Tessili Academy (12 page)

Jey watched the incoming knife stroke with
consternation, but Elle twisted to one side, danced past the
incoming knife, and landed a kick on Nylan’s knee. There was an
audible crunch. Nylan stumbled, releasing a hoarse cry of pain.

The archers were getting organized now.
Arrows fell in sheets. Jey could feel her fatigue, heavier and
heavier as she wove her magic on the air. It was only a matter of
time before one of the deadly shafts got through. Up at the main
gate, there was the rattle of a chain. The hounds raised their
voices in a chorus of excited baying as they surged out into the
night. “Elle,” she screamed. “Leave him. There’s no time.”

At last, her words penetrated. Elle looked
up, taking in the flying arrows, the approaching dogs. As she
turned her back on Nylan, she delivered one final kick, straight
into his jaw. The Handler’s head snapped back. He collapsed onto
the grass next to Kae’s body.

As Elle ran towards Jey, her face was
smeared with tracks of tears. Jey felt her own eyes were hot. It
felt wrong, leaving Kae lying in the grass. It felt like a
betrayal. But they had no choice. Kae would have wanted them to
go.

“We have to get into a deployment block,”
Jey said. She gestured at her skimpy dress. “We need some
gear.”

Liam had found the tunnel in his eighth year
at Tessili Academy.

He’d come upon it by accident. Unlike many
of the professors he lived alongside, Liam was actually an
academic. It was his studies, his work with magical text and
theory, his curiosity about the history of the people who had once
been able to wield magic, the Tessilari, that had gotten him
noticed by the wrong people. Liam, young and curious and unafraid,
had probed into places he should never have probed. He’d searched
out information that had been systematically suppressed for
centuries.

It wasn’t until too late he realized he was
playing with fire. He’d thought the histories he sought had merely
faded, as histories will – falling out of collective memory with
the passage of time. Never, in those days before his capture, had
he so much as dreamed a place like Tessili Academy existed.

By the time he’d realized what he was
risking, it had been too late.

Professor Liam had not left this island in
the middle of the river in over two decades. In all likelihood, he
would not escape this place through any means other than death.
He’d spent a few angry years resisting, complaining, fighting. Then
he’d gotten over it. He’d realized there was a library in the
faculty compound, full of the exact kinds of texts he had used to
seek out. He would have given his fortune to access such a place a
few years before.

So, he’d given in. He’d rekindled his
devotion to learning about magic. For fifteen years, he’d taught
the Passive Magic course to the girls. He’d taught them to create
the holdstones that allowed their lessons to penetrate their
drug-fogged minds. He’d led them on maintenance walks, instructing
them to replenish and strengthen the magic that held them prisoner.
He’d taught them to create the brutal wands the orderlies carried
to stun the students into submission as a last resort.

He’d done it all, year after year. He’d
watched the girls grow up, grow distant and vague, and
disappear.

Three times, he’d tried to wake one up. Each
time, it had led to her premature death.

Now, Professor Liam stood at the window in
his private chamber. The wall of the academy was alight with
torches. He could hear the barking and baying of the hounds. He
could see arrows glinting in the light of the torches as they fell.
He’d come back to the faculty campus, running as fast as he could,
dodging around frantic orderlies until he’d reached the store room
that led to the strange slit in the wall that led to another slit
and another slit that led at last to a tunnel that went below the
wall and ended behind a bookshelf in the faculty library. He didn’t
know how long Jey’s magic had stayed with him, but if anyone had
seen him they hadn’t let on.

Liam didn’t know who’d made the tunnel. He
didn’t know if anyone other than him knew of its existence. He
himself had never used it since the day he’d noticed a draft
seeping out from below a section of shelves and gone exploring.

If other faculty were awake, they were
keeping to their chambers. Like Liam, each person here was a
prisoner. When Liam had been offered the choice between the loss of
his freedom and the loss of his life, he’d seen no alternative. The
other men here were all the same. Though they never spoke of their
past lives, though they never discussed the errors they’d made that
had landed them here, Liam suspected he was not the only one who
dreamed of seeing the academy fall.

Outside, the night was bright with silver
moonlight. Liam stared at the short bridge where the cobbled road
passed over the river. He stared at that place because it was the
last choke point, the final spot the girls might be caught. The
academy was built on an island in the heart of the widest river in
the land. A single fortified bridge connected this place to the
mainland. He stared, even though he knew it would take a small
miracle for the girls to reach the bridge at all.

The challenges the girls were up against
seemed insurmountable. The escape from the cloister, dodging hounds
and orderlies, making it through and over the massive wall and past
the guards on top. Although the seniors were strong in comparison
to the other students, Liam alone, perhaps, understood how stunted
these girls were. They could cast only a small number of spells.
They were easily run to the end of their strength. If they made it
over the wall at all, they would be too exhausted to conceal
themselves any longer.

Liam heard a scream. It was a girl’s scream,
full of rage and despair. His heart sank at the sound. He could see
activity around the gatehouse, could see the great gates swinging
open. He clenched his fists on the windowsill as a pack of hounds
poured out into the night.

The sighthounds came first, graceful and
fast on their long legs. They raced away into the darkness. The
scenthounds came next. They were blocky things with swaying jowls.
They ran with their noses to the ground, weaving back and forth,
trying to catch a scent.

Orderlies came behind, clutching
stunrods.

Once the dogs and men were through, the
gates swung shut again.

For a while, then, all was quiet. The voices
of the hounds grew distant. The activity on the wall stilled. Liam
stared out into the night, returning his attention to the
bridge.

It seemed an age passed. Liam strained and
stared, his heart pounding, his mouth dry.

Then, at last, he saw them – two girls, clad
all in black. They moved from behind the deployment blocks and made
for the bridge. There was a guardhouse there, the final
barrier.

The girls moved with more grace than even
the hounds, long legs moving in an efficient rhythm as they gained
the stone path. Liam glanced back, hoping to see a third. But there
were only two.

One of them scaled the wall, moving with a
liquid grace that took Liam’s breath away. Although he’d seen them
in class, they’d been hampered then, inhibited by their inefficient
access to their own memories. Now his breath caught as the girl,
dark hair flying, moved along the wall, mowing down the surprised
guards like a scythe cuts wheat.

The other waited, standing guard at the foot
of the bridge. Her long hair was pale in the moonlight. She stood
there, on the threshold of freedom, and her head turned in Liam’s
direction.

In the distance, a hound bayed. The first
girl finished her work atop the wall and dropped out of sight. A
moment later, the gatehouse portcullis lifted open.

The light-haired girl stood a moment longer.
Although she was too far away for him to be sure, she seemed to be
looking directly at Liam. It was as if she could see him in his
window, watching.

Then, Jey raised one hand in farewell. She
turned and pulled up her hood, becoming nothing but another shadow
in the night. She crossed the bridge and disappeared.

Elle and Jey ran side by side. They’d found
one of the deployment blocks open and moved through it in quick
efficiency. They’d donned the dark leathers and cloaks they wore on
their opportunities. The leathers were both flexible and sturdy,
reinforced with a magical weave. The cloaks had pockets. Jey and
Elle divided the brillbane husks, strapped on a weapons belt each,
and fled into the night.

No longer half naked, no longer unarmed, the
girls were unstoppable. Elle neutralized the guards at the
gatehouse before they knew they were under attack.

As Jey stood at the base of the bridge,
waiting to make sure they weren’t attacked from the grounds, she
noticed the hulking shape of the faculty campus. Many of the
windows were ablaze with light. Figures stood in the windows. Most
of the profiles seemed to be straining towards the academy.

But one man was looking straight at the
gate. Jey’s heart lurched when she realized she’d been seen, but
then her anxiety vanished when she recognized the familiar outline.
It was Liam, leaning against his windowsill. Jey felt a flare of
relief. He’d made it back, somehow.

That knowledge tucked itself in opposite the
weight in Jey’s soul left by Kae’s death, a buoying shard of hope
in this dark night.

Behind her, the portcullis rattled open. Jey
found herself grinning. There had been no need for Elle to open the
gate. Jey could have climbed over quite easily. Her friend had done
this as a final insult, a goad, a comment on how thoroughly the
girls had overcome the barriers their captors had used to contain
them.

Jey looked towards Professor Liam for one
more moment. There were so many things she did not know. She was
seized by the sudden desire to go back, to break down the door to
the faculty campus, to bring him with them.

But there was no time. The hounds were
baying again. They would have found Kae’s body by now. They were on
the trail. Even once the girls crossed the bridge, the hounds would
stay after them.

But she was no longer worried. She and Elle,
together, could hide their trail. Soon, they would recover from
their fatigue. They had been trained to move undetected through the
countryside. Jey and Elle had done it many times before.

No, they could not take Professor Liam now.
Jey knew that. As Elle, behind her, hissed, “Come on,” Jey raised
an arm and held her hand aloft, a silent goodbye.

But as she turned and fell into step beside
Elle, she promised herself they would be back. She and Elle would
return, someday, to Tessili Academy. And they would see this place
never held another prisoner, ever again.

For now, though, she had more prosaic
concerns to face. The two girls trotted across the bridge, shoulder
to shoulder, listening to the lazy ripple of the quiet river in the
still night. They reached land, stepped off the bridge, and Jey
spared one final glance at the island, distant now and ablaze with
light.

She felt the soft pressure of Elle’s hand in
hers. As if her friend could read her thoughts, she whispered,
“We’ll come back. We’ll come back when we’re stronger, when we know
more. And we’ll free them all.”

Jey nodded, thinking of Kae, who would never
be free. She turned, dashing hot tears from her eyes. Then she took
a deep breath. She and Elle, hand in hand, ran off the road and
into the night.

AVAILABLE NOW

Chronicles of the Tessilari : Book II

Robin Stephen

◈

Ever since he’d been a boy, Lokim had wanted
to leave the Valley of Mist.

As a child, he’d tested the boundaries. He
would make forays into the gray, swirling fog that encircled the
valley. He’d keep going as his vision went soft, until the air grew
muffled and chill. As the world faded from view his heart would
begin to pound with fear. He would turn back when he was one step
away from losing his memory of which direction led home.

When he’d been older, he’d made a more
serious attempt. One bright day he’d slipped into the fog and begun
to walk. He’d moved ahead with determination, going further than
he’d ever gone before. He’d walked and walked, certain with every
step he’d make it, that the air would clear and he’d see … he’d see
the world.

Except, he hadn’t. After marching forward
for an hour, he’d thought the fog seemed thinner. He’d hurried
ahead, eyes, straining, only to find himself emerging from the
mists in the precise spot he’d entered them. High Mage Agina had
been waiting for him, eyes flinty, firm mouth set in a hard
line.

Lokim had known better than to try
again.

For a time, he’d given up. He’d contented
himself with watching for rovers. Every time a group came in from
their travels, he would ask for stories. Most of them developed a
sort of annoyed fondness for the boy. They would answer questions
if they had nothing better to do. But the rovers never stayed for
long.

When, years later, Lokim had his moment and
succeeded in passing beyond the veil, he’d thought himself
prepared. He’d mastered the skills the rovers said he would need to
survive. He thought he understood the ways of the people he would
find beyond the veil. Like all the Tessilari, he’d studied the
histories. He knew about the Betrayal and all that had
followed.

He’d been prepared to find monsters. What
he’d discovered was people.

◈

Shai was not happy. Jey could feel his rage,
boiling out of the tessila’s small body like dull heat, filling her
with the desire to let him go.