by Marc Mulero
There were other similarities: hair long and silky. He couldn’t analyze him like this at the cards table back in Ozgulo because his gaze was unwaveringly on him then. There was no time to wonder. But now he could think more clearly, maybe because he didn’t think his blade would come ramming through his heart at any second.
“What happens when we kill him?” Eres asked. “Do you turn your blade on me and collect the last of your puzzle?”
Seren’s boots clinked as he paced. “He would have died had he not performed this, true, but perhaps there were other defenses…” he was talking to himself, ignoring Eres. “That scum is stalling,” he realized, “and there’s not a thing we can do about it.”
Eres looked behind him, past the wall he was leaning against. This wasn’t a particularly deep room. It looked like a small study with a miniature desk tucked away far back, lit only with sparse candlelit sconces.
“Is that how this is going to play out, Seren?” Eres asked again.
Seren stopped pacing, chin lifted to regard the young Skrol with a similar ferocity that he remembered in the Colliding Spheres. “If you haven’t yet surmised, murdering an esper wielder is a useless act that would only lengthen a quest to collect the secret. No, Eres Way, I am not going to kill you.”
“Then why would you try and kill Lasarius?” Eres challenged his logic. “Would that not be the same result as killing me? He wields the unsplit Elkar.”
“You are intelligent, questioning, but there comes a point in one’s journey when you must know of certain truths.”
Eres shot back sarcastically, “And what truth might that be?”
“Lasarius is an Imperion. Can you fathom the rigorous background checks, spotlights, activity going on around him at any given second? Being an ex-member of the Sindus Guild would have him stripped of his title and jailed without question. Being a disguised sorcerer would have him seized and likely sentenced to death for treason. There are oaths, Eres, procedures undertaken before Faction leadership is admitted. You know of what I’m saying because you’ve studied this.”
“I have,” Eres admitted.
“Then why don’t you tell me why I would kill Lasarius.”
“Because… if he was able to conceal all of his history, that means no one else knows of it. The Sindus Guild has already breached the Imperion Chambers and likely threatened to expose him. But they struck a deal. They must have. That’s why he still hasn’t been found out. So, if no one else knows about him having the esper, then he hasn’t yet chosen an heir.”
“Good. You can see not only with your eyes. That certainly is part of it.”
“But the Sorcery…”
“Yes.”
“That has nothing to do with the Assassin Guild, does it?”
“No. Sindus by its very definition is anti-connection, or severance from Gushda. The guild focuses only on mastery within Rudo. Quite opposite of Sindah, which is the link used for Reach, Sorcery, Mysticism.”
“Is there another organization that I’m missing, that I don’t know of?”
“Not that you don’t know of, no.”
Silence. Eres was racking his brain, eyes to the floor, shaking his head in frustration.
“Is there anyone you can think of who he may have offered the esper to but would’ve rejected?”
Eres peered up at him. “No- I mean, just the Judicator in Dundo-Ba because he is a sworn ally of the Skrols. And…”
Seren’s eyes glinted as Eres’ lightbulb turned on, as everything finally clicked.
“Ramillion.”
“Agden always thought I was mad, ever since I began to question inconsistencies within our training. And you… now I see why he never taught you the intricacies of inheritance. He was scared.”
Eres balled his fists. The mention of his father was somewhat of a trigger for him, especially coming from him.
“He was always scared that you would see the world in the same way I would. Our minds are wired differently than the rest, Eres. We aren’t desperate to believe in our forefathers. We don’t yearn to pass our experiences down. Lineage, for us, is an afterthought.”
“What are you saying?”
Seren rotated the disc of his kingly Glite, which meticulously began to repack itself into its condensed form, slowly revealing smooth skin underneath. His torso was long and defined. So much muscle, like one interconnected maze of lines. First his obliques, then intercoastal nearing his abs, then the Glite stopped contracting.
That’s when Eres saw it. His eyes went wide.
“There is a unique curious nature that tends to unfold when you combine the inability to carry on your legacy with a sense of non-belonging. When you are shunned in every way from society. It is our nature, Eres.”
“You’re a Dawn.” He stared blankly at the dull green sickles hanging down the left side of his stomach.
“I think the name Night is more fitting for our kind, don’t you? We belong in the darkness.”
Eres was dumbfounded. He always knew, was always scared, rather, that he thought a bit too much like Seren. In every instance he found himself defiant more so than his father, than his peers. Was he right about himself all of this time?
Am I like the murderer Seren Night?
Bright orange lights were flashing more violently now from under the seam of the doorway, grabbing their attention.
“Lasarius unleashed his body as a conduit of concentrated Sindah. Like a portal into Gushda, the elements he’s accustomed to summoning in Rudo will flock to him and then spurt away, over and over: a storm of hellfire that we have to endure.” Seren peered at the door. “It will get worse before it gets better.”
“I don’t care about that.” Eres slammed a fist against the wall.
“Oh?”
“You’re telling me that Ramillion, our overseer of the Skrol Trials, is in allegiance with him?”
“In allegiance? No. It’s far worse than that. Lasarius is Ramillion’s shrouded understudy.”
Like Kyta is now? That’s impossible. Kyta is a good person.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I think deep down… you do.”
“I- I don’t. Ramillion was always kind to me. He welcomed me into his home, even created one for me so I would feel comfortable. He made me a Skrol!”
“Why, I wonder, would he do all of that? Out of the kindness of his heart?” Seren laughed deeply for the first time. “I’m sure that questioning mind of yours figured out some of that troll’s faults. They’re almost impossible to overlook.”
Eres winced like he’d been punched. How could Seren keep reading his thoughts like that? How could he know? It was the same feeling he had in the Colliding Spheres, like his soul was being peered into. “God’s Grasp,” he gave in. “Ramillion drinks it to prevent himself from fizzing. He’s selfishly letting his species go extinct.”
“Imagine that,” Seren smirked, “having the ability to stop extinction but being too self-centered to let nature take its course. Something you nor I could even fathom. Yet we understand it all the same. Keep going, what else did you notice?”
“He… uh, planned my reading agenda for my trials, or wanted to anyway.”
“Look at the little marionette, snipping its own strings, growing so finely into a detective. Do go on.”
Eres shut his eyes tightly, thinking back. “Kyta was trying to tell me something.”
“Who?” Seren asked his first question.
“His understudy.”
“Ah, his current understudy you mean. Okay, Kyta…”
“She said, ‘Everyone has a choice.’ She wanted to tell me more during the play, I remember, but she was electrically shocked - maybe by Ram - and then she suddenly stopped. I didn’t pry because we were in the middle of his grand performance. Stupid.”
“Perhaps she’s not corrupted yet,” Seren pondered. “Not fully, anyway.”
Eres kept shaking his head in denial. It felt as though thought patterns in his mind were
being erased and rewired, but not without resistance. To be wrong for so long, again, crushed his confidence. After finally being built up to exist as a strong, sturdy adult, he was knocked down to size once more. How much of his journey was a lie? How much was true? Could this be a grand deception too?
Oh Mustae.
“How do I know you’re not telling half-truths? Let’s say I buy that Ramillion does not have the best interest of the Skrols in mind, fine, but what if you too are one of his shadowed understudies? What then? This could be just another of his grand performances in an attempt to get me to trust you, Seren Night, murderer of the ancient ways.”
Seren nodded along inquisitively. “To what end?”
“Well all of you keep talking about the Laws of Inheritance. Perhaps you need me to agree to passing on my esper to you or something. I don’t know.
“But that can’t be right, can it? I watched you murder someone in cold blood on Proctor Ren’s octor. No way that Skrol would bequeath anything to you unless under duress.”
Seren was eerily quiet through Eres’ monologue. No scowls of protest or snide remarks. “I’ll help this along a bit,” he said finally. “The octor video that you saw was foolishly released by Arkonius Bulesh’s sister. Ironic how it was circulated without audio, wouldn’t you say? Well, put simply, Ark was not murdered by me, but actually performed Ludashed on his own accord.”
“Ludashed?” Eres repeated, sounding out the Umboro word. “Noble sacrifice?”
“Yes. The same as what your father did for you in an attempt to hide from me. He believed with every bone in his body that I was the enemy. That Ramillion was on the side of good. I can’t blame him of course, no. That troll has a long and powerful history of greatness. What your father couldn’t fathom, however, is that people as great as he can change. But that’s neither here nor there, is it?
“Arkonius,” Seren repeated louder, “was presented with the same facts that I present every other living Skrol.”
“Which is?” Eres’ tone was condescending. All mental shields were up at this point.
I will not buy into this insanity, no matter how convincing. This is a play. A fire chamber. A trap.
“That we are at war, Eres. The Silent War. An underground battle that exists in the very air we breathe. Look at your reference to me. An octor recording by your proctor, leaked from where? Do you really think a Skrol’s living kin would betray her dead brother willingly? Or perhaps the recording was distributed with an ulterior motive. By whom, I wonder? Maybe those with the power to do so. Maybe someone so high up on the Faction totem pole…”
“You’re suggesting Lasarius and Ramillion are tarnishing your reputation. Okay. Why?”
“Because I am their bane. They want to collect the Skrol secret and recreate the world in their image, claiming divine prophecy. They want to break down the Factions, grow the UnderSpire and all of the other Under provinces, and invade the Osa Sphere. What better way to accomplish such a feat than to slowly weaken the Faction’s foundation from the inside, to simultaneously recruit zealots by way of the Founder’s collection. A genius strategy, no doubt. In Ramillion’s mind, I imagine this will be a future more suitable for his taste. Sorcery, Reach, Mysticism, all prevailing once more over Tech.
“I, on the other hand, disagree. The world functions well without our interference. We, as Skrols, are not meant to decide the fate of sphere-wide governance. We have a much simpler agenda: to protect or collect the Skrol secret, as we choose.
“So, I went… I sought out every living Skrol from all corners of the spheres, and presented my case with octor evidence in tow.”
“And you’re going to tell me that every single one of them performed Ludashed, or whatever, and just sacrificed their lives to give you their espers? Yeah, okay.”
“Of course not. Most of us simply came to an agreement that there would be one inheritor of the espers in total - if the time came - and that it would be either me or the Skrol with whom I was in agreement. Then if one of us were to perish, the living heir collects the espers of the deceased, forges a new agreement with one other Skrol and adjusts their bequeathals accordingly. It would be a zero-sum game that would reveal the secret to those chosen to protect it in the first place. This would prevent Ramillion and Lasarius from wreaking havoc with it.
“All in all, as it turns out, except for Agden, Miyannas, Wukaldred and their ‘Alliance,’ they chose me.”
“Why you?”
“Because I was the one ambitious enough to uncover all of this. Why else?”
“So proud of yourself, I see. I still don’t buy it. I watched you stand over a helpless Skrol as he reached, begged for you to stop.”
Seren regarded him, unblinking. “We were running out of time. Lasarius and Ram had gotten to too many of the others, thought they could break the Founder’s Laws of Inheritance by holding their kin as hostages and forcing revoked bequeathals. Turns out that’s not how the laws work. The Founder had many faults, but his thorough nature wasn’t one of them. Every time Lasarius would extract another esper, it would melt down to dust on his finger and reform in our agreed upon location, as stated by the contract. Arkanius knew all of this and was worried about his kin, so he performed Ludashed. He took his own life by activating that code within his Glite armor that provides for the most seamless transition into the Eternal. They say you’re supposed to see a beautiful light before entering it for the final time. That would be my guess of what he was reaching for in that octor recording.”
“A brutally descriptive rebuttal,” Eres said as he patted the wound on his abdomen, amazed at how quickly the pain was fading. “Almost believable. I would expect nothing less from one of Ram’s understudies.”
“Mm.” Seren agreed sarcastically.
“But there are so many possibilities working against you. This whole charade, at its core, could just be part of the plan from the beginning. I start to trust you, okay, then I choose my bequeathal willingly, fine. What then? Easy. You form the secret for your own greed, or to do Ramillion’s bidding, whatever, and in either scenario, the ancient way of the Skrols is undone. The damning secret that the Founder worked so boldly to secure would be unleashed, wreaking havoc on all of ulmanity.”
Seren knelt down and pressed his hand to the floor near the bottom of the door, likely monitoring the heat coming from Lasarius’ storm. “If you do not want to form an agreement with me still, I understand. But that won’t change my decision.”
Eres couldn’t help but stare at Seren’s espers, all of the intricate varying designs carved into each. It was quite a sight up close. “And what decision is that?”
“You will be the inheritor of these if I perish.” Seren flashed the rings to push his point. “You are inquisitive and malleable. I have the utmost confidence that you will come to the same conclusions as I did, in time. However, my doubt only lies in how strong your connection is to your father… how deep you will dig your heels in to protect his legacy.”
Eres was dumbfounded. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out, so he just clenched his jaw in defeat.
“Hear me, Dawn. Through roundabout ways, never direct, Ramillion will get to you. Don’t shrug, consider the possibility. How? Through connections to those you care for. That was another reason why many Skrols trusted in me. I abandoned the connections to brethren long ago. It is the ultimate defense against his manipulation, hard as it may have been to do.
“Still don’t believe me? Agden and Wukaldred were my closest Skrol brothers.” Seren scanned Eres’ face. “Search your esper, you know it to be true. And yet, we couldn’t have seen the world more differently. They saw me as dark, cunning, devious… as ‘needing the light,’ Ramillion would say. For these reasons, they could never see me on the side of good.
“Either way, he will use any and all connections against you. Tread carefully. Lu lee oh sheshpu pouar.”
Eres’ past was colliding with his present all of a sudden, thoughts clicking in his
mind… links that he couldn’t fathom to be true. “What did you just say to me?”
“I’m surprised, actually, that you aren’t wearing the Glite that I left for you.”
“W-what? ‘You are no longer caged.’ Why do you know that inscribed message? Did he give you the same one or something?” Eres couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He remembered tossing the glossy upgraded Glite far away because it had strangled him to death back in his Skrol training. Sure, it brought him back to life too, but he couldn’t fathom why Seren would know anything about it. “Were you tracking me in the Northern Grottos? At the Edge of Eternity?”
Seren’s long silence might as well have been the answer.
“Ramillion said you wouldn’t… that you couldn’t.”
“Alone, it would have been a death sentence, true. But I had some very powerful help, from a person that I thought would be even tougher to crack than your father.”
Eres balled his fists again at the mention. “Who?”
“Masarian Bo, the Judicator.”
“No way. Never. He warned me about you. No damn way…”
“Sometimes the truth can hit like a ton of bricks, Eres. How else do you think I got close enough to insert my direction into that octor at the Edge of Eternity? Ramillion wanted you to sit there, listening to old messages from Wukaldred and Ringwal about how residing in solitude is a testament to the ‘Skrol Way.’ He wanted you to lie there useless while he sought me out. He wanted to gather all of the remaining espers in one try.”
“But you have Wukaldred. Even if Ramillion got you, I doubt you’d ever give him up.”
“Fool.”
“What? He surrendered himself to Kovella’s Quittance in Kor. I was there.”
Seren paced slowly, likely debating whether to feed him more answers or let him figure it out on his own. “Do you recall hearing a fleet of shiders before you were consumed by the glacier?” He stopped to analyze him. “Think back to the Edge of Eternity. Surely you couldn’t have lost consciousness that quickly. The ice was meticulously enchanted for you to experience everything that death had to offer.”
