Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

Act I. scene i. If Inyanga Gets In

"Why doesn't Magicians College just let everyone in?"

That was not the question anyone expected Inyanga to ask first upon receiving her offer of acceptance, but her umama Kyuma and Grandmama Amandla weren't listening anyway.

The two immortals sprang from the breakfast table to clap their hands and dance as if they were the ones going to magic school, as if they were nineteen again.

The notice had arrived first thing through a link portal that popped into existence over Inyanga's cereal bowl. Fast hands reached out and snapped up the newly cast airpage before it could drop into the milk. Not that anyone had been surprised that their girl had gotten in. Her primary marks had her at the top of her class. It was just that ... once upon a time, Inyanga's umama, Kyuma Ama Numbia, had tried to get in and failed. And once ... long, long ago ... her Grandmama Amandla had tried to get into Magician's College and said there was never enough money to go.

So Inyanga always found herself wondering ... how many generations of Numbias, working how many centuries, did it take to send one girl to Magician's College?

She stood from her chair and clapped one time with a loud, "Hey!" Then at a more reasonable volume, "I'm asking you a question!"

In the new silence she sat down and, face and voice placid, she repeated, "Why don't they let everyone in?" Innocently, she clasped her hands and planted them down on the table in front of her, waiting for a reply.

Stepping slowly back to aer seat, Kyuma sat slowly, now moving as if through honey, as if aer back were aching, as if suddenly wearing a body that was actually as old as aeh was. One would think eternal youth would prevent back stiffness. "What do you mean, ndodakazi yami? Take everyone?" said Kyuma. Aeh looked no older than aer daughter, who looked not a single day older than sixteen, though she was a few. A parens, Kyuma took on the childbearing gender of the few immortals who still wanted to bring offspring into this world — even at the current price of monthly immortality fees.

The figures of the girl and the grandmama went straight up and down, slim and muscular and not much in the way of curves, while Kyuma had wide hips and a bum that cushioned aer seat nicely, and a bust that would feed aer next baby, whenever aeh could afford one, hopefully some time in the next century.

A hint of more respect returned to Inyanga's tone when she said, "Yes, mama." Yet the inquisitive girl never stopped. "I am wondering, however, if magicians get better jobs, why not send everyone?" She peered through young dark eyes with wide curled lashes. Honest ones, truly questioning.

"Send everyone, ndodakazi yami?" Kyuma said to aer only child, eyebrows raised. "It's too expensive. Now, stop questioning and send your reply."

With an insisting voice, Inyanga kept questioning while she sent her reply. "But wouldn't charging less per person and admitting everyone add up to greater profit? If everyone who wanted to go just paid what they could?"

The link portal still awaited the answer to her admittance offer, a gaping hole hanging over the middle of the table like a bathroom mirror. For the moment it didn't lead anywhere, the way one might expect a portal to. When it first appeared it had reflected back her jaw drop reaction to its sudden existence — sleepy, baggy eyes shocked open. One hand had gone to give her scalp a thoughtful scratch, through the coils she sheered short for a relatively low maintenance magic-free coiffure. Puzzlement in her raised brows. Then she had smiled a little, noticing her bedhead black coils looked so shiny and healthy today.

The sudden appearance of the link portal got Grandmama Amandla pretty bad, too; she had hopped back and out of her chair on the skinny legs of a young girl, and the chair rocked back a couple of times on its legs with a threat of falling, but it didn't. Not that Kyuma had done much better; aer gasp and the hands placed on aer chest made Inyanga worry Umama had had a pulmonary embolism. Luckily both centenarians had the strong and enduring hearts and limbs of teenage girls, for tens of thousands of solidae a month.