Alicia had dismissed the idea of waiting. Not only was she unable to examine herself, but waiting past a month would risk returning to a period of time where Merry already knew she was hurt—it would be difficult to explain an apparently sudden improvement. But, when she reset the loop, Cyg happened to be healed enough that suspicions fell on him once more.
Merry took him by surprise, and his eyes darted from the witch to her apprentice searching for answers. “Huh...? What are you talking about?” he said, realizing she still had an incomplete picture.
“Are you playing dumb?” She squeezed his soul to make him squirm. Cyg, instead of properly resisting, forced himself to struggle without any efficacy. He groaned through gritted teeth, wondering how far she was going to take this. Any moment now, he’ll pass out. After a very long minute, Merry released him, allowing him to fall back onto the bed. “Alicia’s been injured. I’ll allow you to stay for two more days, and then I’ll have to send you off.”
Cyg rubbed his neck as he took in the news. Frowning, he replied, “Alright...”
The breakfast that followed was tense with the least number of words exchanged during the normally amicable event. In fact, she was so suspicious that she didn’t even suggest Alicia take Cyg outside to go stretch his limbs. No, he’d do just fine in the study, the witch declared.
Alicia said, “Let’s take a look at a lantern’s ignition strip...”
They pretended, without much enthusiasm, to go over the very first lesson that was taught to Cyg. It was nostalgic in a way, tracing over the simple patterns on the wood. After about half an hour, Merry figured that Alicia was fine for the time being, exiting the house but never straying too far.
Now alone, the two were able to catch up on what happened, relieved they didn’t need to communicate entirely through writing again.
“...We aren’t given a choice anymore,” Alicia said, “You’re forced to leave before Sunday, which means our original plan is worthless.”
“We only have one shot, regardless.” Cyg was busy writing down everything he could recall from his trip.
“Right, that new plan of yours. Or the archmage’s. The circle is inside the domain, so we don’t need to get a ‘sample’ of her through her blood. All that’s left is leaving a sigil that would hold shape despite her healing.”
“How long does it need to last?”
“I wouldn’t say an instant, but perhaps a little more?” she crossed her arms. “But I’ve never tested it, so I can’t say. Especially since we don’t have all of the diagrams. Give me a second, I’ll get my notebooks.” A few minutes later, Alicia returned to compare with his notes. Some things were off, and some parts were clarified. Most of it was in mystery, but they could ascertain what it was doing in a high-level view. “This creates some sort of ‘beacon’ endlessly across the Sea, and when conditions happen to all align, it would form a complete copy. Theoretically, the marker should only exist in this world.”
“There just happens to be other identical ones.”
“You mentioned some sort of anchor, but I’m having trouble seeing where the mechanism is to move the targets. It’s centralized around the mana source, but the mythril doesn’t do anything except preserve itself.”
“I know my Aspect uses the objects being swapped as anchors. But, when I tried to ‘teleport’, I had to exert more effort into moving myself.”
“Could it be that the archmage is somewhere in the Sea, facilitating all of the swaps?”
He frowned. “Didn’t you say he only wrote ‘time travel’ on the papers he gave you? How was he expecting to figure this out?”
“I think he intended for us to learn how to face Merry, and when we were able to, adjust the circle and use it as he imagined.”
“Talk about expecting a lot from some barely literate idiot and someone who runs out of breath after a minute of running.”
With a snort, Alicia said, “We made it this far, haven’t we?”
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“A miracle. Or is it an inevitability, and the archmage is the type of person who actually can wait a million years?”
Shaking her head, the apprentice bunched up her sleeve to look at her sigil. “Well, either way, this is the point of no return.”
“I think we passed that ages ago.”
They discussed their plans for a little while longer before going outside to convince Merry that he should be allowed to wander around. The witch acquiesced, only permitting it if Cyg were to be escorted by Bassy, while Alicia had to not go too far. Entirely agreeable, Alicia replied, knowing it was better that she stayed in the house to meddle with the circle.
* * *
Tuesday was their best shot. Bassy was sequestered in her cave, and the rain made sure she wouldn’t interrupt if things went south. The faerie surviving was a happy coincidence, but it didn’t help them sleep one bit.
The rain began before daybreak, starting as a drizzle and growing harsher as the sun rose behind the clouds. Merry woke first, as always, entering the kitchen. She yawned, noticing Cyg and Alicia were still in their beds. A calm morning, she thought, until she powered on the rune for the faucet and a cloud of blue billowed forth. She coughed and waved her hands, the flaring of her senses revealing it was Salt.
Distracted and disarrayed, Merry tried to rid the air of it without using her third Aspect. It was a mistake, because the second and third follow-up plumes blinded her to her surroundings entirely. The danger became apparent, she vacuumed everything into her palm, forming a new marble, but trying to purge her soul would take some time.
Time that would not be given to her.
The Sea shook as Alicia’s domain rippled through, striking the witch and halting as if her soul were a brick wall. She still recoiled nonetheless, flinching due to sensitivity, failing to notice and avoid the iron cylinder that pressed against her neck. The runes inside activated, and the detailed pattern of a sigil was etched into her skin. Nothing happened immediately.
The witch lashed out, grabbing at whoever was holding it against her, discovering Cyg in a suit of armor. His helmet was without holes to see or breathe, and the witch split her flesh to try to pry it apart. There were no obvious gaps, none that she could easily pry apart. She tested his soul next, reaching with her domain and crushing down, only to find him fighting back. They fought physically and spiritually, flesh and soul furiously trying to get the upper hand.
Merry formed a spiked ball of bone and smashed into the thief’s side, and he relinquished for a second with a choked cry before managing to grapple the witch down. When that was no good, she grabbed his helmet and began to warp it, but he performed the same trick she had used to disable his swaps; he jammed the space so full of his mana that her Aspect could not properly form.
But, such a trick could not last against her, and before he was overwhelmed, Cyg triggered a bomb directly behind her, sending them down the hall in a tangle of limbs. The cylinder burned the shape of the sigil over and over, and finding no other recourse, she dissolved her bones and melted down—but it was too late. The space around her warped and swallowed the witch, and she vanished from the house.
The back wall was demolished, and the entire living room and hall were equally ruined. Cyg tapped the back of his neck, asking for help, and Alicia ran over. Haphazardly assembled iron plates clattered as they fell, freeing the thief as he panted and leaned against Alicia. Blood trailed down from his head and side, but his wounds closed as she used her magic.
“Gods,” he said, wheezing, “I thought she was going to squeeze my head like a grape.”
“You did great,” Alicia replied, allowing him to stand on his own and take off his gauntlets. “Merry gone.”
He looked at her incredulously. “We did it?”
“...We did it.”
The wooden floorboards shattered as the entire basement burst with stone, dirt, and sand. They were thrown off their feet, and the explosion of ever-expanding material threatened to swallow them whole—until they were ripped backwards by their collars and tossed to the front entrance. Another explosion rocked the house, a low rumble that they had never heard before, one that blew open the front door and everything around it, allowing the two to be sent rolling outside into the grass and rain.
“I’m impressed you’ve made it thus far,” a man spoke, his voice warbling along with his very being. Cyg and Alicia looked up to see mythril swirling, transmuting into skin and cloth. “It’s a shame you couldn’t see things through to the end yourselves, but that’s fine. It’s an elder’s duty to step in to make sure it all ends well.”
A robe of white and gold fluttered in the wind, and his salt and pepper hair stopped shoulder-length, hardly matching his ill-trimmed beard. His age waxed and waned, never quite settling as he stood in front of the two.
Alicia said, “...Archmage Orin?”
“Indeed,” he replied, turning to examine the house, “Come now, stand up; there’s work to be done.”
The house was obliterated by a mountain of flesh, unravelling from a singular point in the kitchen, space itself pried open to allow for the creature to crawl out. It rose into the sky in a furious cry. Something akin to a tornado began to form, ending with a shockwave at the precipice of the monolith. A new marble was launched into the sky where it pierced the clouds and was released, blowing the rain away from the forest and clearing the heavens.
“Why?” Merry asked, followed by a rueful pause. “No, I know why. It was an inevitability. My sin is mine alone.” A perfectly reformed witch stood near the top, her dress in fluttering tatters of blood and splinters. The mass of flesh under her twisted and wriggled, forming countless arms and hands.
“But even so, you will not leave my garden alive. Not as long as I breathe.”