A waste of time.  That was the prevailing feeling among Leon’s family and his retinue.  Only Anzu seemed to be having a good time, having spent much of their short excursion running around in the grassy meadows, chasing rabbits and flying about.  Everyone else quickly lost all motivation as their journey turned out to be for naught.

The closest place that Leon searched was the tau shrine, as that was on the south side of the meadow where Zoe had reported seeing the tau.  As with all the other tau shrines that Leon had visited, the thing was quite small, being little more than an altar and a few artistic depictions of birds carved into the side of a short cliff.  The altar was bare, the shrine was deserted, and there was nothing of interest to be found anywhere that Leon or Maia could sense.

The meadow was likewise devoid of anything interesting, with even the patches of magic-rich herbs seemingly untouched by roaming animals.  Leon found that a little strange and worthy of consideration, but nothing came of it, for there was no sign of any tau presence in the meadow.  They couldn’t even find any bird droppings.

Finally, they traveled to the nearby caves, but once again, found little of consequence.  There was some slight excitement when Anna found some bird waste, but after some examination, she determined it to have been from a seagull—the creatures were all over the coastline, so Leon could easily see why Cora had been so insistent that what Zoe saw had been a seagull.  After leaving the cave, Leon found himself feeling more and more convinced that Cora had been right.

All of this meant that as Leon’s party returned to the fishing village, it was with the knowledge that their entire journey from Occulara had been wasted chasing a myth.  They had found no concrete sign that tau even existed, let alone where one might be found.  With that, it essentially meant that the Director’s quest had been impossible right from the start, and that Leon might not be able to get into Heaven’s Eye.

The party found their way to one of the few village bars as they returned to the village.  Like the rest of the Ilian Empire, while it was familiar enough in function, the bar itself was quite different from what they were used to.  The building was made of stone, and while it didn’t seem to be that well-maintained, the enchantments flowing through its walls ensured a comfortable atmosphere on the inside, an interior well-lit by magic lanterns, and an all-around cozy place to waste a few hours with drink.

Leon paid the bar owner a handful of silver to allow Anzu inside, and he and his family found a quiet corner in the otherwise sparsely populated bar to hole up in.  The rest of Leon’s retinue split off into their own cliques to commiserate with each other over all of the lost time.

Not in a particularly sociable mood, Leon found himself completely tuning out what everyone was talking about as he turned the problem over in his head.

‘Why would he send us on an impossible quest?  It can’t be impossible, can it?  Or is it something else that he’s after?  Is he testing my commitment?  My honesty?  Does he want to see if I show up with a counterfeit pearl?  What’s the point of it all?’

Without knowing more about the Director, Leon was unable to answer most of these questions, but at the least, he landed upon the idea that, yes, this had been an impossible task right from the start.  The Director couldn’t have imagined that Leon would succeed when he gave him the quest… even though he’d seemed quite genuine when sending him on the quest in the first place.  Leon supposed the man was just that good of an actor.

With a heavy heart that knew Heaven’s Eye was probably now out of his reach, Leon began to make his peace with the idea of spending the next few years essentially on his own—just him, his family, and his retinue.  On the one hand, he was kind of relieved, knowing that their independence was a little more secured, but on the other hand, quite upset knowing that the resources of Heaven’s Eye that he’d been hoping he could tap were now not at his disposal.  Sure, Emilie might help them out once and a while, but Leon’s intention was to achieve Apotheosis and rise to the Nexus with all of his people with him.  Without the full support of Heaven’s Eye or one of the Empires, that would be a significantly more difficult labor to accomplish.

As he quietly contemplated his options, a man walked into the bar and paused a moment at the entrance.  Leon didn’t immediately take much notice of him aside from the simple fact of his presence, but he was vaguely aware that aside from his party, the rest of the bar’s dozen or so patrons had grown quiet upon his appearance.  It wasn’t until the man started walking in the direction of his table that Leon pulled himself out of his thoughts and took better stock of this man.

Immediately, he found himself mildly intrigued, for the man was utterly devoid of magic power—not itself a terribly interesting thing, but the man also appeared to be quite elderly.  Ascending to the first-tier tier of magic involved breathing in air laced with magic power.  Lungs would then eventually adapt to magic, allowing it to be absorbed into the blood stream, giving people access to magic power before they’re able to generate it within their bodies.  To ascend without just waiting around meant devoted breathing exercises, but even without them, it was common that even those who didn’t devote themselves to magic would eventually reach the first-tier just by the simple act of years and years of breathing.  That this man was still mortal was something that Leon found remarkable down in Imperial territory, especially since he estimated that the amount of ambient magic in the air was at least triple what it was in the Bull Kingdom—a thing not of much consequence to a mage as strong as him, but he expected that having so much magic in the air meant that elderly Ilians were probably at least tier above seniors in the Bull Kingdom on average, even without dedicated magical training.

The man was dressed in fairly neutral browns and greens, looking for all the world like any other villager, but he moved with strength and purpose that belied his apparent age.  His hair was long and pure white, his features strong enough that the wrinkles on his face did little to hide his good looks, and his body seemed strong and well-built from a laborious life.  His eyes seemed black in the relatively dim light of the bar, but as he moved, Leon caught a few quick glimmers of a deep red at their edges.

“Hello, there,” he said in a smooth voice that stood in stark contrast with his older looks, and his words came with only the lightest of accents—he clearly had a much better grasp of the common language than Cora or Zoe.  “Is this seat taken?”  He gestured to the one empty seat at Leon’s table as he approached, looking first to Leon, then to Elise, Valeria, and Maia.  Anzu perked his head up on the man’s arrival, but he just held out his hand and gave the griffin some light head pats, and Anzu chirped happily and laid back down.

Leon had been tempted to instinctively say no, but the man had managed to pique his interest first with his lack of aura, then with his confident approach, and finally with Anzu’s lack of concern.

Without a word, Leon gestured to the chair.  “Please,” he said.

“Thank you,” the man replied with a smile as he sat down.  “I’m under the impression that you lot are the people who are hunting the tau?”

“‘Hunting’ is a bit of a strong word,” Valeria whispered.

“We’re not here to kill it, assuming it’s even real,” Leon added.  “We were just asked to find one of its pearls, if possible.”

“Is that all?” the man asked in mock surprise.  “You know that the stories state that tau pearls are formed from its tears, right?  How were you planning on taking one of those pearls?  Torture?”

Leon scowled.  “No,” he said with distaste evident in his tone.  “I wanted to know if it was real before making more concrete plans, but forcing the tau to weep so we could take a pearl isn’t something that I’d be comfortable doing.”

The man smiled and seemed about to speak again, but Leon cut him off.

“What interest is it of yours, anyway, friend?”

The man just smiled a little wider.  “I suppose you could say that I have a unique interest in these things.  I’m this village’s spiritual leader.  Through me, they not only commune with their gods, but with the spirits of the land, as well.  The tau are some of the most important spirits in this part of the Empire, so when a group of strangers come waltzing in looking for one, it tends to raise my eyebrows.”

Elise replied, “None of the religious leaders in the other villages we visited seemed to have a problem with our search.”

“That’s quite worrying,” the priest replied.  “They must not take their duties as seriously as I do.  By the way, since you’re not the first people to show up at my village in the past few years looking for tau pearls, might you tell me who sent you?  It seems that someone’s quite desperate to find one…”

Leon arched an eyebrow, his intrigue suddenly magnifying greatly.  ‘Did the Director send others on this same quest?’ he wondered, briefly pondering the implications of that if it were true.  It would probably mean that this wasn’t an impossible task, at least in the Director’s mind.

To the priest, he said noncommittally, “I’d rather not say who our patron is.  I hope you can understand.”

The priest hummed in bemused agreement.  “I’m not surprised; no one else has told me, either.  But I think I can hazard a guess, especially now that all of you are here.  After all, to command the allegiance of mages such as yourselves is no small feat…”

The priest gave Leon and Maia significant looks, and both of their guards were instantly raised.  The priest gave off no magical aura, and yet he could tell they were high-level magical beings…  That worried Leon.

With a conciliatory tone, the priest responded, “Please, I was only making an observation, I’m not intending anything hostile.  But I would very much like to know who sent you here just in case they send anyone else.  So, it’s not the Emperor Adam—he could easily have his agents swarming these parts for what he seeks.  It’s not any of the other Great Powers, for sending in their people would only antagonize our Emperor.  That leaves only the Director of Heaven’s Eye.  He’s looking for a tau pearl, isn’t he?”

Leon gave the priest a long, wary look as he sat up in his chair, his magic power rushing through his body, ready for battle.  Fortunately, it seemed the priest was serious in his statement that he meant no harm.  Leon still didn’t respond to the question.

“Oh, that’s all right,” the priest said.  “It’s only me thinking out loud.  Anyway, I’m sure by now you know that you’ll find no tau here, right?  I hope you find the rest of your time here to be enjoyable, and your journey home to be completely uneventful.”

With that, the priest rose from his seat and walked right out of the bar with so little ceremony that Leon couldn’t help but stare, unsure if what had just happened actually took place.

“That guy was strange,” Valeria said after a long, quiet pause, during which the other bar patrons began to speak again.

“Yeah,” Leon agreed as he cast a wary look around the bar.  “He knows something…”

“He has to,” Elise agreed, speaking in a hushed tone.  “Did you see how everyone else reacted when he walked in?”

“It’s like they didn’t even want to look at him,” Valeria replied.

Leon took a deep breath and made eye contact with his three lovers.  Maia was being her usual silent self, but he could sense through their connection that she largely agreed with Elise and Valeria.

“I know we agreed to sail out tomorrow morning, but I think it might be best if we stayed just one more day.  I’d like to talk to that man again after we’ve all had some time to rest, and maybe poke around the village a little more.  Just in case.”

None of them were happy about it, but they all nodded their agreement.

Leon’s party didn’t stay much longer, and soon enough, everyone was hunkered down in their ship for the night.  There wasn’t much privacy to be had, but they made do by hanging large curtains to give the single-room interior of the quarterdeck the semblance of having some private space.  It was at least better than whatever inn they might’ve found in this village—assuming there even was one.

The small ship windows were open, though, allowing in plenty of fresh air.  They weren’t nearly big enough for anyone to crawl through, and with so many high-level mages inside, no one was too worried about security.  Still, Leon had set up some simple alarm enchantments to ensure that if anything did crawl through their windows, they’d be woken in an instant.

And so it was that Leon curled up with Elise and Maia, with Valeria and Anzu not too far away, his mind racing as his thoughts ran in circles trying to puzzle out just what in the hells the Director was doing, and why he seemed to need something that didn’t exist.  Eventually, though, he slipped into the land of dreams.

---

[Do it,] Nestor urged.  [It’s right there, at your disposal.  You can’t miss this opportunity, it’s too valuable…]

Leon stared at the tau before him, the question of just how he’d gotten there far from his mind.  His hand was extended his onyx bracelet upon his wrist.  It wouldn’t take much to use the bracelet on the tau, binding it forever to his service, just as Jormun had done to his krakens.

But at the thought of Jormun, Leon paused.  He stared at the tau.  It shivered in fright, unable to move from the net cast about it.  It stared right back at him, its eyes bright with intelligence and awareness.

It wasn’t just an animal, it knew what as going on.  It was sapient.

“No…” Leon said out loud.  He lowered his wrist.  “I’ll not bind it.”

[You’ll lose your pearl if you don’t!] Nestor shouted.  [You’ll lose so much more!  Bind it now!]

The tau blinked at Leon, now relaxing slightly as Leon lowered his arm.  Its chirping had turned curious rather than panicked, though still with a touch of energetic anxiety.

Leon sighed and replied, “I’d rather lose it than force it like this.  I’m not Jormun.  I’m not you.”

The tau relaxed completely, and stared at Leon as if pleased.

But then everything changed around him.  Leon’s mind went dark, and he found himself elsewhere entirely, and the question of what just happened far from his mind.

He sat upon a grand throne, all the universe at his feet.

Upon his brow was a majestic crown, made of gold and set with so many jewels that, when it caught the light, it glittered like the night sky.

His power was unmatched, his armies invincible, his wealth incalculable.

Everything that he’d ever wanted, he’d accomplished.  His family was vast, with the children he’d had with Maia, Valeria, and Elise going on to have many children of their own.  The Thunderbird Clan had been rebuilt.

Moreover, his mother was there, her face indistinct and her words unintelligible as she spoke with some of his courtiers.

To his right sat his most trusted advisor, his face obscured by light.  All of his retinue sat by in places of honor, where they could advise him, as they’d been doing for centuries.

All the most important people in the universe were in his throne room and in his grand galleries, each of them gathered here to witness his final triumph, for brought before him in chains was Kamran, his body dark and malevolent, like a living shadow, his presence powerful even with his lack of physicality.

“I… regret… nothing…” Kamran croaked, his voice echoing throughout the throne room.

“Perhaps some kind of mercy would be best?” Gaius called out from his seat.  “He fought and lost, and his powers are no more.  What more punishment does he deserve?”

“He deserves the worst tortures imaginable,” Leon’s trusted advisor snarled, his voice booming like thunder, indistinct as anything human, but understandable all the same.  “String him up and teach him the error of his ways.  For daring to lay his hand on divinity, no punishment is too severe!”

Leon took in what the two advised, and imperiously glared down at Kamran.  But he took neither to heart, and with nothing more than a tap of his finger on the armrest of his throne, Kamran’s dark, shadowy figured dropped to the ground.  There was no ceremony, no reading of last rites, no speeches.  Kamran simply fell dead, his threat ended, able to bring no more death or chaos to his realm, and Leon could sit back in his throne, content in the knowledge that his revenge was complete, and that he could now reign in peace.  His mother had been found, and his father and the rest of his Clan had been avenged.  There was no reason to indulge in violence any further, no reason to extend this longer than it had to be.  He just wanted it over in the most expedient way, without ceremony or celebration.  He had no desire to inflict needless cruelties upon his enemies, not when they’d already been defeated.  He just wanted them gone, so that he could be left in peace.

With his decision made, the court around him dissolved into darkness, and Leon found himself in the room his advisory council met, discussing matters of grave importance to his Empire.

“… and they rose up in rebellion!” one of his generals shouted.

“We should crush them entirely!” Marcus replied, his aura magnificent, his uniform resplendent.

“My Legion is ready to set out immediately!” Alcander roared, his suit of armor almost glowing in the light.  “We’ll bring them all to justice!  Such sedition and rebellion must never be tolerated!”

Leon smiled at the outburst, knowing that his Champion was always ready to crush his enemies.  But he held up his hand and quieted them.

“They have legitimate grievance,” he said.  “Let’s see if we work this out, first.  There’s no need to slaughter them if they can’t be talked down.”

His most trusted advisor then spoke, his face still hidden by some light whose source Leon couldn’t see, though Leon didn’t think it strange.  His voice still echoed in Leon’s ears like thunder, but Leon didn’t bat an eye.

“If one rises in rebellion, surely more will.  Make an example of this one, and others will think twice.” 

“A bad precedent,” Leon replied.  “Put down one rebellion with fire, and all must be put down by fire.  I am not my Ancestors, we will do our best to reintegrate these aggrieved peoples with our Empire.  Besides, war is expensive, and if a single diplomat can accomplish the same thing an army can, then why shouldn’t we try?  Even if it fails, what have we lost?”

Leon’s advisors continued to advocate he wipe the rebels from existence, but Leon had made up his mind.  He wasn’t going to immediately jump to slaughter and genocide when a few small cities rise in revolt.  Such would always be on the table, but those were not the tools of first resort he wished to use.  After his war with Kamran, he knew that he now knew the value of conserving his strength for real challenges.

Again, the scene shifted, and Leon found himself in the private apartments of his palace.  Before him two of his sons were training under his supervision, and not too far away, his most trusted advisor stood in attendance, watching.

“… we are not the animals they say we are,” Leon said to them.  “We are men, like any other.  Don’t let our power go to your head.  Don’t get carried away upon the lightning you control.  To act without thought is to create enemies, and you’ll never know the meaning of peace.  Strike back when struck, but always remember to only target those who’ve done us harm.  Be merciless, but discerning.  Be efficient, and devoid of cruelty.  Our enemies were spiteful, vengeful, and cruel.  That left them vulnerable.  If they’d been better men, then I might never have destroyed them.  Remember that, my boys.”

His sons laughed and nodded, taking his lesson to heart.  He couldn’t let them be weak, but when his Clan fell, it was torn apart by everyone they’d offended.  He couldn’t allow that to happen again.  His new Clan would not allow themselves to be walked all over, but they would only use proportionate retribution.

Darkness soon fell as he watched his sons train, and Leon’s sons vanished within that darkness.  He found himself floating in a great void, suddenly his twenty-one-year-old self again, and remembering what exactly he was doing.  He was in a fishing village, searching for a tau pearl.  He had no Empire, no armies, no children.  He felt his heart sink for a moment as he realized that he’d been doing nothing more than dreaming, and almost everything that he’d had, he’d now lost.

And then a voice echoed around him, the very same as that of his most trusted advisor.

“A strange man you are, Leon Raime.  But not without some virtue, I think.  It might need some nurturing, but you’re better than all others that man has sent this way…”

Suddenly, a light erupted from the void he floated in, and from that light stepped Leon’s most trusted advisor, the light that obscured his face fading away to reveal the priest who’d spoken to him not long ago, except this time, his aura was towering.  Leon felt tiny in his gaze, and his heart felt like it was trying to escape his chest in panic.  This priest’s aura was greater than his own, and that fact lanced through his mind, killing all thoughts of instinctive resistance.

“I have decided to give you what you want, Leon Raime,” the priest intoned as if he were giving a sermon.  “I dearly hope what you’ve shown me today is your true self, and not a construct.  And if it is your true self, then I hope you always stay true to yourself.”

The man then leaned in, and while Leon wanted to respond, his vocal cords simply weren’t working.

“I’d rather that greedy bastard not get his hands on one of my pearls, though,” the priest said with a wink.  “I’ll give you two, one weaker and one stronger.  Give the weak one to the Director; he won’t know the difference.  But keep the stronger one with you.  I will entrust it to your hands readily, but not to his.  Stay with him for a while, and you’ll understand why…”

The priest then took Leon’s left hand and raised it up to just below his jaw.

“For your Ancestors, I shed no tears,” the priest said.  “They were monsters of the highest order, leaving nothing but death and broken souls in their wake.  But for you, for your father, and for your mother, I weep.”

A single tear slid down the priest’s cheek, but before it reached his jaw, it seemed to freeze.  Then, it hardened and grew opaque and pearlescent.  A moment later, it fell off his cheek and landed in Leon’s palm, glowing brighter and brighter with every passing second.

The priest closed Leon’s fingers around the tear-sized pearl, and then released Leon’s hand.  Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out another pearl, then slid it into Leon’s right hand.

And then he vanished, and the hold he had over Leon’s mind was lifted.  His thoughts instantly cleared, and silver-blue lightning thundered through his veins.

With a great start, Leon rocketed out of bed, waking Elise and Maia as he did, his eyes spinning about in their sockets and his magic senses pouring out of his body as he scanned around for threats.

And he found a potential threat perched on the windowsill staring back at him.  It was a bird, its feathers the purest white, with eyes of the darkest red, its body no bigger than that of a dove.  It stood just outside of the range of his jury-rigged alarms, barely not tripping them.

Not that Leon thought that tripping them was even a concern for it, for its aura was just as powerful as the priest’s from his dream—ninth-tier minimum.

As Leon’s eyes fell upon the bird, it turned around and took flight, vanishing into the night with a flash of light.  But as it left, a voice resounded in Leon’s mind.

[Keep those women you’re with close, they love you deeply…]

“What the…” Elise tiredly murmured as she sat up and looked at Leon.

But Leon barely heard her, for he could feel something in his hands.  In his right hand was a pearl, glittering and packed with power.  It was a potent thing, he could tell that much.  But the pearl in his left hand blew it out of the water entirely.  It was like a star had been plucked from the heavens and placed in his hand.

‘I guess they’re real…’ Leon numbly thought to himself as he stared at the pearls in his hands.

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