Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

II.iv When Inyanga Gets In

At the librarian's dismissal, Storm and Inyanga swam like pro racers out of the al-Maysan core library and flew right out the door. When they left anti-grav their feet pummeled onto hard marble flooring; they caught themselves and tore into a run together down the hallway.

Together, as if they could read each other's minds, they all out ran down the hall. They didn't know a mental link spell, but they didn't need one to know each other's thoughts. Get out of the library and get as far away as possible to start the timer on the mute spell they would be under for the next hour.

To get their voices back they needed to get the one hour timer started.

They didn't stop until they hit the portal that led outside into the fresh air of a placid, clear afternoon on campus.

It wasn't just their voices either, Inyanga noticed as she clapped her hands to her knees, bent over, panting. No sound from the clap, nor had her feet clapped on the tile flooring when she ran, no echo of her shoefall, no huff of her breath, no pulse of her heart. Which was freaky. She didn't have much time for cardio these days, and when she had to run to class or to catch an omnibus, she could hear the blood rush in her ears. Now the puffs of her breath made no sound. She felt like a ghost.

The thought brought her back.

Once upon a time she had felt like a phantom. Like no one could see her, the real her. They only saw a ghost of her. At least then she had still been able to speak.

Storm looked up from her own recovery, hands on her own knees, as if she had had the same thought. This damn school. They can do anything to us.

We pay them, and they can do anything they want to us.

This better pay off.

Then Storm straightened up and withdrew her gnomon from a chic designer holster (cognac magic-cast leather) at the waist of her chic designer skirt (pleated black with rhinestones that occasionally changed places like stones in a game of Weiqi).

First, she stared at her gnomon intently, turning it over a few times as if it were dripping honey, and then she waved it in front of her like a gymnast with a ribbon, and words began to form in front of her in the air.

They couldn't have given us a warning first? Three strikes?

The words appeared just like the subtitles on link recordings, like on the shows Inyanga and grandmama watched with captions while Umama took a call from work; they all liked to be together in the kitchen all dies Saturni.

Inyanga knew the theory behind Storm's subtitles, but there was no way she could work the spell without speaking. So when Storm's captioning asked, Can't you write subtitles? all Inyanga could do was shrug.

Storm started to write out a complex formula for Inyanga to follow, which took into account the intricate difficulty of conveying meaning to the stars at the same time you asked them to broadcast that meaning in the form of airweave writing. You had to simultaneously command the stars to write your text in the air while telling them what to write without getting the two confused. And all without speaking an incantation aloud.

The instructions were just what Inyanga expected, so she waved her arms in a negatory X and then waved at her throat to indicate she couldn't cast spells without speaking.

Oh, the words in front of Storm said, You can't spellcast nonverbally? Well, you don't have to. You're on mute so I can't hear you, but the stars still can. You think they need your vocal cords to vibrate sound to hear you? That's silly.

Huh? thought Inyanga. But she tried anyway. Just as Storm had mouthed the words, Inyanga pulled out her gnomon and voicelessly told it to subtitle her. When she waved the wand in front of her, words drew themselves in midair.

Got it. Okay. Now, what were you going to say about the taboo?

I was going to say, you need to ask student services, Storm wrote, one hand on hip. In the library.

Thanks for reading, please leave a star for Inyanga's Constellation!