Chapter 8

“How does one describe the indescribable? How does one learn the limits of the limitless? These are not idle fancies to the mage, and they are not philosophical conundrums to be pondered. They are the reality in which those who master their magic must face.”

—Arcanum Volitarus Precimiens, Haeshmalifrae Juniperwood

There were a lot of meaningful looks exchanged amongst the council members as Sylvas’ words echoed through the chamber. One that, after too long a silence, was punctuated by the sound of crunching stone as Sylvas ground his palms into the podium before him with enough force as to leave handprints in it.

“What?” he demanded as the eyes returned to him, and the collection of smiles turned brittle and uncertain. “Do none of you have anything better to say for yourselves other than ‘sorry’ after all that?”

Again, a silence fell over the room as the smiles truly faded away from the council members and were replaced with resigned, wary looks. Or at least they were all on all of the faces but one, who instead laughed bitterly at Sylvas’ words.

“Told you that we’re gonna need more than warm words and buttery smiles after the kragh them and the boy’s been put through,” Ironfist stated as he glared at the other councilors, all of whom looked more than a little put out by both Sylvas’ outburst and the dwarf’s words. 

And guilty, too. That is if you know how to read the masks that they each wear, Mira added privately from within Sylvas’ mind, her careful approval coming through in their link. She, too, was angry, livid even, at their treatment to justify his anger, but she quickly reminded Sylvas to temper his emotions.

After all, one might be able to get away with expressing some displeasure to some of the most powerful mages in the universe, especially when they truly deserved it, but even so, there was a limit to how far to push.

“Yes, that was made well clear, Durgan,” Elenya allowed as a slight sigh escaped her lips—a subtle, barely noticeable one for a human, yet one akin to a screaming shout for an elf. It was enough to prompt her to close her eyes for a second before shifting back to look at Sylvas, whereupon she gave him a deep and long bow, a hand reaching up to touch her heart in the process.

“You are not wrong in the words you speak, Sylvas Vail,” she said, speaking while holding the bow in place for several seconds before starting to rise. “Nor is the anger you bear unwarranted. Each of us knows full well just how secretive, brutal, and even cruel we’ve been during our efforts to understand the full reach of your gifts. Enough to understand how hollow mere words can be.

“Unfortunately,” the woman added as she reached her full height once again. “Those words are about all that we can offer now that your trials are over. That and…the understanding of why we had to subject you to such scrutiny.”

“Better late than never, I guess,” Sylvas heard Kaya mutter softly from somewhere behind him. A sentiment that he shared but understood was not exactly politic to voice after his earlier outburst.

“Your consideration is… appreciated, Councilors,” he said evenly, the statement earning a slight nod from the elven woman before being quickly followed by the polite throat-clearing of one of the other assembled councilors. One whom Sylvas immediately recognized as none other than Karth Veilbohr.

“Given the magnitude of the knowledge that you are about to become privy to,” he began as Sylvas’ gaze shifted to meet his, “it is our hope that you will all consider our actions to have been done with the utmost caution, if not justified.”

He looked a lot worse than he had the last time Sylvas met him. His gray suit looked as though it had been slept in for several days in a row, and the man himself looked exhausted to the point that it was surprising he was standing unaided. It was a realization that unexpectedly startled Sylvas, for his focus had been fixated so intently on the council members themselves that he hadn’t realized they were the only people other than them in the room.

The last time he had seen them, there had been dozens of aides flitting around each of them, but now it seemed as though even their most trusted advisors had been banished. It made the disheveled gang at his heels look even more out of place. Except for Malachai, of course, who looked as though his uniform had been freshly pressed and starched despite days in a cell.

“Now before we can delve into our reasoning, we have some other information to share, if only because we will need to ask each of you for seals of secrecy in this matter, as well as to make a choice regarding your futures,” Elenya continued as she resumed control of the meeting, her attention shifting away from Sylvas to the rest of his companions. “The other survivors of the incident on Strife have been returned to the Ardent, unaware of the… culmination of events. If any of you desire, we have a mind mage, this one trusted beyond reproach, available to purge all of the classified information you have witnessed from your minds. Should you wish to choose this option, you will be free to resume your lives as they follow the course you had set before these events transpired. 

“If, however, this is not a path you wish to follow,” the woman paused to add, “then we will be equally pleased to grant you the clearance required to retain that information and place you under the stewardship of Mr. Vail for so long as he is in service to the Empyrean.”

Kaya and Malachai both took a moment to absorb what they were being offered and the abrupt change in tracks their meeting had taken. Mind wipes and getting shipped back to the Ardent with no idea that any of this had occurred or joining their fate to Sylvas’, even though none of them knew what his future would hold.

“Elenya, truly, I think it might be fairer to let them know what they’d be signing up for,” Veilbohr interrupted their confusion.

“Fairer, yes, but more dangerous if the knowledge were to get out. We’ve already discussed this,” Elenya shot back with a shake of her head.

Theron Greenmantle hadn’t said much up until now, but he nodded his agreement. “I agree. There is too much at stake to risk an even fragmented memory to escape if they choose to wipe themselves afterwards. It is best to decide now.”

“Please, they ain’t stupid. Don’t need to talk to them like they are.” Ironfist grunted from his place amongst the leaders, his attention shifting towards Kaya specifically. “Long and short, your boy Sylvas won’t be coming back to the Ardent. The work they do is too…uh, public. If you stick with him, you’ll still be fighting the good war, just on a different front.”

Greenmantle cleared his throat at the interruption. “Councilor Ironfist! Please do not speak out of turn. We have protocol and procedures for a reason!”

“Yeah, so we can shuffle papers from the left hand to the right and call it a good day’s work despite doing nothing at all,” the dwarf countered with enough heat that it became clearly obvious as to why the two of them had been positioned at opposite sides from one another.

Fortunately, Kaya piped up before the petty argument could turn into an international incident. “I’m with Sylvas, wherever he goes.”

To Sylvas’ surprise, Malachai answered just as swiftly. “I should like to see where Sylvas Vail’s path leads him.”

That earned both of them a gratified nod from Ironfist and the same beatific smile that Elenya had upon her face earlier—before Sylvas had wiped it away. But while two of Sylvas’ group had replied, the last and final member had not, at least not until Sylvas turned around to look at her.

“You’ve got a… procedure for this. For what’s happened to Sylvas.” Vaelith’s voice reached his ears right as he spotted her, the woman looking more tired and worn out than ever from under her casts. “You’ve done all of this before.”

Elenya nodded, even as her face took on a particularly sad expression. “Yes, Fal’Vaelith, we do. And…as it happens, so have you. This…this is not the first time you stand before some of us under a circumstance such as this.”

The statement was enough to cause Vaelith’s back to stiffen—a move that Sylvas knew caused her pain from her still-healing injuries. Not that she showed so much as a wince from it.

“How many?” she demanded without a second’s hesitation. “How many times?”

“This would be your fourth appearance,” Elenya answered, the other councilors wisely deciding to stay out of the conversation for the time being. “After the second…you made me promise—”

 “—Can you break the curse? Can you fix my body?”

Surprise flashed across the elven councilor’s face at Vaelith’s interruption, her eyes notably widening. But while the question had been directed at one elf, another answered, prompting Sylvas to turn his head.

“We…are making strong strides in doing so,” Theron Greenmantle replied, his voice hesitating ever so slightly as he spoke. “Your other cadets, those who have been similarly affected, have each made complete recoveries. However, none of them had their core so afflicted as you—”

“I need a yes or a no, Theron,” Vaelith stated as she cut him off, clearly uncaring of his status. Nor was it something that the elf seemed inclined to call her out on, his eyes instead losing their focus for a time.

“Yes…I can,” he answered after a long pause, and the sharpness to his gaze returned. “Though I cannot tell you how long it will take. Several more weeks for certain. Perhaps even months. And you will have to stay here, on Alvarhain with me, all through your treatment.”

“Then I will do that,” Vaelith stated, the simple reply earning the faintest gasp from Elenya that Sylvas only picked up by virtue of all the enhancements he’d given himself.

“Truly, Fal’Vaelith?” she asked, her face breaking out into a wide and joyful smile. “Are you truly reconsidering your…stance? After all this time?”

There was no hesitation when Vaelith answered, her attention not going towards Elenya but rather Sylvas, her eyes meeting his and holding them as she spoke. “I am.”

It was only after those words left her mouth that her head turned to look at the elven councilor.

“I do have one question I need an answer to, however,” she said while inclining her head towards Sylvas. “How…how many like him are out there?”

Elenya’s smile faltered at the question, but she didn’t shy away from it. “Far fewer than we’ll need when Blackstar gets the war he so clearly craves.”

“I see,” she replied before simply nodding in response as if the answer should have been obvious. If the Obsidian Dominion did truly mean to wage war in the future, and they had mages bonded with eidolons amongst them, brimming with the same kind of power that Sylvas could now touch, then it was inevitable that the Empyrean would lose unless they had the same power at their disposal. She took a deep breath. “Then I suppose I should return to my treatment as quickly as possible.”

“Of course, Fal’Vaelith,” Greenmantle replied without so much as a pause as he rose from his seat. “Will you allow me to escort you to my medical suite? We can discuss some additional options along the way.”

Vaelith nodded wordlessly, and within moments, the pair were moving towards the door they’d all entered from. Yet before the two of them could fully leave, Vaelith slowed to look to Sylvas and the others, her students. For a moment, she seemed at a loss for words, then she finally growled out, “Take care of each other.”

Malachai gave her a little bow. “As you command, Instructor.”

Kaya and Sylvas, on the other hand, were still both too caught up in the speed and magnitude of what had just happened to form a longer response, with Sylvas just barely managing a, “We’ll see you soon,” before they passed through the doors and left them.

There was a brief moment of silence, and then Veilbohr cleared his throat. “Well, that was…surprising to be certain, but in the fairness of urgency and the amount we have to cover in this meeting, I believe that we should move on. Specifically to the personal apology that I owe you, Sylvas.”

As if he’d been struck by lightning by the man’s words, all of the memories of the time before his imprisonment leapt back to the forefront of Sylvas’ mind. “The Institute’s expedition upon Strife.”

Veilbohr nodded, a distasteful, angry expression appearing on his face. “Yes. The fact that my institute has been infiltrated to the highest levels by those sympathetic to our enemy’s causes. Rest assured, ever since that I have learned, I have spent every waking moment purging the ranks. In so doing, I have discovered a widespread conspiracy against the Empyrean, in the form of these “Truthseekers” pursuing knowledge of the ancient Aions without thought to the consequences or harm that they are causing. I have trusted associates tracking down loose threads throughout the Empyrean, but it has proven to us that our fears about information security, particularly in this matter, are entirely justified.”

“And the vaults that they intended to open with the eidolons that they’ve taken captive?” Malachai interrupted Veilbohr’s rant as delicately as possible.

It was Eleyna Starweaver who answered that. “The Vaults of the Aions are well known to us. Those that have been discovered in our space have been vital sources of knowledge. Much of the magic which the Empyrean instructs our students in is based on that which we discovered within them.”

Kaya had finally gotten over how star-struck she was feeling about the company that they were in and piped up, “And you’ve been using eidolons to open them?”

“No,” Elenya assured with a shake of her head. “There are various criteria required to open each specific vault. Some need only be touched, and others need only a spell to be cast upon them. The ones that require an eidolon to open them are rare, to say the least, and the danger involved in transporting such specimens as would be required has always been deemed too high a risk.”

Veilbohr opened his mouth, then shut it again, clearly thinking better of restarting an old argument right then and there. Silence fell over the chamber for a long moment, and then Sylvas attempted to get the conversation moving in a useful direction once more. “Going back to Vaelith’s last question. Am I to understand that I’m not the first person this has happened to?”

The three remaining members of the high council looked to one another, then seemed to relax for the first time since Sylvas had first met them. In a rush of color and light, an eidolon exploded out from where it had been contained within Elenya. Shimmering silvery-blue, a great stork spread its wings behind her. Wings that were lined with blinking eyes that stared back at Sylvas. Lightning trailed down its feathers, and its needle-long beak was jagged enough that it felt like it might tear the air it was moving through. He could feel its presence now that he knew it was here, the strange weight on his senses that he always developed around eidolons. The one that he had been trying to hone to help him hunt them. It had been muffled by the presence of the eidolon within him, confused at the signal coming from inside instead of outside, but now it pulsed once more, and his arm began to itch as etherium started growing in his scars. He took a half step back, almost falling from his podium before he caught hold of the marble plinth. And only as he jerked around, making sure he wasn’t going to fall, did he realize that the titanic bird was not the only eidolon in the chamber.

Behind Ironfist stood a boar with a dozen razor tusks arching up and over its back, flames lapping out from its gaping maw. Behind Veilbohr, there was some vast serpent, bigger than the other two eidolons combined but bizarre and metallic compared to their more clearly organic companions, a snake without eyes, without a mouth, just plated scales of metal stretching from the solid faceplate all down its meandering length.

Sylvas’ felt Strife strain against its bonds at the sight of the others like it wanted out to play with its friends. Kaya and Malachai had both managed to stand their ground at the foot of his podium, but he could see their joined hands and the white knuckles on display. Reaching up one delicate hand, Eleyna ran her fingers under the razor beak of her eidolon, stroking through the little feathers there as constellations of sparks rained down around her. “You are not the first, nor shall you be the last mage in the Empyrean to become joined in a covenant with an eidolon. There are only a few of us in each generation who come to learn the method of ascension, and it is imperative that the method is kept a secret from the general population, lest cataclysm follow it. Only those of us who come to the power through our own means are permitted it. It cannot be gifted, and those who have not found their own path to it cannot be guided. Our tests, which we all endured in our own time, before it became your turn, were in part to establish that you had come to this connection with an eidolon through legitimate means.”

Sylvas was a bit unsure of what legitimacy meant in this context. “Did it?”

Elenya nodded again. “There was no indication of anything that would suggest otherwise.”

Sylvas was relieved but not exactly happy. “What else did the tests tell you?”

This time it was Veilbohr who replied, the man almost sounding excited to do so. “That the eidolon is fully integrated into your core, even though it appears that you’ve made no attempt at that integration. That the eidolon has not yet fully integrated with either your mind or body despite those phases typically predating the absorption into the core. That the eidolon cannot manifest itself outside of your body, and its attempts at physical manifestation within the confines of your body seemed to have mostly failed thanks to your physical reinforcements. You are still in the first stage of the three that comprise a covenant, before most of the benefits of your connection become apparent and before your affinities merge. You are unaccustomed to having a covenant, unable to make use of it deliberately, and from what we have observed so far, you are actively repulsed by the concept of being bonded to an eidolon.”

Sylvas took a moment to consider all of that before speaking, “Yes, that… all sounds about right.”

“Yet in spite of this, you were able to pass through the trials that we presented to you at a rate that would best be described as unlikely, even if you were fully bonded,” Elenya added.

Sylvas wasn’t sure if she was trying to be encouraging or reminding the others of how powerful he was. Though if she was, in fact, trying to scare Ironfist, she’d clearly underestimated the dwarf, who was now letting out a booming laugh from the bottom of his belly. “Ah, yes, the look on Elenya’s face when you got bored and drilled your way out… Oh, I tell you, lad, if I live five hundred years, I’m sure I’ll never laugh like that again.”

“He did destroy several dozen floors of a monument of my people that was constructed prior to our written history…” Elenya chided the dwarf, but there didn’t seem to be much anger in it. “But it was probably in need of some refurbishment and repairs anyway.”

“Wait, my performance was unusual?” Sylvas was surprised to hear both Kaya and Malachai trying to stifle their own laughter from behind him.

“Yes, typically the one being tested doesn’t depart the test with such force that the entire structure is permanently damaged.” The not-particularly-well-restrained laughter grew slightly higher. “Your particular competence in this test could be put down to your gravity affinity or simply your unique problem-solving approach.”

At that last comment, Kaya finally let out a guffaw. “Aye, you put that stanzbuhr in a box, and the first thing he’ll do is set it on fire.”

Ironfist looked as if he were trying not to laugh, too, and the ever-present smile on Elenya Starweaver’s face definitely looked amused as opposed to just charming. Sylvas’ shoulders slumped. “I don’t blow up every problem I’m presented with.”

“Of course not,” Malachai affirmed in what Sylvas briefly hoped was solidarity. “Some of them you implode.”

Cutting through the amusement at Sylvas’ expense, Elenya cleared her throat. “Regardless, we believe that the best course for you is most likely some form of mentorship with one of the covenant mages operating within the Empyrean.”

Sylvas glanced around the chamber. “With… one of you?”

Ironfist’s shoulders slumped at the question. “Not with us, lad. Not that we wouldn’t want you. But we’re in the public eye. If the renowned gravity affinity Ardent cadet who died on Strife shows up, walking around with one of us as if it’s nothing… well, it’s going to raise just too many questions, you see.”

Kaya was the first of them to parse that statement, coughing hard as she practically shouted, “I’m sorry, did you say we all died on Strife?”