Bloodkin (Jaseth of Jaelshead) Read online

  “Ah well then, better leave you to it. Good luck kids, you’ll need it!” He laughed and dashed back to the Solasts’ wing after giving Jimmy a brief hug.

  “Oh my, he’s from Nallow,” I heard Mantilly whispered to Sallagh. “He was two years above me at school. I heard he bit the head off a rabbit once.” Sallagh shuddered delicately.

  “Yes, well the Temple wing has lecture and tutorial rooms, as well as being a working hospital, so if any of you fall ill, I expect you to go straight there.” Myr Roderick shook a finger at us sternly.

  The other wing, on the north side of the quad, housed the studies of history and law, the ground floor held the main library of the Academy. Myr Roderick led us back inside the main doors, pointing out the hallways that led to the administrative offices. Up the stairs, the second floor was for the science department, and we climbed another flight of stairs to the third floor that was to be where we studied.

  Myr Roderick pointed up the last lot of stairs. “The lecturers have their offices on the top floor. Please feel free to go and ask any of them if you have questions. My own office is on the ground floor.” He smiled ruefully, “In consideration for my poor, aching joints.” The Mentors laughed, Myr Roderick seemed as sprightly as a much younger man. “Come, I’ll show you where you’ll be spending the next two years.” And he pushed through a door to the side of the landing.

  Our study area was a huge, long space that must have taken up the whole floor. Fireplaces dotted one wall, while on the other we could look through the arched windows onto the quad below. Here, as elsewhere around the Academy, there were the usual Nea’thi glowbes, set in sconces along the walls and hanging from the roof.

  The near half of the room had writing desks and marble-topped work benches like the ones in my room, facing a big blackboard and large teaching desk. Down the far end there were couches and bookcases, for relaxing in our breaks. There was a clear space in between, but lined up along the wall were odd little floor seats, folded up with a stack of cushions and blankets. What they were for, I could only guess.

  Myr Billy was standing at the front, shuffling papers as we came in, and he gestured for us to take seats at the writing desks facing him, our Mentors perching on stools beside us.

  “I will leave you now in the capable hands of Myr Billy. If you need anything, my office is downstairs.” And with that Myr Roderick was gone, shutting the door carefully behind him.

  “Right people, get out your writing equipment. The first thing I want to go over are the rules.”

  The rules? Up until now Lille had seemed like a place of freedom, especially compared to the regimented lifestyle I had had at home. Now there were going to be rules. Of course. I sighed and opened my journal to the first page, readying my pen.

  “The most important rule for Nea’thi-Bloods at this Academy is that you must not, under any circumstances, use Hầұeӣ without permission from your lecturer and the supervision of your Mentor.” Myr Billy stood and wrote Hầұeӣ on the board in chalk. The Nea’thi characters were odd, it didn’t really look like how it was pronounced at all. I copied the word into my journal and wrote beside it Not without Charlie.

  “Secondly, at the end of your two years here at the Academy you will be tested by a board of examiners. If we feel you have mastered your Hầұeӣ to our satisfaction you will be free to pursue whatever career you wish. If, however, you do not fulfil our requirements, you will be Assigned another Mentor and will be required to complete another two years of study here until we are satisfied that you are not a danger to the public.”

  Shit, I didn’t know that. I hadn’t realised you could fail and have to stay at the Academy indefinitely. Myr Billy looked around from the blackboard and saw our startled faces.

  “Oh don’t worry, we haven’t had to keep anyone back for another course for many, many years. I’m sure your Mentors will be doing everything in their power to make sure you pass. It is their job, you know.” He waggled his eyebrows and the Mentors smiled and nodded at him. “They will not be coming with you to class every day, but your lecturer will let you know beforehand when they are required.

  “Thirdly, beginning tomorrow, every day here at the Academy will begin with half an hour of meditation. You are expected to continue this by yourselves at the weekends and during holidays. Without it, you will not be able to control your Hầұeӣ and you will fail your examinations.”

  Meditation? Really? This place was getting weirder and weirder.

  “Right then!” Myr Billy clapped his hands together, sprinkling chalk dust down his robe that slid off instantly and settled on the floor. “Seeing as this is your first day, I think we should start with something easy. Now, you are not required to learn the Nea’thi language. Oh ho, no,” he chortled. “But it is fitting that you have a rudimentary grasp of pronunciation and the alphabet. We will start with a word that is central to your study here – one that you have no doubt heard a number of times, but may not have seen written down before.” He tapped the blackboard where he had written Hầұeӣ. “Now, Nea’thi is a musical language. The cadence of the syllables can affect the meaning. See here.” He wrote out the first two letters again, Hầ. “The accent, as you would call it, on top of the ‘a’ indicates that the vowel should be rounded with a ‘y’ sound before it. The direction of the accent indicates the cadence. ‘Ấ’ is a ‘ya’ sound sung from low to high, ‘ầ’ is high to low. Try them both now.”

  I had been scribbling in my journal and Charlie pointed at the ấ which I tried to pronounce, then the ầ.

  He smiled and nodded. “Close enough.”

  Myr Billy listened and when he was satisfied he wrote a ұ beside the Hầ. “This is, of course, pronounced ‘vv’. Next is the ‘e’, close enough to the Human that you need not bother with it too much. If there is no accent on a vowel, you pronounce it flat.” He inscribed the last letter. “The ‘ӣ’ is a long ‘n’ sound, obviously, but the sound is formed with the tongue lifted slightly from the roof of the mouth. Right, now, there is the whole word. Please, practise that now.”

  I turned to Charlie who grinned encouragingly. Although I had heard it spoken many times, saying it out loud yourself was quite different.

  “Havven?”

  “Not bad! But remember the ‘y’ sound after the ‘h’, and the cadence is high to low.”

  I tried again. “Hyavven.”

  “Better! Hold onto the ‘n’ for longer at the end, and make the rise of the ‘ầ’ more pronounced.”

  “Hyavvenn?”

  “Heh, very good old chap! Say it a few more times for practice.”

  At the other desks, everyone else was struggling to say the word. Most had got it by the third or fourth try and were muttering it to practise, rolling the unfamiliar sounds around their mouths.” Myr Billy waited until we turned back to the front and wrote three words on the board.

  Жanờ

  Hầiờ

  Ұiờ

  “Can anyone guess what these are?” I had an inkling, but Dunkerle stuck up his hand. “Yes? Ah, Dunkerle, is it?”

  “Yes sir. Are they the names of the Enclaves?”

  “Very good, boy. Yes, these are the written names of the three Nea’thi Enclaves. Now, we have a number of small villages which you will learn about in your classes on Nea’thi lifestyle and culture, but these are the three main cities, if you will. You may have noticed these words spoken when you met your Mentors and any other Nea’thi you have come across. There are slight physiological differences in the Nea’thi from the different Enclaves that you may have noticed, mostly in our skin and eye colour. Write these down now and your Mentors will help you with the pronunciation.”

  I wrote the three Enclaves down in my book and looked at Charlie expectantly.

  “Well, can you guess how any of them sound?” he asked.

  I was pretty sure Ұiờ was Charlie’s home Enclave, and I had heard him say the word a number of times. The first letter looked like the capital version
of the character for the vv sound in Hầұeӣ, so I gave it a go.

  “Vvio?” I tried.

  “Pretty good! But see the accent on the ‘ờ’? That means there’s a ‘y’ sound before it, and it’s sung high to low.”

  “Vviyo?” I said, intoning the cadence of the last syllable, and Charlie grinned as I got it. We worked through the other Enclaves. Hầiờ was easy enough. It sounded like Hyaiyo, with the first and last syllables sung from high to low. Жanờ was pro- nounced Chanyo, but I struggled a bit with the first consonant.

  “See, the character ‘ж’ is pronounced a bit like ‘ch’, but with a bit of a cz sound as well. A bit more guttural, even, like the ‘ch’ at the end of Sammoch, see? The proper Nea’thi pronunciation of Lilbecz ends with a ‘ж’,” Charlie explained.

  Then Myr Billy had our Mentors write out their names in Nea’thi and help us pronounce them. Charlie borrowed my pen and wrote for me Ϛaioћлeжa Ұлeßжa.

  “Okay, so the Ϛ at the start is like the Human hard ‘c’ sound, but with an ‘h’ rounding after it. More like ‘kh’, see? The ‘ћ’ in the middle is a sort of ‘sch’, but keep your tongue wide. “Л” is a long ‘l’ sound, and ‘ß’ is like a ‘ss’.” I practised it with the right cadences until I had got it to Charlie’s satisfaction: Khaioschllecha Vvllesscha with that odd-sounding ‘cz’ that had to be forced gutturally from the back of my throat.

  After a time of murmured practice from the group, Myr Billy clapped his hands.

  “Lovely, lovely, that’s a good start. I think we deserve a break, hmm?” He motioned for us to leave our desks and follow him to the far end of the room. We sat on the couches and he indicated to a huge metal jug sitting in a ceramic plinth. “Would anyone care for coffee? Who wants to do the honours?”

  Thomas stepped forward and stared at the jug until, remarkably, steam began to rise from the spout and the smell of freshly-brewed coffee filled the room. Myr Billy opened a cupboard set into the base of one of the bookcases and pulled out seventeen mugs, placing them on a table, into which Thomas poured coffee from the jug.

  “Milk anyone? Sugar?” Myr Billy passed around a bowl and a small jug of milk and we relaxed into the couches. When we were all sipping quietly, he sat forward in his seat and addressed us.

  “This is how your days at the Academy will be. We have meditation first thing.” Telgeth groaned and Myr Billy looked at him sternly. “It’s very important, you know. You have to be able to close your mind from distractions to be able to use Hầұeӣ. Meditation provides the mental clarity you will all require. All your Mentors meditate daily, I’m sure.”

  I glanced at Charlie, who shrugged. I had never seen him meditate before. He leaned over and whispered, “What do you think I do every morning while I’m waiting for you to wake up?” Huh, well, that explained it then; he had always seemed to be awake before me.

  “So after meditation we will have lectures all morning, with a break in the middle. Then I believe you go back to your Hall for lunch. In the afternoon we will have a practical session, often based on what you have learned in the morning.” He waved towards the marble work-benches. “We have another break in the middle and we will finish up here late afternoon when you will return to the Hall to complete your assigned homework.” Telgeth made a rude noise, but this time Myr Billy ignored him. “Later on in the year you will have guest lecturers to teach you about their specialist fields. Professors of biology, chemistry and physics, horticulture, history and law, as well as lecturers from the Temple who will give you an introduction to Solastry. These all being applicable to your use of Hầұeӣ. For now though, we will stick to the basics, yes?” We all nodded, I was wide-eyed and feeling a bit overwhelmed. “Right, is everyone finished? Good, good, just leave your mugs on the table. A Journeyman will come in during the lunch break to take care of them for us.” He grinned, his face creasing. “Come now, back to your desks.”

  Once we had all been seated again and facing him, Myr Billy rubbed out the words on the blackboard and wrote Hầұeӣ again, in large letters, underlining it firmly.

  “Now you know how to pronounce it properly, I want to give you a quick introduction to the evolution and use of Hầұeӣ. Please feel free to take notes.”

  My hand flew across the page as he spoke, concentrating so hard on writing that I hardly had time to take in what he was saying.

  The early Nea’thi tribes had moved up into this area some 300,000 years ago, where they evolved into large, strong creatures with pale skin and light hair suiting the northern climate. Myr Billy looked around the room appreciatively, his eyes lingering on Lolitha.

  “See, with the exception of this lass here, Lolitha is it? Yes, yes, you all have the blonde or auburn hair that is evidence of your Nea’thi genetic heritage.”

  I looked around and realised he was right, we did all have fair hair, from Dunkerle’s pale blonde spikes to Telgeth’s orange mop.

  “Lolitha dear, you have some southern blood in you, perhaps?”

  She blushed and ran a hand self-consciously through her black bob. “Yeah, my mother’s grandfather was from Yhull.”

  “Well that explains it then!” Myr Billy continued.

  With their large craniums, the early Nea’thi civilisation discovered and mastered the use of Hầұeӣ, living well in tribal systems with a rudimentary culture and language. Humans evolved separately in their homeland far to the south, but around 50,000 years ago had begun to encroach on Nea’thi territory.

  “All this is hypothetical, of course,” Myr Billy admitted. “Our written history began long after we moved into the Enclaves.” He sighed and waved his hands apologetically, disappointed by this lack of firm evidence.

  Humans and Nea’thi had a tenuous co-existence, but the Humans’ smaller size and lesser dietary requirements meant that their numbers increased to the point where they began to crowd out the Nea’thi tribes. There was a degree of interbreeding, of course, and the resulting offspring passed onto their children the ability to use Hầұeӣ, though the primitive Human culture did not foster or teach them how to use it. By around 40,000 years ago, the situation had become precarious for the Nea’thi. The warlike traits of the Humans had driven them nearly to extinction. The remaining Nea’thi tribes had discovered entrances to underground tunnel systems that led far beneath the Rhye Mountains that encircled the area, and began to build habitations where they could escape the Human tribes and enjoy the thermal heat provided by deep underground vents. During the summers they would emerge and stockpile food, trying all the while to avoid incursions by groups of predatory Humans.

  After some 20,000 years of this semi-subterranean lifestyle, the Humans on the surface had become so populous that leaving the Enclaves during the summer was simply too dangerous. By this time, the Nea’thi had tunnelled further under the mountains, assisted by Hầұeӣ. Three huge natural caverns had been discovered, all with an abundance of water and luminous algae and deep enough to be warm all year round. Habitations were built and hydroponic systems were set up, growing food crops modified using a combination of selective breeding and Hầұeӣ to adapt them to underground cultivation. The Nea’thi diet was supplemented by farmed subterranean fishes, and now they could exist without having to go outside, the entire Nea’thi population moved to these new Enclaves and sealed off the entrances.

  They soon realised that the genetic oddity of albinism that throws itself up on occasion was actually suited to their new underground lifestyle, and Nea’thi albinos were encouraged to breed, as it were. Advances in genetic tweaking with Hầұeӣ meant that after a few thousand years in the Enclaves the Nea’thi people all had the red eyes, grey skin and colourless hair that they had to this day.

  “Our particular form of albinism is recessive, however. That’s why Mingles often inherit the colouring of their Human parent. We don’t have any Mingles in this class, do we?” Myr Billy looked around the room. “No? Oh well, no matter.”

  “Hey Myr Billy?” called Te
lgeth. Myr Billy squinted a little to see who had spoken. “Ah, Telgeth, yes? You have a question? Good. Please, anyone, if you need clarification please just ask. But raise your hand so I know whom I am speaking to.”

  Telgeth raised his hand. “Myr Billy, so can Mingles be Nea’thi-Blood too?”

  “Ah, good question, Telgeth. The short answer is no. Mingles are people of mixed Human and Nea’thi heritage, the result of unions that have occurred since the Leaving. Nea’thi-Bloods such as yourself have Nea’thi DNA from interbreeding between the two species before the Nea’thi went Underground. You understand the concept of DNA? Don’t worry, Myr Stewart will teach you more about genetics and evolution later on in the year. Anyway, Nea’thi-Bloods and Mingles are the two types of non-Nea’thi that can use Hầұeӣ. ‘Bloodkin’ is the term for any student of Hầұeӣ studying at the Academy with the aid of a Mentor, it caught on in the early days of the Academy after the Leaving. I believe the ‘kin’ does not refer to any ties of kinship as such, rather it is merely a term of affection, like ‘munchkin’ perhaps, seeing as ‘Nea’thi-Blood’ is such a mouthful. Does that answer your question?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. What’s a munchkin?”

  Myr Billy stared at Telgeth for a long moment, gauging whether the question was a joke. Apparently he decided it was, because he scratched his head for a second and continued.

  “Now, where was I? Oh, right. The Enclaves developed in relative isolation from each other, what with the rather large distances between them. Tunnels were eventually carved to link them, and not long before the Leaving steam-carriage tracks were laid, but travelling between the Enclaves used to take months.” He pulled down a rolled map to the side of the blackboard. It was a map unlike any I had ever seen before. It still had most of the topographical features of the country, but extended out to encompass the surrounding mountain ranges that regular maps didn’t bother with. The four Capitols were still marked, each with a little crown, but most of the roads and other towns had been left off. Instead, there were three large stars, each over areas of high mountains that held no Human habitations, as well as a number of smaller stars and circles, linked with a series of blue lines.