Faculty of Fire Page 10

  Strangely enough, what he said didn’t make me feel any better.

  “Listen, are you really going to get married?” Chas suddenly asked.

  If looks could kill, Chas would have been lying on the floor in tiny little pieces.

  “I get it, I get it. Well, at least send me an invitation.”

  I jerked my leg back to give him a kick, but he jumped out of the way, and I was too afraid of sticking my head out from behind the aspidistra. I realised that not all the superfluous guests had left yet. And for me, of course, the most superfluous of all was my own aunt.

  I cautiously peeped out from the shelter of the plant. There were some people still sitting at tables, but the main crowd was already heading for the door. Glancing round warily, I set out for the main table, almost on tiptoe – and didn’t I just happen to come face to face with Liz and Nathalie.

  “The way out’s over there,” Liz remarked, pointing behind me.

  “I’m very glad you know where to go,” I said with an affected smile.

  “Well, move toward the exit, then,” the girl said officiously, pushing me in the chest. “You’ve no right to be here.”

  Nathalie tugged tentatively at Liz’s sleeve:

  “I think Chas said that Zachary got into the Academy too …”

  Liz laughed in my face. Why mine? What had I done? It was Nathalie who said it.

  “He can’t even light a lamp.” That was what she said to Nathalie.

  There you are now … Everybody still recalled that incident, whether it was relevant or not. By the way, I was drunk at the time … I could barely stand, let alone light a lamp …

  “But Chas said …” Nathalie insisted.

  “Chas will say anything at all just to drag you into bed.”

  I couldn’t take any more of this.

  “Liz, all the outsiders have already left. You’d better be on your way too.”

  The girl’s face turned crimson. Her eyes glittered maliciously and she set off at the double towards the nearest Craftsman Teacher. Nathalie (what a good girl!) gave me a guilty smile and walked towards the exit, deciding not to wait for her so-called friend. Meanwhile her friend was doing everything possible to humiliate me. At least, she was giving it a good try.

  She began complaining loud enough for everyone to hear: “Excuse me, that young man over there hasn’t been accepted into the Academy, but he absolutely refuses to leave the hall.”

  It seemed to me that the Craftsman gave the girl a perplexed look, as if he was trying to work out exactly what she wanted from him. Liz abandoned theatrical effects in favour of direct action and whispered something in the Craftsman’s ear. He shrugged and turned toward me.

  I was less than delighted to recognise the portly figure as an acquaintance of mine – the Craftsman Shins, who had been so concerned earlier in the day about the admission of vampires into the Academy.

  Liz took the Craftsman, who still didn’t understand a thing, by the arm and strode rapidly and triumphantly towards me.

  “This young man here …” Liz began, walking up to me and prodding me with her finger.

  A glimpse of recognition flitted across the Craftsman’s face.

  “Yes, young man, go and take your seat. You’re delaying the other new pupils, I advise you to be a bit sharper in future. You’ll be studying in my faculty, if I’m not mistaken?”

  I nodded just in case, although I had no idea which faculty this Craftsman actually represented.

  “Come along, come along, get a move on,” the Craftsman said with a wave of his hand and turned to Liz. “Now, girl, what was it you wanted to say?”

  The girl came out in red spots, opening and closing her mouth without making a sound.

  I really felt like putting my tongue out at Liz, but I restrained myself and proceeded gravely to the table, watching the obnoxious wench’s departure out of the corner of my eye.

  Less than two minutes later, the doors had been locked and only the new pupils and Higher Craftsmen were left in the hall. The current pupils were in the next hall, but they could occasionally be glimpsed through the doorway.

  All the people (and the vampiress) took their places at the main table without hurrying. I guessed there had to be about two hundred places.

  I walked to the place that Chas had reserved for me in advance. Unfortunately, as ill luck would have it, Liz’s friends were sitting not far away from us. Like everyone else there, they had witnessed the scene that Liz made. The glances cast in my direction by her beau did not augur well for my health, and the same could be said for the glances that Nathalie’s former (I hoped) beau cast at Chas. But neither Chas nor I were bothered in the least by that.

  I spied Alice sitting eight places away from me on my left. She winked at me and turned away with deliberate slowness. What was old saying? Every girl is a mystery, and her thoughts are a riddle, even to her, as a rule. Oh, how very right that was …

  The moment I sat down at the table, the mechanical voice familiar from the first test started speaking from somewhere above us.

  “Greetings, new pupils. This is your final evening of freedom, I hope you have enjoyed it to the full.”

  Scene 6

  Oh, but we had enjoyed it. I’d really never enjoyed anything so much in my life. How could I survive this positive surfeit of enjoyment?

  “As you already know, you have been accepted into the Academy, and early tomorrow morning you will become adepts, or pupils. What difference will this make? It’s very simple. At present you possess all the rights of a normal citizen of the empire, but pupils have no rights. You will even have to earn the right to life, not to mention food and other things.”

  The voice stopped speaking, and silence fell in the hall. Someone giggled nervously. The craftsmen sat at their table as if everything was perfectly normal and observed with interest what was taking place at the new pupils’ tables. But at our table, strangely enough, there was nothing out of the ordinary taking place. We all sat there in silence and waited for address to continue. If someone was trying to frighten us, it obviously hadn’t worked.

  “You will move into the tower before sunrise and your apprenticeship will commence with the dawn. It will last for only one day, as time passes outside the Academy, and for precisely three months, as time passes within it. Then, following a one-day break, during which you will be allowed out into the city, the second stage of study will began: for you it will last precisely one day, but in the world outside three months will go by. You must understand that from henceforth you stand above ordinary people, and with every day that goes by you will tower higher and higher above them. But do not forget that greater knowledge and power bring greater responsibility. You are higher, but you are not better. You are still people, but Craftsmen owe humankind a far greater debt than other people do. Henceforth you will be slaves: slaves of knowledge and slaves of rules, slaves of power and slaves of conscience. You will be slaves of the Art!”

  Silence fell again in the hall. I don’t know about all the others, but it was all the same to me whose slave I was going to be. The only part that really delighted me was that it looked like I wouldn’t have to go home for … a whole day? Or was it three whole months? I wasn’t sure which was right.

  “And now, before you break up into groups to get to know the deans of your faculties, you may ask questions. I warn you in advance that I do not answer stupid questions.”

  Just as I expected, the hubbub that followed was like a market square. There were many questions being asked, and everybody could hear them, while the answers were clearly intended only for those who asked the questions. However I didn’t notice this straight away, and for a while tried to make sense of the babble all around me.

  Eventually I got fed up and asked the question that was bothering me.

  “Are we going to go home?”

  “You will go home only to collect essential belongings,” the monotonous voice answered.

  After that I started thin
king. What else was I interested in? Ah, yes … that strange word …

  “What is ‘hara-kiri’?”

  “The question is unclear.”

  Did I imagine it, or was there really an unfamiliar note of confusion in the voice this time?

  “All right,” I muttered, “then tell me about sensitivity shock.”

  “Access denied,” the mechanical voice replied derisively, and immediately I heard Romius’s familiar voice: “Stop asking questions that are too smart, don’t confuse the poor “automag”, he’s almost alive, you know. Ask questions about enrolment.”

  I didn’t point out to my uncle that the question about sensitivity shock was directly related to my enrolment. After all, he was a Higher Craftsman.

  “Sorry,” I said, either to the strange “automag” or my uncle, I wasn’t sure which.

  What should I ask about, then?

  “Ah yes, why didn’t the Director the Academy address us?” I said, suddenly remembering what I had been expecting.

  “Because the Academy doesn’t have a Director,” the automag replied willingly.

  “How come?” I asked hastily.

  “The question is unclear.”

  “But why not?” I said, rephrasing the question.

  “Because that position was abolished three hundred years ago.”

  In that case, why had Chas been so sure that the Director of the Academy would address us, if there hadn’t been any such position for such a long, long time! Eh? His information must be outdated, I’d have to tell him about this.

  I couldn’t come up with another question. I sat there for a few more minutes, until the other new pupils started running out questions too. After the final question had been asked, the mechanical voice announced. “After you have spoken with your dean, you may proceed to your homes in order to collect the things that you require. Precisely one hour before dawn you must be in the yard of the Academy. Anyone who fails to come on time will lose his place and will never be able to take part in another enrolment. And now, please proceed to the focal points of your elements.

  I suspected that in the entire history of the Academy, no one had ever arrived late, and I hoped I wouldn’t be the first. But what was I thinking of? Didn’t Romius say something about the element of fire … I thought he did …

  People started getting up, and I jumped up off my chair too, in order not to arouse any undesirable suspicions. I was already starting to feel nervous, when I saw Romius. He nodded towards the corner furthest away from me.

  “Zach,” whispered Chas, who was still hanging around beside me. “I’m going to that corner over there, I think some people I know from my element are gathering there. Where’s your group?”

  “The same place,” I replied with no great enthusiasm.

  “Why, that’s fantastic”

  “Let’s go,” I said, giving my friend a nudge, and we started pushing our way through towards the Higher Craftsman standing in the far corner.

  When we got there, I was surprised, firstly, to see Alice there as well and. secondly, to find that our dean was the short, fat man who had seen Liz off so successfully. And he was the one who had protested so strongly against admitting the vampiress into the Academy … now I knew why – she was going to study under him.

  “And so, my dear pupils, my name is …”

  “Shins,” I whispered to Chas, remembering the name I’d heard that afternoon in the Academy.

  “Shinesmus Stidwell,” the Craftsman continued. “And I ask you, Zachary Nickers, not to interrupt.”

  I shut up immediately, although for the life of me I couldn’t understand how he could have heard me, or how my whisper could have interrupted his speech, when it was so low I could hardly even hear it myself. And apart from that, I didn’t remember having been introduced to him.

  Chas didn’t say anything, but the eloquent expression on his face clearly asked: “And how do you know him?”

  “I am the head of the faculty of the element of fire. To make that a bit clearer for you, today, that is, for three months, I shall be your father, mother and older brother. If there’s something you don’t understand – come to me; if there’s something you need – come to me; if there’s nothing you need and you understand everything – come to me anyway. I don’t need to get to know you. I already know all of you better than you know yourselves. I have no desire to waste my precious time on you just at the moment, so you can go home, collect your things and get two or three hours of sleep. But be sure you’re all there one hour before dawn. Dismissed, fall out,” he concluded suddenly, army-fashion.

  No one came up with any questions, and we all moved towards the door without speaking. I was hoping to intercept Alice, but she disappeared before I’d taken my first step. Chas took me by the arm and dragged me out of the general huddle.

  “You shouldn’t go home, anything could happen, you might not make it to the Academy in the morning.”

  Strangely enough, I was thinking the same thing.

  “I’d be glad not to go, but that’s where all my music is. Can you imagine even a single day without music?”

  Chas shook his head, as if he simply couldn’t imagine a day as quiet and happy as that. Well, he just didn’t love music the way I did.

  “Neither can I,” I said, ignoring his sarcasm. “So … art requires sacrifices.”

  And so saying, I proceeded towards the exit, with Chas plodding after me. The moment we were outside, he jerked on my arm and shoved me into the crowd.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Your aunt’s standing over there,” Chas hissed at me. “If you’re quick, you can run home and collect your things before she arrives. Then you can flop at my place. Run for it, only make sure she doesn’t spot you.”

  I didn’t waste time talking, just nodded and ran home as fast as I could along the sidewalk that glowed in the dark, scattering the faceless shadows with my protective amulet. To be honest, I’d stopped noticing the faceless ones a long ago, completely forgotten that they could be dangerous. But if I didn’t have my protective amulet, the guards wouldn’t have even found my skeleton.

  On the way home I remembered I’d forgotten my keys, as usual, and I’d closed the window just to be on the safe side, remembering my visitor earlier in the day. All my optimism instantly evaporated. The only hope was that the twins would be home. And now I was past the golden districts, and approaching the house, which looked especially gloomy by the light of the moon. Strange, somehow I’d never noticed that before.

  Of course, the twins weren’t home. I walked round the large gold house a few times, hoping to see a window that had been left open by accident, but it was a waste of time. There was no way in past the safety system (although in theory it ought to recognise me), you could be burnt to a cinder if you stepped on the wrong spot, or simply hung around outside the house for too long.

  I sat down on the steps and started thinking. What should I say to my aunt? If she arrived now, there was no way to avoid a serious heart-to-heart. More of her tedious preaching, or something even worse.

  I must have been tired after everything I’d been through that day, because I missed the moment when my eyes closed and …

  The street is still there in front of my eyes, lit up by the identical windows of the houses and the illuminated light-stone of the roadway, but strange, unfamiliar shapes show through it. An age goes by, or maybe a second, and then my eyes are drawn away from the elegant forms of a huge house to a shapeless mass of uniform grey colour, towering up to the sky. Strange shadows appear on the street, either phantoms, or late-night revellers walking home. But people walking home aren’t transparent, and I can see through these figures, see a starry sky with two moons. Or is there only one? The forms overlap, and I can’t tell where the dream ends and reality begins. Suddenly a bat flies over me, almost touching my head with its webbed wings, and all the phantoms disappear …

  The street was its usual self again, the weird phantoms had d
isappeared, the houses had recovered their proud golden glow, and the two familiar moons were shining in the sky.

  “So that’s where you are!” my aunt’s voice exclaimed. “I thought you must have gone running off to collect your things.”

  She sounded rather aggrieved.

  “Well, who knows, maybe it’s for the best …”

  My aunt emerged from behind the leafy hedge, wearing her evening dress and clutching a bottle of champagne.