5/
Malignant Information.
In the material world, it is a transient curse that disappears the moment the rumors do. There was a Dead Apostle who once who tried to reach a mystery known as The Sixth or Program Number 6. Unable to reach it in his lifetime, his spiritrons were dispersed into the The Sixth. It is said that every few decades, this Dead Apostle reappears in closed communities, using his Reality Marble to collect malignant information and transforming himself into what is feared the most, annihilating the entire town. Named after the first place he materialized in and for using the image of Vlad the Impaler as his foundation, he is known as The Night of Wallachia. I am not trying to say that Icecolle is a version of The Night of Wallachia; after all, TATARI disappears after one night of theatre. Instead, one might say she is something even more sinister.
“Before she died, Celenike was working on a way to curse people through what I believe they call the internet, a quantum world.”
When we had finished casting the casing, Mr. Musik revealed what we were dealing with –Celenike Icecolle Yggdmillennia’s greatest creation, the remnant of her three-decade epic.
In a quantum world like the internet that has its foundation in data and information, malignant information is inevitably stored and locked away as “useless data.” I don’t dabble in such degenerate behavior as “surfing the web,” but all the vitriol, all the terrible puns, and all the cartoon reaction images, don’t just fade away. Instead, they fester and pile up until they turn into an all-consuming tidal wave of mud – the cast-away, abominable, history of humanity’s sins. However, the core of malignant information is nothing more than hollow demagoguery, spreading for the sake of spreading, just like videos of kittens.
Yet, even if it’s called “useless data,” this travesty still has an incredibly high spiritron energy value. Therefore, is it not the perfect medium for sending curses across the internet? Chain e-mails, internet urban myths, need not apply; after all, they are products of children playing games, wholeheartedly believing in the power of anonymity or wishing to be part of something greater.
It is through the accumulation of malignant information that people who are hurt in turn hurt others. We construct a web of lies, a hollow web of curses that will continuously circulate in the “circle-jerking” closed online communities that are now too commonplace in the quantum world we constructed. The victims become the assailants and the cycle continues; all the while, the amount of mud slowly but surely increases, eroding more and more of reality.
You were born in that hell.
An aggregate of all the mud, all the filth that Celenike had spread, you are the family tugging back every cursed thread Celenike had woven into the internet and in sacrificing themselves, the family was able to pull you out and pour you into a compatible human goblet.
The greatest magecraft the Icecolle have been capable of.
The only magecraft the Icecolle have been capable of.
For the sake of your creator, for the sake of the person you call sister, you seek a never-ending vengeance. In all honesty, it’s quite beautiful to go that far for someone you love. No matter how inhuman you are, that emotion alone is something fundamentally human. Therefore, there can only be one name for you. After all, you perfectly personify the tribulations as well as the desecration that this family of witches has endured and performed.
You are the actualization of the cycle of victim and assailant, for curses can only breed more curses.
Drowning that a sea of curses, yet never averting those ice-cold eyes, your name can only be Icecolle.
***
“We see. And who are you sweetie?”
A victim of the Holy Grail War, just like you. That’s why I so badly want to say that you’re right, that taking revenge on those who did your sister wrong to lay her rest isn’t a mistake. I know that lately your sister has been on your mind as well. You’ve been thinking about her so much that you might go mad.
“Someone who recently realized he’s an idiot. But that’s why I’m a magus.”
Those who aim to throw themselves into a maelstrom without knowing what awaits them on the other side. There is no guarantee the magus nor his descendants will arrive at the promised land. One could say that there is no end. There can never be any compensation for those who are already gone, neither is there any hope for those who are yet to run their portion of this race. The people who are called magi are either those cannot grasp the concept of “impossible,” or are simply idiots who cannot give up.
But Icecolle, that’s the precious truth which separates us.
“And what has being a magus ever brought you? Pain, misplaced pride, and a dead sister. All for the sake of what? A metal owl sitting on your shoulder? How can that ever be worth the sacrifices?”
Every one of the owl’s feathers was hand-crafted and alchemically treated so rather than a tool, it looks like a living creature. Mr. Musik spat out that, “Bah, this might even be my greatest work to date.” I don’t disagree with him.
“You’re right, Icecolle. All the pursuit of Magic has ever brought people is suffering and dead sisters. You would know the best; after all, you are magecraft itself. But magecraft is also the reason why I’m here right now and I need to believe there’s at least an iota of meaning in that. That instead of escaping, I came into your throne room to fight one more time.”
The only time that a magus will ever choose to fight…”
--is when he has something that he can’t give up.
“Bubo—“
“Hoot, Hoooooooot”
Hearing her name, the owl immediately comes to life, spreads its argent wings, and circles her master.
“That’s what Gordes was doing instead of making our body.”
The instant Icecolle stands up her black dress of malignant information bubbles and flows around her until veins of black cover the poor woman’s body like a spider web.
“When you mentioned your bodies were eroding, I incorrectly assumed that you were an aging soul who was taking over bodies. But it’s nothing like that isn’t it. The core of malignant information is hollow, a zero, and the remaining personality of the person you are taking over is a one. All those niceties, all that curtesy you extended to me – like that delicious tea – aren’t you. They’re the fragments of the woman whose spirit, husband, and son you killed. At the same time, malignant information itself erodes reality. It might be okay if it’s a small quantity; however, when it’s as concentrated as you are, it begins to purge whatever it touches. There’s no way a human body can withstand that so you try your best to contain yourself.
“That’s why you sought a homunculus body. Rather, that’s why you sought to be contained within a proper vessel meant to grant wishes. Your core may be hollow, but you are made of wishes – the warped hopes and dreams of Celenike’s internet victims, and you represent a wish – the deepest and final wish of the Icecolle.”
The compatibility between Icecolle and the homunculus is too optimal, as if they were made for each other. Functionally immortal, even if the mystery isn’t anything close to a materialized soul, there is no doubt in how much calamity she could bring about. After all, a new-born homunculus barely has a personality. All that will be left controlling the body will be a distorted, unfiltered for vengeance.
The embodiment of Nemesis.
I’m not here to stop that. In fact, as a magus, it would impossibly interesting to see. Instead,
Victim to victim.
Assailant to assailant.
Dead sister to dead sister.
We’re here to figure out where do we go on from there.
“Go--!” I command my familiar, now a silver light speeding across the throne room into Icecolle’s heart.
“Did you learn nothing, sweetie?” She snaps her fingers and initiates a large-scale ritual.
The ceiling erupts in materialized curses shaped as arrows. Dark and oppressive, each one would spell certain death for Bubo, but the silver owl weaves through the rain of arrows like a small propeller plane through a tropical storm.
“It’s certainly better built than the other one.” Icecolle dryly states as she watches her certain death approaching. No matter what substance Icecolle is made out of, she still needs the body to move around. The malignant information won’t have a host any longer if Bubo pierces her heart. “I really wanted you to acknowledge us sweetie. I thought that at least you would feel the same way. It’s a coincidence that you came to this castle, but that is why it’s so miraculous.”
Making its way through another wave of arrows shot out of the ceiling drums, Bubo closes in on the witch.
“Those who these sub-category Holy Grail Wars hurt, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t lick our wounds together and make things right. That’s all I ever wanted, to make things right for my sister, for myself. I know you agree with me. But, Bram, sweetie, if you’re going to keep rejecting me like this--”
The final barrage clips one of Bubo’s wings, but her aim is still true enough to keep her straight. In the next second she will go through Icecolle’s heart and bring this to an end.
“Then--”
But Bubo never makes it.
“--It seems like I have to show you what I mean.”
The entire throne room goes dark as all the lanterns are extinguished.
What is even darker is the dress of malignant information revealing its true form. The veins widen and spread through the woman’s entire body, forming intricate tattoos. But there’s one tattoo, one pitch-black carving, that is always solemnly gazing at its next sacrifice.
Spread across her chest is a giant ice-cold eye – Icecolle’s true form, the living crest of the family.
And when the eye opens, it weeps. The wave of curses and malignant information crests at the ceiling, sweeping Bubo into me and I am pulled under that wave.
Drowning in something that erodes my entire existence, I can’t help but think that there’s something both she and I have forgotten.
***
-Lately, my mind has been on my sister.
What was the face she made when she found out that she was to be betrothed?
-Lately, my mind has been on my sister.
What was the face she made when she was leaving to fight in that sub-category Holy Grail War?
-Lately, my mind has been on my sister.
What was the face she made when she was killed?
And most importantly, Bram, if your mind has honestly lately been on your sister.
What was the face she made when she found out that she was born only to be your spare?
I… don’t… know…
And why don’t you know?
Because I think…. I think that I never bothered to look. Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri was my sister, but I don’t think I ever cared about her. She was just some piece of furniture that would eventually be given away to someone else.
So, Bram, is that your sin? Is that why you can’t forgive yourself?
I’m not sure, but that’s why I want you to be right. I want you to be right so that I can do something for my sister even if I never did when she was alive. So, even if she was torn to pieces by a hail of bullets, I can show her that I cared. It’s not something that a magus should care about, but I can’t help it.
--After all, I’m human too.
--After all, I’m a victim as well.
Having my sister taken away before I could show her any affection, having her taken away before I could understand her, having her taken away before I could just once be a proper brother for her is too cruel, it’s just too unfair.
Then if it’s cruel, destroy it.
Then if it’s unfair, remake it.
You’re a magus aren’t you, Bram? Even more than that, you’re to be one of the Twelve Lords of the Clock Tower. Surely it wouldn’t be too difficult for you.
Hurt all the people who hurt your sister.
For all of us.
And from the malignant darkness, they appear. Each figure is blurry, and while some of them might be as young as children, there are others that look impossibly frail. Yes, it would be impossible for me to mistake who these people are.
Every single person who has ever died in the sub-category Holy Grail Wars.
“Why did this happen to us?” They mourn.
“Why can’t you help us?” They beseech.
“Why won’t you avenge us?” They curse.
I…
You aren’t in the wrong. It’s those who killed your sister who are wrong – just like those who persecuted my family, just like Gordes, Caules, and Fiore who all stood by and let Celenike die.
I’m sure that your brother-in-law will be much more at peace when you avenge him.
A figure approaches me from the right, but you’re not Kayneth so don’t you dare touch me!
I’m sure that your sister will be much more at peace when you avenge her.
A figure approaches me from the left, but you’re not Sola so don’t you dare touch me!
I’m sure you’ll be much more at peace when you avenge her.
You’re both fakes. You both aren’t here; after all, you died. There is no way that you can be here and even if you’re here you’re just a clump of malignant information using whatever image I have of you in my mind to create a version of yourself so then it doesn’t matter so I won’t feel like the worst brother in the world I won’t feel guilty I won’t feel so impossibly guilty that I need to take it upon myself to avenge you.
Just… get away from me!
To move away from the past, you know that a sacrifice is always necessary, sweetie.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Thus, all the ice-cold eyes in the world will be blind.
In this manner, I can export my suffering, my guilt, my pain onto someone else who will in turn export it to someone else, weaving a web of curses.
It sounds too good to be true. At the same time, from the bottom of my heart I know that it is true. That’s why it’s so tempting, so alluring.
After all, lately, hasn’t your mind been on your sister?
That’s right. It has been. I’m sorry. I’m so terribly, terribly, sorry.
I’ve never been able to make my sister happy. I’ve never wanted to make my sister happy.
So, for once, just once, let me do something for her.
So that she can move on.
So that I can move on.
With that, I hang my head and start to sink into the mud while my entire world begins to turn into a cursed, cold, black.
This is the natural and only choice that has ever been allowed for Br-
“Hoooo-oot, Hoooo-oot.”
But if this is the only choice that has been allowed for me, why is my non-existent right arm glowing?
***
One final memory. One more time.
At the end, our families decided to bury them together. They were to be married and they died together, so it seemed disrespectful to split such a loving couple apart. At least that’s what all the relatives said, reassuring themselves that they did the right thing by Kayneth and Sola.
Of course, at the same time, those very same relatives were looting the spoils that came from the death of a Lord. They took land, apprentices, assets, and Mystic Codes, then proclaimed because another relative took that pair of Mystic Eye Killers, they were entitled to, nay, they deserved another grimoire.
When we finally stood on the melting snow, watching the coffins being lowered into the earth, there weren’t that many magi attending. If I looked to my right I would see my ever-stalwart father and if I looked to my left, I would see a little blonde girl who would grow up to still be a little blonde girl but with an exceptionally sharp tongue. Finally, if I craned my head to look far to the right, I would see someone about my own age, a no-named magus who survived the sub-category Holy Grail War my sister and her fiancée lost their lives in.
I don’t know why I’m revisiting this memory. While this was a sad occasion, it wasn’t the moment I started to think about my sister. Instead, that was the culmination of small happenings that eventually snowballed into an obsession. Individual threads that, with time, were eventually woven together, weaving the me that is currently drowning in the mud.
But for some reason, I think this memory is different from the rest.
“Hoot-!”
An impatient cry that shouldn’t exist here. Following the sound, I snap my head back to the ceremony where a priest with a bowl haircut who was also an alleged Templar starts the sermon.
“The dead cannot return,
That which hath passed is forever lost.”
But even individual threads still need something to tie them all together. This might not be the moment I started thinking about my sister, but it was the moment I understood that she was never coming back. Never caring about what she was doing, what she was feeling, I failed as her brother, and I could never make it up to her. I could no longer apologize.
“No matter how great a miracle,
It may only affect those who still exist.”
A tear forms in my left eye.
Ahhhh, so this is what I forgot and what you never had the chance to hear.
I tightly grip my non-existent right hand.
We are the ones who are left behind, trying to do our best for those who have already passed. That’s why you want to avenge the people who couldn’t protect your sister.
But Icecolle, the dead are dead, they don’t care. They don’t care if you spit on their grave, make a charity in their name, or avenge them– that’s what being dead means. You see Icecolle, the only reason to avenge someone is because you yourself feel the need to avenge someone. Unable to process your grief, the only release you have is inflicting that pain you feel onto someone else.
--Just like how a funeral is held so the living can mourn the dead.
We are victims, those who were left behind by the people we held dear to us. But it’s a mistake to hurt others for the sake of those we lost because from the moment our loved one’s hearts stopped beating they stopped wanting anything at all.
If that is the case, the only thing we can do…
***
“Hooo-oot, hooo-oot”
Hearing the screeching of my now glowing familiar, the figures accept my answer and recede back into the darkness, forming a path.
Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri has always taken the easy path…
“Hoot, hooooo-t”
As if urging me on, Bubo takes to the sky, showing me the way.
-So there’s no better time to start taking a more difficult one.
One step at a time, I make my way down this muddy corridor. With each step, I look all the figures who won’t be saved, who won’t be avenged, and I smile.
Humans aren’t beings who need to be avenged.
People are born and spend their entire lives relying on each other. Like that, we weave a single thread out of our lives and then after we die, this thread is added to the grand tapestry known as Humanity.
The ones who come after depend on the work of those who came before. All we want is for someone who comes after us to use our work to create something greater and more beautiful than what we already had – to reach the stars that we could only dream of touching. In that manner, the earth spins, people die, and new people are born to not just take their place but to further what was already there.
And the final place that we reach when we follow that shining silver owl is this balance.
With my heart on one side and single pure white feather on the other, there is no way that this can be Nemesis’s balance.
There is neither a scribe nor a weigher because I will be the one to judge myself.
Then, answer me Bram, what do those who have lost everything and were left behind have?
I reach for the balance with my nonexistent hand.
What can people like us possibly have?
--Let me show you, Icecolle.
And light envelops this world.
***
“How are you still alive!”
That’s strange, someone is yelling at me.
“A torrent of curses like that should have burned the flesh right off your bones. So then how, how are you still alive, Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri?”
That’s right, Icecolle unleashed a torrent of malignant information at me and…
I look at the silver owl in my hands.
Oh, so you must be the one who protected me.
Thank you, Bubo but please bear with me for a little while longer, okay? I promise that I’ll give you some nice ether clumps after all this is over. So, wake up, will you?
“Hoooooooot,” she protests, but still opens her wings and takes flight. Now it’s my turn.
Groaning, I push myself off the floor before dusting off my knees. I’m a little unsteady, but that’s okay. My entire body aches and I think I have a few burns, but my family’s magic crest should be able to deal with those. I must have avoided most of the damage, somehow.
“No matter. No matter at all.” Icecolle retains her composure before raising her hand to activate all of the drums again. This time I’m the one the cursed arrows will aim at.
“Hooo-oot, Ho-ooot”
But the spell never activates and we are only left with two victims facing each other and an owl circling above.
“How! How did you do that?!” Icecolle snarls. For the first time, she looks bewildered. First, me surviving the torrent of malice and now her magecraft won’t activate. I can’t hope to understand what’s going on in her mind.
“One of the first techniques a student of spiritual evocation learns is placing a spirit into a vessel. In the ancient times, birds were though to carry the souls of the dead. Therefore, Bubo makes the perfect familiar for collecting the vengeful spirits of the witches in this castle.”
Icecolle, the eye on the woman’s chest, opens even wider. “Ammit, The Devourer of the Dead! Gordes used the core of your previous familiar for this one as well. Your familiar doesn’t just collect spirits, it also converts them into magical energy. But what… just what on earth did you use as the core?”
“A feather of Ma’at. I’m still not sure if it is real though.”
“Even if it’s fake, considering its nature and ours, it may have protected you,” Icecolle gasps. “However, even if it’s a relic from the Age of Gods, it’s a trick that can only work once.”
Ma’at, the goddess of truth and justice – cosmos. The Egyptian creation story states that the world started as a lifeless, hollow, chaotic water – Nu. While order cannot compare to the blazing sun that emerged out of the Benben, at the same time, it is the natural enemy of Nu. More than that, it’s a promise to-
“No, that doesn’t make any sense. Even if it was real, the feather of Maat is the feather of an ostrich! There’s no way an ostrich feather can produce an owl.” She gnashes her teeth in frustration.
“Job 30:29, ‘I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of .‘ There’s more if you want me to continue.”
“But that shouldn’t matter. If the foundation you’re using is Egyptian, why would something like Christianity be involved at all?”
“Rather than worrying about solving the mystery, shouldn’t you be worried about what you’re going to do now you have lost your ammunition?”
Icecolle was able to activate such a large-scale magecraft with a single action because she was using the grudges of vengeful spirits who were trapped in this castle as curses. The shamanic drums amplified their century old obsessions and hatred until they became cursed arrows, striking down all those who transgressed on their cage.
However, Bubo is a silver owl who devours spirits and turns them into magical energy. Not matter how many drums this throne room might have, they’re just drums unless there are vengeful spirits for them to convert and amplify.
“Hoooo-ot, Hooot.” Comes a triumphant screech on my right shoulder.
That’s right, Bubo. It would be completely useless if all you could do was eat spirits and convert them into magical energy. After all, magical energy isn’t something that is stored, it’s something that moves, changes, transforms.
Hearing Bubo’s shriek, the web of curses that makes up Icecolle thickens and becomes more concentrated. She must finally see me as a threat.
I close my eyes and remember what Mr. Musik taught me.
The image is a thread being sewn into my body. Stitch by stitch, the needle digs into my skin before making its way to the other side, tying two things that were once separated.
My magic circuits immediately start moving and my body feels as though it has burst into flames. Forcing the sensation of something inhuman tearing my body apart down, I generate the sufficient amount of magical energy and weave it into Bubo, activating the magic formula embedded in her.
She glows cherry red for a moment, then liquefies on my stump.
This is true magecraft.
It might not be as extravagant as the ground blossoming into stone flowers.
It might not be as terrifying as homing cursed fingers fired out of a shotgun.
It might not be as majestic as a dragon made of lightning.
A supernatural power, no doubt. A power that only the chosen few in this world are permitted to learn and wield.
But it is not a power that changes the world. After all, humans have been changing the world with their own two hands for eons. There is no way that magecraft is such a redundant power.
It is not a power that changes oneself. After all, the world we all live in changes us no matter how hard we fight it. There is no way that magecraft is such a useless power.
True, honest, unadulterated mystery is the manifestation of the hidden links, no, the hidden weaves that knit this world together. It is a single red ribbon of fate in an endless loom of white.
Those who can see this red ribbon and appreciate it for what is are called magi. And those who are able to see the white ribbons as red are the greatest of magi.
-Those who see this mundane world in all its extraordinary, mysterious glory.
I… am not one those people. I realize that now. Instead, I am just a privileged brat who can’t forget the sister he lost. All I am, all I ever was, is a bona-fide spiritual evoker – someone so lost, so alone, that in some misguided attempt for solace, we tie ourselves to death and attempt to resurrect the spirits of those who abandoned us to this mortal coil. Hanging onto ghosts, hanging onto records rather these precious memories, hanging onto our own fake superiority even if we know that our existences are weaker and thinner than the very spirits we try to conjure, we lock ourselves up in our workshops, knotting ourselves to everything we have lost.
So, all I can do –
All Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri has ever been able to do is take hold of a lone red ribbon as tightly as possible, vowing to himself to never let it go. And with eyes firmly fixed onto the past and with only that single red ribbon as a guide, stumble into the void that all magi must walk into.
And one day…
And one day, in the far future, perhaps I will have done my part in helping those who come after me to reach the greatest mystery of all – the truth.
A truth I will never reach today, not matter how complete my understanding is of this apocryphal catharsis.
But that’s okay, that’s alright. I continuously repeat those words like some sort of incantation to reassure myself.
There are things we spend our entire lives searching for that we never find. There are things we spend our entire lives trying to overcome that we will never come close to. There are wounds that will never heal no matter what spells we use.
Lately, my mind has been on my sister so I know that. Lately, my mind has been on my sister so I know that so well with every fiber in my body it hurts.
But that’s alright, that’s okay.
I didn’t want to admit it, but fundamentally, me and her are the same. Drowning, whether literally or mentally in the deaths of those we held dear, we only sought to do what we believed best honored their memories, willingly or unwillingly.
Therefore, if we are the same and she is magecraft that has obtained consciousness. The only magecraft I could have spun, the only magecraft that I could have woven has to be something that mirrors this cursed woman with ice cold eyes.
“Adjudicate, !”
Attaching herself to where my arm was cleanly cleaved off, Bubo has transformed into something only spoken about in myth and legend.
“Imitating not only a Divine Construct but also an Authority!” She laughs. “What nerve you have!”
That’s… not the case. This mystic code isn’t as glorious as a Noble Phantasm, sacred as a Divine Construct, nor is it as rule-breaking as an Authority.
This arm of silver…
This arm of silver that a better man than I forged for me merely represents the responsibilities that I have run away from and all the burdens that I have to bear from now on.
It is a small, wretched thing cobbled together from the remains of worlds that were trampled on and then assimilated. Forgotten worlds we can do nothing but look back on and yearn for.
So if that is the case, this cannot be anything other than my Supreme Code.
Looking at it objectively, this may be nothing compared to malignant information that has festered for years in the quantum world, materialized as a curse which then obtained a body and a consciousness. But like I said before, this is the truest magecraft I can muster, so I don’t think I’m going to lose.
I let my magic circuits spin as fast as they can while lowering my center of gravity.
Icecolle sneers, “We finally meet, Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri.”
***
Barrages of curses are continuously flung across the room. So that they can be shot as fast as possible, each is a cluster filled with the unprocessed malice of a century old ambition comprised of so much magical energy that it can do physical damage.
The throne room rocks as the walls splinter and break before the unyielding might of these curses. With the momentum of cannonballs but fired at the speed of machine-gun fire, even one brush would render me unable to fight and dead within the next few seconds.
But each time certain death rushes towards me, I bat it away with a silver light.
Right, I need to diverge all surplus magical energy into reinforcing my eyes and ears, while increasing blood flow to my brain. It doesn’t matter if I’m unable to defend against each curse, I only have to react – will take care of the rest.
The basic principle behind spiritual evocation is to summon a spirit and let it possess an object, giving the item certain properties or at least an awareness. Alleged cursed objects that are too common in pseudo-documentaries about the occult and supernatural fall into this category. One fitting example of actual spiritual evocation would be the patented Bronze Link Manipulator
Attached Reinforcement Type Mystic Code
of the Yggdmillennia. Placing a dog’s spirit into each leg, the mystic code is able to automatically detect and defend the magus without the need for much magical energy at all. Airgetlám works on the same principle; however, the spirit inside running everything –
Three clumps of malice fly past my right thigh, left shoulder, and left ear. But a shining silver light deflects the two that would have squarely landed on my chest and right cheek.
I could re-allocate someone of the magical energy that was gathered into reinforcing my entire body. Doing so would mean I could move towards her rather than being pinned down, only being able to deflect the curses that are fatal. However, I’ve never trained my body; therefore, reinforcement can only make this situation worse.
“We’ve still got more sweetie. You might have taken my spirits away but we’re more than enough to destroy you.”
The spirits of the witches who lived in this castle.
The malignant information that makes her existence up.
We both have extraordinary amounts of magical energy available to us but no time to mold it into any magecraft that took time to learn. Without the spirits, she can no longer instantly activate the drums. Between the moment it takes for her to weave the curse and knot it to the drums, I’ll be able to sprint in and split her in half. Therefore, all she can do is keep throwing curses at me while I keep deflecting them. In that sense, we are equal, but –
The room shudders more violently as five more curses are deflected into the walls. However, even after everything settles, the room is still convulsing.
Wait… is that the room or is it me then?
Fading, my consciousness must be fading away. I’ve been running off pure adrenaline so far, but even the effects of that must be going away.
My right arm starts to revolt. It makes sense; after all, it is something that was never supposed to be attached to a human in the first place. Reaching for the balance, I told myself that I would be judged. Therefore, I shouldn’t be surprised about this at all. The malignant information Icecolle is shooting at me make up her being. Therefore, should I be any different? To defend against something like that, I have no other option than to continually shave off my own life!
“Aaaaaagggghhhhh!”
I scream to throw off my pain so this silver arm can keep repelling the encroaching malignant darkness.
“Hush now, you’ve done a good job. Soon you’ll be able to rest.” Icecolle smiles as she continues to fire off curses. “You’re at your limit and you’ve used that weapon so many times that I understand the mystery, so it’s okay Bram, it’s okay to give up. You’ve done enough.”
“The mystery…” It takes most of my energy to say that. “It was never a mystery in the first place.”
She laughs at that, “Surely you must be mistaken sweetie. Compared to the other one, this is quite the mystery you and Gordes have cooked up. The Airgetlám and a silver owl with the core as a feather of the goddess Ma’at, truly, it’s quite the mystic code.”
The silver arm is obvious, it’s a replica of the Divine Construct and the Authority of the Celtic War God, Nuada.
“The owl on the other hand is the companion of the Greek Goddess of Wisdom, Bright-Eyed Athena. It can only be silver because of the Athenian Tetradrachm was called the owl. I doubt Gordes had Tetradrachms, so you only used cast silver? Why I’m sure Gordes blew a fuse over that, hah!”
The pain intensifies and I feel as though I’m losing more and more of myself; however, letting my precision go down for even a split-second is fatal. At the same time, I need to keep my mind away from how rapidly close to I am to approaching self-destruction. Therefore, the only available thread I can hold onto to keep my sanity is her explanation.
If we actually had access to those silver coins, Bubo would be a lot sturdier. While I was fine with using the silver that we had in the workshop or for Mr. Musik to transmute a lesser metal into silver, Mr. Musik went wild. It seems he doesn’t understand that desktop theory doesn’t always translate into something practical.
“The Feather of Ma’at is the other side of the balance of justice in the Hall of Two Truths. If the weigher’s heart is heavier than the feather, Ammit, shall eat the heart. However, Ammit is just one side of Taweret, another crocodile goddess, the protectress of childbirth. The dead and the living are just two sides of a more primordial crocodile goddess.
“Finally, wisdom, therefore Sophia. In magecraft, that is tied to the Gnostic Sophia and the Divine Logos that it represents. A feminine aspect that it may be, it was also known as a syzygy for the Son. Because it is a syzygy that make it possible to tie into something as masculine as a War God’s arm.”
The three separate mysteries that make up this mystic code. And what is the thing that ties them together?
“Recapture Lost Wisdom
Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri
.”
Just like the Icecolle, our name itself is a promise, a promise to re-tread the past to find the things we have lost so that we can move forward.
“How fitting!” Icecolle shrieks. “We’re the same, trapped by our names, forever left behind until we can find it in ourselves to move forward. So then, let me test you. Let me test the Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri name that so fervently rejects me!”
The barrages stop and I wobble, almost falling to the ground.
Tired, I’m too tired. I need to rip this thing off my arm before it –
Boom, Boom.
One by one the drums on the ceiling come crashing down between Icecolle and myself. They fall onto the ground and then rearrange themselves in mid-air until they also form the shape of an eye.
“I’m about to show you everything that the Icecolle possess. All our pain, all our suffering, all our hopes, all our curses. Please, take all of us and understand just how depraved this world is those who have lost – us.”
And Icecolle unleashes every part of herself. The malignant information that makes up her existence is shot into the drums which amplifies and spreads it like a spider web towards me. The last wave is nothing compared to this. In less than a second, that torrent of concentrated malignant information will erode my entire being.
But I slow down my breathing, remove the limiter on my magic circuits, and raise to meet the torrent of mud, turning that second into an infinite amount of time.
My magic circuits spin at fever pitch and generate manifold times more magical energy than safely possible. However, the pain is mild compared to my right arm’s rejection.
My left eye socket fractures.
My skin tears in several places, peeling off like a wrinkled apple.
My brain sizzles, frying itself due to the amount of magical energy being processed.
In fact, anyone standing right next to me would only smell burning flesh.
But I disregard all of that, because right now, all I have to do is reach for a mystery that I always knew was there but always neglected.
Right, just like Mr. Musik told me to, it’s time to weave these three separate red threads together.
Nuada, the Celtic War God, the shining savior and king of the Tuatha De Danann. However, even if he is a War God, he is also a fertility god deeply related to the waters. The waters that Taweret, the very symbol of the Nile controls. In this role, she takes on the role of Neith, mother of Sobek-Re. In Theosophy, Neith, the weaver of destiny, along with Bright-Eyed Athena, are known as goddesses of wisdom that make up and represent the companion and the other side of the Savior, Sophia.
I start to activate a magic formula and weave the mystery thread by thread. In and out, in and out, and at the end, I knot the threads together as tightly as possible. Like this, I shall construct the spell. There’s no time for actions, there’s not time for bars, I am just taking all the magical energy Bubo has gathered and I have generated then shooting it with as the barrel!
A silver flare attempts to penetrate the overwhelming torrent of mud. The two streams contend, but the mud will win, the mud always wins. Primordial in nature, it is both the expression of humanity since language was invented as well as the embodiment of the curses that have now evolved and taken over the quantum world.
No matter the mystery, no matter how tightly this magecraft is woven together, it is nothing more than a single basket trying to hold back a sea.
But that’s why I can’t let go.
There’s a common saying in the world of magecraft that no matter what the mystery is, as long as you flip the switch, keep your magic circuits running, and pay the price, you’ll reach whatever you were looking for. Right, that’s why a magus only fights when there is something he cannot lose – something that is more important than his own life.
Disregard the pain; that is only telling you to stop.
Disregard your breaking body; you can take care of that afterwards.
Keep weaving. Just keep weaving. And if you run out of magical energy to weave, then weave your magic circuits, your body, mind, and even your soul. It doesn’t matter if you use your entire existence to continue weaving this mystery because eventually you will finish what you set out to sew.
The dead are dead. They will not come back. What you’re weaving is a tapestry of their lives that you’ll proudly hang to show they were once here.
No matter who they were, what they did, or how they died, something radiant will remain. Even if this mud corrodes everything that I am, as long as I believe in that brilliance, it doesn’t matter if I lose the fight.
But pain racks through my entire body to the point where I lower my eyes while my right arm slightly slackens.
“Giving up so soon, brother?”
Until a voice I thought I’d never hear again jolts me back to my previous stance.
“He may as well if he’s resorted to using modern magecraft like Theosophy as part of the basis for the magical formula. My, my, Bram, you still have a long way to go.”
“Stop teasing him Kayneth El-Melloi. What have you ever made? A blob of mercury.”
Ah. It doesn’t matter if they’re only hallucinations caused by the overuse of magical energy, being able to hear their voices one last time….
“Keh keh keh,” A different person, also behind me, apologizes. Her voice sounds like nails scrapping a chalkboard. “Sorry for leaving you this mess, young Lord. The wish of the Icecolle should have never turned out like this. We were confused, angry, and desperate. We still maintain that we were right, but I think we can all say that we should have handled it more tactfully.”
Hundreds of voices murmur in agreement behind me, but among those hundreds, one voice is clearer than the rest.
“Brother, I –“
But I cut off whatever she was going to say.
“Sola. I never understood you. I never wanted to understand you.” I take a breath, “But I… I am glad that you were my sister.”
And two strands of a thread that were always separated reconnect for a moment. Illusionary it may be, trivial it may seem, but at the end I can still be proud of myself for saying it.
--Some utterly meaningless words a magus would never say.
“Enough with the sentimentality. Bram, are you ready for one last lesson?”
Fighting back tears, I nod at Kayneth’s voice.
There is no magecraft that can bring forth the dead. Even spells that summon spirits can only summon the leftover thoughts, the emotions of the people who were once here. Therefore, I can only keep insisting that this is impossible, that the two hands I feel on my shoulders are just a hallucination.
“Ready, Bram?”
“Ready, brother?”
We are only alive because of the people who came before us. Because they came before us, usually they will inevitably leave before we do – whether naturally or because they participated in some magical war, it is a fact of life that is just as sad. And those of us who are left must ask ourselves –
The moments we lost, how can we make up for them?
The people we lost, how can we repay our dues to them?
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—“
--I scream and process all the spirits that Bubo captured at once. Magical energy beyond anything my magic circuits are capable holding is shot through and starts to envelop the mud.
“Impossible! You’ll burn out faster than you can maintain that much magical energy!”
The answer is that you can’t, Icecolle, you just… can’t.
All we can do is weave the best thread we can and leave it behind for the victims who will come after us. I think that you know that better than most people, Icecolle. But in my case, instead a cursed thread…
--I want to leave behind a shining, silver thread of magecraft.
Slowly, the silver light overwhelms the mud and then the room as the drums are crushed one by one, causing an explosion that throws both of us against windows that still don’t crack.
I might not have braced myself, but unlike her, I expected this reaction so I get up first.
“Argh-!”
Pain runs through my body. It’s the feedback of using magecraft above my ability. It feels like every single bone on my body has turned to jelly and all my nerves have been plucked out. But if I don’t move, in the next few seconds, Icecolle will get up and finish the job.
“Go, Bram.”
“Go, brother.”
“Go, you idiot. Don’t you have a delivery to make?”
Two ephemeral hands and one as solid as his mustache pushes me forward. Using the momentum, I break off into a sprint.
“Bram, sweetie.” Icecolle is already conscious. Even if half her body was blown away, the remaining mud is replacing the lost organs. However, the mud can only support so much of her. Even if it is brimming with magical energy and spiritrons, it is still “nothing,” at its core. Even the strongest delusion can only exist in this world for so long.
I look at my mystic code. There are deep fractures running throughout the peerless silver. There is no way I could use it to defend against an attack that uses most of Icecolle’s remaining mud. In that respect, I’ve lost.
I was one step too late, then.
But Icecolle doesn’t move an inch from where she is. She just hangs her head and laughs.
“What a hypocrite you are, sweetie. You still don’t understand, do you? We’re the same! For crying out loud, just look at your arm.” The eye on her chest recedes until it is a black dress once more. “Can’t you see that the only reason you defeated us was because we cut your arm off? And guess what, you are right to hold that malice, that hate towards us. By killing us, all you are doing is proving our point! In fact, this is the ideal result. Do it. Take this life because you realize that the only way that humans can move on after losing something is taking something as compensation – to avenge what was lost like you are doing right now.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand.” My right arm on her chest, I whisper into her ear the promise I made to Mr. Musik.
He asked, “What do you want me to help you with?”
“I’m going to save her.”
I smile and recite the incantation for a light that reveals everything to whatever it pierces.
“Dead End – Claíomh Solais
Illuminate, Sterling Spirit Blade
.”
shatters, but not before a glaive of pure silver light penetrates Icecolle’s heart.
I fall to my knees and before long I can only see silver. I don’t think that’s because of the spell though, so I must finally be losing consciousness. I might not be able to see the end, but I’ve fulfilled my role.
It’s all up to you now.
***
Icecolle had won.
She withstood Bram’s final attack and even if she would die in the next few minutes if she couldn’t find another body to take over, Bram’s body was right in front of her. Even if the body was incompatible and would rot in a few days Gordes was almost finished with the homunculus body. Furthermore, Bram basically admitted to her with his actions that she was correct. For those who are left behind, the correct way to move forward is to avenge those who are gone.
She was the winner, so why was she on the ground convulsing as though something was tearing her entire body apart from inside?
“Icecolle, you made one fatal mistake.” A rough voice from above. She recognizes it.
“There is no mistake, Gordes. We’ve won. Soon, we’ll pour ourself into that homunculus body and finally kill you in Celenike’s name.”
“Really?” He raises a bushy eyebrow. “You don’t look like you’ve won.”
“This is nothing. We’ll use the malignant information as replacement limbs so we can take over Bram’s body.” She frowns, concentrates even more, and frowns even deeper. “W-Why isn’t this body listening to us?”
“The one mistake that you made,” Gordes grimaces. “Bram told me the story about the original owner of that body. The hostess you killed here before killing her husband and her son.”
“Yes, what does that have to do with—“
Gordes gives a tiny nod. “Bram is a spoilt idiot most of the time. However, as a magus who evokes spirits… he’s not that bad.”
Even if the woman that Icecolle killed hadn’t gone through any training and she was just a distant relative, she was still an Icecolle witch. And all Icecolle witches who die in the fortress....
“The spirit he evoked to control his mystic code, it was her!”
Icecolle can’t say another word. As if the spirit was waiting for Icecolle to realize who it was before shutting off her speech functions.
With his final spell, Bram took the spirit out of the mystic code and injected it into Icecolle. That was why he said there was no mystery behind the mystic code. The original purpose of a spiritual evocation is to link the messages of the past to those who are still living in the present so there can be a future. The magus is no more than the messenger.
“So Icecolle, you got Bram’s message, but can you understand it?”
The body shakes as if touched by a divine revelation as Icecolle wordlessly screams. It’s the first time she’s the one who is being corroded from the inside out. If Icecolle cannot control the body, she cannot substitute the organs she lost with the malignant information. If the body dies, Icecolle will be nothing more than a globule of a dissipating malignant information. But Icecolle doesn’t understand.
While it might be the hostesses’ original body, she is still just your typical vengeful spirit. Icecolle is a curse many magnitudes greater than such refuse. Yet, every single time Icecolle tries to break the spirit down, it reforms, refusing to give up control of the tiniest amount of tissue.
She is an obsession… just like Icecolle.
She is a wish… just like Icecolle.
So then why can’t Icecolle help but think they are different?!
“A vengeful spirit can’t obtain new information. They can only repeat the same regret from when they died over and over again. No matter much you fight it, implore it, or ignore it, it will keep repeating that single regret. You’re the only one who was with her when she died. What did she say when you killed her, Icecolle?”
Even if she can’t move her eyes, Icecolle looks at the throne and remembers how she forced her mud into the throat of a woman wearing that ridiculously homely apron, a woman whose face she is currently wearing. Icecolle wasn’t paying much attention back then, but the only two things that woman screamed about were-
Without a doubt, her husband and her child.
However, the vengeful spirit can’t know they died.
It cannot know the husband came up to the fortress, prepared to beg Icecolle for his wife back, saw Icecolle’s face and had his head lopped off.
It cannot know the son came up to the fortress full of sound and fury, but fell into a pit full of cursed nails.
The spirit does not know that they died, so she is eternally fighting for them.
“You see Icecolle, you didn’t lose to Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri or Gordes Musik Yggdmillenia. You simply lost to a mother and her love for her family.”
Ahh–
She may have lost all control of her body but Icecolle finally understands.
--This is what a true sacrifice is.
The perverted and distorted sacrifices that the Icecolle perform to power their curses can’t even compare to the sanctity and purity of what this degenerate, trivial, weak, human is eternally doing for her family.
She didn’t want to be avenged.
All she wanted…
The only thing she wanted…
--Was for those she loved to have a future.
Icecolle’s consciousness starts to fade away. Blood is no longer being pumped to any part of the body. In a few seconds, the hostess’s brain will stop working and Icecolle will return to being a lump of malignant information, a pure unadulterated thirst for vengeance.
That’s why these final moments when she can still think are so precious to her.
She wanted so hard to be acknowledged, but maybe she wanted to be even more.
The dead will never come back to life.
All we can do for them, all we’ve always been able to do for them is to make something even more brilliant.
For those left behind, that is our only solace.
Next time, Icecolle says, next time, I want to become a sliver light that guides someone’s path.
Yes… that would be a nice… wish.
6/
In Duat, there is a structure called the Hall of Two Truths. It is said in that building there is a balance. On one side of the balance is your heart and on the other side is a single, white, ostrich feather. For those who have lived a light life, the heart will be lighter than the feather and they are allowed in the afterlife. On the other hand, those who have lived heavily have their heavy heart eaten by the monster on the side of the balance.
I think I’m staring at that mythological scale right now – or many I should say once more. So then, I must have died in that battle against Icecolle and am waiting to see if I can enter the afterlife. Geez, weren’t we taught that after the decline of the Age of Gods, mythological underworlds became metaphysical?
“Do not despair. Today is not the day you face judgement.” A familiar voice comes from the darkness. “As you can see, sometimes the feather is heavier than the heart and sometimes the heart is heavier than the feather. Undoubtedly, you are still alive.”
“Icecolle!” My kidnapper’s face comes into view; however, she looks a lot kinder. “No, the woman whose body Icecolle stole?”
The woman smiles radiantly. “Neither. This is currently a strong image for you, so forgive me for borrowing it.” She then lowers her head for a moment. “I no longer exist in this era. But if you are referring to the ‘me,’ you are currently talking to, I am the remaining miniscule fragment of Her power in this artifact.”
“So then, should I call you Bubo?”
“If it makes it easier for you, Bram. I may be the impetus, the original mystery that allows your mystic code to work the way it does; however, I am not your mystic code itself.”
That doesn’t make much sense, but there’s a more urgent question.
“Sorry for asking Bubo, but where am I?”
“You were seriously injured during that fight. You used magecraft that was beyond your abilities and paid the price. Your magic crest kept you alive long enough so you could receive the adequate medical attention, but in the modern era, healing is completely focused on the body. As long as the heart is beating, they can keep it alive, but they can’t do the same for the mind. That’s why I took you into my inner world.”
While the doctors or healers repaired the body, the mind would be safe here.
“You’ve been asleep for weeks, Bram, but it’s time to wake up. You have someone waiting for you.”
I nod. “Thank you for saving me.”
“I have always been here, you just learned to ask.”
She smiles once more and for a brief moment before fading, I think I could see a young woman with a scepter in one hand and an ankh in the other.
She must be another one of those hallucinations.
***
The moment I open my eyes, I realize that everything aches.
“Cheh, the doctors said you’d come out of it today. Didn’t think they would be right though.” Someone beside my bed grumbles.
I move my arm, trying to take these electrodes and wires off my body. That’s when I realize I have something in my left hand – a white ostrich feather.
“You’ve been holding since I carried you out of that castle. Wouldn’t let it go.” He looks at it for a moment and snorts. “Pretty sturdy for a feather considering the mystic code was blasted into smithereens. Don’t worry, I’ll make you another one and this time you can pay double with interest or I’ll just patent the design.” He looks at me seriously, “And that’s how you blackmail a magus, idiot.”
Argh, why did I even try to save such a problematic man in the first place?
But enough of that. I look around, trying to get my bearings. There’s a television above the bed playing the news and there are some flowers on the left table adjacent to my bed. It seems slightly too sanitary, like Mr. Musik’s workshop back in the fortress.
“You’re in Saint Francis Episcopal Hospital in New York. You were in pretty bad shape when I dragged you out of there. Your family flew you in.”
Ah yes, one of the few modern hospitals that have some of the best facilities and more importantly, don’t ask many questions.
“Hmph, that’s all well and good.” I surprise Mr. Musik. “But why are you here? Shouldn’t you be back home or fighting the good fight in your little clan’s civil war?”
“Hah—and leave your helpless self? The moment I leave this entire hospital is going to come crashing down on you. You’re so incompetent that I decided to work for you!”
He adds how he’s already starting to regret it.
But that makes me smile. Mr. Musik might be rough and abrasive, but as long as he’s with me, I think I won’t stray too far from the new path I did my best to pave.
“What about the Yggdmillennia? I’m sure the other two houses didn’t react well to the news about the Icecolle too well.”
He dismisses that with the wave of his hand, “That fool can take care of them, he’s the head now. I did enough groveling to save us from the Association after we lost the Great Grail War. This change of pace might be nice for me. Anyway, I hear that the new Sagara girl is pretty good too.”
Everything wasn’t for nothing then. Some people suffered and others were hurt, but we still move forward so that one day…
“Mr. Musik, during the battle, you pushed me, didn’t you?”
He looks at me strangely. “Of course, I did. You were dumbly standing there with your mouth open.”
I nod. “But when you pushed me did you see –“
I cut myself off and look at the feather in my hand. There will be a hole in my heart if I don’t ask this question. The “what if’s”, the “how was that possible” will plague me for my entire life. But even so….
“Sorry, Mr. Musik, it’s nothing. I just wanted to say thank you for helping me.”
“Stop being so weird, Bram. Of course, I helped you. I told you that I would, didn’t I?”
The dead are gone and can never return. Those of us left behind might be left with nothing. However, to be hollow means one can be filled with anything.
To honor those who gave their lives for us--
To lay the ones we love to rest—
Let’s look forward and build something more brilliant, more beautiful anything they have ever known.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about my sister. But it’s about time I started thinking about what’s next.