Divine Apostasy Book 11 - Chapter 45

Chapter 45

Ruin didn’t focus on the memory. Instead, he offered encouragement. Listen to my voice. I’m not leaving. Don’t struggle. I’m waiting for you. Take your time. Over and over, he repeated the same until it became a chant.

Ruin desperately wanted to know what the memory contained. It was the source of his Cleverness activation, and the mystery it unlocked had profound consequences. He wanted to dive into the quicksand and glimpse it before the darkness swallowed it.

“Are you okay?” Deryssa asked. “You don’t look well.”

Ruin held up a hand but didn’t open his eyes.

Deryssa stayed silent.

Eventually a distant voice emerged from the silence, but Ruin couldn’t hear it well enough to know who spoke or what they said. He forced himself to take his own advice and he waited patiently, resisting the urge to identify the speaker.

A second memory emerged, following the path the first made. With a sudden burst the first memory exploded into Ruin’s thoughts. He and Gunder sat in a shed above New Eiru. Ruin had just kidnapped Gunder from his underground base and it was the first time Gunder had talked about being a Bard. Ruin lost himself in the memory.

***

After a few seconds of silence, Gunder tapped his thighs with his hands, alternating the beats, the rhythm surprisingly pleasant. “Well, since I sit around my last campfire, perhaps it’s appropriate the Bard join us for a final lesson.” Gunder closed his eyes and hummed along with the beat for half a minute before continuing. “You want to learn about Bards? We use music theory like a spell book and create magical melodies. Just as a Mage needs to study and understand the principles of magic before casting spells, a Bard needs to understand the principles of music before creating a harmonious tune.”

“It’s a recipe,” Gunder said, slapping his thighs loudly, the beat echoing in the shed. “Rhythm is a crucial ingredient. Timing is critical to everything in life. Have you ever wondered if you’d stepped through a door a moment sooner or later, if you’d slept in or left early, how your life would have changed? That is the beat of your life, its timing as crucial as it is in combat, and just as a warrior needs to time their attacks and blocks precisely to defeat an opponent, a Bard must time their notes and pauses to create a musical rhythm that's pleasing to the ear. They need to match their beat to the rhythm of the audience. To the beat of their lives.”

“The notes in our music are like points of Mana each with its own frequency,” Gunder said, his eyes still closed. “We construct the notes into chords, smaller spells that strengthen the rhythm, mixing and harmonizing, supporting our magic like an Enforcer’s buff.”

Gunder threw his hands forward, fingers splayed. “And like a musical Mage, we unleash the Melody, a spell constructed of notes, chords, and rhythm. A harmony of sound. We give it form, shaping its effects as it swirls like a vortex around our audience—constructing, bridging, and connecting with their emotions—the scale enhancing their happiness or reinforcing the sadness we all carry.” Gunder’s voice grew quiet, his voice filled with intensity. “A symphony of vibrations, resonating with the universe, connecting us all.”

***

Ruin returned from the memory, and the last few words echoed in his mind. “Connecting us all,” he whispered.

“What connects us?” Deryssa asked, assuming Ruin had spoken to her.

Ruin shook his head and returned to his chant. Urging the second memory to not struggle. The first memory had pointed the way, and he forced his mind to remain blank. If he tried to figure out what the memory meant, he might end up at the wrong conclusion. The real answer approached. He just needed to be patient.

The second memory drew near, and Ruin heard Gunder’s voice once again. This time Ruin sat across from him in the Bard’s underground lair. Then the memory hit Ruin with the force of a thunderclap.

***

“There is a secret, rarely discussed, and it lies at the heart of a Bard’s power. It plays a part in propelling me to act against the gods. It cements my belief that Bards hold the ultimate power. Of all the Classes, only we contain the ability to communicate and shape the universe.”

“Let me show you,” Gunder said.

Gunder ripped a blank piece of paper out of his ledger and dumped half the jar of ink-drying sand across it. He gently shook the paper until the fine sand covered most of the paper. He locked eyes with Ruwen. “Your Void Band indicates a high Intelligence which likely made alchemy easy for you to comprehend.”

Ruwen gave a curt nod.

“Then you will grasp this quickly. When sound passes through something, let’s take this paper for instance, it creates a vibration. The paper, like your eardrum, vibrates based on the sound’s wavelength and amplitude. What I bet you didn’t know was that sound has shape, an invisible pattern no different than the words and numbers in my ledger.”

Gunder sang a single note, low, pure, and clear, holding it as he looked down from Ruwen to the paper and sand in his hand.

Ruwen barely contained a gasp of surprise as the sand jumped on the page, and in moments, had arranged itself into a circle with a single pile of sand in the exact middle.

After three seconds Gunder stopped singing, gently shook the paper to redistribute the sand, and sang a different higher pitched note.

This time the vibrations produced eight, equally spaced lines radiating out from the center of the paper. Each corner had a quarter circle, as if blocking the corner from the paper’s center. Gunder shook the paper again and again, repeating the demonstration, each note creating a different pattern with the sand. The higher the note’s pitch, the more complex the pattern.

Gunder stopped and set the paper down. “Harmonies create shapes even more complex.” He paused a few seconds, and then continued. “Our voices affect the universe in a real way, perhaps just as much as our actions. How could I not, with this knowledge, use my voice for justice.”

Ruwen sat in stunned disbelief. It had never occurred to him that the various waves around him created hidden patterns. Not only that, some of the shapes Gunder had demonstrated had looked vaguely similar to another complicated pattern. One he used regularly. Gate runes.

“What do they do?” Ruwen asked.

“I can, with my voice, melt stone, create or remove emotions, manipulate thoughts, generate hallucinations, speed a plants growth, or, sometimes, even get a bar full of half-drunk customers to dance.”

“And you think those patterns are what do that?”

Gunder shrugged. “I’m not much of a philosopher, but a couple things have occurred to me. Is it the patterns themselves that cause the behavior? Or is it a command the universe recognizes, like me passing you a note requesting a beer?”

***

Ruin exited the memory with a crash, and he staggered. Deryssa stepped forward in concern, but he regained his balance and shook his head. “I’m fine.”

“What happened?” Deryssa asked.

Ruin closed his eyes again and rubbed his temples. The image of the five sigils hovered in his thoughts, but this time he understood what it represented. He couldn’t unsee it now. In hindsight it was obvious.

After five seconds, Ruin regained control of his swirling thoughts and opened his eyes to find Deryssa’s concerned face.

“Seriously, I’m okay. I just figured out what bothered me so much about those sigils. It took a while because when I reformed in this body, I lost Harmony.”

“That is your sound magic? Right?”

“Yes, something like that. But it’s more than that, and it took specific memories to remind me. Memories that this body resists as it has no connection to Harmony.”

“What did you learn?”

Ruin wondered how the information he’d discovered had been lost. It had existed at one point because the five Towers were covered in the fragments of that secret.

The area under Ruin’s map glowed. Something had changed in his quest log. Opening the display, he read the quest that had updated and studied the portion of the Step Description that now read ‘completed.’”

Name: Forbidden Unity

Description: The Sentinel, by activating this quest, validates my hope that a different tomorrow remains possible. My importance to the Prime will not shield me from the heresy I have committed, nor will my age provide sympathetic mercy. Even so, I embrace the risk; after all, purpose is a crescendo of strength, and I desire to topple “truth” itself.

Step: 1 of 3

Step Description: The towering trees of faith and enlightenment, their roots deep in the foundations of existence and watered with Harmonic balance, spread their canopies, starving the Truth hidden in the shade of their boughs. Find the smothered notes (Completed), discover a different harmony, and the path to destroy the “truth.”

Reward (Step 1): Heritage Manual

Reward: (Final) Hate, contempt, and violence from the expanding Verses.

Reward: (Final) Assuming my survival in this foolish scheme, a drink on me.

The secret language of the Universe revealed itself with shapes, and the smothered notes the quest referenced related to the sigils used on Meridians.

“What did you learn?” Deryssa asked again.

Ruin dismissed the quest and recalled the thousands of sigils covering the towers. If arranged correctly, they’d become complex shapes.

The hardening sigils used five notes from a complex Harmony. What would the difference in power be if someone placed not these five fragments, but the entire shape of the Harmony to the Meridian?

Deryssa looked frustrated but didn’t ask a third time.

“Sorry,” Ruin said. “I’m trying to process what I discovered. How are you at puzzles?”