Seventeen Stones

by Vanessa Wells

  He grinned a little at her nod. “Well, I suppose I should tell you that you’ll have to put up with me in Charms until Headmistress Villanova finds someone else. I have a free period and she threatened to turn me into a frog and make it look like an accident if I didn’t.” She laughed with him. His good humor was apparently restored by her promise. He waved her into the dorm and walked off, whistling softly into the night. Mia climbed the stair to her room.

  Ella and Vivian came in right behind her. “You didn’t tell us your mother was a Greatlady!” The words tumbled out of Vivian’s mouth. She’d probably been suppressing this outburst since Mia had slipped up in the tea room. Mia looked down at the bedspread and traced the embroidery with a fingertip. “She died when I was born. I don’t really know that much about her. And I didn’t want to talk about it.” Vivian had the grace to look slightly embarrassed; Mia was sure she was just annoyed that she had missed such a juicy tidbit about someone she’s spent two whole days with. Ella grinned. “You put that little snot in his place though! Him coming in acting like he’s the Magus himself…”

  Vivian agreed quickly, perhaps to make up for her earlier resentment. “Cute, but I wouldn’t touch that one with a ten foot pole; he’s always going to think that he’s better than everyone around him.” She grinned a little at Mia and flawlessly mimicked the ultra-refined accent of the wanded elite. “How did you ever manage to meet someone so unpleasant?”

  By the next morning all of the girls knew about Mia’s mother and about the argument with Martin the night before. Mia was a little worried that Sarah might be annoyed with her. She’d grown up with Martin after all. Sarah’s first reaction to the news laid that worry to rest. “Serves him right, self-important little…”

  Apparently Sarah liked Martin even less than Mia did; she had grown up around him. “Of course, he never treated me like he treated you. I let him know very quickly that my grandfather was a Greatlord, and that he’d better not get in a pedigree competition with me. I always did it in private; I bet he nearly wet his pants when you said that in front of the entire tea room at the college!” Sarah threw back her blond head and cackled.

  Mia’s first class the next day was called “Sight” and she was in it with Lizzy and Beth. Sight wasn’t technically a magical skill. Sight was regulated and overseen by the Oracle, and the Seer in charge of the class was the only non-wanded professor they had in the curriculum. They entered the room and went to their desks as the Professor nodded to each of them in turn. She looked very much out of place in brilliant white robes with fuchsia flowers wound into butterscotch-colored hair.

  “Welcome. I am Seer Glen from the oracle of Gambor Pass. I will be your Sight Professor.” She looked at the faces in her room. “I think most of you have noted that you are all female. Sight is the only known area of talent with a true sex bias, no matter what some of the professors here might think.” She smiled grimly and Mia wondered if she’d encountered Marshall.

  “Most of the sighted ones are trained at the Oracle. Your wanded status will keep you from achieving full seer status. It’s part of a long standing tradition. However, the College and the Oracle agree that even though you won’t be officially serving in the capacity of seers, your gifts do need to be trained. Untrained sight tends to make the less gifted members of our society uncomfortable. Sighted children often reveal other people’s secrets without meaning to.”

  The seer lifted a box of small silk bags onto her desk. Each was a frantic shade of purple. She passed the bags out by hand instead of levitating them like most people would have. “Now, I have another test for you. Most of you have probably been using the sight without meaning to. Raise your hands if you have dreams that sometimes come true, or if you’ve moved a moment before a branch fell or a carriage sped by.” A good half of the class raised their hands, but Mia wasn’t one of them. She’d actually moved out of the way from several branches in the forest, but that had nothing to do with any mystical sight, and everything to do with keen hearing. The seer nodded. “What we’re about to do should help you focus your talent. I want each of you to empty the bag in front of you and write down the number attached to the cord. There are four objects in each bag. I want you to touch each of them and write down your impressions, and then bring the bags and paper to me.”

  Mia took out a piece of parchment and wrote her name and the bag’s number, 10, at the top. Her bag contained a small spool of thread, a pewter charm, a lock of blond hair tied with a pink satin ribbon, and a wooden box, no larger than her thumbnail squared.

  She chose to handle the spool of thread first, thinking something so mundane might be easier to read. She didn’t get a single image, just a slight smell of sausage. She sighed as she wrote down her impression; somehow she didn’t think that sausage was what Professor Glen was looking for. She had better luck with the charm: the current fashion was to dangle charms like it on a long necklace. Mia had a feeling that this one was meant to hang on a bracelet. She didn’t get anything at all off the wooden box or the lock of hair. When Mia handed her parchment over and walked away, she caught the professor sniffing the spool of thread out of the corner of her eye.

  Lizzy and Beth were the star students in Sight. As twins, they had what was known as an echo effect. What one twin saw the other could see from a slightly different perspective, adding detail and depth. This wasn’t unheard of according to Seer Glen, but it was the first time the seer had been given the opportunity to witness the process; she spent the better part of the class piggy-backing their visions.

  Vivian and Ella were waiting for them in History. Martin Ainsley walked in right behind the girls. He shot her a hate-filled glance and then sat as far away from her as he could get and still be in the same room. She returned the look with interest and continued talking with her friends until the chimes sounded. Mia didn’t think about him once she was seated; all of her attention was for the professor. She was sitting at the desk reading a little book in one hand and taking notes with the other. A few seconds after the chimes sounded she closed her book and the rumpled little woman stood up behind her desk.

  “Welcome class. I am Professor Tate.” She had a pleasant, musical voice. “Take out your wands please.” She smiled as she pushed strands of mouse brown hair away from the enormous spectacles. The specs were decidedly odd. The base appeared to be a normal set of glasses, larger than Mia’s fist. Attached to the sides on hinges were smaller lenses, ranging in size from a fig to a cherry, each in different colors: azure, yellow, ruby, and green. At the moment, the colored glass hung unused to the side of the professor’s face, giving her the appearance of an odd butterfly. Her fine hair was tangled in the hinge, and she occupied herself with detangling the hair while the class quietly pulled out their wands. She pulled off the glasses, pointed her wand, and muttered something under her breath; a second, smaller pair of spectacles zoomed through the open window. She carefully placed the first pair in a black case and carelessly dropped the second pair on her nose.

  She grinned at the class again. “I expect I looked a bit odd with those on!” A few of Mia’s classmates tittered. “Right then, on to the job I was actually hired to do, History! This will be unlike any history class you might have taken before. In this class we don’t concern ourselves with boring dates and random facts. We learn about the stories behind it. History is all about people. The classic question in History is this: if a man saves the world and no one knows, will anyone care?” She had walked around her desk, as if wishing to be closer to them, and absently hopped up on the top. “I teach you to look for the reasons that history happened. When we’re lucky, we have firsthand accounts of the events from the people in charge, but you and I know that a single point of view won’t give you the whole story. We take the firsthand account, and then we research the existing records to see if they match. They almost never do. But even then, knowing that a keep under siege used seventeen bales of hay every week, it shows us two things. Who can figure out what I’m talking
about?”

  A tall black-haired boy raised his hand. “You can guess how many horses that the keep was feeding.” The professor nodded encouragingly. “And I suppose if they were using seventeen bales of hay a week, then they must have either had enormous stores, or they had some way to get supplies in and out.” The professor nodded. “Exactly. Those seemingly random facts and household accounts can add validity to the firsthand account, or give us the clues to find out what happened when no one had a pen handy. Of course anything like a siege is pre-City rule anyway, but it’s nice to have some idea of what happened in the past.”

  She hopped off her desk and started pacing. “We will cover the most important spells for the historian: the truth spell, which detects certain falsehoods spoken or written, Dennis Dougherty’s Dating Spell that can estimate the date an object was made, protection spells used for items of value, and ways to decode the secrets that our forefathers left hidden in the libraries in the City bounds.” She cast a beatific smile at all of them. “Now who knows the basic enchantment for truth spells?”

  Mia loved the History class. It was so far away from memorizing the names and dates of the principle people who founded the major villages that she felt like weeping with relief. The girls chatted about it all the way back to the dorm for lunch. Sarah joined them at the table for another exceptional meal.

  “You missed a fantastic History class!” If Mia was secretly hoping that Sarah would switch to their class her hope was immediately laid to rest. “Professor Tate?” At Mia’s nod she grinned. “I have her for Advanced Research. Brilliant isn’t she?”

  After they ate, Mia and Sarah grabbed their bags and started toward Government. Government was in the same building as the History class, which would have been very convenient, if they hadn’t had lunch in between the classes. Unfortunately, Government was as dry and bothersome as she’d expected History to be.

  The teacher, Professor Wassermann, was a large carrot-topped man who also taught the boy’s rowing team. He introduced himself at the beginning of class, told them to read the first chapter in the seven-hundred page doorstop that was posing as a text book, and to do the questions at the end of the chapter. Sarah caught Mia’s eye while the Professor’s back was turned and mimed snoring. Mia locked her jaw so she wouldn’t giggle. It wasn’t funny, really…she gave in and tried to turn her sudden laugh into a cough. It fooled only the unobservant Professor.

  She was normally was a fast reader, but she found herself reading each sentence over and over again while the meaning escaped her. Irritated, she read the questions in the back, and then returned to the chapter and plowed through on sheer stubborn tenacity. She finished the chapter well before the chimes, and turned in her paper. The professor grunted when she placed her work on his desk, never looking up from some sort of wooden game he was playing. It looked completely ordinary, simply a series of levers one pressed to keep a small red ball from falling in the hole at the bottom. Mia pulled out one of the slim volumes Professor Fain had loaned her. Sarah was completely absorbed in her own book until the chimes sounded.

  Mia waved goodbye to Sarah and walked to Magical Theory alone. It was the only class where she didn’t have a single dorm mate. She got turned around inside the building, and had to consult one of the talking directories. The directories were maps of the campus that morphed into a face when asked directions. Some of the older ones were a little grouchy. “Well young lady, you’re completely turned around all right. You can always pick out the first years.” The map sighed gustily, though Mia wasn’t sure how…he was a flat map, so he didn’t have lungs. It must just be to illustrate how put-out he was with her. “You need to go up three flights of stairs and take a right. The Magical Theory class is three doors down on your left. Next time try coming in the Southwest entrance.” She thanked it and quickly ran up the stairs to the proper classroom, sliding into a chair seconds before the chimes sounded. She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and knew that Martin Ainsley was in the room. As she went through her bag extracting pen and parchment, she saw an expensive riding boot attached to the person in the seat behind her.

  The professor limped into the room seconds after the chimes. A long red scar marred his face from chin to forehead; it was the first thing you noticed when you saw him. Other details registered as he limped in. He was 5’8”, with a head full of curly, dark brown hair. His skin was the color of leather, with scars on every visible surface. His hands were especially bad, they were traced with lines: from a nasty-looking puckered wound that was still pink, to old knots of scar tissue that cris-crossed and bisected other lines. Under the scars, he still had vestiges of boyish good looks. He walked with the aid of a highly polished walking stick, and moved like every step was excruciating. His suit was obviously from one of the top tailors in the City, the fit was perfect. His charcoal-gray jacket and pants contrasted nicely with the striped canary yellow waistcoat and matching silk tie (knotted just so) about his neck.

  “I assume that all of you have looked over the books I assigned for the course. Can anyone tell me why I chose three books when there are numerous course books available with titles like Magical Theory Revealed and Understanding Magical Theory? Anyone?” Mia was too busy listening to his accent to really pay attention to his question. It was the first time she’d ever encountered the brogue native to the fishing villages north of the City. The rich accent reminded her of a cat purring.

  She heard Martin Ainsley move behind her. The professor nodded to him. “Did you want us to have a clearer picture of Theory than any single book provided?” The Professor nodded. “Exactly Mr. Ainsley and exactly what your father said when he took this course twenty-five years ago. But you’ll find that I don’t particularly care how you get the right answer, as long as you get it. Background research is as valid to me as independent thought, though you might find independent thought more useful later on.” He walked toward them with the sound of the cane announcing every step. Tap, shuffle, tap. “I expect you in my Mental Defense class next year. Your mind is an open book to anyone with the power to read a mind, and with a mind like yours I expect you’ll want to cover that gap as soon as possible.”

  Mia choked trying not to laugh, and it quickly turned into a real cough. She looked up at the Professor. He was suddenly staring at her. “Did you find my comments amusing?” She hung her head wretchedly. Martin was glaring at her from his seat behind her, and she resolved to move as quickly as possible.

  The professor didn’t seem annoyed but he did continue staring at her until she looked up again. “Now your mind is as tight as a drum. Have you studied mental defense?” Mia shook her head, wondering if she’d insulted the professor in the first five minutes of class. She realized he was going to make her say something. “I’m Mia” she said in a very small voice. The professor nodded. “And I am Professor James T. Patrick, Magical Theory, Mental Defense, and Magical Combat.”

  He limped back to his desk and sat down. “Before I digressed, and I do that a lot so all of you should get used to it: before I digressed, Mr. Ainsley correctly answered my query about why this course will use three books instead of a single volume. These books are very special, very special indeed.” He patted a stack of books on his desk affectionately. “You see, all of them were written by Belinda Morrow, also known as the mother of modern magical theory. Do any of you know who she was?”

  Half the class raised their hands. One of the older girls in the class answered “Didn’t she marry Roger H. Morrow, the famous composer?” The Professor nodded. Another hand went up “She was Magus about three hundred years ago.” A boy glared at the speaker. “She was the only other Headmistress the college ever had.” The professor stilled the impending argument with a glance. “Correct. Belinda Morrow was indeed the first Headmistress of the college, and followed her brilliant teaching career with a stint as a council member and Magus. She had a much publicized marriage to Roger Morrow, arguably the greatest composer in City history. The papers
in her time spent more time reporting about her marriage than they did her decisions as headmistress.” He picked up the first leather bound book on his desk.

  “At fifteen, she wrote the first book in our syllabus, The Art of Magic. You’ll find the book speaks in a direct way about the possibilities inherent to wanded magic. A period of invention followed the release of this book which created a renaissance in the way many things were done here in the City. You’ll cover the repercussions in History.” He sat the first book down and picked up the second. “At twenty-four, while she was in the country awaiting the birth of her second child, she wrote The Meaning of Magic. It’s a more ‘down to business’ book building on some of her early work in Art. During the next hundred years, give or take, she was too busy to publish another book, but after her retirement as Magus, she did publish her last and perhaps greatest work, the Treatise on the Application and Theory of Magic.”