Author: Nate

Saturday, September 19^th, before classes
Homeroom 2-C

We’d had clear weather since we’d come to this world a few weeks ago, although it had cooled down from hot to warm during that time.  However, starting on Friday the blue skies turned to grey and kept getting darker.  I left school straight after my classes and rode my bike home as quickly as I could.  By the time I got home, the sky was downright gloomy out.  It wasn’t long before it started to rain.  Not long after, Joel came back from soccer practice which had ended early due to the weather.

The sound of rain on the roof and windows made it easy for me to fall asleep that night.  It was still heavily pouring the next morning.  I thought about riding anyway, and then changing clothes at school, but figured I’d easily end up late.  It would be better to try on a day I started with a free period.  Instead, I caught a ride with Joel since he was still getting rides to school from Dormer.  I brought the boxes from Hull along, and we dropped them off at our homeroom before heading to physics lab.

After lab, during the homeroom period, Mr. Kirill asked whose they were.  Joel looked at me, so I raised my hand.

“They’re for the American culture booth for the festival,” I said.  “And part of one of the boxes is candy to donate to the class’s movie café,” and then after a moment when he didn’t say anything, “I’m sorry for bringing them in without asking.  Is it all right to keep them here until next Friday?”

“Ah, I suppose.  Especially since some of that is for the class.”

Zaya expressed an interest in checking out the candy, and there were plenty of murmured agreements with her.  Mr. Kirill gave his permission, so I opened one of the boxes and passed some of each kind of candy around the room.  It was fascinating to see the reaction; there was a local candy that had copied the “chocolate in a shell” formula, but only with dark chocolate.  The very sweet milk chocolate we were used to from home was uncommon here and seemed popular.  However, the artificially fruit flavored candies had a more mixed reaction.   I made a mental note to mention that to Hull, as he was looking for things US companies can export.

After homeroom, I had advanced honors world history and luckily was not taken aside by Ms. Calliot today.  I had a fair number of notes from primary sources, but not as many as I’d hoped, and I really did not want to update her on my progress with the paper.  I had a free period and figured it would be a good time to follow up on Hull’s request to come do meet and greet sessions at our booth over the weekend.

I wasn’t sure who to ask, but the student council seemed like a bad place to start given that there might be trouble if I ran into Neil again.  Instead, I went to the upper-school Dean’s office.  Dean Jerdew’s secretary gave me kind of a “what are you asking me for?” look when I asked, but she took down a note and said they’d get back to me.

There was supposed to be a discussion after classes ended for the day about the class’s movie and snacks for the festival, so I headed back to my homeroom to wait for it.   When I got back tour homeroom, Kai and Amy were out – after the homeroom period they had Advanced Honors Biology lab.  Two labs almost back-to-back sounds like way too much work for me!

Joel and Jack, however, were both around and were talking.

“Hey Mark,” said Joel.  “Jack is offering to help with the booth.”

“Nice!” I said. “Any particular reason?”

“I was asking Joel how you two were going to get any time to check out the festival, if you have to run the booth the whole time.”

“Does it really take two of us?  I figured we’d just take turns.”

Jack thought for a moment.  “They usually have two, one to prep food or do whatever they’re doing, and one to collect tickets and manage the line.  If there’s a line.”

“Tickets?” I asked.

“That’s how they want people to pay for things.”

“Ah.  I don’t know if we’ve figured out if we’re going to charge for anything, but if we got a good turnout I guess a second person would be helpful. Anyway, thanks, we’d be happy for the help.”

“You’re welcome,” said Jack.  “It seemed like it would be a cool experience.  At least half the kids in this class have at least one newcomer among their great grandparents, and more than half of the newcomers were Americans.  I think you’ll be busy once people discover the booth.”

“Do you think anyone else would want to help with the booth?”

“I can ask my sister,” he said.

“That’d be cool,” said Joel.  “Her name’s Tika, right?”

Jack nodded.  As conversation went on, I realized that I hadn’t given nearly enough thought to what the booth would do besides sell (or give away) hot dogs and souvenirs.  With less than a week before the festival, I knew I needed to come up with more of a plan soon.

After fourth period, and Zaya and the other festival committee members called on the class to discuss the progress made on the three streams of work for the festival – snacks, movies, and decorations.  It sounded like there was a plan in motion for each of them but not much had been accomplished.  For snacks, everyone thought we should have popcorn in addition to sweets, and we needed a VCR and TV – preferably a big one.

Joel and I got asked to check with the student council if we could borrow a video cart, and to check if they even had a popcorn maker we could borrow.   While there, I could check in on a grill as well – assuming Neil didn’t derail things.

When we reached the student council room, it was busier than the previous week.  Elise was there, and I recognized the President, Anson, from the opening assembly.  Sadly, Neil was there, too, and there were a couple of other unfamiliar people at the table with them.

As we waited, I couldn’t help but overhear the request from the two groups ahead of us.  One was a class who hadn’t even gotten their idea approved yet, and the next was a club who wanted to move their assigned booth.

When it got to our turn, Anson asked, “How can we help you?”

“Two things for class 2-C,” said Joel, “and one for the American cultural booth.”

“Okay, what can we do for your classroom?”

“We wanted to borrow one of the AV carts with a TV and VCR, and we wanted to see if there was a popcorn maker we could borrow.”

“Oh, you were the ones with the movie café,” he said, making a note.  “It’s no problem on the AV cart, I’ll have the custodians bring one up to your classroom. For the popcorn maker, let me check.”

He turned to one of the unfamiliar faces, “Ray, do we have a popcorn maker?”

Ray looked through a pile of papers before responding, “We don’t, but I’ve seen one at events before.  It probably belongs to the cafeteria.”

Anson jotted something else down and handed it to Joel.  “Bring this approval to the administration building and ask for the head of food service.  She’ll be able to tell you if they could spare one.”

He went on to ask, “You said you also had a request from the American cultural club?”

Before either Joel or I could reply, Neil interrupted, “Surely, you don’t mean to support that charade any farther than we were forced to?”

Anson looked at Neil, his smile fading, then back to us, “You really should have come to me directly, rather than going around us to the administration, but what’s done is done.  But what do you need?”

I replied, “I was hoping we could borrow a grill.  Someone back home in the government sent over a lot of hot dogs for us to cook.”

Ray spoke up without even looking at the papers, “You’ll need to get those from the cafeteria.  You’re not the first group to ask, but I think they have several.”

Anson nodded and wrote another note for us.  As he handed it to me, he sighed, “Next time, please try to go through proper channels.”

“Uh, about that,” I said.  “I left a request with the Dean’s office asking if we could bring the representative of the US State Department onto campus to do a meet and greet at our booth on the weekend days.”

“You were anticipating trouble with Neil?” asked Anson.

I nodded and noticed that Neil was both clenching his jaw in anger and glaring daggers at me.

Anson sighed. “I’m not getting in the middle of this one. If the administration approves it, I’m not going to argue with them. I imagine it will come down to the security arrangements.  Next time, though?”

“Next time we’ll go through proper channels,” said Joel.

“Good,” said Anson.

Neil looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t, and we left – there was a small line of other clubs and classrooms behind us.

Joel was already a little late for soccer practice, so I decided to go to the administration building alone.  I found the head of food service was unavailable, but the department’s secretary was able to help.  He accepted the two notes from the student council and took down my requests.

As I left the building, the rain was lighter but still going; I thought briefly about hanging out at the library to continue researching my paper until Joel finished or practice was cancelled, but I decided against it.  Instead, I decided to head home and spend a quiet afternoon by myself.

The streetcar was mostly empty in the early afternoon. As I got home, I thought about the cat who had been hanging out near our apartment.  I hadn’t seen it recently, the food I left out kept getting eaten, so I thought it was still around.   Because of the rain, I put the food closer to the back door, just under the awning.  I hoped it wouldn’t get wet before the cat could eat it.

I had a novel from home that I hadn’t started yet, but I realized that Yali was coming over the next day and I had barely practiced at all this week.  So, I took out one of the globes, and the textbooks, and decided to figure out how to practice channeling power without an external source like the power stone or brick of ore.

Monday, Sept 14^th, late afternoon
Our apartment

The letter was from Hull, and had been typed:

Mark –

Thanks for bringing the festival to my attention.

I asked some colleagues back in New York to put together material for your booth.  They had to get everything while the Gate was open, so this all was in a bit of a rush and may have gone a bit overboard. 

Please use whatever you can for the booth – I would also appreciate your aid in passing on anything left unused.

I am also enclosing partial payment for the past two weeks’ reports.

Regards,

Richard Hull

Aside from the letter were three 200-mil bills, each the equivalent of about US $20: not bad for a phone call and a few hours of writing notes.

Having read the letter, I moved on to the boxes.  There were multiple boxes of books, photos, some posters, and tourist souvenirs most of which were more “NYC” than “USA” – some miniature Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building figures, some refrigerator magnets, and even a lone central park snow globe.  Some of them would be good to decorate the booth with, but there were way too many – we could give away, or maybe sell the rest.  Maybe the library would take the books if nobody wanted them?

Some of the posters and photos were promotional ones from NASA.  It also included a plastic model of the space shuttle launch stack (orbiter, solid boosters, and external tank.)

I found another box filled with candy – M&Ms, Skittles and some other fruit flavored things, as well as regular chocolate bars.  Those we could sell, for sure.  The last box had three ten-pound packages of hot dogs – 240 in all, a lot of cold packs, and giant bottles of ketchup and mustard.  I moved the hot dogs to the fridge, and figured I’d better leave a message with Hull that I’d gotten the packages.

I was working half-heartedly on my math homework when the phone rang; I expected it to be Hull, and it was.  “Hi Mark, is this a good time?”

“Sure, I’m just doing homework.”

“Thanks,” he said.  “I wanted to talk to you about the festival.  I was thinking that it might be good to come by on Saturday and Sunday to do meet and greets at your booth.  Can you ask the school if that’s OK, and if so, publicize it in advance?”

“Sure, no problem,” I said.  “Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

“Just to ask if there was anything else you’d need for the festival.”

“I did have two questions.  The first one is, do you want me to sell these or give them away?”

“That’s up to you; Uncle Sam doesn’t need to be paid back.  If it’s conventional to sell things, you can donate the proceeds to one of the clubs you’re in, or to the school.”

“Thanks.  In that case, can I donate some of the candy to my homeroom?  They’re doing a ‘movie café’ and wanted to sell snacks.”

“That would be fine, Mark.  Is there something else?”

“Oh, yes.  Sorry,” I said.  “You mentioned getting reimbursed a while ago, and I just wanted to check if it’s OK to do that to buy buns.”

“Yes, of course.  If you need to rent a grill or anything like that, it’s fine as well.  Just get receipts, please.”

“Thanks, Mr. Hull.  I’ll get in touch once I hear from the school about your coming in for the meet and greets.”

The call closed out there, and I got back to homework.  Joel got back, along with Dormer, around seven, and I updated them on the delivery and Hull’s plans.

Wednesday, Sept 16^th, morning free periods
Library

I’d been in a decent groove with homework for my other classes, but I had really been lagging on finding sources for my world history paper, and I was overdue on finding some primary sources.  I had a double period free before homeroom on Wednesdays, since I was going to the fencing club instead of PE, and it seemed like a good opportunity to go to the library on campus.

The school’s library was on the near end of the Arts Center, split between the second and third floors and overlooking the green.  An open study area next to windows was open between the floors, leaving it very well lit and airy, while the stacks behind it extended well into the building.  It was quiet at this hour of the morning – I’m sure most people with the same free period used it as I would normally have, to sleep in or at least come in late.

I dropped my backpack off at one of the big tables and set off with a list of sources mentioned in the textbook.  I quickly realized that I hadn’t seen a card catalog, and while they used some kind of numeric catalog system, vague memories of where history fell in the Dewey Decimal system were of no help – the numbering system was completely different, and even if it had been based on it, I wasn’t there to browse for interesting texts on a general area.

They had an electronic catalog, running on green-screen terminals – not too different from the Queens borough public libraries – and I was able to find most of the books I was looking for.  Two, unfortunately, were non-circulating, so I’d have to read them here.

When I’d found the books, and checked out the ones I could bring home, I settled in with the one of the other two.  I wish I’d brought my laptop to be able to type my notes directly into the outline.  It was a little after 9, so I had around 45 minutes before homeroom, and I got caught in my reading until someone interrupted me in a voice louder than I’d have expected at the library.

“Skipping class?”

I looked up; it was Neil.  I suppressed the temptation to say something salty, and instead just replied, “Excuse me?”

“What are you doing here instead of being in class?” he asked, again too loud for the library.

“What’s your beef, man?  I’ve got a free period, not that it’s any business of yours.”

“You should show more respect.”

“Respect?  For what?” I asked, genuinely confused.

“For the rules,” Neil said.  “And for authority.”

“What does that have to do with my studying here?”

“You think you can just go around getting a booth approved after I declined it?  You made me look foolish.”

Ah, it was about that.  “I didn’t make anyone look foolish,” I said, keeping my voice even.  “I wasn’t even the one who got the approval.  I told you before, there’s a trade mission here from the US, and they reached out to the school.  If you have a problem with that, take it up with the administration.”

“You’ve made me look bad,” Neil sneered.  “Well, I’m not going to let you get away with it.  I’m going to figure out what your angle is and then make sure everyone knows what kind of people you ‘Americans’ really are.”

“My angle?” I rolled my eyes.  “Whatever, man.  I’ve got work to do.”

Neil huffed and stood there, muttering something under his breath.  I tried to go back to my reading, and he interrupted again, “I’m not done talking to you.”

“Unless you want to talk about post-second-empire politics, I’m done here.”  I closed the book I was reading, started packing up, and worked hard to ignore my rising anger.

As I stood up and started to leave, he said, “Don’t walk away from me, you damn coward.”

I walked out of the library without looking back.  Luckily, he didn’t follow.

Joel was already hanging out in our classroom, waiting for homeroom to start, and chatting with Kai and Jack; I warned him about Neil’s weird confrontation, and spent the rest of the day in a pissed-off mood.

Wednesday, Sept 16^th, fencing practice
Sports center fencing room

When I got to the end of the day, I was still in a bad mood, and I didn’t feel like biking home on my own since Joel had soccer practice.  For lack of anything else, I thought I’d see what fencing was like on a non-PE day.  Fewer people were there, but most of the ones there were the folks I knew – Cory, Mina, Kai, and Galen, plus a few others who I didn’t.  I was a little surprised to see Galen there, since I thought he was also doing it for PE.

“I’m glad to see someone here to practice with who isn’t competing,” he said to me.  “I am going to miss practice tomorrow, so I had to make the day up.  What brought you in?”

“I had bad day and wanted to work off some steam before going home,” I said.

“Take it easy on me, then,” he said.  The warning was unnecessary; we were still drilling moves on our own and not sparring.  After, both Galen and I helped with the cleanup.

I didn’t bother to change back to my regular clothes, since I was going to bike home.  Up at the bike racks, as I was unlocking my bike, someone else came up and started removing theirs from the rack.  Then, they stopped.  “Hi Mark,” a familiar girl’s voice said.  “I was wondering whose bike that was!”

I looked over; it was Gwen.  “Hi Gwen.  Yeah, this is mine.”

“It makes sense that you brought it from America, I’ve never seen that brand or one quite like that.”

I shrugged, and then said, “Yeah, I brought it with me.”

It was a nice bike back at home, but not an expensive one – I’d been all set to replace my worn-out cheapo ten-speed mountain bike with a similar one, but Anne had convinced me to get something a little better since I was riding over the bridge to school.  I’d ended up with a hybrid – upright frame with road wheels.  It was also a very bright yellow; I liked the color and thought it would be especially visible in traffic.

“Do you ride every day?” she asked.

“The year just started, but I’m trying to most days,” I said.

“Nice, nice.  I try to on days I’m not going to be here too late, although with three clubs I can’t as often as I’d like.”

We ended up chatting briefly about her clubs – student council, the theater group, and fencing – and then I wished her a safe trip home and started heading for the main road circling the green.  As I started to turn left towards the main entrance, Gwen called out, “Hold on a minute.”  So, I did.

When she caught up to me, she asked, “Were you going to ride along Surrat-Efrel?”

I nodded.  “It’s a pretty direct shot home,” and when she gave me a puzzled look, I added, “it’s faster than side streets would be.”

She stuck with the puzzled look for a moment longer, and then said, “I guess you must not know about the trail that runs along the river?”

I shook my head.  “I didn’t know there was one.  How far north does it go?”

“To the city limits, I think,” she said.  “I live up near the university, and it runs well past there.”

“Oh, nice,” I said.  “That would take me all the way home.”

“You’re welcome to follow me this time so I can show you the route,” said Gwen.

“Sounds good,” I said.

The back exit from campus had a pedestrian gate; it was open with a couple of security guards.  There was a park a few blocks long between campus and the river, with a residential neighborhood just north of the park.  Behind the park was the trail, running high up over the river where we started.  It looked like it sloped down gently northward.  When we got to the trail, Gwen said, “Every fourth or fifth block cuts through to the trail.  Just keep an eye for the cutoff for your neighborhood and let me know if you need me to slow down.”

I nodded, and we set off.  She set a good pace; without traffic lights, and with only a few other people out jogging or bicycling, the distance went by in no time – a good ten minutes quicker than on the main Boulevard.  I called out to Gwen, who was still ahead of me, that we were coming up on the turn for my stop.  She slowed down for a moment, and when I caught up, said, “You kept up a good pace.  I don’t usually go that fast the whole way.  I guess it pays to ride with someone else.”

“Thanks, this was really helpful,” I said.  “Have a safe trip home.”

“You too,” she said, and she headed north along the trail while I cut over east away from the trail.

When I got home, I was surprised to see Dormer’s car in the driveway, and Joel was already home.  “You’re back late,” he said.

“I went to fencing practice today.”

“Were you still steamed about this morning with Neil?”

“You know it.  Was he at soccer today?”

Joel shook his head.  “Wednesdays are student council days, so he’s never around,” and then after a moment, “since you rode home after fencing practice, I’m surprised we didn’t see you while we were driving, we only got in a few minutes ago.”

“I got shown a new route home,” I said.  “There’s a trail that runs along the river.”

“Explains why we didn’t see you.  Must be good to be out of traffic.”

I shrugged.  “Certainly faster.  Compared to traffic at home, the boulevard here isn’t much.”

“Fair enough,” said Joel.  “You said you got shown, who did you hear about it from?”

“That’s the funny part,” I said, and I explained about running into Gwen and her surprise that I was riding along the boulevard.

“So, you rode home with a girl?”

“Um, yeah, so?”

“With the senior from fencing, the one you said you liked when we saw her at the opening assembly?”

“I said of the three, I thought she was the most attractive, I didn’t say I liked her.”

Joel grinned at me.  “Sure, sure, but that’s how these things can start.”

“You’ve got girls on the brain, Joel.  She’s so far out of my league that it’s not a funny joke.”

“We’re in a different league altogether here, Mark, so you never know.  I’m still willing to bet we’re going to have girlfriends by the end of the year.”

I rolled my eyes, “What do I get if I take that bet?”

“You’re supposed to be rooting for it to happen.”

“I’ll happily root for you from the sidelines.  Besides, I’m going back to New York when the school year is over, remember?”

He shrugged.  “No sense worrying about that until you have to.  You’ve got to live in the moment more.”

Monday, Sept 14^th, before school
Our apartment

I didn’t feel ready to go back to sleep and ended up reading the magic textbook – Kelder’s as Yali had called it, after the author.  I didn’t get far into it before getting drowsy, but the introduction talked about the distinctions between traditional magic and modern.  The former came out of several different traditions, each with their own view of power sources and limits of magic. They could do a vast number of different things, but there was no way except dangerous trial and error to expand what it could do.

Modern magic was an attempt to synthesize all those traditions into common principles.  As far as power sources went, it had succeeded.  Magical energy was mostly fungible and even to some extent quantifiable.  The main exception, sorcery, relied on calling on extraplanar beings, “whether malevolent or benign,” and their effects were direct, not a flow of power through the caster.

In terms of what it could do, though, modern magic was much more limited: it required understanding the effects desired.  For effects that were not extensible from traditional spells, the amount of power used was directly proportional to the effect, where with traditional magic there was no such limitation.

Kelder’s gave the example of levitation: modern magic could lift an object by applying a force, just as a machine would, and required the constant application of energy to hold an object in place against the downward pull of gravity.  Traditional magic could neutralize or even reverse gravity, with a tiny fraction of the energy used, or even set something floating permanently.  The author finished that section suggesting that people would someday understand the principles of gravity enough to deconstruct those traditional spells.

As an example of deconstructed traditional magic, it went on to give the basic light spell which Joel and I had learned: in this case, its magic didn’t create light directly but rather summoned it from elsewhere.  The author went on to say that there were half a dozen methods to create or summon light, and I was getting drowsy enough to stop there before he could go through them.

I woke up when my alarm sounded and went downstairs. Dormer and Joel were having a tense conversation which stopped when I started coming down the stairs.  It was about the visit Joel had last night –

“Don’t sweat it, Mark already knows,” said Joel.

“Still, the royal family’s relationship with their goddess is a private matter.  I’ve told you what I know.  If you’ve got other questions, we will need to find a time for you to talk to your great-uncle.”

Joel shrugged, then asked me, “Did anything else weird come to you after you went back to sleep?”

I shook my head.

“Lucky you,” he said.  “I got treated to what felt like a multi-hour movie version of Obdresti history.”

“So, like the Priest-Kings invading and stuff?”

“That was a big part of it, yeah.  Wait, how do you remember that?”

“If I read something interesting, I rarely forget it.  A lot of what I remember is useless, like the demi-human level limits, or the tech tree in Civ.” OK, that wasn’t fully useless, since it was the copy protection, but still… “And I mean, that story was cool.  Demons, giant sea monster.  It’s the founding myth of the country, like Romulus and Remus raised by the she-wolf.”

“Not a myth, from what Tennia showed me.  If I ever see that thing with all the eyes again, even in a dream, it will be too soon.”

“Hey, look on the bright side,” I said, “You won’t have to study those sections.”

“Wasn’t world history a first-year class?” Joel asked.

“You didn’t read your student handbook?”

“I skimmed it, why?”

“The core subjects get comprehensive exams, including all the past material.”

Joel groaned and went back to eating his breakfast. After eating, he said, “You look tired, you should catch a ride with us instead of biking.”

I felt tired, and I took them up on it.

Upper school room 2-C
End of the school day

At homeroom in the morning, the girls from the festival committee talked to the class.  The festival was coming up the weekend after next, and while it was unclear how the new security arrangements would affect it, each of the classrooms had to run some kind of fundraising event.

There were three girls who’d volunteered for the festival committee; one of them, Zaya, let the class know that we should all stay after the last class to discuss the festival.

At the end of the day, most students stuck around.  Zaya seemed to be their spokesperson, and ended up asking us, “How many of you are also taking part in club activities for the festival?”

I put my hand up.  I looked like about ten people did as well, so a little more than a third of the class.

“How many of you have to do a lot of setup work for your club?”

I thought for a minute and put my hand down.  Joel looked over at me and did the same.  After that, there were only three hands up.  One of them was Elise, who was on student council.

“OK,” said Zaya, “if you’re not going to help on the day of, and not going to help set up, you can get going if you want.”

Elise left; the other two, both guys, stayed.

“So does anyone have suggestions for an activity?”

Nobody raised any hands.

Zaya looked over at the other two.  One of them said, “If everyone is going to be shy about it, how about we all write ideas down, and then we’ll put them up to vote anonymously.”

They handed out small pieces of paper, and it seemed like most people wrote something down before they collected it.  In my case, I had no idea what one normally did as a classroom for one of these, but the usual fundraiser for clubs at my old school was a bake sale, so I wrote that down.

When they’d collected all the suggestions, they started putting them on the board.  They combined a lot of them which were variations on a similar them – for example, several variations “café,” “snack bar,” and after I explained it, the bake sale.  Similarly, there were several versions of a raffle or silent auction, which sounded interesting but would require us to hunt around for businesses or parents who would donate things to raffle off.

Zaya rejected two of the ideas – the “backrub station” which was just “Eww, no!” and then she also rejected “Fortune teller” after asking if anyone in the class could use divination magic.  Nobody could.

The last couple of unique ones were “Temporary hair color salon” which got some more consideration – there were two girls in the class who knew magic to do that and thought they could teach it to others in time for the festival, and “Movie theater.”

There was some indistinct agreement when that one was read out, but Zaya was skeptical. “Whoever suggested this one, how do you think we’d do that?”

Joel responded. “We could borrow a TV and VCR from the school and rent some videotapes to play in the classroom,” he said.

“Would people want to pay to sit down to watch a whole movie at the festival?” asked Zaya.

“I don’t know,” said Joel.

One of the guys up in the front of the room said, “We could make the movies free and just sell snacks that went with the movie theme. Then people could stop in for a break and go back out without feeling like they were wasting money.”

There was a lot of agreement around the room. Zaya said, “OK, so that comes back to the snack bar idea again. Let’s vote on whether people are OK with that part first.”

The class voted by raised hands, and enough over half were OK with some kind of snack bar.

“So do we want to do more of a café style or go with the movies idea?”

There was some discussion, and once it became clear that the café would be a lot more work, there was nearly unanimous agreement on the movies plus snack bar, where we’d only need one or two people at a time to sell snacks and occasionally change a videotape.

There was a lot of discussion of organizing it afterwards, and of what kind of movies to put on since people wouldn’t be sitting through a whole movie.  It didn’t sound like we would have a lot of the decisions made today, but they asked for volunteers for groups to handle different pieces – I volunteered for the group which would buy or make the snacks to sell.  When not enough people volunteered, they started assigning people; Joel was asked to join the group who’d pick out and rent movies, because the movie part had been his idea.

I didn’t have my bike today, and Joel had soccer practice, so I caught the streetcar home.  When I got there, there were large boxes piled two deep in the laundry room, with a letter taped to them addressed to me.

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.