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Chapter Forty
Professor Dimarth's health class had already ended for the academic term.
Alexi peeked in through the door and found the class deserted. Delighted at his find, Alexi stepped inside and carefully shut the door, hoping that no one had noticed him.
Then he took a moment to look around in the gloom.
Gray winter sunlight streamed in from a half dozen tall and narrow windows on the eastern wall. It illuminated five rows of pinewood desks and chairs that faced a blackboard where Professor Dimarth discussed everything from anatomy and physiology to sexually transmitted diseases. Glass cabinets on the far side of the room held jars of x-ray ointment and glasses, scalpels, sharpening stones, alcohol, formaldehyde, cotton balls, and other implements used during the school year. Hanging on the austere gray stone of the walls were hand drawn anatomical charts of men and women on papyrus. This is where he and Paul learned the names of all the muscle groups, and why they were so excited to be able to spot them on Kian's absurdly lean body.
Alexi heard some voices in the hall and (worried that he'd be discovered) stepped over to the wall to listen. It was a group of girls headed to an examination on curses. Alexi recalled (with fondness) on how he used to place curses on his own items, so that if anyone stole something of his, they'd come down with a disease until they returned it.
Alexi crept over to the glass cabinets holding the health supplies. He opened one, reached inside, and took a jar of x-ray ointment and a pair of x-ray glasses. One shelf was completely full of them, so he didn't think Professor Dimarth would ever notice that one was missing.
He looked at the strange white jar that featured an outline of a human with its skeleton visible beneath the flesh. The label read, "Great for use in setting broken bones, seeing kidney stones, and other such maladies!" He carefully put it in his purse, along with the glasses that he wrapped carefully in a cloth to avoid scratching the lenses. The glasses worked with the magic of the ointment and would allow Alexi to see through any flesh coated with the stuff as long as twenty-four hours hadn't passed.
As Alexi closed the cabinet, he turned and saw a shadow fall across the gap beneath the door to the room. He looked around to find a place to hide when the door opened and Daphne entered, closing the door behind her. She looked pretty today, dressed in a pink kirtle corset dress. It had a severing wide cross-cut skirt (that provided a beautiful bell-shaped silhouette), and a corset bodice that shaped a dainty waistline beneath her high, plump bust.
"I thought that was you," Daphne said. "What are you doing skulking around in Professor Dinarth's room?"
"I heard a noise," Alexi said, "and I wanted to make sure it wasn't that missing terrorist."
Daphne's eyes widened. "Did you find anything?"
"No," Alexi said. "How are you feeling? I know you've had cramps."
Daphne sighed and rolled her eyes. "I can't believe you don't have them. You're so lucky. I'm ovulating and nothing seems to relieve the pain."
"I sometimes get them," Alexi lied. "Just not like you." Alexi pressed his fingers to the wand inside his purse. He'd just need to distract Daphne long enough to say the spell and then hope she didn't notice.
"It's so dark in here," Daphne said.
She looked up at the dusty and cobweb covered chandeliers secured by hook and chain to the ceiling; they held many jars of dead fireflies.
Suddenly, Daphne said, "Fiat lux!"
Alexi felt rather than saw the necromancy leave her. A moment later, the fireflies in more than twenty-four jars reanimated, giving off bright bio-luminescence. The spell wasn't permanent, but the lightning bugs would give off illumination for a good eight hours before the spell would need to be cast again.
"I'm still mad at you, by the way," she said, placing both hands on her hips.
"Mad at me? About what?" Alexi asked.
"You promised to walk me back to my room the other day after exams. You disappeared on me, so I had to walk by myself. If the terrorist had found me and raped me, you'd feel sorry," Daphne said.
"Probably," Alexi admitted.
Daphne took a step toward him and said, "What are you clutching there in your bag?"
Alexi immediately took his hand out and said, "It's nothing. I-I probably should be going," he stammered.
But Daphne cut him off with her arm. "Let me see. You've stolen something, haven't you?"
"I haven't. Honestly, I came in here because I heard a noise."
Daphne grabbed him then, and her big meaty arms and hands ended up overpowering Alexi. She reached in his bag and pulled out the harvesting wand he'd stolen from the headmaster's office. "Why do you have this?" she asked him. "Were you going to take one of my eggs?"
Alexi swallowed uncomfortably. "I-I wasn't planning on it."
"You're a terrible liar," Daphne replied. She tapped the wand in her hand and then said, "You want to get pregnant tomorrow, don't you? Are you barren, Alexi? Is that why you've been so strange lately? Rowena said she saw you in the Hollows. Everyone knows that the Hollows caters to all the sex shops and flesh crafters. But it's also where women go when they have issue with their plumbing. Is that what's happening to you?"
Alexi lowered his head and said, "It is. It's horrible. I have a condition where my body can't produce its own eggs. I thought that having a man's baby might convince him to stay...you know...once I tell him I'm pregnant. That way I won't have to be alone after graduation."
"Oh you poor dear," Daphne said, stepping into him and giving him a hug. "I'm so glad you told me. Is your boyfriend going to be at the dance tomorrow?"
"Yes," Alexi said. "We plan on having sex for the first time."
"Lucky you," Daphne told him. "I'll tell you what, if you still want one of my eggs, I'll let you use the wand on me. It's the least I could do, and my body produces plenty of them."
Alexi smiled weakly and even managed a few tears. "You'd do that for me?"
"Of course. So how does this work?" Daphne asked, handing him back his wand.
"I think I just point the wand at you and say the words, `Ovorum messis,'" Alexi said.
"All right. Let's do it."
Alexi raised the wand and pointed it at Daphne's middle. He paused for a moment and then asked, "Are you sure there's nothing I can do for you? Some kind of favor?"
Daphne sucked on her lip for a moment and then said, "How well connected is your boyfriend?"
"Kian? He's pretty well connected, I think," Alexi said.
"His name's Kian? Fancy that," Daphne said. "There just happens to be a devilishly handsome teenager competing in the Blood Bowl today, and his name's also Kian. `Kian Brittain' to be exact. They say Taleta herself send him, Alexi. The street cryers outside the Arena of the Flayed Man have been announcing results, and they said he won the gold spurs. The last time someone won actual spurs and became a Timeron knight was four years ago, and those were bronze. All the girls are in love with him. Everyone's saying he has the whitest skin and a completely shredded body...as in no fat at all. Of course, lots of people want to know how much he's packin' down there, if you know what I mean."
Alexi swallowed. "Then he made it through it all unharmed?"
"Of course, silly, but a lot of contestants died today as is usually the case with that event. Anyway...not to make light of your Kian...but if he is well connected, is it your intention to leave Zanda?"
Alexi stared at his friend but didn't immediately answer.
"I swear I won't tell anyone, Alexi. But if you have somehow found a way to get out of this place, I want you to take me," she said.
Alexi blinked and nodded. "I think I could do that. Why do you want to leave?"
Daphne paused, thinking over something. It was obvious that she too had her secrets. "I'm not who you think I am," she said after almost a minute of silence. "My name is Daphne...that part's real. But I'm a member of the local thieves' guild. I'm one of the `little birds' of Nightmaster Brusenna, and I've been spying on the academy for a year now. I was chosen for the assignment because of my affinity to magic, and the fact that I'm a seer by bloodline. With my graduation, I need to leave the city because it's dangerous here. I know practically all the secret tunnels leading out of the academy and some of them even go to the training grounds of the Cataclysm Slayers of Zanda and into the Librarium Apocalypto itself. I meet with the Nightmaster once a month. The last time was three weeks ago. I can't risk contact any more than that because if I'm caught, I'll be hanged. A year ago when I began my assignment here in the academy, Markain Kragar—he's the priest that takes confession in the guild—told me to stay close to a girl named Alexi. He wasn't specific as to why. He only said that someday, you'd introduce me to a teacher. That I would feel a calling to the way of the sword."
"But you're a necromancer," Alexi said, "and girls don't wield swords."
Daphne laughed. "You and I both know that I suck at necromancy. I think I'll be much better with a blade in my hand. You're way more powerful than me. But I was a tomboy before I joined the academy, and all I wanted to do was wield a sword just like my brother. If I'd been born a boy, things would have been different. They were rich merchants, you see, and were set upon by Dhesirian pirates. My father and mother both died that day. My younger brother inherited everything because he has a cock between his legs, and he dumped me on Nightmaster Brusenna and told her he'd pay for an education as long as I'd never make a claim to my inheritance. He's the burgermeister of Glum Barrow in Valcia and pays protection money to the thieves' guild there. That's how business gets done. You either pay protection money, or your skeletons in the closet get aired for everyone to see. Someday I'll find out the truth from him. Someday I'll make him squeal and tell me if he had our parents killed."
Alexi swallowed and nodded. "I'll take you with me if I leave. But what's been your assignment here? Why did the thieves' guild want a mole on the inside of the academy?"
"Because the headmaster has been selling girls to Kahket so that she can drain their lifeforce. It's been going on for almost a year now. She uses their necromantic mana to heal herself, as she's really a demon called a lamia. The thieves' guild wanted proof, and I finally have it. I've got papers that prove Kahket purchased these girls. I just need to get them into Markain Kragar's hands when I have the time."
"And what will he do?" Alexi asked.
Daphne shrugged. "I don't know. He's a nice old man and said that everyone sooner or later gets their comeuppance, Kahket included. Maybe that means he'll kill her."
"Phat chance," Alexi said. "She's the wife of a god. If he was that powerful he'd have gotten rid of her already."
"Then he'll have someone else do it. I don't know...someone good at killing. I never spent much time learning the tenets of Tethyr, or spending time there. But the god of thieves has to have some resources, right? I can only pray that there'll be justice for the girls victimized by Kahket and the headmaster. Now...can we get this over with?"
Alexi pointed his wand at her mid-section and uttered the words, "Ovorum messis."
The tip started to glow almost immediately, and Daphne made an "Oof" noise. A bit of light emerged from her belly and flew into the wand, which then returned to normal.
"I guess that's it then," Daphne said. "You make it look easy."
"Some magic is easy," Alexi said.
"Alexi, I'm curious. Did you steal that wand from the headmaster's office?" Daphne asked.
He paused a moment, considering whether or not he should admit to the crime. However, with evidence in hand, it seemed rather obtuse not to own up to it. "Yes," he said. "I met with him this morning. During a distraction, I took it. However, I replaced it with a pretty good copy. He shouldn't notice it's missing for some time."
Daphne nodded. "Good thinking. Did you happen to see a black bird in his office? A raven?"
Alexi put the wand back into his purse and then said, "I did. Why do you ask?"
"I asked because I think that bird controls the hell birds on the Bone Wall," Daphne said. "I came across a passage in one of the old books down in the library. It was talking about Lianon Pard and the construction of that enormous thing. Apparently, he was such a powerful necromancer that he did it himself. A lot of people don't know that about him. And most people, including necromancers, don't realize that the materials Pard used in the construction of the Bone Wall all came from a different plane that sages called `The Dragon's Graveyard.' Remember that story we read on the Obelisk of Quiet down in Slippery Squib? This book spoke of the anger that all dragons felt when their trophies were used in such a fashion, and their necromancy stolen from them."
Alexi swallowed and then asked, "What else did the book say? About the anger of dragons?"
"Funny that you should ask," Daphne replied. "Because that part of the book is missing. There were two words scribbled in a margin: umbral lacerta. I don't speak wyrmtongue. I'd always wanted a nykoran to teach me, but until recently there weren't many nykorans within Zanda."
"Nykorans speak wyrmtongue?" Alexi asked.
"They do. After all, they're half draconic," she said.
"That's very interesting," Alexi replied. "However, I may have another way to translate the words. I'll let you know if I find out anything. Daph, before you go, please tell me why you told me about the raven?"
Daphne cleared her throat. "The hell birds are guardians of the Bone Wall. But as guardians, they keep us safe from aerial attacks from the armies of the West. Anything coming and going in Zanda needs to be aware of that fact. If the day comes for us to leave this country and we do so by any means other than ship, we'll either have to cross the Bone Wall or go over the mountains. Either way, we'll be caught if the hell birds aren't dealt with. If I'm right about the raven, and you should be able to tell because it will be a great source of necromantic energy, it will need to be dealt with. I thought you should know."
"If it's powerful enough to control the Bone Wall, it has to be a demon of some kind," Alexi said.
"I confess that I don't know exactly what it is. It could be just a stupid bird." Daphne paused and then said, "But we should find out. Rather, you should find out. I'll see you tomorrow night; I can't wait to meet Kian even if he's not the same man that won the spurs today."
Alexi nodded and said, "I hope you like him."
"I have a feeling I will," Daphne said. "I'm a seer after all."
Daphne winked at him and then left, closing the door quietly behind her.
The complete novel is now available to read at http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/discussion-board-for.html under the label "The Orb of Winter" if you care to read ahead.
I'm prepping "The Orb of Winter" for publication on Kindle. The cover art for it is done. Anyone that wants to see it can pop over to http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/news.html. It features a new picture of Kian on the cover :).
If you go to my website forum directly from this posting, you will want to begin with "CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE."