038.001

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Interlude

Irulon

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The world was a strange place. Or perhaps it was reality itself that was strange. The world seemed so much smaller than she had once thought. With Alyssa, she had empirical evidence of other worlds. Theoretically, she had even been to another world, though having been locked in stasis at the time, she hadn’t even breathed a single breath of another world’s air. A missed opportunity to be sure.

There was something wrong with the world. Irulon didn’t know what, even now. But ever since she was a child, she had this idea in the back of her mind that something was just… off. It had been an obsession of hers ever since she could remember knowing what obsessions were. Without anything to compare it to, figuring out just what was wrong would have been impossible.

Had it something to do with magic? Magic had been around for as long as there were humans to wield it, as far as Irulon knew. The first arcanist was said to have received inspiration directly from Tenebrael. Through a dream, perhaps. That would make the most sense given recent events. The form of magic had changed over the centuries of its use. The current use of spell cards was actually fairly recent. A brilliant arcanist found a way to compress the spell patterns down to the size of a card only a few hundred years ago using a formula of ink and paper along with minor alterations to the patterns themselves. Prior to that, every spell cast had been using the much larger designs that had to be drawn into the ground itself. Arcanists would spend hours, days, or even weeks carving out their designs. Villages of the past tended to have small fire pits with permanent runes etched inside just to keep the town fire going. Some might still have such relics.

If there was a problem there, Irulon couldn’t see it. Magic had been given to mortals by Tenebrael. From there, mortals had found more efficient ways to use it. Everything sounded fine, so…

Perhaps it was magic itself. Maybe something about it had simply felt unnatural from the start. According to Alyssa, Earth had no magic to speak of. Given all other worlds were supposedly overseen by a being similar to Tenebrael, she doubted that any other theoretical world had magic either. Not unless the angels had gone rogue as Tenebrael apparently had.

Monsters fell under the same category as magic. Obviously they hadn’t been given to humans the way magic had, but if Alyssa was right, they were a unique feature of this world. They weren’t what Irulon had found off about the world as a child—she really hadn’t had much interaction with monsters prior to Brakkt bringing the draken home—but they were certainly a factor now.

The problem could have been neither element.

Thinking back, trying to identify the first instance of her obsession was impossible. She hadn’t had her companion at the time and thus lacked the perfect memory that she had now. But perhaps it had been around the time that she had started truly worshiping Tenebrael.

Nobody liked to talk to her as a child. She was the princess. That was intimidating enough on its own. Demonstrating talent as an arcanist at a young age only further pushed people away. They said she was blessed. Holy. A child of Tenebrael. And refused to speak to her unless absolutely necessary.

The only people who had were men of the cloth. Clergymen. Tenebrael’s most ‘devout’…

At first, Irulon had enjoyed the attention and the discussions. Talking with someone was nice on its own. Discovering more about the world she lived in didn’t hurt. However, that enjoyment had turned to scorn once she realized that they were mostly using her to rub elbows with her father and otherwise elevating their legitimacy through having a princess at their side. Tenebrael didn’t need proselytizers. Tenebrael didn’t need mass worship. The Festival was for the benefit of humanity. Not the other way around. Everyone would greet Tenebrael in death regardless of what they did while alive.

So she had cut ties, branding her face as a sign of devotion before isolating herself further from any who called themselves preachers.

One thing was certain, she had come out of the discussions with the preachers as a more powerful arcanist, capable of using higher ranked spells. At the time, she had thought she had simply matured, grew older and more powerful as arcanists tended to do. Now, she had to wonder if the discussions hadn’t spurred her growth.

Irulon looked over to Alyssa. The girl was powerful. Theoretically of a higher Rank than six. And she had seen Tenebrael. Physically seen her. Touched her. Interacted and spoke with her. Irulon had to wonder if she might be the same if she ever saw Tenebrael. It was true that Irulon had seen Tenebrael through the medium of the phone, but there was little doubt that seeing her on a flat screen couldn’t compare to witnessing Tenebrael’s glory in full.

In addition to being powerful, Alyssa was also asleep. Completely and totally asleep.

Irulon stood from her desk in her quarters, walked around to where Alyssa had been writing down everything she knew about souls, and gently poked the girl in the cheek.

She didn’t even stir.

Shaking her head, Irulon looked down at the paper the girl was half-lying upon. Shimmying it out from under her arms, Irulon looked it over. It was disappointingly yet not unexpectedly blank. Not completely. There were a few lines up at the top. But only those few.

Souls appeared as abstract shapes. Souls interacted with nearby souls, sharing and taking pieces of themselves. After being removed from a body, a soul could be crystallized through an unknown process for an unknown purpose. Everything sapient seemed to possess exactly one soul, except for Irulon.

All information that Irulon already knew from talking with Alyssa. The poor girl had been struggling for a good three hours, trying to think of more to write down before finally falling asleep.

Irulon didn’t bother waking her up. There was no need to. From experiments Irulon had already performed on herself, she knew that the two souls within her body were far more entangled than they once were. Disentangling them without causing harm to either would be a long and arduous project. Perhaps that could be bypassed should Alyssa regain Tenebrael’s power, but even then, Irulon would be nervous about having her simply dive inside and pull one of them out. If doing so resulted in the remaining soul becoming desynchronized with the body, Alyssa would not be able to fix the problem on her own.

When the time came, all the pieces would have to be in place well in advance. Any spell that Irulon couldn’t cast herself would need a detailed set of instructions. There would have to be contingencies in place as well, complete with conditions for their use. There couldn’t be any interruptions, whether that be from the Juno Federation, infected, monster attacks, the Astral Authority, or even angels. It would be difficult to plan around the latter half of that list, but steps could be taken to mitigate risks.

Eyes moving away from Alyssa, Irulon looked to the staff that leaned up against the wall. From Irulon’s perspective, Alyssa had pulled the staff out of the air while engaged in a conversation with nothing at all. That obviously wasn’t true. Irulon had managed to piece together the missing portions of the conversation even before Alyssa filled in the details. But that was what she had seen.

Picking up the staff, Irulon looked it over. It was the same staff, just as unnatural as when she had first seen it. Alyssa said she felt a warmth while touching it. Irulon felt something, but whatever it was, she doubted that it was as intense as when Alyssa picked it up. Warmth? Maybe. Not in the sense that a flame provided warmth, however. Perhaps it was just an illusion of the mind. Metals normally felt far colder than wood, leather, or cloth. The lack of that chill might just be the trick required for Irulon to feel as if it were warmth.

Hard to say.

But the feel of the golden metal was far from the only strange thing about the staff.

She didn’t have a background in smithing. However, since first seeing it, Irulon had visited nearly every blacksmith, goldsmith, and silversmith in Lyria to observe how they worked and the products they created. She had suspected it before, but knew with absolute certainty now that it could not have been forged through any process that smiths, human or elf, use. There were no forging marks, no stress on the metal leftover from cooling or heating, no remnants of impact, carving, or filing. In Irulon’s admittedly inexpert opinion, it was far more likely that the staff had grown as if it were a living creature. It obviously was not a living creature.

Which only served to further the divine nature of the tool.

~We’ll have to test with it soon. See if we can get a glimpse of other worlds.~

“We have other things to worry about,” Irulon said, speaking softly to keep from waking Alyssa. “More immediate problems.”

~Judging by the information we received, our situation is hardly immediate. We have at least two months before we have to decide on a course of action, let alone actually act.~

“Are weeks not mere minutes to long-lived creatures? I’m surprised that you aren’t more concerned than I am.”

~Time is time, even to someone such as your father. The future will come as it comes. It is our memories that turn events into ages or instants.~

“Hm. Regardless, I would prefer for our situation to be resolved as soon as possible, one way or another. It weighs on my mind and distracts me from other important matters.”

~I am mostly aware of what goes on in your mind. To say you have been distracted would be putting it lightly.~

“My point remains unchanged,” Irulon said, placing the staff back where she had got it. Soon. Soon she would test with it as her companion had mentioned. With it, she might just discover what about her world bothered her. What was different about it compared to Earth and any other world that might be out there.

She might find out exactly what had spurred her obsession with other worlds.

But until then…

“What would you do if you had a body of your own?” Irulon asked as she took a seat on the edge of her bed. Leaning back, she clasped her hands over her chest and waited for her companion’s response.

~I suppose that depends. Human body or something more akin to my old dragon body?~

“You want your dragon body back?”

~It would be nice to be what I once was, but if I had it, I would likely feast and then hibernate until I got hungry again. Not exactly the best life, I can tell you that from personal experience. But aside from the illness that overcame me, it wasn’t the worst life. It was far less stressful of an existence than you have had, I can say that much. And I do enjoy a lack of stress.~

“I am still unsure as to whether you do want it back or not.”

~Irrelevant, I suppose. I’ll be happy to get whatever I get. Keep in mind, I skipped over dying once already thanks to you. If this is where I perish more permanently, I won’t have regrets.~

“Don’t know if I can say the same, but…” Without getting out of the bed, Irulon reached over and grabbed a notebook from the end table. A new notebook, not one of the ones she had brought from the palace. She had not expected to stay in Illuna quite as long as she had and had run out of space in most of the books she had brought with her. Unfortunately, that meant the quality wasn’t quite what she was used to.

This particular notebook contained everything she could remember from the revelation Tenebrael had given her. Every bit of information that she had been able to decipher and put to words. Plus a good amount of inferences and theories, conclusions she had drawn from the information. It was all a mess, hastily scribbled down just to try to put as much of it to paper as she could manage. One problem with the way that Tenebrael had offered the information was that her companion hadn’t seen any of it. Irulon was effectively reliant entirely on her own memory, something that she couldn’t remember being a problem in a long while. Not that she had poor memory, but between that fact and the way the dream had been fleeting in her mind the same way common to normal dreams, there could be a number of errors within.

Which was frightening all on its own.

If she did something to herself based on bad information… well, she supposed that it might be the last thing she ever worried about. In all honesty, Irulon did not fear death. The thought that she was destroying her soul, denying the outcome of death, was what really had her on edge. The Festival’s apocrypha often spoke of Tenebrael waiting for souls. But she did not show up for corrupted souls, such as those of the demonically infected.

Would she appear before Irulon? Or would she leave both souls to rot in the body, something apparently excruciatingly painful, for all eternity.

~Not a concern you should dwell on,~ her companion said with deep chastisement. ~We have an ally now. A friend. One who would not allow such an occurrence to come to pass. Keep in mind that she has demonstrated the ability to remove souls and change their form into those crystallized gems. It may not be your ideal outcome, but it is far from the worst thing that could happen.~

Irulon lowered the notebook slightly, peering over the top to the sleeping form of Alyssa once again. She still hadn’t stirred. Slightest trail of drool ran down her chin to soak on the paper that Irulon had replaced on top of her arms.

Grabbing a small cloth, Irulon swung her legs out of bed, walked over, mopped up the saliva, gently tried to close Alyssa’s mouth, and finally moved back to recline in her bed. The paper might not have anything valuable written on it at the moment, but that didn’t mean that they had to ruin it. Rather, Alyssa could very well receive her own revelation while sleeping and would need a place to write it down once she awoke. It was a small chance. Given her apparent relationship with Tenebrael, it seemed as if she would know about such things in advance of them happening—assuming she would ever have to receive revelation in the same manner that Irulon had instead of just having a conversation with Tenebrael.

“It would be a form of immortality,” Irulon said after a long pause as she settled onto the bed. “I’m not sure that immortality is all that appealing, and it definitely is not appealing if we’re stuck like that for the rest of all time.”

~She would likely try to give us bodies. Even if she failed once, she would try again and again. Eventually, it might even work. She might be successful much faster if you didn’t write in code.~

Irulon’s eyes flicked back down to her notebook. No one else in the world should be able to read it. With a scrap of paper missing from her private journal, someone somewhere might be able to figure out something. The Yora intelligencer had not been not lying when she said she didn’t know where the paper had gone. It was very likely that whoever had originally stolen the notebook had taken that page out to sell to someone else. At least, that was Irulon’s theory at the moment.

The code did represent another problem, however. It was a combination of draconic runes and human script, arrayed through a deep algorithm that changed based on the first letter of any word longer than three characters. Irulon could read it as if she were reading a public notice. But that was due in large part to her companion. If they separated, she would still know how to decode it, but would she be able to simply open a book and start reading?

How many of her tomes back in Lyria were encoded in this way?

Yet another problem with their situation.

Originally, Irulon had thought they would be together forever. A permanent advantage for her and a benefit for the dragon who got to avoid death and see the world through the eyes of a human. Neither of them had any qualms about their situation. But now, even a full month after receiving the initial revelation, a month of exploring options that might ‘just fix’ their situation—as Kasita had put it—it was looking less and less likely that they would be able to stay as one. No human was made to contain more than one soul…

“You don’t suppose a dragon body would be able to house the two of us, do you?” Irulon asked, lackadaisically flipping through her notebook to relevant pages. It was a question asked mostly in jest. Even assuming any mortal body could contain two souls without them tearing out each other’s throats, metaphorically speaking, being trapped in a dragon body would be… There was a reason the dragon was so pleased with their situation even as only a passenger and observer. “Maybe a hybrid body,” she said.

~Not… necessarily an avenue to ignore out of hand.~

“You think we can add a few scales onto my body and we’ll suddenly be alright?”

~The mind is the link between the ethereal soul and the mortal world. So why not create a body with two minds?~

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard you say and I’ve heard you say a lot.”

~We have a flesh-shaper sitting an arm’s length away. Notions of normality can be discarded, I think.~

“Even assuming that Alyssa can create such a monstrosity, and it worked to the point where our souls no longer destroyed each other, would you be happy with such a thing?”

~Asking me what I feel? Where is the real Irulon I know?~

“I just asked you what you would do with a body.”

~An academic question at best. This feels more personal.~

“Hm.” With a slight shake of her head, Irulon started flipping through pages until she reached a blank sheet toward the end of the book. Once there, she sat up, leaned over her end table, and dragged over an inkwell.

~Inspiration struck?~

“You claim to not care about the outcome of this crisis, but I don’t believe that. Let us be honest with each other as we usually are. I want you to stay because of the benefits you provide. You would be happier with your own body, able to act and interact on your own terms rather than on mine.”

~If you insist on seeing things that way.~

“But your idea has merit, insane as it may be.”

~Two minds in a single body. Designing it so that both minds occupy the same space? Or perhaps one central mind for yourself while my own is spread about the body, connected through arcane rituals? Or are we going the tried and true route of simply having two heads?~

Irulon paused her writing, considering what her companion had just said. Shaking her head, she put her pen back to the paper. “I fear the situation has affected you more than you realize for you to be spouting such nonsense.”

~Hmhm.~

“But perhaps two minds is the way to go… Just not in the same body.”

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