Chapter Text
There was something wrong with Professor Volkarin. Zabrina was certain of it.
“No there ain't,” said Fergus, “he's still weird. What's another word for ‘win’? As in, a game.”
“‘Prevail’.”
“How’d you spell that?”
“Ugh, give it here, I'll write it down.” Fergus slid the page of copy across the press room table and Zabrina scribbled on it. “There is something wrong with him,” she continued. “He's been even weirder lately. And, like, kinda distant?”
“Yesterday he stared at the wall for twenty-seven seconds when he was supposed to be telling us about the study of Fade dynamics,” said Eike from the other end of the table, where they were furiously typesetting the week's staff notices. “I counted,” they added helpfully.
The three of them did not constitute the entirety of the press club, but they were the only ones who turned up to every single meeting. Zabrina was notionally the club president, because she had the key to the door. They called themselves the Whisperlings after the title of the fortnightly newsletter and were proud to be carrying on a tradition which, rumour had it, had survived two Blights, three dragons and a war, not to mention whatever that business was last year with the Elven gods.
Despite this noble heritage, the press room was not a very auspicious space. It was dark and not very big, and most of it was taken up by the ancient hand-cranked printing press and its attendant machinery. The Necropolis did, naturally, maintain a proper press, a huge rolling beast of an engine driven by a team of skeleton workers and capable of keeping up with the demands of academic life—papers, spellbooks, dissertations, journals and so forth—as well as the more mundane ephemera of the Mourn Watch’s work as guardians of the funerary dead. What the Whisperlings had was a rusty old thing which creaked and complained when they ran it and occasionally seized up entirely out of sheer spite.
“Why were you in a lecture about Fade dynamics?” asked Fergus, frowning. “You're a mortician.”
“I think a broad education is very important,” said Eike with an attempt at loftiness decidedly undermined by their reddening cheeks.
“Eike goes to all of Volkarin's lectures,” Zabrina said.
The unflattering blush deepened. “He's a very engaging speaker!”
“Uh-huh,” said Fergus without much conviction. “Where'd you want this to?” He waved the copy in Eike's general direction.
“What is it?”
“Varsity fixtures list.” Fergus was the sports correspondent, not because of any interest in sport at all but because, as the token tall, broad-shouldered Fereldan in the club, he looked the part. A Denerim native by birth, he'd been packed off to a distant aunt in Nevarra City when his magic manifested at fourteen, fast enough to avoid being declared an apostate but not to be rid of the distinctive accent.
“Just put it on the pile,” said Eike. “I'll see if I can fit it in on page two.”
The pile of things to be typeset was quite large at this point. Zabrina dug through it for anything interesting and pulled out a large piece of expensive-looking parchment, somewhat ink-spattered.
‘HAVE yOU sEeN tHIS BeatLe???’ said the notice in an enthusiastic though unsteady hand. Underneath was a rough but recognisable drawing of a scarab beetle. It was labelled ‘BEaTLE’, in case context did not make the subject sufficiently clear. At the bottom of the page, the unsteady writer continued, ‘Pleas find my beatle he is losst.’
“Aw,” said Zabrina. “I think this is from one of the kids.” She held it up to the others.
“Hey, I know that beetle!” cried Eike. “It’s Freddie’s. He was showing me at dinner.”
Manfred the talking skeleton had become something of a celebrity among the students, and sitting next to him at dinner was a fun, if dangerous game. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist and was more likely to melt his cutlery into a puddle than use it to actually eat, but there was something strangely endearing about his attempts to behave like a person and it wasn’t surprising that Eike had taken it upon themself to be his friend. Zabrina secretly thought that perhaps there was a bit of an ulterior motive to getting chummy with Professor Volkarin’s ward but she wasn’t mean enough to point it out more than once or twice.
“Well, looks like he’s lost it.”
“I did tell him he needed to label the box,” said Eike with a sigh. “Poor little guy. I’ll put something on the back page if I can.”
“Maybe that's why Volkarin’s being weird. He's spending all his time looking for Freddie's beetle and isn't sleeping.”
“Or he's just a really weird man,” Fergus reiterated. “Remember the last time you thought there were summat wrong with him and it just turned out he’d got a boyfriend?”
“That’s my point! What’s happened now? I need to know!” Zabrina came from that particular class of Nevarran up-and-comers who considered the mage orders something akin to finishing schools for their magically-inclined offspring. Being a Mourn Watcher did not sit very high on her list of aspirations and she would be the first to admit that. She did, however, have a talent for sounding like she knew what she was doing, which was seventy percent of academia, and for gossip, which was the remaining thirty. The day their lecture had been interrupted by a strange Qunari man shamelessly flirting with the teacher and being flirted with right back had been the greatest moment of her scholastic life and she had been chasing that high ever since.
There was a metallic screech from the other side of the room; Fergus was fiddling with the guillotine they used to trim the broadsheets.
“Bugger’s stuck again,” he announced and gave it an unaffectionate thump. The blade did not move an inch.
“You could ask Vorgoth for a new one,” suggested Zabrina. Every student society was blessed by the oversight of a member of staff, however perfunctory that oversight might be. For reasons mystifying to everyone, the press club had been assigned to the ineffable keeping of Senior Watcher Vorgoth and had apparently been so for as long as anyone could remember. No-one could ever recall witnessing Vorgoth reading a copy of the newsletter, but polite requests for new type or ink requisitions were always signed off promptly and without quibble, albeit with an arcane sigil as opposed to the more usual sort of signature; in exchange, every so often, flyers for art exhibitions would materialise in Eike’s in-tray, for immediate publication.
“I don't want to ask Vorgoth, he freaks me out.”
“They.”
“What?”
Zabrina sighed. “Vorgoth’s a ‘they’. You know, like Eike. Except cool.”
“Hey,” protested Eike. “I'm cool!”
Eike was not cool. At a mature twenty-two they were the oldest of the Whisperlings, but you would be forgiven for thinking otherwise. When they had been seven, their mother had taken them into the middle of Nevarra City to see their first funeral procession. Among the liveried horses and the crowds of dramatically weeping mourners had been two mages, tall and terrible in black and gold. The crowds had parted respectfully around them and their faces when they'd looked down at Eike had seemed to hold all the secrets of Death itself. It had been the first time Eike had seen Mourn Watchers. They had been beautiful, mysterious and utterly, devastatingly cool.
Eike desperately wanted to be as cool as those Watchers. Unfortunately, nature had made them a small, round person with floppy hair, rather too many freckles and a regrettable tendency to say “Golly!” when provoked, so it was an uphill battle.
“Fine, then I don’t want to ask Vorgoth, they freak me out.” Fergus abandoned the guillotine, which continued to rust quietly in the corner.
“Better. Anyway, I think it calls for an investigation.”
“What, the paper cutter?”
“No, you great ox, Volkarin. What if there’s something seriously wrong with him? Everyone knows him, most people at least like him, it’d be a public interest story.”
“Ooo, we could be like detectives!” said Eike, emerging from the world of movable type for a moment. “I’ve got a hat I could wear.”
“No hats,” said Zabrina firmly. “This needs to be an undercover mission. If he finds out we’d be in such troub—”
THE HOUR GROWS LATE.
Zabrina shrieked and leapt a clear foot in the air. The press room door had not opened, and yet Vorgoth had somehow managed to be right behind her.
“Good evening, Watcher Vorgoth,” piped Eike while Zabrina attempted to breathe normally again.
Vorgoth silently regarded each of the students in turn, the blackness inside their hood completely impenetrable. Behind them, in the pile of copy, the more egregious of Fergus’ misspellings quietly corrected themselves in a bold blackletter font entirely unlike his handwriting.
REST IS REQUIRED, they declared finally.
“So true,” agreed Fergus loudly with an unconvincing yawn. “Well, I'm going bed, see you tomorrow!” And he grabbed his coat and hurried out the door, giving Vorgoth as wide a berth as the confines of the small room would allow. The black hood pivoted to watch him go with a faint air of perplexity, then it turned back to Zabrina and Eike.
“We’ll just tidy up, then,” said Eike with a deferential bob. “Right, Zab?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, right away.”
Vorgoth made a vaguely satisfied rumbling noise.
EXTINGUISH THE LAMPS BEFORE DEPARTING.
“Yes, Watcher Vorgoth.”
Codex entry discovered:
Extract from Whisperings vol. 165.8, page 2
NOTICES
- Students are reminded that the pools in the Cascades are NOT for swimming in. Violators forfeit their right to post-mortem self-determination.
- THIRD-YEAR MORTETICS EXAMS POSTPONED due to the incident last week. Revised dates to be confirmed.
- Wind Ensemble will begin again from next Wednesday. Please note that accordions are still not considered wind instruments, no matter how hard you blow.
- The Wintersend Ball Committee is looking for a new Treasurer. Applicants should be self-motivated, good with figures and have experience negotiating with difficult spirits. See FS on Staircase XI for details.
- Stop that. You know who you are. We can all see you. Just, don’t.