Chapter One - The Wizards' Duel
Since you are new to Ambergate, you really must visit the campus of the magical colleges. Now, during the late summer, is the best time to visit, with the students still gone on holiday and the masters barricaded in their studies finishing the lesson plans for the next school year (or hastily completing private research). It’s lovely and quiet and green and neatly kept by automata both magical and undead. See Maxwell over there? He is Gloom Hall’s resident zombie, a doddering old butler who doesn’t seem to realize that he has passed on. However, he normally doesn’t wear a pink, frilly dress, but we’ll come back to him in a moment. Just over that way is Emrys College with its technomagical trees in its massive hall. Every fall the students make the buds that will magically become leaves in the spring, only to wither and brown with the autumn and the next school year. The building over there houses the school called Astrum Saliaris and as you can probably guess from the observatory decorated with moons, suns and stars, the wizards there study astrology and the magic of the stars.
Perhaps we should begin our tour there, among the empty marbled halls and silent classrooms. Inside is always cool and dark, as if the summer sun could never penetrate the permanent twilight here. Surprisingly, there is someone here, a woman young enough to be a student, hurrying as much as her ladylike manner will allow. Slippers whisper on the floor as she passes, as pretty, pale silk trails behind her. She is dark-skinned, a Murkraali, exotic to the paler Imperials who live in this city, and her hair is thick and long. A lovely jewel, held in place by a dainty silver chain, rests on her brow and gives her a noble air. She finds the right door, a heavy, scratched wooden thing, and pulls it open with both hands and some effort. She curtsies and bows her head slightly, deferring to the master within.
Master Lykor doesn’t seem to notice her at first. His quill scratches on the paper in slow, careful movements. She tries not to look, at least not obviously, but it is difficult not to see the large, perfect circles of the complex diagram he draws. She lowers her eyes, outwardly obedient, patient and mannerly, but her curiosity is too great. Instead, she studies his long, gaunt face with its hairless, blushed cheeks. His eyes are bright and young, but lined with crow’s feet at the corners, making his age impossible to tell. His ears are a surprise, quite long, sharply pointed and lightly furred, the same way a human’s get when he ages. Realizing her rudeness, she glances around the study instead, but finds no comfortable place to look. Nearly every surface is covered with mirrors of all shapes and sizes: small round ones, square ones, long thin ones, a large one in an ornate, gilded frame surrounded by fantastic creatures. Some are wavy and distorted, giving her large comical nose or a long horsy face. She recalls his students telling her about his mastery of mirrors; they claim he can read the mind of anyone whose image is reflected within one.
He clears his throat suddenly, which startles her back into good behavior.
With great care, he blots the ink, rolls the paper into a tight tube and seals it with wax bearing his personal mark. For the first time, he looks at the girl and acknowledges her with a nod. She curtsies again, quickly.
“You needed me, Master Lykor?” she asks.
“Serai,” he intones. “Please take this to Master Borasian at Emrys College.” She can’t be sure, but she thinks she sees the corner of his lips fighting a smile. She curtsies, takes the scroll from him and waits for her dismissal. Instead, he pauses a moment, watching her.
“Are you enjoying your stay here, Serai?” he asks. She raises her bowed head to meet his stare, only his eyes are locked at a point above her brow. She touches the jewel there, as if to assure herself it is still there.
“Yes, sir, very much. Thank you for your kindness and hospitality. I am grateful.”
He nods, but already his mind has gone on to the paper and instruments on his desk. She waits a second longer, then quiet as a silk-slippered mouse, she flees.
The day is bright and warm and Serai is grateful to be outside and to have a moment alone to enjoy it. She wonders what the campus will be like when it is filled with students, many of them away from their parents for the first time. But thoughts of parents and family lead her to unpleasant memories of her own and so she locks them away for another time, when she is ready for them at last. If she notices Maxwell in his new frock, she makes no sign of it.
She stops for a moment to admire the mechanical forest in Emrys Hall. The leaves are still green, although she can see a copper edge to some of them. She plucks a leaf from a low-lying branch to examine. The leaves are made of metal, but are as thin and light as the silk she wears. The edge is wickedly sharp. She wonders idly which student made this leaf and how. A beautiful piece of work it is. She hides it in her purse for later, curious to see if it will turn colors.
Inside Emrys Hall is cold and dark, but is filled with the echoes of gears ticking into place. The whole building seems alive, like some great clockwork beast. She follows the grand passageway until it opens into the heart of the hall, the Great Library, a circular, domed room lined with shelves from floor to ceiling. Bathed in light from the oculus in the dome far above him, an old gentleman handles orbs of different sizes, moving them about in the air where they hover. He moves them an inch this way or that and sets them in motion, a lazy orbit around a larger sphere that hangs motionless in the center.
He hears her enter in spite of her efforts to be quiet and greets her as warmly as he would an old, dear friend. “Do you have something for me, my dear?” he asks.
She hands him the scroll and watches as he breaks the seal. He examines it with a frown, then exclaims with delight. He laughs and taps his temple, the way old people do when young people are around, as if to say “Don’t mind me. I’m old and my memory isn’t what it used to be.” He turns and switches two orbs in their orbit.
Serai wants to ask Master Borasian about this curious machine, but his sharp hearing detects another being skulking about in the library. He exclaims, “Watch those books, George. Some of them bite. Come here.” The master’s tone and demeanor are different now. No longer a doddering, kindly man, he wields authority here and expects obedience.
Sulky, George ambles to the center of the library. He is a tall, gangly youth with hair so blond and short he looks bald-headed. Serai is surprised to see a student here so early, but judging by his homemade, slightly frayed clothes and tri-cornered hat, he isn’t Imperial. She judges he is from someplace in the Middle Sea islands and perhaps his island is too far away or, more likely, he is too poor to afford the fare home.
“George Barleycorn, this is Serai, our guest. I have an errand for you. I need you to take a message back to Master Lykor.”
“If she’s here,” George interrupts, “why do I have to go, too?”
Master Borasian glares at George. “Because she is our guest, not a page. And because I want you out of my hair,” he snaps. He turns to his desk to scrawl out a message. With his master’s back to the machine, George cannot resist showing off for the pretty girl. He switches two orbs in their orbit and sends them off with a gentle push. He is pleased when Serai rewards him with a grin.
The master mutters to himself as he seals the scroll with wax and an imprint from his ring. Scowling, he hands it to George and dismisses them. As they leave, they hear the Master mutter, “That’s strange. I could swear I changed that orbit…”
Outside again in the sunlight, Serai relaxes, stretching shoulders tightened by so much by propriety. To make conversation, she asks, “Do the students really make those leaves on the trees?”
“Yes,“ George groans. “They’re a complete pain.”
“Which one is yours?”
“The one that turned black and fell off ten minutes after I put it on the tree,” he laments.
Serai laughs. It isn’t a nervous, squealing giggle that most girls do, but an honest laugh that says she is actually listening to what he says and is amused and sympathetic. It encourages George to say more, but before he can think of something witty, he sees Maxwell.
Like he does every day, Maxwell Zombie is sweeping the front stairs of Gloom Hall. Unlike any other day, he is doing so in a pink, frilly dress, the sort found on girls in Ambergate when it was fashionable two or three years ago.
Several things happen at once. George realizes this is a brilliant joke and wishes he had thought of it. He laughs, but chokes back when he sees a thin, sickly-seeming lad at the front doors. The boy sees Maxwell and his eyes widen with shock. He sees George, red-faced and looking guilty, and his eyes narrow with anger.
“You,” he seethes.
“I didn’t!’ George exclaims.
“You should be ashamed!” the boy scolds.
Like most things that spend more than a day within Gloom Hall, the lad Dante is pale and overwhelmingly gray. Whether it is because of all the dust or because the hall simply bleaches the life out of all things, color included, George couldn’t say. What he could say is that Dante has been his best friend ever since Dante was forced to tutor George to keep him from failing his classes and being expelled. George would not be here without Dante. George might tease or play small jokes on Dante now and again, but he would never, ever do anything to ruin their friendship.
I should pause here moment to explain about Dante. Dante is very smart and very driven and very narrowly focused. Dante was born to be a necromancer. As a child, he would often wander the streets alone to look for bones and animal corpses to play with. He once kept a dead raven for two months because it had “beautiful plumage.” He wrote a ten-parchment essay and open letter defending the use of dead bodies as not only practical and ingenious but also as holy, moral and just. George, like most people, misunderstands Dante’s interest in all things dead as some weird kind of affection, but the reality is that Dante is intensely unsentimental, rational and practical. Dead things are interesting not because they are dead or because they need anyone’s sympathy, but because they are useful. Or can be.
So when George saw the anger in Dante’s eyes, he thought it was out of affection for his “pet” zombie. In truth, Dante is outraged at the affront to Gloom Hall. How typical and sad for a fellow wizard to misunderstand and belittle the important work of this college!
The final piece of the puzzle falls into place when laughter explodes from a nearby bush. Malek, toadies in tow, emerges triumphant.
Dante and George are bonded once more. George hates Malek, hates his smug face and fashionable clothes and good grades. He hates his popularity and his grin that’s supposed to be charming, but comes off as lop-sided and obvious.
Dante hates no one. Hatred implies that the thing hated is worthy of one’s attention. However, a fly that bites begs to be swat. He sends Maxwell up to clean the Master Raventhorpe’s office in hopes the Master of Gloom Hall is about and will come to sort this out.
Malek’s face could barely contain his grin. “My, Dante, ol’ Maxie looks lovely today. Where are you two lovebirds going today? Somewhere special, where you can be alone?”
“You have no imagination,” Dante replies, “and less talent.”
George spits, “Har-har, you’re just hilarious, aren’t you, Malek? That took a whole lot of guts and brains to put a dress on a zombie. Picking on a defenseless corpse! Aren’t you the big, brave man!”
Malek’s grin vanishes. He ignores George and to Dante, he says, “Alright, then. Let’s see how brave you are. I’ve been wanting to see what you’re made of, Dante. How about a duel?”
George examines his friend’s face for a reaction, a clue how to proceed. If it were George he had challenged, George would have accepted without a second thought. But wizards’ duels are forbidden and are grounds for expulsion. George has been so close to being expelled so many times that it no longer frightens him. But if Dante backs down now, Malek would win and the whole school would know. Dante would be humiliated. If Dante did accept, he could be expelled, or worse, Malek could beat him and again Dante would be humiliated.
To Dante’s credit, he looks relaxed and mildly intrigued, not at all concerned. “An interesting proposition,” he notes.
Malek ups the ante, but his bravado betrays him. “Any time or place. You name it.”
“Even midnight in the graveyard by the chapel in town?” Dante inquires. “Perhaps tomorrow night?”
Malek’s breath doesn’t catch, nor does he sweat, nor does he falter, not even for a second. He agrees and tells Dante to bring a second. The toads giggle gleefully as they leave.
“Well, that was interesting,” Serai says.
