Ch. 32 – Dongers

Sleep 1, 855

Dongers didn’t like the dark. You never knew what might be waiting in it lately. He always ensured that the university kitchen stayed well-lit as long as anyone remained inside. Some of his students and staff used to mock him for this, but since the appearance of the grimm and several ghost sightings on the campus, he had no trouble enforcing it.

Shadows haunted every corner of the tunnel he walked down tonight. They seemed to press in against the few lights of the other professors, searching for a gap to slip into. What a shadow might do remained a mystery to Dongers, but his gut insisted it wasn’t good.

His talent for culinary magic went unparalleled in the East — and he would assume the West too until someone proved otherwise — and he had joined the university to avoid serving entitled nobility. He enjoyed working with the kids, watching them grow one year to the next. Memorizing their specific palettes came easy to Dongers, and he always made sure to prepare a variety of foods that everyone would enjoy.

He did not join Three Lakes University to take part in any kind of skullduggery. Dongers didn’t oppose skullduggery outright, but in his limited experience the juice gained was rarely worth the squeeze. Whatever ritual Headmaster Sanir had in mind would have to be a powerful one, Dongers decided as he watched his fellow teachers funnel through the darkness ahead of him. Only the most trusted or most experienced teachers attended.

The tunnel dripped in places, sending the odd finger of icy cold down the collar of Dongers’ robes. He shivered, casting a weary glance over his shoulder, catching the pale shape of a spirit calmly trailing behind. It didn’t help his nerves.

Finally, the train of teachers came to a halt, starlight filtering in from ahead, bright against the tunnel and silhouetting the bobbing heads of those in front. Dongers saw the severe beak of Professor Ryoh, and Headmaster Sanir’s thick black mane hanging long and wild for the night. Shuffling to get a better view, Dongers made his way into the heart of the little crowd, careful to put less-observant staff between himself and their ghastly hanger-on.

They stood together in awful, expectant silence, alert and formal, waiting to find out why the headmaster had called them to a dingy tunnel in the dead of night. They stood before a sturdy metal grate that blocked off the University from the outside world. Around the tunnel edges, runes glittered, securing the way so tightly that a hundred men with battering rams wouldn’t have been able to enter without the key.

On a whispered order, the teachers extinguished their lanterns, leaving only the starlight to see by. Dongers became increasingly aware of the weight hanging over their heads. The cliff, the university, tons of stone and earth just waiting to crush them. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the tunnel around him wanted to cave in.

“Professor Dong, can’t you take this seriously?” someone whispered from the darkness as Dongers lit a tindertwig, holding it to his pipe and puffing to get the flame to take.

“Who says I’m not? I can smoke and frown at the same time. This isn’t that Western plainsleaf.”

A disapproving cough echoed through the tunnel, but no one else tried to stop him as he puffed on his pipe, obscuring the starlight with grey clouds. He knew no one would really protest no matter how much of an annoyance his habit became — he controlled what they ate. Besides, the leaf calmed his nerves.

He finished his smoke before someone finally appeared on the grating’s far side, apparently the signal they had been waiting for. A man, smeared brownish black with paint and hardly visible against the deeper darkness of the night, leaned against the bars, the white of his smile a disembodied crescent against the dark.

“Headmaster Sanir, it’s a pleasure to see you again. You’ve got more company with you than I would have expected for a midnight rendezvous.” The man spoke jovially, but Dongers caught the hint of unease beneath it.

“Corporal Ravij, these are the most esteemed and most trusted members of the faculty here. I couldn’t possibly make this decision without their input,” the headmaster replied, something in his careful tone lifting the hairs on Dongers’ arms and neck.

A shuffle ran through the teachers; unease from those with the foresight to see trouble in the appearance of a Zadyan rebel officer, and pride from those shortsighted enough to see only their own praise. Dongers slid his pipe away, freeing up his hands — just in case. Dongers had no love for the Thaven Empire, but nothing peaceful could come from speaking with the other side.

“But of course,” the corporal continued smoothly. “Taking the opinions of your comrades into consideration is just good Zadyan values. I would expect nothing else from good Zadyan educators.”

“Indeed.” Sanir looked less than impressed.

“When last we spoke you seemed determined to remain under the thumb of the Thaven despots.” Corporal Ravij left the unasked question hanging in the air, as thick and intrusive as Dongers’ smoke.

The headmaster’s face looked stretched and grey as he rubbed at it with long, elegant fingers. He straightened, raising his voice a notch to be heard clearly by everyone present, but not so loud to alert any nearby Thaven patrols.

“With what we knew at the time, allowing the empire to remain at Three Lakes seemed like the least disruptive path. This is no longer the case. Captain Riying has begun to speak more plainly of conscription. Non-voluntary service for students as well as faculty.”

Gasps ran through the teachers, mingling with cries of outrage as the news set in. The university had always been a neutral party in the back-and-forth conflicts of the Thaven Empire and the local Zadyan militia. Trying to shatter that neutrality…

Dongers pictured the youngest faces from his kitchen half-obscured by helmets, marching beside full-grown soldiers. Soft, doe-eyed features wearing the grim expressions of killers, swords and twisted magic in hand. Many of them overtaking their own villages, fighting their own fathers and brothers in the name of an empire that meant almost nothing to them. Dongers wanted to puke, the acrid taste of bile rising in his throat.

Someone did vomit then, the retching echoing off the stones as the sharp tang of a second-hand meal competed with pipe smoke for control of Dongers’ nose. The tunnel felt tighter with the Thavens keeping watch above them, no longer a symbol of safety against the conflict but an inescapable magnet pulling the school to war. Someone bumped Dongers’ shoulder hard; the crowd shifted like restless cattle.

“Not only that,” Headmaster Sanir raised his voice to be heard above the rising cacophony of outrage, cutting through to the stunned silence beneath, “but they have asked that we turn our talents and our curriculums towards military ends. Practical and offensive craft to produce a generation of battle mages.”

“They want to kill students in the classroom as well as out of it!” Professor Buryn declared, his enchanting voice making his indignation contagious. “Practical magic causes enough harm without proper understanding of the theory — add an intent to injure to that and we’ll be lucky to produce a single surviving graduate!”

Dongers found himself nodding along with the other teachers and forced himself to stop. He liked Professor Buryn — it took real effort not to — but the man had no control over his supernatural charms. Dongers let the consternation of the other men rush over him, trying not to let it sway his own emotions.

Everyone needed to eat, so as the school’s head chef, Dongers had met almost every student, soldier, and teacher to set foot on the grounds. He had spoken to the Thaven captain and even their late general on several occasions. Neither ever struck Dongers as heartless or stupid enough to think anyone would stand for militarizing the school. His legs felt leaden as he tried to reconcile the headmaster’s words with the men he had met.

“The Thaven Empire has run out its welcome in Yanakavi as well. The mayor has already agreed to a complementary plan that, with your cooperation, could see the empire pushed out of our territories in one swift motion.” Corporal Ravij swept one arm out to emphasize his point, raising his voice as much as he dared. “Zadyatan knows that the university wishes to remain impartial, and we want to honour that.

“We do not require anyone to fight for us, especially not children. We are not cowards. All we ask for is an opening.” The corporal rapped a knuckle against the grating meaningfully. “An opportunity to end both of our problems with as little Zadyan blood spilled as possible.”

Dongers cleared his throat, raising a hand half-heartedly to interrupt the corporal, even though few would be able to see it in the darkness. He tried not to shrink back as the headmaster’s attention swiveled to him, pointed annoyance tangible. Dongers could see the man had a plan in mind for how the evening would go, and Dongers was not following the script.

“What about the students? Can you guarantee their safety?”

The corporal gave a solemn nod, the white crescent of his teeth disappearing for a moment. “Our men will be given strict orders not to harm the children.”

“Even the Thaven ones?” Dongers dared.

When the Thaven troops had first arrived within the university walls, they came with plenty of promises — plenty of strict orders. But orders could be broken, and would be, if men became too high on battle to heed them. Early on, students reported incidents that made Dongers’ blood run cold, but the Thavens remained within the walls anyway. As much as the local militia could claim to be different — to be better — Donger had his doubts. They were all just men, after all.

The corporal squinted through the bars, trying to get a good look at Dongers’ shadowed face. The man looked thoughtful, chewing on his response for longer than Dongers liked.

“Many of our troops have had their own children taken or slaughtered by Thavens. I can guarantee that the order will be given not to lay hands on any student, but I will not try to outsmart scholars by pretending that men in pain always do what they’re told.”

A long silence followed his words. Relief washed through Dongers. The man had said it out loud. He had declared plainly that his men would likely hurt students if they invaded the walls. This wouldn’t be allowed to happen.

“It’s a risk.” The headmaster broke the tense quiet. “But the equation remains straightforward. Either we risk a few students, or they are all doomed to fight a war they didn’t start. If we have any chance of preserving Three Lakes as a place of higher learning, it lies with Zadyatan.”

The bodies crowded around him should have made Dongers warmer, but he felt as if he had swallowed an icicle that reached from throat to groin. His thoughts went silent with shock, afraid to show themselves in case the headmaster’s madness was catching. An ache built in his jaw, but he couldn’t bring himself to unclench it.

Around him, the faculty stood frozen and wide-eyed, like a student caught during a pantry raid. A few of the longer serving teachers nodded their heads sagely, solemn expressions plastered across their faces. Dongers wondered if they agreed, or if they’d had warning of what the night would hold.

As if on cue, Professor Ryoh leaned close to Dongers, murmuring quietly enough to seem sincere, but loudly enough to be heard by their neighbours, “It’s a horrible arithmetic, but the headmaster is correct. This is the best way to protect the children in the long term. As their shepherds, we must see the larger picture.”

It sounds like you’ve already seen it,Dongers wanted to say, but held his tongue. It didn’t take a genius to see which way the soufflé would fall. The headmaster had already made up his mind — he had only arranged this pantomime to get the buy in of his teachers. Perhaps even to ease a guilty conscience. Or to test some loyalties.

Dongers heard Headmaster Sanir call the vote as if from a great distance, even though the man stood not ten feet from him. He put his hand up as if in a dream, voting with the others, making sure not to be the first, nor the last to cave under the pressure of his colleagues. This would happen no matter how he voted, so better to be seen as cooperative.

Some of his peers squirmed as they kept their hands down. They waited together for the second option to be offered, the opposing vote to be requested, but it didn’t come. Instead, those that had already raised their votes stood, arms tiring, as the headmaster stared thoughtfully at the naysayers, head cocked slightly to the side. He didn’t look angry, or hostile, or even disappointed. He wore the expression of someone trying to work out where they had gone wrong, where their words could have had more impact.

Dongers had known Headmaster Sanir for many years and had no doubt in his mind that the headmaster wanted the best for the students. The nightmare Sanir must have painted himself of life under conscription, under military curriculums, must have been very dark indeed to overshadow the bloody alternative. As the muscles in his arms began to burn, Dongers wondered how long the headmaster had taken to make the decision.

As the arms of the oldest members of staff began to shake with strain, the few faculty holding out opposition began to crumble under the onslaught of awkwardness. One by one they raised their hands, faces crimson with embarrassment. When the last hand rose, headmaster Sanir clapped, making them all jump.

“You will see, gentlemen. This is for the best. I’m glad we could come to a sensible consensus so quickly,” the headmaster said, handing a long pewter key through the grating to the corporal’s waiting palm. “Our students will be safest with local forces protecting them. People who understand what this university is, and has always been.”

“A safe haven,” Dongers said, startling himself. He hadn’t meant to say it aloud. When he didn’t continue, the headmaster nodded stiffly.

“Exactly.”