Aki

Our Duros teacher was as expected: a burly man with an incongruous intellect and a hard look that called for order without the need for spoken threats. “My name is Asherian,” he said. “I will be your Duros assessor for this year. Let us begin.” He opened a chest identical to the one Master Ackhart had used to store the harmony stones. Having sat in the front row once more, my friends and I were among the first to receive the orbs.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Dako asked, leaning forward to better watch my orb. Being of House Bainan, forbye a direct descendent, he needn't have come. The assessment was nothing but a formality for him.

“Don’t keep us in suspense,” Sil added, seemingly more interested in my results than her own.

My sensus rushed in like a raging river.

Dako gripped my wrist. “Stop.”

I came back to myself, ceasing the flow of sensus.

“Interesting,” Sil said. Dako only smiled.

“Indeed,” said Asherian. We looked up to see him hovering over us. Thankfully, he made no further comment.

“Surgeons and Reapers,” Asherian said, back at the front of the room after having collected the rest of the orbs. “Who among you is willing to summarize these two classifications for us?”

Hands rose. Dako, whose hand remained lowered, was chosen. Like last time, he sprang to his feet. “Both are artificers of flesh, bones, skin, organs, and all the myriad components of human bodies. Surgeons concentrate on reconstruction. Reapers concentrate on modification.” Then he sat back down just as brusquely as he stood.

“Good,” Asherian said, and the class continued.

Dako put a hand on my shoulder. Night had just descended and we were in his room. “If we weren't friends, I might be jealous. Actually, I think I still might be.”

“Whatever happens, do not let this be known by others,” Sil said, expression and tone grim. Sitting on Dako’s desk, her legs swinging back and forth, I wondered if she was being facetious.

“Master Asherian knows,” I said. “As do the other Assessors who’ve taken a measure of my harmony.”

“Yes, but assessors from different arts seldom mingle,” Sil explained. “You must use that to your advantage. If the breadth of your potential were discovered, they and the houses they represent would demand your sworn allegiance. Whether with honey or blood, you will be forced to align with one house or another. And once you do, they will not be able to protect you from the others, for no house will allow such a powerful piece to fall into their enemy's hands.”

“But what happens when our classmates notice?” I asked.

“There are ways to appear less skillful,” Dako said, adjusting himself. Big as he was, the chair he sat on was too small to fit him comfortably. “And if done right, appearing less skillful might do well in making you appear less talented.”

Sil leaned in closer. “Choose two non-apposing arts to pursue. You will have to forgo the others. Trust me, it’s for the best.”

“Then it’ll be Duros and Faber,” I said.

“No,” my friends said in unison.

“Why?”

“Two reasons,” Sil said. “Firstly, Duros and Faber arts might not be complete opposites, but they’re far enough apart that having pinnacle harmony in both has never occurred.”

“And secondly,” Dako added, “your talent in Alchemy is already known. That will have to be one of the two.”

“But Duros arts are the best in combat,” I said.

Sil shook her head. “Maybe for the larger masses, but not for the upper echelons of power. Take the Named for example. Are their numbers overwhelmed by Duroses? No. In fact, other than Fabers, who have little in the ways of combat, and Ponduses, who have little in the ways of a legacy or house, the other four arts are represented equally among their ranks.”

Dako waved away her rationale, unwilling to concede to anything that might dull my compliment. “In any case,” he said, “if you wish to study the art, I can help you.”

“What of the resources I will need to practice?” I asked.

“You can have mine.”

“I cannot ask you to do that,” I said.

“You didn’t.”

I smiled, not because of what he offered, but because he offered it. “I appreciate the gesture, but—”

Dako's demeanor shifted, from warm to cold, from affable to aloof, the change so abrupt and significant it was aggressive.

Sil playfully slapped his arm. “Come off, you brute. Do not use the norms of godling etiquette to judge Aki. He knows nothing of our customs. You forget our friend is a Mud.” And just like that, Dako was back, smiling sheepishly at me.

“Sorry, Aki,” he said. “To us, a gift refused is an insult made.”

“I meant nothing of the sort. It is because you are my friend that I thought to refuse your gift. Sharing your resources would mean slowing your training.”

Dako stared, uncomprehending.

“Aki,” Sil laughed, “Dako is Fiora, a House Bainan graduate, and a Leaf candidate. Resources given to students of The Academy in their foundation year are of little use to someone like him.”

“Ignis and Zephyr are the two classifications you’ll be studying under my tutelage.” Mistress Rizal was a wisp of a woman, short and slim and almost too easy to miss. “There are many similarities between the two.” She pointed at a Branch. “Sichon. Elaborate if you will.”

Sichon stood, her bashful demeanor likely a consequence of the dirty blond hair and dark eyes that all but confirmed her as a low Branch. “Erm, I be-believe an Ignis is a wielder of flames, a-and…erm…a Zephyr is a wielder of air.”

Rizal bade the girl to sit. “Though the manifestation of their arts may appear so, you are not entirely right. To understand the two classifications, you must first understand what a Vapor is.

“Vapors possess the capacity to generate force. Zephyrs use this ability to compress or propel air. An Ignis, on the other hand, uses it to create friction, and thus heat. Though the latter can use their sensus as fuel to create flames, their power primarily lies in the production of heat.” Rizal expounded on the subject, asking less and less from the class as the lecture went on. Many of the answers she got were not to her liking and I think she’d chosen to avoid wasting time.

Near the end of class, she handed out the Vapor orbs. Dako got two. I got ten. Sil, having taken and passes her assessment, had not attended.

What I expected to be Mistress Fuller was actually Master Fuller. Still, our Faber assessor had a way about him that made it hard to remember he was a man. It wasn’t in his look, but his mannerism, his quirks, the way he bent his wrist and flourished his arms, in the way he stood and let his arms wrap too far around him, in all the little ways you can't quite explain but can easily see.

“Let me first define a Faber,” he started. “Simply put, Fabers manipulate souls. Tunnellers use their sensus to infiltrate, observe, and tinker. Painters, on the other hand, use theirs to manifest and alter the perception of reality. Those of you who have the luck or pedigree to infuse meaning into your creations will be able to do far more. As a Tunneller, you’ll be more than a tinkerer—you’ll be able to mold souls to your heart's content. As a Painter, you’ll not be altering the perception of reality, but reality itself.

“Fabers are strongest of the six arts. Given the right moment, the right target, no other class can neutralize a target as fast or as thoroughly as Tunnellers. And when given the wrong moment, the wrong target, no one has a better chance to avoid death or capture than a Painter…”

And so it went that he droned on and on, too in love with his House, his art, and his own voice to allow anyone else to speak. So much so that he’d forgotten the harmony tests until the bell chimed. We had to stay longer to get our results.

Master Fuller stroked my arm before he took my orb, winking at me like he knew who I was. He probably did. “As expected.”

“I do not want to be here.” Those were her first words. Tall and fair and pleasing to the eye, she glided over to her table, the trunk of orbs she carried seemingly weightless in her hands. “If I could go back and tell my younger self to ignore my talent for Pondus arts, I would. Alas, here I am, forced to teach what little I know about this art I long wished to abandon. So, since I have to be here, I urge you all not to add to the reasons I don’t want to be here. Now, you there.” She pointed at a Root sitting in the front row. “You’ll come first, take the test, and return to your seat.” Her gaze took in the rest of the students. “The person beside him will do the same, and on it will go in an orderly fashion until all of you have taken the test. Understood?”

Silence.

“Understood!”

A chorus of yeses rang out.

Both my friends went ahead of me. I didn’t get a chance to peak at their results but I knew neither would get anything less than five. If there was one thing I knew about this art, and I think it might well have been the only thing I did at the time, it was that it lay between Zephyr and Duros in the wheel of arts.

I got another ten. Mistress Brittle—so named by Bainan himself as an ironic misnomer —paid my result no mind. Or so I thought.

Once the last of us were seated, our assessor began her class. “Pondus arts are, in large part, a mystery. No one whose memory runs long enough will speak on what a truly accomplished Pondus can do. There are no Gods or godlings who can infuse meaning and so there is no way to expand on the current matrixes we have on record. Here is what I know:

“Ponduses control weight. There is much speculation about what separates Riores and Eriuses. Some say Riores control their own weight while Eriuses control the weight of inanimate objects. Others say the difference lies in which way the weight changes, Riores decreasing and Eriuses increasing…”

However ardently Mistress Brittle proclaimed her dislike for the subject, nothing of it was seen in how she taught us. There was a respect in the way she described a Pondus’s abilities, a sort of hope and appreciation in how she portrayed the possibilities hidden behind the art’s curtain of mystery.

It was at the end of class when I found out my results wasn’t lost on the Mistress. “Aki Farian,” she called. “Stay. I would like to have a word.”

I retook my seat. As did Sil and Dako.

“A private word,” Brittle clarified.

My friends got up, both of them flashing me a look before they left. Dako’s was easy to understand. He was worried. Sil’s was more difficult. She gave me a hard look and didn’t look away until I nodded. I think it was a warning of a sort.

The room emptied. Only Brittle and I remained.

“Which of House Manar’s branches are you from?” she asked.

“Erm…sorry?”

“You are not of House Bainan—I would know. And since there is no house for the Pondus art, you must be of House Manar. Which branch?”

“None, Mistress. I’m not of House Manar.”

Her brow furrowed. It was hard to tell if she was angry or confused. “You’re one of us?”

“House Bainan? No, Mistress.”

“You understand that you must be, right? Of Bainan or Manar, a bastard or a cast-off.”

“If I am, I do not know which.” My heart pounded against my chest so hard I feared she could hear the thumping.

“Vapor or Duros? Which did you achieve pinnacle harmony in?”

“Vapor,” I said, more than half lying. The answer itself was but half a truth, and the answer it implied was entirely a lie, so, all in all, more than half a lie.

“I see. Whatever the case, it is of no importance to me,” she said. I almost breathed a sigh of relief. “What I would like to know is if you are planning to take a secondary classification?”

“If I am capable.”

“And if you are, might it be one of the Pondus classifications?”

“No, Mistress.”

“Why not?”

“You want me to be your student?” I asked, confused. “As much as you seemed interested in the art itself, you didn’t look all too happy to be teaching it.”

She smiled, prettily enough I suspected her of being a Faber masquerading as a Duros. “How perceptive of you. Yes, I would rather not waste my time teaching something that’ll never be used. But you see, you’re the first pinnacle I’ve seen since I myself took the test.”

“So you don't mind teaching someone so long as they might one day help you progress the art.”

“Exactly. Researching the art alone is an arduous task. Unlikely as it may be, I’m hoping you might have a modicum of will in your Pondus manifestations. Even if you do not, which is likelier, a capable apprentice would greatly lessen the monotony of my efforts.”

“If I may ask, Mistress, why is it unlikely for my art to contain meaning?”

“As you know, pinnacle harmony does not always denote the ability to insert meaning into one’s art, nor does the ability to insert meaning signify pinnacle harmony. It is commonly said that the purity of your bloodline determines the degree to which your art is inspired by your will. I disagree. There are too many Branches and Roots far removed from the bloodline who’ve exhibited an aptitude for inserting meanings into their matrixes to mark that assertion as a rule. This leads me to my next point.” She stood and looked about the room. Finding we were alone, she said, “During my research, I’ve found several passages suggesting there was once a sixth progenitor, a sixth whose death unraveled the house of descendants who carried the Pondus arts. All my attempts to investigate this mysterious god have garnered me much trouble. Still, I persisted. Only when my great uncle himself, on one of the rare occasions he returned to Evergreen, forbid my delving deeper into the mystery did I stop. Since I dare not go against him, finding a lost descendant of this fallen house with the ability to conjure matrixes by will alone could spell the rapid acceleration of the art.”

I was silent for a long time after her explanation. She watched me, waiting.

“Why?” I asked. “There was no need for you to tell me of things not even you are allowed to know of.”

She shrugged. “Trust begets trust—usually.”

“I think it more often begets betrayal.”

Another stretch of silence.

She stood, too sudden for me not to flinch. “I’ll not force you into it. Do as you wish, but think about my offer. And when time has run out or your mind has arrived at a decision, whichever comes first, tell me.”

I bowed. “Yes, Mistress,” I said, and meant it.