A few minutes later, not a moment too soon, a sealed envelope appears in front of Chevron in a flash of light. Chevron reaches her hand up toward the hovering envelope, and carefully dislodges the seal from the base of the envelope while keeping the seal intact. She extracts the letter from the envelope and reads it.
Tears well up in Chevron's eyes. She looks at me, smiling.
"He has authorized it," she proclaims. "Now we wait. And hope..."
Much longer, perhaps an hour later, Ashflame and a city mage guard walk up the stairs.
"Do you have the authorization?" Ashflame asks impatiently.
"I do," says Chevron, handing it to her.
Ashflame hands it to the mage guard. The mage guard reads the letter, and then strokes the seal with their thumb, their eyes staring distantly in concentration.
"Well? Is it valid?" asks Ashflame.
"It is." The guard hands the letter back to Ashflame.
"Very well then," Ashflame capitulates, her tone now carrying respect and duty for the word of law. Her eyes motion toward the guards who have watched over us during our whole time in the prison. "Diamond-clads, return to your posts. The rest of us will see that Vrendan Ti'Drannes is removed from his cell alive."
I follow alongside Chevron, feeling looming excitement and dread. After we walk down a second flight of stairs, the life energies from the outside world seem to vanish behind the obsidian walls.
We approach an open room whose obsidian floor and walls make shadows hard to see. A meter-and-a-half-wide square indentation occupies its center. On one side of the indentation is a handle, also obsidian, locked in place by a metal chain.
At Ashflame's command, five guards in obsidian-plated leather gather in the room. Two of them approach the center of the room, one with a key. The keyholder unlocks the chain and tosses the key and chain aside. With considerable strain and grunting, those two guards pull on the handle until the meter-and-a-half-wide trapdoor lifts from the floor and falls to the side with a bang.
A guard tosses the end of a long rope toward the trapdoor, while another guard picks up the rope and turns his back to the others. With a series of knots, the rope is tied around the back-facing guard like a harness. The other four guards bend their knees and pick up the rope.
The rope-tied guard is visibly nervous, knowing very well he is descending into a room of death. He tugs on each knot, then after a confirmation from his peers, he jumps down into the mouth of the obsidian floor, and the four remaining guards add slack to the rope until all that is left is a rope rolling across the rim of the trapdoor hole.
"Pull up!" the hanging man orders.
The four crouching guards pull arm's lengths of the rope in unison, until the rope-covered back of the guard appears in the hole once more, clinging to a limp figure. The guard at the back of the rope runs to the front and grabs the figure from the hanging guard's hands, and the hanging guard then climbs over the edge of the hole, breathing a sigh of relief as his feet are grounded again.
The obsidian trapdoor is closed and re-chained. The figure lays motionless upon the ground. Chevron and I rush to the body.
Is this man truly Dan? And if so... is he still alive?
Chevron turns the figure over to reveal the face of an old, emaciated man, lined with wrinkles. His face is still and his eyes are closed. The man's shirt and pants seem oversized for his wiry frame. Chevron feels the pulse on the man's neck, then desperately rummages in her bag for a potion, uncorks it, and tilts the contents between the man's lips.
The man coughs and spits out the liquid. His eyes open, revealing milky blue irises resting above his cheekbones. His papery hand lifts and grasps the potion bottle, pushing it against his lips as he chugs the rest. The old man then sits up and looks at me, with a familiar, innocent smile.
The old man then holds out his hand, anticipating the potion that Chevron places into it. He uncorks it and holds it to his lips, closing his eyes and drinking slowly as if to savor its bitterness. Once the potion is emptied, the man opens his eyes, and they are changed, no longer a milky blue, but a vibrant, almost glowing blue. In that moment, I feel a wave of realization. The blue eyes, the subtle smirk, the bushy brows, and the very demeanor of this man all converge on a character I know for certain to be Dan. A thinner, wrinklier, and more tired Dan. But still Dan.
Dan gazes at his arms, and then he pushes his fingers against his bony cheeks, and his smile vanishes.
"After all these years, it's finally happened," Dan acknowledges, in a hoarse voice which is less familiar. "And yet, here I am, alive to remember it. And it's you I have to thank for that."
Chevron nods with purpose. "Grand-Mage Peloka ordered your release so that you can track down the demon which is controlling Fristad. He has been informed that the demon is a void mage."
Dan's eyes widen in realization. "Of course..."
Chevron pulls Dan up by his arms.
"I realize I am legally forbidden from interfering," Ashflame remarks, "however, I strongly encourage you get help from the city guards, especially considering Vrendan's condition-"
"That won't be necessary," interrupts Dan, his voice bitter.
"I know a few magi that could help us," offers Chevron congenially to Ashflame, "which would be better suited to the task."
"Our city magi are some of the most highly-"
"Goodbye, Miss Ashflame," states Chevron.
"Alright then."
With the prison overseer finally at our backs, a guard escorts us above the obsidian walls and holds open the door where the prison ends and the city begins.
After the heavy door slams, Chevron looks around her carefully to make sure no one is listening, then turns toward the aged and wrinkled Dan with a knowing look.
"So, it's really true?" asks Chevron. "Jonas' friend Fristad is being controlled by a demon?"
Dan nods. "It's true."
"And that demon is, in fact, a void mage?"
"Yes."
"Do you realize what the implications of that are?" says Chevron.
"What do you mean?" Dan asks.
"It means that the thing this demon is doing to Fristad may not be demonic possession at all. It may be a mind control spell."
Dan's eyes widen. "But... that's impossible! In all theoretical formulations, the mana required is far too great!"
"But the theory is there. The formulations are sound. In principle, a mind control spell could be constructed, in much the same way as a quale spell. The spell could be read, recited, and mastered just like any other, and generalized by a mage who is properly attuned to the void."
"You could bring together all the void magi in the overworld, from the dawn of humankind to the end of time, and channel all their energy together, and you still wouldn't be able to generalize a spell like that!" insists Dan.
"And that's just the problem, isn't it?" remarks Chevron. "There just aren't a lot of void magi out there. Not enough void magi to refine the theories, to preserve the knowledge."
Dan's eyes widen in realization. "Then we don't know what we're dealing with."