The Codex Lacrimae: The Book of Tears

Chapter 30: A Lore Master's Moment: The Mad Dwarf's Counsel

Servius Aurelius Santini saw the world around him as if for the first time.

Using the Sight imparted by the Codex Lacrimae, he saw that the three men on the rampart around Marcus were, indeed, Huntsmen from Muspelheim. The fiery substance of their true forms flickered hot and red through the bodies they wore.

"Santini!" yelled the Hospitaller Aurelius now knew for what he truly was: the Huntsman, Morpeth. "Up here, Boy!"

Oh, Mercedier, my friend, I'm so sorry that we couldn't say farewell. Grief swelled upward, closing the knight's throat. He blinked away tears as he tried to use his newfound Sight, and then grew angry when he realized that Farbauti was using the body of the librarian, Demetrius.

Demetrius, the last time I saw you alive was when I asked you to take those medicines to Ibn-Khaldun ... how can so much have changed in so little time?

"Here Santini! Here's a friend to sacrifice for the Codex Lacrimae," Morpeth shouted, grabbing Marcus by the hair. He thrust the limp boy forward, precipitously near the edge of the rampart. "Give us the Dark Book, and he and the other boy and the Norn might yet live. Give it to us and we'll depart this place!"

Alarmed at the words, Aurelius looked through the masonry of the defensive wall and saw that Jacob was the dead or unconscious figure next to Marcus. A glowing opalescence shone throughout Jacob that could only be the boy's life force, his spirit, but it was dimming from some darkness that spread from the center of his body. Aurelius realized that the boy had been stabbed in the back. A woman lay nearby, too, stretched on the rampart, but she glowed with a sapphire radiance that he somehow knew belonged only to the Norns—she must be Clarinda's friend, Genevieve, the new incarnation of Verdandi.

Something flashed at the edge of the battlement. Another ... presence, glowing ... there!A short figure crouched in the shadows at the top of the stairwell that opened onto the rampart. He focused and somehow intuitively knew from the Sight that this being was extremely powerful.

Dietrich?

Ah, sehr gut: Santini. You do See me. Don't think loudly, but listen for me. I need to heal Jacob, and then'll we'll talk.

The dwarf's voice went quiet and Aurelius watched in relief as the Arch-Mage made good on his promise and Jacob's aura started to brighten.

A heightened awareness trilled in his mind at the fact that he could think-speak with the dwarf while simultaneously heeding the Codex Lacrimae's reactions. As he'd experienced in Svartalfheim (and even in the scriptorium), the line was beginning to blur between his thoughts and those of the Book of Tears.

You don't need the counsel of Dietrich or anyone else, boy. The Codex Lacrimae urged. We can finish all of this quickly. Dispatch these Huntsmen, end Saladin's siege, return the Wilde Jagdto Niflheim, and see the truth of this perilous creature beside you.

At this last thought, Aurelius glanced at Mimir. In the new vision of the Sight, it was no longer Mimir's luminescent visage shining from the folds of the cowl, but a distorted countenance whose smoldering radiance dwarfed even the bright fires of the Huntsmen's aura, like the light of the noonday sun to a waning moon.

This man wasn't Mimir!

In a rush of insight, Aurelius knew that he stood near an ancient thing, a being from an elder race, a creature completely foreign to this world. Here, then, was the beast that had so easily breached the great gates and front wall of the castle, and Aurelius saw that its wingspan was easily as wide as the longest curtain wall on the exterior of the Krak des Chevaliers. He also saw that creature was half-rotting, as undead a thing as any of the Wilde Jagdhordes it commanded.