The Doodle (2)
"It's all fine. Whatever you do is fine. The North will not punish you. Is it not power that we revere?"
Elaine's words surfaced in his mind unbidden.
'Crush them underfoot with power.'
It was not a phrase he took any particular liking to.
Didn't it boil down to being told to sink into brutish ignorance right alongside them?
But personal feelings aside, he agreed. And the sight before him proved him right — every knight of the 1st Knight Order, save for their absent Commander, stood gathered on the training grounds.
"A mage has applied for a duel?"
"That's a bit deplorable, that."
"I want to be the one to kill him."
At some point, the disgust in the knights' eyes as they looked at Harad had thinned, and interest and fighting pride had moved in to fill the vacancy.
"What happens if the mage wins?"
"Don't be ridiculous."
"You never know."
"It's Northern tradition. You acknowledge the winner."
"He's a mage, though? Then you beat the loser to a pulp."
"The loser? Why?"
Opinions were divided — because Harad was a mage. From the 1st Knight Order's standpoint, this was a duel without precedent.
"The winner will give you your answer."
Vice Commander Delic quelled the murmur. It was the right thing to say. Hated or not, the victor was owed his due — that was the kind of land this was. No matter that Harad was a mage; Northern tradition would not bend. It was a tradition Serzila itself had raised.
"Anyone with a grievance, draw your sword now."
Delic walked the line, meeting each knight's eyes in turn.
It was then that Gulen, who had been hovering at Harad's back, whispered.
"I'm the weakest man in the 1st Knight Order."
"That's an abrupt confession."
"...I mean right now. Not later. My point is, don't go judging the 1st Knight Order by me."
Gulen was young. Nineteen this year — the youngest knight in all of Serzila.
'Him?'
While Harad was thinking it, Gulen pressed on. If it was advice, then it was advice.
"That beast you killed in the village back then? Everyone here could put down something like that, even while snickering at it."
Did they have to scratch under their noses while doing it?
Harad looked over the knights standing before him. Three in all — Vice Commander Delic not among them. He was still off walking the line, staring into the knights' eyes and vetting their convictions.
"The man I threw my gauntlet at was the Vice Commander, though."
"There's an order to these things."
To duel the Vice Commander, one climbed from the bottom up. At Gulen's explanation, Harad gave a hollow laugh.
'So the saying that even a beggar may challenge the Grand Duke was an exaggeration.'
Not entirely wrong, though. After all, anyone who could beat the Grand Duke could beat every man under his banner.
"Then why aren't you fighting?"
By rights, Gulen should have been on that list. He was the Order's youngest.
"I've been excluded."
He had reported every detail of Harad's escort, after all.
"So they already believe you and I are thick as thieves."
Serzila set great store by such bonds. No bond ran tighter than owing a man your life. From Gulen's own standpoint it was nothing of the sort — but through the Order's eyes, the two of them already looked glued together.
"And my luck's rotten as hell, besides."
Gulen smacked his lips. He was a knight too, and mad for duels.
"What are you on about? You're the lucky one."
"Huh?"
"I have no hobby of beating an acquaintance half to death."
Gulen's face went queasy. He seemed to have decided that bluster on this scale was a disease.
'So it doesn't even occur to him that I asked for this duel with a purpose.'
To be precise, Gulen simply wasn't interested. He would learn everything soon enough, once steel was crossed.
"Your weapon?"
Delic had come over to ask. Every knight appeared to have passed the vetting.
"Gulen has kindly agreed to lend you his sword."
"Huh? When did I ever... Sh—t."
Scowling, Gulen passed his sword over under Delic's stare. In the 1st Knight Order's eyes, Harad and Gulen were already the best of friends.
"The duels will be fought in this order: Knights Marvin, Grubin, and Torsten."
Seniority. Marvin sat directly above Gulen, Grubin above Marvin, and Torsten above him — faces Harad vaguely remembered.
"Mage, you have been granted three duels, but one will suffice."
Every last member of the 1st Knight Order had put his name forward, so they had narrowed it to three for form's sake. He need not face them all. Taking down Marvin alone would do.
Harad looked to the sky. The sun was going down; six hours or so remained. The magic would trigger at midnight.
"Fight them all at once. There's no time."
"Very well. Marvin, step forward."
Delic waved Grubin and Torsten back, and the pair drifted off looking oddly deflated.
"Ah, I phrased that badly. I meant for all three of you to come at once."
"Excellent!"
Delic was delighted.
Set aside the 6th Knight Order, and the fighting strength of the remaining five differed little. Numbers were not rank. That did not mean the 1st Knight Order's threshold sat low, mind — the Orders were always starving for manpower, because at any ordinary level of skill one did not become a knight of Serzila at all.
Even the 6th Order, trainees in all but name, would be counted elite anywhere in the Empire. The five Orders were the elite of the elite. Only Gulen, the baby of the bunch, had been tapped for his potential as an exception; from Marvin, his senior, onward, the caliber turned serious. Marvin and Grubin had killed 3rd-Circle mages on search operations, and Torsten had once driven a 4th-Circle mage to death's door.
'What Circle is he?'
Gulen had never asked Harad his Circle. But at the very most, a 3rd.
He frowned. There was worry in the crease of his brow, though not much of it.
'It can't be stopped anyway.' He didn't have loyalty to spare on that scale. Besides, Harad had volunteered for this duel himself.
Thud!
Vice Commander Delic's boot struck the ground — the start of the duel. In the same instant, flame devoured the face of Torsten, who stood at the fore.
To Gulen, it had taken only an instant. Apparently to Delic's eyes as well; the scarred face was visibly startled.
But Torsten proved himself a knight of true composure. He had reacted to Harad's magic — the flame was not burning his face, but blazing across the aura that had sprung up over it. As though tearing off his own skin, Torsten ripped the burning aura away with his bare hand.
That hand never reached his sword. The moment he tore the fire away, new fire was born, and its speed was remarkable. The flame seared his face before any aura could rise to shield it — then it exploded. Jet-black smoke billowed upward, and the face revealed through the gaps was blacker still.
It was no mortal wound. Set against the fire from that day — the day they had killed the magical beast while carrying Harad back — its power was almost pathetic.
'Why?' Had he rushed the casting?
Gulen shook his head. The manifestation speed then and now differed little. Which meant it was deliberate.
Torsten, his face gone charcoal-black, drew his sword. Harad drew his as well. As a cold blue aura sheathed Torsten's blade, flame bloomed up the sword in Harad's grip — a flame that was, strangely, quiet. Its power looked unremarkable this time, too.
"Demon!"
Torsten roared and hacked downward. Before that blade could finish its arc, Harad's sword rose to meet it, and steel slid along steel. This was not fire meant to oppose, but fire meant to spill a blow aside — or rather, Harad's magic had fitted itself to that school of swordsmanship. Torsten's blade was peeled away outward, and his chest swung wide open.
Gulen leapt aside without meaning to. So did every knight watching. The gazes that had been filled with Harad's back now took in both him and Torsten — and the stretch of empty ground between the two came into view.
Harad's foot crossed that ground. Torsten stood shorter than Harad; had it been Gulen standing there, the kick would have caught him at the navel. Torsten took it at the solar plexus.
Crack-crack.
Ribs gave way around the pit of his chest.
"Hk—!"
A hollow, empty breath burst from Torsten's mouth. That alone would have been abnormal enough — but fire had pooled on the stamping foot as well. The leather armor Torsten wore melted away, and the yellowish mess looked as though his skin were melting along with it.
Torsten's hand clamped over the thoroughly seared wound. His other hand, remarkably, had not lost the sword, and it swung up from below — a motion closer to a death spasm than an attack, proof enough in its lack of aura. Before the tip could lift from the ground into open air, Harad's foot stamped down hard on the flat of the blade.
"D-Demon...!"
"Don't call the Outlands demons. Why exalt the enemy?"
Rage overtook Torsten's face. Scratching under his nose, Harad drove his pommel into it. The gesture looked oddly composed. Torsten's body toppled backward.
Harad's gaze slid to Marvin and Grubin. They were already charging — and they crumpled almost at once, for explosions had gone off beneath all four of their legs. Through the burst leather greaves their shins showed. Not flesh. Bone.
'Magic happened just from looking.'
Gulen had never fought an Outlands mage. He had only heard plenty — his seniors sneering that mages were frauds. Meaning they had to babble without end. The grander the deception, the mightier the spell, the longer the mouth ran. But Harad's magic had needed no words at all, and Gulen could scarcely believe the sight.
He knew at least that the fight was over. Harad was driving his fists into the fallen faces of Marvin and Grubin, and when Gulen's silent count reached twenty, he stopped. The two were twins; their faces had been identical, and were now identically ruined.
Harad, crouched between them, rose and moved. He settled astride the unconscious Torsten's chest in a full mount, then hammered down with his left fist — his right hand scratching idly under his nose.
'Lunatic.'
Wham! Wham!
Each blow landed with real weight. It was when the count passed ten that Harad lifted his head.
"Any more and he dies."
"Is that meant as an insult to them?"
"Call it the winner's right."
The corners of Delic's eyes creased into an ugly squint. Sparing the beaten meant handing them the chance to challenge again.
"I acknowledge you, mage. You will be afforded standing above Knight Torsten's."
"Harad."
"Understood, Harad."
Thud!
Delic stamped the ground once more.
"And the magic — what are we to do about it?"
That was the moment the doodle became magic.
"As I said, we will make our preparations for midnight. On the Great Wall. Is that sufficient?"
Delic had acknowledged the doodle as magic.
"More than enough. The beasts will come flocking."
"Understood. And...?"
"Nothing else. Kill the beasts as you always do. Ah — and don't go hurling yourselves into the Boundary. Just in case."
"We'll bear it in mind."
They had even taken his advice on board. It was an about-face of frankly unbelievable speed.
'Impressive, no matter how many times I see it.'
Serzila was, on the whole, a decent lot. What he had told Gulen had been sincere. Elaine of his past life had skewered the North's brutish ignorance — yet it was precisely that ignorance that had let Harad find his footing. Granted, the credit there belonged to Grand Duke Aratus; without him, there would have been no chance at all to have his strength acknowledged.
The North was a land where things were right if Serzila called them right, and wrong if Serzila called them wrong. And this Serzila had chosen Harad and taken him in — in effect, vouching for what he was. With his ability proven on top of that, the 1st Knight Order had no grounds left to refuse him.
"Hey, mage. Harad."
A passing knight hailed him, the hostility gone from his face as if washed away.
"What manner of magic is this doodle, then?"
"No need to know that much. It's enough to know it calls the beasts."
"Impressive."
The knights kept coming up to talk. Not all of them, though. Acknowledged, yes — but not yet close. Bonds like that were forged only by crossing the line of death together.
"Fine technique you have. Study the sword under someone, did you?"
"I learned from someone remarkable. Who — that's a secret."
Answering each in kind, Harad stepped into a building that stood off on its own. Guest quarters. There had been no such building before, but he had won his duel, and so Delic had offered it up. There was still time before midnight, and he meant to spend it restoring the mana he had burned. Harad reclined halfway onto the bed, while Gulen, trailing after him, dropped onto the floorboards at a careful remove.
"Did you see? The nose. I won the whole thing scratching it."
"...I already acknowledge you."
"I'm telling you to acknowledge me more."
"Understood."
Gulen accepted this meekly. He already owed Harad his life, after all, and the three men Harad had beaten were all knights stronger than he was.
"Aren't you leaving?"
Harad asked, eyeing Gulen where he sat staring blankly.
"I'm your guide."
"Isn't the guiding finished? The doodle counts as magic now, too."
"..."
Gulen worked his mouth.
"If there's something you want to ask, ask."
"It won't be a proper answer, though, will it?"
All this while, Harad had answered the knights' questions only loosely, because loose was enough for them.
"Then give me a proper one."
Gulen was not them. Even if the man couldn't grasp it right away, he still had to be told.
"Why don't you ever chant?"
"Chanting — wrong. It's nothing so grand as that. Just concentration. No different from muttering think, think under your breath."
"..."
"That's why the greater the mage, the quieter the mouth. The mental image is already complete."
So there was no call to drone on, giving outward form to his will for no one's benefit. Gulen's face scrunched up entirely — a portrait of incomprehension to any observer. It was the reaction Harad had expected. But this was how it had to be done. That small head had to be stuffed full, cranny by cranny. At the very least, Gulen was that kind of knight.
"You may not know it, but you're smarter than you look."
"Why the insult all of a sudden?"
"..."
Time had a way of moving fast. More so, he thought, since his regression. Tasks piled up like mountains, and the task at hand was recharging his mana. In a few hours, the magic would—
"The magic, you mean. Does it have no restrictions?"
Gulen showed no sign of letting him be. Bored, the man kept pestering him with talk. He had asked about the old routines of the Inner Castle, and about Iagar. Now it was magic.
It was a good development. It meant they were growing close.
"There are restrictions — that's why the system of Circles came to be. Don't knights single out Sword Masters as a rank apart? The Circles simply carve that up in finer detail."
"Why carve it so fine?"
"Because magic runs that much deeper."
The hell's that supposed to mean. Gulen snorted.
"Even I know the basics of the Circles. If the magic doesn't leave the body, it's 1st Circle. If it does, 2nd Circle."
Harad's eyes went round. It was a summary of a summary — but that a knight knew even that much was startling.
"And the 3rd Circle?"
"The stage where one's earlier technique is honed into full mastery."
"And the 4th?"
"..."
The once-confident Gulen fell silent. Then, after a stretch, he ventured, carefully:
"Power and range grow, don't they?"
"They grow a great deal. And...?"
"...I don't rightly know. I did hear it explained, but..."
The explanation had presumably been a clumsy one — natural, if anything. Even a mage would struggle to explain aura, and knights more so still; theirs was a breed that understood with the skin, not the skull.
"The 4th Circle is a foothold. A foothold for climbing to the 5th."
"Isn't everything a foothold, though?"
Gulen tilted his head. Every man who took up the sword dreamed of Sword Master. Mages would be much the same — of course they would hunger for the next Circle.
"I'm not talking about personal ambition. The foothold I mean is the Origin's. Not the mage's."
"..."
Gulen blinked.
"What do you take a mage to be?"
"A demon that wields magic, no?"
"Wrong. 'Mage' is the word for one born bearing an Origin."
With Elaine, there had never been any need for such explanations. She had been ignorant of mages themselves, but on the subject of their Circles she was remarkably well-read.
"If a true demon exists, it would be the Origin — not the mage."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"The essence of the knight called Gulen is Gulen. Not his aura."
Gulen's head bobbed along. He didn't follow — but Toremoat, Commander of the 1st Knight Order, was fond of describing aura as a mirror. To reflect one's essence in that mirror, he said, was the first stirring of a Sword Master.
"The essence of this mage called Harad is not me. It is this."
Harad said so as he raised a ball of flame onto his open palm.
"There are knights without aura. But no mage exists without an Origin. The Origin is the mage's essence."
"You're saying it wasn't you who was born — it was the Origin?"
"Exactly! We're finally speaking the same language."
At Gulen's words, Harad's eyes went wide with genuine admiration.
"I was born for the sake of my Origin."
Elaine of his past life had flatly called that nonsense. But this, at least, was how Harad defined the breed called mages.
"I believe the 5th Circle proves him. That moment when the Origin at last shows itself to the world."
Harad went on muttering after that.
"Therefore, the Circles are a system built for the Origin — not for the mage."
To Gulen, he looked for all the world like a drunkard. Or a man bewitched.
"So what's the 4th Circle, then."
"The 4th Circle is the stage of trial and error through which the Origin manifests into the world."
Gulen's eyes glazed. Harad stroked his chin, then opened his mouth.
"By way of metaphor — yes. Picture yourself as the Origin. And before you stands a small window. Ah — for you it's smaller still. Only your head has made it through."
"...?"
"That state — head out, nothing more — is the 4th Circle. Ah, and the window here stands for the mage."
"You're telling me to ram my head through your body?"
"My apologies. I'm evidently a poor explainer."
His habits had soured thanks to Ellen. She might doubt whatever he explained, but she never once failed to understand it; there had been no need to spell things out piece by piece, as one would for a child.
"In any case — if you slip fully out through the window, that is the 5th Circle. The 4th is practice for slipping out through the window. And if that proves impossible, why, you simply make the window bigger."
"..."
"Failing to understand is also a correct answer. It means the thing remains vague to you."
In the end, Gulen looked away, feigning indifference. He seemed to have grasped that further questions would buy him no understanding.
"If you'd like, I can show you. The 4th Circle, I mean."
Gulen's ears pricked up.
'Creepy bastard, isn't he.'
Unlike a certain someone.