Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

I.iv If Inyanga Gets In

A small part of Inyanga Numbia didn't want to go to visit the Univasiti campus with her primary class. Not only would she drag her feet on her way to the field trip, she started early — dragging her feet on her walk to Ato Primary with Amafu that morning.

Not that Amafu paid any mind to the snail's pace Inyanga was setting, because she was too busy talking at a speedy hare's pace.

"And the library at al-Maysan hall is null gravity, so there's no choice but to fly if you want a book from there! Bet I'll be good at flying, Maestra Alma says I'm a strong enough swimmer I would be on the team if our scuola had one. Which of course it doesn't. And the first spell you learn is how to make things levitate, because there's always high demand for architectural levitation, vehicle levitation, small business levitation, and all kinds of levitation!"

As the two city girls walked themselves down Virgo Street to school, many of the red brick buildings five or six storeys high were augmented with multi-storey floating add-ons — glass skyscraper towers that looked like they could fall or scatter down on the pavement any minute.

"Wish our primary levitated. The view up high every day while we're studying — that would be the life. I'd sit in the window every day and I guess I would never get any work done because I would be too busy looking out at the whole world out there! Up from above like a goddess." She fluttered her eyelashes and kept skipping sideways. "Can you imagine being the spellcaster who put the buildings up in the sky? Casting the spells to make them float?"

Inyanga couldn't. Primary worked them hard, taught lessons all day so they needed to study all night, but in all her learning Inyanga had never come across even the first clue as to what the first step would be to levitating a tower. Maybe it was something you couldn't know until you held a magic gnomon in your hand, felt the connection to magic in your body, launched off the first spell, and thinking about it made her belly and eyes twinge, she wanted a first hint of magic so bad.

Block after block Amafu skipped down the street as motos raced, some with wheels rolling firmly down the street, and others gliding in silence like a flock of birds, a murmuration of starlings or a siege of cranes, overhead. One would think Amafu's speed and energy would get them to scuola faster, but she did circles around Inyanga that drew out the distance.

"I can't wait for both of us to have piles of homework at magician's college." They always talked like that, like they were both going to become licensed magicians.

Today Inyanga kicked dust and said, "You hate homework."

"I won't hate it when it's magic homework!" Amafu's eyes went so wide and round that it seemed at least some of her enthusiasm had to be an act she put on. Digging her heels in, Inyanga wanted to say it, say out loud that no way could both of them get in.

It was a fantasy to live by for thirteen years of primary, but today it was getting close to the time when perhaps it might be wisest to prepare their expectations. Before she could get out the first sound of the first word, Amafu yelled, "Race you! It's magic scavenge day, let's go!" and began to skip the last block in earnest.

To run, to skip, or to drag her heels? That was the question. The campus trip couldn't be put off forever — she broke into a reluctant jog and found as the cool breeze coming down the avenue lifted her into a run that a grin was spreading like a favorite blanket across her face in spite of herself.

Inyanga had never wanted anything more than to be a magician. That's why even as she had dragged her feet to school the morning of the field trip, the greater part of her was dying to go. She was dying to see the students pulling gnomon wands on each other, pulling strings on each other's minds, playing tricks to soothe and inflame each other's moods and emotions, soaring through the library windows — not to mention teleporting from spot to spot.