Summoner: Book 1: The Novice (22 page)

‘I say bad breeding,’ Rook sneered. ‘But the official answer is that nobles grow up amongst demons and are gifted their own well in advance of arriving at the academy, allowing them to increase their fulfilment level over the years by practising basic spellcraft and infusion. You will be starting with the level you were born with, since you have had no time to build yours. That is another reason why commoners usually start with Scarab Mites. No use capturing a demon you might not even be capable of controlling – not that you deserve anything better. It seems as if some of you have been particularly lucky this year.’

Othello had pressed his hand to the fulfilmeter by then, interrupting Rory’s response as it began to glow again. The segments lit up one by one, vibrating the room with ten dull throbs.

‘Ten! It looks as if dwarves may have a knack for summoning! I shall let the King know at once. Very interesting indeed . . .’ Rook said, motioning for Sylva to take Othello’s place. Fletcher caught Othello’s worried expression. Why tell the King? Would Othello’s result mean the dwarves were better allies than the King had thought . . . or an even greater threat?

‘Elves usually start at seven, or at least they used to. Go ahead anyway. You’ve had your Canid for a few months now.’ Sylva was indeed seven, though the eighth segment flickered for a brief second.

‘Good, you’re close to moving up a level. Work hard and you will be able to capture a Mite in addition to your Canid.’

Genevieve was exactly five. Seraph surprised everyone with a seven and Atlas managed a four, much to his chagrin.

‘I hope you’re better off than me,’ Atlas groaned as an ashen-faced Rory hurried past.

This time the fulfilmeter stuttered, then two segments glowed into life. After a full thirty seconds, a third segment flickered on. Rook grabbed his arm and began to pull him away.

‘No!’ Rory yelled. ‘Give me a little more time, there’s more!’

‘There’s no more, boy. That’s all the demonic energy you can absorb. You are a level-three summoner. Be happy it’s not less.’ He wrenched Rory up and pushed him back into the crowd of commoners.

‘Now for the bastard. Let’s see what we have here,’ Rook said, pushing Fletcher to his knees.

Fletcher closed his eyes and pressed his hand on to the fulfilmeter. The gems were cool against his palm, like polished ice. He felt the draw of mana as it was sucked away, pulsing through his veins and out through his fingers. Then something else was pushed back into him. It was not mana, for it was like fire that boiled his blood and tingled his skin.

He didn’t want to look up, but the dull vibration let him know exactly how many segments were lighting up. Five so far. Then six. On the seventh he felt the flow ebb, but still it pushed into him. Eight . . . the gush slowed to a treacle. Finally, just as he thought there was nothing left, a ninth buzz echoed through the room. Relief flooded through him, but he felt pity for Rory at the same time. James Baker had been a level-three summoner.

‘Well, well, colour me surprised. Who would have thought it? No matter. Fletcher will be here as long as it takes for me to discover evidence that Arcturus sent him a summoning scroll. Bastard children have not been allowed to attend Vocans since old King Alfric decreed it, on the bequest of Lady Faversham. Nor are any of the old bastards allowed to search new bastards out. That includes Arcturus.’ Rook’s words drew a gasp from the commoners. Arcturus’s secret was out.

‘No doubt you will have a new teacher soon, once I have got rid of him,’ Rook said with a grin.

‘For the last time, he did not send me a summoning scroll. If you must know, it was an orc shaman’s scroll that I was given by a passing tradesman,’ Fletcher said through gritted teeth.

Rook stared at him for a moment, then unclipped a leather cylinder from his belt. He removed a brown roll from inside and unravelled it on the stone floor. It was a summoning leather.

‘Show me,’ he said, pointing at it.

Ignatius materialised as soon as Fletcher released him, as if he was eager to come out. He snapped at Rook’s hand, causing the man to jerk back with a scowl.

‘Well . . . isn’t this a turn up,’ Rook murmured, rubbing his chin broodily with long, spindly fingers. ‘All right, let’s find out what fulfilment level it is. Major Goodwin will want to know. We have never tested a Salamander before.’

Fletcher gathered up Ignatius in his arms and touched the demon’s tail to the fulfilmeter. It hummed into life. The first four segments lit up in quick succession. But then, to Fletcher’s shock, the fifth segment flickered almost hesitantly. Tarquin burst out laughing.

‘Hah! Salamanders are barely level five. And you thought you could take on a level-eight Hydra and a level-seven Felid with only a Golem to help you! That’s a two-level difference, you foolish pleb bastard.’

‘I thought you said our demons were out in order to scare the Shrike away,’ Fletcher replied, fighting to keep his rage in check. Nobody, not even Didric, had ever spoken to him in that manner. ‘Would you like to change your story?’

Tarquin spluttered, but was interrupted by Rook.

‘Silence! We will return to the summoning room immediately! The lesson is not over yet.’

The journey back to the summoning room was even more tense than the last. Othello was lost in deep thought, whilst Rory’s face was the picture of abject misery as he trudged at the back of the group. Genevieve tried her best to console him, but he stared ahead blankly, as if he could not hear what she said. Gone was the boisterous boy with his playful banter.

When they arrived, Rook had already instructed some servants to carry in a heavy column, which they struggled to lift upright. It was similar to the fulfilmeter, only instead of several gemstones, each segment was made up of a single red gem the size of a man’s fist. Rook tapped it nonchalantly, lighting one of the stones with each touch of his finger.

‘Your teacher preferred to do things the old way, powering the portal herself. But I consider the risks of entering the ether differently. This is a charging stone. One can fill it with mana, to use at a later date. It is one of the tools we use for powering the great shields over the front lines, charging it in the day so that we do not need to power them all night. But we will be using it for a different purpose. Together we shall keep it on a constant full charge and attach it to the portals we use when entering the ether. That way, if someone’s concentration slips, their portal will not close prematurely. We can’t afford to lose a Hydra now can we? They no longer exist in our part of the ether.’

Tarquin smirked and nudged Isadora. Seraph raised his hand.

‘Why are they extinct in this part of the ether? Surely we haven’t captured them all?’

Rook sighed dramatically and then nodded his head, as if he had decided to humour a stupid question.

‘See these keys on the edge of the pentacles? Those are coordinates, rough ones to the same piece of land in the ether. Every summoner for the past two thousand years has hunted the same land, capturing multitudes of demons. Of course, during that time we went to war with the orcs, not to mention the dwarven rebellions after that. Many of our demons died in battle, and we needed more to replace them. Soon the wild demons learned to stay away from our part of the ether, or maybe we wiped out all the rarer ones. Whatever happened, only a few species remain. Every now and again, a rare demon, such as a Griffin, will wander into the land. Usually it will be a demon that has been injured or is sick. Other times demons migrate over our tract of land, like the Shrikes.’

‘So that’s why we need the orc keys,’ Genevieve sighed, as realisation dawned on her.

‘We don’t need the orc keys!’ Rook snapped. ‘The common, weak demons are for commoners. Nobles inherit the older and rarer demons from their parents. It keeps everyone in their natural place. The orcs send nothing but low-level demons at us anyway, which just goes to show that their coordinates are no better than ours. It is a waste of time and resources trying to find out what their keys are.’

Genevieve bit her lip and stepped back, cowed by his sharp tongue. Fletcher did not understand why Rook was so against finding the keys. Surely it could benefit Hominum? But all the man seemed to care about was the petty imbalance of power and rank between common adepts and nobles.

‘Now, the charging stone will only have enough power to work with five students a week. So, until the tournament is over, the nobles shall be the only ones allowed to enter the ether. After that we shall see about allowing you commoners to use it.’

As Rory let out a sob of despair and the others began to cry out in protest, Fletcher could only think one thing.

I wish Captain Lovett were here.

39

Fletcher hissed in frustration as the symbol he had etched flickered in the air, then died.

‘Again, Fletcher. Concentrate!’ Arcturus barked. ‘Remember the steps!’

Fletcher lifted his glowing finger and drew the shield spell glyph again. It hung in the air in front of his hand as he fed it a slow stream of mana.

‘Good. Now fix it!’ Arcturus growled.

Fletcher focussed on the symbol, holding his finger in its exact centre. He held it there until the symbol’s light pulsed briefly and Fletcher felt it lock into place. He moved his hand and watched the symbol follow his finger, as if held in front of it by an invisible frame. Sweat trickled down his back like a creeping insect, but Fletcher ignored it. It was taking everything he had to hold his concentration.

‘Push the mana through, steady now! You need to feed the glyph at the same time.’

This was the hardest part. Fletcher felt as if his mind would split in two as he tried to juggle a simultaneous flow of mana both to and through the glyph.

It wavered once again, but Fletcher gritted his teeth and forced a thin stream of opaque substance through it and out of the other side.

‘Yes! You’ve done it. Now, while we are ahead, try shaping it,’ Arcturus urged.

There was not much shield energy to work with, but Fletcher didn’t want to risk pushing more through, in case he destabilised the connection. Just as he had done with the wyrdlight in his first lesson, he rolled it into a ball.

‘Well done! But this isn’t wyrdlight. For shields, you need to stretch them out. Go on, you might not get another chance to try this lesson.’

But Fletcher could not hold the glyph steady any longer. It flared briefly, then dissolved into nothingness. Moments later, the shield ball did the same.

‘All right. We will try again next lesson. Take a break, Fletcher,’ Arcturus murmured, his voice laced with disappointment.

Fletcher clenched his hands into fists, furious with himself. All around the atrium, the other students were having much greater success. The nobles were the best, of course, practising by varying the thickness and shape of their shields, having already been versed in spellcraft at home. Malik was particularly gifted, producing a curved shield so thick that it was hard to see through it.

Most of his friends were already able to create a shield with every attempt, except for Rory and Atlas, who managed on every other try. Fletcher, on the other hand, had only succeeded once in the past three hours.

He settled on a bench on the far side of the atrium and watched despondently. Ever since Rook’s lesson all those weeks ago, things had been going steadily downhill.

First there had been the scrying stones. Rook had gone down the line of commoners, allowing them to pick stones from a box of spares. Fletcher had been purposely left for last, leaving him with only a purple fragment the size and shape of a silver shilling. To see anything at all, he had to hold it up to his eye and peer through it like a peeping tom at a keyhole. On top of this, the commoners were forced to practise scrying in the summoning room while the nobles sent their demons to explore the safer parts of the ether.

Of course, there had been the next lesson with Arcturus. The captain had not been angry with Fletcher, but he had given Fletcher much to worry about.

‘I’ve never liked Inquisitors, and Rook is the worst of them. There were three institutions set up by old King Alfric: the Inquisition, the Pinkertons and the Magistrate Judges, all of them rotten to the core. King Harold inherited them when his father abdicated the throne, but rumour has it that he does not like the way they do things. If Rook tries to stir up trouble, King Harold won’t take notice. I’m more worried about old Alfric getting involved, but he rarely leaves the palace, so hopefully he won’t get to hear anything. Don’t worry, Fletcher. You haven’t done anything wrong. I just hope that Rook doesn’t send Inquisitors to your old home and start tearing the place apart.’

Those words had haunted Fletcher for several weeks and had changed his mind about sending Berdon any letters, in case they were traced back to him, or vice versa. If Rook found out about his crime . . . he didn’t want to think about what might happen.

Of course that hadn’t been the only thing that had dampened Fletcher’s spirits. Goodwin had loaded them down with work, demanding endless essays on demonology and giving them scathing criticism if they ever got even the slightest thing wrong.

The silver lining was that Fletcher had earned Goodwin’s grudging praise in their second demonology lesson; his study of Canid breeds and their cousins had paid off. He had correctly identified and waxed eloquently about both Penelope and Malik’s demons. Penelope’s was a Vulpid, a three-tailed fox demon that was a little smaller than a common Canid but far more agile. Its snout was elegant and pointed, with a soft red coat that shone like burnished copper.

Malik’s Anubid was one of the rarest cousins to the Canid, a demon that crouched on two legs, much like a Felid, with the head of a jackal and a smooth pelt of black hair. It was a close relative to Major Goodwin’s chosen demon, the Lycan, a similar creature with thick, grey fur and the head of a wolf. The Anubid was a popular demon amongst the battlemages that originated from the Akhad Desert, although the species had now been hunted to near extinction in Hominum’s part of the ether.

Rufus’s demon was another Lutra, much to Atlas’s disappointment. Unusually, Rufus’s demon had been gifted to him in the same way that the commoners had been, through the forced donation of a summoning scroll. This was because his mother had died when he was a child and his father was not a summoner.

The only thing Fletcher felt he had any natural ability in was swordsmanship. Sir Caulder had invited him for extra lessons, learning techniques specific to the khopesh. His main sticking point was controlling his aggression. According to Sir Caulder, patience was one of a swordsman’s most important virtues.

‘All right, everyone, gather here please!’ Arcturus yelled, snapping Fletcher from his reverie.

The group gathered around him, their faces glowing with the exhilaration of finally learning one of the most practical lessons of spellcraft. The past few weeks had been more wyrdlight practice, channelling their mana and controlling its movement, size, shape and brightness. Arcturus’s reasoning had been that mastering the techniques learned with wyrdlights put them in good stead for when they eventually etched glyphs.

‘Now, many of you have been struggling with every attempt to produce a spell. More have struggled to do so in a timely fashion. Let me make myself clear. Both speed and reliability are essential for success as a battlemage,’ Arcturus said in a grave voice, looking them each in the eye. ‘Now, who can tell me which four spells are the staple of a battlemage?’

Penelope raised her hand. ‘The shield spell, the fire spell and the lightning spell.’

‘Very good, but that is only three. Who can tell me the fourth?’

‘Telekinesis?’ Seraph suggested.

‘That’s right, the ability to move objects. Watch closely.’ Arcturus grinned.

He raised his hand and etched a spiral in the air, as if he were stirring a cup of coffee. Suddenly he whipped his hand out and the hat he was wearing flicked up to the rafters, then floated down slowly to land on his head again. Fletcher could see a disturbance in the air below it, like a heatwave on a sunny day.

‘The art of moving objects is tricky, for, unlike the shield spell, fire spell or lightning spell, the telekinesis spell is nearly invisible to the naked eye. It’s much harder to lasso something and then manipulate it when you can’t see the rope you are using, so to speak. Most battlemages will simply blast it out; sending their opponent flying, but using a lot of mana.’

Arcturus, looking slightly guilty, eyed a pile of scrolls that Penelope had brought with her. They were full of other symbols that Arcturus had instructed them to learn.

‘Of course there are hundreds of other spells. The healing spell for example, difficult but useful. It’s slow acting, so not much use in the heat of battle.’ Arcturus etched the heart symbol in the air to demonstrate. ‘There will be some symbols that you will need next year, but won’t be able to perform now, like the barrier spell. You’ll see that one in action during the tournament. In any case, stick with the four staples, and you won’t go far wrong in the challenge. You will need the others in the written exams, so you must learn them all! Class dismissed!’

With those words, Arcturus turned on his heel and strode towards the door. The others began to chatter happily, but Fletcher did not feel like socialising. Instead, he chased after Arcturus and tugged on his sleeve.

‘Sir, do you mind if I ask, is Captain Lovett OK?’

Arcturus turned and looked Fletcher in the eye, his brow furrowed with worry.

‘She’s in ethershock. She might never recover, or she may recover tomorrow. I try and read to her as often as I can,’ Arcturus said, tapping a book he held under his arm. ‘Fortunately for the captain, one of her demons, Valens, was not infused when the accident happened. She might be able to see through his eyes using her mind. Only extremely skilled summoners have managed to learn that ability, but Lovett is one of most skilled I have ever had the honour of knowing. If anyone can do it, she can.’

He gave Fletcher an encouraging squeeze on the shoulder and forced a smile. ‘Now get some rest, you’ve worked hard today.’

Fletcher nodded and wandered away, trudging up the stairs of the west wing. He was eager for the solitude of his room and the company of Ignatius, who was only allowed to be summoned during the occasional lesson.

With Captain Lovett unconscious he felt more alone than ever. Although his friends were supportive and good company, they all had their own problems to deal with. Even Arcturus had been withdrawn lately, although whether it was because of Rook’s presence, disappointment in Fletcher or Lovett’s condition, was yet to be seen. Lovett had been fair and fearless, completely ambivalent to the differences in race and class of her students. Fletcher knew that he could have confided in her if he ever had any problems. Now . . . it was as if she were gone.

His mind dulled by exhaustion, Fletcher turned on to the wrong floor, where the nobles had private rooms. As he groaned and turned back to the stairs, something caught his eye. It was a tapestry, depicting armoured figures in the midst of battle. He walked over to it and admired the intricate stitching that had brought it to life.

The orcs were charging across a bridge, riding their war rhinos full tilt at a small group of men armed with pikes. At the very front of them stood a dominating figure, his arm outstretched with the spiral symbol etched in front of him. Beside him, a leonine Felid bared its fangs and seemed to roar at the oncoming horde.

Fletcher leaned forward and read the plaque below it.
The Hero of Watford Bridge
.

‘Incredible. Scipio blasted aside an orc rhino charge,’ Fletcher murmured.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of footsteps. Realising he was on a noble floor, Fletcher darted into a doorway and hid in the shadows. He did not want to have another encounter with Tarquin; not in the mood he was in.

‘. . . Did you see that buffoon’s face when his spell failed? I could have wept with laughter. The bastard thought he was so special. Now look at him,’ Tarquin drawled. The resultant titter revealed that he was with Isadora.

‘You are funny, Tarquin darling.’ Isadora giggled. ‘But we have not had time to talk today, not with those useless lessons. Tell me, what did Father’s letter say?’

‘You know he cannot tell us much, not in something as incriminating as a letter. But I could read between the lines. It is happening tonight. By tomorrow morning we will be the largest weapons manufacturer in Hominum. Then all we need to do is get rid of Seraph’s father and take over the Pasha munitions business. After that we will have the whole damned pie!’

‘Good. Our inheritance will be secure once again. But did he tell . . .’ Isadora’s voice faded as they entered one of the rooms and the door shut behind them. Fletcher realised he was holding his breath and let it out in a deep sigh. Whatever he had heard tonight, it was not good news at all.

Fletcher was about to move out of his hiding place when he heard more footsteps. The steps came gradually closer until they stopped just outside the room Tarquin and Isadora had entered, then there was a deep breath.

‘Come on, Sylva. You can do this,’ Sylva’s lilting voice said.

Fletcher gaped in surprise. Why was Sylva going to see the Forsyths at such a late hour?

‘Do what?’ Fletcher said, stepping out of the shadows.

Sylva gasped and clapped her hands to her mouth.

‘Fletcher! What are you doing here?’

‘Do what?’ Fletcher repeated, furrowing his brow.

‘I’m here to . . . make peace with the Forsyths,’ she muttered, avoiding Fletcher’s eyes.

‘Why? What on earth could have possessed you to do that? They abandoned you when you needed them most!’ Fletcher exclaimed.

‘I have forgotten why I am here, Fletcher. I am an elf, the first summoner of my kind in hundreds of years. Not only that, but I am an ambassador. You and Othello have been good to me, and I bear you no ill will. But I cannot alienate the nobility, not with the relations between our countries at stake. Zacharias Forsyth is one of King Harold’s closest and oldest advisors and it is the King who will broker an alliance between our nations. Being friends with Zacharias’s children will sway him to our cause.’ Sylva spoke firmly, as if she had rehearsed the speech before.