Chapter 20.1 And Back

Anaise Kiymetl Hilal

“You should have seen the look on that old hag’s face!” Her grand-uncle’s voice crowed.

She hid her face with her hands. Her ears were burning with shame.

“And because of your bragging, I got into shit!” Erf yelled in return.

This wasn’t happening. It was all fake, a dream. She gonna wake up any minute now.

“She just can’t handle being left in the dust that's all.”

“That's all, my ass! And now my Domina can’t handle being shaken down by your rival.”

Anaise opened her eyes to see if anything had changed. They were in Virnan’s office. The dream was quite unrealistic: Erf was trying to choke the Rhetor. She closed her eyes again.

“If she doesn’t like it she should have sold you to me a long time ago!”

This wasn’t ending. She needed to do something.

“I enjoy sleeping at night! No thanks!”

Anaise had it. “ENOUGH!” She screamed at the top of her lungs. Forcing the disgrace to a halt. Two…man-children stared at her, finally realizing that they had an audience.

The whole room was in silence, interrupted only by her heavy breathing.

“You!” She pointed at Virnan Shah, “are supposed to be the Wise man of the Tower! A master of knowledge, mundane and obscure! Pick your glasses up and fix your beard.”

“And you!” She glared at Erf, “are my personal attendant! How are you behaving in front of my grand-uncle!?”

“But he star-”

“I don’t care who started what!” Anaise interrupted his feeble rebuke. “What I care about is that we all sit down, make ourselves presentable, and start behaving like you are in a polite society,” She glared at both of them, “Is that clear?”

Hearing the dual sounds of agreement, she finally let herself relax and closed her eyes again. Finding her own inner peace.

“I am surprised with the sudden visit, however.” A regal voice said. She smiled, listening to it. That is exactly how she had imagined Virnan Shah to sound while he was meeting important guests.

“You should be.” Came an unexpected reply from Erf.

What?

Erf continued, “I’ve told you in multiple letters, that I had no desire to return to this accursed place. However, my mistress was of extremely high opinion about you and urged me to come here once again. To see your excellence in math and, especially, in Flow.”

Anaise blushed at the scrutiny he put her under. Unable to keep her ears straight when Virnan looked at her once again. It was a different look this time. Not from a grand-uncle looking favourably at the younger generation. It was the look of acknowledgement and perhaps a bit of praise too. If not for her knowledge but at least for her political acumen to wrangle her assistant into submission like that.

And then a sly glance back at her aide. “Hoh? Flow training you say? You don't ask for little here.”

He wasn’t refusing. Anaise recognized that with an elated heart. He was haggling for more.

Erf winked back. “How about fair trade, then. I share with you some ideas and you would do the same to the gorgeous Lady of the House?”

She hid her face behind the tail. Anaise heard mountains of compliments before, and yet she couldn't maintain her composure at an offhand remark coming from him, here, and at this time. It felt different to her, somehow. 

A clap and the sound of rubbing hands. “Very well, but I will be the judge of your ideas.”

“Let’s start then. In the latest missive, you bragged about finding the formula for Pascal’s Triangle? Right?”

“I don't know why you keep calling it that, but yes. I used it actually to shut that old hag up.” Virnan responded.

“Please spare me, She is the last person I want to talk about right now. So…”

Anaise watched them, mesmerized. Erf had managed to explain most parts to her before, but she still had trouble with things like ‘infinite sums’. It felt bittersweet watching her grand-uncle right now. The difference in their skills was impossible to ignore. She knew he was smart - she wanted to study under him exactly for that reason. Only now she understood how smart he really was.

Things that Erf explained to her twice or thrice, Virnan did himself with the tiniest prompt from her companion. Erf words turned prophetic as she watched him work on problems. What she saw as an obstacle, Virnan saw as playthings, giddy at each new reveal that Erf was milking out of that triangle of his.

While she could concede that idea of statistics sounded useful, things like combinatorics still felt nebulous to her. Or why does it matter that this pascal triangle actually has another triangle on top, that everyone missed so far?

Judging by the Virnan Shah dancing, it mattered a lot.

Erf kept digging deeper, however. He went past the negative powers of the inverted triangle, and dove in deep. Between the numbers into the realm of square roots and even more obscure calculations. Even Rhetor himself started to struggle now. But something kept nagging at her in her mind. Something familiar.

Erf noticed her frown and smiled. Writing yet another formula that he showed her yesterday.

Anaise sucked the air in, as her mind made the connection.

“What?” Virnan sharply turned to her. His eyes piercing.

“That part is the formula for the half-circle!” She couldn’t stop herself from blurting out. Happy that she managed to keep up.

Virnan Shah turned stiffly back to the sand, and then up to the grinning Erf. “Does that mean?”

In the perfect silence, Erf quiet whisper felt extremely loud, “What would happen if you integrate both sides?”

“You will get an area of a half-circle,” Virnan said back, no longer looking. His stick danced on the floor as he rushed to the conclusion that only he saw.

Erf watched silently as her grand-uncle wrote and wrote. And then he slowly started clapping.

“Congratulations.” He smiled gently, “You have just discovered the formula for pi.”

Anaise shivered. The silent office gloomed over them all. Virnan Shah, on his knees in the sand, staring at the things he just wrote himself, as if unable to believe that he has just done that. On top of him, leaning on his writing rod, Erf loomed with a gentle smile. Like a God, descended to grant another Gift.

She rubbed her eyes. The moment passed.

Slowly Virnan started to chuckle, and then, laugh. Madly. Only to stop as if remembering something.

“You!” he pointed at her “You knew all that didn’t you?”

“Not at all!” She quickly tried to deny his accusations. Erf told her plenty, but he didn’t tell her that much. “I just noticed a pattern that is all.”

It was true, but she couldn’t explain it in her words, so she chose Erf’s instead.

“I see why you brought her along, now. If she is smart enough to see the patterns, she is more than welcome to study under me!” he proclaimed.

A smile split her face. “Thank you! Bu-” only to be interrupted by two palms grabbing her from behind.

Erf. Her attendant, her companion…

Her friend.

“I brought her here for another reason, old man.” He grinned, massaging her shoulders.

Anaise let his cheek go this time, relaxed in his touch. Watching two of them scribble for hours made her neck stiff. She was also curious.

“Hmmm?” Virnan was curious as well.

His mouth close to her ear words gentle and stimulating. “I brought her here so that you can take a good look at the one, who will beat you in the future!”

Her tail was back in her face, cheeks and ears glowing red. “ERF!” She wailed as her grand-uncle guffawed.

But somehow, with his hands pushing on her back, she felt some truth in that statement.

XXX

Virnan was true to his word. He spent the rest of our time in the tower diligently helping Anaise on her path to become a great mage. I listened in of course as I idly watched the city from the window in his office.

There was no point watching them most of the time. Whatever they were doing was done internally with Virnan’s words guiding her through the process in a similar way I’ve done with him a few hours ago. He also wasn’t teaching her flashy spells either. Instead, as a good teacher would, he started from the basics. Monitoring her skill, speed, and power with simple tricks like motes of light and flying objects.

That did extremely little for me, however. Lacking the perception ability to understand his descriptions I felt like a deaf man reading the discussion about music.

The descriptions weren’t easy to understand either. As the book on runes suggested, there were certain patterns and shapes a wermage could perceive somehow, but the perception of them was all wrong. I expected it to be like a puzzle of shapes that they assembled into a spell. They kinda did, when learning said spell. When casting it, it was the opposite. Apparently, as a wermage was about to cast a spell, the complete shape would emerge almost instantly and they were tasked with unravelling it instead into the basic forms. And yet the complex shape would never appear if the mage didn’t know beforehand how to assemble it in the first place.

My new running hypothesis was that spellcasting was both conscious and subconscious. First, the subconscious mind would read the flow and quickly assemble it into the shape when prompted to cast. And then the conscious part would be used to what? Power it through unravelling? I heard Virnan mentioning something about avoiding magical exhaustion today, which pleased Anaise exorbitantly.

And now we were heading back. Anaise sat in her litter keeping the missives from Albin and Virnan close, and the bobbin of golden thread closer. I wouldn’t begrudge her for it. The time of learning has passed but her debut was coming. Maybe that was yet another reason, why Aikerim was so happy with the loom. Or at least why she was so eager to see me try. It was a venture worth thinking more about in the future.

“Thanks, Erf.” Anaise quietly muttered, still smiling to herself. “For making this happen. I don’t know how long it would’ve taken me to get as far I’ve gone today. Without your help.”

Her implication was clear, but I decided to abstain from asking much. It wasn’t time. Nor could she give me anything better than her ear and assistance. But things like that weren’t asked for. Some things could not be requested. Only freely given.

Instead, I grinned at her, “Too late! By now you have fallen into my plot on learning more about Flow!”

I made a realistic attempt on an evil laugh, while she laughed heartily in return. Her voice light, like tiny bells.

“You jest, but I wonder if I could persuade my mother to let you into my classes.” She said afterwards.

“I would be grateful but, perhaps, not tonight.” I ventured. “I have a feeling that she would be too occupied with the missives and our tale.”

She scrunched her nose, cute and tiny, “Ugh, don't remind me about him. I hope he doesn’t rile up my mother enough to lock me up within the Manor, just so that I won't be intercepted by him again.”

“Well, if she does I would simply tell Virnan to visit you instead,” I said with a wink to her unbound mirth.

Just like that, we kept going. Joking along the way about the day behind us. Occasionally even laughing along, her tinkling laughter making the twilight around us a bit more cheerful.

XXX

As she promised, Aikerim met us almost immediately after we have returned. Only to stumble, seeing two missives with Pillar Seals on each. Both had the moon and the tower, while one had the feather and the other - scales. Shebet and Kiymetl.

Suffice to say that meeting had been derailed and we quickly found ourselves in one of the dining rooms. Just three of us. Alone. The tables were full of food, recently brought by the horde of slaves. They vanished as soon as their tasks were done.

“Take a rest,” Aikerim murmured, lounging on her own sofa. “You too, Erf,” She added, seeing me move behind Anaise.

Well, I wouldn’t say no to that. Today was a rather stressful day, and food was always welcome. Especially when it came in small clay jars, filled with steaming meat and vegetables. Mmmh. A perfect way to end the day!

“He accosted us within the city.” Anaise started, seeing her mother break the Shebet seal first.

“Mm-hmm.” Aikerim nodded while reading the scroll. “He does that all the time. How did you find his character?”

Her daughter breathed a sigh of relief, only to frown after, “Obnoxious.”

Domina chuckled, “That he is.”

I pushed another jar closer to me, leaving the girls to talk among themselves. This was bonding time. I was bonding with the food.

“On the other side, Erf got along with him like bread to butter!” Her accusation caught me unawares. I swallowed the piece. Loudly.

“What?” I croaked.

Two foxy ladies sighed at me. One regal and older, the other cute and younger. Amber and emerald.

“I can see why,” Aikerim murmured, and Anaise burst into giggles, clearly surprising her mother.

“You should’ve seen him with the grand-uncle too. I had to pull them apart in the beginning! Can you imagine it?”

Aikerim hummed in response. “Did he call him a senile old fox?”

Her daughter gasped. “He did! Right at the start!” a grape bounced off my forehead, and I caught it. Wasting food was sacrilege. “I thought I would die of shame right there!” the grape thrower and food defiler had the gall to accuse me.

Domina chuckled, albeit morosely, as she burned the scroll to dust. “It might not be what we agreed on, but you can call me Aikerim in the presence of my daughter then.”

Anaise sputtered. “Wait? You knew it would happen?! Why was I the only one not aware!”

“Because you sprang it up on me during the breakfast.” Came a curt reply, causing her to pout.

Anaise, instead of recognizing her loss, decided to deflect it on me, “And you! You should have told me yourself!”

I stopped eating. “If I did, you would’ve killed me on the spot back then, talking about your hero like that. And then promptly cancelled the trip.” I resumed my explorations checking another dish, some sort of pate. Soft but so delicious.

She scowled at both of us, only to harrumph and turn away.

Domina continued to ask us about our trip and, especially, the time spent with Virnan, as she read his scroll herself. But I noticed that her mind was not in it. Distracted. Melancholic. Anaise picked on that as well, as she switched to a lighter mood. Telling her all the silliest things that occurred during our trip. But it helped little.

Eventually, she gave up on the roundabout approach. “What ails you, mother? Is it the letter?”

Aikerim sighed, “While the letter didn’t help, I think I am just tired today. Let us continue tomorrow instead.”

Her daughter nodded and got up. “Very well. Come, Erf. Let us give my mother some peace.”

Well, I had a good run. I still had to finish chewing the latest portion, however.

“Leave him,” Domina commanded. “You can clearly see he is still hungry.”

Snusmumriken