Year of the Griffin (19 page)

“What kind of suit?” Ruskin asked.

And suddenly, to Corkoran's slight bewilderment, everyone was agog with interest. Questions were fired at him, and suggestions after those. Ruskin and Lukin discussed articulated joints for the moonsuit, which Corkoran had not realized he would need, while Olga recommended several air-spells Corkoran did not know, saying she had always kept several kinds ready in case her father's ship sank. Claudia, after some scribbling and calculating, came up with a formula for exactly how thick the metal of a moonsuit would have to be, and while Ruskin snatched her paper, checked it, and pronounced it could be thinner than that, Felim produced a scheme for surrounding the whole moon in an envelope of air. “Using your Impenetrable Net to hold it there,” he explained.

“But,” said Elda, “why not make the moonsuit out of Impenetrable Net, anyway? With one of Olga's air-spells on each shoulder. That's what I'd do.”

While Corkoran was staring at her, wondering why this had never occurred to him, Felim observed, “You might have to stiffen the net to prevent implosion.” And Claudia began calculating again just how stiff it should be.

After this Ruskin asked about the construction of the moonship in such detail and so knowledgeably that the idea began to grow in Corkoran that he might get Ruskin to finish the moonship for him. Dwarf craftsmanship was just what was needed, delicate and strong. Perhaps offer Ruskin a scholarship … Offer Claudia another, so that she could do his calculations … But before these ideas had quite ripened to a decision, Corkoran found Ruskin's eye on him, round and blue and innocent. “Pity dwarf work costs such a lot,” Ruskin mused. “Such a very great deal that even the Emperor can't afford it most of the time.”

Ah, well, Corkoran thought. He had enough new ideas to go on, anyway. He rushed away back to his lab, half an hour early, almost dizzy with all the possibilities his students had suggested.

There was a small square of paper lying in the middle of his lab floor. Corkoran picked it up, idly reading it as he threw it away and turned to his workbench. “MAKE US THE RIGHT SIZE,” it said, in rather small letters, “AND WE GO. DO NOT, THEN BEWARE.” Corkoran let it fall into his wastebin without bothering to think about it. He did not even glance toward the rat cage, where the Impenetrable Net hung off the front and the bars were forced outward. He had forgotten the assassins days ago. He got down to puzzling out articulated joints for his moonsuit.

Meanwhile a young woman was walking through the city. Every so often she stopped someone and politely inquired the way to the University. Each person she asked directed her with willing eagerness and smiled as she walked on the way he or she had pointed. She was that kind of young lady. She walked very upright in a plain cloak that swirled sedately aside to show a worn blue woolen dress, and her hair, which was on the dark side of brown, curled a little around a face that was longish and not quite pretty, but it was so full of humor and confidence and kindness that most people reacted to her as if she were a raving beauty. The porter at the University gates was no exception. He bowed to her.

“That way, my lady. Taking coffee by the statue in the main courtyard at this hour usually.” And after the young lady had given him a smile that half stunned him, he said to the janitor, “Quite the most lovely lady I ever set eyes on, and I seen a few. Puts Wizard Myrna and that Melissa quite in the shade, I say.”

The young lady walked on into the courtyard, where Elda and her friends were gathered around Wizard Policant and Olga had just fetched coffee.

“Forget Corkoran. He can't see beyond his tie,” Lukin said to Ruskin. “How are the food-spells coming on?”

Ruskin grumped. His room was now a mess of little bowls and dishes, and tiny cooking fires in clay pots, where the smells of bread or fried fish regularly woke him during the night. “I can't seem to balance the smell with the taste yet,” he confessed. “If I do get a good steak pie, it smells of lavender, or I got a lovely chowder, but it—”

Lukin gave a great shout and raced away across the courtyard.
“Isodel!”
he yelled, and flung both arms around the young lady. She hugged him back heartily.

Olga had gone white again. Elda cocked an eye at her. “His sister,” she said. “My brother Blade thinks she's wonderful.”

“Oh,” Olga said rather faintly, and her face flooded red.

“Here,” Isodel said to Lukin, handing him a worn old wallet that chinked a little. “It's not as much as we'd hoped, I'm afraid. Father suddenly decided to check up on everyone's allowance—Mother's particularly—and tell us we all spent too much. We had to account for every copper. Mother invented a charity, and I pretended there was a dress bill I'd forgotten. But we think he's getting suspicious, Lukin. He keeps asking about you. Mother and I keep saying we've seen you just this minute, and the younger ones are being magnificent, inventing things you said to them that morning, but there are so many courtiers not in the secret—like Lord Crevet, going around saying he's not seen you for weeks now—that it's getting very difficult.”

Lukin experienced a deep sinking feeling somewhere just under his stomach. “The University sent out a request for donations. Did he—”

“No, that was all right,” said Isodel, “though it was a narrow squeak. I'd told the loftkeeper that any pigeons that arrived from the University were to be brought to
me
, but Father was actually
in
the loft, inspecting it, when it came. Luckily Lyrian was with Father, and he realized and managed to whisper to the pigeon to fly off and look for me, so Father never saw it after all. But, Lukin, it would make things a lot easier if you could manage to nip home on a spell for a day or so and show Father you're there.”

“Oh, gods!” said Lukin. “They keep us so busy here. And we haven't done translocation yet. The way I am now, I'm quite likely to arrive in the palace at the bottom of a deep pit. Or,” he said, thinking about it, “at the end of a line of deep pits, between here and Luteria.”

“You could borrow Endymion,” Isodel suggested. “If I asked him very nicely—”

“Endymion regards himself as your own personal dragon,” Lukin said. “If he wouldn't bring me here, why should he take me back? Where is he, by the way?”

“Hiding in a wood. He got shy,” Isodel explained. “He hates being gawked at.”

“Then you must have walked miles!” Lukin exclaimed. “Come over to the statue and sit down and meet my friends.” He put an arm around her shoulders and led her to the statue, where his friends were all rather feverishly pretending not to be interested. “You've met Elda, of course. This is Ruskin, Claudia, Felim, and”—he took a deep breath—“this is Olga.”

There was a weighty pause then. Isodel looked at Olga, and Olga looked at Isodel. Then both of them smiled in the same anxious-to-please way. It was clear that they liked one another but were both a little daunted by the situation. As soon as he saw this, Felim, on whom Isodel's smile worked in the usual profound way, went dashing off to fetch Isodel some coffee.

“And some food!” Lukin shouted after Felim. “Because I'll bet you had no breakfast,” he said to Isodel, who confessed that this was so.

“I can't stay here more than half an hour,” she added. “It's about five miles to the wood, and Endymion has to get me back for lunchtime or Father's going to ask where I am, too.”

“We've got a class, anyway,” Lukin said. “And I've got to talk to Wermacht about—” He looked around for the cloakrack. Claudia, Ruskin, and Olga pointed. It was standing on the other side of the statue. “And I
know
we left it inside the tutorial room,” said Lukin. “But if it got out of a sealed pit, what's a mere door? It just takes a little longer. Isodel, if you think
we've
got problems, you should hear about Claudia's. And Felim's.” And he told her, although he said not a word about Olga's troubles, for which everyone silently congratulated him.

Claudia had been looking from brother to sister. They were very alike, although Lukin's face was heavier and his hair darker. When they were both smiling and talking, they were more alike than ever. Claudia was puzzled, because they looked about the same age. “Are you two twins?” she asked.

They laughed. “People always ask that,” said Isodel. “No, but I'm only ten months older than he is.”

“She's the eldest, and she'd make a much better monarch than me,” Lukin said. “Though nothing seems to convince my father of this.” Here Felim came dashing back from the refectory with a tray laden with coffee and a quantity of buns. He handed the tray to Isodel, who thanked him with a smile. “Don't you agree she'd make a good queen?” Lukin asked Felim.

“I certainly do!” Felim said devoutly. That smile had made him Isodel's for life.

“Problem,” Lukin said. “Mine this time. The king, my father, has no idea that I am here learning to be a wizard. If he knew, he would not only hit the palace roof but probably also go on up through it. He thinks wizardry and kingship are two incompatible things. The rest of my family, bless them, are trying to prevent my father finding out where I am, but he is getting suspicious because he doesn't ever actually
see
me. Can any of you think of a way I can be in two places at once? Isodel's finding things really difficult.”

“An illusion,” Felim said promptly. “He will see you at the end of a long corridor or running ahead downstairs too fast to catch.”

“No,” said Ruskin. “A golem. I came across a very pretty little golem-spell the other day. You need a likeness of Lukin that this king can get close to.”

Everyone looked dubious about this, knowing the success rate of Ruskin's spells lately. Isodel said diffidently, “I've seen golems. They don't behave like a real person.”

“How about—” Elda and Olga began at once. Elda shut her beak, and Olga continued, “A sort of mixture of the two ideas?” and Elda exclaimed, “
I
was going to say that!”

“Yes,” agreed Claudia. “That might do it. I believe such things work best on something that belongs to the person you're trying to copy. Lukin, give us a handkerchief or a button or something, and if we can get it to look like you with a simple trigger word—if somebody says your name maybe—then we can give it to Isodel—”

“And I can take it home and pass it around the family so that Father sees him in all sorts of places! Perfect!” Isodel exclaimed.

While Lukin searched himself, muttering that somehow he didn't seem to have a handkerchief, Felim said politely to Isodel, “Are you a wizard also, my lady?”

Isodel laughed. “Good lords, no!”

“She just has personal magnetism,” Lukin said, giving up the handkerchief hunt and handing Claudia the torn-out inside of a pocket instead. “The kind of magnetism that has fledgling dragons swearing lifelong fidelity and courtiers falling at her feet proposing marriage twice a day.”

Isodel turned decidedly pink. “It's not—I really don't encourage anyone.”

“I wish I had half of it, that's all,” said Lukin.

Felim's dark eyes studied Isodel, then Lukin. “Forgive me,” he said in his polite way, “but I think you simply seldom choose to exercise yours.”

It was Lukin's turn to blush. “Let's get on with this spell,” he said.

They gathered around the torn-out pocket with their heads together, while Isodel sat on the plinth of the statue, leaning against Wizard Policant's legs, eating buns and watching. She shook her head from time to time, quite unable to see what they were doing. She was taken completely by surprise when after a minute or so Claudia said, “I think that should do it. Let's test it. Hold it out to one side of him, Olga, while Isodel says his name. Say it, Isodel.”

Isodel looked at the perfectly ordinary scrap of cloth fluttering between Olga's fingers and obediently said, “Lukin?”

Immediately there were two Lukins, one standing beside the other. Isodel had no idea which one was the real one, until the one on the right scowled and said, “I don't look anything
like
that!” at which everyone laughed heartily and said, “Yes, you do!”

“Do I really look that sulky all the time?” the real Lukin asked.

Unfortunately they had by this time more than used up the extra half hour Corkoran had given them in his eagerness to get back to his lab and were ten minutes late for Wermacht's class. Wermacht might not have noticed if Elda had not been missing. Though he had been pretending for over a week now that Elda did not exist, a blank space where a large golden griffin should be is hard to ignore. And once he had noticed that, Wermacht also noticed the five other empty spaces. As Lukin spoke, he came striding out into the courtyard to investigate.

“What do you think you're doing out here?” he demanded, and blinked a little. For a moment he seemed to be seeing two Crown Princes of Luteria. But that was before Olga gave one of them a little shake and tossed a fluttering rag to Isodel. “You are of course welcome to miss all my classes,” Wermacht continued in his most sarcastic manner. “But I warn you that without my notes you'll find yourselves quite unable to answer the questions in the end-of-term exams.”