Tessili Academy

by Robin Stephen

  Professor Liam was at the top of the room, leaning against his desk. The two observation orderlies were in the corner, like always. As the door behind Jey fell closed, Professor Liam asked the question she’d been anticipating all day. “Ah, Jey. Good morning. Tell me, how is our little experiment progressing?”

  Jey almost told him. The words were there, in her head, ready to speak.

  It was his face that warned her. After he asked the question, he seemed to see she would answer him. His eyes widened in sudden surprise. Then, his hand, which was resting on the edge of the desk next to him, made a sudden, quick flick to the side. It was the hand that was on the opposite side of his body from the orderlies at their desk.

  Jey didn’t know what the gesture meant, but she caught the words she’d been going to say. A wave of fear-filled uncertainty washed over her.

  Heart pounding, Jey forced the muscles in her face to go slack. She let her head tip to one side. She stared at Professor Liam without saying anything. She’d observed other girls do this, when asked a question they did not know an answer to. They didn’t come up with guesses, they didn’t answer back. They only stared, as if the words had not been words at all, but some unintelligible, vaguely unpleasant sound.

  Professor Liam drew in a quick, shallow breath. “Jey,” he prodded, “you remember our lesson from yesterday, don’t you?”

  Jey let her brows draw together. She turned to stare out the window. In doing so, she noticed the orderlies. Where usually the observers sat in attitudes of studied boredom, these two today carried a different air. They both sat straight at their polished table, staring at Jey with bright, focused eyes. Though they both wore tan robes, one had purple piping along the collar and seams. High Orderly Fras. Jey recognized the man, but she had no idea when she’d ever seen him before.

  Professor Liam went on. “Professor Straph said you were distracted while sparring yesterday. He said you attributed that to me.”

  Jey, feeling she’d been silent too long, said, “Yesterday.” She let the word come out in a slow, wondering tone, as this was a concept she’d encountered before but did not understand.

  “Enough, Liam, you’ve made your point. See what she knows with help from the holdstone.” This came from the High Orderly. He looked annoyed, as if Liam had said something insulting.

  Professor Liam gestured to a desk with a holdstone set on its corner. Jey moved forward in slow but easy obedience. Phril was perched on her shoulder, gnawing at the brillbane seed sack. She lifted her hand to him. He stepped onto it willingly enough, holding his seed in his mouth. She then moved her hand so he could step from her skin to the warm stone. He did so without hesitation, crouching again once he was in place so he could continue to work on his sack. Jey settled into her seat.

  The room was huge and silent. Sun spilled through the high windows. Jey had to fight the urge to look at the dim corner where the High Orderly sat. “Now,” Professor Liam said, “Tell me, how is our little experiment progressing?”

  Jey let her eyes slide halfway closed. She felt a strange stirring in her mind, a sense of large shapes moving in darkness. She could feel so many intent eyes upon her. “I …” she faltered. This was much harder than feigning pure ignorance. Clearly, they expected her to know more now that Phril was on the stone. But how much more? “I lost the spell,” she finally said after a long pause. She let the words trail out of her one by one. “Some time. After I left. I’m not sure.”

  Professor Liam looked disappointed, but High Orderly Fras rose to his feet as if satisfied. He was a large man, tall, with a round barrel of a chest and soft, smooth cheeks. As he swept towards the door, he spoke. “No more unorthodox experiments, Liam. Particularly not on this one.”

  ◈

  Elle’s hair was dark and silky. The other girl rested against Jey’s legs in languid peace as Jey leaned against the arm of the couch. On the other side of the large room, Kae stood in front of an easel, holding a brush and palette. Around the outside of the round space with the flashnode at its peak, ten alcoves indented into the exterior wall. Jey had counted them when she and her roommates had returned to their dorm after dinner. Only three of them held beds and small tables. The other seven were full of potted brillbane.

  Elle was humming as Jey brushed her hair. While the other two girls seemed easy and content, Jey was boiling with frustration. She’d tried to ask her two friends about what they’d done today. While they’d both answered easily in vague terms, when she pressed she couldn’t get them to tell her anything specific. For instance, the question, “What did you think of the new dance?” got her nothing but long silences and troubled frowns. And worse, every time the flashnode went off it reset her friends, completely erasing their memories of the conversation they’d been having.

  For the moment, Jey had stopped trying. Both Elle and Kae had seemed to be growing a little agitated. It had seemed the flashnode was going off with increasing frequency. Jey had stopped asking questions. Her friends had lapsed straight back into quiet contentment.

  Jey hadn’t managed to retrieve the holdstone until after dinner, and she’d done so at some risk. She’d drifted towards Professor Liam’s classroom, pretending to follow Phril with mild irritation as he’d gone for the broken husk again in search of another seed sack. Other girls had drifted around her as they headed to their dorms for the night. She’d felt exposed and conspicuous, walking on a line different from the others.

  But she’d retrieved the holdstone, tucked it into her palm, and given Phril another seed. She’d made her slow, quiet way back to her dorm. She’d tucked the holdstone into a small notch in the wall. It was behind her bedframe – a place where one of the stones of the wall had crumbled away to form a small pocket large enough to hold a few small items.

  Now, as Jey brushed her friend’s hair and listened to the low tone of her humming, her heart began to pound as she considered what she knew. Her memories started with that day in Professor Liam’s classroom – the day he’d asked her to cast a passive shield on Phril. Since then, Jey could remember.

  Elle’s purple tessila was stretched out on the girl’s thumb, wings drooping in content relaxation. Jey experienced a strange feeling of déjà vu as she looked at him, convinced she’d lived this scene before. Not once, but many times.

  Phril was perched on a brillbane stalk in the corner, gnawing on his seed with furious enjoyment. Jey sent him a mental nudge, a suggestion to make his way beneath her bed and climb into the crevice where the stolen holdstone lay.

  He went with some reluctance, carrying his seed in his mouth and glaring at her. When he was settled, Jey tried to relax. She set the brush down and began to braid the long, fine strands of Elle’s hair. Jey imagined Professor Liam’s deep, gentle voice saying, “Cast a passive shield on Elle’s tessila.” Jey had gotten so used to holding Phril’s passive shield she almost forgot she was doing it at times. And now, with Phril on the holdstone, she found it was easy to weave another spell just like it. She summoned several strands of magic, knit them together with the proper weave, and snugged the spell over Elle’s tessila.

  The diminutive purple creature sat up with a sudden start. Like Phril, Elle’s tessila had liquid black eyes set into a narrow face. Unlike Phril, Elle’s tessila had a set of spikes that formed a sharp fan around the back of the skull. Now, although the animal was small enough to perch on her friend’s thumb, Jey felt a sudden shock of fear as Elle’s tessila fixed its sharp eye on her and let out a fierce, angry hiss.

  Jey’s hands forgot about the braid. She concentrated. She could feel the tessila was resisting her desire to secure the spell into place.

  Elle opened her eyes. She looked down at her hand. Jey couldn’t see her face, but she could imagine the small frown creasing her forehead. She moved her other hand, bringing it in to stroke her tessila along the jaw. She said, “Quiet down now, love. Everything is all right.”

  Elle, unaware of what Jey was doing, could only have meant to sooth in
general. But the tessila seemed to apply the words to the situation at hand. Still glaring at Jey, the tessila quieted. Jey felt the animal stop resisting the spell. Hurrying so as not to let her moment pass, Jey finished the weaving, snugged the spell into place, and let go.

  The tessila settled back down on Elle’s thumb, broadcasting a mild, disgruntled air. Jey returned her attention to the braid. She suggested to Phril that he could leave the holdstone, if he wanted. He emerged from beneath the bed a moment later, a darting red arrow returning to his perch on the brillbane bush.

  Jey tied off the braid with a golden ribbon. She leaned down to say, very softy, next to Elle’s ear, “Elle, I need to explain some things. I think, from now on, you’re going to be able to remember.”

  ◈

  Jey had just finished her explanation when the door to their room opened. She was unable to prevent herself from jumping at the harsh click of the latch and the way the door swung in with enough force to bang against the wall.

  Fortunately, both Elle and Kae startled too. Elle sat up in a quick jerk to gaze towards the door with wide eyes. Kae froze in the act of reaching brush to canvas. Her tessila, which had been flying lazy loops around her head, darted down to cling to the shoulder of her dress.

  Two men stood in the open door. One of them spoke in a tone of frustrated impotence. “We always enter their rooms quietly, Nylan. Particularly the seniors. Startling them can have consequences.”

  The speaker was an orderly. Jey recognized him as the one who’d guided her forward after the flashnode had gone off outside the dining hall – the older of the two whose conversation she’d overheard.

  Jey hardly registered his words. She recognized the other man, and that name. Nylan. She felt a shock in her sternum, accompanied by a frantic desire to run.

  But she couldn’t run. For one thing, the men were blocking the door. For another, running would give her away.

  The orderly was still speaking. “I must insist you wait. There must be at least two orderlies present any time students are with a professor or a handler.”

  Not heeding the orderly, Nylan stepped into the room. His eyes sought Jey and settled onto her. “As High Handler, that rule does not apply to me.” His tone was unpleasant and sneering. He strode into the room, filling the space with violent, bristling energy.

  He strode straight to Jey, who jumped back from his approach, cringing and flinching in spite of herself. The orderly came in as well, trailing behind in ineffectual persistence. His voice was higher and smoother, but no less angry. “Perhaps not in the deployment blocks, but you have no such clearance here.”

  Nylan appeared not to hear. He followed Jey as she backed away, pressing forward until she bumped into the stone wall between two alcoves and could retreat no further.

  Phril, agitated, leapt from his perch on the brillbane bush. He flashed through air, darting for Nylan’s eyes like an angry spark. Nylan raised a hand as if to dash the tessila to the ground.

  The orderly shouted. “No!” His voice was high and panicked. Nylan seemed to realize what he was doing. He only used his hand to shield his face. Phril dashed himself against the man’s fingers, clawing with his tiny talons, hissing and snarling with hot fury.

  “Contain your creature, girl.” Nylan grated these words from between clenched teeth.

  “Here,” Jey whispered, tapping her shoulder, remembering at the last instant not to call her tessila by name. But Phril was angry. She could feel his rage. He wanted to tear Nylan to pieces, wanted to destroy him as completely as he’d shredded the seed sack earlier. In other circumstances, it might have been funny. The tessila wasn’t even as long as Nylan’s nose.

  But nothing about this moment was amusing. Jey could sense the potential for disaster. It hung in the air like a silent promise. Jey sent Phril a sharper command, this one silent.

  With evident reluctance, the tiny creature left off attacking Nylan’s face. The orderly had caught up by then and had set a hand on Nylan’s shoulder as if to push him away from Jey. He was spluttering half sentences. “Irreversible damage … no authorization.”

  Nylan lowered his hand as Phril settled. Ignoring the orderly, he reached out and seized Jey’s right wrist. He pushed the sleeve of her dress up her arm to reveal the strange gash. It was less red now, perhaps a little smaller. But it still gave off that faint blue tinge around the edges.

  Nylan dropped the arm as quickly as he’d seized it. He let the orderly force him back a few steps. His face was dark, eyes sharp with anger. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He snapped the words in a tone so harsh, Jey flinched.

  Jey’s heart was pounding. Phril’s violent anger was like a red haze clouding her vision. Fortunately, she had no idea what he was talking about. The blank look she directed at him was genuine. Of course, she’d been aware of the mark on her arm. The orderly that helped them to bed each night had rubbed ointment on it yesterday. She also remembered Professor Liam commenting on it. And it pained her, sometimes, if she pressed up against something or bumped into that place.

  But she didn’t know where it had come from any more than she knew anything else from before the day Professor Liam had told her to cast a spell on Phril and leave it there.

  “She can’t answer you without a holdstone, you idiot.” The orderly was fully red in the face now. He kept glancing towards the door as if expecting reinforcements.

  Nylan reached into his vest and pulled out a syringe. Jey saw it, and her heart leapt. She felt a sudden fierce anticipation, a feeling of desire so intense it churned in her veins like fire.

  The orderly saw it too. His red face paled, his eyes widening with horror. “Not here, Nylan. Great Trisis, man. Are you mad?”

  Nylan held out one rough-palmed hand. He locked his angry gaze onto Jey’s. She couldn’t look away. “Give me your tessila,” he said.

  The orderly pushed himself in front of Jey, shielding her with his soft body. “No. Absolutely not. This is insanity. You’ll bring it all down upon our heads.”

  Phril, in any case, had tucked himself into the warm hair at the base of Jey’s skull, quivering with fear and anger. She knew he wouldn’t have gone, even if she’d told him to.

  The two men faced each other for what seemed an age. Behind them, Jey could hear the quiet sound of Elle crying.

  Then, at last, six more orderlies burst through the door, robes flapping, puffing as if they’d sprinted all the way across the quad. Perhaps they had.

  Nylan knew he was beaten. With a quiet oath, he stepped backwards, returning the syringe to his vest. As the six orderlies hurried across the stone floor, sandals slapping, all of them asking questions at once, he turned and stalked back across the room.

  As he left, he spoke. “Perhaps they’d be more effective if you didn’t coddle them so much.”

  With that, he was gone, leaving the door flung open behind him.

  ◈

  Nylan stalked into the audience hall – a spacious, round room that overlooked the quad. It was a room Nylan was familiar with. Once a week, he was summoned here to report outcomes.

  Today’s meeting, however, was not routine. It was barely dawn. Nylan had been shaken out of his bed as the first light had begun to pale the horizon. He’d been alarmed at first, certain one of the girls had finally snapped, that something had gone terribly wrong.

  But no. It was nothing so dire. Nylan had merely angered the bureaucrats with his unorthodox behavior the day before. And today he would have to face the consequences.

  Nylan wasn’t sure what the orderlies used this hall for. It had seating for a great many – more orderlies, he suspected, than currently resided at the academy. But that was not surprising. There was space for more professors, more handlers, more students.

  Which was one of the reasons Nylan was constantly stressed these days. It was growing increasingly difficult to meet the demands placed upon him. While the number of students at Tessili Academy was falling, the number of opportunities Nylan was
expected to complete was not.

  It was a real problem, and one that showed no indication of going away. If Nylan hadn’t had so much at stake, he might have found a grim irony in the academy’s plight. After all, this outcome was predictable. If you systematically cull a population that expresses certain heritable traits, those traits are going to become scarce as time goes on.

  There was no quick fix. Nylan had proposed what he thought a reasonable solution to see it summarily rejected. Alarmingly, the idea of keeping the girls active for one more year had gained traction not long ago, almost to the point of being enacted. But then this crop of seniors came along. Support for that idea vanished.

  But none of that was why Nylan was here today. He knew that. So he strode in, stopped on the circular floor before the large desk where High Orderly Fras and two attendants presided. He fixed the large, soft man with his glittering stare. Behind the orderly, the sky was a pale shade of pink through the high, narrow windows. “You wanted to see me, Fras?”

  Nylan’s relationship with the High Orderly was not a comfortable one. They existed on two separate trees of power. The High Orderly ran the academy. He oversaw the other orderlies and monitored the students. He was responsible for every decision, small and large, that pertained to the daily life within these walls. His authority on certain matters was total.

  He did not, however, have authority over Nylan. Nylan was on a different, separate, ladder. He answered only to the Dean. What’s more, as High Handler, he was privy to certain truths the orderlies could only guess at.

  Fras knew this, and at times responded to Nylan’s very existence as a personal insult. Now, he stared back at Nylan. His eyes were hard and flat. He said, “Explain yourself.”

  Nylan knew what Fras wanted him to explain. His forced entrance into the academy last night had been against protocol. He’d known that at the time. But he’d needed to see – to confirm for himself the rumor that had run to him through the gossip chain of the orderlies was true. And now that he’d seen what he’d seen, it changed everything.

  “High Orderly Fras, perhaps you’re not aware. One of our students returned from an opportunity with an injury …”