Page 31 of Cast in Conflict

Manners are choices, Diarmat had said. Yours are appalling. In this class we will attempt to teach you to make better choices.

She made better choices today, and hoped a day would come when giant talking spiders with multiple eyes seemed like just more people. It wasn’t going to be this one.

“Yes, Corporal. Bellusdeo has asked.”

“And your answer?”

“I can create portals easily between one part of the Academia and another; I have not yet attempted to create a portal that leads outside of these grounds.”

Severn didn’t ask why; he simply waited. Clearly, Starrante approved.

“There are risks inherent in the creation of such doors. You were not alive when Ravellon fell, and your history is perhaps incomplete.”

“It is deplorable,” Androsse interjected. People with power seldom had to learn good manners, or at least seldom felt the need to practice them.

“As I said, it is incomplete. We were architects of some of the doors that lead on to other worlds, other planes of existence. And it is through our architecture, in the end, that the Shadow spread to those worlds. Bellusdeo has spoken to us at length of the fate of her own world and her people.

“Were I to begin to recreate what was lost, the door itself would be vulnerable in the same way. It is a risk that we—the Arbiters—are not comfortable taking. Yes, it would provide knowledge and information, but it is incumbent upon teachers—and librarians—to assess when that knowledge is profoundly dangerous. We cannot put our students, or the Academia, at risk.

“Before you ask,” he continued, when Kaylin opened her mouth, “it is also the will of the chancellor. He has mentioned the Arcanum, an august body of people who have, for their own purposes, taken risks that might well have destroyed this world. I believe you are familiar with the Arcanum.”

Kaylin’s newly acquired manners prevented her from spitting. That, and the certain sense that spitting in the library would probably be a capital crime. “Yes.”

“Even were I to be familiar with Karriamis in the fashion that Candallar was before his death, I would not attempt to create a door between Karriamis and the Academia. I doubt that Karriamis would accept the attempted research. What we do in desperation and for survival is not what we should do when we have the time to reflect.”

Severn nodded.

It was Kaylin who said, “Bellusdeo isn’t the only person who wants to captain the Tower.”

“No.”

Killian was waiting for them when they left the library; it was almost dinnertime in the great hall, and having been given permission to eat there, Kaylin intended to do so.

“I will take you to the hall,” Killian said, his Avatar materializing out of thin air. “I have always found that phrase interesting. Why is air described as thin?”

“You’ve asked other students this question before.”

“I have asked very few; thin air is, when used in Barrani, an adopted concept. Answers to questions of this nature are very individual, and interesting in and of themselves, both for the similarity to other answers, and the differences. This way, please.”

“Will the chancellor be at dinner?”

“Yes. So will the teachers. It is only at dinner that attendance is mandatory.”

“For the chancellor?”

“Yes. It is otherwise considered mandatory for the students. Larrantin, in particular, feels that hungry students are artificially stupid students.”

“Are there classes after dinner?”

“No; after dinner there are study periods, in which students attempt to work with and better understand the lessons of the day. We have a much smaller student body at the moment than we had the last time you visited—but the student body is now active and interested. The Academia is a type of freedom, rather than an inescapable cage—as it should be.”

Kaylin was not surprised to see that the chancellor was not the only Dragon in attendance in the dining hall. Bellusdeo was also present. She sat beside the former Arkon at a long table that was elevated on a dais. Kaylin grimaced when she caught sight of the gold Dragon; it would have been impossible to miss her. Instead of the Imperial clothing she generally disdained, she was wearing Dragon armor, which apparently magically folded in the middle to allow her to sit.

Maggaron was beside her; he towered over the rest of the table, although his shoulders were slumped in a way that implied he was trying to minimize the difference in height.

Kaylin and Severn weren’t offered a seat at the high table. If, in a distant childhood, she might have resented this as an obvious slight, no resentment followed. She’d learned that being important in specific ways often came with burdens that she was certain she couldn’t carry. She couldn’t captain a Tower. She couldn’t be chancellor. She certainly couldn’t carry the weight of an Empire; the thought that her decisions could cause the deaths of hundreds left her feeling queasy.

She gratefully avoided the scrutiny that Bellusdeo now endured.

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