48: EMPTY GLASS BOTTLES

(Grizzst’s story)

Rev’arric picked up the empty glass bottle, which glowed bright red, then white as it slagged molten and deformed. He shaped it, turning the glass into a glowing ball while it floated in midair. When he finished, the glass bottle was transformed into a thick glass tile. He pressed it against the tower’s stone wall so it sank partway into the suddenly malleable substance.

“Are you going to do that with every bottle we finish?” Grizzst asked him. His topaz eyes looked glassy, but he only swayed a little.

“You don’t throw them out,” Rev’arric explained. Grizzst suspected Rev’arric was doing a much better job than he of hiding his intoxication.

They sat cross-legged in the tower basement. This area had been left free of bookcases or ornamentation, with two exceptions. A continuous inscription of carved glyphs ran from top to bottom along one wall. On the opposite wall, eight gems were set into stone. Seven of the jewels glowed, while the last rhythmically pulsed.

That last slowly blinking light had been the whole reason Grizzst had switched from his methodical experimentation to a foolhardy attempt to restore Rev’arric’s sanity. That last blinking light represented the failing eighth ward on Vol Karoth’s prison.

It meant he worked on borrowed time.

Rev’arric picked up an experiment summary and read it over. “Really? Sunflowers?”

“Piss off. I’d run out of ideas.”

Rev’arric smirked. “It’s unorthodox, I’ll grant you.”

“So what’s this secret you think Suless might discover that’s so dangerous?” Grizzst asked.

“Piss off,” Rev’arric retorted. “It’s better you don’t know.”

Grizzst started laughing. “You don’t trust me!”

“I don’t even like you.” Rev’arric flung several pages at him. Then he started laughing at some joke only he understood.

“If I wanted to rule the world, Var, I’d have done it already and left you to go claw at mountaintops and chase gryphons. I wouldn’t be trying to bring the Guardians back. I’d have made myself the damn god of wine and I’d have a temple in every bar from here to Damar-Valia. What I want most of all isn’t power. It’s a vacation.”

Rev’arric stared at him. Finally, he scoffed under his breath. “One of my students,” he explained. “My assistant, in fact. They developed a theory. God-kings, you see—”

“I swear to the Veil if you start explaining god-kings back to me…”

Var made a shushing motion with his hands. “It’s passive. That’s what I’m saying. God-kings need people to worship them, to donate tenyé, to maintain their power. My student believed that could be flipped. To actively absorb tenyé and do it independent of a physical body’s needs.”

Grizzst stopped laughing. “Wait. Wait—” He held up a finger. “Wait.”

Rev’arric paused.

Grizzst stared at him.

“I’m waiting,” Rev’arric said.

“Oh? Oh!” Grizzst slammed his hand to the ground. “That sounds like a demon. You just described a demon.” He pointed at Rev’arric as emphasis.

“This was before the demons arrived,” Rev’arric said. “Back in the early days, when we were adjusting to this world, learning its rules. Ousology was in its infancy.”

Grizzst uncorked another bottle for himself. They hadn’t bothered with glasses. “Before my time. I was born after the Veil ripped. So your student figured out how to become a demon? No, please tell me they didn’t do that.”

“No, no.” Rev’arric also uncorked a new bottle and took a drink. “They listened when I told them it was too dangerous.¹ And it would be. I think it’s possible, but you’d burn through incredible tenyé reserves to do the everyday tasks we take for granted.” He swung his bottle by the neck. “Moving objects. Interacting with the world. Bodies are so … useful … for that. Very efficient, really.”

“Plus, fun. Bodies are fun.” Grizzst nodded in solemn agreement.

“Yes. That too. Anyway, sustaining that need would require massive tenyé consumption, and the trap—” Rev’arric leaned forward and lowered his voice, as though telling a secret. “The trap is someone might try to replace their lost tenyé by absorbing souls. And then it becomes an addiction.”

“What? Why?”

Rev’arric gazed at him solemnly and raised a finger. “Math,” he intoned.

“What?”

Rev’arric looked around as though expecting chalk or graphite to appear magically. “Give me that.” He grabbed Grizzst’s bottle.

“Hey!”

“I’ll give it back.” He gulped down an impressive quantity of wine.² Then Rev’arric poured the remaining wine into the other man’s bottle before shaking his now nearly empty one. “So this bottle is me—”

“You’ve lost weight.”

“This bottle is me,” Rev’arric continued. “And the wine is my tenyé level. As you can see, it’s almost empty. And even if it were full, I can only hold a bottle’s worth of tenyé. Any more is wasted. Were I a demon—or one of my assistant’s ‘enhanced’ souls—I might be tempted to attack someone else’s souls for their tenyé”—he held up Grizzst’s now full wine bottle—“and add it to my own.” He waved a hand at the two bottles, concentrated, and watched as they slowly merged into a bottle twice the size. “But—I’ve doubled the size of my bottle.”

“Yeah, about that—”

“I add the souls of my victim to my own, thinking it’ll give me a larger capacity to hold tenyé. I’m clever, right?” Rev’arric was already shaking his head before Grizzst could answer. “No, no. I am not clever. I am stupid.”

Grizzst pointed at the man, laughing. “Your words, Var.”

Rev’arric actually giggled. “Okay, no. So the question … the question is, since I have absorbed your tenyé, is my tenyé reserve now full?”

“Of course not,” Grizzst said. “You made the bottle twice as big. It’s only half-full now.”

“Right. Which I might interpret as ‘hunger,’ so I think the solution is to absorb a third person’s souls. I think I’m fixing the problem, but in fact, I’m making things worse. Each person absorbed increases my capacity while diminishing my tenyé as a percentage of that total. I grow hungrier. Each time, an escalation…”

“That sounds like Vol Karoth,” Grizzst said, no longer laughing.

“Yeah.” Rev’arric stopped laughing too. “It does. Like you said, the demons corrupted the ritual.” He chugged the oversize bottle before handing it back.

Grizzst rolled his eyes at the nearly empty bottle. He drained the rest, set it aside, and uncorked another one. “Yeah, how dare they interfere with you murdering your own brother and taking over the world. Rude.”

Rev’arric exhaled a long, drawn-out breath and didn’t respond. “What are you going to do about that?” Rev’arric pointed to the blinking warding stone.

Grizzst gestured vaguely to the wall behind him, where the glyphs had been inscribed. “That’s the Ritual of Night. It’s how they charged the eighth warding crystal. I transcribed it from the working copy the Assembly created after—” He scowled. “After everyone died. Meant it to be a memorial.”

Rev’arric raised both eyebrows. “That explains that. At least there’s no chance you’ll accidentally throw it out with the trash. If you ever threw out trash.”

Grizzst ignored him. “Figured I’d make some rubbings, give ’em to the other races. Somebody’s going to have to step up to be next if we can’t figure out what to do about Vol Karoth before the warding crystal shuts down.”

Rev’arric stood up and walked over to the wall. “I suppose you’ll just substitute different racial glyphs.” Rev’arric ran his fingers over several key spots. “It’ll be a tragedy if they’re ever needed.”

Grizzst saluted with his wine bottle. “Hey, we can agree on stuff. Who knew? And this would be easier with Eight around.”

“I doubt that,” Rev’arric said. “They were good soldiers. The best. This solution requires more creativity.” He pursed his lips. “Still, they would help with the demons. And the god-kings.”

“Can you bring them back?” Grizzst contemplated sobering himself up.

“I don’t know,” Rev’arric admitted. “This was solid research. You were thorough.”

“You must be drunk. Pretty soon, you’ll admit I’m not an idiot.”

“Let’s not carried away,” Rev’arric said. “You know, it’s a pity Valathea’s gone. We may not have been friends, but there was no one better at biological magics. Well, Su’less, but I’ll assume she wouldn’t be helpful.”

Grizzst paused mid-drink. “What do you mean, ‘it’s a pity Valathea’s gone’? You mean the Kirpis vané queen?”

“No, I mean—” Rev’arric frowned. “I expected her to have died of old age.”

Grizzst looked confused. “No. What are you talking about? She’s not going to grow old. She’s vané. They’re immortal. Four immortal races. Three now.”

Rev’arric stared as if Grizzst had just told him a lie.

“No, really,” Grizzst snapped. “Why wouldn’t she still be alive? Last I heard, she married the Kirpis vané king.”

Rev’arric cocked his head. “Kirpis vané king? That implies there’s more than one.”

“Because there is. But my point is she’s still alive.”

Rev’arric rubbed his temple. “Fine. I believe you. She’s alive.” He looked up and laughed.

Grizzst didn’t understand what was so funny.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Rev’arric finally said. “I. Will. Make. You. A. Deal.”

“When you say it like that, I don’t think I should agree.”³

Rev’arric laughed. “I’ll help you. I won’t try to free Vol Karoth yet.” He sat down next to Grizzst. “I’ll behave. If we succeed in resurrecting the Eight, I’ll stay out of their way. I’ll help you with anything you need. Research? I’m your man. Want a dragon to behave? I’ll make them do so. Low profile, perfect gentleman.”

Grizzst narrowed his eyes. “What’s the catch?”

“There’s a time limit,” Rev’arric said. He pointed back to the wall. “Until the last race endures through the Ritual of Night. After that? You help me. You do what I ask. You, the Eight, Valathea—you have that long to solve both problems—the Nythrawl Wound and Vol Karoth. After that, I’m going to fix the mess the demons made.”⁴

Grizzst leaned back. “Help me with anything I want?”

“I don’t give sponge baths.” He waved a hand at the room. “Or clean house.”

Grizzst laughed but didn’t otherwise respond. “So help me resurrect the Eight. Let’s start there.”

“Does that mean we have a deal?”

Grizzst exhaled. It would be centuries before this warding crystal failed. After that, three more races could perform the ritual and restart the clock. That meant what? Six, maybe seven thousand years?⁵

Surely, they’d find a solution by then.

“Deal,” Grizzst said.

Rev’arric nodded. “Then you need to ask Valathea. I was serious about her skills. Convince her to help and she will almost certainly have useful advice. Although I would highly recommend that you never mention my name or admit to having ever met me. To say she is in all likelihood a thousand kinds of angry at me would be something of an understatement.”

“Our deal was that you would help. What are you going to do while I’m gone?”

“Finish reading through your notes, for one. Then we’ll see what we can do about fixing the world.” He spread his hands and bowed in Grizzst’s direction. “With proper safety protocols this time.”