Vol. 2, Ch. 92: Remote Viewing
How does he know?
Panic should have been her first response. But instead, academic curiosity took hold.
She turned her head and observed Kalloway’s expression. The weary look on his face, the way he clasped his hands, suggested this question gnawed at him for some time. “What monster was able to take her down when even the worst of the Varadur couldn’t kill her?”
“Did you always know, professor?"
“No. Resalio and the others refused to tell me more than the minimum amount of information. The rest, I pieced together. I must confess that Serkin and I talked. He can be chatty, but only after he's been drinking, and only with close friends.” He waved his hand toward the ritual. “All this risk, all this effort…you’re doing it for her, aren’t you?”
Did she trust Kalloway with this? Serkin might be comatose right now, but he’d spilled information he shouldn’t have.
She set down her tool for dispersing the mana salt. “Yes, I am, Professor. She’s the reason I’m still alive. Not fulfilling her last wish…if I just walked away, there’d be an emptiness in my soul I couldn’t fill any other way. Not, literally speaking of course, because we have breached that frontier of arcanistry–”
She narrowed her eyes as he chuckled softly, before covering his mouth. “I’m sorry. I know what you meant."
"I'm not happy about Serkin doing that, knowing what he knows…is that imbibement a new activity?”
“New? Only in frequency. Ever since you showed up with the news of Risha’s demise, or so I put together.” He rose from his chair, wincing as he rubbed his back. “Risha drowned out her demons by killing monsters and doing her research. Serkin found it at the bottom of a bottle and researched ways to increase the Awakened’s survival rates. Me? Well…I dream of a day when we retake Arivol. I dream of a day when I can stop putting pictures on that wall.”
He didn’t need to point out for her to know what he meant. “Did Serkin tell you what happened?”
“No. He didn’t tell me that part. But Serkin and her…” he winced, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “If she weren't married to her work…she’d have been married to him. They were close. Closer than I was to Risha, who I viewed as a close academic friend. All professional, mind you.”
“That close, huh?”
“Holding hands during holiday meals. They’d work late together in his office. The way she looked at him, and smiled…Risha never smiled like that for anyone but him,” Kalloway said, sighing contentedly.
Neska saw the way his posture relaxed, that what he said was true, and by his calm tone. “It might be painful for you to know.”
“I don’t care. I need to know that Risha didn’t go quietly, and her efforts weren’t for nothing. I need to know that she had a plan that survived her. Even if it's just you."
She let out a quiet breath, forgetting the slowly stewing skull in the cauldron by the alchemy station. “Mimicoids found her after monsters started infiltrating the front line, in Peolein. They were disguised as Seekers to kill potential threats to the Varadur, including those not fully Awakened. Not gonna lie, it was a great way to cover themselves, because it's what the goddamn Seekers do, anyway, killing all the wrong foes."
All she could picture was the gleeful smile of Marikand as he destroyed her world. "A powerful mimicoid interrupted the ritual Risha was performing and fought her to a standstill. She ruptured her mana core to finish the ritual. She sacrificed herself to fuel my soul core.”
Kalloway’s entire expression deflated, and his posture drooped. “Ever the martyr, Risha. God damn it.”
“You sound like you knew that she was capable of such a thing.”
“Risha was capable of things no witch or any other Class could do. I think she was one of the few Tier five classes on the continent, but kept it secret.” He motioned with his hand rising up and down, as if to speak as though the walls had ears. “But, I guess it’s a moot point, now."
He frowned and tapped his hands on the side of the chair. “So, Risha’s gone. Pas is unaccounted for. But, if you’re not Pas…then who are you, Neska?”
The lamia let out a bitter laugh. “I wish I knew, Professor. Risha likely kept that from me because she didn’t want me to know. Like I was her hidden prodigy. Or a sister. Or a daughter, even.”
Kalloway’s face scrunched, as if he’d swallowed something bitter. “Something I said?”
“Risha tried to have a child. Once.” Neska’s eyes widened, but he motioned for calm. “But…I don’t think you’re her.”
“Why?”
“Her child died at birth…eighteen years ago. And she was never the same after that.”
Kalloway looked at her, peering at her with concern. “Are you all right? You're all stiff as a board right now, Neska.”
Not only that, but she was digging her claws into her palms so hard that she drew blood. And she had no idea why. "It's nothing. I just never saw any pictures in the potion shop she set up. She walled herself away from the world.”
She'd never said a word about it. Not one. It was scary how secretive the witch could be.
Kalloway let out a grunt of indignation. “Always, always private. She'd never talk about herself, not very often anyway, or who the father was. I'd say Serkin, maybe...and then the shame of such a loss caused both of them never to be able to get close again".
"Is there anything about her you know for certain?" she asked.
"I know she grew up in the Anderfals. That’s actually not that far from Peolein, maybe a few days' trip north? It’s beautiful up there. Or, it was, if the Varadur hadn’t defaced those forests of ancient oak, elms, and the terra trees that can stand tall at almost a thousand feet.”
She shook her head. “I’ve never seen a tree that size.”
“When we reclaim this world from the monsters, you should visit it. It’s a sight you need to see at least once in your lifetime. The tree's roots go deep into the earth, drawing mana into their bark and acting as organic mana cores. The elves treat them as sacred. I don’t think the monsters do, however.”
He looked at Neska again, closely. Then he looked at Syrona, currently dozing on his books. “I just had an absurd idea. I know it sounds crazy even for a world full of magic, but hear me out.”
Judging by the chill running down her spine into her tail, she very much did not want to hear this one out. “When I first saw Syrona do that, I was reminded that Pas would do that and perch on the same spot on my books, as if to annoy me. That snake moved for no witch, indeed. And then I see her do the same thing, nestled on my books.”
An urge in the back of her mind told her to stop this conversation before he said something she might regret hearing. She glanced over the cauldron and pulled up the now-cleaned bone of the skull. "I think it's soup,” she said in a moment of dark humor.
“Neska…I think a piece of Risha lives within you…in a way.” She turned to see Kalloway's expectant expression. “Everything you do reminds me very much of the way she did things. She taught you, trained you, everything clicks for rituals for you like it’s muscle memory. How much salt to mana ratio do you need for a two-point ritual?”
“Twenty to one mixture,” she answered instinctively. “But I just know that from a book.”
Yet, Kalloway still was puzzling over something, his index finger to his lips. “You said something down in the tunnels. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now it's got me wondering. When you stopped to say something to the fallen child. Do you remember where you heard it?”
“No. It was something I said by reflex. It's just like all those other flashes; it's part of who I was. Small pieces of the far greater puzzle. But, why?”
“The last time…” he let out a sigh, hands in his uniform pockets. “The last time I heard that phrase was from a priestess of Ouroboros. A friend of Risha’s, actually.”
She had no idea how to read that one. “Ouroboros has worshippers?”
“All the Divines do. Whether they hear us or not is up in the air. Despite my efforts in the witch class, I don’t actively look for their existence. I trust the magic. And I trust my judgment to use it in ways that help others."
“What was her name?” Neska asked, curious.
“Oh, I don’t remember now… It's been a while." He glanced at the stewing cauldron. “I do miss Risha. But with her gone three years…I suppose the blow is softened. Somewhat.”
A quiet moment settled in. Maybe he wasn’t hurting as much as Serkin, but the loss of such a colossal colleague had taken its toll. “She burned them all, Professor. Except for Marikand, who survived. She showed him exactly what a determined witch can do, even against vastly superior forces,” Neska said in a low tone. “Let’s honor that by finding Serkin’s would-be killer, shall we? I think we’re done boiling this bird.”
He wore a grim smile as they stepped over to the cauldron, with her helping him lift the large skull out of the boiling water. All the organic material had sloughed off, and it was clean…or as clean as it was going to be. “Yep, it’s soup,” he said, fighting the urge to gag from the fumes emanating from the cauldron. “I’ll need to sanitize this cauldron with something strong to make sure no residue remains. And never, never mix the cauldron you eat with the cauldron you do potion work in.”
Kalloway wrapped the skull gently in towels to wick away moisture, then regarded the fallen griffin. “I am rather annoyed that Marisano’s men murdered such a beautiful creature. I really hope this was coerced, and not a voluntary action, because it won’t end well for him. Now, let’s bring this skull to the circle. We’ll split the ritual so we can each view the imagery.”
“So, like what my friends and I did with a tri-point circle?”
“This is a bit more advanced. We’re both technically casting it. The energy flow is more evenly distributed, and a lesser burden on each caster.”
He set the skull in the small rune circle, centered within the ritual trace, and took position by one focal point. The outer shape looked like an eye, with two sharp corners. “Rituals follow some rules. The runes are the primary means of controlling it. Will and intent are other means to modify it. What’s also important is the number of people working on it.”
He gestured to the ritual. “A witch can cover one or more inflection points. You should always use several witches or other mana sources that can divide evenly into the number of points.”
“So, for a two-point ritual…”
“One or two witches. Or multiples of that,” he added. “A four-point ritual could be done by one, two, or four witches, and so on. This ensures even mana dispersal so that the ritual performs as intended.”
He grasped the skull with one hand, closing his eyes. “Not sure what we’ll get out of this, but Jurik did have the correct assessment. We might be able to see what the creature observed in the last day before it was killed. Hard to pinpoint.”
“I narrowed the rune power by adjusting the solution. In theory, it should only give us a band of an hour of death.” She showed him the calculations. “It’s just arcanistry.”
“You can also underpower the rune, and the whole ritual can collapse,” he warned. “But, your theory is sound. Let’s begin.”
It was much like last time, when she held the assassin's dagger. She felt her awareness of her surroundings in the room fade, like a reflection disrupted by ripples on a pond.
The disorientation passed, and a blur of darkness surrounded her. The world was bobbing–no, she was. Her head moved on its own, looking left and right as she traversed a dense forest. She heard two men talking nearby, torchlight flickering
None of these movements of this body were hers. It felt like a pictogram. She realized she must be seeing what the griffin saw in its final moments. But the sounds surrounding it were distorted.
“Steady, Neska. We’re watching the griffins' point of view. Just let the mana flow, don’t try to view elsewhere.” Kalloway’s voice rang inside her head, but in a calm, instructive tone. “Is this right? Hadley said the girl told them it was early morning.”
"Unknown. This is odd." She didn't say the words so much as think them, and the professor let out a small sound of acknowledgment.
She continued to watch the griffin led by one of two men. Both of them were cursing and muttering to each other, and the sound slowly came into focus.
“Gotta get rid of this thing, the old man nearly saw the damn griffin. You were careless.”
Neska saw that the man leading was the blonde who had been described earlier. The muscle. The one who likely did the deed.
They led the griffin to a clearing. She could feel the griffin’s growing anxiety, and primitive thoughts rolled through her mind, separate from her own. Where were his mates? Would he return to the aerie after this? He didn’t like the shadow man. The one that muddled his thoughts and made him do things.
Not my thoughts. The griffin’s. Interesting. They are far more intelligent than I even gave them credit for, and I already knew they were smart. She watched the taller, scrawny one hold the torch aloft. One with a thin face, dark hair, and dark eyes. He looked almost ghastly in the light.
“We’re here.”
“About time.” A third voice joined the discussion, this one from the clearing. A humanoid walking on digitigrade legs and sharp claws digging into the grass and soft earth. A large hole had already been dug with freshly loosened dirt mounded next to it. “I need to do one last thing.”
It was the same person she’d pursued all the way across campus; it had to be him. “Would you two mind giving me a moment?”
“What? Why? Don't tell me you're sentimental about this bird?”
“No. Just ensuring someone gets a message. Or, I’m just talking to myself.” The man rolled his eyes behind his familiar black mask, shaped to accommodate a muzzle or snout, now that she was looking closer. The two other men faded into the distance, giving each other wary glances.
“You know, the thing about witches? They’re predictable.” The voice was different. darker, angrier now.
What is he doing? Neska had the same confused thought as the griffin did, as the man patted its head gently. “How predictable? Well, I figure that if my charm is right, your little ritual to try and track me down will bring you to right about this spot. Might be divination, might be some scent or visual tracker, but the outcome is the same. You won’t find me.”
In his hands, he dangled a shard of lavender crystal, shaped in a hexagonal prism with faceted ends on either side, glowing with a dim light. The chain securing it was attached to a metal casing wrapped around the crystal like a birdcage. “This is a good luck charm of mine to throw divining abilities off. Doesn’t always work, but when it does, I can leave a message for an audience of one.”
He knows we’re watching. But this is in the past! How could he have predicted this? Neska couldn’t look away; currently, the griffin was pawing at the ground, the assassin speaking as if making a recording.
The man let out a soft laugh, hands on his hips. “Brave little snake. You gave me a good run across campus. You sure put that new body to work last night. After all, you’re just climbing back up the evolution ladder, again, so it comes off like old hat.”
He leaned in, the griffin trilling in confusion. “It didn’t take long for me to figure out what happened. Knowing Risha, she put all her hopes on you, Neska. She must have left you fumbling in the dark, without any answers, just like she always did with her closely guarded secrets. Otherwise, you’d know who I was. You'd know what she did, the lies she told. Her role in the birth of the Varadur is hardly that of an innocent bystander, if you haven't figured that out by now."
How does he know me? That's impossible, unless he was aware of me even before the attack on Serkin, or Risha, even! She forced herself to remain calm, though she was tempted to cut the mana feed and end the ritual early.
"Neska, don't listen to him. He must have corrupted our ritual with a lure. Not common, but certainly doable," Kalloway's voice rang out.
The figure let out a long, drawn-out chuckle. “I bet you’re wondering why. Why am I doing this? It’s not anything you did; it’s what she did. It's the lie everyone perpetuated. What Kalloway, Serkin, Harvine, and others did. All those sycophants saw Risha as the second coming of a Divine, and refused to tell the truth to everyone, or overlooked her sins. She didn't care who got hurt. She didn't care what depravity her magic brought her to. She only cared about covering her lies."
She cared more deeply than you can ever know. Neska could do nothing but watch as the man pulled out a dagger, cleaning the gap between his claws.
“You know what the worst part is, Neska? She chose you over me. You, whom she secreted away, hiding you from the world, because she was afraid of what you were. Meanwhile, I bled, fought, and endured for years, and was cast aside! After everything I did, the pain I endured for her, I was her greatest failure!"
His entire body quivered in fury. "A failure! But I was her first...and in the end, I'll be her last failure. So when I’m done dismantling Risha’s legacy and use the power she chose to hide rather than utilize, I’ll get rid of all the Varadur. I’ll ensure the Awakened have a future after this, one of their choosing! Humanity will have to accept this inconvenient outcome… or be dealt with."
The griffin knew something was wrong, yet remained rooted to the spot, as glaring green eyes rooted the poor creature to the spot: a [Baleful Eye] ability.
The dagger gleamed in the moonlight, and the figures' gaze spoke of impending doom. "But you won't be alive to see it."
With one blurring swipe, the figure sliced the griffin’s throat. Neska felt the bite of the blade against her own throat in a gruesome phantom pain, as the griffin flailed.
She felt clawed talons rake against flesh and heard a distant scream–the Marisano family member had been too close. She didn’t see anything else–only the dark earth rising to meet her. One last haunting taunt was all she heard before the world faded to black.
"Risha doomed the world for love, alright. She doomed it for you."