Khmara: Assyrian for Idiot
Débile: French for Stupid
Estupido: Spanish for Stupid
Ethwel: Iraqi Arabic for idiot
Hmar kelb tfou: Moroccan Arabic for Idiot
Inyanga's Star Finale – Act IV scene iii
Under the snapping lightning web dome of a soundproofing spell, everyone in Alondra's office sat in a stubborn silence.
The maestra had come in with Mingxia and set the ceiling alight with crackling threads, while Inyanga, Amafu, and Storm, curled up on Alondra's sofa to debate in comfort. Yet when they looked up to see who had come in, seconds passed with Mingxia stopped like a statue in the doorway.
"Was it you?" said Amafu, the closest to the door and the first to think of something to say from her curled up spot. "Did you . . . tell on us?"
The statue of Mingxia shifted just enough to look down at her feet and become stone still again.
"I mean," Amafu went on, "I almost can't be mad at you, since we were the ones breaking the rules, but I kinda am mad. You didn't know why we were breaking the rules, you just judged us. Has it ever occurred to you that just because something isn't allowed doesn't mean it's unethical? Sometimes breaking a rule isn't a bad thing to do, and sometimes it might even be the right thing to do."
When she stopped talking, she noticed another dampening quiet had fallen over her comrades.
"Yes, I have been reading philosophical treatises on ethics. Are you all always going to be surprised that I read?"
Her friends laughed a little at the comedic relief, the tension breaking.
All eyes remained on Mingxia, except hers gazing down at her shoes. The girl didn't speak. The rise and fall of her chest was the only visible movement while she thought. It was as if everyone could see her thinking.
Eventually, after several cycles of breath, she peeked up and said, "You are not wrong, I think. And I'm sorry. I um . . . thought you were going to get into trouble." Her head drooped back down.
The maestra swept toward her desk, tossing in, "They were going to get into trouble."
Three heads snapped her way to glare.
She placed down her gnomon and the airweave contract she carried as if to free her hands to fidget with stacks of papers on her desk while she talked.
"You were. Perhaps it's my fault for letting you proceed down this path. Perhaps it's Mingxia's fault for not asking before acting. Perhaps it's your fault, Inyanga, for your patent recklessness and the unbreakable certainty that you're always right. Or Amafu's fault for enabling you to write the message down. Or Storm's fault . . . I don't exactly see how, but it would be strange if none of this were Storm's fault."
Storm didn't look like she knew whether to be pleased or offended, but her chest puffed with a halfhearted pride.
"It may be some time before you're ready to forgive your classmate, but may I suggest that you accept her apology and move on to consideration of what to do now?"
Three groans emerged from the couch.
Picking up the airweave page and gnomon again, she strode back toward them and perched on the arm of an armchair. She said, "Please come have a seat, Mingxia."
Mingxia sat across from her, at the other end of a low table. It was a comfy chair.
"Let's just move on." Resigned, the maestra placed the contract down on the table between them. The stiff backs of her students softened a little in curiosity as they bent to look down at the page. There was the signature of every Secondae in magically binding ink, except Mingxia's, which was in regular navy blue.
"Oh, right," said Maestra Alondra. Peering down at the paper, she hummed a tune and clasped the gnomon while the navy ink came to glisten just like that of the name scrawled above it. "It would not hold up to scrutiny, but I can't see why anyone would check."
As the three on the sofa puffed and frowned and the girl sitting apart drowned in what looked like regret, the maestra addressed them like troops staggering from a loss and disgruntled at a break in loyalty.
"It's not over. We must re-strategize and come up with a new plan. I did what I could. What I dare. Now Mingxia alone can write the taboo. Unless of course you three still have the airpage you wrote the message on?"
"What are we, débiles? Khmara?" said Storm. "We torched it. But this Mingxia girl is smart. With our help, she'll be able to write it down again." In her armchair, Mingxia sat stock still, as if surprised by the kind words. And perhaps a bit guilty. "We can't talk about it, but Amafu can still explain the neurology and the method of how to write the message down."
"And then what?" said Alondra.
Three shrugs waved down the sofa. "We hadn't decided yet," said Inyanga. "I wanted to reveal the taboo to newscasters and reporters. Storm contended that it would blow up the world and incite a revolution."
"Had it occurred to you that Constellation would allow journalists to publicly discuss the taboo no more than unlicensed students?"
"Um . . . of course . . . it did," said Inyanga. "Maybe we could just publish it ourselves! Leak it. Print it. Circulate it."
Leaning back, thinking, it looked as if Alondra were organizing a lecture in her head. After a few seconds she delivered it from her perch on the chair arm. "All of you have been studying the methodology of spell tracing. The way the guardia track illegal magic. Though slow and inexact, the Star Dial's display leads the guardia eventually to spellcasters using magic to commit crimes.
"When a single act of illegal magic is committed, just once, it doesn't leave a pattern for the guardia to follow. Every magician who draws stellar energy from the Star Dial is represented by an orb of starfire that burns brighter when you cast a spell, and incomplete data about the spell passes to the officers on watch. We have much greater control over students with scholar's permit gnomons, which only allow certain spells to be cast, allowing greater oversight. A real gnomon presents infinite possibilities to the spellcaster, making it more difficult to work out what spell was cast at a given time, out of infinite possibilities. Yet when a licensed magician repeatedly casts a spell for a prohibited purpose, a pattern soon emerges for the guardia to follow.
"If your orb provides data every time you print the prohibited message, you will be traced, probably within a day or two. Even if we divide the work between the five of us, if we were to print enough copies to disseminate the message, we would all be caught — and tracing gets more and more sophisticated all the time. We're approaching the threshold of solving Potestas's ancient theorem for the contemporary Star Dial.
"Staying ahead of the guardia would be near impossible. Mingxia could handwrite it if you feel up to writing thousands of copies; though handwriting is admissible in a court of law."
"Aren't there spells that block tracing?" interrupted Inyanga.
"Black market, illegal spells, perhaps."
"Well, if we're already breaking the law . . ."
"The guardia are always woking to counter those black market spells — the company is in an arms race with hackers, and has been for time immemorial."
"But the stars might show us the spell. Maybe they'll show us how to cast a protection from tracing spell. An ideal one."
"Well, if the stars choose to reveal themselves to you—" a hint of sarcasm dripped from Alondra's words, suggesting like that's going to happen and Storm echoed out loud with "Even then, could we trust it?" The maestra closed, "I don't see a way to distribute the message ourselves."
Amafu leaned in and the uncharacteristic smallness of her voice drew attention when she said, "I had a different idea," with an uncharacteristic timidity. "Rather than distributing the message. Let's consider the problem a moment." She looked back and forth, to Mingxia and back to Storm and Inyanga, catching all eyes. "The newscasters are constantly talking about how magic can run out . . . they're scaring everyone who isn't a magician . . . and telling people that's why Constellation needs to raise prices all the time." She held up a glass gnomon like a salute. "What if we put the taboo spell on them? Prevent them from discussing. . .the, uh, prohibited economics of magical. . . A.S.Stop them from talking about it all the time, or ever."
Thoughtfulness silenced the office. The five immortal young women bristled with an excitement that made their eyes go round and wide. Inyanga silently hopped in her seat, still thinking about it and covering her mouth as if to keep herself from cheering until she had thought it all the way through. Storm, struck dumb for once, started to grin wide, the optimistic energy brimming from her smiling mouth and eyes. The quiet thoughtful voice of their maestra hushed out, "That too could be traced . . ." and she shook her head. Eyes glistening, as if she wanted this work, an emotion built in her and protested from her chest that this needed to be done.
"I'll cast it." The loudness of Mingxia's voice surprised the others. They turned excited, glowing eyes to her. "I'll risk it. Either the stars will protect me with an unbeatable protection spell, or they won't. It's my fault no one can talk about the truth and Inyanga can't tell the world. It's my fault the taboo spell was placed on her, and we'll never get another shot. I will cast a taboo on every newscaster. If they expel me, well . . . I didn't ever feel like this school was the right place for me."
No one knew what to say, tongues muted. Even that of the jokester, and that of the girl who thought she always knew what was right, and that of their elder and teacher. Under the occasional crack of static from the soundproof dome, the mute moment stretched long . . . until—
"That's dumb," said Storm's mean bully voice. "That is the dumbest thing you've ever said, at least within my hearing. Are you descending to the ranks of the ethwel and the hmar kelb tfou? Because you are fifty times smarter than the other ignoramuses in our class, and if anyone belongs here, it's you. School shouldn't be a popularity contest, it's survival of the smartest, estupido."
Confused, muddled and shocked motion swelled the room like a flood.
Eyes brimming with it too, Mingxia said, "I'm sorry. Truly, I think my apology was not complete, and that is why you did not accept it, and I am sorry. It's always been hard for me to talk to new people. Almost impossible. And since I came to school I have felt excluded. I never made friends, and the students I talked to weren't very nice. I told on you because I wanted to stop you from getting into trouble, but I was also angry. When you all sat together and became good friends without me, I was angry."
"At me?" said Storm. "You don't like me. I can tell."
"You are kind of mean sometimes."
"People are mean. Get over it. You can't go around this world expecting everyone to be nice to you."
The girls on either side turned to her and at the same time just said, "Storm . . ."
"It's true. And if Mingxia is going to be our friend, she's going to have to toughen up, because whiners don't get anywhere in this world. People aren't always nice, because they have their own problems to worry about. Did you think about why some of the students you tried to talk to turned you down, what might be going on in their lives? Everybody in this world is doing the best they can with what they have. It's cruel, and hard, and competitive, and we'll have your back if we're going to be friends, Mingxia, but what's going to happen when we need you to have ours? That's what friendship is."
No apology was accepted, but Mingxia didn't look away this time. "I hear you," she said.
Storm waved her arms dramatically and took on a more comical tone to say, "You'll fit in just fine now that you've found your people, and if you're the only one who can write the taboo, you and I are going to be spending a lot of time together. So, voila, we're your people, and we're going to be spending a lot of time in this office. We'll make sure this is the right thing to do, and then we're going to do it."
"Do what?" said Inyanga from her right.
"Start a consumer revolution."
Smiles broke out.
"I say we do all of it."
Inyanga nodded. "We'll use an anti-tracing spell to cover up the taboo spell we're going to place over every reporter in the empire to keep them from lying."
"Yes," said Storm. "Start with putting the taboo spell on the newscasters—" Amafu beamed to hear that "—and leave no stone unturned researching the magical economy inside out until we understand it and we've figured out how to fix it."
Amafu put in, "We'll research the anti-tracing spells and buy them from the black market or develop our own. Hopefully the stars will help with our calculations. Then we'll use it to cover the distribution of our message too." She clapped her hands together once and held them in front of her beaming grin, eyes twinkling. "Maestra . . . I think you will need to extend the sentences of our detention. We're going to need to break a lot of rules, and we will need lots of time to do it in."
The four students all laughed and the maestra let out a playful growl, muttering, "There's still going to be examinations to mark," and no sooner had she spoken the words than a knock came at the door.
Thunk thunk thunk.
In reaction to the wrapping of knuckles on the wood, five fingers went to mouths as every woman in the room shushed each other.
A hand went to Alondra's gnomon and first she turned off the soundproofing spell, letting its light dissipate and leaving them in the dimness of her desklight.
She crept to the door, tiptoeing, and despite the futility and thus hilarity of the measure, Mingxia, Amafu, Storm, and Inyanga tiptoed in her wake.
First, the maestra opened the door a little crack. Then a little wider. The bodies of a dozen students crammed in the doorway had to move back — and it took a coordinatd effort to let the door open outward, because Secondae students pressed inward toward the office and filled the entire hallway, a dozen or so even floating with zero gravity spells outside the open window across the hall.
The appointed leader speaking for them, a six foot tall dark curly haired girl named Secondae Sabra, said, "Maestra, whatever it is you're up to, we want in. Please explain."
The maestra looked over the dozens of students filling the hallway outside her office. Her address to them was quick and instinctual. "Certainly, but to conduct this conversation, we will need to find a less conspicuous meeting place. And not all of you will fit in my office." She looked over the dozens of rebelling youngsters and shook her head, adding, "Not even close."
A/N Storm's swears will need some refining, and I need to add a ton into earlier chapters! Anyone know any good ones?
Thank you for reading Inyanga's Star, a novella in the Constellations universe. This is the final chapter, of this story, but keep turning for the epilogue!
There will be many more adventures for all of the characters in Inyanga's constellation, and Episode II will continue her journey! In the meantime, as I go back to the drawing board of drafting and outlining, I will be sharing more short stories in the Constellations universe. They will be posted right here, and I'll be renaming this book "Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations" as I fill it with more short stories, and eventually Episode II.
Thank you for coming along with me for this journey.
❤️💜❤️,
Mia