Excerpt: ARROW: A College Tail

Prologue

The dark wolf padded down the corridor in the shadows of the small hours. A dim night lamp hung at each intersection or stairwell, casting just enough flickering light to help a sharp-eyed creature avoid crashing into a wall or falling. He moved carefully, in almost total silence, his amber eyes staring ahead into the dimness and his ears turned back to listen for footsteps behind him. He heard no one larger than a wild mouse, or at least no one threatening. The breathing and occasional snoring from behind the doorways he passed confirmed for him the fact that no one was watching his movements.

In his left paw he carried a leather-bound book, not a ledger book but more the size of a notebook or diary. When he reached a door with "11W" marked on the wall next to it, he tested the latch very gingerly. It opened with a soft click, and the hinges were silent as he knew they would be. This smaller room was vacant, as he well knew, because the adjacent stairs had stolen so much floor space from it. None of the wolves who made their residence in this block would tolerate the cramped space, so it remained unused. The only furniture inside was a massive wooden desk built right into the wall, literally cemented to the stones, and a bed alcove on the opposite side, like a raised closet space cut out of the facing stone wall. The bed had no mattress or cushions, both to discourage rodents from taking up residence in the unoccupied room and to discourage students from using it for whatever nefarious purposes they might invent. A fireplace was also built into the outside wall, adjoined by a window overlooking the courtyard below. The hearth was barren and cold, but the room was not dark. The full moon shone through the glass and cast a clear shadow as Stefan, for that was his name, moved toward the desk.

Kneeling down on the stone floor, Stefan felt along the side of the heavy desk, seeking something he knew would be there. A wooden panel, hidden in the shadows, slid back with the sibilance of a serpent, revealing a dark compartment just above the floor and beyond where the back of the desk's ordinary drawers would reach. The wolf deposited his book in the open gap, and slid the cover back into place. Someone who knew there might be a hiding place there could find it, he supposed, but it was unlikely to be opened by chance or accident. One had to press in two separate spots with sufficient weight to warp the cover slightly before it would slide at all. Even then, it only slid in one direction, into the stone wall behind the desk, which would be counter-intuitive to almost any casual seeker.

Still maintaining near silence, Stefan slipped from the room, and closed the door behind him. He vanished down the adjacent stairs, no doubt planning to come again for the hidden journal at some future time. As it happened, though, the dark young wolf was forced to leave the college three days later, and would never return. His book lay hidden where he placed it that night, undisturbed by anyone. Not even a mouse would find it for more than a century, until the college and its residents had changed so much that he would never have recognized them.

He passed no one on the stairs but a mouse that shrank into the corner of one step, and three flights down he peered carefully around the corner toward his own room. Seeing no one in the corridor, he hurried to his door and let himself in, tail twitching involuntarily as he hastily drew it in through the barely opened portal, and closed the door as silently as possible. For a canid with good hearing and fast reflexes, that is quiet indeed, and no one heard anything out of the ordinary. His two room mates were sleeping soundly, exhausted or inebriated from some party or other, so they never realized he had been out and back that night. Stefan slipped under his blanket and curled up, trying to sleep. Unfortunately, the adrenaline raised by his pre-dawn mission was still lively enough to keep his eyes open and his mind alert.

The upper classman knew he had made a mistake, quite possibly a serious one. He wasn't sure whether anyone would pick up on it and follow the clues back to him, but he was taking no chances now. All the incriminating connections between the bungled events of the past months and his own identity were concealed in the book he had just hidden away. It was three floors away in a place that he was quite certain no one would look, even if they went through his possessions with a magnifying glass and a fine toothed flea comb.

He should have known that Nigel was too clumsy to pull off the assigned task cleanly, he told himself. Not for the first time in the most recent week, he wanted to kick himself, rip out his ears by their roots, or commit some other physical punishment upon his own body. "Stupid fool," he thought to himself. "Your own hubris will bring you to a bad end now. It's just a matter of waiting for it or running away from it."

Moonlight pierced the darkness of the room, a shaft of ghostly light deflected somewhat by the heavy window glass of the old dormitory. Stefan watched the pale swath of light as it ever so slowly swept across the floor and away from himself. He knew he had done as much as was possible. Now the wait must begin.

It was not that he felt remorse for his actions, because he did not. He was simply disturbed to learn of his own fallibility. One false step now and decades of clandestine activities might be revealed. His own reputation and security were not the only thing at stake, though these mattered to him more than the popularity and status of those elders in whose pawprints he had tried to walk. Even a major inquisition would lay no actual crime at his feet, because others had committed the acts in question. He was only guilty of inciting them to action. The fact that he was following a centuries old tradition would carry no weight in his favor, though. He was certain of that.

The moonlight moved inexorably to the wall and started to climb it as the sullen but bright orb sank in the west. Eventually, the exhausted wolf's anxieties lost their hold on his mind enough for him to drift into troubled sleep. He shifted and tossed on his mattress, but did not whimper or cry out. All he would remember the next morning was that he had dreamed of a raccoon sitting at the desk in room 11W with a composition book open in front of him as he stared out the window.

In the morning two days later, Stefan awakened to find that his room mates were absent, all gone to early classes or whatever. When the knock came at the door he thought he was prepared for anything, but the Dean and two wardens entered the room when he opened to them.

Dean Ourse was a large bear. If physical detention or punishment were in order, he probably could have administered either without the assistance of the wardens who attended him. His scowl was threatening enough to keep even Stefan, a fourth year law student, silent until ordered to speak.

"Stefan Ulf," the bear growled, "We know what you have done. The underclassmen you tricked into this dirty mess have told us the whole story, independently of each other but in complete agreement. All three have implicated you. Unfortunately, planting suggestions in the minds of the gullible is not a prosecutable crime, as no doubt you know too well."

The dean took Stefan's shoulder in his paw, the long claw tips pressing against his skin right through the heavy fur. He felt no doubt of what the bear would have liked to do with him. He also knew it wouldn't happen that way. He decided to acquiesce and ask for mercy.

No mercy was being offered, however. "Get your possessions together, Ulf," barked the bear. "You are expelled, as of this morning. In an hour, you must leave the college bounds and never return without express permission. The wardens here will watch you pack and accompany you to the gate. I won't wish you luck, and I advise you not to come back asking permission to complete your studies here as long as I remain in my offices. Here is your formal notice. Note that it is issued in extremis, so there will be no appeal or hearing. Pack up and leave now, within the hour, or you will be forcibly ejected without your luggage."

The stony faced wardens closed ranks between Stefan and Dean Ourse, who turned and left the room as if the smell of it were intolerable to him. The dark wolf cursed under his breath and hurriedly threw his books and possessions into his bags, and allowed the wardens to escort him off campus, flat-eared and tail dragging. Thus ended the academic career of Stefan Ulf, and thus also was aborted his potential career at the bar, disrupted by his own craving for vicarious thrills and an incompletely sublimated lust for blood.

Those he had duped into performing his dirty work suffered more direct punishments for several years. The real victims, alas, knew no revenge nor did they take living breath again. What was left of them received a respectful burial, but quietly so in order to preserve the college's reputation.