Vayal Academy

Mae’s stomach is right, as she promised, and the bright blue sky flowing past the window when we exit the bathroom swells with perfectly puffed clouds in countless colours, like brightly dyed cotton candy. Sunshine pierces the glass in butter yellow rays that colour our faces and warm the entire train.

Students chatter as we pull to a smooth stop.

Since we’re at the front already, Mae and I get to be the first to dismount and see the Academy — our home for the next 6 months, before trial exams at the beginning of summer. I had seen pictures, of course, I already knew that it was more a palace than an academy, with its polished pink walls and twisting spires reaching into the sky, dripping with vines of fuschia flowers — but knowing isn’t the same as seeing.

The building is beyond huge, a leviathan reaching into the candy blue sky, balconies and gardens stretching along every floor of its 30 odd storeys, all of them alive with movement.

Twisted along the teardrop roof like a snake is a huge, fluffy white dragon, which appears to be sleeping. The fabled familiar of the Headmistress Lyra Luminesce; smoke curls from its massive nostrils. Among other things, the cosmic white dragon is said to carry students through dimensions for excursions.

Mae seems as stunned as I am, but the flow of students from behind pushes us forward, and we stumble into the beautiful academy gardens. Students, (3rd, 4th and 5th Years who started classes a week ago), bustle past us as we gape, propelled forward by the bodies pressing behind us.

“First Years to the East Assembly Area,” comes a smooth female voice from the sky.

“What the fuck?” says Mae.

“This way, everyone,” says Vila, gesturing stiffly.

“First Years to the East Assembly Area,” comes the voice of God again.

We stumble forward. In the centre of the gardens is a massive pool, lined casually with benches — despite the fact the water is 60 feet deep if the school booklet is to be believed (it’s the reason Vayal requires an intensive swimming exam before admittance; it’s the part I was most nervous about, Orcs don’t float so well). There’s a huge ornate fountain at the centre of it all.

Straining to see now, I can just make out beneath the crystalline blue the blurry shapes of buildings — classrooms and dormitories, built into the sides of the pool. On the ledge, mermaids lounge in their aquatic uniforms, talking to other students.

I long to see more, but we’re ushered along to a large clear area, paved by beautiful cobblestone. We gather in something resembling a square.

“Wait, why’s the weather so warm?” I ask. The booklet said that Vayal’s weather mimicked real seasons — in winter, it’s supposed to snow.

“They probably turned the snow off for the day, while everyone moves in,” Mae whispers back.

A slender, beautiful lioness woman appears in front of the crowd. At first, I could almost mistake this woman for Vila, but her fur is stark white, and — comparing her with the younger lioness who I now see at the side of the assembly area, gazing up with reverence — she is many, many times taller. More than twice even my own height. This is Headmistress Lyra, the centuries old founder of Vayal Academy.

Extremely powerful magic can force the body to grow to contain its energy (as much as I want to be a powerful mage, I hope I don’t get any bigger — I’ve had more than enough growth spurts for one lifetime).

“Hello and welcome to all our new students.” The beautiful, huge lioness opens her mouth, and her words boom from the sky above us. “As Headmistress of Vayal, it is my honour to welcome all of you to our humble academy. You are the pride of the Empire — soon to be the finest of her mages. When you graduate, you will heal the Legions, build teleporters in far-off frontiers, and scourge monsters from the forests — you will be among our society’s very best. But until then, you are my responsibility, and make no mistake: you are here to learn. When you are in the Empress’s service, no failure will be tolerated; these five years are your last chance to be anything less than exceptional.

“So try. Try, and fail; try, and succeed. Experiment. Invent. So long as you lay your head down each night with something new rattling around in your brain, you will go far here.”

The Headmistress sweeps her hand over the crowd in a powerful arc and declares, “once again, welcome!” A cheer of nervous excitement meets her.

Suddenly, there’s a cold chain around my neck. My hand shoots up to my throat to find a locket that wasn’t there a moment ago. Everyone else seems to be in the same situation. Upon inspection, the necklace is a key, the handle formed in the shape of the number 99.

“Same number!” says Mae beside me, “We’re roomies!”

I flush immediately and begin to let myself hope that I’ve found a true friend in Mae. Rooms are assigned based on measurable affection as well as personality type, so if we weren’t, well, compatible, then we wouldn’t be allowed to bunk together.

When the chattering has died down we’re ushered out of the courtyard, I find myself seated next to Mae in a cavernous lecture hall, looking down at a raised dais. I hardly know how we got here — I was too busy thinking about what the Headmistress said. Five years is a lot of time… but I’m starting so low, so far behind someone like Mae. Can I really become worthy of serving the Empress in that time?

The hall thrums with excitement, a wobbling forest of murmurs and whispers. But they’re all silenced by a sharp tap-tap-tap which brings every gaze forward, to the stage. It’s the sound of talons on wood. Walking towards the lectern is a beautiful, moon-faced owl woman with big dark eyes, a picture of elegance in a long pencil skirt.

Standing ramrod straight with her claws either side of the lectern, she sweeps her eyes across the crowd and hums. “Students. The perceptive among you may have already noticed that your intake alone outnumbers all the second-years in this school.” (How could we have noticed something like that? But even as I wonder things start clicking into place — I remember peeking through a window as we passed, seeing a small classroom of seven students, then six in the window next to it, ten in the next. And suddenly I see.) “This is because forty-percent of you will drop out by the Summer Exams. And hear me close: these forty-percent will not even attempt them. Of those who make it to the exam hall, many and more will fail. What remains, whittled down by our rigorous process, will be the wheat. Those chaff who are filtered might enjoy the adventurous life of the hedgewizard or travelling entertainer. If you dream of more than that, I recommend rigorous study and ironclad adherence to the rules.”

The owl must be Tailina Tuvoh, the Academy’s Dean of Students. And that means…

“It is time to determine your Disciplines,” Tailina says. “Some of you already know — congratulations, for you are likely to make it. You are also superfluous, and so.” She snaps her claws, just once, and Mae’s gone, along with a scattering of other students. The hall shifts, chairs rearranging themselves (mine wrenches me into the air so fast I almost yelp) to form narrow channels leading down to the platform, which now sports a clear crystal ball floating in its centre. “First, how many of you know the Disciplines?”

There’s a forest of raised hands, which gives me the cover to raise mine — it’d be more embarrassing to be one of the few with it down. A spike of fear rushes through me when Tailina points at me, until I realise she’s actually pointing just in front, at a woman with long blonde hair and downward swooping ears — an elf, most like. Her voice is prim and proper as she recites:

“Evocation is the concentration of magical energy into physical energy, most commonly used for attack — this is known as Destruction. It also governs the imbuing of energy into existing items in the form of enchantments. [RED].” She says the colour in a clattering arcane drawl, and a ball of red energy swirls above her head.

“Conjuration is the concentration of magical energy into matter, which allows a mage to create both organic and inorganic material. Magical plants are by far the most common usage. Particularly skilled mages can bind spirits or other beings to these creations to make them autonomous — necromancy is a controversial sub-Discipline. [GREEN]

“Illusion creates false sights, sounds, smells — it can even implant false memories. [BLUE]

“Conversely, Alteration concerns real but temporary changes to objective reality, for example turning the caster’s skin to armour simply by willing it so — though often thought of as purely a defensive Discipline, there are offensive applications such as the outlawed Steel to Magma Transmutation, the infamous killer of thousands of knights at the Battle of Caspian Grove. [ORANGE]

“Restoration is used to heal harm: it accelerates repair or reverts to a previous state — with some scholars even theorising the magic is primarily time-based. While almost always used for healing magic, it’s a misconception to say it can only affect mortals: many Druids use Restoration in the wake of war to rejuvenate burned fields and forests. [YELLOW]

“The last school, Mysticism, is difficult to define because it was invented as a catchall for things that don’t fall under the other Disciplines, such as divination or probability manipulation. Its greatest practitioners can nullify spells and dispel enchantments.” [PURPLE]

Our teacher nods, but doesn’t look particularly satisfied. “Very good. If Summer Exams only measured your textbook recall, you’d be guaranteed to pass.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” the elf says, somewhat stupidly.

“Very well. It is time. I shall have the first of you: Rolain Aacel.”

As a woman in the first row starts to stand, I hear a psst from my right, where Mae once was. In her place is a slender deer woman with wide, black eyes. She breaks into a wide grin when I turn.

“I just wanted to say, you know, Arstakhaz was an outrage. We shouldn’t have even fucking been there.”

Well, that’s something I’ve never heard before. With no idea how else to respond, I scratch at the back of my neck and whisper, “Oh, it’s alright.”

“Alright?” Her voice is incongruously hard coming out of her soft face. “It wasn’t alright, it was an imperialist nightmare. You know the Hallevur Concern made like, record profits mining the ruins. And Hallevur, would you believe, is run by the Empress’s cousin? We burnt a city to ash to make the rich richer. Fuck that.”

I don’t have time for this borderline treason. We’re a well ways off my name being called, but I need to be ready when that time comes, need to prepare myself to walk down with dignity and put my trembling hands on the orb that’ll tell me what I’m here to learn.

“I’m Alyx, by the way,” she says, possibly discomfited by my silence.

“Hattie.”

“And they don’t even let you have an Orcish name. Does our cruelty know no end?”

“Alyx, I need to-”

“Oh, yeah, right, of course. The ceremony. What’re you gonna get?”

How should I know?! Alyx is still staring at me, awaiting a response.

“Um, I didn’t even know I had magic potential until they aptituded me at graduation so…”

“Oh shit, so you have no idea?”

“Well, I come from kind of a small town-” she’s already talking again though.

“You shouldn’t feel bad. Alstaria Grimm was also a late-blooming mage — entirely self taught by the way — and she literally invented the Mysticism discipline. Her work all got stolen by Lord Arthyr Grenwitch of course, just another case of…”

Even Alyx falls silent when the name Princess Indel Endaria is called. The room is hushed as the familiar swan features appear, even more elegant in person than in her portraits. Indel Endaria is niece to the Empress — the most powerful Destruction mage of our era — and everyone strains to see the discipline she’ll be assigned to. Destruction, like her aunt? Maybe Conjuration? Indel’s results today could define our next age — and in the smaller term, whichever discipline she gets will probably enjoy a happy status boost on campus.

Her uniform has been custom made for her tall, willowy frame, and the snow white feathers of her wings seem to bounce as she reaches out to touch the orb.

It glows bright orange.

The rooms stays hushed for a moment, and then explodes into whispers. Alteration has its place, sure — but it’s a soldier’s discipline, maybe the most limited of all the schools. Even if Indel proves herself among the greatest Alteration mages of all time (which as the Empress’s blood she just might), she’ll be stuck reactive casting. But where I expect to see a shaken Princess with eyes bulging in disbelief, instead Indel’s perfectly composed, eyes shut contentedly and beak twisted into a smile like she’s in on a private joke. If she hears the whispers, they don’t faze her; she takes her tie and loops it around her pretty neck.

With Indel off the stage, Alyx returns her attention to me. “Don’t see what she’s so smug about. Guess it’s easy to be confident when your parents run the Sapphire Seas Company — bet she’s had wizards tutoring her since before she could walk. But, you know. She’s here, isn’t she?”

“Here? This is the finest arcane Academy in the world.”

“Sure, but you know what’s better? Apprenticing under the Empress, like her sister. Little rich girl didn’t make the cut.”

So what if her sister’s stronger? Indel’s still likely to be the best of our intake, unless getting stuck with Alteration really holds her back. I hardly want to get dragged into an argument with the deer, but I’m about to when Tailina calls for “Alyx Fartrot.”

Rather than standing, Alyx swirls her finger in a tight arc then presses it against the plump cushion of her chair. In an instant four thick vines burst from beneath it and shamble down the aisle, carrying her forward like a queen in her litter.

“It appears you should already have your tie,” Tailina says, flat and unimpressed with the showoff.

“You never know — maybe I’m better at Illusion,” Alyx replies, to a few scattered laughs. The vines bunch together beneath her and raise the chair so she’s face to face with the orb, and nobody’s surprised at the deep green within. She pushes herself off her throne to take the tie, and the chair runs itself back to settle down next to me. With a bow and a grin, Alyx leaves the hall.

I realise we’re getting perilously close to H, and almost wish she were back here. She was annoying, sure, but now I’m desperate for a way to pass the time other than sitting in silent dread.

“Psst,” I hear, from the empty chair.

“Uhm. Hello?” I reply, expecting an Illusion mage might be messing with me. But then I see the source of the tiny, weedy voice: a gray field mouse on the arm rest, staring up at me.

“I am here on behalf of Mistress Alyx. She wants to know if you thought that was cool.”

“W-what? The vines?”

“The vines, her joke, the bow. All of it. Please do hurry with your answer — this plane is misery compared to my home, and I’d like to wrap up my obligations here.”

It’s only a little mouse, sure, but binding a spirit to any form is the advanced sort of magic you’d expect a Conjuration mage to attempt in her second or third year, not right out the gate. “Tell her I think you’re coolest of all,” I say, and the mouse chitters.

“Splendid.” It leaps off the chair and skitters down the steps, heading towards the same door Alyx went out a few minutes ago.

Not long after, the moment arrives. My name’s called and I walk the aisle automatically, aware of every eye in the hall, all fixed on the Orc without a uniform. The Orc who shouldn’t even be here. The Orc, the Orc, the Orc.

The crystal ball hangs before me like an executioner’s sword. I can’t help but close my eyes as I touch it, but the moment I make contact with its polished surface I squint a little. Blue? Not my first choice, but- no, not blue. Purple.

“Ah, our first Mystic of the day.” I appreciate Tailina’s matter-of-fact delivery, which helps things feel less terrible. No wonder I’m so bad at every spell I’ve ever tried — I’m probably just meant to study, to read, to learn about magic, how it works, but never to cast it myself. Certainly I’m no Fatescorner, no Oracle. With my cheeks burning, I leave the hall.