The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady (21 page)

You know what? For once, I’m going to keep
my mouth shut.

So yeah, she’s pretty. Bit of a hard case
with some jealousy issues that she’s not an Ultra though. Chance
ruining more lives than just mine. She gave Ceinwyn Dale a
do-not-cross-go glare. Ceinwyn Dale smiled back. The smile was way
scarier. It said, ‘
I-eat-my-young
.’

“Miss Foster, so good to see you taking an
active interest in recruiting for once,” the smile said aloud.

“And so nice to see you returned and
actually staying at the school for more than a single day, Miss
Dale, and with another student—very productive,” the glare
returned.

For most mancers it’s another discipline
that grates on you. Pyromancers and hydromancers as the classic
example. But for aeromancers, they get on with everyone but other
aeromancers. Must have made Ultra class uncomfortable for them. You
could probably blame the stick up Miranda Daniels’ ass from Pent
through Hep on that, if you didn’t know she had the stick implanted
in an exhausting surgical procedure when she turned twelve.

“If you’ll move to the side and out of the
way, I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

Miss Foster gritted out a smile. It wasn’t
so much scary as pressured—the smile of a person caught between
holding up a mountain and holding up the sky. “There’s a line and
I’d like to be fair to
everyone
.”

Another kid got let through. A girl, red
hair. No idea who she was beyond that. My school politics were not
her school politics I guess and our path never crossed again. An
invisible face in my story. Or maybe the paths did cross and I
don’t remember. Lots of Intra faces are fuzzy, Intra names even
worse. Yet the redhead girl—if I could find her—would probably know
exactly who I am. That’s always bugged me, especially as I’ve
gotten to be an adult and away from the place, but I guess all
schools are like that.

“Audrey, would you please grow up?”

Miss Foster wasn’t quite ready for it
though. “He’s already in his colors, Ceinwyn—it doesn’t seem
pressing. Perhaps you can leave him in line. No need to spoil
him.”

“Yeah, no reason to spoil me, Ceinwyn,” I
didn’t help. Helping has never been my best quality.

“You’ll call her ‘
Miss Dale
,’ young
man.” Audrey Foster probably wouldn’t have been one of my favorite
teachers if it wasn’t for those dresses and . . . um . . . oh,
nevermind.

“Come on, Miss Frosty, trying to teach
manners when you’re all butthurt over letting another teacher do
what they need to do?” There’s me and my first impressions
again.

“He has a point, Aubrey,” Ceinwyn Dale said.
“Besides, if I left him with you, then you would have to listen to
him.”

“
Fucking right
.”

Miss Foster looked at me with pure disgust.
Can’t say she’s the last woman to look at me that way either.
“Fine. But only this once. Next time it’s by the rules, Ceinwyn. We
have to be examples for the children.”

Yeah, think of the children.

I got ushered into the Testing Room, getting
myself a glare from one aeromancer and a smile from the other. Like
bitches in heat I tell ya. That phrase work in this situation?
Whatever. Probably doesn’t help that there’s no such thing as a
male aeromancer. I know . . . it’s weird. Just one of those odd
tics of the Mancy.

The inside of the Testing Room wasn’t what I
expected. No needles. No kids sitting at desks with number two
pencils. No kids staring at targets neither. No kids at all. Just
me, Ceinwyn Dale, and the Head of Testing, standing in a cluttered
room with a door marked EXIT on the other side of me.
Come,
escape while you still can
.

The Head of Testing is a nerd. Glasses,
brown hair, shirt with an anime character on it that was probably a
guy but didn’t look like it. Nothing professional about him. Nerd.
Pure nerd. He checked out a checklist, filling in some info as we
walked up. “And what’s your name?”

I looked at Ceinwyn Dale, she nodded. “King
Henry Price.”

Which made the Head of Testing flip on
through his papers. Back and forth. “I don’t have a Price . .
.”

“He’s cheap,” Ceinwyn Dale joked.

“Oh . . .” Testing guy finally glanced up.
“C.D.”

“Yes.”

“Our late recruit?”

“Yes, Russell.”

“Why’s he in colors? Doing half my job for
me?” Russell Quilt, early twenties, barely graduated a few years
before I showed up. As Head of Testing he also doubled as a kind of
counselor for the Ultras, though he’s not one himself. Unlike Miss
Frosty, it was never a sore point.

“He’s broken enough for me to be sure.”
Ceinwyn Dale made herself at home, even flipping through Quilt’s
filing work. “No surprises?”

“Just the one yesterday I told you about.”
Quilt studied me for a bit. “Your gnome here passes and that’ll
make thirty. You’re getting too good at this, C.D.”

“Not good enough.” I got what she meant.
Still mancers getting missed, still people like Mom she didn’t find
in time.

“You got a
High Five
,” Quilt
shrugged, fiddling a machine with a fan of some kind on it. “First
one in twelve years, give yourself a break.” The fan stopped. “If
he passes.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Uhuh.”

“And I ain’t a gnome.”

“An ewok then.”

“Give me the test before I break your
glasses.”

Quilt laughed, pulling out another machine.
“They’re plastic, good luck.”

Fourteen-year-old-me snorted. “Not talking
about that way, man.”

An eye-roll to Ceinwyn. “He always this
aggressive?”

“Well, he’s not calling you a ‘
fucking
bitch
’ so there’s actually been some improvement.”

An ink marked finger went up. “We don’t use
fuck
in this room.”

“Frakking bitch,” Ceinwyn Dale relented with
a sigh.

“Thank you.”

Like I said, Russell Quilt: huge nerd.

Here’s the vaunted test of the Asylum. The
nightmare in the mind of potentials across the country, the threat
of mancer parents far and wide—‘
study hard or you’ll fail your
testing
,’ ‘
eat your veggies or you’ll fail your
testing
,’ ‘
don’t talk back or I’ll rig things, boy!
’ The
vaunted test of the Asylum is a circle of wood about three feet
wide with thirteen glass globes attached to it at the edge. Don’t
get me wrong, it’s a nice piece of wood—it’s engraved, got Latin on
it, even got a kick stand. But it’s a
piece of wood
. .
.

Fourteen-year-old-me was further displeased.
“You’re pulling my dick . . .”

“No, luckily not,” Quilt mumbled as he
started up paperwork to add me to his lists. “Very simple, no pain
at all.”

“Do I try to make the snow-globes blow
up?”

“Of course not!” A flutter of paper and
panic. “You couldn’t even do that . . .” then after a moment’s
thought, “He can’t do that, can he? Glass is technically earth . .
.”

“Russell, stop giving him ideas.” Ceinwyn
Dale gave me the papercut-incoming face.

“If I don’t blow it up, then what do I do to
it?” I asked while making sure to remember to try to crack a window
once Ceinwyn Dale wasn’t around. “I got a cig headache, man, quit
making this stuff drawn out.”

“Touch the globe in front . . . right
there,” Quilt told me, pointing at one with a pen.

I did as told. Nadda.

“Next one, on the right.”

Still nadda. “You fucking with me?”

“When we get the right one it will react to
you. And no
fucking
in here, remember?”

“Only blow up dolls, got it.”

“Next one.”

We finally got our reaction on number
twelve. The globe flashed alight for a whole three seconds then
went out.

“Ah, there we are.” Quilt smiled to himself.
“You’re a geomancer.”

He said it like it’s the most amazing thing
in the world. I guess for kids who didn’t have a clue what was
going on, that’s something. But not for me. To me, it was . . .
phony. He used that voice on every kid. It made the whole thing
shit. “We already knew that!”

“But now we’re sure . . .”

“Why didn’t you try the geomancer one first
then?”

“That is a good point actually . . .”

“Miss Dale . . .”

“Be good, King Henry.”

“But—”

“Next test, Russell,” rolled me over before
I could break anything.

“Right . . . the big one . . . big one . . .
where are you, big one?” He rummaged through his testing devices,
lost in the piles of machinery. “Sorry, haven’t had another
geomancer today. There we are!”

He pulled out a box, lined in some soft
fabric—silk? Velvet? I’m not a fabric guy. Inside the box was a
pair of magnets, iron. Old iron. Ancient iron. Not a fabric guy,
but I know more about metals than anyone in the 21
^st
century ever should have to.

The magnets were big enough to grip with
your hands. Fourteen-year-old-me was littler than most, but I had
muscles to lift them up and look from one to the other without
struggling under the weight. “And?”

Ceinwyn Dale studied me like I might turn
into either gold or dogshit . . . maybe even golden dogshit given
our relationship. “If you’re an Ultra, you’ll be able to push those
together . . . if not, you’d have better luck moving the
building.”

I studied the pieces, hefting them at my
sides. “Can I control magnetism?” Probably thinking about becoming
a super villain at this point.

“They aren’t actual magnets,” Quilt
explained, pushing up his glasses with one hand and waving the
other in the air. “They project an anima field. What makes
Artificers special is they can store, draw out, and coerce animas
not their own by repelling them. You can’t use them . . . but you
can sidestep the rules to make something that can.”

“Sidestepping rules . . .”

Ceinwyn Dale smiled my way. “Figured you’d
like that.”

I thought there was going to be some
resistance or something, so I almost broke a finger clanging the
things together. Russell Quilt gasped when I did. I only frowned.
Couldn’t be it
. I banged them together again for good
measure. “You sure these work?”

“Very . . .” Quilt whispered. “Very
sure.”

“Seems easy.” Few more clangs. “Don’t feel
nothing.”

“He’s an
Artificer
.”

“I told you he was, Russell,” Ceinwyn Dale
said. “They do exist despite our dry spell.”

“You’re my first,” Quilt told me in a way
that can only be called creepy.

“Eww, man.”

“No! Just! Of course not that . . . I’ve had
. . . there was a very nice . . . I . . . I didn’t mean . . .”

“Russell,” Ceinwyn Dale said, “Quit
hyperventilating.”

“He’s the first Artificer in seven years!”
Quilt did not stop hyperventilating, he even got screechy when he
became excited, “Russia and Britain and France got one each last
year, you know . . . and China has gotten four in a row! DaVinci!
Michelangelo! Colt! Browning! Some of the biggest names in
history!”

“I know, Russell. Try to compose yourself
though. King Henry’s got a big enough head already, even if it
looks small.”

I put down the magnets or whatever they
were. “What’s this mean? Seven years?”

Ceinwyn Dale studied me for awhile. I looked
back. We both knew I meant Mom. “Yes, King Henry. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay . . . not your fault, Miss Dale .
. .”

“First time it ever worked,” Quilt muttered
to himself as he put away the magnets in one of his unorganized
piles. “Means we got the
High Five
, C.D.”

“I suppose we did.” The Head of Recruiting
didn’t seem as happy as the Head of Testing. Guess it’s the
difference between those that study and those that go out and find.
The optimism of cataloging what you’ve got versus the pessimism of
knowing what you missed.

Fourteen-year-old-me had similar if less
philosophic thoughts. “Thanks for finding me, Miss Dale.”

She smiled at me again. Not the
oh-you’re-interesting smile or the amused smile or the cutting
smile. Her thankful one. The smile that every time I see the damn
thing it makes me feel like I’ve done something worth mattering.
“You’re welcome, King Henry.”

“My first Artificer. And a
High
Five
.” Russell Quilt—one track mind.

“What’s that shit, a
High Five
?” That
was me. Notice the
shit
.

Quilt happily expounded. “It has to do with
the Ratio of Anima Dispersion, with regards to human population
specifically.” The math again. “Did you, um . . . study percentages
at the school you came from?”

“I’m sure one of my teachers mentioned
it.”

Quilt glanced to Ceinwyn Dale for help.

She didn’t help him. “I have a lunch date
with the Lady, Russell, why don’t you entertain King Henry until I
return?”

He turned back towards me with a horrified
expression. “I’m busy today, C.D!”

“It will be informative for the both of
you.”

“I’ve got kids to test!”

“He won’t get in the way.”

“I was going to ask Audrey out for coffee .
. .”

“You can do better.”

Foster and Quilt were married during my Pent
year.

“Don’t break anything, King Henry. See you
in a bit.” Ceinwyn Dale waved at us, gave a last eye-see-you sign,
then left.

“Shit.”

That was Quilt this time.

[CLICK]

Quilt never actually told me about a
High
Five
that day. Or the Ratio of Anima Dispersion. But hey, I was
a teacher for two years during my graduate work as an Artificer.
Poor kids. They learned some good words though. So why can’t I be a
bit of a teacher to a recorder?

The Ratio of Anima Dispersion works two ways
that we know of. One way within human populations and the exact
opposite way in the natural world. There’s a theoretical third, but
we won’t get into it. Think of it as fractions. 2/3/5. 5/3/2. There
are three tiers. In the natural world, the First Tier is the most
concentrated. Among humans, the First Tier is the least
concentrated. Necromancy, geomancy, aeromancy, pyromancy,
hydromancy. That’s your First Tier. In the natural world these
appear as anima concentrations or flows or any type of that stuff.
Remember fairies from an earlier session? Same stuff. Mancers can’t
use them or their anima, so I never gave a shit. In human
population the phenomena
are
mancers.