The Rithmatist

Forbiddance to release her chalklings.
    So fast! he thought. I only got through six of my Lines of Vigor! True, he hadn’t been going as quickly as he could, but even still …
    Melody’s line puffed away—it took four seconds to dismiss a line—and a wave of eight complete chalklings rushed across the ground toward him.
    “Wow,” he said.
    Melody looked up, brushing a bit of curly red hair from her eyes. She blinked in surprise, as if shocked that she’d actually done it. Joel scrambled to draw a few more Lines of Vigor and defend himself against the creatures.
    But, of course, that did nothing. In the heat of battle, Joel almost forgot that he wasn’t a Rithmatist.

    The chalklings reached his defenses and hesitated. For a moment, he felt a stab of fear—similar to what he assumed Herman Libel must have felt while sitting defenseless against an attacking group of chalk monsters.
    Joel doubted that Herman had been forced to face down unicorns though.

    The creatures finally tested Joel’s defenses—which, of course, didn’t stop them. They rushed forward eagerly, surrounding Joel, then running about in circles. Joel cringed, imagining them stripping off his flesh. Fortunately, these chalklings were harmless.
    “Unicorns?” he asked sufferingly.
    “The unicorn is a very noble and majestic animal!”
    “It’s just an … undignified way to be defeated, particularly with them prancing about like that.”
    “Well,” she said, rising, “at least I don’t have any pink chalk. They won’t let us use colors until we’re juniors.”
    Joel smiled. “You did really well. I can’t believe you drew those so quickly!”

    She walked over and placed her chalk against one of the unicorns. It stopped prancing immediately, freezing in place as if it had become simply a drawing again. Four seconds later, it was gone. She repeated the process with the others. “That wasn’t hard,” she said. “I just had to get my chalklings to wait before attacking.”
    From what little Joel had read, it hadn’t sounded that easy. If you didn’t give the chalklings precisely correct instructions, they’d attack your own Line of Forbiddance. Then, when you dismissed it, they’d be confused and mill about instead of rushing your opponent.
    “I told you Jordan would work for you,” Joel said, standing.
    “You went easy on me,” she said. “Plus, my lines weren’t that great. I’ll bet you could have broken through my Forbiddance wall with half as many shots as it would otherwise have taken.”
    “Maybe,” Joel said. “I didn’t expect you to work so quickly. Your ellipse was a disaster—but that didn’t matter. You did a great job, Melody. You can do this. You just need to find patterns and defenses that work for your skills.”
    She smiled hesitantly at that. “Thanks.”
    “It’s true.”
    “No,” she said. “Not for the compliment. For showing me this. I doubt it’s going to revolutionize my style—I’m never going to be a good Rithmatist unless I can learn circles. But, well, it’s nice to know I can do something right.”
    Joel smiled back. “All right. Well, maybe now we should get to class. Professor Fitch…”
    He trailed off, noticing a figure in the distance—a figure in a policeman’s uniform and hat, sitting astride a large horse. Remembering that he’d asked Exton to send for the inspector, Joel waved.
    “Joel?” Melody asked.
    “Just a moment,” he said. “You can go on ahead. I need to talk to that policeman.”
    She turned. “Dusts! Is that an Equilix Stallion?”
    As she spoke, Joel noticed that she was right. Harding trotted his mount forward, but that mount was not a horse. It was shaped like one, true, but it was made of metal, with glass sides that showed the twisting gears and clicking springs.
    “Joel, son,” Harding said as he walked his mount up, its metal hooves leaving deep prints in the soil. “How goes the academic front?”
    “It goes well, Inspector,” Joel said.
    Joel had seen springwork horses before, of course. They were expensive, but by no means uncommon. An Equilix, however, wasn’t just any springwork. Built from the newest of springwork technologies out of Egyptia, they were said to be amazingly intelligent. They had a woman there, a genius scientist, who had figured out new ways of winding springs to pull energy through the harmonic winds.
    Joel looked into the machine’s clear glass eyes, and could see the tiny springs and rotors moving