Chapter 113, 1/2

Chapter 113, 1/2

The butler guided Erick past the golden gate, into the low gardens beyond where bushes and garden beds held flowers of all kinds, and fruiting trees grew in the bright, ambient light of the Palace District. The fighting Shades were past another wall and to the right side of the Palace, and Erick was worried for a second when the butler guided Erick through another gate, into the proper city of the Palace, edging closer to the fight, but the butler took Erick to the left. Shadowflames and minor comets and ice blooms quickly went out of sight, on the other side of the Palace.

Fallopolis followed for only a short more while, before declaring, “We’ve arrived! Glad I could accompany you here, Erick. See you around!” She headed back the way they had come, toward the sounds of battle.

“See you around,” Erick said, to Fallopolis’s rapidly receding form.

She turned around and waved, and then she took a dark step and was gone.

Erick turned a fraction, and looked up, to face Quilatalap. “So. Uh. What about you? Are you going this way too, or...?”

He smiled. “Yup. I sort of have a room next to yours.”

Well okay then.

Erick turned back to the butler, and resumed his walk.

- - - -

The butler guided Erick over tiny bridges where water flowed freely, and past empty roads full of overlooks and nice little spaces for tea or breakfast. There were few visible shadelings, or anyone, actually, except for the automatons that stood like statues here and there in organized pairs, or quads. There were probably servant’s passages for the people? Erick wasn’t sure. He did look closely at the shadows, though. Usually, he could tell if someone was in them, because Meditation revealed some of the underlying structure of magic. It wasn’t Mana Sight, but it wasn’t nothing, either.

There were no people in those shadows. So either they were hiding rather well, or there were hidden passages in the Palace. Erick bet on hidden passages.

Eventually, the butler’s guidance ended at a small golden gate in the inner curtain wall to the back left of the Palace. Here lay a nice green land with a small pond, a myriad of grey stone walkways, and wild, yet obviously manicured and well-kept grasses and ‘wild’ flowers. Oak-like trees provided shade to a pond and a few other picturesque places, while the sounds of running water revealed the presence of streams before Erick could see them.

And in the center of all that, was a two-story grey stone cottage with a high-peaked roof and a short tower, that also had a peaked roof. It had some nice windows all around and a nice little porch in the front that faced the Palace.

And Quilatalap was right behind Erick.

The butler stepped onto the cottage’s property, then lowered his arm toward the house, saying, “Your bags are already inside, Archmage Flatt. Your personal butler is also inside, waiting to receive you.” He turned to Quilatalap. “I have been informed that you have guests, too.”

“I wonder who they are?” Quilatalap happily said to himself.

Erick looked to the archlich, and was concerned, for a myriad of reasons. Was he really rooming with this guy?

Quilatalap smiled at Erick, saying. “You can pick whatever room you want. I usually take the top floor main bedroom, but there’s another main bedroom on the lower floor. You can have the tower this year.”

This might as well happen! Everything was odd, and this might as well be odd, too.

Erick walked forward, saying to the butler, “Thank you.”

The butler simply bowed as Erick passed by, but Erick noticed that the man paid almost no deference to the archlich; he rose at Erick’s passing, and didn’t bother to say or even look favorably upon Quilatalap. Erick ignored, but cataloged, whatever drama that was, as he turned his attentions to Ophiel. Ophiel fluttered out into the grasses and the waters and began inspecting everything, both for Erick, and for himself.

“Soooo...” Erick said, making some small talk as they walked up to the house. “You stay here every year?”

“This is where I stay when I’m visiting Brightwater for whatever reason there might be for me to be in this District.” Quilatalap said, “But the Feast hasn’t been held in the Palace in twenty years. Not everyone is staying on site, either.” He gazed up at the house, smiling, saying, “I don’t get out here near often enough, so it’s nice to see this place looking well.”

The front door opened before Erick got too close, and a fast, poised pair of human corpses, one man, one woman, stepped out to either side of the entrance. Both of them had glowing blue eyes. Both of them wore dark robes. Both of them regarded Erick, instantly dismissed his presence, then locked onto the man behind Erick. Erick, for his part, sort of just froze. When he realized he stupidly froze, he forced himself to try to relax as he looked for a way to get out of whatever was happening here.

Both animated corpses exclaimed, “Mast—!”

Quilatalap interrupted the two newcomers, sighing out, “What are you two doing here.”

The man exclaimed, “We wish to learn again, Master!”

“We want to do better!” said the woman. “We can do better!”

While Quilatalap just frowned at the pair, Erick kinda, just, stood off to the side, not knowing what all this was about, not wishing to be involved, and yet not seeing an immediate way out of this. He was surrounded on all sides. He’d have to walk across the wild grasses to get away, and that seemed like a bad idea for some reason.

And then a meek-looking incani woman with big black horns and dark skin came out of the house, shoving the other two aside. Okay. Maybe not so meek. The two undead just looked at her, angrily.

This newcomer wore a sleek black business outfit with white accents, while her eyes were red and black. Now that she was known, she only had eyes for Erick, as she said, “Greetings, Archmage Flatt. I am your butler for the duration of your stay, and though I have been charged with keeping you safe and seeing to your needs, the last moment adjustments to the plan, which included a switch of location to Quilatalap’s abode, has allowed others into a space that should have been yours alone. Please excuse my inability to clear out the corpses.” Without acknowledging Quilatalap at all, she said to Erick, “Your bags have been deposited in your bedroom.” She stepped back into the house, offering Erick an out to whatever the corpses wanted, as she asked, “Would you care for a tour of the facilities? Or to see your rooms?”

Erick glanced to the undead, then said to Quilatalap, “I’ll leave you to your students, then,” as he walked forward, toward the door, saying, “I would love to see—”

The undead man said, “You do not deserve to be in his presence—”

Erick got too close to the man. He realized that as it happened, and even though he had a clear way forward.

The man went to shove Erick, to bar his entry, but three things happened very fast. Erick put up a thin shell of sunform, and that should have been enough. But then the incani woman’s dark eyes went wild as she saw the open palm aiming for Erick. She did something too fast to see; the man’s arm separated at the elbow, and the wrist and hand went away. The body part went somewhere, Erick couldn’t tell, because then Quilatalap got involved.

The undead man gained a hole through his center that rapidly expanded. Ribs, bones, spine, robe, and guts, all of that turned to a fine mist that billowed away from Erick, scattering red onto the white flowers near the house. The undead man’s head remained. That part of him bobbed in the air, as the light in his eyes went out.

Erick froze in his tracks.

The man’s head floated to Quilatalap’s hand. He held it up, and frowned, saying, “You and I are going to have a talk.” He looked to the undead woman, and his kind eyes were, for the first time, less than kind. “You, too.” To Erick, he mentioned, “See you at the opening ceremony in a few hours.” And then he walked down a path that led around the house.

The undead woman followed, like a silent mouse, or a very chastised child.

After a few steps, Quilatalap set the head in his hands into the air. A body reformed under the head. The remade man was naked, and skinny, but he didn’t look dead anymore. Color returned to the man’s body, as he fell in line with the woman, as they both followed Quilatalap’s march around the corner, out of sight.

Erick turned to face the incani butler. “That was impressive. You cut right through that guy’s arm.”

The woman stood straighter. “Thank you, sir.” She backed up into the house, again.

Erick allowed himself to be led into her vacancy, to step into the doorway, and into the foyer. His first impression of the place was that it was rather humble. And kinda nice. Nice stone walls and dense wooden floors and comfortable furniture. He turned back to the woman, who was herself comfortable, in an odd sort of way. Maybe it was the fact that she wasn’t a shadeling, and that threw Erick for a loop.

“What’s your name?”This chapter made its debut appearance via N0v3lB1n.

“Violet, sir.”

“Do you work for Queen, or what?”

“I do, sir.”

“How long have you been here at the Palace?”

“Born and raised, sir.”

Erick looked to the incani woman with a whole new appreciation in his eyes, and said, “I think I’m gonna want a lot of information from you about everything that is going on around here, including: How is working for them? Is that normal?”

Violet bowed, then raised, saying, “This is why I was assigned to you, sir. But—” She indicated the grandfather-ish clock to the left, on the other side of a sitting area. “But the Opening Ceremony is scheduled to begin in one hour and thirty four minutes, and Queen has tasked me with getting you ready. I have gone through your clothes and set out the appropriate ones, as well as set out three outfits made for you, by Queen, in the proper style that should fit you well, should you choose to wear them. Your own clothes are only marginally approved.”

Erick smirked. He joked, “I paid almost 95,000 gold for those clothes! And from a world-renowned tailor, too!”

Violet bowed, saying, “Marginal is among the best qualifiers Queen gives.”

“Out of a list how long?”

“It varies, sir.”

“Fair enough.” Erick said, “Show me to my room, please. Mustn't keep royalty waiting!”

“I understand you are joking, sir, but these are true words.”

- - - -

Erick’s room was beyond the foyer, to the right, beside the entrance to the tower. Both his room and the tower had large windows with nice views of the crystal mountains to the south of the Palace, where streams fell from thirty kilometers up and hit a hundred patches of green on their ways down. The room itself was comfortably appointed, with a large bed in the center of the room, an open closet, and its own bathroom, complete with a bathtub and all the proper amenities to make this a high-class place. Erick inundated the room with tendrils of light, checking everything, from every angle. When that search returned nothing, he threw a [Cascade Imaging] into the center of the room, to form an eighth-scale map of the house. He wasn’t searching for anything in particular, for searching for something as nebulous as ‘traps’ would give no results. He was mainly just searching for the layout of the place. In this, he was successful, but the place was pretty darn normal, as far as Erick could tell. Rooms. Bathrooms. Hallways. From all angles, this place was just a house.

But about forty meters down, there was water and crystal under the veneer of the land the Palace, and this house, was built upon. Erick’s mapping showed lots of hidden places down there, in the brightwater.

Violet watched from the entrance, her eyes firmly directed toward the clothes she had set out. Erick would get to those soon enough. He thought the black robes were a bit much, but they were better than the rainbow ones, and certainly better than the all-white ones. Oh, there was no direct problem with them. Erick could even see himself wearing the rainbow ones as a gag, and having fun with it. That wasn’t the problem, at all.

He supposed he was done with his investigations. He turned to the robes, and decided to address the problem. “Are these really the approved options?” Erick had expected a certain amount of pushiness from Queen and all the rest, and he even expected her to go through all of his clothes, but to so blatantly pick out what he wore seemed to cross a line Erick didn’t know he had. And there was another problem. “Where are my own grey robes? I liked those ones. I know I had some of those in my bags, but they are absent from the closet. In fact, all my grey clothes are gone. The only ones I have are the ones I have on myself, right now.”

Violet bowed, then walked away. In four seconds, she entered a room on down the hallway, then came back with the grey robes, saying, “Queen would prefer you pick something more definitive than grey. In her words, grey is a spineless, muddled color.”

Erick frowned as he took his robes, and tossed them on the bed behind him. “Is this Feast going to be a hundred little power plays like this, Violet?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I noticed that this house was grey. Does that mean she thinks Quilatalap is spineless?”

“It is much more complicated than that, but yes, sir.”

“... Why is Quilatalap spineless?”

“Because he refuses to take the final steps and become a Shade.”

“Then I think I will wear nothing but grey this entire time.”

“That is your choice, sir, but I would advise against it.”

Erick frowned. “Why?”

“Queen is not a bad person, but she has certain tics that set her off. The argument of grey is an old one when it comes to her and Quilatalap, but she’s mostly over it. This doesn’t mean that she approves of the color. You wearing grey to the start of this important event would start you and her off on the wrong path. If you capitulate to this desire of hers, going forward will be a lot easier for you and for me.”

“Explain this aversion to grey.” Erick wondered if it had something to do with Queen’s prismatic nature, or perhaps it had something to do with the greys of shadeling eyes. Or maybe something else?

“I cannot, for I do not know.”

“Speculate?”

Priestess hovered further into the air as she floated past the congregation. She took her spot in the southernmost part of the area. All eyes were on her, and on the air around her. Images appeared in the sky, as she began to narrate a story Erick had never heard before.

Erick was transported, maybe not in body, but in mind, to another world, another time, another place.

“In the beginning, there was Darkness.

“Endless! Boundless! Chaos without measure. Chaos without substance.

“No Light. No Stone. Nor Air, nor Water, nor Fire. No Souls. No Order at all.

“But then! There came another. A brilliance upon the Darkness. A change upon the unchanging. A solidification of Chaos into something else. Something Ordered. Hear his name, and give prayer to the fallen: Xoat! The First Wizard.

“Xoat! Xoat! Xoat!

“The Primal Spark!

“The Fire of the Age!

“The First Wizard God. And yet, he was none of that at all, for he was never given a chance.

“Neither true wizard, nor true god, Xoat lived and died in Darkness.

“And the Darkness bore witness, for when Xoat came into being, everything changed.

“Darkness had never seen anything like Xoat before. Darkness wanted Xoat to happen again.

“And so, Darkness took Xoat’s corpse and made the First Cosmology. Bones became Stone. Breath became Air. Stilled movement was driven to move again, becoming Fire, while blood became Water. A soul was sundered into a million mirrors, creating the first bit of mana in the universe, in an attempt to create another Xoat. And yet, despite the powers of Pure Darkness, it was not enough. Xoat was dead. And there would never be another like him.

“Stone did not move on its own. Air did not move through dead lungs. Fire gave warmth to nothing, while Water sloshed, and stilled once again. He tried combining the Four Elements, but Ooze only wobbled. Plasma and Rain were pretty, but were not much more than that. Sand and Steam were less than useful, while Magma seemed nothing more than a source of deep Fire.

“And so, Darkness tried something else.

“The souls had wandered around, doing nothing, but now, He forced those souls into the pieces of the First Cosmology He had created, and thus, there was sentient movement, for the first time. Mana, given form! Mana, turned to life!

“Darkness had created the first Ancients, and the first elementals. But these were not like Xoat. Though Darkness had spent little time with the First Wizard, He knew what He had created was not like what He had discovered.

“And so, Darkness worked a bit more, not sure what was happening, or where He was going wrong.

“Out of these second ministrations came Gloom, and Swamp, and Abyss, and Ash. Out of this trial, came the Second Cosmology. Primordial Elementals remade existence into their own images, but they cared not for Darkness. They were automatons, and they were boring.

“These things He had made were not clever. They acted on instinct. They were sentient, and they were varied, but they were not sapient. Their souls were dull, and they created nothing but what was already there. And when He tried to create more complicated lives, they perished, for unknown reasons.

“Darkness was missing something essential.

“After thinking for a long time, Darkness realized he was missing something that was not Darkness, for Xoat had stilled when he had appeared out of the Chaos. All complicated life perished in Pure Darkness.

“Darkness had the question, and the answer, and now, He simply searched for the solution.

“He found the answer to His problems at the most obvious of places: Xoat’s corpse.

“But these pieces were already used by the Second Cosmology, and so, He struck down automatons and useless attempts at life. And when He was done, there was not much left of His Second Creation, but He had managed to cobble together Xoat’s eyes, and ears, and brain, and most of his body.

“He took these pieces into himself.

“Thus, Darkness imbued the First Dragon, and the First Dragon was something other than Darkness. And yet, the First Dragon was also complicated life, and also able to survive in the Pure Darkness.

“Success!

“And also, terror.

“Darkness saw himself, from both angles. The Dragon was frightened. The Darkness was intrigued. The Darkness was frightened. The Dragon was intrigued.

“For in looking upon Himself, He saw what Xoat saw, which was nothing. All was destruction. All was Darkness.

“But then, He also saw the Fire upon the remnants of the Second Cosmology. How it lit up the Endless. How it enabled life in the pitiful wreckage of His Second Attempt. This Fire was the solution. But it was not perfect. It was weak. Something was missing.

“Darkness pulled Himself away from the Fire, to better let it grow and move, and in doing so, He birthed the final necessity to life.

“Light!

“Brilliant! Radiant! Incandescent!

“With the final piece of the Puzzle of Life assembled, and the First Dragon to forge the way, to guide the elemental life that would come, and to create more complicated life, life began to spread and flourish and populate the universe. But that story is getting ahead of ourselves.

“It was in this earliest time of the new Third Cosmology that the First Dragon met the Second Dragon, in the depths of Darkness. But that is a story for another day.

“For now, it is enough to know that the Dragons gave birth to the First People with true souls, the first life outside of the elementals, and though they were not dragons themselves, these First People multiplied more than any other. With the Dragons to oversee them, Those Who Aspire began to populate the First Plane. The first world of the Third Cosmology.

“Darkness looked on the First Plane from the depths of the Void, and declared it good.

“These new ‘people’ were not Xoat, but in time, more Wizards would come from those who He begat, from the dragons and the people, to forge more lands, to create more air, to fill more oceans, and to light the skies. They would open the paths through the mana ocean, carving the ways out past that First World, to the Second, and the Third, to spread among the glittering Darkness, to bring forth Order from Chaos, and to cause Chaos all their own. But we are getting ahead of ourselves, again.

“For there was a problem.

“The First World was good, but Darkness wanted to be with us, and He could not. For as how Xoat had died inside the Darkness, Darkness overpowered all that He touched.

“And lo! He already had a solution.

“He was both the Darkness, and the Dragons. It was a simple matter to shift himself toward the flesh and power of His progeny, to become something lesser, in order to gain something more.

“And thus, Shadow was born. A mixing of Pure Light and Pure Darkness. A middle path. A way forward! The Dragon God was born. In His wisdom, He descended to us. He guided. He helped. He showed the way through the mana, and how to control the mana itself. He raised the first Wizards. He showed us the first river running through the Mana Ocean. He gave us the first boats, and showed us how to create new lands out of the mana.

“And thus, was born the Third Cosmology.

“And for a few precious moments, Existence was Balanced, for the first and only time in all of eternity.

“And then it broke into pieces, because the people and Wizards therein desired this, but that was expected. Balance was stagnation, and Darkness had to break the balance of Himself in order to get anywhere with His Creations. It was only right and good that His children would do the same.

“And Darkness was happy, for He could already see new Wizards being born in this Third Cosmology. New voices, to raise to the Darkness, so that He might speak to them, to join in Holy Thought, and Holy Action. To Create! To Destroy! To bring about new worlds, and new civilizations! To twist the Chaos and Elements into Order. To break Elements and Order into Chaos. To create new life! new possibility!

“For He desired it.

“And He would be there to see it all unfold, from behind the eyes of His children, to greet the new Wizards, to teach them magic, and help them forge everything that had yet to exist. And when Wizards did not come, He would still be there to help the nascent mage learn the possibilities of magic, to help them practice their craft, to expand upon what had already been laid down by himself, and by the Wizards of the past. He would even help the apprentice, and the priest. The governor and the governed. Any who touched mana, who reached for Darkness, were welcome to try their hand at the monumental Path of the Creator, the Path of the Destroyer, or the Path of the Paradox.

“And when He could not be there directly, He would still be present behind the eyes of His Shades, to guide, and to take part, in the glory that is life.”

The sermon ended.

The black pavilion was now full of conjured illusions holding in the air above every obelisk; images of the past, to better illustrate the story told by the Priestess. In the beginning of her speech, a few Shades had helped conjure those images. Everything was going exactly as it should.

And then the Priestess spoke of Xoat like he was a planar, just popping into existence where nothing had existed before. Erick stood stunned. A few other Shades showed their disbelief, too.

And then the Priestess spoke the words that struck Erick to his core, like a spear through his heart, he was no longer stunned, but poleaxed. The Priestess had called Xoat the Fire of the Age.

And every single Shade had flinched at that. The Shades who were helping to conjure images even flinched. They had not been let in on her revelations. She was obviously going off script. Some of the Shades turned to Erick at that moment, their eyes wider than normal. Fallopolis, who somehow moved to stand beside Erick, to flank him with Quilatalap, was openly weeping tears of light as the Priestess barreled on.

The Priestess was now conjuring all the images in the sky on her own; her helpers stood back, not knowing what to do, except to glance from her, to Erick, and then back again.

For a long minute, the Priestess conjured the story on her own. And then her helpers regained themselves. They helped create images again. The Shades whispered amongst their small groups. The Priestess continued to talk.

Erick realized something deep in his soul. He found himself whispering, “This is the normal story. The one told every year, except...” He couldn’t say the words.

Quilatalap smiled, wide and happy, his lower fangs showing as he whispered, “Except now everyone knows what a ‘Fire of the Age’ truly is.” He chuckled, low and fulfilled, then added, “This makes you the first True Fire I’ve ever seen.”

The Priestess continued her sermon. Eventually, she finished. The sky brightened as light returned to the dark congregation. The rivers on the mountain flowed water, instead of shadows. The flowers lost their glows. Most people spoke amongst themselves, or stared at Erick. Or maybe they were sizing up Fallopolis on his right, and Quilatalap at his left; it was hard to tell with their eyes so white.

The Priestess spoke, “Some of you might have noticed a change in the sermon.”

Someone commented, “That’s a fucking understatement.”

A lot seemed to agree with that, as murmurs carried on the air.

Priestess continued unabated, “I’m sure you have questions. I will answer none of them at this time. But I will give you some information: I was briefed on this change of the Telling as of ten hours ago by Tania, and then a few hours ago, by Melemizargo Himself, when He came to me after Erick called to Him in the Spire. We thought we knew what Erick’s designation as a Wizard and as the Fire of the Age meant. We were wrong.” With her starbright eye sockets radiating light, she said, “The Fire of the Age is so much more, and I will be doing my part to ensure that whatever may happen, happens as our God demands.”

In the brief lull of the Priestess’s words, Tania Webwalker stepped into the air, demanding attention with her presence alone. She spoke, “Erick. Take a break. We all need to talk. The Feast is delayed.”

Quilatalap said, “Of course.”

“I’m coming, too,” Fallopolis said.

Tania spoke out, “Fine. Both of you, go.”

“I expected this to be over, not to have a meeting.” Queen’s voice rose above the crowd, “I need to check on the party.”

An incani man dressed in black said, “How can you fucking care about the fucking party now? Fuck.”

The Librarian spoke on the other side of the room, “Some of us knew enough to know this was a possibility.” She looked to Tania, saying, “I didn’t think it was quite like that, but it makes sense.”

A goldscale woman shouted, “Some of us have lives outside of the Library, psycho!”

As Shades began arguing and Tania stood in the air over it all, growing obviously angrier by the second, Erick found himself escorted out of the congregation.