“I do think the mahee is somehow involved,” Lilian started off. “The demon sightings, the mortals going crazy, the dying, the screams, all the stories. It does sound like something out of a nightmare. For the mortals who have never experienced the mahee as we have. Santis… D’Argen mentioned Santis back there because of the scent. The thing is, Santis could manipulate dreams. Ehora can create illusions, though they are only limited to one person. Yaling… Yaling cannot create sounds out of nothing, but she can manipulate them so we hear something different.”
“The scents?” Vain prompted.
“D’Argen, you said you scented burnt sugar?” Lilian asked, facing him.
D’Argen nodded.
Lilian continued with a nod of their own, “I scented cannabis and I thought it was the forest. I did not see one demon.”
“I… yea…” Abbot spoke up with a hesitating tone. “I… I scented lemons. It was not Yaling’s citrus, it was just… lemons. But wait, you are saying that what we scented and heard was also different, like what we saw?”
“Heard, no. We all heard screaming. I could not place it as an exact sound or recognize the source but… mortals being tortured by demons. Those were the stories, that was what we heard.” Yaling rubbed a finger through the single lock of hair covered with beads and a tiny wooden whistle.
“Because we were all expecting it,” D’Argen suddenly said in realization. “We didn’t know what to see because all of the stories were so different and none of them made sense but… but we were all told it sounded like the screams of mortals. So that is what we heard.”
“And the stories never talked about scents,” Yaling confirmed with a nod.
“Yaling? What did you scent?” D’Argen asked.
“Sugar. More… honey, actually, I would say. It felt sticky, at the back of my throat.”
“Thar?”
No answer. D’Argen turned to face the man where he was half-hiding behind one of the shelves. He had the same book open as the last time he looked. A closer look revealed that it was either on the same spread or close to it.
“Thar? What did you scent and see?”
“I scented nothing. I saw a shack demon tearing Yaling in half and then one of those with the five sets of arms dragging her away. I almost cut it in half before I realized it was black and not red.”
D’Argen heard a dry swallow to his right where Abbot was.
“Lilian…” D’Argen started, his voice low and wary. He was not sure if he wanted to ask anything specific, but he needed to know. “What did you see?”
Lilian hesitated then said, in a low tone, “I think I saw the mahee.”
Everybody was looking at them.
“Lilian,” D’Argen started again, his tone hesitating, “I… we heard you… talking to someone. Or something.”
Lilian nodded slowly, confirming it.
“And you think it was… the mahee? I mean… whose mahee? That doesn’t make any sense. The mahee is… it’s us, we are it. It’s not something separate from us.”
“I saw scents.”
“What?”
“Ah… I do not even know how to explain it. It was a blur and yet so sharp. It was like I was looking at every single scent that ever existed and my eyes could not process it all. It never spoke yet… yet there were thoughts in my head that were not my own. Not anymore. And it asked me to… it told me to… to…”
The pause was long enough to almost feel awkward.
Instead of continuing from where they stopped, Lilian changed tracks and spoke in a firm tone, “you know how some of our scents are not exactly definable by one thing? Like, Acela… when she uses her mahee, for us it is the feeling of sunshine on a warm summer day. That is not a scent. Thar? Cold? The absence of a scent? That is not a scent. But that is what we call it.”
Stolen story; please report.
“Darania had a theory,” Acela spoke up, interrupting whatever anybody else could have tacked onto that. “She believed that the strongest of us, we have scents that are more than a single physical object. It is not an ocean, or an oil, or a fruit, or a flower. It is a memory. Scent memory is extremely powerful, even in mortals.”
D’Argen had nothing to say to that. He had not heard of this theory before but considering how many other theories Darania had and how logical they all sounded to him, one more was not that special. It was almost like just its source made it become truth.
“What did it tell you?” Acela questioned Lilian, a soft furl of sunshine on a summer day revealing that she was using her mahee. Acela was the most powerful mentalist of all the Never Born. A tiny stream of sunshine and she could persuade anyone to listen to her words as if they were commands.
There was a hiccup and only then did D’Argen realize that Lilian’s eyes were wet.
“To go back,” D’Argen supplied in the silence. He shuffled across the space between them until he could touch Lilian. They touched him back and looped a finger in his belt under the edge of the table. They tugged gently three times. D’Argen wrapped an arm around their shoulders and waited as Lilian calmed their breath.
“Back where?” Acela asked, her voice sounding incredulous.
Once, long ago, D’Argen was known as the keeper of secrets. It was his job to deliver the messages between the Never Born. As such, he had to know how to keep his mouth closed and turn his eyes away at the right time. He hated it. It felt too much like lying. He was tired of holding others’ secrets for them and carrying them for hundreds or thousands of years.
It was one of the reasons, among many, that he wanted to stay away from the city and the politics involved. It was one of the reasons he asked for Yaling to join his team, to bring her status back up as a kinesiologist who controlled sound. To put her back in Zetha’s sights and give her work to create the communication spells that could replace D’Argen running around.
He hated it. He still did.
But there were some secrets that should never be shared.
He tightened his hold around Lilian and then threw a glare at each Abbot and Yaling. They understood him immediately and he softened his look, hoping the appreciation came across properly.
“Something is happening with the mahee,” D’Argen said, facing Acela. She glared at him but he held firm. “When we were in Oltria, right before we came for the conference, we encountered something even stranger. Even I didn’t believe it.”
Then, he proceeded to tell both Vain and Acela about the cheetah that chased him around the Oltrian plains by eating up his scent as he ran.
“Great.” If Acela was not more dignified, she probably would have thrown her arms up in the air. “We have a magic mushroom and a fast cheetah. Anything else?”
Thar cleared his throat.
“Oh, yeah… and a horny bird,” D’Argen added on, finally able to smile. Instead of embarrassing Thar further, he quickly explained the same story the man had shared with them on the mountain.
“If… how is it possible for somebody else, something else to use the mahee?” Vain asked. He had not written down anything on his papers in quite a while. With his memory, he could fill out all the details at a later date, but the fact that he did not write anything down meant that his entire focus was on the conversation.
“It is not,” Acela said with a note of finality in her voice. “We are done with this. Vain, record everything, we will look at it at a later time.
“Acela,” Thar said her name, speaking up for the first time since she entered the room.
She turned to him with a sharp snap, her eyes narrowed as if in anger.
“Think about it for a moment. The mortals already know about that cursed stone and how gold affects the mahee. These stories? They came from the mortals. What would happen if the Kings and Queens of the neighbouring lands, your allies, ask for the mahee for themselves?”
Acela’s silence said enough.
“Is it… is it possible that it’s already touched some mortals?” D’Argen asked.
There was no answer.
“This mushroom?” Vain finally spoke up, changing the subject as he pointed to the jar Lilian still had in one hand. “This is what caused you all to see things?”
“We think so,” Lilian confirmed with a nod.
“I want to test it.”
Acela immediately rejected the idea of opening the jar and testing the mushrooms there and then. Instead, she ordered for Lilian to go to the apothecary in the castle to work on them there. Lilian left without another word. Vain mentioned he wanted to experience their effects for himself and followed after Lilian. Abbot and Yaling slipped out quietly before they were given any tasks.
“D’Argen,” Acela called his name just as D’Argen tried to do the same. “Vah’mor missed you during your brief visit earlier. I suggest you go visit them.”
It was as if the library doors slammed wide open to let in the winter winds. A chill covered him from head to toe. D’Argen startled and then grinned. He turned to face Thar.
“She said me, not you. I’ll see you later,” he said with a wave. Thar and Vah’mor hated one another. D’Argen had yet to understand why, but it started long before Thar’s banishment and it looks like it was still strong between the two.
“And Thar,” Acela continued, “your rooms at the northern barracks have been repurposed. I have sent a message for someone to prepare one of the guest rooms in the river tower. They should be waiting for you by the time you get there.”
Thar raised his chin.
Acela tilted hers barely a breath.
“It is good to see you,” she said and then turned around and left.
D’Argen placed a hand on Thar’s shoulder in comfort, “I’m still in the same place as before. Drop by for a visit if you need me.” He smiled and then ran off.
Vah’mor, the General of Evadia, was waiting for him.