Sorcery and Scholarships

by Ian Isaro

  While the breathing alone was challenge enough, he was also forced to follow Drawde. It was possible he really might be left behind, since the professor's meandering steps did take him forward at a steady pace.

  "A woman leaves her husband and small children at home." Another story, then. Except they didn't seem to be stories to Drawde, more like statements filtered through his mind. Blake gathered strength while he listened. "Ten thousand years later she returns to find her children grown. She picks them up and dandles them on her knee."

  That one was easy thanks to the mention of ten thousand years. "It's the prophecy, right? Humanity is the children, but who is-"

  Suddenly he was flipping through the air, skin still burning from the waves of power that had slammed into him. It was always two streams of fire, one light and one dark. Apparently Drawde could use both, though he didn't seem to have either Essence. It hurt, and even worse it knocked him further up the slope.

  "No." Drawde grinned down at him cheerfully. "You understand too quickly, and because of that you'll never understand."

  Blake knew he would be punished for guessing the meaning of the stories aloud, but he'd wanted to see the fire again. It was good to get a confirmation that he was right about this one, or at least as close to a confirmation as Drawde ever gave. Nothing to do but continue pulling himself downward.

  As much pain as he was in, he was glad he had been kidnapped by Drawde. Instead of learning things he already knew, he was working a set of magical muscles he hadn't known existed. The stories were lessons of a sort, or at least he thought there was a purpose to it all. After having spent more time with him, he thought Drawde was entirely sane: the sanity was simply distorted by the time it reached anyone else.

  Since the flames had taken a lot out of him, he was glad when Drawde stopped to begin another story. "A couple goes on vacation and disagree with the natives about whether or not they are at home. Where is the airport?"

  Something about realms, maybe? The Mundane was as alien to fey as Spirit was to humans, and maybe there was something native to even this place. But the airport... suddenly Drawde was crouching directly in front of him. "And what is the sky and where are the planes and what is velocity?"

  A hand grabbed the back of his shirt and they were falling. He clenched his eyes, afraid the pressure would damage them. The air was too vast for him now, like trying to inhale a mountain. Somehow he managed to draw breath, but it was literally all he could do. From the darkness, he heard another whisper.

  "Ducks float at the edge of a frozen pond. They see a rabbit coming across them toward the ice and think nothing of it. But in the water beneath the rabbit is the shadow of a shark."

  Blake drew in a deep breath that nearly made him black out. The quiet menace in the voice left no question that the story had been about him. Drawde had some idea that he was only pretending to be incompetent. He walked in realms where Blake could barely even breathe. Maybe he wasn't ready for Axis University after all.

  Then he was dropped to the ground, muscles trembling against the pressure from all sides. His eyes were closed, but he could feel Drawde crouch down next to him.

  "But that's alright. I like rabbits. And sharks. And ice."

  It cost him a painful amount of air, but Blake laughed. Even if he got a straight answer, could he understand what he'd gotten himself into?

  Chapter 6

  Space itself twisted into a spiral. When Aki looked down at herself, her body was warped into a corkscrew that vanished into some point far below. That was freaky, but Emile had told her what to expect. It was all just her mind interpreting sights it wasn't equipped to understand.

  Her real worries were when she arrived. The first examination would determine her scholarships and therefore how screwed she would be by loan sharks. Though she had learned more in the past months than she had in the rest of her life, as it went along she had been failing more and more of the exercises she'd been given. Maybe she really couldn't hack it at a professional level?

  The world untwisting nearly made her vomit. Seeing straight again was even worse than the twisted passage, but Aki was glad to have solid ground beneath her feet. When she had heard the university was in a realm of Spirit, she had expected something... different.

  Axis University had a campus like any other, except for being in another dimension. She was standing in a circular plaza surrounded by grass. Further out was a ring of buildings, some old brick monstrosities and some modern glass and steel. Overhead was a peaceful sky with picturesque clouds. There were a decent number of trees around the campus, but of different types. One building was surrounded by a forest of dark green, another grove had thin white trunks, and she thought she even saw cherry blossoms in the distance.

  When she finished spinning in a circle she was facing the building she assumed was her destination. Emile had said Axis Hall looked like a castle, and the mass of dark stone fit that description. Since there was no one to greet her, she headed toward it.

  Behind her she felt someone else coming through the magic tunnel. Once she wouldn't have been able to feel it, but now it was almost second nature - "almost" because she still marveled that it had happened so easily.

  Looking back, she realized that the plaza was not merely a random pattern. It was divided between light and dark halves, reminding her of a yin yang except that they were separated in the center by a wavy silver line. There was also no dark in the light or vice versa, which bothered her more the more she thought about it. She was torn away from staring at it only when someone else twisted into being.

  The arrival was a young man with dark hair and eyes, but she barely had any time to look at him since he didn't seem at all disoriented. Seeing her, he gave a friendly smile. "Headed to Ax Hall for the initiation tests? You're going the right way."

  "Thanks." She let him catch up to her and they walked toward the building together. "So you're a returning student?"

  "Yeah, I guess so." He pushed his hair out of his face and shook his head. "It's only been a semester, but it feels like a lot longer than that."

  "But you're going to the initiation? I thought that was only the first time."

  "Believe me, I wish I could keep getting the scholarship. No, I'm just here to see a cousin of mine. She just made it into Axis and we're all hoping she'll succeed. My name's Edgar, by the way."

  "Aki."

  They made their way up the unnecessarily large stairs since there didn't seem to be another entrance. The doors themselves were strangely without texture - she wasn't even sure if they were metal or plastic. She tried to figure out how to open them for a while before glancing at Edgar.

  "You'll get used to doors like this pretty quickly." He brushed his fingers against the dark surface and the doors slid open silently. She felt a slight surge of magic, little more than announcing his presence. It was the type Emile had called Maleficium; she hadn't used it much but she thought she could open the doors on her own now.

  They walked through a simple lobby with offices on the sides, but it was obvious their destination was the open set of double doors on the other side. As she neared the entrance she felt another surge of apprehension but swallowed it.

  Then she crossed the threshold and entered Axis University.

  ~ ~ ~

  Everyone looked up when more students entered, though Blake tried to shift only his eyes. He was glad to see Aki had made it. Normally he would have gone over to talk to her, but everyone would see him do it and that would be obnoxious. Instead he settled back in his chair to continue the wait.

  The hall that gave the building its name would have been more impressive if he hadn't spent so long in Drawde's realm. As it was, he had to admire anyone who built something so ridiculously huge. It was far larger than necessary for the entering class, but there were a fair number of chairs along the sides for observers.

  Between the rows of chairs was an ancient podium. There had been a lecture stand on it when he had first arrived, but
it had quickly been removed. He thought of it as a podium, but it looked like it might have served as a sacrificial altar in ages past. There was a stone circle locked into the floor, more slabs forming concentric circles that rose stair-like higher than his shoulders.

  On the top there was some kind of carving he hadn't been able to examine, but otherwise the stones were blank. He could feel layers upon layers of magic in them, though. He recognized it from his father's work, but Propitiation was what the school called it.

  "So you're the one Darkness has pinned all its hopes on." He could hear the capitalization in her voice. Blake took his time looking up at Bianca. She was one of the older Light candidates he wasn't impressed with, though he had to admit she was unquestionably better than him.

  "Is that so? I'm afraid they'll be disappointed."

  "That's exactly what I was thinking. If there's any proof this prophecy has gotten rusty, it's the kind of worthless fools it chooses for champions."

  "I assume you would know, oh champion of Light." It was the obvious line, but her mouth twitched in a brief frown. "Are light and darkness clubs here or something? Everyone seems so zealous about it, you have to wonder if there are points on the line or something."

  Bianca sniffed. "You're still not taking this seriously."

  "Nope."

  "I don't understand why everyone says you have so much potential for Darkness. Even if you were motivated, you don't seem all that evil."

  Blake gave her a lazy smile. "Maybe evil is less punching kittens or eating puppies and more a state of absolute selfishness."

  "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

  "Dunno. I read it in a book or something."

  "You're not going to last long like this. Even the most worthless of students have been working to improve themselves for the last four months. I doubt you did anything wherever you vanished to."

  "Oh, that's not true. I got an amazing tan, do you want to see? I'd be happy to take off my shirt."

  That finally got her to leave in disgust. Hopefully she would confer with her flunkies and all of them would know to leave him alone. Since he'd bothered to stand up, Blake stretched for a minute and looked around the chamber again.

  Light was beginning to shine around the edge of the top stone on the podium. The initiation ceremony was about to begin.

  ~ ~ ~

  Keisha hit the ground harder than she had intended and her knees almost buckled. It would have been easier to use the normal channels to enter Axis University, but too slow. Because Tierdrial's realm had unchanging light she had been keeping track of the time, but between packing her things again and preparing for the initiation, she had nearly made herself late.

  Fortunately, the light and dark plaza meant she had successfully come directly. According to her watch everything would have started a few minutes ago, assuming time was the same here. There was a path to the main building and she began walking down it as fast as was respectable.

  "There's no hurry." The voice came from a short man approaching the building from one of the side paths. Since his face wasn't familiar to her he wasn't a professor, but he could easily be another staff member. His hair was brown streaked with grey, his eyes were too dark to be brown, and there was a cigarette hanging from his lips. His pace was a stroll at best.

  "Has the initiation not started yet?"

  "They haven't gotten to anything important." His path merged with hers and he walked beside her. She tried to walk just faster than him to make him speed up but his pace did not change. "You're going to be fine."

  "Thank you. My name is Keisha Davis. You are?"

  "Pavel Tolstoy."

  "Really? Any relation to the writer?"

  He took a long drag on his cigarette. "I'm an immortal. I used the name Leo Tolstoy when I was in a writing mood."

  Her eyes widened and then immediately narrowed. With everything that had happened to her recently, she was willing to believe many things were possible, but she still knew bullshit when she heard it. "I guess you get that question too often."

  "Something like that." As they neared the steps he flicked his cigarette to the side. "No matter how many new groups of students I see, it never stops being dull. Their results matter a great deal to them, of course, but this is a waste of my time."

  Keisha kept her face blank. With an attitude like that, he was probably someone deep in administration. Even a university like Axis needed students to support itself. However, she wasn't sure if he honestly didn't understand that or if he simply didn't care.

  Still, he was able to open the Maleficium door without even a wave, so he had some skill. If she was with a staff member that might make her late entry seem more acceptable. Inside Axis Hall there was a closed set of double doors, made from ancient-looking wood. She could hear the sounds of many people inside and could only hope the ceremony hadn't begun. Pavel shoved the doors open with one hand and slouched in.

  Everyone looked at them and Keisha tried to slip to the side. A woman standing near the central podium glared, but she was watching Pavel. He strode up the central aisle without pausing.

  "Finally," the woman said, then in a louder voice, "I'm pleased to introduce Pavel Tolstoy, Academic Dean of Axis University."

  Keisha sat down numbly.

  ~ ~ ~

  Under normal circumstances Aki wanted to sleep through ceremony speeches. This one had kept her awake because she was continually amazed how boring it was. The dean spoke without any notes, which would have been more impressive if the speech gave any indication he cared.

  Once he sat down, they moved on to the actual initiation exams. Since they didn't seem to be going in alphabetical order, she worked herself into a steadily more nervous state. It didn't help when a large hand clapped her on the back.

  "Hey, you made it!"

  It was Eron again, grinning cheerfully. She answered with the best smile she could manage. "Yeah. I just hope I can earn enough to pay for tuition."

  "You can't pay for it? Yeah, I guess that would be a problem." Eron rubbed his jaw. "If I remember correctly it's part raw strength, part how much you improved, and part potential. Uh, you think you can do well on those?"

  "I hope so." The problem was that she had no idea how high the bar had been set. She thought she had improved a lot, but maybe she was boasting that she could run a mile in under ten minutes.

  "Well, good luck." He left her with another bruising strike to her shoulders and ambled away.

  The test itself didn't seem to difficult, but that only worried her because it didn't seem like she could try especially hard. Students walked to the center of the podium and the energy flared around them for a moment. Apparently from the resistance they offered, the faculty could get an accurate estimate of worth as a student.

  So far she hadn't known any of the other students. Others seemed to be in the same situation, because the overall mood was boredom and distraction. A young black woman had caught everyone's attention when she got what was apparently a nearly perfect score. While she didn't seem arrogant about it, she also didn't seem surprised. Aki wished she had half as much self-confidence.

  "How are you feeling?" It was Emile, and his voice made her feel a little better.

  "I'm sure I'm going to screw this up. I couldn't keep up with half the things you were trying to teach me, I don't think I have a chance with this."

  "Well, this is where I tell you that the slippers weren't magic all along." He grinned as her head whipped around to stare at him. "Your challenges would have been better suited for a student with two or three semesters completed. Comparatively, this will be nothing."

  "Why didn't you tell me that, you jerk? I've been pulling my hair out here!" She hit his shoulder and he only chuckled.

  "If you can reach a goal easily, what's the point?"

  Suddenly everything had changed for her and she tried to keep her excitement from getting out of hand. "So am I going to do really well on this?"

  "Well, yes. Since y
ou started with some experience you can't improve like Keisha did. And unfortunately they'll rank your potential lower since you aren't particularly Light or Dark. But you'll ace the power part and I'm pretty sure you'll get into the Legacy bracket."

  "Which is... a good thing?"

  "It's the top one. But you don't want to think about financial aid before it's absolutely necessary. It's a complete mess."

  For a moment they only stood and watched the students enter one at a time. Many advanced students could estimate how well each student did, but thankfully the faculty kept the exact results secret. Some left the circle elated, some depressed, and many uncertain.

  After a time Aki took a breath. "Thanks for everything, Emile." But he was gone.

  ~ ~ ~

  It seemed Keisha had lived up to his fears. There were other Light candidates, but none had been nearly so impressive. There were fewer with Dark Essences, but more of them were notable. A woman named Morissa Khatri had done exceptionally well, though she didn't seem happy about it. There was also a man who hadn't gone yet who seemed dangerous; Blake had learned his name was Otryad Temujin.

  Soon they would be getting to his name. His palms were sweating despite all of his preparation. This was a simple deception, but it was in front of his entire class and most of the faculty. It was time to see if his reputation would be enough.

  By the time his name was called, he had his face set in a cocky smile. The only sign of his tension was how heavy his legs felt as he stepped up the stone circles. He felt the crackle as he stepped into the circle of light, then nothing.

  The light had only flickered around the other students, but it felt like a column of fire. It wasn't strong but it was unstoppable, flooding through his body as if he didn't exist. He instinctively braced himself, afraid it would incinerate him and blow away the char, yet there was no real pain. Almost as soon as it had began it was over. His tired slouch was only partially feigned.

  When he turned toward the faculty, their expressions were suitably odd. The dean stared at him for a long moment and then stood up.