Once it was clear he was allowed to leave, Dominicus joined the trickle of cadets leaving the wide field and big circular track for the buildings clustered under the Tower. Distance and tricks of the rising ground had made them deceptively small; they less loomed than popped into sudden overhanging gravity before him as he approached.
He already ached. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat, and it wasn’t because of the running – not just because of the running. His back prickled, for the first time today the sweat rolling down it actually feeling cold. What would have happened if they had caught him? What would have happened if he hadn’t noticed them? Would they fight? What would happen if they did? They were here to learn to fight, in some sense, weren’t they? He couldn’t fight them all. Would the other cadets join in or try to stop them? Where did their duty lie?
He didn’t know that the officers he had seen would do anything. They didn’t seem like they were there to do anything, and he had forced them to get involved by disrupting things.
That didn’t seem smart, retrospectively.
The other cadets – the older ones, who were running (helping running?) things – they also seemed disinclined to intervene. But then again – they had, several times, already. The wet leaf – that was some kind of intervention, damned if he knew what kind, though. Maybe he didn’t notice their intervention. He was very busy trying not to die.
And speaking of, he was growing nearer a more threatening situation, as the little trickle of new cadets freed from running solidified into several clusters passing through the great dark doorways of an enormous stone hall. The hall stretched out from the cluster of buildings towards the wall like sheets blown from a clothesline; it had not been built as joined to the other buildings, and was clearly trying to escape, but the grey stone squares as grown around it as if basalt slabs were like moss and spread in patches.
So, once again, his deeper thoughts bubbled away as he met a dozen pale stares.
He was going to have to get used to it. He hoped he could ignore it, but the fact that it kept happening meant he kept telling himself he was going to have to get used to it. Ignoring it was too hard.
There were, of course, a lot of things he was going to have to get used to, and the staring was perhaps among the smaller things.
They didn’t stare for long – the novelty of Dominicus being here paled in comparison to the novelty of being here in general – and all were silent and cautiously observant as he joined the brief bottleneck entering the hall.
It was like one of the many travellers’ halls Dominicus and his father had stopped in on their journey here, only more so – except so much more so it became hard to relate the two at all without thinking he had somehow, miraculously, physically shrunk. It was just stones piled on stones but this was the first time he had ever been in a place where they had been stacked quite so high. (Of course, he knew the Tower was stone, he knew the walls were stone, many taller things were stone. He knew all kinds of things that didn’t seem very relevant once one actually got to confronting the thing in question. Like God, supposedly).
Dominicus wasn’t the only one taking a moment to stare, to really take in the scale of what they had gotten themselves into, but they weren’t given much time to do it. Massive as the high-ceilinged hall was, it had been crowded with people, tables, and material – a maze of stations, like the tailors’ stations they had been first sorted into after the gates, through which a great deal of them flowed with not great speed.
The new arrivals – Dominicus among them – were crowded in the first third of the hall, along which several tables had been stretched with minimal gaps between them. A phalanx of uniformed people stood at the corners, near the gaps between tables but far from each other, on the side facing the incoming students, while another person occupied the gap but on the other side, retrieving smaller books from great piles neatly stacked in the empty centres of the tables. Each person before the tables held an open book outward. Before these persons stood the new cadets, with varying expressions of distress.
Dominicus, however, felt his tension drain like dry earth crumbling away from the base of an uprooted weed. It was a reading test.
He could read. Books were much better than stone, or classes, or personal interactions in general. If any part of this ridiculous circus was books-based, he could read those books. And if he could read those, he could (metaphorically) bludgeon his enemies to death with the knowledge held therein. He was good at that.
Again, like harrier dogs, several older cadets pushed through the newcomers to jostle them into the appropriate lines and keep things moving. Dominicus joined the line practically leaning over the shoulder of the person in front of him in eagerness. When his turn came, he stood before the table ablaze with the chance to take the first test he could succeed at.
The official tapped the page. Dominicus read his sentence. The official turned the pages deftly and tapped again. Dominicus read again. The official flipped more pages, tapped, Dominicus read, noticed the official’s fingers were ink-stained like a clerk’s. The official this time turned the book toward himself and seriously contemplated the subject index before carefully selecting the next passage in the thick of the pages.
It was then Dominicus noted that most of the other cadets were reading only one or two sentences, and then being waved on.
Dominicus read nine, the official seeming to pick out particularly boring passages, about curfews, the meaning of uniform colors, lists of expected material to be packed for certain kinds of campaigning (that bode ill for the pleasantness of those kinds of campaigning).
Dominicus would read. The official would select again, sometimes very thoughtfully. A line built behind Dominicus that he refused to look at. The heat of it built at his back, like he could feel the cooling sweat down his spine, sticking his shirt, turn itchy.
The ninth time, the official held out the book, only for it to fling itself to the ground – or rather, to be plunged there by the walking stick, held like a javelin, of the officer clearly overseeing the events in the hall (this was a terrible way to treat books, bordering on sinful, but he had come from deep within the room, as if summoned by inefficiency the way the Prophet’s Holy Brother Mamercus had been rescued from the Malcomidri by the bagaudae, so maybe it was ordained). His other hand grabbed Dominicus’ shirt and flung him bodily past the first barrier of tables, either by sheer annoyance or because he had removed the support for his missing leg.
Either way, Dominicus was lucky he didn’t nut himself on the corner of the table as he stumbled through.
The gap-minding official handed him a book with a cover faded to a pretty light blue. ‘Guide’ had been stamped across the front, and it was worn to the point of fragility – just opening it, Dominicus almost lost a couple of pages that had come loose from the binding. Clearly, it had to wait for a more opportune time, but the hope it gave him burned the hand he held it with.
By the guidance of the tables, which blocked out a path through the rest of the room, they were directed towards a wall that held the largest slate Dominicus had ever seen. It seemed like it had been polished out of the wall themselves, and held an frighteningly expansive list of names written in a beautiful, Old-Ainjir-style script.
Finding his name also took him twice as long, because they had listed it under his family name instead of his proper name (such a thing wouldn’t work for Midraeics – a quarter of the list would be ‘Pastor’ and another third ‘Faber’). Still, this was not a comforting difference in the nature of the delays.
Next to his name was a little ‘4’, which corresponded to one of a set of stacks of less-neatly bound papers sitting on a large table beside the slate.
This was his schedule, or so he presumed from the table on the second page; God only knew why it was so thick. Again, there wasn’t time to look too closely, as now they had to circulate around the various tables, being issued some things, or asked about others (cups, waterskins, writing supplies, small bags of mysterious supplies, different small bags of less mysterious ‘we expect you to clean yourself’ supplies, other miscellaneous faesch). Everyone got the waterskins and little metal cup; if you had your own hip knife you weren’t to be issued one (Dominicus needed one), and the same with ledgers, pens, and ink (Dominicus did not need these but he took them, because who would turn those down?).
This took much longer than it should for everyone, for the same reason anything bureaucratic took much longer than it should. Somehow it was also terribly stressful, terribly confusing, and one always had to backtrack to something somehow missed even though it had been laid directly in one’s path, also normal for something that had been specifically designed to be clear, un-fuck-up-able and efficient. Probably it didn’t help that more harrier cadets moved through this part of the room, accosting anyone who seemed to be too lost or even just resting.
There was no resting here; one emerged almost as breathless as one had gone in.
The last thing – inexplicably the last thing – they issued to all the new cadets was a bag, with twin, thin straps for each shoulder, so that it rode high on your back. Cadets with armfuls of issued equipment stumbled outside, throwing their burdens on the ground to, as quickly as possible, load everything into these bags.
This was their moment of rest. Looking at the sun had barely occurred to him over the last hours. The gates had opened some time around or before noon, and between the initial sorting, issuing of uniforms, assignments of dorms, circle run, and now distribution of supplies, even the earliest of new cadets through the process had emerged from the hall to a sun sunk gravely lower in the sky. In that time there had been no pauses, unless one physically refused to continue, no food or drink of any kind.
This was brief and tense space to breathe while they packed their newly-issued equipment and – had they time – to retrieve foul-smelling water (in their newly-issued metal cups) from an enormous barrel set on a stand outside the hall. This was their only food or drink since they had been let in the gates, and they only had time for one.
They had to be quick, because once again, they were being ushered to another task by cadets in the higher years (partially, it was the brusque imitation of the officers’ demeanours they had adopted that gave them away as cadets, and partially, it was the haircuts and clean faces, where the officers wore their hair however they liked and tended to have facial hair).
Sure, one could try to take one’s time packing, or insist on waiting in line for water, but then one would be loomed over by the older cadet, being personally supervised and loudly berated as one tried to fill the bag or hold one’s place. It didn’t even seem all that helpful to be so supervised for packing – or, at least, the resentment of the supervising cadets at being forced to wait was so virulent that they would take the offending semi-packed bag and upend it, scattering what few things had been packed no matter how long it had taken, and insist it be done again in a less stupid fashion. Any waiting new cadets might get a moment’s peace out of this focused attention on another (if the cadet didn’t turn on them to loudly make clear they were all being judged by the one laggard in the group) only to be rounded up and warned they would all be going ‘double time’ to make up for the lost time.
But truly, out of the multiple reasons to hurry, the best was for water.
Dominicus was very thirsty. The prospect of getting in the middle of another large group of irritable Ainjir, even if they were supposed to be waiting in orderly lines, sounded only slightly better than dying of thirst. Sure, it could go smoothly, but nothing had, so far, and if somebody was going to try to stop him from getting water, he was going to ruin his new metal cup on that person’s face. He had narrowly escaped two beatings that day already, and he, somehow, ventured that making any further fuss was asking the Prophet to be really, really sure it wasn’t yet his Time.
But he did get to drink, eventually, because it seemed whenever he thought he had seen the biggest Ainjir, there seemed to be an even bigger one right behind him. This time, the even bigger one simply stood near the barrel, staring down the line, and if he saw anyone of whose behaviour he didn’t approve he just… was big at them. It was hard to say what he did, exactly. Dominicus had never been in the position to simply be big at someone and have them defer, unless hens counted (and that was a very hard earned authority).
And luckily, the bigger Ainjir this time seemed to only be concerned with keeping the line moving smoothly. So even Dominicus got to drink. The water tasted terrible, but it was wet.
A small but very worthy comfort, because very shortly there were enough in Dominicus’ group that the older cadet given responsibility for them gathered them together and pushed the group off at a pace that was something slower than a run, but too fast for a walk. The brief rest had fooled Dominicus into thinking that this was fine, a brief rest was all he needed, but hardly five minutes passed before he sincerely regretted ever thinking he would be fine again.
The next ‘activity’ was a tour – a tour of the entire central structure of the Academy, which they ran around at a jarring, run/walk cadence. This was well short of the entire grounds, but still an awkwardly paced ordeal of a length many times more than the three laps of the circle they had been asked for earlier in the day. Had Dominicus not been already worn out, he would have admired – and perhaps remembered – the rhyming chants the cadet leading them belted as they ran, describing in alternately laudatory and denigrating language each building, its use, and inhabitants, but it was also clear that this information, and their absorption of it, was a secondary, or even tertiary concern.
Given in a low, chanting drone, the guidance was hardly audible, but even if heard, delivered such that it had a more soporific effect than anything else. Dominicus quickly realized that if you could find the pace to match that of the cadet and followed along, it helped with breathing, but keeping himself breathing soon became so all-consuming he hardly processed the words.
Nothing helped with the awkwardly packed and ill-fitting bags, and the few times Dominicus lagged the clanging and rustling drowned out the chant of the cadet. Most of them ended up furiously clutching the bag straps to hold it to their backs, a task ultimately almost as tiring as it was futile. The rubbing of the fabric soon worked skin raw underneath, whatever they did, it seemed only a matter of which skin would suffer.
Those who fell behind were left behind – to find their own way back? Join another group? Be lost forever in the sometimes shockingly wild patches of trees and crowds of buildings? Dominicus was determined not to find out.
This didn’t seem to bother their leader at all. By the time the tour ended, he had roughly five of them left, if you considered the new cadet walking, but still visible in the distance, as ‘with’ them.
“Dorms now. Drop your bags,” he yelled, as if to prove that he was neither out of breath, nor incapable of speaking at great volume. “Reconvene at the Hall.”
Though only at a middling place in the whole class of new arrivals going through this process, they had finished their ‘tour’ as the walls were cutting the sunlight off from the courtyards. Everything in Dominicus’ brain had receded to a dull murmur under imperative to keep breathing. Fortunately, those who had issued them their rooms stood by the dormitory doorways and directed them towards their next target.
Cadets in various states – miserably walking, sitting back against their bags, lying completely flat on the ground – were scattered across the grass on the way to the dormitory.
And yet, neither the day, nor the worst of it, were over.
They were apparently serious about ‘reconvening,’ as although the sun still peeked over the walls when Dominicus arrived before the hall again, they were corralled and waited there until what must have been the very last of the first year cadets arrived. They weren’t allowed to sit; everyone – at least, everyone by Dominicus – was too tired to talk, if they had been allowed, which they weren’t. He might have heard the growl of conversation at the other end of the group, but this came to a halt when one of their minders – officers, again, though not in grey – loudly joined in with his opinions on each of the speakers and their lineages.
They weren’t nice opinions.
Dark fell. All they could hear was the noise from the hall, the light coming out of its many windows a cheerful mockery of their stillness in the dark. Suddenly, some kind of signal was given, and they were herded inside. The whole, seemingly hundred-strong group was pushed through any one of several double doors, then gathered again, by the edge of a high table set on a raised dais at one end of the room, the noise and smells of cooking emanating through the closed shutters behind it.
They could smell the food, and as they entered, the officers at the high table stood, all raising their glasses.
“A welcome, to our new class!”
The hall erupted in one deep, resounding shout.
“Good luck,” the officer said, and they drank.
Dominicus had pushed for the edge of the crowd – maybe habit, maybe the sheer animal wariness of rarely if ever having been in the middle of so dense a crowd – so he had a clear view. One section of the sitting cadets got up, along with some few scattered around at other tables. The all picked up their dishes; some brought serving plates, or even other people’s dishes. They walked to the front of the crowd of new cadets, and threw the dishes on the floor.
There were enough of them they had to come in shifts, so the pile of plates and spilled food grew taller and taller over the next few minutes. Then they cheered, with some of the others in the room joining in with scattered clapping, and left the hall. The whole of the crowd emptied in shifts, though none of the others added to the pile at the new cadets’ feet (one or two tossed a careless mug or joint of meat on top).
Dominicus was too tired to panic about the meaning of this procession, but some instinctual despair brewed in his chest as he watched it settle before them, mashed potatoes deflating, bowls tipping and sliding to the floor as picked clean bones rolled in them, disturbed by the tumble of a half-eaten roll, or some other remains of the feast.
And he was right to despair, however dull the feeling was in his overwhelmed, overworked body. Dominicus learned from the jolly conversation of the kitchen attendants as he washed, raw-knuckled, elbow-deep in hot, soapy water, and weepingly tired, that it was tradition.
In theory, it was possible for the First Years to finish their induction on time and join the feast – places were even set, in anticipation (which, gallingly, they had to clear and wash, even though they hadn’t been used) – but, of course, no one remembered a time when they had, except in legends. In the distribution of chores in service of the institution, First Years cleaned, and Second Years cooked. The Second Years traditionally celebrated this graduation to a higher task at the first feast by ‘passing the duty on’ to the new First Year class. The Second Year class, though ‘not worth admiring’ in a general sense, had at least followed the strictures laid down in reaction to previous years, and had neither thrown food inaccessibly high on the walls, nor at the new cadets themselves.
The Teachings had a lot to say about gratitude and humility even before ones’ worst enemies but Dominicus found it really hard to think about the teachings with scouring salts caked in grease shoved under his fingernails.
So instead of eating, they cleaned. Any particularly flagging cadets were given water, but any fool desperate enough to ask for or take some of the discarded food to eat didn’t have it taken away, but did find themselves loudly and publicly mocked for their low and shameful behaviour, until they either finished eating, or discarded the food. Then they would be moved to task ‘less appetizing.’
Dominicus didn’t know how many dishes he cleaned; he didn’t know how he didn’t fall asleep and drown in the sink. It probably had something to do with the cook jabbing them with meat forks when they looked like they were getting sleepy, or the scraper elbowing him as he shoved dishes into the water.
He didn’t know how he made it back to the dormitory, or to his room.
He did make time to pray before he slept for God to move him to a different Hell.
***
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