Lies & Labyrinths

People noticed Lilith in the halls, and she didn’t much care for that. There were points and hushed whispers as the rumors began to circulate before she even arrived for her first class. One girl in particular stared at Lilith, opening and closing her mouth before darting away.

The whispers followed her into Klymviner’s, as did the stares. Klymviner however wasn’t in the class when she arrived, with only a note of instructions written upon the chalkboard.

Class, you are to continue attempting to solve the puzzle in the picture box.

Lilith, continue to practice how to write your own name.

Lilith glared at the board. That message had been left for her and yet would remain on the board all day to mock her. The fire burned deep in Lilith once more.

“All that hard work last night and it was by an illiterate.” Christopher Stonehammer snickered behind Lilith as she approached her seat near the front of the class.

Lilith pulled his seat with her magic hand just before he sat down, leaving Christopher to spill on to the floor. The class erupted into laughter, Lilith acting none the wiser as she dropped her bag in her seat and took her spot at the front of the class.

Time to practice.

Gripping the chalk in her right hand, Lilith set to work, doing her best to ignore the sound of her peers struggling with the password that she already knew. An entire class length of that was enough to drive anyone mad, listening to the supposed smartest minds of the school all struggle to decipher it.

Eventually the bell rang and the torture was over. Lilith took a step back from the board, looking at her name.

It looked better. There was improvement by the end. She massaged her wrist with her ghost hand, wincing at the pain as her muscles continued to adjust.

Between classes she saw the girl from the morning again. Their eyes briefly met, and Lilith felt a strange thought pass by: Had that girl been taller when I saw her last? That of course was impossible, down to the uniform they both wore.

There was no sighting of Emil in Twixtfeather’s class, and the three stygians were gone, four students missing in total.

That meant Lilith was officially the out-group versus the in-group of other students. Without a word, Lilith took a seat furthest away from the other students before the close range haranguing would begin.

“Alright class, no more distractions! Today we shall be getting back into topic for our upcoming Weaving. Now, our topic today will be covering the Marking which accompanies the Weaving. Started one thousand years ago to combat the issues with those not on the same frequency of aether, those that find themselves in possession of magic that was not foretold before birth are given a branding upon their forehead, or in the case of Stygians, ’round their horns.”

“Yeah why do they have the horns?” Someone shouted. One of Christopher’s toadies by the sound of it.

“That is actually up for debate. [29] What we do know is that we can trace their origins back to potentially six of the Seven Princes, while at least thirty-three percent of all genii can be traced back to the other.”

Twixtfeather turned to the blackboard, grabbing some enchanted chalk, and began to draw seven patterns on the board.

“Seven Princes to the Seven Hells. Rulers to the worlds below. Creatures that feast an aether, addicted to it as it were.”

Twixtfeather began to write down names beneath the symbols. “These names are not to be uttered, as it is believed their very name spoken aloud can strengthen them or have them notice you. Now, with the exception of the first, all of these names are of devils. The former, however, is a Djinn, and the precursor to the Genii, or ‘Children of Djinn.’. The Djinn were once members of the Feylands, though why they were expelled is not entirely certain.

Twixtfeather stepped away from the board, revealing the full names.

Tirif, Prince of Wishes

Doab-Nada, Prince of Rage

Sitarins, Prince of Entropy

Asclodem, Prince of Paranoia

Ahricem, Prince of Aberrations

Ejud, Prince of Despair

Asmodeus, Prince of Lies

“These beings leave marks on the world, corrupting the threads of the Veil in the process. Some are born to the world with the affliction of the Stygians. Others, well…” Twixtfeather glanced to the seats where the three were. “Some emerge. Neither belonging between that world and here. It is a lonely one.”

“But they’re evil, right?” Christopher asked.

“No. The circumstances that made them might be, but they are not. They do not crave aether. They simply exist on a different wavelength than the Veil. As such, their powers have to be attuned at The Weaving.”

“Is that why Professor Klymviner uses them on her expeditions?” Lilith dared to ask.

“Yes. Perceptive, Miss Lavoi. Since they are not on the same wavelength, any spells that might trigger or be dangerous to us could just as easily never activate for them. When dealing with relics from previous Epochs, it is best to take no chances.”

It sounded inhumane. That didn’t seem to faze students such as Christopher, but that didn’t surprise Lilith either.

“But we seemed to have gotten off-track, eh? Time for a pop quiz.”

The class groaned as papers were passed about. Lilith did her best to read through, lifting an eyebrow. Twixtfeather tapped her desk as he passed, whispering “Consider this but a way for me to measure your aptitude for next quarter. I shan’t be taking this for a grade dear.”

That had made her utter failure on the test a little less painful. When the bell rang, Lilith handed her paper in and proceeded to hurry out the door before Christopher and his lot had time to follow.

The girl from before class waited outside. She started to speak once more, but the sight of the bullies behind Lilith made the girl turn pale and shuffle off as quickly as she could. What an odd girl Lilith thought to herself, then headed on towards Loomreading while continuing to keep her eye out for Emil.

There was a door on Inam’s note when Lilith arrived; for a moment Lilith thought that the professor had gotten herself tied up in whatever mess Klymviner was in, but it turned out to be more mundane.

Lilith, meet at model. No shortcuts! Back of Library, 1st floor. - Prof Inam

Oh well, that gave her enough time to wander for a moment, and wander she did.

The bell rang, and the other students dispersed into their classrooms, filtering out until it was just her. She remembered the path back towards the library, taking her time to stroll the hallway. She moved through the Library, finding that it had mostly been patched up by mid morning. The glass ceiling above was mostly mended, but every so often the enchanted glass would spark from the destruction and hastily attempted resealing of the etched spell. There was a desk moved just inside the model room, one that Inam was currently inhabiting.

Inam didn’t look well (which was saying something, seeing as Lilith’s first impression was based on a very vocal nervous breakdown). Her eyes were baggy, a thick amount of makeup only sought to accentuate the exhaustion apparent in the bloodshot eyes and hunched over a scattered assortment of parchment with an impressive ball of twine connecting them.

“Professor?” Lilith called out, partially out of concern for the woman, and partially for fear of startling the woman into an attack.

“Oh. Right. Is it already class time? Good. Good.” The woman rubbed her wrists nervously, eyes flicking up and down Lilith. “Impressive display last night, or so I hear.” She stood, moving to unlock the door and let Lilith in on the other side of the barrs that blocked entrance in.

“You look tired.” Lilith said, frowning.

“Maybe a bit. I’ve been here most of the night, working on things.”

“Things?”

“Strings.”

“Strings?”

Inam gestured with her wand, a string towards the end of the Model Veil illuminated. It split at a certain point like some of the other strings at the same point. One continued outward towards the edges of the fabric, the other stopping a few inches from the fabric’s edge.

“This string right here. The Son of Skorn. Prophesied to finish what his father started. Just one of the potential world ending scenarios.” Inam launched a beam of energy to the string on the veil, tugging it at the mentioned location. Half the tapestry became unraveled, a large hole opening through not far from it. Inam cast a restoration spell, rewinding the damage done, not bothering to let the machine compile.

She disconnected the spell, sighing as she leaned over her desk. Just watching the unravelling seemed to set the woman on edge.

“Professor? Professional advice, one girl to another?”

“Mm?” Inam said, hitting her head upon the dask in dramatic fashion in a dull thudded pattern.

“Sometimes it’s best to rest, even in class. Especially in class. Why don’t I finish up with your work?”

“Yes. Yes, that’s a good idea…” Inam muttered, closing her eyes.

Lilith waited, watching the woman continue to mutter and drift off into a heavy snore that was shockingly loud for the professor’s petite frame. When she was sure the woman would not wake, Lilith carefully unclasped the necklace with the key to the next room, happy to have some privacy. She hurried along into the back room, letting herself into the back room by herself.

Lilith wasn’t sure what the fuss was about over the book. It was just a book. Even more-so, it was a copy of a book. How much trouble could it be? Lilith stepped up to it, hiking a thumb and flipping through the pages. There were prophecies for everything. The most popular one seemed to have been Chosen Ones. There were soooo many Chosen Ones. They all seemed to live tragically short lives by the length of their strings. The ones that did make it seemed to be not that different from the thing they had been Chosen Ones to stop. The amount of mundane things prophesied were even bigger than that. [30] There were all sorts of small notes, and these usually had connections to other dates, or little numbers written on the side.

Lilith looked about the room beyond that, at the catalogue walls. There must have been connections beyond dates; Alphabetized, copies of regions by dates. All of this data based upon this object. It seemed so time consuming; this was thousands of years of research. So many lives had come and gone just to give Lilith the opportunity to find out if there was any prophecy on whether or not there’d be an Avalonian swallow migration or not.

In the quiet solitude of the model of the Veil, Lilith felt wonderment at something new and exciting. On her own, she learned. And on her own, she had an idea, one that would threaten to destroy the entire world in a rather short amount of time.

Footnotes:

[29] Many had guesses as to what caused the race to take on their appearance. Some speculated them to be incomplete souls that had emerged from the cosmos. Others believed them to be the reincarnation of a person unable to cross into the next realm. Still, most superstitious folk only thought them as demons and nothing else.

[30] And would lead to the formation of a club in the bygone days of the Veilweaver’s, known as the Mundanes, who would go around trying to fulfill as many mundane prophecies on the list as they could.