Dragonborn (16 page)

Smedge tried to pretend he was not panting with effort. He smiled with his mouth at Tamrin. His eyes glared.

“Shouldn't you be in class?” she asked.

He fought to find enough breath to answer her. The dead tree swayed over their heads.

“It would be nice if you were in lessons as well,” he said. “We miss you.”

“I'm not allowed.”

“I think that could be changed.”

Tamrin leaned against the wall.

“I don't want to go to lessons.”

The smile never left Smedge's face.

“You could learn more magic if you came.”

Tamrin kicked at the dry leaves underfoot. She gave him a half smile.

“Really?” she asked.

“I think Professor Frastfil would let you go back, if I asked him. I could help you. You could fit into College life again.”

Tamrin realized that he was serious. That he was threatening her. She had free run of the College and only as much kitchen work as she bothered to do; if she went back to classes, she would be trapped.

“I don't think Dr. Duddle would have me in his class,” she said.

“Oh, I think people can be persuaded,” said Smedge. He smiled. “I'll do what I can to help.”

He picked up a dry leaf and rested it in the palm of his hand. It
uncurled and grew green and glossy. He folded his hand and held it tight.

“It would be for the best,” he said, “if you fit in more.”

Tamrin coughed. Smedge shook his shoulders. He opened his hand and saw, where the leaf had been, a bright green gout of snot. He looked straight at her. The air around him shimmered. Tamrin felt a surge of something sweep over her, cold and clenched. She swerved her body to allow it to pass. Smedge took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hand. He smiled at her.

“I'll see what I can do.”

Tamrin watched him walk away. She found a dustpan and brush and swept up the leaves. The snake had disappeared. Then she went up to sit in the sun.

It was hot on the roof. She picked pieces of chicken from her bread and held them in her hand, for the kestrel. It swooped down and snatched them, not resting. The apple was sweet in her mouth. She tossed the core over the parapet and sat in the shade, looking up at the clouds.

call dragons worms. Starback hated this. Dragons are air and fire. Worms are prisoners of the earth.

Sandage, the old wizard, lived deep in the earth. His house was small and humble, but it covered a network of burrows and shafts. When Starback found his house, Sandage was deep underground, making a searching spell from the hidden secret places of the earth.

Starback circled the house for a long time, waiting for the old man to emerge. He didn't.

Starback flew down and settled on a small mound a short distance from Sandage's house. He spread his wings on the ground, like a sparrow taking a dust bath. Laying his head to one side on the ground, he drummed his wings on the earth. He stopped, waited, drummed again.

His nostrils filled the with the soft, damp scent of earth magic.
All around him, thousands of worms crawled to the surface, out from their holes, wriggling in the fresh air. He raised up and flew just above the ground, keeping away from them.

Sandage's door opened. The wizard looked out, and Starback knew that he thought his magic had done this, that he had charmed the worms, and that he thought he would find Sam.

Starback left him to follow the spoiled spell to Boolat.

Some of the older village folk call dragons worms.

with anxious sweat. It slipped on the door handle. He wiped it on his sleeve, made a swift spell of opening, and turned the handle.

“Hello,” said Tim. “That door sticks a little.”

“Ah, Master Masrani,” said Vengeabil. “Come in. I'm sorry there's not much here for you. Perhaps when you learn to read without moving your lips we'll see more of you.”

Tim gave a shy grin.

“Hello, Vengeabil. Are you a librarian as well, now? He's always like this,” he said to Sam. “Has he been giving you a hard time?”

Sam looked at Vengeabil, who was waiting for an answer.

“No,” said Sam.

Vengeabil lifted an eyebrow.

“Well, yes,” said Sam. “He has.”

“I've brought you some food. Snaffled it just before the hall opened up for lunch.”

He put a bundle of cloth on the librarian's desk and unfolded
it. There were meat pies, bread, apples, plums, a corner of cheese, and three broken biscuits.

“It's a bit battered. I had to be quick. We can make it go three ways,” he offered Vengeabil.

“Take it away and eat it,” he said. “I'm busy. And I don't want sticky fingers on my books. Make sure you wash your hands before you come back.”

Tim laughed.

“Your books,” he said. “Are you taking stock, counting them? You'll have a long job. It's not like your stores here, you know.”

Sam gripped Tim's arm.

“He's—”

“I'm just making sure they're all here,” said Vengeabil, in a clear voice and with a look at Sam.

Sam helped to wrap up the food and they ran off, slamming the door behind them.

“I know a place,” said Tim.

The place was a room, a perfect cube, three times as tall as the boys, with a ridge running around the wall about two thirds of the way up, and a couple of squarish protrusions in two diagonally opposite corners. It was empty, save for some wooden packing cases and a clumsy bookshelf stacked with jars, filled with something Sam didn't much want to look at too closely.

They spread out the cloth on a packing case, sat on smaller boxes, and laid into the food.

“What's old Vengeabil doing in the library? What have you been doing all morning? Are you counting books with him? I got
a detention from Duddle for giving him some cheek. And Smedge wasn't there, either. Was he in the library with you?”

Sam chewed his pie while Tim poured out his questions.

“What is this place?” he asked.

“It's the old Brickotelle Court,” said Tim. “No one uses it now. They say Frastfil stopped people from playing it because he's no good at it. What have you been doing?”

“Duddle set me some work to do,” said Sam, which was not a lie, but he didn't feel very happy about not really telling the truth.

Tim groaned.

“I bet it's really boring,” he said. He broke off a piece of cheese and ate it with the bread. “What do you think Smedge is doing?”

“I don't know. He wasn't in the library.”

They ate in silence for a while. The mention of Smedge had stopped their conversation.

“I've got to go back,” said Tim, “or I'll be in even more trouble.”

“What did you do to cheek him?”

“I asked if you could come back to lessons.”

“Was that all?”

Tim threw an apple in the air. It bounced off the ceiling, skidded down the wall, then bounced from side to side, covering the court, deflecting at crazy angles when it hit the ridge or the lumps in the corners. Tim put his hand in the air and caught it, taking a bite just as it turned back into just an apple fit to eat.

“Brickotelle,” he said. “Of course, I cheated. In real Brickotelle you're not allowed to use magic. That was a demonstration.”

“I thought no one played.”

Tim blushed.

“Vengeabil taught me.” He jumped up. “See you tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

They raced back to their places. Tim got there just in time to avoid another detention. Sam put his hand out to open the door when it swung open of its own accord.

“Looks like you're expected,” said Vengeabil. “Books or explore?”

“Please show me some books,” said Sam.

Vengeabil nodded.

“Try this for a start.”

He handed Sam a book. Sam smoothed his hand over the cover. It was silver blue, with ridges and bumps. He looked at the spine. The title was in raised letters, gold and black.

THE SEVENTEEN VARIETIES OF DRAGON

Sam's hand trembled.

“What's the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Don't you want to read about dragons? I can get you something else.”

“Yes, please. Something else.”

He drew his sleeve over his eyes.

“You don't like dragons?”

Vengeabil searched the shelves for a different book.

“It's not that.”

“I see.”

He gave up the search.

“What do you want to read about?”

“You choose.”

“I chose. It's your turn.”

“I want to know how many floors there are in here, and how they all fit in.”

“Well. There are books for that, but I don't think you'll understand them. The only way is to go up there and count.”

Sam shook his head.

“I don't want to explore anymore today. I want to read.”

“Well, that's good,” said Vengeabil. “At least you're telling me what you want at last.”

“I want to know why you taught Tim how to play Brickotelle,” said Sam. “I want to know whether you're the librarian or the storekeeper. I want know what Smedge is like and what he's doing. And I want to know why I'm so unhappy.”

“Is that all?”

“I want to know how I can be happy again.”

Vengeabil put his hand to his face and considered all this.

“Where do you want to start?”

“Who are you?”

“That's a long story,” said Vengeabil.

by the time Sam was free from the library and Tim had finished his detention.

“I'd like to cast a slime spell on Duddle,” said Tim, when they met in the garden.

“I don't think I'm staying here,” said Sam.

Tim looked away from him.

“I wish you would,” he said.

“It's not the right place.”

“I know. Have you made up your mind?”

“Not yet.”

“Look at the stars,” said Tim. “Don't you ever wonder what they're for?”

The night sky was an open book of constellations.

“They're for the same as everything else,” said Sam. “They're just themselves.”

The stars silently agreed.

“Why did you come here?” asked Sam.

Tim brightened up. He liked to talk about himself.

“I just did magic,” he said, “when I was little, and I wasn't any good at anything else, so they thought I should come here. Learn to be a wizard. And that's what I want to do.”

He brushed his hair back from his face and grinned.

“Are you doing well here?” asked Sam.

Tim didn't stop grinning when he admitted that he wasn't. “I'm never going to be top of the class,” he said. “That's Smedge.”

“Is he the best at magic?”

Sam lay back on the grass and looked up at the sky, his hands behind his head.

“He's the best at the sort of magic they like here. He's the best at pleasing people.”

“I don't want to be like that,” said Sam. “I just want to be the best wizard I can be.”

“That's right,” said Tim. “So do I. That's why I don't work hard enough at the magic they want. Book magic. I like the magic I came here with.”

“Is it just that?”

“Not really. There's something else. I don't know what it is. A lot of the magic here is just games. It's all over the place. But there's something else. There's a sort of magic within the magic. I can't explain it. It's as though Smedge and Duddle, and a couple of other teachers, are doing a different magic. I don't like it.”

He frowned, struggling to understand what it was he was saying.

“Do you know,” he said, “when you walk into a room and the people don't stop talking, but they seem to change the subject and have to catch up quickly, to pretend they were talking about that all the time?”

Sam shook his head.

“I haven't really had a lot to do with people.”

“Oh. Well. It's like that. Sometimes, one of them will be doing some magic, and I'll see them, and they'll change it, just in time. I don't know what they were doing before, but it feels wrong.”

“I learned a lot in the library today,” said Sam.

“What was Vengeabil like?”

“What do you think?”

“He teases me,” said Tim, “but I like him. He's odd, but he seems to know what he's doing.”

Sam let his eyes leave the stars and he turned his head to the College, brooding. He could make out the oriel window to Frastfil's study. He could tell, without seeing him, that Smedge was in a window, three along from the principal's study, the light off, his head half-hidden by the frame. He was watching them, thinking himself unobserved. Sam knew he could hear them. He wondered how long he had been listening.

“What did you learn, then?” said Tim. “In the library.”

“Oh, you know,” said Sam. “Book stuff. Let's go in. I'm tired.”

Smedge watched them disappear through the small door by the kitchen.

“What do you want to do today?” asked Vengeabil.

It had been the same question for three days now, and Sam was used to it. He smiled.

“I want to go up there,” he said, pointing to the staircase.

“Off you go, then.”

Sam was startled.

“Isn't there anything you want to tell me before I go?”

“No.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Would you still go if it was?”

“Yes.”

Vengeabil shrugged his shoulders.

Sam put his foot on the first stair. It was iron, pierced with a pattern of leaves and slim branches, woven around each other. He looked back at Vengeabil.

“Is there anything I should be careful of?”

“Yourself,” said Vengeabil. “Off you go.”