Chapter 254: An Ancient Search

“Hannar-cim…Hannar-cim,” the chancellor rolled the name around in his mouth. “Interesting…there’s a familiarity to it.”

“Really?” Alex sat bolt upright.

“Yeees….hold for a moment.” Baelin’s eyes seemed to glaze over as though he were seeing something that was invisible to the naked eye far off in the distance. “Yes, I remember now. Roughly five hundred years ago, I summoned a demon for the purpose of killing a number of rats creating havoc in a cellar, and-”

“Wait, hold on, you summoned a demon to kill rats?” Alex leaned forward in disbelief.

“Of course! Why not?” the chancellor looked at him with honest confusion. “Now mind you, it wasn’t a very strong demon, but demons can make exceedingly gifted pest exterminators. They are perhaps the second most naturally gifted killing agents in all the planes.”

Alex swallowed. “What’s the most gifted? Dragons? War-spirits?”

“The common housecat.”

“What? That can’t be right.”

“Several extinct species of bird, small mammal, and reptile would beg to differ were they not, of course, extinct,” he said. “In any case, it was a Bu’Bu: a small demon that amuses itself by scaring children and feeding on small animals. This particular one did make a strange request of me when I summoned it. I used subjugation summoning to bind it to my will, but it still tried to bargain with me. It asked if I knew where to find a ‘Hannar-cim.’”

“Holy crap, this is big,” Alex said excitedly.

“Indeed…but it is not the first time that I have summoned a demon who has asked if I know so-and-so mortal. I think many demons believe that the material plane is much smaller than it actually is; they seem to assume we all know each other.”

Alex felt his face flush with embarrassment: he had sort of made a similar assumption when he’d thought all demons spoke a single language. But, Baelin didn’t need to know that.

“Did you look into the name?” Alex asked.

“It pains me to say it, but I only did a cursory search,” he said. “Demons often simply try to bargain for information or knowledge on mortals who have wronged them, or may have given them petty slights. Most often, the mortals they seek are—in fact—long dead. I searched through certain reference books at the time, made inquiries of a few friends and—when I found nothing—I assumed that the demon had just named some petty summoner who had called it long ago. Now, with hindsight…I regret that I did not dig further. Pfeh, if you live long enough Alex, you can come to regret your every action if you let yourself.”

“I’ll…uh…keep that in mind,” he said. “Can you summon the demon again? Maybe it could have learned something in the last half-thousand years.”

“Hrm, we can hope,” Baelin said. “Before I do, though, you said the other words were…Hirshin-Eos and Yushaero…those titles I have not heard before. And you said that this ‘Burn-Saw’—I see your skill for naming things has not grown—called out these names after it sensed the energy that comes over you when you use summoning or teleportation magic.”

“Yeah, and that’s why I think it has something to do with The Traveller,” Alex said. “Like, I know there might be other variables at play here, but the timing was too…specific. I could be wrong, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume she’s who he was referring to.”

“Indeed…indeed…at any rate, while the data is not firm enough to create a conclusion, it is definitely firm enough to warrant more investigation. Now, then. Let us begin with our closest lead.”

Baelin rose from his chair. “If you would be so kind as to stand aside, Alex.”

The young wizard immediately got out of his chair and moved beside Claygon while the chancellor stepped around his desk. Baelin extended his hand before him and spoke the words of an incantation, which Alex recognized as the words of a first tier summoning spell.

He could feel the connection form between this world and the faraway hells that demons called home. A circle drew itself on the floor of Baelin’s office and the air shimmered within the space.

There was a shift in reality and then a creature came boiling up out of the stone. It was a sleek, vicious looking thing that appeared to be a lean, hungry cross between a goblin, a monkey and a hairless cat. While it had eyelids like a cat, its eyes were strange…like glass balls with multiple lenses in them. They sort of reminded Alex of the flies’ eyes he used to look at when he was small and would catch insects to examine them. These eyes looked similar to those.

It had a long tail that separated into four “fingers” at the tip: from the centre, a vicious looking stinger protruded.

“Hello-” Baelin said a name in one of the many tongues of demonkind. It sounded like nails scratching along stone. “-it has been quite some time since we met, has it not?”

The creature let out a horrible screech at the chancellor.

“I see that time has done little to improve your mood or your manners-” Baelin sniffed, then made a face. “-or your smell for that matter. So let us keep this unpleasant business brief. Do you remember asking me about this name: ‘Hannar-cim’?”

The demon gave him a dull look, then made a screech that sounded suspiciously like a question. Alex focused on The Mark, trying to let it help him start picking up the demon’s language, but he had too little experience listening to demons speak. The Mark had no memories to draw from to help him.

“You do not remember?” Baelin asked. “I know it was some time ago, but you seemed so intent on getting an answer from me at the time. Do not tell me you have no memory of this now?”

The demon screeched at him.

“Aaaaah, there it is. And where is he?”

Another screech.

“Ah, that is a pity. Then tell me everything you know of this Hannar-cim.”

Alex listened as Baelin went back and forth with the demon, trying to find some meaning in their conversation. The only thing he got for his trouble was a dull headache from all the screeching.

Finally, Baelin waved his hand. “Very well, you are dismissed.”

The little creature vanished from the world, and Baelin turned to Alex. “Well then, that was illuminating.”

“What’d it say?” Alex asked, almost desperately.

“Very little…and yet very much,” Baelin said. “It did not know much about Hannar-cim, and it had even largely forgotten the name: it seemed that when I had summoned it all those many years ago, it questioned me on behalf of another demon who was of higher station in the hierarchy of its domain. That was the demon looking for Hannar-cim.”

Something in Baelin’s voice made Alex think that there was some ‘not-so-good-news’ concerning this other demon.

“And that other one is dead, isn’t it?” he asked. “Or gone?”

“Oh you were right the first time, I’m afraid,” Baelin said. “It seems that some time ago, the abyssal knight that ruled this creature’s domain angered an abyssal knight-errant: a sort of wandering warrior in the hells, much like how mortal knight-errants function in your land, or the Rhinean Empire. They quarrelled…and the knight-errant won handily and consumed his rival before setting upon and killing all of his enemy’s servants. This creature’s immediate superior was among the ones destroyed. Permanently.”

“Damn,” Alex swore. “I guess it was too good to hope the answer would be right there…but it doesn’t sound like the whole thing was a bust?”

“It was not. For one, our little friend did refer to Hannar-cim as a ‘she’.”

Alex felt his heart jump. “That’s…that’s one thing in favour of this Hannar-cim being The Traveller.”

“Indeed, and there is more,” the ancient wizard said, and Alex could have sworn he heard a young man’s excitement in his voice. “The creature did not have all of the details, but it appeared that a price had been placed upon this Hannar-cim’s head for a humiliation she had subjected another abyssal knight to, though it was unaware of which one that was. I also know that it has had no dealings with any demons from Ezaliel’s realm, which shows that this Hannar-cim’s influence extends beyond one domain in hell. He also said that he’d been instructed to search for her with discretion.”

“Right…” Alex mused. “So maybe Burn-Saw and the demons that attacked Generasi aren’t the only ones that know about her. …but Burn-Saw was pretty open about accusing me when he saw me: there was nooo way he was trying to be discreet. It seemed like the exact opposite to me.”

“Hm, that could mean that whichever high-ranking demon it was that was humiliated by this Hannar-cim, might be dead or has given up on attempting to hide the event. Things are often in…flux within the hells, so anything is possible concerning that, really. Now, there is another piece of information we have gathered that the demon did not tell me directly.”

“What is it?” Alex asked.

“Think about it. Think about when I summoned this creature.”

“You mean right now?”

“The first time. What did I say?”

“Well you said it was…five hundred years ago…oh shit, that’d be a little more than a hundred years before The Traveller would’ve been born.”

“Indeed.” Baelin looked at Claygon’s face, carved to look similar to the goddess statues in the Cave of the Traveller. “This Traveller…is most curious. A book with a language that I do not know, that not even the members of my cabal know…ancient Heroes that seemed to have participated in battles a hundred years before they were born…and recent sightings on other planes. Well, hasn’t this become an interesting mystery. It might be enough to convince my cabal-mates to take more of an interest in the subject.”

“Okay, okay,” Alex said with excitement. “So we learned some things. We definitely learned some things…but I guess we could also be completely wrong and this Hannar-cim could have nothing to do with The Traveller.”

“Indeed…” Baelin said. “On the one hand, this Hannar-cim was a woman and so is the patron saint of your homeland. It seems that this ‘Burn-Saw’ had direct contact with this Hannar-cim and identified something in your mana—when you used a teleportation spell—as something so familiar, that it was convinced that you were this person. Those things indicate a link between Hannar-cim and The Traveller. And yet, there are disparate time periods, which indicate that there might not be a link. Hm.” Baelin tapped his chin. “I will see if your high priest or your king might permit me to take a quick look at that cave you used to get to Generasi. More clues likely lie there.”

“I wish I could come,” Alex said. “But those priests would sense me around there.”

“Well, you will likely be busy with investigating the dungeon cores and their capabilities,” the chancellor said. “Not to mention the search for any demons that would know of this ‘Hannar-cim’, which I shall conduct together with you. Now, one unfortunate matter is that this demon has not heard of any sightings of this Hannar-cim in recent times: it only knows what it found out from its deceased superior ages ago.”

“Ah okay,” Alex said, puzzling things over. “So Burn-Saw’s heard of Hannar-cim being sighted in the planes more recently, but this demon hasn’t. Huh.”

“Indeed. Well, ‘the hunt is on’ as some would say,” the chancellor said. “Let us see how difficult it will be for us to find our quarry.”

He glanced up at a timekeeper on the wall and made a face. “Well, would you look at the time? I fear that is all the break time I have for now. Later, we shall look into this with more…depth. I must admit, I am eager to see what we shall uncover.”

“Yeah, me too, Baelin, me too,” Alex said. “Oh, uh…can I ask you one last question?”

“Certainly, as long as it is a quick one.”

“Uh…is there life on other worlds? On the material plane?”

Baelin raised an eyebrow. “Alex…I faintly recall saying that I had time for a ‘quick’ question, not ‘please confirm or deny several incredibly contentious theories that have plagued wizards for some millenia’.”

“Well, I thought you might be able to answer fast…you know, with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. That sort of thing. I was wondering if Hirshin-Eos was…maybe in another world? What do you think?” Alex asked.

Though he had a feeling he would be wasting his time, he tried reading Baelin’s body language: but got nothing. The chancellor was still—almost stone-like in stillness—and as Alex was observing the ancient wizard, he got the distinct feeling that Baelin was observing him in exactly the same way.

“Then I shall answer with only one word: ‘perhaps’,” Baelin said. “There is evidence for such a concept…and evidence against it.”

Alex remembered something that Mangal had told him, about if archmages had discovered other worlds with life and resources, they wouldn’t exactly go around telling everyone else their secrets.

“Yeah…okay,” Alex said. “Well…let’s just say that you happen on the knowledge of this Hirshin-Eos…wherever it might be. Do you think you could tell me?”

“Why yes,” the chancellor said. “I will tell you as soon as I know. After all, I am a professor. What good would I be if I didn’t teach?”

Alex got the distinct feeling that while Baelin did teach, he didn’t necessarily teach everything that he knew.