Chapter 493: The Seventh Soul

The rest of Volume Two was, Bruce found, a substantial read.

Elenora Vessa’s papers were written with the same measured careful voice she had used in the meeting. She described her conversations with the Codex clearly, without embellishment, and she was as honest about what she did not know as about what she did. She was, on the page, the same person she had been in the room. That did not resolve the question of whether she was performing sincerity or actually being sincere, but it was consistent with someone whose sincerity was habitual enough to hold on the page as well as in person.

Bruce read for two hours.

He learned:

That the Codex spoke to souls at their S-rank and SS-rank advancements, and possibly at their SSS advancements. Elenora had not reached SSS and did not know for certain what happened at that rank.

That the Codex’s tone in these conversations was patient and formal, not warm. The Codex was, in Elenora’s characterization, an intelligence with duty rather than an intelligence with love.

That the Codex could be asked questions, but that its answers were selective. Some questions it answered fully, some it deflected, some it did not answer at all. The pattern of what it answered and what it deflected was not always obvious, but Elenora had noticed that questions about the cycle’s mechanisms were usually answered, while questions about the cycle’s purpose were usually deflected.

That the Codex apparently could not lie. Elenora believed this, based on the internal consistency of what it had told her across her two conversations, but that it could very effectively not tell you things when it did not want to tell you them.

That the Codex was concerned about the state of the realms and the failing of what it called the ordering. Elenora’s records did not make this fully clear, but the Codex had spoken to her about the realms fraying in ways it did not fully explain, and had asked her, at her SS advancement, to hold what could be held while it did what it could from its side.

Bruce read this last passage twice.

Hold what could be held.

That was consistent with what the Physical Realm’s Akashic Codex had told him about the universe nearing its end. Both Codices apparently knew that something was ending, or coming apart, and both were asking the souls they spoke with to help in whatever way they could.

The realms were, in some way both Codices understood, running down.

Bruce closed Volume Two.

He was, in that moment, quieter than he had been in a very long time.

He understood, sitting at the small table in the archive dungeon, that he was carrying the same knowledge as at least one Nonagon member. Possibly as several. Possibly as every soul who had reached SS-rank in any realm and had a Codex conversation. There was a small hidden community of souls, spread across cities and centuries, who knew that the universe was dying, and each of whom had been asked, in their own advancement conversations, to do what they could.

He was not alone in what he knew.

For the first time since the descent, he was not alone in the specific weight of it.

He sat with that for a while.

Kael and Theron did not speak. They had been reading over his shoulder for parts of the volume and had guessed enough to know what he was sitting with. They waited.

Eventually Bruce said: “I want to read Volume Three.”

Kael handed it to him.

….

Volume Three was more political than Volume Two.

It covered Elenora’s time on the Nonagon, the decisions, the votes, the coalitions, the fights. It named names. It described Ashen Carr in detail, sixty years of interactions, the specific pattern of his opposition to Elenora’s reform positions. It described Sisel Marn briefly and, Bruce noted, with unusual restraint, as if Elenora had known that written descriptions of Sisel might be dangerous even in an archive. It described Grave Ondar with what could only be described as warmth, the strangest tone in the volume, as if Elenora regarded the odd ancient Nonagon member as something close to a friend.

There was, near the end of the volume, a chapter titled The Six Cases.

Bruce turned to it immediately.

The chapter described, in careful detail, the six previous cases in Xiltra’s history where a soul’s talent had overloaded the Guild’s testing orb. Elenora had researched each case thoroughly and included the outcomes.

Case One: Hallan Verne, one hundred and eighty years ago. Talent: word-inscription on physical matter. Reached A-rank before being killed in an ambush attributed to Ashen Carr’s factional predecessors. His personal papers, if he wrote any, were destroyed with him.

Case Two: Marla Serth, one hundred and thirty years ago. Talent: rewriting of small local geographies. Reached S-rank as a crafter, chose not to pursue political influence. Died naturally sixty years later. Her papers are in this Library, in the western section.

Case Three: Dorn Halas, ninety years ago. Talent: alteration of soul-signatures on documents. Reached B-rank before being killed in an unclear incident attributed by internal investigation to Sisel Marn’s network. His papers are sealed and inaccessible.

Case Four: Nyra Vos, seventy years ago. Talent: transformation of small quantities of soul-matter. Reached A-rank before being killed in a bounty attributed to Sisel Marn’s network. Her papers are sealed and inaccessible.

Case Five: Tessin Karr, forty years ago. Talent: unclear, likely broad reality-adjacent. Reached B-rank before being killed in what was formally ruled an accident but which was proven internally to be Sisel Marn’s action. His papers are sealed.

Case Six: Wren Ollan, current, S-rank cook in the eastern edge of the market district. Talent: preparation-focused, technically food-adjacent but with underlying properties that overload the orb because of the preparation’s effects on soul-essence. Chose not to pursue political influence. Papers not yet written.

Bruce read the last entry three times.

The old soul.

The old soul was one of the six.

The old soul was, formally, in the same category as Bruce. Case Six. A soul whose talent overloaded the Guild’s orb because the talent affected the fabric of the realm at a deeper level than the orb could measure.

The old soul had chosen not to pursue political influence. The old soul was S-rank and lived in a small kitchen at the eastern edge of the market and cooked food for hunters and taught them what they needed to know.

The old soul had been case-analog for exactly the kind of soul Bruce was going to have to be.

Bruce set the book down.

He looked at Kael and Theron.

“The old soul is case six,” he said.

Kael had been reading the chapter over Bruce’s shoulder. He was quiet for a beat.

“That’s why they know what to tell you.”

“That is why they know what to tell you.”

Theron, quietly: “They have been doing what they think you should do for the same kind of reason.”

“Yes.”

“And they never told you.”

“They never told me. They wanted me to make the choice myself. They gave me warnings and information and let me decide.”

“That is, Bruce, that is enormous. That is generous in a specific way.”

“Yes.”

Bruce sat with it.

He had, for a week, been eating food prepared by the old soul without knowing that the old soul was fundamentally the same kind of soul he was. Different talent. Different application. But the same underlying architecture, someone whose talent worked on the substrate of reality, whom the realm’s ordinary systems could not properly measure, who therefore had to be careful about how they engaged with the political layer around them.

The old soul had chosen to become a cook.

The old soul had chosen to stop climbing.

The old soul had chosen the quiet, safe path, and had used the freedom of that path to help every soul like themselves who came through Xiltra afterward.

That was, Bruce searched for the word, a whole life, lived deliberately, held in the shape of a two-hundred-year cook’s kitchen.

He thought, briefly and privately, that he would like to spend more time with the old soul in the coming weeks. Not to ask them questions. Just to be around them.

He turned back to the chapter.

There was one more paragraph he had not read.

Note: The pattern across the six cases is clear. Three of six killed by Sisel Marn or her networks. Two of six survived by choosing not to pursue political influence. One killed by Ashen Carr’s predecessors. Zero of six reached SS-rank. Zero of six survived past B-rank while pursuing rank advancement.

The seventh case, when it comes, will have to break this pattern or repeat it. I do not know which. But I have been preparing, for many years, for the possibility that a seventh case would appear during my time on the Nonagon.

If a seventh case comes, I will offer them sponsorship. The sponsorship is the only tool I have to shield such a soul from Sisel Marn during the vulnerable ranks. It is not enough by itself. But it is the beginning of what might, with luck, be enough.

I hope they choose to accept it.

Bruce closed the book.

He sat very still.

Elenora had written this, how many years ago? The chapter had no date, but the volumes appeared to have been added to over decades. She had been preparing for him, for someone like him, for a long time. Not for Bruce specifically. For whoever the seventh case turned out to be. She had been holding the sponsorship in reserve, waiting for the right soul, hoping to break a pattern she had documented across two centuries.

He was, in her framing, the seventh case.

He was the one she had been waiting for.

And she was, in her framing, the sponsor she had been preparing to be.

He thought about all of this for a long time.

Then he said quietly: “We should buy copies of all three volumes.”

Kael nodded. “Yes.” ℯℓ.

Theron nodded. “Yes.”

Bruce stood up.

….

He went back to the librarian at the front of the archive.

“I would like to buy copies of Vessa Elenora’s three volumes.”

The soul looked at him for a moment.

“You have decided to keep her papers with you.”

“Yes.”

“That is a substantial purchase. The three volumes together, at scribe rate, will be two thousand four hundred soul points.”

Bruce had that. He had significantly more than that after yesterday’s Deepwood haul. He could afford it.

“How long for the copies?”

“Two days. I will have them delivered to the address in your sponsorship record.”

“Which is the rooming house.”

“The rooming house.”

“Then two days. Yes.”

“Payment on delivery. Or payment now, whichever you prefer.”

“On delivery is fine.”

The soul made a small note on their record.

Bruce paused before turning away.

“One more thing.”

“Yes.”

“The old soul in the eastern market, Wren Ollan. Do they have papers here?”

The soul looked at Bruce for a long moment.

“They have not written any papers to be filed here. If you want to know what they know, you will have to ask them directly.”

“I understand.”

“I will say this. They come here occasionally. They read from the sealed sections that other soul cases wrote, cases four and five, in particular, whom they knew personally in life. They read but they do not write. They have made a choice about that.”

“Thank you.”

The soul nodded and returned to their book.