As the skimmer crested the top of the Great Tower, it banked and made to land on top of the upper section nearest them. Gilai’el gripped the rail of the craft and looked down to the middle section of the Great Tower, where the five distinct upper sections fused and met their counterparts which were planted on the ground. Its impossible geometry was enough to take her breath away as she saw that there were no stone blocks comprising its structure; it appeared to be hewn from a single, massive piece of grey stone so dark it may as well have been black. In fact, in the morning sunlight, there appeared to be a faint purple color to that stone which she had never noticed before.
The craft approached what was clearly the only landing area on any of the five tower-like sections, as it was the only rooftop with a box-shaped doorway. There was a man standing near the doorway, and the craft came to a stop very close to his position.
The ramp descended, and the obsidian-skinned guards silently gestured for the Students to exit the skimmer. Gilai’el was nearest the ramp, so she exited first and felt the strong winds whip her hair across her face, stinging her eyes badly enough that she held her hair to the side with her hand.
The other students followed her lead, and after they were all standing on the stone roof, the skimmer lifted and sped off much more quickly than it had arrived, leaving the nervous Students alone with the man before them. He was old, with grey hair that was almost white and wrinkled skin which seemed to hang from the bones of his face. The only remarkable features of his face were his dark, red eyes. Like so many other powerful High Wizards, those eyes burned with an inner strength unlike anything Gilai’el had seen before coming to Veldyrian.
“I am Prefect Tamlen,” he began in a commanding tone, “and you are no longer members of House Listoh.”
There was silence as the Students listened to the man, and Gilai’el knew they had each been told to expect this. Some of the Students had even spoken in hushed tones about how they awaited the day of admittance to the Wizard’s College so they could be rid of what they deemed to be House Listoh’s overly domineering influence.
“You, like those who have come before you,” Prefect Tamlen continued, “are now members of Veldyrian’s College. Your sole loyalties lie with our Empire, and to a lesser extent…yourselves.”
The Prefect stepped slowly toward the group of Students, and Gilai’el could feel the crowd around her recoil slightly at his approach, but she had already experienced worse than this man could ever do to her. She stuck her chin out defiantly as the old man approached.
“No, Gilai’el,” said the Prefect as his dark red eyes locked onto hers, causing her throat to tighten in fear, “you have not yet experienced a fraction of that which awaits you within the walls of Veldyrian’s College.”
His eyes burned and seemed to pulsate in rhythm with what Gilai’el took to be his heartbeat, and she lowered her gaze after a few uncomfortable seconds of direct eye contact with the man.
“None of you has been prepared for what lies ahead,” Tamlen continued in an official tone after a pointed pause, “and regardless of what you have been told, you are now utterly alone. That door,” he pointed to the closed portal set in what looked to be a dark, stone box ten feet long on each side, “is the only way into, or out of Veldyrian’s College until Selection Day…should you endure long enough to be graduate. For every three Students who enter, one is expelled within the first year for lack of applying their…talents.” He held up a lone finger as he continued, “And only one will emerge as a fully-fledged Apprentice some years later.”
There was a silence before one of the three boys in the group asked, “What happens to the third?” His name was Ikante, and he was notoriously headstrong among House Listoh’s Students.
The Prefect’s lips parted in a savage grin. “Their fates are known only to me, and a few of their fellow classmates,” he replied, “but if you wish to avoid that fate yourself, then loyalty, friendship and family are concepts which you will banish from your mind.”
Tamlen glared at the assembled Students, and Gilai’el knew that the Prefect’s speech was having its intended effect.
“Students…welcome to your new home,” he said with a wave of his hand which caused the solid stone to swing inward as if hinged on both sides. There was a dark stairwell inside which the Prefect entered and turned expectantly, leaving the Students on the rooftop with no real option but to follow. From Gilai’el’s perspective, they were at least a mile above the ground, and the morning winds were stronger than anything she had felt — as well as colder than she expected them to be.
Gilai’el balled her hands into fists and decided she would be the first to enter the impossible structure. She strode purposefully past her fellow Students and found herself descending a winding staircase.
The Prefect stood just inside the doorway and waited as the students walked slowly past him. After they had all entered, the door closed behind them with a whump, followed by the sound of grinding stone. Immediately, the leading edge of each step began to glow with a soft, green light, illuminating the stairs and its inhabitants.
“You are the final batch of entrants to the College this year,” Tamlen explained as he moved past the students. “Our door will not open again until it is time to welcome next year’s enrollees.”
He led them down the winding staircase for a few minutes before coming to an open hallway which curved to the left. The light was more predictable here, as there were small glow globes hanging from the ceiling every twenty feet. On either side of those globes was a door, and those doors were made of a single, three-foot-wide plank of wood with simple latches. There were two small nameplates hung from small metal hooks beside each door.
“Your rooms have been assigned,” said Tamlen sharply. “You will acquaint yourself with your new roommates and the floor itself today, for tomorrow your lessons will begin.”
Without another word, the Prefect walked down the hallway until he eventually disappeared around the bend of the corridor.
Gilai’el looked around at her fellow Students for a few seconds until deciding it was time to find her own chambers. She looked up at the first door on the left’s nameplates and saw that one of her fellow Listoh Students had been assigned to it just as that same Student had seen it.
The Student, a standoffish fifteen-year-old blond-haired girl named Aribel, opened the door and sighed. The appointments were spartan, and there was a boy inside with dark brown skin lying on the larger of the two beds. The furniture was made of old, gnarled wood, and the mattresses looked to be simple sacks stuffed with straw.
Aribel stepped inside the room and sat down silently in the smaller bed opposite the young man’s. Gilai’el saw the other Students begin to proceed down the hall in search of their own rooms, and she knew it was time she should do the same.
She walked down the curved corridor until five doors later, on the right-hand side of the hallway she saw the one with her own nameplate hanging beside it, and also on that nameplate was House Listoh’s emblem of the broad collar. She took a deep breath and pushed the door open. What she saw was more unnerving than she had expected.
There were a pair of beautiful, four-poster beds situated on opposite ends of the room. Those beds were made with what looked to be feather pillows and silk sheets, and the walls of the room were painted a glossy white. This room was at least half again larger than the one Aribel had been assigned, and Gilai’el saw a young man with blue eyes and a thin, red beard lying on the bed to the left. There was even a commanding window set between the beds which overlooked the Imperial City, and the raven-haired girl could not help herself from walking to it and taking in the breathtaking view of Veldyrian from the top of the Great Tower.
A few of the other Students peeked inside with slack jaws. Gilai’el turned and saw the envy in their eyes, and it was then that she understood the purpose of this particular disparity.
Based on nothing but the results of their Readings (or perhaps even not using tha
t information) the Prefect had assigned the members of House Listoh to rooms of varying quality, in order to create strife between The Guild’s hopefuls. And judging by the expressions of her fellow Students, she knew that little more than a few such maneuvers would effectively nullify House Listoh’s sense of camaraderie.
“Who might you be?” asked the red-haired young man in an accent she had never heard before. Gilai’el guessed he was in his late teens, and while he was not what she would consider attractive, he was not especially unattractive either.
“My name is Gilai’el,” she replied, “of House Listoh.”
The boy nodded, standing from his bed to offer her his hand. “I am Jon, of no House particular,” he said as he waited for her to shake his hand.
Gilai’el did so after a moment’s hesitation, and afterward she noticed that the onlookers had dispersed, but they were murmuring as they continued down the hallway. She did not need to hear the words which passed between them to know they were voicing their displeasure at the inequality of their assignments.
“Strange division of rooms, don’t you think?” prompted Jon when Gilai’el once again looked out on the Imperial City in all its majesty. The blocks were arranged in a near-pentagonal alignment of ever-widening circles. The main highways which divided the city into its five numbered districts ran straight, and further than she could see in the morning haze. The connecting streets alternated in an increasingly random pattern between curved and straight thoroughfares, after the inner few ‘rings’ of buildings, which Gilai’el knew housed the Great House Estates, like where she had spent the last six years.
“I believe I understand its purpose,” she replied.
“Aye,” Jon replied, “making us fight for the better rooms sets us at each other’s throats. But that’s not something you Housies have to worry about, I take it.”
“Fighting for the rooms?” asked Gilai’el. “Has such already occurred?”
Jon nodded. “How else would I get such a comfortable chamber? They set me in one of the ones across the hall,” he jerked a thumb in the direction of the door.
Gilai’el stepped outside the room and looked at the nameplates hanging from the hooks, and she only now saw that they were easily removed. When she flipped her own up to examine its reverse side, she saw the symbol of House Listoh was carved into the stone behind her nameplate.
“Aye,” said Jon as he walked to the doorway with his hands in his pockets. “You Housies get assigned a space in each room, so the Loosies can’t take it over. So long as it’s one of your fellow Housies in the room, they don’t much care which specific person it is.”
Gilai’el nodded, realizing just how devious this first encounter with the College’s machinations really was. “They mean for us to fight each other,” she concluded, and the red-haired man nodded.
“Aye, and fight you will,” he affirmed.
Gilai’el shook her head defiantly. “House Listoh is different. We will not squabble over room assignments or any other device the Prefect uses to divide us.”
Jon gave a lopsided grin and shook his head as he turned back to his bed. “Could be you have the right of it,” he said in a voice which clearly suggested he believed otherwise. “Of course, from what I heard House Urkalia only brought two applicants this year, and they’ve already tussled over sleeping arrangements.” The young man flopped down on his bed before adding, “Little man smashed the larger one’s mug into the doorjamb, costing him at least a quarter of his blood when he broke his nose and lost three teeth. I’m just glad he’s a Housie; I wouldn’t want to fight that little demon, I’ll tell you that much right and true.”
“Who did you fight to get your nameplate out here?” asked Gilai’el from the corridor.
Jon shrugged before lacing his fingers behind his head. “Little guy,” he replied, “might be walking with a limp for a while after I popped his knee using a joint-lock my uncle taught me.”
“How long have you been here?” she asked as she re-entered the room, closing the door behind herself.
“Four days,” replied Jon. “You Listoh kids were the last of the bunch, from what I hear.”
“What Grade are you?” asked Gilai’el as she sat down on the bed. It was easily the softest, most comfortable bed she had ever sat down on.
Jon shook his head. “Rule number one: don’t discuss your Grade with anyone. It’s liable to set the others off.”
Gilai’el failed to understand why that would upset anyone, but she nodded anyway before lying down on the soft mattress. It felt like the cushioned bed had been made for her, and only for her, with how it supported her body weight perfectly.
“Ye remind me of my sister,” said Jon suddenly, sitting up to look at the raven-haired girl. “Methinks we should be friends.”
She eyed him warily. “The Prefect seemed to think that loyalty and friendship would be less-than-compatible with success here,” she warned. “Besides which, I have no reason to trust you.”
Jon’s lips parted in a wide grin. “Might have to find a reason to give you, then,” he said playfully before lying down on the bed again. “Soft beds, no?” he asked rhetorically, testing the mattress by rolling back and forth.
“Yes,” agreed Gilai’el, “a little too soft.”
6
Class is in Session
The day passed more or less uneventfully, as Gilai’el was vindicated in her belief that House Listoh’s Students did not engage in the kind of bickering which had apparently set a kind of pecking order on their level.
When they awoke the next morning, they heard the Prefect’s imperious voice echo from the hallway. “I bid good morning to each of my new one hundred twelve Students, and I hope you all find yourselves well-rested. You have thirty seconds to reach the door at the end of the hall; failure to do so will result in immediate expulsion.”
Gilai’el and Jon leapt from their beds upon hearing Prefect Tamlen’s words, and they raced to the doorway. Jon actually opened the door first, and then let Gilai’el through with a mischievous grin before following her down the hallway.
They sprinted down the hall as quickly as they could, and they saw the Prefect standing just inside a large, iron door set at the end of the hallway.
The crowd of Students poured through the door, and when she had reached the other side, Gilai’el turned to see one boy stumble just outside the door. She did not recognize the boy, but apparently, someone else knew him since a girl in her late teens ran back through the door to help him. When Gilai’el saw the young boy clutch his knee in pain, she realized he must have been the one Jon fought for what was now (at least temporarily) his room.
She succeeded in helping him stand, despite his clearly painful leg, but before they reached the door, the Prefect slammed it shut with a clang. That sound echoed through their new hall for what seemed to be an eternity, as the Students collectively processed the rather immediate, anticlimactic ‘expulsion’ of two of their classmates.
Prefect Tamlen allowed them a few seconds to process the event before he turned to the Students and gestured to a long, shelf-like alcove recessed into the wall. “Along the wall, you will find your Provisional Student badges. Unlike your rooms,” he continued with a dark smirk, “they are identical, and there are exactly one hundred ten — enough for every one of you.”
The cold-heartedness of the Prefect unnerved Gilai’el — he had just dismissed a pair of College Students on the basis of an injury, and the urge to help a fallen classmate. She knew she would have to be on her toes to avoid a similar fate…and that by following the Prefect’s rules, she might well lose herself within these dark, foreboding walls.
Gilai’el walked to the alcove and took one of the badges, which was shaped like the Imperial Archives’ emblem: a stylized ‘V’ in the shape of an open book. There was a pair of pins, along with a detachable backing plate, so she placed the pin above her right breast —the same place where the Prefect’s robes held his own emblem.
Apparently, the rest of the Students had come to the same conclusion, and after just a minute or so all one hundred ten remaining hopefuls were wearing their badges and looking to the Prefect.
“Our first lesson is one regarding communication and efficiency,” explained the Prefect. “You have the general notion of how dire the consequences for failure can be,” he gestured toward the now-closed door. “However, I have found it necessary to provide new students with a…cooperative exercise, to facilitate a more complete understanding of how important the flow of information can be.”
Gilai’el felt her chest begin to warm, and when she looked at the badge, she saw that it was glowing with a bright, red light.
“Removal of your badges will result in expulsion,” instructed Tamlen as a few of the Students made to do just that. “The only way to prevent your bodies from bursting into flames from the growing heat is to find the occupants of this hall whose auras closely resemble your own. You have thirty seconds before the fires become fatal.”
The corridor erupted into chaos, as the Students attempted to find the others with colors resembling their own. After just a few seconds, the more vocal members of the groups began calling out general hues.
“Blue!” shouted a tall woman with short black hair, waving her arms for the others to see. “Blue here!”
“Greens!” boomed the voice of a boy not much taller than Gilai’el, but who had propped himself up on the lip of the alcove to be seen more clearly.
“Reds!” came the voice of another, and Gilai’el ran to where she heard the voice. It was Aribel, the first Listoh girl to enter her spartan chamber the previous day. Gilai’el ran to her location as the heat from her badge began to burn her chest badly enough that she had to fight the urge to reach up and remove it.
She quickly reached her ‘group’ and saw that their badges were also glowing with reddish hues of varying shades. As she approached, the heat from her badge diminished until it was barely even noticeable. The mark it had burned into her chest, however, was unmistakably present.
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