Mortality: The Story of Mortanius

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Chapter Forty

Mortanius’s primary residence was a rather modest estate a few hours’ ride north of the Pillars, in the middle of a grove of trees that shielded the property from curious eyes. His closest neighbors, mostly minor nobles unable to afford larger homes, didn’t even know that he was a Guardian. They assumed he was just some quiet man who kept to himself. He traveled a lot, and regularly spent two or three weeks at a time away from his residence.

He had only two full-time employees. One was a gruff, private man named Algon, who took care of the yardwork and maintained the property. The other, a man named Silenar, was the housekeeper and cook. For Mortanius’s other specific requirements, he hired out a trio of local laborers who minded their own business and were good at keeping quiet, but Mortanius only needed their services a few times a year. Sometimes he asked Algon for help, but often he tried to do everything himself.

Down in his laboratory, he wiped down his examination tables after a long series of experiments over the last few weeks. All of the specimens had been removed and disposed of. Now he was packing up some equipment that he didn’t intend to use again very soon. He had promised Azimuth to return to Avernus as soon as his experiments were complete, so once the lab was clean, he planned to make arrangements to be gone for a few months. Silenar and Algon should have no problem keeping an eye on things while he was gone.

He set one of his magic grimoires on an overcrowded bookshelf and looked up as there was a knock on the door. Silenar doddered inside and gave a short bow. White hair sprouted on his temples and he walked with a cane now.

Mortanius had to remind himself that Silenar had worked for him for more than thirty years. Algon had worked there for twenty. It wouldn’t be long before they passed away or chose to retire, and then Mortanius would be forced to find someone new. It was possible that one of Silenar’s children or even grandchildren might choose to follow in his footsteps, but Algon had no children or other family. Hopefully, Mortanius wouldn’t have to worry about it for another few years, but a few years was a tiny span of time to him.

The older he got, the more difficult it became to comprehend the short lifespans of normal people. Mortanius thought nothing of spending a few decades on some minor pursuit, when such a project would encompass the entire adult life of someone like Silenar. Mortals reached adulthood, got married, had children, grew old, and died in the time it took for Mortanius to get to know someone well enough to call them a friend.

“My Lord,” Silenar said. “It appears you have a visitor.”

“One of the locals?” he asked.

“No, my Lord. A noblewoman of some stature, I believe. I’ve never seen her before.”

Mortanius put a few more books on the shelf, carefully placing them so they were all lined up with each other, their spines flush with the edge of the shelf. “Did she give a name?”

“Yes, she said her name was Ariel.”

Mortanius nearly dropped the spellbook he was holding. Guardians could always tell when they were in close proximity to each other. He had not been paying attention, but now that he focused, he could tell that she was nearby.

“My Lord?” Silenar said, noticing his reaction. “May I ask who she is?”

“She’s the Guardian of Balance.”

He left the laboratory and went to the main foyer, where she was waiting for him, looking out the window with her arms crossed. She was dressed in a featureless blue dress without any jewelry or other adornments. She probably thought such a simple outfit marked her as a commoner, but her attitude and demeanor alone were evidence of her wealth and upbringing. Silenar recognized her as a noblewoman right away.

“This is an unexpected visit,” Mortanius said. “I didn’t know you’d be coming by. You should have let me know in advance.”

Ariel turned to look at him. “I didn’t know if you were at home,” she said coolly. “I know you travel frequently. Besides, this visit wasn’t planned. I was coming back from the Pillars and I decided to come and talk to you.”

“Well, I’m honored that you chose to grace my home with your presence.”

“Is that supposed to be sarcasm?”

He joined her at the window and glanced outside. He saw Algon leading away Ariel’s horse, a lovely chestnut mare. “I’m not being sarcastic, I’m just surprised to see you. What is it that you wanted to talk about?”

She paused and took a breath. “Dismiss your servant, please. I’d prefer to speak in private about this.”

“Come to my study. We can talk there. Would you like anything to eat or drink?”

“Water, please.”

“Silenar, get some water for Lady Ariel and bring it to my study.”

Unlike his laboratory, which was full of magical and biological texts related to his work, his personal study was full of books of history, poetry, and fiction. It was the place he went to get away from thoughts of death. The afternoon sun poured in through floor-to-ceiling windows and shone off the polished wood floor.

Mortanius took a seat in one of the cushioned chairs while Ariel walked to the windows, her back to him. Silenar arrived a minute later with a tray carrying a pitcher of cold water with several glasses. He set it down on a table and then left the room, closing the door after him.

“Is something wrong, Ariel?” Mortanius asked.

She did not answer at first. As far as he could tell, she didn’t actually look upset, but it was hard to tell with her. If anything, she looked dismissive and arrogant, as usual. But her coming to visit him unannounced was very out of the ordinary. Something had to be wrong.

“How much do you know about my powers, Mortanius?” she asked finally, still looking out the window. “About the Pillar of Balance, I mean?”

“Not very much,” he replied. “Do you remember when you first became a Guardian? Moebius and I weren’t able to give you much schooling at all about your powers, because we simply didn’t know what they were.”

“I do remember. But you were in a … relationship with my predecessor, is that right?”

“Yes, it is.”

“She didn’t tell you anything about her Pillar?”

Mortanius sighed and reached over to pour some water. “Not really. Ellendra disagreed with some of my experiments and preferred not to know about my own powers as Death Guardian. She rarely talked about her own connection to her Pillar, and I respected her enough not to ask.”

Ariel came over to took a glass. She raised it to her lips and drank it all in one breath. Then she sighed and set it back down. “Thank you. I’ve been riding a lot today and my throat was parched.”

“You’re welcome. You said you were at the Pillars?”

“Yes, I go there regularly. I know some of the others don’t.”

“I probably haven’t actually been to the Pillars in years,” Mortanius confessed. “And I think I live closer than anyone else does.”

“Well, you’ve probably spent more time at the Pillars than anyone else. I do it because it helps me concentrate on my powers.”

“The Balance Pillar is the central Pillar, if I remember correctly.”

She nodded. “That’s right. And I believe that was intentional.”

Mortanius leaned back and propped one leg up on the other. “So tell me about your powers, Ariel. I assume the Balance Pillar controls or guides some kind of natural balance to the universe, but I really don’t know what that implies.”

“Neither do I. Not really.” She sighed and went over to one of the other chairs. Lowering herself into it, she seemed to struggle to gather her thoughts. “It’s like looking at the health of Nosgoth,” she said vaguely. “I can sense how the other Pillars all interact with the world. It’s like I can see the invisible weave of magic that surrounds us and the Pillars, and how they complement and contradict each other. When those lines of power are out of balance or in conflict, I can sense it.”

“I see. Can you detect specific conflicts, or ...”

Ariel shook her head. “No, it’s never that clear. And it’s not always in direct relation to the Pillars themselves. Like I said, it’s like seeing the health of Nosgoth. Do you remember when a plague broke out in Delrenir, maybe two hundred years ago? I felt that, and I can feel other events like it. Anything that upsets the fragile balance of life, I can sense.”

“Okay, then. And visiting the Pillars helps you focus your abilities?”

“Yes, although I don’t know why. None of the other Guardians seem to notice a difference.”

“To be honest, I’ve never tried. But I suspect that your powers are different than the rest of ours. It makes sense to me that proximity to the Pillars would increase your sensitivity.”

“Yes, that’s a good way to describe it. Sometimes I get the feeling that something is out of balance, so I travel to the Pillars to see if I can determine what it is.”

“Is that why you were at the Pillars today?” Mortanius asked, already knowing the answer.

Ariel took a moment to search for the right words. “There’s something wrong,” she said, looking out the window. “It’s like how you can feel in the air that a lightning storm is on the way. When I reach out, I just feel a sense that something is out of place. The delicate balance that defines Nosgoth has tipped somehow.”

Mortanius leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. “Has something like this ever happened before?”

“It fluctuates,” Ariel admitted. “But always in relatively minor ways. Like the plague in Delrenir, it always corrects itself within a few years. This is something else. I first sensed it decades ago and it’s been getting slowly more pronounced. At the Pillars just now, I could feel it clearly. Something has upset the balance of Nosgoth.”

“Do you have any idea what it could be?”

She shrugged helplessly. “It could be a million things. I really don’t know. That’s why I wanted to talk to you about it.”

“Why me? You’ve never asked me for advice before.”

“You’re the oldest of us. Maybe you’ve noticed something the rest of us have missed.”

Mortanius rubbed his chin, suddenly feeling much older. “I spoke with Moebius and Malek after our gathering in Willendorf. We were talking about how much has changed. The independent city governments are so much more powerful than they used to be. It seems to me that war is almost inevitable at this point. Could that be what has upset the balance?”

“Possibly. I thought that as well. It makes sense, in a way.”

“It could be something else, though.”

“Yes. It might even be something completely out of our control, like some geological change. Maybe one of the volcanoes in the far north is going to erupt. But somehow, I don’t believe that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s been slowly building for years. If it was a natural disaster, or even another plague or a famine or something like that, it would have happened by now. Whatever it is, it’s been slowly getting worse for decades.”

“It might still be something like that. We could contact some of the city governments to see if they have noticed any recent natural events, like small earthquakes or something. I can’t see what else it might be. We would have noticed by now if something else was going on.”

“That’s what worries me. What if we have noticed, but we mistook it for a positive change? There is one possibility that I had considered. It’s one of the other reasons I wanted to talk to you about this.”

“What possibility?”

“Maybe it has something to do with the vampires.”

“But the vampires are barely a problem anymore. Their population has been dwindling for ...”

“Exactly.”

Mortanius let himself slump back in his seat, letting out a long breath. “Have you been reading the old records, Ariel?”

She looked at him evenly. “I did some research on the vampires a very long time ago. They built the Pillars, after all. It seemed a worthwhile topic for study. But I remember reading somewhere that the vampires – the real vampires, I mean, not Vorador and his kind – claimed that the Pillars needed to remain under their control. It was the reason they turned humans into half-breeds. It was the reason you and Moebius overthrew them.”

“That’s true. They believed quite fanatically that the Pillars must remain in vampire hands, although they never deigned to explain to us why that was the case.”

“I take it you don’t believe that?”

“Well, they’ve been in human hands for over a thousand years. You said this disturbance in the balance has only been going on for a few decades. I don’t see how they could be related.”

“It’s just an idea. The vampires ruled Nosgoth for thousands of years before humans came along. They used magical powers far beyond our comprehension in order to build the Pillars. Maybe in doing so, they somehow ...” She gave a shrug and looked out the window. “Maybe they bound themselves to the land in some fundamental way. Maybe Nosgoth needs their presence. If the half-breeds are slowly dying out, then it might explain this feeling I have.”

Mortanius thought back to the last time he ever spoke with Janos. It had been at the Pillars, not long after the ceremony that made Ellendra into a Guardian. The specifics of their conversation had faded from his memory, but he remembered that Janos had once again insisted that the Pillars had to remain under the guardianship of the vampire race. But in all the centuries since, Mortanius had seen not one single piece of evidence that it was true. Nosgoth had grown and prospered and thrived in the thousands years since the vampire Guardians were killed.

But Mortanius could not completely dismiss Ariel’s idea. There was still so much about the vampires and the Pillars that they didn’t know. Her suggestion that the vampires had magically bound themselves to Nosgoth was not entirely out of the question. They had harnessed enough magical power to banish an entire race of beings from the world, and they paid a steep price for what they had done. But what if the creation of the Pillars had more subtle consequences? Mortanius realized that the vampires might not have entirely understood the Pillars or their relationship to them either.

The vampire race was long extinct, but perhaps Vorador and his half-breeds maintained enough of the original vampire bloodline to keep Nosgoth in balance? And if they were finally eradicated, as Moebius and Malek had long desired, what might happen then?

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