They sat cross-legged on the floor in their hundreds, and if not for the gentle movement of their chests, I would have believed they were statues.
I paused, then carefully counted them again to make sure that I had the right number, and indeed, they were that many, 330 men and women, arrayed in a concentric ring around the statues.
They all wore grey and silver robes, with the six-pointed star of Vothar worked into every breast. Their faces were masked with a smooth white mask, and their hands laced in patterns I had no name for.
Votharii magic was different from Aelmar’s elemental disciplines, but I could feel the potent charge of magic in the air, without even pushing my senses deeper into the hall.
It was then that I noticed that in front of each golden statue squatted a construct, it was a dark machine, with floating rings within rings, and inward-pointing arms that were aimed at the orb in the statue’s hands.
Something about these constructs made me frown, and as I looked across them multiple times, it almost reminded me of the magic of the Narghul Sorcerers. There were no visible indicators that this was built by a demon, but I had killed tens of thousands of demons, and even if it was disguised, I was able to sense their touch.
As I looked at the position of these constructs, it was not hard for me to figure out their purpose. They were meant to pull the Celestial Essence from the orb.
I had wondered how the Conclave was going to break the seals, and now I had seen it. I looked away from the hall and sat with my back to the wall.
This was the harvest, the damned Ascension Ritual. These mages had come from across an ocean, and they had sat down in a gallery etched with the images of demons, and they had folded their hands to wait for the chance to steal from the only thing holding back this threat, and not one of them seemed troubled by the irony of their action.
There should be a bit of common sense that what they were about to do was madness, but either they were following orders like sheep, or they did not care.
I had Celestial Essence flowing in my veins, so I did not care for the power held by these statues, but even if I did not, I would not want to claim these powers, knowing what it would cost.
What sort of life would lead people down a path where they would break the world itself just for power?
I had hated the demons, once, before I learned they were only weather. I found, standing in the passage mouth looking at the seated Conclave, that I could still hate. The cold spot in me that had burned for Orath flared, low and steady, for the hundreds of patient men who would drink the heavens dry and call it ascension.
For me, hate was not enough, but it helped, by all the lights in heaven, it helped.
I want to kill these people... I truly wanted to.
∞
I turned back to observe them while looking around the hall, and by chance, I looked above and saw what resembled a chandelier, but it was a massive floating blade made from stone that had been broken in half.
Inside the blade, I could sense a bit of Celestial Essence, and I knew that this blade did not belong to the conclave. Maybe once it was whole and was part of the defenses for this section, but now it is broken.
I traced the path of the blade in my eyes, and it was hovering in the center of this hall, and a plan formed inside my mind, and without thinking too much about it, I became Lightning Incarnate and covered myself with Lightning Edict, before flinging myself to the hovering sword.
I tried not to move too quickly, and my body, reduced to lightning, barely made a ripple in the air as I moved across the hall and finally landed on the hilt of the broken blade.
Looking down, no one seemed to have detected me as I took back my flesh while maintaining my invisibility. Everything I had suffered to gain Legendary Spells was worth it when, outside of combat, I could see the vast utility they commanded.
I began to observe the mages below properly, and maybe it was because they did not expect a watcher. I learned things about them I did not expect, and one of them was that they were all a bit uneasy.
It was not easy to tell, but their posture, even when sitting down, was not settled; their backs were too straight, and I wondered if they were feeling guilt for what they were about to do, and then it hit me... Orath had never delivered the final stroke. The killing-hand of the ritual, the blow that should have tipped the Jade Oracle over the edge of her ten-thousand-year poisoning.
The Jade Oracle was still going to die. I could see the red stain spreading around the green dome covering each statue, but it would not be as quick as they wanted it to be.
They knew something was wrong, but like mages, they always had a backup plan, and they would wait for the Jade Oracle to die in the next hour, and yet, feeling their disquiet made me smile.
I crouched on the stone blade, feeling a pulse inside it that felt almost familiar, and I placed it aside for the moment, as I had just seen five figures among the hundreds who were not wearing masks.
They sat at the center of the hall, so I could not easily see them when I stood at the end of the hall, and when I went above it, I had to crouch to be able to observe them.
The five were not like the others, and even with their eyes shut, they felt as if they were not part of the people here, an invisible divide surrounded them that even a mortal would be able to feel.
Five Arcanists.
One of them was familiar; I had seen him in a previous loop, tall, with his beard the color of iron, and from his sitting position, he did not seem to be the strongest Arcanist here.
So, these were the faces of the men who would release the Pale Matron. I wondered in the end, when she was rising, and a single hand from her picked the entire Caelith, were these men regretting their decisions?
Well, it no longer mattered; I was going to kill them all.