Secrets and Spellcraft Read online

  “Good. Be here at six in the evening tomorrow and be sure to bring an extra pair of work clothes to keep here. You’re almost certain to need them eventually.”

  He left in a daze. His first day had been a mixture of disaster and triumph. Will still worried about his Composition class, but it appeared that Alchemy was already in the bag. He hoped the rest of his evening would be quiet. He’d had enough surprises.

  Supper began at five, so he went and claimed a tray of food. After spotting Seth sitting by himself, Will went over and took a seat. The other boy didn’t have much to say, so they ate quietly until Robert Burwood happened by and joined them with his usual infectious grin.

  “How was your day?” asked Rob, his eyes hinting at something.

  Will shrugged. “It was fine.” Seth said nothing.

  Rob leaned forward. “Are you sure you don’t have anything to tell us?”

  Seth glanced back and forth nervously between the two of them. “Did something happen, Will?”

  “I’ll be working as a lab assistant at the Alchemy building,” confessed Will. “It looks like Professor Karlovic is going to exempt me from the class.”

  Surprised, Rob sat back in his chair. “I hadn’t heard that, but I guess I’ll be seeing you. I work there in the evenings as well.”

  The tension eased out of Will’s shoulders. He wouldn’t be alone.

  “But that’s not what I was talking about,” announced Rob. He gave Seth a serious look. “Will here is a war hero!”

  Will choked and almost spit out the meat in his mouth.

  Seth’s eyes went round. “What?”

  “It’s all over the campus,” said Rob, satisfied by their reaction. “Apparently our friend here is an army veteran with demon blood on his hands. It all makes sense now. That’s why he got sponsored by King Lognion. Isn’t it, Will?” Rob took a moment to stuff a roll in his mouth, chewing languidly while he waited for a response.

  Will ground his teeth in frustration, quietly wishing he could throttle his new friend. “I was in the army, and I did see a demon,” he admitted. “What are they saying?”

  Rob put his arms behind his head and continued chewing, gradually drawing the rest of the roll into his mouth. Once it was all inside, he began talking, though his mouth was still full. “All sorts of things, old chum. The jealous ones are calling you a braggart and a liar, while those with more imagination are dreaming up stories in which you slew the demon with a magic blade and saved a princess.”

  Will choked again, and this time his tea came up through his nose. That had been a little too close to the truth. “That’s ridiculous,” he said evasively. “I didn’t kill the demon, the sorceress did. I just happened to be there.”

  “And of course, that sorceress was King Lognion’s daughter, Selene,” pronounced Rob with a chuckle.

  Glaring, Will demanded, “How did you know that?”

  Now it was Rob’s turn to be shocked. “I was making a joke.” His head turned from side to side to see if anyone nearby had heard him. The dining hall was suspiciously quiet.

  “Oh!” said Will, laughing nervously. “My mistake.”

  “Sweet Temarah of the Heavenly Tits!” exclaimed Rob. “You really saved her, didn’t you?”

  Will put his face in his hands. His cheeks were burning with embarrassment. “We fought together, but if anyone was saved, I’d say she had more to do with it than me.”

  Seth’s face was white as a sheet, and the boy sat utterly still, as though he had been carved from stone. Meanwhile Rob couldn’t contain his excitement, he pushed back his chair, stood and paced in a circle before sitting back down. “Holy shit!” said Rob. After a moment he relaxed and held his hand out, palm up. He wiggled his fingers. “Fess up. We need details.”

  “Not here,” said Will. Whispers were spreading across the dining hall, and he saw many of the students sneaking furtive glances in his direction. “Let’s eat. We can talk in my room.”

  They finished their meal and headed upstairs, but Will refused to say anything until they were inside, and the door was firmly closed. He gave Rob a withering glare. “Who knows what they’ll be saying about me tomorrow!”

  Rob was abashed. “Sorry, Will. I only meant to tease. I had no idea I was anywhere close to the truth.”

  Surprisingly, Seth broke in. “So, what exactly did you do in the army?”

  “I was a private contract soldier,” said Will. “Most of it was pretty ordinary, except for constantly fearing I’d catch a spear in the gut.” He gave them an abbreviated version of the battles he’d fought in, leaving out the parts that involved him taking on sorcerers.

  “But what about the princess?” insisted Seth. Apparently the quiet-spoken young man had a keen interest in romantic tales.

  “I didn’t know who she was,” Will admitted. “She worked with the medical group and somehow we got to be friends. At one point I decided the only way to stop the war from dragging on forever would be to burn the enemy supplies in Barrowden. She wouldn’t let me go alone, so we wound up going together.”

  Rob’s breath hissed as he inhaled. “The two of you went alone, against all odds?”

  “I probably wasn’t thinking too clearly at the time,” offered Will.

  Seth hugged himself, whispering, “He really is a war-hero.” Then he stared up at Will from his bunk, his dark brown eyes deadly serious. “Did you kiss her?”

  Will turned red. “No! Of course not!” She kissed me, he thought silently.

  Rob was pacing. “Now I see why the Patriarch’s offensive dried up so quickly. No one knew why when the news came in. How many people know about this?”

  “You, me, Seth, the king, and Selene, I guess.”

  “He calls her by name,” mumbled Seth. “Not ‘Her Highness’ but Selene.”

  “Well, we went through a lot together. I doubt I’ll ever see her again anyway, so it doesn’t matter.” Even as Will said it, though, he hoped it wasn’t true.

  “So officially, you aren’t a hero,” said Rob with a sigh.

  “At first they thought I was a kidnapper. I spent my first few days in Cerria in a dungeon.”

  Seth was up and moving to his study desk. “I need to write this down.”

  “What? No!” Will protested. “Nobody can know about this.”

  “It’s for my book,” said the pale young man.

  “You’re writing a book?” asked Will.

  Seth nodded. “It was going to be a different one, but I’ve changed my mind. Now it’s going to be The Adventures of William the Wizard.”

  Rob began to laugh.

  “What is wrong with the two of you?” said Will, exasperated. “No book, no adventures, and if you keep writing I’m not going to say another word.”

  Seth turned two woeful eyes his direction. “This is my life’s work, Will.”

  “I thought you were here to study wizardry?”

  “That’s just to get my dad to leave me alone. I’ll learn enough to make a living. Writing is my passion,” said Seth firmly.

  Until then, Will had thought his roommate was merely a timid and nervous fellow, but he was beginning to see a different side of him now. He couldn’t help but admire Seth’s conviction, but that didn’t mean he had to participate in it. “I’m going to sleep,” said Will, looking pointedly at Rob.

  “What are we going to tell everyone tomorrow?” asked Rob.

  “I was in the army. I fought in some battles. I met Selene and I saw her take down a demon. That’s it. Good night.” He began pushing his friend toward the door.

  “Fine, fine,” said Rob. He waved over his head to Seth. “Night!”

  Will shut the door and ignored Seth’s gaze as he climbed into his bunk. He was tired, but he lay awake thinking about the day’s events for some time, until sleep finally claimed him.

  Chapter 5

  Morning came early, as it always did, but Will was already up and moving. His time in the army had left its mark on his sleep cycle, and
he had gotten into the habit of waking up before dawn, even when he didn’t have to. Consequently, he arrived at the gym for his first Fencing class almost a quarter of an hour early.

  The instructor turned out to be a neatly groomed man named Valentine Rhodes. The teacher had a pencil-thin moustache with waxed ends that curled up. His hair was trimmed too short for the man to have been part of the nobility, but Will later learned that Rhodes was actually a squire who had been granted a small farm, so technically Squire Rhodes was a part of the landed gentry, if just barely.

  As the other students appeared, Will noted that most of them had elementals and all of them bore the unmistakable marks of gentle birth: longer hair, finer clothing, and an air of superiority. He began to feel out of place. Some of them were staring openly at him, but there was only one face he recognized, that of Dennis Spry.

  Perhaps I should have been friendlier, Will thought regretfully. The other young men stood in small groups, with the largest one around Dennis, who seemed to be exceptionally popular. The young lordling glanced at Will for a moment, flashing a smile as he said something else to his peers, who began to laugh with him. Just great.

  “All right, gather round, lads!” shouted Rhodes. “Is there anyone here who hasn’t had at least some experience with the saber?”

  Will held up his hand. He was the only one to do so. Several of the others laughed as they glanced over at him.

  “What’s your name?” asked Instructor Rhodes, pointing at him.

  “William Cartwright, sir.”

  “Everyone separate into pairs and warm up. Mister Cartwright, you’ll be with me so I can acquaint you with the rules.”

  While the others began doing simple calisthenics, Instructor Rhodes took Will aside. “Over here is where we keep the equipment.” He showed Will a long rack that held long, thin, blunt-edged swords. They were far different from what he had seen in the army. Most of the swords used in the military were far shorter and thicker, built for powerful chopping and savage thrusts. From what Will could see, these weapons would be nearly useless against a soldier, even if he were only armored in a gambeson.

  Rhodes could see his confusion. “What? Spit it out, lad.”

  “Do people fight with these, sir?”

  The instructor laughed. “Quite often, why do you ask?” Then he paused. “Are you the lad that just left the army?”

  Will nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Then I understand your confusion. These aren’t the sort of weapons you’d see on the battlefield, although they are similar in some regards to what the cavalry uses.”

  He had seen cavalry sabers—they were a little longer with heavier blades. “Then what are these for, sir?”

  “These are the weapons of a gentleman,” said Rhodes with a smirk.

  “Wouldn’t a gentleman want to be able to defend himself?”

  The instructor began to laugh. “You’re thinking about armored combat. These are meant for dueling. Generally speaking, if two men are fighting with these, they aren’t wearing armor, nor do they have shields or helms.”

  “But still—”

  “In that situation, these are far superior weapons, Mister Cartwright. They thrust and cut quite well, and their speed is unrivaled. Also, most duels end with first blood, so there isn’t the same necessity for men about town to go around wearing armor.”

  Will’s eyes widened, glancing at the others who were still warming up. “Will we be dueling?”

  “I doubt the college would look kindly on me if all their well-bred students were regularly injured. No, I’ll be teaching you the sport, but it will be good practice in case you ever do wind up in a duel. Come over here.” Rhodes led him to a long set of cabinets. Inside were heavy, long-sleeved jackets, similar to the padded gambeson Will had worn in the army. At one end were curious helmets with faces composed of wire mesh. “You’ll be wearing these during practice to prevent serious injury or disfigurement. Let’s get you suited up.”

  The instructor helped him into the jacket, head gear, and gloves, before going over the basic rules. It turned out that the sport of saber fencing was meant to teach and replicate the fundamental nature of what happened in a true duel. The blades were lightweight with rounded guards to protect the hand. The opponents were allowed to cut and thrust and a match consisted of multiple rounds in which the first to land such a blow was awarded a point.

  The idea was that this blow was similar to first blood in a real duel. The big difference, of course, was that a real duel ended with the first cut, which might or might not be lethal, whereas a saber match involved a scoring system that ended once fifteen points had been scored between the two of them. The swordsman with the better score, eight points or more, won.

  If both opponents scored a point at the same time, a judge made a call to award the point to whoever had been in possession of the ‘initiative.’ Initiative was a subjective concept, but generally it meant the swordsman who was moving forward, rather than retreating, at the time the two points were scored.

  The contests took place on a long, thin strip marked by two lines. If someone backed all the way to the end and stepped out, that also gave a point to the opponent. The instructor went through a few rounds with him, during which he made a startling realization. If two saber fighters were to actually duel, it wouldn’t necessarily be the best man that won. While Rhodes scored the majority of points, Will managed to score a couple of his own. In a real fight, that meant that out of fifteen duels with a man obviously far superior to him, he would have potentially won twice.

  It was a sobering thought. It meant that even a great duelist was taking a terrible risk any time he made a challenge, assuming his opponent was reasonably quick and fit, which Will certainly was. Why would anyone ever think that was a good idea? he wondered.

  While he was taking a breather, he watched the other young men sparring, noting their scores. Even in the most mismatched sets, the loser usually managed to score at least a few times. Having recently survived a battlefield, the entire thing seemed ridiculous to him. Every ‘point’ scored was symbolic of a man taking a wound, fatal or otherwise, and yet the fighting style was outlandish and suicidal from a soldier’s point of view.

  Fighting without armor? Why? No shield? Who would give up such a defense?

  Compounding the silliness was the fact that the game held no real risk, yet it was meant to simulate a situation with real risk of death or serious injury. As a result, the best tactics were lighting-quick strikes and hyperextended lunges meant to take the opponent off-guard. Unfortunately, if the hit failed to land, the defender usually struck the one making it. Will couldn’t imagine an actual human, facing naked steel, doing something so inordinately risky.

  After his short break Will was paired up with another student, a first-year named Chris. He had more experience than Will, but their skill levels were closer. In their first match, Will managed a respectable six points to his opponent’s nine. He learned a few more things as well.

  Unlike the instructor, Chris didn’t vary his speed or flow, making it far easier to predict his movements. While resting after their matches, Will paid close attention to the others. Those with better scores all showed some ability to suddenly change the speed of their attack and defense, and the instructor was the best at it.

  It reminded him of something his grandfather had once told him after he had learned to increase his speed or strength using his turyn. “Just because you don’t see ordinary people casting spells doesn’t mean they don’t depend on it. Athletes, warriors, people that train themselves to be the best at what they do, they’re doing something very similar with their turyn. And on top of that, they’re building their physical capacity at the same time. You can use your magic in a large variety of ways, including to give yourself a physical advantage, but don’t ever make the mistake of underestimating people who train hard at fighting, or you’ll learn a painful and bloody lesson.”

  Did that mean he could use his gift to
improve his score? Probably. He had already considered doing so, but he had held back because of another lesson he had learned in the army. Don’t stand out. If he immediately started scoring as well as the better, more practiced fencers, it would only bring attention, and with attention came trouble.

  When class was over, he went back to the dorm to clean up before his next class, History. Arriving early, he found only a few students in the auditorium when he stepped in. Will made a quick decision and found a seat in the second row, next to the only person he recognized, Janice Edelman, the girl he had met in Composition.

  He lifted a hand as he sat down beside her. “Hi.”

  Janice ran her fingers across her forehead, nervously pushing her hair out of her eyes, which she kept firmly on the book in front of her. “Hello,” she answered quietly.

  He wondered if she was shy or if it was just something about himself that made her nervous. Opening his journal to the first page, he set out a pen and made sure his inkwell was ready. From his previous experiences, he doubted he would be able to keep up and take notes, but he figured he should at least be ready in case there was something important he absolutely had to write down.

  “Hey,” said Will quietly.

  Janice’s eyes flicked toward him briefly, showing him a flash of hazel, but she said nothing.

  Pretty eyes, he noted. “You probably noticed last time, but I’m terrible at note taking.”

  She pushed her hair aside again without looking at him, but gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  “It isn’t that I don’t want to, but I write too slowly. I can’t keep up with the lecture and write at the same time,” he added. “I only learned to read and write a year and a half ago.”

  That provoked a response. Janice’s eyes went wide and she stared at him for a full two seconds, blinking once. Then she looked away again, her cheeks coloring. “Oh.”

  Her shy face caused a stir of uncertain emotions within him, though he wasn’t sure if it was attraction or just a feeling of protectiveness. She really is cute, thought Will, and more importantly, she isn’t a princess. Mentally, he reprimanded himself for that thought. Rob had been a bad influence on him. Gathering his courage, Will pushed on. “What do you think about studying together?”