Chapter 17 – An Unsettling Reunion
“Settle down,” the stranger replied. “We’ve taken care of the army around the Kingdom.”
“Catherine, you’re a fool!” Tyuin snapped, turning his head away so as not to face her. Remi tried to get a closer look at the stranger, but she still couldn’t move. Catherine? The Catherine Tyuin had talked about? She was here in the flesh?
“It was a small army,” Catherine said to him, remaining still. “Daisy and Talia are more than equipped.”
“That’s not the point,” he exclaimed, turning around to point in her face. “You were supposed to wait until Allay was in serious danger. This hardly qualifies.”
“You were going to die,” she said matter-of-factly. “So were your guards and countless villagers. What were the survivors supposed to do without their King?”
“You could have easily taken my place at the throne. You are more than qualified for the position.”
“Those days are over,” she said, still not moving her body. “The wilderness is my home now. You know that. When I agreed to help Allay, it was with the understanding that you would never ask me to take the throne.”
“These are desperate times,” he said, clenching his jaw. “You should have waited, Catherine. Saving me doesn’t help us. Do you know what will happen now? Cimmerian will take note. They will know that you’re here and then they’ll send the real heavy-hitters to take you out. All you’ve done is start the next wave!”
“We’ll handle it. We always have.”
“The beauty of the worlds being separate is that once an enemy was killed, you didn’t have to deal with them again. But since the Great Collision, we have Dejas now. People who have experience in life, as well as death and beyond. Not to mention that you have enemies that know you. You specifically. As a matter of fact, I have one in my dungeon at this very moment.”
“What?” she asked, taking a step forward. “Who?”
“Dominic,” he said, starting to finally calm down. “He let himself be captured. But I imagine it won’t stay that way for long.”
“May I speak to him?” she asked and Tyuin muttered something Remi couldn’t hear. He stormed off as Catherine remained where she stood for a moment. Then she turned to Remi and walked over to her. With a low grunt, she crouched down so that they were face to face.
“Hey there,” Catherine said and Remi’s laugh came out as a cough. “Hey, no need to talk. You did a great job back there. I almost thought you had him…can you stand?”
Remi stared back at her, and she moved her lips a little, but no words came out.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to talk,” Catherine said as she stood back up. She reached down, picked Remi up almost effortlessly and threw her over her shoulder. Catherine turned her attention to a wounded Kace, who was just waking up from a forced nap.
“Are you okay to walk?” she asked him and he nodded weakly. “Then come on, we don’t have much time.”
“I can carry her,” Kace muttered as he climbed to his feet. Catherine examined him for a moment and then let out a chuckle.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I’m a lot stronger than I look.”
“You’re Catherine,” he said as they headed towards the castle.
“You’ve heard of me?”
“A little,” he whispered, clutching his side. “You’re a Sage.”
“I am.”
“And a Deja.”
“Nope,” she declared proudly. “Haven’t died yet.”
“The way Tyuin talked about you, I thought you would be older.”
“I’m definitely older than I look,” she said. “But thankfully the atmosphere changes have slowed down my aging. I don’t have the luxury of completely halted aging like the Dejas do. How old do I look?”
“I don’t know…like you’re in your mid-thirties, I guess.”
“I don’t feel like it,” she admitted. “To be honest, I feel like I’ve yet to reach my prime.”
“You’ve found ways to keep your eidolon strong?”
“How do you know about—that’s right,” she said amusingly. “The Quietus must have stories about the Sages, and Remi here…I’m sure you’ve seen her eidolon plenty.”
Remi wanted to say something, but she opted to conserve her energy instead.
“You know about her?”
“I keep track of all of Cimmerian’s marks. Just in case we want to intervene.”
“We?”
“There’s four of us. Myself, Talia, Daisy and Marie. Three Sages and a Prattlian. We live in the wilderness and intervene in affairs as we see fit. You could say we align with Paragon, but we don’t answer to anyone. Long story.”
“So why didn’t you try to contact us earlier? If you knew that Remi had Sage potential?”
“Because she won’t get stronger if we coddle her,” she said, turning her head so that she whispered it into Remi’s ear. Remi smiled. She appreciated the thought.
“So now that you’re here, and you’re supposed to be some Legendary Sage, that means we’re going to be okay, right?”
“I wish,” she said solemnly as they climbed the castle steps and headed into the foyer. “But the truth is, we have no idea what Cimmerian will throw at us next. As sad it is to say, they are far more organized than we are.”
“So we just keep facing the hordes and hope we come out on top?”
“Until a leader emerges that can organize us efficiently, it looks that way.”
“Weren’t you a Queen?” he asked as they navigated the halls. The way Catherine took the lead, it was apparent that she had been there many times before.
“I was once,” she said. “But that’s old history. Why?”
“Couldn’t you be that leader?”
“It wouldn’t work. Paragon already has leaders. Whether they can get the job done or not remains to be seen, but they are there. Not to mention that many Dejas would rather have someone that’s also a Deja leading them.”
“Hence why we’re the ones who wait for Paragon’s lead,” Tyuin said, coming from behind them, “and not the other way around. Catherine’s right on that account.”
“Come to join us in interrogating the prisoner?” Catherine asked him and he sighed heavily.
“It would appear that way. I’m unsure of what to do next. I still have 2/3 of my guard intact but I lost a dozen of my best, and all to one man. That doesn’t put me at ease.”
“I don’t want to get your hopes up. More than likely, we won’t a learn a thing from Dominic.”
“I realize that.”
“Okay,” she said, ending the conversation awkwardly. Once they reached the dungeon, Catherine lifted Remi from off her shoulder. “If you don’t mind,” she said to Kace. He took Remi and held her in his arms. She was immediately embarrassed, feeling like a little kid for being passed around so frequently and easily. But she kept silent. Whatever was coming, she wanted to be involved.
“Oh my,” Dominic said once he got used to the light. “I didn’t expect this.”
“Hello, Dominic,” Catherine said, stepping into the dungeon. Her dark robe kept most of her from being visible, but the light in the background highlighted her curls. That alone was more than enough to reveal her identity to him.
“Why are you here?” he demanded, as if he didn’t already know.
“I want to ask you what Cimmerian intends to do next.”
“I assume you already took out the army outside.”
“If you can call it that.”
“Then you already know what to expect.”
“You know what I mean,” she said, folding her arms. “What are they going to send specifically? There was an eight armed man outside for example. He wasn’t an ordinary citizen of Cimmerian.”
“I don’t decide what they throw or do not throw at you.”
“But you let yourself be captured. There has to be a reason. You’re too proud to let it actually happen. You would rather die.”
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��If it wasn’t for the fact I would cease to exist, perhaps that’s true…and yes, I did allow myself to be captured. But only to learn more...about her.” All eyes in the room fell upon Remi as she fidgeted in Kace’s arms.
Her?
“What about her?” Catherine asked, not having a clue to what he was talking about.
“I wanted to see what all the fuss was about so that’s why I’m here. I thought that I would have to get the information on her out of Tyuin alone, but then I got to meet her. That certainly changed things. And I don’t get it.”
“What is she to Cimmerian? Other than a mark?”
“Not just a mark. She’s one of Cimmerian’s most coveted weapons. That’s the whole reason we’re even here in the first place. Or why the waves of armies won’t stop. It’s all for her. Yes, we planned on making a move against Allay, but she was the catalyst we needed to get started.”
“Why?” Tyuin asked. “Why is she so important? I know you’re stalling, but know that if you take too long, I’ll have to resort to torture.”
“Please, I’m not afraid of you.”
“Tell me, Dominic,” Catherine said. “So that we know what we’re dealing with.”
“What do I care what happens to you?”
“You may not…but if you don’t, we will be forced to kill you. And I know you don’t want that. I know you want your revenge against all those who hurt you, including me.”
Dominic mulled over her words.
“She’s one of the weapons. One of the seven sorcerers created her.”
“What?” Remi shouted, her voice echoing off the walls. Her sudden outburst caused a tremor to reverberate down her spine, and she leaned her head back down into Kace’s arms. “Please tell me what that means,” she said. “How could I be a weapon?”
“You really think the Seven Sorcerers would create these all-powerful weapons and just hand them over to simpletons like us? No, they are more resourceful than we think. I don’t know the reason behind it all…but I do know that the weapons Paragon and Cimmerian gained from them aren’t as game changing as we may think. A weapon is a lot like a tool. It’s only as deadly as its wielder.”
“How do you know she’s a weapon?” Catherine scowled. “That couldn’t have been easy to figure out.”
“We knew that the Sorcerers were playing games the moment we inspected the weapons decades ago. Paragon probably didn’t even check theirs as they have always been cautious and reverent when it comes to power, but in Cimmerian, they were immediately field tested. While they were impressive, in essence, they were no different than a Sage and its eidolon. The weapons were useful in the hands of some, and pointless in the presence of others. And so, we began an investigation. Not to find the Sorcerers because we didn’t want them to wipe us out, but to definitely see what else they were up to.”
“And you learned that Remi was a weapon?”
“We eventually destroyed the weapons given to us. We experimented on them, dissected them and tried to figure out how they worked down to the very last molecule. We soon found a signature of sorts within each of them. An energy signature that tied to each of the seven sorcerers respectively. It was thought that they still have a hold over the weapons because of this, and that they are able to cause them to destruct at a moment’s notice.”
“Why would the Sorcerers do that?” Kace asked and Dominic scoffed at them.
“Because it ensures that they’re still in control. No matter who is winning in the war, they can alter the outcome to their liking. We’re not certain how this might come into play, but I’m sure we wouldn’t find all of that out until the war is well underway.”
“So you’re playing into their hands then,” Tyuin said. “By starting and continuing this war.”
“No, it’s a fog to hide our true intentions,” Dominic said. “We’re secretly looking for the other weapons…just like her.”
“They could know your plan from the beginning,” Catherine said. “They could know your true intentions just from saying it out loud at this very moment.”
“It’s possible, but Cimmerian doesn’t think so. If they don’t know our plans, then we have an advantage. If they do know, they probably won’t intervene until a certain point. The key in that scenario is to find enough weapons to have leverage and remain unimportant, and then strike.”
“There are others like me?” Remi asked aloud, still reeling from one of his earlier comments.
“Seven of you. All different I’m sure, but you’re the first one we’ve found. Maybe the others discovered what they are somehow and are staying hidden. I don’t know. We’ve only started the search in the past year.”
“How…how do you know I’m a weapon though?”
“The signature,” he said, looking straight into her eyes. “Your eidolon…it has the exact same signature as one of the weapons given to us. You might have been born into this world, but your parents didn’t make you. We were created and then sent out. You are one of the Sorcerers’ secret weapons, and one of our greatest assets in not only winning the war, but maybe beating them at their own game.”
“But what if I had been killed? Wouldn’t I be useless then? Why would they give me a body that’s—”
“—that’s the point,” he interjected. “They gave you the weakest, most unintimidating body I’ve ever seen. I mean, look at you, you can’t even stand up on your own. You’re so insignificant that no one would even take the time to kill you. People pity you. You’re pathetic. Who would think that you actually matter? It wasn’t until you left your camp that we even knew that you existed.”
“So there are six others,” Catherine said with a sigh. “Thank you for the information.”
“I gave you nothing,” Dominic snickered. “You can’t find them without the signatures, and you won’t get that without sensitive knowledge that Cimmerian possesses.”
“We could go to Cimmerian and get it.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.”
“We can find the seven.”
“No, you can’t. They look like you and me. They’re ordinary people until they reveal their signature in some way. Just because Remi is weak, it doesn’t mean they all are.”
“We know they were born here on Terra.”
“You don’t know that. These are the Sorcerers we’re talking about. They could have infused it into someone or created someone for their purpose. You have no clue. And we’re still coming. All you can do is scramble for answers while staving off attack after attack from my people. Until we kill you one by one. See, that’s the beauty of all of this. If I killed you right now, I don’t have to see your hideous, aged face ever again.”
Catherine turned away from him and looked at Remi, still in Kace’s arms.
“We have one of the seven,” she said. “And that’s a start.”
“Cimmerian will take her,” he said matter-of-factly. “There’s nothing you can do about that.”
“We’ll see.”
“You will all die trying to defend her.”
“If it comes to that.”
“She’s not worth it.”
“We’ll see,” Catherine said, walking out of the room entirely. “You can shut the door if you like. I have nothing more to say to him.”
All they heard as the dungeon door clanged shut was his laughter bouncing off the walls.
The Sorcerer's Ring (Book #1 of the Seven Sorcerers Saga) Page 24