Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

II.vii When Inyanga Goes

Their voices came back sixty seconds later.

"Great timing," said Inyanga, pleased to hear the familiar vibrating tones of sarcasm.

"What was Amafu saying about using the lexical memory activating the middle temporary gyrus?"

"I wish she had written it down."

"We should have taken notes."

The girls found their way to a part of the courtyard where two person chess and weiqi boards were built into tables — with theft prevention spells to protect the pieces. Storm swept the black and white stones from a finished weiqi game into the airweave bowls floating next to the table, and cast herself an airweave page to write upon. The empty table top was a space to place her arepa plate and her elbows while she munched — the page levitated upright for her to direct words at.

Minutes passed. She munched, but no words appeared.

"You know," she said, "your best bet might be to just wait until next year, crawl into a vent, and overhear the lecture without stepping into the library and getting your memory spelled."

"Who wants to wait a whole year? Let's call that plan C or D or maybe even Z."

"Yes, let's keep at plans A and B through Y for the next year when we could be studying for our actual classes." There was that familiar sarcastic tone. But Storm was driven by something, she didn't say what, and she glared at the page in front of her and put a few words up there.

If the . . . knew

"This is hard," she whined. "So, if I can only use lexical memory, like Amafu said, then I can only use irregular words. Words with silent letters or multiple possible pronunciations. According to what Amafu said, I don't think I can use any word that would sound the same if you sounded it out . . . which I'm confident is exactly right. She sounds like she has a mastery in this subject. Too bad she isn't here."

Inyanga cast her own airweave page to take notes. "Say that again?"

"Too bad she isn't here?"

"No. Summarize the difference between regular words and irregular words again."

Again, Storm made the face like she was downloading the textbook into her brain. Maybe she was. "Regular words are those in which there is a regular, one-to-one correspondence between grapheme and phoneme in spelling. They use phonological memory, which is probably blocked by the taboo spell, because it's used in speech too. Irregular words are those in which no such correspondence exists. Words don't sound like how they're spelled. They use lexical memory, some of which might not be blocked by the taboo spell, because that would prevent us from being able to read about the taboo."

Inyanga wrote, and said aloud what she wrote, "Regular words that sound exactly how they're spelled, bad. Irregular words with silent letters and don't sound how they're spelled, good."

For another moment they sat in silence, and Storm put up another word, and another. Yet she didn't seem to get very far. If the . . . knew it couldn't would reason supply . . . create artificial scarcity prices.

Those words didn't seem to say anything that would help Inyanga.

"Create artificial scarcity. . . create artificial scarcity. . ." Inyanga repeated over and over. "What does that mean? It sounds like a term I should know, but I've never heard it before."

"You know I can't answer you," said Storm.

"If I guess right, can you nod?" said Inyanga.

"I think maybe you should just go to the information center and tell them you missed the lecture."

"No way. I don't want a spell messing with my brain and telling me what I can and can't say."

"Then how about if you bring it up with Maestra Alondra again? I bet you'd have some leverage to prevent her putting you under the spell. Like what if you pretend you already know it. Repeat those words like you know what they mean—"

"Which words? Artificial scarcity?"

"Yes. Say that to her like you know the taboo, and you want to know why you shouldn't just tell the whole world. Get some answers out of her."

"She'll just put me under the spell herself. Maybe she can't even talk about it either."

"Listen, friend. Maybe at some point we just need to trust that the actual magicians know what they're doing, or at least make sure we know what we're doing before we threaten to tell a secret the school has clearly gone to a great deal of effort to keep. Talk to the maestra. It's your best bet. We can't spend all semester chasing answers for this instead of the answers to our homework questions."

"If I can just look up artificial scarcity. . ."

"If you've never seen the term before, there might be a good reason for that."

"Like they're hiding it. Like they hide everything."

"Come on, conspiracy theorist. Talk to the maestra."

"No," said Inyanga.

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