“Lucas?” Harry echoed in shock.
“Yes,” Todd said, pushing ahead, “he wants to enroll his eldest two children at the wizard’s tower school.” Todd set the physical coins on the desk. They were in the back of the guard's storefront. The store was much quieter in between Challenge days. A set of bunks lined the back of the space that looked identical to the ones the recruits built on the training trip, only each one was also equipped with a pallet. “Grandmother told him that recruiters come to our square in the fall. Lucas would like you to sign his son and daughter up.”
“There’s a school at the wizard’s tower now? Who are these recruiters?” Harry asked.
“I think they might be you,” Todd responded. “Since you set up the trainees for the trip. I don’t believe Grandmother has decided yet. The school is going to be a lot like that trip, only three months long. Also it won’t just be for warriors, wizards, scavengers and hunters. There will be a crafting option too.” Todd explained. He went on to tell Harry the details that he knew, both from conversations with Grandmother and from the posters he put up in the eastern villages.
“I want you to keep the coins in case it doesn’t work out. Grandmother has some crazy scheme to climb down a bottomless shaft and dig through solid rock. If we all end up dead I want you to take them back to Lucas. I promised him I’d bring it back to him if I couldn’t get his kids enrolled,” Todd explained. Harry fingered the small pile of coins. There was one green and four silver coins.
“Alright,” Harry said finally. He picked up the coins and put them in a pocket. “How many students will there be?”
“Thirty on the first round from Home Square,” Todd said. “We are shooting for 120 students, sixty from the structure and sixty from the villages. Grandmother wants thirty of the structure students to come from outside Home Square. She’s sent Valin out to find out if that is possible or not.”
“Keeping it down to thirty is going to be tough,” Harry said. “I’ve got a list around here somewhere with about a hundred names on it of kids who want to go on the next training trip. There are even three selkies on the list. Would selkies count as outside the square?” The training trip was a huge success. All thirty children came back sporting new spells and skills. Some of their parents secretly learned new things by asking their children about the lessons. There was an internal contest going on among the scavengers on who could find the oddest spell hint. Terence, young Jane's father, was in the lead with a set of shaped ceiling lights. No one could figure out what the room was supposed to be. Which reminded Harry that he needed to take Todd out there and get his opinion.
“Selkies?” Todd asked. “How did they even hear about the trip? They are always so protective of their children I can’t imagine letting them go off with a bunch of humans.” Todd realized how Grandmother felt when she saw that order for a ceramic topped workbench.
“Two of them are what we would consider young adults, what Companion calls a halfling. One is Ray-Do-So’s grandchild and is a weanling or child,” Harry reported.
“They would definitely be from outside the square,” Todd responded. “Make sure you tell Grandmother about them when I am there. I want to see her reaction.” Harry shared a smile with his nephew.
“We also want to hire adults to stay with the children at night. The Speedwell’s housing is set up so we will need one adult for every eight children or fifteen total. I put out advertisements in the villages, so hopefully we’ll pick up some people there. A residence supervisor will get housing, meals and ten silver, if they stay the full term,” Todd explained. “We don’t want them to bring any family. Grandmother doesn’t want the Speedwell to be turned into a housing unit. She wants it to be a serious school.”
“That should be easy enough. Lots of people want to get a peek at the wizard’s tower,” Harry responded. “How was the rest of your trip? You were gone longer than I expected.”
“Grandmother hired a couple clerks for her shop in Londontown. Afterwards we went out to the Speedwell and started up the preparations there.” Todd was at a loss to explain the robotic army that rose up at Grandmother’s, no Chief Engineer Whitman’s command. The robots were refreshing housing units, building workshops and grading roads. Todd wasn’t completely certain he understood or believed it, and he saw her do it. “We stopped back at Londontown on the way back and found her shop was almost completely sold out. We spent a couple days scavenging the halls around the square to build the inventory back up.”
“Tina said a minor royal opened a furniture shop in Londontown. She told me it has stuffed chairs and she wants one. She wanted to know if she could hire guards to take a caravan to Londontown,” Harry said. “I told her it was really Grandmother’s shop and she would need to ask about a caravan to Londontown before I could hire the guards out.”
“The stuffed chairs were all sold when we got back from the Speedwell. We found a sofa during the sweep. Grandmother carried it back and it ended up with a decided purple cast to it. It mostly faded back to a tan by the time we left,” Todd commented. “Honestly, I am sure it's sold by now too. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about the caravan until winter.”
Harry was rubbing his head and mumbling things. Todd thought he caught the word sofa. Amused Todd asked his uncle how things were going in the square.
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Todd sat down at Grandmother’s table for dinner. It was four days until the holiday and two days after their return from Londontown. There was an odd look on his face as he stared at the spear in his hand. Grandmother set her tea down and took a closer look at the weapon herself. It was a beautiful piece of work. Wood handled with a bronze spearpoint, it was roughly the same as the spear Todd lost to the first digger they fought. On quality this one was a whole different level. The wooden handle glowed. It’s breathlessly smooth finish included a complex leather wrap where Todd held it. The point was shaped like a leaf. A pattern impressed into its surface, added to the effect. A red tassel hung from just below the bronze point. Grandmother wasn’t certain what its purpose was.
“That is a lovely spear. The wood looks like the same quality as Joe’s personal bow,” Grandmother commented. “Has Ellen seen that spear point? With that pattern impressed in it Alex will want it for a piece of art.”
“Joe did the woodwork,” Todd reported. “As a sign of the union of our squares, or some nonsense. Our local crafters did the rest. It’s a gift from the innkeeper.”
“That was very kind of her,” Grandmother replied. In her head Grandmother was wondering why the innkeeper would be giving Todd a spear.
“She claims that everyone's absolute favorite part of ‘the inn is never full’ was the turd hunt. She noticed I lost my old spear so she provided this one. Apparently ‘The Todd’ can’t face the jungle of the sanitary facilities without his spear.”
Grandmother kept a straight face. She only vaguely remembered that during last year’s event they were searching for a way to spawn sanitary facilities in the upgraded rest. If she remembered correctly, Todd was looking for a flower, seed or some other indications of how the plants multiplied and he didn’t find anything. It wasn’t until they were at the ruined sanitary facility below the rest that Muriel found the first seed pod. The pods were long, wrinkled and brown. They curled randomly as they dried. When found next to the composting plants that served as toilets in the structure, the finder’s mind did tend to think of poop.
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Todd was really giving the spear a dirty look now. Grandmother couldn’t believe that such a quality weapon deserved that much disgust.
“That doesn’t seem that bad,” Grandmother commented. “I doubt there will be as many rented rooms as last year, now that everyone is paying their own way. It shouldn’t take too long.”
“I didn’t visit all the rooms last year,” Todd commented. “There simply wasn’t time. The randomness of my visits added to the fun of it. The worst part is that to get people to let me check I promised them a reward if I found something. Everyone is dying to see what the reward will be.”
“What did you plan to give them last year?” Grandmother asked.
“Coins. This,” Todd said, shaking the spear and making the tassel dance, “makes me believe that won’t be good enough this year.”
“Hmm…” Grandmother said. “I wouldn’t worry about it. You didn’t even find a flower last year. What are the chances?”
“Of course I am going to find a seed pod,” Todd announced. “It’s a Narrative. ‘The Todd’ braves the jungle of the sanitary facilities with his trusty spear. He gives a reward to the renter of the room when he finds the mythical turd!”
Grandmother couldn’t help it, she cracked up. It was such a relief for her to see Control screwing with someone else for a change. Todd was staring at her with a touch of horror. Grandmother collected herself. Todd was right that it was a Narrative, and you had to be careful with those. Even though this one was entirely in a square, Grandmother wouldn’t put it past Control to spawn some sort of man eating composting plant in the middle of their holiday, in order to throw a tragic ending in there. The key to Narrative was to try and turn them in a non-destructive direction.
“With a word like turd in there, this is a children’s event,” Grandmother offered. She had a sudden ugly thought of a composting plant that ate children. “You need to think like a child. What is ‘The Todd’,” Grandmother said, making the air quotes with her hands, “known for? He is a cook in the inn’s kitchen.” He was a guardian that protected those he loved from danger, but Grandmother was not going to let her thoughts head in that direction. “He feeds people. You should reward them with food of some kind. Something sweet, like candy or a dessert.”
Todd stopped glaring at his new spear and looked thoughtful.
“I could make a cake that looks like a turd,” Todd mused.
“Good,” Grandmother responded. “You can serve it with a pale juice that looks like pee. Keep it juice and not beer so it is clearly for children.”
“What if I made a whole feast? I could proclaim that I was feeding them up so they can properly care for the plant,” Todd said.
“Oh, that’s good,” Grandmother said. “Maybe ‘The Todd’ is a secret plant lover. He worries about the care of his inn’s composting plants. He has the spear, not to brave the jungle of the sanitary facilities, but to protect the composting plants from guests who don’t nurture them. When he finds a turd it is proof that the guests love the plants too, so he rewards them.”
“Hmm…” Todd murmured, staring off into space in an almost perfect copy of Grandmother’s thinking pose. Companion appeared and dropped onto his bench seat. Todd didn’t even blink.
“What's wrong with Todd?” Companion asked.
“He’s thinking up a children's mini event to run during the ‘inn is never full’ holiday,” Grandmother explained.
“An event for children?” Companion queried. “Can I come along?”
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Companion, it turned out, had an ulterior motive for wanting to come along on the turd hunt. He carried a huge leather sack tied to the end of his war ax. Grandmother recognized the sack as one of the quick bags Ellen made to bring back stone and clay from the south gallery. The sack contained a large variety of small toys. Companion gifted a toy to every child in the rooms Todd visited. Almost all the rooms Todd visited contained children. They were carefully picked by the innkeeper, who knew who was staying in each room.
Companion’s sack contained clay animals, wooden carts, alphabet blocks, puzzles, marbles, spinning flyers, picture books, pan flutes and wooden tops. Grandmother could remember some of those toys coming up in conversation recently, but others she didn't recognize. Companion made a lot of them himself, but some he purchased.
The event was to run from midday to midday, but early on the second day as Grandmother sat down to breakfast she could see that today would be a calmer version. Children ran through the halls of the inn for half the night. Exhausted parents only managed to get the last ones to bed in the early hours of the morning. The early risers this morning were all childless adults, of which there were very few in the structure. Irene thought she should come up with a special morning event for them next year.
As Grandmother sipped her tea, delivered by a blurry eyed grandchild of the innkeeper, Sarah came marching into the common room. “Have you seen this?” she demanded, dropping one of Companion’s picture books onto the table. She collapsed into her own seat as she waited for a reply. Grandmother picked up the small book. It was about half the height of a structure notebook and only contained a few pages of vellum. A string, this one in red, was sewn into the binding on one end and tied around a stylus on the other. This particular copy looked like it experienced a hard night, with baby chew marks along the edge of the cover.
“Yes,” Grandmother said. “I thought you made them for Companion.”
“I did,” Sarah said. “Well part of it. I showed him how to use the vellum cutter and book binder and I drew up the pictures. I think Kai taught him the copy spell.” Sarah grabbed the book and opened it to the first page. “But I didn’t do that,” Sarah said, as she handed the open book over to Grandmother.
The open page showed six symbols written in a circle around a central one. It was the start symbol for enchanting. The symbols were written in the Arabic script. Each symbol was colored. The zero in the center was black, the one was yellow, the two green, three blue, four violet, five red and the six was orange.
“Watch this,” Sarah said, taking the book back from Grandmother. She set the open book on the table between them and picked up the attached stylus. She touched the tip of it to the yellow number one. She flipped to a page farther back that contained a sketch of a plant with a flower. She started filling in the petals of the flower with lines, the lines were yellow.
“Interesting,” Grandmother said. “If you can incorporate color into writing, maybe you can layer enchantments, like how the wall inscriptions with color have layers…”
“So you didn’t tell him,” Sarah said, dropping the stylus and settling back into her chair.
“No,” Grandmother replied. “I don’t know where he got it.” Grandmother tried to think of who could have told him. “Kai was by,” Grandmother said, “he wanted me to hold a clear glass marble so he could get a sample of violet for making purple glass. He was looking for a source for orange. I told him to try tying a marble to Companion, if the glass was in contact long enough it might work. Tier threes sometimes leak color when they get close to the threshold and Todd’s been trying hard to push Companion over. That is the only conversation I can recall about color since we talked about how to safely heal the trainees.”
“How is Todd trying to push Companion?” Sarah asked. As a tier three herself this seemed like pertinent information.
“Tier four is about casting from all, or nearly all, the magic trees and repetition. I told Todd I thought Companion was short using spells in the three, four and five trees. That is why Todd told Companion to try smelting the ore with lightning. Todd’s been arranging it so Companion ends up with most of the smelting work in the south gallery, since even regular smelting uses spells from the five tree,” Grandmother explained.
“So I need to cast more magic?” Sarah asked.
“You could try changing weapons,” Grandmother said. “Control loves variety. I don’t think you need to. You’re just short repetitions.” Sarah was seven years younger than her sister, who just this year reached tier four. Grandmother suspected that Companion was twenty years older. Although none of them, including Companion himself, knew exactly how old he was.
“I saw Alex and Companion trying to talk Innkeeper into a round of the stout last night after the kids finally went to bed. I don’t expect to see either of them until tomorrow,” Sarah said. “I don’t remember seeing Kai after midnight, maybe I can find him.” Sarah rose from her seat and hurried off.