Free Stories 2016 Read online

  Mulack was with Sutarnan. Tokerae was sprinting by, and Pohut reached out to grab his arm. Tokerae yanked it back. "I'm not teaming with you," he hissed. "I mean to win." And he was gone.

  A blink later, the Master's whistle sounded. "Three teams are now full. The fourth is the remainder." His gaze settled on Pohut. "Pohut, the fourth team is yours."

  "Mine?" Pohut squeaked in surprise.

  In moments, Putar, Malrin, Larmna, and the rest of the younger and thus unchosen children had come to Pohut's side, looking up at him for direction.

  The other three teams were already gone from the room.

  No bells were found that day, nor the following. When some children didn't show for the required sessions, the Master halted everything until they were found and brought back.

  Meals and sleep, on the other hand, were skipped with abandon. Cohort siblings took food back to their quarters and slept in their clothes.

  "Is your team even looking?" Sachare asked Pohut as they waited in Oak Hall for the guardians to hunt down an errant child.

  Pohut brought to mind what he knew about her House. Nital was aligned with Helata, which might explain why she was on Taba's team.

  Or maybe they just liked each other. His head swam.

  "We have a plan," he said, summoning a confident tone.

  Not much of one, though. His plan was mostly to avoid making things worse.

  At midnight, everyone was woken by a loud clanging. Cohort siblings lined the hallway along with the Master in his bedclothes, the wardens, handfuls of guardians. The Master's voice carried.

  "The bronze bell has been found. Well done, Tokerae. Your team will join the solstice feast."

  Only the winners cheered.

  The brothers huddled close in the yard, their breath a pale fog in dark of late afternoon, watching. Tokerae's team strutted and bragged and clustered together as they had not before, again and again telling how they had found the bronze bell behind a tapestry in the Swan Room.

  "We aren't searching very hard," Innel pointed out.

  "We aren't searching at all, Brother," Pohut agreed. "I think we would not make any friends by winning."

  He watched the motion of the children in the yard, the alliances and enmities, some changing quickly, some constant. It was starting to make sense.

  Mulack and the small boy called Donal, for example, were both from House Murice. Not close in age or temperament, yet they never fought each other. Tokerae, who did not actually seem to dislike Taba, was nonetheless at odds with her in what now seemed to Pohut a rather perfunctory way, which he concluded was because of their Houses' longstanding feud.

  Then there was age: if nothing mattered more, older kids banded together, as did the younger ones. Likewise, the girls were often together.

  Except when, as in the case of Taba, House concerns overrode.

  He could almost see the lines of connection around him, the forces of opposition. The overlapping, shifting circles of loyalty and tension.

  And what was it all for?

  Just then Cern walked into the yard. Children made way, eddying and swirling about the mass of guards and aides that encircled her, like a school of fish around a large turtle. If the point of the Cohort was the princess, and all this work was to impress her, Pohut had to wonder: was it working?

  He could find no clues in Cern's face, though he tried. What did she think? What did she want?

  "When do we start looking?" asked Malrin.

  Pohut doubted there was any point, but as he looked down into the girl's eager eyes, he saw one. "Tonight," he said warmly.

  Malrin bounced up and down. Eagerly, or to keep warm in the dark and cold, he wasn't sure.

  Pohut found it liberating to walk the halls of the palace and go where he liked, which the brothers had been forbidden to do before, even if he were trailed, like a mother duck, by the youngest of the Cohort, and behind them a pack of guardians to keep them out of trouble.

  It was a curious feeling, to walk where he liked, to see what interested him. As they strolled, he asked the children of his team about themselves, and began to know them, and through them, their parents, their families, their Houses.

  As they went, Larmna began to hum a tune. Putar and some of the other children laughed.

  "It's the Finding Song," said Malrin to Pohut's confusion. "The song you sing when you've lost something!"

  "We'll teach it to you!" cried Larmna. The others began to clap to keep time, and Larmna sang the simple lyrics. The song asked questions. Have you looked high? Have you looked low? Have you looked inside? And what about on top?

  They entered a large study with an otter carved into the heavy door.

  "Look!" called Putar, pointing at heavy tapestries. He ran to them, searching among the folds for a way to get behind.

  "The bells won't be there," Pohut said.

  "How can you know that?" Putar asked, glancing back from his burrowing behind the heavy drapes.

  "Because the Master has already done that. He won't do it twice." A hunch, but he was sure.

  They searched anyway, and Pohut waited patiently. Then more walking, more singing. They came to the great library where walls of books, scrolls, and lengths of knot-poetry climbed so far overhead that ladders were needed to reach them. A guardian reminded the children that each tome was near priceless, and they should act accordingly.

  "I didn't know there could be so many," Innel whispered to him.

  Their father had had a collection of books, but this many was beyond imagination. By any measure, the library was astonishing.

  "We'll come back," he told his brother. When they were done pretending to look for the bells.

  But the bells wouldn't be here either, he suddenly realized. Not behind any one of these thousands of books. Tens of thousands. He said as much.

  "And how can you know that?" Malrin asked.

  "The Master wouldn't want us touching them all," he said.

  That wasn't quite it, though. It was this: if a bell were hidden here, finding it would simply be a matter of searching—days or even months—and Pohut was somehow certain that wasn't how the Master thought.

  Dil had said that the bronze bell had been hanging on a cord, a tug all that was needed to liberate it. Not only that, Dil said proudly, but it had been his idea to look there, because the tapestry had depicted minstrels playing for a star dance and the minstrel in the center was holding a bell. The bells were not just hidden. They were hidden with clues.

  Pohut fidgeted with his rock as he considered. The rock, he saw, was changing color slightly, as the oils of his fingers darkened the tan and gray. It made him think of home.

  When his team returned from searching, as he was about to climb to the loft to bed, Putar ran to him, shoulders heaving, gulping air, struggling to hold back tears.

  "They took our cakes," he said, his voice breaking. "All of the team's cakes. Gone."

  Pohut stormed the length of the boy's quarters in a fury, saying nothing, but searching the faces of every boy he passed. He paused at Mulack, looking into his eyes. Was that a flicker of smug cruelty he saw there, or did he only imagine it?

  Pohut was finding it easier and easier to see the worst in everyone. And that, he realized, was a kind of blindness.

  He comforted the younger children as best he could. Could they search for the cake boxes, they wanted to know. Yes, he replied, but they would not find them, certainly not before the solstice.

  Never, he suspected. They could be anywhere. Behind the books in the library.

  Or outside the palace, even. Perhaps the parents of the other Cohort children might not think the mutts were worthy of such an honor.

  There was no going to the Cohort Master this time, nor could he take on those who he suspected of the theft. Not until he was sure he could win.

  Solstice was a day away. Mulack and Sutarnan's group, still searching, were sallow from lack of sleep, barely eating.

  "Give us a clue," Mulack demand
ed hoarsely of the Master.

  Pohut was beyond being surprised at this rudeness.

  "No," said the Cohort Master, curtly, without any humor.

  "But we might not find them in time!"

  "Oh, I don't think the tables will be hard to fill, ser House Murice, even at the last minute."

  "But—" Mulack sputtered, glaring around the room wildly. "That's not fair!"

  Pohut suppressed laughter. He leaned in close to Innel and whispered. "Do you see, Brother, how lack of sleep makes him even more stupid? There is a lesson for us both."

  From outside the room, sharp, urgent shouts followed another clamorous bell-ringing. A glance around the room to see who was missing told everyone it was Taba's team.

  Sutarnan scowled furiously at Mulack, as if it were his fault, and stormed out after the Master. Mulack threw down his napkin and followed.

  While the rest of the room streamed out to hear the news, Pohut and Innel calmly finished their meal.

  Mulack and Sutarnan's beds were empty, their team searching, when the brothers went to sleep, but when Pohut passed by to find the privy in the predawn light, they were back. On his return to the quarters, he saw a familiar figure in the hallway carrying a basket. The servant girl.

  "Hello," he said to her.

  This time she met his look squarely, silently flicking her gaze to the side and back. Then she turned in that direction and walked away.

  Pohut followed. She turned right at the main hallway, walking the length of the wing to the Great Hall where the solstice feast was to be held that night. She stole a quick glance at him before dropping her head then dashing away.

  All at once Pohut knew where the silver bell must be. The bronze bell—the middle prize—had been found at eye level, hanging behind a tapestry. The iron bell, which Taba had found the night before—the least of the prizes—had been on the floor of a closet in a supply room, buried under bags in which stored dancer's bells and keep-time rattles.

  He opened the door of the Great Hall and slipped inside. The room was massive, wide and very long, high-ceilinged, with multiple balconies and windows now letting in the pale light of dawn. But the clue was now clear in his mind, so he looked at the balcony where the musicians would play.

  There, staring back, wide-eyed, was a face he recognized.

  "No, no, no." Donal shouted. "Get out!" The boy stretched his arm out over the balcony railing, reaching for something that was up and behind the rafters, out of Pohut's sight, past a set of hunting horns attached to the wall. In the silence of the hall, Pohut could hear the boy's heavy breathing as his fingertips strained to reach something. Then the very faint sound of metal against wood. Had Donal's arm been just a bit longer, Pohut suspected, he'd have the bell now.

  He'd been right, but minutes too late. He was surprised to be disappointed.

  Donal looked back at him with a panicked expression. He pulled himself up onto the balcony railing to get closer to his goal, struggling to keep his balance. A step forward, hands groping for something to hold onto, but there was nothing. He lurched for the hidden bell, now in reach, and slipped. Arms windmilling to try to catch himself, Donal went over the railing and fell to the stone floor below, giving a cry that ended suddenly with a hard thud.

  One part of Pohut's mind raced to strategy: the bell was now his. He must simply take it before anyone else did.

  Now it was easy to imagine himself and his brother sitting at at the royal table. With the king. With the princess. That would show the Houses, the aristos, that General Pewyan's sons were of consequence.

  He could have it. For a moment, nothing seemed more important.

  But in that moment, another part of his mind had already taken over his body. He was already there, gently lifting the limp Donal, running his way back to the Cohort Master.

  The Cohort Master took the boy from Pohut and said, "go," then called for aides and the physician.

  Pohut thought fast, sprinted back into the Boys' Quarter, and rushed up Mulack's loft ladder. He doubted he would have reached the top if Mulack had not been so dead-tired. Even so, Mulack sat up abruptly, rings of dark around his eyes from lack of sleep, eyes full of hostility.

  "I have the bell," Pohut said quickly, seating himself out of range of a swift kick that would send him flying off the bed. "And I will sell it to you," Pohut added.

  "Sure you will. What for?"

  "Three things. One: the cakes returned."

  "Pah! What makes you think I have them?"

  "Never mind. Maybe Tokerae has them. Or Taba. I'll go ask them." He made as if to leave.

  "No, no, stay. What else?"

  Pohut hadn't actually thought that far. It had all happened too fast. Donal. The bell. This plan. "You stop beating up the younger kids. For at least —" What would Mulack agree to? He wasn't sure. "A month."

  Mulack smirked, but nodded. "And third?"

  Seeing Mulack's expression, Pohut realized he should have asked for more time. Too late now. "One of your rings, to be sure you'll keep your word. I'll give it back at the end of the month."

  Mulack snorted. "What if you're lying to me, you don't really have the bell, and now you have my ring, too?"

  A good question. Pohut considered as if he were Mulack. "You're stronger than me," he said. He doubted it, but Mulack would think so. "And you have many friends and I have none." He shrugged. "Just take it back."

  Mulack nodded. "All right. But why not keep the bell for yourself?"

  Because it had come clear to Pohut that the brothers needed more time in the Cohort before they could afford to win such a prize. Time to make friends where possible, and build alliances where not. Until then, to sit at the royal table by the princess and king would, oddly, put them farther behind. The cost of this victory would be too high.

  But Mulack wouldn't understand that, he realized.

  "You were right," Pohut said. "We're mongrels. We wouldn't know what to do, sitting at the royal table. We don't want embarrass the Cohort." A humbling lie, but he could stomach it. For now.

  Mulack pondered, seemed to find this plausible. He pulled off a ring, held it out on his palm, toward Pohut. "I accept your terms."

  A formal contract. This Pohut hadn't expected, but of course he should have; the children of the Houses would know how to make binding contracts, though he had never done such a thing before.

  Pohut put his hand palm down atop Mulack's and their hands turned together, so that the ring was left in Pohut's outstretched palm.

  "Our contact is made," Mulack said.

  Pohut examined the etched silver ring. Inset was a glinting purple stone surrounded by two white ones. The colors of House Murice.

  He told Mulack where the bell was.

  That morning at the meal, everything had changed. No one was looking for bells any more, certainly, not since Mulack had raced out of the Boys' Quarter, returning to ring the silver bell, loudly and for a very long time, even after the Cohort Master had told him he'd won.

  As for Donal, the Master refused to say anything beyond that the boy was being sent home to recover. Would not say from what, or whether he would come back to the Cohort. From the surrounding chatter, Pohut learned that Donal was not the first of the Cohort to go home with injuries. The Cohort might have started with fifty, as Sutarnan had said, but not all of them had left willingly.

  Perhaps none.

  "We must become very strong and very clever, Brother," he whispered to Innel. "We must watch out for each other, because no one else will."

  "Always," his brother said.

  There were other differences that morning. A small nod from Mulack as he walked by. The surprised looks from those who noticed the ring on Pohut's hand. Mulack was silent on the topic, but happy to brag about how clever he was to have found the bell, and how proud his parents would be to see him sitting at the royal table.

  The children of Pohut's team were mournful at their run of bad fortune, but they cheered up when, after the meal, they
found their solstice cake boxes returned to their cabinets.

  Pohut and Innel's boxes, however, had broken seals. Inside were only crumbs.

  He went searching for Mulack, stepped up very close. "We had a contract."

  He expected Mulack to sneer at him and tell him that the mutts weren't worthy of a contract with a child of the Great Houses, to which he would say…well, he wasn't sure yet. To his surprise Mulack simply nodded. Was that a look of remorse?

  "I should have told you," Mulack admitted. "Already eaten when we made the contract. I had to know if they were as tasty as the Master said."

  "But that's bad luck!"

  "Well, I didn't eat mine," said Mulack. He shrugged. "You have the boxes. Just pretend. No one will look carefully if you hide your mouth." He mimed eating behind his hand.

  Pohut growled deeply in the back of his throat. Like a dog.

  Mulack took a step back. "I didn't mean to. Tell you what—I'll lay off the younger kids for another month past what we agreed—a whole two months!—and keep Sutarnan away, too. All right?"

  Pohut wanted to hit him, wanted it badly, but instead thrust a hand in his pocket and gripped the rock tightly.

  "I accept your terms," he said.

  Pohut looked around at the others of his team, sitting in a small room off the second scullery near the Great Hall. Coming through the walls was the deep booming of drums, the strains of brass horns, and the muffled sounds of a thousand happy, feasting voices, laughing and cheering. Dancers, musicians, jugglers—the show was said to be spectacular.

  Of course, Pohut's team was not to be there, and the guardians at the doors would make sure they didn't even try. Glum faces looked back at him.

  "If we'd won, we'd be in there now," said Malrin.