The Power of Twelve

     “You are the figure known as Malum?” King Altador asked.

     Reizo nodded.

     “I was, for a time,” the Lupe answered. “My true name is Reizo. I am a friend of Kaia, from her original home in Shenkuu. It is… it is my fault that the Darkest Faerie is free. I came across her statue on my way to Faerieland to see Kaia, and curiosity got the better of me. I had not heard the legends of the Darkest Faerie, and did not understand the power of the orb around the statue’s neck. I removed it, and she was freed. I can do nothing but apologise, but nothing I say will ever make up for what I have done.”

     “You are hardly the first Neopet to make an innocent mistake,” Gordos laughed, jiggling his belly.

     “Even so,” Reizo added. “I did much more than free her. I trusted her, and together we decided to travel to Faerieland for the Festival. I realised too late what her intentions were. I had broken the orb in shock when I released her, but she worked some magic on the remains to form it into a ring and a brooch. She put the ring on her finger one night, and used its power to mutate me into the beast you see before you. She bewitched my mind, forcing me to do her bidding. And for my service, she attached the brooch to my travelling cloak.”

     Indeed, there was a ruby-red brooch fastened about his collar. The similarity to the ring stuck on the Darkest Faerie’s finger was uncanny.

     Jerdana gave a sharp intake of breath.

     “Under her orders, I helped raise the army of false Wraiths that attacked Faerieland,” Reizo added. “I was only briefly able to break free of her control, and with the help of Kaia and Fyora, we were able to stop her plans.”

     “Then what help do you need with us?” King Altador asked, somewhat more testily than he usually would.

     “Isn’t it obvious?” Jerdana said with a sad look on her face. “He still wears the brooch. It is one half of the orb. Cursed by the same magic, two halfs of a whole. When the ring bound itself to the Betrayer, the brooch, too, will have bound itself to Reizo. It is draining you of life, is it not?”

     Reizo nodded.

     “This changes everything,” Jerdana added. “When we were passing judgement on the Darkest Faerie alone, there was merit to it. Her crimes are unforgivable. But if our condemning her also sentences innocents to death, we cannot go ahead with it. We must free her.”

     “Wait,” Kaia piped up. “The Darkest Faerie is here?”

     “She is our prisoner,” King Altador said. “She has thrown herself at our mercy. We are still deliberating as to whether to lift the curse or not.”

     “Then it can be lifted?” Kaia asked, a smile spreading across her young face. “We were beginning to give up hope, all our lines of research in Faerieland have come to nothing.”

     “Wait, Kaia,” Reizo said, forcing himself upright so he wasn’t leaning on her any longer. “If my freedom means her freedom, that is not a price I am willing to pay. Nor should you be. The Darkest Faerie at her full power again, no one would be safe. You don’t know her evil as I do. Thank you for the council, esteemed leaders of Altador. But keep the curse. The Darkest Faerie deserves to pay.”

     “Reizo!” Kaia cried. “You can’t mean that! Your life is worth more than hers!”

     “And the lives she would take if she were to be free again?” Reizo asked her. “I will not have that on my conscience, Kaia. No, I did terrible things as Malum. If this is the price I must pay so that it doesn’t happen again, I am happy.”

     “It is not your choice to make,” Siyana spoke. “The Darkest Faerie is at the mercy of the Altador council, not you. It will be us who pass judgment on her. And if we believe she has changed her ways, we will free her.”

     “You have been researching in Faerieland?” King Altador asked, cutting across the sudden tense atmosphere. “What made you decide to come to Altador now?”

     Kaia and Reizo exchanged a look.

     “We received an anonymous note at the Academy,” Kaia explained. “It suggested we might find a way to lift the curse in Altador.”

     If Jerdana’s concern had her wavering, this information brought a fresh wave of anger to her face.

     “An anonymous note?!” she asked testily. “Of course! Of course it was!”

     She pushed herself to her feet in one sudden motion, flying out of the council chamber with her skirt tails billowing behind her. Guards sensibly stood aside as she marched past, a singular destination in her mind.

     She didn’t use magic to blast open the door to the Darkest Faerie’s room, but she might as well have done for all the force she put into it.

     “You!” she shouted at the Faerie, who had been staring out of the window.

     “What have I done now?” the Betrayer asked.

     “You know full well what you have done, you monster!” Jerdana hissed. “Kaia and Reizo are here. They have come to ask for mercy. Mercy! That thing you so despise in us.”

     The Darkest Faerie opened her mouth to speak, but Jerdana cut across her.

     “Don’t even try to deny it!” she snapped. “They got an anonymous note directing them here, at just the same time you arrived? Hardly a coincidence. They are your backup plan. Should you pulling on our heartstrings fail, you upped the ante by bringing in them and ensuring that any act to end you would also result in Reizo’s death. You know that taking an innocent’s life would be a step too far for us. You are playing us, as you ever have done. Manipulative to even the last. And I had the stupidity to think, to hope, that you might actually have changed! That you were sincere! I’ve never felt so humiliated.”

     “It was not deceit,” the Darkest Faerie replied.

     “You deny it?”

     “Of course not,” the Faerie said. “I sent the note, of course. But not to play with you, as you claim. Malum — that is, Reizo - his fate is that of my making. If I am to die, then so be it. I likely deserve it and more. But not him. He is, as you say, an innocent. I told him to come to Altador so that he had a chance at survival. To try and make up for what I did to him.”

     “While you profit, of course,” Jerdana said.

     “Only if you want me to,” the Darkest Faerie said. “It’s not that difficult unless you make it. I’ve been wearing the ring longer than he has the brooch. You could just wait until I am gone before lifting the curse, and save him. There is no malice in my actions here, Jerdana. I am done with games. I am just… done.”

     She looked out the window, a sunken and deflated look on her face. A look that Jerdana had never seen on her once-friend’s face before. For a moment, the Aisha struggled to place it, unfamiliar as it was.

     Defeat, she realised. Regardless of the outcome, the Darkest Faerie felt she had lost. No more games, no more tricks. Her fate now lay firmly in the arms of others.

     Jerdana felt the pangs of pity welling up in her soul and caught herself as she was about to apologise.

     The Darkest Faerie, after all, was a creature of evil and deceit. Betrayal, her very name. What value did the truth hold to her but as a means of telling a different lie?

     “It would be so much easier to believe you if you had not lied to us for so many years,” Jerdana told her instead.

     She turned on her heel, shutting the door much less firmly on her way out.

     ***

     Sasha received a message from the city guards after the council session broke up. Another piece of graffiti had been discovered on the walls, this one no more than an hour old when it was found, and more specific, too. It mentioned Jahbal, one of the original Council of Twelve, directly. And compared him to King Altador, of all people.

     The Cybunny made her way over to the Altadorian Archives to see what Finneus had discovered, and found the old Lenny nervously pacing in his office.

     His face brightened when he saw Sasha, but she recognised the look of someone who was hopeful about laying their concerns on another’s shoulders.

     “I’m so glad to see you!” he cried. “I sent a message to the Council Chambers but the reply said you were in session.”

     “Business to do with the Darkest Faerie,” Sasha replied solemnly. “Not that your efforts are not important, too, Finneus. It just took priority. What have you found?”

     “What indeed,” Finneus said, gesturing to a stack of over a dozen books. “Mostly reference books to the fall of the Great Empire. Not anything concrete about their rule, just when things went rather wrong and the cities started burning. But then, I found this.”

     He had set one of the books apart from the others on the table. It was an unremarkable thing, brown leather with a faded title on the cover that read, ‘The Book of the Twelve’.

     “When I sourced the books, this one was an oddity,” Finneus added. “I collected any that appeared to reference the Council of Twelve or the Great Empire. But this one, aside from the title on the cover, was blank. I assumed it was an ancient diary that had never seen use, mistakenly added to our catalogue at some point over the years. However, when I came to put it back in the stacks not an hour ago I saw that it was no longer blank.”

     He flipped open the cover to reveal a prologue describing the Great Empire.

     “There’s this, and a chapter on Jahbal,” Finneus said. “I assure you, Sasha, they were not there originally.”

     Sasha felt a creeping sensation in the pit of her stomach. She knew where this was going.

     “Some new graffiti was discovered not long before that,” she said. “We have experience with this, do we not?”

     Finneus gave a grave nod.

     “I do not like to speak without conclusive evidence, but yes,” he agreed. “The last time a book in my possession suddenly started writing things was the Book of Ages, when all our memories were altered. I do not wish to consider that this may be a repeat.”

     “The graffiti that was discovered,” Sasha said. “It mentioned Jahbal specifically. There’s clearly a link, we can’t deny it. If this is memory magic, like the Book of Ages, we need Jerdana’s help.”

     The sorceress was summoned, and she came quickly though she clearly was still bristling from her confrontation with the Darkest Faerie. There was a silent anger that permeated her stature, but it evaporated as soon as she saw the book.

     “It is the same spell, yes,” she confirmed. “I can feel it.”

     “You cast it?” Sasha asked.

     “No,” Jerdana said. “This is not my magic. I would be able to recognise it. The memory spell I used to protect Altador was complex magic only available to a skilled practitioner, but it is not unique. Others may have learned it. Somewhere in Altador, someone or, perhaps, all of us, have had part of our memories removed. Though… this magic works best when the key and the lock are of the same nature.”

     “Pardon?” Finneus said.

     “The Book of Ages hid memories about Altador’s founding,” Jerdana added. “And that was what the book was about. This Book of the Twelve, if it is similarly enchanted, will be hiding memories pertaining to the Great Empire and the Circle of Twelve.”

     “But, why?” Sasha asked. “Everyone who was around during the days of the Great Empire is dead now, it was so long ago. The only person who has even had any contact with the Circle is King Altador, and he is surely not skilled enough with magic to perform such a spell on himself.”

     “No, not in the slightest,” Jerdana said with a smile.

     King Altador had many talents, but magic was not one of them.

     “Is there anything that can be done to dispel it?” Finneus asked.

     “No, I don’t believe that would be wise,” Jerdana said, carefully examining the tome. “Destroying the book is certainly possible, but that might cause the affected memories to disappear completely, and that might have dire consequences for whoever it has been cast on. The safest course of action is to let this spell continue. Once the book is fully written, the memories that have been hidden will unlock. There won’t be any nefarious consequences of the magic itself. But the memories that uncovered… well, they may have been hidden for a reason.”

     “Why now?” Sasha asked. “It must be someone new to the city, surely?”

     “No,” Finneus said firmly. “This Book of the Twelve has been in the Archives since the founding of the city. If this is the lock to the spell, it has been in place, here, for that long at least.”

     “Who donated it?” Jerdana asked.

     “That, I cannot say,” Finneus admitted. “It was part of a bulk donation upon the creation of the Archives.”

     “Someone who was here at the beginning, but only just returned?” Sasha asked, with a knowing look to Jerdana. “But what tie could the Darkest Faerie have to the Council of Twelve?”

     Jerdana set her jaw, the memory of her recent argument with the Faerie suddenly returning to her.

     “I do not know,” she said. “But I intend to find out.”

     To be continued…