Update: 31/08/2016: German terms updated, with thanks to Sir Godot for the corrections.
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Disclaimer: I do not own Familiar of Zero.
"Saito" -Talking
'Louise' -Thinking/ Human-Human Telepathy
"Explosion!" -Spell
:Master: -Master/Familiar Telepathy
Chapter 15: Attack on the Castle
A short time later
Princess Henrietta's Sitting Room
"What is to happen to Wardes now?" Karin asked as she sipped some tea.
"He cannot be executed, despite his actions against you, Karin." The Dowager-Queen said with a sigh, "The rest of the Nobility would do as he did and cry favouritism on the part of our Royal Family. Still, with all the evidence of his treason and collusion with Reconquista gathered from his boltholes and estate, he will be imprisoned for life in la tour de la penitence (The Tower of Penance), as well as having his estates and funds confiscated by the crown."
She was sitting to one side, with Henrietta to her left and Karin on her right. Agnès stood behind her mistress' shoulder as always.
"Some of the funds should go to Louise." Henrietta opined, "Wardes' actions harmed her reputation severely, not to mention the de Vallière family's reputation. Some monetary compensation would ease that, at least somewhat."
"An acceptable suggestion." The de Vallière Matriarch nodded, "I…I've treated her so horribly because of Wardes. It will take me a lot of repentance to make up for it."
"Louise will forgive you, Karin." The Dowager-Queen reassured the penitent mother, "I have known her since she and my Henrietta were in their nappies. She loves you and merely wishes to make you proud, which is why being…disempowered as she was hurt so much; she felt she was letting you down and hated herself for it. Now she has a chance to make you proud. Just show her that you are and it will turn out well."
Karin nodded. "I just wish Éléonore would let up on her as well. She is so angry at having her engagement cancelled that she takes it out on Louise."
Henrietta snorted in a very unladylike fashion. "It was nobody's fault but her own that she scared the man away with her sharp tongue and violent ways. Let her know that further acrimonious behaviour towards Louise will not be tolerated."
"I shall inform her forthwith, Your Highness." The former Captain nodded.
Suddenly, the room shook, making Henrietta and the Dowager-Queen yelp in fright. Karin and Agnès leapt to their feet and drew their weapons when the shrieks of pain started up in the corridor outside.
"Princess, Your Majesty, get to the secret passage! Now!" the Chevalier snapped as she pointed her pistols at the doorway, which was shuddering.
"Henrietta, do as she says." Karin said tightly, her swordwand drawn and ready to strike, "We shall cover your retreat."
Looking unhappy, the Princess of Tristain obeyed, pausing only to grab her sceptre before following her mother to her bedroom, where the secret passage was located, and locking the door behind her.
Less than a minute after that, the door leading to the rest of the castle exploded inwards. Karin deflected the fragments of the door with a thin barrier of wind and waited cautiously to see who her opponent was.
A man wearing a floor-length cape sauntered into sight. He had cornflower blue eyes and golden yellow hair that was cut fairly short. The overall pleasing look he had about him was marred by the cruel set to his mouth and the long scar that diagonally bisected his face from the left to the right. His exposed hand was covered in a fingerless glove with a hexagram engraved in metal on the back of his hand. In the centre of the six-pointed star was a shining green jewel.
"Ah, the attack dog and the knight." The man said with a faint accent that sounded Germanian to Karin, "Do tell where the delectable Princess Henrietta might be. I have business with her on this fine day."
"You shall not pass!" Agnès snarled, "Who are you and why do you seek Princess Henrietta?!"
"Ah, pardon my manners." The man bowed slightly, "I am Graf Johan von Leopold and I wish to acquire her sceptre. Nothing more, nothing less."
"I know of no man of your name in the Germanian nobility." Karin noted.
"That would be due to the fact I am not Germanian, Karin of the Heavy Wind." Johan replied with an indifferent shrug, "As much as I would love to educate you on my superior lineage and origins, I do have other things I need to do today, so kindly disclose Her Highness' location or I will be forced to hurt you."
"I am afraid my oaths to the crown preclude me from allowing you to pass." Karin snapped back, "En-garde!"
"Why do these primitive magicians all insist on taking the hard way?" Johan muttered, "Very well; I shall entertain you and your lackadaisical magic for five minutes. After that, I will be forced to immobilise you and continue on to meet with your mistress."
The casual way he spoke of immobilising the two of them was very irritating for Karin. She was the strongest Knight in Tristain and he was treating her like a rank amateur. The way he spoke of her magic was somehow familiar though…
"Die!" the Captain of the Musketeers roared and fired both of her pistols at the man, who merely raised his hand and said, "Schild."
A green barrier snapped into existence in front of him, blocking the bullets with ease.
"Now really, that was simply rude." Johan huffed, "Laden: Komm! Erscheine, mein Juwelenritter!"
In an explosion of green light, the glowing figure in the full plate armour of a knight appeared. Seemingly made out of a giant block of jade, the knight wielded a hand and a half sword and shield and stood six feet high.
"What kind of magic user are you?!" Karin snapped.
"Hexer. Ein Juwelenhexer." Johan replied lazily, "Now…schlag!"
With that order, the 'jewel knight,' for lack of a better term, reared back and lashed out with its sword. Agnès, who had thrown her pistols away and drawn her own blade, dodged the blow, but was thrown back by the displaced air from the attack.
Undeterred, the chevalier rolled to her feet and smashed her sword into the side of the unnatural knight. It had absolutely no effect beyond rocking it slightly.
'In this case, the smart thing to do is to attack the caster rather than the golem.' Karin thought. She recognised the end result of the man's spell, if not the kind of magic that it was that created in it.
"Agnès, hold that thing at bay; I will take care of this interloper." She barked before lunging forwards with her swordwand aimed for the cloaked man's heart.
"Excellent tactics, poor execution." Johan sneered, "Laden: Kommt. Erscheint, meine Juwelenritter!"
He revealed his other hand as he chanted, showing it bore a glove similar to his other hand, with a purple jewel mounted on it. With a flash of purple light this time, another jewel knight appeared in front of Johan and intercepted the strike. This one was definitely feminine, with a specially moulded breastplate to boot.
"Wind Fang!" the duchess snarled, her signature spell creating multiple 'fangs' of sharpened wind and bombarding her target with a nigh unending fusillade of them. She knew from experience that they could shred a man in a matter of seconds.
As she'd half expected, the damage was minimal, if spread across a wide area of the knight-golem's body. With just a slight adjustment to the spell, Karin smirked as she saw the jewel knight pierced through the chest as she concentrated all of the spell's remaining fangs there. With a moan of agony, the golem shattered into pieces, leaving Johan looking startled.
"Well, well…this is a turn up for the books." He said as he recovered his composure. He removed the purple jewel (which now had a large crack in it, she noted) from his glove and replaced it with an orange one, "You are indeed the strongest mage-knight of the realm, Karin of the Heavy Wind. My apologies for using a low-cut diamant on you; now we shall see how you far against an Alexandrit, ja? Laden!"
As Karin girded herself to fight, she heard Agnès struggling against the green one, which was not good. Despite nominally being called a knight, the musketeer had always relied too much on those little pop guns of hers and now she had absolutely no time to reload them.
'Run, Princess!' she silently urged the girl who was almost like another daughter to her. Then she plunged back into combat once more.
With Henrietta
The Crown Princess of Tristain gasped and panted as she fled along the secret tunnel out of the castle, her mother at her side. Her heart was aching as she contemplated what might be happening to her loyal knight Agnès and her honorary aunt Karin.
'How could this happen?' she fumed as she paused to activate another series of traps to impede her pursuer should he or she discover the passage, 'How could someone enter the castle unimpeded and then start attacking the guards, making their way to the Royal Wing almost unimpeded, despite the efforts of the guards? It makes no sense!'
Unless…unless the intruder had been inside the castle during the duel? Surely not! Henrietta's mind reeled at the implications. A mage had infiltrated the castle, either as a servant or as a noble guest, with the plain intent of getting to herself. Her mother would be less than a consolation prize to someone aiming to take control of Tristain. The Crown Princess was far more preferable to someone aiming for that.
Cold, she knew, but true.
"Where…where does this passage lead, mother?" she gasped out as the stone door sank into place behind them and the two royals resumed their flight.
"To the stables of the Academy." The Dowager-Queen replied just as breathlessly, "Once we exit the tunnels proper, we can wait for him or her who pursues us to enter the tunnels and activate a secret mechanism, bringing the whole passage down and cutting off or crushing our pursuer."
Mildly appalled that she hadn't known about that particular part of the plan and somewhat amused that her reaction was a decidedly visceral approval of the idea, Henrietta nodded and continued to run. She would find out about what happened to Karin and Agnès later; for now, she just had to reach safety.
Back with Karin
The duchess de Vallière sailed through the air and slammed into the wall, driving the breath from her lungs as she sunk to the ground.
Nearby, Agnès lay unconscious, her sword lying shattered on the ground nearby.
The orchestrator of these two events stood nearby, one eyebrow twitching as he glared at Karin.
"Four jewels…four!" he muttered, "How the hell could such primitive magic have defeated four of my Juwelenritter?!"
Karin allowed a slightly smug smile cross her face for a moment, despite the pain flowing from a cut on her cheek. After handily defeating the yellow knight, she had gone on to eliminate the green one and a blue one before the crystalline one before her had defeated both her and Agnès.
"Perhaps…you underestimate the magic here…too much?" she rasped, finally allowing her weapon (the shattered hilt only) to fall from her hand.
Johan scowled thunderously before sighing. "I believe you might be correct, your grace. Yet the fact that even you, the previously undefeated Mage Knight-Captain of the Manticore Knights, now lie defeated at my feet proves my innate superiority."
"Defeating a lone mage, no matter how skilled, is no cause to brag, boy." The duchess snarked, "Do clear something up for me; why do you want the sceptre? It is merely a magic tool; nothing more or less."
"It is a tool that was crafted by one of the sons of your 'god' Brimir, duchess." Johan replied as he dismissed his knight, "Bearing it declares that your Royal family is superior to all the other mage families. All the royalty of the kingdoms have their own tools such as that. I merely seek to ensure that they are given to a more…worthy…owner."
"Meaning you?" Karin scoffed, "Hubris if I have ever heard it. The royal families have maintained their power here for five millennia. Once it is known who you are and what your goal is, they will hunt you down and show no mercy."
"By all means!" Johan laughed, "The bigger my opposition, the sweeter my victory shall be when I succeed. Now, I bid you farewell. I have a princess to meet."
With that, Johan casually walked by her, towards the door to Henrietta's bedroom, which had miraculously remained undamaged throughout the entire battle. He sighed when it refused to open and attached another jewel to his right hand.
Karin managed one more grin as she fell unconscious, the last thing she heard being the roar of frustration he let out at finding the room empty.
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Later
Louise and Saito's Suite
The brush danced across the parchment as it formed the various kanji at Louise's direction. Pausing only to dip her brush in the inkpot, the de Vallière scion wrote out every pictogram that she knew in the prescribed order that Saito had given her. She had to make it perfect; otherwise it would be another week of calligraphy practice drills!
Every curve had to be elegant, every flick with purpose and every line straight and even. Even the slightest imperfection could cause a catastrophic backfire on the simplest of cantrips. At least that's what Saito said.
She sneaked a glance in the onmyōji's direction. He was making more of his talismans at a speed that frankly astonished her. In the space of time it took her to write three kanji, he had completed two talismans. As she was writing out a mock-up of a lesser talisman of fire, which had thirty kanji and she had just finished her twenty-fifth kanji.
'No! Do not get caught up in competition!' she scolded herself. The last time she had done that, she had made a right mess of the talisman. Saito had informed her that had the talisman been real, it would have blown her hand off when activated.
Still, Louise had to fight down a blush when she saw Saito's determined and focussed face as he wrote. She cursed her hormones for falling for him. He was her Familiar for the love of the Founder!
Granted, he was also her Master…and he was nice to her…and he had no problems correcting her without mocking her…gah! She was not having those kinds of feelings for a Familiar! No way! Especially since he had made it clear that he wanted to break their bond and go back to his own world.
This made her mood sour slightly, but she finished the kanji despite that.
"Finished already?" Saito asked, looking up from his work, "That was quick. You must be getting the hang of 'the void' mind-set."
The void mind-set was what Saito called the ability to distance your conscious mind from what you were actually doing with your hands. It took a great deal of repetition at a task to sink it into memory, but once it's there, the skill made this kind of mind-numbingly boring work easy. Most onmyōji mastered this skill to a greater or lesser degree, which made Louise wince in sympathy for the countless mages who had had to endure such tedium.
"Let's have a look at it." The black-haired boy said, extending his hand. Louise hesitantly handed over her latest attempt and waited pensively for his judgement. Saito studied it, humming and hmming thoughtfully. He even tilted the parchment back and forth for a minute.
"Well…overall, considering that you've only been at this for less than three weeks…" Saito said at last, "…this is rather well done. The cantrip would work, albeit with some power issues in my world. Here, you can afford to be sloppy in some places."
"Sloppy? Where?!" the pinkette squawked indignantly.
"Here, here and here." Saito replied, flipping the parchment around and pointing at the relevant sections as he spoke, "The ink has to be spread evenly across the entirety of the kanji, otherwise, as I pointed out, the magical energy isn't distributed properly. In all of these locations, the ink is just slightly thinner. Try to keep your brush flush with ink at all times and this won't happen. It's almost perfect otherwise."
"How is it less than perfect?" Louise asked.
The otherworld mage looked at her with a sigh. "Louise, no one has ever accomplished 'perfect' calligraphy. Even the Grandmaster has a slight wobble in his hand with some kanji. If someone tells you they have perfect handwriting or calligraphy, they're lying."
"Oh." Louise nodded, recalling the unrealistic expectations of her tutor back at the de Vallière estate when he taught her how to perform cursive handwriting. The dratted woman had demanded nothing less than perfection and no matter how hard Louise tried, she couldn't match those standards.
It had made her very happy to hear her mother pronounce her handwriting 'far more than adequate' and dismissed the woman from her position for unrealistic expectations.
"I think then, with this, you have proven yourself ready to try to make a proper talisman." Saito said gravely.
This made the pinkette's eyes light up. Finally!
Before she could say or do anything, Professor Colbert burst into the room, her eyes wide with panic.
"Miss Vallière, Professor Saito, there is a serious situation that requires your presence!" he said urgently, "Please follow me!"
Saito nodded. Anything that could make the usually calm and in control teacher into a mild panic like he was in now definitely raised red flags for him. Louise evidently agreed with him as she stood at the same instant that he did.
"Professor, what's gotten you so worked up?" Saito asked as he and his Master/Student hurried along the corridors on the Academy at a hasty pace.
"Such a thing has to be seen and heard in order to be believed." Colbert replied tersely. They got no more out of him and resigned themselves to finding out when they reached their destination.
The destination turned out to be the Headmaster's Office. When Colbert threw the doors open and ushered them inside, Louise was immediately tackled by a bawling Princess Henrietta.
"P-p-p-p-princess?!" Louise stuttered as she teetered on the edge of falling over, her arms full of weeping Henrietta. "Her Majesty as well?! What's going on?!"
"Karin, Henrietta, Agnès and I were sitting down and discussing Wardes' true punishment when a great ruckus started to be heard in the Royal Wing." The Dowager-Queen said softly. She was sitting on Old Osmond's seat, shakily holding a cup of tea as she spoke. She was tired, sweaty, pale and drawn.
"I heard multiple people shriek in pain and knew that someone was coming for us." She continued after a sip of the warm liquid, "As did your mother and Agnès. They ordered us to flee while they held off the interlopers."
"Is…is my mother alright?" Louise asked hesitantly, a lump in her throat as she spoke.
"We don't know, child." Osmond replied gruffly.
A flash of light from the Dowager-Queen's wrist made everyone flinch. The woman raised her hand and looked critically at the wristlet she wore at the end of her sleeve.
"Whoever it is has discovered the secret passage and has just broken down the first sealed door." She stated.
"Wh-what should we do?" Louise asked. She clutched her childhood playmate tightly as she spoke.
"There are ten sealed doors that Henrietta and I closed as we travelled, each made of solid steel, enchanted to be very difficult to destroy." The Dowager-Queen replied tiredly, "Once the fifth door is destroyed, Osmond here shall activate the destruction sequence, which will bring the tunnel down own whoever it is that is breaking through them."
"You have such a mechanism in a secret escape passage?" Saito asked with a raised eyebrow.
"The sitting Headmaster of the Academy is the only one who can activate it, so there were no concerns about it being used against us." Henrietta said in a muffled voice as she raised her head up, "The Headmasters are all chosen not only for their apolitical leanings, but also for their loyalty to Tristain in general and the Royal Family in particular, which is one reason why the Heir of the Throne or any of the Royal Family is never educated here."
"To prevent his or her neutrality from being potentially negated." Saito nodded, "Glad that you've recovered yourself, Princess. Feeling better, I take it?"
"Yes, thank you Mr. Saito." The princess nodded before looking at Louise, "My friend…I am sorry for leaving your mother behind like this."
"It was likely my mama's decision." The pinkette replied with a shake of her head, "Don't borrow guilt that isn't yours, Anne."
Henrietta giggled slightly at the name Louise had chosen for her when they played the Princess and her Knight as children. She had been the famous Queen Anne of Gallia while Louise had played the part of her loyal Knight.
Another flash interrupted the talk.
"Another door so soon?" Osmond frowned, and then winced as another flash blazed through the room.
"He's breaking through them faster…Osmond, do it now!" the Dowager-Queen ordered as yet another flash erupted from her wristlet.
Nodding the man reached into his desk and pulled out what looked like a brass plaque. Laying it on his desk, the old mage tapped it thrice with his staff.
[KABOOM]!
Wincing at the loud sound of explosives, Saito and Louise went to the window, which faced towards Tristainia and peered out. Along a straight line from the city to the Academy curtain wall, the ground had collapsed inwardly.
"A straight line?" Saito said disapprovingly.
"It was built centuries ago!" Osmond said defensively.
Louise was following the line of the collapsed tunnel with her eyes when she spotted something. "Saito…is it me or is someone trying to dig themselves out of the tunnel?"
Saito quickly pushed the window open and pulled some talismans out of his jacket, making them levitate in the air in front of him as he placed them in a circle.
"Talisman of Light and Dark, come to my aid!" he chanted, "Bōenkyō! (Telescope!)"
The talismans started to rotate before the space between them became fuzzy. The onmyōji frowned and rand through a hand gesture sequence that cleared the image up. The other mages were startled to see the area Louise had mentioned was displayed there, magnified so that it was clearly visible.
A glowing orange figure knelt next to a hole in the ground, reaching in with one arm. As they watched, it pulled out a blond-haired man who was covered in dirt and seemed to be bleeding from several cuts on his head as he screamed angrily.
"No…it can't be!" Saito muttered. He increased the magnification until only the man's head filled the magnification spell. With a shout of obscenities, he dashed the spell apart.
"Saito?! What…?" Louise trailed off when she saw his white and utterly terrified expression.
"Not THEM…anyone but one of THEM!" the boy muttered as he staggered back to clutch the desk, "Not one of those monsters! He should be dead!"
"Saito, what the hell is wrong with you?!" Louise demanded in anger. Saito was always cool, calm and collected, always one to maintain his equilibrium in the face of adversity. The fact that this man had him shaken was upsetting to Louise for some reason.
"Mr. Saito…you know this person?" Henrietta asked softly.
The onmyōji looked at her for a moment before swallowing and forcing himself to be calm with visible effort.
"Yes…yes, I know him." Saito replied with a shudder, "I doubt that there are any magic users in my world who don't know who he is."
"Kindly explain yourself." The Dowager-Queen ordered him.
"Ok, but…it isn't a pleasant topic." The black-haired boy replied, "Amongst the magic users in my world, most of us are law-abiding for the most part, but there exist those who use their magic selfishly, for their own gains. The very worst of the worst of these people are a part of a group called the Covenant of Thirteen, which is further divided into various factions.
"As the name suggests, the thirteen most powerful magic user groups run the entire lot." Saito continued with a shudder, "The leaders make up their council and they are the bogeymen of all law-abiding magic users. One of them, who was rumoured to be killed in an experiment gone wrong that was actually an assassination attempt, was the man I am seeing out there…Johan von Leopold, the Jewel Master. Otherwise known as the Crystal Sorcerer and the Thief of Legacies."
"But…why is he here?" Henrietta asked.
"At a guess, the experiment/assassination attempt ripped a hole in space-time and flung him into Halkaginia." Saito replied with a shrug, "Which would mean he was looking to create a…portal to another dimension or world. Dear kami all alive, what madness was he thinking? There is a reason we use a ritual to remotely locate and teleport our familiars to us! That fool!"
"I quite agree." Osmond said with a nod, "However, as this man is coming here, could you elaborate on his skills so we might beat him?"
"I…he's known as the Jewel Master, as he is the only man to have successfully mastered the skills of a Jewel Witch." The boy replied shakily, "Unlike regular Jewel Magic, which uses the gems as a replacement for a wand or talisman, a Jewel Witch's magic manifests the gems into alternate forms based on the caster's mental image. Weapons, creatures, people…there is no limit to what they can become."
"I…see." Osmond nodded, "And how powerful is this Jewel Witch Magic?"
"Emereldas and Kaede, my familiars, would be almost totally helpless against it." Saito admitted, "From what little I've read, Jewel Golems are natural enemies to demons and Oni. The golems purify their magic and absorb it, adding to their master's own. Against most magic users, even a mediocre Jewel Witch is formidable. With a master like Johan, it would be nigh impossible to defeat him if he was supplied with a goodly amount of Jewels. As it is, he must have only a certain amount on him, a number that Duchess de Vallière doubtless made much smaller."
"Did…did he kill my mother?" Louise forced herself to ask.
"No." Saito reassured her, "It is well known that the rogue Jewel Witch who taught him Jewel Witch magic forced him to sign a geas contract that forbade him to use any skill he learned from her or any skill that was based on anything he learned from her to kill or maim a female. He got around it by poisoning her with strychnine once she taught him everything she knew, but the contract is still in force even right now. Your mother and Agnès will be beaten and battered, but ultimately still alive unless he chose to engage them with other skills, which he almost never does."
Both Louise and Henrietta breathed a sigh of relief at this revelation.
"Still, I'm honestly terrified at the thought of facing him." The onmyōji confessed, "He is utterly ruthless against males. It was theorised that the geas he is under has warped him into hating his own gender, which is why no male who has faced him has lived. They…didn't die cleanly. Or easily."
The bleak expression on Saito's face made those looking at him believe that.
"We cannot stand idle after he has torn through the Royal Castle." Osmond stated, "Even more worrisome is his pursuit of the Royal Family. We must have a plan and you are the only one who has any idea of his capabilities. I am afraid you may have no choice but to fight him."
This did not fill Saito with confidence.
"Well then…let's plan." He said with a sigh, "I don't feel like dying today, so I think this would be a good time to unearth that Wood Golem that I have buried in front of the gates. It'll hold him off for a while at least."
The mages in the room bent their heads together as they started to plot the defeat of the Jewel Master.
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Next Chapter: Talismans vs. Jewels
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