Chapter 7 – The Quarter Ends

Mirian spent four hours of Sixthday, which was supposed to be a day off, harassing the staff at Housing, then another two hours in Maintenance. She could not begin to fathom why it was so hard to get them to send someone to deal with a broken pipe and a flooded room, but at last she got one of the workers to follow her out to the third floor. Immediately upon seeing the severed pipe and the sagging floorboards around the hole, he said, “This is terrible! Why didn’t someone come out sooner?”

She wanted to scream, but instead she just smiled and said, “Well, I did try to get them to.”

The man squinted at the hole, first looking up where it had pierced the roof, then down where it had gone through three floors. “What did this? I’ve never seen a hole so clean. Did you cast a spell or something?”

“I’m flattered you think I have the capability. No, I was asleep when it happened.”

“Did something… hit you?”

“No,” she said.

“Are you sure you didn’t… I mean, I’ve heard of magi who cast a spell in their sleep. Maybe you had a nightmare and did it on accident?”

Pure hogwash. Mirian had learned that was impossible in Arcane Foundations 101, and she told him as much. The man finally left to go organize a crew and materials. Maybe the artisan mage on the team could explain it to him.

Her sheets were ruined. There was simply no getting the clay and plaster that had caked into them out, and a spell that could target and selectively move only the offending material was surprisingly difficult. That is, the cost of the ink she would need to write the glyphs to perform the spell, or the cost to hire a mage that could do it, would exceed the cost of new sheets. Parting with the silver at the bedding shop pained her, but it was a necessary expense.

Then she hurried to the other shops for those other annoying things she needed like “food” and “school supplies.” She splurged on buying two small copper sheets, just in case whatever maintenance was doing didn’t take, or another mysterious hole formed.

In her errands, Mirian had also acquired baduka boar ink, so she spent the evening transcribing heat metal and form metal spells into her spellbook. Since her room was currently being occupied by three artisans, she did this in one of the common rooms, annoyed at the noisy students who kept disrupting her concentration. Mirian was glad at least the flooding hadn’t damaged her spellbook or her notebook—she didn’t know what she would have done if that had happened.

She ate alone in the cafeteria, not at all in the mood to say anything to anyone. At night, she slept in one of the chairs in the common room again, and slept poorly.

Seventhday, she studied. She still had her Myrvite Ecology and Arcane Mathematics finals next week, before the break started. Again, they were still doing construction in her room to replace the damaged ceiling, so she stayed in the commons. She couldn’t bring herself to return to Bainrose Castle Library.

After dinner, Mirian went off to the Luminate temple.

The temple was another of the truly ancient structures, at least two thousand years old. It had been repaired, remodeled, and expanded dozens of times. It was placed where the edge of the Academy met the town of Torrviol proper, north of the Market Forum. The nearby Artificer’s Tower was a bit taller than it, but the Temple had a certain presence to it that made it seem bigger than it was. It was hard to pinpoint which feature made it feel so different than even the other ancient buildings. Perhaps it was the huge pillars at the entrance and the colossal letters in old Cuelsin, unreadable but familiar. Or perhaps it was the dynamic reliefs of the Gods that emerged from the walls, that made it seem like the Gods might step from the stone itself at any moment. Perhaps it was the dark cavernous entrance, beyond which only candles flickered, so that when one entered it was as they stepped into a night with flickering fires for stars.

The temple Mirian had gone to as a child had made her feel small too, though it had been nowhere near as grand. Her family had not been especially devout, but they had taught her the importance of visiting the Gods once every Seventhday. Everyone in Baracuel belonged to the Luminate Order. The priest gave his sermon about the benevolence of Ominian, but she only half-listened. It was much the same as other sermons she’d heard. She left much the way she’d come—head bowed, speaking to no one.

“You doing okay?” Lily said when the construction was finally done and they were both back in their dorm room.

“Yeah,” said Mirian. Lily gave her a look that said I know that’s not true, but since it was clear Mirian didn’t want to talk about it, she dropped it.

Mirian lay down to sleep, but instead stared at the ceiling, thoughts still racing. She liked understanding things. What bothered her most about these strange infiltrators in the academy was that she didn’t understand. What was this even all about?

Her trust in authority was also being rapidly eroded. All her life, she’d followed the rules and done what she was told. She had thought of city guards as protectors. Were they?

She distracted herself by listing off myrvite species and interactions that would appear on her exam, refusing to think about the problem because she couldn’t think of a solution and didn’t want it to keep bothering her. Bog lion, habitat swamps, marshes, and nearby forests. Hunts mammals, especially baduka boar. Spell organ is the algae-like mane. Baduka boar, habitat swamps, marshes, forests. Likes thick underbrush. Tusks are spell organ, and have a special interaction with the metal iron that allows them to pass through it easily. Eats mushrooms and roots, especially likes magical mushrooms like golden cap. Chimeras. Actually a category of any infertile but magical animals that are a composite of traits….

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Eventually, she drifted off.

She dreamed again of that strange throne with the colossal creature on it, except this time the huge needles that had pierced it were gone. The black ichor around the wounds had hardened, and now resembled obsidian. Now, the wounds leaked a violet vapor, the gas drifting in lazy wispy clouds. The room hummed with the deep vibrations of machinery, and on the walls, glyphs lit up, then dimmed. Some of the glyphs she recognized; others she had never seen. Unease gripped her as she stood in that room.
The nails in Mirian’s alarm candle clanked onto the metal sheet, and she woke with a groggy groan.

“Last two exams,” Lily said hopefully.