by Ian Irvine
The list of questions the examiners might ask was endless. Wilm had known the answers yesterday but this morning his mind was as empty as a lost sock. What was the point of going on and throwing good coin after bad? If he pulled out now, at least he would save the admission fee. One tar would be more than enough to get him home. If he camped out most nights and only ate bread, he might get home with most of the tar intact. He might have failed but he would not be completely empty-handed. That mattered, now that he had given up hope of winning.
Each candidate was questioned on stage in front of all the other candidates, and he had never been good at performing before an audience. He became flustered and forgot things he knew perfectly. It would be worse with all those strangers judging him.
He almost turned back. He would have, save that he could not bear to see the disappointment on his mother’s face when he confessed that all her savings had been wasted. Turning back would prove he didn’t have the guts to stick to anything. What would she think of him then?
Wilm reached the entrance of the Great Hall half an hour early and was dismayed to see dozens of candidates there already. A few unfortunates were not wearing robes but the majority were, and they were all better than his. Still, he was used to that. Back home he had always been the poorest at any gathering, and his clothes the cheapest, the most worn and mended. He joined the line.
“Hello,” he said to the girl ahead of him. “Where are you from?”
She was tall, and her gown was crisply ironed and edged with pure white lace. She looked him up and down, wrinkled her nose and turned away. A flush burned its way up his cheeks. She had judged him in a glance and dismissed him as unworthy of a single word. If, by some miracle, he did win the test, was the college full of rich snobs who would spurn him because he was poor and came from a tiny place no one had ever heard of?
Damn them all! What did it matter what anyone thought? He would show them.
The line inched forward. Two people were on the door – a handsome young man with swept-back wavy brown hair – a senior student, Wilm presumed – and a little old lady with a beaky nose, beady little eyes and feathery white hair. She was entering names and payments into a ledger half as long as she was tall.
“Name,” said the student briskly.
“Wilm.”
“Wilm who?”
“Tomyd. Wilm Tomyd. From Casyme. That’s in Bannador.”
“That’ll be one tar.”
The old lady looked up. “Wilm? You came here with Llian.”
“Yes,” said Wilm, wondering how could she possibly have heard his humble name.
“How do you come to know him?”
“I… I’ve done some work for an old friend of his. A man called Shand.”
“The legendary Recorder?” said the handsome student in astonishment.
“I just know him as Shand,” said Wilm.
The student whistled. He looked Wilm up and down, taking in his gown and rustic clothes but evidently forming a different impression to the tall snooty girl.
“Isn’t there provision to waive the admission fee in deserving circumstances?” he said to the old lady.
“Indeed.” She smiled at Wilm and put a mark beside his name. “No charge.”
The student put out his hand. “Good luck!”
“Thank you.” Wilm shook it in a daze, then turned for the door.
“Wilm?” said the student. “If you don’t win, don’t think it’s the end of the world. I took the test every year for five years and never even got close to winning. But then, as Old Sal here would tell you—”
“Stanzer is a scandalously lazy boy,” said Old Sal, though affectionately.
“Wouldn’t do a day’s work to save my life.” Stanzer waved Wilm through.
The unexpected kindness gave him a surge of confidence. He passed into an ancient hall with a high triple-vaulted timber ceiling supported on intricately carved beams. He gazed at it in wonder. Several hundred chairs had been set up, facing a stage at the far end. Half of the chairs were already occupied.
He counted the occupants. A hundred and sixty-one, and more boys and girls were streaming in all the time. Some were his age but many looked younger – some as young as eleven or twelve. Were they all competing for the one scholarship? If they were, it was hopeless.
The doors were closed. Three black-robed masters appeared on the stage, along with Stanzer, who carried Old Sal’s huge ledger, and another student, a young blonde woman with curly hair and a broad, smiling mouth. The masters sat at the main table and the two students at a smaller side table, the volume open in front of them. Wilm stared at the master on the right, a lean, cold-eyed fellow with a pair of waxed moustaches that stuck out six inches to either side of his cheeks like black knitting needles.
“The examination begins,” said the master in the middle, in a reedy voice that barely carried to Wilm. He was a tiny little chap with a bald, pointy head. “The names will be called in random order. Xix, Dajaes?”
A short girl stood up in the front row, stumbled over the hem of a robe that was too big for her and almost fell. She looked as though she was trapped in a tent. She climbed the five steps to the stage, bowed to the masters and stood with her hands folded in front of her, trembling visibly.
“What are the Forty-Nine Chrighms of Calliat?” said the master on the left, a statuesque woman with dark skin and iron-grey hair that stuck out in all directions.
“The Forty-Nine C-chrighms of Calliat,” said the girl, “are a series of linked enigmas and p-p-paradoxes so complex that – that, more than th-thirteen hundred years after Calliat’s death, only one has been solved.” She bowed again and waited.
“Silly girl’s learned it from an old textbook,” said a boy to Wilm’s left.
Wilm felt a surge of panic. The books he’d been able to get hold of had all been ancient.
“Wrong!” said the master who had asked the question. “The triune called Maigraith solved twenty-seven of them brilliantly, over a decade ago.”
The girl’s pale face crumpled. She bowed, said, “Thank you for correcting me,” and headed back to her seat.
Was that it? They only got one question each? How could the examiners decide so quickly?
“Rebt, Norbing,” called the master in the middle.
A large stocky boy hobbled onto the stage, supporting himself on a walking stick.
“What is the Gift of Rulke?”
“A stigmata on the Zain that—”
“Wrong! The Gift of Rulke, also called the Curse of Rulke, was knowledge given by Rulke to the Zain in ancient times, enhancing their resistance to the mind-breaking spells of the Aachim. The stigmata merely identified a Zain as having the Gift.”
The boy hobbled away, fighting back tears. And so it continued for hour after hour as the morning passed, then the afternoon. The tall girl who had snubbed Wilm only managed half a sentence before she was judged wrong. She let out a cry of anguish, ran from the stage without thanking her examiner and slumped in her chair, weeping. Wilm took no pleasure in her downfall; he only prayed that he could do better.
Outside the light faded; within the hall more lamps were lit. In all that time almost every student had been judged wrong. The judges had said “Correct!” only five times.
Only five to beat, Wilm thought. So far! He had been keeping count of the candidates as they went up. Two hundred and sixty-six had been tested, and there were only three hundred and three in the room. It must be his turn soon. Please, let it be his turn. He was hungry and thirsty and exhausted, and it felt as though his brains were leaking out of his head. If he had to wait much longer he doubted if he would be able to remember his own name.
And please, let it not be the cold-eyed master with the waxed black moustaches. He had not said “Correct” once.
“Tomyd, Wilm!” said the master with the black moustaches.
Wilm started, let out an audible gasp, then scrambled to his feet. He could do this. He just had to cl
ear his mind and answer the question. Wilm tried to visualise the judge saying that crisp, beautiful “Correct!”
It was a hundred miles up to the stage, and all the way he could feel the eyes of the other candidates on him, judging him for his threadbare and mouldy gown. Heat was rising to his face and he could not stop it; he felt so self-conscious he hardly knew what he was doing and, hurrying up the last step, he caught the toe of his boot and fell flat on his face in front of the judges.
Laughter rippled through the assembled students. Wilm got up. Could things get any worse? He had to say something.
He bowed to the judges and said, with a confidence that astonished him, “At least I fell into good company.”
Only the statuesque master with the iron-grey hair smiled, and barely, but it was something.
The master with the black moustaches did not smile. His cold eyes smouldered and his thin lip was curled. “Recite the second paragraph of the Tale of the Forbidding.”
And Wilm knew it! He could not believe his luck. Llian had told him his own version on the way from Casyme.
“Which version of the tale?” he said. “There are several.”
His questioner looked startled. He turned to the other two examiners. The woman nodded. Was that a good sign, or a bad?
“The most recent one,” said the master with the black moustaches.
It could be a trick question, but Wilm had to go with what he knew. He began, and as he did Llian’s telling flowed into his mind. He looked out into the audience and fixed on one particular face, the girl in the front row who had been called first. He spoke as though he was a teller, telling her the tale as best he knew.
In ancient times Shuthdar, a smith of genius, was summoned from Santhenar by Rulke, a mighty Charon prince of Aachan. And why had Rulke undertaken such a perilous working? He would move freely among the worlds, and perhaps the genius of Shuthdar could open the way. So Shuthdar laboured and made that forbidden thing, an opening device, in the form of a golden flute. Its beauty and perfection surpassed even the dreams of its maker – the flute was more precious to him than anything he had ever made. He stole it, opened a gate and fled back to Santhenar. But Shuthdar made a fatal mistake. He broke open the Way Between the Worlds.
Wilm finished, and bowed, and knew that he had it word perfect, exactly as Llian had told it to him. He had done his very best, and surely it had to give him a chance. The master would say, “Correct!” He must!
“Wrong!” said the master with the black moustaches. “That is indeed the second paragraph of the tale, as told by Llian at the Graduation Telling on the seventeenth day of Thisto in the year 3098. However it is not the most recent version. It was told by Vizoria Di-lini at the Graduation Telling last year, where she changed ‘broke open’ to the more correct ‘tore open’.”
Wilm was crushed. How could anyone be expected to know that? He turned, tears starting in his eyes, then turned back and bowed. “Thank you for correcting me.”
One of the students sniggered, and to his mortification Wilm realised that his nose was running. Having no handkerchief, he had to wipe it on the back of his hand, which provoked laughter in a dozen places. He fled the stage, trying to retain his dignity, but had to wipe his eyes, and then his streaming nose again, before he got back to his seat.
This humiliation wiped out the triumph he should have felt after having done the very best he could. But one thing was absolutely clear – Llian, his hero, had made it all possible, and Wilm did not see how he could ever thank him enough.
27
YOU PASSED A TEST
After “betraying” Thandiwe, Llian was too agitated to sleep, and reluctant to disturb Wilm on the night before his test. Going to a tavern was the most appealing option but he needed a clear head more than anything. Besides, he was going to need every grint now.
He paced the empty streets for hours in a chilly, misting rain. Had he ruined everything on a matter of principle? He had certainly destroyed any hope of having the ban overturned. If Thandiwe became master he was finished. And if she did not, what he had done would not endear him to the other two candidates. In their eyes he had betrayed a friend, so how could he be trusted?
Forget her, the mastership and everything else. It didn’t matter now. Only his quest was important, and he could not waste any more time. He had to break into the secret archives of the library right now, search them for any mention of the Merdrun and the summon stone, then go after it.
The decision came as a great relief. He had been too focused on doing things the right way, but with his career in ruins, what did he have to lose?
It was long after midnight and he was striding down to the college when a hand caught his arm. Thinking he was being attacked, Llian tried to pull free, but the huge old fellow who had hold of him did not let go. He wore sandals and a scarlet-and-blue kilt, and the street lamp illuminated a bald head.
“Who are you?” cried Llian.
“I’m Bufo, captain of the college guard for as long as Wistan is around. The hour he goes, I go too.”
He released Llian’s bicep. Llian rubbed it; the captain’s grip was as hard as a pipe wrench.
“Come, Wistan wants to see you without delay.”
“But… it must be two in the morning.”
“It’s gone half past three,” said Bufo. “You’ve tried to see him four times in the past week. Are you saying you don’t want to see him?”
“Of course I do. Er, how is he?”
“He doesn’t expect to live another week.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“No, you’re not. You always loathed him.”
“It’s true we were never the best of friends. But that was a long time ago.”
Bufo did not reply to this absurd statement, but led him through the college gates and down to Wistan’s rooms. Fires glowed in grates on either side of his small sitting room, which had teetering stacks of books and papers on every surface and was unpleasantly hot. Llian took off his wet coat and hung it on the stand.
“I’ve brought Master Llian,” said the captain.
“Thank you,” said a rasping voice from the darkness on the far side of the room. “Open a bottle of the Uncibular fifty-six, would you? Bring three glasses.”
Bufo indicated a shapeless armchair, so old that the leather was criss-crossed with cracks. The colour might once have been purple, brown or even blue. Llian sat; the seat felt as though it was stuffed with cobblestones. Bufo disappeared into the darkness.
Something squeaked and creaked and he reappeared, pushing Wistan in a wheeled chair that dwarfed his puny body. He had been an ugly baby, an even uglier young man and a grotesque old man. As an ancient, he was undoubtedly the most hideous living creature Llian had ever set eyes upon.
Wistan had a small, oddly shaped head on a remarkably long and scrawny neck off which his loose skin hung in wrinkled folds. His face was dish-shaped, as if someone had put a hand across it and pushed the middle inwards, but the dish narrowed at the top and flared out to a lantern of a jaw at the bottom. His lips, the only fleshy part of him, were thick and grey, his eyes small and bulging, and his flat-topped head was as bald as a basalt boulder.
Wistan’s body, which had always been spindly, had withered to skin and gristle. No wonder he could barely stand up, there was less muscle on him than on the lower leg of a chicken.
“Goodnight, Master Wistan,” said Llian, rising from his chair.
Wistan grunted. “A better night for me than you.”
Llian did not wonder about that. Wistan knew everything. He always had.
Wistan looked around. “It’s damned cold. Where are my blankets?”
Bufo wrapped a pair of charcoal-coloured blankets around Wistan up to the neck, leaving his stick arms out. The captain laid a second blanket across his meagre lap.
“You want the ban lifted?” Wistan continued.
“Yes,” said Llian.
From the corner of an eye Llian saw Bufo
lever out a cork. He sniffed it, put it to one side, then slowly poured the red-brown wine into a decanter, swirled it several times and filled three glasses. He handed one to Wistan, gave Llian the second and took the third for himself.
“Thank you,” said Llian, savouring the aroma of the fifty-five-year-old wine.
“To our beloved college,” said Wistan, raising his glass. His arm shook.
Llian and Bufo echoed him. Llian took a small sip. The wine was sublime.
“To business,” said Wistan.
Llian couldn’t see what business they could have together, but he was prepared to eke out the moment as long as the bottle lasted.
“You passed a test tonight,” said Wistan.
“I didn’t know I was doing – Oh! At Thandiwe’s place. How did you hear about that?”
“Two of the masters in the room are mine. I knew Thandiwe was ambitious but I hadn’t realised her corruption had gone so far. Five hundred and fifty gold tells! That was a fine bit of sleuthing. How did Anjo get that kind of money?”
“From me,” Llian said bitterly.
Wistan’s dung-coloured eyebrows crawled up his pallid forehead. “I heard Gothryme was—”
“The bastard stole my manuscript of the Tale of the Mirror and sold it to Snoat.”
“And this was the reason you decided to betray your old friend?”
“No! I’d planned to support Thandiwe, reluctantly, until I discovered that Anjo was Snoat’s man. If she was elected, he would control the college, and when he finished there would be nothing left of it. I wasn’t happy about her cronies’ plan to blacken your name either.”
“I would have thought you’d be delighted.” Wistan took a thoughtful sip.
“Well, I’m not sure we’ll ever be friends—”
