4.13: The Hero

Max and Kylie both stared at me for several seconds.

Then Kylie threw herself forward and wrapped her arms tightly around my neck.

“This is of course great news,” Max said, “although it does mean that the last few weeks have been rather a waste of time.”

I unwrapped Kylie’s arms so that I could talk. And breathe. “What do you mean?”

“I told you!” Kylie declared smugly. “I told both of you, didn’t I? I said it wasn’t about him. I know my prophecy.”

“You sound very relieved for someone who was so sure,” Max said. “I’d like to hear Kayden’s reasoning before we celebrate too much.”

“What do you mean, the last several weeks are a waste of time?” I asked again.

Max shrugged. “I just meant that we’d amassed rather a lot of theory on how to solve the problem of your curse without killing you. Or tried to, at any rate. The prophecy was infuriatingly vague, so we weren’t making as much progress as I’d like.”

“Vague because it was misinterpreted,” Kylie said triumphantly. “Like I said in the beginning. So, Kayden, what are we actually dealing with.”

“Hang on,” I said. “You guys were coming up with a plan about this?”

The pair exchanged a look.

“Um, yes?” Kylie said. “We weren’t just going to ignore it.”

“I apologise for not involving you,” Max said. “We were trying to find some way to save your life, and in case that wasn’t possible, it seemed… cruel to make you deal with it.”

“You’re kidding.”

“It would hardly have been fair to – ”

“No, I mean… I was theorising on my own for the same reason. I didn’t want to make you two have to think about it.”

“Well, now nobody needs to worry about it,” Kylie said.

“Provided Kayden’s theory is correct,” Max said. “We still haven’t heard it.”

I nodded, and took a moment to recall the prophecy, clear in my mind as the day it had been spoken.

In a time that’s mostly been, a Hero dreamed a thousand dreams.
A goal, a wish upon a star, a kiss blown to travel far.
In a time that’s partly been, a Child screams a thousand screams.
Imprisoned in the buried heart it pushes, presses, tries to start.
In a time that’s not yet been, the Hero dies, the Child free.
Breaks mirrors, chains, and crushes pearls, to rise from the top of the world.

The Hero’s life cannot be saved. The Child will not be enslaved.
But jailers have a chance to choose just how much they wish to lose.
Safety has a simple price – a single Child sacrifice.
Prepare its heart in offering, and be the music – climb, and sing.

“Right. So. To start with, I’m pretty sure I know about these scars on my wrist now.” I bit my lip. “You’re… not going to like it.”

“Go on,” Max said.

“I took more of the Broth of Dreams. Before you say anything, Max, it worked this time, so I don’t think being a familiar has anything to do with it, it’s – well, that’s not important. Point is. I remembered something that happened during my Initiation. The, the thing I met there, all made of prophecies? It had a big wide jaw, like…” I traced the scars on my arm. “Before I escaped its cabin, it offered me a kiss.”

“A kiss,” Max stated flatly.

“‘To remember me by’, it said. I refused, obviously, and it said… it said, ‘next time, then.’”

“And then we went down into the place holding all the school’s spells,” Kylie said, “and you got that.”

“Yes. And it couldn’t have happened in the first half of our journey, before we treated our wounds; I would have remembered! And it couldn’t have happened in the second half, because Max would’ve remembered treating it when he took the Broth of Dreams! But it did happen, and none of us remember, and the only explanation – ”

“If you’re going to tell us that it happened after we passed out and our memories were erased down there,” Kylie said, “that’s – ”

“Perfectly possible!” I said. “There are potions that can do that! They’re illegal, but they exist!”

“What, just hanging around in the Labyrinth for students to drink?”

“Maybe! There were so many puzzles and trials down there; maybe… maybe we had to make a choice, and…”

“Kayden’s right,” Max said. “Or at least, that theory explains a whole lot of things. I’ve been reviewing the fortunes that the Destiny gave us at Duniyasar; I wanted to know if it had said anything interesting about Kayden’s scars that I could use to interpret the binding ritual on his chest. It didn’t, and if Kayden’s right about the prophecy then I suppose it doesn’t matter anyway, but it did make reference to both Kayden and myself finding and losing something of great value down in the Labyrinth. I don’t remember losing anything, and since we went down there for information…”

“You went down there looking to big secrets,” Kylie said, “and you were so confused and frustrated when we didn’t find them. You think…?”

“That perhaps we did find them? Yes. The Destiny also told me that if I was to break the world, I would first have to break myself three times; mind, body and soul. It said that I’d already done my mind, but I couldn’t recall doing any such thing.”

“You think it meant erasing your memories,” I said.

“That seems to be the most likely explanation, yes.”

“And you’re still not worried, about that extremely ominous prophecy?”

“I wasn’t when I thought that the Hero and Child one was about you, but if you’re right in that it’s about someone else then I suppose I should start worrying.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Well,” he said as if it was obvious, “if it’s you, then it’s a reasonable price to pay, isn’t it? Obviously I’d need to survive the experience in order to ‘break the world’, so...”

It took me a moment to untangle what he was saying. The Hero and Child prophecy said that the jailers could choose how much they wished to lose (presumably, had a way to lose less), by preparing the heart in offering, whatever that meant. The Destiny had told Max that if he chose to break the world, he’d have to break himself three times first. So…

“You thought the Destiny was giving you advice on how to save me?”

“Well, on how to avoid saving the jailers, yes. Which I hoped would include a way to save you. The prophecy said ‘the Hero’s life cannot be saved’, but nobody’s life is saved permanently, so if there was some loophole, or some way to buy time…” he shrugged. “I wanted as many options available, once we figured out what was actually going on.”

“Well, hopefully some of it’s still applicable,” I said. “Because I have figured it out, and it’s really, really not good news. During the Initiation, before offering me this ‘kiss’, the spellthing had me trapped in its cabin. It agreed to let me out if I could answer three riddles. The first thing it asked was, ‘If a collection of synaptic impulses is a thought, what is a collection of thoughts?’”

“A person,” Kylie said, at the same moment that Max said, “A theory.”

I nodded. “My answer was a mind. To which it responded with the second riddle: ‘If a collection of thoughts is a mind, what is a collection of minds?’”

“A group.”

“A country?”

“‘A society’ was my answer. Which lead to its final riddle: ‘If a collection of minds is a society, what is a collection of societies?’ I answered the planet, and was told I’d gotten all of the riddles wrong.”

“Not exactly riddles, are they?” Max opined. “Just sort of vague questions. How did you get out?”

“By telling it that I’d agreed to answer the riddles, and that it hadn’t stipulated that I had to get the answers correct. But. Before I left, it gave me a ‘gift’ – the real answer to the first riddle. It went on about how individual minds aren’t real and soforth for a bit before telling me that if a collection of synaptic impulses is a thought, a collection of thoughts is a dream.”

Max hummed thoughtfully. “So the second riddle becomes, ‘what is a collection of dreams’, and we know the answer to that one.”

“A spell,” Kylie said, nodding. “So, third, what is a collection of spells? I don’t think I know that – ”

She stopped talking. As one, we looked down. Down where somewhere, far below us, the school’s collection of trapped spells moved through their runic labyrinth.

“‘In a time that’s mostly been, a Hero dreamed a thousand dreams’,” I quoted the prophecy. “For a long time now, Refujeyo has been running their spell harvesting operation, acting as a heroic organisation of mages keeping the world safe from magic. ‘In a time that’s partly been, a Child screams a thousand screams.’ That’s the Labyrinth.”

“So you think Refujeyo itself is the Hero, and its spells are the Child?” Kylie asked.

“Yeah. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Kylie didn’t answer. She just bit her lip thoughtfully.

Max was flipping through a notebook. “‘In a time that’s not yet been, the Hero dies, the Child free,’” he read. “You think…?”

I nodded. “This place has been collecting spells for a long time,” I said. “The architecture is old, but they just keep filling it with more spells. Tell me, do you two know how to make a bomb?”

“It’s about pressure, right?” Kylie said. “You build up pressure inside a rigid vessel, and when it ruptures…” she looked back down at the floor, warily, like it might suddenly collapse in at any moment.

“I’m sorry,” Max cut in, “but are you suggesting that this whole school is, what, some kind of massive conspiracy to build a super magical bomb and kill all the mages who live here? Or something?”

“No,” I said, “I’m saying that this school is a spell-collecting system that’s gone out of control and is going to collapse under its own weight. Most bombs are in fact made by accident. Now, I know what you’re thinking; obviously, when the place was designed, they would have taken into account how much magic they could contain, and there should be people keeping an eye on that stuff, so there’s no danger of – ”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Max said. “I was thinking that you’re right.”

“ – coll – oh. You were?”

“We know that some systems here are failing,” Max said. “You and Kylie ended up in Duniyasar as initiates, when the magic that was supposed to be blocking a portal failed. Last semester, everyone was evacuated when an air circulation system failed. Now, you two didn’t exactly announce Duniyasar to the whole school; it’s likely that other people have experienced similar small problems and news didn’t get round to us. If they keep collecting spells and something in spell containment collapses under the strain…”

“It’s not going to be pretty,” I said. “But. Just a suggestion. Can’t we just… warn them?”

“That’s not going to solve the problem,” Max said. “We can, and probably should, and maybe the school will slow down its spell collection process or revamp its evacuation procedures or something, but they’re not going to make any major changes. Most of the power held in mage society comes from this hoard of spells and the structures and school built around it. Any suggestion for radical change will get mired in politics, and nobody is going to want to listen if we tell them that ‘the Hero’s life cannot be saved, the Child will not be enslaved’. To mage society, this place is the whole world.”

“The whole world, huh?” I grinned. “And you’re gonna break it?”

Realisation flitted across Max’s face, and he buried his head in his hands. “Why me?” he groaned. “I’m not qualified for this.”

“Actually, you kinda are,” I pointed out. “You’ve been untangling the weird architecture of this place from day one. You’re uniquely qualified for figuring out how to break it as safely as possible. And if we let Alania know, and she gets the Circle on board, then they can take stopgap measures and help with – ”

“Actually,” Kylie cut in, “I don’t think that telling them would be a very good idea. I think this whole thing is a lot worse than this.”

“Worse? How could it be worse?”

“I don’t think any of this is an accident. And I think we have a lot more than just a big magical explosion to worry about.” She looked us dead in the eyes and said, “I don’t want to be too dramatic or anything, but I think we might be looking at a full-on divine armageddon scenario.”