Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

Zorian smiled. The spell was one of the book divinations Ibery had taught him, one that sought out books containing a specified word or string of words. It was a somewhat fragile spell, failing if the number of positive matches exceeded a certain number – the exact number depending on the caster’s skill. It was mostly used to search for quotes or really exotic terms.

Exotic terms like, say, the dead language of Majara. Zenomir hadn’t been kidding when he had told Zorian that he wouldn’t be able to find any books about it – there were no books specifically about the Majara language, and very few books even mentioned it. Up until now, he had only found 13 other books that contained the word, and most of them only in the form of a throwaway comment or two. It was possible that the knowledge he sought existed somewhere in the library, only in a format that was invisible to the divinations he was using – Ibery had only taught him the very basics of library magic , as she called it, so his searches were painfully crude in the grand scheme of things – but if that was the case, there was little he could do about it.

He glanced down at the threads growing out of his chest and waved his hand through them, watching it pass through them without effect. He never got tired of doing that. Well, he probably would, in time, but the novelty hadn’t worn off yet. The threads were an illusion, existing only in the privacy of his own mind. Every divination spell needed a medium through which it could present information to the caster, since it was impossible for human minds to process the raw output of a divination spell. A self-imposed illusion like the threads he was currently looking at was actually fairly advanced as divination mediums go, or so Ibery had claimed when he had tried to tell her he got the spell working within 30 minutes of being shown how to do it. He had a distinct impression she thought he was lying. He didn’t really understand what was supposed to be so difficult about it, to be honest – the threads were a purely mental construct that didn’t even require much in the way of shaping skills… just visualization. It seemed pretty simple to him. Natural even.

He shook his head and followed after one of the golden threads till he reached a book it was attached to. It was a huge, intimidating, 400-page book about the history of Miasina, and Zorian had absolutely no intention of poring over it until he reached the tiny part that actually interested him, so he cast another divination Ibery had taught him. This one highlighted every mention of the chosen word (in this case Majara ) in shining green, so he simply flipped through the book till he caught a flash of green.

"Zorian? What are you doing here?"

Zorian immediately snapped the book shut and stuffed it back on the shelf. While he wasn’t doing anything forbidden, he really didn’t want to explain to Ibery what Majara was, and why he was searching the library for any mention of it.

The retort he planned to use died on his lips when he finally turned to get a good look on his visitor. Ibery was a mess. Her eyes and nose were red, as if she had been crying recently, and there was an ugly purple splotch covering her right cheek and neck. It didn’t look like a bruise, not exactly, more like…

Oh hell no.

"Ibery…" he started hesitantly. "You wouldn’t happen to go into the same class as my brother, would you?"

She flinched back and looked away. He sighed heavily. Just great.

"How did you know?" she asked after a second of silence.

"Brother dearest came to me earlier today," said Zorian. "Said he pushed a girl into a purple creeper patch and wanted me to make an anti-rash potion . I wasn’t in the mood so I kind of blew him off."

That was a lie, actually. He had discovered, during the last three reverts, that Fortov was either unable or unwilling to track him down if he failed to return to his room after class. That was actually the main reason why he spent the entire day in the library instead of inside his room. Still, due to his rather unique situation he knew what would have happened had he been present.

"Oh," she said quietly. "That…. That’s alright."

"No," disagreed Zorian. "No, it’s not. If I had known he was talking about you, I would have helped him out. Well… helped you out. He can go die in a fire as far as I’m concerned." He paused for a moment, considering things. "You know, there is no reason why I can’t do it now. I’ll just have to stop by my room to pick up the ingredients and-"

"You don’t have to do that," Ibery quickly interrupted. "It’s… not that important."

Zorian took in her appearance one more time. Yup, she had definitely been crying before coming here. Besides, her choice of words was conspicuous – she said that he didn’t have to do it, not that he shouldn’t, and that it wasn’t that important, not that it wasn’t.

"It’s not really a problem," he assured her. "The main reason I refused in the first place is because it was Fortov who asked, not because it was so difficult to do. Just tell me where to find you when I’m done."

"Um, I’d like to come with you, if it’s not a problem," she said hesitantly. "I’d like to see how the cure is made. Just in case."

Zorian paused. That was… potentially problematic. After all, the alchemical workshop would be closed down this late in the evening, and he would have to employ some, uh, unorthodox methods of gaining access. But what the hell, it wasn’t like she would remember this in the next restart.

Thus they set off towards Zorian’s apartment. Of course, having Ibery looking over his shoulder wasn’t enough, so when he had finally reached his room he found another familiar person waiting for him. Specifically, Zach.

He wasn’t terribly surprised to see Zach waiting for him, to be honest. The boy had been getting steadily more nervous during their practice sessions as the summer festival approached, no doubt unnerved by the impeding invasion. Not that he ever told Zorian about the invasion – Zach was stubbornly tight-lipped about that, regardless of how much Zorian tried to goad him into blurting out something. Over the last few days, his fellow time traveler had questioned him about his plans for the summer festival several times, not-so-subtly implying that staying inside his room would be a bad idea. As Zorian still remembered quite vividly how one of the flares flattened his entire apartment building when the invasion started, he was inclined to agree with Zach on that one. Unfortunately, Zach seemed to have trouble believing that Zorian was in agreement with him on that point. No doubt he came specifically to make sure (again) that Zorian was going to attend the dance. Zorian wondered, for god knows what time, just what happened between Zach and his previous incarnations to produce this kind of impression. Had he really been that stubborn before the time loop?

He walked up to Zach, who was sitting on the floor next to his door, completely oblivious to his surroundings while he concentrated on something on his palm. No, now that he got closer he could see it was actually something above his palm. A pencil, lazily spinning in the air above Zach’s palm. Apparently Zach knew the pen spinning exercise too, and was currently practicing it while he waited. Zorian had a strong urge to throw a marble at Zach’s forehead and demand that he starts over, but decided against it.

Mostly because he didn’t have any marbles on his person at the moment.

"Hello Zach," Zorian said, startling Zach out of his reverie. "Are you waiting for me?"

"Yeah," confirmed Zach. He opened his mouth to say something else but then noticed Ibery trailing behind Zorian and snapped his mouth shut. "Err, am I interrupting something?"