Dragon Aster Trilogy

19: GHOST IN THE MACHINE



Kas looked at the wall of the corridor they followed in the Falls as a cable sparked. Then the spark that was inside the wire began to glow, before moving back and forth in a steady rhythm. He didn’t know what to make of it, so he simply followed Exoir in hopes that he could both learn something and find a chance of getting out of this place.

They stopped before a room sealed by several locks. Locks that quickly came undone by whatever their spark of a guide had done to it. Kas cautiously went inside with Exoir and the guards, and when he did the lights came on all at once and the door slid shut behind him.

Kas looked at the spark that now headed to the back of the room, as he got the distinct feeling that the electricity that followed them could very well be Exoir’s somn.

Several panels came on in the room, and Kas looked around as Exoir was wheeled to where more wires hung. His two attendants began to hook the old griffin somnus up to them, and the screens began to play images. Images that Kas could see were of his soultwin and of her time on Earth.

“As you can see, we have been watching Asil for some time,” one of the female attendants spoke. “It would seem that the Asil part of her ego has remained asleep, thanks to the careful extraction of her memories when she was a baby born in Mer City. With an exception.”

Kas watched the screen, as the attendant continued to speak. He stepped forward by instinct on seeing her on the ledge of a tall building.

“Her suicide attempt was not just triggered by the Aeger and Daath’s push on her emotions as we originally thought, but by the Asil in her. We know for certain now that Damek would gain nothing in killing her but a longer wait for his vengeful objectives. But if the Aeger continues to grow unchecked, Sybl’s consciousness will be affected just like Nafury's.”

“You make my sister sound like a monster that she is not,” Kas said with a frown at Exoir’s attendant. “The Sylvan Aur is the cure for the Aeger.”

“The Aeger makes monsters of all it overtakes. The Sylvan Aur within her is light and dark energy fused as one. It has always been assumed that light was its more powerful driving force, but it simply depends on the circumstances. If Sybl loses to the darker side of herself, in this case Asil, then the cure can just as easily become our doom.”

Kas wasn’t believing any of it, even as he looked at Exoir who nodded silently behind his assistant.

“If Damek…has his way, then she will never be Sybl again, and this world will be lost…to eternal darkness,” Exoir said. “Her humanity isn’t her weakness…it is the only thing giving her a chance against Damek.”

“I do not understand how she can be more powerful against him as a human,” Kas said.

“Damek is still…a Sentry. He believes that he is more powerful. That he is separate from Hino, but there is still…one catch.”

“If Damek kills Sybl,” his attendant said and took over for Exoir, “he will lose the support he has gained from some of the Sentry of Earth, and he will lose the Aur. The simple fact that he can’t kill her makes Sybl his greatest enemy.”

“He clearly had his chance,” Kas said, looking at the screen where she lay on the rooftop. “So he has to break her hope.”

“She has you,” Exoir said, “she has Moon, and she has friends now. Emotional connections she did not have…before. If Damek were to kill all of them…”

“We are not that easy to kill.”

“I hope…for your sake, you are right, Erebus.”

They turned around and looked at the door as Mersael walked in with several guards.

“Still praying that the gods will save us, father? I’m afraid that you will find no place for gods here, for this Fay is very much alone and helpless without Sybl or Aragmoth to help him.”

“What is the meaning of this? Leave at once, this discussion does not include you,” Exoir shouted at his son.

“Oh I think it does. The responsibility of the Falls goes to me once you have been put down.”

Kas looked for his somn as the soldiers took aim at him with their guns, but it was nowhere to be seen. What estus energy he might have to defend himself from the attack was solely what was left in his body. His body that had already begun to grow weak without the estus energy of Aragmoth to sustain it.

When Mersael aimed his gun at Kas, he realized at this moment he was very easy to kill.