Page 56 of Cast in Conflict

“I am informing you of facts that might be relevant should you consider it, yes.” It was the chancellor who replied. If his tone was stiff, his eyes remained the orange-gold mix that was Dragon neutral.

“You house the students, you feed them, and you teach them what they want to learn?”

“That is succinct, and I am certain some of the students might quibble with the last part, but yes, that is the intent. We are not a prison. What we want, here, are those who are committed to learning. There are currently few who are qualified to teach, but many experts, many scholars, have professed an interest in doing so, and we are interviewing them and sorting them out.”

“How will you pay them?”

This wasn’t the question the chancellor had been expecting, but Kaylin liked Durant the better for asking it.

“That is surely a concern of the scholars themselves.”

“In Durant, money doesn’t grow on trees. Some food does, but not much. The Tower can produce wood and stone—and as long as neither wood nor stone is to leave the fief, it will last.”

“It will last,” Killian said, “as long as the Tower does—and as long as the captain desires that outlay of the Tower’s power.”

Durant nodded. He radiated a warmth that Nightshade in particular didn’t possess.

He has been fieflord for many years, given his apparent age. You cannot imagine that a fieflord could be avuncular in any substantial fashion.

She thought of Tara. It probably depends on the Tower’s core.

Nightshade’s Tower would probably commit suicide—if that was possible for Towers—before it became like Tara in any way. The thought amused him briefly.

Kaylin was thinking about wood and stone and the area in which the Tower might effect permanent changes to the buildings the fief’s residents inhabited. She had no doubt that his comment about wood and stone had been tested. And buildings seldom moved themselves out of the fiefs in which they’d been built.

“The question of remuneration is an exercise left to the Academia and the scholars. It is not through the fiefs, or the citizens of the fiefs, that such scholars are likely to come; those that have the capability but choose to dwell in the fiefs often have legal difficulties that would render them unsuitable.” The chancellor glanced at Bellusdeo, whose eyes were a touch more orange than his.

“I don’t intend to set up a blockade to prevent people from entering the Academia,” Durant said. “How strict are your admission standards?”

“Define strict.”

“I admit I don’t understand enough to offer a reasonable definition. How many students have applied for entry, and how many have you accepted?”

The chancellor didn’t reply with actual numbers; Kaylin had no doubt that he had them. The Arkon—ugh, the former Arkon—held on to facts and knowledge as if they were the air that sustained his breathing.

“I am aware that some students will seek entrance simply because it guarantees both food and shelter,” he offered instead. “But a majority of those who are driven by desperation will not provide the Academia what it needs. Knowledge is not the sole province of the rich and powerful; the desire for knowledge can be found in any corner of this city—or this Empire.

“We will have Barrani students; we will have human students. Some interest has been expressed by the Aerians, but that is in its infancy. A delegate has been sent to the Leontine quarter, as well.”

“Ah. The Tha’alani?” This was asked more sharply.

“We have not yet had a Tha’alani applicant. I would, however, accept Tha’alani students who displayed the correct attitude.”

“Not aptitude?”

The chancellor declined to accept the possible correction. Kaylin half understood why. She had the wrong attitude for the Academia, and knew it. Sitting in a class and listening to someone drone on and on when she could be out in the streets doing her job would have been almost unbearable.

Perhaps, had you found the Academia when you chose to flee Nightshade, you might feel differently.

Kaylin shook her head. I needed—I still need—to be doing something that I personally consider useful. Being a Hawk is useful.

Being knowledgeable is useful, Nightshade countered; he was still amused. It is less predictable, certainly. Esoteric studies about historical use of portals would have no bearing on your former life. In theory, it has no bearing on your present life—but you have experienced the ways in which that knowledge is profoundly important.

Kaylin had heard this before.

The existence of the Academia is not somehow a personal slight; it is not an act of condescension.

This was less common. And she knew this already. But sometimes she confused feeling vaguely stupid with being treated as if she were, as if her feelings were the responsibility of external forces and opinions. She exhaled slowly. Sitting in the chancellor’s office with two fieflords had not been on her to-do list for the day. Following Bellusdeo was.

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