Looming Shadow: Journey to Chaos book 2 (34 page)

“Skull, tell me again
how impressed my subjects were with my chaos magic.”

“They trembled in fear,
my master. One of them called you a chaotic god and another called you a
blasphemer for harnessing primordial energy.”

He could have put
that research to use helping others with mana mutation…

“Where is my research
regarding mana mutation?”

“Mana mutation, my
master? What is that?”

Abyss...Either there
is mana mutation research here and the skull doesn't know it by that name, or
there isn't anything here at all.

“Where are my notes
regarding chaos magic?”

“In your heart, my
master. You often said that chaos magic wasn’t something that could be learned
academically or studied as lesser magic could.”

Abyss…That could be
a bust too.

He looked around again
and his gaze fell upon a tall object directly across from the desk. It was
shrouded in a thick cloth that shimmered with threads of orichalcum. What
aroused Eric's curiosity was that these threads depicted ordercraft runes. He
left the skull to examine it up close. The cover smelled funky and the hairs
composing it felt prickly on his fingertips.
These look like the prison
runes Annala was tricked into wearing...the ones that sealed her magecraft...

The revealed object was
a full-length mirror framed in orichalcum. Its feet were those of a gargoyle
and the heads of a hydra looked down on him. Hairline cracks ran in four lines.
Dengel loved the sound of his own voice, so he must have also thought
himself the beautiful creature on Tariatla.

“Is that the best you
can do?” the Eric in the mirror asked.

“What?” Eric asked in
reply.

“You are in the lair of
the greatest mage in history; the final lair! The peak of his knowledge is at
your fingertips and yet all you're interested in is money and slander?” Mirror Eric
sneered. “How brutish.”

“I'm a mercenary, not a
scholar. I do not care what esoteric principle Dengel was working on. All that
nonsense from the New Scepter exam was useless.”

“You believe it is
useless because you do not understand it. How could you? You barely know the
basics of magic. How could you be expected to understand the depths and heights
of its mysteries?”

“I don't talk like
that. I get straight to the point. Poetic language is for impressing patrons.”

Mirror Eric laughed. “Spoken
like a true sell staff. Magic is for money, correct? If it can't kill something,
then what's the point?”

“Isn't that why Dengel
wanted chaos magic? To kill the Bandit Empress?”

“You presume much to
think you understand the mind of Dengel. A truly sophisticated mage doesn't
need to
use
magic for his opponent to feel its effects.”

“You could have just
said he wanted to 'scare her.'”

Mirror Eric shook his
head sadly. “That is why you shall never be more than a simple battle mage. You
lack vision. You lack aspirations and dreams. Dengel, despite moral failings,
still followed his dream and made the world a better place. For millennia, it
has remembered his name.”

“When I'm done, it will
inspire disgust, and the world will be a better place because of it. Without
humans heaping praise on the elves' boogeyman, there will be greater
understanding between them.”

“It is your own
selfishness that truly motivates you.”

“Yes, it is. Now tell
me about Dengel's research or I'll cover you up again.”

Mirror Eric grinned a
trickster grin. “Okay...Dengel wanted to bridge the gap between humans and
elves so he conducted his research among like-minded Ceihans. He invaded the
lair of Ariek Valeten to acquire me and demanded that I tell him about the
older mage's research. He inhabited a wuss to ingratiate himself to a princess
and continue his work.”

“I'm not interested in
Dengel. I'm interested in his research.”

“Did I mention he used
a mage’s spear, crushed on a fellow nerd, and was bullied as a child?”

“Boring.”

“...What?”

“Your breaking speech
is boring me. Is your command matrix too simple for anything else?”

Mirror Eric spread his arms.
“I'm nothing more than a projection of you.”

“You're a spell
diagram.”

Eric flipped the mirror
around and tapped the rune on the back. The mirror's surface flashed in
annoyance. Eric flipped the mirror back, tapped it again, and the mirror's
surface rippled.

“Tell me what I want to
know or I'll break it.”

“I don't know anything
about Dengel's research!” the mirror confessed. “He brought me here to serve as
his trickster's advocate, but I can only reflect the heart, not the mind.
Please spare me!”

“Then you're useless.
Your only value is what you can tell me about Dengel.”

“Amazing! You did my
job for me.”

“Huh?”

“You reflected yourself.”
Eric raised the spear and the light gleamed. “Sorry! You're a smart kid; maybe
you can figure out something to please your client.”

Eric lifted the cloth
and said, “Good enough.” He re-covered the mirror.

There has to be
something useful around here.
He checked the containers, scroll, desk,
skull, and mirror. The only thing left was the ghost Dengel flitting in and out
of the thin mist. It was the same color as the soul goop he drank last summer
and also the same as the light in his crystal.

....
I believe the
professor said “belief determines reality.”

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.