Jim Butcher - Academ's Fury

Maestro Larus, a slump-shouldered man with an impressive mane of silver hair and an immaculate white beard, nodded to the student standing before his chair and flicked his hand in curt dismissal. He took a moment to make a note on the uppermost of a stack of parchments, then glared at Tavi and Ehren.

"Gentlemen," he said, sonorous voice edged with annoyance. "I would hope that you would show enough courtesy to your fellow students to remain politely silent during their examination. Just as I hope they will do for you." He narrowed his eyes at Tavi, specifically. "In fact, if that is not the case, I would be obligated to speak to the gathering on the subject of academic courtesy-at some length. I trust it will not be necessary?"

There was a rustle of clothing as the class turned to face them. A hundred irritated, threatening glares focused on Tavi and Ehren, the silent promise of mayhem lurking behind them.

"No, Maestro," Tavi replied, trying to sound contrite.

"Sorry, Maestro," Ehren said. Either he was better at it than Tavi, or else he actually did feel contrite.

"Excellent," Larus replied. "Now then, let us see. Ah, Demetrius Ania, if you would approach the front. You are next. If you would, please account for me the economic advances of the rule of Gaius Tertius and their effect upon the development of the Amaranth Vale…"

The young woman started fumbling for an answer under Larus's steady, menacing gaze.

Tavi leaned back to Ehren, and whispered, "It doesn't make sense. Why would an attacking archer put the lights out? He couldn't see to shoot."

Ehren gave Tavi a look of protest, bobbing his eyes toward Larus.

Tavi scowled. "Just keep your voice down. He won't hear it over everyone's stomach growling."

Ehren sighed. "I don't know why someone would do that, Tavi."

Gaelle, standing on the far side of Ehren from Tavi, leaned over, and whispered, "I didn't find much more. None of the staff I talked to remembered these cutters you mentioned. But I looked in their refuse bin and found several sets of perfectly serviceable clothing, some bedding, some cups and other such articles, as if they'd thrown out everything in a room or two. Breakfast refuse was on top of them, so it must have happened late last night."

"Crows," Tavi muttered. He settled back against the wall, restless. The examination had gone on for entirely too long. Kitai had agreed to remain quietly in Tavi's room until night fell to cover her exit from the Academy grounds, but he had told her he would be back well before now. Every moment made it more likely that she would take it upon herself to leave.

"Tavi?" Ehren asked. "Didn't the civic legion find out anything?"

Tavi shook his head in frustration. "Not when I came in here two hundred years ago," he muttered. He glowered at the student fumbling to cover the simple question. "Crows, Tertius's policies arrested inflation, which made the domestication of silkbats feasible and began the entire silk industry. The crows-eaten apple orchards didn't have anything to do with it."

"Be nice, Tavi," Gaelle murmured. "She's from Riva, and I hear the people from up that way are none too bright."

Ehren frowned. "I never heard that. I mean, Tavi's from near Riva and…" He blinked, then rolled his eyes, and said, "Oh."

Tavi glared at Gaelle, who only smiled and listened as Ania finally mentioned something about silk farms in her rambling answer. Maestro Larus dismissed her with another flick of his hand and an acidic look, before he marked his paper again and turned it over to the last page.

"Well then," Larus murmured. "That leaves us with only one more student. Tavi Patronus Gaius, please come to the front." He shot Tavi a hard look, and said, "If you can spare the time from your conversation, that is."

Tavi felt his face flush but said nothing as he stepped away from his place by the wall and walked up to the front of the room and stood before Maestro Larus.

"Very well then," the Maestro drawled. "If it isn't too much trouble, I wonder if you might enlighten me about the so-called Romanic Arts and their supposed role in early Aleran history."

A low murmur ran through the hall. The question was a loaded one, and everyone knew it. Tavi had argued the point with Maestro Larus on four separate occasions over the past two years-and now the Maestro had brought it into an examination. Clearly, he intended to force Tavi to surrender the point they had argued before, or else fail his course. It was a deliberate bully's tactic, and Tavi found it incredibly petty and annoying in the face of the matters that had ruled his life over the past few days.

But he felt his jaw setting, and the calm and logical part of his mind noted with some alarm that the stubborn apprentice shepherd in him had no intention of surrendering.

"From which perspective, sir?"

Maestro Larus blinked his eyes very slowly. "Perspective? Why, from the perspective of history, of course."

Tavi's mouth set into a harder line. "Whose history, sir? There have, as you know, been several schools of thought upon the Romanic Arts."

"I hadn't realized," Larus said mildly. "Why don't we begin with an explanation of precisely what the Romanic Arts were?"

Tavi nodded. "It is, in general, a reference to the collection of skills and methods embraced by the earliest Alerans of historical record."

"Reportedly embraced, I believe you mean," Larus said smoothly. "As no authentic records of their generation are known to survive."

"Reportedly embraced," Tavi said. "They included such areas of knowledge as military tactics, strategic doctrine, philosophy, political mechanics, and engineering without the use of furycraft."

"Yes," Larus said, his warm, mellow voice turning smug. "Furyless engineering. They also included such matters as the reading of the intestines of animals in order to predict the future, the worship of beings referred to as 'gods,' and such ridiculous claims as that their soldiers were paid with salt, not coin."

Low titters of laughter ran through the room.

"Sir, the ruins of the city of Appia in the southern reach of the Ameranth Vale, as well as the old stone highway that runs ten miles to the river, seem to indicate that their ability to build without the benefit of furycraft was both certain and considerable."

"Really," asked Maestro Larus mildly. "According to whom?"

"Most recently," Tavi said, "Maestro Magnus, your predecessor, in his book, Of Ancient Times ."

"That's right. Poor Magnus. He really was quite the moving speaker, in his day. He remained so, right until he was dismissed by the Academy Board in order to prevent his insanity from influencing the youth of Alera." Larus paused, then said, with insulting patience, "He was never very stable."

"Perhaps not," Tavi said. "But his writings, his research, his observations, and conclusions are both lucid and difficult to controvert. The ruins of Appia feature architecture comparable both in quality and scale to modern construction techniques, but were clearly made from hand-quarried blocks of stone that were-"

Maestro Larus waved a hand in casual dismissal. "Yes, yes, you would have us all believe that men without any furycraft carved marble blocks with their bare hands, I suppose. And that next, again without fury-born strength, they proceeded to lift these massive blocks-some of which weighed as much as six or seven tons-with nothing but their backs and arms, as well!"

"Like Maestro Magnus-"

Larus made a rude, scoffing sound.

"-and others before him," Tavi continued, "I believe that the capabilities of men using tools and heavy equipment, combined with coordinated effort, have been vastly underestimated."

"You do sound a great deal like Magnus, toward the end," Larus replied. "If such methods were indeed as feasible as you claim, then why do workmen not still employ them?"