Free WebMage by Kelly McCullough Page B

speak. This is an object lesson, Ravirn. I don't want anything to distract you from the message. The monks and their students operate under a vow of silence. While you are on the premises the same will apply to you. Since you seem to have such a problem with keeping your promises, I'll help you with this one." She whistled a brief tune as low and solemn as a dirge, and I felt magic still my tongue.
    The door opened in front of us, and a tall, lean man gestured for us to enter. He wore a long, gray robe made of some harsh fabric.
    "Take us to the abbot," ordered Lachesis.
    The monk nodded, then turned and led us down a cold stone hallway. The mildew smell of damp stone warred for control of the air with the sharper salt tones of the sea breeze that whistled through every crack. Fluorescent lights were mounted to brackets in the walls at intervals of about fifteen feet, connected by lines of half-inch conduit that twisted along the surface like galvanized steel asps. Larger cousins of these metal snakes ran in thick profusion on the ceiling. At regular intervals fast wireless hubs sprouted from the mass.
    A few short minutes later we were escorted into the abbot's office. It was a large room, but plain. The furniture was all oak and looked as though it had been there for a thousand years and would probably still be there in another thousand. The abbot looked up from where he was scanning long lines of code on a sparkling new Sun workstation.
    "Welcome, your Worship." He bowed to my grandmother, and she inclined her head in acknowledgment. "Is this him?" he asked, with a sort of sad contempt.
    "Yes," said Lachesis. "Though I'm not yet sure if he'll be joining you. It may be that after he has a look around, he'll be less reckless in his behavior."
    "Let us hope so," said the abbot. "I am always glad to help the young men who are brought to us. But it would be a better world if this service we render to the Powers and Incarnations were unnecessary. Brother Torvalds, please conduct this man around the facility while I speak with Fate."
    In the next ten minutes, I got a mighty good look at what my own personal purgatory might look like if I weren't careful. It was clear that when Lachesis had threatened me with a monastery school, I hadn't taken her seriously enough.
    Each student was assigned a windowless cubicle, ten by ten by ten, with a low pallet, a tiny wardrobe, a small bookshelf, and a desk with a straight-backed wooden chair. Each cubicle also had a network port, but according to the brochure Brother Torvalds gave me, it only connected to the local area net. The only web access was through a group of computers in a common area off the dining hall and was closely supervised by the monks.
    The dining hall itself was a long, low room filled with stone tables and matching benches. When I gestured a question at Torvalds about the food, he looked like a kicked basset hound. The thing that really stayed with me, however, was the communal bathrooms. Each doorless shower had only one faucet handle, and not the kind that starts out cold, then gets warm. The toilet consisted of a long marble slab with holes every few feet.
    I was convinced. I did not want to spend even one semester here. Even the prospect of being murdered by my great-aunt Atropos suddenly seemed less scary than it had only hours earlier. On the way to the abbot's office, we passed a line of monks making their way to the chapel. They were chanting in classical Gregorian style.
    "One one oh one oh oh one one oh one," and so on. It was downright creepy.
    "Did you find that instructive?" asked Lachesis, when we returned to the abbot's office. I bobbed my head vigorously. "Good. Then we may return to your current school."
    Brother Torvalds led us back to the gate. From there we quickly reversed the journey that had brought us to this little gray outpost of the abyss. As the Up link returned us to my room, I felt the power of my grandmother's binding spell release its hold