Once In a Blue Moon (7 page)

Hawk and Fisher got there early. They always liked to make a point of that, taking their seats on the dais at the rear of the Audition Hall, so they could watch the place filling up. Long experience had taught them that if they didn’t, potential students would look in, see the empty chairs, and go away again. Because if Hawk and Fisher weren’t there, it meant the Auditions weren’t anywhere near getting started, so there was no point in showing their faces. Besides, Hawk and Fisher liked to sit back and watch the students gather, study their hopeful faces, and make quiet side bets on which ones would faint or wet themselves, or have a fit of the vapours, the moment they were called on to perform.

Some tutors turned up to watch and some didn’t. Because some were people persons and some most definitely weren’t. Some weren’t even people, strictly speaking. You didn’t get on staff at the Hawk and Fisher Memorial Academy by having a pleasant manner; you secured your place by demonstrating extraordinary skills and sheer force of will. Roland the Headless Axeman turned up for every Audition, standing beside Hawk, disdaining anything as soft and comfortable as a chair. He stood unnaturally still, his back perfectly straight, seeming to observe absolutely everything. Even though he didn’t have any eyes. Or ears.

He doesn’t miss anything,
Hawk said once.

Oh, he must do,
said Fisher. It was a very old joke, even then.

I heard that,
said Roland.
I’m not deaf.

Then what are you?
said Hawk.

Complicated,
said Roland.

Fisher then said something extremely rude, and everyone present pretended not to have heard.

The Alchemist would slouch in whenever he felt like it, glaring around at everyone else as though they’d kept him waiting. He wore a grubby white lab robe, with many colourful stains and scorch marks. He’d been wearing it for years, and on bad days you could smell it coming long before you ever saw the Alchemist. He could have had it cleaned, or even bought a nice new one, but apparently he considered the various signs of hard use as battle scars or marks of honour. It made a statement, he liked to say, though of what exactly, no one was too sure. Survival against the odds, probably. And it did help to put his students into a suitably cautious state of mind.

The Alchemist himself was painfully thin, jumpy, and a decidedly testy sort, with a number of nervous twitches that chased one another round his body. He had an ascetic scholar’s face, with a haunted, preoccupied look. There were always a great many bets among his students as to whether he’d actually make it to the end of term. But somehow he always did. Even if his laboratory sometimes didn’t. There was no doubt he knew his stuff, and a whole bunch of other stuff that nobody else knew; and he was an excellent teacher, as long as you paid careful attention, and hit the floor when he told you to. He might not be able to turn lead into gold, yet, but he could blow shit up with great skill and never-ending enthusiasm. Many a battle had been won with one of the Alchemist’s little helpers. It was just that his extensive knowledge was accompanied by a wide-ranging curiosity and a complete lack of self-preservation instincts. At all of his lectures, there was always a scuffle between those who were going to sit up close, where they could see everything, and those who just wanted to stay safely at the back, near the door. And it was standard practice that if the Alchemist should say “Oops,” it was every student for himself.

Jonas Crane the Bladesmaster, head tutor in all the soldiering skills, sauntered into the hall at the very last moment and stood at parade rest next to Fisher. He was the Academy’s only Bladesmaster, now that Anton la Vern was gone. He didn’t say anything, as he stood glaring out over the Audition hopefuls; he didn’t have to. His whole stance, wrapped in gleaming chain mail armour, spoke volumes. Fisher sighed, heavily.

“You’re not happy, are you, Jonas? I say this on the grounds that your stance is disapproving so loudly it’s giving me a headache.”

“La Vern was a Bladesmaster,” said Crane, in his harsh soldier’s voice. “We don’t grow on trees. Even if some of us teach in them.” That might or might not have been a joke. Crane wasn’t exactly famous for his sense of humour. In fact, some said that if he did smile, it meant it was going to rain for forty days.

“We’ll get you another assistant Bladesmaster as soon as we can,” said Hawk.

“I want a raise,” said Jonas Crane.

“It’s nice to want things,” said Fisher. “Now stop moaning, or I will slap you one, and it will hurt.”

Crane snorted loudly but had nothing more to say. For the moment. In Hawk and Fisher’s experience, Crane was never short of things to say, in his own good time. He also had a tendency to loom, in a meaningful sort of way. Crane was a large and blocky man in his late forties, as ugly as a cow’s arse, and strangely proud of his great barbarian’s mane of long blonde hair. He dyed it, and only thought no one else knew. He had a certain kind of animal magnetism, which attracted a certain kind of student, and his bed was rarely empty. If any of his conquests started getting too possessive, Crane would let them fight it out in a public duel.

Lily Peck, the Academy’s Witch in Residence, was always the last to arrive. A gifted and highly experienced adept at every kind of magic you could name, and some best not discussed in front of the easily shocked, Lily was short and dumpy, defiantly middle-aged, in a sweet and cosy way, who turned people into small, smelly snot creatures only when they really annoyed her. She was always ready to lend an ear, because she loved gossip, and she could brew a lust philtre that would blow the top of your head off. This sometimes led to complaints, particularly when she drank the stuff herself, and then there would be loud recriminations, and tears before bedtime, and before you knew it . . . it was small-hopping-thing time again.

Lily Peck preferred to stand at the very back of the dais, half-hidden behind the other tutors. Not because she was shy, but because she didn’t believe in making a target of herself. You don’t get to be a really powerful witch without making many enemies, among the living and the dead. She always carried a dead cat balanced on her shoulder, which hunched and spat at everyone and observed the world through malevolent fused-over eyes. Hawk winced as Lily took up her usual position, just behind his chair.

“I do wish you’d get yourself a new familiar, Lily. That cat is getting decidedly whiffy.”

“You’re just prejudiced against the mortally challenged,” said Lily. “Spot’s a good cat.”

“He is not mortally challenged, he is dead,” Hawk said firmly. “And he stinks! I know he’s dead because my dog keeps trying to roll on him, and I can tell he’s decaying because my eyes start to water every time you bring him anywhere near me. Why couldn’t you settle for a parrot on your shoulder, like most people?”

“Because I am not like most people!” said Lily. “And I am not a pirate! I’m a witch, and some traditions you just don’t mess with. I’ll get a new familiar when this one falls apart, and not before. That is one of the traditional tests for how your familiar’s doing; if he nods his head and it falls off, it’s time to upgrade.”

“I remember Cook talking to me once,” said Fisher, “about how you can tell when a game bird is ready to eat.”

Hawk looked at her suspiciously. “What?”

“You hang it up by the head, and when the neck rots through and the body falls to the floor, that’s when it’s ready to eat,” said Fisher. “And she also told me that when she had to deal with game meat, she was always careful to grease her arms up to the elbows, so that when the maggots came crawling out of the meat, they couldn’t get up her arms.”

“I am never eating game meat again,” said Hawk.

“You are so unadventurous,” said Fisher.

By now the massive Audition Hall was packed with row upon row of hopeful prospects, squeezed so tightly together they could hardly breathe. The only space left open was the demonstration area, before the dais. It was marked out with white chalk lines on the floor, with guards standing by to enforce them, the guards were hardly ever needed. No one was stupid enough to risk being thrown out before they’d even had a chance to show what they could do.

The crowd didn’t contain just hopeful young things; unfortunately, there were parents too. There to be supportive, or protective; to cheer or cry or pick arguments with the judges, as necessary. There were always some parents determined to live out their dreams through their children, to make them the heroes and warriors they’d always known they could have been . . . if only they could have found the time. And some parents (usually but not always mothers of a certain age) were there to fight to the death over any decision that didn’t favour their particular offspring. The heavily armed security guards drew lots in advance to see who got this duty, because the hazard pay was never enough to justify what they had to go through.

When it finally became clear that you couldn’t cram one more Auditioner into the hall, even if you greased them from head to foot and used a crowbar, Hawk and Fisher rose to their feet and the whole hall fell silent. The crowd was hushed, wrapped in an almost unbearable tension. Hawk and Fisher gave their usual brief speech of welcome and warning (Give it your best shot, but don’t waste our time) and then sat down again and gestured for the Auditions to begin. They kept the speech short because they knew everyone there was so on edge, and so caught up in themselves, that they could have announced the imminent end of the world and no one would have noticed.

The Administrator appeared, apparently out of nowhere, and jabbed his blackthorn staff at the first petitioner, and just like that, the Hero Auditions began.

First up was a really impressive performance from a would-be sorcerer. He was still in his late teens, though the black robes and white face paint made him look older as he produced clouds of billowing black smoke, shot flames from his hands, and pulled a dead rabbit out of his hat. Given his reaction to the rabbit being dead, and the speed with which he stuffed it back into the hat, presumably the dead part hadn’t been intentional. He got some applause, and bobbed his head quickly in all directions, until Lily Peck stepped forward and fixed him with a cold glare.

“Nice try,” she said, “but that’s not sorcery. Those were all tricks and illusions. The quickness of the hand deceives the mind, and all that. Come back when you’ve learned some real magic, and not before.”

The young man disappeared back into the crowd before she’d even finished talking.
Bunny-killer,
murmured some sections of the crowd.

An archer was the next to step forward, longbow in hand. He then made a long and tearful speech about what an honour it was to be there, and how much this would have meant to his poor dear dead granny, who had always believed in him . . . and how he was doing this for her . . . Until Hawk leant forward and shut the archer up with a cold look.

“Sorry,” said Hawk, “but we don’t do sentiment here. There’s a target off to your right. Hit the bull’s-eye or piss off.”

“Right,” said Fisher. “What are you going to do in the middle of a battle, make the other side cry so hard they can’t see to shoot straight?”

The archer swallowed hard, took careful aim, and hit the stuffed target every time. Unfortunately, nowhere near the bull’s-eye. The archer glared at Hawk and Fisher.

“You put me off! You made me nervous! I demand a second chance!”

“We don’t do demands, either,” said Hawk.

The archer slunk back into the crowd, close to tears again. No one paid him any attention. Partly because everyone there knew it was all about the performance, but mainly because they were all too wrapped up in their own moment of truth. None of them would allow themselves to be put off, or need a second chance. They were the stuff of heroes and warriors, and they were here to prove it.

Next up was a bright-eyed young swordsman wrapped in flashing silks. He nodded and grinned at the judges, and put on an extraordinary solo performance, dancing and stamping and thrusting, his sword whipping back and forth in flashes of gleaming steel. He was fast and graceful, and undeniably skilled, and when he finally crashed to a halt and saluted the judges with his sword, breathing hard, his face covered with sweat, there was a grudging but real ripple of applause from the crowd. Hawk nodded slowly.

“Impressive. Bladesmaster Crane, if you would . . .”

The Bladesmaster stepped down from the dais, his long sword already in his hand, and launched a vicious attack on the young swordsman. Crane didn’t say a word, just cut and hacked with brutal skill. The swordsman almost fell over himself backing away, and had to use all his strength and speed just to fend off the attacks. The Bladesmaster beat the sword out of the young man’s hand and set the point of his sword at his opponent’s throat. The young swordsman stood very still but wouldn’t back away. The Bladesmaster nodded briefly to him, turned away, and sheathed his sword, then resumed his place on the dais. He wasn’t even breathing hard. Hawk looked sympathetically at the wide-eyed young swordsman.

“Nice skills. Very practiced. But playing with yourself won’t get you anywhere. Go away and learn some duelling skills, fighting real people. And come back again next year, when you’re ready. You’ve got potential, but sword-fighting isn’t about the thrust and parry; it’s about killing the other man before he kills you.”

The young swordsman nodded, just a bit shakily, and put a hand to his throat where the Bladesmaster’s sword point had cut the skin. He looked at the blood on his fingers, picked up his sword from the floor and sheathed it, and marched out of the Audition Hall with his head held high. Several other swordsmen went quietly with him.

The next would-be warrior was an axe-man. Tall and blocky, heavily muscled, wearing well-used leather armour, he strode forward and planted himself firmly before Hawk. He brandished his axe fiercely and demanded in a loud and carrying voice that he be given the opportunity to demonstrate his skills by going head-to-head with Hawk. Roland started to step forward, but Hawk stopped him with a raised hand.