The sun was low in the sky when Mal set out for the Pygon, ready for the day’s lesson. It was still the second quarter cycle in Myr so the weather wasn’t uncomfortable even though it was so early. Mal approached the hill wherein the stage and its surrounding fan of bench seats was built, and walked down the stone steps of the audience cone, into the circular pit stage. Arc Rhea told him once that there was a time that the full half shell of benches were occupied by students for lectures by the grand Arcs of old. Mal could hardly imagine seeing that many people in one place, now we don’t even use the benches most days, he thought. As Mal approached the stage, he saw the brown silhouette of another boy his age, rapidly articulating a teph, the square tablet ticking along to the movement of his fingers. “Ten to you, Gremn.” He said as he approached.
Gremn looked up from his device, then looked to the sun, which currently haloed a pillar marked with an ancient rune, a symbol for the present month of the Myren calendar. “More like fifteen”. Mal laughed, but then realized, as the boy returned to his device, that Gremn had not been making a joke. Mal coughed and walked past him into the center of the circular pit. The surface of the stage was scored with deep grooves in a labyrinthine pattern, a series of circles and geometric shapes, Mal inspected it to appear busy, trying to ignore the awkward silence between Gremn and himself. A Pythagorean Mandala he recalled, Arc Pomnu said this one was supposed to be a representation of a first principle, one that had something to do with learning. He tried to remember what it meant, but it had been a long time since he arrived at 13th of Myr, and he had only been a child then.
Soon enough the other students arrived. First the twins, Yon and Wen, with their shaggy green hair, chirping quietly between themselves. Yon was older by only a few minutes, but nodemother Terani had said “stars look small from far enough away”, and indeed Yon often acted like she were a few years older, not a few moments, and wen was always in tow at a low orbit. Then Makam, who always wore their hair in the spotted pattern of the theep’wa herders of the emerald lakes. their hair was matted into a deep blue, and it almost seemed to sway and swim around their head like the waves of the ocean as they walked slowly down the steps of the lecture hall. Makam was tall and slender, but not intimidating. Mal had found Makam easy to talk to, and they were frequently the first to solve Arc Rhea’s puzzles and riddles. Tenil arrived last of all. Mal made eye contact with him, and quickly looked away. Maybe nothing will happen he thought. Mal wasn’t sure whether he wanted something to happen or not, he only felt nervous to know. Knowledge kills fear Terani had said that to him once, when he was very young, better to find out than to wonder.
He and the other students sat, as they always did, in a hexagonal shape, all facing the planet’s magnetic pole, and creating an intersecting line between them, the pole, and the globular pedestal at the center of the raised dais on the opposite side of the circular pit as the audience benches. There, they wait in silence until Arc Rhea arrives.
Eventually, From their vantage point they could see the sun poke above the keystone between two pillars of the arcade that surrounded the theater. Its position indicating the time as well as position in the solar cycle. And as the sun passed above the stone, Rhea appeared in the mouth of the arch. Haloed by the light, she walked down the stairs to the dais, her bright yellow robes looked almost to have soaked up the suns warmth and color.
“18. 432, 1280” She said directly to the students, then bowed and turned to the dais. With a wave of her hand, a rectangular glass tablet that stretches from floor to ceiling and wall to wall on the scene’s canvas rose from a groove built into the platform. It whistled and sizzled softly as she materialized it. Rhea then began etching words and numbers in bright colors on the smooth surface twitching her wrist and mouthing something to herself.
“There are certain rules, it is said, that are constants in our universe, and physics is the study of the relationship between these rules. Planck’s constant, pi, the nuclear forces… the speed of light, just to name a few.” Arc Rhea rarely faced Mal and the other students when she spoke, even when she asked questions she would look only at the thin glass sheet where her luminescent etchings were cast, as if she was speaking directly to the lecture itself. “Is it possible, students, to move faster than the speed of light?”
Mal looked around, some of the pupils muttered something or shook their head. Finally, Gremn spoke up “The speed of light is a constant and universal bound.” He said, but he could tell this was a trick or a riddle so he stammered along “..but… maybe if there were some way to manipulate time. Or space, then perhaps-“
“There is a way” Arc Rhea interrupted “without hypothetical speak of extreme circumstance.”
Still facing the board, Rhea waited for a response, but none came. “Anyone? Remember that foolishness and genius are often not dissimilar. Do not be afraid of foolishness”
But Mal kept quiet. he was afraid of foolishness, at least he was when Makam and Yon were around. I liked the solo lessons with Pontu better he thought, I wasn't afraid of foolishness then. Wen was not afraid, though, or was foolish besides, so rambled a few thoughts that didn't actually go anywhere, eventually getting to “and what if time is like a wedge of cheese”, at which point Rhea gently broke in “I think we are trying too hard to be genius and not hard enough to be foolish” she then turned to the children and smiled softly, something rare in their lessons.
“Watch closely”
And with a flick of her wrist, out of the grooves in the circular stage pit rose millions of tiny grains of sand, white at first, but as they gathered together, the took on shape and color. Spheres formed, a bright yellow-orange ball at the center, and more spun away from it as they were being molded from the haze. Mal recognized the planets of their system. 5 of them were present, he noticed that Rhea had omitted the outer ring, which he knew only had satellite settlements, most of them ore mines. the third planet from the center began to glow, a red hue shone off its surface, I wonder how she gets the sand to evaporate like that Mal wondered. He was always impressed by Arc Rhea’s technical skill. Even among the Arcs, her Kinesis was renowned.
“It takes 4 minutes for light from the sun to reach Myr. Can anyone see a way to move quicker than that?”
Silence again. Mal looked over at Makam. Their eyes glimmered and dashed back and forth but their face stayed firm, everyone knew this was some riddle or puzzle, and none wanted to give the obvious answer, it’s impossible Mal thought, but if she wanted us to say it was impossible she wouldn’t show it to us like this.
Arc Rhea stepped forward to the front of the dais, then took another step off of it. Her feet floated there, and Mal could hear the faint buzzing indicative of a levitation pattern as she effortlessly glided over to where her projection of the sun stood. The air around her seemed to swim like oil on water, ever so slightly contorting the incoming light and color from the platforms behind her. Rhea pulled her legs up to her waist in the meditation position, the cape of her robes hung behind her, barely above the ground. She reached out and poked a single finger into the sun’s projection. Some sand fell to the floor where she touched it, and the orange of the globe went pale white around where skin and sand met.
“Count” she said and without letting her hand or arm move, Rhea floated sideways, towards the sphere of sand that made up the replica of Myr. She turned slightly so that her finger pointed at the planet as she came to it, and her finger hit it, right on the equator. “How long was that?”
“Maybe 10 seconds?” Wen exclaimed.
“And 5 seconds is surely shorter than 4 minutes, is it not, Wen?” Wen burst out a laugh. “If thats the key to this riddle, it is a silly one, Madam Arc”
“It’s not silly” Wen’s laugh was stifled when Makam stood up. “Its a demonstration of how Tau magic works.” Rhea closed her eyes, “thats right, Makam”
Wen burst out in counter, “Tau powers can’t make you move faster than light. It’s a universal bound!”
“You are not moving faster than light” Rhea replied, calmly “but in your mind you can cause it to happen, and so it does happen”
She waited to see if the boy would give any indication that he better understood what she was attempting to convey, but Wen just stared blankly, then dashed his line of sight to the marbled stone beneath him. Mal could practically see the gears and pistons at work in his mind through his eyes.
“The symbol is the thing it symbolizes” Rhea said finally. “This is an important concept to grasp if you want to master the sacred geometries. When you imagine something in your mind, it is real, and can manifest in the world if that connection is properly fostered and articulated. All of our arts are made possible by the fact that all phenomena is expression of intention. Even us. Each of us, and consciousness itself is the manifest intention of the root elements of the universe, and are as much part of the geometries as any divine pattern. We are self similar to the greater cosmos, and if in our minds we can envision moving between the Sun and Myr in 5 seconds, then it is true, and it happens in that moment we vision it.”
“But not literally” Wen muttered. This prompted Makam to give him a blunt elbow “yes literally! Thats the whole point, that figurate and literal are indistinguishable in Tau magic, did you listen at all?”
Wen crossed his arms and closed his eyes with a ‘hmph’ and his sister, sat at an angle behind him, reached out to put her hand on his back.
“Rhea let her feet touch the floor and as she did the spheres surrounding the students turned white and gently washed down back into the creases of stone in the circular stage.
“As you know, this mandala we are gathered on is a word in the ancient and ever-present language of the elements. To our minds, its meaning is something like “to teach” but it is also understood to mean “to show”. It is a crystallization of a smaller word meaning something like “reflect” and also “create”. in keeping with that spirit, I think it is about time we try once more to summon a gem. I hope you have meditated well on our lessons, and studied the structure and rules of the shapes we will be looking to find.”
Mal turned to look at Tenil nervously. His friend had been strangely quiet in the lesson today, and he wondered if Tenil was having second thoughts about their plan. Mal wondered too, if he should tell Rhea about their idea, he did not trust his understanding of the tools of his mind well enough to know for sure there would not be danger involved in this scheme. But before he knew it the rest of the disciples were already closing their eyes and beginning to hum low notes. I guess we’ll find out soon enough, he thought to himself, and turned towards his classmates, and prepared to sink his mind into the ether.
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