Callahan returned her attention to me before the period ended.

“I want you to get a staff,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be magic to use in class, though in the long run you’re going to want something you can swing full-force without breaking. There are books about stickfighting in the library. I suggest you try reading them… there are a lot more ways to hit with a staff than what you’ve been doing.”

“Isn’t teaching that kind of thing supposed to be your job?” I asked without thinking.

“Yeah, sure… if you’d rather learn all the ways there are to beat someone with a stick from me than from a book, come see me during my office hours and we’ll take care of it,” Callahan said. “Otherwise, you can hit the library. You should be able to find something with step-by-step illustrations so you can see how you should be standing and where your hands should be.”

The class ended at a quarter till five, giving me more than two hours before the party. I didn’t know if everybody else was planning on going to dinner normally, but with Hazel in charge of food I figured there would probably be a meal’s worth, anyway. So, after not entirely un-quick trip to the healing center to take care of my face, I decided to hit the library to see what they had in the local history section… Professor Hart’s umbrage notwithstanding, looking up history stuff for a history class was less of a bullshit assignment than looking at a picture book for a fighting class was.

Apparently the local government was very serious about the whole local history initiative, because there was a little table set up in the wide gap between the history section and the next section over which had a sign on it reading “Local Spotlight”, with a logo seal for the Provincial History Commission in the bottom corner. The stuff on the table seemed to be too recent to be of use to me… the titles were all things like Enwich In The Second Century. The commission’s interest seemed to be centered from the time Prax had become a province onward.

There was a big thick volume called Magisterius University, A History… that one attracted my interest on a more personal level since MU was going to be my home for the foreseeable future, but a quick glance through it was enough to dispel that interest. The book was so dry and dull and the information it contained so random and uninteresting, there was just no way I could see any of it coming in handy even once during the years I was planning on spending at the school.

I did grab a book called Under Enwich… it was more of a coffee table book than a history book, full of drawings and pictures with the occasional paragraph of explanatory text floating among them, but it looked cool. Even if the town of Enwich had come into being after the period I was looking for, at least some of the structures underneath it were older than that and they were what had piqued my own real interest in the subject.

After making sure there was nothing else relevant on the island, I headed into the stacks. The actual local history section suffered from an imbalance between modern and pre-revolutionary, which I supposed was understandable as there would have been more history recorded in Pax since the first imperial settlers had moved in. At least it did have some sources I could use.

There was a multi-volume set of books on the history of the plains provinces, broken down into fifty year spans. I grabbed one called Plains Crusaders which covered the Kharolinian presence from 50 to 100 PE, and the next one called War of the River, which went up to 150 PE. This was still way too early, but I figured that judging by the title, the War one would answer my questions about how the Merovian paladins had lost control of the area. It was always possible I could include a summary of the details of the period as a sort of foundation or introduction for my paper.

I skipped ahead through the decades until I got to 300-350, which overlapped with the revolution and the start of the Magisterian Era. The book for these dates was thinner than the ones before it, which were thinner than the ones which came after it. Evidently, the goings-on throughout the rest of the Westering Lands during the time of the war had not attracted as much attention from imperial historians.

I didn’t much feel like hanging out in the library alone… and I was slightly afraid that I’d lose track of time and miss the beginning of the party… so I checked out my four books and I headed back to Harlowe. Amaranth and Hazel were hanging out in front of the doorway of Hazel’s room when I got to the fifth floor.

“Hey, baby!” Amaranth called. “Ooh, what’ve you got there?” she asked, noting my much-fuller-than-usual book bag.

“Just some history books,” I said. “I went to the library after my weapons class.”

“Oh, how fun!” she said. “Did Steff go with you?”

“No, she had to go turn something in,” I said, not wanting to say that she’d been returning a possibly evil weapon stolen from among the effects of the dead in front of Hazel. “Where’s Two?”

“She’s off giving Miss Delia Daella a private cooking lesson,” Hazel said.

“So… have we figured out how we’re getting her to the party room at seven-thirty?” I asked.

“Oh, that was easy,” Hazel said. “I told her to go there then, and she said ‘okay.’”

“Oh, right,” I said. Easiest surprise party ever.

“And Dee told Two that they could get dinner after their lesson and that we would all understand if she didn’t show up at the cafeteria, which was true,” Amaranth said. “Dee didn’t seem comfortable with lying to Two, and honestly, I’m not sure I would be, either. We could tell her that it’s okay for friends to lie for nice surprises and things, but I’m not sure that couldn’t be used against her.” She frowned and bit her lip, her hand twitching at her side and her nails pressing into her skin. “I’m glad she’s made some inroads towards friendship with Suzi, but I could sort of see that leading to some less-than-ideal situations.”

“I hope it’s alright that I didn’t invite Suzi,” Hazel said. “She’s started tagging along when we go to the kitchen, but it seemed to me like inviting her and not the rest of the pusses would be like inviting one of a brood and not the rest, and I wasn’t about to invite the rest.”

“No, I think that’s probably the best call,” Amaranth said, still quite agitated . “Ordinarily, I would think it’s better to err on the side of inclusiveness and… well, I would have liked it if we could have just invited the whole floor, actually, but I don’t think that would have turned out very well.”

On an impulse, I set my book bag down and hurried over to her side, pressing myself against her with a hug.

“Oh, thank you, baby,” Amaranth said, returning the squeeze. “It just bothers me so much that we can’t just… I mean, I know some people will like each other’s company more than others, but I wish we could count on everybody being able to put their differences aside to celebrate one of their fellow being’s existence for a few hours one evening.”

“It’s a sad state, sure,” Hazel said, nodding. “But it’s the way of the world. Even in the shire, with nothing but gnomenkind, there’s a lot of ‘this lot doesn’t mix with that lot’. I got it from both sides, because my mother was the proper sort and my father rode the river. Folks didn’t know what to do with a girl who knew how to curtsy and swim.”

“So, what do we have to do to get ready?” I asked, not knowing what to say to that.

“Not a whole lot, really,” Amaranth said. “All of the serving stuff and the decorations have already been stowed over there. Steff’s going to come over and help us get the rest of the food over and start decorating at around seven, and then we just have to wait for Dee to bring her.”

“It should be a good crowd, if a bit on the small side,” Hazel said. “It turns out our Twofer is pretty well-liked in the cooking class. I told the folks that they don’t need to bring anything but themselves, since they’re more on the order of casual acquaintances, but I thought it would do her some good to see a load of friendly faces.”

“Celia said she might come,” Amaranth said. “But she’s a little… um…”

“Flaky?” I suggested.

“I guess, yeah,” Amaranth said. “But, Kyle’s confirmed. How about Ian?”

Oh.

Right.

“Uh…”

“Baby!” Amaranth said.

“I forgot,” I said. “We made this plan and then… all that stuff happened, and I’ve hardly seen him, and anyway, it’s not like he and Two are best friends, right?”

“No, but they are getting along better,” Amaranth said. “How’s he going to feel if he finds out he was excluded from this? And what’s Two going to think if all her friends are there and Ian isn’t?”

“I’ll go ask him,” I said, picking up my bag and heading for my room.

I get him in the mirror and explained the whole thing to him.

“It’s a little bit late to get a present,” he said.

“Yeah, sorry,” I said. “But you wouldn’t be the only one… and anyway, I got a couple things, so we can put both our names on them, right?”

“I don’t know… co-gifting is kind of a big step, Mackenzie,” he said.

“Um, you’re fucking with me, there, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “But, seriously, I’m not sure how I’d feel about that, since I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“You can pay for half if you want,” I said.

“So generous,” he said. “But, seriously, it’s the principle… I mean, I assume you’re not just talking about a gift card, right? You picked something out for her. I don’t know her that well.”

“Right, so if we’d gone shopping together you’d probably have just listened to me,” I said. “So, really…”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” he said. “If I put my name on it, it’s like saying ‘I did this. I contributed.’”

“This is kind of a random thing to care about,” I said.

“Not really,” he said. “I used to want to be a musician when I grew up.”

“Huh?”

“There have been some pretty fierce battles fought over the credits on songs,” he said. “People getting their names left off of their work, other people using their influence and position to get their names on things they have no real claim to…”

“Well, okay, how about this? The one big expensive cookbook I got will be from me, the two cheesy books of activities will be from us,” I said. “Or one can be from me and the other from you.”

“It’s still the same problem whether it’s a big book or a cheap little one,” Ian said.

“I’m trying to compromise here,” I said.

“It’s a principle, though,” he said. “You don’t compromise a principle.”

“But it isn’t a song,” I said. “I’m not going to be earning royalties on the presents I give.”

“Most musicians never make a lot of money off their work,” Ian said. “That’s what makes the credit all the more important.”

“Yeah, but…”

“I’ll go to the campus bookstore and find something,” he said.

“Like you’re going to find anything good there,” I said.

“I’d rather show up with something crappy that I picked out for myself than show up empty-handed or take credit where it’s not due,” he said. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like I’ve got some insane aversion to having my name put on the card for something I didn’t buy,” he said. “I do, but that’s no excuse for the look.”

“Ooh, card,” I said. “I knew I forgot something.”

“Maybe we should go to the bookstore together, then,” he said.

“Do they sell cards there?” I asked. I knew that in addition to school books and academic supplies, they carried a bunch of sundries and staples that students might need in the course of a week, like hygiene stuff and headache drops.

“They’ve got a small selection for slackers like you who wait to the last minute and people like me who don’t find out until the last minute because of slackers like you,” he said. “When is the deal?”

“Seven-thirty.”

“Harlowe?”

“The student union,” I said. “The party room.”

“There’s a party room?”

“Game room, whatever,” I said.

“That might be a little crowded,” he said.

“I think it’ll be okay,” I said. “We invited everybody we could think of, but that’s not a lot of people.”

“Yeah, but there tends to be some people in there every night, playing cards or darts,” Ian said. “Not that you don’t have a right to use it, too, but I could see it getting uncomfortable.”

“Oh, it’s okay,” I said. “Amaranth reserved it.”

“Huh,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

“What?” I asked.

“I didn’t realize you could.”

“Apparently,” I said.

“And you don’t see that leading to trouble?” he asked.

“Well, no, I think the idea was to avoid trouble,” I said. “I’m sure the people who use it most often are aware that it can be reserved and keep an eye on the sign-up sheet so they know when something’s going to be going on.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said sarcastically. “I’m sure you’re right.”

“Don’t give me that look,” I said.

“What look?”

“The one like I just said something horribly naive and disaster-inviting,” I said.

He laughed.

“We’ll see what happens,” he said. “The campus guard station is in back of the union, so I don’t think there will be any bloodshed, anyway. Should I grab dinner first?”

“Hazel’s providing snacks.”

“Is that a no, then?”

“Have you ever seen a shireling snack?” I asked.

“That’s a no,” he said.

“If you want to come over here around seven, you can help carry stuff,” I said. “And then we can go pick out our cards.”

“You really know how to make a guy feel included,” he said. “I’ll see you then, then.”

“Okay,” I said. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

“Just so you know, if you try and pull that same shit on me that you pulled on Callahan last week, I will smite you so hard and fast you won’t even know what hit you,” he said.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t pussyfoot around.”

“And you think she does?”

“I didn’t say that!” he said, and he turned to randomly yell at a pair of sparring students, who were startled and one of them ended up dropping his sword, which earned him a lecture from the teaching assistant.

I didn’t have anything to do… no partner, no instructions. I glanced around for Gloria, not because I was expecting her to come forward and offer to train with me, but simply because hers was the one face of all my classmates I would definitely recognize. It took me a while to spot her, because she was wrapped up in a bulky padded suit that looked like it might have been pretty warm, but also did a lot to hide her familiar form. She was fighting with a swordsman and doing pretty well at it. I watched her fending off his attacks and returning them for a while, my eyes drawn to the clashing blades if for no other reason than there wasn’t a lot else to look at.

“So did you end up going to the fights, Emo Kid?” Callahan asked from right behind me. I yelped in surprise. “Relax, I didn’t stab you. Did you go to the fights?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said.

“Did you learn anything?”

“It was a Saturday,” I said. “I didn’t think learning was required.”

“Sitting and watching something for hours and not learning anything takes a lot of talent or dedication,” she said.

“I’m not stupid,” I said. “I just don’t care that much about fighting.”

“Yeah? How do you feel about eating?”

“Uh… conflicted,” I said, wondering why, of all the things in the world, she would ask about that.

“Okay, how about breathing?” she asked. “Survival? Living?”

“I’m pretty much in favor of those things,” I said.

“Then you of all the people in this school need to learn to care about fighting,” she said. “A week ago you proved that you’re willing to fight to survive.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I want to…”

“Funny thing… most people who are fighting for survival don’t want to be in whatever position they’re in,” Callahan said. “You in particular will live longer if you stay out of as many fights as you can. When you’re fighting orcs or humans, the quickest way to lose the war is winning the wrong battle.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.

“Think about the terrorist fireballings a couple years back,” she said. “Think about the orcs sacking the Mother Isles after their camps got crushed. Think about the PTA meetings that would have followed if you’d ever fought back in high school.”

“What do you know about my high school career?” I asked, my eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“Nothing specific,” she said. “But I know you spent years learning not to fight, and that’s the obvious explanation.”

“Yeah, okay, you’re very perceptive,” I said. “So, at the end of the day, I probably shouldn’t be here.”

“No, you shouldn’t be getting into fights you can avoid,” she said. “But when you’re in one, you should defend yourself, the same as anybody else. Take off that coat.”

“I don’t really have a lot on underneath…”

“Do I care?” she asked. “It’s not that cold, and when you start doing more than standing there with your thumb in your ass you’ll warm up anyway.”

With more than a little reluctance, I complied… all the while wondering what the class would be like once snow was actually on the ground. Would Callahan move it indoors under any circumstances?

“Now go put Johnson’s daggers on the table before you hurt yourself with them, and get us two of the sticks laying on the ground next to it,” she said.

“Sticks?” I repeated.

“Sticks,” she said. “One for me, one for you.”

“You want to fight with sticks,” I said, making sure I was understanding her correctly. Callahan the barbarian with the fancy jeweled greatsword was asking me to get her a stick… there had to be a trick in there somewhere.

“Don’t ask me what I want to do to you, Emo Kid,” she said. “Not if you want to sleep at night. Now go get the fucking sticks, unless you want to fight me sword and dagger.”

“Okay… you’re the boss,” I said, and I started to back in the direction of the equipment table.

I only turned my back on her after almost ending up on my ass because of the uneven terrain. The part of me that believed that Callahan was going to stab me in the back was even more sure she’d be on me in a second if she saw me go down. I wasn’t a big fan of nature shows, but I’d seen enough of them to get a pretty good idea how a predatory mind worked.

There was a small pile of wooden staves sitting in the grass next to the table. I picked up two of them and headed back towards Callahan. I held one out to her, glad that I didn’t have to get too close to do it.

“You didn’t box them,” she said after taking hers.

Fucking hell.

“You didn’t tell me to,” I said. “Are these even magic?”

“No,” she said. “But that doesn’t matter to us mere mortals. Go box yours.”

“What about yours?”

“I’ll use it as it is,” she said. “It’s not like it can injure you.”

It couldn’t, but I had a feeling I was going to be sore as hell by the end of class.

“Now come at me,” she said after I’d mocked my weapon and returned.

“I don’t know how to fight with a staff,” I said.

“You don’t know how to fight without one, either,” she said. “But you showed better instincts with that hayseed polearm of yours than you ever did with the hunting knife you had before. I think it suits you better, too. A longer weapon lets you put more force behind it, which is good because physical strength is the one thing you have loads of. It also gives you a greater margin of error… more room to make a mistake and not have it cost you the battle or more. Plus, when you trip and land on it, it won’t end up in your guts.”

“So am I supposed to swing this at you?” I asked.

“No, you point the end at me and go ‘pew pew pew’,” Callahan said. “Does it look like a giant wand to you? You’ve got about five seconds to start moving or I’m just going to stomp you into the field.”

I tried to remember what I’d done with the pitchfork. I’d fought Gloria with it once while not possessed, though when I thought back to how I’d felt at the time it was possible I had been under its influence. At one point I’d grabbed it near the end and swung it like a really long sword… that had been a powerful blow, but it seemed to me like it would be child’s play for Callahan to see it coming and avoid or deflect it.

On the other hand, if I kept my hands spread apart with the staff in front of me, as it seemed like such weapons were normally held in pictures of people using them… then I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do next. Try to bop her with one of the ends?

While I was figuring that out, she decided she’d had enough waiting and came at me, with an overhead swing. I jumped back and brought mine up to block. The impact of her staff on mine almost jarred it from my grip.

“See? Better instincts,” she said, attacking a few more times. She wasn’t quite doing the slow-mo thing that Gloria had done to show me how to defend, but I knew she wasn’t going all out… if only because I was still on my feet. “Now attack me back.”

“I don’t know how,” I said.

“It doesn’t take a magic word,” she said. “There aren’t any moving parts. Hit me back.”

Okay, obviously, it was a stick and the way you hit somebody with a stick was… well… you took the stick and you hit them with it. But Callahan made it look graceful and effortless. I couldn’t see how she got so much reach out of it with her hands spaced apart. I’d clobbered Gloria with my pitchfork by grabbing it near the end and swinging it like a really long club or a sword… but that would mean giving up my protective bar, and I didn’t think it would work so well against Callahan, anyway.

“You fought Dhambizao because she threatened your right to exist,” Callahan said while I tried to figure out what to do. “I hoped that would be enough to make a lasting impression, but if it’s going to take that every single time, you’re going to be in for an awfully long semester.”

“Um… could you just attack me again?” I asked.

“You aren’t going to play at defense for the entire class,” Callahan said.

“I want to see…”

“Okay, watch,” she said, and she went into a series of attacks without further prelude.

The first one almost took me unaware, but after I caught it and stepped back I was able to watch her hands on the next two. As she swung the right end towards me, her right hand slid down towards her left, giving her the longer reach and more force, then when she fell back into her ready stance it returned to its original position. The whole thing seemed like one fluid motion, and the staff pivoted against her hand like the throwing arm of a trebuchet.

I tried it. The wood dragged against my skin, making the swing clumsy and slow. Callahan didn’t even bother to block the blow. She just stepped backwards and let me whiff the air where she’d been standing.

“Fucking hell, Emo Kid, don’t grip it so tight,” Callahan said. “I’d hate to be your boyfriend. You know, for a variety of reasons.”

I glared at her.

“Try it again,” she said.

I did, relaxing my grip a bit. Out of frustration, I put more strength into it this time, too, and was surprised by how fast the tip of the staff moved through its arc. Callahan once again backed away instead of blocking, though I think that may have been a tactical call rather than a statement on the quality of my attack.

Not that it was a thing of beauty, exactly… the force kind of swung me halfway around with it and knocked me off balance. I braced myself mentally for the vicious counterattack I knew would be coming before I had a chance to brace myself physically.

I got something else entirely instead.

“Don’t swing like that unless you’re absolutely sure your weapon’s going to run into something that will stop it,” Callahan said. “Don’t be afraid of your strength, but don’t be such an idiot with it, either.”

“Why are you being so nice?” I asked.

“Did you hear the ‘idiot’ part?”

“You could have laid me out with one hit there, but you stayed back and critiqued.”

“Yeah, and you know I could have,” she said.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I just said that.”

“So there’s nothing to prove there,” she said. “Do you think I beat on you because I get off on it? Maybe if you had even half a dick somewhere on your body… well, anyway, you know now that your little demon strength and your little hellfire and your little racial rep isn’t going to make the difference against me. You should by extension realize that this means they won’t make the difference against everybody else, either. If you’re ever going to be ready to learn, this is the time.”

She threw her staff away like it was a javelin and called out to another student.

“Marco!”

“What?” he asked, coming over. I noticed he was coming from the advanced section. He was a wiry, dark-skinned guy with a staff made out of blue wood capped in metal.

“Double-mock your staff and give her a copy,” Callahan said. “Then put her through the paces. Don’t go easy, but remember: spar, not fight.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, without irony or excessive inflection.

“I’ve got other shit to do this period,” Callahan said to me. “People to teach, elves to break… but I’m going to be keeping an eye on you. If somebody wants to fight, I can teach them how. If they know how to fight, I can help them do it better. I honestly wonder if I can do anything for you.”

She sounded almost sad when she said this, and it wasn’t a mocking “oh you’re so pathetic” sadness… it was honest-to-goodness regret. It was the kind of thing that would have made me feel really disappointed in myself, if I’d looked up to Callahan in any way.

As it was, it only made me a little disappointed.