The Black Squirrel

2. Morden's Pride

It was the dead of night. Two squirrels sat guard by an entrance. One was slouched over and snoring. The other was making snot bubbles with every exhale, eyes drooping like the trees that covered them in shadow. This was not the entrance to Reflector. That was far from here: a series of curves and hills until any intruder who made it to the real entrance would be dazed and spinning from all the twists and turns. Just how the engineers had planned it.

However, it was still an entrance. And tonight, there was an intruder.

A webbed food sent the head of the sleeping guard flying to the second. The first was knocked unconscious immediately. The second sucked up his snot in a great breath and said, throat full of mucus, “Huh?”

That was the last heard of either squirrel before the same webbed foot crushed his head. With a final twist of the ankle, the perpetrator grunted.

Briefly, the lantern light caught his face. The black feathers of the goose shone as brightly as a silver dagger caught in the light. The look of pure evil in the goose’s black eyes would have scared Morden stiff, if he had been here to witness it. It would be an evil that Morden had never encountered before.

Just as briefly as the moment came, it passed. The goose dashed on. And Morden continued to slumber peacefully in his bed at home. For tomorrow was the Choosing.

xxx

The day dawned bright and early. As soon as the sun pierced through the leaves onto Morden’s face, he awoke. He smiled. He was filled with a rare sense of jubilation.

“Kessey! I’m going to see Kessey again!”

He leapt out of bed. His body had become lithe and more agile, due to his exploring wider and wider stretches of terrain. Kessey — the owl’s — parting advice for him to continue studying nature had slowly and gently increased his general energy in a consistent way, as he scampered to hilltops to observe stars better or followed the stream of water through silt in an underground maze. It had been a full year since he had last seen Kessey. Now the leaves were slowly turning orange, and would soon blanket Reflector in a riot of orange and red hues. Autumn was here.

Before he left, he grabbed a curious metal disk. He clasped it reverently in his paw. Then he donned a green and black striped scarf. Morden zoomed out the front door.

“Morden, dear! Your breakfast!”

In response, he simply waved a paw, and dashed out into the light and to the long winding road where the castle stood at the end, and where Kessey would be waiting.

He had so many things to tell her, but chief among them was this sundial.

Last year, right after she had become a speck in the sky, Morden watched her fly back.

“Oh, one last thing,” she said casually.

Hovering over him, she said, “Catch,” and dropped a metal disk into Morden’s awaiting paws.

“What’s this?”

Kessey puffed up. She looked more balloon than owl, Morden thought amusedly.

“It’s ta help ya with your energy cycles. As for now,” she said, taking Morden’s next words right out of his mouth, “that’s for me ta know and you to find out!” She hooted and departed, now for real.

Morden got the feeling she had been waiting a long time to use that comeback.

Now he clutched the sundial as if it were one of the King’s special feathers that set apart brave and noble squirrels. Kessey had surely expected him to realize it could count time — but she would be overwhelmed with pride when she found out it only took him one day to understand its function!

He leapt from cobblestone to cobblestone, but the onlookers’ gazes were completely different than they were a year ago. Some lady squirrels exiting the tailor’s pinched each other when they saw him. He heard them squeak from the corner of their mouth, “That’s Morden! The first Mage! An eligible suitor for my daughter, surely…” Gentlemen squirrels doffed their hats before moving on with their business.

Morden hardly acknowledged their attention. His imagination was captured by the attention of a different crowd: the Four Guardians…!

Without his intending to, a wisp of a fantasy played out in his mind.

He’d be on one knee in a deep bow… drawing the attention of the Four Guardians, the selectors for each Path of the Choosing, and so named to acknowledge their role in guarding priceless knowledge across generations, and the talented young of Reflector whom the kingdom would someday send out to do its bidding. The mouse — the Archery Guardian, endowed with protection. The skunk — the Spearman Guardian, endowed with courage. The grey squirrel — the Thief Guardian, endowed with generosity. And of course, the owl, Kessey — the Mage Guardian, endowed with intuition.

A small smile played about unwittingly on Morden’s face, the tall trees and red brick buildings fading into a pleasant blur as he ran.

He’d say, “Esteemed Guardians, please allow me to share a novel discovery with you today.” He’d produce the sundial from his pocket.

Kessey would say, “That’s just tha sundial I gave you. What’s special bout it?”

He would say, “Right. We’ve already known for a long time that we can break the day into twelve pieces, the technical term for these being “hour.” But while normally reserved as a simple training device, I’ve discovered important applications for the merchants and even housewives of Reflector.”

One of the Guardians might raise their head to speak, but Morden would continue quickly to explain, “However, I’ll describe these applications later. First, the preceding discovery… by leaving the sundial out everyday and observing it, I’ve come to the conclusion that an hour in the winter is not the same as an hour in the summer.”

The grey squirrel — the Thief Guardian, known for his mild nature — might point out, “While that sounds right, I can’t see why that’s of use…”

At this point Morden would look up, infusing his voice with all the persuasive power he could muster for a dramatic reveal. “I have invented a device that will let us make an hour in the winter the same as an hour in the summer.”

A light entered Morden’s eyes. His paws trembled involuntarily at the thought of sharing this device he had studied and pored over tirelessly, in the darkness of his den, lying on his back on his bed at home, roaming hills… The honor he’d bestow forever on his house! — and, he thought smirking, there was the side benefit that in one step he’d surpass anything Alvin could hope to accomplish in a lifetime. The Four Guardians would realize Morden as a scholar far beyond his years, a young budding polymath, not only the first Mage in centuries but also an exceptional scientist who was determined to make his mark on the world through beneficial and unheard-of inventions, inventions launching Reflector into a new era… His legacy — the candle clock — would soon be a fixture in every household, an undeniable mark of Morden himself, much like the latch of the fountain square…!

He took out his sundial and gave it a grateful smile. On its copper surface he just about made out the face of a familiar squirrel, the one he least wanted to see right now.

“Alvin,” he said coolly.

The two brothers leapt side by side to the castle.

“Who’s proud of their little baby?” spat Alvin in a jeering tone. His eyes were on the sundial.

Morden cracked a smile. “I would be happy if the sundial were actually my child,” he informed Alvin neutrally.

“Uergh,” Alvin made a face like he wanted to throw up. “Guess the last thing you’d want for me to do is smash that little thing onto the ground… and break it into a million pieces,” Alvin leered.

“Even if you did, the secret of its knowledge would still be with me. So go ahead, break it. It won’t make a difference,” said Morden in the same informative tone. This was not actually true, firstly because the sundial was a loan from Kessey, and secondly because he’d come to depend on it to help understand his energy cycles, but Alvin didn’t need to know that.

Alvin glared hatefully at the sundial. Every time Morden mentioned its secret, Alvin would shut up. The older brother had realized that Morden had come to some monumental conclusion about it, but for the life of him Alvin could not figure out what. Now, every time Morden mentioned it secret, it was a dangling reminder of the proof of the gap between their intellectual abilities.

Alvin sped ahead. Morden breathed a sigh of relief and tucked the sundial back into his pocket, where it would be safer. He was actually surprised Alvin hadn’t made a gratuitous comment about their father. He supposed Alvin thought having a head start to the Choosing might give him an edge. He snorted. To his knowledge, the Spearman Guardian hadn’t even made contact with Alvin. But his Guardian would be waiting, and ready to support him when the time came. The thought gave him a warm glow of comfort in his belly.

The castle was near. Morden could make out the flying pennants. He sped up. One extra edge the sundial had given him was the ability to time his own cycles. He tended to peak in energy every three days and then dip for four days, his lowest low being the time in the middle of these four days.

Armed with this knowledge he began to plan for his peak days to be full of activities, and his low days to be a rest day. He saved Lapitu’s crazy expensive apple seed paste for when important tasks fell on a low day. In this way he had woken up full of energy today, the day of the Choosing, right on time with the sun like their clocks just aligned.

Almost there… almost there… the closer he got, the more he was forced to slow down due to the overflowing torrent of townsfolk. It was as crowded as any festival day. This is how many squirrels are testing at the Choosing! he realized. He knew there were only four noble houses, and therefore he deduced there should be eight noble squirrels. However, squirrels from any rank and class where allowed to appear for the Choosing. The only cost if they ended up not being Chosen would be their pride, and if they were the daughter or son of a cobbler or baker, there was no shame in returning to the trade of their parents.

Morden was wondering whether to push his way to the front when a sudden swelling in the crowd parted it in two. Out of the corner in his eyes, he glanced a small opossum. An opossum? He supposed perhaps being Chosen gave one such a strong education, even far off animal kingdoms may have sent their nobility here.

Murmuring filled the crowd. Morden looked up and saw the raised marble dais centered at the front of the spacious terrace that greeted guests to the castle. The dais was buffed to a beautiful white sheen, and certainly big enough to entertain an assembly of squirrels if anyone put up chairs inside the dais. But there were no chairs in the dais. The Guardians sat at each end outside!

Except… Morden’s eyes widened as he did a double take.

Where’s Kessey?

Kessey’s chair hunched back, like even it felt sad and empty. It was impossible that she wouldn’t come. But what had delayed her? Morden recalled her becoming a spot in the sky, then flying back with his sundial. Could it be that she had meant to bring something and simply forgot? Or was she delayed on some special task for the King and Queen?

All of a sudden a great feathered owl swooped low. For a split second, Morden’s heart lifted. Kessey!

But then the owl swiveled on its haunches, and Morden’s heart lodged itself in his throat.

The owl was ice blue. His magnificent wings were icy blue, except the tips which were pure white. Ivory white horns curled on his head. He was significantly bulkier than Kessey, and his eyes… they were hawk-like yellow slits that made Morden suddenly wince in primal fear.

Where was Kessey? In his confusion, the crowd disappeared in Morden’s vision, and the ice blue owl loomed larger than life. Was this owl sent in place of Kessey? A brother? A relative? A temporary replacement?

Or… but Morden hesitated to voice the deepest fear that had sprouted in him as soon as he’d spotted the ice blue owl. Could it be that this ice blue owl was his examiner?

Could it be that Kessey was gone?

“We will now begin today’s Choosing!” The King’s resounding voice sounded the announcement as he and the Queen stepped out onto the terrace. Morden had no more time left to think. Focus, he thought. He concentrated on the sensations the metal sundial gave him through his paw, its light weight, the heat it had acquired every passing minute on its ride, the grooves of each number. No matter what, I’m still Chosen, he thought, even as another part of him reeled in shock and dismay.

“The first Choosing will be the Spearman!”

The crowd cheered. Some let down red and gold banners; the traditional heraldic colors for the Spearmen. To Morden, this seemed to be an unusually vivacious response from the crowd.

“Please form an orderly line to the dais to be Chosen as a Spearman,” said the Queen. Morden realized that the King handled the general announcements while the Queen gave the specific directives.

The Spearman Guardian limped on stage. He was a buff looking skunk, of all animals, with a jagged line down his right eye, and a cane he was heavily limping on.

Not without shoves and “Hey!”’s did a ragged line finally form to the dais. Morden picked out Alvin somewhere in the middle; he looked disgruntled.

Clearly he had tried to jostle his way forward but had been overpowered. Morden snickered to himself.

“The test,” said the skunk, “is to break through my parry.” He grinned.

Land one hit? Onlookers began murmuring. Doubtlessly they thought the qualification to be too easy. Morden sat back, his curiosity granting him more calm and focus.

The first contestant stepped forward, a chestnut squirrel with buck teeth. “Hiya!” he shot himself in the air at the same time he pushed his sword down, aiming for a downward slash right on the skunk’s head.

Quicker than lightning the skunk raised his walking cane, holding it with two hands out at his forehead, deflecting the squirrel’s attack.

The force of the rebound sent the squirrel flying off stage.

“Oh.” The skunk smiled. “I forgot to mention. You only get one shot.”

Like it had been holding its breath to bursting point, the crowd went wild, cheering and stamping ecstatically.

The chestnut squirrel was clutching his head in his paws, eyes still spinning dazedly. I see, thought Morden. It might look unfair that the skunk just mentioned that condition, but to be honest, that chestnut squirrel couldn’t have landed a blow even if he’d been at it for a whole day.

Morden squinted. On the skunk’s cane, he could just make out a faint white mark where the sword had whittled the wood.

Why does he use such cheap wood? After today, that cane will be close to breaking , Morden wondered to himself.

Several more contestants took their turn, but the skunk deflected all their attacks effortlessly. Finally it was Alvin’s turn.

Whatever he does, I just hope he doesn’t embarrass our family , reflected Morden.

Alvin’s cheeks were all red. He had a look Morden interpreted as sheer tenacity and willpower. Morden had seen that look all too often growing up — when their mother gave him more cereal, when Morden was playing with a toy Alvin suddenly deemed was his, at the courtyard when his “friends” excluded him from a ball game…

Cheeks flushed, Alvin roared, charged forth… and fell.

Morden couldn’t help but to snigger, triggering the rest of the crowd to dissolve in hoots and laughter.

Morden now saw that a knobbly twig had been blown back in the last contestant’s blowback. The twig had tripped Alvin before he’d even a chance to start. Wiping a small tear of mirth from his eye, Morden suddenly caught the icy owl’s glare. Realizing his conduct might be a little improper, Morden tried to straighten his face, but failed to completely rid his mouth of a smirk.

If possible, Alvin’s face became even redder. Red as an apple, and bellowing with even more force, he… ran straight ahead.

Morden’s mind boggled. Like that’s gonna work, he thought.

Predictably, the skunk raised his stick. But right when the sword connected, Alvin refused to release his sword.

But Alvin won’t be able to land a point , thought Morden. If his strategy’s to break the stick, his momentum… oh.

Little by little, Alvin’s sword carved a deeper notch into the stick. The more resistance the skunk pushed with, the deeper the notch. Finally, with a noise that was light but still made everyone cringe, the stick snapped in half, wood fibers still sticking out at each end from the imperfect split.

In stillness Alvin and the skunk stood, Alvin’s sword well over a foot away from the skunk, the skunk now clutching only broken wood.

“I did it,” Alvin huffed into the silence. “You said, ‘whoever breaks through my parry.’”

The crowd shrieked and dissolved into cheers. Morden snorted to himself. Only his older brother would take the skunk’s instructions literally and actually try to split his parry stick in two. Still, it worked.

The skunk cried out, “Welcome our new Spearman!” and the King himself gestured for Alvin to take the first seat behind them in the pavilion. Flushing with pride now, Alvin punched an arm in the air.

“That was a laugh. But no one can do that again. That was a one shot trick. Next!” yelled the skunk. From seemingly nowhere the Queen produced a new stick for the skunk.

After the selection was completed, three more had passed, bringing the total count of Spearmen to four.

Next it was time for the Thief Guardian. The Thief Guardian was a mild, unobtrusive grey squirrel. It wasn’t clear to Morden whether the Guardian had gone grey or was born grey.

“Now the test will be simple,” he said. “I will walk in a circle. You need to steal any of these cards, which I will be wearing on my belt.” The Guardian pointed to his belt, where red playing cards hung like jewels.

The Guardian began to walk. The crowd watched him finish a loop… and then he vanished.

The dais looked completely empty. Rationally, Morden knew the Thief Guardian only appeared invisible, but he was still shaken by his disappearing act. The Queen announced, “Let the Thief Choosing begin!

The first participant, a lizard, was so startled by the turn of events he bolted and ran away. Some walked in the same circle they’d seen the Guardian make. Some paused and waited in place. But all seemed to be grasping at air and eventually stepped down shamefaced.

At this point, a black hedgehog arrived on stage. He paused, then began to walk counter clockwise in a tighter ring than the Guardian. So quick Morden almost missed it, he stuck his paw out and flicked a card into view. It was the Joker.

The crowd clapped, but the clapping was different. It was not as wild and unrestrained for the Spearmen. There was a hesitancy about it. The crowd didn’t understand what had happened — that was surely one reason.

Ultimately, two more contestants passed. Hmm, thought Morden. This seems to be a trend. Will it be that only two will pass the Archery Choosing? And only one Mage will pass? But they couldn’t have planned it out so perfectly. Could they?

“And now for the Archery Choosing!” announced the King. Like a ball hurtling to the horizon, Morden’s heartrate accelerated. Just one more and then it’ll be my turn! He was perfectly aware that according to Kessey, there would be no test. Finding the latch was the test. However, he was excited to present his findings on the sundial.

The Archery Guardian stepped up. She was a dainty looking little mouse. But everyone knew muscle wasn’t required for a good archer.

“Hmm,” she said, scanning the crowd, as though in hunt mode. “Well. Why don’t we have a little fun.” She accented her last words in her sentences. She produced a green kite out of nowhere (Morden was getting used to this) and tied it with a flourish to her tail. Then she said in raised voice, “Crossbows first!”

With that, she took off at a sprint over the hills. As she had ordered, the crossbows lined up expectantly, followed by the ordinary archers.

Morden had personally never used a crossbow. He knew how to use the ordinary bow. That was just a bow where you pulled your arm all the way back to let loose the arrow. He knew the crossbow was modern and worked similar to a human rifle, where you loaded the bow with an arrow and pulled a trigger. It was better for tight spaces, but the downside was that it couldn’t fly as far as an ordinary bow. The Archery Guardian made crossbows go first because otherwise she would exit their range of motion.

The green kite flew an S flight pattern. Behind the diamond streamed many smaller little diamonds, like a green serpent winding its way through the blue sky.

Several contestants took shots; however, none were able to pierce the kite. Morden saw that the task was made more difficult by the wind which flapped the kite unpredictably, sometimes folding a bit of fabric that the archer would have otherwise struck.

The opossum Morden had noticed earlier was now next in line. Soon, the mouse would be out of reach for the crossbows. The opossum would have to shoot quickly in order to make it.

Without the slightest hesitation, the opossum took sight of the kite in her scope and fired her arrow. The X white stitching of the kite was faint but clear. As the arrow drew towards the kite, Morden saw at once that she would notch the X dead center.

“Well! Well done, Celeste!” A podgy looking opossum bumped its way through the crowd to where Celeste, the crossbow archer, stood. Before her ears had been perked and alert. When Celeste saw the man, her ears drooped and she seemed to wilt in place. “I-I-I could have done that bli-i-indfolded,” she said quietly.

Blindfolded? The comment struck Morden as odd. Then he sensed the crowd’s reaction. As with the Thief Choosing, while the crowd still cheered, it was noticeably even more muted than for the Thief candidates. Forget banners, there were no flowers or even the customary salt thrown for the Archery choosing. Morden had always known that Spearman was by far the most popular choice, both for tryouts and in the eyes of the public. But even he was surprised at the lackluster response the other Chosen paths garnered.

After Celeste, the mouse had crossed the 50 meter mark, so crossbow applicants automatically failed. As Morden had hypothesized, only one more bowman was selected.

With that the King stood up. “And now only one more Choosing remains.” Jittery, Morden stood. He waited with baited breath for the King’s next words. “The Mage Choosing!”

A buzzing noise erupted from the icy blue owl. The crowd drew back in fright and suspicion. He rolled his neck, his head looking like the ball on a pivot. Then he said gravely, “I am the Mage Guardian. My name is Cassiopeia.”

Cassiopeia? thought Morden.

Without looking at Morden, Cassiopeia continued, “My colleague disclosed to me there is already a Mage here.”

Morden stood straight at attention. His neighbors must have sensed something, for they drew back, leaving him a small circle of privacy.

“Cassiopeia,” said Morden bravely. “I have been Chosen by Kessie.”

“You’ve been… Chosen by Kessie?” A bare inflection of doubt hung at the end of his sentence, like a hat hanging from a tall branch on a tree.

Small pockets of whispering susurrated through the crowd. A wave of ill foreboding lapped at Morden. However, he had said what he needed to say, so he waited for Cassiopeia’s response, looking into the owl’s yellow hawkish eyes.

“Whether or not this is true, the fact remains that I am the Mage Guardian, and therefore your Chooser, today. So.” Cassiopeia moved his body only slightly to angle directly at Morden, but the impact of this small shift was tremendous. Morden felt dwarfed, and strangely, not just physically, but even psychically. What is going on? he thought.

“Care to deign to prove your worth… one last time?”

Blood pulsed in his ears, as though he had blood clots swimming from his left ear to his right. Thank the King I prepared my presentation on the sundial! he thought. He pulled out his sundial and said, with more bravura than he felt, “I can do that.”

Cassiopeia narrowed his eyes fractionally. Morden knew in a flash of insight he had not expected the squirrel to come prepared.

Walking steadily to the dias, Morden confined his beating to his trembling heart. Outwardly, he made no sign of the grating tension that even now threatened to close his throat, or worse, pull him under to unconsciousness.

“Squirrelfolk,” in the span of a moment he decided to address the crowd rather than Cassiopeia, “I’m here today because growing up, I had a problem.”

Before, they were scattered and agitated, but now he sensed the crowd focusing like a single flower’s petals closing in, engaged and intrigued by his admission of weakness.

“I had a problem,” he restated, setting the copper sundial down so all could see it. A long shadow elongated under the dial. “My problem was this,” he said as he got up. “I never had enough energy.

“Now you might think that’s a small problem,” Morden continued. “After all, your days are hard enough. You probably don’t have enough energy after a full day’s worth of work, after a day of herding small children, dealing with business clients… But my energy levels were so bad, sometimes, it was all I could do to lie in bed three days at a time,” he said bluntly. This, actually, was an exaggeration, but he had heard cases like this from Lapitu and didn’t think he was above using hyperbole for his Choosing.

“My mom was told that I needed a paste of 70 apple seeds a day. As you all know, that kind of cure would bankrupt even the wealthiest of us. Fortunately,” he gestured his toe at the smallish sundial, “this saved me.”

With rising anticipation that Morden carefully pressed down, to ensure his victory wasn’t premature, he saw the crowd change from fearful looks to open, interested ones. Morden didn’t look at Cassiopeia. He knew, the same way a squirrel knows how to land on a branch teetering over the abyss without breaking the branch, that he could not, would not, look at Cassiopeia.

“This is a sundial. It measures time… parceling out the day into 12 pieces, or hours. So how did I use it? Well, I measured my own energy. I’d count how many hours it would take for me to get tired, and eventually, I saw a pattern,” Morden explained. “Just how you might wait for an herb to bloom all day… and then you find out it always blooms at 1…” he saw understanding dawn on the herbalist, “or how you might watch a pair of wet leather shoes… and find out they’re always ruined by 4 hours…” the shoemaker was nodding, “or maybe your children are always running off and coming home after dark but if you tell them to always come back at 5, you don’t have to worry…” mothers were nodding. Morden sensed he had them. Victory is close! Now to cinch it!

With a renewed burst of confidence, he said, “After a year of studying the sundial, I realized something. That is, an hour in summer isn’t the same as in winter. This is a problem, because if you found out herbs always bloom at 1, or that shoes get waterlogged after 4 hours, you’d have to change what you found out depending on the season.”

Deftly Morden unraveled his scarf. Hidden inside its black and green stripes was a skinny wax candle and a cigarette lighter (both he’d nicked long ago.) Morden held these items aloft like religious relics radiating halos.

“I have found a way to measure time, outside of time!” he cried triumphantly. He rolled the candle slightly in his paw, “See this small etched line? I realized… a candle burns for the same amount of time no matter the season… so after long and painful experimentation, I was able to measure out notches that show the true hour — an hour that’s the same winter or summer!”

Morden flicked the cigarette lighter and lit the candle, and set it carefully on the marble. “Once the candle burns down the first notch… a third of an hour will have passed,” he explained proudly.

He looked up at the adoring crowd. “Can you imagine how this will change our society? Instead of saying, ‘Let’s meet in the morning,’ we can say, ‘Let’s meet at the 9th hour.’ When your employees say they work too much,” he gestured out to the crowd, “we have a way to actually prove or disprove these claims. Even things like when a baby is born; now we can mark it precisely!” The buzz in the crowd rose to a clamor as every townsquirrel turned to gab excitedly to their neighbor.

Morden let his rising anticipation fill him completely, like a dry reservoir filling to the brim in a shower. He gazed beyond and saw the three Guardians in the back with faces of approval. Happily he shifted, and stopped as though he slammed into a wall at Cassiopeia’s expression.

The icy owl wore an expression of pure wrath.

“Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz.” Cassiopeia’s low buzz interrupted the crowd like a firefly net sending fireflies scuttling outwards in all directions. “Is this how you want to pass your test, young Mage?” he asked.

Morden would not downplay his invention. He knew its worth!

Cassiopeia swooped down. In that second he looked just like a bird of prey, a raptor, a hawk. Clutching the flame of the candle with his grey talon, the flame sizzled out to a lonesome puff of grey smoke. Some of the younger squirrels in the crowd abruptly began to cry.

“So. You claim your invention will change society. Herbalist, tell me!” he demanded. “How would your life change if you knew the daffodil bloomed at 1?” The shocked herbalist had no words for him. “Shoemaker!” he demanded next. “How would your life change if you knew what hour your shoes would be waterlogged?” Next he turned on the council, “If you have any problems with how we currently assemble, list them now! But it seems to me we are already quite capable of convening to solve problems, without your device for measuring time.” He made a noise that almost sounded like he was churning up saliva to spit. “What of mothers? Will they love their children more, now that they can mark the exact hour a baby was born?”

Morden frowned. Despite the primal fear he felt for Cassiopeia, his panic at the change of plans, and his confusion at Kessey’s absence, he could still clearly trace that Cassiopeia’s argument was somewhat illogical. More motivated by a grudge than emotions — but why?

“But my candle clock makes us more effective at all these things,” Morden said reasonably.

“Effectiveness! That’s all the counts for you mages, isn’t it?”

As Cassiopeia advanced upon Morden, the townsfolk melted away like shadows.

“Can you guess,” the icy owl asked, “how long it took for your mentor, Kessie, to figure out a candle clock?”

“How long?”

“One. Hour.” Cassiopeia’s voice lowered and it seemed to emanate from his throat instead. “And here it took you a year, and yet you brag about it like a chick who just grew its downy feathers!”

He turned to the crowd.

“Do you know what happened to the badgers, once they took upon time-keeping like the humans?” Without waiting for an answer Cassiopeia continued. “They began enforcing strict rules for how long each badger had to work. Once the leaders realized they could make the badgers work longer and longer hours, they conducted experiments, experiments on how long a badger could dig, without water, without food and bathroom breaks. From these experiments, they forced all badgers — elderly, mothers, children — to match that relentless quota…! The badger society became so miserable, the workers rebelled… but it was a complete bloodbath… and naught remains of that burrow.”

The audience was stuck dumb. Though not entirely relevant, Morden suddenly realized that the icy blue owl must be the very first Mage any of them had ever seen before. He wished he’d had breakfast. Then he was glad he hadn’t. He was so nauseated, bile alone could spew out of him at any moment. All around, his triumph was vanishing, melting into the miasma of fear and distrust of him and all Mages.

But Cassiopeia was not done.

“Pride! That’s your problem! That’s all Mages’ problem! Your outrageous, empty pride!” Cassiopeia thundered.

“Sometimes, growing up, I’d look at Mages and I’d think… they’re just made of fluff and arrogance! Your absolute vanity… your absolute belief in the power of your intellect… the superiority of your intellect… while the rest of us fall into a pit of your own making…! From the very start, I already knew you were the one Kessie chose,” Cassiopeia said, flying threateningly around Morden, an ice blue blizzard. Every word from his beak fell like hailstones, battering Morden’s soft flesh. “How did I know? Because of the way you looked down and apart from the crowd… because of your prideful smirks and secret taunts to your own brother… even though,” Cassiopeia’s eyes narrowed so much they almost disappeared in his feathers, “it is written that mages are to come fourth and last.” Cassiopeia looked down at Morden, and he was like an immense obelisk Morden saw while falling, falling rapidly down a cliff. “Yes, young Mage, could it be that someone of your advanced learning did not know even this elementary fact? The Choosing ceremony merely reflects the order set down by our first King — long may he live! Spearmen are our most noble of all Chosen. Thieves are our diplomatic weapon. Archers provide support. And Mages…” Cassiopeia’s face transfixed itself into a hideous grimace that reminded Morden of cancer tumors bulging on a tree. “When Mages aren’t sitting in their ivory towers, reading and writing books about topics that real folk don’t have the means to care for, they tell others what to do, basking in their own supposedly divine farts.”

In a swift break of control, Cassiopeia swiped at Morden with a great feathered wing. But Morden was so completely paralyzed, he couldn’t even cringe in anticipation for a knock-out. It was all he could do to even close his eyes.

When Morden opened his eyes, he saw the owl’s wing but a breath before his face.

Cassiopeia had stopped himself mid-swipe. Morden didn’t know how to feel. He didn’t know what to do. He was completely frozen.

The icy blue owl’s yellow beak curved up in a mock smile. “I saw you laughing at the Spearman early today. Your older brother.” Cassiopeia nodded towards Alvin. “Now you know you’re lower than him by royal edict. Go to him… and apologize. And be sincere. I’ll know… if you’re not.” Cassiopeia’s mock smile widened.

When Morden remained frozen, Cassiopeia laughed, a low ugly sound. “What? Don’t you want your little… magey diploma? This is the test.” Cassiopeia’s eyes glimmered brightly in satisfaction.

A hurricane brewed in Morden.

He was burning with humiliation. It wasn’t that Kessie had beaten him to the idea, and by a long shot. It wasn’t even that Cassiopeia had systematically pointed out the limited scope of use for his time invention. It was true. His candle clock wouldn’t bring anything new into effect. At least, not immediately. Morden could have argued with Cassiopeia longer about that point. However, his humiliation was from the fact that Morden hadn’t even considered that others might have already discovered the candle clock. He’d genuinely thought he was the first inventor. Looking back, that was obviously silly — but — and this is what shook him — Cassiopeia was right. He’d been blinded by his own vanity.

But at the same time he was burning with humiliation, he was freezing with indignant fury. How dare Cassiopeia spit on all mages? Not only was he slandering Morden, he also slandered Kessie. And that, Morden couldn’t take. When Cassiopeia said that Spearmen came first — well, that was something Morden had already been starting to pick up from the crowd’s reaction alone. But he didn’t care if some royal edict centuries ago said Spearmen were better. Morden would decide what was better and what was worse, on his own experience and judgment.

As for what Cassiopeia said about sitting in an ivory tower, not bothering himself with the concerns of the common folk… that left a splinter in Morden, like a tiny wooden splinter he couldn’t quite tell was gone or not from his paw. But the feeling was small enough to put aside until he had the time and freedom to examine it more later.

So Morden stood, burning with humiliation, and freezing with rage. He said: “I’ll do it.” And when he did, he wondered that his voice did not sound his own.

Cassiopeia’s beak widened, and his eyes glittered like obsidian in a desert.

Morden turned around and faced Alvin for the first time in the conversation. Alvin’s face was a picture of satisfied vindication. It was like his older brother was rubbing his hands at this unexpected turn of fortune. But Morden only walked stoically ahead until he came to Alvin.

He could feel the stares of the entire crowd behind him, like a concentrated burn on his neck. Even more, he was acutely aware of the impassive gaze of the King and Queen. The Guardians had a wide range of expressions — in a flash, he saw that some were horrified while some looked like they had expected this outcome all too well. No time to think about them, Morden thought.

He was about to open his mouth to say sincerely, “I’m sorry,” when a buzz issued from Cassiopeia.

“Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Here’s what I want you to say. Word by word. ‘Elder brother, I was wrong all the times I mocked you. It was I that should have been mocked — for my endless vanity. Forgive me; I failed to learn my place.’”

Morden didn’t need to look back to see the, now complete, savage smile spread on the icy blue owl’s visage like a slash.

A bead of sweat trickled down Morden’s face. The world blurred, even though he wasn’t running. Right or wrong, Cassiopeia was right about one thing. This was the most difficult test Morden had faced, ever. Years of trampling on his brothers’ dignity, his innate contempt for the “silly warriors” as Kessie had put it, even the laughably pathetic way Alvin had passed his test — all these habitual feelings warred in Morden against his desire to finally be recognized as a Mage, to finally prove to his parents that he, Morden, was not the failure they’d believed him to be for so long, to show Reflector his gift, to etch his destiny on the world. But even more important than proving to his parents that he was not a failure, or making his rendezvous with the books of history, was Kessie — the owl who believed in him, who hinted at secret lunar powers, who had so much left to teach him.

Morden took a deep breath and, regardless of Cassiopeia’s icy stare, closed his eyes. His sundial was sitting on the marble dais right now. But he pretended it was in his paw. He pretended he could feel its light weight, the nooks and crannies of the etched numbers, the slight warmth it retained. And then he knew why his voice had sounded different. Because right now, he was a different squirrel than when he’d first begun his Choosing.

“Elder brother, I was wrong all the times I mocked you. It was I that should have been mocked — for my endless vanity. Forgive me; I failed to learn my place,” said Morden into the waiting silence.

“On your knee,” added Cassiopeia forcefully. Alvin started.

Morden struggled internally, and then took a breath and went limp. On the exhale he dropped, ever so slowly, like an aging arthritic squirrel, to one knee.

All of a sudden a force pressed down against Morden’s neck, formalizing his bow as one would make to a King. It was like a hundred grams of pressure bowing his head down. Morden panted, hyperventilating. His eyes dilated. No one was touching him and yet the force was there —

“How does it feel…” The icy blue owl cocked his head. “…my Prison of Light? Remember this feeling.”

Swooping low in a gust of icy blue feathers, Cassiopeia was right by Morden’s ear. It was so quiet Morden could hear a pebble drop from fifty meters.

“Young Mage,” the icy blue owl breathed, “I’ll grind down your arrogance like gears on a grindstone. I’ll grind down your arrogance if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

With that, Cassiopeia buzzed and flew away like a bolt of blue lightning. Yet Morden could still see these hawk-like yellow eyes. He choked, and knew it would be very, very long, if ever, before he forgot that pressure against his neck.

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