is Ka-nee?”
Mara’s pen
jerked hard, leaving a black fork of lightning across her printed page. Angrily,
she wadded it up, and threw it across the room. The Scrivener’s head snapped
around to follow it; he panted hard, perhaps laughing.
“Fear not,
child. Your mind remains fascinatingly closed to me, for the most part. But
things, oh, things have a way of slipping out in the library.”
“Don’t you have
somewhere else to be?” Mara asked tightly.
“Not
particularly. I dismissed my students early.” His fingers scuttled along her scalp.
“And I would much rather spend my time with you.”
“Charmer.”
“Mmm.” He was
quiet, but not still. His hands moved over her freely, imperious as a man
stroking his pet cat. “Look around you,” he said suddenly. “I command it. Look
and tell me what you see.”
No student may
refuse a Master’s command. Mara tapped her pen sourly against the table and
looked around. Through the haze of the Scrivener’s toxic aura, she saw aspiring
students working. A few still had bread to eat. A few slept on their arms on
the tables or lay in senseless heaps on the floor. A number of black-robed
students watched from the higher floors—some with expressions of contemptuous
enjoyment, but most watched only Horuseps and looked very much as if they
wished to be gone. The Scrivener sat inside his desk, rolling his hundred eyes
and grunting to himself in idiot joy. What did she see? What was there to see? It
was the Scholomance, that was all. The world’s wealth of knowledge compressed
into one room so that it could be made into shiftwork for infant magicians. Priceless
books, books any one of those watching from above would have once killed to
possess (and some had), now shuffled from shelf to shelf, practically
untouched, essentially unread. She could be copying a phone book for all anyone
would ever know.
“I see a joke,”
she said, dipping her quill. “And it isn’t funny.”
“An astute
observation,” Horuseps murmured, playing with her hair again. “But not quite
what I was looking for. To put another way, my dearest, what is it you think we
do here?”
“You harrow
people.”
“Which means?”
“It means
climbing a mountain maybe isn’t the best measure of a wizard’s potential. I
suppose you think you’re panning for willpower.”
“Panning for…?” Horuseps
trailed off as Mara fed him loud thoughts, images of mountain men scooping out
the sediment of rivers and knuckling through the detritus for gold. He hummed
pensively at the end of it, his fingertips tapping at her shoulders. “I suppose
we are, in a way. In another way,” he went on, shrugging, “I don’t suppose we
care. Such is the arrangement we have made. Knock, and the door must open.”
She didn’t
inquire, although she knew he wanted her to.
He watched her
write, not her hands, which moved in painstakingly level lines back and forth
across the thick paper, but her face, as if he could read the book she copied
there. After she had filled several pages (and had actually begun to forget he
was there, due to the suffocating atmosphere of the Scrivener’s library), he
abruptly cleared a place opposite her at the table and sat.
She looked up,
seeing him all over again, and then retreated, dizzied and nauseous, to the
Panic Room to continue her work.
Horuseps wiped
away a stray drop of ink, then rubbed his fingertips fastidiously together
while frowning at it, as though testing the ink’s color against his own
blackened hands. “How long would you say the Scholomance has existed?”
“At least three
thousand years,” Mara answered distractedly, pressing down a sheet of blotting
paper over her newly-completed page. Whatever they were using for this purpose
had a tendency to smear rather than soak.
“You say this
because…?”
“King Solomon
supposedly studied here and we know when he ruled. His was one of the first
accounts of the Scholomance Connie ever read about. I heard all
Mara’s pen
jerked hard, leaving a black fork of lightning across her printed page. Angrily,
she wadded it up, and threw it across the room. The Scrivener’s head snapped
around to follow it; he panted hard, perhaps laughing.
“Fear not,
child. Your mind remains fascinatingly closed to me, for the most part. But
things, oh, things have a way of slipping out in the library.”
“Don’t you have
somewhere else to be?” Mara asked tightly.
“Not
particularly. I dismissed my students early.” His fingers scuttled along her scalp.
“And I would much rather spend my time with you.”
“Charmer.”
“Mmm.” He was
quiet, but not still. His hands moved over her freely, imperious as a man
stroking his pet cat. “Look around you,” he said suddenly. “I command it. Look
and tell me what you see.”
No student may
refuse a Master’s command. Mara tapped her pen sourly against the table and
looked around. Through the haze of the Scrivener’s toxic aura, she saw aspiring
students working. A few still had bread to eat. A few slept on their arms on
the tables or lay in senseless heaps on the floor. A number of black-robed
students watched from the higher floors—some with expressions of contemptuous
enjoyment, but most watched only Horuseps and looked very much as if they
wished to be gone. The Scrivener sat inside his desk, rolling his hundred eyes
and grunting to himself in idiot joy. What did she see? What was there to see? It
was the Scholomance, that was all. The world’s wealth of knowledge compressed
into one room so that it could be made into shiftwork for infant magicians. Priceless
books, books any one of those watching from above would have once killed to
possess (and some had), now shuffled from shelf to shelf, practically
untouched, essentially unread. She could be copying a phone book for all anyone
would ever know.
“I see a joke,”
she said, dipping her quill. “And it isn’t funny.”
“An astute
observation,” Horuseps murmured, playing with her hair again. “But not quite
what I was looking for. To put another way, my dearest, what is it you think we
do here?”
“You harrow
people.”
“Which means?”
“It means
climbing a mountain maybe isn’t the best measure of a wizard’s potential. I
suppose you think you’re panning for willpower.”
“Panning for…?” Horuseps
trailed off as Mara fed him loud thoughts, images of mountain men scooping out
the sediment of rivers and knuckling through the detritus for gold. He hummed
pensively at the end of it, his fingertips tapping at her shoulders. “I suppose
we are, in a way. In another way,” he went on, shrugging, “I don’t suppose we
care. Such is the arrangement we have made. Knock, and the door must open.”
She didn’t
inquire, although she knew he wanted her to.
He watched her
write, not her hands, which moved in painstakingly level lines back and forth
across the thick paper, but her face, as if he could read the book she copied
there. After she had filled several pages (and had actually begun to forget he
was there, due to the suffocating atmosphere of the Scrivener’s library), he
abruptly cleared a place opposite her at the table and sat.
She looked up,
seeing him all over again, and then retreated, dizzied and nauseous, to the
Panic Room to continue her work.
Horuseps wiped
away a stray drop of ink, then rubbed his fingertips fastidiously together
while frowning at it, as though testing the ink’s color against his own
blackened hands. “How long would you say the Scholomance has existed?”
“At least three
thousand years,” Mara answered distractedly, pressing down a sheet of blotting
paper over her newly-completed page. Whatever they were using for this purpose
had a tendency to smear rather than soak.
“You say this
because…?”
“King Solomon
supposedly studied here and we know when he ruled. His was one of the first
accounts of the Scholomance Connie ever read about. I heard all
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