Free Tessili Academy by Robin Stephen Page A

been taken to correct the wayward
orderly’s behavior. He would speak with regret about being forced
to come to the decision to remove the orderly from the academy.
“It’s for your safety,” he would say, solemn and grim. “It’s for
the safety of us all.”
    Fras never precisely spelled out where the
orderlies went when this happened, but it wasn’t hard to figure
out. After all, what could one possibly do with a man who was
already dead, but kill him?
    Of course, there had been one or two quiet
cases – instances where a man had simply disappeared. No
reprimands, no noted infractions. Just gone. When this happened,
Fras would give the same speech, explaining something had come up
suddenly, they’d had to act. Brint wondered, sometimes, if these
men had managed to escape.
    Brint did not think about escape. He could
see no benefit in attempting to return to the outside world. He was
now even less likely to scrape out a place for himself beyond the
academy walls. What use would the society that had rejected him as
a poor boy have for him as a castrated male?
    The only thing that bothered him about his
life was the girls. The seniors, in particular. He tried not to
think about it, tried not to look into their faces, to wonder what
was broken in those pretty heads. He didn’t believe the girls
graduated any more than he believed the orderlies who grew too old
to work were retired to a place they could be better cared for in
their twilight years. Brint didn’t even mind the thought of being
quietly murdered in his dotage. If he hadn’t been brought to the
academy in the first place, his chances of seeing old age would
have been too slim to calculate.
    In truth, Brint saw little benefit in
dwelling on outcomes he could not change. So he did his duty. He
did the best he could for the girls. He watched them grow from
small, frightened children into vague, scattered teenagers. Then he
watched them each receive a diploma. He did not, thankfully, have
to watch them die.
    He was used to the cycle. But now, the cycle
was disturbed.
    It had started with the missing holdstone.
One evening, the orderlies had been called to the meeting chamber.
High Orderly Fras had explained a stone had been lost – most likely
bumped off the table in the dance hall and perhaps kicked into a
corner or otherwise overlooked. The dance hall had been searched,
but the missing holdstone had not been discovered. The next day,
Brint had helped search the dormitories. Each chamber had been
scoured, the scant belongings allowed to the girls meticulously
sorted through and examined.
    No holdstone had been found. Brint had been
inclined to believe it was merely lost. Holdstones were small.
There were any number of ways such things could go missing.
    But now there was the more serious matter of
the missing syringe. Nylan had called Brint to the deployment block
complex the day before. Brint had gone with reluctance, fearing
some retribution for the fact that he’d stood up to the High
Handler, interfered with him the night he’d swept into the academy
flaunting authority he did not have. The guards had caved before
Nylan’s flat stare and certain step. Not Brint. He knew the rules.
He knew, knew for a fact, that handlers were not allowed within the
academy walls under any circumstances. A handler most certainly
wasn’t authorized to go into a dormitory unsupervised and harass a
senior.
    Brint had responded to the message in spite
of his reservations. Nylan had asked him, casually, if he’d
happened to hear of anyone finding the syringe Nylan must have
dropped in his haste to leave the senior’s dormitory that night.
Brint had stared at the other man, a feeling of slow unease
beginning to uncurl in his belly. He’d said he had not. Nylan had
thanked him for coming. Brint had left, unsettled.
    And now, today. This morning the orderlies
had read the announcement in the small antechamber that lead to
their sleeping hall. The seniors, having accomplished