Chapter 11 The Phaedrus
THE PHAEDRUS
Upon graduation, students shall possess such mastery of the arcane that none in the earthly realm may best them, save for their fellow Cygni.
Claudia is exhausted when she gets to her first rhetorical theory class with Professor Lamour.
The nightmare kept her from getting any rest. She’s running on fear and fumes.
The room is dull and dark and warm. It smells of cheap tea and dust. Students shuffle to their seats and ready their desks, creating a hum of comforting white noise.
The atmosphere begs her to curl up and fall asleep in her wooden chair.
Professor Lamour, wrapped in wrinkly red robes, sits at his desk with a book cracked open in his lap.
His hair is black but thinning with age.
He’s lanky and thin, with gaunt cheeks and tired brown eyes.
Candlelight clings to him and makes him look oily.
All the way across the room sits Cassius, his hair perfectly tousled and his mouth pulled into a sly grin. He always looks as if he’s about to lay down the winning hand in a card game.
When they make eye contact, Cassius’s smile sinks into a thin line, and his jaw clenches. He glances away and opens a book, clearly having no intention of looking at her for the rest of class. Maybe for the rest of eternity.
But that’s fine. Let him ignore her. Let him turn his back. This way, he won’t see her creeping up with a rhetorical knife in her hand. She’ll keep learning from him until she’s better than him.
He’s writing something now, and Claudia strains her neck to see what it is. She’s too far away, and she can’t stop looking at his hands; large and thick-veined, they look better suited for holding a sword than holding that quill.
Lamour stands at his desk and clears his throat. “I begin every day with the same prayer: Malevimus, God of Wit and Secrets, giver of all truth, pray you do not let my students wield rhetoric to inflict suffering.”
A beat of silence passes.
“One day, gods willing, you all will graduate and go on to great things, and your magic will allow you to best all your colleagues. With the aid of linguistic magic, you could become gifted lawyers who win every case, or miraculous politicians who persuade parliaments to unanimous votes. You could become authors whose works are celebrated even centuries after your death, or theologians who convince congregations to share a church’s boundless riches with the destitute. ”
Claudia would be excited at the possibilities for her future were she not so damn tired. Dorian was right—the Realm of Nightmares is costly. She can barely sit up straight.
“But what you must understand is that your discipline has the greatest capacity for evil. You could convince humankind to destroy the world as they know it, and the true danger lies in the ease of evil. To mislead is easier than to guide. To divide is easier than to unite. It takes no effort to shirk morality, no great cunning to seduce someone toward vice. And, in a similar vein, linguistic magic itself is easy. Familiar, even. You may hear students from other disciplines mock our medium by calling it ‘storybook magic.’ In a way, they are right. Magic channeled through written or verbal spells is something we’ve seen in many works of fantasy.
To create and cast, you need nothing more than the language you already know.
However, knowing how to cast a spell differs from knowing when or why.
That’s what we call kairos—the art of perfect timing.
But kairos requires wisdom, and what is the root of wisdom?
” He clasps his hands behind his back. “It is empathy. Without it, your power becomes tyrannical, and your rhetoric becomes a demand for violence. Socrates knew this, as did Plato. Rhetoric is weaponry. A metaphor is a gun.”
Self-doubt leaches her excitement to learn. Is she good enough to handle this responsibility? Can she be trusted with these skills?
Lamour paces the floor. “I can teach you to be a good rhetorician, but I can only pray that you will be a good person. Once you are armed with the magic of persuasion, the choice of how you wield it is yours. It is your test and your burden. I leave it to your conscience, and your god.”
Her guilt rages and roars. If her job here is to be a good person, she has already failed.
Lamour sips his tea and places it back down on his desk.
“Your assignment today will put you in the mindset of one who knew and defined the dangers of rhetoric: Plato. As I’ve said many times in this class, the surest path to greatness is to behave as though you already are.
” He turns to the board and writes a single word in chalk: Imitation.
“This is the bridge between what you read and what you write. Open the Phaedrus, please.”
He pauses as the students obey. Claudia’s movements are slow and tired.
“You will write this dialogue word for word. Once you have mastered the form of the original, you will write your own dialogue in the style of Plato.” He looks up at the clock. “You may begin.”
Claudia writes slowly, her penmanship nearly illegible. Her eyes, heavy with exhaustion, drift over the pages, sweeping over the important themes and snagging on the odd mentions of madness.
Madness, provided it comes as the gift of heaven, is the channel by which we receive the greatest blessings.
… The men of old who gave things their names saw no disgrace or reproach in madness; otherwise they would not have connected it with the name of the noblest of arts, the art of discerning the future, and called it the manic art…
She rubs her temples. This room is dark and dangerously cozy. Writing this is eating away at her energy.
So, according to the evidence provided by our ancestors, madness is a nobler thing than sober sense.… Madness comes from God, whereas sober sense is merely human.
Yawn. Another.
If anyone comes to the gates of poetry and expects to become an adequate poet by acquiring expert knowledge of the subject without the Muses’ madness, he will fail, and his self-controlled verses will be eclipsed by the poetry of men who have been driven out of their minds.
Her heavy-lidded eyes flutter closed for a second. The warmth of the candles on the wall washes over her.
We said that love was a kind of madness, did we not?
She doesn’t realize she’s falling asleep until it’s too late and her head is flat to the desk.
The whole class blinks by, and she’s scared awake when each student’s chair simultaneously scrapes across the floor as they’re getting up to leave.
She wipes a spill of drool from the corner of her mouth and gathers her things.
Once the room has completely cleared, she steps up to her professor’s desk and meets his dark, deep-set eyes for the first time. She expects some sort of recognition from him, an immediate realization that the two of them share celestial blood. There is nothing of the sort.
He blinks, declining to speak first.
“Professor Lamour, may I speak with you about an important matter?”
He gives her a stern look when he snaps his book shut and stands from his desk. “After you slept through my class?”
“I’m so sorry, sir. I was up all night.” Her gaze sweeps the room, ensuring no one is listening. “It’s the best time to see the stars, you know,” she whispers, giving him a knowing look.
His eyes widen. “Stop.”
“You know what I’m saying, don’t you? I know what you are. You are what I am.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, turning his back and taking a step toward the door.
“You’re not as good at hiding it as you think,” she lies.
He pauses, his back still turned.
“I knew from the second I saw you,” she continues.
With a thick swallow, he looks back over his shoulder. “How?”
“I can sense it,” she says, holding back any mention of the diary. “Will you teach me? I need to—”
He silences her with a sharp wave of his hand. “We can’t talk about this here,” he says, continuing toward the exit. Running past him, she positions herself in the doorway of the classroom and refuses to get out of the way.
“Where can we talk about it, then?”
He scowls. “Nowhere. I cannot help you, Miss Jolicoeur.” He tries to shoulder past her, but she stands firm.
“You have to.”
“I won’t. I refuse to witness the death of yet another one of my kin, nor will I risk my life any further. It is a miracle I’ve survived this long, and I am tired of tempting death.”
“Professor, you’re the only one left who can teach me.” She leans close and whispers, “I know Odette was killed. If you don’t help me, I will be next.”
“If you don’t use celestial magic, you will be safe. Now leave it alone.”
She doesn’t move. “You don’t understand. It’s not optional for me. I’m only here because—”
“You should not be here at all,” he snaps.
“You clearly have no respect for rhetoric, else you would not be sleeping through class and then begging to study something else. I do not enjoy having a dispassionate student in my class, and I certainly have no interest in working with you on something that would put us both in harm’s way. ”
Her jaw hangs open. “I do respect rhetoric. I just need you to—”
“NO,” he barks in her face. Stunned, she’s too weak to hold her ground when Lamour finally pushes past her and leaves her standing alone.