Last Life

BERTRAND WASN’T the least bit surprised by my overly frank questions. I had started noticing that the old man was no longer bothered by the “gaps in my memory.” Later, when I asked why he was so unfazed by my “amnesia,” he told me that he liked the new Max, and the fact that his master had forgotten large chunks of his former life was for the best.

But that was not all. Bertrand confessed that he had visited the temple of Adélaïde, local goddess of balance and tossed a coin into her Great Scales. He prayed for her not to bring back his master’s “bad” memories, which once again made me think about Max the dirty little wretch. How badly would you have to treat a man for him to pray for something like that?

“Monsieur, what exactly do you remember of what Gérald Lambert taught you?” Bertrand asked, before starting his tale.

I shrugged my shoulders and answered with a smile:

“Who is that?”

Bertrand looked at me in incomprehension at first then, rubbing the back of his neck, asked:

“Have you really forgotten your teacher? Monsieur Lambert was doubtlessly a quarrelsome man, but still he dedicated many years of his life to raising you and teaching you various arts.”

“Well, old fellow, seems like you prayed to the right goddess,” I snorted. “And she heard your prayer.”

Bertrand shook his head the way true believers always do when they hear heresy. And a moment later, he was smiling glumly.

I laughed. That made Bertrand light up somewhat. He was already starting to make little jokes with me. Good sign.

“You know something?” I sighed heavily. “I could definitely use his lessons now. Where is he? Probably the capital. Sharing his knowledge with the next crop of young aristocratic scions.”

The old man shook his head dejectedly and looked away.

“Alas, monsieur... Gérald Lambert was executed alongside your brothers and father. He also took part in the conspiracy against His Majesty.”

“Hm...” I rubbed my chin. The atmosphere of levity evaporated in the blink of an eye. “So, that’s how it is...”

We both spent a bit of time thinking quietly. I didn’t know what Bertrand was pondering, but I was preoccupied with thoughts about Max’s father. Bearing the black mark of a traitor’s son bothered me to no end. Bertrand said the royal investigators never touched Max because he was just a bastard and totally uninvolved in the conspiracy, but that didn’t give me the least bit of reassurance. My Dodger sense was telling me that things there were not as smooth as they seemed on first glance. I’d bet a tooth all that crap would float up to the surface again. And the last thing I wanted was to step in it.

Bertrand broke the silence.

“I don’t know what exactly Gérald told you, but given you won’t remember anything anyway...”

“Alas,” I shrugged. “Put yourself in my position, and all will become clear.”

The old man considered it for a moment and then said:

“Then it would be for the best if I went into greater detail on the story...”

“We’ve got plenty of time,” I encouraged him.

With my approval secured, Bertrand got started. And the more he said, the more wistful I became.

Yep... Whatever spirit sent me into this world was really trying to give itself a good last show.

I meanwhile, and I was ashamed to admit it, had already started hoping I’d gotten off relatively easy. After all, no matter how sullied a reputation could become, it was always possible to restore with time and effort. Loans, too, could be paid back. Making money was no issue. There were even ways of overcoming the brand of “traitor’s son.” It would be incredibly difficult, but still doable. All the problems tied into the human factor. But what to do with a phenomenon which was not subject to human will? Because what Bertrand had just told me sent a chill running down my spine.

No, not out of fear. Out of anticipation! I was just overflowing with emotions. I wanted to drop everything and rush into the action. My “benefactor” from the darkness must have known me inside and out. Better even than I knew myself.

“As a matter of fact, no one can say for certain how it happened,” Bertrand said. “We also don’t have an exact date. But it is generally believed that the Heavenly Veil appeared around three hundred years ago.”

The old man snorted and shook his head:

“The people call it the Wing of the Twilight Owl or just the Owl’s Wing.”

“Heavenly Veil?” I asked.

“Yes,” Bertrand nodded. “A huge immobile body that obscures half the sky and covers most of the western lands with its shadow. You might say several counties are now beneath it.”

“Is that where the Shadow is from then?”

“Exactly,” the old man said. “The Shadow of Strix.”

“Strix?” I shuddered, hearing a familiar name from my world. “Strix was a messenger bird from ancient legends sent by dark gods before unleashing their anger upon the earth, right?”

“Monsieur!” Bertrand exclaimed, clapping his hands together with delight. “Your memory is slowly coming back!”

I chuckled slyly:

“Looks like you didn’t give quite enough cash to your goddess’ priests.”

“Monsieur...” Bertrand came plaintively and almost stood up, but I stopped him.

“Oh, I’m only joking! Better you tell me why everyone’s so afraid of the Shadow.”

He breathed a heavy sigh. He must have regretted a thousand times already admitting to me that he’d visited the temple.

“How could they not be afraid given all the devilry afoot in the Shadow?” Bertrand responded.

Yep, this was apparently going to take some doing. I wished myself patience and started asking the old man leading questions.

When he started responding, I felt two different ways. On the one hand, Bertrand told me a lot. But on the other, all the information he was dumping on me was pretty surface level. In other words, due to Bertrand’s low position in society, he wasn’t allowed enough access to the information I was after. But the omissions were more than made up for by the huge heap of rumors and gossip. Honestly though, when taken all together it was quite contradictory.

When Bertrand finished his story, I didn’t even notice the fact that the water in the basin had gone cold. I was simply not present when he toweled me dry gently, set me into bed, and fed me. My brain was too busy analyzing all the new information.

Basically, despite the fairly contradictory things he told me, I was actually able to figure some things out.

The Shadow, or anomalous zone, as I was calling it to myself, covered quite a large chunk of land in the west of the continent. The Veil had ended up blotting out land belonging to several different countries. Essentially, it was a strange sort of cloud which had hovered nonstop over the same spot for over three hundred years, creating a neutral zone in the heart of this world’s most densely populated continent.

Bertrand claimed that nobody knew what went on in the middle of the zone. The people who used to live in those places never came out of the Shadow, and neither did the ones who went in to find out what became of their families.

But the authorities didn’t just sit idly by. The old man told me a legend he’d heard from his grandfather about a great journey to the middle of the Shadow headed by a prince who was heir to the Kingdom of Vestonia. The army, which numbered in the high thousands, simply ceased to exist. The anomaly swallowed it up like an insatiable beast.

And things went from bad to worse. A little while later, when people got used to the new reality, strange things started happening in the lands bordering the Shadow. New kinds of flora and fauna started appearing, as well as new materials. To top it all off, the human settlements in those areas were subject to regular attacks by all kinds of monsters. It was in those times that the current king’s ancestors laid the foundation for a series of forts on the edge of the Shadow.

At first, there were constant garrisons on duty, but the high mortality rate of battles with the various creatures and contact with new kinds of flora meant these forces quickly started to dwindle.

As was only natural, serving at those border fortresses came to be regarded as a punishment. Nobody was too eager to lose their head in a strange land to the fangs of some otherworldly creature or be poisoned by an inoffensive looking flower. Peasant uprisings thundered through Vestonia. After all, the biggest burden in terms of providing recruits to the royal garrisons fell squarely on the peasant communities.

It should also be noted that the ruler of Vestonia in those times was a man of progressive viewpoints. Instead of suppressing the rebellions and drowning the land in blood, he took an unprecedented step. He issued a decree creating a force that came to be known as the Shadow Patrol, which started drafting not only peasant children, but young aristocrats as well. And in order to avoid complaints from the peasants, the heir to the throne himself was sent on the first Shadow Patrol. That was a curve ball that made it impossible for any counts or dukes to object. Still, it occurred to me that there would have been no avoiding significant payoffs on the part of the crown as well. To quiet down the most genteel and keep them on the ruler’s side.

To be fair, I should note that the tradition of drafting nobles fell away the summer after the death of the king that came up with it. His son, following his advisors’ counsel, abolished that duty for aristocrats.

Later, a loophole was also thought up for well-to-do subjects without noble blood flowing in their veins. A new decree was issued allowing replacements to be made. Needless to say, after the new decree was published, the fees commanded by mercenaries began to multiply.

I must note that, despite this being quite a dark cloud, it too had its silver lining. And quite a big one, to my eye. The thing was that a little while after the Heavenly Veil appeared along with its Shadow, some people started to undergo curious changes. They learned to harness the alien energy that had come to their world. In other words, people started being born gifted.

But sadly, Bertrand couldn’t tell me anything concrete about them for totally explicable reasons. Gifted people, or mages as they were known here, jealously guarded the secrets and mysteries of their craft. And that made perfect sense.

All he told me were facts everyone knew. The old man told me in breathy tones about the master healers who could cure any illness or injury with their magic. About the druids who had domain over nature magic. About artifacts and alchemists whose magical output was in incredibly high demand. And about strykers — combat mages.

No more and no less than superhumans. I still had yet to work out what was really going on with them.

Beyond that, I discovered that something called bruts also played an important part in the lives of gifted people — energy crystals, or magic crystals as they were known here, which could only be found inside the Shadow of Strix itself.

I didn’t neglect to ask about the hollowstones either, whose multicolored dust was used in the healing elixir and Max’s ink. Now that was publicly available information, so Bertrand was able to explain it to me in depth.

The key to the riddle was hidden right in their name. Essentially, a hollowstone was the same as a crystal, just one that had lost almost all its energy. The old man heard somewhere that mages purposely left crystals with just a tiny bit of energy or as they called it here, mana, so they could be sold to alchemists and artifactors.

So that explained why the elixir Bertrand bought for me had such a low concentration of energy. And Max’s ink was just as energy poor. Essentially, they had been made of waste products. But even that mana was enough for me to repair the ruptures in my energy channels and heal my headwound. Basically, I was practically shaking with anticipation of what I could do with a whole crystal.

The only thing was that I was afraid to even imagine how much that kind of thing might cost. Actually, what was I thinking? Why spend money on something I could go get by myself? Just as soon as I got on my feet both literally and figuratively. I just needed to get this body in decent shape, and I could start preparing for the journey. My mysterious “benefactor” was probably rubbing his hands together happily right now. If of course he existed. I’d bet my tooth he knew I would jump straight into the action.

Lying in bed with my hands behind my head, I was staring at the gray ceiling and thinking tensely about my situation to the sounds of Bertrand fussing in the other room. I, a person from a technologically advanced world, was severely lacking information. The days when it only took a couple of clicks to get a mountain of information from the worldwide web were now long gone. I had to adapt to this new reality, a slow-moving and unhurried place.

The locals’ pace really bothered me. While interrogating Bertrand, I could see that my questions were coming so rapid-fire he started to sweat and when I let him go, he breathed a sigh of relief. The old man’s brain clearly was unable to handle all that mental strain. And that was with me taking it easy on him to avoid a breakdown.

The sound of the front door opening made me tense. I covered my eyes and pulled air in through my nose out of habit. The familiar field flower aroma let me know Trixie was coming to pay me a visit. She moved quick.

Bertrand appeared in the doorway.

“The young flibbertigibbet...” he muttered. “Has popped by again. She never used to show her face, but now she’s positively dripping with honey. She’s asking to come see you... She says she has some news that might catch your interest. Those like her bring only destruction.”

“Send her in,” I nodded. “And get out ten oboles from my coin purse.”

She figured everything out, put two and two together. My gentle probing about her life, then the news of new muster rolls, and the fact I sent her out right then. I also slipped her a couple copper. One simple bit of manipulation and I had myself a voluntary informant in Madame Richard’s staff. And most importantly, I didn’t even have to ask her a thing. Trixie thought it was all her idea.

When she went all red and barged into my room with eyes lit up, I found myself unwittingly admiring her, which made her very embarrassed. A real country bumpkin — no question.

“Well, spit it out,” I hurried her along, turning her thoughts down a different channel. “What’s the big hurry?”

I was purposely using the tone of a man being bothered during important work.

“Monsieur,” Trixie gave a quick curtsey. “Your servant is right — the new muster rolls have caused turmoil in Abbeville.”

“Well, that I already knew,” I put on a look of slight disappointment.

Bertrand popped into the doorway and stopped short. Trixie, seeing the familiar coin purse in his hands, gave a loud gulp and spat out:

“But what you don’t know is which names are on it. But I do... The thing is that Becks, or Rebecca rather, a friend of mine works as a maid in the home of Monsieur Bugeau, deputy director of the Abbeville chancery... And she told me...”

“Let’s say your friend can get her hands on those documents,” Bertrand muttered. “Where do we go from there? I’d never believe she can read.”

“That’s true, Becks can’t read,” Trixie responded immediately. “But she has a very good memory. When Monsieur Bugeau read off the roll to his wife, Rebecca memorized it. It is, as an aside, quite long.”

I still didn’t know what I was supposed to want with this information, but I had to encourage her.

“Alright,” Bertrand didn’t let up. “Let’s say this Becks has a good memory and can memorize long lists. What are we doing talking to you then? Or do you have a good memory, too?”

“No,” she shook her head and chuckled slyly. “My memory isn’t that great. Particularly when it comes to names. So I just wrote them down. Here...”

After that, she triumphantly handed me a small sheet of paper covered with dense hurriedly scrawled handwriting.

The old man’s face stretched out in surprise. I lost control and laughed.

“My daddy was a blacksmith and knew how to write,” she explained. “And he taught me. I’m passing the art on to my little brothers and sisters.”

“Old fellow,” I addressed Bertrand. “I don’t think ten oboles will be sufficient for such a job well done. Throw in another five copper.”

The old man nodded in dismay and started counting out coins. And all the while, he was frowning very comically and breathing heavily, which earned him another laugh from me.

When Trixie got the money and darted out of our residence brimming with self-satisfaction, I handed the list to Bertrand:

“I am not totally sure yet why we need that information, but it will certainly be put to good use. Take a look, maybe there’s someone you know.”

The old man took the sheet of paper without a word and started to read.

“Like chicken scratches,” he grumbled, shaking his head. He saw a chance to get back at her and took it.

All that time, I was keeping a close eye on his facial expression. Bertrand was calm right up until he turned the sheet over and read the first line.

His eyes went wide. He turned his head toward me.

“What’s it say, old fellow?” I lurched forward.

“Now that I was not expecting,” the old man came with a puzzled look. “If I’m not mistaken, and I am not, Monsieur Weber’s eldest son has been drafted into the Shadow Patrol.”

“Care to remind me who this Monsieur Weber is?”

“Weber and Sons trading house,” Bertrand responded. “Leon Weber is a very wealthy man. Most likely the richest in all Abbeville. He even did business with your grandfather on several occasions. He must have crossed someone at the top. Someone with a lot of influence...”

“Well,” I shrugged. “He’ll hire some cutthroat and send them in his son’s place...”

Utterly useless information.

But a moment later, it hit me like a bolt of lightning. Well, of course! Leon Weber! Most of the loan records on my desk were signed with that very name. So he was Max’s main creditor, and as of recently, mine as well.

My thoughts took off at a galloping pace. A curious picture started taking shape in my head...