"What is magic?" it said, its voice filled with emotion and nostalgia — like an old wonder it had nearly forgotten.
"That is a question I've spent quite a while on, you know, and to this day I don't know." There was no disappointment in its inhuman voice, only wonder lifting it slightly.
I raised an eyebrow as I looked at the happy shadow, who had a soft smile for the first time since I met him.
"You did those tricks of yours. Explain that then," I asked, not really believing anything it did — more accurately, not caring what it did.
"Be polite. Don't interrupt." It glared at me; the room darkened as an obsidian sheet with thought-words appeared in front of my face.
I was a bit intimidated, but I didn't show it — I kept an emotionless face.
Now that I think about it, I was still exhausted from that fight. I didn't have the capacity to care before; maybe I did now.
"For magic, I guess we have to start from basics. Think of miracles, law, and the unknown — or, as more commonly known: human, divine, and mythical magic." It went on, explaining like a scholar lecturing on a subject he'd studied for an eternity.
I was about to interrupt to ask something, but decided to wait.
The shadow nodded in appreciation.
"Human magic is one of wishes and desire. Think of the impossible but beautiful oddities — a dancing painting. Basically, human magic is when stories and human imagination become reality." No obsidian sheets now, just his mostly old human voice with a metallic tinge in it. The interest and passion decreased as the sentence ended and a new one began; ambition and greed crept in.
"Divine is law and belief. It is hard to explain — let me show you instead." He snapped his fingers.
Suddenly I was in a white place carved with gold decorations, curves forming order where there should not be, making beautiful drawings of armor and spears and a balance held by a golden figure in white luxury cloth.
As one of the golden figures descended from a painting, a man in white robes with an emotionless face stood before me. A crown manifested in his hand; the jewel-covered man bowed arrogantly before him. The golden figure placed the crown on his head.
I watched the mesmerizing scene in silence, unable to speak — as if dreaming, but surprisingly real.
A map of an entire realm flashed before my eyes: land where his words were law, his authority unquestioned, his orders fulfilled by people in his domain. He was law; he would feel it if someone broke it. More importantly, he could change it — not the laws of the whole world, but a small part of it. It wouldn't last forever, but from then on it was his god-given right, the power he had earned.
The individual finally stood. As he faced the golden figure, his eyes gleamed with ambition and interest.
A moment later I was back in the messy armory with toppled shelves and weapons on the ground. The shadow stared at me, a wake-up to chaotic reality.
"What was that? Where was I? Can I get a decent explanation for any of it?" I asked.
"Mythical is the unknown. It's honestly quite hard to describe — even more so. It is literally the indescribable. Okay, dear court, well you pay attention again." It didn't give me a chance; it gestured to me the way it did to an audience.
The humanoid figure snapped his fingers and it happened again.
I saw a heavily decorated robed figure surrounding him. The robed figure made a circle using the same indescribable language as before; they chanted in absolute adoration and stillness. The devotion shone behind the darkness of their eyes. In the middle lay a tied man, hair short, wearing silk, but in terrible state — lying on the floor with wounds all over his body. The man at the head started chanting; blood flowed out of his own wounds like a river; his face went pale.
The shadow behaved like architecture and the air itself folded into impossible geometries. Faint sigils and tessellated triangles crawled across the black, hinting at a cold, precise logic that made the world taste of calculus and rot. With every hesitant footfall familiar contours unthreaded: walls lengthened, ceilings tilted into new, obscene planes, and the room rearranged around a silhouette that was less creature than theorem. I knew with bone-deep certainty that the ritual did not summon something so much as reveal a geometry of shadow that was unmaking reality to fit its own terrible pattern.
Suddenly reality became meaningless — as if something ancient, drowning beneath the surface, was bringing its air in. It hurt itself with broken shards of reality; a drop floated above a gaping hole in the world. It swallowed. With a sinister scream of horror, what had been there was no longer; it was described in an inhuman way, a mix of real life and pain.
A moment later it was gone, nothing left but a floating drop of blood.
The robed man went toward it, held it, and swallowed it like candy.
Then the vision stopped before showing the results.
"What else can you do? Play with my memory or something?" I asked, a hint of fear nearly leaking into my voice.
"Told you. Hard to describe." It acted in its usual way.
"Was that you?" I recalled the two figures and how they looked alike even though the atmosphere around them were extremely different.
"Again, maybe." The question met a brick wall.
Like a teacher asked a stupid question, it kept going.
"As for what — flaws. Mythical is hard to control. Divine is very limited. Human is fragile."
"There is no inherently better magic. Magic is like a weapon — like swords and maces. Which one you use depends on the armor you're dealing with."
I didn't ask; I found it interesting, but I didn't ask.
"Not that you are the one choosing most of the time."
"Is that all magic?" I asked, appreciating the information but annoyed at the treatment.
"No, just what I manage to understand. There are a lot of anomalies with no explanation, lumped into one of the three or just left undefined. But there's definitely far more to this world. You should probably start investigating when you get the chance."
"Who cares. What you said is good enough."
"Knowledge is important — maybe your way home."
"Even then you wouldn't help. You need me here. I don't know how I feel about that. It has its benefits, but it is a fact." I stopped for a moment, then continued. "So you do invastgtion things without me. Oh sorry, I forgot your situation," I said sarcastically, letting the poison pooling up spill out; you could practically feel venom in the air.
After that unsatisfying conclusion to the conversation, I barely realized something weird.
"Something doesn't add up. Wasn't this whole thing too clumsy for an assassination of someone who just became duke?"
"Surprisingly observant. But the reason is obvious if you think about it. You are not Arthur. Whatever the plan was, it had to change — the sudden change in your behavior, for example. Arthur eats his sadness away, probably.what happens wasn't original plans .It means they got clumsy and made mistakes and made a desperate attempt. You luck never fails to impress."
"Luck is no one trying to kill me, or sleeping in my home. My real home." I said, my voice weak and desperate.
"You aren't — rather, you didn't act like they thought you would. You didn't eat food; you went to a weird place without a guard. They probably thought the plan was ruined, now is a good time to improvise with you without a guard. He was good — so good it was impossible to hear. He killed the front guard without a sound too.you say that isn't luck"
The words mockingly danced: "There is no way out, so serve your duty, your Excellency."
I started biting my nails subconsciously.
"So what exactly am I supposed to do here?" I asked, my voice confused, with a hint of anger.
"Mostly govern, with my help." The obsidian sheet appeared in front of me with confidence.
"So what is it exactly? I don't remember anything from Arthur memory . I don't know how to run anything, what industry to develop, how to govern a city — all that. So what do you know?" I said to Mister Know-It-All. Not that I had a choice — I probably had to take a gamble.
"You're putting the cart before the horse."
"The job of ruling a realm internally, at least, is not making business and managing industry. It is stopping his nobles from killing each other or him as much as possible, so it's safe and stable for people who can make money to make money and then give some of it to you. You can take a more proactive role, but it is risky and less predictable."
'Well this is bad,' the thought ran through my head.
The obsidian words continued unobtrusively.
"I guess it's about — I did something, be grateful; not even my son got privileging,"of learning fromit said.
There was something I really wanted to ask.
"I know it's pointless, but here goes nothing." I took a heavy breath and asked, "Why are you helping me? What do you want?"
"It is a very long story and you have no options. But me — you're not Arthur; you need someone to trust."
"Fine, let hear it. I need a distraction anyway. none of this make sense—better yet, what are you? You said—"
"No, my little chosen one. There is time for everything." Again it talk about an entire different topic like it isn't even talking to me
"Chosen? What is that about? Oh yeah, forget it. Let's just work with what we have." I ask confused
"Yeah. Just figure it out and eventually wake up or go home."