Chapter Thirteen: Regrets
The Holy Summoning Ritual works differently for the Void Mage. It specifically summons human beings for them. Mortal heroes destined for greatness.
"He hung himself on Yggdrasil for nine whole nights with not rope but a spear stabbed into him," a comforting voice called out.
Louise sat there listening tentatively as Cattleya read out the Edda. Legendary stories of the days before Ragnarok, before Brimir's time.
Her sister sickly pale and too lean, her strawberry-amber hair was down but tucked away from her face. The soft candle light flickered, making the shadows wavered as if they too held their breath.
The room dark and so they were inch-close together. Louise pulled up her knees and hugged it with her arms as she listened sleepily. Mother would not approve these late-night visits for Cattleya needs her rest.
But she missed her sister for she couldn't play with her anymore.
"He offered himself, and offered he was," Louise added pridefully.
Cattleya smiled, "You're remembering."
She shyly looked down, happy at the praise. In fact, she had remembered the whole passage.
Cattleya looked down, smiling to herself and went on.
"On his throne Hlidskjalf," her sister began another passage.
"Hillskalf," Louise repeated with struggle.
"Hlidskjalf," Cattleya corrected with a smile. "The Allfather sat to survey all realms and each men's action."
"But doesn't he have his only eye to do that?" Louise pointed quietly and pointed at the runic inscription. Cattleya was amazing, she could read the old passage in its original roots. "Isn't that why he pledged one eye? To drink the wisdom of Mimr's well." She pointed at her own.
"Ah, but it only says the well contains wisdom." Cattleya leaned back against her pillow as she looked up to her bed canopy.
"With one eye he saw the future, with the other he saw the past, and so he gazed with both into the present," Louise recited a memorized script.
"That wasn't in the original passage, Louise," her big sister pointed out gently with a soft huff. "Perhaps it can be interpreted the well giving the Allfather eyes of farsight, but in the original it only says it gave him wisdom for the sacrifice of his sight. Remember Louise, the Allfather was a warrior as well, and sight is very important in a fight. One eye lost means being half-blind."
"No, it doesn't. I can still see perfectly fine even with one eye shut," Louise pointed back.
"Really?" Cattleya just smiled. "Shut one eye, stretch out your arm and stare at your finger at the center of your sight. Now move your finger slowly out of your sight."
Louise did so, unaware Cattleya was covering her mouth at the serious concentration on her face.
"I didn't notice anything…" the youngest Valliere sounded disappointed.
"It's small… but there is a small weakness in our eyesight. A… blind spot," Cattleya recalled after a brief ponder. "Remember what mother said, in battle you would need to sense everything, your weakness especially."
"I really don't understand what she means by that," Louise said quietly and slumped.
"It means to admit when one is… at disadvantage, and knowing why and the reasons for it. It takes more than knowing when your opponent has the field," her older sister explained carefully as she stared at the troubled look. "Father would call it being humble, I guess." She laughed softly but coughed sharply.
Louise looked up earnestly at her. "Do you want me to get water for you?"
"I'm fine," Cattleya voice was slightly hoarse, her hand had shot out and grabbed onto her tightly on the wrist, keeping her stay put. "Do you want to sleep with me tonight, Louise?" She whispered, quickly distracting the flurry of thoughts in the young Valliere.
Succeeded, the question froze and caught her off.
"Mother wouldn't approve," Louise muttered. "She says I might catch what you have."
"You're right." She heard her older sister sighed, her hand slipping away from her wrist when she leaned back into her bed. "She would probably catch you instead if she finds you here next morning."
"I do want to stay…" Louise mumbled sullenly, upset.
"I know," Cattleya smiled and turned slightly on her pillow, patting her cheek gently. "But look at it this way, you're growing up."
"Eleanore doesn't think so," Louise muttered bitterly as she slightly turned away from her hand.
"Eleanore has to deal with workers that would try to make her anything less than she's worth," Cattleya reminded gently. "We are Valliere, Louise. And not many like us because of it. They would try to find mistakes in us and use it against us." Her older sister sighed heavily at this. "Look at me, Louise. Don't tell me they don't talk. They judge mother. They judge our family because of me."
"They wouldn't dare!" Louise shot back and quickly covered her mouth when the silence of the manor roared back into her ears. "Besides, it's because of Eleanore's attitude that people talk, that and her former fiance's family," she grumbled.
Cattleya only smiled. In fact, it was what Louise always saw her doing most of the time. Smiling gently, even at her worst, even when she was bedridden not by healers' orders, but by the sickness that afflicts her.
"It's more than ego and pride, Louise," Cattleya told her. "Merely… the nature of things to question. I do recall one time mother said she would rather live in a world where one questions their place than not. Even the most basic animals do this."
"Like the jungle in the stories," Louise muttered.
Her older sister nodded in agreement. "But challenging another's is another thing Louise. Do not mistake the trials of earning respect as the pitting of strength or crushing the weak," Cattleya told her gravely with narrowed eyes.
"Of course not, we're not animals," the youngest Valliere huffed.
At that, her older sister smiled happily. "Mother would be proud of you."
"Really?" Louise brightened at that.
"She is. Don't ever let anyone says she is not, not even yourself. She does everything for us, everything," Cattleya reached out, grabbing her hand. It was quite strange to see such gentle, sickly face reflecting their mother's zeal, a determined look that was comforting for Louise.
"She may not show it or say it, but you can tell," her older sister whispered as she shut the book in front of them and slid it onto the bedside table.
"I know," Louise mumbled tiredly, still holding Cattleya's cold hand as she looked down at it. "But sometimes I think it's just me, seeing what I want to see."
"She's not heartless."
"I just wish…" she faltered.
"Do you really?" Cattleya pointed out.
"Well no," Louise added quickly. "But it would be nice…" she mumbled half-heartedly.
Of course, those times were the sweet days when her spells have not been labeled mostly as failure. Now, now she really didn't know whether mother really approved of her.
"What's wrong?" Her big sister looked at her concernedly, noticing her demeanor changing.
"I don't want to go to sleep," Louise mumbled.
"You're being silly now, I thought you were all grown up now," Cattleya teased her gently then frown when Louise did not respond at all. "What do you fear in sleep?" She asked worriedly.
"Death," Louise whispered and hugged her knees tightly, resting her cheek on one of them. "Death, battles, Cattleya. Indiscriminate slaughter. A monster… a monster hiding beneath the image of a holy knight." She closed her eyes then breathed in deeply.
"An airship… no, airships. So many. Broken, cut through or shattered from some large explosion. But no soot or burn. An aftermath of a battle and the fallen all around. Dead… or moaning. A-and," her voice hitched. "Tristain fallen. The others…" Louise covered her whole face and hid them behind her knees. "They don't even make any sense. Like the one with the feathered elves. It looked like a crusade… but not anything like the stories. Everyone died, and only one person stood in the middle of a battlefield."
"Oh Louise," Cattleya muttered and placed her hands on her shoulder, comforting. "It's alright. It's only a dream."
"Is it?" Louise looked up reluctantly and her eyes were met not by her sister's, but a stranger's gray eyes.
"No," Theo said sadly. "No, you're not."
Louise did as any sensible adolescent girl would do if caught with a middle-aged man in bed. She screamed and climbed off, scrambling to the far corner of the room before taking her stance.
Theo just laid there with expressionless face on.
"Are you done?" He drawled back at her once she finished screaming.
"W-w-what are you doing here?!" Louise raged, face red.
"I should be asking that," he replied with a crossed face. "Why do I feel I'm in the wrong here?" He grumbled.
"Well, you see," said another Theo who sat in the armchair beside the bed, wearing purple shawl held by the chains with numerous amulets decorating them. His cowl was up, hiding much of his feature under the dark shadow of his hood. "You are intruding her headspace."
"Oh, I'm the intruder here," said Theo back at himself sarcastically. "I mean, who was it that branded me with a familiar mark?" He tapped his chin, feigning a thoughtful look.
Why was he wearing Cattleya's nightdress! Louise screamed silently, slapping her face and covering her eyes. Well, not so silently. This was her mind… right? He was ruining that gentle memory of her sweet sickly big sister!
"Is it really her fault?" Purple-shawled Theo pointed back. "You could have easily dodged the binding and break it, like now… right now."
"I get it," grumbled Theo on the bed. "But I wasn't summoned for no reason." He sulked on the bed.
"You're a disgrace."
"DON'T IGNORE ME HERE!" Screamed Louise and covered her face.
Indiscriminate slaughter, death, blood, questions and the feeling of being trapped. And Theo, what was Theo doing here in this… precious memory of her sister?! She was sick and tired of it all, felt violated even. For here was a stranger, alone with her, watching the girl without her Rule of Steel she donned on for each day.
She felt naked. It was a horrible, sickening feeling in her guts that she couldn't stop, or hide, or stomp it down. Because here was her mind, all revealed to an intruder no less.
He did not belong here. She felt all of this even though she didn't know why.
"Louise," she heard Theo's voice began gently. "You're going bonkerville."
"Big surprise there, this is you we're talking about," said the other him.
"Shh! You're not helping," snapped Theo.
"Why?" The question slipped from her mouth and she breathed in deeply. "Why?"
"Why are you dreaming this?"
She nodded and looked up, blinking at the change of scene.
"Where are we?"
Theo sat on opposite end of the round table from where he sat, looking up from his book briefly, wearing his usual green vest over his white shirt. "Inside your head," he answered honestly before growing disinterested again and back to reading his book. "To be correct… inside your mind, really. Your skull is too small to handle both of us, let alone you."
Her mind looked too much like her room at the Academy. Neat, tidy, tucked bed, no folded clothes, no books lying about, not even her hairbrush on her dresser. In fact… it felt like an empty room as she could see no traces of herself having lived here if not for the books in the bookshelf.
"Theo, what's going on?" Confusion still stifled her, but her emotion was quickly catching up. A slight tinge of annoyance, anger, and bubbling accusation… but to where could she project? The only person there with her apparently. "What's going on!?" She snapped as he continued ignoring her and reading his book.
"You're trapped," he answered simply without looking up.
"What was-" she began.
"You wouldn't understand," his tone abrupt, no nonsense… unlike the Theo she knew.
"Why are you here?" She stared, watching as she began to be aware his behavior were not those of his usual.
"Cause you summoned me and made a binding with me," he answered mechanically.
"Is this a dream?"
"Yes."
"What did I just dream?"
"What did you just dream?" He repeated annoyingly.
"Theo!"
The book snapped shut and he looked up sharply, giving an exasperated look right back at her. The look Eleanore would give when she thought Louise was asking a stupid question.
"What was the words that could describe this," he pondered sarcastically aloud. "With his right eye, he sees the future, with his left, he sees the past, with both… he sees the present."
"And?" Louise grumbled.
"What else did you dream?" He asked right back at her.
"I asked!"
"I'm your therapist, you should comply as per our client-patient conditions," Theo drawled back and produced a scroll out of nowhere that unrolled itself only for it to trail off the table then onto the floor. She heard a thump behind her when the unfinished ends of the roll hit the wall or something.
"I signed nothing about this," she shot back at the scammer. And what the hell was a therapist?
"You're right." He sighed and tossed the contract behind him negligently. "But seriously." He looked back down, concerned. "Tell me Louise, ever wonder what it would be like to be bound to a mad seer. A seer who can't even control his visions, can't even tell what's present from the future?" She heard him asked.
"What do you mean by this?"
"Was, is, will… it's more than sight. More than seeing the past, the present and the future. More than sensing. What could, should... would. I'm re-living in all those moments, no… I'm living in them… and more, right now, right now," he told her, voice soft and haunted. "But no mortal can process such information when their mind could barely comprehend the vast present," he added gravely. "Except for Azra!" He cheered and leaned abruptly back on his chair.
"Seers are just charlatans fooling the mass for money, heathens who mocks the Founder's name with their visions," she scorned back. "If not, they're just simply mad."
"Legitimate seers are mad for the reasons I've mentioned just now." He laughed. "For such insignificant detail, cause quite a mess in your head."
"Stop laughing and tell me what's going on here!?" She snapped at his laughter.
"Our contract, Louise." His tone back to hushful. "What was it?" He pondered aloud nonchalantly. "The master can sense what the familiar can, vice versa… am I right? You see… what I see, how I see, how we… see…" She heard him drawl. "The fact that you saw him-"
Images flashed. A holy knight grinning and laughing. A vision of one lone figure standing on a field of bloody corpses… and an eerie wail singing as the land and everything in sight was swallowed with a whisper haunting her.
"I see you."
"Who is he?" The words spoken out in hushful tone.
"A mythic mess. An ugly creature. An avatar," he told her grimly. "Why do you seem so horrified by his action when your gods and even Founder built your nation out of countless death?"
"That's not the same!" She shouted back, sweeping such sully image from her history. "I refuse to believe that monster is an avatar of the gods!"
"But he is. A troublesome one. In your language, you would say he has the eyes of Odin. A man of farsight," Theo said and pulled an ebony pipe from somewhere. He popped in his mouth and a flick of his finger, flame burst after he sprinkled something within his pipe. Wandless magic… without no chanting. If this wasn't a dream, she would've been alarmed by this.
"But… as I've told you. It's more than that for him and I." He puffed gold mist out of his mouth as he blinked with golden reptilian eyes. A dragon's.
Louise blinked in startle at the sudden change of his eyes.
"Ever wonder, if you could see the past and the future," he began, smiling as he stared distantly. "What happens when your past-self looked to the future, only to have your… future-self gazing back at the same moment you look?" He said in reminisce, not making much sense.
"You have to be crazy to believe everything your mind conjures is real," the youngest Valliere grumbled.
Theodore gave a bitter smile at that. "Do you even know who you summoned?" He asked softly.
"I summoned you," Louise answered sharply.
"Have you ever thought I could be lying?" Theo smiled chillfully as he put the ebony long pipe back into his mouth. A long drag, smokes wafted out from his lips like she would've imagined a true dragon would do when it was ready to burn its victim.
"Are you?"
"You're not even asking the right questions."
Her hands balled into fists at that challenge. "What's your connection between that… monster and you?"
Theo tapped his eyes gently as he smiled cheekily.
She glared at his answer. "There's more, I know you're not telling me."
"Do you believe in reincarnation?"
"Yes," Louise said without hesitation. "For those not fit for the halls of Valhalla, or not too sinful for Hel, reincarnation is another chance to correct this."
"Let me tell you a story of the most disgusting," Theo's face contorted and bared his teeth. "Filthy creature ever made by the Gods to answer a prayer."
"A man, a mortal, a killer… a machine."
A monster. A champion of the Gods.
Rain always followed him. Always right behind his heels, washing the way the trails of the bloodbath that he left behind. He was not prone to laugh or cry or express emotions other than rage and disgust. He broods and glowers instead. Not like I, Louise.
Not even the girl he served could make him smile. Not even his nephew that stood always by his side.
Is it because he held others in contempt? No… no, he just holds no love in him. Dead man with a hollow heart you could say. Foreboding, grim and everything opposite of me.
Theo grinned as he said that.
For his lack of love, hatred takes its place. Hatred for the pointy ears. Elves. As for why, no one knows and probably not for the same reasons the Church or any good citizens would hold. Because how he hates takes a whole lot of level. Unreasonable. Enigmatic level.
He eats their face, bites them off in his rage. Rip their throats even. Don't make that look. He's more a beast… an animal yet he's not so simple. For those that practice the art of the undead, he kills them by ripping out their heart, crushing their still-beating heart that refuses to die. Sorcerer Kings treated like trash bag under his heel. Any bargaining to demons cannot save them, for the Gods were behind him ready to cut such ties asunder with the holy spells.
But he was disgusting because he killed too many, indiscriminately. Once the ball gets rolling, his comrades step out of the way and fall back. Because by then, the battle now belonged solely for his rage.
Those that didn't retreat fast enough gets caught in the massacre. So much blood. He seeks them down, every single one. There were elven women and children amongst the enemy. You can call them demon-spawn if you like.
He didn't care. He killed them not because they were the enemy, or filth lower than demons or because they were a monstrous race. He just kills. And kills. And kills. Does he grin and enjoy? Don't know, he just keeps killing.
But at least he doesn't rape. He finds the act distasteful. He finds the act of love distasteful too. He makes it up with his butchering though.
He was disgusting. Too disgusting.
Hence the rain cleaning away.
But everything wasn't so simple.
Theo said in his recounting of the tale, breathing out mist-gold smoke from his lips.
Because once he calms down enough under the rain, his comrades move in to take over the city, emancipate any enslaved women and men or children of mankind. Free them from the clutch of the elves. But sometimes, sometimes that disgusting knight of the Gods acts surprisingly. You know of half-breed children, Louise?
They were disgusting. But not for the same reason he was disgusting. They were just an abomination of an unkind act between an elf and human. Children of rape. Yes, they were few elves that took a liking to their human slaves in such manner. To the elves, men were animals, below their feet like ants. Like apes and monkeys.
No one understands why some took such liking. Perhaps they were sick in the mind, they do like the art of torturing after all. And they do have a garden of flesh.
What's a garden of flesh? Heard of living statues? You know, those hilarious artists that posed as statues. It sort of like that, except more gruesome.
Anyway, back to half-breed children of rape.
Back then there was no Church, remember? Remember, it was the barbaric age. Even when there were fineries and etiquettes exist that came with Empires.
There were only tribes of men and elves. But elves at least were united in some ways. But surprise, surprise. For someone who hates elves with such bloody passion, did something odd.
There was a woman, isolated from the other human-slaves. Malnourished, but living. Enough to survive as a mother, enough to keep her baby alive. Her bastard child, half-breed.
What's worse it's the child of their tormenter. The ruler of their tormentors. Son of one of the elves' many kings. Does that make the child a prince?
Theo gave a ghastly laugh but turned sharp and grim.
Like they would put some abomination on a throne! These elves were alien and foreign. Yet for some reason one of their many Kings took one human woman as his plaything. Might as well say it's bestiality!
Upon the cell the woman was kept in, the Divine Crusader asked harshly to the other slaves.
"Why did you take the food away?!" He was roaring, but was it because of the injustice? The knight of the Gods was no hypocrite. He does not tell lies about concepts such as honor.
He saw how the emancipated slaves refuse to distribute the rations to the mother.
And they told him. She carries an abomination. Bedded with their tormenter. Carried a monster within her belly. Now it is cradling in her arm, crying for milk.
So he came and entered the cell, and snatch the baby from her grasp. To kill.
Filthy elven blood runs in its vein, it even had the gray eyes of their tormenter, should be enough reason for him to kill the child. But he asked instead, "Do you want this child?"
She was an angry woman, a victim. At best, she would only end up killing the child through negligence or outright smothering. But it was hers. Her child. Not that monster's. Not these slaves' who did nothing when she was taken away.
Hers.
"The sin of the son is not the sin of the father's," Louise mumbled half-heartedly. She didn't like this story. This tale was unlike the glory of the Church or the endeavors of humankind over the elves.
"Exactly," Theo said quietly, gray stormy eyes swirling at the past recount.
"Wait… he didn't kill the baby?" Louise asked, recalling the so-called knight of the Gods with a bloody passion against the elves. He sounded like some warlord of the past. Varyag in some way except in human skin.
"No… no he didn't," Theo answered, his tone quiet and… depressing really. "My father told this story to me, Louise. And my young self always wondered why he acted the way he did. But then it was just a story, right?" Theo huffed and shrugged nonchalantly. "Why ask the mother? Why her permission. He killed for no reasons, so why did he give it back to the woman. A merciful act that's entirely unlike him. The truth was probably someone had stopped him before he could, most likely the girl he served."
And heavy silence fell, Louise didn't know what to wonder. What to feel. Why did he tell this story? Louise was not one to think thoughtfully on stories, especially when it was nothing more but mere legends than… well, tales of recounting the past. They were so far-fetched and possibly couldn't be true.
But she was then reminded of scandals of the past, of bastard children and disloyal nobles sleeping with elves in the woods. Women swept away, spirited only to come back pregnant with a monster, elven changeling in her belly. The worst scandal that could send one burning on the stake.
The mother should've killed the child. It didn't deserve the misery of being born with a monstrous blood of those soul-selling elves.
But that was history, past grievance. Too ancient to matter. This was no longer the age of barbarism and superstition. Now, only the extreme fundamentalist of the Church or foolish people would clamor and hold it against a family that supposedly carries such awful lineage.
She exhaled in frustration. This nonsense dream not making much sense.
"Why did you ask about reincarnation?" She reminded him and looked sharply at those changing eyes.
"Past lives should not matter. But it does for me," Theo told her grimly and breathed out gold smoke from his lips. "And joy," he drawled. "I'm haunted of the visions of the pasts, futures and even the presents."
What coulds, what shoulds, what woulds…
You see… what I see, how I see, how we… see…
You see…
I see you
"Why am I seeing them? The dreams of you… of that knight," Louise asked, feeling the tale sinking like heavy stones. Reincarnation wasn't something she pondered deeply. Because what was past was past. Not to mention… there wasn't solid proof to say someone was some murderer in his previous life.
Theo lifted his gloved left hand and revealed the angry red rune mark. "The contract. It can make the master see what the familiar sees."
"And the familiar the master's," Louise mumbled as the realization dawn on her, understanding now.
Theo… Theo was a seer. She was seeing this because of his ability as a seer. B-but, but! Her mind argued. There was a flaw in that assumption.
"Seers always die when they look too far back. And it's because of him," Theo's voice dripped with acid as a dark emotion pass over his face. "Killed a lot of my own," he added quietly when he turned his attention onto her. His eyes back to normal; orange and green.
"Dreams can never kill you," Theo said as he let out one last huff of smoke. "But he can."
"That's nonsense," Louise said, stubborn and adamant, unwilling to be shaken.
"Yet you see him, child. Didn't he warn you?" Her familiar looked at her, his pupils slitted like cat's.
"Perhaps seers do exist but there's nothing to prove what they see is true," she retorted. "And besides…" she faltered.
The idea of man without… limits of how much and how far he senses or comprehend… entirely different moments of past, future, and the present. No, presents. Living in those moments while not being swept away of what was now and then, and will. That was just unbelievable.
What could, should... would.
God's sight. Odin's eye.
Omniscient.
Seers, from what she learned from books and what her tutors taught were mad, heathens or fraud charlatan. And even if they were taken real, never their sight was described as far as Odin's sight.
"No mortal can process such divine knowledge when we still have trouble learning the knowledge in our reach, you said it so yourself," Louise pointed out. "It's impossible."
If she was seeing what he was seeing, how was he capable of… being lucid in the now?! Especially if he was reliving, living in those moments, in those visions right at this moment. No man had the mind to comprehend… such sights and still be coherent and sane.
"Why aren't you a clever little girl," Theo pointed out drily with a smile as he rested his cheek onto his hand, leaning onto the table's surface. His smile widened into a crooked grin before he glared at his shadow. "But it doesn't change the gravity of your situation. You are running out of time," he told her grimly and stomped the floor loudly.
She looked at his peculiar behavior with a crease between her brow. "I'm dying?" Louise scoffed. It was hard to take this man seriously when he was behaving l-li-like he was arguing with the floor right now.
"No," his voice dripped in exasperation before slapping something on the table. "This little dreaming habit of yours will get you kill." He pointed back at her with his index finger. "He can kill you because it is his domain you tread. Time, Louise IS your enemy. Remember, he has Odin's eyes. Not to mention he is an avatar of the gods. He can reach out and strangle you in your dream!" Theo's voice risen as with his frustration before standing up abruptly, chair screeching against the floor in protest.
"I've never heard an avatar like him, nor this. This is foolish. Dreams can't kill you, not even if they were visions of the past. No being is capable of reaching through time just so… they could kill the person who dares tread the path of blasphemy!" Louise argued back.
"And Father Odin got so many names and avatars that none of you lot can dredge up most of it since most are lost to time," Theo replied back gravely. "Child, I'm warning you to be careful. But then," he gave a sad pitying laugh at her and said this more to himself, "A dreamer is cut off all his senses."
A sleeping mind was after all different than that of a waking one.
How could you argue logics and facts when the very tools you need to comprehend were tucked away when you sleep? Speaking through dreams were quite annoying because of this since… in a way, dreamers weren't fully aware, incapable of being fully aware because of the state of their head.
And yet she was still arguing back, but that was just her stubborn nature.
"Why are you here, Theo?" Louise asked, sounding tired. Nothing really made sense, but she was asking anyway. "In my dreams."
"I told you."
"So I'm seeing this because you're seeing this!" She snapped. "That doesn't make sense. The sharing of senses works one way! A master can't see the familiar's if the familiar's is seeing through the master's. Else it would loop repeatedly, seeing the master's who's seeing the familiar's who's seeing the master's!" She exhaled heavily.
"It's a bit different when you add god's sight in this, Louise. Odin's eyes are not limited to one perspective," he told her taking the pipe out of his mouth before walking back and forth. "The runes, the contract is messing you up, child. But that's no surprise there since this is me we're talking about."
"Why? Why do you say that?" Louise called out. "What are you trying to say?"
"I'm bad luck!" Theo shouted. "I have a bad history of keeping people… in a healthy state!" He admitted sourly. "If I am to serve you, child, well… you're going to work with a man who's lost most of the people he worked with. Makes a bad impression in my record book, did you know that?" He said that mildly back at her.
"So?"
He stopped and looked back at her oddly. "Louise, people die when they work with me," he said this softly. "I've lost so many friends and mentors because I'm the butt end of some horrible joke!"
"And I don't care," she said stubbornly. "I summoned you. I prayed for you!" Her voice shook. "Even though you were silly and nonsensical a-a-and… stupid, you didn't run off. When I mentioned my Valliere title you didn't try to cozy up just to use me o-or make fun of my failures."
She was a freak. And for first time, she had someone who saw her beyond that, beyond her mistakes, her title and her good-for-nothing explosions. Right?
Theo sighed loudly. "You are at the bottom of the barrel, child. And if someone extended their hands for you, you would've thought them like this regardless who they are. A hero. Your savior, whatever."
"That's not true!" She snapped. "For one, no one became my familiar. You did! The Holy Ritual gave you! And that meant something!" She shouted.
If divine answer meant nothing, then what else was he to her?
Theo gave only a frustrated look at her before a look of alarm crossed his face.
The room shook violently, sending Theo stumbling a bit and Louise gripping the table at the shaking. A loud crack cackled.
"Louise, Louise! Listen!" Theo shouted as the sound of her bookshelves toppled onto the floor with a crash. "Find a way to break the contract. It would only bring nothing but bad luck!"
"What's going on?" She demanded then heard the sound of wood snapping and crackling.
He only looked down as an answer. A hole, a split in the stone floor and from it a root came out… multiple roots sprouting and growing across the floor at an exponential rate.
But mostly they had grabbed onto Theo, wrapping around his ankles and up his legs much to his tugging, entangling him into their hold. There was a look of bitter anger on Theo's face before he glanced at her, giving a sad smile.
She only gaped at him when the roots of some tree squeezed him. A crack… not of bones, but of glass breaking, the image broke and she stared in confusion not at a man, but a walking silhouette. An outline of Theo. A shadow that decided he had gone tired of being flat on the floor. There was only darkness in the hole that was Theo's face.
"Now, now, Shadowrend. Blades shouldn't be talking behind their master's back, shouldn't they?!" The shout lingered in the air.
"Lord," it spoke in voices… garbled and fused of numerous women and men, strong, weak, hoarse, singing, roaring, shouting, whispering, chanting… crying. "I-"
"Shut it!" The voice snarled. "Go back to haunting shadows. And you, Little Lady," the voice turned to her. "Aren't you supposed to be frozen?"
Wha-
She couldn't answer since her mouth refused to close and something hard, coarse and painfully cold was inside her, choking, growing and piercing. Her eyes locked into place and her body refused to move. Not even a twitch even how much she poured her will into her fingers.
She couldn't even scream.
Colors blurred and swam, only the feeling of being trapped remained constant. Images of the past fleet by, of a man with black hair this time. He turned and looked at her, gray tired eyes sunken in their place.
"Am I going to start seeing Martin next?" He said and chuckled.
In his initial investigation, Colbert had deducted the ice can only be two things. A preservation spell or… a killing spell. If it was the latter, the statues would have shattered or melted as it served no purpose to preserve its victim.
But a proper researcher would've asked, how could the victim be preserved when it had left no means for the people to breathe and eat? The two essential functions of human beings that kept them alive.
Ice had been used before as an agent of slowing down the working of one's body, and that trait could be used to damage one's body or preserve it. The latter lessens the issue of food and the need for air, but the need was still there. So there was a limit of how long one could preserve a living body. Most cases of preservation through ice had resulted with the patient damaged in some way such as losing muscle control, memory loss… and the mind was changed in some way. This ice… even though it looked like ice, felt like ice… it wasn't.
The structures are all wrong, a water mage researcher had reported.
Not because of impurity but because it was simply not water. No wonder water spells were useless.
It is not a crystal, not one I have ever seen before at least. Different to all others that I've come across, an earth mage reported. That would explain why earth spell cannot command it… or be melted by fire spell like metal.
And it cannot be heated, Colbert added. Heat didn't pass through the crystal, it went around it. As if the crystal was a shield, a barrier but with no holes or leaks. Shields and barriers always have opening regardless what they were made of. Air, Flame, Earth, Water. They could be counteracted depending on the element, they could be poked through, they could be broken.
Because all shield absorbs the incoming energy and takes the damage instead of its wielder, or caster. And there was so much a shield could take before it breaks. Even if a shield spell could withstand a cannon shot, it would still take damage.
But this was ignoring a true efficient shield, which reflected the damage at a cost of little absorption.
This crystal didn't do such things as reflect or absorb. It was impervious to everything.
Which brought a troubling implication. This thing covered its victim on every inch, it was keeping them frozen. They couldn't breathe with this thing.
Is it inside them?
Colbert wasn't able to weight them, but now they could since the dragon had dislodged them off the floor. All they had to do was ignore the weight of the stone floor attached to it than they could see if this ice were inside them.
When the weight was received, there was no doubt this thing was also inside them.
They should be dead. By all logic, they should be dead. This ice - no, thing covered everything, inside everything. It has frozen everything. Their blood, their heart, their lungs.
Dead.
A normal preservation would've let small movements within their body, would've allowed a small faint heartbeat and shallow breathing. This one didn't.
This wasn't ice. This wasn't crystal. This wasn't a shield or a barrier of conventional type. This wasn't a preservation spell. It SHOULD be a killing spell.
But they were alive.
Heat was coming off them however faint. But their blood was not moving, their heart was not pumping, their lungs weren't twitching, a water mage had examined and confirmed this. And even if those bodily functions were still working, they couldn't possibly function in there when this thing was stuck inside them.
But at least it solved the question were they awake and aware. Such a low temperature would mean they were unconscious.
He shuddered at the thought of them being aware and trapped in such form.
"Like I said, Daedric magic," the captain had said when they verified everything Colbert had learned about the ice the past few months. "Where I come from, the mages would classify this crystal having properties of…" the man struggled. "Life itself."
"Life?" Colbert inquired incredulously.
"Yeah… but it still doesn't explain the body part, doesn't it?" The foreign man answered with a smile. "There is a bond between a soul and body. But as a body weakens, so does the bond. This crystal, it's directly feeding its energy into that bond and reinforcing it. But as for the body…" he grimaced.
Bond? Soul? Colbert looked at him curiously.
"It would be a bit far-fetched but I wouldn't be surprise time has literally stopped for them."
"W-what do you mean?"
"Mister Colbert, I'm saying the crystal is impervious to the passage of time, the forces of time. Time has stopped within the crystal."
"That's impossible," Colbert began. "It's…" he struggled. "I'm sure one of my colleagues would be a better expert at this since it's hard to explain why."
"I understand your struggle, Mister Colbert. Back when I was in my home country, we have a temple dedicated to studying time and its effects on the world," the captain said before looking up to the arch ceiling of his workshop. He noted there were soot marks and faint blacken stain. Fire and smoke were a common subject in this workshop.
With a deadpan look, the captain added, "When I was young, I was asked what power would we want to have. Being the young scamp, I answered with the power to stop time. And the priest back then would stop and look at me, then would excruciatingly lecture why that power would be the highest form of blasphemy and why it wouldn't make sense."
If it was not for the sacred holiness of Time, then it would be because of what the Earthbones had laid down that dictated reality.
The power of stopping time didn't make sense anyway. If time stopped, nothing would be moving. Everything would be frozen. The air, the force, the energy. Everything. One wouldn't be able to move or see properly even if time did not stop for them... because the light would be frozen, unable to reach the senses in one's eyes.
Blind, unaware but awake and couldn't move. All senses felt cut off for reasons unknown to the confused mind.
It be hell, child, for the one who can stop time. It is why Numidium is a blasphemous machine of the Dwemer for it can curse you with that.
But the power to move through time while it has slowed almost close to a stop was another thing.
Time ever flows onward. Even in so-called Dragon breaks or even if you walk backward in time, which I am about to point out the flaws of time traveling next…
He remembered the groans of the class, everyone hated the guest lecture from the Priest of Akatosh. Regardless, it was an important lesson, especially if one has to study Alteration. Strange, he remembered details like these but couldn't, for the love of gods, remember where he put his journal of spells.
With a sigh, he continued, "The only other explanation I could think of is that the crystal is feeding… something into the body, as in keeping it moving, alive."
But the body isn't moving or functioning.
So some passive Restoration spell couldn't be at work here.
Both men looked at each other, stumped.
"Daedric magic are known for being unconventional, defying laid logics and previous groundworks." Captain Talin sighed, tired. "I can't help but think this ice is living. This… thing could be a Daedra for all that to matter."
"How's that possible?" Colbert frowned. "An inanimate object being a living thing?"
"Daedra aren't living beings in a way that you would say we are," Talin went on. "They can be as small as dust or as large as a mountain. As powerful as the stones in the rivers or as strong as the stars and the living gods. They are…" he struggled. "They are like spirits of this world. But more wild, untamable… indifferent. The lesser ones can be shaped and bound into tools. Swords, bows-"
"Chains?" Colbert interjected.
Talin nodded. "Anything really. The humanoid ones are cleverer and powerful in their own rights. The Dremoras are strong in strength. The Seducers are enchanting in voice. The Saints are loyal with an inhuman zealous spirit, making them almost unbendable in summoning them. There are so much, so different from each other, from us, with different kinds of power and yet there's probably more that have yet to be discovered and be named."
"That many of them?" The Fire Mage said with awe.
"More than the stars, more than the droplets in the ocean," Talin told him. "Well, that's what my teachers told me."
"Can you summon one?"
"Oh for the love of gods." Talin rolled his eyes. "I'm no master conjuror. I can't even summon a scamp! The very best of us can only summon a handful of minions and make contact with the Lords."
"Sorry," Colbert said. "I know I'm grasping straws here, but…"
"Colbert, dealing with them would end with ruin," Talin warned.
"And look at us now," the Fire Mage muttered.
The old man only exhaled at this. "I understand your frustration. But you need to be careful with them. I've seen a lot of my colleagues running along this path of magic only for them to die, or worst," Talin said.
"How does it work, the magic behind their summoning?"
"You're not even listening, aren't you?" Talin said accusingly.
Colbert only gave an equal glare. "I'm no fool. But I am curious how this magic works. For all we know, it might clue in how this Daedric ice work."
Talin only gave a long glare at him before answering, "It's very different to your magic."
"Is it like Firstborn magic?" "
"I don't know. But the summoning of Daedric beings is a school itself. It's… one of the many schools of magic."
"There are other kinds of magic?" Colbert blinked rapidly, surprised.
"Where I've come from, we standardize magic into their uses. Restoration, Destruction, Conjuration, Alteration and Illusion. There's Thaumaturgy but that has been split apart and incorporated into other schools. Back at home, mages are too busy arguing which spells fall under which schools, doing their research than being practical." Talin rolled his eyes. "We're no different, really. I mean, in categorizing spells, I guess," he added weakly.
"So, you don't categorize by the elements?" Colbert tried to wrap his head around this.
"No. We don't even use staff or wand. Or even do chanting… in standards spells at least."
"That's impossible, how else can you focus your willpower."
"With our body. Technically, our soul," Talin answered simply and noticed the strange look Colbert was giving. "It is said magic came from the stars," the Captain began and pointed at the window where the cloudy gloomy skies laid beyond it. "The sun is one of them. Technically everything is made of magic. Because the gods are made of it. And they made this world and everything with their blood. And from these pieces of heavens, men were created. So if you looked at it, we've a bit of a star inside us. Through that, we channel the magicka poured from the stars, the holes that lead back to the heavens."
"I've never heard these kinds of legends, Captain," Colbert began, smiling awkwardly more to himself. "But what does that have anything to do with how magic function?"
Talin sighed. "That's what I'm telling you. You can ignore the spiritual context, but there is a higher plane. A plane made purely of magic. It's what we're made of, what we use."
"You speak as if magic is a…" Colbert groped for the word, hand twirling the air as he tried to reach for it.
"It's an energy," Talin answered. "It's not just a concept where one describes as an art like smithing, or… sewing."
Magic as a power, a concrete thing itself… as in like the flames, the flow of water, the minerals of the earth, the small matters in the air?
"Think of it as Willpower, except we don't use the emotional strength of ourselves, at least not to certain extends like yours. The magic we use is more ambient," Talin explained.
"Like Firstborn magic?" Colbert interjected. "It is said Firstborn magic uses the spirits of this world. These spirits are described as the rocks, the plants, the trees, everything that makes nature."
"Hmmm." Talin stared deeply back at him. "I really don't know about that. For one, the spirits are alive. Magicka isn't alive in a way the spirits are."
Colbert sighed. If this was the basic, then he couldn't imagine what it would be like trying to get something specialized, conjuring.
"It's really strange, that's all," the bespectacled mage said this more to himself. "So you can use wandless magic?"
Talin hesitated and nodded.
"Can you show me?" He asked eagerly.
"I suppose," the old man muttered. "Vittorio had told me not to do this. Apparently, it's wrong. Heathen magic."
"You know Pope Vittorio?"
"The Pope himself send me here."
Colbert frowned, that still didn't quite add up. He was sure there was more between him and the current head of the church. After all, why would the Pope keep around a foreign man practicing heathen magic. And as a captain to boot.
From his hand, one gloved and the other bare, Colbert saw it. The white light that swam out and shone. It was like a flame but flowed like water, twirling around his fingers, dancing mesmerizingly. He heard a strange sound he couldn't quite describe when the light was shaped into a floating iridescent will-o-wisp and cast into the air, hung there above the captain.
"Fascinating," Colbert said in awe. "What does it feel like?"
"Huh, what do you mean?" Talin asked, a crease between his eyebrows.
"When we cast spell, we can feel our Willpower draining from us. But for you, it must be different since you're using ambient magic," Colbert added.
"Ah. It depends on the spell. Magelight I supposed… feels warm and soft, it makes you feel… light," Talin answered in wonder, eyes on the ceiling where magelight bobbled against. "Destructive magic is different. Your nerves aflame, and depending on the element, you feel the lightning coursing through you, lighting your nerves alive. Flame makes your bones feel warm. Ice, a cold biting sensation you don't mind. I'm sorry." Talin laughed softly at his rambling. "You just remind me the wonders of magic. I feel like an old man thinking he's a young boy again."
"You're not that old." Colbert laughed. "You're just a decade ahead of me.
"You don't really want to know the number." Talin smiled back. "I'm supposed to have a white long beard by now," he said brushing his growing peppery one.
"You're really quite different," the Fire Mage commented quietly.
The captain looked at him. "What do you mean by that?"
"The man who looked like you, Theodore. He was silly. His answers were mostly silly. He never takes thing straight," Colbert said, almost wringing with frustration at remembering the man. "Yet… he was an amusing fellow."
"Oh," Colbert didn't notice the sudden change in the captain's voice. "Was he… did he cause you trouble?"
"No… well there was one time he took one of our student, a very important one, came from the Valliere. For a jaunt on one night. She was a young one-"
"He fucking what!?" Talin raged all of a sudden.
Colbert looked back at him, stepping back and blinking rapidly at the sudden change.
The captain breathed in heavily before spinning around, walking back and forth with magelight bobbing up above him.
"Am I missing something?" Colbert asked, wondering why this man was behaving like this. "Do you know Theodore?"
There was unintelligible mumbling coming from the captain. Colbert watched oddly at the man brushing frustratedly through his peppery hair.
"I…" the captain began, hands squeezing then loosening as he breathed deeply. "I… might have known this Theodore," he admitted quietly to the Fire Mage. "But it was a long time ago. We parted on a sour note."
"Are you his relative? I mean from your looks, you could've been his fa…ther." Colbert froze then stared hard, his mouth wide opened.
Him being his father would explain… the behavior very much.
Talin turned and glared at Colbert. "You tell anyone, and I can slam you in jail and straight into execution under the Pope's order," the man snarled.
"Excuse me!" Colbert snapped. "But the fact you are a relative of the suspect in this investigation-"
Talin moved… and he moved fast for an old man. In a matter of a second, Talin had moved over ten paces. The man was before him almost touching, unarmed though. But that didn't count, Colbert knew he had his wandless magic.
One finger on his own lips and Talin glanced over his shoulder. From one hand, a strange spell escaped and washed down both of them.
"What did you cast?" Colbert demanded.
"A spell that would make us be ignored by anyone. Including any unwanted listeners," the captain answered quietly and stepped back. "Yes… the answer you've been wondering, Theodore Egil or Aegis is my son." The captain turned around, the air around him turning moody. "Boy was quiet, polite. A prodigy in swordplay and on track in his magic. And as tradition in our family, son or daughter, would join with the military, training to be of service to the Empire. Everything was fine, then that blasted politics… and accusation from the temple." Talin exhaled in frustration as he recalled. "My son was no womanizer." He rolled his eyes, he already had to deal that with two of his sons. But Valdrin?
Valdrin was… not shy, just wasn't interested as much, but then his son was never the kind to be swayed by emotions.
"At fourteen, he was to be executed for rape."
"What?" Colbert whispered.
"Temple politics!" Talin spat. "The girl was a priestess in training. She was supposed to go through her rites with one of the temple's knight."
Colbert didn't interrupt him even though he was questioning what kind of temple or what rite would be so sacred that one can accuse a person of rape. He played the role of captain instead, keeping quiet as he listened to the interrogated spilling the content.
"I guess my son was her lover," Talin continued in disgust. "And the idiot thought it be a smart thing to hijacked the rite and take place as the knight. Idiot knocked out a knight of high rank with connections. Mess came next morning. Temple stormed through our home, demanded my son because he wronged the girl. I had to do what I had to do."
"You disowned him," Colbert said quietly, hearing this story before. Switch the priestess with a high noble blood, add engagement to the tale, and you get those stories of hot-blooded young men getting hung.
"It didn't help when the hunt for him began, he killed the same very knight," Talin added quietly. "After that… after that, he went missing."
"And now you're here to know his fate," the Fire Mage finished.
"Yes," Talin said, brown eyes though on the ground. "I tell you this so you would understand a father's pain," he added quietly.
"You know your son is involved with these Daedric beings who are behind this incident."
"I know," Talin admitted reluctantly and looked up. "There's one thing I've been wondering since I came here. My son had gray eyes, this man… the one that looked like me. He had heterochromatic eyes. Green and… red?"
"Orange," Colbert corrected him. "Green and orange."
"Colbert, where I came from, the people who most fervently associate with the Daedras and their Lords often have telltale signs of which Princes have claimed them," the captain said gravely as a look of distress crossed his face. "Most of the time it's subtle, other times, when one has visited their realm and came back, their eyes are said to carry marks. Those with two pupils. Others would be slitted. Sometimes it's not the eyes, it's their behavior. Their capability of having power and magic beyond imagining." The captain went on, growing upset as he explained.
"So the eyes is the indication, a proof of your son's connection to those being," the Fire Mage said quickly. Finally a proof, a true connection!
It would also mean Louise summoned the cause of their current trouble.
"You don't understand!" Talin snapped. "When one is marked by the Princes, it means they have personal interest over said victim of theirs! Being mark means my son's soul is damned to Oblivion!"
Colbert wasn't facing a man who has a vested interest over the suspect. Colbert was facing a father who thought his son was just another victim of this game the Daedric Lords were playing.
"You need to understand your son is behind the ballroom incident, Captain Talin," Colbert told him gravely.
"And so what?" The irrational man snapped. "What I want to know is why he was there in the first place, a land so far away that it hasn't even heard of our Empire. He could not have been here unless h-he was summoned!"
He was. But then if he was… Louise. Poor Louise. She summoned trouble, she invited trouble. Trouble was the only thing she could only cast it seemed.
"Those Daedric Lords sent him here to cause this mess!" Colbert snapped back, willing to deny a child at fault here.
If it would make him charged with misinformation, so be it. He didn't care.
"Y'know back at home, that kind of accusation can get your tongue cut off, Jean Colbert," the captain warned. "Accusing a person of malicious association with Daedric Lords is one way trip to the dungeon. Falls under harassment and sowing public discontent."
"Well here isn't home, captain," Colbert replied back coldly. "Here is Halkeginia. And here, you cannot deny your son's place in this incident."
"Need I remind you you're a suspect in this case." Talin glared back.
Both men glared at each other until a sound of metal clattering on floor interrupted.
"Shadowmere!" Colbert shouted in alarm when he saw the cause of their interruption. "Don't do that," he grumbled.
The black tiger only stared at the two men before she batted at the black metal rod on the ground.
"Holy Mother of Dragons!" Talin shouted and jumped away from the metal staff on the floor.
Colbert looked at him quizzically and shook his head before he turned to approach the tiger to get a hold of another clue - until Talin pulled him back roughly.
"Unhand me!" Colbert shouted before noticing the captain's panicking look on his face.
"Don't you dare touch that staff," the captain snapped.
"Why shouldn't I?" Colbert demanded and backed away roughly from the captain's hold. He brushed his crinkled mantle before glaring.
"Because that is Wabbajack! The favorite artifact of the Madgod," the captain answered snappishly. "Unless you want to go insane, be my guest!" He pointed the ebony metal staff on the floor.
That was the wrong thing to say because Colbert was now more interested in the staff, since not only was it a Daedric artifact, but it was an artifact belonging to the Prince that had caused the ice incident.
And it was a very familiar staff too, a very odd one. Why he first saw it waved around by Theodore himself!
"This here is a staff. Belonging to your son, I have to add," Colbert interjected.
"Are you calling my son a lunatic?" Talin glared back at him angrily.
"Your son is already associated to those inhuman demons! Being lunatic might as well be another assortment of your son's criminal background!"
That broke something because Talin had snatched Colbert by the collar of his robe. As outright scuffle was about to happen between two men, Shadowmere was playing with metal staff of the floor.
A red spark spurt from the end of the staff, she ignored that and continued her batting. She also ignored the sound of things crashing and breaking when the older man was punching down the spectacled one in the face.
Colbert wasn't having it and decided to hit him in the head with one of his tool laid on the table.
Shadowmere pounced on the staff.
A red lightning cackled and ting against the floor, bouncing around and across the room, zig-zagging against walls and floor to ceiling before ending with a boom.
"What was that?" Karin murmured as she sipped her soup, hearing the explosion from the courtyard outside the kitchen.
"Probably another explosion from Lord Colbert's workshop, m'lady," a servant answered politely as she served the Royal Guards.
Well, the ones who snuck from their duty to get free snacks.
"Is that common?" Karin asked.
"Yes, m'lady," the maid said. "The lord has been working for so long on trying to melt the ice. He never catches a break. And since there's no healer, he just brunt through his research even how violent it gets in there." The servant shook her head in anguish. "I hope the gods will answer his prayers."
Karin frowned at that before sipping the rest of her soup then biting her bread.
Unbeknownst to her, an eagle and a snake were fighting against each other up in the sky before tumbling down the other side of the academy.
The Royal Guard stared dully at the stone floor before her, guarding the entrance of ballroom. She blinked once then twice before yawning.
Whispers rustled and she perked up then looked behind her. She stared at the giant exquisite door, shut close and tight, hiding much of the cause that would've sent Tristain in panic. She never seen it, never allowed inside it, but supposed this call for an investigation.
She pushed against the door and only a small squeak from well-oiled hinges answered.
Nonsensical whispers loudened when she stepped inside but only to be stopped at the sight, her eyes widening. No, it wasn't the ice or the creepy crawls that were sent up her spine when she saw the grins on the statues face. But at the black pool that seemed to surround one of the statues, the dancers.
It, this thing, this black pool had grown and reached out all over the floor and ballroom's walls.
Shadows… of beings that couldn't possibly be the girl's cast across all over the walls as if candlelights were all around the statue and on the floor. Why one looked like a woman in armor, another a person wearing robes that didn't match the girl's exquisite dress. She saw a shape that looked like sword and staff on their back or hips, or even halberd being held by hand, silhouettes of different heroes and champions.
But they were all fused and messed up, joined up from the waist down. Twisted and clawing the walls as if to separate.
It was wrong to say the statue was at the center of it. Why the girl statue only seemed to cast the shades. It was a black claymore floating above the girl's shadow that was casting the twisted shadows.
I am dead.