Ryn nodded in sympathy, the blanket scratching his cheek. He knew Soph could not see him, but the gesture was reflexive. He reprimanded himself for succumbing to an involuntary movement. One wrong move might prove costly tomorrow.
"Listen to that idiot Fen, bellowing about his coming glory," Soph said. "One would think that a tenor would rest his voice the night before the Trials. What if he should crack during a critical glissando?"
"They say confidence is important. And Fen lacks none of that."
"But I heard one in sixty for tenors. Surely room for self-doubt in anyone, even the megalomaniacal. Or perhaps I should say 'insolent.'" Soph had a habit of revising as he spoke.
The dormitory had grown quieter as the apprentices one by one ducked into the solitude of worry. The distant sounds of Athens washed through the windows, jetcars and electronic chatter and other civilized white noise. A few students still carried on, performance artists hiding their stage fright behind brash ripostes. Ryn whispered the question that was on everyone's mind. "What do you think of your chances?"
"I believe mine are among the worst," Soph said almost cheerfully, as if having the fear exposed made it powerless. "Certainly over one in a hundred. So many try for it, you know. That's why it's called popular fiction."
"Are you satisfied with your portfolio?"
"I believe it's the best I can do at this stage of my career. There's always room for improvement, but now is as good a time as any to see if I survive the cut. I'd hate to waste another dozen years. What about you?"
Portfolios varied for the different fields. The performing artists were judged periodically, on mysterious criteria known only to the Evaluators. But the grading in every field was esoteric and subjective. That was one of the more maddening aspects of the Trials, the one that brought dampness to the palms and mothwings to the belly.
"I am satisfied," Ryn said. "My minor pieces are solid and non-controversial, a blending of gothic form and baroque detail. But I believe my magnum opus gives me an edge."
"Your rendering of Medi. It's one of the best in the gallery."
As it should be. Ryn knew every finely-crafted inch of Medi's flesh, every pore and follicle, down to the tiny bas-relief scar on Medi's knee where he had fallen as a youth. Ryn had spent many nights exploring that skin, the narrow ridges and the taut dancer's muscles and rippling buttocks and angled cheeks. The slight slope of the Romanesque nose, the graceful eyebrows, the smooth plane of the brow, the gently bowing lips. He knew Medi inside and out.
And he had captured Medi perfectly, in gleaming calcite pirouette, a dancer whose soul aimed toward the heavens even as the body remained captive to gravity. A figure so light-footed that any material would prove too clumsy at reproduction. Yet Ryn had accomplished a miracle, giving wings to the earth-bound. He visualized the sculpture. His proud heart swelled against the molten bands of emotional pain.
Soph interpreted the silence as if he had read Ryn's mind. "You're thinking of him, aren't you?"
Ryn swallowed, trying to plunge the thickness from his throat. "It's hard for me. Especially now, when I need to focus my energy toward the Trials."
"Don't blame yourself. Dancers need attitude."
"You've managed to adopt a novelist's reserved facade without becoming cruel. Arn is expressive, but not brutish. And I like to think I've played the starving artist to perfection."
Ryn ran a hand over his ribs like one of the musicians might strum a zither. Perhaps he should have been a string musician. He heard they were in high demand. One in ten, perhaps.
"Performing artists are probably evaluated more heavily on their attitudes," Soph said. "Medi thinks being aloof and arrogant is best for him. Besides, they say emotional tension detracts from performance."
Ryn tried to change the subject. "Do you think it's as difficult at the Technical Schools?"
"Certainly not. Those who are culled from the Skyfleet have plenty of options. Engineers and mathematicians and geologists are needed on every chunk of rock in the galaxy, it would seem."
"What about Spirit Officers?"
"The odds are one in three. And even the failures there are allowed to make other career choices. They can be gardeners or philosophers."
"But we have no options," Ryn said, without bitterness.
"That's what brought us to the gates as children. That's why we capture the public imagination."
"They envy our talent."
"Or hate us for it."
Suddenly Medi's voice erupted from the far dark end of the hall. "Sweet dreams, you poets and songbirds and shapers. Tomorrow will give rest to your noise." Ryn wondered if the words were for him alone, or if Medi was only rehearsing.
A Mentor pounded on the window bars with a cane. "Quiet down in there," came the deep, commanding voice. The smattering of conversations broke off.
They waited until the receding footsteps were swallowed by the walls. "Talent," whispered Soph, mostly to himself.
"What?"
"Talent. It's not a natural blessing. It's beaten out from inside, just the way you beat the beauty out of a chunk of stone and I wring the meaty juice out of the alphabet."
Just as love is, thought Ryn. Everything about us is shaped.
The atmosphere was thick, as if a blanket of anxiety was spread across the room, a smothering and irritating fabric that would afford little sleep. Beneath it, bundled and shivering hot, the students lay with their dreams and frail hopes and attitudes.
The portfolios were submitted and graded. All that remained was to stand in front of the Critics and practice your art before those solemn gray faces. And before the eyes of the crowd, those plebes lucky in the lottery in live attendance, the others watching via videoscreen.
Even across space, in Areopagan colonies and ships, the Akademeia's performances would be viewed, discussed, gambled on, savored.
"Good night, Ryn." It sounded like a good-bye.
"Sweet dreams." Ryn rolled into his coarse covers and balled himself into a knot of exhausted lonely fear, searching for the mirror inside his head.
The dawn was an orange glory. A breeze swept down the stone streets of the Akademeia, carrying the dust of the crumbling Acropolis around the ankles of the milling students. The air smelled of figs and olives and salt. On the distant hills, the heaps of fallen walls and stunted columns jutted from the greenery like teeth.
His knowledge of the world beyond the walls was second-hand, coming from secrets that slipped through the narrow cracks in the masonry. Maybe he could discover which of the secrets were true. If selected, Ryn could walk among those fabled ruins, caress the faded Doric splendor, sit on the ancient bleached bones of acroteria.
If selected, he could go among the citizenry of Athens, esteemed by the plebes and publicans and Skyfleet pilots on shore leave. He could cross the bustling city, with crowds parting in reverence, jetcars halting to allow him passage, admirers throwing flowers from balconies to provide a carpet for his bare feet.
If selected.
Excitement charged the air, flitting over his skin like soft bumblebees and hummingbirds. He touched his cheek, and his skin tingled from his own electricity. He turned from the faint hills with their broken cities and joined the others.
The forum was bloated with students, the performing artists in gay extravagant robes, the poets in rags, the musicians in tight masculine stockings with their instruments clasped to their chests like lovers. Everyone was chattering brightly, as if the sun had purified their fears.
Not a single Mentor was among them. No Evaluators showed their waxen skin. The audience had been admitted in the early hours so as to provide no distractions. Ryn saw Soph among the crowd and hailed him.
Soph came to him, smiling, full of summery confidence.
"So, you're a sentimentalist?" Ryn pointed at Soph's hands.
The novelist flushed slightly. "Ink and wood pulp. I'm aiming for the intimate touch. And look..." Soph waved his quill toward the blue ocean of sky. "No era
ser."
"Nice props."
"I've seen a horde of other novelists, with their videoscreen keyboards under their arms, looking smug and distant. But others have only a stylus and wet clay tablets. Who knows which is more highly regarded?"
"I suppose it depends on the weight given to tradition. I thought of clay myself, but I don't have time for modeling or waste molds. And metal casting is out of the question. What do they expect in fifteen minutes?"
"Don't forget that they are judging attitude more than product. Fifteen minutes is long enough. It will seem like years."
Two other sculptors shoved past Ryn, their tools clanging inside canvas bags. He watched them disappear into the crowd. "Do you have your performance planned?" he asked Soph.
"I've done a rough draft in my head. But I've left enough room so that I can show a little spontaneity. What about you?"
Ryn shook his heavy satchel and shrugged. "I have my tools, a small cube of marble, a block of mahogany, some bronze wire. And I've got a few ideas, but nothing set in stone."
Soph winced.
"Don't worry," Ryn said. "Verbal cliches are only dangerous in your field, not mine."
"So you're going to wing it? Or should I say, 'be spontaneous'?"
"I'm trusting divine inspiration."
"I always knew sculptors had rocks in their heads."
They smiled at each other with false brave faces, only minutes away from judgment. The Trials would soon be over. The Trials—
Shouts erupted from a neighboring group. An ebony-skinned painter was flapping his arms with a flourish, his palette and easel slung across his broad back. Other painters gathered around him, as if to soak up charisma by osmosis. Arn was among their number.
"I'm putting my faith in ochre," the dark painter blustered. "You can have your cadmium yellow and lemon, even your mustard. For me, it's ochre or die."
Some of the heads bobbed in agreement. The speaker made a swordstroke with his arm. "And broad swathes. Nothing timid."
A murmur ran through the circle of painters. Ryn could almost smell the competition. According to rumor, work wasn't directly compared. Some years, three or even four were said to be selected in each discipline. Other years, none. But ambition was a vital part of attitude.
Ryn turned back to Soph. "They fear the Critics."
"Don't you?"
"I think I can please them."
"At least your Critics have human faces. I've seen them in the streets, heads stooped and necks hunched into long black robes, their wrinkled skin and tight lips as frozen and severe as if you had carved them in your marble. But I'm at the mercy of Editors, who are hidden behind panels and are never seen by mortal eyes. I will not have the advantage of seeing their reactions, a raising of an eyebrow or a twitch of the lip that might signal approval."
"Three invisible thumbs up or down. But maybe that's better. A blind rejection rather than visible scorn. Far more painless, I would think."
"Painless to the flesh, but not the spirit."
"Pain is essential to an artist. The pain of creation, of giving birth, the torture of the imagination, the agony of searching for some kind of useless inner truth." Ryn thought again of Medi. Pain. Maybe that was Medi's gift to me. His way of shaping me.
"Maybe you should have been a philosopher," Soph said.
"And be sweeping the streets? I'd rather take my chances here."
A bassy foghorn blared, the long low note echoing off the hills and towering walls. Time for assembly.
Ryn and Soph bid each other luck and farewell, then Ryn pushed through the throng to the Hall of Sculpting. He was at first pleased to see only twenty or so other sculptors. But that might not mean anything, if odds were in a fifty.
The limestone of the steps was cool under his feet, the rock worn smooth by all those who had faced the Critics throughout the centuries. Ryn studied the other sculptors standing alertly with their strong scarred fingers and dense forearms, trying to guess what materials were hidden in their bulky satchels. A hand fell on his shoulder. He turned awkwardly, unbalanced by the weight of his satchel.
"All grace forgotten, Ryn?" Medi said, even at this late moment steel-jawed and sneering. His face was inches away. He was wearing a taut body stocking, blazing red. His muscles ridged out along exquisite flesh.
Ryn tried to look away. "Shouldn't you be at the Hall of Dancing?"
Medi performed a quick, airy shuffle. "Plenty of time for one with clever toes."
"You were always confident, Medi."
"I will be selected even if the odds are one in a thousand. And you should have the same attitude. Don't let them touch you."
"So you win by hurting? Is pain a talent, an art?"
Medi's eyes narrowed, his irises as cold as black olives. Ryn wondered how he had ever found softness in Medi, the quality that had brought Ryn's best sculpture to life. But that Medi would float forever in the gallery, the false Medi that was held aloft by the invisible wires of dreams, a fleeting impression captured in alabaster and feathered by loving hands. The sculpted Medi would live eternal, withstanding the withering countenance of critics. He wondered if the real Medi would be so fortunate.
"Embrace the pain. It only makes you stronger," Medi finally said. "Besides, dancers must travel light."
"No matter the expense?"
"Sentimentality is a risk. The odds for dancers are said to be one in eighty."
"You were the one of one to me. Isn't that enough?"
"When you stand before the Critics, you stand alone." Medi's features relaxed. Ryn wondered if the great Medi had suffered a moment of doubt.
Suddenly Medi grabbed him and kissed him hard on the mouth, then slipped athletically into the crowd. The massive oaken door swung open and the students moved forward. Blood was just returning to Ryn's lips as he stepped under the high hushed arches into the Hall of Sculpting.
The foyer was cool and dark. Waiting was the worst part. No one spoke. None wanted to be first or last.
A smaller door, ornamented with ceremonial figureheads and alloy symbols, opened on heavy hinges. An Evaluator summoned the first performer, then, minutes later, the next. Finally, after a stretch of time that seemed longer than his entire twelve years at the Akademeia, Ryn's name was called.
He stepped through the door, and the Evaluator led him to a table in the center of an open room. The Evaluator then shuffled offstage, the soft rustle of his robes the only sound. Not a crumb remained from the previous performance.
The room was much like the architecture Ryn had built in his mind from the bricks of rumor and the mortar of imagination. He stood beneath a bank of arc lamps, under which no error would go undetected. He saw the outline of the Critics, three forms seated on a dais just at the edge of shadow. He risked a glance behind him and saw the black mirror. A thousand unseen eyes were fixed on his back. He blinked into the lights, trying to spot the camera that was beaming his performance across the galaxy.
He looked for the eye of the vaporizer that would turn his flesh to dust if he were rejected.
Then he faced the Critics. He calmly placed his satchel on the table and opened it. Ryn took out his mahogany and marble, then quietly spread out his tools.
He waited for divine inspiration. Medi again. Medi, always. Inspiration came.
"You have seen my work," Ryn said, his voice swallowed instantly by the dead air of the room. "By that alone I should be judged."
He didn't know if speaking was acceptable. But it was his performance, after all.
"But the work itself has never been enough," he continued. "We aren't allowed to merely produce icons that reflect all that is gallant and fragile and terrible about the human race. We also must wear it like skin, harbor it in our flesh, pump it in the vintages of our veins. The art must become our lives."
He picked up his garnet paper, which he used for polishing stone, and rubbed the back of his hand until the skin peeled. He looked up at the Critics, their faces slowly taking shape as
his eyes adjusted to the dramatic lighting.
He held his riffler rasp to the light, turning it so that all might see its wicked pits.
"You ask us to seek the truth for you, because you haven't the courage to do it yourselves."
He drew the rasp across his forearm like a cellist drawing a bow, leaving a raw streak of pink in his flesh. He held the wooden handle of his skew chisel in his other fist, testing the edge for keenness. A small seam of crimson flared across his thumb. Quickly, he crisscrossed the blade against his shoulders, and his gown fell around his feet. Stipples of blood rose around his collarbone.
Out of the corner of his burning eye, Ryn saw an Evaluator step from the dark wings. For a moment, he was afraid that he had committed some blasphemy, that he wouldn't even be allowed the honor of a public immolation. He paused, a tool dripping in each hand. The Evaluator cocked his head, as if heeding an invisible voice, then stepped back and once again merged with the shadows.
Ryn picked up his steep-angled fluter and ran it along his thigh, digging out a strip of meat that curled and fell to the granite floor. He felt no pain. He was drugged by his creative juices, caught in revelation and discovery, lost in the shaping.
He brought the fluter to his cheek and pressed open what he hoped was a graceful red curve. With his other hand, he dropped the rasp and gripped the metal shank of his flat chisel and ran it across his stomach. The blade penetrated, and a gray intestine ballooned from the wound.
He could make out the Critics' faces now, harsh and immobile and impassive. Not a nostril flared, not an eye flinched. Those were the stolid faces of legend, as stony as godly busts.
"You need someone to reveal the inner beauty, because the outer is so commonplace," Ryn gasped. "You need someone to show you what it means to be human. Because you don't dare look inside yourselves."
Ryn erupted in a frenzy, the blades and chisels and awls flashing in the light as he used each tool to its fullest potential and then replaced it with the next. As he whipped at his skin, as he explored his meat, as he lovingly sculpted himself, he thought of Medi, twirling, giving the performance of his life, and Soph, with only words to save him.
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