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Makai Black Mage

Cenric Asher

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From Umbra [Part 7]

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Cenric bathes in the Yugr’am River at U’thac’s suggestion. “It’ll be good for you,” he’d said. Moreover, the smell was unbearable. An unspoken plea in the miqo’te’s eyes was enough to make that point perfectly clear.

He can’t remember the last time he’d bothered cleaning himself. Weeks, months. There had been no reason. He would die in disgrace. It was the only future left he could see.

And yet.

If the Twelve intended him to survive through their service, at a certain point he would need to do better. For efficiency if nothing else. Filth made it easy to get sick and difficult to recover. The results would benefit no one.

In darkness he unwinds the black bandana, steps first from his slops and then his kurta. Kyokyozo has provided robes, which rest neatly on a small rock nearby. It crosses Cenric’s mind that the bones of his knees, his hips, his wrists, even his face have all started to protrude strangely. He looks less hyuran than before, maybe less than he ever has. Closer to something priests would exorcise than anyone deserving aid.

He wonders if this idea has occurred to them.

The water, when he advances, is cold. Goosebumps raise across his skin as slowly, gingerly, he wades in to his waist.

Cenric ducks under.

His hair is a long and tangled wreck. Being wet only disguises this slightly. It drifts past his neck, comes to float near the surface. Cenric holds himself in silence, eyes open, watching the silver scatter of light over stones and plants and fish. He remains for as long as he can bear.

His vision stings afterward. Gasping, he can’t tell if the cause is exposure or something else. For a time he simply waits, breathing hard through his nose, hunched so that his lips are partially submerged.

He thinks of nothing, pretends that this time instead of no future he has no past.

Only one moon remains. Maybe the sky aches for losing Dalamud, but better that than the blow which scarred Eorzea.

***

For a time, his sleep is dreamless. 

He eats what he is given. He cleans the shrine. He recites his prayers without expectation.

Memesu waits.

***

Why is it, the student asks, that only Ul’dah worships Nald and Thal separately? Ul’dah who holds them in such esteem?

You see, the Traders share a secret title. One which most would call sacrilege.

In scripture our god of wealth and death exists as Oschon’s creation. Nald’Thal comes forged from Hydaelyn herself, a force of order over his kin. The statues and murals are not ambiguous. His solitary form rises from flame and rock and is whole.

In good manners, the thaumaturge explains, people will claim both brothers exist in a single body. That they share freely with each other what would cost the world dear. That there are not twelve patron gods of Eorzea but thirteen.

Time and again, they shy from the possibility that Nald’Thal is simply insane.

***

Cenric sits on the floor, draped in a white cotton tunic. It might have been snug on a Roegadyn but anyone else would find ample room. Behind him, Memesu stands on a cot holding shears. Gold earrings dangle on either side of her face.

“I fought at Carteneau, you know,” she mentions casually. There is a soft hsssssshhhh. Click.

Hair hits the floor. Coils.

He starts to shake his head, aborts the gesture partway through. Stills. “…you saw Bahamut?”

Memesu snorts. “I’m sure everyone this side of Hydaelyn saw Bahamut.” Click.

“That’s probably true,” he concedes. The dragon is what everyone knows, everyone remembers. He can't imagine the proximity. “What about the Warriors of Light?”

“Pff.” Gentle tugging at his scalp. Cenric does not open his eyes but leans into the motion. “I wasn’t of rank to see their like. Not that I’d remember. Stop moving.” Click.

Cenric hesitates.

“What do you remember, then?”

For a time, the only sound comes from blades and a thousand strands cut short. This lasts for several minutes. Cenric resigns himself to secrets.

Then, “I used to think I was special too. As a twin. My sister was Chichisu. We studied together.”

Was.

The exhale hits him slowly, quietly.

“She died?”

He can feel the shrug in her hip against his shoulder.

“It was Carteneau,” says Memesu. “Of course she died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Click. “It had nothing too do with you. If you keep trying to claim responsibility for every misfortune you find, you’re going to get self-important.”

Cenric only grunts, quiet and non-committal.

Click.

Click.

Click.


“Carteneu was so much worse than people remember. Only four years later and already we hurry to dispose of details.” There is a hard undercurrent to Memesu’s voice, but what contact she makes remains light. Careful. “I remember the arcanist from Limsa who didn’t dodge a magitek canon in time. Miqo’te. Spells come faster in that discipline, so there’s less stress on distance than thaumaturgy. Girl got careless.” Click. “The mess smelled like rotten eggs and charcoal. Her face was… melted.” Click. “I try not to look in those situations. They only make casting harder. But she was so close.”

Cenric doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word.

Memesu continues. “One of our own gladiators, an Ala Mhigan, took to mutilating any pureblooded Garleans he could catch. The man had a string of eyes hanging around his neck. I’m pretty sure one enemy officer wet himself before he started to beg. Not that it particularly mattered.”

Click.

“Chichisu… didn’t anticipate what she was getting herself into. She saw magic as a way of being useful to craftsmen. My focus has always been theoretical. Right side.” Startled, Cenric lets her guide his jaw to get a better view of his profile. Click. Click. “Chichi used to think I was a priss. She preferred to develop magitek kettles alongside alchemists. See if she could find a way to capture light like the Mhachi did. She still enjoyed fishing when she could, even though it smelled awful. Never outgrew the braids she wore growing up. ” Memesu sighs. “…just understand she died afraid, in pain, and with things left undone. My sister didn’t even resemble herself at the end.”

Cenric is very still. Thinks carefully.

“…I wish it could have gone differently,” he says at last.

Memesu’s mouth slides up in a small, crooked smile. She tousles the neat, ear-length hair before her. “So do I.”

***

Black magic (like its patron, like the desert itself) has two faces.

Heat and light, movement and sound. Ever hungry. Ever expansive. Astral fire rains from the stars, heaven stretched pitiless across the land. This he will someday channel, will someday master.

First though, the other. Cold and darkness, unmoving and silent. What constricts and what preserves. Umbral ice that creeps with every heartbeat to harden blood and bone.

Threaded between are words for sleep and lightning. The language of angels, the promise of their rebuke.

Cenric’s spell bends him backwards, stiffening the pit of him. It winds up his spine and curls off his tongue. Hands shape aether into figures it was always meant for.

He is left wanting in the aftermath.

***

“Wishes are cheap,” Memesu tells him. “We have a responsibility to live in a way that honors our dead. Their chance is spent. This is the best we can do.”
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