Aldwyn's Academy (7 page)

Curious, he opened the larger box, revealing almost a dozen smaller boxes. He picked one of them out at random and opened it. Inside, several Stench Stones sat nestled inside packing material.

“Where’d you get those?” Caleb asked.

Dorian jumped, feeling guilty.

“I didn’t buy them! I was just looking around Maverick’s and that spooky eladrin gave them to me. I don’t know why, I didn’t even ask for anything.”

“Maverick is a warlock,” Caleb answered, coming closer. “It’s impossible to know what’s going on in
their
heads. Also, he’s eladrin which means he’ll always be an enigma to anyone but other elfkind.” Caleb paused. “Or great wizards like Lowadar. But wow, he gave you a lot
of stuff. And all of it could get you a massive amount of detention if any of the faculty sees it.”

The half-orc looked at Dorian, eyes wide.

Seeing how impressed the other first year seemed, Dorian grinned. Caleb grinned back, revealing oversized incisors, and a chill ran up Dorian’s spine.

The boy turned away, gazing out the room’s only window, which overlooked the grounds beyond the academy near the Tower of Change Magic. “Or my so-called mentor,” he added, his voice bitter. “I know she’d turn me in just to see me get in trouble.”

“Who do you have?”

“Some stuck up elf girl,” Dorian said.

“Not Helene?” Caleb asked.

“She’s the one,” Dorian replied. “Why? You know her?”

“We’ve had the … pleasure.” Caleb paused. “I met her today in the dining hall. First she accused me of spying on her and then she left in a huff, like she was too good to look at me.”

“She accused you of spying on her?” Dorian asked. “Why?”

Caleb shrugged. “How would I know? All I know is that she was acting awfully guilty.”

Dorian pointed a finger at his roommate, “like she’s hiding something?”

“Exactly,” Caleb agreed. “And the way she acts, it can’t be good, whatever it is.”

“That’s my mentor, all year long,” Dorian sighed. “Lucky me.”

Brooding over his bad luck at being assigned such a horrible mentor, Dorian glanced out the chamber’s window at the snow-covered grounds.

Just below him through the cut-glass panes, he saw Helene exit the academy proper and cross the small courtyard between the building and the Tower of Change Magic.

Dorian grinned. Maybe he wasn’t so unlucky after all.

He pushed past Caleb and reached into Maverick’s box.

Two Stench Stones filled his hands as if they had been built just for his grip. He rushed back to the window.

Using one hand he pulled the window open. He was so excited he didn’t notice the burst of cold air as he stared down at Helene.

His arm snapped out, hurtling the Stench Stone through the open window.

The first one was still in flight as he threw the second one. Both stones struck neatly onto the ground, directly between Helene’s feet.

His father had taught him how to throw stones, to use them to drive starlings from the castle’s berry patches. Dorian had learned how to use rocks the way a warrior lost in the woods would use them, that is, how to throw rocks to survive.

If he’d wanted to hit the elf girl he could have. Truth be told, he was far more confident with throwing rocks than he’d ever been with wielding a wand because rock throwing was something he’d done to make his father proud.

But he wasn’t throwing to survive, and though he was throwing in anger he wasn’t throwing to hurt, only to humiliate.

It was only after he’d released the second Stench Stone that he bothered to look at why his mentor had paused beneath his window.

He groaned out loud.

The Stench Stones exploded and sprayed their disgusting charges like mist from a skunk, enveloping not only Helene but the stern, uncompromising Professor Fife as well.

“Oh my,” Caleb murmured from behind him. “That was most unfortunate.”

R
eeking of the Stench Stones, Professor Fife marched Dorian to the headmaster’s office. Dorian had to force himself to keep from gagging.

As Fife hauled him from his room, he saw Helene on her way to the health room, and the look she gave was so venomous he’d been elated—until he saw Fife giving him exactly the same look.

The professor knocked on Lowadar’s door, which immediately opened. “Stay here,” she said to him.

Dorian stood in the hallway, feelings of dread growing with each passing moment. Finally Professor Fife walked back out the entrance.

He caught a whiff of the Stench Stone odor all over again and quickly avoided the woman’s eyes. She stopped directly in front of him and waited patiently for him to lift his head.

“The headmaster will see you now,” Fife said.

Her voice did not change at all, but somehow the
woman managed to convey such furious disgust that he desperately wanted to disappear.

“It was a great privilege to meet the son of Serissa Ravensmith,” Fife continued. “When you return to your room you will find I’ve left you some additional study material. It would greatly behoove you, young man, to have it finished by the morning.”

She turned and walked toward the academy health room with slow, stately dignity, taking the horrible stench with her.

Dorian looked at the open door. There was only silence from the room beyond.

The boy swallowed, recalling the time he had thrown a javelin through the king’s window. He’d finally topped that one.

Sighing heavily, Dorian walked into Lowadar’s office.

“Close the door,” the headmaster ordered.

The wizard didn’t sound angry, Dorian realized, but neither had Fife, and frankly, her words had chilled him to his core.

He sat in the chair positioned to the front of the great desk, studiously avoiding looking at the headmaster. The archmage’s familiar was lying comfortably in an open kennel. The miniature dragon ignored him, sleepily lounging between two hot braziers.

“I hope this isn’t a harbinger of your stay here. That would be … most distressing,” Lowadar finished.

“No, sir.”

Lowadar rose from behind his desk.

“Danger is a funny thing, Dorian. The stress of it plays on different people in different ways.” Lowadar paused and turned sideways, regarding the boy out of the corner of his eye from beneath one shaggy eyebrow. “I imagine it was quite frightening facing those dire wolves, seeing your mother in danger.”

Dorian swallowed.

He couldn’t answer. His throat was too thick.

He remembered the barking and snapping of the animals, the stink of their matted fur, and the curve of their long fangs.

Frightened? He had been terrified.

“Yes, sir,” he managed to get out.

Lowadar turned quickly, as fast as any dire wolf, and when he locked eyes with Dorian, he pinned him in the seat as surely as if he had cast a spell on the boy.

His entire manner had changed.

“That’s
right
you were afraid. And that’s the only reason I’m not sending you home, Dorian, famous mother or not. You end up with contraband within minutes of arriving at this facility and then proceed to throw it at my professor?

“I can only blame such reckless stupidity on the stress of your encounter this morning.” Lowadar’s voice was quiet, but at the same time it was like beating drums or the crack of a whip. It was a voice used to enunciating power.

“It is no secret,” Lowadar said, voice grave, “that I questioned your ability to be here. My students generally desire to be at Aldwyns, boy. The magic burns so fiercely within them it is like a fire. But you’ve fought your gift every step of the way and that makes me highly doubt that a place as strenuous and demanding as the academy is the place for you.”

The memory of his mother arguing with the headmaster for him to stay at Aldwyns was vivid in Dorian’s mind. Lowadar didn’t believe him good enough to be here, and so far Dorian had done nothing but prove him right.

His cheeks burned at the realization. It was one thing not to want to do something, it was quite another to have so many people think you incapable of doing it in the first place.

Dorian hung his head. “It’s not my fault.” He fought tears of frustration back, but only almost. “I did it because Helene drives me
crazy
!”

Lowadar nodded.

“Of course she does,” the wizard said quietly and sat down again. “Helene is a singular individual in many, many ways. And the image she presents to the world is not the only facet of her diamond.

“But soon you will be learning spells of such staggering potency that other people will fear you.” Lowadar regarded the boy, but now his gaze was less aggressive. “Don’t you think you should learn how not to let a fellow student drive you crazy before you learn how to cast a ball of fire?”

“I’m going to be a
wizard,”
Dorian said spontaneously. “Like my mother.…”

He felt stunned by the obvious realization. He wouldn’t be here now if that weren’t true. One didn’t enter Aldwyns by accident.

But, somehow, it felt like the first time he’d understood what such a thing could mean.

“Yes,” Lowadar said, voice grave. “You are going to be a wizard. Now, don’t you think you should start acting like one?”

The headmaster looked at his familiar, and the dragon cooed back at him. To the boy it seemed like an affirmation, and with sudden intuition Dorian realized how close the bond between wizard and familiar must be.

It must be like never being alone, he thought.

Dorian felt himself smiling. “Your familiar, sir,” he asked. “Will it always be that size or will it grow into a full-sized dragon?”

Lowadar arched an eyebrow toward his golden-hued familiar. “Bigby? He’ll grow,” the headmaster acknowledged. “Though by the time he really gains his size we’ll have parted ways. So it was with Old Whiskers, and so it will be with Bigby.”

Dorian watched the sleek dragon wyrmling stretch comfortably on its perch as it drew leathery lips back from sharp white teeth.

Lowadar drew out a clay pipe and packed the bowl.
Smilingly slyly he lit the dark tobacco with the tip of his wand, and Dorian felt the urge to laugh even more.

“Dragons and wizards are inexorably bound, Dorian,” Lowadar said between draughts to fire the pipe. “As allies, as foes, as counsel, one to the other. There has, for example, always been a dragon at Aldwyns.”

“Since Des-whatever name,” Dorian answered, wanting to show that he’d been paying attention.

“Oh, even before that.” Lowadar pointed the stem of his pipe at the curious boy. “This plateau was the home of dragons before the first foundation stone of the academy was ever laid. In fact there are those who declare, and I myself am in no position to contradict them, that Aldwyns was built on the bones of dragons.”

“Like Bigby?” Dorian asked, amazed.

He tried to imagine the golden-hued familiar dying of old age and reduced to bones, and found he simply could not. It was like imagining an end to the universe—or feeling comfortable around eladrin like Maverick.

“Hmm?” Lowadar seemed surprised by the question. “Like Bigby? Oh no, my dear boy. I’m afraid the dread Insidian was nothing like our own Bigby—but that is a tale for another day.” He regarded Dorian. “I’m afraid Professor Fife was quite adamant about you getting started on your extra studies.”

H
elene kicked open her door and rushed into the room, throwing her cloak on her bed.

Her face was red, and despite the counterspells worked on her in the health room, she could still smell the lingering odor of those Stench Stones.

“That fool!” she snapped. “Do you know what that insufferable human did, Mordenkainen? He will rue the day he …” Her voice trailed off. “Mordenkainen?”

The window to her room lay in broken shards on her desk. A pile of snow had formed on the desk and the temperature in the room was bone numbingly cold.

She glanced around the room desperately.

She couldn’t see the falcon and, more importantly, she couldn’t feel him anywhere. Her face paled and she felt like she couldn’t breathe for a moment.

The bird often took to the sky when the weather allowed, but she could always feel the raw enjoyment of the falcon’s intense pleasure radiating through their bond.