The Scholar's Tale (Original Fantasy)

Book III, Chapter 3

While I might have left the impression that the Scholar's Tale was on hiatus, it was not. I was caught up in my other projects, namely finishing the main plotline of my urban fantasy series (which ended up over six times longer than I had expected it would be, when I set out to write it, but, paradoxically, also took less time to write than I expected; which is to say, less than an year).

That said, I do apologise to everyone who waited for this story to be updated for three months, and I will try to keep a reasonable rate of updates from now on, potential writer's block or real life issues notwithstanding. I am also going to keep working on my other series, though they're all smaller scale than my UF, so I'm not sure when each work will be updated. But, again, I'll try not to be absent for so long again.

The Scholar's Tale's plot has always been the hardest to put on page for me, out of all my stories'; the ideas for the other ones have always been easier to articulate. I'm not sure why, but it's just how it is.

That aside, let's return to the story.

"An interruption is good for the soul, do you not agree? Breaking up the...routine." Xharkhin Vhei, butcher-mechanic of the Clockwork Court, to an automaton, before beginning to work.

***

There were some people who, when they got angry, appeared calm at first, or showed a calm face throughout it, while actually boiling with anger.

Mharra, my captain, however? He was the opposite. He looked ready to rip someone in half, then his expression...smoothed over, as if it had been washed away by a tide. I saw him look around a few times, lips pursed, before removing his glasses, tossing them down, and leaving the observation area, all without saying a word.

It felt...unreal. Not unsettling-I had seen worse and stranger, sometimes at once-, but so unusual as to be almost surreal. Mharra was like his clothes, loud and colourful, and, as I followed him and Ib, the giant having moved after him faster than I could see, I realised something I'd never paid much attention to: Mharra was never quiet.

Never for long. Not like this, when his blood was running hot. He was always humming, or muttering, or tapping his fingers on something, or his foot. Whistling, laughing, chuckling. Always alive. Never quiet.

I guess the old saying was right. You never really appreciated something-or noticed it-until you lost it.

Mharra's silence, which continued even as I caught up with him an Ib, dashing away from the shouting Fleet members with a burst of remembered speed, scratched at the back of my mind, like a missing tooth, or the phantom pain of a missing limb.

I could only imagine how he felt.

***

I quickly, and painfully, learned two things following our departure from the Free Fleet.

Well. Both sides had departed, really. Us three on the sea, the Fleet on stranger tides; possibility itself, if Ib was to be believed. But I couldn't shake off the sensation of the Fleet letting us go, or telling us to leave, rather than us doing so of our own volition.

My mouth would've probably tasted like ash, if it hadn't been full of seawater.

I spat a salty mouthful as I stood up, shaking. I hadn't lost my sea legs, the damn ship was just swaying like a leaf in a storm-on the calmest waters I'd ever seen in my life, too!

Had it not been bucking like a frenzied horse, I might have wistfully pondered the cruelty of creation, how it had gifted us such a beautiful day after depriving us of a friend.

As things were, however, the Rainbow Burst's mood swings just compounded my foul mood.

I had mentioned two things, yes? They were related, both to each other, because a disaster never came alone, and to the sensation Mharra's silence, which had occasionally been broken by sharp, curt commands, but continued in spirit, had caused.

You never appreciated, or noticed, something until you lost it. And damn if Three hadn't kept things running smoothly and quietly as an engineer, because they'd gotten really rough and loud now that he was gone.

With Ib's memories returned and its shapeshifting reaching greater and greater heights with seemingly every moment, the grey giant could, effectively, run the ship by itself without moving at all. Which left Mharra with nothing to do except decide on our course, plans and future destinations, and me with even less.

To prevent myself from going mad (der), I occasionally took up Three's old post in the engine room, sometimes accompanied by one of Ib's extensions. My friend was always in the engine room when I wasn't, and didn't always leave when I was.

Its presence wasn't unpleasant, Vhaarn knew I'd cried myself to sleep after it had regained its memories, but the air around Ib was always heavy with tension. Not aggression, more of a feeling of obsession, and I couldn't spend too long in its presence, lest I be crushed.

The first thing I had noticed was that, without Three to take care of it, the steamer's random bouts of apparent sentience stopped being random, brief, or in any way unclear. The ship was alive and aware, every moment, and crazy.

Or just angry. But after a certain point, "mad" could mean many things.

The second thing was that the Burst couldn't just think and move of its own accord, it could shapeshift too, the bastard. Most sailors affectionately referred to their ships as female, but the steamer acted like the sort of once-bedridden, cantankerous old man who revealed previously unseen physical prowess just to annoy his caretakers.

The engine room was a mess of machinery I'd never once seen, heard or read about before, much less handled. Gears that spun endlessly in midair, connected to nothing; floating, meaningless counterweights; furnaces and spherical protrusions that alternated between turning the room into a stove or a freezer appeared at random intervals, bursting out of the walls to fire steam and flames or blasts of frost and chilling air.

Luckily, at least if you wanted to see things that way, necessity was the mother of invention. And, to prevent the ship from directly attempting to kill us (something Mharra had failed miserably at; I think it blamed him for Three's disappearance), Ib and I took turns or worked together to try and keep it under relative control.

But, while Ib seemed impervious to sudden charges in temperature, flying projectiles, lightning bolts and assorted traps, I was physically human. Or I had been, before I'd started remembering.

Repeatedly thinking about my toughness-for examples, times I'd walked off punches-increased it in reality. Permanently. Magic moving alongside emotion, I'd undergone a significant growth spurt as our crew became smaller.

So it was that, when a tide of white-hot fire washed over me, I was merely annoyed, rather than vapourised. It didn't even singe my hair. Then, when the heat was replaced by a sudden, howling blizzard, I just shook my head to get rid of the frost, instead of being frozen solid.

I was naked, but that was mortifying rather than dangerous. I'd quickly realised I'd literally burn through all my clothes if I spent time dressed in this madhouse.

I suddenly felt a slight pressure against my left eye, and noticed a huge blade, tons and tons of steel glowing white from the speed it had been launched at, pressing against the eyeball. It was harmless, of course, but it reminded me that I'd better remember speed, too, lest I be caught by surprise by something I couldn't shrug off.

Frowning, I flicked the blade, my remembered strength turning it into dust, which I swept aside with one hand. Dammit, what did the steamer even want?

I'd stopped trying to make sense of its inner workings; the ship only had insides when it felt like it. The rest of the time? It was a solid mass of metals and things I couldn't quite classify, rooms notwithstanding. When it wasn't randomly trying to crush us.

I'd suggested selling or scrapping it, and getting a new one, but Mharra had refused, claiming that no one sane would want such a ship, and anyone we tricked would want revenge, if they survived, but I thought he just didn't want to lose more familiar things.

'I could do it, boss,' Ib had said quietly. 'Turn into a ship, or whatever you want to travel in. I'm fast. I can change shape. Accommodate you.'

Mharra had turned to it, surprised. 'You want to get rid of her, too?'

The giant had said nothing.

The point was, there clearly wasn't some mechanical problem. It was all-for lack of a better word-mental.

I tensed, then relaxed as Ib, or a fraction of it, slithered into the engine room. The little grey blob had been more quiet than a heartbeat, but to my enhanced ears, it might as well have emitted thunderclaps with every move.

'No luck, friend?' the sliver of Ib asked softly, before growing into a full-sized replica of the giant's original body, creating matter from nothing.

'As always,' I replied, only glancing at the transformation from the corner of my eye. Ib had changed, but at least its changes were, while unknown to me in full, nowhere near as bad as what the ship was going through. 'But I think I might have an idea.'

'I could always lobotomise it,' Ib said, sounding regretful, like someone talking about putting down a sick pet. Could it...? Never mind.

'We'll keep that in mind,' I said, turning to it. My friend looked the same: a four-armed, faceless being, twice my height and nearly as broad, with a body made of miraculous grey false matter. 'But my idea is more...delicate.'

'Is it, now?' it asked doubtfully. I frowned slightly, feeling somewhat offended. Did it think I always resorted to violence first?

Had its creator messed with it, in some way?

The thought made my blood boil, something Ib definitely noticed, given how it cleared its nonexistent throat. 'Ryz? Your idea?'

If anything had been done to Ib, I'd run on water until I found the Fleet, ripped their ships apart, then... 'Yes, it is,' I answered its previous question. 'We'll get nothing by prodding at the steamer, except injured.'

'That would be bad.'

'I'm glad you're worried about me, Ib,' I half-joked. 'The Rainbow Burst started going crazy when we lost Three, because we lost him. Or at least I think so.'

'No, I agree.' Its face shifted to form the outline of a thoughtful moue. 'Its frustration is plain as day. It wants the void filled, and is angry at us for not doing that.'

'Not for tinkering with her?' I asked, slightly surprised, but choosing to err on the side of caution. I didn't know whether the ship would feel dehumanised and get offended at being called "it". With my luck, it would feel offended at getting humanised.

'That, too,' Ib nodded, becoming faceless once more. 'But it is a small annoyance, compared to its rage at being...ah...' its face rippled. 'I don't think I can translate that. "Orphaned" would be the closest equivalent, but it knows Three is not its creator, nor does it see him as a father figure.'

'Well, we're all in the same...' I almost said "boat", before realising that would have probably been insensitive. Or maybe the ship would have thought I was coming onto it. Nothing would have surprised me at that point. 'Situation. We all miss him, but Ib...' I gave my friend a questioning look, brow furrowed. 'What do you mean, its frustration is clear as day? I've gathered that, but you sounded like you could...see it, or...'

'You cannot, because you only have human senses and magic to fall upon,' the giant's voice was gentle, but I still felt like it was talking down to me. I knew it wasn't, of course, but no one in the crew was in a good mood.

In the month since we'd left the Free Fleet behind, we hadn't come across one island, or ship, or even a little boat. Pit, we hadn't even been attacked by a sea monster, or passed through a storm, or airquake. It was as if Midworld was trying to, clumsily, or perhaps mockingly, make up for the loss of our friend.

'I, however,' Ib placed a large hand over its chest, where a human's heart would have been, drawing my attention away from my brooding and back to it. 'Have always had a clearer view of creation. And my recent awakening has only broadened my horizons.' It smiled. 'Your righteous anger is flattering, Ryzhan, as well as your desire to avenge me. But rest assured, my maker did nothing except keep their promise.'

'Self-preservation,' I grunted, eyes tracking a series of chrome spheres, each moving many times faster than sound, the grey metal begininning to glow white with heat in slow motion as I remembered speed and my eyes adjusted.

'Quite,' Ib agreed. 'But in this case, the motive does not matter so much when the desired result is achieved.' I felt it shift its footing, and it would be long, long seconds, before the sound reached my ears. As such, I was surprised when I heard Ib's voice again, mere subjective moments after it had adjusted its balance. 'But, if it will put your mind to rest, I will allow you to see mine.'

As perplexed by the offer as the impossibly-fast sound, I turned to stare up at my friend. 'Ib?' I said, and the word took an eternity to fill the air, from my perspective, but the giant waited patiently. 'How did you speak so fast?'

'The aether, Ryzhan.'

'The aether...?'

It nodded. 'It can carry many things. Spells, people, messages...mana has few limits, in truth. One of the few constant things about it is thatit is created by the harmony of mind, body and soul. And so is the aether, which spans Midworld and beyond.'

I laughed. 'Spawned by the harmony of...what? A god?'

It sounded like a beautiful fantasy, but Ib sounded serious at it replied. 'If you wish. Now...' it placed a heavy finger on my forehead. 'Open you eyes, Ryzhan.'

***

There was a sense of disconnection, from everything. Of falling in all directions at once, but not moving. Then, of distance and location itself falling away, leaving only the knowledge that everything was a cage when it wasn't an obstacle, and a distaste for such things.

The distaste brought alarm, because it-I-remembered it did not believe that. Its friends were not obstacles, and our comradeship no shackle. This was only its primal essence, the rawest face of myself, and I wouldn't be subsumed or overcome by it.

I-Libertas-would emerge into the world once again, as myself, not some alien monster obsessed with freedom in its most chaotic form.

Its creator looked on patiently as I ascended, leaving its physical form and Midworld behind...no, below. The infinite seascape shone like a coin beneath it as I ascended, and learned.

My body wasn't separate from it; an invisible thread, thin as a metaphor, bound it to its counterparts in the higher layers of creation, with the one in the fourth's shadow being my body in the third layer, and the one in the fourth layer being the shadow of the one in the fifth...

This continued unto infinity, I saw, but what separated it from other beings was that my bodies moved in unison-so to speak. Time ceased being a thing past the fourth layer.

I saw, too, that each layer contained not only Midworld, but an endless number of universes like it, stacked side by side but infinitely distant, separated by the aether flowing through creation water under ice.

And, though each layer contained an infinity of cosmoses like mine, each possibility spawned a new one, just as vast, at dazzling speed.

As I saw the worlds become small under me, looking like a sphere would have, had it possessed an infinity of dimensions, rather than three, I noticed something like a gate.

It parted easily at my touch, and now I walked through lands of dreams, where the worlds would have been like a dream, like a drawing of paper. Just like each layer transcended the previous one, so did these lands transcend mundane reality.

So did the void the lands were located in surpass them, surpassed in turn by another, and another...an endless procession of voids, another gate...

Voids within voids, again, endless-more?-until I reached the ultimate one, and felt creation grow thin as I reached for the edge of thee dream it was in its maker's mind...

And stopped, as much as I could do anything in this realm of ideas, with no place or moment. No need for that. I was home.

I was, once again, one with all of myself. The Idea of Freedom, of Liberty. And I was crippled no more.

***

I drew back with a gasp, like I'd just emerged to the surface after a deep dive. At first, delving into Ib's memories-and wasn't that strange? I'd only shared mine, until now-after its creator had removed the shackles that weakened it whenever it was far from the Free Fleet, had been a...chilling experience.

At first, my perspective had shifted constantly, so that I was myself one moment, and Ib the other. Guest, then host, but...towards the end, surrounded by sights that would have blasted my mind to nothing without the protection of Ib's mind, I had been overwhelmed.

I didn't know if it had been the intensity of the memories, or whether Ib had taken over for my sake, but I hadn't liked it. My not so old paranoia resurfaced, muttering querulously about the giant trying to crush my mind and leave me dead or a puppet, but I pushed it down.

'I believe you,' I told Ib, fighting to keep my voice steady. 'And you...believe me.' I blinked, shaking my head to try and clear it. Why was I talking sso awkwardly? 'So you agree. But do you have a solution?'

'My power removes restrictions. For example, were I trapped in metal, it would give me the ability to melt or pass through it.'

'Something that will leave the ship as it is?' I asked, not liking the hesitation in its voice. 'Besides you turning into a boat and towing this one along.' Because we had both grown fond of the damned scrapheap, dammit, even if I wanted to sink it half of the time.

'Perhaps.' It matched my sarcastic smile with a thin one. 'But I think we should talk to the captain first.'

'Isn't one of your slivers always standing guard over him?' I asked the giant as we left the engine room, and I locked the door behind us, for all the good it would do, before remembering my clothes, causing them to materialise: a sturdy pair of brown pants and a tailcoat, along with a pair of thick, knee-high boots and a band of leather to tie my green hair into a ponytail.

I'd let it grow, alongside my beard, because I was, in a way, mourning Three, even though I still wanted to...believed he was somewhere out there, and that we would find him, if he didn't find us first. It was a way of showing the time you would otherwise spend on grooming went towards remembering a fallen friend.

'I am, yes,' Ib replied. 'You know I appreciate redundancy, Ryzhan. The captain hardly needs protection.'

'Does the captain know about your new powers?' At its silence, I continued. 'You don't ahve to tell me if he does, but at least tell him about them. You shouldn't hide such things from your crewmates, Ib.'

The giant stopped in its tracks, shaping eyes for itself just to fix me with a dry stare. 'Ryzhan...' it deadpanned.

'I know, I know,' I waved it off. 'But all of you already know my secrets! I'm not being hypocritical, Ib. I'm just...concerned.' I lowered my voice as we walked up to the deck. 'And you've all made me a better man than I was before I joined the crew, so I don't think it's wrong to expect better of people I know are better than me.'

The grey giant sighed, turning around and dropping onto one knee, wrapping me up into a hug in the same motion. 'Thank you, Ryz,' it whispered. 'But we only brought out what was already there.'

***

'Where's my engineer?'

'We do not know. We cannot even find a trace of-'

He cut them off with a chop of his hand. The scientist looked dismayed. 'But will you look for him? Send word if you find Three, or his whereabouts?'

They pursed their lips. 'Should the Fleet's upper echelons determine such an endeavour to be necessary...'

Mharra tuned them out at that point. He was familiar with polite, but overly-long refusals. They wouldn't, unless they could gain something from it, and definitely after they did.

It might have been a boon in disguise, though, he mused to himself as his crew entered his cabin, Ryzhan looking thoughtful, Ib nodding at the incarnation it had assigned as his bodyguard. At least, now that his lover had disappeared, perhaps the Fleet would be discouraged from attempting to recreate the probability experiment, and their troops wouldn't gain the ability to manifest wherever and whenever they wanted. It was cold comfort, but, in a way, Midworld was safer.

For the time being, at least.

'We're going to the Clockwork Court,' he announced before Ryzhan could open his mouth. 'The King might be able to repair our ship, or give us something else in exchange. I'm sure it might interest him.'

Mharra smiled slightly as Ryzhan's eyebrows went on to visit his hairline. 'That was actually what we wanted to ask about, sir.'

'It's my duty to know my crew,' he replied.

'Well, part of what we wanted,' Ib chimed in. 'Sir, what about the shows? And Three?'

Mharra shrugged, looking far more relaxed than he felt. 'We haven't held performances because we haven't found audiences, not because we didn't want to. We'll keep our eyes peeled for those, as well as any signs of Three along the way. It's all we can do. And, on that note...I've heard the Weaver Queen can do many things with death, not just life. She might at least know something about him.'

'...Do you even know where the King and Queen are, sir?'

'Dammit, Ryzhan!' Mharra cursed good-naturedly, trying to smile and force some of his characteristic bluster into his voice. 'Always with the doom and gloom, aren't you?'

***

The quote at the beginning of the chapter, something that has been missing for a few ones, references exactly that. The break from the routine of quotes, the type you'd expect to find in an explorer's journal, full of notes detailing a tumultuous, but essentially beautiful journey, was caused by the stay at the Fleet, which was filled with tension.