The Rithmatist

  Joel nodded. “He saw the chalklings coming, and he surrounded himself with Lines of Forbiddance.”

  It was a terrible dueling tactic—a Line of Forbiddance not only blocked chalklings, but physical objects as well. The Rithmatist himself couldn’t reach past one to draw lines and defend himself. By boxing himself in, Herman had sealed his fate.

  “He shouldn’t have done that,” Joel said.

  “Perhaps,” Fitch said. “But, if he feared being overwhelmed, this could have been the only way. Lines of Forbiddance are stronger than a Circle of Warding.”

  “Except at the corners,” Joel said.

  Lines of Forbiddance had to be straight—and straight lines had no bind points. The chalklings had gotten in at the corners. But perhaps Fitch was right. Chalklings were fast, and running might have been a bad idea.

  The only option would be to bunker in, drawing lots of lines, locking yourself in place and yelling for help. Then you’d wait, hoping someone would hear you and be able to do something. You’d sit, watching while a squirming mass of chalk drawings chewed and clawed their way closer, getting past the lines one at a time.…

  Joel shivered. “Did you notice these specks?”

  Fitch looked more closely. “Hum. Yes.”

  “They look like they might be remnants of chalklings,” Joel said. “After they get torn apart.”

  “Maybe,” Fitch said, squinting. “They weren’t re-created very well. Blast! The police sketch artists don’t know what is important and what isn’t!”

  “We need to see the scene itself,” Joel said.

  “Yes,” Fitch said. “However, it is probably too late now. The police will have moved about, scuffing the chalk, throwing acid on the Lines of Forbiddance to remove them so that they can search the room. And that means…”

  He trailed off.

  We won’t be able to look at a crime scene unless there’s another incident, Joel thought, and the police know not to touch anything until we get there.

  That meant waiting for another person to disappear, which seemed like a bad idea. Better to work on what they had at the moment.

  “Here,” Fitch said, looking at the third—and final—sheet. It contained a pattern of looping lines, like the one that had been discovered at Lilly’s house. The sketch was labeled “Strange pattern of chalk discovered on the wall outside the victim’s room.”

  “How odd,” Fitch said. “The same one as before. But that’s not a Rithmatic pattern.”

  “Professor,” Joel said, taking the sheet and raising it to the light. “I’ve seen that pattern somewhere before. I know I have!”

  “It’s a fairly simple design,” Fitch said. “Perhaps you’ve just seen it on a rug or some stonework. It has an almost Celtic feel, wouldn’t you say? Perhaps it’s the symbol of the killer … or, um, kidnapper.”

  Joel shook his head. “I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere having to do with Rithmatics. Maybe one of the texts I read?”

  “If that is the case,” Fitch said, “it’s no text I’ve seen. That’s not a Rithmatic pattern.”

  “Couldn’t there be lines we don’t know about yet?” Joel said. “I mean, we didn’t even discover Rithmatics was possible until a few centuries back.”

  “I suppose,” Fitch said. “Some scholars talk about such things.”

  “Why don’t you draw that pattern? Maybe it will do something.”

  “I guess I could try. What harm could it do?” He got a piece of chalk out of his coat pocket, then cleared off the table.

  He hesitated.

  A thought struck Joel. What harm could it do? Potentially a lot, if the design really does have something to do with the kidnappings.

  In his head, Joel imagined Fitch’s sketch inadvertently calling forth an army of chalklings or drawing the attention of the person who controlled them. One of the professor’s lamps began to wind down, the light fading, and Joel quickly rushed over to rewind it.

  “I guess we’ll have to try it sometime,” Fitch said. “Perhaps you should wait outside.”

  Joel shook his head. “So far, only Rithmatists have disappeared. I think I should stay, to watch and help in case something happens to you.”

  Fitch sat for a moment, then finally he sighed and reached out to sketch a copy of the looping swirl on the desk.

  Nothing happened.

  Joel held his breath. Minutes ticked by. Still nothing. He walked nervously over to the desk. “Did you draw it right?”

  “Hum. Well, I think so,” Fitch said, holding up the sketch. “Assuming the officers at Herman’s house copied it right in the first place.” He reached out and touched his chalk against the looping pattern, obviously trying to dismiss it. Nothing.

  “It has no Rithmatic properties,” the professor said. “Otherwise, I’d be able to make it puff away.” He paused, then cocked his head. “I … appear to have made quite a mess on the top of my desk. Hum. I didn’t consider that.”

  “We need to do more tests,” Joel said. “Try different variations.”

  “Yes,” Fitch said. “Perhaps that is what I shall do. You, however, should go home and return to bed. Your mother will be worried!”

  “Mother is working,” Joel said.

  “Well, you are probably tired,” Fitch said.

  “I’m an insomniac.”

  “Then you should go and try to sleep,” Fitch said. “I am not going to have a student in my office until the early hours of the morning. It’s already too late. Be off with you.”

  Joel sighed. “You’ll share anything you discover, right?”

  “Yes, yes,” Fitch said, waving.

  Joel sighed again, louder this time.

  “You’re beginning to sound like Melody,” Fitch said. “Go!”

  Melody? Joel thought, walking away. I am not!

  “And … Joel?” Professor Fitch said.

  “Yes?”

  “Keep to the … well-lit parts of campus on your way to the dormitories, lad. All right?”

  Joel nodded, then shut the door.

  CHAPTER

  The next morning, Joel rose early and left for Fitch’s office. As he crossed the dew-wetted green, he heard a clamor coming from the direction of the campus office. He rounded the hill to find a small crowd outside the building.

  A crowd of adults, not students.

  Frowning, Joel walked to the edge of the crowd. Exton stood to the side, wearing a red vest with dark trousers and a matching bowler. The rest of the people were dressed similarly—nice clothing, with bright, single-piece dresses for the women, and vests and trousers for the men. None wore coats in the summer heat, but most wore hats.

  The adults muttered among themselves, a few shaking fists toward Principal York, who stood in the doorway of the office.

  “What’s going on?” Joel whispered to Exton.

  The clerk tapped his cane against the ground. “Parents,” he said. “The bane of every school’s existence.”

  “I assure you that your children are safe at Armedius!” the principal said. “This academy has always been a haven for those chosen to be Rithmatists.”

  “Safe like Lilly and Herman?” one of the parents yelled. Others rumbled in assent.

  “Please!” Principal York said. “We don’t know what is happening yet! Don’t jump to conclusions.”

  “Principal York,” said a woman with a narrow face and a nose pointy enough it could poke out someone’s eye if she turned in haste. “Are you denying that there is some threat to the students here?”

  “I’m not denying that,” York said. “I simply said that they are safe on campus. No student has come to harm while on school grounds. It was only during visits outside the walls that incidents occurred.”

  “I am taking my son away!” one of the men said. “To another island. You can’t stop me.”

  “The ordinary students can leave for the summer,” said another. “Why not ours?”

  “The Rithmatic students need training!” York said.
“You know that! If we act rashly now, we could undermine their ability to defend themselves at Nebrask!”

  This quieted them somewhat. However, Joel heard one father muttering to another. “He doesn’t care,” the man said. “York isn’t a Rithmatist—if they die here or die in Nebrask, what is it to him?”

  Joel noticed a few sharply dressed men standing quietly to the side, making no complaints. They wore vests of muted colors and triangular felt hats. He couldn’t make out any signs of emotion on their features.

  York finally managed to break up and dismiss the group of parents. As the people trailed away, the men walked up to Principal York.

  “Who are they?” Joel asked.

  “Private security,” Exton whispered back. “The ones on the left are employed by Didrich Calloway, knight-senator of East Carolina. His son is a Rithmatist here. I don’t know the other ones, but I suspect they’re employed by some very influential people who also have Rithmatist children here at Armedius.”

  The principal looked troubled.

  “He’s going to have to let them go, isn’t he?” Joel asked. “The children of the very important.”

  “Likely,” Exton said. “Principal York has a lot of influence, but if he butts heads with a knight-senator, there’s little doubt who will win.”

  A small group of Rithmatic students watched from a hillside a short distance away. Joel couldn’t tell if their miserable expressions came from the fact that they were worried about the kidnappings, or if they were embarrassed at having their parents show up at school. Probably both.

  “Very well,” Joel faintly heard Principal York say from the office doorway, “I see that I have no choice. Know that you do this against my wishes.”

  Joel turned to Exton. “Has anyone sent for Inspector Harding?”

  “I don’t believe so,” Exton said. “I couldn’t even get into the office! They were here before I was, crowding the way in.”

  “Send Harding a messenger,” Joel suggested. “He might want to hear about the parents’ reactions.”

  “Yes,” Exton said, watching the security men with obvious hostility. “Yes, that’s a good idea. This isn’t going to do much to ease tensions on campus, I’d say. If those students weren’t afraid before, they will be now.”

  Joel moved away toward Fitch’s office, passing James Hovell being walked by his parents to class. He walked with shoulders slumped, eyes toward the ground in embarrassment. Perhaps there were advantages to having a mother who worked all the time.

  Fitch took a long time to answer Joel’s knock. When he did pull open the door, he looked bleary-eyed, still wearing a blue dressing gown.

  “Oh!” Fitch said. “Joel. What hour is it?”

  Joel winced, realizing that Fitch had probably been up late studying those strange patterns. “I’m sorry for waking you,” Joel said. “I was eager to find out if you discovered anything. About the patterns, I mean.”

  Fitch yawned. “No, unfortunately. But it wasn’t for lack of trying, I must say! I dug out the other version of that pattern—the one copied from Lilly’s house—and tried to determine if there were any variations. I drew a hundred different modifications on the theme. I’m sorry, lad. I just don’t think it’s a Rithmatic line.”

  “I’ve seen it somewhere before,” Joel said. “I know I have, Professor. Maybe I should go to the library, look through some of the books I’ve read recently.”

  “Yes, yes,” Fitch said, yawning again. “Sounds like … a capital idea.”

  Joel nodded, heading toward the library and letting the professor go back to sleep. As he crossed the green toward the central quad, he noticed one of the parents from before—the woman with the sharp nose and pinched face—standing on the green, hands on hips, looking lost.

  “You,” she called to him. “I don’t know the campus very well. Could you tell me where might I find a Professor Fitch?”

  Joel pointed toward the building behind him. “Office three. Up the stairwell on the side. What do you want him for?”

  “My son mentioned him,” she said. “I just wanted to chat with him for a short time, ask him about things here. Thank you!”

  Joel arrived at the library and pushed open the door, passing out of the crisp morning air into a place that somehow managed to be cool and musty even during the warmest summer days. The library didn’t have many windows—sunlight wasn’t good for books—and so depended on clockwork lanterns.

  Joel walked through the stacks, making his way to the familiar section dedicated to general-interest books on Rithmatics, both fiction and nonfiction. He’d read a lot of these—pretty much everything in the library that he was allowed access to. If he really had seen that pattern somewhere, it could have been in any of these.

  He opened one book he remembered checking out a few weeks ago. He only vaguely recalled it at first, but as he flipped through, he shivered. It was an adventure novel about Rithmatists in Nebrask.

  He stopped on a page, reading—almost against his will—paragraphs on a man being gruesomely eaten by wild chalklings. They crawled up his skin under his clothing—they only had two dimensions, after all—and chewed his flesh from his bones.

  The account was fictionalized and overly dramatic. Still, it made Joel feel sick. He’d wanted very badly to be involved in Professor Fitch’s work. And yet, if Joel were to face an army of chalklings, he wouldn’t be able to build himself a defense. The creatures would crawl right over his lines and get at him. He’d be no better off than the man in the book.

  He shook himself free from imaginings of chalklings scrambling up and down his body. He had wanted this. If he was really going to become a scholar of Rithmatics—if that was his goal—he’d have to live with the idea that it could be dangerous, and he would not be able to defend himself.

  He put the novel away—it had no illustrations—and moved to the nonfiction section. Here, he grabbed a stack of books that looked familiar and walked to a study desk at the side of the room.

  An hour of searching left Joel feeling even more frustrated than when he’d started. He groaned, sitting back, stretching. Perhaps he was just chasing shadows, looking for a connection to his own life so that he could prove useful to Fitch.

  It seemed to him that his memory of the pattern was older than this. Familiar, but from a long, long time ago. He had a good memory, particularly when it came to Rithmatics. He gathered his current stack of books and walked back toward the shelves to return them. As he did so, a man in a bright red Rithmatic coat walked into the library.

  Professor Nalizar, Joel thought. I sure hope that someday, some upstart young Rithmatist challenges him to a duel and takes away his tenure. He …

  The first student hadn’t disappeared until Nalizar arrived at the school. Joel hesitated, considering that fact.

  It’s just a coincidence, Joel thought. Don’t jump to conclusions.

  And yet … hadn’t Nalizar talked about how dangerous the battlefield in Nebrask was? He thought the students and professors at Armedius were weak. Would he go so far as to do something to make everyone more worried? Something to put them all on edge and make them study and practice more?

  But kidnapping? Joel thought. That’s a stretch.

  Still, it would be interesting to know what books Nalizar was looking at. Joel caught sight of a swish of red coat entering the Rithmatic wing of the library. He hurried after Nalizar.

  As soon as Joel reached the doorway to the Rithmatic wing, a voice called out to him.

  “Joel!” said Ms. Torrent, sitting at her desk. “You know you’re not supposed to go in there.”

  Joel stopped, cringing. He’d hoped she wouldn’t be paying attention. Librarians seemed to have a sixth sense for noticing when students were doing things they weren’t supposed to.

  “I just saw Professor Nalizar,” Joel said. “I wanted to go mention something to him.”

  “You can’t enter the Rithmatic section of the library without an escort, Joel,” Torrent said
, stamping pages in a book, not looking up at him. “No exceptions.”

  He ground his teeth in frustration.

  Escort, he thought suddenly. Would Fitch help?

  Joel rushed out of the library, but realized that Fitch might still not be dressed or might have returned to bed. By the time Joel got the man back to the library, Nalizar would probably be gone. Beyond that, he suspected that Fitch would disapprove of spying on Nalizar—he might even be afraid to do so.

  Joel needed someone who was more willing to take a risk.…

  It was still breakfast time, and the dining hall was just a short distance away.

  I can’t believe I’m doing this, he thought, but took off at a dash for the dining hall.

  * * *

  Melody was sitting at her usual place. As always, none of the other Rithmatists had chosen to sit next to her.

  “Hey,” Joel said, stepping up to the table and taking one of the empty seats.

  Melody looked up from her plate of fruit. “Oh. It’s you.”

  “I need your help.”

  “To do what?”

  “I want you to escort me into the Rithmatic section of the library,” he said quietly, “so I can spy on Professor Nalizar.”

  She stabbed a piece of orange. “Well, all right.”

  Joel blinked. “That’s it? Why are you agreeing so easily? We could get in trouble, you know.”

  She shrugged, dropping her fork back to the plate. “Somehow, I appear to be able to get into trouble just by sitting around. How much worse could this be?”

  Joel couldn’t refute that logic. He smiled, standing. She joined him, and they rushed from the room back across the lawn.

  “So, is there any particular reason why we’re spying on Nalizar?” she asked. “Other than the fact that he’s cute.”

  Joel grimaced. “Cute?”

  “In an arrogant, mean sort of way.” She shrugged. “I assume you have a better reason?”

  What could he tell her? Harding was worried about security, and … well, Melody didn’t seem the safest person to tell a secret.

  “Nalizar got to Armedius right about the same time those students started disappearing,” Joel said, sharing only what he’d figured out on his own.