7. Of Gaps And Pretending

Chapter 007
Of Gaps And Pretending

At first, Zorian hadn’t even noticed him. That was noteworthy by itself, as Zach wasn’t an easy person to overlook. The boy loved attention and seemed to have trouble staying still and quiet, something that remained consistent even after Zach suddenly turned into some kind of a weirdo time traveler. Today, however, the normally loud and exuberant boy remained eerily silent. He also eschewed his typical tactic of sitting in the back of the classroom to occupy a seat near the front. If his out of character behavior hadn’t caused people to glance at him a bit too often, Zorian would have probably overlooked him.

He was so shocked to see the boy finally present in class that he momentarily halted in his tracks, standing like an idiot in the middle of the classroom. Then, after a moment’s thought, he set off towards the likely cause of his predicament.

His first instinct was to immediately march up to the boy and drag him away into some forgotten corner to clear everything up, but Zach’s subdued appearance gave him pause. Zach’s skin was pale and bloodless, and he was breathing a little too quickly and shallowly for a healthy person. He looked sick. Thinking about it a little more carefully, approaching the boy so directly would be a reckless and possibly dangerous course of action. His loss to the lich aside, Zach was vastly more powerful than Zorian, and Zorian had no idea how the other boy would react if he knew there was another person tagging along in his time traveling adventure. He’d need to confront him sooner or later, though, so he fully intended to make at least tentative contact with the boy. He scanned the front of the classroom, looking for a free seat near Zach that would allow him to study the boy during the lecture.

He didn’t have to look hard – Zach was sitting very close to Briam, and every seat around Briam was empty. The cause was easy to divine: people were reluctant to get close to the angry-looking fire drake he was holding. As someone with future knowledge, Zorian knew their fears were well founded. While the young fire drake didn’t torch anyone (and sometimes Zorian wondered how much of that was thanks to the drake’s youth and lack of ability, as opposed to having self-restraint) it didn’t hesitate to bite and scratch, and it was hard to tell what would set it off. Fortunately, it seemed to tolerate Zorian better than most people, so he simply plopped down into the seat next to Briam, silencing the lizard’s hissing with an annoyed glare. He stared at the fire drake’s slitted yellow eyes until the reptile turned its head and left him alone.

“Wow, you shut him down in an instant,” remarked Briam. “I wish I could control him that easily.”

The fire drake snapped its jaws at the air in front of Briam’s face, causing the boy to flinch back. Briam huffed in annoyance and apparently let the matter drop. Not for the first time, Zorian wondered just how smart that creature really was.

Then, doing his best to appear natural, Zorian turned to Zach sitting a bit further away from him.

“You look like hell,” Zorian remarked.

Zach groaned and buried his face into his hands. “I feel like hell,” he moaned. “What did that pile of bones do to me?”

Zorian’s heart quickened. Zach no doubt expected his comment to be disregarded as a weird metaphor, but to Zorian it was definite confirmation that Zach was also a time traveler. No points for guessing who or what the mysterious ‘pile of bones’ was.

Now… how could he get Zach to talk more without revealing that he knew more than he should?

“Pile of bones?” Zorian asked, his voice curious.

Zach opened his mouth to respond but Ilsa chose that exact moment to walk into the classroom and Zach dropped the issue.

Zorian had to restrain himself from glaring at Ilsa as she smiled at him. Couldn’t she have waited a few more minutes?

Ignorant and uncaring of Zorian’s internal grumbling, Ilsa accepted the list of present students from Akoja and began introducing herself and her class. It wasn’t anything that Zorian hadn’t heard eight times already, so he mostly ignored her in favor of keeping an eye on Zach and plotting how to extract time travel related information out of him.

Suddenly he realized that Ilsa had stopped talking and was looking in his direction. After a few moments he realized she was looking at Zach.

“Mr. Noveda, you look quite ill. Please tell me you didn’t come to my class with a hangover.”

The class erupted into laughter and Zach winced, either because loud noises bothered him in the state he was in or because he noticed the undercurrent of agitation in Ilsa’s question. Either way he recovered quickly.

“It’s not a hangover,” protested Zach. “I just woke up like this, I swear.”

“And you thought that coming to class like this was a good idea… why?” Ilsa prodded.

“Err… I honestly didn’t think it would last this long. I figured it would pass in an hour or two,” said Zach sheepishly.

Zorian frowned. If the sickness was a consequence of the spell the lich had targeted them with that evening (and Zach certainly seemed to think so, if his previous comment was any indication), that would mean Zach had been suffering its effects for the past 8 months or so, as Zach had been absent for that long. Why would Zach expect a condition that serious to pass ‘in an hour or two’?

Why couldn’t there be any simple answers in all this?

“Well it didn’t,” Ilsa concluded. “While I appreciate your dedication to your studies,” Zorian distinctly heard Ako snorting derisively in the background, “I must insist you go home or, better yet, visit a healer. You look like you’re going to collapse any moment.”

Before Zach could say anything, Zorian rose from his seat.

“I’ll get him home, teacher,” he said. Zach gave him a surprised look, but Ilsa just nodded and shooed them away.

Zorian picked up his bag and left with Zach in tow, very pleased with himself. He got a legitimate excuse to talk to Zach in private and a permission to skip a class he had already attended 8 times by now. Could a victory be more complete?

“You didn’t have to do that, you know?” Zach remarked, trailing behind him. “I can get back home on my own. I don’t feel that sick.”

“But if I hadn’t done that, I would’ve had to sit through 2 hours of boring review,” countered Zorian.

Zach laughed, but his laughter quickly collapsed into a painful sounding cough.

“Damn,” he wheezed. “He really did a number on me.”

“Who is this someone you keep mentioning?” prodded Zorian.

“It’s not important,” Zach mumbled. He took a deep breath and fixed Zorian with a speculative look. “Hey. Want to go to the cafeteria and grab something to eat?”

“You think your stomach can handle it?” Zorian asked.

“You bet,” Zach nodded. “I’m starving!”

Zorian shrugged and gestured for Zach to lead the way.

That was how Zorian found himself sharing a table with the cause of his time traveling problems, trying to think of a good opening for a conversation he wanted to have with the boy. Or should he wait for a few days to make Zach get used to his presence? Hmm…

“You know, I find this whole situation very amusing,” Zach said between mouthfuls, shoveling noodles into his mouth and attempting to talk at the same time. Now that was very amusing. His mother always insisted he should aspire to behave ‘like a noble’. She would have a heart attack if he ever adopted Zach’s eating manners. “A good little student like you, skipping class to have lunch with a class delinquent… what is the world coming to? What would your mother say if she saw you now?”

“First of all, I’m not skipping class – I’m escorting you home,” Zorian pointed out, ignoring a snort from Zach. “We just stopped for a meal so you wouldn’t collapse from starvation before we get there.” Another snort. “And my mother would go all sparkly-eyed at who I’m having lunch with and promptly forget I’m supposed to be in class.”

“Ah. A social climber,” Zach said, a sour expression on his face. “Say no more. At least you’re male so she wouldn’t try to pair us.”

“Well, I do have a 9-year-old sister…”

“Don’t go there,” Zach warned.

“Fine,” agreed Zorian. He didn’t particularly want to continue in that avenue, anyway. “So are you going to tell me who roughed you up or what?”

“You’re a lot nosier than I remember,” Zach huffed. “What makes you think someone roughed me up?”

“Your offhand comments aren’t as oblique as you imagine them to be,” Zorian said.

“Whatever,” Zach scoffed. “I just breathed in some weird fumes while I was messing with my alchemy set yesterday, that all.”

Ah, the trusty ‘alchemical accident’ excuse. So cliché, yet so effective. Zorian had used it quite a few times himself. In any case, he wasn’t willing to let go so easily. He decided to risk it and try to provoke a reaction from the boy.

“Must have been some really weird fumes – the aftereffects almost look like soul magic exposure,” Zorian speculated loudly.

Zorian had expected some kind of reaction from Zach, but what he got was quite a bit stronger than what he had imagined. Zach immediately sat straighter in his seat, eyes wide in realization. “Of course! That’s why I’m still suffering the effects, even after the revert! The son of a bitch targeted the very thing that gets sent back – my soul!”

There was an eerie silence in the cafeteria as everyone stared at the crazy boy shouting nonsense in a crowded dining hall. Zach slowly lowered his hands (he had been gesticulating wildly during his little speech) and mumbled an apology that was too quiet for anyone but Zorian to hear. Scattered laughter rippled through the gathered students for a few moments before everything finally returned to normal.

“Err…” started Zach. “Maybe we should continue this at the fountain, yeah?”

“I don’t know,” remarked Zorian carefully. “If you intend to be this loud, I don’t think it will do much.”

“Oh ha ha,” grumbled Zach. “So I got a little excited… not everyone is an ice cube like you Zorian.”

“Ice cube?” asked Zorian, an undercurrent of warning in his voice.

But Zach was already packing, and Zorian could do nothing but huff in annoyance and follow after him. Still, Zach’s little outburst answered a few of his questions. So it wasn’t his memories, or even his mind that got sent back – it was his soul. That would certainly explain why his spellwork and shaping skills didn’t disappear every time he started over. It was common knowledge that magic was heavily connected to the soul, even if no one really knew the exact mechanism of their interaction.

When they finally reached the fountain, Zach seemed to be in a contemplative mood so Zorian took a moment to study the schools of colourful fish swimming in the basin of the fountain. He actually pitied the poor things, since they were unlikely to last long. For years the fountain had been in disrepair, and it was only due to the grander-than-usual summer festival that it was renovated. How likely was it that the Academy would continue to maintain it after the occasion passed? Not very. And it was even less likely it would be kept in a good enough condition for the fish to survive. Their days were numbered.

“Zorian…” Zach prodded.

“Hm?”

“Tell me… what do you know about time travel?”

Zorian blinked. Well. That was direct.

“Time travel?” Zorian asked with as much confusion as he could fake. “Not much, I guess. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Ugh, well…” Zach fumbled with words, scratching his chin nervously. “You’ll probably think I’m insane, but I’m a time traveler of sorts.”

Wow, Zach really didn’t have a subtle bone in his body, did he?

“You don’t look very old,” Zorian remarked. “If you come from the future it must not be a very far one.”

“No, no, it’s more like… the whole world resets itself on the night of the summer festival, and I’m the only one who remembers what happened.”

That was an interesting way of explaining it, though the idea of a spell affecting the whole world was even more ridiculous than the idea of working time travel magic.

“I’ve lived through this month… god, at least 200 times by now,” continued Zach. “Honestly, I’m starting to lose count.”

“Wait, you’re talking about it like you can’t stop it,” said Zorian, unable to keep a tiny bit of alarm out of his voice. Luckily, Zach appeared to be too agitated to notice.

“That’s just it, I don’t know if I can stop it!” Zach shouted, before he realized what he was doing and quieted down so as to not attract unneeded attention. “I was hit by this spell in the previous revert, and its effects didn’t completely go away when I reverted into the past.”

Zorian frowned. ‘Previous revert’? What about the other 7? Did Zach somehow skip those or did he simply not remember them? It occurred to Zorian that the after-effects of the lich’s spell could have been even more serious than what he was currently looking at – what if Zach had spent the past 7 restarts in a coma? Though that begged the question of why his guardian had reported him as missing instead of bringing a healer.

“I guess it really was a soul magic spell like you said,” continued Zach. “I need to watch out for those from now on. Anyway, at first I thought it’s just some nasty sickness that’ll pass, and to a degree I was right. I already feel a lot better than I did this morning. It’s just that it wasn’t only my body that was affected – my mind has been a little spotty ever since I woke up.”

Oh no…

“I don’t remember how I started this time loop,” concluded Zach, confirming Zorian’s fears. “Or whether it was me who started it in the first place. My memory is full of blanks like that at the moment. I’m hoping it will all come back to me but…”

Zorian stared at the other boy, stony faced. Basically, they were both in deep shit.

Zach seemed to interpret Zorian’s serious look a little differently, though.

“You don’t believe me,” he concluded.

“It’s pretty far-fetched,” Zorian said. If he hadn’t lived through it, he wouldn’t have believed him, no. “But I’m a pretty open-minded guy. Let’s pretend you’re right for the moment. What’s that got to do with me?”

Zach arched an eyebrow at him, apparently incredulous about something.

“Huh,” he said. “You’re really different from your other self.”

“My other self?” Zorian asked curiously.

“Yeah,” Zach nodded. “My memory may be spotty about some things, but I definitely remember you. Mostly because you kept dying at the start of the attack…”

Zach mumbled the last sentence in a quiet voice that probably wasn’t meant to carry but did. Zorian pretended he didn’t hear it.

“You’re different than you used to be,” Zach said. “You were more irritable, and always busy with something or other. You never believed me when I tried to tell you about the whole time travel thing – you thought I was trying to make fun of you.”

Well… that kind of story sounded exactly like something his brothers would try to fool him with. And Zach did have a great many things in common with those two already.

“You’ve changed,” Zach concluded. “You’re a lot calmer. More laid-back, I guess.”

Zorian frowned. He didn’t think he changed that much in personality, but he supposed it would be hard to not change when going through something like this. To say nothing of the fact that more than 8 months had passed since the restarts started for Zorian.

“So, wait… why did I change then?” Zorian asked. “Didn’t you say the whole world resets itself?”

“Don’t know,” Zach shrugged, then gave him a speculative look. “Come to think of it, you were there too, weren’t you?”

Zorian gave him a confused look. He wasn’t going to get baited that easily.

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“No, of course you don’t remember,” Zach sighed. “Do you at least feel a little different lately or something?”

“Come to think of it… yes,” confirmed Zorian. “I chose different electives than I intended to, for no good reason really, and I did a bunch of other strange things ever since I came to Cyoria.”

Zorian’s motivation for saying that was two-fold. First of all, he wanted to see how Zach would react to the idea of another person going through the time loop with him. Secondly, he wanted to lay the groundwork for an explanation why he’d be acting differently in every restart, in case he decided not to tell Zach about himself.

He was surprised that Zach was so willing to believe him, though. Apparently even after all this time (nearly 17 years, if the other boy was to be believed), Zach still hasn’t developed an ability to effectively read people. That, or Zorian really was that good of an actor.

“Strange,” was all Zach said.

“Yeah,” Zorian agreed. “So… any advice a time traveler can tell a mortal like me? A secret spell of awesomeness, maybe?”

“To be honest, most of the spells I know are combat ones,” Zach admitted. “I’m really good at combat magic, which is good because I need to be good at it. There is… something I’m trying to stop.”

“Something involving the mysterious adversary that messed you up?” tried Zorian. He really wanted to work the invasion into the conversation but didn’t know how to justify knowing anything about it. “Do you remember how that happened, at least?”