Citation Needed [Solo] [Memory]
Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2022 2:39 am
Ash 66, 111
The Imperial Academy
Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock
Valentin Valentin sat in the library, focused on the essay he’d been studiously composing for the last three hours.
It had been just over a year since he had accepted Dr. Fallon’s invitation to enroll in the Imperial Academy, and he’d achieved much and little. In his first term exams, he had achieved a complete score- accurate answers across the board, with only a few points lost on account of the essays on philosophy which the professors had rated as technically impressive but inartful in form. Though Valentin would have quarreled with the role of poetics in calculating his grades for a course which was fundamentally about accounting, he was not one of those drawn to make useless last stands against entrenched authority. Anyway, he did respect the importance of drilling the Imperium’s culture into the heads of those meant to be its servants (and, to some extent, masters) later in life.
For all his academic achievements, though, Valentin had not really managed much in the way of human connection. To some extent, he could tell himself that this was intentional. These people in his classes were destined to be his competition in the government, or otherwise trying to pry their connections into influence which they could peddle to outside clients. Surely there would be certain advantages to simply not growing connected to them?
But he could only tell himself that story so many times. The brute fact of the matter was that he could competently exchange polite greetings with classmates, but he couldn’t invest himself in them. Those outgoing or network-building enough to invite him to events seldom did so a second time, as he simply did not make the connections they wanted. He’d observed, from a distance, the fumbling dramas of the other students as they sought to practice romance (or just sex) before they were bound by duty or family to live their lives forever with some appointed mate, but it struck him mostly as a pointless distraction from the real prizes available here.
And speaking of the real prizes...
Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong!
Five o’ clock. The time had come for him to finally claim one of the fruits of his labor, which had begun with a few carefully-placed enquiries before he’d ever filed his application, and continued with considerable effort thereafter.
He got up, feeling a shiver run down his spine- the most blatant sign of real anticipation he’d experienced for many months now. He carefully stowed his books, never failing to mark their returns, then made his way to the door and out to the hallway, towards the main gate and the other Academy buildings. In the main thoroughfare he turned towards the Imperial Academy of Arcane Science.
In far Zaichaer, Valentin understood that the government banned magic except for use by officials, and even they were restricted in what power they could be entrusted with. He shared the common feeling in Gel’Grandal that this was the result of thoughtless zealotry, of turning the tenants of New Atheism over to people who were prepared only to accept it as a new religion, rather than guidance for a better future. The people of the north were superstitious to an extreme, fearing witches and hardly any better at critical thinking than the barbarians whose wastes they neighbored.
The Imperium, however, understood the tenants well. Magic was a force of terrible potential evil, yes; but you could not protect yourself from the world by closing your eyes and wishing it away. If you let mages run rampant, you were certain to find yourself in another disquiet mageocracy before long. If you banned magic entirely, it would flourish beneath the watch of the law, and the law-abiding would have little recourse against spells cast only in shadows.
So the Empire regulated mages, required registration, inspections, service, so on and so on. Great Families and wealthy ones could afford to pass Cardinal runes down through the bloodline, and the expert sorcerers of the Inquisition, backed up by the invincible Kathar, kept them in line. But for those like Valentin, it was also an opportunity. His family had no magic to pass down, nor wealth enough to buy Initiation for a child.
But if one were sufficiently trustworthy…
Valentin Valentin arrived at the desk for the Academy of Arcane Science and asked the clerk for directions, even though he’d memorized a map of the campus a month ago; a rare nervous tic, of sorts. He passed quietly through the hallways, but his steps were unusually quick, as though a minute’s lateness might cause them to rescind the honor he’d spent two years chasing. (And who knew? This was a Rune which required an orderly mind to survive. He’d sat through five interviews to get this far, and a wrong impression now might still be enough to end the whole quest.)
Whatever the case might have been, the young man easily reached the room he’d been directed to report to on time- Zehn. It wasn’t clear to Valentin why this room was labeled as “Room 10”. The hallways nearby used standard numbering conceits, 801, 802, 803… but this one was just 10. The thought of it had harried him several nights ago, but he wasn’t planning to even ask about it now, not when he was this close.
The attainment of a Rune was not like any other class honor. It was a mark of distinction, sure, but it was also an increase in personal capability. A civil servant who was also a distinguished master of a Cardinal Rune could expect to be noticed by the higher-ups and called upon for more serious duties, and thus access raises and promotions and appointments far more easily than their peers.
This was, perhaps, the primary reason Valentin had chosen to attend the Academy for administration rather than go to officer’s school. The dean here had mentioned the Rune as a possibility- the absence of any discussion in the letter from the army was a clear signal that they thought him overreaching given the state of his family and future.
And he wasn’t just here for any Rune, no. He’d come for the single most valuable tool anyone could realistically hope to obtain.
The door to Room 10 slid open, and Professor Vainkutchen peered out. The man was in his late middle years, probably at the tail end of fifty, but well-preserved for all of that. Salt speckled his dark hair, and his eyes were mostly concealed behind a pair of very dark spectacles, but he had no trouble spotting Valentin.
“There’s the creature then, isn’t it? Herr Valentin, yes?”
Valentin nodded, and opened his mouth to speak, but the Professor brushed him aside. “Good! We’re right on schedule then. You are here for Traversion, yes? Yes.”
The younger man nodded again, and managed to speak this time: "Yes, Herr Vainkutchen, the file-"
“I have not read it.” the Professor stated, smiling, moving his arms to usher Valentin in, “Doubtless they were thorough, but it is your life to risk, yes? And if you are lost in the between, well, who am I to know if that is a fate more evil than any other?”
Disconcerting words, but quite lost in the sudden shift of scenery. The room on the other side of Door 10 was not a classroom. It was, quite plainly, not in the Academy at all. Or Gel’Grandal. Given the sudden chill, Valentin wondered if they were even within the Imperium’s borders.
"Whe-" Valentin caught a glimpse of the Professor’s inquisitive look and stopped himself.
“Not to worry, I would not flunk you simply for asking a pointless question. Nor would I answer it. If you are lucky, you will never know where we are now. If you are not lucky… well, let’s climb.”
In the shock of the change, Valentin had forgotten to register the surroundings. They were in some kind of misty vale, surrounded by wet, mossy rocks. A stairway carved into the rock led up through the obscuring mists above.
Valentin began to climb upwards, the little amount of the world he could see disappearing around him as he went. Onwards and upwards, onwards and upwards.
He walked for several minutes before his thighs began to ache from the repetitive stair-climbing. He was in fair shape (the Academies required a regular regimen), but the muscles for such climbs were disused. He didn’t really want to speak, still not believing that he couldn’t ruin his opportunity with a misplaced word, but as time and ache dragged, he decided to chance it.
"Professor, I-"
“Tired? Aching? What, already? Too bad, young Valentin! It’s too late to go back, you’ll have to reach the top now.”
Minutes turned to minutes turned to minutes, and Valentin began to wonder if they were turning to hours. How could this be? Was this a mountain he was climbing? If so, should he not be out of the mists, now? There was still damp on all the stones, and moss and lichen.
As he climbed, a spot between his shoulder blades started to itch. He tried to scratch it while he walked, but the combination of stretches simply caused his shoulder to spasm uncomfortably. Still, the discomfort grew, and he tried again to reach it.
"Professor, I think there is something wrong with my back…"
“Never fear, it won’t grow worse.” the old man replied from the unseen path behind him (or… in front of him? His ears seemed confused) “Michael is an excellent tattooist. The pain will pass.”
Tattooist? What could that possibly have to do with…?
Valentin stopped- or rather, he tried to stop. But he kept going forward. Onward and upward. His legs were no longer moving, but the momentum was still there. It had never been muscles moving him, not from the start of the stairway.
"What is- the astral?" Valentin spoke, hushed.
“Well done!” the Professor replied, sounding genuinely pleased, “Very quick study. A hopeful sign that you’re almost through.”
~~~
Back in the basement room below the Academy, Michael finished cleaning his needles and packing them away, then turned to look at the two mages. The young lad lay on the cold metal slab, only a thin linen between himself and the hard surface. Michael had removed his shirt to inscribe the Rune, but left the other clothes for decency’s sake. His chest barely rose or fell, and that was none of the man’s concern. He’d seen more than one boy pass away quietly on that paltry bed.
On a red leather armchair, outrageously overstuffed, Vainkutchen snoozed. Though this was only business, Michael could not help but feel a touch of jealousy, watching the man astrally project with another. He sometimes thought the Professor had him do this only to drive him wild, though the man insisted it was just his skill with ink.
The boy twitched, shivering, and Michael felt a small pang of relief. He tried to be cold about this business as a survival mechanism, but he did not like it when the students died on the slab. That twitch meant that he was almost back.
Michael sighed, and got up to pack the Professor’s things for the car ride home. They didn’t need to take the car, of course, but what was the point of using power to replace simple pleasures?
~~~
“Almost done, Herr Valentin. Just a few more steps now.”
Valentin hadn’t been moving his feet for some time, but he didn’t feel any need to correct the Professor. This separation of essence from form… he’d known it could leech away his will and vigor, but he couldn’t have known from the reading how pleasant it could seem. To give up, to sink away into the mists, to return to being simply part of the background aether of the world?
He’d never understood how addicts reached those conclusions, but now he saw.
But just as ache and effort was overtaking him and Valentin was thinking seriously about sinking into nothing… he broke through. His head crested the mists and erupted into the night beyond.
And it was like no other night he’d ever imagined. The stars were vibrant and beautiful in the heavens, and the spheres of the planets seemed to pass by closer than the moons themselves. Nebulas danced above, and the lights of every tiny speck of the heavens enmeshed and interwove themselves perfectly.
There, in that moment, Valentin saw that everything was, as he’d been taught, a cog in a machine. And it was a glorious machine, so beautiful that it hurt his eyes. Tears welled up, and he wept tiny black holes into the misty sea below.
It was everything the Imperial order had always held. There was no shame in being a gear, a cog, a part of a whole- not when the whole was so numinous. The world, Valentin realized, was fundamentally good.
Squinting into the glory of creation, Valentin closed his eyes. And when he opened them, he did not see it again.