***
It felt somewhat poetic that almost exactly five years since he had last stood in the Inkwell Sigil’s observation deck, Ceril held the glowing green-purple Flameblade and stared off the highest tier.
Only now, he was a little wiser, a lot taller, and he would never be finished atoning for the death of Ethan Triggs. At least he had finished with Roman’s penance—training as both a scholar and a soldier. Even still, he would never stop paying the price he inflicted upon himself.
He had matured a great deal in his six years of training. Killing a person tended to have that effect on a kid. He had once been full of life and jokes; now, he rarely said a word to another student aboard the Sigil. He wanted to, sure, but his soldier training been so time-consuming that he had even less time for socialization than he had before Ethan's death.
Now, though, all that was behind him. He had come to the observation deck, this specific tier, to finish the last few revisions on his thesis and send it to Roman. Then he would just have his Rites, whenever the higher-ups felt he was ready.
As a scholar, his preparation for the Rites was straightforward: a research project on a topic that had never been researched before and could be archived for future use by the Charons. Ceril had found early on in his training that his interests were mythology and religion. If he couldn’t be a farmer and help Gramps out, then he would at least honor the impact his grandfather’s stories had on his life.
Years of work and research, all finished. Ceril touched the CONFIRM SEND? button on the tablet’s screen. He looked up at the swirling colors of the hyperspace envelope that surrounded the ship. Absentmindedly, Ceril held his hands out as he leaned over and rested his arms on his knees. The Flameblade teleported from palm to palm.
“Careful with that thing,” came a voice from behind him.
Ceril sat straight up and the sword disappeared. “I always am. How are you tonight, Roman?”
“Just dandy,” the older man said. “May I sit?”
“Of course.”
“I got your thesis a moment ago,” Roman said.
“Good,” Ceril said. “I think it’s finished.”
“I’m sure it is, son. It was finished by my count over a month ago.”
Ceril shook his head. “It wasn’t. It had a lot of stuff wrong with it that I think I’ve fixed. I’m not sure, though. I may give it one more pass later and resend it, if that’s okay.”
“It’s not,” Roman said. “It’s fine the way it is. You have to let go at some point, Ceril.”
Ceril just sat there.
“What’s on your mind, Ceril? I can’t remember the last time you were in here, especially on this tier. What’s changed?”
“Nothing’s changed,” Ceril said. “I just thought it was appropriate for me to finish my work up here, that’s all.”
“Mmm hmmm.” Roman nodded. “It’s good work, Ceril.”
It was Ceril’s turn to be noncommittal. “Mmm hmmm,” he replied.
“I mean it. You’ve done something in these past five years that no one else was able to do for three hundred, maybe more.”
“It’s not that big a deal,” Ceril said. And to him, it wasn’t. His whole research project had been something he loved to do and would have been doing anyway: reading and listening to stories.
“It is. Ceril, you’ve parsed every legend and every myth—that we know of—that deals with the Charons and cross-referenced them, indexed them, with every major religious text on Erlon.”
Ceril nodded. “I know.”
“My point is, Ceril, that you—and you alone—have brought more to light about how the Charons are understood than anyone in recent history. And given the current state of affairs with the Untouchable and that group of pretenders he’s started, that’s more valuable than you know.”
“I like stories,” Ceril said and shrugged. “I wish I had been able to get some more in there about religions in Instances. I think if I dug a little further, I would be able to make some connection between the original Charons and some of the societies who claim to have met their deities. I just didn’t have enough time, not with Bryt’s regimen, too.”
“You’ll get no sympathy from me regarding Bryt,” Roman said. “You know as well as I do that you wouldn’t have had to work double-time as a soldier if you hadn’t killed Ethan Triggs.”
“I know that very well, Roman. Thank you. It’s just, with this Untouchable going around claiming to be a Charon and killing and attacking like he’s doing, I can’t help but think I should have been in an Instance somewhere tracing that particular connection. Figuring out something that would make him tick, you know? See if there’s something from years ago that might get us close to him. Right now, all we’ve got are stories that prove what Saryn said the very first day: some people worshipped—worship—us as gods. So what?”
“You’re smarter than that, Ceril.”
“What?” Ceril asked defensively. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, think about what you just said.”
“That some people worship us as gods? What about it?”
“Ceril, come on. You’re killing me here.”
“No, that was Ethan Triggs.” Ceril stood up. “I killed him here. Right here. Where I’m standing. I’m frustrating you, maybe, but I’m not killing you.”
Roman sighed. “Poor choice of words. I’m sorry.”
“S’okay.”
“But really, Ceril, are you really unable to see the connection here?”
“I think so, Roman. I just don’t get it. Maybe I’m too close to it all. If it didn’t tie directly into one of my chapters, I haven’t been able to think about it.”
“Maybe you’re right. I get that.” Roman stood up and went over to the railing. He leaned over it and said, “Don’t you think, Ceril, that a man who’s claiming to be the Untouchable, who seems to be trying to build an army of impostor Charons, would try to recruit from sympathetic groups to build his ranks, to find people?”
“So?”
“You can’t be this dense,” Roman said. His voice became harder. “Think about it, Ceril, and stop being so obtuse.”
Ceril sighed and began pacing across the terrace. As he did, the Flameblade appeared in one hand and then the other, as though he were juggling the flaming sword without it throwing it into the air.
“Can you stop that?” Roman asked. “With the sword?”
“Oh, sorry,” Ceril said and the sword disappeared but never reappeared. “Just a habit. I don’t even think about it anymore.”
Roman nodded and let the young man think. Ceril stopped pacing after just a few steps and looked at his mentor. “You’re not seriously implying that my research is going to let us find the Untouchable when the best soldiers we’ve got haven’t been able to ferret him out, are you?”
“No, I’m not,” Roman said. “But I’m saying now that you’re finished with your thesis and have everything tied up, we can really look at it and see if your connections lead us any closer to finding him and maybe saving a few lives. I also think that there’s some validity to one of your theories about Instancing and archetypal influence that may be of use in this.”
“What do you mean?” Ceril asked. He thought about that part of his thesis. It was a good idea, but he had no direct proof for it. He thought that adjacent Instances within the same geographic region might develop similar myths and legends. Worlds that existed within the same general area as, say, Ennd's Academy might be more likely to evolve societies that revered technology. There was hard evidence that adjacent Instances were often physically alike. So why could Instances not share some defining characteristic to their legends? It was all just ideas, though—theory.
“I’m saying that I want you to do the research you haven’t had time to do,” Roman said. “That’s all.”
“You want me to Instance hop and see if I can find any connection to the Untouchable, you mean? Something you can use to figure out
where he’s hiding, recruiting, something like that?”
“Something like that.”
“Is this when my Rites start?”
Roman nodded. “Oh-six tomorrow morning. Like I told you this morning. If you had been paying attention.” He stood up. “Welcome to the big leagues, Ceril.”
Chapter Nine