JACKAL AMONG SNAKES-Novel

When Argrave looked upon the so-called silver-tongued priestess with the [Minor Truesight] lent by the Alchemist’s lens, pieces fit together in an instant. They were mysteries both within this small distortion, and those without it. The vague, incomprehensible experience that he had falling down into Sandelabara with the voice, the insistence of Dario and the figure behind him… and the Heralds.

The silver-tongued priestess kneeled before a triangular altar that was unadorned. It wasn’t clear what, exactly, she was praying to, if anything at all. Argrave approached her with some caution. If his screaming instincts were correct, and this woman was related to the same being behind Dario, then caution was the proper move. Magic, divinity, all of it was powerless before the power Dario had used. He only hoped that the same was not true here.

Argrave didn’t undo [Chameleon], but instead walked with the utmost quiet through the small prayer hall the woman knelt at. She wore all white and gold with a veil over her face, and clasped her hands before her in a rather traditional fashion.

“You ought to speak your prayers aloud,” Argrave said. “They might be better heard.”

The priestess turned her head, but did not scare as Argrave had expected she might. Instead, she looked about as if in wonder.

“Tell me, priestess. What might’ve possessed you to sacrifice the prince?” Argrave stepped around the room, his voice projecting throughout the stone hall rather wonderfully.

“Who speaks?” she whispered quietly. Her blues eyes wandered where he might’ve been, but found nothing to land upon.

“I believe you know the answer, if you look into your heart,” Argrave returned vaguely, weaving through the pillars of the hall.

The priestess rose to her feet and followed after his trailing voice. “You’re either a fool playing a god, or an answer come too late. What could you seek from me?”

Argrave leaned against the altar. “Was all of this for power, just like the king, or did you seek something more?”

Despite his overt questioning, she did not seem to panic or grow surprised at all. “And what is power? The king thinks it is strength—to grab and hold, to maim and make lame, as he might put it in that rapacious, rhyming tongue of his. For myself, power is faith. In people, in institutions… the things that faith can achieve could make all things pale before its light. The mayor holds high the candle of wealth, affluence, and the elder’s torch of knowledge burns ever brighter day by day. Power, all. Whoever you are, blessed lord or trickster, you don’t seem to know the half of it. And nor did I, praying before this altar, beseeching the masses ignore the insatiable appetite of the tyrant above them.”

“But now you do,” Argrave guessed, moving away as the priestess followed after him yet further. “And what, dare I ask, have you become?”

“A woman far too bored by mundane questions to suffer them much longer. If you are a god, should you not know?”

“I know, even if you don’t,” Argrave said, moving back to the door. “You… are an anchor. One of three, I should suspect.”

Argrave once again triggered [Minor Truesight], and beheld the true face of the silver-tongued priestess.

Within her form, a vast and overpowering figure towered above. It mirrored her movements absolutely, yet staked into its flesh half a thousand times and concealing its true form were thick black spikes with red strands of power attached to the end of them. Argrave was completely certain of one thing—these things, whatever they were, held the denizens of this place captive. Argrave even followed the strand attached to himself, and found it linked here.

He would need to visit the two others involved in this scheme with the Heralds, but Argrave felt that one thing was certain. These people were a key to unravelling this vast mystery. And to discover what, Argrave cast the same spell that had subdued the all-powerful King Norman—[Unfathomable Perception]. The bolt of power travelled out of Argrave’s hand, struck the silver-tongued priestess, and yet did absolutely nothing.

Yeah… just like it was with Dario, Argrave reflected. Meaning, whatever King Norman has inside him is wholly different from the three others that’ve met with the Heralds.

He was somewhat afraid to try and harm this person more. He could easily enough collapse a ceiling, or do something else indirect to end her, but he couldn’t tell what would happen if he did. Perhaps everyone attached would simply die. Perhaps the distortion would end, bringing Argrave’s life along with it. This was a delicate puzzle, and there were many more mysteries ahead.

#####

With Bogart’s slight help, Argrave was able to locate the elder and the mayor of Sandelabara. Just as hypothesized, they, too, carried along with them a hulking figure impaled with thousands of spikes attached to people’s existence. The mayor stayed in his oceanside estate, while the elder had a humble home out in the countryside where he maintained a garden.

None of them had seemed implicitly evil—he’d gotten the impression from the priestess she was disillusioned by her faith because of Good King Norman’s terrible rule. The mayor seemed simply to chafe under taxes. The elder sought vengeance for one of his kin that had been slain. One was righteous, one pragmatic, and the last vengeful. But to that end, they had sacrificed the prince in some way or another, and sought to end the rest of the king’s family to finish the job.

With the so-called anchors evaluated, Argrave returned back to the castle. He let Bogart go free, because he couldn’t see much use for the man. Fortunately, the search party sent out to capture him meant the castle was lightly-manned, and from what Argrave gathered, even the meal the king planned with his daughter was cancelled. Sophia was left alone—and that was where Argrave had hoped she might be.

When Argrave found Sophia again, alone in a guest room, he took some time to study her. He estimated he’d spent two hours here during this loop, and yet all of that time, she didn’t seem to have changed in any way. Not in the physical or magical realms, either—his use of [Minor Truesight] revealed the same results as ever.

Sophia sat on a couch with a coffee table in front of it, and another couch mirroring it. It was made for guests to speak with a host. She wasn’t doing anything at all, but she seemed somewhat happy. Argrave took a seat on the couch across from her, and then dispelled [Chameleon]. He’d blocked the room with a ward beforehand in case she’d cry out or something, but Sophia merely widened her eyes and leaned back into the couch.

“Sir Ghost!” she called out, somewhat joyously.

“Hello, Princess Sophia.” Argrave cradled his hands together. He was worried, somewhat—should a child be this incautious? “Good to see you again. It seems we have some time to speak more. Did you do alright? Did anybody hurt you this time around?”

“No,” she shook her head. Her black hair had been done into pigtails, and they shook around fiercely as she did so. “Thanks to Sir Ghost, nothing happened. The maid even said I didn’t have to have a meal with the king!” Her happiness was quite apparent.

“I might have something to do with that,” Argrave nodded. He reached up and removed his monocle. “Say, princess… how would you like to help me solve a mystery?”

“A mystewy…?” she repeated, then covered her mouth when she failed to pronounce the r.

She looked ready to try again, but Argrave smiled and continued, “Young lady, you’re too smart. I didn’t pronounce it right. It’s actually mystewy.”

Her red eyes sparkled and she rocked happily before pausing. “But… what’s a mystewy?”

“It’s something that no one’s figured out,” Argrave said, setting the monocle on the table between them. “Even I’m stumped on this one. And I think that only you can help me solve this mystery.”

“Mystewy,” she corrected.

Argrave laughed a little. “Right. I’m a little slow.” He pointed to the monocle. “I just need to hold that up to your eye, and you tell me what you see.”

“Umm…” she looked at the monocle. “Will it hurt? I’ve been practicing not crying,” she said proudly. “I won’t cry. Promise.”

Argrave’s happiness died with her promise, but he tried to stay smiling. “It won’t hurt at all, Sophia.”

“Okay,” she nodded quickly and happily.

Argrave stood from the couch, grabbed the lens, and kneeled down before Sophia. He held it up to her eye, willing magic into it.

“Woah…” she muttered, looking about everywhere. “Sir Ghost, you’re all glowie! You’ve got a sparkly thing in your chest, and all this black—” she turned her head too fast, pulling away from the lens. When she realized she had to keep looking through the lens, she lowered her head back, then repeated, “Woah…”

“I’d like you to focus on the red strands coming from your body,” Argrave said. “Can you see them? They’re like spiderwebs.”

“Umm… yeah,” she confirmed quietly.

“Alright. Now, if you focus really hard… can you feel them at all?”

Argrave was pressing for information, largely, and he didn’t know what answer he’d get. But when Sophia reached her hands out, she proved unable to interact with them.

“Not with your hands. Like…” Argrave closed his eyes, searching for descriptors. “Treat them like they’re a part of you. Like another hand. Try to move them like you would your arm.”

“Sir Ghost…” she sounded afraid. “Wouldn’t that mean I’m a spider?”

“Of course not,” Argrave laughed. “Hey, look at the back of my head. I’ve got one of these strands, too. But because you’ve got so many, it just means you’re special. So, can you try to feel them for me?”

Sophia seemed to focus really hard. After a while, her eyes opened wide, and she looked at him. “Sir Ghost… I’m a spider person?!”

Argrave found himself smiling again, but asked instead, “Did you feel something?”

Sophia hesitantly nodded, then tried once again the grab the strands of power. “It was… it was just like Sir Ghost said. It was like another hand. I tried to pull it, but it was stuck.”

Argrave pulled the lens away and held it to his own eye. “Do you think you could do it again?”

Sophia nodded, closed her eyes and focused hard. When Argrave saw the power within her shift, he caught sight of volatile energies that he’d never before seen. But looking at him, [Minor Truesight] in his head, he could see them for what they really were. At once, half a thousand things became clear.

Those three… they’re anchors in a sense. But what they’re doing isn’t limited to that alone. They’re unravelling Sophia, bit by bit, until she becomes stretched too thin. After a certain time, she acts by instinct, pulls back her power. Only… her power is so absolute it links everyone, everything. She restores everything back to the way it was, not just herself. And they’ve taken advantage of that to ensure a completely controlled environment. A cage to hold her, using her own power as the bars…

Argrave’s thoughts were largely conjecture, but what he’d just seen when Sophia felt her power was so convincing of that fact he felt hesitant to even call it that. These Heralds, it would seem, had made Sophia unwittingly create this distortion. They had harnessed her ability to make a little pocket of reality where she and all near her existed trapped in eternity—never growing, never changing, never learning. The only imperfection? It was the area they’d come into, where a window of opportunity no longer than five seconds waited.

But now, one who learned did exist. Argrave. He needed to break the anchors, which would allow Sophia to retract her power. Then, this endless loop might finally end. He wasn’t totally sure what that meant… but he had a plan brewing in his mind as to how it might be done.

“Alright, Sophia. I think… I think we’re going to get out of here, soon. I’m going to ask my friends for some help.”