The City of Mages
The City of Mages
They didn't know each other well. Aslan and Anna were, in every sense, strangers.
Aslan had a general idea of who Anna Heleminus was and what she did — he knew only what the game had revealed.
Anna, however, knew almost nothing about Aslan. She knew he had been at the center of Beryl's fall, and that he might be a Last Remnant of the Ancient God — or one of their companions. That was all.
So having asked him here, she felt awkward. The awkwardness was plain enough for anyone to see, and Aslan felt it viscerally.
The reason was obvious.
She was someone who had maintained only the narrowest thread of human connection for two hundred years, and the relationship now forming between them was strange by any measure.
The silence that followed was inevitable. Aslan, uncomfortable, forced a sheepish grin.
"So... was there something you wanted to do? The fact that you need me suggests it takes three people."
He spoke first. At that, the archmage who had lived two centuries gave an awkward nod.
"Yes, it does require you — someone who is close with Fay. It's just..."
The archmage trailed off mid-sentence. It was hard to reconcile this with the woman who had unleashed a barrage of spells at him the day before. It was plainly unexpected.
But Aslan wasn't thrown. The actions of the mad were beyond prediction, so he didn't try to predict them. He just smiled quietly.
"Yes?"
"...I wanted to cook."
"Cook?"
The archmage nodded, and Fay's eyes glinted faintly at the word.
Not the reaction you'd expect from an elf girl who had no need to eat, drink, or sleep.
"Fay approves."
With that single line, they set off toward the city market.
The market district was far richer in variety than Aslan had anticipated.
He'd assumed it would be nothing but magical goods, but everyday necessities were plentiful too.
To be sure, there were more magical items, reagents, and scrolls than in an ordinary market, but given the city's nature, that was only natural.
Aslan walked through that market, holding Fay's hand, and Anna led the way.
He'd expected that a local celebrity in plain clothes would draw plenty of stares, but surprisingly, gazes didn't linger.
Aslan saw the reason in the magic Anna was using.
An Illusion School spell, cast by an archmage who had attained the rank of Master — it kept people from recognizing her face.
It was absurdly powerful magic for someone supposedly mentally unstable. Aslan mulled over the implications as he walked, and Anna watched the two of them with a faint, occasional smile.
If her daughter had lived, she thought, she might have looked like that.
It was a future that had never come to pass, yet the woman found satisfaction in overlaying the blurred memories of her family onto the figures of Aslan and Fay.
There was something unsettling about the quiet smile she wore. Fay gazed at her for a moment, then approached, pulling Aslan along.
"Anna is Fay's mom today, so let's hold hands."
The elf girl reached out her free hand, and the woman who had been lost in her memories blinked in surprise.
Anna hesitated a heartbeat, then extended her own hand and took it.
Fay's hand was softer and cooler than she had imagined, and perhaps that coolness brought her back to herself — she smiled gently.
"Thank you, little one."
After that, Aslan, Anna, and Fay reached their destination — a shop that sold ingredients.
"Is there anything you can't eat?"
The woman asked in front of the shop. Aslan, who had no sense of taste to begin with, shook his head.
"Fay eats everything just fine."
Fay's answer was simple — elves were a race that didn't need to eat at all. The woman seemed reassured and smiled with her eyes.
"In that case... may I cook what I want to?"
"Please, go ahead."
When Anna agreed and stepped away, Aslan signaled Fay with his eyes, asking her to help Anna.
Fay caught the look and trotted over to Anna's side, chattering as she helped gather the shopping.
Anna looked deeply moved as she watched Fay chatter away like a child.
Aslan looked at the woman and let a rueful expression flicker across his face before he tucked it away. He headed toward a shop selling a variety of magic scrolls.
After some deliberation, he purchased several scrolls and tucked them into his coat.
"Equalization, Acceleration, a few Transmutation School formulas... what do you intend to use them for?"
The woman approached, her arms full of groceries — she'd apparently finished her shopping.
Aslan tried not to show his surprise at her words.
"Nothing special. Just personal use."
"Personal use..."
The woman blinked, bundles still in her arms, then added:
"If you're planning an experiment, I'll lend you my laboratory. I haven't used it in quite some time."
"That's..."
He'd been about to deny it, but something seemed to occur to him. He closed his mouth and gave a slight bow.
"I'll gratefully accept your kindness."
He was clearly hiding something. Anna was about to ask, but Aslan spoke first.
"May I ask what you're planning to cook? I don't have any restrictions, but there are things I like."
It was a lie, but Anna had no magic to see through lies. Instead, she seemed pleased that he was taking an interest in her cooking — or perhaps the whole scene looked like some domestic tableau to her. She smiled with satisfaction.
"Northern Empire-style braised lamb, Alpen-style steamed root vegetables, and grilled fish."
Absurdly homey dishes. Aslan was picturing them when the woman laughed brightly.
"It's something I've always wanted to try... simple things, but please forgive me."
A faint sorrow threaded through her unguarded words. Aslan closed his mouth and smiled gently.
"I'll look forward to it. Fay will love it too."
The woman seemed to like that answer and smiled back.
*
Frost-feathers swirled. A thread of chill rode the cold air, scattering something like ice-dust as it drifted.
The atmosphere, almost lyrical at a glance, transformed into something fantastical with the addition of one element.
That element was the countless droplets of water suspended at the heart of the drifting ice-dust.
A space where hundreds of thousands of falling droplets hung frozen in midair, caught like a photograph, scattering the sunlight in diffuse reflections. Only the floating droplets testified that this space had once been the sea.
If the man called the Priest Slayer had been here, he would have said it plainly:
This space was the Veil of Compassion — the place where her physical form had briefly settled.
A corner of the universe killed by her very presence.
But Aslan was not here. And so those gathered in this place saw what they beheld not as cosmic death, but as gospel.
Among them, one human drew the eye.
A girl who had barely passed seventeen or eighteen.
Her limbs were long and her proportions fine, but her skin was so starkly white that it crossed the line from sickly into something repellent.
She was dressed very lightly — startlingly so, considering that this cosmic death was born of cold.
Her feet were bare, and the clothes she wore were thin.
The cloth garment left her shoulders fully exposed and seemed to barely function as clothing; the flesh beneath was faintly visible.
Dressed in something indistinguishable from nudity, the girl wore an unhurried expression as she gripped a single long spear.
That alone marked her as far from an ordinary human, but there was more. Even among the gathered, prostrate figures, she radiated an overwhelming presence and carried something like a proof.
A thing that no ordinary human — no, not even most priests — possessed. It was like a radiance.
It extended from behind her back to behind her head, forming a circle, encroaching on the space around her. As if woven from strands of light and chill, it moved whenever her head moved, scattering cold death into the air.
And that radiance was no ordinary light.
It was the frozen remnants of spacetime. The distorted traces of the universe.
A flaw in the cosmos, a mark of death.
The being who symbolized the death of the universe stood there in perfect solitude.
High Priest of the Veil of Compassion.
Death in the shape of a girl opened her mouth.
"Sir, was there truly a need to invoke 'Sacrifice' here?"
"I-I apologize! My impatience...!"
"Shh. I'm not angry."
At the immediate apology, the girl smiled softly and placed a finger to her lips.
The finger laid across her pale lips was an even colder white, and the voice that followed carried ease and compassion.
The priest found himself looking up at her before he knew it. A girl with a kind face. As her long, drifting ash-grey hair — tinged with pale violet at the ends — fluttered, the priest felt the corner of his mouth lift slightly.
Was she forgiving him?
Just as the priest thought that, the girl's other hand seemed to vanish, and in the next instant the priest's head burst apart, leaving only the lower jaw.
A wet crack.
And with that, one priest was dead. The prostrate priests pressed their heads still lower and trembled. Some lost control of their bladders.
The girl stared at them for a long moment, then grinned.
"It's just... I was disappointed to find you gentlemen so useless."
She flicked the spear. Not a speck of dust on it. She caressed the immaculate blade with a fingertip as she spoke.
"Our Lord descended in person, yet you failed to steer events as He willed and allowed the time leeches to flee far from His footsteps. I see this as an utter failure... what do you gentlemen think?"
No answer came. They knew the first to answer would die, and this was their squirming silence. The girl watched them for a moment, then turned her head. She looked toward the coastline that touched the continent.
A certain divinity radiated from the shore. To the girl's eyes, they were leeches.
Sensing the presence of those leeches, she considered.
Even if she sent these useless creatures, it would be meaningless.
Wouldn't it be better for her, the Lord's right hand, to handle the difficult labor and give the livestock the simple tasks?
The deliberation was reasonable, and she soon reached a conclusion.
Standing among the cowering priests, she let out a deep sigh and spoke lightly.
"Since I've learned you gentlemen can't even manage the simple task of cleaning up leeches, I'll give you something simpler. I do hope you won't fail this time."
Because then I'd be very disappointed. At that added remark, the priests trembled faintly. The girl prodded the prone priests with her toes.
When they raised their heads, she stretched out a leg and pointed toward the city.
The pose should have stirred something carnal, but the prostrate men looked at her toes with nothing but terror.
The girl smiled leisurely, unmoved by their stares.
"Go. Run."
As the men staggered to their feet, the girl beamed and added:
"If you walk or stop, you die."
Only then did the priests start running. Panic-stricken and gasping, these powerful priests who could freeze even spacetime fled toward the City of Mages.
With every step they took, the sea froze into footholds. With every breath they heaved, they left thick fog in their wake.
The girl watched them go for a long moment, her eyes full of contempt, then turned away.
One step, then another.
Wherever her toes touched, white death bloomed. She hummed a little tune.
On the path ahead of her were thirty priests of the Unfalling One.
Thirty who would soon be dead.