Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

Circles Part 2 - Mingxia's Star

It was partway into Novembris and Mingxia had yet to participate in any of her tutorials except to laugh at Amafu's jokes and smile and nod at Inyanga and other contributors to tutorial discussions.

It wasn't until the third from final week before exams that Mingxia made her first contribution.

It had been inspired by a speech of Inyanga's on the history of the guardia's use of spell tracking. "The idea that magic routers could potentially provide data on the identification of spells cast and their spellcaster dates back to 100 S.E. when Aurelian Potestas of Constellation's Invernali branch submitted a hypothesis to the company that he was unable to prove. He was certain that the stellar router must display not only when a spell was cast, but who cast it, and what spell it was.

"He even managed to correctly guess all three pieces of information hundreds of times. However, he couldn't replicate his experiments to a degree of scientific validity; his hypothesis was based on the redundancy of visual display features on the router, which looked like a big version of a sundial or, one might say, a smaller version of the Constellation star dial downtown. The router display must take the shape of a sundial, in accordance with schematics derived from the stars' instructions, and certain design elements, Potestas argued, were redundant.

"For example, each licensed magician connected to a router was represented by a little orb of light hovering over the star dial surface that could only be seen with the lights off. One had to note the position of each orb manually every time a magician was connected, to identify whose orb it was, and the orb would grow and flash when a spell was cast. Yet the orbs were also connected to the gnomon of the dial by gossamer thin strands of light. Potestas argued this was redundant; the orbs' mere presence represented a connection to the router's magic, so the strands between the orb and the gnomon must display more information. He would stare at it, and he believed the strands would transfer the specific data into his mind. As if the stars were speaking to him; but no one else could do it. It wasn't until 1300 S.E. that the guardia made the next great development in spell tracking."

Mingxia didn't mean to interrupt . . . "But that development still failed to prove Aurelian Potestas' hypothesis." She had spoken without raising her hand. Had she interrupted? Panic surged. Inyanga looked at her, smiled, and before going on with her storytelling, she seemed as if she were waiting patiently for Mingxia to say more.

Her. heart. hammered. Even though what she had said was right, she could not form a single other sentence. One was all she had. Not a thought remained in her mind on the subject of Aurelian Potestas's Theorem.

With a nod of acknowledgement, Inyanga continued. "That's right. The development had nothing to do with Aurelian Potestas' Theorem, and router use was no longer widespread by 1300 S.E. The guardia had a breakthrough in breaking down data from the Star Dial itself, projecting the information into their own minds. Yet the method is slow, giving criminal spellcasters time to hide illegal activity. What if Aurelian Potestas' Theorem could still be falsified?"

Even though Mingxia hadn't said anything stupid, her heart rate took the rest of the hour to slow to rest, she felt.

Listening to Ma and Doctor Azikaze, she breathed slowly and deeply, made eye contact with every speaker, smiled to release endorphins — yet she continued to freak out. How could she do this for years? How would she get her degree like this? Half the classes had participation marks. It was her third month in and she still went all day without speaking, never talked to the other students, her greatest interaction of the day, other than lying to her parens, was ordering, "an iced cha, double sugar," at the campus cafe.

Not once had she spoken to the maestras. Never had she asked a question in class, never had she gone to office hours, if she didn't form relationships with the maestras, how would she ever get a letter of recommendation? If she couldn't even say two sentences in tutorial without panicking, how was she going to ever ask questions in lectures, give her third year seminar, or interview for internships?