“I thought you were the academic aspect, not the arrogant aspect.”
I have done nothing but state facts.
“What does the plaque say?”
Kallen shrugged. “I can’t read Dnnac Ledo’s elven.”
“You can’t? But Zaticana’s blessing allows everyone to understand each other on grace.”
“That applies primarily to spoken languages,” Annala explained. “Our writing system is specifically except from Zaticana’s authority over languages because of the prayers of Meza-like individuals who lived long ago. They wanted to keep other races, and especially humans, ignorant of our ways in writing, both the grammar and the vocabulary, so our knowledge could not be easily disseminated if stumbled upon and cause a tragedy among both races.”
“Really?”
That wasn’t in any of the possible futures he saw. Then again, he didn’t look at every possible future. They were infinite. Only Wiol herself could see them all at once.
“No. Zaticana doesn’t include written languages because ‘that would be too easy,’ but Meza’s group likes to say otherwise. The goddess only allows a person to learn one written language by grace. The rest they have to pick up with study and each elven written language has drifted from all the others due to isolation, local culture and tradition and mortal loan words.”
She cleared her throat.
“The plaque reads, 'Dengel the Fallen One.' Furthermore, it elaborates, ‘In memory of the faithless villain Dengel Tymh, born 30 BAA and died about 400 AA. An elf of endless arrogance and ambition who ruined the lives of everyone he met. He reached for Chaos with control in his heart and for this, he was obliterated. Pay heed all who read this. Beware your own hubris.’”
“Mom told us this story over and over again when we were little,” Annala continued. “Ironically, this very moral is why she is known as a witch even among elves. The project she worked on with Mr. and Mrs. Selios was considered blasphemous by many.”
Kallen coughed. Annala eeped and tugged her ear.
“I’m sorry. I got carried away and —”
“In addition to being the Boogeyman,” Kallen said, “Dengel has also become the exemplar of over-reaching ambition. Dengel wanted power that could kill an immortal and that's exactly what he got; power that can kill an immortal elf."
Eric looked again at the statue. It stood tall and proud dispute the trash and defaming inscription. Dengel never did talk about how he died. Eric assumed it was simply too depressing a topic, but now he knew better. It was too humiliating.
Chaotic Starlight...the one spell Dengel failed to do...If I succeed, I'll surpass him. I'll build my own name while pushing his down, and at the same time, remove a threat to myself and my future mate. I have seen the future and this action plays out in many of them. I just have to grasp it and make it happen.
“Kallen, you said turn things into chaos. Is Mana Conversion similar?”
He cupped his hands and generated a sphere of mana. That sphere became fire, then water, then earth, then air, then lava, then ice, then electricity, then shrubbery, then shifted back to mana. The cycle then repeated in reverse.
“That’s it!” Kallen exclaimed. “How’d you do that!?”
Eric collapsed the mana between his hands.
“While you learned that everything is Chaos and so it can be returned to Chaos, I learned that everything is Chaos and so it can become anything else, but I don’t know how to turn something into Chaos.”
“Enthralling!” Kallen gushed. “Please continue.”
Eric gave her a bored look.
“Alright, if you insist. We’ll reason through it instead.” She assumed a thinking pose and walked about the courtyard. “Everything was born of Chaos and before Chaos, there was nothing. Even Order admits this is true. If everything is born of Chaos and can be returned to Chaos, then Chaos is in every molecule of creation.”
“Exactly,” Eric said. “The air I breathe is chaos and so is the ground beneath my feet. The water composing the majority of my body is chaos and so is the heat it generates. If everything is chaos, then how can anything be stable enough for growth and life? Spirit, which is also chaos.”
“But spirit forms a unique substance known as paku that can control mana and kon, which is the animating force that enables paku to bind with solid matter,” Kallen said. “All of these are lesser forms of chaos, and spirits can direct them towards a given purpose. That makes them closer to Order.”
“But Order can’t handle the truest form of Chaos, the Sea of Itself,” Annala continued for her adoptive sister. “Thus it is Noitearc that performs the conversion from chaos to spirit to life to mana and then back again.”
“Yes, that’s mana conversion, but I can only perform the earthly sort. If it takes divinity of Noitearc’s standing to recreate chaos, then we’re sunk.”
“Are we?” Kallen asked. “You can say that much, right?”
Eric didn’t answer. Instead, he turned to Annala and asked, “What do you think? Surely you’ve read something along these lines in your vast studies, or your mom has attempted something of the sort in her long time of research.”
“Well...” She pawed the ground and tugged on her ear again. He grasped the other hand and entwined their fingers.
“It’s all right. The Church of Chaos has never established a formal Inquisition because such a thing is too close to the Order Orthodoxy.”
His words and demeanor melted her fears. His touch reassured her. A small nudge from the Subjugation Collar provided a final ironic push over the fence.
“There is a school of thought that says the symbol we use for the Flower of Chaos, that of ten lines from ten directions joining at a central point, is not a symbol for Chaos at all, but for Order. The argument goes that the lines are threads woven into a pattern and the point where they meet is the spoke of a wheel. Thus, it is a loom for the creation of the fabric of reality and a mill for producing the work of life.”
She stopped then and walked over to a tree. There, she attempted to take one of the lower and thinner branches from it. The tree protested. Annala insisted that she needed it to draw a diagram in the snow. The tree insisted that it needed the branch because it was on its good side.
“Annala,” Eric said, “You could ask your master for permission to use magic.”
She stopped and stared. So did Kallen.
“I can do that?”
Eric shrugged. “Maybe. I’m just guessing. It would make sense, wouldn’t it? Order is the Original Mage, after all. He wants to control it, not necessarily destroy it, so as your master via ordercraft enslavement, presumably I could—”
“You saw it in Wiol’s Future Vision.”
Again, Eric shrugged.
Annala sighed and walked back. “Master Eric, please grant me permission to use illusion magic to illustrate my point.” She even threw in a curtsy.
“You have my permission to do so.”
The collar shimmered. “Thank you, Master Eric.”
Annala chanted and the symbol in question appeared in the air between them. She pointed to the center and it colored golden-brown. Then she explained that the dot created by the union of the lines was traditionally thought to be Chaos. She made circles with her hand and beads of light representing life radiated outward from the center and reached the end of the ten lines. Then they flowed back to the center. As the beads traveled, the lines colored to the element they represented, creating a rainbow.
“We use this symbol because Lady Chaos has no form that we could comprehend. This represents the sum total of Creation; all of its component parts connected through the Chaotic River. The ‘Spoke of a Wheel’ heresy has a different interpretation.”
With her other hand, she flapped her fingers up and down. This triggered a line of silver light to circle the outer rim of the symbol. The dot at the center shifted to silver-grey in color while the golden-brown drifted into the space between the lines.
“If we take th
is to be the spoke of a wheel, then it can have a lever attached to it and, with a lever, one can control the wheel like a weapon or a water mill. In both these cases, the wheel is exploited by something outside it for labor and energy. To summarize, this symbol represents Noitearc as used by Order to extract mana and survive.”
“In other words,” Kallen said, “to do this, we will be like Order; controlling the elements that compose the world to control the world, and through controlling the world, control chaos. The spirit in the center could be Order or any lesser soul, like you and me.”
“Then you should stop contemplating the Three Great Powers,” Eric said, “and focus on the Ten Worldly Elements. Back to the courtyard!”
While the trio ran, Kallen quipped, “You know, instead of all this running around and wasting time, you could just tell us.”
Eric adopted his best trickster grin. “If I did that, then you wouldn’t learn anything.”
The border of the courtyard was a link of the Eight Earthly Elements. Within this border were two more shrines for Light and Darkness. Between these two shrines was empty space. Conventionally, this void represented the omnipresence of Chaos, but according to the heresy, it could also be the astral body of Order. Annala walked into this space and declared, “I am Spirit, the center element. I am that which animates matter and grants true life, but I have no life of my own. Did you get all that?” she asked Eric.
“It’s no more complicated than your lectures about the Anich Amplification of Dragonic and Feline Leyline theory.”
Annala cocked her head. “What’s the Anich Amplification of Dragonic and Feline Leyline theory?”
Eric comically covered his mouth. “Oops! Spoilers.”
“To put this in perspective,” Kallen said, “I have the Composite and Eric has the Basic. Both of us are the center and we have Light and Darkness respectively. That means we are two halves of the sum total of existence.”
“Since Dengel did this by himself, you don’t need to do this together,” Annala continued. “You should have all you need within the crystal…PRISMS!”
“Prisms?”
“Prisms! They’re all different colors!”
“No, they’re always clear.”
“Because of the different colors! All colors in the Visible Light Spectrum come from white light; it splits into a rainbow if you use a dispersive prism. In this case, spirit is the prism because a mage takes uncolored mana from Noitearc and converts it into a colored spell.”
“I see where you’re going with this!”
The crystal mages chorused. Annala found it distasteful that they were in harmony. Then Eric laughed and she pouted, having fallen for one more cheap time travel trick.
“Refracted light will turn back into white light if passed through a second prism,” Kallen said. “Theoretically, we can use our two prisms, our spirit, and our crystals to control elemental refraction and merge the elements in our possession into chaotic energy. Once we reach that step, all we have to do is direct it at Nulso and he will cease to exist.”
“This is all fun speculation and theory, but we need to do more research to be sure.”
Both girls turned to him and said, “You just want to go back to the library.”
Eric shrugged. “Guilty.”
While they searched for a method to harness the Chaotic Starlight, they came across something peculiar. The power of Chaos could destroy those protected by Order but it was Order’s power that was the best defense against it. Paradoxically, Order was both especially vulnerable and especially resilient. They tried to ask the local Ordercrafter Killer for advice, but he shut them down.
“In the unlikely event that an ordercrafter comes to Dnnac Ledo, I will kill it myself. I don’t want humans—former, future, or otherwise—to learn my tricks. Figure it out yourselves.”
So they returned to their studies.
Kallen passed Eric a diagram she created; it arranged the Eight Earthly Elements in a square grid with the Spirit Element in the center flanked by the Two Cosmic Elements.
“I’d call it ‘The World According to the Avatars.’ What do you think about this?”
He passed her the incantation he wrote; a short series of words designed to focus their will and direct their power.
“You’ll win first prize for beige prose.”
“I’m studying intermediate magecraft; I don’t want to use rhymes anymore.”
The battle mages decided to stick with what they were familiar with; a straightforward attack spell. They devised a method to direct the chaotic energy into a single beam like mundane mana. This way, they could direct it where they wished. While their theory was sound, there was no safe way to test it. This led to a chilling conclusion.
“This is basically a spell to generate the same kind of energy that created the world, and can just as easily destroy it. Once you bring it here, you won’t be able to stop it or dismiss it. All that energy has to go somewhere...” Annala gulped. “…A mana storm is a wet firecracker.”
Kallen jumped up. “We can’t use it here!” she shouted.
“Kallen, relax. It will be fine,” Eric said.
“We can’t use it here. It would be a second Siduban Chaos Explosion!”
“There are plenty of futures where that doesn’t happen,” Eric continued.
“Destruction. Chaos is destruction.” She stumbled away from the table. “Even when it creates, it destroys what was there before. An endless cycle of rebirth that produces nothing. This is my home, my second home, and my parents and younger sister and—No. We can’t use it here.”
Eric rounded the table and she backed further away.
“I know what you’re going to do and I don’t want you to do it! I’m not putting Dnnac Ledo at risk because of your personal vendetta!”
Her lightning orb shone, but Eric had already worked his own magic. His divine authority over air and its molecules blocked the path Kallen wished her lightning bolt to take, thus nullifying her ability to teleport. While she stood shocked, he grabbed her hand and let metaphysics do the rest. Stress drained from her face and tension from her shoulders. Her fist was clenched tight on her staff, but she tried to smile for Eric.
“Thanks. I’m just nervous.”
“If I were in your shoes, I would be too.”
“We need a plan. If we have a plan, less will go wrong.”
“No plan survives contact with the enemy,” Eric said. “I’ve seen this in both the past with Eaol and the future with Wiol.”
“It will make me feel better.” She looked Eric in the eyes. “Is there a future where this goes horribly wrong?”
Eric hesitated.
“Eric, please, tell me!”
“Yes, there is. In one possible future, this village and everyone in it is dissolved by the chaotic energy we summon. In another, all of them are enslaved. There’s a third where we mutate into S-class monsters and bring about the end of the world as we know it.”
He gripped her shoulder with his free hand.
“There are many futures in which this can go horribly wrong, but there are just as many where it goes wonderfully right. I’ve seen them. With the Grace of Chaos, I believe we can make them happen.”
Kallen smiled wryly. “When did you get brave all of a sudden?”
“I’m really not. I’m actually scared of the bad things. I don’t want them to happen.”
On the day before the reconvened Mana Mutation Summit, the trio finalized their plan. They determined the theory of how the spell would function, how to make the spell work in practical conditions, the kind support they would need to make it happen, and several ways to draw the target away from the village if he showed.
On the night before the Summit, Eric stood with someone else.
Within the Sage Tree was a maze of portals leading to both terminals and shrines. This was the seat of both governance and prayer for Dnnac Ledo. It was where the Supreme Council made decisions and where the Chaotic Mass was cele
brated. It was also where the Chaotic Curtain was produced and maintained.
A room beneath the trunk and among the roots contained the runes and crystals needed to interface with Dnnac in order to produce the shield that both protected and concealed the village from the world. In the current day and age, few would argue that this was Dnnac’s most important function. Extremely small was the list of people allowed access to it.
“Thanks for telling me about your plan,” Eric said. “I already knew all about it from Wiol, but now we can discuss it without causing a paradox.”
While he hadn’t the foggiest idea about what Nunnal was doing, he knew what she was trying to accomplish. It was for this reason that she allowed him here.
“Thank you for understanding,” Nunnal said while she worked. “No one else here would, Kallen included.”
“Of course I understand. You want to remove a threat to your daughter and my future mate. Why wouldn’t I understand?”
Nunnal tapped out a rhythm on one crystal, then sang to a second. She re-arranged the letters in this rune and crossed out a couple of circles in that one. Lights and chimes responded to her activities.
“It’s what Dengel did in B.A.A. society!”
“In word, yes, but in spirit, it’s completely different. If you ask me, it’s perfectly in line with the future-overturning that Lady Chaos is so fond of.”
“In that case, it’s appropriate that I have The Trickster’s Choice to help me.”
She made one final adjustment and three screens of light appeared in a triangle formation. What Nunnal wished to do required three elves: herself, the headman, and the Priori Guardian. For this case, she would make do with her future son-in-law and her deity. Tasio’s authority superseded that of the headman and his presence would confuse the computer into thinking that Eric, the champion of Chaos, was actually the village’s champion. The screens fizzled, glitched, and finally flashed acknowledgment.
“When this is over and the collar is removed, I trust you’ll do your best to remove the ‘future’ part?” Nunnal asked.
Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3) Page 55
