The Report
"To tell the truth, my father wasn't without his faults either. When I was young, I trusted and followed him without question — but Father was an ignorant man. He knew nothing but strength."
There was a time, once she had become Grand Duke, when Elain had said as much.
She was not wrong. Aratus Serjilla was no gardener's vessel — he had been a warrior from birth.
In Harad's opinion, the two of them were much the same. Past-life Elain, too, had known nothing but strength. She was clever enough, but it had been Harad's influence that taught her to put that mind to use; left to her own devices, Elain had been ignorant.
Like father, like daughter.
The mansion's door stood open. He would come calling — Grand Duke Aratus had been expecting as much.
So his opinion of me this time around is not half bad.
It was proof the man found him rather to his liking. Had he not, he would simply have ordered his knights to drag Harad in by the collar.
Through the door a cold chill rolled in like a tidal wave. The Grand Duke's aura. It was that aura which ruled the Inner Castle. It no longer bit to the bone as it had on that first day, nor did it bear down so heavily; the weight pressing on Harad now left nothing worse than a stiffness across his back. His risen tier had bought him that much — and it was proof, too, that the Grand Duke was not truly angry.
The Grand Duke's office stood open as well. It read as an instruction: none of your fussing — get in here. The moment he stepped inside, the door swung shut behind him.
From all four walls, the taxidermied heads of magicians greeted Harad.
A vile hobby, however many times one sees it.
He felt no sympathy. Most of the Outlands' magicians were cheap enough to deserve their deaths — though not so cheap that their deaths were something to relish. Not that he could be sure of anything anymore. At the very least, Grand Duke Aratus would relish the deaths of the Outlands.
Eyes more brilliant than any magic beast's looked down upon Harad.
"Delicious, was it?"
The Grand Duke had noticed Harad's risen tier. Through it, he had also deduced that Harad had used the tunnel — and taken hearts in the Boundary.
Like father, like daughter, as expected.
Harad confirmed it once more. Grand Duke Aratus, too, had a fine mind; he simply never felt the need to use it. Or no intention to. Either way suited Harad fine.
"It did not taste good."
"Your origin tells a different story."
"I eat because I must. I am a magician."
"Then you are no different from them."
Aratus swept his gaze across the preserved heads.
"Those men have no seal of Serjilla."
Harad held out his own. It had been placed in his hand by Grand Duke Aratus himself.
"You believe you have proven your usefulness? By burrowing through tunnels like a common rat?"
"It would seem Serjilla has no shortage of men more useless than I."
Grand Duke Aratus's eyebrow twitched. Fire bloomed up across Harad's whole body, the flames pushing back against the aura bearing down on him.
So he is not angry. Had the Grand Duke truly been enraged, Harad would have died on the spot — resistance would never have entered into it. Such was the gap between them now.
"It was a tunnel no one knew of. Rats no one knew of — I was the one who caught them."
"Continue."
The aura vanished. Harad let his flames die as well. The Grand Duke liked capable men with the nerve to be insolent.
"There will be more. I will find them."
"Continue."
"I intend to enter the Boundary through the tunnel I discovered."
"Denied."
WHAM!
Harad's reinforced body was driven face-first into the floor. He had not even managed to react. Which meant the Grand Duke was a little angry.
This is "a little," is it? Harad stared at the floorboards and let out a hollow laugh.
The 4th Tier grasps its origin only dimly, projecting a faint shadow of it into the world. The 5th Tier manifests its origin in full. And the 6th Tier — they shake the laws of the world itself through their origin.
So this, too, was nothing out of the ordinary for him. Grand Duke Aratus fell not one step short even measured against that 6th Tier; from the man's tiniest flicker of anger, Harad had sensed a sliver of it.
Which only deepened the question. How had a powerhouse like this met so wretched an end?
"I have already been once."
Even with his insides thoroughly scrambled, Harad spoke without a stutter. Blood spattered from between his lips.
"That is why I leave you alive. Because it has only been once."
It meant that one more trip would cost him his head.
If he learned she had come along, he would kill me where I stand. The report would have contained no mention of Ellen's presence. He had considered laying the truth bare — and was glad now that he had not.
"Is it the imperial decree?"
The Grand Duke said nothing. That was affirmation enough. Serjilla was not to so much as look past the Boundary. At the very most, they might spirit one or two souls, half in jest, as far as the Second Wall — and even that, were the imperial family or the Order to catch wind of it, no punishment could be escaped.
"From what I gather, you wish to rule the Boundary."
"Who told you that?"
"I surmised it on my own."
…
Half his body had been driven down into the floor. By some miracle, Harad managed to lift nothing but his face and meet the Grand Duke's eyes. Those blood-red pupils gave nothing away.
So Harad simply resolved to finish saying what he had come to say.
"The North wants fire. But it can do without. Those were your words."
…
"I am a magician. A magician for whom the Boundary holds nothing strange at all."
The aura slackened — not enough to let him rise. It meant: keep talking, if you dare.
"I will find out for you. As far as the Second Boundary."
"Continue."
"And if I become a hindrance in your hand, discard me."
If exposure ever came, cut the tail loose. Here, the tail was Harad.
"Do you have the power to light up the Boundary?"
"My origin, as I described earlier."
He had already weathered the Boundary, and taken its hearts.
"So I am to trust nothing but your tongue."
It meant that only Harad knew whether those hearts had been taken from the living or the dead.
Was this a probe? No. Had Ellen's existence been discovered, the response would never have been this gentle. His body would not have been pressed down — it would have been pulped.
"Someone has made sport of the 1st Knight Order's wall. Go and find out who."
Like father, like daughter. The conclusion he had reached in his past life had been right. Aratus and Elain were alike — far too alike.
Just as past-life Elain had, Aratus too hungered to conquer the Outlands. The Boundary was the bridgehead that had to be crossed before any march on the Outlands could begin. But Serjilla could never seize that bridgehead. The imperial decree forbade it.
The imperial decree. By the Grand Duke's temper alone, he would have flipped the table over it — but Serjilla had no strength to spare for defiance. The Emperor and the Order kept their eyes burning like twin watchfires, praying for him to slip even once.
Grand Duke Aratus was already serving out the Emperor's punishment known as the Imperial Sabbatical. Commit troops to the Boundary in such a climate, and the legions of Empire and Order alike would come marching north. And Serjilla, its own forces sent ahead, could never dare bar their way.
Perhaps killing me outright really would be the right call.
The Emperor was the obstacle. The longer Harad turned it over, the more he felt himself steeping in Elain's regrets. Knowing the future in which the Outlands would breach the Wall, the blindness of Empire and Order was maddening beyond all endurance — and the fact that the only soul who could cut through that frustration was the regressor was more maddening still.
If he provoked her more, would she dream more?
Harad wanted Elain's memories back, and soon. How many dreams would it take before she felt the wrongness?
But this was Elain he was dealing with. Try as he might, he could not picture her accepting the regression. Elain was the sort who would write it all off as dreams until the very end.
"Then tell me my secret, won't you?"
Elain's words came back to him unbidden. The secret of her womanhood. If he told her that, would she accept the regression?
Harad doubted it would be so easy. He had already made contact with Ellen, after all. She would decide she had been found out, not that any regression was real.
Should he never have approached her at all? But then he could never have stoked her. Contact had been the right decision — Elain was, in truth, dreaming.
Difficult. Harad clicked his tongue once more.
Elain should have been the one to regress. That fool of a superior had gotten it wrong. The one left to dream should have been Harad.
"Rest first, then."
His scrambled insides had settled, but his whole body still ached dully. His neck hurt worst of all — the price of holding his head up to meet the Grand Duke's eyes inside that ignorant, crushing aura.
"A day's rest should about do it."
He meant to depart for the 1st Knight Order tomorrow. Harad walked the path half-drowned in snow. The servants he passed now and then averted their eyes, and the knights' glances were anything but kind. He felt little about it either way; he had been through it all in his past life, and he knew it would be resolved in time. No doubt it would be settled even faster this time around.
What struck him as stranger was the light burning in the annex. He wondered if the maid who brought his meals had come early — but stepping inside, he found Ellen waiting at the entrance.
"How did it go?"
Her voice had a slight edge to it. Her face was set in a prickly scowl, yet half of it looked distinctly apologetic.
So she holds standing enough to walk the Inner Castle freely. Shamelessness, or simple obliviousness — judging by results, the former. Past-life Elain had never once been caught.
"More or less settled. I have leave to search out new tunnels — and clearance to enter the Boundary through the one I found."
Ellen's eyes went round.
"You managed that...? His Grace actually gave his permission?"
It was thanks to his volunteering himself up as the tail. Harad had no intention of elaborating.
"I did, yes."
"And me?"
Ellen asked before she could stop herself.
"I didn't mention you, no."
"Why not?"
"Did you want to tag along again? I hadn't realized."
…
Ellen bit her lip. She stayed that way a long moment, then opened her mouth as though she had finally found an answer that would do.
"I'm your watchdog. Left to your own devices, who knows what you'd get up to."
"His Grace permitted it, though?"
…
"A joke. With a vanguard as dependable as you, I can rest easy too."
Ellen's eyes narrowed.
"You want me sneaking after you?"
"I could see no other way. How is a hostage to ask them to smuggle talent out of the main castle?"
…
"Had I brought you up, I would never have gotten permission. I would have caught an earful instead — something like, what confidence does a fellow who can't manage anything on his own have, holding forth on the Boundary?"
Ellen nodded slowly. Grand Duke Aratus was indeed that sort of man. It sounded right to her, too.
"If it's too much, you needn't come."
"...I'll think about it."
That was what she said — but Harad was certain Ellen would come. Her face was already bright with anticipation.
"The next tunnel may open onto the Second Boundary."
Harad said it in passing. Ellen's face flushed deeper still.
"Things will go easier if you can flush out whoever reported me. If my guess is right, the informer is a partner holding tunnels of his own."
The informer had marked Harad as the man who had shut down the establishment called Flowerbed's Flesh. That was why he had been reported — if Harad vanished because of it, so much the better, and even learning only his identity would turn a profit.
"So the Grand Duke's daughter went and made a mess of things, then? I did go to him in person to get you released, after all."
Because Elain had come in person, the plan had gone slightly awry. The informer had learned that Serjilla stood behind Harad.
"Which is why we must hurry. Before they vanish."
"Or before they warn the other partners."
"You do catch on quickly."
Ellen looked quietly proud of herself.
"They won't manage to vanish entirely. People can be dealt with, but tunnels do not simply disappear."
Now Ellen would be calling in people from the Information Bureau. Or perhaps she already had.
"Understood. By the way — is this place always so bare?"
Ellen nodded heavily as she spoke, eyes roaming the annex interior. Forget people; even the traces of people were faint here.
"What about servants?"
"They come at mealtimes."
"And the rest of the time?"
"It's only me."
Save for the servant who brought his meals, Harad was always alone in the small annex. There had been a time when that had galled. Not anymore.
"Why?"
"Oddballs who want the company of a magician are rare. You're the strange one."
"Personal taste has nothing to do with it. It's Serjilla's discipline."
Ellen's brow furrowed. An annex that had taken in a retained guest was meant to have servants in residence. The institution had withered into a formality, but it remained Serjilla's discipline all the same — and discipline existed to be kept. Even if Harad was a hostage rather than a retained guest, that much held. It had been the Grand Duke himself who had ordered him brought in.
"What is there to be angry about?"
"...I'm not angry at you. I'm angry that the Inner Castle's discipline is being neglected."
"What a loyal vassal you are. Anyone would take you for Inner Castle staff."
"The Information Bureau is staff enough, I'll have you know."
"Weren't you the new recruit?"
"And what of it?"
Ellen fudged the rest. Her anger did not appear to have cooled; she went on sweeping the annex interior with her eyes.
"No need for anger. I'm comfortable alone. I always have been."
"You're telling me to get lost, then?"
"Don't get lost — just head back carefully. I'm to rest today. Something's come up for tomorrow."
Ellen, on the verge of flaring up again, tilted her head instead.
"What's come up?"
"I'm to call on the 1st Knight Order."
"Why on earth would you go there."
To mingle with knights? A magician?
"His Grace instructs me to earn their recognition. It's the price of this tunnel business."
"And if you don't earn it?"
"What can I do? The tunnels get given up."
…
Ellen nodded gravely. Hers was the face of a decision made — and it looked very much like a decision to follow.
"Don't follow me. Not under any circumstances."
…
"Follow, and you will only be disappointed."
Disappointment. For some reason, that word frightened Ellen.