Transcending Limitations

by Brian Wilkerson

  “Order was born of Lady Chaos just like everything else,” Basilard said, “and so even he is partially chaotic.”

  “Likewise, “Emily added, “Lady Chaos is the Source of All Power, and that includes orderly power. So she can be seen as enforcing a certain way of life at the expense of others.”

  “It just so happens that this way of life is ‘everyone should be able to choose and implement whatever they want their way of life to be,’” Zettai continued.

  “Enough philosophy, professors,” Tiza drawled. “Let’s get to the practical stuff.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Paric said. “The first order of practical business is to affirm that everyone here is committed to the task of creating an Avatar of Chaos from Eric and Kallen.”

  “In that case, I’m definitely in!” Tiza said, slouching forward eagerly. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Even if I end up a footnote in the story of it, it’s bound to be exciting.” Then she sat up straight, eyes wide. A grin crossed her face as if in reflection of some marvelous revelation. “Dimwit, once you become this all-powerful god thing, how about you send some of that power my way?”

  Eric snorted. “Sure. I’ll give you infinite respawns so you can jump into danger without a care in the world. Nolien, you can have the power to heal any injury, even death itself, instantly.”

  He crossed his arms. “I’d rather not rely on divine grace, thank you very much. Proper healing comes from applied knowledge that is gathered in a scientific manner.”

  “So says the guy who prays to Wiol in emergencies,” everyone chorused at once.

  Nolien blushed. “That only happened once!” He coughed. “In any case, creating an Avatar of Chaos has both glorious potential and cataclysmic risk and I want to know if such risk is necessary. Are we sure that Order has the means to create his own avatar?”

  “Yes,” Paric said. “Half of it is Prince Lunas Latrot and the other half is Ariel Selios.”

  Albatross IX lurched forward, throwing everyone against their seatbelts and then back again as the ship slowed down. All of them looked toward the cockpit, where their pilot gripped the steering wheel with fourteen claws and furry appendages. Emily massaged her shoulder, Kallen exhaled, and the fourteen returned to ten hairless fingers.

  Paric continued as if nothing had happened. “We, that is, the organization working to help you accomplish this, have determined that they will not merge into the Avatar of Order so long as Epideus reigns. This is because his reign would end as soon as the avatar is created, and he does not want this to happen.”

  “He’s defying Order?” Eric asked. “How does an ordercrafter do that?”

  “We assume it was stipulated in a deal he struck with Order; ‘to reign as the highest authority, second only to Order himself, for x years, at which point the Avatar of Order shall succeed me’ or something to such an effect.”

  “‘Order does not abide lies,’” Eric recited.

  “Precisely,” Paric said. “Furthermore, they have to engage in the same sort of preparatory empowerment that you do. Thus, we have time to work. Nolien Heleti, I trust you know what will happen if we run out of time?”

  Nolien hung his head. “Yes, I do. It will be the end of the House of Heleti. My family will be purged and replaced as a matter of principle, and our legacy will be wiped out to the last trace and vestige.” He raised his head. “Count me in too.”

  “Naturally, I’m committed to this goal,” Basilard said. “I’m part of the New Blood faction, which is the chaos to the Old Blood faction’s order.” To Zettai, he said, “Don’t you dare repeat that. I’m just giving Eric the nutshell, so I don’t bore him with the nuances of clan politics.”

  “No problem, Dad,” Zettai replied. “Even if I slip, it’s the most polite thing you’ve ever called them.”

  The novices chuckled. They stopped immediately under their mentor’s glare.

  “Emily Tompson, what about you?” Paric asked.

  “Don’t ask me. I do whatever Kallen says.” Her hair spun as she turned to her boss with excitement. “When you become the avatar, I’ll be your angel, right?”

  “I’ve already composed the underlying theory for the chaos sphere I’m going to give you,” Kallen replied.

  “Good. Now that allegiance is settled, we may move on to plans.” Paric issued a command that shifted the presentation screen loaded into his magical illusion. “I have four of them, depending on our reception at the temple area.”

  Four screens generated from his laptop. The first was green and showed a man with a fire halo welcoming a boy and a girl. The second was yellow and showed a person stealing vials of fire. The third was red and showed a battle. The fourth was purple and showed two groups showing off their weapons and glaring each other down.

  “All of them end with the two of you becoming gilded spirits and they involve talking to the Fire Sage,” Paric said. “The only variable is the amount of trouble we encounter on the way.”

  “I’ve heard Kas, err, Her Majesty—”

  “Feel free to use the familiar address,” Paric said.

  “Thank you. I’ve heard Kas say that the Fire Sage is some old mystic that speaks in contradictions.”

  “He is also the only one that can initiate the Rite of Fire Ascension,” Paric said. “For fifteen hundred years, he has stood as a vault of sacred theology and mystic knowledge. Much of it is dangerous in the wrong hands. You’ll have to prove yourselves worthy.”

  “Of course we will,” Eric deadpanned. “I take it this will involve some deadly feat?”

  Paric shrugged. “I cannot say, but it will certainly be difficult.”

  Eric slapped his knees and stood up.

  “You know what? Here’s what I think is going to happen: we’re going to be attacked by a giant spirit monster before we arrive, then we’ll limp into the temple area and find out that someone razed it to the ground and killed all the clerics. While we look for survivors, they’re going to attack us because they mistook us for the enemy. After setting them straight, they will still blame me for the attack because I’m the Trickster’s Choice, and so they won’t confirm that such a rite exists, let alone help me do it. We’ll look for the people responsible and I will somehow be separated from all of you in the process and have to do much if not all of the work by myself. After defeating the bad guys, I will be pronounced worthy enough to prove my worthiness. Then, after I prove myself in this fashion, the Fire Sage will perform the rite for me and it will be something really dangerous. Finally, at the end of all this, I’ll find out that I’m not really immortal, just long-lived and maybe a little more durable.”

  He sank back to his seat and slouched.

  “Lady Chaos forbid that my life be easy for once.”

  Tiza got up from her seat and crouched in front of him. While trying to make eye contact, she said, “Hey, Mr. Grouchy Grendel. Did a wolf pee in your cereal?”

  “No.” Eric brought his head up and Tiza jumped back, slipped, and fell. His face remained human, but his eyes had changed. It wasn’t the grendel slits, but something colder and less merciful. They were like the eyes of a dead thing. “A reaper tried to cut me in half.”

  Tiza shook the feeling off and stood up. She beat her chest with one hand and said, “So what if that stuff happens? We’ll deal with it. With determination, teamwork, and a great deal of violence, we’ll deal with it. Then we can brag about it when we go back to the guild. When I’m an old woman sitting in a rocking chair and snot-nosed kids are complaining about collecting bird poop with their bare hands, I’m gonna show them the burn mark I got from fire clerics and tell them to quit bitching.”

  Paric nudged Nolien. “Like I said, plenty spirited.”

  Mt. Fiol was a stratovolcano in southern Ataidar. It grew out of the eastern side of the Sussano River and so it faced Mithra instead of Latrot. Fiol’s Faithful, Ataidar’s state religion, maintained that it was the only thing that prevented Ataidar from being absorbed into the Mithran We
eping Willow Empire. Although the historical account was more complicated, the volcano remained essential. As Albatross IX approached it, smoke spewed from its peak.

  Big and dark, it formed a cloud that shrouded the area. Emily scanned it with the ship’s sensors and determined that it was not volcanic ash. Nor was it small enough to be even the largest of burnt offerings.

  “Shields up,” she muttered out of reflex.

  Her hands moved across the co-pilot’s controls with practiced ease. Small changes rippled across the hull to make it flame retardant and its weapon systems heated up. From within the smoke cloud came a salamander spirit.

  It was as big as the ship itself. The orange and red coloring in its ectoplasm streaked backwards and bled into each other as it raced towards Albatross IX. Its mouth opened impossibly wide.

  Kallen made a sharp dive to avoid it. The spirit followed. Fire plumes shot from its mouth. Kallen swerved around the first four and performed an aileron roll to deflect a fifth one, the maneuver generating an electrostatic barrier that canceled the flame on contact. Everyone but Emily lurched in their seats with each maneuver. The redhead was too busy relaying data to Kallen to notice the turbulence.

  “See?!” Eric shouted. “GIANT MONSTER ATTACK!”

  “SHUT UP AND GET UP HERE!” Kallen ordered.

  “But I can’t—”

  “NOW!”

  Eric shifted to his true form and then undid his seat belt. At that moment, Kallen did another aileron roll and tossed Eric across the cabin. His head clanged on the inner hull. He crawled to the cockpit only to find that he couldn’t fit. Grabbing the door with both hands, he waited through a third and fourth aileron roll before dismissing his bulky metal hide.

  “Stick your Soiléir into the power converter console.”

  Eric clapped his hands together and plunged the crystal into the gap in the dashboard near the ignition key. The sea blue light shimmered within its depths.

  “Hang on to something!”

  Kallen pulled back heavily on the control stick and performed a loop. A blast of divine wind magic from Eric’s crystal overcame the inherent vulnerability of the maneuver and put Albatross IX behind the giant salamander in an instant.

  “Campione Cannon, fire!”

  The ship opened its griffin mouth and fired a specialized beam of divine water energy at the fire spirit’s tail. It both punctured and washed over the target via twin currents. The salamander withered and hissed as it went out in a puff of smoke.

  Emily hummed a little victory tune as the cannon retracted and cooled down.

  “Have you done this before?” Eric asked while retracting his Soiléir.

  “Flesh and spirit both,” Emily replied. “It’s how I pass the time while Kallen is on a mission.”

  “They’re attacking you too?” Eric asked Kallen.

  “The spirits hate me for puncturing the world with Chaotic Starlight,” Kallen said. “I’m the one they hold responsible. They attack you because Gruffle goads them too.”

  A rush of turbulence rocked the ship, and Eric was thrown on his back. Then he slid to the rear of the ship, and once there, he was thrown forward once more. Emily snatched his arm before he could slide away again, grabbed his hand, and jammed the crystal emerging from it back into the ship’s console. She kept one hand locked around his wrist while her other inputted commands into the ship’s computer.

  The hum of the mana-drive kicked up and several hatches opened on Albatross IX’s hull. Emitters within them charged up brown energy and then discharged it in an expanding sphere. Screeches of disgust followed. With each passing second, more and more could be heard outside the ship. The turbulence ended and the ship peacefully resumed its course.

  Emily released Eric’s wrist and wiped her hand on her shirt.

  “It was a flock of sylphs,” she explained. “I used your earth blessing to dispel them with the Anti-Encumberment Radiant Wave Customizing Clearers.” She took a breath. “Boss, why does Nunnal give her inventions such long names?”

  “No focus groups.”

  She steered the ship into its final approach along the mountain’s side until Central Hearth, the religious capital of Ataidar, came into view. What she saw there made her gasp.

  Central Hearth was a fortified city on the southeastern side of Mt. Fiol. Shrines lined the streets, clustered around buildings, and formed a pathway up the volcano to the tip of the cone where Fiol’s own shrine stood apart from the rest. Many were the temples for worship, teaching, or summoning salamanders. They could be found on every block. Rectories for housing the clergy and their offices were just as numerous. Houses for laypeople, shops of all kinds, an airship dome, and more could be seen from Albatross IX’s vantage point, and all of it was in various states of fire-charred ruin.

  “What happened here?” Eric asked.

  “Let’s find out...” Kallen replied.

  “I was hoping you’d say that!” Tiza exclaimed. “I was sure Dimwit was overreacting, but now we can get some action!”

  “We’re not landing just yet,” Kallen said while her hands flew across the dashboard. “Rule Number One of mana mutation field research: look before you leap.”

  Thus began a battery of scans from the Albatross IX’s diverse detection systems. Kallen initiated them and Emily recorded the results. It was a hullabaloo of levers, buttons, read-outs, scrolling text, and magic rune configuration. Tiza started foot tapping at the start of it, and after ten minutes, Eric was getting bored as well.

  “Couldn’t we ask Tasio to do the recon?” he asked.

  “You could, but I’d say no,” Tasio said.

  Eric sighed and looked out over the temple city. Albatross IX was holding a circular flight pattern that gave him a rotating view. The destruction was awful from every angle.

  “Ahaha,” Paric stated. “I thought as much.” He read an article from his laptop. “Central Hearth has a ritual known as ‘Phoenix Torch.’ Whenever the monarch dies, the people of this town set fire to the buildings. Once everything is smoky and covered in ash, they sweep it away and repair everything.”

  “Sounds pointless,” Tiza drawled.

  “It is cosmetic damage meant to be symbolic of the passing of Fiol’s previous torch and the enthroning of the next. Although this appears worse than the article’s pictures, there’s no reason to think there’s been an attack.”

  Tiza slumped. “There’s no action after all.”

  “Rule Number Two of mana mutation field research,” Kallen said, “always prepare for the worst, especially when things look calm.”

  She let the ship glide to a patch of dirt outside the ruined temple city. Extending its legs, it grasped securely into the ground. Emily helped Kallen equip on her way out the door just in case she was attacked.

  “Sorry,” she said flatly to Eric. “There’s nothing here for your gender.”

  “Feudal lord and handmaiden,” he muttered.

  Emily swatted him, but Eric caught her wrist halfway.

  “Play nice, you two,” Kallen said. “Jealousy is nice, but childish bickering is not.”

  Everyone except Emily stepped out of Albatross IX. She needed to stay with the ship in case they had to leave in a hurry. After they took a couple steps beyond the hull’s exit, a wall of fire emerged to cut them off.

  The red and yellow flames shimmered with the piety of their casters. It surrounded the mercenaries to the left and right before closing before them. Then it rushed inwards. Eric barely got his barrier up in time to avoid incineration. Even then, he broke out in a sweat. It was so hot, his barrier started melting.

  Reaching out in his Soiléir, he connected with Waol’s power. His lips quirked and his eyes widened at the taste of godly magic rising out of dormancy. With just a thought, he directed it in a wave with himself as the epicenter. Holy though they might be, the flames were nothing compared to a divine power.

  What followed were screams of bloody murder, as if the water had been scalding. Followi
ng them was a single roar of masculine rage.

  The contact between the holy fire and the divine water created an opaque mist. Whiteness blinded everyone. Neither biological eyes nor Magic Eyes nor even Tiza’s Third Eye could see through it. Eric and Basilard conjured wind to dispel it, but even so, it remained. However, it couldn’t hide the footsteps or the killing intent that accompanied them. Eric’s monster instincts warned him of an attack just in time to spot it.

  A black-haired man in priestly robes charged out of the mists with daggers in both hands. It was his eyes that held Eric’s attention. They were savage and merciless like his own but with a great deal more anger. He slashed Eric once, twice, and then jumped back into the mist. Eric only had time to block before he disappeared.

  Giving pursuit, he was almost scorched by daggers of flame. They flew without ceasing, and with so many, it was impossible to tell where they came from. Basilard conjured more wind in the form of a shield to dissipate them and daggers of metal soared through the air. With their greater mass, they pushed through the immaterial barrier. One of them flew near Zettai. At that point, Basilard stopped screwing around.

  He sliced his hand and scattered the blood in a wide arc. These pieces of himself splattered onto everything in front of him. The sound of screams and bodies falling over rewarded him, but he wasn’t done yet. Eyes glowing red, he tossed another tiny sphere of blood into the air. It expanded with his mana, and when it reached a certain height, it discharged. Beams of bladicraft sought the blood marks dispersed across the battlefield and explosions roared in the mist.

  “Holy Fire Interdict!”

  A new wave of fire assaulted Team Four. They raised their barriers and it clung to them. Sticking to their spirits, it agitated them. A sense of burning overtook their consciousness and denied them the concentration needed to focus mana for spells. Then it touched the Sacred Fire carried by Eric and Kallen, and it dissipated at once. A voice from beyond the mist asked, “Do you possess Sacred Fire?”