"Me? The same as the evil spirit you just destroyed — one of Tudor's most trusted servants, a sworn retainer, a guardian of His tomb, placed here by His command."
"We had been waiting for Him to return and lead us in conquering this world. But He... never came back. After sealing us in this place, He never appeared again. That has been thousands of years."
"We died one by one as our years ran out. Some had their spirits dissipate quickly after death; others, consumed by resentment and refusal, became evil spirits. I am the fortunate one among them — even after becoming an evil spirit, I retained a measure of consciousness."
Stephen's eyes lit up with a calculating look. "Oh, so I'm a descendant of Emperor Tudor, and you're His retainer — which means, by extension, you're essentially my retainer, doesn't it?"
He coughed, straightened his jacket, and said with an air of composure: "Then shouldn't you address me as young master?"
"..."
The "Derlin" figure's hollow eye sockets rested on him for a long, still moment, then dipped forward in the faintest bow. "Young master."
Stephen extended a hand. "That's all? No gift for the meeting?"
"Of course."
"Derlin" reached out its own hand, and the hollow voice took on a note of something like amusement. "Whether it's Beyonder characteristics, Beyonder artefacts, or..."
It spread its palm open. Using the faint light that remained in the chamber, it gathered and shaped the air into an image.
Within the image: a Tarot card, roughly standard-sized. Its design was unlike any other — seated within the chariot was not a king but a male priest in a deep red robe.
The priest's appearance was unmistakably Roselle Gustav.
A Card of Blasphemy.
A flicker passed through Bernadette's eyes, and she pressed the surprise back down quickly. "As far as I know, the Cards of Blasphemy are barely a hundred years old. How does one end up in the hands of an evil spirit from the Fourth Epoch?"
"Heh. You look intelligent enough — so why ask such a simple question?" The hollow voice was wry. "If you can find your way here, why couldn't anyone else?"
"There have been grave robbers. Adventurers. Treasure hunters. Those who stumbled in by sheer bad luck. The one who made the deepest impression on me came over a century ago — a man who called himself... the Emperor of Intis."
"And he looked... much like the figure on this Card of Blasphemy."
Bernadette's pupils contracted. "What did he come here for?"
"Heh heh."
"Derlin" gave a slight wave, and the image in its palm dissolved. "It seems, out of everything, the one you care about most is the Intis Emperor."
A pause.
"Quite conveniently, he taught me a phrase at the time: there is no such thing as a free lunch."
"If you want to know what he came here for — simple enough. Help me out of this predicament, help me become a free spirit with no ties remaining, and I swear to tell you everything I know."
The hollow eye sockets turned toward Stephen. "And as for you, my young master — I can give you everything I have accumulated over these long years, and swear my loyalty to you, just as I once swore loyalty to Emperor Tudor."
Stephen glanced at Bernadette, then gave a cold huff. "I see no proof of loyalty to Emperor Tudor in you. If you were truly loyal, you wouldn't be sitting here negotiating terms with His descendant."
"My dearly devoted young master — please understand. I have been confined here for thousands of years. There is nothing I want more than to leave. I am an evil spirit now; if I don't negotiate with you, I'd wager you would leave here and go straight to the church rather than help me."
"Heh heh."
Stephen had just let out a cold laugh when Bernadette asked, flatly: "How do we help you?"
"Simple. Find the direct descendants of the Sauron, Einhorn, and Medici families — take ten millilitres of blood from each, no less, more is acceptable. Combine the blood with holy water, then sprinkle the mixture into the chamber where I reside. That will set me free."
"The Medici family?"
Bernadette said: "I've only ever read about that family in books. I've never encountered any trace of them in reality. If they were a Fourth Epoch family, they may well have been swallowed by history long ago."
The evil spirit was quiet for a moment. "You might try your luck in Binsig Town."
"I wish you good fortune in advance."
As the last word faded, the desiccated corpse of the solicitor crumpled softly to the ground, and was still.
The chamber lapsed back into silence. Bernadette drew her eyes away from the blood-stained wall.
"Let's go."
The two of them returned to the graveyard above. Bernadette stood for a moment looking at the stone slab, then raised one hand and sent several beams of starlight into it. The starlight ran along the surface of the stone and seeped into the earth, spreading outward as a thin silver membrane that rippled swiftly over the entire graveyard — and faded from sight after some ten seconds.
Stephen hesitated, then asked: "Your Majesty — do you intend to help that evil spirit?"
"What about you?"
"Absolutely not." He said it without a moment's pause. "No matter how much truth there was in what it said just now, I don't believe a word. Not that I'm a Tudor descendant, not that it's a Tudor retainer, not the Card of Blasphemy — and certainly not any supposed information about the Emperor."
Then something occurred to him. "Of course — if Your Majesty had enough confidence to handle that evil spirit, that would be a different matter."
Bernadette shook her head. "That is no ordinary evil spirit. In life, it was at least an Angel — and a very strong possibility it was a Sequence 1 Archangel."
"While its power in evil spirit form will certainly have diminished considerably from its peak, the fact that it dared to make these demands means it's confident it can deal with me."
As she spoke, an unbidden thought surfaced: wasn't just now actually an excellent moment to be roleplaying the Shadow Trader?
She dismissed it just as quickly. The evil spirit in that chamber was clearly not easily manipulated; on the contrary, through their brief exchange, it had been the one holding all the advantage. The one with the real initiative in that room had been it, not her.
If she was guessing right, the evil spirit in life had very likely been a Beyonder of the Hunter Pathway — an Angel. Because it carried the same quality she'd detected in certain individuals she'd dealt with in Intis, even though it had been trying hard to conceal it.
Bernadette had no illusions about being a match for an Angel-level "schemer" when it came to manoeuvring.
She turned her thoughts inward with a quiet sigh: Father really did go into that tomb. He really did encounter that evil spirit.
The spirit said he called himself the Emperor of Intis at the time — which placed it in his later years. That meant whatever he'd gone there for was most likely connected to the changes he underwent toward the end of his life.
Of course, all of this rested on the assumption that the evil spirit had been telling the truth.
Stephen saw that Bernadette had fallen into a long silence, and asked: "What do we do next?"
"Leave this place alone for now."
Bernadette composed herself. "My original purpose in coming here was to investigate why the Moses Ascetic Order sought this place out. I'd say I have some thread to follow now."
She paused. "I just can't yet connect the Moses Ascetic Order to Emperor Tudor."
To be continued…
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