Lies & Labyrinths

There were no assemblies the following day to announce what had happened, only whispered rumors that were prevalent in the halls outside the dorm. Some said that The Knave had returned, and finished what they had started. Others claimed that the prophecy department had erupted in some great sign of the apocalypse. Still, others said that Dwema herself had turned into a dragon and exploded out of the library after sleepwalking halfway across campus. Whatever the students whispered amongst themselves, the air was electrified.

The curfew had extended over the weekend, all of the main building and the library was closed, leaving the Deltas to congregate on the first floor and at the Gamma gardens.

Lilith and Emily commiserated that morning in the garden, talking errantly about things while students roamed around, playing magical twists on games she was all too familiar with.[45]

When enough of the students had filtered away, the conversation had inevitably turned to Dwema and the night before.

“You think she’s okay?” Emily finally asked.

“She’s probably living the life of luxury, doing dwarf princess things.” Lilith paused. “Did she ever seem like a princess to you?”

“No, I just chalked her blunt rudeness to being Dwema.”

Lilith giggled at that, but then frowned. “I’m gonna miss her.”

“Me too, in an odd way.”

They explored some after that, walking the parts of the garden that Lilith hadn’t been privy to, between school and detention and attacks by odd folks in red cloaks. From the East end of the Gamma Garden they were able to catch sight of a large field with what seemed to be another of the Evocation or Conjuration fields, potentially both; A maze of hedges had been erected, dotted with various pillars, and even an assortment of floating stones hewed into various geometric shapes (mostly hexagons). There were students in there, firing off spells and fighting over a ball that seemed to be the size of the Feyline Anchor. Lilith watched from their vantage point down at the procession below, almost mesmerized.

“What are they doing?”

“Oh, that? They’re practicing for the Weaving. They call it Mazeball. [46]

“You wanna play?” Emily asked. An explosion and a scream echoed from down below, a cloud of dust and an unfortunate set of Deltas being launched through the barrier, slowed down by some gravitational spell, before being deposited on the sidelines near some off-duty staff who barely even flinched and did nary to help besides giving a pat on their shoulder and telling the children “good hustle, good hustle”.

“...I’m good.” Lilith said. “Is this anything like the actual Weaving?”

“Well, the ball is the same general weight and it stops magic from being cast by the user, much like the actual Orb. But that’s about it. The Labyrinth stretches across the whole school. And there’s no Minotaur.”

Lilith’s attention snapped away.

“There’s no what?”

Emily put two fingers on either side of her head, curling them and mimicking stamping one foot on the ground. “Big. Tall. Horns.”

Lilith had never heard of such a thing, and her mind began to wander with the imagery. “What’s it do?”

“It guards the Labyrinth, and finds stragglers.”

“Oh.”

“You’ll be fine. We’ll both be fine. We just gotta find a place that’s familiar to both of us here and find it over there. And then we’ll wait for each other.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

There was an envelope waiting for Lilith on her bed that evening when she returned to her dorm, addressed to her with a letter and a beautiful piece of paper drawn with the pattern of a flower. It was the first letter she had ever received, and the material was a soft eggshell, with golden ink, and flecks of silver mixed into the composite that gave a lustrous shine to the words when the light shone upon it.

Lilith,

I am fine. Thank you for your friendship. My mother assures me this letter will get to you by right of the Jurgenhad name alone. Enclosed is a drawing of a flower I made. I figured it might prove to be useful in your studies ahead. Clear your mind, and focus on it. It might be unappeeling at first, but I think you’ll make use of it. I too spent my fair share of days in detention doing our favorite class. Took me a bit to write it backwards but it should do.

-Dwema

Lilith lifted up the drawing, at first only seeing the pattern of the rose. The material felt strange, oddly smooth, and as she dragged her finger across the edge, she felt a second layer begin to pull apart, a thin film peeling away to reveal the sheet with fresh ink and a flower that could be more closely inspected as none other than a word-wrapped spell scroll. Much like her first foray, this too seemed able to be applied to the skin, but this time, far more beautiful in the pattern; it could easily have been mistaken for nothing more than a blooming rose upon cursory inspection.

She held it for only a few moments, debating if adding yet another spell to her flesh was a good idea, and then decided to go ahead. Pressing the waxy paper to the back of her left hand, she felt that familiar grip as the paper latched to her skin, the words burning into her flesh as another spell was added, quite physically, to her arsenal. When the tingling was done and the paper was pulled away, all that was left was the pattern of the rose on her hand.

She still had no understanding how she was able to do such a thing when others couldn’t, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Looking her hand over once, then twice, Lilith grabbed hold of it and focused as hard as she could, pointing her hand at the fireplace in her room. A small bit of smoke started to appear, albeit briefly, before going out. Drat. Far more difficult than practicing her spectral hand. But it was okay; five days to practice such a spell. How hard could it be?

Saturday bled into Sunday, and not much changed in that time. Lilith spent most of the evening in front of the fireplace in the common space at the Delta tower with an assortment of sticks to practice her kindling. The fireplace had a brief moment where it seemed like a stick might catch fire, but truth be told (and not for our protagonist to know, just between you and I) it had better luck spontaneously combusting of its own accord.

Lilith spent the rest of the daylight she did have outside trying to practice the flame spell with Emily, to the detriment of her own sanity. There was something about being taught something that didn’t make sense that riled her up; To Lilith, there was no eviler a sentence than “It’s easy, just do this!”

It was the same for whistling. [47]

“Are you picturing a fireball in your mind’s eye?” Emily had asked under the shade of the gazebo.

“Yes, I am picturing a fireball in my mind’s eye.” Lilith said, holding her hand out while thinking on the spell. The words burned in her hand; so far that was the most she had been able to do. And raising the temperature on one’s hand was not much good besides a very, very lame party trick.

“How about thinking of the word?”

“Oh, you mean the word translated from a dead language thousands of years old? The one that sounds like Fire, but isn’t?”

“Fyr.”

“I said that. Fire.”

“No, Fyr.”

“Fyur.”

“Fyr.”

“I’M SAYING THAT!” Lilith shouted, the emotions bubbling up briefly. Of course that was when Inam and Twixtfeather approached, as was customary for tempers: they always flare when they make us look the biggest fools.

“Ah, a fireball spell?” Twixtfeather shouted, carrying a large steamer trunk as he walked behind Inam.

Lilith’s face contorted into a shameful blush, nodding.

Twixtfeather sat the trunk down near the steps of the gazebo, puffing his chest. “I too struggled with evocation, my dear. The best advice anyone ever gave me was to take a deep breath, to focus, and to not imagine the fireball appearing, but to already be in your hand.”

“Thank you Professor…” Lilith mumbled.

“What are you two doing out here?” Emily asked, looking between the pair and the luggage.

“I’ve elected to take a much needed vacation.” Professor Inam said, without making direct eye contact with either of the two. “I can take it from here, Augustus.”

“Yes, and she hasn’t taken any in quite some time. It’ll be good to see your home, Gwen.” Twixtfeather set the luggage down, dusting his wings off with a few claps of them together. “We shall be back over the area in one moon, if the calculations are correct.”

“Yes, that should be plenty of time. Do you mind if I have a word with these two?”

“Oh!” Twixtfeather hooted, nodding. “Of course, of course. Truth be told I’d like to watch the chaps down at the Mazeball field. I shall see you two in class tomorrow bright and early!” The owlperson said, hooting as he strode across the grass and down the hill towards the excitement.

At first, none of the three said a word, and then all at once Emily, Lilith, and Professor Inam all tried to speak simultaneously in a mish-mash of syllables.

“Professor-”

“We’re sor-”

“Before you-”

All three stopped. Inam took a deep breath, finally lifting her eyes to look up at the pair.

“You did what you thought was right. Do not apologize for that unless you have since learned something to change that belief. So, have you two learned something new?”

The pair shook their heads in unison.

“Good. Then listen well. You cannot go through life regretting every decision. You cannot live a life rooted firmly in the past while forging a better tomorrow. Just as much as we cannot live our lives in fear of the future while doing nothing to change that future. Do you understand?”

“I think?” Lilith answered truthfully. Adults liked to use confusing words just because they sounded pretty; they could almost always be counted on for that.

“Good enough. Hold onto that fiery spirit, Lilith Lavoi. More people like you are needed if we have any hope for the future. And Emil, do not be afraid to forge your own path. That is what I should have told you both much, much sooner.”

Inam grabbed the steamer trunk from the step, pulling it up to the teleporter with a smile that didn’t reach her rather sad eyes. “Please use the hours you would have spent in my class in the library. Study hard, I know you both will do wonderful things at the Weaving. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some family I’ve been avoiding seeing for a bit.”

The pair waved goodbye as Inam teleported away, and even though they had both received some absolution, neither truly felt that much better about it. Lilith retired to her room after the ordeal, practicing in private the rest of her last weekend before The Weaving, hoping to not waste the second chance Dwema and Professor Inam had afforded her.

Footnotes:

[45] The game of Catch is a lot more fun when one can curve the ball mid-air, or cause it to whistle and spark like a loose firework at a moment’s notice. And hide and seek is a downright different game with invisibility spells and spider-climbing enchantments.

[46] Mazeball was, as its name suggested, the struggle to move one heavy weighted anti-magic ball from one of six different entrances of the maze to the very center. Unlike the actual Weaving, it could be played in multiple teams. Much like the actual Weaving, it was prone to concussions, erosion of trust, destruction of friendships, and overzealous adults who screamed from the sidelines as they tried to live vicariously through the youth while they looked at their own time on the field through rose tinted glasses.

[47] If you do not know how to whistle, never tell a person who does. Every individual you meet will proceed to tell you how simple it is and then whistle in front of you as if this act alone will be the secret technique that finally makes it click. It will not. This will not stop them from trying.