Marin’s Codex
Benjamin Medrano
Marin’s Codex by Benjamin Medrano
© 2018 Benjamin Medrano. All rights reserved.
Contact the author at [email protected]
Visit the author’s website at benjaminmedrano.com
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Cover Art by Jackie Felix Wei
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For my beloved.
Foreword
During the summer of 2017, sometime around June if my memory is accurate, I conceived of an anthology of short stories called Before the Godsrage. I was planning for three novella to short novel-length stories that would be in it, explaining some of the history behind the Ancient Dreams trilogy of Ancient Ruins, Spells of Old, and Halls of Power. I already had the first of the novellas complete, a story called Into the Eternal Wood, which is included at the end of this volume. The first story which I came up with to accompany it was called Marin’s Codex, while the second took much more work, but I was planning on a story following the vampire Kassandra in the Kingdom of Everium.
That plan was shredded when the two characters of Marin’s Codex refused to stay in the neat little boxes I’d planned for their story. As the manuscript exceeded the length I’d originally expected, the story was still getting going. The cast expanded, and the story grew more complex. Instead of having a minor novella, it grew into its own novel.
Marin’s Codex is almost an accident, but a happy one for me, though the story has elements of grief as well. This is the story of Emonael and Marin, and for those of you who have not read the Ancient Dreams trilogy . . . this story likely won’t spoil much about that storyline, but you’ll understand more if you read it first, and that’s my recommendation.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go dab tears from my eyes. This novel took a lot out of me.
Part I
Marin’s Codex
Prologue
Rissia set down the stack of books with a sigh, taking a moment to pop her back. The work of keeping the library in order was a never-ending task, especially with Her Lady’s occasional odd demands that a book be copied, then damaged and placed in some remote corner of the mortal realms. Someone had to do it, and the task usually fell to Rissia. It was often thankless work, but Rissia wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the multiverse.
The succubus looked around the library at the heart of the Illusionary Sphere, as Emonael’s realm was called, and couldn’t help but smile. The library might look immense to most visitors, larger than virtually any library in all the planes, but almost none of them had seen how space folded inside the shelves to grant nearly limitless space. The sheer breadth of knowledge available was why Rissia had volunteered for the position as Emonael’s personal assistant so many centuries before, and what she’d learned made every backache and bit of effort worthwhile.
Her smile faded slightly as the succubus looked at the small set of shelves in the center of the library, the ten lonely tomes protected by magics that Rissia couldn’t comprehend more than the most basic theory of. The ten volumes of Marin’s Codex were Emonael’s prize beyond all other knowledge, and her goddess guarded access to the last three volumes more jealously than a dragon hoarded treasure or a demon would hoard souls. They represented knowledge that Rissia was curious about, and answers that she might never learn. Considering recent events in the mortal kingdom of Kelvanis, that was . . . frustrating.
“Is something the matter, Rissia?” Emonael’s voice startled Rissia, but she barely reacted to the sound of her own voice, turning to face her goddess with a bob of respect.
As always, Emonael was a near-perfect mirror of Rissia with her coloration reversed. Where Rissia’s eyes were crimson, Emonael’s were blue, and while her own skin was pale, Emonael’s was pitch-black. Even her conservative tan dress had been turned a dark, dark brown.
“Nothing of import, Milady,” Rissia replied politely, shrugging as she continued, knowing that Emonael preferred honesty about such things. “Just some idle curiosity that I doubt you’ll sate.”
“Oh? Regarding what?” Emonael asked, tilting her head curiously, her tone speculative. “I saw you looking toward the Codices, so it’s likely one of three things. You’re curious about the contents of the last books, about Marin, or about my relationship with Marin. Am I right?”
“You are, Milady. As usual, I might add.” Rissia let out a soft sigh as she picked up a book and shelved it in the proper place, explaining herself. “It’s the last, actually. Considering what you did, and how you said it was to repay a debt . . . I just had to wonder why you felt so strongly about her. I’ve never seen you pay anyone as close of attention as you have to Marin, and it just baffles me. Does anyone know the story?”
“Hmm, that makes sense. I suppose what I’ve done would stoke anyone’s curiosity, let alone my most devoted librarian and researcher,” Emonael mused, then smirked and added. “And the answer to your question is yes. Two that I’m aware of know the story, Rissia. Fate and Time themselves.”
“Ah. Well then, that may as well be no one, at least as far as I’m concerned. It isn’t as if they’ll share their knowledge,” Rissia replied with a sigh. Mentally, she reluctantly shelved that particular curiosity among the others she’d never have answered, at least until Emonael spoke again.
“You’re right. I do believe it’s time for that to change, though,” the goddess murmured, then gestured at Rissia. “Come along, Rissia. Let’s pull back the curtain on a part of my past, shall we?”
“Are you serious, Milady?” Rissia asked in disbelief, but quickly followed the goddess as she walked toward the back of the library.
Emonael made a series of elegant gestures, murmuring soft words as brilliant white sigils ignited in mid-air, and moments later the air split open in a shimmering, mirror-sheened portal ahead of her. Glancing over her shoulder, the goddess grinned. “Quite serious. Come along, this chance doesn’t come around every millennium, hmm?”
“Of course!” Rissia replied, watching Her Lady vanish through the portal, and quickly following her.
The portal shimmered and played over her skin like ice water for a long moment and Rissia couldn’t help but notice a magical field carefully examining her. The portal was a security measure in its own right, she realized, and if it found her unwelcome, she simply wouldn’t make it out the other side. Fortunately, she did, and an instant later she was in another library, but this one far less impressive than the one she lived in.
Instead of towering stacks that climbed hundreds of feet into the air, these were only about twenty feet high. They also didn’t contain countless volumes, instead appearing to hold no more than five thousand tomes at most to Rissia’s practiced eye. Yet there was something about them that felt familiar, and it took her a moment to place what it was. When she looked more closely at the bindings of the books, Rissia’s eyes widened and she gasped.
“M-milady? Are these . . . ?” Rissia began, but paused as she looked at her goddess, who for the first time in Rissia’s memory wasn’t in the shape of someone else in the same room.
Emonael had taken the shape of an elven woman, tall and shapely with brown hair down to her buttocks and wearing the simple robes of a scholar. She was pretty, but appeared as a mortal, and the goddess took a reverent step forward and caressed the spine of a book. Nearby was a desk that seemed oddly out of place, the planks worn by time but with an inkwell, quill, and beaten copper mug sitting on it.<
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“Yes, Rissia. These books were almost all written by Marin herself, or by me while I was her apprentice. You’re looking on the research that Marin used to write the Codices.” Emonael’s voice was hushed, and she smiled gently as she looked over at Rissia. “The Codices themselves may be priceless, but they will never tell the reader of the work that went into creating them. In many ways, they’re a shallow representation of a life’s work. This, though? This is what she used. What we used, for I was honored to assist her where I could. Even so, I must admit that the hardest work was her own.”
“This is amazing, Milady, but . . . but did you not exceed her in the end?” Rissia asked, looking around in awe. No matter that the knowledge here was ancient and had been improved upon, the sheer history it represented excited her more than she could express.
“Despite her protests to the contrary, I’m not certain, Rissia. Perhaps I did, and perhaps not. See, I had no hand in the final experiment Marin performed, which allowed her to write the tenth volume. I didn’t write a word of that volume, Rissia, and I’ve never been able to determine how she learned what she did,” Emonael replied, following a row of books until she came to a particular volume with a different binding than the others. “Here we are. I don’t know if I exceeded her, Rissia. Marin’s death was sudden, and it came before I ever knew the full extent of what she could have accomplished. That, dear Rissia, will haunt me for all the days of my life. Because it’s truly lost knowledge.”
“What do you mean?” Rissia asked, taking the book when it was offered to her. She stroked the ancient binding, still preserved like it was new. “What is this?”
“You hold in your hands what I recorded about my time with Marin, Rissia,” Emonael explained quietly, smiling as she shrugged. “Not everything, of course. Even I didn’t know all of Marin’s thoughts, and she didn’t write down everything she learned. That is my journal, from the time I came to the mortal plane to the day that I inherited this archive. Read it, Rissia. Learn from it. And when you’re done, return to the Library. It’s time that someone else knew at least a fragment of the truth.”
With that soft explanation, Emonael turned and walked through the portal, leaving it shimmering behind her. For a long moment, Rissia stared after her, then slowly opened the book with trembling fingers. The idea that she was holding one of the earliest artifacts of Emonael’s rise to power, that she was going to learn what almost no one else knew, stunned her. Yet at the same time, Rissia found herself eager. So, she opened to the first page and began to read.
When will mortals learn that when demons obey after being summoned, they’re merely humoring their summoners, not that we’re actually bound by their silly circles? Oh, I’m certain that a few summoners are able to perform proper bindings, but most of these mortals are astoundingly ignorant. The fool who called me forth had a circle that wouldn’t have contained an imp, let alone a newly born demon lord. In all honesty, perhaps I should have thanked him for summoning me out of the morass that the lower planes are at the moment, but I was a touch wroth, and he’s currently rather firmly out of reach. Ah, well.
I cannot believe how savage the wars going on in the lower planes are becoming. I’m not even the lord of a major sin, like Lust or Wrath, and I have no less than fifty other demons after my head. Considering that, perhaps I’d best lay low on the mortal plane for a while and let things stabilize. Most mortals are too weak to actually be a threat, after all.
In fact, something that my summoner said was rather intriguing. The bumbling magi of a nearby elven kingdom are apparently forming something they call a ‘mage association’ at the directive of their country in the hopes of swelling their magical power. He wanted me to go assassinate a bunch of them, but it sounds far too ideal of a place for a succubus to lay low. I’m the demon lord of illusions, so it should be easy. Besides, young elven magi are just so scrumptious.
Chapter 1
The Pharos Mage Association wasn’t quite what Emonael had expected, and she looked around the grounds in amusement.
A fieldstone fence surrounded what she suspected had once been a few farmers’ fields and a half dozen copses of trees. It was on several acres of land just outside the small town of Maple Lake, with the grounds backing up against the forest itself. A road from the town led those seeking the Association to a large wooden building that must house the majority of the members of the Association, though she wasn’t entirely certain of that. There was a handful more buildings, but the ones that caught her attention were the five towers.
Each of the towers was different, and Emonael suspected that their designs reflected something about the residents of the towers, not that she expected that most of the prospective students would notice. The central tower was fifty feet tall, octagonal, and solidly built yet plain. The windows were of bubbled, green-tinted glass, but it somehow struck her as the sturdiest of the towers. Emonael thought that the owner was likely unassuming but confident in their power.
Near the first tower was another, this one far more flamboyant in appearance. The stones were largely black, with obsidian being common, and the owner had crimson patterns with a flame motif running up the sides of the sixty-foot tower. The windows were of fine glass, and she could see crimson drapes within, which amused her to some extent. The sheer flamboyance betrayed both arrogance and confidence, she thought, but possibly insecurity as well.
Even so, in Emonael’s opinion, the third tower was the most ornate of the lot, showing a particular love of appearances. The tower was smaller, only forty feet tall, but the white marble sides had been polished smooth save for the dozens of tiny holes along them that played music with every gust of the wind over them. The racket would get on her nerves if it weren’t so far away from the main building.
Almost as different was the nearest tower, which was slightly to the west of the main building. Somehow, the tower had been grown from a half dozen trees, and while it was the shortest of the towers, it had numerous side buildings, and the branches intrigued Emonael. Yet in some ways, it was the last of the towers that drew her attention the most.
All of the other buildings looked relatively new, perhaps a few years old, but with paths worn into the ground between them. The last tower was at the far east of the grounds, a large manor house wrapped around a tower that rose a mere thirty feet, and which might have once been a watchtower. Unlike the others, it had to be the better part of a century old, yet there was something odd about it to Emonael’s eyes. The masonry might be old, but it was meticulously taken care of, and the windows were largely blocked by shutters, but the ones which weren’t blocked had panes of fine glass. Even stranger, the path leading to the tower was barely visible, as though people rarely approached it at all.
In the end, the Pharos Mage Association looked interesting. Dozens of families surrounded the main building, primarily elves and a few half elves, but she also saw a handful of humans approaching too. It wasn’t too surprising since this was the Association’s annual open testing for anyone who chose to visit. It was why she was showing up, after all.
Emonael had to resist the urge to preen as she walked toward the door, noticing the attention she was attracting from many of the other prospective students and their families. She had spent nearly a full day working on her appearance for her application, since she didn’t want to be stuck in a body she hated for potentially years. Striking the right balance between beauty and believability had been difficult, but the attention proved it’d been worth spending the time in the end. Even so, she’d been forced to be more conservative than she would’ve preferred, but such was the price of living in the mortal world.
A fairly handsome half-elf with dark brown hair got the door for Emonael, smiling nervously at her, and she gave him a warm, ever so slightly suggestive smile in return as she spoke. “Thank you.”
“You’re w-welcome,” the young man answered, his eyes following her almost reverently as she swept into the foyer confidently.
T
he entrance to the building was large but crowded, and several desks had a number of harried-looking young scribes or scholars sitting at them, quickly noting down the names of those applying to become apprentices. Emonael quickly glanced over the four lines and chose the one where the scribe looked most composed, then settled in to wait.
“Hello!” The woman just ahead of Emonael turned and smiled at her, the young woman looking slightly nervous. She was pretty, with mid-length straw-blond hair and a scattering of freckles that made her brown eyes seem a little warmer. “I’m Damiya, Damiya Dawnbreak. Who’re you?”
“I’m Emonael Teardrop. It’s nice to meet you, Damiya.” Emonael replied, smiling in return as she nodded. “I imagine we’re here for the same reason, so . . . what do you think your chances are?”
“I’m not sure. We had a hedge witch in town, and she said I had talent, but who really knows?” Damiya admitted, shrugging helplessly. “I’m hoping that I’ll pass, but I’m pretty nervous about it. It isn’t every day you have the chance to become the apprentice of a real mage, let alone a High Mage! What about you?”
“That’s very true. As for me, I’ve had a little training, enough that I’m fairly certain I’ll pass. Whether or not I can find a teacher whose magic I can learn is an entirely different story, though,” Emonael replied, smiling at the earnest young woman. Damiya was attractive enough, and after a moment the demon decided that she wouldn’t mind sleeping with the young woman. Considering why she was here, she was largely categorizing the students and staff on that basis, not on actual talent. She might need to be wary of the High Magi, but even there she was confident.
“Damn, that’s lucky. I wish I’d had a chance like that.” Another voice came from behind Emonael, and she turned to meet the envious gaze of the young man who’d gotten the door for her, though it looked like he’d tried to straighten his dark brown hair in the meantime, and his eyes were much darker than Damiya’s. “I’m guessing I have a talent, but this entire trip is something of a risk. I hope I do.”
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