Kyou Kara Maou – The Ghosts of Trondheim
Summary: When the royal family goes on winter holiday to Trondheim, Yuuri and Murata must face the ghosts of Shinou and Daikenja's most tragic mistake.
Authors Note: Hmmm. Well, yes, gentle readers, I had rather intended to get rid of Tariel… On the vague abstract theory that creating demigods is not really the best storytelling… Though as demigods go, Tariel's mostly harmless. But you convinced me otherwise! See? One really should write reviews! Thanks!
Chapter 10 – Shinou's Fountain
While the others cooed and coddled, delighted with the baby fauns, Murata held up a wall, chin on fist. His eyes twitched away whenever they alit on a faun by accident. Tiallee… The faun shepherd friend of Daikenja's childhood in pre-Gratz, haunted him. The multitude of the ghosts of Trondheim, arrayed below his perch on the roof of Trond Hall, haunted him. Vladimir's army at the last battle of Old Trond Hall, haunted him. The pale timid demons of Jessup's story haunted him.
Franklin haunted him.
He could scarce credit that he missed his captor. To his companions in the faun nursery, it was only a few days since they'd last spoken with Murata. But for Murata, rag-picking through memories of ancient horror, it seemed a subjective lifetime. And sharing that journey with Franklin – he was glad his wife Giesela wasn't along on this trip. There was nothing sexual about it. But his experience with Franklin was one of the most intimate of all his long memory of lifetimes. He knew he should put down his quest for a moment, join in with the joy around him, strive to return to his friends in spirit. But his sudden grief for Franklin, the weight of souls, held him pinned to the wall.
It would have to be fauns. Like Tiallee…
Murata would recognize Tiallee's soul in a baby. If Tiallee were here. If Murata stepped forward to look at the babies, he would. He would… Not yet. He fingered the bridge of his glasses, glad to have them back, to fidget with.
Now that he was back, he dreamed. There was no sleep in his ghost-life. But in dreaming, linear experience was broken up, rearranged. What had he been dreaming, when Alana woke him for the wood nymph meeting? Oh, yes… He'd relived this one, early in his travels with Franklin. The missing puzzle pieces had come later…
-oOo-
Shinou's back looked oily with sweat, in the dim light of the waning moon, though the summer night was cool. The unglazed windows lay open to the predawn dew. Shinou grumbled, and spoke, and whined, and pleaded, and cried, and moaned, and grumbled. Each utterance seemed a new voice.
Daikenja sat wrapped in a sheet, his pallet next to Shinou's on the flagged floor in old Castle Bielenfeld, much like two futons in Murata's life in Japan. He watched Shinou in his troubled, troubling dreams. Night after night like this – his lover had hardly any natural sleep since the enemy Soushu had been vanquished. A hollow victory it seemed, in the dark of the night like this.
Stop that, Daikenja admonished himself. It was a victory. We had to win at all cost, for the stakes were the existence of the world itself. Of course the cost was high.
But tomorrow night he needs a sleeping draught again, from Erhard or Christel Wincott. They've warned that these are too strong. Shinou doesn't get real sleep. And he is becoming addicted, his personality warping under the multiple strains. But nothing else gives Shinou rest!
"Daikenja, it's me, Tiallee," Shinou muttered. Daikenja's eyes flew open. Shinou's eyes were still closed, his body restless though he lay on his stomach. "We're trapped here. Save us, Daikenja." Then Shinou's voice shifted tone again, a higher-pitched frightened muttering that Daikenja couldn't make out.
Daikenja pressed his palm to his mouth in horror. It had been a few months, since the great battle. Word had slowly trickled in, of how things were now, in the lands surrounding the final battlefield. It was enough to give them all nightmares. Traders gone to the eastern mountains, Daikenja's homeland, came back haunted. No signs of struggle. Houses left with meals on the table, windows open, laundry flapping in the breeze. But the people were gone, vanished. No bodies, no explanation. No centaurs. No fauns. No low mountain ogres, or high mountain trolls. The trees still stood, but no wood nymphs answered. No double-blacks like Daikenja. Just – gone!
Southeast of the mountains, through the Fens and to the coast – gone! Northwest, continuing on that same line through the battlefield, to the far end of the kingdom of Bielenfeld – gone! And the line from Daikenja's homeland, through the battlefield, to the southwestern coast – gone! Like a giant X had been written across the continent, centered at the place where they stood to imprison Soushu in the boxes. Demons lived in all four quadrants. But the other races, in the east and west quadrants, including the entire great realm of Queen Natasha and King Vladimir of the trolls – vanished, without a trace. Including Daikenja's friends and family. Including Tiallee.
Trapped here, you said? Trapped where, Tiallee? And how do you speak to me through Shinou's mouth! How do you come to haunt my lover! Daikenja crawled closer to the moaning Shinou, on hands and knees, listening closer. But none of the other mutterings spoke to him, addressed him.
Demons lived. But babies had been born by now. Listless infants, easily taken by illnesses. Prince Rufas' father the King had complained of it just the other night at dinner – that a woman had brought him an infant dead of colic, for heaven's sake. The woman had wailed and ranted at him, ran at him, raked her nails on his cheeks, screamed and begged – why were the babies failing?
Erhard and Christel Wincott, alarmed at this tale, had gone into the town, asking to meet babies born since the final battle. They came back pale and worried. Weak souls, they said. Each baby they met had a weak soul.
Are we all to perish after all? The demons only delayed a generation?
Daikenja roused Shinou, gathered him into his arms. "You're having nightmares, again, my love," he murmured gently.
"It's like a multitude in my head," complained Shinou. "They fade into the background when I'm awake. I can still hear their constant muttering in the background, but I can ignore it. But when I sleep… it's like they're trying to get out. Daikenja, my beautiful black… What is this strange illness?"
"We need to do an exorcism," Daikenja said with confidence. "But we need to do an experiment first. I need you to meet one of these weak-souled babies. Are you willing?"
"I'm willing to try anything," moaned Shinou, laying his cheek on his lover's breast.
That day, they went out into the town with Christel. The babies Shinou touched, recovered. Christel verified that their once weak souls, were now strong. He followed up in a week, a month, a year. The babies remained strong. Prince Rufas let it be known throughout the kingdom, that babies should all be brought to Castletown, to be blessed by the Great Shinou, to ensure their health. Those who did, thrived.
In time, Daikenja caused the first temple to Shinou to be built. Shinou was mortified – how dare they set him up like some kind of a god to be worshipped! But within the temple, Daikenja built the first fountain. The ceremony of investiture took many days. It was his first draft of the spell, and he made mistakes. But he did manage to exorcise those Bielenfeld souls from Shinou, and interr them into the temple fountain at Castletown. And the babies blessed by baptism at the temple, had their souls fully restored, just like the ones Shinou had touched. And Shinou's touch and blessing no longer accomplished anything. The Bielenfeld souls had been transferred.
And there they remained. Locked in Bielenfeld to this day, four millenia later.
It became clear after a while that the souls healed by the fountain, stayed healed through their reincarnations. For most demon babies, the Presentation to Shinou was simply a religious festival. They were born with whole souls. Many, the refugees who flooded into the new kingdom of Shin Makoku south of Bielenfeld, and the new domain of Wincott, carved from northern Bielenfeld, had never suffered weak souls in the first place. But vials of the water of Shinou's fountain were kept in villages throughout Shin Makoku and its domains, always at the ready, to baptize a baby who wasn't sure to make it to the year's Presentation. Even today, sometimes this simple drop of water, saved their lives. The best trained healers kept vials from both fountains. This was unimportant in the south. But Murata hoped that Wincott and Bielenfeld retained the tradition of presenting demon children at both fountains.
Every demon baby. Every demon baby. Every demon baby anointed into the cult of Shinou. An act beyond blasphemy, beneath contempt, to the people of Trondheim, to the remnants of the vanishing races, scattered in their remote hiding places. Those who trusted not at all the demons of the Shinou cult.
-oOo-
"Eh, Murata," said Yuuri, in Japanese, sidling up to his old friend, a faun in his arms. He searched Murata's eyes in kind concern. He said softly, "Joyous event, ne? A miracle, the birth of nearly extinct races from trees, ne? Strange how Tariel and Garena, Alana and you, are all acting like it's a funeral, ne?"
Murata followed his eyes around the room. The other vacationers had found them in the nursery some time ago, and by now Tariel had rejoined the group. Tariel sat silently on the floor, hugging his knees, detached and wooden. He watched as Brendan and Friedrich taught Dietrich and Trenton how to handle the babies. Garena stood to the other side of the room, tracks of silent tears on his cheeks. Manfred and Wolfram and Efram tried unsuccessfully to find out what was wrong, and failing that, to at least tell the demon-wood nymph that they cared about him. The group centered on Conrad and Yozak and Greta was actually having fun. But Alana sat on a windowsill crying softly, her son Aldrich's arm around her.
"Eh," agreed Murata. He gulped, and at last brought himself to extend a hesitant hand toward the faun in Yuuri's arms. He touched a fingertip to one precious tiny horn, smaller than the nail on his pinkie. And immediately yanked his hand back as if from electric shock.
Yes, this is Shibuya, after all. Of course he picked the right one… Murata bit his lip, squeezed his eyes shut, steeled himself. Then ever so slowly, he opened his eyes again. Tears poured down his cheeks.
"Hello, Tiallee," Murata whispered. "I… missed you." In both senses of the word. I missed your company. And I missed your soul in my incomplete 'solution'… Murata sobbed, softly, once. Then he slid down the wall to the floor, collapsing to wracking, soul-shuddering sobs.
Yuuri knelt down in alarm beside him, looking frantically around the room for help.
But Manfred was already on his way, leaving Garena to the care of Wolfram and Efram. The healer squatted down in front of Murata, putting one hand on his shoulder, the other quickly strafing above his body head to toe, to sense the young man's physical and energetic state. "What's this, then?" he said calmly.
"Reunion with an old friend, I think," said Yuuri, indicating the baby in his arms.
"Ah," said Manfred. He sank down to a more stable seated position next to Murata, an arm over his shoulder, drawing the young man's head to cry on Manfred's chest. Manfred gestured for Yuuri to give over the faun into his other arm. "Well, Sage, he's happy and healthy now. A fresh life before him. Ah, no, excuse me, before her. You're a baby girl, aren't you, dear one? And such pretty brown curls. Oh! I think I saw a glimmer of her eyes for a moment there. I think she's going to have big beautiful brown eyes to go with those brown curls."
Manfred continued prattling on calmly and inanely, appreciating one after another feature of the baby faun, seemingly paying no mind to Murata's meltdown against his chest. Yuuri settled down cross-legged, giving moral support as Murata's best friend –in either world, aside from his wife Giesela. Gradually Murata's sobs died back, and his eyes tracked Manfred's soothing litany of baby praises. Before long, Murata was the one holding the baby.
"He was –" Murata began.
"Ah, none of that!" Manfred cut across this, kindly but firmly. "She. Is." Mazoku – all Mazoku, demon, faun, or otherwise – disapproved of openly discussing the past lives of others. If you recognized an old friend, well enough. If you had a problem to solve and wished to share a memory of yourself, fair enough – provided you weren't boasting. But to tell others about someone else's past lives, was wrong. Every life was a fresh start, a blank slate. Decisions made in review of the last life, might make a soul the complete opposite in personality in the next life. One's bitterest enemy dying, only to be reborn as one's own child, was a commonplace.
Murata nodded, relieved. Yes, there's no need to explain. "Welcome back to the world, little girl faun," he said. "You'll make some faun family very happy."
"Hmm," said Manfred, leaning back against the wall, no longer ministering to Murata at all. Murata seemed back in control of himself, and happily offering up perfectly normal adoration of hooves and miniature digits and mesmerizing toothless yawns. Manfred said to Yuuri, "We've been in this nursery for over an hour. Perhaps we should mosey on soon."
From the path of Manfred's eyes, Yuuri suspected he was recommending a group mental health measure, more than any boredom-relieving change of scenery. "Yes," Yuuri concurred, getting up and brushing off his pants. This was just habit – the nursery staff made sure one could eat off that floor. "In fact, Murata, we haven't had a chance to debrief yet from our … adventures. With the late Franklin von Trondheim, wasn't it? You asked me to construct a timeline – I have that for you in my room."
Manfred relieved Murata of the baby faun and passed her off to a happy young elf nurse. Given the progression of their alcoholism, younger elves tended to be the more capable ones.
"Good," said Murata. "Ah, Manfred-sensei? You have a medical kit with you, of course?" Manfred nodded. "A vial of Shinou's fountain water, perhaps?"
"Of course," agreed Manfred, "Bielenfeld temple and Shinou's temple vials, both. My kit's in my room, a few doors down from Yuuri's." This treatment rarely worked miracles in Shin Makoku anymore. But Manfred was devout, and exhorted his students to be tireless in their pursuit of spiritual growth. And of all possible treatments, a simple dab of water never did any harm to the child, and often did a great deal to comfort frantic parents. Folkways had it that Shinou water baptism ensured that, even if the child perished, his soul was safe with Shinou. Which was exactly backwards from the original truth, but ritual had a kind of truth of its own.
Manfred and Yuuri told their husbands where they were off to, and left with Murata. Wolfram elected to stick with Garena and Efram for a bit, and added Greta to the group, to let the adolescents give them a tour of Trond Hall. Aldrich and Alana were off to Alana's office for a bit. Erick and his lieutenants had already left on some business. Yozak had already briefed Conrad and Brendan on what he'd learned from Jessup about Murata. Jessup and Yozak and Hasgrud had agreed to split the Murata watch into three shifts and share all info, and it was Jessup's turn. So Yozak ended up with the boys, bound for the snow sculpture playground, Conrad elected to join Garena's group, and Brendan decided to track down Erick or Jessup, to get an update on the political situation, with the passes and refugees and terrorists, and developing fallout from the Boom Falls mass ghost conversion.
Murata told Manfred and Yuuri as little as he could get away with – there was too much information, too few answers to make disgorging it all worthwhile. He skimmed scholar Raisa's timeline briefly, more to see what material was there than to digest it. Then Yuuri with Morgif at his belt, Murata equipped with his sheaf of research and Shinou fountain water, both vials, they went to track down either Alana or Erick. These were both in their offices, Erick with someone belligerant, and Alana having a pleasant visit over joint business accounts with Aldrich. So they chose Alana first.
"Excuse me, Lady Alana?" Murata asked, with a slight bow. Alana waved a hand to come in, still with no more than cool courtesy for the Bedamned Great Sage. "I have an experiment to perform, and was wondering if you would volunteer. This probably won't work, but… It's always worth a try, to see if the easy solution will do. Might I ask… are you an alcoholic, by any chance?"
"Never had a drink in my life," said Alana. Murata's face fell. She grudgingly continued, "Because my father was a drunk. He stayed sober enough on the battlefield. But he was a binge drinker at home… My last memory of him, he smacked me across the room. When we learned of his execution in Shin Makoku, and with that as our final farewell… My brother and I made a solemn vow to never touch the stuff."
Alana and her brother, founding members of the 'von Trondheim' Aristocrats, were the late Queen of Trondheim's children by her brilliant warlord, a half elf. The twenty-fifth Maou had chosen the youths to rule, of all the possible nobles, exactly because they were mixed-bloods, embodying several of the peoples of Trondheim, rather than the dominant trolls. Though the Queen lied, when she told the Maou that these, of her many children, were quarter trolls. They were actually half trolls, small because of their strong elf blood. There would be no apology for this lie – it worked.
They were the only two of the Queen's children permitted to live.
Yuuri knew of these things – now. He'd boned up on the history of the Great Troll and Goblin War, during the Racial Accords conference, on the 'better late than never' principle. But reading a book was very different from facing a demoted princess in person, whose own royal family had been executed by Yuuri's predecessor as Maou. He and Murata gulped.
In a pleasant tone and expression so false they glittered with ice, Alana inquired, "And what is this experiment, Sage?"
"Ah, well, I'd like to try a simple way to perform the ghost-reintegration that Shibuya – ah, the Maou – did, to your son, and to the others at Boom Falls." Alana continued staring at him. "It's a simple procedure. I just dab your forehead with a little water –"
"If that's water from Accursed Shinou's temple, you can shove it up your ass," suggested Alana.
"Ah…" said Yuuri.
Aldrich, still lounging in an armchair by his mother's desk, launched into Trondish, which Yuuri couldn't follow, and Manfred and Murata tactfully feigned not to. Aldrich started out with due deference, but the tone of the discussion rapidly escalated into the mutually abusive range. In fact, it was extraodinarily rare to hear Trondish spoken that way, troll manners valuing sweet pleasantry as they did. After about five minutes of this, Alana stormed out, whipping Yuuri and Murata across the thighs with a sharp swish of leather skirt as she passed.
"Mother's gone to fetch a volunteer," Aldrich oversimplified in translation. "May I ask, what's the theory behind this experiment?" Murata rushed an explanation, and the several followup measures he had in mind if the first experiment failed.
"I probably should have discussed the theory with her first," said Murata. "Maybe when she comes back, we could backtrack."
"Perhaps when she's in a better mood," suggested Aldrich blandly. "Beginning with her father was… unfortunate."
Murata and Yuuri nodded glumly. Alana returned, in somewhat better humor – or repaired acting skill – with an older woman who seemed to be of a similar racial composition. "Please meet Shaman Scholar Ilsa. Ilsa, Maou Yuuri and the – Murata. Murata wants to touch an alcoholic with Shinou blessing water and see if it cures them of being an alcoholic."
"Reintegrate their ghost self into the soul self," Manfred corrected. "No one has been cured of being an alcoholic. Soul reintegration simply makes it easier to stay sober." Manfred feared he was going to repeat this lecture a lot, and began to consider pithier ways of getting the point across.
Ilsa nodded willingness and lurched into the room, catching herself up against the desk. Aldrich rose and helped the drunken old woman into his chair. "Whadda I do?" she slurred. Aldrich and Manfred considered her unhappily. Soul reintegration wasn't likely to make any sudden changes in her blood alcohol level, either.
Murata said, "Just relax. I'm simply going to dab your forehead with some water." He tried the Bielenfeld fountain water first, to no effect, as expected. Then a dab of the Shinou temple water.
"Mm, that onez nice-sss," said Ilsa, and promptly fell asleep. Aldrich quickly bent to see if she were really asleep, or 'gone', as with the sufferers Wolfram had tended. But Ilsa started snoring. Alana beckoned some servants to drag her away to sleep it off somewhere else.
"Mother," said Manfred, thinking perhaps the novelty of bonding with her new son-in-law might soften her reception. "Although relieving active alcoholism is a major inspiration… For our experiment, it might be better to have an alcoholic – or any other part-troll – who isn't drunk just now. Um, Erick… as an example. The actually-drunk part will just muddy the results."
Alana had been married to a von Bielenfeld empiricist and healer long enough to follow this logic, and she did want a smooth relationship with Manfred. She nodded and headed off to find a more suitable volunteer. Erick wandered in, to find out what was going on. Aldrich explained the experiment this time, and that there were follow-up experiments, the strongest of which was sure to work. But they needed to find someone willing to try the fountain water first. He presented this as a question of public health logistics – vials of water being a great deal easier to administer to the whole population of Trondheim than, for instance, the Maou in person with a crisis team of healers.
"Well, I'm certainly game for the backup measures," agreed Erick. "But Shinou water… Let's see who Aunt Alana rounds up first." He stayed to watch, though.
Alana came back with one of Friedrich's mating treatment test subjects, a quarter troll named Fyodor. She apologetically informed him that he'd been receiving a placebo – she'd checked – and would no longer be involved in that study. She gave him a shaman's blessing, no pheromones. Murata tried Bielenfeld water. No effect. Then Shinou water.
Fyodor frowned slightly. "Interesting," he said. "May I have the counter-blessing now, My Lady?" She gave it. They caught the gist, that she was promptly purifying him of having been sullied by something blasphemous. Only then was Fyodor willing to speak further. "That was, um, refreshing. Like… I dunno. How a nice bath with good company can restore you after an unpleasant week at work, and now you're facing the weekend fresh. Does that help?"
"Yes, thank you, very helpful," said Murata. "Ah, could we continue with some followup experiments, please, Fyodor? The rest… don't involve anything… objectionable. Next the Maou will simply touch you – no Shinou blessing or anything." It was exactly a 'Shinou blessing', but he lied anyway. "You could just shake hands."
Tronds didn't shake hands, they waved. But this was only slightly awkward. Yuuri let go, and asked, "Any reaction to that, Fyodor?"
"No."
"OK. Next, is it possible to call the ghost – the light wolf – of this man, Lady Alana?" asked Murata.
"In broad daylight?" she asked. "Well, we could try." They trooped up to her dining room, Friedrich and Tariel and Guya joining them along the way. The von Trondheims called the ghosts. Three light wolves arrived, and clamped onto Alana, Erick, and Fyodor. Murata looked about to get picky, but Alana said, "Proceed, please."
So Yuuri pulled out Morgif and had him swallow the three light wolves. Four more wolves suddenly darted into the room and into Morgif's mouth. Seven soul spheres came out, the four uninvited guests escaping immediately, out the roof door. Aldrich had watched those carefully – they looked like Erick's, a bronzier tinge of silver than the ones for Alana and Fyodor. It was easier to see the bronze tinge in soul ball form, but it had been in Erick's light wolf, too.
As with the Boom Falls crowd, Yuuri asked them each to reclaim the sphere before them. All three did. And all three crumpled to their knees. Erick continued to fall completely to the floor, 'gone', Guya catching and cradling him. Fyodor had a reaction similar to Aldrich's, strongly moved, but not really needing assistance. Murata knelt by him for moral support, but let Fyodor pull himself together. Alana fell apart crying, shrieking sobs. Friedrich knelt to her in a hurry, cradling his much-larger wife to his chest and gentling her. Aldrich, assured that his father was taking care of his mother, made sure Yuuri and Fyodor were alright. Manfred knelt to call Erick back from wherever he'd 'gone'.
Erick came to, and enveloped Manfred in a hug. He kissed Manfred's cheek and whispered, "I never thanked you enough, for how you took care of me at the Institute, and helped me leave there with dignity and come back to work the mails with Guya. I owe you a great debt for that, Manfred-sensei. Thank you."
"You're still welcome," murmured Manfred. "You did thank me at the time."
"Yes, but I just…" Erick struggled for words, "felt a rush of gratitude, that I hadn't expressed back then?"
Manfred nodded, and let Erick go, to be mutually enfolded with Guya instead.
Erick's sentence at the Bielenfeld Institute to pursue a nobility degree when he was 45, soon on the heels of his mother's death from alcoholism, had been an abysmal failure. Franklin intended him to live at the Castle under Aldrich's supervision, and bond with other nobility students, like Sylvain von Tarkenburg, now Lord Donaghie. But Erick was deep in an adolescent roiling rage. He didn't want to be there. He missed his beloved Guya, worried for his sister Vedanya. He couldn't adjust to lighted rooms, suffered from sunstroke, couldn't ride a horse, couldn't fit in, argued with his professors, got drunk every night, got into fight after fight, verbal with the teachers, physical with everyone else.
He moved to Manfred's cottage, to escape the commute in blinding daylight, in a nauseating jouncing carriage, an hour and a half each day. Manfred helped him negotiate some compromises, respected his right to a thoroughly dark cellar to hide in, welcomed Guya whenever she visited, helped him learn to refute his teachers with dignity, and helped him argue his case with his father, to go home. Within the year, he was back in Trondheim, partners with Guya, delivering mail – a highly athletic endeavor in Trondheim. Most youths took on that unpaid public service for at least 5 years. Erick's uncle Ted worked the mail for 15 years before the military, and Erick stuck with it for 20. Fighting ice and snow, rockslides and wild animals, and serving people directly, was an education better suited to him. It let him work through his rage, and grow into responsibility, and then leadership.
Fyodor was sharing some realizations with Murata and Aldrich. Alana was gradually calming in her husband's tender arms.
Yuuri walked over to Tariel, who perched quietly in a chair. "Tariel?" he asked. "You see the problem. This is a gift I want to give to all my subjects in Trondheim, something… owed. Something taken by accident, that must be returned. But this method, it's too cumbersome, too disruptive. And if I'm the only one who can do it… I don't have the time. I know that you don't like being used as a fortune-teller. But…"
Tariel nodded. "There is a way. But… there is an acceptance problem. I tell Friedrich. You let Friedrich gain the acceptance. Then there is a way." Tariel got off the chair and added a mild warning. "Murata shouldn't talk much."
Yuuri nodded wry agreement. He walked over to Murata and asked him to not discuss the ghost problem again until Yuuri gave him leave. With some people, this request would be an exercise in futility. But Murata was naturally more inclined to be close-lipped anyway.
Tariel knelt down by Friedrich and touched Alana's forehead briefly. Then he put his arms around Friedrich, and communicated all nonverbally, in the wood nymph way that Friedrich still understood, but couldn't articulate anymore.
Friedrich nodded thanks. He said to the room in general, "I think we all need time to consider the results of this experiment and regroup. Most of us will be travelling within the hour, and should focus on getting ready for this evening. Fyodor, thank you. If you have any trouble as a result of this afternoon's work, please come see me anytime. Guya, please help Erick be ready for our trip. I'll be doing the same with Alana. Aldrich, Manfred, if you could keep Tariel company? Come, Alana dear, let's go back to our room and get ready, shall we?"
They all filed out, Yuuri with a final smile and reassuring shoulder-squeeze to Murata, thanking him for his efforts, reaffirming his confidence in his friend. It helped.
Murata sat down to think and study Raisa's research notes, the timeline of the ghost manifestation phenomena unfolding in Trondheim. Murata's own notes on Efram's spell, that had killed ten trolls in an instant on the Fens of Krist, had not been returned to him. He trusted Friedrich had burned them. But he remembered the details well enough.
The afternoon's experiment had by no means been a failure. He'd clearly established what he expected – that even if there was a fountain-type solution, the old fountains wouldn't work. There was that second part…
-oOo-
Many years passed. Shinou set Daikenja aside as a lover, though the wistful Daikenja stayed ever close, his constant advisor. It was only in retrospect that Daikenja realized that Shinou had done this to hide the progression of the malaise in his hand, the hand that had drawn a vast X across the sky with Morgif, to divide the roiling power that was Soushu into four pieces.
The X that cut northeast to southwest, northwest to southeast.
The blade had sucked all the power that was Soushu out of the world, and into four boxes, using the body of his beloved Shinou as a conduit. The X that came just minutes after the 'resonance' spell so like Efram's, which magnified, doubling and redoubling, to arc from victim to victim, using special race-specific overdrives they'd thought harmless to demons. It began with the puppet shells of King Vladimir's heroic army, and from that resonant start, the spell exploded out over the lands which became the new country of Shin Makoku.
They'd known the spell would have great power, arcing from puppet to puppet. They'd devised it specifically to make use of the special maryoku nature that was troll. They were guilty of exactly the targeted genocide that the Tronds accused them of. But Shinou and Daikenja had never dreamed that the resonance could escape the limits of the battlefield, to take out the whole people as well as the puppets, and arc to other races. Any mention of that spell, the majutsu mechanics of that horror, was suppressed. Not even Erhard Wincott documented it, in his secret history. Though one brief entry remained, in the secret Bielenfeld Empiricists' Bible, written in Prince Rufas' own hand, a grave warning.
As the malaise stole over Shinou, Soushu began leaking out. On Shinou's weaker nights, light wolves roamed the land and terrorized the people. Shinou at last confided in his friend. The interrment of demon souls into the fountains had indeed relieved Shinou's multitude-in-the-head problem greatly – but not completely. Different races bore different maryoku signatures, right down to their souls. Demon souls carried relatively little of the maryoku of life. Wood nymph souls were almost nothing but.
Tariel survived by a fluke of his misfortune. Daikenja's interests as a sage were wide-ranging. With the terror of Soushu advancing over the world, few others had noticed that the dogwood trees – 'Tariel' in the old elvish, and who, given a choice, would introduce himself by the name 'Dogwood'? – were failing of a blight on this continent. Only isolated ornamentals remained, in sheltered gardens, too far from other members of their species for the disease to reach them. And dogwood wasn't a very popular ornamental.
The disease had long passed now. Dogwood graced all the forests again, propagated by Tariel himself. But at the time, Tariel trees were too tiny, too widely spaced, for the the resonance to build large enough to arc across the distances between them. And Tariel's personality had been within the phenomenal shields that saved Tanya Troll Mother. Dogwood happened to be Tanya's favorite tree. The two had been friends.
Daikenja hadn't understood the nature of the light wolves then. He only dimly grasped that the Enemy Soushu's power was drawn from life itself, rather than majutsu or houjutsu. So he'd done his best to seal all of it into Shinou's temple above Blood Pledge Castle, when he interred the vast composite soul that was now Shinou and Soushu.
But life is a creative force, not a passive element like wind and fire, earth and water, and the other ingredients that made up the Mazoku souls of all the races. Life always finds a way. It pokes and prods, experiments, fails, and tries again with a will. Shinou's temple had never really, fully been able to seal or control the living identities that still existed within the Shinou-Soushu-Maou-plex.
Murata needed a different kind of fountain. Fortunately, it seemed Ilya von Trondheim was studying just this question. He was sure that was the acceptance problem Tariel had told him to stay away from, and leave to Friedrich. Ilya had been disowned by the von Trondheim family for her ideas. And it was hard to imagine anyone less likely to help her case for reconciliation, than the Bedamned Great Sage.
-oOo-
"Garena gets a hair cut," replied Tariel, when Manfred and Aldrich asked him how he wished to spend an hour. "He is in the Kraken bath." As usual, Tariel offered neither explanation nor excuse.
So Manfred led him to the Kraken bath, while Aldrich ducked back to their room to pick up their outdoor clothes and repack the medical kit. He gazed thoughtfully at the Bielenfeld temple fountain vial, before tucking it away.
Aldrich had once tossed Suzanna Julia von Wincott into the Bielenfeld temple fountain.
Aldrich, then as now, was an adjunct professor of unconditional love, with the healing faculty at the Bielenfeld Institute. After Manfred was injured in Mizrat, having such trouble dealing with his grief rage, and his rapidly deteriorating relationship with Cecilie and his step-sons, Suzanna Julia had stepped in and convinced Cecilie to throw Manfred back to Bielenfeld, with as little consideration as she'd waste on potato peelings. Then later, when she learned from her tearful cousin Glynda, Aldrich's mentally ill wife, that Manfred and Aldrich had become lovers, Sujie had schemed again, until Manfred was forced to live at the Institute or lose his rights to Wolfram. His relationship with Aldrich, which was so healing for both of the desperately troubled men, was forced underground.
Aldrich had complained bitterly to von Gratz-sensei, Manfred's predecessor as chair of healing. This brutally self-centered little bitch wasn't fit to help a dog have puppies, much less fit to treat people as a healer. Von Gratz sentenced the pair of them to three gruelling years, Aldrich tutoring her in the healing use of applied love. He didn't tell Manfred, of course. His tutoring students were confidential, their referral to him being due to… character deficiency.
Sujie's own short life as a self-centered spoiled princess offering little practical experience to draw on, Aldrich had tried to get her to delve into her soul's past lives to develop her empathy, to no avail. She couldn't remember any. She'd barely passed on her sixth attempt at the unconditional love examination. She was told in no uncertain terms, that despite great healing talent, she was suited only to work as a battlefield hack. She should leave the recovery phase to healers with… tact. Or, compassion. Or, understanding.
But that wasn't when he threw her into the fountain.
A few years later, after she'd lost her eyesight, they got to arguing again over Glynda's treatment options, while Sujie visited them at the Castle. Sujie may have learned to behave better with patients – or not – but she brutalized Aldrich in this conversation, with no consideration at all for the fact that Aldrich had feelings for his wife in her affliction.
What did he care whether Glynda was treated at home in the Castle, or in a residential program at the Institute? Surely Aldrich didn't need Glynda as an excuse to run and hide in Manfred's bed? Surely he could find a pretty boy to give him just as good a blowjob here in Castetown. Or was Aldrich's missing arm cramping his style at picking up one night stands? And so on.
Aldrich just cracked. He didn't tell her where they were going. He just dragged the blind girl to the temple – by the hair at one point. Then he threw her in. She dragged herself out on hands and knees. She'd sobbed for an hour.
Suzanna Julia's personality completely turned around after that day. She became famous for her kindess and compassion, grew into a master healer in every way. The two of them still avoided each other wherever possible. When Aldrich heard the once-obnoxious little twit had been selected as the next Maou, he gagged. But he granted that she did seem to have changed. He attributed this to her sobbing bout, like a sodden broken ragdoll, a puddle on the floor of the temple fountain. He thought she'd finally mastered the necessary core of humility, in the process of accepting her own blindness.
It had never occurred to him that it might have been the fountain at work.
Had the von Wincotts stopped baptizing their children at both fountains? Could Glynda herself… Aldrich gulped, and set the thought aside.
The Kraken baths were a huge multiracial open bath vault. Wolfram was of course the beautician of strongest opinion. He selected a haircut for Garena somewhere intermediate between Wolfram's and Friedrich's, longish at the back like Wolfram's, but fanning out around the temples and ears like Friedrich's. In the childlike beaded braids, Garena had looked just a bit too weird. But with that out of the way, the man was extraordinarily good looking, possibly even better looking than Manfred, though not nearly as sultry as Wolfram. When they dropped by to pay their respects to the little fauns again, the nurses flirted with him. Before, they'd given him a wide berth. And to his young relatives' surprise, Garena flirted back, not… terribly. He smiled when they smiled, dropped his eyes when they did. While not particuarly suave or sophisticated, his little mirror game… worked, as flirting.
Change was good.
-oOo-
Thank you to everyone who's reviewed!
Please review?