Chapter 16
From the Ashes
Vigau, Arielle, Bonaventure
The piece of Mordekai within Giger allowed him to see what Mordekai saw, so it was like he was there when the light swallowed up Mordekai and Kamellia both.
"Kamellia!" he shouted, startling Prissy.
"Giger, wha—?"
Before Prissy could even finish her question, Giger was stumbling toward the entryway clutching at his chest. His breathing was ragged and his hand quaked as he reached for his shoes.
"Giger, what's wrong?" Prissy asked.
"I... I have to go... Kamellia... Kamellia..."
If putting on his shoes before leaving the house was not well-drilled into him, Giger would not have even bothered and just gone out in his stocking feet.
As he went to the door, he felt something pull on his jacket. It was Prissy climbing up his back.
"Augh... No, Prissy. Stay here."
"I'm going with you," Prissy insisted, digging her claws.
Giger was scarcely thinking straight and could only mutter, "The... the Witch-hunters..."
"I'm not worried about the Witch-hunters, Giger," Prissy said. "I'm worried about you. We go together."
Giger could not find the wherewithal to argue with her. Had he been able to go over the situation rationally, he would have remembered what Mordekai did to the Witch-hunters here in Vigau and known that they were no longer a threat. It was a good thing, too, because even as he tried to use the Witch-hunters as an excuse to leave Prissy behind, he was not thinking about them as he prepared the leap spell he and Mordekai used to traverse the Hollow Sea. He would later reflect on how nice it was that Prissy did not scream half the way like Gally did.
It took several leaps to reach the field where Mordekai lured out the Visitors, or perhaps where they lured him judging from the results. There was a near perfect circle nearly half a kilometer across where the field had once been of blasted earth that reminded Giger of the Hollow Sea. It was all smoke and ash, but in the midst of it all, there was a lone white figure.
"Mordekai! Kamellia!"
Giger got no answer either way. He tumbled down the side of the crater and ran toward the figure, heedless of the choking air and hot ash at his feet. He was deaf to Prissy's yelps of pain as the ash burned her paws just as he was ignoring how the air was searing his lungs.
When he reached the white figure, he recognized it from its turquoise hair as Kamellia. She was naked and covered in burns, but he hoped against hope that she was still alive. When he turned her over, he saw that she was indeed breathing but weakly, yet that was not all. She was not the same woman he last saw, the slightly careworn mother, but rather she was as he remembered her from before the Vigau Incident. Holding her, he looked around him in confusion, but there were no answers to be found.
* * *
It had been nearly two full days since Giger found Kamellia when she first opened her eyes. Giger had barely left her bedside in all that time. He was never that good with healing magic, so he had to supplement his substandard spells with some ordinary salves to treat the burns on her body. She looked something like a mummy under her bedclothes. This was one of the first things she noticed when she woke up, looking at her bandaged arms and hands before even registering Giger was there.
She opened her mouth to try to speak, but no words came out. Unlike the time when Gally was first awakened from her 300-year curse, Giger actually had a cup of water on hand this time.
"Water," he said as he brought the cup to her lips.
She drank a little before coughing and sputtering a little. Once the coughing subsided, she was able to speak in a weak, hoarse voice.
"What happened? Where am I?"
"What's the last thing you remember?" Giger asked.
"I... I don't remember what I was doing... I just remember that I... I..."
She looked down at herself and her eyes widened in a panic as she held her stomach.
"My baby! My baby! I...! I...!"
Giger placed his hands on hers, telling her, "It's alright. It's alright. Your baby is fine."
"What do you mean?" Kamellia asked. "I was still carrying last I remember. What happened?"
"I'm still trying to figure that out myself," Giger told her. "Do you know what year it is?"
Kamellia held her head and winced as she struggled to remember.
"Louis 7... I think... Maybe Louis 8?"
"It's Philippe 4," Giger said.
Kamellia gave him a stunned look before asking, "Have I been in a coma all this time?" She looked around herself. "This... doesn't look like a hospital and you don't look like a doctor."
"So you don't remember me?"
Kamellia squinted and said, "Barz? Barz, is that you? What happened to your hair?"
"It's a long story," Giger said. "We've got a lot of long stories."
"Can we start with what you know about what's happened to me?"
"If you think it's Louis 7 or 8, let's start with the short version of what's happened between now and then. Do you remember turning into an Abomination?"
Kamellia defensively hugged herself, saying, "Only that it happened."
"And Mordekai stopped you and somehow your essences got merged and he ended up reincarnating as your kid."
Kamellia's hand went back to her stomach.
"I could feel his presence. I knew it was him."
"Well, you gave birth to him, alright. Twice."
"Twice?"
"Something about the trauma of becoming an Abomination and getting turned back caused you to split into three people, two with Mordekai and one without. One of those Mordekais had all his old memories and one of 'em didn't. I'd been watching over you all this time, but I didn't realize you were burning through your lifeforce at an accelerated rate until the awakened Mordekai approached me last year. We were able to fuse the three of you together, same for the two Mordekais."
"Why don't I remember any of this?" Kamellia asked. "If it's because of the fusion spell, shouldn't my memories start before the split?"
"It's not because of the fusion spell," Giger said. "Look."
He took a hand mirror from the nightstand and showed Kamellia her face.
"Does that look like a woman in her thirties?" he asked.
"I'd be flattered if it was," Kamellia replied.
"Well, it's not like you weren't still pretty," Giger said, feeling foolish as he said it.
Kamellia managed a smile as she said teasingly, "Flattery will get you nowhere, Barz."
"Don't I know it," Giger grumbled.
Getting serious again, Kamellia said, "So, according to you, I've lived the past thirteen years, but I certainly don't look the part now and I don't remember any of it. I'm sure you've got a theory or two."
"You need a little more information first. I was researching Lost Technology and I found myself at a dead end, so I tested a theory. You know those bronze statues you'd see everywhere?"
"Yes."
"And you know the fringe theory that the statues are actually people from before the Cataclysm placed under some sort of curse?"
"Yes, but that's just a fringe theory, like you said."
"Well, sometimes you've got to go to the fringe to find the truth. I tested it out and I got a girl out of the deal."
"It could've just been some sort of simulacrum," Kamellia said, "a golem mimicking flesh, a homunculus, whatever you want to call it."
"I considered that," Giger said, "but then she started to remember. She's a bona fide Ancient."
"Where is she now?"
"We're not there yet. After we did the fusion spell on you and Mordekai, he and I went on an expedition to Nylos to research the origins of the Cataclysm."
"How did you get in? They don't allow outsiders in Nylos."
"We didn't ask permission," Giger said, "and it nearly got us killed, but Mordekai managed to get us to the Star Seed."
"But the Star Seed is a myth."
"And so was the bronze statues being cursed Ancients," Giger said, "but here we are." He paused for a moment, drawing in a slow breath before he continued. "The Star Seed, it... it took Mordekai, fused with him, and he became something else."
"What did he become?"
Giger found himself recalling Mordekai's shapely female form and the dashing young man that got Kamellia all weak in the knees. The sense of annoyance was no less raw now than it had been at the start.
"A pain in the ass is what," he said. "A powerful pain in the ass. Apparently the Star Seed is the source of all our magic and you don't touch power like that without it changing you. First he took over Nylos and then he decided he was going take the rest of the world, make a sorcerers' kingdom, empire, whatever."
"That doesn't sound like the Mordekai I know."
"I didn't think so either, but he didn't like it when you pointed that out to him. He took Belmondo and was sending his copies to the other kingdoms."
"Copies?"
"A trick he picked up. He could split himself off and the copies all work like one."
Giger self-consciously touched his chest. Mordekai's shape and will had not taken over like Giger had seen with the others. He called it insurance. Maybe he would remain dormant and only manifest as a last resort. Then again, there was a feeling of weight within Giger's chest that made him wonder if that piece of Mordekai died when the light hit his main body. Maybe all of Mordekai's copies were dead, too. He did say that he was not sure if the copies could sustain themselves without the main body.
Kamellia interrupted his thoughts by asking, "How does all that connect to what's happened to me?"
"When the Star Seed fused with Mordekai, it released this wave of energy that broke the curse on all the Ancients across the world. Just imagine all these random naked people showing up one night. Hundreds, thousands. God knows how many. You even picked up one, some kid you called Percy or whatever. Satisfying your maternal instinct after Mordekai left the nest, I suppose."
"What happened to him, or the Ancient you picked up?"
"Well, I guess you don't remember, but the League cracked down on mages after you went Abomination. They banned magic and had these people called Witch-hunters who'd hunt down anyone still using magic. After all the Ancients showed up, they started rounding up all mages, not just the rogues, and the Ancients, too.
"Here in Arielle, they had a lot of the Ancients held up in the barracks at Ladrieu. Mordekai and I went to rescue them, but someone else got there first.
"It wasn't magic, but what they did could put the Nine Masters to shame. For lack of a better term, we call them the Visitors and it seems like they're out to rescue the Ancients. As we had two Ancients here, they came while Mordekai and I were away at Belmondo. They took you, Gally, the kid, some girls you were looking after... They cut poor Prissy in half and I don't know if there's anything left of Happy..."
"Apollos?"
"He tried to protect you as I hear it. Of course he would."
"What about Priscilla?"
"She's fine. I was able to restore her."
"Where is she? I thought you two were inseparable."
"She's downstairs looking for traces of Happy."
"I didn't think she liked Apollos."
"They say, 'Familiarity breeds contempt,' but living together almost thirteen years seems to count for something."
"You said I was taken by these 'Visitors'," Kamellia said, returning to the main topic, "but I'm here now. Did they let me go?"
For the time being, Giger decided to leave out what Mordekai did to him, so he had to carefully frame what he saw through Mordekai's eyes to not draw any suspicion. Kamellia could be infuriatingly perceptive, so this would be no easy task.
"Mordekai went to negotiate with the Visitors. They sent you to act on their behalf and now there's a half-kilometer crater where you two met. All I found when I got there was you."
"Was it the Visitors who did it?"
Giger nodded.
"Seems like they saw him as a threat."
He did not say what Kamellia told Mordekai, that the Visitors considered him to be not just any threat but one that warranted destroying the entire world.
"And now we get to what you think happened to me," Kamellia said.
"First off, I don't know anything for sure," Giger replied. "I've been thinking about it all this time and I've got some theories. You sure you're ready to hear them?"
Kamellia nodded. Giger found himself remembering when he first told Gally his theories about her existence. Thinking about Gally meant worrying about her, and he did not have time for that right now. Refocusing himself, he began by saying, "Theory Number One is that you just magicked away thirteen years somehow. Obviously we're not taking this one too seriously, but at least it would mean you're still you."
"And the others mean I'm not me."
"Not your original form at least, but you can argue that we already crossed that bridge when you became an Abomination. Theory Number Two is that Mordekai used his power to birth you as a sort of replacement for your original. When we were talking about restoring Happy, he'd mentioned sharing your blood when you were pregnant with him. That would explain why you look like you did back then and why your memory ends there."
"I can't say I like the idea of just being a copy," Kamellia said.
"Theory Number Three isn't much better," Giger replied. "Mordekai couldn't protect you from the Visitors' attack, so he fused with you as a last-ditch effort to save you. But if that was the case, I should be talking to Mordekai and you should have all your memories and his too. The main points to support the idea is the fact that you survived the attack and you're around the same age that Mordekai took after fusing with the Star Seed."
"If I had to choose, being one with Mordekai definitely sounds like the better option," Kamellia said, "but even fused, I should be able to feel his presence."
"My idea is that Mordekai is gone or else he's just lying dormant, intentionally or not."
"If intentional, then it's to throw the Visitors off his trail," Kamellia said.
"Exactly."
"Do you think it'll work?"
"I don't know how well they can detect the Star Seed's power," Giger said. "I remember something Mordekai said about Mother's blood calling her children, but he never gave me a proper explanation. Near as I can tell, the Star Seed is derived from this Mother and the Visitors have mages that are also connected to her. They might be able to see through him playing dead, but I don't know the range."
"What do we do?"
"You need to focus on getting better. I'd tell you to stay here, but I don't imagine you're going to settle for that."
"No, I don't think I will," Kamellia replied. "And you can use the help."
Giger was not keen to admit it, but she was probably right. Also, after what happened last time, he did not want to part with her, even if part of him worried that the woman before him was nothing more than Mordekai in Kamellia's skin.
"Once you're fit to travel, we'll go to Montreuil," Giger said. "I'm sure Mordekai sent one of his copies there. If he's still active, maybe we can learn more about you, him, all of it. And then maybe we can do something about those damn Visitors."