Authors: R. Lee Smith
It was Horuseps,
carved as an angular column. Horuseps with his hands on his shoulders, head
bent…smiling. A very good likeness, actually, for all that it used lines so
sparingly. And the people groveling at his feet were not writhing in torment
after all, but begging him for knowledge, for magic, for power.
“A tad
ostentatious, isn’t it?” Mara asked.
“A tad,” he
agreed, and bowed, gesturing within. “Yet some might argue that I am deserving
of it. For here do I instruct my students in the art of Sight, and there are
none within this mountain who do it better. Behold my theater, Mara.”
“Theater?” she
echoed, walking between the open halves of the carved demon to stand in his
domain.
“All the world’s
a stage, my dear. Do feel free to look around.”
Mara looked, and
apart from the fact that everything was made of stone and lit by cancerous
blisters of yellow light, it was identical to any number of lecture halls she’d
sat in back in college. A number of wide benches fell in half-circles over a
central platform where the instructor was meant to stand, and beyond that were
a small assortment of teaching aids—urns and glass cases, wooden trunks,
mirrors, and less identifiable tools of the demon’s mysterious craft. At the
extreme opposite of this door, at the very lowest level of the room, another tunnel
reached down into darkness.
“My private
chambers,” Horuseps said mildly when Mara frowned in that direction. “Modestly
attired…and not at all fit to receive company. Do forgive me.”
“How long do
lessons last?” Mara asked, using the layers of benches as stairs on her way
down to the platform at the bottom. They made for very steep stairs. “I was
told from second-bell to third, but how long is—oh, very good,” she interrupted
herself, looking sharply around. “I just realized…nine rings, with ‘dais’ at
the center. That’s hilarious, Horuseps.”
“Thank you. I
wish I could take the credit, but alas, it wasn’t my joke. As for lessons, they
are taught all day. We Masters require little in the way of respite and you’ll
find that the material under study rather repels close examination.” He joined
her on the platform. His thin fingers drifted down her back and up again,
toying with the ends of her hair while she inspected the shelves at the back of
the classroom. “Students tend to come and go several times throughout the day
in an attempt to master what they pursue. How long, you ask? I can only tell
you that the lessons take as long as they take. We are not timekeepers here.”
“How bohemian.”
“Hardly. We may
have few rules, but what rules there are must be obeyed on pain of death or
expulsion.”
Mara had to
smile, even as she was distracted by what appeared to be the skeleton of a
two-headed bird mounted under glass. “Expulsion. Is that as good as death, or
worse?”
“That would
depend, I suppose, on how one is expelled…or through what window.” He made
another pass down her hair, lifting it now to breathe in whatever scent clung
to her. It couldn’t have been a pleasant one, all things considered, but he
smiled as if it were dewed with rosewater. “Now hear me, bitterness, and heed
well, for ignorance is deadly here. You have won the right to study, but that
right must be protected. You shall be required to attend lessons and you shall
be expected to apply yourself to them. Do not smile,” he cut in sharply, his
eyes flaring. “Many has been the craven mortal who sought to present himself
poorly at an art he had mastered so that he might linger past his appointed
hour.”
“So you
are
timekeepers.”
“What cheek.” He
bent, stole another breath from her hair, and murmured wordlessly to himself. “Many
come here believing the price of tuition to be low…but having achieved what
they set out to achieve, suddenly realize that one-tenth is rather a large
number after all. Only we Masters keep an accounting. None of them are given to
know where the cruel cut falls. And so there are always some who seek to hide
in their lessons, rather than to learn from them. But we are not in the habit
of harboring refugees. There lies your only warning.”
“I have no
intention of staying longer than I must.”
“In order to
find your friend, yes.” He chuckled. “And how is it you plan to take her away?”
“I’ll cross that
bridge when I come to it, but for argument’s sake, what happens if I decide not
to go to lessons but just to study on my own?”
“On your…?”
“You have enough
books, surely.”
“Surely.” Horuseps
rolled one shoulder in a gesture that was not quite a shrug but was probably
meant to look like one. He couldn’t pull it off without collarbones. “Yet books
may not be removed from the Great Library without the permission of a Master,
and seldom do we give it.”
“What happens if
you catch me reading in my room?”
“Need you ask? You
will be punished.”
“Yes, but there
ought to be several degrees of punishment in this place.”
“True, yet all
of them, I assure you, are punishment enough.” He placed his hand on her back
and, with gentle pressure, led her back to the benches. He climbed without
effort, pausing at each step to wait for her ungainly company before continuing
on. “Ultimately, it comes to our good judgment whether a student is making the
best of his education here, and our judgment is absolute. Make use of our
advantages, young one, and you need not suffer it.”
“I’ll remember
that. What is the ‘appointed hour’ of each class?”
“Every student
is free to pursue whichever art he will, until mastery or until ten years have
elapsed, whichever comes first.”
“Ten years?”
Mara echoed, staring at him.
“Time flies,”
said the demon dryly. “We aren’t teaching automotive repair, dearest. Magic
eludes the human mind by its very nature.”
“But…” Mara took
the last two benches quickly and returned to the passage outside, looking left
and right at the other doors she saw, and that was just here, in this tunnel. “Do
all of these doors lead to a different classroom?”
“A theater,”
Horuseps corrected, joining her. “Yes.”
“And every
doorway in the big r—in the lyceum,” she said. “They all open on tunnels like
this?”
“Yes.”
“How many of you
are there?” Mara asked.
The little smile
he wore became unexpectedly hard. “Not as many as we’d like,” he answered. “Certainly
not as many as find their way here.”
“Do you all
teach?”
“All those you
find in the lyceum,” he said, but he was taking a greater care in the way he
answered now. His mind darkened, deliberately armored against her.
“Different
magic?”
“Oh. I see. No,
my dear. There are degrees of difficulty to each art, and to the ways in which arts
may interact with one another. And so we each have our own specialties here and
our own theater. Explore. Through each open door, you will surely find a demon.”
He laughed and took her arm. “I advise you therefore not to open those closed
to you. Come.”
She followed him
out, through the empty beehive of the lyceum, and downward through another
winding passage, riddled with archways and side-tunnels, until they came to yet
another cavernous chamber. Alternating stalactites and stalagmites formed a
fanged fenceway along the two long walls, behind which more of those yellow
blisters glowed out. Rock rippled upwards along the ceiling in white-capped
lines that emulated the cornices and sconces of a cathedral. Stone benches and
columns set with what may well have been centuries’ of melted candles forced
visitors to walk respectfully down the center of the long room, which was
dominated at the far end by a vast slab of shiny black stone—a door. Ten meters
tall at the very least, it spanned the full height of this great room, and was
as wide or wider than the wall of Mara’s bedroom back home. It had no latch, no
carvings, no hinges, no mark of any kind to spoil the mirror-like gloss of its
surface.
“Where are we?”
Mara asked, since she could sense that he wasn’t ever going to volunteer any
information.
“They call this
place the Nave,” Horuseps said. “And we call it simply the threshold, for
beyond that door lies the graduate’s camber, and the last test of the
Scholomance. Ask me no questions of the trial within. It is not for me to
answer.”
“Fair enough. Is
that the only way out?”
“Yes.”
“What about the
way I came in?”
“The portcullis
opens but once a year, dear one, and at no student’s behest.” Horuseps watched
as Mara approached the black door and tentatively laid her hand upon it. “You
don’t really want to do that, do you?” he asked, smiling.
“Probably not. How
does it open?”
“With effort.”
Thinking of the
doors in the Oubliette, Mara reached out through her hand and tried to touch
whatever might be inhabiting the black stone. She felt nothing there, but
sensed a leap of surprise from Horuseps and turned to see him only just
composing himself. “Is there a problem?” she asked coolly.
“Not at all. You
are perfectly free to experiment how you will, only be aware that the other
students share this freedom, and our home defends itself blindly. Besides
which, if you met immediately with success, where would you be but out of the
Scholomance for another year? You’ve only just arrived. Do leave a little
mystery for later delving.” Horuseps took her arm, gave the door a grim sort of
backwards glance, and led her firmly away. “There, you can just see the main
entry to the dining hall, my dearest. And through there, the reading room, for
those few who have earned a Master’s favor. And through there and there and
there, o so many secret places, but for now, down we go!”
Down again, out
of the Nave on a wide, sweeping staircase that came out of its close-walled
tunnel to arch down over empty space into a great stadium of a cavern. By the
now-familiar flickering lights of the blister-lamps, she could see dozens of
passageways over three separate floors, and at least a hundred students in
black or white robes milling about below them.
“This is the
ephebeum,” Horuseps said. “The student’s dorm, so to speak. Think of this as
the exercise pen. I understand they have races here, and other games, some of
which I suspect are rather unpleasant, but I trust you’ll make friends quickly.
Or if not friends, at least an impression. There are many amenities provided
here…the garderobe is to your left, and the baths upon your right, and the
cells, of course.”
“Do you show
every new student around?” Mara asked, knowing the answer already.
“Observe your
fellows,” Horuseps replied dryly. The students scattered through the ephebeum
were indeed staring, although they were all careful to keep clear of the demon
and bow when he passed by. “Yet I confess you do interest me and so I suffer
the infamy of it.”
Mara was
reasonably certain that if there was going to be suffering attached to infamy
in here, it was likelier to fall on her than on him, but saw no point in saying
so. Being an A-student came easy to a telepath; she’d dealt with the fallout of
favoritism before and she wasn’t worried now, just because the other students
thought they could put the whammy on her. She’d tapped at nearly every mind she’d
come across out of habit and found not even one of them who knew she’d done it,
let alone one that could keep her out. She may not be able to make friends in
this place, but she was confident she’d always see an enemy coming, as long as
she stayed in the open.
The bells
sounded, ringing through the rock in four separate, doleful peals. Last bell. Day’s
end. The students lounging about the ephebeum immediately stopped whatever they
were doing and gathered themselves up. More students poured in through other
stairwells, chatting together in the way of students everywhere, and only a
little startled to see a Master among them. They dispersed, quickly if not
exactly quietly, vanishing down the many holes that opened in the high stone
walls. In moments, mere moments, they were alone.
Mara stumbled,
disoriented by the sudden psychic silence in a place she knew teemed with
living people. Ever the gentleman, Horuseps caught her hand to steady her, and
then just kept holding on, his thoughts squirming with black pleasure, but all
he said was, “We’ve timed this well, haven’t we? Now to give you a cell to call
home…and I know just the one.”
He led her out
of the ephebeum and deeper into the mountain, past open doors and empty rooms,
into narrower and darker corridors. The blister-like lamps that lit the tunnels
came less and less frequently, and often stayed black until Horuseps lit them
in some unimaginable way in the dark. He explained nothing, just kept walking
in his swift, graceful way, humming a little under his breath.
“You’re sure
this isn’t a dungeon cell?” Mara asked, frowning at a hanging stalactite as she
ducked under it.
“You strike me
as one who prefers her privacy over convenience. Here.” He stepped and touched
the tip of one finger to the lockplate on an otherwise unremarkable door. It
sparked and swung inward, groaning on its hinges.
The door was
small, only a little taller than she stood herself and narrow enough that she
had to turn sideways to get in. As small as the door was, the room was worse: Six
stone surfaces, utterly smooth and featureless. The only light came from a lamp
in the tunnel through the door’s narrow window that was the tiny cell’s sole
ventilation. Using herself as a general instrument of measurement, Mara guessed
the room to be six feet in height, three in width, and only five deep. To
sleep, she would either have to draw her knees up or leave her feet out in the
hall. That was assuming she could sleep at all on this floor, without even a
straw mat for a bed.
“Well,” said
Mara finally. “This is pretty horrible.”