Chapter Fifteen
FIFTEEN
ASPETH
21 Days Before the Conquest Moon
The next morning, Hawk still hasn’t returned. I fight back my disappointment and dress in a fresh uniform, braiding my hair and pinning it up. I desperately want to pull out my spectacles for today but Master Crow will probably blab all about that to Hawk and so I don’t dare.
I’m heading to meet the others when a thunderstorm crackles overhead, the sound loud and terrifying. Gwenna and Mereden are in the hall, cloaks in hand. Mereden peers out a window, watching the rain slash down onto the cobbled streets. “We’re not going out in this, are we?”
“There’s still no sign of Hawk,” I tell them. “I don’t know how long he’ll be gone, and we need to make every day count.”
There’s a knock at the door, and Gwenna opens it. A soaked slitherskin stands there, his house dripping and his skin bright orange compared to Kipp’s leaf green. He holds out a folded note and races away the moment she takes it.
Gwenna unfolds it and reads it aloud. “All classes are to meet at the main guild hall today. No exceptions.” She glances up at me. “Guess that answers that.”
Once we’re all gathered, we head out into the rain in the guild-assigned waterproof cloaks. They’re ugly things but I have to admit, they do keep you dry. The fledgling nests—the dorms for each guild master—are only a few streets over from the main guild hall, and when we arrive, the place is filled with damp students standing in the entryway and talking amongst themselves. There’s a ripple of laughter when we arrive, and one of the men grabs his crotch, only for Lark to grab hers back at him.
“Behave,” Gwenna tells her, swatting her arm.
“I will if he does,” Lark protests.
Before I can step in, a chime sounds and everyone looks up to the landing at the top of the hall. Several men with heavily encrusted guild sashes stand up there above us, and I grit my teeth to see that one of them is none other than Rooster.
“Today we have an esteemed guest visiting us,” Rooster says in a somber voice. “Archivist Kestrel from the guild archives is spending time with us to discuss our next year’s plans. We thought what better way to test our new fledglings than to have a little competition amongst our students?” He beams down at us as if he’s the most clever man who ever lived. “Please proceed to the Artifact Training Hall when your teacher’s name is called.” He glances down at a scroll in his hands. “Masters Thrush and Vulture, please bring your teams in.”
“What’s this?” I whisper to Lark.
“No clue. Showing off?” She shrugs.
“What’s in the Artifact Training Hall?”
Lark blinks at me. “…Artifacts?”
Clearly I’m not going to get anywhere by asking her questions.
The teams settle in, waiting in the hall. Mud is all over the gorgeous marble floors and there are puddles of rainwater by the entrance. I manage to squeeze a seat on a bench when one of the men vacates, and I share my spot with Gwenna. Kipp takes off his shell house and sits atop it, looking bored as only a slitherskin can. Mereden bites her nails and casts anxious looks at the door, and I try not to do the same. Are we going to get in trouble because Hawk isn’t here and neither is Magpie? I try to think of a lie to cover for them both. Hawk doesn’t need one, but Magpie…Magpie…perhaps Magpie has food poisoning. Bad clams, I decide. She got a batch of bad clams and has been vomiting violently for two days now. No, there’s no need for a guild healer….
Or is two days of vomiting too much? I lean over toward Gwenna. “Exactly how much would you expect to vomit if you ate bad clams?”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Is this some sort of weird innuendo?”
I bat at her arm. “No. I’m thinking of a cover story for Magpie—”
“Masters Magpie and Crow, please bring your teams to the Artifact Training Hall.”
Oh, of course we’d get stuck with Master Crow’s team again. I bite back a growl of frustration and get to my feet, smoothing my nonexistent skirts. We head through the doors that the other students disappeared into, following behind Master Crow’s team of boorish thugs. One of them tries to kick Kipp, but the slitherskin just hops onto the wall and scrambles along it, as if he’s completely unbothered by their bullying.
I’m busy rehearsing my excuse for Magpie, intent on getting the story straight, and then we’re led through a set of double doors and into a room that takes my breath away.
It’s like a library, except instead of books upon the shelves, there are trinkets and objects of every kind. As we step inside, I see jewelry boxes and ewers, spoons and blades and flutes. I see a bowl on its side with what look like bright red glyphs written on the belly. I see a few books, a quill, and a variety of other things I can’t make out without my spectacles on. I want to squint and examine all of them but there are people at the far end of the hall, staring at us with smirks on their faces.
“I am Master Tiercel,” the man announces, and his sash glitters just enough that even with my poor sight I can tell he’s important. He’s a slender man with a balding head and a blurry face. “Are both teams here? Master Crow?”
“My men are all here,” he states, stepping forward. “Ready for the challenge.”
Before anyone can ask about Magpie, I step forward. “All of Magpie’s team is here. Hawk is currently on a rescue mission in the tunnels and Magpie couldn’t make it this morning,” I blurt out. “Clams. Lots of bad clams. Vomit everywhere. Really terrible. Never seen anything that color before. And the smell was just horrific—”
Master Tiercel recoils, raising a hand to stop my babbling. “We don’t need the details, thank you.” He looks down the line at us, pausing. Then he straightens and continues. “Very well. Teams, this is an exercise to show off your knowledge of artifacts to Archivist Kestrel. He is not a member of the guild but is very important as the official archivist for the guild itself.”
An archivist? Who isn’t in the guild himself but gets to catalog and pick through all of the guild’s artifacts? I’m hit with a strong surge of envy. It sounds like the ideal job, and for a moment, I wish I were him. No tunnels, no obstacle courses, no backpacks with rocks. Just sitting inside and enjoying time studying artifacts to learn what we can from Old Prell and its ruins.
“Our friend has brought several legitimate and no longer functional artifacts here with him today. We’ve hidden them amongst the training duplicates on the walls here.” He gestures at the laden shelves. “There will be three rounds. Each person on each team will select an object and bring it to their team’s table. The archivist will give you a point for each correctly identified artifact. By the end of the game, the team with the most points wins.”
“Oooh, what do we win?” Lark calls out.
“Honor for your house,” Master Tiercel announces in a stiff voice.
Lark groans.
“I can see it’s not much of an incentive for Magpie’s students,” Master Crow says in an infuriating voice. “So I’ll sweeten the deal for you. The losers have to do the obstacle course in the rain and the winners will eat dinner inside.”
“I’m sold,” Gwenna mutters.
“Take a moment to discuss strategy and then select the order your team will go in,” Tiercel continues.
We huddle, our heads together, with Kipp in the center of our small group.
“We’re fucked,” Lark whispers. “Two of Crow’s men are repeaters.”
“That means they suck, right?” Gwenna asks.
Lark makes a sound of distress. “You’d think that, but they have an advantage. They’ll be familiar with the training artifacts already. They’ve probably done this several times before.”
Mereden looks crushed. “I don’t think I can do the obstacle course again today.”
Gwenna shoots me a warning look, and I know what she’s thinking. She wants me to stay quiet, to hide the fact that I know how to read Old Prellian glyphs. But I’m with Mereden—if I have to hear Master Crow scream for me to “tunnel” one more time, I might lose my mind. “I should go first,” I tell them. “Each round, let me go first.”
“No—” Gwenna begins.
“Yes.” My expression is firm. “I can see if there’s a legitimate artifact and try to get it before they do.”
“How do you know if it’s legit? What, are you some kind of artifact expert?” Lark scoffs.
“No, but I can read Old Prellian,” I say, and before I can add onto that, Master Tiercel rings a bell. I straighten and move to the front of the line of our group, ignoring the curious looks that Lark is shooting in my direction.
When he nods, I step forward for our team, and so does someone for Master Crow’s team.
“Each of you select one artifact and set it on the table in front of your team, and then someone else in your team will take their turn and select.”
I stride forward to the shelves with crisp, authoritative steps, and then move my face a mere handspan away, squinting and examining each thing as best I can. There’s a music box. A spoon. A plate. A tool of some kind. A wand. A goblet. A lamp. An ewer. The scatter of objects ranges from the mundane to the fantastical, and all of them are highly ornate in the style of Old Prell. My vision is terrible without my spectacles, so I pick up one object and hold it practically to my nose, trying to read the writing painted on the underside of a vase.
“Is there a problem, fledgling?” Master Tiercel calls out.
“No, I’m just making sure I don’t miss anything,” I tell him, and set the vase back down on the shelf. It looked authentic and appropriately old enough, the porcelain surface cracked and crazed, but the tidy writing on the underside was absolute gibberish, mimicking Old Prellian glyphs without knowledge of what they mean. It’s obviously a fake.
I squint my way down the rest of the shelf, looking for obvious issues. Several of the “artifacts” have a bold yellow paint on them that makes me pause. Prellians crafted their dyes from minerals and foodstuffs and most of their yellows were murky at best. Blues and reds and earth tones are the colors prominent in Old Prellian artifacts, and I pick up a yellow cup and eye the glyphs crawling along the edge.
Cup of Neverturnal Milks from a Great Pigeon
Yeah, it’s a fake. I suspect all of the yellows are fakes, and that helps me rule things out. My opponent picks up an artifact with confidence and returns to his table, and then all eyes are on me, waiting.
“Do we need to set a timer, fledgling?”
“No, I’ll pick something.” I just don’t know what. I eye the next shelf, worried, and then spot what looks like an ugly, stone-encrusted egg behind a comb and mirror set. I pick the egg up and look for glyphs, as Prellians labeled everything that had a function.
Weight of Crushing. Charges Left: Zero.
Prellian artifacts with a specific set of charges always have a countdown glyph engraved on them, magically updated as each charge is used. Pursing my lips, I turn the egg over in my hands and then set it back down on the shelf as if it’s a fake. I walk toward a series of glassware and pick up an ewer, then say, “Does the artifact need to have charges?”
“What?” Master Tiercel demands, clearly annoyed at the time I’m taking.
I turn, facing him with the useless ewer in my grasp. “Does the artifact have to have usable charges or does it just need to be a legitimate artifact?”
He tilts his head and gives me an annoyed look. “Do you think we would put working artifacts in here?”
I want to say I don’t know, would you? Because some artifacts are absolutely useless other than being amusing at parties. Like the only artifact we have at home that still works—an ewer of delicate water. It makes any water it pours have a light floral taste to it, a nod to some spoiled noble’s taste preference. But I’m probably not supposed to know that and everyone’s staring at me with resentment. I put the pitcher back, intending to head back for the egg when I see the perfect solution.
It’s a small bowl with a glyph on the metal lip, and a pretty red enamel on the edges and the two fluted handles. I recognize that bowl, because my mother gave one to my grandmother long ago. It’s a bowl of infinite olives, another kitchenware nod to some Old Prellian nobility who couldn’t be bothered to make their own snacks. I snatch it up, glance at the bottom to confirm that it is, indeed, a bowl of infinite olives, and then return to my table proudly.
“Finally,” Master Tiercel says. “Next up, choose your artifact.”
Lark heads out for our team, and as she does, I cough and cover my mouth, bending over. As I do, I whisper, “Don’t pick anything with yellow on it. They’re fakes.”
“How do you know?” Mereden whispers back.
Gwenna grabs her hand and squeezes it, then gives Kipp a meaningful look. “Just listen to her, all right? She knows what she’s doing.” Her gaze moves to Lark, who has a bright yellow flute she’s bringing back to the table and purses her lips.
I try not to wince, because everyone knows that wind instruments weren’t popular in Old Prell. It was in the Mancer Wars several centuries ago that flutes became popular in music. But no one’s perfect.
I manage to keep a straight face as Gwenna picks up a knitting hook of some kind that has the domen sign on it, the one of the bird with its wings spread that is a favorite of forgers everywhere. She wouldn’t know, so I’m not going to judge her. Kipp picks a delicate knife and Mereden chooses something that looks like a clasp, and then all the artifacts have been chosen for our team.
Master Tiercel and Archivist Kestrel stroll past our table, picking up each item and then setting it aside. “Fake,” Tiercel declares loudly as he picks up Lark’s object.
“Fake,” he says to Kipp’s blade.
“Real,” to Mereden’s clasp, and she lets out a gasp of pure delight.
“Fake,” to Gwenna’s knitting hook.
He pauses and eyes my bowl, then looks over at his companion. Archivist Kestrel nods sagely.
“Real,” Master Tiercel says in a sour voice. “Two points for Master Magpie’s team.”
I grab Lark’s hand with excitement, and I’m pretty sure Kipp’s tail curls around my boot with delight. Two points is good considering our team has never gone over the finer points of forgery. Or even the less fine points of forgery. Or any points at all, really.
The points are tallied for Master Crow’s team and they only have one artifact declared real. “One point for Master Crow’s fledglings. Let us begin round two. Fledglings, please come and choose.”
Master Crow looks like he could spit nails, glaring at me as I get to my feet. I smooth sweaty hands down the front of my pants and wonder if I need to get a fake this time to seem as if I’m like everyone else, or if I want to score points for my team. I debate this mentally as I continue down the long row of packed shelves. To my surprise, the man opposite me hurries over to the ewer I’d held last round—the one when I’d asked if items needed charges—and snatches it up.
Too late for hiding under the radar, I suspect.
Everything I touch now will come under scrutiny, I realize. They’re all watching my every pause to read glyphs, my every hesitation in front of an object. I need to go back to the egg from before, but as I turn around, I see a thick palm-sized disk on a chain, the metal tarnished and scuffed. It has glyphs at four equal points on the surface, one of them the ornate eye used to denote the home of the gods, which the Old Prellians believed was in the great north, past the mountain range of my home. I pick it up and turn slowly until the medallion shivers in my hand, indicating that I’m facing north.
Well, I can’t very well put it back now and pretend like I don’t know what I’m doing. I return to my table with the medallion and set it down as discreetly as possible. Mereden, Kipp, and the rest of the team pick items, and I do my best not to wince when each forgery arrives on the table. At least they’re avoiding the yellow like I’d asked. But it’s clear from what they’re choosing that they have no knowledge of Old Prellian art or enchantment, or even the basics of glyphwork. I make a mental note to bring this up to Hawk. My team needs classes on how to spot forgeries.
Well, and how to spot artifacts.
Really, we just need classes on everything.
“One point for Master Magpie’s team,” Master Tiercel declares at the end of round two.
One point is then declared for Master Crow’s team, this person a different one from before. If I had to guess, I would say there’s not an expert on Crow’s team. They’re just guessing out of luck. But now I need to go back and get that egg. I have a feeling that if I don’t, we’ll end up with a tie, and I’m willing to bet that a tiebreaker would not go in our team’s favor.
This time, I head straight for the Weight of Crushing egg with no charges left. I pick it up and bring it to our table, and sweat as I watch the others pick their choices. When everything is chosen, this time Master Tiercel goes to Master Crow’s team first and picks through their objects with the archivist at his side.
“One point for Master Crow’s team again,” Master Tiercel declares. “Total points—three.” He strolls over to our side as I busily do mental math. Okay, we’re at three points at the moment. My egg should get us to four, which is a win, unless they don’t count it because of the lack of charges. If someone else on the team has picked a winner—
“No points this round for Magpie’s team.”
“What?” I blurt out, looking up. “So deactivated artifacts don’t count after all?”
Archivist Kestrel seems puzzled by my reaction. “They do count. You do not have any real artifacts at your table. We have a tie.”
I glare up at both of them. “That’s not right. Mine is a real artifact. It just doesn’t have charges.”
“The guild frowns on poor losers,” Master Tiercel begins.
Archivist Kestrel turns the object over in his hands, peering down at it.
“I’m not a poor loser,” I declare, stabbing a finger at the stupid thing. “It’s a legitimate artifact. Read the glyphs on the bottom. It’s a Weight of Crushing but it’s out of charges. They’re a common sort of thing. Look at it again.” Master Tiercel gives me a pitying look that only pisses me off more. “Just look, all right?”
“This is not very becoming of your team,” Master Tiercel continues. “And if your teacher were here, she would hear about it. This is the reason why teams need to be supervised. You can’t be left alone. The rules are rules for a reason—”
“She’s right,” Archivist Kestrel says suddenly.
All eyes are on him. And me, but I keep staring at the archivist, waiting for him to elaborate.
“She’s right,” he repeats, and shows the underside of the egg-shaped weight to Tiercel. “Look at the markings. Look at the usage of lapis. There’s one like this in the archive and it’s got the same angle of cuts in the stone.”
They bend their heads together, scrutinizing the artifact. Lark nudges me but I ignore her. My every fiber is vibrating with anxiousness as I watch the two of them. For some reason, it’s very important to me that I be correct about this. I’ve always prided myself on my Prellian scholarship. If I’m not right, then I’ve got nothing to my credit. Not looks, not wealth, not holder name…
Master Tiercel grunts after a long, interminable pause. “I suppose.”
“It’s truly a shame it no longer has charges,” Archivist Kestrel says in a bright voice, clutching the egg to his chest as if it is precious. “I would love to see how much weight the Prellians considered to be crushing. It would be a fascinating bit of scholarship, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely,” I force myself to reply. I want to talk about other weights that were mentioned in prior tomes and the units of measurement that Prellians used depending upon the situation, but now isn’t the time. I eye Master Tiercel. “So this means we have four points?”
The master’s jaw clenches and his nostrils flare. It’s clear he doesn’t want to announce us as the winners. He looks over at Master Crow, who seems equally irate, and then turns back to me. “The game is canceled. No winners, no losers.”
“That’s not fair!” Lark protests. “We fucking won!”
“You,” Master Tiercel snarls and points at my face. “You stay behind. The rest of you are dismissed. The rest of the games are canceled. Spread the word with the remaining teams.”
The room empties out with the sound of scraping chairs and grumbling voices. There’s more disappointment as others file into the hall and announce the cancellation, and my face burns as I remain in place. The others on my team stay at my side, and Gwenna moves to link her fingers with mine.
Master Tiercel gives Lark, Gwenna, Kipp, and Mereden a dismissive look even as Archivist Kestrel continues to study the egg in his hands. “The rest of you can go,” he says. “You’re not in trouble.”
“But I am?” I ask.
“The guild frowns upon cheating—”
Gwenna’s hand tightens on mine and she steps in front of me. “She did not cheat. How could she possibly?”
“This is horseshit,” Lark declares. “You just don’t like us because of Magpie!”
Mereden and Kipp make angry noises of assent.
I’m flattered they’re all so quick to defend me, but I can tell from the guild master’s expression that it’s useless. He doesn’t know how I managed to identify the objects and I can’t exactly tell him that I’ve been studying rare tomes ever since I was a tot. No one would have access to those kinds of books save for a guild member or a holder who’d paid a great deal to buy or borrow them. I can’t point that out, or that I had a tutor—a retired artificer who was too old to go tunnel crawling—who taught me how to read glyphs.
I can’t say any of that. I’m supposed to be just another person here, learning with the rest of them. So I give Gwenna’s hand a squeeze and then detangle myself. “It’s all right. I’ll stay behind and answer their questions. I’ve done nothing wrong. You should go on back to the nest.”
Mereden and Lark reluctantly head out, with Kipp at their heels. Only Gwenna remains behind, scowling at everyone. I have to give her another reassuring hand squeeze and a gentle shove toward the door. She stumbles forward and then glares at Master Tiercel and Archivist Kestrel. “If she’s not back by dusk, I will have every Taurian in the city at your doorstep.”
Then she turns and leaves and I’m left alone with the two men.
“Sit down, fledgling,” Master Tiercel says in a furious voice. “I want to know all your tricks.”
“My tricks?”
“How you did this. How you managed to cheat the system.” He gestures at the artifacts. “How you guessed right all three times.” He indicates the egg cradled in the archivist’s hands. “How you knew this was legitimate when even we did not.”
“Luck?” I answer weakly.
He leans forward over the table, the look on his face hard and unyielding. “Sit. Down. You’re not leaving until we get some answers.”
The archivist looks up as if seeing me for the first time. “Are…are you the one who married the Taurian? Your guild master’s assistant?”
I didn’t think it was possible but Master Tiercel’s expression gets even harder.
I sit.
I imagine I’m going to be here for quite a while.