.
Diur’s outrider led us to an island almost as far away from the passage to the pleasure dome as we could, all the way over in the East Tunnel. On a nearby island, a rookery for some sort of seabird was making a racket, but a stand of a magic species of bamboo on our island damped the noise and formed excellent cover. The leaves, growing far above us, were luminous and thick, and trunks didn’t glow. It left us nicely out of view.
There, Chiara met the man himself for the first time. She had little to say, though. Her eyes were mostly on me.
Elder legions weren’t military, per se, but their structure resembled military organization, so I equated their ranks to military vocabulary in my mind. Diur, as an ‘observer’, was essentially a warrant officer, a position far below the ‘Commander’ level.
Commanders led the legions. Subcommanders led the cohorts. Captains led the companies. Lieutenants led the squads. I don’t think this table of organization aligns well with twenty first century Earth militaries, but when the individual legionnaire had the strength of a mortal company, one couldn’t really organize in the same manner.
As an observer, Diur was like a warrant officer, a specialist serving a technical role. Being in the Twenty Fourth, that wasn’t a surprise. They only had a handful of regular legionnaires. It was the legion of specialists: scientists, medical staff, educators, artists, undercover investigators and the like. Specialists were accorded a status above ordinary Elders, but below lieutenants.
Diur was audibly dissatisfied that I had come back into the cavern again, but once I had filled him in on Allia’s plans and my own, he wasn’t able to protest anymore. The difference in rank was clear, so the dynamic between us had clearly changed.
“Although,” he said, unable to say nothing on the subject, “I still would rather that you leave the job to me and head back to Taihimel’s world. Even if you remained there for a year or two, I would get you out in the end.”
The self-preserving part of me wanted to agree with him. The enemy we were facing was seriously dangerous. But my comrades seemed to have caught Ryuu’s disease. They were charging in, irrationally fast.
“I cannot hide while my comrades are facing danger,” I stated one last time.
He pressed his lips together, then nodded. “I understand. It’s just that your life is particularly precious. The higher realms no doubt see you and your descendants as a chance to return the lost souls to vessels capable of ascent…”
“The ladder of Samsara remains available to those souls whether I live or die, Observer,” I declared, becoming annoyed. “I’m not their only path back to the immortal realms, and my womb is not some irreplaceable gateway.”
He hung his head. “No. It isn’t. Or course not.”
Throughout this conversation, Chiara had been standing to one side, her eyes mostly glued on me. Diur had already sent several glances in her direction. He had noticed her change in behavior.
I asked, “So what will you do?”
“For now, the same as I have been,” he stated. “But I will leave my outrider with you so we can communicate. I will coordinate my actions with you and your comrades.”
I agreed to it, and I figured he was done, but I still had more to talk about.
“As for where I will operate, I intend to take the entrance to the southbound highway and hold it the same way as my allies are holding the tunnel upward. Does the geography favor that plan or not?”
As I said it, I knew that I was proposing potentially going one-on-one with an archdemon.
His scowl deepened, but it was a frown of concentration now. I had generally described the force on its way down: a fairy, a fairling sage, two Servants and a summoned hero, accompanied by a group of other high-level adventurers.
After several seconds of thought, he nodded. “If the demon lord attempts to come in after you himself, you can hold out by steadily retreating, while we take advantage of it and decimate the rest. We can support you after defeating them.”
Hold out by steadily retreating… was he trying to tactfully say ‘no’? But I had about forty miles of narrow tunnels to work with. I could indeed make it a slow, painful slog for the archdemon if I never faced him close in.
He continued his analysis. “If the demon general comes after you, I may be able to leave the demon lord to your friends while I come in behind him. Between us, we could defeat a demon general. Our exact strategy will depend upon where the demon knights go, however.”
“Demon knights… they have two, right?”
“Yes.”
It was another new term, but I had correctly interpreted it as ‘asura’, the next rank down from archfiend. The Class A level, same rank as demonic beasts such as halas and rakshasas.
“More optimally, they will try sending a force led by a knight in your direction. When you block them, I can follow in with my proxies and we can catch them in a pincer attack. You should be able to handle a knight.”
I nodded. “I have faced one, before.”
But talking about it was bringing the concept into reality for me. I might seriously put myself in the path of an archdemon. Even an archfiend, Diur’s ‘demon general’, was a matter normally faced with armies. Of course, that was mostly because they were normally accompanied by their own armies. As Diur had mentioned that without their troops, they were ‘just powerful demons’.
The ‘just’ should be read with some irony, though.
Staying calm right now was beginning to require my ‘Tiana Full Battle Mode’. Truth was, I wanted to run straight back to that small world.
Diur finally broached the subject his eyes had been touching on for a few minutes.
“My Lady, Lady Chiara is suffering significant pneuma depletion. Significantly more than normal for feeding. May I presume that you have just bonded with her?”
“You may,” I told him. “But this is an internal matter between royal knights. I’m not prepared to discuss it.”
He frowned, but didn’t press the matter. I think he was hung up on whether to consider me a fifteen year old who was far too young to have three Servants or a fifteen thousand year old who ought to have a whole clan of them.
Having an agreement on strategy, he charged the outrider with leading me to the highway entrance. It seemed it was miraculously still open after all these millennia. I scooped up Chiara into my arms and cloaked, then followed the outrider.
Neither of us said anything. Her current state of Tiana-worship wasn’t causing her any delusions about our situation, and I was better off keeping my mouth shut at the moment.
It turned out that, rather than rising, the ground had fallen in the vicinity of the highway entrance. It was an elliptical mouth several paces up the wall, with a trickle of water inexplicably falling from it. It was similar in size to the stream passage from the pleasure dome, so I had no trouble flying into it.
We found lighting similar to the pleasure dome, but it faded as we flew inward. The mana-rich environment in the cavern declined the further in we went, although there was still significant free mana. The millennia had left evidence of the plants it had supported. The originally clean tunnel walls, floor and ceiling had thick crust that included growths like boulders and stalactites. A thin rivulet formed pools in places as it wove its way through the floor obstacles.
Furtive movements in my fairy sense told me about small denizens of this world, small monsters, rodents and insects. I didn’t sense anything larger.
A few paces after rounding the first bend in the tunnel, I settled behind a particularly large boulder, in a spot with a thick mossy carpet, and let Chiara down.
“Can you create a light, My Lady?”
“Are you unable to see?”
“No… I can see faintly. It’s quite dim.”
“It would be better if I didn’t,” I told her.
I admit I did it to keep my nerves steady, but I needed to teach her about her new bond. I spent the next hour or so lecturing her on how it was affecting her thought processes. She seemed to have guessed a lot of it already. I was thankful for the darkness hiding my blush when I described its influence on her sexual desires.
It turned out she had guessed that part, too. And was also embarrassed. I’m sure our close proximity during the talk wasn’t helping.
Finally, the subject turned to the boost in magical capacity she would experience.
“Ceria found herself easily able to levitate people using [Wind Porter]. She had only been able to lift small objects before that.”
“I’ve never heard of such a benefit from blood bondage,” Chiara pondered.
“Vampire blood slaves don’t get this benefit. It’s unique to Elder Servants. I believe it comes from combining blood bondage with fairy powers.”
“Is that why you’re calling me a ‘Servant’ instead of a ‘Blood Slave’? Because my magic is useful to you?”
“It’s certainly part of it,” I nodded.
“It’s just like what Brosians talk about, with Strega and Servants,” she mused. “Servants received their powers from their mistresses.”
Chiara had lived the first ten years of her life in or near Bray, where they still remember the Elders.
I nodded. “They mean it literally. You receive extra mana through me, much more than you can draw on your own. And it doesn’t matter how far apart we are. Can you tell me what affinities you have?”
“Wind, Water and Earth,” she replied. “But my mom couldn’t teach me any Earth magic, since she had Wind, Water and Darkness. Most of the magic I know is Wind and Water.”
The corners of my mouth rose slightly. “I’ll be counting on you to teach me Water magic. I have no spells in that element.”
My raw mana manipulation improved a lot with the creation of my blood core, but that was just brute-forcing the magic. I wasn’t casting actual spells when I did things like create water. If I could learn [Wellspring] or [Water Bullet], I could be so much more efficient.
“Yes, My Lady,” she said, then frowned. “But, when we leave, you should be bringing me to King Owen for prosecution.”
“Let’s leave that for the future,” I told her while patting her arm. “I suspect it will be a while.”
She was quiet for a bit, then asked, “My Lady? Is it possible that…”
After she cut off, I became a little annoyed. I’m sure it was my own anxieties over the situation I was putting myself into, but I put that irritation into my response.
“If it was important enough for you to begin, it’s important enough for you to finish.”
She lowered her head slightly. “I was just wondering if my role here is to sacrifice myself to keep you alive, My Lady.”
A chill went through me. We had just discussed how her blood bond would be affecting her mind, and she had just made an assumption that was typical of how blood slaves viewed their service to their mistress. Naturally, she would think first of protecting me with her life.
“No. Your first job is to protect my back while I face the enemy. Demons may come from the other direction, up from Berado. I’ll be the one facing the main threat.”
“But…”
I could see the conflict in her eyes. Her brain was insisting she should put herself between me and the main threat. I put Command into my voice.
“If I lose my life or am cut off from you, then you are to find my mother, the Duchess Pendor, and lead her to Amelia. If your exit is cut off and you can’t safely obey, you are to rejoin Amelia and await a later opportunity to fetch my mother.”
She had jerked in response when I began, but gave a reluctant nod as I finished. She looked unhappy with the idea of abandoning me.
I sighed. “My Lady, if it helps, then just remember, despite what happened, you are still a royal knight, and Her Highness is still your responsibility. You will serve me by doing your duty.”
