The Rebels, page 15
“My name is Anarames. Have you climbed to the fifth floor before?” he said once they were on their way.
“No,” Yarrow said. “I do the cleaning only on the first three floors.”
“I’ve seen you near the teaching halls besides the library,” Anarames said.
“Yes, I kind of like it. They’re both unusual places.”
“Amongst the most magical places in the Academy,” he said. “I was so excited when I saw the library for the first time. My father studied here too, so I knew what it would look like. But to see it for yourself is so much better.”
“Your father is a mage, then.”
Anarames smiled. “One of the best of Luminaris. I’m going to work in his practice when I finish my apprenticeship here.”
They walked along the perimeter of the fifth floor for some time. Anarames was quite talkative and wouldn’t stop telling her about his projects for the future. Yarrow was just listening for the sound of booted feet stalking them. The life of this young man couldn’t be more different from hers.
She cleared her throat to get his attention. “Are we close? It’s completely dark outside. Someone will notice it if I am not in the dormitory.”
“Well.” Anarames scratched his head. “The fact is, I can’t find the right place.”
“You mean, we’re lost?” It was never a good idea to lose her temper with an apprentice and a nobleman, but her patience was wearing thin.
“We are not lost. I know the way back. But I can’t find the exact spot where I cast the spell. This place is huge. I think there was an arras with a white unicorn near it, quite a big one, too, but I don’t see it anywhere.”
“Maybe we should come back tomorrow, after lectures, when there is more light,” Yarrow said. “It’s getting late, and I’m sure you have lessons to attend in the morning.”
“I do,” Anarames said, combing back the strands of hair falling onto his forehead with his fingers. “I’m just too afraid that one of the mages will find the mess before we do. They will punish all of the apprentices, and that won’t make me very popular.”
Yarrow spun around. Her nose wasn’t as sensitive as her sisters’, but she could definitely smell a pile of dung if there was one nearby. “I can’t smell anything. Are you sure that one of your mates hasn’t done the cleaning already?” Some spells were also short lived, especially the ones performed by inexperienced apprentices, but Yarrow didn’t want to show that she knew more about spells than it was expected from a servant.
“They probably would have told me,” Anarames said. He was looking ahead now, noticing something that had caught his attention. Yarrow hoped he had finally found what he was looking for but instead he pointed, saying, “It has to be around here because I remember passing in front of that door. Although it was closed before. Now that I think about it, this is the first time I’ve ever seen it open.”
Before Yarrow could stop him, he was walking to a massive door made of wood, divided into panels, each richly decorated. She almost considered leaving him there and going back to her quarters. But she was a bit curious. And she may not have another chance to get a look around on the fifth floor. The entrance of the secret library was there, and it may be helpful if she familiarised herself as much as possible with the area. She got closer to the door so she could see the panels better. They depicted sea creatures and flying dragons.
“Wow!” Anarames exclaimed. “Take a look at this!”
“Maybe we shouldn’t enter if the door is usually kept closed,” Yarrow objected. “There’s probably a good reason for it.”
“Probably,” he said. “But the interesting stuff is always kept away from apprentices and students. Just in case we get too distracted.” He pointed upwards. “Look! I didn’t even know they had this!”
Yarrow looked up and gasped. In the low light, she saw the huge, fanged jaws of a predator coming down from the ceiling, about to close over her head. The ceiling was impossibly high. She couldn’t even see the whole body of the creature that owned the jaw. But the beast was completely still, held in position by ropes attached to the ceiling.
“Is it a dragon?” Yarrow whispered. The creature had yellow eyes, which seemed to stare directly at her.
“Yes,” Anarames beamed. “I’ve never been so close to one before.”
“Do you mean… Is it a real dragon?”
“Only the skeleton must be real,” Anarames said. “The rest is an illusion. Look.”
He took a magnifying glass from one of his pockets, which he placed in front of Yarrow so she too could see through it. Through the lens, she could only see the bones forming the skeleton of the beast.
“It’s an incomplete skeleton,” Anarames said. “A spell was cast to recreate how the creature must have looked when it was alive.”
“What is this?” Yarrow said, pointing to the magnifying glass. “Is it magic?”
He smiled. “A family heirloom. I told you I come from a family of mages. Lamast is my last name. My great-grandfather from my mother’s side was even a Mage Rector in this same Academy.”
That probably explained why this boy could move around the building so freely.
“How does it work? Is it spirited?”Anarames blinked, and Yarrow realised that she was sounding too curious for a servant. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me. I only heard of the mirror that was in Lady Loucree’s room and I wondered…”
“Oh, yes, the magic mirror that cracked—”
Above them, something creaked, and they both looked up.
As before, the dragon was hanging in the same position, with its long neck extended towards them and its mouth opened, as if it were about to snatch prey from above.
“Maybe it’s not wise to stand right under this old skeleton,” Anarames said, placing a hand on her arm and gently nudging her towards the door. “Who knows for how long it has been hanging.”
“Do you think it was killed?”
Yarrow wasn’t sure why she was asking that. The illusion created around the dragon made it look like a ferocious beast about to strike an attack, but underneath the layers added through magic, Yarrow felt that there was true anger emanating from the old bones.
Anarames, who was already at the door, turned around to take one more look at the remains of the monster. “I have no idea. Why do you want to know?”
She was aware of Anarames staring at her, probably wondering why she wasn’t following. She made herself turn away from the dragon and leave the room, feeling empty, huge eye sockets staring at her back. “I don’t know. How did they find it if they didn’t kill it?”
She glimpsed over her shoulder. As she caught a light glinting in the eyes of the dragon,
Yarrow gasped and spun around.
“What is it?” the apprentice turned too.
“I thought I saw its eyes move,” Yarrow whispered.
“They’re still now,” Anarames said. “Maybe it’s part of the illusion.”
Yarrow inhaled deeply. The light was gone, but she was sure she had seen it. “We definitely should go. This place is scaring me.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Anarames said. He closed the door behind, turning it gently on its hinges, as if he feared that any noise could wake the dragon up.
“What do we do about your prank, then?” Yarrow said.
Anarames shook his head, looking lost. “It’s possible that I can’t find it because the spell didn’t last very long. Sometimes they do that. They succeed but only temporarily.”
This was what Yarrow had suspected since the beginning, but she didn’t say anything, even if she was sorry for the waste of time, because the apprentice looked very disappointed now, like he would prefer to be caught than cast an only partially successful spell.
“Well, shall we go back downstairs?” Yarrow said, picking up the bucket and the other things for cleaning.
“Yes, of course,” Anarames said. “Uhm, sorry for making you come up here for nothing. You probably had other things to do.”
It was unusual for an apprentice and a noble to be apologetic with a servant. Yarrow smiled. “It’s fine. I got to see a dragon. It was worth it.”
“And I meant it when I said I would reward you. This way. It will be quicker.”
Anarames took a token from his pocket and placed it in a square hole next to the door. The door clicked open and the apprentice retrieved the token.
Yarrow put out a hand. “May I see it?”
He smiled. “It only looks like gold. It’s a shining alloy, not exactly precious.”
Yarrow brushed her thumb over the gilded surface. The image of a stork was engraved on it. “Even if it’s not gold, it’s very pretty.” She looked at him in the eyes with her most innocent smile. “May I keep this as a reward?”
“Well,” he patted down his hair. “I’ve got others. You can keep it, but you have to promise not to use it to open doors.”
“Why would I do that?” Yarrow chuckled. “There’s nothing in these rooms that interests me, and I don’t want to get in trouble with Mistress Chaspan.”
“All right,” Anarames smiled. “You can keep it. And… If there’s anything else you want, just let me know.”
Yarrow grabbed his arm. “Hush! There’s someone!”
The apprentice sent her a confused look, but then he heard it too, the sound of footsteps resonating on the staircase.
They waited with the door ajar, peering through the gap.
“Witch hunters rarely came on the upper floors,” the apprentice whispered. “I didn’t expect to cross paths with any of them.”
Yarrow was afraid it would be General Afton. The man seemed to always be wherever she went. But the steps were of someone lighter, and soon Yarrow sighed in relief because now the person was in sight and it was obvious that he was just a boy.
“It’s a friend of mine, a classmate,” Anarames whispered. “I’ll go to him. Do you know how to get back to the servants’ quarters from here?”
“Of course. You don’t need to worry about me,” Yarrow said.
He gently squeezed her arm and whispered, “Thank you,” before stepping inside the staircase.
“Anarames,” the apprentice cried. “You gave me a fright! What are you doing here in the dark?”
“Probably the same thing you’re doing. Looking for dung,” Anarames laughed.
“Have you cleaned it?”
“I can’t find it anymore,” Anarames said. “I think it disappeared on its own.”
“Well, that’s convenient,” the classmate said.
The two boys climbed down, laughing, their voices fading away. Yarrow put the precious token in her pocket and waited a bit longer before stepping down the stairs too. She would have to hide the token, but she might have found a way to get into the secret library. With Hasden away, she couldn’t continue practising magic, but she could try to find the book about the Mage King he had told her about and see if she could find information useful to Iir. She was worried about her. If even books about the Mage King were so feared by mages, she didn’t dare to imagine how dangerous was the Mage King himself. Hasden had said that the book may be cursed, but she was a witch. She certainly knew about curses more than many people.
She was crossing the Great Hall to go to the staircase that went down to the servants’ quarters when she heard steps again. She hid behind the leg of one of the seven heroes and waited.
It was the general, alone, looking like a hound sniffing out prey.
In the dim light, she couldn’t see his face, but there was a sort of angry determination in the way he walked, his feet stomping heavily, his back slightly hunched forward like he was ready for a sprint.
A thud resonated inside the hall, as if someone had thrown a stone against the wall on the opposite side. The general stopped and looked in the direction of the sound. He hesitated, but then he walked at a faster pace in that same direction.
Yarrow waited for him to be out of sight, and then, staying in the shadows, she walked to the servants’ quarters.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dee knew it was a dream, but her heart beaten as fast as if she were in real danger. She was just a child in the dream, and she was hiding in the kitchen, as her mother had told her to do. Outside, people shouted and screamed. The acrid smell of smoke was all around her, and she even felt in her mouth, making her feel nauseous. She didn’t need to look to know that the forest was burning.
The dream turned into a lucid one. She was outside the wall that circled Shidati’s castle, standing under a light rain, and she was alone. In the distance, she heard riders galloping to the castle.
She looked down the road and saw them coming, a dark mass of riders and horses, indefinite in the darkness, the riders’ glyphs fluorescing on their bald heads, their armour making their bodies bulkier.
And then she was inside the main hall of the castle. Shidati’s mother stood in the middle of it, her face as grey as the ashes in the fireplace, rubbing her hands over and over with a pained expression. There was a sound in the distance—someone banging on a door—and the woman looked away, afraid but rooted in position.
***
Dee woke up and sat up on her bed.
There was no light in the room. Only the moonlight that filtered in through the coloured glass window panes let her see her surroundings. In the corner where he had appeared the day before stood the ghost of the little boy.
Daraech had managed to climb on top of her bed and was now crouching next to her legs, eyeing the ghost uneasily.
The child ghost stared at her with a sorrowful expression.
“Is something bad about to happen?” she whispered to the ghost.
The child nodded, and Dee’s heart sank. It was going to happen that same night. It was already happening.
She remembered the story of the child, that Glyn had likely been killed by his uncle who wanted to inherit the castle and the land after the death of Glyn’s father.
If she could, she would have hugged the little ghost.
Dee left her bed to go to the window. The branches of the oak tree hitting the coloured glass panels when pushed by the wind had woken her several times in the night. She looked outside, but it was too dark to see anything. How much time did she have before the arrival of the korros? She opened the window. Outside, everything was still quiet, but a light rain was falling, like in her dream.
“You should run,” the ghost whispered. “I wish I had. I wouldn’t be so lonely.”
“I’m sorry,” Dee whispered. “I’ll come back, if I can. To speak to you, if you want.”
The ghost didn’t say anything.
She smelled something in the wind, a smell that seemed to have come from her childhood’s nightmare. It was the pungent scent of the potion used by the korros. They weren’t at the castle yet, but they weren’t far.
Dee quickly put on her clothes, wondering why she’d had to run away in the middle of the night so often. The little bear scampered next to her feet, nervous and agitated despite Dee’s attempts to keep her quiet.
She put what she could inside her satchel. Sareesi had given her a couple of dresses from when she was younger and more or less as tall as Dee, and they too got squeezed inside the satchel. She was sorry to crumple them, but there was no time.
She slung her satchel over her shoulder and took her boots in her hand. She would make less noise without them. Every time she tried to carry the cub, Daraech became even more nervous, so this time she let her walk on the floor.
Outside her room, everything was quiet. Dee ran to Shidati’s room but came to an abrupt halt when she spotted a man standing in front of it. It was one of the servants. She had seen him before, usually working in the courtyard, a young man of about twenty-five, tall and strong, probably used to carrying out a lot of physical work. He didn’t seem to have a weapon, but he was certainly strong enough to stop her if he wanted.
Voices came from downstairs. Something was stirring inside the castle. She thought about her dream, about Shidati’s mother waiting near the entrance, knowing that the korros were coming, and she was ready to let them in. There was no time to waste.
Dee ran to Shidati’s door, dodging the surprised servant at the last moment, and banged her fists on it, calling the knight’s name.
“Hey!” the servant shouted.
He grabbed her waist and pulled her away from the door. Her feet lost contact with the ground, and Dee screamed.
“Shut up, you stupid waif!” the servant hissed.
Dee bumped her elbow into his chest, like Iir had taught her, but she didn’t hit him hard enough. He didn’t let go of her, even if he grunted. Dee tried to lean over and turn the key without success.
“Haskan!”
Sareesi must have heard the commotion because she was now standing in the corridor, her white nightgown making her look like a ghost.
“Haskan!” the girl repeated with more emphasis, and the servant put her back on the floor. Dee scampered a few steps away from him and closer to the door.
“My lady,” Haskan said. “I’m only doing what your lady mother ordered—”
“This is madness!” Sareesi said, unlocking Shidati’s door herself. “What has my mother done?”
The man shrugged and looked down at his feet, uncomfortable to be the subject of a rebuke. Shidati walked out of his room, putting a dressing gown on.
The tall knight didn’t look well. His face was grey, and he was staggering, unable to keep his balance. If she didn’t know him better, Dee would think that he was drunk.
He looked at her with a sad smile. “One of your visions?”
“A dream,” Dee said. “But I think it’s too late. I saw korros wearing armour at the entrance.”
“Iron Knights!” Sareesi said, a pale hand covering her mouth.
“This is low even for Mother,” Shidati said. He stumbled. “Did she put something in my food?” He asked Haskan.
“My lord—”
“Just answer me!”
“Poppy, my lord. She told the cook to put poppy in your meal.”
“Shidati, I swear I didn’t know,” Sareesi said.
