Traitor Savant (Second Seal of the Duelists) (8 page)

“Liaison Kipri?” Sivutma had stayed behind, only approaching when the rest of the newniks had left. “I know many of my classmates idolize Bayan for being a hero. But didn’t you play a part in saving the emperor, too?”

Kipri felt his cheeks warm beneath his coppery skin, even as he registered that she hadn’t sworn once. She was already fitting in. “I did.” At her prompting, he detailed how Philo had learned of a mysterious plot and arranged for Bayan to spy on the conspirators in Muggenhem. Kipri had been the messenger, delivering Bayan’s instructions, but he’d unwittingly become part of the action when he discovered his own uncle was among the rebel assassins. He’d told Bayan what his family’s history of rebellion meant for the emperor in time for Bayan and his hexmates to save the emperor’s life.

Sivutma listened with rapt attention. When Kipri finished, she said, “What do you see in your emperor, in your empire, that makes you choose them over your own blood?”

Kipri felt an itch beneath his Waarden wig. He knew it marked him in Sivutma’s eyes as merged with their people’s conquerors. His hand, about to scratch, returned to his side. His words would be foreign enough to her. “The Raqtaaq culture puts its emphasis on loyalty to family and society, but my family betrayed my father, and me as well, to save themselves. Because of that, I grew up in the Waarden culture. It’s not perfect either—don’t get any illusions about that— but the eunuchs took me in and gave me a proper education, work experience, and now this new job. They’ve made me feel useful, which is more than I felt when my family sacrificed my father to their own ambition. They discarded me at five years old. I can’t respect that.”

Sivutma frowned as if she were in pain. “I know that feeling. My father would have killed me with
a filthi—with a melon machete the very day he found out I was cursed.”

Kipri’s expression softened.
“You’re not cursed. Your magic is a talent that you must learn to control.”

Sivutma clanked her iron bracelets together. “These help with control? They make me feel like a slave.”

“As I said, the Waarden Empire is not perfect. But you and I both know that you’ll have more opportunities within its borders than you’d get at home. All you need to do is work toward them instead of fighting the system.”

She pouted in thought. “I admit, it is hard to accomplish things if you’re dead. I will consider your advice, Liaison.”

~~~

At Bayan’s next Flame class, he noticed one of the students was out of uniform.
“Why isn’t Aleida dressed for class?” Bayan asked Taban.

Taban, warming up with overhead stretches,
wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Topped out, didn’t she? Managed five avatars—couldn’t get the sixth.”

Shocked at the suddenness of a long-time Avatar student’s sudden departure,
Bayan wasn’t sure what to say. Taban didn’t seem to notice, though. He spoke almost to himself. “Guess that puts our hexes on equal numbers again. Unless Kiwani ever comes back.”

A desperation for certainty flooded Bayan. Kiwani had to come back. He—the hex—needed her.
“She’s coming back. Sint Rolf’s Day is five days from now.”

A wry smile tried to lift the corner of Taban’s mouth.
“Well, I’ll be feathered. You’re learning all the holidays too! Like as not because one of them belongs to you, aye? What’s an old tutor to do, when the student begins to eclipse the master?”

Instructor Takozen, tall, lean
, and dark, stalked into the arena, feral smile in place. He waved Aleida into the arena center from where she stood against the inner wall next to two large travel cases. The curly-haired Akrestoi girl approached, her expression tired and downcast. “Good morning, class. Before we begin, let us take a moment to bid a farewell to one of our own. Aleida has completed as much training as she can at the Academy. She has also accepted a position in southern Aeolis, at a newly built duel den. The town is very excited to receive her.”

Takozen
turned to Aleida. “We thank you, Aleida, for your training and generosity, within your hex and here with all the Avatar students. Your past efforts will continue to aid those who remain on campus for as long as they train here. Remember your legacy to these fellow duelists as you step into the emperor’s service. These are your brothers and sisters in talent and in duty. And whether we meet again in peace or in war,” he concluded, giving the traditional Academy farewell, “know that we will stand with you.”

Aleida
managed a smile and thanked him, then her hexmates and all the other students, before climbing the stairs into the arena seating. She sat for the remainder of Flame class and watched Bayan and the other students perform their spells. When class was over, she picked up her travel cases, and bade each of the Avatar students a kind farewell.

“
Nae, nae,” Taban said, when she tried to hug him goodbye. “I’m walking you to the edge of campus; you canna escape that easily.” He took her travel cases from her; his smug look dared her to try and take them back.

“I’m coming too,” said Tarin. “Aleida, you’ve always been a great sparring partner.
I’ll miss your Wind avatar.”

Bayan,
Taban, their hexes, and all the other students ended up accompanying Aleida to the edge of campus, where the road wound toward Peace Village and the sheer valley below. As they crossed the roundabout, Bayan wondered when his last moments on campus would come. Would he leave in triumph, like Aleida, who had a new life awaiting her in a town where people welcomed her with open arms? Or would he leave in shame, like Odjin and Braam, members of his and Taban’s hex who had dueled illegally and been sentenced to potioneering for the rest of their lives?

At the last corner before Peace Village became visible, Aleida paused and turned back
, taking her cases from Taban’s hands. She gave him a peck on the cheek, then grinned as he cleared his throat, flustered. “Thank you, everyone, for my life here. I wish you all success in your careers. I hope I see you soon. But not too soon!”

Another round of hugs and farewells, and Aleida, Elemental Duelist at the pleasure of the Waarden Emperor, walked out of Bayan’s life.

When Bayan, Calder
, and Eward finally returned to their room that evening, battered by yet another day of wrangling avatars, Bayan was surprised to see Kah perched on his platform in the corner.

“
Kah, you’re back!” The bird cocked his head and fluttered his wings in greeting, then flew to Bayan’s shoulder and pecked his head once with a blunt beak. “Stop that. I missed you too. What’s this?” Bayan felt something in addition to Kah’s claws digging into his shoulder. He wrestled a shiny ring from the protesting bird.

Calder peered at it too.
“Maybe Kiwani’s giving us a souvenir of her trip, aye?”

“This
ring is carved from a pearl turtle’s shell. Kiwani said she had one of these at home.”

Eward frowned at Kah and shooed him off Bayan’s shoulder. “Stupid bird must have stolen it from her, and he’s hiding here so he won’t get in trouble for it.”

“Let’s return it, then. I want to hear how her trip went.”

Ignoring their homework and tired bodies, the three hiked over to the girls’ dormitory and asked the
newnik on door duty to fetch Kiwani. The little Aklaa girl vanished up the stairwell, but it wasn’t Kiwani who came downstairs to greet them. It was Tarin.

“What’s this about Kiwani being
back, hey?” she asked at the barracks door.

Bayan showed her the ring. “Kah had it. I thought it must belong to Kiwani, that she was back too.”

“Unless he abandoned her and flew ahead.” Eward cast a dark eye toward the boys’ barracks.

Bayan examined the ring with a thoughtful expression. “Kah’s never done that before. But he’s never left campus with one of us before, either. Let’s check with the drawbridge guards.”

Since they weren’t allowed to leave campus without permission, such a check entailed writing a letter and sending it via a Peace Village courier from the communication office in the Hall of Seals. The hexmates left Tarin to her homework and loitered around the Hall of Seals foyer for a good hour before the skinny courier returned with the guards’ response from the valley floor. Bayan thanked the mop-headed Akrestoi lad and reached for the latest taffy package from Philo to pay him.

“Oi!” Calder protested as he tried to keep the bag away from Bayan. “That’s practically my taffy.”

“You want to be practical, then you pay the courier.”

Clearly disgruntled at having to share Philo’s gift to Bayan with a stranger, Calder reached into the bag and dumped a small handful of waxed paper twists into the boy’s hand.

The young courier hefted the candy’s weight, then shot Calder a squint of dislike.

While Calder was distracted, Bayan snatched the bag of taffy from his hand, scooped out a larger handful, and added it to the courier’s payment.

That brought a smile to the boy’s lips. “My thanks, you have them, duelist.”

As Calder ate
one of the few remaining taffies and glared at Bayan as if he’d betrayed his innermost secrets, Bayan opened the letter and read the valley guard’s short reply. His shoulders slumped. “They haven’t seen her.”

Eward glared at
Kah, perched on a decorative wooden outcrop overhead. The bird squawked back at him.

“Mightna be his fault, Eward,” Calder said. “Maybe it’s a matter of
wings versus feet; Kiwani has to take the road, but Kah can fly home straight as an arrow. Well, straight as a bent arrow, maybe. She could take hours to catch up to him.”

The hexmates trudged back to their barracks, disappointed. In his room,
Bayan lay on his bed below Eward’s bunk and turned Kiwani’s ring over and over in his hands. Did it mean anything at all that Kah had been carrying it? In his experience, rings contained secrets. But not every ring he found would be a clue to a secret group of assassins with regicide on their minds. Would it?

~~~

By the next morning, Kiwani had yet to show up on campus. Kah had become increasingly agitated during the night, making it hard for Bayan to get any restful sleep. As Bayan and his hexmates dressed, it was nearly impossible to hear himself think, let alone hold a conversation within hearing range. Bayan threw a shirt at the hopping, squawking bird.

“All right, Kah. You need
to stop. If you have something to say, just say it. Or I’m throwing you out the window.”

The black hexbird
instantly ceased hopping. He turned its head so that one eye focused on Bayan. “Kah.”

“That’s what you always say—”

The bird launched himself past Bayan and landed on his desk. Jamming his heavy beak into the metal drawer pull on the top drawer, Kah levered it open. He dropped inside, then fluttered up a moment later with Kiwani’s ring. Then, instead of returning to his platform, he flew to the door and landed on the floor.

“Sints preserve us,” Calder breathed.

“Something’s wrong.” Bayan grabbed his thick outer coat and jammed an arm into its sleeve. “He’s been trying to tell us since yesterday, and we didn’t understand. Let’s go, Kah.” He yanked the door open and pounded down the hallway as the hexbird winged ahead.

Calder and Eward caught up
with Bayan as he sprinted through the tunnel that led past the dining hall.

“Eward?” Bayan asked. “Thought you said Kah was a petty thief.”

“I did. But if Kiwani’s in trouble, I hope I’m wrong. And you know how I get about hope.”

“What about me?” Calder match
ed Eward stride for stride.

Bayan grinned as they exited the tunnel into twilight. “You’re gullible enough to believe most everything I say, as long as I sound convincing.”

“Nae, that’s just what I want you to think. It’s all part of my master plan.”

Kah l
ed the trio through slashes of early morning light and long, dark tunnels of chill shadow, past Sint Esme’s Second Tree—which was nothing of the sort, just a reminder that Bayan had once been terrible at controlling his Savantism—and along the Hall of Seals. Bayan and his friends followed the bird around the building, across the roundabout, and down the road to Peace Village.

“Is she with the villagers?” Eward puffed. “That makes no sense.”

But the hexbird fluttered to the road before they got that far. Bayan, panting, looked around. He didn’t see Kiwani anywhere. One side of the road dropped off down to the valley floor. The other housed a small, ornate evergreen garden, tucked against the foot of a sheer cliff, where former headmaster Langlaren had been known to meditate regularly. The road lay empty in both directions. No one peered over the cliff above, and no one was dangling helplessly from the cliff below.

“Where is she, then?” Bayan asked the bird, hands on his hips.
In the middle of a clear, calm evening, nothing in the world seemed amiss, and he began to question his earlier choice to bolt outside because of a clever bird. He hadn’t even had breakfast yet, as his stomach not so kindly informed him.

Kah only hopped around on the road
, squawking.

Calder
summoned a petite version of his Wind avatar, Honker, then Idled the white flame-feathered goose around the evergreen shrubs in the garden. The creature lifted needle-laden branches with its beak and Calder searched beneath them. Eward said he would check in at the Peace Village mail depot to see if anyone remembered seeing Kiwani.

Bayan nodded, then
sat down on the dusty road next to Kah. His empty belly twisted with worry. “Listen, Kah. I know there’s something special about hexbirds. But if you’re just playing with us right now, I will not feed you for a week. Do you understand?”

The bird gave an attentive head bob.
“Kah.”

“Good. Now, do you know where Kiwani is?”

“Kah.”

“Show me.
And no more fooling around.”

The bird hopped about in the dust, leaving three-toed footprints everywhere.

Bayan gritted his teeth. “Kah, I don’t think that’s helping.”

The bird, apparently as frustrated with Bayan as he was with
him, hopped over and smacked his beak into the back of Bayan’s hand. Then he fluttered out of reach and pecked at the road.

Bayan
frowned and watched the bird peck, then scratch. “What are you now, a hen?”

The sky darkened
suddenly, directly above him. Bayan looked up and saw an entire mystery of hexbirds descend onto the road around him. No, they were descending
onto
him
. They landed on his arms, his head, his back. Their light weight pressed down on him but didn’t pin him in place. The close air smelled of dust and insects. Bayan felt smothered by the blackness of outstretched wings. Kah’s beak—he knew it must be Kah’s—pecked at the dirt between two of Bayan’s fingers.

“Kah! Kah!”

Kah’s message finally sank in.
Ay, Bhattara!

Leaping to his feet, disoriented by the dozens of birds surrounding him, he cried, “Calder! Get Eward! Kiwani’s under the road!”

“What? That doesn’t even make a wee bit of sense!” Calder protested.

“Just do it!” Bayan invoked his magic, then summoned Timbool, his trusty dog-shaped Earth avatar. As he climbed into the seating pit in the dog’s back, he co
uldn’t help muttering, “It’s been a whole night. What’re we going to find?” Calder was right; Kah’s information made no sense at all. But he stowed his questions for later.

As Eward and Calder breathlessly clambered into the dog’s back, Bayan cast the Avatar spell Liquefact
, and Timbool sank into the ground, merging seamlessly with the rock. Bayan formed a dome of rock over the riders as they too sank into the earth.

“What’s going on?”
In the blackness, Eward’s voice bounced off the dome’s inner curve, reminding Bayan how small an air pocket they had. “How could she be down here? Why—”

“Shush. Working.” Bayan cast Tremor, keeping his eyes shut to intensify the sensation of any return vibrations or hollow spots. A faint blank returned from beneath the upper cliff, past the garden. Bayan moved Timbool forward through the stone at what would amount to an amble on the surface.

“What are we looking for?” Calder whispered, as if afraid of being too loud.

“We’re looking for an air pocket. That’s the only way she gets out of this alive.”

Soon, Timbool encountered the hollow that Bayan’s Tremor had revealed. The avatar’s body brushed past the emptiness, and Bayan moved the dog through the earth so the protective dome aligned with it. The air pocket dissolved one side of the dome, and when Bayan spoke next, he could hear his voice travel down a long corridor.

“Light?”

Calder pulled a small, hovering fire out of a rush of red. The air-filled corridor, smooth-edged and straight, vanished around a corner after a few strides. Eward climbed into it first, then Calder. Bayan entered last, releasing Timbool.

Eward looked up at the even walls and dragged his fingers across a smooth surface.
“This must have been formed by duelism. What in all the sints is this place?”

“Secure hiding place in case of another war, maybe?” Calder suggested. “The
Academy has been sacked more than once; makes sense they’d create something like this.”

Eward nodded assent.
“Could be. And with the entrances hidden by rock, only elemental duelists could reach them. Anima casters couldn’t follow.”

Bayan peered ahead in the gloom. The corridor branched, and each branch branched again in the dim distance.
“That still doesn’t explain why Kiwani is down here.”

“Kiwani!” Calder yelled, assaulting Bayan’s eardrums.
His voice echoed hollowly, morphing into an unrecognizable groan.

Bayan rubbed his ears and frowned.
“Let’s split up. This labyrinth could spread under the entire mountain for all we know. Leave a flame mark on the corridors you’ve checked, and on the doorways too, if there are any.” Bayan cast his own light, and Eward did too. They all took a different direction, calling Kiwani’s name.

As he searched, Bayan encountered various rooms with storage space and little else. He found more dead ends than anything, but he didn’t waste time considering the reasons for them.
He thought he heard a faint reply to his calls, but try as he might, he couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Letting his flame fade, he invoked Earth in the dark and cast Tremor again. Vibrations through his feet told him that there was a hollow beneath the floor. After a wondering curse, he peeled back the floor with the Earthcast of Claybank, then re-cast his torchlight.

Kiwani lay huddled in a
narrow, shallow pit below him, wincing against his light behind a protective hand. She looked dusty and exhausted atop a thin blanket that curled at the edges of the coffin-sized hole, but she didn’t have any obvious injuries.

“How in Bhattara’s name—?”
Bayan shouted to the others that he’d found her, then hopped down into his peeled floor and crouched just above her. He took her hands in his. “Are you hurt? How did you get here?”