Mercedes Lackey: Brightly Burning

Lan still couldn't comprehend what sort of "lessons" could be taught here, and thought for certain that his father must be mistaken. But the nearer they came to the building, the less certain he became.

His father showed no evidence of hesitation. He led Lan along the high wall—easily a story tall itself—until they came to the wooden gate. It must not have been locked, for Archer pushed it partly open, and motioned Lan to precede him.

Lan moved hesitantly past his father, and into a mathematically precise courtyard. Most of it was paved. Along the base of the building were pruned evergreen bushes, cone-shaped ones alternating with bushes of three spheres, one atop another. Defining a pathway toward the door were long flower boxes containing neat stands of greenery. Ivy planted in similar boxes climbed the inside of the fence.

"Come along, then. Master's waiting," Archer said, pulling the gate closed behind him. He led Lan to the front door of the building, a surprisingly small door for such an edifice. It appeared no larger than the door of their own home.

Archer pulled open that door without knocking, revealing a long corridor with more wooden doors on either side of it, a corridor far plainer, with ordinary wooden floors and plastered walls, than Lan had expected. There was a hum of voices, a murmur that drifted along the corridor like the murmur inside a major temple during a festival.

Archer immediately turned to the first door on the right and rapped on it. A muffled voice invited them in.

Lan found himself in a small, plain room, furnished only with a brace of chairs and a large desk that faced the door. An older man sat at the desk, a man with close-dropped gray hair and a stern face, all sharp angles, a face made by a mathematician rather than an artist. This gentleman looked up at their entrance, and gave Archer a thin smile.

"Ah, Master Chitward," the man said, his voice no warmer than his coolly pleasant expression. "I have been expecting you."

"This is the boy," Archer said, putting his hand squarely in the middle of Lan's back and pushing him forward, so that he was between Archer and the desk.

"Lavan, isn't it?" the man said, making a note on a piece of paper in front of him. "Lavan Chitward. Very good; as soon as I know where to place him, we'll have him settled in no time."

"Aye. I'll be going, then, Master Keileth, I've work to do." Lan turned to look at his father, inarticulate protests freezing on his lips; Archer did not look at him at all. He was perfectly satisfied that he had done his duty, and Master Keileth dismissed him with a nod of thanks.

"Very good, and thank you, Master Chitward. I hope that we will be able to please you with Lavan's accomplishments." Obviously that was what counted with Master Keileth—pleasing Archer Chitward, not his son.

Archer opened the door and left without a backward glance at Lan; Master Keileth motioned impatiently to Lan to take a seat. "Sit down, young man," the Master ordered when Lan did not immediately obey. "I'm not minded to put a crick in my neck looking up at you."

Lan obeyed him, gingerly perching on one of the hard wooden seats, and positioning himself nervously on the very edge of the chair.

Master Keileth gave all his attention to the paper in front of him for a time, then looked up abruptly. His smile was gone, and his eyes held a calculating expression.

"Your father is paying a great deal of money for this opportunity you are enjoying," Master Keileth said abruptly. "I trust that you intend to make his expenditure worth his sacrifice." His mud-colored eyes narrowed a trifle as he waited for a response.

Lan immediately felt a surge of guilt; why hadn't his father told him this? He flushed a little, and Master Keileth's eyes showed that he had noted the flush and found it satisfactory.

Lan dropped his eyes, and Master Keileth did not see the flush of anger that had followed the guilt. Why was Father willing to pay for this, but not to let me go home and live there? Why did he give up the house in Alderscroft where I was happy?

He only raised his eyes again when he had his feelings under control. Master Keileth was watching him as carefully as a cat at a mouse hole.

"I'm going to ask you some questions, Lavan, so that we know where to place you." Another thin smile that did not reach the cool gray eyes. "You are fortunate in that your family chose to move when they did. Our school term is just beginning; we will not have to place you in a special class and give you extra tutoring to force you to catch up."

Without waiting for Lan to answer, the Master began asking, not a few questions, but a great many. Lan was forced to dredge up everything he had learned at the hands of the village priest and quite a bit he thought he had forgotten.

By the time Master Keileth was done with him, he was sweating, and quite sure that the Master had decided he was a complete ignoramus. He sat slumped over slightly, feeling completely drained.

Master Keileth gave no indication how he felt about Lan. He simply made more notes, ignoring Lan altogether. After what seemed like an eternity, the Master finally looked up again.

"Satisfactory, given your limited education," he said. "I believe we can place you in the Third Form."

Lan had no notion what that was supposed to mean, but when Master Keileth beckoned peremptorily, Lan rose and followed him out of the office and into the hall.

They climbed to the third floor, the murmur of voices all around him. Master Keileth brought him into a corridor identical to the one below. This time, they went as far as the middle of the corridor—far enough to see that there were others branching from it—before Master Keileth stopped at a door and opened it without knocking.

The sounds from within the room stopped immediately, and with a scrape of chairs, everyone in the room stood up.

When Lan entered, he saw that there were eight adolescents, six males and two females, at small desks facing a larger one, at which an adult teacher presided. They were all younger than he, about fourteen to his sixteen.

"Herewan, this is a new student, Lavan Chitward," Master Keileth said in his brusque manner. "I have assigned him to the Third Form. Choose someone in this section to take him through his classes."

That said, the Master left as abruptly as he had arrived, leaving Lan to face nine strangers alone.

*

OWYN, the boy assigned to show him around, was a serious, studious youngster with huge brown eyes, untidy dark brown hair, and an unfinished air like a young owl, who performed his duty with utmost solemnity. As Lan had expected, if he had been ranked with his age group, he should have been in Fourth or Fifth Form, and being ranked with the students his junior was a mark against him. His own classmates regarded him with a certain veiled scorn for his lack of what they considered common knowledge.

Their lives were marked by bells which rang to signify the changing of classes and mealtimes. Pupils remained in their seats; it was the teachers who moved from room to room to impart their specialized knowledge. Lan's set began with Geography, which meant trade routes; routes whose particulars they were expected to have by rote. This knowledge was not only that of finding the way on an unmarked map, but of climate, conditions in each season, dangers on the way, and so forth. They were drilled mercilessly until every person in the class had the current route down perfectly, and only then did the class as a whole move on to the next route. This fascinated Lan; in his mind, he saw the conditions the teacher described, and he had no difficulty in memorizing the route, though he wondered if he might start to get routes mixed up when he had to recall more than one.