Warcraft: Assassin - Part 8
Hey, your dreams have come true, here's Part 8! My goal is to finish Assassin this month, so pray for me, my writing schedule is likely to be somewhat more intense.
Title: Assassin
Part: 8/?
Word Count: 5485
Includes: Angst, sap, adorableness. A story told in flashbacks, there will be one-sided crushes and meaningful stares.
Pairings: Technically, none.
Summary: The founding of Durotar, and lessons in history from the mouth of one who has been a part of it: Garona Halforcen.
Previous: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
“He's kidding,” Khadgar groaned for the fifth time in as many minutes. “Absolutely joking.”
“Shut up,” Garona snapped. “He is your master, and you must learn what he teaches you.”
“He's your master too, now,” Khadgar replied. “Help me with this.”
Garona crossed to his side swiftly. When she had first seen the library, she had believed that it contained more books than she could possibly read in a lifetime. That, as it turned out, was only the smallest of Medivh's three libraries. After breakfast, Medivh had led the pair of them, still caught up in a sense of wonder and awe at their status as apprentices to a Guardian, to a locked door and opened it.
“It needs some work,” Medivh had said, smiling fondly. “Since you already have experience with it, I thought it would be best for you to do the cleaning.”
Garona had stared into a room that was easily as big as one of the great halls within Karabor. The room had a high, painted ceiling and huge windows made of multicoloured glass, or so it seemed behind the streaks of dirt and the liberal amounts of dust everywhere. Khadgar's gaze had been caught by the stacks of books that lay haphazardly on the floor like perilous wizard's towers themselves.
“Good luck,” Medivh had said, and shut the door on them, shaking loose dust. One of the piles had teetered over, and had only narrowly been saved by Garona's swift reflexes.
Since then, they had been occupied by their task. First, Garona had created more stacks of books, halving the size of each. Khadgar's first task was to cast a series of spells to clean the dirt from the windows and the dust from the ceiling where they could not reach, and then to start more mundanely wiping down shelves and moving books. Garona examined each page and cover, setting the damaged books aside for Khadgar to repair once he was done with his task. She wiped the dust from the covers, setting those aside in a different pile. It was not a difficult task, just a time consuming one, and unworthy of a pair of apprentices to a great mage.
“How could it have gotten this bad?” Khadgar muttered to himself. “He hasn't lived here that long.”
“What do you mean?” Garona asked, her eyes lighting on images of long-eared humans with upswept brows. No, elves. He called them elves.
“The great tower of Karazhan was only built two decades ago,” Khadgar said. “A little before I was born. Supposedly, there was a great impact - a meteorite - that broke the mountain pass and flattened the area. It caused a surge in the ley lines that required urgent capping. The Guardian, Medivh, ordered the tower built there. According to the texts I've read about it, he helped build it himself. A village built up around it, at first for those who worked on it and their families and then others who wanted to live protected by the greatest mage of our time.” Khadgar sounded wistful as he spoke. “I wanted to see what it looked like for myself.”
“What do you think now that you've seen it?” Garona asked.
“It's impressive,” Khadgar said. “Large and impressive. I'd been told the Guardian was very reclusive, refusing any application to apprenticeship and ignoring all requests to visit Dalaran in person, but... there are so many peoplehere.”
“It's very busy,” Garona said. “And loud. You missed the opera.”
“There will be others, at least one a season,” Khadgar said. “Though they're exclusive events, open only to the local nobility. I've heard the previous King attended them until the war started--” He eyed Garona. “--and the new one not at all.”
“Chieftains may lose their lives at any time,” Garona replied. “I didn't kill him. Adamant Wrynn. He was caught by one of the raiding parties.”
Khadgar was silent for a little while. “We thought the reports from Azeroth were exaggerated. The nobles here have a poor reputation.”
“They seemed polite enough,” Garona said. “They talk a great deal.”
“They hold a wine glass in one hand and a poisoned dagger behind their backs, is what I've always heard,” Khadgar said. “The Wrynns seized control after the fall of the House of Baewyn, their predecessors. Warren Baewyn was referred to as the Daemon-King, and he was said to be a tyrant. House Wrynn overthrew him and seized the throne.”
“That seems just,” Garona said. “Overthrowing a tyrant and seeing him fall.”
“It does, but that's only the latest example. The Baewyns ruled for four generations, and then the Viroths for three before that,” Khadgar said. “Both Houses were wiped out completely. Other noble houses have supported the various ruling houses, and people don't forget who stood beside a tyrant, nodding and smiling.”
Garona recalled the meetings of the chieftains with a frown. “Some are too weak to disagree with a strong voice and a stronger fist.”
“Weakness doesn't eliminate danger,” Khadgar pointed out. “It's the real trouble with monarchy, I feel. Especially here.”
“Kings and Queens are monarchs, aren't they?” Garona guessed. “Instead of Chieftains and Greatmothers?”
“I suppose so, yes,” Khadgar said, looking at her curiously.
“A chieftain leads a clan,” Garona said. “Sometimes it's passed on from blood to blood, other times it's fought over. The Greatmothers are the mates and advisers to chieftains.”
“What about if a chieftain is female?” Khadgar asked. “Do they have an advising Greatfather?”
“More often than not, a female chieftain's mate isn't needed for advising,” Garona said. “Or their most useful advice is ‘I could do better’.”
Khadgar snorted. “That sounds like the monarchies here, where the Kings have Queens, but the Queens have Prince-Consorts.”
“But Dalaran has no kings or queens,” Garona said. “You have the Six.”
“Yes,” Khadgar replied, wiping a cloud of dust from one of the shelves. Garona held back a sneeze. “Though we have two councils. There's the People's Council, that rules over all the non-mages in the city, along with all the villages around Dalaran. People from each district are voted on - do you know what a vote is?”
“Yes,” Garona said. “We vote and elect chieftains too, when we want no bloodshed. We voted for our Warchief, for all the good it did us.” She snorted, though she remembered with a shiver the council of chieftains and the demon's blood.
“Right,” Khadgar said, giving her a curious look before going back to his task. “The People's Council controls the majority of mundane affairs, including trade with other nations. Mages sometimes marry mages, but not always, so their families need a voice too.”
“Hm,” Garona said. So these warlocks - mages - value the counsel of those who do not have magic. Curious. She tried to imagine Gul'dan asking the opinions of the warriors who guarded him and could not. Of the warriors I have met, only Durotan would consider asking the farmers how they felt about any given situation. These mages are very curious.
“The Six are elected from amongst the Archmages of Dalaran. Usually only the very oldest can be chosen, which makes them frequently also the most intractable.” Khadgar made a face. “They gave me a great list of things I was to ask about, and then send them the answers..”
“They should have picked someone more subtle,” Garona said. “So there are no young archmages? Are they all humans?”
“You were caught too,” Khadgar reminded her, grumbling. “Not exactly, and no. There are some archmages that are younger than others, and the elves never look particularly old. Archmage Krasus Goldenmist has been on the council for at least a century, but he doesn't look much older than twenty or thirty. I think Archmage Modera is only in her forties. Though mages live for a long time too. Archmage Antonidas is the leader of the council at the moment, and he's as old as the hills, or so some claim.” He snorted, as if to show what he thought of the idea, and then sighed. “He hasn't taken an apprentice in three decades. He's frequently busy, and I think only a special case would bestir him.”
“If he'd taken you, you wouldn't be here,” Garona pointed out. “Surely that means something.”
“Oh yes, it means something,” Khadgar grumbled. “It means I wouldn't be here, cleaning dirty books, getting thrown into bookshelves, and getting outed as a spy.”
“A bad spy,” Garona reminded him again. “He'd met me before, that's why he knew.”
“And who are you spying for, anyway? This Warchief of yours?”
Garona wrinkled her nose in distaste. “He's no Warchief of mine, I didn't want him, even if I'd had a voice to speak. Only the chieftains chose him, and the council.”
“But what is he? A general?”
“A great fool,” Garona said, spitefully, though the anger was a strange relief. That felt good, and who will he tell? “He is called Blackhand the Destroyer, and he leads the Blackrock Clan, and before that, the Stonefist Clan. As Warchief he commands every clan, not just his own, to battle. He coordinates the clans and they fight for him.”
“I can't imagine the human nations getting on with each other well enough to make such an alliance, so there's that,” Khadgar mused. “While there's a great deal of nuance within any nation, generally, Dalaran can't stand Stromgarde, Gilneas can't stand Kul Tiras, Alterac is a miserable ice bucket, Azeroth doesn't get on well with anyone, and no one likes Lordaeron. That's not even counting the elves or the dwarves, though I think the gnomes might not mind anyone much, and then there are the trolls and the goblins. It would probably take a monumental disaster for them all to agree to anything.”
“Or a great threat,” Garona pointed out. That's something I could tell Gul'dan. That there are other human nations and they're too fractured to ally together as we did, for all he pulled the strings, but... do I want to? It was a curious thing. She had not been here long, and for all she had fought with Khadgar the moment he'd spotted her, he hadn't treated her like a casual threat. He'd seen she was dangerous and acted accordingly. Also, he's teaching me to read the human tongue, Garona thought. “Why do they hate each other so?”
“Long ago, all the human tribes were one,” Khadgar said, examining the bookshelf, then reinforcing it before moving on to the next. “Under Thoradin of Arathor, first king of the Arathi. I thought he might be like your Warchief, but he was no fool. He realized that if humans spent all of their time fighting one another, they'd die to the trolls that raided them frequently.”
“There have been clan wars,” Garona said. “There was one not long before we opened the great portal to your world. When we can't fight the draenei, we fight each other.”
“Your... mother's people?” Khadgar guessed, and then his eyes widened. “I... oh, I'm sorry--”
“Talk about Thoradin,” Garona advised, looking down at her book pile. Too close, and too... She had not thought of her mother in so long, it hurt.
“Right. Thoradin.” Khadgar took a deep breath. “He did have to defeat the other tribal chieftains, but instead of killing them or seizing the survivors, he negotiated with them. The defeated tribesmen joined his own clan, the Arathi, until all tribes were one. He ordered them to found a city near the Great Sea, the city of Strom. That was when the elves came to teach the humans magic and recruit their aid to fight the trolls.”
“Magic in exchange for axes,” Garona hazarded, and he nodded. “Mages are taught, then, like warlocks. They aren't born that way, as shamans are.”
“Shamans are--” Khadgar frowned. “I read about them. Tribal elemental mages, that speak with the so-called ghosts of rocks and plants.”
“Spirits, not ghosts,” Garona corrected him. “There are shamans here? How?”
“I don't know, they don't come to Dalaran,” Khadgar said. “Mostly it's the dwarves and the trolls, but it was said before there were mages and cities, there were shamans and tribes. The elves even have nature mages of another kind, the ancient druids.”
Garona frowned. “I don't know what a druid is, though they sound like shamans. What's the difference?”
“The ability to turn into a tree, I think,” Khadgar replied. “In any case, the elf-taught mages weren't particularly popular. Many feared their new abilities, though Thoradin remained true to his word and they were welcome in his city.”
“Which lasted until he died or was killed, because that's how these kinds of things work,” Garona guessed sardonically, carefully working through her pile of books and moving on to the next. “Then what happened?”
“Thoradin didn't have an heir,” Khadgar said. “And the old chieftains, now lords, kicked the mages out, along with their families and supporters, or they intended to. They claim the order was never given and the mages left first, before they could be kicked out. In any case, they intended on creating a better place than they'd left.”
“And that's how Dalaran came to be.” Garona nodded to herself a little. “What about this Guardian?”
“They learned early that too much magic concentrated in the same place was dangerous, just as dangerous as the Arathi had feared. They consulted with the elves, who had constructed themselves a magical kingdom protected by enchanted runestones. They suggested that we should exercise restraint.” Khadgar rolled his eyes. “Meanwhile, they were setting up a society that involved no physical labour on their part, magical defenses, and weather control.”
“So in response, your people said, 'you first'?” Garona guessed and Khadgar laughed.
“I'm sure it was said, but they decided on a different approach. They met in Tirisfal, which had been the first landing site of the elves in these lands, and appointed a great Guardian, one who would maintain the balance. Since then, all mages tithe some of their power to the Guardian to keep them strong, and in return, the Guardian keeps Dalaran and all of the lands of mages safe. This became more complicated when humanity started dividing further.”
“Further?” Garona frowned. “You did say there were other clans. Countries.”
“Yes,” Khadgar said. “In Strom, a group of younger, more ambitious nobles wanted to head to a more hospitable, pleasant location. They also left, settled around Lake Lordamere, and founded Lordaeron. Still others went further north along the coast, to Gilneas. This left the city of Strom, renamed Stromgarde, to the old and the traditional. Those who conformed remained, and those who didn't became viewed as progressive by their own, and reckless and childish by those that remained behind.”
“So, that's four countries,” Garona said, imagining vast exoduses of humans, like when the Shadow Wolves had been banished, save for the fact that instead of green, they were pink and brown and black and yellow. “What of the others?”
“Gilneas' ruling class were dour and noble. They were the first to put an emphasis on shipping and seafaring, so the issue of piracy came up quickly.” At her blank look, he clarified, “Piracy is like banditry over the water, in boats. Ships.”
“Well, your water does seem safer here,” Garona murmured. “What happened with the water bandits?”
“They rallied around a pirate-queen named Rhiannon Proudmoore and founded Kul Tiras on a cluster of islands, and they became rivals to Gilnean shipping. I don't know if I believe half of the stories about her, though, they sound like something from a copper dreadful.” Khadgar shrugged. “Lordaeron spread very, very far, scooping up land wherever they could, pushing the borders of the Arathi Highlands, Gilneas, Quel'thalas - the high home of the elves - and even Dalaran. Eventually, they were stopped by trade treaties, but they never actually gave back the land, so Dalaran is surrounded on all sides by Lordaeron, and the Arathi built a wall to keep Lordaeron out. I think the Menethils think it's funny.”
“The Menethils?”
“The ruling house of Lordaeron. They're dangerous on every front. While there haven't exactly been generals along the lines of King Arthanas for some time, they still field by far the largest knightly order.” Khadgar raised an eyebrow. “You'd do well not to challenge them. Even Dalaran respects their power.”
Garona rolled her eyes. “We have enough trouble with Azerothian knights. You said there were two more.”
“There are,” Khadgar said. “One of the places Lordaeron attempted to conquer were the Alterac Mountains. They're a range far north from here, cold and miserable from what I understand. One of my classmates was from there, he said it's the frozen pimple on the arse end of nowhere. The nobles that settled there rebelled and declared independence, which the crown at the time accepted.”
“That seems weak of such a strong clan of conquerors,” Garona said doubtfully. “Particularly if they had such pride. No chieftain I'd know would balk from something worthless, just because it would offend them to lose.”
“Queen Calilia wasn't a warrior, she was a diplomat and as ruthless as any mercenary with a sword. She let them keep it precisely because it was worth so little. She reaped great benefit from negotiating with them and lost nothing herself. As for Azeroth, undesirables from the other nations filtered down. Ship's captains who didn't like restrictions from either Kul Tiras or Gilneas travelled down the coast. Debauched nobles from Lordaeron, mercenaries left over from the great wars, sometimes even elves all travelled and settled in Stormwind, named for one of the expedition’s vessels.” Khadgar shrugged. “Mages too, those tired of living under the Six's strict rules. There are trolls in the green hills of Stranglethorn, and goblins in Booty Bay, but they could lay claim to it otherwise if they're willing to put forth the effort.”
“So much land,” Garona murmured. “Why tell me all of this?”
“What are you going to do about it?” Khadgar asked. “It's history. Besides, when you sort out your letters, that information is all here. There are books about the establishment of the various nations, as well as the history of the Quel'dorei and the--” Khadgar's eyes widened, looking at the decrepit book in his hands. “I can't believe it.”
“What?” Garona said, setting the book she was holding down and marching over to him. “What is it?”
“This is a history of the troll empires,” Khadgar murmured. “One of the things I'd been asked to find, but... it's so old. The copies have all been incomplete, or so our chief librarian would have us believe. This is incredible. He has a theory about the troll tribes.” Gently, very gently, he carried it over to a table. Garona quickly wiped the table down so he could put it and they huddled around it.
“The writing seems faded,” Garona observed. “Can you read it?”
“I can repair it,” Khadgar said. “Though there's only so much I can do, but I could transcribe it from the original.”
“Can I help?” Garona asked curiously, and he blinked, looking at her. “What?”
“Yes,” Khadgar said finally, and smiled at her. Garona smiled back tentatively. “You can help.”
~ * ~
The days passed quickly, as far as Garona was concerned. Once they'd finished cleaning that library, repairing the books they could and setting aside those they couldn't, Medivh set them to the task of transcribing the badly damaged books, copying what they could and helping them through what they couldn't understand. They talked endlessly of books, during their meals together, as they huddled around one of the tomes Garona was learning to read from, and she swore she heard Khadgar muttering to himself about them in his sleep, though he denied it.
Garona sent no word back to Gul'dan as the days, then weeks, passed. Khadgar faithfully wrote to the Six every week. Garona read the letters, slipping them out of their envelopes and back in without difficulty. He never spoke of her, never mentioned another apprentice, but did speak of their projects to restore Medivh's vast collection of wisdom. Khadgar gave highlights of some of the tomes to Librarian Darothan, but sent him nothing. Garona read their letters in return, stealing them from Khadgar's room.
They are hungry, these mages, Garona mused over her lunch. Feed their curiosity and they only wish to eat more.
“The moment we stop learning is the moment we cease to live,” Medivh said, and she started. Khadgar slurped his soup, and held the book he was reading open with his spare hand, leaving none for the dribble of broth on his chin. “You are thinking deep thoughts, my student.”
“What if you learn everything there is to learn?” Garona asked. “What if you run out of books to read?”
“Ah,” Medivh said. “An excellent question, and it brings me to the next project I have for the pair of you.”
Khadgar sputtered, hastily protected his book, then swallowed and wiped at his mouth with a napkin. Garona rolled her eyes. “We aren't done with the transcriptions yet.”
“You aren't,” Medivh agreed. “But that doesn't mean I can't give you more work. Multitasking.”
“So what are we to do now?” Garona demanded. When Medivh's gaze fell on her, she reflexively dropped her gaze and waited for a blow, but Medivh only smiled at her.
“I have a riddle for you,” Medivh said. “A quandary. One I want you to work together to solve. The answer is somewhere here, in this tower.”
“A research project!” Khadgar said, warming to the idea. “That's more like it. What do we need to research?”
“What you research is up to you, so long as you can answer the question,” Medivh replied. Garona frowned.
“You're leading us on,” Garona said. “Ask us the question and we'll find you an answer.”
“Excellent,” Medivh said, and laced his fingers together as he leaned forward a little. “The question I ask you is this: how is a raven like a writing desk?”
~ * ~
It took them three weeks before they admitted defeat. At first, their lack of progress was blamed on the additional work they had to do, the transcriptions and the repairs. When they'd finished cleaning, and it was easier to search through the now clean tomes, ordered neatly on shelves, sitting at tables that gleamed with new polish, they had to admit they were finding nothing.
Garona's ability to recognize strings of letters was proceeding apace. Khadgar did not begrudge her talent, and while she had quipped at first that Common was an easy language to learn, it wasn't that, or rather, it wasn't only that. It was that she was pushing herself to learn, to make herself stand equal to Khadgar. If he had to transcribe and do all the searching and teach her, he would be exhausted.
Not that Khadgar wasn't tired already. She had learned to do with less sleep, less food, and less company. Khadgar, for all his magic, had not. Staying up until the early hours of the morning left him with shadows under his eyes and incoherent at breakfast. When he spent his days using magic, he seemed to always have something to eat or drink in his hands, food growing cold as he pored over another tome. He muttered to himself a great deal, and it was only after she had to get his attention by flicking the back of his ear that he even seemed to realize she was there.
She simply hoped that this project was worth it.
Khadgar had advised that since a writing desk was a common item - he'd even shown her one, and they'd repaired it, searching it for secrets that might contain their answer, to no avail - that she should look for books about ravens. She'd learned the different words - raven, crow, corvid, corvus - to look for and she began methodically. Finding little and nothing, she'd gone to Khadgar to make sure.
“We arranged them by subject,” Khadgar had reminded her. “The books on astronomy aren't likely to have birds in them. Try the natural histories.”
So she had, and so it had gone, for one week, then two, then three. They'd exhausted all of the libraries they had access to, and then had resorted to interviewing the servants, first Moroes and Cook, then the others, one by one. Attumen, the stablemaster, had even shown them a great tree where the local ravens convened, and they spent a day watching them, trying to find similarities, to no avail.
On the morning of the end of the third week, when Khadgar, exhausted after yet another futile search, nearly fell face first into his porridge, Garona stood up, unable to take any more.
“Guardian,” Garona began, and had to deliberately make noise so Medivh looked up from the letter he was reading. “We cannot find the answer.”
“The answer?” Medivh asked. “To what?”
“Why is a raven like a writing desk,” Khadgar muttered, propping his nodding head up against a stack of tomes. Garona winced at the angle of his neck. “Can't find it. Nothing there.”
“It's true,” Garona said. “If it's in one of your books, it's not one of the ones we have access to.”
“You believe that I have more libraries?” Medivh said, raising an eyebrow. “And why is that?”
“Tower's warded up tighter than the Archmage's arse,” Khadgar muttered, and his eyes drooped closed. Medivh chuckled softly.
“The books are all general knowledge, albeit rare general knowledge at times,” Garona said. “In fact, the rare, unusual books don't seem to follow a theme. It's more as though they were taken out and put back in the wrong places.”
“Interesting,” Medivh said, bridging his fingers together and looking her over. “You're correct, of course. The knowledge I've collected would not fit into three small libraries. You will be allowed to see the large one in time, but your answer did not lie there.”
“No matter where the answer lies, we can't find it,” Garona said, setting her chin stubbornly. “We have worked hard, very hard, to find this answer for you and do all of our other tasks, and we can't. Khadgar is exhausted.”
At his name, the human jerked his head up, blinking sleepily.
“So I see,” Medivh said. “Khadgar, you can go back to sleep when you've heard what I have to say.”
“Mm, right.” Khadgar groped around for a pen, and Garona produced one under his nose. He blinked, as though confused, before taking it, opening up one of his notebooks, and dipping the pen in ink with only a few misses along the way.
“I have the answer to your riddle, and the answer is 'they are not like one another'.”
Garona stared at him wordlessly. Khadgar carefully wrote the answer down, then stared at it for a good long moment, disbelieving.
“What?” Garona asked finally. “You said--”
“I said there was an answer here, and there was,” Medivh replied. “That was it. In this particular case, I had a number of reasons to give you this riddle to solve. The first is to teach you that you can work very hard at something, you can half-kill yourself in doing so, and you can still fail.”
“But--”
“The world owes you nothing.” Garona blinked at his harshness, and relaxed as he smiled. “You are both incredibly accomplished. Khadgar is one of the youngest of his kind, and you, my dear, have suffered a great deal to excel as you have in your own field. Khadgar has stretched his limits. He has worked, he has researched, and he has taught. I'm proud of all of that.”
Khadgar gave him a vague smile as he continued to write.
“And myself?” Garona asked, and Medivh turned his smile to her.
“You've been here for two months and you're reading at a level that many humans don't attain.” She stared at him. “Oh, literacy isn't forbidden to people, but many only know enough to puzzle out instructions or contracts. Few apply themselves to scholarly pursuits, and fewer still with such speed. I'm proud of you for what you've learned, and what you might yet learn.”
“You're... proud of me?” Garona said, the words echoing in her ears. Medivh nodded slightly, and Khadgar nodded too, though he seemed to be falling asleep again.
“Extremely proud,” Medivh said. “Having said all of that, being accomplished doesn't mean that you will always get what you want or need. Applying effort doesn't always net a positive result.” He frowned. “Some questions have no answers, or no answers that seem like answers.”
“What do you mean?” Garona asked. “How is an answer not an answer?”
“A riddle I will save for my next apprentice, I think,” Medivh said lightly. “The answer I gave you, did it seem like an answer?”
“No,” Garona admitted. “It felt like a snipe hunt.”
“It was an answer, though,” Medivh said. “Sometimes an answer is a negative. You were expecting an answer you could quantify, one that conveyed information, but 'they are not' is an answer too. If Gul'dan had asked you 'who among the Blackrock is plotting to kill him?', what kind of answer could you bring back?”
“Well,” Garona said slowly, searching through her memories. “I could bring him back a name, or tell him I'd found no conspiracy.”
“Exactly,” Medivh said. “Sometimes the answer is that there isn't one. At least, not a concrete answer. Perhaps someone is plotting against him, but you simply couldn't find them.”
“If there was a conspiracy, I'd find it,” Garona snapped. “Or he'd make me regret it.”
“Garona...” Khadgar said, and attempted to touch her, and Garona found his groping gestures at the air endearing. She moved into his range, and shifted his hand a little so he could touch her arm in comfort. His skin felt oddly hot against hers.
“Are you sick?” Garona muttered, and Khadgar shrugged a little. “You're no help.”
Medivh cleared his throat gently, and both apprentices looked to him. “You can regret not being able to find the answer you're looking for a great deal. At the level at which we function, not being able to find an answer can be devastating. That is why you will work hard in the future to find answers. Perhaps as hard as this, but you must be willing to accept that you will find answers you do not like. Answers you don't want to accept. Answers that may put the lives of many in danger.”
“But then won't it be our fault if we fail?” Khadgar asked, rubbing at his eyes. “You said--”
“The only sin is wilful ignorance,” Medivh said. “The only crime is concealing the truth from those who need to hear it. As mages, we must ask for the strength to change what we can, the wit to see what we cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
“I think my mother has that saying on a tapestry somewhere,” Khadgar said with a yawn. “Was there more?”
“Just a little more,” Medivh said. “Then you can sleep. The final lesson is that answers are not always as obvious as you might think. You did well with this, interviewing my servants, trying to move beyond books. The personal experiences of individuals are just as valuable as what is written down in a book. Remember those experiences. Sift through them and learn from them.”
“We will,” Garona promised, and moved a little closer to Khadgar. “Up you go, sleepy.” She lifted his arm and ducked under it, and they both stood up. Khadgar made a little noise at the back of his throat, attempting to reach for his notebook and failing. “I'll put it in your room, idiot,” she said, but found that her voice lacked venom.
“I see you've learned one more lesson,” Medivh said, and his smile took on a hint of sadness. Garona tilted her head, enquiring. “Mages work best with a partner. Tell Khadgar that when he wakes, we'll go to the real library.”
Garona nodded a little, and helped Khadgar along. It seemed as though he could barely stand, and she feared briefly she would need to carry him pig-a-back. He managed to keep walking, though, and Garona dumped him slightly unceremoniously into bed, quickly gathering up the books he'd left there, marking each place and then stacking them on one of his shelves. They had not remained empty for long. Then, businesslike, she tugged his slippers off and tucked them under the bed, then his robes.
He's so skinny, Garona thought, looking over his pale pink chest and arms. The robe was draped over a chair, out of the way, and Garona manoeuvred him under the blankets. He's been working more than he's been eating. I'll have to watch him. She put a hand on his forehead, finding him a little warm. Is he sick? I can't tell. I'll wait until he sleeps to find out.
Garona tucked Khadgar in, and hesitated for a moment. She moved to the chair and dropped into it, grabbing one of the nearby books. Unlike many of the others, this one he'd brought with him, and it was smaller, more comfortable to hold in her hands, the binding thinner, a picture of two humans holding each other pressed into the cover instead of simply words engraved into thick leather. There was no marker in this one, and the pages themselves were well-thumbed and worn.
I wonder what this is? she mused, and opened it gingerly, to the first full page. If Khadgar is reading it, it's sure to be educational.
[Part 9]
Title: Assassin
Part: 8/?
Word Count: 5485
Includes: Angst, sap, adorableness. A story told in flashbacks, there will be one-sided crushes and meaningful stares.
Pairings: Technically, none.
Summary: The founding of Durotar, and lessons in history from the mouth of one who has been a part of it: Garona Halforcen.
Previous: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
“He's kidding,” Khadgar groaned for the fifth time in as many minutes. “Absolutely joking.”
“Shut up,” Garona snapped. “He is your master, and you must learn what he teaches you.”
“He's your master too, now,” Khadgar replied. “Help me with this.”
Garona crossed to his side swiftly. When she had first seen the library, she had believed that it contained more books than she could possibly read in a lifetime. That, as it turned out, was only the smallest of Medivh's three libraries. After breakfast, Medivh had led the pair of them, still caught up in a sense of wonder and awe at their status as apprentices to a Guardian, to a locked door and opened it.
“It needs some work,” Medivh had said, smiling fondly. “Since you already have experience with it, I thought it would be best for you to do the cleaning.”
Garona had stared into a room that was easily as big as one of the great halls within Karabor. The room had a high, painted ceiling and huge windows made of multicoloured glass, or so it seemed behind the streaks of dirt and the liberal amounts of dust everywhere. Khadgar's gaze had been caught by the stacks of books that lay haphazardly on the floor like perilous wizard's towers themselves.
“Good luck,” Medivh had said, and shut the door on them, shaking loose dust. One of the piles had teetered over, and had only narrowly been saved by Garona's swift reflexes.
Since then, they had been occupied by their task. First, Garona had created more stacks of books, halving the size of each. Khadgar's first task was to cast a series of spells to clean the dirt from the windows and the dust from the ceiling where they could not reach, and then to start more mundanely wiping down shelves and moving books. Garona examined each page and cover, setting the damaged books aside for Khadgar to repair once he was done with his task. She wiped the dust from the covers, setting those aside in a different pile. It was not a difficult task, just a time consuming one, and unworthy of a pair of apprentices to a great mage.
“How could it have gotten this bad?” Khadgar muttered to himself. “He hasn't lived here that long.”
“What do you mean?” Garona asked, her eyes lighting on images of long-eared humans with upswept brows. No, elves. He called them elves.
“The great tower of Karazhan was only built two decades ago,” Khadgar said. “A little before I was born. Supposedly, there was a great impact - a meteorite - that broke the mountain pass and flattened the area. It caused a surge in the ley lines that required urgent capping. The Guardian, Medivh, ordered the tower built there. According to the texts I've read about it, he helped build it himself. A village built up around it, at first for those who worked on it and their families and then others who wanted to live protected by the greatest mage of our time.” Khadgar sounded wistful as he spoke. “I wanted to see what it looked like for myself.”
“What do you think now that you've seen it?” Garona asked.
“It's impressive,” Khadgar said. “Large and impressive. I'd been told the Guardian was very reclusive, refusing any application to apprenticeship and ignoring all requests to visit Dalaran in person, but... there are so many peoplehere.”
“It's very busy,” Garona said. “And loud. You missed the opera.”
“There will be others, at least one a season,” Khadgar said. “Though they're exclusive events, open only to the local nobility. I've heard the previous King attended them until the war started--” He eyed Garona. “--and the new one not at all.”
“Chieftains may lose their lives at any time,” Garona replied. “I didn't kill him. Adamant Wrynn. He was caught by one of the raiding parties.”
Khadgar was silent for a little while. “We thought the reports from Azeroth were exaggerated. The nobles here have a poor reputation.”
“They seemed polite enough,” Garona said. “They talk a great deal.”
“They hold a wine glass in one hand and a poisoned dagger behind their backs, is what I've always heard,” Khadgar said. “The Wrynns seized control after the fall of the House of Baewyn, their predecessors. Warren Baewyn was referred to as the Daemon-King, and he was said to be a tyrant. House Wrynn overthrew him and seized the throne.”
“That seems just,” Garona said. “Overthrowing a tyrant and seeing him fall.”
“It does, but that's only the latest example. The Baewyns ruled for four generations, and then the Viroths for three before that,” Khadgar said. “Both Houses were wiped out completely. Other noble houses have supported the various ruling houses, and people don't forget who stood beside a tyrant, nodding and smiling.”
Garona recalled the meetings of the chieftains with a frown. “Some are too weak to disagree with a strong voice and a stronger fist.”
“Weakness doesn't eliminate danger,” Khadgar pointed out. “It's the real trouble with monarchy, I feel. Especially here.”
“Kings and Queens are monarchs, aren't they?” Garona guessed. “Instead of Chieftains and Greatmothers?”
“I suppose so, yes,” Khadgar said, looking at her curiously.
“A chieftain leads a clan,” Garona said. “Sometimes it's passed on from blood to blood, other times it's fought over. The Greatmothers are the mates and advisers to chieftains.”
“What about if a chieftain is female?” Khadgar asked. “Do they have an advising Greatfather?”
“More often than not, a female chieftain's mate isn't needed for advising,” Garona said. “Or their most useful advice is ‘I could do better’.”
Khadgar snorted. “That sounds like the monarchies here, where the Kings have Queens, but the Queens have Prince-Consorts.”
“But Dalaran has no kings or queens,” Garona said. “You have the Six.”
“Yes,” Khadgar replied, wiping a cloud of dust from one of the shelves. Garona held back a sneeze. “Though we have two councils. There's the People's Council, that rules over all the non-mages in the city, along with all the villages around Dalaran. People from each district are voted on - do you know what a vote is?”
“Yes,” Garona said. “We vote and elect chieftains too, when we want no bloodshed. We voted for our Warchief, for all the good it did us.” She snorted, though she remembered with a shiver the council of chieftains and the demon's blood.
“Right,” Khadgar said, giving her a curious look before going back to his task. “The People's Council controls the majority of mundane affairs, including trade with other nations. Mages sometimes marry mages, but not always, so their families need a voice too.”
“Hm,” Garona said. So these warlocks - mages - value the counsel of those who do not have magic. Curious. She tried to imagine Gul'dan asking the opinions of the warriors who guarded him and could not. Of the warriors I have met, only Durotan would consider asking the farmers how they felt about any given situation. These mages are very curious.
“The Six are elected from amongst the Archmages of Dalaran. Usually only the very oldest can be chosen, which makes them frequently also the most intractable.” Khadgar made a face. “They gave me a great list of things I was to ask about, and then send them the answers..”
“They should have picked someone more subtle,” Garona said. “So there are no young archmages? Are they all humans?”
“You were caught too,” Khadgar reminded her, grumbling. “Not exactly, and no. There are some archmages that are younger than others, and the elves never look particularly old. Archmage Krasus Goldenmist has been on the council for at least a century, but he doesn't look much older than twenty or thirty. I think Archmage Modera is only in her forties. Though mages live for a long time too. Archmage Antonidas is the leader of the council at the moment, and he's as old as the hills, or so some claim.” He snorted, as if to show what he thought of the idea, and then sighed. “He hasn't taken an apprentice in three decades. He's frequently busy, and I think only a special case would bestir him.”
“If he'd taken you, you wouldn't be here,” Garona pointed out. “Surely that means something.”
“Oh yes, it means something,” Khadgar grumbled. “It means I wouldn't be here, cleaning dirty books, getting thrown into bookshelves, and getting outed as a spy.”
“A bad spy,” Garona reminded him again. “He'd met me before, that's why he knew.”
“And who are you spying for, anyway? This Warchief of yours?”
Garona wrinkled her nose in distaste. “He's no Warchief of mine, I didn't want him, even if I'd had a voice to speak. Only the chieftains chose him, and the council.”
“But what is he? A general?”
“A great fool,” Garona said, spitefully, though the anger was a strange relief. That felt good, and who will he tell? “He is called Blackhand the Destroyer, and he leads the Blackrock Clan, and before that, the Stonefist Clan. As Warchief he commands every clan, not just his own, to battle. He coordinates the clans and they fight for him.”
“I can't imagine the human nations getting on with each other well enough to make such an alliance, so there's that,” Khadgar mused. “While there's a great deal of nuance within any nation, generally, Dalaran can't stand Stromgarde, Gilneas can't stand Kul Tiras, Alterac is a miserable ice bucket, Azeroth doesn't get on well with anyone, and no one likes Lordaeron. That's not even counting the elves or the dwarves, though I think the gnomes might not mind anyone much, and then there are the trolls and the goblins. It would probably take a monumental disaster for them all to agree to anything.”
“Or a great threat,” Garona pointed out. That's something I could tell Gul'dan. That there are other human nations and they're too fractured to ally together as we did, for all he pulled the strings, but... do I want to? It was a curious thing. She had not been here long, and for all she had fought with Khadgar the moment he'd spotted her, he hadn't treated her like a casual threat. He'd seen she was dangerous and acted accordingly. Also, he's teaching me to read the human tongue, Garona thought. “Why do they hate each other so?”
“Long ago, all the human tribes were one,” Khadgar said, examining the bookshelf, then reinforcing it before moving on to the next. “Under Thoradin of Arathor, first king of the Arathi. I thought he might be like your Warchief, but he was no fool. He realized that if humans spent all of their time fighting one another, they'd die to the trolls that raided them frequently.”
“There have been clan wars,” Garona said. “There was one not long before we opened the great portal to your world. When we can't fight the draenei, we fight each other.”
“Your... mother's people?” Khadgar guessed, and then his eyes widened. “I... oh, I'm sorry--”
“Talk about Thoradin,” Garona advised, looking down at her book pile. Too close, and too... She had not thought of her mother in so long, it hurt.
“Right. Thoradin.” Khadgar took a deep breath. “He did have to defeat the other tribal chieftains, but instead of killing them or seizing the survivors, he negotiated with them. The defeated tribesmen joined his own clan, the Arathi, until all tribes were one. He ordered them to found a city near the Great Sea, the city of Strom. That was when the elves came to teach the humans magic and recruit their aid to fight the trolls.”
“Magic in exchange for axes,” Garona hazarded, and he nodded. “Mages are taught, then, like warlocks. They aren't born that way, as shamans are.”
“Shamans are--” Khadgar frowned. “I read about them. Tribal elemental mages, that speak with the so-called ghosts of rocks and plants.”
“Spirits, not ghosts,” Garona corrected him. “There are shamans here? How?”
“I don't know, they don't come to Dalaran,” Khadgar said. “Mostly it's the dwarves and the trolls, but it was said before there were mages and cities, there were shamans and tribes. The elves even have nature mages of another kind, the ancient druids.”
Garona frowned. “I don't know what a druid is, though they sound like shamans. What's the difference?”
“The ability to turn into a tree, I think,” Khadgar replied. “In any case, the elf-taught mages weren't particularly popular. Many feared their new abilities, though Thoradin remained true to his word and they were welcome in his city.”
“Which lasted until he died or was killed, because that's how these kinds of things work,” Garona guessed sardonically, carefully working through her pile of books and moving on to the next. “Then what happened?”
“Thoradin didn't have an heir,” Khadgar said. “And the old chieftains, now lords, kicked the mages out, along with their families and supporters, or they intended to. They claim the order was never given and the mages left first, before they could be kicked out. In any case, they intended on creating a better place than they'd left.”
“And that's how Dalaran came to be.” Garona nodded to herself a little. “What about this Guardian?”
“They learned early that too much magic concentrated in the same place was dangerous, just as dangerous as the Arathi had feared. They consulted with the elves, who had constructed themselves a magical kingdom protected by enchanted runestones. They suggested that we should exercise restraint.” Khadgar rolled his eyes. “Meanwhile, they were setting up a society that involved no physical labour on their part, magical defenses, and weather control.”
“So in response, your people said, 'you first'?” Garona guessed and Khadgar laughed.
“I'm sure it was said, but they decided on a different approach. They met in Tirisfal, which had been the first landing site of the elves in these lands, and appointed a great Guardian, one who would maintain the balance. Since then, all mages tithe some of their power to the Guardian to keep them strong, and in return, the Guardian keeps Dalaran and all of the lands of mages safe. This became more complicated when humanity started dividing further.”
“Further?” Garona frowned. “You did say there were other clans. Countries.”
“Yes,” Khadgar said. “In Strom, a group of younger, more ambitious nobles wanted to head to a more hospitable, pleasant location. They also left, settled around Lake Lordamere, and founded Lordaeron. Still others went further north along the coast, to Gilneas. This left the city of Strom, renamed Stromgarde, to the old and the traditional. Those who conformed remained, and those who didn't became viewed as progressive by their own, and reckless and childish by those that remained behind.”
“So, that's four countries,” Garona said, imagining vast exoduses of humans, like when the Shadow Wolves had been banished, save for the fact that instead of green, they were pink and brown and black and yellow. “What of the others?”
“Gilneas' ruling class were dour and noble. They were the first to put an emphasis on shipping and seafaring, so the issue of piracy came up quickly.” At her blank look, he clarified, “Piracy is like banditry over the water, in boats. Ships.”
“Well, your water does seem safer here,” Garona murmured. “What happened with the water bandits?”
“They rallied around a pirate-queen named Rhiannon Proudmoore and founded Kul Tiras on a cluster of islands, and they became rivals to Gilnean shipping. I don't know if I believe half of the stories about her, though, they sound like something from a copper dreadful.” Khadgar shrugged. “Lordaeron spread very, very far, scooping up land wherever they could, pushing the borders of the Arathi Highlands, Gilneas, Quel'thalas - the high home of the elves - and even Dalaran. Eventually, they were stopped by trade treaties, but they never actually gave back the land, so Dalaran is surrounded on all sides by Lordaeron, and the Arathi built a wall to keep Lordaeron out. I think the Menethils think it's funny.”
“The Menethils?”
“The ruling house of Lordaeron. They're dangerous on every front. While there haven't exactly been generals along the lines of King Arthanas for some time, they still field by far the largest knightly order.” Khadgar raised an eyebrow. “You'd do well not to challenge them. Even Dalaran respects their power.”
Garona rolled her eyes. “We have enough trouble with Azerothian knights. You said there were two more.”
“There are,” Khadgar said. “One of the places Lordaeron attempted to conquer were the Alterac Mountains. They're a range far north from here, cold and miserable from what I understand. One of my classmates was from there, he said it's the frozen pimple on the arse end of nowhere. The nobles that settled there rebelled and declared independence, which the crown at the time accepted.”
“That seems weak of such a strong clan of conquerors,” Garona said doubtfully. “Particularly if they had such pride. No chieftain I'd know would balk from something worthless, just because it would offend them to lose.”
“Queen Calilia wasn't a warrior, she was a diplomat and as ruthless as any mercenary with a sword. She let them keep it precisely because it was worth so little. She reaped great benefit from negotiating with them and lost nothing herself. As for Azeroth, undesirables from the other nations filtered down. Ship's captains who didn't like restrictions from either Kul Tiras or Gilneas travelled down the coast. Debauched nobles from Lordaeron, mercenaries left over from the great wars, sometimes even elves all travelled and settled in Stormwind, named for one of the expedition’s vessels.” Khadgar shrugged. “Mages too, those tired of living under the Six's strict rules. There are trolls in the green hills of Stranglethorn, and goblins in Booty Bay, but they could lay claim to it otherwise if they're willing to put forth the effort.”
“So much land,” Garona murmured. “Why tell me all of this?”
“What are you going to do about it?” Khadgar asked. “It's history. Besides, when you sort out your letters, that information is all here. There are books about the establishment of the various nations, as well as the history of the Quel'dorei and the--” Khadgar's eyes widened, looking at the decrepit book in his hands. “I can't believe it.”
“What?” Garona said, setting the book she was holding down and marching over to him. “What is it?”
“This is a history of the troll empires,” Khadgar murmured. “One of the things I'd been asked to find, but... it's so old. The copies have all been incomplete, or so our chief librarian would have us believe. This is incredible. He has a theory about the troll tribes.” Gently, very gently, he carried it over to a table. Garona quickly wiped the table down so he could put it and they huddled around it.
“The writing seems faded,” Garona observed. “Can you read it?”
“I can repair it,” Khadgar said. “Though there's only so much I can do, but I could transcribe it from the original.”
“Can I help?” Garona asked curiously, and he blinked, looking at her. “What?”
“Yes,” Khadgar said finally, and smiled at her. Garona smiled back tentatively. “You can help.”
~ * ~
The days passed quickly, as far as Garona was concerned. Once they'd finished cleaning that library, repairing the books they could and setting aside those they couldn't, Medivh set them to the task of transcribing the badly damaged books, copying what they could and helping them through what they couldn't understand. They talked endlessly of books, during their meals together, as they huddled around one of the tomes Garona was learning to read from, and she swore she heard Khadgar muttering to himself about them in his sleep, though he denied it.
Garona sent no word back to Gul'dan as the days, then weeks, passed. Khadgar faithfully wrote to the Six every week. Garona read the letters, slipping them out of their envelopes and back in without difficulty. He never spoke of her, never mentioned another apprentice, but did speak of their projects to restore Medivh's vast collection of wisdom. Khadgar gave highlights of some of the tomes to Librarian Darothan, but sent him nothing. Garona read their letters in return, stealing them from Khadgar's room.
They are hungry, these mages, Garona mused over her lunch. Feed their curiosity and they only wish to eat more.
“The moment we stop learning is the moment we cease to live,” Medivh said, and she started. Khadgar slurped his soup, and held the book he was reading open with his spare hand, leaving none for the dribble of broth on his chin. “You are thinking deep thoughts, my student.”
“What if you learn everything there is to learn?” Garona asked. “What if you run out of books to read?”
“Ah,” Medivh said. “An excellent question, and it brings me to the next project I have for the pair of you.”
Khadgar sputtered, hastily protected his book, then swallowed and wiped at his mouth with a napkin. Garona rolled her eyes. “We aren't done with the transcriptions yet.”
“You aren't,” Medivh agreed. “But that doesn't mean I can't give you more work. Multitasking.”
“So what are we to do now?” Garona demanded. When Medivh's gaze fell on her, she reflexively dropped her gaze and waited for a blow, but Medivh only smiled at her.
“I have a riddle for you,” Medivh said. “A quandary. One I want you to work together to solve. The answer is somewhere here, in this tower.”
“A research project!” Khadgar said, warming to the idea. “That's more like it. What do we need to research?”
“What you research is up to you, so long as you can answer the question,” Medivh replied. Garona frowned.
“You're leading us on,” Garona said. “Ask us the question and we'll find you an answer.”
“Excellent,” Medivh said, and laced his fingers together as he leaned forward a little. “The question I ask you is this: how is a raven like a writing desk?”
~ * ~
It took them three weeks before they admitted defeat. At first, their lack of progress was blamed on the additional work they had to do, the transcriptions and the repairs. When they'd finished cleaning, and it was easier to search through the now clean tomes, ordered neatly on shelves, sitting at tables that gleamed with new polish, they had to admit they were finding nothing.
Garona's ability to recognize strings of letters was proceeding apace. Khadgar did not begrudge her talent, and while she had quipped at first that Common was an easy language to learn, it wasn't that, or rather, it wasn't only that. It was that she was pushing herself to learn, to make herself stand equal to Khadgar. If he had to transcribe and do all the searching and teach her, he would be exhausted.
Not that Khadgar wasn't tired already. She had learned to do with less sleep, less food, and less company. Khadgar, for all his magic, had not. Staying up until the early hours of the morning left him with shadows under his eyes and incoherent at breakfast. When he spent his days using magic, he seemed to always have something to eat or drink in his hands, food growing cold as he pored over another tome. He muttered to himself a great deal, and it was only after she had to get his attention by flicking the back of his ear that he even seemed to realize she was there.
She simply hoped that this project was worth it.
Khadgar had advised that since a writing desk was a common item - he'd even shown her one, and they'd repaired it, searching it for secrets that might contain their answer, to no avail - that she should look for books about ravens. She'd learned the different words - raven, crow, corvid, corvus - to look for and she began methodically. Finding little and nothing, she'd gone to Khadgar to make sure.
“We arranged them by subject,” Khadgar had reminded her. “The books on astronomy aren't likely to have birds in them. Try the natural histories.”
So she had, and so it had gone, for one week, then two, then three. They'd exhausted all of the libraries they had access to, and then had resorted to interviewing the servants, first Moroes and Cook, then the others, one by one. Attumen, the stablemaster, had even shown them a great tree where the local ravens convened, and they spent a day watching them, trying to find similarities, to no avail.
On the morning of the end of the third week, when Khadgar, exhausted after yet another futile search, nearly fell face first into his porridge, Garona stood up, unable to take any more.
“Guardian,” Garona began, and had to deliberately make noise so Medivh looked up from the letter he was reading. “We cannot find the answer.”
“The answer?” Medivh asked. “To what?”
“Why is a raven like a writing desk,” Khadgar muttered, propping his nodding head up against a stack of tomes. Garona winced at the angle of his neck. “Can't find it. Nothing there.”
“It's true,” Garona said. “If it's in one of your books, it's not one of the ones we have access to.”
“You believe that I have more libraries?” Medivh said, raising an eyebrow. “And why is that?”
“Tower's warded up tighter than the Archmage's arse,” Khadgar muttered, and his eyes drooped closed. Medivh chuckled softly.
“The books are all general knowledge, albeit rare general knowledge at times,” Garona said. “In fact, the rare, unusual books don't seem to follow a theme. It's more as though they were taken out and put back in the wrong places.”
“Interesting,” Medivh said, bridging his fingers together and looking her over. “You're correct, of course. The knowledge I've collected would not fit into three small libraries. You will be allowed to see the large one in time, but your answer did not lie there.”
“No matter where the answer lies, we can't find it,” Garona said, setting her chin stubbornly. “We have worked hard, very hard, to find this answer for you and do all of our other tasks, and we can't. Khadgar is exhausted.”
At his name, the human jerked his head up, blinking sleepily.
“So I see,” Medivh said. “Khadgar, you can go back to sleep when you've heard what I have to say.”
“Mm, right.” Khadgar groped around for a pen, and Garona produced one under his nose. He blinked, as though confused, before taking it, opening up one of his notebooks, and dipping the pen in ink with only a few misses along the way.
“I have the answer to your riddle, and the answer is 'they are not like one another'.”
Garona stared at him wordlessly. Khadgar carefully wrote the answer down, then stared at it for a good long moment, disbelieving.
“What?” Garona asked finally. “You said--”
“I said there was an answer here, and there was,” Medivh replied. “That was it. In this particular case, I had a number of reasons to give you this riddle to solve. The first is to teach you that you can work very hard at something, you can half-kill yourself in doing so, and you can still fail.”
“But--”
“The world owes you nothing.” Garona blinked at his harshness, and relaxed as he smiled. “You are both incredibly accomplished. Khadgar is one of the youngest of his kind, and you, my dear, have suffered a great deal to excel as you have in your own field. Khadgar has stretched his limits. He has worked, he has researched, and he has taught. I'm proud of all of that.”
Khadgar gave him a vague smile as he continued to write.
“And myself?” Garona asked, and Medivh turned his smile to her.
“You've been here for two months and you're reading at a level that many humans don't attain.” She stared at him. “Oh, literacy isn't forbidden to people, but many only know enough to puzzle out instructions or contracts. Few apply themselves to scholarly pursuits, and fewer still with such speed. I'm proud of you for what you've learned, and what you might yet learn.”
“You're... proud of me?” Garona said, the words echoing in her ears. Medivh nodded slightly, and Khadgar nodded too, though he seemed to be falling asleep again.
“Extremely proud,” Medivh said. “Having said all of that, being accomplished doesn't mean that you will always get what you want or need. Applying effort doesn't always net a positive result.” He frowned. “Some questions have no answers, or no answers that seem like answers.”
“What do you mean?” Garona asked. “How is an answer not an answer?”
“A riddle I will save for my next apprentice, I think,” Medivh said lightly. “The answer I gave you, did it seem like an answer?”
“No,” Garona admitted. “It felt like a snipe hunt.”
“It was an answer, though,” Medivh said. “Sometimes an answer is a negative. You were expecting an answer you could quantify, one that conveyed information, but 'they are not' is an answer too. If Gul'dan had asked you 'who among the Blackrock is plotting to kill him?', what kind of answer could you bring back?”
“Well,” Garona said slowly, searching through her memories. “I could bring him back a name, or tell him I'd found no conspiracy.”
“Exactly,” Medivh said. “Sometimes the answer is that there isn't one. At least, not a concrete answer. Perhaps someone is plotting against him, but you simply couldn't find them.”
“If there was a conspiracy, I'd find it,” Garona snapped. “Or he'd make me regret it.”
“Garona...” Khadgar said, and attempted to touch her, and Garona found his groping gestures at the air endearing. She moved into his range, and shifted his hand a little so he could touch her arm in comfort. His skin felt oddly hot against hers.
“Are you sick?” Garona muttered, and Khadgar shrugged a little. “You're no help.”
Medivh cleared his throat gently, and both apprentices looked to him. “You can regret not being able to find the answer you're looking for a great deal. At the level at which we function, not being able to find an answer can be devastating. That is why you will work hard in the future to find answers. Perhaps as hard as this, but you must be willing to accept that you will find answers you do not like. Answers you don't want to accept. Answers that may put the lives of many in danger.”
“But then won't it be our fault if we fail?” Khadgar asked, rubbing at his eyes. “You said--”
“The only sin is wilful ignorance,” Medivh said. “The only crime is concealing the truth from those who need to hear it. As mages, we must ask for the strength to change what we can, the wit to see what we cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
“I think my mother has that saying on a tapestry somewhere,” Khadgar said with a yawn. “Was there more?”
“Just a little more,” Medivh said. “Then you can sleep. The final lesson is that answers are not always as obvious as you might think. You did well with this, interviewing my servants, trying to move beyond books. The personal experiences of individuals are just as valuable as what is written down in a book. Remember those experiences. Sift through them and learn from them.”
“We will,” Garona promised, and moved a little closer to Khadgar. “Up you go, sleepy.” She lifted his arm and ducked under it, and they both stood up. Khadgar made a little noise at the back of his throat, attempting to reach for his notebook and failing. “I'll put it in your room, idiot,” she said, but found that her voice lacked venom.
“I see you've learned one more lesson,” Medivh said, and his smile took on a hint of sadness. Garona tilted her head, enquiring. “Mages work best with a partner. Tell Khadgar that when he wakes, we'll go to the real library.”
Garona nodded a little, and helped Khadgar along. It seemed as though he could barely stand, and she feared briefly she would need to carry him pig-a-back. He managed to keep walking, though, and Garona dumped him slightly unceremoniously into bed, quickly gathering up the books he'd left there, marking each place and then stacking them on one of his shelves. They had not remained empty for long. Then, businesslike, she tugged his slippers off and tucked them under the bed, then his robes.
He's so skinny, Garona thought, looking over his pale pink chest and arms. The robe was draped over a chair, out of the way, and Garona manoeuvred him under the blankets. He's been working more than he's been eating. I'll have to watch him. She put a hand on his forehead, finding him a little warm. Is he sick? I can't tell. I'll wait until he sleeps to find out.
Garona tucked Khadgar in, and hesitated for a moment. She moved to the chair and dropped into it, grabbing one of the nearby books. Unlike many of the others, this one he'd brought with him, and it was smaller, more comfortable to hold in her hands, the binding thinner, a picture of two humans holding each other pressed into the cover instead of simply words engraved into thick leather. There was no marker in this one, and the pages themselves were well-thumbed and worn.
I wonder what this is? she mused, and opened it gingerly, to the first full page. If Khadgar is reading it, it's sure to be educational.
[Part 9]