They entered a room with a long table, a dozen chairs around it. Three women and a man sat at the far end of the table, conversing in soft tones, their heads close together. Two of the women could not be more than twenty, and the man was quite young as well. Aaron’s eyes strayed briefly to a display of potted plants in the corner of the room before he looked away hastily. He kept his expression bland, void of the surprise he felt over seeing vegetation indoors.
“Good day, Governors,” Strang said to the four at the table. A round of polite good-days was exchanged in response. “This is young Aaron Stowe, the instigator of the Favored Farm plan.”
“Well met, Aaron Stowe,” came the even reply, though Aaron had met them all before at one point or another in the half year he’d been at university.
“Good day, Governors,” he said.
Aaron, Haluki, and Strang joined the four at the table as the interrupted conversation continued once again. Aaron sat at the fringe of it, looking at his hands linked together on the table, awed that he should be allowed to listen as the governors discussed recent and long-standing issues with the quality of Quillitary vehicles, and the current state of the water shortage. When the door opened again, two Quillitary guards entered, followed by the statuesque High Priest Justine. Two additional guards trailed behind and waited at the door.
Everyone stood abruptly and turned toward the woman. Aaron swallowed hard—he’d never been this close to her before. He lowered his eyes appropriately, though not before he caught a glimpse of her structured face, etched with wrinkles around her burning black eyes and pinched mouth. She wore her hair down, as always, white streaks naturally painted into the silver. Her gown, a colorless flowing garment, was covered by a black cloak, which rested heavily on her shoulders.
Immediately following the High Priest Justine came a small entourage of service staff pushing a squeaky cart that held the luncheon.
The governors and Aaron bowed deeply before the stately woman.
Justine glanced around, her eyebrow raised slightly. She stopped at Aaron, her appraising glance apparently finding favor with the boy. “Young Mr. Stowe, I presume,” she said in her powerful voice, startling the silence.
“Forever at your service, Madam High Priest,” murmured Aaron, as he’d been taught. “May all Quill’s enemies die a thousand deaths.”
She held out her hand, her long fingers reaching limply. Aaron took her hand in his and bowed his head over it as he’d been instructed. Her fingers were as cold as barbed wire on a frosty night.
Magical Warrior Training
Ms. Octavia was sitting at her desk, her half-glasses perched precariously on her snout and her appendages involved in a half-dozen independent activities, when Alex shuffled in.
He stopped awkwardly just inside the doorway, feeling sheepish about having missed class the previous day, watching the octogator scribble with one arm on a paper on her desk and another arm on the chalkboard behind her, while a third painted on an easel at her side. When Ms. Octavia noticed Alex, she stopped all her activities and smiled.
“Come in,” she said. “Sit.”
Alex sidled up to her desk and sat in the chair beside her.
“Feeling better today?” Ms. Octavia asked.
“I—yes.”
“I’m a bit worried about you.” Ms. Octavia’s smile faded, and her voice took on a serious tone. “Would you care to talk about what’s been bothering you lately, Alex?”
Alex blushed crimson. He squirmed in his seat. “I—um—”
Ms. Octavia waited patiently. Finally she patted him on the shoulder. “It’s okay. Let’s talk about your Magical Warrior Training instead. I am sure you are as excited as I am to start.”
Alex breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, ma’am.”
“In fact you are probably wondering why I’ve held you back this long. It must have been excruciating for you.”
“Well …” Alex looked at his shoes. “It sure seemed like it was fun for everybody else to pull their spell pranks on me.” He thought of Lani. “I felt like I must have been really bad at this to be held back so long.”
Ms. Octavia closed her eyes and sighed. When she opened her eyes, she looked to the classroom doorway and nodded. “Come in, Marcus,” she said.
Alex turned in his chair. Mr. Today entered the room and closed the door behind him. “I’m afraid that I am the one to blame for your troubles, Alex,” he said.
Alex didn’t know what to say, and all he could think of was, “Oh.”
“I do not want you to blame Ms. Octavia, for she was following my orders.” Mr. Today rested his fingers on the edge of Ms. Octavia’s desk, but he did not sit down. “All I can tell you right now is this: I held you back because I thought I was protecting you and Artimé, but I was wrong, my boy. You have gifts beyond compare. I look forward to watching your progress.”
“I—thank you, sir.” Alex desperately wanted to know how holding him back was protecting anyone, but he dared not ask.
Mr. Today nodded, and though his eyes were weary, there was a slight twinkle in them as well. “Now get to work.” He smiled and left the room.
Alex blinked.
“Well, that’s settled now, isn’t it,” Ms. Octavia said hurriedly. “Let’s do get to work, shall we?”
Alex nodded swiftly, and a grin spread across his face as Ms. Octavia pulled a component vest from her classroom closet. She handed it to him. “Congratulations,” she said, her smile toothy and genuine.
Alex put it on. “Thanks,” he said, too choked up to say more. Finally, he thought. Finally.
“First,” Ms. Octavia said, “we’ll discuss the fundamentals of magic.” She opened a drawer and pulled out a handful of ordinary art supplies: a paintbrush, a pencil, a rubber eraser, several paper clips, and a piece of chalk.
Alex watched her lay them all out on the desk.
Ms. Octavia took a paper clip, unwound it, and bent it so that it looked more like a triangle, with the two ends of it crossing and sticking out prominently. With her other appendages she did the same to the other paper clips. “Everything we create here in Artimé has a little bit of magic in it already, Alex, so the true basis for these tools to work as weapons is in your mind and your ability to concentrate and direct the objects to do what they are supposed to do.”
She handed five of the newly shaped clips to Alex and kept five for herself. “In this shape, we call them scatterclips,” she said.
Alex soon saw why.
Ms. Octavia glided around the desk and pulled one arm back as if she were going to throw a baseball. “Right now, Alex, I’m concentrating on that picture on the wall across the room. I’m focusing on the center of it, and that is where I want to direct my throw.” She threw the handful of scatterclips, and together all five soared toward the center of the portrait. At the last second they separated and veered to the edges of the canvas and stuck soundly through the wooden frame, into the wall.
“Cool,” muttered Alex under his breath.
Ms. Octavia flashed him a toothy grin, but grew serious again. “Your mind must be able to focus on the center of your target, Alex, and you need to trust that the scatterclips will find the edges on their own. If you do not have faith in the clips, they will not veer properly, and they will not work correctly. So it is important to be calm and to be thinking clearly when using these items as weapons if you wish to be successful.”
Alex nodded, the scatterclips in his hand becoming moist with nervous sweat. “May I try?”
“Fire away, indeed.”
Alex pulled his left arm back and focused on the center of the portrait, then flung with all his might.
The scatterclips smacked into the center of the portrait and clattered to the floor.
Alex’s face fell.
Ms. Octavia smiled. “If you’d managed to do it the first time, you would have been the first in Artimé’s history to do it. Try again! This time, focus on throwing accurately rather than forcefully. The clips
have the magical power to get there—we don’t want you throwing your arm out of its socket on your first day.” She chuckled as Alex scurried over to the wall to pick up his clips.
Alex’s second try resulted in one clip veering off beautifully to the upper left-hand corner of the portrait, while the rest of the clips fell uselessly to the floor again. “Well done,” Ms. Octavia praised. “I’ve a theory that left-handers pick up on the throwing spells more easily than the righties do—it was a good one to start with, and you have proven my theory worthy, my boy!”
“Thanks!” Alex said, not quite as delighted as his instructor seemed to be over the progress, but thrilled nonetheless to finally have the chance to use art as a weapon.
“Mind you,” Ms. Octavia warned, “scatterclips are not to be toyed with. They can be lethal, or at least cause great harm when coupled with a verbal incantation. But for now we’ll stick with the silent method. Try again.”
Alex concentrated and threw again and again and again. When their hour of training was nearly over, he had succeeded in skillfully embedding the scatterclips into the edges of the portrait five times in a row.
“Now,” Ms. Octavia said, “throw them at me.”
“What? No, I can’t!”
“Yes, you can,” she said smoothly. “I trust you. You’ll do fine. But I want you to see what the clips will do when you have a live enemy.”
“But—”
“Alex, it’s an order.” Ms. Octavia stood as tall as she could against the wall and made sure all of her appendages were down at her sides and not floating about as they sometimes did when she was thinking hard.
Alex hesitated, staring helplessly at his instructor. “How can I? What if something goes wrong?”
Ms. Octavia stared at Alex. “Alex, I cannot express how urgent it is that you get over your fear. Because one day, I expect sooner rather than later, you will have to fight. It is my job to prepare you. So concentrate, focus, and throw. Do it now.”
Her stern voice echoed in Alex’s ears. Finally he nodded, pulled his arm back, focused on her center of gravity, and concentrated. He threw the scatterclips, and they soared together as one bunch; then, at the last possible moment, they separated from the pack, found their marks, and stuck fast.
Ms. Octavia didn’t even blink. “Good. Now, see? I’m stuck here. The clips have secured me to this wall through my clothing. They have not pierced my skin. You have succeeded in stopping me from moving, attacking, or fighting until I can manage to release myself from their grasp.”
Alex, who had been holding his breath all this time, sighed in relief. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Release,” Ms. Octavia said, and the scatterclips dropped to the floor. She stepped away from the wall and gathered them up.
“So …,” Alex said, thinking out loud, “the enemy has to be standing in front of a wall in order for them to work? That’s not very convenient.”
“Not necessarily a wall. A tree will do. But there are other ways to direct the clips.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “Your friends likely haven’t gotten to this in their training yet, since they learn their own focus spells first, but I will tell you if you promise not to use it on anyone but a true enemy.”
Alex’s eyes widened. He nodded. “I promise.”
Ms. Octavia grinned. “If your target is standing in an open area, your verbal component of the spell is ‘Propel!’ You say it when you release the clips. The clips will then veer off as usual, but they’ll continue to fly, dragging your enemy as far as necessary until they find something solid to attach to.”
“Smokes,” Alex said, his eyes lighting up.
“Indeed. Sometimes you can pick up another enemy or two along the way, and they’ll be stacked! It’s great fun to watch,” she admitted. “You must be careful, though, that there are no friends in the path behind your enemy, or they could get snagged as well.”
“Wow!” Alex said. “What else can they do?” He held the scatterclips in his hand and looked at them with new admiration.
“Well,” Ms. Octavia said, growing serious again, “as I said before, they can cause serious injury or death. But one must know the verbal component for that.”
“What is it?” Alex asked.
Ms. Octavia hesitated. She pursed her wide lips together, hiding all of her teeth. “I don’t think you’re quite ready for that. It’s an upper-level spell. A bit too dangerous in the hands of a first year.”
Alex nodded, even though he was very disappointed. “I understand,” he said. He was just thankful to be learning spells at all. But his mind raced, wondering what the powerful words could possibly be.
Lessons and Warnings
Alex flew through his first weeks of Magical Warrior Training, determined to catch up to the others. Whenever he wasn’t in class or in training, learning how to paint himself invisible, studying slam poetry charms, or drawing chalk outlines that would freeze a targeted person in one position indefinitely, he was in his room practicing all these things. He slipped into his classes late and left early so he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. He took most of his meals in his room, still percolating with disgust at Lani for continuing to badger him with her pranks. He didn’t respond to any of his friends who left messages for him through his blackboard, though Clive of course delivered all of the messages rather loudly. Alex wished desperately to have his shush button back.
And so it was that ever since the governors’ visit, Alex had completely abandoned his friends. Yet he missed the companionship they’d all had during those moments when they weren’t laughing at him or disgusted by him. Finally, one morning, Alex decided to come down to the dining room to eat.
“Why won’t you answer our messages?” Lani demanded over breakfast. She pouted dramatically.
“Yes, why?” Meghan said.
Alex put his breakfast on the table and sat down wearily. He was tired of being yelled at. He looked at Samheed, who simply raised an eyebrow and took another spoonful of jam for his toast.
“Hello, Samheed,” Alex said pointedly.
“Awex.” His mouth was too full to say more.
“It’s not like we were going to yell at you. We just … we were worried since you haven’t been around,” Lani said.
“I wasn’t worried,” Samheed said after swallowing. “You were worried.”
“I meant Meg and me.” Lani shot Samheed a cross look.
“I wasn’t worried either,” offered Meghan. “Well, not much, anyway.”
Lani blushed furiously and flounced in her seat. “Fine. I was worried.”
“Well, get on with it, then,” Alex said. “Have at me and get it over with.”
“You mean the governors’ inspection thing?” asked Meghan. “It’s over. Hardly anybody’s talking about it now.”
“Yeah, right. Then why is Ms. Morning sitting over there shooting pins at me with her eyes?”
Meghan turned to look at her focus instructor and waved. Ms. Morning startled and blinked, and then her face broke into a pleasant, almost sheepish smile as she nodded hello. “See, Alex? She wasn’t even looking at you.”
Alex shrugged and began to respond when the giant blackboard in the dining hall came to life, and Oscar—for that was his name—spoke. “Attention, students. Please report to the theater in place of your first class this morning.” The children could hear the announcement ringing in stereo throughout the mansion. Oscar melted into the screen once again, and the words he’d just spoken were written in large neon letters, sure to catch the attention of even the least aware.
“Oh, look, Alex,” Samheed said. “They’ve added bright colors to make sure you don’t miss it.”
On a normal day, when Alex might have been in a better mood, he would have laughed, or fired back a reply just as snide. But there hadn’t been any ordinary days for Alex in well over a month. And even though he was thrilled with his first weeks of warrior training, he was still very hurt that Lani kept kn
ocking him off his feet with spells even though he’d asked her to stop, and he still felt bad about the mess he’d caused with the governors’ visit, and he was still very lonely, missing Aaron, and probably in need of a kind word, but none of his friends seemed compelled to give it now that he’d snubbed them so much. And he didn’t much care for Samheed’s sarcasm this particular morning after he’d gotten a full dose of mocking from Clive already, who had laughed and laughed when Alex had failed several times to cast an invisibility-paintbrush spell on himself.
And so, instead of ignoring it, Alex shoved his chair back and leaned toward Samheed, his clenched fists on the table, a wild look in his eye. “Not funny, Burkesh.”
“Geez, Alex. It was just a joke.”
“I’ve had about enough of everybody’s blasted jokes,” Alex said.
“Ease up, man,” Samheed said, pushing his chair back slowly. He knew Alex was no match for him, and he didn’t want to have to punch him in the face again.
“Me? Ease up? Oh, that’s ripe.” Alex slowly moved around the table toward Samheed.
Lani stood up. “I’ll take him down for you, Sam!” She began speaking an incantation.
Alex whirled around to face her. “And you! One day soon you’re going to be very sorry you did th—” He stopped short and stared as Lani pointed up in the air above Alex’s head and shrieked, frozen mid-spell. She fell to the floor. Immediately the dining room erupted into shouts and fearful screams.
“What—who—” Alex whipped around to see what had happened.
Samheed, a shocked look on his face, pointed upward and then dove under a nearby table, while Meghan scrambled out of her chair and ran for safety.
Alex looked up. Descending toward their table at a rapid rate were the enormous back paws of the great winged-cheetah statue, nearly upon him. He dove off to the side, almost getting slammed across the room when the tip of the cheetah’s stone wing caught him on the back.