Fire and Water (2)
"Aquins has descended."
The voice delivered only those words, and then it was gone.
The orb no longer responded, yet Harad went on staring down at it, dazed. He felt as though he had been bewitched. It's just an object.
The cause was not the orb — it was the voice. "Aquins has descended." The words echoed through his skull, dragging at his consciousness like a current pulling him under. That honeyed voice had been demonic, uncanny — something he had never once experienced even in his previous life, something beyond all words.
"Are you alright?"
His body was resisting — someone was hauling at him. Ellen had him by the ribs, and without her he would have pitched over. Only then did Harad realize he had been on the verge of driving his face straight into the orb.
"And you? Are you alright?"
Ellen tilted her head.
"Did you feel nothing?"
"It was a pretty voice, I suppose."
"And?"
"What else would there be?"
Ellen, it seemed, had felt nothing at all. Only I felt it. Magic? No — this had been something far more primal. Harad could not have put the sensation into words if he tried.
"Your type, was it?"
"No. Quite the opposite."
That sense of being enthralled — intoxicating in the moment, and horrifying in hindsight. Harad felt he needed to experience it again, to understand it. But no matter how much mana he poured into the orb, it stayed dead. The other side had simply declined to connect.
"It said its piece and vanished, then."
The orb belonged to the Moon Tower — the channel through which Cassion, their mole, had once reported upstairs. I'll have to ask Cassion about that later. The power laced into the voice, and whoever owned it — Harad forced both from his mind. What mattered now was the content.
"Aquins has descended." Harad turned the message over once more. The voice's owner had meant it for Cassion.
"Aquins... you mean that bastard from back then?"
"Right. The mage who proposed to you was an Aquins."
Tyrell Aquins. The mage of Waves they had crossed paths with once in the Boundary. He had died at Harad's hands.
"Could this be revenge, then? What was it they called him...?"
"Aquins of the River. They called him the noble Star of the Tower of the Abyss, if I recall."
Aquins was the surname of a noble house — and also the name of a certain mage. Tyrell had been his grandson.
"Is he strong?"
"Very."
"Compared to that 5th-tier of the Ivory Tower you killed?"
"Psina, you mean? Set beside a Star, that woman would be classed as a counterfeit 5th-tier."
A Star of the Tower was a mage who, born in any other age, could have sat as a Tower Master without raising an eyebrow.
"Experience, the mana and accomplishments he has devoured on the way up... the grounds are many, but the difference in origin is the most decisive of all. The Ivory Tower is, after all, a gathering place for origins ill-suited to combat."
The other towers were different. Some of their origins were likewise unfit for battle, but others were born for it — and the latter was what a tower's strength was measured by.
"And among those, a Star is the sharpest blade there is." It was a seat that could only be seized through power alone.
"Could the message be a lie?"
"I doubt it — the voice was meant for Cassion, not for me."
Cassion was the Moon Tower's planted spy, and this Moon orb was what Cassion himself had handed over to Harad. No handler feeds false intelligence to their own mole. As far as the Moon Tower knew, their agent had not yet turned.
"But it won't be on Tyrell Aquins's account."
Harad, having regressed, remembered that colossal river. The man had not possessed a shred of sentiment; he would hardly march south to avenge a grandson who amounted to nothing. And Tyrell Aquins would have been an unremarkable branch of the bloodline besides.
"The lake?"
Harad thought back to the road to the Abyss. On that road he had met a 5th-tier mage of the Tower of the Abyss — one whose origin had been Lake. The man died trampled under the Colossus.
A 6th-tier magical beast was a calamity, and no justification for a Star to stir. With the calamity observed, the road to the Abyss would be written off — severed partway, no doubt, and new branches charted in its place. The higher one's tier, the more cautious one grows. Which is to say, the more afraid. Aquins of the River was one such mage — a man who prized his own hide above everything else.
And yet he came south? To carve a new road? That was not a Star's work. Hunting Harad was not, either.
"Aquins has descended. Perhaps the Aquins spoken of there is not the Star but the house."
"Why do you say that?"
"'Serzila has descended.' If someone said that, people would think of the knight orders, or the Grand Duke's daughter — not His Grace the Grand Duke."
Admittedly, measured against Grand Duke Aratus, Aquins of the River cut a modest figure — but all the same.
Ellen nodded; the analogy had evidently landed.
"Of course, it may not be that. It is merely the likeliest reading — not a certainty. But either way, the target will be me. Whether the Aquins coming down is the Star or the house."
The fire that burned the Watchtower of Fire was special. In all the long years since their King's death, the Red Tower had never managed to burn it themselves.
The Outrealm had hunted for the mage who did it. The Moon Tower had, and the Red Tower needed no saying.
"Reason enough for the Tower of the Abyss to move as well. Sworn rivals, after all."
For the Tower of the Abyss, it would want Harad dealt with before he ever made contact with the Red Tower.
"But the Outrealm has no idea that the mage who burned the watchtower is me. They haven't even fixed his location."
That was because every Outrealm mage they had crossed so far was dead. All the Outrealm knew was that the watchtower-burning mage had appeared — and they deemed his flame merely special, never suspecting its true nature was the Sun.
"And somewhere along the way, Psina's death must have handed them their clue. Where she fell, the traces of my fire ran deep."
The Ivory Tower hungered for vengeance, but their own strength fell short — so they must have shared what they knew.
"There was fire residue where Tyrell Aquins died as well."
"Just so. The Abyss may well have taken that for their pretext."
A special fire that brought down a watchtower which had stood unscathed through the ages. As grounds for the Tower of the Abyss to march, it was plausible enough.
The smoke of the watchtower — I alone know where the Red Tower King's relic lies.
Perhaps the Tower of the Abyss coveted even that.
"They believe I am in the Boundary. My traces have surfaced there and nowhere else."
It was, admittedly, a hypothesis — but Harad found it thoroughly convincing. Ellen seemed to share the feeling.
"Then couldn't you simply not go?"
Not the words of a battle maniac. She was clearly weighing the Prophecy of the Moon.
"You're being hunted — there's no reason to walk into the Boundary and oblige them."
"Which is exactly why I must go." Harad shook his head, firm. "I have to show my face in the Boundary. Only then will the Outrealm not turn its suspicions toward Serzila."
The Outrealm's picture of Serzila had to remain exactly what it had been in his previous life. If they ever learned the Sun dwelt in Serzila, there was no telling what they might do. That was a variable he could do without.
"I must be a mage of fire waiting in the Boundary for the Red Tower — not a man of Serzila." Or else a mage setting out alone in search of the King's relic.
"All the more reason your being the Sun must never come out, then."
"Exactly."
The Outrealm did not know Harad's origin was the Sun; as far as they were concerned, he simply wielded a remarkable fire. And even that much had sufficed to set a Star of the Abyss in motion. What would they do, knowing it was the Sun itself? Harad cared not to imagine.
"Understood. Let's go."
Ellen conceded without fuss.
"Unexpected. I thought you'd argue harder."
"You wouldn't have listened anyway. I'll just have to do my part better, that's all."
In spirit as much as in sword, Ellen was an exemplary vanguard.
"Even supposing it is a Star, well..."
Harad fiddled with the Moon orb, old memories of his past life drifting past.
"I don't intend to die. Not with you here."
Aquins of the River. The man was unquestionably a formidable Star — but Harad did not think he would die, even meeting him now.
The tunnel was a wretched passage no matter when you crawled through it.
"I'm thinking of asking Rik to widen it."
"A good idea."
If this was to be a tunnel they used often, expansion was worth considering — spacious enough, ideally, that even Kubel would find it comfortable.
"Quite the coincidence, though."
"What is?"
"His Grace the Grand Duke said fire would descend. Not water."
Grand Duke Aratus had said fire would come down upon the Boundary. And now the Moon Tower had told Cassion that Aquins was coming down.
"Do you think he misspoke?"
It was an absurd suggestion. Yet Harad found it plausible — all the more for having come from Ellen. She and Grand Duke Aratus had much in common.
No, surely not.
He shook his head soon enough. Whatever their resemblance, it couldn't run that deep.
"Well — it could be both, I suppose."
Either way, they would know once they walked it. There had to be a reason the Grand Duke had singled out this tunnel and no other.
"Did you feed Buldongi?"
"I did. Fed him earlier, too."
"Earlier?"
"He should be waiting at the exit. I sent him on ahead."
"Wasn't he in one of the other tunnels?"
"I carried him here wrapped in a bundle of monster hide."
The moment the Grand Duke's orders came down, Harad had gathered up Buldongi first of all. Buldongi was a 4th-tier magical beast — his staying power left something to be desired, but monster hearts or Harad's own fire could cover that. There was no reason to leave him out of the Boundary.
"Isn't that dangerous?"
"He's the safest of any of us. Buldongi has wings — command of the air, and with it the power to avoid both danger and fights he never needed."
Besides, the creature was clever. Buldongi would be waiting for them somewhere safe near the exit.
"I told him to come back through the tunnel if anything smelled dangerous."
But Buldongi did not come.
Instead, Harad and Ellen pressed onward through the tunnel — and the exit was already upon them. Trampled open by the Colossus, it was wide. As Harad straightened his back, Ellen poked her head out of the pit.
"……?"
Then she cocked her head.
— Cheep!
Buldongi's cry rang out from the direction Ellen's face was turned.
"Whoa."
And a human voice, too.
"So our Guardian-to-be truly does feast on real fire!"
— Cheep!
"……?"
Harad leaned out after Ellen — and together they cocked their heads. Some man was there, feeding fire to Buldongi.
— Chee-eep!
"Oh dear. My sincerest apologies. My fire is not to your taste, I see."
When Buldongi wagged his beak in open displeasure, the man bowed his head low — the very picture of deference before an exalted being.
"What is it you usually dine on, if I may be so bold? I shall fetch it for you at once!"
— Cheee-eep.
"Or perhaps you speak— no, forgive me. My apologies."
The man was sweating in sheets. There were no pupils to be seen; the narrow, slit-like eyes were what struck one first, and the fire-scorched skin besides. It was a face one might expect from a desert — or, just as easily, from this frozen Boundary.
Fire.
The man kindled flame.
Harad's eyes gleamed as they settled on him.
That was when the man's head turned. Small as slits they may have been, but Harad caught them glittering — he must have felt the heat pouring off this side.
— Cheep!
Buldongi, catching on the same instant, swooped over and settled on Harad's shoulder. At the sight of him, those slit eyes shone brighter still.
"Could it be...?"
"The watchtower in the sacred ground — I burned it."
"Ahh!"
The slit-eyed man shuddered from head to toe.
"It is an honor to behold a Star!"
A Star?
"Fourth-tier of the Red Tower! Aroshu of the Campfire!"
The man straightened up, then abruptly folded double at the waist. There was something brisk and eager about the display, and something slyly obsequious all at once.
Everyone venerates fire in their own fashion. Recalling Hervis's words, Harad gave a hollow little laugh. The fire that burned the watchtower was, indeed, special.
"Harad."
"Yes!"
Aroshu did not straighten his back. A silent pressure, no doubt — name your tier and origin as well. Unlike Hervis, this one seemed to have a quick mind.
"Fourth-tier. Harad — my origin is the Sun."
"Y-yes...?"
Aroshu lifted only his head, back still bent.
"But surely the Sun belongs to a woman—"
The slits now revealed were sharp as blades. Distrust — and a reaction Harad had largely expected. He was always ready with an answer.
"Ah!"
Then Aroshu's slit eyes curved, smooth and pleasant.
"Of course! So this is how you turn aside the gazes that would otherwise gather upon the King!"
"……?"
"Truly, you are the Star who guards the King!"
The King.
He must mean the Sun. Evidently "Star" was not a word they used for the Sun itself.
"You're quick on the uptake, at least — it suits your face."
"I hear that often!"
Aroshu fairly glowed at the praise.