Chapter 17
ARIENNE
She had gotten used to the smell of the catacombs.
Sidestepping the faint ghosts, she followed the path through the passageways as Noam directed her from her mind.
Arienne was now sure the horse seller’s claim about the piece of glass warding off ghosts was a lie—the ghosts continued to repeat their last actions, not caring at all about her glowing orb.
But it was also the only thing illuminating this dark underground cemetery, so she was grateful for it nonetheless.
A few times, a ghost would enter the room in her mind, but whether it was because of Noam or because she was on guard, they quickly left without her having to kick them out.
But whenever they did so, regaining their form when they entered before melting back into their cold graves, the dead left behind a warm aura of formless memories in her mind, like layers of silently fallen snow. Arienne did not dislike this feeling.
She heard singing in her mind. An unfamiliar scale, and an unfamiliar language. Songs Noam must’ve heard growing up in Ebria. The baby had stopped crying, but Noam continued on.
Still not completely dry from her fall into the river, Arienne tried not to shiver. She did not want to seem fearful in the presence of so many ghosts.
“Although, it’s not like anyone is watching,” she murmured, and came to a stop.
Set into the wall next to her was a tall arch about twice her height with two large stone doors.
She could tell a hole had been knocked through an old brick wall to make these doors.
The arch was made of marble, and above it was the wide-open eye insignia of the Office of Truth and an engraved sign in Imperial.
“‘Power Generator Chamber,’” Arienne read aloud. So, this was where Lysandros had stored the generator he had brought to Mersia. “All right, Fractica. Let’s see what your room looks like.”
Her hand was stopped in midair before it even reached the door.
The space in front of the door undulated, runes appearing and then vanishing in the air.
Wasting no time, Arienne recited the code of unraveling that Noam had given her earlier.
Two years ago, she had done the same thing in the basement of the Imperial Academy, melting away the wards in order to get to Eldred.
When she exhaled, her breath sparkled violet and melted into the rippling aura. The runes vanished, and one of the doors cracked open ever so slightly with a creak so unexpectedly soft that it was comical coming from such an impressive slab of rock.
If Fractica were not functional and had stopped providing Power to this door, this protective layer would not have needed to be unraveled. So, even as it dressed up in trash and wandered the ruins of Danras, it was still following its original orders to Power the city.
As she stood in front of the Power generator chamber, an old horror that she thought she had gotten over was bubbling up to the surface.
To the Empire, sorcerers were just raw material for generators, and Arienne had been repulsed by the idea of being turned into a generator ever since she first entered the Division of Sorcery at the Imperial Academy.
Fractica, a century after the fall of Danras, was still providing Power to a ruin while wandering around in search of something it would never find.
Maybe the Power generator had gone insane. Maybe all of them did, in the end.
Arienne hesitated for a moment before entering the chamber, unsure of what she was going to find there, but she had no choice. On this side of the door, there were only ghosts who didn’t know they were dead. Inside the room, there would be a stairway up to the surface.
“And on that surface prowls a mad Power generator,” she murmured as she pushed open the door.
In most Power generator chambers, the door should open into a corridor of pure white light.
But this corridor was as dark as the catacombs, and there were holes in the walls.
In the middle, there was a pile of something—the light from her glass orb showed it was an old sorcerer-engineer robe, and inside were a few melted bones.
Arienne took a deep breath and turned the robe over. She could still read the name embroidered in silver thread on the chest.
Engineer Junior Grade Noam.
So, Noam had been here when Danras fell. The Noam in her mind was small and meek, but he seemed more miserable here where only his bones remained. But why had he died in the corridor to the chamber instead of on the stairway to the surface?
“Oh!” shouted Arienne, understanding in a flash. “The older skeletons in the catacombs were not melted like this…”
She sat down against a wall and opened the door to the room in her mind.
Noam was still singing the same song, and Tychon was fast asleep.
Aron had his ears perked up, listening to the song.
Noam stopped singing when Arienne entered and said in amazement, “I knew Tychon was a Power generator made from a baby, but I never knew this was what he looked like.”
“Obviously. You’ve only seen him as a lead sarcophagus.”
Noam gently brushed a strand of hair away from Tychon’s closed eyes.
“I wonder who his mother was?”
Arienne noticed his edges blurring. She shouted, “Hey! Wake up!”
Noam was startled. Tychon opened his eyes.
“Why are you shouting? You woke the baby.”
“If you don’t keep a good grip on your mind, you start to get blurry again. So, try to remember. Why were you in the passageway?”
Noam paused. “I thought the catacombs would be safer, so I was trying to leave the chamber on that side…”
The catacombs would be safer? Arienne then recalled that they were mostly intact, unlike the city on the surface. She waited for him to elaborate.
He blinked. “I really don’t remember.”
“Try!”
“It’s not easy; you wouldn’t remember something from a hundred years ago either!”
Not having lived long enough, Arienne didn’t know if she would. But she suspected it wasn’t a question of time. Even if he’d recovered his form in her mind, his mind could still be trapped in a century-old fog. How long could this man survive in this room?
Trying a different tactic, Arienne said gently, “All right. If it’s too hard to think, take your time. Just rest in this room, though do let me know if you remember anything about what really happened here…”
Noam gazed at her for a moment before speaking.
“I died.”
“Yes.”
“I have nowhere to go.”
“I know. So I’m going to take care of you.” Arienne hesitated before adding, “I’m all alone in this country. I don’t want to see you blurring.”
Noam became a little clearer.
“All right,” Noam started, “I don’t know why, but I keep remembering this one thing. There’s an old prophecy. Although Lysandros said it was just some provincial superstition, like the god I believed in.”
Arienne looked back at him intently. “What prophecy?”
“That the apprentice of the Grim King would become King of Mersia.”
“Eldred had an apprentice?”
Noam gasped and covered his mouth. “You can’t just say his name like that … People hate that. I said it at an eatery once and the owner chased me out into the street and screamed at me.”
Arienne scoffed, unable to keep it in. “Don’t worry about that. The only person who can banish you here is me. And I killed Eldred. I can say his name whenever I want.”
“What are you talking about? It was the Grand Inquisitor who killed El … the Grim King.”
She grinned. “Only the first time.” Her grin faded as she thought of how no sorcerer who fell into the hands of the Empire would ever be allowed to die properly. “So, Engineer Noam,” she continued, “tell me more about this prophecy. Who is the apprentice of the Grim King?”
Noam’s eyes grew wide. “Isn’t it you?”
Outside the room, sitting by Noam’s remains in the crumbling corridor to the Power generator chamber, Arienne felt her heart beat faster.
“Me? What made you think that?”
“The tattoos around your neck, aren’t they the mark of the Grim King or something?”
Her hand reflexively reached for her neck. “These are t’laran. They’re Arlander clan markings.”
Noam tilted his head. “Arland … That’s the small country in the northwest, right? In Lontaria. Not yet part of the Empire.”
Arienne didn’t like him using the word “yet,” but history had shown him to be correct after all.
“It’s only been a little over twenty years since we’ve been annexed.”
Noam looked confused. “Then you should be at the Imperial Academy, or serving as a sorcerer-engineer. What are you doing in this place?”
“Arland may still be under Imperial rule, but I’m not.”
Noam took a step back. “Wait, who are you? What are you? What do you have to do with the Grim King?”
“Nothing.” She sighed. “I just knew him, briefly. That’s all.”
“Don’t lie. This room was made with his sorcery. It’s exactly as I heard it from Grand Inquisitor Lysandros.”
He wasn’t wrong. Eldred had taught Arienne how to create a room in her mind, mostly so she could use it to smuggle him out of the Imperial Academy. In this sense, perhaps she was his apprentice.
But Mersia was no longer a country; it was a wasteland.
There would be no king where there were no people.
As it often was with prophecies, this one had not come to pass.
In her beloved adventure books, prophecies were realized no matter the obstacle, but reality was often less reliable than stories.
Whether he was aware of her thoughts or not, Noam said, “I don’t know what the prophecy really means either.” He made a circle over his head with his hand. “But the smell of the Grim King is in this room…”
Eldred had been defeated by the Empire 170 years ago, and the Star of Mersia had laid waste to the country seventy years after that. Arienne smiled. “How could you know how he smelled? You were born long after his time.”
Noam blanched. “All of the dead of Mersia know. We have feared the Grim King’s smell from time immemorial. The catacombs, there was … Ah!”
He bolted upright, making Arienne step back in surprise.
“I remember why I was going to the catacombs!”
Tychon, who had been nodding off, started to cry once more.