Chapter 754: Sometimes, Violence is the Answer

Jason turned to look at Vesta Carmis Zell. She was extremely tall, even for a messenger, filling the doorway that had easily accommodated Jali. The astral king didn't look different from other messengers, height aside. She had the usual exquisite beauty, with olive skin and dark hair cascading over her shoulders. The wings spread out behind her were like that of a hawk with a gorgeous and complex brown and white pattern. Her physique was athletic rather than delicate, muscular but lean and powerful.

“How many of my messengers do you intend to steal away, Jason Asano?”

“I think we both know that the only one that was really yours was Tera Jun Casta. The others were wavering enough that you’d have killed them off sooner or later.”

“They are mine to kill. What is your plan? Undermine me by stealing away every messenger that wavers in their faith?”

“I don’t have close to enough time for that, and I already said that this isn’t about you. It makes sense that’s a concept you have trouble getting through your head, though. Maybe it’s an astral king failing? A friend recently had to remind me that everything isn’t about me, either.”

“Perhaps your plan is to goad me into me annihilating all of my forces with anything but the utmost zeal, thereby diminishing their numbers.”

“You’re not a great listener, aren’t you?”

“You are an arrogant fool.”

“Yep,” he agreed cheerfully.

“What are you even doing here, Asano? Playing around in the soul of some nothing woman that you or any of your friends could kill out of hand? You have a task before you.”

“It was your Voice of the Will that sent her my way, and I don’t think she was picked at random. She wanted to see what would happen when I got my hands on one of your straying sheep. If you have a problem with that, take it up with Jes Fin Kaal. As for the job I have to do, take that up with your Voice as well. She was meant to have that device to me weeks ago.”

“You have it now.”

“And I’ll get the job done. I’ll take your mysterious device into whatever is going on underground. There we’ll find whatever trap you’ve set to go off and dump us in the brown stuff while giving you exactly what you want.”

“Yet you will go anyway, confident that you can outmatch me and get what you want instead.”

“We did agree I’m an arrogant fool. I think that’s an astral king trait as well.”

“The mark of an astral king is pride. Dignity. Power. You are a silver-rank buffoon. To call you an astral king is technically correct, but you represent none of what makes us what we are.”

“Well, technically is the best kind of correct, so I’ll take it.”

Anger and disappointment crossed her face.

“I wanted to see what manner of man you are for myself, so I projected myself here to see this mortal who had reforged himself into an astral king. But you’re an idiot.”

Jason erupted into laughter.

“Yes,” he choked out, still laughing. “Yes, I am. And you're stuck dealing with me.”

They both looked up to see Jali descending through the air, the open panel in the glass dome closing behind her. She slowed as she recognised Vesta, landing behind Jason, her body language hesitant.

“Pathetic,” Vesta said. “Hiding behind a lesser being? You are—”

Vesta vanished at a casually dismissive wave from Jason.

“That lady sucks,” he said as he turned to look at Jali.

“That was Vesta Caris Zell,” a shell-shocked Jali told him.

“Yep. Have a nice flight?”

“She was here.”

“Yeah. Kind of, but not really. I mean, yeah, but nah. But yeah. But nah.”

“What?

“All she can send here is an echo, though the remnants of what influence we haven’t cleared out yet. That's how come I can give her projection the punt; she doesn't have the juice to do anything in here.”

“The brand is what’s left. It’s the crux of her power over me. It’s what she’s killing me with, so I would say she has considerable power here.”

“Yeah, she can’t do that while I’m in here. Didn’t I mention that?”

“No!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

“Oh. Uh, sorry?”

He absently scratched the back of his neck and then plucked a pair of fruit drinks in coconut shells out of thin air.

“Take one of these as an apology,” he told her.

“This is serious.”

“No,” Jason said, shaking his head. “This is over and Lady Macbeth in your chair up there can’t do a damn thing about it. You see, I have this ability to stabilise any physical reality I’m inside. The World Phoenix designed the power so I could repair holes in the universe, but it turns out that it works on messenger souls because they have a physical aspect. You have to take their souls and make a physical reality out of them…”

He waved his hands at the space around them, careful not to spill the drinks.

“..but then you’re good to go. So long as I’m inside your soul, Vesta Carmis Zell can’t make any inroads. It’s too stable for her to mess with. You’re safe.”

“The World Phoenix designed an ability for you?”

“Yeah. You know how great astral being blessings work, right? She knocked me up a custom job. You know how it goes. A few great astral beings want to manipulate you to serve their agendas while you need to come back from the dead occasionally and save the world a few times. It’s win-win. You’ve been out in the cosmos; I imagine this is all old hat to you. Anyway, let’s go finish the job we came in here for.”

Jason start meandered down the hall, sipping on one of the drinks. The other he left floating in the air in front of Jali. She watched him, wide-eyed, as he casually wandered off.

“Who are you?” she called after him incredulously.

His void cloak manifested and wrapped around him like a hole in the universe. Silver lights that seemed like distant stars emerged from it, shooting ahead to illuminate the dark hallway.

“I’m just like every other guy who periodically saves the world,” he called back. “I just look better doing it.”

She shook her head and followed after him, then stopped, turned around and grabbed the drink before continuing.

***

Motes of light floated up from Jason’s cloak to light up the throne room. The blurred figure was still sitting on the throne, aspects of Vesta Carmis Zell’s appearance flickering in place for the briefest moments.

“That’s it,” Jason said.

“That is the astral king’s brand?”

“It’s taken a different form in every messenger’s soul space that I’ve seen,” Jason told her. “Engraved plates, crude carvings on a wall, elaborate tapestries. The other messengers had pretty boring souls, with the brand being the only interesting thing in them. Almost a shame to get rid of them, really.”

Jali turned to glare at Jason.

“Yeah,” he acknowledged. “I knew that was too far as soon as I said it. I’m just saying that I appreciate your dramatic flair.”

“What do I do?

“You be thankful,” Vesta said, “that another astral king, even one unworthy of the name, has claimed you as a pet.”

Jason and Jali looked up at the throne where Vesta was now fully manifested. Jali shrank back before steeling herself, spreading her wings out wide and glaring back at the astral king. Fear marked her expression, but so did determination. Jason stepped back with a grin.

“Better a pet than food,” Jali said, spitting the words at Vesta.

Vesta stood up from the throne that was on a platform atop a short set of stairs. She floated down them slowly, coming to a stop in front of Vesta. Jali was tall, even by messenger standards but Vesta was an edifice. That she was floating while Jali stood only heightened the difference.

Both women had powerful, athletic physiques. Vesta was dark, with the wings of a hawk and the sharp beauty of a knife. Jali’s features were rounder, her skin fairer. Her hair and wings were the light brown of a fawn’s fur. She was soft to Vesta’s hardness, prey to her predator. Even so, she stood her ground, nervous but determined as Vesta looked down on her with superior disdain.

“You are no messenger,” Vesta told her. “No more than your new owner is a real astral king.”

“Astral kings are the ultimate power,” Jali said. “So, astral king, where is your power? Why am I alive if you want me dead?”

“You believe that you are safe from me?”

“Not at all. I know the power at your command. The forces you can send after me. I was the least of your might; an afterthought you could throw away. I know what you can do and it terrifies me. But now I’ve seen what you can’t do. I’ve seen your limits, and that is what scares you. That the illusion of the astral kings as limitless and inviolable will break and the messengers will realise what you are and what you’ve made us. You fear that we’ll fight to be free.”

“You will never be free.”

“I am free. Prove me wrong.”

“Replacing one master with another isn’t freedom, you foolish child.”

“You think—”

“That’s enough,” Jason said, cutting Jali off. “She's chucked the bucket of water on you, wicked witch. Time to pack up your flying monkeys and melt away.”

Vesta turned her glare on him.

“Do you think that building an army of my discards will allow you to challenge me? Do you honestly believe that will work?”

“I guess we’ll see,” he told her. “The day will come for you and I will have a reckoning, but for now, you need me, remember?”

“You will never come into power enough to pose even the meagrest threat to me.”

“You don’t need to worry then,” he told her with a grin, then sipped from his drink.

“I will leave this worthless messenger for you,” Vesta told him. “You can have her; use her however you like. An army of her kind is nothing to me.”

“You say that like you have a choice,” Jali said. “Get out of my soul.”

Jali marched through Vesta’s projection which flickered as she did, then floated up the stairs to the throne as Jason and Vesta watched.

“You won’t—”

Vesta was cut off when her projection blinked out of existence, the moment Jali took her seat. Jason rested his drink in the air as if putting it on an invisible shelf and clapped.

“Well done,” he told her.

“Please erase the brand now.”

“You just did.”

“That shouldn’t be possible.”

“Why not? It’s your soul. Admittedly, I helped. I stopped Vesta from interfering, but you are the one who placed yourself in the spot that she has occupied your entire life. None of the other messengers did that. I had to remove it for them.”

“Even Marek Nior Vargas?”

“Yes. I know you think you’re ordinary, Jali. You’re not.”

“Did Vesta show up when you were freeing the others?”

“No. I think she wanted to know why I was bothering with you when the device to be taken underground is finally at hand. I’m sorry for talking over you while you were speaking with her, by the way. You were about to tell her something I realised she didn’t know, and I don’t want her to.”

Jali’s brow crinkled in thought.

“I was about to tell her that you weren’t enslaving us but freeing us.”

“Yes,” Jason said. “I realised that it would never occur to her that I would release you instead of claiming you for myself. The idea of giving up power in the name of compassion is something she can’t conceive of.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Because you were right about what the astral kings fear. It isn't me, a rogue member of their club. Even if I reach transcendent-rank, I’ll just be another one of their number. Plus, we'd all be immortal, so it's not like we could kill each other. What they fear is losing their hold on the rest of the messengers. They built a control system on faith, and nothing is more poisonous to faith than knowledge. The Unorthodoxy is what threatens them, not me.”

“But if you’re setting messengers free,” Jali realised, “then you’re giving the Unorthodoxy the one thing it needs most: the ability to grow their numbers outside of astral king control. And suddenly you become much more important to eliminate.”

“Exactly. Right now, the only astral king that cares about me is Vesta Carmis Zell, and she has a vested interest in keeping me alive. At least for the moment. If the other astral kings become motivated to see me dead, my life will get very hard, very quickly.”

Jali stood up from the throne and descended the stairs, walking instead of floating. She kept her eyes on Jason the whole time as she walked up to him.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “All of it.”

He smiled, looking up at her.

“You keep asking that question,” he said. “The answer is still the same: because I want to be kind. I want to make things better. Sometimes, violence is the answer, but the best it can do is remove something that would otherwise make things worse. Violence can’t make things better. That takes kindness. Forgiveness. Redemption. Making the stupid choice and hoping that others will make it with you.”

He let out a self-deprecating laugh.

“At least, that’s how I hope it works or I’ve bet heavy on the wrong horse.”

“I think that I would like to bet on that horse as well.”

“Great,” Jason said and her drink floated over from where she had left it by the door on entering the throne room. “Now, finish your drink and let’s get out of here. I’ve got quite a lot going on today.”

Previous     Next