Chapter Text
Without preamble, Alhaitham says, “I plan to leave on a mission on behalf of the Akademiya next week. I don’t know when or if I’ll return.”
Kaveh does not immediately register what Alhaitham is telling him. It is still early in the morning, he has not slept well recently, and he has other things on his mind – with only a fraction of his concentration dedicated to the conversation unfolding before him, he listlessly nods along.
Alhaitham continues, “I’ve already made the necessary preparations to leave my assets in your care. Make time in the next few days so that I can inform you of the details–”
“Hold on,” Kaveh cuts in. He frowns and blinks a few times. Instinctively, he understands that he has missed something crucial, but the rest of him has not yet caught up.
Against Kaveh’s expectations, Alhaitham quietly waits. Kaveh inhales deeply and takes in his surroundings – he has never been one to miss the forest for the trees. The sun filters through the windows hazily, casting a light green tint onto the table in the middle of the living room. They are finishing up breakfast while sitting across from each other. It isn’t something that they always do, but it happens often enough that Kaveh would call it a common event.
It is because the circumstances are ordinary that Kaveh struggles to internalize what it is that Alhaitham is saying to him: he has been caught off guard because he did not expect anything to break from their familiar, shared mundanities.
Finally, Kaveh says, “Are you suggesting there’s a possibility you might not return?”
“I am,” Alhaitham answers.
“Then don’t go,” Kaveh says.
“This isn’t something I can simply deny,” Alhaitham replies.
Kaveh is aware that he is in an impossible situation. If he lets this go, then Alhaitham will proceed with his plans undeterred. But if he forces an argument, then he will surely lose. That Alhaitham will make Kaveh concede is a foregone conclusion, because Alhaitham holds information like cards in his hand, and Kaveh will be forced to play with whatever Alhaitham decides to discard.
But because the outcome is the same in both cases, the decision is easy: Kaveh must choose the path that he’ll regret less.
With that in mind, Kaveh falls silent and thinks on what to say next.
The event that follows is either a dream or a memory.
Kaveh sits with Alhaitham at a tavern late into the night; their surroundings are busy, yet the two of them are in a world of their own. Alhaitham is making a point that Kaveh can understand if he applies only his sense of logic, but that he cannot accept once the rest of his mind comprehends the implications.
“Take a simple gamble upon a coin flip,” Alhaitham says. “If heads, then I give you 100 mora, and if tails, then you give me 100 mora. Do you take the gamble?”
Expected value, outside options, calculation of risk – Kaveh immediately grasps where Alhaitham is going with this formulation. Their dialectic proceeds.
Alhaitham’s thesis: The value of taking the gamble is exactly the value of refusing the gamble in expectation. Therefore, taking the gamble can be rationalized.
Kaveh’s antithesis: The reality of the matter is that only one outcome will occur – either the gamble is won or lost. A person who is sensitive to taking on a loss may subjectively weight the possibility of losing more heavily than the possibility of winning. Therefore, refusing the gamble can also be rationalized.
“Anyway, if the point isn’t obvious, then simply change the parameters of the gamble,” Kaveh says. Sluggishly, he gestures with his hands. “There is a one percent chance of winning a million mora and a one percent chance of losing it, and for the other ninety-eight draws – nothing happens.”
The censer at their table burns with the heavy fragrance of cheap incense. Kaveh recognizes the design and pattern – The Twisting Mist. He remembers reading that the Kshahrewar machines that produce them deliberately mimic handcraftsmanship. The process injects random flaws into the embellishments, so that no two censers are exactly the same on the outside in spite of the fact that their internal dimensions are strictly regulated. Though created purely by mechanical means, they are so convincingly artisanal that even native Sumerans often incorrectly believe they are handmade.
Smoke curls around them in lurid swirls. The outline of Alhaitham’s face is obscured but his irises shine keenly. Their dialectic continues.
Kaveh’s thesis: Even if the loss happens with only the slimmest of probabilities, most people don’t have a million mora to lose. Even though the expected value of the gamble is zero – exactly the same as refusing it – most people would rationalize refusing the gamble.
Alhaitham’s antithesis: I would take the gamble and I do not have a million mora to lose.
Suddenly, Kaveh remembers the reason that people call Alhaitham the lunatic of the Akademiya is not because he is misunderstood – it is because his behavior can always be explained as pure rationality. But while people operate under systems of rationality, human beings are not perfectly rational. Therefore, to be perceived as a sane human being, one must have a certain amount of irrationality, especially in extreme situations.
Alhaitham is called a lunatic because people are instinctively repulsed by the fact that he is too rational.
Kaveh’s thesis: Even if it were your life on the line?
Alhaitham’s antithesis: If the value of winning is large enough…
Kaveh’s thesis: But if you lost, then you would give up… everything.
Alhaitham’s antithesis: In fact, if the value of winning is large enough, I would even consider it a good deal.
Kaveh’s thesis: There’s nothing that can be valued the way a life can–
Alhaitham’s antithesis: I shouldn’t risk my life if it’d save somebody else? 10 people? 100 people?
“You know that’s not what I mean,” Kaveh replies. He is becoming emotional.
Alhaitham tells him, “Then say what you mean.”
But Kaveh can’t. He believes that he doesn’t have the words to persuade Alhaitham. Therefore, he speaks words not meant to convince but to harangue. As such, what Kaveh says is not important, and has been redacted for brevity.
Alhaitham listens to Kaveh’s criticisms silently, neither accepting nor refuting them. Incense continues to burn and envelope them; Kaveh’s head clouds in the scent and the smoke. They are again part of the larger world around them.
The end result of the dialectic: a failure to achieve synthesis.
Kaveh asks, “So why can’t you refuse?”
“There are a few reasons,” Alhaitham answers.
“Fine. Give them to me in whatever order you want,” Kaveh replies.
Kaveh can already anticipate the broad strokes on how the rest of this will go. Alhaitham will provide a motivation that Kaveh will rebut, and he might let it go, but only because his next motivation will be even harder to deny – until there comes a point that Kaveh has either argued himself out of rationality or into a corner. That is how well Kaveh knows Alhaitham’s modus operandi.
“It’s something that few are qualified to undertake,” Alhaitham says. “It has to do with Irminsul.”
“Then surely Lesser Lord Kusanali is better equipped to do whatever needs to be done?” Kaveh asks.
“That isn’t the sort of underdeveloped idea I’d expect from you, Kaveh,” Alhaitham says. “If you think about it… shouldn’t it be clear that there is a reason she can’t directly intervene?”
“Can’t you refrain from your usual condescension at a time like this?” Kaveh snaps back.
Alhaitham seems amused; his eyes fold slightly before he says, “It’s exactly at times like this that people should be true to who they are, don’t you think?”
His expression and words together disarm Kaveh for a few moments – he almost forgets that they are arguing. Kaveh glances down at his lap and forces himself to avoid distraction and think carefully on all the pieces Alhaitham has given him so far.
The event that follows is either a dream or a memory.
Kaveh meets Alhaitham at the beginning of his second year as a student of the Akademiya, not long after he chooses his Darshan. It is the first time that Kaveh publicly exhibits his work as an official member of Kshahrewar.
It was not without a great deal of internal struggle that Kaveh decided upon Kshahrewar. Kaveh knows that of the Six Darshans, Ksharhrewar lacks modern prestige, support, and funding – in an Akademiya that favors theoretical ideology above all else, Kshahrewar craftsmanship is seen as too practical and therefore a touch mundane. But in the end, Kaveh could not be moved by the seniors who tried to persuade him to join a Darshan with money and resources, eager to recruit somebody like Kaveh, who had already showed a tremendous amount of potential – and in turn, he was promptly abandoned by his upperclassmen. Not a single one attends the exhibition.
Kaveh stands alone at the diorama he’d spent days perfecting and viscerally suppresses an urge to snatch the cap off of his own head and wring it in his hands, using it as a proxy target for his frustrations. “How shallow,” he mutters under his breath over and over again.
He is not upset that he has been discarded by people he’d thought were his friends. Rather, he is deeply angered at how fundamentally neglected Kshahrewar has become. There are at least a dozen students of Kshahrewar participating in the exhibition, yet only a handful of people outside of the Darshan have deigned to attend.
It is just when Kaveh is on the verge of storming off to make a scene that a yet unnamed Alhaitham unobtrusively enters the exhibition hall.
Alhaitham observes each project quietly and allows each student to run through their prepared explanations of their design philosophy before he moves onto the next. Alhaitham’s mere presence increases the tension in the room – or perhaps it is only tension within Kaveh’s body.
When he finally arrives at Kaveh’s diorama, Kaveh rambles through his canned lines and grew tenser yet. He expects the strange and silent student to immediately move on and is tempted to throw a barb to see if he could provoke a response – but unexpectedly, Alhaitham speaks first.
“There’s a trick to this diorama,” he says.
All Kaveh knows about the person in front of him is that he must be new to the Akademiya – he does not wear a badge that indicates a Darshan – alongside the overarching features of his face and build.
“The symbols on the floors at the north, east, and south rooms of the building are matching. Each is a rotation of the symbol preceding it moving clockwise. But the symbol at the west doesn’t match the pattern. That suggests that it hides something,” he says.
He holds Kaveh’s gaze evenly, without looking away. There is something unsettling about his eyes, but Kaveh cannot look away.
“If you turn over the western symbol as if it were printed on both sides, then the pattern reemerges,” he says. “Something… is beneath."
He reaches into Kaveh’s diorama with neither hesitation nor shame. Using the very tips of his fingers, he carefully pulls up the floorboard that Kaveh etched the westernmost symbol on; there is a single coin tucked within. He picks it up before flipping the floorboard and replacing it.
Throughout, he is impassive. He shows no indication that this discovery thrills or even so much as interests him.
No – it is Kaveh who is thrilled that his trick had been discovered.
“So there’s something wrong with Irminsul,” Kaveh says slowly, “and I presume that you have to directly enter it. But if it’s something that dangerous… then how is it possible that nobody has noticed anything amiss? Irminsul is connected to the earth itself…”
“Kaveh, do you recall the parable of the snake?” Alhaitham asks.
The question would feel irrelevant coming from anybody else, but Kaveh knows that Alhaitham never detours if he doesn’t have a point to make. Kaveh replies, “The one that’s about the temptation of sin, yes. Every Akademiya graduate has heard that one hundreds of times, I’m sure.”
“Then retell it for me,” Alhaitham says.
Kaveh almost wants to refuse, but the way that Alhaitham phrases the request tugs at him against his own will. For me, he says. Kaveh’s sure that Alhaitham is aware that Kaveh finds it difficult to resist such intimate words.
He sighs slowly before he recites the familiar tale:
There was a time when people lived alongside the tree of knowledge peacefully. The gods of old told humanity not to eat from its fruits, and cultivate wisdom through their own means. The people obeyed… but then came a snake that would tempt people at night, going from house to house, dropping the fruits of the tree at their doorsteps, and whispering to them that a human could gain powers and providence to rival the gods if they ate the fruits. And those were tempted… by the snake… ate the fruits and died. When the gods found the bodies of the sinners at the roots of the tree, they cast humanity away as punishment. No longer blessed by the tree of knowledge, humans must now toil thrice as hard to attain wisdom.
Silence lingers for a few moments after Kaveh concludes the story. Then Alhaitham says, “You realized the answer partway through, didn’t you?”
“The problem wasn’t with the tree of knowledge, it was that the snake tempted people,” Kaveh replies. “And the parable…”
“It’s a metaphor for something that happened in the past,” Alhaitham says, “and something that is happening again.”
In Kaveh’s mind, the pieces are beginning to fall into place.
The event that follows is either a dream or a memory.
Kaveh’s had just enough to drink; there is a pleasant fuzziness in his mind that cushions his thoughts without obscuring them, and the world is delightfully off-kilter. He has nowhere to go, but this doesn’t bother him. He walks through Sumeru City and enjoys the fact that he is alive and well enough to live in the moment. The streets feel a little illogical, but he thinks this a lovely thing.
The stars glitter enticingly above – Kaveh feels almost like he could reach into the sky and grab them like he’d take a fistful of candies – and the moon is bright enough to put the city lights to shame. His feet lead him naturally to Alhaitham’s house. In Kaveh’s opinion, it is a modest and generic residence. There is nothing interesting about the building itself, but he has no particular complaints about it either.
Like many houses in Sumeru City, Alhaitham’s has an outdoor extension. Kaveh seats himself there, facing the building itself, and leans back against the support pillar. It is only then that he notices that he can see right through one of the windows and into Alhaitham’s study. In fact, it affords a clear view of Alhaitham’s desk.
Kaveh’s mind wanders and fantasizes, but he finds it hard to envision what Alhaitham would look like if he were sitting at his desk while Kaveh peers through the window. He suddenly realizes that he has only ever seen Alhaitham working either from behind or from a side profile. Whenever he sees Alhaitham at his desk from the front, Alhaitham always has his face partially obscured by books or papers.
This thought disconcerts Kaveh. His tipsiness twists unpleasantly into a vague sense of dread. Gripped by anxiety, he self-reflects:
Should he tell Alhaitham about the view from his window?
On one hand, Kaveh feels like he has unintentionally committed a breach of privacy.
On the other hand, who else would have the opportunity to notice? It is private property. Except for Kaveh, who would have the nerve to sit at the porch as if he belongs there?
What would the consequences be?
On one hand, Kaveh can imagine that it is something that Alhaitham wouldn’t be bothered by. The fact that Alhaitham put his desk in view of a window speaks to the fact that Alhaitham doesn’t care to begin with.
On the other hand, Alhaitham never seems to miss an opportunity to rebuke Kaveh’s actions.
The end result of self-reflection: Kaveh won’t tell. It is a secret he will lock within himself.
“Is there a reason,” Kaveh asks, “that you’ve led me to this point indirectly? I can’t think of a reason that you couldn’t tell me all of this directly…”
Alhaitham replies, “I refuse to answer.”
“But—”
“Kaveh, I concede that I could have been more upfront,” Alhaitham cuts in, “but it isn’t relevant to what you want to know, is it?”
“You’re wrong,” Kaveh answers sharply, “and you know very well how I feel about that. About knowing you.”
It is rare that Alhaitham is surprised by anything, but for a moment, Kaveh can sense that Alhaitham didn’t expect that answer from him. It doesn’t show in Alhaitham’s expression, but Kaveh sees it in the subtle way he shifts his weight as if to defend from an unexpected attack – not even Alhaitham can completely quash his instinctive reactions – and Kaveh is deeply, profoundly satisfied to know that he can provoke that kind of response out of Alhaitham.
Kaveh is tempted to go on the offensive, to press the point and make it known that he is aware Alhaitham was taken off guard. There is something visceral and insatiable that the reaction draws out of him – like a predator that’s scented weakness.
Still, it isn’t a topic that Kaveh wants to talk about either. And more importantly, if it isn’t like Alhaitham to be surprised, then Kaveh wants to believe it’s also not like himself to be covetous.
“Let’s drop it and move on,” Kaveh says.
The event that follows is either a dream or a memory. Dreams and the wisdom of the world tree are connected, after all, and so dreams are intimately linked to information itself. It is not a coincidence that some people grasp profound epiphanies while looking upon their view of reality from within their dreams: conceptually, dreams and memories are linked with each other. The strength of that connection varies from person to person, but for Kaveh’s part – he used to have vivid dreams as a child, which returned to him once Sumeru regained its Archon’s divinity.
Alhaitham is lying in front of him, breathing shallowly. Kaveh cannot tell if he is asleep or unconscious, but it probably doesn’t matter. He is lying in their bed or he is sinking into a pond filled with lotuses or he is on display like a statue on a bed of marble or he is trapped in the roots of Irminsul – or he is in all of these places at once because this is in Kaveh’s mind, and his head is bursting with the ways that Alhaitham could be lying before him.
Kaveh touches Alhaitham, not with his hands but with his eyes. He takes in the shape of Alhaitham’s body piece by piece, from the tips of his fingers up the slope of his arm towards the curve of his face. “Vision happens in the brain, not in the eyes,” he remembers Alhaitham telling him at some point in the past. It feels like the words are echoing around him, whispers layering over each other.
The wire that attaches to Alhaitham’s earpiece is pulsating; something fluorescent is flowing out of it. Kaveh is strangely convinced that Alhaitham’s mind is coming out of his head and that substance is full of temptation.
How many times has Kaveh wished that he could peer into Alhaitham’s thoughts?
Kaveh wants to know if he is as present within Alhaitham’s mind as Alhaitham is within his.
He reaches out and twists his fingers around the wire. He bends it between his thumb and his index finger and finds it unexpectedly rigid. He digs his fingernails in and cracks through the outer layer. After a few moments, something liquidous flows out.
It’s not Alhaitham’s mind.
Blood is flowing from Kaveh’s fingertips. Perhaps it hurts, but more importantly – he is disappointed.
“Then why can’t it be me?” Kaveh asks.
“What do you mean?” Alhaitham replies.
“I also have a Dendro vision,” Kaveh says, “and I have enough standing within the Akademiya to be trustworthy, don’t I? And it might not be my strongest suit, but I’m surely at least as good at you in a fight—”
Alhaitham reaches over and places a hand on Kaveh’s upper arm. His expression is intense, and Kaveh is disconcerted.
The event that follows is either a dream or a memory.
Kaveh holds Alhaitham close and presses their bodies flush against each other. He kisses the corner of Alhaitham’s mouth.
“Are you shy?” Alhaitham asks, and he kisses Kaveh full on the lips. When it’s just the two of them, Alhaitham can be affectionate like this at times, though not always – and it makes Kaveh exceptionally happy when he is. Alhaitham’s thoughts are often inscrutable, but his actions are undeniable. Alhaitham never does anything without purpose, and he is too individualistic to force himself to do something purely for others’ sakes, so when Alhaitham touches and kisses him back, Kaveh is able to feel secure.
The event that follows is either a dream or a memory.
Unusually, Kaveh is struggling with an assignment. Alhaitham glances over Kaveh’s shoulder at his sketchbook and says, “You’ve misunderstood what the instructor wants. This is a maze, not a labyrinth.”
“Aren’t those the same things?” Kaveh asks.
“No, not at all. A labyrinth essentially has a singular route, while a maze has many,” Alhaitham answers.
Suddenly, Kaveh’s mind is full of ideas.
“So the goal of traversing a labyrinth is simply to persevere until the end…”
Branches are forming paths in front of him.
“But perseverance isn’t necessarily enough to make it through a maze.”
His hands are moving and thoughts are spilling onto the paper. He understands now that Irminsul is a maze and Alhaitham’s mind is a maze, but this conversation is a labyrinth.
The event that follows is either a dream or a memory.
“Can’t it be me?” Kaveh asks.
“What do you mean?” Alhaitham replies.
Kaveh says, “Do you really have to make me…”
Alhaitham leans in—
“…say things that you already know? It…”
—and touches Kaveh’s face gently. His palm slides down the curve of Kaveh’s cheek.
“It’s not efficient,” Kaveh says. The words feel like they choke his throat from the inside. They don’t belong to him and are forcing themselves out of his lips to go where they should be.
“I enjoy it when you say things like that,” Alhaitham replies. “Do you know why?”
Because it means Alhaitham is in Kaveh’s mind, influencing him, present in his thoughts and dreams and memories. Kaveh isn’t the kind of person who speaks to be efficient, after all.
Alhaitham places his mouth to Kaveh’s and takes back the words that were his to begin with.
The event that follows is either a dream or a memory.
“But what if somebody had eaten the fruit without knowing what it was?” Kaveh asks. “The parable says that the snake brought fruits to peoples’ doorsteps… so some of them may have been ignorant to what was happening. Then are they still guilty of sin?”
Alhaitham answers, “No, not of sin. But what of their ignorance?”
He flips a page in his book. He isn’t looking at Kaveh.
“Is ignorance… something that one should feel guilty for?” Kaveh says.
“Why are you asking me?” Alhaitham replies.
Kaveh doesn’t know.
The event that follows is either a dream or a memory.
Alhaitham stands before the world tree. The glow of Irminsul illuminates his silhouette from behind and Kaveh is filled with a deep sense of longing.
“Do you ever find yourself uncertain… if something in your mind is a dream or a memory?” Alhaitham asks.
Kaveh is the type of person who can believe his own lies. He believes that a certain amount of self-delusion is necessary for maintaining one’s ego. For example, a lie he often tells himself is: Let others call me what they want, it doesn’t concern or bother me in the least. He lies because it concerns him deeply that he has become known as the light of the Kshahrewar, as the title comes with the burden of others’ expectations placed upon his back. Someday he’ll either break underneath them or change himself for the sake of being able to stay standing upright, and neither is an appealing option to him.
So Kaveh lies to himself. It is an understandable act of self-preservation.
But when Alhaitham is before him, looking him right in the eyes, Kaveh is incapable of lying. Alhaitham’s gaze denies him the very option – he is aware that Alhaitham has already seen through everything.
Kaveh tries to swallow and finds his throat dry. He knows that the silence is answer enough; he uses this to justify the fact that he does not know what to say and attempts to absolve himself of the need to speak at all.
Alhaitham looks away as he folds one of his arms across his chest and exhales. Kaveh’s fingers ache with the urge to scratch at half-healed wounds. The pain would express into the physical world the feelings he cannot express using only words.
“This is what I’m meant to do, Kaveh,” Alhaitham says. “Do you understand?”
But the problem is just that: Kaveh does understand.
“Is there nothing… that I can do?” Kaveh asks.
Alhaitham smiles before he answers.
Thus, they arrive at the foregone conclusion to their conversation.