The Court of Souls? - Chapter 39: ~Mountain trail.~

“In Greek mythology, Chaos (Greek: Χάος), according to Hesiod, Chaos (“Chasm”) was the first thing to exist: “at first Chaos came to be” (or was) “but next” (possibly out of Chaos) came Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros. Unambiguously born “from Chaos” were Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night).

The Greek word “chaos” (χάος), a neuter noun, means “yawning” or “gap”, but what, if anything, was located on either side of this chasm is unclear. For Hesiod, Chaos, like Tartarus, though personified enough to have born children, was also a place, far away, underground and “gloomy”, beyond which lived the Titans. And, like the earth, the ocean, and the upper air, It was also capable of being affected by Zeus’ thunderbolts.”

– The Journey to the Afterlife

***Dedessia, the Sea of Souls, Mana Storms***

***Elona***

“He is walking so strange. What did you do to him last night?” Manti speaks up for the first time during this mission. Her eyes are on Shade who is leading us up the narrow trail to the peak of the mountain. Aswang is right behind him and talking in an exasperated manner. Men! They always have to go first.

Manti and Aswang are guiding us to an area with mana storms. It is located far away in the south of our city, even behind the lands of Draconis. Reaching it solely on foot would have taken us years. So we can say that we are currently moving through enemy territory. But this is just a reconnaissance mission and our opponents shouldn’t even know that we are here.

I smirk. “Do you have memories of being reincarnated as a man?”

Manti cringes her eyebrows. “Some.”

“Did you ever do it more than twice in one night?” I ask with a mischievous grin on my face.

Mantis eyebrows rise. “You mean the normal way? Um… I remember one particularly hot night where I did it three times. I don’t want to repeat that. How many rounds did you get out of him?” Manti cocks her head towards Shade.

“Seven times! He will never forget yesterday night,” I answer with pride.

Manti coughs sympathetically and rubs the back of her neck. “Ow, man. His balls must hurt like hell.”

“You can bet they do,” I answer and lengthen my steps, following the men.

After we dealt with the stone giant and I had my little revenge, we went right to sleep. The next morning we had to endure a lengthy interrogation by Doreen and Tisha. It turns out that Shade’s little spell of mass destruction looks almost like a miniature mana storm.

Ishaan already knew about this, but he kept his mouth shut. Apparently he didn’t see it as important knowledge while he and Shade were living alone in the tundra.

Shade was very interested in this little piece of information and wanted to see the mana storms even more. That’s why we had to set out right away to take a look at them.

We teleported southwards as close as possible to the nearest mana storm and appeared in a small valley with a lot of thorny bushes. From there we are hiking our way up a mountain. According to Manti and Aswang, we can observe a storm as soon as we get a look over the edge. Our reason for walking is that magic acts strangely around storms. It’s best not to use it at all in close proximity to such an anomaly.

My eyes constantly search the rocky mountain for dangers. So far I’ve found nothing which warrants my attention. Just rocks and rocks and rocks again. Did I already mention the rocks? My mind switches off and I start walking on autopilot.

That’s until one of the rocks moves under my foot and barely avoids being crushed. It turns out that the rock was a small, grey bird. Its wings flutter and it lands just a step away. I make my next step, aiming for the bird. Once again the animal avoids me by just one step.

Looks like every movement counts in this environment.

The bird chirps angrily at my repeated attempts at crushing it. This time I raise my hand and channel mana into my fingers. A flick is enough to aim a burst of compressed air at the bird. Its last chirp is accompanied by a blast of grey feathers. I hum, satisfied, and pick up the sorry remains. Real meat! Fresh kills are the best.

I channel my mana through the creature and within seconds I have a fist sized morsel in my hand. A hearty bite makes me smile for the first time on this trip.

“What did that poor, little creature do to you!?” Manti calls out from next to me. She gapes at me in horror.

I continue chewing and offer her a bite. “Want some? It’s just right. The bones are just at the point of being crunchy.”

She doesn’t answer and I decide to break the silence. “Oh, come on. I am pregnant and hungry. Who knew that we would be hiking up a mountain for hours.”

“We told you to stay at home,” she mumbles.

I take another bite and start paying more attention to the stones. There might be another snack. “Well, turns out I am here. And I solved the hunger problem.”

I will be happy once we get back. Five hours of walking are boring. At least we didn’t encounter any spirits.

“How come you and Aswang know about the storms? I thought that you were caged as slaves for your entire lives,” I ask Manti.

She shakes her head. “Not exactly caged. When Tisha freed us, we joined her resistance organisation. When we learned that we are actually higher immortals, we started our training to drive away the slavers.

“It’s not exactly easy to hide inside the city if you have the aura of a higher immortal. We had to protect ourselves with wards and barriers all day long.

Training inside the city is even more dangerous. So we went on regular trips far away from the city.”

“Then why didn’t you venture north to look for Shade and Legna?” I ask, astonished.

A deep sigh escapes Manti. “Didn’t you hear about the bad rumours regarding Ishaan. So far, he killed everyone who entered the tundra without his permission. We didn’t want to risk it. And besides, by the time we started our adventures, we couldn’t have done much for Shade and Legna. It was years later and they either had found shelter somewhere, or died long ago. It’s not exactly like we could walk up to another clan and ask for them. Be honest, would your clan take in two random strangers who appear out of nowhere and tell strange stories about being slaves of Inanimatum?”

I nod slowly. “You are right. Having even one traitor among your midst can mean the end of a clan.” My thoughts return to how my clan was almost wiped out. All it took was one low life bastard who drew portal charms all over the place. “How does it look regarding our traitor? You are working with Doreen and Tisha on that front, are you not?”

Manti snorts. “We have all our suspects under close observation. To be honest, I don’t have much hope to uncover their game in any meaningful way. The traitor is surely just a sleeper agent. I fear that our only chance is to catch him in the act. Because of that I voted to have all of the suspects interrogated with magic.”

My expression turns sour. Magical and telepathic interrogation methods are even worse than rape. Having your innermost thoughts ripped out of your mind is something very undesirable. And if the victim tries to resist, it is entirely possible to leave not much more than an empty shell behind. “But Doreen and Tisha were against it?”

Manti nods. “Yes. But not because of the moral aspect, but because of the tactical one. It’s true that we have suspects, but all we have is suspicions. We suspect the people with contacts to Draconis and former clan members of Draconis who returned to your clan. But since Draconis is a split off group from Carissimi we shouldn’t forget that Moonray may still have friends among your peers.

“That’s a huge circle of people. We may narrow it down, but we are still groping in the dark. Right now we have the advantage that Moonray doesn’t know about our suspicions. That may be the only reason why he is still bothering to play his dirty little games. If we start random interrogations and we don’t catch the traitor right away-”

“-we may alert Moonray. Then he knows that we know. If we use such means, then it has to be on someone whom we have a solid lead on,” I finish the sentence for her. “And none of the suspects acted strange? What about the two incidents with the spirits. Did they run or prepare to flee?”

She smiles. “I thought about the same thing. But nobody acted out of the ordinary. One might think that someone who calls an asenee to his own town might try to avoid being caught in the crossfire. But nothing.

So far our biggest suspect was Miraven. But she didn’t do so much as twitch during the attack. She was right among the people who partied on the plaza.

“The only one who acted out of the ordinary was Grixen. He left his workshop on exactly that day to buy new materials on the other side of the town. Normally he doesn’t leave his smithery and his wife. But they relocated to the city just recently, so I am not sure if it wasn’t out of circumstance. They moved from Yggdrasil to the town. It’s not surprising that not every action is normal when you are in the process of moving.”

I grumble and nod. “Not to mention that the traitor might not be informed about the spirits. I think that would put Grixen out of the equation. Add the fact that he is just a mid and has a wife. I highly doubt that he has the means to flee from a spirit attack. Why should he call his own doom upon himself?”

Now it’s Manti’s turn to raise her eyebrows, so I explain further. “Why should Moonray tell his agents that he is about to send a spirit into their midst? It’s like telling your subordinate that you are about to lock a wolf into their room. I think the traitor doesn’t even know that Moonray is connected to the spirit attacks.”

Manti says nothing for a while. Then she tilts her head and gestures with her hand. “You are right. It’s despicable, but reasonable if you think about it with a certain coldness. Another troubling aspect is that Moonray doesn’t seem to be concerned about sending his creatures into our midst. Especially that last one. If Shade hadn’t stopped it so easily, it could have killed Moonray’s agent.”

I press my lips together. “Unless he has enough people among us that he doesn’t have to worry about accidentally killing one or two.”

Manti’s jaw starts working and she nods. But we don’t get to take the subject any further. Shade and Aswang reach the end of the narrow path. Five more steps take me to their side and I get a good look over the mountain ridge.

In front of us is a seemingly endless, flat plain. The ground is smooth stone and looks like obsidian. Red vortexes are dancing and circling on the surface, some small, some bigger. And far, far in the distance behind them is a huge cyclone of swirling, red energy.

Shade kneels down and watches the scene with scrutinising eyes. “That’s the biggest formation of natural chaos magic I have ever seen.”

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