Chapter 22
Dog Eat Dog
Central-Prime, District C-1, Central Sector, Dominion of Nylos
Giger was not terribly comfortable standing on the roof of the building. It felt like these decaying ruins could collapse at any time, regardless of the fact that they had remained at least partially intact over the past three centuries. According to Gally, who was no expert, the construction was never intended to last this long. Something about the phases of settlement for colonization.
At any rate, they were up this high because Mordekai wanted a commanding view of the battlefield. Once he was done asserting his control over the Cerberus Guild, his attention then turned to meeting the threat of Nylos' other mages' guild, the Orthus Guild. While the Cerberus Guild was charged with guarding Central-Prime and the secrets within—namely the Star Seed—, the Orthus Guild was kept in the acting capital to handle whatever business the government had for them. The Cerberus Guild had always been the more prestigious, but it was the Orthus Guild that did more dirty work on a daily basis. And now that guild was coming here to clean up the Cerberus Guild's mess.
"I'm curious to see what they try," Mordekai said. "Until three weeks ago, there were no significant bodies of water to be found here in Nylos. They Nylians shouldn't have any boats for crossing the Not-So-Hollow Sea." He paused. "We really need to think of a better name. Any suggestions, Giger, Galatea?"
Gally only shook her head. She had been rather withdrawn ever since the Cerberus Guild's attack. She really was not cut out for this, not that Giger considered himself much better suited for it.
Mordekai frowned at the lack of input, then turned back to look out into the distance.
"Maybe we should call it the Zarzadu Sea in honor of our dearly departed friend, the only one of the Nine Masters to have any vision. Probably they'll call it Mar Zemlya, though."
He must have thought he was pretty clever with a pun like that. Giger was not sure which was worse: that Mordekai made such a miserable pun or that it was probably an accurate prediction of the Cerberus Guild's naming sense.
Initially, Giger felt some sense of duty to be there as a check on Mordekai abusing his new powers, but the longer time went on and the more powerful Mordekai became, it was clear there was very little he could do to deter his old master from doing whatever he wanted. By the old standards, Mordekai probably qualified as an Abomination from the moment the Star Seed merged with him. Maybe if the Cerberus Guild had focused all their energy and manpower on him instead of wasting time butchering the mostly helpless and harmless Ancients, they could have beaten him, but they underestimated him just because he was in a coma. Then again, if they had tried that and failed, they probably would have been completely wiped out instead of losing only some twenty to thirty percent of their number.
Then there was the Ancients. The attack on them proved to be sufficiently traumatic to trigger the return of their memories for a lot of them. As with Gally, those memories were largely jumbled and fragmentary, but as Mordekai, Giger and Gally made the rounds talking to them, there were some who seemed to be holding out. In particular was that one old man. He claimed he remembered nothing, but the others talked about how he took on the Cerberus battlemages and rallied the other Ancients to fight back. He claimed it was just an instinctual reaction, something he did not have any control over, but Giger did not believe that for a minute. He was clearly no ordinary person and with his ability to get the Ancients to band together, if he ever decided to be discontented with the current situation, it could be a problem.
Mordekai counselled Giger to leave it be, to keep his distance while keeping an eye on any suspicious moves by the old man or the other Ancients. None of the Ancients had any magical ability, but if they started to organize, who knew what they could do? If they could find and salvage any Lost Technology and make use of it, there was no telling the danger they could represent.
However, any danger the Ancients posed was bound to be trivial compared to the borderline deity Mordekai was becoming. If worse came to worst, Giger could just take Gally and run. She might hate him for abandoning her fellow Ancients so just the two of them could escape, but so long as she was alive, he could deal with her hating him.
It annoyed him that so much of his thoughts were dedicated to worrying about Gally's wellbeing. He told himself it was just his sense of responsibility as the person who brought her back into the world. There was definitely not anything else to it. Definitely not.
"Those tricky little bastards," Mordekai muttered.
"What is it?" Giger asked.
"They thought they could slip one past me," Mordekai replied. "They're not coming at us on the water. They're coming as us under it."
"How can you tell?"
"Hm? Oh, yes, your senses aren't as attuned. They are suppressing their power and using a passive enchantment to breathe underwater, but they can't hide then disruption of the æther currents as they pass."
"Can't you do something?" Gally asked, speaking up for a change.
Mordekai looked at Giger and asked him, "You remember that experiment we did with the river trout?"
"I remember you making me clean the damn things," Giger grumbled.
"It comes with being the junior apprentice. Do you remember the experiment itself?"
"You were demonstrating the effect of lightning on water, or more importantly, on things in the water."
"And the results?"
"The electricity disperses across the surface. At a sufficient depth, living things aren't affected, otherwise every lake, river and stream would be a death trap anytime there's a thunderstorm."
"Meaning?"
"You're going to wait until they surface, just before they reach land."
"Ever the apt pupil," Mordekai said with a faint smile.
He turned back northward and stretched out his hands.
"Get behind me, Giger," he said. "This is going to take a fair bit of concentration and I don't want to fall over if I start moving around."
Giger silently did as he was told and though Gally had taken to sticking rather close to him lately, she kept her distance. She may not have been able to understand Mordekai's powers the way Giger could, but animal instinct if nothing else put her on her guard around him. The only thing that seemed to scare her more was the Cerberus Guild. The more Giger thought about it, the more tempted he was to just take her and get out.
However, Giger did not run away. He stood behind Mordekai to brace him as he cast his spell. This not being an emergency like the time Giger had to fish Mordekai out of the newly created sea, he was a little more self-conscious about where he was supposed to put his hands. If he made a wrong move, Mordekai would torment him for it and Gally would get annoyed at him, the thought of which in turn made him annoyed.
He nearly let such nonsense thoughts distract him from observing the spell Mordekai was casting. He had drawn no magic circle, nor was he doing an incantation. It was all in the subtle motions of his hands and even that may not have been entirely necessary.
Before the creation of such a large body of water, cloud cover was sparse at best, but now thick black clouds were coming together overhead. Lights flashed within the clouds and the first rumbles of thunder could be heard. Weather manipulation on this scale was believed to be nearly impossible. Maybe if an entire guild came together with a week's preparation, but for one person to make it happen so easily...
What looked like ten spotlights appeared on the surface of the waters, each controlled by one of Mordekai's fingers by the looks of it. The lights began moving toward land as Mordekai slowly pulled his hands back. Giger figured he was tracking the Orthus Guild mages and the trigger would be when the spells allowing them to move and breathe underwater were broken.
Mordekai took a step back and Giger steadied him so he would not break his concentration. Giger was most certainly not letting himself get distracted by how soft the body of his old master was to the touch.
"And... now!"
With that, Mordekai swung his hands downward and ten bolts of lightning streaked down to the surface. Giger could only imagine what the experience must have been like for the Orthus mages. Probably brief.
Mordekai slumped back into Giger's arms, leaving Giger to awkwardly hold him for a moment before he picked himself back up.
"Thank you, Giger," he said as he readjusted his glasses.
"Did you get them?" Giger asked.
"Most of them," Mordekai replied. "I'll let our boys clean up the rest. They should get a little hunting in."
"They were on the same side until a few days ago," Giger noted. "What if they remember that?"
"All the more reason to let them do it, to make a clean and irrevocable break."
"And if there isn't a clean break?"
"Then I'll have to do some cleaning."
Giger was not sure if it was more or less comforting that there was no trace of malice in his words. He was no bloodthirsty maniac, thankfully, but the weight of human life was so light that it barely stirred any emotion. Whether a person lived or died was determined by cold cost-benefit calculations colored by the caprice of this childlike intellect that merged with one of the foremost wizards of their age.
Mordekai sat down on the edge of the roof, letting his legs dangle off the side.
"I'll keep an eye on things here," he said. "Giger, Galatea, would you mind checking in on our Ancient friends? I'd like to know how they're holding up. They shouldn't have anything to worry about, but I don't want them getting restless."
"Sure," Giger said. He motioned for Gally to follow. "Come on."
He took one more look at Mordekai before leaving and wondered anew how long he could remain in this budding god's good graces.