What Rises Twice Will Rise Again
Suetleug soothed Mahrit with an expression of long familiarity. As a mage who had lived many a lifetime's worth of years, he had received this kind of gratitude more times than he could count.
Johan was no mage himself, but if he intended to dabble in magic going forward, it was worth observing how such things were handled.
To wield magic was to draw both fear and reverence in equal measure. Even a mage of Caenerna's caliber could find herself thrown into a river as a witch if fortune turned sour — so what chance would some half-trained hedge-wizard have?
A mage needed to know how to soothe people, and how to bend them around a finger.
"Rise now. Your body hasn't fully recovered, I'd wager."
"Come to... come to think of it, my limbs feel like lead, and my head aches dreadfully."
That much is probably true.
"Just so. The evil spirit's departure will have left its mark. But you're young and hale; you'll bounce back soon enough."
At Suetleug's words, Mahrit bowed and gave thanks again and again. The old mage offered a few further pearls of advice.
Don't go about wearing useless trinkets. Don't yield to temptation, no matter who does the tempting. And every full moon, float the moon in a silver cup of salt water and drink it down...
Listening in, Johan couldn't help his puzzlement, and asked lightly, "What was that last one? What manner of magic is it?"
"None at all. But it puts the mind at ease. This fellow may look like a brute, but he's a frightful coward and a devout believer in superstition. Give him a little ritual like that and his heart settles — and a settled heart won't go lapping up suspicious whispers."
Suetleug spoke the truth.
Mahrit clutched the advice to his chest as though he'd been handed some great and secret art.
He immediately summoned his mercenaries, ordered the blockade on the bridge lifted, and waited upon Johan with extravagant devotion — with all the deference of a squire attending his knight.
"When it comes to commanding spirits and evil spirits, Caenerna knows far more than I."
"......"
Caenerna let out a weary sigh at Suetleug's words.
"You're asking me to divulge the arcane mysteries in my keeping to a stranger. Surely you can see that's rather an excessive demand?"
"Save the posturing, girl, and spare me the speech. I'm a mage too, you know."
Her words might have carried weight at the Emperor's court — but this was a mercenary company's tent.
And her audience was Johan and Suetleug.
Two of the last people alive upon whom her words held any sway.
"Besides, I'm not asking you to teach me your mysteries. Just a few words of practical counsel."
"If it's slaying evil spirits you want, my master would serve far better than I. If you wish it, I could even write you a letter of introduction."
"Had we wanted a slaying, we'd have sought out your master. But this knight needs to know how to command one."
Caenerna could not for the life of her understand what Suetleug was playing at.
A knight, no mage, asking for pointers on how to command an evil spirit — what difference could a few words possibly make? If anything, some half-baked meddling might only land him in deeper danger.
Was Suetleug trying to get Johan killed?
If so, he was doing a terrible job of signaling it.
Or did he mean to listen in himself?
No — the sage of the Ipael River had never shown the slightest interest in spirits or demons. If he had, the river would never have loved him as it did.
"I doubt it would do you any good..."
"It will. I subdued the evil spirit."
"?!"
Johan's quiet remark genuinely startled her.
This knight had subdued an evil spirit?
"Not... not banished it?"
Even a non-mage could sometimes banish one with luck on their side, but subjugating an evil spirit was an entirely different order of feat.
How, in the world, had he—
Suetleug grinned. There was nothing quite so delightful as watching a mage like Caenerna burn with curiosity.
"Curious, are we?"
"...I am."
"We answered your questions honestly enough. Remember that, when the reckoning comes."
It irritated her how Suetleug made a creditor of her over the smallest things — but there was nothing to be done. She truly did want to know. Caenerna nodded.
"This knight here subdued the evil spirit through sheer force of voice and strength of soul."
"I see... so it was an inborn gift...!"
Anyone else might have scoffed at such nonsense, but they were both mages. Caenerna grasped it at once.
Moreover, the force of soul Johan had displayed had left an impression on her. She had never seen its like — not even in the Emperor's court.
"And, ah, the violence..."
"The violence?"
"Nothing, nothing. A mere jest. Now then — you'll give him your counsel, yes?"
"......"
Caenerna raked her fingers through her red hair and heaved a languid sigh.
"Alone. Without that old mage present."
"Suit yourself."
Suetleug, having no genuine interest whatsoever, swept out of the tent at once. Caenerna turned the question over — where on earth to begin?
She murmured an incantation in a low voice, unintelligible to any layman's ear. Flames bloomed in her palm, then scattered into a dozen whirling threads that embroidered the air of the tent.
Remarkably, the fire burned nothing — no canvas, no gear, no cloth.
"Do you understand what I just did?"
"You issued a command to a spirit?"
As Caenerna had chanted, Johan had felt something ripple through the depths of her being. Ever since binding Valkalmur, his own perception of the mystical had sharpened considerably.
So she really does have a spirit under contract.
"Correct. I have formed a pact with this spirit. I can't tell you how that's done — it's intricate, difficult work, and the kind of thing one simply doesn't share."
"I'm not curious about that part."
If Johan were to attempt a proper pact now — learning complex incantations and borrowing the power of magic circles — it would take him the better part of an age.
He just wanted to put the catch he'd stumbled into to good use.
"I make a request and pay a price. The spirit takes the price and grants the request. You cannot command a spirit to do what it cannot do — and now and then, you cannot command it to do even what it can. Spirits are fickle creatures."
Equivalence. An exchange of like for like.
Spirits and evil spirits differed little in the end. You called one an evil spirit when it was vicious and malevolent, but from a human's standpoint, even a benign spirit could feel plenty wicked when the mood took it.
What mattered was grasping what a spirit was capable of — and paying the proper price.
In Johan's case, having wrested the evil spirit's True Name and forced it into submission, he could claim a degree of absolute dominion. But even so, that didn't mean he could set it to work without paying anything at all.
"Then what do I pay?"
"You subdued it inside your own soul, so the price will come out of your soul's strength."
Drive a spirit beyond its proper station, and you could cough up blood and collapse on the spot.
But a knight of Johan's constitution would shrug off most anything. A short rest and he'd be right as rain.
"As for what that evil spirit of yours can actually do — you'll have to discover that yourself. But hold fast to one thing, knight. Remember always that the thing you command is a spirit."
Mages grown arrogant from commanding spirits had always, without exception, met their ruin. They had gone and convinced themselves they were the spirit's master.
When the thing bites back at some high-handed bastard for lording over it, isn't that the spirit's right?
Arrogance was a word that had never once traveled in Johan's company.
"Valkalmur."
Johan called the evil spirit forth and gathered it to the tip of a dagger. The blade's edge blackened, dark as a moonless midnight sky.
Caenerna watched with eyes bright with interest. His handling of the spirit was remarkably deft — the demon was clearly obeying him in good faith.
He suppressed it with nothing but his voice? Is there sacred blood somewhere in his lineage?
"I've been toying with the idea of laying a curse on weapons, in this fashion. What do you think?"
"Not a bad thought. An evil spirit would take to cursing naturally. Only..."
"?"
"Is it fitting conduct for a knight? It seems rather base, no?"
"...Naturally I merely asked in passing. I've no intention of using such a thing in an actual fight."
Johan backpedaled without missing a beat. Caenerna, who like Suetleug could not see through to his true nature, nodded with an expression that said well, of course.
Subjugate an evil spirit, and nowhere in knightly conduct to use it. Knights truly are an insufferable breed.
I'll need to start practicing cursing arrows and loosing them from tomorrow.
"You say you're bound for the Brudhe Duchy?"
Mahrit asked, unable to conceal his bewilderment.
Situated in the Empire's southeast, the Brudhe Duchy boasted lands and power so vast it was styled a grand duchy in its own right.
But vast hardly meant peaceful.
From the east, savage tribes came charging across the plains; from the south, an empire raised by heathens watched the frontier, forever casting about for an opening; and the petty kingdoms nearby wove one conspiracy after another in their scramble to extend their own influence.
Well enough known even among mercenaries: the Imperial east was a rough country — a land of opportunity, the kind that came at a price.
"That's right. Why do you ask?"
Sir, we've only just returned from the east ourselves."
"!"
Mahrit and the Ultramarine Mercenary Company had, as it happened, been making their way home from a job in the east.
"How was it?"
"The east? Same as ever. The monsters are a fucking misery, the people are tough as boot leather, the tribesmen are vicious as wolves... Ah — though I did once lay eyes on the Duke himself, from a distance. A magnificent-looking man, he was."
The Duke of Brudhe, now edging into middle age, was renowned as a wise and capable ruler. In the troubled east, his name carried absolute authority — so much so that serfs were said to pray upon it.
"And the man himself? What was he like?"
"Sir, really... how would the likes of me know a thing like that? I only met his chamberlain, and that but briefly. He struck me as a fine lord, though."
"Why so?"
"Because he paid us on time, and paid us well."
An obvious thing — and yet there was no shortage of nobles who failed to manage even the obvious.
When it came to hiring mercenaries, unpaid wages were an annual tradition; the companies, in turn, made up the shortfall through plunder and post-battle spoils. Mercenaries didn't run wild for nothing.
"Good to hear. So he's not a stingy sort."
"You're going to see the Duke, sir? Truly, then..."
Mahrit marveled at Johan's words. He had thought the knight remarkable from the start, but to think he was actually bound for an audience with the Duke of Brudhe.
"Sounds like there's plenty of work in the east. Why'd you come back?"
"Winters are bitter out there, and the men's tempers were wearing thin. Another season east and I truly thought we'd have a mutiny on our hands..."
"......"
"And then there was the prophecy... hm, hm."
That exchange alone told Johan everything he needed to feel about the east. He nodded.
Before Johan's party departed, Mahrit spoke to him with uncharacteristic gravity.
"Sir knight. I may be a lowly mercenary, but I know what a debt of gratitude is. Should you ever have need of me, call on me without hesitation. I will come to you, even if I must wager my life to get there."
"Don't promise your life so freely. It cheapens the currency."
"......"
"But I'll remember what you said. I won't forget your honor, Mahrit."
"Yes, sir!"
The moment Johan's party had gone, the company's centurions gathered around their commander.
"Why didn't you ride out with that knight, Captain? He looked to be of fine lineage, from what I could see..."
Mercenaries loved their superstitions — more, if anything, than Mahrit himself.
And to such men, Johan was nothing short of a revelation.
A knight who strode alone into the heart of the company's camp and struck down an evil spirit!
To the rank and file, who knew nothing of the true circumstances, there was no way to see it except as a sign from heaven. Just as they had once followed Mahrit's prophecies, the mercenaries now yearned to follow at Johan's heels.
"He's bound for the east."
"Eh."
"Ugh."
The centurions went pale. It wasn't just the rank and file — they themselves dreaded the east more than anything.
They had only just crawled back to the Empire. They wanted to rest until spring came and the thaw set in.
"No sense mourning. He'll return before long."
"Captain! Did you divine a new prophecy?"
Johan was no eastern noble, and neither Jarpen nor Abner hailed from the east either — but the mercenaries took it as read that Mahrit had prophesied.
The evil spirit was gone, but the company still believed their captain was the Prophet.
Only a fool refuses an audience that willingly fools itself. Mahrit nodded.
"Just so."
"Oooh...! And what did the signs say this time?"
"That great fortune awaits us if we join him then."
"I knew it...!"
"As expected of the Captain!"
The centurions swallowed it whole, without a flicker of doubt. It was human nature, after all — tell a man what he already yearns to believe, and he believes it on the spot.
Mahrit looked out over his men.
It was pathetic, yet oddly poignant too — watching them, he could almost see himself not long ago, deceived and played for a fool by an evil spirit...
But fools like these suit me just fine.
At this rate, he reckoned he could squeeze another few years out of this mercenary-captain gig.
"Safe travels. And mind you take care of yourselves."
"?"
Once the party had set out, Caenerna made her own preparations and slipped away soon after, trailing only a handful of slaves behind her.
"What did you mean by that?"
"For a mere farewell, it struck me as strangely ominous. That's all."
"You're getting better and better at reading what lies beneath the words. Yes — there was a meaning under it. As you know, I'm a mage, and I put great stock in old adages. Do you know the saying — what has befallen twice must surely befall again?"
"I do."
"Caenerna is a formidable mage, but misfortune has already found her twice. However great the mage, there's no withering a wave of ill luck once it's rolling in. It would surprise no one if a third came."
"Oh, come now. Surely not..."
Johan chuckled under his breath.
That mercenary company had truly been an unavoidable stroke of bad luck — but surely the same thing wouldn't happen twice in a row.
A few days later, Johan spotted a familiar figure in the distance, riding hard through a cloud of dust — fleeing for her life. Caenerna was being chased by a band of brigands.
"......"
"......"
"Battle ready — charge!"