Jody Lynn Nye - School Of Light

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School of Light

by Jody Lynn Nye

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to

real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

ISBN: 0-671-57816-2

Cover art by Pat Turner

First printing, June 1999

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Typeset by Brilliant Press

Printed in the United States of America

Chapter 1

The girls in muddy shorts and T-shirts scrambled madly toward one another as the referee on the sidelines

blew a sharp blast on her whistle. From the path beside the field, Juele heard a hollow poomp, and a big,

round, white ball went sailing high into the blue sky toward the goal at the end of the grassy field. It arced

higher and higher, looking as if it might overshoot the goal completely, then began to descend, slowing as it

fell. Suddenly it stopped entirely, forty feet in the air.

“Air ball!” one of the girls shrieked. The opposing team started laughing. The defending team looked -

upset for a moment, then began to laugh, too. The female teacher on the sidelines came forward and planted

her hands on her hips to look up at the hovering ball.

“All right, you lot,” the teacher called. “Is it really up there, or is someone spinning an illusion?”

The young women all protested at once. “No, Mrs. Cardigan. We wouldn’t do that!” But there were a few

smiles and nods among the players, saving up the idea for next time.

“Well then, it’s stuck,” said Mrs. Cardigan. “Would someone please go find the ladder?” A few of the

gym-suited girls ran off the field toward a low wooden building behind the second goal.

“Come on.” Rutaro nudged Juele. “We have to keep going.”

Juele pulled her attention away from the interesting spectacle of students standing on one another’s

shoulders atop the highest rung of the ladder and lifted her belongings. She followed the stocky young man,

her new mentor, along the path that led past the playing field toward the cluster of buildings that was her

greatest desire in all the Dreamland: the School of Light.

Glowing with promise, the lofty white buildings beckoned her. Every window had a wink for her. Every

turret gleamed with appeal. Every brick and stone promised to whisper inspiration in her ear. Juele was so

excited that she was almost vibrating with happiness. She could hardly believe that she was here at last. An

aspiring illusion artist such as she would naturally desire to go to the best school in the land, be instructed by

the best teachers, and one day achieve great things, but the admission policy of the School board was

stringent. You could apply only once in your lifetime. You had to present three references, none of them

related to you, and you had to demonstrate marked talent in illusion. No one got in on mere charm.

Not that Juele had any illusions about her physical appearance. In most of the forms the Sleepers imposed

upon her, she tended to be on the short side of average, on the average side of beauty, and on the shy side of

extroversion. In her travel suit—a blue fitted jacket and skirt that were more comfortable than stylish—she

knew she looked ordinary. Her hands were the only remarkable feature she had. They looked capable. Long

and thin, short and strong, dark-skinned, light-skinned, missing a finger or a fingernail, they still looked as if

they could do whatever the mind driving them wished to do. And, Juele thought, they nearly could. There

was plenty of talent locked up in their bones. So much that it surprised her, sometimes.

Her teachers had been full of hope when they sent her off to Mnemosyne. She had been creating illusions,

really realistic ones, since she was very young, and her more ordinarily talented teachers had guided her, to

the best of their abilities, as far as they could take her. Even though she wasn’t quite sixteen, she had long

ago passed beyond the abilities of any other artist in the region. Now there was no more that they could show

her, yet Juele still had room to stretch her wings. Oh, she loved her teachers, but they didn’t understand her

or her dreams. She’d heard that only in the School could she find the kind of tutoring she needed to train her

talent and become a world-class artist. Even the smallest student who wanted to change the look of the world

aspired to come here. The fees the School charged were exorbitant. Her parents had had to mortgage several

of their dearest dreams to send her here. She wanted them to be proud of her. As importantly, she wanted to

be proud of her, too. Oh, please, she begged the Sleepers silently as she approached nearer and nearer to the

gleaming pillars of the entrance, don’t let this be a Futility Dream, with all my hopes out of reach!

Juele hadn’t been idle while waiting to hear whether the School had accepted her. For almost two years

she had been seeking new directions in her art. She had no idea whether what she was doing was any good,

if it was original or even right to attempt. That was what she had come to find out. She’d packed her bags

full of the tools of the trade that she had amassed and stuffed in all the hope she had.

Rutaro, trotting on ahead, seemed to have no notion how much coming here meant to her. But, of course,

he must have been here for years already. He seemed so confident. Could he recall that first, precious

moment when he stepped through the gate, out of misunderstanding and into promise? It would be hard, but

she would succeed—she had to! For confidence, she looked down at her hands, clenching the handles of her

suitcase and art box. They exuded capability, and that soothed her nerves. With their help, she could cope.

So, this was the School of Light! Juele thought. She stayed close on Rutaro’s heels as he led her under an

arch that passed through the base of a tower in the broad face of a building. So far, it lived well up to its

reputation. For a moment she put out a hand, hoping that she wouldn’t find an invisible barrier. Her hand

touched the cool, cream-colored stone. It felt as if it was thrumming with power. Juele stroked it and let her

hand drop. Real. It was real, and she wasn’t suffering an Isolation Dream that would keep her from getting

right into the middle of it all.

Ahead of them lay a square garden gleaming with sunshine. To either side of the corridor, doors opened

on bright, airy classrooms full of students. Although they were almost all adults, they wore the look of rapt

fascination one normally saw on the faces of children. What were they doing? What were they learning? She

wanted to be in there with them. Her curiosity distracted her so much that she forgot to listen to what Rutaro

was saying. Hastily, she brought her attention back to him, hoping he thought her inattention was forgivable.

Surely he should understand what it was like to come into a new place, particularly this one. Her curiosity

was on full alert.

A wave of influence swept through, changing everything in its path as the Sleeper dreaming the province

changed his or her celestial mind about how things should be. Juele braced herself for the alteration, savoring

it, enjoying it. Influence felt more powerful here than it did in her home town of Wandering, as though the

Sleeper had His or Her dream eye fixed on Mnemosyne, and all other places lay in the periphery. A tingle

raced down her arms, and she rubbed her fingers over her palms, feeling the electricity of change. In the

ever-shifting world of the Dreamland, the creative ones whose minds created the landscape were always

experimenting, testing, perfecting. Juele welcomed the changes, though they left her no wiser as to the

eventual pattern that the Sleepers had in mind for her. She caught Rutaro looking at her with a curious

expression in his eyes. Did he disapprove? She found she’d been made a little taller than she had been and

hoped it helped her look more mature.

“We all have a great deal to teach one another, pupil and teacher alike, so you’ll find that we’re all equal

here,” he was saying, as they walked out into the full sunshine. The character of the light had altered slightly

in the wake of the influence, opening up the skies and making them bluer. “We do talk to one another about

problems we have each solved. It is most stimulating to hear what other minds think and aspire to. I look

forward to seeing what you have to teach us, too.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Juele said. “Just what I’ve always wanted.” Rutaro smiled, the corners of his eyes

crinkling upward. He was an agreeable-looking but not particularly handsome man, about a head taller than

Juele, with intense, brown eyes that seemed to bore into her. He had a small, blunt nose slightly turned up at

the tip, but the nostrils curled haughtily in the corners. His hair was a mass of dark curls that fell to his

collar, his skin was tawny, and his clothes curiously old-fashioned. She studied them, hoping it didn’t look

as if she was staring. Under a white artist’s smock, which he wore like the robe of royalty, his garments

seemed to be about a hundred years out of date. His plum-colored breeches were of velveteen, his shirt of

fine white cloth with ruffles at the wrists that fell over the backs of his hands almost to the knuckles. He

wore a waistcoat woven in a complicated pattern but subdued colors, as if to say that here was a complex

person that one would have to examine closely to understand. She also noticed that he hadn’t changed in the

alteration, but she didn’t dare ask.

“You’re wondering about my appearance,” Rutaro said, reading her thoughts, with a small, amused smile

on his lips. “I am modeling for Peppardine today. He’s been working on this period illusion for some time. I

have to keep reminding myself of what I looked like, bringing back the same thoughts I had on that day, and

mold myself accordingly. I mustn’t let the form go, no matter what the Sleepers send. He’s counting on me.”

“Oh,” said Juele, letting out a little breath. So everyone acted as models and teachers—so how did one

tell who was a student and who wasn’t? How very confusing. She meant to straighten that out at once. She

was here to get an education, not just teach what she knew. “Er, who is Peppardine? A teacher?”

Rutaro looked at her as if she had just asked who the Sleepers were. “He is my friend,” Rutaro said at

last. “A fellow student. And a brilliant artist, as you will find out.”

“I’m sorry,” Juele said. Rutaro waved away her apology.

“Never mind. This is the Main Quadrangle,” he said, holding out his hand to encompass the wide green

park surrounded by buildings. Flowers of glorious red and yellow bloomed in artfully arranged beds at the

corners of the square. A few trees, venerable and lovely, rose from the perfectly manicured lawn. On a few

gray stone benches arranged around the perimeter and in a ring at the center of the garden where four paths

intersected, men and women sat or lay. A few were just enjoying the sun. Some of them had sketch pads on

their laps. Others had easels or pedestals and were capturing the beauty of the day in small ways. Juele

caught sight of a perfect miniature model of the main building forming between the hands of a man with

white hair and a creased face. Something in it wasn’t quite right, and the man frowned at it from several

angles, trying to see what was wrong. Juele knew that kind of concentration. Becoming impatient with his

creation, the man waved his arms, exerting his own strength of will, and the building itself changed. Now,

model and work matched perfectly. Here, Life imitated Art.

The buildings, like the gardens, were very beautiful. Juele squinted at them in the bright light, wondering

if she could tell how they had altered under the influence. Yes, she could. The bricks were longer and

thinner, and the lintels of the doors had swan-neck finials on top instead of fan windows. All was still

beautiful and in satisfying proportion, with color and texture that was attractive to the eye. The Sleepers

certainly favored this place. The last time an influence like that came through her home of Wandering, the

whole town square had turned into ramshackle hovels, much to the embarrassment of the town council, who

were having a market fair at the time, with a hundred visitors from out of town. Here, it felt as if nothing

could be ugly, ever. Then, across the square, Juele noticed a man step out through a section of wall as if it

was a door. Behind him she could see a brief glimpse of a corridor and a flight of stairs.

“Oh yes, some of it is illusory, to correct the asymmetry of the real building underneath, and preserve the

beauty of the scene,” Rutaro said, smiling at her surprise.

“Well, why not?” said Juele, with spirit. “How much of this is natural and how much has been altered by

the people here?”

“Well, sometimes the School does it by itself, much in the way a Sleeper maintains the flavor of a

province. The place has an overmind of its own. It has a taste for beauty.”

“Oh,” Juele said. She knew inanimate objects frequently achieved a kind of awareness, even activity. Any

foundation in operation for such a number of years might well create its own ambiance. And it was an art

school. Why, after all, should form interfere with aesthetic enjoyment?

“So what is real, and what’s not?” she asked, eager to understand her new surroundings.

“Does it matter?” Rutaro asked, suddenly bored. He started walking again. Juele grasped her bags and

hurried along the gravel path after him. Had she made an error on her very first day?

“I suppose not,” she said, apologetically. Rutaro waved his fingers, but kept going. The matter was

unimportant and was already forgotten.

I like it here, she thought, looking about at the bright colors and happy bustle. All around her, work was -

going on, questions were being asked, deep conversations were deepening, art was being brought into

existence, and all in conscious pursuit of the greatest beauty. Fabulous. She wondered when she might be

able to start talking with people, and deepening her own understanding.

For two years, Juele had been working on a style of illusion that she found meaningful. She hoped it

would be thought original. All by herself, she had ruthlessly excised from her small images all traces of

anyone else’s style that she detected, keeping the techniques that gave the effect she liked. There hadn’t been

much left at the end, leaving her images spare, but what was there was all hers. She called it “askance

reality.” It had cynicism, but appreciation in it and was really best viewed out of the corner of one’s eye.

Perhaps her style could use some more refining before she brought it up in such sophisticated surroundings.

She opened her mouth to ask, but of its own will her jaw dropped agape, leaving her tongue hanging.

They passed under a narrow stone arch that stretched like a bridge between two upper-story doors. In the

vast square beyond it was one of the most beautiful fountains that she had ever seen. The tiered, pink marble

basins were shallow, and the rims encrusted with pearls and jewels rose in shell-like scallops, the water

lapping diamond-bright between them. The foaming jets of spray leaped up twenty, thirty feet, playing on

the air as gracefully as winged dancers. Around it, eight or ten students were modeling or drawing.

Out of a door to Juele’s right, a woman in a long, blue smock and a preoccupied hurry emerged, walking

straight toward the fountain. Juele lifted a hand to her mouth and started to call out a warning to her, but the

woman ran slap through the middle of the spray, and came out without a drop on her smock. Oh! Juele

thought, letting her hand drop. It was an illusion.

“That fountain is so real!” she said, wonderingly, when she could find her voice. “But it isn’t!”

Rutaro tilted his head and smiled again, that maddening, knowing smile. Bored insouciance seemed to go

well with his costume.

“Oh, you’ll learn quickly what’s real and what isn’t in the school grounds. Part of your education, really.”

Rutaro suddenly didn’t want to stand there with everyone looking at him. He started to walk. Juele stared

after him, then back at the pink fountain, unable to pull herself away.

“It’s perfect! Every detail is ideal. Who did it? The school or a person?”

“Does it matter?”

“No, but . . .” Juele trailed a few paces, still looking over her shoulder, then ran after her guide. “Rutaro,

it’s amazing. The melding of reality and illusion are seamless.”

“Isn’t that what you are here to learn how to do?”

“But, I could end up taking classes in an imaginary room!”

“And do you think that won’t teach you something?” Rutaro asked, wryly.

Juele laughed, caught off guard. “I guess it would. If something is too perfect, then it isn’t real.”

“Possibly. Illusion is the manipulation of light, whereas the more gross arts manipulate matter. It’s a more

subtle control of influence, I feel,” Rutaro said, with his arched eyebrows raised, as if daring her to say

otherwise. “Naturally, light would be closer to perfection than matter.”

Juele looked back at the plumes of water dancing upward, bending outward at the top and flattening out,

echoing the shape of the white towers beyond the walls of the square. There was something familiar about

the vast battlements and high, blue-roofed turrets. They looked almost perfect, Juele thought, although they

were too far away to be inside the school’s environs.

“What place is that?” she asked, pointing.

“The Castle of Dreams,” Rutaro said with satisfaction. He paused at the edge of the huge quadrangle to -

admire the effect of water, wood, stone, and shadow.

Juele dropped her voice out of respect for the King, as though he could hear her. “I had no idea how close

the school was to the palace.”

“It varies,” Rutaro said, with a grimace, “depending upon our status of the moment. If we are in vogue, as

we are at present, then we are very close to the center, indeed. If we’re out of favor, we’re on the outskirts of

town before you can say ‘paint.’”

“Oh,” said Juele. “Why are we . . . in vogue?”

“There is an exhibition of the arts being planned at present,” Rutaro said, with pride. He preened and

fingered his elaborate necktie. “A well-publicized and well-received one, hence our proximity. Her Majesty,

the Queen, is the patroness of the arts. Above all the art schools in the Dreamland, she favors us. We are

most fortunate.” Juele thought the way Rutaro said it that the queen was fortunate to have such a school to -

appreciate.

“I hope I’ll get to meet her,” Juele said, then, abashed at her own boldness, added, “or see her.”

“Count upon it,” Rutaro assured her, blithely. “Her Majesty is in and out of here all the time.”

How very exciting! Juele thought. That was something to tell Mum and Dad when she wrote home.

Royalty visiting, casually dropping by. In and out all the time. Even if she’d dared, she couldn’t have

imagined such a thing.

Another wave of influence passed, a mere correction to the one that had gone before. It turned the basins

of the fountain blue, and the artists seated around it let out a collective groan. There was much hand waving

and erasing of color in the air before they began again to capture the essence of the fountain.

“I’ve never been in Mnemosyne before,” Juele said. “We don’t have constant waves of influence running

through Wandering like this.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Rutaro said, yawning. He started walking again. Juele hoped she hadn’t alienated

him with her ignorance. He was the only person who’d spoken to her so far. He was clearly one of the senior

students. She tried to guess how old he was and found it impossible to say. He could have been twenty,

could have been thirty. She tried to reconcile his young face with his world-weary attitude. Rutaro exuded

Art. He was at home here, something she felt she had to be, had been craving to be, ever since she had first

heard of this school as a youngster.

It was a dream that she was here, almost as if she was a dreamer in the Waking World, experiencing a

nightborne fantasy in her mind. How wonderful it would be if only she could fit in here, if only they would -

accept her. She had never been very good at making friends, although she treasured the ones she had. She

suddenly felt small and lonely, and clenched her fingers on the handle of her art box.

“Rutaro?” she asked, timidly. “How long have you been at the School?”

Rutaro shrugged. “It seems like nearly forever.” He looked at her with a fond smile. “I think you are just

a little older than I was when I came here.”

He swirled his hand in a small circle, and beneath his fingers, a scene sprang up, a perfect miniature -

reality in every detail. Juele gazed at it raptly. She saw three young people—children, really—dressed in

their best clothes, huddled together in the corner of a quadrangle that was recognizably the one she stood in

today. Rutaro had to be the intense, dark-haired one on the left, with a soft, floppy bow tie under his vivid

face. His two friends were a tall, thin boy with dreamy eyes wearing a knee-length coat that only made him

look lankier, and a short, belligerent-looking girl with a dark blue dress that fell unbecomingly just below

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摘要：

SchoolofLightbyJodyLynnNyeThisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisbookarefictional,andanyresemblancetorealpeopleorincidentsispurelycoincidental.Copyright©1999byJodyLynnNyeAllrightsreserved,includingtherighttoreproducethisbookorportionsthereofinanyform.ABaenBooksOriginalBaenPubli...

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