by Layton Green
“Can we take the discipline exam at any time,” Val asked, “or only after graduation?”
The question caused Gowan to snort and finger his collar, and Adaira to glance his way with interest.
“Young man,” Professor Gormloch said, “you may take the exam at any time you wish, including this very moment! Shall I gather the deans?”
The class tittered, and Val leaned back and crossed his arms. Rebuke accepted. “That won’t be necessary.”
“It is highly, highly recommended that you complete your coursework before attempting your discipline exam. Individual classes may be repeated up to three times, but the discipline exam may be taken only once.” He peered down his nose at Val. “And for an aspiring Spirit Mage, well, there have only been three students in the history of the Congregation who have successfully accelerated their spiritmancy studies, and all three were savant-level talents whose decisions were necessitated by time of war.”
The mention of Val’s chosen discipline garnered a reaction among all of his peers except Riga, whose cool-eyed stare never wavered. Adaira and Xavier raised their eyebrows, Dida gave Val a thoughtful look, and Gowan looked as if he had just swallowed a live toad.
The professor noticed the reactions. “Given the difficulty of wizardry studies, we prefer small coteries and a low teacher-student ratio, as well as a diverse range of disciplines. Always remember that you are here to help each other. Some of you will have talent in an area where others might fall short.”
He rose with his drink. “Please consider the facilities of this house as yours to use at any time, including,” he swept a hand towards the liquor cabinet, “the amenities.” After pausing to regard each of them in turn, as if searching for a reaction to some hidden question, he said, “Come.”
Val fell in line behind the others. The class followed the professor down a hallway to a windowless room of polished stone at the rear of the bungalow. The house was deceptively large.
The square classroom contained six chairs with lap desks, placed on circular daises raised a foot off the ground and arranged in a semicircle. The daises had no visible support. On top of each desk was a fountain pen and a cream-covered, unlined vellum notebook. Val chose a dais between Adaira and Dida.
The students faced a higher platform with a standing lectern. The professor floated up to his dais and set his drink in a cup holder, then placed his palms on the lectern. “I’ll begin with an inquiry. What,” he said, drawing out the pause, “is magic?”
Dida raised a hand. “The funneling of the unseen forces of the universe in order to achieve a wizard’s purpose.”
“Hand raising is unnecessary. Speak boldly and with command. And I did not ask for a definition of the result of the utilization of magic, I asked what is magic.”
“Magic is spirit,” Gowan said. “Power.”
Gormloch smirked. “Obviously.”
“Magic is here,” Adaira said, touching her fingertips to her forehead. “The psionic signature. Studies have recently isolated the region of the brain kindled when magic is employed by the wizard born.”
“A knowledgeable answer from our aspiring cuerpomancer,” Gormloch said, which elicited almost as much interest as the pronouncement of Val’s discipline. “And still incomplete. Please, let me know when you resolve this question, because we would all like to know. No one knows what magic is or why it only responds to the wizard born, why mages and magical creatures vary widely in strength, why some spells take far longer to master than others, or why some mages are better at creating wards, some are skilled at fire storms, and some have a facility for working with the dead. Magic,” he looked down his nose again, “is magic.
“What we do know,” the professor continued with a finger wag, “and what we are very, very good at, is how to harness and utilize this most powerful of forces.”
He paused to take a drink. “In front of you is a notebook. As I am sure you know, though aids such as wizard stones have proven helpful to some, a mage does not need written words—or anything at all—to work magic. But most students find that note taking aids the learning process. Inscribe what worked for you and when. Ponder it when you return home at night. Why did a particular technique work? Did it feel natural? Can you replicate the feat?”
“Can we bring our notebooks into the discipline exam?” Val asked.
Gormloch leveled his gaze. “Will you consult your notebook when falling from an airship during the flight test? Battling a spirit elemental during a challenge exam? Or after graduation, when you are assigned to the border for your apprenticeship and a Battle Mage from the Kingdom of the Mayans attempts to rip your heart from your chest?”
A snicker rippled through the room. Val was unperturbed. In his mind the question had been valid, and the opinion of others had never mattered to him. “Duly noted.”
“Are we allowed to bring our wizard stone to class?” Xavier asked.
“So sure of our discipline, are we?” the professor asked. “We do not allow physical aids until your second year. A wizard stone should not be a crutch.”
The professor waited to see if there were any more questions, then spread his hands. “Please, raise your concerns at any time. I will rebuff them in kind. Now, shall we begin the lesson?”
The light from the four glow orbs dimmed and then extinguished, casting the room into darkness.
“Riga,” the professor said, “create light, please.”
After a prolonged period of silence, the room remained dark.
“I cannot,” Riga said, embarrassed.
“Gowan?”
Again nothing. After a few more moments, the professor called on Xavier and Dida and then Adaira, all with the same result.
“Val?”
Val had already risen and felt his way to the door. When the professor called his name, Val opened the door and allowed light to flood through from the hallway.
Adaira laughed and then covered her mouth with her hand.
Gormloch re-illuminated the glow orbs, then shut the door with his mind. Val expected to be chastised, but was surprised when Gormloch murmured, “Well done,” and flicked a wrist for Val to return to his seat.
The professor swept his gaze across the semicircle. “Two very important lessons. One is the first law of magic: one cannot create something out of nothing. You were all focused on reigniting the glow orbs, but not enough light remained in the room. A high level spirit mage can extract light from darkness, but that is far beyond the purview of this class.”
“The second lesson,” Gormloch continued, “is not to forget that you have a brain. Wizards weaken. Wizards face situations requiring wisdom and common sense. Wizards are mortal. Never forget.”
He paced back and forth on his floating platform, the size of a round dinner table. “We will spend the rest of the morning perfecting Light, the most basic of spells. Unlike your discipline deans, I’ve yet to judge your strengths. One by one, I’d like to see you use the illumination from the glow orbs to flare the room with light, bring it into near-darkness, then return the illumination to the proper level. Xavier, please begin.”
The light in the room wavered and then slowly increased, until Val had to shield his eyes. It took Xavier five seconds to dim it, and the light source wobbled as he worked to bring it back to the original level.
Gormloch gave no indication of judgment. “Riga?”
The kethropi woman performed marginally better than Xavier.
“Gowan?”
The pyromancer waved a hand in a contemptuous gesture, and the light flared so bright Val had to shut his eyes. When he opened them, the room was almost completely dark, and a moment later it returned to the same brightness in which it had begun.
“Adaira?”
Without twitching, Adaira matched the speed and precision of Gowan’s Light spell. Dida did the same.
“Val?”
Had Gormloch proceeded in order of perceived strength, Val wondered? If so, he was about to be sorely
disappointed.
Since the first name had been called, Val had been concentrating on accessing his magic. A trickle of sweat already rolled down his forehead. Focusing on the wall behind the professor, Val blotted out the room and reached deep inside. When he found the wellspring of magic, that mental state he could now slip into like inserting a key into a door, he tried to seize the light from the glow orbs and increase it.
The light in the room flickered but remained at the same level. Val pushed harder, knowing force wasn’t the right tool but not knowing what else to do. The trickle of sweat increased, stinging his eyes.
“Think of the tiny motes of light,” Gormloch murmured. In the back of his mind, Val wondered how this world knew about motes.
His metaphorical key kept slipping inside the keyhole, as if the hole were too big. He tried to do as Gormloch said, imagining the light in the room as tiny particles of light and brightening them.
The light increased.
“More,” the professor commanded.
Val lost concentration, and the light dimmed. Face flushed, he worked to recover, trying to compartmentalize the concentration needed to reach the magic while at the same time flaring the light.
It worked. The light increased.
“De-illuminate,” Gormloch said. “Shrink the motes.”
Val focused his will and tried to dim the glow orbs. Instead of a decrease in light, they extinguished.
Someone snickered. Val thought it was Gowan.
The professor reignited the glow orbs, and Val wiped his brow.
“Again,” Gormloch said.
He said it many, many times.
Basics of Wizardry ended at one in the afternoon, after three hours of intense mental concentration far more taxing than any law school class. They had practiced the basic light spell for the entire period, working on refining the brightness, controlling the expansion of the light within different areas of the room, splitting the light source into separate factions, and creating spherical balls of light beyond Val’s ability. He understood the concept, though—using his will to refine and shape the particles of light into usable objects—and he vowed to practice relentlessly. Not only did he hate failure, but increasing his skills would help him survive.
He also reminded himself that he didn’t have to finish the semester—he just had to find a way to access the Pool of Souls and find his brothers.
It was all so confusing, exhilarating, and terrifying. What was the nature of this otherworldly thing inside him? Did the magic really stem from his psionic signature? And what did that mean?
It was real, at least—that he knew for sure.
Real and powerful.
Though the students were free to do as they wished before the two o’clock class, all six students in Val’s coterie elected to have lunch on the rooftop patio of the cottage. Each coterie was assigned a personal chef, and the cottage also had wash facilities, a study room, bedrooms for overnight stays, and a private garden.
They sat on cushions around a low table as they waited for their food, cradled by tropical foliage, breathing in jasmine and gardenia, eyes raised to admire the vista of colored spires rising all around. A few hundred yards away, just over the top of the wall protecting the Wizard District, Val spotted the indolent curve of the river, winding alongside the Goblin Market.
Xavier slumped into the cushions, interlacing his hands behind his head. He looked as exhausted as Val felt. “If we’re going to be classmates,” Xavier said, “we might as well get to know each other.” He turned to Dida. “I confess I’ve never met an African wizard—” he pronounced the last two words in the precise diction and supercilious tone used by Professor Gormloch, eliciting chuckles—“in person. You are African, I take it?”
“I am indeed, though Africa is a very large place. I hail from the Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe.” He tipped his bald head and raised it back up, an easy grin in place. “It is an honor to study with my fellow students at the world-renowned Abbey of New Victoria.”
“Your discipline?” Riga asked. Her voice was a spool of silk reeled from the back of her throat, somehow both rough and smooth.
“Though most of the wizards in my kingdom are geomancers who work with the stones and soils native to our land,” Dida said, “I have chosen to study the art of bibliomancy.”
He flashed a wide smile, as if expecting everyone to clap. Instead, they all regarded him with a blank stare.
“Ah, yes. I see the discipline is unfamiliar to you. Bibliomancy is the art of inscribing magic into words and runes.”
“A warder,” Gowan said. “That’s what we call it.”
“Warding is important to my art, but bibliomancy involves others skills, such as rune translation and inscription, divination through characters, and scroll working. It is more popular, I believe, in old Albion.”
Gowan did not look impressed. “I didn’t see that elective offered. What about your core discipline?”
“I’m here as an exchange student, so am not required to choose a discipline. In fact, I lack only the completion of this year abroad, and my final exam.”
Gowan looked ready to say something, then closed his mouth, as if cowed by the revelation that Dida was almost a full-fledged wizard.
Interesting, Val thought, that he’s so humble. Maybe wizards aren’t all the same.
“And I think we all know who you are, my dear,” Xavier said in a respectful voice to Adaira. “Though I didn’t realize you had chosen cuerpomancy. Very impressive.”
I don’t know who you are, Val wanted to say. But I’d like to know why those two majitsu in the garden won’t let you out of their sight.
“My mother was a cuerpomancer,” Adaira said with a soft smile. “I’d like to continue the tradition.” She turned to Riga. “An aquamancer, I assume?”
Riga placed webbed hands on the table and regarded her with those frank and lidless eyes. “Like Dida, I come as an ambassador for my homeland, to facilitate the relationship between our races. Unlike him, I am just beginning my cross-discipline studies.”
“And if you don’t mind, how is it that you can,” Adaira gestured with her palms and smiled, “survive so long outside water?”
“I have a magical endowment in place.” Riga did not look offended by the question, though it was clear from her tone that further explanation would not be forthcoming.
Before anyone could ask Gowan about his background, his eyes slid away from Val and then the rest of the group, and he muttered “pyromancer” as if embarrassed by his choice.
Adaira turned to Val. “I’ve never encountered your accent before. From where do you hail?”
“From the North,” he said. “The far north.”
“Outside the Protectorate?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She looked him in the eye as she brushed back a strand of hair the breeze had tossed in her face. “Interesting.”
It was the kind of interesting that Val recognized as coming from someone who had been sheltered all her life, and longed to know more of the world. He wished lunch would hurry up and arrive. He would have looked for food somewhere else, but Gus wasn’t due to return until the end of the day, and Val wouldn’t have known where to go.
“A real live spirit mage acolyte,” Xavier said, in an awed voice. “I hear there’re only six spiritmancy students in the whole school. How did you . . . .”
He trailed off, but Val knew what he was about to say. So did Gowan, who was staring at Val with undisguised jealousy, and a touch of contempt. “What he meant,” the pyromancer said, “was how did you pass the entrance exam if you can barely work with light?”
Val didn’t care for Gowan’s tone, but he swallowed his retort, along with his pride. He didn’t need enemies. Plus, the question was valid. “I’m not quite sure.”
“You must have lifted the block,” Dida marveled. “I couldn’t budge it.”
“No one lifts the block,” Gowan said. “It’s a trick. It’s supposed to b
reak your will for the next two tests.”
Val didn’t say anything.
“Did you move the block?” Adaira asked, leaning forward in her chair. The fidgeting around the table had ceased.
Val’s wheels were spinning, dissecting the angles, but he saw no reason to lie. They already knew he had passed the test. “My power increases when I get upset. I’m not sure why.”
There was a prolonged silence, and then Dida slapped him on the back. “Remind me never to approach you in anger, my friend!”
The others chuckled, until Gowan said, “Especially on the Arch Bridge.”
Eyes lowered. The laughter died.
“Not amusing,” Adaira said.
The chef arrived with the meal, a platter of chicken and rice stewed in spiced banana leaves. He ladled out portions in silence.
“I don’t understand,” Riga said.
The others exchanged a glance, and Xavier said, “An Abbey student was murdered last night, on the Arch Bridge. His throat was slit with a knife.”
“Which is why the majitsu are standing guard,” Val murmured.
Gowan barked a laugh. “No murderer would dare step foot inside the Wizard District. The majitsu are for her.” He jerked his thumb at Adaira, who looked embarrassed. “Lord Alistair is her father.”
Val gave a brief nod, as if the revelation didn’t surprise him, but he felt his pulse quicken at the knowledge that he had landed in the same coterie as the daughter of the Chief Thaumaturge. Way to lay low, Val.
He could also tell, judging by the uneasy expressions on everyone’s face, that there was more to the story of the murdered acolyte.
“He was the second victim this week,” Gowan continued. “Both were first year students. Both had their throats slit.”
-24-
As Farzal and his lieutenants stepped into the funicular, an imposing delver with a braided, navel-length beard herded the captives down the staircase on the right. Funnel-shaped clouds of smoke drifted upwards from various sections of Fellengard, disappearing into the darkness above. Smithies and primitive industry, Will assumed.