The Apprentice’s Path

Chapter 3-3

I knew perfectly well where Prof. Derwen's office was. Not because I ever wanted to visit it, but because I avoided it, sometimes making elaborate circles just to avoid getting close to him (that didn't help much, but a girl can try). It took me no time to get there, as his office was right next to the stairs. It usually took a lot of skill to avoid it. I never hesitate, but I had to do some breathing exercises before I knocked. My arall nature was demanding I fight, pumping my system with aggression. This was going to be hard. I knocked, firmly but not too strongly.

"Come in, come in." Professor Derwen had quite a nice voice. Which didn't make him any less annoying.

I entered. The door was solid oak. That's the reason it took me that long to open it, not that I was stalling, obviously.

"Good morning, Professor. May I sit?"

He seemed slightly surprised to see me, so he didn't know who the student interested in his books was.

"Ah, Miss Bedwen. So nice to see you in my office. Would you like some coffee or tea?"

"Tea, please." The last thing I needed was the excitement coffee gave me. Tea helped me relax.

"I just boiled some water and have some fine Yllamese powder green. Feel free to pour it yourself." He pointed at the teakettle burning on an alcohol burner.

Making tea was something ingrained in me since childhood. My father always made me make it following all the customs of his homeland, as he liked to insist I was Yllamese. I poured the just-boiled water into the bowl. It was too hot for making tea. No matter, the first pouring wasn't for making tea, anyway. I poured the hot water into one bowl.

"Would you like a cup too, Professor Derwen?"

"Yes, please."

I poured the hot water into a second bowl while warming the whisk in the first. When it was sufficiently warm, I poured the water out of both bowls and dried them. By the time I measured the right amount of tea with a thin spatula-like spoon, the water had cooled to the right temperature. I then used the measuring cups to pour the tea. I then put the bowls on a tray and took the tray to the desk. Prof. Derwen was looking at me, seemingly surprised.

"Here you have it," I said.

"Thank you, Miss Bedwen." He accepted the bowl I gave him.

I sat down and took a sip. It tasted just right, like the tea I made for my father. It had been years since I'd drank it, since green powder tea of good quality is quite expensive, and I didn't have much money. Why did Prof. Derwen offer me this really expensive tea? Was it because he didn't realize it would be me, and he prepared it in advance?

I slowly drank the tea from the bowl. As was the Yllamese tradition, I didn't talk. This had been a time for my father and me to sit down and just be, without my brothers, or other demands on his time. I'm not sure why Prof. Derwen didn't speak. Being quiet while drinking tea certainly wasn't a tradition of Kalmar; nobody would stop talking in the cafes and teahouses that had become all the rage.

This had been the most friendly interaction I've ever had with Prof. Derwen, maybe because he was the host here. But I didn't come here for the tea, so when I finished savoring the tea, I turned the bowl, showing I had enjoyed the tea and it was time for business. At least, if you knew Yllamese traditions. To Kalmari, it was just a way of drying a cup.

"I've heard you have some books on ancient Yllam. I am trying to make a presentation on the ancient history of Yllam for the history club, and I would like to get some original materials. Could you please show the books to me, Professor?" Business means business. Wasting time on pleasantries is not for me; I'm not Yllamese enough for that. Besides, it's not like Prof. Derwen was the polite kind of guy. Not to me, at least.

"Ah, the history club! I remember being a founding member," no wonder it was full of idiots, considering the founder, "so glad to see this great university tradition continued. So you want to check the books out of my department's collection?" For some reason, Prof. Derwen seemed less prickly than usual, distracted, as if he was trying to find the answer to some puzzle. He stood up and took a key from his drawer, opening a locked bookcase. He put on some gloves, and carefully took out a very old, worn book. He placed it on a big table that was covered with a cloth. "I must tell you, though, Miss Bedwen. You won't find it very useful. They're all written in old Yllamese pictograms, not the Yllamese you learn in your courses."

I approached the table. After putting on the gloves that Prof. Derwen handed me, I carefully examined the book cover. It was a traditional binding, with the pages bound but no spine or protective cover. I turned it around and placed it properly; Yllamese books are read from right to left, with sentences written from the top to the bottom in each page.

The book was written in the same characters as the Road of the Black Lily, the book my father made me study as a kid. He insisted, despite my refusals, tantrums, and outright sabotage, that I study the characters, and read that damn book. It was the one thing he was immutable on. I could usually bend his will, as he adored me and called me his little princess. "Little princess," he used to say, "princesses have many privileges, but they come with duties. And it is your duty to know your people's history and preserve it. You should be able to read The Road of the Black Lily, and The Mandate of Flowers. How would you be able to rule if you don't know anything?" Pointing out that I wasn't actually a princess, that I was an ordinary girl in Kalmar, that I'd probably never go to Yllam, ever, ever, since I hated Yllam, the country with the most horrible writing system, more than anything, never helped. My father was unmovable. Even mother wasn't able to reason with him on that. I was small enough when he started teaching me that my magic hadn't manifested yet, but by the time I hit puberty, with magic flowing through my blood, changing me, making me stronger, tougher, and bullheaded beyond reason, I knew how to resist. So I never got to learn Yllamese etiquette, with all those stupid bows, manners of address, etc. Except for making proper tea, as I thought of it more as alchemy than etiquette.

I had thought the knowledge of pictograms would be useful in our Yllamese course in the first year of Alchemy. To my disappointment, ancient and modern written Yllamese had so little to do with each other that I had to study that course like everybody else, memorizing the stupid new characters and promptly forgetting them when the course was over.

This book I could read, even without a dictionary. I leafed through; it had no index, nor chapters, nor anything. I would have to read it cover to cover.

"Oh, no problem, Professor. I will just start reading then, if that's not a problem?"

"Wait, so you can read ancient Yllamese?"

I didn't answer that rhetorical question. Of course I could, what would I be doing otherwise?