Mark of the Fool
Chapter 635: A Parent

Merzhin’s despair had quietened.

The choir was silent.

Stillness hung heavy in the dead god’s throne room as hardly a breath was heard.

“More secrets?” the Saint suddenly cried, shattering the silence. “More hidden truths! More lies! Were you ever planning to share this information with me?Were you?”

“Oi, bloody use your damned noggin, Merzhin.” Cedric shot him a fierce look. “What d’ya think we coulda done? Bloody walked up t’ya, an’ said, ‘Oi. Merzhin, we just talked t’Aenflynn an’ ‘e went on wid some weird shite about a chair an’ the end o’ the world or somethin’, so we guess Uldar’s dead? That don’t make no sense!”

“I…I suppose you’re right…but…” the Saint backed down, his shoulders sagging as he looked at Uldar’s corpse.

Silence.

And then…

“So…can I eat that?” Grimloch asked.

“Fine. No need to shout,” the sharkman growled, licking his lips while staring at the dead god.

Carey looked at him for a long moment, before her image flickered. “Ugh…the pull is getting stronger.”

“Then we’d better start looking around.” Thundar nodded toward the left of the throne room. “Look, there’s a doorway over there. We might wanna check this place out.”

“No, not yet.” Carey floated toward the doorway. “Listen, there’s a chance that—whatever…” She threw an uncomfortable look at the throne. “...killed Uldar is still in here. Let me have a look around. You all stay here until I tell you it’s safe. Understand?”

The look she gave them was that of a stern school teacher. “And no rushing in this time like all your good sense is gone, alright?”

Sheepish looks passed between everyone there.

“Alright,” Alex said. “Be safe.”

“I’m already dead, Alex,” she said, throwing another glance at Uldar’s corpse. A bitter look crossed her face. “I don’t have much more to worry about. Let me do this.”

“Be…be careful,” Merzhin said slowly.

“I will,” came her soft reply.

Then she was gone, floating across the throne room and through the doorway.

The light emanating from her spirit faded down the passage.

Silence returned to the chamber.

An uncomfortable silence.

Once again, all eyes fell on Uldar’s corpse.

“Should we…examine it?” Isolde asked. “I do not know what to do.”

“I say we wait for Baelin,” Watcher Hill said, her eyes darting around. “Miss London is right: if whatever killed a god is still around here, then we’d be better off having the chancellor here to help us.”

“We cannot leave this place unguarded,” Prince Khalik reminded her. “If this hidden church comes to reclaim it, then suppose they find something they shouldn’t?”

“Maybe finding this place and Uldar will break their backs,” Thundar suggested. “Take the fight out of ‘em: finding out your god’s dead is a hell of a thing. I didn’t even worship him and my knees get kinda shaky every time I look at that thing.” He nodded to Uldar’s body.

“Excuse me, but ‘that thing’,” Merzhin said, with heat. “Is my god. He is the god of Thameland!”

“He was the god of Thameland,” Drestra corrected him.

There was a surge of magic, and the dragon began to shrink. Scales faded, turning to flesh. Her snout contracted,and her horns vanished beneath a mop of dark hair.

Soon, she was back to her human form, draconic eyes still fixed on the throne. “He’s just a body now. Nothing more.”

“Do not say that,” Merzhin pleaded.

“She’s right,” Hart rumbled, his large eyes tracing the path of ichor. “Look, whether or not Uldar wanted to help or harm us…is kinda pointless now. He’s dead. Gone. He’s not going to attack us, but he’s not going to make our lives easier either. He was the god of Thameland, Merzhin. But now?”

The Champion grimaced. “We’re on our own—or maybe not. Maybe the Traveller’s going to help us.”

“You don’t need a god to help you,” Watcher Hill said. “Through magic, study and force of arms, Generasi has kept itself free and independent.”

“Aye, but this ain’t Generasi,” Cedric said. “We ain’t got no endless army o’ wizards an’ fancy magics t’fend off…” He looked at Uldar’s remains. “...any god killers. A bloody god would be nice. Right about now. An’ if the Traveller’s gettin’ t’be a goddess? Then we should give ‘er som’ help gettin’ there. We need somethin’. Anythin’.”

The Chosen eased his body onto the floor, groaning as though he was five times his age. “My heads spinnin’ wit’ so many bloody thoughts I can’t even hear m’self think right now.”

“Hear…that’s it, hear!” Merzhin suddenly cried, looking around excitedly. “In Uldar’s name: we heard his voice! We all heard it! Perhaps his spirit is still in these halls! Maybe we can reach him with enough faith or…or…some trick of wizardry! Perhaps he can still hear us! ”

As Alex watched Merzhin, pity stabbed at his core.

The young waiflikeman looked so lost. So confused. Like a child who’d lost his parents, his anchor. In some ways, he reminded Alex of that little boy whose parents had been guiding his life, then suddenly and tragically gone, leaving him without his anchor.

He swallowed, looking at Uldar’s throne.

In a way, all of Thameland was now like him and Selina; children who’d lost their anchor. Thankfully, for him, he and Selina had Mr. and Mrs. Lu to turn to, their kindness had meant they could thrive until Alex was old enough, and strong enough to face the world on his own.

It was just another way Thameland was like his little sister and himself; people of the realm also had a ‘Mr. and Mrs. Lu’ in the form of: Hannah Kim, the Traveller. If she was given enough power, then she could protect the land that she loved until the Thameish were strong enough to stand on their own.

And they would need her.

Alex remembered something he’d been worried about a while ago: back when he and his companions were first considering that Uldar could be behind the Ravener, he’d wondered if a truth with such great significance could ever be revealed to the citizens of Thameland. After all, the church was thebackbone of the realm.

It was herguardian.

Her teachers.

Scholars.

In many ways, her warriors.

People from the church tended to folk in times of sickness, they healed the injured and fed the hungry. Their monasteries and convents received the orphaned. Their preachers counselled the uncertain.

Alex couldn’t—in all honesty—say that the church hadn’t greatly benefited Thameland; if it weren’t for them, he and nearly everyone else would probably be illiterate, and have no knowledge of the world beyond a day’s ride from Alric.

Folk across the realm, from sea to sea, had been blessed by the church’s efforts. At the time, he’d thought long and hard about the fate of his people if the church was to fall. It looked bleak.

And that was when he was only thinking that Uldar’s biggest crime was acting like something of a bastard to everyone who worshipped him.

But now, he knew different.

Now he knew that things were far worse than his worst nightmare.

Now he knew that the god wasn’t just ignoring them, or just being evil, now he knew—he could see it with his own two eyes—that he was actually dead.

What was going to happen when the realm—and every priest within it—learned that they’d spent untold years praying to a dead god?

‘There’ll be chaos,’ Alex thought. ‘Despair. Infighting. Revolution. The royal family rules by divine right: a line of kings and queens empowered to rule by laws that Uldar dictated. With him dead, is there anything stopping a random duchess from claiming that she has more merit to rule? Hells, she could even be right…but the amount of blood that would be shed…’

The cold hand of fear gripped Alex’s spine as the full gravity of Uldar’s death hit him. Merzhin was just the beginning; how many more would become lost, just like him?

Would the land collapse as the church crumbled?

Those dire possibilities meant Alex and his companions had a major decision to make.

‘Do we tell anyone?’ he wondered. ‘Do we keep this information to ourselves? Allow things to continue as they are forever…we can’t, but…do we tell folk eventually? Give them time? Is this even our secret to keep? Maybe Thameland would be fine without the church…or with a new one.’

As indecision tore at him, Merzhin continued calling out for Uldar.

And—with a deep sigh—he knew he had to share what he was thinking. First, he opened his mana senses: whenever they’d heard Uldar’s voice, he’d felt a surge of mana.

He suspected that—

Ah.

Alex spotted a large glyph carved into the ceiling.

There it was; his confirmation.

“Uhm…Merzhin…” he said slowly. “I think when we heard Uldar’s voice, we were only hearing a recording. I think his voice was infused into a magical device.” He pointed to the ceiling. “See that? That’s a glyph for sound projection. Claygon’s voice box uses very similar magic.”

As the young Thameish wizard cast flight magic on himself, the Saint fell silent. A pleading look in his eyes.

“Sound projection?” he murmured, sounding as though he was partially dreaming.

“Yeah.” Alex floated to the glyph.

“Yes.” Claygon’s metal face turned to the ceiling. “It feels…familiar. It…feels like…me.”

“It does,” Alex said, pressing his hand to the ceiling.

“Careful!” Watcher Hill called out.

“I’ll be alright,” he assured her, passing his mana into the glyph. “Yeah, it’s what I thought, sound projection magi—”

His voice trailed off.

“Alex!” Theresa cried. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, it’s just…” he whistled. “If Uldar made this, he must have been one incredible alchemist. The inner workings in this thing…are so beautifully crafted, it’s actually like a work of art. It’s rare for an alchemist to see magical items as gracefully made as this, I think it’d even impress Professor Jules, or even Toraka Shale. This glyph’s quite the masterpiece! Anyway, sorry, I’m losing the point.”

He passed his mana into the wondrous inner workings of the glyph. As he felt through its magic, he found the section that would activate sound projection…but there was something else.

Something deeper.

Much deeper.

Sharpening his mana senses so thoroughly over time had helped him notice subtlety in the device. He could examine that in detail later.

For now…

He activated the glyph.

Mana surged again, and—

“Welcome, children,” a kindly voice called from the glyph. “You must have many things to ask of me. Your guidance awaits. Come, see me.”

It was the same voice that had beckoned them into the throne room.

Merzhin winced as though someone had physically struck him. “That…it can’t be…that’s it? All my life I have served Uldar dutifully. With everything I’ve ever had. All the lessons I’ve learned. Everything I’ve tried to embody…and it all leads to this?”

He pointed at the glyph and the corpse of Uldar. “A recorded voice in a magic trick and a dead body? That’s all?”

He whimpered, hugging himself, his fingers digging into his arms. “Everything for nothing. Everything for nothing. Everything for nothing.” The young man began to sob, shaking like a leaf. “Everything…for nothing…”

Cedric looked up at Alex, something passed between them.

The Fool nodded.

And the Chosen turned to the Saint.

“Look,” Cedric said gently, moving toward Merzhin. “I know this is hard fer ya—”

“You know?” the Saint looked at him in horror. “Holy Ch—Cedric. You do not understand. My whole life was a lie. All the times I’ve wondered why Uldar has not given me guidance…was because he was dead! What have I been doing?”

“S’alright,” Cedric sighed. “S’like y’had the rug pulled ou—”

“No. Cedric, it’s not alright. It is not. I followed Eldin into this valley because I thought it was Uldar’s will,” Merzhin’s voice wavered. “I followed him because I thought it was what Uldar wished! I let him take Carey because I thought it was in Uldar’s plan! And for what? Cedric, I let Carey die because I was following the whim of a corpse…or of nothing! I might as well have killed her myself!”

His sobs grew louder. “In one day…I lost my god and what might be my only friend. I—”

Suddenly, Cedric hugged him. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Let ‘er out.”

“What’re you doing?” Merzhin shook, heartbroken.

“Grandda used t’do this for me when I was a lad, an’ I was tearin’ up. Let it out. There’re days when you gots t’be hard. But right now? No.”

“Y-you’re treating me like a child,” the Saint whimpered.

“Aye,” Cedric said. “Today, we’re all wee. An’ we just lost our da. Don’t matter who ‘e was, it’s still gonna put us in our feelins’. Let the tears flow while y’can. We won’t have time fer ‘em later.”

And Merzhin—after a long moment—did let them flow. He hugged the Chosen back, continuing to cry like a heartsick child. “What do we do?” he whispered. “What do we do?”

“You need to explore this place,” Carey’s soul floated from the doorway.

Her image was fading, delicate like gossamer. Her voice, faint. Her form flickering.

“There’s no danger here, from what I could tell…but I can’t go with you any further,” she said. “As much as I would like to give more, and see what you see…for now, I have to go.”