After the End: Serenity

Blaze took the time to straighten his clothing and even replaced his outer robe with one that wasn’t streaked with dust from the skid across the floor before he nodded at Serenity. “I’m ready to head to the Memory of Light. Are you?”

Serenity nodded. Blaze might not have said what his plan was, but he didn’t need to. He was obviously going to play the role of Eternus, the Memory of Blood. Serenity knew the diehar were terrifying to those who knew of them; this was more evidence of the reason for that. Serenity simply wished they’d come up with a better plan, one that didn’t require Blaze to take on a role he despised.

Maybe it really would have been better to simply challenge for sovereignty of the planet. It was too late for regrets now, so they just had to move forward, but Serenity would remember this for the future. He needed to figure out what he’d do if a situation like this ever came up again. Serenity was fairly certain Blaze wouldn’t be able to take on the role he was currently playing after he took the step of becoming a phoenix, so this wouldn’t work again even if Blaze was willing to try. Serenity didn’t want to depend on it, even if it would work.

The Memory of Mastery was not outside the door when Blaze stepped outside. Instead, there was a young woman dressed in red-enameled armor.

Well, she was mostly dressed in red-enameled armor. Her lack of a helmet wasn’t a surprise, but the fact that she was busily fastening the buckles that held her upper armor in position on her left side was a surprise. Serenity would have expected a guard to be in armor before the arrived outside the position they were supposed to guard.

“Aisling!” Blaze barked the woman’s name. Serenity had never heard him sound like that unless he was yelling at someone, usually Serenity, for not taking care of themselves. “What have I told you about taking care of your gear?”

“I, uh,” Aisling shifted into a posture that at least approximated something respectful, even though the last buckle was still only half-done. It was clear they didn’t have “attention” here, because if they did, Serenity was certain she would have assumed that posture instead. “I’m supposed to take care of it on my own time!”

“Correct,” Blaze snapped. “And in aid of that, I think I’ll give you some more time to take care of it. Fix your armor, then report to the Mistress of Novices and tell her why you were sent. You won’t be back here for at least a tenday; I’ll let her decide what else you need to do to earn the position again.”

Aisling ducked her head and quietly finished buckling the strap into place.

“Well? Why haven’t you left?” Blaze took a step towards Aisling and raised his voice a little.

Aisling jumped, startled. “Now?” She paled slightly, then turned and trotted away.

Blaze sighed and shook his head. His expression relaxed from the stern faux anger he’d assumed to deal with Aisling into something a lot wearier. “We should get moving. I’m not certain how Neal cleared the halls as well as he did, but they won’t stay clear. It’ll be easy enough to get to Dinatha but getting out afterwards may be difficult.”

Serenity frowned as he followed Blaze down the now empty hallway. “Why would that be hard?”

Blaze stopped, then whispered. “Because Eternus does visit Dinatha sometimes but he never leaves the Mound. We’ll have to decide how to handle that after we deal with the Memory of Light; I’m not certain if I’ll be able to move back to my own body again that quickly or not.”

That made all too much sense. Serenity didn’t really know the limits of a diehar, but he definitely remembered that the last time Blaze hopped bodies, he couldn’t immediately go back. He thought there was a specific reason for the delay then, but that didn’t mean it was immediate even under normal circumstances. He did seem to remember something about diehar not normally going backwards, but Serenity was certain Blaze was still alive when he set his body into his Rift and heknew Blaze had taken his own body back in the past.

Maybe that was why Blaze asked Serenity to use his Rift? To make him more suited to hosting Blaze?

That wasn’t a path Serenity liked, but it wasn’t like there was truly anything wrong with it. Serenity wasn’t even certain why he didn’t like it. This was Blaze’s body, after all; what was the harm in making it better for Blaze?

Phrasing the question that way made it clear. There wasn’t anything wrong with that; the queasiness came from the idea that he might be able to do the same thing for bodies that weren’t the person’s original body, or in ways that they didn’t want. As with most things, his Rift’s enhancement was a tool, and any tool could be misused. All he could do was try to use it responsibly, or at least not use it to do anything he wouldn’t have been willing to do another way. That wasn’t really all that restrictive.

Serenity’s distraction kept him quiet as he followed Blaze through the hallways. When he did start paying attention again, it was quickly obvious that Blaze had to be using Eternus’s memory; not only was there no way he could have known the route, there was no way he’d have been able to deflect attention from so many different people without it. He was clearly playing the role of Eternus well enough that no one noticed the difference.

Most of the people, both guards and servants, either didn’t notice Serenity or didn’t comment on him as he followed “Eternus.” The few who did were easily rebuffed by Blaze in his role as the memory of Blood.

Serenity was definitely going to need to figure out how to put some safeguards into place for both mind control and possession. While he was at it, he should probably do something about illusions as well. He wasn’t worried about someone targeting him directly, but someone could easily attack Ekari or Stojan Tasi the same way they were currently attacking Eternus. It wouldn’t be an easy problem to solve, but it probably was one that had been solved before. He had a lot of different possible things to try…

Serenity was still thinking about options when Blaze stopped in front of a door that was a very pale yellow with a brilliant white starburst carved into it. The starburst centered on a stylized eye instead of the sphere Serenity expected of a sun, which told him something about what the term “Memory of Light” really meant. She was the highest seer. She had to be. That was the only reason an eye would be the center of her door’s design.

Blaze didn’t knock; he simply opened the door and stepped into the sparsely furnished sitting room that formed the entrance to the Memory of Light’s suite. That surprised Serenity; wasn’t that like stepping into someone’s house without an invitation? That would make sense if they were sneaking in, but Serenity was pretty confident that Blaze was pretending to be Eternus partly so that they didn’t have to sneak. Were they past that stage?

“Dinatha,” Blaze called out. “Are you around?”

Oh. Of course. Blaze was still pretending to be Eternus; he knew that Eternus could walk into Dinatha’s suite without her permission. That implied either a good personal relationship or a significant power imbalance.

“I’m in the back,” a voice from down one of the two hallways that led off the sitting room. The room was set up more or less like the Memory of Blood’s suite entrance, but the decoration was far easier on Serenity’s eyes. He wouldn’t have wanted to live with that much white, but it was still better than multiple clashing reds. The room wasn’t totally white; most of the furniture was a pale pine or oak; Serenity couldn’t tell the difference.

Blaze nodded silently at Serenity, then headed down the hallway. It was in more or less the same position as the one they’d taken to find Eternus, but Blaze didn’t open any of the doors near the sitting room. Instead, he went to the end of the hall, turned a corner, and continued to a large room that opened directly off the corridor with no door.

Unlike everywhere else, this room was decorated in black. The walls and ceiling were painted black, while a thick rug covered most of the floor. The corners that weren’t covered by the rug revealed that the actual floor was wooden, stained dark but not quite black. It was an interesting if sudden contrast from the hallway.

Dinatha struggled out of a heavily cushioned seat that reminded Serenity of a recliner that couldn’t sit back up. It was so heavily enchanted that it glowed to his vision even without any attention to his magesight Skill. Serenity couldn’t tell what it did, exactly, but given the rest of the room his guess was that it probably isolated Dinatha from things around her to help her focus on visions.

Once Dinatha was on her feet, she hurried over to Blaze and enveloped him in a hug. “I’m so glad you’re here, Eternus. I had the most horrible dream.”

Blaze patted Dinatha’s back. As he did, Dinatha’s gaze turned up, away from Eternus’s body and towards the entrance for a moment. Dinatha caught sight of Serenity and froze. “No, this can’t be another vision. It can’t be. No, wait, you’re not a vision, are you? You’re the opposite of a vision, you’re a ghost.”

“A ghost?” Serenity spoke without thinking, but he didn’t regret it. The Memory of Light already knew he was there; there was no reason to stay silent now.

“I can see you, but I can’t see you. You aren’t there even though you are. When were you? Why am I seeing you now when I couldn’t see you before? Oh, have you come forward in time to warn me of something? Why do you feel like Mimir?” The Memory of Light didn’t give Serenity time to answer the questions she asked.

“Feel like Mimir?” Serenity felt a little overwhelmed. The Memory of Light spoke like Mimir was a person instead of a group, but Serenity was certain the only place outside Earth’s mythology where he’d seen the name was as a collective name for the group that ruled Eadsyt, the four Memories.

“A ghost of the past?” Blaze seemed surprised as well. He let go of Dinatha and turned to follow her eyes. When his gaze met Serenity’s, he winked but gave no other indication that he saw his friend. “Where?”

Blaze clearly had an idea, but just as clearly he didn’t have any way to tell Serenity what it was. This wasn’t in any of the plans they’d discussed in advance; he was obviously taking advantage of the situation. That meant Serenity should play along with it until he figured out what was going on.

The Memory of Light sighed, clearly frustrated with “Eternus’s” inability to see Serenity. “Behind you; you looked right past it. Him. I think he’s ancient, as old as Mimir Himself. He seems confused; there’s more of his present than I usually see. He’s not just an echo.”

She let her arms drop from Eternus’s sides and turned to Serenity. “Please come forward and tell me what you know of why you have come. There must be a reason, and to have come so far it must be a compelling one.”