Chapter Two Hundred Sixty-Four: 'Thy scrambled visage...'

Okay. Perhaps that had been the wrong thing to say. Hector supposed he couldn't blame Lord Abbas for giving him a look like he was out of his mind.

Because. Well.

Maybe he was.

It was hard to explain. And probably too much hassle, right now. From everything Garovel had told him, time wasn't on their side.

There'd been so much to catch up on. Seeing the restoration of Warrenhold leap forward from when he last remembered it was a marvelous sight. They'd been working on the Bell Tower before, and now it was complete. They'd moved on to the Book Tower, which would probably be done soon, too, because it hadn't needed that much renovating in the first place.

And the Bank. Oh god, the Bank.

The pressure on Madame Carthrace had magnified dramatically over the past month. The influx of new clients had slowed, and without him around to give the go ahead, she'd been struggling with the decision of whether or not they should branch out into Lorent. Not to mention, rumors had apparently begun to circulate about where he was, which didn't exactly help build confidence with their investors.

That was why one of the first things he'd done was give her a call and tell her to move forward with the expansion. It wouldn't solve all of her problems for her, but it would give her some room to breathe, at least. And a quick, very public trip through Gray Rock would help with that other issue--which was why he'd dropped by City Hall and a few other places before heading all the way here.

That had caused quite the stir. Fortunately, there'd been camera crews already hanging out at some of those locations, and once they saw him, they seemed only too eager to drop whatever they were doing and start asking him questions. He hadn't actually answered very many of them--in truth, he'd only managed to say "hello" and "yeah" and "I've gotta go" a few times--but that was alright.

Hopefully. They got footage of him running off and flinging himself into the sky with his materialization, so that should've been proof enough that he wasn't some doppelganger or something. He wished he could've been more amiable and "lordly," but those were fucking television cameras, goddammit. Some of them might've been broadcasting live. He supposed it was good enough that he hadn't made himself look like some kind of stupid asshole.

He hadn't, right? Ugh. He'd been trying not to think about that, but it was difficult.

He wasn't really sure what the public perception of him was like, these days. He hoped it was positive, but he could also understand if everybody thought he was just some fuckin' weirdo with scary powers. And just the idea of appearing on TV and having to actually talk in full, coherent sentences--agh, it was enough make his stomach feel like it was doing flips.

Regardless, he didn't expect all of the Bank's troubles to be solved in the handful of hours that it took him to do all that, but he figured that he could have a sit down with Amelia later, and they could go over everything in more detail then.

Because there was a lot of other stuff to worry about, right now.

Like, for example, that damn war still going on. It would've been too much to expect for that whole mess to have sorted itself out while he was asleep, he supposed, but it sure would've been nice.

According to Garovel, the Vanguard had suffered another major loss. Field Marshal Carson had been killed by Jercash during the Kavian invasion of Hoss.

Which was a big surprise, to say the least. Garovel had discussed the matter with the other reapers at length, and no one had expected Jercash to pull off something like that. Apparently, he'd been alone against three marshals, and not only had he held his own, but he'd even managed to kill one of them.

Not exactly the most comforting news.

And hearing it reminded Hector of something Garovel had mentioned a while ago, back when he first heard about Abolish taking over Kavia. Garovel said that the Vanuguard's loss at the time might be warning sign that something was wrong. That was when Abolish had been taking a beating, internationally, losing first in Atreya--albeit on a small scale--then in Horsht to Jackson, then again in Sair with Ivan's capture. The Vanguard was supposed to have had both momentum and the numerical advantage on their side at that time.

Boy, how the tide had changed since then. Now it was undoubtedly the Vanguard on the backfoot.

Garovel, however, seemed to think that there might be more to the Jercash story than what was being reported. According to his logic, even an emperor would struggle to take on three marshals simultaneously, so unless Jercash was suddenly emperor-class himself, there must have been some other factor at play there.

Most likely, Garovel said, Jercash had tricked them in some way. The guy was known as the Devil's Knife, after all. He had a reputation for catching people by surprise. And Garovel also suspected that Jercash was in the habit of taking credit for his subordinate's accomplishments, which would in turn suppress their notoriety and make their enemies misjudge their threat level.

'Normally, that's not really an option,' Garovel had told him. 'Abolish is full of greedy, glory-hungry maniacs who would sooner desert than allow their superiors to take their credit. Reapers included. But I've been gathering information on all the major players within Abolish for months now, and Jercash's followers are strangely devoid of mid- and high-tier threats. People like Bloodeye, for example. Jercash should have several guys like that working for him, but no one seems able to identify them.'

'So you think Jercash is able to control his men better?'

'That's one way of putting it. When it comes to Abolish, though, I'm not sure how much it could be about "control." His subordinates might just believe in him more than the others. So they don't even mind if he gets the credit for everything. Like they're just THAT on board with what he's trying to do.'

'Hmm.'

'Whatever the case, it creates a huge problem for the Vanguard. He could have some insanely dangerous people working under him. Even if the Vanguard is able to pinpoint their exact abilities--materialization, alteration, whatever--it won't be that helpful if they can't gauge the current strength of said abilities. I guess what I'm saying is... Jercash could already have one or more marshal-level servants working under him, and if they're playing along with his game, then no one would even know it.'

'Wouldn't the other two marshals who survived the fight be able to tell everyone if Jercash hadn't actually been the one to kill Carson?' asked Hector.

'In theory, sure,' said Garovel. 'But eh. I feel like there are any number of ways that Jercash could manipulate things. Could be that he's just controlling the flow of information out of the country better than the Vanguard is, right now. Or it could be that the support he gets from his followers is stealthy enough that even Kane and Grant weren't able to determine the whole truth of things. To them, it might've seemed like Jercash was the only one doing anything.'

'Hmm.'

'Like if Jercash was getting support from, oh say, a genius integrator, for example.'

'He already has Morgunov, doesn't he?'

'Oh, that's definitely a possibility, too. A likelihood, in fact. But I just meant that he could have a second integrator all his own. One that nobody even knows about yet. Integrators are a pretty sneaky bunch, after all.'

Garovel was basically talking about someone around Abbas' level, Hector knew. Maybe even higher.

And yeah. Someone like that helping out an already powerful monster like Jercash would make for a horrifying complement.

The more he heard about the war, the more terrifying it seemed to become. The potential consequences of it. The idea that the Vanguard might just lose the whole war--or more specifically, that Abolish would win it.

Frankly, after everything he'd seen and heard regarding the Vanguard's treatment of the Rainlords, Hector didn't have a whole lot of affection for it as an organization. He was sure that certain people within it, like Harper Norez, were great and deserving of admiration, but as far as the continental war was concerned, Hector wasn't so much rooting for the Vanguard as he was against Abolish.

He didn't even want to imagine a world in which Abolish was able to take over the entirety--or even the majority--of Eloa. If the current state of Sair was anything to go by, that would be absolutely catastrophic.

And now he had his fingers in two different war-related pies. Here, with a possible attack from Bloodeye on the way, and in Vantalay, where apparently fucking Vanderberk had just showed up.

That last bit of news had been quite unpleasant.

With the Rainlords sending even more people over to Vantalay, that place was primed for all sorts of mayhem. But if they were able to free their captive brethren, then Hector felt that, together, they might be able to handle someone like Vanderberk.

Maybe.

Agh.

The situation with the VMP and RPMP also muddied those waters a bit, but eh. The fact that there was another faction for each side kind of split the difference, Hector thought.

He'd wanted so badly to go with them to Vantalay--and to take Abbas, while he was at it--but the situation here was still too tenuous. Abbas needed to stay in case Abolish showed up and also to hone his skills with the Candle as fast as possible. Both of things were the topmost priorities, right now.

Ideally, Abbas would be able to pump out some kind of powerful item that might give them the edge they needed in this war.

And Hector had the knowledge to assist with that last bit. Kinda. Probably. That was why he'd come here so quickly, after all.

"First, show me what you're currently able to do with it," said Hector.

Abbas and his team all just kept staring at him for a moment.

Then the Lord Saqqaf stepped closer and said, "Do you think you are able to use the Candle yourself?"

Hector returned a confused look. "What? No, it requires integration powers. You should know that, shouldn't you? Only integrators can harness the power of Fusion Forges."

The others all exchanged looks with one another, reapers included.

"That is true," said Abbas. "Though I am a bit surprised that you know that."

Oh. Was that weird knowledge to have? Hmm. Yeah, Garovel had never told him that, had he?

"And I thought you might have become an exception to that rule," added Abbas.

Ah. Hmm. Man, what was up with those looks everyone was giving him? Was he acting crazy, right now? Were they worried about him? Was that what those expressions were? Worry? What did worry even look like, anyway?

Ugh, his mind was racing. It felt like every thought process was firing constantly. Moreover, he wasn't even sure how many processes there were, anymore. He recalled struggling with three, not so long ago. But he also recalled maintaining three fairly well, a bit later on.

Kinda. Hmm.

Were there four now? It sorta felt like four. Why was it so difficult to count them?

His head was everywhere. This definitely wasn't ideal. He'd been trying to organize his thinking throughout the trip here, but with so many different things to worry about, it was only too easy for a spare thought process to just pick something up and start going.

One of the processes was definitely more disorienting than the others, though. Something about it. Was just. Off. Foggy and distant. And creeping into the others. Scratching for their attention, too. Trying to distract him totally.

It was the one that he'd assigned to the Candle's memories. The one trying to sift through and organize them.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

A bit of an overwhelming endeavor, to say the least. That poor thought process. It was like assigning a worker ant to a mountain of quicksand. It was no wonder the others were struggling not to get sucked into that pit of information.

"Are you alright, Hector?" said Abbas, standing quite close to him now, right in front of the big glass orb.

Whoa. Hector hadn't even noticed most of those steps. His immediate memory of Abbas walking over here was like a slide show.

Okay. Maybe he was trying to do too much here. He decided to cut that one thought process some slack and abandon the organization effort for now.

Not that it was trivial to do so. The Candle's memories were their own brand of invasive. He had to "lock" them away in a kind of vault within his own mind, away from his conscious attention.

Thankfully, he knew of a mental technique that seemed perfect for the job--one that Emiliana Elroy had told him about. "Sto," she'd called it. A mental storage technique.

He'd tinkered with it a few times ever since she'd explained how it worked, but he'd never actually found a use for it. Until now, that was.

His head cleared up almost immediately. Which kinda surprised him, actually. Prepping Sto on the way here had been the right call, it seemed, even if it had made the flight a bit more turbulent at various points.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just, er... have a lot to process." Hector motioned toward the glass. "Show me."

Abbas still looked like he had about a dozen more questions for him, but he didn't say anything. Instead, he pulled a metal slab out from behind his back and handed it off to Hector.

Hector just kind of took it without even thinking. What even was this? Wait, a heater shield? With a checkerboard pattern? What the--?

The glass orb lit up with a soft glow.

Oh, Abbas was just going now. Hector paid close attention.

His entire reason for coming here was to watch how Abbas was handling the Candle, because he had a rather strong feeling that--even for someone as smart as the Sunsmith of Sair--this thing was a bit difficult to understand.

And Hector had seen its entire life. The memories might've been stuck in a weird, hazy vault right now, but in the short time that he'd been sifting through them, he'd been able to recall the single most important thing from his time spent within the Candle--what his overall goal had been, why he'd spent so damn long in there.

He'd wanted to understand the Candle's creation process as much as he possibly could. He'd watched and rewatched Agrian work with it countless times. He'd burned those scenes into his mind, trying to break down every conceivable thing he had witnessed.

He'd figured that he probably wouldn't get another chance to dive directly into the Candle's memories like that, so he'd decided to make the absolute most of the opportunity.

And boy had there been a lot. Even discounting all the time that the Candle had spent dormant--which was a fuckload, by the way--there had still been a ton of stuff to go through.

Agrian had used this thing precisely sixty-eight times. And Hector remembered them all.

Well, okay, a lot of those scenes were currently sitting in Sto, so if he wanted to go over them again with a fine-tooth comb, he'd have to open up that metaphorical vault, but he still retained the gist.

Not every single use of the Candle had resulted in a successful creation, and not every success was the final product. Many of them had just been for material synthesis, fusing things together for an item that wasn't fully realized until much later.

When all was said and done, though, Agrian created seven different artifacts with the Candle before it stopped working for him. Toward the end, it had been nothing but failures each time, and Agrian's frustration had been obvious. He got so mad, in fact, that the very last thing Hector saw him do was light a torch and hold it close to a dangling branch, like he was about to set the whole tree on fire.

For some reason, though, Agrian changed his mind and then just walked away, never to return.

Hector wasn't even sure if fire could destroy something as powerful as a Fusion Forge. Then again, if Agrian had soul-strengthened it, it probably would've done some damage.

Either way, Agrian's decision to abandon the Candle instead of destroying it was interesting. Hector had to wonder if it was out of some lingering sense of respect that the man had for the Candle's other creator.

To his profound disappointment, Hector had never been able to figure out what that original dude's name was. He would've very much liked to rename the Forge after him. He was quite certain that the Forge would have approved.

But Cocora's Candle would have to do. It seemed like the next best name to use, because after going back and observing the original guy's life more closely, Hector had eventually come to the conclusion that the dude was a devout follower of the Goddess of Light.

There were a few clues that gave it away. The reading materials, for one. Many of them had the iconic symbol of the Shining Sun emblazoned on their covers or spines. That was kind of Cocora's thing, even in the modern day. Plus, Hector spotted him praying on a fairly consistent basis--or, looking like he was praying, at least. It looked different from when the guy was meditating, anyway.

Hector's memory of actually renaming the Forge was a bit of a blur, however. He couldn't tell if that was because the memory was foggy like so many others or if the experience itself had simply been... blurry. He certainly recalled how fucking weird it had felt at the time.

His ability to communicate with the Forge directly had improved dramatically over the course of his stay, though he'd never been able to understand actual words from it like Rasalased could. It was just a matter of teaching the Forge to beep, pulse, or screech at him in increasingly sophisticated ways. By the end of their time together, he and the Forge had worked out quite the elaborate little code.

Now that he was out here again, Hector doubted he would ever be able to dive back into the Candle and talk to it like that again, but it had been nice while it lasted. Their code had been the key factor in allowing him to "rewind" and "fast forward" through all the memories as he pleased.

But again, the renaming... that was peculiar.

In retrospect, why had he even done that? Why had he even known that he could do it? Abbas had told him all about how important it was, about how naming it wrongly could ruin everything.

And yet, he'd just... done it. Like it wasn't that big of a deal. Like he shouldn't have just let Abbas handle it.

Why?

Because the Forge wanted him to.

Yeah. That was it, wasn't it?

In that particular moment, he'd come to know the Forge in a way that was inarticulable. For that briefest time, he'd felt as if... as if he was the Forge, and the Forge was him. There'd been no need to communicate anything. He could just... tell. What it felt. What it wanted.

Hmm. And the reverse had probably also been true, hadn't it? It could see everything about him.

All his private thoughts and shit.

Agh. Dang it.

Well, in any case, it was a relief to see the Candle actually up and running. Given everything that had happened, he would've been disappointed but not surprised if half or more of those memories had turned out to be part of some crazy fever dream.

But hmm.

Abbas was just standing there as he worked. The glass orb was lighting up nicely, sure, and he could see materials hovering into the center and swirling around, but the Candle was capable of so much more.

Hector tapped the Lord Saqqaf on the shoulder. "Can you summon the roots up from underground?"

The glow faded away as Abbas turned to look at him. "What do you mean?"

Crap. How to explain? He couldn't exactly show the man what he was talking about. He pointed at the stony base on which the giant orb rested. "The roots of the tree can be summoned out from there and manipulated directly. Kinda like surgical tools, I guess. You can do very intricate work with them."

Abbas eyed the Candle anew, looking it up and down.

Hector still had a lot more to say. "Also, if you move around the big globe while you're working, you might be able to improve the quality of your products, too. I saw Agrian circling around it--and even climbing up all over like a spider monkey, sometimes. Whenever he did that, it seemed like he was able to achieve a much brighter 'flame' inside. Or 'glow.' Oh, and that's another thing. Can you create sparks and fire within the orb?"

Abbas blinked a couple times, scratching his cheek. "Ah, n-no. Wait a moment. You're saying I should climb onto the orb itself?"

"Yeah."

"But. Would that not be too dangerous? For the Candle, I mean? I do not wish to damage the glass."

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that." Hector rapped a knuckle against the orb. "This thing is pretty durable. Actually, now that you mention it, I remember seeing Agrian punch the hell out of it a few times. I think that was more out of anger than, like, an advanced technique, though."

"I... see," said Abbas.

Hector walked around to the side of the Candle that was nearest the door. "One time, he actually hit it so hard that he cracked it. He was super pissed." Hector looked for where said crack would have been but as expected, he couldn't pinpoint the exact location. "Somewhere over here. It healed itself over time."

"Ah. That is good to know..."

"But yeah, I wouldn't recommend being too rough with it. The Candle stopped working for Agrian after a while, and, er... I suspect that his poor treatment of it was a contributing factor."

Abbas followed after him. "Do you know if there were other factors?"

Ah. Tough question. He had to stop and think about that one. "...I think so. It probably had something to do with how the Candle felt about him. As a person, I mean."

"But it allowed him to use it in the beginning, did it not?"

"Yeah. It changed its mind about him over time."

"I... did not think that a Forge could have such an advanced degree of sentience as that. You truly believe that it passed judgment on him? On a moral level?"

Man, there was a lot of context to explain. Hector didn't quite know where to begin. "Uh, kinda..."

Agh. Talking. His old nemesis.

Abbas waited a moment for him, perhaps expecting elaboration, but when Hector's struggling took too long, he spoke up again. "Well, we can discuss that later. There was something more pressing that I wished to ask you about."

"Hmm?"

"When you first returned from your... trip within the Forge, you told me its new name, Cocora's Candle."

Had he? Oh, maybe that would explain why Abbas was already able to use the Candle at all.

"But you also said something else," Abbas went on. "You referred to me as 'disciple of the Fury.' Do you remember that?"

Hector had to stop and think about that one.

Uh.

Hmm.

"...Sort of?" said Hector, squinting and scratching his brow. "I remember saying something, but I think that, er... even at the time, I didn't know what was coming out of my mouth. I felt super weird." He still kinda did, actually, but that was beside the point.

"I see. Do you have any idea what the phrase means? Disciple of the Fury?"

"Uh... well... no, I can't say I do."

The Sunsmith's gaze grew abruptly more focused upon him. "Are you sure?"

Hector didn't understand, but it seemed clear that the man was not asking this for shits and giggles. Something about this line of questioning was very important to him.

Maybe it was worth the hassle to clarify, then--or to attempt to, at least.

"Ah... actually, no, I'm not sure. I saw... a lot of stuff inside the Candle. Like, more than I even know what to do with. So I've kinda... locked some of it away, for now. In my head, I mean. In order to process it later." Fuck, was any of this making sense?

Abbas' curiosity seemed piqued, and he returned a sidelong look. "Locked away? Do you mean with a meditative technique?"

Hector was surprised that Abbas had picked up on that, but given the guy's age and station, it probably wasn't so strange for him to have such knowledge. "Yeah. It's called Sto. Are you familiar with it?"

"You have mastered Sto?" said Abbas.

Hector was starting to get accustomed to seeing that look of surprise on Abbas' face. "Er. Well, I don't know if I'd go so far as to say I've mastered it, but, uh..."

"Hector..." Abbas turned to look at the others in the room, their audience. Members of the man's own family.

They seemed to intuit that Abbas wanted some privacy and began exiting the hollow tree in single file. Even the reapers among them followed suit, save only Worwal and Garovel.

When everyone was gone, Abbas rounded on him again. "Hector. I may not know the details of your life thus far, but I do have some idea of how young you truly are."

Oh. Hmm.

"So how in the world have you learned Sto already?" said Abbas.

Uhh. Ehh. It was a fair question, Hector supposed, but how the heck was he supposed to answer it? "It's... hard to explain."

"Try. Please."

Hector reached inside his armor and retrieved his Shard of the Dry God. "Er, well..."

"Surely you are not about to tell me that Rasalased 'taught' it to you," said Abbas, already sounding incredulous.

"N-no. But, uh. I mean, would that be so strange if he had?"

"Yes! It would!"

Ah. Yeah, maybe it would.

"Hector, Sto is an incredibly difficult thing to learn. It requires hundreds or even thousands of hours of meditative training. In my entire life, I have met very few people who could use it in non-trivial ways like what you just described. No matter how wise Rasalased may be, I do not think that he could have helped you overcome that problem by any conventional teaching method. You would still have to put in the hours."

Mm. Well, Rasalased may not have taught it to him, but from the sound of things, the Dry God had definitely played a role in him being able to learn it so quickly. Hector had suspected as much, but this was quite the confirmation.

"Well, uh... technically speaking, I guess it was... Gohvis who taught it to me. Sorta."

Abbas didn't even react this time. He just returned a flat stare.

Worwal picked up the slack for him. 'Gohvis taught it to you,' he said, his tone thick with doubt.

This was getting messy, Hector felt. Maybe he should've tried to explain about blessings first, instead, but that didn't seem like it would've been much easier.

Not to be outdone, Garovel decided to pitch in for his servant, too. 'You've heard about Emiliana Elroy, haven't you? How she was kidnapped by Gohvis?'

'Ah, yes.' Worwal's skeletal gaze settled slowly onto Hector. 'Qorvass did mention that. She was also bonded to Rasalased. And you and her are able to communicate through the Shards.'

"I remember now," said Abbas. "That was why Asad decided to let you keep your Shard. As a means of maintaining contact with her. A favor for his friend Zeff as much as for you."

'And quite the extension of trust, as well,' added Worwal. 'He all but granted you the formal status of Shardkeeper.'

Asad. A background thought process lingered on him, reminding Hector of how worried about the guy he was. And with a whole month gone by now, too. He dreaded to even think about how Asad was faring in Morgunov's clutches, right now.

Fuck.

His main thought process, however, took note of the term Shardkeeper. That was the first time anyone other than Rasalased had said it to him. It made sense that Worwal would be familiar with it, of course, but Hector still found it a bit surprising.

And he kinda felt like Rasalased would disagree with the reaper on that point, too. Asad wasn't the one who could grant statuses like that. Even the whole Golden Council probably couldn't, as far as Rasalased was concerned.

Hector decided to keep that thought to himself, though.

"So you mean to say that Gohvis instructed Emiliana Elroy in Sto, and she, in turn, instructed you?" said Abbas.

"...More or less."

"That still does not explain how you managed to master it in so short a time. Unless you are also telling me that you have spent hundreds of hours honing that particular technique in your meditations."

Well, he'd definitely spent hundreds of hours meditating overall. That probably didn't count, though. "It was more like... two or three hours, actually."

"What? Impossible."

Hector exhaled a breath, not wanting to get into it. He'd already told Abbas about so many different secrets that he'd been holding onto. It'd probably be fine to tell him about blessings, too...

But it also seemed like a pain in the ass to explain. And he was fairly certain that it would just provoke even more questions.

"Look, we're getting kinda sidetracked here," said Hector. "You should stay focused on the Candle."

Abbas gave him another look but didn't argue. "You have more to tell me about its operation, I take it."

"Yes, I do."