Arwyl asked his question before I had time to turn and to face him. “What are the medicinal properties of hellebore?”
“Anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, mild sedative, mild analgesic. Blood purifier.” I said, looking up at the grandfatherly, spectacled old man. “Toxic if used excessively. Dangerous for women who are with child.”
“Name the component structures that comprise the hand.”
I named all twenty-seven bones, alphabetically. Then the muscles from largest to smallest. I listed them quickly, matter-of-factly, pointing out their locations on my own upraised hand.
The speed and accuracy of my answers impressed them. Some of them hid it, others wore it openly on their faces. The truth was, I needed to impress them. I knew from my previous discussions with Ben that you needed money or brains to get into the University. The more of one you had, the less of the other you needed.
So I was cheating. I had snuck into Hollows through a back entrance, acting the part of an errand boy. Then I’d picked two locks and spent more than an hour watching other students’ interviews. I heard hundreds of questions and thousands of answers.
I also heard how high the other students’ tuitions were set. The lowest had been four talents and six jots, but most were double that. One student had been charged over thirty talents for his tuition. It would be easier for me to get a piece of the moon than that much money.
I had two copper jots in my pocket and no way to get a bent penny more. So I needed to impress them. More than that. I needed to confound them with my intelligence. To dazzle them.
I finished listing the muscles of the hand and started in on the ligatures when Arwyl waved me into silence and asked his next question. “When do you bleed a patient?”
The question brought me up short. “When I want him to die?” I asked dubiously.
He nodded, mostly to himself. “Master Lorren?”
Master Lorren was pale and seemed unnaturally tall even while sitting. “Who was the first declared king of Tarvintas?”
“Posthumously? Feyda Calanthis. Otherwise it would be his brother, Jarvis.”
“Why did the Aturan Empire collapse?”
I paused, taken aback by the scope of the question. None of the other students had been asked anything so broad as this. “Well sir,” I said slowly to give myself a moment or two to organize my thoughts. “Partly because Lord Nalto was an inept egomaniac. Partly because the church went into upheaval and denounced the Order Amyr who were a large part of the strength of Atur. Partly because the military was fighting three different wars of conquest at the same time, and high taxes fomented rebellion in lands already inside the empire.”
I watched the master’s expression, hoping he would give some sign when he had heard enough. “They also debased their currency, undercut the universality of the iron law, and antagonized the Adem.” I shrugged. “But of course it’s more complicated than that.”
Master Lorren’s expression remained unchanged, but he nodded. “Who was the greatest man who ever lived?”
Another unfamiliar question. I thought for a minute. “Illien.”
Master Lorren blinked once, expressionless. “Master Mandrag?”
Mandrag was clean-shaven and smooth-faced, with hands stained a half hundred different colors and seemed to be made all of knuckle and bone. “If you needed phosphorus where would you get it?”
His tone sounded for a moment so much like Abenthy’s that I forgot myself and spoke without thinking. “An apothecary?” One of the masters on the other side of the table chuckled and I bit my too-quick tongue.
He gave me a faint smile, and I drew a faint breath. “Barring access to an apothecary.”
“I could render it from urine,” I said quickly. “Given a kiln and enough time.”
“How much would you need to gain two ounces pure?” He cracked his knuckles absentmindedly.
I paused to consider, as this was a new question too. “At least forty gallons, Master Mandrag, depending on the quality of the material.”
There was a long pause as he cracked his knuckles one at a time. “What are the three most important rules of the chemist?”
This I knew from Ben. “Label clearly. Measure twice. Eat elsewhere.”
He nodded, still wearing the faint smile. “Master Kilvin?”
Kilvin was Cealdish, his thick shoulders and bristling black beard reminded me of a bear. “Right,” he grumbled, folding his thick hands in front of him. “How would you make an ever-burning lamp?”
Each of the other eight masters made some sort of exasperated noise or gesture.
“What?” Kilvin demanded, looking around at them, irritated. “It is my question. The asking is mine.” He turned his attention back to me. “So. How would you make it?”
“Well,” I said slowly. “I would probably start with a pendulum of some sort. Then I would bind it to—”
“Kraem. No. Not like this.” Kilvin growled out a couple words and pounded his fist on the table, each thump as his hand came down was accompanied by a staccato burst of reddish light that welled up from his hand. “No sympathy. I do not want an ever-glowing lamp. I want an ever-burning one.” He looked at me again showing his teeth, as if he were going to eat me.
“Lithium salt?” I asked without thinking, then backpedaled. “No, a sodium oil that burned in an enclosed…no, damn.” I mumbled my way to a stop. The other applicants hadn’t had to deal with questions like these.
He cut me off with a short sideways gesture of his hand. “Enough. We will talk later. Elxa Dal.”
It took me a moment to remember that Elxa Dal was the next master. I turned to him. He looked like the archetypal sinister magician that seems to be a requirement in so many bad Aturan plays. Severe dark eyes, lean face, short black beard. For all that, his expression was friendly enough. “What are the words for the first parallel kinetic binding?”
I rattled them off glibly.
He didn’t seem surprised. “What was the binding that Master Kilvin used just a moment ago?”
“Capacatorial Kinetic Luminosity.”
“What is the synodic period?”
I looked at him oddly. “Of the moon?” The question seemed a little out of sync with the other two.
He nodded.
“Seventy-two and a third days, sir. Give or take a bit.”
He shrugged and gave a wry smile, as if he’d expected to catch me with the last question. “Master Hemme?”
Hemme looked at me over steepled fingers. “How much mercury would it take to reduce two gills of white sulfur?” he asked pompously, as if I’d already given the wrong answer.
One of the things I’d learned during my hour of quiet observation was this: Master Hemme was the king-high bastard of the lot. He took delight in student’s discomfort and did everything he could to badger and unsettle them. He had a fondness for trick questions.