When We Were Young

"I've baked you some cakes," the young women pronounced shyly as she made her way into the crowded office that Nureyev and Rhysmaeon shared. Rhys looked up from the scroll that he and Nureyev had heaped on top of a thousand other scrolls littering the table in their tiny office in the Tharuden Wizard's College. The College was only a few years old at this point, but already Numedar was arranging for them to move into larger quarters. Numedar had a way with people, he exuded confidence and those around him couldn't help but follow. Nureyev was the same when he was talking about magic. Most times Nureyev was a bit odd and seemed unapproachable to people besides Rhysmaeon, but when he talked about levels of will or the nine modes and declensions of consensus he was animated and exuded his own brand of charisma that no one could deny. Rhysmaeon often felt like a gangly teenager tagging along for the ride when he worked with these two, but then, in the end, the description was not inaccurate.

Rhys casually ran his eyes over Sefnet as she tried to clear a place on Nureyev's desk to place the small tray she was holding. She was one of the twenty young students that formed the core of the new school, one of the few females amongst them, and by far the most attractive. Rhys suspected that she had a crush on Nureyev. He also suspected that Nureyev had no idea of this. Nureyev finally looked up from the equations that they had been discussing and took the situation in.

"Good morning, Sefnet," he said, turning his gaze back to the derivation of the planar inclination before him. "What brings you to our office so early? First lecture is not until midday today."

Sefnet blushed and replied saying, "I had heard that it was your birthday today and so a few of the students and I baked you some honey cakes. It is traditional in our city to give presents on a person's birthday."

Rhysmaeon snorted so hard trying to suppress a laugh that some of the tea he had been drinking came out of his nose. She was treading on quicksand and she had no idea it was even there.

"Well, that is a very generous thought and I accept your gift in the spirit it was given," Nureyev said as he looked up again with a befuddled expression on his face, "but today is not the day of my birth."

Sefnet stepped back in surprise as her cheeks turned even redder. As she started to stutter out a cascade of apologies Rhysmaeon felt the need to intervene.

"You know it is a perfectly logical mistake. Today is, in fact, a day for celebration since it is the sixth anniversary since Nureyev first appeared on the docks of Khufu. This is obviously behind the rumor that you heard, and cakes are a wonderful way to celebrate an anniversary."

Sefnet regained some of her composure and bathed Rhysmaeon with a warm gaze that sent his adolescent hormones into a tailspin. Nureyev smiled as well and reached for one of the cakes when a sharp acrid voice came from over Sefnet's shoulder and said, "Why don't you ask the teacher when his birthday is."

Rhysmaeon winced. Centarran was not a member of the College but he was a frequent visitor, and he had been coaxed into lecturing on one or two occasions. Rhysmaeon was in awe of him and he suspected that Numedar was as well in an uneasy sort of way. It was clear that Centarran and Nureyev were up to something since Centarran made such frequent visits and they often journeyed off, sometimes venturing across the planes, and refused to discuss where they had been upon returning. Just last week Nureyev had intimated that perhaps Rhysmaeon would be able to help them with this project at some point and perhaps he would be invited to join them on one of their journeys. Rhysmaeon was sure that the equation they were working on was somehow related to this project but he could not possibly see where it was heading. Excited as he was about learning of the mysterious project they were involved in, Rhysmaeon did not look forward to working with Centarran. Whereas Nureyev was occasionally alien and inscrutable - but basically a warm person - Rhys felt that Centarran was alien, inscrutable, devious and even capriciously cruel at times. Times such as now. There was no point to asking the question he had proposed and Sefnet had not been with the College long enough to just take Nureyev's inscrutable answers, when he even tried to answer a question such as that, and leave them as what they are - anomalies with no need for explanation.

"When is your birthday?" asked Sefnet hesitantly.

Nureyev just looked into the distance and smiled, "If you mean the day that I emerged crying and kicking from the womb of a woman and took my first gulp of air then I am afraid that that time has not yet come and probably never will. If you mean the time that the first thought or intention crossed my mind and exerted its subtle pressure on the world around me, then you would have to be more clear about what you mean by mind, since the fragile coil of memories and emotions that I wear at the moment might appear as no more than a fancy robe to the first compatriots that swam the seas of the world with me. And, if you truly want to reduce such a question to its primal moment when will first manifested in its expression of an individuality and an identity separate from the world, then you would have to explain what day or night was in such a context and who I am - for neither of these concepts were particularly well defined. More likely, you are probably referring to the moment when, within the current set of axioms and laws which define the universe as we know it, an entity first manifested which could trace its causal and continuous chain of transformations forward to the point of view with which you are communicating now."

Sefnet seemed to have become somewhat dizzy during Nureyev's monologue and Rhysmaeon was worried that she might actually topple over and take down several important piles of papers that he had been stacking all last evening.

"But in the end," Nureyev continued obliviously, "it would all be arbitrary; for who can differentiate the point at which an entity has begun its exercise of choice within the world, and before which its actions and existence are merely a story that is has created to explain its existence. In the end, I think I would have to say that my birthday is right now at the moment that you have asked such a wonderful question; for in response to this magical invocation I have created an entire universe in answer."

"And not only that," he added, "I have heard that in these parts it is traditional to have cake on one's birthday and look, there is cake right here, so it must be true."

It was a testament to the versatility of her intellect, for she really was one of the best and brightest of Tharuden, that she absorbed all of what Nureyev said and then smiled, filing it all away for later review.

Rhysmaeon knew that she had filed it away because almost fifteen years later she cornered him in the hallway of the new College buildings. Fifteen years was long after the short, torrid romance between them had flared up in a rampage of hormones and desire and died off a month later in the hopeless tangle of two overly complicated people with other passions to feed. In the fifteen years following Numedar's coronation the College had grown tremendously in size and power and both of them had become extremely important wizards. And so it was that fifteen years later Sefnet cornered Rhysmaeon and explained to him in fevered tones what she had remembered Nureyev saying and what she now realized it might have meant. Rhysmaeon smiled and had to agree with her. Her explanations were well thought out and passionately delivered. Part of him ached, wondering what mad project could have occupied so much of his time that it distracted him from a mind so beautiful. Another part of him had to laugh, her explanations sounded reasonable, but for all his studying and work with Nureyev he could no more say whether it was right or wrong than she. There were concepts involved that he now realized he just did not have the hardware to contain, at least not yet. It was a brave new world and anything was possible now that the project was going well - literally anything.

Thanks for allowing this incredible world to be created. I cannot think of any other setting, gaming or other, which has allowed me to question so much and create so freely while still retaining a coherent story. Congratulations on 20 years of creating Bardic Tales and 40 years of creating you.