“There,” he called out. The couple then touched down and dismounted, following the unremarkable coastline for a ways.
“Lord Sidis, are you not searching for Donan stone deposits?” Lyse couldn’t help asking.
“I am... Did Alcede infer that?”
“Actually, Seren indirectly clued me in and I pieced it together myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wouldn’t tell me outright, claiming he had to keep his word as a man on pain of death.”
“Seren...” Sidis stared bleary-eyed up into the sky. “Well, I suppose I did tell him to refrain from revealing everything.”
“I believe it was Alcede who filled his head about ‘a man’s word’ and all that.”
“Seren...” Sidis muttered to himself again, but a sage expression overtook his face when he looked back at Lyse. “It’s true that I’m searching for deposits, but not because I’m after the stones themselves.” He pointed to the bottom of the cliff. “Look over there. It’s about to begin.”
Sidis indicated a cove, the curvature of which made it unnecessary to stare straight down for a full vista of the reefs bathed by the tide. And then...the shrieking began.
“Ah, right on time,” Lyse noted.
Though they were a great distance from the Light of Origin, its cry was unsettlingly unpleasant all the same. Lyse worried that it might be taxing for even Egbert and his army of clones to annihilate the horde of monsters that would soon descend upon the capital. She didn’t have time to give it much more thought than that, however, for her attention was quickly captured elsewhere. The waters below began to churn rough and foamy before spitting masses of black stones upon the shore as if to overtake the cliffs.
What?! There’s a deposit underwater and it’s reacting to the aberration?!
She watched as the stones cracked and shattered before her very eyes, producing black beasts that flew up into the sky. “Monsters...” she muttered.
“Spawned by the black stones,” Sidis replied matter-of-factly.
The couple began their descent down to the water—Sidis chanting a spell while Lyse summoned her trusty wolf and readied her sword. Arachnid monsters crawled up toward them. They were headed for the Light, but as soon as they laid eyes on Lyse and Sidis, they changed course to attack. Sidis handled most of them, leaving the stragglers for Lyse.
The monsters kept coming, and each and every one of them met their doom. The couple fought off ten waves before finally reaching the shore, which was now covered in black stones. Lyse sighed, relieved, as Sidis picked up his explanation once more.
“We know that the monsters come from the seas,” he said. “And as you are familiar, we’ve always assumed that they live underwater and crawl onto land.”
“Yes, that’s what I’ve heard. If it weren’t for how quickly the stones multiplied just now, I never would have expected that there were deposits below capable of spawning them,” Lyse said with a nod. No one in the empire had ever witnessed such a thing.
The dark seabed, untouched by the sun’s rays, was precisely the ideal location for the black stones. Though people fished along the coast, no one had ever surveyed its depths. It would have been a dangerous proposition. Furthermore, there weren’t any spells to facilitate such diving.
“But the aberrations have made the truth apparent,” Sidis declared as he gazed upon the bulwark of black stone, which now shielded the cliffs from the crashing waves.
“Hasn’t it shrunken a bit compared to before?” Lyse asked. At its peak, the stone had nearly reached the top of the cliff before.
“I’m not certain of the conditions that trigger it, but some of it did turn into the monsters we fought.”
“Wait... The black stones...turning into monsters...”
It suddenly dawned on Lyse that the black stones augmented magic, and monsters were magical manifestations. The stones actually contained trace amounts of mana, which was what allowed even mana-weak Donan cultists to control the minds of others. That same power also enabled people to get close to the Light without suffering any ill effects. Essentially, the stone’s mana counteracted the Light. So what power, then, did the white crystals generated by the Light possess? Lyse was curious, and it seemed like Sidis already had an idea.
“Seren and I hypothesize that within the vicinity of the Light, its mana is too condensed to do anything.”
“Too condensed? You’re saying it’s too powerful?”
“Correct. The white crystal is merely a surplus byproduct of the magic that makes the land fertile. We think the mana condenses and crystallizes, hence why it appears nowhere else. And because it’s tuned to the Light, it’s stable and doesn’t deteriorate.”
That much made sense to Lyse. It would explain why the white stone didn’t spawn monsters. “But what brought you all the way out here, Sidis?”
“I wanted to see how the black stones spread and how they correlate with the Light, hoping that it’d give me some clues as to how to deter the aberration. But, well...”
Destroying the black stones had had no discernible effect. And even after feeding large amounts of it into the Light, it simply grew back with the next anomaly.
“I’m at a complete loss now,” he said, sounding defeated. His leads had run dry.
Lyse snuggled up to him. “It’s okay. I’m sure you’ll find something soon. We have Lord Karl’s help as well. He’s putting his all into researching the matter as we speak.”
“But we don’t have time,” Sidis replied, shaking his head. “If this drags on for another month or two, His Majesty will face the brunt of the fallout. He might even be forced to abdicate.”
Lyse recalled her conversation with Egbert. She understood that giving up the crown was one way to handle the situation, but she believed it unfair to place the burden entirely on his shoulders. Moreover...
“Even if he were to abdicate, I can only imagine how ridden with guilt he’d be after the fact.”
The matter wouldn’t be taken lightly. Harming the Light of Origin would brand Egbert a malefactor. Lesser nobles who didn’t know the details of the situation would vilify him, and the knights would feel betrayed by their brother-in-arms. And with how recognizable he was, Egbert wouldn’t even be able to show his face in the capital for fear of being stoned on sight. He would have to live the rest of his long life as a man who betrayed his empire. Lyse couldn’t stand the thought.
I hope we can figure out the Light somehow.
She hoped that something in the ancient texts might be of use, but Sidis and Egbert had already pored over them. It was because the texts had yielded nothing that they’d been forced to turn to Karl for help.
If only the creator of the Light had left some kind of notes or log...
If they had, His Majesty wouldn’t be in the predicament he was in now.
Wait a minute!
If it was information about the Light they needed, Lyse knew exactly where to get it. After all, she knew someone who’d had a very close encounter with it.
The instant that thought occurred to her, she asked, “Lord Sidis, can you search through my memories?” She was thinking of his confession magic—a special Light-based spell only Sidis could cast that forced the target to reveal the contents of their memory. It was just what they needed now. Qatora had caught glimpses of the Light’s provenance when falling into it, and Lyse could still faintly recall them even now. “There’s nothing clear in my mind, but maybe I’ve seen the formulae we’re missing. Maybe your confession magic will unearth something.”
Though Lyse couldn’t precisely recall what she was hoping for, that didn’t mean it wasn’t buried in the depths of her mind somewhere. She thought trying to excavate the memory was as good a plan as any, but Sidis didn’t seem so confident.
“Hmm. I’m not sure if I can get you to share anything you can’t actually remember.”
“I’ve heard rumors that hypnosis can cause older memories to resurface. Perhaps we could try incorporating both techniques? If I really have seen the formulae, then we’ll be able to fix whatever is currently ailing the Light.”
Even if Lyse couldn’t recreate the exact formulae, simply being able to relay their constituent elements should be enough. Sidis paused a moment to look down at the black stone bulwark before turning back to his fiancée.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go discuss it with His Majesty.”
The couple made their way back to the imperial capital, slaying the monsters they could on the way. A few airborne and distant foes eluded them. Though Egbert would defend the city with his clones, they knew it would be hard for him to handle so many enemies at once.
As Lyse rode tandem along with Sidis on his raptor, they spied a horde of black monsters advancing toward the city walls, where armed infantry and knights awaited them at the ready. A flock of raptors from the palace descended in front of the walls, kicking up a tumult of confusion.
“That’s got to be His Majesty...right?” they wondered aloud.
Sidis and Lyse figured it would be best to land quickly. As soon as they touched down, a squad of knights came rushing over.
“Prince Sidis! Wh-What’s going on?!”
“One, two, three... There’s a whole bunch of His Majesties!”
“Am I hallucinating, or have I been afflicted by some form of monster magic?!”
Nobody was sure what they were seeing. The situation was chaos, to put it mildly.
Sidis, however, answered calmly, “Your eyes do not deceive you. That is indeed His Majesty.”
Two dozen or so identical Egberts stood there, their arms crossed and their capes flapping in the wind. They then marched on the incoming monsters in unison.
“Only target the monsters that His Majesty misses! Now spread out!” commanded Sidis.
Though the knights were still uneasy, they did as instructed. Lyse decided to join the fray beyond the walls to shore up their defenses. Meanwhile, the vanguard of Egberts simultaneously raised their right hands. That in itself was a sight to behold, but then came a great wave of flame that tore through the monsters in a fell conflagration. The men and women at arms were awestruck, torn between being impressed and feeling like they were dreaming—but then their training kicked in, and they rushed the monsters that had survived the fiery assault.
How could I describe this battle as anything other than His Majesty demolishing the enemy?