You Are Not Human
Just before nine, David came for them, and Alex met him with a sullen complaint.
"These wretches can't do a thing. I've never in my life seen slaves so useless. Couldn't we get a maid?"
David's answer was stiff.
"This isn't a nursery. As a rule, you see to your own affairs."
"Surely someone can at least see to our meals? We came to the magic tower to learn magic, not cooking."
"Cooking?"
"There's no one to cook. Kindly introduce us to a maid who can."
Nobles really were a different breed. Chris and Smith would never have dared a demand like that.
"Is there no restaurant here?" the prince asked.
"There is. But an apprentice isn't permitted to use it. And why would you need a maid to cook, anyway...? Where has Juan got to— damn it."
Mage David broke off to swear, then went on.
"Any of you seen Juan?"
"Juan?"
"Lion Pavilion's servant. Heating, cleaning, laundry, cooking — all of it is his... So none of you have seen him. That it?"
"No."
David let out a displeased breath and turned away.
"Juan will sort the meals out later. It's late. Let's get to the lecture hall."
The lecture hall stood at the heart of a great conical building, vast enough that more than three hundred apprentices could gather inside and still leave room to spare.
David led them in, then asked if they had memorized the way. Catherine answered with that radiant smile of hers: the path wasn't so full of forks that anyone was likely to get lost.
He told them not to wander off on other roads, and to return straight to Lion Pavilion the moment the lecture ended. Last of all he warned them, firmly, to use only that path — and then he was gone, pleading that he was busy.
Plenty of apprentices had arrived ahead of them, but they weren't gathered by assigned squad. They had split back into the six crowds they had formed of their own accord at the start, and were talking among themselves. The members of Squad 1 scattered as well, each drifting back to his first group.
"Rank follows you even here," Smith said, gloomy. "Dull."
Chris took it as the way of things. He went to the slave group settled along the right-hand edge and sat. From the talk he learned that the other dormitories had servants, and that those servants had fed them.
What is Lion Pavilion's servant even doing? He shook his head. Drew the wrong dormitory.
A little later a door at the inner side of the hall opened, and a severe-looking man of middle years came through it. He wore a brown robe.
"I am William, Earth Mage."
His voice came rolling out of the walls. Some magical device had to be set into them. From several quarters rose the usual greetings — hello, a pleasure, welcome.
There is a saying that one ought not spit upon a smiling face. Mage William, to general surprise, was entirely willing.
"Shut up!"
An awkward silence took the hall.
"You are worms crawling on the ground. Caterpillars gnawing leaves. Shit-dog whelps that squat and foul wherever they please."
Every apprentice was shocked, and the shock ran deepest among those born noble. They had plainly never heard abuse of that kind. Shocked or not, the mage went on, spitting cold words.
Spirit Awakening? What was that?
Chris bent his whole attention on the man, determined not to miss a word.
"Anyone here felt mana?"
No one raised a hand.
So none of you have felt it either! Relief left him in a long breath. It wasn't only me. Something in his chest eased.
"If you can't feel mana, you'll be packing your bags."
He had warned them to keep their mouths shut, but someone couldn't hold.
"How does one feel mana?"
Mage William glared at the boy who had spoken. Chris, startled, looked too. The boy's name was Andrew. He led the fourth group, the gathering of wealthy commoners.
William leveled his staff at Andrew. A chill ran the length of Chris's spine.
He'll die in agony. Just like Jack.
He was certain of it.
Get down. Get down and beg!
He didn't dare let the thought past his lips. He shouted it only on the inside.
His certainty missed. William's lip twitched once, and the staff came down. Chris had been sure the man would kill. He did not.
Chris tilted his head. There was killing intent. I'm sure there was. He couldn't tell why the thought had changed at the last instant. William even answered the question.
"Sit where the air is good, and meditate. First, hold your breath. Next, draw a deep breath while thinking that you are taking mana in. Third, breathe out with the mind of casting the turbid energy out of your body. In that moment, you must think of leaving the mana behind inside you. Keep repeating it."
Chris, who had been waiting for some tremendous secret, was disappointed. It was no different from the draw in, store, and release he had heard when he sat the entrance test for mages. Fortunately, that was not the end of it.
"I'll teach you the incantation you have to memorize while you breathe."
Yes. There has to be an incantation.
Chris leaned forward and opened his ears wide.
"Mana is the source of life. A life that does not know mana is a life walking toward death. Through mana, we walk the path of eternal life. Wind must blow, water must flow, fire must burn, and earth must gather."
Chris was disappointed all over again. To his ear it was nothing but grasping at clouds.
William let a beat pass, then shouted.
⟨ Era Seultinsiabi, Era Ummododisia ⟩
What did that mean? The way his voice had climbed, it seemed important.
"Era Seultinsiabi, Era Ummododisia."
He repeated the same phrase three times. Then he asked,
"Memorized it?"
No one answered. The chill left hanging after Andrew's unpermitted question still held the room.
William singled one of them out.
"Prince. Did you memorize it?"
"Yes."
"Good. With this, class is over. The next class is in a month. Feel mana before then. That is all. Dismissed."
The apprentices left the hall under a heavy quiet. All the way back to Lion Pavilion, Chris turned William's words over.
Mana is the source of life... The wind... Era Seultinsiabi, Era Ummododisia...
The other members of the squad were repeating the incantation as well.
Smith edged, hesitant, toward the nobles.
"Um... Lord Alex Taylor, might I ask what the last line means?"
His face was red. The asking itself seemed to shame him.
Alex shot the question back, flat.
"The last line. What about it?"
"'Era Seultinsiabi, Era Ummododisia.'"
"You don't even know that?"
At the rebuke Smith's face went redder still. He bit his lip, then said,
"I was born a lowly slave. My learning is thin."
Words like those must have been worse to him than dying, but he swallowed the humiliation for the single sake of feeling mana.
"Slave."
Alex did not miss the chance to degrade him.
"So you've finally learned your place."
Chris watched his face, then spoke.
"Looks like you don't know either."
Alex's eyes went sharp as hatchets.
"What did you say?"
"I said it seems you don't know, either."
"How dare you!"
"Then do you?"
Alex hemmed and hawed. Chris had been unsure at first. This reaction settled it.
Even a noble from a marquis's house doesn't know.
He flicked a glance at the prince. Reading that face, he thought the prince didn't know either.
If even royalty doesn't know the meaning, it has to be a secret only mages know.
He kept muttering it inwardly. Era Seultinsiabi. Era Ummododisia.
Still reciting, he came back to Lion Pavilion — and found a man with white at the temples sitting in a patch of sun, basking.
The prince went up to him.
"Are you Juan, servant of Lion Pavilion?"
Juan tipped his head a fraction, then looked up with open displeasure.
"Don't block the sun. Move."
"What?"
"I said move."
When had a prince ever been handled like this? He had been slighted in the lecture hall as well, but the man who slighted him then was a mage. A slight from a mage could be swallowed. A slight from a servant could not.
"You dare!"
Juan drew a long breath in through his nose.
"Must be a house that farts a little too proudly."
"Insolent wretch. I am a prince of the great Grant Kingdom!"
Juan laughed in his face.
"So what?"
Mark could not make sense of the reaction.
"Are you mad?"
"A prince is impressive out there. Inside this magic tower, he's nothing much."
"You damned bastard!"
"Besides, you're not even heir to the throne. Are you?"
Juan shot to his feet and jabbed Prince Mark in the chest, again and again. At every jab the prince gave back a step.
Having insulted him that far, Juan raked a glare over the others — the ones whose clothes, at a glance, were plainly fine.
"You lot are noble scraps, aren't you? And I doubt a single one of you is in line to inherit anything, any more than this penniless prince. Sons of concubines — or legitimate, and still fourth sons, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, with a domain past dreaming of and little hope of a share in the property... Is there even a seventeenth son in here? An eighteenth?"
His gaze swung back to the prince.
"You're a bastard, aren't you? Which number? First, second, third, fourth..."
He counted as far as seven, read the prince's face, and snickered.
"That face says seventh."
The prince spat the words out as if chewing them.
"If I had a sword in my hand, you'd be dead."
Juan ignored the threat.
"As your senior, I'll give you some advice. Do you know why you're here? Because you weren't much use to your houses. Put harshly, it's fine if you die. They send the useless surplus of a family to the magic tower because if one of those leftovers becomes a mage, the house strikes it rich."
"Nonsense."
"Hey. Think of the noble-born peers who came here with you. Is there a single eldest son among them?"
No one answered.
"There isn't, is there?"
He spat.
"Who died today?"
Chris thought of Andrew, who had nearly died, and asked with care.
"Why do you ask?"
"A few of them usually die in the first lecture."
Chris closed his right hand, quietly.
My sense was right. William really meant to kill Andrew. Why did he change his mind?
He carved the question into a corner of his mind.
"No one died today."
"No one died?"
Juan tilted his head and went on.
"That can't be. Someone always dies."
Chris rubbed his hands together.
"If what you say is true, Mr. Juan, then we are paltry enough that a mage can kill us without a thought."
"That's what I'm saying."
"Even so, we are members of Lion Pavilion, and you, Mr. Juan, are a servant obliged to wait on us. Whatever our station, a servant has to do a servant's work."
"Oho. A clever one got in."
He looked Chris up and down.
"Dressed like a beggar. Either a commoner poor enough to split at the seams, or a slave."
"I was a slave."
"A slave, and you answer back at every turn? The nerve."
"Didn't you say, just a moment ago, that status from outside doesn't work inside the magic tower? And now you want to weigh status? You, who were rude to the prince!"
Chris pointed at him.
"Shall I tell Mage David?"
At the name, Juan flinched.
"Damn it."
"I want a meal."
"Ptui!"
Juan spat again.
"Fine. I'll cook."
With that he brushed off his trousers and started off. Chris put a question to his back.
"What did you mean, calling yourself our senior?"
When Juan had said senior, the word had caught like a thorn in the throat.
"Heh heh heh."
Juan answered with nothing but that hateful little laugh. Once he was gone, the members of Squad 1 went to their rooms, then came down to the kitchen one after another as hunger found them. There wasn't a thing to eat.