A Peculiar Student of Magic
“These greater ley lines were first discovered nearly a thousand years before our planet’s Moving. The lattice you see represented by this cobweb are the lesser lines, though it is theorized that they are not less powerful versions of the greater lines, but rather ruptures, cracked extensions of the eleven great lines.”
Professor Vesna’s voice was soft, a soothing melody of boredom. “Where they cross, and their energies intermingle, we are given nodes. There are countless nodes throughout Titan, the majority being minor nodes, cross sections of the lesser lines. Most of our cities are located over a major node, a convergence of at least two of the greater lines. As I’m sure many of you know, Anslara was built on the convergence of all eleven lines. What some of you might not know, is they converge on this very spot, underneath the Arcanium itself.” She continued on, her voice capturing the rapt attention of much of the class.
Cad was somewhat baffled by this. The professor spoke of nothing not covered by the most simplified back street magic class. They were in a rotund lecture hall, the terraced seats surrounding and looking down on the raised platform on which Professor Vesna spoke. She motioned to a diagram she’d conjured out of the air, a map of their planet, it showed the spider web of ley lines across the surface, small dots marking cities, the greater lines glowing a faint red, coming together in a pulsing light to signify the capital. He understood this was a novice course, designed for first year inductees into the school, but it still hurt his head when he looked over at his classmates. Not a soul in the room did not stare, eyes fixed on Vesna’s map, closely following her pointing and accompanying comments. Some of the students were even writing, taking notes on what she said. Cad sighed. What he would consider common knowledge was being treated as the wisdom of the gods.
At the end of the hour, Professor Vesna assigned a short reading. Cad sensed the class was over and raised his hand high. He was positive she could see it. She dismissed them, the map disappearing with a flash, the mage lights that surrounded the room growing in brightness at some unseen signal. She did not look up at him. Frowning, Cad grabbed up his blank notebook and bag, and descended the steps toward the side of her platform. There was one way on and off the center dias, a small staircase, and so he waited by it.
“You’ll be late for your next class, Mr. Cae.” Professor Vesna spoke with an air of impatience, her sentence preceding her steps down the stairs. She looked down at the dwarfish man dressed in the heavy fabrics and thick leathers that fit his people's practical lifestyle. His hair was a rough, unkempt dark brown, his features sharper than was typical of the round folk that wandered the wilds on their shared planet. She, unlike her colleagues, had not opposed the new law that allowed the Arcanium to take on Danu students. It was a rightfully groundbreaking collaboration between the two inhabitants of Titan, and even if the nomadic people did not seem to care too much about the decree, the donors had. That was part of why she’d given her support. If Professor Vesna was honest with herself, she had never expected to see one of the nomads at the school, much less in her lecture. It was not that she had anything against the Danu, but there were certain cultural differences that had to be taken into account. Like knowing the proper times for questions, of which now was not one.
“I came for your class alone, professor.” For his part, Cad Cae watched her with bright, intelligent eyes. Professor Vesna was older, but still reflected the easy elegance of the Fian people. Lithe and strong, she wore a long flowing robe of sheer silk, clasped around her thin neck with a brooch that held the symbol of an arcanium mage; eleven lines twisted together into a knot. Her face was a mess of distinguished wrinkles, the long slits of her mind gills purplish and relaxed where they lay, stretching from her cheeks to above her ears. Her eyes were the same deep purple as her gills and fixed her new student with a soft intensity.
“You flatter me. But they will not let you stay unless you take a full program.”
“I’m sure they will understand. And if not I will help them.” There was something charmingly roguish in the look he gave her. “Besides, I am the first student to make use of the law you helped pass. You will want to see me succeed. And your word carries weight.”
Professor Vesna raised an eyebrow.
“I was wondering, professor, why were you going over what you did today? It seemed very basic to me.”
“It is important to understand the history, what comes before, so that we do not waste time reestablishing what has already been done.”
“Should it not be assumed that for someone to become a student here they are aware of these basic principles?” Cad spoke with an impatience that put her in mind of a child. Vesna realized she was not sure how old he was. The short stature of the Danu carried through to adulthood. She had taken him to be a man, but reminded herself he could be much younger. She matched the impatience of the student with the patience fitting of a good teacher.
“In this building, we work toward unraveling secrets and powers of such cosmic proportions that a certain level of care is not advisory, it is necessary. An assumption made in the classroom, an expectation of knowledge, is all it takes to cause injury and destruction, catastrophe and death.”
“That seems to me… dramatic.” Cad’s words were those of a kid making light of an uncomfortable conversation. However, the old mage was looking into his eyes and saw no humor.
Her eyes were the same deep purple as her gills and fixed her new student with a soft intensity.
“I do not exaggerate.” Professor Vesna replied, having reached the bottom of the staircase. “Now, if your motive was to merely question the content of my class I would prefer to be on with my day.”
“No, I apologize, I was curious, but that was not why I approached you.” Cad paused, the seriousness gone, the wolvishness returning. “I came only for your class, but not this class. I, or rather my abilities, are much beyond that of a first year. I asked upon enrollment if I could start in your year three lecture. I was refused. When asked why, they said it was not allowed. When I asked who could allow it, they said you.”
Professor Vesna gave the foolish boy a small, placating smile. “That would be impossible. Now I must be off.” She swept her cloak around her and started away. Cad would not be dissuaded.
“Why?”
“I have never allowed anyone to skip ahead.” She did not slow. “I would take my earlier sentiments to be reason enough. You listening to that and still seeing the need to ask convinces me of the idea’s untenability. I have designed the curriculum myself, and I am quite aware of the importance of each section.”
“What would it take?”
Professor Vesna paused, becoming somewhat annoyed.
“I’m not asking you to make assumptions about my knowledge or my skill, professor.” His voice was the patient one now. “What would it take?” He repeated.
There was no precedent for what he suggested. Professor Vesna knew it was absurd to entertain the idea that he could pass a test she gave him. Especially a test involving the intense mental exertions that were taught during year two. These took many students two or three years to perform at the basic level, as the year markers were not linear, which she was sure Mr. Cae did not realize. A third year student might have been studying at the Acranium for three standard cycles, though such a case was extremely rare. There were some first year students in the lecture today that had been studying at the Arcanium for three or four cycles without advancement. Most third years got to their ranking, on average, in anywhere from five to ten cycles. Most never made it to the fourth and final year of her curriculum.
“Meet me in annex three, tonight, after supper hour.”
“Annex three?”
“Some students refer to it as the well room.”
Professor Vesna was not sure why she humored him. Perhaps she was bored. She walked swiftly from the circular lecture hall. Behind her, Cad looked up into the beautiful tapestried dome ceiling, the mage lights dimming as the professor left the room, and smiled.
Cad Cae was not late.
Professor Vesna waited for him in annex three, regretting setting aside an hour of her night for what she was now convinced would be a waste of time. The Arcanium was a complicated building, filled with the eccentricities of those who studied magic. This hall was round, as many of them were, with a slightly elevated stone structure in the center that looked vaguely like a well, leading to the nickname given by the students and adopted by most of the faculty. Professor Vesna waited for her student next to this ‘well’. He came dressed the same as he had been that morning. She watched him as he crossed the room in confident strides. Cad did not look at her yet, his eyes busy drinking in the room with curious hunger, giving special attention to that by which his teacher stood. It gave off its own faint white light, second to the soft yellow of the mage lights hung high on the ceiling.
“If you do not know what this is, we can leave this room right now, and I will see you in the first year lectures tomorrow.” Professor Vesna wasted no time, her voice commanding the respect of a long tenured instructor. She meant to intimidate. There was nothing false in her seriousness. Cad looked at her with an expression that somehow mixed both admiration and amusement. She was not sure why it unsettled her so.
“I do. Know what this is, I mean.” Cad paused. Professor Vesna looked at him expectantly. He studied her face, detecting the slight annoyance, the underlying curiosity of her own. No cue coming, he walked over to the well, approaching the edge. The white light’s source was far below them, unseeable, and the hole the stoned ridge protected was covered by a thick pane of smooth glass. “That, down there, is a ley line crossing. One of the many that make up the major node you mentioned this morning in class.” He stepped out onto the glass. If he was fearful of falling through the clear platform, or if the expanse below unnerved him in any way, he did not show it. Cad was not looking at her, but the professor watched his every move.
“And?” She prompted.
“It is ancient and powerful. A direct tap into the magic that flows through the line, from the cosmic energies within Titan itself. But this one is…” He sought the word carefully. “Tame. These stones, and this glass, are inlaid with enchantments that allow this tap, this ‘well’, to exist without tearing this building apart. They serve as buffers against the power, allowing it to be accessed, but in a more controlled sense. And so this is where students come to practice. Because they are at less risk of blowing themselves up.”
“In as many words.” She was not impressed. Not yet. “And so it is where you will perform a series of exercises for me. Complete them all, complete them perfectly, and I will consider you a second year student.”
“Not third?”
“We will start with the second.”
“Of course, professor. As you say. Nothing assumed.”
“Nothing.” She affirmed, her lips pressed into a thin line.
Cad turned and gave her a smile. It was a crooked, lopsided smile. “What do you wish to see first?”
A month later, Cad Cae again stayed after class. The third years met the least of any cohort. Most of the learning was done in the previous years, and third years spent their time in study and practice. As such, the day Professor Vesna found Cad again waiting at the steps down from her lecture platform was only the second third year lecture he had attended. She had spoken on essential harvesting techniques, expanding the theory beyond the methods used by second years to the more advanced methods needed for more powerful magics. Every mage needed a conduit, a key, from which to store and then draw energy for their magic. What was not taught until the third year was the surprising variety of objects that one could store the ley line energy in. It was one of the deeper, more researched and nuanced topics; around which arguments had been fought for centuries. And yet, the professor had a feeling Cad was not waiting to discuss whether it was better to put the energy for his magic into a ring or a staff.
“You have a program now Mr. Cae.” She spoke as she descended the stairs.
“As was the deal.”
“Then you must not be late.”
“They don’t look for me as fast as they look for the others.”
Professor Vesna sighed. “A word from me can change that.”
Cad nodded, though her words seemed to bounce off him without effect. “I thought your lesson was most interesting today. Though I feel as if it were stopped short.”
“You do?”
“A dimension of the discussion felt missing. For example, if you follow the logic, matrices are not limited to inanimate objects. More than that, a matrix on something inanimate is forced, imposed. Surely the use of a natural matrix would not only be viable, but more secure, allowing for more energy.”
Professor Vesna looked at her student, her suspicion, her alarm, masked behind her professionalism. “More powerful you mean.”
“Essentially.”
“You are correct.” She spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully. “But using a living thing as a conduit is dangerous, unless done with precision it causes alarming decay. And if a conduit experiences rapid decay then it becomes too volatile for the matrix to stabilize, which puts the mage and those around him at great risk. And, of course, this decay is certain death for the conduit.”
Cad absorbed this knowledge readily. He assumed it was perhaps a lesson or two away, and did not know that when Professor Vesna covered this she did so with fourth years only, and as a warning. Most never made the leap in logic he had seemed to do in as many minutes as it’d taken her to explain the concept. Living conduits were not merely dangerous, they were vile in the best of the circumstances, abominations in the worst. The professor forgot her rush, caught up with the importance of keeping her student from fumbling onto a dark path.
“True mages do not use living things as conduits. The theory is there, but in practice the risks are never worth it.” Professor Vesna continued. Cad fixed her with a puzzled gaze.
“A strange absolute.” Cad shook his head. “Ah, but just a curiosity. It was my intention today to ask about which of the manipulations are required.”
“Required? Why, none are required. Most never complete one.”
“But to be a fourth year, you must?”
“Yes. You must know one. But that is very far off for you, hardly something you should be worrying about now.”
“Worried? No. Excited.” Cad hesitated. He was not sure he wished to ask what he wanted to ask. Some part of him worried it wasn’t true. That the legends he’d heard were exaggerated beyond the grain of truth they often contained. “Is it true that you have mastered three?”
The professor nodded.
“And the first took you only a year?”
She nodded again.
“Will you help me master those three as well?”
“A mage does not easily share the power they have fought for.” Professor Vesna allowed herself a wry smile. “But I am a teacher. Perform one yourself. Show me that you are capable, and then we may work together.”
Cad let out the breath he’d been holding. It was true. She was as he had hoped. The jump to fourth year was made by displaying mastery of one of the seven manipulations, a feat so difficult most never succeeded. Professor Vesna was said to be the only living mage to master more than one, and she had mastered three. It was the reason he had come to the Arcanium. It was the roadblock he hoped to break through. Even with all his skill, he had been lacking knowledge. Knowledge and experience. She could give it to him. He spoke a quick word of thanks and left the hall, his excitement leaving behind his newly ponderous teacher.
It took Cad Cae four months to perform his first manipulation. He did so quietly, with a small audience of Professor Vesnar and two other senior instructors. He stood on top of the well in annex three and made the air sing a symphony of cosmic voices, pulling out the miniscule waves that carried through the air at any given time, amplifying them for those around. The roar of a red star was met with the whispering resonances of planets lightyears away. A rhythm of pulsing nebula harmonized with the vibrations of a black hole. Streaking comets mixed with thunderous meteor showers to form a cosmic choir giving a concert for the magical onlookers. Harmonic manipulation was one of the easier of the seven, but it was not the easiest. Vesna knew this was intentional, as Cad had said offhandedly to her he would not be moved to fourth year by pursuing the easiest course. Even at that comment, the professor had privately thought him delusional. Easy was relative. Lumino manipulation, by far the easiest, was still hard enough to confound any but the brightest of minds for two to three years on average. Yet as he took the step down off the well, his face a flush with cosmic energies, she could do nothing but welcome Cad Cae as the youngest fourth year student in the Arcanium’s history. She was the previous record holder. He had her beaten by nearly three years.
He made the air sing a symphony of cosmic voices
Word spread of Cad’s remarkable magical affinity, so much so that administrators were beginning to worry about what could be done to stop the rumors. The first and only Danu student at the Arcanium was nothing short of a prodigy. Certainly the single fastest, most brilliant learner anyone there had encountered. His unique background did nothing to take away from the mystique of his person. Conspiracies abounded. Some said the new law welcoming Danu into the institution had been made for Cad, Professor Vesna putting it forward after discovering him on her travels. Others started to wonder if all Danu were gifted in magic, and it took many testimonies by those that lived and worked with them to assure the others this was not the case. Cad was as special among his own people as he was among his neighbors.
Fourth years spent all their time in study. They were given freedom of choice in what to pursue. The vast majority continued study in the manipulation they had first used until achieving some new breakthrough worthy of being recognized as a true mage. If they were not of a character to continue advancement independently, they became assistants to the mages of the Arcanium. There had been five fourth years, Cad became the sixth. Professor Vesna saw less of him than she had in those first few months. Cad needed no direction. He dove into his personal pursuits with a vigor that made her wonder if he’d known this would be his life soon after arriving. He did, however, still attend the third year lectures. Professor Vesna spread her content out in a series that lasted roughly a year and a half. No student had ever attempted a manipulation before completing the lecture cycle, much less succeeded in performing one. She had expected him to drop in attendance, now that it was no longer required. He did drop out of the other classes in his program, but in her lectures his attendance persisted.
So it was that Cad Cae came to her after class a third time. It was the last of the third year lectures, and it had been nearly two years since his arrival at the school. Professor Vesna blinked the diagram she’d been using out of existence, picking the disk off the table in which she stored the small amount of energy needed for the display. The mage lights brightened without her command. Looking up she saw Cad joining her up on the dias.
“You’ve been exploring Lumino.” She said it as a statement.
“Seemed only right.” Cad said, making the mage lights glow brilliantly for a brief second before letting them settle back into a soft yellow. “Do you maintain all the classrooms?”
“I put in these. But not all of them, no. It’s an easy enchantment. Are you using your own source right now?”
Cad nodded, indicating a thick ring on his hand.
“There.” She pointed to a tiny circle on the dias ground, protruding slightly. The lights flickered as Cad switched from powering the mage lights with his personal source, to powering them with the permanent fixture of the classroom. He found the vehicle inlaid with a matrix that made them trivial to maintain, so much so it cost next to none of his conscious mind, freeing up the rest of him to talk and think. Or teach a class.
“An assistant fills that four times a year, depending on how much the room is used.” Professor Vesna continued. “You can approach me during the designated times if you wish. That is why such hours exist.”
He waved her slight reproach aside. “None of my questions are so official. Besides, waiting in line for you while you’re right here seems counterproductive.”
“I will not let the other students think I can be accosted after class.”
“They will not. They think I receive special treatment. Some do not believe I belong in these classes. They see me as a fraud because I do not practice with the rest of them.”
“Do you resent me for this?” It was Professor Vesna who had directed Cad to keep his increasing prowess to himself.
He shrugged. “They can believe what they want. The smarter ones have seen enough.”
“Well then. You have no doubt advanced in Harmonic, and you wield a clear familiarity with Lumino. Do I dare suggest you intend to ask me for help with Spectra?” She named the three manipulations she had famously mastered. Cad having one at his age was impressive. Having two was unheard of, even if they were the two most basic. It made sense he would begin to think about adding three. What Professor Vesna didn’t know was that Cad had been performing Spectra manipulations for months, and had started working on his fourth, Aetheric, that week.
“I do wish for us to work together. I think it will be beneficial, and soon I will have proficiencies I can offer you.” Cad was more aware of conventions now. He knew that any deep theory or mastery Vesna had beyond her post as professor would have come from great personal sacrifice. Knowledge like that was offered only when equitable knowledge was given in return. “But no, that is not why I wanted to talk to you today. I was waiting for you to cover the three types of mages. I anticipated you would get there at some point, but seeing as this was the last of your lessons…”
“Three mages?” Professor Vesna repeated. She did not play dumb. She watched her student closely. Cad had a knack for asking about problematic branches of magic. She had taken the innocence of his questions for granted. Now she no longer felt comfortable doing so. Not with the potential he had shown. Her eyes did not leave his face. It was highly frowned upon for a Fian to use their mind gills on another intelligent species, especially one without the slight psychic predilection that they afforded. It was a social code rarely, if ever, broken by an upstanding member of society such as herself. Vesna broke it now, reaching out with her mind to feel at the intentions of her student. She was met with a stone wall. Her attempt launched back within herself so forcefully she had to stop herself from reacting.
The corner of Cad’s mouth twitched and his eyes did not leave hers. She noticed the color of them was more akin to steel than simple gray.
“It is important, is it not? To know the types of magic?” Cad asked, as if nothing had happened.
“There is only one type of magic practiced here.” Professor Vesna kept her voice steady.
“But that does not prevent the others from existing? And we should know them.”
“Do you, Cad Cae, know the other two types of magic?” Her voice was accusatory. What the professor feared her student was hiding, she did not know.
“I know of them. But street rumors only. I was hoping you would know more. There is nothing in the Arcanium library about them. I thought at the very least, you would afford them a verbal mention in your class. But it seems you, like the books, afford them no thought.”
“The library does not mention them for different, but equally valid reasons as I.” Professor Vesna set her conduit disk back down on the lectern. “The magic practiced here is the true magic of the ley lines. It was given to us by our planet and by the cosmos. Our magic stems from Titan itself, it is pure and natural and of the same ground from which we come. We who use it, all Fian, and now you as well, are true mages. But this you know.” Cad didn't need to nod. “There is another type of magic. A more twisting, corrupting power. It comes directly from that swirling darkness in the sky. We have been aware of it since the time of the Moving, when our planet was plucked from its rightful place in the universe and put here in that void’s orbit. Some say it existed before then. But even those who have dared study the void do not know.”
“Void mages.” Cad Cae spoke, his voice a whisper inserted into the space natural to a practiced lecturer’s speech.
“Void mages. They draw their power from pieces of it; called anomalies. These anomalies are dangerous things, not least of which because they are beyond understanding. It is said a void mage can control the anomaly, draw power from it in order to do wondrous things. But that left unchecked anomalies drive the user mad.”
“They exist?”
“They exist.” Professor Vesna again watched Cad’s eyes. There was something there, deep in that hard steel. What it was she could not tell. “But not here. Not anymore. When Titan was first moved, there were a few. The mages of the Arcanium used true magic to contain and banish them. Now there are no anomalies, and no void mages.”
“But another anomaly is all it would take.”
“Another anomaly. And another soul.”
Cad Cae was quiet. The professor let her words rest in the air a moment longer.
“The third type I cannot tell you with certainty that it exists.” She began again.
“Clerics.”
“The Clerics. They have no need of a conduit. They have no need for an anomaly. They are mages that receive their power directly from some greater being.”
“A god.”
“Not always.” Professor Vesna gave her student a tired smile. “And in this topic I have less for you than street rumors. It is a legend. You are better served by examining the folklore of your own people than by questioning an old teacher.”
“Perhaps. But this old teacher is the greatest mage to ever live.”
The professor refused the compliment. “Two years ago I would have agreed. Now I do not think that to be true.”
Cad treated her to one of his lopsided grins. Maybe more than ever, it made her think of a wolf.
One year later, nearly to the day, she expelled him. The expulsion was supposed to have been kept quiet, but was leaked by a rather loose tongue administrator installed by Anslara’s senate. The reason was never made public. Even within the Arcanium, the reason was not known by more than a handful of the highest ranked faculty. Professor Vesna and Cad Cae had been meeting regularly for the majority of the year. It was rumored they had been lovers and she’d thrown him out when he’d spurned her for a younger woman. None of that was true of course. No one really believed that it was. But they needed a reason. Cad’s mastery of the arcane arts had become somewhat legendary, in spite of Vesna’s best efforts. That the Arcanium would expel its most promising student confounded noble and commoner alike. And then it came out that three first year students had died, mysteriously, the week before Cad’s expulsion. More than enough to start the conspiracies over again, it was soon concluded, rather obviously, that Cad Cae had caused the deaths of those three students (knowing the dangerous variability of magic, people hesitated to say killed). Though why or how, no one knew, and the Arcanium never officially confirmed the connection. The law allowing Danu to attend the school remained, though no other members of the nomadic tribes enrolled. A few months after the expulsion, Professor Vesna retired from teaching. She cited age and the desire to pursue mastery of a fourth manipulation, something that had never been done before. She was allowed to keep her office. And it was in that office that Cad returned to her, many years later.
The office was built on a node, the middle of the room taken up by a well structure similar to the student one in annex three. However, this was of her own design, it appeared a circle at a distance, but upon closer inspection it showed to be infinitely small straight sides comprising a cage. Covered not with glass, but an opaque stone, the white light barely bled through. Most of the circular walls were taken up with bookshelves, except for a blank space where a large window stretched out toward the night sky. In front of the bookshelves was the odd glass case, in which were a multitude of artifacts. Vesna, no longer a professor, was sitting behind her large desk when Cad appeared in the middle of the room, over the well. If she was surprised to see her ex-student, she did not show it. Nor did she start at his mode of arrival, simply appearing out of thin air, the pages of the book open on her desk flapping slightly. He turned to look at her.
“So, you have mastered Spatial. Is that all then?” Her voice was quiet in the room.
“Six of the seven. Temporal still eludes me.” He admitted, with something approaching frustration in his voice. “I can scry, and that is part of why I am here. But combining understanding with movement remains… challenging.” He watched her closely. She made no reaction to his confession. “I would expect you to be relieved.”
“I never thought you held ill intentions.” The old woman said. “I worried your intelligence moved faster than your common sense.”
He let out a dry chuckle at that. “I suppose it does.” He gave her something less than a look of pity. “You lied to me, all those years ago when we talked of the void mages. There was still one left. One who used her control of an anomaly to accomplish feats previously thought impossible.”
“It was not a lie. By the time you came here I had banished my anomaly back into the dark.”
“It was dishonest.” Cad’s eyes flashed. She realized it had truly bothered him. She wondered vaguely if he had come to kill her. In those early days, after he’d left, she’d thought it likely. But as the years dragged by, she’d started to think he no longer cared enough to kill her. Cad shook his head. “But once again, that is a curiosity, not why I have come.”
“Why have you come, son of Luridian?”
“And I thought I was the only one who believed in fairytales.”
“You knew who I was before you ever stepped foot in my classroom. Now, why have you come?”
“I came to warn you.” Cad Cae’s anomaly drifted out from behind him. It was the same one he’d summoned in this very room, under her watch, the day before she’d expelled him. She had not expected him to succeed. She hadn’t known how he’d prepared. Her mind played memories, flashing still images of three young faces, hollow and lifeless. “I’ve traveled now,” he continued. “The other planets, they are inhabited.”
“This we know.” Vesna’s voice was soft and confident, still that of a self-assured teacher. “Since Kahna first used Aetheric and projected to the outer reaches. We have been aware of the other species, if unable to communicate with them.”
“I came to say there are more. Will be more. More arrive every year, some experience Movings much worse than our own. And I have seen what will come to pass. Soon, very soon, a planet will come that has bore a creature. A great beast capable of traveling in the light atmosphere of the void. It will unite all the planets in our cursed cluster with interplanetary travel accessible to even the most common of folk.”
“And this is a warning because?”
“The species that cares for these creatures are trusting. They will bring them to the edges of every world. Titan must not let this happen. The planets we call our neighbors are not all like us in our peaceful existence. Allowing all the species to move between the worlds will bring war. Great war and great death. Unless Titan controls the beasts. Controls and vets who should have access to them.”
Cad Cae’s anomaly drifted out from behind him, the same one he’d summoned in this very room, under her watch
Vesna was silent. At first she had thought Cad risked a great deal returning to the Arcanium, previously the one place in existence with those strong enough to imprison him. But if he had truly mastered six of the seven manipulations, and still practiced void sorcery, he could burn the Arcanium to the ground should he wish. Should he wish, there was very little he could not do. Which meant he must wish for her to hear this news.
“Why don’t you do something yourself?”
“I am one man. Still one man. And an outsider. I will do what I can among my own people. But it is essential the planets are united, that the peoples of each world begin to mingle. And that it is done so in a controlled manner. Done under the eye of those who are watchful and good.”
“So not me.”
The old Cad was there, his grin that of a leering predator. “People you know.”
Vesna smiled. Then she paused. “Why did you never visit?” She was surprised to see real guilt on his face.
“Too busy? Too dangerous? Both?”
She didn’t believe him. She stood slowly. Her legs hurt. Her age had slowed her down this last year. She pulled her robe around her. “We will go to those who know first. Explain to them. Your words mean nothing, but I can make some noise.” Vesna looked at her student, of whom she’d asked the impossible. This time she had a question, and she had been afraid to ask it since the moment his face appeared before her. She’d been afraid of the possibility of having to ask it since the day he left. “Did you find one? Did you find a greater being?”
“Did I find god?” Cad Cae’s face turned sour. The twisting light and dark of the uncovered anomaly flashed behind him, twisting his features while his distress affected its very being. “I found someone alright. And he sure as hell isn’t god.”