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| "Rather than asphyxiate him, the vapor seemed to clear his head..." |
At that moment, Granthem noticed some newcomers in their
midst. From the four corners of the room, three beings stood—two furry beings
(one tall and one squat), and a human—wearing masks and carrying guns that
instead of lasers or bullets sprayed some sort of vapor over the crowd. The
entire student body stood en masse, bringing their faces directly into the
cloud of vapor hanging over them. It reached Granthem, and he inhaled it
slowly. Rather than asphyxiate him, the vapor seemed to clear his head—the
clearest it had been all his life! Yes, he could believe “human error” existed,
but it was a fact of life, not something to be eradicated.
Who should appear next, but Sister Miligred herself, and her
four escorts! Granthem blinked; the woman standing there was not Sister
Miligred! She was an Elf-maiden! She raised her hands to attract the attention of
the whole crowd.
“My friends,” she cried aloud, “now is the hour of your
liberation! My name is Laurel, and I and my friends seek to free you! See, the
wyrts no longer force strange beliefs on you; watch how they scurry out of the
building! Do you not realize, good scholars, that you have long been kept in
the dark by these seemingly innocent creatures, really vehicles of control
keeping you under the lies and the oppression of the Elitinati!”
The students cried out in anger, and Granthem called out,
“What shall we do?”
Laurel smiled, “We must spread this same message to all the
Teaching Schools! We need your help! I have succeeded in confusing the
wyrt-influence, but every school must have the analthraxine-vapor to complete
the vaccination! Let us free our fellow Eillumaeians!”
Everyone cheered, and it was all Gorrmunsa could do to pass
around the vials of analthraxine fast enough.
The fact that Granthem was at their lead granted them quick
access into the next school, and the professors from that school spread to
other schools. By evening curfew, every school had been thoroughly saturated
with analthraxine. As they walked back through the town (still in disguise, for
not all the citizens of Eillumaeia—particularly not the Elitinati initiates—had
been dosed with analthraxine), Laurel observed how the wyrts now scuttled right
past or right over the university buildings, and their hosts did not walk
inside as they used to, but directly past the stairs.
Laurel, on a whim, stopped a passing wyrt-host.
“Tell me, commoner,” she said with the authoritative air of
an Elitinati novice, “what is that building there?” she pointed at the university
that only hours before had been filled with students.
The man shook his head. “It is but an empty building,
madam,” he said.
“What of the schools here?” Laurel asked significantly.
“Schools?” the man scoffed, “how can there be schools until
the school-masters can confirm the material!”
“I’m sorry,” Laurel apologized, testing further, “I did not
know.”
The man shrugged, “To err is human,” he quoted, “now, if
you’ll excuse me, there’s a new film at the pavilion that I simply must see!”
and the man scurried away.
Carsius, having observed the entire conversation, smiled at
her from behind the leather straps of the helmet.
“So, the influence is broken, and the Scholarship Pillar is
no more,” he remarked.
Laurel nodded, “The idea of human error is firmly ingrained in the mother-mind. She will
continue to filter information by that.” The Elf-maid’s face looked troubled.
“What is it?” Augustus asked.
“We must not celebrate too soon, my friends,” she said as
they entered the tunnel into the mansion. “The wyrts may not notice the
universities any longer, but they are still strong in the other areas.”
“Aye,” Atis agreed, “and even those whose wyrts left the
university were discovered by them again as soon as they exited the building.”
He kicked the front door closed behind him with particular venom. “Those
blasted Elitinati!”
“Tomorrow,” Deej remarked, “I will send for more hourosh
from my people. Never fear, Laurel. We now have an effective method for taking
down each pillar till the Eillumaeians are completely free!”
<<<<<>>>>>
In The Illustrious Temple University….
The
Elitinati Mentor searched frantically. It had to be there! There just wasn’t any explanation. He mopped his sweating
brow, frantically searching the few consciousnesses under his control. Nowhere did
they register any use for the buildings he knew once held the finest example of
Elitinati conditioning on the planet.
“Hammacus!”
The Mentor winced as the thought from the Elitinati
Overseer directly superior to him ripped through his brain so fast it made his
head ring. Hammacus reluctantly opened his mind and “entered” the mental
presence of his master.
“Yes,
Master?” he responded.
“What
seems to be the trouble, Hammacus? I see excessive levels of doubt and
curiosity among the populace. As the Scholarship Mentor, can you explain to me
why this is so?”
Hammacus trembled, “I don’t know, Master,” he thought in reply. “Typically the
Teachers are pliable and suggestible, but lately they have been questioning my
direction. They seem to think—“
“Stop!
I don’t want to hear any more!” the
Overseer cut him off. “So, the Teachers are thinking, are they? Yes,
I have seen this; I have also seen an increase in experimentation. The
Eillumaeians seem to languish under the delusion that their puny minds can come
up with a solution in and of themselves, and many are more satisfied with
trusting their own ways than what we tell them.”
“Milord,
I have been serving you faithfully as ever; could it not be that the
mother-mind has caught some sort of virus that distorts our commands?”
“Do
not blame your incompetence on a creature vastly superior to yourself!” The Overseer snapped, “See that you
continue to do your job; I expect full cooperation from the populace within the
week. Meanwhile…give them more entertainment to distract them from their
experiments; assuage their doubts with tricks and shows, soak up their time
with media: art, games, and movies, parties and events. If they’re going to use
their free time to think, well, then, we shall just take away their free time!”
Hammacus bowed his head, “It will be so, Master.”
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