I am Headmaster Ronald Phillips III. One of them, in any case. And, in case it wasn’t obvious, my life is complicated. To the school, I lead alone. There is no one else to do so. During the council meetings, I act as an advisor. Not the other way around. They cannot help me. They do not understand. Since the slaughter, I barely understand. But, something here is shifting. Something new. For the first time in ages, it’s happening. I’m doodling again.
Leaving the latest council meeting, I mentally call for my top advisors to meet with me in my office. I need to interpret this. I haven’t had the practice or training that some of the others had gotten with my prophecy episodes. Mostly because my prophecy episodes mostly consisted of easy to interpret massacre visions that caused everyone around me at the time to collapse in pain and suffering. And then, once the slaughterer had finished his crusade in the final battle, the visions were no more. If it weren’t for the discussions with the others, I would’ve assumed they had been gifted to me for that singular purpose. But the council confirms otherwise. And this return bodes not well.
Seating myself in my office’s large chair, I pull out my doodles. Spreading them across the table, I await my people’s arrival. From one side, a gentleman looking fellow, about my age by his appearance, slides in, seemingly without disturbing his surroundings whatsoever. “What’s so urgent, Ron?” Al asks me, “Something from your secret council?”
I shake my head. “Nothing so banal, I assure you,” I answer, then gesture towards the drawings strewn across my desk.
“Are these what I think they are?” he asks. After a pause, he adds, “Because I thought this stopped when I axed Will.”
“We,” I state firmly, then I nod. “They had. Until this morning.”
“Did you talk to your council about it, try to work it out with them?” he says.
I shake my head. “No.”
He looks up at me, his mind screaming in confusion, in spite of his featureless face. “But,” he objects, “From everything you’ve told me, they seem experts on your abilities.”
“They probably are,” I reply, “At least as close as anyone can be to experts. But, I can’t bother them with this. They have their own issues to worry about.”
Just then, Taťána walks in. “I was showering. What’s the big?” she complains. Then, seeing the drawings, she slows her roll. “Oh. That’s less than good.”
“Can you think of any reason this might’ve started back up?” I ask the pair.
The shadow shakes his head. “Not without knowing what caused them in the first place,” he answers.
“I have one idea,” my lich advisor offers. She seems uncertain of it, which in and of itself is unsettling. Taťána is never uncertain of anything. That’s why, with different circumstances, in another path of time, she was able to nearly conquer the world. Sort of, according to the revivified corpse on the council.
“Go on,” Al says. “What’s this idea you have?”
I nod to her, and she sighs. “Since we killed Will, there hasn’t been anything new supernaturally outside of the school, right? The wound in the world-magic never healed. No magics can heal it, and all magic works shoddily at best?”
“Correct,” I say, “So? Are you saying this is just my visions suddenly returning to function, albeit shoddily?”
She shakes her head. “I’m saying, what if that’s changed?”
“Well, can you raise a graveyard yet?” Al asks, mostly facetiously, “Because I still have to focus a lot to have form.”
She shakes her head again. “No, the wound’s still there. But…” she trails herself off.
I know where she’s leading. “Something new was born. That would mean…” It’s my turn to trail off.
“Exactly,” Taťána agrees.
Al shakes his head. “For those of us whose interests lie outside of meta-magic, what does that mean?”
“If a new mystical being can be born to the wounded world-magic,” I explain, “And they have the ability to learn actual skill in their capacity, in theory, they could heal the wound.”
“Or, if enough were to be born, the wound might heal on its own,” Taťána finishes.
The shade sighs. “Oh thank god. Living is hard enough without having to worry about whether or not I’ll just cease to exist in any given moment.”
“I understand,” I tell him.
Taťána objects to this statement, “No you don’t. If the world-magic dies permanent like, you’d grow really old-looking, but other than that you’d just feel kind of powerless. We’d die.”
“You can’t even talk,” Al complains, “At least you’d’ve lived a life and died, and in theory if magic comes back so could you. I lose focus for a moment, I might literally not exist anymore. No coming back from that.”
I sigh. “Alright, but that’s moot. We’ve got to figure out where these visions are pointing me towards. Saving this lost mystic creature is top priority for the school now.”
Al nods. “Understood,” he says, “I’ll get the scouts out there. A general location might be helpful, though.”
Taťána smiles. “I’ll see if we can pinpoint new fonts of mystic energy magically, but given how it’s been of late…” she continues her habit of trailing off.
“Yeah, yeah,” I admit, “We need to figure out this stuff.”
“You know who might be real helpful with that?” Taťána muses.
I shake my head. “I’m not bothering the damned council,” I insist.
Al insists right back. “She’s right, and you know it causes me physical pain to say that. Will’s attacks on magic ended up killing all the cursed ones here. If your secret council has any more information about prophecy, use them.”
“Fine,” I state, “I’ll try to reach out. Just a warning, it’s a week until our next meeting, and I fear we don’t have that time.”
“Do what you can to get in touch today,” Taťána replies.
Al cocks his head, staring at the drawings. “Do you mind if I snap some shots?” the shadow asks me.
“Why?” I question.
Al shrugged. “A normie friend of a friend works magic with the computer analysis stuff. In case you and yours don’t come through, I figured I’d ask them.”
I pause to think. On the one hand, it might be helpful. On the other hand, giving access to the information to a normie presented a real risk. “Fine,” I answer, “But two things, one, you don’t tell them what we suspect this represents.”
“No shit,” Al brushes the statement off, “And?”
“You have someone keep eyes on from hand over until we pick up the source.”
Al groans, but nods. “Fair enough.” He begins to snap pictures of all the different sketches.
“What about you? You want or need anything for your part, Taťána?” I ask my other advisor.
The lich shook her head. “No. Unless you have any details about what we’re tracking, we’re just going to go groping in the dark no matter the prep.”
I shake my head right back, this time adding a shrug. “I’m not used to this. It doesn’t remind me of my old visions, but then again, they normally involved mass slaughter, so that might’ve influenced the feelings more than I’d like.”
“Fair enough,” she says, then asks, “And this definitely didn’t?”
I give her a judgemental look. The entire school hadn’t fallen suddenly in momentary pain. The vision wasn’t of mass slaughter.
“I’m just saying, it would be easier to track if it was,” she complains, “We might even have a damned chance on our end.” Sighing, she heads out to meet with the other skilled manipulators of magical energies.
“Done here, Al?” I ask.
Taking one last picture, he turns to me. “Yeah,” he says, “Do get back to me with what the Rons say.”
I glare at him. “You’re not supposed to know that, remember,” I hiss. He spied on me back in the day, during the founding of the Council of Ron. It’s an expected hazard of being friends with a shadow. “We’ve talked about this.”
“Fine, fine,” Al says, clearly not caring about the complexities of the situation near as much as I do, “Tell me all about what the secret council that I definitely don’t know anything about tells you.”
Shaking my head at my ridiculous friend, I gather up the original sketches before I head off to the study room. Hopefully, one or two of the Rons are still in our conference space. Ideally the Ron of the Frigid Mystic War is one of them. In his timeline, the demonic spirit of Cassandra taught him about his abilities, how to understand and interpret them. He would be a most useful perspective, and given his world is not actively at war like many of the others, it would not be too much of a burden on him. Entering the small study room in the library, I close and lock the door behind me. The room itself is the psychic equivalent of a Faraday cage. No mind, no matter how powerful or focused, could intrude without it being immensely painful. I sit down at the small, circular table. Shutting my eyes and relaxing, I clear my mind, opening it to the past and the future, to the world and all other worlds, to possibility itself. When I open my eyes, I return to the between, to the meeting place of the council. No one is here. The youthful one, our most recent member, must not have had questions for either of our other attendees of the last meeting. If one of them recently left, there would be a folding. There isn’t, so they must have left before my meeting with my advisors even began. It is really too bad, I suppose. I fold myself back, away from the between, to what is.
Taking a moment to let my eyes adjust to reality, I pull out my sketches. I may not know how to interpret what I see, but I can try to find connections. If Al believes his computer guy can find trends, certainly I can try. I’ll be able to understand it better than a computer, surely. Spreading them across the table, I stand and open the door. If any of the few students who remain need the room for their studies, I want them to know they can come in, and I need to get my blood flowing. Stretching my legs with a walk around the library, I call Al up to tell him the unfortunate news.
He picks up the phone before the first ring. He’s clearly expecting my call. “What’d they say, Ron?” he asks.
I shake my head, then realizing I’m on the phone, say, “I tried, but they weren’t in. One or two pop in at night sometimes, so I’ll keep at my work in the room and check in every once in a while, but I don’t hold hope.”
“Too bad,” Al says, then after a pause, he adds, “So it’s up to us, then?”
“Yeah,” I say, “I figure while your tech guy’s doing their thing, I’ll try to figure out the sketches too.”
“Bet you we get it before you,” my shadow replies, sounding quite smug.
I chuckle. It’s good motivation for me. “I’ll take you up on that. Fifty?”
He begins his response, but before the first syllable is fully out, he stops himself. “Wait, your weird meeting place has normal time, right? It’s not, like, slow or fast compared to the actual real world?”
I roll my eyes and sigh. “Yes, and ix-nay on the etails-day.”
“Right, right. And also, sure, you’re on for the fifty,” he replies, adding, “Got to run, got a bet to win,” before he hangs up the phone.
I return to the conference room. Working inside the space would mean if anything came up on this end, I’d be clueless. Instead, I decide to check in on the between every half hour or so. Settling into my chair and cracking my neck, I get to work.
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