Truth sat and read the spellbook for Earth Folding Step. It was the longest single spell he had ever seen, blowing past Incisive and Cup and Knife. The Meditations would be practically a footnote in comparison. He got it, though. Those spells were intended to grow based on your understanding of them. Learn them early, and they will evolve with you. Not Earth Folding Step. You had to be in the upper middle levels or even the lower high levels to even begin studying it. Using it safely was a whole separate issue.

Merkovah just sat and watched him. Truth wondered what his real body was doing in Siphios. Sitting in his cell at Nag Hamadi? Bullying courtiers at the Palace?

<>

Truth nodded slightly, flipped through the book again to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, then closed it with a snap.

“Did you know that, historically at least, one of the most common requests summoners made of Angels was for a perfect memory?” Merkovah smiled slightly. “A lot of our laws and traditions were passed on orally, and the definition of a scholar was someone able to instantly recall the text of the scriptures and commentaries. To say nothing of other religious, philosophical and magical works.”

“I believe it. When I think about the number of hours I spent grinding for the SAT, I feel a little sick.”

“Not wasted time, Young Man, not wasted time. If nothing else, it did a remarkable job polishing your character and honing your discipline. Things that will serve you a lifetime, rather than the fleeting value of technical knowledge.”

Truth laughed softly. “Who says a poisonous tree can only bear poisonous fruit?”

“Me. I say it.” Merkovah’s smile turned fierce. “That you have turned your slave training into something personally valuable is your own virtue, not that of Starbrite or Jeon.”

Truth snorted, but didn’t say anything. What was there to say? He agreed.

“So, given that there is likely no power in Heaven or Hell that would compel you to become The Hell Prince and lead a glorious revolution that sweeps away the wicked and corrupt from Jeon, what do you plan to do?”

“Actually, I was kind of waiting for someone to try actually compelling me.”

“With everything I have built into you, that would be spectacularly dumb and incredibly costly even if successful. You don’t have many friends in the Foreign Service- no government agency is really willing to tolerate a rogue element. However, you have been so immensely useful and so utterly deniable, they have no real desire to reign you in. In fact, the more “controlled” you become, the more of a problem you are for them. Diplomatically speaking. We are already considered a state sponsor of terrorism, after all.”

“I mean…”

“Didn’t say they were wrong. Even if I strenuously disagree with your considering yourself a terrorist. Or me a terrorist.”

Truth felt the snappy answers welling up inside of him. He could accept that he had hurt a lot of people. Killed a lot of people. In awful ways. But he didn’t have to like it. He didn’t have to pretend that he was doing anything good. Then he breathed out heavily, letting the words go. If he had thought of it, Merkovah had thought of it centuries ago. And accepted it. It would be a pointless argument, and the old monster really didn't have a lot of free time.

“Cup and Knife?”

“Here are the improved versions, along with a combined spell manual. Read them here and leave them. The combined spell manual in particular cannot leave secured rooms in secured facilities without a great deal of very tedious, very necessary, procedures.”

Truth nodded and started flipping through. He would study them later.

“While I have you- what do you think Manda was after with that spell? He is the Angel of Revelation, so I keep coming back to the idea of the spell revealing the truth of something, but it doesn’t do that at all.”

“Matter of opinion, I suppose. If it “corrects” things, it is showing you the way Manda thinks God thinks is correct.” Merkovah flicked his fingers.

“Right, but the mage is indicating what needs correcting and how it should be corrected.”

“But the spell is famously unreliable, often requiring an immense amount of effort to make trivial changes.” Merkovah spread his hands. “Which suggests to me that the amount of effort corresponds to two things- how much the thing to be changed is “not right” and how close the correction is to the “right” answer… in Manda’s opinion.”

“I wonder. The spell is plainly broken in places. The more you study it and use it, you can feel the gaps, see where Vek desperately tries to stretch two points together and make a whole. Is there an entire element of it that is just missing?” Truth steadily flipped through the pages, giving the System plenty of time to memorize the contents.

“A fairly common thought, and as you will soon learn, the basis for a lot of the improved versions of the spell. Strip out the bits that don’t seem to do anything, add segments to reinforce the purification and banishment elements of the spell. Massively reduces the energy requirements too.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Merkovah shrugged. “Then from that basis, entirely new spells were developed that focused on either banishment alone or purification alone, reducing the energy cost and complexity still further, while optimizing performance. Such is the way of spell development. More limited spells, but cheaper, more specialized and more effective.”

Truth nodded slightly. Merkovah could practically see the wheels turning in his student’s head.

“You think that’s missing something.”

“Think about the thing we aren’t going to talk about, then run through your explanation again.”

Merkovah cocked his head to the side, thought for a moment, then his eyes went wide. He smashed his hand on the desk. “D’VerCHemikt!”

“Pardon?!”

“Oh that’s one of the really GOOD swears. Once you clear your second century, you find out about them. Consider it a bonus.”

“What does… it mean?”

“You aren’t old enough to know. You are still so pure. So innocent. I think I need to make a quick trip over to the University. Just correct some thinking. I will be firm but fair. Very fair. I’ll even bring my own air demons to tidy up afterwards.”

“You can understand why I’m so determined to dig into the meaning behind Cup and Knife. It also puts Botis' claim that no one has ever really mastered Incisive into new light.”

Merkovah waved him off. “More than that. Much more. You would have no reason to know about this, but the debates over the “Junk Content” in ancient spells, the ones we emigrated to this planet with or had revealed to us by various angels and demons, have been going on for at least two thousand years.”

“And the conclusion they reached was that our ancestors and those supreme spirits just weren't very good spell designers, especially compared to the person writing the grant application?” Truth asked.

“You were paying attention when Etenesh and Jember were talking, weren’t you?”

Truth snorted and nodded. Merkovah shook his head. “I’m going to have to think about it more. Once again, what are you going to do now? Even if you are playing it loose, I need to know something.”

“If it wasn’t for the invasion from Onis, I probably would be out there spreading insurrection. Onis seems like a better place to live than Jeon for most people-”

“It is. Significantly.” Merkovah interjected.

“But they strike me as a people more concerned with order than peace. I don’t think my fellow rats would do very well once they were conquered by Onis.”

“Nobody is going to do well in a few months.” Merkovah argued.

“True. So I’m going to split the difference. Poison the food, without committing atrocities. There will be a few break ins, a few assassinations, some people will undergo a significant realignment of their world views via reality adjustment. But this is going to be a different sort of revolution, I think.”

“Say on.”

“A revolution of thinking. Right now we have people fighting over which rat gets to wear the captain’s hat as the ship plows into the reef. Some rats are still hoping to flee, others plot to rule the wreck.”

Merkovah nodded.

“I think now is the perfect time to build a new kind of boat. I don’t even know what it should look like, really, but given the old one is useless and soon to be scrapped, what have we got to lose?”

Merkovah looked at the blythe expression on Truth’s face, and laughed himself sick. Once he could gasp enough air, he wheezed- “And Starbrite?”

“Every revolution needs a head to hang. Proof that the old order has died. His will do nicely, as will a select few others. We keep pushing until something cracks- that much I agree with.”

“Alright. And your happily ever after in the northern mountains of Siphios?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. My brain says run off-world as fast as I can. My heart says Etenesh would look beautiful pregnant, and I can keep an energy gathering array going around our house. It will be thin stuff, but it should be enough to keep her apertures from collapsing.”

“You probably could. It would be a bigger job than you think, but she’s an expert in building rituals and arrays.”

“Then there is the rat part of my brain.” Truth shook his head, looking down at his hands. Trying not to stare at the wooden ring Sally gave him.

“Oh?”

“The Shattervoid promised to take… what? A few thousand people? Ten thousand? Something like that.”

“‘A few tens of thousands, from your billions’ were their exact words.” Merkovah’s voice was wry, but the tension in it wasn’t hidden.

“Well. Who says they take anybody at all, even if we do kill Starbrite? What if they are just hanging around to make sure Starbrite goes down with the rest of the planet? Not like anyone will be around to tell the universe the Shattervoid don’t honor their promises.”

Merkovah sighed. He made no reply.

An hour and a big meal in the cafeteria later, Truth left the Siphios embassy. He “acquired” ten kilos of good coffee on the way out. Waste not, want not and all that. His iron horse was right where he left it- being carefully watched by concerned parking attendants.

“Does it bite?”

“Not yet.” Truth smiled. Based on what little he had seen of the spell, the earth folding step didn’t actually require the mage to step. He was looking forward to racing down the road on his iron horse, stepping across tens or thousands of meters per cast. Flying down the road, into the sunset.

He felt lighter. Happier. Just being able to talk to people, even if he couldn't tell them everything, it made all the difference. To be real again, not just wading through a world of ghosts and paper houses.

Thrush flew down onto his shoulder as he picked up speed on the highway.

“Where to next, Master?”

“Back to Jeon, Thrush. The world is going to Hell, but the people don’t have to go with it.”

“Oh? How surprising. I was quite certain they did.”

“You and everyone else, Thrush. Come on. I can hardly wait to spread the good news.”