Melisanda glanced around and lowered her voice. 'You don't want to speculate too openly, but here's where matters stand. The High Masters of Alteration, Conjuration, and Necromancy are from families that support the senate over the Sceptanar. Five of the lesser masters from these schools are in this camp, too. Some favor peace with Akanax, and others a new alliance with Soorenar.
'The Masters of Illusion, Invocation, and Enchantment are populists who favor the Mob. Seven lesser masters in these schools stand with them. The demagogues agitate for war with Akanax and the overthrow of the Sceptanar.
'Finally, Telemachon-he's the Master of Divination, you might recall-the Master Librarian, and the Master of Abjuration are the Sceptanar's men. They lean toward honoring our truce with King Gorman tor of Akanax.'
Aeron eyed the mages and archmages Melisanda had pointed out. 'Where do we fit in?'
'Until we're students, we don't matter,' Baldon said. 'And don't worry about it, Aeron. It's all scheming and double-talk. It's not as if they're going to start slinging spells at any moment. They've been at this for a very long time.'
Eldran looked up from beside him and jabbed an elbow into Baldon's arm. 'Whoops! Stop talking about it. Seara's coming to join us.'
The camaraderie of the novices faded as a heavyset young woman in a tabard and cap of green sat down at the head of their table. She eyed the nearby novices with contempt, ignoring Aeron, then turned her attention to her dinner. Slowly the fish resumed their subdued conversations, taking care to ensure that Seara was not disturbed.
'Are we allowed to speak freely at the table?' Aeron asked Melisanda quietly.
'Yes, although it's a good idea never to say anything about a student or a master when we're chaperoned. The students take turns supervising us.'
'Why?'
'To make sure that we don't disgrace Sword Hall by doing something that draws a master's attention to our table,' Melisanda replied with a tight smile. 'Students never brace you up when a master's present, since it wouldn't be proper to involve a real wizard in something so insignificant as correcting a novice's behavior. But you can bet that students remember everything you do wrong and take it out on you later.'
After the evening meal, Aeron and his fellows returned to the Students' Hall for a few hours' study. Both novices and students alike had dozens of thick tomes cluttering their rooms and attacked them with desperate energy until late in the evening. Melisanda retired to her studies, but Baldon and Eldran remained in Aeron's room to help him memorize the names of every master, as well as the students of Sword Hall. Afterward they talked late into the night while arranging Aeron's few belongings.
Aeron found himself yawning continuously. It had been a long day, and he finally turned in after midnight. After Baldon and Eldran left, he extinguished the lamp and dropped onto the simple mattress. Although his limbs trembled with physical and nervous exhaustion, Aeron could not sleep; his mind raced as he grappled with everything that he'd seen and learned during the day. But eventually fatigue won, and he drifted off to sleep.
Over the next few days, Aeron attended his first lessons at the College of Mages. The novices of Sword Hall divided their day into a morning and an afternoon class and had formal classes and lectures eight days out of the ten-day week. Each of the disciplines of magic was discussed at least once per week by a master garbed in the colors of the school he represented. Other lectures touched on history, ancient languages, the natural world, and other arcane topics. As promised, Lord Telemachon lectured on divinations the second day of Aeron's schooling. The old master ignored Aeron throughout the entire lecture.
Aeron was surprised to see no sign of the students in these lectures, but he soon found out that students did not study alongside novices. They met with the masters in smaller groups at infrequent intervals; for the most part, they pursued their own courses of study. And now that he knew what to look for, he began to spot signs of the partisanship dividing the college. More than a few masters and students went out of their way to associate with their fellows and snub colleagues belonging to a rival party. Tension and distrust were a way of life within the ivy- covered walls.
On the afternoon of the third day of lessons, Aeron and his fellows gathered in the cold Chamber of Conjuration. Like the other halls in which they attended the masters, the chamber was lined with plain stone benches for the novices. Its walls were marked with arcane designs and intricate relief work, and the room was illuminated by anchored spheres of wizard light. Aeron gazed around in curiosity while his hallmates conversed in low whispers.
At half past the hour, Master Oriseus swept into the room with a springy stride. He grinned and waved his arms expansively. 'Why, if it isn't the hungry little fish of Sword Hall!' he announced, feigning surprise. 'What little piece of wisdom shall I allow them to devour today? How can I assuage their ravenous greed for knowledge?' Without waiting for an answer, he tugged on his beard and smiled. 'Today, I think we shall attempt the conjuration of ordinary animals. The techniques we practice today are indispensable components of greater and more powerful conjurations you may learn as students.'
Aeron straightened and leaned forward. After days of drudgery at Dalrioc's command and dry hours of esoteric lecturing in the halls of instruction, a master was finally going to show him how to work a spell! The other novices buzzed with eagerness. On average, only three or four lectures each week actually involved the working of magic. He listened attentively.
Oriseus spent an hour describing the arcane formula that locked the spell's power in the mind, the materials that energized the summoning, the gestures and phrases that bound the conjured creature to the wizard's will. While Aeron tried to absorb Oriseus's lecture without comparison to the elven magic he already knew, he couldn't help but observe that the approach was different. Human magic was ritualized. Instead of images or symbols, spells were memorized by long, complicated phrases in ancient tongues. Elven magic was more fluid, shaped by the circumstance of location and need; human magic, on the other hand, seemed swifter and more mechanical.
Oriseus concluded his monologue by causing a string of magical writing to appear in the air before the novices with a simple turn of his hands. 'Record these words in your books, my dear little fish,' he announced. 'They are an element common to many of the easier conjurations, a single stone in the tower of your spell, if you will. Then commit them to your memory.'
While the novices busily scratched away with pen and ink to copy the magical phrase, Oriseus paced the room, observing their work. 'Baldon, you clod! You've miscopied calgius as colvius! You'd conjure nothing but a head cold with that! Bram, since you seem to have mastered the spell already, you shall be the first to cast. Hurry up. I'm growing tired of keeping these letters in the air!'
Eventually the last of the novices looked up with a sheepish grin, realizing that everyone else had readied himself to work Oriseus's simple spell. Aeron had taken longer than anyone else to copy and understand the phrasing, but the actual process of memorization had been easy for him. He was ready not long after Melisanda, the fastest of the novices, had finished.
'Excellent!' Oriseus announced. 'Now, watch closely while I work the cantrip.' He spoke the magical phrase loudly and clearly, holding his hands in front of his chest, palms turned inward. Aeron felt the light caress of the Weave at work. To his senses, it seemed cropped or truncated, squared off by the rigorous and unyielding framework of the conjuror's words. . but it worked. There was an odd sizzling sound, and a scrawny squirrel appeared in the center of the room. 'As you can see, I chose to conjure a squirrel,' Oriseus explained. 'I did so by concentrating on everything I would expect of a squirrel while working this spell. Now, since this is a mere fragment of a conjuration, the effect is quite temporary, and our magical phrase included no means to control or direct the animal upon its appearance.'
Alarmed by the situation, the gray rodent chittered and ran in a circle, seeking escape. Oriseus watched with a crooked smile. 'My hospitality does not appeal to you, Master Rodent? Very well, then. Remove yourself from my presence at once!' He raised one hand, spoke a single sharp word, and with a flash of light, the squirrel vanished. 'As you can see, my little fish, the last word of the conjuration serves as a dismissal. I advise you not to forget it, in the event you conjure up something you'd rather not spend a lot of time with.'
'Master Oriseus? Where did the squirrel come from?' Aeron asked.
The master conjuror beamed and bobbed his head. 'Why, I have no earthly idea, young Aeron!'
'Did your magic actually create a living squirrel?'
'Oh, that would be a powerful spell indeed, to create life out of nothingness! No, Aeron, a conjuration simply
