Axl regarded the cape speculatively. He had taken it and the sword back to his room to look over them properly.
The sword had proven capable of shearing through any material he could find to test it on. It also seemed to be almost indestructible. Still, it was an understandable item… it killed things. The purpose of the cape was still a mystery.
Axl picked up the thin, silky fabric and sniffed the cape appreciatively. It had a wild, musky scent that had probably adorned its former wearer. On a whim, Axl stood up and wrapped the cape around himself.
"Heh, I bet I look-GARK!" Axl exclaimed as he stared at his reflection… which was not present. He had NO reflection now, and it didn't feel like a mirror trick. Which meant…
An invisibility cloak! Axl thought, amazed, as he recalled the way the human woman had appeared out of nowhere. She had appeared right as she threw off her cape. A… what's the word? A tarnkappa! I wonder how it works? It was probably some kind of new cloaking system. He would have to take it down to the mechanics of the 14'th… perhaps they could figure it out. He gently touched the cloth, then kneaded it with one hand. He couldn't feel any wiring. It had to be amazingly advanced.
Axl suddenly grinned. Perhaps he wouldn't hand it over to the 14'th too quickly. His DNA copying power was well known, but outright invisibility would let him hear all kinds of intriguing things. And the possibilities for mischief were endless.
Stepping quietly out of his room, he decided to put the tarnkappa to work immediately. X and Zero would be in the break room. What better time for a bit of spying?
"…I just wish he would DO something with it." X said just as Axl entered the room. Axl quietly slipped into a corner, where neither X nor Zero would be likely to run into him.
"Like inventing?" Zero chuckled at that, and shook his head. "X, what do you think Axl would invent?" X thought about that a moment, then grimaced.
"Guns, guns and more guns," X sighed. "Why does he always have to be so violent? He's making all the mistakes I did…" Zero just shrugged, then sniffed.
"Do you smell something?" he said with a frown. X tested the air, and also frowned.
"Now that you mention it… it smells like incense or something. Could one of the recruits be burning some sticks?" X sounded disapproving. Incense and other combustibles were banned ever since a fire had taken out a whole wing of the building.
"Maybe. Let's go see." Axl slipped out, cringing, before they could pass him. The scent on the cloak was just too strong for this, apparently. Maybe he could wash it…
Finally, Axl had a dream that started to explain things. But the explanation was so unbelievable, it would take a great deal of time to sink in.
Axl felt fuzzy and strange, this time. The dream he was having lacked the clarity of most of the others… and it just felt old, unimaginably old. It felt like the memory of this life was so old it was beginning to tatter and fray around the edges, despite his best efforts to recall.
He was a young boy now, with dark brown skin. His hair had been braided and done into loops, decorated with beads and bells. He was one of several boys, waiting on the pleasure of their Master.
The room they were in was luxurious in the extreme. The carpet he was kneeling in was dark red and so plush that his knees hardly hurt at all. All the furniture was gilded, from the lamps to the end tables. It was upholstered in matching red velvet, and beautiful pictures adorned the walls, most slightly obscene. Naked, gilded statues stood in the corners, and Axl risked glancing up at the ceiling. It had a fresco depicting an orgy between satyrs and forest nymphs.
The boy whose life he was currently living was very young, and found the display awe inspiring. Axl considered it the worst display of bad taste he'd ever seen in his life, and he'd never had a reputation for good taste.
The Master was selecting an apprentice today. Axl felt a thrill of fear and anticipation as the old man stepped through a gilded doorway and looked them over with cold, expressionless eyes. He was a terrible old man, still fit and vigorous despite his immense age, with hair and eyes the color of stormclouds. For Axl, this was an opportunity and a great danger. All kinds of things could happen to an apprentice, from being used to satisfy unwholesome lusts to being used as a virgin sacrifice. But if he lived, and learned, he would be among the mighty. His parents had been serfs, and there was nothing he dreaded more than the thought of going back to that life. If the price of learning magic was satisfying his Master's lusts, then so be it.
Magic? Axl was bemused by that, but the boy he lived in now seemed quite certain. The other boys with him certainly were. The Master took them out of the room one by one. The nerves of the rest of them got tighter as some boys ran out crying, although Axl was not particularly surprised. The Master never suffered fools gladly.
He waited for his chance patiently, and finally the Master came for him. He was led into a room with two chairs, and a small table.
"Sit, boy." The Master gestured impatiently at a gilded little chair, and he took a seat gingerly. "You're name, boy?"
"Monoxo, Master." Axl… Monoxo… looked down at his feet, then up as the Master sat down across from him and shoved a paper and pen stick towards him. "Write a few sentences." Monoxo brightened, and quickly wrote on the paper. "Stop." The Master took the page and scrutinized it, then grunted. "Can you do sums, boy?"
The tests continued, looking into his reading comprehension, logic skills and finally his sensitivity to and knowledge of magic.
"What do you know of magic, boy?" The old man regarded him evenly, and Monoxo spoke hesitantly.
"It's mostly soul magic, Master. When people die our souls go into the earth and run into rivers of power. Magic draws on that. But there are other powers too."
"Like what?"
"Belief, Master… that is what the gods draw on." Monoxo looked down self-consciously. That was dangerous for most people to speak of, but he had once met a philosopher who had dared to teach it to him. The Master grunted again.
"You'll do, boy. Tell the others to get back to their chores. Your new chores start today…"
The dream suddenly changed, moving into the future, and Axl was surprised. The dreams had never done that before.
He was a young man now, and fighting for his life against… Axl wasn't sure what. They looked like sabre tooth tigers, but their eyes gleamed with golden fire. Blue flames spit from his fingertips, incinerating them, but they seemed to reappear as soon as he destroyed them. One got through his defenses and clawed his side before it died, making him scream in pain and rage.
Then Axl changed his tactics, summoning a great wind. The beasts were swept away and torn apart even as they tried to reappear. He staggered through the maelstrom, searching for the goal he knew was in sight.
There! Silvery blue water frothed in a small spring. He collapsed beside it, and unceremoniously dunked his head into it, drinking deeply.
It was like drinking liquid helium, and Axl fought to escape the blinding pain of that terrible moment. Yet Monoxo drank eagerly, forcing it down, because this water was oh so very important…
He finally jerked back with a gasp, water flying from his hair as he shook his head. The storm of wind and beasts had stopped, and the beasts were now looking at him quietly, for the entire world like tame housecats. The great gashes in his side were healed, with only the blood and torn clothing to show they had been there at all. He looked up as a woman stepped up to him. She was a matronly sort, dressed all in green. Her plump face looked as if it had been designed to be jolly, but right now her eyes were sad.
"So, young mage, you have done it," she said sadly. "You found the spring of Eternal Youth, and drank. You are immortal… enjoy it as long as you live." He shivered as her message hit home. He was now among the most powerful mages of his land, one of the few to survive the trial to gain immortality.
Immortals often did not live very long.
The dream changed again, to a much later time, and Axl was having trouble believing any of it. Magic! Souls and belief! It would have seemed like a ridiculous fantasy if the dream hadn't seemed so realistic…
But now, he several thousand years old. Standing on a parapet, he surveyed the kingdom below him. It was the land he had called his own for half the time he had lived, just as his first Master had ruled his land. It was a beautiful land, full of mostly happy people. But he was dissatisfied.
Maybe the belief was to blame. He hadn't meant for people to start believing in him. Not the usual, "Monoxo will save us," but rather "We pray Lord Monoxo will heal our son." Belief in him as a force was different than belief in the man, and he had lived so long that his people were coming to worship him.
He could draw on that power, but it changed him every time he did. The gods come from the imaginations of people, and every time he touched that power he became a bit more what his people imagined. Since he was regarded as a good lord and Master, he was becoming better as time went on.
And over the years, he had become keenly aware of a massive injustice taking place all through the land.
The gods had been worshipped since the beginning times, and people had always thought of them as horrible forces that had to be bought off with sacrifice. Even in Monoxo's capital city, Anshabu demanded fifty deaths a year on his alters. His people had the wherewithal to buy slaves for it, but… that was a common practice in all the cities on the coast.
And no one would ever dare stop. The gods weren't good at answering prayers, but they were very good at revenge.
Added to the gods were the wizard-kings like himself, most of whom ruled with an iron fist. They fought each other constantly and regimented their people harshly, and punished the use of technology past a certain level. Even Monoxo had to regiment the technology. If he failed in that, the gods might take exception, and he couldn't fight them off unless he embraced his own godhood. Something he hoped never to do.
And he knew why they were all such death on technology. They wanted to stay in charge. Monoxo gritted his teeth at the thought. The common folk believed they had no power, they believed in the strength of the gods and the wizard-kings, and they were trampled to death beneath the war beasts summoned by their masters. Technology could break that stranglehold, if it ever was allowed to flourish.
It never would be, unless he could break the power of the gods and the wizard-kings.
But how could he do such a thing? It would require careful study…