Chapter 9: Boredom and Memories

The days since his conversation with Miana had passed with a terse monotony that seemed to inch nearer to boredom as the week progressed. Every day he awoke, showered, dressed and then settled into bed for his scheduled class of 'staring at the wall and wondering how I got here', of which he was both the student and teacher.

Meals had become the only break from his organised self-brooding. Breakfast was delivered to his room daily at nine, lunch at noon and dinner at six. He'd been told by Miana that attending the feasts or going to the library would likely be a bad idea, at least until they convinced the others that he hadn't killed their beloved friend, mentor, and patron.

"Never go anywhere without Liani or me," she had warned as they walked to his room after their talk, her voice thick with worry, "at least until we talk to the council and get this whole thing straightened out."

The warning had hit him like a punch to the gut; the implication that people would hate him so much that his life was in danger sent unsettling shivers through deep parts of his body.

Miana also hadn't elaborated on exactly what the council was or how they could help him, but her persistent vagueness no longer surprised him; nebulous answers and ominous warnings were all he'd received in his short time on the run.

That wasn't to say he wasn't frightened at who precisely the council were and what they were discussing; in fact, Syril had spent the better part of his time alone conjuring images of malevolent floating, masked figures suspended above a bubbling pit of magma, conspiring the best way to end his life.

He'd always had somewhat of an overactive imagination.

In between his busy schedule of meals and self-loathing, Syril somehow found time to examine the watch. He'd spend hours staring at it, looking for any sign of whoever was trapped within its golden walls.

Sometimes, he'd ask it questions and then wait, staring expectantly, his eyes only ever peeling from its smooth surface to blink. Once, he'd even brought the watch into the toilet with him, his eyes glued so tightly to its plain face that he'd walked headfirst into his bedroom door. That lapse of judgment had left him with a sore head and an embarrassingly damaged door.

Truth be told, Syril could admit that his persistent questions had started more than ambitious.

"Why did Davion kill Seabright?" He'd asked earnestly before spending an incredibly long hour waiting for a response from the inanimate timepiece.

After that failed, he reduced the density of his questions…

"What are you?"

"Who are you?"

"Why me?"

All received the same reply.

Which is to say, no reply at all.

After a few days of this lonely back and forth, he bitterly abandoned any hope of having a civilised conversation with his watch, which as a sentence, does make one seem rather insane.

And so his days moved in a brittle silence of his own solitude. He'd leave his room as briefly as possible to shower and use the bathroom. He'd keep his head low and avoid entering a conversation with anyone.

Not that anyone was talking with him to begin with.

By the sixth day, he'd invented a game of watching the sun peak and fall. He'd observe as the shadowy figures from furniture grew solid through the day; their snake-like branches darkening as mid-afternoon drew closer, only to shrink and soften with the birth of twilight.

He began to track the movement of these shadows, finding a sense of enjoyment in predicting the time based solely on their presence.

By the eighth day, his estimations were correct to the nearest hour

By the tenth, they were accurate to the nearest five minutes.

It was in the middle of one of these games that his bedroom door rocked solidly against its hinges, a pounding like thunder in an unstable sky echoing through his room.

Cautiously he walked to the door, taking care to place the watch in his pocket before doing so. He turned the handle and opened it just enough to see the outline of Liani.

"Syril." She said.

"Liani." He replied, speaking quietly through the thin slit in his door. The name caught in his throat briefly, hanging mid-syllable. He was shocked at the state of his voice; it was hoarse and dry from days of unuse.

"You know, most people find conversations easier when the door is open." She said lightly.

"Well, most people don't try to rip the door off its hinges when knocking." he retorted dryly, his voice somewhat returning to its usual cheery candour.

Liani shrugged, "I'm a loud knocker. What can I say."

He sighed deeply and opened the door wider, "what do you want?" He asked before adding grimly, "have the council sent you to kill me?"

She looked shocked, "No… what?" Her voice raised in taunting questioning, "Do you think the council sends me to kill people?"

"No, I don't. I'm kidding." He lied, laughing as best he could despite himself. He eyed the two daggers that hung loosely by her side with a look paralleling mistrust. Surely, she didn't use them for cooking.

"Yeah, if they wanted you dead, they'd just poison your food or something," She chirped, "plausible deniability and all that."

Oh.

Syril slowly looked toward the empty lunch tray that lay next to his bed.

It was Liani's turn to laugh, "Syril, I'm kidding." She squeaked through small fits of laughter, "your face just then was priceless. I wish I had a camera."

He felt a deep heat crawl through his body as his face burned with embarrassment, anger following close behind. It built up within him like a corked geyser; the anger, exhaustion, and boredom rose like acidic steam.

It was an anger that caused your ears to ring in time with your pounding heart and your eyes to burn from a fiery rage that yearned for escape.

"Well, how am I supposed to bloody know that?" he said, embarrassment cutting his words, "I don't know anything about this place. Not that anyone would tell me anything. I swear, it's all half answers and ominous warnings with you guys. No one can just give me a godsdamn clue what's going on here!"

As an awkward silence hung in the air like a mouldy cloth, rotten and stinging, Syril felt the guilt of his outburst wriggle further down his throat. After all, Liani wasn't the catalyst of his issues; she was just the pretty face that consistently bore the worst news.

"Liani, I'm sorry," He said softly, sighing with the words, "I'm just stressed and bored out of my mind."

She just shrugged, "Buddy, it's ok. When you've been through what you have, you get to lose your cool occasionally."

Syril narrowed his eyes, "are you being nice to me?"

"Miana told me I had to be." She replied without hesitation, "said she'd make me do dishes for weeks if I wasn't"

Syril laughed awkwardly, not sure if she was kidding or not.

"Plus, I'm as sweet as pie all the time." She joked, smiling sweetly.

He snorted and tried to hide it behind a cough, only to make himself snort again.

"Rude," She said in mock exasperation, "I've been nothing but sweet to you since we met."

"You refused to tell me your name!"

"Names are precious things." She said shruggingly.

"You let me get mobbed by books!" he said, remembering his first experience with the library's 'helpful' cataloguing system.

"I think the phrase you're looking for is beaten up by books", She chuckled, "Plus, that wasn't my fault. That was all your incompetence."

"I didn't know what I was doing!" he said, incensed with being called incompetent.

"Oh, it showed." She agreed, smiling wide at him, "In conclusion, I'm lovely."

Syril rolled his eyes, not wanting to press the point any further, "anyway, what brings you to my humble abode?"

Liani held a book up to her chest proudly. It was a worn maroon red, its leather bounding cracked and creased like lightning along its cover. The title 'Oath Keepers: A Detailed History' was printed in the large golden text along the centre, with the author's name, C.A.Brightshell, displayed in smaller print below it.

"Um, nice book?" He said quizzically, unsure what she was trying to show him.

Rolling her eyes, she handed it to him, "Miana wanted me to give you this. Said it should keep you busy for a while."

Slightly more excited than he had a right to be, Syril grabbed the book, afraid Liani would run away with it if he didn't. It felt weighted in his hands, the leather cool and hard to the touch; the sweet earthy smell of its pages hung in the air like an affirmation of love.

"Thank you," he stammered, "when do I need to give it back?"

Liani shrugged, "She didn't say, just told me to tell you that you'll find it useful."

Nervously he thumbed the pages. He was surprised to find the inside fairly worn, the sheets of paper yellowed, and corners creased from years of misuse. He knew that Miana took an almost deranged level of care with her books, so he found it odd that one was allowed to get to such a state of disarray. On the first page, someone had inscribed a message into the top corner in elegantly small writing.

"To my darling Miana,

May the children find this as joyful and interesting as my own. They are my precious swirling stars. I miss you every day.

- R.O."

Syril gently traced the letters with his finger touching the dull grooves left from the pen's echo. He felt tenderness behind the stokes. They were careful and precise; want and patience oozed from it like a fresh wound.

He toiled on the page briefly for a moment; a familiar sense of unease created a pause in his curiosity. He felt he'd stepped into something private, something… forgotten.

Liani cleared her throat loudly, and Syril realised he'd been staring at the inscription for a considerable time with an almost deranged focus.

"Do you know who R.O is?" He asked, "She seemed to know Miana well."

Liani shook her head, "Can't say I do. Miana's a very private… person."

She paused on the last word, almost tripping, as if unsure what to say.

"What is she? Really, I know she's the library," he emphasised the last word with air quotes, "but what does that mean."

Liani bit her lip, not saying anything. Her eyebrows creased with severe thought.

Syril almost asked the question again, afraid she'd misheard him and he'd said something tactless and rude.

Before he could open his mouth, Liani spoke, "It's complicated, Syril. It's probably simpler to say she once was a person, but what exists of her now is more of an echo of who she once was. She is the library, but she's also more than that, she keeps us safe, but we also protect her." She paused, looking apologetically at him, "does that make sense?"

Not in the slightest. In fact, Syril had heard more sensical things from children's fantasy stories.

"Kinda." He said simply, noting just to ask Miana the next time he saw her.

"Anyway, I've got a class to get to, so I'd better run," Liani said apologetically, "good chat though we should do these more often."

She smiled and turned to walk away, her dark hair flailing loosely behind her.

"Did you know my brother?" He asked quickly before he lost the nerve.

Liani went still, her back turned to him; she was unnaturally quiet. He stared at her, anxious but with a wild fire for the truth. It was a question that had plagued him since Miana had mentioned that both Davion and his uncle were Oath Keepers; how many knew Davion? How many would have considered him a friend?

Her hands clenched, almost imperceivably so; he wouldn't have noticed it if he'd not watched her so closely.

"I did." She said quietly, her back still turned, "But I wish I didn't."

Before Syril could respond, she walked away, her hair frolicking behind her like a cape in the wind.

Two hours later, Syril lay atop his bed and stared at the ceiling, Liani's words looping his mind like a deranged carousel. He played the conversation repeatedly in his head; he toyed with the questions he could have asked and, more regrettably, the questions he should have asked.

He thought of his brother, the loveable oath that he once was. He smiled fondly at a memory from long ago when Syril was still young; Davion had taken him to the convergence festival, and amongst the bustle and excitement, Davion had found time to flirt with an attractive acrobat and had lost Syril to the crowd. After an hour of frantic searching, he'd found Syril in an orcish pub, drinking a glass of milk amongst the friendly patrons.

He'd bribed Syril's silence from his uncle for the low price of ice cream and candy.

Despite their considerable age difference, they had grown up together. They were there for each other through every up and down in their life. Syril could count on one hand the times he'd seen Davion unhappy. He was always smiling about something, never a worry in his mind.

"Everything always works out for the best. We're the main characters in this story." Was the obnoxious phrase Davion would use to calm Syril down during bouts of anxiety and worry.

Syril always could talk to Davion, no subject too reproachable, girls and crushes amongst the strongest of their conversations. When Davion had started dating during his selection year, he'd ask Syril's opinion on every partner.

For the most part, Syril understood this as a formality, a necessary inclusion before Davion would progress the relationship. He only once objected to a partner, and that was only because she was rude to the staff when they'd all gone out to dinner.

He broke it off with her the next day.

The only conversation Syril never dared to bring up was anything to do with their parents. He had known his mum had died in childbirth and his dad ran away soon after, but Syril hadn't any knowledge beyond that. He didn't even know their first names, just the family name of Oloran.

He'd tried to ask Davion once what they were like, but he'd been met with a stiff silence and slammed doors.

He never asked again.

"Davion, what did you do?" Syril asked himself quietly.

Sighing to himself, he closed off his mind and rolled over to grab the book Liani had given him. He stared at the cover, studying the well-worn grooves in the leather. He thumbed the cover open and, again, was greeted with the same inscription, the mystery signer's initials staring tauntingly up at him.

R.O.

Briefly, he'd considered that the initials could belong to Rivira Oloran, the relative he'd discovered during his time in the watch. But he quickly shook the idea away, guessing that the book, despite its tempered appearance, was much too young to belong to someone who had lived so long ago.

He also considered that maybe he was reading too much into the inscription. For all he knew, the book could have been donated to Miana's Library by a random parent, and his feelings were just a by-product of boredom and reverie.

But something within him was screaming, like a banshee on the verge of death, begging him to listen as it bellowed, "you're missing something."

But what was it? What was so important?

Frustrated, he continued reading through the book, hoping it would clear his mind.

So, he turned the page, the paper crackled satisfyingly as he did so, and he began to read.

"Prologue: Introductions and warnings

I suppose I should begin by introducing myself.

My name is Criomane Alistair Brightshell. I am a professor of history and logic at the Rivira University of Academia and Runic Science (RUAR). I will confess I am not myself an Oath Keeper. I was born to parents who did not possess Ethirian blood; as such, I am not bound by any Oath.

I am, however, an expert on your order, and through much trial and tribulation, I have become a trusted source of information and scribe to many original Oath Keepers.

As of writing this (573 PVC), the RUAR is the largest university in Anzora in both physical size and student body. The university chancellor is Rivira Oloran herself, as she has been since the opening of our halls some 400 years ago.

The university was established with the primary goal of teaching the runic arts to Absents, which is academically what we refer to as those who require runes to conjure and manipulate the arcana. It is essential to understand that even if someone requires runes to control magic, they are in no way less effective than someone who uses their own internal arcane.

In my years of teaching, I have found that Absents have just as much Arcanic potential (sometimes even more so) than Oath Keepers; it all comes down to the creativity of the Arcanist.

For example, an Absent who draws a rune to move a stone is directly tied to the complexity and integrity of that rune. So hypothetically, a perfect rune, with incredible complexity, could move a mountain.

However, an Oath Keeper is tied only to their innate internal Arcanic potential. Simply put, their baseline ability will rarely move more than a stone without special training and practice.

So you can see how it is slightly easier to use runic arts than an Oath Keeper's internal Arcane.

I tell you all this in the hopes that I can contextualise what I write in the following chapters. I do not doubt that as the years pass, knowledge will change, I do hope for the better, but I wish to preserve the terms and understanding as it is right now.

In this book, young one, I hope to introduce you to a world of fantasy and logic, where behind the veil of normal and mundane, we discover an array of magic and mystery unlike anything you have seen.

But I also wish to quench any illusions of grandeur and heroism that have plagued you until now. The realm you are about to unveil is more dangerous and haunting than your parents could have ever prepared you for. If you look for peril, you will find it, and sadly it will not end well for you.

I only tell you this now as a caution, contained in this book will be a simplified history of the Oath Keeper's deeds and creation. It is not an instruction book on the arcane; however, I will sometimes be required to explain terms and concepts. I will do so as simply as I can.

Understand, though, through a combination of time and paper, I cannot express all I wish to say, and some things I simply do not possess the ability or courage to articulate.

So young pupil, please proceed with caution; but take care to enjoy as you discover more about the history of the world you now live in."