Tessili Academy

by Robin Stephen

  “I’m up.” Elle’s voice sounded from above them.

  “Go,” Kae’s voice hissed out of the air beside her. Jey leapt forward.

  She had to release Phril to set her hands on the stone pillar. He fluttered to the nape of her neck and hung to the braid there, hissing. She was about to use a little surge of magic to blast a handhold into the smooth stone, but her fingers found one Elle had already made. She focused, bringing tension into her muscles. She climbed.

  It was tricky. The holds were shallow and the shouts and slamming doors were distracting. But as she climbed Jey felt herself slip into a meditative place of stillness where her mind was concerned with nothing but the task of bracing her fingers, molding her feet, pushing herself up the pillar, one step at a time. She could do this. She was prepared. She’d spent 13 years preparing.

  Elle was visible when Jey reached the rooftop. She reached out a hand. Jey accepted it. Elle pulled her onto the rough slate tiles of the roof. “Now you, Kae,” Jey called down. She too, dropped her passive echo spell to save her strength. As she did she felt the spell that had been clinging to Liam fizzle and fall away. She glanced towards the faculty compound. The building was a dark smudge visible beyond the wall, a few lit windows visible in the night. She couldn’t fathom any way he could have arrived safely back in his own rooms by now.

  Jey pushed thoughts of Liam from her mind. She and Elle waited on the rooftop, gauging Kae’s progress by the darting speck of her tessila. Kae was unwilling or unable to get him to settle.

  Jey moved to the other side of the roof, looking out across the smooth lawn that separated them from the wall beyond. It was not a hugely formidable wall. It was thirty feet high, perhaps, and ten feet thick. Without the magic woven into it, the magic that would kill any tessila it touched, it would have been no barrier at all.

  Along the top of the wall, torches were being lit. One by one, they flared to life like glaring eyes. Shapes of men in dark uniforms were fanning out from the gatehouse, jogging into position. From the west, she heard excited yips and barks, the clang of a gate being thrown open. She remembered Liam’s words. Remember, the hounds can smell you even with your passive echo spells in place.

  Jey heard a thump. She turned to see Kae now also on the roof. The three of them sat for a moment, watching as the academy swarmed into readiness. Jey found her mouth was dry. A cool breeze stirred her thin night dress, but she was not cold. She felt alive for the first time she could remember.

  With a nod to her companions, she leapt off the roof, casting a passive bearing spell to displace her weight and leave it on the rooftop so she fell with less force. She hit the ground and absorbed the impact with her knees. A moment later, Kae and Elle landed on either side of her. Each set down in a ready crouch as Jey had, three fingers against the grass to steady them. They’d all had the same teachers, after all.

  The grass was damp and soft beneath Jey’s feet. The three girls straightened in unison.

  A hound bayed in the darkness. Together, they began to run.

  ◈

  The first hound came barreling out of the darkness, running at speed. It was a tall, fleet creature, with long legs and a narrow head. It was a blur in the night, a flash of white eyes and teeth.

  Jey heard Elle give a little shriek as it came towards them. They hadn’t recast their passive echo spells yet. They’d thought they would have more time. But the dogs were fast. Far faster than Jey had assumed.

  There was a flash and a high yip of pain. Blue light flared in the night. The hound collapsed into a dark heap, dead at Kae’s feet.

  “Passive echo,” Jey hissed. But she knew it was too late. The three girls cast their spells, but there were shouts along the walls as men pointed and cried to one another. That flash of magic had pinpointed their location. The path they’d taken from the academy, straight for the crack in the wall, revealed exactly where they were going. Stupid, stupid, Jey thought to herself as she began to run again. She knew Kae was there. Her green tessila was a frantic, darting whir in the air. Elle was not so easy to spot, but Jey could hear her breathing and the soft thump of her bare feet in the grass.

  They ran to the wall. More hounds streaked through the darkness around them, but the tall, fast animals were sighthounds. She remembered that lesson suddenly, the knowledge spilling into her brain in a rush. Sighthounds hunted by tracking movement. They were fast and strong and could pull down a deer. But they wouldn’t track the girls by scent.

  No. The scenthounds would do that.

  Behind them, in the darkness, a bay rose up at the base of the outer cloister wall. Jey glanced back and saw the bobbing light of lanterns. More bays joined the first as more hounds picked up the trail. She heard a shouted command and knew they were nearly out of time.

  In front of them reared the wall, black and monumental in the night. They reached its base. Jey’s eyes searched frantically for the small crack. Terror gripped her heart when she didn’t see it immediately. What if she’d come to the wrong place? Or what if it had been discovered and repaired since the last time Liam had been able to bring his class here?

  Heart pounding, she stooped behind the rose bush, fingers groping along the rough stone. The hounds bayed again, their voices high and clear, excited and keen.

  At last, Jey’s fingers found the crack. They snagged on its irregular mouth. Inside, she felt the smooth lining of the shieldstone she’d painstakingly made. It had taken so long. She remembered all the hours she’d spent here, mind focused down to a point, extended deep within the wall. First she had chipped out the passage, then she’d transmuted a thin layer of stone. It had gotten more difficult as she’d gone deeper and deeper into the wall.

  But it was finished. She’d completed it in the spring. She could feel the breach in the magic. It was a narrow crack, but it would be enough. She let her breath out with a relief so great it was almost painful.

  The hounds were coming. They were visible now, mottled shapes moving across the dark lawn. Jey spoke into the night “Kae, go.”

  Later, Jey would wonder why she chose to send Kae first. Perhaps it was because Kae had seemed the most decisive, the most angry, the most ready to leave. Perhaps she hadn’t had any reason at all. If she’d had time to think about it, she might have realized the one who went first was taking a risk. The tunnel hadn’t been tested. They had no way of knowing, for sure, that it was safe to use.

  In any case, it was not safe to stay where they were. They had to go. Jey, in that split second, had two names to choose between.

  She felt a brief squeeze on her shoulder, saw Kae’s tessila dart towards the crack in the wall. There was a shower of stone fragments and the quick sound of Kae’s breathing as she scaled the wall. The guards who stood on top stared out towards the lanterns of the group of orderlies who had now reached the dead dog. They had no idea how close they came to death as the lithe, angry Kae passed between them.

  Suddenly, there was a hound. It came running down the lawn, nose to ground. It stopped by the rose bush. It raised its muzzle and let out a long, high howl. “Now you,” Jey said to Elle. Another brief squeeze on her hand, another darting movement as the purple tessila clawed its way into the crack. And Jey was alone.

  ◈

  It hadn’t been difficult for Nylan to figure out where the girls would come over the wall. The guards made it obvious, the way they gathered together, shouting and pointing. Nylan had known better than to think they would let him back into the academy after his little show of temper a few nights before. But he’d be damned if he would see that girl, J114, destroy all he’d worked for. He had given too much. He’d sacrificed his freedom and gone without the most basic comforts and pleasures for years now. He hadn’t minded. Not really. He’d had a goal. He’d been making steady progress. Until J114 had come along.

  Nylan had already been in a deployment block when the academy had burst into sudden, noisy chaos. He was preparing to send a student on a vital opportunity. It was o
ne he’d intended for J114, but now it was too dangerous to use her. He’d been informed all the seniors were unstable. They’d have their silly graduation ceremony in the morning.

  And then, Nylan would kill them.

  Which meant tonight he’d had to settle for a greener student – M215, who hadn’t developed to the level of proficiency Nylan would have preferred for the night’s work. It was, Nylan thought, the great flaw in the way the academy was run. As soon as the girls became effective weapons, they became too dangerous to be allowed to live.

  So, Nylan was already worried and frustrated when the academy exploded into frantic activity. No one came to tell him anything, of course. But Nylan wasn’t the type who enjoyed being told what to do, anyway. He’d always been independent, quick to act of his own volition.

  When he’d realized what must be happening, he’d grabbed a stunrod and strode out of the deployment block. Torches lit the darkness. He walked towards the place of most concentrated activity on the wall. As he walked through the clamoring night, the activity increased. He broke into a jog.

  He reached the wall and looked around, suddenly wary. Up on top, all the guards were looking in the other direction, looking inward.

  Nylan was no fool. He knew one of these girls could kill him as simply as he could crush the little beasts that gave them all their incredible potential. But he also knew J114 was broken – mind muddled by drugs, fragmented by flashnodes, limited by the strange, artificial life she had led. She would be scared tonight, and perhaps careless. Perhaps it would be possible to take her by surprise.

  So Nylan tucked himself into the shadows at the base of the wall. There, he waited.

  It was the tessila that gave her away. It appeared suddenly, as if out of thin air. It darted in a frantic loop, a blur of movement in the night. Nylan saw it. He did not hesitate. He didn’t know how it had gotten over the wall. It was not relevant to the situation at hand. He would figure that out later.

  Fortunately for Nylan, he had plenty of experience destroying the little monsters. He knew how they moved, knew the patterns they tended to fly. He saw its flickering motion out of the corner of his eye, tracked it for an instant, and did not wait. He lashed out with his stunrod. The weapon barely connected, but he felt the kick in his hand as the magic within triggered.

  The tessila, stunned, began to fall. Looping flight interrupted, it tumbled out of the air to crash land onto the soft grass.

  There was a gasp in the darkness, a shimmer on the air. The girl materialized not two feet away from Nylan. It was not J114, but one of the other seniors. That surprised him to stillness for half an instant. He could see in her face that she’d been coming for him. He’d been an instant away from his own death.

  But her creature now lay in the grass, stunned. The girl’s eyes had gone blank with fear and pain.

  Nylan took one step to the side, lifted his booted foot. He stepped down, hard, directly on top of the fallen tessila.

  ◈

  Jey had just sent Phril into the crack when she heard the scream.

  The dogs were upon her now. She’d blasted two of them to death, knowing that doing so revealed to the guards where she was. More and more guards were gathered atop the wall now. They stood shoulder to shoulder, short swords drawn, staring down into the darkness. They formed a barrier of metal and flesh between Jey and her freedom.

  The remaining dogs were hanging back from the rosebush now that several of his companions were dead, but the orderlies were almost there. And they would have stunrods. Beyond that, Jey’s ability to hold her passive echo spell was wavering. It would fall soon, whether she was prepared to be seen or not.

  Jey blasted the life out of one more dog, then turned to grope for the handholds Kae had made in the wall. Again, she cleared her mind. She focused herself down to her grip on the stone, the need to climb, quick and sure.

  It was possible the scream saved her life.

  Jey had nearly reached the top of the wall when several things happened at once. First, she realized she could go no further. There was no way onto the top of the wall with all the men there. Second, a whole pack of orderlies reached the base of the wall and began beating at the rosebush and the surrounding air with their stunrods.

  Third, the scream. It came from the other side of the wall. It was high and eerie in the night. Every guard, every orderly, every hound went momentarily still when they heard it.

  The guards all turned and ran to the other side of the wall. Jey hauled herself upwards. As her arm reached onto the top, she lost her hold on her passive echo spell.

  Below her, an orderly shouted. There was a sharp crack near her head and a spark in the darkness. She realized with sudden terror the man had thrown his stunrod. It had missed her by inches.

  If one of those hits me, I will fall.

  The thought galvanized Jey. She had no time to worry about the scream. She had to save her own skin.

  With one final heave, she made the top of the wall. Several more stunrods clattered and sparked on the stones around her. She lurched forward, never pausing, to crash into the backs of two guards who were staring down over the other side of the wall. She knocked them aside before they could register her presence and threw herself out into the darkness beyond.

  ◈

  Elle was not much prone to anger. Of the three seniors, she was the least deadly. While Elle excelled in situations that required diplomacy or deceit, violence had never come naturally to her. Her specialty was passive persuasion and other spells of the mind.

  She’d climbed the wall quickly, avoided the guards, and leapt off the other side without stopping for a moment to consider what might be waiting at the bottom. None of them had thought beyond getting past the wall. It was a mistake Elle would regret for the rest of her life.

  Elle held her passive bearing spell on the top of the wall, allowing her to land softly. Her tessila, Shai, darted like an arrow through the night. He came straight from the wall to cling to Elle’s braid. As she transferred the brillbane bundle from where she’d gripped it between her teeth back to her hands, she felt their mingled relief at being together again.

  She hadn’t noticed Nylan. He’d been standing so still and quiet, tucked into the shadows at the base of the wall. She’d been preoccupied with the sounds of the baying hounds, the shouts of the guards.

  Kae’s tessila had always been the most aggressive of the three – the fastest to anger, the least inclined to sit still. While Elle’s tessila clung to her body, heeding Elle’s instructions to stay near and stay quiet, Kae’s was a blur of movement in the dark night.

  Elle saw Nylan as he stepped out of the shadows and struck. She saw Kae’s tessila tumble out of the sky, saw Kae appear as her passive echo spell failed.

  And she saw Nylan bring his boot down on top of her friend’s tessila.

  It had all happened too fast. In that instant, there was nothing Elle could do to prevent what happened. There was that horrible thump. Then, Kae crumpled. She collapsed into a limp heap on the grass.

  She was dead. As dead as her tessila.

  Elle screamed. The sound ripped out of her mouth in a kind of animal fury. She suddenly understood how Kae must have felt most of the time. Anger blasted through her like a hot tide. Her vision seemed to go red at the edges. Rage filled her, making her body tremble. She lost her hold on her passive echo spell. The look of terror in Nylan’s eyes as she strode towards him made her smile.

  ◈

  Jey fell through darkness. The torches atop the wall were smears of red light at the edges of her eyes. One of the guards gave a shout and pointed. An arrow sailed through the air towards her, but the aim was off. It had no chance of hitting.

  Jey worked a passive bearing spell as she tumbled, but she could feel her fatigue. She’d drawn too hard on her reserves tonight. For one mad moment she thought the spell would fail. After all she had overcome, she would break her neck and back because she hadn’t been able to contain the force of
her own fall.

  As it happened, Phril clawed his way free of the crack in the wall and flew to her as she fell. He caught onto her wrist. The small warmth of his body against her skin gave her new strength. She managed, at the last instant, to right herself. She landed heavily, but not fatally, in time to see Elle charge towards Nylan.

  It took Jey a moment to grasp the situation. First, she saw Kae’s body. The girl in the pale night dress was collapsed in the grass, as thoroughly dead as the orderly whose neck the girl had broken at the beginning of this insane night. Jey gave a silent gasp and froze in blank horror.

  Kae was dead. Kae was dead, and even Jey, with all the advantages Phril gave her, could do nothing to change that fact.

  Another arrow whizzed through the air, thrumming down to embed itself in the turf beside Jey with a hard thud. Jey tried to cast another passive echo spell, but she was too tired.

  “Elle, come on.” She barked the words as she started forward, casting a passive disruptor spell that knocked several more arrows off course.

  But Elle wasn’t listening. Jey turned to see her stalking Nylan like a cat. The Handler held a stunrod in one hand and a long, cruel knife in the other. He was taking careful backwards steps, facing Elle as she prowled towards him.

  “Elle,” Jey called again, “there’s no time. We have to go.”

  Elle moved then. For a moment, Jey was transfixed by the sheer, fluid beauty of her friend’s form. Elle darted in. Nylan swung the stunrod. The series of movements that happened next was too fast, too precise, too lovely to comprehend.

  Elle blocked the swing. She did not use any magic. She stopped Nylan’s wrist with her hands and broke it with a quick twist. Nylan gasped as the stunrod fell. But he still had the knife. Even as his face went pale with pain, he drove the weapon towards Elle’s exposed side. Like Jey, her friend wore only the pale slip of her night dress.