The arch-magister of the university leaned back in her chair and regarded the curious student seated opposite her desk. This was something unusual about this situation, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She felt as though she had recognized some unfamiliar detail, but that it had been locked into the back of her mind, where she couldn't draw it out.
"What is the fundamental essence of magic?" she asked. "What sort of question is that?"
The student cleared her throat. "Well, you know, we go into such detail in our lessons," she explained. "But I thought someone like you might have something to say about the, you know, heart of it all."
The archi-magister contemplated the question suspiciously. It was one of those questions that could be answered with a single sentence, or else with a forty-pound tome dedicated to establishing the introduction to a framework under which the question might potentially have meaning. This was hardly how she had planned on spending her office hours.
"If you're looking for a thesis topic..." the stately wizard offered.
But the student shook her head. "Oh no, thank you. I was just interested in what you had to say about it. If you could give me even an introduction, I'd really appreciate it."
An introduction to magic, from the highest arcane post in all of Ivangard. This was unusual. That must be what her intuition was trying to alert her to, she decided.
"Very well," she began with a sigh. "The most fundamental classification of magical potentials is divided into four parts, as you may well know." She rattled them off on her fingers. "The creation of patterns, the enforcement of patterns, the destruction of patterns, and then of course, the fourth discipline, the resolution of patterns. Different practitioners have different innate inclinations to the various potentials, although with rigorous study..."
"Sorry," the student interrupted impudently. "Do you think you could define 'pattern' for me?"
The archi-magister blinked. "Pattern. You honestly want me to describe what a pattern is for you?" The student's eyes darted to the side, suddenly nervous. The thought itched at the back of her head again. She leaned forward, arms leaning on her desk, reclaiming her authority. "What class did you say you were again?"
Miri squirmed, defensively pulling the magical cloak a bit more tightly around her neck. Ilim had prepared her for this. But the theory was one thing, and now it came time for the practice. The wrong response... not even the wrong idea, but the wrong wording, and the spell would be broken. She had to frame it just right.
You don't have to answer the question. You just have to make it sound like you are. That's how dreams work. You just have to shift the reality.
"Oh, you know..." Miri said, letting her eyes drift lazily to the ceiling. "I sit in the back... keep my head down a lot... you remember, it's your..."
"...my Advanced Theory of Etumologistic Principles in Inscription class, of course." The arch-magister narrowed her eyes. "I don't remember you turning in your last assignment."
Miri shuddered reflexively. The judgment seared into her by the last six years of her life burned fresh and hot. It didn't matter that she had never met this woman before in her life; she was, at this moment, every professor Miri had ever disappointed. She had to remind herself the dream cloak worked both ways.
"So... you were saying about patterns?" Miri prompted.
The archi-magister waited on answering the question until she had gotten through another round of cold, stern appraisal, and Miri had shrunk down in her chair by a full twenty percent. Then, with an air of magnanimity, she pressed her glasses up her nose and began: "Everything is a pattern. Feelings, people, places, ideas. They're patterns. This is the foundation of magic. The interconnection between these things, and how they repeat themselves."
"Sorry, everything?" asked Miri, having produced a little notepad. "Even people?"
"Especially people," the archi-magister decreed. They held up one hand, palm turned toward the ceiling, and gave a twist to a signet ring. Light began to concentrate a few inches above her hand, forming into a complex series of golden halos and discs, interwoven in an impossibly complex way. They turned, all of them, feeding into each other and flowing back out again. It hurt Miri's eyes to look at it directly, but she found herself unable to turn away from the glowing spectacle entirely.
"There is nothing in this world that isn't a beginning and an ending. Nothing that has happened that hasn't already happened, and is also in the process of happening again." With her free hand, she nudged a conspicuous outward loop, causing it to shift and reangle itself, feeding into the pattern in a new way. "What we call 'magic' is simply the ability to influence these loops. What we study is merely the ability to do so conscientiously."
Miri contemplated this. "Why 'especially' people, did you say?"
"Because," the arch-magister snapped, some hidden well of annoyance bubbling at the question, "Nature is not aware of its patterns. It flows in and out of them, adjusting and adapting to the new world without thought." She shook her head. "People are aware of their patterns, on whatever level. And so we grind away inside of them, even if we never recognize what they are."
Something about this raised the hairs on the back of Miri's neck. "You're saying, things always repeat themselves?" she asked, not sure from where the question had arisen. "Always?"
"Yes," the instructor confirmed. "Who you were and who you are are one and the same."
Miri shuddered. There was something off about the words. "I'm not really following," Miri admitted. She looked down at her notepad. She had attempted to draw the dazzling display still turning serenely above the arch-magister's palm. What she had achieved, she realized, was indistinguishable from an enthusiastic child's take on a tumbleweed. "Could you give me an example of..."
"Observe," the archi-magister commanded. She plucked a letter-opener from her desk and, without hesitation or remorse, drove it into an inner loop of the pattern, piercing a tiny circle at its heart.
There was a sharp screech, the miniscule golden loop convulsing and twisting around the blade. It lit up in violent red hues, as if burning from within. The rest of the pattern shuttered, spasmed, made to wrench itself apart--
And then suddenly, there was a new pattern. Much like the old one. The angles weren't quite the same, the form seemed to be at a slant... but it gave off the same impression. Mostly.
Except at its heart -- there, a tiny loop, disconnected from everything else, forged in cast-iron black. Every other loop bent and twisted around it, warping their perfect curves to avoid coming in contact with the nasty little scar.
"A person like this," the archi-magister sneered, "...will never let anything approach their harm, ever again. No matter how it corrupts them." The word burnt, red-hot, an open wound carved into the air.
Ilim's warning came back to Miri. The dream had gotten away from her -- it was time to make her escape. She put away her notepad as quickly as she could, and fired off, "Well, thank you very much." So rose eagerly to her feet, already mentally picturing the fastest route out of the room. "This has been really useful. Thanks for the--"
"My desk," the archi-magister demanded, snapping her hand shut and dispelling the illusory pattern.
"Ah??" asked Miri, taking a small step backwards.
"Your assignment. My desk. By midnight." She lifted her chin. "I don't believe in second chances."
"O-oh... no, of course. I'll go finish it right now," Miri assured her, bowing dutifully. She pulled up the cloak around herself, and made for the exit. "Thank you!"
The arch-magister held her cold gaze until the student had fled through the grand double-doors at the end of her office. It was something of a relief to see her go -- as if only now could she think properly about the odd encounter.
And it was quite the odd encounter, especially given how few students she had visiting these days anyway. In fact, now that she thought about it, she hadn't had a student come by her office hours recently at all. Not since the promotion.
Not since she stopped teaching classes.
Four years ago.
Something pricked at the back of her mind. If she didn't teach classes, then who was...
...who was who?
...whatever she had been thinking about, the train of thought escaped her. With a shrug, she turned back to her paperwork, chiding herself gently for the fleeting distraction.
--
"Well, how was your first experience wielding the cloak?"
Miri looked around the tiny hotel room. She had only been out a couple of hours, and in that time, Ilim had managed to completely transform it. The wispy, pointless curtains had been enchanted, apparently, blocking out the sunlight from the room. Instead, strings of glowing crystals, vaguely star-shaped, hung from various points on the ceiling, giving the room a pleasant glow.
Scattered around the room, Miri observed dozens of artifacts that they had retrieved from Ilim's library -- artifacts that Ilim had promised he would explain "in due time," but for now remained mysterious, inert Things that she could gain no insight into. The only one she had seen in action was the large, shallow bowl of brass and silver in the corner, filled to the brim with water. A portable scrying pool, Ilim had explained, and how they had found how to approach the arch-magister.
In the middle of it all, right on the floor, sat Ilim, an excited grin on his face. Surrounded by mysteries, neatly ensconced in the comforting darkness.
Lair, came the thought to Miri's head, before she quickly dismissed it.
"It was... intense," Miri admitted. She made another play for her idea. "What if we explored some of the cloak's other powers before the next one? Maybe not flight, but you mentioned invisibility and, oh! And walking through walls, that one sounds..."
But Ilim waved her into silence. "The next one won't be nearly so intense, dear Miri. You have a real appointment this time, a proper introduction. But I would like you to wear the cloak anyway -- it'll be important for you to grow more comfortable with it."
"Ah. Okay," Miri tried to hide her disappointment. She went back over the encounter, and the uncomfortable sense it had instilled in her. "Hey... can I ask you, about what--"
But Ilimi was on a roll, interrupting again. "No no no, it's important for you to work through these thoughts through yourself, for now. I won't rob you of these initial steps to enlightenment." He clapped his hands together, all eagerness. "Now then..." he gave her an intriguing raise of one eyebrow. "...what's your opinion on Whirling Cleuromancy?"
Miri had a feeling she'd have an opinion soon enough.
--
The dice hit the table with a clatter, exploding across the engraved spread before Miri's eyes. Each one spun as it hit, beginning a complex dance across the various areas of the field, each marked with an arcane symbol at its center.
The dice had been scooped blindly from a velvet-lined box; they had been spun briskly in the crystalline tumbler -- and then launched onto the oaken table with a flick of the cleuromancer's wrist. Now they twirled, whirling this way and that, gliding and occasionally skipping across the polished surface of the table.
To Miri's eyes, it was impossible to keep track of, all at once -- but the fortune teller, dressed in her colorful, stitched-together garments, seemed perfectly at ease, pointing out the salient events as she saw them.
"Aha, off to a bold start -- curved carnelian in the 'inspiration' field," she announced, pointing to a crescent-shaped area marked with three curved lines. "A new beginning, a fresh pair of eyes, a rebirth! There's an energy about you that you should seize, or else this is your opportunity to build something you've been putting off for a while."
Miri blinked. She had barely noticed the gorgeous orange stone -- but now she fixated on it, admiring its bobs and bows as it played an elegant oval trajectory across the field. For a moment, she felt as if every dip and weave held meaning that could--
"There!" the fortune teller called out, drawing Miri's attention away. "A collision between jasper and sapphire over 'potential'!" She tapped her fingers together, seemingly delighted and intrigued by this occurrence. "A conflict between old and new energies, suggesting something greater than both! Perhaps a new possibility will come to uproot a decision made long ago. Or is there a disjunction between two chapters that has yet to be resolved?"
The two dice wove around each, as if drawn to the other's gravity. Miri waited, breath held, for a second collision -- yet no matter how many times they almost met, they always just barely escaped the moment of contact, gliding by again and again...
"Cat's eye, skipping across the inscription of 'bonds'!" The fortune teller was all but bouncing in place now, her voice growing more giddy with each new announcement. "A lapse of trust, a dire miscommunication, the severing of ties!" She snapped her fingers. "Just like that! But is it something to be repaired? Does it want to be repaired? Can the past and future be made whole?"
Miri felt the chill. She pulled the cloak tighter around herself, even as she was uncertain where the chill came from -- within or without.
And so it went, Miri hanging on the fortune teller's every word. There was as much to find in the rise and fall of the seer's excited, rapid-fire explanations as there was in the words themselves. Her tone alone spoke of insights and mysteries, rising and falling as the dice and her voice joined to tell a story that Miri felt sinking deep inside her.
The dice were settling down now. One final dice found its way via a weaving, winding path to the dead center of the board, where it gave up a few final turns of momentum before crashing down to rest.
"Mm, and there we have it. The onyx cube, in the very center of the spread, at the heart of 'structure.'" The fortune teller pressed her hands together. "Nothing could be more associated with the presence of Fate."
"Fate??" Miri asked, more expectantly than she had meant to.
"Oh, perhaps not like you're thinking of," the cleuromancer said, letting a reassuring finger come to rest upon her own chin. "Perhaps it just means you should stop leaving something up to chance. Or perhaps what you've been thinking of as a random coincidence has always been planned in a way you haven't yet come to realize."
Miri took this in, as best she could.
And then she asked, "Sorry, but this was in response to 'what is the fundamental essence of magic?'"
The fortune teller laughed, light-hearted and casual. "The dice fall where they may! They don't always answer the question you said out loud, you know."
"I see..." said Miri thoughtfully. "Well, thank you for your time..."
"It is my pleasure," the colorful seer assured her. "And when the time comes, you won't have to be afraid of the future."
"Sorry?" Miri asked, a creeping panic tickling her spine.
"Hm?" The fortune teller raised a curious eyebrow. "It really is my pleasure, honestly."
Miri breathed out slowly, carefully. With a distracted hand, she tugged at the cloak's necktie, loosening it. "Ah, yes, I misheard you. Well, thanks again..."
With that, she turned and strode off, the sound of dice carving paths across wood still rebounding through her head...
--
The congregation went into the next verse even more proudly than the previous one. Every single member filled themselves with the promise of the lush abundance that nature had to offer, and sang of it with all their hearts.
"It's beautiful," Miri admitted, whispering directly into the monk's ear. All around them swelled choral voices, filling the little stonework temple with triumphant tones of rebirth and glory. "It's absolutely lovely. But I don't see what this has to do with..."
The monk gently shushed her. "At the end, I promise. You'll see the magic in the ritual at the end."
The pair were seated in the rearmost pew. They had the bench to themselves -- but every other row was packed, filled with city-goers from every walk of life. At this moment, they were reaching the final crescendo of their hymn; soon, they would be seated, listening attentively to the day's lesson.
The monk, she had come to learn, wasn't a member of this temple himself. Instead, he was from an order that preserved holy sites around the world. Theirs was a kind of meta-religion: they served every other religion, taking care of forgotten monuments and abandoned temples when no one else could spare the effort. They placed their importance in what others saw as important; they remembered, and maintained the rituals, when no one else could.
"My last assignment... well, it very nearly got away from me," he had explained, when first they met. There was a flash of sorrow in his eyes that Miri only just barely caught, before he cleared his throat and rushed on, "For my sake, the order thought it best if I spend a little time around holy sites that were still being attended to, so that I might regain my faith. And, of course, to work with new initiates like you."
Miri -- or the new initiate to the order, as the monk saw her -- had wondered how such an organization could have ever been formed. She found herself asking during a quiet moment during the service's preparations, but the monk told her it was a question for another time.
"So this ritual..." she started, but the monk interrupted.
"Look, there -- do you see? Their stack of notes." Miri noted the thick stack of papers propped up on the lectern before the deacon. The deacon's words were flowing smoothly and easily at the moment, turning aside each page as they completed it. "Can you imagine the time and energy they must put into every lecture? They prepare so carefully..."
The deacon had just arrived at a portion about cultivating "wild spaces" within urban environments... when they stopped, mid-sentence. The deacon stared up suddenly, eyes unfocused, his lips mouthing unspoken words. At this, the monk's eyes twinkled, and his back straightened up. "Ah, here we go..." he announced gleefully.
Miri could feel the energy in the room. Before, everyone had been listening attentively, nodding along with the deacon's lecture. Now, though... now, there was a sense of anticipation. There was an electricity in the air, the calm before a storm. It was as if everything had come before was a mere warming-up, a tuning of the instruments. Now, Miri felt, was the beginning of the real performance.
At once, the deacon snapped back to reality, suddenly launching into a new speech. They had seized upon a concept of "wild," it seemed, one that needed to be addressed immediately. They slammed their notes face-down on the lectern, speaking rapidly and energetically from the heart. Before, their phrases were measured -- now, they took on a staccato patter, ideas jumping and leaping into the fray, chaotic, but guided by the deacon's passion. Their voices boomed, commanding the entirety of the hollow space. Miri looked around the congregation, and saw how they leaned into it, mesmerized by this raw, spontaneous outburst.
The monk's grin was wide enough to show off all his teeth. "They do this every time. Every time."
"But their notes..." Miri protested.
"There's a betting pool every week about how many pages they'll get through before they abandon them!" The monk laughed. "Of course, the notes are necessary, or else they'd never be able to pontificate like this. But apparently the odds become quite ridiculous after page five or six, or as I've heard."
Miri nodded, as the deacon swung over to another tangent, this time about the heartbeat of a city, and being carried on the veins of its streets, feeling the life of the city through the soles of your shoes. "So, is this the ritual that you..."
The monk shook his head again. "No, no, not until the end. It may be thirty minutes. It may be two hours!" He smiled his wide smile at her again. "I'm certain the deacon themself has no idea!"
It turned out to be just over an hour when the deacon finally began winding down. And just as the rest of the congregation began to relax, the monk suddenly leaned forward, their voice breathless: "Now! This is the ritual! Look!!"
What Miri saw was... as the deacon announced their conclusion, and as the congregation all rose to their feet as one to fill the room with their applause... at the same moment, a door to the back opened. From it emerged a figure in a loose, simple robe, balancing a hefty mug of tea on a saucer.
"Their partner," the monk explained. "The deacon's voice would be croaking by the end of the day without the herbs in the blend they prepare. And the tea is always exactly the right temperature, steeped perfectly, exactly right to drink at the moment the lecture ends."
"So..." Miri said, in what amounted to a whisper over the diminishing applause. "The ritual is how the herbs are prepared, then? Is there an enchantment that..."
But the monk shook his head, a measure of mild annoyance on his face. "No. Think more carefully. Remember what I told you."
Miri watched, struggling to understand. The deacon turned to accept the tea, bowing gratefully to their partner as they received the heavy mug. They took it and drank deeply, contentment and relaxation replacing the fervor from minutes before...
The fervor which had quieted away so suddenly...
The question came to Miri. "How do they know when to start steeping the tea?" she asked carefully. "If the deacon himself doesn't know how long the lecture will last..."
The monk clapped her on the back, proud. "That's the ritual. There it is."
"So..." Miri thought about this. "There's some kind of magic that tells them when to start brewing, I guess."
The monk held up one finger, diverting her idea. "Yes, almost. Almost."
He went on. "Like I said, the deacon has no idea when the lecture will end. But their partner has a sense of it." He winked. "And yes, there is a magic in knowing your partner better than they know themself." The monk turned back, bringing Miri's gaze with him, back to the happy couple. "That magic is love."
There sat the deacon, eyes closed, letting the warm steam of the tea flowing into their nostrils. Their partner stood just behind, hands resting affectionately on their shoulders. The deacon turned to look up at them, and the two shared a smile, an undeniable moment of connection between the two.
"You see?" The monk went on. "They'll never forget this act of love that their partner performs for them. Their congregants see it, and will never forget it either. Even the temple itself will never forget it." The monk turned to Miri now, smiling beatifically. "And now, neither will you."
"That's..." Miri said, in awe.
"Yes," said the monk. "Magic."
Miri watched for a while, as the deacon sat among those congregants who remained, laughing easily and taking long sips from his tea. They seemed perfectly in their place -- right where they needed to be.
"Love can never be forgotten easily," the monk finished, something about his smile now suggesting a hidden sadness. "But when it is..." He struggled with his sentence, as if uncertain where he was going with it. "...someone needs to be there to help. Before things go wrong." With a deep, steadying breath, he added, "So, to answer your question from before, that's why our order was founded. That's why we exist. That's what we're here for."
Love, Miri thought. And when it goes wrong...
The dreamcloak clung to her back. She shrugged, freeing herself of its grip, before turning to watch the joyful couple at the front of the temple for a while longer.
--
Miri stared down at her notepad. She had started to write the answer, but stopped halfway through the first word. "I'm sorry, could you repeat your answer?" she asked cautiously.
The man seated behind the desk in the little dark room leaned back, propping his feet up on the smoothed surface before him. "You want me to repeat my answer, you're going to have to repeat your question. One question, one answer. That's the rule. That's the game."
Miri kept her eyes down on her notepad. She could see, just out of the corner of her eye, the glint of metal, as it spun in the man's hand.
It wasn't the most comfortable of situations. When she had arrived at the unmarked doorway in the sidealley, the bouncer had ushered her in without a word, into a small, dimly-lit room, blue lamps giving the interior an unearthly appearance. She could feel the eyes of everyone in the room falling on her immediately, even though she couldn't see a single pair -- less concerning were the people dressed in thick cloaks with deep hoods. More concerning were the masked dwellers, each with their own unique demonic visage.
She was led from that room via a narrow passage into another room, the same size and shape, lit the same way, filled with another pack of anonymous lurkers. And so she was led from that one into another, and another. Each room was the same as the last, and as she was led from room to room to room to room, she realized the passages between the rooms must have been slightly slanted downward. It was impossible to tell, she realized, how far down she had gone.
She came at last to a simple wooden door. The bouncer had knocked; the door had opened; she was guided inside; and then it shut.
And now, here she was. The room was the same size and shape as all the others. The only thing that distinguished it was the desk, massive and sturdy, almost comical set alone in a room without any other furniture aside from a pair of chairs, one on either side.
And now the man she had come to interview had his boots casually planted on top of it, twirling a little metal spike of unknown purpose. It was thin, and long, branching at the very end to form a tri-point implement. It looked vaguely medical, if only slightly too impractical to actually serve that purpose.
Miri had been trying not to look at it too closely, or think about the implications of the extremely practiced manner in which the man twirled it between his fingers.
She swallowed, and tried asking again. "Uh, okay. What is the fundamental essence of magic?"
The man nodded, satisfied. "That's an easy one. Magic's crazy, and it'll try to kill you," he repeated.
Miri took a moment, before dutifully sketching this down in her notebook. It wasn't any less uncomfortable rendered in ink instead of voice. "That's... not what I was expecting," she answered, two decades of civility being tested all at once.
"Makes sense to me. If you were expecting it, you wouldn't have needed to ask even once." He gave the gleaming tool in his hand a casual flip. "Anything else I can do for you?"
Miri took a hard look at him. He was gaunt, his button-down shirt loose and formless. His cheeks were caved and his hair was wiry -- he looked like someone who hadn't known a good meal in years, and yet his face was placid. There was no sense of hunger about him; he seemed perfectly content, even as his body spoke of a deep malcontentment.
It was tempting to leave. But Miri refused to let herself give up that easily. "Could I ask you to elaborate on your answer?" she asked, even as the dread in her belly grew.
The man stuck out his lower lip, considering this. Then he answered, "...eh, sure, why not. Lemme give you an example. So, eh, you know how a promise works, right? The magic kind."
"No, I don't," Miri admitted.
"Tch," the man huffed, evidently annoyed. "Basically, it's a contract you make with yourself. You promise to keep something true, and the tension of that truth acts like a power source." Still not looking at Miri, he let the tool spin on the tip of one finger. "You can get a lot of power that way, and I'm talking a lot. More than enough to fuel some pretty potent stuff."
Miri scribbled this down as fast as she could. "Okay, that sounds useful," she said, glad to be back on solid ground.
"Yeah, but you screw up at all, and that tension snaps." Now he turned to Miri, and the way his hands kept playing with the tool all on their own, unsupervised, made Miri even more nervous. "Suddenly all that power's loose, and the magic is going to use it to make you suffer."
"Uh, suffer, right," Miri said. The word, by itself, was enough to make the room colder. The way he said it, at least.
The man didn't notice Miri's reaction, or else chose to overlook it. "So, here's an example. This druid, right? He wanted a way to help feral animals. That type. You know the kind."
"Sure..." Miri said, not sure if it mattered what she did or not.
The man went on, "Thing is, animals don't trust easily. Nah. Animals are filled with fear. Terrible thing, ain't it?" He flicked the tool up towards the ceiling, catching it after a dozen spins without looking. "Fear, I mean?"
Miri swallowed, which the man took as response enough. "So this druid figures out one of the syllables of Universal Trust." The man paused, taking a deep breath through his nostrils. He seemed impressed by this; but whether it was the druid's wisdom or audacity wasn't clear. "A unit of raw meaning so true, so real, that you can say it to anyone, even an animal, and it'll trust you not to hurt it. The animal knows it doesn't have to be afraid."
"...but..." Miri prompted, caught up in the story.
"Yeah, exactly. Tapping into a truth like that takes a ton of power. So you gotta make a promise." He pressed the tool into the tip of one finger. Miri winced, waiting for the moment it would pierce his fingerprint; but moment after moment passed without a drop of blood. "And the way that promise works is, if you do end up hurting the animal, that hurt gets reflected right back onto you."
Miri considered this. "That... doesn't sound so bad."
"Yeah?" The man says, eyebrows popping up." There was a slight smile on his face, the first Miri had seen. "Now imagine you use it on a wounded stag, to get it to stay calm while you dig out an arrow buried in its leg." He made a digging motion with his pointed tool, and Miri could feel that cruel barb, slicing through flesh... "That'd hurt, right?" He went on, and his smile grew wider, if not any warmer. "Imagine digging out the arrowhead... and the same wound is growing on your own leg as you work..."
Miri pushed the image, all too real, out of her mind. "Oh... how horrible..."
The man clapped his hands, admiration in his face: "That dude was covered with more scars than you can imagine, kid."
"...that's... quite a story," Miri conceded. "But I don't see what's so crazy about it."
"I ain't done," the man informed her, smile gone, voice steady. She nodded urgently and silently, not daring to interrupt again. "So. Druid puts his spell out into the world, right? He ain't the only animal lover out there." The man paused for effect here, letting Miri's imagination roam these unknown pastures on its own, searching for the horrible conclusion. "And this one guy, he decides he can beat magic at its own game."
Miri nodded, letting him continue. "So he makes the promise, uses the syllable to entice some stag over..." The man suddenly slashed the tool through the air, a clean, precise slash, far too well-practiced for Miri's liking. "...and that's when his buddy slits the thing's throat." With a grin, he flipped the tool around, pointing the handle at Miri's throat. "Easy kill. Even you could manage it."
"Oh god," Miri whispered. "Don't tell me it slit his throat too..."
He fixed his grin on Miri. "Even you could predict that, right? Cheap trick like that would never work, right?"
"I... I'd just assume..." Miri forced out.
The man held Miri under his grin a moment longer, relishing her trepidation. Then, with a casual shrug, he announced, "Nah. Works perfectly. Stag goes down. They clean it, dress it, carry it home." He sighed, leaning back in his chair, as if disappointed with his own story. "They're whooping and hollering all the way. Easy street for life. Stag meat is good money, and they've got just the trick to get it."
Miri sighed, relaxing a bit. She wasn't sure what the lesson here was, but at least...
And that was the moment the man started speaking again. "So that night, the dude who used the magic cooks up some of that stag meat for him and his buddy. Buddy bites into it, and it's the most delicious taste in the world..."
She saw the smile on his face. She knew immediately what it meant. "Please no..." she begged.
But he would not be deterred, not when he was this close to his punchline. "And that's when the magic guy screams, a chunk of flesh missing from his calf... and buddyboy realizes, what he's tasting don't taste nothing like stag..."
"Oh, by the gods." Miri clutched his stomach, suddenly feeling like her last three meals all disagreed with her at once.
The man jabbed the tool at her. "That's what I mean. That's what I was trying to tell you. Magic's crazy, and it'll try to kill you." Now he turned the tool on himself, jabbing himself proudly in the chest. "That's why I do what I do."
"What do you do?" Miri asked, her pen shivering over the rest of the page.
"I break things," he told her. There was a beat. When it was clear this wasn't quite enough for her to go on, he continued, "You know. Magic shit. Patterns, loops, cycles, spirals. Anywhere magic lives. I find it, and I break it." He mimed gripping something in both hands and snapping it in two, managing an absolutely queasy rendition of a bone breaking with his mouth. "They call me The Breaker. Whaddya think of that?"
Miri chose her words carefully. The cloak was protecting her... but its power was limited. She had to keep the dream going for this to work. Keep the focus on him. "I think... it depends on what you're breaking," she suggested.
"Yeah, exactly." He nodded, pleased with her understanding. And then he frowned, all at once. "Well, except, no. I don't really care what I break, as long as I get to break something. People pay me to break things, so I do." He twirled the tip of the tool in the air, drawing a clean, crisp circle. "Lots of people in this city are very particular about what gets broken. They got some pretty patterns set up for themselves. Don't like the thought of folks like me trying to break them. So they make a bunch of laws, and force folks like me underground."
Before Miri could offer her sympathy, he went on, "It don't bother me much. Means my services are that much rarer. I can charge whatever I feel like. Those loop-lovers are the reason I'm rich. They've made my purse very happy."
"And what about you?" she asked, before she could stop herself.
This stopped the tool, the path it was tracing through the air suddenly halted. He thought about this, turning the question over in his mind. It clearly wasn't one he was used to thinking about. But then he decided, "I enjoy my work. Patterns are dangerous. You ain't never know how long one will last, how it might shift out from under you." He let the tool return to its circling path, now curving slightly inwards to suggest a spiral instead. "Nothing's meant to last forever, you know."
Miri's mind was burning. The words of her other 'teachers' all spoke at once, and from their voices arose a question she couldn't help but ask: "Are there... patterns... that involve breaking other patterns?"
This time, the tool didn't just stop, it almost slipped from The Breaker's hands. "Excuse me?" he demanded.
"It was just a random thought..." Miri deflected. The man was rigid now, unmoving. It was clear he was waiting for her to finish. "I just meant... can one pattern... break another?"
He stared at her, deep into her. "...that ain't possible," he insisted, his voice unnaturally level. "A pattern like that would just consume itself. It ain't never going to happen." It was only now that he let grit slip into his tone: "Why?"
Miri swallowed, and tugged the cloak around her shoulders as tightly as it would go. "It's just... the way you said you didn't care what you break... what about, you know... wouldn't you end up breaking..." she wavered, but at the last moment found her courage again. "...you?"
The man's pupils narrowed on her. There was a tremor at the corner of his mouth. When he spoke, it was in a grim, nasty tone. "Ha ha ha," he said, speaking each syllable. "Your concern is touching, truly."
He then leaned forward, out of his reclined position, and planted both elbows on the table. He held the tool upright between his eyes, staring at her from either side of it. "Now it's my turn. Who sent you?"
Miri swallowed. Okay, this was an easy one. He had supplied an answer readily enough before, and now she could fall back on that same invention. "Oh, you know, I'm a friend of your sister's friend. You know who I mean, right?"
"No," the man intoned. "Wrong answer."
Miri shrunk down in her chair a little, trying to master the cloak's invisibility power over the course of a few seconds. When that failed to work, she insisted, "Really, you must remember... your sister's friend... the one with the, you know--"
That's when The Breaker interrupted: "Enough. Cloak don't work on me, Brightside."
Miri locked up, icy fear clutching her heart all at once.
"I was only pretending," he explained. There was a smile on his face, but it was the most temporary smile that Miri had ever seen. "That makes two of us, huh?"
Miri's mind raced. All the turns, all the identical rooms... she had tried to keep track of which way she was being shunted, this way and that, but all those staring eyes had distracted her, and one wrong turn on the way out would mean...
"You didn't ask the question, but I heard it in your mind clearly enough, so I'll answer it anyway." The Breaker sat up straight up, looming over her from his chair. "No. Running is not a good idea."
He gestured broadly at the door behind her. "There's a lot of dangerous people out there. In fact, there's nothing but dangerous people out there. Even the harmless-looking ones are dangerous. They might be the most dangerous, in fact." He let one hand slide forward across the table, as if it were making a getaway. "If you come running out of this room without me giving the signal that it was time for you to leave?"
He raised his tool in the air, and swung it downward, skewering his own fingers, pinning his hand to the desk--
--no, not quite. The three points of the tool had somehow found the gaps between his fingers, each prong sliding into that centimeter of gutter between his digits.
"No. I don't very much like your odds," he concluded, wrenching the tool back out of the table. The smile grew dimmer, even less friendly. "Better to stay right here, yeah? Your odds gotta be better with only one dangerous person, yeah?"
Miri's mouth barely worked, but she forced herself to work through the effort of asking her question: "How... how did you know I..."
"Easy," he sneered, not hiding his contempt anymore. "That cloak's dreamstuff." The Breaker leaned forward, as if inviting Miri to inspect his head. "It don't work on people who don't got dreams."
"You don't have... dreams?" Miri asked, unable to contain her horror.
He shook his head sadly, feigning regret. "Not anymore. Magic got into my dreams, see." He planted the tool on his temple, point-first. Miri realized the secondary points weren't quite long enough to make contact... until he pressed the tool in, letting it sink into his flesh, bringing the other two tips in contact as well.
That's when he turned the tool, gradually, letting the two points draw a perfect circle as a thin cut around the central point. "Had to cut them out." He plucked the tool from his skull, leaving behind a perfect bead of dark blood where he extracted it. "Wasn't fun. Wasn't pretty."
Miri squeezed back in her chair, trying to make herself paper-thin. It wasn't working, though. She had far too much soft, bloody flesh on her to flatten herself, far too much that could be carved or diced.
The Breaker lifted his free hand and snapped his fingers. A ring of red lights, menacing little pinpricks of hate, appeared around the crown of the room. She could feel their stare, all along the edges of the walls near the ceiling. "Now then," he cooed. "You remember the rules, right? One question, one answer. You're already behind, you know." He leaned forward, the tool dancing in his hand. "I asked you about something twice. You gonna see what happens if you make me ask it a third time?"
Who sent you, the question came back to her. She almost said, "no one," but just the thought struck her with a sudden wave of unnatural dread, a dread that pierced her temples with an icy-cold jab. There was a hot, horrible pressure around her neck, choking the words before she could say them.
The Breaker shook his head sadly again. "Oh, don't do that, Brightside. Don't lie." He gestured at the ring of little red lights. "Right now, this room isn't friendly to people who lie."
Miri's mind raced. She had to tell the truth. This was a game. This was like the dream. She could shape what she had to work with. "...you wouldn't believe me if I told you," she offered.
The Breaker glanced at the ring of lights, looking back to her when they failed to glow even a little bit brighter. "Interesting." The Breaker seemed pleased with this answer. "Someone I know?"
An easy one. She knew how to field this one. "Someone you've heard of, no one you know."
The Breaker paused, pressing his lips forward as he contemplated this. "Now that really is interesting. I know a lot of people. Hm." He cocked his head this way and that, trying to decide whether to press the topic. "I'll ask you this instead: What are you doing here?"
She heaved a sigh of relief. Another opportunity for honesty. "I'm just here to learn about magic. That's it." She realized that the lie-smothering pinpricks were a blessing as well as a curse, allowing her to make claims without needing to surrender any proof. "I'm not going to tell anyone about you or your operation. I promise."
"Hm." The Breaker took this in. Then he scowled, anger hardening his eyes. He got to his feet, and leaned forward, slamming both palms on his desk. "No, no, not good enough. I need the name of the one who sent you."
The name was on her lips. But... why would he phrase it like that? Was this part of the game? Was he giving her outs on purpose? She didn't know why, but she wasn't going to turn them down. "No," she proclaimed. No question, no answer.
"I need that name, Brightside." He worked a nasty lilt into his voice, a twisted playfulness far more terrifying than simple menace.
"I can't tell you his name," she insisted, folding her arms in front of her.
Now The Breaker's expression was all teeth, his fangs showing at last. "Why can't you tell me his name?"
Miri sucked up her breath. It was a question. But she had her answer ready. "Because I'm the only other person alive who knows it!!" It was getting harder to answer, with her heartbeat pounding in her ears, but she kept her voice as steady as possible as she explained: "He trusted me with it. It's not mine to give away!"
The Breaker stood up straight. He gave her a curious look... and she couldn't help but feel she had impressed him. "...huh. Alright." His hatred seemed to evaporate. He was back to his icy, stoic self again. "Fine. New topic. How'd you find me?"
Miri tried to remember the details as best she could. "I... I don't know the details. He used a scrying pool--"
"Bullshit," The Breaker interrupted. The anger was back... but this wasn't the surface level, directed anger of before. This was a deep, burning anger, the kind Miri recognized as one that refused to be restrained for very long. "No one can find me. No one!"
He pulled back his arm and flung the tool at her. Miri cringed, letting out a desperate scream and she curled up in the chair.
But the tool wasn't aimed at her. Instead, it hit the desk right near the edge on her side, sinking into the wood and wobbling in place as it gave up the last of its momentum to the heavy wooden piece of furniture.
Miri stared. It was right there. It was in arm's reach...
But her attention was called to The Breaker. He stormed over the nearest wall, sinking his nails into it with a savage attack. And then he pulled... shredding what appeared to be a painted wall. She realized that what had looked like a simple coat of paint was actually wallpaper, carefully applied as camouflage.
Miri didn't know what color to call the wall underneath, not at first. Then she realized she wasn't looking at a single color, but two colors: a blue like the wallpaper, but then infinitely delicate golden lines, like the finest lacework, carved into patterns of unimaginable intricacy. She knew, somehow, just from that tiny glimpse, that the patterns continued all the way around the room, covering every surface... she felt the dedication it must have taken to paint such meticulous spirals eating away at her sense of sanity...
"You see??" The Breaker demanded. You see how careful I've been?? You see this?? Like I wouldn't know if someone scryed me??" He slammed his palm on the magnificent golden paths. "This place is warded. Every kind of ward. Nine-Fold Star, Skipped Weave, Dragon Tooth's Tip, Hollow Cage, the works." He jabbed a finger at her, not caring to hide how it trembled. "Some of these wards ain't even got names because I invented them. You hear me??"
Miri could only stare back. Her mind offered her nothing to go on. There was no response possible.
The Breaker's voice was low now, like the voice of death. "I want an answer, Brightside. I want one now." His breathing was shallow, and he spoke through gritted teeth. "You see these walls? This is me. Anyone scrying for me would've gotten their brain eviscerated by this. That's what happens to people who look for me, got it??"
Miri could only imagine a mind passing through a wall like that, and being shredded like it was a web of cheese-wire...
"I'll ask you. You'll answer me. I want the truth." The Breaker took one step towards her. Something about the step carried with it a feeling of utter finality. If he took even one more step towards her, Miri realized, he wouldn't be able to stop moving until there was nothing left of her. "How did he find me?"
Miri's mind came back to her. She didn't know the answer. She couldn't possibly -- how could she know how Ilim's magic had interacted with this lunatic's?? It was impossible. She couldn't answer that!!
But... that wasn't the question. She had the facts. She had the words she needed. She had the feelings he needed.
She closed her eyes, finding her center, starting again from what she knew.
Not a lunatic. A man, suffering from paranoia. A paranoid man... in his paranoid cage... buried deep below the living city... so afraid of being seen...
What would he expect from the world? What was he defending himself again?
A man who no longer trusted magic... A man who believes patterns are out to get you... a man who believes everything is out to get him... him, personally...
She found her answer.
She steeled herself for the worst, then told the man: "...he wasn't looking for you."
The Breaker's voice was cold. His rage held beneath a paper-thin sheet of icy temperament. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, waiting for any spark as an excuse to explode.
"You said it yourself," she said simply. "Anyone looking for you gets eviscerated."
He said nothing. Perhaps he didn't trust himself to speak, not at this moment.
She went on. "And yes, I'm sure your wards are a perfect defense... against anyone looking for you. Looking for The Breaker, specifically." She tried to make her voice as gentle as possible, as if pleading with him. "What if they were just looking for a teacher? What if they just wanted someone who could explain something no one else could? Someone immersed in magic like no other?"
His anger erupted. He lunged for the tool, plucking it out of the desk. "That's not who I--"
And stopped.
He looked at the wall. The Breaker took a long, hard look at the wall. Slowly, cautious, he looked around the rest of the room, as if tracing those infinite paths, as they headed off in every direction.
The tool shivered in his hand, begging to be used.
The blood trickled from his temple, a drop falling free from the side of his chin where it had gathered.
He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again.
Miri stared at him, her fists balled up in front of her face, going numb as she squeezed them tight.
Time passed. The moment passed. Finally, the man spoke again. His voice was hollow now, so hollow it took her a second to realize he was addressing her. "You didn't ask the question, but I heard it in your mind clearly enough, so I'll answer it anyway." He took a deep, sorrowful breath in, then let it out. "No. I ain't gonna hurt you." His voice dropped now, barely audible. "I don't hurt people who help me."
"Sorry?" she asked, not ready to believe this.
He gestured to the ring of lights. I'm not lying, his gesture said. "You showed me a weakness. A fault in the way I was thinking. Something I hadn't considered." A thought struck him, and he dug into one of his pockets. "Here, take this," he said urgently, tossing something to Miri.
She caught it instinctively. She looked down at the coin in her hand. It had been polished smooth, worn thinner than she thought possible given the silvery material. Whatever etchings it might have held had been scrubbed away; all that was left was a tiny scar on one side, inflicted by what she imagined to be a tiny nail. "What's this?" she asked carefully.
"A favor," the man replied simply. "Keep it. A lot of people in this city will recognize it. Don't be afraid to flash it when you get yourself into trouble next." Now he looked at her again, and added sternly, "Don't give it to your boss. That's my condition. They ain't the one who came down here. That coward didn't teach me nothing."
She nodded her assent, turning over the coin a few more times before tucking it into an inner pocket. "So... uh..."
"Yeah. In a minute, I'll give the signal, and you can go." He sighed, walking back over to his deck, planting one hand on it to steady himself. He looked up, staring into one of the corners of the room. "Before that, though... can I give you some advice, kid?
"Sure...?" she said.
He turned to her now, his eyes serious once more. "Burn the cloak."
"Excuse me?" she asked, surprised.
His eyes pierced her, daring her to defy him. "Burn it. As soon as you can."
"It was a gift!" she insisted.
He shook his head -- but this wasn't the dramatic gesture he had used on her before. This time, it was an honest expression; it came from a place of fear. "You don't know where it came from. You don't know where it's been, or where it's going." He leaned in, and with a voice that begged for her to believe it, he finished: "You don't know whose dream it is that you're wearing around your neck."
Miri's mind reeled. The cloak felt warm all of a sudden, comforting. Like.. being wrapped in a blanket, on a cold winter's morning...
The man sighed. He stood up tall, looking down on her not with scorn or contempt this time... but now, with pity. "Waking up ain't fun, and it ain't pretty," he explained. "But the sooner you do it, the better."
It was the last words they exchanged. Without so much as a glance in her direction, he walked over to the door, gave a series of precise knocks, and delivered her into the care of the bouncer waiting on the other side. "See that she gets home safely," he instructed. "I think she's had enough excitement for one day."
By the time Miri got back to the hotel room (she had lead her escort to a nearby house a neighborhood over, just in case; after that, she had hoped the dream cloak was enough to shake any tails as she wove randomly between streets and side-alleys), it was dark. The warm glow cast by Ilim's starry crystals was even more satisfying now, casting the place as a quiet little nook, away from the world.
He was still seated on the floor where she had left him, giving her the impression he hadn't moved at all. Yet she could tell by the way the room had been rearranged -- again -- that he had been quite busy in her absence. He greeted her with a smile, and a "Well! How did it go?"
Miri tried to find a way to summarize the events of the evening, before giving up and settling on, "Uh. Fine, in the end. It definitely got a little dicey..."
Ilim somehow didn't notice the weight she put on "dicey" (the image of the tool still fixed firmly in her mind), though. "Well then, busy day!" he exclaimed. "Tell me! What did you learn?"
Miri had never learned quite so much, so quickly. "I... uh... a lot," was all she could manage.
Now Ilim's eyes twinkled. "Did you get an answer to your question?" he asked. Here it was. The next lesson. The next test.
Miri considered her response carefully. "I got four answers. A different answer from each teacher."
Ilim nodded. "Well, then. Which one is the truth?" he demanded.
Miri could only stare at him. That question had been running through her head all day, ever since she had first slipped out of the archi-magister's office. She hadn't gotten any closer to being able to answer it since then.
Ilim sensed her hesitation, and gave her the nudge she needed. "Because the truth is among those answers, isn't it? Isn't that how you feel?"
Miri looked to the side, searching inside herself. "Among them... that's true. That's very true." He was right. That is how it felt. Four answers, and the truth lurking among them...
Ilim couldn't contain his excitement. "Well, then. Which one speaks to you?" he asked, his voice tingling with enthusiasm.
Miri fought to come up with the answer. "...they..." An answer came to mind, but...
Ilim caught it, whatever invisible signal had given her away. "Don't hesitate, speak," he insisted.
She took a deep breath, and declared: "None of them do."
"Oh?" Ilim delivered it with mock disappointment, confirming she was on the right track. "And why is that?"
It took Miri a minute to answer. In her head, she rewound through their lessons... Ilim's praise and evident pride in her progress. His insistence on Miri's innate talent. His... trust in her. That was it. Miri had it now.
"Because none of them are my answer," she answered.
Ilim clapped his hands together, as he did at the close of every successful lesson. "Bravo, Miri. Bravo. I knew I sensed the gift in you. And I've never been wrong before."
It almost ended there.
But...
Something about Ilim's phrasing caught her. It plucked at a thread that had been winding up over the course of the entire day. She could feel it unspooling now, enticing her to follow it.
He had never been wrong before. "Ilim.." she asked carefully. "Can I ask you a question?"
He waved at her, invitingly. "Of course, child. Ask away."
Her heart was pounding in her chest. There'd be no going back, she knew.
She asked, clearly and deliberately, "...why... why exactly did you become The Dark Lord? I mean, become the Lord of the Aether?" She stared at him, watching the transformation in his face. "You've never told me why you did it."
Ilim's face, so recently warm and pleasant, hardened over a matter of seconds. His eyes no longer twinkled, but locked onto hers, set and rigid in their sockets. "...that's ancient history, Miri," he eventually told her. "No longer relevant. The world has moved on, and so have I."
She couldn't back down, not now. "Have you? Have you really?"
Ilim's voice was calm, but there was a note of warning in it. "...what are you asking me, child?" Miri felt it again -- that hidden, buried danger. That secret hurt, that could only stay buried for so long.
She owed him an explanation. "The cloak's started to speak to me," she told him. "I'm not sure I like what I hear."
Ilim was silent. His whole person was silent. It was like staring at an Ilim-shaped hole in the world, and just on the other side of it, was...
She had to keep going. "Today was... backwards. I met four teachers, and was supposed to get four answers. And instead, through the cloak, I got four questions."
The whole room was still. Miri could feel the light cast by Ilim's crystals dim, and grow cold. She pressed ahead anyway. She listed the four questions, looking for even the slightest response. "What happens when love goes wrong? How does a person change when they've been hurt? Why am I afraid of the future?" And then the fourth question, which had brought the other three together: "Whose dream is this?"
Now there was a feeling... in place of the void, there was the barest hint of radiance... a bitter, frigid radiance, ancient and terrible...
"Ilim..." Here it was. The question she needed to ask. Everything -- the entire day, the entire dream -- had been leading to this moment. "Ilim," she asked, "...who am I replacing?"
A thousand years passed before Ilim answered.
And when he did, it wasn't with his own voice.
"Nobody could replace her," the voice hissed. "Nobody."
It wasn't his voice. She had heard this voice when they first met. This was the Lord of the Aether's voice; the one he had used when he had told her to die.
Her heart breaking, she pleaded with him, "Then why are you trying??"
There was shock on his face. She wasn't sure if it was Ilim's shock or the Lord of the Aether's. The two seemed to wrestle with the question, passing it back and forth between them in search of an answer.
But it was too late. She sagged, the weight of the cloak suddenly felt, all at once. "That's it, then," she declared. Shrugging the cloak off her shoulders, she gathered it into a ball in front of her -- and then let it fall, collapsing in a heap on the floor. She envied it, in that respect. Sadly, she told him: "When you can answer the question, I'm sure you'll be able to find me."
She turned and left his lair, not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that he didn't call after her.
Waking up wasn't fun, or pretty.
But she had her life to live.
One day at a time.