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Our apartment
Before dinner

We talked with Jack and Kai and Amy for a while, then headed out; most people had already headed for the streetcar except for a few die-hards who already had club activities.

We’d hadn’t gotten any written homework yet, but both English and our main Social Studies course had assigned reading.  I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing, but the English text we started with was a thick compilation of short stories.  Mr. Kirill had given us two to read and said to be ready to talk about them.  For the social studies, I was going to just skim for tonight; this year was going to be mostly Feldaren history and starting with the early local history.  I’d read an awful lot of that between the biography of the first emperor and preparing for the exam.

There was an unfamiliar car parked behind Dormer’s when we got back to the apartment, and it turned out that Dormer and an unfamiliar woman in a dark suit were waiting for us. “Joel, Mark, this is Ms. Yali.  Legatus Matsumoto asked her to stop by.”

“Good to meet you both,” she said. “I’m a mage with the Foreign Ministry; the Legatus told me where you were from, and that neither of you had any prior exposure to magic.  I’m here to evaluate Joel, to see if he can learn any.  Mark, I’d be happy to include you in the evaluation if you’d like.”

Joel shrugged and looked at me.  I’m sure I must have been grinning like an idiot, as Joel gave me an eyeroll, and Yali asked, “I’ll guess that’s a ‘yes’?”

“Yes, please,” I said.  I knew from my reading that an awful lot of people in this world could do at least a little magic, but there was never any mention about whether the newcomers had been able to learn it.

She needed a little while to set up; in the meanwhile, Dormer asked what we wanted for dinner; I suggested pizza, Joel said burgers. Dormer knew a place that did both well.  He was buying dinner tonight, and if we were hungry, we could head out whenever the evaluation finished.

The evaluation required four objects – they were on a wood tray on the dining table.  Two glass spheres, around the size of a grapefruit or a softball – one was translucent, the other clear.  The other two items were smaller; there was a piece of jewelry, made of silvery metal with a small, clear crystal attached, and a dull-colored metal bar about the size of a deck of cards.

She asked us to move chairs a few feet away from the dining table; then to sit down.  She had Dormer close the blinds and turn off the light.  The room still wasn’t dark exactly; the blinds weren’t great as I’d discovered over the past few mornings, to my annoyance, but it seemed that “not well lit” was fine for her needs.

“OK,” she said.  “For simplicity, we’re going to have Joel do each test first, and Mark can repeat it right after.”  To me, she said, “The accuracy won’t be as good for you, because you’ll have seen Joel’s responses, but it will save a lot of time.”

The first test was holding the metal bar for a moment.  After Joel held it, I did.  Nothing about it felt unusual; the surface reminded me a lot of D&D figures, or like the musket ball I had as a souvenir from visiting a historic fort with my parents a few years ago.

Once I returned it, she asked us, “Did either of you feel anything when you held it?”

“It felt cold,” Joel said.

When she didn’t ask me anything right away, I said, “It felt like a regular piece of metal.”

She checked off boxes on a sheet of paper.  “OK, are you both ready for the next test?”

“Was that lead?” I asked in response.

“In part, yes.  There’s a small percentage of magical ore alloyed in.”

“Magical ore?” Joel asked, while I got up and washed my hands.

“It’s a rare kind of metal,” she said.  “It’s not very useful in a raw state, but it can be attuned and used as a power source for magic, or to keep magical devices operating.” I remembered reading about it in the textbook – the Wizards’ guild had settled their headquarters where they did, on an island over what was this world’s equivalent of the mid-Atlantic ridge, because it was sitting on a huge seam of the stuff.  When they decided they’d lost the war, they blew it all up.

When I finished washing my hands and sat down, she told us, “Someone with a very high magical sensitivity would have felt it as warm or vibrating.”

“For the next test,” she said to Joel, “pick up the crystal.”

He did, and I thought for the briefest second that I saw a flicker of light in it.  Joel clearly felt something, as his eyes went wide with surprise for a moment.  “It feels warm,” he said.

“Interesting,” she said, and checked off some boxes.  “Please pass it to Mark.”

As he handed it to me, I thought I saw another bare flicker of light.  As I held it, it seemed like nothing more than a piece of jewelry; it was no warmer than any other small object someone had held in their hand for a few moments.  I still, somehow, kept seeing small flickers of light inside it.  I put it back on the table.  The flickers died out.

“I don’t feel anything, but I keep seeing very dim flickers of light inside it.”

“Only flickers?” Joel asked.  “It’s been glowing since I picked it up; I thought that was visible to everyone here.”

“Very interesting,” she said, and checked off some more boxes.  “That’s excellent news.

“This means that each of you has at least some basic level of magical sensitivity, maybe more than basic.  The light you each saw in the jewel wasn’t visible light; normally you must call out the power when casting, but Joel managed to activate it accidentally.  What you saw was radiation of magical energy itself; the power stored in the stone leaked quite a bit when Joel handled it.

“What I don’t know is whether either of you would have seen anything if Joel hadn’t activated it.”

Her next test required her to tap both spheres with the jewel; as she tapped each, she muttered something under her breath.  The translucent sphere, to her left, glowed with a clear white light.  The transparent one to her right didn’t change at all.

“Do you see a light on the left?” she asked us.  When we both said yes, she went on. “Good. That’s visible light, at a standard brightness.”

“Do either of you see anything in the clear one?” she asked.  I shook my head and looked at Joel.

He’d done the same, and then said.  “No, but I did see a flash when you tapped each of them with the jewel.”

“Very interesting.”  She wrote something down on her sheet, then tapped the clear sphere with the jewel again, holding it for a moment.  “Do you see anything in it now?”

“A faint light,” said Joel.

“Same here,” I said.

“Is it solid, or flickering?” she asked.

“Solid,” said Joel.

“Flickering a little,” I said.

She tapped it again, briefly.  “Is it solid now?” she asked me.

“Yes.”

“A little brighter for both of you?” she asked.

It was.  The test went on, with various taps, and questions about the brightness.  Joel saw it a little more easily than I did, but it wasn’t until we started another section that our responses differed a lot.  This section consisted of changing the colors of both spheres, and then asking if the brightness in the translucent one matched what we saw in the clear one.

She told us to let her know if the hues didn’t match, and otherwise, to let her know how bright they seemed – like the first part, she would adjust trying to match the brightness of the translucent one.  Joel saw the orange and red much more easily than I did, and two others in blue and white less easily; the other odd finding was that the hues did not match for me several times, most strongly on a couple of green ones, while they always matched for Joel.

Then, we were done.

“That’s it,” she said.  “I’ve got a few notes, but this was very clear-cut.  I don’t think I’ll need them.”

“Really?” asked Dormer, getting up.  He’d been sitting on the couch, and I’d forgotten that he was still here.  He turned the lights on, and then came over to the table.

“Yes.  Let’s go over your results first, Joel.  You have an average sensitivity for magic overall, but a very high sensitivity to solar magic, and probably an attunement to it.  That carried over in the tests to sensitivity with related elements like fire.

“You’ve got, exactly as one would expect for a solar attunement, a poor sensitivity to lunar magic and related elements like water.  I’m not set up to test for it today, but I’d be interested in seeing if you had some level of resistance there.  Given the results of the test with the power stone, I would expect you learn to use solar magic quite easily.  You’re a little old to learn a lot of magic, but I think that day to day spells should be very manageable.”

“I’m not sure what that means,” said Joel, “but it sounds good.  Dormer told me while ago there were some I should learn if I’m able.”

“Now, for you, Mark.  You also have an average sensitivity overall.  I can’t say whether it’s slightly weaker or stronger than Joel’s, because of how we did the tests all together.

“Now, as for sensitivities, I have to ask you a question – have you ever been told you may be red-green colorblind?”

“No,” I said, “and I can see red and green, but I just don’t always see color very well.”

“Mark, the milder form of red-green colorblindness doesn’t mean you can’t see the colors, just that they show up a little differently from how they should.  It’s quite common, and mostly harmless.  You should get an eye doctor check for you – I’m surprised since you have glasses that you weren’t screened for it, and if it bothers you, there are spells to cure it either temporarily or permanently.

“Without knowing that, though, the best I can say is that either you have the mild form of red-green color blindness, or you may have a few mildly reduced sensitivities – especially to life magic.  Unlike the lunar magic, it’s very easy to check if you’re resistant – would you mind if I did a brief test to see?”

“What would that involve?” I asked.

“I’ll cast a spell that gives you clearer vision temporarily.  If it works, you’re not resistant.”

“So, I won’t need my glasses?”

“Yes, for several hours,” she said.

“OK, let’s try it.” I’d always been curious about contacts.

She held the jewel for a moment; she muttered something, it flickered, and after she put it down, she walked over and touched the side of my head.  The world got oddly blurry, and I realized I’d better take my glasses off; I did.

“Can you see well now?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Excellent, you’re not resistant to life magic,” she said. She looked at her watch, and then went on, “It’s just before 5.  It shouldn’t wear off until you’re asleep overnight, but you should bring your glasses with you if you leave the house, just in case.”

She started packing her things up, and Dormer had a last question for her.  “I’d planned to ask Legatus Matsumoto to arrange for someone to teach Joel, since he’s turned out to be capable.  Are you likely to be the one she’ll ask?”

“She expects you to ask, and already spoke with me about it.  If you formally request the ministry’s help with this, yes, I’d be the one teaching him.  I’ll tell you the same thing I told her – he’d be better off with someone with more teaching experience.  Since you know her, I’ll bet you can guess what she told me.”

“Something on the order of it being a politically sensitive matter,” he said.  “If so, yes, it is.”

“Yes, that’s almost exactly what she said,” said Ms. Yali, “and if discretion is what’s needed, then please confirm with the Legatus.  I’ll have no problem starting lessons next week sometime once she signs off.”

“That’s excellent news, I’ll do that,” said Dormer.

After she’d packed and gone, Dormer drove us to dinner.  The place we went was called The Haven; it wasn’t far, just a bit north of the main station.  While we were waiting for my pizza, Joel’s hamburger, and Dormer’s half roast chicken, Dormer asked us how our day at school went.

“Pretty well, I think,” said Joel. “We only had about half of our classes today.”

I shrugged.  “The people in our homeroom seem nice.”

“Did you get to know anyone yet?” asked Dormer.

“There are a couple of guys who we sat down behind who were friendly; Jack and Kai,” said Joel.  “Kai said he was Ambassador Matsumoto’s nephew.”

“Joel also volunteered for the class trip committee,” I said, “and I think it was mainly to get to know the second-year representative.”

Joel turned a bit red.

“Oh?” said Dormer.  “A girl, I take it?”

“She’s cute,” said Joel.  “Besides, she had a point about making sure people from the other classes don’t make all the choices about the trip.”

“Sounds like a good day,” said Dormer, giving Joel a grin.  He didn’t ask anything more about our class representative, and the conversation moved on to lunches.  Dormer did not remember the food there fondly at all, and Joel again declined to have Dormer’s housekeeper prepare lunches.  It also turned out that Dormer remembered quite a few of the teachers we’d have, including Mr. Kirill; I’d known he was young, but it came as a bit of a shock to realize he’d only graduated five years ago.

Upper school main building, cafeteria
Lunch break

It had been a good morning so far; only two classes before lunch because of the assembly, Kirill’s English literature class and then math.  Of the people who had introduced themselves during homeroom, Amy had gone off to some track team thing, but Jack and Kai had joined us in the cafeteria.

Both were very skeptical of our choice to get the hot lunch, and I could see why; the stewed beef’s merits began and ended with being cheap and a generous serving. Even better, it was free for scholarship students.  Joel had finished his, but I’d picked at just enough to keep from being hungry.  Their boxed lunches looked better, and I said as much.

“You should learn to cook,” said Jack.  “Kai’s mom is an amazing cook. I make lunch for myself and my sister.  It’s not hard.”

Joel replied.  “We just got here a few days ago and haven’t even figured out where it’s good to shop for food.  Besides, this isn’t nearly as bad as the cafeteria food back home.”

It was true enough — although it ignored that he’d turned down Dormer’s offer to have his housekeeper make boxed lunches for us.  I’d figured that the food couldn’t possibly be as bad as NYC Board of Ed catering, and that much was true, but that was a very low bar.

“It can’t really have been that bad,” said Jack.

Joel gave an example I also remembered from elementary school – “Imagine a grilled cheese sandwich reheated in a plastic bag, where you can’t tell where the cheese ends and the bag begins.”

“That was typical?” asked Jack.

“It was one of the worse ones,” Joel said, “but they were usually pretty bad.”

“This is pretty typical here,” said Jack.  “Not bad, just bland, and as the term gets busier and more people start forgetting to bring lunch the lines will get worse.”

Joel shrugged.  “Makes sense.  Back at home we were right in the city, so it was easy to just go out for a slice of pizza or a bagel.”

“So are the classes here like the ones at your school?” asked Kai.

“Pretty much,” said Joel. “We switch between classrooms instead of the teachers switching, and the furniture is different, but so far it seems pretty much the same.”  He looked at me.  I shrugged.

Joel went on, “That’s just based on two classes, though, and the first day is always kind of just setting expectations, right?”

“The rest of today will probably all be like that,” said Kai.  “Which electives are you taking?”

It came out that all of us were in physics, and otherwise none of us were in the same electives.  They were surprised by Joel’s choice of Obdresti literature — when he said, “it sounded interesting” they were less than convinced.  Kai was in advanced honors biology, which sounded like their equivalent of an AP class; Jack was taking computer programming.  I was taking the advanced honors world history class, which would be mostly first years who had placed out of the regular world history class.

“Now that you mention it,” said Jack, “how did you do well enough on the history part of the exam to get a scholarship when you’d only heard of our world a few months ago?”

“That depends,” said Joel.  “For me, they let me take a history exam from our world instead.”

Kai and Jack looked at me.  After a moment, I shrugged.  “I’m just good at taking tests.”

They looked at Joel.  “He’s telling the truth,” said Joel, “and it’s annoying.  Mark also read the world history textbook they gave me, for fun, before he’d even decided to take the exam.”

“So, history’s your favorite subject?” Kai asked me.

“I always liked it, but mainly I like reading science fiction and fantasy stories,” I said, “and this world’s history is straight out of one.”

Jack and Kai both laughed.

Classroom 2-C
End of the first day of classes

Classes were over for the day, and everyone was starting to pack up.  Amy came over to check on the four of us, including Jack and Kai.  “I hope these two jokers didn’t fill your heads with bad ideas,” she said.

“Not at all,” said Joel.

“A better question is, which two are the jokers?” I asked.

Jack laughed, and I think I got a hint of a smile from both Kai and Amy.

“What is there to do after school here?” asked Joel.

“Most clubs won’t be doing anything today, but they usually meet after school,” said Jack.  “Most people go at least two days a week to an athletic club to get out of taking PE.  Most of the cultural and social clubs skip Tuesdays and Thursdays to let people do that.”

“Are all three of you in athletic clubs?” Joel asked.

“I run track,” said Amy.  “Not competitively, but the girls in the team are a fun bunch.”

“I do kendo outside of school,” said Kai, “and since there’s no kendo team here, I’m in the fencing club for my PE credit.”

“I was on the soccer team last year,” said Jack. “I’m not sure if I’m going to stay on the team this year, but I’ll be doing it for PE at least.”

“Oh, nice!” said Joel, “I was going to try out.  Why were you thinking of just doing PE?”

Jack shrugged.  “Not sure it’s going to be that much fun, and I need to get serious about my studies if I am going to get into a good college.”

“This guy who gave us a tour on Saturday was on the team,” I said.  “He said it was good for college applications. What was his name, Joel?”

“Neil… not Hayward, but something like that?”

“Oh, him,” said Jack, with something of a sour look.  “Neil Mayhan.  It’s different if you’re an officer or something, or a star player – not that our school has any of those right now.  Neil got himself made Vice-Captain.”

“Not a fan of his?” Joel asked.

“He’s one of the two reasons the team is going to be less fun than it used to be,” said Jack.  “You should still try out.  Really, if you’re any good you should make the team; most people are just doing it for phys-ed, and at least last year it was hard to find people who would take it seriously.”

Joel nodded.  “When are try-outs?”

Jack shrugged.  “The first club meeting is on Thursday after school.  I think we officially start try-outs after the open house this weekend, but I’ll introduce you to the captain. If you’re going to take it seriously, I think you’ll be in.”

“Thanks!” Joel said.

“How about you, Mark?” asked Jack.

“Not having to take PE sounds good, but I’m terrible at sports,” I said.  “There isn’t a cycling club, is there?”

Jack shook his head, then looked at Amy.  “Do you think the boys track club would let him follow along on a bike when they practice?”

Amy laughed. “I think a bike goes too fast.  Plus, they have a lot of members, so they probably won’t make exceptions.”

“That gives me an idea,” said Kai. “What about fencing?  We’re short on people after last year’s third years graduated.”

“Fencing?  I could check it out at least.  When would I have to join by to get out of PE?”

“Next week,” said Kai.

“Everybody has to go to PE this first week,” added Jack.  “Fitness tests and stuff.”

I must have grimaced.  “It’s not that bad,” said Amy.

“Does fencing have an open house, like soccer does?” I asked Kai.

“Sure do!” he said.  “A couple of us are going to have a demonstration at the clubs assembly, too.”

“OK,” I said.  “I’ll check out the demonstration, and I’ll probably come by the open house.”

Upper School Main Building, Classroom 2-C

It had been a bit of a rush to get our schedules and get to our homeroom; Dean Jerdew sent one of his assistants with us to show us the way.  Confusingly, the room numbers in the main building weren’t by floor, but by class year; I don’t think either of us would have remembered without help that the second-year floor was the top floor of one of the two high school buildings.

We’d seen the classrooms empty in the spring.  Now there were students going into all of them; ours looked a little more than half full when we arrived.  After looking around, Joel eventually moved to a desk near the back where we’d come in, and I figured I’d take the desk between his and the inside wall.  There was no one sitting in front of me; the guy at the desk in front of Joel had been talking to his neighbor and a girl who was standing between their desks and Joel’s.

“Hey, are these going to be assigned seating?” Joel asked.  When the guy in front shook his head, Joel set his bag down and said “Hi, I’m Joel.”

I sat down, and added, “I’m Mark.”

Joel went on: “We’ve kind of got ‘new here’ written all over us, huh?”

Jack shrugged.  “Everybody’s new once.  I’m Jack Allard.”

After Kai and Amy introduced themselves, Jack went on, “How did you like the opening ceremony?”

“A lot more formal than our last school,” said Joel. “Same for the uniforms.  The head of school, Mittari, had some nice things to say.”

“So, the uniforms where you used to go were casual?  Nice,” said Jack.  “I thought these are pretty standard.  They explained that the full blazer and everything is only mandatory for assembly days, right?”

“Yeah, they did.  There were no uniforms at all, where we last went.  Not much of a dress code, even.”

Amy had a question, “I see the pin, but I don’t recognize it. Where are you from?”

“Oh, the eagle,” said Joel.  “That was our ambassador’s idea; we’re visiting students from the U.S., New York in particular.”

“The you-ess?” Amy paused. “Wait… New York?  Like in America, from the other side of the gate?”

I snorted.  “U.S. as in the United States… of America.  Yeah.”

“So, the gate is no longer secret?” Amy asked, “There’s an ambassador, and we’re getting exchange students now?”

“I guess,” said Joel.

“I don’t think Hull technically ranks as an ambassador,” I said, “but yes, pretty much.”

“Oh,” said Kai. “That makes some sense of something my aunt said having to do with the gate.  She’s in the Senate Diplomatic Service and was recently promoted.  I wonder if that was related.”

“We met a Legatus Matsumoto,” I replied.

“That’s her.  My dad’s sister.”

“Cool.  She was very helpful in getting this all set up,” said Joel.

“How did you end up as exchange students?” asked Jack.

“It’s a long story, but basically…” Joel gave a very brief summary completely leaving out the initial introduction or his being a prince, “and after I got invited, this guy,” he pointed to me, “decided it sounded like a good idea to try to come along too, and he bugged the people at the State Department — like your diplomatic service — until they let him take the exam with me.”

The conversation turned to living arrangements and their impressions of the city.  They weren’t surprised that we were living away from home.  The academy had an international reach.  The location of our apartment on the other hand…

“South Riverside is a pretty fancy area,” said Amy.  “Your government is paying for a whole townhouse just for the two of you?”

Joel shrugged and looked over at me.  “I think they bought the whole building?”

I shrugged back. “I think so.  Our neighbors are mostly the first few US diplomats.”

Joel gestured at the head of the room.  “Looks like the teacher’s here.  It’s good to meet you three.”

“Yeah, for me too,” I said.

“We can talk more over lunch or something,” Jack replied.

The teacher introduced himself as Mr. Kirill; after taking attendance, he continued: “I will be your homeroom teacher, as well as for English Literature.  I recognize a fair number of you from English last year.  I’m fine with your settling at whichever desks you’d like but if you start chatting with neighbors too much, I will make you pick at random instead.

“Before we start in on lessons, we’ve got one administrative thing to take care of.  As Ms. Shevariet said earlier, the student council needs volunteers from each home room, so who wants to be on the organizing committees?  It looks like we need two people each for the Festival of Nations and for the class trip.  Do you have anything to add?”

He was looking over at Elise who was sitting in front of the room, near the window.  She shook her head, “That’s fine, Mr. Kirill.”

“OK, volunteers?”

Three girls from near the front of the room raised their hands.  When Mr. Kirrill called on them, all three wanted to volunteer for the festival, and none for the class trip.  He looked at Elise, who told him that a third volunteer would be fine.

“So, anybody for the class trip?”

Still no more hands.  He looked to Elise again, who this time stood up and spoke directly to the class.  “Do you really want all the other homerooms to get to decide where we go, and what we do?”

Then Joel raised his hand.  Kirrill looked down at the roster, “You wanted to volunteer, Mr. Ross?”

“That’s right,” said Joel, looking straight at Elise as he said it.

Interlude
Upper School Main Building, Classroom 2-C

The first day of the new year; most of the class had arrived already and were around their seats talking about their summer break.  Jack and Kai were discussing the latest rumor.

“I hear we’re getting a couple of new students,” said Jack.

“Girls?” asked Kai.

“With our luck, not just guys but ones who are going to get all the girls.”

Just then Amy Lee startled Jack with a pat on both shoulders. After he settled down, she borrowed the desk next to him and told them “Neither girls nor any particular risk of getting all of them from what I hear.”

“How do you know?” asked Jack.

“One of the seniors on track told me what she saw on Saturday,” said Amy.  “Two guys about our age and their families went into the admin building and afterwards got a tour.  She said they seemed ‘pretty normal.’”

“Oh well,” said Kai.

“You two can’t get any of the girls here, why would transfer students be any different?”

Their curiosity was short-lived, as two young men came in, escorted by one of the assistant deans, and instead of finding free desks looked a bit confused.  Amy looked at both; other than being white guys with dark hair, they were a mismatched pair.  One was close to six feet tall and athletic, with a well-fitting uniform.  The other was middling in height — looking short next to the other — and with a uniform that looked a bit oversized on him and so there wasn’t much sign of his build.  Where the first had an open smile and was blandly handsome, the second had more of a nervous look about him, and unusually, wore glasses.

Both had silver pins, so they must have scored very well on the entrance exams and earned a full scholarship that way.  Not that surprising; the school only admitted a few new students in their second year, and neither one looked like the child of a VIP who would get in through their parents’ connections.  However, she did not recognize the pattern — most students entitled to a pin wore a symbol of their nationality.  Most, of course, wore the dragon of Feldaren, and she thought she’d seen them for all the old alliance countries.  This flattened bird was new to her.

Queen Sara Memorial Academy, Arts Center Main Hall
8:00 AM

The main hall was practically a building in itself, at one end of the Arts Center that the upper and lower schools shared.  We were on time with the main group of students from the train but hadn’t come early enough to get prime seats.  The seats normally might have bothered Joel; my own habit was always to take an aisle as far back as possible, and with all the close seats taken he didn’t object.

A few minutes later, there was a quick audio check by a couple of students.  A group of eight people followed them onto the stage.  The first two we recognized — the tall, balding Doctor Mittari, who was head of school and who we’d met briefly when we first toured it in the spring — followed by the short, bearded Dean Jerdew, who had been our first contact with the school and our counselor prior to starting classes.  The other two adults we didn’t recognize — both women, and while a little younger than the first two, clearly faculty or staff.   The four students followed — a boy, and three girls.  The last to enter, a shorter blonde, looked like she’d rushed there.

“Is she one of the girls we saw on the train?” I asked Joel.

“I think so,” said Joel.

Doctor Mittari was the first to speak:
            Students, faculty, staff, and friends of the school — I am very pleased to welcome you to our ninety-first opening ceremony.  To those of you continuing your studies here, or graduated from the lower division, welcome back.  To those of you who are new to the Queen Sara family, simply welcome.
I don’t use the term family lightly.  The head of our trustees would have me tell you about our success in one part of our mission — graduating future leaders of the old Alliance, and he would prefer I talk in terms of Senators, Consuls, and Princes.  He would, I think, want you to be proudest of the moments you will have later in life when you see a classmate on the front page of a newspaper.  For me, though, leadership comes in many forms, and our mission is not just to graduate future leaders, but to raise the next generation of teachers, engineers, and most of all, citizens.
Thirty-five years ago, in my first year here, I sat where you did.  Your classmates come from every nation of the Etciv, and a dozen other nations throughout the world.  Your classmates come from every walk of life.  Nearly every one of you has joined us by excelling on the entrance exams or an academic recommendation.  I have never since enjoyed the day-to-day company of such a diverse and talented group of people, and unless you are extraordinarily lucky, the same is likely to be true for each of you.
I would tell you to do your best with your studies, but very few of you need that advice; most of you would not be here if you were not already very able in that respect.  Instead, I urge you to make the most of your time here with one another.  Make friends you would not have otherwise made.  Learn from your peers, not just your textbooks.  Teach one another from your own unique experiences.  My own proudest moments coming from graduating this school are not the newspaper moments, but rather the fact that I can run into someone who graduated from Queen Sara years apart from my time there, and be greeted as a friend, or as I said at the start, like part of the family.
I don’t have any announcements to make at this time, so I will now turn over the podium to your class advisors and representatives.

The next to speak was the third-year class advisor, one of the women, who introduced herself as Mrs. Franks; I later found out she was the chair of the literature department.  She mostly talked about getting ready for college entrance exams, and the importance of not neglecting your other studies while preparing.

Dean Jerdew was the class advisor for the second year, and it was in that capacity that we’d met with him to discuss our plans a few days before.  He emphasized the importance of figuring out plans for our futures, and not leaving that for senior year.  He also had some minor announcements; a popular teacher who had taught physics had decided not to come back over the summer, and some of the students who were looking forward to his class booed at this.  While Joel and I were to be in a physics class, we didn’t know the old teacher at all.

Last came Ms. Cabral, the first-year advisor.  She emphasized that continuing students from the lower school should keep an open mind, and to avoid cliques — I remembered that the upper school was a good bit larger and about a third of the class was newly admitted.  New students in our second year would be much fewer and far between.

And that was that for the faculty; next came the student council president, a senior who had a bit of a cheering section of young ladies in the audience.  “Hi everyone,” he said.  “I’m Anson Gramm –” and here he had to pause because of shouts of “Anson!” from the same group of young ladies. “–and I wanted to thank you again for electing me to be your student council President.  We’ve got a lot of good things planned for this year.

“First, if you’ll remember, I ran on modernizing our dress code and if you haven’t already seen it in this year’s student handbook, I’m really pleased to say that we were able to come to an agreement with the administration to loosen things up a bit.”  Quite a bit of applause for that.

“Second, many of you have asked me already about club budgets, and I’ll remind you that we don’t finish those until we have membership counts for the term.  For the first years, or any of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I hope you’ll join us for club presentations after classes end on Saturday afternoon, and there are open houses after that.

“Last, we’re all hard at work putting together great festivals for you this year.  We’re only a few weeks away from the festival of nations, and I know there are some great booths planned.  I hope we get close to 100% participation this year.  Student council meetings are, as always, after school on Wednesday and remember you don’t need to be an elected officer to join.  Now, let’s hear from each of our class representatives, and then let’s all get out there and do our best.”

The class representatives started with the seniors as well.  Their representative was a young woman with very red hair – and quite popular, with more applause than for any of the teachers or the President.  “Hey third-year class!” she started, when someone yelled out “Hey Gwen, that should have been you!”

She stood still for a moment, hushing the audience.  “I didn’t run, remember?  Anson’s got my full support.  We’ve got big things planned for this year.  We’ve got our last class trip and a ball to plan…” and she went on with a discussion of the upcoming year.  College admissions sounded every bit as big a hassle here as they’d have been at home, although it seemed to rest even more heavily on exams.  I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to matter for me. I was going home next year, so as long as I found a way to get my SATs done on time, I’d be fine.  Doing a year abroad and having a recommendation from the state department folks couldn’t hurt.

Gwen spoke for a few more minutes with announcements, and ended with “and for all of you, from every class, I’ll put on my actress hat and remind you that our theater clubs have some great shows planned this year.  The Troupers” — having not yet seen it written the pun went over my head at the time — “will be doing the fall performance and I hope you all will come out to see us.”  With a round of applause to that, she sat back down.

Ms. Cabral came up again.  “Normally, we’d go straight to the second-year class, but we have an announcement that affects both classes.  Here is our interim first year representative, Tess Hahn.”

I still couldn’t see well enough to be sure, but she looked a lot like one of the two girls who got on the train not long after us — they’d both been short, Tess having straight dark-blonde hair where her friend had lighter curly blonde hair. While it was hard to be sure at the distance, Tess was probably quite pleasantly curvy. “Thanks for the introduction, Ms. Cabral!  As most of you will remember, forest fires last year damaged the campground we usually go to for the first-year class trip.  We found out over the summer that repairs won’t finish in time for the class trip this Spring.” Boos interrupted her from the audience.

“After talking it over with Elise” — and here she gave a nod to the last class representative — “and the rest of the student council, we’ve decided that our class will join the second years in the cultural trip this year, and that next year we’ll have a combined trip with the new first years to the campground.”

This got a very mixed reaction.  As it died down, she ducked back to ask the advisor a question, and then continued, with the rest of the announcements for her class.  It sounded like a lot of the school traditions repeated in each of the terms, with one of the classes taking the lead, so there were a lot of echoes of things that Gwen had said.  Finally, Tess finished — “and last, I should remind you that we’ll be having elections for a permanent class representative and an alternate this time next week.”

She traded positions at the podium with our class representative.  “Hello fellow second years!  I’m Elise Shevariet.  As Tess just said, we’re going to be going together with the first years for the class trip this year.  We are still planning things, but we’ve got some exciting ideas.  It will be a challenge since it’s a bigger group than usual, and I’m really looking forward to it.  We’re also the class taking the lead for the Festival of Nations, and we’ve got our semi-formal in the winter.   We’re looking for volunteers from each homeroom for each of the organizing committees.”

She was going on with announcements, but Joel gave me a nudge.  “She’s cute, right?”

“Sure,” I said, not really having taken much notice.  I could see why he thought so.  She was taller than either Gwen or Tess, quite slender with long dark hair.  Anyone popular enough to have won an election was going to be way out of my league, but I figured I’d play along anyway.  “Although I think I’d pick the redhead.”

He snorted.  “Really?  I was sure you were eyeing the blonde even back on the train.”  To make sure I knew what he meant, he made a hefting gesture in front of his chest.

“Crude.  And, OK, maybe.  Not like we’d have a shot with any of them.”

“There’s no ‘we’ there,” he said, to which I gave him a skeptical look.  “Really!  I’m going to get a girlfriend this year.”

There didn’t seem to be a good response to that, and the announcements were wrapping up.  Doctor Mittari returned to the podium, said a few more words of encouragement and ended with “Now all of you head to your homerooms, and have a wonderful year.”

Joel and I headed off to find the upper school dean’s office to get our schedules; as it turned out, we ended up in class 2-C.

Tues, Sept 1, 1992 (Terran common era) 2472 (Old Imperial year)

Feldaren, Union of the Etciv
Eastern suburb of South Riverside
A townhouse, my bedroom, 6:30 AM

My alarm went off at an uncomfortably early hour, and I woke to light already coming in through insufficiently dark curtains.  I still wasn’t used to a new bed, in a new house, a new city, in a new world.  With a roommate, rather than my family — who were two train rides and a universe hop away.

My things were still in boxes, but I’d set out the school uniform the night before, and my laptop and textbooks sat out on the otherwise bare desk.  A bellow came from the hall.  “Yo, Mark!  Are you up?”

“Yeah, I’m up.”

“Then shut off your alarm, already.”  I did and pulled a bathrobe over my pajamas.   I stuck my head out — Joel was already dressed except for the tie and jacket and was heading downstairs.  A short shower later, and I was doing the same, except with my tie on.

There was breakfast on the table.  Dormer must have sent his housekeeper in to cook.  The eggs and pancakes could have been from home; the meat they called bacon here seemed more like a pale, under-cured slice of ham to me, but it was tasty enough.  “When do we have to leave to be on time?” I asked Joel; we’d both been down there over the weekend, but I was nervous that even with more frequent streetcars, the heavier traffic would delay us.

“The opening assembly is 8AM, things will usually be 8:15.  Probably should give it 45 minutes, to be on the safe side, so… soon?”

I looked at the clock on the wall, having never gotten in the habit of wearing a watch.  5 minutes to 7.  I ate a little more but didn’t have much of an appetite.  As I was getting up to stick my dishes in the sink, Dormer came in through the front door.  I’d gotten used to him in an American style suit on his visits back to NY over the summer, and it was strange to see him in his local uniform, gold braid and all.  As Joel’s guardian in this world, he had been around a lot in helping us settle in, and in guiding us in what to do here.

He was still a little put out that Joel didn’t want a “household” — if he’d had his way, they’d have been living in a mansion, with a valet, butlers, maids, a full-time cook, drivers, and guards.  As a middle-class kid from Queens, the semi-regular cleaning and meals from Dormer’s housekeeper seemed like the height of luxury to me.  Having a two-bedroom apartment between just Joel    and I seemed like a lot of privacy for a pair of teenagers, even with Dormer and Agent Morgan each having apartments in the other half of the building.

Dormer and Morgan had divided up the duties of shadowing Joel from a safe distance; for our first day of school, unless I missed my guess, it would be both.  Without talking to Morgan, it would be hard to be sure — he could be very inconspicuous, while Dormer clearly wasn’t trying to be today.

Dormer gave Joel a brief once over, and then helped him straighten his necktie.  “I remember my first time in that uniform. It’s a pity you’ll only get two years there.”

He went on.  “I know why we’re not being public about your title yet but do remember that you carry the honor of our nation with you.  You did very well on the entrance exam — keep that up with your classes and you’ll do fine.”

To me he said, “And thank you, Mark, for coming along to keep an eye on him.”

“No problem,” I shrugged.  “Joel’s been watching my back for years.”

Then he asked Joel one last time, “You really won’t let me drive you?”

Joel shook his head.  “Even if it’s not a limo, it’s still going to stand out.  We’ll take the streetcar.”

I was eager to try bicycling the route; it was farther than home had been from our school in Manhattan, but much flatter without a bridge to go over and with lighter traffic.  Today, though, I’d be joining Joel on the streetcar.  Dormer saw us to the end of the block, and if he followed us in his car after that, he kept a discreet distance.

Coming from New York, the streetcars were a pleasant novelty, but they felt much slower than the subway; the crowding was nothing new.  The light traffic turned out to be just in the relatively well-off neighborhood we lived in. Our trip to shop downtown over the weekend showed us that traffic jams were just as much a thing here as at home.

Normally, I’d have had a book in hand the whole way, whether some sci-fi novel or something about computers — or lately, history.  For all that their world had been peaceful for longer than ours had, the prior century here could easily have rivaled ours for bloodshed and they had a fascinating richness of political and military history that I’d only scratched the surface of while preparing for the entrance exam.

Today, though, I just listened to Joel’s excited chatter, which wasn’t like him. My own nerves must have been at least as bad as his, but I wasn’t excited, just relieved to be getting a fresh start.  For Joel, this was a grand adventure.  He was probably right — if things went well, he’d be making the jump from kid from Queens to a head of a state, and fabulously wealthy besides.  Potential downsides were lost on him, mostly lost on both of us, and my more mundane worries were around what to write up for Hull and Delgado for my stipend and getting good enough grades not to have to make up any classes in my senior year back at home.

The biggest thing on Joel’s mind seemed to be girls.  Neither of us had ever had much luck, or even been on a proper date.  Not for lack of trying a few years back, but I’d given up.  Very few of the girls in my old class would even talk to me, and while Anne had stuck by me as a friend, she’d shown every sign of seeing me as something of a troubled sibling — whatever her mom had thought.

“So — uniforms.  Not all bad, eh Mark?”  I’d tuned him out, but an elbow brought my attention back.  He nodded his head towards the front entrance.  A pair of girls had come onto the streetcar, wearing the formal-days uniform of our new school.  Both blonde, both a little on the short side, but not much of a resemblance beyond that.  Joel was right, though — the uniforms looked nice compared to the near-uniform of jeans and t-shirts at home or even worse the plaid flannel that was coming in.

“You think they’re our year?” I asked.

“Maybe.  More likely first years.”

The car was crowded enough that even if we’d been inclined to say hi, it might have been difficult.  As we approached the school, people going to work and shopping thinned out, and a lot more students came on.  Not surprising; this was the nearest north-south line to the school.  A few stops before we got there, a crush of students came on, changing from the line leading from the outer eastern suburbs.

Then we were there.  While not the end of the line, it might as well have been for the number of us students shuffling off the emptying car.  The streetcar stop was directly outside the school, just to one side of the gates.  I asked Joel if he thought there would be time to drop by the upper school Dean’s office to get our final schedules before the assembly; he looked down at his watch and shook his head, so straight to the main hall we went.

22rd day of the month of Kan, Imperial Year 2379
(Saturday, May 13, 1899 in the Terran common era)
6th year of the Wizards’ War
Hall of the Ancients, Isle of Mages

Archmage Irziben, 65th Guildmaster of the Isle of Mages and through it the head of the Wizards’ Guild worldwide, was a tired and worried woman.  She knew she didn’t look her 117 years – at her level of skill and power keeping your physical body in a youthful state was a triviality – but it seemed to her that she now felt every one of those years every bit as much as someone with the trivial magic of common folk.

She sat alone with her thoughts, joined only by one of her apprentices, who remained silent; the ancients had always come and gone as they pleased except when they sat in council, and nearly all of them had abandoned the Island and the Guild.  It was one reason she never wanted to take the Spell of Undying and join them – rejuvenation was an inconvenience, but the ancients all seemed to lack urgency or ambition. To her, that was something essential to humanity.  Not that all of them had ever been human…

She has done so much to break the guild out of its pretense of neutrality, taking the role in the open as a leader among nations that the guild had always deserved.  It had come so close! and yet she was likely the last leader of the Wizards’ Guild.  Damned Feldaren and its economy and its machines; by the time the guild had realized the threat they posed, a little less than two centuries ago, they were already a continent-striding power. The Guild’s past techniques of suppressing innovation and co-opting the most intelligent could at most slow them down.

Irziben’s old master, Alrik, had seen that – and working through proxies, had set about to make sure that the two Slave Wars would lead to Feldaren’s defeat.  Instead, by the end of the second they had seen the humiliation of all of the Guild’s allies and proxies.  She had been a grown woman then and beginning to be a powerful mage.

For almost thirty years she, Alrik, and a few others had labored to prepare the Guild to fight them without relying on others. To take its rightful place in the world.  As the time approached, he seemed to lose his nerve.  When he refused to start taking the steps they had prepared for, a group of younger mages asked him to step down and allow them to lead – with the implied threat of a battle, which they were sure he’d lose.  She had been one leader among them, and as his former apprentice, she had been the one to let him know.

Looking back, she still thought he would have lost that battle.  Instead of either openly stepping down in their favor or fighting, he had simply told her he was leaving and then walked off a moment later through a door in space-time that they, at the time, could not replicate.

His caution had seemed wrong at first – while the war was never as easy as some had expected, they had always had a path to victory in sight.  Then the cruel Gods and crueler chance conspired to destroy everything she had worked for.  These dashed newcomers, with even better machines, and knowledge of scientific arts far beyond even Feldaren’s, had appeared where they could do the most harm.

Now bombs rained down on the Island night and day, aircraft had driven her dragon-riders from the sky, and while the supply of magical ore beneath the Island remained inexhaustible, it did them little good – it took slaves to mine it and wizards with the ability to attune it – and she had too few left of either.

Ironically, in the midst of the war, the incident through which the newcomers arrived was the key to figuring out what Alrik had done.  Two young wizards had, separately, come up with the separate pieces of her final plan.  One was very bright; she had figured out how to go one better on Alrik, and open a gate between worlds rather than just to plane-walk.  It was small, opened briefly, and where it went was entirely unpredictable until it was opened…

The other was not especially bright, just very persistent, and very fond of old papers; his years in the archives had let him find an old report on how to explode unattuned magical ore. It was not the sort of thing that was useful under normal circumstances, and difficult enough that the guild had never taken steps to prevent it – but now it proved valuable in the process of retreating elsewhere and had stymied the armies of their enemies.

Opening the gate used a terrible amount of magic, but it was worth it – they had only to keep trying and she was certain it would open to someplace with enough magic, and a non-hostile environment.  Then they would evacuate as much of the guild as could pass through the gate and then detonate the remaining seam of magical ore under the island.

With the ability to keep the gate stable for at most an hour or two, a huge number of younger wizards would be left to die, but the enemy fleet would go with them. It was unknown just how much ore was under the island; she worried a little it would be so much as to split the world in half.  She’d prefer there to be a world to return to someday – for the guild to rule – but the important thing is that she and the senior leadership would survive somewhere in the universe.

“Guildmaster?” a voice said, interrupting Irziben from her reminiscence. She saw that it was Kallen, the young wizard who had invented the gate.  She was standing there with Roberto – the wizard who had rediscovered the explosive use of unattuned ore. He was atypical, having kept the name his parents had given him after joining the guild; it spoke to his lack of imagination, although she could mostly forgive that given his diligence.

“Yes,” Irziben said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice.  The two hadn’t been working together until recently, and she was curious what they could have come up with.

“Roberto and I had an idea,” Kallen said, “for how to save the guild.”

“I have a plan for that,” said Irziben.

“She means the entire guild,” said Roberto. “I found a report from one of the ancients, who had been plane-walking, from a world a bit like ours, you see, where…” and he’d have likely gone on if Kallen hadn’t interrupted him.

“We can make a bigger gate,” Kallen said. “We can use the gate to absorb the energy of exploding ore.  It doesn’t even take that much of it to enlarge the gate; if I’m right about what you’ve been planning to do, we can easily just send the whole island through instead.”

“You’re sure?”

“We’re sure.  We’ve already tried it at a small scale,” said Kallen.

“How quickly can we do this?”

“How quickly can you get …” Kallen took a moment to remove a scrap of paper from her robe and read it, “according to our calculations, we need about a little less than a ton and a half of unattuned ore, so however quickly you can get that moved next to the gate.  We have enough for that, right?”

A ton and a half of ore sounded like a lot, but it was terribly heavy stuff, and that was only 150 ten kilo bars, which were each the size of a large brick.  They’d been stockpiling it ever since Roberto had made his discovery, and they had several times that accumulated in the dungeons beneath them.  It was simply a matter of moving it, and between apprentices and slaves, it would not be hard.

“Under an hour,” said Irziben. “I’ll order that much ore be moved.  What happens to the enemy fleet when we go?”

“That’s the best part,” said Kallen. “Roberto, you tell her.”

“We can’t be sure, but we’re expecting a big bang. The expanded gate is always a sphere, and our calculations were for a sphere that can hold the whole island, centered here.  That’s about a 25km radius.  That makes for long ways down.”

Roberto went on, “I can’t guarantee it, but there’s good reason to think that this seam of ore comes from volcanic activity under the island, and that the crust isn’t anywhere near that thick.  I wish I could stick around and survive seeing it.  That much water meeting that much magma is going to be glorious.”

“I see,” said Irziben, truly smiling for the first time in a long time. She sent her apprentice to get the remaining Archmages.  They still had to wait for a reasonable world to appear on the far side of the gate, but when it did they would be leaving with the full resources and manpower of the Island behind them.  For now, this was a one-way trip, but with her leadership and a new world friendly to their magic, they would rule the new world, and someday, they would be back to reclaim their place in this one.

End of Part I

Saturday evening
Brasserie « Light of the Future », Old Feldaren

We were in a restaurant’s private room that Matsumoto had reserved for us; it was a fusion place, Terran European – Japanese – Feldarenese, and whatever “Light of the Future” meant (also written in Japanese and the local Old Imperial characters), the name literally printed in angled quotes. Dinner was over, and we were taking a break before dessert.

“So, what did you think of His Majesty?” asked Legatus Matsumoto.

“He seemed very informal for royalty,” said Joel. “At least he didn’t seem badly hurt.  Have you met him before?”

“Not in person,” she replied. “I’ve spoken to him using the same mirror you have, and over a secure phone line. He wasn’t informal with me, of course, but he was still very open and plain-spoken.  We don’t see that very often in my line of work.”

Joel’s father asked her a question, “Have you ever had to deal with something like this before?”

“Like this, in what way?”

“Any of it, really.”

“I’ve been the trade representative to the US, essentially Mr. Hull’s counterpart, for a few years,” she said. “I haven’t personally worked with any other worlds through the Gate, but there are a handful of others with anchors where we trade openly.” She stopped to think for a moment. “I’ve got two other colleagues that handle them, with more than one each.  It was all routine, before the King asked us to inquire with the brotherhood. He wanted to know if there was any truth to the rumors that they’d helped Princess Christina go to … what turned out to be to your world.”

“What about something like the present situation in Obdrest?” asked Joel’s father.

“Not personally, no.  The Alliance has been formally at peace since its founding.  Toyeri – that’s the continent across the ocean to the East – has not had an easy time the past 50 years, and some of my older colleagues have dealt with similar things, but never in an ally as critical as Obdrest.”

“Why is Obdrest so important? From what Joel has said, it’s a small country, and an ocean away,” he asked.

“It’s a very strategic one,” said Matsumoto, and she was about to say more when Dormer interrupted.

“Maybe Joel can explain it. He should understand this from the exam if nothing else,” he said.

“Ummm…” said Joel. “A lot of trade? And right off the coast of Shirek? Or is it Zirek? The bad guys, from the Slave Wars.”

I cringed a little, and fortunately Dormer corrected him. “Those are the capitals; the countries are Zir and Shir, but that’s basically correct.  Our navy, and naval bases in our country we let the Union use, are a big part of making sure they don’t trouble the world again. We’re also a big part of keeping the Human Sea navigable and free of pirates and sea monsters.”

My dad’s jaw just about dropped to the table.  “Did you just say sea monsters?”

I remembered that I had really wanted to get back to the Natural Science Museum; or better yet, take my folks to a zoo before they went home tomorrow.  Then again, maybe seeing live dragons — well, the lesser drakes bred from them — at the zoo was a terrible idea.

“I did,” said Dormer. “I realize your world is different, but in ours, only these two continents belong to humans, and only the nearer half of Toyeri and the flat parts of the Etciv, really.”

“Fascinating,” said my father. “Some of what Oliver and I were talking about on the flight over makes more sense now.”

It seemed like the adults were going to be talking for a while. I really wanted to get a chance to talk to Joel, and make sure he was really on board with staying with what we’d seen today.

Getting up from my seat, I said to Joel, “I want to get some fresh air. You want to go for a walk?”

“Yeah, definitely,” he said.  He cocked his head to Dormer, who nodded back.  Morgan hadn’t joined us at dinner, and I suspected he’d end up following from a safe distance, but we didn’t spot him while leaving.  Old Feldaren was a neighborhood just to the far side (relative to where we were staying) of the capitol district, which was where we’d seen a bunch of tourist spots on our prior trip.  It was also just south of the big bridge across the Great Darien.  It seemed safe and Matsumoto had said it was a somewhat fashionable area.  The streets were narrow, and the main shopping area was closed to car traffic for the evening; this restaurant was in what appeared to have once been a small apartment building, split across several floors.  It had been a short walk from the nearest subway station.

I figured we’d head for the main shopping street. Coming from New York, it felt safely anonymous to talk in a crowd, but Joel indicated we should walk away the opposite way, toward the river instead.  “I want to see the bridge,” he said, “and it’s too busy over there.”

Compared to the main drag, the residential part was quiet; a few folks were around, mostly older ones on their stoops, although we passed one person closer to our age out walking a dog.  The buildings were narrow, stone or brick, mostly three or four floors; I couldn’t tell if they were big townhouses or small apartments.

“Dormer and Morgan have been telling me about security,” he continued, “and I can’t be too cautious right now.”

“Got it,” I said. “That was what I was going to ask you about.  Are you still OK staying here?”

“Shoot, man, I wish I knew,” he said, and he let out a long breath. “I don’t know if I have a choice, really.”

“How can you not have a choice?”

“If I head home, this basically all disappears.  I’m safe, but I go back to just being some guy at school.  I never get to find out what my mom’s life was like, or if my life could have been different.” He shook his head. “My dad told me not to worry about him, and that things are going well with his business, but it’s like… this could change our lives, you know?”

“That sounds like you’ve decided.”

“I wish.  I mean, I had.  You know how excited I was.  That whole thing today made the danger a lot more real, and how weird this place is.”  We walked for a bit before he went on; we were getting close to the river. “My great uncle was OK, but I don’t think in our world he would have been.  You don’t burn that much hair off and look OK, even if that wasn’t like the war movie face blown off thing.”

“You think they healed him with magic?” I asked.

Joel nodded.

I had encountered the idea of magical healing in the history textbook – not that they explained much about magic, I guess assuming whatever part of it was general knowledge, was general knowledge – but it only registered now. “Oh, crud,” I said, – well, something saltier to that effect – “if Anne had been over here, she’d probably be OK.”

“You don’t know that, Mark.  Maybe she would have, or maybe they’d have missed it, too.”

We walked a bit longer, reaching the river. There was a clear view up to the bridge.  It looked impressive from the air, but it was crazy large from here.  The river on this side was wide enough that the far side was faint glimmers, and the suspension bridge looked impossible – just a pair of huge silvery-metal arches over the river from each side that joined in the center, and the roadway crossing below it, whatever cables it had invisible in the darkness.

“I had the same thought about my mom,” said Joel, “a while back when I was talking to Dormer about magic here. I asked him about what they could have done for her here, and what he said made a lot of sense, but it still bugs me.”

He went on. “Magic can cure cancer here, at least the normal kinds… and just like at home, it sounds like breast cancer is a real common one. It wasn’t all that sudden for her or anything, and she knew what they could do here.  So, whatever she thought was waiting for her here, it was worse than dying to her.”

“I’m sorry, Joel, that’s rough.”

“I guess that’s what I really mean by I don’t have a choice,” Joel said. “Somebody as good as killed her, right?” I’ve always known Joel to be an easy-going guy; he could be enthusiastic at times, sometimes about dumb stuff, but I don’t think I had ever seen the expression or tone of voice he had now… very serious, very resolved. “Dormer was telling me after we talked to my great-uncle about some of the things they knew.  For my mother, it’s not much, but they think all the stuff going on – her being driven away, all the deaths in the family, even the bombing today – that it’s all part of the same thing.”

“I don’t know that I can do much,” he said, “but I owe it to her to try to do something.”

“So, you’re staying?”

“Yeah,” he said. “How about you?”

I nodded. “Well, for the year I signed up for. NY is home, and whether I’m here or there as you said, ‘I’m just some guy,’ or more like ‘just some weirdo.’”

“Well, I’m glad to have you here for the year, and don’t put yourself down. You’re annoyingly smart and if you ever apply yourself, you’re going to do a lot more with your life than I ever would have back at home.”

“Thanks. I don’t know about that,” I said. “We should get back before our folks start to worry.”

“We should,” he said, and he looked around to make sure no one was nearby. “Besides, over here you’re the best friend of a future King. If nothing else, mark my words – no pun intended – before the year is over, we’re both going to have girlfriends.”

“No pun intended, my ass.  What are you going to do, knight me?”

He laughed, I laughed, and we headed back to the restaurant in better spirits than we’d left it.

Jordi’s Market, main concourse, Riverside terminal
Mid-afternoon

Elise had the front of the shop to herself for a while; the coworker who had come in for the morning had gone home, and the manager was in the back, doing paperwork.  She wasn’t especially fond of having to handle customers on her own, but she’d been working there a while and it was about as good a job as you could get in high school – the hours were flexible, the customers mostly undemanding, and the location was bright, safe, and conveniently on the way between school and home.

The man who came in was hardly worth noticing at first; other than a face that looked a little too young for all the gray in his hair, a thoroughly average adult in a suit. Probably coming back to the station to head home after working the morning – many office workers had to come in on Saturday, and it wasn’t that unusual for them to start filtering out early.

Elise figured she could guess what he would buy – coffee or a bottled tea, as he looked too old for soda or juice, and probably a newspaper or magazine to read on the train.  Maybe a pre-packed dinner, or some beer to bring home.  She hoped he wouldn’t ask for some of the wine or liquor they had on shelves behind the counter – at her age, Elise was not supposed to sell them, and yet the manager hated being disturbed for small things.

The man did none of those, instead walking straight up to the counter.  She hoped it was a question, and not a request for the liquor or for lottery tickets – with a sports betting shop elsewhere in the station, the manager here didn’t bother to stock them.

“Hello, sir, can I help you?” she said.

“I think so,” the man said, smiling slightly. He had a distinct accent but hadn’t said enough for her to place it.  “I’ve seen you coming here before, you go to the Queen Sara Academy, yes?”

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t think I know you,” said Elise; her hand was below the counter just over a pair of buttons, one of which could summon the manager from the back, the other of which was a silent alarm. Being in one of the biggest and busiest stations in the world, police were never very far away, and this location had literally never been successfully robbed.

“I’m sorry, miss, truly! I mean you no harm.  I should have introduced myself first.  My name is Paul Jekanis, here is my card.” He placed a business card on the counter, facing her.  She read it without picking it up – it said he was an investigator for a company called Magnus Trading.

“Thank you, but what business do you have with me?” she asked.

“My employer does a lot of business abroad, especially in Obdrest.  Your school is known for having the children of many important families.”

Elise said nothing, and he continued.

“It can often be worth knowing about their coming and going before their parents make the news.  We have found commercial advantage in that in the past, but our contacts departed.  I’m sure you’ve heard that some of the Obdresti students returned to their country?”

“Yes,” she said, “One of my close friends did.”

“So, when we hear about things like that, we are able to figure out that there may be turmoil in Obdrest, just as we now hear in the news.  It lets the principals of my firm make better choices about where to send ships or invest in cargo.”

“Isn’t that insider trading?”

“I’m not a lawyer, Miss, but as I understand it such things are for public markets, not for the private purchase or consignment of cargo.”

The accent, she thought, sounded a bit like Old Imperial, as was his last name.  She’d grown up knowing just enough to get by with older members of her family; three of her grandparents had been native speakers, and her father had been functionally bilingual.

“I see,” she said.  “What is it that you’re asking me, exactly?”

“Just to let us know if there is anything of note at the school – new transfer students, people leaving to go abroad, any sons or daughters of VIPs making a name for themselves whether good or bad,” he said. “We’ll reward you generously for your time in letting us know whatever you find out.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

“Please keep the card and leave a message with the receptionist if you’d like to do business.”

Saturday, early afternoon
The townhouse where we’d be staying

The next little while after Dormer and Joel left was confused; we doubled back to the plaza outside Champion’s expecting to have to go in to find the rest of our families, but the moms, plus April and Sammy were waiting outside.

“Where are Joel and Vince?” asked Joel’s stepmom.

“I’ll explain everything when we get there,” said Morgan, “but right now we need to get back to the boys’ apartment to wait for them.”

As it turned out, none of us had thought to get any local currency from Dormer, nor had any of us thought about exchanging dollars at the gate – I wondered whether they would have done so.  Joel’s mom had her group return to the plaza on realizing there was no way to pay for anything.

The apartment would have been in a far walking distance – not too much more than a mile – had the weather been nicer, and if we hadn’t had a six-year-old along.  As it stood, we took the streetcar – according to Morgan there was a line which went directly from the terminal to past our school. The apartment building they’d found was just a couple of blocks off Surrat-Efrel Boulevard, the main avenue the streetcar ran along.  I recognized the name as one of the early elected Emperors after Marcus the Conqueror; he’d been in some questions on the entrance exam, among other things for having established the precedent of retiring after twenty years.

My student ID wouldn’t start getting me free rides until Tuesday, which was the first day of school. Fortunately, Morgan had been staying here for some time and had local change.  The fare was 5 mil, or roughly 50c; a silver coin called a “half wheel.”  For something worth that, it was quite a small coin – around the same size as a nickel.  April was young enough to ride for half-fare. More people got off the streetcar than got on with us, and the ride was quiet and uncrowded.

The neighborhood where we got off had some shops along Surrat-Efrel but compared to my part of Queens it felt very suburban. I’d wanted to check the shops out, but Morgan was insistent we go straight to the apartment.  Our apartment was two short blocks from the main street, going away from the river.  It was a brick building, essentially two townhouses next to each other – our apartment was on the left, split across both floors, while the other half was a separate unit on each floor.  Morgan had the ground floor to himself, and Dormer the upper. There were covered parking spots along one side, one of them occupied; a brick-and-iron fence separated the small front yard from the street.

Morgan had a set of keys and let us in; the first floor was mostly a combined living room and kitchen, reasonably spacious by New York standards, although it seemed like the room would feel crowded if we all stayed in for the afternoon.  Stairs led up, and there was a door next to the kitchen leading back to a small laundry room and half bath, as well as the back door.

Overall, it was nice enough, although it wasn’t remotely home-y in its current state – the furniture was new and still in plastic or paper wrappings, and Joel’s and my boxes were stacked up next to the stairs, as was my bicycle; I stuck it for now in the laundry room to keep it out of the way.

Joel’s mom took it upon herself to start unwrapping the furniture; my dad decided to task Sammy with helping her. I spent a while hauling boxes upstairs, or for a few of the heavy boxes of my books, unpacking them here and bringing their contents up piecemeal.  A couple of Joel’s boxes were too heavy to carry, probably also full of books, and I figured he could deal with those himself.

The two bedrooms had the bathroom between them; the back one was smaller, and as the freeloader here I figured I should take that one — although it also occurred to me that it would be quieter of street noise and was facing west and thus better for sleeping late, so it wasn’t entirely unselfish of me.

One very pleasant surprise is that the whole place was air conditioned; it wasn’t central air, but the permanently mounted wall units were much quieter than the window ones my folks would grudgingly bring out in the worst of summer, and they had the benefit that each room could have its own temperature.

Hauling boxes proved to be a pretty good distraction, and by the time I was done the living room looked much better.  My folks had also started putting together a list of things we’d need; while the place was furnished, it was empty of anything like cups, plates, cleaning supplies, or even toilet paper.  Breakfast had been on the late side, but it was a bit past 1 and everyone was starting to get hungry again; with no food in the house, and no cash, my mom was going to walk over to check on Morgan next door, when Joel, his dad, and Dormer arrived.

Dormer gave us the update on what had happened; the Obdresti King was alive and mostly recovered via magical healing; overall casualties were significant but mostly non-fatal. Someone had sent a truck filled with explosives into the parliament building.  They suspected the same rebels who had been responsible for a similar incident four years ago, but no one had claimed credit yet. There had been reports of seeing a driver bailing out of the truck shortly before it struck, but if so, they were lost in the ensuing confusion.

Joel seemed relatively calm, which seemed out of place to me; they hadn’t used the word “terrorist” here, but it seemed very much like the sort of thing that qualified. If someone had it in for his great-uncle, or the whole government, surely that meant he was at a great risk himself. I figured I’d better talk to him privately. We had a little over 24 hours to decide whether to stay, and while my own worries were mostly over whether I was better off being lonely and homesick here vs. lonely, grieving and depressed at home, I realized that he had a lot more to worry about.

We were still set to meet up with the diplomats for dinner, and we needed lunch, and if we were staying, we had to figure out how to get other household things.  It seemed like the right kind of distraction for a weird day, and in the end, rather than tourist things we returned to near the station to get lunch and shop.

Interlude
Hull’s Office, South Riverside

Joel wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting for someplace safer, but a long walk through the business district to an older, brownstone office building wasn’t it. Hull had rented the top floor as the “United States Trade Mission,” which was still mostly empty. Dormer settled them in Hull’s office itself, while he disappeared into a conference room.

I am so NOT ready for this, Joel thought.

“Remind me how far off Obdrest is,” asked his father.

“About four thousand miles east, on the other side of the ocean,” said Joel.  “Sort of like Chicago to Europe.”

His dad had more questions about the geography, and some of the history; it took Joel a few minutes to realize that it wasn’t about the answers but was an attempt to distract him.  I mean, the King was old, and I think Dormer said he was unhealthy, but I thought I’d get to meet him. I’ve never even been there, how am I supposed to figure out if I want to spend the rest of my life there?

“Your friend Mark’s mom had wanted to see a movie here, and it got me thinking,” said his dad.  “If the US trade mission here works, there’s going to be a huge opportunity for films and videos from each side to be sold on the other.”

“Dad, if I decide to go back to New York and business here doesn’t work out, are we going to be OK?”

“Joel,” his dad said, “we’re going to be fine.  There are opportunities here, sure, and if you stick with it, I want an excuse to spend time over here.  My business will be fine, though, so please don’t worry about that if you decide not to stay.”

“What about my step-, um, Laura, going back to work?” asked Joel.

Joel’s dad shook his head. “She was always going to go back to work when April got old enough to be in school.” He looked at Joel.  “Like I said, don’t worry about us. I know this is a way to be closer to your mom, learn more about her life.  I miss her, too, you know.”

After a moment, his dad continued, “Look, Joel, I’m very proud of how seriously you’ve taken this, and I’ll back you up on whatever decision you think is right.  If this all is too much for you, we can all go back to New York tomorrow.”

“Thanks, dad,” said Joel.  He and his dad started talking about his mom for a little while, when Dormer returned, looking a little less pale than he had.

“The King, your great-uncle, survived the explosion, thank the Gods,” said Dormer.  “He’d like to speak to you. You can come in, too, Mr. Ross, if you’d like to speak to him.”

The conference room looked like any other, but instead of a speakerphone, there was what looked like a small screen sitting on the table; he could see something moving on it but from this angle it was unclear what. “Some kind of video phone?” asked Joel.

The voice from the other side was old, and out of breath, but it was as loud as if in the same room and sounded like it was here far too clearly for a long-distance phone call.  “That’s one way to describe it,” said the voice in a distinct but unplaceable accent, and Joel figured that must be the King.  “Sit down so that I can see you,” said the King, and Joel stepped closer and then sat down.  There was a faint shimmer to the screen, but otherwise it was perfectly clear.

The man on the other side of the screen was sitting half-reclined in a hospital gown, with a couple of tubes attached to his arm.  His short white hair was badly scorched on one side, but otherwise he looked uninjured.

“It makes sense that you’ve never seen a magic mirror before,” said the King.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Joel.

“You can drop the honorifics, Joel, we’re all family here.  Just call me ‘uncle’ until you learn enough Obdresti to converse.  You too, Mr. Ross.”

“OK,” said Joel.

“I take it, that’s my cue to leave, Your Majesty?” asked Dormer.

“That’s up to Joel,” said the King.

Joel shrugged. “I can’t see any reason he should leave?”

“Neither can I,” said the King, “so let’s move on. I hadn’t expected we’d get to talk so soon, but the news from over here must have been a shock, and I wanted you to be able to put a face to your family over here.”

“Thank you,” said Joel. “It was. I’m glad to finally meet you, and that you’re OK.  The news said there was no word when we saw the broadcast.”

“Our country got lucky, and not just on my account,” said the King. “If they’d had a decent mage on their side, it would have been much worse. Some guards died in the blast, but it was all conventional.  It takes more than that to kill an old soldier like me, and I think with healing magic and doctors we won’t have lost any of the lords or delegates.

“I don’t know how much you understand about the situation here,” said the King, “but I know Dormer has told you some.  Even if you knew nothing about it, after today I’d imagine you’d have some reservations about staying.  I can’t blame you if you do; I grew up knowing that even with two older brothers there was an outside chance I’d end up on the throne, where you’ve had less than half a year to come to terms with that.”

“It’s a lot to worry about,” said Joel.

“Yes,” said the King, “and I wouldn’t wish that on a sixteen-year-old. You and I are the last living descendants of my father, Alexander Marius, and there is simply no one else who can hope to hold the Kingdom together.”

“How do you know for sure that I am who you think I am?”

“Except for darker hair, you are the spitting image of your grandfather, my nephew.  There is no question of who your mother was, thanks to your government and the Brotherhood.  If there is any further question when it comes time to acknowledge you publicly, it is a very simple matter to test descent with magic, but I have zero doubt.”

“How do you know I’d be ready to be a good King?”

“No one is ever ready to be King, at least in a system like ours. As for being a good one, worrying about that is a better first step than some members of our family ever managed.”

“A system like yours?”

“I’m supposedly an absolute monarch, but in practice…” There was a distant, unintelligible voice from the King’s side; he turned his head, and his voice could no longer be heard, but it looked like he was yelling. Turning back to the mirror, he said, “I’m afraid my doctors need to check me again. We’ll find a time to talk again when you’re settled in.”

The King continued, “Dormer, make sure you are clear with him about the full situation. I’ll be in touch.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Dormer, and the screen turned into a very ordinary looking mirror.