The room Vertin had been led into was dim, lit mostly by candlelight, dust settling low over dark furniture and older, stranger things pushed into the corners.
A woman with long blue hair sat in a high-backed chair at the far end of it, posture perfectly composed, hands folded loose in her lap.
Behind her, near the back wall, a cage of woven green roots held Schneider inside it, Druvis’ work still faintly glowing at the joints where root met root.
“I have been seeking a chance to talk to you from an equal position.
The name is Arcana.”
“Hello…
The leader behind Manus Vindictae.”
“Thou art acquainted with us.
How wonderful.
I am pleased.
Lady Vertin, here is an official offer that you joinest Manus Vindictae.”
Forget Me Not startled forward at that, calling out sharp but restrained toward the blue-haired woman, but was ignored entirely.
Arcana stayed her gaze at Vertin instead, telling her, unhurried, that she would respect whatever choice Vertin made, but only after three questions had been answered.
Schneider laughed low from inside her cage, calling it no choice at all, and Forget Me Not rounded on her immediately, voice rising, accusing her outright of betrayal.
“So, what are the three questions?
And how do you indulge in my suffering?”
“Content thee, my child.
The answer will be revealed for both of us.”
She drew a thin, endless line of black slime from her own temple, unhurried, the substance folding and thickening in her hand until it had taken the shape of a wand.
“The first question.
What is the ultimate purpose for the Foundation to create the “Storm”?”
Vertin’s composure slipped, just slightly, surprise breaking through before she could smooth it back.
“Wha-what?
The Foundation…
Isn’t the “Storm” created by you…”
“I was expecting a better answer.
Start with her right hand.
Her gesture with a gun bothereth me.”
The black slime moved fast, and Schneider’s hand broke with a sound that carried clean across the quiet room alongside her scream.
“Schneider!!”
“Shh.
This is too much for her with a broken hand.
Then, the second question.
The Foundation experiments on the orphans of arcanists.
Is that true?”
“Yes.
We are looking for the arcane antibody immune to the “Storm”…
And I am the only successful subject.”
“And the name of that antibody is?”
“Asymmetric…
Immune Protein G…”
She did not lie but Arcana was still displeased by the answer, the slime answering kindly a second time, Schneider’s leg giving way beneath her with the same clean, terrible sound as before.
“Vaffanculo…!”
“A story in an inappropriate time, people call it a lie.
Thou shalt not be misled by an abominable worm, Lady Vertin.
Or her limbs are not my next target.
The last question.
As the ‘only’ one who bravest the Storm easily, I wonder…
the arcanists thou hast met.
How are they?”
Vertin said nothing for a long moment, the question sitting heavier than the two before it.
“I will join y-”
She never finished it.
The room dropped into total darkness all at once, and every person in it went rigid where they stood, frozen mid-breath, mid-thought.
Every person except Arcana, who only smiled, unbothered, and tilted her face up toward the ceiling along with everyone else.
Something vast came down out of the dark above them, black and wolf-shaped, a single enormous eye set into a head with a body scaled in patches.
Feathers sprouting between the scales each tipped in glinting yellow oil, fragments of silver armor scattered loose across its frame like pieces of something far larger that had never finished assembling itself.
It was the size of a horse, snarling low, pale teeth stained red, and caught between those teeth, unmistakable even in the dark, were torn scraps of the same black masks the Manus Vindictae wore.
“Calm thyself, tis but a joke,” Arcana said, unbothered, tilting her head up at the great figure above them.
“As much as I loathe that thou giveth her a gift that was…
supposed to be mine…”
She looked down at Vertin then, her smile gentle and edged at once, equal parts fondness and a thin, private irritation she made no effort to hide.
“I would never damage thine precious heart and light.”
The smile was a lie from root to petal, and it sat easily on her all the same, the same practiced ease of a woman who had already planned exactly how much of Vertin she meant to break before this was through, and would likely have kept doing so if the beast overhead hadn’t chosen this exact moment to arrive.
“Although, from the way thou wast…
acting earlier, I had thought thou no longer cared.
Tis a shame.”
Vertin had no idea what any of it meant, watching the enormous shape above her with something between terror and a strange, disorienting familiarity, a feeling she couldn’t place cleanly.
It felt, absurdly, like the man from the Storm.
That made no sense at all.
This was clearly some arcane creature, sharp teeth and scales with wings, nothing like the man who’d stood in a London street with his hands behind his back.
The beast held still above Arcana a moment longer before its single eye dropped to Vertin instead.
‘There she is,’ it thought, in a voice that belonged to no shape it currently wore.
‘The pull’s been coming from her this whole time.’
It caught her scent from where it hung in the air, the same smell of the river that clung to its own body, and beneath that, something else entirely, something smaller and far more personal.
‘Wait.
That’s mine.’
It reached for it before it had finished deciding to, using the Space-Time-in-One symbolism folding space just enough to pull the item free, the mirror behind it groaning with a fresh hairline crack at the strain of using anything this far outside its own kingdom.
A small yellow-tipped feather on a chain came loose from where it had been tucked, hidden between Vertin’s vest and the clothing beneath it, and landed in the air between them before Vertin’s own hand closed around it on pure reflex.
‘Huh.
Same one.
Did our mothers shop in the same place?.’
Vertin snatched the necklace back the instant she understood what had happened, the fear of the enormous beast in front of her did nothing to slow her hand, the object clearly mattered to her more than her own safety did in that moment.
“Art thou finished?” Arcana asked, watching the exchange with open interest.
“I hope thine reunion be sweet, however… time is running out.”
‘She knows,’ the beast thought, a low, private unease running through it.
‘How the fuck does she know?’
It could feel its own human half’s spirituality thinning fast, spirituality that served as his bridge to the physical world, the fight earlier and every symbolism used since only widening the crack it was already straining against.
“Although, I do have a question… art thou truly thyself?” Arcana continued with a sharp tone, further confusing him.
‘At least I have a destination now.
I’ll be back.’
One shard of silver armor along its side reshaped itself into a long broadsword and drove point-first into the floor in front of it, and a pair of faint, shimmering shields rose around Vertin and Schneider a moment later, defined yet nearly invisible.
The beast vanished in a single release of black smoke, gone as suddenly as it had come.
The shields stayed behind, fading from sight almost entirely, though anyone looking closely, at exactly the right angle, could still catch the faint outline of them catching the candlelight.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Cormac stood at the base of the temple for a long time before he let himself think about any of it.
The blue-haired woman’s face kept surfacing, the particular way she’d looked at Vertin like she already knew something Vertin herself hadn’t been told yet, or him for that matter.
‘A gift that’s supposed to be hers.
Is it the necklace?’
He thought of the feather-tipped necklace, turning it over once in his mind without touching it, since it wasn’t on this side of him to touch.
He felt a faint but unmistakable force, the same beckoning thread connecting him to wherever Vertin currently stood.
‘Same pull as before.
Same necklace.
A gift.
Being myself… This is why I hate time travel.’
He let that thought sit there for a while longer, piecing it together like any puzzle he wasn’t ready to solve yet, and then, deliberately, he set it down.
‘That’s for later.
She’s not in danger for now, and I have an experiment to run before the storm peaks.’
The mirror behind him had a fresh crack threading up from where he’d reached from not long ago, thin and pale against the old silver.
He watched as a curl of grey mist drifted up from the pilgrim below that settled into the crack like a bandage finding a wound.
It thinned, dimmed, and then the crack was a little less than it had been.
‘It’s healing at least.
Good.
I’d rather not be stuck in there again, boredom really is the enemy of eternity.’
He let his attention slide back down into the body he’d left kneeling outside a scattered salt circle, and the divine kingdom folded quietly away behind his eyes.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The room Arcana had used for her questions stood still, candlelight shining low over delicious looking food, no signs of the cage of woven roots nor Arcana herself.
Druvis and Forget Me Not instead sat at the dining table with Vertin, the food was spread between them yet none seemed inclined to touch even a single dish.
“Ms.
Vertin doesn’t seem to have any appetite.
Or, do you too, wonder how a gold bar steak with wine and boiled silver coin tastes?”
Forget Me Not remarked that Vertin hadn’t touched her plate, mostly a mocking gesture to her situation.
“So is that the symptom for the Storm Syndrome this time?”
Vertin’s voice came flat and unimpressed from where she stood near the window, asking if that was meant to be this week’s version of the “Storm Syndrome.”
“Storm Syndrome?
That’s how you call these pernicious habits from the old society?
Sounds like …
the Foundation is so satisfied with how the old society works that you call the current situation a ‘syndrome’.”
Forget Me Not turned the phrase over like it amused him.
“…
The Storm Syndrome turned money into food in people’s eyes …
It’s so ridiculous.
You don’t need to do this.”
Vertin’s answer, when it came, had no humor left in it at all, just a flat, tired disgust.
“How did they eat those gold bars?
It is not easy to cut them off,” Druvis asked, seemingly more curious about the phenomena itself rather than the ideological exchange in front of her.
Druvis III, seated with her hands folded and her attention somewhere between the two of them, asked, quietly.
“Of course not.
Gold is no meat or vegetable.
But humans, yes, they are impressive.
They had somehow worked out a brand new set of tools dealing with the new ‘food’,” Forget Me Not answered that easily, almost fondly.
“A parer that can pare the rough surface of the gold like a potato; a spray gun that can melt bullion within seconds; a cutting board that can prevent cash from scattering all over the place”
His tone was grand as if he was truly impressed, like how someone is impressed that termites can build dirt mounds all on their own.
“…
There are even cold drinks made from melted Statue of Liberty, for only 50 cents …
Haha, I can’t help laughing.”
“But the milk …
was mostly dumped,” Druvis said, more to herself than to either of them,
“It’s not food anymore.
I can’t experience the lives of people who were sifted out by the ‘Storm’, but I wonder, for them…” For once he seemed sincere, venting his true feelings without restraint.
“What do they do for eating?
For paying?
In the ‘Storm’, the thing that dominates their lives is still money.
How could it be more ridiculous for the time!” Forget Me Not’s answer sharpened at that, turning the question back on the room itself
“Why do you blame them?
In the ‘Storm,’ there is no life.” Vertin cut in before he could go further.
“No life …
You look very sad, Miss Vertin.
I do not understand.” Druvis continued with her inquiry, this time from Vertin.
“This burnt branch …
should have come from a rowan tree, right?
I have seen this tree in Ireland and southwest England.
It is often called ‘Quickbeam,’ derived from Old German …
means stay alive.”
Vertin’s gaze had drifted to a burnt branch resting near Druvis’ plate.
“Rowan is full of vitality.
Even if it is transplanted from Europe to North America, it grows vigorously and stretches into a vast forest.
In the most dangerous days in the Celtic calendar, people would wear garlands and berries of rowan to pray for its blessing for vitality.
However, an unexpected fire destroyed all of them.
Just like the “Storm.” It’s there for no reason.”
“I suggest you stop talking.” Forget Me Not told her, his voice sharpening.
“People, like this branch, whose life was brutally terminated, they worked out new tools, they tried to eat the softened gold bars, and sold the food that’s no longer valuable …”
Vertin didn’t stop.
“People worked so hard to understand life with their own logic …
because they just want to live as much as possible, but not go back in time.”
“Watch your mouth, Vertin!”
“But …
going back in time …
why isn’t it real life?” Druvis ignored Forget Me Not’s warning and continued with her conversation with Vertin.
“Is this little rowan branch really alive, Ms.
Druvis?
You used arcanum to keep it at the moment when it was burned.
Once you dispel the arcanum, it would not be what it is now.
I think you are clear, Ms.
Druvis, that …
Every tree lives for tomorrow.”
That was as far as Forget Me Not let it go.
“Enough!
How abominable …
This is not where you can give your speeches and such clichés.
Since you are still being such a bureaucrat … Why not let our believers help you get used to the Manus’ manners.”
Manus Vindictae members came at her fast, but their strike never landed.
Something invisible flared between them and Vertin a half second before contact, catching them mid-motion and throwing them back towards Forget Me Not.
It was hard enough to take the table’s edge with them.
Glass and porcelain scattering, the vase holding Druvis’s rowan branch shattering against the floor along with it.
The table and chair that had stood there did not survive, overturned and broken, like a storm throwing fragile things everywhere.
The shield went transparent again slowly, fading back into whatever form it took to hide.
Vertin stared at the space where it had been with no idea what it was or why the beast she’d seen not long before would put something like that around her.
She asked Arcana earlier for an answer.
Arcana didn’t give her one, didn’t so much as look at her, instead she moved towards the door with Schneider passed out as her subordinates dragged her cage, and left the room without a word.
“I heard that …
rowan was often planted next to the Welsh cemeteries, because it would guide the deceased to the next life, so as not to stay in the world and haunt the living.”
The fact that her branch died didn’t seem to particularly bother her, instead, looking at the fading shields.
“But I was hoping …
Never mind.
The arcanum is dispelled.
I don’t like things being touched by others.
Take it away.”
“…
Alright,” Vertin said as she left.