Seventeen Stones (10 page)

“I’m
Professor Stoats, Animal Husbandry.  Once upon a time this class was joke…the
most dangerous animal you might encounter was a goat…or maybe a swan, those
things were vicious.”  He grinned.  “Be aware that swans are the least of your
worries here.  If you are not prepared to bottle feed an orphaned dragon kit,
check a pegasus for broken primaries, or inspect an anubis’ many canines, you
need to drop the class and take up knitting.”  He fingered his wand absently. 
“We will be covering the care and breeding of farm animals as well, so you guts
and glory types had better be prepared to muck out a stall if it’s called for. 
We have fine stables here at the college.  All of you will learn to ride, first
horses, then Pegasus or one of the other exotics if I believe you’re up to it. 
Anyone caught trying to ride an animal they are not cleared for will be
punished to full extent available here at the college.”

The
students eyed the winged horses with varying degrees of enthusiasm.  There was
a quiet murmur of voice from the back.  One or two of the boys were pushing
each other a bit; Mia saw at least one of them punch another in the arm.  “
Boys
.” 
Mia muttered to herself in disgust.  She could ride already, it was one of the
few ‘social graces’ that Emma had insisted that she learn…but she was not
interested in being that far off the ground.  Ever.  She glanced at Ella, who
was practically drooling.  She actually looked excited about flying.        

“We
won’t learn about pegasus until later in the semester.  You won’t be riding
them until after mid-winter break.  We will begin by studying some of the more
useful insects, like this one.”  He flicked his wand and a large glass jar
appeared in front of him.  There was a small green insect inside, roughly three
centimeters long, with wicked looking scythes on its first two mandibles. 
Professor Stoats tapped the little jar lightly with his wand and it magnified
the insect so they could see it better. 

“Who
can tell me what this is?”  Three hands went up: Mia, Ella, and a boy in the
back whose hair was the color of butter.  The professor nodded to the boy. 
“It’s a hunting mantis.”  The professor nodded.  “Does anyone know what it
eats?”  Ella’s hand went up first.  “Aphids.  Five or six of those can keep an
entire field clear of those bugs, and they secrete a substance that keeps ants
away from them.”  The professor grinned.  “Nasty smelling stuff isn’t it?  They’re
interesting creatures.  They were magically altered seventy-five years ago
specifically to attack aphids.  At the time we were using a variety of potions
to kill the little pests, but this works much better.  To demonstrate.”  He
flicked his wand and a small bush covered in white dots appeared in front of
him.  He opened the lid of the jar and the insect neatly stripped the plant of
the wriggling dots in a few minutes.  He asked the class “Who knows what we
call this type of insect?”  The blond raised his hand again.  “The scythe bug,
or hunting mantis belongs to a class of insects known as domesticated insects,
along with the fat lady bug and the super spider.” 

The
Professor nodded.  “If you’ll get out your books and read in chapter one, I
think you’ll find that this young gentleman is correct.  ‘Domesticated insects’
was a term coined by Sir Francis Miller, the noted naturalist.  They are
insects that are manipulated magically to combat a specific menace.  The scythe
bug is one of the earliest examples of magical manipulation.  The spell is very
interesting.  It’s a very subtle sort of transfiguration that alters a species
slightly.  The real trick is not altering the animal you are working on, it’s
making it a viable species down the line without causing the rampant mutations
that occurred with some of the first test subjects.”  He shook his head.  “Ah
well, that’s extremely advanced wand work done by a very few Greatlords and
Ladies when the situation demands it.  Find a comfortable patch of grass and
sit down.  I’ll be back in a moment.”  And with that he ran down to the field
to do something that was no doubt important.  The class quickly finished the chapter,
went over the study questions, and began discussing other things.  Insects, no matter
how magical, could not hold their attention long.

The
professor returned a few minutes before the chimes with a decided frown on his handsome
face.  “I believe I told all of you to read the chapter.”  Ella tentatively
raised her hand.  He nodded warily, indicating she could speak.  “We read the
chapter and did the questions at the end.”  He glared at her.  “Very well, I
suppose that you can tell me why the super spider hunts at night.” 

She
glanced over at Mia who gave her an encouraging smile.  Ella blushed stuttered
slightly as she began “Th…the super spider hunts at night because its prey is
cockroaches and some types of beetles.   It destroys their nerve endings with
the powerful neurotoxin in the venom. Then the spider drags the insect to a nest
known as a larder. They can survive paralyzed in the larder for up to three
days before being eaten.  The spider will hunt even when a larder is full,
leaving some to die from the nerve toxin in the venom and others to starve
bound up in the larder.  Foxes and rodents will dig up super spider larders
while the spider is away and eat the insects; unless of course the spider
catches them…a super spider can kill a mouse or even a rat.  A fox or larger
rodent would just be very ill from a super spider bite.  The female lays seven
to ten individual eggs a year, and cares for the eggs and the immature spiders
until they reach full adult status, making her somewhat unique in the insect
world.  The wand wielder who designed the super spider was very hesitant to
manipulate the arachnid because the venom glands of spiders are notoriously
sensitive to magical mutation; he altered the breeding habits of the spider
because fewer eggs mean fewer chances for mutation to occur.”

The Professor
looked at her as though trying to figure her out.  “If I have to leave during
the class for any reason, I expect to come back to an orderly group reading the
assigned material or discussing the subject I left them with.  However, since
one of you read the chapter, understood the material, and did background
reading, this once there won’t be a punishment essay.”

After
class, Mia congratulated her shy friend and Ella blushed a brighter shade of
red.  “The worst part was saying it in front of the entire group.  I just
quoted a couple of circulars that I’d read.  Dad was fond of keeping up on the
latest agricultural news, so he bought an issue of
Farmer’s Friendly
Circular
whenever he went to the Village.  They were always months old of
course, but he just saved the advice that he couldn’t use that season for the
next.”

Emma
had always picked up the
Farmer’s Friendly Circular
as well, but Mia
couldn’t quote out of it.  She was more likely to sigh over the latest dresses
in
City Couture
or read about current events in the
Weekly News
.

     That night the girls
managed their homework (turning oranges into apples for Marshall) without
trouble.  Having finished in record time, they decided to visit the library. 
Mia was anxious to see it.  They put on cloaks and started down the path.  It
was lit with floating magical orbs that third year students produced en mass.
Even with the trees bare and the cold wind blowing, Mia thought that the
brightly lit paths looked like something out of a children’s tale, like
Frederick
and the Fabulous Wand Wielder of Jimbobo
.  The story had been her favorite
when she was a very little girl.  She’d always loved the bit about the magical
path to the stars best.

The
library was sixteen stories tall, built when domed architecture was the prevailing
mode.  The entryway was beveled magical glass from pavement to roof, with
bright chandlers glowing behind.  The floor as they entered was a mosaic
history of the City, done in precious and semi-precious stones.  Mia slowed
down to look at it and quickly lost the others in the evening crowd.  She
looked up when Sarah grabbed her arm.  “C’mon.  If you stand here they’ll run
you down.”  She allowed herself to be steered toward a wall with twelve doors
marked with twelve brass numbers.  Mia looked twice, there was no pattern she
could see to the numbers, and she was almost certain that the one on the end
had been 226 when she’d glanced at it first.  It was a non-descript 7 at the
moment.

Sarah
consulted a slip of parchment and frowned at it until she apparently found what
she was looking for.  She went up to the third door from the left, (currently
sporting the number 37) and knocked three times on the door.  The door opened
and Sarah turned back to her and said “The library staff must have been on
break when we came in.  I guess the map obscures the location of their office
during break time.  I wonder how the clerk’s guild worked that into their contract?” 
They walked into a nice office upholstered in leather and velvet, while Sarah
whispered “Don’t trust the doors.  You have to use the right combination of
knocks to get where you’re going, and the door plates change.  The last one on
the right has a glitch or something in it right now, if you knock dead center
it takes you to whatever it’s supposed to connect to if you knock on the right
side.  They said maintenance would have it fixed in a couple of days…”  A
friendly attendant signed Mia up for her library card and map, and showed her
the spells to operate the card key system.  Mia was quite interested in the
map, because it changed every few minutes. 

Sarah
looked down at her map in disgust.  “They built the library about a hundred
years after the City was constructed.  Apparently, the original wand wielders
were afraid that someone would come in and steal the books.”  Mia remembered
that something to that effect had been mentioned in the history that Professor
Fain had loaned her: nothing about the library specifically, but rather the
effect of the chaos time before the City was built on the mindset of the early
City dwellers.  The writer had seemed a bit contemptuous of the attitudes of
those early wand wielders. 

Mia
glanced thoughtfully around the library, with its gilt edging, bejeweled
mosaics, and beveled glass.  The building was the work of thousands upon thousands
of man-hours, creativity, and millions of gold pieces in raw materials.  That
was just the building.  It was like a jewel box: however beautiful it might be,
the real treasure was inside.  How much did the people who built this library
estimate these books were worth if this building was only here to hold them?  

After
she gave Mia a quick tour of the various libraries, Sarah glanced at the map. 
“Let’s go to the tea room.  The food is cheap and delicious, and they have
about seventy different blends on tap each night.  I’d wager a gold piece that
at least one of our dorm mates is holding court in there.”

She
would have won her bet.  Vivian was in one corner flirting with five good
looking second and third year students; Ella was at the end of a table with a
smaller group.  Sarah waved at the others and went to the counter.  “Two cups
of night blend tea and two…no four strawberry scones please.” she said to no
one in particular.  A disembodied voice said “Three and a half copper pieces
please.”  Sarah laid the money on the brass scale and it disappeared with a
whirling sound.  Two cups of steaming tea and a plate of scones with clotted
cream and strawberry jam followed them to the table.

There
was a small wooden dais in one corner of the tearoom.  Rudimentary lighting
surrounded it.  Sarah glanced over.  “I’ve heard that they have students in to
play some evenings; little concerts, nothing big.  Well, look at this place; it
wouldn’t hold a hundred people unless they were squeezed in like sardines.” 
The plate and cups slid onto the table where Ella was sitting.      

Ella
grinned and introduced the young men she was talking to.  “Mia, Sarah!  This is
Paul, George, and John…what was the other one’s name?”  One of the boys shrugged. 
“It started with an R, but I can’t think of it right now.  Anyway, he went for
a book a few minutes ago.”   Ella was enjoying herself, and Vivian moved a few
seats down so their groups could join.  One of the boys she was talking to
tried to get catch Sarah’s eye, but she seemed less concerned with flirting and
more interested in finding the book she was looking for.  She was scrolling
through a list on the map with her wand.  Mia, whose entire knowledge of boys
began and ended with Martin Ainsley picking on her, watched from the sidelines
and ate her scones.  Sarah was right, they were fantastic.

Sarah
finally found the book she’d been searching for with a happy sigh, and quickly
left the room to retrieve it.  Mia felt somewhat out of place, and decided to
head back to the dorm to read the book Professor Fain had given her.  She
really was itching to pick it up.  She had just left her cup in the wash bin
when Martin Ainsley walked in.  He was wearing a dark blue coat over a white
shirt and breeches, and knee-high riding boots.  He looked like he was every
inch the young gentleman.  If those boots had any more shine on them, they’d be
an independent light source.