A grey light flared from his crystal and, suddenly, the room was filled to the brim with white mist. The power of a long-dead mage; dormant and compressed in this small space for ages, stirred and shifted. A force slammed into Eric and knocked him off his feet. A hazy grey figure loomed over him and became Dengel. This was not the caricature that lived inside his mind, but the true imposing image.
“What's this? A stray followed me all the way here?”
“It worked! Finally, I'll get some answers.”
Grey Dengel raised his right hand and Eric arose into the air. “How dare you! I came to this forsaken land to get away from ungrateful parasites like you!”
He clenched his fist and Eric's limbs snapped to his sides. No matter how Eric struggled, all he could do was wriggle. The face of Grey Dengel was outraged and disappointed. It was not in the least bit smug. Then Shadow Dengel appeared next to him and looked very smug.
“You'll die here, boy,” it snarled. “I must say I'm enjoying the irony of –”
“What manner of mockery are you?” Grey Dengel asked.
“Doesn't matter!” Shadow Dengel said. “Kill the little shit. He deserves it.”
“Indeed.” With his left hand, he vaporized Shadow Dengel. “Now, as for you.”
“...Why...How did you do that?”
“That thing was a thug. I despise thugs. Magic is sacred; the study of it is the study of how life develops and how the universe functions. Thugs like it and you pervert its true purpose!”
“I don't –”
“You are a mercenary, are you not? Unless I am mistaken, you are that Insolent Dragon-girl's spawn. You sell my craft to the highest bidder!”
“Hypocrite! You're no different! Your 'Glorious Patron' paid yo –!”
Grey Dengel squeezed and Eric gasped for breath.
“The Emperor funded my research, which produced magitech, which made this country the most advanced in the world. Then those holier-than-thou avatars burned everything to the ground.”
Noticing Eric's perk in attention, he elaborated. “Yes, burn. The so-called 'Fiol' relished the opportunity to send her enemies back to the Stone Age, but that wasn't enough for her. She wanted Ceiha to lose the Great Mother's gift as well so she bullied the others into closing the Ten Elemental Mana Gates. The suffering of this country falls squarely on her shoulders.” He tightened his grip and Eric began to suffocate. “In five minutes, there will be one less person to misuse my knowledge.”
“Ta...Tas...Tasio!”
Grey Dengel paused and slightly lessened his grip. “You used The Trickster's Name. Only the elves do that. Why do you?”
Eric hesitated. The squeezing resumed, and he shouted, “I'm The Trickster's Choice!”
“Impossible. Everyone said I was the choice. “
Abyss....One more similarity.
Grey Dengel snapped and a field of magical energy wrapped itself around Eric's neck, then it forced its way down his throat. Despite the lack of words or gestures, Eric knew this to be a truth-spell; its mechanics appeared in his mind as if they had always been there. The pressure on his chest decreased and Grey Dengel commanded, “Tell me everything.”
Eric did and then some. He intended to convince Grey Dengel that he was the Trickster's Choice and nothing more, but then he told him about his life before Tasio and his desire to blacken his captor's name. He couldn't hide behind his “improve human-elf relations” excuse and confessed to his continuing inferiority complex and hatred of being in the Greater Mage's shadow. Not even his crush on Annala was safe. It all came out and he couldn't stop it. By the time Grey Dengel silenced him, he was crying.
“Fascinating. If what you say is true, then I am a shadow of my former self; a ghost. The fact that I have the self-awareness to recognize this must be due to that grey light of yours. Very well; you are favored by Tasio, but why should I spare you? You dislike your title and I can relieve you of it right now. Tell me, why?”
Sniffling, Eric said, “Annala, my teammates; I don't want them to miss me.”
“An arrogant answer that implies a lack of fear of death. I like it.” He unclenched his fist and dropped the sobbing mage. “I put my lair at your disposal. As two favored by the god of tricksters, you understand that I can't tell you hints.” His image faded. “My time is running short. I taught history, I showed mercy, and I empowered the next generation; my life was brief and yet will last forever.”
He pounced on Eric, dissolving along the way until he was a stream of Fog gushing into the crystal at the head of the staff. The grey light inside drank it all in and pulled the rest in with it. All the power in the room was compressed within that light and shot unfiltered into Eric's own soul.
For a moment, the room was silent. Then a rush of laughter erupted from Eric's mouth and rebounded off the walls into a cacophony of euphoric madness. He flipped to his feet, threw his arms wide, and gazed about in eyes clouded by Fog and yet shining with grey brilliance.
Suddenly, he knew all the contents of the lair: the scrolls, the relics, the research, the purpose. A whirlwind of information far more than anything Dengel ever said to him filled his mind with more flooding in by the second. All Dengel's memories within this room without Dengel's personality to taint or shape them; naked experience! So much knowledge at once without understanding caused him so much pain that his legs buckled. It swirled and mixed with his mind and his own memories to produce hallucinations.
He saw himself as Dengel and not as Dengel; conduct experiments and do research and contemplate the philosophy of mana. He saw the joy of discovery, the frustration of failure, the tedium of long days measuring and recording, and most surprising of all, the guilt of a lifetime of misdeeds. It all went by in a flash and he was back in the age-old lair and panting. Grey Dengel rematerialized before him.
“We shall begin.”
At Dengel's feet, Eric talked and debated. He accused Dengel of theft and Dengel provided proof otherwise. Dengel accused Eric of pettiness and Eric provided proof otherwise. He challenged Eric to read his work and understand it, to step into a battlefield and direct it, and to look at the universe at the fundamental level and manipulate it. The sheer scope of the endless expansion of Creation and the mind-boggling energy coursing through it gave him pause. At a loss for words, he soaked it all in and didn't speak, blink, or breathe until he had.
Every power, every life; all of existence was everywhere. There was no beginning or end to it, only areas of greater or lesser absence such as Order or Noitearc. The cycle of mana flowed into them and out of them and back to the source and in a forest. Eric killed a monster and was killed by a monster who was himself and then killed by a human who was also himself who turned into a monster who gave birth to himself that became a human. He was everything and everything was himself; he connected everything to himself with himself and was constantly moving at the speed of lifetimes.
“Am I a human or a monster? Hope or despair? Where have I come? Where do I go? The Trickster Grins. The Trickster Grins. The Trickster Grins.”
A web of life and souls that arranged itself into a blueprint. An elf approached him, more beautiful and more elegantly attired than the most renowned princess in the history of the world, but her body, face, silk, and jewels were lost on him. He was blinded by a greater beauty; the life shinning inside her and the Seed of Chaos blazing like a sun through her hair.
Annala....She addressed him as Dengel and his mouth addressed her as Asuna.
Scenarios whizzed around his head like a kaleidoscope: Dengel abandoning Asuna in a burning village; Asuna leaving Dengel to be eaten by great and terrible monsters; Dengel and Asuna happily married; experimentation together and on each other; battle couple on a dozen fields of combat and nemeses on a dozen more; co-workers for the emperor; one killing the other and the reverse in the name of science or freedom or revenge. They cycled over and over again until Grey Dengel superimposed himself on them.
“Which do you believe?”
“All o
f the above.”
“Good answer.”
The scenario coalesced into a silhouette of Asuna glowing with the power of chaos. “This is the source of all life and power. The wise treat it with respect and reverence and are rewarded with her blessing; the foolish regard it as a tool and instrument of pleasure and receive only her scorn.”
The silhouette transformed into a pillar of light and reshaped into a globe. It had three continents blanketed with trees and grass, five oceans, two polar icecaps, thick cloud covering that sparked with lightning, an exploding volcano, and it was all split into light and dark hemispheres.
“How many elements do you see?”
“Ten.”
Dengel slapped him on the head. “Fool! There are ten Elemental Mana Gates but there is only one element!” The globe dissolved into colorless light that Grey Dengel held in his hands. “MANA is the one true element; all else is merely manifestation.” He stretched the globe into a sheet and it shifted through all ten phases and back again. He shoved it into Eric's hands and asked, “Do you understand?”
Eric repeated the feat and absorbed the sphere into his chest. “I have the energy that creates the world and I am the spirit that manipulates it. I am a god.”
“Now you are learning.”
Lectures, arguments, counter-arguments, demonstrations, and philosophy mixed with practicality and the anatomy of the soul. The two of them stood like guardian angels over a field of life and watched it progress for a year and more until a golden-brown tidal wave washed over it.
“What do you see?”
“The beginning and the end, the first mother and the ultimate undertaker, love that is both empowering and feebling, renewing and destroying mixed into the same act and purpose. There is only one description that does not contradict it because it encompasses everything: Source of All Power.”
“How do you act?”
Eric dropped out of the sky and into the golden-brown waves of creation and destruction. They did not create him because he was already created, nor did they destroy him because he was already destroyed; he was the waves and the waves were him. Both of them changed by elevating themselves beyond their current state.
“Who are you?”
“Present.”
Then he woke up. His body was hungry, sore, and cold, but his mind never felt more alert. His crystal flashed golden-brown and the color concentrated at the tip. He levitated to his feet and walked over to Dengel's desk where a scroll lay open across it.
“Huh. I can read this. Sweet.”
Read he did. When finished, he put it away and started another one and when finished with that one, he started a third. Each of them returned to its proper place in its proper time. Out of curiosity, he sampled the containers, and Grey Dengel would reappear to explain its intended effect.
“'There was a time...'” he read aloud. “'...when tricksters were more active and Lady Chaos was more direct in her gifts. This led to overexposure to mana, rampant monsters, deaths that wouldn't have occurred and pollution of local timelines. Worst of all, the people depended on divine intervention to the detriment of their own power. They believed they couldn't achieve greatness on their own and their own merit decayed. Thus led to the Period of...” A scream jolted him from his studies. He dashed out the door and barely dodged a broad sword swinging from a statue. Cursing himself, he recast Air Disk and returned from whence he came.
Just as he knew all of Dengel's traps, he knew how many ways they could kill someone. If his teammates triggered one...The horrific images and guilt forced him to move faster. He avoided the traps without thinking like he'd done it a thousand times. When he arrived in the entrance, he saw his fear confirmed, but not in the way he expected. Tiza hung from the ceiling, upside-down, by a rope around her ankles. She tried to turn around, but spun until she was dizzy, so she simply craned her neck back. Her shoulder-length hair falling over her eyes, she said,
“Not a word, Dimwit.”
“Alright....” He stepped forward and past her. “I'll just leave you hangin' then.”
“Abyss take it, Dimwit!” Tiza swung like a worm on a hook. “Get me down from here!”
First, Eric cast Air Disk on her so she wouldn't get into any more trouble. Then he carefully pulled her feet loose. The fighter landed all fours on the floating disc of wind and stood up.
“Let me guess. You wanted to experiment with Third Eye.”
Tiza whacked him. “Moron! I'm not that stupid! I was going to check up on you.”
“Check up on me?” Eric rubbed his forehead. “Why? I wasn't gone long.”
Tiza looked him over and gasped. “Dimwit... It's been nine days.”
“Nine days? Really?” Eric took his pointer finger and pushed it through his belly button until it touched his spine. “So that's why my stomach's concave.”
Tiza shoved a half-full bag of trail mix into his hands. “Eat this!”
“Sure. Thanks.”
He emptied the bag's contents into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. Tiza dragged him by the hand out of the tower and into the courtyard.
Team Four's campsite was set up in a bare patch away from the ruined buildings. In the center was a fire surrounded by stones and branching off were two tents, two latrines dug out of the ground, and a yurt. Haburt was off examining one of the buildings while the others sat around the fire. At Tiza's shout, they all stood up and the other half of Team Four rushed to hug Eric. Seeing his emaciated state, they held back. Nolien took a calming breath and examined the state of Eric's health. His face grew paler by the second and, finally, he said, “Eric, your body passed the brink of starvation four days ago. How are you still alive?”
Eric assumed a thinking pose. “I don't know.” He promptly collapsed and stopped breathing.
“Eric/Dimwit!”
His head rolled back and his eyes opened. “Kidding!”
All three of them whacked him. “Not funny!”
Basilard sat him down at the campfire and gave him a bowl of stew.
“Eat and tell us what happened to you.”
Nonchalantly, Eric did so. He told Haburt about the size, condition, and contents of Dengel's study, and Haburt listened intently. Then Eric talked about the “weirdo spiritual hallucination thing” and effortlessly generated a two-foot mana blade at the end of his staff. Before anyone could stop him, he jumped five feet straight up and made a two-foot hole in the solid rock beneath his feet.
“Neat, huh?”
Nolien pushed down on him with both hands on both shoulders.
“Sit, stay, eat.”
“Okay.”
Tiza regarded him as a bomb that might or might not be a dud. “You seem... mellow.”
“Oh yeah.” Eric slurped up bunch of noodles. “Me and the Hermit Dengel Leftover Thingie worked out a lot of issues after he vaporized the Shadow Dengel Imaginary Friend Thingie that was following me around.”
Then he started levitating and Nolien pushed him back down.
Haburt sweat-dropped. “Trickster’s Choice indeed. He’s gone mad.”
“Don't worry,” Basilard said. “He's just loopy from...the thing that happened to him.”
“Loopy Whoopie Doopie Doo!”
“Until then, I will continue my true research.”
Haburt put his dishes away and strolled back to one of the house ruins near the wall. Eric snapped and a mana bolt exploded at his feet. He spun on one foot and pin-wheeled to regain his balance. Eric laughed and chugged his soup. Then he spat it into Tiza's face.
“Dimwit...” she said, shaking with rage. “When your ribs stop showing, I'm going to rip two of them out and shove them in your eyes.”
“Okay,” he said brightly. “I deserve that. Soupa Duupa Koopa!”
He waved his hand with each word and a small gust of wind lifted the soup off Tiza and then poured it down Eric's throat like a waterfall.
“Daylra, is it possible that Eric is still inside and this being before us is actually
The Trickster?”
Basilard touched BloodDrinker's hilt and muttered something. The blade shined in its sheath. “I'm sure it's the real deal. Once his new power settles, he'll go back to normal.”
“Normal!” Eric chirped. “The pigs are courting ship. What have you guys been up to?”
Basilard gestured to one of the ruined houses where Haburt was excitedly working. He examined a piece of pottery, documented its location, and made verbal notes to himself on his scry. If it weren't for his size, grey hair, and gender, he'd look like Tiza in a brawl.
“Professor Haburt was delighted by your delay. It gave him an excuse to study the outside of the castle and tower. After all, studying the common man was his personal motivation for coming here. As for your teammates...” He smiled wickedly. “Tell him, Nolien.”
“Stamina Training,” the healer said dryly. “We climbed down the mountain, ran around the mountain, then climbed back up the mountain, and then back down the mountain. The only breaks were meditation exercises to restore mana at a greater pace than regular living.”
“I liked it!” Tiza chimed. “I was too tired to worry about Dimwit.” She elbowed him. “Do you know how hard it is to meditate when one of your two best friends is missing in action?!”
“The other one's Raki, right? You couldn't possibly refer to Nolien because your soul shines too bright around him for mere friendship.”
Tiza blushed and Nolien fumbled for a denial. Eric raised his hands and touched both of their chests. A flash of grey light traveled over them both and Eric's eyes whited out.
“I can see it! The soul connection is red and strong and mpphh!”
Tiza shoved a biscuit into his mouth. By the time he swallowed it, he'd forgotten what he was saying, so instead he asked, “What did you do, Daylra?”
“Security,” Basilard replied. “I was making sure this place was safe by checking for runes we missed on the way up and for signs of the Crimson Killer. If he has a base of operations in this country, then it's most likely the neighboring mountain.”
“Smoke 'em out like a fox in a den and cut him up into cubes to make bladi-flavored ice tea.”
Looming Shadow: Journey to Chaos book 2 Page 30