a few years ago

******

Marleck tea stains ringed the glazed blue interior of the cup that Thenn-ar had been sipping from all day. Ro-den stood at a sterilizing basin in one of the low hazard research rooms of his facility on Thegund, looking into the cup and admiring those stains through the fog of post-coital mellowing.

Here in his hands was proof of his favorite lover’s existence and the hard work she’d devoted to his ideas and goals since they’d met. He had known her before this facility was built, but right now he felt he grasped the truth of her more clearly.

She was a few steps to his left, lying on the warm cushion of magic he’d made for them on the floor. The light from her tablet shone on her face. She was probably thinking about one or two of the experiments that were underway.

Those experiments were…there were some of them happening. There were always some happening. Ro didn’t actually care enough to bring the details to the surface of his mind when he was so relaxed. But it seemed particularly wonderful to him that Thenn was managing them here where he could watch her doing it.

She brought the tablet closer to her eyes. Perhaps she was chasing a brilliant idea of her own. He found himself eager to hear it.

“Have you caught a scent of genius, Thenn?”

She chortled. “Do I look like I have?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m making tea for you.”

“I know, Ro. I’ll drink it.”

“I’ve decided to leave the stains in your cup. Because they are evidence of you.”

He intended to carry her deeper into understanding that revelation with his next words. But then the patch he’d adhered to his upper arm as soon as she’d suggested they take this sort of break together activated, injecting him with one of his own custom potion blends. It was a swifter, more aggressive reversal than the commonly available stuff, and sometimes it made him swing too far in the opposite direction and become irritable. He’d find time to tweak the blend again soon, but for now it was better than letting nature have its way.

He made Thenn’s tea without any further silly comments, and by the time he passed the cup to her and fell back onto the comfortable spell beside her, he was thinking like his usual self.

“You could have let yourself enjoy it,” said Thenn, frowning at her tea in lieu of him. “It’s only the two of us for a change, and I’m a considerate mate. I wouldn’t leave you to become easy prey for the beasts or bring someone who usually annoys you back to join us when you’re in that state.”

“I’d prefer to stay sharp enough to kill the beasts and the annoying people, if you don’t mind.”

She minded a little, he knew, but she wouldn’t press. This was a quarrel that never germinated.

He put his hands behind his head. The spell cradled him, but he’d mastered it too long ago to appreciate it anymore. Instead, he fixed one eye on a recording of a mishap in the main lab from a couple of days before and the other on her.

“The loss of version eighteen and the demonic sample from Gathos was a stupid mistake,” he said. “Veesa-get’s team spent a season preparing eighteen’s body for it, and I’m not sure how many times I had to talk to that dull wretch on Artona I who calls himself a scientist before I could drag that tiny sample out of his wrinkled hands. But I know I must have taken some kind of mental injury from the experience….then I pushed harder than I should have. Now we have to repair the vault again, and we hardly got any data from the Gathos piece.”

“All of that is true,” said Thenn.

“I believe my flaw may be that I always reach for more than I should. Faster than I should. The next thing and the next before the last is settled. Courage has its drawbacks.”

“Courage?” she asked.

“Of a type,” Ro answered. “My courage and confidence in my abilities gave us this lab. And they are also the roots of occasional…ambitious errors. This time they’ve ruined the vault and wasted everyone’s efforts. We race upwards only to fall half the way back down.”

Thenn set her tablet on the floor and looked at him as if she would say something, but the silence swelled around them instead.

“What will you do after we succeed with the artificial demon?” she finally asked.

“I was worried you were about to say something harsh! I’ll accept my Trimeritorious. No longer owe any of my credit to fools. Build a large addition or several to this facility. Move on to the next project.”

“What is the next project?”

“Something impressive and to the temporary betterment of lifeforms everywhere I’m sure.”

“Here on Thegund?”

“The lab is here. I haven’t had it for that long, and it’s a little difficult to move. Maybe I’ll let you decide what truths we should uncover next. We children of this neglected stonechild could pick away at her troubles for a long time, don’t you think?”

He let his old accent return for just a few words, hoping it would amuse her.

She leaned over and put her mouth close to the side of his neck. A hand rested against his cheek. He expected her lips to touch his throat, but instead her words cut his ears.

“If I were the Trimeritorious wizard Thenn-ar, my story would not end in this small place,” she said. “If my authority could carry me to wherever the broken heart of the universe lies, I would go there and study it until I understood how to fix it.”

Ro pulled back from her. “I know a wizard must bear the expectations of those who tie their lives to his, but I had been feeling like the others were applying unreasonable pressure lately…until now. I should apologize to them. They’re very reasonable after all.”

“You asked me to help you find talented people who were too ambitious to fit in on Thegund and too Thegundese to have left for a better place. Those who would believe in wizardry instead of wordchains, but not follow most wizards. Who could and would learn anything you taught, whether it is legal for you to teach it or not. Here we are. And you are our only wizard.” She rose to her feet and looked down at him. Her smile was soft, but her eyes were thoughtful. “You are a great wizard. In many ways. Almost enough.”

“Almost?”

“Worli Ro-den, you do shine. That such a bright star was born in this place and survived this place is a wonder and an excuse for pride. You have achieved much and will achieve more. You lead your people where others would never take us. We do not mind that you are sometimes reckless on the way there.”

“This has turned quite complimentary. Keep going.”

“You can be kind to those you care about,” said Thenn. “I will keep this lab running for as long as it’s yours, and I won’t regret following you wherever we go. But I don’t think you are ‘reaching for more’ in the way you imagine…and I’m afraid you can’t blame courage for anything. You have almost none of it.”

She dropped the empty cup. He might not have caught it if not for the help of one of his rings.

“I sometimes think I love you, Ro. Keep this and know that. Someone told me the tea stains are evidence of me.”

******

******

a very short while ago

******

******

Thenn-ar’s cup hadn’t broken when the box holding it flew across campus after the cart mishap. Ro had stored it well enough to protect it from anything short of another wizard’s deliberate attack. But it had been one of the last things he found that afternoon, hiding under a bush, and a few days later, as he sat in Hot Lab 7 drafting educationally scathing critiques for his students with one half of his thoughts, an eye stayed fixed on the spot where the cup now sat on his office shelf. He kept looking for damage that wasn’t there.

It was good that Jeneth-art’h’s son had skipped Ro’s classes so far this week. That flash of fear he’d felt when he’d finally found the box and looked within to check on the cup had bloomed into the kind of anger that couldn’t safely be directed at anyone. Even if he had dared to unleash it, a socially incompetent child who went around squeaking about duty, shame, and evil wouldn’t be much of an opponent. And being the son of a man who Ro-den felt a deep, old twinge of indebtedness toward made him an even more inappropriate target.

That man being the Primary would also complicate things.

Why couldn’t the little oddity have gone to DawnStep like every other knightling?

A flicker of red light from his monocle earned a fragment of his attention. It was his periodic reminder of another oddity. The flickers came precisely once every Earth hour, a sure sign that Alden Thorn had scheduled his calls through the Contract.

Ro had spent much too long considering every possible reason the human Ryeh-b’t might want to have a conversation with him and had concluded that there wasn’t a single one that should prompt him to respond.

He should have called a hundred times the first day. As if he were in a panic. The curiosity would have forced me to answer if nothing else. Scheduling them indicates he has a certain lingering feeling of entitlement to my time even after what I said to him. I won’t encourage it.

But he allowed the notification to continue flashing when he was awake. If Ro-den had endured long years of guilty twinges about the young knight who’d now become the Primary, then he might as well feel a few for the Avowed he’d taken advantage of.

They were nothing compared to his regret about everything else anyway.

I reached for too much.

Another call came. It was from the very student he couldn’t squash. Ro tried to take pleasure in ignoring Stu-art’h, but it really wasn’t enough.

The boy called again, almost immediately after the first was rejected, and both of Ro’s eyes drifted to the cup.

Ro set his monocle to show no evidence at all of Stu-art’h’s existence for the rest of the night.

There’s a certain similarity to my two pesterers, as ridiculous as that is. One was an art’h, the beloved son of one of the Triplanets’ most powerful weapons. The other was an orphaned human. But they both had an egregious ignorance about how life worked. Alden’s must be somewhat willful. I suspect Stu-art’h’s is more than a little genetic—

The next call that came was thankfully from a drone waiting with a delivery outside. Ro let it in and left his chair to collect it.

“A formal envelope? From…” He stared at it. And then at the small black hover drone, as if the thing might have an explanation.

“I only just rejected his last call. He didn’t have time to send a letter.”

But somehow, he had. Ro remembered those unwavering eyes. And that peculiar declaration that his evil would be fixed.

He opened the envelope. “It’s calligraphed by hand.”

Master Worli Ro-den,

I invite you to a place of warmth and provender, where you may exchange truths with me under the shade of my protection.

“Ha! He’s serious.” Ro had to set aside his amusement to read down the next line.

Outside Vethedya there is a House of Healing that has brought succor to me. The greeting house for travelers to that place is where many, including myself, have chosen to speak honesties and cleanse the past before walking the road of healing. You have permission and privacy to speak there.

I would like to hear your words. And I will make a request of you. It is my belief that agreeing to the request is not beyond your means and is to the benefit of your honor. But knowing of your disposition—

“I think he’s about to insult me.”

But knowing of your disposition, I have prepared generous payment as well.

I await you at my table, which is laid with bowls of welcome. Come in truth, and I will answer in truth.

Sina Stu-art’h

“Who writes like this? Does he think I’m just going to go and confess to whatever evil he imagines I’ve done?” Ro was considering blowing his nose on the pretentious invitation and sending it back by poet courier.

Go. Don’t go. He heaved a sigh. I have to go so that he doesn’t show up on campus in the middle of the night and start shouting that I’ve done something terrible. I haven’t, but the accusation might sound believable.

An eye landed on the cup. His anger bubbled up.

It sounds like he wants…to make a deal. Something ‘generous’ in exchange for the confession? Ro could see his own reflection if he focused on a few different shiny surfaces in the office. His skin was covered in tattoos. Almost all of them could be considered deals he had gotten the better half of.

He smiled.

“I won’t hurt him, Jeneth-art’h,” he said to the drone and the empty office. “I’m just going to teach him a lesson about how life works. It’s what an instructor should do.”