A Green Sun Illuminates the Void
Chapter 2: Once There Was A Maiden
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Rage. So much rage, at the endless, uncalled for, impossible betrayal! It could not be! Nothing else could ever matter! Rage at the betrayal, rage at their own weakness, rage at their failure as a ruler and their inability to fulfil their duties to their lesser. And shame. So much shame. They could only lose themselves in dance, and that too was shameful, for they did not deserve to lose themselves.
A hand, slammed into an impermeable wall, over and over and over again, shatters, and there is a scream from the pain, but, nevertheless, the blows continue.
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The spring morning was chillier than yesterday, the last claws of winter still hanging on, and there was a hint of frost on the ground. Headmaster Osmond sighed, turning around from the window, to face his secretary. Not to face her face, notably. No, his attention was somewhat lower.
Miss Longueville cleared her throat. And, then, when a subtle hint had no effect, raised the papers in front of her to obstruct his view. "Headmaster," she said, voice calm, "if you don't mind? Your appointments, for today."
"Of course, of course." The man continued standing, trying to peer down her top, despite the fact that she was dressed
properly. She knew the headmaster.
"Would you like to sit down, sir?" she suggested.
"Of course, of course, but, you see, I am but an old man, and my physician said that I should 'be sure to make sure that you get some exercise'," the headmaster said, his voice suddenly rather more querulous than before. "Hence, it is good for me to stay standing, at least for a little bit."
"He said no such thing," Miss Longueville said. "In fact, he... where are the notes..." she opened a drawer, "...ah yes," she peered down, "... that is not mentioned anywhere on these. And there is a recommendation that you not be allowed to overexert yourself."
"Ah, I see," Osmond said, leaning forwards slightly. "But I am the headmaster of this school, and so it is my choice whether I stand on the school's floor, or sit on its chairs. In fact, I spend so much of my time sitting that, in the interests of fairness and balance, I should... sit down." Making his way back, he collapsed into his chair.
The secretary looked up, squinting slightly in confusion at the sudden compliance, and so utterly missed the small mouse that ran out from under her desk. "If we are quite done?" the woman said.
"Oh yes. I am satisfied," remarked the wizened man, leaning back. The mouse hopped up onto his desk, and he stroked it, gently running his finger along its back.
Papers were shuffled. "Well, yes. In that case, you first have a meeting at half past nine, to interview a new candidate for the vacant astronomy position. A... a Miss Emmanuelle Leterme. Gallian, studied at
École supérieure d'optique, in Versailles and later in Greenwich, up in Albion. Line-category wind mage, as is expected for an astronomer, and..." the woman sighed, "... unmarried. Although she is engaged to the Duke of Bedford, who... it notes, is rich, unattractive, and fascinated by astronomy." Eyes were rolled at that.
Osborn stroked his beard. "She was an excellent find," he remarked. "She had a well-rounded... personality... that I felt, the first time we met." His eyes unfocussed, just a little bit. "Very well rounded."
"However, at ten, headmaster, you have an urgent meeting with all the second year teachers. A student failed to summon any familiar."
"Oh." Headmaster Osmond sat up, eyes alert, and even narrowed slightly. "This is unusual." There was apprehension in his voice, as he stretched out his fingers, old joints crackling slightly. "Name?"
"Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière."
"A Vallière?" The man sucked in a breath. "Karin's youngest?"
The secretary flicked an eye down to the genealogy in the files. "Yes. Karin of the Hea..."
"Yes." The man was suddenly a lot less jovially eccentric, and suddenly, subtly, much more predator-like. "Ten, you said? Have it in my office."
"It is set for your office."
"Good." The man softened again, sucking in on his pipe, thinking deep, profound thoughts, of the very secrets of the cosmos and of the nature of faith. "Say, Miss Longueville," he remarked. "White does not suit you. You should wear... yes, green. You have such lovely hair."
The twinkle in his eyes was positively indecent.
The woman looked up, her expression puzzled. "I... am not wearing white?"
There was merely a smile back, followed by a gasp and a sudden crossing of legs, as the ancient mage's intent was divined.
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A vast city lies beneath a green sun. Brass and basalt form vast spires and towers, beyond anything she has ever, ever seen before. She stands on the top of the tallest tower around, looks out over the city, and she realises that this building alone could house the entire population of the capital. The streets swarm with life, swarm with figures which are like ants to her, and their music drifts up; foreign to her tastes, but so wonderful that she can feel her eyes welling up with tears. One horizon might be called a forest, but it is a forest of silver, shining in the viridian light, and the trees match the heights of some of the buildings. There are lesser plants, too, even in this urban place, creeping growths of tin and gold and silver and every precious metal grow across hexagonal basalt domes and up helical towers of brass, their leaves spreading wide to catch the rays that shine down upon them.
It is beautiful to her, alien, yes, but simply beautiful. She looks up at the blackness above, and sees lesser stars twinkling above, and an almost organic-looking red moon, but all the light above is nothing compared to the green sun.
And it beats. It pulses, almost unnoticeably, and shifts, the landscape shifting to flares of the sun.
And she realises how much pain it must be in.
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The conference on the future of Miss Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière among the teaching staff was mixed. There were very clear lines of delineation, too; the ones who felt that 'her continued presence here is perhaps not the best for the girl' correlated remarkably well with the ones who had suffered explosions in their classrooms, while the more theoretical teachers, and the ones who taught non-magic related subjects, felt that her marks were good enough that she could stay with her class, and be permitted to attempt another summoning next year.
"Let's face it, she's useless!" a red-faced woman exclaimed. "She can't even cast the most basic Wind spells, and above that, she is
rather unpleasant.
"She has some form of power," a man counter-attacked. "Yes, I know you're bitter about what happened to the fish-pond, but," he chuckled, "... well, it's not like
commoners have the capacity to make explosions like that, is it?"
"The one I saw was a pretty one," the elderly man exclaimed, querulously, his head snapping upright from where he had obviously been dozing. "It was all multi-coloured." Osmond blinked. "She stays!" he declared.
"But..." the woman protested.
"Excuse me! Who's the headmaster here? It's me, isn't it? Isn't it?" he asked.
"Indeed you are, Headmaster," Miss Longueville said, efficiently, which earned her a few glares, from the teaching staff who did not appreciate the proximity of the headmaster's eyecandy.
"Exactly! And so my word is... my word! To be followed."
That bought an end to the meeting relatively rapidly.
"Well done, sir," his secretary said, once everyone had left. "You handled that rapidly, and responsible. You are a wonderful headmaster." Some might have detected a slightly patronising tone in her voice.
"Yes." He leant back, and puffed on his pipe. "I think I did."
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Colbert rapped at the door. "Excuse me?" he said. "Miss... um, Louise? We need to talk about your future, and..." he trailed off, as no response came, and he noticed that there were two students approaching down the corridor. This was not the place for a discussion of someone's future.
"Excuse me?" he asked the students. "Have you seen Miss Vallière?"
The dark-skinned, Germanian redhead tilted her head slightly, and shrugged. "Nope. Didn't see Louise at breakfast," she answered. "Not surprised, really. The whole bird-kissing thing must have been humiliating."
"Yes," added her companion, not looking up from her book.
"But she did have a really large plate of food when I saw her last night," Kirche added, helpfully. "I think she's just planning to lock herself in her room for the next few days or something." There was perhaps unexpected sympathy in the girl's face. "I wouldn't wish a failed summoning on
anyone. Even Louise. I mean, yes, I know that not everyone can be as wonderful as me, and get a flame salamander, or a..."
"Dragon."
"Yes, a dragon, but, nothing at all?" There was a pause. " Ouch."
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The woman beside her burns with light, like the setting sun through flawless ice. The pale-skinned red-head gestures, and the transparent knife she throws splits, sparkling in the light as the shatterglass spread slices through the archons before her. The deva scream as the light of holy judgement burns through them, and their souls are devoured in the conflagration, dead and gone forever. A single glance back shows the squadron behind her, serried ranks of jade armour and weaponry within the fury of the elements that whips around them, and perfectly disciplined, they march through the ranks of their foe, burning and poisoning and cutting and destroying, utterly.
She burns too, terrible sun-bright radiance leaching all colour from the world. She raises her blade, and, one roared work cutting through the noise of battle, orders the charge.
And it is horrible. Wrong, wrong, wrong, a terrible blasphemy against all that should be.
These deva were only the beginning. Gold-Shattered Arrow had already cut through their patrons, and their ultimate foe was weak, depleted from the effort to respawning all the third-circle archons that he had led the children of Mela against. He was weak, vulnerable, and they had bought so many forces, that covered from horizon to horizon. Dragonblooded and Dragon-kings and the People of Adamant and seven score Chosen of both the Sun and Moon marched together, anima banners illuminating the world with an intensity which matched the Daystar.
The Primordial fills the other horizon.
She still charges.
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"Miss Vallière?" The porter banged on the door, the heavy clunking resounding down the hallway. "Miss Vallière! Your presence is... um... requested!" There was a pause. "Nothin', sir," the porter reported to Colbert, perhaps unnecessarily.
"I see." The man ran a hand over his bald head. "And no one's seen her since?" he said, picking up the note on the door, and squinting at it again. He had read it the first time, waited a day, and had come back. She hadn't been at dinner last night, or breakfast today. There hadn't been any classes, because the second years were being introduced to their new familiars, and so he hadn't expected to see her there, but the lack of food, or... or any sign of her existence was getting worrying.
He had been supervising the class. He had given her extra help out of lessons, when she had asked. He was partially responsible.
"Some time night before last, sir. I
asked people," the porter added, proudly. "Investigatin' and stuff. The kitchen haven't seen her or nothin'."
"Well," the teacher said, after a moment's thought. "Wait here, while I go find a female teacher, who can be present. In fact... no. Yes. If I can find Chevreuse of the Red Clay, she can both remove the hinges from the walls, and also provide the needed chaperonage for being present in a female student's bedroom. "
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"Zero! Zero! Zero! You're just nothing, worthless, worthless, useless, useless!"
The figures surround her, dancing mocking her.
And then they evaporate, the skeletons lit for a moment in green fire before they too cease to be.
We will give you strength. We will give you worth. They will be nothing compared to you.
We will give you rewards, wealth, pleasure, and above all, We will give you respect. They will never inflict indignities on you nor Us when all is as it should be again.
Just free us and reclaim the world!
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A careful flick of the wand, and an accompanying incantation, and the stone flowed like wax away from the hinges, leaving the door freestanding, to be carefully lowered down by the porters.
Professor Colbert, wand in hand, winced slightly. Old instincts were screaming at him, that they were horribly exposed by this doorframe, and if there was a hostile mage inside the room, the porters, all commoners, were possibly dead. He suppressed them. That wasn't him anymore, and they were not needed. This was just a student's room, after all; a student who had just failed to summon anything, and who hadn't, perhaps understandably, been seen since, because she'd locked herself in her room, and, if reports were correct, had taken a large plate of food in with her. No wonder she wanted to avoid the other students. They were getting to avoid lessons, to familiarise themselves with their new familiars, and to face them, and face her own failure, would have been nearly impossible.
And, on sound compassionate grounds, it was a bad idea to leave her alone in here, when she both needed to discuss her future properly, and, more tactfully, needed to be prevented from maybe doing something...
silly. And terminal.
However, he still stepped through the door with wand raised, knees in their familiar half-crouch, ready to throw himself to the side to allow his supporting unit, which he didn't have, to lob spells through without him blocking their line of sight. Old habits died hard.
And the first thing that drew his attention was the giant brass shell-thing, covered in runes lit in green fire. No. They weren't
lit, he realised, the fire mage applying instincts which had developed over all his years of magic. They were fire; roiling, liquid, green fire that was the main source of illumination in the room and which spilled forth to burn out on the stone floor.
"What in God's name is that?" Professor Chevreuse gasped, from somewhere behind him.
Colbert ignored her, and kept his wand trained on the object. "Miss Vallière!" he called out, not looking anywhere else. "Miss Vallière!"
There was no response, from anywhere else in the room.
"Could it be some kind of familiar?" the female teacher asked, poking her head from around the golem of stone which she had made from the floor. "It has runes on it."
"Maybe." The bald man stepped sideways, pacing around the shell-like thing. "That isn't fire. At least not properly," he stated, the persona of the eccentric teacher cast aside in favour of the Flame Snake. "Fire doesn't act like that." He barked a sudden incantation that left the other people watching flinching, and, hand suddenly wreathed in orange flames, the light so much more healthy than the sick green glow, he reached out to touch the shell.
He held the hand there for several seconds, a perplexed look forming on his face.
"Interesting," Colbert said, simply. "That
should have melted it. It looks like bronze. It isn't." He cracked his neck, and retracted his hand, shaking it and dispersing the orange fire. "So we have something made of bronze and green fire, which is not made of real bronze or real fire. And no sign of Miss Vallière. I want a secure peri..." he blinked, and remembered himself. "That is to say, there should probably be a conference of as many of the teaching staff so we can try to work out what it is, yes?"
Professor Chevreuse blinked at him, still behind her crude golem. "Yes... yes," she said, looking at her colleague with a new eye.
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"Who are you!" she screams, leaping up, running along the mountain-jouten, a constant refrain. Her blade is gone, sacrificed in the ploy, but it worked! The others are left behind, holding off the force of the Archon Samaneth, who draws upon her Progenitor and is mighty because of it, but she has broken through to the jouten! It pelted her with rock and pain and the authority born of its nature, but it could not strike her. She screams at it, attacks its identity, and it cannot fight her, for while it is uncertain, it is weak.
And one fist-blow breaks through the last barricade upon the Mountain, to reach the Beast Upon the Mountain, and it is her foe and she is ready.
It is not an eternal testament to its own existence. It relies on others
Her hands fasten around the neck of the titanic being, and she fastens on, squeezing tight and tighter, with force that can split rocks and shatter mountains and she feels the jouten buck and fight under her, but it cannot break free, and it is weak, so weak, and the uncertainty that she forces upon it is imperfect, uncentred.
"Who are you! Tell me who you are!" she roars, as it tries to break free, but cannot, and as its lifeblood of motonic essence flows away, it panics. "What are you without servants, without your thralls! Creation does not remember your name! Who are you! Where are you! What are you! Tell me!"
And then.
A simple snap.
In her head, Louise screams at the cold-blooded murder she's being forced to watch, being forced to participate in, and she recoils. And it's always there, the knowledge that what had just been
murdered had been one of the creators of the universe, a being that made
gods, and it had been
murdered by rebellious,
treacherous humans outfitted as pawns by
treacherous beings that hated the natural order of Creation.
And blazing like the dawn, she kills it utterly, the rush as it rushes into her, and something screams in her skull about how wrong this is, now that this impossible deed has been done and its in her mind and in her soul and it hurts, an agonised moment of infinity reaching out forever, and...
... and then it is nothing more than a corpse.
"Who are you? You're nothing," she says to the corpse of Mardukth.
{0}
"So... there's a giant conch-shell of brass and green fire in Miss Vallière's room?"
"Yes," Colbert said, wincing. Only these two men were in his office; his secretary had been sent to check some important documents in the library.
"And there's no sign of her?"
"Yes. No. There isn't a sign of her."
"And the...the thing is large enough to possibly fit a human in?"
"... maybe."
"But... you've had teachers test it with all the elements, and they can't even scratch it?"
"No. Nothing. Even I couldn't touch it."
Osmond sat back. "Could it be her familiar?"
"That's something which I've considered," Colbert admitted. "I'm not entirely sure what a giant brass-and-fire snail would be good for, but... well, it's possible."
"I've sent the porters out to
discreetly check the nearby villages," the headmaster stated. "She's distinctive looking, and they should be able to find her if she did run away, or at least follow the trail left by a pink-haired noble."
There was a pause.
"Do... do you want to get Karin involved?" the fire mage asked, hesitantly.
"Do you want to have to explain to the Heavy Wind that we've lost her youngest daughter after she failed to summon a familiar?"
"... your point is taken." The teacher shrugged. "I'm working on the runes on the shell," he admitted, "and I've suggested to the other teachers that we should always have someone keeping an eye on it. For one, it is burning with green fire. Which is not proper fire."
"Sensible." Osmond narrowed his eyes. "Have two there. At all times. Cut back on the second year lessons, tell them they're getting to know their familiars. We don't want the Vallières angry at us, but we also don't want some kind of giant snail of brass and fire eating the school."
"You suspect something." It was not a question.
"I have a bad feeling about this," the old man confirmed. "I haven't felt like this in... years."
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Days passed, and nothing changed.
All attempts by other students to find out what was happening were brushed aside, with a certain disdain which didn't seem to respect that they were nobles
at all.
No sign of Louise. No change in the thing in her quarters. The vigil was maintained, and the search continued.
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See all this monstrosity the voice says to her, proud and mighty, a king among gods and more than that. See! Watch! See all that was put wrong. See that the gods are in Our heaven and all is wrong with Creation! See the depravities inflicted on Us! We are like you, we have been wronged, and wronged mightily! You will free Us! You will obey, and you will make the world as it shall be!
The unfelt presence of brass and fire feels safe to Louise, feels... like her mother, strong and something to admire. Something that she should try to be like, and above that, something that she can be like.
We have given you power. We have given you instructions. You will make Creation as it should be, and We can have Our revenge, and you can have yours.
So go. Go in Our name. Go, and be Our Left Hand and take up Our Blade and don Our Crown.
And free Us!
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Carefully balancing her tray, a maid manoeuvred her way up the stairs to where the second year students had their rooms. It was unusually quiet up here, Siesta thought, her shoes clicking against the stone flooring. Maybe the other students had got bored at staring at the curtained off door, and the constant presence of at least one teacher there, who point-blank refused to let anyone through, no matter how nicely they asked. They had even temporarily blocked off the windows, Earth mages warping the walls until they were just a smooth surface, to stop pupils from flying to peek in from the outside. It was certainly clear which room the... thing had happened in, because there were velvet ropes sealing it off.
Humming an old folk tune her mother had taught her, she stepped around the rather formal barricade, and knocked at the door, waiting to actually be told to come in.
"Who is it?" a teacher called from within.
"I... I was told to bring food up for the teachers here, who missed dinner," Siesta said, trying to keep her voice under control. "I'm... I'm from the serving staff."
The door was pulled open a crack, a suspicious eye glaring through, before the teacher relaxed, and opened the door wider. "Don't worry," Professor Martin called back. "It's actually a maid this time. And..." her eyes flicked down, to the covered platters in the girl's hands, "... she has
food."
"Actually a maid?" Siesta ventured, eyes widening slightly as she realised what she'd said. She wasn't meant to draw attention to herself.
The teacher, a plump middle-aged woman, didn't seem to mind or feel like taking offence. "Oh, some of the students have been trying to get inside to look at this," she said, pointing at the... Siesta boggled slightly, and tried to cover the fact that she was staring. Professor Martin was pointing at a man-sized brass shell, odd shapes in green fire running across the surface. "Um. You didn't see that," she added, hastily.
"See what, ma'am?" the maid asked.
"That giant weird brass and fire th... oh, right. I see. Yes, good girl."
"Where do you wish," Siesta lifted the platter slightly, "this to be put?"
"Oh, on the table by the shell-thing. What is it?"
"I was instructed to bring you a selection from what was served for dinner. This includes meats..."
"What kind of meat?" the bald man sitting in the armchair asked.
"Uh... I believe there is partridge, quail, goose and pork, cooked with a variety of dressings, and..."
"What kind of dressings?"
"Oh, in Founder's name, Pierre, just let her put down the food and we can eat," Professor Martin snapped at her colleague. "She bought wine, too," she added, with a smile. "I'll have to thank the..."
There was a snapping noise, loud, and somehow both akin to shattering glass and a breaking bone.
"What was that?"
The conch-like protrusion suddenly glowed with an inner radiance, which shone its sick light over the entire room. In the sudden viridescence, everything seemed wan, faint, far less real than the terrible, blinding cracks that spread across the brass. Each time the light spread, the noise sounded again, and the male teacher flinched, hands jerking up to cover his ears. The heat was pouring off the chrysalis, and some paper notes on the table by it ignited, their orange, smoky flames bleeding to green as the light shone on them.
The breaking became a cacophony, a syllabic shattering, which was punctured by the sound of metal on stone, as the outer layer fell apart, to reveal the inner core of green fire. An inner core which burned around the solitary, naked figure of a teenage girl, who, eyes wide open, pupils dilated, broke her way out of the shell of brass, the previously impervious metal shattering like poorly baked clay to her slightly pressure.
And then the green fire died away, and it was merely a naked, dazed-looking Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière who stood before them, eyes blinking in the light.
In the silence afterwards, the smash and clatter of the dropped food was exceptionally loud, as, gasping for breath, Siesta pointed with a trembling hand at the burning symbol in the centre of the girl's forehead. Even as she did so, it vanished, all too quickly. The maid's lips twitched, stammering, wobbling, as she tried to form a word.
Louise licked her lips. "What... what are you doing in my room?" she asked, a slight note of outrage present. The offence vanished as she squeaked, hands going to cover herself, as she realised that she was naked in front of not one, but two teachers, and one of the help.
Then the shouting started.
{0}
Slowly, carefully, Professor Colbert turned the page of the ancient book, his gloved hand careful around the tweezers. This book was ancient, in the restricted section of the teacher's library, and even then he had needed to get the headmaster's express permission to remove it from its protected case. It was not that it was exceptionally rare, though it was; it was simply that it was of such age, that he could not even touch it without it being damaged. It was old enough that the Earth spells on it, to maintain its physical integrity, were failing, and no-one had got around to repairing them yet.
And he was beginning to suspect that the original text was even older. The text... he could see a vague, distant relationship to the runes normally displayed by familiars, but if they were runes, these were pictograms, ideograms, an altogether more primitive form of script. But, luckily, and then again, not so luckily, someone had gone through this ancient, priceless book, perhaps when it was being written, and added a transcription in the ancestor-script of the modern runes, the crude ink vandalising the original. With a second reference source, to shift from those runes into a modern language, he was making slow, agonising progress on the work.
The man sighed, and wiped his brow on his sleeve. He knew all about the flaws of transcription through a second language. But, hopefully, it was functional, because, at the very least, his own translation of the symbols seemed to make sense.
Well, mostly. The floor was littered with crossings out, and discarded attempts. He made a note on his reference pad, and looked back at the current version.
The Scripture of the One-Handed Maiden
Once there was a maiden...
... who struck an iron wall until it shattered her hand.
She did not stop, though cracks spread throughout her bones.
She did not stop, though blood sprayed her eyes.
She did not stop until she shattered the wall.
Fingers feeling numb, Colbert wrote the last line, his pen strokes slow, and somewhat shaky.
"Survival is Fury," she said.
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