Chapter 24: Storm Wall Bella

“By Conbra’s womb, Bella.” Janeen groaned, while rubbing her temples, “Who told you that story?”

I grinned shamelessly, enjoying her reaction. Everyone reacted that way when they heard the story for the first time, which was what made the retelling even better. “Conbra’s what Janeen? Do you think the goddess of life would enjoy you talking about her private parts?” I teased her a little, not wanting to push it too far, but not wanting to let such a chance go.

Nathan and Mathalaus would be back soon, so I was all too eager to help keep Janeen’s mind elsewhere.

It was late afternoon and we likely had a bit of a wait before they returned though. Unlike my little excursion the previous night, the others had taken horses and would be quite delayed because of it.

Not delayed enough to spend the night though, the horses they rode out on were mostly communal work horses, but they had been ridden hard. Once at the fort, they would likely demand the use of the commander’s personal horses to ride back on, while their horses pulled a prison wagon…

Or we could all get lucky and Mathalaus might just kill them all in a rage, I had no faith in that though.

So I had put myself into a compressed sleep cycle and then came to distract Janeen for a bit. That distraction had quickly taken the form of my favorite story – which always confused people when they heard the ending.

Janeen waved a hand at me, “I am too confused to worry about that now. Why did you tell the story like that if that was how it ended?”

My shameless grin faded a bit as I considered her question. “To teach you.”

Janeen almost glared at me, “You wanted to teach me something with that story? What?”

I lost my shamelessness and my smile felt sadder than I meant it to be. “There are too many lessons to learn from that story, every time I tell it I seem to learn another one.”

Janeen raised an eyebrow “And yet I have never heard of that story before.”

I shrugged, “I am selective in when I tell it.”

Not that selective.

Hello there Bella. You better now?

I do not think I will ever be ‘better,’ but I think I can learn to understand why you keep doing… that.

Janeen huffed and sat back to digest the story. Everyone’s take on it was different and telling that story was one of the ways I liked to break the ice… that and discovering new curses and oaths – people could get so creative when it came to saying the same basic thing!

I want to try an experiment.

You know I have trouble resisting a good experiment, but right now? Right before she gives us her take on it?

We can do the experiment here. I just want to check something.

I mentally shrugged and let Bella get to work. Her experiment was simple enough, but I had never thought about trying it.

After concentrating for a moment, Bella had me check her spell instructions before casting a basic light orb spell. There were only two differences from this spell and the spell that almost every young mage first learned: First, the spell would be a type of light that the human eye could not see. Second, as this was going to be the first time Bella cast a spell without any interference from me, she put a delay command into the spell.

Even a 1 circle mage would be able to cast the spell, but that was only when it came to pure power. Actually casting the basic spell, on purpose, (with the systematic method) was considered the first step to any mage’s path.

Bella’s experiment was simple: cast a spell that only we could see and observe the color of her spell with our third eye.

To our mutual surprise, the spell was a nice golden yellow in color. It was quite the contrast to my own dark greens, browns, and blacks.

Interesting, I thought to myself, wondering how we could exploit this change in color to our own advantage. When looking for magical criminals, the color of one’s spells was typically one of the first things looked at, and it would be useful to finally figure out what caused color to be perceived with our third eye.

…DeMorte?

Hm? Yes Bella?

Did the Nalks ever tell you why we were raised separately?

Raised separately? Bella what are you talking about? I was born and ‘raised’ before Nathan was – or as far as I can tell I was – if you are asking why I did not directly interact with you before I did, it was as much biological as magical. Our soul is in two places at once and is only slowly coming over into this world and merging with you.

…Why did you not tell me that before?

I honestly thought it did not matter, but the line between our memories keeps changing and I figured that, if it did matter, you would learn it eventually.

When I was younger, before I felt you in the back of my head, before we could actually talk, I thought you were my father… It was why I never called Nathan ‘Dad’

I had mixed feeling about that, but I could tell that Bella was trying to put words to something that she was having trouble communicating. I wanted to just have her dump the thoughts into my mind and let me sort them out, but apparently she wanted to actually organize them herself.

However, you are not him and you are not me

Actually, I am you Bella, I am–

No. We are the sum of our experiences and I have not experienced what you have. I was not sure until just now, but the reason that the Guilt felt so different from your memories was that I can only watch your memories – not experience them for myself – I can only see your logic and your pain like I was watching from just behind your eyes.

I did not respond. Hopefully Bella could get to the point quickly, before Janeen came up with her answer. Our mental conversation was going quickly, but Bella seemed in the mood for a speech.

I was trying and trying to figure out why that was. Why you thought that we were the same person, just separated by our memories, our past. That was the reason I asked you to try out that experiment – I wanted to see if my magic was a different color than yours.

We might not know how magic is related to the soul, or where our own mana comes from, or even where it is stored, but we do know that the person who uses magic affects the color we see. I am not sure if all mages even see that color as the same, but it has to be considered. The fact remains, however, that my magic is different from your – in at least one way and possibly more.

I might not be able to say for sure, but I think that we are not the same person and we might now have ever been the same person. That our ‘souls’ are meant to be ‘fusing’ is a good indicator of this.

The Nalks did not give you a new body and put a piece of your soul in it DeMorte – they put you in a new body and trusted that your soul would merge and overwrite my own to give you a new body.

…I think they want you to kill me DeMorte.

I was about to respond when Janeen finally settled on a lesson for the story and spoke up. Her choice was surprisingly in reminiscent of what Bella was talking about. “The story is obviously supposed to teach you about perspective, that much is not hard to figure out, elves, it is hard to miss. The more obvious lesson to learn is that your perspective is not the only one out there, that you cannot judge the worth of someone from one voice alone.”

Janeen paused, looking at me as if I had thought out exactly what this was supposed to be teaching her. Which was nonsense, almost everything I did was done with an off-the-cuff quick planning – adaptation – rather than intricately planned, but many people did not see it like that.

She continued though, looking pensive, “If you were to try and look a little deeper you could actually say the story is meant to represent your choices, that no matter what you do there will always be someone else, some other event that makes up half of your story – the half that you frequently do not know.”

Her mouth twisted in distaste and her voice changed, becoming harsher and more demanding. “This is about the trial is it? You want me to try and understand their perspective or something Bella? Who put you up to such nonsense?”

I stared at her for a moment and shook my head sadly. “There are dozens of lessons to take from that story. You could take the view that the ignorant peasants, defying orders and managing to survive because of ‘luck’ was like the world around us. That ‘lucky’ peasants could only survive when there was another behind them, a ‘noble’ force that worked to make their ‘luck’ possible.”

It was my turn to show my distaste, that particular view had been expressed by a man with a particularly large chip on his shoulder. He had thought that I was trying to make myself the ‘mountain noble of the bandits’ as he called it. He had not survived to see me crowned, but he had survived long enough for the self-righteous mercenaries to hunt him down.

“You could also ‘learn’ that everyone is human and that, just because you see someone as an ‘evil’ or something that needs to be removed, that they have no purpose in their actions. That they have not end goal or reason for moving them.” I sighed to myself and looked up at the roof of the little shack.

I would not see it again for some time… if ever. I looked back at Janeen, who seemed just slightly hesitant. She was likely trying to figure out how such a ‘little girl’ was talking about such things as if she were an old man.

I stood up from where I was sitting, a simple chair across from a rapidly recovering Janeen, and stretched, “You.” I yawned, “You can take what you will from the story Janeen. That is the best part of telling it in my opinion.” I stopped stretching and gave her a sincere smile before I walked out the door.

I was outside in an instant and had warded the door again without thinking twice about the magical steps. I did, however, pause and take not of the green color that pulsed in my wards. My colors were always dark, they had been that way for as long as I could remember and I did not think that they ever really changed.

I walked away, back around to the back Loco’s laboratory and showed my plan to Bella. She said nothing, but I got the feeling of acceptance from her and we concentrated together.

Casting the same spell she did alone earlier, we let our minds control it together and created another delayed spell. The color was something to behold as its inner layers of magical instruction seemed to be a changing torrent of dark green and black, while it seemed to be sheathed in a yellow-gold light. It was oddly beautiful and creepy at the same time.

The yellow-gold light itself though, was not a part of the instructions in the spell.

I was sorry for Bella, but, this test suggested that, even if she was originally her own person, it seemed that my own personality, my soul, would overwrite hers, even if we worked together. In the end, she would become part of me and live on in that sense, but she would forever be a part of my mind once that happened. It would not be the other way around.

Honestly, part of me was a little glad, but I did feel a small pang of guilt over the fact that she might have grown up quite differently, maybe even more happily, if she had not been chosen by those foreign gods called the Nalks.

I will not give up DeMorte.

That is okay Bella, but I do not think that would be a fight you could ever win.

I am not sure it is a fight I can afford to lose.

Give it time and think about it on your own, but when the day comes that my soul finishes fusing into our body, we will have to readdress this. I do not think you recognize that neither of us has to be a ‘loser’ when it comes to who we become in the future. Please think about that, okay?

Bella hesitated, but gave her assent. She did not like it, but she could except that we were stuck together and would have to work it out eventually. Maybe she understood that trying to force the issue would result in my absorbing her completely through force of will, or maybe she just did not want to argue about it, either way was fine with me.

I believed in manipulating perception to the maximum, but some truths were just impossible to ignore. They were rare, but sometimes, when someone thought there was no escape, they became desperate and found a way. The last thing I wanted was for Bella to think that I was going to ‘kill’ her as, she could cause some significant damage to me if she wanted.

Desperate people could come up with some truly odd ways of getting ‘revenge’ if they thought they were dead men (or women) walking.

Regardless, I brought my mind back to the present and cast a spell that would show me how far away my trackers were and I was surprised to find that they were getting quite close.

Deciding to prepare my effects for travel, I walked over to Loco’s laboratory and quietly entered.

The borderline mad collection of glasses, tubes, potions, and endless potion ingredients – horded in a variety of chests, cabinets, and chests – was a welcome sight. If I had nothing else to thank Nathan for, letting us stay with Loco and Luna was enough for me to appreciate him regardless.

Especially given that Loco was the only person in the area who shared my desire for knowledge – even if he was much more relaxed in his approach.

The man himself was also there, mixing up some of the standard potions as well as referencing numerous notes that seemed to be scattered all over the place. There was a system that he used, but I had only been able to guess where about half of the materials in the room would be at any given time, even after years of trying to learn it.

If a stranger were in here, they would have trouble identifying anything and, assuming they had any sense, they would be scared to move off of the cleared areas that made a winding path through the mass of bottles, potion ingredients, and the occasional spilled potions that occupied the floor.

Alchemy was a messy art and Anton had commented that it truly deserved to be called an art rather than a science.

In what Anton had called ‘regular science’ the direction that you ground the leaves did not affect the efficiency of the potion and substituting snails for snake venom made no sense. Which was a reasonable statement as alchemy was such a combination of ‘daring trial and error’ and the ‘borderline’ insanity that would normally get someone executed.

Insanity (“borderline” or not) was not a prerequisite, but most alchemist either lasted a very long time or an incredibly short period. It took dedication, daring, practice, and endless notes to make a truly great alchemist and Loco could have had all of them had he not been so relaxed. Honestly, it was a bit odd to even think about someone of his skill being in such a backwater location, but that could be because of individual choice or Nalk interference, I was not sure.

I relaxed and waited for Loco to finish. None of the potions he was brewing would explode or poison if I interrupted him… as far as I knew. That said, even after everything I had been through, I considered myself a mostly sane man and as such I subscribed to the old saying that sane men feared 4 things: an angry women, the displeasure of the gods, a Soul Mage, and alchemy.

I still feared 3 of the 4.

If it was not for my encounter with the Nalks I would be completely sane, but I was having trouble imagining the displeasure of the gods after actually meeting a group of them. Plus, no one had actually seen the gods or their ‘displeasure’ in my previous world. Priests had blamed plagues, earthquakes, and floods on the gods, but Anton had just laughed at that.

He might not have made me an ‘atheist,’ but Anton had been the one to explain diseases and their actual causes, while hinting that the other ‘acts of godly displeasure’ had similar explanations. Of course, being a mostly sane man who wanted to appear completely sane, I had already pounded into my head exactly how much respect I should show the local gods… even if I wondered about how much they would actually do while the Nalks used their world for a few decades.

Gorith had already shown me exactly what a god was capable of if they actually wanted to interfere with us mortals, as well as just how rare it was that they would interfere at all.

The church, on the other hand, was a different story all together, but I would hopefully stay out of their sight for quite a while longer.

I cleared my throat and my thoughts at the same time as I noticed Loco finish with his potion and set down his tools. “Bleeding potion?” I asked politely, knowing full well that it was.

“Bella! When did you get in here? Oh and you should know that potion without asking, really now.” Loco immediately started talking about a half dozen different things and I just nodded and tried to keep up. Very few people were as interesting as Loco… Chef had been, but he had been the chief oddity among my old bandit group.

I smiled as Loco keeps talking about this and that. I doubted that I would see him again. “I am going to leave after the trial.” I told him, cutting in as he paused to take a breath.

Loco blinked and slowly nodded. “I was wondering when you would tell me about that.” I raised an eyebrow and silently prompted him to keep talking. “Your mother was asking about how much bleeding potions would cost to make. I figured that one she was trying to plan for a young lady’s travel and we all know that Florence is not going anywhere.” There was a mixed smile about that from both of us.

Hoplis, my oldest brother, had died during the last cycle from a virus. I had been too late to help him and a ‘small illness’ that he had asked his wife to keep quiet about had turned into a fatal mistake.

Florence had gotten formally engaged the day before and was considered ‘wed’ even if she and her husband had been required to delay any official ceremony. Partly because of Hoplis’ death and partly because of Xiphos’ sudden need for a business partner (our recording spell was turning into a surprisingly big deal). Robert had been obligated to travel to Xiphos and help him sort out the details of that particular venture. It had not helped that Xiphos was stuck doing research to the west and still working hard to gain his master, Jalon’s, final approval, which would make him a full mage in the eyes of the magical community.

The whole situation had resulted in the rather well known secret that Florence had become rather impatient to get pregnant. It was a source of endless amusement to many, as well as slight embarrassment to me after she actually came to find me and asked for a something to calm down her desires.

I did not view her as a sister, which almost led to me volunteering to help out, but Bella had risen to the situation in astounding perverseness. Bella actually had me help her to make devices to keep Florence entertained…

The vibrating massagers that Bella came up with – actually they were based off of something Anton had said regarding past treatments for female ‘hysteria’ – had very, very, quietly spread to a couple teens in Entrials and I had received enough requests to fill even my stomach for months on end… Then the devices needed a recharge as well, making me more money.

Then Robert had come home and… found out about the devices. Two days later, a frustrated Florence was once again locked away in her personal room as her husband rode off to capitalize on the idea.

To the few who knew the whole story, it was almost shameful, however, to everyone else is was just extremely funny.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

“I do seem to cause a bit of a stir whenever I let others know about my experiments or magical devices do I not?” I resisted the urge to laugh outright at the memories of all the shy faces that came around regularly to pick up bleeding potions while I quietly charged them a little extra for a ‘recharge.’

Not that all of them were quiet of course, the whores also contributed to my wealth as I kept checking them for diseases and building an ever expanding ‘toy’ set for them and their customers to enjoy.

“I suppose it is time to bring that out then” Loco sighed. He then bent down to open one of his cabinets along the floor. Since only a fool would go digging through an alchemist’s lab, I had hidden away a fairly sizable amount of my gains there for when I would leave.

Loco took out 3 sizable pouches and 1 smaller pouch. They all jingled as he put them down on the floor next to him. 2 pouches of copper coins, 1 of old bronze coins that were sometimes exchanged, and 1 small pouch of silver. It would be enough to get me started and I would have honestly had more if not for the iron spears that I had made over the years.

Loco straightened up and looked over at me, “You know I have my own system and I keep a close eye on it Bella, but I have never caught you sneaking any.” He crossed his arms and looked at me. “Not for bleeding potions, growth potions, or even those few charm potions. Does that have something to do with this whispering Luna does with your mother? About how you ‘do not need to worry’ about children?”

I blinked. I could not help looking at Loco as if wondering if he was sane. He was the last person I expected to get the ‘talk’ from. “I can manage my own body well enough not to need potions Loco.” I kept my voice even as I spoke. Loco was not stating that he expected me to steal potions, but rather he was commenting on the fact that I had shown no interest in using those potions for myself.

Loco seemed to talk and give off a sense of anger despite not moving. “You were always a genius in that area Bella and I tried not to judge or question where your knowledge came from, but I do think that your mother, that Elizabeth, deserves more of a goodbye and certainly more of an explanation than what you gave her.”

I stared at Loco before setting up a privacy ward. Fortunately Loco almost never had magically reactive ingredients around as those would usually only come from those weird ‘dungeons’ he occasionally spoke about. “What if…” I began slowly “I was using my body’s reproductive organs for something… else. Something that mother, something that almost no one, would be able to understand?” I looked Loco dead in the eye. He was a member of quite possibly the only profession in the world who could not criticize someone for putting my own body on the line for an experiment.

“I would tell her that you chose not to let yourself have children at the moment.” Leo stated firmly, meeting my stare and returning it.

“Even if I have no interest in being a women?”

That shook him a little, but not much. “I do not know of any potion or spell that would allow you to change into a man Bella, but even if it existed, do you need to lie to her like that? She has been asking if she could have somehow damaged you for the past few cycles and, in my opinion, she thinks that you blame her for it.”

I stared at him, while trying to contain my laughter, such nonsense was almost enough to wonder about her sanity. In the past few years, Elizabeth had gotten me extensive training with Ealba, tried to set me up on no less than 3 different occasions with young men, and had all around been a pain since I had told her about my being ‘barren.’ I had tried to ignore it or let Bella talk to her, but it seemed that the problem had grown while I was not looking.

Loco also added something that shocked me completely. “I am not one of those people who believes that women without a desire for men are insane Bella, but even that would be a kinder truth than making her think that you were born barren.”

As I stood, there trying not to look like I had just been slapped with a fish, I suddenly felt a whole set of unasked questions suddenly get answered. “You and your wife never had children.” I probed.

Loco nodded. “We had an agreement that we were happy with each other’s company, even if we were not interested in each other. Although it was quite the surprise when I walked in on the girl I was only publicly courting and found her with another women.” Loco chuckled “You have met Ealba I believe?”

I nodded, dumfounded, “I always wondered how a potions master like yourself would be without a child, given that you can influence the odds.”

Loco shifted uncomfortably, breaking his own serious stare. “I never told you about those types of potions.”

“No, you did not…” I sighed and dismantled my wards. “We will talk to mother on my way out, we are sorry for any trouble that we caused you over the years.”

Loco smiled and reached down into the same cabinet that he had stored my money in to withdraw a fairly sizable pack. It looked like thick and strong. “You should really stop that habit of speaking with ‘we’ Bella, although it does let me know you mean it.” He put the bags of money in the pack and walked over to me. “You were the closest thing to a child that either Luna or myself ever had and you never cause us too much trouble.” He gave us a very kind and sincere smile, “But we are not your parents so please remember to leave on good terms with them, understood?”

I did not know how to react, but Bella pushed us forward and hugged him while my mind was preoccupied with different thoughts.

Did we have a habit of saying ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ when in agreement? We had not noticed it previously…

There was a knock at the door and Luna’s voice called out. “People can see ridders in the distance, it looks like the Lord is back!”

Mentally checking the distances and the trails that they must have taken to get back so early, I found myself feeling sorry for the unfortunate horses as Loco and Bella released their hug.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

I had once gotten Anton to talk about what his old world was like without magic. Some parts of what he told me were awe-inspiring, while others things seemed absurd to me. Of course, he had been careful about what exactly he told me, but he was happy to complain about how slow and cumbersome his new home’s justice system had become.

I could not and did not understand why it would take phases or even whole cycles to bring someone to trial. A couple of days I might understand, if the investigation dragged on, but not phases. Anton had explained it as a price for sending less innocents to jail, but I found the idea to foreign to comprehend.

As it was, there were 3 people who stood accused, who were standing in the middle of the village, with Janeen and myself standing together off to the side of a small area that had been set up to serve as the public hearing area. They would be represented by the military leader of the area, who also happened to be one of the fort mages.

Mathalaus loomed like a volcano over the proceeding, but he did not interfere. I just satisfied myself by quietly slipping away to make sure that my plan was on track. The winds could not be trusted too much so I had to give them a little push.

Sure enough, Ratface had already started to react and would only get worse as time went on. It was not just him of course, but everyone noticed what I did in a way, after all, I nearly tripled the amount of pollen in the area around the village.

Ratface’s failsafe was his lungs and I needed everyone to know just how sick he was before I could use it as an excuse to examine the last one King- no, Prince Shite.

The trial was straightforward, the accusers went first, told their story and then the accused came forward to tell their story. As lord, Nathan would decide who he believed and pass judgement that would be carried out at first light – regardless if that judgement was a hanging or a release.

The only detail that worried anyone was that, under military law, their commanding officer could demand a transfer to the capital on the grounds of ‘emotionally impartial’ decision making.

The details of the trial and the stories told on both sides were… unpleasant for Bella, so we spent the time contemplating our routes after we left the village tomorrow. I was used to blood and guts in general and I had made Ratface and No-Balls tell me the truth the previous night, so I was more tolerant. However, even I had a hard time keeping a straight face when they started lying to the crowd about Janeen’s constant teasing and her luring the other 3 out into the wood despite their reluctance.

Fortunately, Ratface could not hold it together and started coughing madly at this point. The coughing itself would not annoy anyone too much, but the fact that he coughed up blood caught everyone’s attention.

I quickly rushed forward, but was stopped by the military mage. However, after some persuading and a loud declaration that I wanted to see him hang, not die at the trial, I was allowed, despite my obvious desire to see him dead, to tend to him.

He was disgusting and reeked of traxico, which made my job all that much easier. His lungs were degraded by my magical acceleration of the traxico’s work to the point where they would stop working within the next few days. The announcement that he was terminal because of traxico smoke damage was not well received, but I had a reputation for hating the stuff, so no one questioned me.

After I dropped a few hints about the effects of being near someone who smoked so much I got my true goal, both No-Balls and Prince Shite asked me to examine them.

First was No-Balls “You need a better diet, your blood paths are week, but overall healthy.” I reported briefly before moving onto the final piece of my failsafe plan: Prince Shite.

Prince Shite was surprisingly healthy, but that was only by the standards of the people around us, he clearly ate better than most though and that was what I decided to use for his failsafe. Shamelessly tapping his chest once I announced that his heart and diet could use work, but he was otherwise healthy.

Since the magic was cast directly through physical contact, there was nothing that could be seen with someone’s third eye, and I suppressed the general feeling of magic that was not trying to leak out as a result of casting my spell.

The trial proceeded exactly as I was worried about. Although it was not until I heard Prince Shite call the other mage ‘uncle’ that I understood why he was willing to risk an angry population of locals while he and his sliver of a force was so far away from any other friends.

The mage stood watch as the 3 rapist occupied someone’s home for the evening and made sure that everyone knew his power. They were officially under arrest until first light, when they would immediately be escorted back to ‘civilization.’

Even if the whole village turned on that house, the mage alone would be enough to kill them and he thought that no one would be able to get past him.

That evening I told Janeen and Mathalaus that if they prayed hard enough, the gods might take revenge. They dismissed me and I snuck out of the house to pass my own judgment, but Bella spoke up.

No

Bella are you going to try and…

No, I think I need to be the one who does this…

What? Why?

…here

I received her thought and feeling, about how she needed to know what she was doing and her confused, but slightly more understanding feelings about my own resolution when it came to killing. Basically, she thought that she needed to kill them to learn more about me and to ‘save herself’ – even if not in so many words.

I did not like the idea, but I thought it over for a moment and I noticed that her resolve was practically a tangible presence in the back of my mind.

So in the end, I let her do the deed and we retreated to outside of the village when it was all done. The timing was slightly off, but we were far enough away that no one heard our cries as the Guilt visited us 3 times that night.

* * *

In a certain church of Conbra, in the northern kingdom of Niflheim, on the eastern continent:

High priest Bob was annoyed.

He was annoyed for 3 reasons, with the first and foremost being frustration.

The church of life was one of the largest and most popular because their priests were expected to celebrate life in all its aspects, including sexually, and he had been doing just that when he had been called to this meeting. The lower class girl that he had been enjoying was likely already preparing to bare a new infant for the glory of Conbra and he wanted to enjoy her as much as he could before she was officially declared pregnant and switched – the girl before her had been a hideous thing with half her body burned and Bob was not sure what the next one would look like.

The second reason Bob was annoyed was the way everyone said his name. Since he was new to the area his reputation had not spread as much as he would have liked. Everyone seemed to say his name with surprise, as if expecting more and he had more than enough of such impudence. Yes, his name was Bob, but why everyone seemed so disappointed with its length was beyond him. There was nothing wrong with his length!

The third and final reason, was the reason his messengers had interrupted him: yet another Soul Mage scare. There had been no true Soul Mages in the past millennia and yet this blighted northern kingdom executed dozens a year while calling them Soul Mages.

If someone got so old their memories started to go, Soul Mage! If some boy came into his magic at the wrong time, Soul Mage! If a blight struck, a horde of Soul Mages was likely behind it!

Bob hated that they were so superstitious and had been sent from the holy continent itself to pacify the inhabitants of this blasted land. They were an embarrassment to Conbra and practically the whole kingdom were said to be worshipers!

Right now they were in a large room that would have qualified as a throne room anywhere else on the continent. Bob was seated in his ceremonial robes on the special chair of the high priest. From it he could directly manipulate the wards and kill or save any person within the confines of the church.

Right now there were two people kneeling in front of him, the head of the church warriors of the region, someone who was more responsible for maintaining civil order than the guard were. The other was the previous lord priest who had been in charge of the kingdom’s clergy before Bob’s arrival.

“I understand that people are scared.” He stated slowly, “I understand that this land and its people were the last ones to feel the touch of the monsters that were Soul Mages. However, I want it urged you all to act conservatively in such accusations. In the future, the local region’s administrators will be trained in how to spot actual Soul Mage activity in comparison to the results of a ‘disturbed soul,’ which this clearly sound like.”

High priest Bob ensured that his voice was as kind and docile, yet resolute, as he could make it. He was getting on in years and he had to balance a kind hand with a firm one. “There will be inquisitorial squads that will be sent from the holy continent arriving in a few days. I have conferred with the King and he has readily agreed to give these men the authority to operate with impunity.”

That statement made both them jerk in surprise, and likely, worry.

No one had gotten the King to admit that his country was almost out of his control and that he would be allowing such men into the kingdom, with full power to do as they willed, was almost such an admission itself.

While both men spoke with adorations of their high priest’s actions and ability to get the king to allow them, they were also trying to figure out just how dangerous Bob was.

Blasted fools in a blasted land, filled with burnt and blasted women! Bob thought, containing himself so that there were no signs of his inner distain for the men in front of him.

Responding to their adorations though, Bob contained his distain and merely showed his teeth. “It was easy enough to convince the king when he realized that proper ‘education’ of the correct individuals would solve both his population’s zeal for executing young mages as well as his supply of future mages.”

The words sent shivers down the spines of all 3 men in the room. Only 2 of them were because of fear though.

“Might I ask-?” The former lord priest began.

“Conbra is the giver of life.” Bob replied simply, “To worship her is to enjoy and help to create life in the world. I showed the King that men such as he, men with great magical power that is, owe it to their kingdom to… energetically worship Conbra as often as possible. Since we are also responsible for taking care of orphans and raising them to be good followers of Conbra, we would be happy to provide him with faithful women who would gladly receive his or his nobles seed in the name of Conbra and Niflheim.”

Both men broke protocol and looked up directly at their new high priest, shocked. Bob knew why, but he pretended not to and continued to speak. “There were many volunteers, once I explained the service that they would be showing to Conbra, 2 of them though were so nervous when they volunteered, however, that I felt it necessary to make sure they went first. Are either of you familiar with a Kendra?” Bob watched with a small amount of satisfaction as the lord priest inhaled sharply and the head of the warriors tensed up. “The King took a liking to her, especially after I assured him that our ‘blood rites of life’ would remove any blood connections between his child and him. The other one was apparently too young for him, a girl name Yeldra?” Now the warrior breathed easy, clearly relaxing as he thought that she was safe.

Bob shook his head, “Regardless, the report that you have brought me tonight is not a Soul Mage, of that much I am certain. I hope that you will remind the outer towns and villages of our new policy of ‘blessing’ several of their women for each person that they mistakenly kill.”

The men nodded vigorously, with the priest looking a little ill. Only the truly radical of the church would approve of such measure, but that was why they had sent Bob, he was just zealous enough to convince people that faith was his motivation, while he was more than practical enough to know when to use it as a punishment. “Good,” Bob announced, “You are dismissed children of Conbra, go fourth and celebrate life.”

After they gave the traditional reply, Bob snorted as his watched the cowards retreat out of the room. At least they know the names of their extra-marital daughters. He sneered to himself.

Lazily, Bob used the wards to call his newest toy to him. With the spells woven into her body would call her directly to this spot and to him. He also used the wards to warm the air around himself as he felt Yeldra through the wards. She was running down the stairs to try and avoid the pain that would come from arriving too late.

Bob felt his loins come alive and thanked Conbra that he was not that old. After all, girls like Yeldra were best enjoyed at the peak of their youth – before their 15th cycle was over.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for reading [:]/