Mother of Learning 2 - Outside World

by nobody103

  "N-no, sorry," she said, stumbling for a moment but recovering her composure quickly. "I was just curious about what you were reading. And I just have to ask: 'Splinter of Splinters'? Really, Zorian? That's kind of…"

  She paused for a moment, clearly searching for a polite term to use.

  "Why would you ever read such trash?" she finished eventually.

  Zorian looked at the book in his hands. He hadn't noticed anything too bad in the book thus far, though admittedly he wouldn't call it good, either. Frankly, the only reason he was idly reading through it was because one of the other books he had already read and liked listed it among its sources.

  "I'm trying to find out an answer to a political question, but I know very little about politics," Zorian answered honestly. "So I'm mostly just reading things at random, leafing through whatever book catches my attention."

  He placed 'Splinter of Splinters' back on the shelf. The book was boring as hell anyway.

  "What kind of topic are you looking for?" Tinami asked him.

  "I'm trying to find out a political reason why someone would want to burn Cyoria to the ground," Zorian told her bluntly. "Hypothetically speaking, of course."

  "Are we talking about external or internal forces?" Tinami asked, completely unperturbed by his admission.

  "Internal," Zorian clarified. "I'm pretty sure the number of external enemies that want the same is numberless."

  "Not really, no," Tinami said. "Cyoria supplies critical products to the entire continent. I think only Sulamnon and a handful of others would be glad to see it completely gone."

  "What about Ulquaan Ibasa?" asked Zorian curiously.

  "Them?" Tinami scoffed. "Who cares what they want? They can't do anything to us except raid our shipping. And as long as Eldemar controls Fort Oroklo, even that is just a minor nuisance."

  Zorian hummed non-committedly. He couldn't really fault Tinami for that logic, since he would have likely said something similar before he had experienced the invasion and found out who was behind it.

  "Fair enough," he said. "So what I'm getting from all of this is that you know a thing or two about politics, yes?"

  "I am an heir of one of the Noble Houses," Tinami shrugged. "I'm required to know this sort of stuff. So yes, I suppose I do."

  "Excellent. Then, do you think you can recommend me a book about Eldemar's internal politics that isn't… 'trash', as you say?" he asked her.

  He expected her to either say no or give him a title or two to look for. What he did not expect was for her to drag him across the library for over fifteen minutes in search of something that met his exact criteria. By the time Tinami was done 'suggesting' things to him, he'd ended up with three different books, one of which was a huge scary tome that made Zorian sleepy just looking at it. He was starting to think he had made just a tiny bit of a mistake when he had asked her for help in this matter.

  "Sorry, I went a little overboard," Tinami apologized, sounding honestly apologetic.

  "It's fine," Zorian sighed. "Though I'll be honest with you – I really doubt I'm going to read all of this."

  He shook the stack of books in his hands for emphasis.

  "If you must pick one of the three to read, read 'Time of Tribulations,'" Tinami told him. Oh good, that wasn't the big one. "That's the important one. The Splinter Wars and the Weeping completely rearranged the political landscape everywhere in Altazia, but especially in Eldemar. Without understanding what aftershocks they caused and how countries dealt with them, you will never really understand Eldemar's politics."

  "I see," Zorian said quietly. That did make a lot of sense – the Splinter Wars essentially created Eldemar in its current form, and the Weeping actually originated from Eldemar. Nobody at the time realized just how dangerous it was, in the early days of its spread, so it had significant effects on the country. It would be surprising if those two events hadn't changed things greatly. "I guess it has something to do with the significant death toll of mages those two caused?"

  "Sort of," Tinami said. "It has to do with replacing them. Before the Splinter Wars, far more mages belonged to an established House or had at least one mage parent. First generation mages like yourself were… well, not rare exactly, but far less common than they are now. After the Splinter Wars and the Weeping, though, a lot of those Houses and families went extinct or bankrupt, unable to deal with the chaos of the times or the loss of critical members. The last thing Eldemar wanted to do was downscale their operations due to lack of mages, so somebody had to replace the dead. The result was a lot of first-generation mages flooding the magical market in previously unseen numbers."

  "So?" Zorian asked. "I guess I'm a little biased, being a civilian-born student myself… but why is that a problem?"

  "Not a problem as such, no," Tinami said carefully. "But it definitely changed the politics of the country beyond recognition. First generation mages are educated and supported by the Mage Guild, and by extension the Crown of Eldemar. When Houses and other autonomous groups clash with the Crown, first-generation mages overwhelmingly side with the Crown. The influx of civilian-born mages helped Eldemar bounce back from the Splinter Wars and Weeping incredibly quickly, but it also strengthened royal power and made the Mage Guild far more important than it used to be, and that scares a lot of factions."

  "Interesting," Zorian hummed thoughtfully. "How does that relate to Cyoria and people who want to see it burn, though?"

  "Well, Cyoria is absolutely critical for first generation mages who want to make it big," Tinami said. "Most other mana wells have sharp limits on the amount of mana they produce, and thus have tight regulations about who can perform what magical business in the area. They're usually controlled by some established group or even a House, and aren't very friendly to newcomers unless they're willing to become someone's underlings. The Hole, on the other hand, spews incomprehensibly vast amounts of mana into the air every single second. Far more than anyone could really use up. There is never a shortage of ambient mana in Cyoria, so nobody cares about how many mana forges, research facilities and various other facilities are built in the city. Unsurprisingly, the city is absolutely flooded with first-generation mages, which makes it a major loyalist stronghold. It's so important to the central government, politically speaking, that some people call it the second national capital. Anyone who has an axe to grind against either the Crown or the Mage Guild might want to see it gone. Though I rather suspect that anyone expressing the desire to see it literally burned to the ground is just being overdramatic. Our external political situation is sufficiently dangerous that no one really wants to weaken the nation too much, and Cyoria is both a major population center and a magical powerhouse."

  "So, what I'm getting from your explanation is that people who most want to see Cyoria gone probably come from various Houses that dislike their historical importance being eroded," Zorian said. Sadly, that didn't explain Sudomir's remark as far as Zorian could tell – he had no idea whether Sudomir was a first-generation mage, but he definitely wasn't a part of a House. "But the thing is, there are plenty of Houses, even Noble Houses who have their headquarters stationed here. Yours, for example. Or House Noveda."

  "Not every House likes every other," Tinami shrugged. "There are plenty of them that would hold a celebration if every Aope spontaneously died in their sleep."

  Ouch.

  "But it's funny you would mention the Novedas. You know what happened to them, right?"

  "They all died except Zach," Zorian said immediately.

  "Yes, and then the Crown placed Tesen Zveri as Zach's caretaker, and he sold off nearly everything they owned to his friends and associates for pocket change while paying himself a huge caretaker fee. Few people will outright say so, but the man basically looted the entire House of everything they had. And the Noveda were very, very wealthy," Tinami explained. "If Zach wasn't such an idiot, I'd imagine he'd be extremely bitter about the city authorities that were complicit in the deed. I could totally imagi
ne myself wishing for Cyoria to burn down to ashes, if I were in his place. At least on an emotional level."

  Huh.

  "You know," Zorian said. "I think I want to hear more about that story…"

  Chapter 50

  Containment

  The idea that Tesen Zveri had been stealing from Zach was not entirely surprising to Zorian. For one thing, he'd known for quite a while that Zach and Tesen did not get along, what with Zach occasionally thrashing the man at the beginning of the restart for no apparent reason. For another, Zach had explicitly told Zorian in one of the restarts that he did not approve of how Tesen had been managing his properties. It did not take some great genius to see that this was more than just a simple difference in opinion. Theft was one of several explanations that Zorian had considered as a possible explanation, but he could never quite figure out why Tesen would risk his reputation for what was surely just pocket change to someone of his stature.

  As it turned out, Zorian had been thinking too small. Tesen wasn't siphoning some money off the Novedas' accounts here and there – he just plain went after everything they had. Surprisingly brazen. What kind of forces stood behind Tesen that would allow him to be so shameless about abusing the trust he was given? What kind of machinations and political maneuvering had compelled the royal family to assign such a hostile caretaker to the last surviving member of a House that had been so loyal to them in the past?

  All in all, when Zorian had asked Tinami to tell him more about Zach's caretaker and his looting of House Noveda's properties, he'd expected quite a story. Something lengthy, complex and dramatic. What he got instead was a rather underwhelming tale of simple greed and corruption.

  The appointment of Tesen Zveri to the position of Zach's caretaker was completely devoid of controversy at the time the decision was made. Tesen Zveri was the patriarch of Noble House Zveri, who had been close allies of House Noveda, and his reputation had been quite good at the time. Thus, when Tesen nominated himself for the position of Zach's caretaker, few people had any objections. He was a high-ranking nobleman, a powerful mage and an ally of the House that he was supposed to care for – who could really contest his appointment?

  Unfortunately, Tesen's greed turned out to be stronger than his sense of obligation or respect for his deceased allies. From the moment he had acquired the rights to manage the Novedas' property, Tesen wasted no time in abusing them as much as possible. Most of their property ended up being sold to members of House Zveri at laughably low prices, and the profits made from those sales largely went to Tesen himself in the form of exorbitant 'caretaker fees' that he paid himself for doing such a fine job at managing things.

  "And nobody protested about that?" Zorian asked incredulously. "The Crown? I heard House Noveda were big allies of the royal family. Or one of the Novedas' many vassal families and contractors, they must have had some power and they surely couldn't have liked what Tesen was doing. Or hell, other Noble Houses – at least some of them must have felt sympathetic to Zach's cause."

  "House Noveda was indeed a close ally of the Crown," Tinami confirmed. "But so is House Zveri. And unlike Noble House Noveda, Noble House Zveri survived the upheavals largely intact. For the Crown to go after Tesen would have meant alienating one of their major remaining allies at a time where they could ill afford to do so. I suspect the Crown was unpleasantly surprised by Tesen's behavior, but decided to look the other way out of practicality."

  She paused for a second, frowning slightly as she considered things.

  "Plus, I hear Tesen generously donated some of the artifacts and funds from the Novedas' treasury to the Crown," she eventually continued. "Actually, he was rather generous about spreading the Novedas' wealth around in general. I imagine that's how he quieted most of the criticism."

  "I see," Zorian hummed thoughtfully. "They have their slice of the pie, so now they're no longer inclined to protest too much. Still, if Tesen had been as blatant about things as you said, you'd think that somebody would have tried to do something. Some people just don't care about money. Or at least not enough to let something like this go unchallenged."

  "Ah, well, I make it sound really obvious but it's really not," Tinami said. "The truth is that Tesen was always going to end up selling off a lot of Noveda properties and halting many of their activities, even if he had been acting in good faith… the problem was more about who he sold things to and at what prices. He was supposed to slim down Noble House Noveda down to a strong, manageable core. Instead, he used virtually all of their wealth to enrich his family and further his political career, leaving only a tiny sliver to Zach. But that's not something that is immediately obvious to casual inspection. You would have to launch an investigation into the matter to prove anything, and that would give Tesen plenty of time to mobilize his connections and shut you down before you get anywhere…"

  Well, if it actually took some digging to realize what Tesen had done, then that would certainly help explain some things. Such as why none of their other classmates seemed to know about Zach's situation. Most of them were terrible gossips, so if Zach's situation was widely known, Zorian would have known about it too by now.

  Though really, considering how readily Tinami was telling him all this, he wondered how it was possible that she'd never told this to the rest of their class.

  He decided to just ask her about it.

  "Well, if we were having this talk a year ago or so, I wouldn't have told you all this," Tinami told him. "Back then we had Zach in our class, and I wouldn't have wanted to say anything before talking to Zach about it. But now Zach is no longer in our class, so it doesn't matter anymore."

  Ah, yes – since Zach fled Cyoria at the beginning of the restart, just like he always did in recent restarts, it made sense to assume he had given up on the academy. His poor showing during their first two years of education probably made the theory even more plausible than it would otherwise be…

  He wondered whether Zach had known what Tesen had done to his inheritance before the time loop. He had a hunch the answer was no, since nothing about Zach's pre-loop attitude indicated that he was in any way concerned about his future or angry at his guardian, but he could be wrong. Maybe Zach was a very good actor.

  "How much do you think Zach knows about all of this?" Zorian asked Tinami.

  "I don't know," she said. "I only tried to sound him out once, and… uh, I guess I was too oblique because he thought I was hitting on him."

  Zorian couldn't help it. He laughed.

  "It's not funny!" she protested.

  After several more minutes of questions and answers, Zorian found out that Tinami couldn't really give him any details about Zach's situation. She knew about the situation in general terms, but the specifics were understandably hard to come by. The conversation did, however, give Zorian an idea – what if Zach wasn't the only one that had happened to?

  "Oh yes, that sort of thing is not exactly a rare occurrence," Tinami said when he shared the notion with her. "A lot of weakened Houses and smaller families ended up being dismembered like that in the aftermath of the Splinter Wars and the Weeping. Most countries had too many things on their plate to go after every shady thing that was happening, especially if the people doing the dismembering were closely aligned with the government or some other powerful faction. In fact, compared to the fates of some other heirs, Zach is fairly lucky. Some of them were quite literally looted of everything they had. Once their 'caretakers' were done with their properties, they were basically thrown out on the streets with nothing but clothes on their backs. The Novedas are still a Noble House though, so Tesen couldn't really go that far. He needed to have some smokescreen in case someone started throwing accusations. So Zach still has his mansion and can live off a healthy trust fund, and Tesen can point to that if somebody tries to charge him of anything."

  Interesting. Zorian highly doubted that Zach wanted to see Cyoria burned to the ground just because the city's leadership was complicit in the looting of
his House – the other boy seemed too good natured for that – but he could totally imagine some the other, less fortunate and thus less forgiving individuals wanting to strike back at the people who had profited at their expense. No matter who'd get caught in the crossfire. Could Red Robe be one of the people in that position? That would help explain why the other time traveler seemed to want Cyoria destroyed so badly…

  Well, he had no way to confirm that, so that would remain just an idle thought for now. Though, once he opened the matriarch's memory packet, he should probably try to track down those kinds of people living in Cyoria and check up on them. Just in case.

  His talk with Tinami did not last long after that. They both had things they needed to be doing, and he was getting the impression that Tinami was starting to get a little suspicious of Zorian's fixation on the topic. Surprisingly, she wanted to meet with him again… or maybe not so surprisingly, since she implied she wanted to ask a favor of him. After agreeing to another meeting, Zorian said goodbye to the girl and went back home.

  The moment he arrived back at the house, he realized he had stepped into pandemonium.

  ✦ ✧ ✦

  After coming back to Imaya's place, he found that Kopriva had dropped by and brought the alchemical ingredients Kael had asked for. Normally that would be excellent news, but it turned out that her timing had been somewhat… unfortunate.

  She wasn't the only person to have dropped by at Imaya's house that day. Rea and Nochka had also decided to come over, Nochka so she could play with Kirielle, and Rea so she could have a drink and chat with Imaya. Then, Taiven arrived as well, wanting to discuss something with Kael. Thus, when Kopriva had come over to deliver the package, Kael was locked in his basement with Taiven and Imaya was busy talking to Rea. The job of letting Kopriva into the house fell to the three remaining inhabitants of the house – Kirielle, Nochka and Kana.

  Kopriva had already met Kirielle, but not Kana. Kael didn't want their classmates to know he had a daughter, so he had kept her out of sight the last time Kopriva had come over. But Kael wasn't there, and Kirielle couldn't keep a secret if her life depended on it, so when Kopriva asked Kirielle to introduce her friends, she thought nothing of revealing Kana's true identity.