The Priesthood

The next week they spent mapping out the rest of the cellars and figuring out their dimensions; also, finding all the entrances into the cellars helped a lot with this. The cellars connected all of the buildings together, and some areas were much more used than others. For example, the areas to the north and east had stuff in them that was much more recent.

Then, based on their calculations, they figured out where everything below was located relative to things above them. Most likely, the locked door was somewhere within the laboratory, on the eastern side of that building.

After their classes of the day, they went on to visit the laboratory, as it was the only way for them to find out what they needed to find out. The park in the middle had turned into a silent place where not many would spend their time.

The weather was already getting so cold that no one in their right mind would spend more time outside than was needed. Not a single skinny dipper had been seen for the past week or so. Maybe during the winter, they’d return to make holes on the surface of the pond to get the shock that one can get from diving into ice-cold water.

Kanrel wasn’t very fond of such an idea; he’d much rather spend his time in front of a warm fireplace. The cold wasn’t something he liked; he was so much more used to the more tame winters in the south.

Even now, he kept shivering at times, even though he was already wearing a winter robe. Yirn didn’t seem to mind; the city around the academy was, after all, his hometown. Cold autumns and winters were just another thing he didn’t often notice. Both seasons were perfect for working out anyway.

As they reached the laboratory, they saw a large gathering of novices and other students. They all stared at a wall for some reason. The trio got closer, shoving their way through the people gathered there until they could see what the fuss was about.

Large graffiti in red was written on the wall: Usurp the false kings, usurp the false Heralds, usurp the Priesthood. See the tongue of a traitor: the truth set her free.

A red thing was nailed to the wall. A tongue. Now they at least knew where Tarin’s tongue was.

It didn’t take long for the gathering to see Kanrel, and soon after, whispers could be heard, mostly about him and his mother. Not only was he a murder suspect, but these graffiti might be there because of him; they were there to target him. As if showing all those who knew nothing that at least there was one person who knew the truth.

Kanrel gritted his teeth and was about to begin removing the graffiti from the wall. But before he could even take a step, Oidus had walked in front and begun removing the graffiti; on her face was a smile. A smile Kanrel didn’t know how to interpret.

He gritted his teeth even more; his hands were just fists now as he tried to control himself. He wanted to wipe that smile from her; he wanted to accuse her of everything. He wanted to scream; he wanted to know that none of those around him had been there to witness the graffiti.

Kanrel felt a hand on his shoulder, a warm hand, and then a familiar voice whispered to him, "Let’s get out of here." The hand pulled him away from the crowd, away from this gathering, and away from the smile that Oidus had on her face.

Yirn pulled him out of the crowd, pulled him to the park, and sat him on a bench. He then sat next to him and said, "I remembered something, so I must ask you: do you remember who we saw before we found the bodies?" he asked.

Yviev joined them as he said what he had to say; she sat on the other side of Kanrel so that he was in between them.

Kanrel went through his memories. This was something that happened weeks ago. He remembered how they had sat on the same bench on that day and how Uanna and Wen had left before them. It couldn’t be them; it didn’t make any sense.

He went through the whole day, but soon he saw just one face in his mind: Oidus. She was walking away from the dorms in a rush, not paying them any attention as she walked past them, even when they called for her name.

Why would she? Then he remembered her smile as she was removing the graffiti. She was the one who had gone around removing most of them; she could as easily set up codes that would form those graffiti almost on their own. She was someone capable and extremely talented at coding and magic. She understood it perhaps better than most in this academy.

The laboratory was where they had figured the locked door would be located.

But what would she have to do with the nameless?

"But why would she?" He asked and looked at Yirn, who had a solemn expression on his face.

Yirn shook his head. "I guess it is for us to figure out." He stood up from the bench and stretched. "We just have to investigate her. Who knows, maybe we are just wrong, and that is the only thing we’ll find out."

Yviev and Kanrel sat in silence, just staring at the young man who was standing before them; his gaze was fixed on the laboratory. "I hope it is all just a coincidence," he said suddenly.

Late autumn, with its melancholy, ruled the world; the days were short and the nights were long. Light would only shine in this part of the world for a couple of hours a day. Blessing them with the grace of warmth, but even then it was cold.

Kanrel, Yirn, and Yviev now sat in Yirn’s room, which they used as a meeting place whenever they had things to discuss and plans to make.

Now they had one of those plans to make: how should they investigate Oidus?

Since the locked door was most likely located on the eastern side of the Laboratory for the Research of Magical Energies, that would mean that it would be connected to Oidus’s bedroom.

They had to form a distraction to make sure that she would not be anywhere near her room. They had to pick a time of day when she would most likely be in her laboratory, researching her beloved explosions.

Yviev volunteered to keep her distracted for as long as possible under the guise of asking Oidus about her research, pointing out that she herself was very interested in explosions as well. In the meantime, Kanrel and Yirn would enter Oidus’s room and search for any and all clues that they might find.

And if they found nothing, then they would drop some of their suspicion toward their professor.

The rest of the day was spent practicing on how to open a locked door without destroying anything. He tested multiple codes until he found one that would suit their needs.

The next day, after their classes, they put their plan into motion. Right after class, Yviev went to Oidus to ask about her research. Kanrel and Yirn basically ran ahead of them to the laboratory and navigated their way through well-decorated corridors until they found Oidus’s room on the east side of the laboratory.

Yirn’s job was simple through all this: he would signal to Kanrel if anyone was coming as Kanrel worked on the lock. Thankfully, the locks that were all around the campus were mostly similar, and there had rarely been situations where anyone would dare even try breaking into a professor's room.

Soon Kanrel heard a satisfying click from the door, and he could then open the door. He and Yirn quickly entered the room.

The room was fairly large, and there were things one could expect from any room: there was a bed, though slightly bigger than the ones that the students got; a couple of tables and shelves; a wardrobe; and some cabinets. Then there was another door, positioned on the east wall of the room.

Kanrel stood still for a while, in shock. Without a word, he went for the other door and opened it as well, and on the other side was the familiar room they had both seen before. He even went to check the wardrobe and the fake wall inside it. It was the room that they had been searching for; there was no doubt about it.

Yirn had already gone through Oidus’s things, and Kanrel joined him. The notes were mainly about her research with explosions, but there were things about "implosions" and her research about "gravity and magic". Such things were interesting to read about, but he couldn’t focus on them because he didn’t have time.

His body was trembling with anxiety as he started searching one of the cabinets; his hands shook as he opened its door, and his hands shook even more as he pulled out a jar from the cabinet. He slowly turned it around in his hands, searching for anything.

The trembling stopped as he saw what he saw: a pair of ears suspended in the murky liquid of the jar. "Yirn," he whispered. Kanrel wanted to say more, but words failed him. He felt betrayed. And the images of Oidus with her smile filled his mind.

Yirn came to him to see the jar, and soon after the ears, he let out a long sigh and took the jar from Kanrel’s hands, and placed it back inside the cabinet. He closed the door of the cabinet, pulled Kanrel from the ground, and whispered bitterly, "The truth shall set us free."

Before leaving and locking the doors that Kanrel had opened, they made sure that everything was as it was before they searched the room. In silence, they left the room, not looking back and not wanting to think about what they had just found.

They went to Oidus’s laboratory, where she was explaining things to Yviev about her research. She had spread hundreds of notes on the floor, which they had studied together. Kanrel felt like he couldn’t breathe from the moment they saw Oidus on the floor next to Yviev.

Yirn cleared his throat and said, "Yviev, we’ll go study now." He lied as fluently as he spoke.

Yviev and Oidus raised their heads from the notes. Yviev stood up and said, "I’ve got to go now; maybe we can continue at another time?" She politely excused herself and left Oidus with her notes.

The professor seemed slightly disappointed but smiled when she saw Kanrel next to Yirn and waved at him. Kanrel couldn’t raise his hand to wave back at her; his hands just wouldn’t follow his commands.

Instead, Yirn had to pull him along with them so that he wouldn’t stay behind and sheepishly stare at the woman sitting on the floor.

They walked in silence through the park; there were no words needed, as Yviev could just tell that their fears had become reality. Would she feel disgusted? She had just spent almost an hour talking to the person who most likely was the person who had killed her fiancee.

Kanrel knew that he felt disgusted; he felt bitter to the core. The image he had of Oidus was ruined. She was no longer an aloof genius but a murderer and a heretic. Someone who had targeted him from the beginning.

Again they found themselves in Yirn’s room; this time they all sat on his bed. It was unlikely for either Yviev or Kanrel to be the first to speak, so Yirn went ahead. "We can’t be sure, not yet," he said, almost denying what they had found.

"She killed my Jeso," Yviev muttered in disbelief. "She defiled his body; she took his ears!" Her voice became louder as she spoke; she almost screamed the last words.

"We have to make sure. We have to ask her," Kanrel said. He wanted to join Yirn in his denial; he wanted disbelief to reign over him. He didn’t want to believe.

"How? Do we just ask her? Her?" Yviev spat her words out, and she took her hands to the necklace she always carried with her. She had gotten it as a present from her fiancee when they were younger.

"We can bait her out of the academy and out of the city." Kanrel suddenly said, "Gravity; she was interested in gravity."

Yirn and Yviev both looked at him. "How?" Yirn asked; he too remembered the notes in Oidus’s room.

"I have some theories about it; we can invite her to join us in performing a large code that would form a massive pool of gravity, but instead we would lock her as she is focusing on the code."

"But it has to seem real... Do you have such a code at your disposal?"

"Yes, I can make one. I've got many theories of my own, and I can make one that needs someone as talented as Oidus to perform the code."

"But how would that get her out of the academy and out of the city?"

"Using gravity magic is very dangerous, especially indoors, as it pulls everything towards it."

Yirn nodded. "Then how will we lock her in place?"

"We’ll make a code that needs the three of us to keep it in place; we have to make it so that she can’t move or see. That isn’t too difficult with the information we have thus far," Kanrel explained. "We can do it. No, we have to do it," he said almost erratically as he stood up from the bed. "We have to find out the truth." He said as he looked in turn into the eyes of Yirn and Yviev. He was pleading with them to help him.

Another silence ensued as Yirn and Yviev seemed to be almost in shock because of Kanrel’s emotional behavior.

Yirn swallowed and then smiled; he once again had that handsome smile on his face, which told a story of confidence and determination. He got up from the bed and faced Kanrel. He offered his hand to him. "Let’s find out the truth," he said.

Kanrel took the offered hand; it was warm as they shook it.

Yviev was still on the bed; she shook his head instead, saying, "I guess I’ve no choice then..." She got up from the bed as well, dusted her robes, and asked, "What are we waiting for then? Let’s get to it."