Seekers of Wisdom
Thirty-First Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC
Samwell Tarly had seen and heard many strange things in Sorcerer's Deep, from chirping fey that would talk your ear off for a tithe of blood to bull men in armor as hard as Valyrian steel forged beyond the circles of the world standing guard outside a grove where the Old Gods spoke and men listened clear as the sun on your face. He'd heard seafolk tell tales of secret wars beneath the sea where the sun did not shine but the Merling King's eyes saw all. He'd played dice with chittering monkey folk, and would've likely have lost his shirt in the doing if he weren't wearing a Scholarum robe, but he'd do it all again just for the glimpse of far off Essaria still shrouded in the mists of ruin.
The Dragon King's Master of Laws dreamed the centuries away on a throne of sorcery.
The boy tried to imagine sending that in a letter to... well not his father, Sam dutifully replied to each of his father's missives, giving the answers expected of him but no more. His mother maybe? She would think the whole thing a child's fancy at best and wits gone wandering at worst, but Sam had come to understand that it was the world that had gone wandering back through the land of myth and legend. So it was with no great surprise that he greeted the news that the weather which he had just taken for being uncommonly gentle this past month was actually kept so by a flying snake god that roosted in the temple of Yss. Granted, he did blush on hearing it but that was owed to who delivered the tale.
Walda Frey was clever enough to have already unlocked her magic after only a month in the Scholarum, but she also had a sharp tongue she did not hesitate to use when someone crossed her or her kin, or even just when the mood struck her. So far she had been nothing but kind to Sam, if lording her three more years of age over him, but he figured it was only a matter of time. Still, her habit of approaching him out of the blue to talk to him was more than a little disquieting on its own.
Maybe she just likes to see me startle...
"Well do you want to see him or not?" the girl asked impatiently.
"Who?" Sam asked, then cursed himself for blurting the question out.
"The flying snake." Walda rolled her eyes so hard you would think they were about to pop out. "I swear, for someone who managed to learn magic with a couple of smudged scribblings and some dusty rat bones, you can be thick as two short planks sometimes."
"I can hardly fly now, can I?" Sam asked in what he dearly hoped was a challenging tone.
Alas, his fellow initiate did not look terribly impressed by the attempt "You don't have to, he has these big circle gatherings for children every week. Doesn't matter what kind, craftsman's apprentice or ship's boy, sorcerer or highborn. As long as you're young enough, he'll take you."
"So he's a teacher, too?" Sam asked intrigued. "What does he even teach, cloud herding?"
"It's sort of the other way around...." Walda began.
"The clouds herd you?" Sam interrupted in jest. He was inordinately proud of the fact that he made her giggle before she leveled a mock severe look at him.
"No, I meant the teacher part. He asks us questions about... all sorts of things really, things we learned in school and things you just know growing up, and you don't think about too hard. How we would like to learn and what interests us most, but he does not tell us how to think or which asnwers are right."
"But
why though?" Sam tilted his head, confused. "I mean what do children have to teach a cloud-herding snake."
"You could come along and ask him yourself," Walda replied, a determined glint in her eye.
"I have to finish these Old Tongue conjugations by tomorrow and...." Although Sam waved the parchment he had brought to the dining hall as one might try to ward off fey spirits bent on mischief with cold iron, it did not seem to do much.
"Yes, I'm sure whatever savages still talk in that tongue are very punctilious about their conjugations. Come on already."
It was really more of a command than a request, though not one Samwell minded following if he were being honest with himself.
***
The snake spirit, Zathir, did not look the least like Sam had been imagining him. Far from the mismatched creature he had been picturing in his head, many colored wings reflected in glittering coppery scales, the colors flowing smoothly into one another so beautifully you could watch it forever, not that Sam spent long gaping at the sight. Somehow the strange spirit always seemed to draw out interesting questions, even from those who at first seemed too shy to answer or had just wondered in on a lark.
"Are we allowed to ask questions too... er... Ser?" Sam asked, feeling ridiculous calling a giant talking snake a knight, but it was the first courtesy that came to mind. "But why are you doing this? What is this?"
"Of course you are, inquisitiveness has ever been the seed of wisdom," the snake replied and somehow Sam could feel a smile in the words. "To answer your question, I do this because to teach one must first learn from one's students, and all of you are I hope in school..." A chorus of ragged assent followed the question after which Zathir continued. "For all of you are seekers of wisdom, never forget that you too have a lot to teach the world."
Sorcerer's Deep Public Schools Curriculum Improved +1 LQ
OOC: Well here we are, sorry this took so long, internet troubles. Not yet edited.
