Slowly, with shaking hands and the greatest of care, he lifted it from his face. It scolded in the softest of squeaks. That and the wings told him that his visitor was a bat. Gently he rose and placed it on his bed, leaving it to flutter there. He’d already noticed that one of the wings wasn’t working. Groping in the dim light of the half moon, he found his candle and flint. Within seconds, he had light enough to see clearly.
His two-inch visitor had broken a wing. This was beyond his skills. He found a basket and placed an old shirt in the bottom, then eased the bat inside as it continued to scold him. It settled somewhat after he took his hands away, quivering as it glared up at him.
“You’ll be all right,” Arram assured it as he covered the basket with the shirtsleeves. “I’m sure there’s someone who can patch you up. Just be patient.” Arram dressed quickly and pulled on his sandals.
“What are you doing over there?” Ozorne complained sleepily. “Don’t tell me you talk in your sleep now.”
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Arram replied. He carried the basket over to Ozorne’s cubicle, nearly tripping on a stack of books. He yelped. “Someday you’re going to break a bone this way.”
“Why? I know where I left them.” In the dim light from Ozorne’s open window, Arram saw his friend make a twisted hand gesture. The candles on his desk lit.
“We’re not allowed to do that,” Arram said wistfully. He in particular was forbidden to do anything of the kind without supervision.
“Why? Do you think you’ll make your room explode?” Ozorne looked at Arram, who was tidying the cloth on top of the bat. “Mithros save us, you do think you’ll destroy your room.”
“It was a shed,” Arram mumbled. “And then a pile of old crates. And then they wouldn’t let me work any basic fire spells without a certified mage being present.” He gulped. “They say I’ll grow out of it.”
“Horse eggs,” Ozorne retorted. “You just need the right teacher.”
“They say I need to meditate more and control my Gift,” Arram explained. “But never mind me. This little thing is hurt. Can you help?”
“ ‘Little thing’? What have you got? It had better not be a snake.” Ozorne carefully raised the shirtsleeves covering Arram’s discovery. “A bat!” He lifted the small animal and inspected her belly. “A girl bat, see? You really ought to release her.”
“No, look—her left wing is broken. It has to be splinted, and she has to be kept quiet. Put her back, please? I’ll get in trouble if she’s in our room—”
Ozorne raised a finger. At last he said, “Shoo for a moment. Let me get dressed. We’ll take her to Master Lindhall.”
Arram returned to his mattress, murmuring reassurances to his bat. She had a long muzzle tipped with a pair of nostrils that pointed in different directions. Before he covered her again, he saw that her fur was a dark cinnamon in color. Her long ears pointed straight up.
She was the first animal who had come his way in a long time. He wanted so badly to keep her! In his first year he had smuggled in a tortoise and several lizards to live under his bed, only to get caught by the proctors. Away went his pets, and he was assigned extra schoolwork for punishment.
“Won’t we get in trouble?” he asked his friend softly.
“Nonsense,” Ozorne said cheerfully. “We’re doing a merciful deed. No one can fault us for rescuing a wounded creature. How did she come to you?”
“She landed on my face.”
Ozorne was grinning when he joined Arram. “I don’t know if your luck is good or bad,” he whispered as he opened the door. “It’s certainly interesting.” He gestured for quiet, and they tiptoed out of the building.
He led Arram past the dormitories used by the Upper Academy students, who were studying for their mages’ certificates, and the mastery students, who had certificates and now worked on specializations. Torches lit the way. There were always people in the libraries and workrooms, whatever the hour.
Beyond the student dormitories lay buildings for instructors and those masters who were teachers. One of these lay on the southernmost road within university property. Ozorne led him inside, up to the top floor, and down a softly lit hall.
Arram sniffed. The corridor smelled like…plants. And animals. Like the aviary, or an enclosed wing at the menagerie.
Ozorne knocked on a door. “I hope I can wake him,” he told Arram over his shoulder. “If he’s been away he’s hard to rouse. Otherwise we’ll have to try his student, and he’s a pain….”
The door opened abruptly; Ozorne nearly fell in. A light, breathy voice said, “It’s the young fellow who’s good with birds. What is so urgent that you must deny me my sleep, Prince Ozorne?”
Ozorne waved Arram forward. “My friend has a hurt bat, Master Lindhall.”
“A bat, is it?”
Arram looked up at Master Lindhall. He’d really thought they’d find one of the master’s student helpers, not the man himself—the man who had said Arram was much too young to study with him. Lindhall inspected him with bright blue eyes. “Come in, come in. Quietly—my assistant is asleep.” He took Arram’s basket and retreated into his rooms.
“Come along,” Ozorne whispered when Arram hesitated. “Don’t you want to see where he lives?”
They followed the master through a sitting room that doubled as a library. Shelves heavy with books seemed to lean from the walls, ready to collapse on the thick carpets and cushions at any moment. Arram craned to look at the titles, until Ozorne grabbed his arm and towed him down a corridor, passing closed doors. The scent of animal droppings and urine thickened.
The tall man entered a room and left the door open. He set the basket on a long counter and snapped his fingers. Light filled the lamps hanging overhead. When he lowered his hand they dimmed. Arram guessed that this was so they would be easier on the bat’s eyes. He sighed with envy. Would he ever be as effortless in working magic as Ozorne and Master Lindhall?
Lindhall uncovered the bat. “Hello, sweetheart,” he murmured. “You’ve had a bad night. You were lucky to find someone kind….Don’t mind my big old hands.” Gently he lifted the bat from the basket. “You, my love, are a common pippistrelle. Your kindred are found along Carthak’s northern shores, along the Inland Sea, on Tortall’s shores, and inland as far north as the Great Road East. You should be thinking about hibernation, but it’s been a warm autumn.” He carefully placed the bat on her back on Arram’s cloth, spreading the left wing wide. “Lovely, my dear. A perfect wing. You tried to feed as often as you could before the rains. It’s worth the risk of a wetting, isn’t it?”
The pippistrelle, who had struggled at first, calmed and watched Master Lindhall with her large dark eyes as if she understood every word. Arram and Ozorne were quiet as well, observing as those big fingers handled the tiny creature.
“You broke your left wing, and the strongest part, the radius bone. Now, I have small bamboo splints around here somewhere, in a red clay cup….”
Arram saw a number of such cups on a shelf in front of him. They were different sizes, with bamboo and wooden splints of corresponding lengths, from a foot to three inches. He took down the cup of three-inch splints and showed it to Lindhall, who nodded. Ozorne offered a roll of loosely woven cotton to the master, who said, “Would you be so good as to cut eight inches of that off for me?”