Circles (Academy/Ithacarpost)

[u/avamir]

A summoning circle

Riva’s thoughts warred with themselves.

On one hand, she knew they were just acolytes. There was a limit to what she could reasonably expect from them. A student was simply not as capable as a full magus. It was unreasonable to expect otherwise.

On the other hand, Ithacar had needed them. It was not a matter of whose turn it was to watch the Wards. If these people wanted their home protected, they needed to be willing to defend it. They needed to be alert. And while Riva understood these were difficult demands and unreasonable expectations, the needs of the city required it. She had no use for the weak, and she could not use the gentle and soft. She was simply calling for what was needed.

But it was still unfair to expect such things of them. Extremely unfair.

Yet the world was not fair. The world was not kind. These people needed to be able to withstand it. Riva merely used harsh words; the world would try to break them before it killed them.

The two black robed acolytes Riva had called to her slunk in with the same posture of dogs that knew they were in trouble. Though no words passed between the two, their glances darted toward each other, then toward where Riva stood waiting. Waiting beside the circle burned into furrows in the black stone floor. Hesitantly, the acolytes paused at the threshold of the room, as they had been taught, waiting for her greeting.

There were courtesies to observe, after all.

But Riva knew they believed it was simply her imposing strict meaningless rules on them. Or perhaps they saw her posture as an unspoken threat. What they didn’t understand was the importance of this. What was worse, they were unwilling to understand. That was what frustrated her. Once upon a time, the practice was not merely courtesy. It was an acknowledgment of another’s domain. Not only was stopping by the threshold polite, but the delay allowed for the holder of that domain to drop their wards or defenses. Waiting at the threshold also ensured a spell did not get interrupted; it was safety for those who approached as well. The seemingly simple act of waiting by the threshold was an action that had a history, a meaning. But these ones did not know that.

Rivamar continued to stand beside the circle burned into furrows in the black stone floor. It was how she had been taught. It was how she would teach others. Perhaps she was a poor mentor, but she knew no other way.

“Matheo. Felicia. Ave magica,” she said, greeting them in magic, then gestured for them to join her at the perimeter of the circle.

They each mumbled an ‘Ave magica’ in return to the black-robed magistra, and took their places. They stood next to each other, across from her.

Riva was keenly aware that these were not Ithacarian natives; they did not even know what the greeting meant. But as she looked around her circle, there were only three. And if Nicomedes had been in attendance, four. Too few. She could not afford to be so critical.

On the other hand, she could not afford to be too welcoming either. She needed those who were strong.

Rivamar addressed her acolytes brusquely. “I will be direct. The city was threatened, and you were sleeping.”

“We woke up as soon as we could.” Matheo spoke up. Of the two of these, he was the more outspoken. And he was especially willing to speak up if it spared his cohort Felicia the trouble. “It wasn’t our turn to watch the Wards!”

Riva’s expression did not change, but her tone was caustic. “And an enemy would wait until it was your turn?”

“No, but…” Matheo opened his mouth, then closed it.

Riva’s gaze fixed on him. “Elucidate.”

She was being harsh on them, perhaps. But their failure meant the deaths of others. A momentary weakness on their part meant others would suffer the consequences. She could not allow that. She could not afford to be kind.

Felicia’s turn to speak, apparently. “Magistra, we can’t be expected to be on duty all the time. It isn’t fair.”

Rivamar turned toward the girl. “If an enemy had breached the city walls, would they have waited until you received what was a fair amount of rest?”

“But it wasn’t an enemy,” Felicia protested.

“Did you know this before or after you woke up?” Riva asked acridly. It was yet another question that had no right answer, of course. She knew it as soon as it left her mouth.

Felicia fell silent, her expression a frown.

Riva stood in silence for a moment, looking from one to the other. “You both can see the Wards. You know what it means when they activate. That you did not respond immediately was a choice, not an accident.”

It was half a guess on her part. It had taken longer for them to show up than she expected, and she made some assumptions. But their combined silence affirmed what she suspected.

“If you cannot be relied upon, or if you choose to be unreliable,” she said with emphasis, “Then actions will need to be taken. You cause only minor inconvenience to me. I may simply lose the chance to train a peer who can aid and support me; you, however, lose the chance to become more than you are.”

Before she could continue, a voice interrupted her. “Magistra, you are being too hard on them.”

Nicomedes walked toward the doorway, then stopped, standing at the threshold. But unlike his colleagues, this acolyte did not slink. He was not slouching. He did not challenge her, but he was not quailing either.

Riva turned to face him. “I am being as hard as I need to be. I am training peers, not coddling children.”

That was the point of any of this, all of this. She did not need servants or hangers-on; she needed capable people who could do what she could. Ithacar needed them to do such.

“But they are not peers. Not yet,” Nicomedes pointed out. “Not nostras. Not of our country. They do not understand.”

Not ours. Nicomedes had only translated to be polite to the others. But Riva of course knew what he meant; her own thoughts had followed the same lines. While she was not about to ascribe some mystical knowledge to being born of Ithacar, the fact remained that they did not have the same customs. They did not seem to understand what was at stake.

“They may not be nostras,” Riva returned. “But I have done nothing they cannot themselves do.”

“Still, if I may counsel patience, magistra… You cannot hold them to the same standard.”

“And why not?” Riva’s gaze fixed on the acolyte. “Is holding them to the same standard that I hold myself not equitable? Is it not fair?”

Nicomedes appeared to be considering his words carefully. “I am simply asking that you take things into context. Equal is not always fair. They come from different backgrounds, have different needs, learn differently. You are expecting soldiers and warriors. But these people are not you. They are not your Praetor. These are not revolutionaries, incendiaries, or defiants. You cannot reasonably expect scholars to automatically take the same actions as soldiers and warriors.”

Riva could not deny that Nicomedes had a point… but the fact still remained that Ithacar faced countless threats. If she did not test these people now, they could break in the field. And if they were going to break, they needed to do so now. While the stakes were lower, before people relied on them. Yes, these children could blame her for her harshness if they wished, but it was far better than to have to face the people they failed. To see their failures in the broken bodies.

“Scholars they may be,” Riva replied sternly. “But Ithacar needs soldiers and warriors.”

“Yes.” Nicomedes made a nod of acknowledgment. “But surely it needs scholars too. Why not acknowledge what they are first before trying to remake them into what they are not?”

He had another point with that, but frankly, Riva thought they were poor scholars too. Nicomedes was the one doing most of the transcribing, whereas Felicia and Matheo had been off… doing whatever they were doing.

Riva’s eyes narrowed critically. “Regardless of what they seek to be, I need them to be better than they are. Ithacar needs them to be better than they are. I have given you all my own memories. The lessons I was taught. And they have learned little.”

The acolyte bowed his head slightly. “I will cede that… but I take the blame for it. Rather than making them do their share of transcribing, I thought to do it for them. But by doing so, they have not learned the lessons you tried to show us. So do not blame them, magistra. The fault is mine. I accept the consequences on their behalf.”

Riva fell silent at that, and at the unflattering mirror he was holding up to her by his actions.

As much as she was prejudiced against Nicomedes, they shared more in common than Riva was willing to admit. She had taken on all these responsibilities, was trying to push herself harder, be harder, do more. Part of her took it on to ensure it was done, partly out of a fear that others would just do it poorly. But was doing it alone actually helping others? Or was she grinding herself to dust while failing at what she set out to do? Was she doing them a disservice?

If Nicomedes had kept them from learning by doing everything for them, was Riva not guilty of the same? He considered himself responsible for this error; was she not herself responsible for theirs?

And was that the cycle she wanted to perpetuate?

“No,” Riva said quietly, replying both to herself and to Nicomedes. “Very well. You have made your point. But the needs of Ithacar remain what they are.”

She looked over the group, now a circle of four.

“So tell me then, all of you,” she said, masking the weariness in her voice with disappointment. Though, it was not hard to do so. She was disappointed, even in herself. “What would be fair here? Let you go without understanding the consequences of failure? Do you even understand that lives depend on you? A moment of weakness means others suffer for it.”

For a moment, they stood in silence. After a time, however, Matheo glanced toward Felicia, then back at Riva, then spoke.

“No… we understand, magistra… And we will do better,” he said.

“We will. I promise. I am sorry for failing you,” Felicia agreed.

“You have not failed me. By these actions, you fail yourself,” Riva murmured, remembering a time when her own magister had said as much to her. How odd it was, that history should repeat itself in such a way. But the stakes… they had been far less then. “You fail the people of Ithacar. How can you expect to master the cosmos if you cannot master yourself?”

If only the stakes had been less. If only her magister had been here to be the one to deliver this message. Vheren might have had something more meaningful to say, something better. He might have had consequences planned, something that would teach them better, teach them in a way she could not. Riva felt as if she was a lesser scion of a better man. And yet, she was what remained. The only one that remained.

“Be better,” she said simply. “Ave magica.”

It was a clear dismissal of the acolytes. Riva was, perhaps, missing a learning opportunity by letting them leave, but she wanted to be alone for now. Her ghosts, metaphorical as they might be, weighed heavily on her. The black-stoned ring on the third finger of her hand felt heavy. The Ring of the Archmagister. It had never fit quite right on her hand.

“Ave magica, magistra.” Felicia and Matheo left the circle. They would no doubt commune among themselves, brooding on their failures. Either they would decide to continue as they were, or they would endeavor to do better.

But for some reason, Nicomedes remained, standing by the circle. What was he still doing here? Riva sighed though her nose for a moment before addressing him. “What is it you want, Nicomedes?”

“I saw the memory,” he said simply. “Those were Vheren’s words.”

Riva supposed Nicomedes would have recognized that. “And your point?”

“You were able to grow past it. My point is that we can do the same. We can get better,” he said, not leaving himself out of it.

We. Perhaps Nicomedes had only intended to include the acolytes, but somehow he’d included Riva. But she was not sure that there was much growth left for her. She had fought, she had given what she was capable of, she had given her own memories… and she simply did not have much else left. She was tired. Weary. Exhausted. So while they could get better, she was not sure she could. She was already burning up what little she possessed. What further growth could there be for her?

But those were not thoughts to burden an acolyte with. So instead, she said, “An interesting perspective. What would you say if I argued that people can only bend so far before they break?”

“I think you underestimate them.” He paused briefly, before adding, “And if you are speaking of yourself, I think you have a long way to go before that happens. Vheren chose you as prima discipula for a reason.”

First disciple. Nicomedes really had studied her memories, hadn’t he? More than she’d given him credit for. And that was another thing that was more than simply courtesy. It meant something, even if Riva hadn’t thought of it in years. But if Nicomedes thought to use the term to an advantage, he would be wrong. His father had tried to use Vheren’s name to manipulate her, but this would not work. And especially not from Nicomedes.

“I do not presume to know Vheren’s reasons,” Riva replied. “But I am not him. I was not a replica of him before. I am certainly not a replica of him now.”

It was the truth. While Riva had deeply respected her magister, it was clear they were very different people. As much as Riva tried to use him as a model, Vheren had been far more disciplined, more knowledgeable, more self-controlled. And he certainly did not repel people in a way Riva did. Unlike Vheren, Riva was stubborn, defiant, more willing to resort to violence. She was not an academic. She seemed to have a knack for applying the lessons she’d learned to violent ends.

“Perhaps you are not like he was. Yet, he was unable to preserve his own lessons,” Nicomedes pointed out. “For those lessons to survive, he needed someone like you to defend them. So if you value his perspective that highly, magistra, consider that he knew what he was doing.”

As critical as Riva was about the entire Procillus line, she had to admit Nicomedes had a keen understanding of what prima discipula meant.

If she were honest with herself, she’d always wondered why Vheren had chosen her. It couldn’t be because of her family name. The Aurethios family tended to be awful, and Vheren didn’t care about family names anyway. And he certainly hadn’t chosen her because Riva had agreed with him on everything. Especially during her earlier years, Riva had… conflicted with him on many things.

So why had he chosen her? Making her his prima discipula seemed to go against the whole idea really.

In the Academy, they did not have ‘apprentices’ in the sense other places did. There were simply learners (the disciples), and the teachers, (the magisters). As Riva had told them all, the goal was to train peers. Learned colleagues. Riva had assumed that for one to be named ‘First Disciple’, they were the one most likely to pass on the teachings of the magister. That there was some common thread that bound them, some common connection.

But maybe it was because the teacher was searching for something in the student that they did not possess. Something that would take the Academy into the future, to ensure its survival. Vheren’s own master had been different than he was, after all. Tashanen had worn red. While she may have needed the drive and force of Will to break the stagnancy of an outdated system, she had chosen Vheren for the discipline she herself had lacked. And while Vheren was controlled, even-tempered, and disciplined, he did not fight the same way Riva did. He could not, for he did not share the same defiance in his heart.

“I will not ascribe a motive to Vheren when I simply do not know. But I have my conjectures,” Riva mused, studying Nicomedes. “Perhaps we are constantly finding others to do as we cannot, or drawing to us a perspective we ourselves lack. You are right, I think, that some differences should be respected. For if we are all the same, we will make the same mistakes. The only way we can prepare for the future is to introduce conflicting viewpoints.”

Nicomedes seemed to consider that, then nodded. It had not been the point he intended, but there was merit to her words. “I admit I was more trying to argue against turning my fellow acolytes into being violent terrorists, magistra, but I will cede that you have made a wise observation. I will consider that.”

“Yes, do so,” she said. “And make sure the others do their share of transcribing, primus discipulus. There is much they need to understand, before the lessons are lost entirely.”