THIRTY-SIX: Bone

 

The hospital teleported Alden back to the summonarium, where he was met by the head of the medical team and Joe. The woman in charge of the campus medics was oddly friendly and casual, considering the one and only other time she’d spoken to Alden she’d basically told him he was useless and just to do as he was told.

She complimented him on his performance, gave him an actual paper certificate of merit for exceptional service, and ordered him to take twenty-six hours off for his mental health. Finally, Joe cleared his throat pointedly, and she left the room beaming.

“Did she have a personality transplant while I was gone?” Alden asked, staring down at the certificate and trying to decipher the words.

“Ha! I haven’t heard that phrase before,” said the professor. “And yes. She did. It came in the form of a generous bribe from Jel-nor’s parents, encouraging her to look away from some anomalies with the girl’s use of one of the school’s emergency responders.”

He paused. “I mean you.”

Alden resisted the impulse to roll his eyes. “I know you mean me. I was there.”

“Good! We need to talk. But first put on clean clothes. If I walk around campus with you in that state, everyone will think I’m a bully.”

Joe gestured toward a pile on the floor, and Alden was surprised to see his own t-shirt, jeans, and a pair of the one-size-fits-most sandals that were available in the locker room back at the dorms. His clothes had been in the launderer when he left this morning. Joe must have had someone fetch them.

Alden felt much more like himself once he’d ducked into a storage room and changed. He was surprised when he emerged and found the professor standing by the massive exit doors, gesturing for him to follow. “Shouldn’t we just go ahead and send me to ‘pick berries’ since we’re already here?”

“I’d love to. But your mental health break is already logged with the System. Since LeafSong is your primary summoner I can’t assign you quests when they’ve put you on mandatory leave.”

“We can’t say I want to teleport to Moon Thegund for a vacation?”

“Unless you’ve secretly changed species and gained an Artona I passport, then no.”

Alden immediately felt relieved. He was tired and sore. Moon Thegund was eerie. But this means I’ll have to do more doubles later. And the assistants will be freaked when I don’t show.

They had a good routine in place, and someone was always waiting for their ride right on schedule. Whoever it was today would have to sleep in the fruit-packing facility, waiting for tomorrow.

“I’ll try to get word to my assistants. It’s kind of you to worry about them, but it’s wasted emotion in this case. They’re mature scientists who are aware that circumstances sometimes change. They won’t panic because of a single day’s delay.”

“The man with the kids might.”

He already had once. On the third night, Alden was supposed to take both of the children. But their father had refused to let him at the last second, despite the driver who’d brought them to the farm arguing with him at length. Alden had ended up leaving with the bald guy who’d ridden shotgun in the vehicle instead.

“He’ll come to believe in your reliability as you successfully collect more and more of his fellows. Or he won’t. There’s no need to tranquilize him just yet, but it remains an option.”

Tranquilize?

They exited the building, and Joe strolled in the direction of the human dorms.

“Aren’t you calling a cart?”

“I did, but it’s the end of the day and there’s a wait. We might as well walk while one catches up with us. Also, you get a free lesson today. Isn’t that nice of me?”

Alden sped up to walk beside him. “I do? What about the triangle of secrecy?”

“It’s a different kind of lesson. Normally, I would want the comfort of a new contract to cover all of today’s events, but I could squirm out of this amount of trouble if I needed to. And you’re a pain to haggle with.”

He smiled at Alden.

“Also, I just formed nine contracts back to back with those shiny students you gifted me! The amount of weeping. I’m sure I wasn’t that pathetic the first time I made a little mistake and had to swallow bad terms with another wizard to cover it up.”

Alden envisioned the scene he’d left behind in the jungle —mishnen guts and Stuart’s blood everywhere, aspiring teen wizards puking in the bushes, Joe grinning like a maniac. The idea of all of them tattooing themselves together didn’t make the picture brighter. “You know I didn’t actually realize you would blackmail them all into contracting with you? I didn’t even realize wizards made contracts with other wizards.”

He wanted to ask what the terms of the contracts were, but…maybe it was better not to know.

“Of course we do! It’s nearly the oldest form of magic there is. And don’t worry. Most of them will be free of me by the end of the week, their debts paid for them by their loving families. When it’s all over, their place at this school will be secured with no official scratches on their record, and I will be considerably closer to overturning my own sentence.” He chortled to himself. “Which brings me to the first part of today’s lesson—several of those young people who gave you such difficulty today are important. One of them is very important. It’s not me you’ll have to deal with if you go blabbing about them; it’s their parents. Don’t do it.”

Joe bent over suddenly to examine a plant growing in a sidewalk crack, and then shook his head in obvious disappointment at it before continuing on.

Alden stepped carefully over the plant just in case it was more than a simple weed.

“I didn’t plan to gossip about them.”

“Good. Moving on…you did well today,” Joe said. “In fact, I could hardly imagine a more perfect way for you to have handled the situation. But unless I’ve misjudged your personality, I think it was an accident on your part. Why did you call me?”

Alden briefly wondered how honest he should be, but he couldn’t see much reason to lie. “I thought everybody was in over their heads. And Stuart was going to lose his foot. Permanently, I mean. And I was worried they were going to end up feeding me to the crocosquid to cover up their crimes.”

It seemed like enough reason to call for help.

Joe’s brows lifted. “Ah, so it did occur to you that they might intentionally arrange for you to die?”

He said it in a conversational tone that somehow made it more chilling.

“I mean, not all of them,” Alden said hastily. “Some of them seemed ready to get help from the school and accept the consequences. But I thought Jel-nor might. And the one who kept shouting about his scholarship.”

“You’re actually much more suspicious than I thought. That’s good. I was worried you were going to get yourself killed before you reached your full potential.”

Joe walked blithely toward an oncoming cart full of examinees, forcing it to dodge them. Alden gave the passengers an apologetic smile as they passed.

“I’ve observed that human Avowed tend to be more wary of me now that I’m conspicuously powerful and accomplished.” The professor gestured at his own tattooed face. “Earlier in my career, when I had just earned the right to summon Avowed, they regarded me with less fear.”

“I guess it’s natural to be more afraid of someone who’s powerful,” Alden said.

“Is it? I think that mindset is very species and culture dependent. At any rate, humans are, in my opinion, poor judges of the threat younger summoners represent. You are much more likely to come to harm when you’re summoned by a beginner than a more advanced wizard.” He paused. “Obviously I’m not including combat assignments in that equation. Those are universally dangerous.”

Alden was surprised that he seemed to be getting a “how to stay safe from your summoner” lecture. He had pegged Joe as someone who would throw people in the deep end and tell them they’d better figure out how to swim for themselves.

That metaphor hits a little too close to the day’s events, doesn’t it?

“I guess it’s because amateur wizards are less experienced?” Alden suggested.

“Less experienced. Less aware of their own limits and the limits of various species and classes of Avowed. Less able to see the line between a reasonable use of their helper’s talents and an unreasonable one.” Joe smiled. “Contract-facilitated summons are a luxury reserved for the elite among the elite. Avowed servants are a convenient but limited magical resource, and there’s a certain cachet to using them. So access is restricted to the upper echelon of wizards. One big mistake is generally enough to see someone barred for life. But it takes time to weed out the fools who are prone to making that kind of error.”

“By big mistake you mean…”

“I mean getting an Avowed killed on an off-Contract assignment. A death on an off the books mission is the ultimate oops for a summoner.”

“Wait. Why are you telling me this?” Alden said. “Going to pick up your assistants from Moon Thegund every night is off-Contract, right? You’re only allowed to use me for things related to your university work because of your punishment.”

“Just don’t die. And if you’re going to, do it at the farm with some berries in your pocket and not off in the grasslands. That will keep me in a comfortably gray area. Since the System is still allowing me to assign official quests at Elepta, nobody can argue that the location was too dangerous for an Avowed of your rank.”

Alden tried to refrain from rolling his eyes. I’ll do my best to get killed in a manner that’s convenient for you, then.

“The students’ so-called plan to have you catch the mishnen for them was full of far more unforgivable holes. So many that even you noticed them right away. I shall drink in honor of their desperation tonight.”

“And I’ll have nightmares about it.”

Joe grinned at him. “If it’s any consolation, wizards this immature could only call for your assistance at all because it was an emergency, and the university has made you available for those. When she earns admission here, Jel-nor will have several years of school before she gains provisional access to the Contract for her personal use. And then, if she achieves a certain level of competence and the necessary recommendations by graduation, she’ll be able to summon low-ranking Avowed without oversight.”

“That’s a relief,” Alden said. “Maybe by then she won’t be angry I tattled on her and her friends.”

“Which brings me around to the main point of the lesson, and an important question for you to consider—what would you have done today if I wasn’t available to clean up the mess? It was only possible because I’m a faculty member here. I won’t teleport around the universe to rescue you from other summoners under ordinary circumstances. I won’t even be able to.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Alden muttered. “I guess I could call for arbitration?”

Someone had suggested he might do that earlier. He wasn’t clear on what would happen if he did, but it must have been an option.

“Mmmm….that’s only possible under specific, and usually unpleasant, conditions. And it’s leaving your fate up to chance. The results would depend a lot on your summoner’s respect for authority at the moment and the mood of the arbitrator. And time is also a factor. An arbitrator might not answer instantly, in which case you’d be at the mercy of an angry summoner until they did. I don’t recommend it as a first resort.”

“What do you recommend then? I just shut up and chase dangerous monsters around a lake even though that’s not what I was summoned for and I can’t possibly catch them?”

Joe blinked at him. “It’s a problem for you, I admit. I suggest feigning stupidity.”

“What?”

“Yes, like that! That was good.”

Alden groaned.

“Actually it would be best if you could feign stupidity and hysteria at the same time,” Joe said, wandering over to examine another weed sprouting up among the carnivorous flowers. “But that might be a tall order.”

“Play dumb? That’s your advice for if some Artonan tries to force me into doing an impossible job?”

“A wizard who is able to summon an Avowed is almost always talented, excessively educated, and proud of it. I include myself in that description. We also tend to have an inflated sense of our own superiority over other species. Jel-nor would never have believed your skill was incapable of petrifying the mishnen, not when she’d staked her reputation and her future on it working in the way she imagined. But she might have been persuaded to believe you yourself were too dimwitted to use it in the correct way.”

“Would it have frozen the mishnen?”

“I doubt it. Even if you managed to use your preservation on it, it was wearing the leash she crafted during her exam session. The burden would have been immense.”

“Why didn’t she just shoot it with her spell? You know—” Alden gestured like he was playing with an imaginary cat’s cradle.

“Oh, it could have repelled that kind of attack. They’re not intelligent, but they have a number of fascinating qualities. It’s why mishnen parts are so valuable and also why they’re endangered. You have to sit on a waiting list for years to get permission to summon one legally. They’re very susceptible to poison, though, which is why I chose that method. By the way, what would you like for supper?”

“Are you planning to poison me?”

“Ha! No. You gave me a dead mishnen and a means of ingratiating myself with all kinds of interesting people. In exchange, you get supper delivered. There’s even a place that supposedly delivers Earth food to campus, though I have my doubts about its authenticity. Do you humans eat cheese fondue all that often?”

I wish I did. Alden’s stomach growled. He thought he shouldn’t be hungry, considering what he’d seen this afternoon, but he was famished.

“I’ll take anything that’s not made of animals or by animals. I like those egg roll things…you were eating one when you arrived at the pond earlier. Those are good.”

Joe fell silent for a minute, eye zipping behind his lens, then announced, “Food is on its way. Enough for your human friends as well, so that they won’t be jealous.”

“I haven’t got any human friends here.”

“You’re pitiful, aren’t you? In that case, I’ll double the order so that you can try to make some.”

Alden sighed. He wondered if he would be a traitor to his species if he just asked Joe outright about Manon possibly using mind control on people.

A moment later, their cart finally arrived for them, and Joe started making small talk about the pros and cons of melted cheese.

“There are only pros,” Alden said. “Cheese has no cons. How do I get more refusals?”

“That was a quick turn in the discussion.”

“I was thinking that having a ton of refusals stacked would help me avoid crazy summoners. It was relevant to the earlier conversation. Not the fondue one.”

It was also going to be necessary if he ever wanted to get work as a hero. If he was one of those Rabbits who got summoned frequently—and considering how busy he’d been over the past few days it seemed likely that he was—he would need enough refusals to reassure anyone he might work with that he wouldn’t be a liability.

“Having ‘a ton of refusals stacked’ would indeed help you with that. But I’m afraid the best way to get them is the obvious one. Hope you are summoned often and save them up.”

“There’s seriously not a way to get bonus ones?”

Joe squinted in thought. “Few that would actually feel like bonuses to the recipient. Unless you like the idea of unusually traumatizing quest assignments.”

“I don’t.”

“Perhaps some people can award them. I personally never had the option. If you’re just hoping for a more predictable life, then long-term assignment is a good choice. If you can obtain one. You’ll know who you’re working for. And you’ll earn a lot of rest days. You can postpone a portion of them. It’s not the same as a refusal, but it allows you to carve out time for yourself.”

“You mean the downtime you earn after a certain number of days of being summoned? That can be postponed?”

“You didn’t know?”

Alden shook his head. He’d been aware that such downtime existed, but he hadn’t realized it could be used at his convenience.

“The System should let you bank time off once you have some, which you can then use to guarantee yourself a break when it’s most convenient for you.”

So it’s like saving up for a vacation.

It wasn’t as flexible as a refusal. You would have to use the banked time without ever knowing if you were choosing moments when you might not have been summoned anyway. But that would be great for his purposes if he got enough of it. If he was helping out with a critical situation on Earth, he could spend a few of his saved hours to guarantee he stayed there instead of getting zapped to another world.

And then, ideally, his refusals could be reserved for getting out of terrible or dangerous quests.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The cart dropped him off at the dorm, and Joe eyed the building critically.

“It looks depressing,” he said. “Why did they make it depressing?”

“It’s pretty okay. Windows would be good. And private rooms would be nicer. But there’s air conditioning on the human floor, so I’m not going to complain.”

The first and second floors were for tmithans and lortch. When the interior elevator door opened on floor one, it felt like a dry sauna. And the lortch floor was pitch black and full of clicking noises.

Alden had no desire to visit the neighbors in their preferred environments, and they probably felt the same.

He said goodbye to Joe and took the elevator up. He was delighted to realize he was the only person present.

He headed straight for the showers. His last bath had been a hasty dip in a rainforest pool full of poison, blood, and probably mishnen pee. He would soak himself in rubbing alcohol if he knew where to get some.

He searched the stalls, hoping one of the boater members had left body wash lying around. Most of them kept their personal items in their lockers, but today he was rewarded with a bottle of expensive-looking shampoo.

Alden said a silent apology to the owner and resisted the urge to use the whole thing.

While the too-hot water blasted him, he scrubbed until he thought every last bit of the bizarro day must have gone down the drain. Then he dug his fingers into his hair, washing it for the second time, and felt something odd.

Blinking away water as the rinse cycle started, Alden stared at the tiny, diamond-shaped shard between his thumb and forefinger. It was a bone fragment smaller than his pinkie fingernail. It was still stained with blood.

His mind immediately went to the strange operating/magic ritual room at the House of Healing. Stuart was probably there still, having his foot…reassembled? Regrown?

I hope this wasn’t a critical piece, he thought.

He was past the point of being queasy. Or maybe it was just that a single bone shard in isolation wasn’t as freaky as a whole pile of bloody meat and bone chunks had been.