Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

III.iii - When Inyanga Goes

The hours of the daytime drew to a close and the sun began to sink low between al-Maysan and the horizon. The half hour it took for the sun to vanish entirely was called solis ocassus in the old time-telling nomenclature. Storm led Amafu and Inyanga back to the courtyard with the weiki and chess board tables.

Turned out the courtyard was a popular place to study or socialize at dusk, and as they chose one of the remaining chessboard tables, voices chittered like crews of firebreasted petronias in song, every once in a while shushed by a table occupied by studious students nose deep in textbooks, but the noise would wane and eventually wax back.

"Better than an anti-eavesdropping spell," said Amafu, with a glance over her shoulder. No sound suppressing spells needed to be cast, though she did have to conjure herself a seat at the table for two — but then chair-conjuring spells would never raise any kind of red flag. Sunlight lingered on the black and white chess squares, but when it was gone, al-Maysan's mysterious luminance would continue to light up the page of the notebook Amafu withdrew and let fall open on the table.

From her list of words, and Storm's unimpressive start on the message, they set to work.

If the knew it couldn't would reason supply, create artificial scarcity prices, read Storm's attempt from last time.

Amafu took the lead adding more irregular words. "Constellation" and "populace" and "raise" and "constraint." Her method wasn't so much like writing but like throwing blobs of paint at a canvass — only if the blobs had meaning. The order was random at first, dictated not by when she needed them, but when she found them in her word bank. As if before she began to paint, she were selecting from a palette the paint colors she would need.

"You sure did get pretty far," said Amafu, staring at the words with which Storm had started. "Hmmm."

The Hmmm perhaps indicated that if Inyanga didn't get it yet, maybe she wasn't ever going to get it.

After a sinking sun's retreat, timing out the last XXX minutes of the day, she had moved words around on Storm's airweave page, displacing some as if discarding unneeded puzzle pieces, and formed just one, if a bit run on, sentence.

If the populace knew magic couldn't dwindle out, Constellation would have less basis behind their prices, which rely on supply and . . . though if they create artificial scarcity; they raise prices.

Moving her eyes from the backlit page hovering like a centerpiece or candelabra in the middle of the table to watch Inyanga's face for a reaction, Amafu held her breath.

Inyanga's eyes grew wide, luminous as the moon. Then she said, dramatically, "Hmmm."

Amafu and Storm sank back and exchanged glances at the anti-climax. Hmmmm was followed by, "I'm a bit excited by that, actually. It has potential. Let's see. You both keep putting the word 'supply,' I'm guessing you can't write the word 'demand.' Too regular. It sounds just like it's spelled, so it definitely uses the phonological stream in the mind, which sounds out regular words. You can only use irregular words which can't be sounded out and need to be stored in lexical memory. So, is that it? Supply and demand?"

"This isn't XX questions," said Storm. "We can't answer you."

"I don't see why limitation of the auditory dorsal stream would prevent you nodding."

Storm blinked twice. Amafu said, "I dunno, but I'm trying, and I can't."

Storm said, "Same. Alright, I'm going to think about something else. Am I'm going to be top of elementary link formation 101?" She nodded hurriedly.

Then she and Amafu both erupted in simultaneous applause, clapping and cheering. Storm landed back as if she were collapsing in relief and said, "Woo, that works!" faux breathlessly.

Inyanga shook her head with a bemused smirk and pulled out her own airweave paper, cramming notes into the bottom fifth of the page. She wrote and spoke aloud.

"If magic can run out, regular supply and demand rules would apply. Limited supply would mean prices rise along with demand. Buuuut," Inyanga paused, tongue between her teeth, her gnomon writing words faster than her speech could keep up — "If magic cannot run out, then Constellation is hiding the fact that supply is unlimited. . . and Constellation can set the price as high as it wants, while lying and blaming high demand and constrained supply. And should I not have been able to guess that much from the first moment I asked the question? It's simple logic.

"Simple logic. And yet, with so many spells affecting our minds, I cannot simply trust my own mind any more." She looked at the words on Storm and Amafu's page, and copied down, artificial scarcity. "What does that mean? It sounds like a term I should know, but I have never heard it before." Then her eyes traced up her own notes to what she had written weeks ago.

Create artificial scarcity, what does that mean? Why don't I remember? It sounds like a term I should know, but I've never heard it before.

"I've never heard it before," Inyanga repeated, thinking out loud. "If I've never heard it before, how is it written in my notes? When did I write this?"

"You don't remember writing it?" said Storm.

Amafu said, "I don't think they cast a spell on you. I think the amnesia spell is on the words. Like how Alondra put a trace spell on the . . . T word. Yet Storm and I don't forget. It seems like if you know, you know, because you need to know. The 'silencing curse' must inoculate against the amnesia."

Thank goodness airweave paper couldn't forget. To clear her head, Inyanga shook it, curls crashing into the lids of her closed eyes. "Artificial scarcity, artificial scarcity, artificial scarcity," she repeated.

"Maybe . . . stop staying that," said Amafu. "Let's make a habit, maybe library magicians are ten seconds away from realizing they can put a tracking spell on those words."

Her eyes glanced up and found themselves caught on the back of girl standing not too far from their table, how long had she been there, with shiny midnight lengths highlighted strips of moonbeam. The voices of fellow students continued in rounds of tittering, shushing, temporary silence — had it been loud or quiet when Inyanga had been excitedly revealing her revelation in a loud rant? Hard to remember. All three had been caught up in the moment.

As Amafu raised both hands to further insist on silence and began to whisper "How long has that girl. . ." both Storm and Inyanga were already turning to see what she was looking at. As if feeling three gazes, the girl with the midnight moon beam hair shifted the books she carried a mano and innocently, oh so innocently, walked away. "Uhn un, I'm not buying that act, was that girl spying on us?"

"Oh, the paranoia," said Storm.

Inyanga didn't mean to side with Storm, but . . . "That was Mingxia, wasn't it? Um, I wouldn't . . . uh . . . worry."

The story continues! Thanks for reading. Please give a star if you enjoyed reading this chapter.