Ebbcane woke slowly, over several hours, hidden from the light of noon by heavy curtains. The weight of several bottles of fine mountain wine pressed on his eye sockets and drummed in his ears. His breath was rank. The room was too hot, but the windows were shut tight. His ring buzzed from the bedside table. The sharp scuttle of metal on wood prodded his sensitive hearing. With a bass rumble like a bear snoring in a blizzard, he rose.
There was a message from the Grand Magus. He ignored it, muting all notifications. Then the first line caught his attention -- "Concerning Stridax's Letter" It was then he noticed the white, undersized envelope that poked in from under his front door. His grumbling reduced to the incidental sighs of an old man standing, he plodded over, bending to take a closer look. There was Stridax's unmistakable flowing hand.
He took the letter -- no bigger than a business card in his hand -- to his kitchen table and prepared himself a despairingly rich mug of coffee. In this wing of the apartment, the clerestory windows let in the hard beams of a crisp winter sun. He was surprised by how much light came in. Usually he only spent early mornings and late evenings in his humble abode. The life of a professor. Even his sabbaticals kept him busy and out of town.
"Hmph," he grunted into his mug, squinting into the sunlight, "'An emergency leave of absence.'"
It had not been his idea -- he had so few of those, lately. It was apparently for the sake of his mental health. He wondered what had been prepared for the students, or if their mental health needed another sort of intervention.
Stridax was going to the Wastes. Sure. Fine. Nothing particularly interesting was happening around the Tower this season. She wanted his help and asked for it with a rich touch of professional decorum. He stared at the page for some time, taking in the rounded corners, the sharp folds that lifted themselves off the table, the subtle taper of the calligraphic downstrokes. He looked around the room, then stood, and wandered the apartment, sipping the gritty dregs from his oversized mug. A sediment of sadness and dust had joined the usual stacks of paper and coats. The funk of his bedroom came upon him like a wall. With diminishing reluctance, he tugged the curtains open and cracked the windows. Light burst in on the room like a broken dam, filling every corner and crevice, not letting an inch of the disarray of blankets, pillows and empty glasses go unlit.
He stood there, feeling the cold air gush into the room and wind about his legs. He breathed slowly, carefully. He noticed he had left the letter in the kitchen. He was disappointed. He paused midstep, about the leave the room. He was disappointed.
His bag was packed in five minutes. In ten, he locked the front door behind him and left to find the appointed meeting place.