Daughter of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 4) (7 page)

One professor, a little old man
with a bald head and white mustache, cleared his throat.

"Hello. I am Elixior Fen,
Professor of Basic Magical Principles." He thumbed through a
booklet. "You are . . . Madori Billy Greenmoat, yes?" His
voice was scratchy and high-pitched. "From Fairwool-by-Night, in
the kingdom of Arden. Daughter of . . ." He adjusted his
half-moon glasses, peering into the book. "Daughter of Sir Torin
Greenmoat, son of Sir Teramin Greenmoat. Oh my." He raised his
eyes in surprise and peered down at her. "Your father is
something of a legend in these parts—I wager, in all parts of Moth."

Madori raised her chin, pride in
her father swelling in her. But another professor spoke, quickly
crushing her rising spirits.

"Torin Greenmoat is a fool,
not a true noble. I remember him from the war. I do believe we fought
in the same battle once; of course, he was fighting for the wrong
side. He is an insult to the purity of highborn blood."

Madori turned to look at this
new speaker. Seeing him, her innards crumpled like old parchment.

This professor not only loomed
like a vulture but looked like one too. His neck was long and
scraggly, his nose was hooked like a beak, and his eyes were dark and
glittering. His scalp was bald, and strands of oily, dark hair hung
from his head in a ring like putrid feathers. He wore the black robes
of warfare, the cloth dusty and tattered, and upon them gleamed a
brooch of gold and silver—the Radian sigil.

A
dark magician,
Madori thought, anger bubbling inside her.
The
kind father fought in the war. And a Radian to boot.

"My
father," she said, chin raised, "killed mages like you in
the war."

The hooked-nosed Radian leaped
to his feet, sneering. His fists clenched upon the tabletop.

"I
would watch my tongue if I were you,
mongrel
.
Your father spat upon the pure blood of Timandra, mixing it with
Elorian filth." He snorted. "We see the result before
us—an impudent, feral little—"

"Professor Atratus!"
said Professor Fen, slamming his book shut. His white mustache
bristled, and lines creased his bald head. The little old man seemed
barely larger than Madori, but he spoke with authority. "Please,
Atratus. We've not invited Madori here to discuss her parentage.
Whatever happened between you and Sir Greenmoat during the war ended
many years ago. We're here to judge young Madori, not any supposed
crimes her father may or may not have committed." The diminutive
professor cleared his throat and pushed his spectacles up his nose.
"Now then, Professor Atratus, would you reoccupy your seat so we
may begin?"

Never removing his withering
stare from Madori, Atratus sat back down. His fists remained balled,
and his lip curled.

The third professor, who had
remained silent so far, finally cleared her throat. Clad in blue
robes, she was younger than her companions—not much older than
Madori's parents—with a head of bushy brown hair and olive-toned
skin. A milky film covered her eyes; those eyes stared blankly over
Madori's head.

She's
blind,
Madori realized.

"My
name is Elina Maleen, Professor of Magical History," the woman
said. "I will quiz you first, followed by my two colleagues. We
desire for only the most learned youths to attend our university. Our
questions will determine whether you are proficiently educated."
The blind professor smoothed her robes. "You must answer
all
three
questions correctly to pass to the next trial."

Madori
gulped. Proficiently educated? She had grown up in a village,
surrounded by farms. She had never gone to any school. All she knew
was what she had read about in the village library. There were
hundreds of books in that library, all donated by Queen Linee of
Arden; Madori had mostly just read the books of epic tales and
ancient deeds of valor. How would those help her at a school for
magic? She wanted to object to this entire test. She wanted to tell
Professor Maleen that she had come here to
become
educated. But before words could leave her mouth, the young,
bushy-haired professor spoke again.

"Now, child, please tell
me: What is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter?"

Madori blinked.

What?
she wanted to blurt out. How did that have anything to do with magic?
Circumference? Daiameter? Only masons and shipwrights knew such
things; she was from a village of shepherds and farmers!

She opened her mouth to object,
to demand another question, but Professor Maleen leaned forward
expectantly, and for a moment Madori lost her breath.

I
don't know,
she thought. Cold sweat trickled down her back.
I
came here ill-prepared. I'll be among the ninety percent of
applicants going home this turn.

She
froze.
Wait!
spoke a voice inside her. Percentages—she knew about those. She had
just
thought
about them! Where had she learned about percentages?

She racked her mind, thinking
back to Fairwool Library. When she closed her eyes, she imagined
herself walking through that library again, passing by shelves of
many books. In her memory, she reached out to one particular book, a
dusty old tome with blue leather binding. She had loved its
illustrations of stars, moons, and many graphs and geometric shapes.

A book of mathematics. Yes. She
had read this book!

She opened her eyes, took a deep
breath, and blurted out from memory, "It's a number that cannot
be expressed in words or digits. It's roughly . . ." She mumbled
under her breath for a moment, struggling to remember. "About
twenty-two divided by seven. Three and a little bit." She
nodded, hoping that was close enough. "Old Master Loranor, a
mathematician from Eseer, referred to it as The Cosmic Number."

She took a deep breath, staring
at the professor, and her heart pounded. For a long moment Professor
Maleen was silent, and Madori barely dared to breathe.

Finally Maleen nodded. "Very
good! Very good, child. You are correct."

Madori breathed out a sigh of
relief. She managed a shaky grin and even gave a little curtsy.

Before she could catch her
breath, however, Professor Fen rose to his feet. He was so short he
actually dropped in height once sliding off his chair. He
straightened his half-moon glasses, stroked his mustache, and passed
a hand across his large, bald head.

"Now then . . ." he
said, thumbing through his little book. "A question, a question
. . . ah! Here we go. A very good question indeed, this one is."
He smiled at Madori. "Listen carefully, child. Many years ago,
both halves of Mythimna experienced both day and night, an
alternating dance. Why is one half of Mythimna now always in
daylight, the other always dark?"

Madori blinked. "Well,
that's easy! It's because . . ."

She
trailed off, frowning. Why
was
one half Mythimna—this world men called Moth—always in sunlight,
the other always dark? She had always assumed that was simply the way
of the world, that there wasn't any particular
reason
to it. This was like asking why the sky was blue, why mountains were
taller than valleys, or why trees grew upward instead of down. She
tilted her head.

"Well, it's . . ." she
began, tapping her chin.

"Yes?" Professor Fen
asked.

She chewed her lip, thinking
back to the stories of the war. Her parents had told her this story!
They had told her the story a thousand times, but Madori had always
blocked it out, upset about her mother's latest lecture or her
father's latest bad pun. Yet now she clawed at the memory. Her
parents had been to Cabera Mountain, the heart of the broken world,
and seen why Moth no longer . . . no longer . . .

"Because Moth no longer
turns!" she blurted out, remembering. She nodded vigorously. "My
parents told me that. Moth—well, Mythima is the world's real
name—is round. A big sphere that floats in the sky, circling round
and round the sun. And, well, Moth once used to turn around its
axis—many years ago—letting day and night cycle." She did a
little pirouette, mimicking the world. "But the world stopped
spinning around itself." She stood still, facing the professors
again. "So one side now always faces the sun, the other faces
the darkness. Were the world to spin again . . ." She gave
another spin. ". . . day and night would cycle again."

Professor Fen smiled and slammed
his book shut. "Correct! Very good, young Lady Greenmoat."

I
did it!
Joy
spread through Madori. She had answered another question correctly!
She grinned and rocked on her heels. "Thank you, Professor."

Professor Atratus, clad in his
flowing black robes, rose to his feet. His glare shot daggers at
Madori.

"Do not be so quick to
grin, girl." He sneered, upper lip twitching. "It is my
turn to ask you a question." Fists upon the tabletop, he leaned
forward like a bird of prey about to tear into her flesh. "My
colleagues asked you simple questions of basic mathematics and
cosmology, the answers to which any half-wit child would know. But I
ask you a question of . . . zoology." He leaned even further
forward, bones creaking. "List three examples of how the Elorian
race—that subhuman species of darkness—is inferior to the purity of
Timandrian blood."

The other two professors tsked
their tongues.

"Professor Atratus,"
Fen ventured, his mustache twitching, "perhaps a different
ques—"

"She will answer that
question," Atratus said firmly, straightening and squaring his
shoulders. He stared down his beaked nose at her. "Answer me,
Madori." He made her name—an Elorian name—sound like an
insult. "Speak—or are you ignorant?"

Rage flared in Madori. She
sneered right back up at him.

"Very well," she said.
"I will list why Elorians are, as you say, inferior. First of
all, Elorians are less talented at warfare. They have a lower
penchant for violence, leaving them inferior at killing, looting, and
conquering." The professors sucked in their breath at this, but
Madori plowed on. "Secondly, Elorians are less proud of their
heritage. They do not claim to be superior to others. Their
humbleness, their lack of hubris, is probably why they remain in
darkness rather than invade other lands." She spoke louder.
"Thirdly, Elorians are inferior to you, Professor Atratus,
because they lack your marvelous buzzard's beak of a nose which you
thrust proudly in all directions."

She stood panting, her heart
thumping so loudly she thought it could crack her ribs.

For a long moment, only silent
shock filled the chamber.

Professor Atratus began to
tremble. His face turned red. With a sudden jerk, he pounded the
tabletop and screamed.

"Impudent little maggot!
Your words are folly, but they show to all the answer to my question.
Your insolence, your lack of respect, and your crass effrontery to
science prove you are inferior! Your very presence here shows the
baseness of your Elorian blood, of—"

"So I answered the question
correctly," Madori said, smiling thinly. "You just admitted
it."

Atratus sputtered, for a moment
lost for words.

Professor Fen cleared his throat
and stroked his mustache. "Oh my, Professor Atratus, I do
believe she is right. You did just confess that she answered
correctly. Did you hear it too, Professor Maleen?"

The blind woman nodded, a thin
smile on her lips. "Yes indeed, Professor Fen. I do believe
young Madori has answered all our questions correctly."

Professor Atratus looked ready
to burst. He pounded the table again, cracking it. "This is
rubbish! This subhuman mongrel is not fit for a fine academic
institution such as this. She—"

"She has passed this
trial," Professor Fen said firmly, his mustache drooping with
his frown. "Or do you wish me to summon Headmistress Egeria to
judge?"

Professor Atratus froze in
mid-sentence, his mouth hanging open like some wall-mounted fish. The
other two professors merely looked at him, blinking, eyebrows raised.
Atratus sputtered, unable to speak, spraying saliva. He pointed a
shaky finger at Madori, his cheeks red, then spun around. Robes
fluttering, he stormed out of the chamber.

Madori exhaled a shaky breath of
relief. "I passed the trial," she whispered.

The two remaining professors
nodded, smiling warmly.

"You have passed the Trial
of Wisdom," said Professor Fen, his mustache rising with his
smile. "Step through that back door, child. It will take you to
a new place where you will partake in the second trial—a Trial of
Wit."

Madori suddenly couldn't stop
trembling.

I
passed. I passed the first trial.

Tears budded in her eyes.

"Thank you," she
whispered, curtsied, and ran through the backdoor.

 
 
CHAPTER SIX:
TRIAL OF WIT

When Madori stepped through the
back door, she expected to find another chamber or cloister. Instead
she found herself in another world.

Blackness spread all around her;
she felt as if she floated in the night sky. She stood on a stone
bridge that spread over the chasm. A door stood before her—not
encased in a wall but simply standing on its own. When Madori leaned
sideways, she could peer around it. Many more doors rose along the
bridge like battlements along a castle wall.

A contraption of ropes, wooden
circles, and metallic rings hung upon the door. The jumble was
connected to the doorknob, blocking Madori from twisting it. She
jangled the hodgepodge, listening to the metallic rings clink and the
wooden circles knock together.

"A riddle," she said.
"An elaborate knot."

So, she realized, the Trial of
Wit involved opening door by door—each one posing a riddle. At a
summer festival once in Kingswall, Madori had seen a trained parrot
that could solve elaborate puzzles, opening doors to get a treat. It
seemed that now she would have to play parrot.