The edges of the portrait creaked and shifted as Mr. Gray stared at his own image displayed magnificently between the shelves.
“I appreciate the intent here,” Valens broke the silence a mont after. “Keeping to a certain air of mystery. I have found in my ti here that almost everyone likes this sort of arrangent, but I’m not sure if that is entirely plausible, as it seems like you’re trying to leave in the dark for no particular reason. We don’t know each other. What makes you so sure that I’ll keep my promise?”
“Sure? I’m not sure at all!” Mr. Gray shook his head. “A word is a fleeting thing, and I know for a fact that it would be pointless even if I were to force you to give a Divine Oath. And though you’re trying not to show it, I’m aware that you’re resenting for putting you through that little test of mine.”
“Oh?” Valens arched an eyebrow. “It’s good that you’re aware. Still not an answer to my question, though.”
“I’ll give you an answer,” Mr. Gray said, his blue eyes narrowing at him. “You will destroy this portrait when it’s ti, because so long as the anchors stand strong, they will keep trying to open that dungeon, and the only way to get rid of that terrible thing is to snap the threads feeding it.”
“What dungeon?” Valens frowned.
“The one underneath the Golden Cathedral of lton,” Mr. Gray said. “The one that can only be opened from the Underworld. The Ninth Core Dungeon of the world.”
He began pacing around the room while Valens stood there, baffled by the notion that there was a giant dungeon residing underneath the very Cathedral in which that unstable Bishop lived.
Anchors? Like the one we found in the lair of the Weeping Horror? This portrait… is feeding it? What is happening here?
“Funny, isn’t it?” Mr. Gray laughed. “The Nine Gates of the Ancient Era are now hidden in broad daylight, under the cathedrals of the Divine Orders. Or why else would those greedy Caligians share the knowledge of their Gates with the others? They knew it was only a matter of ti before the floodgates were opened. They knew Haven’s Reach would need people who could stand against the dwellers. A devious plot, isn’t it? Sha that the Ancients have begun stirring before they could get ready.”
Inferno tugged at Valens’s mind as he snapped his gaze at the portrait. It looked old. Brittle, even, save for the handso face painted upon its surface. How could it resist the flas of his Inferno?
“Naive,” Mr. Gray said, sighing. “You think you could undo one of Resni’s bindings with re flas? You two might share similar origins, but compared to him, you’re still a child, Mr. Kosthal, who has yet to realize his potential. You ought to be patient. Yes, a most important virtue many a man lack nowadays.”
“I might be naive, but I don’t see how this is my problem,” Valens said, scowling deeply. “Threats upon the world, you say? Plots being sched around things that are hidden from the eyes of the public, you an? I don’t care much for them. I have nothing to do with this place.”
“There it is!” Mr. Gray said, and like a ghost phasing across the hall, he appeared before Valens with his lips stretched into a wide smile and blue eyes glinting madly. He clasped Valens by the arms and stared deep into his eyes. “That confidence! Those cold eyes! Now you look like one of them!”
Inferno’s flas blazed alive as Valens felt the crushing grip of Mr. Gray around his arms. But before he could do anything, the raging spell disintegrated into pitiful embers that scattered about him as sothing muted the frequencies.
Sothing that felt sickeningly familiar.
Ah…
Mr. Gray smiled, rolling the sleeves of his shirt, revealing a fine, simple-looking bracelet around his left arm. It had a tallic hue, but against the tailcoat and the fair face of the man, it almost looked unworthy of him.
Yet Valens couldn’t tear his eyes off of it. He felt its bite across the nape of his neck, down near his heart, and deep into the Resonance. His skin prickled as the frequencies quieted around him until he was left deaf in between the giant shelves.
How can this be?
“You know this, don’t you?” Mr. Gray said, fondling the bracelet with a forlorn look. “The bane of your existence, created by none other than your own kind. Do you want to learn the reason behind it? Why the Surgemasters have tried everything, even going as far as to silence the whole world, before finally accepting the inevitable and abandoning the Haven’s Reach?”
That bracelet… it was made from roottal.
How? Is this related to the First of the Magi? A Surgemaster created the roottal, and forced all the Magi to suffer the consequences? What is happening here?
“Then you have no other choice but to continue this path of truth,” Mr. Gray said, removing his hands and stepping back to allow Valens a mont of breather. “Even if that ans destroying this farce of a world in the process. Now go.”
“What?” Valens shook himself out of the stupor and glanced incredulously at Mr. Gray. “After all the things you have just told … You want to go? Without saying anything? Tell ! Speak!”
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The portrait creaked once again, the edges of it rattling against the cold, stone wall. When Valens squinted at it, he saw the eyes of the portrait were staring at him, and in their depths were dark tendrils squirming as if impatient.
“The seal must be undone for to be free of this torture,” Mr. Gray said, grinding his teeth at the sight. “The seal must be undone for to speak of the matters of the past right before I get the rest I’ve earned suffering all these centuries! Go, Surgemaster. I’ve already said too much. You’re not welco here anymore.”
“Wait—”
“I said go!”
Long tendrils oozed from the eyes of the portrait, pouring out in a cloud of darkish fog that covered the room in no ti. Valens felt the cold touch of the shadows around his arms, his legs, and his chest through the tear across the shirt. He tried to fight back, but there were no frequencies here, nothing other than a deep silence that answered his call.
Then ca a gentle tap on his back.
Valens blinked as his innards constricted by a sudden force that stabbed at his very soul. The Void’s touch fell heavy over his shoulders before the frequencies rushed at him—thousands and millions of them speaking all together at once, filling the blank of his mind with their familiarity.
Before he realized the aning in each one of them, Valens found himself staring at a stone door, with the young servant waiting at the side. He bowed when he saw him and apologized in a voice that Valens couldn’t register through the hum of echoing frequencies.
One thing was clear, though.
He had been flung out of the Cursed Rift, and was now back in the mansion.
……..
Valens didn’t know how he rushed back to the apartnt. He used the carriage that brought him to this giant mansion and was silent throughout the ride. He didn’t have a chance to say a word to Cel, nor was he in a state of mind to have a chat about the things he’d just gone through.
Strange.
It was too strange!
Coming across that simple bracelet forced the mories of a ti he thought he was done with. That strangling silence creeping slowly around him, forcing the frequencies to go quiet, the Inquisition’s hold around the Magi, that rope that was prepared for him before he managed to find his way to this world, the reason why the First of the Magi created that vile tal…
They all blurred into his mind in a ss, and Valens wasn’t sure he could pick them apart anymore. It almost felt like the boundaries between the two worlds collided in that exact mont and showed him that though he was in a different world, he wasn’t still free of the past he had left behind.
The First of the Magi was a Surgemaster. He had sealed the Void and created the vile alloy that was the roottal.
Why?
Why would they do such a thing?
And yet the gemstones worked in that cell. The ancient ritual he found in the old texts managed to cross that seal.
That couldn’t have been a coincidence.
If they could seal even the Void itself, then what made them stop from erasing everything related to the connected worlds? They could’ve burnt the old texts, couldn’t they?
The only thing that made sense to him was that there had been chaos among the Surgemasters.
Groups of different opinions. Surely not every one of them had willingly accepted being bereft of their abilities. Surely there had been so that argued, or even rebelled against it.
Was that the reason how Valens found that ritual in the old texts?
Pain crawled from the back of his neck, carrying the promise of a long headache. His head hurt from trying to understand the aning of these things.
Who was Mr. Gray, and why did he have a roottal bracelet around his arm?
Worse, if he had that thing, chances were there were others in this world that had access to the roottal.
There was also the Core Dungeon underneath the Golden Cathedral. The man said it was a Gate, sealed by a number of anchors by none other than Resni himself, the famous Mage who established the boundaries of Haven’s Reach that kept it safe against the Broken Lands.
Turned out he had ties with Surgemasters, or even better, he could be a Surgemaster himself.
He was betrayed, Valens rembered. Master Archibald had told him the story of the Five. The captain, Damon the undying warrior, had rebelled against the very group he himself established, gone against the mission by himself. Butchered everyone, but not before the boundaries had been already constructed.
And then there was the matter of Evercrest. A woman who was going through her own Trial that involved bringing chaos to lton—or to the whole world, for that matter. How was she related to these matters?
Endless Mist… Endless Mist… I don’t fucking know anything!
Valens paused with one hand over the door. A storm raged in his mind, and his heart refused to settle down.
I can’t… I just can’t…
With a deep breath, he was about to let the Apathy take control and silence the chaotic waves of his mind when the door of the apartnt creaked gently open.
“Mr. Kosthal?” Selin peeked from the slit. “You’re here.”
“I—” Valens cleared his throat. “How did you know?”
“I heard the steps,” Selin said, smiling nervously. “It gets silent in the evenings here, and you can hear almost anything in the apartnt. I an, anything…”
Valens glanced at her. “I guess you can.”
“Well, co in, then!” Selin said, beaming. “I can’t wait to hear about the ball. How was it? Did you follow the steps I’ve taught you?”
“Eh, I tried…”
“You did?” Selin looked doubtful as she took Valens’s coat. “For so reason I can’t bring myself to believe you.”
Valens paused at her face. She looked so innocent, so calm, that for a second he couldn’t help the smile creeping along his lips. It was then that with a defeated sigh he admitted, “I missed a step here and there, but it wasn’t my fault. They should redesign those dresses. The won have it too hard here.”
“Fashion!” Selin chuckled, then froze when her eyes fell over the long gash across Valens’s shirt. “This… What happened?”
“It was nothing,” Valens said, shaking his head. “I think one of those fancy chandeliers caught on my way back to the carriage. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“But the blood!” Selin argued. “Your whole shirt is stained!”
“Did you forget? I’m a Healer,” Valens said, the smile on his lips straining. “I’ve dealt with it. There is truly nothing to worry about.”
“I’ll go get you a glass of water,” Selin said, looking confused and alard at the sa ti. “You should rest. Yes, rest…”
Selin, thankfully, went to the kitchen rather than battering him with more questions, so Valens poured himself over to the couch in the main hall, too spent in body and mind to entertain a longer conversation.
Is this my life now? Am I going to keep eting mad and strange people all the ti?
He could use so ti off from all of it, but then, there ca a reminder from his chest cavity in the form of a rhythm that sounded familiar.
The Gate of Surges is opening…
Right.
Today was Friday, and that ant he would take part in that strange Assembly once again.
..........
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