I see, daughter. You have much power, but it is scattered, unfocused, diffuse. You are in a place of learning, where you may find the wisdom you need. You may also find false guides who would direct you to paths of darkness. Be not led astray. Gather your strands of power slowly and carefully, and send that power where you will, not where others will. The light receded and the rainbows returned.
Can you not guide me, father? Tria cried in her mind.
In the world of men I no longer have a voice.
But I can come here, she insisted.
This place will open to you again only in a time of direst peril, but if you choose to come, you may not be able to leave. You must find other places of power, other means of growth. Seek paths that create rather than destroy; pass through doors that lead to life, not death, to greater knowledge through responsibility, not to greater power through knowledge.
Return, daughter, and speak of this meeting to none but those who know my name.
But I don’t know your name! As Tria shaped the words, the rainbows winked out and the crystal dissolved.
Someone was shaking her, calling her name. “Miss Tesserell. Miss Tesserell. What happened to you?”
Tria got her eyes open and saw the worried face of Mistress Dova.
“The bell rang, the other students left, and you sat as if in a trance. What happened? Are you ill?”
“No.” Tria shook her head. “I’m so sorry. I—I fell asleep. I haven’t been sleeping well at night. I apologize. I’ll get the class notes from another student. And I won’t let it happen again.”
The crease deepened in Mistress Dova’s brow. “Your face—you seemed … transported. Are you sure it was nothing more than sleep?”
“I was dreaming.” Tria closed her notebook and gathered her books. “A vivid dream, nothing more.” She rose, and Mistress Dova had to stand aside.
She left the room and saw Oryon leaning against the wall, lingering as though he’d waited for her. She was sure he wanted to ask what had happened to her, but she wanted no more questions. Staring straight ahead, pretending not to see him, she hurried past him and escaped into the dining hall.
She had said she’d had a dream, but she was sure the experience was no dream. Her visit to the crystal place had been real, meaning that she must have found her way into one of those other dimensions Master Tumberlis had spoken of.
She would not need to ask Wilce about the school’s authenticity. She was satisfied.
CHAPTER SEVEN
TRIAL BY FIRE
Tria sat at her desk supposedly studying Logic but mostly trying not to fall asleep.
For what must have been the tenth time, she read the statement she was expected to defend: The responsible use of power will produce great good. The irresponsible use of power will produce great evil. Power will be used either responsibly or irresponsibly. Therefore, any use of power will produce either great good or great evil.
The statement did not seem true to her, and though she could offer nothing to refute it, neither could she defend it. Old Tumbles’s lecture on the subject, the part she hadn’t slept through, had made no sense. She’d thought logic was nothing more than common sense, but now she concluded that the two were totally unrelated.
Lina sat on her bed painting her fingernails and reading a magazine with a lurid cover. She jumped up at the sound of a light tap, checked the clock, and hurried to the door. Tria heard her say disgustedly, “Oh, it’s only you,” and turned to see Nubba standing in the doorway.
Whom had Lina been expecting?
“Come on in.”
Instead of responding to Tria’s invitation, Nubba cast a nervous glance at Lina and spoke past her. “Could you come to my room for a few minutes? I need some help with Metaphysical Theory. Something in the notes I can’t understand.”
“Well, come in,” Tria urged again. “I can show you my notes, though I don’t know how much help they’ll be.”
Lina returned to her bed and picked up her magazine, but Nubba didn’t move.
“I didn’t bring my notes, and I have to refer to them.”
Knowing how stubborn Nubba could be, Tria yielded and got up from her desk, not truly sorry to have an excuse to set aside the Logic. She followed Nubba down the hall and into the room shared by Nubba and Irel.
She was startled to see several other girls crowded into the tiny room: Coral, Verin, Kathyn, and Taner. Nubba pushed her inside and closed the door.
“I used the theory notes as an excuse to get you here,” Nubba explained. “I couldn’t let Lina know.”
Feeling trapped, Tria walked in and squeezed herself into a corner of the bed beside Coral and Kathyn. Only then did she notice Irel huddled on the floor in a front corner. She rose to go to her, but Nubba shook her head and motioned Tria back, whispering, “She’s all right. Don’t pay any attention to her.”
Before Tria could ask a question, Coral leaned forward. “If you haven’t guessed, this is a war council.”
She had guessed when she saw Kathyn. Verin must be here because she was Kathyn’s roommate, as Taner was Coral’s.
Kathyn’s long blond hair hung loose over her shoulders. She twisted a strand around her fingers. Her eyes were the green of an angry sea. “Lina’s turned my brother into a complete fool,” she said. “He’s totally unlike himself. He’s sullen and short-tempered most of the time; he’s secretive; he’s neglecting his studies. And he wants nothing to do with me, though we’ve been close all our lives, and we’ve always confided in each other.” With a lacy handkerchief she wiped away tears. “I can’t reason with him.”
“Oryon is the same,” Taner interrupted. “I do not understand how he fell prey to Lina’s spell.” Her fingers tapped the ornate hilt of the sheathed dagger that hung from a belt of twisted leather.
Tria had learned that Taner came from an island of the far north, where people lived in tight-knit clans and hunted and fished for their livelihood. Every child on reaching puberty was sent out into the wilds to survive alone for two months. Many never returned. Those who did were presented with a special dagger with their names and deeds carved into the bone handle. The dagger was henceforth never out of reach of its owner’s hand. Taner must have received special permission to keep it with her always.
How and why Taner had traveled so far from home to attend Simonton School, Tria had not heard. But the girl was in her second year and had attained the second level.
“Oryon and I had an understanding,” Taner said. Her eyes narrowed to angry slits. “Yet when we meet, he looks through me as if I were invisible. She has bespelled him. This I will tolerate no longer. I have waited, expecting Oryon to break free by his own power. He has not done so, though he has the strength. I think soon he will challenge Kress, and I fear that Kress will die.”
“Don’t underestimate my brother,” Kathyn snapped. “It will be Oryon who dies.”
“We’re here to prevent anyone’s dying,” Verin said quickly. “We need to break her hold over all the fellows.”
Tria resisted asking what they planned. She wanted no part of any plot.
Coral groaned and doubled over. “Nubba,” she gasped. “Irel. Get her out of here.” She gestured toward the hunched figure. “I can’t bear her pain.”
“But we need her help,” Kathyn objected.
“Has she consented to join us?” Taner asked, speaking as if Irel were not present.
Nubba nodded, but Tria wondered whether she and Irel really communicated, or whether Irel agreed to Nubba’s request merely to silence her.
“Take her to Kathyn’s and my room,” Verin said. “She can stay there until we have a plan worked out. Then we can tell her what it is, and she can tell us whether it will succeed.”
“And if she says no, we must begin again?” Taner asked. “I do not wish to waste time so.”
Coral stood. “Her pain is making me sick. If she stays, I’ll throw up.”
Nubba bent over Irel and whispered in her ear. The gir
l nodded and let Nubba help her to her feet and guide her from the room.
“It is not good that she felt so much sorrow,” Taner said.
“It may not have anything to do with our plan,” Kathyn said. “It may be something in the distant future of one of us.”
“And is that less disturbing?” Taner snapped.
No one answered, and Taner seemed to expect no answer.
Verin explained to Tria. “Irel reads the future of every person she meets. She can’t shut it out, and when she sees sorrow or tragedy, it upsets her. She came to the school hoping to learn how to close the images out.”
“You mean she knows what’s going to happen to each one of us?” Tria struggled to absorb that information. “She sees our whole future?”
“Yes, but Headmistress has forbidden her to tell anyone,” Coral said, sitting up straight and massaging her temples. “She suffers terribly, having to keep all the knowledge inside.”
Tria shuddered. Poor Irel! No wonder the girl acted so strange. “But if she can’t tell anything she sees, how can she be a part of your plan?”
“She can’t tell any individual what will happen to them or to someone else. But she can tell us whether the plan we form will succeed or fail. That isn’t divulging anyone’s future. All she needs to do is say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
Tria frowned, not sure of the ethics of imparting even that much foreknowledge but agreeing that it would help to have it.
The door burst open and Nubba dashed in, panting. “We’re too late!” she announced. “I saw Kress go into Lina’s room. And Oryon is coming off the stairs.”
They all jumped to their feet. Taner yanked her dagger from its sheath and headed for the door. Verin caught her arm. “Wait!” she said.
Coral and Kathyn looked at Tria. “It’s your room, too,” Kathyn said. “You’ve got to do something.”
“The boys don’t belong on this floor. Headmistress or Veronica will stop them,” Tria said, hoping it was true. She did not want to be involved.
“The stairs are supposed to be warded,” Nubba wailed.
“We waste time.” Taner broke free of Verin’s grasp and rushed into the hall.
The rest swarmed after her, Tria trailing the others. I can’t intervene, she thought. I don’t dare use my power. Why can’t they understand that?
Taner reached Tria’s room and tugged at the door. Locked. As the others crowded around her, she inserted the blade of her dagger between door and frame, wriggled it back and forth, pried, muttered something about a spell, twisted the blade, and pushed again at the door. This time it opened. All six girls crowded into the tiny room.
Lina sat cross-legged on her bed, her textbook of Mandalic Studies on her lap. She looked up at her visitors, her lovely face registering shock and bewilderment.
Tria wasn’t deceived. The book was a prop, the bewilderment an act. Lina never studied. But where were Kress and Oryon? Had Nubba been mistaken?
“They’re here,” Coral said, answering her unspoken question. “I sense them.” Her voice was strained, her features contorted.
“But where are they?” Kathyn cried.
Nubba edged close to Tria. “What are they talking about?” she whispered. “Can’t everybody see them? Oryon is standing over by the window, in front of the trunks. And there’s Kress, trying to hide behind the clothes on your rack.” She pointed to the front corner beside the vanity.
Tria stared where Nubba pointed, remembering the Shalreg, the monster only Nubba could see. Everyone thought the girl imagined things, but maybe she could perceive what others could not.
The others in front of her blocked Tria’s view of the window area. She fixed her gaze on the corner beside the vanity. It did seem that her clothes had been shoved together on the rack, leaving a space that someone could crowd into.
Lina began shouting, making it hard to concentrate. “What’s the meaning of this intrusion? Get out of my room! How dare you all burst in here like this!”
“They’re with me, Lina,” Tria called. “This is my room, too. Remember?”
Lina stood and peered over the heads of the other girls to glare at Tria. “You have no right to bring them here without asking me. How am I supposed to study?” She brandished her heavy textbook over Kathyn’s head.
Kathyn swatted the book away. “Where’s Kress?” she demanded.
“Your twin?” Lina continued her innocent act. “However should I know? Can’t you keep track of him?”
“And where is Oryon?” Taner fondled her dagger as she spoke.
“Really, this is ridiculous!” Lina rolled her mascaraed eyes. “You can’t think I have them hidden in here!”
“We know you do,” Coral said. “I sense them.”
Lina regarded the empath with a scornful curl of lip. “Look around. Maybe they’re under the beds. Or hiding in the chifforobe. Or stuffed under the desks.”
“Kress, where are you hiding?” Kathyn called as she jerked open the door of the chifforobe and riffled through Lina’s clothes.
“They’re trying to hide,” Nubba squealed. “But there’s no place they can go. They’re in plain sight.”
“Of course they are, like your invisible creature.” Lina advanced on the fat girl. “I suppose this is your doing. You’ve convinced the others you saw something that was merely a product of your childish imagination.”
Nubba thrust out her lower lip. “I do see them,” she insisted.
Taner bent to look under the beds. She straightened and sheathed her knife. “They aren’t here,” she grudgingly conceded.
But Tria pushed past Coral, Verin, and Nubba and eased herself between the vanity and her desk. She thrust her hand toward the apparently empty space in the corner under the clothes rack. Her palm pressed against warm flesh; although someone tried to shrink away from her, her fingers closed around an arm.
“They are here,” she called out. “I’ve found one.”
At that, Taner shoved Lina roughly aside and strode toward the window, stopped abruptly in front of the trunks, and patted the air with her hand. The green silk scarf covering the trunk wrinkled and slid. Taner reached above it. “Ah-ha! He’s climbed onto the trunks, but I’ve found the other,” she said.
At Tria’s touch Kress lost his shield of invisibility. He at least had the grace to look embarrassed. He did look ridiculous, cowering back among her dresses. She stepped aside to let him move out of the cramped corner.
Oryon, in black as always, managed to maintain his dignity as he stepped down from the trunks. He glared at Taner and tapped a slender black wand against the palm of his hand. The two curls that fell, one on each side of his forehead with his hair coming to a peak between them, gave him a demonic appearance.
A panther snarled. Nubba screamed. Coral fainted.
Kress squeezed past Tria and headed toward Oryon. In panther form Lina held the other girls at bay.
Verin was trying to calm Nubba. The panther sprang at them, while Kathyn stooped over Coral. Ignoring the cat and the knot of hysterical girls, Kress headed for Oryon. Taner moved to intercept him, her dagger held ready to strike.
Tria looked around for something with which to defend herself and her friends. The open Logic book on her desk caught her eye. She grabbed the large book up in both hands.
Her gaze swept across the open page. The dilemma she had been studying leaped out at her. Power will be used either responsibly or irresponsibly. Therefore any use of power will produce either great good or great evil.
It can produce both together, she thought with sudden understanding. I’m forbidden to use my power, but if I don’t, Oryon and Kress will hurt my friends. They may be bent on evil and I intend good, but what we do can produce consequences both good and evil. I can’t worry about those consequences. I can only hope for the best.
She used her power to hurl the heavy Logic book at Kress. It struck his head. His knees buckled. Taner’s dagger missed its aim and grazed his shoulder.
&nb
sp; Tria focused on Lina’s heavy bookends and sent one flying at the panther and the other at Oryon.
Oryon raised his wand. The bookend shattered. Its marble and gold fragments fell harmlessly to the floor.
The other struck the panther. It yowled and loosed its hold on Nubba. Taner leaped past Kress and threw herself at the panther. Oryon pointed his wand at her. She fell forward unconscious, but the force of her fall drove her dagger into the panther’s haunch. With a snarl it twisted, and its claws raked Taner’s face. Tria grabbed her desk chair to swing at the cat but set it down when Lina resumed human form.
“My thigh,” Lina moaned, clutching the wound through her blood-soaked gown. “I’m bleeding to death. Help me.”
Tria ignored her and concentrated on Oryon. Kathyn and Verin knelt beside Nubba and Coral. Behind Oryon, Kress lurched to his feet. Holding his head, he backed to the trunks and sat down on them. Oryon advanced on the one standing target.
“You shouldn’t have interfered,” he said as he pointed his wand at Tria. “We’ll see whether your power is any match for mine.”
Inches from Tria’s face the tip of his black wand burst into flame. The heat seared her face. Her impulse was to back off, but the other girls had left her no room.
She stood perfectly still and summoned her power.
Oryon’s angry face blurred. The blaze widened into a fiery curtain. She drew it between her and her adversary, shaped it, spread it before her like a shield. Through it she could see Oryon only as a smoky shadow.
The shadow swayed; its arms inscribed dark designs. The fiery shield shrank into a flaming sword. Oryon’s black-gloved hand grasped the hilt and thrust toward Tria.
She spread the blade into a fan, curled it away from her, rolled it into a glowing band, bent it around Oryon, and tightened it, forcing his arms to his sides.
The wand in his fingers flipped upward and touched the candescent circle. The band exploded into thousands of tiny sparks. The flickering swarm flew up toward the ceiling, then descended on Tria like a deadly rain.
A School for Sorcery (Arucadi Series Book 6) Page 7
