Free Gravity's Revenge by A.E. Marling Page A

“For a point of clarification, the nobleman in question was Lord Yunderdones. In the midst of his tour two days previous, he slipped away from the other gentry. A witness report from Novice Emesea indicates that he ignored visitor guidelines and threw himself off the Academy Plateau.”
    Balmy relief mixed within boiling worry in Hiresha. Two deaths in one solitary week. Perhaps the novice was mistaken, and he too fell.
    To Hiresha’s left, the rector made a sharp noise of disbelief. Her fingers fidgeted over the ornamental daggers decorating her belt.
    The chancellor turned her squint on the rector and her triumphant dome of white hair, a frizzy peak enclosed in a mesh of gold wire. The chancellor said, “The grandeur of the Mindvault Academy is the closest experience to the afterlife the living can attain. Yet it must not be associated with journeys to said afterlife. Any implication of acts of violence would distract potential donors.”
    The elders faced each other over a granite surface patterned in four concentric spheres, the centermost green, and the outer a circle of red. On the other side of the design, an enchantress sighed, opening her hands to reveal mismatched gloves of clashing colors.
    The chancellor nodded to her. “The Ceiling recognizes the Dean of Somnium Exploration.”
    Brooches of jeweled flowers glittered in the dean’s grey dreadlocks as she spoke. “It is always students of hard enchantment who throw away the glorious gift of life. They—”
    “The correlation does not equal causation,” Hiresha said. “The Grindstone’s students tend to have more debt than—”
    The chancellor held up a hand. “The dean has the Ceiling.”
    The dean cast a pitying look toward Hiresha and the weapon-strewn rector. “You must require your students to take more courses in the Somnarium, to reach the radiant oneness within.”
    The rector’s column of hair tilted back as she scoffed. “Adding to an already overburdening curriculum would only—”
    The chancellor closed a fist then opened her hand to another elder who was waiting with palms outward. “The Ceiling recognizes the Warden of Faceted Knowledge.”
    Hiresha had opened her hands as well, but the chancellor had ignored her. I have to tell them now.
    Age had bent the warden so far forward that the golden dome that decorated her hump was higher than her head. The warden also wore a mask of onyx, and she spoke in a brittle voice.
    “The Ceiling of Elders has thrice rejected measures to construct barriers around the circumference of the plateau. Three, eleven, and twenty-seven decades ago respectively, similar measures were blocked.”
    Hiresha flexed her fingers open and closed. The rector rambled on, and the chancellor refused to acknowledge Hiresha.
    “It was decided the implementation of walls would give a prison-like atmosphere to a place dedicated to the infinite. Barriers of chain or stone would be anathema to the….Oh, dear. I lost my thoughts. What were we discussing?”
    “The prevention of further depreciation of the Academy’s reputation through irreverent suicide,” the chancellor said. “The Ceiling recognizes the Dean of—”
    Hiresha spoke first. “I have reason to suspect they were not—”
    “Provost, if you please. The dean has the Ceiling.”
    Hiresha had no intention of following the conventions, which would have her wait until all those older than herself had spoken. They must understand the danger. She threw a glove in protest into the center of the circles of granite. The purple fabric grazed the stone then flipped into the air. It tumbled down from the Ceiling. An enchantress below caught it before its amethysts could strike the floor. The fennec yipped.
    The elders glared, stared, or raised an inquisitive brow. Hiresha’s exposed hand tingled in the tower’s chill. A purple garnet dotted midway on each finger, embedded in the skin. Hiresha felt a flash of uncertainty. I’m the youngest here. Could I be