The Scion of Abacus, Part 2

by Brondt Kamffer

  Deryn Lhopri clapped her hands together. “And a jester as well? Hymage preserve us, but we really have unleashed something on an unsuspecting world.” She retrieved the little bag containing the pebble, vial of water, leaf, and candle, dumping the four items onto the desk again and arranging them in order as she had done the previous day.

  Her face grew serious at last. “You are no doubt growing tired of this exercise, but it is important that you master it before we can really get on with training you.”

  I nodded. “I understand, professor. I’ve watched enough of Professor Lornis’ practical class sessions to know that the basics come first.”

  “Smart boy,” she said, with just a hint of patronization creeping into her voice. I don’t know why, but that change in tone actually made me feel more comfortable than the friendly tone of before. I suppose that I already viewed her as my enemy, and I certainly could not will myself to be at ease and amiable with someone who had threatened to use Hero in the way she had. The patronizing tone, however, reminded me that the professor had never been my friend.

  But I pushed those thoughts from my mind as I focused on the task at hand. Having had several rounds of practice the day before, I was quickly able to isolate the fire element and dismiss it from my mind; likewise with water. As I worked to shut off awareness of air, I realized momentarily that the air golem was not with us that day, but I had become adept enough at closing off my mind that I no longer needed the focal point that the creature had offered me previously.

  As I approached the all-important moment at which I’d failed repeatedly before, the moment when my body would panic against my mind’s belief that there was no longer air to breathe, I felt my shoulders tense.

  And then I thrust the air element aside, redoubling my efforts to focus on earth and yet reassure my body that there was indeed still air to breathe, even though my mind no longer acknowledged the existence of the element.

  I felt my lungs constrict in reaction, but as I worked with a divided mind to focus on the stone on the desk before me and on continuing my breathing, I suddenly realized that I was no longer shaking.

  I opened my eyes—which I had not realized were closed, though I had become accustomed to clinching them at this stage of the experiment—and found that the world around me was a silent mass of earth in various levels of strength and complexity.

  The walls of the building were solid stone, but the desk, which was made of wood, evinced a fragility I had not been aware of before. Wood is composed of earth, water, and air, but in the drying process after a tree had been cut to make this desk, the water had been leeched from the wood. The tiny pockets of air that existed in the remnants of the tree’s veins and in between the rings of the tree’s growth were now also outside of my focus. All that was left was the earth element that comprised most of the wood’s physical makeup, and this was porous. It seemed as though I could break the desk simply by hitting it a little too hard.

  My eyes looked up at the professor, who sat with a satisfied smile on her face. I was startled momentarily, almost dropping my focus on the earth element. Her body at once appeared to be carved of stone—like a statue—and yet also unchanged from the normal image I was used to seeing across the desk from me. It was like there was an illusion of herself sitting in the same seat, one image overlaying the other.

  “Focus,” she said, and the earth of her body rippled faintly as the vibrations of her voice traveled up her throat.

  Slowly, I pushed my wonder aside and focused my attention on the small pebble on the desk. I began trying to isolate the various types of stone and earth I sensed around me, beginning with the physical items on Deryn Lhopri’s bookshelves.

  This is difficult to describe, but I suppose it is not too far from the mark to say that when I did so, it seemed as though the books and the shelves that held them just seemed suddenly to disappear. The stone walls of the building were still there, only they now appeared blank to my consciousness.

  Unsure of what to do next, I decided to isolate and push aside the earthen makeup of the professor’s body, succeeding in doing so without much trouble. Part of me wondered whether she sensed how pleased it made me feel to ignore her so completely as I was now doing.

  The wood that made up the three chairs in the office went next, leaving only the desk and the walls of the building between myself and a total focus on the pebble.

  I felt my lips curl upwards as the desk seemed to vanish from beneath the small stone, leaving it floating in midair as far as my senses were concerned.

  Last of all, and this was the greatest challenge, was to push aside awareness of the University walls. I chose to do so one face at a time, thinking it would be easier to isolate the wall by sections, but I soon realized that this would be impossible, as the stones and masonry were such that everything appeared interlocked—and thus one.

  I paused, taking a deep, steadying breath, and then shoved against all four walls at once. They receded slowly, as though I were trying to push against an enormous weight—which is in fact what I was doing. There might have been more air around, but air moves with a far greater ease than stone does, though I would soon learn that air becomes as stubborn as any boulder if trapped in a confined space.

  The stone walls gave way suddenly, like a tree that is being felled teeters for a seeming infinity before toppling over.

  And then I was left alone, the world around me becoming a blank slate, nothing but a single stone left floating in front of my chest. Something in my eyes—a look of astonishment and awe, maybe—must have given away to Deryn Lhopri that I had finally succeeded. Her disembodied voice reached my head as though spoken by some spirit, for I was totally oblivious to her physical composition by then.

  “Excellent, Toven. Now, I want you to make the stone heavy. Tie your ether to it. You have heard Professor Lornis describe the act to his Hymanni, and the process is not so different for you, though you are projecting your ether outward rather than inward. When you have made the pebble heavy, nod, and I will try to lift it.”

  Her voice passed away, and I set about puzzling out how to accomplish this new task. Having some experience already with casting my ether about—if only to sense the presence of others—I sent my ether towards the small stone, sent it slinking from my body like an intrepid serpent.

  I realize that I talk about the elements as though they are homogenous in kind, that is, that all earth is the same, all fire the same, all water, all air. But this is not true. It is possible to sense different sorts of each element. Granite stone does not feel the same to the mage’s ether as good, fertile planting soil, or a metal like gold or iron. Each has a distinctive feel to it. That is not quite the right word, as I am not in any real sense touching the element, but the sensation is very different one type of earth to another. By the same token, air that is pure feels different than air that is putrid with the scent of rotting flesh or air that is full of the aroma of a beautiful woman. You may understand this last comparison from personal experience, the scent of a woman differing person to person, only I do not sense that difference with my nose but on a more fundamental, elemental level. I can tell—if I truly focus—every place that woman has been in the last few days by the unique signature the world’s aromas leave upon her by being there.

  This is all to say that as my ether made contact with that pebble on Deryn Lhopri’s office desk I was aware of some fifteen or sixteen different minerals, as the scientists of old called them, existing in that tiny fragment of rock. My ether latched on to the stone, and then I sat unsure of what to do next. I tried to focus on its mass, but one cannot really distinguish such properties with ether, which is essentially spiritual in nature.

  Finally, despairing of what else I could do, I nodded to Deryn Lhopri, hoping that as she moved to lift the pebble, I would figure out what to do and react.

  I felt a faint sensation as her hand touched the pebble, though my consciousness was still otherwise oblivious to her presence. Ne
vertheless, where her hand made contact with the small stone, I sensed her being as intimately as ever I had sensed Hero, and I nearly recoiled in shock, only managing to control myself because I suddenly felt my weight shift subtly.

  I realized then that Deryn Lhopri was trying to lift the stone from the desk but that I was somehow preventing her doing so. At the time, I was a little confused, but she explained it later as simple physics. By linking my ether to the stone’s elements, I had made it temporarily one with myself, meaning that in order for the professor to lift the stone from the table, she had also to lift me from my chair.

  Simply put, what I learnt in that instant was one of the fundamental rules of motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In time I would learn that this meant I could hurtle a boulder clear across a city, but only if I were anchoring my body against something that weighed significantly more than that boulder—a building, for example. But I would be doing so with the risk that I would crush myself between their weights, and so I would need to actually anchor my body to a third object at an angle in order to create a kind of pivot to prevent such massive forces from squashing me altogether. Suffice it to say that when I started learning all of this in the following months of those early practical lessons from Deryn Lhopri, I became very much aware of the reasons why the old mages had been so interested in the sciences, particularly physics and mathematics—and why I’d been forced to do extra homework in those subjects over the years.

  It was simply a means of self-preservation. Mages need to understand the minute details of their world in order to more safely manipulate it. Such training could sometimes take years, and even then mages often killed themselves by accidentally over-exerting their bodies and ether.

  But all of that was yet to be learnt. I pushed back against the stone as Deryn Lhopri tried to lift it from the desk, until suddenly I was sent toppling to the floor, my concentration broken, and the world around rushing back on my senses.

  I did not, thankfully, bang my head—or any part of myself—against the furniture, but when I finally looked up, I saw Deryn Lhopri leaning over me, offering her hand to help me up.

  I took it without much thought, and she heaved me to my feet. “That was well done, Toven,” she said, her voice seeming to carry genuine approval this time. She then proceeded to explain some of the basics I have just written down for you above, about weight distribution, and so forth. She had called on her own ether as a Hymanni to double her strength and thus dislodge me from my seat.

  Still, she was proud that I had made this breakthrough, and it was then that I realized she was just like any normal person: pleased at a job well done. She was truly enjoying teaching me.

  “Now that you understand the basics, let us try another of these items I’ve set before you. Shall we play with fire?” She sounded almost like a child in her excitement. “You can try to light the candle using nothing but thought. Or you can create wind to move the leaf, shifting the air around it. Or perhaps you can try shattering the glass vial by summoning the water.”

  I decided that the water experiment would be too messy at the moment, and playing with fire did seem much more exciting. In the end, I tried each of those tasks before the day was through, succeeding in all after only two or three attempts.

  It was evening already by the time I was done, so I left Deryn Lhopri to find Hero in the mess hall again. I was as tired that night as I’d been the one before, so I slipped off to bed immediately following supper, breaking my promise to fill Hero in on some of the details of my lessons.

  And I slept so soundly that I did not even hear the scream.

  -XIII-

  I awoke to the sound of splintering wood, which was followed by the thunderous clatter of the solid door striking the floor of my room. I was disoriented, uncertain of whether or not I was dreaming. As I attempted to sit up, I felt rough hands seize upon my arms and haul me from my bed. The owners of those hands were shouting in my face, but my eyes had locked on a form lying motionless just beside the ruined door.

  It was the body of a young woman, her small form and black hair marking her as Hero. The sight sobered me, and my ether flared in an instant. I ripped my right arm from the hands of the man holding me, and a flash of green from his cassock registered in the back of my mind that this was a warrior Synth, probably one of the University guards kept about to prevent fights among the students.

  I flung my free hand at the other Synth, who was still gripping my left arm tightly, connecting with his chest. I felt his grip loosen, and just as I yanked my arm free of him, the fist of the first Synth struck me on the back of my head.

  I crumpled to the floor, blacking out, and when I came to moments later, I was being tied to the wooden chair that sat beside my wardrobe. I was groggy, and this time I did not immediately attempt to fight. Nevertheless, the two men bound me more tightly than was necessary, the ropes cutting into my arms and chest even through the nightclothes I had been wearing.

  But my attention was drawn from my discomfort again to the body on the floor. She lay face down so that I could not be certain it was Hero, but the hair was of the same fashion, her body also small enough for me to be uncertain, especially in the dazed state I found myself. I could not properly control my ether in my present condition, and so failed to make any sort of ethereal test as to the identity of the body.

  I began to thrust about in the seat where I’d been tied, but one of the Synths knelt before me. “Do you want me to hit you again, boy?” he asked menacingly.

  I stopped and shook my head. I tried to clear my mind, not knowing what was going on, what I was being accused of. “Why am I being tied up?” I managed at last.

  “Are you blind as well as stupid?” asked the Synth.

  “Enough.”

  This third voice came from the doorway, from the mouth of a blue cassocked wise Synth, an administrator of the University I’d seen on occasion named Severin Kerinis. He stalked into the room, and as he moved away from the portal, I could see that a crowd had begun to form behind him, though the press was being kept back by several figures in white. Professors, I surmised.

  “So, it seems the rumors are true for once,” Master Kerinis said. He was a tall man, but lanky and entirely unimposing. If I’d been standing up, he might have stood more than half a foot taller than me, but I knew that even I, thin as I was, would have a greater sense of presence. As with most men I’ve met like him—that is, those unimpressive of physique yet in possession of some high office—he was filled with a sense of his self-importance, brooking no display of disrespect, real or imagined.

  “Answer me, Toven,” he said, twisting my name like a sneer, though I’d not have thought he knew it, “how came this unfortunate girl to be lying dead in your room.”

  My eyes widened. “I don’t know, sir,” I answered timidly, afraid now and wondering how she possibly could have come to be in my dorm room.

  The wise Synth flicked his head lightly, and a moment later I felt the full impact of a warrior Synth’s punch to my diaphragm. The air exploded from my lungs.

  I fought to clear my mind as the man began to rant. I hoped to prepare myself to use my ether to—well, I did not have much of a plan. I thought I could maybe tear the ropes, but I’d had very little practice with this, and all I knew I could do for certain was make stones heavy, summon water, make wind, and spark a small flame. I doubted any of those would serve to help me escape this predicament, yet I had to try.

  “Master Aimis, you must not realize how serious this is. A student reported a scream not half an hour ago. The night watch came at once to find your door barred. They sent for me and proceeded to break an entry. The door was locked from the inside too, it must be noted. Here on the floor, where you see her, lay this sad thing, while you were blissfully asleep in your bed. Now, explain to me what happened. You may have some privilege at this school—or so you think—but if you do not answer my questions at once, I will make life very hard for you.”
He sneered to accentuate his point, leaning down in an attempt to make me feel uncomfortable with the closeness of his face to mine.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, sir. I was asleep.”

  “Asleep?” he asked incredulously.

  “Yes, sir, I was tired and so I went to bed.”

  I punctuated this statement with the summoning of a breath of wind. It would only be enough to ruffle the man’s hair, which it did, yet I hoped that it might confuse him for a moment, buying me some time until help arrived. I was smart enough to realize that the only way I would get out of this in the immediate future would be through the aid of someone I did not wish to rely on. I fervently hoped that today would not be one of those days when Deryn Lhopri decided to show up late.

  My summoning of the air did not have much of an effect. Instead, it only momentarily confused Severin Kerinis before serving to remind him of a very important fact: “You have no windows in this room, Master Aimis, and so this girl could only have come through the door, with you, I must again emphasize, because the door was bolted from the inside.”

  I shifted my focus, thinking that if the wind did not give the man pause, the spontaneous combustion of his hair certainly would. But I hesitated, knowing that I could very easily kill the Synth in so doing, for flames are an incredibly difficult thing to control, especially when one is unable to fully concentrate.

  But the pause was just enough for the looked-for help to arrive. I saw Professor Lhopri enter the room. She caught sight of me immediately, locking her eyes with mine, and shaking her head faintly as though she knew what I was about to do.

  “I will take it from here, Master Kerinis,” she said.

  I don’t think I have ever been so happy to see someone I hated as I was then.

  “Lady Lhopri,” the wise Synth said in an almost sycophantic manner. His demeanor changed in an instant, though this did not prevent him trying to argue with her. “This is a matter of discipline. This student has been found with the body of a dead girl in his room, no apparent way in or out save his barred door—”