Xexial grunted in dissatisfaction as he closed another tome. Slowly he massaged the exhaustion from his sore eyes.
After a moment, he blinked away the throb and looked at the table before him. Stacks of tomes lined the tabletop like tall buildings in a thriving town. Little alleys wove between the towers with the occasional crumpled papers, hopeless notes scrawled on each.
Two empty ink jars sat by his left elbow, and a quill sat just to the right of more parchment, above his most recently finished tome.
He picked up the tome and added it to one of the ever growing towers. It was becoming a fruitless endeavor. Xexial reviewed countless tomes in both his old mentor’s throne room and now in the great circular library. He researched no less than three hundred manuscripts all with no solid leads on what Ashyn was. Did he imagine it? He was on the brink of death, could it just have been luck that kept him alive or someone else? Was this all for nothing?
Xexial looked between the forest of leather and parchment to his stalwart aide. Khyriaxx was fastidiously documenting everything of potential relevance, even what seemed to be the minutest. Xexial knew it was because the spriggan classified himself as a tinkerer, so every equation, every computation was important to him. They had worked at it for weeks.
After the hurricane cleared, the Maba-Heth was eager to hunt for Ashyn. That left Xexial in a predicament, for he had no way of researching everything in the Onyx Tower in time without help. The elder wizard didn’t trust Grind. Not one bit. Additionally, he didn’t want the wizard hunter to know that his future opponent might not be entirely normal. That would only condemn the boy all the quicker.
If Ashyn could challenge the title Recreant, then he wanted to give him that chance. Xexial knew Ashyn’s reasons, and his reaction wasn’t that surprising. It was why the wizards were supposed to choose people who had nothing left to live for. It was the very reason, in fact.
Ashyn simply chose family first.
If he could present a strong case, then there was a minute chance to rescind the declaration of Recreant. That is what made Khyriaxx a perfect candidate to help Xexial. He already proved himself trustworthy in keeping Xexial alive for over a month. Not to mention how resourceful and analytical the little creature was. Khyriaxx was always studying variables, and when Xexial approached the spriggan with the fact that Ashyn may be something other than human, or may have discovered an ability to harness magic in a new way, the problem-solver leapt at the chance to delve into something new.
Immediately, the spriggan interrogated Xexial on everything he knew about Ashyn. Once they completed that, he began systematically tearing apart the throne room for tomes of relevance, using any mentions of history, or races before the Era of Enlightenment.
To classify Ashyn as something that they hadn’t seen before wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. So much history was lost to the wars of the Forgotten Era. So much lost of people, races, cultures, even magic. For all Xexial knew, what Ashyn did to him might have been commonplace five thousand winters ago.
The real trial was keeping it secret from Grind. The scales was very wary of the two of them, and did not trust Xexial. The wizard knew it was a well-earned distrust. He was slowing progress on hunting his apprentice considerably.
Still, their hunt did begin. He couldn’t delay it forever. Xexial convinced Grind that they should begin tracing Ashyn’s steps. First was Czynsk. Though this was contrary to the fact that Xexial knew Ashyn was in the Shalis-Fey, he still knew Ashyn went to Czynsk before stepping foot into those woods. The letters reached the Seven after all.
So when the flooding from the hurricane cleared enough for travel to be possible, the trio began. Khyriaxx carried a few tomes at a time, to study for Xexial, and the old wizard helped where he could. Most of the time he spent distracting the Maba-Heth from asking too many questions.
Czynsk turned out to be a lucky break. Two people admitted to seeing someone who fit Ashyn’s description. They also confirmed that he indeed headed towards the Shalis-Fey. Xexial thought Grind would accept this. He did not.
Grind wanted to explore all their options. That meant the Dark Elf capital of Tilliatemma, the human bastion of Buckner, the deserts of Malten, and the Shalis-Fey. Grind, thought that Ashyn couldn’t possibly want anything to do with the elves. That it was all misdirection. Therefore, he demanded they go to Buckner.
Xexial humored the scales, but not before re-provisioning at the Onyx Tower and gathering new tomes for the tinkerer to study.
Buckner proved to be a large waste of time in locating the recreant, but it did provide the old wizard insight into how the Maba-Heth tracked their prey. Xexial had to admit that Grind was not stupid. He was immensely skilled in fact. Were Ashyn able to wield magic, and had he not reacquired his vial of blood, Xexial had no doubt that Grind would have found his quarry long ago.
Ashyn covered his tracks well. But it at nagged Xexial like an itch. How did the boy get into the Onyx Tower?
Of course the real question he was trying to avoid was, was Ashyn still alive? He told Grind that the boy could survive ridiculous odds, and Xexial firmly believed it. But going up against the Ferhym while he was lame, to save a blind woman? That was stretching it even for Ashyn.
Again he rubbed his tired eyes. They had arrived back from Buckner two nights ago. Grind announced that the two would stay for a week or two in the tower while he reached out to his connections in Tilliatemma. He left immediately afterwards, claiming he could cover the ground far quicker alone. Xexial didn’t argue with the scales, for the elder wizard knew how to make good use of his time. Khyriaxx and he immediately set themselves into tackling the large circular library. They hadn’t slept since they began, and he his power waned.
“You should be resting. You be worn and need recovery of your energy,” Khyriaxx remarked without looking up from his books. Like he just read Xexial’s mind.
“I need answers,” Xexial protested.
“You will be finding none like this.”
Xexial wanted to argue with the tinkerer, but knew he was right. Xexial was far from a young man, and the traveling was draining enough as it was. Let alone the aggressive reading for the last two days. Xexial nodded at the spriggan. “Just a few hours.”
“Few hours,” Khyriaxx agreed.
Xexial stood, stretched his sore old body, and limped to his quarters to get some much needed rest. He would only need an hour, maybe two.
The wizard looked out a passing window to see the sun high in the sky. Yes, two hours would be good.
~ ~ ~
Xexial barely felt like he had any rest when he felt himself being shaken awake, eyes slowly opening. Overly large almond-shaped eyes were staring right back at him, inches away.
“Gah!” Xexial yelled as he pulled away from what he thought was a monster.
As his eyes focused more he saw that it was the spriggan. “What are you doing?” He asked incredulously.
Khyriaxx leaned forward again, “I be waking you ups.”
“You don’t need to be so close.”
Xexial looked out of the window of his quarters. A dense void of black greeted him. There was no light. Not a star in the sky.
“What time is it?”
Khyriaxx shrugged. “Past the midpoint of night I be guessing. I be telling you time means little to me.”
“Apparently,” Xexial grumbled, “I said an hour or two, you let me sleep for almost twelve.”
“Who be caring,” he replied with a sparkle in his eyes. “I be working the variables, and I think I be finding a part of the solution to your problem.”
Xexial sat up faster. “You found something?”
Khyriaxx nodded and handed Xexial a sheaf of parchment. The old man looked down at it and stared at it in confusion. There was only a series of lines and scratch marks across the paper.
“What is this?”
“It be the first solution to your conundrum.”
Xexial turned the parchment around. “Is this a puzzle, or a map or something?”
“That be my writing!” Khyriaxx stated offended.
“This is writing?”
A small three-fingered hand ripped the parchment back from Xexial’s grip, “It’s Spriggish. Clearly you aren’t as cultured as you thought!” he harrumphed. “I can read your messy language!” the spriggan added.
“Just tell me what it says.”
The spriggan affixed his monocle to his large eye, looked down and read his notes aloud.
“The first part was found in a journal called; Patrius Monerch, Exactor.
4381 EoE- I have witnessed a terrible thing today, which has forced me to recant my decision to be an Exactor for the Jasian Enclave. I thought the religious nation was more civilized, but I was wrong. What they have done today is nothing short of barbarism, and it disgusts me to admit that I am part of it. Worse than part of it, I was the instrument wielded by the Enclave to commit the foul deed.
The Enclave says that it is protecting humanity from the evils that have escaped from the Forgotten Era, and if it not for my actions, I would have believed them. But nothing could prepare me for what I did today. There can be no atonement for my actions most foul, nor can I ever be rid of the taint I have placed upon my own soul. I killed a woman. A woman fully pregnant with child.
They called her a monster. They called her a witch. They said that she was a siphoner. A manipulator of feedback, a stealer of life-energy. A wielder of terrible magic without temperament or training.”
Xexial looked up hearing those words. Ashyn used magic without training.
Khyriaxx nodded and continued, “They say her kind is a plague placed by the Defiler, and only their eradication could protect the world from their treacherous ilk. And so, as commanded by my Purist Commander Amdehain, I ran her through, terminating the life in her womb, and I removed her head from her shoulders.
I have never felt so wrong in my life. I have never felt, so evil. What have I done? What did she truly do to deserve such a fate? The Purist called her Craetorian. I don’t even know what that means.”
Khyriaxx lowered the parchment for a moment and looked at Xexial. Xexial noted there was some pride on the spriggan’s face. “There were many more entries in the journal. The man ended up abandoning his life as an Exactor after the act and even tried killing himself. He be found in Malten and taken here to the Onyx Tower to become a wizard. That be when this journal ended, and he started a new one as a wizard’s apprentice. I cross-referenced all the other words that you told me of: Feedback, Conduit, Life-draining, Feeding, etc., and could find no other references. However, when I be looking for Craetorian I found something most compelling.”
The spriggan held the paper up again and read a single sentence, “The Second Inquisition; The Craetorian Purges. 4365 EoE- 4390 EoE.”
“The Second Inquisition,” Xexial thought aloud. The old man stood up slowly muttering the word repeatedly as he walked toward his dresser. He reached atop it and drew his long-stemmed pipe. He packed it with leaf and then lit it taking a long drag. The tobacco often calmed him and helped him think.
“This other tome, not the journal, was it a novel called The Second Inquisition?” He asked blowing out the smoke. He was surprised that there was no substance to it, no flavor. Discouraged he emptied the contents out, and put the pipe away.
Khyriaxx shook his head no, the quills bouncing on his head like braids. “It wasn’t a tome at all; it was a single sheet of parchment that was slid between two documented history tomes of Fermania. It gave the dates of the inquisition but nothing else. When I looked in the two historical tomes, there was no referencing said inquisition.”
Xexial nodded. “That’s not surprising.” He looked at Khyriaxx. “The Jasian Enclave doesn’t like to have a tarnished looking record of bad decisions. Even though it took place five hundred winters ago, this Craetorian Purge sounds like it may have been a huge travesty. That slip was probably added by the former Exactor Patrius Monerch, as a way of acknowledging to himself that the purges were real, and should be remembered.”
“This be sounding like what you are looking for, yes?” Khyriaxx said with a smile.
“It does indeed,” Xexial admitted. “The Jasian Enclave has a long tradition of dislike for any magic other than healing magic. I’ve always found it hypocritical really, considering they proclaim that the Maker bestowed us with the gift of Creation. Yet, anyone that uses said magic for anything other than healing is a bastard in their eyes. Ashyn would fit that category. He was able to manipulate fire with no training, only emotion.”
“So we have a focus now. None of your silly hue-mon broad topics. We have our variable.” the tinkerer said.
“You are correct, lad, we do. We finally have a name to research: Craetorian.”