Revelation (Seeds of Humanity: The Cobalt Heresy)

by Caleb Wachter

  “What do you mean?” I asked slowly. “Sundered like him are supposed to be devoid of free will. He should do whatever you tell him.”

  She shook her head. “Baeld is not like that,” she insisted, “I have already explained this to you.”

  I snapped my head side to side vigorously to clear exhaustion-induced cobwebs. “Did you manage to find his Contact of Service?” I asked hopefully as I regained my balance.

  She shook her head again. “There is no such document anywhere in the castle,” she said adamantly, “just as I told you when last we spoke on the matter. I had our sages search every space large enough to house a tablet like the one you described, but there is nothing here.”

  I paused to consider. “I’ll have to do my best, then,” I said, acutely aware of how exhausted I had become since sitting down. It seemed my recent trials had finally caught up to me.

  The High Sheriff nodded her head. “If you can do so, then he will accompany you whenever you set out,” she agreed. “But I need you to understand that I do not hold any Contract of Service over him, so I cannot be responsible for his actions after he enters your employ.”

  It was quite a caveat, but I had a spell I could cast to ensure she was telling the truth as she knew it. “If you would swear to that effect under magical observation, I’ll agree that you aren’t liable for any damages he might cause,” I said, trying to sound like a lawyer and probably failing miserably.

  She looked a bit wary about my terms, but she nodded eventually. “Of course,” she replied. “Now?”

  “That would be best, I think,” I nodded.

  I closed my eyes and called up a simple spell, one of the first that Jezran had learned as an student at the College. It was little more than a handful of glyphs, and it took only a few seconds to assemble in the forefront of my mind.

  I flooded the runes with the energy required to activate them, and they lit up as I drew in a breath. “Breathe deeply,” I instructed her, and after a moment’s hesitation she complied.

  As she did so, I released my hold over the spell, and I could literally see its energy get sucked into her nostrils. She didn’t seem to notice, which was expected since she probably didn’t have any latent magic talent, and after she had filled her lungs I held up my hand to signal that she stop.

  “Your next words will be true, or they will catch in your throat,” I told her. “Do you swear that there is, to your knowledge, no Contract of Service associated with Baeld—or any other recorded agreement between him and Castle Coldetz, or anyone associated with it?”

  She nodded. “I do so swear,” she said formally.

  If she had been lying, she would be on the floor in a coughing fit that could last for minutes. I nodded my head in satisfaction. “You’re telling the truth,” I confirmed. “I find it puzzling, but thank you for alleviating my concerns.”

  “Anything for our Imperial masters,” she bit out acidly before turning on her heel and leaving the room.

  Our horses were prepared the next morning, and we were ready to disembark immediately. If I was right, then we had cost our enemy a month’s worth of energy in the fight at the obelisks, but I doubted we had cost him more than that.

  Since the mansion was about a week away on horseback, that meant we had about two weeks to once we arrived to stop the next attack, and I honestly had no idea how we would do that. I still didn’t even know what we were supposed to find at the mansion, but Antolin had seemed to think it would help end the entire conflict.

  Before I left, I had to talk with the man without whose sacrifice I would have most certainly died. And I needed to make sure he knew that I made the choice for him…and that I knew I was responsible for his current condition.

  I opened the door to his room and stepped inside. He had two full-time caretakers, and they hovered near his bedside at all hours. The skin of his atrophied limbs had turned pink in the last week or so, which I thought was a good sign, and he was aware for more than just a few minutes per day.

  I sat down next to him, and the attendants respectfully left the immediate vicinity. I couldn’t help but feel a measure of sympathy for him, as well as some guilt, but the most powerful emotion I felt when I looked at him was anger directed at the man behind the Iron Butcher.

  “Aemir,” I whispered, and when he didn’t stir I raised my voice and repeated, “Aemir?”

  He fluttered his eyelid, and his eye rolled around for a moment before he slowly turned his head toward me. The scar tissue had grown well over the left side of his face, and the eye socket there had completely scarred over, leaving him a true cyclops.

  “Master,” he breathed, “I am sorry I can…no longer…serve you.” He was on the edge of consciousness, but visibly struggling to stay alert.

  I shook my head and my eyes began to mist. “You’ve done more than your share, Aemir,” I said forcefully. “None of us would be here without you.”

  “I…”he whispered and his eye rolled back before he refocused on me, “I do not…remember…the battle, Master.”

  Now I was starting to hurt. “We were dead, Aemir,” I began and my words caught as my throat tightened. I cleared my throat and tried to regain my composure before continuing, “I had to make a decision, and I had to make it quickly.”

  Aemir’s head moved his head side to side and I realized he was shaking it emphatically. “You chose correctly,” he whispered. “My life…is yours…and I am happy…to have been of service.”

  Now the tears were rolling down my cheeks, but alarmingly they were fueled more by rage than anything else as my hands began to tremble. “They will care for you here,” I assured him, feeling the pit of my stomach turn rock hard, “and when I return, we’ll find a way to heal you.”

  He nodded slowly. “You must go,” he said quietly, “these people…need you now.”

  I stood from his bedside and fought to keep my legs steady. “I’ll never forget your sacrifice, brother,” I said through clenched teeth. Then I turned from the man I trusted more than anyone in this world, yet had only known for barely a year, and left the gatehouse.

  Chapter XVII: A Cold Reception

  After almost a week of travel we arrived at an inexplicable snowstorm. The weather had been mostly cold and wet during the trip, but it had never been cold enough to freeze water. What was alarming was just how quickly the clouds had gathered and the temperatures plummeted.

  I doubted that this was a natural phenomenon, but our destination was clearly depicted as being at least a half day’s ride inside the storm, so we rode in without so much as a pause to consider the matter.

  I had made no indication as to where we were going, or what to look out for. I didn’t want Pi’Vari sending any information to whoever it was he might be working for, so they could get to the mansion first. Pi’Vari, predictably, kept his calm and didn’t press the issue.

  The further we went into the storm, the worse the weather became until we literally had to tie the horses together in a train to keep from getting separated. Baeld proceeded on foot, since he neither tired from walking—but neither was there a horse large enough to carry his bulk on such a long trip.

  After a half day’s ride we arrived at a long stone wall, which was about three feet tall. It looked like the European walls I had seen on television, composed of loose, flat stones to separate vast swaths of rolling grassland.

  I suspected that we had generally gone south of the mansion’s position, so we followed the wall along its northeastern direction until a few hours later in the middle of the night, we came to a larger, proper wall built of rectangular stone blocks forming a barrier about ten feet tall.

  We followed the wall until we came to an intact gate made of wrought iron bars fully two inches thick. Baeld looked back silently and I nodded, prompting him to give the gate a good, hard shove. At first it held, but after a few more vigorous tries the weather-welded iron broke free. The gate swung open with an ominous creaking that was clearly audible above the d
in of the snowstorm.

  Baeld led the way and we followed him inside the wall, finding ourselves on some sort of cobblestoned pathway a few meters wide. We continued until the great, dark shape of the mansion was visible through the flurry of snow.

  “I wonder if anyone is home,” mused Pi’Vari just loud enough to be heard.

  I dismounted and my fellows followed suit, with Dancer leaping easily from his pony, which was about half the size of our horses.

  The building was at least four stories tall, and the crude drawing on the map did its gothic nature justice. The windows were built with the classic gothic arches, and everything was vertical and angular in the extreme, even the door which looked to be about twelve feet tall and was made of some kind of black wood bound with iron straps.

  “Might as well check and see,” I replied wryly, giving the door a knock that even I could barely hear.

  I looked down at my red knuckles, which were stinging from the brief exposure to the cold. Thankfully, my robe protected me from the worst of the weather but my face and hands needed constant attention to keep them from going numb.

  “Baeld, if you would?” I gestured toward the door.

  Baeld nodded and, gripping his greatsword in his right hand, raised the sword and hammered the pommel into the door three times. I laughed in spite of myself, as there was absolutely no chance that anyone inside the house wouldn’t have heard the sound.

  When nothing happened for several minutes, I gestured for Baeld to open the door. He complied by giving it a mighty shove which elicited more than a few sharp cracking noises from the planks comprising the massive portal, but it refused to budge. Dancer and Pi’Vari also leant their strength to the endeavor, but to no avail.

  I rolled up the sleeves of my robe and joined the effort. As soon as my hands touched the door and I gave a shove, it swung easily inward with a long, deep, creaking sound.

  “Curious,” remarked Pi’Vari with a meaningful look.

  We made our way inside cautiously and were greeted with a massive entry room devoid of light, save for that which came through the door we had just opened. I was reminded of the old European houses with the massive, winding, double staircases leading up to a landing overseeing the entire chamber.

  There were even the remains of an ornate, twenty foot wide chandelier lying on the floor in the middle of the entryway with shards of glass and crystal scattered all across the once-magnificent flagstones.

  But to say that this house was in complete disrepair would be understating the case by a wide margin. One of the staircases had collapsed and most of the walls had begun to crumble at the top, making me wonder why the roof hadn’t collapsed. The landing at the top of the staircases was mostly collapsed as well, with only the pillars and supporting arches remaining. There were at least a dozen interior doors that I could see from the front door, but more than half of them were collapsed as well.

  “Strange,” Pi’Vari commented airily, “the damage did not look as bad from outside.”

  I nodded in agreement, forcibly restraining myself from chuckling at just how much what he said—not to mention how he had said it—reminded me of a pretty popular movie I had grown up loving.

  “Light sticks, Pi’Vari,” I instructed and he obliged, retrieving four light sticks from our stores, which left us with four more if my count was correct.

  We fastened them to our arms like before, but Baeld refused one by shaking his head. I had forgotten that Gaeld had also been able to see well even in pitch black conditions.

  It was a little disconcerting having a companion who never once uttered a spoken word, not to mention one so obviously inhuman, but I knew that Baeld would more than make up for those minor inconveniences when the fur started to fly.

  “Well, Jezran,” began Pi’Vari, “what are we here to find?”

  “Honestly?” I asked rhetorically. “I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Oh,” my herald replied blithely, “naturally.”

  Baeld moved forward past the ruined chandelier and we followed. I had Antolin’s staff already in hand, and I was busy strapping the Spell Key to my hand. I had gotten pretty good at equipping it on the fly, and it took me just a handful of seconds to attach it this time.

  After we were already inside the house, there was a huge gust of wind and the door slammed shut behind us. I can’t say I was in the least surprised that it happened, but it gave everyone a good start when it did. Everyone except for Baeld, that is, who didn’t even seem to notice as he continued to silently appraise the building’s interior.

  A few loose stones high up on the walls came crashing down when the door slammed shut, but none landed close to us. After waiting to see if any more of the building would try to participate in a ‘death from above’ maneuver, and finding a tentatively negative answer, we continued. There were three doors in the wall opposite the massive entry door, and two of them appeared to still be upright and intact. There were also two doors on each adjoining wall, but both of the doors on the wall to our left were collapsed, while only one of the doors to the right was intact.

  I decided to try the door to the right, and Baeld opened it without much difficulty. It was more than a little intimidating being in a stone building that appeared to be on the verge of collapse, but we had a job to do and it helped to focus on that fact.

  The corridor extended at least a hundred feet, with doors on either side space about twenty feet apart. We proceeded down the hallway and found the doors to be locked. Even Baeld, with his inhuman strength, was unable to open the first five. But the third door on the right was completely gone with only tiny scraps of black, apparently rotten, wood dangling from its hinges.

  The room within was clearly a study of some kind. There was a small fireplace with an intricately carved stone mantle, as well as bookshelves from floor to ceiling which were about ten feet tall. But everything was completely black, and all of the books were gone.

  “Fire,” said Dancer, appraising the lower hinge of the door’s remains. I moved closer to the door to confirm his conclusion and it became obvious as he rolled the remains of the door between his fingers, creating black smears of soot and charcoal. I had assumed the door had rotted, but it was now clear that fire had done the damage.

  “So the house burned,” said Pi’Vari casually, “most likely along with whoever inhabited it. It would at least account for the general disrepair of the structure.”

  Baeld had made his way to the blackened wooden desk set opposite the fireplace. The desk looked to have more or less survived whatever inferno had engulfed the room with little more than a thick layer of charcoal on its surface.

  “How long ago do you think this happened?” I asked of no one in particular.

  “Years,” replied Dancer quickly, to which Pi’Vari nodded his assent.

  “Amazingly, the roof has not yet collapsed,” remarked my herald. “If it had, then the deterioration would have accelerated due to the clearly unnatural storm outside. I believe this occurred at least one year ago but no more than ten—assuming the structure is not being held up magically,” he added, which was actually a good point.

  I activated my Third Eye spell and looked around the room. There didn’t appear to be any active enchantments on the structure itself, but I became nauseous almost immediately and had to lean against the wall to keep from falling.

  “Well, that’s never happened before,” I muttered after deactivating the spell and regaining my equilibrium.

  “There is a spell at work here, then?” asked Pi’Vari, clearly curious.

  I shook my head. “Not a spell,” was all I could say for sure, “but something is going on here, and I don’t think it’s by the previous occupant’s design.”

  I moved to examine the bookshelves and found that all of the books were nothing but ash, which seemed curious.

  “The storm outside was clearly created using magic,” I began, trying to think my way through this puzzle out loud, “but all of these books
were burned to cinders. If a wizard lived here then at least some of his tomes would have survived the inferno, regardless of how hot it got.”

  “Why do you believe a wizard lived here?” asked Pi’Vari from across the room.

  “Because only a wizard could summon the storm out there, and realistically only an Imperial High Wizard could manage to erect a permanent storm of that power and size,” I explained.

  Pi’Vari stopped sifting through the wreckage and cocked his head before asking, “Why do you believe the storm is permanent? Perhaps it was erected at the same time as the fire,” he offered.

  “Perhaps,” I mused, remembering that only I had seen the image of a snowstorm surrounding the house’s icon on the map. “But the windows in the entry hall were boarded up and the glass was intact, meaning they’d prepared for such a storm before it hit.”

  “Of course, you are likely correct,” agreed Pi’Vari.

  Dancer’s voice came from near the desk. “Master, look,” said the little man.

  I made my way to the desk where both Dancer and Baeld were standing and saw that all of the drawers except one had apparently been destroyed by fire. The lone, remaining, central drawer had obviously endured a fire of some kind, but it had survived more or less intact and it was emitting a faint residue of magical protection.

  “This was protected,” I confirmed with a nod to the little man. The drawer didn’t even appear to be locked. “But the wards look to have failed just before the fire died.” Looking down I kicked at the floor in front of the desk, and I thought I could make out a few fragments of blackened bone but I wasn’t sure.

  “Is it still dangerous?” asked Pi’Vari as he came over to the desk, apparently oblivious of the remains.

  “I doubt it,” I replied confidently, “a person isn’t likely to place a poison trap right over their lap, so it was probably just protected magically.”