The crystal ball they presented was much larger than the Daemon’s Sight used in the previous inquisition, but luckily, it ended with the same result. The lump of reddish-brown blood in the crystal ball seemed to dislike being near me and went berserk.
“It is just as reported…”
“I’ve never seen such a response before.”
“Indeed… You are certainly not a leeched one, nor a daemonist.”
“You’ve seen it,” the mystic intoned, a touch dire. “Now hurry and apologize to the wizard.”
“Well, er, that’s not important,” I said. “I understood that this was necessary.”
I somehow managed to soothe the mystic, who sounded like a mother scolding her children for mischief. After that, we were finally able to get into real discussions.
“As the clan elders, we desire to ensure our oracle’s prophecies return to normal.”
“We need your knowledge for this, Lord Wizard.”
“Lord Wizard, if you don’t mind, we hoped you would take a look at the principal icon used to channel our prophecies—in other words, the daemon corpse that our ancestors secured five hundred years ago.”
“I see.”
They were still unaware of my magic’s principles, as well as the gate that made it possible. And they probably supposed that I had some sort of connection to an Epicenter (even if I wasn’t a daemon myself).
“In the end, we may ask you to participate in a ritual of prophecy directly.”
“As a matter of fact,” I said, “that is my strongest hope.” Researching the prophecy offered an important chance to learn about the King of Daemons. If they hadn’t brought up my being involved in the ritual themselves, I probably would have asked.
And beyond that, there remained the ultimate mystery about myself. What was a Watcher? Why was I transported to this world? I wondered if I could get a step closer to finding out.
✦ ✦ ✦
As his title suggested, Rimeydal the Creator had made this world from nothing.
According to myth, Rimeydal first created the heavens and the earth. He created humans, and let them live upon the earth. Then he created elves and dwarves to help the humans.
The people dwelled in prosperity, and for a time, things were good. But the people were fertile and multiplied. When their numbers grew too large, divisions took hold, and they fought with one another. The fighting continued without end.
Thus, Rimeydal created death…and the netherworld, where all the dead were sent to dwell. Rimeydal, satisfied with the world he had created, granted the authority to rule over all nations to one superior group, and disappeared on a journey to a place unknown.
The group to whom he’d granted his authority now reigned as the royal family of Shrendal.
This was the creation myth the way I’d heard it. Since it justified the rule of the Shrendal royal family, it was unclear how much of it was true.
In any case, we couldn’t afford to neglect this type of background information in our quest to sway the fate of the world. There had to be something hidden somewhere in the myths of Sedia about daemons and Watchers.
I decided to start by asking the warrior clan. “Do you have any information about creation myths? Knowing the truth behind them would be ideal.”
“Mmm. We do know about the Divine King,” answered Caraon, a white-haired elder with a bit of a belly. The other two nodded.
“The Divine King? You mean the one that became the first Epicenter?”
And if the legends were true, that king was also an ancestor of Diane and the Schultz clan. Information about the Divine King was connected to the Epicenter and therefore the mystery of all daemonic phenomena.
“It seems that some things have been left out of the creation myth as espoused by the royal family of Shrendal. Among the missing details is any mention of the Divine King that the warrior clan knows. They say the Divine King was an aristocrat with the blood of Rimeydal.”
“Well… The lineage of Rimeydal is a big deal.” Sedam slid up closer until he was sitting next to me. His eyes were sparkling.
“Well, how about the true elf, our mystic, created by the hand of Rimeydal himself?”
“Wait…are you saying we’re actually staring at the truth of the myth with our own eyes?”
Now that I thought about it, he was right. She’d said that when we first met her. If it was true, then we wouldn’t need to do any research or reasoning.
I sat up straight and asked the beautiful elf maiden point blank.
“I am very sorry,” she said. “Only the first generation knows a time when Rimeydal was really there. I am of the second generation. I am not even five hundred years old. The knowledge and magic I inherited from the first generation is incomplete.”
Sedam looked let down. “Hrmmm…”
I poked Sedam in the ribs for sighing. “Er, you really don’t need to apologize,” I assured the mystic, who was already bowing her head in apology. It figured things wouldn’t be that easy.
Sedam wasn’t discouraged in the slightest. “But the knowledge you do have must still be enormous! For example, perhaps you know the cause of why this Divine King, a descendant of Rimeydal no less, became an Epicenter.” He asked the mystic questions like he was a fish and she was a source of water.
“I heard about that in pieces from the first generation and the sage. The Divine King came into contact with Rimeydal’s knowledge.”
“Oh?”
Sedam leaned in more. He was eating this up. The elders didn’t look very happy, but I was curious, too. It was certainly an important point.
“I will tell you only what I know…”
She spoke in her melodious voice and told us the following alternative legend.
✦ ✦ ✦
After Rimeydal left…
The people founded Shrendal and expelled the Divine King to the east. The Divine King built his own kingdom there, but in his heart of hearts, he hoped someday to follow after Rimeydal. He searched for the secret that would fulfill his heart’s desire.
What he found was Qadr Brueys, the great library from the age of gods, built by Rimeydal and left in the care of the first true elf. There, he ready many things—and the things he read drove him mad. The library housed all of Rimeydal’s own knowledge, stored so that it might be given to humanity in some distant future, when they might need his wisdom.
The two most important books in the library were called The Opening of the Universe and The Meaning of Life. In these two books were written opposing truths: the truths outside this world, and the truths inside this world. After reading The Meaning of Life, the Divine King acquired the power to control the world. Once he knew the truths outside of this world written in The Opening of the Universe, he became drunk with despair and hatred.
The hatred of the Divine King, a being descended directly from Rimeydal, was terrifying. The hatred grew and grew. It took hold of him, and became him, and he became hatred. He became an Epicenter, and drew hatred from a different world into our own.