6.

[The old cat had pains in her bones that made it hard to hunt. She had taken to eating mainly insects and come to enjoy the taste. Earthworms, bugs under logs, and the shiny red beetles that lived in the old graveyard. Eating the glowing red beetles made most of her hair fall out, but also had the little known effect of allowing her to see a little into the future. Sometimes a few moments, sometimes a few days.

This was how she knew the abandoned guard tower next to the old graveyard would soon be dry and warm, and house a man who would be soft-hearted enough to share his food with a mostly bald, foul-smelling cat. She was barely able to scale the tower and scrambled in the second story window, before taking a position at the top of the stone stairs down to the windowless ground floor.]

The groundskeeper slammed over the molded and swollen wooden door. "Look, your… um…"

"I haven't even read the bestowal yet," Inri said mildly. "But I anticipate the term of address being My Lord or Lord Nubas. But Nubas sounds a bit rude somehow, so I think I'll be avoiding that."

"This tower has been empty since the first expansion of the palace outer walls. And there's been another expansion since that," Groundskeeper Wallice continued. "It's got just a dirt floor here and the roof is full of bats."

"It's covered in crushed stone," Inri said, stamping his foot on the ground. "It could be worse.

Wallice looked up and saw the ruddy luminous eyes of the old cat. "Ugh," he said in disgust. Grabbing a stone from the ground he threw it at the cat.

The cat foresaw the stone would miss and didn't even flinch.

Inri wandered up the stone stairs, the groundskeeper following. The tower was round and about big enough to hold two royal carriages on the ground floor, with enough room to walk around them. The second story had a fireplace and lower ceiling of wood with a trapdoor and ladder up to a final room topped with what was left of a thatched roof. Inro did not venture to go up there the roof on the tower was barely more ample than the fur on the old cat.

"There are no quarters for staff," Wallice went on. "We'll have to send a girl over with food for you at dawn and dusk… nowhere suitable to receive a noble visitor."

Inri grimaced and held up his hand. "My father, the king, gave a list of requirements for my new abode, and you say this is the only building that meets them."

"Yes but it is not…"

"The king made his wished clear. You are not the king; I am not the king. I am sure he had his reasons. Please give me that key, and give it to no other. Send whoever is available to begin repairs tomorrow. Starting with shutters on these windows, fixing the door, and doing something about the roof. I would suggest wood shingles as reeds or straw will be hard to come by this late in the autumn."

"I…" Wallice has a brain full of objections. Including the one he really could not say. This building has a well-earned reputation for being both cursed and haunted. But the king and princes were not inclined to entertain such superstitious stuff. As he swept the unwanted protests from his mind there was not really very much to say. He sighed. "Very well." With one last look around he could not help but add. "I will have a pallet and blanket sent over anon, and wood for the fire. It's going to get cold in here."

"I imagine so," Inri replied fatalisitically.

There was no furniture in the room, Inro placed the book on the broad sill of the window. The other window looked towards the palace although the view was blocked by trees. This one overlooked the old graveyard. The stones were eroded and toppled, showing no signs of care. It seemed that no one important was buried there. Any noble dead were placed instead in the large crypt beneath the palace proper.

The rough cloth slid off the book as if the tome was actively rejecting this covering, the sort of stuff used for horse blankets not to cover relics of value.

But any such pretensions of importance were undercut by a faded blue script on the cover which read, 'The Book of Seven Cent Spells.'

Setting aside the small carved pebble, Inri attempted to open the cover. It did not budge. Leaning over Inri rand his fingers over the edge of the pages, fully two inches in depth. The object before him seemed more like a carved effigy of a book--all of one piece--than the real thing. Pulling and prying had absolutely no effect.

"I do not even know what skill this book is meant to teach me," Inri mused. "And yet somehow I am already bad at it."

The old cat came and rubbed against his leg. Inri idly reached to pat it, but looking down thought better of it.