The snow fell harder and harder.
Boris Gershaw looked back. The outline of the white tower completely melted into the wind and snow, only the raging flames showed its existence.
Mentor Yriel died in the laboratory. His whole body was scorched black, with several arrows in his body, and finally he was nailed to the magic circle that had not been activated by a long spear. After that, the Knights of the Otarot Temple executed all the experimental creatures in the tower, and many collections and books were also burned.
Boris cried and begged them not to destroy books and laboratories. The Yriel mentor was sinful, but the knowledge was neutral and innocent. It's a pity that the Temple Knights don't think so. In their view, necromancy itself is a kind of evil.
Knight's Gate sprinkled flaming agent in the laboratory and study room, and soon the entire tower was engulfed in flames. Boris was pushed away in a daze, and after a while, he realized that he was locked in the prison car.
Because he can only cry and cry, the knights didn't make it too difficult for him. I heard they don't do this with the more dangerous spellcaster criminals, if the case requires you to give testimony, they put a cork in your mouth, and even if they pull the cork out after a few days, your mouth can't help itself Close; if no one asks for your testimony, they'll just cut off your tongue or destroy your vocal cords... If you try to cast a spell, they'll break your fingers, and if you resist again and again, they'll pick The tendons in your hands and feet will be broken, and some mages will even be blinded... In short, they have to ensure that you have no possibility of retaliation.
Decades ago, these pre-trial brutalities were common, and recently they have become much less common. Now the Temple of Otarot has learned to control captives with potions, and in principle, pointless torture of captives is prohibited—unless the captive is too dangerous to control.
The knights had been very polite to the apprentice Burris Gershaw. Boris is not a dangerous mage, he is just a young apprentice in his twenties.
Moreover, it was because of his assistance that the Temple of Otarot had sufficient evidence to send the Knights to legally execute Yriel.
Master Yriel rules a northern plain that does not belong to any country, and in his domain, he can do almost whatever he wants. If there is no convincing evidence and reasons, neither the temple nor the neighboring countries can take action against him. Boris didn't intend to be a traitor from the beginning. He originally wanted to be a pharmacist, and then he entered the tower of Yriel by chance... He really wanted to pursue knowledge and study the mysteries between death and death.
But then he gradually realized that his mentor Yriel was a tyrant, not a researcher. He leaves no knowledge, only destruction.
Yriel provided weapons to the gray mountain spirits in the mountains, and exaggerated the gray mountain spirit's ambitions to the border residents and plain nomadic tribes; he used war to test his magic weapons, and harvested a large number of dead bodies and souls through war; he made the plains Blood flowed like a river, making life surrender under his feet. He even planned to turn the life in the ruled area into sacrifices, so as to connect the planes that were isolated in ancient times, and search for the purgatory that has long been away from the world...
Everyone knows that the next step in gaining power is to expand ambition and seek greater power. This is not surprising, and it can even be said that such a person is normal. Ambitious people want to conquer more territories and gain more dominance. What people really need is the rolling benefits after victory, not a world full of death and hopelessness.
Not so Yriel the Mentor. What Yriel pursues is not the realization of ambition, but the pleasure of destruction and domination. He likes to make others fear by killing, and then get satisfaction from the fear, and then use this satisfaction as a motivation to continue to create larger-scale killings... In Burris' view, this is meaningless at all.
If Yriel was victorious, there would never be wine and riches for him or his allies, for they would have destroyed everything long ago.
The day the Knights attacked was the winter solstice. The plains and icy lakes have been snowed for three consecutive days, and the snow is getting bigger and bigger. Burris curled up in the prison van, looking back at the tower, tears froze on his face, making his skin sting.
A young knight thought he was frightened, so he comforted him. The knight said, we know that your nature is not bad, otherwise you would not take the risk to help us collect Yriel's criminal evidence, but after all, you are his apprentice and you have participated in many of his criminal acts, so we still have to arrest you. Only in this way can we give an explanation to the temple, to other nearby countries, and to the local tribes. Don't be afraid, what you will face is a fair trial, and your deeds of meritorious deeds will be affirmed.
The tower gradually disappeared from view. Brisby relaxed a little just now, but the knights escorting him did not. Burris is very clear that although his behavior of betraying his mentor is beneficial to the outside world, others will not trust him because of it.
In the wind and snow that obscured his vision, Boris vaguely saw a figure.
The man walked at the end of the cavalry team, tall and slow, like the tallest but slowest veteran. The armor of the Otarot Temple Knights is black, and the man at the end of the team is also dressed in black. He seems to be wearing a long-horned helmet on his head, which is completely different in shape from the knights' feathered helmets.
The gaze shifts slightly, and the person disappears again... and it doesn't have to be "missing", maybe it's a different position, maybe it's the helmet off... or is it not a helmet at all? But some kind of weapon the knight held up
Burris was in a trance and his eyes were not working very well. He always saw that figure by accident, but when he looked carefully, it seemed to be just an illusion.
The army moved slowly through the snow. After a whole day, that person is still appearing and disappearing. Burris wasn't paying attention to him anymore, it was just a tall, slow walker... what else could it be
If he was a monster that slipped through the net, he would have killed him long ago; if he was a god of death that only I can see, why didn't he come to harvest my soul
========================
Dreaming prolongs one's sleep time. Burris usually wakes up early, but today he slept until noon.
He was woken up by the knocking on the door. Thanks to Lott shouting and knocking on the door desperately, otherwise Burris' long dream might continue. When he is tired, he tends to dream about the past, about his youth. The picture is like a replay of the past, but the details are not clear.
He bumped around in the carriage all day yesterday, and finally made it to the city before the gates of the royal capital closed. For safety reasons, teleportation spells and fixed teleportation arrays are prohibited in several major cities in Sago. The king's capital is even stricter. The prohibited teleportation range it demarcates extends dozens of miles from the city wall. A monitoring stone was set up in each sentry post, and the military mages monitored the fluctuations from the stone in real time in the Tower of Truth in the capital.
The system was designed and laid out by Burris himself many years ago. He has a way to take advantage of the loopholes to avoid the surveillance and directly teleport to the capital, but... he must be the original one to do it. The problem of different souls is still unresolved, and he can only study many high-level spells but cannot cast them. Therefore, he could only use the teleportation array to reach other locations, and then hire a carriage to move on.
The teleportation array he used was located on the side of the Emerald Manor, which was still a certain distance from the capital, but fortunately there was a road to reach it quickly. Unexpectedly, a crack appeared on a bridge passing by the official road in the past few days, and all the carriages had to go around. The original half-day journey now had to go from morning to sunset. When he arrived at the capital, Boris was listless and completely numb from the waist down. Lotter was not tired, he sat in front with the coachman, he would shout at the sight of high arches or shopping streets, he was a very conscientious country bumpkin.
Because they held the invitation letter from the palace, Burris and Lott stayed in the official hotel specially prepared for VIPs. After checking in, Boris was too tired to talk, and even asked someone to bring the dinner to the room, while Lott stayed in the lobby to watch the song and dance performance with great interest, not knowing how long he was drinking.
Despite Lott's worrisome aesthetics and love of spending money, there is one thing he reassures Burris: He will never reveal his identity to strangers casually.
In Holly Village, he claimed to be a guest of the Mage Tower. In other small towns, he claimed to be the son of a merchant who came out to travel. In the hotel in Wangdu, he claimed to be the messenger of the Mage Tower. This answer is both broad and precise, and usually listeners will understand Just smile and stop asking questions. Because of this, Boris was able to stay in the house and rest with peace of mind, without having to stare at Lott to help him lie.
Boris was thinking about this in a daze, and he was paralyzed on the bed for a long time before he fully woke up. Lotter was still knocking on the door, and he knocked out the rhythm. Burris sat up unhurriedly, took a sip of water, and slowly walked over to open the door.
"Are you twenty or eighty years old? Why are you moving so slowly?" Lot slipped in as soon as the door was opened, "You really don't have the vitality of a young man at all. No matter how you look at it, you are still an eighty-year-old old man."
Boris replied slowly: "That's not the case. The elderly sleep less, but the young body needs more sleep. My lord, do you need my help in such a hurry?"
"No. I heard a piece of news just now! It's amazing!" Lot put his hands on the mage's shoulders and said seriously, "Last night, Miss Tarina was stabbed to death by a durian!"
Boris opened his mouth slightly, unable to combine the words he heard into effective information for a while.
"Tarina?" he asked, "is that Talina? Estee's cousin, the youngest daughter of Prince Ranto?"
"is her."
"She died?"
"Some people said that he passed out, and others said that he was dead. The dead version was told by the businessman who came to the hotel to deliver wine in the morning. The businessman heard the story from the soldiers patrolling outside the walls of the palace, and the soldiers heard the story from the maid. The inn The boss retorted that Miss Tarina was not dead, but had a sudden illness, and the boss heard the story from the silk merchant, who heard the story from the poet who was about to enter the palace to play."
Isn't this all gossip... Boris suddenly thought of another important point: "Wait, how did you just say that Tarina died?"
"I was stabbed to death by a durian."
"Durian? You mean durian? My lord, have you ever seen a durian? Is it a fruit imported from Quintilla? It's yellow in color, very big, with many thorns on the skin, and it smells bad when you peel it off..."
"That's the thing. I haven't eaten it, but I've seen it."
"How could a person be stabbed to death by a durian?" Boris couldn't feel the horrible atmosphere of the murder at all.
Lott shrugged: "I don't know the details either. We're going to the palace this afternoon, and Estee will definitely tell you about it. By the way, Burris, I found out one more thing..."
Having said that, Lott lowered his voice, and Boris couldn't help frowning.
Lott stretched out his fingers and hooked the ends of the flaxen hair curled on the mage's shoulders: "I found... you look very good with your hair wrapped around, don't tie your hair up in the future, you look like an old-fashioned pedant , more youthful vigor with hair on."
Boris walked away helplessly: "You always change the subject so quickly, I can't keep up with your thinking rhythm."
"It's okay, you'll get used to it," Lott said, leaning against the table, watching Burris tie his hair and put on his coat.
The sight behind him was very uncomfortable. Burris took the cup and towel and went to the bathroom after changing his clothes halfway, and took the opportunity to wash up to secretly tidy up the rest of the clothes.
In fact, he doesn't need to take off his clothes, and he won't reveal anything that shouldn't be revealed. Besides... it doesn't matter if he does, the person standing outside is not a human, but a demigod, a high-level undead creature from another world, and he is also male... But he just didn't want to be stared at all the time. Sharing the same room to dress and wash? It was a little too intimate, a little foreign to him, a little weird.
"Boris," Lott's voice came from outside, "didn't you think I was so annoying at the beginning?"
The mage chuckled: "I don't find you annoying, my lord."
Lott said unceremoniously: "I didn't mean that. In fact, I know you don't bother me. The 'annoying' here is not derogatory, but means being too lively, cheerful, full of curiosity and focusing on the interest of life."
Burris slowly washed his face, and Lott continued outside: "When I first met you more than sixty years ago, I deliberately didn't talk to you too much. At that time, you looked sick and still in good spirits. It's a little unstable, and I don't know what kind of character you are, I'm afraid that chatting casually will scare you."
"Actually not," Boris replied, wiping his face. "Your language is no different from ordinary people. On the contrary, your appearance at that time was more scary. I was really scared at first, but soon I accepted the reality in front of me. "
Lott rushed over suddenly, opened the bathroom door bluntly, Boris turned his head, and secretly decided that the door must be locked when it is closed... Fortunately, he was just washing his face this time.
"You know, I get excited when I talk about the past!" Lott supported the door frame with one hand, and from his expression, he was really excited, "At that time, I thought you must be someone who could do great things! I really didn't Misunderstood, my little mage has become so powerful and rich! Looking at you every day now, I just... I just want to... "
Burris was so frightened that he dropped the towel into the basin: "What... what are you thinking?"
Lott didn't go on talking, he maintained the posture of supporting the door frame with one hand, and remained motionless for several seconds... Finally he put down his hand and retreated into the room with an apologetic face.
"It's nothing, let's not talk, let's change the topic." He stood by the window, turned his back to the mage, pretending to be looking at the scenery, "I just occasionally expressed my emotions. My literary attainments are not deep, and the words may not convey the meaning , so let’s not talk about it... It will definitely scare you if you say it. Don’t mind, don’t ask.”
Burris nodded with a "hmm" and sat down to sort out his belongings. Lotte looked at the scenery for a few minutes, then turned around: "I told you not to ask, are you really not going to ask?"
"I... follow your wishes." Burris replied ambiguously. In fact, he was quite curious about what Lott wanted to say, but he felt that it was best not to lead him to say it.
Because Burris kept his head down, he couldn't see the change in Lott's face—like a drunkard pushing away his glass in pain, or like an empty-eyed hunter forced to let go under the druid's glare. Deer in the trap...
In the end, Lott still didn't go on. He regained his vigor, picked up Burris' cup and drank some water, and ran back to his room to change his dress.