IV.
"What are you saying?" I asked, standing there like I'd just been struck by a lightning spell.
He laughed at me, but not unkindly. "Assistants are privileged," he winked and smiled, taking my suitcase out of my arms. "Come on, then! Let's go up to our room."
I had no choice but to follow. I walked behind him up the stairs along with the other boys. We went to the second floor while half of our companions went on to the third, and then we turned left down a long corridor.
"Fourteen...fourteen..." Sasarai was mumbling. "Ah! Here it is! Halfway down the hall. Convenient..." He took my chip, which he hadn't given back, and slid it into a small slot where the doorknob should have been, and the door popped open. "After you!" he said courteously.
Needless to say, I did not want to turn my back on my foe. It made me nervous that he behaved so cheerily, and I didn't doubt he had some awful plan in store for me. Would he throw water on me in my sleep? Hide my shoes so I'd be late for a briefing? Sabotage me some other way so that I'd lose the tournament? Or worse--push me out the window or suffocate me with a pillow in my sleep?
What choice did I have now, though? I couldn't teleport without my rune, and by now surely everyone knew the no-magic-in-the-building rule. Sasarai was an assistant, so he was the supervisor for our floor. He'd have to report me if I made such an attempt, anyway. I thought I remembered something about "demerits" in Leknaat's old rulebooks, but that might have been a thing of the past. Perhaps once caught using magic these days you were immediately disqualified. Who knows? (Not I, as I had not paid a bit of attention to the briefing.)
Anyway, I didn't really stand in the hall the full ten minutes it felt like. Sasarai did, however, have to give me a shove to get me into the room. It could have been because I seemed so afraid he would stab me in the back, but it also could have been because I couldn't take my eyes off of him...
The room was nothing like I had expected. There was thick carpet under our feet, lavish furniture, and the two full-size beds, standing side-by-side with a dresser in between, were plush, piled high with pillows and thick blankets--not army barracks bunks like I'd expected. There were velvet drapes hung over massive windows (all right...so the floor-to-ceiling glass panes didn't thrill me) and the walls were painted with brilliant roses mingled with gold. A chandelier over our heads would give plenty of light in the night hours when I'd be studying hard for the competition. I was awestruck. It wasn't at all what I'd expected.
Sasarai must have closed the door behind us, but I really didn't hear it shutting. He walked briskly by, almost in a rush to open the curtains even farther. Bright sunlight flooded the room and we beheld a glorious sunset. "That's much better, isn't it?" he asked, turning to look at me.
I wanted to stand closer to the windows, to touch the pane and feel the warmth of the sunlight, to pretend I was out on that distant horizon, but I was too afraid of my roommate to get any closer to him than I was. Instead I said merely, "It's...gorgeous."
He smiled warmly at my comment. I think we had somehow surprised each other. He'd carried my bag like a true gentleman, and I'd gone and said something queer like "gorgeous." We laughed a little nervously. God, what he must be thinking of me...
"What do you think?" he asked, coming closer.
"...About what?" I asked, my thoughts a little muffled.
He laughed softly, standing now so close to me...
"About the room, Luc."
My name on his lips....
His lips...
"It's...much better than I expected," I mumbled, tearing my gaze away. "Are the other rooms this nice?"
"A bit more cramped, since they've got bunks, but almost." He was looking at me with his head cocked to the side. I wished I knew what he was thinking. Hopefully he wasn't planning my demise. "We've got a lot of catching up to do," he said thoughtfully. "But first, you should rest. We've got almost three hours before dinner, and I'll bet you're exhausted from the trip. I'll unpack your things for you, if you like." He went to retrieve my case where I'd left it next to the door.
Why are you doing this? I wanted to scream at him. Why are you being so nice? Why are you helping me? Don't you hate me? Don't you want to get back at me? Don't you know I hate you? Don't you know how long I've waited to come back here, to prove once and for all who the greater magician is? But I'd been afraid to come back. I was hiding from him. I was still hiding.
"You don't have to," I said to his back.
"I don't mind. Get some sleep."
"Why don't you want to rest?" I asked distrustfully.
He laughed at me. "I live here--in Harmonia, I mean. For me, it was just a walk down the block. And I brought my things here yesterday, so there's nothing left for me to unpack."
"Oh," I said. I knew I'd sounded foolish, and there was no reason to treat him like an enemy. We'd been apart so long, why did I feel it was impossible that he could have changed? I sighed, then turned and walked over to the beds. "Which...?"
He shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me. Choose whichever you prefer. You might like the window side, though. The cool breeze in the evenings is nice, as is the sound of crickets chirping."
"You've done this before?"
"This is my third year."
I barely kept myself from gasping. "You mean you've been a master magician for three years?!"
"What?" He looked up at me from where he was placing my clothes into drawers. "Goodness, no, Luc! I'm not a magician at all. I've been inducted into the priesthood. I live in the cathedral monastery down the street. Masters just take on trustworthy men and women to help keep order here at the tournament. You know, people who are unbiased and who have a sense for the extraordinary. The judges have enough to worry about without running around trying to catch cheaters, and stop fights, and... You get the picture."
"I think I understand," I said. "So...you're not competing?"
"No," he said with a smile, amused at my question. "I've had almost no magic training."
"But...but when we were younger, didn't you and I--?"
"I hope you don't think a few memorized verses from a witch's spellbook made me a professional magicician," he laughed. "Not at all. You're not still...dwelling on THAT, are you?" He gazed at me with questioning, hopeful eyes.
"No," I said with a smile slowly spreading across my own face. "Not at all."
"Oh, good!" he said with a relieved sigh. "You didn't seem too happy to see me."
I began undressing. "Oh? Sorry. I was just...surprised, I guess."
"No need to apologize," he said with another smile, tactfully averting his gaze to unpack my suitcase. "I was surprised to see you, as well. How fares the Lady Leknaat?"
I widened my eyes in surprise. "You knew?"
"Of course. I was curious about you," he said, then quickly added, "and there was a magician that came through the school last year talking about you."
"Oh, really?" I asked curiously. "Who might that have been?" I was wondering aloud, but he remembered the boy's name.
"He was called Ted."
I thought back. Ted...Ted... I mused. Ah, yes. He had come to the lady's castle last year to obtain the Astral Conclusions. I remembered him distinctly, because he was one of those unfortunate visitors who fell into one of my tricks. The memory almost made me laugh.
"Well, you get some rest," Sasarai said, finishing up with my suitcase. "I'll go see how the other boys are settling. I'll be back to call you for dinner."
With that he was gone. My suspicion returned. He was being...too nice. Why should he? Even if what he said was true, that he knew little magic, that he had entered the priesthood, was that any reason to give up vengeance? We'd sworn to get even one day, to finish what we'd started. I hadn't forgotten my oath, and I doubted that he had, either. He was trying to trick me, I decided, by being so friendly, by carrying my bag and unpacking it, by offering me the best choice in beds, by telling me lies.
I drew back the covers of the bed, delighted to find satiny sheets that almost compared to the finery I was used to in Leknaat's castle back on Magician's Island. Then I crawled underneath the soft blankets.
I was, of course, lying in the bed farthest from the window.