Chapter 70 - Heliopolis.
The morning in the Blair house was beginning as it always did when the youngest of the family, a boy named Kael, opened his eyes in his room.
He swung his legs off the bed with a yawn, rubbed his eyes and then set off toward the wardrobe.
Before he reached it the boy heard a heavy crash that came through the door of his room.
He opened the door and stepped out into the corridor, where he suddenly felt something sticky underfoot.
Kael lowered his head and found a strange reddish slime smeared along the whole length of the corridor and leading to the stairs.
"Ugh... what is this..." he muttered, and started toward the stairs on his toes.
The sticky trail went on across the hall; the mansion was far too quiet. Not one maid. Not a voice from his parents or from his brother and sister.
As he went farther he heard the sound of dishes breaking in the kitchen, where the trail led as well.
The boy came up to the kitchen doorway and froze as the room filled with loud smacking sounds.
"A-Alpina?... M-mother?... f-father?..." the boy mumbled, and the smacking in front of him stopped and gave way to a deep guttural growl.
Kael began to shake as he stared in horror at the thing that was straightening to its full height in front of him and casting a growing shadow over him.
He stepped backward until his back met something.
Or someone.
Kael raised his head.
"B... brother?..." he said, and then a slimy drop of blood fell right onto his cheek.
The Blair mansion stood in the noble district, among the houses of other titled families.
In one of those houses the lady of the household sat in front of a mirror and combed her well-kept snow-white hair, with no notion at all that in the mansion next door a boy's voice had cut off in an instant.
When she had finished making herself ready she went out into the corridor and through to the sitting room, where her husband and their two children were.
For them, too, it was an ordinary and quiet morning.
Which ended when a window onto the back yard suddenly broke.
The whole family flinched and looked toward the arched passage that led into the other wing.
Suddenly a maid's scream came from there, and it broke into the sound of flesh tearing, claws snapping and a monstrous snarl.
The man at once told the others to run for the exit as he himself reached into a drawer and took out a photocyte crystal, fed it magic and materialized a short blade.
Yet before his eyes something came out of the arched passage at enormous speed and threw itself straight at his wife and children as they ran for the entrance.
It finished each of them in an instant, then turned slowly toward the man standing frozen there, who let out his last breath a moment later.
The rest of the district went on with their routine morning, neither knowing nor seeing how the bodies were dragged into the Blair mansion, which later, and quietly, began to take in further victims as well.
That same morning Aren flew on Artus's sun hunter, seated behind him; Eveline shared Olen's desert whirlwing, and Rexy clung to the girl's shoulder as usual.
"There it is... Heliopolis," said Olen, and Aren leaned out past Artus's shoulder to look at a magnificent city opening in front of them, noticeably unlike Midar in its architecture.
Although it was built of the same white stone, what stood out in it were the many aqueducts, enormous pits with mine shafts out of which levitating carts came flying, loaded with ore and crystals, and gleaming chromed cranes. Beyond the industrial sector the inner city opened out, and at its center rose one enormous structure under a teal-and-gold dome.
Eveline looked at the city with a wide smile, and Artus grinned from a mixture of gladness and anticipation at seeing his family — Aren only watched with mild surprise, until his thoughts sank into a memory.
Ockhaven. The first day of the Summer Festival.
Aren was helping to set up Elara's stall; he unloaded crates from the carts and stopped in between to look around for a moment, and gave his attention to every detail he caught in a new place.
"Aren, are you all right?" Elara asked.
"Y-yes, everything's fine... I just..."
Elara stepped closer, and the corners of her mouth lifted a little.
"You've gone all quiet on me," she said.
"I'm just... thinking a lot. This city... it's so... amazing... I think I understand the difference between a village and a city now."
"I've heard that in other countries the cities look even more amazing. Who knows, maybe we'll see those too," she said, and turned to look off to the side.
"That's so exciting..." Aren answered, and looked the same way.
Elara turned back and laid her hand against his cheek, and he brought his face around to hers, which held a warm and tender smile, and her eyes were on him directly.
"I love watching you be amazed by something new."
Aren's eyes had lowered at the memory, but he was smiling now, even though there was a heavy longing in his chest.
They landed in a residential district which, to Aren's surprise, was full of green trees. Jumping down from the fliers, they headed for one of the houses, and Artus knocked at its door.
The door opened, and a woman met Artus and stared at the cadet in surprise.
"Son! Oh my god!" the woman said, and hugged him at once.
"Hello, Mom, good to see you," he answered as he hugged his mother.
Then he raised his eyes and found his father in front of him, a solidly built man with a thick short beard and a shaved head.
"Well, well, look who's back. What, thrown out of Solum on the first day? Made a mess of everything again, I suppose?" he said.
"Of course, seeing as I got that from a hopeless miner like you," Artus answered.
Aren and Olen looked at each other as Artus kept his eyes on his father, and a heavy silence hung between father and son.
Then both of them smirked and broke into laughter, came together and embraced.
"Good to see you, son," said his father.
"And it's good to see you, Dad."
Aren, Eveline and Olen let out their breath, and the last of them even turned away and rubbed his head.
Later they arrived at an enormous closed ground with a sign over its entrance reading "Mortrana 8".
"Looks like it hasn't been used for a fair while," said Olen.
"If I'm not mistaken, it's got something to do with the conflict back when Aurelius had only just become Archon of Light. I don't remember anymore what happened here, but Mortrana was shut down," Artus answered.
"And are we even allowed in there?" Eveline asked.
"Well... strictly speaking no... but nobody cares. Plenty of us ran in here as kids and as teenagers, myself included," said Artus.
They tore the chains off with their blades, opened the old gates and went inside.
Deeper in they came out onto an enormous abandoned course filled with a great many different obstacles, mechanisms and... junk.
Farther down the line the course ran into a tunnel that led to the old mines.
"Looks like... we need to clean up in here first..." said Artus.
"And I'll... just go and see how to get power to the mechani—" Olen began, and turned and walked off to the side until Artus caught him by the collar.
"No. You're not slipping away that easily. Cleaning first, and then we'll take on the technical part," said Artus, and Olen sighed and let his shoulders drop.
The next three hours they spent doing nothing but cleaning, until the course was finally clear.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Everyone made for the control room, where a panel of photocytes and cristocytes met them, dulled from the lack of magical energy.
"Hm... well... let's try..." said Olen, and he put his hand to the main photocyte and fed magical energy into it, so that the circuit closed and every mechanism on the course came to life.
They all pressed closer to the control room window, where the whole course lay visible, its obstacles shifting one into another without a pause.
"Yeah... there's clearly less room to fly here... and how are you supposed to get through all that?... I can see from here that I'd take the first beam that jumped out at me right in the face," said Olen.
"Well then, want to try?" Artus asked with a glance at Eveline, and she nodded.
Outside, Eveline activated her lightsurf and stood on it, flew up to the start and made herself ready.
Taking deep breaths, Eveline tried to concentrate, closed her eyes and opened them again, and then tore forward.
She flew around the first three obstacles, which forced her through a zigzag that demanded fine precision, since the gaps between them were very small.
Then one of the mechanisms fired; Eveline reacted instantly and bounced upward with the lightsurf, over the horizontal beam.
"She's doing great!" said Olen; Aren and Artus watched with smiles.
Eveline carried on and dodged every mechanism with astonishing agility, until a double trap suddenly fired and struck her right in the shoulder and knocked her off the lightsurf.
"OH... damn..." said Olen, and pressed a fist to his mouth as Aren and Artus ran to her.
They reached her, helped her up and looked her over.
"Are you all ri—"
"THIS IS SO COOL," she answered suddenly, her eyes shining, and Aren and Artus froze and then exchanged a look.
After a short break Eveline tried a second run, and this time she got through that trap cleanly, only to run straight into the next one.
Time went on, and the cadets took Eveline's mistakes apart, talked over practical advice and worked through the possible variations, and Aren meanwhile was off to one side, training with Rexy.
The little beast was learning to blind an opponent suddenly, then get around him and attack from behind, and Aren managed to react and step aside each time; he praised Rexy for the attempts that worked.
Several hours passed like that, and Eveline managed to get deeper into the mine, where everything only became harder.
When the sun was going down toward the horizon they all came back to Artus's home, where they stood in the sitting room and looked at the two free rooms.
"...I guess... one room goes to Eveline..." said Olen, and Eveline smiled awkwardly.
Once night came, Eveline slept deeply with her arms around Rexy, on the soft warm bed of a room of her own.
At the same time the boys lay on the floor beside one another, and only Artus was fast asleep, snoring so loudly that Aren and Olen lay with pillows clamped over their ears and their eyes on the ceiling.
At one point Olen had had enough, and drove his pillow right into the face of the sleeping Artus.
The next morning they all set off for Mortrana again and talked over the plan for the day as Aren looked around and admired the sights of Heliopolis.
Suddenly both cadets stopped — Eveline glanced at them in mild surprise and then turned to see where they were looking. Aren went on walking and stopped only a moment later, when he found everyone frozen in front of a man standing ahead of them.
Aren looked closer and recognized him.
"Lieutenant Irvis," said Artus.
"Hello, Artus. Olen. Aren... Follow me," said the lieutenant, and then turned and walked on ahead.
They all exchanged looks and then set off after him.
They walked as far as the inner city itself and entered one of the large structures, where a staircase led up to high doors with soldiers standing at them.
"Aren and..." Irvis began.
"Eveline," she introduced herself.
"Aren and Eveline. You stay here. And you two, go in. She's waiting," Irvis said to the cadets.
Both of them nodded to the lieutenant and made for the doors; the two soldiers opened them and let the cadets out onto a broad balcony, where someone they also recognized instantly stood in the middle.
Archon of War Lucia Radiant stood with her back to them, her hands held behind her as she took in the view of the inner city, and the wind moved her hair and the flag on the left.
"Archon," both cadets greeted her with a slight bow.
"How fortunate that our paths crossed here," she said without turning.
"We did not expect to meet you here," said Artus.
"We came here for training purposes," Olen added.
"Training? And what sort would that be?" Lucia asked, and turned to them.
"Training... to prepare for the competition..." Olen answered.
Lucia said nothing and kept her eyes on both cadets, so that the silence pressed on the two of them palpably.
"O-our friend... Eveline... she's preparing for the competition and that's why we—" Artus began.
"How does that relate to your assignment?" Lucia cut in.
"...Aren is... her friend as well..." Artus answered.
Lucia narrowed her eyes and came closer to the cadets.
"So he's made a friend... does he have any others?" she asked, and looked into the eyes of one and then the other.
A drop of sweat ran down the temple of each cadet, and their silence made Lucia study their eyes harder.
"I asked a question," she said.
"...he does..." Olen answered.
"Who?"
"Us," Artus answered, and she turned at once and came over to him.
Artus held his breath and tried not to look her in the eye as Lucia stood directly in front of him with a pressure he could feel.
"Now listen to me carefully. You are going to forget what this outsider is to you, and you are going to tell me everything that has happened in Midar up to this minute. And if I catch so much as a note of a lie in it... I don't think I need to explain how unpleasant the consequences will be. Have you understood me?"
"Yes, Archon," both answered.
"Good. Now report."
Several minutes later, as Aren and Eveline sat on the other side, the doors opened and Artus and Olen came out to them.
Aren rose from the bench as the cadets walked over with their lips pressed together.
"She's waiting for you," said Artus, and Aren tensed slightly.
He went out onto the balcony, the doors locked behind him, and he found Lucia waiting.
She stood straight, hands behind her back, looking at him with the same cold he had seen at their first meeting.
"I think I made it clear to you what would happen if you did any kind of harm to the Republic and its people," she began at once.
Aren said nothing and looked at her with a neutral expression.
Lucia's eyes narrowed as she studied the absence of any reaction on his face.
"What, no answer at all?" she asked.
"Artus and Olen have surely explained everything to you. And I'm not going to make excuses."
Lucia started forward and closed the distance to Aren without taking her eyes off his.
A short but heavy pause hung between them, and the composure in Aren's eyes stayed exactly as it was.
Lucia let out a short breath through her nose.
"And still you harmed other students while defending her. Students who had no direct part in it," she said.
"Yes. Aurelius said the same. And I regret it. But if I had to make the choice again... I would do the same thing."
Lucia gave no reply, then turned and wandered along the balcony.
"And how is this... preparation for the competition of yours going?... Aren't you here to gain knowledge?... Which, by the way... you now have nowhere to gain it from."
"I get it from the library... and from Eveline. And the preparation... I mostly just watch."
Lucia stopped without turning to him, her eyes on the floor.
"I don't even want to imagine how boring and pointless that is," she said.
"It isn't boring to me. And it isn't pointless."
The Archon turned back to him and looked him over, top to bottom.
"What a strange one you are," said Lucia.
"Are you here to interrogate me and punish me for the situation with the students?" Aren asked.
Lucia laughed quietly and lowered her face.
"No. I'm here on business of my own. It was useful, though, to learn what has been going on with all of you in Midar. And still... my business here has dragged on rather a long time... and since you're here, I think this is a good chance," she said, and came up to Aren again.
"While I wait on the results, you and I are going to have some fun," Lucia added.
Aren stopped where he was and raised his eyebrows.
"Er..."
"In a fight," she added.
He let out his breath, and then it caught up with him and made him tense again.
"Wait, what? A fight?"
"Which part of that word is unclear to you?" Lucia asked.
Aren said nothing, while Lucia walked around him and made for the doors.
"You're our beast-god killer, after all. So I hope you'll show me more than you did in our last bout. Don't disappoint me. I'll see you at the red canyon in an hour. And don't you dare be late," she said over her shoulder, and the doors opened and she went inside.
Eveline rose from her seat, suddenly finding herself that close to the Archon of War.
Lucia stopped, looked Eveline over, and passed her without a word.
Aren stayed on the balcony, and then looked out over the inner city.
What was that just now? , he thought.
Lucia meanwhile walked deep in thought, going back over her recent conversation with Dex.
They stood in his laboratory, full of his assistants, with a vessel of living biomass rising at its center.
Dex, standing beside Lucia, nodded to one of the assistants, and she activated a photocyte, so that a powerful pulse went through the vessel and killed the sample of biomass. The result was a patch on the bottom of the vessel with the air vibrating above it, and the metal oxidizing along its edges.
"A dead zone..." said Lucia.
"Yep. And it only appears after this thing's final death," said Dex.
"What do you mean by that?" she asked.
"Remember your fight with that creature? By your own report, you were cutting it into pieces and it kept knitting itself back together. It only died once you destroyed its core. And when it did, it left a dead zone behind it. This crap had a core too, only a much smaller one, hidden deep inside the whole mass."
"So the destruction of the core is directly tied to a dead zone forming... and how are we to deal with something like that if such a creature appears again?" the Archon asked.
"For now... we aren't. But I have a very interesting theory... and to confirm it, I need alirocyte," said Dex.
"Is that some kind of crystal?"
"No. It's an ore. And unfortunately for us, our stocks of it ran out a week ago."
Lucia came out of her thoughts and stopped, with two soldiers escorting her from behind.
"Bring me my spear, and tell Gervir I'll come to him tomorrow."
"Yes, Archon," the soldiers answered, bowed briefly and withdrew.
An hour later Aren, the cadets and Eveline stood at the red canyon that lay directly beyond Heliopolis.
The large fliers sat behind the cadets, while Olen paced from one side to the other.
"Damn it... did we say something wrong?... We explained clearly that you didn't do any of it out of malice!" he said.
"It seems what we said about defending Eveline had no effect on her at all," Artus added from the boulder where he sat.
"I don't think that's what this is about. It seems she just... wants to kill some time..." Aren answered.
Both cadets turned their heads to him with their eyebrows raised the same way.
"Are you being serious right now?..." Olen asked.
"I can hardly believe it myself."
Olen sighed, and his shoulders dropped, until something suddenly hit the ground with a powerful shockwave that threw up dust, and everyone shielded their eyes.
Once the dust settled, Lucia was walking toward them, her outer cloak gone, in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
She held a spear in her hands, the photocytes at its ends already active and shaped into blades of energy.
"Well... good luck..." said Olen, and gave Aren his own activated magic sword; Aren went to meet Lucia.
Eveline pressed her hands to her chest and watched with open worry, while Rexy sat in her lap.
They stopped thirty paces apart.
"I hope you're ready. And remember, do try to entertain me properly," Lucia said loudly.
Aren lowered his face slightly and kept his eyes on the Archon all the while.
And here I am against her again... but this time... I feel different , thought Aren, and then closed his eyes.
I think I'm starting to understand... most of the time I fight so that I won't be killed... I defend myself... against people especially... and all the while I try not to let it get as far as killing anyone... and in that first fight of ours, mine and Lucia's... I was only defending myself and trying to survive... and I certainly didn't want to do her any serious harm.
He opened his eyes, looked at Lucia again and remembered her words.
"Ending your stupid life in the blink of an eye would cost me nothing," she had said once.
There's no reason for me to hold back. Either way... I don't think she'll let herself be killed by accident. And besides...
Aren closed his fists and felt his Pandorum begin to draw in more energy from the Unified Field.
...it's starting to irritate me when people look down on me.
Lucia suddenly felt gooseflesh run across her body, and her eyes went wide.
What the... what was that just now?... she thought, with her eyes on Aren.
Where is an aura that strong coming from... it wasn't there in our first fight... there's no way... don't tell me he was...
Her eyebrows lowered, and her look turned angrier.
...holding back?...
She gripped the spear and threw herself forward with a powerful surge that raised dust behind her, while Aren only put his left hand back and turned half away.