“Watch. No, you’re doing it wrong. Like this.”
The cardboard sign on the door at the end of the most poorly lit, most cobwebbed hallway in the least impressive section of the Cathedral of Light read, first in heavy black ink, then under it in pencil over the ghosts of erased past words:
Guest Instructor
[/u]
Shadow (Practical)
ADVANCED
AUTHORIZED ATTENDANCE ONLY[/center]
“No, you made the same mistake again. Watch what I do— here, I’ll slow down so you can see better.”
The room was a semicircular lecture hall. One large, heavy desk in the center, a chalk-choked green chalkboard behind it, and dozens of smaller desks emanating out from it to the distant, dusty walls. Very few of the desks were filled.
Ilarra casually cut her way through her assistant’s subconscious, drifting carefully between tiny chunks of sub-thought as she sought her objective. She could feel her students’ minds flocking around her as they tried to keep pace. She backed up, slowed down even further, and did it again. Shadows flickered in the dark corners of the hall, keeping time with every thought.
Her assistant’s legs stopped working. They buckled and the young woman banged her knee against the floor, crying out.
I’ve been teaching classes at the Cathedral again. The same people who weren’t happy about it before are even less happy now, but I think the higher-ups still remember what they decided when I offered the first time two years ago: It’s better to teach the classes, control the curriculum, and be aware of who’s learning what than it is to leave things unregulated and allow new acolytes to try and work dangerous magics out improperly on their own. The brighter you shine a Light, the more shadows you have lurking in corners and under the furniture— better that the candles be taught what it is they’re looking out for. That’s what I told them originally, anyway; I guess they listened.“Your turn again.”
She pulled herself out of her assistant’s stricken mind, then reached down to help her up. The girl clutched at her arm and leaned, bright green eyes staring irritatedly into Ilarra's own languid silver ones.
Most of them are rubbish. They’re like a butcher waving a cleaver about, and aren’t ever going to advance beyond basic shadow Words and only the bluntest forms of mind control— which is fine. Most of them are going to be healers, if they can keep from going from a two-handed cleaver waver to a one-handed cleaver waver. There’s a couple of them, though, where with care I may be able to teach the use of a scalpel.Ilarra cast two of her eyes out over her students, while the third, metaphorical one continued reading the shapes of the shadows in her assistant’s rapidly tiring mind. One of the dark-haired young women in the front row– the one with freckles, not the one with the big nose– was sweating extra hard. Ilarra smiled, waiting...
There’s one girl I need to get to know especially. I think her name’s something like Amber or Amy or Emily or Annette or something silly like that. I need to write it down, I never can remember it after I ask her. Either way, she’s good. She doesn’t belong as healer, too much angst boiling under the surface. Too much natural talent.The girl with freckles smiled suddenly. Ilarra caught her assistant under the shoulders before she could fall again; nodded to herself as she watched the violent twitching in the other woman's legs.
“Good! Freckly Girl, that was you, right?”
“Yes ma’am,” said Freckly Girl meekly. She blushed under the jealous glares of her classmates.
“Just ‘Miss’ or ‘Priestess,’ please. I’m too young to be a ma’am, we went over this already. You may also call me Shadowy Bitch, but not to my face. Did you see how the upper mind didn’t even notice you?”
“Yes Priestess.”
“‘Cause of why?”
“Because... uhm...” The girl faltered uncertainly, and Ilarra glared at her by way of encouragement— Stumbling Midsentence From A Sudden Loss Of Confidence had been one of the things forbidden on the first day of class. “Because.. eep! Uhm, um, because we were going through the lower mind?”
“More specific.”
Freckly Girl squirmed. “Be..cause... the lower mind and upper mind don’t always talk to each other?!” Her voice was a terrified squeak by the end of the sentence, but Ilarra grinned in approval.
Freckly Girl slumped with relief as the shadowy bitch nodded and turned away from her, helping her assistant take a seat before addressing the entire class again.
“Good! Freckly Girl hits it right on the head, folks. As we’ve been studying, the difference between the upper mind and lower is like the difference between a ship’s wheel and all the fiddly little cogs and gears and complicated bits that run out from it to the different parts of the ship. The wheel, the upper mind, is the “me,” it’s the part of your mind that you recognize as
being you, that has thoughts and ideas and desires and, acting on them, tells your body what to do."
Ilarra sketched on the chalkboard as she lectured; a cartoon sailing ship containing complicated brain diagrams was beginning to fill most of the previously empty space.
"So you push the wheel to one side and the boat turns, right? And then the lower mind is all the little fiddly bits and gears, it’s what lies in the middle between self-awareness and body. The wheel turns, but it's not directly affecting the boat— what it's talking to is the fiddly bits, the lower mind, like I said, which then themselves go through the complicated process of telling your body and your emotions what to do. And just like the wheel tells the fiddly bits what to do but the fiddly bits never ever talk back to it, the constant communication between the upper mind and lower mind is near entirely one-sided; the upper mind gives the instructions, but has no
idea what the lower mind does to carry them out, or even if it does except by observation of the body’s reactions to the instructions— just like, at the wheel of the boat, we know that by pushing a wheel one way or the other the boat turns, but not what goes on in between. For all we know, it could be a complicated system of pulleys, or a whole bunch of interlocking gears, or a big fella named Bubba with a couple a' levers to pull on. We don't know. Usually, we don't even think about it.”
The shadowy bitch paused for a drink of water from the bottle on her heavy desk, setting her stick of chalk behind one of her heavily earringed ears. The bottle cap spinning and fumbling, echoing, was the only sound in the room. She didn’t quite have her students mesmerized– no teacher ever fully does– but
something was making them give her their full attention. She swallowed, brushed a stray droplet from her cheek, and set the bottle down with a thunk.
“We are able to take advantage of this,” she started, her voice low and dramatic, more a ringmaster’s voice than a teacher’s. The room's shadows were dancing again, under desks and twining about feet. “Thus far we have learned theory, but what I will teach you now is the workings of the lower mind. You’ve been taught, crudely, as all priests are, to attack and take control of the upper mind, but as you know this presents the problem of will. You’re forced to combat the mind’s owner for dominance, because you can’t
really change what someone wants or how they feel about things, not
that way at least, and nobody willingly walks off a cliff when there are other alternatives available. Going through the lower mind, however, attacking the workings themselves
instead of the controls, and directing things from below the attention of the upper mind, offers no such difficulties— by moving subtly enough, we are able to operate entirely invisibly, and thus unopposed. In turn, more practically for some of you, understanding the lower mind allows us to notice, identify, and protect ourselves from such attacks.”
She stopped and rested the backs of her hips against the desk, watching her students. They stared back, eyes and brains bland like sheep so their ears could be wide open.
She snapped her fingers, the writhing shadows settled down to plain silhouettes, and they woke up.
“We’re almost out of time, so that concludes tonight’s lecture... Any questions before we call it a night?”
The students watched her reach into a pocket to remove the stack of cue cards. On the very first day, after assigning a section of particularly dense reading, the priestess had sat at her desk using up an entire package of blank slips of notecard. Afterward, holding the filled cards aloft for all to see, she’d announced that she had prepared the exact answers for every single question that would ever be asked in their class, just so she wouldn’t have to remember what they were later. When the cards came out, it meant she expected questions; when the Priestess expected questions, there
were questions.
A student raised his hand. He was skinny, blonde, and had pimples and no self confidence.
“Yes?” said Ilarra.
“Can we really make people’s bodies do things without them even realizing it? Is that what you’re saying, Miss?”
She sorted through her cards until she found one she liked, then smiled at him for awhile. His eyes glazed, and he got up and did a handstand on his desk, then blinked in the middle of it and toppled over with a startled yell. She turned her attention back to the card and read aloud.
“‘Yes, we can. All the upper mind is is consciousness. In addition to control over the body, functions like sight, hearing, sensation, even emotions are all part of the lower mind. With practice, it’s not only possible, but
easy for a skilled priestess or priest to both manipulate one thing and block awareness of the others. I could make you get up and do a handstand on your desk, and you wouldn’t even realize it until I let you.’”
She tossed the card away. “Next.”
One of the students in the back raised his hand.
“Yes?”
“Is this really... ethical? Taking over people’s minds without them knowing? Forcing their bodies to do whatever we want, making them unaware of their surroundings? Should we really be learning such things?”
He had a snooty accent, a condescending expression, and what appeared to be a stick stuffed up his rear to keep his spine straight. It was a fairly safe bet he was nobility. Ilarra stared at him like a slug in her salad, then shuffled through her cards and read one off.
“‘Ethical is a matter of what you do with the knowledge you’re taught; it’s not the teacher’s fault one way or another, unless she intentionally instructs in favor of immoral applications to her lessons. While it is possible that someone unethical might use what I’m teaching to harm others, the knowledge can just as easily be used in self protection— both against just such
unethical usages as I believe you are suggesting, and as a way of keeping violent men and women from their violence without resorting to violence in turn. That’s the reason the Cathedral has me teaching these classes at all. Right?’”
She glared at him. He nodded obediently without realizing it, and she tossed aside the card and reached for another.
“Thank you. Anyway, ethics isn’t what I’m here to teach you folks, you’ve got other classes for that. And what we’re learning now
is only the stuff that might be considered morally neutral— not the other, much less nicer things I know. Any more questions..?”
Ilarra’s eyes fell on Freckly Girl before she could even raise her hand. The girl’s eyes widened. Ilarra nodded at her, and she gulped.
“...Are we going to be learning the other things, Priestess?”
The priestess looked at her cards.
“‘See me after class.’” She tucked the cards away. “The rest of you, I’ll see you next week. Your homework is to examine your own lower minds in as much detail as you can, and it’s gonna give you a hell of a headache so try and practice somewhere quiet. Try moving your hand or your foot or something, and see if you can keep track of what your minds actually do to make that happen. There’s a book in the super-extra-restricted section of the Cathedral library,
Kwazferkin’s Entrapments of the Mind, that should help you a lot if you can uh, read Gnomish. Just tell the librarians Priestess Stormrunner sent you. You’ll have to share though ‘cause they’ve only got one copy anymore, and don’t read past page 34 or I’ll get in trouble. Now scram.”
She waited for the scraping of chairs to fade away, then looked up. Freckly Girl remained in her seat, looking petrified.
“You. C’mere.”
The girl scrambled, then c’mered.
“What’s your name again?”
“Ezylia deFontesque, Priestess. Uhm... Am... am I in trouble?”
“Nope.” Ilarra patted her on the head, then moved around behind the heavy desk and started opening drawers. “Well, not from me anyway. I wouldn’t recommend telling your parents about it. From that name of yours it sounds like they hate you already anyway. You really want to learn the other stuff?”
Ezylia blinked a few times, then blushed shyly. She craned her neck, trying to see what Ilarra was doing.
“I think it’s interesting... It... it feels good. Powerful. Being able to do this stuff, it- it’s just, the things you say, they make a lot more sense than a lot of the other classes they teach here. And healing’s so
easy, it's boring. I’d like to learn what you do.”
“Wow, you must’ve had a fucked up childhood. Ah, here it is.”
The book thumped on the table. Ilarra gave Ezylia a thoughtful look. “You sure about this?”
“Yes Priestess,” said Ezylia, biting her lip nervously. Her eyes were still widened at the comments about her parents and her childhood.
“Right. Take this— this is my own private copy of
Kwazferkin's Entrapments of the Mind, and it's translated to Common. You, unlike the others,
are to read past page 34, and I wanna see you sooner than next week. Go to at least the fourth chapter, and meet me here, mm, I dunno, Wednesday? Nine o’clock?”
“Okay!”
“Good. Scram now.”
Ezylia scrammed. Ilarra smiled to herself and sat at her desk, then pulled out her cue cards again and shuffled to find the right one. She and her assistant were the only ones in the room now. She could feel the young woman’s disapproval radiating off her in waves.
She waited.
“Was that wise, Priestess?” asked Varenna.
She looked down at the card.
“‘Worked out okay on you, didn’t it?’”
The paladin paused, then nodded, then stood and moved for the door.
“Thanks for the help today, darlin,” said Ilarra.
“Light bless, Priestess.”
I ran into Varenna Sungale in the Cathedral’s main library, little while back. I’d been wondering what she was doing with her time, with no zombies to kill. She was polite at me, then said she’d help me teach my classes sometimes if I wanted. I said I’d like that. She’ll be useful as an assistant— wide open, flexible mind for my students to play around in, and I know for a fact she can take anything they’ll dish out. She’s indestructible. I oughta know; I made her that way.
Poor Sunshine. It still breaks my heart she decided not to continue her studies with me. The girl has more natural talent in her than all dozen of my current students put together, including that one whose name I can’t remember. Maybe a tossup with Cary though. Of course it makes sense Sunshine'd be so good, with her history and all. Damn it but she would have been amazing.
...Even so, I think maybe she is better off being a holy woman. All jingly bells and flashy lights, and it compliments better with her swordsmanship. I always felt bad when I was mentoring her, never having anything for her to smack with a pointed bit of metal. I think she’s probably happier this way. Makes a hell of a paladin, too, after I gave her the right mindset for it.Ilarra watched Varenna leave until the only other person left in the room was herself. On cue, the dusty oil lamps hanging down from the distant ceiling went out. She shuddered as she felt her shadow wrap its arms around her.
“Leave off, would you? I was about to go home.”
“Nah, you’ve still got something left to do here.” The shadow’s lips touched Ilarra’s ear as it pressed itself up against her back. Ilarra shuddered. It giggled at her. “S’when are you planning on telling ‘em we’re leaving?”
“I wasn’t gonna, on account of we’re not leaving.”
“Mm. And your recent expensive purchase of a long-distance sailing ship is completely coincidental with your girlfriend’s disappearance into Northrend?”
“S’far as you’re concerned.”
“Just like how you’re having ‘em load it up with provisions and cold weather clothing, and you’ve already hired a crew?”
“Mhm.”
“So when are we leaving?”
“We’re not.”
The shadow laughed at her again.
“But the boat—”
“Is taking me.” She smirked as the laughter died. “Me only, shadowless. You get to stay here and play substitute teacher.”
The shadow let go of her abruptly. It gave her a long stare, then backed away into the darkness.
“...I see.”
“So glad. So why is it again that we’re waiting here in the dark?”
“Shh. You’ll find out.”
“I—”
“SHH!”
Young Lord Tirryl Blackweather (he wasn’t
the Lord Blackweather, of course, not yet at any rate, but he
would be— his elder brother wasn’t going to last forever, after all, not if Northrend turned out to be as dangerous as it was rumored to be and all went as it rightfully should) stopped, looked down at his empty hands, and swore. He’d forgotten his book bag. He made a face at the horrid acolyte’s robe they made him wear– he tried to avoid looking at it whenever possible, honestly, why had
he been made to go into the clergy as a child? His brother had gotten to be trained to become a knight! Even their elder sister had gotten a better deal than this!– turned on his heel, and stomped back to the decrepit lecture hall. He passed Lady Sungale on the way, nodding politely at her– despicable, treacherous creature, she obviously had Horde and blood elf sympathies, just
look at her, she shouldn’t even be allowed in the Cathedral– and reached the door with the sign on it. It was shut.
He looked both ways down the aging hallway, saw no one but the departing Lady Sungale, and tried the door. It was unlocked. He opened it. Inside, it was dark.
“Uh, hello? Priestess Stormrunner? Anyone still in here?”
Silence. Of course no one was in there, the the torches had been put out. He frowned irritably, checked to be sure the hall shed enough light for him to see down the aisle to his desk, and stepped inside to find his book bag.
He got about six steps, then the door swung shut behind him.
Some time later, the door opened again. Ilarra stepped out of the dark with a book bag in one hand and a toothpick in the other. She paused thoughtfully, wiggled the toothpick between her left canine and lateral incisor, and started off down the hall.
“How come I did that?”
She passed a lamp set into the wall on her right. Opposite to it on her left, her shadow shrugged at her.
“‘Cause I was hungry.”
“Oh.” She frowned at the toothpick. “Wasn’t that the same fella who asked about ethical?”
“Sure was. Figured I’d rather not hafta deal with him, if I’m gonna be substitute teaching your class for ya.”
“Oh. Hey, how come I have a toothpick? It’s just a metaphorical, right? I mean I didn’t
actually eat him, did I?”
“Dunno, did you?”