The Demon and the Fox Read online

  (Here he wondered briefly whether Patris hoped Farley might actually kill him. The black mark to the college would be the major deterrent to that, he felt, and yet he couldn’t be entirely sure of it.)

  The book he’d discovered in the basement, Peter Cadno’s journal, might help, if only he could figure out why nobody seemed to notice him while he was holding it. He could keep it on his person all the time, setting it aside only for their classes and for his lessons with Odden. Malcolm and Emily might wonder why he didn’t take meals with them anymore, but their meals would be quieter, safer affairs.

  But he would hate to live like a fugitive in his school, hiding like an animal, running under cover from one place to another. There were enemies, yes, but there were also people willing to fight for him even if Coppy were gone: Emily and Malcolm; Masters Odden, Argent, and Windsor at least. And his father.

  Lessons and his friends had kept him from thinking much about his father since the calyx ritual, but now Kip’s thoughts turned to him. He’d received only one letter from his parents since they’d moved to Georgia to live near the rebuilding of Prince Philip’s College of Sorcery, and that had been a warm if short note letting him know that they missed him, they hoped his studies were going well, and they’d found a house to live in. He had hoped that there would be correspondence between the surviving school and the rebuilding one into which his father could sneak some letters, but either that was not the case or his father had nothing more to tell him.

  Nothing about what it meant to be a calyx, to come and bleed for the power of sorcerers whenever they needed a demon or a more powerful spell. Nothing about the life Kip would have to lead as a sorcerer, drinking the blood of his people. He tossed in the bed, wanting as he had so many times in the last two weeks to call out to his father to ask why he hadn’t at least warned Kip.

  But he knew what the answer would be: the sorcerers had instructed him not to. And furthermore, would that knowledge have made Kip hesitate in his studies? Knowing what he would have to go through, would he have limited the magic he sought? Even now he recalled the small increase in power—but barely noticeable compared to the surge he’d felt the first time he’d touched the Tower walls, which he suspected had been the work of the spirit of Peter Cadno entombed in its stone.

  The power from whatever resided in the walls hadn’t come to him again, and might never, so how useful really was it? If Peter was protecting the White Tower from within its stones, he had remained silent since that first surprised outburst at Kip’s touch.

  If Kip could access that power, though…he could summon demons, and what things might he be able to do with fire? Fire would gain him power and status for sure; only two or three other sorcerers in the Empire specialized in fire. If he became accomplished with it, even Patris might one day grudgingly acknowledge his value.

  And yet…Odden had challenged him to hold fire in his paw for ten seconds, and Kip had not yet figured out that simple trick. He could keep a fire going for maybe four seconds before his skin began to burn.

  Rubbing the pads on his fingers against the pad on the heel of his palm, he felt only smooth skin, not the roughness of the burn he’d grown accustomed to. Master Splint had healed his paws as well, it seemed.

  So he lay his paw flat on the bed, palm up, and reached out for magic, to reassure himself that he could still summon fire. If he’d been quicker, if he’d pulled fire into the dining tent, maybe Farley would have stopped. Maybe Coppy wouldn’t be in danger of expulsion. Maybe Kip wouldn’t be lying in a room behind the healer’s quarters.

  His paws remained dark. The magic he was used to finding so easily was gone.

  He fought down panic. He was tired; that was all. He closed his eyes, focused, and reached out again.

  The world remained cold and dark.

  Kip breathed faster, but tried to keep his focus as he fell back to the earliest incantation he remembered, a chant to help the sorcerer focus while gathering magic. He’d been preoccupied with Coppy’s fate and the calyxes; he hadn’t been focusing. He recited the chant, emptied his mind, reached out.

  Still nothing.

  Then this was his punishment, rendered at last by Patris: magic had been taken from him. He would have to leave the school because he could no longer work even a simple spell, and he hadn’t Victor’s money to make up for that. He would return to New Cambridge, perhaps work on a farm, and maybe one day he would come up to the college again, not to learn magic, not to feel the thrill of magic in him and the joy of altering the world around him, but to sit in a chair and bleed into a cup so that others might cast spells.

  No. No, no. He half-fell out of his bed and found himself with his nose to the floor. The movement shot pain through his aching muscles, but he barely felt it. He pressed his paws flat to the stone, turned his face to the side so his muzzle could lay against it, and reached into the stone as he would reach into the earth for magic, but this time with words: Peter, you helped me before, please, please, help me now, don’t let them do this to me, don’t let them take this away from me, please, please.

  The stone remained cold and dark as the earth. Kip gathered his will and was about to make another plea when a barrier somewhere broke and magic flooded into him.

  He collapsed to the floor and sobbed, holding the bright violet glow of his paws by his eyes and drinking in the flickering, familiar light as though it were the water of a cold spring on a summer day. Weak with relief, he called into being a fire on the floor in front of him and poured his magic into it, keeping it close enough to warm him but far enough not to burn. Its light and heat fed back into him, and his muscles loosened, his tail uncurling to lie flat on the floor.

  Thank you, he whispered in his mind.

  It is my pleasure.

  Was it the same voice that had cried a startled, Fox? into his head months ago? It was hard to tell because the word had been so short and so long ago, but what else could it be? And now there was a presence like a demon or elemental hovering on the edge of his awareness, but none of the tingling in his nose that accompanied a demon.

  Peter?

  A long pause. Yes.

  Afraid of breaking his connection with the stone, Kip lay flat with his paws still pressed down. Questions burst in his head, but the foremost one came out first. Are you a fox?

  I was.

  Now ?

  Yes. My spirit remains in the stone. Lord Primus’s greatest feat.

  I thought you said you created the spell. In your journal.

  I may have. It has been hundreds of years. He called it his spell. The voice grew somewhat more distant. Nobody had done anything like it before. And yet we have spirits. Why might that spirit not be sundered from the body and bound to another? He feared the Spanish might set demons against the Tower now that the power of my blood was becoming known. Another pause. Our blood.

  Kip shuddered. That doesn’t mean he can take credit for a spell you made.

  But he was right. The Tower was in danger.

  From the Spanish? Kip held his breath. Here could be the solution to the mystery. If Peter knew what force had come against him, Kip could report it; the college could mount a fight against it.

  The Spanish at one time, the French at another, even the Iroquois sorcerers, but none of those succeeded in destroying it. None did until this year.

  Kip couldn’t hold the questions in. Who did? What destroyed the college?

  A demon. But I believe…I believe it was summoned by someone in the Tower.

  In the Tower? This Tower? Where Kip had previously been unable to hold back the questions, now he found himself unable to articulate any. Do you… Did you… Who was it?

  I do not know. It was not summoned here. But the demon knew how to break defenses, knew the names of all the guarding demons, knew too much to have been sent by an outsider.

  You know spiritual magic?

  Yes. But I have not seen the knowledge in any mind here, and I dare not probe deeply for f
ear of revealing my presence.

  Is that how the book works? Your journal? Nobody else notices me while I’m reading it.

  I can affect minds within the Tower. I still have access to magic.

  I remember.

  Ah. I am sorry for that. I did not know you were untrained. I felt a kindred spirit and the call to magic…

  I’m glad you did, Kip said quickly. I want to ask you so many things.

  I dare not speak long. I am in danger. The attack failed and the attacker will try again. They know that something prevented the previous attack and they must be seeking me out.

  I’m trying to solve it. Where should I look? When Peter didn’t answer, Kip pleaded, Help me keep you safe!

  The remains of the demon’s attack lie in the ruins, Peter said. The sorcerers have not found a clue to the demon’s identity but I feel there must be something there. And the attacker will be making preparations for another attack, but I have not noticed any sorcerers leaving the Tower regularly. Perhaps you can—

  His words dropped off and his presence vanished from Kip’s mind a moment before the fox’s nose tingled with a demon’s presence. Kip extinguished his fire quickly, keeping his paws to the floor.

  Peter?

  No answer came. He rose slowly to his feet as the door opened and Master Splint walked in, rubbing his eyes. “Penfold?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Splint smoothed down his short red hair with a hand. “What are you doing out of bed? And did you start a fire?”

  “Yes, sir.” Kip climbed back into the bed. “I’m sorry. For a moment, I couldn’t reach any magic, and I thought…I thought maybe I’d hit my head.”

  “Aye, you did.” Splint took two steps toward Kip’s bed. “Lost a few teeth and broke your neck, not to mention fracturing your upper back and shoulders. It’s a good job I’ve worked on your father for years or I might not have been able to fix you quite so quickly. But tell me again how you came to summon magic?”

  “I…” Kip turned his head. “I panicked. I was so scared. And then I prayed for help and I felt something break and I could feel magic again.”

  “Hm.” Splint paused and then said, “Quetz?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  At the foot of Kip’s bed, a feathered serpent appeared hovering in the air, its attention fixed on the healer. “Did Penfold break your binding?” Splint asked it.

  Kip held his breath. If he’d given away Peter’s presence here so soon after promising to help him, he could have put the Tower in serious jeopardy.

  “I cannot say for certain. He struggled against the binding and then it was broken.”

  “Thank you, Quetz.”

  The serpent bowed its head and again vanished, though Kip could still sense it nearby. Splint took another step to stand over Kip. “The binding is on this room for patients who might not be in full possession of their faculties. An uncontrolled sorcerer can be quite dangerous. But Quetz’s binding is not easily broken; it would take someone practiced in spiritual magic to do so. You say that all you did was pray?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well,” Splint said. “I suppose our Lord is as well versed in spiritual magic as any of us. Please do refrain from calling on His assistance for the remainder of your stay here, Penfold.” He gave a short laugh, but his expression remained troubled as he left.

  The next morning when he returned to the basement, Kip got a fuller account of what had happened. Coppy hugged Kip tightly enough to make all his bruises hurt again, but he didn’t mind. “I didn’t even notice,” the otter said. “I’m so sorry!”

  “None of us saw,” Malcolm said.

  “But I made Farley lose control of the spell.” Coppy stepped back. “And then you fell and just lay there.”

  Emily gave Kip a gentler hug. “It looked rather bad,” she said. “But Master Splint appeared very quickly and a demon did pull Coppy off Farley.”

  “Reckon the ravens called him,” Malcolm said. “Splint, not the demon.”

  “The demon was there all along.” Kip flexed his shoulders and winced at the sore muscles. “It lets us fight until something bad happens.”

  “What if Farley’d killed you?” Coppy went from mournful to furious in a heartbeat. “How would it have reversed that?”

  “I’m tough to kill.” Kip managed a smile. “But I haven’t been hit that badly in years.”

  “I tried to catch you before you hit the ground.” Coppy gestured with his arms out. “But I only got outside in time to see you hit the Tower and then…”

  “We all froze,” Malcolm said. “Except Em.”

  “What did you do?”

  Emily scowled. “Translocated Farley to the ceiling of the Great Hall. He caught himself before he hit the floor.” She kicked at a pile of paper, raising a cloud of dust. “I thought Malcolm would’ve caught you.”

  “Oi,” Malcolm said. “Any of us could and none of us did, and what’s more, the fox stands before us almost as good as new, so there’s no need to point fingers about.”

  “I don’t blame any of you. It was Farley who threw me around.” He reached out to Coppy’s shoulder. “It was horrible. I don’t know how you bore it for as long as you did.”

  “Had no choice.” Coppy sniffed. “But you rescued me.”

  “Look.” Malcolm stepped forward. “Haven’t I just been saying there’s no need to harp on about who rescued whom? We’re all safe and sound and the next thing is to decide what’s to be done about Farley.”

  “He’s not being expelled, I expect,” Kip said. “But Coppy, you’re not either?”

  The otter shook his head. “We’ve none of us been disciplined.”

  “Rules may be different for apprentices.” Malcolm tapped his cheek. “Fights happen. If it’s only broken bones, Splint can mend those.”

  “If not the bruises.” Kip pressed on his shoulder and winced again.

  “Oh, don’t touch it, then.” Emily pulled his paw away.

  “Not to mention,” Coppy said, “if Patris expels me, he’d have to expel Farley, because you were hurt worst. Then he’d lose all that money Adamson’s father is giving him for Farley’s tuition.”

  “I don’t expect Patris feels he would have to do any such thing.” Kip flicked his tail. “But Malcolm’s right; let’s look forward, not back. What can we do?”

  “We’re going to practice catching people,” Malcolm said. “We decided.”

  “Who’s going to get tossed around?” Kip looked around at the three of them.

  “We’re going to make a rag doll and stuff it with paper.” Emily kicked at the pile again, and again a cloud of dust rose.

  Malcolm waved his hand in front of his face and stepped back. “Stop doing that, will you?”

  “Ey,” called Neddy from his clear-burnt half-circle. “When you’re done, can I have the doll stuffed with paper?”

  They had time to practice after dinner, but there was little room in the practice tent to throw a rag doll far enough that it was a challenge to catch it. Kip had the idea of levitating to the roof and practicing their magic there, and there they had plenty of space. The drawback was that night had already fallen and the wind hissed around at them unblocked by any buildings, but it wasn’t too strong, and Kip lit fires to keep them warm while they practiced.

  “You should learn to manipulate air,” Malcolm grumbled as Coppy swept the layer of snow aside so it wouldn’t melt under the flames.

  “Master Argent told me about air elementals,” Emily said. “They’re quite nervous and you can call them and bind them, but asking them anything is a different matter. They speak a strange language and they won’t talk to you unless they trust you.”

  “How do you get one to trust you if you can’t talk to them?” Coppy wanted to know.

  Emily leaned back close to the flames. “I’ve no idea. He didn’t tell me. I’m not sure he knows.”

  “I’m pleased the phosphorus elementals are so amenable,” Malcolm said. “Or ma
ybe they just like our fire-fox here.”

  “They seem good-tempered with everyone.” Kip leaned against the cold stone of the crenellations, sheltered from the wind. “But fire is like that too. It will live happily wherever you set it. Air is everywhere but wind comes and goes according to its own will.”

  “What about water?” Malcolm asked, directing his question at Coppy as he set their rag doll up against the wall. “Seems very agreeable as well.”

  “Don’t know. Kip’s met a water elemental but I haven’t.”

  “Only briefly,” Kip said. “It seemed curious but it had to create words in a fabric, so we didn’t talk much.”

  Malcolm nodded and gathered magic, then lifted the doll from the roof about a foot. “Everyone ready?”

  “We’re not meant to be ready; that’s the point,” Emily said.

  “Fair enough.” Malcolm grinned and launched the doll into the air at an angle so that if they didn’t catch it, it would fly off the edge of the roof on the other side.

  Emily and Coppy both gathered magic quickly, and the doll’s flight came to a stop while it was still in view. “Well done,” Kip said.

  Malcolm elbowed him. “You’re not going to try?”

  “He’s holding the fires,” Emily said. “Kip! Must you do that now?”

  Kip had lit a fire in his paw again but now extinguished it. He’d thought perhaps the cold night air would help, but it hadn’t. “He’s right, I should try as well. The fires take very little attention.”

  “Let’s make it a contest, you and me.” Malcolm cracked his knuckles. “I’ll try to sweep it to that side of the roof.” He pointed to the left. “You try to swat it the other way. See who’s fastest, eh?”

  “All right.” The fox laughed. “Let’s go.”

  Malcolm won the first round, sending the dummy halfway to the left before Kip’s spell took hold. Then Emily and Coppy wanted to play the same way, and they took turns in pairs trying to be first to hit the flying dummy while one of the others launched it unexpectedly.