Rebel Elements (Seals of the Duelists) (13 page)

Murmurs of disgust rippled around the room. Bayan stayed quiet, staring at his desk. Such things did seem unnatural, but wasn’t the unnatural quality of magic what set duelists apart from villagers? What drove the emperor to rein in and control the duelists even in peacetime? Balanganese Skycallers had occasionally been known to cast spells involving animals rather than the river or the storms. Such spells were rarely necessary, yet Balanganese attached no stigma to the Skycallers for employing them. Surely, they weren’t using an evil magic, were they? How could de Rood know whether all those details were accurate, anyway, if no one had seen anima magic performed in centuries?

But Helderaard was no place to defend Balanganese anima magic. After a score of days on campus, he had learned that most Waarden and Shawnash students, and a large portion of the Akrestoi and Dunfarroghan students, held firm opinions about the superiority of their lands and cultures over Bayan’s. Bayan despaired of ever feeling like an equal at the Academy. It made him long for home all the more.

~~~

“If I have to do one more circle with my left arm,” Bayan moaned, “it is going to fall off.”

Calder nudged him out of workout class and into the open-air corridor. A warm breeze blew, promising spring. “Just sleep outside tonight. Maybe it’ll freeze back on.”

As they headed for the tunnel, Bayan saw one of the older students talking to a teacher he didn’t know.

“What does that man teach?” He nodded toward the pair.

Diogenes, nearby, looked over and snorted, his blond braids swinging. “Hopefully, he can teach Braam some manners. That oaf, he stole my breakfast roll this morning.”

Bayan looked again, belatedly recognizing the distant student as one of those in Taban’s hex.

Redheaded Tarin breezed by. “That’s Instructor witten Oost. He’s a Hexmagic Duelist. He teaches avatar and hexmagic classes, and he has special invite-only classes, too.”

Diogenes stared after her. “That hair—it’s amazing.”

“It’s pretty,” Bayan agreed. “No one has red hair where I come from.”

“Imperials, they don’t have red hair,” Diogenes replied.

“What? Then how did she get hers?”

“It’s not hennaed, if that’s what you’re asking. Her mother, she’s a Dunfarroghan, and her father’s an Akrestoi, like me. Children of those two cultures, they sometimes get red hair. Seeing her, it’s like seeing a pearl turtle.” Diogenes continued to stare after Tarin.

Bayan shook his head. “We have pearl turtles everywhere back in Pangusay. They swim up the Mambajao to lay their eggs in the dry season.”

“Never on a Firstday morning!” Diogenes cried.

Bayan stopped, alarmed at the boy’s outburst. Then he saw Diogenes’ interested grin, and realized his words had been some kind of Waarden idiom.

“Yes, they do,” he replied, relaxing. “We collect the shell fragments after they hatch and sell them to traders.”

“Really? Those shiny bits, they’re from eggs? I always thought they were from the turtle shell itself.”

“No. But I can see how you’d think that. The merchants probably tell people that on purpose. Pearl turtles’ back shells are just a pale green color. Their belly shells can be pearly, especially if they’re young.”

“Are they good to eat?” Calder asked.

“Definitely,” Bayan replied. “If you can catch one.”

“You’re not as weird as the others say you are, you know,” Diogenes said, as if imparting some big secret.

“Um. Thanks.”

“Call me Odjin. My other friends, they do. I’ll see you later?”

“Can’t help it, really.”

Diogenes chuckled and caught up with another trainee as they trekked through the tunnel along the wooden walkway.

Calder clapped Bayan on the shoulder. “Look at that, now. You’ve gone and doubled your friends from one to two, and it only took you four holidays by the calendar.”

“Shut it.”

“Oh, I see how it is, then. You like him better than me.” Calder pretended to pout.

Bayan snorted. “He has less cheek.”

“Ooh! Look at the Balang now. He’s learning Waarden idioms. What will he think of next?”

“I’m not sure,” Bayan replied, “but it will probably involve itching powder and your sheets.”

“Ah. Thanks for the warning. Good thing I pulled yours back out of the laundry pile this morning. You’ve been sleeping cheek by jowl with some musky little weasel or something?”

Bayan knew his friend was teasing, but sometimes Calder’s fun was too similar to the insults the other students threw at him. “Yes. You.”

Several other trainees burst out laughing at Calder’s expense. He laughed right along with them, seeming to enjoy Bayan’s joke even though he he’d been the butt of it.

Bayan pasted on a smile.
How does he do that—not take things personally?
When others teased him, he always thought they were serious. Was he overreacting? Were some of them simply making jokes? Could he learn to laugh it off like Calder did? If he did, what would that do to his pride
? It’s not right to insult people. My little sisters are better behaved than these trainees.

As Bayan filed in with the other boys to change clothes before supper, he felt he was the only one in a foul mood. The fact that he’d been the one insulting Calder didn’t help dispel his grumpiness, and he wondered if others felt this unsettled when they insulted him.

~~~

Bayan simmered with anger as he stalked into the dining hall. He’d been late to turn in his history assignment because he hadn’t written it beforehand, so de Rood had made him stay after and write it out. He was the last of his class to get to lunch. Half of his classmates had already finished their meal and left the hall.

Calder was still in the hall, sitting next to Eward. He waved at Bayan, but Bayan turned away and reached for a wooden trencher to hold his food.

“Bayan, I dinna realize you were on the menu. What’s eating you?” Calder stepped over from his table.

“I don’t want to be here, Calder. I don’t care about the empire’s history. I was kidnapped and dragged here against my will. I had a life, a girl, and now I have nothing but you!”

Calder’s face registered confusion and hurt. “Dinna realize you liked planting bulbs so much.”

Eward joined them. “The empire kidnapped all of us, Bayan.”

“And you think that’s worth smiling about?” Bayan glared at Eward’s upturned mouth.

“No, but you see, we’re all in this together. We’re not your enemies. We’re in the same boat you are.”

“We might be a few seats closer to the bow,” Calder said, with an annoyed quirk to his lips. “For some of us, this is as good as it gets.”

Eward
tsked
at him, then turned to Bayan. “We’re all empire orphans here, even the teachers. We have to be each other’s family now. Don’t turn against us. We’re more alike than you think.”

“A shame most of you won’t admit it.” Bayan shoved past them both toward a kitchen server, who waited with raised eyebrows.

Just as Calder murmured that they should leave Bayan alone, the elemental students’ class began queuing behind Bayan. Apparently Braam, at the front of his class, wasn’t keen on waiting. “Move over, muckling. The clean people want to eat.” He pushed Bayan out of the food line.

Bayan stumbled to a stop. His pulse pounded in his ears, but hunger made him step back in line.

“I said,” Braam began, nudging the back of Bayan’s knee with his toes, “move aside for your betters, newnik.”

Bayan’s darkness rushed into his skull so fast he felt lightheaded. He whirled around and looked up into Braam’s eyes. “I would, if there were any here. But all I see is you.”

Quiet gasps and snickers came from behind Braam, whose pale skin flushed. The older student’s nose twitched as he hissed, “You move aside and let me eat, or I’ll—”

Bayan’s darkness flashed out through his eyes and fingers, and wrapped the pale bricks of the floor around Braam’s legs, attaching him to the floor with twisted stone manacles. Braam’s voice stuttered to a stop as he stared at his imprisoned feet.

“Shut. Your. Mouth.” Bayan barely recognized his own voice.

“Bayan!” Calder called.

But Bayan couldn’t stop his magic. It grabbed the wooden counter and shredded it, sending wood fragments whirling into the air. Several small whirlwinds swirled around Bayan and shot splinters like arrows across the large room. Students cried out and ducked beneath tables and behind benches.

The darkness sang to him. A sweet melody flowed through everything he saw and felt and smelled. The magic was delicious, and he wanted more. But as he embraced it, he felt shoved to the corner of his own mind. His limbs barely responded to him. He clutched his head, feeling like his skull was about to explode.

Then Staasen and Wekshi were there
.
Together, they dispersed the whirlwinds and freed Braam from the bricks’ grip.

“It’s a rule violation! You all saw it,” Braam shouted. “He attacked me with his magic!”

“He hasn’t learned any, Braam.” Staasen escorted him to an empty table and sat him down. “It just got away from him. And it did so because you provoked him. You’re lucky it didn’t snap your feet off. Next time, tell your stomach it can wait.”

Wekshi waved her arms in an unfamiliar pattern, then clasped Bayan’s arms, holding him still.

“My avatar will escort us out, Bayan,” she said. A disc of wind manifested beneath her feet, then grew large enough to support Bayan as well, lifting them both off the floor. Air blasted Bayan’s face and dragged at his hair as they zoomed outside, and then the disc vanished. Bayan staggered onto the damp grass, dimly realizing he had flown a hundred strides from the dining hall.

Wekshi shook him. “Bayan, snap out of it. Let the magic go.”

“I… can’t.” Bayan grimaced, struggling to contain his rage, which seemed as slippery as water.

“Then come with me to a cold house.”

Bayan could only nod. Blackness shaded his vision, and he fell into his own personal twilight beside Wekshi as they rode the swift disc of wind up the side of a cliff and through a tunnel to an area he hadn’t yet seen.

She took him to a small, stone structure with rounded edges, one of a cluster that sat on a hill beyond the campus’ edge. “You need to focus before you enter the cold house. Do a few Invocations and Revocations.”

Bayan complied, struggling to perform the simple gestures, barely able to see his own limbs through the dark haze. After Bayan performed one last Invocation, Wekshi unbolted the door, pulled it open, and helped him inside.

“It’s not cold in here,” he said.

She sighed through her nose. “Do you listen in any of your classes? If your magic gets away from you, one of these little rooms will stop it cold. Hence the name.”

Bayan became aware that the dimness inside the tiny room wasn’t caused by his shuddering rage, but by meager light through a small window. His darkness had fled. He sat down on a padded chair next to a small stone table that protruded seamlessly from the wall. The stone chair’s legs were anchored to the floor, and its back grew out of the wall. In addition, the room also contained a single lamp and a tiny stove.

“Don’t try to leave the cold house until a teacher releases you. I’ll send Doc Theo over to look at you right away.” She shut the door and bolted it.

Guess I’m not leaving. First I’m out of control, and now I’m empty. How can the duelists live like this? It’s painful. It’s embarrassing. I can’t live normally, not even here.

Some while later, a knock came at the door and Doc Theo, with his curly gray hair and weathered skin, entered.

He looks like a Skycaller.

“I hear you had a spot o’ trouble today. Mind if I check you over with my crystal?”

“Go ahead.”

The man pulled out a crystal the length of his hand and chanted for a few moments as he held it above Bayan’s head. Then he quieted and put it away.

“You’re fine, no harm done. Physically, anyway.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Bayan, rage ain’t good for you. Not as a person and especially not as a duelist. It’ll throw off your magic—”

“I didn’t ask to come here!” Bayan flared his nostrils, but the blackness stayed away. “All I want is to go back home. Going to class, pretending I like it here—it’s driving me mad. Better if I just let them kick me out. Whether it’s for fighting or for failing, I don’t much care.”

Doc Theo frowned. “I see. Well, it sounds like you ain’t quite thought that plan through to the obvious conclusion. Or belike it ain’t obvious to you yet.”

Bayan looked away. He already knew about potioneers.

Doc Theo continued. “If you cain’t pass your classes, learn to control your emotions, and perfect the sacred motions, Bayan, you’re gonna wash out of the Academy and get potioneered. And you know what’ll happen after that?”

“I get to run away to Balanganam?”

“Not even close. You’ll have your magic stripped out of you when you wash outta the Academy. I hear tell it’s on the gruesome side, as rituals go. From the moment you leave this campus, you’ll be tracked by the empire and assigned to this town or that town. If you don’t appear for your annual report to the potioneer department ’cause you runnoft, the emperor will send duelists to hunt you down and drag you back. And they’ll getcha, sooner or later.”