Broadswords - 37. The Caveat

Broadswords

Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Caveat

"I don't know what I should believe," Birten said, turning away from Harmon. He grabbed the edge of an armoire, seemingly steadying himself. "I feel like I can trust you, but I also feel a sense of obligation to Elsior. Everything I've seen here has me confused. But I still don't know that I have any reason not to trust him, either."

"You just attacked me!" Harmon exclaimed, a little louder than he'd intended. But he couldn't help it. He was certain that something had been done to Birten's memories, but it didn't negate the fact that he'd just knocked him unconscious with the intent to do who knows what.

Then, from the other side of the door, he heard a call of "Guards!" Shit. His involuntary outburst had apparently been heard by one of the castle guards patrolling the area. Sure enough, the door was immediately yanked open and a kingsman entered the room. He could already hear the echoes of more of them rushing to his bedroom.

Felix, the guard that had alerted the others, looked back and forth between Harmon and Birten. Without hesitation, he had Birten by the shoulders. "Wait!" Harmon said. The situation was not good.

"For what?" Felix asked almost incredulously, keeping a firm grasp on the squire. "I just heard you say that you'd been attacked!"

"I… no, it's not what it seems like," he said frantically.

Felix stared at him. "You've got a mark on your forehead."

As if on cue, Harmon felt his headache pulse. "Well, yes, but—"

"Were you or were you not attacked?"

"Well, yes, but—" Harmon repeated, and he realized he was putting his foot in his mouth. He should have lied. He was getting pretty accustomed to it, after all. But everything was happening so fast and he hadn't yet found his bearings.

As a group of other guards piled into the room, Felix seemed to finally realize who he'd detained. His eyebrows raised, but he didn't say another word. "Get him to the dungeon," he said to the others, and two of them grabbed Birten by each arm, with a couple others taking up the front and the rear. They escorted him from the room. Birten didn't say a word while everything was occurring. He simply let his head hang and didn't struggle, allowing them to guide him away.

Felix stayed back, waiting until the others had gone before speaking up. He was one of the guards closest to Harmon, and when they were alone he was typically quite frank. He treated him more like a friend than anything, a quality in which Harmon quite appreciated. "What in all hell happened to cause a dragonslayer's squire to attack you? And how did he even manage to get past all the guards?"

"I assure you, it's not what it seems. I think he's been brainwashed. He's been missing for quite some time, and now that he's suddenly back it's like he's a whole different person," Harmon said. He paced his room, his mind a flurry of trying to figure out how he was going to fix this. He might be able to convince Felix, but there was certainly not going to be a way to assure his father that Birten was not himself. The king would absolutely declare that there was treachery afoot, and that regardless of the circumstances Birten couldn't be trusted. While the king wasn't fond of executions, Harmon knew that he would have no problem with a lifelong imprisonment sentence.

"How can you be sure that an attack on you hasn't been his plan all along? If memory serves me, that one entered squireship quite late. This could have been something he'd been working on for years. Getting involved in the slayer circuit, that's a pretty convenient way to build a rapport with the royal family," Felix said. Though the guard was verbalizing exactly what he should as a protector of the kingdom, Harmon could see in his eyes that he wanted to believe what the prince was saying.

"I can't, of course," Harmon admitted. "But I just don't believe it. I don't know what it is." He didn't want to mention Elsior's hand in all this. While it might potentially help his cause, there was also the more likely chance that it would backfire. He didn't think mentioning the exiled former servant would do anything but harm his chances of getting Birten out of this unscathed.

Felix sighed, and made his way toward the door. "You know I have to alert your father immediately. I hope for everyone's sake that you're correct about this. But if you are, you have to figure something out, and quick. I don't think the squire will be sentenced to death, but right now all we have to go on is a physical attack on a prince. Your father might make an exception considering that fact. And even if he doesn't go that route, you know how hard it is to convince him of anything besides what he wants to believe. If the squire is in fact innocent, you're going to need solid proof of that." He shot Harmon a final look of support before leaving the room.

"Answers!" the king bellowed, and Harmon was startled from his thoughts. He had just been steeling himself up to go speak with his father about the incident, but apparently his father was ready to talk now. The guards had only taken Birten away around fifteen minutes prior, so it was clear the king was angry. He hadn't wasted any time to confront his son. He stood just inside the doorway, a guard on either side of him.

"Father, something's not right here," Harmon said.

"You're damn astute, boy. Of course something's not right! You've just been attacked by a squire to one of our very own dragonslayers. How in the hell did he get past my guards?" His father was fuming, a redness very evident in his face.

Harmon shook his head. "No, father, I mean something's amiss with this situation. Yes, he attempted to waylay me. But he's not himself. Someone's gotten into his head. It's as if someone implanted false memories into his brain."

At that, the king stiffened. "Are you sure?"

The reaction surprised Harmon. He had expected his father to scoff at the suggestion, or at the very least tell him that it didn't matter. But instead he seemed like he believed it as a valid option. "Well of course I can't be completely certain, but… I believe it to be true."

"What did he tell you?" The king's eyes were fixed, staring intently at Harmon. Though he was used to similar expressions from his father, there was something noticeably different about the way he looked in that moment. There was a knowingness there. A fear, almost.

Harmon swallowed. "He said he was confused, that he wasn't sure—"

"Naturally, I gather that. What did he say about his memories? What did he say that makes you believe that he was given false memories?" There was exasperation in the king's tone, but his face remained steely.

"He said he had memories of living on Tarragonia, that he remembers his family there. His friends. His… allies," Harmon said. He'd almost slipped in mentioning what Birten had said about Elsior. He said that he remembers specific things about that life but that at the same time, none of it is concrete. He said he had been led to believe that I was his enemy, and—"

The king held up his hand, silencing Harmon. The look Harmon thought he'd seen in his father's eyes was now irrefutable. "That's enough. This information doesn't prove anything. However, it allows for reasonable doubt. The squire will be interrogated. Heavily. We'll keep him in the dungeons until we know for certain if he has indeed been brainwashed. And even then, unless we are able to have it reversed… he might very well be kept there indefinitely."

Harmon knew better than to say anything else at that point, and watched as his father left the room, accompanied by his guards. He truthfully hadn't expected that. But it was better than the alternative. He expected that his father may have had some kind of idea of what had happened to Birten. And for everyone's sake, Harmon hoped it was able to be reversed.

Hours later, Harmon decided he needed fresh air. His room felt stifling and he was killing himself with the thoughts that were running through his head. Though he had a small balcony adjacent to his bedroom, he needed a bigger change of scenery. The northern wing of the castle held a large atrium; a courtyard with a vast garden that created a private escape. It was complete with trees and other foliage, and once in the middle of the place it almost seemed as if it were somewhere else altogether. It was a way to lose oneself in nature, and for someone like Harmon, it was the closest he could get to the real thing.

He was halfway there when he literally ran into Lessa. He was so out of it that he didn't see or hear her approaching; similarly, she had been walking and reading at the same time and hadn't seen him, either. "Ouch!" she said. "Why is everybody in such a hurry in this house?!" He ignored the fact that she was just as guilty of the run-in.

"What do you mean?" he asked absentmindedly.

"First father, now you! At least he didn't almost take me out. But he and a bunch of the guards rushed into the library and flew past me so fast I thought I'd spin around!" Her constant reading clearly gave her a colorful imagination. "Why everyone in this family loves to run me out of the library I don't know."

At that, he began actually paying attention to her. "Father? In the library?" That was a rarity. Similar to Harmon, the king did not read for pleasure. He also didn't have the time. And if any research needed to be done, he'd generally have one of the castle staff do it on his behalf.

Lessa shrugged. "Got me. It's weirder than you being in there. Maybe our family is being taken over by water sprites. Among other things, they have an extreme thirst for knowledge!" She showed Harmon the cover of the book she was currently reading. The Way of the Water Sprite.

"I doubt it, Less," he said. He'd hoped she'd be able to give him a clue of what his father was up to. He was just about to continue on his way to the atrium when she added something that did just that.

"You're probably right. We're too far away from a body of water to make that a very likely possibility. Plus he was talking loudly, and water sprites always whisper. He kept saying this weird word, and it sure didn't sound like anything a water sprite would say."

"What was it?" Harmon asked. "What was the word?" He was trying not to sound too desperate for the information. He certainly didn't need Lessa aware that he was digging into something that their father certainly wouldn't want him to.

She scrunched up her face. She was obviously trying to remember what she had overheard, and Harmon prayed that she could. "I don't know, I've never heard it before. On… owm… oneiromessy?"

He was sure his heart skipped a beat. As casually as he could, he asked "Are you sure it wasn't mancy?"

Her face lit up. "Yes, I think that was it! Oneiromancy! I have no idea what it means. Do you?"

"Nope, not a clue," he said. Which was true. He was definitely aware of what mancies were, but it was one that he hadn't heard of specifically. As his sister shrugged again and wandered off, he too continued walking. But his course had changed; he was now heading toward the library.

He entered the room slowly, careful to ensure that his father was no longer there. After a quick sweep of the room, he was glad to find it empty. He immediately made way toward the section dedicated to books on magic, and found the book he was looking for in no time. It hadn't been pushed all the way back onto the shelf, which made him believe that his father had indeed also consulted the book. It was the same one from which he'd initially learned of Terramancy. The Dark Collective: An Abridged History of the Assemblages Dedicated to the Black Arts.

Flipping through the pages, he got chills as he passed the page which included the symbol that had started the chipping away of his perception of Elsior. He was concerned with the fact that here he was, researching another mancy, which could once again be tied back to his former lover. How many mancies was he capable of?

Somewhere near the end of the book, he found what he was looking for. Like the other entries, there was scant information provided. But it was still enough to concern him. Underneath a symbol which resembled a circle with two dots side by side within its center, and underneath the word Oneiromancy, he read the handwritten snippet.

Not to be confused with fortunetelling, Oneiromancy began as the art of divination through dreams. While many mancies require a physical object for the divination to work, an Oneiromancer requires nothing but their own mind as they sleep. Due to the unique feature, those not well-versed in mancylore often confuse Oneiromancers for fortunetellers.

Oneiromancy was a late addition to the Dark Collective. Just as its divination abilities do not require anything physical, the same is true for the manipulation powers. Early manipulation involved the mancer altering their own dreams. However, once the ability evolved to allow the mancers to alter the dreams of others, they were accepted into the Collective without hesitation.

Oneiromancers with manipulation abilities are considered by some to be the most dangerous mancers. One leading factor in this opinion is the limitation in reversing their manipulation. If one Hydromancer manipulates a river to bend the other way, for example, another Hydromancer can reverse the magic. However, if one Oneiromancer manipulates a person's dreams, only that Oneiromancer is able to undo it.