The Effaced: Chapter Twenty-Four

“I’m booooooorrrrrrreeeeeeeddddddd,” Kelly whined, flopping his head against the pillow of the chair. 

He had really expected that staying in a magical laboratory full of experimental magical stuff was going to be fun and cool, but instead it was incredibly boring. He’d walked around the facility already and looked into all of the rooms that had windows to allow for entry. Rhys had lectured him about some, and some of the researchers had been happy to talk about their work, but Kelly had only understood about a quarter of what they said. 

It’s not that he was stupid. He’d done okay in school, after all. He just didn’t know how anyone was supposed to understand things like ‘manually triggered force magic defenestration based wardcraft with inbuilt records for exoneration and automatic correspondence with legal council’. 

When Rhys had explained it was just a wardscheme to throw a burglar out of a window then call the cops and an attorney, while recording the whole thing, it had made more sense, but also gotten a lot more boring. 

“I’m boooorrrrreeeddddd,” Kelly repeated, looking up at Rhys. The fat old man sighed and murmured something under his breath. 

“Kelly,” Rhys said, with the measured tone that teachers sometimes used when Kelly was being really annoying. 

“Yes?” 

“We’re trying to keep you safe.” 

“Yeah, but we’re not doing anything,” Kelly pouted. “It’s boring. Hadiya and Axel are going out and running to one of the skankiest places in the city!” 

Rhys closed his eyes and asked the goddess Elidoia for patience. His research had indicated that the historical figure was most likely a djinn or a powerful demon that had formed a cult some five centuries prior, but she had also been renown for her mercy. 

She couldn’t hear him – only beings from the Dreamscape and a few other, more niche creatures, could hear thoughts. 

But begging for patience with a being that had been worshiped for her mercy felt like the right thing to do. 

“I have an idea!” Kelly said, popping up next to him without a sound, causing Rhys to jump. 

“How about we go to Axel’s apartment and get his stuff?!” Kelly asked. “He already told me where he lives and how to get it. He was planning to have me mind dazzle the guards so he could collect it.” 

“We’re not going out,” Rhys said tiredly. 

“Okay,” Kelly said, then started kicking his feet on the ground and whistling. 

It took him all of thirty seconds to bring up a new topic.

“Did you ever see Axel fight? Back when he was Mist, I mean. Everyone’s saying he’s one of the few people capable of killin–” 

He cut himself off when he realized that he was about to bring up killing Rhys’ dad. The old man was as old as Axel, but it still had to suck to lose your dad. It had hurt Kelly a lot, until he’d learned to laugh to make it not hurt quite so bad. 

Rhys on the other hand, seemed to take it well enough. 

“I never saw him in the arena, since my father detested bloodsports, and in truth, I do too… but I saw what happened in the reports. The Arenamaster adopted a group of children and forced them to undergo extreme levels of body, soul, lifeline, and mind alterations.” 

“Lifeline?” Kelly asked. 

“It’s a… Strange… thing. It’s directly connected between the soul and body, both and neither. It’s also the core of how humans harvest aura sparks. We drain the lifeline and extract the bit of the soul where the aura lies.” 

“Yeah,” Kelly said. Was Rhys dumb? Kelly had gone to school, he knew what an aura spark was and how to make them. 

“Then why did you ask?” 

“How do you alter the lifeline?” Kelly said. “The body I get. I’ve seen people with body mods. The soul… Okay, I can kinda get that. And I’m a mind sorcerer, I’ve already used the basic mind enforcement spells. But the lifeline?” 

“Ah, well, it’s quite an interesting subject, that. In the south, where angels are more common, there’s a significant amount of research done on enhancing and utilizing the power of the lifeline, and to my understanding, the Arenamaster was attempting to alter the lifeline so that whenever his body was resting, its power would pass through the lifeline into his soul to improve that, and when he was in combat, his soul would burn some of its excess essence to make his aura more powerful, as well as push some of that power through the lifeline and into the body to keep it alive.” 

“So he can shoot better because his soul and body are stronger?” Kelly asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically. He wasn’t a master of magical theory, but that seemed… weird.

“Oh, no. I suspect that’s demonic magic of some sort, paired with her other experiment. What do you know about rune bonds?” 

“They come from language, and define the type of magic you can have,” Kelly said. “Some things are easier to make into bonds than others. Physical things are the easiest. I’ve heard there have been some attempts to make a rune bond for words like ‘and’ or ‘the’, and it killed the person.” 

“Rudimentary, but fair for this conversation,” Rhys said, taking off his glasses and wiping them, then putting them back on. “The older and more firm the word is, the more collective will of the masses back it. Many things that can be made into rune bonds are also inefficient – for example, taking an ‘iron’ rune bond only presents a roughly ten percent increase in efficiency with using ferrous substances when compared against metal, and locks you out of all non ferrous metals.” 

“So then why isn’t there an ‘everything’ bond?” Kelly asked. “Also, what does this have to do with… What were we talking about?” 

Rhys thanked Elidoia that he’d managed to distract Kelly. 

“There have been,” Rhys said. “Your spells have to integrate the word. No mortal has the power to alter ‘everything’, and their attempts to use a spell that integrates everything usually either kills them, or does nothing at all. But given that it leans on languages, it can create certain nuances – in Tracktath, one of their ancient languages defines snakes as a type of fish, so their fish rune bond also has power over snakes, where a normal one might not.” 

Kelly blinked. 

“Huh,” he finally said. “Does that mean that Axel has a fish rune bond?” 

“No,” Rhys said with a faint smile. “Each of the Arenamaster’s adopted surviving children were made to undergo experimental magic. In the case of the sorcerers, it meant an experimental rune bond. What do you know about gravity bonds?” 

“They control gravity?” 

“And they were dangerously difficult to use until roughly a century ago, because gravity was poorly understood as a concept,” Rhys explained. He’d entered full lecture mode now, and was happy to teach. “Axel was given a mass rune bond, but they used a series of soul modifications to forcibly alter the bond, to prevent himself from being able to kill himself with it, at least they hoped.” 

Kelly knew that mass and weight were different, but he couldn’t remember exactly how they were. Still, he knew the general idea behind force, and he gasped. 

“So that’s how he shoots through force! He makes his bullet have no mass, so force can’t stop it?!” 

“It explains some things, though it doesn’t explain how he doesn’t trigger alarm wards. Those aren’t tuned to force. But we’re not certain there, the Arenamaster had already burned her papers, so what we found was only through rigorous reconstruction spells.” 

“So Axel’s using a bond that will be way stronger in the future?” 

“Possibly, as our education advances. That said, I don’t think she got what she was looking for. She wanted him to be able to pass through anything at all, but it seems limited to force effects.” 

“Mist… That’s why?” 

“Indeed.” 

“Then that’s even bigger of a reason for us to go get his gear!” Kelly said. 

Rhys’ mouth fell open. 

“How?!” he demanded, then realized he’d made a mistake by not immediately shutting Kelly down. 

“Think about it!” Kelly said. “He can make things heavier or lighter, right?”

“That’s not wha–” 

“And he can do that with bullets too! Imagine what he could do if he got his guns!” 

“He did ge–” 

“Think about it! He could shoot someone with a bullet that’s as heavy as a traincar.” 

“If he had the aura for such an incre–” 

“And his jacket! He said it had heavy metal plates, but he can make them light! There’s nothing like that here.” 

“That doesn–” 

“And also!” Kelly said, holding up a finger triumphantly. “He’s got an anti-airship canon.” 

“He what?! How did he ge–” 

“He told me so! With his magic, that’s got to be incredibly dangerous.” 

“Well yes but–” 

“So we should go!” 

“No!” Rhys said. “We don’t need him more heavily armed and armored. We need him to be exonerated, so we can use the case to reveal the tattoos to the public and get support, since our old plan wont work.” 

“Him being more dangerous would help!” 

“How?!” Rhys demanded. 

“He’ll die less when the other Mist tries to kill him again. And you heard what Axel said about what the Contractor said. The demon… Alphonzo… or whatever its name was and the Arenamaster are up to something.” 

Rhys pursed his lips. 

“That’s true, but we’ve even less idea what that is than we do who hired Horse.” 

“Probably the Arenamaster.” 

“I doubt it,” Rhys said. 

“Then we should be out there investigating. Nobody wants me dead, and probably not you either.” 

“Well, that’s true,” Rhys said warily. 

“Then let’s go!” Kelly said, grabbing the old man’s hand and yanking to try and pull him up. Rhys stood and sighed. 

“Fine, but we need some rules. We’re not going to Axel’s apartment.” 

A look entered Kelly’s eye, one that Rhys didn’t like. 

“What is it…?”

“We should check on Zone!” Kelly said. “I mean, those people came for her. You do ritual magic, maybe you can look into the past for clues.” 

“Psychometry is an incredibly difficult field of magic,” Rhys said, shifting. 

“So you can’t do it?” 

“Well… Maybe.” 

“Hah!” Kelly said. “Let’s go!” 

Rhys somehow found himself seated in the cabin of the automobile, firing up the engine and putting it into drive, with Kelly squirming on the seat next to him as they pulled out onto the street and slowly moved through the foot and bicycle traffic.

When they approached Zone's grocery store, Rhys felt beads of sweat break out on the back of his neck, and Kelly plastered his face to the window. 

“What happened?” 

A huge constable cordon had been set up around the entire block, and Rhys pulled the automobile to the side of the street, parking in the shadow of one of the eighty-some-odd story buildings that made up downtown. 

The moment the automobile stopped moving, Kelly bolted out, running to the store. One of the constables whipped around at the sound of running footsteps and held up a sleek paralysis wand.

“Hold on there boy,” she snapped, and Kelly skidded to a halt. 

“What happened?” he blurted. 

“Someone set fire to the store,” she said. “We don’t know who.” 

Kelly did, though. There was only two possible people: Firefright or whoever was framing Axel. 

He might blabber, but he wasn’t an idiot, so he responded the way a normal person would. 

“By the thrones,” he said. “Was anyone hurt?!” 

“What happened?” Rhys asked as he emerged from the automobile. 

They spoke for a bit about the police, confirming that most people had taken shelter in the cold storage rooms, where the proprietress’ wards had held against the fire, but nobody had seen her since, then they left. As Kelly picked up the leather straps that went across his waist and tied them into a knot, he looked over at Rhys. 

“Still think we shouldn’t get Axel’s armory.” 

Rhys’ jaw worked.