Chapter 123 — In which all meetings are a pure coincidence and nothing else (2)
Citrie felt like the fever, that he barely managed to kill, suddenly flared up again.
He couldn’t breathe.
His heart raced, and cold sweat slipped down his spine.
His head was spinning, and his ears were buzzing.
He felt so sick, he could vomit.
It was even worse than the first time.
What the hell was that?
What the hell was happening?
It started when he ran into this man for the first time.
His heart suddenly lurched, like it was suddenly grabbed and pulled.
He thought it was just surprise at the sudden meeting with an attractive person, but it wasn’t that…
It wasn’t immediate, but his thoughts were slowly consumed by that ‘Lord Mage’ he met.
It was okay when he was focusing on something, but the moment he let his thoughts wander, he would quickly find himself thinking about this unknown man.
It was absurd.
He saw him only for a few seconds.
Why was he analyzing his cheekbones, the color of his voice, the slight skin discolorations around his fingers…
What was this obsession?
Yes, it was an obsession. A crazy obsession.
It felt like his thoughts were flooded with the stranger and he couldn’t understand why.
It was made worse when he realized that the stranger was one of the most important people in the country.
Citrie briefly wondered if he was under a spell of some sorts, but he quickly dismissed the idea.
He wasn’t worthy of such attention.
He was no one.
His adoptive father lost everything and committed suicide, Citrie literally had no penny to his name and now was just a newly appointed knight.
So Citrie could only assume that there was something wrong with him.
But he couldn’t show it in the enemy territory where many eyes may be watching him.
He took a gulp of air and crossed his arms behind his back, hiding the trembling of his hands.
“Lesser Lord Mage.”
He bowed and Vern reciprocated with a slight bow himself.
A small smile danced on his lips.
“I was hoping you would call me ‘Lord Mage’ again. How disappointing.”
If Citrie was in a better state he would be deeply embarrassed.
“I learned better. Apologies for my misconduct.”
“Hah, I took no offense, don’t worry. Rather I considered it a compliment.”
Vern looked at Citrie with a somewhat enigmatic smile.
From a political standpoint, it was certainly a good thing that Vern took no issue with Citrie’s slip-up of calling him by the title of Great Ruler Vermilian.
But Citrie was right now mostly preoccupied with whether the man was planning to leave or not.
To his despair, Vern showed no such inclinations.
Seeing him not leaving, but being unable to leave first, because that would be rude, Citrie pulled on what he learned for the last few days and tried his best to distract himself.
He focused on the painting that grabbed his attention first.
“I had no idea that there were any portraits of His Reverence left.”
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There was absurdly little left of the rulers this country worshiped so much.
As far as Citrie knew, there were almost no descriptions of how the three rulers looked like, the few statues of Saffaron they had in Flavun were artistic recreations.
But here was an actual self-portrait?
“It’s a quite recent discovery and mostly kept secret from the public. Late Archmage Belleder apparently found it somewhere and restored it. But she wasn’t able to confirm its authenticity. Crimo succeeded in doing so only recently.”
Vern shrugged.
“But it appears that Late Archmage Belleder made some small mistakes when restoring it, so it’s still a work in progress.”
Citrie found how casually and indifferently Vern spoke about it strange.
Wasn’t Vermilian worshiped by people of Rubrun? Especially mages?
‘No… maybe that’s why he liked that I called him Lord Mage.’
It appeared that Lesser Lord Mage felt some disdain for Vermilian and perhaps even a sense of competition.
But there was another thing that bothered Citrie.
‘Not Mother but Late Archmage Belleder?’
It seemed that Vern’s relationship with his mother wasn’t good…
‘Fuck.’
Realizing that his thoughts were drifting to the man beside him again, Citrie stared at the painting like he wanted to drill a hole in it.
He took in the brush strokes, the strangely twisted perspective that made it seem like the painted Vermilian was about to fall deep into the darkness of the background and the mysterious glow of the yellow and purple butterflies…
“It’s a beautiful painting.”
He knew nothing about art, but he could tell it was a masterpiece.
“Hmm, well. It’s pretty good.”
The self-proclaimed rival of the greatest mage to ever walk this earth seemed to disagree.
Vern sat down on a bench and took off the cloak that was annoying him.
“At that time, the paints dried very slowly and didn’t mix well. You can see the effect of rushing the process in the left bottom corner, the bloaty patch on the glass. What should be…”
Citrie knew nothing about paintings and art, but he was about to learn a lot.
*-*-*
“Master Sangria, are you dying? Please don’t die, I feel like those priests in dark clothes keep glancing at us.”
“They appear to be the death gods priests, so they’re probably considering offering their services and consultation.”
“I don’t need a consultation. I think I’m just a bit overwhelmed by the spices.”
Sangria held a cloth to his nose and mouth, as he bent over the wall of the canal.
They didn’t eat anything yet, but just strolling around the street caused Sangria to feel dizzy.
The amount of spices, incenses, and flower smells in the air of Purplus’ capital Amthe was incomparable to Rubrun.
So not only Sangria, but even Scarlen felt a bit overwhelmed.
“We should get away from the water. Droplets in the air must make the smell even stronger.”
Thankfully there was a person who was used to this environment and was able to guide the two men.
How did Iben convince everyone to let him join this expedition was a long story, but the fact that he was much more familiar with Purplus’ customs played a big part in it.
He quickly led the group away from the main streets, into quieter alleys.
“Should we eat now, or should we visit the Saint first?”
“Paying him a visit the moment we arrive would probably look better and let us avoid any trouble… I’m also not sure if I’ll be able to eat right now.”
“If we’re going to visit the Saint, we must prepare to wait a few hours.”
“A few hours?”
“From three to ten… That’s if we’re lucky. I heard that the Saint’s schedules were very chaotic in recent weeks.”
Their non-secret goal in Purplus was to learn about the god Crimo worshiped.
The best option to do that was to ask the biggest expert on the matter of gods, the Saint himself.
It also suited them to visit him quickly to avoid being taken for some unwanted guests.
After short discussion, the three men decided to put away eating, even though it was long time due, and visit the ruler first.
Upon arriving at the Universe Temple, they ran into a problem though.
“Where should we go?”
The Universe Temple was massive.
Its architect also hated to provide people any awareness of where they were.
(That side of Amaranth was rarely mentioned.)
Iben, who was their guide until now, also had no idea how to solve this problem as though he was in the Universe Temple before, from his perspective he just woke up there.
And then was dragged off to a secret prison, beat up, starved, and then taken out from the secret prison through a secret route.
He had no idea how were you supposed to civilly enter and ask for the audience with the Saint.
Regardless, he also was busy looking for someone else, so he was no use.
“Let’s just ask.”
“Sure– wait!”
But it was already too late.
Scarlen strolled up and addressed one of the unnamed attendants, before Iben could stop him.
“Excuse me, if I wish to see the Saint, where I should…”
The attendant’s face turned pale and they frantically looked around to somehow save themself.
“Ah, excuse me, Sir.”
Thankfully, there was a kind soul around that noticed.
The guard approached and gently led confused Scarlen away from the attendant.
“You’re not supposed to talk to them, or better not even acknowledge their existence.”
She pointed at the back of the hastily retreating slave.
Then she quickly looked the group up and down.
“You seem to be from Rubrun. What does this humble temple owe your visit to?”
Scarlen had ‘what humble?’ at the tip of his tongue, but he restrained himself.
“We wish to have a word with the Saint. Is that possible?”
“… You’re quite lucky, you may see His Excellency in an hour. He just happens to be holding a class. When he finishes, you should be able to get a quick word with him.”
It was not actually that easy to see the Saint, but the guard judged they were people of great importance, so she rightly predicted that Saint wouldn't stand a ceremony and see them quickly.
Especially considering he was in a bad mood the last few days, but she didn’t mention that.
“I see. Then if you can point us to a waiting area and we will wait…”
“Wait? Oh no, the hour is needed to get to where His Excellency is. Now, let’s shuffle our feet good Sirs, less we miss His Excellency.”
And so the guard quickly led the three men, who had yet to painfully realize just how massive this ‘humble’ temple was.
An hour later.
The group entered the Hall of Understanding where Amara was diligently torturing, no, teaching the priests of the Sun and Day Gods temple, who lost their way.
“So the ‘Law’ says that the water must go down. Therefore the water that dares to go up – against the Heavens – is unlawful. But don’t trees carry water up their veins, into their sky-scraping crowns? Are trees going against the ‘Law’? If trees are unlawful, then are us, who feed on the fruits of trees, accomplices in sinning against Heavens?”
Amara glanced slightly, hearing a creak of the door, and met eyes with the group.
A strange light flashed in his eyes.
“… Hearing you don’t answer, I understand you need to think about it deeper. I’ll leave it at that today then.”
He quickly wrapped up the lesson that should have ended a long time ago.
The exhausted priests got up from their seats and the hall became quite noisy for a moment.
So only Scarlen and Iben heard Sangria’s exclamation:
“This man…!”
*~*~*
