Once In a Blue Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

elevator was just a flat wooden slab that rose and fell according to an intricate system of counterweights. No one had ever been able to find them. The Tree liked to hold some of its mysteries close to its chest.
    The Administrator stomped off to his very private office, to rest his feet and his aching back, and prepare for the new term. He grumbled loudly about his workload every year, and didn’t fool anyone. Everyone knew he lived for his paperwork.
    “You know,” said Hawk, heading straight for the elevator, “given that we will be leaving soon, I think it is incumbent on us to do one final tour of the various departments. Make sure all the tutors are up to the mark, all the students are working hard, and . . .”
    “And just generally put the wind up everybody, one last time?” said Fisher. “Sounds good to me.”
    So up the elevator shaft they went, standing right in the centre of the wooden slab because there weren’t any handrails. To discourage people from using the thing if they didn’t have to. Hawk and Fisher were looking forward to seeing how the many and various departments of the Academy were doing. The Hero Academy didn’t teach just the basics of soldiering—sword and axe and bow . . . There were also serious studies in magic, High and Wild, and all sorts of classes in such useful skills as infiltration, espionage, politics, information gathering, sneaking up on people, and general underhandedness. As Hawk was fond of saying, A properly prepared warrior has already won the fight before he’s even turned up. And as Fisher liked to say, When in doubt, cheat.
    Hawk and Fisher started their casual and entirely informal inspection with the main training hall, on the second floor. A huge open area, with light falling heavily through the many circular windows. There was no glass in any of the Tree’s windows, just openings in the wood. But somehow the Tree was always cool in the summer and comfortably warm in the winter. Which was just as well, because no one was ever going to be stupid enough to start a fire inside the Millennium Oak. Except for the kitchens, on the ground floor. Where the cooks were often heard to murmur that they always felt like someone was watching them. When it got dark, foxfire moss lamps shed safe silver light.
    Roland the Headless Axeman was in charge of Weapons Training. A tall man, originally, presumably; it was hard to be sure now that he didn’t have a head anymore. His neck had been neatly trimmed, just above the shoulders, and the tunic he wore had no hole for where the neck should have been. Roland was a large and blocky sort, with muscles on his muscles, and arms so heavily corded that he could crack walnuts in his elbows (for other people; he had no use for the things himself). He wore steel-studded leather armour that had been beaten into a suppleness smooth as cloth, over functional leggings, and battered old boots with steel toe caps. He had large hands, a soldier’s stance, and was so impressively imposing that he all but sweated masculinity. He had a deep, booming, authoritative voice. No one was too sure exactly where it came from, though people had come up with some very disturbing and even unsavoury possibilities. Roland may not have had a head, but he saw all and heard all, and absolutely nothing got by him. Unbeatable with his massive war axe in his hand, Roland was a patient and demanding and very dangerous tutor who never failed to get the best out of his students. Whatever it took.
    Some say he cut his own head off . . .
    Many sorcerers and witches had run extensive, though carefully unobtrusive, tests on Roland the Headless Axeman down through the years. From what they hoped was a safe distance. They were sure he wasn’t a ghost, or a lich, or an homunculus, or any of a dozen other unlikely things. But as to who or what he really was? No one had a clue. Not even Hawk and Fisher; or if they did, they weren’t talking. An awful lot of people had