Xilanada - Descending Dark Of Past And Future/Part 5

The 23rd Day of Descending Wood, 766 in the Year of Our Empress.

"That's a lie."

Xilanada hopped up on her desk to take a seat while she studied the student who'd rejected her question. She was well settled into classes, now that the riots were weeks behind her, but it nagged at her that she had to put a little effort into jumping to get on top of the desk. Did she have to be so short?

If she'd been who she was, her dignity might have mattered more, but Xilanada was more relaxed. She didn't even mark the student down for his emotive comment.

"Do you think so?"

"Of course it's a lie. Death comes to everyone. It's the eventual end of everything. There's even a Maiden of Endings." His face was solemn and serious, but a disturbing fervor burned in his eyes. It made her wonder at its source.

"Yes, that's true. Most things have an ending."

"All things," he insisted.

"Why?" asked Xilanada, letting herself smile.

"What do you mean why?" he demanded. "It just is."

"I see. So everything ends because it just does. The fact that people's higher soul moves on to another life is just a stray unusual accident. That there's anything here at all is...what, a mistake?"

"I don't mean to contradict you, Professor," the boy said sullenly. So he had some control over his feelings, she noted. But this was coming from somewhere. What he was saying was something he believed in deeply.

"We were talking of First Age Cosmology, of theories of existence. You're welcome to critique Burning Lace's Thesis of Iteration, that's a right all the scholars in this room have." She smiled warmly at each student, letting them know her approval and respect for them. "But if you're going to critique, then do so. Making proclamations makes you no better than the Scarlet Empress."

That brought a round of laughter from most of the student body. Xilanada watched her audience keenly, for the joke had a purpose. Sure enough, five others weren't laughing. Though they took pains to at least smile, these thought the same as the first. Perhaps they were part of a clique?

"I will try, Professor," the student said. He stood and took a little theatric bow, smiling coldly and put his hands on his hips. "Creation has not always existed. It's a contingent construction, isn't that the term? It exists because it depended on something else. Therefore, believing that it will always exist seems to be a risky idea to accept. It has a finite beginning so why shouldn't it have a finite end? And if Those Who Came Before made it, who knows how long the world will last since They've been imprisoned?"

"Go on," Xilanada said, nodding encouragingly.

"From Chaos came Creation, and to Chaos it returns when the Wyld overtakes it. But even the Wyld falters before death. The Faerie fear it, that's what we learned in Professor Spyefel's class. In the world of death, all things diminish until there's nothing left. Even Those Who Fell, mighty as They are, will eventually fall apart. Like I said, there's a Maiden of Endings, that's how fundamental the idea is."

"Good," Xilanada said. The student sat down and got approving smiles from the others in his group. Yes, they definitely knew each other. "Where do beginnings come from?"

The question brought a dead silence to the room. Those students who'd shifted uncomfortably at the talk of an Ultimate End brightened and looked hopeful. Xilanada waited until it was obvious no one was going to talk.

"Think on this. The Sun and the Moon stand in the sky, and so we have Right and Wrong as well as the capacity for Change. We can enjoy Serenity and defend it through Battles. We can Journey through Creation and discover its Secrets. And all of this is balanced by the fact that most things end sooner or later, making room for more. But where do those more come from?"

"They're a symptom of Those Who Came Before," said a female student, one of the clique. She smiled more but had the same cold look in her eyes. "This place was built to endure. No telling if it'll last though. No reason to think it will."

"Who is Gaia?" Xilanada grinned as the question dropped on the class like a firedust grenade. She could watch the connections snapping in place for the majority. But the clique only glared at her, openly now. It surprised her, for each had been a good, dutiful student until now. Among the best-behaved she had.

"Gaia is a non-contingent being," Xilanda continued. "As long as She endures, so will Creation. Some of the works we will be considering for the next week look at Gaia's role and impact on the Cosmology of Creation in the First Age. I encourage you to pay particular attention to chapters five and six of the Lexicon. In the meantime, before you go, consider this. The Gods were created by 'Those Who Came Before' to manage aspects They wanted present in Creation that may have been apart from themselves." Xilanada snickered a little at the euphemism for the Primordials. "So if you see something present not represented by a God...consider the texts and see if it's something one of Those did."

She shut the book next to her on the desk, signaling the class to be dismissed. The students instantly burst into conversation as they packed up their books and scrolls, rifled through notes for the next class, and made appointments for play that evening. Xilanada watched it all with a rueful look, remembering a time decades ago when she'd been among them.

For a boy named Final Starry Night, there'd been so much hope. The promise of a Terrestrial Exaltation had filled his every thought. And Ivara. Peleps Ivara, the sweet young girl who'd Exalted Water-Aspect and moved on to a career in the Thousand Scales. Night had been so hot for her, and she for him, and they'd lain together countless nights. Until she'd gone off to a different school. Until his lack of Exaltation had made their burgeoning relationship crumble.

She hadn't thought of her in ages. What poor Ivara would think if she knew what Night had become.

The clique were the last to move out, and the boldest among them gave her a black glare. She chuckled before allowing the smile to slip from her face. There was something about those students that bothered her. They weren't dangerous, of course. How could they be? But something was happening, something more than the usual angst of teenagers.

Or was she overreacting? So she had some would-be death cultists in her class. That would be highly unusual for Realm folk but perhaps these students grew up in Sijan or somewhere that was more welcoming of death philosophies. There could be any number of possibilities that could explain their behavior.

Xilanada's classroom door opened quietly. She turned and grinned at once, seeing Professor Ava Spyefel there. Shivers of lightning ran across the iron bindings of the door and the knob sparked when she released her hold on it to enter. Xilanada thought Ava was one of the calmest people she knew, but you would never know it for the snap in the air and the bursts of wind that came wherever she went.

For that matter...just how strong was the Air-Aspect? If her Breeding ran so strongly that the placid woman impacted the environment as she did, what happened when she got mad?

"Hi, Ava. I'm sorry, I was just...thinking. Come in, let me get my board."

"You can't be fretting about playing me," Ava remarked dryly. "It's not as if I'm a serious threat to you."

"Oh please," snorted Xilanada. "We both know better." And the truth was that Ava had a talent for Gateway. She had a strong streak of tactical awareness and the poise to play adroitly. If Xilanada had an advantage, it was thanks to the brutal texts on logic she'd swallowed in Denandsor, a necessary step for grasping the mechanics of Solar Circle Sorcery.

"You do look worried," Ava said after several minutes of the two of them taking turns setting up the board, piece by piece. Xilanada frowned, then shrugged as she took a seat. A friendly gesture passed the right for the first play to Ava, one she took advantage of at once. "Is it Sen?"

"Sen? Oh, no." Xilanada couldn’t help the blush that thinking about him brought to her cheeks. Since that night...things had been awkward to say the least. To say the least!

Her own identity was so impossibly complicated but she couldn't regret giving in to him. That night...there were no words. Only a lasting freshness in her soul, like a bandage across the unhealing wound her sin had made upon it. It was still too new for her to handle. Thankfully, he seemed to know this and had given her the space she needed, satisfying himself with wicked smiles from a distance that made her feel weak.

That and the letters. When she woke every morning, there was a letter on her bedroom table. A letter about his thoughts, his feelings, his hopes and dreams. A letter that sometimes made her smile, usually made her blush, and occasionally made her tremble with need. Sen was far more patient than any Fire-Aspect she’d known, but he was still a slowly smoldering fire waiting for her consent to consume her. It didn't help that she wanted him to.

"Well, good," Ava said as she began play. "You’re not falling for him, are you?"

"Don’t be ridiculous," Xilanada snapped and moved her first piece. She shook her head at the sound of her voice. She wasn’t fooling anyone, carrying on this way, including herself. "Ava, don’t worry about me. Until I settle my life out, I’m not getting involved with anyone and that’s final."

"Wise," Ava said, yawning as she stretched. The next move was a daring gambit but characteristic of Ava. For such a quiet woman, she had a strong tendency toward boldness in her playing style.

"Is there a death cult going around the school?" Xilanada asked as she moved one of her own pieces.

Ava's hand paused over her next. A look of deep concentration came over her. Xilanada reached across the table and squeezed the Air-Aspect's hand. Static shocked her. The ex-Funerist blinked, as if startled, and then gave a guilty grin.

"Now I'm the one fretting." She moved her piece and steepled her fingers in thought. "Come to think of it, there is and there isn't. Death cults aren't allowed in the School, you know. That's a blasphemy that the administration won't tolerate." The reason for her wry smirk was obvious. Founded as it was by Realm Dragon-Bloods, naturally the administration was Immaculate. If they tolerated a great deal in this secular city, it didn't surprise Xilanada in the least that they set limits.

"But there is a group of some kind. Students who at least know the learnings and believe it. You've seen it too?" Xilanada set another piece and chuckled at Ava's scowl. She'd just neatly seized control of that portion of the board.

"Yes, I think there is. I don't know what I've seen but I've seen something. You know I don't teach the theories of ancestor worship. Tepet Malias likes a strong separation between theory and practice and my classes are all focused on applied education. It's fine, there are plenty of powers in the Underworld I'd rather my students never learned about."

"Really?" Xilanada asked with interest. "The lore of the dead is something I'm only abstractly familiar with, and only in the historical sense. I can tell you what the Old Realm thought about the Underworld but I'm afraid I don't know much about what it's like now."

That much was thanks to a millennia old education, courtesy of the greatest library in the world. Denandsor offered unrivaled learning but at the expense of contemporary knowledge. Final Starry Night had picked up an overview over the last year of his campaign of conquest, but it wasn't the same as researching it. Or living through it, for that matter.

"What's bothering you?" Ava asked. Her pale features looked so perfect. It wasn't a beauty like Glee's, something impossible for any natural thing to know. Instead, Ava looked like a rarefied vision of beauty distilled by electricity. She was remote by nature, Xilanada had come to know, but her appearance made her seem more distant than she really was. Glee might be the stuff of dreams but Ava's face was the work of artists.

Between Ava and Glee...and Coil, come to think of it, Xilanda was glad she hadn’t been raised in this life. Otherwise, she would feel very inadequate despite her good looks.

"Something's not right about it," Xilanada said at last. She muttered a curse when Ava snatched up one of her own pieces and then blushed at the reproach she saw in her eyes. "Sorry, I really am, but it's important. I think so. I don't know. I can't put my finger on it but it's something more than teenage obsession."

"Why do you say that?" Ava said, looking like she might have said more but had thought better of it.

"I'm not sure. Have you ever felt the wind when someone's witched the weather? What does it feel like when one set of senses tell you it's raining when another tell you it shouldn't be?"

"It doesn't feel right," Ava admitted reluctantly. "I'm not sure I could explain it, but I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about either. Perhaps you're implying more than you intend to."

Xilanda shook her head, feeling the long blonde curls bounce about across her neck and shoulders. She ran a hand through those locks, tugging vainly to straighten them. Ava moved another piece and Xilanada neatly pinned her advance with a bold counter. The Air-Aspect glared at the board and subsided to scrutiny.

"I'm not saying that I'm a Ghost-Blooded, Ava," she said. "You can think what you like. But something's bothering me about those students. If there are more of them...have I not been paying attention? Or do I not have them in my classes?"

"Could you give me their names?" Ava asked pleasantly as she broke Xilanada's hold over her pieces.

"Yes, yes, here." Xilanada shoved a piece of paper toward the ex-Funerist and thought on the board and her own inner turmoil while Ava read the names.

"I know these students. They've taken some of my classes, though not as many as some. Yes, they have more of an interest in the Underworld than most. But only one of them has done any advanced study with me. Maybe their families engage in ancestor worship and they're from the same culture." Ava shrugged and moved another piece, shoring up her defenses.

"Maybe. I guess we'll see." Xilanada moved one last piece and neatly dominated the entire board. Ava sat back, staring incredulously at the one move she hadn't seen coming. Xilanada grinned and waited until at last the Air-Aspect slapped the table and conceded defeat. "Another game?"