Tamora Pierce - Tempests and Slaughter

The door opened abruptly; Ozorne nearly fell in. A light, breathy voice said, ‘It’s the young fellow who’s good with birds. What is so urgent that you must deny me my sleep, Prince Ozorne?’

Ozorne waved Arram forward. ‘My friend has a hurt bat, Master Lindhall.’

‘A bat, is it?’

Arram looked up at Master Lindhall. He’d really thought they’d find one of the master’s student helpers, not the man himself – the man who had said Arram was much too young to study with him. Lindhall inspected him with bright blue eyes. ‘Come in, come in. Quietly – my assistant is asleep.’ He took Arram’s basket and retreated into his rooms.

‘Come along,’ Ozorne whispered when Arram hesitated. ‘Don’t you want to see where he lives?’

They followed the master through a sitting room that doubled as a library. Shelves heavy with books seemed to lean from the walls, ready to collapse on the thick carpets and cushions at any moment. Arram craned to look at the titles, until Ozorne grabbed his arm and towed him down a corridor, passing closed doors. The scent of animal droppings and urine thickened.

The tall man entered a room and left the door open. He set the basket on a long counter and snapped his fingers. Light filled the lamps hanging overhead. When he lowered his hand they dimmed. Arram guessed that this was so they would be easier on the bat’s eyes. He sighed with envy. Would he ever be as effortless in working magic as Ozorne and Master Lindhall?

Lindhall uncovered the bat. ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he murmured. ‘You’ve had a bad night. You were lucky to find someone kind … Don’t mind my big old hands.’ Gently he lifted the bat from the basket. ‘You, my love, are a common pippistrelle. Your kindred are found along Carthak’s northern shores, along the Inland Sea, on Tortall’s shores, and inland as far north as the Great Road East. You should be thinking about hibernation, but it’s been a warm autumn.’ He carefully placed the bat on her back on Arram’s cloth, spreading the left wing wide. ‘Lovely, my dear. A perfect wing. You tried to feed as often as you could before the rains. It’s worth the risk of a wetting, isn’t it?’

The pippistrelle, who had struggled at first, calmed and watched Master Lindhall with her large dark eyes as if she understood every word. Arram and Ozorne were quiet as well, observing as those big fingers handled the tiny creature.

‘You broke your left wing, and the strongest part, the radius bone. Now, I have small bamboo splints around here somewhere, in a red clay cup …’

Arram saw a number of such cups on a shelf in front of him. They were different sizes, with bamboo and wooden splints of corresponding lengths, from a foot to three inches. He took down the cup of three-inch splints and showed it to Lindhall, who nodded. Ozorne offered a roll of loosely woven cotton to the master, who said, ‘Would you be so good as to cut eight inches of that off for me?’

The boys watched as the man gently splinted the broken bone. He then bound the folded wing to the bat’s side to keep it from moving. Whether it was due to fright, magic, or fascination with Lindhall’s soft commentary, the bat remained still, her eyes fixed on her caretaker.

Finally Lindhall gathered her up and led the boys to a second room. Here a number of recovering animals, including two other bats, were housed in wood or metal cages. Lindhall placed the pippistrelle in one and filled its water dish. ‘My student will feed you later,’ he assured the bat. He ushered the boys into the hall as he cut off the light and closed the door.

Back in his sitting room, he looked at his guests. ‘Still here?’ he asked, shaking his head. ‘You’ll be useless in class in the morning. Off with you! Oh!’ he added as they turned. ‘You did right bringing her to me.’

They ran to their dormitory. They were settling in their beds when Arram said, ‘Thank you for helping. I didn’t know what else to do.’

Ozorne chuckled. ‘Are you joking? I jump at any excuse to visit Master Lindhall! Go to sleep!’

Grinning, Arram turned over and slept.

The term passed so quickly that Arram hardly noticed when the cold weather set in and the rains followed. He did realize that for the first Midwinter festivities since his arrival at the university, he had friends to share the holiday and gifts with him. Instead of spending long days and nights reading on his cot, he was welcomed to parties by Varice and those who wanted to stay friends with her and Ozorne. The prince even got to join them on the fourth day of the holiday, the longest night of the year. In his honour the emperor presented the Lower Academy with a fabulous breakfast of fruits, eggs, meat, fresh breads, and cheeses to mark the return of the sun. Afterwards, everyone waddled to their beds for a long sleep before the evening’s parties.

‘This is far better,’ Ozorne told Arram between yawns as they staggered into their cubicles. ‘Mother didn’t like me spending so much time only with a girl the last couple of years, so she’d drag me to the palace every night of the holiday. I’d have to be polite to every stiff statue in court, even though they can’t be bothered to remember my name. Now that we’re friends, though, Mother isn’t clutching me so tightly.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I may have mentioned that you like Varice.’

‘Well, of course I do!’ Arram replied, startled. ‘You two are the best friends …’ He looked at Ozorne’s grin and realized his friend meant a different kind of liking. That wouldn’t do – Ozorne would tease him mercilessly if he believed Arram had feelings for their friend. ‘Ozorne! I don’t think of her like that!’ he lied. ‘She doesn’t think of me like that!’

Ozorne wandered into his cubicle, shedding his long tunic. The beads rattled in his hair as he pulled on his nightshirt. ‘ So sensitive,’ he joked.

Arram made a rude noise and retired to his own cubicle to change into his night gear. He was drifting off when he said, ‘I thought you liked Varice.’

Ozorne responded with a yawn, then said, ‘We already have it worked out. It will be years and years before any of us have learned enough magic to make us happy. By then I will have the emperor’s permission to set up as a mage on my own, perhaps in the central mountains. I could represent him there. Varice has agreed to be my housekeeper and hostess, and if you like, you can work with me as well. We’ll keep the emperor’s peace, study new plants, volcanoes, and waterfalls the size of entire towns, and no one will bother us. What do you say?’

‘Sounds glorious,’ Arram mumbled, then slept.

He was riding a log like a horse, bouncing along huge, roaring waves. Ahead of him the river thundered like the god’s greatest wrath. It was exciting; it felt strange; he was scared to tumble into what had to be waterfalls ahead. One more bounce as the log dropped off the top of a wave—

He woke on his belly. Outside his shuttered window he could hear the roar of pouring rain. ‘So that’s what it is,’ he muttered, and dropped his face into his pillow.

His male organ was pinching him somehow. He turned to the side. That at least took his weight off of it, but it still didn’t feel quite right. He squirmed, but the feeling remained.

He touched his organ and flinched. It was not its usual relaxed and floppy self. ‘Stop it!’ he ordered softly, wondering if someone had bespelled him, or if he was going to die. There was no change in his body’s new state.

He tried to hear if Ozorne was awake, but the rain drowned out his roommate’s light snore. Arram clutched his covers around himself and addressed prayers to a number of gods. At last his midsection began to feel as it usually did. When he took another peek, the member was back to normal. He silently thanked whichever god had intervened.