First: Slaves, School
Previous: Introductions

Everyone had their own story about the stairs. Wesley had run up as fast as possible, until their collar had shouted: “so loud it nearly blew out my ears,” Wesley complained. “And then there weren’t any more stairs.”

Talia had gotten in an argument with a puzzle door that had ended with a chute downwards to the reception area. “My collar’s still annoyed with me. Won’t talk to me.”

“Not even for collar’s-choice?” Jefshan leaned forward over the table, looking intrigued. “Mine won’t shut up. “

“Collar’s-choice?” Talia blinked owlishly.

“You know. That bit near the end where the collar picked out which way to go. Collar’s- choice.”

“Oh, that! Yeah, my collar said ‘left’ and that was it.”

“Are we even supposed to be talking about this?” Kayey frowned imperiously over the four of them. “I mean, we did it alone…”

“We did it with our collars,” Des corrected. “I mean,” he added, suddenly feeling uncertain, “Mine talked to me and did magic. Didn’t yours?”

“My collar advised me,” Jefshan agreed, speaking very slowly. “But I didn’t know we could do magic.”

“But-” Des furrowed his brow. “They tested us on that at the very beginning.”

“I used magic,” Kayey allowed. “Once, when the stairway got really uneven. And then my collar, it told me to do something right near the end. But then there was the door.”

::That’s because the collars aren’t supposed to direct,:: Desmond’s collar interjected. ::If a collar starts telling the wearer what to do, it can lead to, well… problems.::

“Problems?” Des murmured. Not quietly enough; everyone sitting next to him looked at him. He squirmed and touched his collar.

“You’ve got a talkative one, too?” Jefshan tch’d sympathetically. “Mine- uch. Yes. You’re talkative. Very talkative.” Jefshan shook their head aggressively. “Surprised there wasn’t a test for ‘how do you deal with someone nagging you all the time.’”

“I think that was the stairway?” Des offered. “I mean, there’s a lot of things to deal with there. How you cope with physicality, puzzles, stress, how you and your collar get along…”

“Danger,” Wesley pointed out. “There was that stairway that turned into a slide. I nearly cracked my head open.”

“That sounds awful.” Des resisted the urge to reach up and touch his own head. “There were other threats, too, like the stairway over the alley…”

“I think…” Jefshan was frowning thoughtfully. “…maybe we each had a different stairway?”

“But it’s all the same entrance, isn’t it? And we all ended up in the same place.” Talie gestured around the room. “Then again, we all ended up in the same place no matter how long we climbed. Or which way we turned. Or which way we turned that next time.”

“So,” Des was feeling a little braver as people stopped glaring at him, “maybe it was an illusion? No…” He shook his head. “That doesn’t sound right.”

::Not an illusion,:: his collar agreed. ::I can see through illusions. The stairs were real… just magical.::

“Magical,” Jefshan said at the same time. “That’s what my collar says. That they shift depending on the climber.”

“That makes sense. When the stairway decided I was done, there weren’t any more stairs. Decided we were done,” Desmond clarified. “Something about getting along with each other and agreeing.”

“And… maybe being a team?” Kayey frowned. “So they’re not supposed to tell us what to do, and they’re not supposed to encourage us to be unsafe, or to break the rules…”

“But we climbed all those stairs,” Wesley interrupted plaintively, “and we all ended up in the same place. So what did it matter?”

They all stilled. “That,” Jefshan murmured, “is a very good question.”

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First: Slaves, School
Previous: Outfitted

Desmond tugged on his vest. It fit him as if it had been tailored to him. His pants were long enough. His shirt buttoned snugly but not tightly around his throat.

“Eventually,” Grenor put in, “you’ll learn to direct the magic yourself. The collar will always be involved, of course – the collar is the control for the magic. That was the Agreement,” he added, in a much quieter voice. “But after a time, you’ll be able to look at a piece of clothing and fit it to yourself by will alone. I’d be glad, if I were you. You’ll notice quickly that not everyone is as good at that as you are.”

“It wasn’t me,” Des protested.

“It was you. It was you and the collar as a team – but that means it was at least half your effort and mind – and don’t ever let your compatriot there tell you different.”

“It hasn’t tried so far.” He touched the collar lightly. “These are the best-fitting clothes I’ve ever owned.”

“That’s just one of the advantages to being collared. It might balance out the dormitory living.”

“Oh, this?” He looked around. “I don’t know how I feel about this yet. I shared a room most of my childhood, but that was different.”

“You’d be surprised how many people that’s the story for. Or maybe you wouldn’t.” Grenor shrugged with a smirk. “Your belongings are safe here – and don’t mess with anyone else’s belongings. That’s rule number two.”

“What’s rule number one?”

“This is home now.” Grenor softened tone a little bit. “There’s no place but here for us, and no family but this place. Some day, you may be given assignments that are long-term, and those assignments will become your home and family – but the place you left this morning, that’s gone.”

“I know.” Des swallowed around a lump but kept his chin up. “My mother gave me the blessing for the sailors. I’m gone. Dead.”

“Your mother, then, is wiser than many, and I tip my hat to her. Now. It’s been a long day, and I imagine you’d like to sit down and rest your feet and fill your belly?”

Desmond’s stomach, which heretofore had been relatively quiet, weighed in on that matter. Des colored and looked away, but that couldn’t stop the sound of the collar sniggering in his mind.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Grenor assured him. “Like I said, I know it’s been a long day. This way, I’ll lead you to the dining hall.”

Grenor led back into the halls and down a simple hallway that ended in a wide, noisy room. There were people eating at the tables, all dressed in variations on Des’s outfit. Some wore yellow cravats and some golden, some blue cravats and some turquoise like Des’s, some pink and some red. Des spotted a couple in shades darker or lighter than those six, picked out among the sea of people.

Grenor gestured to an area with all people in shades of blue. “That’s going to be your area there. The ones that look the most lost are probably first-year students, like you. Go, grab a meal from the tray area here and then take a seat. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

He gave Des a little shove, which was all it took. Desmond hurried over to the “tray area”: a long table where tin trays were stacked next to cheap tin plates and silverware. There were several dishes to choose from, being served by people in red cravats and heavy white aprons.

“Last one.” The tallest boy grinned at him. His collar was just barely visible from the way he had set his collar and cravat. “You must have have quite a climb.”

“We climbed for a while,” he agreed. “How much food can we have?”

“One plate, but you can fill it.” The boy looked a little sympathetic at that. “Special occasions, more food. So I’ve got a shepherd’s pie here, this is pretty tasty, and then Puggle there has a roasted veg dish that’s pretty good. Aine has some sort of corn-wrap dish, but I’m not quite sure what it is.”

Desmond looked at his plate, looked at the size of the portions left, and decided he might as well eat his fill. “One of each, please.” If they were offering, he wasn’t going to say no. Hesitantly, he added, “We all take our turn in the kitchen, then?”

“First semester, yeah. Then, if it turns out you’re rubbish at cooking, you can substitute it out for other tasks. Not too proud to cook, are you?”

“No, sir.” Desmond grinned crookedly. “Though it it involves anything fancy, I might be at a loss.”

“Have no fear. We’ve all been through it and we can all teach you. I’m Federun, by the way. I’m in Action house. That’s what we call it, at least.”

“Action… oh.” Desmond touched his cravat. “So you chose… physical?” he guessed.

“Exactly. There are some other determining factors, but you’ll figure those out as you go. Red is Action. Blue is Impulse. Yellow is Reflection. They have long fancy names but those are only used two or three times a year. So, welcome to the school. I’ll let someone Impulsive welcome you to the house. And the Dean will welcome you formally — but eat first. The other first-year Impulses are over in that corner there,” he gestured. “Probably the best place for you to sit.”

Desmond took his full plate, a stein of beer, and a hunk of bread and headed for the corner indicated. Eight other people in various shades of blue and turquoise were sitting there, all of them looking at him as he approached.

“It balanced out. Hunh.” The speaker was lanky, wearing the uniform with the kilt, and had a deep royal-blue cravat — and studying Desmond thoughtfully. “I was wondering if we would all even out by numbers. Wonder how they do that?”

“Sure you shouldn’t have gone into the Thinky people?” A short person with very light blue accessories frowned at the lanky on. “We’ve got this one, that gives us nine. Hi.” The short person stuck out a hand. “I’m Wesley. This is Talia. We were the first ones in here.”

They seemed to think that was something to be proud of, so Desmond smiled at them. The lanky one, Talia, winked back, and Wesley shook Des’s hand.

“And you are the last one,” Wesley added. “The last one anywhere, it looks like.”

“I took a nap on the stairs,” Des joked. There was a strange tension when Wesley said ‘last one,” a tension that seemed to infect the whole table. He’d hoped the joke would break the tension, but it only seemed to make it worse.

“Seriously?” a third person, wearing accessories the same cyan as Desmond, leaned forward. “You napped?”

“No? It was a joke. Just a joke,” he added, feeling on guard. “I don’t know what being first or last or in the middle means. I’m new here.”

“We’re all new here.” This third person seemed determined to dislike everything Desmond said, so Des decided not to say anything in reply.

“What Kayey isn’t saying is that none of us know what it means, either.” The fourth person looked a little older than the rest of them, white-blonde hair in two long braids and pale cyan cravat tied messily in the High Street style. “Wesley and Talia are pleased they made it early, but everyone’s worried that you took a long time because you climbed higher. I’m Jefshan, by the by.”

“Desmond. Des. Pleased to meet you all.” He bowed awkwardly, the tray hampering his movement.

“Well, sit down, sit down.” Talia gestured imperiously at an empty seat. “We can’t compare notes properly until you get settled.”

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First: Slaves, School
Previous: Three Routes

Another door. Desmond stepped through it cautiously, half-expecting to find darkness, or a pit, or someone flinging fire-balls at him.

He found a stairway. He sighed quietly and started climbing.

::Urgh. I hate that feeling. Hate it. It’s like being put in a box. Hate it.::

“Welcome back to you, too.” The stairway seemed interminable. It seemed like exactly the sort of thing he should expect today, so he just kept climbing.

::Hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it…. All right. I’m done complaining. What did you decide?.::

“You really weren’t listening?”

::No. They – well. It turns off my external senses. I can’t feel anything, can’t see or hear anything. It seemed to take forever, though..::

“I thought it through quite thoroughly,” Des admitted. “I didn’t know you were unhappy, or I would’ve gone faster, though.”

::Don’t fret; it’s silly. I’m fine. It was unpleasant, but it’s over now. And you, you’ve chosen, and you still haven’t told me what we’re going to be doing with all of our training.::

“Instinct and intuition. We’re going with our gut.” Des smiled, because it felt a little silly, but also because it felt a little right.

::With our… well.:: There was a long pause. Des wondered if it meant the collar was thinking things over, or controlling some sort of reaction. ::That will suit you, I think. Let’s go, then.::

Just like that, the stairway came to an end on a landing. Des, who had been certain the stairway went on forever, stopped in surprise.

The landing had three hallways. Des was just about ready to start tearing his hair out in frustration.

::This one is mine. Take the center path. And then I imagine there will be dinner for you and a nice charge up for me.::

“A what?” Des took the center path. He had long since stopped trying to make sense of his route, but some part of his brain offered that he might be out over the alleyway again.

::A way of… replenishing energy. The way that food replenishes energy for you. Obviously, I can’t eat. I have no body. And yet things I do require energy, such as channelling your power.::

“Oh! Oh, that’s interesting.” Desmond touched the collar thoughtfully. “Does thinking, talking, require energy?”

::About as much as it does for you. Which is to say, an amount only notable when one is very low on that energy.::

“Ah.” The hallway, this time, stopped quickly. There was yet another door, which Des found himself sighing as he opened.

::Almost there::, the collar reassured him. ::See?::

There was another desk, with another collared person sitting behind it. This one looked older — Desmond’s parents’ age — and was wearing a very ornate gold collar and another one of those loose, wide-necked robes.

“Ah, a new student. Very good. You’re the last for the day, so come on in. We’ll get you a room and a uniform, and then you can move on to dinner quickly.”

Desmond smiled cautiously. “Dinner would be nice,” he allowed. “Ah — I’m the last for the day? Is that a bad thing?”

“No, no, not at all. Some people take the stairs at different speeds. Some people make the decision of the three routes more quickly than others. And some, well, their collars take a horribly long time at that last intersection. So.” The collared person stood. “I’m Grenor. I teach several seminars here but, more importantly to you at the moment, I’m here to show you to your room, your uniform, and your food. This way – and no, no more decisions for a little while.”

“Does this place even exist in the world?” Desmond hadn’t quite meant to say that, but some of the implications of Grenor’s little speech were sinking in. “I mean… everyone ends up here?”

“The stairs here are something else, you’re right.” Grenor walked unhurriedly but not slowly down another hallway. Everything here was what Desmond thought of as aspiring: the walls were plastered white, the ceilings were low but clean, the floors were stone but very smooth stone. The doors were small, too, wooden doors dyed with a colored stain and with a bare minimum of carving. Grenor opened the fourth small door to reveal a closet.

“Everyone wears very similar uniforms here. No, they are not that which you’ve seen collared adults wearing; that is for very specific roles – normally teachers here, judges, and those in the court system. You will wear something not all that different from your everyday wear, except that everyone within a school wears the same thing. Here.” Grenor looked Des up and down, drew a line in the air and measured Des with the glowing line of light, considered the closet, and pulled out a stack of clothing.

“Pants, kilt, vest, jacket, shirt, cravat, collar. You’ll take your turn in the laundry, same as everyone else, and in the kitchen, and in several other places around the school. Don’t be out of your room without your pants or kilt, vest, and shirt on at any time. Cravat and collar are required for classes as well, and jacket is recommended.”

The pants, kilts, and vest were in a light color between beige and white; the shirts were bright whites, as were the collars, and the cravats swirled in three shades of blue and turquoise. The jacket, Des noted, was a darker beige, cut long in the style of the higher streets.

Grenor gave Des one more assessing look and added two pairs of shoes, twelve pairs of socks, and twelve pairs of undershorts. “That should do. If you ruin something, it can be replaced — but try not to ruin too many things, all right?”

Des, now completely loaded down with clothing, managed a nod.

“And here’s where you’ll be living.” Grenor walked only a short distance before swinging open a door. Three three-high bunk beds, each with three chests at their foot, filled most of the room, each bunk separated from the next by a wide window with a deep seat. The curtains on the windows, the blankets on the beds, and the hangings behind the beds all had the same swirling blue-on-blue-on-turquoise pattern as on Des’ new cravats.

“This will be your bunk. I’m afraid you get last choice, but that comes with its own benefits.”

“Benefits?” Des looked at the bunh Grenor was pointing to — top bunk in the left-hand corner. He set his uniforms down on one of the trunks and looked at the bed.

“Well, the fact that you’re last in counts for something. First-in and last-in, and you’re the last one, and you’re in Impulse, so nobody’s going to think that you spend all that time thinking really hard or arguing with your collar — and if you did, keep it to yourself.” Grenor grinned widely. “Just act mysterious and tell them you climbed up until you reached the roof. They’ll believe just about anything, if you’re that late. Now get yourself changed, and I’ll show you to the meal room.”

Desmond hurried to change into one of his uniforms. Everything fit almost-well-enough, like hand-me-downs or clothing from the second-hand shop. He tugged his vest into place, more than familiar with those sensations, only to hear a faint murmur from his collar.

::Just… hold still… okay. Hold your hands out, palms up, to either side of you, and think about perfectly fitted clothing.::

Desmond thought about a vest that buttoned without gaps or bulges all the day down his front, pants that were long enough but not too long, the way it felt when he sat down and his pants moved with him. He thought about collars that buttoned properly. Shirts that were just long enough. Jackets that moved like the rich men on Ridge Street. He stretched out his arms.

His clothing moved around him. His hands were glowing turquoise. His shirt was glowing blue. Everything was shifting and moving.

::There.:: The collar sounded proud. ::Now you’re set to be seen.::

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First: Slaves, School
Previous: Decisions

Halthinia had not, it turned out, brought a picnic, but still seemed fine waiting patiently while Desmond considered matters.

After a while, Des snorted. “I’m overthinking,” he told Halthinia. “Considering the options, considering what they could mean, considering what I know about collared people…”

“I can’t imagine that’s all that much.”

“Oh, no. I mean, I’ve seen a couple. But nobody I know knew one, and nobody had someone from their family who was one—”

“That they spoke of.”

“That they spoke of,” he agreed. “So I have, well, nothing at all to base my decision on.”

“That, dear child, is the point.” Halthinia smiled brightly at him. “So. How will you make this decision?”

Desmond turned slowly in place. “If I go by physical…” he started, and trailed off. I’m not a thug, some part of his brain complained. I’m better than just a laborer. Even if I am poor and short-tempered. “No.” He turned a bit more. “If I go intuitive…” He didn’t know. He wanted to say I’m not that impulsive, but it didn’t seem to be true. He turned, looking for a moment down the passage they’d come through.

Back was not a choice, that much he knew for sure. There was no way he could turn back now, not when it meant never knowing what would come next.

(He wasn’t entirely certain he’d be allowed to leave, but that was unimportant at the moment).

He kept turning. “If I go with the intellectual route…”

He ignored Annelle’s voice in his head, telling him he wasn’t good enough for a bookish job, that he wasn’t the sort of boy who ended up working with numbers. He thought about it, about reading books all the time, about making his decisions based on moderated, deliberate thought and educated knowledge.

He shook his head. “It’s fine for fun,” he muttered, “but it’s a slow way to make decisions.”

He turned a half-circle. “It seems,” he joked weakly, “that I shouldn’t have thought that long about an intuitive decision.”

“It’s better to give it due consideration,” Halthinia countered gently. “It will color much of your future.”

“This is…” He started walking slowly, then turned to look at Halthinia. “This is the ‘intuition’ road, right?”

“This is, yes. You were saying?” Halthinia matched pace with Desmond, ambling down the long, featureless hallway.

“This, today. It’s been a long day already and I don’t know what time it is. I went to bed last night and I was going to go down to Shops Row tomorrow and see if someone would give me a job, because my sisters are better at school than I am, even if I like the books more. Now, I’m in an impossible place in an impossible building-“

“Impossible?”

“The stairs went in directions that couldn’t exist within the building as it looks from the outside, and now here we are, somewhere that my brain tells me ought to be several stories in the air over the apartment building next to the Central Office. It’s impossible.” Desmond smiled apologetically. “At least, it seems very unlikely.”

“It’s a very good observation. And, yes, the first day is full of transitions.” Halthinia smiled crookedly. “It does level out after the first few weeks. You have made the hardest decisions already and, of course, for those of us who are collared, many decisions are simply out of our hands.

“I’m not sure if that’s reassuring or not,” Des admitted.

“Many people feel that way. I did, at first. But you get used to the feeling of someone else being in control pretty quickly – I believe that’s part of why they take us at the age they do. Your parents were still in control of you, more or less, yes?”

“I was trying to change that,” Des muttered, “but yes. They controlled my comings and goings.”

“And now someone else will. Here.” They had come to a stop by a doorway; Halthinia produced a key and opened it. “Good luck, Desmond. I do not think you’ll need it, but you have my well-wishes anyway.”

“But – I thought you were going to be one of my teachers.” Des frowned. He had to go on alone?

“I will be, but that is tomorrow, or perhaps several days later. For now, you need to find your house and your room, and adjust to your new settings.” Halthinia patted Des’ back companionably. “It’ll go by fast enough, and then you’ll see me again.”

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First: Slaves, School
Previous: Climbing

::They’re supposed to leave the decision up to us::, the collar was complaining. ::You heard them. “Until your compatriot tells you that you have reached the appropriate level.” That’s me, your compatriot. Your co-resident. Your co-::

“-llar,” Desmond interrupted. “You’re my collar.” He pushed the white door open, surprised at how smoothly it swung.

The collar, it seemed, was sulking, and said nothing. Des moved carefully, not trusting the floor, especially not when the stairs behind him were vanishing.

He stepped onto a smooth black marble floor, in a room much like the reception center he’d begun this adventure in. Broad sweeping stairways led up in both directions; two perfect people sat at the reception desk, looking as much a part of the decorations as the gold trim on the stairs or the broad silk carpets on the floors. They were collared, this time, in gold.

He touched his own collar, and then bowed, the sort of bow that his mother had been trying to get him to do for years, low and courtly and very polite. “I —”

::I come as a supplicant, having done as I was commanded. I come collared, to seek power. I come having struggled, to seek ease.:: The collar sounded strange now, almost mechanical, after the more lively dialogue of the stairway.

Des repeated the words. The collared person on the left, Des thought, looked impressed; the one on the right still looked bored.

The bored one was the one who spoke, in an affected alto. “Come, supplicant, to the stairs of knowledge. Come to learn the forbidden arts. Come — and know that these are allowed to you because you are now sealed beyond those the laws apply to.”

Des felt a chill. Beyond those the laws apply to? “Am I dead?” he muttered quietly. “… or dying?”

The reception-person raised thin-plucked and gold-painted eyebrows at him. The collar didn’t answer, at first. When it did, its words were very slow, as if it were struggling through molasses to reply.

::No. And yes. Legally… you are dead. By the charters of the nation and the city, you’re not a citizen anymore. You weren’t the moment the collar appeared around your neck. But your heart still beats, your blood still pumps, your mind still works.::

Desmond looked at the receptionists. “Not dead,” he translated carefully. “But dead. I’ve sailed beyond the horizon.”

At this, the bored receptionist smiled. “It was a very long climb. And yours was higher than many’s.”

“I ran out of stairs!” He hadn’t expected to be indignant. He’d been ready to be finished, after all; it was just the collar that had different plans. But here he was, glaring at these nice people in collars.

“Indeed. That is when you are done.”

Des frowned. “They said, when ‘my compatriot’ said we were there, that’s when we stopped.”

“That is one way of putting it. And for some people, their collar – their ‘compatriot’ – will tell them when the appropriate time is to get off the stairway. But that is not a bond all – or even most – collared people have.” The collared person on the right, the one who had been impressed at first, stood up. Their robes, so different from Desmond’s tight and structured layers, were loose, with wide, stiff shoulders that stood out from their body and a circular neckline that showed off both the collar and the collarbones while obstructing almost the entirety of the rest of their body. They reminded Desmond of Judges’ and Potentate’s robes, save for the neckline that was clearly designed to show off the collar. “I am Halthinia, and I will be one of your teachers. What you need to know is that your level – the door you can reach – is determined primarily but not entirely by your skill and determination. At a certain point, your collar’s desires and yours are no longer in sync, and at that point, you are done climbing for now.”

“But that’s not fair!” The words were out before Des could stop them. He glared at Halthinia anyway, since he’d already said it.

“It is not so much fair as it is necessary. You and your collar working together is required, and we need to know at what level you two can collaborate.”

“So… what. I’m done?”

Halthinia smiled very broadly. “Oh, no. No, now you are beginning. Come now, you know where the door is already. Let us move on to the next stage.” Halthinia gestured Des to lead.

You know where the door is. So it was probably under the broad stairway, like it had been last time. Des paused for a moment, looking at the wide sweeping stairways upwards.

“You could climb one of those,” Halthinia allowed, “but it wouldn’t get you where you’re hoping to go. You are in a very exalted class, you know.”

Desmond didn’t know why he was feeling so depressed about the situation. After all, he’d climbed as far as he’d planned on going. And the collar wasn’t muttering in his ear – at least, it wasn’t muttering audibly.

“Thank you,” he said, as politely as he could. He bowed to Halthinia, who chuckled.

“You will be fun. It’s not so often that the collars are given to someone with such fine manners. Generally, they seek out the poor or the destitute.”

Des swallowed. “I’m not that fine,” he protested. “I’m just from Lesser Hunstsworth and Red Aisle, not from anyplace fancy.” And, although he’d tried hard not to think about it, his family could probably do with one less mouth to feed. “I’m just a younger son.”

“With very fine manners,” Halthinia repeated. “That is needed. It may be why you made it as far as you did. Now. Onward.”

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