The Academy: The Nameless Series Book 2

By Valerie Gaumont

Having fled Balosh and the assassin Harold Red Hand for the safety of the Hidden Kingdom, Nameless settles into the Academy to catch up on his studies before the other students return for autumn classes. But things don't go as smoothly as he hoped. No one knows what skills he will develop or when but his new friends are prepared to help where they can even though his rising power proves unexpected and hard to control. While Nameless learns to trust those around him and struggles with his new identity as someone other than the Prince's assistant, he stumbles into plots and political machinations in both the Hidden Kingdom and Beyond. Suddenly lessons are the least of his worries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Valerie Gaumont
• Release date: Jul 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005864255

Valerie Gaumont

Valerie Gaumont is an evil genius whose mission is to take over the world. Her latest efforts were thwarted when her flying monkey army discovered beer. Currently they are in Rehab because no one likes a drunk flying monkey. (Thank you for your cards and letters of support.) When she is taking a break from villainy she can often be found with a pen in her hand. Yes, sometimes she is doodling, other times writing fiction and discovering new and interesting ways to combine reality with the outré. She has had short stories in the Violet Ampersand Anthology, Poetry, Prose and Other Voyages to the Edge, and the online Journal, Gothic Fairytales for Melancholy Children. In 2007 she was listed as a finalist in the William Faulkner International Writing Competition in the Novel-In-Progress category.

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The Academy

Valerie Gaumont

Copyright 2022 by Valerie Gaumont

License Statement

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Chapter 1

As gray early light began to filter down through the skylights, Nameless stretched in his bed, slowly waking. After only three days in the Citadel, the capitol, and only city of the Hidden Kingdom, he was finding himself growing used to waking with the light instead of through the pain of a wooden ball plonking him on the head as it did when he lived in Pontuse. He still felt his bed was a bit luxurious, but was quickly adapting to the soft mattress, clean smelling bedding, and lavender stuffed sachet under his pillow.

He especially liked the fact that the bed was actually big enough to fit him and that his feet did not hang off the end. Nameless stretched his feet, sliding out of the covers and momentarily exposing the crescent shaped birthmark on his ankle before he pulled his feet back under the warmth of the blankets. Around him the Citadel was still quiet.

From his quarters he could hear no sound of movement, although he knew that somewhere someone must be awake and moving around. Even though most of the Academy didn’t start their day until the bells called them to breakfast in the dining hall, there were those who had to prepare the breakfast. In addition, even though he saw no servants moving around, Nameless was certain they were there. The world was too orderly for them not to be.

‘Besides,’ he thought. ‘Someone cleared the remains of my fire from the other night.’

Nameless looked at the fireplace in the sleeping section of his chambers. He had a second one in the front for his work space, but had yet to need it. He suspected come winter and regular lessons, he would need both to keep the chill off of the stone rooms. He wasn’t entirely certain how cold the Citadel got in winter, but he knew they were in a more northerly location than Pontuse making winter colder than he was accustomed to, at least in theory.

‘At least the secret entrance to the Hidden Kingdom’s is in a more northerly location,’ he amended.

He wasn’t entirely certain what that meant, weather-wise for the Hidden Kingdom. Their weather seemed to be about two months behind the world outside of the magical entrance to the Hidden Kingdom. Perhaps they would get the same winter snows often claimed by Genarai, perhaps not. As Nameless was from Balosh and only knew of Genarai from books and stories told in the assistants’ quarters he wasn’t entirely certain what to expect even if the weather did mimic that of Genarai.

When he arrived, Gregor, the Academy Steward, tested him on various subjects like reading and mathematics as well as history and geography. He wanted to see what sort of extra lessons Nameless would need to take before the regular lessons of autumn began. While he was pleased with the basics Nameless learned in the Kingdom of Balosh, Nameless had no practical knowledge of the Hidden Kingdom from a geographic or historical point of view, weather included.

The Mage Wars weren’t taught in his history and the kingdom established by mages after the wars began to take their toll was only mentioned briefly in songs and stories. In Pontuse, Nameless worked as an assistant to the crown prince and heir to the throne, Roland. The prince liked tales of daring adventure when younger and the court minstrels tried to please the young prince. In those stories there was occasionally an evil sorcerer and once in a while the Hidden Kingdom might be mentioned, but neither were very regular features of the tales told. Nameless wasn’t certain if it was because magic didn’t interest the prince or if it simply wasn’t a popular theme in general. Certainly no one thought it more than a myth, a child’s story.

Well, someone did, Nameless said smiling to himself.

When younger and still a prince himself, the current king of Balosh, King Archibald, traveled in disguise as a common mercenary to the Hidden Kingdoms. He followed the minstrel’s tales in the hopes of securing a court magician for Balosh. While those in the Citadel guessed that he was some sort of nobleman hoping to curry favor with the king for his own advancement rather than a common mercenary, no one guessed his royal origins and no one seemed to realize the trespassing nobleman who caused them so much trouble was now a king.

He suspected that Mistress Miranda now knew, even if she didn’t then. When King Archibald and his men ran into issues, Miranda saved his life in some sort of fashion. In return, he felt he owed her a debt of honor. She called in the debt when her son was in danger. While she named him James, she also sent him to safety in Pontuse under the nobleman’s care. King Archibald took away his name, hiding it for his own protection and so Nameless became first the nameless kitchen boy and later Nameless the assistant to Prince Roland not learning his name was James until he arrived in the Hidden Kingdom.

In his place as an assistant he took lessons with the prince and received a royal education. As Nameless did all of the homework, not only for Roland, but his best friend Reginald, Nameless was fairly certain the education he received was actually greater than that of the prince.

King Archibald tried to feed him like the prince as well, providing double portions to his son so that he could claim to Miranda, should she ever ask, that Nameless was fed as he would feed his own son, but there King Archibald made a misstep. Roland did not like to share what he considered his and made sure to eat every extra morsel he could. The result was that while Nameless was thin and gaunt, Roland grew quite pudgy.

When he arrived at the Academy, Miranda was the one who tested him to see if he was here on a secret mission for Balosh and realized he was her son. Later she told him his name, but asked that he keep it to himself, neither of them acknowledging their relationship. He was told Warren was her man and could be trusted, but that he needed to remain Nameless, and not James, for the present.

Looking at the now cleanly swept fireplace with its new stack of logs arranged and awaiting the sparks from his fire lighter, Nameless let thoughts of Miranda go and wondered if the unseen servant remarked on the extra ash his fireplace produced the last time he lit it.

Knowing that even if he returned to Balosh, or even the palace in Pontuse, he would never again be Roland’s assistant, Nameless burned not only the colorful and clown like clothing he wore in his role as an assistant, but the corset he used to keep Roland’s growing bulk in check as well as the padded muscle shirt he used to make the prince look fit and strong. The burning produced extra ash and Nameless expected someone to comment.

Of course I haven’t seen anyone to comment, he said as he sat up, finally leaving the snug warmth of his bed.

The weather was about two months behind that of the world on the other side of the barrier that kept the Hidden Kingdom… hidden, and so it was still late summer, edging into early autumn here. Still despite the still warm days, there were intermittent storms that kept the air damp and the stones of his quarters chilled. After two years of intense drought, Nameless was unused to the damp.

Thoughts of weather filled his head as he slid out of bed and gathered his things to take with him to the bathing chamber. King Archibald wasn’t the only one who remembered magicians existed. King Frederick of Genarai did as well. The thought crinkled Nameless’ forehead with concern.

When he arrived in the Hidden Kingdom, Nameless found that a man named Malcom was a mage well versed in weather magic and was a prisoner of the King of Genarai. Upon the King’s orders he arranged the two year long drought that was causing so much suffering in Balosh. He found this out through an inadvertent use of polt oil, a powerful drug that opened the inner eyes and let a person see events happening far away while they slept. Nameless shivered. He hoped never to use the polt oil again, even though he was glad he now knew who caused the unnatural drought.

Just before crossing through the barrier into the Hidden Kingdom, Nameless managed to break Malcom’s control by hitting his carefully constructed spell with a blast of raw force. The punishment Malcom was receiving in King Frederick’s dungeon was due to his loss of control and despite everything, Nameless still felt some guilt over his role in the stranger’s pain.

‘Not me,’ he reminded himself, scrubbing his hands over his face as he tried to wipe the memory away. ‘King Frederick ordered his dungeon master Hendrik to beat him.’ The logic dimmed his guilt, but he still felt the weight of the responsibility.

Thus far, he reported the incident to the council and was told that he was not to mention it to anyone else. While Nameless didn’t really have anyone he could talk to, he was curious about what it all meant. Warren mentioned Miranda’s father was some sort of legendary weather working mage, but then told him that most of the legend was exaggerated for political purposes. Warren was very careful not to mention Nameless’ feat with the weather in conjunction with Miranda’s legendary father even though he knew Nameless was Miranda’s son.

‘Warren took me to Balosh at Miranda’s request,’ Nameless recalled.

While the notion of his having family wasn’t something that actually sat easily with him, he was curious about his own past. He was always told he was left as a baby, yet when he arrived, there were things he remembered, places, scents and sounds that teased his memory. When he tried to chase them, all he caught was a headache. Nameless wondered if it was because he was so young when he left or if there was something else at work and wanted to find a way to ask. He just didn’t know who to ask.

Nameless snorted and shook his head. Everyone seemed to have their own agendas. Even if he found a way to ask the questions he wanted answered, there was no one around to ask. Everyone left him alone to get settled.

‘Since Warren showed me the city and Gregor dropped off the books, I haven’t seen either of them,’ Nameless thought. He set his questions aside once again returning to the strange concept of family.

As he slipped into his pants and tugged his shirt over his head, Nameless wondered if he too would have some sort of weather working magic.

‘Like my grandfather,’ he thought.

Nameless rolled the term around in his head. It felt foreign to his mind. Parents were a strange enough concept, but he was beginning to adjust to the knowledge that Miranda was his mother, as improbable as that felt. Adding a grandparent seemed fantastical. Although at the moment it was only a matter of figuring out his skills. That, rather than the familial relations, Nameless thought he might be able to handle.

While the Steward, Gregor, gave him books to start reading so he could be familiar with local history, and Warren provided maps so he could start filling in his geographic gaps, no one started any sort of lessons in magic. They mentioned the possibility of inherited traits, but as Nameless was an orphan with no knowledge of his family, they were waiting to see what skills he developed.

‘But Warren said Miranda didn’t get her father’s weather magic anyhow,’ Nameless thought.

Semi dressed and carrying the rest of his clothing along with his soap and towel, Nameless left his quarters and went down the corridor and through the courtyard to the bathing chamber. As always, Nameless took a moment to marvel at the sight. Fitted into the wall was an enormous copper cistern. He didn’t know how the water was kept warm as the source of the heat was in the adjoining room. But the cistern provided more than enough hot water for his baths. It also had more than twenty pipes of various lengths leading to tubs for individual bathers to use.

As his position as Roland’s assistant demanded a close attention to hygiene, Nameless long ago got into the habit of more regular bathing than many in the castle and found the habit too deeply ingrained in him to break.

Although this is much nicer than the cold water basin in the assistant’s quarters, he said as he walked over to one of the tubs.

He placed his soap and towel on the top tier of the provided stand, one of which sat next to each tub. The rest of his clothing went onto the second tier to keep it safe from the water spattered tiles. Nameless turned on the water and fitted the plug into the bottom of the tub. As it filled he stripped off his remaining clothing, adding it to the rest of his pile.

Despite having questions for Warren, Nameless was glad he was the only one currently in the bathing chamber and as soon as the tub was filled, he slipped beneath the water. While he grew up in close proximity to others and had never thought to be shy about nudity before, Warren’s comments about the scars he carried from the beatings Roland doled out when he felt Nameless wasn’t performing his duty appropriately, made him feel self-conscious. Warren and Gregor both told him they were nothing to be ashamed of and that he didn’t have to talk about them, but to Nameless the scars told a story he felt might be too dangerous to share.

While Miranda might have seen his association with the prince when she looked into his memories, no one else here knew. They thought he worked in the palace and that his ability with creating creams and lotions for the court beauties was his chief occupation. The fact that those creams and lotions were for the Prince, wasn’t something anyone guessed and not wanting to correct them, Nameless let Warren tease him about the vanity of the court ladies and let all of the citadel believe he ran because a rivalry between the ladies exposed the possibility that he might have magic. His scars were a direct tie to the prince and one Nameless didn’t want to acknowledge.

Despite enjoying the hot bath, Nameless washed quickly and rinsed off before toweling dry and dressing. The trousers, plain homespun shirt and green leather jerkin were a far cry from Nameless’ oversized and brightly colored garments, but even as he laced the boots on to his feet, Nameless knew it was the hair that was the biggest change.

In Pontuse, one of the first things Nameless did each morning was comb a cream through his hair so that it could be adjusted into various spikes that jutted out from his head in odd angles. The hair was as much a part of his uniform as the eyepatch and hunched over crab walk. Losing the other elements of his garb was surprisingly easy to adjust to, but combing his hair flat against his scalp instead of arranging it into wild spikes took some adjustment. It always made Nameless feel as though he had forgotten something. Still, he was no longer an assistant, so he combed his hair flat, gathered his towel and soap and headed back to his quarters, shrugging off the odd feeling of missing something.

‘Maybe it will fade over time,’ he thought.

He passed no one on his way and he wondered if that would change when the other students returned in the autumn or if he would be one of the few who rose at first light. Gregor complemented him on being an early riser, and he got the impression it was not a common occurrence. Having spent his life waking before dawn so he could be in place with Roland’s breakfast tray before the prince woke, the few extra moments he spent luxuriating in his now soft and cozy bed were all of the lag time he could manage before he felt compelled to rise.

‘At least it means I’m early for breakfast,’ Nameless thought.

The food at the Citadel was another thing Nameless was quickly adapting to. After a life time of watery broth, thin porridge and the occasional scrap left behind by Roland as either a treat or an incentive, Nameless now found himself able to eat his fill at every meal.

Gregor claimed that food was energy for the body and as it took energy to maintain a functioning body as well as for magic to develop, he believed the shortness of his daily rations were what kept Nameless’ magic from fully developing. Unlike most who had the potential to learn either the Greater or Lesser Paths of Magic, when tested, Nameless had the capacity to learn both. Gregor guessed that he inherited one line from each of his parents. He claimed that while no one at the Citadel was currently training in both, it was not an unheard of occurrence.

Nameless knew that his mother, Miranda was one of the Greater Path Magicians, even though he continued to let Gregor believe he knew nothing of his parents at all. He still had no idea who his father might have been, but if Gregor’s estimation was correct then he was some sort of Lesser Path Mage, bequeathing his skill to Nameless as Miranda gave him the Greater magic.

As he walked towards the dining hall, his belly more than ready for breakfast, Nameless thought about his parentage. In the letter King Archibald sent with him when he left, the king told him his name was James Ersteson. To Nameless that didn’t sound like a proper surname and fit no naming pattern he was familiar with. He knew that Miranda’s surname was Stormsinger, a name inherited from the weather mage she was descended from.

‘Or maybe that is a title,’ Nameless thought. While he was beginning to familiarize himself with the larger bits of the Hidden Kingdom, like the maps showing the Kingdom’s geography and the Citadel’s layout, all of the books Gregor set for him to read dealt with the Mage Wars and the establishment of the Hidden Kingdom, not how people were named.

‘For all I know here Ersteson could be a common surname,’ He shook his head.

At the moment he couldn’t use any part of his name. He arrived as a nameless orphan. Suddenly having a name would appear strange and raise questions. ‘I should be able to figure it out once more people start arriving," he thought as he reached the dining hall.

Overhead the bells calling the residents to rise and begin their day sounded. Nameless knew food wouldn’t actually start being served until closer to the second bell, but he just couldn’t make himself wait.

The cook in Pontuse was a stickler for arrival time and was known to short anyone who arrived even the slightest bit late. While this cook seemed more intent on fattening him up than punishing him, like extra cleanliness, punctuality was a habit he found hard to break.

Nameless let himself into the dining hall and settled himself on one of the massive wooden benches. The room was filled with five long tables, each capable of seating fifty people on each side. The benches were as long as the table and while Nameless could make them rock slightly if he put some effort into it, he couldn’t actually move the bench on his own.

The room was clean, but had the worn feeling of being routinely used by lots of people. It was built for utility rather than appearance. From the solid benches to the massive table, everything in here was built to last. Repairs were clearly made, and made well, but they weren’t disguised to look like the piece was never damaged. The repair was left to stand on its own. While the floor was dressed stone, it wasn’t polished and showed the scuff marks of long use. It was however cleaner than Nameless had ever seen any floor before.

Even though the dining hall could hold about five hundred souls at a time, today, once again, Nameless dined alone. As he waited for the cook to wheel the trolley out, Nameless wondered where Warren and Gregor were. In his first few days here, he saw both men at each meal. He also saw various others taking their meals in the space, albeit sitting in other groups. While he doubted it was common for the Steward to dine with the students, he thought that as this was the dining hall for this section of the Academy, he would have seen them at some point.

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Oran, the assistant cook. He was a tall, wiry man with graying hair and a bald spot on the crown of his head. As Nameless knew the strength it took to work in a large kitchen like the one in the Castle of Pontuse, he expected Oran was quite strong, despite his sinewy frame. Oran wheeled a trolley out. Usually, it contained a large cauldron from which the thick porridge heavily studded with sugar and spices was doled out into individual bowls. Today, it contained one bowl with a spoon, a pitcher and a tankard of the apple cider that was common with every meal he had since his arrival.

Nameless blinked in surprise as Oran handed him the bowl and placed the tankard and the pitcher on the table.

Jessup said to go ahead and bring out your first portion, since you always have two, Oran told him. I’ll look in on you in a bit to see if you’re ready for seconds.

Thank you, Nameless said offering him a small nod.

Oran nodded back, turned and wheeled the empty cart back into the kitchen. Nameless still felt a little uncomfortable with the extra attention, but understood that the cook seemed to have made it his personal mission to help Nameless bulk up to what he considered an acceptable weight. He figured that if he ate his fill at each meal then sooner or later the extra meals would have the desired effect and the extra scrutiny would cease.

By his best guess he had at least a month, possibly two before the other students returned to the academy from their summer break. He was hoping that by then the attention would dim and he wouldn’t be singled out any more than any other new student.

Nameless ate his breakfast, enjoying every spoonful. Not only was it a substantial portion with the oat grains not thinned out to a broth like consistency by the addition of extra water, but the honey and spices were laced through it expertly. While he marveled at such expensive ingredients being used in a meal for the general population, he wasn’t about to complain about it. He finished his bowl and Oran appeared with a second one before he could lower his spoon. He also set down some sort of hand pie wrapped in a cloth.

For your rambling’s later, Oran told him, tipping him a wink before turning away.

Nameless nodded, but before he could do more than that, Oran was returning to the kitchen. While most of the past few days were spent reading the books Gregor gave him and pouring over Warren’s maps trying to get a feel for the place he was now starting to settle into, Nameless felt he couldn’t actually settle until he actually knew the layout of the area first hand.

In Pontuse he spent years wandering the castle, moving about in ways that brought the least attention to his actions. There was no part of the castle he could not access without being seen. Once he even found an unused servant’s passage that would grant him access to the king’s chambers if he wished. He even