Naturally, it rained. Graduation day dawned with red skies, and by the time the assembly had been completed, buckets of water were being dumped from the skies. Still, the graduation had to go on, and the students and their families, noble sponsors, royalty, and sundry crowded into the Great Hall in the College of Sorcery. Only small fraction of the assemblage could find seats. The Great Hall, where introductory lectures were given to the entire freshman and sophomore classes at a time, did not seat enough, even though it was the largest single indoor room at either College.

The graduating apprentices from the College of Sorcery stood to one side of the platform, and the apprentices of the College of Swords stood to the other. The ceremony replicated that of the outdoors version as much as possible. The Masters sat under their hastily erected flags on the stage’s platform, and the Headmaster and a few select lieutenants like Armsmaster Fallir sat with him. The King, of course, sat on the platform, but many in his entourage had been bumped. This would like result in repercussions for weeks to come, as the nobles who perceived themselves to be snubbed would begin inquiries into such subjects as why the Masters could not simply have changed the weather to suit the occasion. These inquiries never got anywhere, but gave the nobles a way to work off their steam.

Palia had worn a simple gray dress, the only real dress she had ever owned in her life. If the light sundresses in South Port did not count, and with the irritating collar of the dress she was wearing was a prerequisite for a dress, they did not. Many looked at her, as if questioning if she were even an apprentice. She seemed quite out of place amid the nobles and wealthy who had taken the opportunity to be seen in expensive finery. She supposed Aeral would have found the money for an expensive dress, but she could not have seen herself wearing one. Since coming to the cold north, and enduring the harsh winters, she had mostly worn a thick wool sweater and heavy breeches. This was the first time she could remember wearing a dress since leaving South Port, and she felt strangely uncomfortable, loose and exposed, the opposite of how she had felt when first having to bundle up in the cold. She did not wear any ornaments at all, mainly because she had never purchased any.

Her Master had been generous with his money when she had needs, but she had spent a lifetime doing without, and to waste her Master’s money on jewelry and frivolity seemed obscene to her. The only thing she had ever lavished money on was food. The cold north had awakened an appetite she had never had down in South Port, where the long hot days demanded light, refreshing meals and drinking gallons of water. Up in the north, she ate thick stews, the wonderful dark bread they baked here, cheese and butters, and starchy potatoes and tubers, and all the other heavy fare the cold-weather climate offered. Her weight had ballooned alarmingly in the first year until she got used to the heavy diet and started being more active. She had slowly adjusted. The one thing she could not bring herself to do was grow her hair. She had had short hair her entire life, in South Port, and when she had let it even grow out a little that first winter, the care it required was too much for her. She had gotten it cut short again, and had bought a wool hat.

She stood near the platform, beginning to wonder if she ought to have bought an expensive dress. Even walking by the dress shops in the winding city streets, seeing the uncomfortable-looking buttons and high, tight necks, she could not reconcile her creeping skin with the women she saw marveling over the styles. She would tighten her scarf around her face and keep moving. But for this one day, perhaps, she should have had the Master splurge on some finery. Some of the women in the audience wore slippers, and she shuddered to think how cold they must be, but thought about her own worn and scuffed pair of boots.

Her wandering thoughts were snapped back to the present by the White Master calling her name. She moved up onto the platform, feeling self-conscious in a way she had never felt before in her life. Palia was the only apprentice becoming a Journeywoman, so the ceremony gave her appointment more lavish attention than only a year previous when there had been many Journeymen, and a Special Quest, named at once. As the White Master droned, she stood in front of the assembly, not knowing exactly what to do during the interminable speech about the Gray Tower’s history and what Master Aeral meant to the school and how she would be upholding that tradition. She tried not to fidget. She tried not to be too stiff. They were not, after all, looking at her. They were watching a ceremony, and each person’s thoughts were likely as distracted and wandering as hers.

Then it was time to name her Protector. As Anror came to the platform, many of the soon-to-be-Knights near the platform looked crestfallen, and a few low murmurs escaped the gathered crowd. Who was Anror, anyway? All that was known is that he came from a minor landholder’s estate, and was at quite a distance from inheriting it. Such a person had little prospect. Yet that was the way of the College: rarely did the rank of the student count as the entire picture, as badly as these students might wish it. They simply could not see the larger picture that the Masters and Headmasters saw. Anror took Palia’s hand, smiling broadly at her. She tried to return the smile, but was uncomfortable on the stage. At least he helped her by taking all of the focus off of her. She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back. He did look dashing, in his full dress uniform, now with a Star of Sorcery pinned to his baldric.

The focus was soon off of them, as the various Masters graduated their apprentices and offered them various appointments in the College and around the realm. Then the Headmaster knighted the graduating apprentices from his College. After the ceremony, the lone Journeywoman and her Protector filed out at the head of the other graduating apprentices and knights. They escaped the Great Hall, whose confines were becoming too hot with the concentration of people in their best, and heaviest, finery.

“So,” Anror said when they had moved out past the large foyer and gathering area in front of the Great Hall into the outside. His breath crystallized in the cold air. The Great Hall was on the southern end of the campus, which meant they had some distance to go to get back to the Towers. “What plans do you have for this evening?”

“I have none,” Palia answered quickly, with a tone that suggested her answer would settle the matter.

“You have no one here at all to celebrate with?” Anror asked with surprise, although she had mentioned being an orphan. In the month leading to graduation, Anror had successfully lured Palia to the Stony Knob on several occasions for a meal, and they had talked. The more he was able to draw her out, the more he liked her, but she was reluctant to open up to him. He hoped that, as time passed, they’d get to know each other, but he’d resigned himself to having fallen for a tough nut to crack. But then, he had plenty of time, the rest of his life, to crack it. He had grown to be more fond of Palia than he would have imagined. Most girls had enjoyed, but soon tired of, his flattery, and when he had gotten tired of the chase, they had been more than willing to let him give up. Palia would not respond to flattery at all in any way, which forced him to try to relate to her on another level, a level he had never before ascended with a girl. One look or casual touch from her had come to mean more to him than the most lavish attention or captivating smiles from other girls he had known. At some point, Anror wondered if he were simply getting old, and this was what happened when one got old: the fires banked low, almost burned out, and a hot-blooded young man began to cool. Still, the idea of spending the cool winter nights with Palia warmed him in a way that spending time with girls oozing charm and playing games never had. And winter had been so cold this year.

“No one,” Palia said shortly, walking briskly back to the Gray Tower, allowing him to keep up if he wanted to.

“I don’t either,” Anror said, catching up with her. “My best friend would have been here. Of course. But I’m the third son of a minor holding and was sent here to get me out of the way. How about we spend a quiet evening together?”

“That would be fine,” Palia said with no particular inflection in her voice. She kept walking, and he kept following, through the twists and turns that made up the College of Sorcery. Occasionally they were under the open sky and the rain fell on them, but Palia never altered her pace.

Back in the Gray Tower, Anror gathered Palia up in a smothering hug, burying his face in her short hair. His cheek could feel the dampness in her hair from their walk out in the open. He was overcome by the realization that he would spend his life with this beautiful, smart, powerful girl and be her loyal and steadfast Protector. A wave of sentimental feeling enraptured him briefly. Maybe other people thought she was boring and dumpy, but he found her to be perfect at that moment. Or maybe he was relieved that he had to no longer put off the decision about his future, for it had been made for him. Maybe some of all of that.

Palia did not respond much to his embrace, and quickly backed out of it. Her eyes stayed downcast. “I wish I could be as excited as you are,” Palia said, “but what is ahead for us casts a pall over what should be a happy day. This Quest could easily be more than we can handle.” He thought to himself that Palia would somehow find a pall to cast over any happy day so she wouldn’t have to enjoy it. Palia bade him to have a seat, and she disappeared into the kitchen. He plopped onto the worn but comfortable loveseat and stretched his legs out. He’d been standing a long time. Anror soon heard a whistling sound which indicated what she was doing.

The Gray Master came into the tower, having made his early escape from the formalities of the day, likely excusing himself because of his age and the damp weather. He plopped down into the leather chair, after throwing aside his heavy wool gown. Palia came in from the kitchen with a steaming mug of tea, which the Master gladly took. His hands trembled a little as he balanced the mug in them, but likely that was from the unusually cold spring day.

Palia sat down on the loveseat, after Anror cleared aside a stack of parchments. When she was seated, he put an arm around her waist. She surprised him by leaning into his embrace and putting her head on his shoulder.

Master Aeral said to them, “No surprise what comes next, to either of you. You are tasked, somehow, with stopping a wight. Such a thing has not been done since the founding of the Colleges. I wish I could somehow give you advice on your Quest. But Palia, dear, you know more about wights than anyone.”

“If only I knew more,” Palia said with a note of sadness in her voice.

“My advice, such as it is,” the old Master said slowly, with a liberal sip of tea accompanied by a shudder of pleasure from its warmth, “would be to travel east, over to Arrei. The bazaar.” 

“I’d pretty much decided on that,” Palia said. Anror was somewhat taken aback at the realization that a Protector was little more than a hired guard. But her head was on his shoulder, and her hand had begun playing with the trim of his cloak. Wasn’t that an indication that he was more than a glorified mercenary?

“I still think there will be book dealers there with some of the missing pieces,” Aeral said, “and we’ve arranged for a generous stipend in case you find any. Of course, anyone from South Port ought to be able to drive a hard bargain.” Anror looked down, but the expression on Palia’s face did not change.

“That is the plan, then,” Palia said, “to go east to Arrei’s bazaars, and find out anything we can.”

“Go to Coaa Street,” Aeral advised, “and see if Loriad’s Stall is still there. If you will find anything at all, Loriad will either have it or know where you will get it. He has handled more books in his life than we have in the Great Library.”

After a lull in the conversation dragged on a little too long, Anror asked, “Should I begin moving into the Tower now?” He wasn’t sure what the exact protocol was for a new Protector.

“Better yet, why don’t we leave in the morning?” Palia asked. “You can move in if we get back.” Aeral shot her a strange look at her choice of words. Anror agreed to leave in the morning. There was little to pack, since their journey would be over highly civilized lands with good inns. They were going back towards territory he knew well, to the east. His childhood home on the landholding lay about five day’s ride east of Arrei. He would be able to fulfill his role as Protector by guiding his Journeywoman through these familiar areas.

Anror agreed that they should all turn in, so they would be ready for an early start, and got up to leave. Master Aeral said a farewell, and disappeared into the kitchen to rinse out his now-empty tea cup. Palia followed Anror to the door, and stood with him for a moment just outside of it. Anror put his hands on her shoulders, meeting her eyes and capturing her gaze. “I don’t care what people say about you,” Anror began. He had been building a long and sentimental speech in his mind which would reveal what he thought were his true feelings towards Palia, in a way that would warm her heart towards him. He hoped.

“I don’t either,” Palia said, placing her hand on his cheek and giving him an ephemeral, momentary kiss on his lips. “You’re my Protector, and I’m very happy about that, no matter what happens. We’ll leave at dawn tomorrow.”  She disappeared into the Tower. Without saying anything, he realized she had told him she understood his true feelings and accepted them. And returned them.

Anror left the Tower, floating through the corridor and not even touching the ground. He paused to take a deep breath of the night air in the open gallery. He realized that he had been followed.

The Gray Master stood in the dim light of the gallery outside the stone corridor that led back to the Tower. “Son, I want to give you some advice of your own, for what that’s worth.” Anror cautiously agreed that advice from a great Master was worth a great deal, wondering what he would say. “You’re Palia’s Protector now. Not just from physical harm, my boy. She’s stubborn, and when she digs in on something, she never lets go. Reminds me of me when I was younger. But she’s slow to do anything. You need to prod her. She’ll get mad at you.” Aeral saw the smile splitting Anror’s face. “You’ve found that out. Just don’t let her win all the time, or you’ll never get anywhere.”

“Whatever happened to your Protector, Old One?” Anror asked impulsively.

“That’s a story for another day,” Old Aeral said with a wistful, sad tone, “although I perhaps don’t have so many days left as I used to. The cold bites into me so. Don’t get old, that’s my real advice.” Aeral winked at him. “But when you get back, perhaps, I’ll tell you about my own Protector and some of our adventures together. Nothing like you’re going to be having, of course, but Wrena and I had some adventures. And, sometimes, I think she’s still there, and I hear her voice. But she’s gone on before me. Don’t get old.” Aeral regarded the newly minted protector gravely. “I know that Palia will make one of the greatest Masters this College has ever seen, if she makes it through this Quest. You just need to make sure she does, and take care of her, and try to get her over her stubbornness. Now go get some rest, because tomorrow is going to be quite a day.”

Anror turned and left the College of Sorcery, his mind in a whirl. He remembered Palia’s head resting on his shoulder, and the old Master’s words, and vaguely the eastern bazaars of his youth. What did a wight even look like, anyway? Did Palia even know? He fancifully imagined them buying lunch from one at a bazaar and not even realizing it.

On to ... Chapter Sixteen: Searching For Clues