Author: Nate

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!”

Interlude
North of the Bridge, City of Feldaren
Saturday Evening

Alvar Leto had been in Feldaren for three weeks and was nothing but disappointed.  He’d heard great things about the city from older friends in his father’s court, and over the time he’d been here, had discovered that he was too young for every one of them.  At home, gambling and other entertainments were illegal, but if your silver or your banknotes were good, nobody cared if you were 15, or for that matter whether you were a baron’s son or a cobbler’s.  One could drink legally at 16, and if you stuck to the rowdier places in the port, nobody cared if you were a little younger, either.

Here in Feldaren, everything was backwards.  Gambling was legal, but hard to find and strictly for those over 18, the local definition of adults.  The skin trade was supposedly legal, but highly regulated and equally out of bounds until he was 18.  Rumors of how much fun the place was could hang – he’d been sent away several times, however politely, and the drinking age was 18 as well.

School was much more serious than he’d had at home, and with Saturday classes of all things! The Feldarenese girls his own age he’d met were utterly unimpressed by his family name, and all told, he was getting fed up.  He would have been ready to just head back to Fenrik, but he didn’t want to give his shrew of a stepmother the satisfaction.

Fortunately, the one place where his name did carry some weight was at the embassy; his father was not just a baron, but part of the junta who’d been running the country since the last king fled.  The ambassador had been happy to share rum from his own supply, and while he didn’t have enough of a sense of any of the staff’s loyalty or interest in gambling with him directly, they had been able to find the address of a card room which would likely take him without questioning his age.

The neighborhood “North of the Bridge” had an unimaginative name, but it was easy to find.  It wasn’t supposed to be a nice neighborhood, but it reminded him of the port areas in his hometown of Hertsag. There were times when he couldn’t stand the locals’ insistence on cleanliness!

The place was upstairs, with its own entrance above a bar.  Surprisingly small; it must have originally been an apartment.  Only one person was there, a woman only slightly older than he was.  She wasn’t really his type, fair almost to the point of paleness, and slender with mousy brown hair and likely rather plain below a little too much makeup.  The dress she wore did not suit her, although he wasn’t sure what would have.

His disappointment must have shown on his face, as she said, “Nobody’s here yet, but you’re welcome to wait.”

Alvar was never happy to wait, but he had to smile that she wasn’t rushing him out or asking him for an adult identity card. She spoke English but with an accent that sounded like she grew up speaking Old Imperial, his own native tongue, and he replied in it, “I understand. There will be cards here soon, yes?”

“Later, yes,” she said, replying in the same language. “We just provide the tables and a dealer,” to which she gave a slight curtsy.

“I’ll wait, thanks.”

She gestured to the sofa. “Do you want a drink?” she asked.

When he nodded assent, she stepped out.

She came back in with a glass of red wine.  It was fortified and very sweet, and he wondered for a moment if she knew that it was generally the style preferred in his home country.  He sipped it and grabbed a news magazine from the end table.  He hadn’t read more than a few lines before he passed out.

Consciousness came back slowly…

When he got his wits about him, he was not in the card room he’d left.  Wherever he was, the floor was cold, his hands and feet were bound, and someone was shining a bright light on him.

“Where am I?” he croaked; his voice weaker than he expected.

“You’re up quicker than we expected,” said a male voice from behind the light. “We’ll be asking the questions.”

“You’re brave for kidnappers,” he said. “Do you know who my father is?” Granted, he was a legitimized bastard, and his stepmother was none too fond of him, but he didn’t think she’d have him kidnapped.

“Not a clue,” said another voice; this was much rougher than the last. “Should we care?”

“My father’s part of the junta in Fenrik.  If you harm me, he’ll…” and a large arm reached past the light to belt him.

“Got it. We don’t care, then,” said the rough voice.

“Who is your mother?” asked a woman’s voice.  He thought it might be the one from the card room.

“One of the old Baron Torens’ younger daughters,” said Alvar.

“Damn it,” said the smoother man’s voice. “He’s telling the truth, or thinks he is.”

“With this many wards, how are you so sure?” asked the woman’s voice.

“I suppose we’ll have to test his blood,” said the smoother man’s voice.

The same large arm reached out with a blade and scratched his cheek.  It wasn’t deep, but he could feel a dribble of blood running down his face.  The man scraped it up using the same blade, and he could feel the warmth of an attempt to heal the wound.  He hadn’t heard any of the three voices casting, so their healer must have been very good indeed.  Unfortunately, instead of healing him, it sparked.

“Someone very distrusting must have cast his wards,” said the woman’s voice again.

“So, they did,” said the smoother man’s voice.  Then, away from Alvar, he said “is the blood a match?”

“It’s not,” said the rougher man’s voice.

“What a waste,” said the smoother man’s voice. “I guess we’ll need to be rid of him. Do you want to do the honors?”

“Gladly,” said the woman’s voice. “I did not like how he was looking at me.”

Alvar started to struggle, but it did no good.  The woman stepped into the light holding a thin blade, and sure enough she was the same woman he’d met at the card room.  That was clearly a trap, and not for me! His last thoughts swirled between anger and thinking without her makeup, she’s prettier than I thought, and ended with a searing pain on the side of his head followed by darkness.

Saturday, Sept 5^th, 12:15pm (after 4^th period)
Arts Center Main Hall

The main hall wasn’t crowded – it seemed like the students who had chosen to attend were mostly just first-years.  Our former tour guide – and the student council vice president – had ended up as the presenter, and they were going through sports clubs first.  It was mostly some very bland introductions – typically, someone coming up in gym clothes or a team uniform, and a lot like the one person we knew- “Hi, I’m Amy, and I’m here to tell you about the girls’ Track and Field club.  If you like to run, come join us in the warm-up area outside the swimming pool gate,” and a few sports clubs or teams that had put on demonstrations.   Joel made an appreciative comment about the uniforms of the girls’ tennis club, and the captain of the basketball club spent a minute or so doing some ball tricks – probably  not up to globetrotters’ standards, but it got some applause from the audience.

The fencing club was last, which I’d been curious about since Kai had said he was part of their demonstration.  The VP was unhappy to introduce them – “Last, and I suppose not least, we have the Dueling Club.”

The representative for the club was the red-haired third-year representative I’d pointed out to Joel at the opening ceremony.  She wore a costume straight out of Peter Pan, or maybe Robin Hood – green peaked hat, with a feather, and a blouse and skirt to match.  She bypassed the podium, drew what I thought was a fencing foil, and yelled “En garde!”

From the other side of the stage, someone entered in partial armor – a chest plate and a helmet with bars covering their face.  Except for the face guard, it was a very conquistador sort of look. This opponent was holding another foil and wore a larger sword on their hip.  They did several passes, looking for all the world like something out of a 1930s movie, not at all like the little bit of athletic fencing I’d seen.

Then, after a short while and a few passes across the stage, the armored person withdrew to one side.  The redhead went up to the podium and said “Hi!  I’m Gwen, and this was a little demonstration of why I joined the fencing club.  We are the Academy’s oldest athletic club, and we are lucky to have a two-time junior national epee champion, as well as the youngest person ever to go to nationals in dueling sword.” At this, the armored student saluted Gwen with the larger blade now out of the scabbard.  It was a very serious looking sword.

“We also have a lot of fun.  While the social clubs get ready for their presentations, I’m going to leave you with two of our members answering the age-old question: who would win, a knight, or a samurai?”

And with that, there was a loud yell from behind the stage, and someone ran out holding what I thought was a katana… and like what the armored student carried, it was metal one.  Like the other, they were partially armored, and I realized after a moment this must have been Kai, who’d said he’d be part of the presentation.  He’d said he did kendo, which I’d thought used wooden swords, or something similarly non-lethal.

The two came together with a crash, Kai chopping downward, which the original armored student parried with ease.  The two circled each other, approaching briefly, briefly clashing, and stepping back.  They appeared equally matched at first, but after a few cycles, the first one – with the western sword – sped up a lot.  Beating back another swing, their sword struck out at Kai’s armored chest and landed with a loud clang.  He stepped back and saluted the other, who bowed, and did the same.

“Looks like the knight wins,” said Gwen. She waved her hat at the audience as she left the stage.

Joel had decided to leave at that point; he wanted to help set up the soccer club open house. I stuck around on my own to see if anything looked interesting.  A couple did; there was a board game club, two different magic clubs (the “Mages Club” and the “Magical Research Club”, whatever the difference was) and while I had and have never had any interest in acting, there were three separate theater clubs and each of them had a mini performance.

Towards the end, there was another club that seemed to annoy Neil, “And now we’ll hear from the personal computer club.”

The student presenting waved. “Hey folks.  Some of you who were at the lower school already know this, but we have a student-run computer lab.  It’s a good place to write your papers, and if we’re not too busy you can use them to play games, too.  These guys” – and he gestured back towards Neil – “changed the rules this year so it can only be open if there’s a club member supervising, so we could really use a few more members.  You don’t need to know anything about computers although if you do it couldn’t hurt.  Oh, and if you used it last year and think the new rule is stupid, please tell the student council that.”

Neil looked like he was about to rush the computer club guy off the stage, but he wandered off on his own, without ever having either introduced himself or saying where the lab was.

Sports Center, Dueling Club room

I’d remembered roughly where we’d seen the sign on our first tour; it was downstairs below the main gym.   The room itself was locked when I got there, and there were three of us who’d had an interest coming out of the presentations – a first year boy, plus Mina Fremis, who I’d met briefly at physics, and myself.  The first year introduced himself as Galen Alcorn. We’d barely had a chance to do a round of introductions when the doors finally opened.

Gwen opened the door; she was in the regular warm weather gym uniform.  “Welcome!” said Gwen.

The fencing room was long, and somewhat narrow – otherwise like any other room in the gym except for the lack of windows; there were two doors at the far end, and a few people were already there – I recognized Kai, but no one else.  They were mostly stretching, but on spotting us Kai came over.

“So, you three wanted to learn about the club?” asked Gwen.

I nodded, as did Galen.  Mina, however, simply said, “I was planning to join.”

“You’ve fenced before?” asked Gwen.

“At my old school, yes.”

“How about you two?” asked Gwen.

I shook my head, and Galen said, “No.”

“Don’t worry,” said Gwen.  “Most of us won’t bite.”

Kai added. “Mark is the transfer student from my homeroom that I was telling you about, Gwen. Mina is also a second-year transfer and in our physics class.”

“I see.” Gwen raised an eyebrow, and then to Galen, “How about you?”

“Your presentation made this look like a lot of fun,” he said.

Gwen smiled. “Good! That was what we were going for.”

“It’s cool if we’re just here for PE credit?” I asked.

“Of course.  We have practice Tuesday and Thursday in the PE periods.  After school and Saturday practices aren’t mandatory, but if you’d like to check our practice out today it will give you a good sense of things.  If so, you should probably start getting warmed up.

“Mina, I can show you the stretches we use.  Kai, can you show Galen and Mark?”

I am not particularly flexible, but the stretches they were doing to start weren’t particularly tough.  As we worked through them, I asked Kai, “That was you up on the stage, right?”

He nodded.

“You looked cool.  Do you practice with a real sword?”

“Not usually, no.  That whole thing was Gwen’s idea.  It was pretty crazy.”

“Who was it you were fighting?”

He grimaced and nodded over at one of the back doors which had just opened.  There was Cory.

“Are you sure I’m actually going to be welcome here?” I asked Kai.

Saturday, Sept 5th
School

Having to get up for our first day of Saturday classes had me grumpy, although yes, I’m often grumpy in the morning.  When Joel and I got to the lab room, most people had already paired up and picked lab stations.  Jack and his partner were off on their own, while Kai, Amy and two other girls had staked out three stations between them.  The two other girls were quite different; one was quite ordinary in a school where “ordinary” tended to clean up better than at home, and she had the silver pin of a scholarship student, hers in the form of a rose.

The second stood out, and I wasn’t sure if it was in a good way.  She was around my height, taller than many of the girls here.  Except for some bangs, her brown hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail, and rather than the regular uniform she was wearing a baggy sweatshirt and track pants – our colder-weather gym uniform, sized up.  She had a silver dragon pin, so she was a local, and I realized that she was the first person I’d seen up close in this world who also wore glasses.

I’m close to blind to fashion, but while she wasn’t unattractive, she was a girl who either was consciously choosing comfort over appearances, or who was even blinder to appearances than I am.

Kai introduced us.  “Mark, Joel, this is Mina,” indicating the girl standing with him at his station. “She’s also new here,” and then indicating the girl a few steps away, “and this is Cory.”

Mina curtsied; I don’t think I’d ever seen someone do that in real life.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” she said.

“Hi,” said Cory.  Then, to me directly, “I guess we’re lab partners.”

“I guess so.  It’s good to meet you.”

The teacher was already there, and not long after he took attendance and let us know to start the lab without further instructions.  I started looking through the lab manual for setup instructions, which seemed like the right thing to do.  From a quick look around, a lot of people were doing the same, although both of our immediate neighbors had started getting pieces together.  Cory was doing the same, and started to say, “Can you hand me…” and then noticed I was reading the lab manual. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Reading the instructions.”

“You didn’t read them in advance.” That was not a happy look she gave me.  “How do you not know to be prepared in advance for a lab?” OK, scratch unhappy.  Furious?  I wondered for a moment if I was about to get punched.

“Sorry,” I said, stepping back.  “I never had a problem with this at my old school.”

“How the heck did I get paired with someone like you?” she asked, and then continued, “Never mind.  Just stay out of my way and take notes.  You can do that much, right?”

She then added, more to herself, “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to do one of these by myself.”

Cory powered through the entire lab, and two extra credit problems, in sixty of the ninety-five minutes we had, all without a word to me except figures to write down.  She stopped a few times to make sure what I was writing down was correct.  At the end, she went up to the teacher, and while I couldn’t make out everything, she seemed to be asking if she could get started on the next lab or more extra credit.  The answer appeared to be a “no.”

She came back to the lab station, took the lab notebook I had been writing in, and said, “I’ll put it in your mailbox once I make a copy.  You get to clean up.”  Then she walked out of the room.

Everybody else was still working, so I went to the teacher to ask what I should be doing.  He said to clean up our station, and then I was free to go as well.  I cleaned up the materials, and then figured I’d get ahead on my history reading while I waited for Kai, Amy, and Joel to be ready to head back to our homeroom.

At homeroom, the girls who’d volunteered for the festival committee had a handout, which I figured I’d look at later. Before we headed off to our next classes, Kai took a moment to speak to me.  “That was classic Cory.  I’m sorry I didn’t warn you.”

“She’s always like that?” I asked.

“She used to be worse,” said Kai.  “I’ve known her since the second year at the lower school, and Amy was in her homeroom in the first year there.  Back then, she’d have been a lot louder in telling you off.”

“How bad was it to try to read out of the lab manual, anyway?”

“For most people, it wouldn’t be a problem,” he said.  “I mean it’s always a good idea to read through it in advance, but it’s only a big deal for someone really serious about taking honors in the science track.  If you want to get all the extra credit in, you need to avoid wasting time.”

“If she’s that serious, how did I get paired with her?”

“We were talking about that before you got to class.  Cory looked at last year’s rankings.  Except for transfers, it looks like the teacher just paired people up in rank order.  You must not have been kidding when you said you are good at taking tests, because whatever unofficial rankings he used put you and Joel both at the top of the class.”

“Could that have been just because we are transfers?”

“Cory didn’t think so,” said Kai.  “Otherwise, one of you two would have been paired with Mina, but she apparently ranked behind both Cory and Amy.”

“Interesting.”

“Really,” said Kai.  “I think she’d actually been looking forward to working with you.”

“Damn.  Well, that didn’t last long.”

“Don’t worry about it.”  He gave me a pat on the shoulder.  “Most of the class is going to want to switch to lab partners they know better, so you probably won’t have to pair with her again.”

Saturday, after class

My meeting after class with Ms. Calliot had gone only slightly better than physics lab.  I’d thrown together a couple of topics I might be interested in.  She’d rejected all of them.

“Mark, I can see part of your problem with papers.  You aren’t trying to make and support a thesis.  Every one of these topics is an open-ended prompt for a narrative.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Let’s take one of these as an example – you have ‘How did Zagras liberate the Kingdom of Kala?’”

I nodded.

“There are a couple of good works on the subject, and while it’s well into antiquity there might be enough primary sources to write a good paper, there isn’t any thesis as a part of it.  Do you have a sense what specifically you wanted to write about it?”

“I’d planned to read through a more detailed history than the textbook, sum up the arguments for it, and go over the basic timeline.”

“Was that kind of survey paper adequate at your last school?” she asked.

“I didn’t get a lot of As, but it was always better than just passing.”

“I see,” she said.  “It may be good enough in your regular history class, at that, although I don’t recommend it.  It’s usually a lot more work to do that well than a more focused paper.”

“How should I have approached it, then?”

“You want not just to have a general idea, but a specific proposition that you can support with evidence.  I don’t recommend this as a paper at your level, but the classic argument is whether Zagras’s marriage to the goddess Mina was literally the case in life or a metaphor for after his death and deification. As a paper topic, you’d take one side or the other.”

“OK,” I said.  “How do you recommend I narrow these down?”

“I don’t recommend you do, at least for this first paper.  Unless you feel very strongly about it, I’m going to give you a topic.  I’d like you to write an outline, or at least two pages, by next Friday’s class.  If it looks OK, you can expand it to the full first paper.”

She took out a sheet of paper, and at the top wrote,

Between the fall of the second Empire and the rise of the
Great Kingdom, warfare was the first business of the state.

“Is that clear enough?” she asked.

“Is that specific to the nations that are now part of the Great Kingdom?” I asked.

“You can limit it to those,” she said, “or try to make a case for or against it for all human nations during that time.  Which do you think is easier?”

“To be more specific rather than more general?”

“That’s usually the case, yes.”

Joel and I had planned to eat lunch during our free period, before the clubs assembly, so I headed off to the lunchroom to meet him.

Thursday, Sept 3rd
School and then our apartment

The bike ride to school in the morning had gone well; it was a long but straight shot on the boulevard to school, and unlike my ride into the city back home, I didn’t have to go over any bridges.  There was a covered bike rack next to the sports center; it was almost full since I arrived late during my free period.  Amazingly, many of the bikes weren’t locked up at all, and those that were had locks that wouldn’t have lasted long in New York – there wasn’t a U-lock among them.  I wondered whether this was just that safe, or if you could get some a spell that would protect your bike from thieves.

Classes were still just starting today, so there wasn’t much new, and it was nice to have found a small crew to hang out with – Jack and Kai, plus Amy came along for lunch today.  We had another mandatory PE orientation for the last two periods of the day, and then Joel headed off to the soccer team meeting with Jack, while I biked home.

It was still during work hours, so traffic was lighter than in the morning, and I worked up a good sweat biking back in the heat.  Once at the apartment, I brought my bike around the back bring it straight into the laundry room and was just going to go in when I heard a cat meowing.

There was a gray and white cat, peeking out of the bushes behind the house.   It looked at me, meowed again, and ducked back into the bushes.

I showered and thought about what to do with the rest of my afternoon.  I hadn’t really had any time at home to myself outside of the late evenings; at home, my brother kept to himself and my folks, if they were home at all in the early evenings, were usually busy grading papers or working on some publication or other.

I decided I was going to make something to bring in for my lunch tomorrow; I looked in the refrigerator and didn’t see anything I’d like.  When we’d been moving in, there hadn’t been time to go ourselves, so Joel’s mom had given Dormer’s housekeeper a shopping list.

There were no cold cuts, nor any cheese I knew I’d like – although there was an unlabeled brick of soft white cheese that I tried and rewrapped.  It might have been the local version of jack; creamy enough, but quite bland; better to cook with than for sandwiches.  What we had were too many vegetables which were going to go uneaten unless Dormer sent his housekeeper over to cook them.

The pantry was mostly full of unfamiliar stuff, although the local Crispy-Squares cereal was decent.  There was pasta, at least, and sliced bread but nothing like a bag of sandwich roll.

I decided to go to the nearest market and see what I could get.  My dad had left me with a full semester’s worth of lunch money and allowance, the lunch money particularly generous since I was getting free lunch on the scholarship.  At home, it would have been a little over $300; at the exchange rate here, it has made for 3 and a quarter Imperials… 250 mil, as they’d have said here.  It felt like a lot of money for someone my age, but it had to cover me until winter break.

I walked up to the boulevard, and a couple of blocks down found the place Dormer had sent his housekeeper – called Super Jordi’s.  It was small for a supermarket, but clearly more than a convenience store.  They also had a meat and deli counter, and all I was able to get enough lunch meat and bread for a week’s worth of sandwiches, as well as some more familiar cheese and some canned foods.  Not bad at all for a week’s lunch money!

On the way back into the house, I got meowed at again.  There was the same cat, in the bushes near the front of the house.  It looked at me expectantly and meowed again.  I decided to offer it a slice of ham out of my shopping bag.  It wouldn’t approach me, but when I put it on the ground about halfway towards it and walked back to the door, it dashed out and took it.  As I went into the house, I was almost sure I heard it say, “thank you!” but must have been reading too much into another meow.

Math homework awaited me, and I lost track of time.  Joel came back quite a bit later, practically bursting in.  “You wouldn’t believe what just happened to me!” he said.

“I’m guessing this isn’t about the cat in our yard?”.

“There’s a cat in our yard?” He shook his head.  “Never mind that.  I just rescued a girl.”

“You what?”

“Rescued a girl.  You remember the girls we saw on our first ride to school on Tuesday, right?

I nodded.

“One of them was on the streetcar coming home, and there were a couple of shady looking guys who followed her off, so I followed them off.  Sure enough, they were hassling her and when I told them not to, one of them grabbed her bag so I chased after them and got it back.”

“Dormer is not going to like that at all.”

The door opened just as I said that, and both Count Dormer and Special Agent Morgan walked in.  “What is it that I’m not going to like?” said Dormer.

After Joel had finished his story – and in greater detail – Dormer was, as expected, not happy.  “Joel, while you said you were bigger than they were, they outnumbered you, and one of them could have had a knife or worse.  You don’t have any magical wards, which they could have had, or bigger friends nearby.”

“I can take care of myself,” he said.

“Have you ever been in a real fight?” asked Dormer.

“Not really, no,” said Joel.

“You need to be more careful. Especially if you don’t want either Agent Morgan or me to be shadowing you closely.”

“I understand,” said Joel.

Dormer told us a little more about what to exChpect; it sounded like Ms. Yali would be back to start teaching us (well, mostly Joel) some magic next week, and that at some point they’d be doing some self-defense classes as well.

After Morgan left, Dormer had some more questions.  “So, was this the girl from your class that you were talking about from the trip committee?”

“No,” said Joel.  “Violet’s a first year.  I didn’t realize it until after I got her bag back, but she’s in my Obdresti literature class.”

“Was she the one you were pointing out to me at the opening assembly?” I asked.

“No, that wasn’t Violet.  She said they usually took the streetcar together, though.  Maybe I can get her to introduce you.”

I shook my head.  “I think that’d be a bad idea if you want to keep a good impression with Violet.”

“Don’t sell yourself so short, Mark,” said Dormer.

Dormer had a few more questions about Violet; Joel had walked her to near her house, and it sounded like her parents were rich.  When they were done talking, Dormer said, “I don’t want to be too negative, you know.  It was not smart, but it was a very gallant thing you did for her.  Your instincts did you credit.”

I had one question for him before he left.  “In this world, can cats talk?”

“House cats?” he asked, and I nodded.

“Not normally,” he said.  “Why?”

I told him about the gray and white cat outside.  He explained a bit more about the house’s magic wards, and finished saying, “I don’t think there’s any chance a magical creature could have gotten in.  You must have been imagining things, and it’s not a good idea to feed strays.”

Friday, Sept 4th
School

We had our first physics class the day before, and it seemed harmless enough.  The class had its labs on Saturday mornings, and things took a turn for the weird part way through class on Friday when the teacher, Dr. Amril, started talking about lab partner assignments.

“I noticed that we have exactly the same number of girls and boys in the class,” he said, with a smile that was a little creepy coming from a teacher. “I know you all probably have friends that you’d like to work with but trust me… at your age you should consider this an opportunity.”

He then ran through the class roster, in order of the girls’ last names.  A girl from another homeroom named Mina Fremis got paired with Kai.  Amy got paired with Joel.  Then, when he got to N, the teacher called for someone named Cory Nement who was paired with me.

There was a bit of a buzz in the room, and it didn’t sound encouraging.  I meant to ask Kai about it, but by the time the teacher got through the rest of the class, and we went off to homeroom, I had forgotten.

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