Episode 5 - Soren’s labyrinth

Soren sprout the seed of the Aei tree beneath the Second Sun.

Soren strode with a calculated languor through the gilded halls of the Cathedral. To the guards on both sides of the way, he was a harmless ceremonial figure, a relic of a more pious age. His hands, though, were never idle. They moved in a silent game of chess, not with ivory pieces, but with the very hearts of the Church. He was quietly recruiting, his words a soft poison meant to disarm and disarm. He spoke of reforms, of returning to the pure light of Sol, all while discrediting rivals with a whisper here, a damning implication there. His grand play was nearly ready. He stopped before an arch door embossed and carved with many symbols that brought protection and glowed with magic of the Second Sun. I am Soren Zuthath, the Prune Pontiff, a title that implied gentle removal but in truth signified ruthless culling.

The door opened with a swirl of magical tendrils and series of cracking. He sauntered inside a dome room, where the walls were transparent, showing the entire view of Lys Royeaux. This room resided on top of the Pyramid of the Sun, just below the Consecrated Ground where Tietra held ceremonies and public announcement. These walls also worked as a combination of spells and mechanisms that make Tietra’s avatar appear a giant to the people.

Soren approached the single table in the room, facing Tietra Saintanas, the Hierophant. His outward deference was a perfect mask for his inner machinations.

“I’ve had the feeling I could fulfill my Sixteenth Aegions since the day I met that boy,” Tietra murmured, his voice a low hum. “But I can’t. I sense a completion of Solfire within him, a potential that could make even you tremble, and yet I can’t take it. You feel it too, don’t you?”

Soren’s eyes held the cold, unending light of a winter sun. He gave out a single curled nod. “I did. But I also sense something deeper, a spirit as ancient as you are, or even more, a parasite upon that mark.”

“It must be the lich we seek,” Tietra concluded, his tone dismissive. “It was there to keep track of the boy’s location, nothing more.”

From the sleeve of his ceremonial robe, Soren produced a small, rolled parchment. He unsealed it with a flick of his wrist. It was a coded report, one of many he received from his network of informants. The message was a grim little riddle. A dot was moving within the capital, a shadow among the sun-blessed citizens of Lys Royeaux. His face, when he looked upon the document, was a perfect blend of righteous fury and determined focus. He was the Church’s tireless hunter, a beacon of justice in a world consumed by darkness. “Any plan for the Magisterium’s rebellion?”

Tietra turned his back on Soren and walked toward the transparent wall. “This is not the first time they try. Houses rise and fall, and the Church always remains. We have the Suledins.”

“It’s different this time. They have the means to cloak the sheep with the skin of wolves,” Soren muttered.

Tietra waved his hand as if nothing important could happen. “Go. I see you can’t wait to get away from me.”

Soren bowed and left the room, unsure of the purpose Tietra had called him for. There was no way to guess the Hierophant’s mind. Over five hundred years working with him had taught Soren that Tietra always had plans behind a plan that he laid before his subordinates. Each one would play their part as the plan was not only a test, but a diversion, a bait, a misconception. Each small act hooked on each other that created a knot that no one could see the picture until it was done by Tietra’s last stroke.

And Soren also had a bush and magical ink ready for him this time. Before this very meeting, he had acquired three artifacts that could change his entire life under the thumb of the Hierophant.

The true nature of his hunt in this starless night lay far from the public eye. He stole away from the city crowd, not in pursuit of the lich, but on a different pilgrimage. He went to a place long forgotten, a ruin buried deep beneath the earth, Aeigiva. There, in the subterranean silence, he would plant the Aeimortis’ seed into the destroyed cradle, the hollowed trunk of the Aeigiva tree. This was the heart of his plan. When the tree grew to its full adulthood, its power would be his to command—enough to challenge even the Second Sun itself. Tietra Saintanas would have to answer for the crime he committed on Soren and his people.

Aeigiva was more than a ruin. It was a vault. It was here that Soren kept the true record of Sahada, a chronicle of every evil deed and unforgivable sin committed by Tietra. The true Soren’s labyrinth. He moved through the cavernous space, the air growing colder with every step, until he came to a chamber of pure ice. There, stood suspended in a frozen tomb, lay the perfect form of his lover, Mira. The ice held spawned from within her, frozen the love of his life in timeless embrace. He paused, a faint smile on his lips. “Such a strange coincidence,” he murmured to the frozen girl, “that Ianc’s sister’s name is Mirari.”

He knelt before the seed, his hands trembling with a mix of anticipation and exhaustion. He began the ritual, placing three skulls in a triangle around the massive trunk that was burnt inside out when the Second Sun descended. He whispered the ancient language of the Nekrothan. The air hummed with a nascent magic, and a brilliant, wondrous light show of color erupted around him. The skulls of the liches beyond the Sear came alive. Gold, and red, and blue, their flames once were and their flames once now. Commanded by Soren’s will, they danced inside the socket of their holders. The small chamber was filled with a surreal, vibrant light of ancient necromancy art. When the final word was spoken, the Aei-seed sprouted, a single, glowing sapling reaching for the unseen sun above.

Soren’s strength was utterly spent. He collapsed to the cold ground. Darkness consumed him, the exhaustion of a lifetime of maneuvering and plotting finally taking its toll. As his eyes closed, the black crescents of his eyelids were jagged. The smooth curves became broken lines like two jigsaws closing in. And in the final beat of his consciousness, he felt a single throb in his chest, a new, alien rhythm beginning to beat in time with his own.

Previous |

Start | Index