I could never live with myself if one of my students died because I failed to train them right. I … I don’t rightly think I’ve ever considered that.”
What could Joel say to that? He didn’t know how to respond. “Professor,” he said instead, “I brought your books back. You walked off without them.”
Fitch started. “So, you actually did have a reason to speak with me! How amusing. I was simply trying to aggravate Nalizar. Thank you.”
Fitch accepted the books, laying them on the table. Then he started to poke at his food again.
Joel gathered his courage. “Professor,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “There’s something else I wanted to ask you.”
“Hum? What?”
Joel pulled out the sheet and flattened it against the table. He slid it over to Fitch, who regarded it with a confused expression. “A request for summer elective?”
Joel nodded. “I wanted to sit in on your advanced Rithmatic defenses elective!”
“But … you’re not a Rithmatist, son,” Fitch said. “What would be the point?”
“I think it would be fun,” Joel said. “I want to be a scholar, of Rithmatics I mean.”
“A lofty goal for one who cannot himself ever make a line come to life.”
“There are critics of music who can’t play an instrument,” Joel said. “And historians don’t have to be the types who make history. Why must only Rithmatists study Rithmatics?”
Fitch stared at the sheet for a while, then finally smiled. “A valid argument, to an extent. Unfortunately, I no longer have a lecture for you to attend.”
“Yes, but you’ll still be tutoring. I could listen in on that, couldn’t I?”
Fitch shook his head. “That’s not how it works, I’m afraid. Those of us at the bottom don’t get to choose what or who we teach. I have to take the students the principal assigns to me, and he has already chosen. I’m sorry.”
Joel looked down. “Well … do you think, maybe, one of the other professors might take over your advanced defenses class?”
“Lad,” Fitch said, putting a kindly hand on Joel’s shoulder. “I know the life of a Rithmatist seems full of excitement and danger, but even Professor Nalizar’s talk of Nebrask is much more dramatic than the reality. Most Rithmatic study consists of lines, angles, and numbers. The war against the Tower is fought by a bunch of cold, wet men and women scribbling lines on the ground—interspersed with empty weeks sitting in the rain.”
“I know,” Joel said quickly. “Professor, it’s the theory that excites me.”
“They all say that,” Fitch said.
“They?”
“You think you are the first young man who wanted to join the Rithmatic classes?” Fitch asked with a smile. “We get requests like this all the time.”
“You do?” Joel asked, heart sinking.
Fitch nodded. “Half of them are convinced that something mysterious and exciting must be going on in those lecture halls. The other half assume that if they just study hard enough, they can become Rithmatists themselves.”
“There … might be a way, right?” Joel asked. “I mean, Dusters like you are just regular people before their inception. So, other normal people can be Rithmatists.”
“It doesn’t work that way, lad,” Fitch said. “The Master chooses his Rithmatists carefully. Once the age of inception has passed, the choices have all been made. In the last two hundred years, not one person has been chosen later than their inception ceremony.”
Joel looked down.
“Don’t feel so sad,” Fitch said. “Thank you for bringing my books back to me. I’m sure I would have searched my entire study three times over for them!”
Joel nodded, turning to go. “He’s wrong, by the way.”
“Who?”
“Yallard, the author of that book,” Joel said, waving toward the second of the two books. “He determines that the Blad Defense should be banned from official duels and tournaments, but he’s shortsighted. Four ellipsoid segments combined may not make a ‘traditional’ defensive Line of Warding, but it’s very effective. If they ban it from duels because it’s too powerful, then nobody will learn it, and they won’t be able to use it in a battle if they need to.”
Fitch raised an eyebrow. “So you were paying attention in my lectures.”
Joel nodded.
“Perhaps it’s in the blood,” Fitch said. “Your father had some interest in these things.” He hesitated, then leaned down to Joel. “What you desire is forbidden by tradition, but there are always those who break with tradition. Newer universities, young and eager, are beginning to teach about Rithmatics to anyone who cares to learn. Go to one of those when you’re older. That won’t make you