by Andrew Rowe
He nodded again, raising a hand to his lips. “Do you have some of your civilian clothing? Maybe a scarf or a coat that isn’t part of the standard uniform?”
I blinked. “Sure...?”
“Show me. I’m going to need to borrow a few things.”
“You don’t have your own civilian clothes?”
He shook his head. “I do, but nothing appropriate for what I have in mind.”
Well, this should be interesting, at least.
I showed him what I had in my drawers.
Jin selected a heavy winter coat, a tall hat, and an ordinary walking cane from my belongings, and then headed up to his room. The coat was a little bit too big for him, but not implausibly so.
I did a little bit of reading while I waited, but I was pretty distracted wondering what in the name of the goddess he was up to.
Two hours later, Jin returned, pulling a glowing green gemstone out of a pocket of my borrowed coat. His face was covered in sweat and he was clearly out of breath, but lips were curled into a crooked grin.
I stared blankly at him. “Is that...?”
“You’re going to want to see this. After I leave, put the crystal in your right palm and say ‘view.’” He took a deep breath, wiping off his forehead with his free hand. “You’ll be incapacitated for several minutes while you view the memory, so do it somewhere safe.”
I nodded. “How did you—”
Jin shook his head. “I didn’t. You got this on your own. There’s an after-hours return slot on the right side of the Divinatory. Drop it there late tonight. Don’t be seen.”
...did Jin just break into the Divinatory in a ridiculous disguise and steal that gem for me?
This may be the single most amazing thing that has ever happened.
I smiled brightly, accepting the gem as he handed it to me. “Thanks, I owe you... two now? Let me know if there’s something I can do to repay you.”
He gave me a short nod. “I will. I’m leaving now.”
“...can I have my coat back?”
He raised a hand, tipped my borrowed hat downward, and focused his eyes on mine. “I suppose, if you insist.”
I laughed as he slipped off the coat and hat, setting them down on the bed. He leaned the cane up against the wall.
I put the memory crystal down on my bed and opened the door for him to leave.
He paused, turning his head toward me as he began to walk out. “Corin?”
“Yeah?”
“You should distance yourself from this whole affair as quickly as possible.”
I frowned. “I’ll consider it after I take a look.”
“Good.” He left with no further discussion, and I closed the door.
Hrm. If I’m going to be out of it for several minutes, I should make myself comfortable.
I sat down on my bed, leaning back against the wall.
Maybe I should grab Sera to watch me while I do this? But then I’d have to explain a lot of things to her... I’m not sure that’s a good idea yet.
I’ll just do this now and talk to Sera later, if I think it’s appropriate.
I put the gem into my right palm, propped a pillow behind my neck for support, and moved into a comfortable position.
“View.”
My vision faded, replaced with the view of unfamiliar eyes.
***
My surroundings shifted, and with them, my perspective. For one dysphoric instant, my mind refused to process the abrupt changes. Height. Clarity. My gaze shifting without my control. I adjusted, though the discomfort didn’t subside.
My new surroundings were unfamiliar, though I recognized elements within it. I was seated on one bench of many in a circular chamber with fine décor on the walls. The most notable from my position were a Valian flag — a white serpent over a crimson hexagon — and tapestries depicting two of the visages, Tenjin and Kerivas.
I tried to turn my head to inspect the rest of the room, but I couldn’t.
In fact, I couldn’t move at all.
Should have expected that, I chastised myself. I’m seeing a vision, not living in it.
Fortunately, whoever had copied their memories into this crystal turned their head of their own accord a few moments later, giving me a better look at the chamber as a whole.
Well, at least I’m not completely stationary. I suppose I’ll move whenever this guy did.
The place reminded me of a theater or an opera house in structure. I didn’t see any private boxes, however. The benches were positioned to overlook a stage-like area about fifteen feet below, but instead of stage props, all I could see below were chairs and a speaker’s lectern.
Is this some sort of lecture hall?
That didn’t seem quite right. I’d never seen a lecture hall with this kind of circular structure. A judicial hall of some kind, maybe?
The seats were nearly all empty, but I saw a handful of people gathered in a cluster to my right. They were far enough away that I couldn’t make out all their words, but one of them turned and addressed me directly.
“He’s coming. Watch this closely. We may need to inspect the details later.” The speaker was an older man with a gray beard and a scar under his left eye.
I stood up. “Yes, Sir.”
The voice that emitted from where I was standing was strong and deep, most likely an adult male. “Should I...?”
My hand reached down, indicating a saber that was sheathed on my hip.
The older man smiled. “We’ll take care of that side of things if it comes to it. You just focus on staying safe.”
I nodded. “Yes, Sir.”
The older man turned back to the collection of figures around him as they began to disperse. As the crowd separated, I finally noticed someone I recognized. A woman in her forties in an immaculate dueling tunic, her hair raised into a bun, a sheathed saber at her side.
My mother... dressed for a fight.
She moved to a position on the exact opposite side from where I was standing. My heart lurched in my chest as I processed the fact that I was seeing her for the first time in five years and it wasn’t even through my own eyes.
Her jaw was set, her expression was grim. Something was bothering her, but she didn’t say anything aloud.
Where the resh was this? What was I seeing?
There was a rapping sound from below. Someone was knocking on a door to the lower stage area. I stepped forward and glanced down, seeing a door open on the lower level. Two men in the coppery armor of the Soaring Wings guard stepped in first.
Keras Selyran followed them into the room. The guards shut the door behind him.
Keras was wearing his mask, but not his long coat or belt. His sword was absent. He was wearing a fairly standard tunic — no knives in the back like the one he’d been wearing in the tower. As far as I could tell, he was unarmed.
My vision swam for a moment as shimmering auras flashed into being around the people in the chamber.
What the—
Oh!
These are the memories of a Diviner; he’s using his attunement to look at the auras of the people in the room. Not a bad idea.
A quick glance around the chamber showed me some consistent colors. There were only three visible people remaining in the stands above the room: the older man; my mother; and a brown-haired woman who looked to be in her twenties. All three of them had auras in a similar color range.
Yellow with a hint of green... So, they’re either Citrine or Emerald. That’s pretty impressive, given that there are only supposed to be a handful of Emeralds on the continent. Is Mother really that powerful? I knew she was in the military for years, but...
I looked back down at the lower area, observing Keras and the guards. The guards had orange auras, meaning they were Sunstone-level. Comparable to most of the professors, then.
Keras didn’t have a colored aura at all. Instead, there was a rippling field that distorted the air around him, almost like he was underwater or within a wave
of heat.
That’s disconcerting.
The masked swordsman stepped into the center of the chamber, glancing around, and then turning his head toward the older man who I’d spoken to before. “Do I have the honor of addressing Tenjin, the Visage of Insight?”
The older man laughed. “Aahh, no, I’m not quite that ancient, I’m afraid. I’m Councilor Gerald Lanoy, the Visage’s Adjutant. This is Councilor Lyran,” he gestured at my mother, “and Councilor Theas,” he waved at the other woman.
Keras scratches his chin. “Councilors? Meaning members of your Council of Lords?”
“Correct,” Councilor Lanoy confirmed. His tone was paternal. “I understand that you’re not a Valian native, so you might be unfamiliar with our governing process—”
The masked man waved to stop him. “I understand the basics. I must admit to being a bit disappointed, however. I mean no disrespect, but I was informed that I would be meeting with the visage. Why the change?”
“Regrettably, such a meeting will not be possible,” the councilor said. “I’m afraid that our... noble allies in Dalenos have declared you guilty of heresy and filed for your immediate extradition.”
Keras’ hands briefly balled into fists, then reopened. “This was a trap, then.”
Councilor Lanoy sighed. “Not a trap, Sir. I read your request for the meeting and approved it personally before the extradition request came to us. I admit to being intrigued by your claims, and were the situation different...”
Keras took a step forward. The guards tensed, moving hands toward weapon hilts, but Councilor Lanoy raised a hand to stop them.
Keras leaned back and folded his arms. “The situation can be different. Let me speak to the visage before you send me to Dalenos. I suspect he would be willing to dispel these claims of heresy personally if he heard my message.”
Councilor Theas raised a hand to her forehead, closed her eyes, and then turned her head toward Councilor Lanoy. “They’re waiting outside.”
Councilor Lanoy nodded in response, then turned back to Keras. “I regret to say this, Sir, but you are under arrest for the crime of heresy in the kingdom of Dalenos. I would like to ask you to cooperate. If you do so, we will provide you with one of our best legal advisors to attempt to convince them to lower your sentence.”
“In Dalenos? For heresy?” Keras barked a laugh. “What, would they lower the sentence to only taking off half my head?”
The old man winced. “I believe one of our attorneys would be able to persuade them to limit the punishment to something less than fatal.”
Keras rubbed his forehead. “I appreciate the thought, but I have no intention of being imprisoned for telling the truth. I’ll be leaving now.”
He turned back toward the door. The two guards stepped in his way, drawing steel.
Keras raised his hands to display empty palms. “Please don’t make this difficult. I’ll leave peacefully if you let me.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” Councilor Theas stepped closer to the edge of the platform overlooking the lower area. “But don’t worry, you won’t have to fight anyone. You won’t get the chance.” She pointed a hand at him. “Elias, bind him in the chains of authority.”
Shimmering green chains sprung up from the floor, surrounding Keras and enveloping him in an instant. They wrapped around his limbs, seemingly of their own will, and pulled together tightly. Shackles manifested around his wrists.
Keras turned his head toward Councilor Theas. “That was a mistake.”
He moved his arms apart. The chain connecting the shackles snapped first. The other chains cracked apart as he moved, stepping closer to the door.
“Stop him!” Theas yelled.
The first guard moved quickly, swinging his sword in a downward arc. Keras caught the blade his right hand, completely arresting the weapon’s movement. With a twitch of his hand to the side, the sword blade snapped.
Keras discarded the broken half of the sword blade in his hand while side-stepping a sword swing from the second guard, then spun to deflect a blast of lightning from a third attacker — my mother.
She’d floated down from the top floor onto the floor of the council chamber below.
“A lightning sorcerer? That’s more interesting, at least.” Keras smirked.
Mother! Oh, no...
It occurred to me in the following moments that I didn’t know exactly when this gem memory was from... and that I hadn’t heard from my mother in months.
Mother didn’t look as scared as I felt, though. In fact, she was grinning too.
She snapped her fingers, a crackling aura of lightning manifesting all around her. “You’re quick,” she remarked. “But unarmed? I don’t think you’re much of a threat.”
Keras raised a single hand, shaking it in a conciliatory gesture. “You’re right.” He kicked the now-unarmed guard that tried to grab him from behind, sending the man tumbling into a nearby wall. “Hold that thought.”
The other guard opted for a lunge. Keras side-stepped it without looking, spun, and grabbed the guard’s arm. Another smooth motion and Keras plucked the sword from the guard’s hand, seemingly without effort. As the guard stumbled backward, Keras advanced, twisting the weapon to use the flat of the blade. A wall of ice appeared between them before he could take a swing.
Keras turned just in time to deflect a hail of icy shards, nearly identical to the spell that Sera had used against Teft, but larger and more numerous. His stolen blade flashed crimson as he cut the chunks of ice apart, then flared with silvery light as he hopped atop the ice wall and looked at the source. Councilor Theas was enveloped in an aura of frost, still sending more icy shards in Keras’ direction.
He opened his free hand, running it across the blade of the sword. Fire trailed where his hand passed, igniting the edges of the weapon. He swung the sword in an arc, launching a burning crescent at Councilor Theas, but a blast of lightning from my mother smashed into the crescent, detonating the two attacks in the air.
Keras glanced back down at my mother, then back to Councilor Theas. “Two sorcerers? You certainly prepared for me.”
Councilor Lanoy cracked his knuckles. “Three, actually.” He traced a pattern in the air, leaving a glowing blue rune shimmering in front of him. “I would advise you again to surrender.”
The masked swordsman grinned. “Oh, you misunderstood me. I wasn’t complaining. I’m just starting to get interested.”
“A pity.” Councilor Lanoy pressed his hand into the glimmering pattern. It split apart into a series of spheres of mana that spread out and then rapidly converged on Keras’ location.
The swordsman spun to slice the first one with his blade, but it detonated before he managed to strike it, creating a rippling shockwave of force that sent Keras stumbling backward along the icy wall, right into more of the converging projectiles.
A dozen more blasts of blue-white light erupted as the spheres burst around Keras, blinding me for an instant with their intensity. When my vision cleared, Keras was still standing. His tunic was shredded and bloodstained, a hint of blood dripping from his lips. Burn marks were visible on his back.
He was grinning more brightly than ever. The aura around him flickered, then intensified, turning a silvery hue.
Keras vanished, reappearing next to Councilor Lanoy and driving a fist into the older man’s gut. A shimmer of silver and green erupted on the impact. The councilor folded around the punch, collapsing to the floor in an instant later.
“Elias, Warden of the Adamantine Wall, I summon you!”
Councilor Theas shimmered brighter green, a shimmering shroud of runes surrounding her as a metallic titan appeared on the floor below. The creature was roughly humanoid, but it must have been twenty feet tall, and it crackled with green energy that matched Councilor Theas’.
She summoned a golem, I realized, and a powerful one at that.
“Grab him, Elias!”
The golem was surprisingly fast for its s
ize, reaching out with a massive hand to grab at Keras. He was still faster.
His sword shimmered silver. His hand blurred. Metallic fingers clattered to the floor below.
A moment later, Keras was running around the circle of the upper level, blindingly fast.
He paused in front of me.
I raised my hands. “I am just here to observe.”
Keras’ eyes narrowed underneath his mask for a moment, then he grinned and chuckled. “Fair enough.”
He blurred again, appearing in front of Elora.
She blasted him with a cone of ice at point-blank range.
For a moment, it looked like it had worked. Keras was completely enshrouded in frost. Within, however, I could see a crimson glow beginning to form... and then the ice burst apart.
Just in time for the golem’s other hand to punch Keras into the wall.
For a moment, the room was still.
Then, inch-by-inch, the golem’s massive fist began to move backward.
Keras was pushing it back with his off-hand.
“That,” he said, cracking his neck, “Actually hurt.”
His sword-hand twitched. The golem’s arm separated into two halves, which Keras pushed apart.
“Elias, I dismiss you.” Councilor Theas grimaced, waving toward the metallic creature.
The golem vanished.
She raised a hand again, a crimson aura appearing around her. “Vanniv, I—”
Keras appeared in front of her, his sword blade glimmering with a silvery aura. He pointed it at her chest. “That’s enough.”
Councilor Theas’ hands tightened into fists. “Very well. I concede your victory. I will withdraw.”
“Good.” Keras waved his empty hand. “And tell the group from Dalenos waiting outside not to bother sending reinforcements unless they have someone more powerful than you are.”
Theas looked like she was going to say something else, but she was interrupted by a blast of flame annihilating the floor below Keras and enveloping his entire form.
My mother had moved to the position just beneath him on the lower level and blasted upward. Since she was on the level below, he had no way to see it coming.
Keras hit the floor right in front of her, smoke trailing off his body. He was covered in scorch marks now; she’d obviously hurt him. But the burns weren’t nearly enough to account for the intensity of the flames. The shimmering aura around him must have provided him with some degree of protection, like a barrier.