As Carryl headed away from the Gymnasium and deeper onto the Campus. Occasionally, she still saw members of the festivities standing together and chatting over cups of wine, but they rapidly disappeared from her surroundings as she moved closer towards the clock tower.
The tower itself consisted of three pillars that rose upwards from the ground like an inverted arch, flowing together and forming the points of the triangular cross-section. The face of the clock was on each of the three sides and framed in brass shining in the summer sun like fire.
Carryl finally arrived at the building at the foot of the tower: the library. Its shape was crescent, bending away from south and bearing glass windows framed in arches spanning the full three stories of the building. Carryl decided to head inside.
At the midpoint of the crescent was the entrance hall, the floor tiled with polished granite of grey and red, a circular desk in its centre and within, a statue of Wisdom, scion of stone. Carryl thought about walking up to one of the tellers, but she had nothing she could even ask them, so instead she took a right to the eastern of the two wings. The floor was covered in thick carpet that muffled any sound of steps. Through the windows fell the light of the sun and onto the reading desks that made up the entire window-side half of the hall, where no ceiling obstructed the entire three stories of glass. To the left side were floors of the bookshelves, hanging as galleries at the edge of the reading hall, connected by spiralling staircases.
Carryl watched the few students there at the time browsing the shelves and piling the books on their reading desks. She walked down the aisle between, where students were hunched over notes and books, copying pages and reading with several tomes open at the same time. She watched them go through geometric patterns and relations and jut down the formulas to describe them.
It was a stunning sight to see for Carryl. She knew the library at her house’s main palace fortress at Bonhynys and had even been in the old scriptorium, but seeing hundreds of feet length’s worth of bookshelves reach three stories high was something entirely new. She walked down between the bookshelves and saw countless titles of books. On the relations of abjurational and evocational volumes. The new collection of metallic compounds and their derivatives. The small compendium of runes divine, demonic and spiritual. Dictionary of shapes. All of them in nigh-pristine bindings, making Carryl assume that these were not manuscripts either.
She pulled one of the tomes out and opened the pages. A copper etching showed a diagram of various shapes and geometries and their significance for the channelling and imprinting of magical currents. There was a movement beside her and she quickly slammed the book shut. Another student stood beside her, a boy roughly her age, holding already three smaller folios in his arms. His look spoke of disinterest as he pulled a fourth book from the shelf right next to Carryl. The guilty conscience lingered with Carryl, despite her not having done anything forbidden this time. This was not the locked area of her house’s library, she was not forbidden from here. Still, something felt wrong about it.
She walked back out the eastern wing and back into the entrance hall. She looked to the teller and surprisingly saw there the crolachan girl she had awkwardly greeted earlier. She was talking to one of the librarians behind the teller and shortly after was escorted by that person to the side of the entrance hall to a small, locked door close to where Carryl had left the eastern wing. The crolachan girl was looking straight ahead, but still Carryl felt as if she was being judged be her gaze. There was something odd and off about her. She held her hands folded in front of her stomach, arms clasped to her body. Remembering the crolachan sailors of Cyrrgwarth’s navy, Carryl knew why: to appear more human and less lanky, to hide her arms that would otherwise dangle down all the way to the knees of her short legs. Her ears twitched and turned into all directions, she radiated awareness and an aura more subtle than that. Carryl could not explain it or even put a finger on it, but she knew the crolachan was bad news, but she did not know for whom or what reason.
The librarian and the crolachan girl arrived at the door and the librarian unlocked it with the most complicated key Carryl had ever seen, then let the crolachan inside. What secrets was that one privy to?
The moment was over and Carryl realized that she was still standing in the way between entrance hall and eastern wing. She left the library and was back on the campus outside, confused and left dazzled by her own wonderment. She just started walking along the cobblestone street, not knowing where to go.
As she walked these streets she remembered the speech of Dean Straton, but she could not help remembering a different tune she had once overheard her father saying. Vicious parasites! He had called Magister Norraine. Digging their claws into our flesh and blood. Forbidding us to teach them, forcing us to ship them off like war hostages, holding a friendly smiling knife to their throats as they whisper in their ears! It had of course not been for little Carryl’s ears to hear. She had just been hiding from the maids behind the drapes as the Lord Father and Lady Mother walked by. Carryl had soon learned that the Lord Father was a diplomat, dropping masque only when he thought himself unobserved.
A gong interrupted Carryl’s thoughts and she looked to the campus clock tower. She knew it would not be long until the first lecture. Without a doubt, they would just be told the basic rules of the campus, nobody can expect youngsters to sit still and listen to complex knowledge after such a ceremony.
She headed back and saw many of her fellow Charges of the Exalted stream into the large auditorium just next to the campus green. She managed to squeeze herself in and was carried into the hall, where students of higher semesters stood and chaperoned the women to the left and men to the right, as was custom to seat them separated. The hall had a steep slope to it, fitting many students in rows of tables and benches that had at best an alibi of cushioning to them. People squeezed and pushed for good seats and Carryl was on the lookout to a good place left when she saw a hand hastily waving into her direction.
“HOOOHOOO, HERE I SAVED A SEAT!” It was Meredith. Carryl had to be dense to refuse such a good spot, right in the centre of the hall.
She managed to get through, pushing her whole way through to the middle of the bench, where she saw that Meredith had taken seat the furthest way in possible, right up against the divider fastened to the bench that marked the centrepoint.
“Great seats, aren’t they?” She asked Carryl. “I bet we can see best from here.” She pointed forward to the massive slab of slate that hung on the wall behind the stage, reaching from bottom to top. “I’ve never seen a blackboard this big!”
Carryl had to admit that it was quite large and remembered the fine lines and intricate details of constructed spells she was able to glean so far. Such lines would ill be visible on a board any smaller from this distance.
The rows slowly filled and soon, a boy, or young man, took place next to Meredith on the other side of the divider, which she quickly seized as an opportunity. “Hi, I’m Meredith, but you can call me Merry! Where are you from?” She leaned in close.
The boy raised his eyebrow and merely replied “Obviously somewhere far different that you.”
“Oh i suppose so I’m from Cyrr-WAH" Meredith let out a an exclamation as Carryl yanked her by her arm.
“What in the name of Wisdom do you think you are doing? You obviously never learned to properly address people.”
Meredith pulled her arm back from Carryl. “I was just making conversation.”
“Well, now is not the time.” Carryl had to think for a moment about how Meredith and Teresa had started their conversation. “At least there are some etiquette and manners to follow.”
“I tried with Teresa and she seemed fine.”
Carryl had to imagine the blaisé Teresa looking down on Meredith with a smile half false and half demeaning. “Well, you should still learn it properly first.”
Meredith’s eyes gained a glow that widened her smile. “Oooooh, can’ya teach me? Can’ya?”
They heard a heavy door falling shut and snapped their faces forward. The small, round figure of Professor Tominet walked across the stage at the bottom of the hall, followed by a few students of higher semesters carrying crates.
“Welcome students. This will be the most important lesson of your time here so be quiet and we can all leave sooner.” He reached into one of the crates as a student carried it past him towards the stairs along the rows of benches. He retrieved a small booklet of loosely bound paper and held it aloft. “These are the rules of our Exalted institution? In it, you will find how to behave accordingly to your new status as Charges of the Exalted. The first and foremost and one which I see everyone already obeying: Wear. Your. Colours!”
He pointed to his own robe of a professor, the same colours as those of the students barring the silver trim. “These colours of Halonnes University and the attire that bear them mark you as standing under the Exalted Academies’ jurisdiction. The prestigious houses you hail from have invested their power to dictate, enforce and speak the laws on magic into the Exalted League and thus, you are given to their judgement. No commoner can accuse you in front of a plebian judge and no nobleman can demand you to their court of the land. But only if you wear these colours. If you leave them behind, for example to wear some pretty dresses...” He made a sneering face at the left side of the hall. “...then we can not help you.”
The students standing on the stairs and handing stacks of booklets down the rows of benches had arrived at Carryl’s and Meredith’s row.
“The rest of the rules you will have to learn for yourself! Ignorance shall not preserve you, only knowledge will!”
Many students already had their booklets and started flipping through. Carryl herself was already familiar with quite a few.
“Now, for the course of your studies, if you keep up:” Professor Tominet took a piece of chalk from his robe’s pocket and threw it at the black board, where it halted an inch before impact, then began to write and raw by his instructions. “Your schedule will be on a four-day basis. Every fourth day will be off. Enjoy these while you can, for in your higher semesters, you will be expected to invest these days back into not just learning but practical applications, laboratory placements, assistance duties or, for those fine young men who have pledged themselves to the League’s armed forces: refreshment training and preparation. We are all very thankful for your dedication.”
Carryl heard a few of the bos groan. Those who had pledged themselves were likely commoners unable to payy their tuition otherwise or noble men wanting to bring honour to their house.
“After two semesters of studying the basics and educated member of higher society should have, your Studium Generale, you will be given the test and opportunity to choose your further path of academic achievement. Those gifted in magic will undergo the test of their preliminary license. The different branches you may take, whether they will be applications or studies, shall be discussed later, for now, you must be made to understand the weight of prestige that these colours weight, so that you will not blacken it with improper actions.”
The Professor started his lecture on the history of the University of Halonnes, a history Carryl knew only too well. How the founding houses Dwyllaygh, Laugnant and Ibralliton created a vault to keep the secrets of their magic spells well protected and to make sure they would burn together, a collateral. One by one, more houses founded their own pacts of knowledge or were brought into existing ones, not rarely by force. And then, the bodies overseeing these vaults, ungifted members of the house who could not use the magic within, would betray their bloodlines and offer the knowledge to anyone who could pay.
Carryl had heard the story many times before, but Meredith frantically took notes on her wax tablet as fast as she could, as if she feared it could be asked of her in an exam.
Carryl looked at the girl beside her with a certain curiosity. Meredith had no understanding of etiquette or manners, no idea how to bear herself, how to approach people of better standing, how to talk even. Her werds were uncouth and would be below expectations in even a society of middle-classed commoners. Her parents had to be truly poor if they could never afford even a few lessons by a tutor on how to fit into higher society. Carrly knew that the boys would at least get a proper education serving as menial workers in the armed forces, for they would be trained to be commissioned officers and mages of war after their graduation. She could have found a place on a ship or in barracks, but the scholarship meant she could skip all of that. Maybe it was an oversight or lack of consideration by Carryl’s father. She would make sure to tell him.
The contemplation was torn apart by a growing feeling of sharpness in Carryl’s neck. As if somebody was piercing her with attention. Instinctively, she smacked her hand to the back of her neck and almost shot up, then turned around to see the sea of faces behind her, but nobody look her way. She was sure it had not been magic; the tingling it brought with it she had often felt at the castle.
“Pesky fly, huh?” Meredith obviously had noticed Carryl’s slap as if a mosquito had landed on her. “They have them here in spades!” She got back to taking notes hastily.
Carryl could no longer let her thoughts trail unimpeded and spent the rest of the lecture on observing the many heads of her fellow Charges of the Exalted from behind.
The bell of the campus clocktower rang and the students got up in a hurry, eager to enjoy the rest of the day by continuing the festivities on their own, but Professor Tominet tried to keep them down on their benches for just a moment longer.
“Please, I must tell you that we have had an issue with burglars here in the past months. They seem to target the houses of scholars and students. Please keep all doors and windows tightly closed and secure books of the university, you will be held to all costs of theft while these books are in your keeping.”
Barely anyone seemed to pay attention and as Carryl did, a few pushed and shoved past her in the row, including Meredith, who seemed eager to be somewhere. Carryl finally managed to get back into the flow of students, the chaperones of higher semesters, trying and failing to separate and order them accordingly.
Just before the door, a mighty shoving had formed and as Carryl herself made sure to not lose her place in the crowd and thus shoved and pushed her own path through until she felt a sudden prick or four on her shoulder as needles piercing through her robe’s cloth. She turned around and saw the crolachan girl, her sharp claws reaching out to her.
The crolachan wrinkled her nose and deepened her brows. “Well, aren’t you going to apologize, brute?”
Carryl cared little as to what person she had just pushed passed to keep her spot. “It is a busy place, this one. Get used to it!” She jerked her shoulder free from the crolachan’s grasp. “And keep your claws to yourself!”
She made one final push to the door and was free. She stood in the colonnade before the hall and saw the campus green, still filled with merrymakers and her own fellow Charges of the Exalted heading to join them for the rest of the day. Carryl would have none of it, she headed for a quieter corner of the campus.
