Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

The other clue to this whole thing was Zach himself. The boy was capable of fighting a lich – a freaking lich ! – for several minutes before succumbing to it. Even though the lich had been toying with him, it was still pretty impressive. Zorian would put Zach on par with a 3rd circle mage, and probably more. What the hell was that guy doing with academy students then? Something was definitely strange about Zach, though Zorian had no intention of confronting the guy directly until he found out more about what’s going on. For all he knew, it could be one of those you know about us, so now we have to kill you sort of things. He would have to tread carefully around the Noveda heir.

Zorian slammed the notebook shut and ran his hand through his hair. No matter how he looked at it, this whole situation seemed utterly crazy. Did he really have memories from the future or was he simply going insane? Both possibilities were terrifying. He was in no way qualified to tackle something like this on his own, but he didn’t know how to get other people to help him without being carted off either to a madhouse or an interrogation chamber.

He resolved to think about it later. As in, tomorrow later. This whole thing was simply too weird, and he needed to sleep on it before he decides anything.

"Excuse me, is this seat free?"

Zorian glanced at the speaker, recognizing her after a second of recollection. The nameless green turtleneck girl that joined him in his compartment when they took a stop at Korsa. Of course, the last time she didn’t bother to ask for permission before taking a seat. What changed? Ah, it didn’t matter – what did matter is that last time she was soon followed by four other girls. Very loud, very obnoxious girls. No way he’d be spending the rest of the train ride listening to their banter… again .

"Yeah," he nodded. "In fact, I was just leaving. We’re stopping at Korsa, right? Good day, miss."

And then he quickly grabbed his luggage and went to search for another compartment, abandoning the girl to her fate.

Maybe these future memories are good for something, after all.

Bam!

"Roach!"

Bam! Bam! Bam!

"Roach, open the thrice damned door! I know you’re in here!"

Zorian rolled over in his bed and groaned. What the hell was Taiven doing here this early? No wait… He snatched the clock from his dresser and brought it in front of his face… she wasn’t early, he just slept past noon. Huh. He distinctly remembered going straight to the academy from the train station and falling asleep minutes after reaching his room, yet he still overslept like this. Apparently dying and then awakening in the past is tiresome business.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

"I’m coming, I’m coming!" shouted Zorian. "Stop banging on my door, already!"

Naturally, she just kept banging on it with more enthusiasm. Zorian rushed to make himself presentable and stomped towards the door. Wrenching the door open, he gave Taiven a withering look…

…which she promptly ignored.

"Finally!" she said. "What the hell took you so long!?"

"I was sleeping," Zorian growled.

"Really?"

"Yes," ground out.

"But-"

"I was tired," Zorian snapped. "Very tired. And what the hell are you waiting for? Get inside."

She rushed inside and Zorian took a moment of collect himself before he confronted her. In his future memories, she never visited him once after he refused to go along with her mission to the sewers, which spoke volumes about her true feelings about this friendship of theirs. Then again, he hardly even thought about her himself until now, so he probably shouldn’t judge. In any case, he was even less inclined to join her on this mission now than he was in his future memories – he actually had more pressing matters to attend to this time, in addition to general apprehensiveness that was still as valid now as it was then. Accordingly, he felt a lot less reluctance in simply blowing her off, and it only took him an hour to convince her to leave him alone.

That done, he immediately set out for the library, making a short detour to a nearby bakery for a quick bite to tide him over. Once in the library he started searching for books on the topic of time travel and trying to identify the language the lich used in his spell.

To call it disappointing would be calling it mildly. For one thing, there were no books on time travel. The topic was not considered a serious field of study, what with it being impossible and all. What little was written about it was scattered across innumerable volumes, hidden in unmarked sections and paragraphs of otherwise unrelated books. Piecing together these scattered mentions was an absolute chore, and not all that rewarding either – none of it was useful in solving the mystery of his future memories. Finding the language the lich used in his spell was even more frustrating, since he failed to even identify the language, much less translate the chant.

He spent the entire weekend fruitlessly sifting through library texts, finally abandoning that avenue of research when it became obvious it wasn’t producing any results. Plus the library workers were starting to give him weird looks at his choice of literature and he didn’t want to create any unfortunate rumors. Hopefully he would be able to trick Zach into revealing what the hell was going on when school started.

"You’re late."

Zorian stared at Akoja’s stern face in quiet contemplation. He was glad he wouldn’t have to deal with any drama because of his disastrous evening with her – almost as glad as he was about the fact that he wasn’t dead – but he couldn’t help but wonder what her outburst had been about. She didn’t really look like she had a crush on him, so why did his comment hit her so heavily?

"What?" she asked, and Zorian realized he had been staring at her a little too long. Oops.

"Ako, why are you telling me this when more than half the class isn’t even here yet?" he asked.

"Because there is at least a chance you will listen, unlike them," Akoja admitted. "Also, someone like you should be an example to other students, not descend to their level."

"Someone like me?" inquired Zorian.

"Just get inside," she snapped irritably.

He sighed and went inside. It was probably for the best to leave things be – he had other problems to deal with, and she was far too rule-bound for his tastes anyway.

He didn’t know what he was expecting to happen when he walked into the class. Everyone to stop what they were doing and stare at him, maybe? At least then he would have a reason for feeling so unnerved at attending his first class of the year for the second time. But of course they did no such thing. It wasn’t a second time for them, and there was nothing visibly irregular about him for them to take notice. He quashed his unease and sat down in the back of the class, discreetly scanning new arrivals for signs of Zach. He was sure the other boy was connected to this somehow, and the mysterious boy appeared to be Zorian’s best chance at understanding what was happening to him.

There was a brief commotion when Briam’s fire drake familiar hissed up a storm and started chasing Briam’s terrified neighbor across the classroom before Briam calmed it down. Apparently the magical reptile liked the unfortunate boy even less than it did Zorian. In any case, Ilsa came in soon after and started the class.

Zach never showed up.

Zorian spent the entire class in a daze, shocked at this turn of events. Where the hell was Zach? Everything happened almost exactly as it did in his future memories so far, with Zach’s absence being the first major deviation. This firmly cemented Zach as somehow connected to this madness, but it also put the boy out of Zorian’s reach for the moment.