Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

Prologue - Part II

"I have ten years before we need to pay the tuition. Time enough."

"And your best friend loves you and will not let you be returned to mortality, despite the pride that has prevented you ever taking a fraction of a solida for anything."

"Pride." Kyuma spat. "Me? Who takes money from their friends? No one. It's not done, and it's not needed."

Star put a hand down on Kyuma's, scattering a few weiqi pebbles. "Promise me that if it's life or death, you will take the solidae, love. Promise me if the day comes when you would lose your immortality if you can't pay, you will come to me."

They never talked like this, out loud, about their differences in finances, and it made Kyuma want to spit and scream. Kyuma almost pulled aer hand back.

Making aerself look Star right in the face, and thinking of Inyanga, Kyuma made aerself say, "I promise."

Star's eyes danced and her head tilted side to side. "Promise what?" she prodded.

"I promise I will take your money if it's that or be killed by this insane ruling of the stars that a mother must pass aer immortal life on to the baby and die if aeh cannot buy a second immortal animus. I promise I will let you save me and lord it over my head for the rest of our immortal lives. Promise."

They set into their weiqi stones game, and Kyuma had a drive to tear Star to pieces, now more than ever. At times Inyanga and Amafu rushed by, screeching, "Love you, Umama!" "Love ya, mwah!" and swishing colorful twigs.

Only one rule was given the girls by their umamas. Their umamas watched them play from their seat in the shade, and that meant no hedge maze today, not unless the four of them went for a walk through it — a slow paced, civilized walk — together.

The girls' voices carried, "When I'm a magician, I'll turn you into a butterfly!" "I'll turn you into a worm." "A worm? No fair!"

Kyuma frowned. "If I hear them say 'when I'm a magician' one more time . . . like it's such a sure thing . . ."

"When I go here, I will be the top of the class. I'll study until my eyes fall out," said Inyanga.

"When I'm a MAGICIAN," Amafu bellowed, "I'll give everyone in Soliara a million million solidae each! Everyone will be rich, we'll print money with a spell!"

"When I'm a magician, I'll give them a billion billion each," said Inyanga.

Their mothers watched and fretted, the mood of their game growing somber. But then Star gently tapped down one of her matte black stones and said, "Your daughter is getting my daughter's hopes up."

Kyuma kept aer purple fiery eyes on the board and shifted aer weight to one side, tempted to put one hand on aer hip, and answered, "That so? Huh, I see. Inyanga is getting your daughter's hopes up." Then nodded as if thinking about it and deciding that makes sense, all right, let us go with that.

"That's what I see," said Star, placing three more black pebbles down and frowning at the white stones Kyuma had played in an extraordinary 'novel atari' invasion. "Are you saying I can't see and hear, my eyes and ears don't work?"

"That is not quite what I am saying. I am saying that your daughter has every advantage. I am saying that we have worked every minute of every day since our girls were born to foster their knowledge. It may border on the abuse of children, the way we forced books into their craniums. And now you say Inyanga is getting Amafu's hopes up, as if she and Amafu should not expect to go one day." Kyuma stopped and shook aer head and refused to place another stone, becoming a bit overwhelmed and maybe a bit stubborn.

Much went unsaid between them, as always, because Star could as good as read Kyuma's mind. Every advantage? Amafu Lizulu would get in because Amafu Lizulu has connections. Star Lizulu has connections. That's what Kyuma was thinking. That's what aeh meant by that. How many of Amafu's progenitors have attended the Univasiti? How many Lizulus and how many Satiris?

Both Star Lizulu, and Amafu's father, Dale Satiri, came from a long, long line of licensed magicians. A long line of mahias. When the admissions board looks at Amafu Lizulu, they will see a network, a whole web, of productive, accomplished, professional mahias. If Kyuma had said that out loud aer voice would have dripped equal parts honey and venom, praise and cynicism.

Letters of reference? The eight-year-old must have eight or more lined up already, and if Star can cozy up to anyone more esteemed in the coming decade, she'd have her pick. Perhaps the Magician General or the President of Constellation herself? Though surely, Kyuma would have said, if aeh had to say it out loud, surely Star has had a drink with President Julia Mars before. The only question that remained was whether a drink would be pretext enough to ask the President herself for a recommendation.

Kyuma was spitting fire now and it was because of the fuel simmering underneath the coals. "Inyanga's hopes may be the one thing that will get her in here. Crush those and there is no chance. Without the passion, without the dreaming, without hoping against hope, they will certainly never make it."

"I merely think we should temper their expectations," said Star. "Do you not think we should prepare them — both of them — for the possibility that they may never get a chance to study magic?"

"Well," said Kyuma, throwing the next stones, one by one, down on the board, "I happen to disagree, and if that is how you plan to guide your child's course going forward, I may have to restrict my child's interactions with her. Don't you dare starve the motivation, that drive, that is my daughter's only shot. If you do that, you will seal her fate. Without a dream, a yearning, a burning hope, she will undoubtedly never be good enough. I have my doubts, but I will never pass them to my daughter. She will need to believe in herself above all else."

A hand reached out and tackled Kyuma's, and the eyes Kyuma looked up into were warm, forceful, and just as stubborn. But full of support. "That will not be necessary. They are still young, let us let them dream."

The two umamas watched their little girls play and for years they would wonder, like every parent in the history of being, whether they were making the right choices.