The Beginning After The End: Convergence, Book 5, page 1
The Beginning After the End
Book 5: Convergence
TurtleMe
Contents
98. Floating Castle
99. Fellow Captive
100. Intentions
101. Visitors
102. Chess Pieces
103. Peculiar Congregation
104. The Great Eight
105. When Ignorance is Bliss
106. Logic’s Biggest Foe
107. A Grudging Tolerance
108. Ones Closest To Gods
109. Snail’s Pace
110. The Lost Art
111. Good Night
112. Newfound Goal
113. To Hunt a Prey
114. Workings of a Single Step
115. Predator’s Domain
116. What Lay Within
117. Steps Forward and Back
118. The Glass of Water
119. Bearer of Grim News
120. Opportunities to Learn
121. The Last Mentor
122. Wren Kain IV
123. Battles in Various Scenarios
124. Preparations
125. The Calm of War
126. Calm of War II
127. Washed Up Omen
128. Necessary Resolve
129. Concealed Burdens
130. From Princess to Soldier
131. Reunion
132. Drawing Closer
133. Beyond the Door
134. His Return
135. A Warrior’s Maiden Heart
136. As Quickly as He had Appeared
137. Arrival
138. To Right My Wrong
Afterword
Also by TurtleMe
98
Floating Castle
ARTHUR LEYWIN
“Arthur Leywin, son of Reynolds and Alice Leywin. The Council has decreed that, due to your recent actions of excessive violence and the inconclusive circumstances involved, your mana core is to be restrained, your title as a mage is to be stripped, and you are to be incarcerated until further judgment.
“… Effective immediately.”
Those words, spoken with a cold, almost detached authority, were followed by three distinct reactions from the people around me. The first came from those who were ignorant but curious. They eyed me with perplexed looks, studying my appearance as they tried to make it fit with the words the Lance—Varay—had just read: Inconclusive circumstances; excessive violence. I could feel their cautious skepticism as they silently tried to figure out how a boy, barely a teen, could cause the Council itself to issue the verdict instead of the city governor.
The second reaction was on the ever-foolish faces of the all-accepting crowd, those who blindly worshipped any form of higher authority. They took the words written on the communication artifact as God’s truth. I could hear their whispers from where I stood and see their eyes narrowing into disdainful glares as they decided that I must somehow be responsible for everything that had happened inside the academy.
The third reaction was one I would have expected only from my family, but, to my surprise, the students and faculty who had been involved in the incident—those who still had enough strength to speak—all cried out in protest.
Because my family was the closest, I could hear them the most clearly: “Incarcer—Your Honor, there must be some sort of mistake,” my mother’s voice called from the other side of the fence.
“Yes, I’m sure there’s an explanation for all this. My son would never—there must be an explanation for this,” my father amended, knowing perfectly well what I was capable of.
There were other outcries of protest, some from students I recognized, others from the staff present at the scene. Varay ignored them all.
“This makes no sense! How dare you punish the one who actually did some good? If it weren’t for Arthur, you Lances wouldn’t have had anyone left to save!” I turned my head toward the source of the voice. To my surprise, it was Kathyln Glayder. She was marching in my direction with unbridled fury in her eyes—an expression I had never seen, nor expected to see, from her.
“I will see to it that my mother and father rescind this decree at once—”
The Lance opened the scroll she held, revealing the signatures at the bottom. “Your father and mother were the ones, along with King and Queen Greysunders, who voted in favor of this judgment,” she said. Though her words were respectful, her expression and tone could only be described as indifferent, even rude.
Kathyln’s brother held her back, speaking quietly into her ear. I couldn’t hear what he told her, but the princess finally relented, her face red and her body shaking.
I knew that no matter how much I tried to reason with the woman, she wouldn’t listen. It wasn’t her decision to make.
“Can I speak to my family one last time before you take me?” I asked, my voice coming out more sullen than I had wished.
Varay gave a terse nod, and I walked back to where my parents were leaning against the fence. For a few seconds, we just stared at each other, not knowing how to begin.
“Don’t look so sad, guys. This misunderstanding will be cleared up soon.” I flashed them a wide grin, hoping to mask my uncertainty. I had allies within the Council, but there were too many unknown factors at work here. I wasn’t as worried for myself as I was for Sylvie. Having a dragon alive on our continent wasn’t a matter that could be waved off.
My façade must have faltered as I focused on my thoughts, because my parents’ expressions changed. They both gazed at me, wide-eyed and afraid.
“You—you honestly have no idea if you’ll be able to come back to us, do you?” my mother stuttered, her voice thick with worry. I couldn’t meet her eyes; instead, I focused on her hands. Her fingers were deathly pale from the strength of her grip on the iron fence.
“Brother… you’re not going anywhere, are you? This is all a joke, right? Right?” Ellie’s face was crimson, and I could tell she was doing her best to keep from breaking into sobs. She was so tense that her lips were almost white.
I leaned forward to be at eye-level with my sister. I studied her childish face, hardly able to believe she was already ten. One of my biggest regrets was that I hadn’t been by her side as she grew up. I had met my sister for the first time when she was four, and even after that, I had been with her for only a few weeks at a time. I hoped that I would see her again before she was a teen—or an adult… or ever at all.
I got back up, prying my gaze away from Ellie’s face. “I’ll definitely be back home.” I turned around just in time—I didn’t want them to notice my eyes watering.
The Lance named Olfred conjured a stone knight beneath me, lifting me up and separating me from Sylvie, whom Varay carried off in an orb of conjured ice. Lance Bairon approached us carrying the wrapped corpse of his deceased younger brother. His gaze pierced through me with pure venom, but he didn’t attack me again.
And so we departed. Bairon informed the others that he would be making a detour to his family’s home to deliver Lucas’ body for a proper funeral. Olfred seemed about to argue, perhaps thinking that the body should be returned to the Council for examination, but Varay waved him off. I could only assume that was an argument they would have elsewhere.
I wasn’t sure if the ability to fly was part of being a white core mage, but even without invoking any spells, all three of the Lances were capable of flying—and they had enough power left over to support the conjured knight who was carrying me.
My eyes stayed fixed on Xyrus Academy, which seemed to grow increasingly smaller the farther we flew. The place itself didn’t mean much to me, but my time at the school had been spent as an ordinary student mage. I had been considered gifted, but I was still just a student. As the floating city fell away below us, I had the feeling I was leaving my life as an ordinary student behind.
We travelled wordlessly through the sky; all my attempts to start a conversation had blown away on the wind, or perhaps I was just being ignored. As gently as they were treating me, to them, I was still a prisoner waiting to be judged.
‘Papa, what’s going to happen to us?’ Sylvie voiced in my head.
I’m… not sure, Sylv. Don’t worry, though. We’ll be okay, I reassured her. She didn’t reply, but I could still sense the emotions she was feeling: uncertainty, fear, confusion.
We traveled south, though it was impossible for me to tell exactly how far. Below us, all I could see were the Grand Mountains, which divided the continent of Dicathen in half.
“We should stop here for the night,” Varay said as she descended into the mountains, and Olfred and the stone knight carrying me followed her down.
We landed in a small clearing on the edge of the Grand Mountains, facing the Beast Glades. I was still shackled at the wrists and ankles, so I sat leaning against a tree, watching Olfred erect a stone hut with a mere flick of his wrist.
“Hold still, Arthur Leywin.” Without waiting for me to respond, Varay clamped an artifact over my sternum. Instantly, I felt the mana drain out of my core as the device sank deeper into my skin.
“My magic can’t help me escape, so why the sudden precaution?” I asked through gritted teeth. The sensation of my mana being forcibly contained wasn’t a pleasant one.
“There are other ways you can make trouble,” she replied tersely. Then she lifted Sylvie, still encased in the translucent prison, and retreated into a second hut only moments after Olfred had conjured it.
“How could I even…” I muttered under my breath, annoyed.
“It’s because we’re so close to the Beast Glades.” I turned my head toward Olfred, who took a seat on a newly-created bench next to me.
“You are Lances, though. Are you saying there are mana beasts that even you aren’t capable of defeating?” I asked.
“I haven’t met one so far, but the Beast Glades hold many mysteries that even the Lances have to be wary of, especially at night, when the more powerful beasts roam. Despite our powers, boy, we’re still mortals; death never looms far from us. With all the strange events these days, one can never be too careful.”
There was a brief silence, broken only by the low sound of the howling wind. Then he sighed. “What am I doing, telling all this to a little kid?”
I cocked my head in the direction of the hut. “To be fair, your comrade don’t seem like the best of company.”
I was surprised when the old Lance erupted into a fit of laughter. “You’re right about that, boy. Let me tell you, spending time with Varay and Bairon together is more stress-inducing than any SS-class mana beast I’ve ever fought.” Still grinning, he looked me over. “Let me ask you something, boy. I’m curious as to how you became such a capable mage at your young age.”
“How do you know I’m capable? You’ve never seen me fight,” I challenged.
“I’ve heard Bairon tell me about his younger brother—the one you killed. I also heard some stories from the students I talked to,” he answered, shrugging slightly.
We talked to each other for a short while, but though Olfred seemed amiable, he was also very guarded. I wasn’t able to pry any sort of information from him; he spoke professionally without revealing anything crucial, as did I. In spite of our little dance of polite conversation, there was a subtle tension between us as he weaved my questions into jokes. We tiptoed around each other with our light words, each of us fishing for hints to satisfy our mutual curiosity. After an hour of fruitless effort on both sides, Olfred suggested I get some sleep.
While Olfred wasn’t as distant as his companion, he was, in a way, more mysterious.
Olfred hadn’t been so kind as to create a stone hut for me, as he had done for himself and Varay. Without shelter or the protection of my mana, the sharp winds sent chills throughout my body, and I made myself as small as possible as I lay curled against the tree.
I fell asleep at some point, but was rudely awakened when the stone knight picked me up like a sack of rice.
“Hi, best friend.” I patted the conjured golem indifferently as it whisked me back into the air.
Sylv, how are you holding up? I asked my bond.
‘I’m okay, Papa. The cage is a little small, but it’s comfortable,’ Sylv replied.
Her emotions were linked to mine, so I was careful not to let any of the worry I was feeling leak out to her. I didn’t need her to know just how worried I was about her, or what the Council might due to her if they found out the truth of her origin.
Flying over the Beast Glades, I realized just how big our continent was. The diverse terrain of the mana beasts seemed never-ending. We passed over deserts and grasslands, snow-capped mountains and rocky canyons. More than once I spotted a mana beast large enough to be seen even from the height we were flying.
Olfred and Varay constantly released their killing intent, warding off all the mana beasts in our vicinity. Still, several times we detoured around some threat I couldn’t sense, and in these moments the Lances withdrew their auras.
I assumed Varay had put the mana restriction artifact on me so I wouldn’t purposely attract the attention of dangerous, territorial mana beasts. I had to commend her, as that was something I would probably have tried as a way to escape—although whether I would have had the ability to survive this deep in the Beast Glades, even if I had escaped, was a question I wasn’t very keen on learning the answer to.
I didn’t have much time to ponder it. Varay stopped suddenly, sending out a blast of wind around her so she could hover in midair, and took out the communication scroll from which she had read the Council’s sentencing.
“We are here,” she said after carefully scanning the area around us.
I looked around in the sky, but there was nothing near us other than the birds dumb enough to venture close to flying humans.
Just as I was about ask her what was going on, Varay raised a hand, as if searching for something in the air. With a soft click, the sky split apart to reveal a metal staircase.
Olfred smirked at the sight of my gaping mouth.
“Welcome to the Council’s floating castle.”
99
Fellow Captive
“Looks like some of the keener mana beasts have sensed the castle. We should hurry if we don’t want any unnecessary trouble,” Olfred said to no one in particular.
“Mm,” replied Varay.
The resounding roar of mana beasts below prompted us to climb up the aged staircase. Well, not me, since I was being hauled over the golem’s shoulder, free to admire the iron steps which were pitted with dents and rust.
Peering down from the sky, I could faintly make out the subtle movements of a few huge mana beasts shrouded in the dense cluster of trees.
The stone knight, which had me slung over its shoulder, gently lowered me onto the base of the flight of stairs. Then it crumbled into sand and reconstructed itself into a cape, fastening itself around Olfred’s shoulder.
Olfred winked at me upon noticing my surprised expression. “We dwarves always carry a bit of dirt with us wherever we go,” he said as the door closed behind us.
I had thought we would be surrounded by darkness, but a moss-like substance covering the walls began glowing with a soft blue light. Varay dissolved the ice cuffs that shackled my legs together so I could walk on my own. She took the lead, while Olfred followed closely behind us.
We had been trudging up a seemingly endless flight of stairs for at least an hour when I finally voiced my frustration. “Is there no faster way to go up than climbing this absurd staircase?” I sighed. Due to the assimilation process I had gone through, I was stronger than most humans—even without my mana core—but I was still growing impatient at the wasted time.
“Magic cannot be used at within the castle entrances,” Varay answered immediately, a hint of impatience in her already cold voice.
I let out another deep breath and followed along silently, stealing a glance at my bond. Sylvie was sleeping a lot more than usual due to her recent transformation. Windsom had told me about the different forms asuras could utilize, depending on the situation, but I never knew how much of a toll it took on Sylvie to release her draconic form. It made sense, though—Sylvie was basically a newborn in the eyes of deities who could live for thousands of years.
Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t realize that Varay had stopped.
I let out a surprised grunt as I bumped into her. The female Lance was just a tad taller than me but I was a step below her, so my face had hit her back. However, my arms were cuffed in front of me and had hit someplace a bit more… intimate.
I didn’t think much of it, but Varay reacted in a way I would not have expected. She let out a rather girlish squeal as she jumped forward. She whipped around to face me, and I could see her face flush in embarrassment and surprise before immediately contorting into a fearsome glare that might have made someone else break out in a cold sweat.
Collecting herself, she turned back around and placed her hand at the end of the stairwell before muttering softly, “We are here.”
