Read Online The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson - Free Book Online

him that at one point or another.
    And yet … it was the one thing he cared about, the one thing that he seemed to be skilled at. Without it, what was he? He had been shown, pointedly, that a good education wouldn’t elevate him to the status of the other students.
    So what did he do now? Follow the course everyone expected of him? Do well enough in school to get a job as a clerk, one step up from a laborer?
    Or did he keep chasing a dream? Study Rithmatics at a university. Become a scholar of it, an expert. Fitch had offered him a nibble of something grand, but had snatched away the plate right afterward. Joel felt a flare of anger at that.
    He shoved it down. Fitch did want to teach me, he thought. He was so shaken by what happened today that he didn’t dare ask.
    Fitch would spend his summer tutoring students assigned to him by Principal York. A plan started brewing in Joel’s mind. A desperate, foolish plan.
    Joel smiled. He needed to fail history class.
    * * *
    “I must remind you, again, how important this exam is,” said Professor Kim. He was one of the few foreigners on the faculty. Even though he spoke without an accent—his family had moved to the United Isles when he was just a baby—his heritage was plainly visible in his Asian skin color and eye shape.
    Kim’s appointment to the general school had caused a ruckus. Parents had worried about him teaching history to their students—they’d feared that he’d present the JoSeun version of historical events. Joel wasn’t sure how the perspective could really get skewed beyond the truth. After all, the JoSeun people had conquered Europe. Could anyone really dispute that as fact?
    “The exam is fifty percent of your final grade,” Professor Kim said, handing out tests to the students as he moved between their desks. “You have two hours to complete it—take your time.”
    Professor Kim wore a suit and bow tie—even though other professors, those who had done their university studies in France or Espania, routinely wore JoSeun formal clothing instead of suits or skirts. Kim probably understood that he needed to be even more American than the others.
    Joel filled in his name at the top of the test and began looking over the three essay questions to be answered.
    Discuss the events, and possible causes, that led up to the discovery of Rithmatics.
    Discuss the ramifications of the Monarch’s exile from Britannia.
    Detail the early struggle against the wild chalklings and their eventual isolation in the Tower of Nebrask.
    Joel knew the answers. He knew, in depth, about how King Gregory III had been forced out of Britannia during the JoSeun advance. He had been taken in by America, despite the historical tension between the two nations. Gregory, lacking political power, had become primarily a religious leader.
    And then the wild chalklings had appeared in the west, a threat to all life in the Isles. King Gregory had discovered Rithmatics, had been the first Rithmatist. He was an old man when it happened.
    Was it too much to hope that Joel, despite having passed the age of inception, could also become a Rithmatist? It had happened before.
    He scrawled answers to the questions. Not the right answers. Terrible ones. This test was fifty percent of his grade. If he failed history, he’d have to spend his summer reviewing with a tutor.
    Mother is going to kill me, he thought as he finished, answering the last question with a wisecrack about kimchi, and how the wild chalklings had probably fled to the Tower to escape its stench.
    Joel stood just a few minutes after he had begun, then walked up to the front and proffered the exam to Professor Kim.
    The man took it hesitantly. He frowned, looking over the three simple answers. “I think you might want to look this over again.”
    “No,” Joel said. “I’m satisfied.”
    “Joel, what are you doing? Didn’t you hear me talk about how important this test is?”
    “I’m well aware.”
    Kim stared at the test.