BECMI Chapter 220 – Unwanted Revelations

The devastation in King Lymeril’s blue eyes was very plain to see as he first gazed at the naked blade next to him, then followed it up to the eyes of the fellow elf he had adventured next to for literally centuries, and then had at his side for centuries more as King of Sidheduiche.He didn’t even have to ask. The shock in Gelfernador’s eyes… No, Helmonag’s, the Name just resonated in the air, unable to be denied, encompassing all that the infiltrator was, making it plain as day that it was indeed his True Name.

“Sheathe your sword, Gel,” King Lymeril said sadly, stepping away and starting to draw his own.

The spy’s eyes flashed around at the strong warriors in the room, the guards behind me gaping at him, and made his choice.

He leapt back, his tongue tripping over three syllables. Magic swirled around him to take him away-

And his fading form seemed to crash into something, rejecting his attempt to flee instantly.

I waved my hand negligently his way as he stumbled, shocked at running into a dimensional wall that had stopped his spell cold. With a grunt, he was hurled off his feet at the speed of a charging horse, and slammed hard into the wall behind him, grunting and groaning as his Sword fell from his hand… and then buckles began to loosen, straps flipped open, knots untied, seams parted, and with rather magical speed, his Armor and equipment fell off of him and pooled onto the ground.

He was held helplessly there, a foot off the ground, as the Clanmasters of Uainel and Red Sword were on him in a second, their own glowing elven Blades at his throat and ready to take action if he tried another such tactic.

The King looked back and forth from me to his old friend, able to feel the pinning him in place.

“One of the things Belle wanted me to impress upon the Council here was the necessity for proper security, both dimensionally and among its personnel,” I continued, as if I hadn’t revealed probably the biggest spy in the whole nation within minutes of coming here. “Thank you for making my point for me, Elder Cousin. I set up an about the Palace here when I arrived, just in case something like this might happen.”

The sorrow of betrayal in the king’s eyes hadn’t gone away when his gaze turned completely back to me. “Are there others of your people in Sidheduiche?” he asked me directly.

“I know for absolute certainty there are five others within Sidhetown, Your Majesty,” I answered, and watched the master spy’s face twist in hate and fear. “I am reasonably certain that there are dozens, if not scores, more of them active in the forest, with at least two hundred in place in various locations just underneath it.”

“You, you TRAITOR!” Helmonag swore at me, trying to point at me. “It is our DESTINY to take this forest from the undeserving!” he swore at me in a distinctly shadenelf accent. “How dare you betray your people like this?!”

“Betray?” I asked him coolly, actually taking a single step forward, but the table was in our way regardless… except it politely moved out of my way as I continued to glide forward, shocking the elves there as a Rune of Wood glowed for a moment on the back of the lace on my right hand, just as slapped into it. “You have lost faith in Gaebrel. You have slain innocents who had no part in this intrigue. You have lied to the people of the Sternvult – my people! – to satisfy a need for blood and conquest! You have lived a life of treachery and betrayal in service to a lie, and you call ME a traitor, you blasphemous fallen scum?”

My voice was all ice, and he writhed as my eyes bored into him. I wasn’t even trying to read his mind, but I could see him faltering as all my words rang with Truth.

Nobody approached me or attempted to touch or stop me. Helmonag’s distraught expression as his whole lie of a life rose up before him was shattering enough that even those coming forward to bind him could tell he was a broken man.

“Don’t let the fool kill himself. Corellin takes home the faithful, and this one, this one has lived in the light long enough to know the truth, he just couldn’t bring himself to accept it,” I sniffed. He slammed down on his bare feet, his elven boots already removed, and was promptly wrestled to the ground. Slender ropes woven of elven make rapidly appeared and began to bind him, while shackles of cold iron were placed on his hands to deny him magic.

I turned to the king, who was again looking back and forth between us. “If you search his chambers, you will doubtless find a well-hidden Scroll, scrying device, or other form of magical communication he used to communicate with his master. If you bring it to me, I can verify the connection and personage on the other end,” I informed him without passion or glee or much of anything. Just another day on the job. “Give me an hour and I can have an field up that would cover the entire settlement,” it wasn’t a city, nope-nope, “. Give me five minutes and I can instead have one up that covers merely the palace here.

“There are also the others of my people who I assume your own people would be interested in talking to on a more well-informed basis within the city. Would you like me to lead you to them?” I offered casually.

His lips thinned as he looked at me, and then slowly sighed and nodded. “Yes, yes I would,” he admitted. “What would you need to have done?” he asked sharply

“I? I need nothing. But I advise you send orders to the walls to be magically aware for those flying and invisible until my cousins are in proper custody. They may get alarmed when invited to come explain themselves to Your Majesty.”

His smile was brittle as he watched his oldest and longest friend get pulled to his feet by General Crimson and hauled away, his face never turning up to meet the eyes of the king he had betrayed for so long. “Make it so,” he ordered to the guard captain there who was attempting to keep a straight face at what was going on.

“My king, this woman has also admitted to being a shadenelf!” barked General Crimson, barely deigning to look at me. “You cannot trust what she says-”

“Does the General know he’s been ?” I inquired absently of him, interrupting his diatribe.

The elves around staggered, but for some reason, none of them didn’t believe me, looking at Crimson strangely and alertly.

“What?” he snarled instantly. “There is no way I have been so affected by anyone!” he protested defiantly.

“And ,” I went on, eyeing him calmly as he flushed. “Conversations he’s been told not to talk about, someone he can’t disobey. into agreeing to the and now unable to break out of it. He’s a puppet on someone else’s strings. Your Majesty, see if he’ll remove that Amulet he’s got on under his mail and hand it to you. My answer is no, he’s literally unable to obey the order.”

King Lymeril looked at the second loyal general under his command, also revealed to be suborned, the red-haired finest soldier in the nation outraged that his king would even believe an outsider like her. “Your Majesty, I severely protest that you are paying the slightest heed to her words!” he shouted angrily.

“General Crimson, this is a direct order from your king,” King Lymeril stated with iron in his voice. “Take that Amulet that is shielding you from Divination spells off and hand it to me.”

“I, my King, the risks, especially with this woman here!” General Crimson immediately protested, getting red in the face.

“NOW, General?” King Lymeril asked, and swords slid out all around.

“Olivander Trussoyl, for the good of the kingdom, obey your king this one time,” I calmly .

His face perceptibly blanked, especially at mention of his Truename. “Yes,” he agreed, his eyes glazed and looking right through me. He reached up to his neck, unbound the Necklace under his mail, and handed it over to King Lymeril as if a half-dozen swords weren’t pointed his way.

King Lymeril accepted it smoothly, his eyes glittering. “Charm magic,” he confirmed, as General Crimson’s eyes reverted. “But I cannot see the ?” he asked, glancing at me.

“That is not possible-!” the elven general began heatedly.

“You have to study his Alignment Aura. There are fluctuations in it because the power of a can force you to betray your Alignment.” I snapped my fingers, and the rose in my hair grew into a glittering, thorned tiara, a rich red Light streaming from it and playing over the white and red-trimmed elven soldier, a thick and strong Aura of White tinged with Blue erupting to live as played over him. “His Aura should be impermeable and solid, given his power and age. Look how the Blue and White are vibrating instead of blending into one another. There’s even little dark gaps… his memory of some of the things he’s had to say and do has been wiped from him, so that he doesn’t even try to fight the orders that are existing and thinks they are simply his own thoughts.”

“This, this is absurd-!” General Crimson tried to refute me, but was sounding increasingly strained, staring at his own hands and able to see what I was talking about.

The more powerful elves around could also make out what I was talking about, and were nodding with me, if reluctantly.

“He is using Life-name magic, which works wonderfully if nobody knows your real name. Unfortunately, I imagine Helamong either found it out or was trusted with it, and passed it on to his agents and up to the intelligence services of the Shaden. I imagine every single powerful elf of importance who uses such means to gain the immunity to and magicks it provides has been compromised, and either has been subverted without their knowing it, is going to be in the future, or there are means ready to instantly take them out and control them with such a clear vulnerability exploited.”

It was Truenaming magic, and I was a Cryptomancer. It truly was a decent defense, but you literally had to have nobody know your Truename for it to work, or it would get out!

“The General is currently more of a threat to the security to this kingdom than I am, because he is doubtless to obey the orders of whoever did that to him, and he doesn’t even know who it is.”

“We can remove the with its counter,” King Lymeril said, his face twisting as the ashen general, quite literally unable to believe any of this was true, seethed, clenching at the Sword he wore and clearly wondering if he should draw on me and cut me down with how I was obviously beguiling his king! “Recovering his memories will be somewhat harder…”

“I can take care of both right now, if Your Majesty is willing,” I informed him, as if it happened every day.

The look he gave me was that he should expect to be surprised, and yet somehow was not. “If it pleases the Lady Edge… set my general free.”

I turned and shone the on Demonhunter.

His Aura was Yellow and Green, also rich and deep… and also vibrating subtly. Everyone looked at it, keen elven eyes picking out the discrepancy, and the acclaimed hunter’s jaw dropped as he stared at it on his hands.