Part the Ω; Vitamancer’s Tale
--Years----Ago--
It was a clear gray day.
The lovingly-set dark gray stone walls of the Fortress Manceri matched the lighter-colored sky. One or two figures walked along the top of the high smooth outer battlements. But only one person was down in the grounds of the fortress, kneeling alongside a garden bed in practical waterproof gold-and-white robes.
Veritamancer was measuring a sawtoothed leaf on a small weed. The back of his left hand faced almost vertically down, as it was steadily holding a field guide to unusual plants. His right hand held a silvery metal ruler. Neither were gloved, unusually – he almost never left them uncovered, but today he had relaxed his guard, and simply stowed them inside his robes for once.
He had noticed the little weed while he was in the grounds several days before, when it was just emerging from the loamy soil of the major garden. There had been something odd about it, he knew, and he wanted to know if it truly was something different. It was his job, after all. He was Veritamancer, the Truth Mage.
There was nothing in the book yet that matched the length of the leaf, or the particular sawtoothed pattern of it. But he was patient. There was half the book to go, and this plant was still a seedling. He had waited a few days before measuring it, but perhaps he should wait one more day. He flipped the book closed with his left hand, exposing the pale back of his hand for a very brief moment.
Not brief enough.
Someone was watching.
As Veritamancer stood, there was a soft noise behind him. He spun around rapidly, and saw that a figure in a simple brown cloak stood behind him. “Hello, Veritamancer.”
Veritamancer inclined his head with great respect, greeting the other with only his name. “Biomancer.”
Biomancer indicated the saw-leaved plant with a gentle gesture of his left hand. “It isn’t yet old enough to draw differences between it and its kin.”
Veritamancer nodded his head once. “Not yet, Biomancer. The book doesn’t identify them at such a young age.”
“It would be too difficult for a single field guide author.” There was a note of agreement in Biomancer’s voice. Then the Life Mage said the unexpected.
“Is there something wrong with your left hand, Veritamancer?”
For a long moment, Veritamancer was puzzled. Then he managed, “Why do you ask?”
Biomancer shrugged mildly. “I thought I saw a scar on it when I walked over. May I see it?”
Again, Veritamancer was taken aback. “I, well…”
“I just want to make sure you’re not injured.” Biomancer pulled back his hood, exposing his face for the first time during their conversation.
Veritamancer was transfixed by Biomancer’s eyes. He had seen them before, but never had their power been fully trained on him. They seemed a dark brown, but every visible color gleamed in them as well, like the surface of a jar of oil. The irises were surrounded by bright white, but there was no visible pupil. Veritamancer could not move. He was just another insect, glued inside amber.
“May I see your left hand?” asked Biomancer calmly.
Veritamancer was expressionless. All emotion was gone from his face. The Truth Mage held out his left hand limply.
“Roll your left sleeve up so I can see it, please.” Biomancer’s voice was unchanged, unyieldingly still and peaceful.
Veritamancer pulled his white-and-gold left sleeve back mechanically, but very slowly, and with narrowed eyes. There was something strange to his manner, as if he fighting against a dream.
Biomancer stepped over to examine the hand. As he looked it over, his oil-slick eyes became a paler brown. The back of Veritamancer’s left hand was branded with the symbol of a black key. It was some kind of permanent tattoo or burn scar, etched into the very skin of the Truth Mage.
“I knew you wouldn’t tell me straight out, right when you asked me why I asked you. But how did I never see this?” muttered Biomancer, sounding depressed. He let go of the scarred hand and turned to face Veritamancer again. “Who did this to you?”
Again, there was something in the Truth Mage’s manner that suggested he was fighting against Biomancer’s influence. But there was a certain honest sharpness in his voice when he answered. “You wouldn’t know who she is.”
Biomancer hummed to himself for a second before launching another question. “What does it symbolize, or mean?”
Veritamancer seemed to be struggling harder, but again he told the truth – it was his job, even if he was not in control of himself. “It shows my membership.”
“Of what? A group? What is it called?”
“The… an organization.”
“What is it called?”
“You would not… know it…”
“Where is it based?”
“You would not… know it…” Veritamancer was tiring from fighting Biomancer’s questions.
Biomancer released a small, inaudible sigh, and asked one last question. “Veritamancer… why?”
“Because it… defines… me. That is… was… who I… am.”
Veritamancer collapsed to his knees. Just before his eyes snapped shut, Biomancer saw a hard, tangible intelligence return to them. Then the Truth Mage was unconscious, though he remained kneeling upright.
Biomancer stood by the unconscious Mage and the sawleafed plant in the garden bed, thinking for many hours, before he walked away and slipped inside the Fortress Manceri again.
--------
Veritamancer awoke in an unfamiliar, hollow, shadowy chamber. He was slumped in a recessed bench at the very end of the chamber. Above him, the ceiling formed a symmetrically slanted, pointy-topped roof of interlocking beams of driftwood. He knew from that detail that he was somewhere Biomancer had built. The Life Mage never constructed buildings from trees killed to make timber – always stone, or driftwood, or metal.
A voice floated from the far end of the chamber.
“Hello, Veritamancer Truth Mage.”
If Veritamancer strained his eyes, he could just make out the shape of a brown-cloaked figure, sitting upright and kinglike in a driftwood chair with feather cushions. He could also tell that the cloak was woven from fibers taken from plants that were previously dead – and that the cushions were filled with a fifth of the feathers from the nest linings of half of the ducks from two colonies, taken every other year. Biomancer lived sustainably.
The voice drifted over to Veritamancer again, and he gathered his thoughts before he listened. This could not be good.
“You have performed your duty to the Mancers as well as anyone could have asked. None have had cause to censure you or find fault with any single action you have taken.
Yet you have not fulfilled your duty to your own title, and your own self.”
Veritamancer’s right fingers twitched, then were still.
“You assured me with smiling promises, at the beginning of your tenure, that you had no ties to any other group, nor any organization unknown to me. You lied,
Truth Mage. That is where you went wrong. No Mage of Truth lies to their superiors.
You have failed me.”
Veritamancer recoiled. He had never heard what Biomancer did to the Mages that failed him. Now, it would seem, he would hear firsthand.
Biomancer unfolded from his chair at the far end of the room, like a curious inverted origami masterpiece. He remained standing, unmoving, after he rose. After a while, the Life Mage spoke again.
“Yet you were an efficient Mancer. That cannot be denied. And so you have a reprieve, of sorts.” Biomancer suddenly whirled on his heel and was gone from sight.
Veritamancer anxiously edged forwards in his seat. Perhaps he was being freed? He began to pull himself up –
You are cast from the position you betrayed.
Veritamancer was slammed into the back of the bench by the force of the myriad voice in his head. It spoke in many tongues, it spoke in colors and sound; it was the dawn chorus of birds in the rainforest, it was the explosion of an oil slick, but it was caged in his own head with nowhere else to go –
You are nothing, and you are no one. You leave nothing behind, and will be remembered by no one.
Veritamancer writhed on the bench.
Keep it out… not in my head… out… The voice was an onslaught of terrible color and sound and light, and it was every living being in the world speaking to him alone –
So it is that you will take on the mantle of a Mancer who is said never to have walked on any world, for the very idea of him is forbidden.
And suddenly, Veritamancer was very still. The voice was quiet now – no longer like the explosion of an oil slick, just the gleam of a dark rainbow in a single oil-irised eye.
There can be no Death Mage. But you will be the Mancer who never was, the shadow in a dark sky, the flip side of life’s coin.
You are now Vitamancer.
--------
Hadn’t there been a voice? The Mage in dark blue remembered everything except his name and the color his robes had been. Yes, there was a voice – there had been, and that was the last thing he could remember.
The Mage looked around. It was night, dark as his clothes. The stone wall that rose to meet the sky, the wall he was leaning on, was cool to the touch.
There was a murderer to the southwest.
The sudden realization came unbidden. He could sense it – a single awful life, burning madly. Why could he sense it?
Who am I? mused the Mage in dark blue, pushing away from the stone wall.
I… am Vitamancer.Yes, that was it. Vitamancer.
The sensation of the burning life to his southwest flickered more strongly now, the mind enflamed with insanity.
Vitamancer didn’t have time to dwell on his name. He checked the curved knives in his belt – hadn’t they always been there? – and set off on his way. He had work to do.
The night was dark blue – much darker than blood.
-|W|BIOMANCER|G|- ~~ GT/^\\TG