AN: I still haven't gained any rights over Harry Potter or MTG. You'll be the first to know once I do, promise.
CHAPTER 6 – Mystical teachings
Chandra stared at the assembled people sitting in front of her, waiting patiently for the first lesson on "Multiverse Lore" to begin, and felt a bead of sweat roll down her brows.
She hadn't deluded herself in attracting much attention: maybe one or two bored students, a small group of overachievers, a couple of curious professors and the expert Madam Bones had promised. So, she was understandably shocked to see the majority of the students from all three schools and all of their professors in attendance.
Chandra Nalaar was many things, but a speaker wasn't one of them, so she was very nervous.
"Well, looks like they have no idea of how much of an awful teacher you actually are," muttered Liliana, a mischievous expression on her face "Fortunately you're used to talking to large gatherings of people. Oh wait, you're terrible at it."
She had accepted to act as guest lecturer and explain any of the more detailed parts of the theories on planeswalking and the structure of the Multiverse to those who asked, but was enjoying herself entirely too much at the pyromancer's discomfort.
"Thanks Liliana, very helpful. Now, let me do my work," replied Chandra scowling.
She stepped up to the edge of the platform they were standing on and schooled herself.
Calm down Chandra, mom and Gideon talk to large audiences all the time, it cannot be that difficult.
"Er... Hello?" she said and cringed at how it sounded.
Smooth Chandra, very smooth.
"Welcome to this first lesson, I'm happy to see you this numerous. For those of you who still don't know, I'm Chandra Nalaar and I'm going to explain you the concepts of Multiverse and planeswalking with the help from my assistant Liliana Vess."
She felt a bit vindicated when her hears caught the necromancer's unhappy grumblings.
"Let's start from the beginning. From what I've gathered it's diffused opinion in this plane that your so called universe is the only one. Well, I'm sorry to burst your bubble but it's wrong. I've personally been to at least six different planes in my life."
A bout of murmuring erupted in the audience. It seemed that the only two not actively involved in a conversation were Dumbledore and a figure with a hood masking its features that Chandra assumed being the expert from the law enforcement.
"The idea behind the Multiverse is actually pretty simple to visualize," continued Chandra gaining back the people's attention "Imagine a chalice full of soapy water. You could see a great number of bubbles of different sizes on the surface, right? Well, each bubble is a plane, a world like this one and yet very different at the same time, while the water is what separates a plane from the others, the vast emptiness called the Blind Eternities."
A hand shot up from the sea of people, owned by a familiar bushy haired girl very eager to ask a question. Chandra motioned for her to stand up and speak.
"Bubbles in water move and they can touch or burst. Can planes do the same?" asked Hermione in a worried tone.
"Ok, so maybe soapy water wasn't the best metaphor for the case. No, planes cannot spontaneously cease to exist unless the very magic sustaining them disappears, nor they can touch or collide. I'm not aware of the planes moving at all actually, Liliana?"
"The Blind Eternities are immutable and cannot be influenced," replied the necromancer pensively "The only planes I've ever heard of touching were the Shards of Alara, and they actually were a single plane to begin with, trying to reunite."
"What are this Blind Eternities you speak of?" asked the hooded man in a calm tone.
"They're nothingness, plain and simple. Any common concept, like time or space, ceases to have meaning in them," was Liliana's answer as she got up and stood next to Chandra "Imagine an abyss so deep and wide that words fail to describe. That's the closest thing to the Eternities, vast and empty. Very little is actually known on them, I fear that only Karn really knows anything on the subject. Or aetherborns, as they seem to have a link to the Eternities somehow..."
"Karn?" asked the man obviously hoping to discover more.
"This brings us to the second subject of the lesson: planeswalkers," announced Chandra taking back the spotlight "From what you've heard till now, both me and Liliana come from one of this other planes, so you might be wondering if others might come or, the other way round, you could visit another plane. The answer is most likely no to both questions."
Shouts of protest rose from the students, especially the younger who were surely imagining adventures in far away words. It lasted some minutes before Chandra created a gout of flames that morphed into a draconic head and roared.
"Sorry for the scare and the let down, please let me finish. As I was trying to say, not everyone's mind and body can face the Blind Eternities and emerge unscathed. Many have tried, all of them have failed and died an horrible death. Only the planeswalkers can actually cross them, all because of what's commonly defined the Spark, the ability to see and walk the pathways in the Eternities. So no, without the Spark you cannot leave this plane, nor can anyone come from outside."
"May I inquire on how many planeswalkers are there?" asked Dumbledore clearly curious.
Chandra shrugged and turned to Liliana.
"There's no census of our kind," answered the woman "I personally know of no more than twenty planeswalkers, including legendary and dead figures like Urza and some that are only believed to be dead like Feralyse."
"Karn, the one we've previously cited, is one of the older planeswalkers surely alive, and the only artificial one," explained Chandra "He is a silver golem, created centuries ago by Urza. He's the maximum expert on anything related to planeswalking, but unfortunately he was being kept prisoner deep in the core on New Phyrexia last I heard of him."
"We're getting out of subject here," warned Liliana, knowing full well what a hornet nest Phyrexia was "And I already see the questions piling up in their minds."
"Back on track then. Anyway, other than the Spark, planeswalkers are very long lived for their races, but that's that. Usually planeswalkers are wizards of some specialization or the other, but no more threatening than any other member of their race."
"You said that this Karn was created, is it thus possible to replicate this Spark and give it to others?" questioned the hooded man.
Chandra and Liliana exchanged a look and let the moment drag on before the redhead answered slowly: "Theoretically speaking it could still be possible, but with Karn in the hands of the phyrexians and the only two planeswalkers powerful enough to do it opposed to them I'd say it's definitely impossible."
"Urza could do it because he did it before what's referred as the Great Mending. Planeswalkers were much more powerful then," picked up Liliana "They were essentially gods then, but their presence unbalanced the Multiverse and the Mending was its answer."
"So no, creating artificially the Spark is pretty much impossible as of now," concluded Chandra with a sullen expression "I'm sorry to let you all down."
"I have a question," arrogantly said the blonde boy from some days prior, Malfoy, getting up "Why should we believe any of this? Where's proof?"
Murmuring broke out again in the all. Chandra noticed that some of the professors were scowling at the blonde, while others like many students were looking at her expectantly.
"Well, that's a really hard question..." she said staring at Malfoy "You could take our word for granted, of course, but I can't see it being very likely. I could ask my friend to send over someone so alien in appearance that you couldn't deny the existence of other worlds, but it would require quite a bit of time and if Ajani hasn't convinced you I sincerely doubt anyone else could. What to do?"
"Ah, I think I can provide a solution, Miss Nalaar," said the headmaster standing up too, a jovial smile on his face "A memory of some of the places you've seen would assuage any doubt. We can project them with my pensive."
"I'm seriously disturbed by how much that man smiles..." muttered Liliana, but it went unheard by anyone except her fellow planeswalker.
Chandra nodded, both at the necromancer's statement and at Dumbledore's proposal, and moments later he was on the platform with her extracting a memory. His pet phoenix had meanwhile arrived, bringing a carved stone bowl.
She stopped the man moments before he played the memory to warn the audience: "I choose something iconic, so that I'm sure you'll believe it's nowhere on this plane. A word of caution though, you might find some parts of this memory disturbing. I won't think less of anyone that wishes to leave now and they'd be welcome back next time. I surely would have lived better without seeing some of that."
Whether due to peer pressure or simple curiosity sparked by her words, no one moved, not even the younger years she had hoped to scare off. She sighed and signalled to Dumbledore to start.
Immediately, a breathtaking image of a lush landscape appeared in mid-air above the bowl. An ancient forest filling a vale enclosed between a high mountain range of dark brown rocks and a plateau where Chandra herself stood with a hooded figure in blue clothes, a stout man in white armour and a woman in a green dress that showed lots of pale, tattooed skin.
Many sounds of awe came from the audience as the stared with rapt fascination at the image.
"What's so disturbing in this?" asked Malfoy sneering.
Before anyone could say anything, the armoured man pointed to the right side and both the four figures and the image turned, and everybody understood what Chandra had meant: standing slightly behind the mountains was a creature so tall that it towered over the range, making the four figures look insignificant in its presence; it had a vaguely humanoid figure, in the sense that it had a head, arms and a torso, but in place of legs it had a writhing mass of red tentacles that turned to dust anything they touched, from its elbows extended four dark blue forearm that ended in as many hands with pierced palms, and its bone white face was devoid of any features or orifices save for two tusk-like protrusions.
As shrieks of horror came from the younger students, the redhead was only thankful that she had chosen to cut it shortly after the Eldrazi's arrival, sparing the audience the inhuman sounds that Ulamog could produce and the absolute devastation it had wreaked.
She patiently waited for the professors to calm down the students before speaking up: "I'll speak of Zendikar and the Eldrazi in another lesson, but be assured that Ulamog and its kind have been imprisoned and have no chance of escaping."
The "again" went unsaid. Neither her nor Liliana felt the need to add it.
"Well, I think this concludes our first lesson," she said to her shell-shocked audience clasping her hands in front of her.
Really Chandra? asked Jace in her mind sounding less than pleased Was subjecting young and impressionable minds to the horror that is Ulamog really necessary?
It was shortly after the lesson and the mind mage had contacted her to have an update on the situation. The idea of teaching about other planes had positively impressed him, her concept of "undeniable proof" not so much.
Come on Jace, we've both seen worse than that thing just standing around doing nothing. It was relatively tame.
The mind mage's silence was an answer on its own.
Anyway, I'd like to have a chat with the headmaster, eventually said Jace changing topic He's hiding something, I'm sure. Unfortunately, I'm still stuck on Ixalan.
So I need to act as a messenger tophter between you two? wondered Chandra, not liking the idea one bit.
No, you'll meet with him, talk, and get as much out of him as you can.
If possible, Chandra liked this option even less.