Not long after he had drifted off, his dreams turned in a strange direction. His sleeping mind registered a scraping noise, as though his door had moved against the threshold. Moments later, a fluttering pattern of light played across his eyelids and coaxed them open.
Instantly he jolted awake. A thick, unpleasant smell assaulted his nostrils and smoke clogged his throat as he realized that his desk was on fire.
But how? The candle he had carried with him sat, safely doused, on the night table beside him. He had not even glanced at his work that evening.
However, he had no time to worry about such matters now. His first priority was to put out the flames that were rapidly and rather spectacularly consuming the parchments he had been working on. With dismay he watched hours of labor turn to ash before his eyes.
Throwing the contents of his water jug on the conflagration slowed, but did not stop it. The flames were already too thick and too fast-moving. They climbed down the legs of the desk like evil vines and began to turn the floor black. Jerel felt the soles of his bare feet growing warmer as the heat rolled over the stone surface. The smoke was heavier now, too, forcing him to cover his face with the front of his nightshirt.
He had to get help, he realized. Later they could figure out the cause. However this mishap had begun, it had already spun out of control.
Rushing across the room, he grasped the leather door handle and pulled. Nothing happened.
*~*~*
Though he had always prided himself on being rational and effective, a surge of panic rendered Jerel useless. Bewildered, he tried the door again, shaking it harder this time in case the latch had jammed. His efforts yielded no result.
Stepping back, heart and mind racing, Jerel forced himself to calm down. He scanned the room to reassess the situation. What he saw did not give him much hope. Fire now engulfed the desk and chair, and flames had begun to twist up the side of the wooden cabinet where he kept his meager supply of linens, tunics, and leggings. His winter cloak, hanging on a peg in corner, had not yet caught. Hastily he grabbed it and used it to cover his face, shielding his eyes and mouth from the billows of iron-gray smoke clogging the room. Briefly he considered taking it away and trying to call for help, but worried that he would run out of air and voice before anyone heard him.
At the same time, Jerel snatched his dagger from the table by his bed, which luckily had not yet caught. The heat made the metal hilt painful to the touch, but he resisted the urge to fling it down for fear he would not be able to find it again. With a determination that thankfully overruled his terror, he held the cloak over his face with one hand and began jabbing the blade between the door and the stone frame. To his surprise, in some places he encountered resistance—as if small objects had been wedged into the space at various intervals to prevent the door from opening. With increasing vigor he sliced and stabbed, unsure how many there might be or if he was even making any progress in removing them.
By now the smoke had grown as thick and suffocating as a blanket, and his eyes watered and burned. Breathing was difficult, too, and his lungs squeezed as he tried not to cough and choke on the foul cloud. Off in the distance, he heard what sounded like the dinner bell. How intriguing, he thought as he grew steadily weaker and more disoriented. Was that the way the celestial ones called the souls of the dying to account? If so, he hoped his would not be found wanting. The lie he had told Kaeth about Merwyn crushed his conscience as awareness of his surroundings gradually slipped away.
His entry into the next world proved even more curious than the dinner-bell phenomenon. With his body at rest and his fear replaced by total surrender, Jerel observed the events with a scholarly detachment that would have impressed Thraag. First, the door to eternity seemed to burst open before him, and a stampede of celestial beings who wore uniforms curiously similar to the student tunics at the Academy rushed in to claim him. Some of them carried what resembled earthly buckets of water, which they began tossing around—a purification ritual, perhaps. How amazing that such rites were not simply metaphorical, but followed the exact way of a group of people rescuing a comrade in the regular world.
Then one of the buckets swung wide, dousing him in cold water. Jerel realized with a shock that his earthbound body was not in the least insensate, but quite capable of extreme discomfort. Before he could grasp what was going on, he heard himself howling.
"He isn't dead!" someone shouted to the rest, and a sort of cheering filled the room. The black smoke had stopped billowing, he realized when he could finally open his eyes, and he could breathe again, too. The entire population of the Academy seemed to be staring down at him in his dirty and soaking wet nightshirt. Seeing that his winter cloak lay nearby, he reached out and wrapped it around himself. As he did so, he saw Kaeth pushing toward the front of the crowd, his mouth open in horror. A few of the others held him back.
"Wait," they cautioned. "We know not how badly he's hurt just yet. Better not to move him."
"I am not hurt at all, except that some fool has doused me with water," Jerel said indignantly. He followed the words with a spell of deep, painful coughing.
"We should carry him to the healing room," he heard Fenryk, the Calculations master, suggest. "Ladon will want to examine him there."
Jerel forced himself to sit up. With clean air in his lungs and his eyes and mind clear again, his strength returned along with his outrage. Somehow, someone had waited for him to fall asleep, set his room ablaze, and then slipped back out and trapped him inside, he suspected. Whoever it was must have been laying the trap while he listened in on Elvar and Kaeth planning their tryst. He noticed that Elvar was part of the group surrounding him, too. To judge by his annoyed expression, the fire bell must have interrupted his planned seduction. That gave Jerel some satisfaction.
"What happened here?" Chancellor Berthog demanded, sweeping into the room in her silver night-robe and matching sleeping cap. Thraag was with her, his huge eyes rolling in shock.
"Jerel nearly died!" Kaeth cried. "A fire—it was dreadful! I thought surely… "
"It appears Master Jerel was working and fell asleep with the candle burning," Fenryk suggested in a calmer tone, pointing to the remains of the desk. Everything on it had been reduced to ash, and the wardrobe cabinet was half destroyed as well. Jerel wondered if he would have any clean clothing to change into for the morrow. "Luckily the students in the north tower saw smoke coming from his window and raised the alarm. It looks as though we got here just in time."
"Dozing over a candle? How exceedingly reckless," Thraag said, shaking his head. "My lad, I am surprised at you. When I entreated you to make the most of your evening, I had no idea you would do something this foolish."
"I certainly did not—" Jerel began, but instantly thought better of arguing. If someone had tried to kill him, best not to let that person know of his suspicions just yet. The enemy would be easier to trap if he believed Jerel unaware of the cause. He made sure to avert his face from Prince Elvar—and his constant shadow, Creegan—before he spoke again. "I mean, I do not remember doing such a thing, but on the other hand I cannot think of any other explanation. I am grateful to those who rescued me."
"You must go and rouse Ladon the healer," Chancellor Berthog said. "You will pass the rest of the night in the healing room. You cannot stay here, in any case. The smell of smoke is most overwhelming."
"Very well," Jerel grumbled, though he didn't fancy the idea of bedding down in the infirmary. Yet his bed was soaked from the buckets of water the students had tossed about, and the other half of his room was little more than cinders.
"I shall go with him," Kaeth volunteered. "He will need someone to lean upon, as he is no doubt weak and short of breath."
"He will need more than one person to lean upon, I would think, based upon his current appearance," Berthog said. "Let us instead have two students to take him to Ladon, one on either side of him, and you may instead accompany him and keep him in good spirits."
"Nay," Jerel broke in almost before she was done speaking. Summoning his strength, he heaved himself to his feet and ignored the clamminess of his nightshirt sticking to him. He wrapped the cloak around himself as though it were a suit of armor that could protect him—not from fire or assault, but from his own pain as he watched Elvar hover over Kaeth's shoulder with a look distaste on his loathsomely aristocratic features. "I am not some weakened invalid. I do not need the healer except that I would welcome another place to stay tonight. I fear the poor air in here is already making me somewhat dizzy."
"I will come with you all the same," Kaeth said. His voice was nearly pleading. Jerel's eyes narrowed. Did he suspect, as Jerel did, that Elvar had been involved somehow? Or would he reject any such idea with indignation? After all, Kaeth had made it clear where his allegiance now lay.
"Thank you for your concern, but I would prefer that you did not," he said in a steely voice. He saw Kaeth draw back a step, clearly astonished by the hardness of his tone. "It is growing late. I wish only to change into dry garments and sleep. I assure you the healer will find nothing wrong with me."
"If that is your preference," Chancellor Berthog said, lifting a brow. "Master Fenryk, perhaps you would be so good as to walk with Jerel to the healing room. You need not stay once you get there."
"Certainly, Chancellor." Fenryk bowed. "I would be delighted to assist."
Jerel tried not to grimace. He and Fenryk had never cared for one another since he found Fenryk smug, supercilious, and lacking in humor. But then, he knew Fenryk would not attempt to make conversation.
"Let us be off, then," he said, starting barefoot into the corridor. As he turned, he flashed one final glance at Kaeth's stricken face. He felt a twinge of guilt until he also saw the grinning Elvar's hand slide like a serpent around his waist.
*~*~*
As the night went on and finally shaded into dawn, Kaeth hoped Jerel had managed to find rest in the healing room. As for himself, he found none at all. Things had gone wrong from the moment on the tower when Jerel had demonstrated that he no longer loved him. First, Elvar had made no secret of his displeasure when Kaeth had expressed a desire to retire alone and escorted Elvar from his chamber. Then had come the alarm, which brought everyone running through the corridors in their nightclothes. Elvar and he had followed—accompanied by Creegan, who seemed to appear like mist at their side—only to find Jerel near death from breathing in the foul smoke that filled his room.
For the briefest moment, he had thought that Jerel might heal his torn heart by reaching out to him in the happy aftermath of his rescue. Instead, he had rent the hole wider by rejecting his offer of bedside comfort. No doubt Merwyn had met him at the healing room and fulfilled that role most admirably. The two were probably curled in one another's arms right now, practicing a sort of healing that would have made Master Ladon blush. Kaeth did not wish to count how many hours that particular image tormented his mind and kept him from sleep.
At last, the morning bell sounded, summoning the scholars to their breakfasts of honeyed bread and porridge. Kaeth was getting ready to join them when a student appeared at his door with word that his father had arrived with his retinue. Ambassador Demas had demanded a private audience with Kaeth before he was willing to meet with any other Academy personnel, even Chancellor Berthog. Kaeth had no choice but to agree.
The student led him to a room where a large breakfast, more sumptuous than that provided for the students and faculty, had been spread out on a long table. Ambassador Demas, his large body encased in a simple but well-tailored robe, lounged in a soft chair at one end sipping from a polished brass goblet. Though he and Kaeth had not seen each other in over three years, Demas did not rise or show any particular emotion as he entered the room. Such rigid self-control, Kaeth reflected, was what had made him so useful as a diplomat to the emperor. Kaeth himself had no such ability to switch his emotions on and off, which rendered him unsuited to follow his father's career path.
"I see you appear unharmed after your many years away," Demas said without preamble, eyeing Keath as he polished off a sugar cake. "In fact, if I am not mistaken your color has improved and your chest has filled out. Did you suffer badly under King Scurlock's supervision?"
"No," Kaeth had to admit. "At least... not in all ways. I trust you attended the details in my letters."
"I did. Assuming they were censored, I wondered if your prose might be coded. I had the emperor's top scribes examine them for clues each time. They were unable to find anything definitive, so I apologize if I missed an important hidden message."
"I did not code them. I am not clever enough for that—and besides, there really was nothing secret to convey. Things were as I described them."
"Good. I feared the scribes were growing incompetent." Demas swallowed another sugar cake and smacked his lips. "Help yourself to food."
Kaeth gulped down a hunk of bread without tasting it. "I understand you encountered some misfortune on your way here."
"You mean the broken wagon wheel? A ruse, though I did stay in a most dreadful village on the edge of the forest. The truth is, I was waiting for a privileged communication from King Scurlock. The envoy could not meet me until quite late at night, so it seemed easier to concoct a reason why we had to stay."
"I see. I hope he begged your forgiveness for holding me prisoner for so long."
Demas raised his thick black brows. "Indeed he did not. If anything, he feels your time in his palace may have civilized you. I rather suspect he was seeking our gratitude."
Anger blazed through Kaeth's entire body. "He is arrogant beyond belief! Is it civilized to hold someone against his will, however many mummer shows he provides? Never once did I forget that they could kill me at any moment, Father. Any sign of aggression by the emperor and it was my uncivilized existence that would have come to an end, not his!"