Tempests and Slaughter

‘A mage in the field must concentrate at all times,’ she snapped. ‘Report to me after your other lessons for three weeks. Do the spell!’

The giggles that filled the air stopped when she glared at his classmates.

With her attention locked on the others, Arram closed his eyes, sucked in a deep breath, and held it. Sometimes that helped. His magical Gift boiled in his chest, like the River Zekoi in flood season. He called the sparkling black magical fire up and let some of it stream through one shaking finger. Over the wide dish on the table, he wrote the spell-signs, using his power for ink.

It worked just as it did the first time. A vine of liquid rose into the air. This time he let it stretch as high as the master’s nose instead of the five inches she had required. His fellow students hissed; they always did when he succeeded where they failed.

Arram glared at the water as it dropped into the bowl. It wasn’t fair. Just because they couldn’t work a bit of magic, they expected him to drag his feet.

He faced the master. ‘I did it all alone,’ he insisted. ‘I could do more.’

She folded her arms over her chest, looking as if she’d gulped sour milk. ‘Oh, truly? What more could you do, pray?’

He turned back to the dish. Placing drops of his Gift on his forefingers, he touched each to a different spot on his slender column of water. It split. Now three ropes of water flowed up and over, then back into the dish, like his favourite garden fountain. Feeling bolder, he turned his hand and called the spouts. They went two feet higher. At that height, the water splashed onto the dish, the table, Arram, Girisunika, and the students in the first two rows.

‘Too messy,’ he said, frowning in concentration. All of his focus and power were locked on his creation. It was a bad habit of his, paying attention only to his spell.

Carefully he reached into the dish and spun the water sunwise once. It twirled, winding the three spouts like thread on a spindle until they shaped a twist in the centre. The twist became a miniature cyclone, swaying to and fro.

Arram frowned. There wasn’t enough water for people to see the glass-like swirls in his miniature cyclone. The bowl was nearly dry. He sent his Gift into the jar by the table, only to find less than a palmful of water inside.

He yanked it up and threw it into the bowl. Some of the students in the front began to snicker. Girisunika took a deep breath and announced with heavy meaning, ‘If you are finished, Draper …’

He was not finished. He could make it even more interesting. He scowled at the bowl and the cyclone, clenching his unsteady hand. Strength ran through him, coming from the floor – no, from beneath the floor. It soared up through his Gift almost as it had at the harbour six weeks ago. The feel of it was different, heavier.

It lanced through his hand and into the thin water cyclone. Without warning, the liquid shot into the air and sprayed throughout the room. Arram yelped and his fellow students howled as everyone was drenched.

‘Calm yourselves!’ Girisunika shouted. Raising a hand that shone with orange-red fire, she drew the water away from the students and back to the front of the room. It climbed until it formed a foot-deep pool-like block that enclosed Arram, the master, and the worktable. On the table, in the dish and above it, water continued to spout.

‘Draper,’ the master said, ‘where is the water coming from?’

Arram glanced at her face. She was sweating. ‘Where?’ he asked blankly.

‘Yes, dolt,’ she snapped. ‘Where did you get the water? There is far more here than before. Stop it at once!’

He had no more idea of the water’s source than he did of the wind that thrust his relatives’ ship out of the harbour. He scratched his head. He’d used no water signs other than those he’d placed at the spell’s start. The strength of it must have come from that strange shove of power that had gripped him.

His imagination built a picture of his cyclone’s thin tail passing through the dish, the table, and down through the marble floor. He bent and squinted at the table. The deepening pond of water had sprouted a rope of itself. Somehow it passed through the wood to feed his creation above.

Arram ducked underwater to find the source. A moment later a rough hand grabbed his collar and dragged him into the air. He struggled and spat. One of the bigger students had a strong grip on him.

‘What are you doing?’ Master Girisunika roared. ‘Do you want to drown? No one else can undo your mess!’ She motioned for his captor to release Arram. The youth obeyed.

‘Draper, what have you created?’ she demanded.

Arram held his head in his hands, but it was useless. Another surge ran through him, through his Gift. He lost control.

The spout exploded against the ceiling. The entire workroom was waist-high in water. The students were pounding on the doors. As was the rule when magic was being worked in class, the doors were closed and sealed to prevent outsiders from entering and causing just the kind of mess they presently had.

‘Undo this gods-cursed spell, boy!’ Girisunika yelled.

Arram shook from top to toe. They would send him home; he would never learn proper magic. Worse, they would lock him in one of those special cells the other boys talked about once the candles were doused. The cells where no one could use their Gift. He would be cut off forever from the thing he loved most, all because this instructor wouldn’t leave him alone!

One of the doors slammed open, knocking aside the students standing there. Water flooded into the hall. An elderly black woman and a snowy-haired white man, both in the red robes of master mages, stepped into the classroom once the depth was down to ankle level.

Flood or no, the drenched students knew that everyone was supposed to keep their heads and follow the rules in any emergency. They hurried to stand beside their desks as required when masters entered the room. They did not know the old woman, but Arram recognized the man. He was Cosmas Sunyat, head of the School for Mages.

Master Cosmas made glowing signs with his hands; the old woman made different ones with hers. Slowly every trace of water, even of dampness, vanished. The dish where Arram’s troubles had begun was empty even of a drop. It fell to the worktable with a clatter.

Arram picked it up and turned it over in his hands. Despite the bother, he was sad that his spell was gone. The surge of excitement had faded, too, leaving him no idea of how to call it back.

Girisunika was furious. ‘Who helped him?’ she demanded, glaring at Arram’s classmates. She was so angry she ignored the newly arrived masters. ‘He’s a child – he couldn’t do it himself! Which of you vile parasites connived at this?’

Master Cosmas thumped his ebony walking stick on the floor. ‘Master Girisunika, control yourself!’ he commanded. He surveyed the room. ‘Youngsters, report to Hulak in the kitchen gardens. Let us see if you remember the difference between coriander and weeds.’ As Arram’s fellows gathered their things and filed out of the classroom, Master Cosmas added, ‘Girisunika, Arram Draper, come with us.’

Masters Cosmas and Girisunika drew ahead as they walked through the marble halls. Arram, who had been raised to be polite, kept pace with the slower old woman. They had not gone far before she asked, ‘Did you have help from the others?’

Arram looked at her. ‘No, Master,’ he said. ‘They couldn’t have done it anyway. They aren’t very good.’

The woman snorted. ‘They are perfectly suited to those studies for their age, young man – as you should be. I am Master Sebo Orimiri. Who are you?’

Arram bowed as he’d been taught. ‘I’m Arram Draper.’

‘So you are the Draper lad. That explains a great deal.’ She walked on, making him trot to catch up.

‘It explains something?’ It was accepted in the Lower Academy that nothing explained the strange events that happened around Arram. ‘Whatever it explains, I probably didn’t do it on purpose,’ the boy added.

‘Tell me, what is your favourite place in the university?’

Arram looked at the master, sensing a trap but unable to figure out what manner of danger it could possibly hold. In the end he decided honesty would probably get him in the least amount of trouble. ‘The river. Or – or the gardens. But usually the library, Master Sebo.’

‘Only the Lower Academy library?’ She glanced at him and smiled. ‘The truth, lad. I’ll know if you lie.’

Something about her convinced him that she meant what she said. ‘No, Master. The mages’ library for the Upper Academy.’

‘Indeed!’ He seemed to have surprised her. ‘Not the Upper Academy? Aren’t the mages’ books too difficult?’

‘Most of them,’ he admitted. ‘Usually I read encyclopedias and books like that. They aren’t too hard, and I can look up the parts I don’t understand.’

‘I see. And how do you get past the librarians?’

‘There is this one book … The spells make me seem like part of the background.’ Arram smiled.

‘But surely, when you move, they notice.’

‘There was a note that you shouldn’t move when people look at you,’ Arram said.

‘Very practical. And this spell is useful, I take it? Not just for reading?’ Master Sebo asked drily.