BENE
THE UNIVERSITY OF GERICH ASSET RECOVERY TEAM
CENTRAL RENDEROS
Magister Roaoo chuckled. “And you, my dear?” he asked, turning to Agbo. “What is your verdict?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Bene watched Agbo watching Khela out of the corner of her eye. She was the only one of the four of them who had yet to sample the wine. Not only was her body language saying she didn’t want to, it was practically screaming that she wanted to be anywhere but here in Roaoo’s tent.
“Go on,” said Khela, gesturing in friendly encouragement. “It’s all right. Try it.”
Hesitant, Agbo put cup to lips and drank. “It’s nice,” she said. The way she curled them afterward suggested otherwise, though, and that made Bene laugh.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” Roaoo swayed slightly as he scrutinised each of them across the table.
“Auuuggh!” said Bene. “Sooo good!” He only realised how camp he sounded after the words left his mouth, at which point he wanted to slap himself. Luckily, no one else seemed to pick up on it. Or maybe they just didn’t care.
“It’s absolutely wonderful, magister,” said Khela. “What sort of wine did you say it was again?”
“This is a northern Ivarian brown wine,” said Roaoo, brandishing the bottle. “The name and colour are both quite unlovely, I know, but the taste is very much the opposite. Don’t you think?”
Khela took another sip from her cup and nodded. “I do. It’s the sweetest wine I’ve ever had.”
“Even if you told me right now it was poisoned,” said Bene, “I’d drink it anyway.”
“Enjoy this one,” said Roaoo. “It’s a rare vintage, and not cheap either. I daresay it will be a very long while before you see its like again.”
“What’s the occasion, anyway?” asked Bene. But the magister merely shrugged and asked Khela to fetch some candles because blah, blah, something about growing dark. He wasn’t really listening. Another sip of wine and he almost forgot that he’d even asked the question. It truly was an exceptional drop. How had he never appreciated wine before? Probably because he’d never drunk much of it before. Not the really good stuff anyway. Too expensive. Back on campus, he hadn’t been able to afford anything beyond a pitcher of beer on weekends, and maybe a few shots of something harder to keep the beer buzz going. And that was only on alternate weeks, mind you. And only when friends were kind enough to lend him money…
Two more bottles of northern Ivaria’s finest brown later, everyone was laughing. Even Agbo seemed more relaxed, even if she hadn’t yet shown much interest in joining the conversation. Bene felt better than he had in a long time. It was good to let off steam, though he’d never imagined having the opportunity to do so with Roaoo in the magister’s own tent!
“I will say one thing, though,” said Khela, wiping off her chin. She was famous for being anyone’s after just one cup, and she’d had at least three. “I really miss the university. The parks, the cloisters, the halls. And the dorms and the library. Oh, and I love the library. Did I mention that? Oh, and the lectures and the professors too, of course. It’s a world away from here and all... this... stuff we’re… dealing with.”
“Yeah I miss uni too, I guess,” said Bene. “Life on the road does kinda get to you after a while, huh?”
“Do you enjoy being out here, magister?” asked Khela. “In Renderos? In the middle of nowhere?”
Roaoo ignored the question and said, “I must say, I take objection to the neat little list you just rattled off.”
“My list?”
Roaoo made a face. “Parks? Cloisters? Halls? Libraries? They’re just buildings. Buildings don’t make a university.”
“I mentioned lectures and professors, too. I think.”
“Buildings are an important part of the campus experience, though,” said Bene. He wasn’t sure why he was coming to Khela’s defence, exactly. They weren’t on speaking terms yet, and probably wouldn’t be for a while. They weren’t even on acknowledging-each-other’s-presence terms yet, for that matter. “I mean, you can’t have a university without buildings, can you?”
“You can,” said Roaoo. “To a degree. You can certainly have a university without parks and cloisters and halls.”
Bene scratched his chin. “Well, yes. I suppose…”
“You can’t not have libraries, though,” said Khela. “And what sort of institute would it be without professors? Or lectures?”
Roaoo waved a hand. “I will admit that libraries are useful. Lectures are too, provided there’s room in them for lively debate. But to a very great extent, I think students would be much better off without professors.”
“Really?” asked Bene.
“Take ours, for instance. Largely useless. Dimwits, most of them. Oh, I could name two or three who are decent, I suppose, but most of the rest are beyond redemption.”
Bene’s mouth fell open. Khela’s did too, but at least she was the first to regain her wits. “Can I ask what makes you say that, magister?”
Roaoo grinned. “Of course! Just name a department, my dear. They’re all full of so-called experts who pump out nothing but bullshit year after year. Only they call it studies.” He made air quotes with his fingers around the last word, which almost made Bene choke. “Beneath all their clever phraseology there’s nothing of substance. In fact, if you want to know what I really think, I’d go so far as to say that most of their studies aren’t even rooted in reality. They don’t realise this, of course. No, they all see themselves as these deeply profound thinkers who are doing vital work to keep our society–nay, civilisation!–marching along.”
There followed a very long, very awkward silence that Khela covered with a nervous cough.
“Mmm,” said Bene. He wasn’t entirely sure where to look. For a man like the magister to heap scorn on the University of Gerich was unthinkable. Where was it coming from? It wasn’t the alcohol, was it?
Except Roaoo wasn’t finished. “Take that dolt Saund, for example. He’s the perfect example, actually. A few months before we left Gerich, he presented this truly abysmal paper in which he proposed a new type of ballista. ‘Saund,’ I told him when he was done, ‘this thing is absurd. Even if it managed to hold a bolt of the size you suggest, it would most likely toss the thing backward, if at all.’ Well, everyone at the presentation went very quiet, didn’t they? Saund himself looked at me with great pity and said that I couldn’t rule out the possibility of it working. And to my great surprise, everyone agreed with him! I was aghast. We argued at length, but he refused to back down. So naturally I decided to prove him wrong by having the damn thing built.” He chuckled at the memory. “The armoury boys thought I’d lost my mind, but as soon as I mentioned whose design it was... well, I think they understood my intention.”
“And what happened?” asked Khela.
Roaoo held up a finger. “Ah, well. Now, mind you, I explicitly forbade any modification of Saund’s design. The day it was tested, I forced the man and his colleagues to watch. Needless to say, the device was a complete failure. It was a fortunate thing no one was injured, actually. But do you know, Saund wasn’t the least bit embarrassed! He gave me a hundred reasons why it didn’t work, but steadfastly refused to admit that he was one of them. ‘It actually proves,’ he said smugly, ‘there’s no such thing as certain knowledge.’ Can you imagine a more nonsensical conclusion? I was so dumbfounded I could have strangled him. And I could have strangled everyone else for insisting that he was right, too. And so it went that Saund was credited for coming up with a truly innovative ballista design!”
“Oh dear,” said Bene. “Even though it didn’t work? Really?”
“Indeed,” said Roaoo. “So what do you say about that argument, eh, Munning? There’s no such thing as certain knowledge–true or false?”
Bene shook his head. “False. I mean, of course. It’s an odd position to take, isn’t it? I mean, I can think of so many things wrong with it.”
“Right,” said Khela. “You can’t possibly argue that everything is unknowable, can you. I mean, can you? Because I think there are some things we can definitely know.”
“Congratulations,” said Roaoo, applauding them. “You’ve both just acknowledged a truth that a worryingly large number of my colleagues will not. And to think these people are teaching you! Who amongst your colleagues will be bold enough to contradict their mentors?”
“This isn’t really a thing on campus though, is it?”
Roaoo nodded at her. “Unfortunately, yes. The notion that there’s no such thing as certain knowledge is coming into vogue right now. I’m sure you’ve both read Varre?”
“He was required reading for us the semester before we left,” said Bene.
“Of course he was,” said Roaoo, looking angry. “He’s from where Saund and his ilk draw their inspiration. You’ll recall that he wrote, and I quote, ‘No one can rule out the possibility of anything.’ That particular piece of profundity was followed by sundry musings about how a pear tree might produce kittens, or how a man might spontaneously metamorphose into a woman as he sleeps. I mean, really? And these were but two of the many, many utterly ridiculous examples dear old Varre took great pains to list and describe. And apparently the fools in charge of academic prizes were thoroughly intrigued by all this rubbish. I’m sure you recall that for his remarkable insights he was awarded the Warden Master’s Medal of Endeavour? No one can rule out the possibility of anything. Indeed. How about the possibility that the man is descending into senility? Did the prize committee stop to consider that one?”
“Oh dear,” said Khela, giggling.
“I always liked the bit,” said Bene, “where Varre staunchly maintains that what we think of as the physical world is just an illusion. I was expecting him to admit there’s a possibility that it isn’t, too. But no, he doesn’t.”
“Yes,” said Roaoo. “It goes to show how ridiculously speculative it all is. Hmm, though if we must speculate, let’s speculate about what Varre would do if his university stipend were cut off. Would he protest? Oh, he would. In fact, no one would scream louder. But what do you need money for if everything around you is merely an illusion? Eh, Varre? But when you ask him such questions, he starts talking in circles and soon finds an excuse to leave the conversation. Pah. It just goes to show that he doesn’t actually believe in what he’s saying. This is Varre: a thing is true because I insist that it is and because it suits me to believe it, even though I don’t really believe it. And to think frauds like him are hailed as the greatest minds of our time! ‘Tirelessly working to bridge the gap between knowledge and wisdom,’ was what they said at the ceremony where they awarded him the Medal of Endeavour. Pah! More like a fool building a bridge to nowhere if you ask me.”
“A bridge to nowhere!” cried Bene. “Brilliant. Could I borrow that, do you think? It would make a really good title for a rebuttal paper.”
Roaoo shook his head. “Oh, no. Don’t you go challenging him.”
“Why not?”
“Rock the boat at your peril,” said Roaoo, pointing at him. “Or do you have no desire whatsoever to rise through the ranks of academia? They will drive you out, Munning. No, you must take care that everything you say and do aligns with whatever narrative it is that prevails in Gerich at the time.”
“And who decides that?”
“Wait, wait,” said Khela. “I’m sorry, sir, but don’t you think that’s being a bit too cynical? That’s not how things really are, surely?”
“Unfortunately, Rusen, it is both cynical and realistic,” said Roaoo. To Bene he said, “The prevailing narrative is decided by whoever is in charge. The Varres of this world are idiots, but they’re useful idiots to the people pulling the strings.”
“Shit,” said Bene. “And to think I was going to ask Saund to be my mentor when we got back. Now I’m thinking it might not be the best idea.”
Roaoo laughed. “Do it. If nothing else, I’m certain you’ll find him endlessly entertaining.”
“With respect, magister, you’ve just gone and ruined him for me.”
“I was thinking of asking Jeromi to be my mentor,” said Khela. “If she’ll have me.”
Bene made a face. “What? Jeromi? I thought you couldn’t stand her? You’re always complaining about how she can’t ever seem to prove anything.”
“Well I take it all back. I’m reading one of her latest papers right now and I actually don’t hate it.”
“You don’t hate it? Now there’s a ringing endorsement!”
“Ugh. Look Bene, I don’t really care if–”
“Now, now,” said Roaoo, holding up his hands. “Don’t start.”
No one said anything for some time. Khela broke the silence by asking, “Who was your mentor, magister?”
“Ah,” said Roaoo. “Well, I was fortunate there, let me tell you. Instead of having to choose my mentor, my mentor chose me.”
Bene answered for him. “It was Uzadine of Thry.”
“Indeed.” The magister sounded almost wistful, and paused as if deciding whether or not to continue. Finally, he produced a box from a pocket in his robes and set it on the table with a click. Opening it revealed an oblong pendant made of dull greyish metal. “A most remarkable woman. She gave me this as a memento before she–”
“Yeeeh!” cried Agbo, leaping up and practically diving into a far corner of the tent. She knocked over an empty wine bottle in the process, though luckily it landed on the ground without shattering.
Bene looked at Roaoo’s pendant, noted its metallic sheen. “Fuck me,” he said, the effects of the Ivarian wine instantly evaporating.
Khela apparently shared his suspicions. “Sir, is that an object?”
“Relax,” said Roaoo. “It’s inert. Long dead.”
“It is not!” cried Agbo. “It is not dead!”
Bene and Khela looked at Roaoo. “Not?” said the magister, turning to Agbo with knitted brows.
“No!” said Agbo. “I can see its magic!”
Khela pointed at the pendant. “Is that an object from the Trench, magister?”
“It’s not,” said Roaoo flatly. To Agbo he said, “My dear, I think you must be able to see something the rest of us obviously cannot. What is it? What do you see?”
Agbo edged further away. “Ugh! Take it away! I don’t want it anywhere near me! Please!” With her face screwed up in disgust, she waved her hands about as if fending off some awful creature. “Ugh! That one almost touched me!”
“What did?” asked Roaoo. “What almost touched you? What is it you can see?”
“Magister Roaoo,” said Khela. “If that’s a Trench object…”
“I assure you it isn’t,” said Roaoo, shuffling over to where Agbo cowered in fright. “Agbo? Please tell me what you can see.”
Agbo stuck out her tongue, looking at the box on the table with pure loathing. “Oh!” she cried, suddenly ducking to one side. “Oh, it’s horrible. It’s like it’s falling apart! It’s got these little things coming out of it. Ugh. They’re flying out…”
“You can see all this?”
Agbo nodded. “Yes.”
“And these things coming out of it? What are they? Can you describe them?”
“I don’t know. Pieces of itself? Oh, Khela! That one landed on your arm!”
“What?” asked Khela, clutching at her sleeve. “What did?” But she clearly couldn’t see anything, and neither could Bene.
“One of its… things. The things coming out of it.”
Khela looked at Bene. “Can you see anything?” Bene shook his head.
Roaoo went to the table and closed the box. “And now? What do you see now?”
“They’re gone!” Agbo looked about ready to throw up. “All the flying things are gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes.”
“And if I open the box again?” he asked, doing exactly that.
Agbo flinched. “Ugh. No, no! Please don’t.”
Roaoo snapped the box shut and put it back in his robes. “That’s… very odd.”
“Magister Roaoo?” Khela stood up. “Is that thing from the Trench?”
Roaoo rounded on her. “No! It’s not from the Trench! And that, Rusen, is the last time you’ll ask me that question. Actually, you can get out!” He pointed at Bene. “And take him with you. Go!”
“Wow,” said Khela as she and Bene put as much distance between themselves and the magister’s tent as they could. The camp was full of the usual activity, and no one looked their way. “What the fuck just happened?”
Bene checked to make sure there were no eavesdroppers. “I wish I knew. That was some next-level shit, eh?”
“There’s no way that thing didn’t come out of the Trench, Bene. No way.”
“Yeah. He said it didn’t, though.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’ve both seen objects before, Bene. It had the tell-tale colour, that rainbow sheen! Where else could it have come from?”
“I don’t know.” His mind was reeling from the implication. All objects came exclusively from the Trench–it was an established fact. Canon. Indisputable.
“Do you think he stole it, then?”
Bene stopped. “What? He said Uzadine of Thry gave it to him, didn’t he?”
“Do you believe that?”
“Khel, stop. Right now, I’ve got no fucking idea what to believe. I’m still trying to figure out what just happened!”
“All right. Sorry. Sorry.”
“From the top, let’s go through what we saw.”
“All right.”
“It started when you asked him who his mentor was.”
“And you said it was Uzadine of Thry.”
“And then he took out the box and opened it.”
“Right,” said Khela, nodding. “And then–”
“And that’s when Agbo flipped out.”
“Yeah. Understatement of the year. Obviously she could see something.”
“Yeah. Something scary.”
“Something we couldn’t.”
“Right. Which means…”
“Which means that thing was an object.”
Bene couldn’t argue that it wasn’t a strong possibility. Quite the contrary. “Yeah. Most likely.”
“All right. Which means Agbo might also be able to use it. Like her.”
“Possibly.” Shit, wouldn’t that be something?
Khela touched his arm. “When I asked him who his mentor had been, and you said Uzadine of Thry, I noticed how weird Roaoo got. Did you notice that, too?”
“Yeah, I did. I thought he even looked kinda sad. I’ve never seen him like that.”
“Who was she?”
Bene fought the urge to quip that she’d been Roaoo’s mentor. Instead he said, “You’re kidding, right? She was only the first and last female magister in Gerich, Khel.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? Is that all you have to say?”
“Well, I kind of knew the name from somewhere, I guess...”
“You kind of knew the name from somewhere, you guess? Shit Khel, the woman was a really big deal!”
“All right! All right!”
“She was extremely sensitive to objects, apparently. Couldn’t use them, but she could sniff ‘em out like nobody’s business. Used to get a tingly feeling, they say, like something was calling her name. That’s how she unearthed the first one. And that’s how the Trench was discovered. Or at least according to what I read.”
“She could hear them calling her? Now that’s seriously creepy.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it.”
“What happened to her?”
“You really don’t know her story, do you? She died of consumption while still in office. Her and Roaoo were pretty close, I think. It was her recommendation that Roaoo succeed her.”
“She was that high? I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, well you could fill a great big fucking archaeological dig site with what you don’t kn–”
“Shut up, Bene. That really isn’t helpful.”
Bene shrugged. “Fine. But c’mon Khel–we learned all this in our first year on campus! Don’t you remember?”
“I guess I didn’t pay much attention to all that stuff.”
“I’ll say. And I didn’t think it was possible, but did you notice how Roaoo managed to reach a whole new level of cynicism tonight? With that thing about Saund? And Varre? And you thought I was bad. Tell you what, if ever use the phrase Roaoo levels of cynicism at any point in the future, at least now you’ll be in on the joke.”
“All I know is that he seemed shocked and scared.”
“Yeah. He really did, didn’t he? Agbo’s reaction spooked the shit out of him. First time I’ve seen him looking like he didn’t know what was going on. Like he didn’t have control over the situation.”
“Oh no,” said Khela, grabbing his arm, a stricken look on her face. “We’re not in trouble, are we?”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t get what just happened, Bene. I really don’t. What does it all mean? That’s an object he’s got, right? It came from the Trench, and before you tell me it didn’t, just think about it, huh? He got it from Uzadine of Thry, who discovered the Trench. He said so himself. From the first person in our time to find an object. Or am I wrong?”
“No, that sounds about right.”
“Which means the magister has an unsanctioned object in his possession. That’s a crime, Bene. And now that we know about it–”
Bene couldn’t help but cringe at her mental gymnastics. “That’s a pretty shit conclusion, Khel. Sorry, but it is. We don’t know for certain it’s an unsanctioned object. And that definitely isn’t the sort of thing you should be saying out loud, by the way! If you go making wild accusations, you’re definitely going to get yourself in trouble. He himself said it was dead, inert.”
“It wasn’t dead. Agbo said so, and based on the strength of her reaction we’ve got no reason not to believe her. And we left her back there, with him.”
“So?”
“So what is he doing in there with her?”
“I don’t know. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
Bene clicked his fingers. “Shit, I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to see what’s been in front of my face all this time. You said something a moment ago about Agbo maybe being able to use Trench objects. Right?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s obviously why she’s here–that’s why he agreed so quickly to her joining our expedition. Do you remember when we met her? When we pulled her out of that swamp and interrogated her for the first time? She talked about seeing her magic. Do you remember?”
“Uh huh. I mean, I got kicked out of the tent but I hung around outside, listening...”
“I knew you must have! So, Roaoo would have guessed from then that she had an affinity for objects, right? Well tonight, she proved him right. Inadvertently, I think, but still. I mean, I really don’t believe he was expecting any of what just happened back there…”
“I dunno.”
“No, Khel. He looked genuinely surprised by all that. Like maybe he didn’t even know what he really had in that box.”
“All right. Yeah, maybe.”
“So now he’s questioning her all over again. I mean, of course he is. He’s just made another huge discovery, hasn’t he? And we’d probably still be there too, sharing in it, except your big mouth got us kicked out. Why did you keep insisting that thing was a Trench object? He kept telling you it wasn’t.”
“He doesn’t have a lot of patience.”
“True. But you don’t exactly inspire it, either.”
Khela punched his arm. “What the shit?”
“No, don’t you go getting angry at me, girl. He kicked us out because you were being annoying as fuck. I’d have done the same.”
“Bene! That is a Trench object he’s got!”
Bene folded his arms. “And where’s your proof?”
“I already told you.”
“What? That because Uzadine of Thry gave it to him, it means she must have pulled it out of the Trench?”
“Exactly.”
“What if she didn’t, though? What if she got it elsewhere?”
“Then it would mean that the Trench isn’t the only source of objects. But that’s where objects come from, right? And only from there. Every. Single. One. It’s