Traitor Savant (Second Seal of the Duelists) (7 page)

She paused, then bent over and pe
ered in at him. Her hair formed a thick curtain. “So it is! Have you displeased the headmaster already?”

Kipri laughed, and the wind carried his voice through her hair. “I don’t think so. I just wanted to see the view. The Kheerzaal doesn’t have cliffs this
sheer, and Balanganam is either rice paddies or lumpy red mountains.”

“I’ll pass your compliments to Bayan, I’m sure.” She strolled closer.

“Don’t you dare. Tell him it’s the food I can’t forget. That should please him.” He smiled down at Tarin’s open face. “How are you not frozen? The wind’s peeled my skin off long ago.”

She chuckled. “Duelist training is on the merciless side. This is nothing compared to perching in the snow for two hours while Avatar duelists shoot firebolts over my head.”

“At least you weren’t naked.” Kipri bit his tongue and felt his cheeks flush. What in sints had made him blurt such an inappropriate remark?

Tarin only laughed louder. “Says who? I’m always naked under my workout uniform, aye?”

Kipri’s cheeks flushed with a different kind of heat. His mostly numb fingers barely registered hers lacing between them. “Do you believe in fate?” she murmured.

“I’m not sure.”

“Me either. But I’ve been worrying over how to keep my hexmates safe. It’s a delicate problem, you see. Not one for the instructors’ ears. But their very lives could hang in the balance.”

Somewhere beyond his awareness of Tarin’s body heat, Kipri felt sharp concern for Bayan’s well-being. “Sints, that sounds serious. What can I do to help?”

With a slow smile, Tarin leaned closer. Her warm lips pressed against his shivering ones, and Kipri’s autumn night faded into the height of spring.

~~~

“When can we go again?” Tarin sat beside Bayan in the Dining Hall. The room buzzed with dozens of newnik conversations, making it hard to hear each other. “I’m ready for another cold night of fun.”

Calder raised his eyebrows, but Eward only grinned. “I knew the solitary would be good for you
.”

Tarin grinned back
and ripped her slice of bread in two. “You’ve no idea. When do you think we can—”

“—
Not
interested!” Doc Theo’s voice rang out from the row of tables behind the one they occupied, near the staff end of the room. Tarin paused, and Bayan saw in her eyes a flash of concern for Doc Theo. Most students gave the disturbance no more than a glance, but the teachers’ voices were loud enough for Bayan and the others at his table to hear everything.

“
Doc Theo!” Diantha gripped the loose fold of his sleeve. “Doc Theo, please sit down.”

Doc Theo
promptly stood up, raising his glass. “I’d like ter propose a toast,” he slurred, “to our very own greedy bastard: our dear Master Iggy. He’s selfishly stolen from hunnerts of good, honest students, an’ from the campus itself.” Ignoring calls for him to hush and sit, he turned and saluted Master witten Oost with his glass. “I dunno ‘bout you, but I’d be more ‘n happy to observe the great master p’form his superior tricks an’ return us our time, respect, an’ all the favors an’ things that done got sucked into the dark hole of his pers’nal greed.”

“Theo! That is
enough
!” Headmaster Langlaren was also on his feet.

“No, no, it’s all right,” said Master witten Oost. “He’s clearly disturbed, Headmaster. I’ve sensed it for some time, and I’m aware of Dian
tha’s failed healing attempts. He’s only getting worse. Perhaps we should consider giving him a respite.”

“I’d be happy to step up and handle the Chantery while
Doc Theo recovers,” Diantha offered. She repeatedly batted away Doc Theo’s fingers as he attempted to stick them into all the wine glasses he could reach.

Langlaren sighed.
Even his bushy white sideburns seemed to droop. “That might be necessary, yes. I’ll arrange for one of the junior chanters to look in on him—”

“I’m sorry, Headmaster,” witten Oost said. “I’m afraid you misunderstand. I’ve received the sense that Theo’s condition is being caused by too much time in a direct magical clash. In short, being around elemental magic, being here on our very campus, is affecting his mind. It won’t be long before it affects his magic as well. I believe the only place that can help Theo now is the Temple of Ten Thousand Harmonies.”

“Send him back, like damaged goods?” Langlaren asked. “Theo has saved the lives of untold hundreds of duelists. Before that, he roamed the empire at the will of the emperor, giving his services wherever they were needed, and was especially vital during the Raqtaaq Wars. The man can be credited with the success of four separate battles all by himself. I am
not
shipping him off. We can request a singer to portal here, if you think it will help.”

Master witten Oost frowned. “I can see how you’d think that will be a sufficient substitute, Headmaster, but the Temple is perfectly suited to The
o’s needs. He doesn’t need us. He does need the singers. In fact, he specifically needs to avoid us. You, me, and every other duelist in the room—our magic is what’s causing this problem.”

Langlaren
sent a stricken look at Doc Theo, who had allowed himself to be distracted into arranging his peas into concentric circles on his plate. Fingering the stem on his glass, the headmaster shook his head. “I’ve never heard of such a malady. I’ll want to conduct some research before I agree to any such order.”

Witten Oost pursed his lips. “Very well, Headmaster, if that is your decision. But I fear your delay may cause further irreparable harm. That is all I shall say on the matter.”

Diantha led Doc Theo from the table, promising him chocolate when they reached his home. Since Bayan’s table was next to the one that seated the staff, he doubted any other students had heard much of the teachers’ discussion. He looked into the faces of his hexmates. “Is there anything we can do?”

“I canna tell if we
should
do anything,” Calder whispered back. “You remember what he was like. What Diantha said.”

Bayan poked a fragment of cabbage with his fork and swirled it through its sour dressing.
“Kiwani would be devastated if he left.”

Tarin took a drink from her cup, then nodded as she swallowed her lemonwater.
“Aye. He saved her life the night you two dueled.” Eward added a more critical point in a whisper. “And he’s the only person in the empire, aside from Kiwani’s parents and us hexmates, who knows everything about that night.”

Bayan remembered the blond assassin, Kiwani’s blood on the rocks, and the secret not even Kiwani saw coming, revealed in
Doc Theo’s emergency healing session on the floor of his home: she possessed no Waarden blood, and was not her parents’ daughter, nor the child the old emperor Hedrick had blessed and made a ceremonial ward. Such a secret possessed political ramifications that, in the wrong hands, could weaken the emperor’s image and give power to his enemies at court.

With
Doc Theo potentially leaving campus, taking with him Kiwani’s secret and the knowledge of how to deal with it, Eward’s point drove painfully into Bayan’s mind. “I’ll talk to Kiwani about it when she comes back. It’s her secret.”

~~~

Overnight, a lot more changed on campus. Bayan, Eward, and Calder woke to rumors shouted up and down the hall, though to be fair, they were being shouted by Taban and Cormaac as a way to wake everyone up a little early for breakfast.

Someone kicked repeatedly on the door next to Bayan’s, then Cormaac’s boisterous voice rang out.
“Did you hear, you lazy ingrates? Doc Theo’s killed the headmaster!”

Eward slipped off the edge of his bunk with an annoyed growl and yanked open the door. Bayan and Calder joined him. Taban gleefully ignored them as he ran past, thumping his fist on all the still-closed doors. “No, you moron.
He’s gone crazy since he witnessed the headmaster killing the Master!”

“No one can
kill the Master,” Cormaac called back. His voice migrated from right to left as he pounded down the barracks’ second-story hallway. “It’s he who killed Langlaren, and now he’ll rule us all!” The boys’ gruesome laughter receded down the stairwell, leaving Bayan, his hexmates, and the other Avatar students standing in their doorways, grumbling tiredly.

Calder rubbed
at his eyes with pale fingers. His motion stretched the flame-shaped scar that marked his right cheek. “None of that better be true.”

“Any of those choices would be horrific for the whole campus,” Eward said.

“Aye, but I’m more interested in pounding Taban for lying at this unsintly hour of the morning,” Calder replied.

Since
there was no more sleep to be had, the three got dressed and headed across campus for breakfast. The dining hall was abuzz with rumor when they arrived, though; most tables were surrounded by talking instead of eating.

Tarin slapped her tray down on the table. “Have you heard?”

“Aye, we’ve heard it all, and then some,” Calder replied. “Trouble is, we can’t tell what’s fancy and what’s fact.”

“What have
you
heard?” Eward took a bite of his porridge.

Tarin sat, then leaned forward conspiratorially. “I
passed Instructor Wekshi talking to the other elemental instructors in the tunnel to the Chantery. She said something about starting an interview process for a new Hexmagic instructor.”

“What happened to Master witten Oost?” Bayan asked.

“Good morning, students.” Master witten Oost’s voice boomed from the staff table behind them. Bayan spun on the seat of his chair, surprised by the instructor’s stealthy entrance. His eyes narrowed as he saw the master standing before the headmaster’s chair.

Witten Oost spoke again.
“I’m afraid I have a few solemn announcements for you. If everyone could please give me your attention.”

~~~

Bayan stood with his hex in the sand of the Shock Arena. Other hexes clustered up nearby as they awaited Instructor Ithrakis’ belated appearance. They muttered about qualifications for leadership and true masters needing freedom. No one made a real effort to warm up. “This is a nightmare. How could Master—Headmaster—witten Oost get all those changes made overnight?”

“He is a
Master Duelist
, Bayan,” Eward said.

Bayan let out a frustrated sigh.
“No, I mean, shouldn’t there have been a review, a committee, a vote,
something
? You can’t just boot the Headmaster of the Duelist Academy. He’s a Hexmagic Duelist, for Bhattara’s sake. He doesn’t belong in charge of Peace Village. And witten Oost practically banished Doc Theo! Sending him all the way to Pallithea in his condition, despite Langlaren’s perfectly reasonable suggestion to try and treat him here, seems… well, it just doesn’t make any sense. But it seems ‘Master Iggy’ just waved a finger, and the world changed for him.”

Tarin cleared her throat
and kept her eyes on the coarse sand underfoot. “I think that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work for Master Duelists, Bayan. Their magic is stronger—different—than ours.”

“It’s not right, though, what happened,” Bayan insisted. “Why is it acceptable to change the world to suit your own needs? What about those lives
you’d disrupt? Shouldn’t a Master Duelist be looking out for
all
the empire’s citizens?”

“Bayan,
Master witten Oost dinna ask for the position of Headmaster. The emperor gave it to him.”

Bayan gave Tarin a look of disappointment. “And you don’t think a Master Duelist could change the emperor himself, so he’d do exactly that?”

Eward twitched his Wind avatar, a thin corridor of sound-carrying air that snaked down the arena tunnel. “Snort says Ithrakis will arrive in ten beats,” he warned. The gossiping Avatar students began to spread out, ready to begin class. “What do we do about Master witten Oost’s new no-off-campus-excursions rule?”

“It’s only for our safety,” Tarin said.

A hot flash of alarm shot down Bayan’s spine. “Are you saying you’re done with Savantism?”

Tarin flu
shed and shook her head. “I’ve no idea what would happen if I stopped now. And passing Avatar is too important.”

Bayan nodded. So many things were suddenly too important. But at that very moment,
after one of his mentors had been ripped from his life, probably never to be seen again, it seemed that the wrong person’s important things were taking place.

~~~

“And leave Bayan to his training, please,” Kipri added as the newniks streamed out the door of his classroom. “You don’t want to be responsible for his, or any of his hexmates’, failure to pass their Avatar exams.”

Several of the girls flushed and giggled as they left
. None of them tried, anymore, to touch or shove the young eunuch instructor, thanks to the new crossed-arms pose he had adopted. He had Tarin to thank for that suggestion, in addition to the more authoritative tone he found himself using with his students. If he hadn’t run into her at one of the solitaries one night, he might still be stumbling around and trying too hard to relate to everyone.