The Floating Islands by Rachel Neumeier Page B

“Down, it’s not so bad. I can’t guess why you caught Master Tnegun’s eye, except you must have a lot of potential. He’s tremendously skilled, and a good teacher. You’re lucky to have him for your master.”
    “I don’t!” Araenè said. But this came out rather shrill and uncertain.
    “Well, Arei, family things do work themselves out when they have to, you know: Master Kopapei was right about that. I mean, we get this all the time. We’ve got a new boy, Cesei, lots younger than you; his father’s a high court minister. He was just so set on his son following him in the ministry, you know? But the boy’ll be a mage now, no question.” Kanii lowered his tone, gave Araenè a significant glance. “It is Master Kopapei who has him now, but they say it was Cassameirin himself who found him.”
    “Cassameirin?” It didn’t quite seem an Island name.…
    “ Master Cassameirin. He’s older than anybody, almost; they say he was a master even before the sky dragons cut the Islands free from the earth. I don’t know about that, but he wrote half the books in the school libraries. If it’s true he found Cesei, I expect the brat’ll prove brilliant.” Belying his words, Kanii’s tone was one of casual approval. He added, “No doubt Cesei will turn out to be one of those scholar-mages who wander down now and again from their high tower and absentmindedly explain some theoretical principle that’s been baffling everybody for a thousand years.”
    Araenè paused on a landing to catch her breath and consider this easy flow of alarming information. She found herself wondering what it might actually be like to be a mage. But that didn’t even matter, of course it didn’t, couldn’t. Not for a girl. She said fiercely, “Some family things are harder to work out.”
    “But they do, all the same,” Kanii said without heat.
    Not mine, Araenè wanted to say, but she couldn’t think of a way to say this without explaining why not. She turned her back on Kanii instead so he wouldn’t see the angry tears that threatened.
    In a corner of the landing, something glittered and seemed to rise up. She leaped back, caught herself, and stared. A large gold and ebony serpent was curled on a bench, head raised and hood spread. Eyes of gold and jet glittered in its slender head. But it wasn’t moving after all. “Gods preserve us—that’s just a carving, isn’t it? Is it?”
    “Yes—so far as I know!” answered Kanii. “But be careful! You can’t ever trust things like that to stay what they seem to be. What do you want to see? The aviary? The balcony garden? The common workshop? Oh! I know—the hall of spheres and mirrors!”
    “The kitchens?” Araenè suggested diffidently.
    Kanii grinned. “Wonderful idea! Splendid idea! A boy with a proper sense of priorities! Down all the way, then—let’s take a shortcut—” He led the way off the stairway landing and into a room entirely filled, or so it seemed to Araenè, with ornaments of spun glass and crystal. Some hung from the ceiling on fine transparent cords, with others cluttered in haphazard disorder on knee-high tables. “Careful,” Kanii advised, ducking underneath a flock of tiny, delicate birds in jewel-colored glass. The birds swayed on their cords, producing a fragile chiming. Araenè held her breath, but nothing shattered.
    “But what are these all for ?” she asked.
    “No idea,” Kanii admitted cheerfully. “Tichorei swears you can predict the weather by watching the birds, but I don’t know; I expect you could fool yourself, don’t you think, changeable as the weather is? But they’re pretty, aren’t they?”
    Araenè nodded, edged carefully by the swaying ornaments, and turned to gaze back into the whole amazing room for a moment before following Kanii through the door he was holding open for her.
    The hall he led her into proved to be disappointingly ordinary.
    “I know,” Kanii said, laughing at her expression. “But don’t give up