Seventh V: The Mists of Rest
??? ???, 873 AD.
A Place Outside the Physical World.
Meetings with their mentor almost always took place within the confines of their mind, and today was no exception. He could manifest himself in the physical world and cross vast distances in the blink of an eye, much like he'd done when they'd found themselves held captive under the Seaview Manse, but all things considered that was a rather unnecessary risk to take while he was trying to lay a little low.
Today's session was... well, if the opening words of his mentor were anything to go by then he was still trying to get the whole 'tact' thing back in order, that much was for sure.
"I don't like how close you've tied yourself to the cause of these princes."
Seventh bristled at the words of his mentor. They respected the man greatly, but they weren't about to throw away their friendships on a whim.
"If you're asking me to distance myself from Rhema, I'm not listening to what you have to say."
Hydran smiled.
"Of course I'm not asking you to do that. That would both be cruel of me and deeply depressing for you. When I say I do not like how close you have tied yourself to their cause, I mean just that. No veiled words, no hidden meanings, just that I worry for you getting too involved as you learn more about the powers that are soon to be yours. I do not fear your friend, the Prince of Hemlock, but the Prince of Violets worries me a little. He will do nothing if he believes we do not wish it, but should you continue to show deference and a willingness to support his cause unconditionally then I do not doubt that he would use the powers that lie in your blood for his own gain."
They squinted a little at their mentor, wondering just what it was that
"Elaborate."
Their mentor shrugged.
"A creature with the potential to turn a man to ash with the wave of a hand. With the potential to, one day at least, turn armies to dust on the wind with nought but a grief-filled scream. For a king looking to reunite a shattered realm, such a resource may only be turned towards conquest."
"I don't care," they responded levelly, "because I trust the two of them. Lykourgos isn't like that, and even if he was Rhema would stop him. Would keep him grounded."
"Ah, but you have not seen the depths the Prince of Violets would stoop to if he believed his duty demanded it. You have not seen how much duty rules his heart and his mind, and likewise you do not see how quickly he could turn himself from an aspiration for all to a tyrant. Why are you so dead-set on supporting these princes? Why is it that you want to help them so?"
"Because they're good people," they shot back, "and when everything is said and done the elder will be one of the greatest kings in all of history. This world could stand to gain from a few more men like him and his brother."
Hydran looked at him with a quizzical expression. When he asked his question it was not scornful, but one of genuine confusion and
"The strength that lies in men is all but spent. This world is dying. Why are you searching for a sun in the abyss?"
Seventh shrugged, looking down a little. To them, who had only ever known this world, there was nothing else they could do but fight for those that would protect it.
"Where else would light be needed if not when all is surrounded by blackness? Where else would the sun be needed if not in the abyss? I can do nothing but support them, my Lord."
Basileous' expression turned thoughtful for a moment, and he bowed an antlered head in acknowledgement of their words. It seemed that, if nothing else, they had struck a chord within their master's heart.
"I understand. I... will cease my requests that you stop tying yourself to their cause. I only ask of you not to fight their battles for them. Their literal battles, I mean. I do not tell you this, I only ask you. If you wish to fight for them then know that I will train you to do so, but I really would rather you didn't."
Seventh thought for a moment, and thought hard at that. Their mentor had a point, but Seventh somehow knew that by fighting for the princes they were doing the right thing. If they could continue to do the right thing, and at a better level at that, then they would gladly do so.
"I'm genuinely sorry for ignoring your request, but I will be fighting alongside them. The second of my wishes is that you teach me to fight and as befits our kind."
Though Basileous didn't look happy at what had been said, he chuckled a little nonetheless.
"I can't teach you to fight as befits our people, for millennia of splintering and trauma have meant that I'm not much keen for honourable battles like I once was. I'll train you to fight and win, young wingling. I hope that will be good enough to fulfil your wish?"
Seventh nodded purposefully. Here was a way that they would be able to actually help Rhema on the field of battle instead of just as a figure of comfort.
"Okay. Teach me what I need to know."
Hydran bowed deeply. It was a graceful motion, and for once they couldn't detect even a hint of an insult in the display of respect.
"Very well. Before we do begin I need you to understand something; it will be years before you are ready to take to the field. This is not me trying to hold you back, nor even just to protect you. I'm just trying to be more transparent with you now, since I know how much you disliked me keeping things from you à la the Prince of Violets' awakening. Now that I have had a little more time to get my... emotions back under control, I will be able to more readily control my actions."
They didn't miss how their mentor practically spat the word 'emotions', as though they were a curse or an insult, but having heard it they ignored it all the same. Their master had his own things to work through, his own daemons to wrestle with, and they were certain that his own coping methods probably worked fine for him. He'd had a very long time to make sure they worked, after all. If they didn't then he was more obstinate and foolish than anyone Seventh had ever known.
"That's good. I'm thankful for that. There is still much to discuss right now, however."
Their mentor nodded, conceding the point.
"True enough. I take it you will wish to wait until we're back in each other's presence in the physical world before engaging in any real training?"
Seventh nodded.
"We'll be back before winter sets in. When we next march out to war you can come with us! I know you don't want to fight in the wars of man, and I'm not asking you to, but I'll be wanting to continue my training without the two princes leaving me behind. I'm sure you have no issue with that?"
Basileous raised an eyebrow at them, but huffed out a laugh when they mirrored the motion back at him.
"Oh, very well then. You should feel lucky, young winging. If you weren't Aenethar's get then I'd not be so doting."
The words were said with a teasing and friendly tone, which was a nice change of pace. There was too much seriousness at the moment, and they could do with a bit of levity.
Hells, they could do with some levity right now.
"Wait! Aenethar?"
Their mentor stilled, then cursed under his breath.
"Bugger it all. I'd meant to wait for the right time to let you know who your progenitor was. Yes, it was Aenethar. The 'Angel of Death', as the Klironomeans knew him. The gentlest and kindest of all our kin who ventured to this world."
Seventh blinked once. Twice. Three times.
"I'm... he's... Aenethar... what?"
Their mentor gave a long sigh in response to their half-formed questions. One thing was for certain: this was going to be a long, long conversation.
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Their conversation continued on long into the night, the two divine entities bickering endlessly about everything and nothing. Most of it was good natured and of no real consequence, but whenever his mentor suddenly took on a more serious aspect Seventh made sure they were listening, and that they were able to detach the more serious points of conversation from the more casual points that surrounded it. They'd just been finishing up with a humorous back and forth about one of the ancient guises Basileous had worn long before the name 'Hydran' had ever been known to the world when their mentor, seemingly without warning, had ceased their laughter and abruptly changed the tone of their conversation and his voice once more.
"Be careful with your foresight, young Seventh. We still don't know how it works."
They raised an eyebrow, genuinely confused.
"What do you mean? Surely the premise is simple? I look into the future, and I foresee what happens. Is their another element to it? I don't discount it, but I genuinely believe that's all that happens."
"Maybe it is," his mentor replied, "but is it your predictions which are right? Or is reality itself warping to fit your vision? How can we know? We're powerful creatures, Seventh. We can't forget that. It's one of the reasons I tell you not to get involved in the wars of the menfolk; with an Angel as unstable as I or as untrained as yourself a simple attempt to turn one man to ash could quickly send a shockwave around the globe and turn half of the world into a morass of gibbering corpses spewing blood from their mouths. There's no knowing what we might do. Of course, if we take your training slowly then it should be fine. It isn't even your fault we need to take it slowly; it's my own powers I'm worried about. I'll need to shake off my rust first, but I should be done with that by the time this war ends and you return."
Hydran suddenly stopped, as if realising he was getting off track and shooting Seventh an apologetic smile before finishing his statement.
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"We need to be careful when using our powers, Seventh. There's no telling what we might do. You've grown into your dream-magics wonderfully, but angelic-magics are something else entirely. I've not had to teach anyone angelic-magics in... let's just say it's been a long time. A very long time."
"How long?" They asked, curious. "Before I was born, I take it?"
Basileous chuckled a little.
"Put it this way: do you remember the city of Tjenkha?"
Seventh just stared at their mentor, confused.
"No, why should I? I thought it was just a ruin?"
His mentor chuckled again as he spoke, almost as if recalling a fond memory. Seventh supposed that, maybe, that was exactly what he was doing.
"Yeah, well, I remember it. I remember it well. There was a man down there once that asked for the help of me and my friends back when we all still lived. I don't recall what became of him, but I remember his tomb. If all is well and good in the world, then his tomb should still bear our engravings. Those engravings and etchings held within them the faintest mote of divine powers. But that's besides the point, and you're not interested in that."
Seventh bit their tongue to stop themselves from saying that no, they really were quite interested in that, but then this did seem like a conversation for another time. Ah well, it wasn't like the two of them would lack for time across their lives to discuss the past. Right now they needed to be more focused on the future.
"Another time, then. Angelic-magics are harder to master, then?"
The elder of the angels made a so-so motion with one of his hands.
"Perhaps a little, though 'harder' might be the wrong word. I think it's less a matter of them being harder to master, and more that they take far more time to master. There are minutia and details that, whilst fine to be skipped over in dream-magics, are unsafe to ignore with angelic magics."
They scoffed at their mentor's words.
"If I miss out a few details when scrying or projecting myself into the mind of another then there's a good chance I'll drive someone mad. Totally, fatally mad. If I lose control of my emotions there's a good chance I'll do the same. I don't think ignoring details is 'safe' for dream-magics either."
"The ability to control your dream-magics even when your emotions fray and snap is one you will learn in time, fear not on that account. As for the rest of what you say, whilst it is true that you may drive a person to madness with a mistake, at least the slightest error will not reduce the man to your right to a pool of bubbling flesh screaming for death. Angelic-magics can. I've seen what happens when the spells of our kinfolk have ran rampant after the casters have lost control, and long, long ago I watched a continent of living, breathing, sentient life get reduced to boiling blood as the result of... no, there's no need to bother your mind with that story. The point is that angelic-magics are more volatile and potent. Less applicable in everyday life, but still more volatile and potent."
Seventh swallowed hard, and before they could even register the words coming out of their mouth they were speaking.
"I want to hear what happened."
Basileous blinked a few times.
"You- alright, I guess. I'll keep it very short, but far away from this place and even before I was your age, there was what humans would term a 'civil war' amongst one of the groups of our kinfolk. They battered each other with spells for centuries, and at its zenith one of the groups dug up a very, very old spell that would unleash a magical plague on their foe, boiling their blood in an instant. Unfortunately they didn't realise just how beyond their powers this spell was, nor did they have all the information they should have had, for they lost control after only a few minutes. Forty of the greatest spellcasters of the generation that came before my own, dead in a blink, a victim of their own spell, and without anyone to control it this strange blood-boiling disease ripped across their lands, then their foes, then the entire continent. Within minutes a continent of a million souls lay completely silent."
Their mentor seemed to shake themselves from their reminiscing, focusing back on Seventh who now felt more than a little worried. As if sensing their worry their mentor shook his head lightly.
"But we won't be learning anything like that. I never learned that spell, and even the most vile of our kin turned their heads away in shame when they so much as considered trying to find out information about it. Even if I did know that particular spell, I wouldn't teach it to you. Some things are best left forgotten. Still, it's a cautionary tale. Spells that powerful were beyond rare even back then, and I was- hells, I was far younger than you are now when that happened. Thinking on it now I think I could only have been around two-hundred at the time."
Seventh zoned out a little at their mentor's words once more. Two-hundred? For them that was a fifth of their life, and about the number of years they had been awake in total. For their mentor?
For their mentor two-hundred years was nothing. It was a long blink, a missed day. To a being so ancient, the entire human history of this world was nothing but the most recent, and probably least impressive, section of his life. To Seventh? They couldn't even boast of being older than the Klironomeans.
"Seventh? Young wingling, are you alright?"
Their mentor's voice broke through the fog of their thoughts, soft and yet concerned. They tried for an easy smile as they looked at the man, but it didn't feel convincing to them. They dropped it a few seconds later, their shoulders slumping a little.
"Sorry, It's just a lot to take in. All of that, and then the points we were discussing earlier. I just- I can't stop thinking that the one who made me, who handed me over to my parents, and who you say loved me like a child. shares the same name as the knight who should have protected me and instead brought me to the Cult of the Choir. It sits ill with me, the irony of it all."
Basileous nodded sagely, and though seventh could detect a hint of anger in his eyes it was quickly drowned out by concern and sorrow.
"Aenethar was a good man. The best of all of us. That this... that the criminal, he who brought you to those vile theosarkas, sought to take the name of the gentlest angel I've ever known for his own is just another insult piled atop the gentle one's death. I will continue to mourn Aenethar, but the criminal who stains his name will be washed away by time, and the Angel of Dreams and the Dead shall not be. It may not be much for now, but in time you will find some measure of justice in that. The foulness of the choir, one day, will be but a memory."
"You keep saying that," Seventh said as he turned on his heel and took a few steps away, "you keep saying that Aenethar was the best of your kin. But he couldn't have been. How could he have been? How could it have been Aenethar who made me?"
His mentor, though initially bristling at the insult Seventh had thrown at their old friend, quickly regained composure and steadied himself before speaking.
"That last remnant of Aenethar gave life instead of taking it. He'd never enjoyed killing, not Aenethar. By the time you were created he'd been gone from my periphery for so long that... well, I genuinely didn't know a shade of who he once was still lingered. When he found that family, he made you to carry on his legacy. You two are so much alike that I find myself unable to look at you, at times. Forgive an old angel who's friends have long since left this world his imagination, but you look very much like he did when he was your age. You act like him too. Be thankful of that; Aenethar was always the best of us. He didn't bicker or fight, he never accused nor stirred up incidents. He was unconcerned by his popularity and the offerings given to him. He just wanted to do his best to shepherd the mortal folk of this world into the next, when their time came. He was the best of us, Seventh."
"He couldn't have been that good." Seventh spat bitterly. "Any way you try to spin it, he lied to my parents. My parents, who wanted nothing more than a child to call their own."
Their mentor gave them a solemn, sad nod.
"That's where your anger comes from then. I see. I do not blame you, for it certainly seems like a betrayal on the surface, or a lie at the very least, but I implore you not to think of it as such. They wanted a child and they got one, didn't they? They wanted a child, and it was a child they got. There's a reason deals with people like us are told in faetales as warnings. Humans never get exactly what they wish for when dealing with our kind. All of that means nothing however, because Aenethar wasn't like that. I understand you're angry, but I need you to understand that he wouldn't have done what he did, he wouldn't have lied to your parents and left you here, if he felt like he had any other option."
Seventh glared defiantly, still angry but willing to hear what his mentor had to say.
"Explain."
Basileous nodded sincerely and took a deep breath, then began to speak.
"Most of us were gone. I was still aimlessly wandering the world, my mind and body both shattered, Anawroth had vanished with nought but burning anger and the scent of a man betrayed left to him, and the Silence had seen to the end of most of us who had eked out an existence on this world. Aenethar though, he'd been dying for a long time before that. He lasted longer than most of us, but he'd been dying for thousands of years by the time the Silence arrived. He'd long talked of creating his heir, his protégé, and it seems that some time after the silence he must have realised he was soon to fade, and so created you. He took what was left of himself, and made you. Then he found a family that could raise you through the tumultuous early decades of your life, and wandered into the mists to finally be at peace. He'd been dying for a very long time, Seventh, and he wanted to finally let himself move past this world, but he needed to make sure you would be in safe hands first. That's why your adoptive parents could never find him; he was already gone by the time you were in the crib. He made a show of debating them all night purely so he knew how much they would love you and cherish you, and I know for a fact that if he'd have practically lived in their house with them to help raise you. He loved you, Seventh, even if he only saw you for a day. He loved you as a father loves his child, or an elder sibling cares for their younger. He loved you."
Seventh brushed away tears that they hadn't realised had been forming. They just- this was a lot for them to take in, and for so long they'd been angry at how their parents had been deceived, and-
And this was all just a lot to deal with right now.
"Then why did he trick them? Why not just tell them the truth?"
Basileous smiled sadly, shaking his head a little.
"Please don't think of it as deceit, for it was no trick, not truly. I know for a fact that he would have hated tricking them, but he also would have known that the people who became your parents would love you and cherish you no matter how fast or slow you grew. He gave them what they wanted, in a sense, and kept you, the heir to his mantle, safe. Should it exist then he rests in the life that comes after with your parents now, and I know for a fact that the first thing he would have done after his end would be to seek them out and tell them how sorry he was for the truths he kept hidden, and how thankful he is for all that they did for you. He may have never been able to care for you as they did, but he is a parent of yours just as they were, and I know he'd be so proud of what you've accomplished so far. You're on a good path, Seventh. He had his opinions about the pride and arrogance of our kind, and wished you to be raised amongst humans to avoid that same arrogance from manifesting in you as well. He'd be so proud to know that you haven't fallen into conceitedness."
"He wouldn't want me going off to war, would he?"
"No," Hydran began with a conceding nod, "just as I do not, but don't let that dissuade you. You're your own person, even if you are tied to the memory of him in a way that's hard to describe. Still, perhaps it would be best to ensure that there is a non-violent element in your curriculum. That would at least allow you to decide whether you want to pursue one particular branch of study or a number of them."
Seventh nodded their agreement, taking in a deep breath and parcelling away the very heavy information they'd been given to unpack at a later date. A non-violent subject of study as well as a more combat-focused one? It seemed like a fair enough system to them.
"Alright. So, where do we start with that? With my not-combat or magic related learning, I mean?"
"Well," their mentor started, "I won't lie to you, your upbringing amongst mortals does bring with it some downsides. Your lack of knowledge on the philosophies and timekeeping of our kind, for a start. They will seem so alien to one such as yourself, and will take you centuries to learn. Took me a millennia to start understanding them, and I had actual trained teachers amongst our kind. Luckily, once I started to understand them it turned out I was one of the best students our kind had produced in a generation. For you it'll take a bit longer. That's not an insult aimed at your intelligence, nor is it meant to discourage you for that matter, I just want to let you know in advance that there will be difficulties in your education. It isn't something I can just breeze past, for they're so different to anything that humanity has yet managed to cobble together and as such are an integral part of what we once were. Still, that seems as good a place to start with your less martial or mystical focused education. I understand it'll have very little appeal to you at the moment, but it's important we remember these things about where we came from; you'd be surprised at how much our kind once had as a result of these philosophies and timekeeping measures."
Seventh sighed as loudly and in as exaggerated a manner as they could.
"That sounds utterly incomprehensible."
"Well," their mentor said with a lopsided grin, "you've got a fun few centuries coming up in that case."