Lies & Labyrinths

The second week of school always goes faster than the first; this holds true, even at a school of magic. The school had arrived at the Veilweaver’s Isle, but that did very little as far as things went. A heavy fog permeated the island, and as a result, the school. Mists rolled out the hall from the dormitory and blanketed the grounds around the buildings, making an ominous trek to the first class of the day for all the students. Klymviner was gone yet again, only a note on the board to give a clue as to her disappearance.

Gone on school business. Practice for the Weaving, all of you. Handwriting alone will not save you now. -Klymviner

As any class is wont to do without a teacher, the students ignored the assignment and spent the class talking and shouting over one another, tossing enchanted folded papers that sailed about the room (and were held aloft longer than they had any right to be by the laws of physics), and generally slacked off. Lilith took the time to actually study, reading the page on the evocation for Fire/Fyr no less than twenty times in the course of the lesson. It still didn't help.

Twixtfeather’s class had focused on the history of the Weaving, and of famous champions of yesteryear. The map of the world was instead replaced with a list of years and a drawing of that respective champion. When Twixtfeather tapped each year with the end of his staff the drawings would come to life to show the techniques each prior champion had used. Some had formed armor from the very earth around them, others had managed to teleport their entire graduating class onto a deserted island (all recovered in a mere matter of months, found shirtless fighting over a conch shell of a things), and some had even managed to conjure up the ghosts of previous champions to fight for them.

That last one caused a few heads to spin as the drawing showed a figure summoning more drawings (who each had their own gift) including one ghost who was well known for summoning spirits in his own time, and as a result summoned his own ghosts. It was a recursive nightmare that took the last quarter of the class to fully unpack, and by the end Lilith felt she had learned very, very little. So far the only route of success had been a matter of being a better mage than everyone else, and she definitely wasn’t about to fit that bill.

Besides the faint smell of blasting powder and the cordoned back-half, everything seemed back to normal in the library. Lilith took the time to study in silence, gathering an assortment of books on the Weaving, the Feyline Anchor itself, and anything that could be found on the Ninety Nine Blessings. The book on Weaving had mostly talked of the history of the school and was more of the same from Twixtfeather’s lecture. In fact, Lilith was fairly certain the professor had taken entire sections of the book verbatim in class. She flipped it over, groaning to see a picture of Twixtfeather in monochrome on the back; of course he had taken pages out. The birdman had written the very book on the matter. The book on the Feyline Anchor was less of anything helpful, and more one really big book full of conjecture. The more Lilith flipped through it, the more she realized that no one really knew what it was for, or where it had come from. It simply had been there ever since the school had been founded, and the book was nothing more than arguments for and against various things. Some thought that it was a gift from the Creator, others, the seed of destruction. All agreed that it seemed to sap all magic at The Weaving to charge itself, and most everyone agreed that without it, the school itself would fall from the sky and instability to weave spells from the veil would multiply with each passing day.

The last book on the Ninety-Nine blessings was almost all about the Ninety-Nine emperors and their various blessed items, all which referenced a list in the back of the only copy of the book, but Lilith was dismayed to find the page was missing. All that remained inside the book was a single playing card tucked in the seam. She didn’t even bother checking which one it was; she knew who had taken the list.

A professor that Lilith did not recognize by the name of Galvin was there to teach Conjuration, an older gentleman with eyebrows so bushy they looked like fuzzy caterpillars glued to his face. He was slow speaking and methodical, but seemed to know what he was doing as much as he was simply reading from a book written by the (presumably) late Professor Conrad. Lilith missed the staff most of all the teachers. It was amazing how an inanimate object could be better suited for student engagement than a living breathing adult, but then again living and breathing really didn’t equate to better teaching. Lilith was certain a mundane butter churner would be a better teacher than Arleigh.

Evocation was difficult without a second partner, let alone a classroom full of people Lilith had no connection to. She sat alone and read her evocation book, and for the most part Cobalt and Crimson left her alone, giving only the occasional encouraging hint to how to conjure a flame with such classics as “Just do this” and “Don’t think on it too hard, but don’t not think on it too hard.” Neither of which helped much.

Lilith had dreaded Arleigh’s class most of all. She had wounded with the destruction of the Model Loom, the Loomweaving machine, and the catalogue of prophecies, but she had not been the only casualty in her chaotic-good quest for justice. There had also been Arleigh, and all of his years of research.

He was downright soused when Lilith found him, his classroom barren, the three other Alphas surrounding his desk as the professor lay face down at his seat, a half finished bottle of brandy in a crystal decanter on the desk in front of him. No words would rouse him from his moans.

“How long has he been like that?” Lilith asked after she had worked up the bravery to speak to the students older, more gifted, and far more popular than she. The trio looked at her, smirked, then ignored her. The Beta student did however speak up, apparently roused from his book enough to say “Since Saturvas.”

“No one told you to speak, Alm.” one of the Alphas said.

“No one told you to be an arse.” Alm the Beta responded. He glanced back at Lilith. “The dwarf from Delta blipped all the scrolls, and all the materials in the school, including his secret stash. Also thrashed all his detention slips.”

“Should we tell an adult?” She asked.

“Yeah you get right on that. Your friend destroys his life’s work and you get him fired.” said one of the trio to Lilith.

He’s doing that himself, thought Lilith, but didn’t say as much. Sooner or later, someone would find him in such a state. It wasn’t her place to be justice anymore.

Granted, nobody had asked her to be justice in the first place over the weekend, but this felt like kicking a man when he was already down. The Alphas left after a few more attempts to rouse Arleigh before giving up and agreeing as a group to go practice at the Mazeball field. Alm was the only one to bother to stay, going into Arleigh’s back room and returning with a blanket, draping it over the man’s shoulder before he himself started to head to the door.

“Where are you going?” Lilith bothered to ask.

“To find an adult before he drinks himself to death.” Off Alm went, leaving Lilith alone in the room with her broken adversary. She approached Arleigh’s desk after the last student had left, clearing her throat as she neared.

“Professor?”

“Wuzzat?” Arleigh said, barely looking up.

“I’m sorry about how things ended up.”

“Why? Whad’d’you’do Lilith?” The man said in a slurred run-on sentence.

“Nothing, just, heard about it through the grapevine.”

The man grabbed the bottle of brandy at the mention of grapes. “Well the grapes are LIARS!” his voice jumped quite a few decibels, swinging his other hand for effect. His empty glass went sliding off the desk from the accidental brushing of the drunken man’s hand, Lilith casually reaching out and catching it before the drunken man had to contend with glass shards across his rather empty classroom.

“Izzz not fair. I -hic- worked so hardddd!” Arleigh lifted his head up, showing two bleary eyes and a runny nose, with a face redder than the time the pigs back home had gotten into the fermented apples in the compost heap. “I’m a great wizzzzard! The best-est-est. Not from no stick in the mud town like Breadsville. From Hild...Hild…”

“Hildegard?” Lilith offered. That explained the prejudice against her, she thought, All Hildegardians thought they were better than those from the East.

“Azza-one.” Arleigh nodded. “Was gonn...gonn… gonna make sumfin of m’self. Make m’dad proud. Son of a merchant, make som’in of m’self that weren’t about no gold, not ’bout financing. HAH! Fat lot that did. Juss’a diff’rent kinda merchant. Magic merchant.”

“I’m sure your father is proud.” Lilith offered.

Arleigh sobbed, dropping his head onto the desk with a rather painful sounding thud. “Daddy… I ruined it all…” And then the heavy crying began.

Lilith crept backwards from the desk, growing rather uncomfortable being the most mature sounding person in the room. She nearly backed into Professor Cobalt, who had been fetched by Alm. Cobalt grimaced at the sight of Arleigh, beckoning Lilith to approach before closing the door and turning the lights off to let the man continue to wallow in his own self pity.

“I apologize Lilith, you shouldn't have seen that. Sometimes adults have moments of weakness. We try to not judge a person by how hard they fall, but how quickly they climb back. At least, we should. But there are of course consequences.”

“Is Monsieur Arleigh going to be fired?”

“It’s not my place to say. But no teacher should ever be drunk on the job. Why don’t you come back to Evocation for the rest of the week? Don’t worry about your grade here. I’ll take care of it.”

“What about detention?”

Cobalt put on the best smile they could. “Let’s not worry about that this week. Let’s focus instead on getting you ready for the Weaving.”

At least something good had come out of the class Lilith worked the rest of the day in Evocation, sitting in a spot near one of the windows that overlooked the garden. She had a front row seat to watch as Twixtfeather and Cobalt had led Arleigh towards the teleporter, carrying a large box of personal things from his desk shortly before the last bell of the school day rang. She wouldn’t see him again on this side of The Weaving. Funny how things worked out; that would probably be the thing that saved the man from the calamity that waited on the horizon.