Chapter 53

Aris continued to argue as the Cabinet meeting proceeded but the Emperor’s words had done their damage. He had used Aris Ravenscroft’s identity against him. He had used the virtue that the General held himself to as a reflection of the abilities of his military force. In agreeing to Edrian Woll’s plea to bring the military into the city to curb the violence that had broken out after the devastating fires, Evrain had brilliantly began the cycle of destruction he’d once wrought upon the Twin Cities and he’d done so without implicating himself in the downfall that was bound to ensue.

The man was dangerous.

Aris needed to know what Emperor Evrain intended for Fiell. What could inspire him to bring down his own kingdom?

He had seen the smile that Evrain had bestowed him with after his dramatic interruption. Everyone else had thought that it had been a smile of mercy, Emperor Evrain had smiled down upon Aris’ belligerent outburst like a patient father smiles on the ignorant protestations of a favored son. Aris though, had seen something that the others hadn’t. He’d seen gloating in the eyes of the Emperor. He had seen the lust for destruction that his years spent hunting the most violent and depraved that Vealand had to offer mirrored in the Emperor’s eyes.

He pleasured in watching Aris struggle. He pleasured in death.

Aris knew with certainty that Evrain lusted after the destruction that his affirmation of Edrian Woll’s plea for a military presence in the city was bound to bring.

Why? He could guess whatever happened would mirror the destruction of Portin and Brinhold, but he had yet to find the answers for why Evrain wanted to bring that havoc again. Why would Emperor Evrain lust for the destruction of his empire? What good could possibly come from the destruction of his own holdings? From the razing of his empire? The answer was beyond Aris.

“I need to know,” Aris decided. “I can’t play it safe. I need answers and there’s no time to wait for them to come to me anymore. I have to figure it out before we’re all damned.”

He would do it. He would delve the Emperor’s memories. It was the only way to assure that he knew what they were facing.

If he were to die from what he did, Kestrel and Wallace would still be there to continue the fight.

He had to do it.

As the Cabinet meeting ended, Aris created his opportunity. He approached the Emperor to make one last effort of dissuading him from allowing Edrian Wolls to bring in the military to quash the sporadic violence that was plaguing the city.

He had to try to stop them. Protecting the city was his job. He needed to talk to the Emperor. He needed to see if there was any way to reason with the man.

At least, that’s what anyone watching from the outside would see.

Aris waited besides Evrain’s plush champaign velvet chair, trying his best to only appear as if he were simply trying to plead with the emperor for any unseen eyes that may be watching.

“Can I have a word with you?” He asked.

The emperor smiled, it was the same predatory grin disguised as indulgence as before. “Of course, come walk with me,” Evrain said as pushed up to lift himself from the small throne.

As he did so a tremor shook his hands and he pitched forward.

Aris’ time had come.

His hand shot out to the Emperor’s hand to steady him and help him right his footing.

*****

At the touch, a world of memories flowed into Aris.

He was in a beautiful portico. The walls were decorated with stunning turquoise tiled reliefs depicting various scenes of sea life. Stingrays danced on the walls besides schools of fish. A picture of a giant clam holding a pearl the size of his head was surrounded by two gargantuan octopus guardians on either side, each acting as sentinels protecting the precious underwater jewel. Stylized sharks swam over the walls and beautiful mermaids danced throughout the whole relief.

The scene was truly majestic but he cared little for it. Why would octopi guard a giant pearl? It literally was layers of petrified spit wrapped around sand. It was an irritant immortalized by poetry. Only fools cared for such nonsense. How could he celebrate the beauty of the pearl when he had seen the lives obtaining it had cost?

It was just another example of the needless extravagance of those highborn bastards who sought to control the world by controlling the memories of others.

They sickened him. They wasted so much money on building these needless things. The were spending thousands of coins on decorations when they could use that money to fund research delving into the true depths of the magic that they thought they controlled.

They were children playing with mud-pies, thinking they were baking the most fabulous desserts.

They were content with far too little. They were swimming in an ocean of thought. They were ascending the highest peaks of human knowledge, but they contented themselves to splash in the puddles. Happy to rest at the base of the mountain, never to climb it.

He was going to change that. He would change everything.

He swore it to himself. He would unlock the full potential of the magic that they held. He would never allow himself to be content with the piddling knowledge his contemporaries, his teachers, held. He would dive to the deepest depths of Memory Magic.

He would be the greatest mage to have ever lived. He would make himself immortal one way or another.

Aris stumbled back at the Emperor’s touch. He prayed that Evrain would only believe it to be him being put off balance by catching his stumbling lord.

Aris gripped tighter as he tried to steady himself and the Emperor.

“We’ve prepared him. He is ready for us. There’s little left of the man whom he used to be. He’s a blank slate. This will work,” he thought to himself.

Or was it himself? It had been decades since his mind had been his own. Oh, it was true that was the one who commanded his fate, but his wasn’t the only voice taking residence in his head. The voice had been his constant companion for more than fifty years now. It had been the one who’d guided him. It had found him when he had been young and full of blind ambition and had given him focus.

It had given him direction.

A purpose.

He was no longer the young student who wanted to prove his teachers wrong. No longer the ambitious whelp of a Memory Mage with delusions of grandeur. He’d already surpassed that. He’d become something else entirely. He’d become someone else.

He had become a canny and clever mage with a grasp on magic as of yet, unseen in the world. He had become everything that he dreamed he would ever be and it was due to the voice that had found him and guided him.

Without it, he’d only ever have been an ambitious pup. Nothing more. He owed everything to the voice. It was his guide. It was the one who had made him surpass even the most legendary of the Memory Mages.

Soon it would make him immortal.

He just needed the extra power to fuel his transformation. The voice had told him what was needed. It had never led him astray so far, so he wouldn’t break his faith now. He would trust it. He would take it at its word.

He knew if he did so, he truly would be immortal. He would defeat death. And not just in a metaphorical sense.

He just had to believe.

Just believe and raze the city.

Without the destruction of his kingdom, he wouldn’t have enough power to transfer his consciousness. The voice had told him what it needed for the change. It had instructed him in what was to be done.

The voice had never lied to him. He would trust it. It was going to grant him his every dream.

It just needed chaos to fuel its power.

It fed off the terror. Destruction was its feast. It was gluttony that gave him power.

He would feed it if it meant his immortality.

*****

Aris flinched as he drew his hand away from Emperor Evrain’s and bowed deeply with an elaborate apology.

He kept his head low.

What had he just seen? His mind flooded with millions of possibilities and he didn’t trust himself to look into the eyes of the Emperor in that moment.

What he had recalled in those memories was alien. There was no place in history that looked like that. It was like something from the fairy stories that he told his twins to take them into their dream worlds every night.

Had he seen the imaginations of a long senile mind? Was that it?

No.

It had been real.

Under Wallace’s guidance, he had long ago learned the difference between manufactured memories and those that were real. But how? How had that been real? It was as if Emperor Evrain had been in an entirely foreign world or nation lost to time.

A forgotten history.

How?

And what had that been at the end of his brief, but powerful vision? What had he seen? Was that the key to the reason that Emperor Evrain had just deigned to call in the Military to deal with the fires his own secret force of Mages had started?

Most importantly, what did the it mean, when in the vision, Emperor Evrain had declared he would become immortal?

“You’ve been bowing far too long. Look up. Look at him. Don’t let him know you’ve seen anything. Don’t let him know anything is wrong. Don’t let him know that you too are a Memory Mage.” He chided himself. “Look up now. Smile apologetically!”

Aris raised his head to see Evrain staring down at him with a curious look.

He saw bemusement in the Emperor’s eyes mixed with something else…Something dark.

It was the same look that Evrain had seen in the brief reflection he’d glimpsed during that strange vision he had just received at the touch of the Emperor.

There was a madness in his eyes but no insanity there.

What he saw was calm, calculated, and crazy, but not insane.

That predatory gleam terrified Aris.