Chapter 9 (Latest Free)

“When there is a failure of the Ardent crest to preserve the lives of our operative, their death is automatically reported. From there, visual confirmation by a ranking officer is required to certify the accuracy of the crest’s reading, and then it will be entered into official records. Friends and family of the deceased are contacted directly through the slate network to inform them of the death. If a visual confirmation cannot be made, statements are to be gathered from other Ardent in the vicinity to confirm the crest’s report, and the automated update of the official records will only proceed after sufficient testimony has been gathered to the effect that there can be no reasonable doubt. If no witnesses to the death are available to make a statement and no observation of a body can be made, then the operative in question is filed as missing in action for a one-year period, after which death can be formally declared.”

—Ardent Death Protocols

Karst Veilbohr sighed wearily at Kaya’s outburst but still nodded along with it. 

“So far as the universe at large knows,” he started to explain. “You all perished along with the other fallen Ardent and my researchers when you encountered an unexpected and overwhelming eidolon presence beneath the planetary surface. We were waiting to see which of your companions would remain with you and which could be returned to service with the Ardent before finalizing the story and lodging the death certifications, resolved.”

Kaya met Sylvas’ gaze. “So that means we’re ghosts.”

“At least we’re still alive to enjoy it,” he managed to quip back.

“There are few covenant mages in the Empyrean, and of those, fewer still are suited to teaching. We have recalled one of our agents, and he should be arriving on this world relatively soon,” Elenya interrupted their nonsense. “If you’ll have him, he will serve as your mentor.”

Sylvas was still holding onto the marble plinth as if it were the only solid ground in the room and he was trying to avoid being flung around by an inversion. Too much was happening too fast for him to parse it all. “What exactly will that mentorship entail?”

Ironfist answered with a grin, “You’ll accompany him on his assigned missions, learn how to integrate the eidolon with your own magic, master the covenant, and become the greatest asset the Empyrean has ever known.”

“His missions, it should be said, are not military operations in the traditional sense,” Veilbohr spoke quickly as if hoping that they might forget what the dwarf had just said. “We have learned that covenant mages, with all of their power and flexibility, operate best when given free rein. You will have a task to achieve and as long as you require to achieve it. Along with an expectation that you will complete that task with a degree of circumspection.”

“Officially, should you choose this path, you will be operatives of the Empyrean Intelligence Corps, just as he is, but you will answer to nobody except for this council and your mentor.” Elenya finished the sales pitch cleanly. It sounded good, of course. Freedom to travel, to pursue the actual causes of the problems that plagued the Empyrean. The only trouble was that the price of entry was the eidolon Sylvas had to bear.

Sylvas took a steadying breath. “This all sounds… perfectly fine. But I need to ask before I agree to anything—”

“No.” Ironfist seemed to collapse in on himself a little as he spoke. “We can’t take it out, and we can’t make it so you don’t hate it. All we can do is teach you to live with it.”

“You have to understand, I have spent every waking moment since my planet died training to destroy eidolons. They killed my world, my people. They are my enemies. And you’re asking me to accept one of them living inside me?”

“You can accept it, or you can reject it, but the fact remains, it is there.” Veilbohr looked a little frustrated with the whole line of conversation, and that made Sylvas bristle in a way that he was not accustomed to. There must have been some hint of what he was feeling on his face because the man held up a hand and took a steadying breath. “My apologies, Sylvas. Since Strife, I have been working tirelessly to root out the corruption that has taken hold within those organizations that I lead, and it has proven far more fruitful than I ever could have dreaded. People that I believed I could trust with my life have proven themselves to be little more than rabid cultists of the Aion Truth. Some who I considered old friends, and—ugh, I am overtired and not speaking clearly. I meant only that it is a challenge that you will have to overcome. None of us truly understood the magnitude of what we were undertaking when we formed our own covenants, whether they were wrought of desperation, misunderstanding, or…”

“Experimentation gone awry,” Theron Greenmantle finished as he slipped back into the room, this time without Vaelith, manifesting a great green elk to stalk along behind him as he rounded the chamber and took his place at his podium.

Malachai was quick to smooth things over. “No offense was taken, Lord Veilbohr. We all lack a great deal of context for all of this yet.”

Still, Veilbohr’s gaze didn’t leave Sylvas’ face until he gave the man a nod.

“The way that your bond came to you is entirely unexpected.” Elenya Starweaver had allowed her own eidolon to shrink back down, fading inside her, and now she shifted uncomfortably as if trying to get both her body and that of her companion fitting together again properly. “Typically, a covenant is formed when the wills, beliefs, and needs of mage and eidolon are momentarily aligned, but in your case, it was in a situation of absolute antagonism.”

“The blood wolf was an eidolon of war,” Malachai stated plainly. “Absolute antagonism was probably exactly how both it and Sylvas were feeling about each other.”

It brought a thoughtful look to the elf-queen’s face. “You believe that their hatred of one another is what bonded them? I suppose that would actually make a great deal of sense to look at it that way.”

Feeling like he was being left behind in a conversation about him, Sylvas added, “It… likes when I’m angry or when I’m fighting.”

The council was quieted for a moment, concerned glances passing between Veilbohr and Starweaver before Greenmantle piped up, “It is only logical that an eidolon of war would respond well to such things, for it’s difficult to have one without the other.”

Following Elenya’s cue, the others had reabsorbed their own eidolons, with only Ironfist’s letting out a snort of annoyance before vanishing again. It brought Sylvas’ gaze across to the dwarf just long enough for him to realize that he’d been staring for quite some time. Probably every time that Sylvas wasn’t paying attention. The expression on his face was hard to read through the beard, but there was a softness around the eyes that Sylvas hadn’t expected. Sympathy perhaps.

“Regardless of how the covenant was initiated,” Veilbohr pressed on, “there is no indication that there is anything out of the ordinary with it now that it has been established. Once both parties have found common ground, there will indubitably be the usual progression towards the latter stages, as seen in every other case.”

Greenmantle corrected him immediately. “There has never been a mage with gravity affinity bonded to an eidolon. Nor has there ever been a Planetary Annihilator bound on the onset of a covenant. Truly, I don’t believe that there has ever been an eidolon of war bound at any point throughout history, either—though I will have to consult my records on that to be certain. We have no idea what a mage with a secondary affinity only found in eidolons might represent. Everything about this case is out of the ordinary.”

Veilbohr brushed all that away as if it were nothing—or more specifically was so far out of their hands that it wasn’t worth worrying about. “But the manner in which his covenant will deepen is as predictable as ever. The eidolon and mage will find alignment, and they will ascend. Which means that our approach can be—”

“You’re all forgetting something important here.” Ironfist cut the gray-faced man off and then turned to Sylvas. “We’re all telling you how things are going to be, where we want you to go, and what we want you to do and become. Think we ought to ask at least once, what do you want out of all of this, lad?”

Sylvas opened his mouth, ready to walk out the usual line about serving the Empyrean and protecting people and all the rest, but he stopped himself before he could even begin. It had been a long time since he’d last thought about what he actually wanted. All of his focus and attention had been on his work, on becoming stronger, on becoming a better tool to destroy the eidolons, but now he wasn’t certain. Certainty had been driving him. Ever since he was a child, he always had to excel, to be the best, or risk losing all he’d tenuously grasped. But now that he’d achieved some new pinnacle of power that he hadn’t even known existed at such an unexpected cost, he had no idea what he actually wanted out of his life.

You want to be fabulously wealthy and live out the rest of your days in the lap of luxury so that I can live vicariously through you.

Sylvas had to cover his laugh with a cough. He could always rely on Mira to put things in perspective.

“I…want to make it so that nobody ever has to lose their home again. I want to stop the eidolons from hurting people. I want what I’ve always wanted. I want to make things better.” Sylvas glanced around the council chamber, aware of just how naïve he sounded saying things like that out loud to these politicians and plutocrats, but he was surprised to discover that all of them were looking at him with something resembling pride on their faces. “Right now, I don’t know how to best do that…but I want to find out.”

“Then we shall endeavor to find you in a position where you can do so,” Elenya promised. “If your initial tasks while you learn with your mentor do not prove to be that place, then we will work to find you another.”

“So long as the secrecy required to prevent societal collapse is maintained, I have no objection to assisting you in finding whatever it is you wish to do,” Veilbohr was quick to add, even conceding, “not to mention that I feel responsible for you having ended up in this position to begin with.”

Ironfist’s broad shoulders slumped. “Listen, lad, I know this is a hard life, but if you really want to make a difference, this is how you do it. Not in big showy wars or speeches, but by being quiet. Doing what needs to be done out of sight. Gods know, I hated it myself when I first got my covenant, but… it works. Honest, it does.”

Sylvas opened his mouth to accept their offer. Their mentor. The new, perhaps temporary, perhaps permanent, position as an agent of the Empyrean, operating out of sight. Logically, it was the best place for him, but deep down within him, something roared. They had imprisoned him, tested him, tormented him, and now he was going to roll over and give them whatever they wanted? He felt a sudden, unbearable rage at the thought that all but caused his vision to go red.

Darling, I think our passenger has some objections, Mira warned as his heart began to thunder.

Strife surged through Sylvas, flushing his skin red and making all the other covenant mages in the room flinch at the sudden wave of power rolling off him. Kaya and Malachai, who hadn’t seen him in action in the labyrinth, both leapt back, but the others merely watched him nervously, each of them ready to call on their own power to restrain or kill him if need be.

They were probably the only people on the whole planet who could. Sylvas had spent as much of his energy in the passing days keeping the eidolon inside of him locked down as he had dealing with the tests, trying with all his will to crush it out of existence so he wouldn’t have to tolerate it anymore. But now, for the first time, he felt a thrill run up his spine as he realized that he could unleash it. The eidolon and the mage could work in harmony, as they had done down in the dungeon where they’d been cast, ripping and tearing this whole world apart with blood and irresistible force.

No. This isn’t me, he thought while pulling himself from the brink. I’m not some mindless murderer. I’m not an eidolon.

“If this is what you think is best.” Sylvas struggled with each word, trying to force it out through teeth that now felt inexplicably sharp. “I will gladly follow your guidance and learn everything I can.”

With one last snarl, the eidolon retreated back from the surface, sinking back down into his core to lick its metaphorical wounds, returning his body to him.

He glanced back to his friends and the fear on their faces. “Sorry, Strif—the eidolon is angry.”

“Yet here we all stand, unharmed.” Greenmantle looked a little smug. “It seems that the trust we have placed in you is justified.”

Elenya, on the other hand, looked genuinely aggrieved. “Mr. Vail, I must once more convey my humblest apologies for the manner in which you have been treated. It is considered to be a necessary part of the—”

Sylvas put his hands up to stop her. “I completely understand the necessity of it now. But I’m not the one who’s upset. Not…anymore.”

She pressed on anyway. “We were not aware that the antagonistic nature of the testing would lead to your eidolon becoming incensed, or we would have at least discussed an alternate method of—”

“You’re alright, Elf.” Ironfist grunted. “It’s just the beast kicking up a fuss. He’s fine. He’s happy.”

That finally drew her up short.

“Happy might be overstating things a little.” Sylvas couldn’t keep a twinge of his own anger entirely out of his voice. “But I’m choosing to follow your guidance for this.”

“A bold choice,” Veilbohr stated, though if he noticed that Sylvas hadn’t said ‘trust’, he didn’t show it. “Given our treatment of you so far and our failures in ensuring your safety.”

Sylvas shrugged as if the point didn’t matter, which, after a brief thought, he realized it didn’t. “You’ve trusted me with your biggest secret. That you’re all bonded to eidolons, just like I am. I’d be a complete fool not to listen to what you all have to say and share.”

Yes, that would be a rather churlish path to take, Mira agreed. At least before we pillage all the classified knowledge they have to offer.

“Those are good words for us to hear. Reassuring words, even,” Ironfist began, something in his tone earning him a glare from the others. “But still, I’ve a favor to ask you, lad. I’ve no right to ask it, and you’ve every right to say no. But there’s…a promise I’d like to get from you. If you ever stop being happy with your lot in the Alliance, if you want something to change, please don’t just go flying off into dark space and vanish. Considering talking to us, any of us, first.”

Sylvas was more than a little surprised at that, given the barked orders and absolute obedience he’d become accustomed to while serving in the Ardent. Things really had changed. He thought for a moment on that and offered a slight nod. “If the time comes that I’m no longer happy with our new role in the Alliance, I will do my best to speak with you before I do anything…rash.”

“That’s all I’m asking,” Ironfist replied with a small, but heartfelt smile.

“You shall, of course, have our full support in your endeavors, Mr. Vail,” Elenya Starweaver was quick to affirm.

“And I certainly won’t forget that I owe you more than a few favors myself,” Veilbohr added.

Theron Greenmantle leaned forward on his podium, as though he were whispering to Sylvas instead of talking across a broad chamber. “You are a part of a rather elite club now, Sylvas Vail. Very few members. But there is a great deal of loyalty between those few. We have all been where you stand now, beginning our journey into a grander and more frightening universe beyond what we knew before, and if there is any way we can ease your journey, we will.”

Sylvas shifted uncomfortably at being the focal point of so much kindness after everything he’d been through. He didn’t know how to deal with it. “Thank you all.”

He cast a glance back to his friends. Now that the eidolon’s influence over him had faded, they’d shuffled awkwardly back to the base of his podium. He mouthed a thank you down to them, too, which Malachai pretended not to see, and Kaya grinned at.

Veilbohr cleared his throat. “As to the matter on which you will be deployed—”

Malachai surprised them all by speaking out, “Do we know where the Truthseekers from Strife went?”

Veilbohr seemed to deflate a little. “We have found no trace of any of my treacherous archaeologists as of yet. Though we continue to seek them. We must assume that they’ve gone to ground somewhere outside of Empyrean space. Given that they intended to transport an eidolon with them, one must assume that they have a secured base where such a thing could be safely contained, but as of yet, we have not been able to identify where it might be.”

Malachai continued, “Given that they had a gravity mage on their ship, I imagine that their range would be near-limitless, given how much time has now passed.”

“You understand our problem, then. Given how easily a gravity mage can travel, we have been forced to turn to other means if we are to have any hopes of discovering where they may have hidden themselves. Assuming it is even possible at all this point,” Veilbohr stated, his arms coming up to shrug helplessly.

But at that news, Sylvas found himself straightening as Strife started to pace angrily inside him. “I want to find them. I need to find them.”

There was another brief moment of discomfort among the council at the bestial tone in Sylvas’ voice.

“As soon as we have sufficient information to direct you to them, we will be happy to do so,” Elenya said quickly. “But for now, there is the matter that your soon-to-be mentor is looking into, that we hope might lead you in a similar direction.”

With a gesture, Greenmantle summoned a great illusion into the center of the chamber. An image of Inquisitor Caymar—the supposedly loyal mind mage who the council had used to probe him just before the whole crisis on Strife. The one who had tried to implant the idea of committing suicide in his mind. The image slowly shrank down as more information began to appear beside it. Star maps, shipping routes, and known business partners.

“The Thesulan Consortium are trading partners of both the Empyrean Alliance and the Obsidian Dominion. Formerly assumed to be minor players on the galactic stage, their attempts upon your life have suggested that they intend to be more involved in politics moving forward,” Greenmantle explained in a serious tone. “Now that we know that they are involved in Vault Hunting, we have come to believe that they have also been engaging in the illegal transportation of eidolons between planetary systems, and they may also have been involved in the dissemination of information to uncontacted worlds that may have led to their destruction via eidolon incursions.”

“Adding to that, the Hammerheart Consortium has been butting heads with them for years, calling them smugglers and worse,” Ironfist added. “We haven’t had anything official to work with. Certainly not beyond the typical fines and minor infractions that any company that scale would incur, but we’re hoping to change that, and quickly.”

Elenya nodded eagerly at the dwarf’s words and quickly took up the reins of what Sylvas realized was now a full briefing. “While their official base of operations is outside of our official jurisdiction in contested space, they are not beyond our agents’ reach. There are several locations throughout the border worlds of the Empyrean that we believe may be hubs where they conduct their illicit trade, and that will be a good place as any to track them down.”

“The Consortium have the advantage of mobility. Their myriad fleets are in constant motion, so any contraband that they may be in possession of can be shuffled between ships and kept out of sight of our inspectors.” Veilbohr looked like this was a personal insult to him specifically. “Unlike typical mega freighters, Thesulan  ships are designed to dock and transship with one another in space, without the use of shipyard facilities. This allows them to shift materiel between them beyond the view of the worlds that they visit. Thus, a ship might make a long flight across the galactic arm without any apparent stops and arrive at its destination with an entirely different cargo than it commenced with. As such, their legitimate and illegitimate business operations are impossible to disentangle.”

“And believe me, we have since tried,” Elenya stated with a shake of her head. “Your mentor’s task will be to investigate this Consortium and to ascertain whether their illegal activities represent a serious danger to the Empyrean. Then act upon them accordingly.”

“Right, and does this mysterious mentor have a name?” Kaya seemed to have forgotten who she was talking to once more, giving her usual degree of lip.

It was right then that Elenya Starweaver, covenant mage and one of the most powerful people in the entire Empyrean, allowed herself a faint giggle. One that the other members of the council looked as taken aback by as Sylvas, until she managed to bring her tittering to a halt. 

“Hector,” she said with another broad smile. “Your mentor’s name is Hector.”