Abaddon's Call

Chapter Nine

Kal walked into Basic Care to a baby on Theon's desk in a cradle.

Trild had Kal skip his classes and go to the city to the spice market, where they were having a harvest festival. There were lots of sounds and too many people. Trild said Kal had to get used to so many people around him. It was hard to keep track of them all, and Kal kept getting overwhelmed.

In the middle of it all, Kal had spotted a one-armed man. He had reported the man to Trild as soon as he returned to the university. Trild had, in response, gently advised Kal of laws against thievery. A one-handed man in the city wasn't necessarily something to speak about unless the man could be identified as one known to them.

All Kal knew was a man with one arm had brushed past him in the market, and it was like everyone else fell still and silent, waiting for him to pass. The sensation lasted the barest fraction of a moment, gone almost as soon as Kal realized it was there.

If the one-armed man was important, Trild had said, Kal would have known.

Kal didn't understand how he'd know.

"Each morning, we will begin with questions and then move into teaching," Theon said. "So, boys, questions?"

Kal raised his hand. He had a question. He had asked several people the previous evening, and none of them answered him. They had all just shaken their heads and walked off.

"Yes," Theon said. "Your question?"

Trild had specifically said Kal couldn't bring up direct examples of what he saw in the field. The one plus side of asking mages the question was that they all responded with a very similar question of their own.

"Yesterday, three mages asked me why I didn't know who they were, and I don't get it. How do people know who you are?"

"Ah," Theon said, then motioned as he spoke, "I have my shield ring—this black one made of dragon glass—my chain lacks the three-armed spiral but has the red bead of Pan indicating who I owe allegiance to. I carry the three-star piece here, which is the mark of a staff member of Amos. I am told I need to add the mark of Jurin and that of War Mage of Amos, but I told them to go to Hell. Lords carry a big ring on one hand, and Lord Pan wears the mark of Lord of the Seven on his other. Representatives have sashes in the colours of their families. Such and so forth."

"Your clothing talks."

"Yes, very much so, however, that is a topic which is very much for an audience of one," Theon said. "We can instead continue such discourse during office hours. Any other questions?"

No one tried to raise their hand.

Kal raised his again.

"Yes?" Theon asked.

"What's a shield?"

The pair stared at one another as Kal felt his face heat. He had asked that question the day before. When he had asked a question twice in a class later that day, he had been chastised for being stupid, lazy, and incapable.

"A shield is a mage chosen by a member of the Seven who then tempers and bonds with the mage until they can work as a pair. Your magic becomes their magic. Shields are necessary because some of you will learn magic, and it will go to your heads, and you'll start doing stupid things—twenty-one shields per generation, one to the main line and two to the lesser lines. Don't any of you get any ideas from that. If the likes of you kill shields, that link resets, and the Seven have shields on backup. We are replaceable. And we have, of late, been known to die at their convenience but never at that of a mage."