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To Merlin’s school in Carmarthen they accepted anyone who was able to find it, enter it, locate Professor Merlin there and respond to the question on the quiz sheet. The sheet (completely worn-out) that Merlin would winkle out of the folds of his cloak, was always the same, and one would be correct to surmise that it hadn’t changed for decades. Other well-known requirements – i.e. being at least 16 years old, knowledge of Latin, clean nose, and a clean hanky in the left breast pocket – were optional.

Gwydion came to the school by foot, with a staff and a knapsack, wearing very good pants made of sheep wool – honnis soient those who would say that the pants were out of fashion. In the dark eyes of Gwydion sparkled readiness to answer any question from the quiz sheet, acquire a handkerchief, and worst case, even a breast pocket (should it become a point of contention). Gwydion’s admittance turned out to be the first and only one of its kind in the whole history of the school. The very day he entered the town gates, found the school at the Market Square and knocked on its doors, Merlin was in absentia. Before leaving he had scribbled with chalk a rather illegible order on the wall, which stated that those who would appear should take the entrance exam with any teacher they could catch. Gwydion shook his head and started making inquiries. The schedule written in Oghamic on the wall of the Western Hall, which was constructed with unpolished stones, told him that Professor Orbilius taught Latin, a certain Tarquinius Snakes (Serpens) lectured on chemistry, Professor Fintan, son of Fingen, tutored on Fomorians’ legacy, Professor Luthgarda, daughter of Runhilda and Grendel, taught runology, Professor Maile Duin lectured on astronomy, Professor Cú Roí, son of Dáire, coached students on practical applications (Gwydion could not figure out of what), Archivarius Chlodwig Nachtvogel taught paleography, Professor Morgan-ap-Kerrig trained in the Art of Forgetting, and as to Dr. McCarhy – he lectured on the poetry of Tuatha Dé Danann, Irish literature, Welsh literature, 2 or 3 languages whose names Gwydion did not know, and conducted seminars on TS (time signs). Apparently, McCarhy was the youngest of them all – the heaviest load is always given to/reserved for the youngest professors.

The highest notches Gwydion could reach (it so happened that it was dark in the Hall so he was reading the schedule by touch) informed him that a class on medicine conducted by Dr. Mac Cecht was going on in the North Quarter of Picts Tower right then, so Gwydion decided to give it a try.

The building of the School, decorated with many towers, passages, arches, and suspension bridges, was divided into three parts, which were called quarters – Southern, Northern and Western. The appearance of each tower matched its name so uniquely that it was immediately obvious which tower was which. For instance, Vine Tower, stationed over wine cellars, was sometimes tipsy, and by its spirited appearance one could tell that it had taken one drop too many. One little tower was very shy and it was always hiding behind the others, so as to attract as little attention as possible. Everyone called it Bashful Tower, even though it had its own name – Branwen Tower. It was constantly on the move, due to its shyness, and could be found anywhere. The most handsome of the towers – Anthony the Southerner – was frequently cold and muffled itself up in the fog.

Gwydion found Picts Tower as soon as he stepped on the bridge connecting the Western Quarter with the Northern one. It was impossible to confuse it with another. Black, full of machicolations, with fang-like merlons, covered with coats of arms of clans and towns, with crossed halberds, with mottos such as “We are dying, but won’t surrender.” Probably, the most ancient one. Gwydion hastened his step.

Discovering the door behind which the class convened (it was decorated with such traditional medical insignia as the hammer and anvil), he carefully opened it a crack, and tried to squeeze his body through the fissure. The first thing he noticed there was, obviously, Dr. Dian Mac Cecht. The doctor had thick red hair reaching to his knees. He never cut it, braided it or used pins, and had to wear/keep it down while doing surgical procedures due to a certain geis. For this reason, performing a surgery, he would ask someone to collect his hair and keep it behind, so it would not fall on his face. It was considered a great honor to hold back Mac Cecht’s hair. Some girls were just dying for the chance. For the rest of the time, his hair was gathered into a ponytail and loosely kept by a few colored elastic bands. He always splashed his clothes with stone bramble juice in advance, so as to make blood spots less noticeable. He had the firm gaze of a professional and a very soothing voice. “If someone’s got his hand torn off – no problem” – Mac Cecht’s gentle voice reached Gwydion’s ears. After that he changed his mind about taking his exam with Mac Cecht. Moreover, he came to his senses only during the passage back to the Western Quarter.

To his right, there was the entrance to the manuscript repository. He remembered that Archivarius Chlodwig Nachtvogel lived there, that he was a teacher, too, and could help him take the exam. Gwydion had been knocking on the heavy door for a long time, until someone opened it from inside. Gwydion slid down the slippery floor, and between rows of bookcases, spotted the Archivarius. Nachtvogel had his feet in snake-skin slippers, wore a nightcap, and carried a lantern – it was 3pm. He squinted, scrutinizing Gwydion with a mild gaze.

• Here for the draconography practical? –he asked, following Gwydion inside between rows of bookcases, already preparing to open some inconspicuous dusty little door for him.
• Oh, no, no - hastily objected Gwydion. Before he could add anything, Archivarius made a gesture that was supposed to mean: “Make yourself comfortable, help yourself”, and disappeared amid towering cases of unknown purpose. Gwydion was afraid to go and search for him – who knew where you could end up that way. Moreover, he felt he’d made a blunder by waking the honorable teacher. He tiptoed his way back to the door and left the repository.

Professor Luthgarda, daughter of Runhilda, was his next hope. The schedule told him that she was somewhere close, and if the sundial in the court didn’t lie, her runology class was about to end soon. Gwydion made it down six flights of stairs, and, before he could figure out if he should descend any further, heard a thunderous voice:

• If we expand your kenning, Dilwyn, son of Olwen, we’ll get hell knows what as a result!!!… To treat you impartially, I gave it to five senior students to decipher independently. Here’s what they got: tail of a dead cat, - the voice made a meaningful pause, - rotten rutabaga, another dead cat’s tail, a piece of a rag, a bit of a sponge. And what did you mean? Speak up, I don’t hear you! Ah, the battle sword of Konung Harald. Thought so. Apparently, you don’t think highly of the Konung!..

The voice continued booming for a while.

• You’ll be constructing nine-step kennings till a sword at the beginning remains a sword at the end!!! – it rumbled behind the door.

An awful suspicion that it was Luthgarda herself crept into Gwydion’s heart. With bated breath he looked inside and almost fainted. Professor Luthgarda was a giantess. A stone giantess of ferocious looks. And she was knocking on the table with her fist which looked to weigh about a ton. Gwydion, a person completely free of any racial prejudices, toppled over the banisters in sheer terror and flew down headfirst into the inner court where he was caught and righted by some nice young man.

• What happened? – he asked Gwydion recounted his troubles.
• My God! –chuckled he. – You can take it with me. Gwydion’s jaw dropped.
• I’m McCarhy.

Mccarhy took Gwydion to the Southern Quarter, into Anthony Tower, poured him some tea, and started the exam after giving him a fair warning that he did not have Merlin’s quiz sheet and would thus ask as he pleased. McCarhy had the eyes of a hawk, and black hair gathered behind in an Indian ponytail.

On his right cheek he had a magical birthmark that won him the hearts and glances of all women – but only outside the school limits. When going out to shop in the markets, though, he always covered it with a band-aid. He called Merlin his teacher, not his colleague, and was lenient with regard to his students’ lapses of stupidity, since he himself had graduated not long ago, and memories of studenthood were still fresh. Learning of how Gwydion was from a small village of Llandilofawr close to Caerdylon, McCarhy was delighted and asked:

• Do you know what was there before - at the place where the village church now stands? Gwydion remembered their church. They had deliberating over the spot for it for a long time, planning construction, and when they finally built it, it so happened that all was fine if not for a brook flowing right through the middle. Somehow it’d escaped their sight. Since the 7th century the brook partially dried up; still it streamed quietly from the entrance to the altar.
• A brook bed, and before that a mill in the brushwood of snowball-trees, and before that a pasture, and before that a stone ring, and even earlier – the seabed. McCarhy nodded, satisfied with his answer.
• Three battles of Britain Island—did they come about for no good reason?
• There was the battle of trees in Caer-Nevenhyr, which began because of a roebuck and a puppy; the battle by Arfderydd, which began because of a lark nest; the battle by Camlan, which began because of the quarrel of Gwenhwyfar and Gwenhwyfach.
• Three terrible disasters that befell the Island of Britannia?
• A yellow fever that depopulated the Island during the reign of Maelgwn, son of Casswallawn; an outbreak of locusts that ate all of the king’s supplies during the reign of Lludd, son of Beli, and the Anglo-Saxons, who haven’t yet left the island.

Gwydion knew the triads by heart, and in his early childhood narrated them to himself in his spare time while lying under an old, weather-beaten boat turned upside-down, looking up at the sky through the cracks.

• Three skillful bards of King Arthur’s court?
• Myrddin Emrys, Taliesin – Chief of Bards, and Myrddin, son of Maddock Morvran.
• Mae hynny’n wych! You live in Llandilaver during the times of King Math, son of Mathonwy. You’re thinking of marriage. What would you need first of all, even before you find yourself a bride and ask for her consent?
• The consent of my four great-grandmothers, provided that they are still alive– answered Gwydion without thinking.
• Gwych, - repeated McCarhy and left the subject of local antiquities alone. Then Gwydion, streaming with sweat, was reciting and mixing up the names of Irish kings. All those Aeds, Conns and Donns sounded strange and incomprehensible, and difficult to pronounce – quite unlike familiar and clear Llawnrodded, Cainfarfawg, Gleulwild Gafaelfawr or Lleuddin Ietoedd, for example. Finally McCarhy scratched the tip of his nose and said:
• I can’t hide from you that, judging by your responses, your aptitude is much higher than that of any other student in the school that I know of. So, even now I’d like you to think very seriously about the following: what do you plan to accomplish upon graduation? Gwydion hesitated. McCarhy was still looking at him without breaking eye contact.
• To find a valley where everything that was once lost can be found? To add something of worth, at last, to the literature of the world? To discover islands where the sun never sets? To correct the most noticeable errors on the tablets of history? Gwydion sighed. He was mustering up his courage.
• Well? To make every living being happy? To stand above the world and concentrate in your hands all world power?
• As a matter of fact… I just wanted to learn how to cure sheep – exhaled Gwydion in a rush of hope. McCarhy leaned back on his stool and burst out laughing.
• You are accepted –he said, as soon as he regained his breath. Yes—I of course was testing you when I mentioned your talent. In reality, what matters is not how great your aptitude is, but … - well, essentially, that you like sheep.

McCarhy offered to accompany Gwydion to Dr. Rhiannon under the roof of Paradox Tower, in order to have his mental tenor assessed for once and for all, and thus end with all formalities. Dr. Rhiannon invoked Gwydion’s interest on such a level that he had to put a hand to his pounding heart. Just watching her, demurely putting away her harp to start the test, Gwydion had to remind himself that he needed to keep his emotions under control. The aptitude test was odd but simple on appearance. The first three questions made Gwydion smile, they did not require any answers – apparently, it was not the case with everybody, though, since Rhiannon scribbled something with her pen made of owl feather. Then there appeared a little box of which Gwydion thought, fleetingly, that it might contain cockleshells. Rhiannon nodded, but she left the box closed and never revealed what was inside. She stowed it away within the folds of her garment, and proceeded to ask:

• What will you do first, if a sick woman asks for water, there is no water in the house, the baby cries of hunger, the cow, unmilked, bellows in the cattle-shed, and the wind blows through the broken window?
• If you could aim the rainbow so it would always have one end pointed towards: spots where treasures were buried; places of future catastrophes that people had better leave soon, children destined to great futures, children that will bring fearful calamities when they grow up; lost people long searched for– where would you aim it?
• Saint Colm Cille gathered all the birds and promised them that the one who could fly up above the rest would become the king of birds. The eagle flew honestly above the clouds. When he grew tired, a tiny nettler, hiding on his back until then, flew up above him. With little joy, Saint Colm Cille acknowledged the nettler as the birds’ sovereign, but, in punishment, tethered him to the earth, so now the nettler only flutters in the bush and never flies up past knee-height. Do you pity anybody in this story?
• On a starless night you walk northward, guided by a compass. As you look at it, its needle slowly turns around and starts pointing south. Your first thought: that there as a magnetic anomaly right under your feet; that the compass is broken; that you are out of your mind; that all the time the needle was erring, and corrected itself just now; that the needle’s behavior can be explained by the fact that you really need to go south?

Gwydion’s heart was pining with love; while he was answering the questions, he was thinking feverishly –when and where could he see her again, and what he’d prepare to sacrifice for it to happen – but, it turned out that this too was part of the test. Such was explained to him apologetically by McCarhy, while they walked downstairs. “His love capacity –” he said, reading from the piece of parchment, handed to him by Rhiannon, “– is phenomenal” – here he added, to make Gwydion feel better, “Mine is no less higher” - scanned the rest, muttered something and said: “To make it brief, whenever they ask people to separate into their groups based on mental bent[mind inclination]*, you’re in Group V.” Gwydion kept silent.

• or maybe just, “separate into their like-minded groups”

• As for the girls? –he asked finally.
• The girls, alas – responded McCarhy with a heavy sigh, who immediately recognized what Gwydion was aiming at. And Gwydion understood from this sigh that testing girls on mind inclination was reserved for McCarhy himself, and, consequently, their love aptitude was being tested against his own insignificant character.
• Sometimes, though, Mac Cecht helps. When I lose my breath totally, - explained Mccarhy dolefully.
• I got so frightened of Dr Mac Cecht. Felt like dying, - Gwydion confessed.
• Dr Mac Cecht is the best of all people – responded McCarhy. The only person you might want to avoid on your first day, being a novice, is Professor Cu Roi. You got lucky.
• That one that coaches on practical applications? - recollected Gwydion.
• Yes.
• Practical applications of what? – expressed Gwydion, in hopes of learning more.
• Literally, practical applications. He just applies practically everybody. Gwydion glanced at McCarhy’s face. In the twilight it was difficult to discern whether he was smiling or not.

Gwydion was from the North, and Llevelys from the South, and at first they failed to understand each other’s accents to such a degree that they had to converse in Latin. But they got used to it in two weeks and started using Welsh again.

Llevelys was born in Aberystwyth and like Gwydion, upon attaining a certain age, decided to go to Merlin’s School in Carmarthen-on-Asc. The majority of his kin and his neighbors were unable to comprehend how one could move 3 miles away from his town without damaging his health and endangering his life. However, when it finally dawned on them that their kinsman wanted to attempt this dangerous march at whatever cost, the whole of Llevelys’s clan decided to accompany him. Because of that, Llevelys appeared in Carmarthen surrounded by sixty people, including forty men capable of bearing arms – all with the insignia of their clan, with coats of arms and dressed in their best attire. Whenever asked about it, Llevelys would wave it off.

Llevelys’s face was not handsome, but a most charming smile and gift for conversation fully made up for such a shortcoming. He was the soul of every random social gathering, and the center of attraction for drunken vagrants searching for someone on the empty town streets to open their heart to.

Gwydion and Llevelys were roommates – in a room whose windows faced the South and West, with a view of Anthony Tower, Nevenhir Tower and Asc river bend.

There were two wooden beds in the room, a table, a fire-place, a couple of chairs made of oak, recesses in the stone for books, a trunk for clothes, a vaulted ceiling, a motley striped doormat by the entrance and a lute forgotten by some student from the XVI century. Gwydion, completely engrossed in the learning process, could walk for weeks in his father’s shirt, and pants made of sheep wool (totally normal from his viewpoint). Llevelys usually wore clothes that matched the current epoch better, but he wore it with the elegance and independence of a person not constrained to any particular period of time. On the back of his bed you could see sometimes two-three odd socks, which he would hastily swipe to some hidden place upon the arrival of guests.

In all classes where a student’s place depended on his mental character, Gwydion and Llevelys found themselves in the opposite, most remote corners of the room.

… Gwydion and Llevelys, late for Time Signs, crossed the town square running, and a member of the Town Hall, stood in front of the wide open door to the school, looking baffled as though he were staring at a wall of stones visible only to him. This irritated them. Unable to wait for the member to collect his brains, remembering how it’s done and crossing the threshold, Llevelys most politely took him by the elbow, and literally pushed him inside. “Looking for the director?” – asked he quickly. “Over there, in the stables. He’s bowing to his pony, you see? Tipping his hat to him.”

They left the bewildered government representative to his fate, made it through the arch and found out that the Time Signs seminar had already started. McCarhy created a model of a local train with a wave of his hand, and taught everybody how to enter it. Girls were screaming. “It’s just an illusion that the doors close all of a sudden, in reality their behavior is predictable to a certain degree. Let me show you once more” – and McCarhy with a charming smile got into the car, and then got out of it. Then he turned himself into a raven, flew to the car roof right above the door and confirmed with his nod that everybody should take their turn. The screaming resumed. Llevelys suspected that McCarhy’s implicit motto was “Don’t explain the obvious”, and in combination with being the most unbearable class in school, the effect was striking. Everybody loathed Time Signs, especially McCarhy himself, but students had to take it – year after year. McCarhy, convinced that the subject required it, invariably wore tattered black jeans, but donned a gown with a lace collar on top of it.

• Listen, why do we need to know how to do this? – groaned Llevelys. Not a chance we’re gonna use it in real life!
• Never know, what you’ll stick to – despondently objected Gwydion, who had a custom of quoting his grandmother in difficult cases.

But Dr. McCarhy’s next phrase made even Gwydion shudder.

• There exists a train that runs under the surface of earth – said McCarhy, with the intonation of a person narrating an ancient tale.

What are you writing, my child? – the venomous voice resonated behind Gwydion’s shoulder. – “…. To the great detriment of the original population of British Islands…” Try to remember, young man, the original population of the British Islands was me. All the rest appeared there much later. And what is this? “Our knowledge of that time is very scarce and approximate, and the events themselves mostly belong to the realm of the unknown”. Hmm, if you have nothing to say, use shorthand, use mathematical signs. Our knowledge of it t → 0, and the events Є Х6. Otherwise you just waste parchment. Writing, writing – don’t know themselves what they are writing about. The only thing I can do for you as a witness and the last participant of the events – is to keep you after classes and instead of studying Britain history you’ll be washing the floor. With this rag. Oh, oh, oh. I see horror on your face. It’s an old, distinguished rag. It was given to me in Annwn. Its name is … no matter, it won’t tell you anything.

And so Gwydion met his teacher Merlin for the first time, and you can say he got lucky. The rag, apparently made of dragon skin, had spikes, and snarled and coiled itself when he tried to wring it out. But, Llevelys had an even worse time making an acquaintance with Merlin. On his entrance exam, Merlin confidentially bending over the elbow-rest of the armchair and showing that he’s ready to listen to Llevelys’ answer, introduced himself:

• Professor Merlin Ambrosius… Or Aurelius? Sorry, bad memory.
• What? Professor Merlin? – started coughing Llevelys. – But you…
• Me what? – asked Merlin hastily.
• I’ve read that something happened to you – an unpleasant accident.
• Just one?! You don’t read much.
• Something about an armchair. Lemurius Cumbrian wrote, - Llevelys was having a hard time recovering from the embarrassment. – Oh, what did it say? Ah, yes!
• “ You see the magic signs,
• that I have drawn? – Said Merlin
• They speak in ancient tongue,
• That every mortal, who in this armchair
• Sits, would forever vanish”
• Then thunder struck, and walls started shaking,
• Started falling on the windows with a clatter
• And shuddered the throng that sat in Hall
• And after he pronounced those words,
• The wizard by mistake sat in his armchair
• And to the horror of all those gathered, disappeared…

Don’t remember it all – said Merlin thoughtfully, rubbing his forehead. Ah! – he slapped himself on the forehead as if memories were returning.

The great sorcerer? Illustrious prophet? Became so tired of speaking, That he lost his entire mind And spots of any color Covered him from head to toe?

Llevelys was burning with shame.

And rolling up his eyes He started writhing? – Merlin continued on quoting. – And gurgling…

So it’s all false? – asked Llevelys, suffering excruciatingly.

• And how every student knows now, how he, shaking, crashed down in his chair, remaining a moron for eternity– finished Merlin. - Well, why all of it? Once, I indeed disappeared for a short period of time. And since then, nobody would take my seat. You know, how awfully difficult it is to find a seat when you are late. Such pigs! Nobody’ll offer a seat to the court magician! Lleu, my child, the less you will read Lemurius Cumbrian, the more light of knowledge will spread along the dark alleys of your conscious, so in time, it will reach even your heels. Please, continue.

Colorful spots of sunlight on the hall’s tiled floor had traveled a long way by the time Llevelys stopped moving his parched tongue and started looking at the pitch-black bird with tremendous wings, first appearing far away, above the mountain ridge, but approaching the school quickly. The bird flew through the open window, turned itself into a scroll and fell into Merlin’s hands.

• Well, well –he said to himself after reading the message. Bad news fly fast – very true. We are going to be inspected! My God, and by whom? Whom? Englishmen! Enlighten me, my dear – he was talking to Llevelys without looking at him – there are just Englishmen there, at the London court, right? Llevelys could not find any suitable words and kept silent. “During the times of Lludd, son of Beli that would be unimaginable. “We’ll be inspecting not just the learning process, but also conditions – hmmm – of living… sanitary conditions…” Definitely, those Londoners are convinced that nobody in the whole world washes himself but them. Not exactly true. I’m afraid, they’re in a bit of a hurry. Getting the carts rolling behind the horses”– and with a wave of the hand he dismissed a tongue-tied Llevelys, who only three days later managed to confirm that he was accepted.

• Scandalous! – grumbled Merlin as he spoke with his colleagues that very night. – You know, it is the first time in my life when during an entrance exam a student hints that I’m dead already. What, do I look like a corpse?

There was no doubt that Professor Merlin was alive, though – he cropped up everywhere, personally managing many things. When some student misbehaved, Merlin would never scold the infringer: instead, in a bored tone, he promised to adopt him, and every time it worked like a miracle. Students fled from him as if caught on fire.

Ancient Greek was taught by Dio Chrysostom of Bithynia - roaming sophist and Cynic philosopher. Even though he liked sophistry, pranks and epatage, and his classes with senior students usually stretched till evening and ended as fraternity bashes, you’d have to give him credit: not a word in Welsh was allowed during those feasts; all dirty jokes were unfailingly narrated in Attic Greek, and all wines served were genuinely aged and of southern origin.

His class would start with a choral singing of the Greek alphabet, presented in the form of four iambic lines following lines:

“This is Greek, and how they spelt her– Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Then Iota, Kappa too, Followed up by Lambda, Mu, Nu, Xi, Omikron, Pi, After that, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, and still three more, Chi, Psi, and Omega’s twenty-four.”

There’s Alpha-Beta-Gamma-Delta-Epsilon, and Zeta-Eta-Theta-Iota-Kappa-Lambda-Mu Nu-Xi-Omicron-Pi-Rho-Sigma-Tau-Upsilon And now with Phi-Chi-Psi we get to Omega!

Then, Dio ordered everybody to get themselves wax tablets and styluses (pointed sticks for writing), adding “Who among you will write something in Greek in the next few years, worth being carved in stone!” The wax tablets were framed with wood, so two tablets tied together would never stick to each other. Tablets tied in fours rather than twos were called τετράς. From then on, when Dio would announce: “open your tetradas”, he would hear the pleasant clapping of tablets being opened all around him. The reverse side of the stylus could serve as an eraser, and when Dio insinuatingly asked the first-years how they would translate the well-known Greek saying “May you often turn the stylus” into Welsh, he would receive such answers as “Use your eraser often”, “Strike out more” and “Tear it all and throw it out” – which demonstrated deep understanding of the subject.

• … Well, who among you can conjugate for me the verb φιλέω? – asked Dio Chrysostom animatedly. He was reclining on the teacher’s bench, dressed in a blue tunic decorated with a pattern of olive leaves. His hair was unkempt, his feet – bare. His sandals were lying under the bench. – Why don’t I see any smiles? Why don’t I hear cries of joy? Where are all the timbrels and cithers? Why do your faces look sour? Hey, somebody, bring some joy to your old teacher!

Dio was just feigning modesty – he looked very-very young.

• Woe is me! Thus fell Ancient Ellada. Everyone forgot how to conjugate phileo, even the existence of it! No, never will I get to the catalogue of ships from the Iliad with you! All the ships will depart without us, as we’ll be drowning in conjugation! Only gloom and desolation will come our way! O, why, instead of me, they did not send you Aristides! Let him freeze in the snow in faraway Brittany! Of illness, does he complain? He will forget his illness! In the morning – a run in the snow, and a swim in the river every evening!

Dio had spoken in such a manner for about five minutes when Clyddno, son of Morwran, raised his hand to the ceiling, calmly stepped forward, quickly conjugated phileo in all tenses, spectacularly washed his chalk-soiled hands in a huge stone basin and returned to his seat. Students never had in mind teasing Dio on purpose – they just liked his speeches. Dio put his feet down, groped for his sandals, put them on, and, yawning on his way, started moving along the rows, checking who wrote what in his tablets, while speaking:

• Certainly, you can stain the yonder wall with chalk to your liking – probably, that’s why you have it here in the first place – but most important is what each of you writes in his tetradas; you need to learn how to write on papyrus, … and turn your stylus often.

Dio never considered a blackboard as something useful. He thought that it was put there only for recreation, and that drawing on it wouldn’t make students any more knowledgeable.

… McCarhy always appeared exactly at the beginning of the lesson, casting furtive looks at the back of his left hand, where he had names of towers and rooms, assigned to his classes that day, written with black felt-tip pen. We should mention that McCarhy loved one woman – quietly and faithfully, and he always was careful not to show her his magic birthmark on the cheek, covering it with band-aid, and explaining the use of the band-aid by cuts, abscesses and bites of different insects – because it was very important to him for that woman to fall in love with him just so, without the birthmark.

But would he accidentally appear in the town without applying his “make-up” (as he called it), the very first girl would throw herself into his arms, and the affair, that would grow of it, would usually last up to three days – all in the rhythm of a hurricane, and, then, similar to a storm that has passed over, would left McCarhy on the rocks, broken as a fragment of a shipwreck. McCarhy never regarded these affairs as cases of infidelity to his beloved one; for him they were just mishaps. The woman, his heart longed for, though, did not demonstrate any fondness – and finally McCarhy left her and his own town, Dublin, to give her an opportunity to decide – what is better, McCarhy around, or McCarhy as faraway as possible.

Teaching to Welsh students had its funny sides: for the first time he was able to watch at his lectures, instead of several rows of red Irish heads, several rows of surprisingly dark ones – “dark” not in the sense of their lack of knowledge, but in the sense of their color. Berwyn, son of Eilonwy, disappointed him, but McCarhy did not allow himself to jump to conclusions. There always existed students without great aptitude for the subject.

Berwyn, son of Eilonwy, the seventh son of a miller from Cardiff, was sitting, propping his head with his hands and staring into the window that faced interior court, and looking at the distant black points in the sky. Since he was introduced to McCarhy, any far-flung raven caused in him a certain respect.

Under the window doctor Blodeuwedd, instructor of botany in senior classes was watering Indian cress, having rolled up one sleeve, and farther away, on the stones of the court, a small crowd of people argued whether they want to play in three epochs or into the metamorphoses of bard Taliesin.

• Multiple forms have I changed, before I deliverance found – Llevelys threw in the traditional formula of metamorphoses start, which precluded joining for latecomers. Berwyn sighed. - A point of a sword I was, in truth did it happen to me.
• A piece of mica I was in the window under the roof of a chapel, a flute made of supple reed, and a weather vane loudly squeaking…

Berwyn changed his pose: he pulled under himself the other leg. He had huge problem with Tuatha Dé Danann poetry. The poetry of Tuatha Dé Danann was special in the way that when someone recited it by heart, all pronounced appeared alive, and all mispronounced, too. Therefore, every time when Berwyn would start reciting about “meadow grasses of Cern and the morning dew of Makhi”, huge [?] would appear in the class. Doctor McCarhy heavily sighed, forced [?] back there, from where they appeared, and told himself: “Iesu, when will I inculcate love for poetry in them?”

At the end of a lesson Dr McCarhy, merrily singing, usually covered by iodine all of the scratches and the abrasions left by various hell creatures, resurrected by negligent students. Berwyn, having caught the sight McCarhy, dropped everything he had in his hands, lost the gift of speech and showed himself as a complete moron. He was attracted by McCarhy’s personality.

It is probable, that Berwyn would not pay any special attention to Dr McCarhy, if not for a strange dream. After the first lesson on Time Signs, he had a dream about McCarhy, who in medieval clothing was sitting by a large window, comprised of pieces of greenish mica, was writing a letter and did not see that some people were stealthily approaching him using a ladder. Those people assaulted him from the back, killed him, and set fire to the castle. And even though in his sleep Berwyn had a flickering thought that this cannot be Owen McCarhy, and that, the most probably, he sees some distant ancestor of his resembling McCarhy a lot, he felt nevertheless very scared, and wanted to warn McCarhy and make him look around.

Since then Berwyn sharply felt finiteness of existence, and especially finiteness of McCarhy existence. On each of McCarhy’s lessons he could not get rid of the feeling that this lesson might be the last one. As to McCarhy - he smoked terrible cigarettes, showered everybody with dirty jokes, snacked on sandwiches and was as cool as a cucumber.

At the very first lesson on Tuatha Dé Danann poetry McCarhy, having briefly reminded the students who were Tuatha Dé Danann, recited a few fragments from their poems. Castles appeared and collapsed, jasmine shed its leaves, herds of deer swept past, the sun was setting, thrushes went to sleep in yew-tree groves. Berwyn opened his mouth wide enough to let a lark in. It was cloudy that day in Carmarthen, but when McCarhy ended his performance with Finn’s poem about approaching summer and caused a sunray to appear, Berwyn was unable to move, unable to break his eye contact with McCarhy – even when everything else disappeared. “Long hair of heather spreads on the earth” – was repeating he under his breath.

Berwyn, if you want to stay here, I will leave you the key, merrily said McCarhy, ready to throw him the key across the entire office. There was not a soul else in the class. At night, Berwyn, diligently moving his lips but avoiding pronouncing anything aloud, recited astounding texts of Tuatha Dé Danann; then he would go to the class, get numb in presence of McCarhy, open his mouse, and in the lake of Loch-Lane instead of lilies blossomed the water itself.

• Berwyn, please, concentrate – there are two syllables in this word, the first is long, the second is under stress – serenely told him McCarhy.

Berwyn was always baffled by the fact that McCarhy taught Time Signs. It struck him as a complete mix-up. When their teacher appeared before them on Saturday, with merry bewilderment holding (not too close to his body) a bottle of Coke, which he would bring to the class in order to discuss the properties of the strange substance inside, Berwyn’s heart sank. He could not grasp why such a profound scientist had to waste his time and strength on things that weird.

Snowy-grey, hook-nosed professor Fintan, under whose durable raincoat could be seen the collar of a thick rough-knitted sweater, was sitting in the middle of the court, squinting under the northern wind, and knitting a fishnet. He knit it, telling listeners about weather signs; flashing of his fingers made the listeners feel spellbound; rough wooden amulet on his neck was rocking in the same rhythm. Freshmen were sitting around.

• And if, from the early morning, southern mountains’ tips are covered with clouds, this means you can’t go to the sea in the evening. And if Manannan, son of Lir, extends his fingers to the sandbars of Finntra at the sunset, this means in next morning from cape Sron Bryn to Iv Ratakh it is possible to gather dark red algae and pearly moss. But, if in the evening tiles tap against each other on the roof, as if somebody fingers them, this means that a storm is coming, and such one that herrings will fly in the air for ten miles. Fintan, son of Fingen, never drew boundaries between Formor’s wisdom and contemporary concepts about no matter what. He would sit in the circle of his students, fill his pipe, and start lecturing as an Irish shannahi:
• They say, in the old times amber fell from the skies… Or:
• Stones even now grow three days in a year. But only those grow, which no one has touched yet, and if you a touch a stone even with your finger, it won’t grow any more.

Everybody rapidly became accustomed to the fact that all of this should be understood literally and, taking a theory exam, it was necessary to skip preliminaries, tell professor without hesitation and looking him right into the eyes: - And in the northern mountains there are such people - each has one foot and one hand. So, they would couple sometimes, and start running so fast, but so fast, that is not possible to overtake them, only to shoot.

• Why does winter on the earth occur? From the sea comes a sheep – a white one, with long ears. This sheep walks in the valleys, and where it will pass, everything freezes. This is how it is called - frosty sheep, and where it will flap its ears, there lake will freeze down to the very bottom. Fintan nodded with satisfaction.

For the current test on the Fomorian material way of life he grouped his students into pairs – without asking about their individual preferences – boys were to carve cradles, girls – to cover them with down and learn the only lullaby that reached us from the Fomors’ days, and which sounded strange and ominous:

Tonight to mountains, to cliffs of Cyunn-na-Barra A nettler will come to build his nest, Tonight to the rocks, to Carrig-Leithe cape A tawny owl will come to build his nest, Tonight to mountains, to the tip of Crohan, A vulture will come to build his nest…

The song was rather lengthy, the events in it were developing rather tediously, and it ended with the nest being built by a dragon.

However, Ceridwen, daughter of Peblig, Gwydion’s pair, instantly learned it by heart, and sang it with a malicious expression on her face, giving a true impression of a Fomor. She was even squinting her left eye - because, as everybody knows, real Fomors had only one eye.

There were no textbooks for Professor Fintan’s subject, and it was generally felt that even questioning why there are no textbooks was inappropriate.

Fintan, son of Fingen, was exiled in Wales. At one time he had to leave Ireland, but later grace was returned to him, and since then, he tried to go back to his country every fall. Every time he had a conversation with Merlin on the subject.

• What’s wrong with you, colleague? – Merlin would say. – To where will you return? You can’t imagine what is going on in Ireland right now. Especially, where you’re striving to get to—the north. Read some newspapers. Owen, - he would ask McCarhy, who was conveniently passing by. – Have you got a newspaper? Merlin pronounced the word “newspaper” with apparent pleasure. One could tell that he rarely had a chance to pronounce it. McCarhy would extract from an interior pocket a fairly stale issue of “Times”, about five-six years old.

• This is a newspaper, right? –Merlin would ask quickly, so as not to make a mistake, snatching it away from McCarhy and turning to Fintan again. – Here, my colleague. Here it is, a newspaper. Read it, please. See what they’re writing about? Massacre! Bloody massacre!

• One could think that there were times when something else happened on the north of Ireland –Fintan would peevishly tell. - As far as I can remember, the Goidels always slaughtered picts there. And, even if they call themselves differently now, I don’t see anything new in the conflict itself.

• Well, I just forbid you, that’s all! –Merlin would say. – How can you leave your students right in the middle of the semester? This is a violation of code, and … and … and, the bottom line is, I myself am sick, something can happen to me … any moment. And Fintan would stay every time. This conversation had been repeated every fall for the course of two thousand years.

The silence of the lessons on the language of beasts and birds, conducted by Doctor Rhiannon, was being disrupted only by the clicking of blackbirds that flew in through the windows, and by the sighs of enraptured students who could not concentrate on the subject. Llevelys, a sociable fellow, was concurrently a member of the club of Rhiannon worshippers, of the society of amateurs of the study of heritage (the most enigmatic of all student organizations), of the disorganized mob of Dio Chrysostom followers and, generally speaking, of any disorganized crowd forming itself in the corridors, on the staircases and in the galleries – during the evening or recess time. In short, during the lessons on the language of beasts and birds, he would dig both his hands into his hair, and with his mouth agape, track the tiniest changes in Professor’s dainty and wonderful traits. Gwydion was one of few representatives of the stronger sex who could keep his head calm – more or less.

Doctor Rhiannon, in her bluish-green clothing, with dark hair, partly pinned from behind, and partly falling down like a waterfall, was saying:

• If we look at the comparative typology of the fox language and the language of deer, the first thing that we can notice, is the mutability of the former and the archaicness of the latter. Fox language is very sensitive to the tiniest changes in the environment, and instantly develops new words for various new concepts, while the deer language has remained practically unchanged for the last several ten thousands of years, and preserves its maximally archaic structure. Foxes have their literary language, based on the Bible translation made by St Renart. Whereas deer language, essentially, is just a combination of regional dialects. Speaking of dialects… Gwydion nudged his friend:
• Lleu, she’s talking about fox dialects!
• Oh, yeah, yeah – said Llevelys.
• Will a steppe Corsac fox understand a Tobolskian fox? He will – mostly, excluding terms designated for elements of local relief, local flora and similar. Will a city fox feeding on garbage understand a forest one, Gwydion, son of Cleddyf?
• Yes, except for certain specific vocabulary, related to hunting and foxholes.
• Absolutely correct, but can you call such differences dialects, if the foxes are from the same geographical area?
• No, these are sociolects – said Gwydion, plunging forth into the lesson topic in lieu of nudging Llevelys. Hurriedly he scribbled down the last scraps of precious information, and when he finally raised his head, he could see that the map of fox distribution was already wrapped up; his classmates, upon stuffing their bags with notebooks, were howling like foxes as they wandered towards their Latin class; Llevelys was waiting for him behind the door, and Doctor Rhiannon was having a friendly chat with a thrush sitting on the window-sill, and taking down large diagrams from the board with the pitch contour of a fox howling: “Oh, goodness, my kind foxes, what is going on?” and “Oh, my fate is bitter, bitter and unpalatable.”

Morvydd, daughter of Modron, was descended from an academic family that had been investigating the nature of echoes for five generations already. The branch to which Morvydd belonged explored room echoes, but there were other scientists in their family who researched forest echoes and mountainous ones. When Llevelys expressed his opinion that the echo phenomenon was already well investigated: something resonates in a closed space of specific volume, Morvydd, narrowed her eyes and struck him down with the question:

• Why, then, when you return to your empty apartment after a summer spent elsewhere, you are met with an echo that was not there before? It dwells there for some time after the arrival of people and disappears only two-three days later. Room echoes settle in houses in the absence of people, and disappear with their advent - as do spiders and their nets. Is that not so? And the volume of the resonators remains the same in every case! And Llevelys froze with his mouth wide open.

• Please, give me a room with any echo, no matter how small and modest! – Morvydd was begging Merlin. – And in return for this I will save your life. This bargain interested Professor. He agreed to it. It was darkly lit in Merlin’s chamber, but one thing became obvious to Morvydd from the very beginning: on the cabinet behind Professor’s back there laid a Manx cat. Morvydd could easily imagine how absentminded Merlin purchased a kitten, failing to notice that it had ear tufts, and now the little darling had grown up into a huge manx. The predator was lying atop the cabinet, figuring out how to pounce on somebody. It was obvious that the Professor himself did not suspect impending danger.

• Slowly now – don’t turn around – slip down from your chair– began Morvydd – dive under the table, quickly emerge from the other side, and scram for the door with me. The breadth of Merlin’s mind and his readiness to accept completely new information, unusual for his age, fully manifested themselves in this case: he obeyed. They cleared the door and propped it up with Merlin’s staff: behind the door the manx was hissing disappointedly.

• Oof – said Merlin, when Morvydd explained to him what happened. For goodness’s sake, call Rhiannon, somebody, and let her… let her… do some explaining over there – he asked Llevelys in a weak voice, waving his hand in the direction of the door.

Morvydd was lodged in a room with an echo. The only deficiency of the room was that it was located in Branwen Tower, which, as everyone knows, was always on the move – so in order to get home you sometimes had to scour the school grounds.

Several geese were always strolling about in the school courtyard, and a dozen of them were permanently nested in Goose Tower – in the face of all measures Merlin would take to drive them out. Only for the winter would these geese fly away to the Summer Country, Guladh-eir-Haf. Orbilius Plagosus, whose rooms were located in Goose Tower, carefully pretended not to have any predilection for the birds nor to tend to them. And yet, despite all of Professor Merlin’s efforts, every year there reappeared a couple of those unbecoming birds, and, cackling loudly, they would settle in their tower. Townspeople were saying that they had never seen whiter, better-groomed geese than those of the school. And, certainly, one could always get hold of a quill to write with.

Orbilius could usually be seen upstairs; snugly surrounded by roll supports he would be rubbing off with pumice another sheet of papyrus. In his free time he wrote commentaries on the Aeneid by somebody’s request. While writing commentaries he was constantly reviling Virgil, saying that all of those new-fangled young poets were nothing as compared to Naevius.

The geese were crowding downstairs by the tower’s entrance, under the inscription Turris Anserum - they were loitering alongside the staircase landings; some of them were sitting in large baskets along the wall, and drawing out their necks. Passersby had to get through the geese with great care: tucking up their hems and hoisting their skirts off the floor, and trying not to swing their arms. Only Fingall McColm would habitually tease the geese, but he showed up at the school later, so we shan’t discuss it now.

• Salvete, discipuli mei! – Orbilius would say, upon seeing his slightly pinched students on the threshold, effortlessly drawing a required roll from its wooden support.
• Salveto, magister – everyone would excitedly respond, rubbing, at the same time, various body parts the tower guardians had managed to nip.

The name of Horatius made Orbilius’ face contort into an incomprehensible grimace. The reason remained hidden till the students managed to obtain a direct answer to the directly posed question: what exactly did their teacher dislike in Horatius? Horatius Flaccus, as far as Orbilius could remember, was always spitting crumpled papyrus during his lessons, shooting stuff around with a small catapult, and on occasion had put a cat in the casket of papyrus rolls.

Doctor Dian Mac Cécht, while giving first aid lessons, widely used the expression of which he called “the gift of fate.” If, for example, a lesson on snake bites was planned, but someone appeared with a dislocation, the lesson would immediately turn into a study on dislocations. In such cases Mac Cécht always comforted the victim very efficiently, saying: “This is a perfect dislocation, ideal for demonstration. You’re doing a great job, Teleri. Simply great.” Or, “This is a classic case of a foot being caught in bicycle wheel spokes. Just classic. Don’t even know how I can possibly thank you, Shoned.” After such praise, Shoned would happily and proudly sit on the laboratory table for the entire lesson, with her trouser leg rolled up, and would be pleased to allow the teacher to bustle around the hematoma.

A hallmark of first-aid lessons, distinguishing them from the real medicine lessons that started sophomore year, was such that nobody was allowed to use any tools or instruments. For example, withdrawing snake venom is easier using a small tube, but Mac Cecht would say with a smile: “This case occurred in the wild forest of Brocéliand. What makes you think you’d have a glass tube on you?” They possessed practically nothing in those cursed forests of Brocéliand, which grew thicker and thicker with every lesson, and Mac Cecht taught them how they could get out of various scrapes with just a pair of hands and some of the simplest improvised means.

…It was the third lesson in succession dedicated to the sixteen methods of healing from unrequited love, as proposed by Avicenna.

• Who’s the victim of the day? – asked Mac Cecht intently, brushing aside his incredible locks of hair. After some brief whispering little Creary stepped forward (she had been accepted to the school at the age of fourteen, by some reason – and was the youngest in the class), and said with a heavy sigh: “Looks like it’s me, today.”

Mac Cecht lifted her up, planted her on the laboratory table, examined her pupils, drew out her eyelids, asked her to show her tongue, and said: Yes, all of the signs of unrequited love are present. For how long now? – he asked, leaning over towards the patient.

• Almost two weeks – said Creary trustingly.
• A very long time – Dr. Mac Cecht said in a serious tone, hiding his smile. – I suggest using the last of Avicenna’s methods: “If nothing helps…Llywarch-ap-Cynfelyn!”
• If nothing helps, if the patient refuses to eat and wastes away before your very eyes, one should summon old ill-tongued wives and pay them to sully the object of passion in the eyes of the patient” – quoted Llywarch by heart.
• Wonderful. To try for themselves, the roles of old ill-tongued wives… Ceridwen, daughter of Peblig, Llevelys, son of Cynwarch, Enid, daughter of Elined, and…, I think, Goronwy, son of Ellery.

All persons mentioned stepped forward, chuckling.

• Identify for me now the source of your sufferings – said Mac Cecht, bending himself towards Creary – close your eyes, and don’t worry about anything.

Creary crept under Mac Cecht’s hair and whispered a few words into his ear. Mac Cecht approached the old wives and whispered to them in turn: “Dilwyn, son of Olwen, in his third year. Do you know him?” – “Yeah, we do” – responded all four of the old wives. “Great guy,” growled Llevelys. “Shut up, you moron”, said Ceridwen, fixing her eyes on suffering Creary.

• Did this incident occur in the forest of Brocéliand? – Goronwy asked Mac Cecht through his teeth.
• Hmm… Well, let’s pretend it did – answered a surprised Mac Cecht. “But why?”
• Because, I’d like to put a garbage can over his head, that Dilwyn guy’s – said Goronwy, who liked Creary himself.
• Last instructions: you should slander him as much as you can - reality notwithstanding – ordered Mac Cecht quietly. – Only in this way can you help her. And he gave the signal to start.
• A drowned man, having spent a week in water, looks a thousand times better than he does! – began old wife Enid. – He wears his clothes inside out, and if he turned them back out, people’d marvel at how filthy they were, and if they were washed, everybody would see that they’d been stolen…
• Even hell gave up on him – they could not make him any worse…
• Had a water rat in his kindred, but even it refused to acknowledge him once it got a good look at him.
• Sold chops instead of shoe soles at the market; met a snail on the street– running seven miles as fast as he could!
• On a temple holiday he rode to the church on a broom, and tried to urge it on…
• Went to the city to dance, couldn’t manage to find the door, had to gnaw a hole in the wall, Ceridwen chimed in rapidly, seeing that Enid had to stop to recover her breath. – So smart, that he dived in the pond to catch the moon; they had to drag him out with fishnets. Crairy laughed and kicked the table with her feet joyfully, but it was apparent, that from all this slandering Dilwyn was only becoming dearer to her.

17.

• Stop, stop, stop – Mac Cecht threw up his hands. – This won’t do. Any slander should be well thought-out, and resemble the truth, at least, to some extent.
• But he’s still afraid of the dark, I swear – Llevelys persisted. – Too weak to climb to the top of Wine Tower using ivy – can’t even pull himself up with those puny arms of his.
• And his local accent sounds as if he was born in the Big Bucks Village of Crocodilshire County.
• One day I looked over his shoulder to see what he was reading – it was the book of ABCs, which he read by syllables.
• Not true! - screamed Creary.
• You can’t even defame anybody for three dinars – assessed Mac Cecht. Sit down and listen to how it’s done.

He sat down next to Creary and began in a voice part-cantankerous, part-sepulchral: - All his defects are written on his face. An excessive tendency towards questionable pleasures has never led one to any good yet. He won’t last long with that enthusiasm for wine of his. His innate cruelty will manifest itself more and more with the years. To a woman, who agrees to stand by, in order to prop him up when he returns home from a pub, I’d advise to acquire a large cudgel, to fend him off with while he sobers up – spoke Mac Cecht heavily. - His fastidiousness and tendency to whine, moroseness and his self-love will become more and more intolerable with each year.

It was good that Creary closed her eyes, because while saying all this, Mac Cecht made an averting sign with his fingers. - The poverty itself is not all that deplorable, as it’s under the same roof as that of a person who heartily pawns and re-pawns his own children for a quart of beer. Is he good enough for you? It suffices to recall how he looks: one eye squinted, hair unwashed since Christmas, in his ears a gypsy camped out for a night.

At this moment, the door was opened, and Doctor Itharian, Professor of Pict language, entered the room. One of his students followed him with frightened eyes.

• Please forgive me, colleague, for bursting in like that, but we have a problem. We were learning how to pronounce Pict guttural consonants, and one of my students, it seems, injured his throat…

• Pict phonetics mows people down like the plague. This is the third case in this semester already – Doctor Mac Cecht said calmly. – Let’s go –he nodded to the student and accompanied him to the storeroom. For a while, the sound of wheezing, the light tinkling of tools, and Mac Cecht’s laughter was heard from there. Finally, they left the storeroom; Mac Cecht gave the student a vial of dark glass, explained how to drink the medicine, and forbade him from talking for three days, including in Welsh. When the door was shut behind the future pictologist, Mac Cecht turned towards Creary sitting on the table. – So? – he asked. Creary gulped, put her hand on her heart, and said disbelievingly – It can’t be… I think, it’s over. Goronwy, whose chances increased immediately, ran up to her joyfully to help her get back down.

• Yes, said Mac Cecht – the sixteenth method of Avicenna never misfires.

• Doctor Mac Cecht - Gwydion, tormented by yet another medical question, asked him: And what did you give to Dilwyn?

• What Dilwyn?

• To Dilwyn, son of Olwen? The one who just appeared here? The guy who injured his vocal chords?

• Was it Dilwyn, son of Olwen? Never met him before. Fascinating young man. I gave him infusion of eucalyptus with calendula to drink; twenty drops with half-a-cup of water, three times a day.

18.

Gwydion clung to Doctor Dian Mac Cecht as a mollusk to a cliff; he could trail him for days asking him questions; he was constantly waiting for Mac Cecht by the door, and finally Mac Cecht realized that if he did not somehow bring Gwydion closer to him, it would soon be impossible to tear him away. – Come with me to the laboratory, he said one day, and Gwydion froze. - I want to tell you something.

Gwydion followed Mac Cecht by the interior staircase. In the laboratory Mac Cecht disappeared behind the screen for a minute, and then reappeared dressed in all white, purple and orange, with his hair loose, and said very solemnly: – Gwydion , son of Cleddyf, if such is your desire, from this minute on you will become my apprentice and will suffer all the burdens, horrors, and adversities that this position entails. – To tell the truth, I just wanted to learn how to treat sheep –muttered Gwydion, temporarily immobilized. – No matter. I also happen to treat sheep, sometimes – Mac Cecht smiled.

Thus began for Gwydion the period of apprenticeship under Dian Mac Cecht.

Archivarius Nachtvogel never invited students to his class before eleven p.m. Because of this, the freshmen always marched single-file to their paleography lessons in pitch-black twilight, lighting their way with lanterns and candles. As they approached their destination, Archivarius Chlodovicus would meet them in his warm slippers and dressing-gown, and after seating them all around a long table, would methodically read a lecture on writing materials and tools, on rulings, bindings, and watermarks, on the history of handwriting and cryptography. His lecture would end long after midnight.

He taught them how to distinguish the hand of Godric The Running from the hand of Godric the Cunning, to classify hundreds of illuminations [logotypes?], vignettes and initial letters in the manuscripts, how to distinguish originals from forgeries, stylized unicorns from lions, lions from echidnas, echidnas - from harpies, and harpies - from furies.

• Can’t you see that this is one of the crudest forgeries? The manuscript pretends to be in the handwriting of a clerk of the ninth century, and this illumination uses Prussian blue! –Archivarius would exclaim. - Dylan, son of Gwyr, when was Prussian blue invented?
• In the 18th century, Dylan answered without delay. – But, in fact, it mentions Spinoza, so nobody would date it to the 9th century…
• And who asks you to read the contents? You’re in paleography class! You must be able to date a manuscript without reading it!

19.

Professor Cú Roí, son of Dáire, towered above his students as a mountain covered with trees. He had a thick mane of gray hair through which fresh black strands cropped up - Cú Roí always grew up young by the middle of February, and then aged again, abiding by a certain unknown annual cycle, - crooked nose, heavy lids, heavy mien, and especially heavy hands. He conducted Practical Applications of the History of the British Isles– a subject which stirred some uneasiness in Gwydion from the very beginning. The course was taught in parallel with the theoretical course on “History of the British Isles” which Professor Merlin read every Tuesday, permanently suppressing his giggles and constantly rubbing his hands.

Once a week, rain or shine, Cú Roí, with hefty kicks, would punt his students out into the ancient epochs for the best mastering of their details of lifestyle. But even Cú Roí, an absolutely unsentimental person, already felt some pity towards the frightened freshmen at their very first meeting, and he sent them, one by one as was his custom, neither to the market area of Eboracum, which later became York, nor to the court of King Conchobar in Emain Macha, nor to an empty place which later became London. Actually, he did not send them anywhere at all for their first time.

• We are going to see some dreams now – he said – and at the end of the lesson we will discuss what we have seen.

Under his heavy gaze everybody dropped their heads on their hands and all went asleep at the same time. In an hour the class woke up, and started wiping their eyes in somewhat of a terror.

• So, what did we see just now? – asked Cú Roí, without even giving them a chance to recover.
• Carnage done by some terrible primitive types, - Teleri, daughter of Tangwen, said timidly.
• You have got to be ashamed of yourselves! – exclaimed Cú Roí, and started pacing the room impetuously. – Doesn’t their clothing tell you anything? Think about it! Everybody gave it some thought.
• Ah… Was it clothing? – Goronwy asked.
• What a disgrace! – roared Cú Roí. – You’ve seen a battle between the valiant clan of McDonalds and the glorious clan of McGlashens over the disputable pastures of Glenshee!

Everybody strained to recall the bizarre rags wrapped around the event’s participants, and understood that yes, indeed, they had been in clan colors.

• Who was the man who started the battle?
• Who started it? How could you tell in that mess who started it?
• That one who cut his enemy in half?

The girls blanched while recollecting both the cloven enemy and the man who did it – his face covered with overgrown bristle, his gaze - completely insane.

• That was Angus, son of Douglas, the famous leader of the McGlashen clan - Cú Roi was shaming them. – What have they taught you until now? This is an outrage! Now, will you recall the person, who chopped off three heads, one by one, in single combats, sequentially following each other, right in the middle of the battle? Who was he?

• Some degenerate monster – Dylan, son of Gwyr, said – and nobody would assume that there could be a different answer.

• That was Meredach O’Daley, great lyrical poet who was sheltered by the McDonald clan after being exiled. Finest lyrics of parting, piercing hymn to the Ireland coasts… I don’t know what colleague Owen teaches you in his poetry class, but I’m ashamed of you! Now, the man, who, as you remember, jumped off the cliff after gaining McDonalds’ rear, cut off the head of their patrolman, and then fought one against eight. Who was he?

Everybody remembered his distorted face covered with blood and dirt, but having learned from their previous experience they kept silent.

• That was a very important thinker of his time, Alastar, son of Fergus, descendent of the McGlashen clan, a leading light in theology, and a graduate of our school!!! - Cú Roí dealt them the final blow. – And the very last question: where is, in your opinion, the safest place for a contemporary person in the past?
• All thought it was under the bed, in their own bedrooms, yesterday, but nobody said anything.
• In the midst of the Battle of the Boyne – said Cú Roi with authority. Or, in the worst case, in the middle of Battle of Hastings.
• Why? – Gwydion dared to ask.
• Because, you can appear at the height of the Battle of the Boyne in jeans and with a bottle of “Murphy’s” beer in your pocket, and nobody would even notice it! - Cú Roi said in a didactic tone.

20.

In one of the first days of school Merlin fussily summoned the first course, climbed the stairs so he could be seen by all, and said:

• Starting today you will have a curator. So that you’ll no longer bother me with your nonsense, badger me with trifles… a person of such importance! That someone’s button popped off, lips got chapped… Oil lampion, smoking. Floor mat… creeping away. With all this go to your curator, please. That someone’s pants elastic got torn, nose is peeling, notebook’s filled up… If someone needs a second blanket or something else… And don’t chase after me - I am also, you know, …. a living person. Kerwyn Cwrt is another story. You can stick to him, go after him – as you please. As much as you want. – having said that, Merlin cautiously looked around and was about to disappear.

• And what subject does he teach? – someone from the crowd asked.

• To you – none. Thank God – Merlin responded anxiously. – As for the senior courses – he teaches… heaps of various disciplines. Look it up in the schedule.

• And how does he look? – worried the freshmen.

• As to how he looks, you will learn that soon – threatened Merlin, lifted the hem of his gown and ran away as fast he could.

Three or four naïve freshmen attempted to find Kerwyn Cwrt the next day, looking up his schedule in order to approach him with their petty complaints, and returned pale and frightened. According to them, they had not seen anything so terrifying in their whole life. Hardly had they put their noses into the crack of the massive door, behind which Kerwyn Cwrt conducted his class – Restoration from Ashes, when they forgot what they’d come for, and henceforth renounced loitering in lecture-halls of senior courses. There occurred something unspeakable at the lecture, and in the epicenter of the unspeakable stood Kerwyn Cwrt.

Poor Creary, who had just wanted to complain that she was afraid of the dark, and that at home she had had a night-light – a little house with a window, made of clay, and with a candle inside, - and here she had none, as she was relating, shaking all over:

• There was darkness in the middle, and in the air – as if a broom was sweeping…
• No, the air itself was twisting into a spiral. And it was whistling – corrected her Llywarch.
• No, it was the Universe that was twisting into a spiral, and it was dark, because the funnel was absorbing all the light into itself - interrupted Dylan.
• Everything was flying through the air there, thumping against the walls, and there was darkness condensing in the middle, and in the darkness…
• No, wait, that was not the most terrifying thing. There was such a noise, which sounded like it came from under the floor…

21.

That was such kung fu, that I nearly got flattened – said Morvydd with artificial cheerfulness– the most optimistic of those who saw Kerwyn Cwrt.

• In short: Kerwyn Cwrt was standing there and grinding everything around him into fine powder.
• No, he was simply waving his hand, and…
• And, black holes were appearing where the air was before.
• And, I think, he wanted to turn around on us!
• If he’d done that, I’d have died! – exclaimed Creary.
• And… how does he look? – somebody asked cautiously.
• I don’t know how, because when I caught a glimpse of him everything went dark before my eyes.
• He was radiating a black glow, and he… - err… - did he have wings on his back, or were my eyes playing tricks on me? – asked Morvydd soberly.
• And I wanted to ask him for a second blanket. Oh, God, I’d better sleep with no blanket at all! – Llywarch said with all his heart.
• And this is our curator? – Llevelys asked loudly in the silence that ensued.

My God! – said McCarhy. – Berwyn, there is no reason whatsoever to get upset. Indeed, your elder bush and your yew-tree were a bit… strange, but this is no reason to bang your head against a wall.

• And the little fellow with a fife? The little fellow sitting on the bush with a fife, indeed, did not work out. That is: instead of a fife, he had a pipe, and was smoking it angrily, sitting on dry land.
• You know, Berwyn, when I started on the poetry of Tuatha Dé Danann, I had the feeling that my mouth was spewing out toads – similar to the stepmother’s daughter in fairy tales.
• But … Doctor McCarhy, perhaps, I need to get a few extra lessons… McCarhy scratched his head.
• Yes, this sounds reasonable. With Professor Conall O’Donall, perhaps? He’s much stronger than I am with the subject. Berwyn hung his head and kept silent.
• And, perhaps, with someone of Tuatha Dé Danann? – McCarhy elaborated, - I could arrange for that. Berwyn, son of Eilonwy, indistinctly muttered some words of appreciation and refusal, and sprang out the door. McCarhy, puzzled, followed him with his eyes.

22.

Freshmen, helping each other, pushing each other up the narrow stairs, crawled to the very top of the Tower of Guards, arriving there for their Chemistry lesson. They came there from a lesson of Welsh literature, never stopping to play in the Taliesin metamorphoses along their way. That was one of the favorite school pastimes – a game, which rules were not simple, but which, on appearance, amounted to threading lines as if to imitate the prologue of the poem of Taliesin “The Battle of Trees”:

• I was eagle in the skies, swam as boat in a violent sea,
• I was bubble in the barrel of beer and a year I spent as sea foam, - was saying sweet and always smiling Afarvi, son of Kentigern, searching with his eyes that one, who would have to take the baton from him in this relay race.
• I was sword in the battle, and the shield that parried the sword – Meyrchion, son of Lowry, picked it up – rainy water I was, and I was Tarquinius Snakes.
• Oh, Snakes will come soon! – said Cerridwen, but, did not lose any time in picking it up:
• I was a tongue of the flame and the log, which that fire was burning, I was owl in hollow dwelling, and the hollow, owl …
• Containing, - Llevelys prompted insidiously
• The hollow, sheltering owl, - extricated herself Cerridwen, - Shone far, as lighthouse on cliff, dark of night I was driving away, seven years on Mac Cecht’s attire, I spent as a speckle of blood.
• I was horns of a deer, and I was southwestern wind, - continued pretty Enid, - as error I was foundation of incorrect calculations, bark of a fir-tree I was, and was I high grass in the valley, was I a sail of a ship which headed to Canada cold…
• I was a grapevine, and was I a capital letter, - Llevelys picked up the baton, - was I string of a harp, …
• … and a spigot in every barrel, - added Gwydion
• … and was I sea grass for a year, - Levelys, never shy, finished his part, and looked at Gwydion askance, his eyes full of humor.
• I was tile on the roof, a treatise about life sense, picked up Gwydion, sunset reflection I was, and was I floor washing rag.
• I stretched as bridge above the powerful rivers flow – responded Morvydd, - I was a pilgrim’s staff and the moss on a road-stone …
• I was wormwood in the steppe, and was I an echo reflected, I was a patch on the skirt of a woman that sold love-potions on market – continued Dylan, son of Gweyr, - I was a fresh issue of “Times”, in truth it happened with me, a chiff-chaff bird I was, and a cry in the starless night.
• For fifteen years I lay in the burial mound of Caer-Cerddyn. I was a distaff and a ball, and a black hole I was, - Clyddno joined in, - Was I a coffee mill, and a strip of the skin of a beast, a figure drawn with chalk, and a cloud that swam above Rome.

Certainly, they fared worse at that that senior students did, but, nevertheless, they still succeeded in creation sensation of complete freedom and limitless reliability of the entire world - the goal that they pursued starting the game.

• I was path along a stream, and a twig of the blackberry bush, and a dinner set I was for forty springs in a row …– started Afarvy and trailed off on hearing rapid steps of the teacher ascending the staircase.

Tarquinius Snaked broke into the class as a gust of fresh wind, and immediately asked an unusual for a chemistry teacher question:

• Do you know how Chinese sign for “learn” looks like? Nobody did.
• It consists of three elements: a child under the roof, and above him – claws. Do you have any questions?

A Gwydion realized, that there always be a spot in his heart for the subject that Snakes taught

23.

Snakes, looking above their heads, examined the entire school, roofs and spires of Carmarthen and the Ask river – an exceptional view that Tower of Guards was providing due to its windows open on all four sides – shifted his gaze from the pigeon that found room on the other side of the window to the silent students, and said:

• Some substance is approaching you. Even though you cannot determine its composition now right now, because we are not going to study organic chemistry any time soon, I think it will be useful for you to get acquainted and look at it without prejudice. Everybody looked around. Indeed, there was something crawling on the floor that resembled green pudding.
• Please, be acquainted, - Snake waved his hand. – Turbulentium horribile, - the substance bowed. – The class of freshmen. – Now the class was bowing. -Composition of turbulentium is far too complex for the first year students, but I guess that it is never too early to start inculcating respect for chemical elements and compounds in students. I am confident that students would have never confused nor understated the value of atomic mass and the period of plutonium half-life in their answer, if they had known how it offends plutonium. Turbulentium - is one of the most ancient compounds composing our planet; there remains very little of it in its pure form, and it would be no exaggeration to say that you must be proud of this acquaintance.

When Snakes finished, turbulentium had already crept away. Apparently, it was just crawling around minding its own business, and Snakes presented them to it taking advantage of a convenient opportunity. Certainly, Snakes would not disturb ancient substance just for them. Students felt they there were tiny, and very recently developed, and the further flow of the lesson did not dissuade their conviction. Snakes knew how to make the subject closer through direct comparison. “And you melt at substantially lower temperatures” – he would say quietly, and Afarwi with Dwinwen, chatting on the rear desk, would suddenly shudder catching the piercing look of Snakes’ eyes, and begin listening very attentively.

Gwydion dreamed about individual special course in pharmacology with the chemistry instructor, but since he could not find enough strength to approach Snakes immediately after the class - being stupefied by Snakes’ sarcasm and incomprehensibility – he, nevertheless, started investigating, obstinately, that same day, where he could find Snakes. His first choice was, quite unsuccessfully, Dr Rhiannon. She moved her shoulders and exclaimed: “And why exactly should I know?” “I did not mean…” – muttered disappointed Gwydion and retreated. Than he turned to Morgan-ap-Kerrig, but that one was just teaching third year students how to forget familiar faces, and completely randomly selected Snakes as the object of oblivion. Therefore, when he, radiantly smiling, attempted to recall who was the person Gwydion was asking about, he failed, waved his hand, and proceeded away with an apologizing smile.

24.

Quite unexpectedly Dr Siegfried Wolsung, draconography teacher, helped Gwydion. He stood on the balcony that circled the Tower of Guards, and blew in the horn, calling up his students, but after having overheard Gwydion’s asking Morgan-ap-Kerrig, in an interval between horn signals, he interrupted his blowing and said clearly with a light old-High German accent: “on the very top of Pict Tower”. The same day, after classes, Gwydion set off for the Pict Tower. He passed the office for medicinal studies, the laboratory of Mac Cecht, the tiers where Dr Itharnan dwelled - sad-looking and short pictolog-phonetist; ascended a few more turns of the spiral staircase looking out of machicolations along his way, and stopped before the door, that, apparently, lead into the Snakes’ office. A strange sound, as if a butterfly was beating against the glass, reached his ears. Gwydion silently re-rehearsed all suitable apologies and knocked on the door. Nobody opened. There was no Snakes in the office. Gwydion decided to wait for him. He sat on the floor right before the door, put his backpack with books behind, started to nod off and fell asleep without even noticing it. After awakening, he found out that he was sitting at the same place; but that the door had moved, and at that time was located to his left. This meant, that Snakes returned, and instead of waking up Gwydion, moved the door relative to Gwydion, so Snakes could enter into his office. Whether he did it out of compassion mixed with malice, or simply absent-mindedly, was difficult to say; yet after this event Gwydion, somehow, could not find enough strength to knock on the door for the second time.

Only the kindest Morgan-ap-Kerrig knew how to get along with the shy turret Branwen, but even he could not persuade her to stand on the same spot and not to hide anywhere. As indignant Merlin noticed once, during some teachers’ meeting – “let’s face the truth – you can only meet this tower accidentally.” When it was necessary for the students to approach Branwen Tower for their Art of Oblivion classes, hunting would start – with gazing around, and lending binoculars to each other. Finally, someone would notice the weather vane of Branwen protruding out behind some large tower, would point his finger there, say “Oh!” – and everybody who attended Morgan ap-Kerrig’s seminar would rush there.

Gwydion already missed the search of Branwen by joint forces – having delayed, as usual, by the conversation with Mac Cecht. He looked around, hoping that somebody would scratch a mark for him on the wall of the Hall, but found nothing, ran out to the upper gallery and looked around, trying to catch the site of Branwen behind some tower of Northern or Southern quarter. The opposite gallery was pacing, in rapid step, Tarquinius Snakes, surrounded by some dancing flames, possibly marsh or holy Elmo’s lights, with whom Snakes was conversing in his motion. Snakes conducted the Transformation of Elements course for the ninth year, and his seminar was supposed to start any minute. Three seniors found a huge gray boulder and rolled it to Professor Luthgarda – for breakfast. As any rock giantess, Professor Luthgarda was eating stones. Washed by waters of Ask, gray boulder was like a bread-roll for her, and students that had noticed it, were always glad to render her a service. From her side, Luthgarda would lend them her spare woolen socks on cold winter nights – especially, if firewood were scarce. Students were using those socks as sleeping bags. Students used to say before getting into the sock: “And you know, our Luthgarda is very slim. And she has small feet, too. There is no way for two of us to get into the same sock.”

25.

…When young people with the boulder disappeared behind the corridor turn, Merlin passed by, looking for someone to adopt, and than the silence fell. Gwydion stood up on his tiptoes, and it seemed to him that a typical balcony appeared for a second somewhere in the Southern quarter. Yes! This time poor Branwen hid herself behind Nevenhir Tower and was trampling there, completely embarrassed. He rushed into the room, completely out of his breath, unwinding his scarf on the fly, and flopped down next to Llevelys, at the same time struggling hard to catch every word of Morgan-ap-Kerrig. Professor Morgan, who was looking like he’d just descended from the Moon, was saying:

• I hope you remember what we were talking about during our previous lesson, - anybody who knew Professor, had no doubt that what he meant was: “because, I don’t”. – Right now we’re in the very beginning of our way, but I do believe with all my heart, that at least some of you will be able achieve with years the same heights in the Art of Oblivion as your teacher and mentor Merlin, who is capable of forgetting his own name effortlessly. Of course, not everybody can do this, but you ought not to be losing your heart and stop practicing just because the apex seems to be unattainable.

In the Tower of Dreams students were having a class on Time Signs. McCarhy got a few flat transparent boxes, and started taking out of them small discs with circular openings in the middle, shooting gold and green. Some of the discs sparkled with all of the colors of rainbow. Almost all of them were inscribed with some writings.

• What is this? – gasped girls, who were especially avid for any kind of beauty, in unison. What are these?
• These discs serve as information media, said McCarhy. You can write it down as a definition.

After this, McCarhy outlined the function of discs in history, describing in great detail the missile disc - weapon of the god Vishnu, in particular; in his discussion he also touched the Phaistos Disc, and jasper discs of Yan Bo-Yun.

• As to our discs, - continued McCarhy, carefully stringing the discs on a lace, - they also have inscriptions. Part of them consist of consonants alone, so we can speculate that the person who wrote them was not often skilled himself in the art of reading letters - preserving in memory only their tracings, and that a certain sacral value was given to the inscription as a whole. However, here – McCarhy raised one of the discs; - we can clearly make out the word “protection”. Our experience in reading Gallic, as well as Old-German, runic inscriptions naturally suggest the idea that the content of the inscription as a whole amounts to the prayer for protection from the dark forces… - In meanwhile, McCarhy was connecting gleaming discs and laces into a rather sophisticated construction, - so we can establish with the high degree of certainty that the typical shielding function is ascribed, nowadays, to the same artifacts we are interested in.

By that time everybody was already burning with curiosity.

• Talisman in supposed to be hung under the ceiling, - resolved their doubts McCarhy. – Discs are rocking and ringing, thus driving off evil spirits; they also sparkle in the rays of the sun setting down. McCarhy climbed on the top of a barrel turned over, and deftly attached completely finished talisman to the ceiling. Everybody had hard time turning their eyes away from the exquisite construction hanging in the air.

• Docrtor McCarhy,!…- the girls came to their senses first. – And where have you taken it?

• One-and-a-half hours to Cardiff by bus, - McCarhy said slyly, - and there in any shop with a signboard looking like a nibbled upon apple. McCarhy hushed for a second. Everybody felt that there was a hitch somewhere.

• And now we will learn about the main purpose of those discs, - continued McCarhy. His voice fell. – Strike out everything after the words “information media”. Otherwise hell knows where we can get!…

• I agree that historical method of exposition has unquestionable advantages, - McCarhy was saying to Merlin that very evening, - but, shoot!, it is not always possible to use it.

26..

Professor Maile Duin, who waited for his students on the astronomical area of the tower Nevenhir, stood at the end of flight of stairs, and helped exhausted students to climb the last steps, courteously offering his hand to the girls. Everybody formed a semicircle, gathering their forces for the last effort, and, then, collapsed on the floor, gasping for air and unable to speak for some time. The dark and majestic tower Nevenhir was even taller than the Tower of Guards, even though, as everybody knew, the Tower of Guards was the tallest tower in the school. Professor Maile Duin., chuckling, perambulated the perimeter of the area, waiting for his students to regain the ability to perceive the surroundings. Maile Duin, son of Ailill, was traveler by occupation. He taught geography, astronomy and navigation, and his load was no less than other instructors’, but, nevertheless, it always looked like he was doing it on the fly. He was like a migratory bird. Whether he was speaking of some of the most remote countries, or was describing the stars of the southern sky, it was generally felt, that he, beyond any doubt, visited all of those countries, and, as some venomous senior students suggested, the stars, too. He would appear before his students sporting marvelous suntan, that he would get in India, with a pointer made of jahra tree, and with a Peruvian amulet on his neck, and it was clear that immediately after the lesson he would be far away. He was checking their homework while rafting down Zambezi, and returned it with leaves of some exotic plants and jungle insects stuck to the pages covered with stains from the juice of nameless fruit. He could, after some rummaging in his suitcase, suddenly surprise the girls with motley beads made of the nuts of some unknown tree, adding mischievously: “I presume everybody knows what they are good for.” Many ancient maps in the library, showing many white spots, had it, by the hand of the students of the subsequent generations, that the most extensive spots sported a pencil-made point with the label “Prof. Maile Duin”. It was not mischief; it was, in a way, a mark of respect and admiration. In a distant hall of the Southern quarter there was an ancient mosaic, on which some Irishman, native of North Munster (with a face that even now can be found there – just look under the bench in any pub), swam in a boat under the sail, slender as a cedar tree, merry as a lark, with starfish in his hair, with salty crust on his lips, and with twelve companions, whose mugshots looked by no means Christian. Everyone thought that that was an allegorical embodiment of youth and reckless folly until Cerrydwen, Morvydd, and Dwynwen noticed once that it was Professor Maile Duin.

Maile Duin saw his students rarely, and only for a short period of time and, as a rule, in an inappropriate situation. Lessons were too short; time was not sufficient. Therefore, meeting some of the freshmen in the corridors, on the stairs and the passages and flying past them as an arrow just sent from a bow, Professor Maile Duin would shoot a question on the fly and get the answer without stopping. “The star nearest to the sun?” “Proxima of Centaur!” – “Example of a short period cepheid?” – “RR of Lyrae!”. – “Example of a binary star?” – “Mizar – Alcor!” – “Dwarf cepheid?” – “Delta Scuti!” And if somewhere among the peaceful crowd during the dinnertime would start cries such as “What is Schwarzschild’s radius?” – it was clear that Professor Maile Duin while on the run met his freshmen. The students would hastily swallow their porridge, so to meet the challenge with honor and without porridge in the mouth: “Who did for the first time observe a variable star?” - “Hipparchus!”. “As if nobody observed it before Hipparchus – Merlin would notice severely, spreading additional helpings of porridge around. – Colleague Maile Duin, don’t try to fool the children. Let them eat in peace. I personally observed variable starts, when Hipparchus was in his diapers.“ – he asserted peevishly and showed enthusiastic Maile Duin out. “And if I’d ask them what is the most bright start in the Perseus constellation, you’d, probably, say that it was you, colleague?” retorted Maile Duin before departing.

27.

Today Maile Duin pushed aside his suitcase with his feet – so, it was not that apparent that he was seating on his trunks during the lesson time, squatted on the camel saddle that he exported from Fez some time ago, and that served him a s piece of furniture, spread a dressed bison skin on the floor and said:

• Let us try and look at our celestial sphere from another viewpoint. The Indians of prairies group the same stars that we see on the sky into different constellations. This is the chart of stars of the Great Plains. Seven girls - Pleiades. Path of Ghosts - Milky Way. But, in other respects… look here. Afarvi, the son Of Kentigern! From what stars does the constellation Hand of Chief consist?
• The belt of Orion, the sword of Orion, Rigel, and also the beta Eridani, answered [Afarvi], pointing to the stars on the map with his finger.
• Bravo. Constellation of Lizard, Shoned, the daughter of Teyrnion.
• Cygnus, almost all of it.
• Brilliant. Teleri, the daughter of Tangwen, what does the constellation of Turtle comprise?
• For stars from the Turtle’s shell – this is the square of Pegasus, - began Teleri, and the tail… the tail… - Teleri became nervous, being unable to recollect the name of the star; her eyes were filled with tears.
• Let’s pretend it pulled its tail inside, Maile Duin said soothingly. With all his swiftness, he was sensitive to the feelings of his students.

• And what happened to Berwyn, exactly? – Merlin asked McCarhy some evening, grasping him by his sleeve and pulling him into Merlin’s office.
• To Berwyn?
• Yes, yes. To Berwyn, son of Eilonvy. I couldn’t call him cheerful.
• With my hand on the Bible, neither could I.
• The boy can’t grasp your barbarous poetry.
• “can’t grasp” – is a wrong word. I’d say it is fighting back ferociously. But, I’m not badgering him.
• Owen! – Merlin rocked his head reproachfully. – And you call yourself a teacher! You are the reason of all his failures.
• Thanks! – said McCarhy.
• Ah, but no! Not in you as a teacher. He would’ve answered so much better, if he’d answered to somebody else. Don’t you see he’s getting lost when he stands before you and only you?
• When I stand before him, I always see him before me, by some reason, McCarhy said sarcastically.
• No idle talk, please! –Merlin cut him off sternly. Go to some other classes, to Fintan, for instance. And you’ll see. Mccarhy carried out the advice by turning into a raven, and sitting through the whole lesson on Fomors’ Legacy as an effigy on a cabinet. He was stunned. The class was studying transformations, and Berwyn could do them best of all. While, others, gathered together on a desk, were scratching their heads with rear feet, trying to figure out how to get rid of their hamster appearance, Berwyn easily changed seven appearances - from a hawk to a marten, turned into himself, then, into a monkey, scratched himself in an extremely funny way, flickered for a long time before Professor Fintan’s eyes as a jay, and finally, by Professor’s personal request, spent the time till the end of the lesson, hanging on a ceiling beam as a sloth.

28.

McCarhy was seating on the cabinet pretending to look like a stuffed raven, and was feeling an insurmountable desire to ruffle up. At the end of the lesson, after escorting all other students out, Fintan caught Berwyn’s tail and dragged him down from the beam, shook the sloth appearance off him with two or three gestures and asked him delicately:

• Well, what are you hanging here for? When do we begin serious specialization, Berwyn? I’d suggest you to join my seminar for the ninth year.
• You see, Professor – shyly but firmly answered Berwyn, who didn’t call Fintan “teacher” and, therefore, didn’t manifest any intention to become his student, - I only want to do poetry. Fintan didn’t turn a hair. He showed neither disappointment nor surprise.
• Well, Berwyn – he said quietly – I hold your desire as sacred. Some constrained sound reached them from the cabinet. McCarhy gave out a quite quack. … After visiting a few more classes. McCarhy returned to Merlin with the heavy heart.
• Berwyn feels completely at ease during other teachers’s lessons. Enormous talent for transformations, wittiest Latin remarks in Orbilius’ class, almost complete absence of fear before Cú Roí!.. In my class he is dropping books, he is able to sit down and miss the chair, and his mind you can’t call lively even under the fear of death.
• What conclusions can you draw from these circumstances, colleague? – said Merlin.
• I shouldn’t have started teaching? – conjectured McCarhy.
• Here it goes, -sighed Merlin. – Everybody is like a little kid. Do you know, Owen, how difficult it is when you can’t grasp exactly the subject instructor of which you like the most?

29.

After having looked for a pair of socks for entire morning, Llevelys, in order to get to Ancient Greek on time, decided to take a shortcut. He needed to get to the Wine Tower, but instead of walking on the ground never loosing the tower out of sight, as, for example, Gwydion would do, he departed through the rock passages, which, as it seemed to him, could lead him to the Southern Quarter faster. He ran through the Fire-place Hall, turned left, and, suddenly, the staircase started lead steeply upward, regardless of the fact that, according to Llevelys’ understanding, it should have led downward. He followed it, hoping that he would be able to find his way somehow, but, after looking out of the first encountered machicolation, he could not figure out where he was. The floor under his feet was bending in an arc, as if he stood on a humpbacked bridge. He decided to take a risk, and squeezed himself into an oval window in the rock wall. To his consternation he found out that he emerged from the mouth of Medusa Gorgona, sculpted on the wall in a form of bas relief. He was not pleased but passed on returning the same way. He was too scared to get back into Gorgona’s mouth. A bit nervous he started descending along the spiral staircase on his right, but soon he fell into complete darkness and was forced to come back. Then he moved forward, so to find out where the corridor leads, quickening his steps all the time and promptly arrived before closed oak doors that looked more like intertwined branches in the woods. No sound was heard anywhere. Then Llevelys decided to backtrack, and found himself in a room with mosaic floor, and scenes from the Bible on the walls. If he had passed something like that before, he would have remembered it. Then, he seemed to recognize the staircase that he had seen in the Southern Quarter some time ago and merrily broke into run, but with the first turning the staircase suddenly forked. Llevelys definitely could not remember any bifurcations. He tried to turn right, and found himself in a double-tier window hall where swallows were flying under moulded ceiling, constantly diving in and out of windows. Llevelys suddenly felt as if he was in some forgotten part of the school, where no one would ever visit. He panicked, and loosing his head threw himself down worn steps to the nearest arch. He landed at the foot of a bas relief depicting a dancing dragon. “How did I get to the Dragon Tower?” – flickered in his head. He always thought that the Dragon Tower was located in the Northern Quarter. “I think I need to depress something on this bas relief, and some corridor will open… or an entrance to a lecture-hall … can’t remember” and Llevelys started jumping trying to get high enough to strike the crucial point on the bas relief with his fist.

• Excuse me; I hope I don’t distract you, do I? – someone asked behind his back with refined politeness. Llevelys turned around and saw a young man in a professor gown that was burnt and patched in a couple of places.
• If you don’t have time right now, I’ll be willingly…
• No, no, I do, I do – start yelling Llevelys.
• See you, my name is Kerwyn Cwrt – said the young man. – As a matter of fact I… Forgive me, where were you bound? To the Wine Tower? Can I accompany you…with your permission?

30.

At that point Llevelys suddenly understood what had happened to him. He strayed into Branwen Tower, and while he was running inside it, it smoothly moved from the Southern Quarter to the Northern one.

• Is it true that you can restore anyone from ashes? - blurted he out quite unexpectedly for himself. Kerwyn Cwrt was staring at him, amazed. – Ah, restoration from ashes! – he started laughing. – No, strictly speaking, we are into reconstruction of the soft tissue of extinct animals and plants, based on the study of biochemical composition of their preserved remains. This is simply the analysis of organic compounds, nothing more… but the traditional name of the subject, you are right here, may mislead you – he smiled. Possibly, the person who named it that way, at the dawn of the Middle Ages, truly was going to restore something…
• But, they say, at your lectures – something … extreme… is happening, - said Llevelys, carefully selecting his words. – Some supernova explosions take place … err… right in the lecture hall.
• Probably, somebody saw me during some Cloud and Sunset Mythology class. Possibly, some hurricane phenomena, said Kerwyn Cwrt, sorting out versions in his mind. – It might have been a tornado, too. But, I’d like to talk about something else. It seems to me that you are not complaining about the fireplace in your room only because your being overly delicate. Actually, it has not been cleaned for a hundred years already. I think as your curator I can ask you this question: Aren’t you getting cold in the evening?

Very soon freshmen stopped fearing Kerwyn Cwrt. A considerable role in it played the fact that they never attended his lectures any more.

Snakes, the chemistry instructor, was not an emotional person, and adoration of the students slid on him without sticking. To cling to Tarquinius Snakes the same way as students would cling to MacCecht was impossible: nothing would stick to him. Snakes encouraged his students to conduct theoretical experiments, and then commented on what he saw, mercilessly.

• At your output this will connect with that, and, I assume, an explosion will happen, - would he observe while passing by. Gwydion was amazed at how Snakes manages, hardly even looking at their papers, so accurately to describe the essence of what was going to happen. Snakes knew how to throw words while passing between rows without delay, such as:
• And at this point in time, you, Goronwy, son of Ellery, find yourself covered from head to toes by some sticky black liquid, which has formed because you erroneously divided by four, and forgot to consider the properties of the first element.

Passing by Afarvy he remarked, almost without looking into his papers:

• You are breathing methane for the last five minutes. And that part of your chemical equation about which you’ve completely forgotten is flowing on the floor. Having looked at Dwynwen, who was gnawing on her pen while trying to solve her chemical problem, Snakes commented:
• Your experiment is very daring, but I’d like to warn you that the phosphorescent substance, that you’ve received, sublimates and settles on the faces of people around.

31.

Sometimes Snakes would express himself in riddles. For instance, once, after having a glance into Enid’s paperwork, he commented: “Your hands.” “What about them?” responded a frightened Enid. “Your hands are very nicely shaped.” Snakes’s face contorted. “In the meantime, you made a mistake at the second stage of your calculation, and if I know something about chemistry, you are going to get elemental oxygen. It leaves horrendous scars, I pity your hands.” “Whoa,” said Enid, and profusely crossed out all she had written before.

Generally speaking, the more precarious the situation, the more succinct was Snakes. So, when he once stopped for a second to look at Gwydion’s confused calculations and said “Hah,” Gwydion – convinced that he accidentally yielded a fast-killing radioactive isotope – hunched his shoulders and awaited death. Yet Snakes continued, “Let’s make it more complex,” and wrote in Gwydion’s notebook another equation, much more complex than the one Gwydion had just completed.

… It was Friday, and chemistry class was coming to an end. Tarquinius Snakes was about to announce the homework. The piece of chalk in his fingers attacked the blackboard. “Page 49 and its reverse side,” he dictated. Copying these words on the blackboard, he adjourned the class with a single impatient gesture, returned to his desk, and started reading his own writings.

Llevelys curiously thumbed through the textbook. The reverse side of page 49 looked clean. He looked at Snakes quizzically, but the latter was expressionless.

Gwydion, who desperately wanted to talk to Snakes about a special course on pharmacology, bravely approached him, put his hand over his heart, opened his mouth and took a deep breath. A thought crossed Gwydion’s mind: if Snakes was not going to look at him, then, by God, Gwydion would venture to ask him. Snakes finished his writing, put away the pen, and disappeared, without ever looking up.

The next class on the languages of animals and birds was their first practical one: Dr. Rhiannon had dug out from somewhere a surly old fox. When Gwydion ran into the room, panting, the fox was sitting by the fireplace. Rhiannon was pushing her students forward, one-by-one, gesturing them to start a conversation; her look clearly indicated that no less than half of the brood had already failed. The fox looked extremely grim, preoccupied with his thoughts and uncommunicative. No smile appeared on his elongated face. Morvydd, daughter of Modron, stood before the honored guest, pale with excitement, and emitted tentative howls, but it was clear already that she would not be able to strike any conversation of value. Indeed, the fox was looking at her very gloomily and with one eye closed.

Gwydion started feeling awkward. He came close, went down on all fours, and pushed Morvydd away with his nose. Then he pursed his fingers in order to hide his nails, and humbly sat on the carpet in front of the guest, while looking no higher than the black “stockings” on the fox’s paws - in order to maintain subordination. He sat there for a few minutes. Finally the venerable guest honored him with sniffing, and Gwydion said in good Foxish: “May your spouse and all of your children remain healthy, and let there be more emergency exits in your burrows and less red-coated hunters here in Britain. Let not the sound of a hunting horn disturb the sleep of any fox on this island till the last days.” “By St. Renart!” The old fox opened both eyes. “This one here’s not bad at all.” Gwydion’s ear flickered. “Yes, this cub … I mean, kid – he’s talented,” blushed Dr. Rhiannon.

• So, you think that fox hunting is bad? Did I understand you correctly?” drawled the old fox, turning his pointed face back to Gwydion. “Moreover, I think that only the English could have invented it. The descendents of Math and Pryderi would never allow such a shame,” – and since the old fox started catching fleas at the same very moment, Gwydion, not to look discourteous, also snapped his teeth several times over his shoulder. Blunt non-participation, after all, could have been taken as a hint: if somebody has fleas here, it is not I. “Yes, this one is very good,” nodded the satisfied fox. And as a reward to Gwydion, he slightly nipped his ear. After that the rest of the class grew bolder and came closer. The fox’s mood brightened; he started talking, and even told everybody a story on how once he had the opportunity to organize a large colorful performance: the Duke’s hunt. With loudly sounding horns he led away into the field the Lord of Slippery, the Duke of Nottingham, with all his guests and his pack - the whole assembly of guests, all dressed in beautiful suits - with whippers-in in scarlet pinques brandishing silver horns.. can’t tell it all, what a time it was! And having done his duty carefully, having spent a lot of his valuable time on them, and not seeing any gratitude or attention from the arrogant guests, he decided to leave and slipped away - even before reaching the edge of the forest. He simply crept slowly under the roots of a lone oak, where incidentally, an entrance to one of the remote side tunnels of his own extensive burrows began. The Archbishop of Canterbury, a guest of the Duke also taking part in the hunt, hastened to personally look into the hole, angrily slapped himself on the knee, and then finally disgraced himself in the eyes of all Fox people by using obscenities. Averting unnecessary questions, the fox condescendingly explained that while words such as “winter coat,” “winter hat,” “hand warmer,” and “fur collar” exist in the Fox language, they are considered rude and are not to be pronounced in polite company.

33. One beautiful night Merlin gathered the whole school in the main hall and showered the students with a self-accusing speech. This he did every time the students needed encouragement, in his opinion – that is to say, extremely rarely. Llevelys stood very far away from Merlin’s chair. He heard: “As for the Duke of Lotharingia, who chased me down through all of France in order to kill me because I, allegedly, seduced his bride? I didn’t even notice what she looked like! I was just rescuing him from incest! Mm-hmm. We do our job. And love – it’s good for simple people. Somewhere on the mill.” “Oh God, what a nightmare!” moaned Llevelys. “He’s delirious! How can one say something like that about himself? And he’s gathered the whole school to listen!” “I assure you, you’re mistaken,” said a soft voice from behind. Llevelys turned around as much as the crowded space would allow, and found Kerwyn Cwrt there. “Believe me, Professor Merlin is saying no nonsense. He is saying important and interesting things.” Llevelys forced himself to listen. Merlin, meanwhile, was saying:

• Take me, for example. What about me? I’ll crawl in a bush somewhere and die. What’s more, I’ll die in the most uninteresting way, and then they’ll start: “Passed away… the greatest … of our epoch…” In two minutes Llevelys caught the idea of the narration, and in three, the entire scope of Merlin’s powerful thought became clear to him. Llevelys was shocked; how could he have taken it for delirium before? He turned around to thank Kerwyn Cwrt, but the latter already disappeared.

34. So far, McCarhy’s lack of self-attention precluded him from thinking that he could be anybody’s idol. Yet, when Merlin suggested the idea to him, McCarhy’s agile mind quickly filled in the rest of the picture, and now he felt horrified at his own callous attitude towards Berwyn, son of Eilonwy. During the following poetry class, Berwyn pronounced “and the sleepy forests of Loch Killa” and remained frozen, looking with wide eyes at the huge fox that suddenly appeared in the middle of the room. The fox was yawning and preparing to sleep right on the floor. At this point, McCarhy very delicately said: “I was thinking about additional lessons with you, Berwyn. It’s a very attractive idea.” Berwyn hunched his shoulders in fright. “My office is in Anthony Tower … well, you, know, behind the armored knight that creaks like a cart that asks for grease. Tomorrow at 4pm, please.” Berwyn nodded and wrote down in his notebook: “Wed, 4pm.” It was apparent that his hand was trembling. “There will be tea with cream,” said McCarhy with a reassuring smile. Berwyn raised his frightened eyes, which clearly expressed that he considered himself unworthy of even tea. McCarhy firmly removed the sprawling fox and continued the class.

35.

Kerwyn Cwrt had one mysterious trait: a few times per year after receiving some notice, he would look absolutely mortified and then disappear for a short while, taking practically no baggage with him. Then he would come back, looking like someone who spent a week lain in the grave - and everything went as normal. The truth was that Kerwyn Cwrt, coming from an aristocratic family, could not allow himself to upset his parents, and lest they had a stroke, was hiding from them that he worked as a mere school teacher. So far he was successfully hiding his vocation for three hundred years, but every depart could be the last one – that is, if suddenly in his ancestral castle one would hear that he was not staying with a friend in the mountains of Scotland, and was not gallivanting abroad. Kerwyn once and for all decided for himself that if news about the real state of affairs would reach his parents, he would break all ties with the school, and stay with them to comfort them in their old age. Remembering the words he heard when he was sixteen: “Don’t you ever forget your origins, my son, and never stoop so low as to occupy yourself with something unworthy” - and having stronger feelings towards his father and mother than the most obedient children, Kerwyn Cwrt nevertheless could not see his life being devoid of science, and taught students in such a way that even non-combustible materials ignited at his lectures. Every invitation from home made him shudder. Every time when he was to leave for two days, Merlin would, just in case, wish him farewell for good, and appoint a replacement till the end of the year. When Merlin would gruffly ask him on his return: “Well, how did they entertain this time in the castle of Llaneshli?”, it was worth seeing Kerwyn Cwrt’s face as he responded “fox hunting.” The Kerwyn Cwrt who died a hundred times over at the thought that he might never again see his students would for two days have to portray a frivolous young man, who could not stand through Mass without pinching the female parishioners, who never in his life would join any conversation unless the subject was horse racing, and who could spend on rings with cameos a great deal and more. In truth, Kerwyn Cwrt was buying all the accessories on the road - in great haste and with a grimace of disgust on his face, and changing himself into fashionable rags while hiding in the station toilet. It was really draining him. He would return to the school as people return home, and, exhausted, report to his colleagues that yes, he got lucky once again. His parents were strong and cheerful people, who frequently expressed the desire to see their heir.

36.

Many times Llevelys tried to show off in history class, but his plans always turned into a fiasco. Knowing every single chronicle, every curriculum vitae and all the annals, he nevertheless would easily and gracefully hit the skids every time. During the last history class, Merlin, while talking about Duchess Igraine, completely lost the thread of his narration, told everyone to pull out the last sheet from their notebooks, and asked who could clearly and distinctly describe all there was to know about the fight of King Uther with Igraine’s husband, the Duke of Cornwall. Llevelys decided that his finest hour had finally come. He raised his hand, was called forward, stood up, straightened his cuffs, and, figuring that the story would only benefit if he provided the subtle background of the strife, started: “Long before the Romans invaded Britain…” “My child, I feel that you follow in my footsteps,” Merlin unceremoniously interrupted. “Once I flopped in precisely the same way. I remember how one very loyal supporter of the king was executed as a traitor. And all because I did not have time to explain who he was. I came running, true, but I did not have time to explain. Approaching the scaffold from afar, I started talking about the harms caused by the death penalty. Well, I customarily ran through the Greeks, then turned to the Romans … worked in the Fathers of the Church somehow… In short, when I got to Modern Scholasticism, he had lost his head already. Merlin rotated a malachite ring on his finger, and, while his audience remained stunned and silent, added: “Yes. In order to fall with a due crash sound, one has to have some weight.” Obviously, after that Llevelys forgot why he had to get up in the first place.

37.

Carmarthen 37

In the middle of his midnight lesson Archivarius Chlodovicus, with a magician’s gesture, produced a most ancient manuscript of the saga “The Madness of Sweeney,” “completed with disgust by the monk O’Cleary,” as read the postscript. Everyone became alert and started pinching each other, sensing that a quiz was in store. “How did O’Cleary obtain the purple, turquoise, and orange colors evident in the headpiece and initials? I want a full description of the technology. And he who writes “squashed mosquitoes” or “spilled cider” will be met with justice,” threatened Nachtvogel jovially. “Then, compose a bestiary,” ordered the archivarius [Chlodovicus?], and, assuming that he set them all to work, set about preparing himself coffee on the stove. Everyone at once stared at the glosses and annotations in the margins of the manuscript. O’Cleary was a true son of his people, somewhat gloomy and carefree all at once. “The dead are everywhere, and my head aches since morning,” he confided in one of the righthand notes. “Fought with Father O’Leary last night over the nature of the Trinity…” Tearing himself away from the obscure work was impossible for O’Cleary. His whole life in the monastery, waiting day by day for the Vikings to attack, emerged before the reader’s eyes. Gwydion made a sincere effort to step back from the glosses. He remembered how to obtain purple with some uncertainty; however, after collecting his thoughts, he roughly started describing: “Pound dried foxglove flowers in a mortar with the shells of Indian mollusks, then mash them on a flat stone with egg yolk until it reaches the consistency of sour cream, and whisk the egg white mixed with a broth of shedded snakeskin….” “Hmm. For that they could very well burn you at the stake for witchcraft,” lightly remarked Dylan, son of Gweir, casting him a glance over his shoulder. “During my youth,” continued the annotations of O’Cleary, “everyone knew this tragic saga by heart, but no one transcribed it. The young generation today remembers nothing; it’s all gone downhill.” Ceridwen, already having started on her bestiary, nudged Gwydion on the side with her elbow and showed him one of her pictures. “What do you think, is it a roc?” she whispered. “It looks like the Holy Spirit,” firmly responded Gwydion, who was raised strictly and had an experienced eye for such things.

• Snakes’s malice is indescribable - said listlessly Llevelys after having brushing up on the last chemistry homework, and fell flat on his bed as if he was shot by a bullet. While he tried to play “Gwendolyn” on the lute doing it by trial-and- error, Gwydion with his feet on the dower chest, honestly pored over his own homework assignment. Then he slapped himself on the forehead, looked once again at the blank page, and went to the kitchen.

In the kitchen ruled the bread-makers. They looked like small plump ladies, knee high, or slightly over, to a man of average height. They wore Dutch bonnets and aprons, looked very much alike, and were grumbling all the time. They took care of all the work around the house, including the laundry and even shoe-sewing, and no one knew why they were called bread-makers.

In return, they demanded due respect, and felt very happy when they were given ordinary pins. The pins they were sticking into the bonnets.

Gwydion asked them for a handful of salt, and two breadmakers, standing on the table and holding up two sides of a canvas bag, started shaking it over Gwydion’s open hand.

He looked around the kitchen and noticed that in the corner sits alone Tarquinius Snakes in front of a plate of cold scrambled eggs. Snakes, with his chin over his intertwined fingers, was looking at the fireplace for some time, then he got up and left. Gwydion, with salt in the hand, rushed after him, hoping to talk about the special course. Snakes was nowhere to be seen. Gwydion looked north and south, cursed himself for sluggishness and walked to his room, where he applied the salt to the blank page, and was not particularly surprised to see the ​purple letters appearing there: transparent substance, the formula of which was given on page 49, was reacting with sodium chloride.

Berwyn son Eilonwy slowly walked up the stairs to the office of McCarhy. He was not sure that he had enough courage to knock on the door. Berwyn saw in McCarhy a great scientist, a person with fine tastes, a man immersed in research. McCarhy, himself, saw in himself a carefree loafer, a scatterbrain, immersed in afraid to say what. He tried to not attract attention of his students to what he was immersed into. When

Berwyn knocked on his door, he put away a playful novel of XIV century with frivolous miniatures, and pulled closer a scientific opus on poetic meters and forms. In the office McCarhy, behind the doors with crossed rowan branches over it (Merlin scolded him for those branches as for hooliganism for a long time already), reigned a very merry atmosphere. The breadmakers tried to clean up the carpet, pushing each other on the go. They were grumbling at McCarhy demanding him to pick up from the floor scrolls containing poems, stone tablets with text, and his own feet. McCarhy joked, lifting heavy stones, treated breadmakers to dry apples, and finally gave them a whole bunch of pins on the string.

• Berwyn, I’s so glad to see you. Please, come in! - He said, scratching his head with his fingers while thinking, where could possibly go whatever has left of the tea. As a result, he brewed up some leaves, which he borrowed from Blodeuwedd, professor of Botany, and of which he had already forgotten what he need them for; the leaves suddenly acted as sleeping aid, and he and Berwyn slept soundly till late night. Seven hours later they both woke up at the same time seating in armchairs facing each other. Outside one could see the light in the Carmarthen houses and on the river buoys.

So, yeah, we had a cup of tea - McCarhy said.

They looked at each other and started laughing. This misunderstanding added casuality to the setting. Archivarius Nachtvogel, made a wide circle over the river, sat down on the windowsill, and squinting discontentedly due to the abundance of light, started muttering: Owen, the manuscript that I gave you last time was slightly worn out at the edges, and especially at the joints.

• I will be exteremely careful, dear Mr. Chlodwig - McCarhy reassured him. - Extremely. And now, please forgive me, I have a student in the room, and he shut the window. Berwyn who was following McCarhy with an admiring glance, remembered what he was there for, started digging in his bag, and pulled out his notebook. He heavily sighed and tried to read out aloud a verse or two from Finn, for which he practiced all of the last night. He broke off without any request from McCarhy, his lips were trembling.

• Don’t you worry, Berwyn - McCarhy said. You are a wonderful reader. If you had only known how I sing! And besides, there exist texts I cannot read myself - corrected he himself joyfully. For example, the poem of Cetarn (?) son of Aed, dedicated to winter arrival. Very difficult text. Where is it? - he started sorting things on his bookshelf. And, here you go! A poem of the fourth century, with lacunas, and even after Gerard Murphy restoration the devil himself can break his leg in it. The most difficult language, alliterations, - God forbid … Old phillidic school… Yeah, what can I say! - fascinated, he waved his hand. - Look for yourself. Wild geese clamor over salt water, red heather wilted in the mountains .. Look at this gap in the fourth stanza, Berwyn, none of the attempt to recover it fits!

And McCarhy began reading the poem, in a sing-song way and very slowly, because he could not do any faster. Berwyn leaned forward first, then he got up, and, without thinking, tried to repeat the words after McCarhy, then he stopped, and started repeating in the only way he could afford - transforming himself into everything named by Cetarn(?) in his poem. He flew up as a blackbird, scaterred as berries of holly, collected himself, turned into a bullfinch, jumped up several times on his bird legs, looked around as a deer who had lost the herd .. McCarhy got to the the stanza:

• Short cry of the hawk, and in the gap between roots
• Fox is hiding in fear

Berwyn, carried away by the poem, quicly, without thinking, turned itself into the hawk, then into the fox, and then, not noticing that McCarhy paused, turned itself successively into two pheasants, a male and a female, and then stretched out on the back of the chair as a speckled lynx with a short tail, and then again assumed his own form.

• Why have you paused, teacher? - He asked.

• There is no more text - said McCarhy, puzzled. There is a gap, “from the thicket of trees” - and a big gap to the end.

• But there can be nothing else but pheasants and lynx - laughed out Berwyn. - Look. Here’s a hawk - he quickly demonstrated - now a fox - he snapped and looked angrily - and then you just can’t turn into anything else but pheasants

• … Look, a male … and a female. And a lynx. It frightened them away. You know, the whole stanza … seems to be the same thing. It’s one whole thing.

• Wait, I’ll look for alliteration - McCarhy genuinely brightened. Yes, it fits. At a pair of pheasant from the thicket of trees … something something lynx. Judging by the assonacne, something with stressed “ta”. Berwyn, I beg you - please turn yourself into the lynx again.

Berwyn once again turned himself into a lynx and stretched himself on the back of the armchair. McCarhy looked at him and said “stares” and grabbed a pen. Then, he again raised his eyes to Berwyn, and added: “Motley. At a pair of pheasants from the thicket of trees stares a motley lynx” - and he sat down, rubbing his forehead.

• Berwyn, it seems you have restored one of the darkest places in the poetry of the fourth century, - he said.

• I did? - Berwyn was genuinely surprised Berwyn. - No, teacher! I have not even seen this poem before!

• But after the fox you can only turn into pheasants? - McCarhy asked, staring at him with a rather special look.

• At the very least, it’s about birds - pondered Berwyn. But, no, what am I talking about! Only pheasants. You can have my word on it. Try it yourself.

• The fact is, Berwyn - McCarhy said happily - that I can’t metamorphize myself half as well as you do. Tuatha De Danann poetry brings to life images being named, but when you fall silent they disappear. Everybody tried to fill this gap with a pencil, and only you were able to guess do it this way! .. Berwyn, completely taken aback by these words, reverently looked at the poem, which previously he did not dare even touch.

• My God - McCarhy said giving him the book - but in order to be able to do that you should have a really fine taste for poetry.

• The subtleties of poetry are lost on me - Berwyn started feeling awkward. It’s simply, Cetarn, son of Aed is … very harmonious.

Dr. Siegfried Völsung was a tall, dry person, with truly German looks. Once per week, on Thursdays, he taught draconography. There he demanded from students impeccable accuracy of descriptions and compliance to the forms up to a comma. Upon entering the class, where all kinds of visual depicting various types of dragons were hanging on the wall, freshmen initially felt somewhat timid. Dr. Völsung was easy to imagine dressed in armor, dark and impenetrable; his fingers during explanations were clenching on the back of his chair as if it were the hilt of his sword, and when he told students that it was unnecessary to use cursive, or, even more so, double-emphasis (?) if they didn’t have a particular reason to, everybody knew that it was, indeed, unnecessary.

Freshmen wrote reports and paraphrases for him, created bibliographies, notes, quotes, comments, footnotes, lists, summaries, and could list fifty reference books with all publication information. It still was a complete mystery for everybody whether dragons really exist? Dr Siegfried was in no rush to elucidate his students. He would respond to direct questions quietly, with a touch of Old High German accent : “When you get used to basic rules of work with reference books and encyclopedias when you learn how to compile a bibliography, at which one can look without a heartache, we will see. No one has died yet from a good bibliography. And as to you, Dwynwen ,daughter of Kinlan, I would not recommend you to obsess over dragons until you would completely understand how out of place looks a dash instead of the edition year in a bibliography. So what, if there is no edition year in the book itself? It must appear in front of your eyes, inscribed in fiery letters, as if it were cut down with an ax! - Dr. Siegfried sometimes sported Welsh metaphors - usually mixed. As for you, Elvyn, son of Kinyr, I sincerely cannot comprehend, how a man writing a treble clef instead of paragraph symbol can be seriously interested in dragons existence. In your situation it is, to put it mildly, premature.

Students’ suspicions about military appearance shining through Dr. Siegfried mundane features proved to be founded. On one of Thursdays, Siegfried Völsung gave each student a tall stack of index card and a task to sort them alphabetically. Everybody started on their stack which contained cards written in different languages, using pictographs, cuneiform, cryptography, up to five names per author, and consonants mutating while you were looking at them … some cards simply had a habit of biting the reader. In short, students had something to do. There was silence.

At that moment Luthgarda came to greet Siegfried, since she had not seen him since summer. Upon seeing Luthgarda Dr. Völsung immediately changed himself into military guise - he looked as if he descended from an unknown tapestry. He became thrice as tall; he appeared be covered by armor, with a heavy helmet and a sword at his waist; his voice sounded as a church bell. The floor beneath his feet caved in, the walls started trembling. He stepped forwards towards the giantess and shook her hand (Luthgarda still had to stoop a bit for that). Siegfried in his new and frightening guise, and Luthgarda, looking as usual, rumbled about something in the skies with voices reminding of thunder. The freshmen lost their cards, hid themselves under their desks, and pressed themselves against the floor. They could not understand a word, which made the conversation even more frightening, and only later, after coming to their senses, they realized that was just very old Old High German.

When the door closer after Professor Luthgarda, Dr. Siegfried, now of normal height and dressed in his usual black robes, returned to his table, tapped it with his wooden pointer and said astonishingly:

• What is it? Everybody take sit immediately. Why are you lying on the floor? Teacher can’t simply look away, without an uproar to start immediately.
• What was it? - whispered Ceriden, asking Llevelys, and trying to climb on all four.
• I think it was his true form, with difficulty squeezed through his lips Llevelys, and gave her a hand in order to help her to get up.

… Nobody would even think to fail to turn in draconography homework - everybody was doing their best. Afarvy, with his tongue hanging out from stress, was copying from encyclopedia a drawing of male dragon of a rare subspecies - Cornwall Curious (with ears hidden under the wings) - and rambled aloud:

• I got it: when we learn all of the methods of dragon description Dr. Siegfried will inform us that dragons don’t exist. He marked off margins, each - two fingers wide, and with a sigh started to draw the heading “Summary of draconography”. Morvydd, who was sitting next to him and working on the plot “Increase of nastiness among dragons of order Scaled, family Unceremonidae due to climate changes”, said:
• I can hear it now. Dr. Siegfried will clear his throat and say: “Well, now you know how to compile a bibliography of any kind and how not to make a mistake while working on illustrations and references. I wish you success in all the disciplines which study the objects that do really exist.”

Llevelys tried to find out from upperclassmen, who were moving the dump in the yard as part of Archaeology seminar, how was it going with the dragons, and whether the course on Draconography would disappoint them when they assume it in all entirety, but the upperclassmen only smiled grimly.

That Friday Tarquinius Snakes for the first time let the freshmen into the chemical laboratory.

The first day in Snakes’ chemical laboratory was to be remembered for a long time, and by many,

for good. He brought them to the threshold of that temple, unlocked the door and left - because

somebody called him. At first everybody froze in the doorway, afraid to move forward. Finally,

those who had enough courage stepped inside, and ater them came the rest, and there they froze again looking at the portraits of Muhammad al-Razi, and Albert the Great, staring at the visitors

with irony, and at the powders and liquids filling cupboards and shelves around. Gradually

everyone was as by a magnet attracted to a piece of parchment hanging near the entrance door. The

piece of parchment had the laboratory rules inscribed on it.

General rules

1. Work in silence. Breaking the silence you endanger yourself and the results of your experiments.
2. Your workplace. Choose it carefully - so that it would unobtrusive.
3. Desire to take a break - the first sign of defeat.
4. Pay attention to materials, address only those substances, whose reaction you can predict.
5. Know your subject. Ignorance leads to death, which is already unavoidable. What is the point in bringing it closer?

Specific rules

1. Do not pour water into acid. The Water would boil, and drops of the acid solution can reach your face.
2. While working with alkali metals, in the case of fire do not extinguish the fire with water.
3. If the concentration of chlorine in the air is 0.9 ml / l, the death will occurs within five minutes.
4. Having received a serious wound in the process of the experiment, first make sure that your blood would not contaminate the pure starting material and would not make it unusable.
5. Always keep track in writing of all stages of the experiment, ideally - in verses.

Getting at this point, Creary panicked, moved backwards, and knocked over a flask full of mercury. Thick flask shattered, and mercury ran away covering the laboratory floor with ominously looking
small shiny balls. All hell broke loose. Gwydion quickly persuaded Llevelys not to crawl on the floor and try to collect the balls with his bare hands. But, what to do, exactly, he did not know himself. For another five minutes everybody tried to sweep the terrible stuff from the corners and collect it with a shovel. Noticing that their attempts failed, everybody started remembering the terrible symptoms of poisoning by mercury vapors. Dylan described them so vividly that everybody felt hallucinations approaching. Snakes was still away. Confused freshmen started asking themselves questions such as whether it is permissible at all to study in such a room.

When the teacher returned, everybody rushed towards him in panic, since they thought they would have to cancel the class.Snakes took his place, and continued giving instructions rather indifferently, while tapping his fingers slightly against the tabletop. He was throwing his words into space without looking at anyone specifically. Needless to say, each of his replicas generated a chain of frantic actions. - Now we need to collect the drops of mercury visible by a naked eye using a copper wire, or, in the worse case, a bronze coin. Then, we need to eliminate the small droplets of mercury as well as the drops in the cracks of the floor - Snakes’ intonation shows no trace of even slightest concern. You can cover mercury with sulfur. But the reaction Hg + S = HgS only occurs on the surface of droplets. The mercury would continue to evaporate from depth - He said impassively. Llevelys who was able to find sulfur and retrieve it from a locker stopped in his tracks.

• You can apply saturated solution of ferric chlorid to the mercury - it would oxidize the metal

• Snakes said - and then collect the solution with a dry cloth. - And you should use rubber gloves, of course - he added pensively - Or, you can use tincture of iodine. Unfortunately, neither of those is recommended for use on the wooden floor - he said casually, his word stopping the whole typhoon of frantic activity. The most reliable way is to cover all the place where mercury could get with chlorine, chloramine or anything else containing chlorine. The powder should be moistened with water … moistened, not poured with - he said impassively - and left alone for a few hours. During this time the mercury would turn into either mercury chloride (II) or mercury oxide (II) - depending on what you have used. Chlorine residue must be removed with a damp cloth, put into a package and taken to the garbage. A now let us move on to the real topic of our today’s lesson.

The students took a deep breath and sat down still talking and excitedly looking at the mush of mercury chloride that started appearing on the floor. Snakes continued, smoothly and calmly:

• My story relates to the year 1760, when a French Army chemist Claude Louis Cadet tried to distill potassium acetate with arsenic oxide (III). It is hard to tell now what was the purpose of his experiment. As a result he obtained a liquid with a disgusting smell of garlic spontaneously combusting in the air. Since it was clearly not what Cadet wanted to get, he failed to investigate the liquid. As to you, you will name the compound at the end of the lesson. Please, proceed.

• But this is an organic compound!- blurted Gwydion who was shocked with such injustice. We did not study organic chemistry yet!

• Wonderful - Snakes said. - Now I see that you’ve finally stopped distracting, and now are focusing on the subject. The real subject of our activities today - ferromagnetic properties of lanthanides. Take off all iron items and lock them in the closet. Put away all trinkets, from your hair especially! I advise you also to part temporarily with all symbols of your religion that your carry on your necks. We will make a strong permanent magnet from which we won’t be able to tear you off if you wear anything metallic. While pulling over his head symbol of his religion, Gwydion listened to Snakes’ clear wording: “What substance properties strives to achieve inorganic chemistry? - In most cases - extreme!” - and he had a feeling that, it seems, today he again would not have enough courage to approach the teacher on account of pharmacology course.