake, give me a minute.”

Once I’d put my glasses on and turned on a light, I opened the door.  “What’s up, Joel?”

“Either I had the weirdest dream, or something even weirder happened to me.”

“Wait,” I said, putting up my hand.  “Let me guess, the Obdresti patron deity just visited you?”

He looked at me wide-eyed.  “How did you know?”

“I either had the weirdest dream, or the local patron deities just visited me.  They told me about it.”

“Crud,” he said, or a much stronger word to that effect.  “That can’t be a coincidence.  Mind if I sit down?”

“Sure, why not?” I stepped back and sat down on the bed.

He was about to sit down at my desk when he said, “Dude, you left a dirty magazine sitting out.”

“What?  I didn’t even bring any.” I might have brought a few videotapes, but that was none of his business.

“It’s right here,” he said, picking up a magazine and showing it to me.  It had not been on my desk when I went to sleep.  The title was Jackie’s and I at once knew why that was.

Jaklamina had said to look on my desk when I woke up, and Joel had gotten to it first.  The cover lacked any text except for the title and featured her leaning part way over a desk wearing what you might call a sexy-librarian outfit, with one hand raised over her mouth in an “oops” gesture.

“That isn’t mine, and that’s the goddess Jaklamina on the cover.”

He turned it around and looked at the cover.  “It does kind of look like her statue.  What’s it doing on your desk?”

“I asked them to leave some proof that it wasn’t all a dream, and I guess she’s got a weird sense of humor.”

“That’s a very weird sense of humor.  Take a closer look at the desk in the picture.”

It looked an awful lot like my desk.  No, scratch that – it was my desk, as if she’d brought in better lights and taken the photo in my room while I was sleeping.  Everything matched, right down to where the computer and textbooks were still sitting since last night.  I shook my head, and then said, “I’m not sure I want to see what’s inside there.”

“Of course, you do – but save it for when I’m not here,” he said.  After sitting down, he went on, “So the two who visited you told you about Tennia coming to visit me?”

“Yes.  They said their main reason for being nearby was to keep an eye on her.”  I went on to tell him, as best I could, what they’d talked to me about.

When I finished, he said, “They sounds oddly casual for a couple of gods, but more fun than the one who came to see to me.”

“How did that go?”

“It was heavy.  She had a long list of things she was annoyed with me for, starting with not knowing her role in Obdresti history, and ending with my taking so long to pay my respects.”  He sighed and gritted his teeth before going on.  “I was half convinced she was going to tell me to buzz off back to America by the end of it.”

“She didn’t?”

“No, that’s the funny part,” he said.  “After all that, she had a bunch of questions for me about my mom’s life in our world.  At the end, she said she was glad to have part of her family back, and that she hoped I’d make a good king.”

“That was it?”

“That was it.  It was a long talk, although time seemed weird there.”

“Sounds like it.  I was only talking to the other two for a few minutes,” I said. “So, nothing at all about fate or destiny?”

“Not at all,” Joel said, “and I don’t much like what they seemed to be saying about great or horrible with nothing in between.”

“Assuming I’m not losing something while passing it on, I can’t blame you. Are you going to talk to Dormer about this tomorrow?”

“About what Tennia told me, yes. Do you want me to get get his take on the two who visited you?”

“Nah, I’m good.  I’m just going to chalk this up to ‘weird stuff happens here.’”

He shrugged.  “I’m going to try to get back to sleep.”

I said good night, and when he was gone, curiosity got the better of me, so I checked out the magazine.  Despite the cover, there was nothing salacious inside, which was completely unrelated – a travel magazine, with the cover replaced.  Obscuring part the first inside page was a note, in a clear, rounded handwriting: “Naughty boy!  You couldn’t wait to see more, could you? – Jackie”

Sun, Sept 13^th, a little before noon
The Imperial Pantheon

“This must have been built after the newcomers arrived,” I said.

“Yes, it was built to celebrate victory in the Wizards’ War,” said Yali. “The architect was one of the newcomers, Stuart Dowd.  He also designed the Union Senate building, and the glass upper levels of the old Central Station.  They’re considered masterpieces of the era.”

“He seems to have liked borrowing from the classics of our world,” I said.

We were standing in front of a huge and oddly familiar building; I’d seen the original during the year I’d taken seventh grade for the first time. My father had been on sabbatical, and we did a lot of traveling that year.  Among other trips, my father had taken our family to a conference in Rome.

The Imperial Pantheon here closely matched my memory of our world’s Pantheon in Rome – a rectangular columned entrance in front of a much larger domed circle.   Unlike the original, it was clean and without any visible weathering or age.

When we went inside, the resemblance remained, albeit less so; unlike the one in Rome, instead of the narrow oculus open to the sky, there was a broad glass dome, and all around the room there were massive statues.

The largest ones were directly across from the entrance, in unpainted white stone and in the shape of a bearded man in a tunic, a sword at his belt and his right arm around the shoulders of woman of similar height with flowing hair and a long dress.  She held a sheaf of grain cradled her arms.

I asked Dormer and Yali, “Are those the city’s patron gods?”

“One of them is,” said Yali. “That is Zagras, but the one with him is his wife, Mina.”

I looked around; the next on my left, standing on its own was a statue of a woman in the same smooth white stone. The statue was close in size to the first two, and the woman portrayed was almost implausibly curvy.  Unlike the modest long dress that Mina wore, the one this goddess was wearing left little of what it did cover to the imagination.

“That one must be Jaklamina?” I asked.

“Yes, Mina’s sister,” said Yali, “and our city’s other patron.”

“Who are the rest?”

“The patron deities of all of the alliance countries from the Wizards’ War,” said Yali. “Normally, you wouldn’t see some of them combined, but a whole lot of priests were consulted and judged it auspicious after the war. If you’re interested, we’ll be making a circle and there are plaques at each one.”

“Dormer was telling me about this,” said Joel. “Since neither of us has a patron deity, it would be good to… um, introduce ourselves?  It helps with some varieties of magic.”

Dormer handed each of us a pile of small silver coins; they were wheels, worth ten mil Imperial or about the equivalent of a dollar back home.

So we went in a circle, clockwise from the entrance.   First, flanking the entrance were the primal Gods of creation and destruction – Lerza and Ainros – each an amorphous vaguely-humanoid form carved into the wall itself, each trimmed with an inverted pattern of gold and silver.  I remembered these two from a passing mention of this world’s creation myth in the history textbook.

They must have been above the need for human worship, as beyond the labels on the wall there neither one had a plaque or offering box.

Our first stop was a huge statue of woman, slightly less large than the three across from the entrance, and unlike those the statue was painted.  She wore bright gold armor of an antique sort, resembling a legionnaire, and had her hair painted in shade of bright blonde.  The plaque read “Tennia – Goddess of Fire among the new gods. As patron of Obdrest, when the Priest Kings invaded, she brought her fire to them and drove them from Obdresti shores.” Below that was the same thing in several other languages.

I had no idea what one was supposed to do at one of these, so I looked around.  There weren’t many folks around, but Dormer had his head bent down and eyes closed.  Joel was next to Dormer and doing the same; Yali was farther back standing quietly.  I wondered how Joel was doing with this; my family was about as secular as they come back home, but Joel’s dad was Catholic, and he’d told me his family sometimes went to mass on the big holidays.

I dropped a coin in the box, and then realized I had no idea how one was supposed to pray.  It reminded me of visiting my grandparents on my mom’s side for holidays, and I’d get to stand around while someone read something I couldn’t understand in Hebrew.

Eventually, I decided I’d just bow my head like they did and put a good word in for Joel without saying it aloud.  Since you’re the patron of the country my friend’s family is from, thank you for looking after Joel and his great-uncle the King.  If you don’t mind my asking, please continue doing so.

I stepped back to where Yali was standing and waited for Joel and Dormer to finish.  For each of the next four along the left wall, I dropped a coin in each box, bowed my head, and reflected that I had no idea what I was doing here.

After a brief stop at another pair of Gods, we got to Jaklamina – Imperial Goddess of Love and Prosperity, who watches over the unfortunate, patron of Feldaren.  The statue was even bigger up close, and it was easy to appreciate how artist captured the female form.  A little too easy, actually; I caught myself staring.  Sorry for ogling, really!  My friend Joel really wants a girlfriend, can you do something for him?  Oh, and the whole watching over the unfortunate… I don’t know if you can do anything for dead people back in my world but if you can I hope you can look after Anne. Anyway, thanks in advance!

Joel and Dormer remained taking these quite seriously, so I waited for them.

Next came Zagras and Mina, who we’d seen as we entered directly across from the entrance, and another three along the right side of the room.

The last spot along the wall lacked a statue; instead, it was an alcove set with dozens of smaller shelves, each one with a small offering box and an artefact.  Among them, I spotted more than one form of Christian cross, an unlit menorah, and two different Buddha figures that could have been from my world.  Among the others, there was a lit oil lamp, many figures of animals or what might be people in stone or metal, and even a few abstract symbols.  Besides the recognizable ones from our world, one stood out – a creepy squid-headed humanoid who looked suspiciously like something out of Lovecraft.

There was no plaque.  “I recognize some of the symbols from our world,” I said to Yali. “What is this section for?”

“It’s sometimes called the foreigners’ corner.  Some of the newcomers kept to the worship of the deities of their world, but there was no agreement on which ones, or in a couple of cases what to use to stand for the same one.  Some groups who worshipped other deities from this world wanted to have representation here, and a few belong refugees that came through the gate from other worlds wanted to leave a figure or idol.”

Joel stopped at the last one for a long while, this time without Dormer.  I could hear him praying very quietly, although I couldn’t make out the words.

For my part, I’d never had much use for religion back home, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to put a coin in the box by the menorah.  If you really are there back in our world, thanks in advance for looking after my folks.

It took a while for Joel to finish, and we headed back home in Dormer’s car.  On the way, Yali told us, “Don’t worry if that seemed a little awkward. The important thing is that you each made some small offering at each.  As you learn more magic, you’ll find a few classes of spells that call on divine beings.  Few mages go deep with those, unless they’re also priests, but the basic ones are particularly useful.”

Sun, Sept 13^th, just before 8 AM
Our apartment

A knock on my bedroom door woke me up.  I looked at my alarm clock, and yelled out “C’mon, let me sleep!”

I was about to try to get back to sleep when Joel said from outside the door, “Ms. Yali’s here, they want to start lessons early.  Do you want in or not?”

“Fine, fine,” I said. “Do I have time to shower at least?”

“Probably,” Joel said. Then he yelled downstairs “does Mark have time to shower?”

I couldn’t hear the response through the door, but Joel passed it on. “If you’re quick about it.”

I rushed through my morning routine, a little annoyed to be up early on my one day to sleep in, but the chance to learn some magic was too good to pass up.

When I finally made it downstairs, Yali was already talking Joel through something.  “…and you should keep it on you whenever you go out.  You can draw on it for spells, and it will help keep up ongoing ones like your wards.”

I grabbed one of the not-quite-English-muffins that Dormer’s housekeeper had toasted up, and a couple of slices of fruit while they were talking.  They’d given him a power stone – essentially, a magical battery – to help him along while he was learning to concentrate power in himself.  Kelder’s had mentioned them, but they’d sounded exotic and expensive.

When they finished discussing it, Yali had a question for both of us.  “Have you been practicing?”

Joel shook his head.

“Just the light spell,” I said, and I thought “brissetay” and concentrated on my right index finger. There was a flickering silver light shaped like a candle flame, slightly bigger and brighter than it had been last week.  I had found it interesting enough to repeat it in my down time at home, and found that as I repeated it, just saying the word became enough, and with further repetition had been able to just concentrate on the word without even saying it.

“Very good, Mark. You should really help Joel practice, it will help.”

“Sure,” I said, and then to Joel, “Just get me after soccer practice, I guess?”

“Both of you really need to work on the exercises in the teacher’s manual, too,” she said. “Do you remember what I said about power sources last week, Joel?”

“That we could accidentally use our own life force rather than magical energy?”

“Close enough. Your body’s own energy is magical energy,” she said, “but you really don’t want to use it except as a last resort.  Before you can do anything more useful with magic, you need to get a feel for where the power comes from. One sign of a strong mage is to have a constant sense of the power around them and what they could draw on.”

With that, she opened the teacher’s manual, and we started on exercises, much like last week.  The exercises were a little more complicated, and she said the goal was to be able to draw in magic from your surroundings or something like the power stone, and then keep it until needed.  “It’s a bit like breathing in,” she said, “but instead of a physical diaphragm, you are exercising part of your spirit.”

Because neither of us were any good yet at sensing the ambient energy, trying to draw from it was pointless.  Instead, she had us use easier power sources – in Joel’s case the power stone – and she let me use the block of lead with magical ore in it we’d used for the sensitivity test.  Once we could sense the power there reliably, and she had us use clear globes – they looked the same as the ones from our initial tests – and has us try to get a feel for releasing power into them.  When we did, they glowed, and she wasn’t happy.

“Mark, do you see color in yours?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “His is light green.”

“This can be one of the nuisances of colorblindness for teaching this,” she said.  “What colors do you see, Joel?”

“Mark’s is a very pale green, a lot lighter than mine,” he said.

“That’s what I see, as well.  The good part is neither is solidly green, which would be coming entirely from your own body.  The globe reads attunement, and by convention green is for life magic.  You both need to practice until you can make that fully clear.

“Mark, you’ll need to get Joel to help you practice this for now.  If you ever decide to learn advanced magic, you’ll want to get a non-color-based tool to test for attunement.”

“What kind of tool, and where would I get it?” I asked.

“One of these days you should check out a magic shop,” she said. “It’s a niche need, and a good shop could recommend options better than I could.  Until then, have a look in Kelder’s, there’s an appendix on magical and alchemical tools.”

“Of course, magic shops are a thing,” I said.

“Where else would we get our tools?”

She asked.  “If that’s settled, let’s go ahead and have both of you practice until –“ she stopped to look at her watch “– let’s say 11. After that, we’ve got something else for today.”

We practiced until then, each of us alternating between trying to gather magic from the items, and then channeling it out.  By the end, I could no longer see the green in Joel’s although he could still, and he said mine was almost clear.

When we finished, Yali said that she would leave the two globes to practice with, but that she couldn’t leave the magical ore.  “It’s potentially dangerous unsupervised,” she said. “Joel, it’s fine to let Mark borrow the power stone when you’re in the house here, but please keep it with you the rest of the time.”

“Ok,” he said. “You said there was something else for today?”

“Yes,” she said. “We’re going to visit a temple.”

P

Interlude
Saturday, Sept 12^th, early evening
Shopping gallery, Riverside Terminal

On Friday, the student council received the printed copies of this year’s school directory and were going to be distributing them through homerooms on Monday.  Elise had helped herself to an extra and then left a message with Magnus Trading to let them know she had it.

She was not surprised on Saturday when Brinna Jekanis caught up to her as she left work, just as she’d done a couple of weeks prior.  Brinna, once again, suggested going into the lunch counter.

After they sat down, and Brinna ordered coffee for them both, Elise handed her the directory.  Brinna took it and passed an envelope back to her.

“My uncle saw a very interesting news report,” said Brinna.  “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

Elise nodded.

“Have you heard anything about it at school?”

“Yes,” said Elise. “It sounded horrible. They cancelled classes on Thursday when he was found.”

“Is there anything you can tell me about that student?”

“Not much,” said Elise. She was suddenly uncomfortable and wasn’t sure why.  “They said it was an intentional killing, and what his name was.  Alvar Leto.  I hadn’t known him.”

“Nothing else?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“That’s alright, miss,” said Brinna. “I’m sure my uncle explained it, but we just keep an eye out for things that could affect the shipping business. If he had been the child of someone important, it could mean there is instability on the horizon, and we can get ahead of higher costs before the insurance rates go up.”

“I see.”

“Along with your pay, there is a list of students we would appreciate more information on. I know it may not be possible to find anything, or there may not be anything interesting to find, but if you find anything our company is prepared to be especially generous.”

“And you’re looking for anything that could impact foreign trade?”

“Yes,” she said. “Especially among the newer students.  We had someone helping us, but they left at the end of last year.”

“I’ll do what I can,” said Elise.

Brinna smiled. “I’m glad to hear that.  They say time is money, and if you find anything, the sooner we know the more generously the company could reward you.”

The two said their goodbyes, and Elise left for the long train ride home.  When she got there, she found her original copy of the second-year classes’ roster.  She wanted to see if it had any reminder of who Alvar Leto was, and when she saw his entry, she realized why she’d been so uncomfortable earlier.

Leto had been one of the two foreign transfers she had pointed out to Brinna when they’d spoken previously. His address was at the embassy, so he must have been the child of someone important.  What a horrible coincidence! she thought.

The envelope she’d received today had the same amount as last time – two imperials – as well as the list of names.  She found herself torn on whether to try to find more information on them.

Friday, Sept 11^th, 6^th period
Honors world history classroom.

The next day, Dormer drove us back to the school.  There were now ID checks getting onto campus, and a few more security guards around, but nothing else seemed to have changed.  My bike was right where I’d left it.  At physics, everyone was able to switch lab partners without problems.  Things started to go back to normal.

After the world history class, I went up to talk to Ms. Calliot.  “Do you have an outline for your paper, Mark?”

“Kind of.” I grimaced and handed her the page and a half of notes I had. “I never made it by the library to start actually looking at primary sources, and …”

She raised a hand, and I stopped there. A couple of other students were waiting to talk to her. “I’ll look over these and we’ll discuss next steps tomorrow after class.”

When she gave them back to me the next day, there were a lot of comments on them.  They weren’t all bad, but I felt bad reading them all together.  The final one read simply,

You’ve picked out a lot of details and if you can find sources to support them, that’s a good start.  At the same time, I don’t see any thought on how the details fit together to make a cohesive argument for or against the thesis.  I don’t even see which side you intend to support.

Saturday, Sept 12^th, after classes
Dueling club room and Riva’s.

Having missed Thursday, it was the second fencing practice for those of us doing it for PE credit.  It was turning out to be fun; I was still completely clueless what to do with a foil, but Gwen and Kai leading warmups beat gym class hands down, and it was at least interesting practicing the numbered parries.

In addition to Galen and I, two first year girls had joined for PE credit; there were a couple of seniors who were here for PE credit as well, but both were already familiar enough to do practice bouts with the folks who were competitive members of the club.

Watching the practice bouts was also interesting; the competitive members, even Mina who had just joined, all seemed so fast and fluid – it was hard to imagine ever having that kind of reflexes.

When things were wrapping up, Kai came over to Galen and me.  “Hey guys, some of us are going to Riva’s after we clean up. Do either of you want to come along?”

“Sure,” said Galen.

I nodded.

“In that case, do you mind helping clean up?”

“Why not?” I said.

Cleaning up primarily involved putting the equipment back in the storage room and looking over things as we did so to see if anything needed repair or washing.  When we finished, I asked if there was more storage behind the other door.

“No,” said Kai.  “That’s actually a shooting range.”

“No way, really?”

“I’ve never seen someone use it, but yes, really,” he said.

Overhearing this, Gwen stopped to ask, “Never seen someone use what?”

“The shooting range.”

“Oh, ok.  I have,” said Gwen.  “There was someone back when I was in the lower school who shot targets competitively and who’d borrow it.  I think he graduated from the upper school after my second year, so 4 years ago?”

I thought about asking to see inside, but I was feeling kind of ripe and wanted to get a shower in before getting ice cream.  Other people were going to do so as well; we agreed to meet up in the sports center lobby before heading over.

In the end, there were six of us; Galen, Cory, Kai, Mina and Gwen, and me.  I’d been to Riva’s with Joel’s family after we initially toured the school, but I couldn’t remember exactly where it was, just that it was nearby and after Dormer talking up the ice cream, I had gotten an actual breakfast instead.

The walk was short enough, and there wasn’t a wait.  We ended up in a large booth, with the three girls on one side and the three of us guys on the other.  The waitress had just left water and food menus in case we wanted them – the dessert menu was already at the end of the table, one for all six of us – when Galen said, “Hey, this is funny – almost like we’re three couples.”

“That’s not funny,” said Cory.

“Awkward,” I said under my breath just after, and at that, Gwen just cracked up.

After a remark like Galen’s, it was hard not to take a longer glance at the girls, who were quite different.  I was seated across from Mina, who was the least interesting to my eye – middling height, with an athletic figure that I bet many guys would have liked, but Joel was not completely wrong about my tastes.  She had short, sandy brown hair, and was the only one wearing the uniform blazer.

Cory was interesting, but I wasn’t sure if it was in a good way.  She was taller than the other two and a bit tan; her dark brown hair was in the same no-frills ponytail I’d first seen on her in science lab.  She was wearing the same cooler-weather gym uniform a size or two too large. It was baggy enough that obscured whether she had any figure or not.  She had dark brown eyes behind her glasses; I didn’t think I’d ever seen her with a real smile, but she might have been quite pretty if she did.

Gwen caught my attention most of all.  I had up until then only seen at a distance or dressed down for gym and with her hair tied back.  I’d thought she was cute at both assemblies, but I was surprised by how striking she was when I saw her up close.  Her hair stood out: dark red, long, and slightly curly.  She also had green eyes and a light dusting of freckles that matched her hair.  She was wearing the blouse of our girls’ uniform without a jacket, and with green scarf rather than the regulation tie or the bow many of the girls favored.  Although she was quite petite, she was…

Galen, who was sitting in the middle, elbowed me lightly.  It was enough that I kind of jerked in response.  I guess I’d been staring a little.

“Uh, sorry guys,” said Gwen.  “I guess it wasn’t that funny.”

“It’s alright,” said Kai.

“You’ll get used to her sense of humor,” said Cory.

I hadn’t been meaning to look too long, but I guess they interpreted it as a reaction to her laughing so hard.

The waitress saved us from further awkwardness by coming back to take our orders.  I hadn’t had a chance to look at the dessert menu, but you can never go wrong with chocolate.  The waitress took the girls’ orders first – sundaes for Mina and Gwen, and when she got to Cory, she asked “the usual?”

I went for a sundae myself; Galen and Kai both went for scoops, and the waitress was off again.

“How is everybody’s semester starting off?” asked Gwen.

“Pretty good,” said Kai.

Cory shrugged.

“Taking some getting used to,” said Mina.  “Much less structured, and everything in English, but I have enjoyed it so far.”

“Your old school was in Kala, right?” asked Gwen.

“That’s right.  My mom got a temporary assignment for work here, and I was able to do well enough on the exam to transfer in.”

“How about you, Galen?” asked Gwen.

“Good, mostly.  I’m still disappointed about the election, though.”

“I hope you’ll keep coming to student council meetings,” said Gwen. “There’s always more to do than we have officers for.”

“Definitely,” said Galen.

“Mark, that leaves you.  Kai was saying you were transferred in from even farther away than Mina?”

“I guess the other side of the gate qualifies,” I said.  “It’s not actually that far on the train, though.”

“How did you end up here?” asked Galen.

I gave the same shortened version of how we ended up here that Joel had on our first day of classes – basically, diplomats on our side, more trade, Joel got selected, and I ended up tagging along.  I left out Anne’s death, and of course, the real reason Joel was here.

“Do people usually believe you?” asked Cory.

“We haven’t told a lot of people, but the folks we met in our homeroom did,” I said.  “We talked to Neil about a national booth, and he basically called us liars.”

“Neil Mayhan?” asked Kai.

“Yes, him,” I said.

“Somehow I’m not surprised,” said Kai.  “I don’t know him, but Jack really hates him.”

“He’s not that bad,” said Gwen.  “I don’t know why he wouldn’t take your word for it.  I mean, it’s a difficult story to believe, but it’s not like you’re the first student from another world who’s been here.”

“I’m not?” I asked.

“He’s not?” asked both Kai and Cory around the table at the same time.

“Yeesh, I know you and Cory have better grades than I do,” said Gwen, “but I guess I’ve spent more time learning about the school’s own history.”

“There’s got to be a story behind that,” said Kai.

“Maybe not a very good one,” Gwen said, “I’ll tell you another time.  Do you want to hear about the prior students from other worlds?”

Everyone nodded.

Gwen went on.  “You all know the official reasons they created the Gate, right?  To control the phenomenon that the newcomers came in on, make the world safe, trade for resources we can’t get here, and all that.  But there’s another big reason – some of the newcomers really, really wanted to find their way back to their own world.  Probably still do.”

“OK,” said Kai.  “I didn’t know this was public knowledge, but I’ve heard my some of my grandparents’ friends talk about it.”

“Yup,” said Gwen.  “So, for about 60 years since they finished the gate, it’s been opening to a ton of different worlds.  A lot of those are parallels of the world the newcomers came from.  I know there are a few worlds that they have figured out how to repeat.  Mark, you must be from one of those.

“Most of those parallel worlds weren’t very nice, especially as time went on.  The first batch of refugees they brought through were people fleeing the original Nazis in that big war their world had, and then they kept finding parallels which were pretty much wrecked.  Nazis won, or there was a nuclear war, or horrible famine wiped out civilization.”

Sometime during this story our ice cream arrived.  Whatever Cory’s usual was, it didn’t arrive at the same time.

“It sounds like a lot of the worlds that aren’t parallels of the newcomers’ world aren’t very nice either.  The gate opens briefly so it’s never many people from any given world, but over the years the brotherhood has been able to resettle a lot of people who needed help.”

It sounded to me like Joel’s mom had been kind of a reverse case of that, but of course I couldn’t share that with them.

“So how did some of those people end up at our school?” asked Kai.

“Well, if you’re rescuing people, some of them are going to be kids, right?  I mean, if I was a parent on the other side of the gate, I’d want to protect my kids first.  This school got a lot of funding from the government courtesy of the newcomers, so when they or the brotherhood have a kid they’ve resettled get to high school age, they often end up here.

“I don’t know if there are any more recent ones but there is a book of oral history in the school library that I found while researching a part for a play we’re doing.  A couple of high school aged kids came through about 20 years ago and got interviewed.  There may be more recent ones, I don’t think most of the folks who come here that way really want it to be known that they are refugees.”

Gwen took a break after this; her ice cream was melting.  Cory’s plate came while Gwen was still talking.  It was an open face sandwich, with a piece of grilled chicken and fried egg on top of it.

Kai looked at Cory’s sandwich and asked, “Have you ever tried oyakodon?”

Cory shook her head.

“You might try it; your sandwich always reminds me of it.  Chicken and egg over rice.”

“It’s good protein,” said Cory.

 

Our apartment
Late afternoon

I biked home, and when I got there, both Dormer’s car and Joel were out.  I decided to head back to the supermarket to get stuff for a few lunches that week, as the cafeteria ones remained underwhelming.  Having done well with sandwiches the prior week, I went with the same things.

On my way back into the house with my grocery bag, the cat walked up about halfway across the yard and looked at me expectantly.  I looked back at it.

“Can you smell the ham or something?”

The cat meowed at me.

“Let me unpack the bags, I’ll leave you some in back.”

The cat meowed again and then ran back to the bushes.

After unpacking things into the fridge, I brought out another dish of cat food for him, with a couple of slices of ham on top.  I set it where I usually did, just past the back patio, and stepped back to the door to see if it would come out.

Sure enough, it came out and devoured the ham before sniffing at the kibble under it.

“You can’t really talk, can you?” I asked the cat.

The cat just meowed at me and wandered off.

Thursday, Sept 10^th, during 2^nd period
Physics room

Thursday had started well.  Joel had soccer, and I’d wanted to bike, so we made our way to school separately. I had a free first period, so I’d come in a little late.  Going by my mailbox before physics, there was a mostly completed form for our booth.  I’d called to tell Hull about the problem on Tuesday night, and whoever he’d gone on to get in touch with had taken care of it quickly.

In physics, as Kai had expected the prior week, Dr. Amril let us know that we could switch to our own lab partners.  I’d felt embarrassed working with Cory the prior week and had figured Joel and I would do much better pairing up.

As it happened, though, we did not make it to the end of class.  I hadn’t up to then heard the PA system, but today it crackled to life.  I didn’t recognize the voice coming from it, but it was a man’s:

All school classes are suspended for the rest of the day.  Upper-school students must come to the main hall in the arts center; all lower-school students must remain in your homerooms or return there and wait for instructions about dismissal. 

After a few moments, the message repeated.  It wasn’t a recording, but whoever was reading it repeated it word for word.

“OK,” said Dr. Amril to the class, “Gather your things, and I’ll walk the class over.”

Most of the class started pulling their things together, but Cory raised her hand.  Once recognized, she asked, “Do you know what this is all about?”

“Not at all,” he said.

Thursday, Sept 10^th, during 2^nd period
The main hall of the arts center

There was a lot of buzz leaving the room, and it only got louder as other classes funneled down the same stairways and walked across the quad.  People seemed nervous; it reminded me of the prior school year back in New York when we’d been sent home early, because someone in the school administration or board of education had worried that the protests after the Rodney King verdict would become violent like they had out in California.

Teachers and some security guards were at the entrances and directed us in and to take seats.  Up on the stage, I recognized Dean Jerdew and saw another person wearing a uniform that could have been military or police.

After people stopped filtering in, the Dean stepped up to the podium, and started to speak.  I couldn’t see his face well enough at the distance to tell his mood, but his voice was grave.

“Students and faculty members, it is with deep regret that I must inform you that we have lost a member of the Queen Sara family.  As some of you may know, one of your classmates from class 2-D, Alvar Leto, was reported missing by his guardians this past weekend.  Unfortunately, he was found today; Chief Detective Arantis will tell you more about the circumstances.  After he’s done speaking, I’ll have more to say.”

“Thank you, Dean Jerdew,” said the uniformed man, who must have been Arantis. “I am the chief detective for the Imperial Guard in this district.  Mr. Leto was found dead this morning under circumstances that cannot be anything other than foul play.

“Because of the nature of the crime, and this school’s student body, we must treat this as a threat to all of you until we find out otherwise. At the school’s request, we will be invoking various security protocols to ensure your safety, but we cannot guard all of you on your way to and from school.  We ask that you stay alert, avoid unfamiliar situations, and if you know anything about Mr. Leto or why someone would have wanted to do him harm, to make yourself available for interview.”

With that, he stepped away from the microphone, and Dean Jerdew came back. “Thank you, Chief Detective,” and after a moment, “I know that this must come as a shock to many, whether you knew Alvar or not. Classes are over for the day; we need to clear the campus to put new security measures in place.  This will be done by tonight, and we expect tomorrow’s classes to go on as normal.”

“If any of you do not feel safe getting home on your own, we have some support from the Imperial Guard and city police, as well as faculty members who might live in the same direction.  Please let your homeroom teacher know if you need assistance today or returning tomorrow.”

“Starting on Monday there will be additional counseling staff available. I would appreciate your patience as we wait for the lower school classrooms to be dismissed.”

With that, he stepped away from the microphone.

“You think that he was the student who Dormer mentioned?” I asked Joel.

“I dunno for sure, but I’d take that bet,” he said. “If this Alvar guy was… how did Dormer put it? ‘Politically sensitive,’ it would explain a lot.”

[Interlude/Violet]

Violet and Tess were sitting together, and Violet found herself gripping her friend’s hand tightly.  A murder?  Her father had taken the posting here in part to get away from violence back home; she was small enough when they’d come that that she had only distant memories.  Daddy is not going to take this well.

“It’ll be OK,” said Tess.

“I hope so,” said Violet. “This feels like a lot all for one student.”

“There are the kids of some real big shots here, right?” said Tess.

“I guess,” said Violet. Do I count as one of those? she wondered.  Her family wasn’t especially wealthy or important by local standards, but her father held a senior diplomatic post, and back at home they were part of a very old noble family.

Tess and Violet talked about their classes for what seemed like a long while, when the Dean came back to the microphone.  “Thank you for your patience,” he said. “Please return to your homerooms for an attendance check, and to be dismissed.”

[End interlude]

Thursday, Sept 10^th, after school
Campus outdoors and our apartment

As Joel and I left the main classroom building, Agent Morgan stepped over next to Joel and started walking with us. I hadn’t seen where he came from.  He said something quietly to Joel.  Joel then said to me, “They want to drive me home. Do you want to come along?”

“Sure, why not?” I said.  A moment later I realized it meant my bike would be on campus overnight, which I didn’t love, but the odds of either someone stealing it or there being rain overnight seemed low.

The car was parked in the faculty lot; Dormer was waiting in driver’s seat.  His car, like most here, looked boxy and old fashioned – kind of like the ‘70s had never ended.  Inside, though, it was spacious and comfortable.

Once we were inside, Joel asked, “What’s going on?”

“Not here,” replied Dormer. “I can say more when we get back home.”

We were after the morning rush and even with the long wait at the main hall, it still somewhat before noon.  The trip was quick.

Once we were at the apartment, Dormer seemed more relaxed.  “I’m sure you have questions. I’ll answer if I can, or if you’d prefer, I can just brief you on what I know.”

“Just tell me what you know,” said Joel.

“Alvar Leto was the missing student I mentioned over the weekend.  I don’t have the full details, but it’s clear that his death was intentional, and someone went to a lot of trouble to make sure it was untraceable and irreversible.”

“Wait,” said Joel. “Since when is being dead reversible?”

“Under normal circumstances, like if this had been a robbery gone bad, it’s not hard to get a resurrection spell. It’s just extremely expensive, and his family would not have had any trouble paying.

“As I said last weekend, you’re not the only politically sensitive student at Queen Sara. He was another; his father is part of the ruling junta in Fenrik, and he was living in quarters at their embassy.  This is a going to be a big problem for them, and for the local security services.”

“What does this mean for me?” Joel asked.

“You’re going to need to be more careful. Some of the foreign ministry folks seem to think this internal matter from Fenrik that spilled over, in which case this is probably over.  At the same time, if that’s not it, you could be at risk.

“At my most paranoid, I can’t fully rule out that this is somehow a way to get at you.  Our information security on your real identity has been very good, but the king is concerned that your existence could have leaked.”

“Why would they target him to find me?”

“You and he fit a similar profile.”

At first with this conversation going on, my thought was that I was glad to be a nobody. Being exactly what Joel had thought he’d been – just another kid from Queens – I was safe, right?  But as Dormer talked about Alvar’s profile, and the similarity to Joel’s, it sent a chill down my spine.  Maybe I wasn’t that safe after all.

Author’s note: I really tried to avoid having to break a scene with an interlude like that, but this was the best I could find.

The student council room.

Elise had been trying to study and hadn’t wanted to get involved when Neil had clearly made up his mind about the two students.  After they left, though, she was curious about his reasoning.  While they’d been working together the past few weeks, she hadn’t known him the prior year and wasn’t sure what to make of him.

“What was the big deal with letting them have a booth?” she asked.

“They’re probably just doing it to get out of doing something with their classroom,” said Neil.

“So?  We’ve always had national booths.”

“There were only two of them,” he said.

“At the last two year’s festivals we had one girl from Wu with her own booth,” said Elise.

“That’s a real place. Do you expect me to have believed their story?”

Elise shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“I do. They won’t be back.”

Elise was sure there was more to it, but she hadn’t wanted to make a scene then, and had even less desire to get into more of an argument now.  She decided to head out for the day and started packing up as she could finish studying at home.

“You shouldn’t go,” said Neil.

“I’ve got my job this evening,” said Elise.  It was a lie, but everyone on student council knew that she worked a lot.

As she left, she heard Neil talking to himself; he must have thought she was out of earshot.  “She isn’t nearly dedicated enough,” said Neil, and if anything followed, she was too far away to hear it.

Classroom 2-C, End of classes

As it turned out, the swimming classes offered for PE – mostly for lower schoolers and first-years – did not fit his class schedule at all, soccer aside. The department assistant said they’d get back to him.  In the meanwhile, he’d been telling Jack and Kai about it.

“It doesn’t sound so bad,” said Jack.  “We didn’t get a lot of new members. It shouldn’t hurt your place on the team if you are still serious about it.”

Joel shrugged.  “How about you, Mark?  Kai was saying you checked out fencing with him.”

“I think I’m going to try it for PE credit,” I said. “Are you really sure Cory isn’t going have a problem with my being involved?”

Before Kai answered, Jack had a question.  “How did you manage to get on her bad side this fast?”

Jack was a different lab section for physics, so Kai ended up explaining the situation . “…and no, Mark, she’s not going to make a big deal about it.  I talked to her afterwards.  We pretty much need all three of you who showed up to stick with it, we’re risking being short when the third years all graduate.”

“Is that because Gwen was the face of the third year, and Cory scared off the other folks in our year?”

“I wouldn’t let her hear you say it,” said Kai, “but …” and he let that trail off with a smirk.

“Oh, hey,” I said. “Do you know how we’d sign up for a festival booth?”

“Do you mean for the club?  Gwen will be handling that,” said Kai.

“No, for a national booth,” I said. “I don’t think anyone else will be doing an American one, and the guy from our State Department was interested in sponsoring one.”

“I think either someone from the student council, or our volunteers from the festival committee would know.”

I remembered that some girls had volunteered for it but not who they were any longer. “Do you remember who our representatives were?”

Kai did and went to check with the one who was still in the classroom. She said she couldn’t help, but either Elise, who was the representative for the whole second year class, or someone else on student council could.

Elise was in our homeroom, and after Joel’s interest in her last week I remembered who she was.  She wasn’t around, though.  “Elise always leaves right after the day ends,” said Jack. “It was the same last year. I think she has a job on days she isn’t doing student council stuff.”

“Could you two help us find the student council room?” Joel asked.

“Sure,” said Jack.

“Since he’s got you covered, I’m going to head to my test prep class,” said Kai.

Kai went to get Amy, and the two departed together.  While we walked over with Jack, I couldn’t resist asking, “Is there something going on with those two?”

“Joel asked me the same thing at soccer,” Jack said, “and like I said then, there isn’t.  I’m pretty sure there should be, but whatever.” He shrugged.

The student council room was on the top floor of the arts center, where we’d had the opening ceremony; once we were there, I’d realized we’d seen it on our tour.  It was unlocked, so we headed in.  Two people were seated on opposite sides of a big conference table.  Neil, who I remembered from our tour, appeared to be studying from one of the same textbooks we used.  The other, Elise, from our homeroom, had a stack of papers in front of her and seemed intent on them.

“Can I help you?” asked Neil.  Elise didn’t look up.

“Oh, hey Neil,” said Joel. “Can you help us register a booth for the festival?”

“The soccer team is already registered, and your classroom reps will handle it for that,” said Neil. When Joel didn’t respond, he went on, “So who are you trying to register it for?”

“The flyer said something about national and cultural booths,” said Joel. “We’re from America and wanted to register one.”

“Oh,” said Neil, looking over at me.  “It’s just the two of you, right?  We don’t usually register clubs for just two people.”

“The flyer made it sound like we didn’t need a full cultural club to have a booth at the festival.”

“That’s for students directly from another country recognized by the Union.  A lot of students at this school have ancestors who were Americans among the newcomers.”

Joel shook his head. “Didn’t we tell you where we were from when you gave us the tour?  We’re not locals, we’re visiting students from America, on the other side of the gate.”

Neil looked like he was stifling a laugh, or ready to vomit.  It was hard to tell. “Do you expect me to believe that somehow the Brotherhood broke secrecy in your world, just to let a couple of high school students through the gate?”

“Not just us.  The main trade mission has a diplomat here from the U.S., and his security,” said Joel. “I’m pretty sure we were an afterthought.”

“Just stop.  This isn’t funny, and you’re wasting my time.  I could report this as an honor code violation.”

I butted in.  “Go ahead and report it.”

“Are you daft or something?” asked Neil.

“C’mon, Mark,” said Joel. “This isn’t worth the trouble. Hull will understand.”

“No,” I said. “Report us. The dean’s office has all the paperwork and can confirm where we’re from.”

“Right,” said Neil. “Quit wasting my time, listen to your friend, and leave.”

“I’ll be back with proof.”

“Sure you will.”

Joel and I left.  A safe distance away, I said to Joel, “What an asshole!”

“Keep it down,” said Joel.

“Why? Isn’t he also on the soccer team?”

“Yeah, one of the officers.  I don’t want to get on his bad side this soon.  Besides, would you believe us if you heard it?”

“Why does he even care?  It’s just a booth.”

Tuesday, Sept 8^th, just before first period
The pool

On Monday, when I checked my folder, there was a note from the PE Department.  Joel had one, too. They both said the same thing – our swim tests were now scheduled for Tuesday morning, and that a note had already been sent to the teachers where we would be missing class.  The rest of the school day was uneventful.

Looking in the student handbook, I was pleased to see there was no longer a requirement to wear uniform swimsuits. There was a uniform swimsuit in the package of uniform bits that Dormer had helped us order, but it had much shorter legs than mine from home and the fabric seemed uncomfortable.   Joel was fine with the uniform one.

I’d planned to bike to and from school every Tuesday and Thursday when Joel would have soccer. Even with my trying out fencing, because he was going for the competitive team and I was going for the bare minimum for PE credit, he’d be at it much later in the evening than I would.  Today, though, we’d caught an early streetcar – Dormer had explained that a 1^st period swimming meant we had to be changed, ready and at the pool when the bell rang.

Having arrived early and changed, we had found ourselves at the side of the pool with a lot of first year students, boys gathered on one side, girls on the other.  Most people were in their uniform swimsuits, and most who weren’t were wearing similar-enough, non-flashy swimsuits.   There were a few exceptions, but sadly, not a single bikini among the girls.

Joel recognized one of them.  “Hey Mark,” he said, nudging me, “there’s Violet.”

“Who?”

“The girl I rescued last week. You saw her on the train on the first day.”  I tried to follow where he was glancing, and sure enough, there she was.  She looked young compared to most of her classmates and she looked happy to be there.  Chatting with her were two other girls – Tess, who was in my history class, and another girl.  She looked quite tall compared to the other two – she was almost 20cm taller than Violet, and while it was hard to tell from the distance, I was pretty sure she’d about split the difference in height between Joel and myself.  Like Violet, she looked happy to be there.  Tess really didn’t; I couldn’t hear them from across the pool, but she’d smile at things that her friends said, and then go right back to a worried frown.

“Stop staring, dude,” said Joel.

“What?” I said, looking away.

“I mean, I can’t blame you,” said Joel, and then he dropped to a near-whisper. “I’m not really a boob man, and even I’m impressed.”

“Shut up, Joel.” I mean, it’s not like I didn’t notice these things, but I really was mostly trying to figure out their social interaction. I looked over again, briefly, and really did have to stop myself from staring this time.  Tess had looked well-endowed in her regular uniform, but in a swimsuit, to borrow what Joel said, she was… impressive.

Joel laughed and poked my shoulder. “She’s in your class, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Maybe you should try to get to know her.  Must be smart to be taking advanced honors history as a first year.”

“Most of the class is first years.  They placed out of the regular world history class or took it in the last year at the lower school.”

“Oh,” said Joel, “well, still.”

I shrugged and changed the subject.  “Does their taller friend look at all familiar to you?”

He looked over again. “Now that you mention it, yeah, but I can’t place her.”

“Me neither.”

Around that time, a gym teacher came out, and started explaining the swim test. “OK, kids, settle down.  For a lot of you, you already did this in the lower school, but for everyone new or who has forgotten, it’s simple.  Swim to the far end of the pool, whatever stroke you like, without standing up and touching the bottom. Any questions?”

One of the boys raised his hand, and after being pointed to, asked, “Is there a time limit?”

“No,” said the teacher. “Well, we only have the pool until the end of 2^nd period.”

He paused, possibly expecting a laugh, but nobody responded.  “OK, anything else?”

Nobody had any questions, so he went on. “We’re going to call you up in order.  There are a lot of you to get through today, so go to the lane I indicate quickly, and when you get to the end, just check your name off with my assistant.

“We’ve got two lifeguards here if you have trouble, and if any of you are too afraid of the water to try, just head down and let my assistant know, we’ll start you on lessons.”

A few took him up on it and started walking over to the assistant.

After that, they started calling students up, in what sounded like last name alphabetical order.  I didn’t recognize any of the names until they called Tika Allard early on.  “Wait, isn’t that Jack’s sister’s name?”  asked Joel.

The tall girl who’d been talking to Violet and Tess walked up to the pool.  “So that’s why she looked familiar,” I said.

The first few students ahead of her had done what I planned to do – lowered themselves in to hold onto the edge, and then started swimming.  Tika, on the other hand, dove.  And then took off — the first students ahead of her were still in the water, and she handily beat them to the end.

“She must be good enough to be on the swim team,” said Joel. “I wonder why they made her take the test.”

“Rules are rules, I guess.”

It didn’t take long to get to Berg, and I headed in.  They’d said any stroke, and it looked like a long pool.  I figured I’d conserve my energy, and after kicking off from the wall to get a start went into floating on my back and kicking gently.

I was glad the pool was indoors.  I’d probably be sunburned by now outside, and be staring right into the sun too, with my luck. Not long after, someone in the next lane over went past me, pretty quickly.  A while later, I heard someone coming up on the prior lane.  I looked over, and I was maybe at the halfway point. Oy. I’d never been much good at side-breathing, but I worried I was going to get stared at for being too slow and turned over to try to swim normally.  That lasted… well, a few moments, before I realized I was going to tire myself out and went back to floating on my back and kicking.  Staring at the ceiling in the warm water was relaxing, and I kind of got lost in thoughts about nothing until… thump I swam head-first into the back wall of the pool.

Fortunately, I wasn’t going fast enough that anything was hurt except my dignity.  I got out of the pool, feeling very embarrassed, and glanced around.  Nobody seemed to be looking at me, so it could have been worse.

After checking names off with the other PE teacher, most people were leaving to go get changed. A few hung around, probably waiting for their friends.  Joel had been nervous about going in the water, so I figured I’d stick around to make sure Joel was going to be OK.  I looked around and heard they were up to the Fs.   I glanced over at the folks waiting to go, and spotted Tess on her own, frowning again.  A couple of other folks looked vaguely familiar from my history class, but nobody I could remember the name of.

The teacher soon got to the H-es and called for Tess Hahn; she seemed fine in the water, so whatever had her frowning didn’t seem to be a lack of ability to swim.   When she got out, I noticed that she met Violet and Tika at the entrance to the girl’s locker room and all three disappeared inside together.

It was a bit of a wait until they got to the Rs, and they called for Joel Ross.  At first, he seemed fine; he kicked off the wall and was doing a normal stroke, and then, a short way into it he seemed to miss a breath, or something, and pretty soon he was sputtering and standing up a little less than half-way through the pool.  The nearer lifeguard called out to him to ask if he was OK, and when he nodded, asked “Do you want to go back and try again?”

Joel did, sort of walk-bouncing when he got to the deep end.  Starting over, he kept up a proper stroke for a while, and partway through must have gotten nervous.  This time, he tried to roll over, but rather than getting into a back float, he ended up with his head under water.  He stood up again, spitting out water.

This time the lifeguard waved him out, and with nobody nearby in the lane next to him, he walked over to the side and got out.

The assistant PE teacher asked him his name and marked him down as a “didn’t pass.” I met up with him after that.

“This… sucks,” he said.  “I hope they have a swim class that doesn’t conflict with soccer practice.”

Sun, Sept 6^th, a little after 10am
Our apartment.

It was my first morning to sleep in since coming to a new world, and I’d taken advantage of it. I was stepping out of my room and was going to see if there was any leftover breakfast, when I heard voices downstairs. I stuck my head downstairs and saw that it was Dormer and the mage from the foreign ministry, Ms. Yali, both talking to Joel. He, in turn, had a lot of small pieces of paper, small amulets, and glowing balls over his clothes. The first thing I thought to say was, “You look like a Christmas tree!”

“They’re putting magical wards on me,” said Joel.

“Wards? Like protection from something?” I asked.

“Yes, they’re protective,” said Yali. “They’ll help against attack spells, scrying, and other things. We’re also using a basic physical ward to toughen up his skin, although that one will be much better when he learns to keep it up himself.”

“We’re starting lessons today,” said Joel. “She said earlier you were welcome to join us.”

“Do I have time to change and eat some breakfast?”

Finishing the wards was going to take a while, and I was happy to kill some time after getting ready for the day. When they were done, Yali took some books out of her bag– a shiny new textbook entitled Teaching Magic, an Introduction for Elementary Educators and two smaller and well-worn copies of On the Foundations of Magical Theory.

“You’ll have to excuse this,” she said to Joel, “but we’ll be starting at a level most people learn when they’re much younger, so the best thing for exercises is the teacher’s manual.  I hope we’ll have you past that and working from Kelder’s soon.”

We took the next couple of hours going through exercises, starting with ones that were like what we’d done to test for magical sensitivity.  The basic idea was that we had to get used to sensing magic in our environment as well as the energy within ourselves.

“It is very important,” she said, “to be aware of both, and of other sources at hand like a power stone.  Other kinds of energy can be used to power magic, and your own body’s own health and energy is one of the more dangerous. If you try to use more power than you have and tap into your body itself, you can injure yourself or even die.”

While we were practicing, Dormer had apparently found food; we ate lunch while working, and by the middle of the afternoon Yali was convinced we could continue practicing on our own.  Before she left for the day, she figured it was time to teach us one little bit of magic.

“The first thing most people learn is to produce a dim light; it doesn’t use much magic, and it’s useful for kids who are afraid of the dark, and back in the day it was much more efficient than candles.  At your stage, you won’t want to keep it going for a long time, but with practice and a strong pool of energy you can keep it going indefinitely.”

To learn it, the easiest way was to fix an image from the book in our minds, and to gesture – it didn’t matter how, just something to indicate where the light was to appear.  Joel tried it, and after staring at the book for a while and making a grabbing gesture, a glowing ball – bright golden orange like the sun just starting to set, and about as bright as a Christmas tree light– appeared on his hand.   It clung to it, but he was able to set it down on the table.

It seemed like it should be hot, but it was cool to the touch, and it had the barest weight and solidity. Yali told Joel to concentrate on it, and to will it away; when it didn’t, she told him to add a horizontal motion of his hand.  The light disappeared. “With enough practice,” said Yali, “you can recall the images without seeing them.”

It was my turn… I focused on the image and tried to make gesture like Joel did.  Nothing happened; I’ve never had an easy time remembering pictures, and it just wouldn’t settle in my mind.  After a minute, and finding the silence weird, I started letting my eyes trace the lines inside the image.  Around the edge, there was lettering.  At first it seemed like nonsense, but after looking longer, it seemed like it might be the Old Imperial alphabet in a very highly stylized form.  I’d seen the modern printed form while studying for the exam and in our advanced history text, and with a guide couple probably have transliterated something.  I certainly didn’t expect to remember it, but the memory just clicked.  The lines traced between 7 letters… in English it would have been more.  It looked like it should say “briss-et-ay,” and as I sounded it out a light appeared.

Much less impressive than Joel’s ball of sunlight, mine was a cold flickering white, shaped like a candle flame and about as bright.   When I tried to set it down, it went out.

“Did you just read that?” she asked.

I nodded, and asked, “did I do something wrong?”

“No,” she said, “and if you’ve never trained on reading these it’s very unusual. You seemed to be straining to find the image at first, too.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Maybe nothing, we’ll see.” She shrugged. “It may help you learn faster – Joel, you’ll want to start learning the lettering eventually, and if Mark is already getting it the two of you can practice together.

“Also,” she said to Joel, “be careful with solar-attuned spells.  The size of Mark’s light was more like what I’d have expected, and while this was harmless, with other spells it could be dangerous or draw more power than you intended.”

Yali gave us a couple of chapters in the teacher’s book to go through and said to try any of the exercises in those that we felt comfortable with.  She also recommended that since I could read the ancient Imperial script, that I help Joel learn that from the appendix in Kelder’s.

As she packed up, Joel asked her, “Is there a reason we started today?”

She looked over at Dormer, who said, “A student has gone missing.  We thought it would be important to get you wards, and once she was going to be here anyway, it was convenient for Ms. Yali to start your lessons.”

“What does a student going missing have to do with me?” asked Joel.

“You aren’t the only politically sensitive student at Queen Sara,” said Dormer. “I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with you, but it pays to be cautious.”

On that note, Yali left, and Joel decided it was time to study, so I figured I’d do the same.  When I was going through my bag, I ran into the handouts for the upcoming festival.

I owed Hull a write-up of my first week’s experience – the state department folks had offered to pay me for them, with the amount somewhat up in the air – and one of the things about the festival stood out to me as possibly of interest to him.  It was called the Festival of Nations, and in addition to being a fundraising opportunity for the regular clubs, classrooms, and the student council, in keeping with the theme students were encouraged to create booths corresponding to their varied cultural or national heritage.  Visiting international students were especially encouraged and coming from a whole parallel universe Joel and I really could not have been more international than that.

Hull had said he was here to increase trade with the US, and part of that was looking for help spreading American culture and values.  This seemed like a perfect opportunity; I figured rather than just dropping a couple of pages in the mail, I’d also give him a call.  It was Sunday, so I figured I’d just get his answering machine.  Instead, a woman picked up.  “United States trade mission, may I help you?” she asked.

“Hi,” I said. After a moment, “my name’s Mark Berg.  Can I leave a message for Richard Hull?”

“Go ahead.”

“Thanks!  Let him that there’s an opportunity at my school to put up a festival booth for the US, and that it could be a good way to represent the US. I’ll send the flyer over with my notes on the past week.”

“I’ve got that down, Mr. Berg, and will pass that on to him.”

I thanked her, hung up, and figured I’d better start actually studying, although the back of my mind was still a little occupied by how one would represent America at a festival booth.  It was almost dinner time when the phone rang.  Since I was still sitting next to it, I picked up.  “Hi, this is Mark.”

I wasn’t that familiar with the voice on the other end of the line, but I did recognize Hull.  “Hi Mark, I hope I’m not calling at a bad time. I think you’ve got a good eye for an opportunity there. Do you mind if I send someone over for your notes and the flyer tonight?”

“Uh, actually,” I said, “I haven’t had a chance to write up the notes. You’re welcome to the flyer, though or I can get you both tomorrow.”

He chuckled.  “It’s probably better in the future to write things up as you go, but that would be fine.  Or if you’ve got a few minutes now and don’t mind me recording you, we can just take your report over the phone for this week.”

“If you don’t mind, let’s do that. Sorry about it,” I said.

“It’s no trouble.”

From there, I walked him through the past week of school; he asked a lot of detailed questions and was especially curious about Joel’s interaction with the girl he rescued and the local guys who were bothering her.  Joel was around, and I ended up putting him onto the phone briefly to answer more about that part.  When they were done, we got around to talking about today and the festival.

“Thanks, Mark.  I don’t know if we’ll always need this much detail, but this is helpful.  I agree that we should do something for the festival. I’ll work on some ideas from here and in the meanwhile, please do start whatever formalities the school needs.”

“Do you still want to send someone for the flyer?” I asked.

“There’s no rush, I think you’ve told me what we need. If you can send me a copy later, that would still be good.  For anything like that, if you want to photocopy it at school, we can reimburse you.”

“OK, thanks!” I said.  It occurred to me I hadn’t even made it to the library to see if they had a photocopier or how much it cost.

Our call had wrapped up, Dormer had already set his housekeeper to work on dinner, and I didn’t feel like studying more.  Before heading up to my room to play some video games, I stepped outside to check the dish of food I’d left out.  I hadn’t seen the cat since Thursday evening, but the dish kept being emptied so either it was still around or something else was eating it.

Sure enough, it was empty.  I put a new dish of cat food down, and the leftover ham that was getting a little dry for my taste.  As I was closing the door behind me, I heard a happy meow and I could have sworn I heard, “Thanks for the food!”