Rebel Elements (Seals of the Duelists) (7 page)

Bayan was quiet a moment. “You think Balanganese history will ever get taught in imperial schools?”

Calder heard bitterness in his voice, and wondered if Bayan thought the empire found nothing worthy in the Balanganese culture. His own Dunfarroghan background generally placed him below the Waarden and the Shawnash, and to the side of the Akrestoi, but above the Pinamuyoc and the ragtags. He knew he had a firm place in the empire and its history. Bayan had essentially no imperial history and might as well be a Tuathi or someone from the far eastern Corona, as far as having any sense of belonging in the empire.

“Aye,” Calder said, turning onto his stomach and hearing his own ropes creak. “All you need do is have the Tuathi run around the mountains and invade from the south. The empire will send the duelists to fight them off, you’ll be a hero back at home, we’ll all get a new holiday, and Balanganam will be the best known battlefield in every imperial school.”

Bayan laughed. “I’ll be sure to send the Tuathi a note.”

The midmorning sun shone down into the narrow, sheer-walled valley ahead, and Bayan stared out the carriage window at the pale cliffs. The cliffs were much different from the dark, lumpy mountains around Pangusay. Their light color and height made him think of the dense white bread loaves the Waarden seemed to crave.

The valley they entered was lush and green, and the trees and shrubs beside the road were unfamiliar to Bayan. Their leaves were lighter in hue and smaller than those from his homeland, and their bark looked rough, even scaly. The smell of the crisp morning air was both sweet and spicy, and Bayan found that he liked it.

Philo, in a curly gray wig with red ribbons, buried his nose in more papers and seemed uninterested in the approach to the Duelist Academy. Bayan leaned out and glanced around at the riders, gratified that Frits, Fabian, and Joord seemed to enjoy the scenery as much as he did.

The carriage followed the valley floor and climbed ever upward. Bayan caught sight of something large and dark looming above the trees ahead. He nudged Calder and pointed, and the pair watched silently as proximity revealed more detail.

A statue made of black stone finally came into view. The figure was human in appearance, but its head and most of its torso were missing. The stub of its remaining arm pointed across the road. The carriage rode through its shadow, and the boys craned their necks as they passed.

“Who did that used to be?” Bayan asked.

Philo looked up from his papers. “One of the Duelist Academy founders, or perhaps a famous duelist from the First Tuathi War. The Academy was originally founded down here in the valley. After being destroyed twice, despite fortifications, it was moved to the cliff tops. The ruins of the original Academy are said to be sacred, or haunted, depending whom you ask, so they remain untouched, an elegy to the dead of wars past and a warning never to lose vigilance against the enemies of the Waarden.”

Bayan looked back out the window. Through the trees, he made out shadowy ruins of tumbled stone and broad, straight lanes of weedy cobblestones. An air of quiet desolation pervaded the scene—of warriors lost to time and memory, whose deeds no longer mattered to the living. Bayan’s skin pebbled, and he wondered if he would fade from the world’s memory as completely when he had finished walking its ways.

“How old is it?” he asked.

“The Academy was founded during the first Tuathi invasions,” Calder answered, “almost two millennia ago. These rocks are about as old as the Waarden Empire itself.”

Kipri grinned. “Someone’s going to do well in history class.” Philo let out a soft titter of amusement.

Eventually, the carriage pulled up to a guard post carved from the cliff side. The sun hid behind the cliff, and the cool air of morning made Bayan wish he had warmer clothing. A dark cave loomed next to the guard post. The arch of its mouth looked too smooth to be naturally formed.

“Are we going in there?” Bayan gazed into its shadowed interior. He thought he could see a dim light high up inside it.

A guard approached the carriage and held up a hand. Philo’s riders gave him space to approach. The long iron tip on his spear had backward-pointing spines at its base and reminded Bayan of the boar-stickers back home.

“Morning, Surveyor. What’s your business at the Academy today?” the guard asked.

“I have two trainees with me who are eager to begin classes.”

One, maybe
, Bayan thought.

“Two?” the guard echoed. “Then I believe you’ll give the headmaster cause to celebrate.” He turned to Bayan and Calder. “You boys take care up there. We’re honored to have you with us.”

He stepped back and called an order to the other guards. One of them acknowledged the order and stepped into a back room. Moments later, a series of lamps lit within the cave, lining and illuminating an inclined stone road, and equally failing to brighten a broad, dark crevasse that sliced clear through it, leaving a broad gap across the stone’s surface from one cave wall to the other. A heavy, low grinding sound echoed inside the cave, and a wooden ramp made of pale planks rose into position, bridging the crevasse and completing the road. Several metallic clanks followed.

When all was silent, the guard stepped aside. “The drawbridge is locked; you may proceed up to the cliff road. When you’re ready to return, speak to the guards at the top of the tunnel.”

Philo nodded, then leaned out and asked Fabian and the other riders to wait at the bottom of the hill. They nodded and dismounted, leading their horses off the road.

Nic urged the carriage horses forward onto the wooden ramp. They balked at first, then adopted a skittish trot. Their hooves thudded across the drawbridge. The road’s angle wasn’t steep, and the faint light at the tunnel’s far end drew elongated shadow streaks along the tunnel walls. Soon, the wooden section ended and roughened stone took them the rest of the way out into the darkness.

When the carriage emerged into the light again, Bayan took one look out the window and barked a startled exclamation. The road ran right along the cliff’s edge, and the sheer drop seemed several hundred strides straight down. Within a few carriage lengths, they passed the upper guard post and turned sharply into the next switchback, which took them further up the mountainside.

“I can see why the Academy is up here now.” Bayan clung tightly to his seat. “No one could pay me enough to scale the cliff and attack it.”

Calder laughed. “You’re afraid of heights?”

“I wasn’t until now!”

Two more switchbacks and a short tunnel led them past a turnoff whose sign read
Peace Village
, to a cluster of buildings pressed against a sheer cliff. Three enormous but brief tunnels, much larger than the ones they’d driven through, led back through its face; one was lit with sunlight from the far side.

The main building stood three stories high, towering over the smaller buildings on either side. The structure was broad and red-roofed, with three wide staircases approaching it from the front where the road ended in a circular turnabout. Staircases and raised walkways also passed between the main building and its neighbors. The largest building’s levels grew smaller toward the top, like a three-tiered festival cake, and each roof bore strange, downward-curling, claw-like bronze shapes on the corners. Above the highest roof, a walkway cut into the cliff face. Its visible side was latticed and had evenly spaced, narrow windows. Below it, similar walkways clung to the cliff face and angled into and between the large tunnels and down to the buildings.

Bayan craned his neck to look up at the sheer cliff face that blocked the late morning sun. A broad, circular carving dominated the plain, smooth stone, formed of an outer ring surrounding six teardrop shapes, their slender ends pointing toward the center.

“What’s that supposed to be?”

“That’s a good question, son,” said Philo. “Why don’t you ask the headmaster?”

Kipri grinned. “That means he doesn’t know either.”

Philo gave the young eunuch a look of mock disapproval.

Nic pulled the horses to a halt in the circular drive before the triple staircases.

“End of the journey at last.” Philo eased himself forward on his seat. “Kipri, if you’d be so kind as to fetch the boys’ luggage?”

Everyone exited the carriage. While Calder tucked his hands into his armpits, Bayan cradled the poor little pitcher plant close, imagining that it was shivering as well.
We’re both out of our element here.

Philo led Bayan and the others up the central staircase to the main building. Up close, the strange curved bronze shapes on the building’s corners resolved into stylized fingers.

On the top level of the steps, they crossed a broad floor mosaic that mirrored the circular carving overhead. The mosaic’s teardrops were formed with colored stones in bright hues of red, white, green, silver, blue, and turquoise. The rest of the image was formed of smooth black obsidian surrounded by a thick ring of gold.

“I like this one better.” Calder pointed down at the mosaic as they crossed it. “They should both be like this.”

Bayan glanced upward, indicating the uncolored pattern in the cliff face. “You want to be the one to paint that thing?”

“Aye, good point.”

As Philo approached the crimson double doors and reached for a long bronze handle, the door swung open from within. A tall man in bushy white sideburns and a light blue tunic and pants beamed at them.

“Welcome! Be welcome to the Duelist Academy. Please, come in.” He stood aside and let them enter. Bayan noticed round tattoos on the back of each of his hands; one resembled the mosaic pattern he’d just crossed.

While Philo and the white-haired man exchanged pleasantries, Bayan moved a short distance away for a look at the interior of the building. Though hallways stretched in three directions from where he stood, a single, massive room took up a good portion of the ground floor. High-ceilinged, it sported a raised circular dais in the center, surrounded by six sections of benches. On the far wall, a deep purple ribbon hung from ceiling to floor, and three large metal discs, each with a different pattern inset with colorful stones, were affixed to it. The bottom disc matched the mosaic outside, and the middle one matched the white-haired man’s second tattoo, a sort of multi-colored starburst. The top disc appeared oddly blank, a dull gray.

The white-haired man joined Bayan. “I am Headmaster Tuur Langlaren, Hexmagic Duelist. I believe we have been waiting for you.” His gaze included Calder, as Philo ushered the blond boy over to them. Bayan wondered whether the old duelist had somehow known of his journey to the Academy.

Philo introduced the trainees to the headmaster.

“From Balanganam?” Headmaster Langlaren asked. “Well, that is unusual. You’ll be our first Bantayan from that province here at the Academy.”

Bayan gritted his teeth at hearing his homeland called a mere province, but he said nothing.

“I’ll leave you, then, my boys, in the headmaster’s capable hands,” Philo said. Kipri handed the boys their bags and wished them well.

“Thank you for the ride, Surveyor Philo,” Calder replied.

“It was the least I could do. Now, Bayan, as your sponsor, it is my pleasure to get you anything you need while you’re here. If you have anything you want to ask or tell me, don’t hesitate to write a letter. I believe there is a royal mail packet that makes express deliveries between the campus and the palace every four days. You may address it to me in care of the Department of Ways.”

Bayan nodded, and Philo, Kipri, and their guards departed. Leaving Philo’s avuncular care for life on the cold cliffs of Helderaard suddenly seemed a poor exchange. At least he had Calder with him.

A man and woman emerged from a door across the large room and approached with apparent eagerness. As they got closer, Bayan noticed both had tattoos on each of their hands.

“Is this the one?” asked the tall man with light brown, kinked hair, as he indicated Calder.

The woman with him was nearly as tall, and her black hair was gathered into two short, pointy braids behind her ears. She gestured to Bayan. “Perhaps it’s the Pinamuyoc boy. Been a few years since we had one through here.”

Bayan felt thick anger flood his mind. Couldn’t they talk directly to him? He didn’t even look much like a Pinam!

“Pim, Wekshi,” the headmaster said with a nod. “In fact, it’s both of them. He placed a hand on each boy’s shoulder. “The Surveyor was returning from Balanganam with Bayan here, and he picked up Calder in Renallen.”

“Balanganam?” Pim and Wekshi exclaimed together and exchanged a surprised look. Bayan couldn’t tell whether it was a good or bad surprise.

The door opened again. “Thirty-five?” a plump, blond man called.

“Thirty-six!” Pim and Wekshi replied.

“Thirty-six!” the man echoed happily. With a broad smile, he left, letting the door slip shut.

“Excuse me, sir. Thirty-six what?” Calder asked.

The headmaster led the boys to the dais in the center of the room. The other two adults sat on one of the small benches at the front of one section, murmuring excitedly, while the boys sat on the small bench a section over.

“Thirty-six trainees ready for the next round of classes,” the headmaster replied. He waved an arm toward the blank iron seal at the top of the purple ribbon, and its dull gray surface morphed into lazy white clouds gliding over a calm, green river valley, as if the iron had become a round window onto a distant pastoral scene. Bayan stared in amazement, but Langlaren continued speaking as if nothing had happened. “The Academy is steeped in many traditions, as you will soon learn. One involves the privilege of Hexmagic Duelists to animate the Hexmagic seal with whatever they like upon entering this room. Another dictates the gathering of six hexes’ worth of trainees before their basic classes can begin. In times of war, the Academy had to churn out duelists rapidly, and many students were injured or killed before finishing their training, resulting in broken hexes. With thirty-six students, we ensure that at least one full and functioning hex of duelists can be formed for further training, even if we suffer early injuries or attrition due to war.”