After the End: Serenity

Senkovar spat a curse and snatched the sheet of vellum from Serenity's hands. Serenity might not know the language, but cursing was usually fairly simple to catch. “Where did you get these papers?”

The customs inspector didn’t answer; instead, he dropped to his knees. His eyes didn’t leave Serenity.

Senkovar grabbed the inspector’s shoulder and shook him. “Where did you get the imprint forms?”

“Th-, the supply closet,” the customs inspector whispered. Even though he finally answered Senknovar, his attention was still fixed on Serenity. “Please don’t kill me.”

Senkovar snorted and let the inspector’s shoulder go before he stormed off, farther into the building.

Serenity exchanged a glance with Rissa, then hurried after his esteemed but apparently completely pissed off ancestor. He was definitely not happy that his sigil showed up and was confused that it had; there had to be some serious divination magic there. At the same time, it wasn’t like his sigil was hidden; it was actually on the shirts he and Rissa wore. It was also embossed on Ita’s harness.

World Shaman Senkovar Et’Tart definitely knew his way around Spaceport Prime. He ran down one hall, around several corners, and through three different doors before he reached an office. Serenity would have been lost if he didn’t have Aide mapping as he went.

“Nephew,” Senkovar snarled as he entered the room, “When did you start collecting power-affiliation symbols on visitors?”

Serenity skidded to a halt just outside the room, but he could see a small work area that consisted of a table and three chairs with a couch beyond it. A relative of Senkovar’s sat at the table; his stubby silver horns were far less impressive than Senkovar’s or Serenity’s, but they were enough to tell Serenity that he was a relative.

“Lord Et’Tart!” The young Suras seemed to jump in surprise, but he fumbled his way to his feet immediately. “I, what are you talking about? No one should be taking your mana imprint!”

“So you do know what I’m talking about.” Senkovar waved Serenity’s mana imprint at the other man. When he saw it, he seemed to turn a little green. “Explain this.”

The mans’ eyes flicked down to the vellum, then back up at Senkovar. “I can’t. I, if I do, Lord Hivran will kill me. He promised I wouldn’t survive talking.”

“I promise you won’t survive not talking.” Senkovar leaned forward as he spoke. “And I can get a necromancer to raise your corpse and ask questions, so staying quiet won’t save you.”

The other Suras stared at Senkovar. Even Serenity could tell he was terrified.

Serenity wasn’t certain if it would help or hurt, but he was fairly confident that Senkovar was as angry as he’d ever seen the man and he might well start killing soon if nothing changed. Serenity shrugged to himself as he decided it was worth trying, then extended his aura. He focused his Death Affinity on the man in front of him.

It seemed like the Suras was sensitive to Death Affinity, because he paled even faster than fear should explain; Serenity could feel the Affinity working its way into his body. He was Tier Five, which surprised Serenity; he wasn’t used to people at a Tier that was respectable for their world working in seemingly minor positions.

Or was this position minor? It certainly seemed like he reported to both Senkovar and whoever Lord Hivran was, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was minor; Senkovar was comparatively powerful. He was powerful by Serenity’s current standards, as well, even if the Final Reaper would not have considered him to be particularly strong. Senkovar’s specialty proved that the Final Reaper was wrong, of course; Tier wasn’t everything.

“Stop!” The man begged. “Please, please stop. I’ll talk! Don’t make me see them!”

Serenity frowned; what was the man talking about? He shouldn’t see anything strange because of Serenity’s Death Affinity. Serenity shook his head to himself then withdrew his aura until it should barely be noticeable for the Tier Five man.

Senkovar didn’t say anything; he just waited for the Suras in front of himself to speak.

When the other man looked up, there were tear streaks on his face. He didn’t seem to be crying anymore, but it was clear that he had. He took a shuddering breath, then started. “It’s at Lord Hivram’s orders. It’s supposed to be harmless, just gathering information that we always requested. Well, that’s how it started. It’s not supposed to display anything but the Suras and Angelic marks immediately; I don’t know why that is visible.”

Serenity couldn’t believe what he heard. Was the other man really that oblivious? Even Serenity knew that “it doesn’t show up until later, after the person the divination is used on can’t see it anymore” was incompatible with “harmless.” It might usually be harmless, but that simply meant that it wasn’t looking for anything that happened to be important about those people.

Senkovar seemed to be of the same opinion, because he slapped the man in front of him hard enough that he broke the man’s shield and left a red mark on his face. “Idiot. You’re no longer the Port Controller; get yourself back to the House and tell Silvin that you’re on punishment duty until I decide what your real punishment is.”

Serenity was impressed; he could have done the same thing, but he wasn’t confident he’d have judged the amount of strength to use properly. If he wanted to be certain he broke a shield in a single hit, he’d probably put so much into the blow that it did serious damage even after it went through the shield.

At the same time, it sounded like he’d been right to think that the man wasn’t as unimportant as his actions seemed; Port Controller definitely didn’t sound like a useless position. It all depended on what that meant. One thing Serenity knew was that he definitely wasn’t the local equivalent of an air traffic controller; not only was he alone, he wasn’t the voice Serenity overheard giving them landing permission.

Senkovar turned to leave. As he did, a smile crossed the face of the man whose name Serenity still didn’t know. He darted forward and stabbed Senkovar with a knife that slipped right through the World Shaman’s shield and into his side.

Serenity didn’t wait for anything more to happen; he grabbed the man and flung him away from Senkovar.

The grin stayed on the Port Controller’s face for a long moment, but when Senkovar turned to face him with a grimace, the grin turned to shock. “You should be dead!”

Serenity wasn’t sure why that would be the case. Yes, the dagger pierced Senkovar’s shield, but it wasn’t in a vital location. It might be a fatal wound without healing, but that wouldn’t be fast.

Senkovar snorted. “You’re surprised you were lied to? I didn’t expect the Piercing Fang, I admit, but I didn’t come here without thought.” He waved his hand and the table seemed to warp, then a spear-sized splinter separated from it and flew into the Port Controller’s chest.

“If only you gave your loyalty to someone worth it.” Senkovar staggered and leaned against a wall. It was clear that he was more injured than he should have been and masked it while he dealt with the traitor.

“Sit down and let me look at it,” Blaze ordered Senkovar. “You’re almost as bad as Serenity, and I can already tell you don’t have the excuse of his healing.”

Senkovar grumbled but let Blaze look at his injury.

It was far worse than Serenity expected; a chunk of his side larger than Serenity’s fist was simply missing. Senkovar didn’t seem surprised, but then he’d recognized the dagger as the Piercing Fang. It was clear that the “Fang” part of the name meant something. “What Tier is that dagger?”

Senkovar took a deep breath, then let it out. “Fourteen, we think. As you can see, it goes through shields and takes a bite out of anything it stabs. It’s an assassination weapon; it doesn’t penetrate shields at its Tier well, but below its Tier … if he’d hit me in a more important spot, I would be dead.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Blaze disagreed. “Not with both Serenity and me present. And now I need you to drop the shields you’re using to stop your bleeding.”

Blood spurted from Senkovar’s side for an instant before the entire area was seared with Blaze’s flame. “There we go. You’re out of immediate danger; burns aren’t hard for me to heal. Serenity, I’m going to need you to donate some mana; regenerating this much flesh quickly is going to … you know what, we have a better option. Are you willing to repeat something you’ve only done once?”

“That depends on what it is.” Serenity trusted Blaze, but “are you willing” was generally a phrase to be cautious about.

“Pull some Potential through your Rift; I’ll help you shape it to replace the flesh Senkovar lost. That will reduce the mana cost a lot and also reduce the healing burden. I’ll have to heal the burns and rejoin the … everything, but that’s still easier than using a mana matrix for regrowth.”

Serenity blinked at Blaze. He knew what the healer meant, but it was a little closer to true healing than Serenity was really comfortable with. Yes, he’d basically just be providing the raw material, Potential and possibly some Essence, but that still meant he was practicing the positive end of healing instead of the sort of healing where you cut away the damage.

On the other hand, was there really any reason not to? This was a fairly brute force application of Serenity’s abilities. It wasn’t really all that different from providing mana to Blaze; Blaze would still be doing all the detailed work. He’d be healing, but it would be unskilled work, just taking advantage of an ability he had.

Was that really all that different from using the Healing affinity? Serenity didn’t have it and doubted he ever would, but it was possible to heal without it; it simply wasn’t directly helped by the Affinity. You had to have more skill. Using Potential would probably require different skills and probably more control, but Serenity was good at control.

This was just like enchanting, wasn’t it? He’d been told he couldn’t heal over and over again while he was vulnerable and impressionable and it stuck.

To an extent, Serenity could understand why someone wouldn’t want an undead trying to heal; if Death-attuned mana got into an injury, it would be hard for anyone without the Affinity to deal with it. At the same time, he’d become quite skilled at advanced Death-based healing, so it clearly wasn’t a complete barrier. That meant it was probably prejudice as much as anything.

Serenity shook his head at himself. It didn’t really change anything about his past, but the realization might well change his future. He’d never be the healer Blaze was, much less the healer Blaze would be if he managed to take the step into becoming a phoenix, but that was as much because he simply wasn’t that interested as for any other reason. Enchanting sounded a lot more interesting than healing.

Serenity nodded at Blaze. “I can give it a try. You’re sure you can manage the details fast enough? Will you need additional mana?”

Blaze bit his lip and reexamined the wound. “I shouldn’t, but with Senkovar’s Tier I can’t be certain.”

“I can give you mana,” Senkovar offered. “It is my side you’re healing after all.”