Mancer 4: Of the World Beyond

Prologue & Chapter 1

3500 words from the point of view of Marigold Viridian (mother of Hansa Viridian, one of the protagonists of Mancer 1 and 3).

• © Amelia Atwater-Rhodes 2020. Please see the “Posted Chapters” page for additional information, including an index of related chapters.
• Spoilers Warning: This text takes place after the end of Mancer 3 , so contains major spoilers for that entire trilogy.
• Content Warning: a mother learns of the deaths of her adult children, though that isn’t the main focus of the story.

Marigold Viridian was on her front porch, drinking tea and chatting about winter plans with her long-time best friend Coral Upsdell, when the letter came.

Despite being from Ruby Upsdell, Coral’s daughter, the letter was addressed to Marigold. Marigold had never known all the particulars of Coral’s falling out with her daughter, just that they seemed unable to mend it. But Marigold and Coral each had one son, and those two sons had been best friends practically from the cradle, so Ruby had grown up considering Marigold a second mother. Since her falling out with her birth mother, she corresponded with Marigold more reliably than did Marigold’s own son, Hansa.

Marigold wondered, but didn’t ask, if Ruby wrote because she knew Marigold would pass on news. This way, mother and daughter kept in touch without either sacrificing her pride.

The news was short and sweet: Ruby wrote to say that she was confident Hansa planned to propose that day, and she—of course—planned to say yes. She knew it was bad luck to speak of such things before the question was asked, but she couldn’t stand to wait any longer. Hansa had been nervous and squirly for days, and Jenkins had let slip that Hansa had requested the evening off for “a special event.”

The two boys—young men, though men were always boys to their mothers—worked together in the One-Twenty Six, the elite guard unit tasked to protect the country from sorcery.

The guard unit whose tan and black livery was so familiar to Marigold, she knew it immediately when she saw it walking up the path to her porch, worn not by her son or Coral’s son but by an older man with a grave demeanor.

The letter, which Marigold had been in the process of passing to Coral, slipped from her suddenly numb hands.

Which one?

Oh, Dear Numen, I can’t stand to lose either of my boys. Not the one I birthed, or the one I helped raise.

It could be both of them.

Coral stood, pale-faced. Marigold froze in place.

“Coral Upsdell?” the soldier said.

“No,” Coral breathed. “Oh… no.”

The soldier replied. His voice warbled in Marigold’s ears, but she caught the gist. It was the worst possible news for a mother to hear: Jenkins Upsdell had been killed in the line of duty. He had been responding to a report of sorcery, and had discovered a horror.

“What of Hansa?” Marigold demanded, greedily, selfishly. If Jenkins had been there, Hansa—his partner and lieutenant—would have been there. “Lieutenant Hansa Viridian. Is he all right?”

Unless Hansa had taken the night off, because he planned to propose.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the soldier said. “Hansa Viridian has been taken into custody for the crimes of sorcery, conspiracy, and murder. The evidence is extensive. He will be branded and executed… will have been,” the soldier amended. “I left the city two days ago, to bring the news. It would have been done within the day.”

To Coral, he said, “I am very sorry for your loss, Mistress Upsdell. His personal effects will be waiting for you if you want to come to the city to claim them, or I can arrange to have them transported here.” He looked at Coral, then dropped his gaze and mumbled, “You will need to speak to an officer at the Quin Compound, ma’am, if you want to know anything else.”

---

Marigold stormed to the city, refusing to believe for a moment that her son could have been guilty of such an act.

And when she arrived, it seemed her prayers had been answered: Hansa had been cleared of all charges. There had indeed been a terrible mistake. Jenkins was still dead—oh, Coral, I’m so sorry—but Hansa was alive, and a hero.

And missing.

He had last been seen down at the docks, investigating… something. They wouldn’t tell her more, which meant it involved forces she was considered better off not knowing about, except to strike another grievous blow: Ruby had somehow been caught up in whatever had happened. She was dead, and Hansa was gone.

So Marigold returned home. She helped arrange the funerals of not one but both of her best friend’s children. And she waited up and wondered if her own son was dead or alive.

When she finally received word, her joy that he was alive battled with her decision that she might kill him.

The information came, not in the form of a letter or even a messenger from her dear, loving boy, but a missive that Winsor Indathrone, President of Kavet, was now also missing. For the security of the country, there would be an emergency election to fill the role temporarially, and who out of all the souls on Kavet was the forerunner and expected winner of that election?

Hansa Viridian.

Again Marigold traveled to the capital city, where she pushed into his office to demand answers, only to have him rush off, claiming he had a meeting and promising to meet her for breakfast.

She would hold him to that promise.

---

Marigold’s breakfast with her son was significantly late, owing to the fact that the world nearly ended, and he ended up on trial for sorcery—again.

This time, instead of being found innocent of all charges, they found him guilty of engaging in sorcery “in order to fulfill his sworn mandate to protect the country from malevolent forces from within and outside the mortal realm.” Beyond the findings, the court records were sealed. The subject of the other realms was considered too dangerous for the average mortal to even speak about.

He was on some kind of probation until the courts could further decide what to do with him, but he was back at his apartment near the city center and he was allowed to receive visitors, so she stopped at the market to pick up a few things, then made her way to his door and knocked. Firmly.

At first, there was only silence. She raised her hand to knock again, then paused when she heard the sibilance of a whispered conversation inside. She couldn’t make out the words, but she could tell that at least two people were having a hasty discussion.

At last, the door opened, and she beheld her son.

Twenty-seven years old, Hansa looked older just then, tired and worn. He had bathed and shaved recently enough that his dark brown hair was damp and she could smell his shaving soap; after returning from the prison, he must have prioritized cleaning up before sleep. He was dressed for a lazy morning at home, in drawstring slacks, an untucked shirt, and no shoes.

And next to him was another man, dressed—or, undressed—similarly. His clothes were slightly less crisp, as if they had been slept in at some point, but their cut was fine and disguised some of the rumpling. His black hair was loose around his face, and also damp from recent washing.

“Mom,” Hansa said, after a hesitation where they both just stared at each other. “What… breakfast. You came for breakfast.”

“I said I would,” she replied. She stepped forward, hesitating for a heartbeat that made her feel ashamed before she asked, “Do I get a hug?”

Tension drained visibly from his shoulders as he responded by pulling her forward and wrapping his arms around her, wordlessly accepting the wordless promise she intended the embrace to say: You are my son. I don’t know what you’re involved in, but I love you, and I trust you.

As they parted, she lifted the canvas bag she carried and said, “Given where y—where you were I thought you probably wouldn’t have had a chance to cook.”

She tried to keep her voice light, but it choked in the middle there as she remembered that he had been in jail again, possibly awaiting execution again. And Numen only knew what he had been up to before then.

Hansa dutifully took the bag from her arms. “Thank you,” he said. As they walked toward the kitchen, he added, “This is Umber. He…”

He trailed off, as if at a loss for words.

She helped as far as she could. “He was one of the other defendants at the tribunal. I recognize your name from the findings,” she said to the other man, who nodded a greeting.

“Pleased to meet you, Madam Viridian.”

“Everyone calls me Mary,” she replied.

He hadn’t given a surname, which could mean any of a myriad things. Certain political sects in the city didn’t use surnames at all, and others only shared them in specific circumstances. She didn’t know how to interpret it in this case.

“Coffee, Mary?” Umber asked, when Hansa paused, looking around as if overwhelmed. “I just brewed a pot.”

“Thank you, that would be lovely,” she replied.

Hansa had never been a coffee drinker before, but Umber poured three mugs. He kept his black, drowned a second one in a generous dollop of cream before handing it to Hansa, and asked, “Cream? Or sugar?” The first was already out, but he looked toward the cabinet as he referred to the second, clearly familiar and comfortable with Hansa’s kitchen.

“Neither, thank you.”

The coffee was delightful, hot and rich and a wonderful excuse to delay responding immediately when Hansa said, “Umber saved my life that day… the day Jenkins died.”

She didn’t choke on her coffee, but it was close. Hansa had been arrested for sorcery that day, and initially blamed for the deaths of Jenkins and several other men before it was discovered that he had fought the sorcerer and demon that had killed his friends, and banished the beast.

That’s what the rumors said, anyway. The official story was not available to the average citizen, or even to the suspect and now would-be President of the country’s mother.

If this Umber had saved Hansa’s life on that day, and was back now, it implied certain unsettling facts about him.

Before anything else, she said to Umber, “Thank you.” The words came out uncharacteristically soft. She took too large a sip of coffee to cover the moment, and coughed as it burned. Then, she needed to ask. She started to speak to Umber again, checked her own cowardice, and asked her son instead, “Are you a Mancer?”

Mancers were sorcerers who gained their powers from deals made with demons and other creatures from beyond the mortal realm. Hansa and Jenkins had spent their adult lives hunting them as part of the One-Twenty-Six guard unit, because they were by definition vile and dangerous, driven by irresistible compulsion to use their powers for violence and destruction.

Hansa opened his mouth and she could see the words “No” form on his lips.
Then he closed it, and looked down. He didn’t need to answer.

“How long?” she asked. Had he been this way as a child in her house? If so, how had she not known?

“Since… about twenty minutes before sunrise yesterday,” he answered.

In other words, since the events of the day before, when for several minutes in the morning monsters from the other realms had scurried up from the ground and down from the sky, burning and freezing and shaking the earth.

Marigold turned to Umber. “And you?” Had he dragged her son onto this path? Who was he?

He shook his head, but volunteered no more information.

“Maybe you had better start at the beginning,” she suggested, thinking: Engaged. Arrested. Executed. Exonerated. A hero. Missing, presumed dead. Returned. Running for President. And now: Sorcerer. Mancer.

Still, and always, my son.

And, because Hansa was her son, she couldn’t fail to see the significant look that passed between the two men. It wasn’t a conspiratorial look, of two men preparing to lie. It was almost… hmm.

When Hansa didn’t speak, Umber began.

“When I first met Hansa,” he said, “he had just been attacked by an Abyssi. A demon from the infernal realm. At that point I expected the Abyssi would kill him and that would be that, but the Mancer who had summoned it needed its assistance, and so called it back to her side, leaving Hansa injured severely, but not dead. He asked for my assistance, which I gave… I will admit, somewhat reluctantly, and at that time entirely for my own reasons.”

Hansa had started taking the food out of the bag Marigold had brought—nothing fancy, fruit tarts and cheeses. He looked at it as he spoke, as if he needed the excuse not to look at her.

“When I woke up, I was arrested. All the others knew was that the demon had killed nearly a dozen men, but had left me alone. The Numenmancer we had gone to arrest had disappeared, and—”

“Wait, wait, wait.” She raised her hands as if to ward off the words. “Maybe you shouldn’t start at the beginning, because this isn’t making any sense. You-” She looked to Umber. “You say you aren’t a Mancer, but obviously you have the powers of one. And…” She trailed off. She wanted to hear the whole story some day, but right then, it wasn’t the most important thing she needed to hear. She needed to know what was happening with her son, and if he was okay. “Maybe start at the end instead. Simply. What happened yesterday, why are you now a Mancer, and did you choose it?”

She couldn’t help the note of pleading that entered her tone at the end. Let him say it was another mistake, some kind of infection he had picked up as a hazard of his job, but which he could shake with time and care.

Hansa answered the questions in opposite order, bluntly. “Yes, I chose it,” he answered. “I am a Mancer now because I accepted a link to an Abyssi, and because another Mancer—one who has been around since the death of the last prince of Kavet, who was—” He broke off, and a note of grief entered his voice. He and Umber seemed to flinch toward each other momentarily, before Hansa set his hands palms down on the counter and continued. “—who was killed in the morning’s battle, protecting a country that would have had him executed—helped me do so.”

The words were pushed out, jumbled and challenging. Then Hansa drew a deep breath before he continued.

“As for what happened yesterday… well. The Lord of the Abyss, the infernal realm, and one of the oldest of the Numini, those of the divine realm, conspired together to try to destroy the veils between the realms, destroy the mortal realm, and in doing so entirely destroy humanity’s free will by casting us into servitude, as was the way of things in the Time Before.”

She started and stopped on a dozen different responses before she asked Umber, “Is there anything stronger than coffee in the house?”

She knew Hansa only drank wine, and only terrible wine at that, but perhaps his tastes there had changed along with his coffee-drinking habit.

Umber let out a half-laugh before saying, “Only wine, but it’s better than what used to be here.”

It still didn’t appeal. Instead, she finished her first cup of coffee and prepared a second. Finally, she found the right question:

“What is a Mancer?”

She knew what the law and popular belief said, of course: Mancers were humans with unnatural obsessions with the other realms, who practiced magics that perverted the natural world. She knew what Hansa and Jenkins had told her in the past. But that didn’t fit with the bits of story Hansa had just told her, which meant either he was lying—which he wasn’t—or what everyone knew was wrong.

“Mancers are…” Hansa hesitated, clearly struggling to an explanation together. “They’re humans, who, usually through no choice of their own, have a connection to one of the four other realms: infernal, divine, life, or death. Most of them are born with their power. There is no way for them to reject it, or suppress it, or ignore it, except at their own peril. Like any tool, it can be used for harm, but there is nothing intrinsically malevolent about any Mancer’s power.”

“What about the Mancer who tried to kill you?” she challenged.

Hansa swallowed, tightly, and his shoulders squared as if he were preparing to fight.

Umber spoke instead.

“Her name was Dioxazine. She was a Numenmancer. She had harmed no one before the Quinacridone attempted to arrest her. She summoned one of the Others in a desperate attempt to save her own life. As a Numenmancer, she expected the Numini to respond to her.” He did not elaborate on what had really happened; he did not need to. “She, too, sacrificed her life as one of our allies in the battle yesterday.”

Marigold nodded once more. “And now you’re an… Abyssumancer?” she asked Hansa, hesitantly. “Because of this same battle.” Since joining the One-Twenty-Six, Hansa and Jenkins had always said Abyssumancers were the worst, the most violent and dangerous of the lot.

Hansa shook his head, maddeningly. Again, he looked toward Umber, who crossed behind him to put on more water for coffee, passing close enough Marigold thought their hands had brushed.

“I’m not entirely sure what I am any more,” Hansa answered. “I became an Abyssumancer this morning in order to do what I could in the fight. That meant I accepted a bond to an Abyssi.” At that, his mother paled once more. “His name is Alizarin. Years ago, he had a… I don’t know what to call it. A love-affair, I guess. With one of the Numini. Veronese.”

Marigold nodded, as if any of this made sense. She knew the words Hansa was using, but in Kavet it was literally illegal for the average person to discuss or speculate on the realms and creatures Hansa referenced so easily. It would take her time to truly process and consider and even hope to understand more than the general idea of what he was saying.

“At the end of the fight, we had sent back the Abyssi and Numini who were trying to destroy the mortal realm, but it was already damaged. Things were falling apart. Veronese told me to summon Alizarin from the Abyss. I’m sure you’ve already heard that story.”

“Yes,” she said, barely a squeak.

Sorcery was not discussed in Kavet, but how could people not discuss seeing the man they had all assumed would become President walk into the central square, draw blood—with what, reports varied, it might have been a piece of glass or his own teeth or a knife—and call forth a monster.

“Veronese gave his own immortal life to make Alizarin divine, or at least, half-divine. To make him the pin that holds the veils in place and keeps the mortal plane from collapsing and fading back into the Numen and the Abyss. I’m still tied to him, and that makes me… whatever it makes me.”

Marigold stood. She needed to move. She paced. She watched Hansa, and watched Umber, and tried to wrap her mind around the things she was hearing.

“Okay,” she said, the word almost inaudible from lack of breath behind it. “Hansa, I trust you. But this… all this… is a little more than I can take in all at once.” And there were so many more things she needed to know, needed to ask, because despite everything he was admitting to her, there was too much he was trying to hide.

“Why don’t you take some time to think?” Umber suggested. “It would also be nice if you could speak to the rest of Hansa’s family, and let them know that you at least believe he is all right, and not turned into some kind of evil fiend. Assuming that’s the case.”

“I trust my son,” she said again, forcefully now. “And I think I’ll do that. At least take a walk, clear my head. Think. Is there anything else I need to know, immediately?”

She met Hansa’s gaze and saw a thousand thoughts pass behind his eyes before he looked away. He and Umber exchanged another thoughtful look, before Hansa shook his head. “Please, give my love to Father. And if you can, convince him…”

Hansa’s father was back at home, minding the wares and the shop. Marigold couldn’t even imagine explaining to him what had happened in the last few days, and what she had heard in the last few minutes.

But she assured Hansa, “I will,” and hugged her son goodbye, and shook Umber’s hand before leaving.

And after they closed the door behind her, she shut her eyes, pressed her forehead to the wood, and counted slowly to thirty. Thirty let her heartbeat slow. It let her think through what she had seen and heard, and decide there was one more thing she wanted to get out in the open before she left.

Quietly, without knocking, she opened the door.

On the other side of the room, as if they had started to move toward the kitchen but hadn’t made it, the two men were pressed together, eyes closed and mouths locked with a mix of desperation and comfort that made Marigold catch her breath.

It was what she had expected to see.

Umber noticed her first. When his eyes opened, they caught the light momentarily so they seemed to glow. Calm and unruffled, he asked, “Did you forget something, Mary?”

Hansa on the other hand jumped, his face flushing scarlet as he stammered sounds that never became words.

“I didn’t forget anything,” she replied, thinking of how the two men had both been in the same casual and recently-scrubbed state of semi-dress, of Umber’s familiarity with the kitchen, of the significant looks and that touch of hands. “I closed the door, waited thirty seconds, then let myself back in. Hansa Viridian, you know you’ve never been able to lie to your mother, and I don’t know why today is the day you thought you could start. Now, let’s tell that part of the story again, shall we? This time without any bullshit.”