XIII.

Marisol

"HEEEEEELP!" Okella screamed as she slammed open the doors of the dark council chamber, and barged right in.

Kogar was there at the head of their rounded table, with Rykaedi and Jirtu casually sat close-by. It was her first time seeing Jirtu without his hood up, her first time seeing his gaunt pale face, with giant black eyes bored into his head like he was an insect.

They noticed she was crying. But then, she was always crying.

Kogar loudly and impatiently tapped the table with his gauntlet.

"He's—Cedric Castelbre tried to kill me! With Faunia Vleren—they tried to—!"

"ENOUGH!" Kogar slammed both of his gauntlets down and stood. "They're dead. That's what's important. That whole debacle has been put aside."

Okella's eyes only poured more tears as she hesitantly shook her head.

Kogar's teeth became so tightly clamped together, Rykaedi thought they might break. She laughed, "Okella, darling, relax! You've survived, and that is all that matters! Throkos was with you, yes? He'll cover the rest. And then may we reap the benefits of his Etherian."

Okella held her chest as her breathing began to calm. Her thousand-beat heartbeat began to slow.

But then it sped up. She began to hyperventilate as she stared into Kogar's eyes, watched him silently lose his temper, watched him imagine her head being finely sliced off with his scythe, and watched him imagine what torment he'd exact upon her soul.

"Dear Okella, come; sit beside us." Rykaedi pleaded, and stood to pull out her own chair.

Kogar began to round the table toward the door. Okella was quick to flee his path.

"Kogar, love, something on your mind?" asked Rykaedi

"Three now have fallen to a man—three. And now they think to hunt us? I'm going to tear out his entrails—I'm going to rip his heart out of his chest and beat him to death with it."

She laughed.

"I'm going to incinerate his old god—that the new gods may breathe."

"You're beginning to sound more mortal than god, dear."

"I am PURE." he howled. His mouth twitched, but he fled the room before he could speak anymore.

Rykaedi smiled like a jubilant child. Jirtu rolled his eyes.

"Okella! Don't just stand there, take a seat!" she beckoned again, "There's something we could use you for…"

As Okella shakily made her way to the side of the table, she could already see the intricate drawing they were sat around—a device scribed, designed, and signed off in pen by one very familiar Liara-Skalla of Harth.

[A new Dyosius...?]

Fourteenth of Dectis [5], 207th Year of The Calamonian Age

"You remember Marisol."

"Yeah. I do." Faunia Vleren bounced her eyebrows and then turned to messy-haired Cedric, who sat atop a long wood-framed bed. "Do you?"

He nodded. "A little bit."

"She was a big help in Harth. I'm sure she hasn't forgiven you for abandoning her there, either."

"Then I'll apologize. Agh!"

"Sit still!" barked the other silver-haired woman, who sat beside him on the bed, digging at his left shoulder with a sharp tool.

Yvesmalia, high mage of Thelani. One of a few mages there, and the most talented by far. When they'd asked about her hair, if she was elven by blood, they'd only received a meager deflection of their question. Faunia likely still considered her to be kin in some sense, by that obscurity alone.

But Yvesmalia was much less refined, much less impeded by a sense of duty or a code of honor than Faunia was. She wasn't brutish by any stretch, but she was especially unhesitating. She never minced words, and could be considered crass by that notion.

By her order, they'd come to the so-called infirmary of Thelani's tunnel system. It was small, but not cramped, as the only furniture in their individual chamber was the bed, and a few small cabinets against the opposing wall. White magelight filled the room, bright and unnatural—otherworldly, even. Yvesmalia had used the word sterile, though neither of them knew its meaning.

"You idiots really pounced an Etherian, huh? And one of Kasian's no less..."

"Serkukan could have handled it. I thought." Cedric glared as he looked to the red Etherian leaned against the same cabinets as Faunia, nearby the open door.

"I told you," the draconian replied, "Okella restrained me. She was attempting to destroy your mind—unless you'd have preferred that?"

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"Same for Tirolith." Faunia responded with a shake of her head.

Cedric asked of Serkukan, "Now that I'm using you as a weapon—is there a reason you're so damn weak?"

"There are many. When I was birthed—"

"Hey go easy!" He turned to the mage.

Yvesmalia responded by punching him hard in the arm she was carving at. Cedric groaned in pain.

"You're all done. There's your contingency." She stood and threw her needled steel tools beside him on the bed.

"Great. How does it work?"

He looked down over his left arm. The messy scar from her work was already fading away, by Serkukan’s influence.

Yvesmalia answered, "You've cast magic before, yeah? I'm guessing you've got some sort of grasp on leyline theory… or you've at least felt them. Smelled them? That... sulfur smell, like a city is about to explode? Or like the bad breath of an ogre?"

"My Sylvet tattoos have allowed me some feeling of the lines, if that's what you're asking."

"Treat it like a sixth sense. Touch, smell, sight, taste, hearing, and ley. The same way you can reach out and touch something, you can now reach your mind out to the lines."

"Then how do I cast spells?"

"You don't. Not yet. This is only a beginning; magical sutures don't give you more than a leg up to begin your training. And you'll likely never reach the same power with ley magic as you already wield with Etherian magic, unless you were lucky enough to only ever battle in high-ley zones."

"It's only a backup. If I had just had one more trick against Throkos…" His gaze trailed to the absent-minded Faunia. He asked, "You alright?"

"It doesn't hurt anymore. Tirolith has healed me the rest of the way."

She lifted her brown shirt up over her stomach to reveal the many bloody bandages that once held her together. Tirolith had taken time to recoup after the devastating mental attack, leaving Faunia in need of Rithi's skilled first aid.

"That fight was close... One more mistake, one extra second of hesitation could have spelled disaster..."

"He's all done." Yvesmalia said to someone outside as she left the chamber.

Then tan-skinned Marisol appeared in the doorway with her bright smile, still wearing the bronze and leather-bound Hunter's armor from Azar'kara. She rushed over to Cedric and hugged him immediately.

"Marisol—"

"Cedric, you lived!" she began with tears, "I thought Rykaedi killed you, I thought you…"

"Marisol." He grasped her shoulders and held her out to arms length. "I don't remember any of that. My memory—"

"It's fine, because I remember you. The things you did for me..."

Faunia sighed, "When your little reunion's done, Rithi wanted you to meet him out in the Third Petal."

"Third Petal...?"

She rolled her eyes. "There are eight petals to Calamon, those big circles that make it look like a flower? Each has its own town square. He's got some event going on up in the northeastern one."

"Got it." Cedric nodded. "That's all he said?"

She nodded, then patted Marisol on the back before she, too, left the room.

Marisol fell into a hug around him again immediately.

"Marisol… how did you get here, anyway?"

"There was a wagon—the coachman said he's been making a few trips to get refugees out."

"Refugees?"

"I was the only refugee, this time. Kylinstrom is..."

Cedric felt his anxiety soar.

Another Etherian? Someone looking out for us? And no more refugees—is Kylinstrom too far gone?

"I need you to tell me everything. Everything about what happened and how you got here."

Her smile faded. Her face became stoic as she nodded dutifully.

X

"This is a Sylvet ritual." Cedric gasped when he arrived to the drumming. It was chaotic, hectic and brutish. There was no civility or order to it. It was like a raid with no bloodshed, no violence.

"It's for Azafel." Rithi admitted.

They stood atop a church, one of the few that Thelani served in Calamon. Below them was the Third Petal—that giant circular stone city section in the northeast, carved deep into the earth like an unnatural valley of brilliant stone brick and magelight. Shops and important citywise buildings encircled that pit, and stairs led upward in a spiral to the towering outer walls of the city, to the other petals, and to the overcrowded and overpopulated center of Calamon City.

But in that pit were the red-masked and black-dressed cultists: members of Thelani, more members than Cedric had even known there were of that cult. They pounded on their drums with the strength of unbridled warriors, and danced like drug-crazed maniacs and fools. They were unhinged, unrelenting in their worship of the great god Azafel.

"Kyrrith—that's where she went." Rithi's eyes narrowed. It was difficult to hear him over the drumming. "Though it's only a museum, now, it was once where Kasian ruled over these people, before the current era began."

"Then there's some trick. They're hiding something there."

"A planar portal," answered Faunia's voice from behind them, having emerged from the church's rooftop exit. Marisol was with her. They wore their silver and bronze Hunters' armor respectively. "That's what Rykaedi used in Harth. It's entirely possible she's using the same trick here."

Cedric nodded. When he turned back to Rithi, the masked man was holding a drum mallet out to him.

"I won't."

"You'd pass up an opportunity to redirect that past energy? Take this irreplaceable part of your past and give it the energy of your future. No more as Lorik—show them how Cedric lives."

"I can't. Not the Sylvet..." he muttered beneath the crushing noise.

"You can. We are Sylvet in our rituals, but we are Thelani in our respect for life. We reach chaos differently to those who kill without reason or regard. Take it." He placed the tool in Cedric's hand and helped him close his fingers. They held that grasp for a long moment before Cedric withdrew with the mallet.

He turned to Faunia. She shook her head. Marisol watched with silent intrigue.

Then he looked down over the church, into that deep pit with those cultists.

"You'll have to find your own drum, but that's partly the fun of chaos. I'm sure one of those thousands will let you pluck one from them, that they may dance unrestricted."

"Then... then let's go down there." he hesitantly agreed.

But from that swarming, pulsating and vibrating crowd of drummers and dancers below, there was one figure that stood unflinching amidst their movements. One figure that peered up with daggered eyes of rage, who let hatred take his thoughts entirely.

Kogar locked his eyes upon the boy. And his glare was just as well without quarter...

*