For forty-one years the sign painter on Déynáir has painted the names on the new students' bed plates. He has never painted anything but the name. He says he does not want to know who does the rest.

"People of the Castle", Christmas issue of the student magazine

Chapter 8

The Three Words

When we came into the dining hall it had changed. Not the room. The people.

There were even more students now, from every year, and they filled the tables from end to end and far along the benches. Voices in a dozen different accents mixed with laughter and the clatter of cutlery, and the sound of so many people in one room was like standing in a wave that kept on rolling in. Outside the tall windows the river lay black with the last of the light on it, and the fireplaces at each end of the hall were burning high. Second years in aprons walked up and down between the tables with dishes on their arms. When a dish of potatoes ran empty at our table, a girl with plaited hair and flour on her sleeves took it away and came back with a new one before anyone had had time to ask.

It was a completely different kind of warmth from the one at Retia's family's. There, the warmth was made of love and fried onions and hands filling each other's plates. Here it came from the crowd. From hundreds of bodies and hundreds of voices and an energy that was everywhere but didn't belong to anyone in particular.

I already missed Arvia's kitchen. And I had only left it an hour ago.

We found places at the bottom table, where the new students sat, and ate a little, even though we were all still full from Arvia's food. Ahra introduced me to two boys a little way down the bench, Will Mathson and Marcus Eslakrik, and was already busy telling them about Surain's shop.

"You should have seen Chris catch the Arctic fox," said Ahra, with his mouth full. "It flew straight at him and he just grabbed it out of the air."

Will laughed. "I got an owl. It sat on my head and refused to move for twenty minutes." He had the kind of smile that was easy to trust, open and without reservation. Marcus, who was sitting next to him with shoulder-length black hair and a calm face, nodded at me. "I've heard about you," he said. "The one who walked on the water." He said it without making it into more than it was. I liked him for that.

A boy was sitting further down, at the end of the bench, alone, with long black hair and an expression that was closed and hard. He didn't look up.

"My twin brother, Nihil," said Will quietly when he saw me looking, and turned his fork between his fingers. "He only got his powers a couple of months ago."

Headmaster Edrin rose. The hall fell silent.

"Welcome to another school year. Now we are all here." He paused, and the cat on his shoulder tilted its head. "This year, as every year, the new students must undergo a test, so that the island can give each of you your path. All new students will follow Professor Arcanus out into the entrance hall." He let his gaze travel out over the hall, slowly, from table to table. "And for everyone, old and new: the upper part of the mountain is closed. It is closed every year. There are no exceptions."

He didn't say it any louder than the rest. But a couple of the older students looked at each other, and one of them smiled, and I could smell it all the way down here: something sharp and sweet, the scent people get when they have already decided to do the opposite.

A man rose from the staff table. He was young. Younger than most of the teachers, not much older than the oldest students. The only parts of him visible under the hood and the robe were his mouth, his throat and his hands. Around his left wrist sat a gold bracelet that went all the way up under the sleeve of his robe, and its surface was covered in small squares cut into the metal in a pattern that looked as if it meant something, though I couldn't read what.

When he came down from the dais, he moved differently from every other teacher I had seen. Haltora walked like a soldier. Edrin walked like a man carrying something heavy. Arcanus walked like someone who knew exactly where every single person in the room was, without looking at any of them. His footsteps made no sound, and his robe didn't move even though there was a draught from the door, as if the cloth obeyed him instead of the wind.

As he passed me, I caught his scent. It was different from everyone else's. Layered. Manifold. There were several people inside him, and none of them wanted to show themselves completely. And deep under all the other layers there was something metallic and old, the same copper scent that was in the very air here, but concentrated, as if he carried more Dherak in his body than any person ought to.

The gold bracelet glinted as he raised his hand to open the door. The small squares cut into the metal moved. Or I thought they did. It was hard to tell in that light.

We followed him.

The room he led us into was large and built like an amphitheatre, with seats of worn stone in a semicircle and a stage at the bottom with a blackboard. It smelt of chalk and cold stone and of all the nervous years of students who had sat here before us. Alôpex lay around my neck, warm and light, with her cold nose against my cheek.

"Welcome to Déynáir," said Professor Arcanus. His voice was clear and carried an authority that didn't fit his age. "I am Professor Arcanus. I am going to prepare you for the island test."

He looked out over us. It was hard to tell whether he was looking at all of us, or at someone in particular.

"The test takes place on a small island close to Déynáir. You will be sent out there in teams of three. You must make your way through the forest, find three different scrolls, and reach a house near the top of a mountain. You have three days." He paused. "You have all been admitted. It said so in your letters, and nobody will take that from you. But out there the island sees you, and when your team comes home, it will have had its say about which path you belong on. If you are not back within the time limit, we will come and fetch you." He paused again. "Nobody has ever been glad of that."

Silence in the room. Someone behind me drew a sharp breath.

"Before you get too nervous," said Arcanus, and there was something in his voice that was almost, but not quite, humour, "nobody has ever died in the test. A few have lost consciousness. One lost his clothes, but that's another story."

Nobody laughed. But the tension in the room eased a little.

"You may only use three words to do magic with. Three words, which you choose yourselves from a list. Use them wisely. And you will need your Amícûs. They are your most important tool out there."

He pointed to a scroll lying on a shelf by the door. "The list of available magic words is there. The instructions for how to use them are there too. Some of the words are too difficult for you. They are there anyway." He paused. "But first you must be prepared. You will be called in five teams at a time."

Before we were sent out, each team was handed a map. Not an ordinary map. When Retia unfolded it, the island rose up out of the paper and hung there, floating in the air in front of us, three-dimensional and alive. A mountain in the middle. Dense forest all around it. A small coast with cliffs. And scattered all over the island, small symbols floating in the air like glowing insects.

"The one that looks like a campfire means it's easy to make fire there," said Retia, pointing. "And that bag shows there's a depot with supplies."

"What about the other symbols?" asked Ahra.

"We'll have to work those out ourselves out there," said Retia.

I looked at the map. The island wasn't big, perhaps five kilometres across, but it was dense and wild, and the mountain in the middle was steeper than I had expected. The house we had to reach was almost right up at the top. Three days to find three scrolls and get up there. It sounded manageable. But there was something about those symbols scattered at random over the island that told me it wouldn't be easy.

"We start here," said Retia, pointing at the coast in the southern part. A small red dot appeared as she said it. The map was listening. "And the house is there." She pointed to the top.

"So we've got to go all the way through the forest and up the mountain," said Ahra. His voice was a little too loud. "With three words and three animals and no adults."

"Yes," said Retia.

"Right," said Ahra. "Right, right, right." He kept on until it sounded real.

I folded the map up and put it in my inside pocket next to the letter. Two pieces of paper that decided my future, and neither of them written by me.

We waited. That was the worst part.

The first five teams were called in and disappeared behind a door with Arcanus. They didn't come back out the same way. Tables and chairs were brought in, and mattresses for those who wanted to rest. An hour went by. Then another hour.

Ahra paced restlessly round the room like an animal in a cage. He talked to everyone who would listen and plenty who wouldn't, and his hands touched everything he passed, as if they were looking for something to hold on to. Lynx followed him everywhere with a patience that was impressive for a lynx.

Retia sat still with Fulmen on her shoulder, her legs pulled up under her, her back against the wall and her eyes closed. Not because she was asleep. Because she was preparing. Her hands lay in her lap, completely still, and her breathing was slow and even, and she looked like someone gathering all her strength in behind a face that showed nothing. I envied her that. I had never been able to do it.

I sat watching the others. That was what I always did. A team of three boys was playing cards with cards that moved, and one of the boys banged his fist on the table when he lost, and the cards flew up into the air and put themselves back in order, as if they were used to tempers. A girl sat alone in a corner practising a hand movement over and over again, a small rotation of the wrist that made the air around her fingers quiver. She had been doing it for half an hour without stopping.

Nihil Mathson was sitting some way from everyone else, looking down at the floor. His brother Will had come over and said something to him, but Nihil had just shaken his head, and Will had gone away again with a face that was half worried and half hurt.

I looked at Nihil and thought that perhaps we were more alike than either of us would admit. Two boys who had arrived too late in a world they should have known their whole lives. One angry. The other quiet. Both afraid that it was a mistake that they were here.

I got up and went over to him. I don't know why. Perhaps because he was sitting alone, and I knew what that felt like.

He smelt of winter wind and bare iron. Cold and sharp, like a February morning when the ice lies along the stones by the bathing jetty.

"Which team are you on?" I said.

He looked up. His eyes were blue and hard and surprised.

"Thirteen," he said. "With my brother and Marcus."

"Good luck," I said.

He looked at me a moment longer than necessary. One of his hands was closed round the opposite wrist, in under the sleeve of his robe, as if he were holding on to something that was there. "You too," he said. It sounded almost genuine.

I went back to my seat. Ahra looked at me with raised eyebrows. I shrugged.

Alôpex stirred on my shoulder. Her voice in my head, soft and calm:

"You belong here, Chris."

"How do you know?"

"Because I found you."

I put my hand on her back and felt her heart beating under the fur, quick and light and sure.

At last the door opened again.

"Teams six, seven, eight, nine and ten," said Arcanus. We followed him into a new room, and this was where it began to feel real.

The room was full of equipment. Coils of rope along one wall. Knives of every size on the other. Bows hanging from hooks in the ceiling. Water bottles, blankets, tinderboxes, compasses, and lots of things I didn't recognise: crystals in different colours, small bags of powder, metal rings that hummed faintly when you walked close past them. A glass wall stood along one side, completely black, and it reflected nothing.

The air smelt of leather and oil and the faint, metallic scent of weapons that have been kept sharp.

"You have ten minutes to choose what you want to take out there with you," said Arcanus. "You will have to carry it yourselves, so choose wisely. But first." He looked out over the five teams. "Have any of you used a bow?"

"Yes," I said. I didn't know why. I had never touched a bow in my life. But the word came out of me, and it felt true.

Arcanus looked at me. A long, quiet look from under the hood.

"Good. Come with me."

He led me over to a door in the wall. The door was wooden, with patterns carved into it, and when we stepped through, it vanished, and we were standing in a dark room. The walls began to glow bluish.

"Welcome to Déynáir's shooting range," said a woman's voice from the walls. "State distance and target."

"Twenty-five metres, ten arrows, static targets," said Arcanus. The room began to stretch. Bows appeared on the walls, with quivers beside them. At the far end, targets of different sizes appeared.

"Choose a bow," said Arcanus. He took one himself and stood beside me. "Put one hand on the grip. Put three fingers on the string. Draw it back to your cheek. Aim. And shoot."

He drew and released. The moment his fingers left the string, an arrow appeared, blue-green and transparent, made of pure light. It whistled through the air and struck the very centre of the smallest target.

"Your turn."

I took a bow from the wall. My fingers found the grip, and it was lighter than I had expected, and warm. Someone had just been holding it. I took my stance with one foot in front of the other, set three fingers on the empty string, drew it back to my cheek and felt the string vibrate against my fingertips. Aimed. Breathed out. Released.

A sky-blue arrow flew through the air and struck the edge of the largest target. Not good. I shot again. A little better. And again. With every shot my hands found more by themselves, and my eyes found more of the target, and it was as if there were a place in me that knew how to do it, a place that just hadn't been used yet.

The last shot. I took a deep breath. Aimed. Alôpex growled softly on my shoulder, a single, short sound.

The arrow flew faster than the others. And it struck the dead centre.

Arcanus looked at the target. Looked at me. Under the hood his mouth moved a little. It might have been a smile.

"Good," he said. That was all he said.

We came back to the others. Retia and Ahra were waiting. Retia had already chosen her equipment: a short-bladed knife, a rope, and a small compass that floated a centimetre above her wrist like a bracelet. Ahra had chosen a blanket, a water bottle, and one of the humming metal rings, although he admitted he had no idea what it did.

"How did it go?" said Ahra.

"Fine," I said.

"He hit the dead centre," said Arcanus behind me, and walked on without stopping.

Ahra looked at me with wide eyes. Retia looked at me with that searching look.

I went over to the equipment wall and took down a bow. The same kind as in the shooting range, light and warm in the hand. A quiver with ten arrows. And a knife, because you should always have a knife.

"Ten minutes are up," said Arcanus from the other side of the room. "All teams sit down."

A light appeared above the door, and the text rolled out:

"Team eight. Start in three hours and ten minutes."

Three hours. In three hours we would be standing on an island and would have to survive for three days with three words and three animals.

Retia went over to the scroll and unrolled it. It was long and closely written, in ink that was faded at one end and fresh at the other, and it was full of words in a language that wasn't quite Latin and wasn't quite anything else either. Next to each word was a short description of what it could do, and under that an instruction for how to do it.

Retia read fast. Her finger followed the words down the list with the efficiency she did everything with.

"I'll take Ignis," she said. "Fire. We'll need to make fires, we'll need light, and if anything attacks us, I'd like to be able to burn it."

She said it with a calm determination that wasn't up for discussion. I would learn that Retia never made a choice twice. It was what I admired most about her, and what sometimes made me most nervous: that she always knew what she wanted, while I was still busy working out what the question was.

"I'll take Scutum," said Ahra. "Shield." He said it with a determination that surprised me, and for once his hands stopped fidgeting and lay still in his lap. "I'm not the best at attacking. But I can stand in between." And the way he said it, quiet and serious, told me that Ahra had found something inside himself over the last day, something that hadn't been there when he dropped his papers on the bathing jetty at Løverodde.

Retia nodded. "Good. Fire and shield. Chris?"

They both looked at me.

I looked at the list. There were hundreds of words. Attack, defence, healing, light, movement, transformation, binding, seeking. The words swam in front of my eyes, and for every word I read, I tried to imagine using it, standing in a forest in the dark and saying a word and meaning it.

But my eyes kept coming back to one word. A word I had already heard, spoken by Surain in his hut just before the ice melted in my hand and everything turned to white light.

"Defluo," I said.

"Teleport?" Ahra looked at me. He thought I had gone mad. "Chris, you don't even know if you can use it. It's one of the hardest words on the list. Even experienced Engle and Drúir struggle with it."

"No," I said. "But it feels right."

"'It feels right' isn't a strategy," said Ahra.

"It is for him," said Retia. She looked at me with that searching look, and there was something in it that said she understood something Ahra didn't. "Take it. It's your choice."

And it was. For the first time in a long time, something was my choice. Not Hanne's decision. Not a headmaster's order. Not a teacher pointing me in a direction. Mine.

I looked down at the scroll. Under Defluo it said: "Say the word. Think of the place. Let go."

Let go.

My hands tightened on the edge of the scroll, and for a moment it wasn't paper I was holding. It was iron. The cold, rough iron rungs of the ladder at Løverodde, slippery with algae on the lowest rungs, and the water rising up my legs. Every morning for as long as I could remember, both hands, every rung. And one word in a letter, and the bottom disappearing under my feet in the Little Belt, and the darkness where I wasn't anything.

That was why the word had felt right. I hadn't chosen it with my head. My hands had known it.

Let go. Not push. Not force. Let go.

Because that was exactly what I had done, the one time it had mattered: let go. Let go of the ladder. Of Fjordly. Of the name without a surname. Of the empty wall and the blank family tree and the idea that I was nobody. And when I let go, I had come up somewhere new.

I didn't tell the others. It was too new to have words.

I found without looking. I arrived by letting go.

The door that led to the test was of dark wood with patterns carved into its surface, and it was shut. We stood in front of it, all three of us, with our Amícûs at our sides and our choices in our heads, and waited.

Alôpex rubbed her nose against my neck. Fulmen brushed a wing against Retia's cheek. Lynx pressed his body against Ahra's leg. All three animals knew what was waiting behind the door, even though none of us humans did.

I felt my heart beating. Not fast. Just clearly. As if it wanted me to know it was still there.

"Chris." Alôpex in my head, warm and calm.

"Yes?"

"Whatever is out there, I'm with you."

I put my hand on her back. Her fur was soft under my fingers, and her heart beat against my palm like a small promise.

"Ready?" said Ahra. His voice was shaking.

"No," said Retia.

"Me neither," I said.

But we stood there anyway. All three of us. With a bow and a knife and a rope and three words we hadn't used yet, and three animals that had chosen us before we knew what it meant to be chosen.

The door began to open. Wind rushed in, cold and raw, and it carried the smell of a forest that had been waiting a long time for someone to come. Behind it there was darkness and moonlight and the sound of something moving between the trees.

Alôpex rose on my shoulder. Her claws dug into my robe.

"Chris," she said in my head. "There's something out there."

We stepped through.