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In the beginning, it was straight out of a dream. I remember a sense of gittiness, feeling so terribly soaked in anticipation that I thought my heart would beat out of my chest, or that I’d vomit everything onto the shiny wood floors. It was a level of anxiety on par with fear, for it felt neither real nor escapable. The giant pillars of marble, the great archway, magnificent double doors, and the parade of students in fresh Cinderfall uniforms remained ingrained as a prickly memory. Imperial and Autumnal banners flagged the path down the massive corridor to the great golden hall. It had been a sunny day, but the seniors and teachers had done something completely unexpected. They conjured a tunnel of illusory, magicical landscapes that floated inexplicably around us. Shooting stars, only they were not real. They were of mara. It was all mara, a projection of things that could not exist, a projection of skill with the promise of what to expect in the years to come. Just spectacle, a glimpse into arcane academia. How lucky I felt on that day.
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Affinity or no affinity, no caster can navigate the arcane—or the world for that matter—without a strong lexicon. That’s why learning literature was mandatory, no matter how tedious or esoteric it may have been. Every student in Cinderfall dealt with the same obligation, the task to take the class historically known as Crata, which is basically the imperial alphabet for incantation. They’re the same symbols we use for runes. Runes. Enhance. Everything.
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A well-executed incantation needs precise enunciation from the caster. Hence, being tired or out of breath would hamper the mage’s spellcasting ability. Why do you think we need Fitness class? To obtain beach bodies? Nay. In the heat of a arcane warfare, stamina is everything. Otherwise, we may as well throw feces at one another. Arcane prowess doesn't just rely on the ability to chant or recite words. Anyone can mount a fireball with the proper hand signs. What you need is an umimpeded voice to cast something worthwhile and powerful. Hence, though it might not seem as glamorous as Magistry or monster slaying, the mastery of Crata is essential for the mages and magecraft. Essential!
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However, if you gave me a thousand characters of Crata, I could tell you a thousand ways to forget about them. So, what could I remember? I remembered the crudeness of the classrooms above anything else. Lectures fell into the bottomless pits of my brain, but the things that didn’t matter. Those stuck with me. The shelves were full of books, and in between the books, there were more books, and in between the books, there were scrolls and scripts. From top to bottom, the nooks and crannies provided stories of space. Which is to say, you could find neither nooks nor crannies, just dust and dream sequences to fill the void left by tedious lessons.
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Many students had kept their hands busy, carving graffiti in the old desks; the shambling shelves could barely hold the books, and the floorboards were fleeced with lint. Was there a carpet covering the floor at one point? A ghetto in its own right, the windowless room made you plea for the outer world. Was there a world outside the class? Was this school even real? Were we trapped in a maze of lectures and homework? Existential threats concerned me in the boring hours of study. That classroom, dear folks, was dimmer and dourer than demonology. Which begged the question: how did Professor Renaud keep his enthusiasm? Perhaps, he was the one who sucked it all out of the room. He was parasitic. It sustained him.
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"And that is one example of hyperbole," exclaimed Professor Renaud with full fervor. "A stanza is nothing if not a pool of rhetorical devices and a long-winding joke about teenage love. Crata, they say, is the primeval language of the gods. So, what is incantation if not divine poetry? 'It's the literary scheme of existence.’"
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"Uhuh."
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Ding dong. The bell tower chimed, riling us out of our seats in near-perfect synchronization.
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"Do not forget to study your terms for the next class. What good is magic if we do naught but ramble?"
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I didn’t mind Crata class, but our lessons on figurative language reminded me of a philosophical question I once read. If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? If nobody understands the poem, is it beautiful? These were the kinds of questions that kept the demons at bay.
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Herbalism, on the other hand, that was a show. That class worked like a shortcut around my physical problems. The discipline surrounding potions and draughts has long been a worthwhile fascination only dwarfed by, you know, the flare of conjuring fireballs. No pun intended. But to ease human suffering, to improve general wellness, that is noble. And yet, the popular children scoffed at the idea of crafting anything with their own hands. We would be less than civilized without herbalism in my opinion.
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The course instructor was an old mistress named Madame Winnego. Madame was her first name. Mysterious, elderly, and draped in black drapes, her witch-like appearance intimidated me at first. She had the hood; she had the crow's feet—on her face and in her jars— yet her hair was surprisingly straight and voluminous on the sides of her neck. Its vibrant whiteness was rather distracting, even as she ground frog's feet in a bowl.
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"Remember to keep the feet dry. Water, and other other dilutants hamper the remedial potency," she spoke softly.
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I had this sense of being in the wilderness; the greenhouse of a classroom resembled a jungle with all its potted plants, overgrowth, and annoying humans. Plants on the racks, stalks at our backs, and plenty of sun and solution feeding the roots at our feet. But then, the strangeness came into play. You could see the antlers, jarred organs, and velvet bottles of what may have been venom. What a quaint realm of decorations, hosted by an interesting teacher I couldn’t believe was from our world.”
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"Rot-Myrhh is the maple extract from haunted trees, young ones. Combined with the gelatinous extract of Hallow Leaves, you have a potent salve for blight wounds. If nothing so dire, its function is also purgative. Say goodbye to constipation. Eh, eh eh, eh."
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The old creature was living on a better plane.
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A student raised his hand.
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"Yes, young one."
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"Madame Winnego, I once caught hearsay of how cheese has unique healing properties."
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"What kind of cheese?"
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"I do not remember."
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"Then it might not be so special."
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We collectively snorted at that.
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What I learned on the first day: the difference between potions mortal medicine is that potions require a magical catalyst. You may find many of the remedies for health, wellness and much more within nature’s crags. Alternatively, a little bit of alchemy and conjuration can replicate the wonders of our world and amek the body’s ability seem unseemly.
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