Seven Views of the Liozh Entrance Exam

 

 

1.

 

 

ACCORDING TO RECORDS held like stunted chrysalids in the vaults of the Rahal, the Liozh demanded a practical examination as well as the written examination. We can guess what both components contained, even in those days, heresy-seeds waiting to fruit into the later rebellion. We know, empirically, how long it took the other heptarchs to recognize and act against the Liozh heresy. The delay between recognition and action remains a puzzle to this day.

Of particular interest, despite their fragmentary nature, are records of the assessment of the woman who would become the final Liozh heptarch. We retain the following notes: a jeng-zai spread featuring the card combination called the Web of Worlds, after that ancient signifier; a receipt for a meat pie, dated not only to the final day of her examination but to what would have been an auspicious time; and, most confusingly, an old-fashioned romance novel with several dog-eared pages. The significance of the romance novel has not yet been deciphered.

2.

 

 

IT IS CLAIMED that the written portion of the exam was taken on paper recycled from other factions’ written exams. Occasionally, given the process used, faint distorted shadows of text surfaced, hinting at the laws of the Rahal, the rigid codes of the Vidona, the games of the Shuos. Scholars debate whether this practice helped lead to the downfall of the Liozh, or delayed it.

 

3.

 

 

IN A CERTAIN Vidona museum, one display shows what is said to be a Liozh cadet’s flayed skin, preserved. They had gone into a heretical settlement as part of their practicum, bringing with them food, and water, and the comfort of the heptarchate’s ideals. The heretics returned the cadet’s skin, tanned, tattooed with high holy days in their own calendar.

According to the display’s plaque, the Liozh failure to retaliate on their cadet’s behalf was just another sign of their unfitness to rule.

 

4.

 

 

ONE OF THE most famous entrance exam questions goes like this: If you had to destroy a single faction for the good of the heptarchate, which would it be, and why?

 

5.

 

 

ONE PORTION OF the exam was taken in groups of seven. Prospective cadets had to enact a scenario in which one of them played the role of a Liozh ambassador and the rest played heretics being brought into the heptarchate. Frustratingly, the scoring rubric has not survived, nor do we know how the “ambassador” was selected.

Some have suggested that this particular game was introduced by the Shuos in order to hasten the Liozh’s fall, although surely even the Shuos wouldn’t be that obvious about it.

 

6.

 

 

THOSE WHO DID not pass the exam were barred from trying again, or applying to other factions. This was contrary to the practice of the time among the other factions, who were more lenient in their policies. That being said, the Andan and Shuos were both known to defy this rule if they felt some advantage could be gained by scooping up some candidate and giving them a new identity.

 

7.

 

 

REPORTS DIFFER ON what happened to Liozh candidates who had not yet passed the exam at the time of the final purge of the faction. The Rahal claim that the Vidona reeducated those who could be salvaged. What the Liozh themselves would have said about this, no one now will ever know.

 

 

Author’s Note

 

This is the kind of gimmick flash story that I can dash out in fifteen minutes almost without thinking. It’s a pity that there isn’t more of a market for gimmick flash stories, but then I suppose it would be unjust if I could make a living doing something this easy. This particular example probably also reveals just how scarring I found all the tests in school growing up; my first published story, “The Hundredth Question,” is in the form of an exam!