Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) (50 page)

Then that niggling voice managed to get a few
words through the fog of his thoughts, something to the effect that he didn’t
want to sell Murn. Then another voice wanted to know who Denly was.

“Who’s Denly?”

“Hm? Don’t you know him? He’s at the law wing. Two
years ahead of us. He often sits with me.”

“Carriage for his birthday? Velvet seats?”

“My, my, Aedan. You do have something of a memory.
But there’s no need for that look. You’ve nothing to worry about. He’s only a
friend.”

It was indirect and only just implied, but it was
there. She was suggesting, perhaps even inviting Aedan to be more than just a
friend. He gulped. Gosh she was beautiful!

“So I’ll get him to settle a price with you then.
I’ve no interest in such matters. Thinking up a name is where my energy will
go.”

The words were taking time to sink in, but slowly Aedan
was digesting her meaning. “I … I …”

“Yes Aedan?”

“I don’t really want to sell him.”

“What?” Her voice sounded almost sharp.

“Murn was a gift to me from Osric. I’ve got no
right to sell him.”

“Oh, don’t be so starchy. He won’t mind. You’ll
see.”

“It would be wrong, Ilona. I can’t.”

“You didn’t have a problem with wrong before when
you skipped classes to walk me through town.” Her tone had now definitely
changed.

Aedan stared. The soft edges of this vision beside
him were settling into some hard lines.

“Why can’t he buy you another horse?” Aedan tried
in a placating voice. “There are lots of others to choose from.”

Stormy shapes were gathering over those delicate
brows.

“Fine!” she snapped. “Be like that!” She turned to
leave.

Aedan was stunned by the quick anger in her eyes,
but there was more to come. She stopped and spun around. The next words struck
like hailstones.

“Do you know what it cost me,” she yelled, “to be
seen with you? You think people don’t hear your ridiculous accent or see your
scar? After all I’ve given up, after all the time we spent together I thought
you would be more of a friend than this!”

Aedan was too shocked to realise he had thought
the same. She whirled and strode away, leaving him dumbstruck. A bit of coldness
was one thing, but he had never foreseen hostility, or what now felt like
treachery, and it had sunk into the flesh of his bared heart.

She hated him, and he was beginning to return the
feeling.

He spent the next hour throwing and breaking
anything that wouldn’t get him into too much trouble. Liru spied him from a
distance and came over. After getting the story from him, she offered, with a
deadpan face, to cut Ilona’s hair off and turn it into a fly swatter.

“Stupid, manipulating brat,” she said. “I pity the
fool who marries her.”

“I thought she liked me. We had such nice times
together. You should have seen the way she looked at me.”

“And you should see the way that she looks at all
the other boys stumbling around her. She is a spider, Aedan. One web catches
many. Have you not noticed? She wants you all to belong to her, but she will
never belong to any of you. The sooner you get away the better.”

“Do you think I’ll ever find anyone who actually
wants me, scars and all?”

“Probably not.”

Aedan looked up, taken aback, just as she landed a
solid punch on his shoulder.

“Your scar is settling well now,” she said, “and
the longer hair, it mostly covers the damage. In time you will find her, the
right one. You will see. But we have a proverb that, in your language, will say,
‘a man too soon is a man deprived’. It sounds blunt in Thirnish. It rhymes in
Mardrae. It is the last line of a poem telling us how we must enjoy our youth,
not wish to escape it early. Let her go, Aedan. You have much time, and better
things to spend it on while you are young.”

Aedan smiled. “You know,” he said, “you can be rather
wise sometimes.”

“Meaning that at other times I am a fool?”

He glanced at her. He was faster, surely. It was
time to find out. “Yes,” he said, and ran, darting around trees, between idling
students who yelled for him to grow up, and twice over tables, all with his
nimble pursuer streaking after him. The chase ended at the entrance to the
marshals’ wing where Aedan darted in and Liru could pursue no further.

Given a few more days of reflection, Aedan allowed himself to
recognise that what Peashot and Liru had said of Ilona was probably true. When Ilona
tried another angle on Murn, most of the mist had cleared from his vision. Ilona’s
fiery eruption cleared the rest.

Much as Aedan pitied her for her difficult
childhood, he had to disagree with her mother’s assessment. That tender heart
was well provided with tools and armour, and it had no qualms about using them
to its own advantage.

Eventually Ilona found another horse and the anger
left her. She became friendly with Aedan again, smiling and charming him with
lingering glances as if nothing had happened. But Aedan’s swimmy eyes had been
opened like those of the pup that yawns and settles down for the first and last
time on an ant nest.

He had thought it impossible that beneath an
appearance so lovely there could be anything disagreeable. It was a lesson that
would not soon be forgotten. Peashot had been right. His blindness had been in exact
proportion to her looks.

Stepping back from the hazy sentimental marshes,
he had intended to straighten his thoughts out by climbing deep into his
studies, but what really did the job was far better. If Liru could have
foreseen what her advice would inspire, she might never have uttered it.

The first of them began like this. One of the boys
would ask the master to come to his desk and explain something on a page. As soon
as the master’s back was turned to a portion of the class, a plum-sized lead
weight would be tossed silently from one boy to another across the room. They
never tried it with Wildemar – nothing escaped his notice, and he was far too
edgy, apt to swing around at any instant – but the other masters were
considered fair game. The apprentices had been engaged with this for a week
when Skeet happened to spin around just as Cayde lobbed the weight across to
Lorrimer.

“You!” Skeet bellowed.

When uttered with just the right tone, this is the
universal name for any boy. Accordingly, all heads snapped towards the angry
master. Including Lorrimer’s. The weight took him just above the ear with a
soft thunk and laid him out flat.

Though it provided some amusement, it was too tame
for Aedan. He hatched another idea from their exercises in balance and stealth.
For this particular challenge, Rodwell was chosen, as he was given to lengthy
explanations while drawing out complex political pyramids and relational
tensions, and during these explanations he would not turn from the chalkboard
until he was done.

Aedan asked him for more background on a particularly
complex issue – limited autonomy of remotely governed cities under
circumstances that could recommend breaching those limits, a situation that Castath
and its prince could soon face. Rodwell was delighted by the breadth of the
question. He would have done better to be suspicious, especially considering Aedan’s
generally muted interest in the subject. Rodwell turned to the board with gusty
purpose, drawing and pointing to various diagrams of governance structures while
unloading in his shrill, excited tones.

Behind him, silent as ghosts, the boys rose from
their seats which had already been pushed back for the purpose, drifted down
the class, and filed out the door. Twenty pairs of eyes appeared over the outer
windows just in time to see Rodwell turn around with a concluding flourish of his
finger.

He stood, finger raised. He looked, blinked,
looked again and glanced around as if to assure himself he was in the right
place. When he began stumping down the room and bending his portly frame to search
under the desks, it was too much for the boys who could hold the snorts and
squeals back no longer. Not even the liberal caning could entirely silence them.

During the year, a junior master by the name of Braddoc
had begun taking some of the history classes. This strange young man made it
his prime object to overcome an all-too-obvious nervousness by being impressive
and intimidating. Whenever a boy asked a question, he would stride up to the
desk and lean his hands on it while he answered, making the boy look up at a
steep angle. If anyone asked a question that struck him as foolish he would
rush over, slam his fist on a page, and bark something like, “Open your ears
and let the information in the first time!”

Peashot managed to get some iron shavings from the
floor of the smithy and hid them in his book. Then he paid attention during the
class until he could put together a question that would be sure to induce
wrath.

It worked.

Braddoc flew up to him, slammed his fist on the thin
pages covering the razor sharp iron shavings and, with a shriek of pain, swore
like no master had ever done within the halls of learning. Peashot might have
got away with lesser punishment had he not asked if that was Sulese and could Master
Braddoc please spell it out for him because he needed to learn some more words.

Aedan’s natural restlessness was finding some outlet
in the pranks and schemes. But he still pined for the forests and overgrown
hills of the Mistyvales and the many animals that had been as neighbours. A
short walk had always put him among deer, wild hogs and foxes.

In Castath he found mostly rats.

So when he discovered a mildly poisonous grass snake
trying to escape by climbing the corner between two walls, he caught and bagged
it, intending to play with it later. The medical class took forever and Mistress
Gilda put him on display again to demonstrate how scars continue to heal over
years. From where she was exhibiting him, he glimpsed the lithe green shape pour
out from a corner of his bag and slide into the assortment of models, skeletons
and instruments. For an instant he worried, remembering how she had last
expressed her feelings on serpents. But the mortification she was once again
causing him quickly reversed that feeling, and he saw something beautiful,
something poetically complete in the circumstance.

The loss of the snake was soon eased when he found
a giant goblin spider. It was a hairy monster of a thing nearly as big as a
dinner plate. It looked capable of preying on small dogs. He managed to catch
it by tossing his shirt and knocking it to the ground where Peashot dropped a water
pail on top. They kept it in their dorm, named it Killer, and fed it bugs and
worms, taking the lid off only to display it to awed visitors.

Then one morning they woke up and the lid was on
the ground and the pail empty.

They searched everywhere – under pillows, between
sheets, inside shoes, though it would have more than filled a shoe – always expecting
a hairy predator to leap out at them. The argument about who forgot to replace
the lid lasted all day. For the next week they slept fitfully, jolting awake in
the darkness to frantically brush off the memory of an eight-legged nightmare
crawling under a shirt or chewing on an ear.

The distractions had shown Aedan that something was missing.
Nothing in the predictable routine was meeting his appetite for adventure – his
love of discovering things while letting his imagination lead. While focussing
on his studies, he had put his nightly explorations of the academy on hold. It
was time to take them up again. The place was full of secrets. Forbidden
corridors led to rooms that simply had to be investigated. The only place he
dared not venture was the barred passage at the bottom of the collapsing
stairs. He did not question Dun’s warning about prison.

On these nightly forays, Hadley and Peashot were
the only ones who agreed, on occasion, to accompany him. The others were kept
in their beds by the fear of Dun’s cane or of the academy ghosts that were well
known to drift down the dark hallways and attack any wandering student. Of
course, it was always the same students who saw them and who gained considerable
popularity by speaking of these harrowing encounters.

One night, after Lorrimer had made a series of
spooked objections, Aedan wanted to know what it was about bed sheets that
would keep anyone safe, and if Lorrimer was so well protected by them, why not
wrap himself up and come along. Then all the other ghosts might see this new
giant apparition and float away screaming. Lorrimer told him to shut up and go
to sleep, saying those who looked for trouble always found it. The second part
sounded acceptable to Aedan and he slipped out, Peashot in tow.

“You scared?” whispered Peashot.

“Nope.”

“Oh. Uh, me neither.” Peashot kept close, twice
stepping on Aedan’s heels as they padded down the dark corridor. He began
whispering again. “All those ghost stories are such nonsense. Don’t know who
would believe them. I completely don’t. Not even for a moment. Never even –
Wait!” He grabbed Aedan’s arm. “What was that sound?”

“Don’t know. Can’t hear anything over your
constant talking.”

“Oh. Sorry. Just letting off steam. I get really
irritated with all those made up stories. None of them true. All made up … All
of them …”

For all his reckless – even fearless –
trouble-hunting, Peashot, like Lorrimer, was hopelessly given over to
superstition.

Tonight was the night for Aedan’s most defiant
adventure so far. There was a sign on the outer wall of the main buildings that
forbade climbing. It was as good as an invitation. The fangs of terrifying
gargoyles would provide excellent grips, and the shoulders and noble heads of
imposing statues seemed to have been made for a climber’s boots.

“You know we’ll be in the rat cells if they catch
us?” Peashot whispered.

“No different to the time we slipped into the
seniors’ museum.”

“Yes it is. At least there we could hide. How are
we going to hide on these walls?”

“You tucking tail?”

“You’re not the one with three charges and a final
warning. One sniff of trouble and –”

“Shhh!”

They slipped off the open corridor, hurried over
the lawn and crouched behind a large green soapstone carving of Olemris – a
robed man missing most of his hair and part of his nose, hand outstretched,
delivering a forceful lecture to the geraniums. The boys quieted their
breathing. A lone student tottered along behind the colonnade, leaning forward
as if the books under his arm had transferred their weight to his head.

“Probably fell asleep in one of the libraries,”
said Aedan.

“At least he knows how to get the best use from
them.”

They waited until the grounds were deserted, then Aedan
led the way to a tall arch. He had spent days studying the possibilities. The
dean’s alcove provided the most interesting challenge. It was a deeply featured
arching frame that led up to the knobbly face of the second floor.

After wiping his hands on his trousers, Aedan
placed his fingers in one of several long vertical grooves, leaned back against
his arms and worked his feet up the opposing surface of the groove, so that
arms pulled while legs pushed, creating a kind of reverse clamping effect. By
shifting one hand and one foot at a time, he worked his way up the pillar of
the alcove until he reached the first gargoyle. He was puffing hard when he
clutched at a feature, which turned out to be a wart-encrusted nose, and pulled
himself up to a small ledge where he could rest.

Peashot took a while longer to scale the pillar. When
he reached for the gargoyle there was something of desperation in the way he
snatched.

The climbing from then on was easier, but the
height made up for that.

When they reached the fourth floor they pulled
themselves over a railing and onto a little balcony where they sat puffing and
grinning at the view – in the light of a half-moon the spectacle was enchanting.

“I’ve always wanted to know what’s in here,” Aedan
said, turning around and pressing his forehead against a glass pane. “These
balcony doors are bigger than the museum’s.”

“Did you bring a candle?”

“Candle, flint, steel, char cloth, all of it. But
we’ll have to be careful to hood the flame. The guards would see it from the
far end of the campus.”

“I’ll hood. You light.”

The plan was not the best they had ever made. The
candle produced a lot more light than Peashot was able to hood, even before he
got distracted by the interior of the room and burned his thumb. With a muffled
exclamation of pain, he pulled his hands away revealing a bright flame – to a
guard who had been puzzling over the dull glow.

“Thieves!” the voice rang out from far beneath.

“Don’t worry, it will take them ages to reach us,”
said Aedan. “They will have to climb four storeys worth of stairs –”

“Shoot!” the guard yelled.

Even the dim candlelight was enough for the boys
to see each other’s faces pale. The balcony door turned out to be less solid
than it had appeared. They kicked it open and dived inside, arrows plugging
into the doorframe and wooden ceiling boards. The candle dropped but was not
extinguished. Aedan picked it up, looked around, and groaned. It was the
biggest, most important-looking office he had ever found, which meant more
trouble than he had yet managed to harvest. And were those exam papers?

He had seen enough. The inner door was wooden but
felt like iron. It took several swings with a marble bust to break the lock. As
stone and wood sprinkled the floor, Aedan understood that there would be no
saving them if they were caught. A raucous chatter of heavy boots was growing, echoing
up a nearby stairwell.

The boys heaved the door open and fled.

Fit and balanced from years of training, they
darted at a giddy speed over the polished floors from one long corridor to the
next, skidding around corners and vaulting down stairwells. They ran until
their breathing was ragged. The darkness was only slightly relieved by moonlight
spilling in through the windows. It made navigation tricky, but they were
fairly certain that they were now on the opposite side of the academy, though
exactly what this section was, they weren’t sure. Not even Aedan had been here.

“It might be best if we split up on the way back,”
he said. “They will be looking for two.”

Peashot agreed.

It was in the subsequent maze of passages that Aedan’s
sense of direction betrayed him. When he got out into the open, the moon had
vanished behind cloud. He found what seemed to be the outside of his dorm. The
wall looked right, the window looked right, and though he didn’t remember the entry
being such a squeeze, he climbed through and dropped to the boards inside.
There was a light burning, which was strange. Peashot was probably telling the
story.