Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"Things wouldn’t have been so drastic if you had agreed to work with me on this," Red Robe said. "Though yes, some unpleasantness would still have to get done. Things have to get worse before they get better."

There was a short pause as everyone processed Red Robe’s… Jornak’s statements. Jornak decided to take this chance to drop his disguise and assume his real form. He took a deep breath and then suddenly became taller, his facial structure shifting and changing. A few seconds later, Veyers was gone – in his place was a perfect copy of Jornak as Zorian remembered him…

…except that there was a spark of intensity in this Jornak’s eyes which simply hadn’t existed in him the last time they had spoken. The Jornak that Zorian had known was a nervous, risk-averse man that harbored no desire to change the world or enact some grand scheme. Zorian knew this because he had read his thoughts and memories several times, and had seen nothing particularly suspicious about them.

Then again, wasn’t Zorian the same? This was just one more proof that the time loop was capable of radically changing a person. For better or for worse.

Of course, this could all just be another disguise… but Zorian rather doubted it. He was pretty sure Red Robe really was Jornak. That’s why Veyers had to be soul killed in the time loop and erased out of Zach’s mind… because Veyers would know if Jornak was acting inconsistently from restart to restart, and Veyers always crashed their first classes of the year and could thus interact with Zach at any time. If Zach regularly spoke to Veyers over the course of many restarts, the other boy would surely mention how his best friend Jornak was missing from his house or doing strange things that differed radically from restart to restart. In order for Jornak to drop off Zach’s perception, Veyers had to go away.

"You know what? Why don’t you just tell us why you invited us here?" Zach suddenly told Jornak. "Surely it isn’t to get us to join you, right?"

"No, I know this is impossible," Jornak said. "In the end, neither of you are willing to dirty your hands with this, even if doing so would prevent far more suffering in the end. No, I invited you here to arrange for a truce."

"A truce?" Zorian asked incredulously.

"Yes. I want us to stop fighting until the day of the summer festival," Jornak clarified. "We’ll decide a winner and loser among us in one massive battle at the end of the month, just like it was always meant to be. In the meantime, you’ll stop making raids on our forces and we’ll make no moves against you."

"That seems like a deal that completely favors you ," Zorian pointed out. "Why would we shoot ourselves in the foot by agreeing to this?"

Jornak smiled at the question and took out brown stone with a crudely carved flame symbol on it. It didn’t seem magical in the slightest and Zorian did not recognize it, but Zach immediately paled upon sighting it.

"Because I have wraith bombs scattered throughout the major cities on the continent, ready to activate at my command. Because I know exactly who to assassinate and how in order to immediately trigger a new continental war. And," he shook his stone token as he said this, "because I got Oganj and his group to work with me. Your choice."

Standing on the roof of one of the academy buildings, the two groups stared at one another without speaking. The situation had already been tense, and Jornak’s threats only made it more uneasy and unstable. Zorian suspected that if one of them made a single suspicious move, the other side would attack and the whole meeting would instantly degenerate into violence.

Probably the only reason that hadn’t happened thus far was that both sides realized they couldn’t meaningfully hurt the other. They had picked this place for a reason. It was too exposed, too close to powerful mages standing watch, and too heavily protected by a warding scheme that neither side was keyed in on. If a battle were to start, it would be hard to deal a finishing blow and decide anything. Even if one side gained the upper hand in the fighting, there was no way for them keep their opponents from simply running away. They would just be revealing their trump cards and making outside observers even more aware of the secret war being waged all around them.

Zorian watched the stone token in Jornak’s hand while considering his threats in his head.

The wraith bombs were kind of expected, though Zorian did not really think they would be using them outside of Cyoria. He thought they were intended to be used as support for the invasion itself, not as a way to blackmail them into a truce. As for the threat of an assassination campaign that could start another war… well, Zorian wasn’t sure he entirely believed that. How would Jornak actually test this? Zach never mentioned any sudden wars erupting in the time loop, and he surely would have if he witnessed any. In Zorian’s opinion, Jornak was just making an educated guess, based on the various information he gathered in the time loop, and it was an open question what would really happen if he were to kill a bunch of really important people in quick succession.

Then again, during that fateful incident where Quatach-Ichl tried to mutilate Zach’s soul and brought Zorian into the time loop, Zach ended up in a coma for quite a few restarts… and it was very likely that Zorian spend a number of restarts in a similar state as well. Perhaps it was during some of these lost restarts that Jornak tested such large-scale schemes for viability…

And then there was Oganj – the infamous dragon mage that had killed an entire army and one of the Immortal Eleven sent to deal with him, the terrifying dragon that had menaced northern Altazia for centuries now. Zorian was a little mystified why Jornak was invoking his name so smugly. Sure, Oganj was an immensely powerful opponent, even by dragon standards… but hadn’t Zach already killed him once? He distinctly remembered Zach going through a great number of short restarts in order to–

Hmm.

He glanced at Zach again. His friend did not seem as calm about Oganj’s involvement as Zorian thought he would be.

[What am I missing here?] Zorian asked Zach, sending him a telepathic message. [Didn’t you already prove you can best Oganj?]

[I’m not even sure I could repeat that feat inside the time loop, let alone here in the outside world,] Zach immediately sent back.

[Are you saying you winning was a fluke?] Zorian asked, surprised.

[It wasn’t a fluke ,] Zach responded, sounding faintly outraged in his thoughts. [I beat Oganj fair and square. However, I kind of brute forced things and took advantage of the fact I could learn from our fights and Oganj couldn’t. Unless I caught him off-guard, unless I timed things just right, unless I knew what spells he usually uses and counters my moves with… I’m not sure I could beat him in a straight fight.]

Huh… Zorian did not often hear this kind of admission from Zach. If there was anything that Zach was good at, it was a straight fight. Then again, his main advantage – his massive mana reserves – was not as big of a deal against a dragon as it was against human mages. All dragons had impossibly huge mana reserves by human standards.

[Is Oganj more powerful than Quatach-Ichl?] Zorian asked.

[Not even close,] Zach said immediately. [He doesn’t have the huge variety of spells that Quatach-Ichl does, his body is too large to teleport around easily, and if you kill his body, he will actually die. The old bag of bones is still the toughest opponent I ever faced. Still, Oganj is incredibly powerful. Even worse… he has students.]

[Students?] Zorian asked curiously. [As in, dragon ones?]