After my disgrace in the matter of peanuts and akyrity, such success comes as a welcome relief. I can safely say animation feels more natural, more innate, than any variety of magic I have experienced to date. Danyee had likened the process to pulling on a pair of gloves, or slipping into a suit, but to me the sensation is more of cooperation, of guidance. Like riding. A person must be in physical contact with an object in order to move it by animation, and so as we progress upward along the evolutionary scale, from bloog worms to bloog pancakes to multilegged blobs of bloog, we begin attaching ourselves by long cords so that our creations might wander freely about. And where most cadets are often reduced to dragging theirs along, mine positively prance.
Sculptures like those we make in class, miniature creatures brought to life by animation, are called “equulei,” and as one would expect from a troupe of militant twelve-year-olds, no sooner have we mastered making our equulei walk than we are making them fight. The battles generally take place just beyond Rhetor Danyee’s supervision, but only because to have a rhetor watching cheapens the fun. The Academy is in full favor of cadets battling their equulei, as it develops a diversity of skills germane to our war against the Valentines. Nearly all the Legion’s more potent weapons employ animation to some degree or other, and skilled “animi,” as practitioners are known, are in great demand.
My first battle comes during one of our frequent outdoor sessions. I am promenading my equuleus through the Academy courtyards like a lady out with her lapdog, when suddenly Kenut and Chyffe charge from behind a row of hedges, wild war cries on their lips. I’m no stranger to boys’ roughhousing, but the visceral sensation when Chyffe’s equuleus collides with mine takes me by surprise. My equuleus responds with a decisive counterattack, and in moments has reduced both assailants to formless piles of mud. Cheers erupt from nearby cadets, even as challengers line up to unseat me from my place of glory. After that, not a single lesson in animation ends without my equuleus surrounded by the splattered remains of its rivals.
My renown spreads, and in relatively short order I am the undisputed equuleus champion of the Sixth Class. Even Rhetor Danyee is impressed, going so far as to suggest that if I hone my skills with some extra studies, I might stand a chance of getting into one of the Academy’s elite training programs, once I’m in Fourth Class and eligible to apply. My fellow Dodos think I ought to try now, sure the Academy would make an exception, since I’m already nineteen, practically an old lady. The plans I’ve begun fashioning for myself are even more ambitious. I’ve got it in my head to join the Legion now. The way I see it, the sooner I start, the better I’ll be when Naomi comes up to fight. Cadets who try to join up early face a good deal of hoop-jumping, but I figure I might have a shot once I show them what I can do.
I’m wrong, though, and it doesn’t take a trip to the Legion’s Basilica to find out how wrong. A guided tour of the Academy is plenty.
THIRTY-TWO
RAE
One day, as the revenni of Sixth Class are convening for another afternoon lesson in irrational mechanics, Rhetor Danyee tells us to leave our work at our desks and line up by the door. Today, we will be visiting the Fabrica of Ninth City.
Her announcement is met with considerable excitement, and not only because we’d been expecting a particularly difficult exercise in infusion. The Fabrica is where all the city’s marvels of thelemity are designed and created. Normally, Dodos aren’t allowed beyond the boundaries of the Academy, but Danyee has secured special permission on the theory that seeing what can be achieved through research and scholarship will motivate us in our studies. Also, she has found a competent and responsible party to act as our guide. Danyee herself will be attending a special training session for rhetors only; from her demeanor, I suspect this “training session” will involve more than the usual amount of heavy drinking for Danyee and her fellow young rhetors.
“Cadets,” Rhetor Danyee says, motioning toward the classroom door, “I’d like you to meet Kizabel, an Officer Aspirant from the Academy’s School of Philosophy.”
Officer Aspirant Kizabel seems far too petite to contain all the achievements Danyee lists to her credit. In addition to having her own workshop at the Fabrica, practically unheard of for anyone so young, Kizabel is an artifex, a maker of artifices, whose creations have been used all over the city. The mildly disheveled state of her black uniform and her unkempt spray of hair convince me she’s every bit the prodigy Danyee claims—if I show up to lessons with so much as a hair or button out of place, I can expect hours of extra chores as punishment. And yet no one blinks an eye over our rumpled pocket officer.
We wait, expectant, to hear what wise words this tiny titan will have for us. Slowly, a wicked grin spreads across Kizabel’s face. Her blue eyes glint. “So,” she says, “who wants to blow something up?”
The Sixth Class is overwhelmingly in favor of explosions. We are almost too excited to keep proper formation as we march down the Academy’s halls, toward the School of Philosophy, home to pursuits so scholarly that most cadets cannot even pronounce the things studied there.
The Fabrica is a great block of unadorned stone adjoining the School of Philosophy. Aside from its size, it is so unremarkable, especially with the palatial towers of cadet dormitories visible above, that we begin to think the promise of pyrotechnics was simply a ruse, a suspicion that only deepens as Kizabel ushers us through the bland stone interior, plain gray walkways broken only by the occasional door of cloudy metal. At last, Kizabel stops before one of the doors, presses a hand to its smooth surface, and says, “Hey, Ooj, it’s Kiz. I’ve got those Dodos I told you about. Can we come in?”
We are admitted into a wide room filled with icy, sterile light and figures hunched low over enticing pieces of sparking and smoking equipment. At the far end stands a tall man with long curly hair: Philosopher Oojtelli, or “Ooj,” as he prefers to be called.
“Philosopher” is a term used for scholars who have reached the Academy’s highest levels of learning, regardless of whether their studies involve the mysteries of existence. Ooj’s interests have to do with warding off hostile thelemity. His theories would be exceedingly useful to the Legion if he could only find a way to profitably apply them, but on that account, he is a long way from success.
Ooj directs our attention to a room below, where a lone watermelon stands, adorned with his invention, a circlet reminiscent of a princess’s tiara. As cadets crowd against the observation window, Ooj fires a blast of energy at the melon, which explodes spectacularly. “It works about one time out of twenty,” he says, and in support of this claim solicits volunteers from the Sixth Class to detonate several more melons. One lucky fruit does survive, only to suffer a grisly fate during the next trial. Ooj shakes his head in speculative lamentation, then loads a new melon to riotous applause.
Before our tour of the Fabrica is finished, we have witnessed everything from a hailstorm conjured inside of a glass ball to a new and highly controversial brand of magic that purports to create living beings out of pure thelemity, though the results we see are even less successful than Philosopher Ooj’s warding crown. We have worn every sort of protective gear imaginable: helmets, face shields, gloves, smocks, small metal tabs we are mysteriously told to hold beneath our tongues in the presence of an experimental lie detector. The Philosophers we meet never seem put out to have their studies interrupted by a gaggle of Sixth-Class cadets. On the contrary, they’re only too glad to leave off work to explode things with us. Kizabel they treat as a colleague; often I will notice one of them in grave technical discussion with her while another entertains us with some marvelous trick.
The only thing at the Fabrica we do not see, it seems, is Kizabel’s own workshop. “That’s because I skipped it on purpose,” Kizabel says when one brave cadet finally mentions this discrepancy. “It’s at the far end of the Fabrica, back near the Academy, and if anyone found out what an abysmal mess it is, I’d be thrown out t
hen and there.”
There are a few laughs, but the overall disappointment is plain.
“There’s nothing interesting in there,” Kizabel says. “And anyway,” she adds, noting our lack of conviction, “I haven’t been working at the Fabrica much recently.” She pauses, apparently coming to some decision, and brings out the mischievous smile that has become a familiar and welcome sign of impending adventure. “Follow me.”
Kizabel leads us down a tumble of hallways, mazelike in their blandness, until we reach a small door set inconspicuously into a long wall. “I’m going to show you what I do,” Kizabel says, hand on the door. “Keep quiet, and don’t touch anything. Anyone starts acting up, and I take us all back to the Academy. Got it?” Her voice is serious, but she’s still grinning, an indication that we are all misbehaving together.
“Yes, ma’am!” the cadets reply as one. By tacit agreement, Kizabel and I have been pretending that her tour of eleven- and twelve-year-olds does not contain a rather large nineteen-year-old girl. I have kept to the back and said little, and she and her philosopher friends have mostly ignored me, something I take as a kindness. But at the sound of my “yes, ma’am!” her eyes momentarily meet mine, then dart away as she whispers a word of passage to the door, and I know she is embarrassed for me, her oversized Dodo.
Our promise of good behavior lasts only until the first cadet gets through the door. The place beyond is built on a scale for giants, a great open room where we become mice scurrying from a hole. The giants themselves stand in long rows, each in its own stall, dark and still, like statues set into niches along some endless hallway. But I know these are no simple sculptures, that not long ago they were alive, their faces glowing like the light of a brazier. Kizabel shushes the cadets, who are nearly delirious with excitement, though there is still a smile behind the finger she puts to her lips.
“Now,” Kizabel says, “I expect you’ve all guessed where we are. This is the Stabulum, specifically the wing that houses the Legion’s equi. You’ve all heard of the equites, of course. What you probably don’t know is there’s a lot more to getting an equus into battle than just finding some hotshot jockey to pilot it. Keeping these big guys in fighting shape is how I spend most of my time.”
When people think of equi, Kizabel tells us, all they imagine are the equites flying around whipping Valentine ass. But equi are complex and beautiful machines, and to help us appreciate them, she intends to introduce us to some of the people who work their tails off so the equites can go out there and steal all the glory.
As Kizabel takes us down the aisles of silent giants, I lag behind, feeling each one a looming, menacing presence. Equi work by animation, same as equulei, but the little clay toys I send running and skipping through my lessons are as different from these behemoths as a puddle from the raging ocean. Looking up into their dark faces, Vinneas’s words come back to me: Eques. It’s a type of warrior. The closest word in your language is probably “knight.”
We come to a halt at the feet of a statue built from what looks to be pale greenish stone. It’s forty feet tall at the very least and encased in scaffolding, globes of floating light bobbing up and down its frame. Human shapes, lit by intermittent bursts of glowing color, work along wide platforms, or else by some trick of gravity crouch directly on the thing’s body, sticking off in all directions like barnacles from the hull of a ship. The equus itself is clearly damaged, the green stone cracked and torn to reveal metal ligaments beneath, all of it looking strangely like wounds you’d see on a person or other meaty creature, not a hulk of metal and stone.
Kizabel is plainly a favorite here. Workers of the Stabulum spot her a good way off and welcome her with hoots and jests. She hollers back, and one artisan leaves off his labors, swinging down toward us on what appear to be inky-blue tentacles, which retract into an egg-shaped package at the small of his back as he sets his feet on the ground. He introduces himself as Hezaro, and at Kizabel’s urging begins describing the highly involved process of returning this equus, named “HeavensHammer,” to working condition.
“Poor girl had a run-in with a Valentine Type 6,” he says gravely, rubbing his stubbly chin. The “girl” is HeavensHammer, which as far as I can see lacks any demonstrably feminine attributes. “Beastly thing nearly tore her in half, but we’ll have her up and about in no time. Would have been sooner, but there were a lot of bad cases after that last incursion. We’ve been working day and night to get through the backlog.”
The cadets are overflowing with questions, though to Kizabel’s chagrin, they have more to do with combat than the repair and maintenance of equi. I leave them to it, sinking back from the swell of excited faces and voices bright with inquiries on magical firepower and aerial acrobatics. My attention is elsewhere, fleeing down the seemingly endless gallery of statues. Those nearby are almost identical to HeavensHammer, but farther on I spot several other configurations, different in stature and the lines of their armor. I don’t realize I’m looking for one thing in particular until I see it: a familiar shape, last glimpsed silhouetted against the setting sun, head and shoulders above the trees. I glance back toward Kizabel and the cadets, all occupied with Hezaro and HeavensHammer, then slip quietly away into the Stabulum.
THIRTY-THREE
RAE
A small army of giants is waiting for me, stationed side by side, all armored in the same gray stone, each posed identically to the next, heads sleek and alert but blank of any life or consciousness, all exactly alike save for a row of numbers and letters stenciled in yellow across the chest. Printed on the one nearest me is:
IX EQUITES 126-011
THUNDERWALKING
The markings always begin in the same way, with “IX EQUITES 126,” but the final number changes on each statue, as do the words written beneath. After “011 THUNDERWALKING” comes “009 WARRIORSVOW.” I walk slowly down the row, past “007 FALLINGLEAF” and “005 LANCELIGHTNING.” Finally, I see it, the last in the line of gray stone monsters, “IX EQUITES 126-001 FIRECHASER.”
Somehow I recognize it immediately, even before I pick out the spots on the armor, lighter in color than the rest and shiny like newly healed skin, where my bullets left their pipe-bowl burns. I am tempted to give the thing a hearty kick, even though I know it’s all dead stone and would probably break my toe.
From behind me, someone asks, “What are you doing, Cadet?”
I turn to find myself beneath the glare of a rugged brunette, slim-hipped but strong about the shoulders. She’s roughly my age but wearing the black uniform of the Legion. “This is a restricted area,” she says. “How did you get in here?”
Why I don’t just tell her I’m on a tour of the Stabulum I can’t exactly say, but I expect it has to do with her tone and generally impertinent attitude. “Just admiring my handiwork,” I tell her. “Can’t help being curious, after a fight, to see how the other guy came out.”
The girl’s mouth twists in confusion. “What?” She seems prepared for further interrogation but pauses as two more bodies come jogging up, one male and one female, likewise clad in black and with similarly sturdy and mostly neckless physiques.
“Who’s this, Sensen?” asks the man of the group, taking me in. He’s unusually pale and has been attempting a goatee with mixed results.
“No clue,” Sensen answers, scowling. “I found her hanging around FireChaser. Said something about inspecting her handiwork.”
“Probably just some splatterhead volunteer from the Academy,” says the other newcomer, a smaller, curlier-haired replica of Sensen. “Who cares? Come on—it’s your turn.”
Across the span of the Stabulum, I see more black-uniformed shapes gathered below another equus of the same breed as FireChaser and his neighbors. They’ve plainly been engaged in some game—cards or dice maybe, the sort soldiers play to pass time between battles, the sort I used to play with the scouts of my coda—but now they’re coming my way.
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“We can’t leave some random cadet hanging around our equi,” Sensen says hotly. “And she’s not a volunteer. Look.” She points to my collar, and the six black dots pinned there. “She’s Sixth Class. No way she’s trained to fix an equus. I’m reporting her. What’s your name, Cadet?”
“Her name is Rachel.”
It isn’t the deep, echoing voice I remember from my cell, but I know it’s him. Bad Cop. The man in black. Imway. He’s just as I remember him, neck coiled with muscle, bronzy hair combed back, silver spectacles perched on his sloped nose. “She’s one of the unincorporateds we picked up in the valley,” he says, stepping up beside Sensen.
Sensen is outraged. “They let a noco into the Academy?”
“Don’t be so surprised,” I say, jabbing a thumb toward FireChaser. “If I could take you on in one of those, imagine what’d happen in a fair fight.” I offer Imway a jolly grin, but he meets me with quiet indifference.
“How about now, then?” Sensen says. “I’ll let you ride my Shadow.” She nods to the equus next to FireChaser, IX EQUITES 126-003 SHAD-OWSINGER. “Imway will use FireChaser. We’ll keep it to arm wrestling, I think—there isn’t room for anything else in here—but that should be enough for you to show us how a fair fight would go, right? Unless that was just talk.”
“Fine.” I don’t think I’d be able to decline a challenge like that even if I wasn’t so proud of my talents in animation. My old self, that girl who’d never turn down a dare, comes swaggering back. I’d thought she was gone for good, but ever since I started at the Academy, she’s been following me around, always up for the juvenile high jinks of my fellow Dodos. There’s no holding her back now. I don’t even wait for Imway to agree but walk up to ShadowSinger and lay a hand against its ankle.
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