“You sailed there all alone? Those thousands of miles over the ocean?”
“Yes. Thrice I was caught in a heavy storm. But my Maht helped me to prevail over the waves. I was glad to have the learnings of Aeternitas by my side.”
“How long did it take you?” asked Elwin. Travel to Jin was not something that was suited for a small dhow. Professor Thales’s expression broke into that of delight, having found rare company with whom he could share stories of his youth. Seldom did anyone ask for it – in fact, it was the first time anyone had asked in thirty-three years.
“A full season in our calendar,” he replied. “I lost my map in the second storm, and strayed far off-course on the open ocean. By the fiftieth day I’d run out of supplies, and had to use my Mashurmastra to subsist on a diet of fish and turtles. The coast is more abundant than the open ocean, I’ve found, so I was ever on the verge of starvation. But seeing the stars studding the night sky affirmed in me that I wouldn’t give up such a life for anything else. The stars are very bright out there, far from land.”
“Mmm-hmm,” nodded Elwin. What would he have felt out there? Embraced by the star-sea?
“On the eighty-seventh day, I sighted land,” said the Master of the Waters, closing his eyes as if to dream. “I could never forget the moment I set my eyes upon those great Gates of Jin, rising out the ocean in great towers as a monument to forever. I sailed past it and down an estuary, onto a port in that city of red porcelain towers that stretched into eternity. I cautiously crawled out of my beaten and battered dhow, pausing before I set my toe upon the new land – I imagined, suspected, that it would feel very different from Mythrise. But to my astonishment, it was the same.”
“The very same?”
“The very same. That was when I understood that our world was very small. I was driven by it to meet and know everything there was about Jin as well. But I was out of coin. So I went from place to place, asking to fulfill jobs they wouldn’t do, they wouldn’t want. Every person I came across asked me where I was from – after all, with my hair of blue-ice blond, striking nose, and alien words, I stood out like a carrot amidst radishes. I was first hesitant to say that I was from Mythrise – our nations did not have such cordial histories, after all, as we learn at public school and also at Aeternitas. But I received nothing but warm welcome.”
“Really?”
“The institutions in our Republics would have you believe that the Empire of Jin despises us, as much as we are wary of them. But I have found that couldn’t be further from the truth. Many peoples want concord and peace, not war and tragedy. It was that they could not influence their Emperor nor their many Imperial Houses, a product of despotism.”
Professor Thales gave Elwin privy to a perspective far removed from what he was drilled to have. Hope and melancholy rose from within him; Headmaster Abraxas’s words before the Festival of Flowers surfaced to his consciousness. “So the people accepted you? What did you do after? Did you decide to stay there?” he asked. He wanted to ask such questions to his father, but missed his chance to do so.
“Yes, for quite long a time. I learned their tongue and served as a waiter for two years at one of their renowned restaurants, and worked in the same establishment as a cook for three. The cuisine there is incredible and varied beyond our wildest imagination. Each day of the one-thousand-and-nine-hundred proved a new experience removed from the day before.”
“So that’s how you won the food competitions at Aeternitas in a landslide! Or at least, until last year!” chuckled Elwin.
“True. In Jin, the Culinary Arts are held in sacred veneration. No Form of the Mahamastra is neglected to create their dishes. But a more interesting finding of mine was that the ways they performed the Mahamastra were profoundly different from ours.”
“Profoundly different? As in their Forms?”
Professor Thales nodded. “Practically none of them used the Forms with which we are familiar in Mythrise. Though the same fundamental principles of Dance, Rhythm, Melody, and Song permeate their Arts, the purpose and goal of the Forms seem to be driven by a different philosophy to the ones we learn here. I sought to investigate, so I departed my career and visited all of its provinces in search of the new Forms. They have many hidden sects of the Arts there, each teaching a particular Form or way in the Mahamastra. Some that I joined ended up being nothing more than smoke and mirrors. But some others taught me the Arts in many ways bewitchingly unique. I served as a disciple in one of those sects for a time, and grew quite fond of their tea. After I had been satisfied with my journeys, I opened a small tea-restaurant in the capital.”
“You even had your own restaurant?” Elwin buzzed.
“Yes. But not all was to be well. On the sixteenth year of my residence in Jin, the tides turned against my fortune. The Blood Syndicate of Mythrise, the Syndicate of our very Republics, had managed to cross the ocean and land its operations on the shores of the unblemished land. When the news of this foreign corruption entered the ears of the Emperor, he issued the Outlander Expulsion Decree, forcing everyone of non-Jin origin out without a regard to where they went. Though I spoke their tongue as fluently as those born there, I was recognized by my foreign features, and was asked to leave. I sold my restaurant at half-price to a friend, and so it was that just shy of seventeen years from when I left, I set foot upon Mythrise again. I was forty-three by then.”
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Elwin craned his ears for the tales of another world, another past. He had never expected Professor Thales to have had such adventures.
"Did you have a family back in the Empire?" he asked, quietly.
The Master of the Waters sighed forlorn, resting his fingers upon his forehead. "...I had someone whom I dearly loved, but was forced to say goodbye."
"Did you meet them again?"
"Yes... after many years... but our primes had been long past by then. Perhaps she and I were meant to shine brilliantly together for a transitory moment, but go out the next in the squalls of fortune. Yet in this way, our love was perhaps made most beautiful." Professor Thales smiled unknowingly into the distance west, lost in a reel of thoughts. Elwin saw his eyes shimmer with a glaze of tears.
"Anyhow, where have we been... ahem," he continued, clearing his throat, focus returning to his gaze. "Ah, yes, where my journeys in Jin drew to a close."
"Did you join the Ministry of Order right away? Because you were angry at the Syndicate?"
"Most incensed, but I did not dive into its ranks immediately. When I sailed home to the Republics, I joined the Mythrisian Navy first, and served as captain for a time to catch Blood Syndicate ships ferrying their goods to the Empire. But my mission made me feel more and more that I was bandaging a wound without a care of its cause. I respectfully resigned from my post, and instead joined as a detective in the corps at the Ministry of Order, which was searching for a solution against the Syndicate. I’d hoped to bring an end to this great evil to our peoples through intelligence and intrigue, but the enemies we fought were profoundly more powerful and frightening than I’d imagined. In fighting such forces, my comrades fell around me; the fifteen with whom I began my missions were slaughtered one by one at the hands of the Syndicate, taken at an age too young. I was the only one to survive. I wanted to avenge their deaths, to make sure their sacrifice wouldn’t have been in vain, so I worked and worked, many times escaping with the skin of my teeth, to rise through the ranks of the Order until I became its Chief Director. It was there that I learnt the Syndicate we battled against was a product of a being called Mahanai, which struck in me despair; but at the same time, the existence of the Encarnacion was revealed to me. It was a revelation that enkindled in me a new hope, a lone candle in the infernal dark, which fueled me as I gave my all under President Abraxas's declaration against the Syndicate. But the path I needed to tread as the Chief Director was not without blood.”
Elwin listened on, intently.
“As the Chief Director, I had to commit choices which made me wish to end my breath. I sent countless men and women to their deaths, sent those in their youth to assail a fortress that was Mahanai and his evil without privy to the truth of their being. There was not a moment where I did not lament why the world had to be this way, why it was so choke full of suffering. But forward I walked for the peace of our dreams. And with great praise to Encarnacion Aionia Arcansale and her undying flame, my hope for the future likewise did not die, carrying us to the end where we were able to prevail. It is by her sacrifice and the sacrifice of countless souls, that this present was made possible; do not believe otherwise.”
Elwin quietly spoke. “So that’s what the Ministry of Order fought?”
“And continues to fight.”
Elwin let out a guttural sigh. All this time he thought they were no more than tyrants and bullies, exploiting the weak and reveling in their pain. So many things he thought to be true were simply wrong – one color of the world that was painting of many.
“If you had to make those same choices again... would you do it?” Elwin asked.
Professor Thales craned his head up at the Bridge of SERA. “Yes.”
“Even though you are remorseful?”
“Remorse should not stay the hand from doing what is necessary. If the world will not have a tomorrow because you do not make those choices, then you must prevail over your sentiments and do what is right. That’s why the path of a hero is the most alone.”
“...”
“I know that the unsavory reputation of our Order finds its origin from the time of my directorship. But I wanted to redeem our name in the Artens’ eyes. You must know that we did not commit our acts in vain.”
“But professor... back in Cita de Lumière, there was an enforcer who threatened to beat a starving child and send him to a Tenebriton mine.”
Professor Thales’s eyes held surprise.
“A child? How young?”
“11 at best, if I remember.”
“What did the child do?”
“He stole a couple of rucksacks from us and ran through the street.”
“Were they recovered?”
“Yeah. I chased after him and got the rucksacks back, but the enforcer had followed us.”
Professor Thales lowered his head. “I apologize on behalf of the Order. Violence of the Order is a product of my time, and I should’ve amended the protocols before I left. Dangerous adults and youth I understand... but an enforcer threatening a defenseless child is unusual indeed, especially when the goods were recovered.”
“Right? Surely, those who fight Mahanai wouldn’t do that!”
“Only the Chief Director is aware of Mahanai, not their enforcers, just as I had no knowledge that the Syndicate was truly Mahanai’s design when I was a mere detective. If the conduct of the current Order is thus, then perhaps there is a reason. I will discuss with the current Chief Director to investigate. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Elwin.”
Elwin nodded as the Master of the Waters turned to leave. But before he took his step down the stairs, he paused, and looked back at him. “Even through my shortcomings, I hope my tales can find some use in your understanding of the world, and eventually in your decision.”
“I’m grateful. But it’s quite the conundrum.”
Professor Thales sighed. “It is only right to be challenging. The decision to be the next Encarnacion is not something to be made on a whim, after all. Even if the world demanded it so, no one in the Musha could compel you to take on Professor Aionia’s legacy, for it is a duty that weighs as much as the world itself. But I can testify that without the Encarnacion, we would have lost our way a long time ago. If you have the valor to be that torch in the dark, if you have the spirit to see things through that others cannot, then perhaps, you can become our light. I’ve already witnessed you thus.”
Elwin nodded.
“May you have the courage to make the right decision for yourself, and also the world.”
“Thank you. I’ll do my best.”