Ebenholz

'Could you be, ?!'

Ebenholz quickens his pace as he exits the Medical Department, hoping to shake off the person behind him, but he's nevertheless followed all the way to his dormitory door.

'You have crossed the line.'

'What does it matter?! I felt something was different about you. I can see now, it really is you, Graf Urtica!'

The man's forehead is rife with sweat, his voice dramatically lowered.

'I know you. You're just biding your time, waiting.'

'You have the wrong person.'

'Impossible! Look at these, Haguenau's inherited dice and wand, which went missing along with him twenty years ago! He and I grew up together! He told me himself that they were bestowed on his family by the Emperor!'

'Haguenau? ...I'm not familiar.'

'But I know what these are! Nobody else could have used them as weapons,' the man pants, 'and you have no idea what I went through afterward! Everyone said I was tainted by Haguenau's madness, shunned me, but Haguenau was never mad. And neither was I! I even caught Oripathy thanks to their backstabbing, I lost my land and family estate. I fell from being a well-to-do squire to this sorry state!'

'You have my sympathies, '

'No! That was nothing! They were crueler still, a hundred times over!'

'A hundred times? Just what did they do to you?'

'They dared to slip my only daughter some kind of drug, and she disobeyed me, you understand? She went and married a filthy commoner, even had a bastard child! Can you imagine such disgrace? One worse than death? Would you truly permit such a scandal if it were you?!'

'......'

'I beg you, take me as a retainer! Take me back to that age, to when we controlled with fear, when we made the petty thieves who dared question you shudder in despair! To when we could drive such presumptuous thoughts from the commoners' minds!'

'Of course, I would gladly accept any treatment, be it favor or reprimand! I would fear you as though every day were my last! I would serve you, heed your every command! Should you call for my life to, '

Ebenholz sighs the heaviest sigh, gathers the dice in the hollow of his palm, and presents them to the man.

'Very well, you will become my retainer here and now, with this secret ritual. Close your eyes and listen well.'

The man's entire body trembles with excitement.

'Fick der Graf Urtica.'

'?!'

'Fick all die Kaiser, fick all die Kurfürsten, die Herzöge, die Grafen, die Barone, as well as you, Herr Knappe, or should I say, Herr Ex-Knappe.'

The man's expression gradually twists.

'Wake up. No more living your dreams of superiority.'

'You've lost your land, so do as the prideful commoner does and lift your head, puff out your chest, and live on.'

'That is the one and only word of advice I'll give you.'

An Engineering operator, his beard slightly white, handed me my custom-order set of casting equipment. Its appearance was exactly as I'd requested: a simple metal case with not a hint of adornment, a wand with the surface polished to a mirror sheen, and a spherical energy reserve unit in a full silver color. Freshly produced, the Originium circuitry gave off the smell of solvent.

I picked up the wand from the case, and the reserve smoothly floated up with it, responding to the wand's movements, resting into a stable orbit in the air some thirty or forty centimeters from my hand.

I fired the reserve out, and the red circle bullseye at the center of the alloy was dented inwards by it. Impeccable energy conversion efficiency.

The Engineering operator's and my expressions were in total accord. We understood what a masterpiece this was.

Some months later, I met him again, bringing my old wand with me, and some Originium dice in my pocket.

'Old shoes do fit easier,' he remarked.

I could only shrug.

'Still, I'd like to know why you went back to your old equipment,' he said, his gaze sharp behind his goggles. 'Even if it's just cosmetic reasons, no skin off my nose. Call it a little after-sales service courtesy of Engineering.'

'Because of... the noise.'

'Noise?'

I simply pulled out my wand and give it a perfunctory wave. The tip streaked through the air, but what came was not the sound of slicing air, but music.

'I did some research into your wand there, when we got your request. The frequencies it vibrates against the air at are beyond common sense, I can tell you that. It's a real mystery, but it doesn't do anything to help casting. Doesn't hinder either, though.'

'I understand, but this ties to my, '

My personal affairs.

I ordered the wand precisely to distance myself from that bothersome music. It and the fantastical melody that once played at the Afterglow Hall are all but the same. For each day that I use the wand, that night I dream of that scene again, and hear that melody.

The new wand successfully quietened my dreams, but the scene still laid before me, the silent struggle all the more wretched, the silent death throes all the more terrible.

Only once I took up my old wand again did I understand. That nightmare would run its way through my entire life, had already done so, and to try and forget was mere futility.

I couldn't flee it, and couldn't reconcile with it either. I was forced to concede that it was a part of me, and that I would fight it for the rest of my days.

As now well demonstrated. I was the one who ordered the wand, and the one who gave up on it.

Graf Urtica simply walked away from it all, and left all the trouble and anger to others, but Ebenholz could not.

Of course, Ebenholz could denounce those morons who thought themselves so lofty; however, faced with a craftsman who he'd offended, did he truly have the right to send them packing with but a few vile words?

If it were... him, what would he do? What would he want me to do?

The answer couldn't be any clearer.

With difficulty, I cleared my throat, unsure if I would offend the craftsman once again with this.

'The story is a little long, but... if you're willing to listen, I can explain in full detail.'

'Are you that attached to this place?'

Sunlight streams in through the window, glass filtering it clean of its warmth, turning it as frigid and dirty as the panes.

'This parlor is just as I remember it, not very big. The only difference is, the mold is ever ranker now, isn't it?

Ebenholz paces through the deserted parlor. The expensive furnishings that once filled it have now either been stolen to sell by retainers fleeing the spire, or simply left behind due to their sheer value. He spies that someone tried to move the excessively large piano, but gave up for whatever reason, their attempt having left a visible scratch on the floorboards. Comical, and loathsome. The walls are thick with dust and mildew, no longer showing any sign of the patterns beneath. The only familiar sight is the fireplace sunk into the wall. The timbers' ashes lie under a fresher layer of grime, but they're still there in the hearth, just as Ebenholz had left them.

'It's been a long while since you left, and no one's lit the fireplace in the meantime, hence the dust and rot. That's been the story of this room, yes, ever since you left.'

Ebenholz approaches the fireplace. He can still almost remember how it used to burn. There was a fire here. There was warmth. Now, though, it is an ugly yawning chasm, and all he finds in its maw is darkness. Ebenholz lifts a hand to brush away the stale air, and refreshes himself if only for a moment.

'Will that even help? Five seconds, ten, and the foul air will fill your nostrils once more.'

Ebenholz draws his wand. The Originium dice float, circling in a steady orbit, letting off light and heat.

'Of course you could do that. Raise a gust of wind, summon a ball of fire, those are simple feats for you. They can blow away the dust, burn off the rot. You've tried as such before. You've seen some results.'

Silent, Ebenholz puts away his wand, and the Originium dice fall back into his hand. He bends over, the darkness inside the fireplace staring out at him.

'But they always come back, don't they? You can resist, you can refuse, you can do everything you can to keep the darkness at bay. You've contended with it all for far too long. You can choose to brush away the miasma, you can choose to leave Urtica, you can choose to hide, and the further the better. Light your glimmering lights until you lose count, but you will never keep the long night from becoming day.'

Ebenholz reaches into the ashes, and pulls out a wizened branch, not wholly consumed.

'Decay will keep creeping over this parlor with endless arms, until it clambers into your mind and body, just as it ate at your parents, and all the masters of this spire before them.'

'No!' In an instant, the dizziness born from the depths of his brain takes hold of his entire consciousness. Ebenholz's vision blurs. The voice sneers, loudly and clearly.

From the scorched branch protrudes a bud, just as black and burnt, and it pierces through Ebenholz's palm, and winds about his wrist, binding his arm. It grows thorns, pricking his skin, stabbing into his marrow. Fresh blood springs forth, trickling down the branch's length, falling into the darkness and mingling with the embers.

'Urtica's veins are the branches of the dark. The decay and withering are nigh. You cannot break free.'

Ebenholz opens his eyes. The branch is not in his hand; his arm has landed in a layer of fine ash. No wounds, the blood still flowing beneath his skin. The beating of his pulse seems to suggest all that happened just now was an illusion. An illusion, I want no more illusions.

'No.' Ebenholz finally breaks his silence. 'I know decay and withering will take Urtica's every branch and leaf. I know that so long as your soul still lingers throughout my body, this nightmare will never end.

'But this rot, this shambling corpse of trite rhetoric, has lingered for too long now.'

Ebenholz stares back into the dark within the fireplace. The charred branch lies upon the embers there, stained with fresh blood, permeating the black soil. Its blood seeps into the cracks, with first heat, then a spark, and then flashes are crackling about the branch's tip. In an instant, they gather together into a black flame, engulfing the entire branch. Once more, the embers begin to burn.

'So it will conclude. So it will end, full stop.'

The fireplace is lit with a flame blacker than the dark itself, the glow from the charred branch filling the whole parlor. The voice finally ceases to jeer, ceases to respond.

'How about I go meet that so-called Austere Authority for myself.'