Tria nodded, recalling the scene with vivid clarity. Lina was right. Oryon’s power had increased at that time. And it had been growing ever since. They couldn’t possibly stop him now—unless they used the same method he had used.
Rehanne stood and thrust the desk chair aside. “I won’t have anything to do with summoning Dire Women,” she said. “I’ll do everything else I can to help, but not that. I’m going to my room. Tria, I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
Away from Lina, was the clear implication. Tria didn’t say anything, and Rehanne left.
“So?” Lina said, as the echo of Rehanne’s departing steps faded in the distance. “Are you willing to try it?”
“I don’t know.” Tria’s head hurt. Her limbs felt heavy and cold. “I—I’ll have to think about it.”
“You’re the one who’s been in such a hurry.” Lina’s lip curled. “All right, think about it. You’ll see it’s the only way.”
Tria left the room early, while Lina still slept. She wanted to avoid her roommate, avoid a little longer the decision she must make. She went to the library, confirmed that the card file held no references to spells for invoking Dire Lords, and checked the table of contents in several spell books. Nothing. Yet such spells existed and were surely included in many reference works. The school was exercising censorship in keeping those books out of the hands of students. The thought made Tria angry. If she could read a summoning spell, see what it involved, it would help her make her decision. And it would not hurt simply to know how such a spell was cast. That information should be part of their education.
She’d go along with Lina to the extent of learning how to do the summoning. When she knew the process, she would decide whether to dare the attempt.
That resolved, she found Rehanne and went with her to breakfast. Several of the students who had left for the holidays had returned. Nubba was back, and Tria and Rehanne joined her rather than Lina. She treated them to a full account of her holiday, complete with inopportune appearances of the dreaded Shalreg, and thus spared them the need to discuss their problems. Tria was amazed that the ever-curious Nubba did not pepper them with questions about their activities. She could not have forgotten what had transpired on the eve of her vacation.
Rehanne must be using her talent to suppress Nubba’s curiosity. She swore she never used that talent on her friends.
Tria did not get the chance to ask Rehanne about it. As they were finishing breakfast, Veronica approached and handed Tria a folded paper. Tria opened the note and before reading it saw the signature it bore: Aletheia. The note informed Tria that the Transdimensional Studies instructor had returned, found Tria’s request for an appointment, and would meet with her in the parlor of the faculty residence hall following breakfast.
Tria showed the note to Rehanne and Nubba, telling Nubba that she intended to ask permission to enroll in one of Aletheia’s classes. It was not a lie; she did plan to make that request, though that was not her main purpose. She asked to be excused and hurried from the dining hall, crossed the quadrangle at a run, and rushed breathlessly into the faculty residence hall.
The parlor was dimly lit and filled with overstuffed furniture upholstered in dark, unattractive colors. Seated in a heavy, high-backed armchair, Aletheia reminded Tria of a life-sized rag doll made of white cotton with white yarn hair. Her plain blue housecoat only added to the impression. A limp wave of one pale hand directed Tria to an adjoining chair.
Alarmed by the woman’s pallor and apparent weakness, Tria murmured a greeting and said, “I hope you had a pleasant vacation.”
With a wan smile, Aletheia said, “I haven’t been on vacation. I’ve been in the Dire Realms trying to trace the evil creatures that invaded our Midwinter Ball and stole away our two students. I left on their heels, but the dark Dire Realm is a place of tortuous and perilous paths. I did not know I had been gone so long. When I returned last night, your note was waiting, and Headmistress told me of Mr. Brew’s challenge and your acceptance. I supposed it was that you wanted to discuss with me.”
Tria leaned forward eagerly. “Did you find them?”
Aletheia shook her head and let it fall back as though exhausted from the effort. “The evil ones were powerful and cunning and easily evaded me. I lost my way and had to admit defeat.” She paused and closed her eyes as if gathering strength to continue. Tria waited in an agony of impatience.
Finally, the pale woman spoke again. “I did find this on one of the paths they must have taken.” She reached into the pocket of her housecoat, drew out a small package wrapped in white paper and tied with gold-foil ribbon. A tag on it bore Tria’s name.
Her date gift! Wilce had been snatched away without having given it to her. She’d forgotten about it. With trembling hands she tore off the tissue paper and opened the velvet-covered box.
Resting on a bed of white satin was a gold chain with a sparkling crystal globe, about the size of a walnut. With a cry of wonder she lifted the chain from the box and cradled the crystal in the palm of her hand. Tears filled her eyes as she thought how she’d been cheated of the delight of opening this gift in Wilce’s presence, of seeing his pleasure at her joy.
It occurred to her with a sudden thrill that he might have deliberately dropped the package for Aletheia to find and take to her, perhaps as a clue to help them find him.
“You must have been close to them,” Tria said.
“Not close enough,” the woman answered sadly. “I crossed their path many times, but I could not reach them.”
The sorrow in Aletheia’s voice brought an answering rush of grief to Tria. Tears spilled down her face, splashed onto her hands, onto the crystal.
The crystal warmed, reddened. Tria lifted it closer to her face, stared into it. Within it, white against the surrounding crimson glow, a parchment unrolled and tiny words appeared in smoking black letters.
Tria, the message said, don’t try to find me. It is too late. It will lead only to destruction.
The words faded; the crystal cleared and cooled. Tria rubbed the tears from her eyes and looked at Aletheia.
The woman had fainted.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
VISION AND DECISION
Tria trudged to her first class of the new session, hardly believing that the normal school routine was continuing and she was following it as if nothing were amiss. The only concession to her quest was that she had been permitted to enroll in a course taught by Aletheia, usually restricted to second- or third-year students. That class would not meet during the first week; it would begin a week late because of the instructor’s ill health.
Always Tria encountered delay! The whole world seemed to be throwing roadblocks in her path. She should be doing something more important than carrying an armload of books to Intermediate Ethics to endure another maddening session with Master San Marté.
“Good morning, scholars,” the Ethics master greeted them with a bow. “Not many of you. Hmmm. Well, the school’s enrollment has dropped a bit, you know.” He twisted the ends of his mustache. “The small class will allow us to be a bit more informal and will, I’m sure, produce stimulating discussions.”
To Tria’s dismay, she was one of only four students. All too often it would fall her turn to be the focus of Master San Marté’s attention.
She resented having been assigned to another Ethics class. Oryon and Kress were the ones who should have been placed on its roll. Of the five boys who had assisted Oryon and Kress the night of the ball, only Jerrol and Davy were consigned to share this particular purgatory. She’d heard Britnor and Fenton complaining that they’d been “stuck into” another of Old Tumbles’s classes, and Reece had withdrawn from school.
Norietta, a shy second-year student Tria scarcely knew, was the fourth member of the Ethics class. She had the misfortune to be the selected target for this first lecture. While Master San Marté pranced back and forth, emphasizing points with affected gestures, pausing to reposition his sliding toupee or adjust
the knot in his silk neck scarf, he directed his remarks to and kept his gaze focused on the hapless Norietta.
Tria’s sympathy for the girl was diluted by her own private preoccupations. Her hand strayed to the globe hanging on its chain around her neck. As her fingers closed around it, she thought again of Wilce’s message. It had not lessened her determination to push forward with her search; it only increased her impatience. Although Lina claimed to be making progress with Kress, Tria was not certain she believed her. She resolved not to rely on the catgirl.
Tria had discovered where the books were kept that would have spells for invoking denizens of the Dire Realms. Yesterday evening she had accused the third-year student on duty in the library of having allowed Oryon to read forbidden material. Wide-eyed, the girl, Rozelle, asked Tria what she meant. “Wasn’t it you,” Tria asked innocently, “who let him see the special reference work on summoning spells?”
Horrified, Rozelle vehemently denied the charge.
“I’m sorry,” Tria said. “It must have been the other assistant.”
“Nan? Impossible!” Rozelle shook her head. Her long straight hair whipped around her face. “We don’t even have those books in the library. They’re kept locked and under wards in Headmistress’s office.”
So Tria’s ruse had won the information she was after, but it was of no use. She couldn’t ask Headmistress for the book; Headmistress would not give it. And she certainly dare not try to steal it.
But where had Oryon found the spell? In some other source, surely. He probably had the strength now to dissolve the wards and violate the sanctity of Headmistress’s office, but he got that power as a result of calling up the Dire Women. He hadn’t had it before.
When the hour ended, Tria realized that she had listened to none of the lecture and didn’t know the assignment. Unwilling to ask Master San Marté to repeat it, she hurried after Norietta. But the girl darted off before Tria could catch up with her, embarrassed perhaps by having been the focus of the lecture. Tria gave up her pursuit. The assignment held little importance anyway; she wondered why she was bothering to attend class. She should go back to her room and work on finding the spell book.
“I’m only saying that because next hour I have to face Mistress Dova,” she confessed to herself. “Techniques of Divination is a course I need.”
She had done nothing about the stolen Breyadon except hope that its owner had not yet missed it. She could not shake her dread that Mistress Dova would decide to use the book in her lecture, though she told herself the fear was irrational, since the mage’s untranslated lore had no relevance to this subject.
She regretted her decision not to skip class when Oryon came into the room. What mistake in scheduling had put the two of them together? He took a seat and opened his notebook. Then he turned and gave Tria an arrogant wink. Her cheeks flamed. If he had not been seated between her and the exit, she would have left. She considered doing so anyway.
Too late. Mistress Dova entered and walked to the lectern. Tria avoided her gaze. Mistress Dova greeted the pupils and launched into her lecture. Tria heard it only because she was listening for any mention of the Breyadon, any indication of whether the instructor had discovered the theft. She took no notes; her pencil covered her paper with elaborate doodles produced with no conscious effort.
Her covert glances at Oryon showed him writing diligently, though the mocking smile that lurked at the corners of his mouth belied his apparent seriousness. Her fingers strayed often to her pendant. Stroking the faceted coolness of the globe calmed the rage that threatened to erupt when, like a model pupil, Oryon volunteered answers to Mistress Dova’s questions about methods of divination in common use today, and the instructor nodded her approval.
The crystal got her through that hour and through her third class, Symbolism in Magic, taught by Master Hawke. Another course she judged unlikely to be of help in her contest with Oryon. Lina was also enrolled. Her roommate appeared to find the class interesting. To Tria it was only another hour to be endured, another useless lecture to be borne with the help of the crystal.
During the days that followed, the pendant served to keep Wilce’s plight in the forefront of Tria’s mind, to prevent her from lapsing into the deadly routine of classes and homework, of studying sandwiched in around work detail, of meals and breaks and petty gossip, of group study projects and Freedays with nothing to do. These days of inactivity tortured Tria with guilt. She should be doing something, if only she knew what.
On an evening when Lina was off somewhere and Tria was alone in their room, she sat at her desk, pushed her textbooks and notes aside, and divided a clean sheet of notebook paper into two columns. In column one she listed all the talents she was aware of—those of other students, of faculty members, those she had read or heard about even in wild rumors. The column stretched to the end of the page and had to be continued on the back.
In column two she listed her own talents, weighing the value of each one in her contest with Oryon. Gathering and shaping light. That might be of some use. Making flowers bloom out of season. No practical value in that. Calling fish to the surface of the water. She hesitated on that one and squeezed in beneath it, and calling animals to me(?). She’d remembered that once their old sow had broken through the fence and wandered onto their neighbor’s property. Tria had sent out a mental call, and the animal had ambled home. It could have been a coincidence; Tria had never repeated the experiment.
Locating buried metal. She couldn’t use that. Causing objects to fly through the air. That one had already proven itself. Altering time. She dared not use that talent. Altering the shape of physical objects. Helpful, but it gave her no advantage over Oryon. And that was the full list. It seemed pitifully short.
But it isn’t, really, she thought. Look how many students have only a single talent. She thought of poor Gray and his wonderful, whimsical, useless art. She thought of Nubba, of whom she’d first written sees a Shalreg, then, remembering how Nubba alone had seen through the spell of invisibility cast by Oryon and Kress, crossed through her first notation and amended it to special sight.
Invisibility! Had that been the result of a spell or was it a talent? If a talent, it would be a valuable one. Suppose Oryon had it and was using it to spy on her?
Did she have it? How would one go about making oneself invisible? She closed her eyes and concentrated on minimizing herself. But she didn’t want to shrink herself as she had Lina’s trunk. She revised her mental image, visualizing the room and editing herself out of the picture. She got up and looked into the mirror.
Her image frowned back at her, mocking her failure. She sat down at the desk and marked an X in column one by invisibility.
She looked at other items on the list. Healing. She had no way of testing for that talent, but surely she would know if she had it.
Many of the other talents in column one, such as Rehanne’s gift of thought transfer and coercion, and Rehanne’s roommate Elspeth’s closely related gift of thought-reading, could not be tested without the aid of a willing partner. If necessary, she could ask Rehanne for help, but first she’d do all she could on her own.
Several items she could mark with an X without testing. She knew she wasn’t an empath like Coral, nor could she read the future like Irel or truth-read like Wilce. And she certainly didn’t have the gift of peace-bringing. Quite the opposite: she always seemed to be in the middle of conflict. If that was a gift, it was one she’d gladly lose.
And of course she could put an X by wind-riding. She’d put that on the list mostly in jest. No one could do it any more, if anyone ever really could outside of her mother’s tales.
Weather-changing. Taner had the ability to divert storms. And Tria had heard of those who could shift weather patterns to bring about any sort of change they wanted, though she herself knew no one with that power.
She went to the window, threw it open, and looked out. Stars played hide-and-seek through a fretwork of lacy clouds. A pleasa
nt evening with only a light breeze and no sign of rain. She gazed at the clouds and thought, Rain. Storm.
Was it her imagination, or did the clouds begin to clump together and darken? She watched intently, heart pounding, repeating, “Storm. Rainstorm.”
The cool breeze held no hint of moisture, and after a while she concluded that the clouds were only drifting normally, coming together and gliding apart with no interest in bringing rain. Sighing, she shut the window and went back to the desk to mark another X.
Spell-casting. Maybe it was true that any gifted could learn to cast spells, but Tria didn’t think so. Rehanne had the talent, certainly, and probably Lina did. But Tria suspected that her own aversion to spells meant she didn’t have that talent. She marked it with an X followed by a question mark.
Shape-changing. Dare she try it? Suppose she did change and couldn’t change back? That never happened to Lina. Still, Tria was afraid to attempt it alone. She left the item unmarked.
The next item, place-shifting, intrigued her. Davy claimed it as his gift, though she’d never seen him do it. It was the ability to change, in the blink of an eye, from one location to another within a reasonable distance. As Davy explained it, he couldn’t go across the country or even across town, but he could go from one room to another or from one building to the next.
On an impulse, Tria visualized Oryon’s room and pictured herself standing by his dresser where she had stood examining his wand. She concentrated, felt her power building, spreading. Her own room faded around her.
She heard a loud gasp, saw Oryon thrust back his desk chair and leap to his feet. He grabbed his wand, his expression changing from startlement to anger. But Tria could not hold her position. As Oryon lunged toward her, he vanished and her own desk reappeared in front of her. Dizzy and shaken, she sank into her chair, picked up her pencil, and in a quivering hand added place-shifting to column two.
A School for Sorcery (Arucadi Series Book 6) Page 14
