Chương 190: 185 — Book 4, Chapter 29 — The Black Vault, Pt 5

This was, by a very large margin, the most confused Irides had ever been in his life. He was not used to being confused. Fellrunes were all descended from the Progenitor of Tongues, who had died in his attempt at ascension but had given them life in the process; there was quite a lot of variation in how they felt about their creator, but one thing they could all agree on was that he had been one of the most brilliant minds within the Great Realms.

If he had not reached beyond his means, he might have lived to change their very understanding of magic. There were many fellrunes who believed, as such, that their Progenitor was foolish—that such a level of magical ambition was nothing more than folly. Many of them inherited their creator's talent for understanding and working with arcane scripts and runic languages. Unlike him, however, they were careful not to abuse that talent. They knew what could happen if they reached too far, after all.

Irides was convinced that they were wasting their potential as a species. He was a darkwood mage at only 501 years of age, and he was certain he was on the verge of igniting his wyldfire. Other fellrunes took nearly three times as long to accomplish the same, and for what? Just to make sure they wouldn't repeat a mistake they already knew how to avoid? Where other fellrunes would hesitate and hold themselves back, Irides pushed himself to study every facet of magic he could get his telekinetic claws on.

He was an accomplished scholar already, and he'd made breakthroughs in several different fields of magic. The Truncated Arcane Script was based on his work, for example, and there was a variation of it now inscribed in all sorts of artifacts all over Utelia. He'd been personally involved in deciphering the functions of various dungeon artifacts, including a divine artifact that was used to keep the Kingdom of Thyrahl safe. Most important of all, he had never encountered any being whose magic he couldn't decipher.

Not even the gods could hide from his [Runic Analysis]. He'd compiled a transcript of the spells Astiviya herself had cast in her duel with Cale, and though the output of even a single one of her spells was so massive it took an entire library of scrolls to record it, he had succeeded. He interpreted a divine spell. How many others could say they'd accomplished such a thing? How many could match the mind of Irides, Successor of Tongues?

That was what he imagined they would call him, anyway, once he presented his results and had them accredited. Only Irides had gotten none of that process started nor managed to start breaking down the divine spell, because he had been preoccupied. Partially by the Inspiration he had received, which had, frustratingly enough, revealed a flaw in his runic interpretation process that would otherwise have caused one of his experiments to create a minor gravitational anomaly known as a black hole.

Irides didn't know how he'd missed it. He chalked it up to the fact that he had written the inscriptions in a frenzy of obsessive focus, and hadn't yet checked the script. He would have before running the experiment, obviously. What a waste of an Inspiration. Yet even that wasn't the real problem. It was simple enough to deal with, after all. No, the real problem was Cale Cadwell Cobbs, whose spells certainly did not hold up under [Runic Analysis].

Whenever Irides tries casting it on one of that human's spells, he received a truly mind-numbing volume of absolute gibberish written in some language that didn't resemble any arcane script he knew of. And that was fine! He had deciphered arcane languages from scratch before! A new one shouldn't have posed a problem, but this one stumped his every attempt to break it down and broke every rule of magical languages that he knew of.

He could only conclude, therefore, that Cale was obfuscating his magic in some way that defeated even [Runic Analysis]. Which meant he was hiding something. Perhaps he was powerful—powerful enough to defeat a god, which was terrifying enough in itself—but he couldn't be powerful and have the degree of knowledge that he claimed. That was simply preposterous.

Irides could accept someone having more mana than him, but he couldn't accept that someone else might know more about the Great Realms and its magic than he did, let alone a human. And that brought him back to this being the most confusing, bizarre display he had ever witnessed. Irides was not used to being confused; it was a point of pride for him that he could make sense of anything, given enough time.

The problem was that he was being presented with so much so quickly, and it was happening at such a level of absurdity that he didn't have time to process one event before he was forced to jump to the next. First were the sharks. Skysharks, Cale called them. They swam out of that impossible hole that the shadow tore into the Vault, bearing equally impossible forms. Everything Irides knew about the Great Realms suggested that there was a tradeoff between biology and magic.

The more organic a creature, the less mana it could contain, given its soul had to mold to its vessel. Particularly strong souls or wyldfires could circumvent the limitations of that role, but the skysharks had neither. Instead, they had souls that ballooned so large that they held the skysharks aloft, allowing them to swim through the air as if it were liquid. They weren't even using their mana to do so!

Irides stared, feeling his tethers dissociating, the beautiful lines of his runic form slowly coming apart in his shock. The worst part was that they seemed to know Cale, which lent credence to that—to that absurd idea that Cale had travelled the Realms. Which Irides still refused to believe! Even dragonkind had lost their ability to move between the Realms; was he supposed to believe that some human had not only retained it, but had discovered a spell that allowed him to cheat death? Absurd. Ridiculous.

"CALE CADWELL COBBS!" the skyshark leader roared—Irides assumed he was the leader, anyway, given he was the head of the pack. He was the smallest among them, though. The full length of his body was about half of Cale's height.

"YOU SHALL PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID TO MY DAUGHTER!"

"Marivar, the King of Skies," Cale said, folding his arms across his chest.

"First of all, I didn't do anything to your daughter that she didn't explicitly consent to." Was that the skyshark's daughter just behind the leader? She was much larger than her father, but seemed to be trying to hide behind him... though she was also waving shyly at Cale.

"Second," Cale said, growing irate, "Why did you go on a genocidal rampage just because I asked for a few of your daughter's teeth? They literally grow back! And I was trying to stop a war that you started, I will remind you! Do you know how hard it is to negotiate with tooth fairies? You have to do it with teeth!"

Irides, who was already struggling to parse the absurdity of the scene, felt his tethers falter again at the stream of words that emerged from Cale's mouth; any progress he might have made in understanding the situation fell apart immediately. Perhaps he shouldn't have spoken, but he found himself unable to stop himself.

"Fucking what now?" he burst out, his tethers rotating erratically." Tooth fairies? Those are—they don't even exist on Utelia!" Cale glanced at him and frowned.

"Of course they do. They're a kind of living mythology; you can find them anywhere, as long as you know how to get in contact with them." He folded his arms across his chest.

"Also, don't interrupt. The king's hard enough to deal with on a good day, I don't know how I'm going to convince him to go back into the Nothing if you start antagonizing him." Cale was scolding Irides like he was a child, which was mortifying enough, but it was the hypocrisy of the statement that astounded him." I'm antagonizing him?" Irides said incredulously. He hadn't even done anything! Cale was the one arguing with Marivar!

"You are," Marivar said severely, turning his six-eyed focus onto Irides, who felt his runelines suddenly freeze in place. Under the skyshark's direct attention, the weight of his soul seemed to press down on him, which was—well, it was ridiculous. Regardless of the size of his soul, his core was only at plainroot. How was he so heavy? He couldn't even breathe. It felt like Marivar's presence had suddenly taken up his entire perception, and the skyshark king was now the most terrifying mage he had ever faced.

Something impossibly large stared down at him, and its words resonated so deep in his mind he feared it would be torn apart: " I am having a conversation with Cale. You would do well not to interrupt me again." If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. The weight of his attention faded after that, and Irides fell forward, runelines jittering erratically.

He was so overwhelmed by the experience that it took him a moment for his mind to catch up with what he'd heard. Once it did, though, Irides sputtered. How was he being characterized as the villain here? And yet as much as he tried to protest, he found himself unable. Whatever magic this creature was capable of was unlike anything he had ever seen. He tried a [Runic Analysis], half expecting for nothing to happen.

He hadn't sensed any spells being cast, after all, but he couldn't think of anything else that could have had that effect on him. Instead of giving him answers or doing nothing, his spell spat out a string of unrecognizable runes that seemed just as incomprehensible as when he'd tried the same on one of Cale's spells. Irides gaped, unable to comprehend what he was looking at. What was going on? That spell had never failed him before. Now it had happened not once, but twice, with two different mages!

Marivar paid no regard to Irides or his increasing distress, however. Instead, he turned back to Cale, eyes tightening in anger as he swam forward.

"You could have asked for my teeth, instead of taking them from my daughter," he snarled.

"I would have borne the loss of honor, but for you to ask that of her—"" That's what your rampage was about?" Cale asked, disbelieving at first. Then he narrowed his eyes, seeming to realize something.

"... It's more than that, isn't it? You aren't upset that I asked her, you're upset that I didn't ask you." Marivar jolted, but said nothing. Irides watched as one of the most intimidating creatures he had ever encountered somehow managed to look abashed. Cale seemed to take this as confirmation.

"Marivar," Cale said with a groan.

"Do you realize you could have just had a conversation with me at literally any point? The size of the tooth matters in their language, that's all. I would've asked you if it was at all an option."

"You would?" Marivar asked, startled; some of the weight of his aura vanished as he deflated.

"But..." He trailed off, and for a long moment, the two stared silently at one another. Cale, strangely enough, was the first one to speak.

"Come here, idiot," he said, and Irides's runelines almost fell apart when the King of Skies actually obeyed. He swam forward into Cale's open arms, looking strangely timid. Being the smallest of the skysharks put him at just the right size for Cale to hold him like he was some sort of aquatic puppy. It was so at odds with what Irides had felt only moments ago that he was struggling to keep up.

"It was the [Blood Rage], wasn't it?" Cale asked quietly. Marivar went still in his arms, then gave him a single, hesitant nod, his body shaking slightly.

"Did I sacrifice my empire for nothing?" he asked miserably.

"I did not... know what I was doing, close to the end. The smallest of slights seemed to demand the greatest of retributions. I may have tried to direct it toward our enemies, but I do not know if I succeeded."

"You did," Cale said, his words gentle and reassuring.

"And for what it's worth, I'm glad to see you and your daughter again. And all your soldiers, too. I'm sorry I had to stop you before you turned on your allies. I wish there had been a better way." Marivar shook his head slowly.

"You were right to do so. That magic was too terrible to be allowed to reign in our realm. The things it would have had me do... I shudder to think of it. No. It is better that it is sealed away with us. That it cannot return to the Great Realms."

"Not as long as you don't," Cale said quietly, and something seemed to pass briefly between the two of them.

"I had no idea you still existed in the Nothing, Marivar. If I had known—""No," Marivar interrupted.

"It is not as you think. Being in the Nothing is not... it is different from waiting around, stewing in my anger. The [Blood Rage] has no grip on me there, nor do I even exist in the way that you are thinking. We are little more than perhaps the smallest impulse to claw our way back to existence, to right whatever wrongs we may have felt was done to us."

"Mm." Cale's expression flickered, some emotion flashing through his eyes too quickly for Irides to read.

"It is not a cruel fate," Marivar said, mistaking Cale's expression as a need for comfort. Irides might not know what he had seen in Cale's eyes, but he didn't think he'd been looking for comfort.

"If anything, it is a peaceful one."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that, at least." Cale managed a faint smile.

"We cannot remain here," Marivar said, seeming to come to some decision. He glanced back at his daughter, who nodded proudly at him, and at his retinue of guards, who saluted.

"We both know this, I think. But it was good to see you again, too, Cale. I do not know if you lived long enough for anyone to tell you this properly, but thank you for what you did for our realm."

"It was no trouble," Cale said, though it was clear he was lying through his teeth. Marivar seemed to know it, too; the two exchanged a significant glance before Marivar sighed and reluctantly pulled back.

"Goodbye, Cale," Marivar said, swimming back over to his daughter. She gave him a hug, then swam over to give Cale a quick kiss on the cheek— —and then they were gone, swimming back through the rift into the Nothing. So. That had happened. Irides understood only a fraction of it, and he hated being confused, so he chose to express his confusion the only way he knew how.

"What the fuck just happened," he said.

"I am so fucking confused—WAUGH!" Apparently, the fates had decided to immediately punish him for expressing his confusion. The shadow that had trapped them here appeared in front of Irides so suddenly that the fellrune flinched backward, nearly snapping his own runelines in the process. They flickered wildly in his consternation.

"Don't do that!" Seer ignored him. He didn't seem to think Irides was relevant." It is a pity they were not more willing to destroy you,"Seer said mildly." I had hoped for a fight. But I suppose I promised you would face all your sins, and not all you have wronged despise you. I do not mind the occasional display of your... other skills, shall we say."

"Stop making it sound weird," Cale said, exasperated. Seer ignored him and waved a hand again. This time, Cale tried to stop him—he snapped a blast of mana at the shadow's raised hand, so quickly Irides hadn't even seen it coming. Seer was unaffected, however, and merely chuckled with amusement." I have been in the void for so long that I am unto Nothing, just as the Nothing is unto me,"Seer said." But by all means, I appreciate feeling the length of your power."

"That first part doesn't make any sense, and length is not the right word," Cale muttered, though his eyes narrowed for a moment, as though he'd realized something. Or perhaps he was suspecting something about Seer's true nature? Irides didn't put much thought into it. He was too busy wondering if this was what a headache was like. He hadn't had one before, but he was pretty certain, based on all the literature he'd read, that he currently had one. It was awful, given his head was also his entire body.

He was profoundly regretting his decision to follow Cale into the Vault.

"Hey, Voyeur or whatever your name was," Irides said.

"What's Cale fighting now?" The shadow glanced at him and seemed irritated." I am Seer,"he said." What sort of pervert do you think I am?"

"Are you saying you're not some kind of pervert?" Irides asked. There was a suspiciously long pause, during which Seer seemed suspiciously lost for words, before he eventually responded." I will not deign to answer that."

"That's basically a yes," Irides said.

"Look, I don't care what you non-runes get up to. I want no part of you and your freaky genitalia bullshit. I just want to know what in the eight infernal realms is happening."" Seven," Seer said, straightening, and Irides thought he seemed amused.

"What?" He'd heard this a few times, but had dismissed it as nonsense. If this Seer had truly been watching Cale for all those centuries and through all his supposed rebirths, though, then he had to know the truth. Irides was hopeful that talking to this pervert would help clear up the real story behind Cale's power." There are seven infernal realms," Seer said slowly, as if he was explaining this to an idiot. Irides wondered how he'd fallen this far. He was a celebrated scholar!

Even at darkwood, he had published no less than three revolutionary papers on aspect interaction and the so-called "sticky" attunements." Cale Cadwell Cobbs once destroyed the eighth. He faces them again now—those that have clawed their way back from the remnants of what he sundered." Irides glanced over at Cale, who seemed to be mocking some... Okay. Irides didn't want to think about what that thing was. It had far too many chains for his liking and looked like it had multiple bodies strapped to its parts.

"He did fucking what now?" he asked instead." Would you, perhaps, like me to speak more slowly?

"Seer asked in a tone that was definitely condescending. Irides gasped in outrage. No one was condescending to him! He was the one that condescended at others!" He destroyed the eighth infernal realm. He claims it was an accident, but its denizens are quite angry at him. Of course, the rest of the Great Realms do not feel that way."

"Because the eighth infernal realm is the home of the ontologically evil demons," Irides remembered.

"... how did he destroy it?"" Are you beginning to believe?

"Seer asked him, amused." I have quite a number of tales of his exploits. Perhaps you would care to hear a few."

"I don't believe shit," Irides muttered.

"... But tell me anyway." Off in the distance, he felt an absolutely massive burst of mana, followed by a scream as what looked like an archdemon was rent apart. Even as far away as Irides was, he could hear Cale's exasperated shout.

"For the last time, I don't want to hear about your godsdamned orphan insurance policy!"