Chương 196: Book 3 Chapter 51: A Mystery Unravelling

++That there were powerful beings lurking in the world other than the Gods has never been in doubt, but it was only near the end of the nineteenth century that there began a resurgence in these beings. Until then the Gods of Garamon had something of a monopoly on claims of transhuman prowess. This perception would soon be upturned. ++ - Excerpt from "On The Coalition of Undead", written by Robert Payne. 1, 951 A. E.

Dave managed not to jump out of his skin with panic as Isabel Vornholt carried him back down to the refinery's grounds. He still hated flying. He hated flying, for the danger posed by such speeds and altitudes, and he hated being flown even more. One never knew when the people around you might switch and draw out the knives. It'd be so easy for Vornholt to kill him up there.

But he was back on the ground now, and if it was still easy for Vornholt to destroy him if she wished, at the very least now he'd have something to do before his inevitable demise. Sidestepping or going prone would surely take the edge off, right? Vornholt interrupted his ruminations by walking towards the edge of the refinery. Dave hurried up beside her, but was halted by a raised hand.

"No," she said abruptly.

"Your services are not required for this."

"Where are you going?" Dave asked her.

"There is one last conversation I must see to."

"That isn't an answer," he pointed out.

"And you're moving for the gate. A conversation with someone outside then. Is it the enemy?" She sounded amused as she answered now.

"No, it is not. Or at least not the one that just attacked us."

"Well if it's an enemy then I'm still coming." Vornholt paused, turned and looked him in the eye. Dave suddenly felt his legs go weak.

"There would be nothing you could do if you did accompany me," she told him.

"Absolutely nothing." Dave believed her, and he stopped walking as Vornholt headed off. He stood still, staring after her for a moment and thinking about life. He had, he thought, acquitted himself quite well in the recent fighting. Two magicians killed after losing his magic gun, and three more before that.

There weren't many men, even warriors, who could claim to have matched that feat, and if it was mostly luck that let him do it, Dave was satisfied to know that there was some level of heavy luck involved in just about every great accomplishment of war. He'd felt pretty proud until just now. Then Vornholt had reminded him that luck was fickle, and strength was loyal. So he kept watching and didn't follow as she gently glided herself over the wall and took off into the desert.

"She can be frustrating, can't she?" a new voice rang out. Dave turned to see it was one of the head magicians of the refinery, Paula. She had a lot of scorches and tears on her clothing, a bit of dried blood caking the edges of a bandage on her forehead, and a big, swollen black eye and burst lip. Otherwise she looked fine.

"Glad to see you did your part," Dave muttered. The woman made a show of pointedly looking him up and down.

"Not as much as you, by the looks of things. What happened to your new gun?"

"Broken."

"Ah," she said rather awkwardly.

"Sorry to…hear that."

"It was a gun, not a pet," he shrugged.

"I'll get a new one." She didn't seem to know how to reply to that, and Dave resisted the urge to kick himself. He'd never been good at small talk. Never been good at many kinds of talk actually. Holding a knife to someone's neck from behind and telling them what'd happen if they called out to warn their friends, that was his area of expertise. Once talking drifted away from that he was out of his element.

"Do you want to get a drink?" Paula asked him after a moment. He thought about that.

"Are you going to poison me?"

"Why would I poison you?" she asked.

"I'm a magician, I could just blow you up with my mind." The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. He thought about that, too.

"Fair enough. Let's go."

I moved far away from my refinery. I had to, if I wanted this to work, I needed to be well beyond the distance at which my allies could reach me in a pinch. I was fairly sure that there were none among the people I was hoping to meet who could fly faster than me, or at least none who could fly faster than me and that were willing to attack, so I did not begin to grow tense until I started deliberately slowing to finally drift down onto the plains.

It was just empty space all around me, though I did not let that trick me into relaxing. These people I was dealing with now were… slippery. I called out, speaking as loudly as I could and using magic to amplify my voice even further. The sound screamed out over the plains in all directions.

"If you are here to kill me, you may try to do so. But I suspect recent events will have you interested in conversing instead." Nothing. No change, no manifestations, no hint that I had done anything other than scream into empty landscape, but I was not deterred yet. I stood where I was, continuing to turn and look around me, waiting. The people I was speaking to, assuming they were there at all, were relatively cautious.

It had taken them some time to even move on me, and if my suppositions were right even that had been because I forced their hand. Once the Vorets emerged they had ceased attacking outright and begun waiting for my defences to be weakened. This latter fact was why I stood where I did now. Soon I would be attacked by these enemies regardless of what I did, and I did not know if my weakened defenses would hold them off. Better to face them now.

Besides, I did not actually know if I had to fight them either, and I was still on the look-out for allies.

"My patience is considerable," I called out.

"But not infinite. Show yourselves now so that we can negotiate. I am starting to grow bored of your hiding and surveying." I doubted they would be annoyed into revealing themselves by an accusation of cowardice, but it was worth a try. Time passed, and I continued turning and waiting. I was painfully aware of how many minutes I was wasting just standing here. My refinery's repairs were being managed by others, but I still knew I could be speeding the process up with my direct attention.

Or empowering myself by practicing magic. Or any number of other things. The idea that I would be forced to just remain standing in the open for even more… But I made myself do it, waiting and watching and remaining alert. The odds of these strangers announcing themselves to me with some surprise attack, perhaps a meteorological event or some sort of seismic activity, were distressingly high, so I kept alert of both the sky overhead and the ground overfoot.

Paranoia seeped into me and made the waiting that much more painful. I endured it. And eventually, it was over. Slowly at first, then more quickly, figures approached me. Some of them seemed to just slip out of the very shadows between rocks, unfurling from the darkness itself. Others emerged from illusion spells that fooled me at a distance of miles, but crumbled once they drew near enough for the mana to become visible.

Dozens of strangers all coming from different directions, ensuring I could not watch each one of them simultaneously. Just under half were magicians. The other half, I felt with a stir, were Godtouched. Divine magic has a certain taste to it, a sickly-sweet tang. It has a look to it as well. I saw the mana humming around them in prismatic brilliance and felt it make my eyes water.

Compared to the glare of a Demigod, each of these petty creatures, or even all of them combined, was nothing, but it was more their nature than their magnitude that was cause for concern. Cause for concern, and an indicator that my assumption, the one that had drawn me here to do this, was correct.

"Years ago I detected traces of a Godtouched's presence in my room in Garamon," I announced.

"It was one of you, was it not?" A rustle of uncertainty ran through the group, then a new figure stepped out from among them. Tall and masked with a sheet of iron in the shape of a hawk. They were blues and greys and hummed with arcane power. When they spoke, I could not make out their sex by voice alone.

"That is correct," they said. There was no hint of apology or regret in the voice, and certainly no explanation. They were waiting to see what I would make of this. Fine then.

"I do not appreciate being spied upon, and you will never attempt to do that again," I told them all. There was a mix of reactions to that. Mostly, I thought, amusement. I bit my tongue as I tolerated that slight and waited for their leader to respond.

"You are not in a position to demand anything of us, Isabel Vornholt.

"You stand here surrounded on all sides. We saw your battle with the Vorets. You are strong, but not that strong. If this is a bluff then you have sorely miscalculated how much we knew going into it." It was the most I had heard them say yet, which I decided was promising. People do not waste this much breath on a person they have already decided to kill. Usually.

"I know more about you than you think I do. For one thing, I know that you tried to kill me before only out of concern, in an act of defence for your mistress." Men were shuffling now, uneasy and disconcerted by my knowledge of them. I considered that a good sign and continued.

"I also know that you would sooner have me as an ally than an enemy, and that is why I knew you would choose to speak with me rather than kill me just now." To tell the truth, I did not know, but I considered it a worthwhile risk. There was, after all, such a ludicrous amount to gain here.

"Are we meant to be impressed by your knowledge of us?" one of the men called out, clearly impressed by my knowledge of them and trying quite hard not to let it show. He fell silent as his leader raised a hand.

"Tell us your guess," they told me.

"And tell us what you would do with this knowledge." I smiled.

"All of you are servants of the Goddess Zameka. You turned on me after my attempt to absorb her power in Orapathaqi, and, provided I do not act against her again, I suspect you will all be willing to cooperate with me. I suspect we can come to an accord."