Chapter Text
He found himself surrounded by a soft, dim, greyish light. The light pulled him along through a field of stars that twinkled around him, above, below, in every direction, as far as the eye could see. The stars flowed past him as he was brought towards a dark sphere. There was a sudden flash of light, and he was holding an object in his hands, alien and yet familiar at the same time. It was a geometric shape, twelve flat, smooth surfaces, set within a metal frame with two handles. He looked into it and then up again, and he saw himself.
It was himself, but not himself. His jaw was broader and covered with a stubble that he would never be able to grow, and his nose was aquiline rather than straight. His hair was darker, a little more brown, a little less red. And he was, very obviously, human rather than an elf. Beyond him was another copy of himself, and another, and another, stretching on into infinity. Each one a little different from the last. Different features, different races, different genders. As he looked at them, they all began walking in different directions at once.
He glanced down at the object in his hands again and when he looked up the other selves were gone. In the distance, a flame started to flicker, mesmerizing in its movements. He looked down at the object again, and he could sense something ancient about it, so old as to be almost beyond comprehension. As he stood there among the now still field of stars, his mind being drawn in as many directions as the copies he saw earlier, a single word echoed clearly amidst the chaos of his thoughts, spoken by a voice he knew he should recognize but had never heard before.
“Luxon.”
Caelnarin Atrith emerged from his trance, blinking his eyes at the unfamiliar walls surrounding him. He was not in his room at his parents’ manor in Gwardan, nor was he in the Clovis Concord embassy in Rexxentrum, his mother’s home city and where he had been born. After a moment, he remembered. He was in an inn in Nicodranas, ostensibly there to seek an apprenticeship with the famed mage Yussa Errenis. Sorvan and Yulani Atrith had let him go, believing they were indulging youthful whim and pride. Erranis was well known to be disdainful of the nobles and politicians of the Concord, and they fully expected their son to soon return and take up studies at the House of Enchantment, wiser for his experience.
They didn’t know that Caelnarin had ulterior motives for seeking Yussa out.
As the sun rose above the horizon, he dressed and headed out. The two Zhelezo accompanying him rose to attention as he passed through the outer room of his suite and fell in step behind him. After a quick breakfast downstairs which he ate mechanically and barely tasted, Caelnarin made his way through the Opal Archways, heading to the Open Quay. At one point, he paused as he caught sight of another inn, a wave of unexplained nostalgia hitting him as the sign bearing the name The Lavish Chateau swung lightly from its post in the morning breeze. He shook his head and continued on his journey.
His feet seemed to know the way, threading through the city as if he was tracing a path he’d walked a thousand times, as familiar to him as the Korrwa Ring in Gwardan. Before he knew it, he was standing in front of Tidepeak tower, the emerald flecked stone glinting in the sun. There were no visible doors or windows, but he had been expecting that somehow. He banged his fist against the wall, wincing as he barked a knuckle against the stone.
He called out, “Yussa! I know you’re in there! My name is Caelnarin Atrith! I need to talk to you! It’s important!” A few minutes passed with no response. “I’m not leaving until you agree to see me!”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his two guards exchange a wordless glance before taking position flanking him and looking out over the Quay.
Caelnarin stubbornly stayed at the spot where he knew the door to be for the rest of the day. The Zhelezo remained at their posts, guarding him, occasionally taking turns to leave on short breaks to eat and take care of other matters.
As the sun began to set, he called up one last time, “I’m not giving up! I’ll be back tomorrow!” A moment passed with no changes to the impassive stone, and he turned and left. The tower quickly receded as he walked away, soon blending into the rest of the skyline.
When he returned, he went straight to his rooms after claiming fatigue and asking for supper to be sent up. After another meal he barely took note of as his thoughts chased each other around in circles in his head, he passed the rest of the night fitfully, plagued once again by disjointed memories as he tranced. These were of a vast snowfield, so bitterly cold that it seeped into his very bones, and strange subterranean ruins where traps and danger lurked around every corner.
The next day and night passed much like the first with no response or change to Tidepeak Tower. The third day, however, Caelnarin noticed a balcony that hadn’t been there before, about fifty or sixty feet up. As he brought his fist down, the wall before him shimmered, and he struck a wooden door instead of the stone wall he’d been expecting. He quickly took a step back as the door began to swing open.
Standing in the doorway was a young halfling woman, clad in a yellow dress with her brown hair tied up in braided pigtails. Almost without conscious thought, Caelnarin blurted out, “Veth?”
The halfling paused, her mouth still open on whatever she had been about to say, and she looked up at him, “That’s my grandmother’s name. Do you know her?”
He shook his head, “No. Uh...maybe? A long time ago.”
She squinted at him as the silence grew awkward, and then she cleared her throat. “Right. Well, Master Errenis will deign to see you now. Just you,” she added, with a look to the Zhelezo accompanying him. “Follow me. And don’t touch anything.”
He followed her into the tower. The door led to a familiar unfamiliar sitting room, a staircase curving along the wall leading to the floor above. Two couches upholstered in a deep reddish-brown leather faced each other at an angle, a small table between them. The halfling gestured to the room.
“Wait here,” she said before scurrying up the stairs.
Mindful of her admonishment not to touch anything, Caelnarin stood in the center of the room, arms tucked in close to his body. A few moments passed, and then a figure descended the stairs, white hair swept to one side, dark skin clad in robes that resembled shimmering cloth of gold.
“So now Vasan has children doing her dirty work.” Yussa stopped still on the stairs, looking down on him with a faint expression of disdain. “Tell the Marquis that no matter how many of her kin she sends here to bother me, I will not be returning to Gwardan. You may leave. Now.” Yussa turned and began to head back upstairs.
“Wait!” Caelnarin took half a step forward, reaching out his hand. “Vasan didn’t send me; she doesn’t even know I’m here! I came because I need your help!”
Yussa paused, looking over his shoulder at him. “Ah, but I have neither the inclination nor the motivation to help you. Good day.” Yussa started to raise his hand, arcane energy arcing across his fingertips.
“What does the name Halas mean to you?”
Yussa’s eyes widened, and in an instant he was next to Caelnarin, his fingers digging painfully into his arm as he steered him toward one of the couches. He thrust the young elf down into it before taking a seat opposite, gaze boring intently into his. “And where, exactly, did you hear that name?”
“I don’t know. A vision. A memory?” He sighed, fingers twisting the silken hem of his shirt. “I saw myself, but it wasn’t myself, and I - we - brought a red gem out of a dark place and gave it to you to keep safe. A gem with the soul of an ancient, dangerous mage trapped inside. I’ve seen you in other visions, too. You were in a jail cell, and I know it was the same place where we found the gem, but a different part. I don’t know how I know that, but I do. And a different time, you were trapped again, in a city made of flesh. Cognouza…” Caelnarin trailed off. He hated remembering even the disjointed fragments of memories of that place.
Yussa was openly staring at him now, mouth hanging open. “You...you should not know that. There are only a handful of people who should know that.”
“Then why do I? Why do I keep seeing the memories of this human?”
“Well, that narrows it down,” Yussa said softly, as if to himself. His eyes glittered, looking at Caelnarin like he was a puzzle to be solved. “When did this start?”
“About a year ago, I think. As a child, I never saw anything when I tranced. I assumed everyone else was like that, too. That they were just making up the memories of Arvandor, that it was a fairy tale the priests told us and they just pretended because they were afraid they were the one person that was strange, different from everyone else. Then, when I was old enough to have my First Reflection, I saw memories of someone else’s life instead of my own. I see places I’ve never been, people I’ve never seen. I know things I shouldn’t know. My family spends nearly half the year in Rexxentrum, and the last time I was there, I heard two people talking in Zemnian, and I understood them as clearly as if they’d been speaking Common or Elven. I’ve never learned Zemnian.” He ran his hands across his face and up into his hair. “My parents talk to me, and I don’t register that they’re saying my name. Some days I don’t know if I’m Caelnarin, or Caleb, or Bren. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“No, I don’t think you are.” Yussa steepled his fingers together. “Are your parents here in town?”
Caelnarin barked a laugh before shaking his head. “I told them I wanted to seek an apprenticeship from you. They didn’t think it would work out, but they let me come alone. Well, with an escort, of course.”
“Right. Well, I am no expert in what is happening to you, but I do have a colleague or two that I trust who is, or as near as anyone this side of the Ashkeeper Peaks can be.” He raised a finger, and a bell tinkled somewhere above them. Soon, the halfling woman appeared, and Yussa stood up. “Evie, go back with the two Zhelezo outside to...in which inn were you staying?”
“Ah, the Gilded Pearl.”
Yussa snorted “Over-priced and ostentatious tourist trap. Go to the Pearl with his guard to collect his things and then dismiss them. Tell them I’ve accepted him as an apprentice.” Yussa sighed as she left. “There. That should keep your parents from asking too many questions for now. It will take me a day or two to make arrangements; you can stay here until then. When Evie gets back she’ll show you to the guest quarters.” Yussa glided past Caelnarin and began to ascend the stairs.
“Master Errenis, wait.” Caelnarin stood up and bowed his head. “Thank you. For helping me.”
A graceful eyebrow arched over a cool gaze. “I’m not doing this for you , Atrith. I’m doing this for who you were and who you might be again.” With that, the archmage disappeared into the higher reaches of his tower, leaving Caelnarin alone with his thoughts for the moment.
He sat back down heavily, his breath leaving him in a sharp exhale and a single word that best expressed his current mood.
“Scheisse.”