Three Gods

Suddenly, it knocked on the door. Nathaniel rapidly pulled his trousers up and called out "Come in" while still closing the buttons of his shirt. Like he expected from the familiar sound, the one striding inside was his butler. Closing the door behind him, Sam opened his mouth, but then suddenly didn't know what to say anymore. Reason was the unusual tension that ignited between them. They hadn't found the time yet for the private talk about Sam's past with everything that happened at Nathaniel's side. Or, to be clear, after talking with the King, Nathaniel had been unwilling to take on anything else connected to him being the child of Alexander Icefall.

Even now, he didn't look up as he stated his question. "What is it?"

"I came to report."

Nathaniel's hands paused for less then a second, then he closed the last button on his collar and went over to his sleeves. "About what?"

The blue eyes drilled holes inside Nathaniel's head, yet the latter ignored them. So, Sam had no choice as to get more concrete. "About myself, of course. And about the one that was my former master... your father."

For a short moment, Nathaniel's red eyes met Sam's, then he turned to pick up the gloves from his sideboard. "What is there to know about him besides being a bad King, an inhuman genius scientist, and a rapist?"

He wanted to say it lightly but faltered a bit at the last word. That was also one of the things the King had thrown at his head as if it didn't deserve any concern. Though the Queen and Alexander Icefall were indeed married, the intimate part of their relationship had been forced on her, as well as many other things.

To play his slip-up down, Nathaniel continued louder: "It really alludes me how you of all people could work under someone like that."

Sam suppressed the urge to sigh. As the one who raised and served Nathaniel, how could he not notice what he was feeling? There were days he really regretted his past. "You just painted a very matching picture of him, your Highness. But only of the inner person that nobody ever saw clearly as long as he was alive. It lacks the brilliance of his mind or how he filled everyone with passion for the ideas he had. He was cold and ruthless, that was obvious. Yet, even his family didn't know how twisted he was until the day of his death. Both your late Aunt and King William adored their older brother, before they were forced to see the truth. Afterwards, Princess Irene never wanted to hear his name again."

Nathaniel had been completely uninterested in the story, until the name of his aunt had turned up. Hearing 'Irene', it was like a spell cast on him, turning him motionless. Slowly, his hands dropped, and he sank down on a nearby chair.

Sam, who had silently witnessed the change, now gazed deeply at him. "Please hear me out. Opposite to her, I believe that the strings of history will strangle those that don't grasp them. I want you to be prepared for that. For the people who might bring up something about your father or the woman that birthed you. You should know the truth before that, even if it might not happen at all."

Reluctantly, as if someone was forcefully moving his head, Nathaniel nodded. "Now is not a good time... but it looks like a good time might not come soon. You must really be serious, if you even mention her to get me to listen. Alright. I don't want to hear anything about him, but I can't stay blind and deaf when I face the future."

Sam, while standing straight, smiled without letting it meet his eyes. Those blue crystals slowly turned distant and cold like the kind and affectionate old man left and a different person took over. Even his speech changed sightly, the usual formalities falling away to leave only the blank necessities. "As you already know, I was the illegitimate son of a noblewoman and a servant, dropped at one of the capital's orphanages. It was a special place, and what they taught me was not what children of under ten years - or children in general - should ever learn. The missions the administrators send us to where quite similar to those I took on after the orphanage burned down. By then, I was far past the age of magic awakening and lost all hope that I could awaken the power my ancestors had in their blood.

Then I met him. It was one of my missions, a well-paid one. The target was a minister and it had a short time frame, which made me a little hasty. Prince Alexander - he was still the Crown Prince back then - saw me, but he didn't do anything to stop me. Instead, he offered he would awaken my magic power if I swore loyalty to him. At first glance, I knew it was a devil's contract. And yet, I agreed after some days of thought.

It was less the urge to reclaim my family name and more the greed that drove me to find him. I was young and arrogant enough that I wanted to be the best in what I did, and in this world, the best in their professions are mostly mages. Besides, with my abilities, I didn't expect it to be troublesome even if I breeched the contract afterwards."

Same paused to wet his dry lips. "It was against my expectations that he really did wake my magic. The process was painful, but I didn't care about it. This deed, and he as a person, impressed me so much that I swore my loyalty to him willingly. I was not involved in any of his experiments afterwards. I swear that I knew nothing of that until it got discovered by the imperial family. He just called on me to kill his political opponents.

Oftentimes, he sent me to different countries for long periods of time and my disguising magic helped me tremendously to blend in wherever I wanted. Because of this, I, like everyone else, didn't notice his strange activities. The only thing that should have made me pick up my ears was when I once asked him what the tokens of the three stars which he ordered me to leave at every murder scene signified. It was the first time I saw such a strange, distant look in his eyes. He said, the stars stood for three people. Then he corrected himself: 'no, it's the token of the three gods of magic'."

"Three gods?", Nathaniel interrupted him. Against his will, he had been captivated by the story, though he knew most of it already. He had even known that someone had awoken Sam's magic, but since it was not the organization, he had only asked once about it and seldom thought of it again. "He didn't believe in the goddess of snow and ice?"

Sam shook his head. "Until then, I always thought he didn't believe in anything that could not be seen with his bare eyes. It still doesn't match my impression of him since he usually would not acknowledge anyone above him."

"Three people...", Nathaniel repeated, pondering. "I think almost nobody would call gods people. Yet, he, a human, wanted to be akin to a god by awakening and changing magic powers. My guess is that those three people were - or are - humans. Most likely, one of them was he himself. Being gods was their ambition, their vision of total power."

For a moment, there was silence as each of them thought it through again, to find a loophole in their reasoning. Was there really someone so arrogant that he believed he could become a god just like that?

Finally, Nathaniel raised his head. "But if he was one of three, what happened to the other two?"