The Evermen Saga 01 - Enchantress (15 page)

"Ella, oh it’s so awful!"

"What is it, Amber?"

Ella watched Talwin’s departing back. Did she say the right thing? He was so sweet-natured. She hated to have hurt him. Why couldn’t they just be friends?

"Oh, Ella," Amber threw herself down next to Ella and cried for a solid five minutes.

There was nothing Ella could do except hug her friend and murmur sweet platitudes.

Finally Amber pulled herself together. "My parents told me they’ve chosen someone for me to… to marry." Her voice choked at the last.

It wasn’t unusual for parents to choose a suitable husband for their daughter, depending on how old-fashioned the parents were. It was the only thing Ella could say she was glad about. No one would ever choose who she married!

"And...?"

"At first I was happy when they told me. They’d asked me what I wanted in a husband. I said I enjoyed the Academy, my friends here, the books, the learning. Spending time with you. Your brother." Amber started to choke again. "So they picked me a husband, here at the Academy. They listened to me, Ella!"

Amber broke down in sobs, sounding like she would drown in her own tears. Her face was red, her hair tangled and nose running. Some girls looked pretty and delicate when they cried. Amber was definitely not one of those girls.

"I don’t understand. They picked one of the students? Who was it? Warren? Borsen?"

Amber whispered something, as if to say it louder would make it all the more true.

"What? Amber, I can’t hear you."

"Master Samson," Amber said.

Ella pulled back in shock. "Did you just say Master Samson?"

"Y… Yes…!" Amber cried. Her sobs grew louder. She howled. The other students in the Court looked at Ella in consternation. Ella shook her head, patting Amber on the back.

Ella couldn’t believe Amber’s parents had chosen the dour teacher as a match for their beautiful young daughter. Amber was so vivacious, so friendly and open. How could anyone want to cage such a vibrant girl? She didn’t want to say it out loud, Amber was upset enough as it was, but he must be more than twice the girl’s age!

Her mouth set in a line, Ella determined to see what she could do. There was still a chance. Amber loved Miro, who obviously felt at least some affection for her. Miro would return soon. Ella would make everything right.

"When is the wedding planned?" Ella asked. How much time did she have?

~

T
HE
first class of the next day was lore, taught by Master Goss. Usually attentive, Ella found herself distracted by the distraught young girl sitting next to her.

Master Goss’s voice droned. Ella didn’t even hear the words coming from his mouth.

"As Ella here knows, there is a limit, depending on the matrix and its purpose." Master Goss looked at her expectantly.

Ella looked up, "I’m sorry?"

"Essence, Ella, essence.
Raj ichor
. The cornerstone of our lore."

Ella was quick enough to recover. "The limit is proportional to the activation cost, more energy requires more essence."

Master Goss harrumphed. "Correct. Now, I’d like everyone to draw the rune for the colour green on their deskpad."

It was one of the most familiar runes, being the colour of their house.

He turned to the wallpad and, taking his glowing pen, started to draw with slow, even strokes. The rune was near perfect, the tiny circle above the cleft in exact proportion to the curve of the arch. Ella wondered if only she could see the minor flaw in the upper crest.

Master Goss waited while the class followed suit, drawing the rune on their deskpads. He walked down the front row, looking down at the busy young men and women, frowning at some, praising others.

Master Goss frowned when he passed Ella. She had already finished.

He returned to face the students.

"Good. All done? Now, what would I need if I wanted to make this into a matrix for something simple, say… a nightlamp?"

A tall boy in the middle of the room raised his hand. Master Goss nodded. "The activation runes?" the tall boy said.

"Correct." Master Goss added a basic activation sequence to the rune for green.

Ella wondered why he was going over such elementary material. They’d created far more complex matrices than those for nightlamps!

"What else?" said Master Goss.

Ella didn’t even raise her hand. A girl near her spoke up. "The deactivation sequence?"

"Correct." Master Goss added a simple deactivation sequence. "What else? Ella?"

Ella spoke in a bored tone. "The time sequence."

"That is correct — otherwise we might have a flare on our hands, rather than a gently glowing nightlamp."

Master Goss added a time delay to the matrix. Reading the runes, Ella could see no major problems — when activated, the rune for green would cause the enchanted object to glow at the rate and brightness specified in the time sequence.

A few of Ella’s classmates stirred, evidently also confused by the step down to basic lore.

As the class muttered, Master Goss put on a pair of silver gloves. He then reached into a cabinet and withdrew a tiny vial. Suddenly the atmosphere in the theatre changed, the students leaned forward, trying to get a glimpse.

Ella’s breath caught. It couldn’t be. For all the learning, the practice, copying the runes again and again, day after day, she had never actually seen it. Real essence.

There were no more yawns, no signs of tiredness. The students were sitting up straight, their expressions expectant.

"What do I have here?" murmured Master Goss.

"Essence," several of the students whispered it. The one word holding infinite import.

"No!" Master Goss yelled, shocking them out of their reverie. "What do I have here?" he said, looking around the room, challenging. This time no one answered.

"Poison," said Master Goss. "The deadliest poison in existence. The most vicious substance you will ever encounter." He bit the words off, gazing intently from face to face. "Essence — or
raj ichor
— is black, slick, odourless..."

"Tasteless?" Trellon, the class clown ventured.

"Would you like to find out?" Master Goss held the vial up.

"Umm, no…" Trellon said, at a loss for once.

Ella had heard this all before, but somehow, with the actual substance held up before her eyes, it was all the more real.

"No, seriously, Trellon. Come here, there’s something I’d like your help with."

Trellon stood up and walked down to where Master Goss faced the class.

"Wait here a moment," Master Goss said.

He left the room, taking the vial with him. Instantly murmurs rose up from the students. Even Amber seemed drawn out of her melancholy.

Master Goss re-entered the room. He still carried the vial in one hand. In the other he carried a large white cat. Probably a stray from the Poloplats, brought up scratching a living from the scraps of the food markets.

The cat mewled.

"Here," said Master Goss. Without ceremony he handed the cat to Trellon.

The youth struggled for a moment before the cat settled in his arms. Its eyes closed contentedly as it began to purr.

"Many of you are going to object to this. In fact, probably most of you. However the High Enchantress not only permits me to give these demonstrations, she approves."

Remembering everything she had been taught about essence, Ella began to feel sick.

"I take no pleasure in this, but I would rather a stray animal than one of my students, who I have spent so long teaching. Better the lesson be learned now, an unpleasant memory, than become a grim reality some time in the future. You may put the cat down, Trellon."

The boy put the cat down. It looked up at him in surprise, and then began to rub against his leg.

Master Goss separated the cat from Trellon with his boot. "Now stand back, Trellon. Further. Right back, by the door there. Good."

All eyes were on the cat. Ella heard a gasp from next to her and looked quickly at Amber. Her friend had her hands over her eyes, allowing just a crack to show through.

Master Goss leaned down and, ever so carefully, allowed a single drop from the vial to fall from the tiny bottle. The entire class watched the black drop plummet through the air, before landing on the skin just behind the cat’s head.

"I have heard that many of the other houses perform similar demonstrations," Master Goss said, keeping a careful eye on the cat. "I have even heard that the elementalists of Petrya use a human, a half-wit or other type incapable of surviving without care. Here it goes."

The cat’s back began to arch and a soft whining sound came from its throat. It clacked its jaws together, twisted its head from side to side. It stopped and rolled over twice, three times, before leaping up again, its mewling getting louder.

Suddenly it squawked. Its back arched further and further, impossibly bent, like a whipcord mid-flight, about to release pent-up energy. A keening started from its throat, a howling screech that grew louder and louder. Ella put her hands over her ears. The cat was in such terrible pain.

"Stop it!" she heard Amber cry. "Please, just stop it!"

Master Goss stood back, watching impassively. He had seen it before.

The cat’s jaws opened wide, wider, as if trying to vertically line one jaw up with the other. It twisted, screaming, screeching. Its tongue was black.

The cat’s back was arched too far now. Everyone in the class heard a massive crack, as the stray’s back eventually broke.

Ella thought it would be over now, but it wasn’t. It was horrific, yet she couldn’t look away.

A horrible rumbling sound came from the cat’s throat. In an instant the liquefied contents of its body erupted from its throat. Its eyes burst, dripping down its ruined face. Finally it stopped moving. The cat was dead.

Ella could hear Amber sobbing to herself now, and felt the bile in the back of her own throat rise. She swallowed, trying to keep it down.

"I will give you all a short recess. I expect you all back in here once you have had a chance to think about what you’ve seen."

~

O
NCE
more the theatre was filled with students — a sober, white-faced bunch. A few of the seats were empty, but Master Goss nodded in satisfaction. There was a tall metal stand placed beside the teacher, a set of strange objects resting on it.

Ella looked with concern at Amber. Her friend’s face was terribly pale. She had been sick again and again during the break, Ella holding her hair.

Ella reached across and gave Amber’s hand a quick squeeze. Amber gave her a brave smile in return.

Ella grew even more determined to help her friend and keep Amber away from any old man with such a streak of cruelty in him. Master Goss was evil, she had decided. What if Master Samson was as bad? Or worse?

"Now that you’ve seen that, I hope you will all give essence the proper respect it deserves," said Master Goss. "It requires less than a drop and any kind of skin contact to elicit the type of reaction you’ve just seen." He looked about the room, pausing to make his point. "Now, back to our green-hued nightlamp." He pointed at the matrix of runes he had drawn on the wallpad. "You are going to see your first enchantment."

Some excitement came back into the class, although Ella noticed many angry eyes pointed in the teacher’s direction.

The teacher again put on the silver gloves. With exaggerated care, Master Goss took an incredibly thin metal rod from its holder. He then dipped the end of the rod into the tiny vial.

"As you know, the rod is hollow, to draw up a small amount of the liquid. It is important to draw just the right amount of essence into the scrill. I find that dipping the rod and counting two short breaths gives just the right amount to aid decent rune-making and minimise waste."

A small block of polished wood rested on the stand. Ever so carefully, Master Goss withdrew the scrill and began to inscribe the rune matrix that was up on the wallpad.

As the rod moved against the wood, Ella heard a hissing sound. Smoke rose into the air as the symbols were drawn onto the surface of the block.

"The essence will write on any surface, any at all. Choosing the correct tool for the job is critical — we have scrills for inscribing on cloth, scrills for delicate work, scrills that take two hands to hold… The list goes on. Keep your face from the smoke. It won’t kill you, but it can make you quite ill."

Master Goss spoke as he worked, his hands moving deftly with sure movements. Presently he stood back, regarding his work proudly.

"Trellon, do you want to do the honours?"

"
Tish-tassine
," called Trellon.

The runes lit up as the nightlamp was activated, glowing brightly with a steady green light.

"And then all you need is a material such as paper or cloth placed over the runes to diffuse the light, and you have a nightlamp! A very good one, I must say."

Ella suddenly felt reckless. She was angry that Master Goss could be so cruel one moment, so proud and arrogant the next.

"There’s a flaw in the upper crest," said Ella.

"What?" Master Goss said, interrupted.

Ella knew she was probably making a mistake, but she couldn’t stop herself. "The upper crest, there’s a flaw."

"Oh really?" said Master Goss. "Well perhaps you would like to show the class how you would do it?"

"I will," said Ella, hearing gasps from behind her.

She stepped forward and walked down to the floor, going straight to the stand. Of course, she had been introduced to these tools before, but never had she stood so close to real essence. Ella thought again of the cat.

Before she could change her mind, Ella deftly put on a pair of the gloves and took a new scrill from its holder. The green light from Master Goss’s matrix was in her eyes. "
Tish-toklur
," she muttered. Instantly the nightlamp deactivated.

Master Goss stood back, a look of surprise on his face.

Ella gingerly took the vial of essence off the workbench. She placed another small wooden block in front of her, dipped the steel rod in the vial, and began to draw.