159 - Wrench

The ball seemed to sneak up on them, probably because everyone was fairly busy in the days prior. Vittoria and Elric were busy finalizing their investigation; Inara was busy soothing a fussy Sir Spendulon, whose first set of spikes were beginning to push through along his neck, making him excessively irritable. Inara could usually soothe him by brushing them with a hard bristle, but even that didn’t work sometimes. For example, today, it took hours of vigorous brushing and humming to get him to settle down, which Inara did without complaint.

“Now, now, little dragon,” she sang, petting him as he kicked out his leg. “Doesn’t that feel much better?”

His long tongue swiped at her knee, and she giggled.

“Won’t be long now till he breathes fire for the first time,” Vittoria said when she saw it. “Sentinel, help us with that.”

Arielle, in addition to working on her smile and her conversation skills for the ball, was also trying to figure out if the Drift truly had reality-altering powers and what sort of rules they abided by. Over the days, she organized all her findings in a lengthy document and discussed her theories with Vittoria, starting with what she had found for school research.

“First I made a list of the possible powers of the Unmaker and his disciples,” she said over a flickering night flame at Vittoria's desk. “For the Unmaker in particular, he has the undoing, so the power to remove things from existence at will. There doesn’t seem to be any limit to this, so I guess he could remove the entire world if he wanted to. But our being here means that something is stopping him, or he simply doesn’t want to.”

“Yeah,” Vittoria commented. “You know, I was never religious; however, I did have a lot of books when I was growing up, and at least one of them discussed the Unmaker as the one who rids evil from the world. He eats it, and he’s compared to the Elven god Panir in that sense.”

“I read something like that too,” Arielle said. “But I don't know how one eats evil. Evil isn’t tangible.”

Vittoria’s shoulders lifted, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve always believed it’s probably more of a metaphor than anything. For those who do want to believe strongly in a protective higher power.”

Arielle thought there were probably better metaphors that could have been used, but she didn’t let herself get too distracted, refocusing on the topic at hand. “Anyway, the first disciple, the Death God, is said to appear to great men to guide them to an honorable death. According to other lore, he handles the realm of the dead, and in a religious sense, he keeps the souls of the dead from coming back to life. Either that or he helps them reincarnate. I'm not sure how. But his most prominent power is that of the last breath. He can temporarily extend a lifespan to give someone time to put affairs in order, give a final harrowing speech, or land a blow to an enemy before one dies."

"Useful," Vittoria commented.

"Sounds so. Then there's the Hallowed Priest, who is one I found the least information about." People had claimed sightings of other disciples like the Death God and the Abyssal Drift. No one had ever claimed to meet the Hallowed Priest.

"Hmm," Vittoria said. "If you think about a church in the colloquial sense, the priest is the one who connects us to a higher power, the mouthpiece of the gods. He is typically the most visible representation of that divine power, so he should be the one that people have the most access to. Here, it seems the opposite."

Arielle nodded. She’d already considered this angle before, even arranged her presentation around assigning the roles according to a human church: the Death God at the apex of a divine hierarchy, the Priest as the harbinger, and the Drift in charge of the congregation, like a deacon or a helper.

However, this was only speculation, and she didn't have enough evidence to really solidify this church analogy. Plus, as Vittoria said, it didn't make sense that the priest was the least visible member of the divine.

“The Church of the Wayward,” Vittoria murmured. “That’s what it was called, right?”

“Yes.”

"Wayward from what?"

Arielle shrugged. "My guess is that it has something to do with Vacu-dominants. All the people who disappeared or fell victim to the Drift's machinations were Vacu-dominant except for one. Professor Woden once told me that Vacu-dominants have an ephemeral quality about them and they're constantly searching for something, which ends up leading them into trouble. So I thought maybe that's why they're called Waywards."

"Right," Vittoria drummed her fingers on her table, lines appearing in her forehead. “And you said you first heard it in a journal?”

“Yes, a journal of a student named Plutarch who disappeared three years ago in the Erynwall library. His journal, I believe, is stuck in the abyss, as is he.”

"And you accessed it through a spell?"

"Yes," Arielle said, although now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure the journal was in the abyss. After all, she'd been able to access it just using Orion without the blue orb. How was that possible?

"What else did this book say?" Vittoria asked, interrupting Arielle's thoughts.

Arielle closed her eyes to recall the first words she’d uncovered before she started chanting: “Symbol of the Lost.

Church of the Wayward.

Abandon hope to all who enter.

Your soul will be renewed.

He's following me.

He wants me to find him, or die trying.

I should have left it alone.”

She paused there and opened her eyes. Vittoria's frown had deepened.

“That sounds quite ominous,” Vittoria said.

“It does,” she said.

"It looks like the Drift was haunting the poor boy."

"Or he was hunting the Drift. According to what I read from Cornelius' journal, usually the congregation seeks him out first, and they are driven to find him."

"Driven by what?"

Arielle shrugged. "An inquisitive drive, perhaps." Although it felt like more than that. To Arielle, it had initially been curiosity, and then an entertaining game, and then a life-saving mission.

Even now, there was that eagerness and hunger to solve the mystery of the Drift that went beyond self-preservation, an urge that she didn't entirely understand.

Vittoria said nothing for the longest time, simply lounging back in her seat. The orange fire burning the tip of the candle carved a dancing image onto her face.

“It’s also extremely strange that we don't know how everyone on that list died,” Vittoria said. “Except for the fact that most of them became unlucky or went crazy, no one can truly tell me how they disappeared.”

“That seems to be a feature of it.”

“Abandon hope to all who enter,” Vittoria murmured. “Your soul will be renewed.” She rubbed her chin, then bit the tip of her finger. “Souls of the Dead, Anchors of the Living. What does it all mean, damn it?"

Arielle remained silent. She had already told Vittoria that she thought Yseult might be an anchor for a type of oath that Cornelius had made with the Drift, and that was why he'd had such good fortune for so long. She’d also told her that she believed the Drift was granting Cornelius' wishes but only to a certain extent.

The question remained, though: what did he want from them in return?

"The Primordials are supposed to be kept out of the second Earth by the Sentinel," Vittoria said. "They left Guardians behind, or, if you want the less charitable description of those creatures, their Watchers. But uninterrupted, those simply lie in wait."

This text was taken from the author's chapter on NovelPhoenix without consent; the published version there supports the writer.

"Waiting for what?"

"I think to destroy us, but then again I'm a pessimist," she remarked, casually. "However, this supposed deal with the Drift feels like a whole lot of interference for a being who isn't allowed to interfere with our world."

"Maybe that's why he needs an Anchor."

"Maybe. Maybe he used the Souls of the Dead to make Anchors out of the Living."

Arielle nodded slowly, wrapping her mind around that.

“What else did you find in your research?” Vittoria asked.

“Symbols from a temple,” she said. “We went to the temple of the disciples in Khor, and were able to see a lot of things there.”

“What things?”

Arielle took a second to go to her box and retrieve the notebook full of all the information that she and her teammates had found.

She opened it to the right page and turned it around to Vittoria.

“Where do things go when they're lost?” Vittoria recited. “After the afterlife, what's left?” She stopped there and looked up, frowning vaguely into the distance.

“That's also from Plutarch's journal."

"I see," Vittoria said.

"See what?” Arielle asked, because she got the sense that Vittoria was thinking about something regarding that.

“Well, the topic of an afterlife is a hotly contested one, and each major temple believes something different happens once we pass on. For example, the priests of the Calor temples believe our souls are an ever-burning flame that feeds life into the Universe. Most Luxa temples believe that the souls maintain consciousness and there’s an entire other inner world that we start living in when we die. Massa priests ascribe to the philosophy that our souls ascend to another waiting place, where we watch our loved ones live their lives and wait for them to join us. But the Priests of Arkwood, from one of the temples of the Unmaker, believe that there is nothing after we die." She spread her fingers. "They believe it’s just an end, and the afterlife is just an abyss.” She raised a finger. “What if it’s more than that? What if that nothingness is personified, in that there is a path through nothingness that one walks from the dead to the living, perhaps to reincarnation, and that is something after the afterlife?"

Arielle followed Vittoria’s thought pattern with ease. "So you think that's what happens when we die? We reincarnate?"

"I don't know," she said. “I’m not a theologian, and death isn’t something I enjoy ruminating on. But perhaps it might give us an alternate framework with which to consider the Unmaker and his disciples. If there is truly a reincarnation cycle, then it has to follow a pathway. What if the Death God is the beginning of the Pathway, the one that ushers you in? The Priest is the end of the Pathway, the one who receives you into the afterlife and directs the reincarnation. And the Drift is the one in the abyss who leads you along the path from one end to the other."

It then occurred to Arielle, something crucial that she had forgotten to mention.

"I almost died," she blurted out. "When I was a child."

Vittoria’s eyebrow lifted a smidge. "You did?"

"Yes. And I think that's when I might have met the Drift for the first time.” She thought back to the vision she'd had when she had searched for her inner abyss. There was a reason she had met him there once again, through meditation, a reason the abyss was within her.

"How did you nearly die?" Vittoria asked.

"I fell in a bog while chasing a rabbit and nearly drowned. It was terrifying at first. And then I just wasn’t. The fear was gone, and I entered a space within me and spoke to who I believe is the Drift. He wondered what I was doing there. He said it had been a long time since he had met someone like that, embracing death with arms wide open. He asked me if I wanted to see more. I don’t know what my answer was.”

Vittoria blinked silently for a few seconds when she was done.

"That is... different."

"Yeah. Eventually my brother saved me, but after it happened, I don't fear death anymore. I don't know why, but when I feel like I'm close, there is a curious acceptance rather than fear."

“Maybe because you’ve seen what lies beyond that. What comes after the afterlife." Vittoria grinned. "Of course. Church of the Wayward. It makes sense now."

"What?"

"The congregation could be those who wander off the path to the afterlife. If the Drift is the one to guide them, then he's the one who knows those who do not follow the straightforward path. Those who either have an awareness of the abyss or the ability to maintain consciousness within it."

She took Arielle's book, drew a line, and marked different points as she continued talking. "Human souls don’t last very long after one is dead. There are only a few with magic within them or a strong emotional core that tend to stick around, but for most average humans, even mages, the souls do not maintain consciousness or presence for long enough to do anything useful with them, at least not something that requires any sort of awareness. I assume it’s the same even if they end up in the abyss. For a human soul to remain acting on its own after death, using magic and having conversations, it has to be altered in some way. Renewed. And maybe the emotional anchor of the living person helps with that. Maybe that's part of the sacrifice."

Ari thought back to Cornelius muttering to himself, clearly going mad in his captivity. Of him telling her that she should not come back there and should never sign her soul to the Drift.

That made sense with Vittoria's theory.

"However, there's one more thing," Vittoria said. "How does the Drift seemingly select people before they die? How does he know who to approach and ensnare?"

"I don't know, but there's someone else I forgot to mention," Arielle said. "Payn. He's the overseer of the congregation, and I think he's the one I'm supposed to have met when I was dying, not the Drift." Cornelius had mentioned that Payn was the one who typically presented the offer to join the Church, and had seen it as fairly unusual that she had accessed the abyss without him. “I believe that he targets Vacu dominants because of the abyssal property of Vacu. It might give him easier access to their souls.”

"Yes. Maybe something about a developed Vacu core enables their souls to last longer in the abyss and withstand a natural decay."

“So you believe all the Church are dead?” Arielle asked tentatively.

“What do you think?’

She thought it could be the case, but then that meant that she couldn't save them, which was profoundly disappointing. “What if they’re semi-dead?”

“Meaning?”

"Well, if they're still on the path to the afterlife, they didn't make it all the way, right?" she said. "So maybe they can come back? Also, they never found their bodies. So they could be alive."

"Not having proof of death and being alive are two different things," Vittoria said. "Regardless, all of that is beside the point. We still don't know what the Drift wants or why he's doing this or what it all means."

"Do you think we might need help?"

"Definitely, but I don't want to risk exposing your secret," she said.

"Okay," Arielle nodded. They were quiet for a few more moments, and Arielle felt vaguely unsettled. Vittoria ran her hand through her hair.

"So that's where your curious lack of mortal fear comes from," she murmured.

"Yes," Arielle responded.

“Interesting. You seem to have a soul blockage where you should feel the fear of death. Might also explain why soul magic is harder for you too.”

Ari blinked at her. “You said I was average.”

Vittoria smirked. “I didn’t want you to get discouraged. But don’t worry. Being below average isn’t the worst thing.”

Even just hearing the words ‘below average’ made her slightly ill and wounded her pride, but she refused to be distracted by that either.

“Do you think the Unmaker 'undid' my fear of death?”

“Maybe, but I don’t know why he would do that. It also means that he had an interest in you from way before you developed magical cores,” Vittoria said. "You shouldn't have even had a Vacu core, at least not a significant one."

“Vacu is defined by what’s not there,” Arielle said. “Not what is there. I discovered that in abyssal research.”

Vittoria blinked and then said, "Okay then. There’s that too. You said you visited a temple in Khor?"

"Yes. And saw these symbols." Arielle flipped to the page. It had lots of sketches, including the eye drawing next to the words:

A secret passage where the truth lies.

The more we look, the less we see.

The stories we tell are the ones that destroy us.

The clues he leaves are to his own detriment.

If I find him, do I live or die?

The last two lines spoke towards the Drift’s intentions, but not in the way Arielle expected. The clues he leaves are to his own detriment. Did that mean that he didn’t have a choice? Was someone else controlling him? It didn’t seem like it.

"I'll go back to the temple and see if I can find this secret passage," Vittoria said. “And then I’m going to visit an old religious friend of mine, and subtly poke her brain a bit to see if we can make sense of all this gibberish.”

"What about Yseult?" Arielle asked.

"He still hasn't regained his memories. I'm not sure how useful he'll be."

“Can I meet him again?” she asked, but Vittoria was already shaking her head.

“One was risky. Two is pushing it, especially now that Gio is around.” She gave Ari a comforting look. "It's okay. We'll figure it out."

“Okay,” Arielle responded.

But though they might have had a tiny breakthrough in understanding, it was hard to make sense of the rest of the information they had collected. They still didn’t know what the Drift wanted and how his power worked. There were too many varied examples of his power, and not all of them could be accurate, but she also didn’t have a counter for most of them.

It made Arielle anxious even as the day of the ball drew closer. Vittoria made the preparations, announcing that Inara would be staying at home, reinforced with additional protections that were fed by her life force, until Arielle and Vittoria were back.

Vittoria also said her religious friend might be coming to stay with her, depending on how their meeting went.

She taught Arielle some common combat combinations and identification spells to use at the ball. She also told Ari to avoid abyssal spells entirely until they got rid of the demon and to stay with Elric as much as possible. They ran through several worst-case scenarios and what Arielle would do in the process.

Despite all the preparations they had made, the issue with the Drift continued to bother her, because it was an angle they couldn't account for. Something that could potentially be a wrench in their plans.

Regardless, the days passed in a whirl.

And then it was the morning of the ball.