Somehow, the previous chapter as initially posted omitted the final paragraph, which contained a huge cliffhanger. I’ve corrected it, but for those premium readers who missed it, the paragraph read “Satisfied that things were, at least for now, under control, I patted Shindzha through her blanket, stood, walked out of the cell… and promptly collapsed.”
I copy and paste the text from Scrivener into the website, so I’m guessing I somehow failed to copy the last paragraph. The only problem with that theory is that I use “Select All” when I copy, so I really don’t know what exactly happened.
§
“Lady!” I heard Ceria shrieking. I wanted to assure her I was fine. I didn’t know exactly how I had suddenly become so intimate with the floor. When I became aware of it, I was already here.
“What did you do?!” Chiara was demanding, probably of the hellspawn girl, who was asleep and couldn’t answer.
“The prisoner is asleep, My Lady,” the fairy warrior assured her.
All this time, I was trying to say ‘I’m fine’, but since I had failed to say it thus far, it began to occur to me that I wasn’t actually fine. Why couldn’t I move my body properly?
And why couldn’t I see?
As soon as I wondered about that, I began having what I can only describe as an out-of-body experience, except that I didn’t really have a clear out-of-body point of view like you hear people who claim to have them describe. Instead, I was restricted to my [Fairy Sense], which kept me aware of the proceedings around me, even though, according to same [Fairy Sense], my physical body was unconscious.
[As your mother on Earth might say in this situation, ‘Welcome to my world’.]
Fan Li sounded a bit amused, but also… somewhat tired? But I have to admit, she really did have a knack for imitating Jennifer Stewart’s East Texas twang.
I did not appreciate the humor at that moment, though. Fan Li’s calm demeanor was keeping me from panicking, but I was somewhat close to panic, anyhow. Perhaps the lack of connection to my body preventing the physical aspects of anxiety was also helping.
I was worried what sort of answer I might receive, but I had to ask. Remaining calm, I simply ordered, [Explain].
[What you are experiencing at this time is what this humble scholar experiences when looking into your world from outside, when not aware within your mind.]
[Umm…] I thought I knew what she meant, but…
Although we again didn’t have the extra communication channel of the memory of the thoughts behind the words once they were said, Fan Li understood my hesitation.
She confirmed, [That is to say, when viewed from the vantage point of our original spirit vessel, the one whose fragments the living Fan Li pieced together from what remained of Senhion’s vessel and grew into a supposed ‘spirit core’ during her life on Huajie.]
That’s what I thought she meant, but…
[I would have to be in your spirit vessel to do that,] I pointed out. [I should be the one incarnation amongst us with no connection to the original spirit vessel. It was stripped away from our soul before I reincarnated as Robert.]
Honestly, I didn’t want to be having this relaxed conversation right now. Not only were two of my Servants fretting over my senseless form at that moment, but now a storm of other figures were approaching, among them my fiancée and my remaining Servants.
My involuntary disconnection from my physical awareness was having a peculiar effect. With the combination of personal detachment and immersion that comes with watching a movie, I could easily take in what they were doing and saying as they hurried down the stairs into the dungeon.
§
“I told you two to wait upstairs until I called!” Rod raged as he rushed to the cells.
“Your Highness, there is no way we can do that!” Melione retorted as she followed close behind him. “Something awful has happened! It’s you who should be waiting for us to go first!”
“Rod, we felt a terrible flow of Dark mana,” Mireia explained. “It was just like when we cast magic with Lady Tiana’s help, except it was rushing toward her. And we all heard that horrible voice! Mel is right!”
“All of you should be waiting,” Dilorè griped. She clearly wished they were not blocking her way at the moment, but they had been closer to the stairs. The stairs were narrow, so she couldn’t grow her wings and fly down, but fairies can also easily outrun humans.
As they reached the bottom, people in the hallway ahead of them were still groggy from the onslaught of the alien voice that had battered their awareness, further slowing down progress.
“We’ll check the holding cells,” Rod decided. “Ti must have been visiting the hellspawn girl.”
“Will you people get out of the way!” Dilorè finally demanded, but rather than waiting for a response, she just squeezed past all three mortals to dash ahead down the hall.
In the security office, on the floor outside the cells, a fretting Ceria was now holding my head on her lap as Chiara frantically checked my body.
The lesser fairy warrior, who had just closed and locked the cell door, was shaking her head. “She’s just passed out, My Ladies. There is nothing physically wrong with her.”
“But she’s not waking up!” Chiara retorted.
“She’s been in bed for three days. Maybe she just got lightheaded.”
“You could show a little more concern!” Ceria shot at the fairy.
Unmoved, the warrior answered, “If you had [Fairy Sense], you would be able to tell she’s okay, and you would be calm as well.”
This is when Dilorè came blasting through the office door, a combat dagger at ready since she wasn’t carrying her spear.
Now exasperated, the lesser fairy held up both hands in a ‘stop’ gesture and declared, loudly, “Everything is fine, My Lady!”
Dilorè took in the tableau, noting the two Elder Servants attending to their Mistress, the sleeping hellspawn girl, and the lack of any other demonic presence. Especially, the total lack of any enemy remotely capable of delivering the skull-shattering impact of the mind attack that has just felled dozens, probably upward of a hundred, of the staffers of Narses Castle.
“What happened here?” she demanded.
§
As I watched that whole scene play out, Fan Li noted, “This small one has already confirmed that everything actually is fine, as far as your body is concerned.”
The setting had somehow evolved such that we were ‘speaking’ to each other in actual voices rather than hearing one another’s thoughts. Although, I still had no visual sense of her.
If I had control of a physical head, I would have nodded. I echoed, “As far as my body is concerned. Except I don’t seem to be in it?”
Out in the world, Rod and the two women had reached the security office, and now Dilorè was in the position the fairy warrior had been, trying to calm down a whole new set of anxious newcomers.
“Technically speaking,” Fan Li noted, “Lady Tiana is indeed in her body, albeit unconscious. You, however, are not. You, meaning the current awareness, which as you have certainly already guessed, are a manifestation here within this ‘spirit core’, which is to say more accurately, our original vessel.”
Again, I rejected that idea. “I should have no connection to the old vessel. I can’t manifest in it.”
“And in practice, you did not have any connection, which is what led to our confinement here. However, the barrier between your soul and this vessel is rapidly breaking down. It was perhaps a missed opportunity, allowing you to slumber for the last three days rather than training you. This scholar now regrets accepting Rhea’s request not to interfere.”
“Is that what’s going on?” I demanded. “You pulled me in here for some kind of training session?”
I had the sense, even though we had no view of each other, of Fan Li pursing her lips. “To begin with, Your Highness, that would be impossible. Neither does this small one have such control over you, nor can such a thing in fact be accomplished, even if this small one had such control.”
Rod was trying to pick me up, now. Dilorè pushed him back and gathered me into her arms, unconcerned that she was shoving the royal prince of the largest functional nation in the world. Although, as a fairy aristocrat, her attitude wasn’t that strange.
I decided to wait for Fan Li to explain herself. Clearly, she hadn’t done what I was thinking, which meant that, perhaps, she wasn’t responsible for this situation.
“This Fan Li has indeed not created this situation, Your Highness,” she confirmed. “Not on purpose, anyway.”
“Why can you read my thoughts and I can’t read yours?”
“Because, for the moment, this small one must treat you in the same fashion as the reflections of the other incarnations sharing this vessel with us. It is only for a short time that this will even be possible, as you possess the innate ability to bypass this protection and step into the chaos that would follow. Please allow this scholar to educate you while it is still possible, Your Highness. For your safety, do not test the boundaries which are, for the moment, still holding.”
I could hear unmistakable anxiety in her voice. It gave me the sense that those boundaries were only a tissue paper wall, holding back whatever she was fearing. I decided to avoid arguing for the moment.
As Dilorè carried me upstairs with the rest following, except of course for the fairy warrior who stayed at her post, Fan Li broke the problem down into the simplest terms.
“First, the ‘you’ currently here in this vessel is an entity similar to Kanon and other proxies that Senhion created in the past. When the time comes, you will re-integrate with the ‘you’ within the body on Huade, as you have no true independent existence.”
I had thought of a critical problem with that claim, but she dismissed it immediately.
“Unlike Kanon and other proxies, you are not built upon a fragment of your principal’s soul. Instead, you are built upon this spiritual vessel which is, for the time being, independent of our principal’s soul through the actions of whatever Great Senior is responsible for isolating our vessel and soul.”
“Why not just say ‘Oranos’?” I asked. “It has to be him who did it, right?”
“This scholar has a completely different prime suspect, Your Highness. Although you have always assumed, as it seems Gaia and Eurybia have done, that all these clandestine actions were taken by Oranos, this small one has concluded that Immortal Mother is the more likely candidate.”
It surprised me, but only in the sense that I hadn’t thought of it. It wasn’t shocking, because…
Fan Li spoke my reason even as I thought it. “A mother in possession of such wisdom, possessing all the due lovingkindness of mothers everywhere, could commit herself to guiding her wounded child through a healing path of ten thousand years. For such an existence, those ten thousand years were no different than a mortal mother staying at her stricken child’s bedside no matter how many weeks or months it took.”
“But… staying with us through all those lives…”
“Although this scholar never gave birth, she did raise a child from infancy. If a mother sees a chance to save her child, she will take it, no matter how difficult, Your Highness.”
“So… you are saying I am… this current version of me is a proxy…”
I felt negation in response. “This small one and the other incarnations reflected here do have a similar nature as proxies, but we are different, because we came to be out of the memories of our lives rather than the effort of our principal, and we are sustained by this remnant vessel rather than fragments of the principal’s soul.”
“Which brings me back to my basic objection. I, my current incarnation, should not exist here. My memories come after that Great Senior separated our soul from this vessel. I should have no reflection in this place.”
“Indeed,” she replied. This time, I had the definite impression of her nod. Actually, I sort of did see it. Dimly, as if my power of eyesight were beginning to return.
She added, in response to my thought, “It will only be a short time longer, Your Highness. The space in which we shall interact is beginning to gel.”
It was true. I couldn’t see her in [Fairy Sight] or [Vampire Sight], but I could sort of make her out ‘through a glass darkly’, with apologies to St. Paul. At the same time, my [Fairy Sense] was losing contact with the real me’s surroundings. I tried not to be too anxious about it.
“And your explanation for the basic contradiction we keep dancing around?”
“It is simple, Your Highness, and, although it wasn’t the purposeful act which you suspected at the beginning of our conversation, it is indeed the fault of this small one. By absorbing the memories of Tiana, Robert, and even Senhion through you, this scholar has, in essence, brought you here. Unfortunately, the breakdown in boundaries that this is causing is having an undesirable effect upon your physical self. The battle which we just fought with Astaroth was the last straw, so to speak, in breaking down that barrier.”
My vision, at last, had returned to me, as the last of my connection to Huade disappeared. Whether it was an Illusory Reality, or a Simulation like in Sky Ocean, or whatever, I now stood in a white space, devoid of any features other than the half-spirit scholar of Huajie who stood before me.
She bowed. “Greetings, Your Highness. Please forgive this small one’s pretension, for being so bold as to propose to teach you. If you can humor this scholar’s arrogance for now, it should be possible to restore matters to their rightful order.”
