Chapter Three
The rest of the day had been a mad rush.
I’d picked up my uniform—a green velvet vest and long charcoal coat with green piping to be worn over gray-brown trousers and cream-colored shirt supplied by each student.
Presumably because the internal attire required the most tailoring to fit the student’s species.
I’d explored the common rooms of the dormitory, including a large open lounge, a quiet reading room, and bathrooms with hot and cold running water!
I’d even found a few hangers.
Feelings that my life was organized and under control proved fleeting with the start of classes the next day.
Geomagic was one of the classes in common with many other specializations, and in addition to Lady Arazniros and Brenda, I recognized all three disapproving elves from the prior day. Fortunately, with a good eighty students in class, I was able to sit well away from them.
“Magic.” The instructor, an elven woman in traditional silk robes, spoke coolly.
“It is the core of our world, it is the foundation of civilizations, it influences all life. It influences our geology, mineral formations, and even topography. And is in turn influenced by the same. Geomagic is therefore the foundation, the bedrock of all natural sciences taught at this illustrious institution. Let us see how well you grasp the rudiments of the subject. Take out a standard sheet of paper and pencil. Books away, this will be a short quiz.”
I put away my notebook, leaving a single sheet atop the polished hickory desk. Geomagic had never been my strongest subject, so many formulas, and the phases and crystallization of minerals was daunting to grasp. I’d practiced and practiced to become ‘adequate.’
The instructor began writing questions on the blackboard in quick succession.
“May we use trig tables?” asked a long-haired elven woman.
“You may not.” The instructor continued to speak as she wrote.
“This institution has seen fit to establish a specialization for pure magic. A specialization with perilous similarities to the ratings system used for battlemages in the dark days of the Melandrach Empire. I cannot argue with that. Yet I would expect members of this new specialization to display excellence in geomagical theory. Along with a healthy reverence for the lessons of history.”
Ahh, the controversy.
She turned over an hourglass.
Ten questions, most with calculations, and it looked like a ten-minute hourglass.
On the plus side, I knew the basic structure of most of the questions, knowing which formulas to apply. On the minus side, there were a few truly baffling questions, and I wasn’t especially fast with some of the calculations.
Many minutes of frantic scribbling later, I’d just finished question six when I glanced in horror at the mostly empty hourglass.
Faster, faster, faster.
The last two answers were hardly better than guesses, but I managed to fill in something for every question when the command came to put pencils down.
“Line up, single file, I will grade your quizzes.” The instructor stood at the corner of the black marble demonstration table in front of the blackboards.
With so many students, I assumed it would take the remainder of the period to correct them all, yet she evaluated each in a matter of seconds, directing each student in turn to write their own name, score, and specialization on the blackboard.
Those with the mage specialization in red chalk.
Some said elves were naturally more intelligent than humans, others that it was down to the superior schooling most had access to.
Either way, I had to grudgingly admire the speed at which the instructor scored the quizzes.
I slumped into the hardwood backrest of my desk. I’d done a lot of work to get in. I expected a lot more work this semester. I hadn’t expected to get hit with that on day one.
No pattern I could discern emerged as the right-hand edge of the blackboard filled in with names and quiz scores.
My heart surged with every score below mine, then sank with each student noting their name above mine.
I recognized a few names. Brenda slightly below mine, her friend the neko woman near the top, along with Lady Arazniros, and no idea where our disapproving trio scored as I hadn’t bothered to learn their names.
When the last student returned to their seat, I judged my performance slightly above average.
The instructor disagreed, shooting disparaging glares at names marked in red chalk. And proceeded to lecture on the basics of geomagical theory for the next ninety minutes.
The bell rang.
I massaged my temples, doing the same to cramped, aching hands.
That was only the first class.
Events hit rapidly for the rest of the day.
Classes, quick meals in the cafeteria, even physical training.
The training area comprised martial training dummies, target ranges, gymnastics and sparring areas, even a lap pool.
While I recognized the function of the rooms and equipment, a few of the constructs baffled me, such as that set of wooden poles at odd angles.
Some sort of obstacle course? But I didn’t have time to ask.
I skipped rope, did a round of push-ups, sit-ups, a few minutes on the balance trainer, showered, and hit the next class.
The warm water shower was a novelty. A luxury even. But there was no time to enjoy it.
The second and third days were more of the same.
My schedule varied according to the day of the week, with most classes including a lab session that dragged them to as much as four hours.
And there was homework. Lots of homework.
There was also academy service: work assignments in various areas around campus as a condition of the academy’s token attendance fee.
I encountered those few people I recognized, but there was no time for socializing, no time to get to know them better.
I’d occasionally spot Cleggs or Brenda in the cafeteria, but though the food was good, time was short.
Enough to eat meals without giving yourself a stomachache, not enough to speak more than a few words to friends.
Friends?
Maybe they would be friends in time, but for now I was lucky to remember names and a few details about them.
The only one that I knew more about was Lady Arazniros.
A life-and-death encounter aboard a sinking ship will do that.
Despite our both sharing the mage specialization, we had only two classes in common, Geomagic and Basic Magic Constructs.
The latter I was considerably stronger in.
Yet despite our longer history, Lady Arazniros was more a mystery than anyone else.
A demand from House Greanderal to inspect my belongings for ‘contraband’ had been the only repercussion of the first day’s incident.
The faculty adviser, Master Arel, had delivered it, along with an addendum from the academy dismissing it due to lack of jurisdiction.
And a cryptic warning that I appeared to have displeased a powerful local family.
I’d thanked him politely for it, but seethed internally.
They’d tried to confiscate my luggage, then had the gall to demand it after I’d taken it back.
Two hundred rope skips and six extra sets of calisthenics finally worked that frustration out of my system.
I extended my legs straight out, toes pointed, savoring the full length of a bed sized for elves.
Cool moonlight bathed the room as I reclined in silence.
Cleggs was out, somewhere. In fact, I’d never heard him come to bed.
I picked up subtle sounds as my mind slowed from the day’s frenetic schedule.
The low thunk, thunk, thunk of the radiator.
A few muddled words from a neighboring room.
Footfalls of someone in the hall. I’d made it through three days, but it didn’t feel like any sort of accomplishment.
I’d completed assignments required for the next day, that was it.
I was keeping my head above water, but it felt like I drifted further and further from shore.
Lady Arazniros. Why did I keep thinking about her?
It wasn’t like I had the time to daydream or fantasize.
No, not fantasize. She was an intellectual puzzle, nothing more.
She was curt, icy, and aristocratic. She’d refused my help.
Aboard a sinking ship! Who does that? And why? What did she have against me?
I stretched my arms over my head, feeling the slight burn from the four sets of push-ups that afternoon. So nice to stretch all the way out like this.
She couldn’t have anything against me personally. Aboard the ship, we’d literally just met. The trade schooner I sailed on was responding to the clipper’s distress signal, so there was no chance I’d inadvertently insulted her on some previous…
What was she in the middle of?
We exchanged polite greetings, glances, and waves at the academy. Nothing more than what two casual acquaintances attending school together would do. Why did I keep staring at her legs? They were quite lovely, long and sleek, but not that nice.
OK, maybe they were that nice. With that dress she wore when we first met, I couldn’t really appreciate them, but in the school uniform? Wow. Nice lips too, thick and full, even if she never showed emotion on them. A full smile with those lips would probably melt me.
Of course, there were other things one could do with lips like that—go to sleep, Theo!
? ? ?
Near the end of the week, I settled into a high-backed armchair in the dormitory’s lounge area after supper, looking forward to the weekend more than any time in recent memory.
No recreation planned. Just getting caught up on homework would be pure bliss.
I leafed through one of my notebooks for a few minutes before my eyelids grew heavy and my concentration waned.
Just too much. The lounge area still looked like a hotel: comfortable furniture, a pair of hearths, ferns and tropical plants in marble pots.
Cozy. Maybe a little too cozy at the moment.
I set notebooks aside and took out my channeling clock—a wooden case half the size of a book with magic gems set into various armatures.
Set the clock to a certain configuration, and mentally direct the flow of magic to make the gems light up, go dark, or change colors.
I could do a few actual, useful spells. Light a candle from a dozen paces away, that sort of thing.
First-year classes were almost exclusively theory, but I didn’t want to get out of practice, and there was a mental calm that came from simple channeling exercises. A calm I desperately needed.
“Heya Teddy, how goes?” Cleggs plopped into the chair next to mine.
I clenched my eyes shut. Of all the variations of my name, ‘Teddy’ was my least favorite. Which I had pointed out to Cleggs several times.
Sighing, I forced my eyes open. “Tired is how it’s going. Geomagic is really kicking my butt.” I cocked my head. “It’s a required first-year class, isn’t it? Or are you taking it next semester?”
“Nah.” He waved a hand at me. “I tested out of it. I’m in advanced geomagic.”
“Serious?”
“I’m a gnome who’s grown up in a mining town. Gimme a little credit.”
I shook my head. “Fair.”
He cracked open a book—an actual textbook this time.
“So why did you want to know about Lady Araz-niros… the other day?”
“I didn’t. But it sounds like you do. Heading to the hold of the ship for a bit of privacy, were you?”
“The ship was sinking.”
“Good point, never much a fan of the quickie myself.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “So this nickname… Blade Baroness? What’s it about?”
He slid an ottoman in front of his chair and put his feet up, exposing gold and scarlet striped silken socks.
“Some say cutting personality, but her family is famous for blades. Swords, razor blades, even kitchen knives, I think. Though who’s got the money for kitchen knives of crystal flamed steel. ”
“Huh.” I gazed at my channeling clock. “I think I’ll finish up in bed. Hey, you know I never seem to see you come to bed. I thought we were supposed to be matched for going to bed early versus staying up late.”
“We’re perfectly matched. I stay up late, and I wanted a roomie who went to bed early. You know, so they’d be asleep when I bring someone home.”
I shook my head. “For when you bring someone home.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You know the old expression. Once you go gnome, you don’t want to go home.”
Please don’t let it be the night before some big exam.
I gathered my things and stood. “Good night, roomie.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll try to avoid picking up anyone who moans too loudly. I have great intuition about that sort of thing.”