“Little Vince, you will write a report and submit it before the day’s end. Be sure to clear this mess up, this place stinks enough as it is,” he almost spat in response. An admission of defeat. I pushed aside the last notification as he looked at me, almost as if imploring me to add something else.
Vincenzio gave them all a stiff formal bow, a hair’s breadth away from what would be considered to be polite. It was as good as an order of dismissal.
Ezlas of the Guild shot us both one last suspicious look before he left, clanking back up the stairs with his men. Vincenzio and I remained in almost contemplative silence until we heard the final echo of their departure.
Without realizing it, I had held my breath in the grip of tension, and only upon their departure did I let it go. It felt as if a heavy destiny or fate was balancing on the edge, teetering between one path and another. This day had been eventful indeed, a day that was still not over.
The Necromancer drew himself up proudly to his full height. “You know that one is a practitioner of the forbidden, and not just a simple purveyor of potions. You could have told them of one’s secret there and then, one would have done so in your place. Tell me why you chose otherwise,” he insisted.
It made sense, at least, that playing about with the dead was taboo. I paused, closing my eyes for a moment before replying, "That would not serve my purpose."
"Your purpose?" he said hollowly.
"Perhaps the purpose of all men who have tasted the first fruit. What the gods call sin, but men such as us call enlightenment and knowledge. You asked me earlier if I feared the punishment of the heavens. No, I do not, because I am to become that very punishment upon the heavens," I declared, my words fueled by a heated, seething passion. A sense of divine purpose vibrated within me, infusing my heart with correct meaning and direction. All was right with the universe.
"To achieve this, I am on a quest for knowledge. For knowledge is power, and it is with this power that I intend to tear down the heavens themselves," I stated loftily, my words ringing as if they were fresh-forged gospel.
Wryly, I smiled at the sallow man. “And I would have you know that I am considered somewhat of a scholar in my homeland. I feel that there is much we can learn from one another.” The words held an echo of repetition for me.
“Arrogance and such hubris, though one can not say that one is not guilty of the same sin. Your lofty goals and weak attempts at poetic verse and philosophizing aside, why would one do so?”
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“Is not the purpose of knowledge to be spread for the betterment of all?” was my musing response.
“Please spare me rote aphorisms and platitudes… let us speak plain.”
I smiled, feeling more confident. I was close, I could almost smell it. He had gone from enemies to somewhat cooperative. How quickly things could change. With an internal shrug, I also registered that I had recently grown a rather devil-may-care attitude that surprised even me.
“Yes, indeed. Lets. Have I not proven to not be your enemy? I seek a bargain with you. Knowledge for knowledge. And, I am in the belief that the scales at the moment are ever so slightly weighted in my favor. I am in the belief that we are not so different, you and I. Still, I would have you tell me why you call me a Visitor. I believe there is more meaning behind such a word,” I offered with aplomb.
He looked at me in the way one would look at a roach that suddenly learned speech. Disgust and interest in equal measure.“Such florid speech for a Visitor. Like a child with a new toy, you play with language thus. Strangers, not of this world, that wear the flesh of men like one wears clothes. Bound to the will of the gods, they bring only torment and suffering to this world, ”.
“Forgive me then. It is how I spoke in my own world. But then again, it is said that one thinks and acts differently in any given language. Bound to the will of the gods you say, that sounds like a very tragic fate indeed,” was my response, in all seriousness.
His expression remained the same as he offered a new comment, “And a Visitor you are. You have that look and feel about you. But, unlike the others, there is something different.”
“You would make a young maiden blush with such words. Different you say? You have encountered others?” I answered, attempting to lighten the mood.
“Your attempts at weak humor are not necessary. Indeed, encountered and ended, one has offered more than a few Visitors swift passage across the Shallow River,” was the pale man’s boorish response. By his negative reaction, I must have failed an invisible check against my Charisma of sorts. Oh well, it was my lowest attribute so it was to be expected.
More seriously now I asked him, “Why? For what ends?”
“By what obligation does one have to explain my reasons to a stranger?” he rasped.
The man was like a woman. Hot and cold, my patience was being worn away slowly but surely. “Are we not to speak plainly? I am indeed, as you say, a stranger, but one you know you can trust. Perhaps a Visitor as you call it. As another offering of trust, I will tell you of myself. I am from a different world, a world called the Earth.”
“A rather bland name for a world. Too bland to be anything but the truth. Then, yes you are a Visitor. A being summoned from another world for the Divines’ inscrutable purpose. But not you. You are not, or it seems, the common sort of Visitor. What is different about you is that you seem to be in full command of your faculties. No thrall are you, and one would be able to detect the heavy mark of their yoke upon you. Perhaps, it is as you say, that you are free?” There was a hint of something else in his voice. Was that eagerness?
“A moment,” he ordered, a tentacle of bone flowing out of his robes to grasp an old tome from a shelf. The appendage plopped the hidebound text on a research counter in a small explosion of dust. “One must not let hope undo caution. This is a holy text of Kaes-Loka, the god of hearth and herd of the steppe savages. Read from it and make a mock of it.”