Luck in the Shadows - Chapter Sixteen
Sep. 18th, 2021 01:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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i_read_whatSo last time, Alec met some wizards, Seregil got himself healed, and Nysander proved to be a master of the "cryptic bastard" school of magic.
So let's see what happens next!
We rejoin Alec as he insists on helping Wethis carry Seregil to the living quarters. Of course he does. There are two beds, but of course Alec settles himself in a chair to keep watch and falls straight asleep.
Little idiot.
He wakes up when someone says his name. It's Seregil, who is mostly awake, if a bit groggy. He gets Alec to fill him in and asks what he thinks about Nysander. Alec likes him, of course, saying that he's someone that you trust right away. Like Micum. Seregil's glad to hear that. They both go back to sleep, though this time at least, Alec bothers to use a bed.
The next time Alec wakes up, it's when Valerius and Nysander are checking on Seregil. He's doing okay. Valerius also checks over Alec's scratches (presumably from the ritual), they're fine. Healing. But Valerius does give him a nice magical boost to help with his healing.
This isn't strictly for Alec's good, mind you. Valerius wants Seregil to stay in bed until he says otherwise, and he wants Alec to keep an eye on him.
Hey, dude. Really? The poor kid dragged him halfway across the two countries. Maybe he should get to finish his rest before you put him on babysitting duties?
But of course, Alec doesn't mind.
Nysander scolds Valerius for "bullying" Alec and invites Alec to eat with him. Admittedly, it sounds pretty cool:
After the massive clutter of the upper rooms, Alec was surprised at the orderliness of Nysander’s sitting room. The small chamber was furnished for simple comfort; beyond a round dining table, two large chairs faced one another in front of the blazing hearth. Shelves along the walls held neatly arranged collections of scrolls and books interspersed with more arcane objects.
The room’s most notable feature was a narrow band of mural running completely around the otherwise unadorned walls. It was scarcely two feet in width but Alec discovered upon closer inspection that it was comprised of a succession of fantastic beasts and birds rendered in superb detail. Here a tiny dragon hovered on scaly outstretched wings over a still smaller castle, blasting it with a glowing stream of fiery breath; there a centaur raiding party bore maidens away in sinewy arms. Farther along the same wall an horrific sea creature reared up from painted waves, spines bristling from its reptilian face as it crushed a ship in its jaws. Near the first corner a creature with the body of a lioness and the breasts and head of a woman held the limp form of a youth between her taloned paws. Interspersed among these scenes were symbols that gave back a silvery sheen in the light.
I do like wizardly furnishings.
Anyway, Nysander notices Alec's preoccupation and elaborates. The mural is magical and part of the protection system that Nysander uses for his rooms.
Alec then gets a bit of a history lesson about why this is all called the "Third Oreska". Basically, the "First Oreska" consisted of the first mages that came from Aurenen (floofy elves). They established the "Second Oreska" at a place called Ero, when they found magical powers among the children of both human and Aurenfaie descent. They were destroyed however, but Queen Tamir of the inevitable spin off series, gave the surviving wizards a new site and that became the Third Oreska.
This bit doesn't make complete sense:
“Only a few hundred in all the Three Lands now, I fear. Fewer and fewer children are being born with the power; the blood of the Aurënfaie masters has grown thin.”
“But don’t the children of wizards inherit their powers?”
Nysander shook his head. “There are no children of wizards. It is perhaps the greatest price we pay for our gifts. Magical abilities demand every bit of creative force we possess. We are repaid richly with powers and long lives, but the force of Illior which gives us the ability to recreate the world around us also burns out the natural procreative forces of the body. The Immortal has never revealed why this must be so, even to the Aurënfaie—But I am lecturing you as if you were a novice! Let us return to your room. Seregil is still deep within himself and shall likely remain so for some time, but I believe it will benefit him to have us nearby.”
How can the blood "grow thin" if there aren't subsequent generations?
Anyway, they end up checking on Seregil, while Nysander plies this poor kid with red wine. (I'm Watching You.)
Alec asks about the disk: It's a telesm: "A magical object which has an innate power of its own that can also be used as a focus of power by one who understands its function. The poison it was coated with would aid in this, as Valerius and I discussed last night. Unfortunately, there is little more I can tell you of it.”
So this is basically an exposition chapter, but it fits into the narrative well enough, and it's nice to see Nysander willing to answer straight questions.
Alec then asks about the dark creature that Seregil kept hallucinating. Nysander gets a little squirrely at this and says he'll need to hear Seregil's account. Alec starts getting worried about Mardus following them:
“But if Mardus is such a powerful wizard—”
“Mardus is no wizard!” Nysander fixed Alec with an appraising look. “What I tell you now must go no further, is that understood? I repeat, he is not a wizard. Mardus is one of the most powerful Plenimaran nobles, also rumored to be a bastard son of the aging Overlord. Whatever the case, he is a ruthless man of cruel and dangerous intelligence, a cunning warrior, and a known assassin. It was most unfortunate for him to have looked upon your faces that night in Wolde; let us hope he never does so again. But I did not bring you here to frighten you more than you have been these last few weeks, so I am going to ply you with more of this excellent wine and turn to less worrisome topics.
I mean, that's enlightening, but there's no reason to snap. Anyway, Nysander decides to distract the boy by spilling some of Seregil's biographical information and...um...that also seems like a dick move, dude.
What is it with sorcerous mentors? Why are they all dicks?
But anyway, the gist of the backstory is that Seregil had come to court as a poor, distant relation of the queen. He'd tried to be a page, a scribe and some other careers which went badly. Then he apprenticed to Nysander, who was very happy about it, until Seregil's unique talent of fucking up magic kicked in.
Nysander shook his head, remembering. “At first it was simply that the spells would not come off. Or they would, but with the most unexpected results. He would try to move a small object, say a salt cellar; it would overturn. He would try again and the salt would burst into flames. On the third try it might fly at his head, or mine. One day he attempted a simple messenger spell, and in the space of five minutes every spider, centipede, and earwig in the place came swarming in under the door. We began conducting his training outside after that.
“Attempting to levitate, he blew up an entire grove of trees in the park. A simple summoning, butterflies I think, and all the horses went crazy for an hour. Things soon reached such a state that whenever anything unusual happened within the Orëska grounds, we got the blame for it.
“Oh, but it was frustrating! In spite of all the blunders, all the destruction, I knew the power was there. I could feel it, even when he could not. For he did succeed now and then, but so erratically! Poor Seregil was devastated. I saw him brought to tears just trying to light a candle. Then there was the time he turned himself into a brick.”
I do love the idea of magical dyslexia as a character trait. It's pretty clever and creates for some entertaining scenarios.
Anyway, Nysander gives us a few other amusing anecdotes, but the end result is quite sad:
Nysander looked down at Seregil again, all the mirth gone from his face. “That was one of the saddest days of my life, dear boy, the day you took off your apprentice robe.” Taking a deep draft from his goblet, he went on. “You see, Alec, denied children, our apprentices often fill that gap. We give them our knowledge and our skill, and they carry our memory into the future when we die. So it was between my old master and myself. Losing Seregil as my apprentice was like losing a beloved son.”
Happily, for Nysander, Seregil turned out to have a talent for spy work instead. And Nysander is the master of spies (the Watchers) so he gets to keep his surrogate son around after all. (Micum is also a spy.)
Alec then asks why Nysander didn't teleport Alec and Seregil to him, like he did the wine earlier in the scene. This gives Nysander (and Flewelling) a chance to elaborate on some magical rules and limitations. Nysander didn't have an exact location for them, the spells would have taken tremendous amounts of energy, and Seregil's magic dyslexia is a concern for magic cast ON him as well. Not to mention, his physical condition had been such that it might have killed them.
Unfortunately, Nysander decides to give us a really stupid capstone to all of these good reasons:
Nysander paused, regarding Alec for a moment from beneath his shaggy brows. “Now those are all valid reasons, but beyond them is one that supersedes all. The Orëska is founded on the principle that the purpose of magic is to aid the endeavors of mankind, not to supplant them.
See, that's just bullshit.
If that's the case, then what's the rationale for teleporting the fucking wine? Nysander could have gotten off his ass and walked it over. What's the rationale for ANYTHING wizards do?
Nysander elaborates on how valuable Alec should find the experience:
“Despite the hardships you endured, all your worry and care, think of what you have gained. You were braver and stronger and more loyal than you have probably had to be in all your life. And your reward is that you succeeded; you saved the life of your friend. Would you give that up to have had me simply spirit you here from that inn?”
...now this is where Alec is a better man than me. Because I look at the trauma and exhaustion this poor kid suffered trying to keep himself and Seregil alive, keep Seregil from killing him in an insane rage, all while being days out of imprisonment and torture himself and I think maybe the kid could have been spared that shit.
It's not like a kid who grew up alone with his dad as a hunter really needed to learn self-reliance, after all.
And what about Seregil, who suffered tremendously during that period?
Alec just agrees he wouldn't trade it for anything. Oh...and this is aggravating too. See, Alec asks about Thero:
“It’s just that, with what you told me about Seregil and all, I don’t understand about Thero. It seemed to me, yesterday I mean, that he doesn’t—Well, he doesn’t seem to like Seregil very much. Or me, for that matter.”
Nysander grimaced wryly. “If it is any comfort to you, I do not think, in his heart, that Thero cares much for me, either.”
“But he’s your student!”
“That hardly guarantees affection, my boy, although ideally such regard should exist between master and pupil. Your faithfulness to Seregil after such short acquaintance speaks well of you both.
“It took me many years to find another apprentice. As I said before, there are few who have the inborn power, and those who do vary greatly in their ability. Of those few who did trickle into the Orëska each year, I found none that suited my purposes until Thero. Whatever else you may think of him, he is tremendously talented. There is no facet of our art he cannot grasp. The fact that he was of my old master’s family made him seem all the more suitable at the time. All that, together with the fact that I was beginning to feel quite desperately in need of a successor, blinded me to certain aspects of his nature which might otherwise have given me pause. Thero has proven trustworthy in every way, yet his thirst for knowledge borders on avarice—a serious flaw in a wizard. He also possesses no sense of humor and, while you will not find that listed among the requirements of the Orëska, I believe it to be an invaluable trait in those who aspire to power of any sort. And this lack of humor causes him to find me an embarrassment on occasion.
“However, it is his animosity toward Seregil which has most alarmed me over the years, for it reveals envy—one of the most dangerous weaknesses of all. He cannot be content that he replaced Seregil, that he is more gifted in magic than Seregil could ever have been. And though he has little use for my affection himself, he cannot bear that Seregil retains it. Of course, Seregil is little better, as I am certain you shall see for yourself soon enough. But Thero is a wizard. If he acts this way over such small matters, what will he not be capable of over great ones, when he is great?”
Nysander paused, massaging his eyelids with two fingers. “For with or without my teachings, he will be great. And so I keep him with me because I fear to let him go to another master. It is my greatest hope that with time and maturity he will gain compassion, and then what a wizard he shall be!”
So let's unpack this a little bit, shall we?
1) Nysander has an apprentice that he loves like a son.
2) This apprentice is unable to be a wizard and becomes a spy instead.
3) Nysander replaces said apprentice with another one who is more adept magically, but less likable in personality. (What the fuck does a thirst for knowledge that borders on avarice even MEAN? And why is it a flaw in a community of wizards...unless maybe, just maybe, he doesn't like Nysander being a cryptic asshole?)
4) Nysander seems to be pretty open in the fact that he likes his former apprentice much more than his current one, and blames his current apprentice for being envious of this.
5) Nysander's former apprentice is around all the time anyway, still being Nysander's favorite son. And is "little better" in his behavior. (Actually as we'll see, Seregil is just as bad, if not worse to Thero than Thero is to Seregil.) It's also fair to point out that it took Nysander a while to replace Seregil, so Seregil is probably quite a bit older than Thero, who would have been a child when this started.
6) Nysander does not appear to have made any effort to reconcile his former apprentice and current apprentice, or to reassure his current apprentice that he actually cares about him too. (Because he apparently doesn't.)
7) Nysander happily spills ALL of this to a brand new stranger.
...I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to come out of this siding with Thero and wanting to punch Nysander in the dick, but here we are.
I don't even think this is a Seregil vs. Thero situation really, though that's clearly how we're supposed to see it. I see it as a Nysander is a truly terrible mentor.
No wonder Thero's kind of a prickly dick. THIS is what he has to deal with.
Anyway, Alec is amazed at Nysander's candor, especially in contrast with Seregil's closed-mouthedness. Nysander has the nerve to pretend that he told Alec this so that he might understand Thero better and see why he acts the way he does.
No, dude, you don't get to tell us that now after you spent paragraphs going on about how your apprentice is a humorless dick whose envy and greed for knowledge makes him a questionable wizard. That is not how this works.
Anyway, Nysander is interrupted by a message from Ylinestra, who wants company. This of course leads Nysander to ditch the kid (who understands, because Ylinestra is hot) and suggest he tour the gardens. He gives him some magic green stone and scampers off.
The chapter ends with Alec going off to explore, Nysander going off to get laid. I'd like to think somewhere Thero is off short sheeting Nysander's bed.
So let's see what happens next!
We rejoin Alec as he insists on helping Wethis carry Seregil to the living quarters. Of course he does. There are two beds, but of course Alec settles himself in a chair to keep watch and falls straight asleep.
Little idiot.
He wakes up when someone says his name. It's Seregil, who is mostly awake, if a bit groggy. He gets Alec to fill him in and asks what he thinks about Nysander. Alec likes him, of course, saying that he's someone that you trust right away. Like Micum. Seregil's glad to hear that. They both go back to sleep, though this time at least, Alec bothers to use a bed.
The next time Alec wakes up, it's when Valerius and Nysander are checking on Seregil. He's doing okay. Valerius also checks over Alec's scratches (presumably from the ritual), they're fine. Healing. But Valerius does give him a nice magical boost to help with his healing.
This isn't strictly for Alec's good, mind you. Valerius wants Seregil to stay in bed until he says otherwise, and he wants Alec to keep an eye on him.
Hey, dude. Really? The poor kid dragged him halfway across the two countries. Maybe he should get to finish his rest before you put him on babysitting duties?
But of course, Alec doesn't mind.
Nysander scolds Valerius for "bullying" Alec and invites Alec to eat with him. Admittedly, it sounds pretty cool:
After the massive clutter of the upper rooms, Alec was surprised at the orderliness of Nysander’s sitting room. The small chamber was furnished for simple comfort; beyond a round dining table, two large chairs faced one another in front of the blazing hearth. Shelves along the walls held neatly arranged collections of scrolls and books interspersed with more arcane objects.
The room’s most notable feature was a narrow band of mural running completely around the otherwise unadorned walls. It was scarcely two feet in width but Alec discovered upon closer inspection that it was comprised of a succession of fantastic beasts and birds rendered in superb detail. Here a tiny dragon hovered on scaly outstretched wings over a still smaller castle, blasting it with a glowing stream of fiery breath; there a centaur raiding party bore maidens away in sinewy arms. Farther along the same wall an horrific sea creature reared up from painted waves, spines bristling from its reptilian face as it crushed a ship in its jaws. Near the first corner a creature with the body of a lioness and the breasts and head of a woman held the limp form of a youth between her taloned paws. Interspersed among these scenes were symbols that gave back a silvery sheen in the light.
I do like wizardly furnishings.
Anyway, Nysander notices Alec's preoccupation and elaborates. The mural is magical and part of the protection system that Nysander uses for his rooms.
Alec then gets a bit of a history lesson about why this is all called the "Third Oreska". Basically, the "First Oreska" consisted of the first mages that came from Aurenen (floofy elves). They established the "Second Oreska" at a place called Ero, when they found magical powers among the children of both human and Aurenfaie descent. They were destroyed however, but Queen Tamir of the inevitable spin off series, gave the surviving wizards a new site and that became the Third Oreska.
This bit doesn't make complete sense:
“Only a few hundred in all the Three Lands now, I fear. Fewer and fewer children are being born with the power; the blood of the Aurënfaie masters has grown thin.”
“But don’t the children of wizards inherit their powers?”
Nysander shook his head. “There are no children of wizards. It is perhaps the greatest price we pay for our gifts. Magical abilities demand every bit of creative force we possess. We are repaid richly with powers and long lives, but the force of Illior which gives us the ability to recreate the world around us also burns out the natural procreative forces of the body. The Immortal has never revealed why this must be so, even to the Aurënfaie—But I am lecturing you as if you were a novice! Let us return to your room. Seregil is still deep within himself and shall likely remain so for some time, but I believe it will benefit him to have us nearby.”
How can the blood "grow thin" if there aren't subsequent generations?
Anyway, they end up checking on Seregil, while Nysander plies this poor kid with red wine. (I'm Watching You.)
Alec asks about the disk: It's a telesm: "A magical object which has an innate power of its own that can also be used as a focus of power by one who understands its function. The poison it was coated with would aid in this, as Valerius and I discussed last night. Unfortunately, there is little more I can tell you of it.”
So this is basically an exposition chapter, but it fits into the narrative well enough, and it's nice to see Nysander willing to answer straight questions.
Alec then asks about the dark creature that Seregil kept hallucinating. Nysander gets a little squirrely at this and says he'll need to hear Seregil's account. Alec starts getting worried about Mardus following them:
“But if Mardus is such a powerful wizard—”
“Mardus is no wizard!” Nysander fixed Alec with an appraising look. “What I tell you now must go no further, is that understood? I repeat, he is not a wizard. Mardus is one of the most powerful Plenimaran nobles, also rumored to be a bastard son of the aging Overlord. Whatever the case, he is a ruthless man of cruel and dangerous intelligence, a cunning warrior, and a known assassin. It was most unfortunate for him to have looked upon your faces that night in Wolde; let us hope he never does so again. But I did not bring you here to frighten you more than you have been these last few weeks, so I am going to ply you with more of this excellent wine and turn to less worrisome topics.
I mean, that's enlightening, but there's no reason to snap. Anyway, Nysander decides to distract the boy by spilling some of Seregil's biographical information and...um...that also seems like a dick move, dude.
What is it with sorcerous mentors? Why are they all dicks?
But anyway, the gist of the backstory is that Seregil had come to court as a poor, distant relation of the queen. He'd tried to be a page, a scribe and some other careers which went badly. Then he apprenticed to Nysander, who was very happy about it, until Seregil's unique talent of fucking up magic kicked in.
Nysander shook his head, remembering. “At first it was simply that the spells would not come off. Or they would, but with the most unexpected results. He would try to move a small object, say a salt cellar; it would overturn. He would try again and the salt would burst into flames. On the third try it might fly at his head, or mine. One day he attempted a simple messenger spell, and in the space of five minutes every spider, centipede, and earwig in the place came swarming in under the door. We began conducting his training outside after that.
“Attempting to levitate, he blew up an entire grove of trees in the park. A simple summoning, butterflies I think, and all the horses went crazy for an hour. Things soon reached such a state that whenever anything unusual happened within the Orëska grounds, we got the blame for it.
“Oh, but it was frustrating! In spite of all the blunders, all the destruction, I knew the power was there. I could feel it, even when he could not. For he did succeed now and then, but so erratically! Poor Seregil was devastated. I saw him brought to tears just trying to light a candle. Then there was the time he turned himself into a brick.”
I do love the idea of magical dyslexia as a character trait. It's pretty clever and creates for some entertaining scenarios.
Anyway, Nysander gives us a few other amusing anecdotes, but the end result is quite sad:
Nysander looked down at Seregil again, all the mirth gone from his face. “That was one of the saddest days of my life, dear boy, the day you took off your apprentice robe.” Taking a deep draft from his goblet, he went on. “You see, Alec, denied children, our apprentices often fill that gap. We give them our knowledge and our skill, and they carry our memory into the future when we die. So it was between my old master and myself. Losing Seregil as my apprentice was like losing a beloved son.”
Happily, for Nysander, Seregil turned out to have a talent for spy work instead. And Nysander is the master of spies (the Watchers) so he gets to keep his surrogate son around after all. (Micum is also a spy.)
Alec then asks why Nysander didn't teleport Alec and Seregil to him, like he did the wine earlier in the scene. This gives Nysander (and Flewelling) a chance to elaborate on some magical rules and limitations. Nysander didn't have an exact location for them, the spells would have taken tremendous amounts of energy, and Seregil's magic dyslexia is a concern for magic cast ON him as well. Not to mention, his physical condition had been such that it might have killed them.
Unfortunately, Nysander decides to give us a really stupid capstone to all of these good reasons:
Nysander paused, regarding Alec for a moment from beneath his shaggy brows. “Now those are all valid reasons, but beyond them is one that supersedes all. The Orëska is founded on the principle that the purpose of magic is to aid the endeavors of mankind, not to supplant them.
See, that's just bullshit.
If that's the case, then what's the rationale for teleporting the fucking wine? Nysander could have gotten off his ass and walked it over. What's the rationale for ANYTHING wizards do?
Nysander elaborates on how valuable Alec should find the experience:
“Despite the hardships you endured, all your worry and care, think of what you have gained. You were braver and stronger and more loyal than you have probably had to be in all your life. And your reward is that you succeeded; you saved the life of your friend. Would you give that up to have had me simply spirit you here from that inn?”
...now this is where Alec is a better man than me. Because I look at the trauma and exhaustion this poor kid suffered trying to keep himself and Seregil alive, keep Seregil from killing him in an insane rage, all while being days out of imprisonment and torture himself and I think maybe the kid could have been spared that shit.
It's not like a kid who grew up alone with his dad as a hunter really needed to learn self-reliance, after all.
And what about Seregil, who suffered tremendously during that period?
Alec just agrees he wouldn't trade it for anything. Oh...and this is aggravating too. See, Alec asks about Thero:
“It’s just that, with what you told me about Seregil and all, I don’t understand about Thero. It seemed to me, yesterday I mean, that he doesn’t—Well, he doesn’t seem to like Seregil very much. Or me, for that matter.”
Nysander grimaced wryly. “If it is any comfort to you, I do not think, in his heart, that Thero cares much for me, either.”
“But he’s your student!”
“That hardly guarantees affection, my boy, although ideally such regard should exist between master and pupil. Your faithfulness to Seregil after such short acquaintance speaks well of you both.
“It took me many years to find another apprentice. As I said before, there are few who have the inborn power, and those who do vary greatly in their ability. Of those few who did trickle into the Orëska each year, I found none that suited my purposes until Thero. Whatever else you may think of him, he is tremendously talented. There is no facet of our art he cannot grasp. The fact that he was of my old master’s family made him seem all the more suitable at the time. All that, together with the fact that I was beginning to feel quite desperately in need of a successor, blinded me to certain aspects of his nature which might otherwise have given me pause. Thero has proven trustworthy in every way, yet his thirst for knowledge borders on avarice—a serious flaw in a wizard. He also possesses no sense of humor and, while you will not find that listed among the requirements of the Orëska, I believe it to be an invaluable trait in those who aspire to power of any sort. And this lack of humor causes him to find me an embarrassment on occasion.
“However, it is his animosity toward Seregil which has most alarmed me over the years, for it reveals envy—one of the most dangerous weaknesses of all. He cannot be content that he replaced Seregil, that he is more gifted in magic than Seregil could ever have been. And though he has little use for my affection himself, he cannot bear that Seregil retains it. Of course, Seregil is little better, as I am certain you shall see for yourself soon enough. But Thero is a wizard. If he acts this way over such small matters, what will he not be capable of over great ones, when he is great?”
Nysander paused, massaging his eyelids with two fingers. “For with or without my teachings, he will be great. And so I keep him with me because I fear to let him go to another master. It is my greatest hope that with time and maturity he will gain compassion, and then what a wizard he shall be!”
So let's unpack this a little bit, shall we?
1) Nysander has an apprentice that he loves like a son.
2) This apprentice is unable to be a wizard and becomes a spy instead.
3) Nysander replaces said apprentice with another one who is more adept magically, but less likable in personality. (What the fuck does a thirst for knowledge that borders on avarice even MEAN? And why is it a flaw in a community of wizards...unless maybe, just maybe, he doesn't like Nysander being a cryptic asshole?)
4) Nysander seems to be pretty open in the fact that he likes his former apprentice much more than his current one, and blames his current apprentice for being envious of this.
5) Nysander's former apprentice is around all the time anyway, still being Nysander's favorite son. And is "little better" in his behavior. (Actually as we'll see, Seregil is just as bad, if not worse to Thero than Thero is to Seregil.) It's also fair to point out that it took Nysander a while to replace Seregil, so Seregil is probably quite a bit older than Thero, who would have been a child when this started.
6) Nysander does not appear to have made any effort to reconcile his former apprentice and current apprentice, or to reassure his current apprentice that he actually cares about him too. (Because he apparently doesn't.)
7) Nysander happily spills ALL of this to a brand new stranger.
...I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to come out of this siding with Thero and wanting to punch Nysander in the dick, but here we are.
I don't even think this is a Seregil vs. Thero situation really, though that's clearly how we're supposed to see it. I see it as a Nysander is a truly terrible mentor.
No wonder Thero's kind of a prickly dick. THIS is what he has to deal with.
Anyway, Alec is amazed at Nysander's candor, especially in contrast with Seregil's closed-mouthedness. Nysander has the nerve to pretend that he told Alec this so that he might understand Thero better and see why he acts the way he does.
No, dude, you don't get to tell us that now after you spent paragraphs going on about how your apprentice is a humorless dick whose envy and greed for knowledge makes him a questionable wizard. That is not how this works.
Anyway, Nysander is interrupted by a message from Ylinestra, who wants company. This of course leads Nysander to ditch the kid (who understands, because Ylinestra is hot) and suggest he tour the gardens. He gives him some magic green stone and scampers off.
The chapter ends with Alec going off to explore, Nysander going off to get laid. I'd like to think somewhere Thero is off short sheeting Nysander's bed.