Chapter 18
In the Basilisk's Nest
Montreuil, Arielle, Bonaventure
One of the reasons for Arielle's primacy among the fiefdoms of Bonaventure was the fact that the princely capital of Montreuil was located there. The Count of Arielle had traditionally been the Prince's right-hand man. Montreuil was also the home of the Basilisk Mages' Guild, the Phoenix Guild's rival and Mordekai's original guild. Giger wondered about the complicated feelings swirling around in his chest. Was is because of the Mordekai within him or something else?
A prime candidate for an alternative explanation was the young lady walking next to him. He still had not gotten used to seeing Kamellia younger than himself. This was the longest they had been together since the Vigau Incident and an already awkward situation was now all the more awkward. Mordekai was no longer around to mediate between them, at least not so obviously. Perhaps it was just as well that the hyper-jealous Prissy refused to afford them any time alone together.
Speaking of Prissy, she insisted on accompanying them, as you would imagine, and with the threat of the Witch-hunters largely diminished, Giger had less reason to object. Also, he needed to keep her close as the Visitors might choose to communicate via her other half. Still, he did not know how much he appreciated her in her adult form clinging to his arm. With her and Kamellia's apparent age roughly the same, he looked like some kind of playboy, but had he insisted Prissy take child form and the three of them pose as a little family, he would have looked like some kind of cradle robber. Like master, like apprentice, was it?
With him fretting about appearances, he did not fail to pick up how Kamellia had developed the annoying habit of stealing glances at him and then quickly looking away when he noticed. He had tried to overlook it, but she kept doing it, so he finally had enough.
"Is there something on my face?" he asked her. "You've been sneaking peeks the past four days. What's so interesting?"
Kamellia blushed a little and said, "My last memory of you was a skinny boy. I'm still getting used to seeing you all grown up. You've gotten so tall... and handsome."
"Giger's always been handsome," Prissy insisted.
Giger did not count on Prissy to be the most objective judge, but what he would have given for Kamellia to look at him this way back in those days...
"You really do have a thing for older men, don't you?" he said.
"One or two," Kamellia replied, seeming just a little huffy on account of Giger's response.
Giger wondered if she was genuinely feeling attraction to him or if it was just the Mordekai within him. Of course, if this Kamellia was just Mordekai masquerading in her skin, that made it even worse.
"You know I always liked you, Barz," Kamellia said. "I loved you like you were my own brother."
"Yeah, well, that wasn't was I was going for."
"I wasn't blind. I could tell. It was just that I didn't have eyes for anyone but Mordekai. I thought maybe it was just a phase, that you'd grow out of it."
"It's been more than twenty years," Giger said. "That's a damn long phase."
"It hasn't been that long since you became Mordekai's apprentice."
"You think that was when it started? I was, what, five or six when the guild took me in? I saw you in one of the gardens with Happy, probably not too long after you first summoned him. You had me then... and ever since."
Giger gritted his teeth as Prissy dug her nails into his arm. He should have known better than to have this conversation with her around.
"Well, you've got me beat for time then," Kamellia said, "but I think we can both agree that I was the one who took it farther."
"A few more years and I might've been pushed over the edge, too," Giger said. "And anyway, there aren't any prizes for this competition, so could we knock it off?"
"Alright," Kamellia replied. "Let's go over your plan to find Mordekai again."
"We start with the Basilisk Guild. Chances are, Mordekai's reconstructed the guild and is using it as a base of operations just like he was planning to do back home. Either we'll find him there or we'll find people who can point us in the right direction, give us the introductions we'd need to get into the Château de Champlain or wherever he is."
"And if that doesn't work?" Kamellia asked. "Have you come up with a better solution than, 'I'll improvise'?"
"I wasn't aware I needed a better solution," Giger said blithely, his way of telling her he had not managed to come up with a decent alternative. The next choice would be to go all the way out to Belmondo, but he wanted to exhaust his options here first, even if he was not sure what all those options were.
Much like their own guild back in Vigau, the Basilisk Mages' Guild Hall complex had fallen into disrepair amid the Mage Ban, but there were signs of reconstruction work in progress. It would seem that they were quick to get back on their feet after Mordekai gave them a new lease on life.
Amid all the workmen milling about, there did not seem to be much in the way of security. Of course, for the headquarters of a mages' guild, the security did not need to be something visible to the naked eye. To test the waters, Giger took a pinch of pixy powder from the pouch hanging from his belt and scattered it in the air. He then took his starter and struck it, using the sparks to channel his energy into the particles of pixy powder, amplifying their latent magic power to trigger a response from any magical contrivances in the immediate area. If there were any detection spells set up, he was basically announcing his presence, but it was not like he meant to hide. Drawing the attention of the resident mages was precisely what he meant to do and if he could get a better idea of what he was dealing with, all the better.
The feedback from his little test revealed spell upon spell plastering every nook and cranny, it would seem. There was actually too much information for him to sort out clearly, but it was abundantly clear that whoever had set all this up wanted to know exactly who was entering the grounds and if anyone proved to be a threat, there were multiple layers of defenses to deal with them. Giger should have expected nothing less from one of the more militant guilds.
It did not take long for Giger's little announcement to draw someone out. A woman approached them. She wore a high-collared white cloak with a flame pattern about the hem and the cuffs of the flared sleeves. Under it was a slinky, low-cut black robe that probably would have been more alluring when she was some thirty or forty years younger. Now you noticed her ribs more than her cleavage. She was not quite skeletal, but that did not seem too far off at the rate she was going. Her spider-black eyes still had a keenness to them, which was probably her most striking feature if she would have the decency to close up her robe. Her hair was a slick black that matched her eyes. It was probably her natural color at one point but now was almost certainly dyed. And to complete the picture, she had a thin cigarette in a long ivory holder that might very well double as a wand. You would see some rogue wizards be clever like that.
"Who the hell are you?" Giger demanded.
"You come here unannounced to our guild and you ask me who the hell I am?" the woman asked in turn. She then took a long drag on her cigarette and blew out the smoke in Giger's face before replying, "Philomène de Laurent, little bonbon, second-degree master of the Basilisk Mages' Guild."
Giger's pride demanded that he resist coughing from the smoke.
"I remember you," the woman—Philomène—said. "You were with Mordekai. His little helper."
She looked at Prissy, taking another drag on her cigarette, then glanced from her to Giger.
"Your familiar, I take it," she said. "I have to wonder how you managed to hide this little thing from the Witch-hunters so long. Here we had to kill our familiars before going on the registry." She paused. "But if you were never registered..."
The answer was obvious, so Giger did not need to say anything. Philomène showed a slight hint of a smile in silent acknowledgment of Giger getting around the system.
She then looked at Kamellia, exhaling the smoke through her nostrils.
"And what might you be?"
Before Kamellia could answer, Giger interrupted, asking Philomène, "Have you seen Mordekai?"
Philomène stretched out her arms and replied, "If he were here, you would be looking at him. I was his vessel here in Montreuil."
"He took you?" Giger asked.
"Took me?" Philomène laughed. "I gave myself to him." She gave a sly smile as she added, "It certainly was not the first time."
Kamellia frowned at this. By Giger's estimate, Philomène and Mordekai would have been contemporaries. Having seen Mordekai in the form of a young man, Giger would not have doubted that any number of Basilisk witches fell to his charms. This was, of course, not something Kamellia would want to be thinking about. Philomène appeared to catch on to this, and she was not nearly gracious enough to leave it be.
"That is some powerful negative energy you have there, child," she said. "What on earth might I have done to deserve having it directed at me?"
"I couldn't possibly imagine," Kamellia replied coolly.
Ignoring her, Philomène asked Giger, "What has happened?"
Giger saw nothing to gain by lying to her, so he told her, "Mordekai is gone, maybe permanently. We're trying to find out the truth of the matter. If you really were his vessel here, then it's certainly looking like the worst case scenario."
Philomène took another drag of her cigarette and rolled the smoke around inside her mouth while she was thinking before breathing it out.
"I'm going to need more information if you want my professional opinion, bonbon," she said.
Giger glanced to Kamellia, finding himself instinctively deferring to her even though he had every reason to take charge under the circumstances.
Seeming to take his cue, Kamellia asked her, "Why do you think we want your professional opinion?"
Philomène gave them a condescending smile and said, "You are speaking to a master of the Basilisk Guild, child, and as an... intimate of Mordekai's, I'd think my professional opinion would be useful to you."
"We're dealing with a situation that has no precedent," Giger replied. "I think it's safe to say that it's out of your wheelhouse."
"Try me, bonbon."
Kamellia sighed and told Giger, "Go on and tell her. Secrecy isn't going to get us anywhere."
Her reluctance was clear, but if she was willing to take a chance on this woman, there was a slim chance she might know something useful or be able to make a reasonable conjecture that would at least confirm what Giger suspected himself if nothing else.
"What do you know about the Visitors?" Giger asked.
"Stories mostly," Philomène replied, "rumors. I know they appear to stand opposed to Mordekai, and that they have something to do with the so-called Ancients."
Giger nodded to Kamellia and said, "They took her captive when they came to claim a couple Ancients we'd been safeguarding. They then used her as a sort of go-between when Mordekai tried negotiating with them."
"And?" Philomène asked.
"There's a crater about a kilometer across outside Vigau now," Giger replied. "No Mordekai and she's now a good thirteen years younger than what she was."
Hearing this, Philomène leaned in closer to Kamellia, slowly looking her up and down, making a long "Hmmm" sound as she was thinking before blowing smoke in her face once her apparent analysis was complete. The look Kamellia was giving her could put her in the running to be the Basilisk Guild's mascot.
"Glare at me all you like, child, but you aren't going to burn any holes in me," Philomène said.
"Do you have something useful for us?" Kamellia asked.
"When Mordekai was inside me," Philomène began, "this most recent time, I mean, of course, it was like I was in a dream. In that dream I was Mordekai. I saw what saw, felt what he felt, and there were bits and pieces of his mind I was made privy to. He always was a guarded man and even fully sharing body and soul, he kept things from me. He thought often of you, though, both of you. I don't believe he ever loved any two apprentices of his quite so much as you."
"And?" Kamellia asked, echoing Philomène's own response from earlier.
Philomène saw what she was doing and smiled.
"A daughter, a mother, a would-be lover... He loved you so much that he would throw away all his ambition just to give you a second lease on life."
"Then you think he's gone," Kamellia replied.
"He lives in you," she said to Kamellia, then to Giger, "and you, and me, and the others, and perhaps he will reveal himself in our hour of need. Or perhaps we simply have to carry out his legacy."
"The sorcerers' kingdom..." Giger muttered.
"A beautiful notion, don't you think, bonbon? All this time we wasted as the mundanes' running dogs when the answer was right there from the beginning."
"Belmond Weiss seemed to think otherwise," Giger said.
"And the most recent persecution of our kind is where his way of thinking led us," Philomène countered. "Mordekai was right to seek a new way for us."
"That new way now has us in the sights of the Visitors," Giger argued. "Them rescuing the Ancients was just the beginning. They saw Mordekai as a threat and look what happened. Are you going to defy them like he did?"
"Are you going to surrender to them?" Philomène asked. "There are only two choices here. We fight or we submit, and we've seen where submission gets us. The answer is clear, I would think."
"They've threatened to destroy the whole planet," Giger said. "Is that what you want?"
Philomène dragged on her cigarette and said, "I suppose every man must decide whether he will die free or live a slave."
"I don't think the Visitors are going to be that discriminate and I don't think their threshold is very high either."
"Then if you mean to submit, you must fight all who would resist, and vice versa."
"I notice you haven't declared yourself one way or the other," Kamellia said.
"Neither have you, pet," Philomène replied. "It seems prudent to play one's cards close to the chest under the circumstances. We do not know who our true allies are."
"If you and the other Basilisk mages are thinking about resisting, I recommend you first pay a visit to that hole in the ground the Visitors made in Vigau," Giger said. "Just so you can appreciate what you're dealing with."
"I will take your recommendation under advisement, bonbon," Philomène said. "And I will give you a bit of a recommendation myself. Mind who you talk to and how you talk to them. Someone could take you for a defeatist. Do you know what they do to defeatists in times of war, bonbon?"
"No, but I imagine 'respect the diversity of opinions' isn't it."
Philomène cracked a slight grin at his answer before telling him, "If you are a soldier, they might allow the dignity of a bullet, but for civilians, it is a date with Dr. Guillotin."
"Lovely."
Philomène leaned in toward Giger as she dragged on her cigarette again, this time exhaling through her nostrils as she looked him dead in the eyes, saying, "You hear all manner of speculation about what it feels like. Nothing at all or perhaps just a momentary tickle on the back of the neck. And then there is the question of how long the head lives after being separated from the body. Seconds? Minutes? What if time slows down in those last moments? Ah, the idle thoughts we scholars have..."
"Food for thought," Giger replied. "Well, I guess we'll be taking our leave."
Philomène smiled and said, "Don't be a stranger, bonbon. If you manage to find your resolve, we would welcome you with open arms. I believe there was a wise man who once said, 'We shall hang together or we shall hang separately.'"
"I don't know about that," Giger said, "but I suppose I'll do what you said. Take it under advisement."
Philomène waved as they turned to leave. They did not get far before Kamellia said, "Well, that was a fine use of our time. Did you get anything worthwhile out of all that?"
"We learned that Mordekai is either gone or dormant and that at least the Basilisk mages are probably going to get us all killed. That's more information than what we had before we got here."
These were conclusions Kamellia was more than capable of reaching herself, but Giger imagined that other things were weighing on her mind and the jealous woman was overshadowing the brilliant researcher. It was most certainly a bad idea, but he thought to attempt to assuage the former so that he might get some use out of the latter.
"The past is the past," Giger said. "I wouldn't get too hung up on it if I were you."
"You're about the last person I want to hear that from, Barz," Kamellia replied, "but you are right. Whatever that woman had, she doesn't have it anymore."
"In more ways than one," Giger quipped.
Kamellia elbowed him in the ribs.
"Anyway," she said, "what improvisation have you come up with for our next step?"
"How do you feel about talking with the Visitors again?"
Kamellia frowned. Even without her memories of their last encounter, she liked the idea about as well as he expected she would. Giger was not too fond of it himself, but even if all the magical forces of the world could unite as one, he did not like their odds. At very least, he wanted a better idea of what he was dealing with, even if that meant putting his own neck on the line. It was a fine mess Mordekai had left for him.