Tessili Academy

by Robin Stephen

  Orderly Brint came to her. He snugged her into his soft arms. He kissed her forehead. He took her to the washroom and dabbed a warm, damp cloth on her knee.

  Jey made a decision on the spur of the moment. It was a twofold risk, and it was not her life alone she gambled with. But it seemed their only hope.

  She turned and spoke. “Brint.”

  The orderly froze at the sound of his name. He turned, eyes wide with disbelief. She could see Elle and Kae struggling not to react, to retain their passive, blank appearance. Jey continued. “Does Liam know?”

  Brint blinked several times, looking confused. “The professor?” he said.

  Beginning to fear she’d made a mistake, she let her head drift to the side, to contemplate the middle distance. She said, tone vague, “He’s always been my favorite.”

  ◈

  The door shut behind Orderly Brint. Outside, the sound of his departing footsteps faded. The three girls sat, listening, until the sound was gone.

  Three heartbeats after all was still, Kae turned on Jey. “Have you lost your mind?” Kae’s eye were bright with anger. Her words came in a furious hiss.

  Jey looked away, shrugging. Orderly Brint had not seemed to take her comment very seriously. He’d looked at her a moment longer, then given a little shake of his head and said, “I see.”

  With that, he’d left. Now, Jey felt cold and sick with disappointment. She’d been convinced he’d come deliberately to warn them, that he would try to find a way to help. Belatedly, Jey remembered the words Orderly Brint himself had spoken outside the dining hall that day a week or two before. One of these girls is a thousand times more valuable than you are. Get one of them rattled and I promise you they’ll have removed you by morning.

  Elle was in her usual spot on the couch. Her tessila sat in her hand, curled in the cup of her palm. “What are we going to do?” Her voice carried the same tired helpless weight Jey felt in her bones.

  “We’re going to break out.” Kae stalked towards the door as she spoke. “At least, I am. If you two don’t want to try, that’s fine. But I’m not going to sit around staring at the wall like an idiot, waiting for my own execution.”

  Elle, agitated, sat up. “Not this instant, Kae. It’s too dangerous. And keep your voice down.”

  Kae was halfway to the door now, her face fierce. “What do you mean it’s too dangerous?” She snapped the words with withering impatience. “What’s wrong with you two? Don’t you see? We’re trained assassins. We have magic. They can’t fight us.”

  Jey stood as well, taking a step towards Kae. Her heart was pumping with alarm but she tried to keep her voice gentle. “And what about the wall, Kae? How do you plan to get past that? Even if we murder everyone in this place, we can’t leave. We’ll have two dozen little girls to care for. We might all starve before we find a way to disable a shieldstone.”

  Kae frowned, bristling with anger and impatience. “Well what do you propose, then, if you’re so smart?”

  Before Jey could answer, they heard footsteps outside. Kae’s eyes widened. She hurried back to her easel. Jey sat back down on the couch and tried to compose her expression as her heart leapt with sudden, piercing hope. Was it Professor Liam, perhaps? Coming to lead them out?

  The door swung open and an orderly walked in. Jey recognized him with surprise. It was the young, muscular orderly Brint had been speaking to by the dining hall. She’d seen him around the quad since then, but she didn’t recall him ever coming into their room.

  He stopped inside the room. “Come on, girls,” he said as his eyes raked over them. There was something unpleasant in his gaze. “Bed time.”

  Jey tried not to let her confusion show. It was too early for bed, and something about his tone made the hair on her arms prickle. She forced herself to stand, smooth her dress, and move quietly towards her dressing screen. The orderly followed. He helped her with her buttons. His hands were quick and rough, his breathing audible. Jey felt a sense of relief as he walked off to help Elle.

  Jey was into her night dress by the time the orderly stepped behind Kae’s screen. She heard him say something, heard Kae respond. Her sense of relief vanishing, Jey stepped out from behind her screen to look across the room.

  What she saw made her go still. She couldn’t see Kae, because she was behind her screen. But the discarded pool of her white dress lay on the floor. The orderly was also partially behind the screen. As she watched, he dropped Kae’s night dress to the floor, also.

  “Get in bed.” The orderly’s voice was low and gruff. When Kae hesitated, the orderly repeated his command, giving her bare shoulder a little shove.

  With one hopeless, confused look at Jey, Kae complied. Her naked skin was luminous and pale in the wan light. The orderly stopped her as she tried to pull up her light summer quilt. He stood over her, a cruel little smile dancing on his lips. “Just because they’ve unmanned me doesn’t mean I can’t still get the job done.” His voice was a hard sneer now. “You won’t remember in the morning, anyway, and you’ll be dead before anyone has a chance of figuring it out.” The orderly unbuckled his belt and let it fall to the floor.

  Jey stood in stunned silence, a vague sense of terror beginning to snake through her veins. She had no idea what the orderly was talking about but she felt an intense need to defend her friend.

  Jey took a step forward. The orderly glanced over his shoulder, looking first at Jey, then Elle, who also stood in her night dress, looking on with quiet worry. “You two stay back,” he said. “Or I’ll make this harder on your friend than it has to be.”

  He flung open his robe, turned around and lowered himself down on top of Kae.

  For one stunned instant, all three girls were still. Then, Kae exploded. She gave a short shriek of rage that was no less terrifying for being quiet. There was a quick scramble on the bed – limbs tangling, hands groping. Jey had taken two more steps forward when there was a grunt, a flash of blue light, and a crunch.

  For a second, all was quiet. Then, with a little snarl, Kae heaved the orderly’s body off of her. It fell to the floor with a slack thud.

  Jey stared down in silent horror. She could tell by the angle of the man’s head that his neck was broken.

  ◈

  “Kae.” Elle’s voice was a horrified whisper. “You killed him.”

  Kae left her bed. She stood, naked, over the dead man. She looked down at his bare chest and body, face contorted into a mask of anger. “He was going to …” She trailed off without finishing her sentence then kicked the dead man in the ribs with her bare foot.

  Elle averted her eyes, turning her imploring gaze on Jey. “We have to figure out how to hide him.” She said this as if Jey possessed the miraculous talent of making dead bodies disappear.

  Jey glanced around the dorm. There was nowhere to conceal a body. The room was open, the entrances to the alcoves wide and unobstructed. There were no nooks or crannies, no concealed spaces. The best they’d be able to do would be to drag him behind a changing screen and hope no one thought to come looking for him here.

  “I don’t know about you two,” Kae said, picking up the night dress the orderly had dropped and shrugging into it, “but I’m leaving.”

  Jey felt as if this was all happening too quickly. Her mind felt numb with confusion and anxiety. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the blank look of surprise in the dead man’s eyes.

  “You can’t, Kae,” Elle said. “They’ll catch you before you’re halfway to the wall. And even if they don’t, you can’t get your tessila past the spell.”

  Kae gave a derisive snort. She picked up one of her slippers, stared down at it critically for a moment, then tossed it aside. Her tessila was a streak of agitated green, zipping around her head in fast loops. “I’ll cast a passive echo spell to hide myself. I’ll figure out the rest out as I go.” She began to walk, barefoot towards the door.

  Jey, stirred to action, moved to block her friend’s departure. “How long can you
hold a passive echo spell of that size, Kae? Because I can only manage mine for five minutes easily, ten at most.”

  Kae stopped, scowling. Elle spoke from behind them. “Me too,” she said. “Maybe eight minutes if I’m fresh. Then I need a rest.”’

  Kae said nothing. She’d stopped walking, but her face was a mask of anger.

  “Ten minutes,” Jey repeated. “That’s how much time we’ll have once we leave this room. We need a plan, Kae.”

  Something in Kae’s face crumbled. Her nostrils flared. Jey realized her friend was fighting back tears. Kae glanced over her shoulder at the dead man on the floor. She shuddered. “If we don’t try something, he’s right. We’ll be dead by this time tomorrow.”

  Elle strode forward, her body language decisive. She walked to the orderly. With a couple stabs of magic and a swipe of her arm, she ripped a square of fabric out of his robe. She strode to one of the brillbane bushes that stood in a pot by the window. With a few deft movements, she broke all the ripened husks free of their stems, set them in the center of the square of fabric, and tied the edges together to form a tidy bundle. “We’ll hide,” she said. “We’ll find somewhere no one will think to look. We’ll take turns with passive echo spells whenever anyone comes near. Then we’ll wait, and we’ll watch until we figure out a way to get past the wall.”

  Elle straightened, tossing her long braid over her shoulder. Her tessila darted through the air and landed on the bundle, clinging to the fabric as it swayed in Elle’s hand.

  Jey looked from one friend to the other. She took a deep breath, let it out, and spoke. “Ok. Yes. That sounds like the best we can do for now.”

  Behind them, the latch on the door clicked.

  ◈

  If Jey hadn’t blocked the spell, it would have killed Professor Liam as he poked his head through the door. Kae sent it off in a spasm of fear and anger. Jey felt it shoot into the air – an active strike spell. She swiped it off its course with her own counter-magic.

  Behind them, she heard Professor Liam draw in a quick, sharp breath. Jey hadn’t known, for sure, it would be him when she’d blocked Kae’s spell. She only knew killing more people was not going to make their escape any easier.

  When she saw it was Liam, a red haze bloomed at the edges of her vision. “Kae, you idiot,” she snapped. “He’s on our side.” Jey wasn’t sure how she knew this, but she was more certain she could rely on Professor Liam than she was of her own name.

  His face a little pale, the professor stepped into the room. Kae’s face had gone pale as well at the sight of him. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  Liam closed the door behind him and stood for a moment, staring at the three girls in their night dresses and the dead man on the floor. The orderly’s robe was unbelted, his chest, legs, and everything between them exposed. The professor swore quietly and strode across the room. He dragged the quilt off Kae’s bed and tossed it over the dead man.

  He straightened, turning back around. He looked at the girls. His short hair was light brown, shot with gray. His eyes were somber and sad, but also alight with some brilliant curiosity. “All three of you?” he said. “You’re all three …” he paused, looking for a word, “… aware?”

  Jey nodded. To her amazement, he laughed. “Finally,” he said. He stood a moment, shaking his head and chuckling as if he’d heard some wonderful joke. He looked at Jey, eyes intent. “You remember how to get out?” He asked the question as if he was certain she would.

  Jey frowned. Her mind stirred, a memory trying to surface. She seemed to recall standing by the wall with Liam. While the other students recharged the shieldstones, she was doing something else – chipping away at one narrow crevice, targeting a fissure in the wall behind a rose bush, making it deeper and deeper and deeper. The work, she suddenly remembered, had been started before her. Liam had only shown her how to continue what was already begun.

  She struggled to remember more, but the knowledge faded. She stared at Professor Liam, heart pounding with fear. “I haven’t had any spritzer,” she said. “Why can’t I remember?”

  Professor Liam walked across the room and set a gentle hand on her arm. The smile had faded from his face. “It’s all right, Jey. Calm down. What they’ve done to you, year after year after year, it’s not as simple to fix as getting rid of the drugs. It’s going to take time. It’s probable you’ll never have complete memories of what happened here. Most likely, that’s for the best.” His eyes strayed again towards the shape of the orderly beneath the quilt, his expression troubled.

  Jey allowed herself to be soothed by his words. She drew in a long, slow breath and let it out again, centering herself as Professor Straph had taught her.

  Liam continued to speak. “It’s a crack in the wall, down past the stable, in the lower southeast corner. I’ll take you.”

  Kae, who’d recovered from her momentary embarrassment, turned to regard Liam with a look of withering scorn. “A crack in the wall won’t do us any good. If it was that simple, our tessili could just fly over.”

  That little smile returned to Liam’s lips. He shook his head. “Not just a crack. Jey here has been working on it for almost a year now, when we could manage it, of course. It’s lined in shieldstone, like that which holds the magic of the wall in place.”

  Kae’s expression shifted. She glanced towards the door with a kind of fierce hunger. “Then it’s a tunnel,” she said. “A tiny tunnel through the magic? Our tessili can pass through safely?”

  Liam nodded. Kae took a step towards the door, which Jey was still blocking. “Professor Liam,” Jey said. “Thank you. Thank you for coming to us, for making me remember. I know where it is now.” It was true. When he’d described the tunnel, she’d remembered as surely as if he’d shown her a map. “You should go back to your rooms.”

  For a moment, Liam looked as if he might protest. Then he glanced again at the humped shape of the dead orderly. He gave a small, decisive nod. “This evidence will give an explanation for your flight. With any luck, no suspicion will fall on me. I’ll stay behind. I’ll do what I can do for next year’s seniors.”

  As Kae and Elle began to move towards the door, Jey realized with a sudden strange pang that she might never see this man again. It was overly optimistic, she knew, to think his movements tonight would go unnoticed. She didn’t know how he’d gotten himself into the dorm cloister after faculty hours. There was so much she didn’t know, so many things she was certain she’d forgotten.

  Jey felt a sudden prickling heat behind her eyes. She hurried forward, throwing herself into Liam’s arms. He caught her with a startled grimace, then wrapped his arms around her. She could smell the mingled scent of soap and ink.

  They stood for a moment. Liam felt warm, solid, and safe. Jey didn’t want to let go.

  At last, the professor gave her shoulder an awkward pat. “Go now.” His voice was quiet. “They’ll be onto you soon. And don’t forget, the hounds will smell you even with your passive echo spells in place.”

  Jey nodded, wiping her eyes. She stepped back and turned towards the door as it opened for the third time that evening.

  ◈

  The orderly who was now staring into the room with wide, startled eyes was one Jey recognized. She didn’t know his name, but he was one of the regular ones who saw them into bed each night. He was a quiet man, with pale hair and delicate hands.

  Now, as Liam took a deft step to the side so the partially open door hid him from view, she watched as the orderly’s eyes took in the sight of the three seniors standing in their night dresses, Elle holding a bundle torn out of a robe just like his.

  The orderly took two stumbling steps backwards. Before Jey could think of a way to quiet him, to contain the disaster, the man screamed. It was a high wail of sheer terror. Then the orderly turned and bolted, sandals slapping on the stone tiles and echoing through the quiet cloister.

  Jey drew in a quick breath as he ran away. Now that the worst had happened, her mind felt sudd
enly clear and focused. She spoke. “Girls, case your passive echo spells.”

  She felt the air bend around her. Kae and Elle vanished. She turned to Professor Liam, still standing behind the door. She didn’t think he’d been seen, but she couldn’t know for sure. She focused, pulling strands of magic into existence in the air around him. She tied off the spell. Liam’s eyes widened in surprise as he felt the magic cling to his skin. Then he vanished also.

  “I’ll not be able to hold it for long, particularly as you get further away,” she said. “So hurry.”

  She felt a soft squeeze on her hand and a brush of air as Professor Liam moved past her and out the door. Jey wove another spell and draped this one around herself. The strain of holding both magics in place made sweat bead on her forehead. She set her jaw. She would hold them as long as she could.

  She turned and spoke to the seemingly empty room behind her. “Let’s go.”

  She couldn’t see her two friends, not exactly, but she could make out soft spots in the air, places where the landscape seemed to shimmer as if seen through uneven glass. She could hear soft footsteps and feel the whisper of air moving. Mostly, though, she could see their tessili. Phril was all but mad with anxiety now. He darted about her head in frantic loops. “Settle,” she told him. She held out her hand and he landed there. She could feel how difficult it was for him to hold still, to allow himself to be restrained. She cupped her hand in a light curl around him, so the spell that concealed her would cover him too. “Carry your tessili,” she whispered to the other two girls, “or they’ll give us away.”

  Around them, the academy was coming alive. Lights flared in dark windows. Doors opened and closed. Orderlies ran everywhere, calling to one another in frantic voices. The three girls left their room and headed to the east. When they reached the corner of the cloister, Jey said, “Up and over. You first Elle.”

  She could no longer see Elle’s purple tessili, but Kae’s green one darted and flashed in the air like a frantic spark. She waited in tense silence. In the distance, there was a resonant boom. The orderlies had swung shut the great gates that separated the cloister from the quad. Jey could only hope Professor Liam had gotten out in time.