After the teachers' meeting I am quite confused. I walk quickly back to the teachers' building to change clothes. My brain is buzzing, and I need to sort my thoughts. I need to run. I don't look at the flowers or trees any more, I just push more speed with my legs just as if the ground was this messy sorcery issue, and I could jump out of it, one step at a time. Almeron's strange idea is bouncing back and forth, and I cannot understand it. Clarity, rules, expectations, discipline. Those are things that help young people orientate in their lives. Everyone knows sorcery is illegal and not respected, and that knowledge is a good guidance against stupid ideas that may grow and twist into evil ideas and actions. My feet feel heavy and i speed up even more.
After a quarter of an hour I start to get exhausted with this speed, but the anxiety is draining out of my head. Instead, I need to focus my thoughts to keep running. I slow down only a little bit to make another fifteen minutes. When I get back to my apartment I am in peace with my thoughts. I still don't understand what else Almeron could achieve by studing magical thinking except an unintentional message to imply acceptance to magic in school. But now I don't worry any more, I just leave that for Almeron to worry about. He is, after all, very good at getting messages through the way he intends.
The other thought has also relieved. Since I saw Mr Woodsham in the Masked group - I am quite convinced that it was him, although not enough to tell other teachers than Almeron - I have had an urge to go to his dormitory and start cross-examination, or start stalking him in the school. But I agree that those things must not be done, as the school corridors with their stone walls are far too echoing to allow anyone to follow someone without being heard. And we don't want students to realise how big issues are going on right now. Oh, Woodsham would immediately start spying around, as he seems to think himself as some kind of detective.
But after a good run, I let that disturbing thought slip away as well. I go wash myself.
With the daily duties done, I can now focus on things that might bring some light to the strange events in the school. Geltoech is an obvious reference from the Great Battle, and the idea of oppression of sorcerers by other citizens reminds me clearly of the rhetoric from those days. I am fairly sure that the Masked group has read The History of Sorcery and The Great Battle. From there I might find some clues about what they are up to.
I pour myself a large glass of rhubarb beer and go to my book shelf in the living room. It is dark varnished wood and taller than a man, with thick deep shelves. It is from King Plethoer's era and thus worthy of my book collection. It is also practical for hiding sensitive materials behind other books, and it even has the secret locker for the most precious items.
I pull my copy of The History of Sorcery and The Great Battle out and look at it from the outside. I haven't read her for such a long time. I was lucky to get it, as it was not yet forbidden when I got one of the very first copies. I knew it was an interesting piece of propaganda and I thought it would have its merits in documenting many ideas that sorcerers attempted to make popular at the time. But its true value as a collectible was realised only later when it was banned and most books destroyed. That happened after the trial against Archibald Rey.
I sit on my armchair, take a few deep gulps of my glass and start turning the pages of the book. There is a whole chapter about Geltoech in the first part of the book about ancient sorcery. It is actually quite close to what my other history books say about it. Peaceful god from the west, later used as a symbol of sorcery wisdom. I somehow remembered that this book was much more political about it. There must be something more in the chapters about the Battle.
I flip pages forward to find the right page. Then I notice that there is a piece of paper between the pages about the escalation of the battle. I take the paper and fold it open.
It is a newspaper clip about the trial and it is almost as old as the book. This is strange. I don't remember seeing it or putting it between the book. Was it there when I bought it? Newspapers are not that common, as most people read them from the news wall on the market square. So, someone has put extra effort obtaining one and placing it here.
"Yesterday in Archibald Rey's trial the judges heard more testimonies. The first witness was Mrs Rey who said that the accusations against his husband were fabricated and he did not plan any assassinations not to mention a revolution. She used her recently published book The History of Sorcery and The Great Battle as evidence for her claims. Mrs Rey said that she had done research on the history and philosophy of sorcery for years and continued it during the battle. Her material consists of interviews and writings of dozens of sorcerer and non-sorcerer scholars and activists. She said that there was no evidence in the material about violent plans against the king or his soldiers. At this point, the audience started booing and stumping so that the chairman had to remove seven people from the room.
"The Prosecutor used the other recent history book The History of the Great Battle as his evidence showing that there was restlessness, riots, and protests among the sorcerers well before the battle. Mrs Rey answered that those were protests against the one-year-old King's Rule 241 About Applying Permissions to Perform Sorcery, not against King himself. When the prosecutor said his evidence shows otherwise, he received a roar of applause and the chairman had to pause the trial again for five minutes. Then the Prosecutor went on for ten minutes citing King's book about detailed evidence against the sorcerer group that was lead by Mr Rey. The audience was hardly capable of remaining silent during the Prosecutor's lecture."
This is interesting. I had forgotten that she used her book as evidence in the trial. The verdict I remember very well: Archibald Rey was found guilty - together with two other sorcerer leaders who also survived the battle - of the assassination of Private Jacobs, an attempted revolution, and three manslaughters during a mutiny that escalated to become the Great Battle.
I look at the chapter where the clip was placed. It is the very same that Sharon Rey was using as evidence in the trial. I start reading it, and it seems that the journalist has pretty precisely captured what Sharon Rey also says in her book, although with much more words and detailed descriptions of events and data. I start reading the chapter word by word, and I must admit that it is clearly written and the data is systematically presented. It would actually be compelling in the eyes of someone who has not had direct contacts to the eyewitnesses and has experienced many of the events himself. I am not surprised that the old King thought this book was dangerous and had to be destroyed. It indeed is, in hands of uncritical readers.
One chapter especially catches my eye, because the word Jacobs is mentioned there several times.
"The assassination of Private Hans Jacobs was maybe the most important single event that triggered the cascade of the Great Battle. After that, there were several violent attacks that seemed to be motivated by aggression of sorcerers against their fellow citizens. This was deduced based on the fact that some of the violence was magical such as possessions or ergot poisonings. However, these attacks were poorly investigated, and the culprits were not caught. Our research team performed own interviews and listed several observations not mentioned in the reports. Nine of them shared similar patterns and are unlikely to be unrelated. The most distinct feature was that some kind of paint or ink was used to write messages or symbols on walls or on the ground. The longest message was "Jacobs is only a beginning", but typically it was just spots of paint or a large J. They were also attacks against apparently random citizens without magic powers. The nine cases and their locations are ..."
"It is not surprising that the word about these attacks spread across the whole country within a few days. The events created an outrage and fear of sorcery, and also fear within sorcerers of revenge attacks. Indeed, this fear was not unjustified. We have collected fairly reliable data about thirteen other cases of violence against sorcerers and non-sorcerers. These do not follow the same pattern as the nine previously mentioned ones, and in many cases the culprits were identified as people with previous violence issues who explained their latest crime by pointing out that their victim belonged to "a filthy group of people". The culprit and the victim or victims were typically from the same village but they barely knew each other.
I stop here to think. Sharon Rey paints a picture as if the whole battle was an escalating violence epidemic caused by fear but without a clear agenda. But we know that there was a systematic wave of violence by people who knew magic after Jacobs' death. And we know for fact that Jacobs was murdered when he was guarding this young Tek Hanson in the Kalehar prison. The stupid boy was arrested for not obeying the King's rule 241. He was doing his magic tricks in the middle of the market square at they busiest time in the morning. It was obviously a demonstration against the rule, but it was also dangerous, so the local chief had a good reason to lock him up to calm down. The visit of the three sorcerer leaders at the prison gate really did not help the situation, but resulted in a huge fight between them and Jacobs - although with words only. But what do you know, only after a few hours when it was already dark, Jacobs was killed in front of the very gate and Hanson was released. So what does Sharon Rey have to say about this?
"The murder of Jacobs has several unclear details. It happened between dusk and midnight, when there was a switch of guards and Jacob was found dead. The cause of death was a blow in the back of the head, but Tek Hanson claims he never heard sounds of that, or anyone collapsing in full armor. Instead, he told that around eleven, he heard someone turn the key in his cell door. When nothing else happened, he waited for ten minutes of so, tried the door, which was now open, and sneaked to freedom. There was no guard at the gate at the time, living or dead. Therefore, it seems that Jacob had left his post but came back before the switch, and was killed after the escape. This is in contrast to the initial official investigation that concluded that Jacobs was killed before Hanson escaped."
I suddenly look up from the book. I was supposed to learn about Geltoech, and now I have spent all evening reading about how the seeds of the Great Battle were sown. But I must admit that Sharon Rey is an interesting writer, even if she puts her own artificial data in for propagandist reasons. Although I am pretty sure I read the book when I got it, there seem to be many stories I had forgotten. Anyway, now it is time to stop. I'll read more about Geltoech and sorcerers' superiority tomorrow.
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