Oran inclines his head slightly. “This is my son Dorrin, and this is Kadara, the daughter of Hegl, here.”
“Let’s go into the study.” Lortren turns and steps through the doorway.
Hegl looks quizzically at Oran, who follows Lortren. Dorrin and Kadara follow their parents.
“I might like her,” mouths Kadara.
“Maybe.” As they step into the next room, Dorrin notes the stacks of freestanding shelves filled with books—thousands, from what he can tell as they walk down a narrow passageway to the right of the shelves. Perhaps thirty cubits from the door, the shelves end, and the room opens onto a space filled with three tables. The corner table, set between two windows, contains two covered pots seeping steam and a tray filled with plain rolls. Six chairs are pulled up to the table.
Dorrin’s stomach growls, not loudly enough, he hopes, for the sound to be heard. It has been a while since the noon meal.
“Sit down anywhere,” offers the magistra.
Dorrin waits until his father and Hegl move toward seats, then glances at Kadara and offers her the chair he holds. She shakes her head and sits on the other side of her father. Dorrin sits beside his father, leaving the empty chair between himself and the smith.
Lortren nods toward the pots. “Hot cider or tea. Help yourself.”
As Oran lifts the teapot, Lortren clears her throat softly. “Some people have called this the Academy of Useless Knowledge and Unnecessary Violence…or the School for Sophistry and Swords. For most people who live on Recluce, the description is probably correct. We try to teach the understanding behind knowledge and the use of weapons for those who learn that understanding. Both tend to be necessary.” Her eyes turn on Dorrin. “Do you know why?”
“No, magistra.”
“I won’t force an answer from you. That comes later. The simple answer is that once you learn why things work, you generally upset people, particularly in places like Nordla and Candar. People who are upset often want to take it out on those who upset them. It helps if you can protect yourself.” The black eyes twinkle for a moment.
“You mention travel to Candar…” asks Hegl hesitantly.
“Most of those who learn here end up spending time in Candar or Nordla. Some even go to Afrit—Hamor, usually.”
“Why?” asks Oran casually, as if he knows the answer.
“Because instruction is never enough for those who have difficulty accepting things as they are.”
Hegl swallows and nods. Kadara nods, and Dorrin frowns, wondering if the Academy is nothing more than a way to educate troublemakers for exile. He keeps his words to himself, since saying anything will change nothing.
“You speak as though your…students…are almost troublemakers,” offers Kadara, her voice brittle.
“All of you are. I was once, also. It usually takes not only training and theory, but a healthy dose of reality to turn chaotic trouble-making into something useful.”
Dorrin sips the hot tea and munches on a roll.
Hegl glances from the white-haired magistra with the unlined face and melodic voice to his daughter, then toward the air wizard. “I wonder…”
“You wonder if entrusting your daughter to me is a good idea? I would too. It’s not a good idea. The only problem is that the alternatives are worse.” The melodic voice turns hard. “What happens to chaos-mongers?”
“They get exiled,” responds Hegl.
“What generally leads to chaos-mongering?”
The smith shrugs.
“Discontent, unhappiness with life,” answers the air wizard.
“That’s your real choice,” affirms the magistra.
“Because I’m not happy with the way you all have arranged my life, I have to learn all this nonsense and even study in Candar?” Kadara asks.
“No. You will learn enough so that you can live and survive in Candar or Nordla. Then you will decide whether you can accept what Recluce offers. And you are one of the lucky ones—whose parents can purchase the training. The others often just get a lecture and a boat ride.”
Dorrin shivers. This is something he has not heard before. His eyes and Kadara’s cross. Then they look at their parents, but neither man will meet his offspring’s question.
Lortren stands. “That’s about it. You two can go, and I’ll show these two youngsters to their rooms.”
While the words are polite enough, Dorrin understands that Lortren controls his future and perhaps even his life.
“How…where…?” the smith stammers.
Lortren smiles, faintly. “If you want to see where your daughter will live, come along. It’s just a small plain single room.”
Hegl steps after his daughter. Dorrin looks at his father and shakes his head. Although he will never be the wizard his father is, he can sense enough to know that Lortren tells the truth.
“You’d rather I didn’t?”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Dorrin confirms. “Besides, you know what the rooms look like. Hegl doesn’t.”
“Quiet, but sharp, isn’t he, Oran?” observes Lortren.
“Too sharp for his own good, I fear.”
“Good-bye,” Dorrin says, shouldering his pack. Oran remains by the table as the four leave.
Lortren leads them down a corridor through another dark oak door and onto another covered porch. “Over to that building.” She points to a two-storied, slate-roofed structure perhaps two hundred cubits uphill with narrow windows.
Dorrin counts the windows—ten on each level. If his estimate of the width of the roof line is correct and there are rooms on both sides, the building will hold forty students. “Is that the only place where students live?”
“Not the only one, but most students live there. There’s no absolute requirement for it, but it’s a long walk from either Land’s End or Extina, and you will be kept rather busy.” Lortren hurries down the steps and along the stone-paved path toward the student housing. She walks almost at a slow run.
Dorrin stretches his own stride out to catch up. “How long will our instruction take? Here, I mean.”
Lortren laughs, a short laugh that is half musical, half bark. “Probably about half a year, but that depends on you.”
“How often do you start groups—”
“Are there others—”
Both Kadara and Dorrin break off in mid-question, but keep moving to stay abreast of the black-clad magistra.
“We allow new groups to start about every five or six eight-days. We usually have three or four groups at different stages.”
Dorrin is certainly not the only one questioning the order or meaning of Recluce—not if Lortren is training nearly eighty young people a year.
The only sound is that of breathing, of booted feet upon stone, of the wind through the trees in their orderly spacing throughout the grounds, and of the intermittent and distant shhhhsss of the Eastern Ocean breaking upon the white sands under the cliffs to the east of the Coastal Highway that fronts the Academy.
Lortren pauses at the top of the uncovered stone stoop before yet another black oak door—this one to the student quarters. “Kadara, you can wait here or follow us upstairs. Dorrin, your room is upstairs on the far end.”
She opens the door, and Dorrin follows. After a moment, so does Kadara. Hegl trails them up the stone steps and down the dim hallway to the last doorway on the left. The magistra opens the door. “No locks. There’s a small privacy bolt.” She points to the metal fastening and steps aside to let Dorrin enter.
Dorrin’s room is not large, measuring no more than seven cubits long and a little more than five wide and containing only a wardrobe, a narrow desk with a single drawer, a chair for the desk, and a single bed not much more than a thin pallet upon a wooden frame. The polished stone floor is bare.
“Very plain, but adequate.”
On the foot of the bed is a folded sheet and a heavy brown blanket.
“At the fourth bell—that’s also the announcement for dinner—meet me in
the library, and we’ll go over the rest of the rules and your schedules. By then, most of the others should have arrived. There are three others here so far. Feel free to walk anywhere on the grounds. You may enter any room with an open doorway, although I would suggest knocking first.” She pauses. “Any questions?”
“What would happen if I just left?”
“Nothing.”
“And if I go where I’m not supposed to?”
Lortren snorts. “You can go anywhere you demon-well want to. If you interrupt a class or someone’s work, they’ll naturally be upset. But that’s your problem. You could hurt yourself if you get careless in the armory, but that’s also your problem. There’s nothing secret about this place. I just don’t want to explain all the rules ten separate times. That’s why we’ll get together before dinner and do it all at once.”
The black-clad magistra turns to Kadara, who stands in the doorway. “Now…let’s get you to your room.”
As the sound of steps fades away, Dorrin stands alone in the small room.
Sniff…
The redhead wrinkles his nose at the faint mustiness, then glances at the desk which sits beneath the window. He has to lean across the wooden writing top in order to slide the window open. As he straightens up, his head brushes the oil lamp in the bracket affixed to the edge of the window casement.
Standing behind the desk, he looks through the open window toward the east. While the trees on the far side of the coastal road block his view, he knows that the Eastern Ocean is there, the breakers foaming on the kays of soft white sand that stretch toward Land’s End.
He looks at the pack, then back out the window.
Finally, he lifts the pack and begins to remove the clothing, first the lighter shirts and the underclothing, before beginning to place them in the wardrobe.
VIII
“I suppose I owe this to you.” Kadara does not look at Dorrin as they step onto the uncovered porch.
“Me?”
Kadara steps onto the stone walk to the library. “If you hadn’t been so interested in smithing, then father wouldn’t have gotten to know your father.”
“Maybe…” How can neighbors not come to know each other?
The stiff eastern breeze carries the tang of salt as it whips Kadara’s long red hair almost into Dorrin’s face.
“Do you mind if I join you?” The voice is mellow, deep, and youthfully enthusiastic.
Dorrin looks over his shoulder and up at the tall blond figure with broad shoulders. “We’re going to a meeting—”
“I know. I’m new, too. That’s why I thought you wouldn’t mind. I’m Brede.” Brede wears gray trousers and a blue, long-sleeved farmer’s shirt.
“Dorrin.” He continues to match strides with Kadara.
“Kadara.”
“I’m from Lydkler, in the hills above the Feyn Valley. It’s so small no one—almost no one, anyway—has ever heard of it. Where are you two from? Are you related?” Brede’s words tumble out and are followed by a broad and open smile. A gust of wind sprays fine blond hair around his face, and a hand twice the size of Dorrin’s absently brushes it back.
“We’re from Extina,” admits Dorrin.
“Brother and sister?”
“Hardly,” snaps Kadara.
“Oh…the red hair…I just thought…”
“It’s just coincidence—the red hair, I mean.”
A long shadow falls across the walk as a high puffy cloud scuds toward the western horizon and blocks the low sun.
“Oh…well…isn’t Extina close to Land’s End? It’s not far from here at all. I saw a road marker just before we got here…”
Kadara’s lips remain closed as she marches up under the covered porch and reaches for the dark steel handle of the black oak door. Sunlight returns to the Academy grounds.
“No,” admits Dorrin. “It’s only about ten kays north.”
Clunk…The black oak door thuds shut in Dorrin’s face.
“She’s a little unhappy, isn’t she?” observes Brede.
Dorrin opens the door.
“You’re both unhappy,” reflects the young giant.
“Neither one of us is exactly thrilled to be here.” Dorrin pushes through the doorway. Kadara opens the next door—the one to the library.
“She isn’t. That’s for certain,” adds Brede, an amused edge to the deep-toned voice. “It won’t change anything, though.”
Dorrin grins, warming to the big young man in spite of Brede’s forwardness. “Somehow, I don’t think it will.” He pauses to note the two silver-bordered cork boards, one on each side of the foyer. Both contain grids with times at the left, and boxes filled with a few words each. The grids look similar to the appointment sheets kept by his father. Dorrin crosses the foyer and continues along the short corridor toward the library.
After stepping into the library, Dorrin scans the tables, counting three female and four male figures seated around two tables. No one is seated around the window table. With a deep breath, he edges around the table to the far left and sits next to Kadara. On his immediate left is the wall. Brede settles in the last seat at the other table, grinning briefly as Dorrin looks across the perhaps ten cubits that separate them.
On the other side of Kadara sits a solid young woman, wearing a bright orange-red blouse that does not suit her dark brown hair and pale freckled face. Beside her sits a gangly youth with shoulder-length black hair wearing a one-piece shapeless brown garment.
“Greetings.”
Dorrin’s study of the other students is interrupted by Lortren’s entrance. The white-haired and well-muscled woman stands beside the vacant window table. The black eyes slash across the ten seated youngsters. “I am Lortren. For better or worse, I will be working with you over the next half-year to help you find out who and what you really are.”
A brief smile flashes across her face. “You only think you know who you are. If you really knew, you wouldn’t be here. You all have talent, of one sort or another, although we don’t have any out-and-out chaos wielders here.”
The dark eyes sweep the group again, and Dorrin shifts his weight in the hard and unyielding wooden chair.
“I won’t bother introducing you to each other. You can work that out among yourselves at dinner, or whenever. You are the red group. Your schedule for the eight-day is posted on the board that says, clearly enough, ‘Red Group.’ The board is in the south foyer. That’s at the end of the corridor behind me.
“No one will remind you where you are to be, or when. Getting there is your responsibility. Finding out where rooms and buildings are is also your responsibility. There is a small map in the foyer next to each board.”
“What if—” begins a broad young man with white-blond hair.
“If you make an honest effort and have trouble in the beginning, Loric, no one will say anything. If you continue to show a lack of interest, you’ll be asked to leave. Most people who leave here without finishing the course end up somewhere in Nordla or Candar, depending on the available shipping.”
“…that’s exile…” The whispered words are clear in the stillness.
“That’s correct,” affirms Lortren. “For those of you who have not figured it out, the Academy is all that stands between you and exile. In even clearer terms, the Academy prepares you for a controlled exile from which you can return—if you survive and if you choose.”
Dorrin senses the indrawn breaths and slow exhalations.
“What kinds of things will we be doing?” Brede’s overloud voice crashes through the silence.
“Your studies will concentrate on three things—the study of order and chaos; the basic history and cultures of Candor, Nordla, Afrit, and Recluce; and physical training. What is expected of you will be covered in greater detail in your first meeting tomorrow morning.” Lortren smiles grimly. “Most of you will discover how little you really know.” She pauses. “Are there any other questions?”
Dorrin frowns. Lortren will not a
nswer more than she wants to, and she has said all she plans to say.
“Dinner is waiting. This one time, I’ll show you the way. The meal times are also on your schedule board.” The black-clad magistra is leaving by the time Dorrin stands.
“Kadara…?” he begins, but she too has moved out of earshot of his soft inquiry. He hastens after the others, ending up behind the girl in the red-orange shirt, so close that his left boot catches her sandal.
“I’m sorry.”
She turns with her hand on the door, revealing deep blue eyes that twinkle for a moment. “That’s all right. I’m Jyll. Who are you?”
“Ah…Dorrin…”
She steps through the doorway, and Dorrin follows. Kadara is already leaving the foyer. Several others, including Brede, stand by the schedule board and puzzle over the schedule printed there. Jyll and Dorrin join them.
“Is ‘Order’ fundamentals?”
“…how much physical training…”
Looking over the shoulder of the short and broad blond youth whose question was cut short by Lortren, Dorrin scans the schedule, his eyes drifting to a small map in the corner. He finds the dark oblong labeled “Dining,” then steps away. Jyll steps away with him.
Outside he checks the walkways and starts uphill, north of the student quarters, where two other figures are entering. “I think that’s where we’re supposed to go.”
“I’m sure someone will tell us if it’s not.” Jyll tilts her head, and her fine, dark brown hair, cut squarely at chin level, fluffs in the late afternoon breeze, then settles back.
Halfway to the dining building, Dorrin asks, “Where are you from?”
“Land’s End, like most of us.”
“Brede’s from the Feyn area.”
“Brede?”
“The big blond fellow with the deep voice.”
“He looks like a farmer or a Nordlan warrior.”
“He could probably be either, but he’s sharper than he looks.”
Jyll smiles. “Why did they send you here?”
“I kept telling my father that I wanted to build machines.”
“That’s scarcely grounds for exile.” She purses her lips. “Unless you really just wanted to build them for yourself.”
The Magic Engineer Page 3