I rubbed my hand on my clothes. Not all of these spirits washed their hair as much as they should have. I looked over at the pile of unconscious spirits littering the Senate floor. Taoc scratched her chin as she looked at her friends on the floor. She was the only spirit who didn’t have any mind control magic applied to her yet. This meant that I was right. Alek only started using his mind control magic on a large scale after I showed up and ruined his predictions. Taoc and the humans had always been next to me, so Alek never had the chance to get to them.
I walked over to Bain Rusta. The old demon did not have any red light around his body anymore, but he still hadn’t gotten up. I conjured a small ball of water over my hand and threw it at the ruler of Tephon. Bain Rusta gasped and sputtered. His hair, wet like a mop, dangled over his eyes and hid his face almost completely. He had thick hair for such an old man, I remarked to myself idly. I threw another ball of water at him.
“What was that for?” said Bain Rusta as he sputtered and spat out some water.
“The first one was to wake you up. The second one was punishment for letting your mind get controlled so easily,” he said.
“Mind control?” Kelser piped up from behind.
Right, I hadn’t mentioned why I was doing everything so far. I looked over at the confused looking Elder Kezler and the shrinking spirit Taoc. From their angle it must’ve looked like I knocked out a bunch of people, made them glow red, and then seemed to want to splash water on their faces for some reasons. An elaborate prank or the mysterious whims of an elf? Neither, of course.
“I’ve seen this spell before. I even developed magic against it, which is what I just used to save all of our friends here from becoming mindless thralls. You’re welcome,” I said.
Taoc blinked her eyes. “Magic? But fairies and spirits do not know magic.”
“No human knows a spell that could control someone’s mind,” said Elder Kezler.
“Wait, do you know mind control magic?” asked Kelser.
“No, I only know how to resist it. The mind is an incredibly complicated biological and metaphysical puzzle. I wouldn’t be able to make a pure mind control spell anytime soon. I could probably come up with a way to alter emotions a little, once I can do some experiments and figure out what certain chemicals can do to our brains,” I said, before looking over and seeing the way people were recoiling at my words, “moving on, no, I don’t know mind control magic and I haven’t taught it to anyone either.”
Bain Rusta groaned as he held his head in one hand. “I do feel a mild ache in my head, but I can’t remember anything strange. Apart from you barging into the Senate and knocking me out, that is.”
“Of course you wouldn’t remember it. This spell belongs to the Immortal of Evil,” I said.
Muted reactions all around. Kelser and Elder Kezler exchanged a glance.
“You know him as the Heavenly Eye,” I said to Bain Rusta.
Bain Rusta frowned. “The Heavenly Eye? Why would the Heavenly Eye want to control my mind?”
“The Immortal of Evil has a couple of abilities that I know of. He can see the future, although this ability gets wonky whenever I’m involved,” I said.
“The Heavenly Eye has many powers,” said Bain Rusta. “He is the true god, who created the universe and—”
“Spare us the evangelism, demon,” quipped Taoc as she rolled her eyes. “Your god is a pretender. An evil being who laid claim to the natural world because of his greed and selfishness.”
“I am not religious, Taoc,” said Bain Rusta as he finally settled on his seat again. His legs still wobbled like jelly when he tried to get up. “I have been a friend to your people for a long time and find your mythology more convincing than my own. But if the Great Elf says that the Heavenly Eye is a real being, an Immortal of Evil, as he called it. Then I must tell him the fruits of my research.”
“Research?” I said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, as I said, I never found the mythology of my people very convincing. For the Heavenly Eye to have created everything, and yet be pushed back by two so-called outsiders? How could the Heavenly Eye be the great creator if he did not create the outsiders? The spirits here have a much more interesting mythology. One that claims the natural world has always existed, and was merely conquered by a great malevolent being, the one we now know as the Heavenly Eye,” said Bain Rusta.
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“And the world suffered greatly under the Heavenly Eye,” said Taoc as she hovered in front of Bain and took over, confidently. “Fires ravaged the woods, the sky was ashen, the land barren, and the universe teetered on the edge of collapse. The sentient beings of the universe banded together to defeat the Heavenly Eye, rallying under our leader, the Beast of the Valley. The Beast of the Valley sealed the Heavenly Eye in the red star, and the universe has known peace ever since.”
“And you see the problem with this mythology, don’t you great elf?” asked Bain Rusta.
“What are you talking about demon?” said Taoc with her hands on her hips.
“Yes, I can,” I said.
“No, Great Elf, do not listen to him!” said Taoc.
“It does not mention the god of the beastmen. The God of Music,” said Bain Rusta.
I nodded. The Immortal of Madness. Without him, no mythology in this world could be complete.
“The God of Music isn’t important!” insisted Taoc.
I frowned. The Immortal of Madness wasn’t important? That statement told me a lot about the mythology of the spirits and fairies. Most mythologies were untrustworthy. There was probably a kernel of truth in this one, but I couldn’t put too much faith in its accuracy.
“And how do we elves come into this story,” I said as I gestured to the elfin mural.
“The Beast of the Valley disappeared into history,” answered Bain Rusta, before Taoc could say anything. “The spirits believe the Beast continues to watch over them, but I suspect the Beast was merely a powerful sentient but mortal being.”
“You should keep your pitiful theories to yourself, demon,” said Taoc, with surprising spite. Spirits were fervent believers, it seemed. “The Beast lays watch on the red star, to stop the Heavenly Eye from laying waste to the universe again. But the Heavenly Eye’s influence spreads to this world through the trickle of red light that falls on us. Malice, greed, and fury, among other nasty feelings. All of them come from the Heavenly Eye. It is what runs the Izlandi Kingdom, the most warlike, selfish nation in the world.”
“You are plenty warlike on your own,” said Bain.
“It is what gives them their nasty tongue as well,” said Taoc, “but more importantly, it is what leads to the great monster floods.”
“Great monster floods?” I repeated.
“When the influence of the red star has filled the world. In the woods, in the rivers, in the grottoes, and in the hidden places of this world, the monsters grow the Heavenly Eye’s mark on their bodies and rampage across the land,” said Taoc.
Starred monsters? The Immortal of Evil made them go on a rampage?
“Many generations ago, there was monster flood unlike any we had ever seen. Spirits, demons, and beastmen alike were swept away by the intensity of the monsters. Cities were burnt, crops trampled, and livestock butchered. Many of our people were killed. The other sentient races did not fare much better. It seemed as if the era of the monsters had begun, and the red star would shine upon a world it controlled once again, but then from the South came our saviors,” said Taoc.
“The elves?” I said.
She nodded. “The great elves poured forth from the mountains in the South, sweeping aside monsters whose very breath had been enough to fell a fairy and whose very presence made the spirits shake and shiver. Their weapons were more primitive than ours, their language indecipherable, but their courage, their power, their magic was mesmerizing. They cleared the lands to the South, the land that is now controlled by the Izlandi Kingdom, before sweeping up her to the North where our ancestors decided to make this mural. Then the elves chased the monsters to the East, into the lands now controlled by the Singing Horde. And the most remarkable part of this story is that the elves had been fighting an even larger, more dangerous flood of monsters in their homeland before being pushed into the mountains by a monster they did not call a monster. Now, so many years after the arrival and disappearance of the elves, only the Spirits remember their bravery and power. We believe they are the emissaries of the Beast of the Valley, which is why your arrival, no, your return is so important to us Great Elf. I cannot express just how happy it makes me feel to be able to gaze upon your honorable visage. I—”
“That’s enough Taoc,” I said.
“Right, Great Elf,” she said, before frowning, “but I thought you did not want to hear this story until after the battle.”
I nodded. “Well, let’s just say I’m a little less worried about the enemy showing up right now.” Of course, this was because I knew Noel would come tomorrow, not today. “Thank you for that, Taoc, it answers a lot of questions.” I did not add that it raised quite a few more. “Bain. You say you don’t remember anything strange happening to you here?”
“Yes, we were merely going through the logistics of the defense of the city. I was making a lot of empty diplomatic statements, the kind that would be expected of an emissary. I have no idea how somebody might have cast a spell on me,” he said.
I remembered that it took the Oracle a long time to brainwash Sharun. I stared at the mural of Sharun as I thought this, a lot of melancholic thoughts coming into my mind. Alek Izlandi must have been brainwashing people right up until he opened the gate and brought out his army against Noel. From what I remembered, he had all of the spirits and Bain Rusta under his control, but also had others. Others that were probably turned before the battle begun.
“We have to return to the gate,” I said, frowning as I turned and raced right out the door, ignoring the carpet of unconscious spirits that had still not been woken up.