Salamander (9 page)

One of the new strands pulsed, hair thin, froze. Another.

The third was a column of red, as thick as the mage’s wrist. For just a moment Maridon was outlined in fire.

The fire died. The gap it had poured through closed. Where Maridon had stood was nothing but floating ash.

“You look tired; how is your project going? Have you solved the puzzle of the containment sphere?”

Ellen had been up most of the night finishing the work she was about to hand in to Magister Coelus, but she was sure she looked better than he did, after the death of his colleague and the tense inquiry that had followed. She sat down without being asked, knowing he would follow suit.

“Not exactly solved. This—she handed him a single sheet of paper—is my theoretical calculation of the rate of loss. It is not precise because I do not yet have the full structure of the sphere, but I do not think it can be high by more than about a factor of two. I assume no loss from the bottom half, earth being a good insulator against fire, and no net loss from the interior surface.”

“This,” a second sheet of paper, “summarizes my empirical test of the theoretical work. I constructed things similar to the sphere on a much smaller scale—the biggest was four inches across—and timed their decay. The results fit within my estimated range of error.

“This is the other half of the empirical work. I measured the actual loss from the sphere through a very small solid angle and then scaled it up accordingly. It comes out lower than my theoretical estimate, but within my margin of two.”

“This is my calculation of the pattern over time, assuming no additional support after the sphere was created. It shows how strong the sphere would have had to be forty-seven years ago, when it was created, in order to be at its present level now.”

“And this”—she handed him the fifth and final sheet of paper—“shows what it would have taken Durilil to construct that strong a sphere. If we assume he was three times as powerful a fire mage as I am and doing nothing else, it comes to about twelve years; that is how long it would have taken to generate that amount of power. I assume that if he had spent twelve years constructing the sphere and doing nothing else, someone would have noticed and commented on it. And, of course, there is nothing in the early records to suggest that the sphere was eight times as intense then as now. If it was more intense it should also have been thicker. The stone footing at the entrance gate was built then and its depth matches the current thickness of the sphere. Not a likely accident.”

She pushed the stack of papers across the table to him. “The conclusion, as the treatises sometimes put it, is left as an exercise for the reader.”

He stared at her for a moment, looked down at the papers, then up. “I fear I am not at my best today, and I have less time to review your work than I would wish. I am still trying to understand the accident that killed Magister Maridon. Until I solve that problem I cannot continue the project, even if I could persuade any more of my colleagues to risk participating, but I will try to get to your calculations in the next few days. Assuming I do not find any critical mistakes—and I do not expect to—what is your conclusion?”

“Either Durilil found a way of violating the laws of magic as we understand them or the sphere is being maintained by some substantial source of added power.”

“Such as?”

“Such as us. The sphere contains the college, after all, and between magisters and students the college produces far more power than would be needed to maintain the sphere. Perhaps the makers found some way to tax us for our protection, to drain off a trickle of our power to keep up the sphere. I don’t see how—but I thought you might.”

He looked up, startled. “You are suggesting that Durilil anticipated my current work by more than forty years, but in the form of a construction, not a mage pool?”

“Your work is based on Olver’s, on a treatise that was completed just two years before the sphere was constructed. If you think about it …”

“It is an odd coincidence. You are right.”

“And we know Durilil knew Olver's work, because after he constructed the sphere …”

“He went off searching for the Salamander. Olver’s salamander, one of the essential elementals. It fits together. It may even be true.”

Coelus, to Ellen’s considerable relief, no longer looked like death warmed over. He thought for a moment, eyes wide open and alert.

“It is a fascinating puzzle, but it is your puzzle, not mine. You discovered it, you solve it. I cannot afford to shift to another line of research just now, and although this one is important I do not see how it can provide a solution, or even a clue, to the problem of what went wrong three weeks ago.

He smiled at her. “I realize that if you do find out anything relevant to my main line of research you won’t tell me, but I am willing to take that risk. Now go get some sleep and then get back to work and let me return to what I am supposed to be doing.”

She hesitated a moment before getting up, and returned his smile. “Good luck, or bad, whichever you deserve. Try not to get yourself burned up as well.” She nodded to him, and left the room. It was a long moment before Coelus too rose, went through the door, into his workroom. There, he scribbled a brief note on the wax of the tablet that was open on the long table, and set to work.

***

Mari intercepted the others outside of the lecture hall. "That was the last lecture of the semester and I survived it entirely due to Ellen's help. I may even have understood a few bits and pieces. She won't let me buy her anything, so instead, I'm inviting all of you to dinner at the inn as my guests. We're meeting at the front gate in half an hour."

When the five students arrived at the inn, they were shown to a private upper room and seated at a big table with room for twice as many guests. A waiter brought a bottle of wine, bowls of soup, and a first course, a made dish of eels. Mari gave Jon a stern look across the table:

"And if you know anything unpleasant about eels, please leave it until after dinner."

He shook his head. "Don’t know a thing about eels. Never grew any."

Alys smothered a giggle and turned to Edwin. "I am going home for the break and have a place reserved in tomorrow morning's coach. Will you be keeping me company?"

"It will be my pleasure. What are the rest of you planning?"

Jon was the first to answer:

"Home’s a long trip. This time of year
,
don't much need an extra pair of hands on the farm. Plan to stay in the College
,
catch up on my sleep."

Alys gave him a sideways look. "Won't it be very dull here, all by yourself, with nobody but the magisters? Or do you know something I don't about who else is staying?" She looked around the table.

Mari shook her head. "Not I. The family is spending midwinter a few days north of here, and I will be joining them. Ellen?"

"I am going home, with my head full of things to tell Mother about. I've arranged to rent a horse from the Inn stable."

"Isn't it terribly dangerous, riding all that way by yourself?" Alys looked almost alarmed.

Ellen shook her head. "I’ve ridden the horse they are lending me before, and it seems safe enough."

"I didn't mean the horse. Who knows what could happen to a girl riding across the countryside with nobody to protect her?"

For a moment there was silence. Mari started to speak, but didn't. At last Ellen broke it. "I got here safely enough on a borrowed horse; I expect I can get home the same way. It isn't as if there were a war going on, or a plague of bandits. It will be royal road most of the way, and the last bit is country I know. "

She turned to Jon. "It will be quiet here by yourself, but there is always the library. I expect they keep it open for the magisters. I gather that some of them stay through the
break."

Jon nodded. "Yes. Between library and bed, expect to fill the hours catching up
—e
verything during term that I didn’t understand.

He
paused
a moment, continued. "Spent part of last Seventhday reading about history of the College. Did you know place was originally a monastery?"

Alys looked up from her plate. "I expect it's still haunted by the ghosts of the monks the mages murdered. I will have to stay awake tonight to listen."

Jon shook his head. "
N
o monks murdered, least not by mages. Monastery belonged to a faction one of the Doray sects, back when they were losing out to the orthodox.
A
bandoned twenty or thirty years before the founders took it over. Durilil and Feremund showed up with a plan for a college, moved in with apprentices, magery, mops and brooms. Must've been a job to get it cleaned up and put back together. Started in front with only two magisters, eight or ten students."

Alys interrupted him. "Our wing is in the front; I wonder if it's where the Magisters lived at the beginning. I might have been sleeping in Durilil's bed, for all I know."

Mari put down her glass, took a moment to prepare a suitable response. "I’ve heard plenty of rumors about students in magisters' beds, but that’s a new one."

"Don't be silly; he's been dead for hundreds of years. Besides, most of the magisters are too old. The only one who might be interesting is Coelus, and the only student he is interested in …" She stopped, in response to Mari's glare.

Jon stepped into the conversational breach. "Hundreds of years take
s
you back to Breakup, when Theodrick tore Esland out of the Dorayan League
,
made himself king. Durilil and Feremund died
maybe
fifty years ago. Think Olver is still alive, though he must be very old. One of the magisters told me
,
back when he was a student, painting of Durilil used t
o
hang in the lecture hall."

Alys would not be diverted: "According to the rumors, which magisters am I supposed to be sleeping with?"

Mari shook her head. "If I knew I wouldn't tell. The rumors were about second years using unconventional means to make sure they get to graduate. I doubt it's true though. When the magisters first decided to admit women to the College there was a lot of gossip from people who disapproved of the idea, didn’t think women could be trained as mages. They suspected that the magisters had something else in mind. I expect this is just a remnant of that."

The door opened to let the waiter back in. He carried a tray with a roasted capon and several small bowls, each with a different sauce. Conversation vanished while the students devoted themselves to the new course. After a bit, Mari put down her knife, turned to Edwin. "I know Alys lives in the capital. Is that where you are headed too, or do you go on farther? How long does the coach take?"

"Two days to the capital. We have relatives there. I'll spend at least the night with them, then go on; I expect they can lend me a horse. It's another twenty miles and a good road all the way, so it should be an easy day's ride. But of course," he turned to Alys, "it is much less interesting without a beautiful lady to keep me company."

Alys gave him a melting smile. "You could always stay a few more days with your relatives. There's lots to see in the capital. And do."

"It is a thought, but I expect my parents will want to see me, at least to make sure the college hasn't turned me into some sort of sorcerous monster. They were not all that sure they wanted me to go, but my uncle persuaded them. It might be easier on my way back. And then you can tell me all the latest court gossip."

Magister Simon looked around the room, cleared his throat. The students fell silent.

“Last semester I taught you a little of the spoken version of the true speech; I expect you to learn more on your own. As you know, there are several word lists in the library, as well as two copies of the canonical version of the syllabary. You will want to give some thought to what words, and what syllables for building words, will be most useful, considering your individual talents and your future plans.

“This semester you will be introduced to the glyphs that make up the written form of the true speech, used for scrolls and other written spells.
Just as a word is made up of syllables, so a glyph is made up of elements.”

Simon waved his hand at the board; writing appeared:

Word(syllables)↔Glyph(elements)

“Just as the syllables represent a definition of the word, so the elements that make up a gly
ph define its meaning. Just as a word can be reduced to a single syllable and used in constructing another word, so a glyph can be converted into a simplified form and in that form function as an element in another glyph.”

As Simon spoke, the outline of what he was saying continued to appear on the board. He gave the students a minute to get it into their tablets before again waving his hand; the board went blank. He picked up a piece of chalk, walked up to the board, wrote a symbol: three vertical wavy lines. “Can anyone tell me what this is?”

Jon, who had been watching closely, raised his hand; Magister Simon nodded to him. “Fire, sir. The element for fire.”