Beyond?

“And a blinding light pierced the Sky. The power which was given by the Emperor to the third general stopped armies and eradicated cities. The general who commanded the Light committed the greatest atrocities of all while the Empire was forged. It was lucky for the rebellion that he was the first to fall.”

-The forbidden Chronicle.

***Dwem, Capital***

***Azir***

The Great Shaman reaches into his pocket and pulls out his coin, then he flicks it to me and I catch it just in time. He grins and shakes his totem at me. “Take that as a little thank you for helping me out. It's no ordinary coin, so take good care of it.”

I turn the coin between my fingers. No matter how I look at it, it's just a badly made golden coin. The shape isn't exactly round, more like an oval and the markings on both sides have almost faded into nothingness. On one side is something which could be a building, while the other shows the outlines of a person without distinct features. The surface is smooth from many years of touching it. At least it seems to be old. “Are you sure? It seemed like you are attached to this item.”

The Great Shaman shrugs his shoulders and pulls another coin from his pocket. “Don't worry, I have more of them.” He flips the new coin and catches it. “Coins have power. Don't underestimate them, just because you don't understand it.” The crazy dwarf walks away to talk with one of his subordinates. I store the coin away to take a look at it later.

The muffled whimpering of one of the southerners draws my attention, it's Stella's victim. After his face turned into a swollen mess Stella turned to other means of inflicting pain. She is sitting on top of him while holding one of his hands. Everyone else keeps a respectful distance from her and the target of the violence. “How many troops do you have?”

He shakes his head and a second later Stella snaps his pinky. The guy starts wriggling, but Stella twists his hand to force him down.

“You are related to the Black Magicians! Aren't you? Who ordered the assassination attempt?” Once again the guy refuses to answer and his index finger receives two new joints.

Ah, so she suspected them to be related to the attack on her. I thought she hadn't figured it out yet. My report back then made it seem like I killed most of the guys directly responsible. I walk over to Stella and place a hand on her shoulder. “Dear? Can I have him? This interrogation method isn't civilised at all.”

She looks up to me. “I am not done!”

I point at him. “But he is.”

After a moment of indecision Stella moves away from the southerner, but not without stomping onto his shin, breaking it. He does an admirable job in not giving in to the pain.

I kneel down beside the guy and smile at him. “Do you know who I am?”

He nods. “You are the mind magician.”

“If you don't resist your mind may stay intact. I am only offering this because I feel generous.” And because I don't want to tire myself needlessly.

His expression turns crazy. “The Master himself entrusted us with our task. There is no way that I would betray his cause!”

“So you are under the influence of enslavement magic too?” That's not good. It means that he'll fight to the last. I'll have a headache after this. “This will hurt you more than me.” I place my hand on his forehead and invade his mind. He greets me with an attack of raw emotions and if I hadn't steadied myself, I would've been swept away.

I imagine needles attacking his defences, but he locks up and turns inwards in an attempt to block me. Without caring I claw at his mental defences until they crumble. He was in a bad state to begin with, but his mind still doesn't give up and tries to slip my grasp.

If he keeps that up he'll die before I get anything out of him. Not having any other choice I start attacking with my raw will and tear memories from his mind piece by piece. Memories and images flash by while he is trying to regain control, but it further slips from his grasp with each passing moment. He doesn't yield and fights until finally something vital inside him breaks. His mind shatters like glass and robs me of the possibility to get any more information.

I blink to focus my eyes. His twitching body is on his knees and his mouth is open in a soundless scream. The eyes are turned upwards to the point of showing only the white in them. Slowly the twitching stops and he breathes out one final time like sighing, relieved. Then he lies still.

He fought his last fight without reason, like an animal. I clean my hand on his tunic and stand up, rubbing my temples.

I feel a strange pulling sensation in my head and something seems to throb directly behind my eyes. “This'll turn into a nasty headache!”

“So if hurting someone isn't civilised, then what is that supposed to be?” Stella points at the corpse to my feet.

Adala has a sick expression on her face and Padma is a little pale. Eliot walks closer to take a look at the southerner. “Dude! No matter how often I see it, I'll never get used to this! Nict's mind magic is freaky!”

I attempt to step away from the corpse, but realize in time that the Great Shaman showed up at my side. He shakes his totem at the corpse. “So did you gain anything from frying the brain of one of our only prisoners without consultation?”

Ah, well. Sorry for not asking. “You wouldn't have gotten anything out of him. He was under the influence of enslavement magic and it was a strong one at that. At least I got some information from him. It's the first time that I got my hands on someone who was a little deeper involved in this.”

The Great Shaman turns impatient. “Don't beat about the bush and get to the point. What are we dealing with?”

I point at the corpse to my feet. “This guy was the minion of Mr. Bandages over there. They were part of a secret underground network which is working all over the world. Their orders come from someone whom they call the Master. He taught them magic and bound them with enslavement spells to his will. It seems like Mr. Bandages was very high in the Master's esteem until he lost the network in Nict. The master punished them with a small scale operation as ambassadors in Dwem. They had no other purpose than to keep up the appearances.”

I gather my thoughts. “This network of theirs seems to be huge. He has memories of far away places, at least one of them seems to be Quinn.”

The Great Shaman scratches himself with his totem. “They aren't from the southern nations?”

I continue rubbing my temple while I am trying to sort the information I got. “They aren't. The southern nations are just a pawn, like the barbarians. He wasn't involved in any other operations. Ah, that's right. I saw a map of the northern border. I got a good glimpse on their troop deployment, but that's not our main concern. They intend to break your defence by using a new weapon. They called it the Light of the Emperor, seemed like an-.”

The Great Shaman screams. “Repeat that!”

I wince, loud sounds aren't nice to my brain right now. “Their secret weapon is called the Light of the Emperor.”

The Great Shaman runs out of the room. “Call general Greywinter! Gather all remaining forces and get them to the border!”

I look at Stella, but she is as clueless as me. Then I let my gaze wander over the other people in the room until Padma finally seems to know something.

She makes a helpless gesture. “The Light of the Emperor is one of the great artefacts with which the Emperor forged his empire. He had seven of them, one for each of his generals and one for himself. The Light is said to be the most dangerous one, though to my knowledge all of his artefacts were lost or destroyed during the rebellion.”

I tilt my head and try to remember what I saw. “Could it possibly look like a big helmet with wings?”

Padma shakes her head. “No, there are some illustrations of the artefacts in our museum. Unfortunately the Light of the Emperor is always only shown as a pillar of light, parting the clouds and creating a wasteland. The other's are better documented.”

Adala looks at the ground and crosses her arms in front of her chest. “There is always a figure with a winged helmet in those illustrations, pointing at the light.”

A pillar of light parting the clouds? And a helmet? How could a helmet do something like that? I wish the guy's memories weren't so fragmented. It would be much easier to make sense out of them.

Stella steps closer to Padma. “Your historical records seem to be better than ours, could I take a look at them? There is almost nothing of that time in our libraries.”

Padma shrugs her shoulders. “Those aren't restricted information. They are freely accessible in our museum, though there isn't much more than you have in your library in Nict. I was always interested in history, so I compared them with each other. There are some slight differences in how the story goes, but the outline is the same. The only obvious differences are in how everything was perceived, like how the emperor was a conqueror to us and a great ruler to you.”

I grumble. “That's all good and fine, but how can it be that his legacy suddenly shows up and bites us in the ass. I can imagine quite a few lights which are able to part the clouds and none of them bode well for your army.”

In that moment the Great Shaman returns with general Greywinter, who is carrying a huge screen. I feel instantly reminded of my old world. The general is followed by two soldiers with a table and they set everything up in the middle of the room.

The Great Shaman flicks his hand at the screen and it turns on, showing a map of the northern border. “Can you show us their troop deployment? We need to find out where they have the Light and steal it from them. If they manage to activate it we will lose everything!”

.