Chương 45: Headmaster Kaladin Thalorien

The world began to whisper. Though Dublin was locked like a tomb, Smoke always escapes through cracks. From cloister to court, rumors spread - That the Morsin line had fallen, That a bastard reaver now wore their name. The Saga of Bjorn, Verse 31 The headmaster's office was easy enough to find. Erik had to ask for directions twice, but eventually ended up in front of a large wooden door with Headmaster's Office on a brass plaque. Quite sensible, not hidden away behind a secret passage or anything.

Erik knocked smartly three times on the door, then stood at regal attention just outside it. The proper pose for a young member of nobility to effect when meeting a higher, titled member of the peerage. For Kaladin Thalorien was not just the headmaster of Camelot. He was also the Duke of Avalon, and held a large number of other, lesser titles as well. The most important one, and thus the one used in formal settings, was the noble Duke title.

Erik was just starting to wonder if he should knock again when the door smoothly opened.

"Enter." A voice boomed from inside. Erik entered. He wanted to gaze around at the office and see everything inside, but duty and obligation, the twin whips of society, had him looking at Duke Thalorien, and speaking appropriately.

"Crown Heir Erik, of the Morsin family." Erik introduced himself with a flourish and an exactingly precise bow. He continued to stare down at the floor - the tiny runes etched in the wood were quite well done - until the duke released him.

"Properly done, but in the current setting, we are headmaster and pupil, and you should adhere to the correct forms. I will let you know when I must have a discussion with you as the duke of one realm to a fellow peer." Erik snapped back up, not knowing the correct form of a pupil to a headmaster, and slightly suspicious that there wasn't one.

"Yes, sir. You wanted to meet with me, sir?" Erik asked. He finally got a chance to look around the room. The ceiling was showing a vista of the starry sky, nevermind that the sun was currently out. He wasn't sure if it was a painting, or what the stars would actually look like right now if the sun wasn't out. One wall was dominated by a map of the castle, and Erik wanted to study it quite badly. Each layer of the castle was in its own 'slice', and overlapping segments were done in different colors.

There were no labels on it, but Erik could easily recognize the great hall, then derive where other locations were based off of it. He wanted to call the furniture on the other side of the office a bookcase, but there were so few books in there and they were each done up so prettily that he had to call it a book display case. Dangerous, to have such valuable books out in the open in a school filled with ambitious children.

At the same time, powerful books wouldn't let themselves be locked away behind layers and layers of protection, else they go wandering away. Behind the headmaster were floor to ceiling windows, gazing over the grounds.

"Yes." The headmaster said.

"We have quite a few things we need to discuss. First of all, your schedule." He shuffled through his papers before handing it off to Erik.

"Second. As you can see, I have taken the liberty of assigning myself as your advisor for your educational stay here at Camelot. Do you have any questions about that?" Erik wasn't entirely sure that this was another test. But one of Ronan's philosophies was everything was a test. It was his first interaction with one of the other great peers of the realm, and could easily dictate the tone their relationship took. Saying 'no questions' immediately would indicate a lack of curiosity, possibly blind obedience.

Asking dumb questions would see him judged. Wasting time was another non-starter. Why him? Well, there were quite a few parts of his situation that could call for it. There we go. That was a good question.

"Sir, if I may ask, are you my advisor more because I am the crown heir of a duchy, or because of the Morsin situation?" There was a sharp gleam in the headmaster's eye.

"The Morsin situation." He said. The man reached for a pipe, and with a snap of his fingers, lit it. The smoke went straight up where it vanished, and Erik didn't even smell a bit of it.

"Understood, sir."

"I have decided to take you under my wing. While your peers will be choosing their own electives, you will be in private lessons with me. Speaking of, did you know your retainer chose 'flying' as an elective twice?" He chuckled, and Erik was nearly disarmed at the non-sequitur, but saw where the headmaster was going with this.

"Sounds like Park alright." He grinned, letting the mood become lighter and friendlier.

"I'd be happy to learn directly from you."

"Excellent. On occasion, I will have you shadow other classes or take particular electives. I would like to begin immediately, with our first question and our first discussion. It is potentially quite volatile, and I wish to expand your mind and lance some potential discomfort quite early." Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. He leaned forward, and Erik was suddenly reminded that this was no genial old man.

He was the duke, and one of the more powerful wizards in all of Logres. 9th circle was no joke.

"In your opinion, who won the Dark Civil War, and why?" He asked. Erik's mind leapt to the obvious answer, the one everyone knew. The headmaster was also giving off strong 'trick question' vibes. The obvious question never had the obvious answer. The why was the important part. Erik ended up giving the obvious answer, but put a bit of thought behind it.

"I'll bite into what I believe is an obvious trap. Regent Bjorn won the war, having accomplished all of his objectives with minimal losses to himself, greatly strengthening his political and economic wealth from his starting position."

"A well-reasoned answer." Headmaster Thalorien said with a slow nod.

"Now, I will give you some food for thought. I am, unfortunately, under a time crunch, so your first assignment will be to think over my take on the situation, and write a paper with as many points for it as possible for our next meeting. You and your sister are the legacy of the Dark Civil War. You eat our food, live in our castle, study our magic and are marrying our women. You wear our clothes and live in our lands.

Your children will never know the biting cold of the Scandinavian mountains nor captain a longboat. Our gold fills your coffers, only to return to our pockets. I won't lie to you. As your mentor and advisor, I will be shaping your thoughts, feelings, and morals. You will emerge from Camelot as a peer of the realm, in both title and thought. Your very mind will be molded to the norms of Logres. Pray, tell me, who truly won the war?" The headmaster hadn't been wrong, that was a unique take on it.

Erik organized his thoughts to properly remember what he'd been saying, to meditate on the headmaster's words and write his own response. The 'I am going to manipulate you to see my point of view' was a stunningly effective manipulation. Erik would've bristled at it if he'd come to the conclusion on his own. Having it stated outright as a goal significantly took the sting out of it, and he couldn't even say the headmaster was wrong about it.

There was possibly nobody better in the world to learn how to be a Duke of Logres from, than another duke who specialized in education. Did both sides win, or did both sides lose? Or was the truth, as always, somewhere in the middle?

"I will have to reexamine my worldview." Erik said carefully.

"Good. Now, onto the next order of business. The attempts on your life." The headmaster was frowning, and Erik half-expected a wind to blow around him.

"I had naively hoped that people would treat you close to normal. Oh yes, you'd be isolated, bullied, and people would whisper behind your back, but you'd be able to experience a relatively normal education. You'd have your companion and a few other close friends that you made. People would see you, not as a monster, but as another boy, and the wounds would slowly start to scab over.

Granted, only in the time of your grandchildren or great-grandchildren would people start to forgive and move on, barring exceptional circumstances against an existential threat to Logres. I have underestimated the situation, and I will be taking steps to rectify the issue at the forum Monday morning. As you know, De Corci has already been expelled. Let us discuss the other attempt on your life. Student's present view!" The headmaster called out the last words to the map, which lit up.

Erik's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. The map was filled with hundreds of tiny, labeled dots all over. After just a moment of searching, he found his dot in the headmaster's office.

"This map isn't quite a great secret, but I'd prefer the students remained mostly ignorant." The headmaster said.

"Emotional connections, please." The map exploded in color. Each dot had dozens of colored lines emerge from them to dozens of other dots. Nearly every line was multicolored, and most of the lines between people went in both directions, with the strings rarely the same set of colors.

"The emotional map." Headmaster Thalorien said with a justifiable degree of pride.

"It allows me to track and understand what's going on in the castle, and locate problematic nexus points. Here's a basic example." The duke pulled out his wand, and flicked it at the map. Two dots were highlighted with names Erik didn't recognize. There was a bright pink line going from one dot to the other, but no line returning.

"This is one of the easiest examples to understand. This young lady here has a deep crush on the gentleman here. He doesn't know she exists, and has no feelings at all towards her." Another flick zoomed out and back in. One dot had dozens and dozens of lines going towards him, most of them various shades of black, and the rest a scattering of multiple colors. A surprising number of them were pink.

"This is you." The headmaster said.

"Now, this amount of strong negative feelings towards a single person generally has me intervening in one way or another. These 'nexi' cause problems. With that said, let us watch the map for a moment. Time on, slow crawl." The headmaster said. The lines went from static, to slowly pulsing. The exact thickness of each color started to slowly and subtly change.

"People's emotions are not fixed." The headmaster explained.

"They move, they fluctuate. People slowly forget about you, and anger fades. People are reminded about your family, and the hatred returns. Critically for the next part, when people act on their emotions, we can generally see it. Names off." The names vanished from the dots, and the headmaster flicked his wand a few times. A pair of dots was brought up, red and pink fluctuating wildly between them.

"This couple is rather amorously engaged at the moment," The headmaster said blandly, "and the map gives us an opportunity to see how emotions move. Given how wrapped up the human condition can be in lust and romance, it's one of the easier ones to see for this demonstration. Acting on strong emotions, large fluctuation. Understood?"

"Yes sir." Erik said, the implications of everything he was seeing careening through his mind. There were no secrets in Camelot, not if the headmaster wanted to know. By Odin, he could find out everything. Erik tried to remember what color strings had been coming out from him, and if it said anything about himself.

"Now, let us move back in time, and observe the first attempt on your life." The headmaster rapped his wand three times, and the map shifted and moved, until there were a large number of dots on the wall. They were slowly moving along, following a slightly larger dot. Professor Cold, Erik remembered.

"Let us watch the strings attached to you." The headmaster said. Erik watched as they moved along the wall, to the moment he was shoved off. Strands of orange started to rapidly percolate throughout, followed by a riot of colors he didn't understand. It ended with him getting back on the wall, then the scene played again. After five repetitions, it was repeated, but this time showing the entire castle.

"We've got worry for you, delight over your circumstances, and a wide range of other feelings I would entirely expect given your condition." The headmaster said.

"I've been studying this for the past few days, hoping to give you a solid answer, but alas, in this, I must tend my apologies. The best conclusion I've come to is the attack was external, coming from a source outside of Camelot itself. You were out on the walls, out in the open. A prime target, and the force did seem to be a sweeping one, coming from the outside." Erik was nobody's fool, and knew there was more than one possibility.

"What else could it be?" He asked.

"It's entirely possible that killing you was not the goal, at which point my time and intervention would be fruitless. Complex plots between children for the sake of a scare isn't even worth the Praetorians investigating, and I believe is simply a hazard of growing up. Or, the perpetrator is a stone-cold killer, and feels absolutely no emotions or remorse when attempting to murder you.

'Just business', as some would say. I would be troubled if a child so young already had the ruthless heart and mindset of a professional assassin, able to attempt murder without so much as blinking, without their pulse being raised a hair. It is a remote possibility. I truly believe that someone beyond the walls saw you walking along, in the open and exposed, and took their shot." Erik mulled over the possibilities, and nodded. There was something more in all this… ah, right!

"I thank you for your time and vigor in investigating this." He said formally.

"I hold no grudge nor animosity, and do not consider this a breach in hospitality."

"Many thanks, Heir Morsin." Duke Thalorien said.

"Now, if you will permit an old man to put aside his titles, and be a concerned grandfather talking to a schoolmate, that would be a kindness." Erik externally relaxed, but inside was tensing up.

"My grandson, Lance. You might know him." Of course Kaladin knew Erik's relationship with Lance, he had that damn map of his.

"I fear his parents have spoiled him terribly, and I'm quite displeased with how entitled he is. He seems to be under the mistaken impression that it is a name that matters, not deeds. I am hoping that time spent among his peers will do him well and deflate his un-earned ego. Should he bluster and bristle, do not fear my retaliation for normal life and interactions. But do know that the ties of family bind us, and I will be keeping a close eye on him. Closer, perhaps, than I should, but what can one do?"

He shrugged helplessly, and flicked his wand.

"Now, I do believe a young man like you should be out and about, exploring Camelot before classes begin." He nodded to the map and the door, and Erik turned around slowly, getting a good look at the map. It showed the Thunderbird Spire… and what looked like a secret passageway right next to the stairs. Hint taken.