Chapter 32 – A System of Knowledge

Up on the rooftops, high above the savage melee that raged within the fortress, Adam locked eyes with Desdemona. Both of them were silent while the cacophony of war was all around them: roars of battle, cries of dying troops, and the shrieks of metal on metal.

Yet, Adam didn’t mind them. He was solely focused on the mysterious warrior and the implications of his new hypothesis. She was resting the blood-red blade of her sword on her shoulder. Her callused fingers idly shifted over the handle as her suspicious gaze flicked over his face. Maybe she was thinking he’d gone mad. Honestly, after his revelation, Adam couldn’t quite blame her. A rational voice in the back of his mind tried to discard his own theory, claiming it was ridiculous. There was no way they could be inside Caine’s memory world, right?

However, it wasn’t that hard to imagine since the great siege of Eulenschloss was taking place around him. Or at least, Caine’s memories of this battle.

It made sense that this strange third type of sorcery, out of which Instinct and Novaseering had been born, was connected to memory. Instinct was linked to the collective, ancient memory of countless animals. The emotions needed for Invocations were often linked to memories, like those triggered by Schultora and Osaehin. And before one could practice Novaseering it is necessary to delve into the memoires of a powerful Novaseer like Aves. Learning as much as possible about their life, choices, and techniques provided the initial basis for learning Novaseering. All of it was connected to memory. The more he thought about it, the surer he became.

“That… was earnest,” Desdemona said slowly. She furrowed her brow and tilted her head to the side. “But how did you end up in the Realm of Remembrance, and travel all the way here, if you had no idea?”

Suddenly, the telltale sizzling of an Invocation sounded from the left. Oliver and Emily jumped up from behind a roof and fired blasts of Shrike. Yelling their battle cries and contorting their faces in concentration, they clearly powered the surging beams with everything they had.

With wide eyes of shock, Desdemona jumped up and raised her arms in defence. The Invocation hit her dead-on. Grunting in pain, she defended herself against the overwhelming assault, which tore off pieces of her armour and sent her flying backwards. As a fresh wave of Dorenland's tridentiers charged in the streets below, the view of Desdemona was obscured in the savage melee.

Adam gaped at the battle. His relief that he wasn’t gutted rivalled an odd guilt for what had happened to Desdemona when she’d let her guard down.

“What are we waiting for?!” Oliver barked between his panting. “Let’s get back to the Node, NOW!”

Adam nodded and forced his tired muscles to get moving. The three of them jumped from roof to roof to get to the spiral near the place where they’d woken up.

The tide seemed to be turning in the battle around them. Outside the fortress, Zachalynn’s charge had reached its target. The Pure soldiers never lost their euphoric smiles as they lashed out with their glaives and ritualistic scythes. However, trapped between the heavily defended walls of Eulenschloss at one side and Zachalynn’s cavalry at the other, there wasn’t much they could do. In the distance, the elegant siege towers and the tall battle standards of the Pure were torn down.

In the streets below Adam, Pure soldiers still ran amok. Armoured rhinos trampled and gored any Dorenish soldier foolish enough to leave their formation. However, Dorenland’s tridentiers had blocked off the main streets by forming phalanxes. Row after row of thoroughly trained soldiers were overlapping their shields and sticking out their long tridents to slay any Pure who dared to come near. The Pure cavalry charged fearlessly, but with Invocations raining down on them from above, even the rhinos had trouble breaking the formations.

“FOR DORENLAND!” the Talons of Aves screamed as they attacked with harpoons of Marrow and blasts of Shrike. Now that the Novaseers didn’t need to defend the walls anymore, they directed all of their fury on the Pure who seemed trapped within the fortress.

Even one of the giant Myrmidons lumbered down from the walls and into the melee. Javelins hurled by the Pure bounced off the holy engravings on the statue’s body as it pulled a Pure soldier from his saddle and threw him against a wall like a ragdoll. With its other hand, it wielded a long Marrow sword and cleaved through three of the Pure foot soldiers. Without any regard for its own safety, a Pure rhino charged from behind. It hit the animated statue’s knee at full momentum and shattered the mighty joint, causing the Myrmidon to fall in the chaotic melee.

However, the Talons of Aves attacked from all directions, cleaning the fortress of any who opposed them; exactly how Caine had remembered.

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As Adam ran, he consciously didn’t look back at the tower. What if this young version of Caine has recognised us? We weren’t really subtle in our fight with Desdemona… He jumped over the gap between two roofs. Well, there isn’t much we could do about it now, I suppose.

They were already nearing the peculiar spiral which, hopefully, was their way out. The goldish-green energy inside the shape seemed to be flowing outwards from the centre. Two wide rings surrounded the spiral. The first one was filled with depictions which reminded Adam of the fresco he’d seen earlier; a complex network of caves, connected to each other with little green lines. The outer ring was filled with a multitude of tiny hieroglyphs.

Some time later, Oliver marched past the towering bookcases in the pyramid library of Eulenschloss’s Node. He waved his arms in frustration. “That’s ridiculous, preposterous! There’s no way we can be inside Caine’s memory!” As he kept ranting, Emily followed politely and nodded along.

Adam grimaced a bit every time he put weight on his left leg, being exhausted, bruised, and battered after the fight. Honestly, he couldn’t really blame Oliver for having trouble accepting where they were. However, no matter how much he argued, signs which supported Adam’s theory about the Realm of Remembrance were everywhere around them. Absent-mindedly, Adam let his gaze wander across the spines of books. Titles like ‘The Walls of Eulenschloss’ or ‘Battle Tactics of the Pure: An Analysis’ came by.

The library, unharmed by the Roots, smelled like parchment, ink, and polished wood. Chic oaken bookshelves stood three storeys along the walls of the long room. In front of them were several desks, lecterns, and wooden ladders to reach the higher shelves. Life-sized statues of figures from the siege, like knights of the Pure or tridentiers, stood in niches. Hung upside down from the vaulted ceiling, a large maquette of Eulenschloss showed its key points with red dots. Other walls were covered with items like maps of the fortress and paintings of Agatha.

“—I mean, even Novaseering can’t create entire worlds!” Oliver said, frowning distastefully at a statue of a squire, as if the young lad had personally offended him.

“But doesn’t it make sense if it can do things Novaseering can’t?” Emily asked patiently as she prodded a small maquette which showed the fight around the fortress gate. Detailed clay soldiers stood on the maquette, vaguely reminding Adam of the toys he used to play with, a lifetime ago. Emily picked up one of them and studied it. Adam noticed only now that she’d covered a bruise on her right cheek with a lock of hair. “Although it’s a predecessor of Novaseering, it is a third, separate form of sorcery after all,” she said. “So, Adam, how do you think all the stuff in here is connected to the memory?”

Adam walked towards her. Enchanting as the vanilla scent of her hair may be, he bravely ignored it and pointed at the back of the maquette. “There’s a tiny glass-like tube over here. And if you look closely, you can see these minuscule specks of greenish light travelling through them... Hmm, it reminds me a bit of blood flowing through veins.” Adam nodded to the bookcases and statues. “All of these objects should have tubes connected to them, which lead to the ceiling, and will probably end up at the spiral on top. If you ask me, all the books and other items in here are providing the information used to form the memory of the siege of Eulenschloss.”

Emily looked up to the column where several glass tubes disappeared into the ceiling. “Ah, interesting! And when you placed a book back into its shelf in Catherine’s library, a bigger mote of light appeared, right?”

Adam winced a bit. “Uh-huh, triggering an avalanche of Roots. Not quite my best moment in hindsight. I guess Caine’s memory about Catherine was made up to date when I placed the book back in, to include new changes that could’ve been added.”

Emily played with a lock of her hair and smirked at a painting of Agatha on the wall. “So, let’s say we draw a fancy black moustache on our sexy rebel leader over there and make a similar one on all her likenesses in the library. Then, Caine would remember her like that, right?”

Adam laughed heartily, it felt good to do so after all the events and insights of Eulenschloss. “Well, yes, I think so! Hmm, although there is a separate Node about Catherine, so maybe there’s also one about Agatha? I’m not sure how that would work, but maybe he’d only remember her with a moustache at this specific battle.”

Emily nodded solemnly. “A worthy symbol to inspire her troops.”

Adam rubbed his beard. “The real question is, will it make her more or less attractive to Caine?”

Oliver sighed indignantly and rubbed his temples. “Unbelievable. You two are way too enthusiastic about this heretic hocus-pocus!” He glared at Emily specifically. “Does anyone see the irony that a type of sorcery revolving around memory has been forgotten, hmm? Sounds pretty shoddy to me!”

Emily raised her eyebrows. “All right then, does ‘The Wind Around My Wings’ or other books of Aves provide any clue on what’s going on or where we are?”

“Err.” Oliver stared at a hologram that floated above a dais on the floor. It showed a Myrmidon that formed a massive, Marrow trident. With a wide swing, it cut right through a Pure knight, rhino and all. The hologram repeatedly showed the same scene. “Maybe… no, I mean, ahem,” Oliver stammered. “I don’t have the books with me, of course.” He got a bit red in the cheeks.

“It’s okay,” Emily said gently. “It just looks like we can’t explain the things which are happening around us with the rules and laws we’ve been taught so far. I’m all ears to other explanations and theories on what’s happening. But in my opinion, Adam has a plausible hypothesis, wild as it may be. And the warrior we fought confirmed it.”

Oliver looked sourly at Adam. “Ah yes, and we all know that bloodthirsty people who try to butcher us are the most reliable source of information.” He sighed dramatically. “All right, I’ll play along, until we find out what’s actually going on.”

Adam laughed quietly and shook his head. He really hasn’t changed a bit.