Year of the Griffin. Diana Wynne Jones

the east coast. She’s got three girls and two boys and I’m an aunt. And all the others except Mum and Dad and the babies have gone over to the West Continent in two ships, because there’s a war there – only Lydda’s flying, because she’s a long-distance flier and she can do a hundred and fifty miles without coming down to rest, but Dad made her promise to keep in sight of the ships just in case, because Kit and Blade are the ones who can do magic. Callette—”

      “But what about yourself?” Corkoran asked, managing to break in on this spate of family history.

      “What about me?” Elda said, tipping her bright bird head to look at him out of one large orange eye. “You mean, why did Mum send me here to keep me out of mischief?”

      “More or less,” Corkoran said, wincing at that piercing eye. “I take it you have magic.”

      “Oh yes,” Elda agreed blithely. “I’m ever so magical. It keeps coming on in spurts. First of all I could only undo stasis spells, but after we saw the gods I could do more and more. Mum and Dad have been teaching me, but they were so busy looking after the babies and the world that Mum says I got rather out of hand. When the others all went off on the ships I got so cross and jealous that I went into the Waste and pushed a mountain out of shape. Then Mum said, ‘That’s enough, Elda. You’re going to the University, whatever your father says.’ Dad still doesn’t know I’m here. Mum’s going to break it to him today. I expect there’ll be rather a row. Dad doesn’t approve of the University, you know.” Elda turned her head to fix her other eye on Corkoran, firmly, as if he might try to send her home.

      The thought of doing anything to a griffin who could push a mountain out of shape turned Corkoran cold and clammy. This bird – lion – female – thing – made him feel weak. He pulled his tie straight and coughed. “Thank you, Elda,” he said, when his voice had come back. “I’m sure we can turn you into an excellent wizard.” And bother again! He made yet another note on his list for Myrna. If Derk was angry about Elda’s being here, he had certainly better not receive a demand for money. Derk had the gods behind him. Oh dear. That made five out of six. “Right,” he said. “Now we have to sort out your timetable of classes and lectures and give you all a title for the essay you’re going to write for me this coming week.”

      He managed to do this. Then he fled, thankfully, back to his moonlab.

      “He didn’t say anything about the moon,” Ruskin grumbled, as the six new students came out into the courtyard, into golden, early autumn sunlight, which gave the old, turreted buildings a most pleasing mellow look.

      “But he surely will,” said Felim, and added thoughtfully, “I do not think assassins could reach me on the moon.”

      “Don’t be too sure of that,” said Lukin, who knew what kings and Emirs could do when they set their minds on a thing. “Why is the Emir—?”

      Olga, who knew what it felt like to have secrets, interrupted majestically. “What have we got next? Wasn’t there a lecture or something?”

      “I’ll see,” said Elda. She hooked a talon into the bag round her neck and whisked out a timetable, then reared on her hind quarters to consult it. It already had clawholes in all four corners. “A class,” she said. “Foundation Spellcasting with Wizard Wermacht in the North Lab.”

      “Where’s that?” Claudia enquired shyly.

      “And have we time for coffee first?” Olga asked.

      “No, it’s now,” said Elda. “Over there, on the other side of this courtyard.” She stowed the timetable carefully back in her bag. It was a bag she had made herself and covered with golden feathers from her last moult. You could hardly see she was wearing it. The five others gave it admiring looks as they trooped across the courtyard, past the statue of Wizard Policant, founder of the University, and most of them decided they must get a bag like that too. Olga had been using the pockets of her fur cloak to keep papers in – everyone handed out papers to new students, all the time – and Ruskin had stuffed everything down the front of his chain mail. Claudia and Felim had left all the papers behind in their rooms, not realising they might need any of them, and Lukin had simply lost all his.

      “I can see I’ll have to be a bit better organised,” he said ruefully. “I got used to servants.”

      They trooped into the stony and resounding vault of the North Lab to find most of the other first-year students already there, sparsely scattered about the rows of desks with notebooks busily spread in front of them.

      “Oh dear,” said Lukin. “Do we need notebooks as well?”

      “Of course,” said Olga. “What made you think we wouldn’t?”

      “My teacher made me learn everything by heart,” Lukin explained.

      “No wonder you have accidents then,” Ruskin boomed. “What a way to learn!”

      “It’s the old way,” Elda said. “When my brothers Kit and Blade were learning magic, Deucalion wouldn’t let them write anything down. They had to recite what they’d been told in the last lesson absolutely right before he’d teach them anything new. Mind you, they used to come back seething, specially Kit.”

      “It is not so the old way!” Ruskin blared. “Dwarfs make notes and plans, and careful drawings, before they work any magic at all.”

      While he was speaking, the lab resounded to heavy, regular footsteps, as if a giant was walking through it, and Wizard Wermacht came striding in, with his impeccably ironed robes swirling around him. Wermacht was a tall wizard, though not a giant, who kept his hair and the little pointed beard at the end of his long, fresh face beautifully trimmed. He walked heavily because that was impressive. He halted impressively behind the lectern, brought out an hour-glass, and impressively turned it sand-side upwards. Then he waited impressively for silence.

      Unfortunately Ruskin was used to heavy, rhythmic noises. He had lived among people beating anvils all his life. He failed to notice Wermacht and went on talking. “The dwarfs’ way is the old way. It goes back to before the dawn of history.”

      “Shut up, you,” ordered Wermacht.

      Ruskin’s round blue eyes flicked to Wermacht. He was used to overbearing people too. “We’d been writing notes for centuries before we wrote down any history,” he told Elda.

      “I said shut up!” Wermacht snapped. He hit the lectern with a crack that made everyone jump and followed that up with a sizzle of magefire. “Didn’t you hear me, you horrible little creature?”

      Ruskin flinched along with everyone else at the noise and the flash, but at the words ‘horrible little creature’ his face went a brighter pink and his large chest swelled. He bowed with sarcastic politeness. “Yes, but I hadn’t quite finished what I was saying,” he growled. His voice was now so deep that the windows buzzed.

      “We’re not here to listen to you,” Wermacht retorted. “You’re only a student – you and the creature that’s encouraging you – unless, of course, both of you strayed in here by mistake. I don’t normally teach animals, or runts in armour. Why are you dressed for battle?”

      Elda’s beak opened and clapped shut again. Ruskin growled, “This is what dwarfs wear.”

      “Not 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.”

      “Dwarfs,” said Elda, “are different.”

      “Although 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.