The Rithmatist Page 14

  Bringing up his father was always dangerous. His mother didn’t cry often about him, not anymore. Not often. It was frightening how a simple springrail accident could suddenly upend everything. Happiness, future plans, Joel’s chances of being a Rithmatist.

  “No,” she said, “he wouldn’t want you to ostracize them the way others are. I guess I don’t want you to either. Just … be careful, Joel. For me.”

  He nodded, relaxing. Unfortunately, he found his eyes drifting back toward Melody. Sitting alone. Everyone in the room kept glancing at the Rithmatists, whispering about them, as if they were on display.

  Joel shoved his chopsticks into the spaghetti, then stood up. His mother glanced at him, but said nothing as he crossed the room to the Rithmatist table.

  “What?” Melody asked as he arrived. “Come to flatter me some more so that you can get me to sneak you into another place where you shouldn’t be?”

  “You looked bored,” Joel said. “I thought, maybe, you’d want to come eat over with my mother and me.”

  “Oh? You sure you’re not going to just invite me over, then kick me out as soon as you have to talk about something important?”

  “You know what? Never mind,” Joel said, turning around and stalking away.

  “I’m sorry,” she said from behind.

  He glanced back. Melody looked miserable, staring down at a bowl filled with brownish red spaghetti, a fork stuck into the mess.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’d … really like to join you.”

  “Well, come on then,” Joel said, waving.

  She hesitated, then picked up her bowl and hurried to catch up with Joel. “You know how this is going to look, don’t you? Me running off with a boy twice in one day? Sitting with him at dinner?”

  Joel blushed. Great, he thought. Just what I need. “You won’t get into trouble for not sitting with the others, will you?”

  “Nah. We’re encouraged to sit there, but they don’t make us. I’ve just never had anywhere else I could go.”

  Joel gestured toward his open spot at the servants’ table across from his mother, and some people on each side made room for Melody. She sat down, smoothing her skirt, looking somewhat nervous.

  “Mom,” Joel said, sitting and grabbing his chopsticks, “this is Melody. She’s studying with Professor Fitch over the summer too.”

  “Nice to meet you, dear,” his mother said.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Saxon,” Melody said, picking up her fork and digging into her spaghetti.

  “Don’t you know how to use chopsticks?” Joel asked.

  Melody grimaced. “I’ve never been one for European food. A fork works just fine.”

  “It’s not that hard,” Joel said, showing her how to hold them. “My father taught me when I was really young.”

  “Will he be joining us?” Melody asked politely.

  Joel hesitated.

  “Joel’s father passed away eight years ago, dear,” Joel’s mother said.

  “Oh!” Melody said. “I’m sorry!”

  “It’s all right,” Joel’s mother said. “It’s actually good to sit with a Rithmatist again. Reminds me of him.”

  “Was he a Rithmatist?” Melody asked.

  “No, no,” Joel’s mother said. “He just knew a lot of the professors.” She got a far-off look in her eyes. “He made specialty chalks for them, and in turn they chatted with him about their work. I could never make much sense of it, but Trent loved it. I guess that because he was a chalkmaker, they almost considered him to be one of them.”

  “Chalkmaker?” Melody asked. “Doesn’t chalk just come from the ground?”

  “Well, normal, mundane chalk does. It’s really just a form of limestone. However, the chalk you Rithmatists use doesn’t have to be a hundred percent pure. That leaves a lot of room for experimentation. Or so Trent always said.

  “The best chalk for Rithmatists, in his opinion, was that which is constructed for the purpose. It can’t be too hard, otherwise the lines won’t come down thickly. It also can’t be too soft, otherwise it will break easily. A glaze on the outside will keep it from getting on the Rithmatist’s fingers, and he had some compounds he could mix with it that would make it put out less dust.”

  Joel sat quietly. It was difficult to get his mother to talk about his father.

  “Some Rithmatists demand certain colors,” she said, “and Trent would work for hours, getting the shade just right. Most schools don’t employ a chalkmaker, though. Principal York never replaced Trent—could never find someone he thought was competent enough for the job. The truth is, a chalkmaker isn’t really necessary, since ordinary chalk will work.

  “But Trent always argued with those who called his work frivolous. Taste is frivolous when eating, he’d say—the body can get the same nutrients from bland food as it can from food that tastes good. Colors for fabric, paintings on walls, beautiful music—none of these things are necessary. However, humans are more than their need to survive. Crafting better, more useful kinds of chalk was a quest for him.

  “At one point, he had belts filled with six different kinds of chalk—different hardnesses and curves to their tips—for use in drawing on different surfaces. A lot of the professors wore them.” She sighed. “That’s past, though. Those who want specialty chalk now just order it in from Maineford.”

  She trailed off, then glanced at the large ticking clock set into the wall. “Dusts! I have to get back to work. Melody, nice to meet you.”

  Melody stood up as Joel’s mother rushed away. Once she was gone, Melody sat back down, digging into her meal. “Your father sounds like he was an interesting person.”

  Joel nodded.

  “You remember much of him?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Joel said. “I was eight when he died, and we have some daguerreotypes of him hanging in our room. He was a kind man—big, burly. More like a fieldworker than an artisan. He liked to laugh.”

  “You’re lucky,” Melody said.

  “What?” Joel asked. “Because my father died?”

  She blushed. “You’re lucky to have had a parent like him, and to be able to live with your mother.”

  “It’s not all that fun. Our room is practically a closet, and Mother works herself near to death. The rest of the students are nice to me, but I can’t ever make good friends. They’re not sure how to treat the son of a cleaning lady.”

  “I don’t even have that.”

  “You’re an orphan?” Joel asked with surprise.

  “Nothing so drastic,” she said with a sigh, scooping at her spaghetti with the fork. “My family lives down in the Floridian Atolls. My parents are perfectly healthy, and they are also perfectly uninterested in visiting me. I guess after their fourth Rithmatist child, the novelty kind of wears off.”

  “There are four Rithmatists in your family?”

  “Well, six if you count my parents,” she said. “They’re both Rithmatists too.”

  Joel sat back, frowning. Rithmatics wasn’t hereditary. Numerous studies had proven that if there was a higher likelihood of a Rithmatist having Rithmatist children, it was very slight at best.

  “That’s impossible,” Joel said.

  “Not impossible,” she said, taking a bite of spaghetti. “Just unlikely.”

  Joel glanced to the side. The book he’d spent all day reading still sat on the table, dark brown cover aging and scuffed. “So,” he said offhandedly. “I’ve been reading about what happens to Rithmatists when they enter the chamber of inception.”

  Melody froze, several lines of spaghetti hanging from her mouth and down to her bowl.

  “Interesting reading,” Joel continued, turning the book about. “Though, there are some questions I had about the process.”

  She slurped up the spaghetti. “That?” she said. “That’s what the book is about?”

  Joel nodded.

  “Oh, dusts,” she said, grabbing her head. “Oh, dusts. I’m going to be in big trouble, aren’t I?” />
  “I don’t see why. I mean, what’s the problem? Everyone goes into the chamber of inception, right? So, it’s not like everything about the place has to be kept secret.”

  “It’s not secret, really,” Melody said. “It’s just … well, I don’t know. Holy. There are things you’re not supposed to talk about.”

  “Well, I mean, I’ve read the book,” Joel said. Or, at least, as much of it as I could make out. “So, I already know a lot. No harm in telling me more, right?”

  She eyed him. “And if I answer your questions, will you tell me about the things you and Fitch talked about with that police officer?”

  That brought Joel up short. “Um … well,” he said. “I gave my word not to, Melody.”

  “Well, I promised I wouldn’t talk about the chamber of inception with non-Rithmatists.”

  Dusts, Joel thought in annoyance.

  Melody sighed. “We’re not going to argue again, are we?”

  “I don’t know,” Joel said. “I don’t really want to.”

  “Me neither. I have far too little energy for it at this present moment. That comes from eating this slop the Italians call food. Looks far too much like worms. Anyway, what are you up to after dinner?”

  “After dinner?” Joel asked. “I … well, I was probably just going to read some more, see if I can figure out this book.”

  “You study too much,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

  “My professors would generally disagree with you.”

  “Well, that’s because they’re wrong and I’m right. No more reading for you. Let’s go get some ice cream.”

  “I don’t know if the kitchen has any,” Joel said. “It’s hard to get in the summers, and—”

  “Not from the kitchen, stupid,” Melody said, rolling her eyes. “From the parlor out on Knight Street.”

  “Oh. I’ve … never been there.”

  “What! That’s a tragedy.”

  “Melody, everything is a tragedy to you.”

  “Not having ice cream,” she proclaimed, “is the culmination of all disasters! That’s it. No more discussion. We’re going. Follow.”

  With that, she swept out of the dining hall. Joel slurped up a last bite of spaghetti, then followed in a rush.

  CHAPTER

  “So, what’s it about Rithmatists that makes you so keen on being one?” Melody asked in the waning summer light. Old Barkley—the groundskeeper—passed them on the path, moving between campus lanterns, twisting the gears to make them begin spinning and giving out light. Melody and Joel would have to be back from this outing soon to obey Harding’s curfew, but they had time for a quick trip.

  Joel walked beside Melody, his hands in his trouser pockets, as they strolled toward the campus exit. “I don’t know,” he said. “Why wouldn’t someone want to be a Rithmatist?”

  “Well, I know a lot of people think they want to be one,” Melody said. “They see the notoriety, the special treatment. Others like the power, I think. That’s not you, Joel. You don’t want notoriety—you’re always hiding about, quiet and such. You seem to like to be alone.”

  “I guess. Maybe I just want the power. You’ve seen how I can get when I’m competing with someone.”

  “No,” she said. “When you explain the lines and defenses, you get excited—but you don’t talk Rithmatics as a way to get what you want or make others obey you. A lot of people talk about those kinds of things. Even some of the others in my class.”

  They approached the gates to the school grounds. A couple of police officers stood watching, but they didn’t try to bar the exit. Beside the men were buckets. Acid, for fighting off chalklings. It wasn’t strong enough to hurt people, at least not much, but it would destroy chalklings in the blink of an eye. Harding wasn’t taking any chances.

  One of the guards nodded to Joel and Melody. “You two take care,” he said. “Be careful. Be back in an hour.”

  Joel nodded. “You sure this is a good idea?” he asked Melody.

  She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Nobody has disappeared from ice cream parlors, Joel.”

  “No,” he said, “but Lilly Whiting disappeared on her way home from a party.”

  “How do you know that?” Melody said, looking at him suspiciously.

  He glanced away.

  “Oh, right,” she said. “Secret conferences.”

  He didn’t respond, and—fortunately for him—she didn’t press the point.

  The street looked busy, and the kidnapper had always attacked when students were alone, so Joel probably didn’t have to worry. Still, he found himself watching their surroundings carefully. Armedius was a gated park of manicured grass and stately buildings to their right. To their left was the street, and the occasional horse-drawn carriage clopped along.

  Those were growing less and less common as people replaced their horses with springwork beasts of varying shapes and designs. One shaped like a wingless dragon crawled by, its gears clicking and twisting, eyes shining lights out to illuminate the street. It had a carriage set atop its back, and Joel could see a mustached man with a bowler hat sitting inside.

  Armedius was settled directly in the middle of Jamestown, near several bustling crossroads. Buildings rose some ten stories in the distance, all made from sturdy brick designs. Some bore pillars or other stonework, and the sidewalk itself was of cobbled patterns, many of the individual bricks stamped with the seal of New Britannia. It had been the first of the islands colonized long ago when the Europeans discovered the massive archipelago that now made up the United Isles of America.

  It was Friday, and there would be plays and concerts running on Harp Street, which explained some of the traffic. Laborers in trousers and dirty shirts passed, tipping their caps at Melody—who, by virtue of her Rithmatist uniform, drew their respect. Even the well-dressed—men in sharp suits with long coats and canes, women in sparkling gowns—sometimes nodded to Melody.

  What would it be like, to be recognized and respected by everyone you passed? It was an aspect of being a Rithmatist that he’d never considered.

  “Is that why you don’t like it?” he asked Melody as they strolled beneath a streetlamp.

  “What?” she asked.

  “The notoriety,” Joel said. “The way everyone looks at you, treats you differently. Is that why you don’t like being a Rithmatist?”

  “That’s part of the reason. It’s like … they all expect something from me. So many of them depend on me. Ordinary students can fail, but when you’re a Rithmatist, everyone makes sure you know that you can’t fail. There are a limited number of us—another Rithmatist cannot be chosen until one of us dies. If I’m bad at what I do, I will make a hole in our defenses.”

  She walked along, hands clasped in front of her. They passed underneath the springrail track, and Joel could see a train being wound up in the Armedius station to his right.

  “It’s such pressure,” she said. “I’m bad at Rithmatics, but the Master himself chose me. That implies that I must have the aptitude. So, if I’m not doing well, it must mean that I haven’t worked hard enough. That’s what everyone keeps telling me.”

  “Ouch,” Joel said. “Harsh.”

  “Yeah.”

  He wasn’t certain what else to say. No wonder she was so touchy. They walked in silence for a time, and Joel noticed for the first time that a smaller number of those they passed didn’t seem so respectful of Melody as the others. These glared at Melody from beneath worker’s hats and muttered to their companions. Joel hadn’t realized that the complaints about Rithmatists extended beyond the jealousy of the students on campus.

  Eventually, they passed the downtown cathedral. The imposing structure had broad metal gates set with clockwork gears twisting and counting off the infinite nature of time. Springwork statues and gargoyles stood on the peaked walls and roof, occasionally turning their heads or shaking wings.

  Joel paused to look up at the cathedral framed by the dusk sky.

  “You never di
d answer my question,” Melody said. “About why you want to be a Rithmatist so badly.”

  “Maybe it’s just because I feel like I missed my chance.”

  “You had the same chance as anyone else,” Melody said. “You were incepted.”

  “Yeah,” Joel said. “But in December instead of July.”

  “What?” Melody asked as Joel turned away and started walking again. She rushed up in front of him, then turned to face him, walking backward. “Inception happens in July.”

  “Unless you miss it,” Joel said.

  “Why in the world would you miss your inception?”

  “There were … complications.”

  “But by December, all the year’s Rithmatists would already have been chosen.”

  “Yeah,” Joel said. “I know.”

  Melody fell into step beside him, looking thoughtful. “What was it like? Your inception, I mean.”

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about these things.”

  “No. I’m not supposed to talk about them.”

  “There’s not much to tell,” Joel said. “My mother and I went to the cathedral on a Saturday. Father Stewart sprinkled me with water, marked my head with some oil, and left me to pray in front of the altar for about fifteen minutes. After that, we went home.”

  “You didn’t go into the chamber of inception?”

  “Father Stewart said it wasn’t necessary.”

  She frowned, but let the matter drop. They soon approached the small commercial district that thrived outside of Armedius. Awnings hung from the fronts of brick buildings, and wooden signs swung slightly in the wind.

  “Wish I would have worn my sweater today,” Melody noted, shivering. “It can get cold here, even in summer.”

  “Cold?” Joel asked. “Oh, right. You’re from Floridia, aren’t you?”

  “It’s so cold up here in the north.”

  Joel smiled. “New Britannia isn’t cold. Maineford—that’s cold.”

  “It’s all cold,” she said. “I’ve come to the conclusion that you northerners have never experienced what it is to be really warm, so you accept a lesser substitute out of ignorance.”

  “Aren’t you the one who suggested ice cream?” Joel asked, amused.