Chapter Text
Where in the world was I?
I found myself in an entirely strange place. A huge, dimly-lit, cavernous space, with no recollection of what I’d been doing, or how I’d gotten there. The aether felt odd. Still. And… muffled? As if something were between me and its flow. The air was humid, heavy, and hot, and it smelled wrong. Like sweat and something sharp and astringent I didn’t recognize.
I was sitting in some kind of chair? What was a chair doing in a cavern? I struggled to make my eyes focus, which was the first time I realized my vision had gone blurry, and my ears were ringing. Had I been hit by something? Usually that only happened if I got punched in the face a bit too hard. As my eyes began to focus again, I realized I was sitting in the middle of a crowd of people. What on Etheirys was I doing in a crowd? My heart started pounding. I couldn’t be in crowds. I couldn’t immediately think of why, but I knew it was bad. I covered my mouth and nose with both of my hands in an effort to calm the panic attack that was starting. The ringing in my ears began to fade finally, and I could hear someone saying my name in a low, concerned voice.
It took me entirely too much time to remember how to orient myself, and locate the person speaking to me. Who. Was. Sitting right next to me. That shouldn’t have been nearly so great a challenge. What had happened to me? The person with the concerned voice saying my name was a completely unfamiliar boy.
How. Did he know my name?
I stared at him, confused and not any less panicked, and then another voice said, “Ithas!” in a much more upset tone, and this person was seated on the other side of me. He was not any more familiar than the first boy.
“Ithas, are you unwell?” The first boy asked, sounding mildly distressed, and I had no idea what to answer him. Was I unwell?
“Say something, already!” The second boy demanded.
“Where am I?” I managed to ask. It was not the only question on my mind. It was not even the most urgent question on my mind. Because I was starting to recognize this feeling, and it was making the panic worse now that I was beginning to guess what had happened, and How much time did I lose? Was increasingly the question I wanted answered, but that. Was something. Only I could answer. If anyone could. Was it days? Weeks? Months? What if I didn’t get it back again?
My heart was threatening to beat right out of my chest.
The second boy and the first exchanged a look.
“You’re in a theater in the Macarian District, in Amaurot.” The second boy said, in a tone that suggested I obviously knew that. I did not. I stared at him, appalled.
“Why would I be in Amaurot?” I did not mean to say that out loud. Or. In such a tone of horrified disbelief, but I did.
“Ithas,” the first boy sounded increasingly distressed, and something in the back of my mind told me that was bad, “perhaps we should take you to the Words of Emmerololth.”
I shook my head. Azem. I needed Azem. She could help me. Emmerololth had been no use whatsoever. What did she tell me to do when this happened? I pulled my knees up to my chest and curled into a ball in the seat, trying to get my breath under control. It was hard to manage the flow of my own aether under any circumstances, but it was especially hard to do it while I was panicking.
“Ithas, what is the matter with you?” The second boy sounded so deeply offended you’d think I had just flung my robe off and leapt from the balcony. The very notion made me struggle not to laugh. That. Wait. Why did that seem familiar?
I stared at him for a moment. “Hades. That’s your name. I remember that now.” I hadn’t meant to blurt that out either. Control of my tongue was clearly not coming back any time soon. I knew him, didn’t I? I had met him somewhere before… a mountain? Or a desert? Maybe? Why did I associate either of those things with fried food?
Unsurprisingly, this accidental admission did not reassure my seatmates. Hades and the other boy—Wait, I know him, too, don’t I? Something like a line of poetry? Hythlodaeus?—exchanged another, very worried look while I struggled to recall why I associated the name Hythlodaeus with amethysts.
Well, they weren’t wrong.
I hadn’t lost time this badly since I was a child. I had certainly not forgotten people in years, and I was grudgingly forced to admit that Iris had, once again, been entirely right when she’d warned me that I was not supposed to be around crowds, and that I was pushing myself too hard. Which. When had that been? A month ago? Maybe?
Iris was always right about everything.
“Ithas, I really do think we ought to take you to the hospital.” Hythlodaeus said. Hades nodded and started to get out of his seat.
“No, no.” I spread my hands to stop them from getting up and uncurled myself from the seat somewhat. “I’m…” I struggled to choose the words carefully. Almost okay? Definitely aware of who you both are again? Probably not going to panic anymore? “Getting things back. And… I can’t walk out of here anyway.” I didn’t want to admit that part, but I might as well. I remembered the theater, now. Hades really wanted to see this opera. Even though. He had already seen it. Multiple times. I remembered waiting outside in an endlessly long queue to enter. And then seeing the doors. And then. Nothing. “How long did it take us to get here from the doors?” I asked in what I hoped was not a desperate tone of voice.
“About forty minutes,” Hades muttered, “why does that matter?”
Oh, thank the stars, I had only lost forty minutes.
I felt like a balloon inside my chest burst. “Oh, that’s not nearly as bad as I thought.” I blurted, sinking back into the seat. I could see now that they’d engaged the privacy switches that let us talk to each other without annoying everyone in the adjoining seats. Which. Was almost certainly why the aether felt so strange. And was, additionally, almost definitely why I had regained my senses. The magick that kept our noise contained was keeping the cacophony of aetheric waves from the rest of the audience at bay.
I would have to be very careful about leaving the theater. By which, I mean, just translocate out and not attempt to traverse the crowd in the lobby again.
“Ithas, forgive me, but you seem extremely unwell.” Hythlodaeus’ voice was not any less distressed, and I remembered clearly now that he never sounded distressed. Not even when under attack by monsters, or while facing down Emet-Selch.
“I… was.” I might as well just admit it, it wasn’t as if I could hide it now. “But I’m getting better. I… didn’t punch or teleport anyone on the way inside the theater, did I?” Not being able to remember anything from the time we’d been outside the doors until now did not leave me with any… feelings of security about what idiotic things I might have done. I was capable. Of a lot. Of bad behavior. Even when fully in control of all my faculties.
“No. You were unusually quiet, and you seemed out-of-sorts, but you abstained from violence, I assure you.” Hythlodaeus still sounded somewhat worried. And I felt terrible for causing him the worry, but I had no idea how to reassure him. I’m used to having my memory fall apart, was not something I could say that would make this better.
And it hadn’t happened in so long. I really thought… maybe I was better.
“Stop being difficult.” Hades snapped at me. “If you need to see a healer, we’ll take you to one.”
“There’s nothing a healer can do for me.” Azem had brought Emmerololth to see me first—which I couldn’t remember at all—and when that had failed, had taken me with her to see healers from every corner of Etheirys. Many of whom I also could not remember. They had mostly all agreed that I was a lost cause.
Hades looked as though he wanted to argue with me. Because of course he did. But the lights suddenly dimmed further, then brightened, and then dimmed again, plunging the room almost entirely into darkness. The crowd of people around us stilled.
The members of the orchestra began to teleport into place. They were arranged in two rings, one at the bottom of the theater, next to the stage, and the other suspended above the stage, near the ceiling. They took up their instruments and started to play tuning notes and scales.
Then the chaotic din of the orchestra ceased, and a light spilled out of nowhere to form a bright circle on the stage. A cluster of performers appeared, each wearing a silver mask with a starburst shape. I had never seen anyone wear a mask that wasn’t uniform and white except for members of the Convocation and their adjutants. And now I wondered if the Convocation did it to signify, like the actors, that they were merely playing a role.
The stars spread out into a constellation. The scales? I think? In the midst of the stars, a figure appeared wearing a green mask with some gold filigree designs on the edges. She stepped out of the cluster of stars, raised a hand, and a forest filled the stage and the theater. As the illusion of leafy crowns unfurled, the orchestra began to play, and the green-masked woman began to sing.
The magick for the illusory forest was a little weak, I thought. The trees were oddly geometrical, with perfectly spaced branches and uniformly green leaves, which trees in nature never have. I wondered if this were an artistic choice, or if the person responsible for illusions in this theater troupe had simply never seen a forest.
The green-masked woman was the titular character of the opera. Eurydice. Which I gleaned from the fact that the chorus of stars called her that to her face. Most of the first act was Eurydice singing to the stars, and the stars answering her, exactly the way stars don’t do. They had a surprising number of opinions about forestry for a constellation, really. And then a man appeared on stage wearing a mask the same shape and pattern as Halmarut’s, but yellow instead of red.
“That’s a common convention in theater,” Hythlodaeus murmured to me, “to avoid confusion about whether or not one of the Fourteen has just shown up on the stage.”
I was pretty certain nobody in this theater wanted to hear the real, current Halmarut sing a duet about phytobiology with anyone. Maybe she has a lovely singing voice, but I wouldn’t bet on that making up for being the worst.
I guess the duet was mostly Halmarut meeting Eurydice, and the two of them becoming fast friends over a shared love of arboriculture? Which seemed an odd thing to sing a song about, but the song itself was extremely catchy. I was going to have that stuck in my head later. Assuming. That I still remembered any of today later.
Halmarut disappeared, and another man in a blue mask appeared. This one, like Eurydice’s, was the common design, at least. But there were some sort of silver embellishments along the edges in a pattern I’d never seen before. The blue-masked performer began playing a harp, and singing a song about the beauty of the forest, and I guess Eurydice was into musicians. Or just. Susceptible to flattery. Because halfway through, the song turned into both a duet and a love song. Blue-mask guy was named Orpheus, I guess. As he exited the stage, the chorus of stars started singing a warning to Eurydice not to fall in love with Orpheus because he was ill-fated? Or improperly aligned? Or just because he was a musician, possibly? Actually, Euphrosyne says that last one a lot, too. So. Maybe that’s just universal advice and not really wisdom from the heavens.
As the stars finished their warning, the stage went dark again. So. That was probably the end of the first act.
The second act began with a large song and dance number, wherein Halmarut and a number of performers in brown versions of adjutants’ masks made gardens in what was clearly a much earlier version of Amaurot. The illusory buildings were the size of houses I’d have seen in a large village somewhere. Not a single tower in sight. Not. That they could have fit one into the theater without blocking the entire stage, but still. They obviously did not intend to give the impression of present-day Amaurot which contained no single-story buildings whatsoever. The song was very fast-paced, and I wasn’t entirely following what it was about, but it was kind of infectious. Something about mankind and nature? Or something to that effect? I kept mishearing some part of the refrain as being about bears, and that seemed highly unlikely to be relevant to the song.
And then suddenly there was a kyklopes in the middle of the stage.
That seemed an odd dramatic choice. I mean. Amaurot is in the middle of the ocean. How would a kyklopes even wander into the city? That. Was the entire point. Of building it there. Not kyklopes specifically. But wildlife in general, apart from sea birds, avoided it. Not to mention that kyklopes swim very poorly. Why wouldn’t they pick some sort of amphibious lifeform, like a serpent, or something if they wanted a monster battle?
The song abruptly stopped. And the performers all stared at the giant biped for a moment in silence. And then I saw the threat blossom around it.
Oh, shite.
I glanced over at my companions, to see they were in different-but-equal states of very startled. This. Wasn’t part of the opera.
The kyklopes raised its club, and the screaming started.
Shite.
Well, there was nothing for it. I got up, drew my sword and shield from the aether, put a foot onto the back of the seat in front of me, and leapt off the balcony.
I landed very hard, and was thankful for whatever the stage was made of being somewhat springy underfoot. Most of the actors had already been wise enough to teleport themselves off the stage. The orchestra in the lower ring had done the same. The actor playing Halmarut had stumbled and fallen and I managed to catch the kyklopes’ cudgel with my shield just before it crushed him with it.
The kyklopes looked rather disappointed with me for that.
It brandished its club overhead and roared at me. I clanged my sword against my shield a few times in response. It gave me what I could only describe as an offended frown and roared again. And then I charged, slashed at its legs with my sword, and tried to draw its attention away from Not-Actually-Halmarut, who had still failed to teleport himself to safety. Fortunately, the kyklopes turned to follow me up the stage and away from the shocked actor, because I knew enough about kyklopes to want it to look anywhere else but at the unarmed man.
“Ithas!” Hades teleported down to the stage and drew his staff. “Could you just once not get into a pitched battle somewhere?”
“If I knew how to do that, I would!” I shouted back. The kyklopes was currently trying to sweep me off the stage with its club, but I. Do not. Move. For arseholes. I had tried to be polite with it. I had warned it not to pick a fight. It seemed like a brand new creation. Usually, older kyklopes had better things to do than fight over territory with every little thing that crossed their path.
“I’m not at all certain we should be down here.” Hythlodaeus declared in a perfectly calm manner, as he teleported to join Hades and drew his bow.
I saw the shape of the gaze attack coming, and ducked out of the way before I could be petrified. This. Was why I hadn’t wanted it to look at the actor.
“We shouldn’t be down here, and neither should the kyklopes!” I agreed. The lights had gone on in the theater, and I was dimly aware of the movement of the crowd evacuating the building.
Hades struck the creation with a fireball. The kyklopes staggered, but fortunately had such a poor understanding of its own brand-new senses that it didn’t turn to find the attacker.
I didn’t want to have to return it to the star, but I was pretty certain it had just been created here. In the middle of this theater. And had no better place to be returned to.
The creation tried to strike the entire stage with a lightning-gaze, and I managed to shield-bash it hard enough to make it forget it was going to do that. Hythlodaeus put an arrow into its eye, making further gaze attacks impossible, and a moment later Hades struck it with a large enough fireball to reduce it to ash and drifting motes of aether.
It was the swiftest end we could have managed, but I still felt terrible about it. It wasn’t the kyklopes’ fault it had been created here.
I returned my sword and shield and looked around the stage. Not-Actually-Halmarut was still there. Shite. Was he injured? Or just. Traumatized? Which was not necessarily better, really. Just differently injured.
“Are you hurt?” I asked, crouching beside him. He was still on the ground. Or. Stage, I guess. Where he’d fallen.
“What was that?” His voice carried an edge of panic. I didn’t see any signs of wounds. But that didn’t mean he’d be getting up any time soon.
“A kyklopes.” I told him. I wasn’t entirely sure what he’d do with that information, and probably he didn’t either. “Can you move? Do you need help getting up?” I’m not. Good. With traumatized people. It was taking a lot of my willpower to stay there and make certain he was all right and not just translocate away from the sensation of the unspeakably enormous crowd that was still nearby, even though it was no longer immediate.
“There aren’t any parts for kyklopes in this play.” He sounded vaguely angry about that. I mean. I guess that was a step in the right direction? Or not so much the right direction, but some direction, at least.
I didn’t have a useful response to that statement. Fortunately, someone else teleported onto the stage then.
“Perses! Thank goodness you’re all right.” The new arrival was not in a costume, and at their relieved-but-somewhat-firm declaration, Not-Halmarut finally seemed to remember that his body worked. He struggled to his feet. The white-masked person turned to me, “And thank you so much for your quick intervention.” They turned to the now-standing Perses and made a shooing gesture, and he belatedly teleported away. “I am Mnemosyne, the administrator for this theater. Let me get the three of you tickets to another showing as a token of our gratitude.”
My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach and stayed there. Another showing? I didn’t think I could manage getting into this theater a second time. I cast a slightly panicked look at the others.
Hades and Hythlodaeus were exchanging a look that I couldn’t parse and whispering.
“Ah… that’s… very kind of you,” I managed to say despite the fact that my mouth had just gone entirely dry. “However…”
“Prometheus has an adverse reaction to crowds, I’m afraid.” Hythlodaeus interjected in an apologetic tone. Was he apologizing to me or to Mnemosyne? And why did he call me that? Nobody calls me by my full name. Not anyone who actually knows me.
The theater admin visibly startled. Great. Just great. I did not want to think of what awful story this would spawn. “Prometheus?” They recovered their composure almost immediately. “Well, it’s no surprise that a student of Azem’s should be quick to respond to an emergency. But if the crowd is a problem, I’m certain we can make an accommodation for you. We could seat you in advance, if that would help?”
Both of the others had come over to stand next to me and were waiting expectantly for some response from me. Maybe. That would be enough? I had been all right in the seat, after all. I took a ragged breath and nodded.
Mnemosyne brightened and gestured for us to follow them off the stage and into the theater offices to reissue us tickets.
We passed the cluster of stars, milling around backstage. And I couldn’t help but think it was a sign of my impending doom.
Hades fussed over finding us seating from canceled ticket holders with the administrator while Hythlodaeus kept watching me with a slightly worried look. But I was mostly lost in my own thoughts. How had a kyklopes been created in the middle of the stage? It had been brand-new, but perfectly executed, so far as I could tell, at least. I was not an inspector of creations, and I didn’t possess sight as keen as Hythlodaeus’. But I thought that kyklopes had to have been made directly from a Concept crystal. And more importantly, who had done it? And just as an added bonus question, why would anyone create a highly territorial lifeform in the middle of the stage during a performance?
The business of finding new seats apparently concluded, Mnemosyne turned to me. “I hope this isn’t an imposition, but… could I humbly request that you do not file a report on this to the Convocation?”
I absolutely did not want to file a report on this incident. Because that. Was how, Prometheus took over the stage and decided to fight a giant in the middle of an opera, would inevitably start circulating through Amaurot’s unbearable, insatiable, inevitably-wrong rumor-mill. However.
“I don’t have to file one, since Azem didn’t send me to intervene.” I said hesitantly. “But… there’s no way the Fourteen aren’t going to hear about it after… that.” Probably a hundred thousand people had just fled the theater. The odds were in favor of one of them blabbing.
Mnemosyne nodded, “Oh, I know. People will be talking about this for ages. Altima will likely ignore it, so long as no one was actually hurt. Or worse. Insist we replicate the incident. Troubled performances will only stir up greater interest in the show.” They gave an extremely irritated sigh, “In fact, there’s a good chance that tomorrow’s audience will complain when they don’t get a disaster in the second act.” I. Oh shite. They were right. Amaurotines. They absolutely would do that. “But Pashtarot would not be so willing to turn a blind eye, and the last thing I want is to have adjutants from both the Fourth and Sixth Seats in my theater, one set trying to cause trouble, and the other turning everything upside-down to stop it.”
Yes. That. Accurately described the worst possible kind of existence.
“So long as no official report confirms the rumors, however, I will merely be inundated with messengers asking about it. And I would prefer to conduct my own investigation into this incident without having the entire production turned into a battleground.” Mnemosyne concluded with the weariness that only a soul dealing with Amaurot every day could possibly possess.
“If that’s your wish, I, for my part, can abstain from paperwork.” I said.
The theater admin, thus reassured, showed us out into the empty streets of the Macarian District.
We headed to the park near the transit hub, and Hades left to get food while Hythlodaeus and I took up spots on the grass beneath one of the trees. They seemed to have one particular spot in this park, unlike the one outside Akadamia Anyder. We always sat beneath the same tree.
“How are you feeling, Ithas?” Hythlodaeus was giving me an intensely appraising look.
“Better. I’m fine now, there’s no need to worry about me.” I assured him. I still couldn’t remember any of the forty minutes I had been in the most dense part of the crowd. I… probably wasn’t getting that back. But at least that seemed to be all I had lost.
He gave me a very dubious look in response.
Hades arrived with dumplings. Dumplings. Can fix almost any situation. “How is it possible,” he asked sourly as he joined us on the lawn, “that the first time Ithas attends the theater, a monster attacks the performers?”
I stared resolutely into the depths of my dumpling. “Because I’m cursed to attract trouble wherever I go.” I muttered. Mostly to the dumpling. It did not judge me. They never do.
“Now, let’s not exaggerate.” Hythlodaeus’ tone was mildly scolding.
Hades snorted. “I didn’t mean you. Someone created that thing. Who was responsible, and why?”
I wondered that, too. “I don’t know anything about theatrical productions. Do they ever include living creations in shows?”
“They do not.” Hythlodaeus declared, taking three dumplings at once. “Illusion magicks and familiars, but no autonomous living creatures, apart from the actors themselves.”
So, the odds that the Concept had somehow been mixed up were fairly low. As to the why, I could not even begin to guess.
“You really should have told us that the crowd presented a significant hazard to your health,” Hythlodaeus was apparently not done slightly scolding me. He was unusually upset, I guess.
“I’m fine.” I was not. I was supposed to tell Azem whenever I experienced missing time. That had been the rule ever since she’d started letting me do even trivial things without a minder. I did not want to have to tell Euphrosyne that she needed to follow me around Amaurot in case I blacked out. I. Would probably not survive that conversation, honestly. I would expire from mortification mid-sentence.
“Ithas.” Now Hades was scolding me. Great. I was glad they were agreed on this point. “What happened to you back there? That was not a normal reaction to aether-sickness.”
They had both seen crowds make me ill before, I didn’t think this time was all that different. But I still didn’t want to talk about this. “Well, how should I know? I can’t remember what happened.” I muttered. I took the rest of the unclaimed dumplings. They could be my friends now. “In any case, it’s not as important as that poor kyklopes.”
“You forgot who I was.” Hades said this in a tone that suggested it was the greatest crime ever committed in the history of the world.
“I forgot both of you, actually.” I did not mean to say that out loud. To my new dumpling friends. Who were not judging me. Because they were so much better than Hades and Hythlodaeus.
“Ithas!” That may have come from both of them.
“I got better.” I had. I had gotten that memory back. Not like before. When everyone had to reintroduce themselves to me every time they left the room.
I was better. Emmerololth had been wrong.
And I would’ve been perfectly fine, if I’d just continued to avoid Amaurot as if it were a pestilent boil on the face of the star. I had never gone to the city, never wanted to, never imagined myself going there for years and years, and I’d had an entirely stable memory. And if I would just stop going there, I could probably live forever without ever losing a single minute of time again.
It was just that now I actually wanted to be here. Sometimes.
Stupid Amaurot.
“This has happened to you before.” Hythlodaeus made it both a statement and a question. “In the theater, you said that forty minutes wasn’t as bad as you thought. You’ve experienced this even worse, then.”
Why did my friends have to be… terrifyingly observant? And clever? And not dumplings?
“When I was a child… this happened frequently.” I was down to my last dumpling. Shite. I needed moral support for this conversation. I decided to just hold on to it. My one and only friend. “But I haven’t had an episode in years. So let’s just… stop talking about this.” I really wanted to eat the last dumpling, but it was all I had left on the star. I had never been this conflicted before.
There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment.
“When does the new term begin?” Hythlodaeus broke the awkwardness with his impeccable politeness.
“Just a few days from now.” Hades sighed. He sounded put-upon. As if. He had not voluntarily signed up for more classes. Mostly. Against his parents’ wishes. “Speaking of which,” he looked pointedly at me and my real best friend, dumpling, “there’s still time for you to register, Ithas.”
“Why are you so keen on me taking a class at Akadamia?” I asked, baffled. This was not the first time the subject had been raised, and there was no reason why I should actually consider it. I had a mentor. I was one of Azem’s students. What did I need from Akadamia Anyder?
“You really should consider it,” Hythlodaeus chimed in, much more cheerfully, “then we’d all have an excuse to be in the Polyleritae District together.”
Since when did we need an excuse? “The last time I had a reason to be at Akadamia Anyder, it just made Hades irrationally angry.” Though, to be entirely fair, Hades was always somewhat irrationally angry. I. Didn’t really get much credit for that, no matter where I was.
Hythlodaeus beamed, “Oh, don’t sign up for a healing course, and everything should be fine,” he answered, entirely ignoring Hades’ attempts to silence him through glowering alone.
“I simply think you might actually enjoy it.” Hades said this in a tone of extreme defensiveness while glaring at Hythlodaeus to shut up. “Besides which, it might provide an opportunity for you to build your tolerance for crowds in a less intense environment than the Macarenses Angle or the lobby of a theater.” He added pointedly.
All right. That. Was something to consider. Maybe.
I ate the last dumpling. And now. I was alone in the world. And so forlorn. Because it had gone cold and sort of squidgy by then.