Hours must have passed, and still Ianthe couldn’t sleep. And then she heard a floorboard creak nearby. Someone shook her shoulder, and a voice whispered, ‘Are you awake?’
Ianthe pulled back the blanket.
In the darkness she could just make out a dim figure crouching next to her bed. She realized it was the fat red-haired girl she’d briefly sat next to at supper. The girl leaned close and whispered, ‘Don’t let them get to you. They pick on everyone at first. And Sister Ulla is a monster.’ She pressed something into Ianthe’s hands.
It was a piece of chicken, wrapped in a napkin. Ianthe began to eat it at once.
‘You’re from Evensraum?’
Ianthe nodded.
‘I’m from Harpool, about thirty miles north of Losoto. My family are farmers, too.’
‘We’re not farmers,’ Ianthe said. ‘I mean, I don’t… what does it matter?’
‘Regina and Constance are the worst,’ the girl said. ‘They think they’re Losotan nobles or something. It’s like they’re always going on about Emperor Hu and how their families have arranged a special deal with him and they’re going to be attached to his court. It doesn’t even work like that. You don’t get to choose where you’re posted.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Aria. I’d better go.’
‘Thank you,’ Ianthe said.
Aria turned away, but Ianthe grabbed her and whispered, ‘Are they talking now?’
‘They’re asleep.’
Ianthe lowered her head. ‘I wasn’t sure.’
‘Silences are difficult here,’ Aria said. ‘But you’ll soon start to miss them.’
Ianthe got up before dawn and sneaked into the bathroom to wash herself before the other girls woke up. She returned to her bed but didn’t have to wait there for long. As the first glimmer of light crept into the forest outside, the dormitory door opened, and Sister Ulla marched in.
‘Up,’ she said, ‘up, you lazy creatures. We’ve too much to do today.’
The girls rose, complaining groggily. Ianthe looked over at Aria, but the big, auburn-haired girl avoided her eye. Constance and Regina, the pair whom Sister Ulla had expelled from the library with bleeding noses, were not so coy. Constance offered Ianthe a cut-glass stare, then brushed her blonde curls from her shoulder in an exaggerated manner. She turned and smiled at her companion in a way that seemed to promise mischief. Regina suppressed a giggle.
‘You!’ Sister Ulla said to Ianthe. ‘You’ve washed? Come with me.’
The Testing Room was further along the corridor from the dormitory. It was bare but for a table and two chairs in the centre of the floor. Tall windows overlooked an empty courtyard flanked by colonnades and facing a wall with an iron grate leading into the forest. Sister Ulla told Ianthe to sit, and then left the room.
Ianthe waited.
The courtyard outside grew steadily lighter. Ianthe watched the shadows draw back towards the easternmost colonnade. Birds hopped along the forest wall. Half the morning passed by, and still nobody came. She wondered if this was part of the test. If she stood up and walked over to the window, would she fail? Perhaps she was supposed to make a decision and leave? Were they watching her? She got up and listened at the door but heard nothing. She sat down again.
The morning dragged on. Noon came and went. It must have been early afternoon when Sister Ulla returned. The little old woman carried a glass bell jar, which she placed unceremoniously on the table as she sat down. In the jar was a frog.
Sister Ulla regarded Ianthe for a long time. Her crumpled face was unreadable, but her eyes were small and cold. Finally she said, ‘Know where you are and who you are with. This organization gives nothing. If you want to be a part of it, you will accept that.’
Ianthe looked at the frog.
‘Some members of the Guild like to think they can bend the rules,’ the old woman went on. ‘They expect me to make concessions for students. But I don’t hold with that. The Guild is not a crown to be worn or a sword to be wielded. It is an ideology. Do you understand?’
Ianthe thought she should nod, so she did.
The old woman’s eyes narrowed. Then she tapped the glass jar and said, ‘I want you to kill this creature.’
Ianthe just looked at her.
‘Psychic communication requires the lightest touch,’ the old woman said. ‘The ability to sense thoughts without disrupting the transmitting mind in any way. Psychic warfare, on the other hand, is all about causing stress. One forces one’s own thoughts into the recipient’s brain with the intention of causing disruption. A competent practitioner can alter the mood of another psychic… evoke depression… or rage. But a skilled warrior…’ Her wrinkled lips made a semblance of a smile. ‘A skilled warrior can cause actual damage.’
Ianthe glanced at the frog again. ‘What about control? What about getting someone to do what you want?’
The old woman made a sound of disapproval. ‘You can’t etch glass with a sledgehammer, can you?’ She gestured towards the frog. ‘Psychic warfare techniques are more effective than the communicative disciplines precisely because there is no need to read the intricacies of the target mind. One’s victim need not even be sensitive. Even a mindless ugly little creature like this is vulnerable.’
‘But I don’t want to hurt it.’
Sister Ulla stood up. ‘I think it extremely unlikely that you will. Now, I have a class to teach. I’ll be back before supper to check on your failure.’ She headed for the door.
Ianthe called after her, ‘I’m just supposed to will it to death?’
‘Do what you like,’ Sister Ulla replied.
‘But how? I don’t-’
The old woman slammed the door.
Ianthe stared at the frog. The frog blinked. She allowed her mind to connect with the creature’s perceptions and peered up at herself through its marbled eyes. Poor little thing. She sighed, then got up and walked over to the window. A brown pigeon had perched on the forest wall at the other side of the courtyard. It pecked at some moss near its feet, then fluttered off into the trees. Ianthe opened the window and breathed deeply of the cool green air. She could hear other pigeons cooing above her and the restful chuckle of a stream coming from the woods beyond the wall.
She glanced back at the frog. Then she stormed over, threw herself back down in her seat and stared at the miserable little creature, willing it to die.
Time dragged on. No matter how much hellfire and agony Ianthe wished upon the frog, it simply crouched there, staring dumbly out of the jar. Its throat bobbed, and it blinked, and, once, it turned slightly. By mid afternoon a headache had crept into Ianthe’s skull. She let out a long breath and rose from her seat, stretching her arms and neck.
Aria was standing in the courtyard outside, looking in.
Ianthe hurried over and opened the window. ‘What are you doing here?’
The big red-haired girl glanced back at the courtyard wall, where she had propped the gate open with a wicker basket. ‘We’re supposed to collect mushrooms in the woods,’ she said, ‘but most of the girls just go back to the dorm. No one ever checks up.’ She looked past Ianthe into the room behind. ‘Is that a frog?’
Ianthe followed her gaze. ‘I’m supposed to kill it.’
Aria frowned. ‘Why a frog?’ she said. ‘Normally it’s a mouse. Not that anyone ever kills it the first time. Sister Ulla likes to say it’s easy, but it isn’t. Animal minds are much harder to destroy than Unmer ones.’
‘Have you ever killed an Unmer?’
Aria shook her head. ‘The dungeons are full of stock, but you’re only supposed to torture them,’ she said. ‘There’s barely enough to go around. If we killed them all, we’d need to bring in more from the ghettos and that would mean less income from the empire.’ She looked suddenly serious, and lowered her voice. ‘Constance killed one by accident, and Sister Ulla was so furious she nearly expelled her.’