187 The Morning Star Need Not Fear The Dark (2/2)
Reed hesitated and then said, ”We fell out a bit... Sort of, I think. ...Or rather, I ran away after I became like this. I just didn't want to know whether she was frightened of me or not. But it's fine; I can handle the rest of the fissures myself.”
This isn't the time for a lover's spat, goddammit!! The fate of the world is up in the air and these two imbeciles have seemingly found the time for this nonsense?!!
If Mulia falls because of this ridiculous farce, I-I'll...
Velvund wanted to die inside. He was about to reach his boiling point, something he had not experienced in literal millennia.
He has seriously contemplated the idea that Lu'um might've been injured, or worse and yet...
Lately, Velvund felt that he had been getting older. Every morning, he felt as if new wrinkles had begun to form on his face. His hair, too, seemed to be turning whiter with each passing day.
The roguishly handsome Silver Fox of the East suddenly felt his actual age for the first time in eternity... for the worst possible reasons.
Ah... I might die before the end of this. And here I thought I'd did fighting the Infestation... What a cruel joke this would be...
”Don't worry too much about it, since I'm already working on the job. Already started without her considering we're running on an extremely tight schedule. If all goes well, I'll finish before the new deadline. Hopefully.”
”What did you just say?”
Already working on the job? New deadline? ...Hopefully? Excuse me, Goddess?
Reed shrugged his shoulders and said, ”Well, we only have two days left so I couldn't just afford to waste any more time, right? Needed to pick up the pace, so I decided to handle the last two fissures simultaneously.”
For what seemed like a painful eternity, Velvund stared at Reed as if he'd been told that his wife cheated on him, his children despised him and that he only had a single credit to his name.
”What? I can handle it, even without Lu'um around. I don't see the problem here. You worry too much, gramps. Honestly, it's fine. I've already reached the site for the fissure in the Wes—”
Reed frowned and said, ”...Do you know a Viceroy Ingorrel? There's a bunch of mean-looking gentlemen staring me down right now at the entrance of a cavern. They're shouting at me saying that only Viceroy Ingorrel has the permission to let me through.”
Velvund bolted up in a hurry and said, ”Don't do anything! Just wait and let me take care of this, okay?! I mean it, just keep quiet and don't take another step!”
He tore a spatial tear open and vanished into the Void with such urgency one would have thought he has been fleeing from a nightmare.
”Oh, no,” said Reed as he watched the spatial tear repair itself into nothingness. ”I already messed up.”
Well, I'm sure gramps will smooth it all out. He's the best negotiator in Mulia, after all. If anyone can do it, it'll probably be him...
Reed turned toward a particular direction, in the middle of a windowless room and said, ”Can I have you relay a message to gramps when he returns? Tell him I've gone to see a friend of mine... Prince Haydn.”
He cordially smiled at a single millimeter notch on an old, antique desk. An unassuming detail in an ordinary piece of furniture for most, but not for Reed.
A certain microscopic camera's vision was suddenly filled up to brim with Reed's amused expression until a large thumb blotted everything out into pure static...
When the holographic projection of Reed vanished, a collective shudder passed through everyone who had been present in the Crown Prince's personal guest quarters aboard the Spirit of Bountiful Charity.
Astor, Ophelia, and Horatio felt as if they'd been discovered by a nightmare from the way Reed had found the camera. It happened so spontaneously, Astor nearly soiled himself out of pure terror.
The way he had effortlessly found them and the unnaturally friendly expression on his face... It was like something out of a horror film, thought Horatio. Even he had been rendered somewhat unnerved by Reed.
Ophelia shut her eyes as she pondered what they'd heard and said, ”Bilocation? No, Multilocation? That's... not possible. No one can be in multiple places simultaneously, not even us. The composition of the soul makes such a thing impossible to accomplish.”
Three bodies and a single soul? It's absolutely impossible — the triune tidal force created would have torn his soul into pieces in a matter of seconds.
By all means, Reed should have been rendered a mindless vegetable. Therefore, she considered what Reed had said nothing less than the ravings of an unstable friend.
”Unfortunately, that logic only applies to us, my dear niece, ” said Haydn as he stared at the static screen with a macabre smile on his face. ”What you saw today will not leave this room, am I clear? It never happened. Should you violate this command, well, not even I will be able to save you from the miserable fate that will await the three of you. I will be locking this event down and I strongly advise you to do the same...”
As the Honest Prince, what he had seen had the potential to ruin him. The dangerous secret he learned had such a capacity, for it carried... undesirable implications about the existence known as Reed.
And that was a death sentence, for the Dreaming Council would not tolerate any unnecessary errors in their future plans. To them, even the Crown Prince of the North was nothing more than a pawn, no different than the mortal sheeple they ruled over.
Haydn immediately began to seal yet another forbidden memory deep within his subconscious in a self-made mnemonic vault. A safe of memories that contained an unknown number of horrible secrets that would never escape his lips, not even in death.
Each terrible memory was sealed in a conceptual lockbox of unique construction that could only be opened with a special key — a highly specific phrase that had to be spoken in a particular language.
The double-layered complexity of the memory key meant that it would close to impossible for anyone to say the precise set of words required to force the memory to resurface. It was Haydn's patented method of bypassing the spiritual geass he had imposed on himself to remain honest under all possible circumstances.
To this end, Haydn had labored in learning every single language he could manage to find, be it Human-based, Avunian, Eisalon, Nuedo, Cunian, Yulanti, Isavli, Faai, etc... the list went on. In many ways, he was more of a linguist than he was a Chosen or even a future ruler.
Seeking answers that were not open to him, Haydn set forth for the crown and eventually earned the right to wear it... only to have become a prison of secrets.
As Haydn mulled over the dreary fate that awaited him if someone guessed the phrase he had chosen for this particular secret, a pang of terrible inspiration struck him, as if to him ridicule him for his actions. He had figured out what language he wanted to use for this memory.
An indescribable chill ran down his spine and the world spun around him until it turned into a pastel of black... and then an enormous steel vault manifested from out of the darkness.
A small lockbox flew out of the vault and flew over to Haydn waiting for him to deposit his evil into it.
The instant he touched the lockbox, a dull wave of pain assaulted him for a couple of seconds until the work was done. Within the lockbox laid an odd container with a severed sun emblazoned upon it — the only thing that remained was to lock it.
And then, as if by a force not his own, he uttered a phrase in a dead language forgotten by the world.
Eaxti y'teo tal'monal acalte syu ya'seh huilli...
(In the absence of light of the Gods, seek the shadow of the Devil...)
Thus yet another secret was sealed in the bottommost level of his mind, never to resurface again unless required. A grim prospect he was now beginning to find plausible in light of what happening as of late...
Haydn opened his eyes and stared at the holographic screen displaying static.
Even though he could no longer remember what he had sealed within himself, the residual horror still remained, which spoke enough about what had occurred...
”We are leaving effectively immediately,” said Haydn, following his survival instincts screaming at him. He wanted to go back home as soon as possible. They were done now that the Itroch fissure had presumably been repaired. Their job as done.
He tore a spatial tear open and practically threw himself into it before muttered, ”We can't stay here... that ship is cursed, for it harbors...”
The Devil.