Edicts

Edgar awoke in luxury to the sound of nails on a chalkboard. It took him a moment to remember where he was the constant and unceasing noise making thinking difficult. Not even putting his silken pillow over his head drowned it out. Finally, he sat up, looking around his room. He was momentarily awed by the scale of his room, before he reached for his nightstand and grabbed his academy issued glasses. Across his palatial room, set in the wall, sat his bastard of his alarm clock. He didn’t remember setting it, but as he stared at the engraved golden disk he wasn’t surprised it set itself. Some of it came back to him as he stared, remembering that he’d arrived late last night, and today was to be his first day This was the premier institute for studying the prime Words, his ticket out of Northport, they had this sort of thing figured out long ago. Even so, when he’d inspected it last night after his arrival, he had no idea what it had done. Now at the very least he knew what it was. With no other choice, he crossed his massive room. Right as he reached it, it shut off on its own, because why wouldn’t it. 

Turning away from the clock, he took a few minutes to get dressed. Marching over to his closet, larger than his shack back home, he threw it open. He took a moment to examine himself, ensuring he was presentable. Look in the mirror, he met his own dark eyes. Pale skin from the cold and snow of Northport and his trimmed brown hair made him an almost perfect example of the northern peoples, and satisfied with his appearance, he turned to the wider closet. Inside, variations of a single outfit sat. He’d known this day was coming, but still he wasn’t prepared to dress like a clown. The Institute, among all the schools across the world, was somewhat famous for the ridiculous clothing it made their students wear. Throwing open the closet, there lie his clown suit, a ridiculously garish robe. It was multicolored, without rhyme or reason, and it really did look like someone had puked a rainbow onto it. That wasn’t even mentioning the hat, a ridiculously pointy hat following a similar color scheme. Why students were required to dress like they dabbled as birthday clowns he didn’t know, but suspected his questions would be answered soon enough. If it required a clowns touch, he would be be the clown. Throwing on his “attire” he hurried out the door.

He was seemingly the first person out of his room, as he stepped into a hallway he hadn’t truly appreciated until now. When he’d arrived last night, it had been so late in the night that he’d been thinking only of sleep, but he could say now that the pure marble and exotic hardwoods were truly something, an unimaginable luxury displaced casually. All along the hallway, similar doors seemed to lead to other dorms, with his room being the closest to the end of the hallway. As stepped up to a massive window, he surveyed a land that was truly prosperous. The buildings were made of the finest marbles, inset with jewels that gleamed in the sun. He’d read about times before, when the capital was a much more modest stone. Such luxury hadn’t filtered out of the capital yet, but he was sure it was just a matter of time. In the distance, the conceptor loomed, easily one of the largest structures in the world. An endless stream of horse drawn carriages and the occasional newfangled automobile went in empty, and came out loaded with any kind of material one could imagine. Edgar knew, from various newspapers that the pride of the empire, the conceptor was powered by the word of creation. It had supposedly been a thousand years in the making, before they’d finally found such a word. Beyond the conceptor, past the unbelievable luxuries and skyscrapers, sat the crab like guardian. A truly massive construct, rumors swirled on its purpose. All he knew for certain was that it would have been nigh impossible to build before the conceptor , the various materials required in such short supply naturally. It boggled the mind that something that large could move, much less move quickly, but he’d heard that it moved regularly, shifting position around the capital.

His hall mates were starting to come out as well, interrupting his musings. He really wished they hadn’t, as the combination of garish robes and incredibly thick glasses did them precisely zero favors, even as the institute required it. He suspected such a combination would bar them from getting anywhere near schools if the institute’s sense of “fashion” wasn’t an object of ridicule across the world. Why exactly they did was something that Edgar, from his podunk town, had no idea. Glancing at a mounted clock, he noted that it was a few minutes away from orientation, the only thing scheduled for the day. He set off, couldn’t be late on the first day, following the general flow of the rainbow crowd, but was interrupted before he could get far.

“First time in the capital?” The voice was harsh and raspy, and Edgar missed the speaker on his first scan of the hallway. Barely coming to his waist, he met eyes with the faintly bulging eyes of a mutant, commonly called goblins for the type that was staring at him. A vaguely fishlike person stared back at him. Their skin was inhumanly pale and moist, and on closer inspection was lined with Words that were too small to read proper. They had faintly bulging, swollen eyes, smooth like a dolls. Those eyes, resembling fish eyes, constantly swiveled throughout the hallway, taking in everything with disturbing intensity. Edgar couldn’t bear to meet their eyes for much longer, their lightless eyes that seemed to look through him unsettling to consider.

“Yeah.” Edgar turned away, but it seemed the stranger wasn’t done with him.

“Me too. The name’s Ardus.” He stared for a moment longer, before offering his hand to shake. Edgar sighed, but relented, shaking. Their handshake was surprisingly firm, despite their small stature and generally moist skin.

“Edgar.” He moved to walk away, with Ardus easily keeping pace as they followed the crowds out of their hallway.

“So where you from Edgar?” From the tone of voice, he didn’t truly care about the answer, just making conversation.

“I’m from North-” He was cut off when someone bullied their way past, easily pushing him over. They didn’t wear the garish robes that everyone else did, instead wearing fine clothing. Fine clothing was incredibly commonplace but their innate swagger suggested some form of privilege that persisted even after the conceptor. Something about them niggled at his memory, and for a moment Edgar was sure he’d seen them before. Nothing about them suggested an institute student, and mentally Edgar dubbed them the Fop. Before they could round the corner, Ardus took a step forward and called to their retreating back. The crowd took notice, drawing back and watching with interest.

“Hey,” his voice was eerily flat, easily carrying down the hallway. The fop paused, before dramatically turning on his heel to regard them.

“Whatever you want, I truly don’t care” The fop sounded bored, casual even as he strode back over to them, stopping directly in front of Ardus. Squatting down, he looked him the eye. “You should be more careful about when you’re talking to your betters. It’s-”

That was far as the fop got before a flurry of violence erupted, so quick Edgar didn’t even register it until was over. Ardus stepped over the Fop, a bleeding mess on the floor, and helped Edgar up

“I know the type. They’ll take everything from you, if you don’t fight for what’s yours,” Ardus didn’t seem at all bothered by the casual violence. Glancing over his shoulder, Edgar saw the fop getting up, the Words on their clothes glowing as their injuries visibly closed. The look of impotent rage on his face was something to behold, as he opened his mouth and uttered a string of Words. Even from where he was standing, Edgar could feel the hate and wrath physically present in those words, the desire to hurt clearly communicated. As soon as the words left the Fop’s mouth, Ardus’s arm was blown off in a violent spectacle, turning Edgar’s and several bystanders robes a a speckled red. Ardus didn’t stop, reaching back to grab Edgar with his good hand, dragging him along.

Edgar glanced over at Ardus, whose arm was visibly regrowing, the Words engraved on his skin glowing as it did. Edgar didn’t have the courage to broach the subject, so they walked in silence after that, passing through a building of unbelievable grandeur. The ceilings were easily twelve feet tall, and made of the finest of marbles. Following the crowd, they walked down the hallway. Such luxury hadn’t found its way to his hometown yet, and likely wouldn’t for some time, mainly being funneled back into the capital proper to build ever grander structures. Such wealth, as Edgar was finding, truly prompted excess in everything. The Institute was truly a maze of grandiose hallways and doors, far larger than would could possibly have been practical or needed for a student body of even triple their size. All the walls were engraved with Words, and he had a sneaking suspicion that getting anywhere required one to be able to read them. Finally, the stream of people approached a massive set of propped open double doors which spilled out into a truly massive auditorium. There was no other way to describe it, easily a mile across, and just as tall, with rings of seating looking down on the small stage in the center. It was almost overwhelming, looking up and seeing a distant ceiling ringed by seats that followed it all the way up. Despite that, the auditorium was quickly filling itself. They watched as people streamed into the auditorium, up the grand staircases to the higher levels. For whatever reason, the bottom rows were relatively empty, and Edgar quickly found an empty seat near the exit, with Ardus sitting next to him. The rows quickly filled up, packing them in a mass of humanity, and others. In the distance, Edgar spied several Watchmen, unnaturally tall and lanky beings with a single eye, created by an old empire he couldn’t remember the name of, for a purpose that was lost to history.

“Northport.” Edgar found himself saying.

“Pardon?”

“You asked where I was from. I’m from Northport,” Edgar thought it was important to share, owing Ardus that much. Glancing over at Ardus, he met their glassy eyes for a moment, registering the profound disinterest. They sat in uncomfortable silence for a bit, watching the sea of people and listening to the chatter. Curiously, not everyone wore the garish robes, a around half the students wore different robes of different colors, their meaning lost on Edgar. Regardless, they were a tiny minority to the sea of rainbow. Finally, he couldn’t bear it any longer, turning to Ardus.

“What’s up with the robes?” Edgar asked, somewhat awkwardly, eager to have anything disrupt their silent stalement.

“Can you See?” Ardus spoke languidly, his swollen eyes fixed on a point across the atrium.

“See?” Edgar turned to look at Ardus, a puzzled frown on his face. “I’m not blind, I can see you just fine.”

Ardus turned, giving him a flat stare. “Not vision. I’m talking about your vision.” He paused for a minute, thinking. “Close your eyes, and put on the glasses.”

Edgar glanced down at his pocket, and after a moment of hesitation, shut his eyes, and slid the glasses on. “Alright, what now? Do I just open my eyes?”

“Slowly. Do it slowly,”

Edgar snapped open his eyes. That was a mistake. Instantly, he saw meaning. Everything was profound, everything meant something. He gazed up at the domed ceiling, and he didn’t see a ceiling, he saw meaning. He saw words that he somehow meant covering, words for bracing, words for the material of ceiling. If he just looked closer, he could make out even more words, underneath those superficial words, something fundamental was taking shape. Something deeper than a mere ceiling, something that encompassed everyth-

Edgar snapped back into reality, as Ardus snatched the glasses off his face. “You shouldn’t have done that.” There was a gleam in his previously dead eyes, and Edgar knew he should tread carefully. Edgar was also gradually becoming aware of an intense pain behind his eyes, his vision tinting red.

Edgar raised his hands in surrender. “Alrigh, I’m sorry,” Ardus seemed mollified at the apology, relaxing back in his seat. He held out the glasses to Edgar.

“You’ll learn to See properly eventually, the glasses just help the process.” Ardus glanced over, absentmindedly handing over a tissue from his pocket. “For your eyes.”

Edgar took the tissue, suddenly aware of a pounding behind his eyes. Pressing the tissue to his eyes, he saw it stain red. There was nothing to do but hold it his eyes and wait. Finally, after a few minutes his vision cleared enough to see.

“That will clear up soon enough,” Ardus commented, “The robes right?”

Upon seeing Edgar’s nod, he continued “It’s fairly simple really, the robes-”

For the second time that day he was interrupted, this time by footsteps. Turning towards the vast stage, a woman was climbing the stage, her footsteps ringing out across the auditorium. Despite the distance, Edgar could both hear her footsteps, and see her perfectly. He certainly wasn’t the only one, as conversation gradually quieted. He knew for a fact his eyesight wasn’t that good, and was certain he hadn’t developed the ability to hear footsteps across a massive atrium overnight, especially not for something as small as footsteps. Regardless, he chalked it up to the Words that he could see at the base of the stage. The woman herself could be called harshly beautiful, appearing to be in her mid thirties with sharp features. Marring those features was a handprint, wrapping around the right side of her face, digging deep into the flesh. It appeared red and inflamed, like a fresh wound, and just looking at it was painful. There was very little softness to be found, physically or in the way she regarded the auditorium. She wasn’t particularly tall, probably just over five feet, with tightly braided burgundy hair. The robe she wore certainly wasn’t hideous like the student robes either, being mostly monochrome, with numerous words written across them.

“If I could have your attention.” Her voice cut through the auditorium, sharp and commanding, silencing any remnants of chatter. “Welcome to orientation. I’m Major Leed, and I’d like to be the first to welcome you to the institute. If you’re sitting in these seats, it means you’ve passed your exams, and are surely the best of the best,” Her lips curled into a sneer as she delivered those words, “Now I’d like to answer the most common question. Why the robes?” She scanned the room as she did, notably the bottom row, slowly rotating. Her lips curled into a grin as she stopped, locking eyes with someone in the crowd. “Allow me to demonstrate,” And she spoke, a string of words that Edgar couldn’t even describe but somehow knew was someone’s Name combined with something else. In that moment, Edgar knew a stranger like he’d never known before, like they’d whispered all they were into his ear. The moment passed, and a raw scream rang across the space. It was the scream of someone who was experiencing something painful like never before, and it continued unabated for several moments. Edgar shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and noted several others did the same. Ardus had a wince of sympathy on his face, but both of them carefully avoided looking in the general direction it was coming from. Finally, she spoke something, invoking their name again, and it stopped just as soon as it started. Leed smiled pleasantly, and continued her speech, “Your robes obscure your Names. Dressing like this muddies the eyes of those who attempt to read it, requiring them to pick past Words relating to uglinesses or similar to find your true Name. I recommend you keep them on. As for the normal robes, you get those if you make it through the year.” Glancing around, it appeared like they were vastly outnumbered by the garish rainbow robes.

Edgar leaned over to Ardus and whispered, “Isn’t that a little harsh? That kind of punishment for not wearing the uniform?”

Ardus glanced at Leed, ensuring her attention was diverted before responding, “The military, joke it is now, still takes great pride in being disciplined to the extreme.” There was a faint scorn in the response.

Edgar nodded, about to ask another question when Leed turned in his direction. He paled and sat up straight. Despite the vast distance between them, he could viscerally feel the weight of her attention. He was certain she’d seen him, and his clown robe surely wouldn’t protect him if she decided to take action. The bottom rows being filled last was starting to make more sense.

She continued her speech, “Now, onto the important parts. I’m sure you know something of why you’re here, but I’ll explain it like you haven’t.” Edgar in fact had not heard much of the school, beyond studying the nebulous Words. “You’re here to learn the words of reality, the Prime Edicts. Your teachers are sure to explain it better than I can, but the short of it is that everything has some sort of word associated with,” by the sigh and eye rolls that Edgar could see in the audience, this clearly wasn’t new information to some. “You’ll use them in service of greater heights for the Ordas Empire. Our enemies hardly disappeared with the invention of the conceptor.” Such was news to Edgar, as there hadn’t been an officially declared war since the conceptor crushed the former Fasmid Republic some forty years ago. “We understand that you haven’t learned to See yet, mostly, so the directions will be visible in commons for the rest of the week. After that, you’re on your own. That concludes orientation, the rest of the day is yours. Classes begin tomorrow.”

With that, she descended the stage, and was gone from Edgar’s vision, disappearing among the crow. Amplification did not extend beyond the stage it seemed. The auditorium was again filled with chatter as everyone got up from their seats, a sea of noise that easily filled the cavernous space. As Edgar and Ardus headed towards the corridor leading out, he saw a familiar face waiting at the end that made him freeze. It was the Fop, and this time Edgar remembered where he’d seen him before. He quickly ducked down and grabbed Ardus, hiding among the crowd as he made for a side hallway.

“What are you doing?” Ardus sounded mildly irritated at the sudden change of direction.

“We can’t go that way. He’s waiting for us.” There was a mild note of panic in his voice as he navigated the crowd.

“Who?” There was a feral glint in Ardus’s eyes that Edgar hadn’t seen before, and something about it put him extremely on edge.

“Remember the fop from earlier?” He directed the question at Ardus, who was straining to see over the crow.

“Him? I’ll do it again, right now.” Suddenly, Ardus was pulling away, far stronger than Edgar could ever hope to be, angling towards the open corridor.

“Wait! You can’t. That’s Uriel the Lesser.” Ardus stopped at that, a puzzled look on his face.

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“It really should. That’s one of the princes. Uriel is last in line for the regency.” At that revelation the fight went out of Ardus, and he allowed himself to be dragged into the branching hallway.

They both hustled down the hallway, further away from Uriel. Such a path left the crowd behind, and they found themselves alone. Most of the doors in the various hallways were closed, making the place appear ever more maze-like as they walked down corridors upon corridors. It had been some time since they’d seen a window and the directions increasingly referenced labs and classrooms, making it clear they’d left behind the dormitories some time ago.

Edgar glanced over at Ardus, “You never told me where you from.”

Ardus grinned sardonically at that, “Westernmost Camp.”

Edgar winced reflexively at the name. He’d heard of it, everyone had, but he’d never expected to actually meet someone from there. Westernmost, rather uninspired in naming, was the westernmost point of the empire, bordering lawless wilds and various short lived tribal confederations. It was also the prime destination for the penal legions, made up of mutants, criminals, and outspoken political dissidents. Once someone was sent there, they were unlikely to ever leave, much more likely to die in the constant blood fighting that occurred there. The border conflicts were quietly considered a war by most, but since it never required more than the penal legions it could be safely ignored. Whole generations were born, lived, and died in the muck, never seeing the greater world.

He continued, his ever darting eyes stilling as he talked, “I was born there, right in the trenches. Right from the womb to charging my way across the field a few days later.” Edgar knew that goblins were born mature, born ready to fight, to be thrown directly into the next battle at the earliest convenience. Still, most weren’t born mentally ready to fight from the moment they took their first breath, and it was a rare to meet an old goblin, being the fodder of the empire. “I got lucky I suppose. The first enemy I encountered was a speaker. She must have been distracted with something, because she never got a word out. I drowned her in the mud,” He spoke flatly, matter of factly. “My commissar let me leave after that, a free ticket directly to the institute, and a cushy spot waiting for me back home.” The even flatness never left his tone as he finished.

They walked down the hallway in silence for a moment. Further ahead, one of the cavernous double doors was flung open, a break from the overwhelming majority being closed. From inside they could hear quiet chatter, the words indistinguishable, and the clanking of metal against metal. The lable offered no hints, simply labeling it a generic laboratory. They both exchanged a curious look, taking a few steps from the hallway to stand in the doorway. The room clearly benefited from the conceptor, as it was the size of a large ballroom, far larger than anything practical for a simple lab. Inside, the room was only scarcely filled, with most of the contents being directly next to the doorway. There were various tables scattered about, filled with diagrams and spidery handwritten notes. The diagrams appeared to depict some sort of mannequin, and taking a look around the room, he spotted a similar frame resting on a raised dais. It looked like a metal skeleton, and etched onto it were all sorts of words, so densely packed he wouldn’t have known they were there if he wasn’t already looking. Hunched over the dais, examining the skeleton, was a scrawny little man, wearing some sort of white coat and comfortable looking attire underneath it. They were mumbling to themselves, chiseling something into the hollow skull of the framework. As Edgar and Ardus took a cautious step into the room, he turned around, wrinkling his nose at the sight of them.

“You aren’t Leed,” he turned his nose up slightly, looking down it at them.

Ardus and Edgar exchanged a look, neither of them saying anything at that. He sniffed, turned his back to them.

“At least I’ll have an audience,” he was mumbling to himself now, “No patience from her,” He gradually grew more heated as he spoke, “A few failures and she stops showing up” He devolved into angry mutterings, low enough that it wasn’t at all audible.

Ardus took a hesitant step forward, “What is it then?” He spoke it so quietly Edgar wasn’t sure the man had heard it, but his mutterings ceased.

“Are you familiar with the Quiet War?” He asked it casually, clearly not expecting it the ring any bells. Edgar certainty hadn’t, and he’d been carefully keeping track of current conflicts in the off chance one of them escalating into requiring a draft.

Ardus nodded, a morose look on his face, “My parents served.”

The man winced reflexively “I’m sorry to hear that,” He gestured vaguely at the dais and the skeleton, “This, this is going to end it. No more feeding penal legions to the front,” he glanced over at the frame, “Assuming it works that is.”

“How?” Edgar could hear the raw skepticism in his tone, a deep set refusal to believe.

“That I can’t tell you.” He turned back to his dais, sliding open a cabinet and pulling out some sort of golden sphere. It was roughly the size of a head, and covered in finely engraved words. It was also clearly not one object, being made of tightly packed disks packed in the shape of a sphere, also written with such fine lettering they had no hope of reading. As they watched, the man slid another disk into the sphere, seeming to complete it. He walked over to the skeleton, opening the faceless skull, and slid the sphere inside. Instantly, it came to a demented sort of life, as it jerked on the straps holding it down in a frantic, uncanny struggle. It also screamed, a metallic screech akin to dragging metal over metal. The dais creaked audibly, the solid steel slowly bending inwards.

“Is it supposed to do that?” Edgar asked innocently.

If the dark glare the man gave him was anything to go off of, the answer was no. He slowly circled around the slowly failing dais, perilously close to the struggling frame and its gradually failing bindings. Reaching back into his cabinet, he pulled out an improbably long engraved stick, so large it should clearly not have fit in the tiny cabinet. Unlike the frame, the words were much larger and clearly handwritten, cramped on the stick and barely fitting on both ends. With the grace of a cavemen who had yet to discover the magic of throwing, he smacked the skeleton over the head. The stick lit up, all the words flaring, and for a moment the skeleton stilled, the screams dying out. The man let out a sigh of relief, turning towards the door where they stood.

“At least it goes down eas-” He was cut off as the frame started flailing and wailing with that same desperate intensity. With a murderous glare, he turned back and smashed the skeleton over the head. He kept smashing it over the head with his stick long after it stopped screaming. With one final smack, he straightened and turned around, fixing a clearly artificial smile onto his face. “Maybe next time then. I think it’s probably best you run along now.” He turned around, flipping open the skull to expose the sphere.

“Can it Speak?” Edgar shot a surprised glance at Ardus, not expecting further questions.

The man paused at that, turning to regard him, “Hypothetically.”

“What about Hear?”

“Why would it need to Hear? Seeing the Words is how most speakers defend themselves anyhow.” Despite dismissing the question, there was clearly a note of interest in the answer.

There was a gleam in Ardus’s eyes that Edgar had only seen when they were speaking on the purpose of the robe. He strode forward, offering a hand for the man to shake,“Ardus.”

He stared at the offered hand, his lips curling before grudgingly offering, “Arthur. Arthur Evans.” He turned back to the dais for a second, grabbing a coat. “I’ll tell you what, I can’t look at this anymore. Come back tomorrow, and I’ll hear out whatever idea it is you have about Hearing. Maybe an it like you will have something I missed,” He swept past them, heading out the door. Edgar and Ardus followed with one last look at the skeleton. It sat peacefully, like it hadn’t been screaming at volume that put babies to shame a second ago. As they exited, the doors shut behind them, a common enough trick that even Edgar’s backwater of a town had it in places of importance.

Edgar turned to Ardus, “What’s the quiet war?”

Ardus shook his head at that, his expression darkening. “It’s not something you should concern yourself with.”

“You know that makes me more curious right?” Edgar quipped. Ardus didn’t seem to appreciate the humor in it, snatching his wrist in a shockingly tight grip and easily bringing Edgar down to his level.

Ardus whispered, quietly but no less harshly, “I’m doing this for you. Don’t talk about, don’t mention it, just forget you heard it. Arthur was stupid for mentioning it.” He released Edgar, and sped down the hallway. Edgar watched him go, speeding down the hallway with bunched shoulder, clearly upset over the question. He sighed, not sure what had upset Ardus so thoroughly, and headed back to the dorms. He had no desire to explore the campus at the moment, nor the time to spend walking it’s huge halls. Walking back, he was again struck by the sheer scale of the campus, as despite the massive auditorium being completely full there was nobody in sight anywhere. As he got closer to student dorms, the trend of isolation ended, as he crossed paths with the occasional person, a welcome sight from the empty laboratories and classrooms he came from. Finally, his hallway came into view, with a few unwelcome guests. Uriel sat at the end of the hallway on the windowsill, wearing the required robes, observing his cadre jockeying for favor. Edgar kept his head down, attempting to walk to his room at the end. Sneaking a glance, he met eyes with Uriel, who was watching him scamper down the hallway. His gaze shifted towards the hallway behind him, and then back to Edgar. There was a calculating fury there, but he didn’t move to stop Edgar as he slipped into his room.