Chương 7: Stay in school, kids!

The Standard Way Academy for the Talented and Financially Gifted was located at the centre of the city. The Royal Palace was two doors down, the Library of the Arcanum was next door… It was a posh neighbourhood. The merely talented had to make their way there on foot or by carriage every day, but being both talented and financially gifted made things a little easier for my young apprentice in the dark arts. Bork had released me from my shed and gawked at my transformation and new equipment.

Suitably impressed by my increased awesomeness, I had been led down to a circle of gravel next to the manor's gates. I stood there in my cloak, scarf hiding my perpetual smile, and waited in the breeze. Bork was wearing long shorts, a white shirt, a blue tie and a grey blazer. He had a satchel on his back that I was reasonably confident was mostly filled with sandwiches.

"So what's the plan?" he asked. Bright and hopeful eyes turned up toward my flaming blue ones.

"I'm a bound summon; there are rules about this kind of thing. Old rules that haven't been used in about fifty years, but rules nonetheless. The goal is to get me to the Headmaster. When the Monitors stop us, let me do the talking."

"But you're just a skeleton." He sounded forlorn, all his hopes of revenge on Nomin and impressing Gangle slipping through his fingers.

"I'm a Bonemaster General, which is a high-tier class, and I've got five millennia of experience in magic, fighting and bullshitting my way past minions to get to the management. I also had your entire legal system downloaded into my brain before I got shipped off here. Trust me, kid, I've got this." I wasn't quite as confident as I sounded. There's many a chance for shit to go sideways, especially when bureaucracy gets involved in anything.

I figured I had a seventy percent chance of getting something close to what I wanted. Bork lapsed into silence, fiddling with the buckle on his satchel and staring at his feet.

"Did your mum buy the lie you told her last night?" Sometimes a little distraction is better than leaving someone to brood.

"I think so. I told her we lost track of time. I got cleaned up before I spoke to her, but not too much. Put some clean clothes on and washed my face. She was a bit mad, but nothing too major. I wish they'd both give me a bit of breathing space."

"You're almost a man now. They'll be panicking about what kind of man you're going to be, and knowing deep down that it's already too late to change you. You're basically on your own at this point in terms of character development." I very much hoped this was not true, because city-conquering-future-overlord Bork was not.

"You call me kid."

"Anyone under three thousand years old is a kid as far as I'm concerned, kid." A circle of lights appeared on the ground around us and rose up to form a dome, sealing away the sky. There was a sucking noise, not dissimilar to a partially blocked sink draining out, and the curtain of gold fell back to the ground. We were no longer facing the stately home that Bork took for granted. The grounds were impressive, even to me. When I helped Bovril the Boneless conquer the continent of Karlsbund on…

I think the planet was called Vagnath? Not one hundred percent on the planet, it was early on in my career, back when I still kind of cared. The point being Bovril had been big into his architecture. Once the chiefs of the barbarian nomads got a look at how sweet the palaces of the more settled peoples tended to be, they got ideas. Whoever designed the Academy seemed to suffer from the same need to impress.

Four tall towers stood at each corner of the compound, and in the centre was a dome that reached nearly as high as them. Numerous boxy buildings joined the towers to the main section, and the whole thing must have covered nearly a square mile of land. It was mostly marble, which was impressive in its own right. Even with magical transport and labour, that much shiny rock had to have come from a long way away.

The nearest marble mines were on the far side of the Forest of Gnats, fifty miles to the south of Nadrak, and now no longer accessible since the disaster. Where it wasn't marble, the building was gold and silver which would have to have come from even further away. The sun glinting on the domed roof of the central complex made me drop my head. I was cloaked and hooded, trying hard not to be attacked on sight.

"You there! Off the circle. We've got more students arriving. Tall guy, come over here, please. We need to have a word." Jester le Prigg Mollycoddling Monitor Level 13 STR 26 AGI 11 MAG 8 ARM 22"That's—" Bork began.

"Mr le Prigg. A pleasure to make your acquaintance." I kept my hands hidden in my sleeves, and my head lowered to hide my face.

"Who is this, young master von Heffleslump?" Jester demanded, not unkindly.

"You know adults are not permitted to visit the Academy without the Headmaster's permission."

"He isn't really an adult? Well, he kind of is. He's really old, but not really a person. I wanted to ask the Headmaster if it would be ok for Dusty to join me in classes?" If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Jesus, kid. Babble harder, why don't you?

"Dusty?" Jester stepped close enough that I could see his feet, and then the metal-shod end of some kind of baton entered my hood and pushed it back from my head. I remained perfectly still. At least I was offering a pleasant smile as part of my first impression. Jester clearly didn't think as much of my sunny disposition as I might have hoped. He stepped backwards quickly and held his rod of authority up between us.

"Easy, Mr le Prigg. I'm a bound summon. Bork called me up last night in a display of magical summoning that borders on the prodigious. I mean no harm, and I am bound to the service of Master von Heffleslump. With the utmost respect, I would like to speak to your supervisor, please." Jester mimed stamping a form in triplicate, glancing around nervously. One did not invoke the mighty Goddess Karen carelessly in any world in the multiverse.

Every verse had its Karen; she went by many faces, but her primary role was always the Goddess of Administration, HR and Complaints. She was not mentioned in conversation without the utmost respect.

"Boy, tell the truth," Jester said to Bork. The kid nodded hurriedly.

"It's true. I don't know about the prodigal bit, but I did summon Dusty last night." The guard looked me up and down, then stepped back again as I pushed my hood away properly. The flickering fires that had replaced my baby blues were briefly reflected in his own eyes as they widened.

"Get off the teleport circle, and come with me. Deranal, keep an eye on the arrivals." He backed away, then made an impressive attempt to walk sideways, keeping one eye on me and one on his destination. The buildings towered above as we got closer. The grounds were all immaculate, grass neatly trimmed, and bushes shaped into a variety of domes, bulbs and buttplugs. That's what they looked like to me, anyway. I never had any appreciation for the arts or gardening, not that I was a fan of buttplugs either.

Jester pushed open a door and stepped aside for us to enter ahead of him. Bork glanced around nervously.

"Sir, students aren't allowed in the staff areas."

"When some novice Necromagus summons an intelligent undead, exceptions will be made," Jester replied. The door swung shut behind us, and the rest of the world was sealed away, seemingly forever. The walls were plastered and painted, gaslamps were mounted on the walls every dozen paces, giving off a warm light. The shadows between them stretched and danced, making the place feel gloomy despite the illumination.

The majority of the doors that lined this passage were closed, but we passed an open one, and I saw a storeroom piled high with materials. Crates and barrels had stacks of cloth on top of them that sparkled in my magical vision. Rows of shelves were lined with powders and glass jars filled with leaves and roots. Jackpot. I, and by extension, Bork, needed cash. That was thousands of gold worth of goods left lying around with an open door.

I didn't let my gaze linger on the wealth; my head panned naturally across it, and thankfully, my calcified face couldn't betray any emotion.

"Jester! Who've you got there?" A pleasant female voice, but I couldn't see who had spoken.

"Young master von Heffleslump has done something noteworthy. We're off to see the Hungman."

"He's in a foul mood today. Some students switched out the Headmaster's foot talc for Halmond's Powder of Hirsuteness. He's been shaving his feet for the last hour."

"Thanks for the heads up, Ermintrude. Looks like you picked a bad day to get noticed, master von Heffleslump."

"There's never a good day to get noticed," he muttered, shoulders drooping. He wasn't concerned about the invisible woman passing along gossip, so with a mental shrug, I made a note of her existence and the complications she might represent when I robbed this place, and stopped worrying about her for now. There was no fluctuation in the mana from her presence, which was odd. A mere ghost would still shift the motes of magic I could see floating in the air.

"Whatever you did, it was a massive success, far above your skill level. Which system did you use?"

"The Profligator Paradox," he replied.

"That was a dangerous choice. If you don't get the axial runes perfectly aligned, you can fail spectacularly. As in you'd have blown that crappy shed to smithereens, and yourself as well. You should have started with Jannibaum's Orthodoxy if you were pitching for an ancient spirit. Much easier to execute, and the potential for explosive mishap is almost non-existent," I offered.

"My uncle got me a book on the Profligator Paradox for my nameday, and I wanted to try it out." So the kid's uncle wanted him dead for some reason. Noted.

"You know the dark arts?" Jester asked me.

"More than most. I wasn't always like this." I waved a bony hand at him and clicked ivory fingers to summon a cigar. He sniffed while Bork coughed.

"Tomalaco? Does it have any effect?" the monitor enquired.

"Tobacco. Not quite the same. And no, it doesn't." I failed to keep the bitterness from my voice.

"Who were you?"

"I am Dusty Arbuthnot. I was many things in my previous life. Sword master, commander of conquering armies, archmage, plumber, and village idiot. You name it, odds are I did it." We headed up a flight of stairs and then waited in front of a set of double doors.

"We'll use the portal system from here." Jester pushed a green button next to the doors and stepped through when they opened automatically. As they shut, he made a series of gestures with his hands, fingers seeming to pass through each other at certain points. It was Finetti's Arcanum, one of IMPS favourites. Most magic systems required a vocal component, the magic words so to speak, but Finetti made it possible to cast purely somatically.

Being immune to most Silence spells was a handy trick to have in any casters repertoire, and it suggested that the level of some of the magical sciences at the Academy were sophisticated. Other things I'd noted seemed to be very backwards, these people feared ambient mana. There was a brief sense of movement, and the doors opened again onto a large foyer. Gilt and grandeur assaulted my eyes. It looked more like a lobby in an expensive hotel than the approach to a Headmaster's office.

My bony toes sank into the thick carpet and rugs as Jester led us straight to the doors at the end of the room. One small child, perhaps nine, looked up forlornly from a bench at us as we passed, then hissed when he realised what I was.

"Bloody necros!"

"I see what you mean about the dark arts being hated here, kid. Well, that's something we can fix." Bork looked up at me, eyes wide and bright with hope, or possibly indigestion. Jester raised his baton and rapped on the door twice.

"Not so sure about that, Dusty. People are kind of funny about wizards who dig up dead relatives and tear their souls from the afterlife for fun."

"ENTER!" roared a deep voice from the other side of the doors.