AN : Well, here we are at last. Starting with this chapter, we have reached the Revelations arc, where the Eldritch Truth I designed two years ago and which has loomed over this story ever since gets revealed to you, the readers.
I have had these events playing in my mind ever since. Hopefully I manage to deliver a suitably terrible and wondrous experience.
Strap yourselves in. It's going to be a wild ride.
Zahariel out.
PREPARATIONS CONTINUE FOR INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
The President of the Unified States arrived in Berun today, and was welcomed by the Chancellor in a grand welcome ceremony, with hundreds of citizens present. Both men will attend the great international conference scheduled to take place next week, along with representatives from every country which got swept into the Great War. Even Albion will be represented, though it is well understood in diplomatic circles that, due to their recent actions, their influence on any decision made at the conference will be severely curtailed.
The goals of this conference are to prevent a repeat of the Solstice Event, as well as to regulate the use of Elder Magic in warfare, much the same way as the Treaty of Worms regulates warfare in general. Experts from every country present will share their knowledge, no doubt toeing a difficult line between telling enough to make their opinions heard and not sharing state secrets to foreign powers.
The conference will officially start next Monday, on the 6th of September – though, again, there is no doubt that diplomats have already begun to talk to each other ahead of time, learning the positions of the other participants in advance. It is currently planned to last for the entire week, at the end of which a public statement shall be made regarding the conclusions and accords reached by the gathered parties. The Kaiser has made an announcement that, while he doesn't plan to attend the conference itself, he will be present at the final proclamation.
For the entirety of the conference, security across Berun will be tight, with military police reinforcing local law enforcement. While the Great War is over, the possibility of leftover malcontents attempting to sabotage the new peace remains, and it would be a great affront to the honor of the Reich if any of the visiting dignitaries should be injured while in our territory.
In order to keep things smooth, all Imperial citizens residing in the capital are asked to carry an official document proving their identity until the end of the conference …
Excerpt from the front-page of the Berun Post, September 1st, 1926.
"The containment of the Moskva Blast Site is proceeding on schedule. Having mages helping with the construction is really helping : I can only imagine what they will be able to achieve in the civilian sector now that the war is over. Already the concrete walls are rising around the site, though it will be many months still before we complete the first stage of the architects' planned design (which, I am given to understand, is only a first draft and subject to revision).
Although it's been difficult to get a straight answer out of the soldiers, as they are as unwilling to admit weakness as any Imperial trooper, it's clear the corpse of the entity still affects the minds of those who remain nearby. The experts from Division Y assure me that bad dreams and the occasional headache should be the worst of it, so long as the soldiers are kept from the containment site itself and regularly rotated out. Some of them have started talking about using death row inmates to explore the inside of the Blast Site and report on its condition : while I find the notion disgusting, I leave that decision to those more learned than I in such matters.
From our contacts with the Russy units in Josefgrad, the collapse of the Federation is also advancing more or less as our experts anticipated it would. Commander Zhenkov's men hold Josefgrad and the surrounding area, and have contacted other cities to try and establish a new government, but their reach is limited. At the moment, they are focusing on maintaining order in their territory, hunting down the remaining Progeny and re-establishing contact with the rest of the Federation.
Unfortunately, it has become clear that, even in regions that the Progeny didn't reach before Operation Gottesmörder eliminated the Dark Mother, the influence of the Solstice Event was still felt. Many civilians were driven mad by the entity's manifestation, and their sanity didn't return with its demise. We've received reports of entire villages being emptied by acts of mass homicide, grotesque human sacrifices committed by cultists who ended their own lives upon the success of Operation Göttesmorder.
In addition, with the collapse of the Federation's harsh hierarchy, countless rebel groups have sprung up across Russy, striking at any representatives of the Party they can reach. While this is an understandable response, considering what we know of the ways in which the Federation enforced its rule, it is also spreading chaos and anarchy.
With the coming of autumn, and winter not far behind it, I fear that, unless something change dramatically in the coming weeks, the death toll from famine and sickness alone will make the losses of the Solstice Event pale in comparison. I have been informed by Division Y's experts that such circumstances would provide fertile ground for the lingering influence of the Dark Mother or that of other Mythos entities to take root, at a time where the Reich can ill-afford another conflict.
As such, I formally request greater humanitarian and military support to prevent the descent of an entire continent-sized country into chaos."
Extract from a report sent by the Eastern Imperial Army to Central Headquarters, September 1st, 1926.
"The Royal Wizard has been remanded into the custody of the Albish government, as per the terms of the peace treaty between the Empire and the Allied Kingdom. Although the prisoner was treated with all the courtesies befitting someone of his status (despite his cowardly assassination attempt on then-Colonel Lergen), it is clear that his mind has suffered greatly in recent months.
Throughout his captivity, he kept rambling about a threat to the entire world dwelling within the Empire, insisting that this 'Not-Man' was none other than General Lergen, who had deceived everyone but the Royal Wizard as to his true nature. Although these ramblings were obviously nonsensical, they were still recorded by operatives of Division Y sent to interview the captive right after his capture in Ildoa.
I don't know how they expect to make sense of them : clearly the old man cracked under the pressure of his job and his growing age. I mean, really, an immortal, reincarnating evil wizard who has been consistently stopped by chosen champions of the Lord for thousands of years, now acting as a hero of the Reich who leads from far closer to the frontline than regulations recommend ?
If nothing else, I suppose it would make for an interesting penny dreadful."
Personal writings of an Imperial Army secretary working at Central Headquarters, September 2nd, 1926.
"The Akitsushima Dominion has confirmed its desire to have a representative at the conference, citing recent happenings in their country following the Solstice Event. Our correspondence has been frustratingly vague as to the details of these events, but our analysts believe that to be not because the Akitsushiman want to keep things hidden from us, but because they fear not being believed if they don't explain them in person.
They are sending one of their 'Onmyōji', which is the term they use for mages trained using traditional methods. While we might have once looked down upon them, secure in the superiority of our modern mages, armed with computation orbs and arcane rifles, we must remember that the might of Division Y itself comes from such old lore.
Still, as is the case in countries with a less rational approach to magecraft than the Empire, magic in the Dominion appears to be the province of elite bloodlines (the country is still famously isolationist, making obtaining concrete intelligence a difficult task), preserved and cultivated over the centuries. As such, the emissary will be nobody less than the daughter of Rokuro Adashino, Supreme Onmyōji of the Dominion : Sakura Adashino.
Due to the distance between Akitsushima and the Empire, and the short time before the conference starts, Miss Adashino and her escorts will journey to Berun by flying under their own power. The Qin Empire has apparently agreed to allow them passage over its territory, and the Russy Federation is hardly in a state to stop them – though Commander Zhenkov has given his permission for them to cross the airspace.
The fact that Qin is willing to allow this speaks volumes as to the seriousness of the threat they believe they face, since the two nations' history has been about as peaceful as the one between the Reich and the Francois Republic.
We have reached out to Division Y to provide an escort to Miss Adashino once they arrive in the Empire, since they are the ones most likely to understand her concerns and take them seriously – as well as be able to neutralize her if this turns out to be a ploy to sabotage the conference, whether at the Akitsushiman Emperor's behest or not."
Internal memo of the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Relations, September 2nd, 1926.
"I will do what I can to secure support from the Imperials, but in the meantime, I want the Army to get ready if we need to move into Brazil. Get the equipment from Research Group 51 we didn't send to Europa finished and ready for deployment, stat.
If what's brewing in that Brazilian forest is akin to what killed Moskva, then by God, we need to be ready for it. The fact there's still a Brazilian Empire means it isn't on the same scale, at least, but from what the Imperials already told us about what led to the Solstice, these things can escalate really damn quickly. Even if this turns out to be an over-reaction, at least showing we're taking this seriously will prevent folks from panicking and doing something stupid.
I need you to stay vigilant and ready until I can secure the help of the Reich. If things do escalate, don't waste time getting in touch with me : act immediately. I regret that I have to saddle you with this responsibility, but not going to Berun in person might be taken as a slight, and we absolutely need things to go well here.
May God be with you."
Encrypted radio transmission sent by the President of the Unified States of America to his Vice-President, September 2nd, 1926.
"While Mister Teslus's life is no longer at risk, it will still take months of intensive magical healing to undo the nerve damage he has suffered, and he will bear scars for the remainder of his days. Nevertheless, his mental state has recovered enough, and his painkiller dosage has been lowered to the point that it is now possible for him to hold conversations with what his assistants from the Unified States tell us is as much focus as he was capable of prior to the Battle of Moskva.
He has also been cleared of any mental contamination by Division Y, which I am given to understand could have required his execution, despite the potential diplomatic complications. Frankly, having talked to the man myself, I wonder how they are able to tell.
Ultimately, while I again must protest against Mister Teslus' release from medical care, I confirm that he is fit to attend the international conference at Berun next week. He will, however, require the use of a wheelchair to move around, and to be accompanied by a trained nurse at all times, who will be responsible for ensuring he takes his prescribed medication."
Internal memo from the Imperial Army's medical branch, September 2nd, 1926.
"Behind the walls, the silence screams,
Hidden in lies, sing twisted dreams.
In stolen heart of empire claimed,
Hollow man waits among flesh-changed.
His fell knowledge like a spear hurled,
So greatest war consumes the world.
The throne lies quiet, the whispers wait,
An eldritch veil, an altered fate.
Beneath the keep of blackened stone,
A false mind speaks, old truths are shown.
To sire legions from secrets dark,
A new army for a vile monarch.
Till last hour comes, till faith's sundered,
Till the Adversary's might has faded.
His wicked hand, no more concealed,
When twice-born child at last has kneeled."
Final entry of the personal journal of a courtier at the Imperial Court.
September 3rd, 1926 – Imperial Capital Berun – Imperial Palace
Since graduating from the Military Academy three years ago, I hadn't needed to wear my dress uniform except for a few ceremonies honoring the fallen warriors of Division Y. In order not to embarrass myself before the Kaiser, a new uniform had been ordered. I could only imagine what kind of strings Brigadier General Zettour had needed to pull in order for it to be waiting for me when I had arrived in Berun on a military train – Iosefka's instructions still forbid me from flying, whether by my own power or carried by someone else.
The dress uniform certainly looked good, if not nearly as practical as I was used to. It also fit me perfectly, despite being obviously custom-made, as (as far as I knew) I still had the dubious honor of being the single youngest officer of the entire Imperial Army. Iosefka or someone else must have sent my measurements to the capital (not that it was the long list : there was Visha and Elya, and that was it for who had access to that information).
I might not have grown a lot since graduating, but three years in Castle Schwartzstein eating the same food which was served to the third-born sons of nobility and crackpot occult researchers which had made up Division Y before my directorate had still done wonders to balance the damage of years of poor nutrition at the orphanage (the nuns had tried their best, I knew, but there was only so much they could do with the resources they had available and the number of orphans the last war against Francois had left behind).
I had come to Berun with a group of supersoldiers representative of the Division. In addition to Visha and Zerayah, Weiss and Grantz had both come, along with Doctor Laurence and a handful of the more social and sane-seeming occultists. While they couldn't accompany me to the Imperial Palace, their presence would lend me gravitas at the upcoming conference, and Laurence and the other nerds would be able to talk the ear off of anyone asking for technical details – without revealing anything anyone not already steeped into the Mythos could make sense of.
To make sure nothing bad happened to them (like, as a totally random example, operatives who most definitely weren't working for another attending nation attempting to kidnap them for their secret knowledge), I had also brought a squad of troopers armed with M-912s along with regular military equipment, who were on bodyguarding and babysitting duty. Some might have considered such a thing beneath veterans of Operation Göttesmorder, but this was basically what their job amounted to at Castle Schwartzstein anyway.
Between them and Visha, I was confident they wouldn't run into any issues while I answered the Kaiser's summons. Which left me with only my imminent audience with the Kaiser to worry about.
The Imperial Palace was located in the center of Berun, on an islet in the middle of the river which ran through the capital. The military car left me right in front of the steps leading to the main entrance.
If my memory served me correctly, there'd been a similar building to this one in my old world, but it'd been destroyed at some point during the twentieth century. Of course, despite all the similarities between this world and the one in which I'd spent my previous life, the simple existence of magic had caused the timelines to diverge quite dramatically even before I'd introduced the horrors of the Mythos into the equivalent of World War One, so I'd no way of knowing how close the Imperial Palace was to its otherworldly equivalent.
The Palace's interior was as luxurious as I'd expected. It had been built nearly five centuries ago, and upgraded more or less constantly since then. Its architecture was baroque, with high arches and a lot of gold everywhere. It would have been gaudy, but this was the home of the Imperial Family, and the sheer age and prestige of the building made it look impressive instead.
As I was guided through the corridors and toward the audience room where my ennoblement ceremony was slated to take place, I passed enough artworks to fill half a dozen museums, from centuries-old paintings by long-dead masters to marble statues and great woven tapestries displaying important scenes from Imperial history. Some of them wouldn't have looked out of place back in my old world, showing hunting scenes or the crowning of some significant monarch. Others, however, were a potent reminder that this was a whole other world, as they showed ancient mages performing deeds that had either been exaggerated with time, or done with the help of a true sacred relic, the likes of which computation orbs were mere mass-produced counterfeits.
There were weapons too, kept in display cases and hanging from the walls. Through what I could only imagine was the constant effort of dozens of servants, they each looked like they could still be used to kill someone if you picked them up, their metal gently glistening in the light pouring through the large, elaborately decorated windows.
Then, finally, I was ushered in through a pair of large, gilded doors and into the audience room proper. My eyebrows raised as I took in the scene on the other side. I was truly being honored : not only was the Kaiser there, looking every bit the regal monarch on his throne, the entire Imperial Family was in attendance as well, with the children of the Kaiser sitting on their own, lesser thrones several steps beneath that of the Reich's sovereign.
The Kaiser was mostly a symbol these days, a figurehead who took little direct action in the workings of government. According to the constitution of the Empire, executive power rested with the Chancellor, who was appointed by the Kaiser as his representative (though in practice, the Kaiser's choice was always aligned with that of Parliament's dominant faction). Of course, in recent years, more and more power had rested with the Imperial Army : for all its rationalism, I wasn't blind to my second homeland's faults, and a militaristic focus was definitely one of them, albeit one justified by the fact the Reich had quite literally been surrounded by enemies on all sides. Well, except for Ildoa, who had been more of a semi-neutral acquaintance before the Congregation of Michael had taken it over.
Still, the Imperial Family was greatly respected by the common folk of the Reich and the nobility alike. During the Great War, the Kaiser had mostly remained silent apart from repeated appeals for peace to the Reich's enemies, which put him well above most world leaders in the current era, who had seemed all too eager to throw their countries into war with no regard for the waste of human lives that had ensued.
In addition to the Imperial Family, the court was here in strength, with around three scores nobles present. These, I knew, were the family heads of some of the Reich's most ancient and esteemed bloodlines, and the progenitors of many of the disgraced sons who had ended up in Castle Schwartzstein back when Division Y had only been a joke. Briefly, I imagined how they must feel knowing that the children they had cast off had done more to help the Reich in the war than any of them.
As someone who held firmly to meritocratic principles, I found myself pleased by the idea, and wondered if that wasn't part of the reason the Kaiser had brought so many of them here, as a not-so-subtle reminder of the shifting centers of power in the Empire. If so, then he was more of a cunning politician that I'd given him credit for.
So, while I wasn't as much of a fan of monarchy as most Imperial citizens, I could bear playing along with the ceremony and talk with him afterwards. As every eye in the chamber turned on me, the servant who had escorted me through the palace cleared his throat and announced in a loud, clear voice :
"Presenting Major Tanya Degurechaff, Director of Division Y, to His Imperial Majesty !"
I had been briefed on the protocol for the ennoblement ceremony, and had made sure to memorize it by heart. Right now, protocol demanded that I walk down the aisle between the courtiers on each side, and kneel in front of the Imperial Throne. The path wasn't that long, but my legs were small – yet I refused to let that embarrass me. If I could lead Division Y's occultists and Mythos-empowered soldiers, then I could damn well hold my ground in front of a bunch of aristocrats.
I was halfway through when, on my forehead, I felt the skin where Kory had kissed me goodbye when I'd left Castle Schwartzstein burn. The sensation was so sudden, so out of nowhere, that it nearly made me miss a step and fall on my face in front of the entire court – but I caught myself.
Between one step and the next, I closed my eyes and thought. Something was wrong. The burning sensation was increasing, nearly turning into outright pain. Was this some kind of delayed assassination attempt by Being X, who had managed to reach Kory despite the sundering of their link at Bovariastadt and the many wards against extra-dimensional intrusions around Division Y's headquarters ?
Or maybe …
What I did next was a flagrant violation of the military rules of conduct for aerial mages, and of the etiquette expected of any Imperial subject granted the honor of an audience with the Kaiser. If I was wrong, and I got caught, this would be an indelible blemish on my reputation. But I had to risk it, because the consequences of doing nothing if my sudden, seemingly crazed idea turned out to be true were incalculable.
I channelled mana through my eyes. Without a computation orb, it was only a basic spell. Most aerial mages couldn't have done it, as they relied entirely upon their orbs to process their inner mana, but I hadn't been Director of Division Y for years without picking up a few tricks. With how many incidents had happened in the early days after the Denkmaschine had been turned on for the first time, a basic spell of true seeing had been an absolute requirement. I hadn't needed to use one since Arene and my first use of the Kosmosblut, but I hadn't forgotten how to do it, and the spell went off perfectly.
I opened my eyes, no more than a couple of seconds having passed. If I was wrong, then this could be passed off as me being reasonably nervous.
But I wasn't wrong, no matter how much I'd have preferred to be.
Illusions. I was surrounded by illusions. But I sensed, with magical perceptions sharpened by years surrounded by strange magical phenomena, that this wasn't anything like the optic spells used by aerial mages to create decoys during fights. This was more than a bending of light and sound : it was a layer of deceit painted over reality, pieces of the Palace's past plucked out and woven into a cohesive whole.
And, the moment I realized it was here, it shattered with a sound eerily reminiscent of the breaking of the skies above Bovariastadt, dropping me into a scene straight out of the darkest nightmares that had haunted me since realizing I had helped unleash the horrors of the Mythos upon this world.
All around me, where before there had been the courtiers and nobles of the capital, now stood just as many monsters. I recognized some of them from reports I'd read about what had happened in Kemet, when the Albish had broken the seal of the Nameless City. Fiends, we had called them : creations of the Heresiarch which had been petrified to survive the passing of millennia, and which had fed on human flesh as well as that of their own. These horrors had divided in several categories, and the ones I beheld now had several more among them, each more horrid than the last.
One might think that, after witnessing the various types of Werwölfe, I would be inured to such sights. But there was some impossible to define difference between the instances of Projekt W and the Fiends, some ineffable quality that made the creatures surrounding me repulsive in a way even the most unnerving Werwölfe hadn't. I saw masses of tentacles and thorns, wicked wings raising from bulbous skulls with a single, tri-lobed eye; horned, fur-covered beasts with gleaming red eyes, and eldritch glimmering things I could only describe as floating masses of bubbles that glimmered in the light of the chandeliers above us all, and which somehow still managed to broadcast malevolence.
They all stared at me, grinning and drooling, but none – not a single one of them – was making a move toward me. Slowly, afraid of what I was going to find, I turned toward the throne at the end of the chamber. Where the Imperial Family had sat were the same seats I'd seen in the illusion, but damaged and splattered with old bloodstains nobody had bothered to clean.
As for the Kaiser himself, his throne was still there, insultingly pristine compared to the horrors surrounding it. But instead of an ageing but regal monarch, there was a pile of pulsing, twitching meat sitting on it, with a familiar crown perched atop it in what, through the shock and horror, I could only see as a staggeringly poor joke.
This wretched thing had been the Kaiser once, I knew then and there, before something unspeakable had been done to him. I had seen many horrible things working with Division Y, witnessed many gruesome fates in the aftermath of failed experiments, and this matched the very worst of them.
"Impressive," I heard someone call out. I tore my gaze from the obscene sight of my lawful sovereign's mutated, twitching living corpse, and looked at the caller as he came out of the crowd to stand between me and the tainted thrones.
He looked like no one in particular. That wasn't to say he had an ordinary face : he genuinely didn't look like anyone. My brain couldn't hold onto any descriptor when I looked at him. I couldn't tell whether he was tall or small, thin or large, what kind of clothes he was wearing – nothing, beyond the fact that it was a man. I thought back to mere moments ago, trying to think about what I'd seen in the illusions where he'd stood. Had he been hiding as well, or had my eyes merely swept over him without realizing it ? I couldn't tell.
"Hello, Tanya," he said in a voice that was as lacking in distinct features as everything else about him. "This would have been easier on everyone involved if you hadn't detected my illusions … but then, this only proves your value."
The pieces came together in my head, and no matter how horrifying the full picture was, I could not avert my eyes from the truth. The creatures that surrounded us, so similar to the Fiends of the Nameless City. The records I'd read of the Albish Royal Wizard's interview. My own reflections on the implications of the Mythos' existence in this world. Being X's increasing desperation and heavy-handedness in crushing the Empire as Division Y unveiled more and more Wunderwaffen.
"The Albish weren't crazy after all," I breathed out, fighting to stay calm. "They were just looking in the wrong place. It's you. You're the Not-Man that Merlin spoke about. The ancient being whom the Heresiarch served, who keeps popping back up every thousand years."
Now that I faced him myself, I understood now why the medieval people who had fought him a thousand years ago had called this being the 'Not-Man' in their texts. From their perspective, 'like a man, but not' was probably as good a description as they could have come up with.
"Indeed I am," he replied, doing an elaborate, mocking bow. Stunned, it was all I could do to stand here as he went on : "And I have been watching you for a long time, Tanya. When I sensed the touch of the Adversary on your soul, I became curious. I thought you were his instrument, sent on this world to interfere with my purpose. But then I heard your thoughts as you sat in one of his temples of lies. I sensed your hatred of him, hidden under a mask of piety."
I knew of what he spoke. Before being assigned to Division Y and having far too many demands on my time, I had made a habit of visiting a church every few days, to silently curse Being X while in a praying posture so nobody would question it – after all, I'd been raised in a Church orphanage, so everybody had expected me to be as devout as any child could be. In hindsight, it hadn't been the most productive use of my time, but I had been a pre-teen who thought she had been cursed by a devil acting as God. I still thought that now, of course, but I was far more worried about the devil in front of me, who was apparently able to read my mind without me noticing anything was out of the ordinary.
"I had to be careful, of course," the Not-Man continued. "Even if you weren't aligned with him as I first thought, he still had an eye on you. But then, I read that wondrous dissertation of yours, and I realized that, even without revealing myself, I could use you, as a distraction if nothing else."
"You …" I gasped, finally finding my voice again. "You didn't put that ridiculous idea into my head ?"
"I did not," he said, and I swore I could hear a smile in his voice. "You came up with that fascinating concept all on your own – but of course, it wouldn't have worked without me putting my finger on the scales, so to speak. Who do you think approved your transfer to Division Y in the first place ? Who do you think lit up the spark inside the Denkmaschine so that the experiment would succeed ?"
"But why ?" I asked.
Despite how much danger I was in, I really wanted to know the answer. I had spent years wondering why the crackpot theory I had come up with by mixing some concepts I vaguely remembered from an article on artificial intelligence in my previous life while suffering from sleep deprivation had actually worked. Now I knew this was because this entity had interfered, but his motivations yet escaped me – although, judging by the horror he'd made of the Imperial Palace, I doubted they were anything good.
"Because I learned from previous failures," he explained, "and so tried something new, something unprecedented. You used the seed of true knowledge I gave you to build Division Y into the greatest military force on the planet, while I made sure the Adversary couldn't interfere directly."
He gestured toward the throne, where the thing which had once been the Kaiser sat and twitched.
"What did you do to the Kaiser ?" I asked.
"After Schugel was whisked away by the Adversary, I realized I needed a way to keep them from interfering in your work, until you found your footing and built your own protections. But all miracles require sacrifice. So I came to the Kaiser, and made him an offer. He wanted the Empire to become the greatest nation in the world : I made sure that would come to pass."
"I doubt he'd have agreed to this," I protested. Not unless there'd been a lot more inbreeding in the Imperial line than I had thought.
"But he did … in a fashion. I told him greatness would come at a cost, but it seems that he thought the cost would be born by other people and not himself."
Ah. A classic deal with the devil, then, though I suspected the Kaiser hadn't even known he was talking with a supernatural being at the time, and any 'agreement' the Not-Man might have extracted from him had been under several layers of deceit. Had the Not-Man needed the Kaiser's approval, though, or only pretended to do so ? None of the entities we had encountered before had shown such limitations, but that didn't mean anything. Different entities operated under different rules, and if the Not-Man had once been a human wizard, as Merlin believed, then who knew what restrictions he operated under.
If he did need consent, even fraudulently obtained, though, then that might just give me a chance.
"If you did all of this after the incident at Elenium Arms," I forced myself to continue questioning the Not-Man, "then I take it you've been acting in the Kaiser's stead for years ?"
"Precisely. It wasn't that difficult : all it took was a decree that, with the harsh demands of the war, no aerial mage should be spared for the symbolic duty of guarding the Imperial Palace. Most mages wouldn't have noticed my veils, of course, but I thought it better not to risk it. I took over the court, and used it to pull strings to ensure events proceeded as I desired – and so they have, for we now stand at the threshold of absolute triumph over the Adversary."
It was difficult to tell without any body language to read, but the Not-Man sounded more and more excited as he spoke. I imagined that he'd been waiting for years to explain this to someone who wasn't a flesh-twisted abomination.
"In the Far East and the jungles of South America, my chosen foment chaos and discord, spreading fear and uncertainty," he proclaimed, and part of me couldn't help but think he sounded like a stereotypical anime villain at the moment – but the hellish sights around me kept him from being ridiculous. "All to ensure that the self-proclaimed lords of the world gather here, in this city, within my reach. At long, long last, the victory I have sought for aeons is at hand."
It sounded absurd, like something a conspiracy theorist a hundred years from now would spout out on the Internet in a desperate bid for attention. But I couldn't dismiss it, because I remembered how Being K had manipulated events through time in order to orchestrate its own manifestation – and, unlike the Not-Man, the Dark Mother hadn't truly been sentient, just a blind, idiotic construct following what could best be called its programming.
Given the same achronal capabilities, who knew what an intelligent mind might be capable of ?
But it didn't mean he was invincible, I told myself before panic could take hold. The Dark Mother had been defeated in the end, and if the Not-Man was truly all-knowing and all-powerful, then he wouldn't have been defeated by Being X's agents time and again. If a bunch of Middle-Age warriors could take him, then so could a bunch of soldiers with M-912 rifles.
Unfortunately, I didn't have even one such weapon with me. I was alone, weaponless, and surrounded by Fiends, with my gear and escort left several kilometers across Berun. Which couldn't possibly be a coincidence.
"The court," I asked, still trying to buy time. "They were all important nobles of the Empire. How did you hide their disappearance ?"
"Who said anything about them disappearing ?" he replied.
The Not-Man gestured at a pair of the Fiends, and their bodies began to twist and warp hideously. This wasn't anything like the Werwölfe, whose inhuman selves emerged from extra-dimensional space to wrap themselves around their human cores when they transformed : the flesh of the Fiends was mutating before my eyes, with grotesque sounds of skin tearing and bone breaking until two humans stood in the place of the monsters. They were naked, and there was a look on their faces that told me that those weren't men who had gained the ability to turn into monsters, but monsters who remembered how to take the guise of men.
"As you can see, my minions are perfectly able to go out of the Palace and maintain the pretence of their former lives when necessary, though their lives were already centered around the Court anyway," continued the Not-Man, even as the thought that a bunch of shape-shifting monsters had been running around the Empire's capital for years without being noticed bounced inside my skull.
"But that's enough indulging you and answering your questions, Tanya. It is time for us to get to the business at hand."
I immediately tensed even more, if that were possible. He chuckled, and the sound made the Fiends around us laugh – a monstrous cacophony of shrieks that was still less disturbing than their master's singular chuckle.
"Be not afraid, Tanya. I did not have you come here under completely false pretences. You are truly here to be ennobled, for you have served me well. I planted the seed of truth at the heart of your precious Denkmaschine, true, but it was you who cultivated that seed to bear its manyfold wondrous fruits."
"Why would I serve someone who usurped my lawful monarch ?" I dared to ask.
"Oh, don't pretend you ever held any loyalty to that fool. I looked into your heart, Tanya. I know that you only ever truly cared about yourself. And I gave you what you wanted most : a position in the rear, far from the frontlines. What do you think would have happened without me pulling the strings ? I will tell you. As an aerial mage, you would have been sent to Norden, right as the war went hot and that dear Colonel Sue you've been hosting tore through the Imperial mages to secure the retreat of the Legadonians. What chance do you think you'd have stood as a nine-year-old child against him ?"
That … made a disturbing amount of sense. I wanted to believe the Imperial bureaucracy wouldn't have sent a nine-year-old to the frontlines, but I still remembered the newspapers prior to the Norden Incident. Most people had assumed the conflict with the Entente would peter out in time, once their ruling council got ousted by their own citizens after they realized they couldn't possibly hope to fight the Reich and win.
"I have given you much, and you have given me more in return, though you knew it not. Now is the time for our accord to be made official. And before you think of doing something stupid like refusing, consider your situation. You have no weapon, no allies, no orb. I have made sure of this, because I respect your competence that much. All you have is the body of a twelve-year-old girl, and, well. I don't think this is going to help you much here, do you ?"
He was right. Curse him, but he was right. I could use a few tricks like the true seeing that had shown me the truth, but none of them would let me escape a single Fiend, let alone a horde of them.
I considered playing along. I could kneel, let him put whatever spell he wanted on me, and look for a way to break free later. Division Y had a lot of experience dealing with indoctrination by now : while the Not-Man's methods were undoubtedly different from Being X's, I had worked hard to build safeguards in the Division's protocols against such mind control, which included contingencies for becoming compromised myself.
But … no. No. I couldn't do it. The mere idea of letting anyone control my mind, be they a god or a jumped-up antediluvian warlock, was utterly abhorrent to me. I knew all the contingencies in question, and depending on the mechanics of his control, I might be able to subvert them all.
And he was wrong about one thing, too. I did care about others. Perhaps that hadn't always been the case; perhaps, when he'd violated the privacy of my thoughts years ago, there had been no one besides myself I cared for. But that was no longer the case. There were many people who relied on me, many who had pledged to follow and aid me, and who would be dragged into the Not-Man's influence along with me if I submitted.
I looked up at where his face should be, still unable to see anything my brain could process.
"I am Tanya Degurechaff," I spat. "And I do not kneel !"
And there, suddenly in my hand, I felt the familiar shape of my computation orb, fused to the Nazzadi weapon on their ruined homeworld. I had left it in Visha's care while I went on this trip : the orb I'd handed over at the Palace's entrance was just a standard D-24.
Somehow, I wasn't surprised that the relic weapon had crossed the distance between the military base where my Adjutant and the rest of my escort were stationed and the Imperial Palace just as I needed it most. It was, after all, the same weapon which had slain a dragon and an incarnated godling.
And, unlike everything else Division Y had created, the Nazzadi relic had nothing to do with the Not-Man's interference, which gave me hope that I might just make it out after all.
I immediately went on the offensive, casting a spell to conjure a firestorm around me while preparing a spell to fly up and punch through the roof before calling for help. The Fiends screamed in surprise and pain as a ring of flames erupted around me, instinctively recoiling from me.
But, through the fire, I saw that the Not-Man hadn't moved at all, completely untouched by the raging inferno around him. Instead, he raised a hand, and tendrils of black smoke erupted from it, wrapping themselves around me and instantly cutting off my access to mana. I fell back to the ground, my flying spell interrupted, and he strode toward me as the flames died down.
As he loomed over me, the tendrils binding me forced my head up so that I looked directly at him. For the first time, I was able to register one of his features : a wide, grinning smile.
"You're even more dangerous than I expected," he said, and the smile didn't move when he spoke. "But such petty tricks won't work against me, Major. Even that cane of yours won't save you, not from me. If you had access to your little elixir, perhaps you might be a threat, but I made sure that option wasn't available to you, didn't I ?"
"The Grandmother," I gasped in sudden pain as my bindings tightened around me. "She –"
"She made sure you were still too weak to challenge me," the Not-Man finished. "Just as I ordered her to."
I opened my mouth, not knowing what I was going to say, but more tendrils wrapped themselves around my face, gagging and blinding me – yet still, I could hear the Not-Man's mocking voice, which I realized only now wasn't a voice at all, anymore than he – it – was a man.
"You will join the ranks of my servants whether you want it or not," the entity gloated. "And when the petty kings of this age gather in a few days, you will go to them, and they will welcome you, so that you might bind them to my will in turn. I will build my rule from the shadows until none remain who can oppose me; then and only then shall I step into the light and set alight the pyres whose fires will awaken my masters and guide them to this miserable mud ball."
"It is inevitable, and your defiance will change nothing."
Pain overwhelmed me. Darkness engulfed me. And then –
Nothingness.
NEXT TIME :
They are themselves but they are also me.