Across the Great Barrier

CHAPTER 22

SIMON MAGUS COLLEGE HAD ABOUT FIVE TIMES AS MANY STUDENTS as the Northern Plains Riverbank College where Lan and I grew up, and a whole lot more buildings crammed into a whole lot less space. It was one of the oldest colleges of magic in the United States, and one of the best, too, or at least that’s what everyone always said. Dean Ziegler certainly thought it was good; he spent most of the carriage ride from our hired house to the college telling Mama and me about all the awards the school had won, and all the important spells they’d developed since they were founded in 1694. Lan didn’t even pretend to be interested, but I don’t think Dean Ziegler expected him to be.

When we came to the college and got out of the carriage, Dean Ziegler pointed out important buildings as we walked up to the refectory. Most of them were square, three-story redbrick buildings with white window trim. They looked nice enough, but they were all so similar that even two minutes after Dean Ziegler told us, I couldn’t have said which one was the Department of Alchemical Science and which was the Experimental Spell Design Laboratory.

The college refectory, where they were having the dinner, was different. Dean Ziegler said it was because it was the first building they’d put up, and the magicians who’d founded the college wanted it to impress people, so they’d gotten together and used magic to build it faster and better than anything else in Philadelphia at the time. It was two stories tall and made of large granite blocks, with a low peaked roof that stuck out over the front doors. In front, a row of tall pillars held up the stuck-out part of the roof, and a row of narrow windows with pointed tops ran along both sides, like the windows of a church.

When we got inside, it was even more like an old church, because it was all one big room and the windows were stained-glass pictures of important events in the history of magic. The first window showed the Unknown Pharaoh guiding the Nile floods into the Egyptian fields; the second one showed Pythagoras at his desk, writing out the numerical foundations for magic; and so on. The floor — what we could see of it — was stone tiles that made a picture. I couldn’t tell what, because most of it was hidden under tables draped in white tablecloths.

The room was full of people, or it seemed that way, even though only about half of the seats at the long tables were filled. Dean Ziegler led us to a platform at the far end, where there was another long table raised up so everyone could see it. Lan and Mama and I were supposed to sit there with most of the faculty, right in the middle with Dean Ziegler and the president of the college.

They put Lan with the president on his right and Mama and Dean Ziegler on the president’s right. I was on Lan’s left. I was relieved to find Professor Lefevre on my other side; at least I’d met him before. I’d have remembered him from that first day in Philadelphia, when he’d sniffed about poor Professor Warren and Lan needing to be a hero, but he’d also come to the house twice with Dean Ziegler to pay his respects to Mama and Lan.

I sat quietly for a few minutes, watching the crowd, until Professor Lefevre asked how I was and what I thought of the college. I wanted to roll my eyes, but that would have been very impolite, so I only said I was fine and that the college was a lot larger than I was accustomed to. Then he asked what I thought of the refectory.

“It’s a pretty building,” I said without thinking, “and it certainly holds a lot of people!”

Professor Lefevre snorted. “Under normal circumstances, there is more than enough room for students and their guests.”

“This isn’t normal?”

The professor’s mouth twisted. “Three-quarters of Philadelphia society has spent the last week angling for an invitation to this dinner.”

“Looks to me as if at least half of them managed to get one,” I said before I thought.

Professor Lefevre’s lips twitched. “Very nearly,” he said. “You disapprove?”

“I’m not used to so many people all at once,” I said. “You could fill up two or three whole settlements with just the folks at one table, I think.”

The professor gave me a skeptical look.

“Really,” I said. “Well, the newer settlements, anyway. The Settlement Office figures on ten families or the equivalent, plus one settlement magician. Those long tables have at least twenty-five people on a side, looks like, so —” I shrugged.

“You’re very knowledgeable about the frontier settlements.”

“Anyone in Mill City could tell you that much. Everybody knows the settlement rules. But I have a sister and brother who are out in the West, and I spent a lot of the last two summers in the settlements myself. Not by myself,” I added hastily. “Nobody goes out West alone, except the circuit magicians and maybe a couple of crazy fur trappers.”

The professor looked interested, so I told him about Wash and the two trips I’d made, first to the Oak River settlement the summer when the grubs were eating everything, and then with Professor Torgeson and Wash on the wildlife survey. He listened very carefully, and when he started in asking questions about the stone animals we’d found, it was pretty obvious why.

“I’ve read the published accounts of this … discovery,” he told me. “It sounds unlikely.” I could tell he was trying hard to be polite and not say straight out that it was all a hoax, the way some of the letters to Professor Torgeson did.

I sighed. I’d gotten tired of answering those letters a long while back; it was one of the things I hadn’t missed about home since we’d been in Philadelphia. I hadn’t figured on getting the same questions out here. “I haven’t read what the papers said, but I was there when Professor Torgeson found the first one, the squirrel’s paw. What I said is what happened.”

“You just stumbled across these … statues?” he said, giving me a sharp look. “I thought that area had been thoroughly explored and mapped; it seems unlikely that someone would miss such a … unique find.”

“The folks at Promised Land said they’ve been finding bits of the stone in Daybat Creek since they settled there,” I told him. “But what washes down the stream is too small to notice anything special about. And the ones we found were mostly in the part where the hill collapsed.”

“Ah, yes, that convenient landslide.”

I frowned at him. “It wasn’t convenient. The settlement at Promised Land would have been flooded for sure, if Wash hadn’t cleared the blockage. The professors in the Agriculture and Land Sciences Department said that it probably would have happened sooner or later, anyway, but it happened when it did on account of the grubs eating away all the grass and tree roots that usually held everything together.”

“Runoff erosion,” Professor Lefevre said thoughtfully.

I nodded. “They had a fair bit of rain in the early summer, so the ground was soaked and the creek was high. And it was a cold, snowy winter before that, and winter ice can cause problems along riverbanks all by itself.”

“Very true.” The professor looked amused. “That still doesn’t explain how a cartload of statues ended up under a hill in the middle of nowhere.”

“Nobody knows how many there are,” I corrected him. “I’d guess it’s a lot more than a cartload, though, especially if there’s more than one hill’s worth of them. And they’re not statues — at least, not the normal sort. Even magicians use chisels and punches and sanding tools to finish off their statues, and there aren’t any tool marks, even under a microscope.”

“So you, at least, are convinced these are petrified animals?”

“I don’t see what else they could be,” I said. “They have stone bones and stone veins and stone stomachs and stone everything on the inside. What else would do that?”

Professor Lefevre looked shaken. “Some sort of natural process, then,” he said, half to himself. “Like those fossils that Albionese fellow came up with.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” I said. “And Professor Torgeson won’t say what she thinks.”

“No?” He gave me another sharp look.

“She hates telling people anything until she has enough information to be really sure it’s right,” I said. “She didn’t want to tell anyone about the problems growing magical plants straight off, either, even though she was sure herself. Wash had to be pretty firm about persuading her that people cared more about getting a good crop that year than about whether she was as right as she wanted to be.”

“Magical plants?” said the professor, raising an eyebrow.

So I had to explain about the grubs absorbing magic and the mirror bugs moving it away to where the mirror bug traps were, and how it was going to take a couple of years for everything to even out so that most of the settlements in the grubbed-over area could grow magical crops again.

“Commendable,” Professor Lefevre said when I’d finished. “And was there any magical residue where you found those statues? Or whatever they are,” he added quickly when I frowned.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “The grubs had pretty well killed the forest; there were some natural plants coming back, but I didn’t see anything magical. Or sense it.”

He nodded, pleased. “A natural fossilization process, then.”

“Maybe, if it was really fast,” I said. The professor gave me a questioning look. “A lot of the stone animals we found looked like they were caught in the middle of moving,” I said. “The bird I brought back still has its wings open, like it was landing on a branch. I didn’t think natural fossilization could work that fast.” I’d learned quite a bit about the subject in the course of answering Professor Torgeson’s mail.

“You have one of these statues?” Professor Lefevre sounded slightly disapproving.

“It’s not one of the best ones, but I like it,” I said. “If you’d like to see it, I have it in my bag back at the house.”

“You brought it to Philadelphia? And didn’t mention it to anyone?”

“I thought Lan would be interested,” I said. “And it’s my personal sample. I brought it back my own self, for a memento, not for some laboratory to take to pieces.”

“I beg your pardon,” Professor Lefevre said stiffly. “I meant no offense.”

“I expect not,” I said. I gave another little sigh. “You can still look at it if you like, but you’ll have to come by the house tomorrow. We’re leaving the day after, and Mama and I are going to be packing.”

“I shall make time to stop in,” Professor Lefevre said. “It’s a pity your Professor Torgeson won’t send more samples for testing; I’m sure that with the laboratories here we could find out a great deal.”

“There aren’t any more samples to send yet,” I said, feeling annoyed all over again. He gave me a skeptical look, and I glared at him. “We had one packhorse for the three of us, and we’d already collected a fair lot of wildlife samples. And whatever they were once, now they’re rocks. There’s only so much room in a couple of saddlebags, and only so much weight a packhorse can carry.”

“Yet?” the professor said, ignoring all the rest of what I’d said.

“I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to say anything about it,” I said. Then I shook my head. “I suppose it’s too late now. Professor Torgeson is planning to take a string of mules out to Daybat Creek to pick up some more samples. Just the loose ones in the part of the hill that collapsed,” I added quickly. “She wants to leave as much as she can just how it is, in case they can get some historical excavators interested.”

“I won’t mention it to anyone,” Professor Lefevre promised.

“I can ask Professor Torgeson to send you some of the ones she brings back,” I offered.

“I would appreciate it very much, Miss Rothmer.”

Right about then, the president of the college stood up and everyone in the refectory quieted down. By then, all the seats were full of people, so it took a minute for the noise to taper off. The president gave a little speech about how welcome everyone was and how we were all there to honor Lan for being a hero. I could feel Lan getting tense and twitchy again, so I reached over under the tablecloth and patted his hand. He gave me a grateful look and settled down.

Dinner was served by a lot of young men wearing vests with the Simon Magus College crest on the left side. Lan whispered that they were mostly freshmen, and they’d probably volunteered because it was the only way they could get in to such a good dinner. After dinner, there were more speeches, and a man came up to give Lan a gold pocket watch from the families of all the students he’d saved from being injured.

When he realized what was going on, Lan went white and grabbed my hand under the table. He held on so hard it hurt all the way through the speech, and almost didn’t let go when he had to stand up to take the watch.

“I don’t deserve this,” he said to the man holding the watch.

The college president smiled. “Let us be the judge of that, my boy,” he said.

For a minute, I thought Lan was going to refuse completely, but then he just nodded and took the watch. He held it for a minute, staring at it without speaking. Mama gave him a little frown. He looked at her blankly for a second, then turned back to the college president and the man who’d brought the watch and thanked them politely before he sat down.

I spent the rest of the evening trying to watch Lan without anyone noticing that I was worried about him. Lots of people came up to him to talk once all the speeches were done, including most of the students who’d been hurt and their parents. Lan seemed on edge and unhappy for the whole time. Even Mama noticed. She persuaded the college people that we needed to get home early, since Lan was still recovering.

On the way home, Mama gave Lan a gentle lecture about manners and modesty and not insulting people by refusing their gifts or telling them they were wrong when they spoke highly of you. Lan almost said something to her, but he stopped. Then he just nodded.

When we got to the house, I told Mama I wanted a glass of water from the kitchen. I was hoping to catch Lan by himself and find out what he was brooding about, and sure enough, when I came back a few minutes later, she’d gone up to bed, just as I’d hoped. Unfortunately, Lan seemed to have gone, too. Then I saw the sitting room door ajar, even though it was dark on the other side. I peeked through.

Lan was standing at the front window in the dark. He’d drawn back the curtains, and I could see his silhouette against the yellow glow of the gas lamps all along the street outside. I slipped inside and closed the door.

“Lan?” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“They all think I’m a hero,” he said, so softly I hardly heard him. “But I’m not.”

“Lan —”

“I’m not, Eff!” He shuddered. “It was my fault.”

“The accident?”

He bowed his head. “I’m the one who made the spell go awry. It’s my fault that all those people were hurt and Professor Warren is dead. I tried to tell Dean Ziegler and Papa, but they think I’m just being hard on myself because I couldn’t save everyone.”

“But you did save some people?” I said uncertainly.

“I suppose,” Lan said. “After it all went wrong. But I’m the one who sent it wrong in the first place. And they don’t believe me, and they wouldn’t listen when I tried to explain, and now it’s too late.”

I walked over to one of the chintz-covered chairs and sat down. “It’s not too late for me to listen,” I said. “And I will.” I tightened my fingers around the glass I was holding, and waited.