Chapter 245: The Bonds that Harm

“Imagine my surprise when I learned that you were a former student of Generasi,” Baelin said.

The ancient wizard sat at a white table across from a young man who had so many white chains wrapped around his body, that he more resembled a mummy in metal wrappings, than someone living. Each link was covered in glyphs forged into their surface: enchantments that disrupted mana for spellcraft. It was obvious that the city was taking no chances with this particular criminal; behind Baelin stood an officer with one hand on a glyph covered sword, ready to act if anything went wrong.

The chained man—the demon summoner—sat with an utterly defeated look about him. Baelin observed nervous twitches shuddering through his body.

Rttttle.

His chains rattled, and that was the only noise in the room. In the unnatural silence, they seemed to grate against each other like the heavy chains of a ship’s anchor.

“Leopold Richter,” Baelin said. “Graduated with high honours. Refused graduate studies much to several professors’ dismay, and began your work life at Howard & Family, a spell-guide publishing business. You’ve had little to do with your alma mater since.”

“What are you doing here?” the young man demanded.

“Technically?” Baelin glanced back at the officer. “Visiting a prisoner.”

“Why?”

“For information,” the chancellor said. “A student used the teachings of the university to cause chaos throughout the city. To me, that implies that—perhaps—there was a failure in administration. I intend to fix that, and so you have the rare opportunity to tell me your story.”

Leopold looked up a little, though he wouldn’t meet Baelin’s eyes.

“My story?”

“Indeed.” The ancient wizard tapped the table. “These attacks were not random. They were a message, I gather.”

The young man’s breath sucked through clenched teeth for a moment.

“But messages can be misinterpreted or lost.” The chancellor leaned forward. “So, I wish to hear what your message was, by your own words. It shall help me amend the policy of the university, if changes are needed.”

“And why should I tell you anything?” the demon summoner asked.

“Because you likely will not get many more opportunities to do so.” The chancellor gestured around the room. “I suspect white walls will be your surroundings for perhaps the rest of your life, should you avoid outright execution. How many more times will you speak to another person who is not a guard or fellow prisoner? How many more times will you be able to share your message?”

Leopold sucked on his lips again and Baelin noted the facial tick.

“You shall not speak to me again after this, most likely,” Baelin said. “So why not take this chance to let your cause be known?”

The chancellor watched Leopold’s reaction carefully. There had been many times in his long life that he’d been close to folk as they were about to take their last breath, or undergo some sort of terrible transformation to their life. At those times, nerves, pain and fear would often drive them to speak of their thoughts to any ear willing to listen. Even if that ear was not the friendliest.

And now…

“Generasi needed aid,” Leopold said.

…there it was.

“Aid?” the chancellor stifled his anger at the very use of the word to refer to what the young man had done.

“You know what I mean better than most, chancellor,” he said. “Priests and deities will ruin this city one day. They will twist it into something monstrous. I’ve seen it happen.”

“What do you mean?”

Baelin listened as Leopold told a story of his youth and the community he grew up in. The chancellor nodded along as a horrifying tale unfolded: one of evil cultists and hungry deities. The ancient wizard’s jaw tightened at the words, unable to remember how many times he’d seen similar occurrences in villages, cities or even entire empires over the millennia.

Yet his heart remained cold…toward Leopold.

“And that’s it,” the young man said. “I wanted to protect the city from fanaticism: priests’ gifts might be enticing, but they always come at a terrible price. Always.”

Silence filled the room, broken by their unnaturally loud breathing, the clink of chains, the shifting of their clothing, and the slow thunder of Baelin’s own ‘heart’ in his chest.

“I understand…that most, won’t see it the way I do,” Leopold pushed on. “But steps needed to be taken, that’s the way I saw it. So if there’s any policy change that would prevent actions like mine…or something even graver, then I implore you, do this: punish students who even suggest that priests come onto campus. End any association with the Church of Thameland…ban the use of divinities from The Games or other events associated with the university. That way, the school can continue being an example to the rest of Generasi: a living message that priests in this city must remain on the outside of our society. Tolerated. Not celebrated.”

Another silence.

“…I see. And you are done?” Baelin said, putting his finger through his beard-braids and twisting them around it. “Perhaps…there is a point to what you suggest. Indeed, we have grown closer to the priests of Thameland for our upcoming work…and this might indeed set a dangerous precedent.”

Hope leapt into Leopold’s eyes.

Then Baelin continued.

“…is that truly what you expected me to say?” the chancellor stared down the demon summoner, who looked away. “We agree that priests can be dangerous, and I have made my opinions on deities well known. I have even built that into school policy, but what you have done is many steps beyond that. The irony of your situation is that in combating fanaticism you yourself have become nothing more than a fanatic.”

He rose in his seat. “While many priests are fanatical in their servitude to deities, you are fanatical in your opposition to them. You allowed your cause to overwhelm you, and in your zealous attempt to serve it, you have only hurt the fine residents of Generasi and weakened your own purpose. In killing a priest of the four winds at The Games, you crafted a martyr out of a warrior simply looking to participate in the Grand Battle.”

Leopold swore beneath his breath. “I acted hastily this time, but Baelin-”

“Chancellor!” the ancient wizard said.

“-think of it, chancellor!” Leopold leaned forward in his seat. “We wizards often have to engage in cruel things to advance our understanding of magic and the universe. Generasi students move on to do great things throughout the world, often involving destruction. This is the same thing, and what I was trying to do was attempt to bring the good of such actions back home to the realm that took me in!”

“I am very well acquainted with the nature of cruelty for benefit,” Baelin said. “But the objective benefit of your actions is far outweighed by the suffering they have caused to wizards, students and citizens; the damage it has done, and the delays in research you have caused. Not to mention the waste of your own gifts. This is a blasted shame: a strong relational bond with an abyssal knight could have brought so much benefit to the university, had you channelled it for something reasonable—such as research—instead of zealotry. But…I have the information I came for, and I am not here to debate you.”

The chancellor rose in the silent room while Leopold watched him with a mix of disappointment and desperation.

“You should count yourself fortunate.” Baelin adjusted his robe. “If it were left to me, I would have placed you in the torture pits of Kālasūtra, where your soul would be cut with burning saws and axes for more years than you could possibly comprehend. The punishment you will receive here—while grim—is but a summer walk in comparison. Goodbye. We will not meet again.”

“Chancellor!”

Baelin did not stop.

“Put in a good word for Amir, for pity’s sake,” Leopold pleaded. “He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve to be here. Plea-”

Without waiting for the demon summoner to say another word, Baelin stepped out of the room while the officer shut the door behind him, cutting off Leopold’s voice.

The room that the chancellor visited next was not what one would call pleasant, but it was much less stark than the white interrogation room Leopold sat in. Walls of stone—covered in glyphs that disrupted spellcasting—formed the structure, but at the top of the chamber was a window sealed with steel bars covered in the same glyphs. Natural sunlight filtered through clouds and onto the face of Amir Abu Saleh.

If Leopold had looked defeated, then Amir looked like he was ready to pass from the world. The young man seemed like he wanted nothing more than to just crawl into a hole somewhere and die. He barely moved at the sound of Baelin’s hooves coming down the hall, and he didn’t raise his eyes when the chancellor stopped at his cell, flanked by well-armed officers.

Anger and disappointment waged a battle within Baelin as Amir slumped like he wanted to melt into the stone bench he was sitting on.

“Hello, Amir,” Baelin said.

The former graduate student finally looked up.

“I’m sorry,” Amir said. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorr-”

“Stop. It is too late for that.”

Amir let out a whimper.

“Why?” Baelin asked.

“W-what do you mean?”

“Why were you party to this?”

There was a pause.

“I thought…I thought I could fix things, chancellor,” Amir said. “I-

The ancient wizard took a step forward. “Thought you could fix what?”

“All of it.” Amir trembled. “I…I thought I had it a few times. I talked Leopold out of a few attacks. Night after night, I’d just talk to him, trying to get him to pull it back. What was done was done, but if he’d just stopped-”

“Why not simply come forward?”

“Because it would have ruined his life. He…I don’t know, he’s my friend. I owe him my life: I owe a full life-debt to him.”

“A life-debt? Why do you owe him so much?”

Amir swallowed, glancing out of the window. “It was just before I came here: I was on my way from home—in a caravan—looping around the Prinean. I thought I’d see a bit of the world before university; I’d just been accepted and I felt like the king of everything. Then—while the caravan was stopped in a town—I went to a tavern and bought some wine. …something was in it.”

The young man winced like a whipped dog. “I woke up…somewhere awful, deep underground. There was a cult…and they…they were performing some sort of ritual. I watched them do it to other prisoners: they would make this potion by turning their flesh into a liquid that ran off their bones. The priests would collect it in brass bowls, drink it, and offer it to servants of their god that they’d summon. Day after day, I’d see my turn coming closer until I was the only prisoner left. And then, Leopold came.”

“Go on,” Baelin said.

“He used to go around rooting out cults and he’d found that one the day before, and so he crept into their lair and laced their drinking water with potions. He doped them up with stuff to make them groggy and heave their guts out. They couldn’t stop dry heaving. So while they were trying to recover, he summoned demons to set on them. And he wasn’t as strong back then—so it was dangerous for him—but he still came back to save me. I was so weak and couldn’t help him, and the cultists and that deity’s servants put up an awful fight, but he wouldn’t just go and leave me behind...and he could have. He got me to safety then went back and finished them off with help from every demon he knew how to summon.”

Amir swallowed. “And so my life-debt was forged. He came to the university the year after me, and we’ve shared a bond ever since. But…he still hated all priests, all of them. He only told me how much he hated them while he was here and—I have to admit—I did too, for a while. I got over it, but he never did. He just couldn’t. So I thought I could save his life, like he saved mine. Talk him out of things…but when today happened, it all went wrong…things went too far. If I’d just been beside him when those centaur priests used their miracles…”

Silence fell, and Baelin let out a breath.

“Misguided, I am afraid,” the chancellor said. “Your loyalty…is misplaced. Many have suffered due to it, though I know all too well the drive to save a friend.” He exhaled. “Professor Jules will be very disappointed in you.”

“I know…I know,” Amir muttered.

Silence followed.

“I suppose there is little more to say,” the chancellor finally said. “I suspect the law shall be easier on you than it will be on your friend. It could be that you will see the light of day outside of these walls one day, though you’ll never be permitted to pass through the gates of the university again. Reflect while you are imprisoned, and perhaps—if you are allowed to walk free—you might still make something of your life. Perhaps that loyalty of yours will find a better recipient next time.”

Amir hung his head again as Baelin walked away.