Chapter 14 S2

City of Jouhken, Selanpe

Niris took the last of his belongings and placed them on the dematerialisation platform of his chip. Selecting a box from his trousseau, the clothes disappeared in a flash of blue. He looked around, but he hadn't forgotten anything. After a last look around the room, he closed the door behind him and headed for his master's bedroom. 

He knocked, but no one answered. He knocked again and heard an "ENTER!" loud enough to wake a city. He sighed and pushed open the door. 

"Have you lost something again?" he asked, already tired of putting up with his master's bad temper. 

Since the start of their journey, he had realised one thing about Lou: she was always losing her things and hated having to look for them. It was often up to him to do this, as well as putting up with the angel's moods. 

-I'm sure I left with my energy shield!" said the angel, looking down at her bed. 

Niris didn't dare say that he probably wasn't there, but held back. There was no way he was going to suffer the wrath of his master for such a trivial remark. 

He put his jacket on a seat and looked round the room. It wasn't large, so he was sure to find the abacus somewhere. He opened a cupboard, then closed it again. He repeated the action with all the chests of drawers and cupboards in the room. 

-Are you sure you haven't already put it away in your trousseau? 

-I've already checked three times," said the master, looking behind the curtains. 

Niris had also quickly understood why she could never find anything. Her method of searching for objects was somewhat questionable... He was about to inspect the last piece of furniture he hadn't searched when a gleaming light caught his eye. He bent down and saw the abacus lying on the floor under an armchair. The reflection of the sunlight outside made one of its balls gleam, catching his eye. 

He bent down and pulled it out from under the furniture. It was the first time he'd found one of his master's lost objects in an unlikely place. 

-Did you use it last night? he asked, his eyebrows furrowed. 

-Ah! there it is, I knew I'd brought it with me! exclaimed the master of blades, grabbing the object which she immediately put away in her keychain. I put it there when I arrived, I'd completely forgotten about it. Abacus aren't just used to measure the ambient natural energy, they're also useful for stabilising the different sources of natural energy. 

She closed the keychain and grabbed the rest of her things, which she placed on the dematerialisation platform to make them disappear. 

-I put it here because it's the centre of the room and I was worried that this planet would destabilise my natural energy during my recovery. And as shields have become very rare objects given the development of technology, I hid it to make sure it didn't get stolen. 

"Who would steal something from your room?" thought Niris, though he refrained from saying so. He understood his master's attitude though. She was the object of such fascination among her contemporaries that he would not be surprised to see some try to approach her in any way, just in the hope of obtaining something of hers. Her 'resurrection' had given rise to a strange kind of spiritualist movement among some of the population, who had begun to venerate her, considering her return to life to be a sign from the spirits of masters, considered to be gods. 

No matter how much the organisation popularised the story of how the Master of Swords had been awakened and not brought back to life, it had not been able to counter the temptation of the delirious fanaticism of disillusioned people looking for new stories to bring them together. It was a sad phenomenon to see, and a very sinister one too, bringing back a whole host of beliefs and practices that the prince thought had disappeared forever. It had taught him that the nonsense of conscious beings never really disappeared. Hardly reassuring for the intergalaxy, but a sad reality of the living world. 

-Come on, we've got a long way to go, don't dawdle," Lou called from the door she'd gone to after dematerialising all her belongings in her keychain. 

Drawn out of his thoughts, Niris quickly joined her and they left the room. They then headed for the intergalactic airport, where he knew Ascarm was waiting with the city's governor. A final goodbye was in order, even if they had decided to leave discreetly. 

Lou had recovered faster and better than expected. The blade master's capacity for regeneration and physical resilience impressed the young prince. Admittedly, she was a master at manipulating natural energy, continuously strengthening her body since the beginning of her apprenticeship, but such power was still uncommon, especially for someone who had just woken up from a cryogenic sleep of over a hundred years. And she only had thirty per cent of her original power at her disposal... Niris didn't even dare imagine what she was capable of with her full strength. 

-Did you see your father's announcement? she interrupted him in his thoughts. 

-Yes, I saw it," he said. 

She glanced at him. 

-The angels can be proud to have elected such an emperor, he has the courage to do the right thing at the right time," she continued. I doubted his abilities at first, but I see now that I was wrong about him. His natural gentleness in no way makes him a weak man, on the contrary. He has managed to turn that gentleness into an incredible force for action. Your father was made to be emperor. 

Niris did not answer. Ever since he was a child, he had questioned the relevance of his father's role as head of the Aegean state. No, in fact, it was the role of the emperor as such that he had been questioning. In a system as deconcentrated as that of the angels, was it necessary to have a man who concentrated all the powers in terms of foreign policy at the head of the State? To this day, he still hadn't found an answer to his question.

And deep down, he couldn't help wondering what his life would have been like if his father hadn't been Emperor, if his mother hadn't been the descendant of the last Master of the Blades. All these questions had been going round and round in his mind since he was a child, without him ever being able to find an answer. And he would never find an answer, he knew it. 

Seeing the dark gleam that had appeared in the angel's eyes, Lou didn't insist. She could see that these questions were tormenting the young prince, and rightly so. She wasn't there to judge him, so she certainly wasn't going to rub it in. She was about to change the subject when their chip began to flash. A connection was trying to be established with them via the MIE. Niris pressed the button and frowned as the hologram appeared in front of him. 

-Jibaru?"

Lou glanced down the corridor and grabbed his student's wrist, pulling him into an empty room out of sight. 

-What's going on, Lou? Why are you contacting us via the secure channel?" asked the master of blades. 

-I've got some very bad news to tell you," he said bluntly. Zorkiel found Seiran's sister before the organisation's secret agents did! 

Niris's heart skipped a beat. He didn't know the details, but he didn't know exactly how serious it was. 

-Tell us more, I don't know the situation about her very well," asked Lou. 

-Meiran is a princess who was passed off to the entire intergalactic community by her parents. The reason for this lie and her hidden life lies in the gift she possesses. Like Niris with the gift of life, she has an extremely powerful but above all extremely dangerous gift. 

Niris' heart was beating out of her chest. 

-She has the ability to bend all angels to her will," finished Jibaru. 

-What? That doesn't make any sense! protested Niris, who was having trouble understanding what his friend was saying. 

-I've heard of the gift of persuasion," said Lou, rubbing his chin. 

Niris gave her a puzzled look. It was the first time he'd heard of such a gift. 

-Exactly," confirmed Jibaru. It's a gift that gives its possessor the ability to subject anyone of his species to his orders, whatever they may be. The person loses their ability to reason and ends up carrying out orders like a robot. They only regain consciousness and full capacity once the order has been carried out. The only people who are immune to his power are members of his direct family, i.e. Prince Seiran. 

Lou tinkled. 

-It's not good at all," she said seriously. 

-But it's not so bad, the princess can refuse to give these orders, no one can force her," said Niris, who was trying to understand the situation. He won't be able to use Seiran to blackmail her because he needs him as a front leader and now that we know that the Empress Regent has disappeared somewhere on Komalt, he won't be able to use him as leverage either. Zorkiel won't be able to do much with her as long as she refuses to do what he tells her to do. 

Jibaru sighed. 

-If only what you say were true," he said dejectedly. Niris, the princess followed Zorkiel's men of her own free will, she didn't even try to resist. 

Niris tried to understand what the head of the administration meant. It was true that it was a surprising attitude on the part of the princess, but that didn't mean that she would simply do whatever she was told. 

-She grew up cut off from the world, with the only contact being her parents and the staff who worked for her," continued the angel. Her parents gave her the same education as Seiran, so she has the same knowledge as he does, but she has no reference points when it comes to relationships with others. In other words, she's completely naive and very easy to manipulate. 

The prince was beginning to understand. His blood ran cold in his veins. 

-Imagine someone who lives in seclusion for almost twenty years, with no contact other than her family and staff, all of whom have her welfare in mind," added the Master of Swords. She has never been confronted with evil, perfidy or corruption; she has always lived in a world that protects her from the outside world. How do you think such a person is built? 

The prince felt despair sweep over him. He began to see the picture painted by his friend and master, and a feeling of horror overcame him. If such a powerful person ended up in Zorkiel's hands, things were going to get critical very quickly. 

-Just as your father wanted to protect you as a child because of your gift, he let you live in the world without hindrance so that you could forge your character and build your own defences against evil," Jibaru continued. Admittedly, it meant taking the risk of exposing yourself to more danger as a child, but it meant allowing you to become an adult with all the weapons you need to fight against the sources of this evil. In my opinion, that's a much more sensible choice. Seiran's parents made a grave mistake in isolating their daughter in this way. 

Lou heaved a deep sigh. Niris, for his part, was trying to put all the information together. But the more he did, the more he realised that the situation was critical, and the more he panicked. 

-Tell Aroslan to set up an armed coalition under the aegis of the organisation and to propose giving command of it to a headquarters of five generals from the member states. His announcement came at just the right time, now that the organisation and the angels have agreed on the way forward, we need to take the next step and vote for armed intervention. Our plan to let Zorkiel colonise planets while we plant spies everywhere to disintegrate his troops from within won't work now that he has Meiran with him. We need to stop him colonising any more planets and force him to attack us. That way, we can divert his forces away from his plan and give us time to organise ourselves in the meantime. If he has the gift of persuasion, that means he'll be able to implement whatever he wants, and much more quickly than expected, since he'll be able to do without the council's approval by forcing them to vote on anything and everything. 

-Agreed!" said Jibaru. 

-Niris and I are going to get my 'End of Day' sword. I hope that in one or two weeks it will be a done deal. After that, I'll start training Niris. The aim is to have him ready to face Zorkiel when he goes on the offensive for good. Even if we don't know what his ultimate goal is, we do know that Niris and I are his first targets. We're going to do everything we can to stop him. 

-I'll pass all that on to the Emperor," replied Jibaru. There's something else we can try. Next week the Prince of the Elves will be engaged to a very powerful mage, Cerine. I know the emperor has received an invitation, and we've asked them to send one to Ornikarn for Prince Seiran as well. Niris, it would be good for you to go. We're going to find a way of developing a tool to stop Princess Meiran's gift, and you can pass it on to her there. 

The announcement sent an electric shock through the angel. He refrained from responding too enthusiastically, but the knowledge that he would be seeing Seiran again in a week's time made him euphoric. 

-I don't know if it's a good idea that..." began the master of blades, before being cut off by the prince. 

-I'll go! 

She sighed. 

-All right, I won't be able to change your mind anyway," she gave up before even trying to persuade him otherwise. 

-We'll do everything we can to find something, even if its effectiveness will be limited," Jibaru continued. I'll send it to you by dematerialised interface when it's ready. 

Niris nodded. 

-Well, on that note, we've got an aircraft to catch," Lou ended the conversation. 

-Good luck, and Niris, don't worry! We're going to find a way of neutralising the gift of persuasion! 

-I'm counting on you," said Niris with a smile. 

He ended the conversation and turned off the hologram. Lou turned to him, a serious expression on his face. 

-From now on it's a race against time," she said, looking into his eyes. 

The angel swallowed. 

-We're leaving immediately for Lior, to the elves. That's the first step towards finding 'the end of the day'. 

She opened the door and hurried back down the corridor towards the airport. 

-But I thought you'd forgotten where you'd hidden your sword? exclaimed Niris. 

I haven't forgotten, I've sealed my memory so that no-one can find out where it is by reading my mind," she corrected. 

-Didn't you? What do you mean you sealed your memory? 

Niris was confused. 

-I have a blade called 'Voice of the South'," explained the Master of Blades. This blade has the power to control memory. It can erase, seal or transform someone's memory. It is this blade that we are going to retrieve from Lior. 

She took a turn that brought them onto the large esplanade leading to the aircraft. The wind ruffled their hair and the angel's long white hair flew in a light dance, making it almost fairy-like. 

-Nobody ventures among the elves, that's why I gave them 'southern voice'. But now it's not going to be so easy to get it back. I entrusted it to them knowing that it would be well protected on Lior since they hardly let anyone in, but what applies to the others also applies to us. We're going to have to prove that we're on the right track if I want to get my hands on her again." 

She finished her sentence by heading towards their sukoi, around which a departure committee had gathered.