Wartorn: Resurrection

existed in a kind of perpetual fear. Many were desperate to stay at Febretree, escaping unpleasant lives back home or zealously devoted to achieving the higher rankings of Thinker or even Attache. Gossip was a cheap form of entertainment to take one's mind off one's troubles, particularly when jammed into some airless dormitory.

So, when Praulth at last irritably pushed herself from her desk to answer the hammering at her door and found the lowly first-phase pupil there, she wasn't inclined to take much heed.

The student, a boy a few years her junior, was jabbering excitedly—and not a little bit enjoying the supposedly dire news he was imparting. Among the rush of words, she heard Master Honnis's name. The watch was late. Xink was off attending Mistress Cestrello.

'Speak clearly. You're addressing a Thinker.'

It was almost comical to hear herself invoking her academic rank. She rarely thought of herself as a student anymore. Her role was more active than that, she had learned. She wasn't studying the history of war any longer; she was helping create it.

The Battle of Torran Flats ...

The boy continued his breathless babbling.

It smelled of a prank, though she had not been subjected to such torments since her first-phase days. Patience, however, hadn't been with her lately, and she finally slammed shut the door, locking it.

Maps were spread over the desk. Honnis was still feeding her field reports, and she was still playing along, continuing their project of studying the Felk war. Just as she was continuing her relationship with Xink, though she knew that Honnis had arranged it, knew that the old... old devil had manipulated her. That heartless sack of bones.

She sat, examining the maps, as she had done most of the day. The Felk had abruptly halted a short distance from Trael. What was Weisel up to? She wanted to know. So did Honnis. And so doubtlessly did Premier Cultat, with whom Honnis was in contact.

A moment later Praulth heard the sound of a latchkey finding the lock that she'd insisted be installed. She wanted privacy here in the Blue Annex. She didn't shy from making demands these days. Xink entered the chamber.

He did not meet her eyes. That, too, wasn't unusual these days. Things had changed between the two of them, drastically. But something more seemed amiss now.

'What's wrong?'

'You haven't heard?' Those blue eyes of his, flecked with gold, showed white all around. His complexion tended toward the pale, but now his face looked almost bloodless.

'Let's presume I haven't,' she snapped. Until recently she wouldn't have dared speak to him in such a tone. That stage of their relationship was over.

'I sent a messenger to tell you. A first-phase student. It's Master Honnis—'

That got her up from her comfortable chair a second time. She grabbed her robe from its hook by the door, twirling it onto herself. Whatever this was, it wasn't a prank.

'Tell me on the way,' she said.

THE UNIVERSITY'S FACULTY was housed at the center of the campus, within a separate complex of structures dating back to the institution's founding. These interconnected and quaintly aging buildings were encircled by shrubbery and overgrowing trees that had supposedly been manicured gardens once. The semi-wild growths served to isolate the compound.

Praulth hesitated on the path that bridged its way onto this island. The autumn night was cool, and a rising and falling wind rolled through the turning leaves. The way ahead looked ominous.

With Xink at her side, she crossed the path and entered the complex. Inside, they hurried through passageways. The interior was much shabbier than she would have guessed, but the antique buildings had a charm that the rest of the University's structures lacked. There was a warm penetrating scent of age here, and of paper, ink, knowledge, perhaps even wisdom.

She had never visited this place, but she knew where Honnis's quarters were. An upper level—she'd had the circular window pointed out to her once. Praulth found stairs and bustled upward, her heart pounding hard in her chest.

A trio of instructors passed murmurs among themselves before a door. The door was ajar, and from within a sharp unpleasant voice barked.

At last Praulth checked her headlong dash. Master Honnis was alive. So Xink had assured her.

The three instructors turned with deliberate slowness to regard her. It was likely she wasn't terribly popular among the faculty nowadays. She had been an exemplary pupil once, blazing a diligent trail toward a rare kind of academic excellence. Now she was ... what? Someone else.

Only a small part of her—the younger, innocent Praulth—still cared about pleasing the University's faculty. That individual seemed to disintegrate a bit more with every passing watch.

She pushed through the robed instructors, hearing Honnis's snarl beyond the door. It was usual for the elderly man to be disagreeable; it wasn't normal for him to be so energetic about it. He had always been one to favor the icy glower over the shrill reprimand.

His quarters were, in their way, as austere as the student's cell she had occupied before relocating to the Blue Annex. It was a small space, the ceiling quite low. There was a lamp, cot, stool, a simple square table. Dense pebbled glass in the circle of the window.

The room was also thick with paper. Parchments were everywhere, in stacks, in drifts, obliterating every corner. Some were pages, some were in the form of the scrolls that were favored in the north. Not a single sheet of any of it could possibly be organized, it was so scattered.

Xink waited outside. Praulth saw Master Honnis on the cot. He was arguing with the campus surgeon, a man named Chiegel. Chiegel, with perfect aplomb, was lecturing Honnis on the value of bed rest, and the University's war studies head was telling him what practical methods the Skrall No't tribe of barbarians in the Northland used to dispose of their wounded. Chiegel responded to nothing Honnis said. That made the exchange equal.

Finally it was done. Chiegel exited the chamber, and Honnis's eyes fell on Praulth.

'I see now what is required to merit a visit from you.'

Honnis's dark features settled into a cast she didn't quite recognize. Now that Chiegel was gone, the ire had gone out of him. Something had happened, obviously. Something dire.

She had not seen or spoken directly to him since the night of Premier Cultat's secret visit. That night Praulth had learned those awful truths about how Honnis had exploited her.

'Are you well?' The cliche was out before she was aware of speaking it.

It was a display of vast uncharacteristic politeness that he ignored it. 'I have things to tell you, if you'll hear them. They are important. Some perhaps only to myself.'

Xink had told her that Master Honnis had collapsed suddenly in a corridor. It had happened only a watch ago.

'I'll hear.' She closed the door and came to the foot of the cot, being careful where she stepped. The quantity of paper in the room truly was astounding, more than most individuals of wealth could comfortably afford.

Honnis's inner irascible fire had always lent him figurative size. Lying on the cot now, though, he seemed to inhabit only the meek bodily dimensions that his great age had left him.

'I am at least as old as you imagine I am,' he said, cutting into her thoughts. 'Likely I'm much older than what you'd guess. I have, for several years now, been sustaining my existence with the aid of

rejuvenation magic.'

Praulth bunked. Obviously Honnis had been laid low by some attack or seizure. But... had his mind been affected as well? It was a deeply disturbing thought.

'Who has been practicing this ... magic ... on you?' she asked.

'I have been doing it myself.'

She drew her lower lip softly between her teeth.

'Your next question is, am I a wizard? Perhaps. I have some knowing, a knowledge that once, long ago in other lands, would have been fairly commonplace. But we live in a fearful age here on our sad little Isthmus.'

There was sorrow in that gaunt, aged face. How sad he looked, how pitiful. Praulth felt something wrench in her chest.