Caliph went inside, unlocked the musty box with his number and found two letters, one from his father, the other in a familiar boyish cursive that made his stomach feel like it was falling. He opened the first.
Tarsh 4, Day of the Sowing
Caliph,
I got word of your success at school today but the Council says you plan to stay another semester. Don’t do it. Come home. There’s turmoil near Clefthollow. Unfortunately I have men there to lead and will not likely be able to attend your graduation. Such are the responsibilities of serving the Council. I smile when I think that I may soon be serving you.
—Jacob
Caliph’s hand crumpled it and released it somewhere near the trash. It was forgotten even before he turned the second letter over for further inspection. He could feel something heavy inside. It wouldn’t be drivel. This letter would require something of him. His stomach fell again. Unable to do anything else, he tore off the corner with a flourish and shook its contents into his palm. A date nearly a month old crabbed the top of the page.
Mrsh 8, Y.o.T. Falcon
Caliph,
Congratulations! I don’t have to tell you that you’re brilliant.
I have my own place now, not far from Sandren, in the Highlands of Tue. You could be here in a week if you take the steam rail. I enclosed a map. The fact that you did most of my cartography for me is my only excuse.
I have something to show you. Something that might put our last conversation in a better light. And no, that’s not the only reason I want you to come.
It gets lonely out here. I bought some things I know you like. I can probably find a use for them if you don’t show up but . . .
Don’t worry. If you decide against coming—for any reason—I’ll understand and wish you good luck. Hynnsll.
—Sena
There was a key, their key, tucked inside a wrecked attempt at a map. To his surprise, the key affected him profoundly like a talisman. He thought of throwing it in the pond.
At noon he met the rest of the Naked Eight at Grume’s for a drink. Since Roric’s expulsion, Caliph had become their genearch; the one they toasted while skirting the humiliating topic that had forged their fraternity.
With graduation bearing down, they promised to stay in touch, look each other up; look Caliph up in particular since he would be king. They joked about taking advantage of his featherbeds and the fictitious chambermaids that gave sponge baths.
Caliph forced a laugh but he had to wonder whether it might be true that they clung to him primarily because of the power he would soon command. He wanted to believe that regardless of his distinction, there was some invisible unbreakable bond between them. They were the Naked Eight. Unfortunately it sounded cheap and mawkish, sincerity that with time would turn into the oldest kind of lie.
Caliph left Grume’s feeling depressed.
By Day of Dusk, his isolation was complete.
He went to the chapel where a heavy brocade of dove-colored stone seemed to shout. Choking-sweet clouds of incense smudged the tierceron vault under which twenty-nine graduates milled as though eight years of school had left them confused.
Caliph walked in, spotted with jewel-colored light and found Belman Gorn’s eyes watching him.
“Here for a gown?”
Caliph felt sheepish. “I opted out of that pomp. I’m staying one more semester. There’s a class on lethargy crucibles: slow power. I couldn’t pass it up.”
“Engineering?”
“No. It’s an overview of how they run, but mostly economics. Impact, cost, infrastructure . . . that kind of thing.”
Belman chuckled. “Let no one say Caliph Howl doesn’t love school. You probably won’t miss much at commencement tonight.”
Caliph smiled but knew Belman was wrong. Suddenly he understood that this should have been his night. Belman wasn’t giving him advice. Belman wasn’t talking to him like a student anymore. Some miraculous transformation had almost taken place. Caliph imagined all the doors and windows in Desdae being suddenly flung open, releasing him—every part of him—like a startled flock of birds.
But that didn’t happen.
Instead, he watched his friends accept their degrees on the lawn. It was different than Sena’s graduation, an evening ceremony with an audience that included no one he knew and the occasional lacewing that fluttered like white fire through the last rays of evening translucence.
Caliph met the chancellor in the Administration Building on the eleventh. Enthroned behind his desk in a riveted oxblood chair, Darsey looked up from his work through a