Chapter 507: Dancing with Snakes

Leaving the reception room, Richard returned to his dorm and locked the door behind him.

He cleared everything off his desk, leaving only a clean tablecloth.

Tarot Cards, a Copper Dish, Runestones, and a small half-bottle of Starfall Sand.

Madam Marie had initially told him not to perform any divination for half a year. That half-year was now up.

First, he took out the Sphinx Lamp, which was closely tied to the Black Soil River, and placed it on the corner of the desk.

First question: "What will happen if I take it with me?"

He shuffled the deck, cut the cards, and flipped over three.

Death, upright.

A black-armored knight on a white horse. Beneath its hooves, there was no distinction between king and peasant.

The Tower, reversed.

The tower still stood, but lightning had already struck. The people inside were trapped at the windows, unable to escape.

The Moon, upright.

Two dogs barking at the moon; the creeping things crawling out of the water were only halfway there.

Richard left the three cards laid out side by side for a long time. Then he gathered the deck and performed a second divination. Death, upright, and The Tower, reversed, were still there.

He moved the Sphinx Lamp off the corner of the desk and tucked it away into the hidden compartment under his bed.

Third shuffle: "What will happen if I don't take it?"

The Hermit, upright.

A man standing on a mountain with a lantern. The lamp was small, illuminating only the patch of ground right at his feet.

Seven of Cups, reversed.

The illusions in the seven cups had scattered, leaving only one that was real.

Temperance, upright.

An angel pouring water back and forth between two cups, pouring out exactly the right amount.

He drew one last card by itself, asking the most crucial question: "If something goes wrong, can I get out in one piece?"

The Chariot, upright.

Richard's heart settled. This meant that if hostilities broke out, he could leave immediately.

Finally came the Runestones. He tossed seven stones into the Copper Dish. The Ear of Wheat rolled outside the dish, the Double Circle remained in the center, and the Crescent Moon rested right beside the Double Circle. The Hammer pressed against the rim of the dish—half in, half out—while the Water Drop and the Spiral rolled away completely.

The meaning was perfectly clear. This trip would yield no harvest (the Ear of Wheat), but relationships (the Double Circle) and changes (the Crescent Moon) were tied together. Action (the Hammer) was stuck on the edge, with one foot out the door.

Go, but don't bring any Signature items.

He had also divined the path of simply not going, and the result had been only one tier above the absolute worst outcome.

For a student singled out by both Sir Muller and his own mentor, finding an excuse to back out at this critical juncture would be slapping a label on his forehead declaring that he had a problem.

Furthermore, this was the Imperial Capital. All his connections were here; it was his true stronghold.

Even in the worst-case scenario, he was confident he could get himself out.

The night passed without dreams. When he woke up, Richard breathed a sigh of relief. No Precognitive Dream had triggered, which settled his mind even more.

This meant not only was he fine, but nothing would happen to those close to him either.

So Richard was in a good enough mood to head over to the Iliad Hall bright and early to watch Catherine's debate.

The topic she had drawn was: "In times of war, should the treatment of deserters be strictly limited to military law, or should exceptions be allowed?" She was on the opposition.

Richard sat in the sixth row. Before she walked up to the podium, he even waved to her.

The red-haired girl had looked heavily preoccupied, but his interruption completely broke her pent-up tension. She shot him a rather exasperated glare.

"Opening statement for the opposition."

As she stood at the podium, her voice was hoarse and low. Every syllable seemed forced out.

In the first minute, she cited an 1815 court-martial precedent, dismantling the proposition's core argument that "exceptions equal collapse."

In the second minute, she started to speed up.

Richard frowned. She was trying to get everything out before her voice completely gave way.

By the third minute...

"...Therefore, anyone who refuses to examine individual cases on the grounds that 'no exceptions can be made' is not truly upholding military law, but rather..."

Her mouth kept moving, but no sound came out.

Catherine reached out to grip the podium and gave a forceful, dry cough.

She tried again, but only produced a breathy wheeze.

The moderator walked over from the side.

"Miss Blackwood?"

The red-haired girl pulled a small notebook from her coat pocket, opened it, and wrote a single line.

"I forfeit."

At the judges' table, an associate professor set down his pen.

MacFie sat with his arms crossed over his chest. He hadn't said a word from beginning to end, seemingly having guessed this outcome.

The moderator announced, "Match two of the third round, the opposition forfeits. The proposition wins."

Catherine snapped her notebook shut and stepped down from the podium.

On his way back to the hotel, Halaf pulled the roster from his inside pocket and added another question mark next to the circle drawn around "Catherine Blackwood."

At four o'clock that afternoon, inside a private booth at the teahouse in the Academy District.

Richard pushed the door open to find three people already seated inside.

"Mr. Williams."

The man stood up and offered his hand first.

"Hello, Professor Halaf."

When they shook, his hand was dry, its temperature and grip strength completely normal. There was nothing unusual about it at all.

Richard sat down in the remaining empty chair.

Of the four people in the room, every single one besides himself followed the Abyss Tradition.

Richard cursed frantically in his head, but his face maintained a polite smile.

Halaf initiated the conversation.

"Mr. Williams, have you ever been over to our side at the Black Soil River?"

"No. The furthest I've ever been is the Highlands up north."

"The Highlands are very nice," Halaf agreed amiably.

"I went there once, twenty years ago. The edges of the stones there are carved with script."

"Ogham."

"Right. You know it too?" He smiled, the wrinkles around his eyes instantly smoothing out.

"I've just picked up a smattering."

"Then you probably aren't familiar with the mud from our Black Soil River."

Halaf steered the conversation back to his own domain.

"We have specific rules for mixing mud over there. After the river floods and recedes, the potters only take the very top layer of river mud."

"The second layer contains sand; if you fire it, the pottery will crack."

Richard suddenly remembered the gathering in mid-August, and the things he had told the people from the Theogony Salon.

He had said that the clay shard Apophis created hadn't been an impromptu whim, pointing out the various marks on the mud.

And now, after such a short time, the man who mixed the mud was sitting directly across from him, explaining that exact process to him.

Phillips lifted the teapot from the side.

"Professor, are the cups made from your mud any good for drinking tea?"

"Earthenware cups aren't suited for tea."

"Why not?"

"Because the clay drinks half of it."

Over the next half hour, the person who spoke the most at the table was Phillips.

He talked about the room on his family's fourth floor that was hung full of collectibles, and about that Helvetian Clock.

He talked about his mother forcing him to marry, and about Constance sitting in the last row by the aisle every Thursday, handing him his umbrella at the door when it ended.

He talked about how his father had passed away this summer, and how, a month before he died, he suddenly returned the teapot he had confiscated and even took him out for a meal.

As he recounted that final part, he even smiled.

Ordinary methods of changing the subject were too obvious; he used a far more brilliant tactic—opening up.

When a man is talking about his family affairs, especially his deceased relatives, how do you interrupt him?

Halaf listened from the side without offering much commentary.

Phillips continued speaking at his own pace. "On the morning of June nineteenth, I woke up late."

"When I came downstairs, the house was already full of people. The doctor was upstairs, and my mother was sitting in that chair in the foyer."

"I walked over, and my mother looked up at me. The first thing she said was: 'You woke up late again.'"

"...Mr. Phillips," Halaf asked politely.

"How did your father pass?"

Phillips said, "The report stated it was a heart issue."

The room fell silent for two seconds. Barnaby smoothly took the teapot and refilled everyone's cup.

"The young gentleman is playing a bit part in the theater this year. His role in the play has no lines."

Richard picked up his teacup and took a sip. The temperature was perfect—neither cold nor hot—just like a certain someone sitting beside him.

He suddenly really wanted to say something to Phillips, but he knew he couldn't speak a single word right now.

"Mr. Williams." Halaf suddenly turned his head.

Richard looked up.

"That one-penny booklet. Did you edit it?"

Richard looked a bit confused. "Which one are you referring to?"

"Collection of Strange Tales. I read it on the ship."

"...That was me."

Halaf picked up his cup. "I bought a complete set at a bookshop in your country. It's quite an interesting read."

"That rule about not answering after three calls—we have a similar one over there."

"How does it go?"

"If someone calls your name in the night, do not answer. If you answer, your name will follow the sound away."

"If you don't answer after three calls, it goes to look for the next house," Richard said.

"Correct." Halaf smiled.

"This particular rule is almost identical all over the world."

That afternoon, Richard spoke less than twenty sentences in total.

He asked technical questions where he was supposed to, nodded where he was supposed to, and bowed slightly when praised.

A first-year student who had just graduated early, sitting across from a foreign Major Adept for the first time, was supposed to act exactly this way.

At four fifty-seven, Halaf glanced at his watch.

He set down his cup and stood up.

"Apologies, gentlemen. I must take my leave."

"So early?" Barnaby looked up.

"There is a task I must complete before sunset every day." Halaf picked up his briefcase.

"Can't you take a single day off?"

The brown-skinned middle-aged man took his coat from the back of his chair and draped it over his arm.

"If I take a day off, the sun will not rise."

Returning to the second floor of his hotel, Halaf drew the curtains tight and immediately began preparing his ritual.

He drew a snake, wrote down a name, and then slashed at it, cut by cut.

After slashing, he stomped on it. After stomping, he burned it. After burning it, he dumped the ashes into a basin of water and threw the water away.

For thirty years, he hadn't stopped for a single day.

In Cairo, after finishing this entire process, he only needed to sit for half a minute.

For three thousand years, people had stood on that same stretch of land, performing the same set of actions before sunset to do the same exact thing. The land had already worn a groove.

The Imperial Capital had none of that.

What day was it again tonight... The fourth day. After completing the ritual, it took Halaf nearly fifteen minutes to recover enough to regain his rational capacity.

Once his breathing had smoothed out, he finally pulled that thin notebook from his briefcase.

He looked down the column of names on the first page, one by one.

When he reached "Richard Williams," his pencil paused on the paper.

That afternoon, he had planted probes on that student three separate times.

The first was during the handshake; the second was when discussing the mud; the third was during the tale of "someone calling your name at night."

The readings returned all three times were completely identical.

Too clean?

No. Halaf tapped his pencil against the paper.

If an eighteen-year-old student didn't have a single rough edge on him, that would be suspicious.

The readings he got back had rough edges—which was exactly why they matched perfectly.

The Micro-circulation of someone who had recently switched breathing methods should be in disarray for half a year; someone who stayed up late writing a column should suffer from poor sleep.

Everything lined up.

He set down his pencil and constructed a weighing scale in his mind.

He took a figurine, carved that student's name into it, and placed it on the right-hand scale pan.

The scale did not budge.

Halaf sat in the dark for a long time. Suddenly, he wrote a line next to "Richard Williams":

"Excellent comprehension, strong cross-disciplinary analogical skills, a usable talent."

Having written that, he closed the notebook, refusing to think any deeper into the matter.

...

The transcription room was located on the first basement level of the museum's west wing. Reaching this stage, Richard actually stopped worrying.

Professor Mortimer was sitting on the floor directly above them, chatting over tea with Director Wetherby.

While he worked, Halaf sat at a polite distance, occasionally offering a pointer.

He had gotten up to pour water halfway through, and conveniently poured a glass to place by Richard's hand.

"Take a fifteen-minute break."

"That's not necessary, Professor."

"Copying this for too long will make your eyes play tricks on you."

At this moment, Halaf behaved no differently from any ordinary, amiable professor—and in his own heart, he felt that way too.

"I made that same mistake when I was young. Forcing yourself to push through will only drop your efficiency."

Since it was put like that, Richard set down his pen.

"Professor, how do you handle parts of the text that are in doubt?"

"Leave a blank, draw a circle next to it, and don't guess."

"You never guess, not even once?"

"Not even once." Halaf spun his cup halfway around in his palm.

"We have an old saying where I'm from: A person who miscopies will later be recognized by that very stroke."

Richard's hand gripping the pen stalled for half a second at those words.

Back then, that ibis-headed figure in the Mirror had told him something almost exactly the same.

"The name you provide must be 'true'. If you write it wrong, the name will bite back. If you write it off-center, the name will twist.

If you write down a name even you don't believe, that is bullshit."

The side of order and the side of chaos actually shared the exact same rule.

"I will remember that," Richard said.

"Remembering it isn't enough." Halaf shook his head.

"You need to build the habit into your hands. When the day comes that you are woken up in the middle of the night to copy a line of text in the pitch dark, and your hand naturally stops the moment you reach a part you aren't sure of—only then have you truly mastered it."

He actually followed up on this topic, launching into an earnest impromptu lecture:

"When students from your side study the Black Soil River, they always end up asking the same question: Why are they so afraid of names?"

"How does the Professor usually answer?"

"I talk about Isis."

Richard let out an 'oh'. He knew this one too.

"Ancient myths rarely depicted omnipotent gods. When the sun god grew old, he began to drool from the corner of his mouth."

Halaf smiled slightly. "Isis took that drool, mixed it with mud, molded it into a snake, and placed it on the path He walked every day."

"The snake bit Him."

"All the gods came to look, but none of them could cure the poison.

"Finally, Isis said: 'I can cure it, but you must tell me your true name.'"

"Did He give it?"

"First, He gave a bunch of fake ones."

"He rattled off dozens of titles: 'I am Khepri in the morning, I am Ra at noon, I am Atum at dusk.'"

"Isis said: 'These are not your name.'"

"In the end, He gave it."

The flame in the room's lamp surged upward by a fraction.

"And after He gave it?" Richard asked.

"After He gave it, He was no longer the strongest one."

Halaf placed his cup on the windowsill.

"Mr. Williams, where I come from, the gravest sin of all is name theft."

"Murder happens once, but a stolen name lasts forever."

He paused for a moment.

"Recently, it seems someone has committed this act."

When Richard set down his pen after copying the final symbol that morning, his expression remained perfectly normal.

From the window, Halaf watched him fold up the manuscripts, number them, and seal them into a kraft paper envelope.

After returning to the university with Professor Mortimer, there was no one competing that afternoon whom Richard cared to watch, so he and Catherine sat across a table from each other doing coursework.

Two rubbings lay spread out on the table. They were the copy drafts Richard had brought back from the transcription room.

Silas's large class required a probatio draft to be submitted next month, and the two of them were comparing notes.

Catherine sat opposite him, resting that small notebook on her lap.

She wrote a line on the paper.

When she finished, she turned the notebook around and held it up.

"Did the transcription go smoothly?"

Richard nodded.

She tore the page out, ripped it in half, and stuffed it into her skirt pocket.

Then she wrote again.

"My uncle was able to walk downstairs on his own today."

Richard looked up.

"What did the doctor say?"

She flipped the page.

"Said he needs to rest for another three months."

After writing, she tore it out again. By now, a small handful of paper scraps had accumulated in her pocket.

Richard lowered his head to look at the rubbing.

He had so much he wanted to say.

He wanted to tell her: 'Someone might be investigating you.

The man investigating you sat across from me drinking tea yesterday afternoon, talking about how mud in Cairo is mixed, and telling stories of name thieves.'

But how does someone react when they know they are being watched?

They act more carefully.

And acting more carefully is the biggest flaw of all.

A girl who never missed rent and placed her six shillings perfectly on time on the stove suddenly pays half a day late.

Someone who insists on writing a receipt for borrowing even half a portion of materials suddenly stops writing them.

Someone who goes to the sanatorium at three o'clock every afternoon suddenly changes her schedule.

Any single one of those was enough to give her away.

Opposite him, Catherine flipped to a new page in her notebook.

She wrote a line, but didn't immediately hold it up.

She stared at what she had written for a moment, and then tore it up.

Richard looked up.

The red-haired girl was stuffing those scraps of paper into her pocket. She raised her eyes and met his gaze.

There was nothing in those green eyes.

No probing questions, no hidden hints, no searching look of 'Do you have something to tell me?'

Completely clean, exactly the same as every other time she had looked at him over the past half-month.

She was doing the exact same thing he was.

Outside the window, sunlight slanted in, falling right between the two rubbings on the table.

Catherine picked up her pen once more.

She wrote one final line in the notebook, and this time she held it up for him to see.

"The turning point in Group Seven. You said last time you wanted to re-read it."

Richard lowered his head.

"...Yeah. I re-read it."

"How was it?"

"Different from what I read last year."

He pointed it out to Catherine.

The two of them lowered their heads together, their shoulders almost touching.

...

No one was surprised that Richard advanced from the undergraduate group into the finals, least of all Richard himself.

After all, he had made it to the finals last year immediately after achieving his Signature, let alone now, a year later. People just didn't know how far he would go this time.

The top tier had only one name: Clara Farfield.

She occupied an entire bracket all by herself, leaving half the page below her empty.

"Why does she get a bracket all to herself?"

"Because she scored 2.4 points higher than second place."

Pendleton shoved his paste brush back into the bucket.

"Out of seven group stage matches, her declaration score hasn't dropped below nine points in a single one."

"The judging panel couldn't find a single other person fit to stand beside her, so they could only open a separate bracket just for her."

The second tier was crammed with eleven people, and the total score gap between all eleven of them was squeezed within a mere 0.7 points.

Finals, match two.

Graduate group: Reginald Thorpe.

Undergraduate group: Richard Williams.

"Topic: If a soldier acts under orders, should he subsequently be exempted from responsibility?"

Fischer shouted out right then and there.

"Him again! It was him last year, too!"

"What's there to yell about?" Montagu stood behind him.

Thorpe ranked third in the second tier of the group stages; Richard ranked fifth.

"There are two people between them, but they got drawn to the other side, so naturally it leaves those two facing each other."

He raised his hand and tapped the very top bracket of the roster.

"Besides, look down at this fine print."

Fischer leaned in to read, "The final victor of the second tier goes up against the first tier."

He froze the moment he finished reading it.

"...Doesn't that mean Richard is going to end up facing his own senior sister?"

"Correct."

In the preparation area, Thorpe pushed the curtain aside and walked in.

Thorpe draped his coat over his arm. "This year, I drew the proposition. I'm arguing for exemption."

"Congratulations."

"Do you truly think congratulations are in order?" Thorpe chuckled.

"Everyone knows the proposition is the easier side to argue for this match."

"There are three hundred people sitting out there, and more than half of them have family on the front lines.

"If you have me speak on behalf of a soldier, whose side are they going to take if not mine?"

He turned and took two steps before pausing.

"Mr. Williams, I won't try to crush you with a wall this year."

"Why not?"

"Because there's no need to."

Opening statements. Thorpe went first.

"Ladies and gentlemen."

With his very first sentence, he pushed his manuscript aside.

"Let me start with a true story."

"Thirty years ago, on the Boer battlefield, there was a corporal.

"His company received orders to burn down a village."

"He didn't want to burn it, so he went back to ask his lieutenant, saying that there were women and children inside."

"The lieutenant told him: 'These are orders from above.'"

"He went to ask 'above,' and 'above' said: 'These are orders from brigade command.'"

"He had no authority to question any higher. So he burned down the village."

"After returning to his country, he was sent to a court-martial."

Thorpe rested both hands on the edge of the podium.

"The court asked him: 'Why did you burn it?'"

"He said: 'Because I received orders to.'"

"The court asked: 'Then why didn't you refuse?'"

"Ladies and gentlemen, this very line is the core of our argument today."

"If he had refused, what would have happened?"

"He would have been shot on the spot. The village would still have been burned, only by a different corporal."

"He would be dead, and the village would not have been saved. Not a single person would have been saved."

"Therefore, the proposition argues: Under orders, the responsibility lies with the one issuing the command."

"Not with the one pulling the trigger."

"Because he has no second choice. You have no right to judge a man who has no choices."

"The proposition's opening statement concludes here."

Applause filled the hall.

It wasn't exceptionally loud, but it was exceptionally uniform.

The moment the applause broke out, the ring of silver wire buried under the podium for hundreds of years hummed.

Thorpe was truly well-prepared this year, fighting with everything he had.

On the other side of the veil, a ladder stood up.

The ladder was unfathomably high, stretching from the ground up into the unseen heights.

A person stood on every single rung.

On the lowest rung stood a young man in a military uniform, clutching a torch.

His head was tilted back, looking up. The person on the rung above him was also looking up.

And the one above that was looking up, too.

Rung after rung, every single person had their head tilted back. No one was looking down.

Not a single person on that ladder lowered their head.

It was a dense, heavy presence, pressing the ether of the entire hall downward.

All the audience saw was a presentable young man finishing his speech, gathering his notes, and offering a slight bow.

For the opposition's opening, Richard similarly eschewed his manuscript.

"The opposition does not deny that the corporal the proposition spoke of is pitiful."

"Nor do we advocate for him to be hanged."

"We have only one question to ask..."

"If he is not held responsible, then who burned down that village?"

A brief silence fell over the hall.

"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to continue climbing the proposition's ladder."

"The corporal says: 'I received orders.'"

"The lieutenant says: 'I also received orders.'"

"The colonel says: 'This was decided by brigade command.'"

"The brigade command says: 'This is the theater command's policy.'"

"The theater command says: 'This was a cabinet resolution.'"

"The cabinet says: 'This was passed by a unanimous vote.'"

"A unanimous vote means seventeen people raised their hands."

"And of those seventeen people, not a single one ever set fire to a house."

"Ladies and gentlemen, we now have a burned-down village."

"We have an entire line stretching from the corporal all the way to the cabinet."

"Every single person in that line is innocent."

"I ask the judges to do the math for me: Who on earth burned down that village?"

The hall was silent for about four seconds. Then, a single short clap rang out from the third row.

Phillips held his mended teapot in his lap, his other hand slapping his knee.

On the other side of the veil, the ladder remained.

But the person on every single rung had started pointing upward.

The highest rung was empty, with fingers pointing into the void.

And then, starting from the very top, the entire ladder collapsed downward.

"The opposition's opening statement concludes here."

"Cross-examination. The opposition will go first."

Richard proceeded with the draft he had constructed in his mind just moments before:

"Mr. Thorpe, your family runs a shipping business in the Imperial Capital."

Someone at the judges' table shifted, and the moderator's hand was already halfway raised.

"...I know this has nothing to do with today's topic." Richard cut himself off before the moderator could speak.

"I will only ask questions within the scope of the debate."

"If that order were handed down to you today."

"If you carried it out, and someone questioned you about it afterward."

"Do you plan to point upward, or do you plan to stand on your own?"

The moderator's hand paused in midair. Not a single word of that sentence violated the rules.

Thorpe stood behind the podium, remaining silent for a long time.

"...I would stand on my own."

"The opposition accepts this answer, and requests the judging panel to note it down," Richard said.

"Proposition, Reginald Thorpe: Rhetoric, 8.1. Declaration, 7.3.

"Opposition, Richard Williams: Rhetoric, 9.2. Declaration, 7.8."

"The opposition wins by a margin of 1.6 points."

Fischer jumped up. "I told you! I told you he was holding back in those two rounds!"

"Last week you said he was in bad form."

"...Well, I read him wrong!"

Outside the west wall, Halaf wrote two lines in his notebook.

"Opposition, undergraduate first-year. Declaration manifested 'Ladder and Cards.' Form was minimal, not a single excess drop of ether spent. At no point did he appear drained."

"...This person still holds power in reserve."

He drew a horizontal line beneath it.

"Proposition, Thorpe, graduate third-year.

"Poured out all his ether at once. No follow-up moves. Suppressed by a first-year undergraduate by a margin of 1.6."

Next came the fourth match of the finals:

"Proposition: Clara Farfield."

"Opposition: Richard Williams."

When the matchup bracket was posted, Sophia spent half the day screaming in Room 314.

"One of you is the Mentor's student, and the other is the Mentor's nephew!"

"There's no need to draw lots for this match." Isabella spun a red pen in her hand.

"The bracket structure was written on the wall from day one. The victor of the second tier must face the first tier."

"And Clara is the only one in the first tier."

"Then who are you going to help, Mentor?"

"I'm not helping anyone."

"Then how are you going to watch?"

"I'm going to sit down and watch."

That day, Iliad Hall was more packed than it had been for any other finals match.

Clara stood waiting for him, the brass tuning fork bulging slightly from her inside pocket.

"Senior Sister."

"You are not allowed to hold back," she said.

"I was planning to, but now I don't dare."

"Really?"

"If I held back, you'd just strike your tuning fork and broadcast my petty thoughts to the whole hall. I wouldn't dare."

Richard made a small joke.

Clara's deep brown eyes crinkled in a smile, and she turned and walked away.