Demetrius woke up in the tiny room he called home. All around him were stacks of books, borrowed from the school library. His bed was a simple mattress piled high with blankets to keep off the chill. There were no windows, but he did have a magic lamp that he had been issued, along with a permit, after he had finally grown tired of running through candles and worked up the courage to ask the dean for it.
The ‘lamp’ was a small stone that fit easily into Demetrius’ hand. The use of the lamp was supposedly effortless magic. He was told he needed only adjust his thinking. Demetrius picked up the stone from where it lay next to his bed and concentrated. Nothing happened. He ran a hand through his unruly black hair and tried again. A faint flickering glow, and then darkness again. Demetrius felt like he was arguing with the stone.
“I know you believe you glow!” He whined, concentrating as hard as he could now. Still, nothing happened.
Frustrated that he wouldn’t be able to read this morning, Demetrius got up from his mattress and pulled his colorless smock on over his gangly frame. He opened the tiny door that let out of a hidden panel into a wide and empty hallway. The room Demetrius still slept in had once been a storage compartment for cleaning supplies. The panel was hidden in the wall to keep truant students from attempting to hide inside. Sometimes Demetrius thought mirthlessly it still was a place where cleaning supplies were stored.
Today was Fireday, which meant that it was the last day of the week before the students had their two free days. To Demetrius, this meant only that it was the day when he cleaned all of the offices in the administrative building. There were eight, and he was responsible for cleaning seven of them. It was an all day task.
Weak light was filtering in through the windows and Demetrius’ feet carried him lazily through the hall. Above him in the men’s and boy’s dormitories, the students who were either too young to be permitted, or too poor to afford off-campus housing slept on. He reached the heavy wooden door and a chill wind embraced him as he stepped outside into the plaza.
A mist hung over the courtyard, and Demetrius thought idly of doubling back for his coat. It was high summer, but at the break of dawn the air was still chilly. The plaza was unsurprisingly deserted as Demetrius made his way towards the cafeteria. He started up the short set of stone stairs leading into the cafeteria building, his mind swimming in thoughts of food and warmth when he saw it.
FE,AR
The letters were half again as tall as he was, glowing red, then orange, then yellow and red again. They were painted on the enormous double wooden doors leading into the cafeteria. Demetrius groaned inwardly. He was not going to enjoy his morning meal knowing that Meredith had either seen this or was about to see it.
He opened the left hand door, pushing the FE inward, and scanned the cafeteria. A few students sat at one of the tables eating and chatting amiably over their trays of food. Demetrius wondered if they were the ones who had painted the doors, and thought dark thoughts about them.
He made his way to the back of the cafeteria ad into the kitchen through the staff door. Ordinarily the kitchens were a bustling hive of noise and activity, but this early in the morning even the bakers were subdued. They uttered half-hearted greetings to Demetrius as he passed them and their massive ovens on his way to the scullery.
From the taps he filled two buckets. One with an alchemical scouring agent, and one with rinse water. He made his way back to the heavy double doors. It was grueling work scrubbing the graffiti off the doors. The paint was clearly some sort of alchemical agent and it took Demetrius the better part of an hour to get all of the graffiti off. The work was made more arduous as he had to keep stopping to let the bleary eyed students in through the doors.
By the time he had finished, the cafeteria was so full that he had to eat his toast and eggs standing up. He did this hastily, already feeling behind schedule. Though he was caught up in his own worries about the tasks that lay ahead of him, he was still uncomfortably aware of a tension in the air. At every table the students heads were huddled together and the sounds of so many combined whispers grew into a sort of hushed murmur. Demetrius was grateful to finish eating and leave.
The massive plaza that was the center of the University was filling up now. Older, wealthier students were arriving by horseback or in carriages. Demetrius noticed a fearful pressure in the air here too. Ordinarily there would have been smiling faces, hands held high to hail friends, talk about exams and plans for the free days. Fireday was usually a happy day, but today everywhere Demetrius looked he saw people scurrying into tightly knit groups. He saw people looking over their shoulders and whispering, sidelong glances cast. Fingers pointed. Students were pulling up the collars of their cloaks though the chill had left the air. Demetrius hurried through the plaza, anxious to be away from all the mounting tension.
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The admin building was a squat, single story building. It was said to be the oldest building at the University. Many of the students believed there was a vault of treasure or a dungeon hidden beneath it. Demetrius had never seen such things, if there was a basement of any sort beneath the smooth stone floor, he did not know who cleaned it.
The door was also smooth, polished stone. Demetrius looked it over and decided that yes, he would have to polish it once he was done with the offices. He sighed. It looked impossibly heavy but it swung inward on its massive hinges as if it weighed nothing. Demetrius made his way down the empty hall, passing the doors to three offices on his left. He always cleaned the office of Professor Regan first. At the end of the hall there was a hidden panel in which all of the cleaning supplies were stored, but he wouldn’t need any supplies for Professor Regan’s office. He turned right and then knocked on the first heavy wooden door on his left.
At first there was no response, so he knocked again, harder this time. A slightly dreamy woman’s voice called out, “Yes? Who is it?”
He smiled and replied, “It’s Demetrius, to clean your office, Professor Regan.”
“Oh, come in, come in!”
Demetrius opened the door and carefully stepped inside. Professor Regan was the director of research and development, and she was said to be brilliant, but Demetrius had his doubts about the young woman. Every surface of the office was covered in stacks of paper. Half completed enchanted scrolls hovered around the desk that the slender Professor Regan stood behind, hunched over with a quill in each hand. She seemed to be simultaneously drawing diagrams and making annotations onto a parchment. Her unkempt brown hair stood out around her head like a mane, and the green robes she was wearing looked like they had been slept in. Or not slept in, for days.
Demetrius carefully made his way through the maze of papers strewn across the floor and over to the refuse bin that sat next to her desk. “Just the trash then today?” Demetrius asked eyeballing the large picture window that was so covered in diagrams it may as well have been a wall.
“What?” Professor Regan asked looking up from her work momentarily, “Oh, yes, that’s fine.”
Demetrius picked up the bin and made his way out of her office. There were large metal bins outside of each building on the campus for refuse. It would be stored there until it was used as fodder for students practicing spellcasting. Demetrius empties all of the balled up pieces of paper and discarded pieces of fruit into the big metal box and made his way back inside.
When he returned to Professor Regan’s office, she was no longer alone. A massive man loomed in front of her desk. He stood ramrod straight, his feet planted firmly on two stacks of papers on the floor. Demetrius could easily make out the trail of wreckage his boots had wrought on his way to the desk. The man’s bulk was enhanced by the heavy looking black armor he wore, with horn-like spikes protruding from his shoulders. There was a red and black helmet shaped like some sort of horrifying demonic face sitting on the desk, the man’s bald white pate looked shabby sitting between the armored protrusions. At his hip was a long, dangerous looking thin blade that dangled precariously without sheath or scabbard from a hook on his belt. Director Lane. Demetrius sighed, holding the waste bin in his hands standing at the threshold.
“Listen little girl, you’re either with us or against us!” Director Lane roared into Professor Regan’s face, veins stood out on the back of his neck and he waved his arms aggressively, “We built this establishment to Censor and Control!”
Professor Regan looked back at her notes and continued making annotations, “Such a silly motto, your department has. Censor and Control?” She raised her eyes but not her head, looking through her dark eyebrows, “This is a school, Kimble. I am here to learn from my fellow wizards, and progress human knowledge.”
“You are an impudent child wearing her mother’s cloak! Do you really think that the past can’t repeat itself?” Demetrius was contemplating just setting the bin inside the doorway and walking away, but he was also afraid to move.
He took a deep breath and mapped a new path to her desk where he could return the bin when a tiny chirping voice peeped in his ear, “Oh man! You should watch that one! She’s a firecracker, too bad she doesn’t last too long.” Cyndy had returned, and the sound of her tiny voice startled Demetrius into dropping the waste bin.
Director Lane turned around instantly at the sound of the bin hitting the floor, his sword was in his right hand glowing with blue flames. A violent looking ball of white light was held in his left hand before his face. Demetrius screamed and slammed himself to the ground, both of his arms protectively shielding the top of his head.
Professor Regan shrieked, “There you go! Jumping at serving boys! And you deign to tell me off, for reckless magic use!” She sniffed derisively and whipped a fresh piece of heavy parchment out of her desk. Director Lane hooked his sword back to his belt reflexively, and the white light puffed out to nothing just as fast.
He could hear Cyndy giggling ferociously in his ear. Slowly he lowered his hands, and raised his face ever so slightly.
The bull of a man pointed his finger threateningly at her, “Are you writing up another fucking account for Stinson?”
In reply she raised one eyebrow and continued writing. Demetrius slowly started to stand up. He needed to leave before he was pulled into this ‘account.’ Sure enough, before he hit the doorway he heard Professor Regan say “A servant boy, Lane? Flies, next?”
Demetrius almost started running when he heard Director Lane’s scream, “At least I don’t have my head so far up my own ass that I can’t see the writing on the gods damned walls!”
“Oh? I always encourage school spirit.” The following sound rattled the window frames, and Demetrius was happy to dodge into the cleaning closet.
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