"So what can you tell me about him?" Vanysa asked the dean. Her words were a little more clipped than they should have been. From the very hour her master said that the pair had left Arwintar, up to the very present almost ten hours later, she'd questioned most of the staff and half of the vendors, knocked on the doors of countless students and even been mistaken for the stripper at a bachelor party for a man getting married.
'At least I know I make a sexy secretary.' She had rolled her eyes at that one. But for all her questions, all anyone said was, "Professor Inta is a great teacher and a gentleman of good name. A kind and polite person. A diligent teacher. A good neighbor. A good humored acquaintance. Even a buxom blonde teacher only commented on him as if he were a good listener who could be trusted to keep confidence.
Now she sat in the dean's office. There, a slender, wizened old man with a cup of tea that hadn't left his hand or been consumed since she came into the room, went a tiny bit paler in the face when she asked. His cup just sat there steaming, cupped in his left hand while his right index finger remained in the handle. When he thought about that question, he set the tea down and demanded to know, "Who is asking?"
"I work for the Sorcerer King, directly for His Majesty." She retorted and held out her hand which held the King's signet ring.
After he saw it, he finally began to speak, "Well… he isn't your usual sort, you know?" The old man's scratchy voice was somehow compelling, though he moved with short, inch long steps toward his bookshelf, every motion seemed deliberate and dignified rather than decrypt, every wrinkle on his face promised a story behind it whenever his mouth moved even a little. "I've been with the Academy since Fluder himself was a young man, you know, and I've seen a lot of odd types… you know?"
"Not really? I'm used to odd times, and that can mean a lot of things. There's a lot of odd under our god." Vanysa said and tapped her quill on the paper.
The old face broke into a little smile, "I'spose that's true young lady. But academics all have their own breed of odd, a bit obsessive, you know? Fixated on a single thing to the exclusion of all else… or?" He shrugged.
"Or what?" Vanysa prompted.
"Scatterbrained and like little children, always grasping at something else, you know?" He asked, "Like Fluder, wanting to see the abyss of magic for himself, he spent his whole life on that, and now he might be rewarded, at least eventually." The old man's bones popped and cracked as he moved to the shelf and pulled an aged book off the shelf.
"So what are you?" She teased, unable to resist smiling back at the man who reminded her far too much of the old grandfathers of her time in the village of her birth.
"Obsessive. For me, it's books and histories." He answered as he began his long hike back across the room to where she sat at his desk.
"And Inta?" She asked.
"That's where I say he's an odd one, he's got none of that, you know, he seems like a perfectly normal man with nothing special about him whatsoever. But you just don't forget him. He's got a charm about him, a real charm, you know? Like a magic spell or talent?" The old man asked from his distant space across the room, the book folded under his arms must have weighed a ton as he was now moving half as fast as before.
"That's normal for vampires, isn't it? They use their charm to lure in their victims?" Vanysa asked and scratched her head, her eyes now focused on the thick old book in his hands.
"Yes, but you know what's strange?" He asked, and when she shook her head he answered, "Vampires have it all over humans, you know? Stronger, no diseases, faster, just as smart, and immortal, but there are so few of them, so shouldn't they have turned all of humanity thousands of years ago? But they haven't. Why?" He asked.
"Heroes?" Vanysa guessed.
"Heh, that's what we like to tell ourselves, young lady, but let's be honest about that, shall we? Take Keeno, she now lives openly as one of the thirteen heroes, she was a national threat all by herself. Except for a handful of godkin, what could threaten her alone, let alone an army like her? No, there's another reason." His eyes twinkled and it left her silent, waiting for him to get to the point.
"It's because humans shouldn't live that long, not most of us, we're not cut out for immortality. After a hundred years or so, most vampires will take their own lives. They still have a mortal nature, so they feel uncomfortable, disconnected, and withdraw from the world except to feed, then tire of existing and make away with themselves, you know?" He asked, "Keeno was one of the oldest known vampires until we made contact with Mict'aratz, and even there, there aren't that many. But there's no reason that she should have been alone, am I wrong?'
"I s'pose not." Vanysa asked as he made it halfway to her.
"Right, so, after he came to work here I couldn't help but notice he seemed awful… serene… you know? Like nothing bothered him, nothing touched him. Like old folks who've seen it all and so nothing gets to them anymore, but he doesn't look that old. At a glance you'd think he was in his late twenties, early thirties. But that's got to be just the age when he was turned."
"I suppose." Vanysa prompted.
"So, it stands to reason that he could be, and probably was, a lot older than he seemed, or that was my thinking, you know?" The aged dean didn't really seem to be asking, only informing, so she remained quiet as he made the last few steps to the desk.
"Try… a lot older." He said and grunting, he brought the big book out from under his arm and slammed it on the table when he lost his hold over it.
"What's this?" Vanysa asked and put her hand on the book when, with yet another grunt, he shoved it toward her.
"What you want to know, at least as much as I know. As a teacher, he's good, dedicated, and professional. He's polite to the staff and kind to the vendors, patient with the difficult students and a diligent instructor. If he's ever even raised his voice to someone, I've never seen it. Not once in the time he's been a teacher in Sanguimancy have I seen him be less than perfect. But that's now. If you want to know before, read through that, go to the Draconic Kingdom, and do a little digging." The old man's eyes went up to the youthful face of Vanysa and he added, "But I want that book back, it's six hundred years old at least."
Vanysa stared at the book, "You can't be serious." She asked.
"You're from the Sorcerer King, I'd never joke about that, you know? Who would?" He said, and inched his way toward his chair.
"I- I guess nobody, but… why not just tell me?" She asked.
"Because I've never seen the places in that book, "I'm… I'm too old for travel, I'm coming to the end of my years, you know? My adventuring days are done, what's left is to run this school and live in the pages I read and the pages I write. If what's in there is true, you should find something, what you do with it, it's up to you, you know?" He finished, and Vanysa put down her quill.
"Am I going to be unhappy with what I find?" She asked as she picked up the book between her thumb and pinky fingers and slipped it under her arm. It gave off the faint odor of all old books, and had a red leather cover on which archaic letters were written.
"I can't know that, but if you work for His Majesty, I assume he's never seen any of this, how he feels about it, I can't know that either. But maybe when you read it, and visit the places mentioned there, maybe then you'll know one way or the other, whatever it is you want to know." He shrugged as he grabbed the back of his chair with one hand, braced his other hand against his desk, and eased himself back down into a seated position.
"Good luck, and may you find whatever you're looking for." The dean said, and sensing that she would get nothing more out of him, she stood up, bowed, and left, the shaking of the teacup on its saucer while he tried to pick it up, created a scraping glassy sound that followed her steps until she left the room and the dean far behind.
Vanysa's hand tapped the book, 'So did I find something? Or not? Fuck, this is going to take forever to read. Oh well, I'd better get going, this… is going to take a while.' She told herself, and when the gate appeared, she stepped through it with all haste so as not to fall behind in her work.