Darkness and Hellfire

Chapter 44 Six Months, To The Day.

“Mmm, this is delicious.” Lenna commented as she had another bite of her deserved desserts. Her eyes were closed as she savored the satisfying sample.

“I’m glad you are enjoying it.” Isaac commented. She had specifically taken his slice as well as recompense so he was forced to simply watch her devour both of them.

“Have you figured out how your new skill works yet?” Lenna asked and took another bite.

Isaac sat his chin on his hand with his elbow on the table between them. “Not really.” He said with a frown. “Usually I have a much more concrete understanding of what I do but every now and then one of my abilities doesn’t make sense.” Isaac awkwardly shook his head. “Magic is magical, I guess.”

“What?” Lenna questioned. “Is that saying supposed to make sense?”

Isaac felt a headache building the more he thought about what he just said. “I feel like it is supposed to but the more I think about it the more I am reminded not to.” Isaac replied.

“Ah.” Lenna said with a nod. “Another one of those.”

Isaac nodded. “Yeah, but back to answering your previous question; I’m feeling around in the dark so I kind of know where I am going but only sort of.”

“That sounds… like it would be incredibly annoying for you but most people would just move on.” Lenna replied.

Isaac groaned. “Yes.” He agreed. “This is somehow worse than Kahtesh living in my shadow.”

“How?” Lenna questioned.

“I can somehow wrap my mind around there being a space that is a shadow of what is real and that is where Kahtesh sleeps. I can also understand how a soul can theoretically have a shadow simply because it exists, it helps that I can actually see the connection we have to each other. I can even understand how in a magical world traumatic events can leave impressions or shadows on things, mostly because I have seen how my own emotions affect the mana around me.” Isaac went on. “But this is entirely within the realm of weird, magic… I don’t know!” He threw his hands up. “Fuckery?” He didn’t sound convinced of his own vulgar term.

“It seems pretty straightforward to me.” Lenna replied. “You are thinking about it too hard.”

“Oh?” Isaac asked incredulously with a raised eyebrow.

“You are a dark mage, you have a connection to dark mana, the dark mana exists, you can hear through it like you do when you put your ear on the ground.” She explained simply.

Isaac looked at her like she had just told him that the world was secretly always in black and white and the colors were just in his imagination. “Don’t you usually get mad at me whenever I spout some nonsense that only makes sense if you don’t think about it?”

Lenna shrugged. “It’s magic, Isaac, it has its own brand of physics. Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

Isaac rubbed his temples as his mind started putting pieces together. “Scrying magic works the same way. The spell just translates and filters the information for the caster and projects what the mana is experiencing which is why my ring of Protection from Divination works. If the natural mana can’t sense me then the spell can’t pick up on me even if someone is scrying on someone nearby.” He groaned. “I’m just getting the unfiltered version of it because I am too connected to the mana.”

“See.” Lenna said calmly and finished the last bite of Isaac’s slice of chocolate cake. “It wasn’t that hard.” She said around the rich dessert.

Isaac scowled at her. “Thanks.” He said dryly. “You… I actually don’t know how to respond to this.”

Lenna chuckled while hiding her mouth behind the back of her hand before swallowing her cake. “That doesn’t happen often.” She commented.

“It’s been happening a lot recently, well, not a lot, but if I had a silver for every time it’s happened today I’d have two silvers, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.” Isaac rambled on.

“For what it’s worth,” Lenna began. “I am glad that you understand it now.”

Isaac smiled at her making it clear that his irritation was half fake and half directed at himself with none of it actually directed at her. “Me too, but now I want to ride this feeling of accomplishment and do something else productive.” He replied.

“That’s fair but it’s pretty late to start something new.” She told him. “Maybe you should pick up a hobby, maybe knitting.” She offered with an entirely straight face.

“I want a piano.” Isaac said almost entirely out of the blue.

Lenna rested her hand on his. “Soon.” She told him. They had to wait until their house was finished for Isaac to have unlimited access to one.

Isaac suddenly brightened with an idea. A very Isaac idea. “Let’s go.” He told her and dropped a few coins on the table before all but dragging her out of the door.

—

“This is asking to get caught.” Lenna commented. Isaac had taken her into the all but abandoned orchestral/theater hall. He had then enlisted her help in moving the old dusty piano out of the back and into the center of the stage.

“It’ll be fine.” Isaac assured her which gave her even less confidence in it being fine.

Isaac felt over every key and slowly pressed each one down. He tested the pedals and then closed his eyes. With his eyes closed he pressed a few keys. The sound wasn’t right so he shifted his left hand down further and tried again. It was almost right but not quite. He brought his thumb one key farther from the rest of his hand and tried again. He smiled and then started walking his right hand up three specific keys again and again as he held the same two with his left for a few long seconds at a time. Soon he added a third key with his left hand and shifted the keys his right was walking up, even adding a fourth to the mix. His right pinky found its own note to hold down for a few long seconds. With that the music had taken over completely.

Lenna watched in awe as Isaac played the simple melody with total perfection. She watched as Isaac let himself become enveloped by the melody that made her feel mournful and depressed before it sprinkled in just enough hope to keep from giving up. She felt tears rolling down her face even as she refused to take her eyes off of him. Steadily more and more complex emotions were involved but the somber tone refused to leave. Lenna felt her mouth slowly dry out but she couldn’t bring herself to even take a drink of water. Soon after the song almost seemed to stop before it abruptly lightened. Lenna was startled slightly at the sudden change.

The next part of the piece Isaac was playing reminded her of walking through Sera’s garden, but it was tinged with a youthful excitement that was almost, but not quite, raw and innocent. This went on with a mix of highs and lows but it never felt sad even if there were hints of worry in the lower parts. Soon that part too seemed to come to a close. In a moment the melody suddenly started anew with a fervor that she hadn’t seen from him before that moment. The wave of powerful emotion poured out into the keys and resounded through the piano and the empty stands with such force that even those on the street outside of the hall could clearly hear it. Every intense emotion Isaac had ever felt was blasted across the keys and into the air one after another. Anger, pain, joy, sadness, fear, horror, love, and anxiety each had their turn, some had even more than one until finally he ended it with a few powerful cords that felt like someone slamming a stone door on a wave of fire that was gushing down a tight hallway.

Isaac was breathing heavily and he was covered in a thin layer of sweat. He took a deep steadying breath before he opened his eyes and looked towards the sky that he had only ever gotten the tiniest glimpse of. “Do you know what today is?” He asked Lenna as she heard a singular faint bell toll. She looked at him expectantly but she still couldn’t speak. “With that bell, I have been here for six months, to the day.”

“It feels like longer yet not as long.” She replied, her voice was hoarse but she still refused to reach into her bag for water lest she miss any of the moment that they were experiencing. “That song,” Lenna began after a long moment of silence. “You remembered it, didn’t you?”

Isaac nodded and the movement sent a tear down his face. He didn’t know why he was crying but there was a pain in his heart. He felt a profound sense of loss deep in his soul but he didn’t want to acknowledge why.

Isaac knew, deep inside, that coming to this world was not purely a good thing. He had left behind people who cared about him and people that he cared about deeply. He couldn’t remember their names or even how many of them there were but in that moment he couldn’t run from the pain of the life he had lost. In that moment Isaac could only experience it in near silence with only the shadow of the sonata and the sound of his own breathing hanging in the air. A stray memory came to him in bits and pieces. Even as he remembered the line he could tell that Rei and Zei were suppressing the pain he should have been feeling in order to let this one memory through. ‘Nothing is free, everything has a price, sometimes the price is simply time, sometimes the price is not one you can afford to pay, but nothing in this world is ever free.’