Nevertheless, I held my breath for several days, not even mentioning the incident to Hero. I did not think she would tell anyone, but I worried how such a revelation would change our friendship. As it was, things were growing strained between us, ever since I’d found the book in the mage’s tower. I did not wish to press matters further with her just then, and so I kept the happenings in my dormitory quietly to myself for many weeks.
The day after this incident, Sixth Day, a mere four days after my year-mates had been separated according to ability, we were again shepherded into the main hall of the University. All the expected professors were there looking on, and this time it was Kynaston Lornis who did most of the talking. Deryn Lhopri stood off to the side spending a great deal more time watching me than the others.
Professor Lornis began, “You have by now spent five years studying the theory of ether as it relates to the hyma. You have had four days of instruction since you were separated according to ability. In those four days, you have been introduced to the more practical side of hyma synthesis yet have had no chance to actively apply what you have learnt. As Professor Lhopri said to you before, while you study in these halls, you will take no more than a half-dose of the hyma. Not only would a full daily dose be too powerful for your young bodies, it would be the equivalent of handing a child a sword without training him to use it first.” The professor smiled, softening the blow of the words. “So, a half-dose it will be for now. You are here today to be assigned your first week’s ration.”
At this point, Kynaston Lornis held out his right hand, and the same wise Synth who’d scurried back and forth in our last meeting in this hall was again on duty to deliver up the hyma juice. “This is Golpin Mennis,” Professor Lornis informed us. “You will all be getting to know him quite well in the next few years, as he is the Synth in charge of the University’s hyma facility.”
The Synth handed over a small wooden box no larger than a hand-span long and about three fingers high and wide. Professor Lornis nodded his thanks, and Golpin Mennis stepped back again. Kynaston Lornis opened the small box, and two-hundred-and-thirty students craned their necks to see, but it was impossible to glimpse anything over the lid, which the professor kept between us and the contents. I fancied I heard the familiar chink of glass vials inside the box, but we were made to wait a moment longer to find out.
“The taking of hyma,” Professor Lornis said, looking up and snapping the box shut in a single, swift motion, “is a privilege and not a right. It is expensive to produce, and should you abuse the privilege, it shall be taken from you. But be warned. Once your ether has begun to grow accustomed to having the juice in your blood, it will not take kindly to its source of power being removed. Many a Synth over the years has gone mad by being denied the hyma. It is truly a fate worse than death, for the ether eats up the mind until the body is but a wasted shell, useless and disgusting to see. Therefore, do not take this gift lightly. You may not make use of your ether outside of the supervision of your professors, not until you demonstrate apt responsibility and have proven a certain level of mastery. Even then, you may not use your ether to give you an advantage over any person so long as you are a student of the University. These are the same rules you have heard before—though then they were but rules without means to break them.”
He flipped open the lid of the box he held, drawing out a vial half-full of the blood-red hyma juice, and said, “But today you will receive the means. Once a week you will be given seven new vials of the juice. Remember that on every Sixth Day you are to receive your week’s supply.” His eyes, which had been roving over the room as he spoke, fell on me by chance as he said those words. At least, at the time it appeared a chance thing, but in light of later events, I realized Kynaston Lornis—though he was kept in ignorance of much by those above him—was making sure I, above all my year-mates, was paying attention to this crucial point.
“For the rest of your lives,” he added, “you will receive seven vials on Sixth Day. That is your lot this year. Others receive their juice on other days of the week, spread out so that the production and consumption of hyma juice remains constant throughout the week and no day presents any greater burden than another on the system. Is that all quite clear?”
We all replied in unison that it was, and Kynaston Lornis smiled in response, setting the uplifted vial of juice back in the box and snapping the lid shut once more. He waved to Golpin Mennis, who led a familiar pair of warrior Synths into the hall. The warrior Synths each bore on his shoulder an enormous wooden crate, which he set down to reveal dozens of identical wooden boxes each containing, I assumed, seven vials half-filled with hyma. The warrior Synths exited and returned twice more with crates until six were standing before us. Golpin Mennis conducted the students in orderly rows past the crates to retrieve a single box for themselves.
Professor Lornis walked idly over to where I stood near the head of the line and held out the box in his hand. “Here you go, Toven. You take this one.”
I did not immediately take it from him, but looked up into his gently smiling eyes and asked, “What’s wrong with it?”
The smile disappeared to be replaced with something like a mixture of concern and anger, but instead of telling me to do as I was told—as Feril Animis might have done—he asked me, “What do you mean?”
I felt slightly chagrinned that I’d rejected what seemed a friendly enough offer. Still, something in my mind had put several pieces of information together, so much so that I knew I’d been singled out to receive the box Kynaston Lornis held in hand, though I did not know why. I said, “It’s just that I failed the tests the other day, and I can’t feel my ether like everyone else can”—I blushed a little as I said this, knowing what had happened in my dorm room recently—“and my classmates think I’m not a true Synth.”
Professor Lornis nodded. “I see. Well, Toven, would it satisfy you if I were to drink one of these vials? That way at least you will see they are not poisoned, so you won’t think we are trying to be rid of you.”
“It’s not that, sir. It’s just, well, I don’t know.” I broke down into incoherent mumbling and held out my hand to receive the box, embarrassed now that I had ever doubted Kynaston Lornis of all people. Feril Animis might be the type to poison a disliked student or give him a faulty supply of the hyma, but Professor Lornis was far too kind, I believed, for such acts. “Thank you,” I murmured when I held the box in hand.
He pulled me out of line and walked towards the exit with a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “You must not think yourself a failure, Toven, not before your training has even begun. You are only eighteen. Many of the greatest Hymanni of years past could not fully sense or control their ether until their twentieth years. I do not think that will be the case with you, but rest assured that early manifestation of ether is no sign of greatness. Rather, those who are made to wait often find the heights are much higher than anticipated when the time arrives, and he stands looking down on the heads of all his peers. Go store your box in your room. Take one dose before you do so and return to class.”
Kynaston Lornis left me at the exit of the hall, and I watched him return to the other professors, many of whom had been watching our exchange. Deryn Lhopri was studying me again, and she nodded faintly as I caught her eye. Without acknowledging her—and with a sudden cold shiver—I turned and followed a handful of students from the hall.
I waited outside for Hero, and together we drank down the first of our seven vials. I felt lightheaded and sensed the world around me inhale and exhale before everything settled down again. Afterwards, however, I sensed no change whatsoever. Only the bitterness of the juice remained as a reminder that I’d even drunk the liquid.
Hero, by contrast, was breathing rapidly and her eyes were fluttering as though some drug coursed powerfully through her veins. I was momentarily concerned that she was having a reaction to the hyma, but then I saw her smile.
Her eyes were like live coals when she looked at me
, and I swear that she was never so alive and so beautiful as in that moment. I suppose that over time our minds dulled to the effects of the juice so that drinking it became just one among many daily tasks, but the juice had a profound effect on Hero in those first days.
Being too embarrassed to ask her about it then, I did later ask her whether she’d seen a similar change come over me. She’d stayed silent for a long while as she called up the memory, finally shaking her head. “No, not like what you describe happening to me. But there was a change.” She closed her eyes, remembering. “Your face seemed to grow dark, as though under a shade, and your eyes looked tired, as though you hadn’t slept in several days. But I was so full of life in the same moment that I hardly noticed at all. I’m sorry.”
I will not tell you why she said sorry, not now at least, but you will learn soon enough.
* * *
Weeks passed. Aside from my regular visits to Deryn Lhopri’s office, where I read from the book I was quickly beginning to realize was some kind of forgery of the manuscript I’d found in the mage’s tower, there was little to mark the progression of time for me. I was not learning much of anything, and even Abacus’ confession was slow in yielding up its secrets, only divulging snippets of information, and most of those directly contradicted what I had read on any given day in Professor Lhopri’s office.
I am ashamed to admit that it was with a real sense of jealousy that I looked on as my classmates under Kynaston Lornis’ guidance began to experiment with the most basic applications of magic. I looked on as Hero was the first to link her ether to the stone of her body, lifting a weight with ease that she had struggled to shift before.
But I suppose I am lying when I say I learnt nothing, for I learnt much by watching. I noted the application of the familiar theory behind it all, and I learnt that there are times when the body and ether act almost unconsciously, but that these moments are relatively rare.
At such times, my mind strayed to that night in my dorm room when I’d been singled out by an older student for a good thrashing only to find my own ether awake to defend me. I never experienced the like again, but I did learn from Professor Lornis’ instructions to others that one should never rely on the body to act automatically. Such things are on the level of survival instinct alone, when the ether responds out of absolute need.
I also began spending much of my time in the mage’s tower, encouraged to do so by Deryn Lhopri. At first, I felt nervous coming and going alone, passing under the eyes of the warrior Synths who guarded the entrance to the stone edifice. But it appeared that Professor Lhopri had told them to expect me and to refrain from hassling me, so I came and went with only the faintest glimpses of curiosity to be seen on their faces.
I explored the various floors of the tower, but the fourth-floor room where I’d found the book quickly ceased to be the center of my attention. I found Abacus’ personal library on the floor above that, the top storey, the floor I’d not seen before on my tour of the tower with Feril Animis. There, I found a great many books detailing the history of Aaria before the rise of the Dominion, histories of the era of the true mages, the Age of Kingdoms. I read voraciously, and when the time came that I felt it safe to do so, I began bringing Hero with me to share in the strange ideas I was reading of.
Either permission to roam the halls of the mage’s tower was a thing rarely given or the Dominion had done a rather poor job of examining the books in Abacus’ library, but I found much therein that caused me to question what I had learnt and was learning at the University. I suspect the former was true, for the Dominion was nothing if not thorough, such that I began to wonder whether I wasn’t somehow more special than I’d been lead to believe. But neither Hero nor I could understand why a Hymanni with no practical capabilities and no apparent response to drinking the hyma juice would be permitted access to what was perhaps the most controversial collection of books in the Aarian Dominion. I was, you must not forget, barely eighteen at the time.
On one occasion, when Hero and I were in the mage’s library, she completing her homework for one of Kynaston Lornis’ lectures and I reading from a book titled The Erathian Wars and their Impact on the Practicalities and Ethics of Magecraft, I felt a subtle change in the way the tower pulsed about me. I have already spoken of the sense that the tower was alive with a beating heart, so I shan’t describe that sensation again here, but as I was sitting in the familiar leather chair that had once been graced by Abacus’ own austere weight, I felt the tower’s pulse skip a beat. Such is the best way I can describe it, and though I never had practical experience in it, I have heard from those familiar with medicine that the heart of an ailing man is prone at times to beat irregularly. That is the closest thing I can conjure up to describe the subtle change that came over the tower on that day.
Across the room, Hero dropped her head onto the table at which she was studying, uncharacteristically falling asleep in the middle of her work. She was nothing if not devoted to her studies, so you will understand that I immediately felt panic rise in my throat. The change in the tower’s heartbeat and the sudden collapse of Hero could not be mere coincidence, I felt.
But then the unease that had stolen upon me receded almost as quickly. There was a soothing sensation that washed over my mind, and I relaxed back into my chair. Hero was just tired from too much hard work, I decided.
I did not return to my reading, but simply sat as though waiting for something to happen. And then, slowly, as though echoing over a great distance, I heard a set of footsteps approach, someone walking leisurely and inexorably towards the library Hero and I occupied.
I looked to the doorway and saw what seemed to be a shadow standing there, a shadow in the form of a man. It is a difficult thing to describe why this is important, especially to those who lack those abilities and characteristics that define me. Suffice it to say, the fact that I even saw a shadow that day was quite remarkable, for I should have remained entirely unaware of it. The man hiding behind the shadow would certainly not have been seen by anyone else, and yet he would not have been standing there for the sake of anyone else either. Still, he misjudged who I was, or more correctly how strong my infantile ether already was.
I will not say now who was hidden in that shadow, for that is a revelation that must await its proper turn in this story, but I can say that he had come to inspect me, to see what sort of boy I was and what sort of man I would grow to be. He wanted to see my face, to confirm his own suspicions, and when he was satisfied, the shadow withdrew from the doorway. Moments later, the peculiar pattern of the tower’s heartbeat returned to normal, and Hero awoke from her sleep, embarrassed but otherwise all right.
* * *
The next day was Fifth Day, and so I dutifully reported to Deryn Lhopri’s office for my weekly studies. I noticed straightaway that she was watching me, looking for a sign of something or other. I felt nervous under her gaze but dared not ask her what it was she was after. Despite the respect she showed me, she was still very much a professor and I very much a student. I knew I could and would be punished like anyone else if I stepped too far out of line.
Eventually, though, she smiled, throwing me off guard, and said, “You are a lucky young man, Toven. Do you know it?”
“How so, professor?”
“It is a rare thing indeed to have a friend so loyal as Hero is to you. Be sure you do not abuse the gift she has given.”
I felt decidedly uncomfortable talking about Hero with Professor Lhopri. Somehow, I felt the woman soiled Hero’s name every time it passed her lips. Things had gone on long enough for me to begin to recognize that Deryn Lhopri was just as much of a liar as Feril Animis had been, only she layered her lies in honey. I simply nodded at her words then, unsure of what it was she expected me to say.
“Perhaps she is too loyal,” the professor mused. “It is not right that students show greater devotion to each other than to the Dominion. Marriage among the Hymanni and Synths is, of course, encouraged to preserve
pure bloodlines, but it is a difficult balance to maintain—love for country and love for spouse, that is—and has been cause for a few problems in the past.”
She laughed at the expression on my face, a look of shock and embarrassment that had risen as she spoke of marriage, hinting at Hero and I in the same context. “You poor boy,” Deryn Lhopri cooed. “Are you really so blind?” She clicked her tongue when I did not reply. “I have been trying for weeks to get her to act as my spy, to win her trust that she might report to me on your movements, especially on what it is you two do in the mage’s tower. But she is loyal, this friend of yours. You’ll be glad to hear it, I’m sure. She would keep even the darkest and deepest of your secrets safer than the vaults beneath this University keep the knowledge deemed too dangerous for all but a select few. You are, as I said, a very lucky young man.”
Ever since the first lesson in Professor Lhopri’s office, I’d been on guard for lies, unable to trust anyone but myself—and, I’d decided, Hero. I could not decide now whether this was another of the professor’s lies or whether she was in fact speaking the truth. I was vaguely aware of being taught some lesson in this little speech about Hero, but my mind had grown so defensive at the thought of this woman trying to get my best friend to betray me that my mind clouded over and I could not perceive what that lesson might be.
Nevertheless, I felt no amount of relief or satisfaction in learning that Hero remained loyal to me. If anything, a seed of doubt had been sown, and a suspicion towards my friend that I ought never to have felt sprang up in the darkest recesses of my heart. I began to avoid bringing her to the mage’s tower with me when I went. Although I had not mentioned the mage’s journal since the night we’d found it, I resolved again to remain silent on its contents as well, especially on those matters in which it clearly contradicted the Dominion’s teachings.
The Scion of Abacus, Part 1 Page 8