by Alex Kosh
“It makes no difference to you, or me. We haven’t studied the Art enough to get into the habit of using our abilities in way. We really still don’t know how to use them at all … You know that after a while in a School of the Art they start teaching you to work with energy. Well the ways you work with energy in the Art and the Craft are too … different. But that doesn’t concern you and me, because we haven’t been taught anything like that yet. We’re just beginners …”
Well, who would ever have guessed? I remembered him throwing hefty guys who had been studying twice as long as us all over the place … but then, I must admit, that was only if they didn’t use their skill in working with energy …
“So don’t go getting any foolish ideas into your head. Let’s go and get into the Academy, and this evening we’ll celebrate.”
Scene 2
When the gates opened and the previous group of “testees” emerged, Chas and I quickly slipped through into the yard of the Academy. This was where the first, simplest and most important stage of the testing took place.
While the yard was empty, I was able to take a calm look around.
The entire surface of the yard of the Academy was laid out with designs in stones brought from every corner of the Empire (I had acquired this information from Chas). There were incredibly huge sapphires, and diamonds, and simple stones like gravel – they were all represented in this immense mosaic. And if you looked at the yard from the height of a bird in flight, or from the windows of the Academy, it was clear immediately that the different patterns came together to form a single symbol known to the entire world – the symbol of the Craft. This symbol was shown on all the items made within the Academy. And although similar designs were used by many amateur “Craftsmen”, the symbol itself was regarded as the exclusive property of the Academy, where all the newest designs were developed and the finest technomagical products – items that used the energy of “mags” – were produced.
The symbol represented a gold dragon curled into the letter “R” set in a silver circle. Why exactly it’s a gold dragon, I didn’t know, but I thought it was connected with some legend or other that I hadn’t heard since I was a little child. Of course, I’d completely forgotten it, since I preferred more plausible literature to fairytales.
While we stood there looking around, quite a lot of people gathered in the yard. Only there wasn’t the same hubbub and crush as on the square outside the entrance to the Academy. No. The atmosphere in here was completely different, and it was dominated by a solemn spirit of acceptance. Everyone who found himself in the yard froze (just as we had a minute earlier) as they realised they had finally reached the place where people’s destinies were decided.
We loitered at the entrance for a little while as we gathered our wits, then walked to the centre of the yard, where our group of testees was assembling at a respectful distance around Craftsmen in red livery, Higher Craftsmen in grey livery (the first I’d ever seen) and senior pupils in blue livery. The people were precisely assembling, not jostling as they had on the outside, but gathering together into small groups, maintaining their distance and not crowding or shoving.
We also stopped not far from the “enrolment commission”, that is, the Craftsmen in their various liveries, and waited. Silence fell. Everyone froze in anticipation.
After less than a couple of minutes, we were addressed by a calm male voice.
“Good day, ladies and gentlemen. You are present at the first stage of the enrolment. For those who do not know what that is, let me explain. At this stage the ability for working with energy that each one of you possesses is determined. It’s a matter of who was lucky when mother nature was handing out her gifts …”
I turned my head this way and that to see where the voice was coming from. It seemed to be coming from everywhere, but of course that couldn’t be right.
“Don’t waste your time,” Chas whispered to me when he saw my state of confusion. “You won’t find any devices. That’s the genuine Craft, it doesn’t require any props. Just a Craftsman and a few mags.”
I listened carefully and was astonished to realise that the voice wasn’t loud at all, it just sounded close, as if the person talking was standing right beside me. In addition, the voice sounded lifeless somehow. I don’t why I got that impression, there was just something not right about it … but the way it spread right across the entire yard was fantastic. What an effect! If only I could learn to listen to music like that or, even better, play like that at concerts. It was fabulous! And no musicales or other devices at all. It was better than fabulous – it was a dream.
Meanwhile the strange voice continued, “It’s quite simple. Each of you will look around. If you notice something unusual or strange, then immediately move towards it. To make this clearer for you, let me explain – it looks like a prism suspended in the air. If you see it, that still doesn’t mean that you have passed the test. You will have to mould the bundle of magic into a solid field of a particular colour through an effort of thought. Imagine clearly to yourself how the colours start to move, and you will be successful. A consolidated field of one colour or another will mean that you have enough ability to take subsequent tests, and its colour will indicate an affinity for a specific sphere of the ether. If you fail to see anything or were unable to assemble the puzzle completely, you will have to try your luck the next time round.”
I had been told something similar hundreds of times. Now everybody would start looking around, trying to see something unusual. After ten minutes, those who had seen what they were supposed to see would be standing still on the spot, staring intently into empty space. Every prism was tuned to the wavelength of the first person to spot it, and apart from that testee, no one would be able to see the puzzle until it had been assembled. When some lucky individual assembled his puzzle, one of the ubiquitous Craftsmen would be there beside him (they could certainly see all the prisms on the square).
According to Chas, the prism had only four sides (who would ever have thought it?) with an appalling jumble of mags taken from the various spheres on each of them. There are only four basic spheres: fire, water, air and earth. Each represents its own element, and everything is arranged so that only someone with a certain level of affinity for a particular sphere can pick out the mags of its colour and move them to one of the planes of the prism. When the Great Craftsman finished speaking, the puzzles would start working and every testee with sufficient ability would immediately see his or her own prism. As a rule, there were usually quite a lot of them, but only a few would be able to separate out one of the spheres completely.
The final phrase had barely died away when a fantastic scene broke out in the yard. People started darting from corner to corner, straining their eyes to make out something in the air. In all honesty, everyone knew that if they hadn’t seen their own puzzle after a minute, there was no point in searching any more … but who could easily admit that his dreams had collapsed?
Chas and I looked at each other and spontaneously set off round the yard in opposite directions. We walked unhurriedly, looking around and trying to spot a magical prism. From time to time someone shoved us, and we could have been trampled many times, but it’s not that easy to knock down a man who studies the Art, even if – as in my case – he has only been studying it for five years.
Suddenly Chas stopped and started staring at a spot three yards above the ground with his eyes slightly unfocused. It looked like he’d already found his prism, and all I could do was wish him good luck.
I wandered on round the yard for a little while, but after a couple of minutes I had to accept that I wasn’t going to see any puzzle. A pity, it could have been really entertaining.
I stopped for a second to switch on the musicale, and glanced round the yard one last time. Almost everybody had already gathered at the gates, apart from the solitary figures of the fortunate individuals who were puzzling over their own magical prisms and, of course, the groups of Craftsmen carefull
y following the efforts of the testees. I lost sight of Chas, and after I switched on the musicale, I set off towards the gates with bored guards standing at each side.
It happened that I had to walk past a group of Craftsmen and pupils standing at the very centre of the square. My gaze instantly picked out familiar faces: the young man and girl I had met in the parade earlier in the day cast sympathetic glances in my direction. Of course, they realised that I hadn’t even passed the very first and simplest test. The girl’s smile was especially sympathetic …
The musicale was playing a very cheerful melody, and basically I was far from thinking that my life was over. I hadn’t been planning to join the Academy anyway. But Chas had got what he was dreaming of – the chance to test his power. I hoped he would have enough to get through this test, and after that it was a matter of skill. My redheaded friend was always raving about the Academy, he probably had enough knowledge and savvy to get through the all the other stages.
As I approached the gates, I noticed a strange short of glimmering to my right out of the corner of my eye. Hope stirred feebly somewhere deep in my heart. What if this was that certain “something”? I swung round sharply and immediately noticed a strange blob of energy, shimmering with all the colours of the rainbow. Somehow, when I heard the word “prism” I had imagined something quite different … certainly not an incomprehensible lump with no definite shape and an absolutely repulsive colour. Where were those four colours that ought to be jumbled together? There were a hundred of them here, and they were all shimmering, as if something was energetically stirring this blob in an attempt to merge all the colours into one homogenous tone.
And how come I hadn’t noticed this thing before?
I must admit, I didn’t like the colour of this bundle of energy one little bit. I got such a strong feeling something wasn’t right that I simply reached out to the blob with my mind and tried to bring all this mish-mash into decent order. I’d never had an impulse like this before, but now I wanted desperately to pick at least a few normal colours out of that repulsive shimmering from beige to dirty purple.
Imagine my surprise when the entire mass stirred and heaved, as if the process of mixing the incomprehensible mess had somehow gone into reverse, and started taking on the colours of the ingredients combined in it. It was all over in a couple of seconds – hanging there in the air in front of me, instead of that strange, shapeless mass, there was a neat prism with four colours. So now what was I supposed to do? Admire my creation?
Each of the prism’s four sides glowed brightly with the colour of its own mags. They shone so brightly that they started making my eyes sting. After less than two seconds of mute delight, the pain became simply unbearable, my eyes started to water, and I started seeing red rings. I staggered, without really understanding what was happening to me.
And then someone touched me gently on the arm.
“Lad, don’t be upset, you can try again next time,” I heard a girl’s voice through the mist shrouding my mind, “let me see you home.”
That was nice, of course, and I would have gladly strolled home with the girl, but I couldn’t see her. And my temples had started aching as well.
“Turn off the light!” I shouted, unable to stand it any more.
My eyes could no longer make anything out; instead of the yard, all I saw was a bright blur, shimmering with those four colours of the rainbow.
“Hey! He’s got sensitivity shock!” a male voice shouted. “Look at the prism!”
Several people immediately came running over to me.
“Get him out of here and take him into the tower,” a calm male voice ordered.
They grabbed me under the arms and started dragging me off. Just as I was on the point of losing consciousness, I had the irrelevant thought that some rogue had snatched my musicale and stopped the jolly melody.
And at that very moment consciousness decided not to abandon me after all. It stayed, together with a fierce pain in my eyes. But even that pain was nothing compared with what had gone before it.
I staggered in surprise and gave such a loud sigh of relief that the people leading me along involuntarily recoiled. Two blue blobs took shape before my eyes, and I made the logical assumption that my guides were senior pupils of the Academy.
“It’s all right, I’m feeling better,” I said with a painful effort.
“What happened to you?” asked a startled female voice, and I finally managed to focus my eyes on the face of the girl I had met on the square.
I shuddered and started blinking rapidly, trying to drive the red haze out of my eyes, and instead I acquire a headache that was three times worse than before.
“Well, there I was looking at that weird blob of colour … Do you ever think about what you’re doing? I was almost blinded! You told me the first test wasn’t dangerous, and then this …” I choked on my own sense of indignation.
The strange thing was, I had no idea of the absolute nonsense I was spouting, and was quite incapable of making myself stop until I’d used up all the air in my lungs.
The girl gave me a suspicious look and asked in a surprisingly calm and quiet voice, “Are you joking?”
I gazed at her in amazement. The girl looked back at me, staring hard into my red, watering eyes until I staggered again and leaned against a young guy who happened to be standing in just the right place.
“Oh, you’re really in a bad way,” she said, and turned to the young guy, who was patiently supporting me by the arm. “Take him to Master Romius’s study, he can deal with this … ‘prodigy’ as soon as he’s finished here.”
I had the feeling she almost used some other word. Now why was that?
The girl turned away and walked back into the yard, and there was nothing I could do but follow the senior pupil.
“It’s all right,” I said, resisting all his attempts to support me by the elbow, “I’ll manage, just show me the way. What’s your name, by the way, this is a bit awkward …”
The young guy laughed: “Nick.”
Dark hair like mine, a thin beard just starting to sprout, and eyes with a bright twinkle. All in all, a perfectly ordinary young lad, apart from the fact that he was one of the senior pupils at the Academy, as testified by the dark-blue colour of his livery (I mention that just in case you happen to have forgotten).
“I’m Zach,” I told him. “Pleased to meet you.”
I didn’t have time to say anything else, because we’d reached the entrance to the tower. The huge doors looked as impregnable as the tower itself. But as soon as my guide touched them they opened with an incredibly gentle movement, revealing an immensely long corridor.
Nick stepped inside and beckoned for me to follow. I hung back for a moment, suddenly aware that I was entering the Academy for the first time in my life. It was considered a great honour to be allowed inside if you weren’t a pupil or a Craftsman. Even our own ruler and specialists from other countries could only enter the tower by special invitation.
I stepped on to the carpet and felt the doors close soundlessly behind me. If not for a gentle breath of wind on my back, I wouldn’t even have noticed it.
We walked unhurriedly along the corridor, with a gold carpet rustling under our feet. Apparently the Craftsmen aren’t immune to the general mania for the colour of gold, I thought, gazing around curiously.
The stone walls of the corridor were depressing. We walked past lots of doors that were all the same and I was soon bored by the lack of variation in our surroundings. So what was so special about this tower? I wondered. Sure, it’s tall … but behind those fairytale gates there lurks a grey, humdrum reality.
My guide didn’t seem to want to talk, and my head was still aching fiercely, so all I could do was look around. The lamps hanging above us seemed perfectly ordinary, working on “mags”, but when I looked a bit closer I soon realised they were far from simple. By the light they gave, we cast no shadows at all. And neither did any other objects – the vases and
beautiful gold coats of armour that we came across occasionally. But the lamps were set ten yards apart. A single lamp like that could have lit up quite a decent-sized square.
We finally reached yet another standard door. Nick’s light touch on the doorframe revealed a rather large hall with low round platforms about ten inches high set at regular intervals on the floor. They were all covered in gold, like most of the things created by the Craftsmen.
These were the famous teleports!
Teleports were used only inside the Academy, and I only knew about them from stories that had somehow managed to seep out through the walls of this venerable educational institution. I remembered that one of the Great Houses had complained that the entire city could be equipped with these teleports, but the Academy had no intention of sharing them with anyone. Teleports were still used only for the Academy’s own requirements.
“Should I … get on?” I asked, gazing at a round platform rather fearfully.
As if was winking at me, the teleport lit up as soon as my guide approached it.