Free Faculty of Fire by Alex Kosh Page B

sincerely, shaking him by the hand. “I never doubted it. Now you’ll study the unknown, learn the unknowable and all the rest of it.”
     
    “Aha,” said Chas, still with that stupid smile on his face. “I still can’t believe it. You should have seen the faces of those Craftsmen when I told them it was the second time I’d taken the test. Let’s go to the Golden Half Moon, everyone who got into the Academy is getting together there. There’ll a little party to celebrate and some official ceremonies.”
     
    I nodded in agreement and we darted past the windows of my house and set off along the street in the direction of the Golden Half Moon Club.
     
    The club was a gathering place for … well, for all sorts. The huge building had plenty of accommodation to offer, and there were plenty of takers, but not too many. The Golden Half Moon was a pretty pricey spot, if you got carried away, it would cost you an arm and a leg. The average inhabitant of the city couldn’t even afford to buy a beer there, never mind a dinner for two or more. And never mind the cost of a protective medallion to ward off the night’s predators.
     
    Like all the other buildings in the centre of the city, the club was almost completely made of gold (or, at least, covered with it). It was shaped like a half moon, or maybe more like the letter C. The entrance was located right at the very centre, on the inner side of the curve. Another distinctive feature of the Golden Half Moon was that it was almost the only single-story building in the entire city. The houses of the Great Families were two or three stories high, and in the slums they built skyscrapers of five or even six stories. Dozens of pretty large families were squashed into these immense beehives to save space. I can’t even imagine how people can live like that.
     
    As we left the yard of my house, we ran straight into a patrol of guardsmen. Naturally, today they were particularly zealous, but they left us alone once they spotted my (very slightly creased) Great House suit. No one wanted any trouble with the Great Houses.
     
    But on the way to the club we saw the guardsmen stopping and searching everyone they thought looked even slightly suspicious. We watched as they dragged several men off to the jail for further investigation. The municipal guard used to be a lot more tactful in the way it did things, but after the latest attempt on the life of the Emperor they really cut loose. There were raids in nearly every section of the city, and the guardians of the law became far more quarrelsome than they used to be. But all that didn’t affect the aristocracy.
     
    A couple of streets further on, we reached the Golden Half Moon Club. There was a crowd of people at the entrance, all very respectable-looking. Famous people from the arts, merchants and members of the Great Houses—all wearing protective medallions. I sighed when I realised how long we’d have to stand in line, but my fears were groundless – instead of the main entrance, Chas led me to one of the side doors. There was a member of the Academy standing beside the inconspicuous entrance, and I was surprised to see that no one was even trying to slip past him and jump the queue. Even the haughty members of the Great Houses patiently waited in line without trying to take advantage of the open door.
     
    When he saw my expression of surprise, Chas explained: “This is the entrance for the new pupils at the Academy. Can you believe they’ve booked a separate hall for us!”
     
    That really was hard to believe, after all, even I could only afford to book a table for two if I saved up for it beforehand … for a couple of weeks. I’d only ever been here once before, when I earned my first degree in the Art and, typically enough, I didn’t pay anything and I hardly ate anything either.
     
    “No kidding,” I declared rather vaguely.
     
    “Just play it cool,” Chas whispered as we stepped towards the door for new