Lies & Labyrinths

Lilith was quiet in Twixtfeather’s. He didn’t seem to notice, but that wasn’t exactly his fault. The owl-man was deep into conversation with a green sickly looking youth at the front of the class that she couldn’t be certain was a half-orc. As for the rest of the class, no one noted Lilith’s late entrance into class because a useless mage was far less interesting than the trio of strange new students. Whispers amongst her peers denoted them as Stygian. She had never seen one, never had even been described one before. They seemed mostly human. Each of the three however were of red, blue or purple toned skin, and all of them had horns. The blue one had small nubs on their forehead and ruby eyes. The red one had long purple horns that jutted straight out with a light curve, with purple spots across their body and over one eye. And the purple one had long curved goat horns, with stripes of blue and red across their flesh, with a tail that flicked behind them with a spaded end.

The class stared at the Stygians.

The Stygians stared back.

The bell interrupted all the staring, and Professor Twixtfeather hooted. “Alright, everyone, take a seat.”

Lilith glanced about for an open spot, sighing in relief at the sight of Emil beaming, patting a chair next to him just for her.

“Before we begin, I have one rule that I hold higher than any other.” Twixtfeather said. Lilith’s stomach dropped, and she instinctively flinched as if expecting yet another case of humiliation.

“If you have any questions, please just raise your hand and ask.” Twixtfeather gave a wink, tapping her desk as he sat down a history book for Lilith to add to her book bag. It was the first tome she had received; apparently Klymviner didn’t even trust her enough to have her own book.

This did wonders for relieving some of the anxiety as she straightened back up.

Twixtfeather returned to his podium. “Now, we last left off on Emperor Norton’s reign, known as the most peaceful of the human emperors until the Calamity-”

Lilith raised her hand, feeling a bit foolish.

“Yes my dear?” Twixtfeather called upon her.

“What was the Calamity, professor?”

Everyone sighed in relief. Lilith glanced around, lifting an eyebrow to Emil who wrote on the corner of his notebook, then turned it for Lilith’s view.

The moment he gets off topic, no tests or homework.

“That lesson isn’t due to be taught until next quarter, but I do love the subject. No one is certain the precise details, but at the beginning of the Thousandth Jubilee, when debts were forgiven and the new emperor was to be crowned, a great calamity befell the island of Sulore.”

Twixtfeather turned to the map, tapping a spot in the top right.

“This spot was once host to a great island. The continent of Sulore. Have you ever heard of it my dear?”

Lilith shook her head no.

“It was the primary seat of all power for Temrin, where a new emperor was crowned every hundred years, a rare convergence of the Material realm and the Feylands. And it stayed there for thousands of years, as the seat of our world's government. A great explosion rippled out from the island of pure aetherical energy. It cost approximately fifty million lives, with it erasing all from the Feylands with it. Elves, gnomes, faun, as well as every mythical talking creature, gone in an instant from the rest of the waking world. The island itself was blanketed in a great storm, Aetherus Creui, the Maelstrom as we call it, and the seat of power for the known world was shattered. Temrin spent a century rebuilding itself, what we in the historical society call The Great Reshaping, before Sulore was safe to set foot on.”[17]

Professor Twixtfeather turned towards the board, lifting some chalk and beginning to write out some dates and names.

“During this time, magic as a whole began to disappear from our world, and the Veilweavers became tasked with patching the hole in the fabric of space-time. For one hundred years our focus was turned in keeping reality from folding in on itself, and as such certain aetherically gifted individuals managed to rise in power.” Twixtfeather wrote a name and some dates.

The Lord of Skorn, ?? BC - 100 AC

Twixtfeather tapped the name for emphasis. “One such individual managed to hide his very name from the Veil itself. So much, that we aren't even sure of his date of birth. Only his death.”

Lilith thought she saw Emil sink lower into his seat out of the corner of her eye. Twixtfeather didn’t seem to notice, moving across the map to the left corner, where the largest continent was located.[18]

“The Lord Of Skorn united various tribes of warriors, occultists, and yes, magic users across Canaan to take over the western world as we know it. Both nature and chaos magick bent to his whim, and it has been the debate of many esteemed individuals over to who he was and how this person came to be.”

The map began to change before Lilith’s eyes. This was commonplace for the other students, but to Lilith, it was one of the greatest things she had ever seen. The continent of Skjorn grew bigger, zooming in to show borders, as well as flags and crests over little towns. Professor Twixtfeather wrote the date in the top corner, then tapped it twice. The map began to shift and change, the territories changing with it. At first there were hundreds of small clans and groups that shrank to dozens of larger bubbles, before consolidating towards the east with large territories of places like Hildegarde. Steadily, one grew on the left corner. A symbol of a spiral showed up in the west and soon that symbol began to be raised elsewhere. Sometimes by banner, sometimes by blood. Conquest.

“The Westerlands were always known as a place of chaos, which is to be expected in a continent that for the most part worshiped the personification of Chaos in one shape or form for hundreds of years. What changed this time can be boiled down to some key points from a war perspective-

Professor Twixtfeather was getting excited, his back turned from the board as he began to go deeper into discussion about the ramifications of decisions, all the while the map began to grow red with the encircling spiral symbol.

It was that moment when Emil stood, rushing out of the room. Nobody noticed but Lilith; the kids were already back to staring at the Stygians.

The Stygians stared back, yet again.

Lilith’s eyes watched between the groups, feeling a standoff begin to settle. While Twixtfeather blathered on about differences between the various engagements, a divide was forming between the class. On one side sat all of the established students, and on the other, the trio of new students, with Lilith a neutral party in the middle.

“Psst. Hey. New girl.” someone whispered. She turned her head, finding the short haired blonde boy from her first class. His voice sounded oddly enough like the voice that had had shouted “Is that all?” that morning. It also sounded like one of the voices that had been whispering behind her back in her previous class.

“Yeah?”

“You know they’re devils right?”

“What?”

“Those three. Stygians? Devils. They’re barely even human.”

Lilith’s stomach knotted. This was wrong; but there were so many of them. She felt legitimate fear. It was the fear of an in-crowd that would certainly just as easily become an out-crowd against you at the drop of a hat.

There was no peace in that future, one where she joined the other humans. Only an anxiety, waiting for them to descend upon her when the biggest target was no longer in the picture, much like a pack of jackals. Strong in number, cowardly alone.

So Lilith chose the scariest option of them all. She spoke up.

“Leave them alone.” It was barely a whisper, but it was defiance.

The student leaned forward. “Speak up. Klymviner was right about you being a mumbler.”

Lilith bent forward, sticking one her left arm into her school bag, letting it hang limp. She felt the back of her hand brush against the mask she had stolen, her hand gripping the textbook from Twixtfeather while beckoning the boy closer with her right hand.

The bully leaned forward.

She felt a small spark, not unlike cold electricity, and as she spoke, she felt the lighting from her hand race up to her tongue and a language she did not understand came slipping out.

{“I said leave them alone.”}

A few things unfolded in quick succession: Lilith’s third hand grabbed the waistband of the young man’s undergarments, yanking upward into a magical wedgie for the ages, then immediately grabbed hold of her left arm to bring it up into an uppercut. She stood as she swung, moving into a motion to seem as if she were throwing her backpack over her shoulder, raising her right hand as she did.

The bully in quick summation was yanked forward, then by hit with the force of a full uppercut that sent him sailing back into his seat; all that Twixtfeather saw when he turned back around was a student with her hand raised, and a boy dazed and staring at the ceiling.

“Professor?”

“Yes Miss Lavoi?”

“May I be excused to the restroom?”

“Certainly dear! Down the hall on the left.”

Lilith took the opportunity to book it for the exit, shoes squeaking as she tried to shuffle as fast as possible without being called out for running. She glanced between the group of toadies in the out-group who stared in shock, waiting for orders from their still dazed leader, and then glanced to the trio, who stared in shock for a completely different reason.

{“She speaks our tongue?”} one of the Stygians said to the others, leaning in to begin whispering to the other two.

The moment she was beyond the sight of the classroom door, Lilith ran at full sprint, knowing full well that there would be swift retribution for what had just transpired, and her tormentor would soon be upon her. She didn’t look back until she stood in front of a pair of two doors, one with a stick figure, and the other with a stick figure and wearing a triangle at the bottom. [19]

Lilith glanced to her left. The bully was out the doorway, running full speed at her with a bloody nose dripping away. She scrambled into the women’s restroom, pushing the door open and then throwing all of her weight behind the door to keep it shut. There was the BANG of a full sized pre-teen running into the door, and he even managed to scoot an inch open before Lilith mustered enough force it closed again. There was a small brick alcove that provided a wall for sinks just around the corner. It also gave Lilith the luck of a place to wedge herself, sticking her legs out vertically and keeping the door closed with her back and hands while her feet pressed against the stone wall.

The bully ran full speed into the door again, growling.

“I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!”

Someone squeaked from deeper within the women’s restroom.

Another slam, full speed. The door refused to budge, Lilith grimacing as she felt the vibrations run through her body.

“This isn’t over!” The voice hissed, much quieter. Someone must have poked their head out of a classroom door.

There was the sound of footsteps scuffling away. She was alone.

“Is he gone?” A familiar voice called from a stall.

Lilith waited, still wedged vertically, for one last running shove that never arrived. She crawled down the wall then righted herself up, brushing her arms off of any loose dirt.

She walked around to the stalls, finding only one to be closed, at the very end of the lot. “Yeah, he’s gone. Is that you Emil?”

There was silence from the last stall, followed by a soft “Yeah.”

“Why are you in the girl’s bathroom?”

“Can we say it’s because of Christopher and call it a day?”

“Who?”

The stall door opened. Emil sat on the toilet with the lid closed, hugging his backpack close to his chest.

“Christopher Stonehammer. The leader of those boys. They harassed me every time I went into the boys’ room, so I eventually stopped going in there.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Eh, it doesn’t bother me.” Emil said with a shaky smile. “I’m just glad that you’re okay. What in the seven hells did you do?”

“I may have done a magic wedgie and clobbered that Chris fellow in the schnoz when he started picking on the Stygians.”

Emil raised an eyebrow. “Weird hill to die on but okay.”

“If it wasn’t them, it’d be us.”

“No, it is us. So officially, It’s us against them now.”

Lilith sighed, taking a seat. “I suppose we should be going back to class.”

Emil laughed a soft alto laugh at that. “Professor Twixtfeather still going on a tangent when you left?”

“Yeah.”

“He won’t notice then, right up ’til bell. You’ll learn quick.”

They had a moment to breathe, at least until the bullies arrived in greater numbers. Lilith took a look around, noting a small alcove that was rather clean compared to the floor of a magic school’s bathroom. She hopped up into it, letting her feet dangle and heels kick against the stone brick while she opened up her bag. “Do you have Klymviner’s class?” Lilith asked, looking at Emil from her perch.

“Yeah, it’s my next class.”

Lilith started to open her bag, then stopped. “Okay, you promise you’re not gonna be one of those kids who seem cool, then immediately go off and tell an adult everything on a whim, right?”

“Yeah of course not, those kids are tossers.”

Lilith squinted. “I mean it.”

“No, seriously! I promise!”

She sighed, reaching into her bag once more. “Okay, well. She had a puzzle box for an assignment. I figured it out, but she wouldn’t let me solve it because my handwriting is bad. So! I might have opened it when no one was looking.” Lilith pulled out the mask, her fingers trailing against the wood, sending familiar sparks of electric up her hand and to her mouth.

{“This mask was inside the puzzlebox they were trying to open. And I might have taken it because I thought I knew what it did.”}

Emil’s eyes widened, saying back in the same language, one Lilith was completely unfamiliar with “{You’re speaking Oshmari right now.}”

Lilith put the mask back in the bag. “I am? Or, I was?”

“Yeah. Fluently. Which is weird because it’s usually people with bird droppings in their hair that know that one.”

Lilith giggled. “Okay so, magic mask that lets you say any language. Cool. That doesn’t explain how I knew elvish-”

“What?”

“Oh, I guess you weren’t there.”

And so Lilith took the mask out and recanted the previous chapter up until that point in Oshmari, in case there were any prying ears.

Emil watched Lilith, glancing at the mask every now and then as she spoke. When she was done, he stretched a hand out. “May I see it?”

Lilith floated the mask over, dropping it in his open palm. He traced his finger across the wood, flipping it over and reading the various etching across the materials.

{“It’s feywood, this mask.”} Emil said to Lilith in elven.

“Well, that just leaves me with more questions than answers.” Lilith grabbed the mask back, pulling it up to look it over herself. How in blazes did she know elvish?

“The writing’s in whatever you just spoke. ‘To any face, to any tongue, a mask of many, hewn from one.’”

“It could be dangerous.”

“Yes, but I saw someone using a mask just like this. And that wasn’t even the bare minimum of cool things it could do.”

“I still don’t think- oh you’re doing it anyway.” Emil said in a deflated tone as Lilith slipped the mask on.

Now, how does this work? Lilith thought to herself. All the Knave had done was shifted into the person. They hadn’t said a word or anything. Was it thought based? Lilith tried to think of a teacher; her brain was burned with the image of Klymviner. She thought of the sound of her sharp tongue. She thought of her two-faced personality. She thought of the disappointed scowl and how easily she had dismissed Lilith with a look of boredom as she had tried to stammer a reply.

Lilith blinked, and felt the mask shift into her skin, sinking in like a heavy cream before dissipating.

“Wow!” Emil gasped, covering his mouth.

Lilith turned to look towards the mirror that hung above the sink. She looked exactly like Bella Klymviner, down to the thin black robed dress that she wore. Lilith slid off of the alcove, walking up to the reflection and admiring the details.

Lilith heard the door open, and so did Emil; he slowly closed and locked his own stall door before the next person entered.

“Shoulda stayed with your legs against the door, you little-” Christopher Stonehammer said, rounding the corner before shooting straight up at the sight of Lilith disguised as Klymviner.

“I beg your pardon young man, what ever do you think you’re doing?” Lilith said in the perfect cadence and tone of her teacher.

“I-I-I”

“You-you-you?” Lilith tried to go for gold with the impression of the condescending woman, leaning in to her sharp tongue. “You have no excuse. It’s just me in here, and if I ever hear of you or your friends stepping foot within the sanctity of this room, I will see to it you spend the rest of the year in a fish bowl with gills.”

“Y-y-yes ma’am th-th-th”

“You’re welcome that you’re walking and not swimming out of here right now, and you should be running. We will never speak of this again.”

Christopher Stonehammer went sprinting from the sanctity of the women’s restroom. He would give a follow-up apology to a very confused Klymviner later, who would brush it off to some other problem the boy had gotten into in his academic career as the resident authoritarian-in-training.

Lilith pulled the mask off, breaking out into laughter. Emil stepped out of the stall, hunched over gripping his stomach in a similar fit. It was a small victory, and it would be short lived, but they enjoyed every moment of it.

Lilith slipped the mask off, tugging it back into her bag while still fighting with her case of the giggles.

“Okay, so maybe we keep this thing for a bit. Find a time to give it back.”

“Yeah, totally. We can take turns too.”

“That seems fair.” Lilith pondered it over. “But we have to agree now, not to rat the other out if caught.”

Emil pondered the terms as well. “Okay. Shake on it.”

And so they did, unaware just what the two held within their grasp, and what was to unfold.

Footnotes:

[17] More of which can be found in the book Runes & Ruins.

[18] Skjorn to some, Canaan to others. New Canaan to even more others. Just like Avalon to Dorwine, lands changed names with each new ruler. To the west, however, that happened far more often, leading to a multitude of names scribbled out on even the most intricate of maps.

[19] Thankfully, she knew the answer to this cryptographic riddle. The stick figure was supposed to represent boys, and the triangle was supposed to be girls. She knew this, because adults always threw a stink if you put two stick figures or two sticks with triangles together when drawing families.