“What’s going on now?”
“What is that?”
Nikeh and Prince Zenon lean forward and open their eyes wide in astonishment at the strange arm growing out of Rockmann’s chest. I look equally astounded.
“You really...thought you could...do as you pleased with me...?” comes a deep voice from somewhere. Not one of a youth, but one of a grown man. The voice of the future Rockmann that we know.
Is he here, in this classroom...? I look around, but can’t see anyone other than my friends and the demon.
I call out to him in blind hope and hear the voice come from the young Rockmann’s chest, the part where the new arm is growing out of it.
“You were able to possess me because Treyse stuck that dagger into my chest, you cowardly scum,” comes the voice, full of bite and irritation. “I had the commander and the director at Harré look into it a short while ago. We’re most likely dealing with a dream demon.”
“A dream demon?” I ask incredulously as the voice softens.
“Apparently some demons are evolving. Gaining a degree of intelligence. That includes the stowaway on the Orcinus transport wagon, and, in all likelihood, this demon as well.”
“Hold on. You can see us?”
It’s definitely his voice, but... This is the past, and the only way of getting here is with the Time Keeper’s magic. Even the principal was surprised to learn about the Time Keeper. Just how is he using his young self’s body to talk to us? Not to mention, last I heard, he had collapsed in our time.
“I’ve been able to see through its eyes ever since we became connected. I can read all its thoughts too. It took me some time to take control of this body, however. Sorry I’m late.”
“Ugghh... Aghhh...” groans the demon as the arm growing from the young Rockmann’s chest latches onto his own neck.
It’s come up in the relevant literature of late that the weak spot of dream demons is the neck of the possessed. Putting pressure on it prevents the incorporeal demon from escaping into the air.
Wait, that’s not what’s important right now. Okay, I guess it’s pretty important, but that’s not what’s bothering me most...
“You read its thoughts?” asks Prince Zenon.
There’s a bunch of things I want to ask, and the prince’s question is one of them. Let’s have Rockmann answer that first.
According to him, this dream demon has been going around possessing lots of people seeking wisdom, as well as ways to kill me, ever since Städal’s demise. Through mind reading it has absorbed the knowledge of all sorts of people, and after reading the mind of someone on the black market, it learned about the Time Keeper. At one point it also ran into Treyse Drenman. Possessing her and looking for information like usual, it rejoiced at its unexpected discovery. By coincidence, they both wished to travel to the same point in the past.
“It had Treyse act in our time,” continues Rockmann, “while it perfectly assumed her form and asked the Time Keeper to send it into the past. For that to be possible, Treyse and the demon’s souls must be connected.”
“So you’re saying it needed the power to take human form because in its demon one the Time Keeper wouldn’t have sent it into the past?”
Rockmann explains that the demon enticed Treyse with the promise of granting her wish—a trap she completely fell for, leading her to make a pact to bind her soul to the demon’s, becoming its servant and source of power. As a medium, it must be similar to other magical pacts like the Blood Oath.
As fate would have it, Treyse’s wish to erase my existence coincided with the demon’s objective. Basically, it just reached for the most convenient pawn available.
“Is Treyse herself okay?” I ask. Shaken as I am to learn she’s resented me so much all this time, I still hope she’s fine now.
“She’s fulfilled her part of the pact by sticking a dagger in my heart, so she’s fine. She probably would’ve died otherwise... Though it might still have impacted her life span a little.”
“Mm?”
Wait. Wait wait wait wait wait. Did he just say something crazy like it was nothing? Sure, it’s also concerning that Treyse’s life span might be affected, but first things first...
“She stabbed you in the heart?! You okay there?!”
I’m pretty sure that kills people! Come to think of it, he did say, “Treyse stuck that dagger into my chest,” at the very start. There was too much happening at the time and I couldn’t keep up.
“I’ll live. And that dagger...”
He’ll live?! After that?! Is he immortal or something?!
Seeing me dumbfounded, Rockmann continues. He says it turned out that his collapsing had nothing to do with the past being changed, and was the result of Treyse and the demon’s scheme using another knight. And when the dream demon went into the past, Treyse abided by the pact and stabbed Rockmann with the dagger imbued with the demon’s power. This was meant to, if only temporarily, keep Rockmann in check both in the past and in the future, as well as to potentially use his past self to kill mine.
As for the whole thing with the stabbing, it was apparently a ritual to connect the senses of the past and future Rockmann to let the demon possess his past self (since the demon probably figured it would be too difficult otherwise given Rockmann’s power even at a young age). It required a hole in the body—in the heart. The dagger was a tool that poured the demon’s powers into Rockmann to make it possible for the incorporeal dream demon to possess him.
What’s this about connecting the senses of the past and future Rockmann...?
“Did it have demonite?” utters the Time Keeper, causing the rest of us to prick up our ears.
“What’s that, Elder?” asks Benjamine.
“Manipulating time is a forbidden form of magic not possible with regular magical powers or spells. I’m a doll created by an ancient magician, you see. In my core is a piece of demonite, a stone believed to be the source of demons—or so I was told a long time ago.”
“Demons come from stones?”
“’Tis highly unlikely any of them would grant one the same powers as mine. However, if one was to embed them in a weapon, it might be possible to use magic across space-time like this.”
“Can a regular demon make—or steal—weapons like that?” asks Benjamine in a confused frown.
My heartbeat intensifies as I realize we’re now dealing with far smarter demons than before.