One of my coworkers back home had insisted that the best way to understand a culture was to consume its fiction. He had worked the India desk with me and his desk was full of so many Bollywood nick-nacks that it was practically impossible for him to put paper anywhere. I wasn’t too sure it worked for him as a career move, as he was at least a decade my senior at the agency but was still working the same level as me. Although he had hosted a few watch parties of particularly successful movies and I had myself connecting to the various blogs and social media posts that made up more than half of my work in a better way. So maybe he’d had a point.

Telling time in my new situation was simultaneously easy and difficult. On the one hand, there were periodic bell chimes that rang out from a nearby belltower. On reflection, I was in a tower, so the bell was probably just a few stories above my head. After three iterations of the chimes, it was clear that they were counting up. On the other hand, I had no real way of knowing the basic unit of time measurement here. Earth used minutes and hours with numeration that dated back to Ancient Babylon, there was no guarantee that wherever I wound up was similar. Or even that there were 24 hours in a day. I also hadn’t started noticing the bells until I’d started reading so I didn’t know how many of them had rung while the Abbess and I had been hunting for books. The Abbess had told Astri, her apprentice, to return at the noon bell. But I didn’t actually know when that was.

After a few such chimes, it was the content of the books that drove me to switch topics. The story of an Eldritch Sea Viper had had plenty of information in its beginning about different types of small boats, and I had settled on calling my father’s fishing ship a dinghy. But after only a few chapters, the guy had wound up being abruptly elevated to captain of a captured pirate sloop and had embarked on a grand adventure in the company of mystical creatures and escaped slaves. On the one hand, I wondered if mystical creatures were a thing here, but on the other, a grand adventure on the high seas wasn’t going to be very helpful. I didn’t need that much information about how to arrange for broadside or ramming maneuvers with the wind.

The Archmage Farmer had been even less helpful. Sure, it took place in a village, although this time a farming one. But the main character started the book as a fully realized Archmage who was retiring to the area, so his encounters with village life hardly seemed typical. There were a few scenes of him using advanced magic to make his crops grow better, which were interesting and seemed to be the focus of the story: the archmage in question was learning all ways of using magic for something other than combat. I would wish that there was actual magical inspiration, but the Archmage was not described using any magics it sounded like I would have access to. So far, he mostly seemed to be playing with ice magic and nature magic. At least I learned two more affinities that existed.

In terms of my backstory, the only thing this second novel had given me was the basic idea that most villages had a single shrine in them that was somehow universal to all the gods. Which reminded me that I didn’t really know anything about the gods who had apparently had a deep hand in bringing me here. So I set aside the novels and picked up the basic primer on their religion.

That was how Astri found me when she returned. The chiming system had rung out eight times in the latest iteration, so I guess we were eight time units into their day. I knew that I couldn’t ask Astri, as it would immediately reveal my ignorance of what was probably supposed to be a basic fact of their lives. But it was surprisingly frustrating to not even know how time worked.

“Brushing up on the gods?” She asked me archly as she lugged into a pile of books. Whatever floating magic the Abbess knew was clearly not used by her apprentice, who had a sheen of sweat which indicated that she’d just climbed the stairs herself. She did appear to know a variant spell which allowed her to float the books themselves though, so there was that. I glared at the spell construct glowing around the floating pile of books, reminded and annoyed at the effort I’d had to go through of carrying my own stuff up.

My brain caught up to her question. “Yes. Since I seem to have landed to a school dedicated to at least one of them, I figured I should probably know something more than the village idiot.”

“Was that you then? Back wherever the Abbess dug you up from? The village idiot.” The book pile floated around and settled with a soft thud onto the table. “I don’t know why she had me fetch all these books. I’m surprised we even have this many.”

Many? I thought to myself. There are only six books in there. Granted, with one exception they were larger books than the average of what I’d found. I put down the religious primer I’d been reading and walked over to the table. “Why is it a surprise? This seems to be a pretty massive library.”

The young woman laughed. “Yes, I suppose it is. But most of it is magical knowledge that is used by the various researchers who either live here or visit. Surely you noticed that when you went looking for …” She turned at looked at the books I’d grabbed. “Stories? Really? You’re in one of the world’s greatest libraries and you grab stories?”

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I shrugged. I couldn’t reveal my real reason. But I could start building my cover. “Not everything has to be high stakes. My dad said there was value in taking opportunities to relax. When you’re on the waters, a lot of time, you’re just floating.”

“Hmm.” She responded as she looked at me for a moment. “Not exactly an attitude I’d expect from someone the Abbess has taken a special interest in.”

I shrugged again. “I have something she calls a Rare Affinity. I think it makes her more curious than anything else.”

“Well, that and you’re old. Most people your age aren’t just learning about magic and the outside world. If they’ve any level of talent, most will have finished their magical education and be out being whatever they earned here.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to realize that.” I dug another level in my cover. “My dad kept me too sheltered from all things magical. He wouldn’t have liked those stories I’ve picked out. Or me being here at all, really. So I’m really starting from scratch. There are probably 15 year olds who know more than me.” The last part really made me grit my teeth. Nor was the anger faked. It was going to be really annoying to be surrounded by teenagers who not only thought they knew better than me - that was to be expected - but actually did.

“Probably. Did you just awaken to your magic?”

“Yes, just when I showed up here to the Monastery. It seemed the best place to go to figure out magic. Dad kept me from it for too long.” I allowed a trace of bitterness to creep into my voice. The reason was fake, obviously, but the general sentiments were true. “All the years of my life wasted when I could have been doing something greater … better. Could have had magic…”

“And you picked stories, basic religion primers and histories as the first things you start to read?” Astri looked at me incredulously.

I chased the bitterness out of my voice with a laugh. “Well, I wouldn’t call myself the village idiot. But I was the village something. I figure I need to learn about the world I’m stepping into as much as I need to learn magic. The magic part will probably be taken care of by the Monastery after this Nevernight festival from what I’ve been told. So I need to start figuring out the rest. And that means figuring out what the broader world looks like. I can’t exactly walk up to some priest here - are there even priests here - and ask them to just tell me who the gods are! So that means basic primers.”

Astri nodded. “Fair enough, I suppose. I wouldn’t call any of the people here priests though. They’re touchy on the subject. You’ve obviously met the Abbess and Grand Abbot. There are two more Abbots, one for the Monastery proper and one for the Monastery School. The Abbess has two assistants, called Deacons. They’re really the only people here who have explicitly religious titles. The Abbess and Deacons will lead the prayer services every Elensday - attendance is mandatory for those, by the way - but they aren’t priests like you’d see in the major temples in cities. Don’t ask me the difference, I couldn’t care less. But I know they care deeply.”

I nodded at the information as I could hardly do anything else. At least using the term priests hadn’t been too far off base, so I’d come across as a country bumpkin rather than somebody who really didn’t know basic information. I tried to pivot the discussion back to the books she brought. “So, the Ice Kings?”

Astri shrugged. “Not much to say there. We’ve got three ancient histories on them in modern languages. Two books I’m not sure about and then there’s this guy. I can’t even read the title, but it was filed with the Ice King stuff.” She held up a book that was labeled, clear as day to me, as “Regnin’s Second List.” I almost read the title out loud before she said that she couldn’t read the title and promptly bit my tongue.

I paused and looked at the book for a little longer. I reached out and took it from her hand. There was something there, but I couldn’t figure out what. Fortunately, Astri misinterpreted my scrutiny. “Yeah, I haven’t ever seen that alphabet before. The book is in great condition, which makes me doubt it could be the Ice King script, but at the same time, that’s all I can think of it being.”

That’s it! I realized. That’s what’s different here. It’s in a different alphabet. To confirm my suspicions, I looked back at the other books she had brought up. It was hard for my mind to separate them. It was clear that there was some kind of translation magic going on. That was obvious enough from the fact that I could read in this foreign language and communicate in this alien tongue at all. But this magic was either extremely sophisticated or extremely simple. It was rendering everything I was encountering into my own native language. It took a lot of focus for me to see that these books weren’t written in my native language at all, as if I were piercing through a veil that was laid over them. Once I did that, I could then see the native lettering, which was indeed quite different between the books.

I pointed at one of the books she hadn’t called a history. “That one’s a translation guide for the ancient script. I guess I’ll be able to use it to understand this one.” I held up the small volume.

Astri shrugged. “Better you than me then. I know the Abbess wants me to settle into her love of books like that, but that’s not going to happen. Anyway, I was told to bring the books. Now it’s time to go grab some food. Do you …” She stopped. “I was going to ask if you knew where the mess hall was, but I bet the Abbess only took you to the Library cafeteria this morning and you haven’t had a chance to see anything else of the campus yet. So you wouldn’t. Do you want to join my friends and I for lunch then? I’ll take you to the cafeteria and show you a bit of the campus where you’ll be moving after the Festival begins.”

“Ah … thanks. Yeah. The Abbess actually told me I had to get you to take me to lunch, she wouldn’t be back to talk to me more until the evening.”

Astri grimaced. “Drat, I thought I was going to be stealing you away from her hiding. Oh well, we still need to go eat.”

I tossed the small volume back on the table and followed Astri out the door. I was not looking forward to the climb back down.