6

MEETING

They ran out into the hallway, Will dragging Thornmallow by the arm.

“What …?” Thornmallow began. “Where …?”

“Just follow me,” Will said. “I am your guardian. Do what I say.”

They were suddenly part of a sea of students surging along the corridor toward a pair of large wooden doors. The solid babble of voices around them drowned out the rest of Thornmallow’s questions as he obediently followed Will, but it could not drown out his thoughts.

How could I, a tendril of thought snaked into his brain, a first-year student with only half a class behind me, have done what I did? Perhaps I have a talent for wizardry after all. Perhaps … and here his thoughts took on the character of a whisper … perhaps I am destined to be a great wizard, even the greatest wizard the Hall has ever known. And won’t my dear ma be proud.

He was grinning broadly by the time Gorse shoved him in the small of the back, and he stumbled forward onto one knee at the foot of a steeply winding iron stairway.

“Up!” Will ordered.

Thornmallow wasn’t sure if Will meant him to get up or to go up. But when Tansy pulled him from in front and Will and Gorse pushed him from behind, he realized that up was exactly what Will meant. He got to his feet and began climbing the stairs, though his knee now hurt dreadfully. At the top of the stairs was a balcony overlooking a great meeting room. Gorse shoved him onto one of the many benches, next to a railing. When he put his elbows on the railing and leaned over cautiously, he could see the whole of the room.

It was the largest single room he’d ever been in, bigger even than his dear ma’s barn. At the far end was a rounded apse with a speaker’s platform below a vaulted ceiling. Behind the platform were three windows made of colored glass pictures. The window on the left showed a wizard in a scholar’s robe; the one on the right, a great winged serpent curled around a globe; and in the center was a staff topped by a golden orb with a series of words on a riband banner beneath. Thornmallow was too nearsighted to read the words.

The room quickly filled with students, who scrambled for seats on the benches.

“Upper classes,” whispered Tansy. “First year always gets the balcony.”

Then a second bell rang. After that, a mighty silence descended upon the students, and Thornmallow found he was holding his breath. Just when he thought he might burst, there was a fanfare of trumpets, and the magisters marched in.

There were thirteen of them in all, dressed in black robes relieved only by long, colorful scarves around their necks. In the lead was a handsome man with a great shag of shoulder-length red-gold hair rather like a lion’s mane. He carried a staff topped by an ochreous ball that emitted a yellow light on and off. More on than off.

Thornmallow recognized the staff. “It’s the same as in the window …”

Will elbowed him in the ribs.

“Shhhh!” Tansy cautioned from the other side.

The line of magisters walked solemnly to the front benches and sat. Thornmallow recognized Magister Beechvale, who was the tallest, his gray mustaches almost hidden by a red-and-blue-striped scarf. And surely the small woman with the purple-and-white scarf near the end was Briar Rose. Bringing up the rear, the one carrying the cage, who felt around the bench with his right hand, had to be Register Oakbend. The rest he didn’t recognize.

When all the magisters were seated, the lion-maned leader stood and climbed the three steps up to the platform. Marching to the podium, he set the staff to one side. It hovered several inches above the ground, the light now burning steadily.

“Hail, fellow enchanters,” he said.

“Hail, Magister Hickory,” they replied.

Thornmallow marveled at how the sound seemed to grow and grow and grow until it filled the entire room, though no more than those few words were spoken.

Then Magister Hickory held up his hand. As if cut by a great knife, the sound abruptly ended. Except for a deep sigh.

Embarrassed, Thornmallow realized that he was the source of that sigh. He put his hand up over his mouth and leaned away from the railing, hoping no one had heard.

Evidently no one had, for Magister Hickory began to speak. His voice was strong and melodic. Thornmallow not only heard the words; he felt them, as if they’d entered his body somewhere below the breastbone and stayed vibrating there. He leaned forward again.

“Wizard’s Hall,” said Magister Hickory, “is now full. As of yesterday morning, the one-hundred-and-thirteenth student has entered our doors, taking his place among us.” He muttered something under his breath that might have been “At last.”

“Aaaah,” came the response.

Tansy squeezed Thornmallow’s arm. “That’s you!” she whispered. “Number one-thirteen. Isn’t it wandy?”

“What’s wandy?” asked Thornmallow.

“Shhhhh!” said Gorse.

Thornmallow bit his lip and was silent.

“But as we all know,” Magister Hickory went on, “it says in the Book of Spells: To begin is not to finish.”

TO BEGIN IS NOT TO FINISH. The words flashed above Magister Hickory’s head, and all around Thornmallow the first-year students nodded in response.

“Look to your right!” ordered Magister Hickory.

Thornmallow jerked to his right and stared. There was Will, and beyond him a boy with yellow hair that curled up and into his ears, and beyond him a boy with a strange green streak in his hair.

“Now look to your left.”

Obediently Thornmallow turned to the left. Next to him was Tansy and beyond her Gorse, and then a skinny boy sticking a finger into his ear.

“Now listen!”

Thornmallow jumped at the thunderous words and focused back on Magister Hickory standing at the rostrum.

“To begin is not to finish.” The words behind the magister now flickered a warning red. “Not everyone you have just glanced at will graduate from Wizard’s Hall. The course is long. The classes are hard. Some will drop out and become hedge wizards or village herbwives or mere card players in a traveling show. Yet to fail here at the Hall is not to fail in life, only to fail at total deep wizardry.” Magister Hickory paused and looked meaningfully around the room. “You would not be here if you did not have talent. Dr. Mo would not allow it.”

A strange squeal from the front row came as if in answer, and Magister Hickory smiled down in that direction.

“Yes, yes, Dr. Mo,” Magister Hickory said, “you are correct, of course. Talent is not enough.”

Behind the rostrum the letters shifted from red to a fierce icy blue. The words TALENT IS NOT ENOUGH glowed at them.

“There is something more you must do, and that something more is—”

“You must try!” Thornmallow cried out the words before he realized what he was doing.

Tansy slapped her hand over his mouth, and Will’s hand slammed on top of hers. Gorse hissed a frantic warning. But Magister Hickory had heard this time. He glared up at the balcony, his gaze as icy as the flashing words.

Swiveling in their seats, the upperclassmen searched for the culprit above them, and one by one the magisters, too, turned to stare. All, that is, but Register Oakbend, who sat unmoving, although an excited cluttering came from the cage by his side.

“WHO SAID THAT?” roared Magister Hickory.

Slowly Thornmallow disengaged Tansy’s and Will’s hands from his mouth and stood. They were his guardians but not his guards. If Magister Hickory wanted to know, Thornmallow would have to tell him. It was the only decent, the only right, the only proper thing to do. He wondered briefly what his dear ma would say when he returned in the morning. Surely, talent or no, he was about to be expelled.

“I did, sir.”

“WHAT IS YOUR NAME?” Each word Magister Hickory spoke was an arrow below Thornmallow’s ribs.

Thornmallow gulped. He wished he could just disappear through the floorboards, out the door, over the Far-Rise Hills, and be home. “Henry, sir.”

Dr. Mo squeaked loudly. “Squark!” It echoed around the room.

Tansy yanked on his sleeve.

“I mean, Thornmallow, sir,” he amended. Then, as if to make up for the awful mistake, he added, “Number one hundred and thirteen, sir.”

The hall was hushed. Magister Hickory’s eyes bore right into him.

“Ah. So you are number one hundred and thirteen.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thornmallow.” There was such power behind the name when spoken by Magister Hickory that Thornmallow’s knees began to buckle. Will put his hand out to steady him.

“Yes, sir.”

“Repeat what you just shouted out, Thornmallow.”

Thornmallow drew in a deep breath, so deep he felt light-headed. “You must try,” he said, surprised his voice wasn’t quaking. His knees certainly were.

There was a long moment of the deepest silence. Thornmallow wished again he could disappear. It needn’t be all the way home. Just outside the room, down the stairs, into the hallway would do. But two days at Wizard’s Hall hadn’t made him a wizard. Yet.

Magister Hickory pursed his lips and stared up at the balcony. He drew in a great breath. At last he spoke. “Quite … right,” he said. “You are quite right.”

Behind him a sentence burst into a brilliant green, not unlike the color of the lizard soup: YOU MUST TRY.