The Alchemists Academy Book 2: Elemental Explosions (19 page)

            Wirt thought back to the strange dreams he’d had at the start of term, where he had been talking to Arthur, and the legendary king had called him Merlin. If he didn’t pass here, Wirt wasn’t going to be anyone’s Merlin. He wouldn’t be able to secure a job advising the most destitute of minor lords, let alone some great king. More than that, he would be homeless, cast adrift the way he had been by foster families so many times before he came to the school.

            Wirt looked around for his friends. Alana was there, looking up eagerly at the stage, where Priscilla looked back at her and gave her the occasional smile of encouragement. She looked confident, but Wirt knew Alana well enough to know that it was a mask, and that inside, she would be terrified. After all, the next few minutes would probably determine whether Alana would ever spend time working with her royal friend again.

            Spencer’s nervousness was plainer to see. He practically danced in place with it, while his features were paler and more drawn than Wirt remembered. He had worked so hard for this, studying in his room long after Wirt had given up, trying to be everything that his father wanted him to be. How would Mr. Bentley react if his son failed? Would he quietly find Spencer a new school to go to? Would he still give Wirt’s friend a place in his many business interests? Or would he treat Spencer like he was some worthless, lazy outcast?

            As for Roland, he looked the worst of all, any veneer of coolness he had possessed gone as he stood there, a mixture of terror and wanting written plainly across his features. Not that Wirt had much sympathy for him, given everything Roland had done so far this year. In fact, Wirt found himself silently wishing for the other boy’s failure. Let him try to explain that to whatever it was he kept in that box of his.

            Every other student in the room looked as apprehensive, glancing up at the front of the solarium as they waited for Ender Paine to start. Wirt thought he saw the faintest flicker of a smile pass across the headmaster’s face, and anger rose in him. Ender Paine was enjoying this. He was enjoying spinning out this moment where he had power over the students, and the fear coming up from them in waves.

            Thankfully though, King Wilford didn’t seem to be enjoying it so much.

            “Can we get on with this?” he demanded. “It’s bad enough that I get dragged down to this kind of thing, without having to stand here at the front for hours like some kind of idiot.”

            The headmaster turned a look on him that made the king go quiet, but seemed to concede the point. At least, he started to speak.

            “We are gathered here,” Ender Paine said, “because the time has come to announce those of you who have made it through into our school’s elite class. Over the last few weeks, our teachers have tested you, given me their opinions of you, and provided opportunities for you to demonstrate your capabilities in the magical arts.”

            He looked around the room. “Some of you have succeeded admirably. Others of you have at least enough talent to be worth our time for another year. Many more have had the sense to slink home to avoid embarrassment. A few of you still need to be weeded out, however, which is what we will do today. I will call out names now, and you will come forward as you are called to receive your scarf.”

            The headmaster called Thomas, the boy who had nearly beaten them to Priscilla and who had found the magical ropes, first. Everybody else applauded as the headmaster handed him his scarf, and the boy moved to stand behind him.

After Thomas came a couple of girls who had apparently excelled in enchanting items and in alchemy, followed by a slender, unhealthy looking boy who had shown an aptitude for some of the more unpleasant magical arts the school offered. More names followed, each one accompanied by a brief description of what that pupil had done to earn a place ahead of his or her fellows. To Wirt, it sounded like just one more attempt on the headmaster’s part to sow division, though he guessed it could equally well be just a hint as to where they would be focusing next year.

What started to worry him as the litany of names went on was that none of Spencer, Alana, Roland or himself had been chosen, while the number of places available was shrinking rapidly. It occurred to Wirt that, since so few students would be left out at the end of the process, this was a cruel way to go about things. It would have been far quicker to simply name those who had not made it at the start, or even to tell them individually before things got to this stage. But then, that wasn’t the way the headmaster worked.

Nobody clapped now that more than half the places were gone. Instead, a low sound of disappointment came with each new announcement, as the remaining students realized that their own chances of being one of the ones chosen had shortened once more. Wirt wanted one of those places now; wanted it almost more than anything. The trouble was, he suspected that merely wanting it wasn’t enough. Not here.

More names, and the number of places left shortened. When there were five, Wirt still dared to hope. When there were four, he tried thinking that maybe he, Spencer, Alana and Roland would all go through in a rush, rewarded for what they had done together. When it got down to three places remaining, Wirt decided that he could live without Roland. After all, it wasn’t as if he even liked the other boy that much.

Then the headmaster called out another name that wasn’t one of theirs, and Wirt realized that one of his friends would be going home. Either that, or he would, only he didn’t have a home to go to. The headmaster had slowed things to a crawl by now, looking between them and obviously savoring the moment. Finally though, he spoke again.

“Alana, step forward.”

Wirt heard Alana’s sigh of relief right across the room, and watched as the girl hurried forward. Wirt couldn’t help being a little happy that she had gotten in, even though it meant that there was now only one place left that he could take. Roland didn’t seem to share the feeling, glaring at Alana’s back as she approached the headmaster.

Ender Paine nodded to her as he handed over a scarf. “Alana here was well in front at the start of the term. She has studied well, and has obvious talent in areas including glamour.” That was, Wirt suspected as close to a compliment on her work in the headmaster’s class as Alana was going to get. “She did, however, allow herself to get injured in the last task, and more than that, she failed. It is only because of her high marks in our first quest, that of finding the princess, that she has earned her place in the elite.”

Alana didn’t seem to care that she had only just scraped through. The point was that she was through. She took her place at the back, hugging Priscilla quickly as she went past. Wirt kept his eyes on the headmaster, who stood there in silence for long seconds. Finally he barked out a name.

It wasn’t Wirt’s.

Wirt felt his world contract, crushing him utterly. He was going to be thrown out? He had failed?

Then Ender Paine snapped another name. Two boys of the remaining six looked up in confusion.

“Both of you get out. You have no place in this school.”

In the seconds it took for them to leave, Wirt hardly dared to breathe. There were just four of them remaining now. Wirt, Spencer, Roland, and a slightly built boy who wore over-large glasses.

“You remaining four are on the edge of selection,” Ender Paine said. “Oh, I imagine I could find some small difference if I tried, but personally, I don’t care which of you gets the final spot. In any case, the instruction from the governors is clear. The final place will be decided by the quantum games. Assuming you wish to compete?”

Ender Paine looked straight at Roland. Roland barely hesitated before nodding. He looked at Spencer, who glanced up at the stage to where Alana was standing, then across at Roland, and then nodded as well.

The boy in the glasses shook his head and practically ran for the door.

Which left Ender Paine staring at Wirt. “What about you, boy? Will you play?”

Would he? Instinct told Wirt not to do it. He shouldn’t take part in some potentially lethal set of games just to earn a spot in the elite class. He certainly shouldn’t do it when that meant competing against his closest friend. When it potentially meant killing him. And all for what? For a better chance at a good job?

No, not just that. For a place to belong, too. For the right to stay just a little longer in the closest thing to a home Wirt had possessed in years. For a chance to finally understand the talents swirling within him too, and maybe, just maybe, for a chance to get closer to Alana.

“Well?” Ender Paine demanded. “I don’t have all day, boy.”

Wirt looked up at the headmaster, met his gaze coolly, and nodded, just once.

*****************

Wirt and his friends’ adventures continue in:

THE QUANTUM GAMES

Alchemists Academy Book 3

Fall 2011

EXCERPT FROM

RISE OF THE FIRE TAMER

Wordwick Games #1

by

kailin gow

Prologue

T
he deadline slipped past, as deadlines tend to. Around the world, hungry eyes pinned themselves to computer screens, waiting for news. When it came, it came in the form of a simple video file, which when opened showed the familiar head and shoulders of Henry Word, the owner of Wordwick Inc. As heads went, it was not too bad. Although he had hit forty, there weren’t any signs of gray in the sandy-blond hair, and the cleft chin was still as defined as ever. In the second or two before he started speaking, there was a twinkle in the green eyes that said that Henry Word was enjoying the suspense.

“Well,” he began, “you’re probably all waiting with baited breath for me to announce the winners of the Wordwick Games Contest, designed to find our ultimate fans. After all, you probably want to know who’s getting the prize of spending a week in the castle you all know and love from the game.” A mischievous smile flickered across his features for a moment. “Well, simply telling you would hardly be much fun, would it? Instead, I think I’ll keep you all in suspense just a little while longer, and our winners…” Henry Word raised a remarkably old-fashioned pocket watch to eye level and spun it like a carnival hypnotist. “Well, our winners should be finding out very soon indeed.”

Tumbleweed
didn’t twist its way across the ranch, because that would have been too much like something happening. Stieg Sparks had learned many things in the past seventeen years, and one of them was that nothing much ever seemed to happen on days when you really wanted them to. Particularly not on his parents’ ranch. A few cattle, though not as many as there once had been, stood and stared at Sparks as he sat on the front porch, and he stared back, more for something to do than from any particular interest in them.

The cows were probably getting the better end of the deal, since underneath his sandy-blond hair Sparks had the casual good looks that came with being his school football team’s star quarterback, while cows were just cows.

Of course, Sparks knew could probably find something to do, if he set his mind to it. He could do most things once he set his mind to them. He could, for example, go and take a look at the broken crop sprayer that his father had sworn would never work again, before they ended up paying out more money the ranch didn’t have. He would probably find a way to get it working. Or he could go inside and log on to the Game, though his mother had started to say he was spending too much time on it.

He could even hurry over to football practice. It was certainly what he was supposed to be doing. He might even make it in time not to earn any extra laps from the coach, if he really rushed. Somehow, the thought didn’t spur him to action. In fact, put like that, even staring at cows seemed better.