Arkat Alumnus

3: Errands and Consequences

Early Morning Call - Staves - Correspondence - Secrets And Lies - Suspicions - Consequences
Directions - Appointment At Dawn - Decisions, Decisions - Drowning, Not Waving - Medic!
Finding The Fountain - The Narrow Way - Hunting - The Boneyard - The Knight of Flowers
Singing In The Cemetery - The Knight's Tomb - A Sharp exit - The Door - Left Behind
The Tower - Syran's Greatest Cartographer - Tea and Cake - A Proposal - In The Pews
Letter Home - Not So Hevilled - Wave Research - At The Library - The Great Book Hunt
Helping Berem - Seeking A Pattern - Beyond The Veil - Chasing Vey
Unravelling The Gordian Library - Found! - Cracking The Code - The Key - Revelation

~oOo~

The next morning Eren slips down to the kitchens while the sky dome is only promising the return of the sun. As usual a couple of the older masters are there before her, gumming soft white loaves that are fresh from the oven.

"You again!" snaps Bunta the Baker. No you can't have the fresh loaves, those are for the masters. And I'm not opening the porridge pot yet, it'll dry up."

"Oh, well, are there any leftovers from last night still in the cold well?"

Bunta gives her a knowing look. "Ha, after the leftovers of the feast, are you? Didn't you see the visiting masters all leave with their napkins full? If you students didn't devour it all like a flood of mice, the masters made sure to clean up the rest so they could save on their marketing."

"There is not even any of that wonderful Eel pie left?" In truth the eel pie had not been Eren's favorite, but she'd heard that Bunta proudly baked it for every feast. "I'd never had anything like it before."

One of the masters takes a loud sip of posset through his dangling mustache, and grouches "Give over Bunta, the girl did keep the disputation prize here. She's at least earned a good breakfast."

"That was you?" wonders Bunta "I'd heard an Imperial girl won it, but I thought it must have been Aldeth. Still, I guess that is worth some eel pie. Not that it looks like you've missed too many breakfasts!" This last said with no apparent irony, although Bunta fills up considerably more of the kitchen than does Eren.

~~

Kiki's thing's to do list:

~~

Later, feeling energized by two meals full of flesh, Eren shoves her way through the early morning press in the streets, eventually making it to Three Goose court in the heart of Old Town. Her careful knocking gives way to loud banging as the doors stubbornly refuse to open. Finally the stick-like landlady comes out and snaps "If you have come to moon over Hefteron you're half a gather too late. They're off on some "grand tour."

"What, how, I mean, Hefteron is my FATHER, how dare you say that, he doesn't let women come and moon over him!" To the landladies shrug she responds, sounding shrill even to herself, He's an honorable man and in love with my mother! And what do you mean gone on a grand tour, they would have told me!"

The landlady peers at her, then says "Oh, you are the other daughter. I forgot about you. Ha! I'd think you'd have enough respect to keep track of your own family. What lad has kept you so busy you missed saying good-bye, heh?"

Before Eren can react to this latest outrage, the landlady scuttles off, apparently bored of the discussion.

By the time Eren has checked in at the church of the scripture and received confirmation that indeed her family has gone, she is tired, frustrated, close to tears, and suddenly ravenously hungry. Looking at the sun she doesn't think that the refectory will be serving lunch yet, and until classes start up it will be thin pickings there at best. Then she has an idea that perks her up.

~~

As the sun approaches its zenith, Eren hesitantly approaches the door of the school of the Sacred Image. Unlike the imposing but plain portal of Imperial College, this door is more modest, but intensely decorated. Eren feels that there are layers upon layers of meaning that she is missing, but resists the temptation to spend the day trying to understand them. Instead she shifts her awkward load of staff and slightly burned bread--all that she could afford--and raps at the door.

A few minutes later she leaps away from her inspection of a very realistically portrayed centaur when Kiki comes pattering into the waiting area. Trying not to blush, Eren says "My mind is still whirling too much to study. I was wondering if you do staves? I'm looking to do something physical.....oh, and I brought some bread, so we could always go somewhere and eat that and practice, if you do staves, I mean, I should have found out first if you do, but then, ummm, do you?"

Kiki wipes the wet paint off her hands and cocks her head to the side contemplating the matter.

"Well mum insisted I learn for my own protection and I suppose I could do with some more practice. OK we can, though with your reach I might not be much of an opponent. If you can wait I will be five minutes."

With that Kiki disappears back to her room leaving Eren to sit in the waiting area. Sure enough, five minuets later Kiki appears back hands washed and staff in hand and bag over her shoulder. Kiki's staff looks old but cared for, like most of her stuff.

When they reach the grass square they find that it is quite this close to lunch. Kiki insists that they warm up first.

"Lot of injuries happen because folk are impatient and skip it," she says.

After the warm up, she puts her staff behind her back and, without letting go, brings it through her legs and round to the front.

"Ok are you ready now?" she asks, sounding a little bit apprehensive as she is a lot out of her weight/height class facing off against Eren.

As it turns out, Kiki's concerns were unfounded. Eren learned her staves from actors, and she has never really learned to carry through her strikes with any power behind them. Indeed she seems to be trying to use a quick, tricky style that is rather at odds with actual abilities.

On the other hand, she is able to more or less show Kiki how a few moves are done on stage, although Eren does not have the deft touch needed to make stage fighting look credible.

Eren is rather prone to taking breaks from the fighting to malign Oren. However the second time that Kiki reminds her that they are supposed to be practicing staves she seems to shake off thoughts of the rivalry and to finally concentrate on what they are doing.

When they are both ready to wrap it up, Eren asks: "Would you like to do this again sometime? It was nice to practice with someone who won't laugh when I make a mistake and stuff like that."

"And I get to practice with someone who is more interested in learning than knocking me for a six. So yes that would be nice. Now, you did mention lunch?"

With that, the two head off to eat.

~oOo~

Welspun writes a letter to his friend Filmore:

~~

Filmore replies:

~oOo~

"First of all," Jayron begins. "Let me congratulate you on your performance in the Disputation."

Exalian had already been thinking that his master seems a little uneasy and this rather formal pronouncement only reinforces that impression. He'd received a note from the adept that morning, asking him to come to Jayron's office after lunch. They don't have a regular tutorial scheduled, so Exalian know that this must be about the incident with Carrick at the Disputation.

Jayron coughs and clears his throat. "Ahhhhh... Well now. I know that you must have overheard at least some of my conversation with Adept Carrick. Don't worry - I'm not going to ask you how much. Suffice it to say that I have been engaged in a... personal project that he finds... difficult. That is to say, um... dangerous."

He gives Exalian an appraising look. "I believe that I can trust you to keep my confidences, Exalian. I also know that Carrick wasn't far from the truth when he suggested that your curiosity might have been at least partly responsible for you overhearing our conversation. Unlike him, I regard that inquisitive instinct as a strength, but he was right to warn you of its dangers."

The adept strokes his chin thoughtfully. "Here is my suggestion. I have come to realise that certain aspect of my... project will be difficult, not to say impossible, without an assistant. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't dream of asking an apprentice to assist with something of this nature, but I am reluctant to involve my colleagues and can no longer rely on my... other associates. I also think that you are... different to my other apprentices."

"So I ask you this - and I mean 'ask', mark, not 'command'. Will you assist me with this project? I realise that I have told you precious little about the nature of the enterprise as yet - and in truth I would prefer to tell you nothing at all - but if you do agree to help me and show me that you can be trusted, then I promise you that you will learn more, more than enough to satisfy that dangerously inquisitive mind of yours..."

He says these last few words with a hint of amusement, but then his face becomes serious again.

"Well, lad? What do you say?"

Exalian, not wanting to stumble over himself to accept, pauses a moment to look contemplative. He realizes that Jayron is manipulating him by pushing his prideful and curious buttons. But he doesn't care. His master is proving that Exalian is an exception, superior. And what secrets are there to be discovered?

Before he explodes, he replies, "I would be honored to help, Master."

He then waits patiently, wondering how long it will be before he is enlightened. He also thinks about whether or not to consult with his sponsor or some Adept like Asalat on this. But time for that later.

Jayron smiles, looking almost relieved.

"I'm glad to hear that," he says. "And I hope that you won't change your mind when you find out more. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to keep you in the dark for a little while longer, though, which is bound to be frustrating. Don't take this the wrong way, lad, but I need to be sure that I can trust you before I tell you any more. And more importantly, we need to throw my friend Carrick off your scent. So, here's what I'd like you to do..."

Jayron's plan is to establish a plausible cover story for Exalian, a 'secret' that Carrick can be allowed to discover, which will allay his suspicions about Exalian helping his master with the mysterious project. Fortunately, Jayron has just the thing...

"Now, I'm sure that you've already learnt one or two of the so-called 'hexes' and 'magicks' that apprentices teach each other. Don't worry, I'm not about to scold you. I was an apprentice once too, remember, and I remember grubbing round for every scrap of magic I could lay my hands on. I must admit that I'm not familiar with the hex that you used on Oren, but I have a fairly shrewd idea what he used to make your nose start bleeding like that..."

"It occurs to me that you might like an opportunity to learn some other, less well-known magicks. I don't know if you bear Oren a grudge - although your expression is now suggesting me that you do! - but I'm sure that you can think of some worthy 'cause' for these."

He tells Exalian, with a nostalgic twinkle in his eye, about a certain book in the Library. This innocuous tome, to all appearances a quite spectacularly dull work on statistical analysis techniques, contains a number of encoded sections that describe the ingredients and rituals for creating various petty magic powders and potions.

"I'll leave you to figure out the cipher," Jayron adds, with a grin. "It wouldn't do to neglect your education, now, would it? And you don't have to keep this entirely to yourself - after all, we do want Carrick to get wind of your discovery, don't we? And when he does discover what you've been dabbling with, he'll know who put you onto them. He and I discovered them when we were students, you see..."

~oOo~

After a welcome lunch, Eren returns to the College, tired but happy after her staves practice with Kiki, only to find that her cell is in complete disarray. She'd occasionally found the odd thing moved or messed up in the past, such as the time she'd found ink spilt over her best robe, but there had always been the possibility that she'd simply been careless. This time, however, there is no room for doubt: someone has clearly been into her room and turned it upside-down.

Hearing the sound of whistling in the hall, she pokes her head back out and sees a familiar figure strolling nonchalantly towards her: Veymanad... Veymadanara... Vey. He flashes his brilliant smile and gives her a cheery wave.

"Hullo there, Eren," he says. "How does it feel to be an all-conquering champion and the hero of the hour?"

Already feeling the crash from contentment to anger and disillusionment, Eren is now assaulted by several new emotions: eagerness to relive yesterday's victory, delight at seeing a friendly face, worry that Vey could have something to do with all of this, and - most annoyingly - some unfamiliar sensation that seems to be urging her to giggle, of all things. The resultant confusion causes Eren to freeze briefly until she chivvies herself into motion with the thought of "Don't just stand there like a stupid ox!"

"Oh!" She manages to avoid saying "ummm", but unfortunately finds herself replacing it with a giggle that sounds more like a gargling frog to her ears (and why do her ears feel so hot all of a sudden?).

"It's about how you would expect, I guess. Bunta thought some other girl had won, staffs still hurt when they hit your shins, and I still can't afford almond loaves. But I know that I belong as an apprentice now, I guess, which makes all of that a little easier. And maybe I'm not quite as clumsy as I thought I was, because I certainly didn't cause this mess!"

At that last pronouncement she gestures into her room. Then she looks more carefully herself and sees one of her undershifts stretched broadly across the floor. Flushing brightly she throws herself across the doorway and babbles: "Well, you don't really want to see the mess. But someone trashed my room. I'd love to know who did it, and grind their face into a manure pile for about a week!"

With that pleasurable thought, she remembers that Vey was around when she was pushed on the steps at the disposition, and now again. She doesn't want to suspect him... but it would be illogical to acquit him just because he smiles at her.

Her thoughts scramble for a second as she comes up with a plan, then it all falls into place. "You know how some people are, I saw how that jack in the first round of the disputation never really addressed your disputation! He just sort of sneered it away. Don't you hate it when people do that?" Rushing before he can talk and distract her, she finishes "We have that sort here at Imperial too. You didn't see Oren or any of that crowd around here, did you?"

She tries to stay nonchalant, but she watches him closely to see if he looks like he is thinking or just answering automatically. If he thinks and then blames Oren, that would suggest he's trying to make some sort of trouble.

"Oren?" he says, frowning. "No, I haven't see him at all today. I expect he's off nursing his ears somewhere after the tongue-lashing that he got from his dad. Why, do you think perhaps he had something to do with this?"

Approaching her, he glances through the open door and whistles. "You weren't kidding, were you?" he comments. "Someone certainly seems to have turned this place upside down. What do you think they were looking for? Is anything missing?"

It's at this point that Eren remembers that she'd left her prize behind when she went to see Kiki. Heart pounding, she glances over at the pile of clothes in which she'd stashed the sphere and sees that they've been pulled out and scattered on the floor...

~oOo~

The Principal's office is stark and orderly, almost completely bare of personal effects. The books on the shelves seem to have been arranged (perhaps even selected) by height and thickness, their spines all neatly aligned to present an apparently uniform surface. Principal Harman is seated behind his desk, its vast expanse of fine-grained wood broken only by an inkwell, a letter opener and an immaculate blotter. Pavel is seated opposite him on a hard wooden chair.

"Able Cadet Pavel," the Principal begins. "Your sponsor, Adept Carrick, has asked to sit in on this meeting because he was every bit as disappointed as I was by your performance in the Imperial College Disputation. Quite apart from that nonsense with Pensimmon during your presentation, your failure to even participate in the final round was an act of such astonishing ill-discipline that I can't even begin to imagine what was going through your mind. You are one of our very best, Pavel. Captain of the Heron Hall swimming team. You were granted the signal honour of representing your school in a competition and you... you... you..."

He breaks off with an exasperated exclamation. Carrick, who has been sitting quietly in the corner of the room, takes this opportunity to interject.

"What were you thinking, boy?" he snaps. "No, don't bother to answer that: you weren't thinking at all, were you? I can't imagine what can have possessed the Ropemasters to..."

"Thank-you, Adept Carrick. I will handle this," the Principal tells him firmly. "I'm sure that Ropemaster Bojek was every bit as disappointed as we were. Well, Pavel? What do you have to say for yourself? Can you account for this lamentable behaviour?"

Pavel has been standing to attention throughout, staring blankly at the wall in front of him. "Sorry Sir, it won't happen again" is all he manages before the two masters' silence indicates that this is not enough.

"It was the accusation," he eventually manages to say, "I can see how Pensimmon misunderstood what I was doing, but I thought for a long time about what I was going to do for my disputation. I think I even forgot about the whole business of the other people's disputations. I mean, propositions and ummm... replies." The boy is now babbling rather, much as children are wont when trying to explain something difficult. Within the word salad he produces, though, it is deducible that he was sufficiently taken aback by the accusation that this rather scuppered the day for him, especially when he reveals that he was imagining the likely consequences of his father hearing of the episode. Any doubts as to the veracity of this particular fear are quickly dismissed by the panicked look in his eyes.

"I know that an officer who gives way to emotion is like a hull made of balsa wood," he says, doing the Prinicpal the faour of reciting one of his favourite sayings back at him. "And I had almost got everything sorted by saying that to myself a lot. But then that girl," here his blushes are evident. "She started talking about exactly what I was thinking about, and..."

"I'll take any punishment you like," he offers. "Just please... please don't let my father find out." This final plea is as heartfelt as anything Pavel has ever said and the two masters find themselves a little uncomfortable that the boy is opening up so much to them. He seems, indeed, to be in danger of collapsing, he is shaking so and white as a sheet.

As he waits for their final word, though, one of the hands held behind his back has two fingers crossed in quite a relaxed fashion, no white knuckles or anything.

The Principal seems to respond to this plea at first, obviously swayed by Pavel's uncharacteristic display of emotion. Then his expression hardens.

"I'm sure we don't need to involve your father at this stage," he begins, emphasising the last few words. "But don't think for a moment that this sort of behaviour will be tolerated in my school. I run a tight ship here and there's no room for loose barrels on my deck. Where emotion rules reason, chaos ensues. I don't propose to punish you further - you're already assigned to double latrine duty, yes? - but I shall ask Carrick here to keep a much closer eye on you..."

The other adept looks up at this and seems about to voice a protest, but the Principal raises his hand.

"No, no, I'll hear nothing more from you, Adept Carrick. Where the keel is sound, the ship runs true. Pavel is your responsibility and you must accept at least some of the blame for his behaviour."

"But surely his tutor..." Carrick begins.

"His tutor has her duty to perform and you have yours, sir! She is charged with his magical education, but you must attend to his discipline. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Principal," the adept responds, tautly. "Perfectly clear."

"Excellent. Then you are both dismissed. Good day."

As soon as they have left Principal Harman's office, Carrick rounds on Pavel and grabs him roughly by the collar, leaning close and speaking softly but urgently.

"If he seriously thinks I have the time or the inclination to babysit a waste of space like you," he tells the apprentice furiously. "Then he's sadly mistaken. You listen to me, boy. I took you on as a favour to Bojek, but I won't lose any sleep if they kick you out. If you just want to waste your time here, that's your business. I couldn't care less. But when the Principal makes it my business, I start to care."

He lets go of Pavel's collar and straightens up.

"Let me spell it out for you, boy. The next time I'm summoned to Harman's office with you, it had better be to congratulate you on your graduation. But if the Principal wants me to teach you a bit of discipline, then discipline you shall have. Meet me at Savaran Wharf tomorrow, at dawn. You know where that is? Good. Now get out of my sight and try to stay out of trouble 'til then."

"Yes sir", Pavel smiles sweetly at the man. "Savaran Warf. Tomorrow. Dawn."

Pavel gives Carrick a big stage wink then turns and departs before he can respond.

~oOo~

Although Kiki had sat with with Jandrell in numerous lessons prior to the Disputation, neither girl had managed to strike up a proper conversation with the other until the feast. The quiet, serious sculptress is still no great conversationalist, but in the weeks that follow she makes a point of sitting with the younger limner at meal times and is evidently delighted to have found a friend.

Kiki learns that her father is a clergyman, a liturgist of the Church of the Architect, serving a relatively small congregation in Eastgate. Unsurprisingly, Jandrell herself is very pious and admits to being more than a little disturbed by the prospect of taking lessons with the students of the other Schools.

"Daddy says that the Imperial College is full of sorcerers," she confides in a whisper. "I do hope that we shan't be expected to study the black arts while we are there."

"They have more than their share of black hearts and bullies, but I have never heard any thing about sorcery going on there," Kiki assures her.

She gently goes on to point out that the joint teaching experiment has been instituted by Father Emoliant, the College Liturgist, so it seems unlikely that sorcery will be on the curriculum. Jandrell seems a little heartened by this, but she's obviously still nervous.

"Perhaps they'll disqualify me anyway," she muses. "After all, I did come last in the Disputation. Not like you..."

"Your disputation did not deserve to come last," Kiki insists. "That was just bullying that stopped you doing better."

Kiki quickly sketches out a caricature of Jandrell's tormentor to cheer her up and they share a giggle over it.

The Master of Tutors had been delighted with Kiki's success. He also seems mercifully unaware of the incident with the squirrel - unless he is so pleased with her that he has decided to overlook it. Master Adhuc had summoned her to his office on the day after the Disputation and waxed lyrical about her achievement. He'd told her then that the experimental joint classes would be starting the following week and that he was now only too happy to let her take part.

"You've obviously put your past behind you, young lady," he said, "And not a moment too soon! We expect great things from you, Kiki..."

"Yes master" Kiki says automatically.

Good, she thinks. The sooner I graduate out of here the better. Still some of the other students in the Disputation had seemed OK. She would just have to avoid the others the best she could.

He hadn't mentioned who amongst the other students would be joining her, but Kiki thought that it would be strange to choose anyone other than Jandrell, Hal and Laramy now, after they'd endured so much during the Disputation. At least Jandrell had entered into the spirit of the competition, unlike that Oren boy from Imperial - or that Naval College boy, who hadn't even turned up for his last round! What a nerve, acting like the place revolves around him!

Kiki's mum had also been delighted to hear of her success, but she admonished her daughter to "mind your manners with them other schoolmasters" and "mind you don't get mixed up with that Galvosti boy from the village".

Kiki sits up at this, for mum that was the equivalent of harsh language. She was probably right, although the Galvosti boy had not seemed as openly nasty as others at the Disputation. Time would tell.

She had also included a small packet of herbs for Kiki to deliver to a "wizardy type", together with a rather cryptic set of instructions about how to find the gentleman in question. "He didn't give me a proper address," her mother explained in the letter. "So I couldn't just send it direct. Besides, you know what Hob's like..."

Hob is family friend from the village and a regular visitor to the city, who is happy to deliver letters and food parcels to Kiki, but wary of trying to find his way around the rest of Syran. "'Ti'n't no place for the likes o' me, Miss," he explains to Kiki. "I don't know 'ow you manage it, little slip of a thing like you."

Well, sitting on rooftops and starting to mapping the place had helped, Kiki thinks.

The instructions begin "From the fountain with the nine jets, follow the bells to the end, then turn left..."

OK, thinks Kiki as she memorises the directions, that leaves me time to get in a quick bit of painting first. Have to get Eren's expression just right. The thought of skiving off does not even come into her head. Plain hard work is one of the reasons Kiki is advanced for her years.

Satisfied at last, Kiki picks up the herbs and her broom. She finds that no-one looks twice a poor girl with a broom, who obviously has work to do. Besides what most folk forget is that a broom is just a staff with a head on it, if need be.

Kiki struggles to work out where this fountain might be found, however. Knowing she has run into her limitations as far as the layout of the city is concerned, she trots down to visit her new friend Eren to see if she can give her any directions to the starting point.

"Hi, Eren I hope you are not to busy err... redecorating or what ever."

Kiki's eyes go wide as she looks around the wrecked room, but she carries on in a rapid gush knowing that Eren will bring up the subject of the wrecked room if it is any of her business. Kiki knows that most people are not as tidy as she is...

"It was just I have a delivery to make and the directions are a bit odd. Would you have time to help?"

~oOo~

The Docks are shrouded in mist as Pavel, struggling to suppress his yawns, heads for his dawn appointment with Carrick. Even when illuminated by the first rays of sun, the mist gives the place an eerie feel, muffling the sounds of sailors and dockhands going about their business all around him. Pavel is fairly familiar with the place, but it still feels a bit like enemy territory; there's always been an implicit rivalry between the river folk of Portside and lake folk of The Docks.

The robed figure of his sponsor looms out of the mist as he approaches Savaran Wharf.

"Good morning!" Carrick greets him cheerfully. "And a very fine morning it is too. Since the Principal has seen fit to make your discipline my problem, we're going to do a little exercise that my tutor used to that end when *I* was an apprentice. Precisely why your tutor hasn't chosen to take care of this problem is her business, I suppose, but perhaps, when you've experienced a little of my teaching methods, you'll understand why I am not a tutor. And with any luck, you'll then conclude that discipline is actually your responsibility."

"First things first, though: let me introduce you to my assistant."

He executes a casual arcane gesture and Pavel sees for the first time the pool of water that has lain unnoticed at the adept's feet. Now it surges up to form a man-high column of swirling liquid. Interpreting Pavel's surprise for alarm, Carrick smiles with what looks suspiciously like satisfaction.

"Don't be afraid, now, boy. It won't hurt you unless I tell it to... and I wasn't planning to to do that just yet," he adds, arching one eyebrow. "Now, let's begin today's lesson. I'll keep it simple - wouldn't want to tax your brain too much at this hour. So, you go and stand over there," he says, pointing to a spot by the edge of the wharf. "Facing towards me. Then we'll get started."

Warily standing on the indicated spot, Pavel wonders what is coming next. He doesn't have long to speculate.

"Commence!" Carrick commands and the column of water abruptly forms into a stream, which flows rapidly towards Pavel bathing his legs and lower body in icy water. Gasping involuntarily, he immediately finds himself thrown off-balance by the onrushing water and is in danger of toppling backwards into the lake...

Indeed, after a moment's reflection and enough time to take a deep breath, this is exactly what he does, sinking like a stone at first, only to bob back up to the surface a few moments later. He tries to float there, limp and inert, but finds it difficult to hold his breath for long and ends up coughing and spluttering, which rather ruins the effect of his 'drowning'.

"Pathetic!" Carrick's voice observes from the dockside. "You look like a drowned rat, boy. You might at least have tried to stand up. Still, as you're in the water now, we might as well move our proceedings there. No point getting you all dried off only to soak you again, eh?"

Pavel hears the adept muttering an incantation, then the sound of footsteps which cut off abruptly. Anticipating a big splash, he instead hears an altogether more modest series of sounds, like something slapping the water, and opens his eyes to see Carrick walking towards him across the surface of the water.

"Now, let's try something else shall we? Since you seem intent on drowning yourself, perhaps we'd better make it easier for you to stay afloat..."

Carrick gestures and intones, his feet making strange wet sounds as he walks calmly around the floating student. After a few seconds, Pavel feels a strange sensation, as if he has suddenly become much lighter.

"Oh, you can still go ahead and drown yourself, if you like," the adept comments. "But you'll have to lie face down. Alternatively, we can proceed with your lesson. Which is it to be?"

This type of scornful comment is not new to Pavel. Ignoring a grown man who has power over him, who is intent on humiliating him, is familiar territory, for he spent a large part of his childhood doing exactly this. Blanking the man out is his way of surviving!

Lying face up, his eyes closed, in the icy water, he feels the needles of pain entering his calves, his buttocks, even beneath his shoulder blades. He focuses on the pain in the shoulders and remembers the beatings his father used to give him when he couldn't form his letters correctly. Never the backside, always the shoulders and head, as Pavel cowered, trying to find refuge under a table or in a corner.

Focussing on the needles in his shoulders, Pavel is conscious that he has felt much worse than this and endured. He knows that this man won't dole out the beating his father would, but nevertheless, he knows this man to be made of the same sort of material.

Having found his solace, he turns his face and opens his eyes to look at Carrick, a look of pure hatred.

The adept meets his gaze, arms folded across his chest as he walks slowly around the floating student on the surface of the water. At first he seems unconcerned by Pavel's lack of response.

"Don't even have the gumption to drown yourself, eh?" he comments. Then, a little later. "If I'd known that your problem was simply laziness, I might have tried a different approach."

As the apprentice continues to lie inert, however, the adept begins to lose his temper.

"Come on, boy! This is pointless!" he snaps. "What do you think this will achieve? Speak up, boy! Are you dumb as well as ignorant? What do you think the Principal will say when I tell him that you've been so insolent? do you think he'll blame me. Damn it!" he mutters under his breath. "He probably will blame me, too!"

He breaks off, glaring at Pavel and starting to go red in the face.

"Fine!" he spits. "Go ahead and drown!"

Making a gesture of negation, Carrick turns his back on Pavel and walks back to the wharf-side, his feet stamping on the surface of the water. Without the benefit of the adept's buoyancy magic, the apprentice's sodden clothes immediately begin to drag him under. Pavel feels the water's icy embrace, but he is feeling detached, almost peaceful. As he sinks deeper, he breathes out, watching the stream of silver bubbles rising to the surface.

After a while, the urge to breathe becomes overwhelming, but Pavel stubbornly refuses to give in. As his vision starts to dim, he finds himself wondering what Bojek will think of all this and who might miss him if he drowned. He feels his consciousness drifting away, as if he is dropping off to sleep.

A sudden explosion of sound from above him startles him awake again and into a blind panic. He's really drowning! He stays conscious just long enough to feel strong hands grasping under his armpits and hauling him up to the surface, then the darkness overwhelms him...

~oOo~

Eren was about to go look for the orb when Kiki arrived. She growls at the younger girl "Someone trashed my room!" then turns to look for the orb again, when Exalian approaches, asking "What is going on here?"

Eren wails "I don't even know! Someone tossed my room, and I don't even know if the orb is still here!" She desperately wants to get her personal stuff out of everyone's view, but she is also afraid that the orb could be caught in one of the pieces of clothing covering her small patch of floor. She also doesn't want anyone else in her room not that there is really space for two people to move around at once anyway.

She mutters to herself "Set priorities, do one thing at a time." This seems to help settle her down, and she backs out of her room, sweeping the others back with her. She latches her door, leans against it, then says "OK, Kiki, Exalian, what is you wanted? I'll deal with my room in a bit."

"Um... I'll clear off out of your way, anyway," Vey interjects. "Sorry your room got trashed, Eren. Let me know if I can give you a hand with it later," he adds, looking a little embarrassed.

Then with a cautious nod at Exalian and a quick smile at Kiki, he heads off down the corridor, leaving the others to talk to Eren.

Exalian looks to see if Kiki has something more pressing than he. But then he recalls Kiki's kindness to Exalian and he has a sudden urge to include her in the plot.

"Oren," Exalian says, and just let's the name hang out there for a moment. "I have a plan for him. I'd like you to help me out, given how he treated you. You deserve some revenge, too."

"If you want, Kiki," says Exalian uncharacteristically recalling her name, "you can come along too. You might get to learn a little magic, Imperial College style."

Kiki blushes. "Err" she looks at Erin for some guidance and sees a mess of conflicting emotions some of them not very nice. "Well I was just looking for some directions so I could delivery some of my mums herbs to some adept or other". She pauses again looking uncertain then goes on "Well the directions are a bit odd and I am not sure where to start from" she blurts out looking rather uncomfortable at having to talk about this in front of Exalian.

Eren thinks for a few seconds, then says: "Taking Kiki into Imperial library right now might draw some attention, it is the middle of hte day, there should be quite a few people there. But a little later on it should be quieter. How about we help Kiki run her errand quickly, then we go learn our magic? Else, if you are in a rush, I could help Kiki now, and we could catch up with you later?"

Kiki stands there mute in Exalian presence this boy has been introduced to her but he is one of "those people" who her mum has explicitly warned her against. The saying "No good deed goes unpunished" crosses her mind. But helping the needy is part of her creed, so she was right in helping him at the disputation. Honest.

She pauses, then blurts "But I have to check my room first--I left the orb in there, what if its gone?"

Kiki decides this is not the time to run away (although her legs seem to be up for it). Her new friend is in need and that has to come before her discomfort.

"Can I help you look for it?" Kiki asks as she slides in the door looking round at the mess properly for the first time.

With the door only partially open, most of the tiny room is in shadow, so Kiki notices a faint glow emanating from one corner.

"Oh I think I see it!" says Kiki and she heads to the glow with the intention of picking up the orb and having another good look at it so she can get it right for her painting.

Uncovering the source of the glow, she is pleased to discover that it is the orb, which fortunately seems to be intact. Reaching out to pick it up, she belatedly notices the pattern of scorch marks on the surrounding fabric...

The orb reacts as soon as she touches it, spitting sparks and emitting a blinding flash. With a yelp of pain and surprise, Kiki is thrown away from it, crashing back into the wall and slumping to the floor in a daze.

"Owww! what pretty lights... Looks like it is magical after all." Kiki manages in a some what slurred voice.

She does not seem to have noticed the blood running down the back of her head yet - she just sits stares at the orb trying to doodle in thin air with her finger.

~oOo~

Pavel emerges from the darkness with a monstrous pain in his chest and the curious sensation of someone's mouth covering his own. Choking, he feebly pushes the unknown assailant away and promptly coughs up a frightening amount of lake water. For a while, all he can do is cough, until his throat feels raw and hot tears stream from his face. Eventually, he manages to raise his head and look up to see the person who - he only belatedly realises - has rescued him.

It's Carrick, of course.

The adept's breath comes in short gasps as he watches Pavel, his expression writhing with conflicted emotions. Anger is there, certainly, and a healthy does of fear too, but Pavel is certain that he can see another emotion, one that he does not recognise.

"You little idiot," Carrick says, softly. "What, in Arkat's holy name, was that supposed to achieve? Did you really think that I wanted you to drown? Am I such an ogre to you? Damn it, boy, I may find you incredibly frustrating and more than a little irritating, but I don't want rid of you! As unbelievable as it might seem in light of what just happened, I actually have your interests at heart!"

"Listen to me: I wasn't trying to hurt you or batter you into submission. I can see now that my methods were completely inappropriate - well I did tell you that I'm no damned tutor! I was hoping to teach you some mental discipline, the way that my tutor taught me, but judging by the determination that you just demonstrated - stupid, idiotic, suicidal determination though it was - you don't lack any strength of mind!"

"So... what is the problem, Pavel? You're not an idiot. You're certainly no weakling. You seem to have no trouble making friends and you have more self-confidence than anyone your age deserves. What do I have to do to convince you that this... this... damned, stubborn wrong-headedness of yours is going to get you precisely nowhere? Saints alive, I should know! I was a proper little monster when I was your age. If my tutor hadn't knocked some sense into me..."

Pavel looks at the man weakly then turns his head to spit out the taste of this sponsor´s mouth. He mutters an incantation to try and get himself back to that quiet place.

The boy's contempt for his placatory overture leaves Carrick looking deflated and rather miserable.

"Very well, Pavel," he says wearily. "I guess I can't really blame you for hating me, under the circumstances - but this isn't over. Go now, you need to get out of those wet things and warm up. And... well, I suppose you'd better have the school nurse take a look at you."

Returning to the College with his sponsor, Pavel stares weakly in front of him and stumbles a couple of times, coughing quite a bit for good measure. Seeing many eyes curious at this strange scene, a master bringing a bedraggled and soaked student into the College before the breakfast bell, the corner of Pavel's mouth can't help but lift in the slightest smile.

He had only half-heard Carrick's earlier words but when the nurse ushers them through a door ansd asks the man for an explanation, Pavel feels the larger frame, which has been comfortingly close to his, comfortingly warm, tense up. Without thinking, Pavel coughs again, a racking, violent, cough and then blurts out, "I was playing silly buggers, Miss, and I fell in the water. Master Carrick pulled me out."

He doesn't meet the master's eye and is soon wrapped in a blanket and sipping a warm drink. Carrick has quietly slipped out.

"You ought to know better, you silly boy," Nurse berates him gently, fussing round like a mother hen. A plump, vigorous woman, she has been serving as nurse and surrogate mother for the students of the Academy for as long as anyone can remember. Her wiry grey hair is gathered in an unruly bun and the skin on her face is prodigiously wrinkled, like a piece of paper that has been screwed up into a tight ball and then laboriously unfolded.

"Whatever were you thinking, getting such a soaking at this hour?" she demands. "You'll catch your death of cold, young Pavel, see if you don't! It's a good job Master Carrick brought you straight to me. Surprised he didn't give you a good scolding, though. I expect he remembers what a little tearaway he was at your age..."

~oOo~

When Kiki said she saw something, Eren turned into her room in excitement. Hence, she had a perfect view of Kiki sailing across the room and into the far wall (not that anything in the room could really be described as 'far').

For a split second Eren is torn--check that Kiki is OK, or check that the orb is OK? She realizes that Kiki would go check on a friend first, and so she turns to the smaller girl and in two strides is at her side.

Then she realizes that she does not much know what to do. In plays someone often rushes to the side of a fallen hero, and they simply seem to know their status. Fortunately at this point Kiki groans, so Eren is able to announce "She's alive!"

However in mid-exclamation, she notices the dark smear on her wall just above where Kiki's head is resting. "But she's hurt! Exalian, do you know anything about helping hurt people? No? Darn it, why don't they teach us that! Umm, Vey can't have gone far yet, quick, can you grab him and see if he knows anything? If you can't catch him, go get matron or someone!"

Eren dithers for a couple of moments more, thinking that she should do something, but worried that whatever she does could just make matters worse.

Then a glow catches her eye. The orb. It had not hurt her, maybe it was set only to affect anyone else? She does not want anyone else to get hurt, and she wants a chance to help figure out what is going on with the orb. While waiting for Exalian or Vey or someone to come back, she crawls across the floor towards it. Gingerly she touches the remains of the undertunic on which it is resting, then tries to wrap the orb up in the ragged cloth. If she can just put it in her pocket until later, she thinks...

The orb fizzles and sparks as Eren moves her hand near it, making her start with alarm, but she manages to gather it up in the scorched fabric without mishap. It continues to sputter and flicker away for a few moments, like a dying candle reaching the end of its wick, then emits a loud pop and seems to go out. Cautiously unwrapping it, she sees that the orb is still glowing, but only very faintly now, and it no longer reacts when she moves her hand towards it.

Still wary of touching it, Eren wraps it up in the undertunic and stuffs it into her pocket. At that moment, Exalian returns with Vey.

"Who's hurt? Oh..." Crouching down beside the groggy Kiki, he examines the back of her head. "Ouch! That looks nasty. No, no, no no don't try to get up. You just stay there a sec." He turns to Exalian. "You want to go and fetch a wet towel from the washroom? I think we'd better clean off this blood and see how bad it is..."

Then, to Eren: "What happened? Did you three get into a fight or something?" He wrinkles his nose. "And what's that burning smell?"

"I think somebody set a trap in my room. Kiki here came in to help me clean up, and she said she saw a glow. The next thing I know there was a loud sound and she was flying into the wall. It is like someone had set a trap after messing up my room!" Eren wonders why she had not mentioned the orb, but for some reason she's reluctant to mention its role in all this. Looking to discourage investigation into this subject she adopts a melodramatic expression "Oooh, I hope she's going to be OK, she was just trying to help me!" Eren looks at Vey out of the corner of her eye, seeing how he is taking all of this.

He looks very intent.

Then she continues to Vey "I really think we should get matron."

He nods. "You're probably right. I'll go and see if I can find her. Tell... um... Exalian to clean up that cut when he gets back.

Turning to Kiki she murmurs "That delivery you had to do, does it have to be today or can it wait?"

Kiki thinks that it can probably wait until tomorrow, but she feels rather guilty about delaying. As the two girls are deliberating, Exalian returns with a wet towel and they do their best to clean some of the blood from Kiki's head. Before long the matron arrives.

"What's all this, then?" she says brusquely. "Bashed your head have you? Let's see... Ah, yes. Made a proper mess of that, haven't you. Can you stand up? Whoah there! None too steady on those feet, are you? I think we'd better take you to my office, little girl. You're not a student here are you? No? Didn't think I'd seen you before. That's a girl, you lean on me. We'll get you fixed up in no time..."

The matron is true to her word, cleaning and treating the scalp laceration and giving the woozy Kiki an ill-tasting restorative draught to help to 'steady her nerves'. The injured girl is still a little unsteady on her feet and has a huge bump on her head, but the bustling and efficient matron pronounces her 'mended' and hastily shoos them out of her office.

"I don't need you cluttering the place up, when I have this poor little mite to deal with," she says. She gestures towards a bed in the corner, where a girl lies, pale but apparently sleeping, with another girl holding her hand. Both girls appear to be neophytes.

"You too, petal," the matron says to the hand-holder. "You can come back and visit her later."

"Was that Bur Bee Root you gave me?" Kiki asks the matron. "My mum's tasted a bit more bitter but yours tasted better"

The matron raises an eyebrow. "That's right - well spotted. I take it your mum's a herbalist, then? You tell her from me that she can make it less bitter by adding a spot of lemon juice to the infusion."

"What's wrong with her?" Kiki asks her curiosity restored though dampened a bit by a thumping head.

Matron ignores the question, but as she ushers them all out of her office the neophyte girl leaving with them whispers to Kiki:

"She doesn't know. I found Imogen in her room after lunch, collapsed on the floor like that, all limp and pale. Gave me a terrible fright, 'cause I thought she was dead at first! I think Matron's worried now, 'cause she can't wake her up..."

She glances at Kiki's bandaged head. "What happened to you, anyway?"

"I think someone idea of a prank went a bit too far" says Kiki being charitable. "Luckily I have a thick skull or so my mum keeps telling me" Kiki winces as she touches her head experimentally and vouches her professional opinion. "Well it will be a few days before this bump goes away."

While Kiki and the younger girl - really she looks more of an age, or at least size, with Kiki - are whispering, Eren inquires of matron "Kiki here is from Sacred Image. Should I get her straight to her, umm, matron or whatever they have there? Or is she OK to go to her rooms, or even to walk a bit? Is there any information about Kiki you'd like passed along, or will you be talking to the matron there? For that matter, do you deal with the matrons at the other colleges--I'm just wondering because with this joint class thing suddenly the students will all be mixed and I suppose we'll have to get used to each other more. Oh, but what if some odd spirits of disease got let out at the other colleges or something like that, would you hear about it before they passed them on to us? Oh Sorry, I'm babbling again!"

"Merciful Saints!" Matron exclaims, throwing her hands up in theatrical dismay. "Students! Can't stop thinking, can you? Tell me, girl: what part of 'shoo' did you not understand? Your friend is going to be fine, but if you lot don't clear off out of here and leave me to do my job, I swear I'll..."

She stops, sighs deeply and places her hands on her hips.

"Well, I suppose if it will get you out of my hair... Yes, I do 'deal' with my poor, long-suffering counterparts at the other schools. I served part of my novitiate under Nurse Berta, who takes care of the Naval College and took my oath at the same time as Nurse Freda at the Sacred Image. Physician Querring at Tenebrous Wisdom can be a little standoffish, but he serves in the Blessed Mother's name, same as the rest of us."

"Now be off with you! And try to keep that little friend of yours out of trouble!"

And with that she closes the door firmly behind them.

~~

As they head back to Eren's room Kiki asks: "Could you help me with this delivery was what I was going to ask before all of this blew up so to speak," attempting a little humour.

"Sure!" replies Eren with enthusiasm, happy to avoid the mess in her room and the issues of the orb. Then, trying to be considerate, she asks "But are you sure you are up to it? Your head...." Shaking her head she answers herself "But you wouldn't have suggested it if you were not up to it, would you have? What an illogical question for me to have asked!"

Eren turns to Exalian and explains "I need to help Kiki on an errand. I'd love to examine this book in the library, but better to go run this errand while there is still light out. Would you be willing to meet at the library tonight?"

To Kiki she adds "Just let me grab my staff, and a couple of odds and ends, and I'll be good to go."

Striding back to her room, forgetting for the moment about Kiki's shorter legs and sore head, Eren smiles. She's always loved walking in the crowds of the city where she is one more person amongst many, in a way invisible and anonymous in the crowds. But she's always been told she shouldn't wander the streets, that good girls don't, and its dangerous, and all that. But now by knowing Kiki she's had two excuses already!

~~

Kiki tells Eren that their first challenge is to find the starting point for her directions.

"The first bit reads 'From the fountain with the nine jets, follow the bells to the end, then turn left'," the diminutive apprentice tells her. "Do you have any idea where that might be?"

Not a quarter hour later, Eren almost hits a passer by with her staff, gesturing as she explains "No, I didn't say that I was sure where the fountain is, I said that I was sure I could get us there. I've never really counted the jets, but nine jets has got to be one of the big fancy ones and that would be normal to use as a starting point anyway I think. The problem is I can think of several that might match that description, and I don't want to run all over town checking them all out. There are people in the First Church of the Scripture who know all sorts of things, and I'm pretty sure that I can find someone here to help narrow it down. I have an idea of which fountains it might be, I just need to find someone who will make the time to talk with us who would know or be able to quickly find those details."

Unfortunately, the members of Eren's congregation are less than helpful, since none of them can agree which of the city's numerous fountains has nine jets. After some time spent waiting while the well-intentioned adults debate the subject, Kiki and Eren are eventually forced to conclude that they have no real idea where this fountain is.

"Well," says Eren reluctantly "we could just walk around to the major fountains and count jets, but....with your head and all that would be a lot of walking." Eren skirts past the fact that she's loathe to spend the rest of the day hiking around the city. She loves being in the city, but after the first hour or so of walking the charm does wear off.

"But maybe we can figure this out logically, or at least narrow it down. Probably nobody would give directions from some little fountain that you'd need directions to find. Further, the most likely ones to use are either near a gate or central to some district. What are the next directions? Maybe from those we can rule out certain things--like you wouldn't go far north if you were at a fountain near north-gate, and so on. If we can get it down to a few that are likely, maybe we can just go and look at them."

"That sounds a good plan" Kiki says. The idea of wandering round the city for hours does not seam to worry her. Though on second thoughts she should take it easer for a bit with the wound - her mum would be upset if she found out that she had made herself worse after getting a wound.

"I don't mind helping my mum with her deliveries and I know most of her usual clients. So this one is a little odd. Ok lets go though the fountains one by one together."

Eren's methodical and logical approach seems to make a lot of sense at first, but after deliberating over the problem for a while the two friends are still stumped. They realise that they can't really use this approach without a map of the city and a better idea of where all the fountains are situated. As it is already late afternoon, the prospect of trailing around the city looking for fountains is also a no-go, at least for today. What they really need is someone else to provide them with a bit of inspiration.

"Maybe Exalian could help?" Eren suggests.

Kiki is still a little wary of the Galvosti boy, but she is starting to wonder if she'll ever manage to accomplish this delivery, so she agrees to her friend's suggestion.

Exalian is dubious at first, since he can think of at least five fountains that might fit the bill off the top of his head, but the second part of the instructions give him an idea. "Follow me," he says and leads the girls to the porter's office.

"'Ullo, lad," the day-porter greets him. "Nice to see you again, Miss Eren. And you, Miss. What can I do for you?"

"Just wondered if you could help us with some directions, Mr Gully," Exalian tells him. "Kiki here has a puzzle here about a fountain with nine jets and following the 'bells', so I wondered if you knew of a church with a bell tower that might have a fountain within earshot?"

"Bell tower, you say?" the day-porter comments, frowning. "Hmmm... can't says as I do, young master. We don't go much for bell-towers 'ere in the city, not like your village churches. Guess folk tend go by the clock instead. Wait a mo, though!" he exclaims. "If it's bells you're after, there's always the big clock in the Grand Piazza, over in Newmarket. Come to think of it, ain't there a street in Newmarket called Five Bells? Runs by the park?"

"Of course! That has to be it!" Exalian says. "Come on, you two!"

Hurriedly thanking the day-porter, the three youngsters dash off towards Newmarket and the Grand Piazza. Before even reaching this destination, however, they find the street called Five Bells, which leads south from the main thoroughfare of Eastway down to the hexagonal Newmarket Piazza.

By this time it is nearly dusk and they're starting to feel hungry, but the sight of the spectacular fountain in the middle of the piazza lifts their spirits. A quick count of the jets confirms it: this must be the starting point for Kiki's directions. She reads the rest of the instructions aloud.

"Dum-di-dum-di-dum... 'Follow the bells to the end, then turn left and head counter to the way. Look down for the sign of the saint and turn where he points. Just before the wall, find a narrow way to the left, which leads to the boneyard. Find the knight's tomb and take your bearing from his steed, to reach a sharp exit. Cross the street and pass between the lions. Follow the path to its conclusion and climb the stairs. Knock four times to be admitted.'"

She look up at the others. "Not exactly making it easy for us, is he? Make you wonder how urgently he wants this delivery..."

Eren pauses to splash some water from the fountain on her hands and face, and then to drink from her cupped hands.

Rubbing her mid-section ruefully, she says "If we hurried we might make it back to the college for supper, but.....well I'm curious too. Maybe we can beg some leftovers from the kitchen when we get back? Well, I'm willing to keep going, how about you two?"

Then glancing around, she adds "Although it is getting dark, I wonder if this is safe? I've got my staff, and the ingredients to cast a puff of smoke or to throw my voice, which might make a distraction, but I'd hate to try and outrun anyone in failing light in a boneyard..." she trails off, leaving it unclear if it is the thought of being in a boneyard at night or trying to outrun someone that has her more concerned.

"Ok looks like we follow the Five Bells from the fountain to the other end. Then we turn left and head west down east way. Then we look for a saint that point some way or other. Well lets go and look for this saint. We might have to call it a night there as it will be getting dark. Why would someone make them selves so hard to find?"

With that Kiki heads off up the street.

~oOo~

After Exalian mentions that it is like a quest, Eren asks to hear the clues again.

"Well, sometimes water is used as a symbol of renewal, and bells often mark celebration. So water and bells together could mean a birth. Going west would be towards the origins of the church, maybe? And a narrow way would symbolize something difficult. Boneyard would probably be death, or maybe hell? So a narrow way into hell might be a quest, rather than dying? Then a knight and his horse to get out, maybe saved by a knight? Or riding out on a horse? A Sharp exit could indicate having to fight to get out, and then somehow get past beasts or guardians. Climbing stairs, maybe going up a mountain? That could be reaching for enlightenment or something like that."

"So, if this were a quest, it might be something like tracing a life from birth to education in the church, going to hell and finding allies there and fighting free, finishing by enlightenment or something. Hmphhh, I can think of at least five saint's plays that follow a plot something like that!"

They follow Five Bells north to where it ends at a junction with Eastway, then turn left to follow the much wider street west. In the end it's only by chance that Kiki notices a faded mosaic design in the middle of an intersection. To the casual observer, the design - an open book with a hand pointing at one of the pages - wouldn't immediately seem to have anything to do with a saint. Fortunately for Kiki, however, she knows from her studies of religious symbolism that Saint Urdin the Lawmaker is conventionally represented in this way. The finger points directly at a street leading off to the right.

Kiki is pleased with herself at picking this up and makes a mental note to come back later and clean the mosaic up.

"Ok looks like we are heading to the Wall right enough. Now we just need to find a way into a boneyard."

So, keeping an open mind as to what the next clue could mean she heads up the street.

"Oh, this has been quick so far--let's keep going!" gushes Eren--who is faintly amazed to realize she doesn't even feel particularly hungry. Normally this only happens when she is buried in a fascinating book or scroll. Apparently satisfying her curiousity in this way is just as effective an appetite suppresent.

Eren splits her concentration, on the one hand still looking for trouble, but she also calls upon her studies in runic associations to help recognize anything more subtle than an actual grave yard, and calls upon her symbolic sight to likewise look for death.

The three apprentices follow the pointing finger's directions in the fading light, passing any number of alleyways as they walk up the street. They soon find that the street ends in a blank wall, with a slightly wider street leading off to the right and a narrow alley one the left. They can only assume that the meaning of 'just before the wall' and 'a narrow way to the left' are - for once - refreshingly literal directions.

Entering the alley, a little nervously in the rapidly-fading light, they soon run into a problem: after a short distance it ends at a T-junction and there are no obvious clues as to which direction they should turn.

Perplexed, Kiki is about to suggest that they simply turn left when she receives a flash of inspiration. Perhaps this convenient-looking alley wasn't the only "narrow way to the left"...

Leading the others back to the street, she examines the dingy corner between the entrance to the alley and the wall at the the end of the street. She'd been hoping to see something that they'd missed in the fading light - a previously unremarked doorway or a perhaps gap in the wall - but disappointingly there doesn't seem to be any such thing.

Muttering a night blessing that he'd learnt at the Stygian church, Exalian peers into the gloomy corner and gasps. He points out what they'd been missing: there is a narrow gap in the corner - it's just not at ground level! Which still leaves a problem: how to scale the two metre wall...

Eren looks at the wall, and says in a fairly expressionless voice "I coud probably hoist the two of you up there. Kiki for sure, especially if Exalian used held my staff up for her to steady herself on. I could probably get Exalian up high enough that with Kiki's help he could scramble up too--maybe she could brace herself then hold my staff out for him to grip."

After a short pause she adds "Oh, this should help too, if we can light it" as she produces a candle stub from her pocket. "If we could put it up on the ledge it would let us see better, so you could get better hand holds."

"Well I prefer climbing trees but I dare say I could climb up with your help and wedge something in the gap to hold on to before helping you up."

With that she takes some chalk out of her pocket, rubs it on her hands and ties her shoes round her neck.

After helping to hoist up Kiki and Exalian, Eren checked to see if she could hoist herself up into the gap, but there was absolutely no way, and she got scraped hands for her effort.

She considers briefly if she could use her staff to get herself up, but no that would not work either. Was there something she could pile up to make a step? But she'd need to build things up to chest height to have much chance of hoisting herself up, and there was no way that even if she could find that many stones that she could make a platform that high that was stable.

Finally she sighs and says "Why don't you two go and see what you can see? Let me know if there is another way in or something. If not, well, maybe I can meet you when you get to the streets again, or later at the college. Just come back to the gap and let me know what is happening before you carry on, please."

Exalian starts looking for the next clue in the chase, but also keeps an eye out for potential alternate routes by which they might inform Eren about how to rejoin them.

The two students walk a little way along the passage and soon find themselves at another T-junction. This time, however, Exalian notices a small, faded sign on the wall in front of them, which reads "NORTH ST CEMETERY" above an arrow pointing to the right. Calling back to Eren to let her know where their path is supposed to lead, they continue along the passage, following a series of narrow passages and long-neglected ginnels until they arrive at an ivy-covered gate in a tall stone wall. It's a little hard to open at first, but fortunately proves to be unlocked.

The cemetery on the other side is more than a little spooky in the half light. Looking around at the gravestones and other memorials, the two apprentices begin to wonder how they are going to find the next waypoint in Kiki's directions: a knight's tomb and a steed that is supposed to indicate which direction they should head next...

~oOo~

Pavel still feels a little shaky after his morning dip, but the nurse, after failing to engage him in light conversation, cheerfully pronounces him "well enough to be going on with" and makes sure that he gets to his morning lessons.

Lunchtime arrives at last and with it the prospect of a Wildday afternoon at liberty. Then Pavel remembers that he has a special tutorial with Madam Olyna and curses his luck. Why did it have to be today? She had been very insistent about it, however: "We can't have you falling behind now, young man," she'd told him. "And no apprentice of mine is ever going to be labelled a shirker - certainly not one of my brighter prospects." He wonders if the Principal has had a word with her after yesterday and whether that will have changed Olyna's good opinion of him...

A few hours later he comes away from the tutorial, tired but satisfied. Olyna either hadn't spoken to the Principal or hadn't thought the conversation worth bringing up. As ever she had been entirely focussed on her apprentice's magical development, gently but firmly guiding him in his increasingly confident application of the practical skills and patiently encouraging him when it came to the theory, with the attendant difficulties of all that troublesome reading and writing.

Now, though, Pavel is keen to unwind, so he sets off in search of Oren, who he hasn't seen since the Disputation. He has heard that the Imperial boy received a fierce public scolding from his father after his lacklustre performance in the Disputation. From what Pavel ahs gathered, Oren senior is one of three heirs-apparent in a strife-torn minor House and has high expectations for all of his sons. Oren junior would have preferred to take his older brother's place, learning to manage the family estate, or even his younger brother's place as a novice in the Order of Arkat the Great, but tradition in his family dicates that the second son goes to school.

By the time that he has managed to track Oren down, it's already nearly dusk. The other boy is surrounded by a group of cronies who are listening intently as he proposes some kind of plan in hushed tones.

"Ah, Pavel," Oren says, noticing him approaching. "You'll want to come along for this too. I reckon we need a bit of sport to take away the nasty taste left by that farce of a competition. And I have just the thing..."

Pavel knows that when he mentions 'sport' Oren normally intends to have fun at someone else's expense, most commonly another student's. As he listens to his friend's plan, it becomes clear that this is indeed the case, although the identity of the intended victim is something that Oren insists on keeping to himself.

"Well, lads. Are you in?" he asks.

There is an immediate chorus of enthusiastic affirmatives from the others, but Oren ignores them, looking hopefully at Pavel...

"That contest did seem a bit rigged, didn't it?", Pavel leans comfortably on one of the smaller boys' shoulders. "Least ways, I got in without any problem."

Seeing Oren hasn't taken that remark especially well, Pavel grins. "Going a-hunting are we?" he asks of Oren. "What's it to be this time? A songbird? A rabbit?"

Oren has a decided frown on his forehead now, so Pavel settles the matter. "I'll come along," he says imperiously, "if only to see how you stalk your prey."

The other boy smiles brightly at this.

"Oh, you won't be disappointed," he assures Pavel. "It's big game that we're hunting this evening." He turns to one of the others. "Ricardo, have you brought the... err... regalia?"

The tall gloomer boy looks perplexed. "Eh?" he says. He isn't the brightest of the students in their clique, but his dark good looks and athletic physique make him popular with the girls, and his rich and influential family make him a very useful acquaintance.

Oren sighs. "The things that I asked you to fetch, dummy!"

"Oh, right," Ricardo says. "Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? Yeah, here they are," he adds, producing a bulky sack with a broom handle sticking out of it. "What's this all for again?"

"You'll see," Oren tells him, with a wicked grin. "You'll see..."

Curious to see what he has in mind, Pavel and the apprentices follow Oren through the city. One of the other boys tries to look into Ricardo's sack, but the gloomer snatches it away. "Oren said it's a surprise," he tells them, with a frown. "No peeking."

After a short walk, they reach their destination: the North Street Cemetery. Motioning them to be quiet, Oren takes them on stealthy jaunt through the graveyard. He is evidently enjoying himself, ducking behind tombs and gravestones and giving them hand signals to warn of approaching people, which sends a couple of the others into fits of sniggering.

"Hush," Oren tells them. "Our prey is almost in sight..."

Crouching down low, the group of hunters spy a large figure approaching. Oren's earlier crack about 'big game' was obviously no idle jest: their target - an Imperial College apprentice, to judge from his robes - is unusually massive for an apprentice, taller even than Ricardo and much bulkier. This burly figure is made to look all the more incongruous by the bunch of flowers that he is clutching in one meaty hand.

As they watch, he stops in front of a grave and kneels down, staring at the headstone and apparently murmuring to himself.

"Now!" Oren says in a fierce whisper.

The boys rise up as one and charge towards their startled victim, who struggles unsteadily to his feet...

~oOo~

When Exalian calls back the information about where they are going, Eren thinks for a few seconds, coming up with a rough plan. Then she replies loudly, projecting her voice to make sure she's heard: "I'll work my way around and enter through the western gate. Try to find a tall monument near that gate, and see if you can make a light of some sort. When I get in the gate I'll start reciting Helmat's Elemental Summary, when you hear it try to signal me as to where you are. If I don't show up by the time it is almost full dark assume I can't make it for some reason, and do whatever you need to."

At that Eren hurries back down the narrow road and back to busier streets, still busy with people hurrying home. She roughly knows where the cemetery is, and thinks back to times that she's passed it and exactly where the gate is and how to best get there. She is definitely having to go a longer way around, but if she hurries it should not take too long.

When she reaches the end of the long, narrow, and quiet street that they had been on, she smiles to see crowds still hurrying the lower classes heading home, the upper classes out to their evening entertainment. Just before plunging into the crowd she pauses, and pulls back into the shadow of a wall. She carefully removes a neatly folded piece of cloth from one pocket, and then the wrapped orb. She wraps the latter in the former while muttering an incantation, then slides the assembly into one of her several pockets. She knows that she is hardly immune from pick-pockets, but hopefully her secret pocket spell will keep the orb safe. Only then does she merge into the traffic on the larger street.

The busy streets restore some of Eren's good mood and sense of adventure, which had been tapped by the silent street and unexpected barricade. Her pleasure does not blind her to common sense, of course. While she uses her long legs and noticeable size to help push past clots of people she keeps an eye out for trouble, and even for the common delays like beggars and slow moving carts. In particular she makes sure to steer clear of the upper classes who are heading out to their entertainments, who are far more apt to be tetchy than the lower classes just trying to get home after a long day. She wishes she could part the crowd like some of those peacocks do, but then again she isn't sure that she'd want everyone to stay away just because they knew she was dangerous. Suddenly it occurs to her to wonder how Kiki feels about the upper classes?

She does not like these broad and strait boulevards as much as the narrow and jumbled streets of Old Town, but in this case they are something of a blessing. While it might possible be quicker to cut up the stairs and through the zig-zagging alleys behind the grand buildings on the Grand Piazza, the odds of something going wrong along such a route are far higher. So she follows the street into the Grand Piazza, and cuts across it to head uphill on North Street. Her quick strides flag a little bit as she climbs the steep grade leading to the North Street cemetery. When she'd lived in Oldtown she'd been used to its steep streets and even stair cases, but she's been spoiled by living at Imperial. Still, she is determined to catch up with her friends before it is too dark to carry on, so she drives herself on despite sudden sweat on her back and somewhat ragged breathing.

Without realizing it, as Eren climbed North Street, her thoughts drifted away from the need to hurry, to the mystery of the orb's attack on Kiki. She kept going, but her speed up the hill dropped steadily. She was brought out of her conjectures by the noise of the ceremonial chain being dragged across the graveyard entrance. Officially it was being closed for the night, and ancient rituals defining the graveyard boundary now recognized it as sealed.

Eren hesitated; physically it would not be hard to duck under the chain, but she felt reluctant to do so under the eyes of the workers positioning the chain. If she were some street urchin she'd do it without a second thought, but as a scholar of Imperial University, should she not be holding up the rituals and rules of the city, rather than flouting them? But her companions were inside there, waiting for her! She vacillated for a long minute, until the chain was bound in place and the functionaries gone, before she hurried forward into the yard.

Now, where could Kiki and Exalian be?

~oOo~

As they head for the rendezvous point they'd agreed with Eren, Kiki and Exalian hear sounds coming from nearby. It takes a few moments for them to understand what they are hearing: laughter and jeering. Approaching the source of the noise cautiously, they see a small group of boys - all apparently apprentices like themselves - the bulk of whom seem to be amusing themselves at one unfortunate's expense.

They immediately recognise the ringleader of the tormentors as Oren and it seems reasonable to assume that the others are his in-crowd cronies. The identity of their victim is less obvious, though, thanks to the chamberpot over his head. Although he's heroically built, he seems to be putting up little or no resistance as he's roughly man-handled by the assembled boys. Bizarrely, he also seems to be wearing a woman's corset and has been adorned with flowers. There is a crude garland of them strung around his neck and numerous individual blooms stuffed into various parts of his clothing.

"Come on then, lads!" Oren calls out. "Let's put this brave knight on his horse, shall we?"

This suggestion is greeted with a cheer and four of the boys promptly hoist the unfortunate 'knight' onto their shoulders. They carry him, struggling rather half-heartedly, towards a nearby tomb, which is decorated with a bigger than life-size statue of a boar. Mounting him back-to-front on the statue, they thrust a broom into his unresisting hands and then step back to admire their handiwork.

"Three cheers for the knight of flowers!" someone calls. "Riding on his piggy! Give us a smile, petal!"

The others laugh uproariously. The 'knight' tips up his 'helmet' with one hand to glare out at the others. "Have you finished yet?" he says. Exalian realises with a start that it is Berem.

"Not quite, Sir Knight," Oren sneers. "You have your helmet and your breastplate, you have your trusty charger and you have your lance. Now, of course, we want to see you joust!"

"I've already told you, Oren," Berem responds, his face flushed, but surprisingly calm. "I'm not going to fight with you. You've had your fun. Now why can't you just leave me in peace?"

"Because I'm sick of the way you prance around acting all 'nobler than thou'!" Oren spits at him, his face suddenly contorted with anger. "Just because your daddy is a knight. My father will sit on the Council of Nobles one day, but you don't catch me walking around with my nose in the air. So if I say fight, you'll damn well fight, curse you!"

"No!" Berem insists, shaking his head. "I've sworn an oath and I shan't gainsay it, no matter what you do!"

"Ha!" Oren replies. "We'll see about that!"

He turns to one of the others, who obediently holds out a sack. Oren reaches into it and pulls out a short training sword: a blunted weapon, but still perfectly capable of causing serious injury.

"Have at you!" he cries, swiping at Berem with the sword.

~~

"STOP THAT!"

Pavel has been listening to all this talk of "My father this", "Your father that", and has had enough. His voice halts Oren in his tracks and the Imperial boy turns to glare at his friend who is stood atop a gravestone. "That'll never work," says Pavel calmly, coldly, "He says he's sworn an oath."

Pavel strolls up to the knight's son, sat atop the boar statue, and offers him a dusty hand. Berem eyes Pavel suspiciously, unmoving until Pavel climbs the tomb and removes the chamber pot from his head. "You won't be needing that," he says, helping the boy down.

"Here," Pavel says softly, leading Berem back to where they first found him. As he breezes past a glaring Oren, Pavel looks at his friend blankly, his eyes those of a fish in a market stall. "I think you were about to..."

Pavel produces a bunch of flowers from behind his back and places them in Berem's meaty paw. Berem's suspicion toward Pavel seems to have softened ever so slightly so he allows Pavel to shove him gently back to the grave where he had been about to place the flowers.

His eyes widen, though, when he sees what has been scrawled in chalk, beside the name of his mother, but no-one notices when he starts shaking with anger, because all of their eyes are on Oren and Pavel.

"What in hell do you think you're doing, Pavel?" Oren demands, jabbing at Pavel with his sword. "You... you... slimewit! You've ruined everything. I should have known better than to mix with a bilge rat like you. You cretinous, pig-rutting, dung-eating, son of a fishwife! You..."

This tirade of insults is abruptly interrupted, as Berem charges at Oren, bellowing like an enraged bull. Wide-eyed, the high-born boy first looks at the now-smiling Pavel in shocked comprehension and then smiles broadly and turns to meet the onrushing Berem.

"So glad you changed your mind!" he says brightly, as he neatly sidesteps the bigger boy and whacks him on the rump as he stumbles past. Berem howls and whirls round, just in time to meet Oren's follow-up jab towards his abdomen. Knocking the blunt sword aside at the last minute with his bare hand, he grits his teeth against the pain and pauses for a moment, considering his next move.

The other boys gather around them in a loose circle, shouting encouragement to Oren.

"Ricardo?" the latter calls out. "Why don't you give this fellow his lance back? Wouldn't like anyone to say this wasn't a fair fight..."

The tall gloomer boy tosses the broom at Berem, who catches it easily and promptly breaks it over his knee near the head, leaving him with a just a length of pole. He holds it at one end like a sword and executes a quick series of practise swipes, before dropping into a half-crouch and starting to circle his opponent.

"Take back what you wrote about my mother," he growls.

"I can't imagine what you're talking about," Oren replies airily. "Did I perhaps call her a... a..." he glances at Pavel, who nods. "A flea-bitten, worthless, stinking whore? Perhaps, if you love her so much, you'd like us to dig her up for you, so you can cuddle up to her rotting flesh. Or maybe you'd like to do more than just cuddle..."

"That does it!" Berem shouts, raising his 'sword' to strike...

By now, Pavel has rubbed the chalk off the gravestone. He's bound to have misspelt something and that could come back to haunt him.

This reminds Pavel of something and he squints narrowly at the knight's son. There is something there, a tension about to snap. Wouldn't it be even...

"Didn't you swear an oath, Berem?" He speaks clearly to be sure the boy has a moment to hear him before striking.

Berem stiffens and turns to look at Pavel. A range of emotions play briefly over his face, but only moments pass before the bear-like boy straightens, his shoulders slumping.

"Thank-you," he murmurs to Pavel, sounding thoroughly miserable. He turns to face Oren and is about to speak, when a pure, sweet voice begins singing from somewhere nearby...

~~

Sigh' "more Imperial bully boys" Kiki thinks, as she watches the scene unfold. Her normal reaction to this sort of situation is to keep out of it and pick up the pieces later, but she is moved to by the poor boy's situation and what the others are putting him through. Also, she is hidden amongst the gloom and the graves and relatively safe, or so she thinks.

So she surprises even herself when she finds herself inspired to bursting into song in the darkness.

"Who would true valour see, let him come hither..."

The inspirational song of the knight saints rings over the graveyard.

Exalian almost starts to protest, but then realizes that if he does Kiki would only be able to assume that he's a coward. So he keeps his mouth shut and awaits their doom.

The effect of Kiki's song on Berem is electric. Standing bolt upright, his face takes on a beatific expression, tears springing from his eyes. The makeshift wooden sword falls from his fingers.

"Mother!" he murmurs.

"What the hell?" begins Oren. "Who's that singing?"

"It's a... it's a ghost!" Ricardo gibbers. "His m... m... mother's come back as a ghost!"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Oren scoffs, but even he is looking decidedly uncomfortable. "Can you see who it is, Pavel?"

Pavel is feeling more than a little frightened himself, however, so he just shakes his head.

"A ghost?" says one of the others "Saints protect us! Let's get the hell out of here!"

He runs off, followed in short order by Ricardo and the other two Imperial boys. Only Oren, Pavel and Berem remain.

~~

Entering the graveyard, Eren hears something of a ruckus--but it is not near their designated meeting area, so she's glad to avoid that problem for the moment. She finds it a bit hard to call out Helmat's Elemental Summary as loudly as she'd planned, however. Something about a graveyard at night with something going on it suddenly makes drawing attention to herself a little harder than planned. However after a couple of false starts she manages to call out at reasonably high volume, if with a few quavers:

0Fire's nature is to consume, therefore it cannot be summoned or bound there where it cannot consume. It cannot consume the other elements in their pure form, but with the correct fire it can consume almost anything, including pure essential power. This is the source of beliefs about fires burning without fuel, in fact they are fed by power from the higher planes, and therefore being a purer form of fire, but still they are fire the consumer. Water's nature is to conform...."

A song rings over the graveyard.

"Oh good," thinks Eren. There is Kiki's signal of where she is. Although it does not sound like she is by the gate....where is that singing coming from?"

Heading towards the sound, Eren is alarmed to hear footsteps running towards her and quickly ducks behind a tomb. A gloomer that she remembers from the Disputation rushes past her, closely followed by Three Imperial apprentices. They all look as white a sheets.

Eren can't help but think that this is both odd and disturbing--both that they look so frightened and that they are here in the first place.

Still, she's on a mission to link back up with Kiki and Exalian, and she can hear Kiki singing, so this is no reason to turn back. She takes a moment to recite some church blessings in her head, grips her staff more tightly, and continues towards Kiki's song.

Suddenly an inspiration grips her--why not let Kiki know that she is coming, but at the same time help distract whatever scared those boys so badly? She digs through her pockets quickly and pulls out a carefully twisted and pasted loop of paper, mutters a quick incantation, and then points the paper at the monument the farthest in front of her that she can make out in the gloom.

Then she continues between the graves, singing! She does her best to harmonize with Kiki's sweet voice, but at least making sure she is loud enough to be heard. In her head she hears it normally, but with luck to others the song sounds like it is coming from the monument.

Singing gustily, she carries on through the graves.

~~

Eren's strident voice brings Kiki back to the here and now instead of being lost in her music.

"Wow, where did this come from?" she thinks, amazed at the sound she has just made.

She has heard of things like this happening to real entertainers with the 'Talent' but she had never imagined experiencing it herself. Eren is heading in the right direction so Kiki allows her song to finish at the end of the verse now that the moment of bliss had gone.

"Why are people running around and getting upset?" she thinks. "Exalian was my singing that funny?" she asks in all seriousness as she watches his shoulders shake in the gloom.

~~

The sound of a second, not-so-sweet-and-pure voice, apparently emanating from the monument, causes immediate consternation and confusion.

Berem's expression immediately turns from beatific to bemused. "What...?" he says, looking about himself in confusion.

Oren and Pavel look at each other, having completely forgotten about their plans for the other boy.

"That's definitely not a ghost," Pavel comments, feeling his earlier fears beginning to evaporate, to be replaced by embarrassment.

"It most certainly isn't," Oren agrees. "Which means that someone is playing games with us. Time we found out who, don't you think? You go and look for the first one," he adds, nodding in Kiki's direction. "And I'll see if I can find our second joker."

Pavel is not one for being ordered around by rich kids, so ignores Oren's command entirely, standing stock still and watching where Oren goes.

Oren begins to stride towards the monument, then stops as he catches sight of a rather conspicuous figure creeping towards them through the gravestones.

"Well, of all the..." he begins. "What the hell is she doing here? Oy!" he calls out to Eren. "Didn't your mother tell you it's dangerous to wander round cemeteries at night? Give me one reason why I shouldn't come over there and give you a reason to listen to her in future?" he asks, raising his sword menacingly.

"Oh Lords!" groans Eren, "What are YOU doing here? No, don't tell me, let me guess—making trouble!" Oren contents himself with a sneer and a step forward, his practice sword still held aggressively.

It has been a long day, and Eren really does not want to deal with this right now. They've walked a long way around the city, she's been turned around and confused, a little lost, a lot frustrated, she just had to climb a large hill, and her singing was flat. In spite of all that, or maybe because of it, she finds her thoughts are surprisingly calm, almost detached from the situation. In point of fact her mother had given her such warnings, but she finds she is not inclined to let her mother's childhood warning govern her tonight, and certainly not to let Oren do so!.

"Don't you realize that you aren't making any sense?" she asks. "That you think my mother would have given me such a warning implies that your mother gave you such warnings. Either you think that such a warning was valid, in which case you should be in as much danger as me, and you should not be needing to drive the point home, or you think the warning isn't valid, in which case it is pretty silly to be trying to give it teeth. So tell me, do you believe the graveyard is dangerous--for both of us?"

To emphasize the possibility of danger, Eren pulls herself up to her full height, and grips her staff in first form position.

"I didn't come here to ruin your nasty fun. I was, was, cutting through on my way somewhere else. I'll go my way if you'll go your way, and Berem gets to go his way too."

Pavel just watches all of this unfold, in a world of his own. Much to Oren's frustration.

The young nobleman looks first at Eren, then at Pavel and then at Berem, who carefully avoids his erstwhile tormentor's gaze. Finally he turns back to Eren.

"Fine," Oren tells her, with undisguised venom in his voice. "You win - again. Enjoy it while you can, but don't get too used to it. There's a reason why House Raiburn has prospered in Syran for a thousand years. But perhaps, as a mere commoner, you aren't familiar with my family's history, or its motto: 'Friends Beside Me, Enemies Beneath Me'."

He gives her a last, fierce look, then turns on his heel and stalks away without looking back.

"Come on Pavel," he calls. "We're leaving..."

~oOo~

"I can't thank you enough," Berem tells them later, once Kiki and Exalian have revealed themselves. "I've always know that Oren has a cruel streak, but I thought I'd managed to avoid his attention until now. I don't think he would really have hurt me, but I might have hurt him, which would have been much worse..."

He looks shyly at Kiki. "That was you singing, wasn't it? I thought it was my mother," he admits, blushing. "I thought she was reminding me, from beyond the grave, of the oath that I swore to her just before she died. She made me promise not to follow in my father's footsteps, to become a man of peace, not a man of war. It's hard," he adds. "When you have people like Oren around. And when I get angry, I... well, like I said, it's hard to keep to that oath sometimes. So... what you did, it was... well, I think I really owe you a debt."

Kiki blushes. "Yes, it was me singing and my voice, but what came out just seemed inspired and sounded a lot better than my usual singing. Makes you wonder doesn't it?"

Berem nods. "But - if you don't mind me asking - what brought you all here in the first place?"

Oren's words still ringing in her head, Eren asks musingly "Berem, would it offend your vow to teach someone how to fight better? Oren's family could be trouble, but if it was just him and I one-on-one, I'd like to know that I can deal with him."

Berem stares at her open-mouthed for a moment, then quickly looks down at the ground, his feet shuffling.

"Judging from the way you just faced him down," he says quietly, after a brief but uncomfortable silence. "I would have said that you already know how to deal with Oren..."

He looks up at Eren again and she now sees that he is smiling.

"But I guess knowing how to defend yourself never did anyone harm," he adds, thoughtfully. "I don't claim to be much of an authority, but I'd be happy to give you a few pointers, if I can. I'm sure mum wouldn't mind, under the circumstances..."

"Grand!" blurts Eren, totally ignoring his initial bout of shyness. She continues to gush "We'll have to figure out a time. What have you trained with? All I know is staves, of course I've trained with them like everyone else does. Maybe I shoudl stick with staves, if you showed me how to face other weapons? Or do you know tricks like shoulder throws? I don't know that I'd want to carry a blade, but maybe a stick like a practice sword. Oh, Sorry!"

That last comment was after she saw the overwhelmed look on Berem's face. "I'm gushing again. We can talk about it another time. You wanted to know what we were doing here. We are on a bit of a crazy hunt to help Kiki make a delivery for her Ma. I think we have to find a knight in here, and a horse, or something like that. Do you have the directions still Kiki?"

Kiki reads out the relevant section again: "Find the knight's tomb and take your bearing from his steed, to reach a sharp exit."

"Ah, it's a riddle," says Berem. "I see. 'Fraid I've never been very good at riddles, but I do know this cemetery fairly well. There are quite a few knight's tombs, but I can't remember seeing any horses. The closest thing I can think of is that thing," he concludes, pointing at the boar statue, upon which he had until recently been seated.

Unnoticed, Pavel is watching the others. He did go off with Oren but only a little way, quickly doubling back out of curiosity.

As they start to discuss the clue, Berem catches sight of the Naval College boy and points him out to the others.

"Look, there's that Naval College boy, the one that was with Oren," he tells them. "I wonder why he's still hanging around? I couldn't really figure him out. On the one hand, he seemed to be friendly with the others - and with Oren in particular - but then he was actually pretty kind to me, which didn't go down well with Oren. I wish I could figure out what that was all about..."

Before the others can say anything, he calls out to Pavel. "You there! Why don't you come over and talk to us? I wanted to thank you for reminding me of my oath..."

"I don't think you should thank me", Pavel says quite honestly as he steps over a low railing to approach the group. Ignoring Berem, he asks Erentona what she is doing in the graveyard after dark, in the manner of a school monitor.

Oblivious to Pavel's snub of the others and his reproving tone, Eren effuses "Kiki here has a delivery to make, but the instructions to the destination are like a kid's treasure hunt. It is quite fun! Except I've been terrible at figuring out the clues. I think the next one is to follow the steeds direction to `a sharp exit' or something like that."

Kiki ponder the Boar then looks round to see it anything else inspires her to make a connection.

Since it's a knight's tomb that they're looking for, she automatically looks for symbols of the military orders in Syran: St Paslac and the two contrasting orders of Arkat.

Paslac's symbol is a golden lion on a red and black chequered background; the saint himself is usually represented as a handsome man with curly blonde hair and a noble bearing. The order of Arkat the Great uses a distinctive crown motif, while Arkat Liberator is symbolised by a sword surrounded by three eyes: an open one above the pommel and two closed ones to either side of the crossguard. The prophet himself is portrayed as either a stern but noble ruler or a valiant knight-philosopher respectively.

Kiki sees no sign of any of these symbols on the boar tomb, but then she remembers that the boar itself is a symbol, the emblem of one of the Houses. She mentions this to Berem, who confirms her suspicions.

"Yes, the black boar is House Lazaran's emblem," he tells her. "It's not a very powerful family these days, but it was one of the original Houses in the days of the Conclave - what we now call the 'Old Houses'. One of the Lazarans established the Order of Arkat Liberator, if I remember rightly..."

He pauses, frowning. "Actually, I seem to remember that he was known as the 'Knight of the Flowers'," he observes. "Although that's also a figure from a story, I think. Do you suppose Oren and his cronies knew what they were saying when they called me that earlier? And if this is his tomb, then that must mean that..."

"So now we need to look for a 'sharp exit' right?" is Eren's contribution. She's concluded that her clue following is just not very good...

"Why, a sword is a sharp exit," says Pavel, who is still hovering, despite himself. Somehow he wants to seem clever in front of these people. An unusual feeling. He points at the sword emblem that is very clearly inscribed on an adjacent tomb, directly opposite the boar statue.

~oOo~

Kiki and Berem both gape at the emblem stupidly for a moment.

"How could we have missed that?" asks Berem.

"We didn't miss it," Kiki insists. "It wasn't there a minute ago!"

The five apprentices examine the inscription more carefully. It is quite large, filling most of a rectangular stone panel, which stands nearly two metres high and one wide. It is, Kiki tells them, one of the traditional symbol of the Order of Arkat Liberator: a sword, depicted point down, with three eye symbols surrounding it: one above the pommel and one to either side of the crossguard. The uppermost eye is shown open, with a deeply incised pupil; the remaining two are closed.

"Yes, I've seen this symbol plenty of times before," Berem observes. "But what does it actually mean?"

"The third eye usually represents mystical insight, or otherworldly perception," Kiki tells him, recalling her tutor's words on the subject. "The closed eyes represent concealment, something hidden from sight. A secret, perhaps. The sword represents power... that is, the controlled exercise of power. Or something like that."

"And how's that supposed to tell you where to go next?" the burly apprentice asks. He glances at Pavel. "Maybe this isn't the 'sharp exit' after all..."

Kiki ponders "Well I had hoped for a sword or something pointing in the right direction. But the sword does point - it points down and suggests something hidden or a mystical insight. So perhaps something is magically hidden below the symbol?"

With that Kiki stretches out her magical senses around the tomb.

The sword symbol certainly seems to have a magical component to it, which Kiki perceives as a glowing tracery overlaying the lines of the inscription, but that's to be expected with a saint's symbol. She also notices a previously-hidden Arkat rune on the pommel of the sword, but nothing else to add to her understanding of the symbol's significance. If there is something else to see here, then it is beyond her.

Turning to the others, she is a little surprised to see that Exalian has a faint swirling aura about him, which seems to be stretching out towards her. Glancing down at herself, she sees that she is surrounded by the same aura, but it doesn't seem to be affecting anyone else. Slightly unnerved by this, she ask the others to examine the tomb.

"I can see that there's something there, using the representational envisioning technique," she tells the others. "But nothing very helpful. Perhaps one of you will be able to see more that I can?"

"The repre-what-ing technique?" Berem asks, looking confused.

"Oh, sorry," she replies. "I mean, um... symbolic sight. What do you call it at Imperial?"

"Er... symbolic sight," he says. "Didn't realise that the other schools called it anything different. What do you call it?" he asks Pavel.

"'Essence perception'," the Naval College student tells him. "If you mean what I think you mean."

Exalian's brow furls, and he looks closely to see if he can percieve anything symbologically significant that would indicate something special about the essence.

As Exalian tries to concentrate, something in the back of his head works it's way out of him: "Pavel... you were the one at the disputation who missed his turn, right? I have to ask... what would possess somebody to do something like that?"

Pavel says nothing.

After a few moments of intense concentration, Exalian is startled to see the sword symbol coming into sudden and disconcertingly sharp focus, it's intense blue-white glow seeming to burn itself onto his retinas. He hasn't experienced symbolic sight like this in lessons! Determined to comprehend what is causing this, he resists the temptation to screw his eyes shut and stares hard at the painfully bright image. Unfortunately, after only a few seconds of this, he is forced to look away, gasping with pain, as one of his terrible headaches blossoms behind his eyes.

Once Eren has assured herself that Exalian is not suffering some ongoing attack, she turns her attention back to the puzzle.

"Oh, we can't be frustrated now! I want to know where the delivery goes, and how this is an exit!"

After pondering for a few minutes, she states "I'm not going to try and be clever on this one, my record at being clever tonight isn't very good. But if this an exit there must be some way to trigger it. I can just try everything, something will work eventually. Berem, would you help me to see if anything will shift? We don't want to miss anything, I know I have some chalk around here somewhere, ah here we go. So after each thing we try I'm mark it with chalk, we can erase it later, so we can see if we missed anything, and we don't duplicate. Why don't we start by the sword symbol, and work our way from there. Oh, and I'd best keep an eye out with symbolic sight to see if we start triggering any magic, just in case."

Heedless of what she is doing to her robes, Eren kneels down and starts a step by step process of prodding, poking, twisting, turning, pushing, and pulling.

The others grow increasingkly restless as Eren diligently works her way through every possible motion, combination of motions, sequence of motions and combined sequence of motions that she can think of. Nothing. Not even the faintest suggestion of a hint of a secret mechanism. The tomb is now completely covered in chalk marks, but stubbornly refuses to yield up its secrets.

With a deep sigh, she sinks back onto the ground, fatigue threatening to overwhelm her. Then, as her eyes drift out of focus, she catches a glimpse of something that makes her sit up straight again. Forcing herself to concentrate, she slips into the light trance that her tutor recommended for practicing with symbolic sight.

Yes, there it was again.

"Berem," she says thoughtfully. "Is it just me, or is there a faint line leading down from the tip of the sword?"

The bear-like boy leans forward.

"I don't see..." he begins. Then: "Oh, you mean using the sight, don't you? Hang on, then."

He breathes in deeply and does a strange fluttering thing with his eylids. Eren tries hard not to giggle. Staring intently at the sword inscription, Berem nods.

"Yes," he confirms. "Yes, there is." He looks down at his feet. "And it seems to carry on when it reaches the ground!"

Now that they know what to look for, the other apprentices - all except Exalian, who is still holding his head and moaning quietly - manage to discern a faint glowing line, which leads down from the tip of the sword and then traces a path away from the tomb and off into the darkness.

Following the glowing trail on its rather tortuous route through the tombs, monuments and gravestones, the apprentices eventually find themselves at a small gate in the western wall of the cemetery. Their eyes still attuned to the magical world, they have no trouble in picking out the sword symbol on the gate, which is a smaller replica of the one on the tomb. This must be the right way!

Pavel had been a bit relieved to be able to ignore the strange boy's question about the disputation. He had no answer, yet somehow he didn't feel offended by the intrusion. He'd found the big girl's gushing answer to his own question vaguely amusing too. Now, he finds himself caught up in the excitement of the moment, boyishly forgetting the earlier ruckus by the tomb.

The next part of the directions tells them to "cross the street and pass between the lions", but when Eren eagerly throws open the gate and walks across North Street, she feels her heart sink. The 'lions' are easy to spot: the wall is decorated with about a dozen heraldic crests, two of which show the majestic beast that she was expecting. But between the two crests there is only a blank wall...

Turning to the others, Eren is about to voice her disappointment when she notices Kiki's expression. The small girl is staring in awe at the wall behind her.

"What?" she says, spinning round to look again. "What did I miss?"

"You mean you can't see it?" Kiki breathes...

To her, the section of wall between the two lion emblems is far from blank. On the contrary, it seems to be alive with swirling patterns, which, as she moves closer, gradually resolve into interlocking spirals, composed of ribbons of light. Moving closer still, she sees that the ribbons themselves are composed of countless arcane symbols, which are constantly in motion.

"What are you looking at?" says Berem. "I can't see anything..."

"A... a... pattern of light," she says wonderingly. "Like around the edge of a portal, but I've never seen one quite like this and... well, there doesn't seem to be a portal in the middle..."

Pavel and Eren both confirm that they can see nothing on the wall, even though their symbolic sight seems to be working properly. Exalian, still suffering from the after-effects of his earlier attempt to use the symbolic sight, is reluctant to even try...

Eren mutters "Maybe we have to open a portal?"

Pavel's jaw drops as he stares at the girl. "You must be mad" he says to her. "But then, what could possibly go wrong?"

Exalian frowns at the both of them for the absurdity of the proposition... apprentices opening a portal of power, indeed.

Not being able to see what Eren sees at all, and still holding his head a bit, Exalian approaches the wall near the indicated space, and reaches out with some trepidation. But eventually his hand does touch the wall which, unnervingly, seems to have the yielding consistency of a thick liquid, such as honey or quicksilver, instead of the expected solidity of bricks and mortar.

Jerking his hand away involuntarily, Exalian musters his courage and tentatively pokes at the wall with his finger. He finds it disturbing to watch his digit passing into the wall, but the accompanying sensation is only mildly uncomfortable, rather like pins and needles. Exalian has a sudden, fleeting impression of an intricate swirling pattern of light surrounding his finger, before his head abruptly renews its throbbing and his vision blurs. He hastily withdraws the finger and flexes it experimentally; it seems to be unharmed.

Eren stands for a while, mouth agape, muttering things like "Impossible, no, it must be, be that couldn't, how come nobody has ever, but maybe, no, ah but in one of THOSE dreams there was, so, if you have...."

She closes her mouth and eyes briefly, then says: "I wonder if it only behaves this way for people who have followed the right path? I didn't take the 'right' entrance into the graveyard, and Berem and Pavel weren't on the first part of the route at all. Let's see what happens when we touch it."

With that she strides forward, and pokes at the wall.

The wall seems reassuringly - if rather disappointingly - solid.

Following her lead, Berem gingerly touches the wall himself, letting out a sigh of relief. "Solid as... err... brick," he reports. "Now what?"

Seeing the others act Kiki stops trying to memorise the paterns she is seeing and touches the wall as well with her hand. The moving patterns immediately change, with new spiralling ribbons of symbols appearing where her fingers touch it. The surface of the phenomenon feels cool and yielding. She cautiously applies a little pressure and sees her fingers passing easily through the surface, then pushes her arm in up to the elbow. Oh that feels like putting her hand into a bag of finely milled flour, but accompanied by a faint tingling sensation. She wiggles her unseen hand experimentally. Ahhh... that feels slightly different now, as if her hand has emerged into air again. But what waits on the other side?

She turns to the others and sees that most of them are staring at the wall with renewed intensity.

~oOo~

The idea that he may not be able to put his hand through the wall, for some reason, makes Pavel's heart sink into the ground. He feels desolate and waits to see how things proceed.

When Kiki places her hand on the wall, however, he is startled to see a series of faintly glowing ripples on the surface of the wall, as if she has just put her hand into a still pool of water. The ripples almost immediately seem to reflect off an unseen boundary, bouncing back in an interference pattern that he's seen countless times in wave tank experiments. In their wake, he can now see a shimmering glow, like sunlight playing on water, which extends over a circular section of the wall about two metres across.

Exalian had also been watching as Kiki touched the wall. To him - and to Berem, to judge from his gasp of wonder - it is as if the wall is a piece of paper held over a candle. A ragged circle, glowing brightly like embers, appears around the Kiki's hand, expanding slowly to reveal an expanse of ghostly blue flames.

In both cases the phenomenon is subtle, but difficult to miss once their inner eye has been drawn to it. Exalian finds it extremely painful to look at, but the fact that he can see it at all gives him hope that his earlier experience with the sword symbol hasn't damaged his symbolic sight beyond repair.

Eren looks around in consternation at her open-mouthed companions. "What? What's happening now?" she says. "What can you see?"

"Its wonderful" Kiki gushes "but how on earth can I paint something like this later !. Oh can't you see anything at all?" Kiki suddenly sounds concerned as she realise that Eren is at risk of being left behind.

"It's just a wall as far as I can see but obviously its not just a wall" Eren grumbles at the contradiction.

Kiki ponders briefly "OK I am going through. I must find out what this all means and my Mum asked me to make this delivery. The rest of you can watch and see what happens before you try."

Eren felt dejected at her inability to see what the others saw. Maybe she just wasn't very good at magic? Maybe the others would go on and leave her behind because she couldn't keep up with them, magically or physically? Maybe they should go on, she shouldn't try and hold them back. It had been nice to think she'd finally found a group to be with but…

"Eren, if you want you can hold my hand as we go through," Kiki tells her. "It might help if you close your eyes since you can't see it."

It took a couple of moments for Kiki's words to sink in. Kiki wanted her to come along! A sudden spike of jubilation shot through Eren. "I won't fail Kiki!" she thought, she thinks I can do this, I, I'll make myself get through somehow!"

How was she going to step through that wall? Then her dreams came back to her, that feeling of seeing a web of connections coming through into a node, and how she could dive into the node and somehow transfer, transform, flow or something through the network. Surely this was something similar, it had to be!

Well no, she had to admit to herself, logically it did not "have to be," but she was surely going to do everything that she could to make it so. There were good reasons why she should be able to step through that wall, but belief was going to be hard to muster. How could she overcome her basic belief that this wall was solid? Seeing others go into it helped, but only so much—she was used to others being able to do things that she couldn't, like sing well. But again that was not logical—if others could go through the wall, it should be possible for her to do so too, no spell or ritual was entirely rigid, they all had things that could be varied, so it should be possible to get the spell to affect her.

But short of the moment when her nose met the wall, was there a way that she could check it out? The masters were always telling the students that half of success at magic was finding the right approach. With a sudden smile, she has an idea:

"Kiki, could you please take my staff and see if you can make it go into the wall? Oh, and give me just a moment." Focussing just the right way, she cancels the hidden pocket spell and pulls out the orb. Since this things seems to be magical in some way, I wonder if looking at the wall through it would help?

Kiki obligingly takes her staff and

Well, that was interesting. It suggested that it was possible for something that had not been on the full route to enter the portal—but that it may not feasible. Certainly Kiki had not managed to put the staff in more than a smidgen, although judging from the other's reactions there had been some reaction from the spell.

So, practical evidence was that it was possible, but that hardly likely. She had belief and her dreams as irrational evidence that she could do it. Part of her felt that Kiki could walk through walls because Kiki was special, and Eren could not because she clumsy and common, but she could recognize the illogic of that feeling: Kiki could not walk through walls, Kiki was just, attuned properly to this spell, or something like that. Surely what Kiki could do Eren could copy?

Eren let's out a snort of impatience—she has to start thinking like a magician, not a starry eyed girl. She casts a quick spell to focus her attention. Better!

Now, what about theoretical evidence? All matter was an expression of its deeper magical nature. Most matter was so mixed that all the associations were tangled together in such a knot that you could not easily address just one part of it magically, and so a wall was as solid to magic as to touch. But it was possible to find pure materials, or to overcome that knotted, messy, nature, which could be what happened here. Or, the spell could actually be just in front of the wall or on the surface of the wall. Either way, the way to view it was as a spell rather than as a wall. She could not walk through a wall in all its mixed nature, but she should be able to attune her essence to a spell

"Could you all describe to me what you are seeing?" Hmmm, the different views were interesting, but that was not the point. What did they tell her about the spell? No, too general—what affects could create something like this, and what evidence did she have to support them?

What this reminded her of most was part of the process to concentrate her magic when she had to go through the five elemental barriers. The fire did not burn her nor the earth obstruct her, and so on, because they were spelled to only affect their elemental enemies, and her essential self did not oppose them. This could work similarly, Kiki was seeing the symbols of the effects, Exalian was seeing the energy of it, possibly especially that portion tied to fire.

Hmmm, fire occupied a volume, but could be passed through, yes, that could be a good approach to something like this, bring out the fire nature of the wall, make it think it could dance and move and allow objects through. But air also let things through it, and the step that she had missed was climbing that stupid wall, which was going up, and up is associated with air. You would really need to deal with all the mixed natures, including all of the elements….she had been at the fountain so hopefully her water was OK, and who knew what might have represented darkness—wait, the bone yard itself? There was no real earth component to their search, but maybe that made sense, they had to overcome the earth nature of the wall—oh, like she should have overcome earth by climbing that other wall!. So if it was looking for specific associations with water, air, darkness, and fire, and what she was mostly missing was air, how could she emphasize her associations with air?

She took out the tiny remnant of her piece of chalk, and sketched an air rune on the front of her robe. Then she dropped the chalk to the road and ground it underfoot, to symbolize overcoming earth.

So much for external actions. Now, if she thought about this as a spell, her essence should be able to act with it, resonate with it. In theory she should be able to feel the spell touch her essence, and work to attune herself, to magically align herself with it. Was this not what Master Atlan had been teaching her, in preparation for some day attuning herself to the school's grimoire?

Eren then takes Kiki's smaller hand in her own, and closes her eyes. She turns her focus inwards, feeling her essential nature and how it interacts with the forces around her. She then splits a part of her focus to the feeling from her dreams, that weightless timeless transition that is pure magic and no dross. Finally she mutters "let's do it." and she lets herself be pulled forward.

Exalian decides to trust to pure chance, and just grabs on to the others and follows them in.

Hand in hand, the three apprentices walk calmly towards the wall.

Kiki is the first to pass through, feeling a brief moment of fear at the disturbing sensation of being completely enclosed. She has only a moment to wonder at the ever-more-intricate spiralling symbols that appear before her eyes in transit, then she is emerging once more into the air and peering into the shadowy passageway that stretches out before her.

Eren follows close behind, grateful for the reassuring pressure of her friend's hand and too preoccupied to even notice when Exalian grabs hold of her other hand. She does have a last minute attack of nerves as the resolutely solid-looking wall approaches, but then feels a rush of calming energy flooding through her, even as Kiki pulls her gently through. It takes her a few moments to realise that this unexpected source of strength seems to be flowing from the orb, which she had returned to her pocket after failing to see anything useful when she peered through it. Perhaps it did have some useful powers after all...

Exalian struggles to hold his nerve as he watches Eren disappearing through the portal. His head throbs painfully, making him wince and close his eyes. He feels his hand passing into the wall, then the its cool, smooth material is enclosing his face. The unnerving sensation of it, pressing on eyeballs and creeping into his ears and nose, is suddenly too much to bear. Abruptly letting go of Eren's hand, he first hesitates and then feels himself being pushed backwards. Staggering back into the open air, he backs away from the wall, breathing heavily.

Pavel waits patiently until all the others have gone through, or have at least tried, to see how they are doing it. Having seen those ripples, he reckons he has an idea how this gate works...

Pavel is slightly disconcerted by Exalian's reappearance, but does his best to ignore the other boy as he walks slowly but deliberately towards the wall. It's just like water, he tells himself, closing his eyes. A wall of water. I can walk through it, I can walk through it, I can... There is a moment of discomfort, as the shimmering substance of the wall wraps itself around him, and then he's through.

"Where's Exalian?" Eren asks him? "And Berem, for that matter?"

Pavel merely shrugs and follows Kiki, who is already walking along the passageway before them, muttering the next set of instructions to herself: "Follow the path to its conclusion and climb the stairs..."

~oOo~

Back on the other side of the wall, the unexpected sound of Berem's voice startles Exalian, who has been massaging his eye sockets in a vain attempt to ease the pain in his head

"At least you tried," the other boy tells him gently. "I couldn't even muster the courage to do that. Do you think they'll be alright? Should we wait for them or...?"

Exalian is suddenly enraged at Berem's comments. To be mollified by one such as Berem who, not just a Syran, but a big dumb one as well, is comparing himself to Exalian. How dare he try to make Exalian feel that his failure is somehow not a big deal! Starting out on this errand he had thought it just a lark to begin with. But now that it obviously had to do with something highly magical and important... to have failed to be able to follow the others due to his damn headache... intollerable!

Almost instinctively, rather than with any real planning, Exalian uses his mother's spell intent on teaching the big oaf a lesson. His incohate plan to shock Berem with his glare into understanding his mistake.

Berem rather confounds his plan by bursting into laughter at the sight of Exalian's furiously scowling face.

"Oh dear," he says, shaking with mirth. "Oh I'm sorry, Exalian, but your face is a picture! Like a baby who's just had his toys taken away!"

He slaps the other boy heartily on the back.

"Come on now - no sense in us standing around moping. I don't know about you, but I'm starving! We're probably too late for dinner at College, but I know a tavern near here that serves a decent meal. What do you say we go check it out? My treat..."

Exalian sighs. The big lug seems irrepressibly cheerful, which makes it very hard to continue feeling angry with him...

"Say, Berem, I was thinking," he says, trying to regain some composure. "I have this little project that I'm working on. Something to put Oren in his place once and for all. I'd think you'd be perfect to join our little adventure..."

"You do?" says Berem, sounding pleased. "Come on then - let's go and get some grub and you can tell me more..."

The burly boy is true to his word, taking Exalian to a cosy - if rather tatty-looking - tavern and buying them both a tasty meal. As they eat, they briefly discuss Exalian's project and then turn to their mutual animosity towards Oren.

"He wanted to train as a knight, I think," Berem tells Exalian. "But his dad wouldn't let him - some kind of family tradition - so when he found out that I'd turned down the chance to join St Pavel's, like my dad... well, I guess it riled him for some reason. Still, no excuse for being such a git..."

"What about that Pavel bloke, though?" he asks. "D'you reckon he's mates with Oren, or what? How much do you know about him?"

Exalian admits that he knows very little. He remembers Pavel from the Disputation, since he'd made such an impression - first by dealing with a heckler, who accused him of cheating, then by refusing to argue with an opponent's 'brilliant' presentation and finally by failing to even turn up for his last round.

"Yeah, I can't really figure him out at all," comments Berem. "I saw him this morning, you know, passing by the Citadel with one of the Naval College adepts - you know, that one you and Master Jayron were talking to at the Disputation?"

Exalian is a little taken aback to hear that Berem had witnessed his encounter with Carrick, but he's more interested to discover that Pavel has a connection with the adept.

"Anyway, I reckon they were coming back from the Docks, but Arkat knows what they were doing there, 'cause Pavel was soaking wet and looked all pale and groggy, like. The adept seemed to be looking after him, holding him up even, but he had a right face on him - like someone had just told him his favourite aunt had copped it."

Berem pauses, frowning. "No, that's not right. He looked... well, kind of angry, really, but kind of worried and miserable at the same time, if you know what I mean. Don't know why it stuck in my mind, but it did - seemed to be something odd going on there. You never know with splashers, I suppose - they're a weird lot."

"So anyway, this 'project' of yours," the burly apprentice continues. "What do you say we meet in the library tomorrow, after lunch? One of the scribblers goes to my church, so I can probably pass a message on to Kiki through him, if you like. I expect we'll be seeing Eren at breakfast... Anyone else?"

"Can't think of anyone right off," replies Exalian lost in thought. He wonders a bit about Pavel. On the one hand, Pavel seems nearly deranged to Exalian, both from his detached behavior in the graveyard, and from his actions at the disputation. On the other hand, that quality might come in handy for the tasks ahead. More importantly, though, was it a good idea to risk involving somebody associated with Carrick? Sure, it might be a way for their project to get directly back to Carrick - a goal of enlisting confederates. But it also might seem a bit obvious at the same time.

On the other hand, up until now, he hadn't known about the connection. So perhaps it would be plausible all the same.

And, more compelling to Exalian, his curiosity gets the best of him as usual, and he wonders if he can learn anything from Pavel about Carrick or what's going on.

"But, yeah, let's enlist Pavel," he goes on. "I think he'll help our operation. Once we meet up with Eren, we can maybe find out details about how to get him aboard. Assuming he can make it to this side of town at all, that is."

As they finish their meal, Exalian considers whether or not to go to church tomorrow. He'd not gone in weeks. Somehow, however, it seemed to be a good idea to go this week, and get the blessings of Arkat. His will might be beneficial in such an adventure as he was intending to go off upon. In the end he decides to try to blend in, and hope that he avoids notice... perhaps nobody will realize that one apprentice hasn't been coming to services regularly....

~oOo~

Kiki pauses and turns to check Eren is following and surprised to see Pavel with Eren but the others missing. At least she will not have to explain arriving with that boy her mum warned her against she thinks, although he had been helpful.

"This way it - can't be far now," she says. And with that she heads off down the passage.

It is narrow and very dark, with only a faint flickering light from above. Peering up towards the source of this minimal illumination, Kiki sees that it is spilling out of a handful of small windows, which seem to be at least two stories above them; directly overhead, she can see a ribbon of starlit sky. There are no windows or doors at this level and there is obviously only one way to proceed: forwards.

As the three apprentices walk along the passageway, the blank walls looming over them on either side begin to seem rather oppressive. It is almost as if they have been transformed into ants, Kiki muses, who have fallen down a crack in the pavement. Fortunately, she does not have too long to contemplate this strangely disturbing image, as they reach the end of the passage after only a few minutes.

Kiki has a brief moment of panic as she sees the wall approaching, since it initially seems to be a dead end. As she draws near, however, she realises that there is a narrow opening to the right and, rounding the corner, sees stone steps leading up. As they begin to climb the steps, Kiki wonders where exactly they are now. If they are still in the city (and having walked through that strange portal, she is not entirely confident about that), then she guesses that they are in Gavon, and already at the summit of the hill that dominates the district. So what are they climbing?

Several flights of steps later, she has her answer, as they emerge from the narrow confines of the staircase and are confronted with a breathtaking rooftop vista of the city.

"Wow I really need to paint this one day" Kiki gasps.

Rising above the roof to their immediate left, and looming rather menacingly over them, is a strange cylindrical tower with three or possibly four levels. The topmost floor overhangs the lower floors by several metres, supported by arching buttresses, which are spaced regularly around the tower's circumference like the gills of a giant mushroom.

Kiki cranes her neck, trying to imagine what this peculiar structure would look like from a distance and wondering why she hasn't noticed it on the skyline. A pair of panelled wooden doors, one of them with a thick metal ring attached to it, can be seen at the base of the tower.

"Well it looks like we are here at last. So now we 'Knock four times to be admitted' according to the instructions. And I guess that this is the knocker," adds Kiki pointing to the ring on the wooden door.

Pavel is starting to have serious doubts now. "Um, just a moment, one of you. Why are we here?" he asks, ignoring the fat that he wasn't exactly invited.

Eren has been walking along in a happy daze. She did it, she really did it—she walked through a wall! She was facing a difficult magical situation, and she figured out how to address it, and it worked! Of course, she'd had help from Kiki and the orb, but that was help from a friend and a prize for good work. How could life ever be better than this?

It is finally Pavel's words that bring her back to the moment. "Oh, we are helping Kiki make a delivery. Thank you for helping by the way, that is very kind of you." Eren makes an odd bobbing motion, and realizes that no matter how great things are, she still can't curtsy. "Isn't it just thrilling—we walked through a wall, and now we are," she pauses, and really looks around for the first time. "Oh." With almost visible effort the girl keeps herself from umming, and finally says in a rush "Kiki! Where are we? Or when? This looks like it might be Syran, but I don't think that there is any tower like that!"

When it becomes apparent that the others are as stumped as she is, Eren agrees with Kiki "Might as well finish the delivery. Maybe whoever answers can tell us more about, ummm, here. Oh, I said `ummm' again, darn it!" After a moment of consternation, her face lights up again "You know, we didn't JUST walk through a wall, we went through to the hero plane, or a different place or something. This is major magic! We are like real magicians almost!" After a brief pause, she quietly adds "Although true magicians would probably figure where they are. A tower like that is distinctive, surely there is something if I could just remember."

Eren's excellent memory obligingly offers up a range of interesting morsels of trivia about the city and its architecture. Unfortunately, she is far too excited to relate any of this information to their present circumstances.

Kiki breaks off from memorising the vista below her "Well after passing though the portal well yes we could be on the hero plane but as the sword icon suggested this tower could just be hidden from normal view. But now we have followed the proscribed path we can see it now. I wonder if we will still be able to see it when we get back." Kiki shrugs "I wonder who will answer the door?"

~oOo~

Seeing Kiki is readying to knock on a door, Pavel prepares to bolt.

The diminutive apprentice walks confidently up to the doors and grasps the heavy knocker. She raps four times, hearing the sound echoing within, and then steps back to wait.

Nothing happens.

After a few minutes, Kiki begins to fidget. She is just about to try knocking again, when she hears the sound of footsteps within and then a heavy bolt being drawn. One of the doors opens to reveal a tall man with a scholarly demeanour, dressed in the robes of the Iconographers and holding a lantern. Staring down his long nose at her, his initial frosty smile rapidly turns into a frown as he notices Eren and Pavel.

"You took your own sweet time, girl," he tells Kiki sharply. "And I don't recall saying anything about bringing your friends along for the ride. This wasn't supposed to be a lark, you know."

"Sorry sir," replies Kiki. "But I needed help to find the starting point."

"Of course you did," he observes, with a note of sarcasm in his voice. He scowls at the three apprentices for a moment, then sighs.

"Well, since you're here, I suppose you'd better come in as well. But I warn you now: you're going to have to share the cake..."

Kiki smiles at him "Thank you we don't mind sharing" And then remembering "Oh and here is your package from my Mum"

"Ah yes," he says, taking the packet and sniffing it appreciatively. "I'd almost forgotten about the herbs. A necessary ruse... but let us continue this conversation inside."

Kiki follows him back up the stairs of the tower.

"Well?" he calls back to Eren and Pavel. "Are you two coming or not?"

Oh, this sort of "I'm better than you, know more than you, and deal with you only because I condescend to" attitude bugs Eren incredibly. It reminds her, amongst others, of her older sister, and for that matter several of the other members of the troupe.

Of course, while it still makes her blood boil, it does mean she's spent a lot of time brooding about how to deal with this sort of thing. What she would like to do is hold out her arm for Pavel to take and continue in like lord and lady. But she knows she'd trip over her own feet or something and ruin it. Hmmm. Better to use words than movements then.

"Her name is not `girl,' it is Kiki." Eren speaks out clearly, articulating as carefully as she can, trying to copy the manners used on stage to show the high born. She struggles however to keep her irritation from her voice. "She's one of the top apprentices at Sacred Image, and came in second at the Disputation just hosted by Imperial College—and made several friends in the process. This is Pavel, an apprentice at the Naval Academy, who, uh, is well connected in the community. I'm Erentona, apprentice at Imperial College. I won the disputation. I'm most pleased to meet you. May we have the pleasure of know to whom we are talking?"

There is a long moment of silence, then Eren hears footsteps coming back down the stairs. Their would-be host reappears at the doorway, glaring at her with undisguised contempt.

"Forgive me, Er-en-to-na," he sneers, sounding out the syllables of her name in a sing-song fashion. "I simply had no idea that I was in such illustrious and well-connected company."

He snorts and continues to glare at her for a moment, but then his expression softens a fraction and he looks faintly embarrassed.

"Still, there's no need to be rude, I suppose," he observes. "Can't blame you for not knowing when you're in the presence of your betters. I am Salazari," he announces, with evident pride. "Syran's most celebrated cartographer and a graduate of the School of the Sacred Image. In my days as an apprentice, we knew our place and behaved accordingly, but you Imperial College types always were an uppity bunch. Now are you going to come in, or must we spend the entire night exchanging niceties on my doorstep?"

Pavel kicks Erentona quite sharply in the ankle to persuade her to keep quiet. "You will forgive her, I am sure," he smiles, managing somehow to judge things so he is just that hair's breadth short of oily. "I believe she is simply maintaining the proud tradition of our fair city of enquiring after the credentials of anyone who purports to be in a position of authority."

"You will also understan that it is a little difficult to know one's place when one appears to be hovering in thin air." Offering the man a wry smile, he confides, "I expect she didn't know who you you were".

"Surprising, but probably true," Salazari says with a lop-sided grin. "No matter - you will soon become better informed."

Taking her elbow firmly in his hand, Pavel marches Eren up the stairs. Only halfway up does he realises that he has lost the opportunity to run for it...

Eren knows that sometimes she has to settle for small victories, and he has not admitted that he was rude, and has at least met the form of politeness, so she allows herself to be steered into the tower.

She whispers to Pavel "Thank you for taking on the hard job of being polite. It was probably good for someone to do that."

Kiki considers the mans words with a slightly surprised look. "I am from the country so still finding my way round and I don't know a lot of people except at the school. I have still haven't managed to get on the Cartography course. The master said I was not mature enough yet. So but I have not learned of you or your achievements yet. Can I give you a hand with the tea?"

"Ha!" Salazari exclaims. "Not mature enough yet! That's typical of Master Grosdal, I'm afraid: he never misses a chance to belittle a student. As for the tea... well, I think I can manage," he assures her. "My culinary talents are modest, admittedly, but they do at least stretch to tea. I'd normally have my apprentice take care of it for me, but he's left me to fend for myself this evening..."

~oOo~

Ushering them inside, Salazari closes and bolts the door behind them. The three apprentices find themselves in a shadowy semi-circular room, which is dominated by a stone staircase that winds around the curving external wall. This wall is bare stone and largely free of ornament, saving only a couple of plain metal candle-holders and a narrow window above the stairs. The flat wall, which seems to be hung with several framed maps, has a closed wooden door on the left and a room-height semi-cylindrical protrusion in its centre.

The cartographer leads them up the stairs, passing through two further semi-circular rooms with identical proportions to the entrance hall, both of which are cloaked in shadow. The first room is a mirror-image of the entrance hall and appears to be a kitchen or a laboratory; a large fireplace in the flat wall implies that the protrusion in the lower room had been a chimney breast. The walls of the second room are lined with tall wooden cabinets, which seem to be filled with rolls of paper; a single framed map hangs over its small fireplace.

Ascending the final flight of stairs, they emerge into a huge circular room, which encompasses the entire upper floor of the tower. In the centre of the room is the same cylindrical chimney that they have seen below, which on this floor seems to have no fewer than four fireplaces spaced around it. Arching structures on the ceiling, supported by a ring of stout columns, radiate like spokes from this hub. The wooden floor is strewn with numerous rugs of diverse shapes, sizes and colours

The walls of the room are set with glazed windows all the way round, offering magnificent views out over the city. One half of the room has deep wooden workbenches, lining the perimeter wall, that are strewn with books, papers, boxes, scroll-tubes and writing materials. The other half, which has cabinets lining the wall, is sub-divided into two distinct quarters: one contains a long, oval dining table, surrounded by high-backed chairs; the other holds a pair of upholstered armchairs, facing one of the fireplaces, and a rather worn-looking chaise-longue.

"We'd better sit over here," says Salazari, gesturing at the table. "Otherwise there's bound to be a fight over the comfy chairs..."

After hanging a kettle over one of the fires, he rummages in a cabinet and at length produces four assorted mugs, a teapot and a tray. By the time that he has found some tea, a nearly-empty jar of honey and the promised cake, the kettles is already whistling.

After the tea and cake is served Kiki looks out of one of the windows

"What a view," she sighs. Then, turning to Salazari: "You said the herbs were a ruse so how else my I help you ?"

"That remains to be seen," Salazari replies, rather unhelpfully. He leans forward, scrutinizing her. "Tell me, gir... err... Kiki," he amends, with a glance at Eren. "What is it that you hope to do when - or perhaps I should say if - you complete your apprenticeship with the Iconographers? A little bird tells me," he adds, before she has the chance to respond. "That you have been seen on the academy roof, apparently sketching maps of the surrounding streets. And you did mention an interest in cartography..."

Kiki tries to think who she had mentioned her interest in maps to and how this man could have found out, but the man is watching her and obviously expects a response so answers him honestly.

"My mother is the village healer and originally I had expected to follow her as is the norm." Kiki does not mention the more "interesting" potions her mum makes. "But one of my paintings caused a bit of a ruckus and as a result I found myself at the college. There my main interest to date has been in animals and the some of the more exotic beasts. Rendering them accurately onto canvas is what I am best know for. How that would translate into an occupation later I am not sure and my master has advised me against following that path too far. So to date that has been my main interest. But since coming to this city then yes I have found myself interested in making maps. At first just to help me round the city when I found some of the existing drawings colourful but inaccurate. So yes I am interested but I am as yet quite untutored on the subject."

Kiki indicates Eren.

"Did you find the time to attend the Disputation? There Eren suggested the fascinating idea of mapping the mundane world and relating it to the higher planes, as the mundane world is often a pale reflection of what lies beyond the barrier."

"Did she indeed?" Salazari says, studying Eren with sudden interest. "I'd no idea that the Imperial College's annual debating club had attained such lofty heights! Tell me, Eren, how did you come up with this notion? Have you, by any chance, been reading Hepaximander's pioneering work on psychogeography?"

Eren, who has only ever encountered the name 'Hepaximander' in relation to a mathematical paradox and has never even heard of psycho-whatever-it-was, shakes her head and opens her mouth to reply, but Salazari just keeps talking.

"No? A pity. He has some interesting things to say about the arcane correspondences between roads - and cross roads in particular - and the various confluences and nodal inter-relationships that one might observe in the higher planes. If I recall..."

He belatedly notices that Eren was about to say something and breaks off mid-sentence.

"Ah, but I'm being rude again, aren't I?" he observes with smile. "You had something to say?"

After two tries Eren manages to swallow the slightly too large bite of slightly dry cake that was filling her mouth, and stammers "I, that is, you say Hepaximander talks about that?" Eren's eyes widen almost avariciously. "Ummm, do you mind if I take notes?" she stammers, already fishing in the pockets of her robe for something to scribble with. She explains eagerly "I was mostly extrapolating from the Rule of Helmat and the lives of various saints, how their mortal actions eventually aligned with their later runic associations. But I'd LOVE to read what Hepaximander has to say!" Eren thinks to herself " A real adept is actually talking to us, with us—keep him talking!"

Fortunately her curiosity makes it easy for her to ask questions. "What did you think of Hepaximander's explanation?" she prompts.

"Oh, it's mostly complete and utter tosh," Salazari opines, warming to his subject. "And an excuse to make some entertaining points at his contemporaries' expense. The old rascal does raise some very intriguing questions in the process, though, which have been woefully neglected ever since. In fact, I think it's safe to say that no-one had properly addressed them until I wrote my first thesis on the subject..."

He launches into a lengthy and rather bewildering exposition of his theory of psychogeography, most of which goes completely over Eren's head. Kiki is better able to follow his sneering references to "the wishy-washy representational orthodoxy" and "Grosdal's so-called post-perspectivist 'new world order'", which refer to various intellectual movements within her School, but she too finds most of his theory either confusing or impenetrable.

He claims to have formulated a new branch of applied logic, which is concerned with the 'geomantic' analysis of architecture and 'geophysical structures' (i.e. the landscape), with particular reference to the 'trajectories' (paths, roads, rivers and the like) that both link and divide them. A proper understanding of these structures, he argues, can be used to discern or extrapolate deeper truths about the larger entities (or 'macrostructures') to which they belong; the world itself being the ultimate 'macrostructure'.

Pavel is thoroughly bored by all of this and is pulling at a curious piece of ribbon he has found hanging off a bookshelf. Tugging it gently at first, he finds that it is longer than he was expecting and cautiously keeps on pulling. By the time that he encounters some resistance, he has looped it several times around his hand and is beginning to wonder if there is a ball of the stuff unwinding somewhere unseen. Pulling a little harder, he is encouraged to feel some movement - perhaps it had just snagged on something? One sharp tug should do it...

"And that's when I made my breakthrough," Salazari is saying. "By discovering the..."

The cartographer is interrupted by a sudden loud clattering, as several large books tumble off a bookshelf and onto the floor. Worse still, one of the volumes seems to have fallen completely out of its bindings, its pages scattering everywhere.

Three pairs of eyes alight on Pavel, who doesn't look the slightest bit sheepish or apologetic. Making himself comfortable on the floor, he starts to reassemble the book and see if it has any interesting pictures in it.

~oOo~

Salazari's face has taken on an alarming hue and it looks like steam may start to come out of his ears at any moment. Staring in stark disbelief at Pavel, he opens and closes his mouth a few times before uttering a strangled cry of exasperation and slamming down his tea cup with such force that the liquid splashes all over the table.

"Do you have any idea," he begins. "How much... how much damage that sort of... of..."

Seeing Pavel's complete lack of remorse or even awareness that he's done something reprehensible, Salazari breaks off with a sigh.

"Oh, what's the use?" he says bitterly. Taking a deep breath, he tears his gaze away from the student on the floor and turns his attention to Kiki.

"Young lady," he begins, stiffly. "I would first like to say that it has been an unexpected pleasure to meet you... and your friend Eren," he adds with a rather forced smile at the latter. "I only wish I could say the same about you other... friend," he mutters.

"As I intimated earlier," he continues. "The order that I placed with your mother was a ruse. Its only purpose was to set you a challenge - a challenge, I might add, that you and your friends seem to have risen to quite admirably. You are not the first to have been set this test, but very few before you have succeeded and one of those - Inglenook - went on to become my apprentice."

He smiles at Kiki's sudden look of alarm and seems to relax a little.

"Don't worry," he tells her. "I am not looking for another apprentice - I already have my hands full with Inglenook and I'm sure that your school would be loath to part with you. I am, however, in need of an additional assistant - or perhaps assistants," he says, with a hopeful glance at Eren and a very dubious one at Pavel. "To take part in a little project that I have in mind. I won't go into details now, but suffice it to say that it is concerned with the test that you passed this evening... and the topic that we were just discussing."

He pauses, gazing thoughtfully at the two girls.

Eren's heart thumps in her chest—this powerful adept wants her to help him, and on a topic that fascinates her? And here she thought that the day could not get better!

"As you will no doubt soon discover," Salazari continues. "I am not exactly a... favourite at the School of the Sacred Image. I hope that you will not hold my ill-deserved reputation against me, but it's doubtful that the Master of Tutors - or my former master, Grosdal - would approve if they knew that you were being exposed to my so-called 'dangerous ideas'. I, on the other hand, think that you are more than capable of discerning the truth for yourselves - and from the sound of it, you both have an interest in doing so."

Oh, but she would not want to upset the masters at Imperial, Eren thinks. If they thought she was going to some renegade adept, learning possibly banned things... but he did say his bad reputation was at Sacred Image. Surely at Imperial they would not care that much? Still, best not to advertise it too much.

"So, here is my proposal," he continues. "If you agree to help my with my project, then I will share some of my discoveries with you. I can't promise that they'll help you to pass your exams, but I can promise that you won't learn about this anywhere else. And I have an inkling that you'll find it more useful than half of the tosh they teach you at Sacred Image. Or at the College, for that matter," he adds, with a glance at Eren.

Eren has to stifle a giggle at this. Not that she'd ever let herself call it tosh, but she did have that feeling sometimes!

"I don't have time for half-hearted lollygaggers, mind - or for meddlesome numbskulls!" he adds, glaring at Pavel. "So don't you go telling me that you're interested if you're really nothing of the sort. And if you are interested, then I'll expect you to return here in one week's time - you know the way now, so it shouldn't be quite so hard the next time."

The cartographer stares at each of the three apprentices in turn, his eyes narrowed and flashing with inner fire.

"Well?" he demands. "What do you say?"

"Oh thank you that would be great to learn cartography" Kiki gushes with a broad smile. "Err" she hesitates in her head long rush. "You did find out about my reputation at school" She questions before rattling on. "I assume you did as you found out about my mum. I don't mean to, but I do seem to keep getting into trouble. My Mum says being headstrong runs in the women in our family. I don't plan to give up on my animal studies and will still need to fit all my normal work in as well. But that should be OK as I work hard and usual manage to find time."

Kiki pause to take a breath, thinks for a moment and then responds formally.

"Master I would be glad to take your offer as you suggested I will return with in the week unless my mum forbids me."

"Excellent!" Salazari exclaims. "I knew that my instincts were right about you. Oh, and don't worry about that unfortunate incident with the horse - unlike your masters at Sacred Image, I don't regard the exuberance of youth as something that needs to be quoshed."

"And you, my dear?" he asks Eren.

"Oh, the things you'd teach us, would that help us understand how the path to here works?" she asks. "I missed one stage, and then had a hard time getting through the barrier at the wall. I was determined to keep accompanying Kiki, and I wanted to know where this was leading, so I was trying to figure out the runic associations of the various steps along the way, so what I could do to get through. I made it, but I don't know if any of what I did helped or not! It is going to drive me crazy with curiosity! So yes, if you can teach us something about that sort of thing I'd be glad to help you. Oh, there may be times where our schedules don't let us all come when you want, but we are at different schools, so maybe I could set up some sort of roster or schedule to make sure that somebody is available when you need us? And we'll need some ways to get messages reliably between Kiki and I, and Pavel if he takes part…."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?" says Salazari, seeming a little taken aback by Eren's rather gushing response to his invitation. "Very well - I wouldn't normally have considered approaching an Imperial student, but you do seem to have a genuine interest, so I am going to give you the chance to prove yourself. But you may need to do some additional, err... homework, if you are going to be useful. I'm not familiar with the Imperial curriculum, but I rather doubt that you have the same practical and theoretical grounding as young Kiki. However, let's address the particulars of my - or should I say 'our'? - project next week."

"What about you, boy?" Salazari asks, glaring at Pavel.

"I think you can put me in the not interested category", says Pavel quite honestly. "I'm interested in this though." He holds up one of the detached pages which has a boldly coloured picture of a gigantic wave, all motion and potential. "I think it's coming from here", he points at a spot on the page where the lines of the wave would meet if they were carried outside the confines of the picture and looks expectantly at Salazar.

The cartographers eyes widen with alarm when he sees what the boy is holding up. "Give me that," he snarls, trying to snatch the page from the boy's hand.

"Whoops!" says Pavel, letting go of it it before Salazari can reach him. "Sorry, sir - I'll just pick that up again for you..." he says, quickly kneeling down amongst the papers again and scrabbling round for the dropped page.

"No, no, no!" the cartographer shouts. "Get your grubby paws off those pages, you idiot! You've done enough damage already. Go on... Get out of it!" As he starts to gather up the scattered pages, the cartographer mutters under his breath. "Cursed students, always messing things up and poking their cursed noses into matters that don't..."

He breaks off, turning to Eren and Kiki. "I think you'd better take this oaf away before he wrecks anything else. Otherwise I won't be held responsible for my actions..."

Leading the three students downstairs Salazari ushers them rather hastily out of the door. "Don't forget," he tells the two girls. "Here, next week, at sundown. Good night!"

With a final glare at Pavel, the cartographer slams the door.

Ignoring the reproachful looks from his two companions, the Naval College apprentice surreptitiously pats an inconspicuous bulge in his robe and smiles to himself. Salazari couldn't possibly begrudge him one of his pictures, could he? After all, the book was ruined...

~oOo~

"Ah, the prodigal son returns," Father Lennart says, as Exalian attempts to sneak past him. "Good to see you, Exalian. Have they been keeping you busy at the College, then? Too busy to come to church once a week, at any rate. I'm surprised that your new liturgist hasn't had something to say about that..."

The service is relatively short, but Exalian still finds his attention wandering. He notices a couple of other apprentices - both wearing the robes of Tenebrous Wisdom - and idly wonders which of the various Stygian congregations in the city Cecily attends. One of the gloomers catches his eye and gives him a nod of recognition. Ah yes! He'd been one of the contestants at the Disputation. Exalian struggles to recall his name, but he does vaguely remember the boy's presentation, which had been something to do with taxonomy.

After the ceremony, Exalian decides to do some netoworking with the student from the stygian school, and looks about for him.

He spots the gloomer in a small group of other youngsters and approaches them with a smile on his face. His face falls when he realises that Father Lennart is at the centre of the group.

"And here's Exalian as well!" the liturgist observes. "That's marvellous - I was hoping you'd want to help too. Have you met the other student members of our congregation? This is Welspun, who's a student like you. Oh, you've met? At the Disputation? Splendid."

Welspun! Yes, that was the boy's name. The liturgist introduces three other young people, whose names Exalian instantly forgets. One is another gloomer apprentice, a glum-looking girl who seems a little jumpy, while the other two are Obscurist novices. Exalian's congregation has close ties with both the School of Tenebrous Wisdom, which is also situated in Northside, and the Order of St Errolan, which has a monastery next door to the church. Father Lennart is an Obscurist himself, albeit an atypically genial example of this largely dour, close-mouthed and puritanical order.

"As I was explaining," the liturgist continues. "Bishop Castellan recently asked my brethren and I to undertake some research for him, but our Lord Abbot suggested that it might be a task better suited to those already engaged in study. My thoughts naturally turned to you."

He goes on to describe the task and Exalian quickly realises why the monks had been reluctant to take it on. The bishop, for reasons of his own, wants to compile a definitive list of all the artefacts that have ever been associated with the prophet, together with an assessment of their provenance. From his own recent research, Exalian knows just how many groups claiming a link to Arkat have turned up over the centuries, almost all of them in possession of some holy relic or other. Given the extremely dubious history of some of these groups, he can see that this could turn out to be a long and frustrating task... especially the bit about assessing their provenance!

The reason that Exalian has avoided church now churns bile into this stomach. How galling to have to serve these people just in order to get his education. All in the name of just maintaining a second-class social status, not even nobility.

Still, nothing for it but to do as the good Father suggests.

Exalian addresses Welspun, and let's on that he's up to something at the Imperial College, and hints that Welspun might be welcome to join in the fun, if he's up to it. Not taking long in this, as Exalian doesn't want to be too late for his own meeting! As soon as the coast is clear, Exalian leaves the church, heading for the school and the library.

~oOo~

~~

After writing the letter Kiki heads off to the church. Kiki attends to church like clockwork but does not give the church any commitment to it beyond what is expected of everyone. Besides she wanted to check out her new singing voice and keep it in tune.

~oOo~

It is the full morning sun that finally wakes Eren from her restless sleep. Shocked at how late it is, she quickly gets out of bed, only to almost trip on the mess still covering her floor. Struggling to wake up, she finally remembers, her room turned topsy-turvy, the orb's attack on Kiki, the frustrating clues, and finally the tower! Once she'd finally gotten back to the college she'd collapsed into bed without even changing. Looking at the fresco of dust, mud, and chalk on her robes she realizes that she can't wear these down to breakfast, and certainly not to church!

She goes searching across the floor for the most acceptable of her remaining robes. None are exactly neat after a night rumbled on the floor, but after she'd tossed all onto the bed in her `unacceptable' pile she digs through it and finds the least unacceptable. "Oh, what about the orb?" She can't leave it in the room, it is both in danger and dangerous it would seem. She really must ask master Atlan about it... but for now she tucks it into a pocket.

Getting some odd looks over breakfast she realizes that she had forgotten about her hair. A quick pat around her head verifies that half of it has escaped its braids….but then Berem shows up, and informs her of a meeting for "Exalian's project" after lunch. She is half way to church before remembering about church again, so fixes the braids as well as she can while hurrying down the street. Hopefully she can find a dark corner to sit in during the service and nobody will note her disheveled condition.

The service, which includes a rather inconclusive sermon about the importance of correct punctuation, proceeds without incident. As ever, the experience of being amongst the gentle-hearted, if rather hidebound, folk of her congregation inspires feelings of loyalty and frustration in equal measure.

"Eren dear?" says one of the elderly parishioners, noticing her after the service. "Father tells me that your family are out of town at the moment. What a shame! You really must come to lunch with me..."

"Oh... no, it's all right, Mother Berrence. I'm fine, honest."

"Nonsense, child - I insist! Now, tell me all about your studies at College. Is it true that you won come sort of a competition the other day? How exciting!"

~oOo~

The Church of the Waters in Savaran is always full on a Godday morning, the congregation dominated by the students of the Naval Academy. Pavel rather misses the quieter services at his old church in Portside, but he and his fellow students are expected to join the larger congregation, which is adjacent to the Academy in Savaran Square.

Throughout the service, Pavel finds his mind wandering back to the page of Salazari's book that he'd taken. There is something strange and rather wonderful about that wave picture, some kind of special secret that he is determined to fathom - even if he has to go to extraordinary lengths and research it himself at the Imperial College Library...

His reverie is broken by the sound of the congregation rising to its feet for a hymn. Hastily doing the same, he catches sight of Carrick looking over at him from across the aisle, with an unreadable expression on his face. The adept hastily looks away when he sees Pavel staring back at him.

"'Ere, Pavel," hisses a voice from behind him, shortly after the hymn begins. "Rumour 'as it, you 'ad a bit of a bath yesterday. Thought you smelled a bit sweeter 'n usual!"

This weak jibe is accompanied by a flurry of hastily-smothered giggles. The joker is an older boy from one of the other halls. Pavel is about to respond, but his hall-mate Gorbo beats him to it.

"Least our Pavel knows 'ow to swim, like," the rotund boy observes. "Unlike your pathetic team o' losers."

"Not what I 'eard," the other boy counters. "I 'eard 'e nearly drowned, an' that Carrick 'ad to pull 'im out!"

This predictably draws an angry response from Gorbo and the other Heron Hall students, prompting Pavel to turn around, ready to join in. As soon as he does so, however, the boys behind him stop talking and start singing. Turning back slowly, Pavel finds Principal Harman's face only a few centimetres away from his own. He gulps and hastily opens his mouth to start singing again. The Principal glares at him for a few moments, then stalks away.

Pavel determinedly returns his thoughts to Salazari picture. All of a sudden, an afternoon spent researching it at the Library seems a lot more appealing...

~oOo~

Kiki is rather relieved to see Berem as she enters the library. She'd noticed Oren and some of the other boys from the graveyard hanging around outside and hadn't wanted to deal with them by herself. Thankfully, they didn't even seem to have noticed her.

"Hullo!" Berem says as she walks up to him. "Glad to see that you got the message. None of the others are here yet..."

She'd been rather taken aback when an Imperial student she'd never even seen before came up to her after the service at the Church of Inspiration that morning.

"You're Kiki, aren't you?" the boy had said. "I have a message for you from Berem. Congratulations on the Disputation, by the way. Really thought you were going to win!"

Berem's note had been rather terse ("Library after lunch - Exalian's project! Eren coming too. B"), but she'd immediately guessed what 'Exalian's project' referred to, even if she had almost forgotten about the Galvosti boy's unexpected invitation. She'd debated whether to come, but the mention of Eren's name reassured her.

"Do you know what this is all about?" she whispers to Berem, sitting down across the table from him.

"Not really," he admits cheerfully. "Exalian said something about a book, but I wasn't really paying attention. Main thing that stuck in miy mind was the bit about paying Oren back for..."

"Shhhhhh!" Kiki interjects hastily, gesturing over her shoulder. "He's just outside!" she mouths, barely even whispering.

"Who's outside? Oh, you mean Or...?" Berem begins, then taps a finger on the side of his nose in a conspiratorial gesture. "Oh. Right you are. Mum's the word!" He frowns, looking suddenly thoughtful. "Hmmm... I do hope Eren doesn't have any trouble with him when she gets here. He did seem rather mad at her yesterday..."

~oOo~

By the time that Eren has politely extricated herself from the well-intentioned clutches of the kindly old lady, she is feeling uncomfortably full of rich food and anxious about being late for her meeting with Exalian and the others. Flustered, she rushes through the streets and arrives at the main doors to the library feeling hot and bothered, with her recalcitrant hair once again making a determined bid for freedom.

"Saints preserve us!" exclaims a horribly familiar voice from behind her. "What strange manner of creature is this? Tell me, Aggie, have you ever seen such an odd-shaped, red-faced beast, with such peculiar tufts of hair on its head? If expect we should go into the library immediately, to consult Cadwallader's Bestiary..."

Eren turns to see Oren, surrounded by his usual coterie of the College social elite, who are all grinning or sniggering at his last remark. With the notable exception of Pavel, all of the boys from the previous evening's encounter in the cemetery are there, as are Aldeth, Agnetha and a few others that she doesn't know by name.

Eren does not really want a fight right now, although it is no surprise that Oren wants to get back for last night. She has real magical research to do, apparently. Glancing at his cronies she doesn't think they are as much out for blood as they were last night. Oren is a royal pain, but she actually likes and admires some of these folk, she really doesn't want to take on all them, just get Oren off her case. She's determined not to let Oren unsettle her too much, but she doesn't want to just rush into the library with her tail between her legs. Is there some way to take Oren out of the crowd and into the play, so that the crowd is watching and judging both of them?

Then part of this morning's sermon comes back to her then—apparently her memory was working even if her mind had been wandering—about how when you find others in error you should calmly correct them but also offer to educate them so that they will not err again. A sense of peace washes through Eren as this sage advice takes a clever twist in her mind. Yes, there is a way to do this if she can just deliver the line appropriately.

Eren tries to feign nonchalance as she replies "That is a good idea Oren, would you like some help? I could help you look up ghosts and graveyard haunts while we're at it."

Now, did that come across as nonchalant and unbothered, or as a desperate attempt to stave off her tears?

"Aieee! The monster speaks," Oren says in a flat tone. "Save us! Oh, my mistake. It's not a monster at all - just a scruffy fool who's forgotten to wear her motley. Shame on you fool! You scared us. Where is your funny hat with the bells on?"

This gets a few nervous laughs, but it's clear that his cronies are already bored of this encounter. Oren deliberately turns his back on her and strikes up a conversation, but his body language belies his apparent nonchalance.

Round two to me, Eren decides, entering the library...

~oOo~

As he arrives at the College, Exalian notices a few of Oren's cronies hanging around, but no sign of the odious one himself. Entering the Library, he immediately spots Kiki, Eren and Berem, who are seated at a table near the entrance.

"Come on," he tells them. "Let's go and find a table that's a little more private..."

They locate a suitable table amongst the shelves, with nobody else nearby, and sit down. The others all look at Exalian expectantly.

"Go on, then," Berem prompts him. "What's the plan? You said it was something to do with a..." He drops his voice to a whisper. "A secret book of magic. And one that we can use it to get even with Oren. So tell us more. What is this book, where can we find it... and how exactly did you find out about it?"

Exalian knows the answer to Berem's first question: Jayron told him that the collection is concealed within a book called 'A Student's Guide To Statistical Analysis' by Bolchek Murow.

His second question might prove more challenging. The library does have a card index, but it's notoriously difficult to use and not always reliable. The bookshelves are allegedly organised into categories, but the logic behind this schema is justly famous for its inscrutability. The more superstitious students are convinced that the Library re-organises itself when no-one is looking; the most cynical maintain that it has been deliberately enchanted with a confusion spell by successive generations of masters, determined to make the lives of their apprentices more difficult.

As for Berem's third question... well, Exalian decies that it's best to ignore that one for the time being...

~oOo~

After grabbing an early lunch, Pavel heads over to Westgate and the Imperial College, where he immediately notices Oren and the others hanging around outside the Library. He suspects that Oren will be mad at him after the previous evening's shenanigans in the cemetery - a rather wearying prospect - so he takes a detour and goes into the Library via its side entrance.

Finding an out-of-the-way table amongst the shelves, he picks out a hefty tome entitled "Art and Magic: the Logical Origins of Representationalism" and forces himself to try reading some of the text, as well as looking at the numerous pictures. After making a little progress, he is rather annoyed to hear a whispered conversation in the next aisle...

~oOo~

Kiki has yet to unravel in her own mind how books in Imperial Library are sorted, although as luck would have it most of the books Kiki usually needs are in the one section. But the book they are looking for now could be anywhere.

"A book like that could be anywhere" sighs Kiki, swinging her legs on the chair. "I think we just have to take a section each and methodically go through them. But I hope someone has a better idea than that as that would keep us busy for a long time."

"OK, that makes sense" replies Eren, "but some sections are probably more likely to hold it that others. Maybe Exalian and I should take a few moments to think of which sections seem most likely, and we'll divide those up first. And we should take notes of what sections that we've checked, just to make sure we don't forget. I think I remember quite a lot of the organization. What else? Oh, Exalian, he said it was a book, right? So I think we can ignore some of the loose notes and scrolls that have never been put into books."

Exalian confirms that it is definitely a book that they're after, which does help to narrow the search down a little. Eren's suggestion seems like a good way to start, so they split up and scour the likely sections. It's a fairly tedious task, but Exalian is encouraged to see each of his companions tackling it in their own way: Kiki is busy and meticulous, Eren is determinedly methodical and Berem is cheerfully enthusiastic, if a little ponderous.

As soon as they've established sections, Eren heads over to hers and starts going through it methodically, volume by volume when the spines are not well labeled. It helps that she can read upside down so occasionally doesn't have to pull things out all the way. While she is at it she keeps half an eye out to see how the others are getting on, in particular if Kiki looks lost in the Imperial library. The hardest part is putting some of the books back, unread. There is some fascinating stuff in here that she'd never noticed before!

Exalian grins a bit as he pitches in as well, starting on a high shelf reached only with the help of a ladder. He grabs each book, checks it's title (and a quick look at contents if it's at all a likely candidate), and then puts it in a new pile, moving methodically down the shelf. His bright eyes move quickly over the words. At this point he's less interested in the outcome of defeating Oren, but simply in what they'll find in the book.

Determined not to fail, he finishes the first shelf and quckly moves down a rung on the ladder to the next.

After completing a few shelves like this, Exalian's arms are starting to ache from picking up all of the books. He's fairly sure that he can keep it up, but it's back-breaking work and progress is slow. He goes to check on the others: Kiki seems to be making better progress, while Eren has managed to work through about the same as him; Berem, unfortunately, has just realised that he missed a couple of shelves in his section, so he's had to backtrack.

Slow but steady, Exalian thinks with a certain amount of satisfaction. At this rate, they'll find the book before dinner, even if they have to search the whole library...

~oOo~

Pavel has picked up that his companions of last night are up to something. He keeps his nose in his book, though, trying to look studious and unnoticeable. He can't help but notice, though, that as the other apprentices move around, some of the bookcases seem to be changing shape ever so slightly. Or something.

He rubs his eyes and peers at the suspicious bookcases again, but either he was imagining things or they're playing possum now, because he doesn't notice anything unusual. Another movement does catch his eye, however, but there seems to be a more mundane explanation for it. Someone - another student, to judge from their height and apprentice's robes - is sneaking around in the shadows, obviously intent on watching what Exalian and his companions are doing...

~oOo~

It's only when he notices the title of one of the books in Berem's section that Exalian realises something is amiss. The numbered card on the end of Berem's row certainly matches the category that they'd assigned to him (23/80: Applied Logic, Miscellaneous), but the books on the shelves he's been searching seem to belong to an entirely different category - they're mostly concerned with horticulture! Checking on some nearby shelves, Exalian finds some books that look more appropriate to 23/80 and notices that the card on the end of their row is slightly skewed. Wasn't the library confusing enough, he thinks, without someone exacerbating matters by mis-labelling the rows?

He is just about to mention this discovery to the others when he feels a curious sensation of dizziness washing over him. As a cloud of confusion settles over his mind, he finds it increasingly difficult to focus. Err... What was he doing again? Looking for something. Hmmm.... Why? And what's he doing in the Library, of all places...?

"Are you all right there, Exalian?" Berem asks, frowning. "You're looking a bit out of it..."

Exalian somewhat rudely ignores Berem, trying to focus. He may be befuddled about his goal and such at the moment, but of one thing he's sure... nobody's going to make a fool of Exalian Urmantle. He shakes his head (not too hard, wanting to avoid a headache), and tries to recall what's going on, and figure out why he's "out of it." Father would not approve of him showing weakness, nor does Exalian want any of his schoolmates to see him in such a condition. He'd had enough humiliation at the Disputation, thank you very much.

Strangely, something that he heard earlier at the service comes back to him... what would Arkat do in a situation like this? He instinctively withdraws into the shadow of one of the corners between stacks, and peers about looking for signs of magic.

This proves much harder than he'd expected, prompting an immediate spike of pain in his head. He'd hoped that a good night's sleep would realign his magical senses after his unfortunate experience in the boneyard, but it's obvious that it will take more than simple rest and recuperation to undo the harm he'd inadvertently inflicted upon himself.

Through the fog of pain and confusion, Exalian finds it impossible to pinpoint the source of the attack, but he's certain that whoever - or whatever - is behind it is somewhere nearby. Then he senses it reaching out towards him again, apparently using the same magic that it had employed before...

~oOo~

Kiki quite unaware of the interference with the search continues her own search. Unconsciously, she hums a happy tune as she goes along she shelves quite lost in her work as it takes her mind of her thumping head. She wishes she had not run out of Black Briar root she needed for her headache potion; that would have taken the edge off the pain. Hopefully her mum would send more soon after she gets her letter.

While Kiki continues to make reasonable progress, she's frustrated that she can't go a bit quicker. Checking with Eren, she finds that her friend has achieved about the same, but when she goe sto Berem she finds him looking thoroughly fed up.

"I lost track of which shelves I'd checked," he admits. "So I went back to check them again. Then I forgot where I'd got to when I realised that I'd forgotten, so..."

He looks abashed. "Hope you are making a better job of this. For some reason this blasted Library always seems to do my head in. Have you seen Exalian, by the way? I thought he was just over there, but I haven't seen him for a while... "

"Oh has he disappeared? He does that you know. He'll turn up when he wants to and not before."

Kiki turns her smile on Berem "Oh don't look so downtrodden - this library is meant to be hard to find things in". She cocks her head to the side "Say - why don't you come and give me a hand then. That way its unlikely that we will both lose track of our place at the same time. And if all else fails a small chalk mark to note what shelves you have done might help as long as no one else cleans them off."

Berem works extremely well under instruction and seems delighted with the improvement that Kiki's help makes to his progress. Unfortunately for Kiki, however, the distraction of helping him proves to be very counterproductive to her own efforts. Ultimately, she realises that, in spite of the dazzling turnaround in her co-searcher's efforts, working jointly hasn't really made a positive difference. To make matters worse, Berem has had a rather worrying insight.

"Kiki," he says, sounding worried. "Had you noticed that that there are a lot of gaps in the shelves in this section? I thought at first that it was just the way that they're spaced, but they gaps are too regular for that. I think there are actually quite a lot of books missing - and I have an idea where they are..."

He goes on to explain that - based on what he can remember from his 'library orientation' class when he started at the College - the Library Master runs a regular programme of 'book preservation'. This involves removing every sixteenth book from the shelves in a particular section and taking them away to check for damage or signs of deterioration.

"The problem is, it can take a while for the 'preserved' books to be put back in the proper place - most of them end up sitting on a 'pending' shelf for weeks. What if the book that we're looking for is being 'preserved'?" he asks.

Kiki stares at him in horror, as she thinks back to all of the gaps on the shelves that she's already completed.

"Oh what a terrible thought," she says, shaking her head. "We might graduate before it came back on the shelf!"

Kiki squares her shoulders and takes a deep breath then lets it out slowly.

"Well, no point in worrying about things we can't change. Do you think I can leave you to finish this section and I will do that one?"

Kiki is not depressed for long and ploughs back into her work, content that she is doing her bit.

~oOo~

Eren is feeling quite content. True, they have not found the book yet, but she has always liked being in the library, it feels like being in the middle of the college in a figurative sense. At the end of her first row she looks around to see how the others are doing. Berem seems to be with Kiki now, while Exalian is not to be seen. She considers going and herding people back to the plan, but she is reluctant to break her current feeling of peace and focus.

Instead she decides to stay focused on her own section. There is a sense of order in the books she's looked at. Not an order she understands yet, but she can tell that it is not random. So while she scans through books she splits her attention, part of her looking at the order things are in and trying to make sense out of it. Adepts do use the library for spell research, so things must be in some order that they can use. What has master Atlan told her about researching spells, does any of that make more sense out of what is here? Wouldn't it be lovely to figure out this system, and to be able to impress him by having figured out the library's system!

Eren's new strategy is a surprising success, in spite of its rather tangential tendencies. As the inscrutable schema behind the Library's cataloguing system gradually becomes apparent, Eren suddenly realises why it is so difficult to grasp. Just as the spells and other knowledge contained within a grimoire cannot be appreciated without first learning the magical cypher that protects its secrets, so too with the Library. And now at last, she thinks that she can perceive the key...

Its arcane and apparently incomprehensible organisation, she suddenly realises, is not intended to facilitate casual access to the knowledge, but rather to guide the truly committed scholar on a non-negotiable voyage of discovery. Furthermore, the schema is itself intended to convey information, beyond that contained within the books it indexes. Thus the Library is truly greater than the sum of its parts!

Giddy with excitement at this revalation, Eren carefully selects what she assumes to be the most appropriate meme-thread for Exalian's mysterious book and tentatively begins to parse it to its concusion...

~oOo~

Exalian, acting only on instinct, scrunches up into a ball, and simply looks inward, trying to form an impenetrable ball of essence inside of him that will keep everything out. He reacts an instant too late to avoid the assault, but his desperate strategy saves him from the full force of the magic, which prevents the fog of bewilderment from completely overwhelming him.

His head on the ground, all Exalian can see right now is through his messed up Symbolic Sight. Even through that, however, his training as a Stonecutter at the quarry cues him into a flaw in the granite floor just where he lies, a crack in the fabric of space and time, in it's essential form. Having nowhere to run to or hide in this world, and being confused beyond the capacity for rational thought, Exalian tries to go the only place left... the spell plane. He is propelled on by a subconscious need to not suffer a defeat yet again, and to pain his father further, or be seen as weak by his comrades. Imagine being found dull-witted, and lying on the ground. He must escape!

Somewhere in the back of his mind, too, he wonders if, once there, he'll be able to see a link to the spell plane in function, and from that determine his attacker. Or if that's even possible. Exalian also rationalizes that this is his only way out... but deep inside he knows that he's partially choosing it just because he's not supposed to do so, and because it's powerful and dangerous magic.

It neither occurs to him in his current state that what he's trying is probably beyond him, nor that, if he succeeds, he may well have no way back...

Looking back on this moment, Exalian will come to realise that this almost monomaniacal focus on his objective is precisely what he had needed to succeed. This is one of the qualities that an adept requires: an unhesitating approach to the task at hand, unheedful of distractions and unwavering in purpose. But even that tunnel vision, that fierce clarity of action, would not have been enough to propel him through the terrible veil that guards the boundary between worlds. He is, after all, a mere apprentice...

As he wrestles heroically with the impossible forces that oppose his attempt, however, Exalian becomes aware of other forces at work in his favour. He feels their presence on the borders of his consciousness: each of them singly the merest pinprick, barely enough to register, but in such an unimaginable multitude that their combined influence feels like a heavy weight pressing down on him. And it is this sensation of weight, of puissant pressure, that seems to be helping his effort to open a portal.

Ha! Portal! What a pathetically cosy word for such a maelstrom of energy! It does seem to be holding, though, as the raging forces that seek to annihilate this abberation in the fabric of reality are held in check by the strange power that assists him. Dimly, he wonders who or what these unexpected allies might be. His fellow students? No - there are far too many! The citizens of the city, perhaps? The right sort of number, but these allies somehow feel closer than that, as if they are within the Library itself...

Pushing this conundrum out of his mind, Exalian peers through the portal, stoically ignoring the pain that still throbs in his head. The node beyond is not one that he has seen before, but there is something oddly familiar about it, something faintly reassuring in the mind-boggling intricacies of its thought-structures. The apprentice has no time to ponder this, however, for he senses that his unidentified opponent is already preparing a new assault.

This time, however, Exalian can see the entity that is behind those attacks and realises that it is both a part of the unfamiliar node beyond the portal and one of the innumerable entities that had assisted him in opening that portal. This revelation is the final piece in the puzzle, and he suddenly comprehends what he has been seeing and feeling. His allies are within the Library: indeed, where else would they be? They are the books! The blessed books! And each one is a mote in the dazzling structure of the node beyond the veil, which must surely be the Library's own node on the Symbolic Plane!

Furthermore, if the entity that has been attacking him is the same as these others, then it too must be a book! More than that, it must surely be the book, the one that he's been trying to find!

~oOo~

Blissfully unaware of the struggles going on nearby, Pavel has been watching the stealthy figure that he spotted earlier. He's certain that it is another apprentice, but whoever it is, they seem determined to keep themselves hidden and content to observe what is happening rather than trying to interfere. Curious to discover more, Pavel casually strolls towards the lurking person with an easy smile on his face.

"Hello!" he says brightly.

Caught unawares, the stealthy apprentice lets out a startled yelp and shrinks back ino the shadows, making a strange gesture with his left hand. "What do you want?" he says.

Pavel frowns. There's something rather odd about the other apprentice's face, almost as if the shadows around him are being drawn in to obscure it. This doesn't stop him from recognising the boy, though: it's Vey, an Imperial student that he come up against - and rather comprehensively humiliated - in the first round of the Disputation.

Before he has a chance to say anything to the lurking student, however, Pavel is momentarily distracted by a sound from behind him and turns to see a rather flushed Exalian passing the end of the row, clutching a book. Turning back to Vey, he finds that the other boy has taken this opportunity to leg it...

~oOo~

Eren has all but forgotten about the specific book for which they are searching. Instead her focus has switched to fully making sense of the library. It is all coming together, now she just needs to look a bit more, and then see if she can actually start predicting what she'll find next. It is one of the most mind stretching things she's ever tried to wrap herself around, and it is totally thrilling. It isn't just being inquisitive about how the library is organized, it is the driving curiosity to understand the arcane thought process behind this structure, which seems to resonate with what she knows about researching spells. Surely nowhere other than Imperial College could have a system so complex but so brilliant—to master this is surely an important step forward, and one she can tell Master Atlan about with pride!

She pauses for a moment, deciding that this is important enough to justify invoking her `focus attention' spell. Reaching for the focus back in her pocket she feels the orb, and she remembers how it seemed to help her get through the wall on their previous adventure, so she takes it out, clutched in her off hand, somehow comforted by its warmth. Then she invokes the spell, and as always it seems that everything not right in front of her eyes fades away. Nothing will distract her from her goal now! She continues to hurry through the books, parsing through shelves methodically and memorizing sequences, while also using all her cleverness to making conjectures—but then rejecting most of them as illogical. All the while reaching for the mental gestalt that seems to be just beyond her mental finger tips.

The more she delves into it, the more respect she gains for the intricacies of the system that guides the organisation of the Library. Almost incidentally, she realises that she now knows where the book that they are looking for is likely to be. In fact, she feels confident that she could find almost any book in the library now, given time.

As she goes to look for the others to share her new understanding, however, Eren can't shake off the idea that there is something more, another layer of meaning to the Library hovering at the extreme boundary of her new understanding.

Eren stops suddenly, and stares unseeingly towards the ceiling. In her mind's eye she sees one of the nodes from her dreams, one with a seemingly impossible number of connections, which make patterns of their own, like the most complicated of lace or the fanciest of calligraphy. It is not quite what either she or Kiki had been talking about in their presentations, but it would fit what she's seen of the library. She slowly turns around while extending her symbolic sight, and it seems she can see thousands of threads weaving through the air on their way to Elsewhere.

That is when she realizes that the library is more than a collection of books, or even an intriguingly arranged collection of books. It is... well, why not? A node, or something very like a node. So the books went, well, where they had to go as part of the greater nature of the node. Hence, to fully understand the library she would need to understand the node.

Quickly Eren calls to mind what Helmat says about these things, and realizes that the library must have a presence in this world as well as higher worlds, much like the Imperial College itself. Suddenly feeling light headed from the rush of ideas, Eren braces herself on a bookshelf and continues to think feverishly. She's sure she has seen this node in a dream. All she has to do is remember it. She should be able to deduce some of the details from the very organization of the library, and from what she can observe with her symbolic sight. Then if she can just concentrate hard enough, she should be able to make it all make sense.

The node begins to take form in her head, but there is something missing, and she realizes that she needs to actually apply her energy, not just passively observe. She exerts her will as master Atlan had taught her, taking the steps to express her own essence. In this case she doesn't need to go through the barrier, as she would in creating a portal of power, but rather just open a connection to the power around her, like when opening herself to Master Atlan to charge her focus.

Even with that realization, there is still something missing. She is ready to express her essence, but to what? She needs to somehow join herself with the library. But how? When joining herself to the college there was a ritual already defined, how can she join herself to the library?

Then she realizes it is obvious, and she smiles even more widely as she realizes how it will demonstrate her commitment to the college. It is just feels right, and she feels a little smug at how clever the idea is. She digs through her pockets for the scraps of paper and the charcoal which she had brought for taking notes, and in her fanciest writing scribes her own name in full. The she follows her sense of the library until, standing at just the right spot, she slides the paper between two volumes.

She summons her determination and pushes her essence along with the paper, and checks herself into the library.

The piece of paper vanishes with a satisfying fizz. In its place, a subtle perturbation of magical energy commences and slowly expands to form a mirror-bright circle of light before Eren's wondering eyes. Abruptly, the uniform surface of the circle dissolves into a vision of majestic intricacy: energy structures and thought-patterns of such dizzying complexity that they take the young apprentice's breath away.

So - it does exist! The Library's node - just as she'd seen in dreams! Well, in one of them at any rate. Did this hold the key to her other dreams of node maps? Or was this only a first taste of the Library's node? Humbled by the magnificence of the secret that has been revealed to her, Eren stands staring at the magical window for several minutes, until at last, with a sigh of dissipating energy, it vanishes.

Standing there, awestruck, she is lost in thought for an indeterminate length of time. Then she hears a hears a delicate cough from behind her and turns to find a spectral figure, examining her with a rather critical expression. Unconsciously holding her breath, Eren realises that this must be the Old Librarian, a famous ghost that haunts - and reputedly protects - the Library.

"It has been many years," it whispers in a voice that sends a shiver down Eren's spine. "Since a mere matriculant had the temerity to apply for full membership of the Imperial Library."

The androgynous ghost pauses and continues to look down its nose at her. Then it sniffs and continues. "However, it has been even longer since a worthy candidate made such an application. And I have never, in all my long years as the Keeper, seen an application delivered in such an... imaginative fashion."

The ghost's expression is definitely less severe now.

"Please remind your rash associate, Exalian Urmantle, that his oath binds him to the defence of the Library, which does not include the unsupervised opening a portal of power! And as for you, my child..."

The Keeper pauses, examining her once more.

"Your insight into this hallowed place does you great credit," it tells her. "But knowledge is both the most valuable and the most perilous resource that we possess. You may have earned the right to see the Library's secret heart, where young Urmantle precipitously stole a glimpse, but that knowledge carries with it the same responsibilities in both cases."

A book floats lazily towards Eren. As it opens of its own accord, she catches a glimpse of its title: Marrek's Oath.

"As the duly appointed Keeper of the Library, I am charged with its protection. When students come to me, seeking my gifts, I bind them to the oath contained in this book. Urmantle has already sworn this oath and received a gift in return. Now, you will both have seen that these paltry gifts are a mere shadow of the Library's true power, but mark this: until you become an adept, that greater power will remain beyond your reach."

"And so I invite you to bind yourself to this oath and offer you a gift in return. I shall not compel you, for you have already demonstrated a respect for this institution. But if you pledge yourself to the defence of the Library and you shall have my guidance as well as my gift."

"The Old Librarian is asking if *I* want to join the imperial libray?" marvels Eren, for about two heart beats. Then she manages to get her mouth moving to affirm "I'd love to! What is the oath?"

~oOo~

Though Exalian doesn't know it, the book must contend with God's will, as must all things, and, for once, Exalian went to services this morning...

Whether it is God's will or his own that prevails, the book's magic not only fails to affect Exalian, it actually seems to backfire on its originator!

Encouraged by this unexpected reversal, Exalian turns his attention back to his opponent, attempting to trace the location of the book on the Material Plane by following its connection from the node that he can see through the portal. The effort is excruciatingly painful, but ultimately rewarding. With the line of arcane energy seemingly burning an after-image on his retinas, he staggers towards its origin within the Library. Even as he does so, he senses the portal collapsing in on itself as, unfettered by the effort of will that had held it open, the otherworldly barrier forcefully reasserts itself.

Now, however, Exalian senses the book lashing out at him in a final desperate attempt to elude discovery. Once again, however, its spell backfires as, shrugging off its effects, the apprentice instead takes advantage of this new trail of magical energy to pinpoint the book's exact location.

Taking it from the high shelf where it lurks, Exalian finds the book - an innocuous-looking tome that seems to have been placed in completely the wrong section of the library - disappointingly inert after their fierce battle. Wearily triumphant, he emerges from the bookshelves to try to figure out what his other companions have been doing...

~oOo~

Grabbing the page with the wave image, but neglecting to return the shield of books he had erected to hide himself, Pavel quickly follows Vey out of the library, vaulting over a gaggle of students hunched over some tome.

Ignoring the surprised looks that this gets him, he puts on a burst of speed and reaches the door in time to see Vey disappearing round the corner. Running after the other boy, who is by now aware of his pursuer, Pavel follows him into a narrow passageway and then through a door into one of the dorms.

Vey stops and turns to confront him. "This is ridiculous," he says, glaring at Pavel and breathing heavily. "Why are you chasing me? What have I ever done to you?"

"Now there's a thing," says Pavel, catching his breath. "I saw what you were up to and I've a good mind to turn you in." Pavel guesses that whatever Vey was doing was not allowed. He looks around to see if anyone is watching and carefully looms a little larger over Vey, keen to get this over with before someone asks what he hiself is doing here.

"Unless, that is," Pavel looks around. "You tell me why you were doing it."

"I don't know what you *thought* you saw," the other boy tells him, suddenly seeming a lot calmer. "But I'm quite certain that you must have misinterpreted it. I was merely curious to see what all of that excited whispering and scurrying around was about."

"Truth be told," he adds, blushing slightly. "I'm really rather smitten with... well, with Eren, actually. Oh, I know she's what you might call not a classic beauty, but there's something about her that... well, I'm sure you know what I mean. I'm sure everyone saw a different side of her at the Disputation. But when you caught me watching her I felt a bit embarrassed - that's what made me run off like that."

He gives Pavel a pleading look. "You won't go blabbing about this to anyone, will you?"

"We'll see" Pavel answers, a little menacingly, although he can't quite convince himself that he should be bothered about Vey's lovelife. "But take care not to make such a fearsome racket next time, okay? I was studying."

Pavel stalks off back to the library and tries to find something out, anything, about this picture. It's starting to bug him now.

He manages to find some references to the magical techniques used by the Iconographers, which have developed along a number of different lines since the School's foundation. He guesses that the image of the wave might be an example of their Representation magic, or possibly the more confusing Perspectivist magic that one of the books mentions, but either way he's certain it's magical in some way. Something continues to bother him about the image, however, a nebulous sense of something amiss that he can't quite put his finger on...

~oOo~

Eren, Berem and Kiki gather round as Exalian proudly lays the book on the table. Its cover is plain and rather battered, but the title and the name of the author are still visible: 'A Student's Guide To Statistical Analysis' by Bolchek Murow.

"Go on, then," Berem says. "Open it!"

Flicking through the pages, they find that the book is mostly taken up with dense and off-putting tables of figures, which are interspersed with rather clumsy explanations of what the tables are supposed to show and how to manipulate them.

"Um, is that it?" Berem asks. "Isn't it supposed to contain, you know, spells or something?"

"I don't know about spells," a new voice observes. "But I can tell you one thing: that book certainly doesn't contain anything useful about statistics..."

The other three apprentices jump in alarm, but Exalian gives the newcomer - a nerdy-looking gloomer - a welcoming smile.

"Hello Welspun," he says. "Glad you could join us. What makes you say that about the book?"

"I was looking at it the other day," Welspun tells him. Four disbelieving stares greet this revelation. "What? I'm interested in statistics. Anyway those tables have nothing to do with the text - they're just meaningless nonsense, as far as I can tell..."

Eren lowers her head into her hands and gripes: "I love this library, I really do--but my head is so full of library right now that I'm not sure there is room left for *this* too."

Turning to look at Welspun, she manages to muster one useful question: "You say the text and tables don't relate. Is the text about statistics? Or something else?"

"The text is a laughably clumsy attempt to explain the rudiments of statistical analysis," the weedy gloomer tells her. "And the tables are supposedly examples to accompany the text. But anyone with even a passing familiarity with the discipline can see that the numbers in the tables are just gobbledigook."

Welspun leans forward conspiratorially. "But this is exactly what we were expecting, isn't it? The tables are actually something else altogether - a book within a book! And all we have to do is figure out how to crack the cypher..."

His face lights up. "Actually, I think I know someone who might be able to help us with that: Filmore. His proposition in the Disputation was all anbout crypotography, remember?"

He frowns. "But I guess you might want to keep this secret, Exalian. How did you find out about this book anyway?"

As Exalian greets this question with silence, Eren experiences a rare surge of empathy. Surprising herself she blurts out "If you can't tell, that is OK. Just figure out how to break this cipher! I don't know anything about codes."

Exalian, who is already completely absorbed in thinking how to puzzle this out, nods distractedly.

Realizing that this is simply not something that he knows hardly anything about, he mutters, "Welspun, yeah. Get Filmore. We'll be here working on it. Don't tell anyone about it, or else. Go quickly."

Welspun nods, flushed with excitement, and scampers off.

In his head, Exalian wonders if he's spreading this conspiracy a bit too far - but it is a goal of the effort to get "caught" doing it by the right people. So if it takes Filmore to get it done, then why not? Exalian also realizes that his "threat" about telling anyone else isn't likely to be all that effective - it's just meant to make Welspun feel part of the consipiracy so he'll help out.

"Oh, and, no, I can't tell you who told me about the book. But he's somebody who knows what he's talking about, not just some dull apprentice," Exalian hopes that, here, too, his inuendo will lead to the inevitable conclusion that he must be talking about his master. Arachnae Solara's web was not so tangled as this...

Looking up at Eren, he notes the look on her face - a tad dazed? Exalian, after his trip through the library's headspace senses that she's been through something similar. "What's on your mind, Eren? You OK?"

A book on statistics - pha! thinks Kiki. Watching paint dry is much more interesting that this. At least you get to watch the colours shift and fix, the textures solidify and the whole thing becoming fixed. Here its nothing but columns and rows of numbers that don't seam to make much sense. Dull dull dull...

Still she did say she would help so she will, but she can't help her mind drifting as she looks over the do dry numbers. Strange she thinks after a while if you ignore what the numbers are meant to be trying to say and look at it as a picture the numbers do seem to have a pattern of there own.

Briefly Eren thinks of how people would be impressed with her if she cracked the code as well as cracking the library, all in a single day! Then she remembers how poorly she did at just figuring out clues around the city. Trying not to blush at the memory, she decides that she is probably of more help trying to keep others from veering into error, she is much more talented at that. Although it may be hard just to understand what they are talking about, she knows she is pretty clever, and she has a good memory, so thinks she'll be able to keep the explanations straight in her head, and make sure that the chain of logic is all well attached.

Having decided this much, she begins to get bored. And hungry. But she knows from experience that she won't notice the hunger so much if she can stop being bored, so she looks around for distraction. She notices that Kiki has been making odd faces as she looks at the book from different angles. Then the Scribbler pipes up.

"Say did anyone else notice that look at the numbers like this," she says, turning her head a little to the side and squinting. "That they make a sort of pattern?" Kiki asks, with mild amusement at her off-track discovery.

Eren giggles — imagine looking at a table of numbers to look for a pattern! Then again, she doesn't have anything else to do right now. She pauses for a moment, then decides that it can't hurt, so she pulls out the glass orb.

"I wonder what it looks like through this? Round glass usually makes things look all weird and bendy and stretchy and stuff."

Immediately after saying she blushes, realizing that Sacred Image probably has real words to describe that sort of thing. Still, no point in stopping now, so she starts to peer at the book through the orb. This does make it look all weird and bendy, no matter fancy words someone else might use!

~oOo~

After listening to Eren and Kiki's seemingly rather irreverent approaches to the task at hand, Exalian is rather relieved when he sees Welspun returning with Filmore, who is grinning from ear to ear. An odd-looking boy with a slightly protuberant forehead, he is normally rather timid, but it's clear that he's in his element here.

"Welspun tells me you have a cypher to crack!" he whispers excitedly, glancing around the library. "I'd be only to happy to help. What have you figured out so far?"

He listens - at first looking extremely dubious, but then with more interest - to Kiki's suggestion that she can see a pattern in the tables of statistics. After only a brief appraisal of the tables, Filmore begins to nod sagely.

"Yes, there is the suggestion of a superimposed block cypher here," he observes. "I'm not sure that I'd have identified it using your method," he admits to the young Iconographer. "But you do seem to be on the right track. Hmm... Does that imply that the pattern that you can see in the tables has been deliberately chosen to facilitate optical parsing from a specific perspective?"

"Optical parsing?" Welspun interjects. "What an absurd notion! Surely the point of a code is to conceal its contents, not to offer up clues to the casual observer..."

The two students promptly launch into a long and involved debate about the philosophy of cryptography, which the other apprentices struggle to follow. Exalian begins to despair, wondering what he had been thinking when he decided to involve these nerds in his project. Kiki listens attentively, occasionally peering at the tables, while Eren frowns with concentration as she tries to absorb what they are saying. Eventually Filmore seems to remember the others

"Sorry - getting a bit carried away there," he apologises. "Regardless of the cpher designer's intentions with respect to the optical manifestation of the encrypted data, it is apparent that he - um, or she," he adds quickly, glancing shyly at Eren and Kiki. "Either deliberately or inadvertently has incorporated a visual clue. The question is: how do we exploit that?"

Eren chooses this moment to mention her orb, which immediately grabs Filmore's attention. When he asks to examine it more closely, however, Kiki hastily recounts her painful experience and watches with sympathy as his face falls in disappointment.

"Ah. Right. Well then. Um, perhaps you could hold it over the text, though, Eren?" he suggests. "So that Kiki can look through it?"

Eren obliges, but after peering through it for a while Kiki reports that the distortion of the orb doesn't really seem to be helping. As Eren holds it, however, concentrating hard on the problem at hand, she feels a sudden wave of fatigue. The past two days have been mentally exhausting, she realises, and this latest brain-work is proving just as taxing.

At that moment, she feels a tingling sensation in the hand that holds the orb followed by a rush of invigorating energy, which seems to bathe her in relaxing warmth. The flow of energy is all-too-brief, but it triggers a memory of something very similar happening to her, just before she went through the portal on the way to Salazari's tower. Maybe this is the orb's power...

Looking up, she finds the others staring at her open-mouthed and realises that the orb is glowing softly in her hand.

"I don't think this is helping," she admits. "But I does give me another idea. Perhaps throwing some light on the subject would help matters..."

So saying she moves the orb to one side, to shine its light over the book's pages from a new angle.

"Great Arkat!" Filmore exclaims staring intently at the tables of figures. "I think you've got it! Look - there's seems to be a set of symbols visually encoded into the tables! Perhaps... you don't think... no! Surely they wouldn't. But perhaps..."

He falls silent for several minutes, staring at the book and chewing his ragged fingernails. After a while he starts flicking through the other pages, moving the table around in the light and peering at them, rapidly scribbling notes on a scrap of paper. Eventually, Welspun coughs pointedly and Filmore looks up with a start, realising that the others are watching him expectantly.

"Sorry, sorry," he says. "Just give me another minute..."

Two minutes later he slaps the table, startling his companions out of their various reveries, and smiles triumphantly.

"Got it!" he announces. "Unless I miss my guess, the symbols that are visually encoded into the tables are the key to decrypting the data in the tables themselves, which are probably using a symmetric key algorithm. The key is going to be encrypted as well, of course, but I think that will be relatively straightforward to deduce. Clearly, whoever encrypted this book intended it to be decrypted by someone without any prior knowledge. The cypher is a gatekeeper here, not a lock - a way of restricting access to those smart enough to figure it out, rather than to those who already possess the key."

He looks admiringly at the book. "Fiendish!" he observes. "Let's get started, shall we?"

Over the next few hours, the apprentices work together to compile a list of the symbols that are hidden in the tables. Filmore then gives them clear instructions on how to transform this into a possible key and test it on a page from the book. It's slow and difficult work, but it does eventually yield results. In the end it's Exalian that chances upon the correct substitution algorithm to decrypt the key. As he wearily applies it to the first table of the book he is amazed to read the following:

"To whom it may concern: Congratulations. You are now an official member of the Homework Club. May the contents of this book bring you all that you deserve. Share and enjoy."

~oOo~

Looking up from the pile of books and papers he has accumulated in front of him, Pavel feels an unusual sense of calm. He stares for a while at the other apprentices, Erentona and her friends, as he brings his eyes back into focus. They seem to be poring furiously over tables, so far as he can tell, and whispering intensely, but he doesn't really care that much what they are up to. Looking down at the papers, he realizes that the stolen page is in full view. He looks about. No-one is particularly interested in him, but he nevertheless carefully folds the sheet and tucks it into his robe.

Exhausted and in a daze, Pavel gets up and puts the books and scrolls back where he found them. He does his best anyway, not being very accustomed to this sort of activity, and ends up putting three books on top of a row of other books.

Once outside the library and on his way out of Imperial back to his own lodging, Pavel thinks a bit. Something very odd is going on, he realizes. It's not the image of the wave. Yes, that's odd, but he's more or less decided that he needs to get that Erentona girl to introduce him to her friend from the Sacred Image, to get her to have a look at the thing.

Only when he is in bed does Pavel realize what is so peculiar - he must have been a good hour, if not more, trying to work out what it was with that image. Although tired, he doesn't feel the slightest bit jumpy; his head feels quite clear, no thumping headache, no sense of frustration. Quite contented, Pavel's last thought before he descends into a slumber, is that he quite enjoyed studying.

~oOo~

[1] Guiser: Derogatory term for an actor.

[2] Splasher: A current Imperial College student nickname for those at the Naval College.