AUS DEN AUGEN, AUS DEM SINN
German, "out of sight, out of mind"
She got on with her education. In her opinion, school kept on trying to interfere with it. -- Terry Pratchett, Soul Music
The problem with being over ninety years old and pretending to be fourteen was that Karandren no longer remembered what it was like to actually be fourteen. Getting used to his new -- or should that be old? -- height was just the start of his problems. Next he had to get through classes that were interminably boring.
He was sure they'd been boring the first time. This time they were even worse because he already knew everything the teacher was saying. It was hard to keep a straight face while he listened to someone talking about sight-enhancing charms as if they were explaining a complicated subject to toddlers.
"The benefits of this charm are--" Professor Maholt broke off. She gave Karandren a very hard stare. "Karandren Hriaþansson! Why are you laughing?"
It had been well over seventy years since Karandren last felt the need to explain himself to an adult. He could invent an excuse, like his lie about the shoe-laces. But why should he bother going to so much effort?
He looked Professor Maholt dead in the eye. "I'm laughing because I already know all of this."
Until now his classmates had been surreptitiously passing notes and yawning behind their hands. Professor Maholt's method of teaching was to give endless lectures and little practical experience. Naturally none of the students paid much attention in her class. This was the most interesting thing to happen in the entire term. They all sat up straight and stared curiously at Karandren.
The professor turned white while the tip of her nose turned red. From past experience Karandren knew that meant she was getting angry. Everyone else knew it too. The students in the front rows tried to shuffle away without drawing her attention. When he was fourteen Karandren had found the professor intimidating. Now he was a dark magician, the once and future conqueror of Miavain, and most importantly had been Diarnlan's student. Maholt's fury couldn't hold a candle to Diarnlan's icy looks and cutting remarks.
"All right, Mr. Smart-aleck," Maholt said pompously, drawing herself up to her full height. She probably thought she was frightening him. Karandren just thought that when he reached his full height, her head would barely be level with his elbow. "Tell us all what the benefits of this charm are."
She might as well have asked him to give a lecture on the benefits of drinking water regularly. Karandren gave her a smile that showed just the points of his teeth. In Miavain it had terrified people out of their wits. Now, on the face of a relatively powerless fourteen-year-old, it only made her glare harder at him.
Karandren stood up and looked around with his best air of "I'm about to say something very important so you'd all better listen", like a politician about to give a speech full of more lies than usual. "The benefits of the sight-enhancing charm are right there in its name. It makes a person's eyesight temporarily better. Short-sighted people use it to get a break from glasses. Night-watchmen use it to see better in the dark. A person who's looking for something might use it to spot whatever they lost. It must not be used too often or for too long or it can damage your eyes."
Maholt looked increasingly angry with every word he said. When he finished she growled, "You copied that from the textbook."
Instead of answering that -- of course he hadn't copied it from the textbook; he already knew all this information off by heart from sitting through this class before -- Karandren smiled brightly at his gawking classmates. "Now I'll demonstrate the charm."
He picked up his wand -- all students under the age of sixteen needed wands to properly direct their magic -- and pointed it at the professor. In the time it took for his actions to register he'd already cast the spell. She only had time to yelp in alarm before it struck her.
It was not a sight-enhancing charm.
During his time in Miavain Karandren had learnt many painful jinxes, hexes, and curses. One of them was a spell that removed a person's eyes entirely. He had enough sense to know a suddenly eyeless professor would attract all sorts of unwanted attention. So he modified it to a spell that would only remove her sight while leaving her eyes intact.
Once again he overestimated how much magic he had at this age. The spell struck her. She screamed and staggered back. Her eyes began to water uncontrollably.
"My eyes!" she wailed. "Help! Get me a tissue! My eyes are stinging!"
Chaos erupted. The other students tried to help her. Since they were fourteen-year-olds who had never had to deal with a situation like this before, their method of helping was to wring their hands, argue over what had happened, and get in each other's way when they tried to cast magic-reversing spells. A stray spell turned one girl a very unflattering shade of puce -- not just her hair and uniform, but her skin too.
Amidst all the mayhem Karandren sat down at his desk and watched them all without even trying to hide his smile. All those years of not feeling anything had made him forget how much fun it was to see people panic because of him.
Eventually someone had the common sense to remember who was actually responsible for this. One of his classmates stalked up to him. Somehow she managed to give the impression of being very tall and as intimidating as a fourteen-year-old could be, even though she was shorter than him and had somehow overturned an inkpot onto her uniform.
"You!" she shouted, jabbing her finger in his chest. "You did this! So undo it!"
Karandren shrugged dismissively. "How can I undo it? I don't know what I did wrong."
Technically that was true. He'd meant to remove Maholt's sight. Judging by her pained groans, she could still see but he had injured her eyes in some way. Karandren neither knew nor cared how to reverse it.
By now the noise had reached such a pitch that it could be heard in other parts of the school. The classroom door flew open and the headmistress stormed in.
"What is the meaning of this uproar?" she yelled. She had to repeat herself twice before everyone quieted down. At once her eyes fell on Professor Maholt, huddled over her desk and groaning in pain. "Good heavens! What happened?"
In unison all the students pointed mutely at Karandren. He shrugged helplessly and pasted on his most innocent "I'm just a clueless teenager" expression.
"I made a mistake with a spell."
The headmistress frowned more fiercely at him. His innocent expression must be rusty. He'd never had to use it in Miavain, after all. Or maybe she just hated him. Or perhaps it was both.
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"You--" she pointed at him with the air of someone pointing out a horrible sight, "--go to my office. The rest of you go to your common room. Right now!" As the students all filed meekly out of the classroom Karandren heard her say, "Now, let's see how to fix what that dreadful boy did."
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Fate had a very twisted sense of humour. And a terrible sense of time. And probably a personal grudge against Diarnlan. Her escape plan -- if it could be called a plan when it was just "get out of Avallot before the monster attacks" -- went smoothly until she reached the town of Thaengibekkr. Then it all fell apart.
Thaengibekkr was the county town of Lokszkakr. It was therefore a large town, only one step down from a city, with over fifteen thousand people living in it and a constant stream of visitors entering and leaving every day. You would think that the chances of accidentally meeting someone you knew in a place full of so many people were incredibly low. You would think right -- unless you were escaping your past life's mistakes and the last thing you wanted was to be recognised. In other words, unless you were Diarnlan.
The way to the train station lay along the main street, the widest and busiest street in the entire town. To get there she had to elbow her way through hundreds of people standing around and cluttering up the pavement.
She had just battled her way through a particularly rude group who refused to move when she heard a very familiar voice.
"Diarnlan? What are you doing here?"
It came as such a shock that Diarnlan almost tripped over her own feet. She turned and gawked at the speaker, hoping against hope they were just a figment of her imagination. They weren't. Teivain-ríkhon-hrair stared at her curiously. Her arms were full of children's toys, of all things. Diarnlan stared at her teacher, then at the toys, and still couldn't believe this was happening.
I'm dreaming, she thought dizzily. All this stress is having a bad effect on my mind.
"Are you all right?" her teacher asked. "You look awful."
Yes, coming back to life does that to people. Diarnlan fought back a wild burst of laughter. Instead she demanded, "What are you doing here?"
"Buying gifts for my cousin's granddaughter." Diarnlan didn't know whether to scoff or roll her eyes at that. She wouldn't bother wasting money on gifts for her closest relatives, let alone someone so distantly related. "But what are you doing here? You said you wanted to visit the Ljósbjǫð[1]."
Did I say that? Diarnlan had no memory of any such visit ever happening. It was unsurprisingly hard to remember things she'd said over ninety years ago, even though at this point they were only a few days in the past.
"I changed my mind." I'm from the future and I came back in time after my death. The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she found she couldn't say them.
If there was one person anywhere in the whole wide world who almost certainly would believe her, it was Teivain-ríkhon-hrair. The mage was already so notoriously eccentric that she was likely to believe anything. Yet the minute Diarnlan opened her mouth, a little voice piped up at the back of her mind.
What if she doesn't believe you?
It was a very slim possibility. But it was still a possibility. The idea of being laughed at by her teacher of all people was more than Diarnlan could bear. So she said nothing about her time-travelling adventures and came up with an excuse instead.
"My sister paid a visit. I don't want to see her, so I left. She'll never think to look for me here."
Her teacher shook her head sadly. "You need to learn to get along with people. Especially your family. You can't get rid of them, you know."
Diarnlan thought about her first life (or was it her second? Her third? Why did she have so many conflicting memories of different lives and deaths cluttering up her mind?). She'd done a pretty good job of getting rid of her family and all other irritants by the simple means of secluding herself in Sólbjǫrgvegr. What a pity her own realm no longer existed.
Though on the other hand, she hadn't managed to keep out all the pests. The other mages had continued to make a nuisance of themselves by telepathically contacting her when they wanted something. And then there was Karandren. He was the biggest pest of all. And he was still out there somewhere, just waiting to throw her life into chaos and kill her again...
Teivain-ríkhon-hrair cleared her throat. "Diarnlan, I really don't think you're well. You've been staring off into space for the last minute. And you look like you've seen a ghost."
In a way that was true. She was seeing the ghost of eighty years ago. Only technically she was the ghost. This time-travel business was very confusing. No wonder everyone else who had tried it had gone mad. She felt as if she was dancing on the edge of a knife above a sea of insanity, about to fall headlong into it.
"And there you're doing it again. What's wrong with you today? Surely not even you hate your sister that much."
Diarnlan stared dully at her teacher. Again she considered telling her the truth. Again her pride refused to let her. "It's nothing. I didn't sleep well last night."
Her teacher shrugged. "You can just say you don't want to tell me, you know. I dare say I am too inquisitive for my own good. But I do worry about all my students. Even you, though you do your best to drive everyone away."
What in the world was she supposed to say to that? Have an emotional heart-to-heart like a child confiding in their parent about some imaginary wrongdoing? Tearfully thank her teacher for being concerned about her students -- in other words, for doing what teachers everywhere were expected to do?
You weren't very concerned about your students, that infernal little voice whispered.
It's a bad idea to publicly argue with your mind, Diarnlan reminded herself just in time. She'd almost blurted out a cutting remark in reply to that.
"Since you have nothing better to do than go on long journeys to avoid your relatives--"
It was clear from her teacher's voice that she didn't believe a word of that excuse. Diarnlan felt the instinctive urge to lash out at someone, anyone, because of how this hurt her pride. She ground her teeth, but restrained herself with difficulty from saying anything.
"--you might as well help me with my shopping. I have a lot of things still to buy."
Diarnlan eyed the toys her teacher was already holding. It looked like she'd bought an entire shelf's worth already. "...Are you buying them for a single child or a whole school?"
"Who says a single child isn't a whole school?"
That made no sense whatsoever. Diarnlan couldn't think of anything to say to it. When she thought about it, she realised that was probably why her teacher had said it.
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Karandren was no stranger to being sent to the headmistress's office. In his first life Headmistress Rothnát had frequently summoned him to give him a lecture when his teachers accused him of cheating or when he got into fights with his bullies. Strange to say she had never given his bullies any more than a verbal slap on the wrist. She had mostly given up on lecturing him after the drowning incident. Apparently she had thought he wasn't worth the effort any more. Or maybe she had just been too frightened of him. Now there was a thought!
Karandren pushed his chair back so it was balancing only on two legs. Out of curiosity to see how long he could manage it he held his feet above the floor and used his magic to stop the chair toppling over. He looked around at the headmistress's office. If she was already afraid of him, then he would have a much easier time if he took steps to make her even more afraid of him. Now, what did her office have that he could use to frighten her?
There was the globe. That was hardly likely to scare anyone. Her desk was covered with paperwork. That could be scary, but she was probably used to it by now. In the middle of the room she had a hologram of the Nine Realms. Now that could indeed scare her. It just needed a little work--
He was so distracted by imagining what he could do to the hologram that he forgot to hold the chair in place. It fell over backwards. Karandren fell with it. He let out a high-pitched squeak. It turned to a pained yelp when his head collided with the stone floor.
Rubbing his head, he sat up and glared at the hologram as if it was personally responsible for his fall.
It would take the headmistress a while to reverse the spell he'd cast on Maholt. He had enough time to make a few changes to the magic holding the hologram together. First he added a spell to make the darkness at the bottom of the world-tree more prominent. Then he began to work at shaping it until he managed to create a reasonable facsimile of a dragon's head. It wouldn't fool anyone who looked carefully. But by the time the headmistress thought to look carefully the illusion would have disintegrated.
Next he created a dragon's body to go with the head. He cast a spell on them both to make them climb up the world-tree. When the spell was activated a black dragon appeared to rise from the darkness and cover the Nine Realms. Finally he set the spell to activate in an hour, when the headmistress would be marking papers in her office.
Satisfied with his work, he went back to his chair. When the headmistress arrived she found him sitting quietly in front of her desk as if he'd never dream of causing trouble.