Sorry for the wait, but here is the next installment of Tacere. I'm thinking of getting a schedule in place and updating every Friday, but only time will tell whether I can actually respect that kind of self-imposed schedule. And, just a note, I take some liberties with philosophy in this chapter – as a disclaimer, I do not have an in-depth degree of knowledge of how Mercedes Lackey envisioned philosophy being taught in Valdemar, so I made my own stuff up. Anyway, enjoy!
"Ashkevron – Ashkevron! Are you listening? Ashkevron – " Vanyel belatedly raised his head at the words, remarking that his philosophy professor looked alarmingly like a melting cabbage when he was riled. And he was now.
"Ah, good to see you are at least responsive to summons, young Ashkevron," Vanyel hated it when the man called him that – it made him think of Withen and all the unpleasantness he associated with his father – but all of his professors referred to him in that way, they had to. It was his name, after all. Vanyel waited patiently – well, quietly, at least – for Scribere to get over himself and come to the point, whether that point was to be a reprimand, a joke or a punishment.
"Did you happen to catch, by chance, the question I just posed to the class, Ashkevron? Or were you still embroiled in the infinitely more fascinating workings of your own mind?" Vanyel hadn't heard the question, and found he had absolutely no desire to hear it now. His head was still pounding, despite the medication he had begged Donni to slip in his tea that morning, and between the pain and the disturbingly tantalizing, albeit confusing, memory of what had transpired in his dreams last night, Vanyel had no focus to spare for the present. Particularly not for Scribere.
He drew himself up to deal with the immediate situation, not hugely invested in the eventual outcome; if he was thrown out, or even given extra hours with the arms master as punishment, at least he wouldn't have to pretend to listen to the rest of the class, a course of action that was rapidly becoming an impossibility. But damned if he was going to let Scribere win a confrontation with him – he had been trumping the dusty old codger all year, and he wasn't about to go down without a fight. He met Scribere's milky blue eyes and heard the class shift about eagerly behind him, anticipating conflict and settling in for the show. Knowing he had an audience only served to make Vanyel feel even more confident: he was used to having an audience and knew how to absorb their attention and convert it into energy, while Scribere did not; Scribere only knew how to absorb boredom and convert it into energy.
"Professor, you are right in thinking the workings of my mind are fascinating, but of course that isn't the subject of this class, is it? Perhaps in another few years you'll be teaching classes about me, but not quite yet, my good man. In any case, the subject we are discussing is the Future," the word was written on a large sheet of paper at the front of the class, so not the most impressive divination, but: "And the question you had just asked us all was: How does one approach thought about the future?" That was much more impressive, delivering the exact wording of a question both he, Scribere and most of the class knew he hadn't heard. Vanyel restrained himself from darting a grateful glance at Cal, the girl he was now forever indebted to for writing the question down on a scrap of paper and slipping it onto his desk. He would thank her after he dealt with Scribere.
Speaking of whom, the professor's eyes narrowed at hearing his question thrown back in his face, his first and most direct course of humiliating Vanyel thwarted. But, with Scribere, he always had another to fall back on. "Well, unless I decide to start offering a class on how to shirk responsibility and fritter away every opportunity, I doubt I will ever be giving a class on you, Ashkevron." Oh, that shot had scored, even Vanyel had to admit it. "But, as we're discussing the narrow confines of your mind, I would be overjoyed to hear your considered response to that question you delivered so well." Scribere's triumphal expression was almost too much to bear without spontaneous combustion. Vanyel decided to take the chance and gamble it all on his powers of improvisation: it was either total failure or total victory now.
Vanyel turned his head slightly, so their audience would have the full benefit of his mocking grin. "I'm sure you would be, master Scribere." A yawn slipped past Vanyel's defenses, and, instead of allowing it to mar his performance by creeping in unexpected or by trying to suppress it, Vanyel leaned back in his seat, threw an arm over its high back and yawned a yawn that practically screamed boredom at Scribere. Someone at the back of the class snickered and Scribere's eye darted to catch the hooligan in the act, but quickly returned to Vanyel. He was the big prize.
"Out late last night, Ashkevron? Shirking responsibility and frittering away opportunities at the court? At a tavern in town, more likely." Scribere sniffed haughtily and Vanyel grinned malevolently at him, spitting out a reply. "Yes, at the Dancing Crow – they've a wonderful triple ale. Didn't I see you there, sir? Sitting in the back booth, sipping like there was no tomorrow." Vanyel couldn't help himself, even if the retort was immature. He didn't think the other students were overly concerned with the maturity of his remarks, though, given the wave of hilarity that rolled over them at that. And Scribere's face turned a deep shade of red, hollows of his cheeks taking on an almost violet tinge, such that Vanyel wondered if Scribere had actually been in the tavern last night. If so, Vanyel had inadvertently landed a telling blow with a seemingly puerile taunt. Bonus.
Or perhaps not. His colour going down slightly, Scribere turned a dangerous glare on him, and, bowing a head condescendingly to Vanyel, he swept a hand toward the front of the class. "Well, if we're quite done with pleasantries, I invite you to join me at the front of the class, Ashkevron. You may regale us with your scholarship from here." Vanyel had waked the dragon and it had practically demanded that he meet it on its own turf. There was no backing down from so direct a challenge, but Vanyel had sense enough to see how precarious the ground was beneath him as he rose and faced Scribere. He would have to proceed with caution.
At the front of the class, the feeling of thirty or so avid stares fixed on him was amplified, to the point that Vanyel could have sworn they were pressing physically against his skin. He didn't falter; instead, he felt the weight of the eyes coalescing behind him, forming a pillar of support for him to lean on as he met Scribere's challenge: they all wanted to see him prevail, not Scribere. He had the greater advantage: they were meeting on Scribere's home turf, but Vanyel had the goodwill of the audience.
But he would need the goodwill of the gods if he was to come up with something coherent and sufficiently intelligent to slip out of Scribere's rapidly tightening clutches – he had never paid much attention in this course. He hoped against hope that philosophy, of all subjects, would be one he could take to naturally.
"Well, the question you've posed, professor, is a far-reaching and rather vague one. As today's class marks the beginning of our embarking on this new subject, the Future," Vanyel set to praying furiously as he realized he really didn't know if today was the first day they had focused on the Future as a topic, "the broad focus of the question was a deliberate choice and meant to stimulate us to considering as much about the subject as we can. However, given your diction in composing the question, I believe you were subtly prompting us to focus our consideration of the subject with regard to the other key words you've slipped in as slyly as ever: 'approach' and 'thought.'"
"I appreciate your explaining my own teaching strategies to me, Ashkevron, and revealing them to the few laggards in the room who overlooked the obvious intentions of my question, but I think we're all more interested in hearing something original. And I'm sure your response, if anything, will be original." Scribere's tone was as smug as it was deliberately insulting, but Vanyel could see the slight tilt of his eyebrows and the narrowing of his eyes, all of which told him quite clearly that Scribere hadn't expected Vanyel to understand his question on its surface, let alone pick out the strategies that had guided its composition. It was Vanyel's turn to let some smugness seep into his expression: it was true that he didn't put much effort, if any, into Scribere's class, but did the man really think him completely dull?
"My response, respecting the focus of the question on how to think about the future, would necessarily need to take into consideration the positions of some of the great thinkers of the past and present. For example," Vanyel wracked his brain for a name, a reference, any scrap of information on a great philosopher that had been mentioned in class, "for example – Revenire, the man who contributed much to the philosophy of skepticism, would suggest – given his guiding thesis that nothing can be certain – that since even that which occurs in the present, right under our noses, cannot be taken as true beyond doubt, contemplation of the future is subject to even more doubt. He would be of the opinion that attempts to think on the future are useful only if it is understood by those who make them that any conclusions drawn about the future are inherently rife with uncertainty and cannot be relied upon to eventually occur. Therefore, Revenire would believe that the proper approach to thinking on the future would be to keep in mind at all times that it is impossible to know anything, especially the future, with complete certainty, so thought on the future must be used for estimations and speculations – but not to inform concrete answers or courses of action, as this could lead to dangerous mistakes." Vanyel took a breath and tried to recall all he'd said, checking it over for any major errors before Scribere could pounce on them.
There didn't seem to be anything glaringly incorrect, and the extra inch Scribere's eyebrows had climbed on his head told Vanyel that his answer had been unexpected. Scribere really did think him the dull, colourfully-clad peacock, then.
"Yes, I believe your view of Revenire's philosophy as applied to our question is substantially correct, if somewhat superficial. However, Revenire's skepticism is a rather easy choice as an example, Ashkevron: would you please select a different philosopher to give the class another possible opinion on the future? It would be wonderful to establish a comparison of juxtaposed ways of thinking before we continue." Scribere's smile was as transparent as a pane of glass: Vanyel could see the man's desire to watch him flounder as plain as day. He wasn't sure whether that desire was born of malice or merely determination after having been cheated of the chance to embarrass an uncooperative student time and time again. Probably a combination of the two.
Vanyel tried to rapidly remember every one of Scribere's classes he had attended, hoping to pick something useful out of the haze. He was not about to go down without a fight, and he kept his face a mask to keep Scribere from seeing him scramble – the glee he could imagine Scribere feeling at such a sight made Vanyel cringe. Someone – Cal, most likely – cleared their throat in what was probably an attempt to get his attention. Vanyel didn't acknowledge it: if he turned and accepted whatever hint she wanted to give him, Scribere would notice, the entire class would notice, and he would have lost. Not an option.
The polite sound jarred something in his mind, though, and Vanyel seized on it, desperately wishing it to be something useful. It was a memory, not of one of Scribere's classes, but of sitting in his room with Tylendel wrapped around him, holding a book in front of his nose and forcing him to study. The memory was certainly more appealing than any of the string of excruciatingly boring memories of Scribere's classes, but Vanyel couldn't see how it would help him. The memory ran its course in his mind: Tylendel making that polite little sound in his throat whenever Vanyel's mind wandered, causing his body to vibrate slightly behind Vanyel's own, rapidly bringing Vanyel back to himself; Tylendel turning the pages of the book, reading it aloud and explaining any concepts that weren't self-explanatory, forcing Vanyel to repeat these explanations in his own words as a means of ensuring he had been listening… The book had been about philosophy. He had been assigned extra reading by Scribere as a punishment for some transgression – Vanyel couldn't remember what he had done that time, it could have been anything – and there had been a whole damned textbook about philosophers in the stack of books he had dragged back to his room. Vanyel focused on the memory of Tylendel's voice reading the book to him, his finger tracing the pages to point out important terms and… names…
"Aequare!" Vanyel grinned at Scribere, who visibly deflated at the name. Hope still burned in his eyes, though: Vanyel had yet to properly define Aequare's philosophy and apply it intelligently to the subject at hand. It was Tylendel's voice that hummed calmly in Vanyel's ears, asking him to tell him what Aequare had thought of the world and to give him a serious answer this time, and Vanyel couldn't help smiling as he repeated his own words in reality, in tandem with his memory: "It was Aequare's view that all beings are equal, no matter their station or power, and that a person should live their life in treating all others in the manner they would want to be treated. If every being followed this guiding principle, respecting each person as an end in themselves rather than using them as a means to a selfish end, then he believed peace could truly prevail and we would achieve a utopian society." Vanyel took a moment to enjoy the scowl that Scribere was having difficulty stifling. "Aequare's guiding principle is rather more difficult to apply to the question about the future, and could be applied in a few different ways, but it is my opinion that the best way would be to establish Aequare's moral view of thought on the future. If we consider the future to be indeed knowable, beyond a shadow of a doubt, or if we just take into account the knowledge of those with Foresight, whose visions are subject to change and therefore some doubt, then Aequare would remind us that the uses of this knowledge must not be selfish or manipulative. He would be of the opinion that we should take the knowledge we gain from thinking on the future and act on it in a manner that protects the kingdom of ends and does not serve merely egotistical aims. Therefore, it would be Aequare's view that thought on the future be handled carefully and the aims of this thought and any actions inspired by it be evaluated with his principle in mind."
There was silence in the room as Vanyel held Scribere's gaze in brazen challenge. He could hear the excited shuffle of their audience – they wanted to applaud, but could sense that the show wasn't quite finished yet. Scribere proved them right by smothering the full-blown scowl that had bloomed on his face while Vanyel spoke and shaking his head.
"Perhaps not the best application of Aequare's philosophy to our question, but I suppose it is enough. What I am curious to hear, and I'm sure the rest of the class shares my sentiment, is your personal response to my question. So, Ashkevron, how do we approach thought on the future?" The gleam in Scribere's eye was alive and well, but tinged with a feverish edge: this was his last, and admittedly best, chance to see Vanyel stumble.
Tylendel's voice had evaporated and Vanyel knew it was his own voice he would have to rouse now. He had no illusions about his ability to come up with an intellectually genius response – he just had to come up with something passable, tack an insubordinate comment on the end for the waiting audience, listen to Scribere insult his reasoning and punish him for the comment, then enjoy the sound of applause at his wit echoing in his memory as he ploughed through the mounds of supplementary work Scribere would have assigned to him. He wouldn't win exactly, but he wouldn't lose; he and Scribere would remain at odds, neither beaten into submission, but Scibere would not have the satisfaction of seeing him losing his footing and begging for mercy. Vanyel brought the question to the fore of his mind, highlighting the key words as it floated there for him to observe: 'approach', 'thought', 'future'…
The pounding in his head had returned. It had abated as he and Scribere crossed swords, as if the challenge Scribere posed him was enough to distract his rebellious brain and put it to work other than punishing him. But the pain was back, and it was back with a vengeance. The pain also recalled the dream to his mind, another thing that had mercifully disappeared for the duration of his little performance, but now prodded at him insistently. He hadn't much choice but to give in to it and he saw the dark hall once more, heard his own voice… but more importantly, he saw the tangle of lines, the paths glowing in stark relief against the void as they crossed and joined and twisted together.
Vanyel heard himself clear his throat, the sound more ragged than he could have hoped. Scribere seemed to interpret Vanyel's distress as failure to find an appropriate answer and his lips curved into a glowing smile. Vanyel wondered briefly why Scribere didn't smile like that more often – people might like him more if he did – before he flicked his eyes back up to meet Scribere's. The smile faltered.
"I believe your question to be somewhat skewed, master. Thought on the future shouldn't be approached," the lines flashed overwhelmingly large in his mind's eye for a moment, "thought on the future should approach you. I suppose a distinction has to be made between the kind of thought on the future that ends with speculations and estimations about what might potentially come next – the kind of thought on the future that we all perform on a daily basis in order to decide how to act in the present in order to achieve something in the future – and the kind of thought on the future that ends in certainty. The first is mundane, harmless; it is necessary for us to live our lives in the moment and strive to have the kind of life we want in the next. The second is less benign – it requires more care. With certainty of the future – or, as it would be more accurately termed, futures – we can drive things in one direction over another. We can pick and choose, or at least try to, and that must necessarily bring about a certain question of motivation. What kind of motives are justified in the manipulation of the future? How can one pick one path over another? Are pure reasons better than selfish ones, or do reasons matter at all? Futures twist about, fusing together and separating seemingly without reason, so how can we justify our motives to tell these twisting paths how to act, when we don't understand their motives?" Vanyel cut himself off. He didn't understand half of the things coming out of his mouth and he had no idea where they were coming from – well, he did, to a certain extent. They were coming from the image of that place, the twisting lines in the void, from his dream. But all of this about choosing, about motivation… Vanyel felt a fear the like of which he had never felt before: he feared not knowing what he was saying, or what inspired it.
He was going mad. And his head felt like it was on the verge of splitting open.
The way Scribere was gaping at him, madness was definitely on the table, perhaps the only thing on the table, at this point. The rest of the class paused for a beat, waiting for Scribere to speak, but when he did nothing but stare, blatant shock on his face, the students made their judgement. Applause filled the room as the audience accepted Scribere's defeat and lauded Vanyel's victory, none of them understanding what Vanyel's answer had meant, but understanding the effect it had had on the professor. Scibere had been brought down, and he had been brought down by one of them.
Vanyel hardly heard them through the rushing of blood in his ears as his head pounded. His eyes locked onto Scribere's like a drowning man grasping at a bit of wood to keep him from slipping under the surface. The shock there was gradually draining away, and it was being replaced with fear. Fear of Vanyel. He had no idea how to interpret this, no idea how to react, but he kept his eyes on Scribere's for the slight flicker of something just beyond the fear: recognition, and… pity. Scribere knew what this was; his fear… he had understood more of what Vanyel had said than Vanyel did. He said nothing, just stared, just watched as Scribere blinked and roused himself.
"Alright, alright!" The professor's voice snapped grouchily at the class as he waved his arms for silence, but the tone rang hollow in Vanyel's ears. "Now, as the class has so tactfully pointed out, you've done passably well, Ashkevron. As your reward for demonstrating some meagre amount of philosophical knowledge, I am dismissing you from class early." The applause nearly started up again, but Scribere had a glare already prepared for them. "You may go, but remember the homework I assigned last week is due tomorrow."
Vanyel stared for a moment, not understanding a word, before he realized all eyes were on him, waiting for him to accept the spoils of his victory. He shook his head and executed a graceful, if mocking, bow, giving Scribere his best smirk. "I accept, professor. I'll have your work for you tomorrow – that is, if I don't see you at the tavern tonight. I might just give it to you then." Vanyel left the class in the throes of hilarity, only sparing Scribere a single parting glance.
A parting glance that shared the fear that he had seen in Scribere's eyes.
