RFC-Mini Arc: The Temple-Part 17 (Patreon)

The house is dark when I return home. Despite my wife’s many deviant tendencies, she’s strict about a proper night’s rest. With one exception, hehe.

As always, the door swing opens while I’m coming up the steps. However, instead of Geneva, Nomad stands int eh doorway. With the weak light throwing sinister shadows over his perpetually grim features, the reformed bandit looks more like an apparition from the Silent Hollow realm than a human.

He blinks slowly, drawing attention to the black half-rings under his eyes. “Welcome back, my lady.”

“Nomad. Good work.” He steps back as I enter, closing the door behind me.

“Can I get you anything?”

“Well, a drink would be nice. The Herbanacle.” I drop onto one of the couches, kicking off my boots while a hand massages my chest. The ache has eased significantly after recovering some mana but the excitement of the night lingers. Two fights and an execution. Busy, busy.

It doesn’t take long for Nomad to return. A large candle in the center of the tray illuminates the glass bottle filled with amber liquid and three glasses. Must be something they keep prepared. Mm, I have capable servants.

He sets the tray in the center of the table, standing at the ready with the bottle in hand. “You can take a seat,” I say after my first sip. I pat the place beside me and he obediently drops onto the cushion. He’s not winning any points for posture. My etiquette teachers would have beaten him silly for his hunched spine.

“Feel free to pour yourself a glass.”

“Drink is not my indulgence.”

“Hah? What kind of bandit doesn’t drink? Better question, what is your indulgence?” I’d love to know what he’s spending his salary on. It’s quite generous, if I say so.

He briefly looks toward me before staring blankly at the wall. “Paints.”

“…you’re an artist?”

“An artist? In a sense. Moreso, I am a creature continuously trying to grasp myself.”

“Here.” I pour a generous amount of liquor in a glass and push it into his hands. “Drink, dammit. Maybe then I can understand something you say.”

He drinks, downing it all in one large swallow, neck distending obscenely. “Don’t hurt yourself,” I chuckle, refilling the glass. “Sip it.”

Again, my servant follows the instructions easily. Maybe too easily. Most of the time, Nomad feels like a ghost but sometimes, he also reminds me of a puppet. Simply existing, waiting for someone to pull on his strings.

“What’s your story?” I ask, taking in his features. I can’t place him. His pale skin says he’s from the north but those charcoal-colored eyes that make it hard to distinguish his pupil from his iris are rare on the plains.

Maybe he’s from a mining town in the northeast. Can’t be from Fort Victory. From what I hear from Alana, they’re all burly men and Nomad is as thin as a string. “You don’t strike me as opposed to honest labor. What were you doing running around with that clown?” Ah, what was his name? Rack? Raccoon? Possum? Some kind of pest.

“…I don’t remember.”

“Hah?” Oi, come on. Who doesn’t remember the moment they decide to turn to a life of crime? I let out a sigh of exasperation when he goes quiet. “Explain.”

“My memory is not good. It is hard to tell one moment from another, details fade quickly. I don’t remember how I became a bandit or my crimes. I don’t know when I met them or how long I was with them. I don’t remember names or faces. It is all…” He trails off, as if he’s forgotten what he was going to say.

“Ah.” If it’s that bad, isn’t he going to make a pretty crap servant? Probably more than one reason he’s night staff.

“The demon helps. I can feel her grasp in my mind. Weaving me back together. I can almost…almost…”

He trails off again and this time he doesn’t continue. Shaking my head, I refill our glasses. “Anything happen today?”

“A dark night. Without the moon for guidance, it is easy to drive men to lose their minds. They howled for blood and tore apart their fellow as if he were prey.”

My head snaps to him sharply. That almost sounds like what happened in the Sanctuary. How does he know about that? He wasn’t there. I would have noticed him following me.

There are several kinds of magic that can be used for information gathering. Chief among them is the mental affinity, though Geneva tells me it can be tricky over longer ranges. Masterful use of the wind affinity can allow a caster to isolate and project sounds in an area or carry a sentence to them from the opposite side of the city. Assassins and spies will hide within the earth.

Without a doubt, the best magic for it is scrying. It has several derivatives. Remote viewing, astral projection, precognition. Its users are highly revered seers within the caster community, oracles to the more religious masses to whom magic remains mostly memory.

The domain of the celestial affinity and the only explanation for Nomad knowing what happened to me.

But it’s impossible. Rare isn’t strong enough to describe the chances of someone being born with the celestial affinity. It’s not one in a million. It’s one in every ten generations. Maybe one in a hundred generations. There isn’t even a saint, those who represent the best of humanity, known with the illusive affinity.

The stories of those with that affinity are…strange. Very strange. Every time, they are described as being different from the other members of their race. They look different, act different, and worse of all, they think different.

As in, they’re insane. Some are more capable of reason than others but they are all completely crazy. Crazy and devious.

Apparently, the First King, while he was still a soldier in the Great War, approached a seer. Humanity was not faring well and he wanted to know how to reverse their fortune.

The seer demanded a priceless artifact from the lair of a dead dragon. Tomb raiding is not a glorious thing but when thousands of lives hang in the balance, the future king set aside his morals. He retrieved the artifact and brought it to the seer who then chased him out of their abode, giving him no answer and nearly killing him. He returned to his home to find that the goblin clans had launched a surprise attack, decimating his army.

The future king was furious at the time. However, later, he realized that his impromptu quest had saved him, allowing him to later lead the human army to the future Harvest Kingdom. He got his wish but didn’t know for decades, only piecing it together when he was older and wiser.

The story isn’t meant to be a fond remembrance told to inspire the next generation of knights. After all, no one knows what might have happened had he been present during the ambush. The seer might have damned humanity to its eventual defeat rather than saved its future king.

It’s meant as a warning. A seer is more dangerous than an army of dragons. One tangles with them at their own peril.

I refuse to believe I simply grabbed one by chance.

Wait. If he is a seer, then that wouldn’t have been an accident. He would have been on that road on purpose. Does he know about me? Is he—

I slam back my drink before slamming the glass down and grabbing the bottle from Nomad’s hands and taking several large gulps of it as well.

This is why seers are so dangerous. Just thinking you might could possibly maybe on the off chance be involved with one can drive a person mad. I’m being ridiculous. Nomad isn’t a seer. He’s something but not that.

I place the half empty bottle on the table and get to my feet, feeling a pleasant warmth throughout my body. “I’m headed to bed,” I say, a yawn cracking my jaw the moment after as if my body wants to express its agreement. “Have a good night.”

“Pleasant dreams, daughter of the stars.”

Once again, I turn to him, squinting. He’s still facing forward so I can’t see his expression, not that his face ever gives away anything. Is he actually—

No. Nope. Not going there. He’s not a seer. I can have Geneva taste test him in the morning just to be sure, though I don’t know how she could have missed it in the first place.

I hurry up my bedroom before I can change my mind.