MAGUS INFINITE

The weight of his gaze when he looked away from the Caelith to me became incredibly intense. I have had the attentions of Sovereigns before, but it was either broken, like in the case of Seed, the Sovereign of Darkness, or very distant, like when they were all fighting in the heavens, but this was the focused attention of a being who had lived for thousands of years, and must have seen empires rise and fall, probably seen the world change and change again... and despite everything I had seen, I could not lie, I became a bit nervous, since he was looking at me like I was a puzzle he was trying to solve.

I found it a little amazing that with all the issues that a Sovereign was busy with, Sovereign Caldus knew of a small expedition to a Caelith at the edge of the continent. It was either displaying the sheer power of a Sovereign’s soul to keep so much random and unimportant information in his memory, or this expedition to Caelith Mourne was not as clear as I once thought.

My mind returned to the past loops and the words of Scholar Orath when he was confronted by me and the others,

"You believed in the Academy, in the Council. Hehehehe... You believed in the power of knowledge to save the world, but you were so blind that you never understood that knowledge is just a tool. Power is the only thing that matters... This has always been the plan, and I am not the only Adept in Aldenmere who knows this. How else did you think this expedition was greenlit?"

At that time, those words had not sat right with me, and because I know the entire reason this eruption was happening was for a group of mages to use the power of the Caelith, the Celestial Essence inside of it to ascend to a higher level... then this expedition could not be random.

Was I standing in front of a Sovereign who was among those who knew the full scope of this calamity, and they wanted to burn the world just to gain more power?

I did not know the truth about what was happening, and the shocking fury rising in my soul was swallowed; whatever the truth was, I would know it, and at the moment, I should see where all of this was leading to.

If Sovereign Caldus was part of the mages who were working with the Conclave and wanted power, then he may believe that an Acolyte reaching the level of Proto-Sovereign in such a short time was indicative that something had gone wrong and I had hijacked the process and gained all this power.

Everything he said and did next had to be watched and analyzed, and if he was my enemy, I would not care if he was a Sovereign... I would rip his fucking head off!

I looked at the Sovereign, but he did not seem to be aware of the battle that had just gone on in my head. His eyes were filled with complexity as they kept flitting from the Caelith to me, and I remained silent and watched this process happen.

"The Caelith," he finally spoke, and his voice was flat. "Is one of the few Celestial structures we have not been able to access over the years, but you have somehow found a way into it, and have gained great power from it. That is the only explanation for what you have become... Such a thing is ridiculous, and if I am not standing in front of you, I would not even know that this was possible."

I opened my mouth, then closed it. He was wrong, but he was not entirely wrong. The Caelith had given me something, had branded me as its Warden, had poured its authority into my soul, but the foundation of my power had been built long before I touched the pyramid.

Still, I could see his logic. An Acolyte with the power of a Proto-Sovereign. The only explanation that made sense was that the Caelith had done this to me; however, was all of this logic the games of an ancient mind looking to find information for the apocalypse not going according to script, or something else?

My eyes flashed to the sky that was covered with fire, and I wondered if this was a domain that had subtly covered this entire place, hiding what was happening here from the eyes of others.

But I had been quiet too long, and I could see something else appearing in his eyes, and I straightened.

"Yes," I said, and the word came out tired. "The Caelith has become bound to me. It happened not too long ago. But the foundation, that came from before, when we reached the pyramid for the first time."

His eyes did not waver. "Explain."

I wondered what I was going to say at this moment that would not betray that I was becoming suspicious of the Sovereign. I didn’t know if I was strong enough to die in front of a Sovereign, because that was the danger... capture and not necessarily death, since a Sovereign was strong enough to keep me without killing me.

My mind was working furiously as I thought about this dilemma, but it did not stop my mouth from speaking, while I did slight edits in the process, to see what would come out of it.

"The Conclave of Ysmar happened," I said. "Scholar Orath, the Master who led our survey, was one of the Conclave. The survey was never a survey. It was cover. There are seals inside the Caelith that contain great power, and the Conclave has been mining the Caelith’s seals for Celestial Essence for a long time, wearing them down, draining what the structure was built to keep sealed. The entire demons that are wreaking havoc came from underneath the Caelith, where they have been buried all this while."

I watched his face and found no disbelief there, which told me something before I finished, and none of it was good, but I continued, hoping that I was seeing threats where there were none, and someone as ancient as a Sovereign must know a lot of things.

"The only thing holding those seals shut against the Conclave was a... being that gave me all of this power. The Conclave has been poisoning her, and that was the reason I could gain all this power, since she gave me before she died so I could protect this world and end the scourge of the demons. Everything that is happening is the result of the Conclave’s actions."

I stopped here and looked at him, hoping to find shock in his face and demand proof from me, but he did not appear shocked; his burning eyes were just fixed on me without any signs he was disturbed by anything I had said, and finally he nodded and spoke slowly

"I know."

The two words landed harder than anything the Matron had said to me, and I took a few steps back, causing his lower lips to twitch, but he did not say anything.

"You know?"

He shrugged, "The Conclave of Ysmar is at our borders; they have gathered the forces of the Iron Spire of Drak and the Marrowhall Athenaeum. We are at war, Elric, and I expected something like this to be the work of the Conclave."

I looked deeply at the Sovereign and took another step back. "But something tells me that you are okay with this."

He smiled, "I am."

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