The Storm King

Chapter 664: The Message

Leon stood alone in the former library quietly contemplating everything that had been revealed during Claudia’s tour, by both the archaeologist herself, and by Nestor’s additional commentary.

Everyone else largely left him alone, and Claudia remained close to the library’s entrance, fielding various questions and remaining available for consultation. Her only condition for allowing them to wander these halls unsupervised was that they promise not to touch anything, for there hadn’t been much they’d been able to preserve in the library, and all of it was irreplaceable.

Leon didn’t intend to touch anything, he didn’t even think there was much here to see that he hadn’t already seen. The building itself was only lightly enchanted, and he guessed that those enchantments were just to protect the open-roofed building from the elements—Ancon clearly had hard-hitting storms, which otherwise would’ve made such a building rather unsuited for storing books and other sensitive objects. But, even though he didn’t think there was anything to really do in the empty building, Leon still needed some time alone to process, so into the halls he went.

To an extent, Leon had already known how heavy-handed and tyrannical the Thunderbird Clan had been when they arrived on this plane thanks to what Nestor had already told him, and he’d started to make his peace with it. He could understand certain aspects of their rule—the conquest, mostly, though not how they treated the Aeternan natives—even though he’d never truly been in the position to make those kinds of decisions before. He could understand even better why the Aeternan natives would’ve hated his Clan for that approach, but it wasn’t until he saw the defacement on the library’s façade, and until he saw the slave quarters, that he started to get a better grasp on the level of hatred that the natives must’ve had for his Clan.

Or, at least, he was starting to understand just how much he didn’t understand about that level of hatred. The people had gone so far as to destroy all written records of the Thunderbird Clan within the library, doing their utmost to damn the memory of his Ancestors for their crimes against Aeterna, seemingly leaving only enough behind to justify their actions.

Not that he could blame them too much, assuming things happened exactly as he as imagining; half the reason he had to get away to process these things was so that he could let his face burn in shame without drawing too much attention to himself.

As he worked to regain his composure, he wondered what information, precisely, might have been saved from destruction.

‘Surely, they have some primary sources from that time beyond these few reliefs, even if their sources are unreliable?’ he thought to himself. If Claudia’s sources were only considered reliable from the time several thousand years after his Clan’s fall, then he wondered just what the ‘unreliable’ sources might have to say. He resolved to ask the archaeologist once he returned to the group.

When he finally started to get a grip on his shame, he found that he’d wandered into a fairly small room, a place that seemed almost like it might’ve been some kind of office or small lounge. Without any furniture or any other comforts, it was hard to tell exactly what the room’s purpose was, but at the least, the back wall was covered in more reliefs, showing that the room had to have held some kind of significance, given that most of the walls in the rest of the halls in the library were bare.

Leon approached the back wall and started examining it. There were a few prominent bird figures, but as with the ones on the library’s façade, they had all been defaced. It didn’t seem like anything else had, though, which started sticking out to him. Aside from the bird figure, which was clearly supposed to be the Thunderbird, there were other human figures, and a few animal figures prominently featured in the depicted scenes.

He saw a multi-tailed fox with its head surrounded by a radiant nimbus. He saw some kind of large spotted cat gorging itself on terrified humans. He saw armies of strong, powerful mages following the wake of that large cat, with smaller, weaker-looking humans kneeling at their flanks, their heads bowed, their limbs bound in chains.

When Leon stopped to pointedly stare at that particular scene, Nestor said, [Looks like this showed the Blood-Thunder Jaguar’s push into this region, and the subjugation of those who’d lived here previously.]

Leon lightly frowned. That was a familiar name; he had the Blood-Thunder Jaguar’s hammer in his soul realm. The creature had been a Strategos, indicating that it had only just achieved Apotheosis, and served Jason Keraunos as a vassal.

“And the fox?” Leon asked aloud.

[Lord Alepo,] Nestor answered. [A Despot and Ascended Beast whose true form was that of a fox, who was given roughly half of what is now the Ilian Empire as a fief for the duration of our stay on this plane. Ancon was his capital city.]

Leon nodded, silently grateful that Nestor was being a little more subdued than he was not too long ago. He supposed that his own melancholy at seeing this remnant of his Clan, and at seeing the defacement of their Ancestor’s icons, was shared.

Some of the other depicted scenes were much easier to understand, such as seeing crowds of humans and various creatures of all shapes and sizes bowing to a group of humanoid figures with the heads of eagles—representations of the Thunderbird Clan proper, he assumed.

[How many vassals did the Thunderbird Clan bring?] he asked the dead man.

[Many,] Nestor replied. [Few were of any significance, though.]

[Were they all Ascended Beasts?] Leon asked.

[No. Some were descended from such creatures, others were mere humans.]

Leon nodded, and was about to continue his questions when he felt more than saw Valeria walk into the room behind him. Turning around, he saw the silver-haired woman standing just inside the doorway, quietly watching him.

“How are you doing?” she asked, her voice tinged with concern.

Leon sighed, then shrugged. “About as well as ever, really.”

“You don’t quite seem like it,” she pointed out.

With a second sigh, Leon turned back to the reliefs, his eyes being almost drawn to the eagle-headed figures prominently featured in several scenes. In every one, they seemed to be the centers of what seemed like worship, standing before other prostrate figures, including Lord Alepo and the Blood-Thunder Jaguar. This place may have been Alepo’s capital city, but it didn’t seem like the fox-man had any compunctions against showing his liege.

“I’m fine, really,” he repeated. “It’s just… I don’t want to hide myself again. I don’t want to go back to being Leon Ursus. I’ve had enough of that.”

“But you’re worried about how the people in the Empires are going to see you?” Valeria asked.

“Yes,” Leon readily answered. “It looks like my Ancestors rather brutally conquered this place. Nestor doesn’t even shy away from their methods.”

Valeria momentarily scowled at the mention of Leon’s ‘guest’.

“I think I can deal with the conquest and the enslavement,” Leon continued. “I’ve never done such things myself, and I don’t intend to repeat them. I certainly don’t feel good about what my Ancestors did to the people here, but I’m not going to let that guilt stop me.”

“That’s not what you’re worrying about, though,” Valeria said.

“No,” Leon agreed. “It’s how the locals around these parts are going to see me. If I show up, the last descendent of the people who so brutally occupied this plane, how are they going to react? Are we going to have to fend off assassination attempts? Are they even going to be that subtle; would they just send their best mages after us, killing us before we grow too powerful and possibly try to rebuild the Thunderbird Clan?”

“If they do that, I’ll stand with you,” Valeria declared. “I don’t care who they are, or how powerful they are. If they stand between us and the Nexus, then they have to be eliminated.”

Leon blinked in surprise; he knew that Valeria wasn’t one that shied away from death and violence, but he hadn’t expected such a declaration from her. Her sapphire eyes were narrow with determination, and her aura had been laced with a hint of killing intent, so he knew that she was deadly serious.

“Our mothers are waiting for us up there,” she continued. “And besides, power invites challenge. If we were to grow powerful enough, then those who stand above us won’t just sit idly by as we start to threaten their power. Even if they don’t directly move against us, they’ll never be our friends. We have to prepare for that.”

Leon nodded. “I suppose in that respect, my soul realm’s injuries might put them at ease a bit, slowing me down and helping me to stay low.”

“I don’t think you’re capable of ‘staying low’,” Valeria shot back with a wry smile. “Even when you were trying to do so back in the Bull Kingdom, you always got attention of all kinds.”

“Not the worst thing ever, I suppose,” Leon whispered as he and she exchanged somewhat heated looks. But then that heat disappeared, and he repeated, “I’m not going back to ‘Leon Ursus’. I’m Leon Raime. I can’t, and I won’t, hide who I am. But I’m not going to advertise it, either. When we get back to Heaven’s Eye, I think I’m going to have to call our retinue together and be completely up front with who I am and what Clan I belong to. Or, sometime soon, at least.”

“That might blow up in our faces,” Valeria said, though her tone didn’t indicate that she thought it a bad idea—more like she was just advocating for the other side.

“Maybe it will,” Leon conceded. “But I can’t go back to constantly worrying about someone discovering who I am. That was bad enough when it was just you and your father I was worrying about. I won’t do it for four entire Empires. If the people fear me for it, then so be it. I’ll just show them that I’m not my Ancestors.”

Leon could practically feel Nestor’s scorn and derision from his soul realm, but he didn’t care.

Valeria, on the other hand, asked, “What are you going to do when our circumstances inevitably call for such methods?”

“Enslavement is never a solution,” Leon declared as he glanced at the bound and chained figures depicted on the relief. “I’d rather lose than resort to such methods. Everything else… has to be taken as it comes. I don’t want to be a conquering tyrant. I’d rather try and get people to follow me willingly.”

“Some might call that being soft,” Valeria responded. “Many will say that we’ll never be able to rescue our mothers with such attitudes.”

“Soft or no, if we resort to such methods, we’ll always have to watch our backs, for we’ll make enemies everywhere we go,” Leon explained. He waved back at the relief, saying, “Pointless cruelties will be checked at the door. If we must resort to cruelty to achieve our aims—rescuing our mothers for us both, and rebuilding my Clan for me—then we will, but… my Clan made enemies here, and it bit them hard. I can’t rule with that kind of an iron fist.”

Valeria sighed. “It’s all hypothetical now. We’ll have to see what circumstances allow for us.”

“Until then, we’ll just have to act as best as we can.”

Valeria finally walked over to him and took his arm. She leaned her head against his shoulder as she admired the relief.

“Spectacular craftsmanship, enslaving tyrants or no. This place has lasted for so long that it’s hard to fathom…”

Leon hummed in agreement. “That this place even still has magic running through it is a testament to how well it was built. Honestly, I’m rather envio—”

[Wait, what?] Nestor interrupted from his soul realm. [There’re functioning enchantments here?]

Valeria gave Leon a strange look after he cut himself off, and he could only give her an apologetic look.

“Yes, Nestor,” he said out loud for Valeria’s benefit, “I can sense magic running through the walls here. There’s not much, and most of it is concentrated near the roof, where the weather enchantments protect this place—”

[Ignore those, tell me about the other enchantments you can sense!]

Leon cocked an eyebrow. Nestor wasn’t exactly panicking right now, but he was starting to get worked up.

“What’s going on, dead man?” Leon asked.

[I can’t sense anything in the walls,] Nestor explained.

Leon’s confusion grew, and when he asked Valeria about what he was sensing, her answer was similar to Nestor’s—she could only sense the aforementioned enchantments to protect the ruins from the weather.

“It’s nothing particularly powerful…” Leon said as he disentangled himself from Valeria’s grip and approached the relief where he could feel a thread of magic power. “It’s actually rather weak, barely even enough to power a magic lantern, were it hooked up. It’s so little power that I wasn’t giving it that much thought.”

“It must be quite weak because I’m not sensing anything,” Valeria admitted.

[That… would make some sense,] Nestor whispered. [I didn’t think you’d see something like this here of all places, in the remains of a public library, but you know that certain enchantments can be keyed into blood, correct?]

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” Leon said, quickly repeating what Nestor was saying for Valeria’s benefit. “Something similar helped to protect your lab and the archives beneath Argent Palace. I could easily sense those enchantments, though, and they weren’t this weak.”

[Those enchantments were paired with powerful defensive wards,] Nestor explained. [Hiding them would’ve been nearly impossible. However, if it’s a small enough enchantment, then it can be hidden from all but those of certain bloodlines—even certain lineages that don’t have a proper Inherited Bloodline.]

“What would be the point?” Leon asked, already being able to think of a few things he could do with such enchantments but wanting to hear what Nestor’s thoughts were.

[Someone might’ve done something like hiding a door to a secret cache, intending to return someday, something of that nature. It doesn’t look like this place was destroyed by violence, though the Clan’s enemies certainly got in here to blaspheme against us.]

“We’re not gods, dead man,” Leon quietly retorted. “Defacing our art is insulting, but it’s not blasphemy.”

[Those who achieve Apotheosis are gods, plain and simple,] Nestor disagreed. [Compared to the monkeys who lived here before, we were divinity incarnate. Their rebellion is blasphemy.]

Leon scowled, still finding the concept distasteful, but he didn’t know enough about Apotheosis to properly argue his point. He didn’t even know enough to know that he was right.

So, he decided to just shelve that topic and turn his attention back to the mysterious enchantment.

“Whatever. Let’s get back to the matter at hand: someone went to the trouble of hiding this enchantment from everyone who didn’t share certain blood with them? Or who weren’t at least a part of our Clan?”

[That seems to be the case, but since I can’t sense it, I can’t say for certain. This is mostly just an educated guess.]

“Wouldn’t any such enchantment that responds to me also respond to you, then?”

[Respond to what? All the blood that I don’t have?]

“Eh, I see your point. But, as I said, this power I can sense is a trickle, I can’t imagine that it’s doing anything more than scanning for power. Anything more than that and it would definitely be noticed, especially by the archaeologists who spend their lives studying these ruins.”

[Try to activate it,] Nestor suggested. [If it’s as weak as you say it is, then there’s no harm in trying.]

“I can think of quite a few harmful things that can happen if it’s activated,” Leon shot back.

[This is a library, not a fortress.]

Leon sighed, and then, with a silent apology to Claudia, pressed his hand against the relief while shooting Valeria an apologetic look. She was just watching him with an amused expression on her face, essentially just watching him have a conversation with himself thanks to his unwillingness to let Nestor out of his soul realm.

Once his hand brushed against the marble of the relief, Leon channeled a bit of his magic power into the stone, seeking out the thin thread of power that he could sense. As soon as his magic power wrapped around it, he felt a sudden, though not overwhelming, surge of magic power, and a figure appeared just to his right.

Both he and Valeria reacted with extreme alacrity, dodging sideways and drawing their weapons from their soul realms. Leon’s blade sparked with lightning magic, while Valeria’s practically sang as her glaive’s blade chilled with ice magic.

But then both paused in momentary confusion and sudden understanding, as the man that appeared was slightly translucent, and hadn’t moved following his appearance—in fact, he just stood there, staring in Leon’s general direction but not really looking at him.

“… A light projection?” Leon inquired aloud.

[A message,] Nestor responded. [Give it a moment, it’s old and probably needs the time.]

Leon relaxed slightly, and Valeria did likewise, taking her cue from him. The projection seemed frozen, but about five seconds later, the man whose image it had taken began to speak.

“The Alliance has been betrayed,” he spoke, his voice, echoing and slightly distorted, was professional and lacking nearly all emotion, save for a slight note of fear that Leon picked up on. He also spoke with an old accent, but his words were perfectly understandable to both Leon and Valeria. “Prince Demetrios has vanished, the slaves are in revolt across the realm, and Pindar has attempted to seize control what’s left of our forces. He killed Lord Alepo when he resisted. We are without a leader, and our slaves are growing bolder, knowing that we’ve been irreparably weakened. We’re abandoning this place, we cannot hold it. Pindar can have what’s left, if such is his wish.

“If you’re seeking shelter here, know that there’s none to be found. Lord Koukouva has taken control of the arsenal and is organizing a retreat to Tiryns for all those that are willing to leave. These savages can have their plane back; Jason Keraunos’ expedition has failed.”

The message ended there, and the figure blinked out of existence as quickly as he’d appeared, leaving Leon and Valeria alone to contemplate his words.