Year of the Griffin Read Online Free Page A

strayed in here by mistake. I don’t normally teach animals or runts in armor. Why are you dressed for battle?”
    Elda’s beak opened and clapped shut again. Ruskin growled, “This is what dwarfs wear.”
    â€œNot in my classes you don’t,” Wermacht snapped, and took an uneasy glance at the vibrating windows. “And can’t you control your voice?”
    Ruskin’s face flushed beyond pink, into beetroot. “No. I can’t. I’m thirty-five years old, and my voice is breaking.”
    â€œDwarfs,” said Elda, “are different.”
    â€œAlthough only in some things,” Felim put in, leaning forward as smooth and sharp as a knife-edge. “Wizard Wermacht, no one should be singled out for personal remarks at this stage. We are all new here. We will all be making mistakes.”
    Felim seemed to have said the right thing. Wermacht contented himself with putting his eyebrows up and staring at Felim. And Felim stared back until, as Claudia remarked to Olga afterward, one could almost hear knives clashing. Finally Wermacht shrugged and turned to the rest of the class. “We are going to start this course by establishing the first ten laws of magic. Will you all get out your notebooks and write? Your first big heading is ‘The Laws of Magic.’”
    There was a scramble for paper and pens. Olga dived for her cloak pockets, Elda for her feathered bag, and Ruskin for the front of his armor. Felim looked bemused for a moment, then fumbled inside his wide sash until he found what seemed to be a letter. Ruskin passed him a stick of charcoal and was rewarded with a flashing smile of gratitude. It made Ruskin stare. Felim’s narrow, rather stern face seemed to light up. Meanwhile Elda saw Claudia sitting looking lost and hastily tore her a page out of her own notebook. Claudia smiled almost as shiningly as Felim, a smile that first put two long creases in her thin cheeks and then turned the left-hand crease into a dimple, but she waved away the pen Elda tried to lend her. The words Laws of Magic had already appeared at the top of the torn page. Elda blinked a little.
    Lukin just sat there.
    â€œSmaller headings under that, numbered,” proclaimed Wermacht. “Law One, the Law of Contagion or Part for Whole. Law Two—you back there, is your memory particularly good or something? Yes, you with the secondhand jacket.”
    â€œMe?” said Lukin. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I’d need a notebook.”
    Wermacht frowned at him, dreadfully. “That was extremely stupid of you. This is basic stuff. If you don’t have this written down, you’re going to be lost for the rest of the time you’re here. How did you expect to manage?”
    â€œI, er, I wasn’t sure. I mean—” Lukin seemed completely lost. His good-looking but sulky face grew even redder than Ruskin’s had been.
    â€œPrecisely.” Wermacht stroked his little pointed beard smugly. “So?”
    â€œI was trying to conjure a notebook while you were talking,” Lukin explained. “From my room.”
    â€œOh, you think you can work advanced magic, do you?” Wermacht asked. “Then by all means go ahead and conjure.” He looked meaningfully at his hourglass. “We shall wait.”
    At Wermacht’s sarcastic tone Lukin’s red face went white—white as a candle, Elda thought, sliding an eye around at him. Her brother Blade went white when he was angry, too. She scrabbled hastily to tear another page out of her notebook for him. Before she had her talons properly into the paper, however, Lukin stood up and made a jerky gesture with both hands.
    Half of Wermacht’s lectern vanished away downward into a deep pit that opened just in front of it. Wermacht snatched his hourglass off the splintered remains and watched grimly as most of his papers slid away downward too. Deep, distant echoings came up