“I’m going to scare them off,” she told Adene. “Brace yourself.”
The woman nodded. Rielle moved her shield and support to take them swooping down under the men. She stilled the air between them and herself, forming a shield that also protected the school below. As one of the sorcerers sent a ball of rigid air downwards, it struck her shield, the force rippling outwards to be dispersed in the air.
The attacker’s surprise at the lack of an explosion turned to confusion, then realisation as he saw her. Rielle set her personal shield aglow, drawing the attention of the rest of the sorcerers.
At once, all attacked. She deflected their strikes easily, and began to move towards the group. Her curiosity grew as the distance between them shrank. Would any recognise her? If any did, what would the leader decide to do?
She drew close enough to see the leader’s face. She did not think she knew him. But he knew her. He’d seen images of her, created so that all the followers of Kettin would know her – and know to avoid a confrontation with her.
And then he was gone.
Where the sorcerers had been hovering was empty air. Looking around, Rielle sensed no minds but those of two conscious students. She took Adene’s hand and pushed out of the world so she could reach the ground quickly.
“Let’s find the two students who are awake.” Rielle decided. “We’ll have to wait until Tarren and the rest wake up before we can find them.”
“And then?” Adene asked.
Rielle grimaced. “Tarren’s not going to like it, but I think the only safe place for him now is with the Restorers.”
PART FOUR
TYEN
CHAPTER 11
As Tyen walked past the classrooms, the teachers within noted his passing. Most ignored him, since he had walked this way at least once a day in the last several weeks, but he knew from their thoughts that they’d seen him. A few looked up and met his eyes, some wary, others anxious to please. He nodded to all who did, relieved that none needed anything from him, since he didn’t have time to stop and help them.
Running the school now dominated Tyen’s waking hours. Though he had arranged fine rooms in a nearby hotel for himself, most of his time there he spent asleep. When he had time to sleep.
Teaching seemed like a luxurious dream of the past. Studying the war machines he’d brought was impossible. When he asked himself how he had wound up in such a position, he had to admit it was entirely his own fault. He paid attention to matters his predecessor had never bothered with, which pleased or annoyed those in charge of them, depending on whether they wanted or resisted change. Even if he had ignored those matters, his workload would still be greater than Ophen’s had ever been thanks to the introduction of new subjects of study, the expansion of others and the disputes that arose as a consequence of opening the Academy to entrants who had traditionally been barred from it.
Women and foreign sorcerers had begun applying to attend the school within weeks of Tyen advertising the new entry requirements in the main Leratian periodicals. At first only a few came, believing they would be rejected, then as the news spread that some of these had been admitted, enquiries increased dramatically.
Along with abolishing the ban on women learning magic in the Academy, Tyen had examined and then changed the written entry tests and standardised the practical ones to ensure fairness. Some of the old requirements had been deliberate obstructions to ensure failure due to race and gender. It had been a lot of work, but thankfully not ongoing. Once he was satisfied with the new system, he’d delegated, reluctantly, responsibility for overseeing it to people he barely knew but who appeared adequate for the task, and had created a new role called the Student Overseer, who ensured all new entrants to the Academy were treated well and equally.
As he entered another corridor, he looked out along the windows on one side and his gaze fell upon the roof of the meeting hall. Every week the professors had raised or relayed objections to the relaxing of the entrant rules. Every week Tyen reminded them that a foreign woman had restored the world and that if the Academy was to be equal to the best schools in the worlds, it needed to put aside its backward rules and prejudices and see the strength and potential it had been ignoring and wasting within its own world.
He lost a few teachers but gained three times their number as those who had distanced themselves from the institution, repelled by corruption or stifled by inflexible rules, had returned to see if their enthusiasm for it might be rekindled under this new Director. A smattering of foreign sorcerers applying to be students, both men and women, had proven to be so proficient in magic that Tyen immediately installed them as teachers.
But in the completely unfamiliar context of a renewed world bursting with magic, all were scrambling to adjust.
As Tyen left the corridor and entered the next, he smiled. They’re adapting faster than I expected, though. And they’re turning out to be stronger than I expected, too. Living in a world with little magic, both Academy and foreign sorcerers had been forced to be economical and smart in their handling of it. Since the Emperor had lifted the ban on using magic in the city, plenty of sorcerers were discovering that they were able to do much more than they had ever imagined. Even those who were cautious in testing their abilities had found ignorance could lead to unintended harm to property and, in a few cases, themselves and others. That had led some who had left the Academy, and many more graduates, to return and seek guidance.
In order to instruct them, he had made teachers of his own students, promising that their role would be temporary and he would resume their training soon. They weren’t happy at first, but the smartest realised that they had plenty to learn from the locals, from their efficiency with magic to their grasp of technology, and once they pointed this out to the rest, along with the fact that they were in the “home” of mechanical magic, all accepted their unexpected promotions with grace.
Mechanical magic had always been a subject within the Academy’s curriculum of general sorcery, but Tyen had elevated it to a department in its own right. He’d handed over his chests of war machines for study, though not without a measure of anxiety that he might trigger an arms race here in his own world. To alleviate some of that worry, he’d made sure that all those who applied to study mechanical magic undertook an ethical test as well as a skill and knowledge one, and he read their minds as they completed it to ensure they were honest and had no ill intentions.
Reaching the end of the corridor, Tyen pushed through twin doors into one of the many courtyards that lay between wings of the Academy buildings. He walked down a gravel path between manicured lawns and entered a part of the institution he generally kept clear of. The faint tang of preserving chemicals lingered in the air. Some of the classrooms here had plumbed sinks to help students clean up after their lessons. He glimpsed skeletons of both humans and animals in one room, and a wall covered in all manner of insects in another. It all reminded him of his failed studies in the world of healers, and he wondered what his teachers there would have thought of the Academy – and the Academy of them.
He’d reassured the professors of non-magical studies that nothing would change in their departments, but he’d realised belatedly that he’d told an unintentional lie. Learning that they would have to teach the new entrants, they’d immediately begun causing trouble. Tyen had blocked a proposal to bar women and foreigners from studying mathematics, engineering, history, chemistry and biology at the last meeting. Since then, complaints against the new students had multiplied as the teachers tried to make their point, or waste Tyen’s time as retaliation.
I’m not surprised that women of my world would apply to study engineering and pure mathematics, he thought. I just assumed they would take longer to shake off the expectations this society has trained them to have of themselves, and what their gender should be interested in.
If the Academy’s members had encountered the extraordinary people Tyen had met, and seen what they had achieved, they might not be so
determined to hang on to their prejudices. But they hadn’t – yet – so Tyen could only explain over and over why change was necessary and stick to his principles.
Which was more challenging some days than others. Today’s complainant was Praimore, a teacher of history whose mind was as stiff and slow as his aged body. The man was waiting in the small meeting room at the far end of the wing. As Tyen entered he saw a small, yellow-brown-skinned man with short, spiky hair seated at the table. A native of Veyem, a small nation next to Mailand, Tyen guessed.
Both rose from their seats as he entered.
“Director Tyen,” Praimore said. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”
“Praimore,” Tyen replied. He turned to the student. “Young Esp Galiana.”
“Director,” the student replied.
Tyen looked at the teacher again. “How can I help you both?”
“Well…” The teacher faltered at Tyen’s deliberate use of “both”, then straightened and remembered the speech he’d been constructing as he’d waited. “I knew there would be trouble when you insisted we teach the new entrants, and today I am proven right.” He gestured to Esp.
“Trouble in regards to what?” Tyen prompted.
“Young Esp here continues to dispute the accuracy of our texts. He has shown no respect for the great historians of our empire and seems to have a particular hatred of the great Lahgina.”
“I see,” Tyen said. “In what way has he shown disrespect?”
“Interrupting in class,” Praimore replied. “Disputing my marking and methods. Destruction of Academy property.”
Esp made a faint noise of protest.
Tyen frowned. “Destroying property? In what way?”
Praimore bent and grabbed a book on the table, sliding it to the edge before picking it up. He opened it and fanned through the pages, then stopped and turned the book so Tyen could see. A faint curling script ran along the margin next to a sentence that had been underlined. Seeing what Esp had highlighted, Tyen had to resist a grim smile.
He turned to Esp, holding out the book. “What does this say?”
The young man glanced at the book, then scowled down at his hands. “This has never been true,” he read.
Looking deeper, Tyen saw that Esp had deliberately chosen to study history alongside sorcery in order to address the lies and inaccuracies that persisted about his people. He hoped it would mollify those who felt he’d betrayed them for joining the very Academy that had helped conquer and suppress them.
Tyen looked at the book’s cover. “Lahgina’s stories have always sounded far-fetched to me, and as the biographer of General Druvers he had a motive to make the peoples his subjects conquered seem more primitive than they truly were. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had lied about their encounters with the Veyem.”
“What! You support this vandalism of Academy property and, and, and questioning our superior knowledge!”
“No,” Tyen replied, meeting Praimore’s outraged gaze. “Writing on books you do not own is bad behaviour that should be discouraged.” He turned to Esp. “If you feel the need to, buy a copy of the book.”
Esp looked up at Tyen, his frown fading and a gleam of confidence entering his eyes. “I will.”
Tyen held the young man’s gaze, making his expression serious and tone firm. “I understand you wish to correct the errors of history, Esp, but that is a task that will only succeed through study and collection of proof – something that would normally take several highly qualified historians many years to achieve. If you want that sort of backing, writing denials in the margins of a book and antagonising history teachers who are teaching those you must convince will not help you attain it.”
“Indeed!” Praimore interjected heartily.
“Might I suggest you break this task down into smaller ones that you can manage alongside your sorcerous studies?” Tyen continued. “Collect instances of inaccuracy that you encounter. Study the system the Academy uses for checking facts. Consider how you might prove both truth and lies, and how you may present that proof to have the greatest likelihood of acceptance.” Tyen smiled and turned to Praimore. “It would be a worthy task, I think. Ultimately, truth and reason is what the Academy stands for, is it not?”
“Well… yes,” the old man replied. A crease had appeared between his eyebrows as he realised that Tyen was not going to say that Esp was wrong.
Tyen looked back at the student. “I hope that, many years from now, I will have the chance to read your own book on the history of Veyem, and that it becomes the respected, well-researched text with which Academy lessons on the country will be taught. In the meantime, I’m afraid you will have to study what the rest of the students study” – he handed the book back to Praimore – “with the inevitable flaws that a constantly changing subject like history contains.”
Praimore closed his mouth and nodded. “Yes, well, no book is perfect.”
“Indeed. Are we done?” Tyen asked.
“Well, there’s the issue of punishment,” the teacher muttered.
“Erasing the marks in the book?” Tyen suggested. “Perhaps a written apology to the Librarian.”
Praimore and Esp’s eyes widened, and the pair avoided Tyen’s gaze as he looked from one to the other. Peeking into their minds, Tyen saw that both found the Librarian a little unsettling, especially now they knew how old he was. It’s been a while since I visited Rytan Kep, Tyen mused. I must make time in my schedule.
“Anything else?” Tyen asked.
“No.” Praimore raised an eyebrow at Esp, who shook his head.
To Tyen’s relief, the journey back to his office was uneventful. He settled behind his desk and began reading the reports the field heads sent him at the end of each week. Finishing a dry summary from the archaeology head – it took a perverse talent to make what had been Tyen’s favourite subject so boring – he was happy to find the next was from the head of linguistics. The professor had a rare gift for making every report a fascinating read. He had persuaded the young men and women Tyen had brought into this world to spend a few minutes each day translating phrases into their native tongues, and his resulting theories about the similarities of language and causes of variance were fascinating.
A knock came at the door and Tyen muttered a curse in a language nobody at the Academy would understand. Looking up, he extended his senses to see who waited behind it. Vael Romtolin, the Student Overseer, hovered there, a little worried that the faint vocalisation he’d heard from within indicated Tyen was in a bad mood. People might not understand the words of a curse, but they know the sound of one, Tyen mused.
“Come in,” he called, setting down the linguist’s report.
Vael slipped through the door, closing it quietly behind him.
“Director,” he said. He walked to Tyen’s desk and glanced at the chair, looking uncertain.
Tyen gestured to the seat. “Sit.” He resisted reading the man’s mind. He’d caught enough of the man’s thoughts to know he was here on an important school matter but not an impending disaster. “What is it?”
Vael grimaced, sighed, then sat down. “There has been an… unfortunate encounter between one of the new female students and three of the older male ones.”
Again, the man paused, uncertain how to proceed. Tyen made an encouraging gesture.
“As you know,” Vael continued, “the young women staying within the Academy are being housed in what had been quarters for the servants and must walk to what is now the women’s bathing house. It seems… no, not seems, it happened that three of the male students encountered one of the female students returning from the baths.” He paused, then added, “I suspect they were waiting for her, actually, but I have no proof as they are stronger sorcerers than I.”
Tyen’s stomach sank. “Which of the female entrants was it?”
“Flaim Purveil.”
A strong-willed young woman, Tyen recalled. With exceptional magical ability.
“And the y
oung men?”
“Alam Warden, Esteme Keeper and Darimon Starwriter.”
“What did this encounter entail?”
“Well, they claim she taunted them. Showing her bare legs. That sort of thing.” Vael shook his head. “She denies it, and says she was fully dressed, with her wet hair wrapped up in a towel.”
“And…?”
Vael’s arms were wrapped about his chest. He was clearly uncomfortable and distressed. Tyen had chosen a young graduate to be the Student Overseer because he hoped Vael would be more likely to recall what it was like to be a student, and the students might find him easy to confide in. But Vael did not command the same respect a man of greater seniority might, and some of the older students were testing his authority.
Vael drew in a deep breath. “They stripped her of her clothes and forced her to walk naked back to her quarters. Some of them even… manhandled her in the process.”
Tyen’s heart froze, then the heat of anger flashed through him. “Are there witnesses?”
“A handful who saw her towards the end of the ordeal. All of them students. Both male and female.”
“How is Flaim?”
“Upset. Frightened.”
Tyen nodded. “As would be expected.”
“Except that she is normally very bold.” Vael shook his head. “I’ve never seen her bothered by anything, and she is always quick to retort to a taunt.”
“Taunts and threats are one thing,” Tyen reminded him. “This is very different.”
Vael frowned. “I know. But the boys point out that they’ve played this prank on other boys before, and nobody did anything but laugh. They say if the girls are to be treated equally, then they must go through everything the boys do.”
“Better that no pranks of this sort happen at all,” Tyen replied. He grimaced at Vael’s pained look. “Yes, I know it is a battle to stop students coming up with ridiculous ideas about initiation rites, and I won’t burden you with orders to stop them completely.” He ran his fingers over the edge of the table as he considered the boys’ excuse for their actions. “But we must prevent this happening again. Most of the time, for men, being stripped is simply humiliating. For women it is different. It is a mere step from a far worse crime.”
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