Chapter Six: A Certain Memory
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Blychert waited for Master Bartolo to return for what felt like forever, motionless inside the bathroom, and fearing all but the worst.
However, his fears were placated when he heard a knock at the bathroom door after roughly a few minutes, followed by the sound of master’s voice, “It’s alright out here. You can come down when you’re ready.”
Once Bly was fully dressed, he left the bathroom and hesitantly made his way down to the living room. Though he came to halt at the foot of the stairs, completely surprised by the sight of Alyse standing by the fireplace, warming her hands.
“We meet again.” She turned to face him, slowly removing her hat with a curious smile, “You must be a very unlucky boy, indeed.”
Bly offered a small smile back at her, and for some reason he was relieved to see that she was okay. Despite the inevitable chaos that she’d tossed him into back at the guildhall, she had helped him escape, and he was glad to see her.
Master Bartolo sighed as he entered the living room from the study, “I told her a great deal of what you told me already, and she has corroborated as much. As difficult as it is to believe, there is no mistaking it now that you are classless.”
Classless.
The word sent a shiver down Bly’s spine again.
“I must apologize, I… gravely miscalculated the likelihood of this outcome.” Miss Crane said softly, her gaze drifting to the fireplace momentarily, “I’ve never heard of a classless gaining experience points before, it’s… well, we figured—hoped, really—that all was as it seemed, and that you’d receive your class as intended. Should that I have known what I know now, I would have done things much differently. I promise you that.”
“Miscalculated? You have some nerve suggesting that after what you put my apprentice through tonight.” Master Bartolo said, more than a little sternly, shaking his hand as he emphasized, “How could you possibly have thought to leave him on his own? After everything we discussed. It would have been better to act swiftly.”
“I understand your frustration, Bartolo.” She replied calmly, “But scorched earth was the only course of action here. You know that. I couldn’t risk it too early with the hall filled with innocent people. And I did a fine job distracting them, just so you know. The fact that he ran into the hall leader at all was simply dumb luck. If they’d have gotten the chance to synchronize his memory with the Archive—”
“Don’t start with me.” Bartolo waived his hands furiously, “You said you would protect him—you swore to me that you would shield him if anything went awry. Now look at what’s become of him? This is not what I had in mind when you came to me, Alyse. We shouldn’t have let him attend the ceremony at all. I should have been here…”
“They would have come looking for him. And you.” Miss Crane insisted, “Is that what you wanted? There was no reason for us to doubt that he wouldn’t receive a class, not one of the signs was there. And anyway, you didn’t see what I did. Even the Administrator was just as confused. At least now we have some momentum, and considering how I dealt with things, a larger window of discretion to move about as we please.”
“Discretion…” Bartolo shook his head, “Hardly your area of expertise. Hm? And what’s this about we?”
“Wait, do you two know each other?” Blychert interjected confusedly.
He’d been wondering for a little while about just who his master could have received a message from. That and the fact that he said he should have trusted his instincts, Bly had a feeling something was up. Though he hadn’t counted on them both being in on it.
“It has less to do with us knowing each other.” Miss Crane insisted plainly, “More so to do with your… well, your father.”
“I should never have agreed to any of this!” Master Bartolo exclaimed, “Confound it all, I never should have let you get involved. He’s classless, and maybe I should have always guessed that would be the case. Garin always knew more than he let on. I knew that, if nothing else. But he trusted me with his son’s life, and I’ve failed him completely…”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Miss Crane chuckled, “You haven’t failed anyone. Look, Blychert is still alive. Isn’t he? And if anything, now he’s gotten a taste of the life that awaits him out there. If Garin truly wanted a particular life for his son, then he should have been here to deal with this himself. End of discussion.”
“My… father?” Bly furrowed his brow, “I have a father? What—well, is he alive?”
Alyse offered a sympathetic look, while Bartolo simply groaned under his breath.
This was the first time Bly had heard anything about the sorts. As long as he could remember, he’d lived with Bartolo. He couldn’t even think of a time when he didn’t know the tower to be his home. But then, there was something else. There was something in his mind, a swirling memory that he could feel leaking out the more he tugged on it—the more he gave into it.
Bly grasped at his temples, feeling a familiar pain surge through his head as those same blurry images and sounds he’d experienced for what felt like all his life—the ones he’d thought were just a dream—rattled around in his skull, mixing in unpleasant ways.
He could see the dream so clear in his mind; feel the salty breeze on his face, the grass on his feet, looking out over a cliff—a body of water so vast it could have spanned the entire world. There was a person in his mind too, standing right there against the rising sun, a castle standing tall in the distance behind them. It was just a silhouette of a person, but it was tall, and the voice was so clear now.
“One day… we’ll wake up and smell the ashes. It’ll be like a whole new world being born, and we’ll get to see it. What do you say, Bly? That sound alright to you?”
Bly felt like he’d just been kicked in the chest, and that wasn’t even because he still had a broken rib.
That was his father’s voice—it had to be. He’d said those words. It was him that Bly saw in his dreams. Or was it a memory? It was the voice that calmed him in all those stressful moments. But why? Did he really know what Bly was from the start? Did he know any of this would happen? And why did he leave Bly here? Why did Miss Crane say the same exact thing that he did? What did it all mean?
“Blychert?” Bartolo shook Bly’s arm, “Are you alright?”
“I don’t know…” Bly murmured breathlessly, confused and foggy-minded, “I—I need to sit down.”
The discussion ended there.
Before long, Bly was laying back in Master Bartolo’s armchair, who was soon reading from the healing scroll he’d brought out from the study. The pain in Bly’s ribs slowly began to subside as his master recited the words, and the bruise on his arm went away too, though he still felt completely drained.
“Uhm… Miss Crane?” Bly asked nervously after a time, as Bartolo worked diligently.
For her part, Alyse perked up from across the living room, where she sat perfectly still on the couch, “Yes?”
“When I was making my escape, there was this… thing that happened. I didn’t know how to explain it properly before, but when I was defending myself against the Administrator, my sage terminal went all weird and started doing things by itself. Is that… normal?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Bly saw Bartolo give a wide sidelong glance across to where Miss Crane was sitting, and he knew he was pulling on a peculiar thread.
“The defensive spell I was using to block his attack was just about broken, and I was completely out of mana, and… I don’t know, something happened to it.” Bly continued slowly, “Like I explained to master, my experience points began to drain really fast, and I guess that somehow amplified my magic? I know you said it was something you’d never heard of, but are these kinds of things normal for—well, people like us? Do we really steal our power from the Divine?”
Miss Crane had since steepled her fingers over her lips, never turning her gaze from Bly’s.
Belatedly, she took a breath, and said, “There’s nothing normal about it, Blychert. But we can only live in the world that created us. Can’t we? If this Divine really meant for all of us to partake in its abundance, and yet cannot even reconcile with those that are born outside the periphery of such a blessed ideal, then what does that tell you about its nature? Can a world that condemns the hopeless to death truly be called a place of bounty—”
“Alyse…” Master Bartolo interjected warily.
“Or…” She continued above him, “Does it inform us of a much deeper deception at work? I suppose that’s for each of us to decide, in the end. But one thing for certain is that the Guild will never let you live if they ever discover you again. Not now that they know what you really are. You’ll have to forge a new identity for yourself, or several—”
“Enough.” Master Bartolo set the healing scroll aside, “We needn’t speak of this now. Alyse, if you can talk, you can help me pack.”
“…Yes, sir.” Miss Crane saluted with two fingers, and winked at Bly once quickly before removing herself from the couch. Master Bartolo set the jar of veilfly cream and a bit of gauze on the table next to Bly. He then gave an encouraging nod and told Bly to shut his eyes for a bit, before setting off into the other room with haste.
“Do try to rest.” Miss Crane said as she passed by the armchair, “There will be time for all your questions. I did promise you that much.”
Bly supposed that was as good an answer as he could expect, given the circumstances, and anyway he was feeling completely exhausted. There were too many thoughts and too many uncertainties running around in his head for him to even want to hold a conversation now, so he let them be.
The veilfly cream was instantly soothing on his fingers, and he wrapped them in the gauze shortly thereafter. Soon, he had drifted off to sleep, the image of his recurring dream, or memory, burned deeply in his mind, and Miss Crane’s mysterious words not too far behind.