118. Mortal's involvement

A massive Egyptian man with a two-handed khopesh on his back walked in. He was almost two meters tall, with broad shoulders, a long braided beard, and relatively harsh facial features. His body was overall stout, except for his massive height.

“Wasn’t he supposed to be a dwarf?” I heard Ophelia ask. "Weren’t they… ummm… smaller?" she whispered.

“Oh, yes,” I whispered back. “But he suffers from a dwarf’s version of gigantism. Because of it, he can’t fit in a dwarvish mine, so it’s a touchy topic—don’t mention his size, or the underground, or mines.”

Saying that, I got up to greet Darius. After all the pleasantries, we started on the usual talk about his duels and recent fights.

“He’s a paladin of Sekhmet,” I heard Luna explain to Ophelia who was who. “A great fighter—and number two when it comes to being a source of unnecessary violence,” she whispered.

“And who’s number one?” Ophelia asked.

To which, in the corner of my eye, I could see Luna look at her like she was stupid and then point at me.

Rude, but whatever.

“Yeah, he’s a great duelist—one of the best there is,” I said once our talk was over and Darius was arguing with Myhur over swords versus fists, which was the traditional talk they needed to have.

“We are only waiting for our Van Helsing,” said the cat, looking over the group.

“Van Helsing?” Ophelia piped up. “The Van Helsing, like the vampire hunter?”

“Yes and no. It’s a tradition in noble houses: when the family was made famous by one person in particular, that person’s name can become a title inside the family so that the current heir will bear the honorary Van Helsing name. There are quite a few—Guinevere, Dratewka, Hercules. I think the Irish family still uses the Cú Chulainn name for successors. Van Helsing is one of them. William is his real name. And he’s a British aristocrat. Reeeeeal fancy.”

“I thought we didn’t get along with noble houses?” asked Ophelia, clearly confused.

“Not necessarily. And Helsings aren’t part of the noble houses as far as politics are concerned.”

“Why?” Ophelia asked.

“It’s because of our people,” it was Luna who cut in. “Helsings were vampire hunters—our mortal enemies. But after the war and without mana, vampires became fewer and fewer. Turning someone into a vampire uses mana. We can reproduce normally, but that is hard due to our unaging bodies. So we were going extinct, slowly but surely. Many a vampire hunter celebrated, but not Helsings. They hunted to keep the balance—only those of us who used people as cattle—so when we were going extinct, they started helping our side, using their extensive knowledge of vampirism to keep the balance. This didn’t go over well with others, who accused them of treason and of failing to uphold their noblesse oblige. They ended up cutting contact with the noble side and joining the Third Chamber later.”

There was a bit of silence.

“Aaaaand,” I broke it with a shit-eating grin, “their recent heir took that really far.”

“Saaam,” Luna turned to me with a clear warning.

“The word on the streets is that he wants to reeeeeally help with the vampire population problem—you know, like boots on the ground.”

“Yeeeah, hands-on approach,” snickered Myhur, as Luna turned to him this time.

“Yeah, he’s a man of real dedication, our William. The vampires were going away, but he said, ‘Not on my watch—’” roared the massive dwarf as if he was telling a war story.

A ball of blood slammed into his forehead before he could finish the sentence, as the rest of us were doing our best not to laugh.

The doorknob started to turn as I quickly turned to Ophelia, putting on the most serious face I could. “I forgot to tell you—he’s… he’s a thing, a very strange thing. You have to watch out.” I warned the now-concerned woman as the doors swung open.

In walked William. As always, in a full suit, his black hair falling flat against his scalp, of course, in a faultless, combed hairstyle. He wore a nice, deep blue coat over the suit, with a fancy, decorated silver dagger sticking out from the inside.

“Don’t move,” I whispered to the now slightly panicked Ophelia, as all of us froze in place—aside from Luna and Q’Shar, who just sighed, rolling their eyes.

“What’s going on?” Ophelia whispered.

“Can you idiots stop?” William asked in a perfect British accent. “It’s unbecoming.”

We still sat without moving.

“It’s kinda fucked up, but he’s… he’s—” I said, as if struggling. “He’s… British. I heard they react to movement,” I finally whispered to Ophelia.

She took a while to process my words and then turned to me with a mixture of disbelief and disapproval.

“Every time the same. Why do I even meet with you?” said William as he slapped the frozen Darius on the back of his head. “Can you stop telling others that I'm some kind of strange creature?”

“Oi, bruv, no need fo’ violence,” said Darius.

“Yeah, jus’ a bit of banter, mate,” I echoed with the worst British accent I could muster.

After getting our laughs, we all finally greeted him. I got up to hug the man and then sat myself in the chair he tried to sit in, leaving the only open seat next to the vampire.

“Are you twelve?” Will asked.

“How long have you known me?” I asked back.

He just sighed and sat down next to Luna, as we snickered at the slight blush.

“Theee cycle awaits your child,” said Myhur, and dodged a ball of blood.

“All right,” Q’Shar broke the clown show. “Now that all of you idiots are here, let’s get to business.”

We all relaxed back into our chairs and put on more serious expressions.

“We know that the noble houses are scheming with the Church. And for now, we don’t have anything concrete, but as leaders of a new generation, you can all expect pressure once at the sabbath. I already talked with the current heads of the organizations, but it will be obvious that it’s your generation that will have to deal with this chaos—those in their prime now will have the most say,” Q’Shar said, looking at us, checking if everyone got it.

We all had a serious look on our faces, listening to the cat.

“There are a couple of key points that we need to deal with,” he continued. “But the most important one is how we want to deal with lifting the law separating our world from the mundane one.”

“What’s the fuss about that? It had to be lifted either way,” I said, frowning.

“Yes, but how it will be lifted will matter—and, most of all, what we do with the mundane world. The Shadow Gallery is gone. We don’t have our claws in the current power structure.”

“Umm, is it such a big deal?” Ophelia asked, as we all turned to her. “Look, I know you lived a certain way—I get that—but I wasn’t raised in your world, and I kinda… fail to understand the law? Sure, many will be afraid, but at the same time, many will want to learn magic and be fascinated by it. It’s something that almost every other teenager dreamed of. And I can tell you, getting introduced to that world is life-changing. But all of you discuss it as if it were surely horrible. Why?”

We looked at one another, and then the rest finally looked to me to explain this.

“Do you remember the history of the war? How, after Clemetus introduced the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil law, the warlocks were losing.”

“Yes. But what does it have to do—”

“Let me speak,” I interrupted. “There were five ninth-circle people at the time: the head of the Satanists, Lucien, the leader of the island of Atlas, the queen of the elves, the Heavenly Demon of Asia, and my grandfather, Abdul Alhazred. The only reason the Church didn’t take an easy win was that they didn’t have a thrice-ascended mage, so Lucien was still a threat. But he was losing on the battlefields where he didn’t participate. At the time, my family lived in America as well, not taking sides in the war.”

“Yeah, they thought politics were beneath them even then,” Q’Shar added.

“More or less. So the leader of the Satanists went to my grandfather and tried to persuade him. That didn’t work. With the mounting pressure, he finally did something stupid. He threatened my grandfather. To that, my family picked up its stuff, moved back to where we originated from in Damascus, and joined the Church—if you can call it that—out of spite. My grandfather was an… original man. It was said he drove the leader of the Satanists mad.”

“Like mind magic?” asked Ophelia.

“No. Every time he showed up to a battlefield, my grandfather would also come, then fight him to a standstill, and then just fuck off—to repeat again and again. With my grandfather blocking the Warlocks' leader, the Church started advancing. And then, finally, the third escalation took place.”

Everyone looked a bit sad. This was the nail in the coffin of the arcane world.

“The Satanists were now matched in the powerhouse department. It was the foot soldiers who were losing ground. You see, wars between mages weren’t that deadly. Mages at high levels are hard to kill and will shatter their rings to get out of deadly situations, so most fights end in crippling one’s magic rather than death. The wars were fought over supply lines, altars, and resources rather than to kill the opponent. So the Satanists were losing with their low-level soldiers, usually not treated very well by the power-based hierarchy. With low training and morale, they stood no chance against the trained and disciplined paladins of the Church. But they had one more trick up their sleeve. You see, the Satanists figured out that even if a third-circle paladin can light up their sword with holy flame and cut down a tree with a single swing, that will be nothing if he’s outnumbered, let’s say, a thousand to one.”

“The mundane world,” Ophelia whispered.

“Yes. For the first time in history, human-wave tactics were used. It was a shock. The paladins weren’t trained to cut down normal people whipped into attacking them. They collapsed easily. Thousands died in a single battle—but one thing was proven: it was effective. Lucien was desperate and cornered, so he involved the mundane world. Human-wave tactics not only turned the tide of a war, but this time changed it forever.”

“Plaaague magic, disease, starvation,” Myhur said, staring ahead.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “Battles went from having few casualties to hundreds and thousands. Mages began reorganizing the mundane world, promising kings riches, magic, and immortality, or sometimes simply usurping them, raising armies to be sent to slaughter. In that process, it also turned out that there was a lot of potential for magic among normal people. Those with talent were given basic training and joined the war. New branches of magic meant for mass-killing weak opponents were developed in an arms race. The Alliance refused to use the mortal world, so they developed weapons to counteract it. Normal people were much more fragile, much easier to kill with disease and starvation, so magic that destroyed the crops, plague spells, and other weapons of war were researched and developed.”

“But it was two thousand years ago,” protested Ophelia.

“It’s not about that. The world of mages was always based on power, and seeing that you can topple a much stronger opponent by simply promising trinkets to kings or scaring them with spells, gave ideas to many. Those who didn’t like the hierarchy learned they could topple the strong. Wars using humans broke out all over the world, especially among cultivators, where this love for strength was a big part of their culture already. With young masters running around, many who were humiliated one too many times came up with schemes. And all that death and destruction was reflected in mana. The magic, almost all over the world, started taking on death attunements, with the atrocities committed spawning singularities. Then the first generation, fully raised during war—knowing the other side as nothing but the enemy—came to power, and it became even worse. The magic itself started dying. Plagues and starvation killed thousands. Those thousands turned mana into poison to the living, which only sped up the death in a vicious cycle. Mana was turning necrotic. It was said that if the Miracle Bringers didn’t shatter the veins, mana would have killed us anyway if the war continued.”

Ophelia sat there quietly, a frown on her face. “So they wanted to save everyone?”

“No. They had different goals entirely. But it was decided after that: the world of the mundane can never mix in our conflicts. Humans are fragile, and their death can have horrible consequences on magic. Although by now they are capable of dealing death on that scale themselves.”

Silence descended over the room.

“But mana wasn’t around for a long time. It couldn’t have repeated itself, so why keep the law in place? Why cling to it? It still doesn’t make sense.”

“Don’t repeat what I’ll say to you, as it’s considered taboo. But the truth is, at first, the law was set to protect normal humans from us. We were afraid of another war. But later, after the Inquisition, after our world lost its power, theirs only sped up, leaving us behind. It was kept up to protect us from the mundane people. It was simply kept out of fear.”