Equal Rites

Esk pushed aside the heavy curtains and peered into the back of the wagon. Simon was lying on a pile of rugs, reading a very large book and making notes on scraps of paper.

He looked up, and gave her a worried smile.

“Is that you?” he said.

“Yes,” said Esk, with conviction.

“We thought you’d left us. Everyone thought you were riding with everyone else and then wwwwhen we stopped—”

“I sort of caught up. I think Mr Treatle wants you to come and look at the University.”

“We’re here?” he said, and gave her an odd look: “You’re here?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Mr Treatle invited me in, he said everyone would be astounded to meet me.” Uncertainty flashed a fin in the depths of her eyes. “Was he right?”

Simon looked down at his book, and dabbed at his running eyes with a red handkerchief.

“He has t-these little f-fancies,” he muttered, “bbbut he’s not a bad person.”

Bewildered, Esk looked down at the yellowed pages open in front of the boy. They were full of complicated red and black symbols which in some inexplicable way were as potent and unpleasant as a ticking parcel, but which nevertheless drew the eye in the same way that a really bad accident does. One felt that one would like to know their purpose, while at the same time suspecting that if you found out you would really prefer not to have done.

Simon saw her expression and hastily shut the book.

“Just some magic,” he mumbled. “Something I’m wwwww—”

“—working—” said Esk, automatically.

“Thank you. On.”

“It must be quite interesting, reading books,” said Esk.

“Sort of. Can’t you read, Esk?”

The astonishment in his voice stung her.

“I expect so,” she said defiantly. “I’ve never tried.”

* * *

Esk wouldn’t have known what a collective noun was if it had spat in her eye, but she knew there was a herd of goats and a coven of witches. She didn’t know what you called a lot of wizards. An order of wizards? A conspiracy? A circle?

Whatever it was, it filled the University. Wizards strolled among the cloisters and sat on benches under the trees. Young wizards scuttled along pathways as bells rang, with their arms full of books or—in the case of senior students—with their books flapping through the air after them. The air had the greasy feel of magic and tasted of tin.

Esk walked along between Treatle and Simon and drank it all in. It wasn’t just that there was magic in the air, but it was tamed and working, like a millrace. It was power, but it was harnessed.

Simon was as excited as she was, but it showed only because his eyes watered more and his stutter got worse. He kept stopping to point out the various colleges and research buildings.

One was quite low and brooding, with high narrow windows.

“T-that’s the l-l-library,” said Simon, his voice bursting with wonder and respect. “Can I have a l-l-look?”

“Plenty of time for that later,” said Treatle. Simon gave the building a wistful look.

“All the b-books of magic ever written,” he whispered.

“Why are the windows barred?” said Esk.

Simon swallowed. “Um, b-because b-books of m-magic aren’t like other b-books, they lead a—”

“That’s enough,” snapped Treatle. He looked down at Esk as if he had just noticed her, and frowned.

“Why are you here?”

“You invited me in,” said Esk.

“Me? Oh yes. Of course. Sorry, mind wandering. The young lady who wants to be a wizard. Let us see, shall we?”

He led the way up a broad flight of steps to an impressive pair of doors. At least, they were designed to be impressive. The designer had invested deeply in heavy locks, curly hinges, brass studs and an intricately carved archway to make it absolutely clear to anyone entering that they were not very important people at all.

He was a wizard. He had forgotten the doorknocker.

Treatle rapped on the door with his staff. It hesitated for a while, and then slowly slid back its bolts and swung open.

The hall was full of wizards and boys. And boys’ parents.

There are two ways of getting into Unseen University (in fact there are three, but at this time wizards hadn’t realised it).

The first is to achieve some great work of magic, such as the recovery of an ancient and powerful relic or the invention of a totally new spell, but in these times it was seldom done. In the past there had been great wizards capable of forming whole new spells from the chaotic raw magic of the world, wizards from whom as it were all the spells of wizardry had flowed, but those days had gone; there were no more sourcerers.

So the more typical method was to be sponsored by a senior and respected wizard, after a suitable period of apprenticeship.

Competition was stiff for a University place and the honour and privileges an Unseen degree could bring. Many of the boys milling around the hall, and launching minor spells at each other, would fail and have to spend their lives as lowly magicians, mere magical technologists with defiant beards and leather patches on their elbows who congregated in small jealous groups at parties.