The Illusive Endire

“It seems a little small to be a replacement for the Endire,” Lavenza noted.

“Please. I hope you’re not suggesting we allow the orb to grow to the size of the sun inside the academy,” Archmage Halifox scoffed. “No, we have curtailed its growth to the size of the containment chamber for now.”

“Is that so?” Lavenza said. “And the power source?”

“The ley line beneath the academy, of course.”

“The Aphelion line?” Lavenza asked. “I didn’t know there was so much mana left. I hardly sensed it when I arrived.”

“T-that is by design,” Walser stepped in to explain. “The storm masks the ley line’s energies and lowers the temperature of the academy in order to allow us to warehouse the Endire replica.”

“There are many things you do not know, apostate,” the archmage scowled. “Magic is always evolving. It’s been years since your expulsion. Do not presume to still have an understanding of our ways.”

“May I see it up close?” she ignored the jabs. They were meaningless. “This new Endire?”

“Do you wish to be burned alive? Of course not!” the archmage shouted. “What do you think the observatory room is for?”

In fact, Lavenza had already glanced around the observatory room. Its key feature was that it possessed nothing. It was an empty space with no workbench or closets or special tools. Unlike the dust and gravel laden academy, the only footprints in the room belonged to Walser and Archmage Halifox when they had entered.

“Do cleaners come here often?” Lavena asked.

“No,” the archmage mouthed. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Can you dampen the Endire’s power? Long enough for me to inspect its construction? I wish to see which magical formulae was used.”

“They are all custom formula and inscriptions,” the archmage explained. “You would hardly recognize them.”

“Try me,” Lavenza stared at Walser. “How did you create this, Walser?”

Walser’s face scrunched up as if a baby was preparing to cry. He shuffled backwards, fingers wading between each other as if to visualize how to worm one’s way out of answering the question. This was the person responsible for replacing the dying sun in the sky? Lavenza would have laughed if it wasn’t so pathetic.

“T-the replica is governed by three primary incantations supported by several thousand subordinate formulae,” Walser began. “There are, in fact, three defining problems, summarized as Akansha in the Menuan tongue.”

“That’s… right,” Lavenza said.

Walser’s confidence expanded the moment ordinary conversation turned academic. The clarity of his explanation gave Lavenza some pause. Perhaps she had misjudged him, she thought.

“Would you like to do the honors?” Walser asked her. “Akansha."

“Physical. Spatial. Spiritual,” she said. “The three foundations of all mana, of all magic. As you suggested, the Menuans teach that the Endire perfected all three and gave rise to life.”

“This new body,” Walser waved at the orb, “is fashioned out of the Aphelion ley line, millions of magical threads strung together, not unlike a pearl necklace or Menuan beads. It is, in both magical and physical composition, comparable to the present Endire.”

“But with only one ley line, it will not be strong enough—”

“It w-won’t need to be as large as the original,” Walser explained. “The orb will be set in motion opposite Aparthia’s two sister moons, much closer to Aparthia than the original sun. Its diurnal course will be different, but the proximity will make up for its lack of potency.”

“Spatial,” Lavenza muttered. “And what about the spirit?”

“Yes,” Walser sighed. “How has the Endire burned for so long? What has given it such longevity? Unfortunately, the orb cannot survive long outside of the containment chamber. It cannot burn without end as the Endire does, not without an equivalent life force like the Endire’s. How that can be done… we presently do not know.”

“This… This is the progress that’s slower than others,” Lavenza looked at the archmage.

“Indeed,” the archmage said.

“But it is also the most important part,” she snapped. “The spirit of the Endire doesn’t just grant us warmth, it protects us from petrification. Archmage Halifox, the physical and spatial body of the Endire could have replicated even before I was expelled. What have you been doing? For all these years and to not yield a single—”

“Enough!” Archmage Halifox roared. “Impudent and unappreciative. You are as intolerable as when you were cast out for your treachery.”

“Treachery?” Lavenza cackled. “I only offered that we might give our own lives to supply the necessary life force for the Endire’s spirit. Our souls—”

“Don’t repeat your people’s heresy here!” The archmage screeched. Each word was thrust out like a dying rasp.

“Enough. You will allow me to see the orb up close,” Lavenza commanded. 

“And I’ve already told you, no,” the archmage refused.

“You have no choice, archmage. I am here on the empress’s orders.”

“Hiding behind her will do you no good,” he said. “What will happen when you’ve been burned to a crisp? What will I tell Her Royal Highness about her favored attack dog?”

“If that were to happen,” Lavenza shrugged, “tell her whatever you wish. I would be dead.”

“Walser!” the archmage barked. 

“There are too many… r-risks…” Walser’s stammers resurfaced. “I-it is not safe.”

“Well there you have it,” the archmage said. “I cannot allow you access to the orb’s chamber, not without Walser’s consent.”

“What makes his assessment so special over yours, Archmage Halifox?” Lavenza asked. The old man stumbled in place. “You are one of the premier magicians of this final age. You are the archmage because you have earned the right to speak on all things magic. But this time, you have defaulted your decisions to this young man, whom I have never heard of, who claims his relevant studies are in the subordinate school of…” 

Lavenza trailed off. She glanced again at the orb. By all accounts, save for its lesser size, it looked just like the sun that hung over all Aparthia. It was a replica. No, a facsimile. A facsimile of the real thing, whose purpose was to present itself to Lavenza with the veneer of verisimilitude. Verisimilitude. Verisimilitude…

“What is the meaning of this?” Lavenza whispered. “What is the meaning of this, archmage?”

It was the old man’s turn to stammer.

“W-what are you talking about?”

“The truth!” she cried. “When you were planning on telling me the truth? Or have you really been blinded by your own delusions? In that case, you’ve left me no choice but to intervene.”

Lavenza drew a deep breath and chanted.

“Canta Grixys paladis.”

Archmage Halifox in his old and prejudicial age was not versed in Menuan, but the young Walser heard what was about to transpire. His hands reached behind his back for his staff. To Lavenza’s surprise, his lips primed the start to a lethal incantation.

But he was too late. A soft rose light enveloped Lavenza. The golden shackles and collar dissolved, and Lavenza vanished in a flash of incandescent ruby. Strobes of light pierced the windows of the observatory and arced down to the chamber below, where Lavenza’s body reanimated just below the fiery orb.

As she had been warned, all of her body felt like it was melting before an unstoppable heat. She collapsed. Lavenza’s eyes saw nothing but a blinding white filter. Her ears were drowned by a great roar, the sound of furious flames engulfing each other on the orb’s molten red surface.

But had the archmage’s warnings proven true, Lavenza would have not experienced any of these things. She would have been vaporized by the orb. Despite the tremendous energies swirling above her, Lavenza rose to her knees and realized that not a single part of her was sweating. The flames dancing above her was nothing more than an infernal phantasmagoria, shimmers layered one after another until the mind could hardly tell the difference.

This was no Endire. There was never an Endire here. Lavenza clasped her hands and bowed her head.

“Aphelion.”

Like a marble dropped on stone pavement, a crack split open the bottom of the orb. Oceans of cerulean spilled forth from the fissure. Red and blue crashed together, and blue emerged victorious. It doused the flames until all that remained of the orb’s surface was a cooled, ashen gray.

The magic chains that once held the orb in place snapped to Lavenza’s body. One clasped around Lavenza’s neck and pulled her into the air. It tightened.

Up above in the observatory room, Lavenza saw the maddened visage of Archmage Halifox. His cheeks and eyes burned with more intensity than the illusory Endire ever could. Walser stood beside him, but instead of a timid young man, Lavenza saw now a cold, expressionless husk, for whom any and all cruelties could be made possible.

“What the fuck have you done?” screamed the archmage.