Seyashen had already picked up three different books from the right side of the study's entrance way before Trizelle entered it. Completely absorbed in the material before him, he leafed through the fourth one for nearly fifteen minutes before noticing her presence.
"Oh- I'm sorry," Seyashen smiled with a touch of embarrassment. "It... uh... isn't often that I see demonology works..."
"The Stonerows house multiple copies of each of those texts," Trizelle replied with a raised eyebrow.
"...in a private collection," Seyashen finished, letting out a gale of breath that he didn't realize he'd been holding.
"Talk," Trizelle admonished, sweeping past him and into her alchemy area. "Quickly."
Seyashen put the book that he'd been holding back onto the shelf slowly, contemplating his words. "Are you... familiar... with Abethann Illance?"
"As I am with Semnemac," the court mage muttered as she looked at the shelves above her potion making tools. Seyashen followed her gaze, but could see nothing of particular interest among the bottles and pots of the various substances. "Yet, he sends you."
The golden-eyed Tiefling shifted from hoof to hoof for a few minutes in silence before venturing to speak again, and when he did, his tone had withered slightly.
"I'm afraid."
"Of your ability?" Trizelle asked immediately, bringing her line of sight back down until she was staring at the wall immediately in front of her. "Of the message? Or of me?"
There was no delicate way to suggest that all three questions could be answered affirmatively, but Seyashen attempted to think of one anyway.
A few moments after this sadly thoughtful pause, the court mage moved out of her study as though she were through speaking to Seyashen. He blinked at her sharp departure, then followed her. With a pained, but determined gait, the older woman descended the stone-cut spiral stairs that led to a heavy wood-and-iron door, which she pushed at with some effort. At first, Seyashen thought he might have to move forward and help her, but before he could get to her side, the door sprung wide, letting the sunshine of the morning flood in upon them both.
"The master necromancy circle," the court mage managed as she made her way through the door and began walking into the open courtyard beyond, "is the closest to the divination circle. Why?"
Seyashen looked from the strangely familiar, pale-stoned circle to the jet black obsidian one, then shook his head. "I don't know, Master Ranclyffe."
"It's a common question in my Introduction to Divination class," the Human noted as she paused a few steps away from the two circles of which she spoke. "So I ask the class, 'Who or what is necromancy's audience, or focus?' "
It took Seyashen a few moments for him to realize that the question was now being posed to him. While it had been leveled calmly enough, the Tiefling somehow sensed that it was a right of passage to further information and cooperation.
Well, fortunately, I have more than enough necromancy experience.
"The dead," he answered quietly.
"Correct," the court mage retorted sharply. "Now, who or what is the focus of a divination spell?"
There were a few moments' worth of silence during which Trizelle did not so much as turn around to face the person to whom she was speaking.
Amazing that Semnemac, who speaks to and for the dead, is warmer than the woman who's supposed to speak to the... oh.
"Living things," Seyashen responded as the realization dawned upon him for the first time. "Almost any living thing, actually."
"And the boundary between those two forms of existence is thin," Trizelle breathed, taking a moment to look up at the clear sky. "Thin enough that even untaught diviners may feel a strong necromancer's effects."
"Should I apologize?" Seyashen replied, confused.
"Te'valshath knew your childhood rage while yet unborn," the court mage said suddenly, moving around the divination and necromancy circles to a sort of inner courtyard that lay beyond. "Necromancers, diviners and healers all paid in spades for Illance's indiscretion and disrespect. His end was well deserved."
"You- you know-" Seyashen began haltingly, stunned by the succinct summary of two separate problems.
"I would hardly be worthy of my post if I didn't," Trizelle noted quietly, stopping to look at the sky again. "Yet, not every ability is automatically a strength. It was best for me to suffer Abethann's visions and Te'valshath's misdeeds with the rest of the ignorant populace. The true sons of the Gates of Death did what had to be done."
Seyashen nodded, not able to verbally respond immediately. Trizelle, meanwhile, moved all the way to her teaching area, which sat, unadorned, just beyond her divination circle. A simple, long wood bench that sat upon two rough-hewn stones, one could have mistaken it for a place where the castle gardens could be viewed and enjoyed. Seyashen, however, saw what seemed to be two generations of magic practitioners that happily sat around the bench, chatting to each other about theories and lessons as though they were still in class. There was even a half-Elf, which surprised Seyashen until he realized that she seemed familiar with both generations.
"Thank you," Seyashen managed, as he looked up from the peaceful scene.
Trizelle, who had moved to the other side of the bench to stand with crossed arms and look out at the gardens, simply lifted her left hand to give a single, dismissive wave.
"Master Ranclyffe, your... son-"
"Dresan," Trizelle supplied when Seyashen broke off uncomfortably.
Seyashen blinked a few times, not certain whether he should continue in the manner that he'd prepared to, but quickly decided not to attempt to hide anything from a woman who had been able to divine information from him without even looking at him for the majority of the time that he'd been in her company.
"Do you know, Master Ranclyffe, why I cut off my horns? I'm sure you noticed them missing."
Master Ranclyffe turned her head halfway over her shoulder without saying anything in response.
"I allowed a Dragonborn clan leader to do it. He said it would cut off my connection to demons, and I- I didn't really believe it, but I just- let him do it. I think now that I was just... trying to get rid of angry memories. And bitterness. And it didn't work."
"No," the court mage said in a tone so razor sharp that Seyashen felt reproved. "It wouldn't."
And suddenly, Seyashen caught sight of the slender female who had appeared in the Illance house. She firmed her lips, clenched her fists, and nodded.
"Then why did you do it?" he asked gently as he stepped toward the older woman. "Why are you still doing it? To a living being, no less?"
"Dresan is an adult," Master Ranclyffe spat back acridly.
"You treated him this way since he was a child!" Seyashen demanded. "Instead of teaching him to respect and control the infernal heritage permitted him by Asmodeus himself, you are teaching him to perpetuate a cycle of emotional abandonment that was instilled in you long ago, in the effort to forget Thultanthar and bury forever all that place did to you. But what will he do to his own eventual child, who will be, by definition, a Tiefling? Your distance might give your heart a false peace- and it is just as false as the 'peace' I pretended to have while living a lie among hostile Dragonborn- but you are hurting him. You are punishing him for the sins of his grandfather."
The woman snorted, then turned her head completely away again. "I wanted him dead before he was born, Questioner. That has nothing to do with his grandfather."
"Look me in the face, Master Ranclyffe, and tell me that you aren't handing the pain of your father's disapproval down to your son, and we will all believe you," Seyashen said very quietly. "I, and Abethann- and your great aunt, Priscilla. Priscilla has been so upset about this generational curse that you are coldly handing down to the one Ranclyffe child that can least afford to receive it that it took her weeks to calm down enough to relate her message to me. When I first saw her, in the house of Illance, she wouldn't even tell me who she was. Priscilla knows your mother's heart is in you- the heart that kept Dresan's secret away from those that would kill him, kept him close enough to watch over, and even in his adulthood, kept his near-criminal partner out of prison by putting her to work for the Council- please, Master Ranclyffe. You've changed since you went to Shade, it's true, but that hardly sounds like a woman who still wants her only son dead."
"Now, that," Trizelle said as she turned all the way around and crossed her arms over her chest, "took courage indeed."
"Will you go to Suzail, Master?" Seyashen asked, his voice nearly a whisper.
The older woman looked around herself for a few moments, and Seyashen watched a brief look of phantom sadness cross her face. "One condition."
"I'm listening," Seyashen replied.
"Mimsa is spoiled and needs a firm hand- although Aric is the most magically and mentally capable, he is also a former warlock. People are still terrified of him. The Lady Kaionne is an acceptably competent teacher."
"I'll ask her to stand in for your classes," the Tiefling nodded. "Fear nothing."
"Take your own advice," the Human mage shot back immediately, moving past him without bothering to actually dismiss herself from the conversation properly.
For a few seconds, standing in the courtyard with all the spectral forms that only he could see, Seyashen was again struck silent.
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