Chapter 33.2: Truth in the Legends

All the other asura exchanged uncomfortable but interested glances. Minkus was the one to reply. “Does that mean—”

Vaff cut him off with a sharp gesture and sent him to close the door. Jinkke, Wepp, Penny, Onn, and Drixxi all gathered tightly around the old professor, followed again by Minkus when he returned.

Professor Vaff regarded them all soberly. “What I explain next does not leave this room or this company. Am I understood?” His gaze wandered from one of them to the next, and everyone nodded their acknowledgement.

“I might have discreetly imbued you alone with this knowledge,” Vaff said sternly to Jinkke, “had you merely made your query without an audience. We could have seen what there was to discover and no one else here would have been the wiser. Instead, your skepticism—generally a boon, I admit—and subsequent lack of discretion has foregone that potentiality, and here we sit.” He rubbed his temple.

Penny rested a hand on her hip, scowling. “Why didn’t you just lie?” she asked bluntly. “All you had to say was, ‘Yes, it’s all made up. Now go away.’ People do it literally every day.”

The professor froze. Pursing his fat lips, he considered the question as though he’d honestly not thought of it. “My ears, I am under stress this semester. A fine idea, Penny. An excellent idea. If only I’d considered it.” Penny put a hand to her face, but Vaff went on. “In any case, regardless of what truth I may or may not have officially stated to this point, there is no going back. What is important is that none of you must share this knowledge with anyone, ever. What I am about to disclose is a Synergetics secret that we clearly haven’t held as closely as we’d prefer to believe. Still, if one of you reveals this knowledge to anyone outside these walls, and I discover it…” He wagged a finger, letting the silence stress the threat he hadn’t yet made. “I will immediately and entirely expunge your educational record from this college. So long as I remain employed here—which I intend to do until Primordus ends me or the Alchemy recycles me—you can trust that my vow stands. Am I understood?”

Someone gulped, but Penny couldn’t tell who it was. Penny just shrugged. She had no idea how such a threat could actually work, but at least for her, it really didn’t matter. Besides, there was something of a light in the old asura’s eye. She wasn’t sure he was quite as reluctant to share as he was letting on.

When all had agreed to his terms, the professor sighed dramatically and raised a hand to his forehead. “Very well. This legend you’ve heard, of the secret Zinn holdings of the College of Synergetics, is not strictly a legend.”

Jinkke burst, thrusting her hands out. “What?”

The old asura nodded.

Jinkke gaped, stammering half-words as she processed the information, and silently Penny scoffed at her. Gods alive. After all the old man’s buildup, how in Torment was the asura woman surprised by this? He’d all but said it the moment she asked him.

“But—” Jinkke finally said, piecing the words together as she brushed blond hair back from her face. “But Zinn was a renegade, Professor: a maladroit exile. All his work was discredited, incinerated, and he never again so much as showed his face in a self-respecting asuran community.” She floundered for words, as though more should be said. Her brother simply grinned.

“Oh, progeny,” Vaff tsked, shaking his head. “This may be a valuable lesson after all. Do you honestly think it’s a reasonable assumption that when an asura is exiled by the Council, it is always for a just cause? Furthermore, when the Council orders someone’s discoveries and documents incinerated, do you expect every asura everywhere to obey the edict?” He gently waved the papers in his hand and started to snicker. “Even these documents your brother copied, is it truly most reasonable to conclude they were preserved by humans?

He reached out and touched Jinkke’s shoulder. “Child, there is always someone willing to ignore a Council mandate if there is genuinely unique knowledge, technology, or power to be had.”

Penny nodded passively. The old fellow made sense. From what Penny had seen, most asura would trade their next breath for an interesting experiment, so why wouldn’t someone here have kept this Zinn guy’s work?

Minkus was beaming now. “Jinkke, see? Didn’t I tell you? Appa was telling us the truth!”

Seeing her brother’s excitement, Jinkke regained her composure. A thought seemed to come to her, despite her still wary expression. “Professor,” she said, still a little hesitantly, “if all this is true, which it seems to be, do you perchance know exactly which of Zinn’s resources are held by the college?” She flashed another glance at Minkus, but continued speaking to Vaff. “The likelihood of the college possessing Zinn’s formula for this Seer essence or any components retaining any of its power is incredibly unlikely, I realize, but my brother here is determined to…”

She trailed off, recognizing the older asura shaking his head in preemptive response to the question. “I’m sorry,” he said earnestly. “I have no knowledge of exactly what the holdings are. Given the far disciplinary gap between Zinn’s ancient golemancy and my transdimensional studies, I have never even made an effort to access that section of the college’s collection.”

Steepling her fingers in front of her face, Jinkke looked away from the professor, considering her next move. It was then her attention settled once more on her brother, whose eyes had grown as big as teacups, filled with a strange mix of thrill and sadness. Penny couldn’t tell if it was the stuff about Zinn, his fear for Ventyr and Yissa, or maybe just the pleasure of actually being recognized for once. Whatever it was, though, he was deeply engaged, and judging by the look in her eye, Jinkke recognized that. She seemed to recognize him.

Stiffening, she turned back to Vaff, and perhaps for the first time, Penny felt a tinge of respect. “I was wrong, Professor,” Jinkke said, choosing her words carefully. “We need your further assistance after all. Are you able, and of course are you willing to—”

Vaff cut in, sliding his lenses back up his nose. “Grant you unparalleled access to the all-but-forgotten relics of a forbidden asura exile?”

Jinkke’s lips tightened awkwardly. “Yes,” she affirmed, eyeing the room as though someone new could have entered. “That is the vector on which I was headed.”

Falling quiet again, Vaff studied her, his brow furrowing until he finally shook the troubled look away and raised three fingers. “I can attempt it, but under three conditions.”

“Anything,” Minkus piped, stepping forward into the conversation.

“First,” Vaff said, “as previously stated, you hold your silence on the matter: every one of you. None of your peers can know about this. Not your professors or even the dean will ever hear mention of this from your lips.” His attention fell briefly to Onn. “There will be no leveraging this to gain personal standing. Am I clear?” The scrawny male appeared scorned, but he nodded.

Vaff suddenly flipped through the stack of transcripts still in his hand. “Second,” he said, turning the page to them, “if I can find what you need down in the vault, and you proceed in your efforts to successfully find this mursaat jade, you will bring me back a sample for study, along with whatever defense you’re able to construct. If this magic-infused mineral holds half the properties you've described—half the properties Zinn describes—then the historic and scientific importance of recovering it may be substantial enough to put our college on a path toward the next Snaff Prize. At even a cursory consideration, there are countless potential applications!”

Penny took pause at that and scanned the others for expressions of disconcert. All the other heads in the room bobbled excitedly at the professor’s remarks, though. Visions of Skixx—that little shit—and the girl who’d lost her father flashed through Penny’s mind. She even suddenly recalled Ventyr’s tale of the tormented soldiers in the wildlands.

“Modern applications?” Penny asked, looking around the group again. Surely someone else was thinking it. “Isn't that exactly what we’re all so afraid this Kikka bitch has done with the stuff? It’s why we're after this Seer-essence junk to begin with, right: to stop a modern application? Why the hell should we bring any of it home?”

Wepp was the quickest to turn, with no one far behind him, and suddenly all attention had shifted to Penny. Vaff, however, was first to speak. He squinted at her curiously. “Did you just say Kikka?”

Penny flashed a confirming glance at Wepp. She thought that was the name he'd used earlier.

Wepp nodded. 

“Yeah,” Penny said, looking back to the old asura with a confident nod. “I said Kikka. Why?”

Vaff rubbed his chin with considerable thought, and Penny caught Minkus’ eye. He only shrugged at her, apparently not understanding what had just happened either.

Gods, Penny thought, rolling her eyes, what have I stepped in now?

Everyone waited another few moments before Jinkke finally spoke. “Do you know this person, Professor?”

Vaff pursed his lips again and shrugged heavily. “Perhaps,” he sighed. “It is difficult to say. I have had a few students by that name, but one comes particularly to mind.” His words dwindled off, and for another several moments, they all waited.

This time, Wepp was the one to break the silence. His face was cold and hard in a way that even made Penny uncomfortable. “Was she a despotic, murdering psychopath bent always on her own ends?” he asked.

Vaff grimaced, his mouth pulling taut across his face. “Not precisely,” he sighed. “Not yet anyway. She did show early signs of megalomania: certainly no regard for non-asuran life and only a little more than that for her fellows, when it behooved her.” He gestured a point in the air about half a head below his nose. “About so tall; small, bent ears; aqua hair; and ice-blue eyes. She looked very progenic, almost innocent—until you got a taste of that ambition. My ears, the temper she displayed at every perceived slight. Oh, she could have done great things, historic things, if only she’d seen beyond her own nose.”

Wepp nodded, still rigid. “I've never seen her in full-spectrum color, but your description sounds suspiciously consistent.” His countenance fell as he added, “she had my partner expunged.”

“I see,” Vaff mused again. He gave Wepp a second to collect himself before continuing. “And you say she's operating with the Inquest now?”

“The Inquest is a perfectly legal organization,” Wepp huffed.

Penny sneered, biting her tongue. She still knew very little about anything the asura did, Inquest or not, but the more she heard about the group, and the more Wepp insisted on its legitimacy, the more she doubted him. Penny remembered the asura girl, the peacemakers’ distrust, and Wepp’s own conclusions regarding Skixx’s murder. He could say what he wanted to help him believe he was on the right side of things; she really didn’t care. But someone in the Inquest was going to pay for that girl’s loss.

“It doesn’t damn well matter what the Inquest is or isn’t,” she snapped, setting her attention back on the professor. “It sounds like we're talking about the same person, so what do you know about her?”

“Nothing half so concrete as your associate here does, it seems.” Vaff gestured to Wepp. “But from what I do know of her—if she is indeed the same person—I give you all my third condition all the more insistently. Be cautious. Do not involve yourselves in this matter further than you need to, and for Alchemy’s sake, leave any true conflict to the Vigil soldiers. These are not people you want to scuffle with, however noble your endeavor may be.”

Jinkke was the first to nod. “Yes, Professor. We will. We will exercise all valid caution, maintain secrecy, and retrieve samples for your study.”

With that last note, Penny glanced distrustfully at her.

“Does that mean—” Minkus began.

Vaff cut him off. “Yes, I will aid you. At least as far as I can.”

As Minkus’ grin began to spread across his face, Vaff turned and started for the door. “First, though, I must convince Dean Phlunt that I have valid need of the vault key, and I must do so without arousing his interest in any of this: a potentially difficult task, in light of recent events at the stacks.” Without looking back, he waved toward the door. “Jinkke, please accompany me, you and your brother.”

Hopping after him in unison, the siblings rushed past Penny. Minkus extended a hand to pat her arm as he passed. Strangely the gesture was a little reassuring.

Right on the heels of Professor Vaff, whose gray topknot wobbled with every step, Minkus and Jinkke rounded the doorway and disappeared out of view, leaving Penny and Wepp once again alone. Jinkke’s krewemates were also still there, it was true. But the moment Vaff had gone, the two silently slipped back to their own table, returning to whatever work had previously consumed them, without so much as another glance at the two guests.

So, it was Penny and Wepp, by themselves, with nothing to do but wait.