Chapter Two

As Karenna clambered out of the wagon into the main Academé courtyard, she marveled at the sheer size of the place. The buildings were made of giant blocks of terracotta colored stone, looming all around her. The courtyard was bare of both grass and trees, but a squat fountain gurgled in the center. Beyond the building-cluttered stretch of the campus Karenna could see the dark green of the Gypsies’ Forest. She shivered. No one was certain why the rulers of Dirantyr had decided to build the Academé so close to Gypsie territory. Tannar, clambering out of the wagon behind her, glanced around the courtyard with one eyebrow cocked, as if thinking “Is this it?”

There were students everywhere, and more streamed in through the high iron gates behind her. Many came out of the surrounding buildings. These were the early arrivals, the ones who had trickled in during the last several days, and now they joined those who were arriving last of all. The courtyard was alive with workmen trying to unload supply wagons while maneuvering around hundreds of teeming adolescents. The dust kicked up from the brick-paved ground clung to everyone’s legs, coating both skirts and trousers to knee-height and punctuating many conversations with coughs. The horses whinnied and pranced, nervous because of the noise and movement. The smells of their hides, the still-damp canvas, and the foodstuffs in their cargo combined with the general odor of unwashed human life to make Karenna’s head spin.

She did not like crowds. Pack too many people together and one of them was bound to notice your eyes. Gathered here was nearly every sixteen-year old boy and girl in the kingdom of Dirantyr. There were farmers’ sons, whore’s daughters, the offspring of shopkeepers and nobles and merchants and bakers. Here they would be taught side by side, almost as equals.

Karenna sighed. Of course, the class distinctions would shine out, even through the uniforms they would be given. But as the enormous courtyard began to grow ever more crowded, she felt for a moment the exhilarating sense of being a part of something larger than herself.

Someone tripped and fell on her. Karenna caught his arm and helped to steady him. He looked at her with mournful gray eyes. “Tank ou,” he snuffled. Both his nose and the skin around his eyes were red and it was hard to tell if he suffered from a cold or from homesickness. “Sorry for fa-a-a,” and then he sneezed. He sniffed and wiped his nose, then extended his clean hand towards her. “I’m Menee Vocilia,” he said, his diction a little better. “Have you seen my brother?”

Just then a boy, identical to Menee, stumbled into the little group. “Oh, there you are,” he said. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Karenna looked from one of them to the other. She had never seen twins before, and now realized that she had never quite believed they existed. Both the boys had shaggy blonde hair and slightly sunburned faces. Both of them, while short, had long and ungainly legs. And both of them had those wide, unusual gray eyes.

“I’m Karenna Morn,” she said, deciding there was not much else to do. “And this,” she gestured to where Tannar stood, watching the scene with vague disgust, “is Tannar.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” said the second twin, pumping her hand vigorously. “I’m Laroo Vocilia, and you’ve already met Menee.”

A horn blast called all attention to the far end of the courtyard, where two trumpeters stood on a makeshift platform. Between them stood a man in flowing black robes. “Headmaster Tavrinal will now address the students,” announced one of the trumpeters. The robed man stepped forward, gazing over the crowd. Karenna had heard of Ashter Tavrinal, but she had expected an older man with long gray hair and a waist-length beard. One always did when meeting a wizard. Tavrinal couldn’t be much older than thirty-five, and his dark, shoulder-length hair showed only a hint of gray.

“Welcome to the Dirantyr Training Academé,” he said. He did not shout. He did not need to. His piercing eyes seemed to find every single student, slipping past their defenses and discovering all the dirty little things they had hidden away. Karenna could have sworn he held her gaze a heartbeat longer than any of the others, and she wondered briefly if the battle-mage had had time to report to him.

* * *

Tannar watched Headmaster Tavrinal address the students, talking about patriotism, honor, and the unique opportunities these students would experience here. Coming from anyone else, it would have sounded like propaganda. Coming from him it sounded like truth. Of course, Tannar knew that the Academé was more than just a machine for finding soldiers or mages. Hundreds of craftsmen, merchants, and shop owners watched promising students and offered them positions after graduation.

Tannar glanced over at Karenna, who caught his gaze and lifted an eyebrow. He shrugged. Tavrinal’s voice continued to wash over them, instilling a calm rarely seen in large groups of adolescents. Even the coughing subsided, the horses quieted and the workmen finished their labor with as much silent respect as they could manage. The twins, Laroo and Menee, listened with rapt faces. They looked too young to be sixteen. Far too young.

Tannar leaned over and whispered to the nearest one, “So, what’s your story?”

The twin looked at him, horrified. “We can’t talk during the Speech.”

Tannar heard the capital letter. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

Liar. “How old are you?” he said again.

The twin caught his gaze. Tannar cheated—he focused his dark stare on the boy and let his eyes flash blue for an instant. The boy swallowed. “I’m fourteen,” he whispered. “So’s Laroo.”

“Yeah, I figured that part. What are you doing here two years early?”

Menee glanced fearfully at the talking headmaster and then around at the crowd. No one seemed to notice them. “Have you ever heard the name Vocilia before?”

Tannar shook his head.

“Laroo and I are the youngest of five boys. All our brothers and our dad are famous battle mages.” He sniffled, then sneezed again. “Laroo and I are just Possible Healers Class One!” He said the words like a curse.

Tannar raised an eyebrow. If Menee was a Possible Healer of any class, he wasn’t doing his powers much justice. Not with a cold. “So, what, your father sent you here early?” he asked.

The twin nodded, the picture of dejection. “He thought that getting a jump on the Academé might…well, help somehow. We weren’t sure why but we were not going to argue.”

“Naturally.” Tannar glanced towards Tavrinal, who was still speaking with even, unhurried calm. “What happens if you get caught?”

Menee didn’t answer for several seconds, and it took Tannar a moment to realize he was waiting for a sneeze to finish. The “achoo” came as expected, and the twin wiped his nose before answering. “Most of our teachers already know, and the Headmaster probably does, too. They just sort of pretend they don’t. Father pulled strings to get us in early, and he’s the sort of man with a lot of strings to pull.”

“Ah,” said Tannar.

* * *

As the speech wound down, Karenna could hear the spell of the headmaster’s voice losing its power. The students began to talk amongst themselves and shift uncomfortably in the crowded conditions. Karenna glanced back at the gate they had come through. It was closed; they were all here.

A small, balding man stepped forward and called over the heads of the crowd. “Attention, everyone, attention please!” Hardly anyone heeded him but he went on. “If you will all please listen to me a moment, I will be dividing you into your units now.” The students began to take an interest. He cleared his throat and began to read from a scroll. “If the following students would please step over here…” He rambled off a list of names and ten students gathered at one corner of the courtyard. An older student came and led them away to the dormitories.

The process was repeated several times until the ranks in the courtyard began to thin. The balding man coughed and peered over the scroll at the diminishing crowd, a sign they had learned meant he was beginning a new unit. “Ahem, Karenna Morn.” Karenna stepped over to where he indicated, looking around nervously. “Shana Liam.” She watched as the blonde-haired girl came up next to her. The smile was still fixed firmly in place, as if it had been sewn onto her lower face. Karenna returned it, showing more of her teeth than was really necessary. “Charn Kadaz. Larch Ferris. Seema Loane. Laroo and Menee Vocilia.” Karenna smiled rather more warmly as the twins came and clustered around her like kittens around a mother cat. “Phara Batte.” A young woman, almost as tall as Karenna, approached the group warily, looking at each of them as if they had value only as target practice. “Obern Nouth.” A well-built young man with a handsome face and broad shoulders approached them. He gave Karenna a dazzling smile and her heart thumped. She looked around at her unit. There were only nine. The man cleared his throat again, peered at the paper, and said, “Tannar.”

Karenna watched him swagger towards the group, her emotions wavering between irritation and relief. Irritation won out. She glowered at him. He smiled. The older student, a young man with a hint of a beard, came and led them away from the uninviting stone courtyard.

* * *

Their unit dormitory consisted of two rooms, one for the girls and one for the boys, each furnished with three sets of bunk-beds. These rooms were joined to the other three dormitories in the building, and all four connected to a large communal privy. Surprisingly enough, it was not too foul.

The walls were stone, the floor was stone, even the ceiling was stone. Karenna had to fight back a mounting claustrophobia as she stepped into the building. It wasn’t right, being surrounded by all this heavy, oppressive rock; it wasn’t natural. Her breath came in short gasps and she felt as if her lungs were on fire from want of air. Her heart pounded and muscles tightened, shudders wracked her body as she tried to breath, she was trapped!

“Are you all right?” A gentle voice near her ear broke her out of her terror. She looked up at the handsome boy, Obern. His hand was resting on her arm, his face full of concern.

Instinctively, she lowered her eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

Karenna blushed. “Yes, I’m all right.”

He released her and she looked around self-consciously. They stood in the hallway just outside the girl's room—boys weren't allowed in. Shana had already claimed the highest bunk of the one near the door and was watching her sharply. The two others had taken bottom bunks, leaving one pair of bunk-beds unoccupied. Tannar was standing in the doorway to the boys’ room, his arms crossed, glaring at Karenna and Obern.

“I’d better be going,” said Obern. “See you tomorrow, then?”

“Yes,” said Karenna vaguely, “tomorrow.” There were windows in the room, of a sort. They were only slits set high in the thick stone walls, no more than a couple inches wide and set with cloudy glass. The main light in the room came from the crude gas lamps that burned on each wall. Even with their smoky light the room grew ever darker and gloomier as the sun set. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she had not eaten since breakfast. There was nothing she could do about it now, though; the kitchens wouldn’t be open until next morning.

Squashing another surge of claustrophobia, she slipped out of her worn dress into the nightclothes laid out for her. Tomorrow she would put on one of the two dark green uniforms which—along with a pair of sturdy sandals for warm weather and boots for cold—were provided to each student upon arrival. Even though the spring night was a mild one and the thick stone retained the heat of the sun, she wrapped herself in Tannar’s cloak. Ignoring the chatter of the other three girls, she slipped onto the top bunk of the unused set, clutching her bag in both hands. She fell asleep with her head resting on the shape of the oblong box within, and dreamed that she could feel the warmth of the wand in her hand once more.