Epilogue
The serene halls had met The First Archmage, The Head Administrator of the University of Natural Laws and Conventional Logic, and whichever-else-titles-were-dumped-on-him-at-this-point, with the heat-spreading stone, which the hall itself was made from. The searing feeling that arose from the material - that by all mundanely-sensible and conceptually-sensible means could not be complicit in the criminally devious scheme to make this summer heat even more unbearable than it already was - it made Owen Magnus sigh in sheer frustration.
They did it again. His precious, rowdy gremlins of chaos had managed to bypass the security Spells once more. For all the good that Disrupt, Anchoring and countless other Spells could do, they were but normal ones, like any other. Even if teachers and Owen himself changed and upgraded the defences every other week, fighting young, fresh, and suicidally curious Minds in a duel of wits and Spirit was like taking on several Daemons at once.
The tall windows let in the red rays of the sleepy, morning Sun. The Capital was waking up from the slumber. Passenger cars, trucks, trains, and zeppelins conquered the 6 o’clock stillness by rumbling, throttling, and spreading announcements with the voice so deep and faint, even the best inspectors of MUIP would have to juice up their physical capabilities to hear a single word.
His stumbling steps echoed through the corridor. Owen Magnus had underslept, and he was aware of that.
Painfully.
The book he borrowed from Ministry of Discoveries (read: stole) was happily hiding within his ceremonial coat. Owen imagined their faces, confused by the egregious audacity of The Archmage himself walking into the building and taking the valuable piece of the history from the department with the biggest amount of people, who grew with sticks up their butts, all without asking for any permission. He didn’t even try to hide his crime and simply walked out with the book in his hands.
For any other person, it would result in a very long prison sentence, if not an outright accusation of treason. For Owen Magnus? Another day of flipping a bird at the most repulsive people he ever had the displeasure of dealing with. Even if the table-punchers had something to say about it, they would have to go through The University first. He would not have any pity for them if they ever found the balls to do so. MUIP would rip these balls straight off.
And thank Deities for that. With the blooming madness in the Circle, a continuous scuffle of Noble Houses, weird movements of the prince, and whatever-the-hell The Emperor herself was doing, he wanted nothing to do with Ministry of Discoveries and the headache they produced on daily basis.
To his grand displeasure, his rather particular position was pulling him back onto the political battlefield every single time. The University was doing its best to stay away from a tug-of-war that was The Capital, but without a bright figure as the bulwark and representation, Mages would be swayed to one side or another a long time ago.
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And that figure just had to be him. What a joy.
He hoped that Ariya, his brilliant daughter, would be able to grab the reins in his absence. After the catastrophe that went down in Hora-Hrothgar, after the untimely appearance of the Man of Dissonance and Master of Origin, one after another…
The upcoming months would be the ultimate test for the Empire.
Ariya had left the territories of Sumeilien ages ago. He wondered, how long it would be until they reunite again. He had not heard from her ever since she left for the Tomb of the Mad King, only getting glimpses of her Fate here and there.
Even worse, he tried to track her by Scrying, and he couldn’t get it to work for weeks. That promised nothing but a disaster.
Ridiculously for the Archmage, Owen was averse to getting his mantle dirty.
He grimaced.
It was a nice way of saying that he was a failure in the direct duelling. For the man in his position, it was the quality worthy of hiding in a safe, buried behind thousands of chains and tossed into the Threshold. Letters of wisdom and knowledge were his paradise, and he made sure that nobody else could pull him away from his library. Were he to be born as a bird, he would’ve stuffed a nest somewhere there already.
The Archmage yawned, passing a Weaving Workshop. The halls would fill with harbingers of destruction in two hours or so. He hoped to get enough time and decipher the book he was carrying before he runs into a literal toilet bowl Ghost again. Or a dragon in a hallway.
The library greeted Owen Magnus with a smell of dusty paper and dreamy shadows. The lamps on the walls gradually woke up, illuminating rich red wood that held armies of books. Ministry of Discoveries would sell out The Emperor herself to get their grabby hand on the books in this place, but the Board of The University stood adamant against the invasions on their property.
A table and a chair accepted the falling body of the Archmage into their grasp. He put the book down and grabbed his notes.
When Owen Magnus first read the book, in his Mind it had nothing more than scribbles of a madman, written in an unfamiliar language. It took him a year, a couple of Spells, the help of his daughter, and deep digging through the papers of old to translate this language into something resembling Sumeilien Official.
And if it wasn’t for Ariya, it might have taken him much longer time to fully figure out the meaning of the text. Now, he had the five-year-long-coming solution to the puzzle.
His fingers slid on the marked words.
“'Imeera' means ‘day’. 'Proi' means ‘morning’. This word is either some sort of building, or a belief… ‘Fos’ is The Light… Awakening, The Tower, and power… Void and Abyss… Cataclysm.”
Owen Magnus bit his lip. The pieces were falling into places, painting the picture of the world that was left behind.
“Progeny…”
The final threads stitched the puzzle together. The myth was full of abstract messages and nonsensical happenings, but the Archmage was not of a cowardly sort. He took on the beast of confusing plots with a drive of the legendary khwoaer soldier, who stole a ship and ran away into the Threshold barely a year after Owen got the book.
He tossed away empty metaphors and whimsical imagery. They were a smokescreen, providing no value. The terms and the short tangent near the end were the true treasures, buried beneath the sand of confusion.
The old bones sang true. The land of the past was once whole and blooming. The Light had changed the rules of the world and brought temporary prosperity.
But the question was - who were the Creator and the Traitor?