Last Messenger - Chapter 15

Chapter 15 – Caden

“How long were we,” Aael paused, “there?”

“A few heartbeats,” Caden said.

Aael’s eyes widened. “It felt like days.”

Caden nodded. “Did you feel the perfection and the utter believability of it?”

“Yes.”

Caden bowed his head. “Ghost Mages can keep you there forever. You would never know. It is a cruel thing, taking away someone’s belief in what is real.”

Caden sensed Thalt’s approach, felt the vibration through his Vym. “Return!”

The compulsion stuck Caden like an avalanche. He filled his mind with the earthy smell of strawberries…of the Abbot as he removed Aael, minutes old, from the Idlewood tree that had saved his life…the sound of a mother weeping, alone in a tent, her sacrifice giving the world a chance.

The emotions bent the compulsion until it broke. The need to obey became bareable and Caden regained control.

“…the day you chose your token?” Aael asked.

Caden refocused on Aael, and recalled they’d been talking about tokens. Aael took a drink of cider and placed his cup two and three eighths hands from the edge of the table. Caden slid his cup opposite Aael’s, the exact same distance from the edge. It gave the table balance, restoring its symmetry, and his mind relaxed. 

“Yes. From that day, to this very moment, I’ve kept my token visible,” Caden said. “If I don’t see it, I know I’m in an overlay, and that I need to unravel it.”

“What should mine be?” Aael asked.

“A pony, jewelry, a book, butterflies, a rainbow…”

“Ok, I get it.”

Aael closed his eyes and Caden waited. He knew how flexible time was, had in fact, spent more time than he cared to remember in its embrace. He felt old, fragile, and broken. But he couldn’t falter. Not after how far he’d come and the sacrifices that had been made.

“Do you want to know what it is?” Aael asked.

Caden shook his head. “No. Never tell anyone. It is your only lifeline when everything else is in doubt.”

Aael nodded. “Dakkar said you’d started your descent?”

Caden paused, not sure how to respond. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about. “The more powerful the internal mage the quicker they go mad. It usually starts small, obsessive and compulsive behavior, collecting, hoarding, things like that. It always ends the same. Some flavor of insanity.”

“Why haven’t you, I mean, I don’t think you’re crazy, but are you headed into the desert?” Aael asked, concern in his voice.

Caden laughed and then shrugged. “The only answer I have is the smell of strawberries has the ability to slow it.”

Aael nodded, “Mom.”

Love, more precisely. It had made so much possible.

“Enough. Let’s have some fun,” Caden said.

Caden walked to a shelf and removed a wooden box. He blew the dust off it and the motes reflected the room’s light as they rotated through the air. Caden recognized the pattern, knew the algorithm to calculate their motion. He wanted to stop but he needed to know how long the motes would stay suspended. It bothered him he didn’t know the exact temperature and pressure, but he could approximate them enough for an accurate calculation. He froze, not wanting to disturb the air and complicate the math.

“Dad?”

Caden forced his attention toward the voice. That voice was important, more important than this problem. But he’d solved the equation. If he waited thirty seven seconds he would know if the calculation was correct. He would feel whole. 

A part of Caden screamed his time was limted, ironic since he could stretch it further than anyone but the Gods. But this sickness inside him was unsatible. He opened his Vym, pushed the orange and yellow streams aside, and grasped the Red. He used the energy to duplicate his mind leaving the obsession and compulsion in the original. He forced the sick mind to the back of his brain, smashed against the thousands of other copies he’d made through the centuries. He let the copy settle into his mind, the compulsion removed.

The process worried Caden. He never knew if the copy was complete. He believed it was. His thoughts and memories had been indexed with the same method he used for books. He hadn’t encountered any holes in his memory yet. Well, only the one, but death was a hard thing to recall.

Caden walked to the table and opened the box for Aael.

Aael looked at him with a frown. After a moment Aael looked down and his frown disappeared.

“Is that a Bandt board?” Aael asked.

“An older version of the one at home.”

“It’s beautiful,” Aael said.

Caden placed the pieces on the seven by nine grid. The squares were black and white.

“Rings or Colors?” Caden asked, knowing the answer.

“Rings,” Aael said immediately.

Caden smiled and shook his head but didn’t give Aael the usual lecture on predictability.

“The rules are the same, but the pieces are different. My back row are Spire Mages: Mind, Time, Ghost, White, Silent, Fury, and Elemental. The front row, Footman and Arid.“

“I thought there were only six spires. What is a White Mage?” Aael asked.

“A mage that uses all six colors, combined the six energies are colorless, white light, hence the name. White mages don’t exist.”

Aael narrowed his eyes. “You and mom use more than one.”

“True. But I’m limited to the internal colors, and your mom the external. I can barely heal a scrape and your mother will break your arm if you give her a math problem.”

Aael nodded.

Caden pointed to Aael’s pieces. “Your back row are Shadow, Ambassador, Judge, Keeper, Walker, Scout, and Craftsman. Your front row, Dousers and Messengers.”

Aael frowned. “Wait, my Assassins are called Messengers? Messengers as in, the last messenger the Shade talked about?”

“Yes. What did you think he meant?”

Aael sat back. “I thought it was a courier. I imagined knocking on a door and saying, ‘Your father sends you good tidings,’ things like that.”

“No, they deliver death,” Caden said.

Aael’s eyes widened.

“What’s wrong?” Caden asked.

Aael’s face reddened and he looked down. “I might have accidentaly killed one of the kids that attacked me. Maybe the Shade is right, and I’m a monster.”

Caden held out his hand. “You don’t know if the attacker died, and the Shade never called you a monster. I didn’t show you that memory to just talk about tokens. The first lesson, have you forgotten already?”

“Don’t let others define you,” Aael said.

“It is good advice. Now quit stalling. Let’s see how fast you lose this time,” Caden said.

Aael smiled, grabbed his center Messenger, and moved it forward three spaces.

The object of Bandt was to control the high ground in the board’s middle while protecting the White Mage or Keeper. 

Caden moved an edge footman forward one space. Aael was aggressive, like his mom, and had the patience of youth, which was none. Worse, the boy sacrificed resources in his haste. It was a short sighted strategy and a terrible mix for Bandt.

Caden sighed. “How can you find your opponents weakness when you’re so quick to reveal your own.”

Aael laughed. “Say that to mom. She’ll sweep you and put an elbow in your face.” He looked around to make sure his mom wasn’t nearby and then imitated her voice. “It is better to act than to react.” He moved his Judge to flank the high ground.

Caden studied the board for a dozen seconds and then moved an Arid piece forward. “The high ground sings to you. You’d cut off your arms to fit through a door.”

Aael immediately moved another messenger forward. “How would that even work? I can see cutting one arm off. But what about the other?”

Caden didn’t respond and pondered his next move. Aael was good at distractions and had in fact almost won a game last month in a clever trap. It was the closest Caden had come to a Bandt loss since the Spires.

“Did you find anything in the Library?” Aael asked.

“Yes.”

Caden moved his Time Mage forward to protect the footman. Aael didn’t hesitate and moved his Keeper into the open, a reckless move. Why would he do that?

“Are you going to tell me?” Aael asked.

Caden glanced at Aael and then back at the board. “Not yet. I want to understand the context first.”

Aael sighed. “Can you tell me anything?”

Caden leaned back. “How about this? You lose in seven moves. You shouldn’t have exposed the Keeper so early. Sometimes reacting is the better act.”

Caden felt a familiar pressure, like static across his skin, and he jumped out of his chair.

Saniel burst into the room. “What do we do with Aael?”

“Put him in a room and seal it,” Caden said.

“What’s going on?” Aael asked.

Caden faced Aael. “It is important you don’t do anything. Just sit. Nothing, understand?”

Aael nodded. “Why?”

Saniel grabbed Aael, hugged him, and then marched him into the nearest room. Caden felt the violet frequency vibrate as Saniel bent the earth to her will.

Into the half closed doorway he answered Aael. “Haphell has found us. He will be here in moments.”

Caden paused, and then as the last of the dirt formed at the top of the doorway he spoke from his heart. “I love you.”