11 Ravalor III

24.02.2024

Ravalor, feeling restless, considered leaving the room.

Zenozarax’ abrupt disappearance had left him with much to think about and even more he needed to talk about. He had asked his question. He had gotten an answer. Just the answer hadn’t really given him any of the closure he had hoped for.

 

Unless Zenozarax had drastically changed during the last two thousand years, which wizards of his age usually did not, Ravalor doubted Zenozarax had left him this abruptly just to flee the uncomfortable topic. He knew Zenozarax to be impressively grumpy being forced to talk about things he didn’t want to talk about, but he had never fled a conversation outright.

But he had sensed the reluctance this time. The Stargazer was closer now to what had happened than ever before. And the information was given to him in plain words — and not through the daring manipulations of his own mind.

There was a sense of irony and maybe bitterness to that. Then again, seen through a more deterministic lense, if he hadn’t done what he had done, never pursued this knowledge kept from him by death, it may would have been very unlikely for him to end up here.

Having nothing else to do, he just sat and waited at the bright, sleek and tastefully ornamented table that matched the idea of a highly advanced space station but kept true to Zenozarax’ preference for needlessly decorative stuff. It was a relatively large table with six chairs that were secured to the ground by strong magnets a simple touch of his hand could disable and enable at will.

Being in space, with the latent danger of ending up in zero gravity by a malfunction or routine maintenance was one of the biggest changes in everything surrounding him compared to the tower in Artlenburg. Here there were no open shelves, no knick-knacks that lay scattered on free standing chests or tables. The shelves that were here were all closed, many of them with plain see through fronts displaying the safely secured contents in them, but it still just had a different, more orderly feel to it. Only time would tell if that was just how Zenozarax’ Warrior was, or if it was a result of him being whole again.

He looked up and lost himself for a moment in the view. While everything in the room seemed a little more humble than he knew, the ceiling really was stunning no matter how often he looked at it. Composed from a fine layer of magical matter covering the entire ceiling and feathering out down the walls, the entire ceiling was a display not unlike those used for “windows” in Mezchihars space crafts.

Wizards usually had no real preference for windows since windows as a concept of looking outside didn’t exist in Mezchinhar — but they really liked to see space.

The display above glittered in the magnificent vista of an unknown nebula. The star nursery gleamed with billions of stars. There had been a little sense of disorientation the first time he had looked at it, as the room seemed to simply disappear into the openness of space, emulating a perfectly three dimensional viewing experience on what was not more than a few millimetres of magical matter.

Not to pay too much homage to his namesake he tore his eyes away from the ceiling again, shifting slightly on his seat.

Twice he had stood before the door, twice he had not found a good reason to pass it. In here he lacked nothing. He could sleep, there was mana if he needed it (though he felt it was making the aching in his knee worse), he could see to his appearance if he would choose so (which, besides cleaning the initial dirt from his skin, he saw no need to). He could make himself new clothing.

He looked down to his feet.

His pants were in tatters below his knees. And his boots were gone. At least one was, that of his previously almost completely destroyed leg. The other boot, burned almost to a crisp too, stood near the bed.

The floor wasn’t particularly warm or cold, and even if, it wouldn’t really matter. But, walking around with no shoes did feel weirdly undressed. He wondered when the last time would have been he really walked anywhere barefoot and after some time in his memories he realised that it would have been in his time in Artlenburg. There was a memory of Zenozarax “forcing” him in his enthusiastic way to “really feel” the sand and waves on his skin, building up his repository of sense based memories. He hadn’t really enjoyed that. But it still had been a very nice day, making it now a bittersweet memory.

He stood up and entered into the adjacent room, which was a walk-in closet as was to be expected from Zenozarax. He didn’t pay the plethora of clothes and accessories much attention beyond confirming his suspicion that this really was Zenozarax’ Warriors realm by the amount of uniform-esc clothing.  At the dressing area he still found the vanity cabinet he expected and, because wizards really never changed as it seemed, he found an extensive hand-sewing kit in the right drawer just as he had expected.

He set up the summoning circle to fashion him a new base layer, since his was ruined as well, and once it was done he undressed.

Putting the by now shoddy and shot through cargo vest aside with his belt and equally worn out shirt. The pants he put on the cabinet. Then he peeled himself out of the broken base layer he still wore since leaving Mezchinhar and replaced it with the new one the station had made.

It was a long sleeved design with the normal high collar, leaving only his hands and head uncovered by the fine magical weave. This one also came with the pointed integrated shoes, just like the one the Kingmaker used to wear. The barely existent profile was a noticeable change to the heavy combat boots he had worn before, but it felt still familiar.

He didn’t know if it was imagination or just the stark difference to the spent and worn out base layer before, but this one felt quite nice, for a moment almost velvety against his skin as it hugged his body closely and soon became unnoticeable, more like a second skin than a piece of clothing.

Then he went to work on the pants. Cutting off the no longer salvageable parts at knee high, he folded the hem up and quickly, with steady and sure hands, sewed it cleanly all the way around twice. Zenozarax never liked the idea of just disposing of a piece of clothing just because of a minor tear somewhere, and Ravalor had found necessity in being able to mend his own clothes down in the ancient tunnels. The Kingmaker had brought the Hermit new clothes now and then, but usually he tried to fix them himself. It was just something else to do. Sometimes he had gotten fabrics from the topside world for this or that need in his home, those he had sown himself too.

The Stargazer sighed lowly as he finished up the second leg. The melancholy those memories evoked was as poignant as it had been months ago.

The next thing he noticed was the cold in his body and a sharp stinging pain in his right leg. He instinctually flinched and first then realised his slumped over position over the vanity cabinet. Then he saw the needle sticking halfway in his leg.

He cursed and frowned as he pulled the needle out of his tight. He had slipped into the void without noticing again and the weight of his own hand still holding the needle had driven it into his leg without any consciousness being able to object to it or any pain to warn him.

The sting faded quickly as the small puncture wound resealed itself and the new base layer fixed the minor hole on its own.

Disgruntled, he chose to ignore that this had happened (leaving no lasting damages besides being reminded why Mezchinhar would never have given him something proper to do) and put on his clothes again.

He looked in the mirror and was reasonably satisfied with the result. His arms and legs covered in the black base layer worked surprisingly well with his shirt and the cargo pants that were now cut off above the knee.

“Looks good. You seem to have developed a sense of style after all.” Zenozarax’ voice cut through the silence and Ravalor spotted him in the mirror, standing at the entrance to the room. His clothes were different too, darker, which worried him, wondering if he had spent much more time in the void then he’d have thought. But then, it seemed unlikely Zenozarax would have just let him sit there…  

“I think mine just never quite aligned with yours. I’ll have you know that the Wizard is breaking the customary fashion in Mezhestvo every day.“

“He’s wearing black, isn’t he?“

“Correct.” The Stargazer smiled lightly for a brief moment, caught by the fondness of memories as he thought about his Wizard, before he turned around, keeping his face neutral again. “Is everything alright?“

“Yes. There is — just this thing I have to take care of now. It’s because of the curse of the knife. It’s not so easy right now dealing with it.“

“Why is that?” The Stargazer followed Zenozarax out of the closet and back into the main room. Zenozarax sat down on the pulled up chair at the table where Ravalor had sat before.

“The curse makes it so that the wizard that is stabbed with it becomes part of the wielder — temporarily, till said wielder would choose to relinquish that control. But now we’re stuck like this.“

“I know, Pelagius told me,” the Stargazer said gloomy, “Is he alright?” He stopped still about two metres away from Zenozarax, not feeling like joining him at the table.

“He is.” Zenozarax nodded, but not yet looking at him.

“He also told me you’d let him go once everything was done.”

“I did say that,” Zenozarax confirmed.

“Did you mean it?“

Finally Zenozarax looked up at him. “Does it matter now? I can’t.“

“It does.“

“Then yes, I meant it.”

“Hm.”

“What?“

“How can you do that?” Ravalor looked down at Zenozarax who met his eyes with a sense of tension.

“Do what?’’ There was something like quiet alarm in Zenozarax’ voice, and Ravalor wondered how much of the pang of disdain he felt had resonated in his own words. But it didn’t matter. He felt that anger again. The frustration.

“For so long you told me so often how the only thing you really wanted is to keep control over your own life, your choices and purpose. To be free. But you’re such a goddamn hypocrite. You take that same freedom and choice away from others just to serve your own goal. How can you do that? You want us to be free? By taking that freedom from others? Taking their choice away from them? From me. From Pelagius. Everyone that stands in your path. The people on Charon, on earth, the thousands you killed building up that spire. They are dead because of you, where is their freedom in that? Their choice?!”

For a flash moment there was anger swiping across Zenozarax’ face, defiance, the first instinct to snap back and Ravalor braced for it, not willing to back down on this. But then Zenozarax expression softened, turning to a deep-seeded frown, words unspoken turning the furrow more brooding before eventually, Zenozarax looked away. Almost deflating onto the chair he sat on.

And at that moment, he just looked unimaginably tired.

“I never wanted any of that.”

“Yet you did it anyway.”

“It had to be done…” Zenozarax muttered, and the Stargazer hated how much of his own guilt was mirrored in those horrible words.

“No,” He just said, feeling the strength of his own anger fleeting like water running through his fingers as Zenozarax refused to give him the fight he had expected. “Violence is always an option. But it’s always just that, an option.“

“Of course you’d quote Heshiva. He doesn’t even believe that himself, and anyone thinking he does is a naive fool. I wouldn’t have taken you for one.” Zenozarax scoffed half-heartedly and then sighed deeply. As he looked back at Ravalor there was an unexpected sadness in his eyes. “What if the only other option is to die? I don’t want to die, Ravalor.“

“That doesn’t give you the right to kill anyone else.”

“But you can justify sacrificing the few for the good of the many?”

The Stargazer clenched his teeth, feeling that pain in his heart. There had been a time where he would have agreed. And a time where he’d have vehemently disagreed. Now he indeed felt stuck in a naïve denial about reality, like he could will all suffering to not exist anymore. He could imagine plenty of situations that would justify it, but he just didn’t want to. And he felt frustrated with himself about it. “No, I can’t.”

Zenozarax didn’t answer, and for the first time in his life Ravalor didn’t quite know how to read the expression in his face. Maybe it was regret, or pity, or the merciless perspective of a wizard that had already lived so much longer than he had. And nothing of that mattered - because he realised there was nothing Zenozarax could ever say to make what happened be okay, moral, or justifiable. No matter how much he wanted that argument to exist, his desperation to find it only entangled him only ever further in a delusion that would see both of them untainted in the end.

“Why couldn’t you just…” Ravalor tried to find the right words “Stop. All this. The fight. Step back from it. Take your own freedom. Why do you have to make it into a vendetta against those who wronged you? They can’t find you if you are careful. We both know that.”

“It’s not that simple. I wish it were. But we can’t stop. I —” Zenozarax froze up, a flash sparkling in his eyes as he clearly focused closely at some memories from his other Part. Ravalor immediately saw the tension and alarm in his old friend’s posture and face.

“Zenozarax? What’s happening?“

Zenozarax looked at him as he stood up, but by the gleam in his eyes his attention was elsewhere.

“Come, follow me.” Zenozarax was already on his way to the door and despite everything Ravalor found himself hurrying after him, his knee ached with every step but he ignored it as best he could. Before he could ask again Zenozarax said,

“Something happened to the Twilight.”

“Your ship?“

“Yes.“

“Your Wizard?“

“No he’s safe, he wasn’t on board.“

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