Looming Shadow: Journey to Chaos book 2 (40 page)

Do you truly hold me
in so little esteem?

Eric smiled at the Grey
Dengel.
You're different. You're pure scholarly pride instead of the real
Dengel's appalling bigotry.

“Out of curiosity – rather
morbid, I might add – I have shown my student Mana Compression and all the
wonders its practitioner can achieve.”
After skimming the five pages of
said wonders, Eric continued,
“I even told her of the Chaotic Starlight and
my personal quest. She was suitably awed and impressed by her master's power
and vision.”

I bet she was...Why
isn't she named?
He directed his question at the Grey Dengel.

Her name was
unpronounceable and otherwise unfitting, so I gave her a new one, but she
disliked it. It was the one thing on which we disagreed.

What was it?

Grey Dengel smiled in
such a way he convinced Eric that, at one time, he could have been The
Trickster's Choice. Conjuring a skull, he held it up as to talk with.
Alas,
poor Asuna. I knew her well.

You mean....that
skull!

Did you truly
believe there was a spell that could animate an inanimate object and program it
to speak only in flattery?

In disbelief, Eric
continued reading and every word confirmed what he feared. Dengel's documents
moved from referring to the Otherworlder as “my Otherworlder” to “my student” to
“Asuna.” There were sections that digressed from academics or self-praise and
talked exclusively about her. One whole chapter was about her wedding and he
was father of the bride!

Eric pushed himself
away and left the tent in a huff.

Night had fallen and
the courtyard was shrouded in darkness. The only light was the campfire at the
center and it only reached a few yards in diameter. This didn't bother Eric.
Night or day made no difference to him; he could see clearly in either. He
walked unerringly to the tower.

Zettai followed him,
but stopped when she realized where he was headed. She couldn’t follow her
teacher in there. It was too dangerous for her.

“Just because you were
soft on one girl doesn't mean you weren't an asshole!”

Grey Dengel followed
him in a manner not unlike Tasio.
By the same token, it means I wasn't
completely evil.

 
Eric stomped
toward the tower and, in an honest rage, declared, “Dengel was evil. He likely
abused her and she rationalized it into something Nemu and Merlinish.”

Grey Dengel shook his
head. “Ask your Daylra if you don't believe me.”

As Eric bypassed the
traps once again, the wheels in his head began to turn. Out of all the souls
imprisoned in their bones in this castle, there was only one bedroom inside the
tower. He saw it for himself; it was not a slave's room, but for someone held
in high regard. Out of all the people mentioned in Dengel's notes, only one was
referred to with anything resembling affection. A third fact completed the
puzzle; Dengel was un-killable and Asuna was not.
Could all these defenses
be here to protect her instead of him?
As soon as he crossed the threshold
into Dengel's lair, he picked up the skull and immediately returned to it.

“What are you doing, my
master?”

“I'm not your master.
My name is Eric Watley.” He didn't stop. “Your master has been dead for over a
thousand years.”

“Don't joke of such
things, my master. You are immortal and no one else could ever reach this room.
It is irrational for me to believe otherwise.”

“I'm going to break the
spell holding you here so you can cross over.”

As he stepped on the
threshold, the skull spoke up again. “Did it occur to you, Eric Watley, that
there is no spell to break?”

“So all that 'master'
talk was an act? Are you a submissive or a troll?”

The skull bit him.

“Ow! Either way, you're
not staying here. You could help people that are alive and deserving of your
help.”

All the way back to the
entrance, the skull protested. Like First Skeleton and Second Skeleton, her
voice was ethereal and so there was no way to silence her. Eric had to endure
the one hundred and one reasons why Dengel was a benevolent sage whether he
liked it or not. By the time he crossed the tower's threshold, he was tempted
to shatter the thing against the wall. Instead, he restrained himself and
joined the rest of his party at the campfire.

“Do you mind that I
brought a guest for dinner?” He placed the skull next to him. “Everyone, this
is Asuna, Dengel's love slave.”

“How dare you slander
my master! He never touched me except when I asked him to!”

“Like I said; Asuna,
this is everyone.”

“Fascinating!” Haburt
exclaimed. “She speaks coherently and without pause despite possessing nothing
but her dried-out skull!”

“I am the master’s
student and thus I retain full use of my vocal capabilities. Slaves don't need
to talk; they only need to listen and obey.”

Now that she wasn't
flattering her master, she took on the air of a haughty lady. Eric imagined her
as a human, wearing the dress Tiza did now, and ordering Dengel's slaves to
perform tasks for her. Dengel’s student? No, she sounded more like Dengel’s
daughter.

“Put her back,” Basilard
said coldly.

“Daylra?”

“Put her back right now,”
Basilard repeated.

“She does no one any
good lying in there.”

“Eric, she's waiting
for her mentor. The bond between a student and her teacher is a precious thing.
It is familial without the blood and it is how knowledge is passed down through
the ages.”

“Dengel is dead.”

“He is
un
dead.
Casting him out of your body did not send him to the Abyss; a spirit of his
potency can resist its pull. He might come back here, someday, and if he finds
out that you kidnapped his precious student,
then
you will be the one
going to the Abyss.
”

“Listen to your elder
and better, boy,” Asuna said. “He knows what he's talking about. I hypothesize
that he's experienced such a thing himself.”

“Daylra?” three voices
asked.

There was a long pause
and at last Basilard said, “It was eight years ago. I was tracking someone
suspected of crimes against humanity in the Latrot/Mithra war. My team consisted
of my original three students. They were young adults in their prime and I had
trained them since they were your age. We found the man in question and engaged
him.”

He gripped
BloodDrinker's hilt so tightly his knuckles turned white and the blade gleamed
with his blood lust.

“He killed all three of
them and poached their corpses for his forbidden research. He tried to strike
me down too...”

He removed the glove on
his right hand and revealed a long, red scar stretching down the entire length
of his palm. It glowed with the same blood red as BloodDrinker.

“But I caught his sword
and channeled all my rage and sorrow into powering the Bladi Clan's Impeachment
and Succession spells. For that moment, I was stronger than him and I took the
sword from him. I used it to interdict his birthright and sentence him to the
most painful death in my power.”

He put the glove back
on.

“Now, please, put the
skull back where you found it.”

At first, Eric was too
stunned to move. Then he felt Basilard's bloodlust focus on him and he ran as
quickly as he could back to the tower.

Zettai followed him
again, wondering if Eric would do the same thing for her. She shook her head.
They weren’t close enough. When his mission was completed, he would leave the
country without her. The thought depressed her immensely.

“Eric!”

He stopped and turned.

“Yes, Zettai?”

“…Ahh…Can I…um… can
we…I mean, I’m a good student, right?”

“Absolutely. You caught
on faster than I did and you have the passion for it.”

“Then you’ll continue
teaching me, right?”

“Sure, as long as I’m
here.”

Zettai’s face darkened
and her lip quivered. “You’re leaving me behind?”

“Please don’t cry.
There’s nothing I can do about it. Smuggling you out would be illegal.”

“Rescuing me was
illegal too!”

Eric winced. “This is
different. They’re much more thorough when it comes to ships leaving the
country. Despite my darkness power, there’s a good chance they’ll find you.
Abyss, they might be looking for magical tricks because we’re mages. I wouldn’t
be able to hide you.”

“What about the bag?”

Eric held it up. “This
thing? I used it when I was crazy. I have no idea how it works and Grey Dengel
can’t teach me.”

It is you who cannot
learn it. How is it that you grasp the Omnipresent Mana principle and foible
with the Zero-Finite principle?

“I’m sorry, but like
Haburt said the other day, the only way you’re getting off this island is on
the back of a dragon or a trickster.”

“Abandoning your
student is one more way in which you are inferior to Dengel,” Asuna declared. “
My
master
once fought an army, single-handedly, in order to rescue me from a
vile human dissector. I thought it to be impossible, but he found a way! You
lack the same self-confidence!”

“Excuse me while I put
this thing back.”

 Once he left her
presence, the darkness around Zettai felt oppressive. Soon she’d have to go
back to petty theft and dodging secret police. She shook her head again.

There was no way she
was going back to that life. She’d rather die in that Fog cloud, fighting
monsters and learning magic, than risk going back to jail. Just thinking about
it made her shiver. Because of her petite stature, the warden called her “doll”
and treated her like one. There was no way she could face that again, but where
would she go?

One thing was certain;
she couldn’t stay here. She evaded the secret police for weeks because she
didn’t stay in one place. She couldn’t live here, so it was time to move on.
She made her plans over dinner (no sense passing up free food) and while the
others prepared for sleep, she prepared for travel. When Basilard and Sias left
the camp, supposedly to look for Eric, she left for the edge of the cliff. She
stealthily retrieved her climbing gear, and was at the cliff’s edge when a ball
of light hovered over her like a spotlight.

“Where do you think
you’re going?” a voice behind her demanded.

“I’m innocent! Please
don’t arrest me!”

“Arrest you? Zettai,
turn around.”

It was Nolien. His arms
were crossed, but his eyes and smile were warm. A second light hovered above
his own head.

“Oh…Ah…It’s time for me
to leave.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll…find some place.”

“What is your plan?”

“I don’t know!” She started
crying. “I can’t stay here and I can’t stay in the freak village, so I have to
keep moving…”

Nolien smiled sadly and
said, “How can the dead move on their own?”

“Wh-what?”

“You were executed over
two weeks ago. I can induce a death-like state in your body for a little while
and make up some story about Dakol giving me your body for study.”

Zettai’s smile was
charged with so much hope, it melted Nolien’s heart.

“Really?”

“It’s against the
Griffocratic Oath to medically do harm to anyone, but you’re legally dead. In
other words, yes, I can do it.”

She ran to him, hugged
him, nuzzled him, and thanked him. He patted her head, demurred her praise, and
raised his barrier to deflect fire and blindness spells that came from the left
and right. Pushing Zettai to the ground, he spun to intercept an ax as it
smashed through his barrier. His staff was infused with his spirit and so it
didn’t break on the weapon’s blade. Stepping forward with his left foot, he
pushed the blade aside and back fisted his assailant’s cheek with his left
hand. She stepped back from the force and then jumped back while her
accomplices fired more spells.

Nolien blocked them
both and said, “Who are you?” 

His first Illumination
Orb revealed a teenage girl with hair like dirt. His second darted to the left
to show a boy with orange hair and a white staff. He generated a third and
directed it to the right to find a purple-haired boy with a black staff. All
three of them had blood-red eyes.

“Are you with the
Crimson Killer?”

“Thanks for leaving the
group, Healer,” the girl said. “Our father wants to meet your girl.”

Nolien calmly set his
stance and his killing intent made Zettai pee her pants.

“I'm not a healer; I'm
a mercenary.”

At another end of the
plateau, Sias dragged Basilard away from the camp. She smiled bewitchingly
under the Illumination Orb while fingering her long, pink hair. All at once,
two curses came at him from opposing directions and Sias tried to shank him.
Basilard’s barrier stopped them cold.

 He snapped his fingers
once to cast three spells. The first two were more illumination orbs that
tracked the casters of the spells and the third was a Dispel directed at “Sias.”
Two teenagers to either side of him came under the light, and coils of light
streamed off the false Sias, revealing her true identity. The imposter was
younger, broader, and had dark brown hair instead of pale pink. She looked
Basilard in the eyes and said, “Hello, Daylra. Did you miss me?”

Basilard paled more
than usual. “...No...” he whispered. He snapped again and again and even
recited the full incantation, but there were no more spells to break. “You're
dead...Death confirmed it....you crossed over...How can you be here!?”

“I was brought back
from beyond the grave by a more worthy mentor. He has achieved what all of you
never dared.”

“All of us were revived,”
said the first mage, a boy with purple hair and a black staff.