A gust of wind caught the edges of my cloak, even as I pulled it closer around me on my way toward the large Academy building. The class bell tolled loudly over my head as I entered the foyer, and I picked up my pace through the hallways, to the History classroom. I joined the file of students similarly garbed in thick robes over their clothes. The last Waning of Greyfrost still kept a chill in the air, although not much snow had fallen this season.
I sank into my seat and pulled out the pencil and the bound book of parchment pages we used to take notes during all the lectures. Scholar Mikel stood behind the podium at the front, flanked by a chalkboard on one side, where an assistant created an outline of all his points, which we were expected to copy and memorize, and a large map of Gramble on the other. A royal crest in the eastern region marked where the capital, Gramble City, stood, and a scattering of other large cities beyond it, marked with simple turrets or stars. The Fforgan Mountain Range sliced through our portion of the continent like a billowing sash, from northwest to southeast, and all the region west of the mountains had were only a few turret "cities" and mostly simple houses denoting smaller villages--and at the extreme westernmost edge, separated from the other towns by a wide swath of empty space, was my hometown, Mirrorvale.
"Today, I will read from the Chronicles of Exploration," he said, prompting a flurry of rustling parchment as everyone turned to the appropriate pages in their note books. At The Academy, the instructors functioned under the truism, “Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.”
Of course, it couldn’t possibly apply to any place as dull and predictable as Mirrorvale. Here, repetition was a way of life, as natural as the weather.
I focused on the map as Scholar Mikel droned on the same dreary passages about the colonization efforts of King Phillisto, who was responsible for turning Gramble from a single enclosed city into a power state comprised of many walled cities and covering most of Western Hemptor.
I had only managed to record a few lines of notes when, in the middle of his recitation, I blinked and my eyes saw something other than the classroom.
"Not again..." I whispered to myself as a second image usurped what was right in front of me.
It occurred as naturally as a thought, or a memory. One moment, I was watching the portly instructor with his wavy silver hair, round glasses, and brocade vest reading from the thick book on the lectern. In the next breath, I watched soldiers storm into houses and push people out of them. I saw whole villages cleaned out, the people loaded into large wagons, and taken away, leaving the buildings empty, hollow, and ready to collapse.
I took a deep breath and concentrated on listening for Scholar Mikel's voice.
"... The process of incorporating the small, scattered settlements throughout the vast western lands was not an easy one, but King Phillisto developed an effective method of convincing the indigenous population to move into the fortified cities."
I blinked in horror at the stream of text now covering half the chalkboard. How long had I been in the throes of a memory that wasn't even mine? I gripped my pencil and commenced scribbling as fast as I could to get all the notes copied down. If I failed the the exams due to insufficient or inaccurate information, I didn't want to imagine what that would do to my grades!
The whole time, the sounds from the image-scene haunted me--whinnying horses, crying children, and shouting soldiers echoed in my ears.
I finished the last line as the Scholar arrived at his next point. Industrial Factories Established, wrote the scribe.
"That method was the development of industrial factories which mass-produced everything Gramble's citizens needed, from foodstuffs, clothes, and furniture, to houses and even entire neighborhoods. If it could be made, the factories made it, and distributed it to specially-organized Factory Markets in every town."
Factories produced everything, I wrote. Mass-manufactured goods distributed via Markets. Quality control = safety and equality guaranteed.
An itch developed behind my eye. I blinked several times, and did my best to keep writing. Specialty products deemed unnecessary. Ability to reach more people served to bolster humanitarian efforts of the Crown.
I blinked again--and instead of my parchment-book on my desk, I saw a crowd of people streaming toward a Factory Market building. As they moved, I saw another structure beside the large building, a smaller booth. Under the colorful tent, a strange woman called out in an unintelligible voice, holding up her blankets and waving to a pewter tea set on display. Not one person stopped by her, and I saw a pair of soldiers march across the street and begin shouting at her, tearing the blanket and kicking over her tiny stand.
They were going to hurt her--I felt myself hurtling forward, heard my voice shouting at the soldiers as I reached out to get the crowd's attention to the injustice happening right in front of them--
"Callista?"
I returned to the present with a deep gasp, and a shudder that shook my whole body.
Scholar Mikel had stopped reading, and now he fixed his gaze on me, not saying anything. The entire lecture hall had fallen silent. Everyone looked at me.
Feeling returned to my limbs, and I realized that I had my hand stretched up in the air, like a confused student drowning in a sea of information.
Scholar Mikel uttered the words no student--least of all one who had been attending the Academy for as long as I had--wanted to hear.
"Do you have a question?"
Just the idea of it drove the power of speech from my mind. I had interrupted a Scholar in the middle of a lesson! What was I thinking? What could I do now, to save myself from this embarrassing situation?
Ask, the voice in my head urged.
I opened my mouth, frantically searching for a query that would demonstrate an appropriate level of comprehension.
"Do not be afraid, Callista," Scholar Mikel assured me as the class began to whisper to each other over my hesitation. "Inquisitive minds deserve answers, and it is by filling in the gaps in our own understanding that we increase our intelligence."
The question... "These natives you referred to," I began, finding my voice at last, "the ones indigenous to the land that is now the nation of Gramble--are these the ones known as Wordspinners?"
All whispers died. I felt the burning horror of the stares around me--but it wasn't as if I'd said a bad word! I hastened to flip back in my parchment-book, to an earlier lecture Scholar Mikel had given.
Meanwhile, the esteemed Scholar took advantage of the delay to deliver his explanation. "Some would call them 'word-spinners', yes--but that term isn't even in use any more, as Gramble's Golden Age of Reform brought such advancements in philosophy and intellectual fortitude in general, that the archaic beliefs in a nebulous absolute faded into oblivion, and the Wordspinners and their kind were lost to history long ago."
I found the page and traced my finger down the text as the students around me scribbled down this extra information.
"Here it is," I said, reading from the page. "In a previous lesson, sir, you said that the ones known as Wordspinners were merely a guild of crafters and artisans, and that the reason they declined was because of the advent of Factory Markets, and the fact that people were more inclined to purchase from the mass-produced goods in season and out of season, rather than hand-made merchandise and locally-grown produce that was only available on a limited basis."
A few other students flipped back in their books, as I had read this description verbatim from a Level 7 lesson. I looked up at the teacher--his face betrayed no emotion, but his eyes fixed on me with a heated stare.
"Something you should understand, Callista," Scholar Mikel spoke with a dangerous calm to his voice, "is that the Academy prides itself on accurate, necessary information. That means that the material is tailored to what a student at each level would need to know. At Level 5, the student need not even know that this primitive group of pagans were known as Wordspinners. I presume you are speaking based on your Level 7 notes--and at that level, students are expected to know that yes, Wordspinners existed, but here," he swept his arm to indicate the entire lecture hall. "At Level 9, you have been made aware of the fact that these were not just simple crafters and gardeners, but insubordinate rebels who objected to any outside influence for purely religious reasons." He closed the book and let his words hang over us.
The murmur rippled through the classroom, and could guess the topic of whispered conversation among desk neighbors. A heat rose in my cheeks as I felt their surreptitious stares, how the Scholar's gaze fixed on me, who dared call him out in the middle of a lesson, and try to confuse his own words. Was that really what I wanted to do? What more of an explanation did I need, than the one he gave?
The bell tolled high over our heads. Scholar Mikel closed the book on his lectern, and his assistants began wiping down the massive slate behind him. "This concludes today's lesson," he announced. "We will resume at the next Level 9 History period." He waved us all out of the room.
I gathered my materials and filed into line with the students around me, my mind full of dread as I replayed the whole class period in my mind, wondering what went wrong, and what else I could have said that would have brought a different outcome. The trouble was, there was only one other alternative that I could see.
"Callista." The sound of my name before I'd even reached the door of the lecture hall brought me and a few other students in my immediate vicinity to a halt. Scholar Mikel stood with his eyes trained directly on me. The others shuffled out of my way as I moved to stand on the floor before him. We might have been the same height--he wasn't a very tall man--but he still stood on the elevated dais at the front of the classroom, so he loomed head and shoulders over me, his disapproving frown weighing me down even further.
"Would you care to explain your behavior today, Callista?" he asked, as the last few students filed out of the room behind me. He folded his hands behind his back. "In all my years as Scholar, I have prided myself in ensuring against misinformation, and you--nine academic levels, nearly ten fourseasons, and not once have you spoken out like you did today. Why?"
I opened my mouth, willing some semblance of an idea to come forth. It seemed that words would just pour out of me sometimes, at inopportune moments, and yet now, when I very literally had the floor--
Nothing.
"I--"
Scholar Mikel pursed his lips and clicked his tongue. "Something you must learn, Callista, as you are set to graduate from your Academy studies, is the virtue of sufficient evidence. If you are going to challenge the accepted view of something, you must put in the research first, so that you have the proof you need to validate your point. Perhaps the evidence is there--or perhaps it is in the course of trying to prove your hypothesis that you find information to the contrary, and it is your view that must change, not the historical records."
He turned to the long table with all his teaching materials and began writing on a piece of parchment. Was he recommending that I repeat the level, to ensure that his version of these lessons really stuck this time? Was he writing the Headmaster to decline my graduation because of insubordination? Was it really all that bad that I had expressed a dissenting point of view?
I gulped, took a huge gasp, and blurted, "I'm sorry, Scholar!"
"Oh?" Scholar Mikel looked up, a smile on his face and the parchment in hand. "Never fear, Callista--it is not an apology I seek. Merely that next time, I would like you to be better informed." He handed me the parchment.
"Permission for: Callista Rubinsyn; Location: Library; Material: Korstan Senevere And The Exploration of Western Hemptor
I stared at the title. The Library was normally off-limits to students, without either accompaniment by a Tutor, or written permission from a Scholar. "What is this, sir?" I asked.
"A special assignment, just for you," said Scholar Mikel. "Korstan Senevere was one of the first explorers sent out under King Malacuse--King Phillisto's predecessor--who, it is said, lived among a community of Wordspinners out in the wilds of Western Hemptor, and chronicled what he could understand of their daily lives, their practices, and the events leading up to their near-extinction. Perhaps there, you will find the information you seek, which I am so ill-prepared to deliver to your satisfaction."
He had lost his disapproving frown, and now smiled at me, although it didn't make me feel any better.
"You are assigning me an extra reading assignment?" I asked, fidgeting with the paper in my hand.
"More than that," Scholar Mikel answered with a nod. "I want you to write a report on your findings concerning these ancient natives known as Wordspinners. See if you can find a way to reconcile the material in my lesson that you found so objectionable today. This slip gives you permission to requisition the book from the Library Archives, and by the end of my Level 3 lesson tomorrow, I expect to see you back with your report in hand, to present to me your findings." He rapped his knuckles on the table. "That will be all, Callista."
I exited the room and took a deep breath. Some of the lecture halls could get quite stagnant, even in Greyfrost, but out in the hallway, a profusion of high windows and the open doors leading to the outside kept the fresh air flowing.
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