The book was written by a Kalak.
Their bodies were long and gangly, they were not strong as a Minos, they were not as agile as a Ibexian, they lacked the defenses of an Armaus.
These flaws, these weaknesses, made them find new ways to get stronger.
Though it was never known to others, even to the Kalak, they were the first of the beastkin.
They were born of Anu when she was still young, based upon an animal she had never seen, and on a people who went with the first age.
They mixed and mingled as made sense, they were not inherently flawed in their creation, but rather such a form simply did not make sense as a man.
For the Maned Wolves their long limbs did not mean as much for them as it would for an upright being.
Their long legs made them fast, their long arms gave them great reach.
But they lacked the stamina to keep up with the cost of moving the now bulkier bodies they gained by being mixed with humans.
Their limbs were easy to break because of their thinness combined with the length of them.
Anu was greatly dismayed when she made them, they made sense, and yet the first result was a functional, but questionable beast.
Even still, they lived, flourished even.
Until man came, their forest homes burned, miles and miles of black smoke and the stink of flesh.
Harlan was ignorant of these things as he read the book, the author gave his own explanation of why they were the inventors of imbibing.
He was a great mage, had he been born in time another time he would be an archmage, but he was one of his people.
The Kalak were part of The Confederacy yet they remained isolationist, especially after the war.
The author was a man who believed the Kalak were blessed with an intelligence beyond the other races, that they were made weaker in body so they could use their minds to make magic to overcome them, it was their burden to uplift the other races with their magical might.
The confederacy did not spring up overnight, it did not exist without staining the ground red.
Some were made states because the other option was being put down as beasts unable to be made civil.
He moved past the ranting of a supremacist and onto the actual magic.
The basis of imbibing, once Harlan read it, was to effectively turn one's blood into a potion.
The process of alchemy was in essence to enchant a liquid with the will of a mage so that it would hold a spell, to inscribe the runes into a shape that was in constant flux.
Harlan had the experience in other forms so he could do simple imbibings quickly, then Lugh tried it and the feeling was the same as when he shifted his form into different metals.
Harlan went to another student who took blacksmithing classes and he had a few ingots that Harlan paid him for.
He placed a filled but still spelless gem on the ingot and used some magic to secure it by softening the metal so he could use his inhuman strength, backed by some minor imbibing and telekinesis he folded the the ingot like a piece of bread around the gem with a great deal of effort, yet still it cost less mana than a proper metal magic.
Harlan had kept up with what people were doing with what he had done.
Imbibing didn’t work as a spell for soulsmithing, it required intelligence, mages couldn’t even use imbibing on another person unless they trained for that exact person.
So while Harlan thought it was too easy, he decided to put imbibing into the gem and have it just randomly fill the ingot with earth mana.
It was silly, surely it wasn’t going to be so easy to make a magical metal.
He had just placed it in a stone steel box just to be sure it wasn’t going to explode and he set it back in his closet.
It was then that he saw a red light behind him, the blood crystal communication device was receiving a call request.
Harlan sat at his desk and moved the small box, barely 6 inches across, only deep enough to hold one layer; he had no intention of having a great deal of communication with Reino.
“Good night, Grand Saint Fragile Peace.”
“You may call me Peace while we speak, this is not business, so I would like to avoid over formality.”
“Are you alone? Is this a private conversation?”
“Yes, I am alone in my room.”
It somewhat unsettled Harlan to speak with her, He could not tell her mood, he could not see her eyes or her posture to help give context clues that he could fill in with his powers, only her voice.
“Then in that case, call me Harlan. Good to speak with you again.”
“I wanted to know, from your side, what happened with Adina? I can listen to Malachi, but I do not know if I can believe him. She seems to be much closer with you than her father.”
This… was not a conversation he wanted to have, it could be good for him, or it could be very bad.
Months had passed since she became part of his house, yet there had been no fighting, he had not needed to put any of his plans into action.
This could be a spark to conflict, or finally the last nail in the coffin?
Harlan spoke with little restraint, the more he spoke, the angrier he was, he had to stop constantly as he spoke of her father, of what she had to endure in her life here and away.
Eventually he had finished, and Peace did not respond.
He wondered if she had fallen asleep, during his ranting.
After a minute of silence he was about to turn the device off, then she spoke.
“And do you believe what she says? That her family would treat her that way? It simply does not make sense to me.”
He took a deep breath before he spoke, she could hear how he angrily flared his nostrils.
“Tell me then, how did you grow up so that you could be so naive? What do you-”
He stopped a moment to change his phrasing.
“Are you aware of what your country has done? Rape, murder, the killing of children, infants, the elderly, bombing civilian centers, kidnapping beastkin for experimentation and recreation. There is war, then there is what they did. I want you to answer me, right here, right now, are you ignorant, or are you aware of what they’ve done.”
“There are some things which have been done against our laws of war, but they are greatly exaggerated and those responsible have been punished. No child should be killed, no woman defiled, these are the crimes of an unjust war. They serve to only invite more hate, we would rather have won the war through changing the hearts and minds of your people so you might understand we are right, that you would choose not to fight.”
“Should the honest man call not those who lie liars, should they call the murderers bloodless, should they turn their eyes from the evil man. Then they are liars, they are bloodied, he is not an honest man, he is a fool to be used by evil men to let their evil spread. Tell me, what does this quote, from your book, say about what you are saying? Are you an evil woman, or are you honest? Will you turn your eyes away? Do you have your own investigators, or do you take what they give you and believe them on their word. Do you have anyone who you can really trust?”
He could not see it, but she lowered her head, unsure how to respond.
That which she had known as the truth was telling her both that the high saints who were in power should be trusted, but also that their holy book was the highest authority to be followed.
“How would you go about doing such a thing?”
“You are the highest power in your land, use that authority to talk directly to those in power. Ask the questions that people don’t want to answer. Get books written by people outside of Reino and compare them with your own historical records. Find people who you can trust, not because of their position, but because of their character, bring them on as your personal spies and investigators and aides. If you cannot find people you trust completely and totally, then start raising them right now so you have them in the future.”
She sat back in her chair, the moonlight that came through her window lighting only her face.
She thought about what work she truly did and what she had been taught.
Looking back, she wondered if she was taught to rule or to be a puppet.
They brought her many things to give her ruling on, but what was not brought to her?
The point of the saints was to take pressure off of the grand saint, but was that right?
What was the ratio of power between them? Did she rule her country? She believed she did, every change she demanded was put in place after some questioning to temper her expectations on how long it would take and how realistic it really was.
Harlan went down a massive list of things that, in his opinion, needed to be done before she could be called a ruler.
Affirmations and inspections mostly.
If she made demands of her high saints that would negatively effect them, would she be in any danger?
Could she actually spend the money they claim she has?
What if she told people in power to stand down?
Did the people on the streets and in the slums know of her? Or was she just a distant person who lived above them?
If they knew of her, did they respect her?
Would they be honest with her if she asked?
They surely had archives of documents, secrets, weapons, all manner of things, was she actually allowed full access?
If not, what was restricted?
Was she even allowed to change out her guards?
“Are you still there? I hope some advisor on standby didn’t cut your throat.”
“How did you become like you are? You seem cold, cynical, bitter, angry. I’ve read many reports on you, you are warm and helpful as well. I see people differently, I see their souls laid bare in some metaphorical manner. Do you want to know what you are?”
He wondered how much of what she said even then was a metaphor.
“Sure, I would appreciate that.”
“Sometimes you are just a formless man, yet you so easily turn into a beast. I can’t tell which of them is you. Would you be willing to tell me how you see this? And, though it has not been an overlong time since I last asked, why do you want to kill me?”
It didn’t take him long to decide his answers.
“I change into who I need to be often, so I could be seen as formless, and I want to lash out but I keep that contained inside me. I don’t know which is my nature, and which is what I was raised to be. Who is the truly holy man, he who has been born of good seed and bares fruit likewise, or he who is born of sickly seed yet bares wonderful fruit?”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Ah, the book of redemption. How have you read these passages, you’ve said twice already, and once in the past to a priestess.”
“I have a copy of your holy book.”
He could tell by her silence that there was some shock, but she did not let it sound in her voice.
“You said the first question earlier, does that mean you have the answer to my second?”
“What do you believe the 7 gods of Aarde, and the one of Aine, actually are? What do you believe they are in comparison to your gods?”
“We have the concept of fallen gods, tricksters who would lead the faithful away from that which is right. I believe this is what they are.”
“What if I told you that I’ve spoken to The Darkness, and she has explained that your gods are the Fae, who eons ago came to this world through the over ambition of an ancient empire. That I am Fomorian, and I exist to hunt and kill Fae. That I can sense the minds of others, and you have the mind of a Fae, either you are fully or partly Fae. That 1000 years ago legions of Golden and Fomorians hunted and killed your gods, and that is why they disappeared then.”
She took it quite a lot better than he thought she would.
“As I said before, they are fallen gods, I do not believe a word which comes from the one you have spoken to. About my relation to the Fae, I cannot believe that either, I am no mage, yet they bend reality as they see fit. Neither of us can really know with absolute certainty that we are right, so it is best we leave this topic where it is. I am Grand Saint because I can forgive those who I believe to be wrong, that they might see the light. I thank you for your honesty, but you and I will not see eye to eye with this.”
“That is a much better reaction that I thought I would get. I can accept that. What time is it for you then?”
“I am 3 hours behind you, so it is now just past midnight. I really should go to sleep, it has been a longer chat than I thought it would be.”
“Thank you for listening to me. I enjoyed our chat, have a nice night.”
“The same to you. I believe that if peace is to be held, I must widen my own view. Even if we see the world differently from one another, I hope that you and I might share our words honestly again so that we gain from the view of the other. I will be looking into what you have asked of me, you are right that to turn my eyes away from what might be true would be as evil as if I had done these things myself.”
She turned off the communicator and yawned as she crawled into her bed.
“Are you there? How much of what he said was honestly said?”
“Yes, he is honest, which is quite more a boon than he knows. Yet his view of the things bygone spoken are distorted as light through a prism.”
“Who… really are you?”
“I am a wanderer and a wonderer, we brought the people together. You are my children, yet I am not your mother. To speak clearly with your questions is not to my nature, I am not one of them which acts in such a manner.”
Peace didn’t rest well, she knew that if she wanted to keep her word to herself then she would need to do things that would invite unrest.
“Lugh, I think I am going to get some sleep.”
“Really? It’s only been a few days.”
“Yeah. I want to rest.”
“Good night then.”
He did not find himself in the ballroom.
Instead he was in his childhood room.
The woman was not dressed as a noble woman this time, now she looked like a ranger.
She seemed older, more worn down.
“Do you think you can remember me this time? Maybe if I look like what I was, instead of a lie.”
Her eyes were puffy, blood seeped from her side as lingering shadows ate at her body.
Harlan panicked, he didn’t fully understand that he was sleeping.
He tried to stop the bleeding, to drive away that shadow.
“You’re dreaming. Why can’t you help me, save me… please.”
Ah, right, there it was. The answer to his problem.
The room brightened, her wounds got better, but the shadows lashed out against his healing.
His arm was gone as void removed his limb, then he realized.
No, it was not gone, in fact, that shadow didn’t exist at all.
The room was bigger, he was in his room in his own house.
The wound wasn’t real.
He was sitting with that which was not his mother outside on his porch now.
“Maybe this time it will work. I can’t get you to remember me, what we talk about.”
“Why can’t I remember?”
“You never wanted to, and besides, she always thought dreams were silly things not worth having, you are her son after all.”
“Can you tell me what happened to her?”
“Ghosts, whatever I am, don’t often remember exactly how they died, just vague memories of being killed. I know it was just darkness, she never had the chance to fight back before she was dead in the snow, looking at your face and the tall trees behind you.”
“Snow?”
“I don’t know how you reached the place you were found, but she was not there when she died.
I don’t know exactly how long it was before I woke up either.”
“Can you… tell me about her?”
“She lost her parents at a young age, then she destroyed her life to get strong enough to not need to worry about losing anyone else, but she spent so much time avoiding pain that she had few people worth protecting anymore. Then she had a little girl with a friend, she remembered how happy her family was when they were alive, so she wanted that. But she was not a mother, she had no instinct for it. She never did, never would, not even on the day she died.”
“That isn’t true. If that was the case then why are you here?”
“Tell me, as you have told me a dozen times in the past, who do you believe made me?”
“It was my mother, she was a mage, right?”
“She had no connection to you beyond your blood, you had a connection with her however, your souls had been connected with one another as you formed in her womb just months prior. Your connection to the crossroads was still strong, your instinct was to have a mother who loved you even if you did not understand it.”
“That… that doesn’t make sense, The Darkness told me that she loved me, that she willingly gave her life so I could live. How could I have even done that, I was an infant.”
Harlan was upset that the spirit would lie to him, he did not want to believe it was the truth.
“What is magic?”
“The use of mana as an energy source and the mana produced by the soul to command that elemental mana to remake reality.”
“And what are you leaving out? Surely you aren’t so foolish that you don’t understand the last part?”
“I don’t know.”
“The mind, emotion. These things are what changes a simple mage to a real mage. You’ve already seen the effect that you being upset has on everything around you.”
“What? That can’t be right, soulsmithed items don’t have minds or emotions and they cast just fine.”
“No, they can follow orders to cast. A soulsmithed blade will never cast on its own, the person who holds the sword is the one who fills in the part of the mind. Beyond that they still lack emotion, as the soul filters out such a thing unless forced to pass it through.”
“Alright, even if I believe that part, I still couldn’t cast magic as an infant.”
“Why?”
“The cost of such a spell would clearly be too much for such a new soul, on top of that I would’ve done entirely on instinct a spell that Sepul, in 300 years, has not been able to make. Besides, you can’t cast without training on how to do it.”
“What is the cost of your empathy? Your work with souls only costs as much as it does because you are fighting against the defenses of the soul, a dead body has no defenses, the mind loses its link, the aura, or life force as I know it, fades. You caught the mind before it was taken for sundering to feed Life.”
“That still doesn’t… that can’t be true.”
The ghost did not speak again, she had this conversation, in almost the same way, dozens of times.
Harlan would sit for a time, could’ve been hours, could’ve been seconds, time didn’t work logically in dreams.
The shadows deepened, an invader.
Her body stretched out to the horizon, but the form which was here was indistinct.
She seemed to be a well endowed woman in her 30s with long flowing hair, pure white eyes, and a long dress that reached her ankles, flowing with the lightness of silk.
The depth of her darkness seemed to soak up the light and he could make out no features on her face.
“Now she is here, as she always is.”
“Good night Eliza, or that which was once her.”
“Why, no, HOW are you here?”
“Dreams are the mind's way of ordering itself, I simply use that connection with the crossroads to enter dreams as I please.”
“Then why are you here? Are you real? Or just something I’ve thought up.”
“Oh I am quite real.”
She drew a sigil that Harlan didn’t know and his mind revolted against it.
“Fine, yes, I believe you are here. Now why are you here?”
“To take away the memories of this dream.”
“What? Oh… I’ve learned something I shouldn’t have, if you are here, then I wonder, who was the shadow that killed my mother? Was it really a Fomorian shade?”
“I have never taken your memories without your express permission.”
Harlan wanted to say she was lying, that it didn’t make sense.
But did it? To learn his blood mother had never loved him, it wouldn’t have been any good on his mind.
When he had trouble with his anger, maybe he would’ve gone farther than he already had, maybe he would’ve pushed others away that he needed to be who he was right now.
“You’ve gone through this every time that you’ve dreamed. It does not take long for you to understand yourself, and that it is horrible, but that you would be a worse friend for Adina, who needs you so dearly to keep her own mind. So you keep giving up, turning your eyes away from the reality of what happened, will you do this again?”
“Just… give me a minute.”
He wanted to say Eliza, the name The Darkness called her, but the words caught in his throat.
He wanted to know about her, but if they were to be believed, then she didn’t love him, she was just the person who gave birth to him.
His desire for that love was so strong as even an infant that it was deeply etched into his mind and was a core part of what he was as a person, yet he did not understand this part of himself until now.
He began to hate her.
“Whatever you are. Is this true? Do you remember my dreams?”
“She came when I first told you that your mother did not love you. I showed you how she looked at you, the coldness in her eyes reflected on yours. When you heard that she had abandoned another child already, a little girl, that you had a half-sister, it broke you. She put you back together, every night I hope that you will be able to handle what you always want to forget.”
Harlan let out his anger.
He saw the world from high in the sky.
Then a wave of the hand set it ablaze, he just sat there and watched it burn.
From his view thousands of years would pass and then he would go down to see what was down there.
He saw the world moving on, unaware of what he had done.
He didn’t really understand what his mind was telling him with his actions that did not entirely feel like his own.
“Shall I remove those memories?”
“No. I can’t run from them anymore.”
“Very well. Before I go, look at this, a parting gift.”
She drew a sigil in the air and it did not harm him.
The shape embedded itself in his mind and while he did not understand it, he knew that it would not be an issue.
He woke up feeling like nothing had changed, and that everything was fundamentally different.
It was the latest he had ever woken up without having nearly died.
“Harlan. Why are you so sad?”
“Thank you, Lugh.”
It was nice to know that he still had somebody who was always there.
While he didn’t really say much, he mostly just listened, Harlan liked that he was a constant presence that weighed on his mind like a heavy blanket.
“You’re welcome?”
Lugh could feel that Harlan was feeling better.
“Could you grab the amulet from the robe I had on last night? Just watch out for the vials.”
“Alright.”
Harlan normally slept on his side, holding a pillow close to him.
It helped him calm down to hold something as he drifted to sleep.
Now he rolled over on his back and stared at the amulet in his hand.
The crystal was a nice red color and the size of an acorn with chains of shadow steel etched with silver.
Of the things he had learned how to do when planning his revenge on the Catos, magical painting was his favorite.
He sent his intent into the gem and it connected after just a few moments.
“Harlan? Honey, are you alright?”
“Hey mom, is dad also there?”
“He is washing up, I’ll go get him.”
“No no no, it’s not important.”
She didn’t really believe him, he called them at least once a week, normally during his free periods in the afternoon.
“Alright, honey.”
“Thank you for being there for me, for being my only mother, not because you had to be, but because you wanted to be-”
He began crying.
“I’m sorry that I have been a shitty son, that I just make you worry so much about me. But I know you understand that I am living my life, and you can trust me. Thank you so much for taking me in, for changing my diapers, for holding my hands to teach me to walk, for accepting what I am. For giving me such wonderful sisters, a loving father, for all of the good memories I have that I wouldn’t if I was found by anyone else. Thank you so much for just being my mother, my one and only. Thank dad when he gets out of the bath for me too.”
“My little baby boy, please, don’t do anything drastic, I’m sure whatever is hurting you is going to be ok.”
She started crying only moments after she heard the tears in his tone, Harlan wasn’t detached from his emotions, but outright crying was not something he did often around others.
“Mom, I’m going to be ok, I just learned some stuff last night, I’ll see you guys in a couple of days. I’ll take the weekend off, Amber will be busy, I won’t even bring Adina. I just want to be with my parents, the only ones that matter. Blood doesn’t mean a godsdamned thing compared to being good people.”
“Alright, I’ll make sure your father doesn’t need to leave the farm for anything. See you soon.”
“Yeah, see you soon. Love you.”
Harlan heard the breakfast bell, but he did not move towards the cafeteria.
Instead he went to the forest, dug out a small room under the ground.
Then he meditated.