Magi'i of Cyador

V

COOL WINTER SUNLIGHT angles through the high windows and strikes the age- and chaos-whitened granite walls well above the heads of the five figures in the discussion room, illuminating the space with an indirectly intense light. Four student Magi’i sit on straight-backed chairs facing the Lector who stands before them in shimmering white tunic, trousers, belt, and boots.

Lorn wonders, not for the first time, whether the Lector’s smallclothes shimmer as well, even though he knows his father’s do not-but somehow, a Lector who monitors his studies is more forbidding.

Ciesrt’elth shifts his weight in his chair, and it creaks. Lector Abram’elth ignores the sound and looks across the group of four with eyes that glow golden, as do the eyes of many of the senior Magi’i. “The time has come for you to once again observe a chaos tower, this time in light of the knowledge that you have acquired and with all your senses, and not just your eyes. You will be escorted in pairs. Ciesrt’elth and Rustyl’elth will be first. Tyrsal’elth and Lorn’elth will be the second group. You two in the second group will wait here.”

After the other three leave and the golden oak door closes, Tyrsal glances at Lorn. “Why would it look different now? The tower, I mean?”

“We’ve seen one before, and we’ve seen the drawings. It probably looks the same, just like the drawings, except it would have to glow with chaos. It is a chaos tower. That’s probably what the Lector wants to know-whether we can sense the chaos.” Lorn smiles and laughs gently.

“Maybe it doesn’t look like that at all with chaos senses. Maybe we just thought we saw a tower before.”

“What would be the point of deceiving us about that? It would just be a waste of time.”

“They say that none of the halls in the Palace of Eternal Light are actually the way people draw them,” Tyrsal counters. “And that they change them all the time.”

“That’s different. Anyone can request an audience with the Emperor or his Voice or his Advisors. They don’t know who might be coming in, and I suppose the Emperor cannot trust anyone. Except the Hand, and that’s because no one knows who he is. The senior and more talented Magi’i could use a chaos glass to scree the Palace. That’s why they have lancers and firelances behind the screens throughout the Palace. Here … the only ones who see the towers are the Magi’i, and the older students.”

“Have you … a chaos glass?” Tyrsal stumbles over his words.

“Hardly. If my father didn’t discipline me for that, the Lectors certainly would, and I’m not sure father wouldn’t be worse.”

“Ah …” Tyrsal swallows, then quickly asks, “What about the workings of the fireships and the firewagons? They’re all sealed, and anyone besides a magus who opens them gets chaos-fried.”

“Exactly,” suggests Lorn.

“I suppose you’re right,” Tyrsal concedes.

“Maybe I’m not, but we’ll find out soon enough.”

“Do you know if we’re going to see the same tower or another tower for the Magi’i?”

“The same, I’d imagine.”

“They all have to be close, don’t they?”

Lorn shrugs. “They could be anywhere in the Quarter. They do have to be surrounded by the heavy granite and sunstone, but everything in the Quarter of the Magi’i is built that way.”

“That’s true.” Tyrsal lapses into silence.

In time, the door to the discussion room opens, and Lector Abram’elth follows the other two students back inside. He does not’ close the wooden door to the corridor.

“Not a word,” the Lector says to Ciesrt and Rustyl, “not until we depart the room.” He beckons to Lorn and Tyrsal.

The remaining two students rise, and Ciesrt and Rustyl reseat themselves in the cool mid-day winter light that the very stones of the building have amplified in some indefinable fashion.

Without speaking, the Lector leads Lorn and Tyrsal out of the discussion room and along the corridor toward the private study rooms of the Magi’i of the school, then through a gleaming cupridium door, and along a narrower corridor which ends in another cupridium door that has neither latches nor handles nor knobs.

Knowing what must come next, Lorn watches the Lector with his senses as the man lifts his hand. The flash of golden energy follows, and Lorn withholds a nod of understanding as Abram’elth eases the heavy door into its recess. The three enter the second corridor where the floors, walls, and ceiling are all of white granite Lorn remembers.

Abram’elth stops and turns to the two students. “Up ahead you see the black shield. When you look through the black shield, you will see the Magi’i tower-the one that powers chaos cells used in the school and in the Palace of Eternal Light.” The Lector pauses, then adds. “Study the tower, not only with your eyes, but with your senses, and see the variants of chaos that exist. Do not even think about transferring chaos. If you do, both the tower and I will consume you with unfocused chaos.”

“Yes, ser.” Lorn’s and Tyrsal’s responses are nearly simultaneous.

“Tyrsal’elth, you may go first.”

“Yes, ser.” The redhead takes his place before the darkened square that is neither glass nor metal nor any substance yet made in centuries within Cyador, a single pane so dark it appears black. He stands there for a very long time before he steps away.

Abram’elth’s eyes and senses shift from Tyrsal to Lorn. “Lorn’elth.” The Lector’s voice rumbles in the granite-walled corridor.

Lorn walks to the window shield, where, through the dark aperture, he studies the shimmering tower enclosed withinthe insulated granite walls of the chaos-power station. He recalls a similar such vision, clearly unauthorized, from many years before, long before he had first seen a tower as a student magus.

Knowing that, he concentrates, but his eyes reveal to him little beyond the glaring silhouette of the tower. His chaos senses focus on the reddish-white chaos surrounding the bluish-white barrier that blocks the core from touching even the air that surrounds it. He feels, though he could not explain why, that the tower, this particular one, teeters on the edge of … nothingness … as if poised to fall into the world, or out of it. Yet the reddish chaos and the bluish chaos do not touch, although each pulses in response to the other.

After a time, Lorn steps away, his face expressionless.

After he does, the Lector studies Lorn, then Tyrsal, before he speaks. “What did you sense?”

“The pulse of chaos,” Lorn says mildly. “It is constant, yet ever-changing.”

“It is constant within chaotic bounds,” the Lector affirms. “It produces the same amount of chaos energy at all times.” He turns to Tyrsal.

“The chaos that surrounds the core,” offers Tyrsal.

“There is a barrier there,” confirms Lorn.

Abram’elth nods slowly. “Precisely, and that barrier must remain for the tower to continue operating.”

“What happens if it doesn’t, ser?” inquires Tyrsal.

“Then the tower will cease to be.” The Lector frowns. “Your lessons should have taught you that.”

“Yes, ser.” Tyrsal looks down.

Lorn realizes he must speak or forfeit the opportunity. Offering a guileless smile, he says slowly, “But there is chaosor something like it-on the other side of the barrier. Wouldn’t that escape or something?”

The Lector’s frown deepens as his eyes flick to the dark-haired student magus. “How do you know that?”

“You told us that there were several kinds of chaos, and asked us to try to use our chaos senses to determine them,”Lorn replies easily. “The chaos behind the barrier feels different, as you said it would.”

“I did say that,” muses the Lector, almost to himself, then he straightens. “No one knows for certain what will happen if the barrier fails, and no tower has yet failed since the first years of the founding of Cyad nearly two hundred years ago. And one of the tasks of the Magi’i, as you will discover, is to ensure that no tower does fail.”

Tyrsal and Lorn do not exchange glances, but they might well have, for Lorn knows that the Lector misleads with his last statement-not exactly a lie, but a statement verging on it, and Lorn knows Tyrsal understands that as well. Lorn also knows that Abram’elth does not know that Lorn and Tyrsal can sense such, for most students cannot sense such shading of the truth.

“Remember, the towers are the heart of Cyad and Cyador.”

“Yes, ser.”

The Lector believes his last statement, and that belief troubles Lorn more than the statement that had preceded it.

The two follow the Lector back along the corridor to the door where, again, Abram’elth raises his hand and focuses chaos before sliding the door open.

Once the three have traveled the white granite corridors and are back in the discussion room, where Ciesrt and Rustyl are waiting, the Lector surveys the four students.

“Tomorrow, you will begin your advanced chaos-transfer training in the firewagon hall. Consider what you have seen. You may speak of it only to other Magi’i or to students as advanced as you, and to no others. We will know if you speak otherwise. You may depart for the day.”