Lies & Labyrinths

The bell had rang a few minutes after they had ironed out a schedule for their new magical toy. It was decided that Emil would get the first turn with it, seeing as Lilith had a go with it already, and if anyone needed a mask that could change one’s appearance, it was the boy sneaking out of the girl’s restroom.

Emil had disguised himself as Lilith, and they spent a few moments practicing her mannerisms, as well as the portion of the enchantment that dealt with language. It seemed if one thought really hard about Common, they wouldn’t find themselves suddenly speaking in a different language. The trick, as it were, was to keep one’s mind focused.

Emil had slipped out first, Lilith counting to thirty before taking the opposite direction. She did her best to navigate the school, looking at the map that was printed on the back of her class list , missing the magpie map that had been far more visible in its directions. She made it with some trouble to the next class, feeling a knot of tension with the uncertainty of what awaited her next as she stepped up to an empty class with an open door.

Lilith’s hand knocked at the doorframe as she entered. The teacher, Professor Inam, jumped, looking up. Her face grew pale, and it took a few deep breaths before she said something.

“Miss Lavoi, please, come in.”

Lilith looked about the room, and of the various tapestries that hung about it, as well as what appeared to be throw blankets with notes attached to them, stapled to the walls. There were many tables, but most seemed to have a nice layer of dust upon them. The desk of Professor Inam was cluttered, without much care for appearances. The table near the front seemed to be in better use, and Lilith thought she saw fresh carving on the wood of a bored student or two.

“Am I in the right class?”

“Why, yes. I apologize for the low turnout. This class is an elective after a student’s first quarter, most finish out and do not sign up again.”

“Oh.” Lilith said. She bit her tongue from adding ′that’s sad’.

The woman smiled a well rehearsed smile, gesturing to the front row. “Grab a seat anywhere you’d like, or pull it up near my desk. That’s fine too.”

Lilith thought about keeping a good ten feet from the woman by sitting behind a desk at the far corner, but felt that would be way too awkward to handle for the quarter she would be staying in the class before high-tailing it for something else. Instead she grabbed a chair, dragging it along the floor with the effectiveness of a youth being forced into something that seemed both pointless and confusing. [20] It squeaked and scraped in syncopation with the skips of one leg bouncing against the corners and ends of the desks on Lilith’s journey towards the front.

“I.. apologize for my outburst yesterday.” Inam said when Lilith had finally taken a seat across from her, nerves slightly more frayed from the squeaks, scrapes and scratches of the chair’s journey.

“It’s fine. So what’s with all the blankets?” Lilith asked, feeling it was one of the least offensive things a teacher could have done in comparison to her first period class.

Professor Inam took a moment to process the question before giving a soft “Oh! This. Yes.” Inam laughed nervously, scratching her neck, hand brushing against the bun that kept her hair from touching her robe. “This is Loomreading. Have you heard of the Sable Loom?”

“Yes!” Lilith said, before she could have a chance to stop herself.

“Really?” The woman said, somewhere between shocked and suspicious.

“Errr. Yes. I heard a student say the word in the hall.” A complete and total lie. But it was hard to say she had heard it from a burglar that she technically owed a favor to.

“Oh! Did you catch more beyond that?”

Lilith shook her head no.

“Well, the Sable Loom is an object older than the universe itself. A sort of model of the universe too.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. How can something be older than the universe? Isn’t it in the universe?”

“It’s a very confusing model.” Inam said, which was maddening in its own rite. “Many believe that each life is a thread, weaving through the tapestry of life. And to see the bigger picture, one can admire the seemingly insignificant threads that influence all the others. These displays on the wall are smaller segments of the tapestry, famous prophecies that have come to pass.”

“So wouldn’t they just be history lessons?”

“History lessons predicted hundreds of years before they were history.” Inam added.

She seemed really happy about this topic, so Lilith let the woman have it. Instead, she broached the elephant in the room.

“So how do you read a bunch of threads? And why’d you freak out when I gave you my name?”

“It might be easier with a visual aid.” Inam said, standing and grabbing her wand from the desk. She paced to the back of the classroom, where a sigil had been carved in the tile. “Now, this is a bit under regulatory range for teleportation, but I convinced Conrad to make a shortcut as I do hate the walk from here through the library. Would you care for a quick tele?”

Lilith shrugged, standing and following.

“Now, hold my hand please. This is a precise teleport, it needs me for authentication. We can’t have any outsiders sneaking into the library because of me.” Inam smiled, but Lilith only felt a pang of apprehension, thinking of the Knave. The teleport circle began to glow much like the more permanent teleport stones she had seen elsewhere, the lights flickering and surrounding them a bright lime green.

And then they were in a large dome room that took Lilith’s breath away.

It was a sight to behold; a magnificently large tapestry floated up from the end of a great monolith; First from two, then three threads, then on to ten of different colors, each woven into some massive display of a patterned assortment of colors that got more and more complicated in layered portions. But it was not in one singular twist; the tapestry had many dimensions, and parts of it seemed to rotate on its own, or have a pattern that only existed if you looked at it from one angle. It flowed on for sometime before meeting to a certain point, from which the patterns seemed to break into a frenzy, and then into thousands of strands that all rushed towards a singular point, with a heavy string that seemed to float back around and wander aimlessly amongst the other strings.

And that was just the main part. The room itself was covered with filing cabinets that comprised the dome wall, each labeled with numbers, reaching high to the ceiling. There was an assortment of brass machinery that could be seen through an opaque monolithic structure at the bottom that looked like the innards to clocks, with gizmos and springs, as well as glass faces that magnified certain sections, with lenses that focused on different colors. Then on top of those had been extra strings stretching out, with parchments, scribbles, page numbers, and dates. Some had names. Some had a list of names, most crossed out. Some had names, question marks, crossed out names, and heavily underlined names.

“Is this the work from a crazy person?”

“Far from it!” Professor Inam chirped joyfully. “This is one-tenth scaled model of the Sable Loom, and my cornerstone project from when I graduated the Veilweaver’s Academy. I fashioned this over the year I worked at the original, then reassembled it for the school. It’s not exactly to scale, but dimensions are off in there.”

“Where’s the original?”

“It’s in The Labyrinth of the Loom. And the entrance isn’t stationary. In fact, it’s a rather big deal when it makes its appearance known and we can access it. The event is known as The Weaving; the point when our worlds align. When magic meets material, and above becomes below.”

“Is that what everyone’s been in a big fuss over? Because everything’s getting crossed?”

“That’s right. The Feylands, The Midlands, and the Downlands.”

“I’ve never heard of the Downlands.” Lilith admitted. “I assume the Feylands are where faeries are from?”

“And the First Elves, and the faun, and where we get our magic. Or it was. The-”

“Calamity. I learned about it in Twixtfeather’s.”

“Yes, well…we lost it then. There, actually.”

The professor reached out to a section of the threads with her wand, and illuminated the area. A section of the fabric simply floated away, frazzled like split ends where there should have been a connection. In fact, it seemed there was a top layer of the veil completely missing altogether; The Veil was incomplete. Broken. She supposed that made reality broken too.

That made Lilith very, very anxious.

“The Calamity did that?”

“Or something else at that time. While we can see the effect, we cannot see the cause. That is where prophecy comes in. It is not just the Veil and the Loom we see.”

Inam tapped her wand against the Model Loom, and patterns began to come to life; making fireworks and audio, and in some cases, began to cause strings to phase through each other in impossible dimensions. Where there had been The Calamity was a swirl of green magic that reconnected after it and continued the pattern.

“The magic keeps it going and so reality keeps going, simply because not enough damage has been done. It’s not just the calamity, though. Holes have occurred through various means.”

“How can magic happen without the Feylands?”

“Well, those that have fey ancestry in some form, or those that made a pact with the Downlands. Since it can be stored in the thread of a person itself, even though the source is gone, that magic is out there, ready to be harnessed at the right place and time.”

“I think I understand.” Lilith said, looking up at the veil and wondering where her own thread was. She didn’t yet ask, a question tugging at her.

“Professor, you had mentioned The Downlands? What are they?”

“Ah yes, well, The Downlands are below our realm, so to speak. There is no “below”, though that is the best way to conceptualize. The aether that is not collected has some weight to it, and naturally pulls towards this location. Like a drain, or a sietch. And each section does not necessarily fit. This disjointed place is home to many beings that thrive on the sustenance of aether to survive. These creatures are demons, devils, and djinn. Djinn grant wishes, which drain the world of the precious remaining magic we have left to keep the Veil afloat. Devils offer contracts in means to unravel, and demons…”

The professor pulled a lever, the light below the loom changing to blanket the tapestry in a deep crimson glow. It showed something altogether different: red light filtered through, showing holes that had been poked, torn, and otherwise shredded, much like the shooting stars through the ring around the eastern moon.111

“Demons tear. They don’t care to unravel. They just want in.”

Lilith shivered at the thought. “Got it. Is there a way to fix the damage?”

“There once were custodians who could repair such things. We called them celestials, angels by some. They could resew and restitch. But there hasn’t been any for a hundred years. To make one, souls could be appointed by the gods of law and chaos to reincarnate into such heavenly duties. But the last goddess recorded in the loom was lost along with her name after the Calamity, during the Great Aftershock. [21] No gods, no angels. Only Veilweavers now to keep the balance.”

The professor paused for dramatic effect. “At least, we will. For two weeks to four years.”

“I see- wait, two weeks or four years?”

“Yes, well. As I said, I studied the Loom for my thesis. Devoted my life to it. And there was always one string that fascinated me.”

Inam stepped up near the controls and pulled a different lever. The platform lifted, bringing her up nearer the tapestry, and turned three magnifying glasses. This helped illuminate one thread of billions that seemed intertwined, wrapped around between the colors red and blue. It was loose, and seemed to move about the entire loom.

“This thread should not exist. It starts from seemingly three sources instead of two, as if there were a third parent string. It seems to float about, longer than the rest, and yet if it becomes untangled, or pulled upon…”

Inam reached out and hooked her wand in the string, tugging at the thread.

The entire model unraveled.

“It all falls apart. That string has long seemed imperfect and a source of much contention. It is not the only string that leads to the end, but it is there. And I have always wondered who it could be. Until a name was written in the book of prophecies that described such a string in the Loom of Fate.”

Inam pressed a button, the platform lowering and the magnifying glasses retracting as everything returned to status quo, including the loom which began to re-stitch itself from the machinery below. It would take quite some time to re-compile,Inam stepped off of the platform and began striding towards one of two doors as she gave it time to finish. She fetched a set of keys from beneath her collar, attached to a silver necklace she kept on her at all times. She unlocked the door, ushering Lilith in.

There was a room just beyond the model of the loom. This one had a pedestal with a large book upon it, and many tables with stacks of trace paper to make copies.

“This is a copy of the Book of the Unwritten End. The original was stolen from these halls some six years ago.”

“All the prophecies are written here?”

“Yes. We have note cards attached in the other room to where we think the prophecies relate-”

“You mean they’re not certain?”

“Well, it’s a bit of a guessing game. And sometimes things do not become clear until they have already passed us by and we can see them.”

The book was open to a particular prophecy, seemingly the last one that Inam had been studying.

Born in the rain and snow,

Daughter of Law and Chaos,

This bipolar childe shall bridge the gap

And mend the broken Veil.

She shall reveal herself with name writ

By her own hand e’re before she was born

Ye shall know her sighting by signs of three

An increase of Stygians shall emerge upon the plane

And the fever of a hidden moon shall spread as a great blight.

And a black cat shall trip the professor who finds this prophecy

You shall know her name as Lilith Lavoi

Didn’t exactly flow; in fact the last two lines seemed hastily scribbled compared to the rest, as if the prophecy’s writer had started well intentioned but ran out of steam along the way. She supposed not all the great prophecies could be winners, by sheer odds a few had to be some real stinkers.

Lilith had thought that had been the end, her finger brushing against a parchment that had been folded in. There was a note of some sort affixed there, someone having made a second passage, seemingly attempting to connect the prophecies together.

A city shall rise in the east,

and when one can tread

from The Beginnings of The Sands of Law

to the Edge of Chaos’s Mire,

so too shall the Beginning reach to the End.

“Your name was written next to the string on my model. I found it on the day that the original Book of the Unwritten End was stolen. That copy was left in its place, along with a final prophecy, one that was never verified. Same handwriting as the one that wrote in your name. The Last Prophecy.”

Inam flipped the copy to the very last page, tapping it and letting Lilith read.

First return the Elves

Then return the Dragons

Then returns The Darkness.

Lilith stared at the prophecy, raising an eyebrow.

“But the elves are gone.”

“So they say. Your parents, are they…?”

“Mundane. Human.”

“Not even a quarter…?”

“No elves. Farmers.”

“Hmm. Well, maybe a long lost relative, or a milkman…” Inam muttered to herself, tapping her lips. “Well, we can’t be sure. But I believe that you are the sign that the world is about to end. Either in four years, or two weeks.”

The bell rang. Lilith was thankful for that. She didn’t know what to tell the teacher; “Don’t worry, I lied to get in and Lilith isn’t even my real name, there’s no way I could be responsible for the end of the world”. That would possiblyu alleviate the woman’s conscience. It’d also condemn Lilith to a life as Penelope Wheat again.

She had almost forgotten her name after a day of it. Having her name being called Lilith, she was starting to grow attached to it. And even if she still had class and detention with Arleigh, she had something to prove.

But still…

It wasn’t her name. She had just stolen it. Which meant someone would be using that name.

Maybe Professor Inam was right. Maybe the world was bound to end in the next four years. Things weren’t the best home; people were arguing about the old king and his two sons, and who would be a good inheritor. Not that Lilith saw any good from either. And beyond old Avalon, or Dorwine, or whatever the blazes they wanted to call, the rest of Temrin didn't seem too great. Especially not what she had seen in her first history lesson.

“That’s the lunch bell, dear.” Professor Inam called, snapping Lilith from her train of thought.

“Right. Where’s that?”

“The Great Hall. You’ll find it has many purposes. Mess Hall, Dance Hall, Test Hall. Let’s take my tele back, it’s a lot faster of a walk.”

The two retraced their steps back to the matching sigil in the Model Veil room, blinking across the school to the old class.

“Thanks” Lilith said, giving a little curtsy. “See you tomorrow then, Professor?”

“Yes. Same time. Have a good day.” The woman seemed a bit more calm, especially since noting the mundanity of her family. Inam privately wondered if maybe there were two Lilith Lavois in the world. It was an uncommon name, but there were so many Tiffanys and Johns and Marks, it was bound to happen. Anything, she thought, to belay the gnawing fear of the inescapable doom possibly a fortnight away.

Footnotes:

[20] In other words, laboriously slow and half-hearted.

[21] The Great Aftershock, or, The Doom of Avalon as Lilith would come to learn in her academic career, had been the great calamity and the last gasp of the lost kingdom. Her father had told her the story in bed once, on a night where she had been caught with a nasty fever. While she lay delirious asking for bedtime stories he had held her hand and stroked her forehead where the damp cloth lay, and told her the tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round. How they had conquered the lands and had driven out the nasty Hildegardians and their ever expansive desire for Avalonian soil. And then her father had told her of a great light that he himself had witnessed, A beam of some great divine power that destroyed the lands, Kamylot and the round table, as well as most of the great houses. How the lands turned to sand, and sands turned to pillars of glass. How the seas boiled, and all manner of creature had washed ashore, including many a merfolk, some believing the very last of their kind. Arthur had died, or had been killed mere hours before if the stories were true, by a beloved knight. That was why things were rough, Lilith’s father had told her, squeezing her hand, his voice shaking. All the wrong in the world could be traced to that terrible night, to the Doom of Avalon, when the last good in the world was gone and fools were left to rule the world.

Lilith’s father never talked like that again, so open and honest, and that had scared her. That had been the first real glimpse behind the veil of who her father was and what he had seen, and just as soon as it had come, he had gone back to being the kind quiet farmer he had been. But she would never forget those stories of the knights and the loss that had befallen her homelands, and the ache of something missing she never had known before.