I Swear I'm Not A Dark Lord!

Vacation III

Maestro Theudebald was the broadest, most solid dwarf Taylor had ever seen in Aarden, with close-cropped gray hair and eyes the yellow of phosphorous. His beard was a magnificence of distinction, in its thickness, length, intricate weave, and decoration. Several of the baubles he wore were enchanted.

"There he is!" The director of the bank stood when Taylor was shown into his office. It was unexpectedly sparse, with metal drawers built into the walls, like a bank vault. He didn't just show his hand – he wanted to shake, so Taylor obliged him. The maestro didn't try to crush his hand, push any mana at him, or use strange abilities, and perhaps that was the point. Taylor wasn't a VIP at Dwergbank, but he was a favored client. The bank and its director were on his side.

"Niketas, coffee!" He barely had to raise his voice, and it easily filled his office and the room next door. His secretary started tinkering with an elaborate machine with tubes and retorts.

"I got a nice long look at what you brought in. If that's what you're selling, it makes me wonder what you're keeping for yourself. Don't even pretend with me." The old dwarf grinned with his huge teeth like ivory grinding stones. "I'm an old hunter and crafter myself. Boys like us keep back the bits we like best."

"That's true. I'm hoping this winter will be productive. I might apply for a reassessment in the spring."

Coffee arrived in tiny glass cups. The liquid filled his mouth with roasted nuts, figs, and shortbread.

"Good, right?" Theudebald tossed his back in a single gulp and waved his secretary away. Wards sprang to life when the office door shut. The director's eyes narrowed as he said, "You've got two green notices, my friend."

"Should I be worried? I don't know what those are."

"They're encrypted messages that sit on our tablet network until the recipient, that's you, shows himself at a branch. Only a director can print the message, and we don't look at them. They come out face down, and fold them up and hand them to you. They're expensive and seldom used."

He produced two wax-sealed envelopes on his desk, one of them noticeably thicker than the other. "You can relay your response through me. Only you and I will ever know the response until it reaches its destination. Take your time."

Taylor started by breaking the seal on the thicker message. It was a report from Yaonoch, explaining how things went so wrong with the paladin, the measures they were taking to ensure it could not happen again, and a request to willingly repair the contract. The High Bishop was being so forthcoming, Taylor wondered what he was hiding. Reading between the lines, this was a bigger problem for the church than one small child, however talented he may be.

The bit about the paladin was interesting. Losing a third-tier asset wasn't a minor issue, even for an organization as large as the church. Yaonoch made it sound like that Cadmius fellow could never come back. So, if they had written off a paladin, why were they trying so hard to fix the situation?

Taylor had to consider Keeva Augburg's involvement, too. Whatever game she was playing, he wasn't at the center of it. Her instigation reminded him of Strife, tossing cheap pieces at his back line just to watch the ripples and seize any opportunities that might arise.

He wrote out his response for Maestro Theudebald, who promised to burn the paper once the message was encrypted.

Lord High Bishop Yaonoch,

There can be no discussion between us until two conditions are met.

(1) My body parts amputated by Cadmius have been incinerated, and the ashes purified.

(2) The church has returned my satchel and all of its contents.

Fulfill those conditions, and I will accept an intermediary to negotiate a meeting between us. Your intermediary will bring an affidavit to item one, to be submitted to the God of Judgement.

I've never made a figure of Satornil, but I feel that, under the circumstances, it won't be difficult.

The bank director said nothing as he pulled open one of the metal drawers built into the wall to reveal a message tablet. He put his thumb on the glass, words appeared, and then the words turned into gibberish. Afterward, Theudebald lit the original on fire and let it burn in a shallow dish in the center of his desk. He mixed the ash with a few drops of water and binder, then molded them into a dark gray lump. He handed the lump to Taylor.

Taylor put the lump in his pocket and opened the second message. It was from the elven ambassador in Bostkirk, pleading with him (albeit in diplomatic language) to create a statue of Okanyana for the temple there. He offered an impressive amount of money if the job could be finished before the winter solstice. If he could finish the job on time, the Bostkirk temple would have a complete set of divine statues of the racial gods.

"Job accepted." Taylor didn't need to say more than that. It was cleaner that way, as it didn't leave a tacky wad of ashes in his pocket.

Taylor thanked the director as he prepared to leave. "By the way. Where are the arcaics in this city? I've barely seen one, outside of the bank and doormen at the Malachite."

"South of the Academy. If you have business down there, this hotel might suit you better." Theudebald wrote down a new hotel recommendation and sent Taylor on his way.

By that evening, Taylor had changed hotels, stuck his nose into several magical supply stores, briefly perused the fantastic Celosia Academy Library, and ended up perched on a retaining wall, cloaked with Riverstone. He was facing north, with his back to the campus, looking toward the Shelmont River. A broad parkland filled the space between the campus and the river for several hundred yards.

A mixed crowd of beastkin, humans, and one arc played with gliders near where Taylor sat, reveling in the novel toys. The gliders were procured from the multicolored stack of them sitting next to Taylor: close enough for him to resupply at will, but far enough away to pretend it wasn't his.

East of him, the park surface changed from mostly grass to a flat field of crushed stone. A distant class of summoners practiced invocations, twirling and wheeling, posing and posturing, shouting at the top of their lungs to call forth their spirits. Those who got results had their spirits duel each other.

Taylor deployed a concave barrier behind him, positioned to reflect the far sounds and concentrate them on his head. He did it mostly for the laughs, but also to compare his own invocations to what the school was teaching. It would be nice to get an idea of how abnormal he was. Only, he didn't like what he was hearing.

The spirits only spoke Arcaic, and the student summoners only spoke Orlut. Taylor couldn't make out all the words, but the plaintive, supplicant tones of the spirits came through clearly enough. And so did the punishments. One of the few Orlut phrases he could make out was "stinging nettles", which sounded like a spell the summoners used to punish their spirits for failing to fight and win.

Under normal conditions, a spirit could choose whether or not to bind itself to a magician. For most people, a large part of becoming a summoner was finding a willing spirit and convincing them to form a bond. The bond was weak at first; the spirit could choose not to appear, and if they refused for long enough, the connection would wither and die. On the other hand, if both parties were willing, that bond could grow stronger, making the partnership more effective.

The Summoner class could upend that balance by giving the magician skills to impose their will on a reluctant spirit. If the local professor was training new summoners to pick up compulsion skills early, or if they were using their own advanced skills to find and force spirits to bind to students, then it would speed up the summoners' advancement at the expense of those they summoned.

It would be easy to justify this kind of treatment, especially for someone who believed in human supremacy. Summoner classes were rare and potentially very powerful. The IEF needed all the help it could get. What were a few tortured spirits worth when measured against the Empire's security?

Taylor was ready to march over there and start stunning students, but the practice session came to an end. It was for the best: he could think of a more constructive way to handle the situation if he wasn't acting on impulse. He watched the class dismiss their summoned spirits and break up, to scatter in all directions.

That's when Cecilia and her pack of friends found him. In addition to Lindastra and Prudence, there were two more girls with her. It was nice that she had so many friends.

"Hey, brother! Are you waiting for me?"

"Actually, no. I just got out of the library a while ago. Lucky break, though."

He dropped his illusion, expecting introductions, but he didn't get to learn the new girls' names. One of the students from the summoner class waved at the group as she approached.

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"Hi Cici! Is this kid your summoner brother?" The strange girl wore her uniform like it was athletic gear, with the blouse sleeves rolled up, her collar loose, and the neckwear flowing in the breeze.

"Taylor, meet Darla. Darla, Taylor. And yes, he's a summoner."

He tried to correct them. "Actually, I'm more of an all-round magician."

"Let's see what you've got!" She planted her feet and pointed at him. "By ancient summoner rite, I challenge you to a duel!" She didn't wait for a response, but went directly into her spell and invocation. "Rise up from the fiery depths, ancient warrior … "

Taylor tried to ignore her and stared at Cecilia, hoping for an explanation.

"She doesn't realize you're not in her Summoning League Club Association, or whatever it is."

The disk-kin stopped their play to watch.

"I've been fighting constantly for months. I'm enjoying a few days off."

"Tell her, not me. Whenever she meets another summoner, this is what she does."

Taylor sighed. "I don't think she's listening."

"… Arise! Arise!" finished his would-be opponent. A black and red figure emerged from the ground, about three feet high, like a blob of magma that was starting to cool on the outside. Like most minor elementals, it didn't wear clothes. Annoyingly, its presence burned the grass.

"What do you think of Magmemo?" The summoner was so proud, but the spirit was barely there. Like so much in magic, mana handling mattered. If Darla were his student, he wouldn't even teach her spells yet.

Magmemo took one look at Taylor, dropped to one knee, and shouted, "I surrender!" in Arcaic.

The summoner was confused. "What are you doing, rock head?" Taylor guessed she didn't speak Arcaic.

"He's surrendering to me. He won't fight." In Arcaic, he told the elemental, "You can stand up. We're not fighting today."

The little magma spirit smiled, creasing his rocky face enough to show hints of the glowing hot elemental beneath, and Taylor suddenly remembered him. He was part of an advance team that attacked a dungeon in the Dimmik caldera. The dungeon was a disappointment: a dimensionally expanded hole in the ground that contained monsters, but nothing interesting. There had been a very effective squad of magma sprites who leveled so many times that they grew visibly taller.

"You were part of the Hot Lava Gang, weren't you?"

"It's an honor to be remembered by Dux Twilight."

"Stop talking gibberish! You're embarrassing me! Get prepared to fight! And you!" Darla pointed her finger at Taylor. "Call your spirit, if you can!"

"It won't matter because he won't fight." He tried to explain, but she still wouldn't listen.

"I'll make it fight. It has to learn to do what I say." She removed a wand from her belt and prepared to punish the spirit.

"Would you like to be free of this woman?"

Hope flooded Magmemo's eyes. "Please!"

Taylor's ability to sense spirits' mana was still unreliable, but Knexenk's mana stood out in bright lines. He reached out with his senses, found where the class system wove its way into the fire spirit, and pulled. The connection between them popped free like pulling a drain plug.

Magmemo grinned and bowed. "Thank you, Dux Twilight." He bowed again. "I am in your debt." And again. "I swear to grow your legend!"

He waved away the offer. "That's really not necessary."

The summoner was incensed. "Stop talking to him. I'm your master!"

The spirit turned aside, bent slightly at the waist, and released a cloud of hot gases full of glowing ash at his former summoner. She retched, hands on her knees, red in the face. The other girls backed away from her, groaning and making faces. The stench of sulfur compounds assaulted noses and stung eyes.

Luckily for the spectators, Magmemo had some control over his gases and kept them concentrated on Darla. By the time the stench began to dissipate, the spirit was gone.

"What. Did. You. Do?" Still bent over, Darla looked up at Taylor with eyes full of venom.

"I don't know. Did you see me do something?" He hadn't moved a muscle or spoken any spells.

"He's not on my roster! Do you know how hard I had to work to get him? Damn! I'm going to flunk my class!"

"Re-establishing your link should be easy. The only real obstacle is whether Magmemo wants to come back."

"You little … I don't care if you're her brother. I'm going to pound you." She moved threateningly in his direction.

Taylor was prepared to stun her and throw her unconscious body into the river, but a whirl of pink stood between him and the brute of a girl, arms spread wide to shield him. Cecilia's voice was serious; a you-might-die serious that he didn't expect from her.

"Don't escalate, Darla. This is over."

"He took away my summon!" Darla shoved an accusing finger in Taylor's direction.

"Maybe, that's what you get for trying to force someone to fight. You've been told off for it before."

Darla turned shades of red and clenched her fists, but she hesitated.

"If you hurt him, we're not friends anymore."

The princess stepped forward and stood next to Cecilia in support, her arms crossed.

Darla lowered her fists. "Your brother is a menace." She stomped off with the air of someone looking for a weapon.

The disk-kin resumed their play.

Taylor put up his Riverstone before his time ran out.

Cecilia lowered her arms.

"My hero!" he said. "I think that's the first time in my life that anyone has come to my rescue. It's a very warm feeling," he added thoughtfully. "I can see why girls like it."

Cecilia glowed in his praise. "I know you didn't need it. But she made me so mad."

Lindastra looked relieved that the situation hadn't devolved further. "What did you do to her summon?"

"It wanted my help, so I broke their link."

Prudence turned white. "… That wasn't your call to make. You can't mess with people's classes like that. That's the kind of thing that makes people really upset."

Taylor shrugged as an older student, a human, jogged up to him and pointed at the multi-colored stack of gliders. "Little Mon, are these yours? Can I have one?"

Taylor replied in kind. "They're for everyone, Mon. Take an extra for a friend." Taylor watched the student retreat with a glider in each hand, then grinned at Cecilia. "Mon means monster, but in a friendly way."

Prudence answered for her. "Yes, we know. We go to school here." Pointing at the stack of disks, she asked, "Where did you get those?"

"Oh, these?" he said innocently. "They were just sitting here." He reached a hand into his bag, pulled out several more, and topped off the stack. "Someone must have left them behind. Doesn't it look like fun?"

"No." Prudence was definite.

"Yes," said Cecilia.

"Why not," said Lindastra.

The group paired off and threw disks until the light began to fade, and Taylor's stash was long depleted. Even Prudence took a few turns.

-----

Princess Lindastra, at Caldera Hall

Her personal library wasn't nearly as good as the Academy's, but Lindastra preferred to do her research away from prying eyes whenever possible. That spirit had known Taylor, had spoken to him in unmistakably reverent tones. Even her mediocre Arcaic could pick that up. But what she really wanted to know was the name it used for the boy.

She was down to her last Arcaic dictionary, but she found it.

Dux: (noun) A commander of multiple armies.

Armies. Plural. Those four spirits were not his only summons. He had more. A lot more. He'd been hunting all autumn and sent a letter a week to his sister, full of improbable stories but never mentioning where he was. Cecilia was proud of him, but also frustrated that he kept so much from her.

Lindastra left the library and went into the basement to the mansion's secure message room. Light was provided by incineration wards carved into the ceiling. If someone who didn't belong there tried to enter, the entire room would be turned to ash. Even the cabinets were flammable, to ensure nothing would be missed.

She didn't receive most top-secret materials here. There wasn't any need. But she was copied on the daily classified brief, plus anything that pertained to her directly. The princess flipped through the dailies until she found what she was looking for.

A major battle was fought in Dimmik over a month ago, in a remote section of the remote barony of Bizanet. Nobody saw it happen, and the aftermath had been competently cleaned, but the traces were there for anyone who cared enough to look. Scorched, overturned earth. Buried innards from cleaned monsters. Trees knocked down. It was a major hunt against a horde of monsters.

Whoever they were, they paid their taxes. They left boxes in front of the baron's house with a note that said, "Your twenty-five percent. Enjoy." It was a windfall of monster parts, enough to repair the barony's finances. And, the frequent monster attacks in that domain slowed to a trickle.

She didn't have proof, but she had a strong notion as to who was responsible.

General Twilight.

Lindastra considered everything she knew about her friend's brother and concluded that he could not be ignored. She had been aware of his unusual facility with magic and divine figures. The summoning was new. And, he had been attacked by a paladin in Bostkirk. If the church attacked him and missed, they should have covered up the incident or found a way to dirty his reputation. Instead, it should be fine. That wasn't normal.

She took a one-time pad from a mana-locked drawer and composed an encrypted message.

possible id bizanet incident. taylor aka bilius dmourne.

intel lvl 3 incident in bostkirk. paladin v taylor.

subject positive rep.

do not approach.

The enciphered text went through the Duchy's tablet system. She destroyed the original, the worksheets, and the one-time pad. Maybe the Duchy's intel services could find out what the church was up to.

Other people might claim it was impossible that the boy she knew was Dux Twilight, even if they heard it from the spirit's mouth. But she found it more than credible. She liked Cecilia's brother, but she had another reason to want to be on his good side.

Dux Twilight could also be interpreted as Dark Lord.