Chapter 149: Bastard Son?
"Now that is a fine idea."
Mousesack's eyes shone with unshielded admiration. "The sorcerers have overextended their reach for far too long; it is high time for a pruning. And you even managed to frame it through a blood feud with a dragon—very clever, truly!"
The old druid was genuinely impressed by Arthur's methodology. It achieved the goal while minimizing the fallout from any potential retaliation by the Brotherhood of Sorcerers. It was just a bit... unfair to Borch.
Borch's eyes widened, and he let out a mock-scolding laugh at Arthur. "Well now! I offer to help you research a counter-measure out of the goodness of my heart, and you push me out front to draw all the aggro?"
Despite the words, there was no malice in the Golden Dragon's voice. Dragons were notoriously vindictive by nature; if there was a chance to settle an old score, he wasn't about to pass it up. As for being the lightning rod for the sorcerers' hatred... he didn't much care. It wasn't as if staying quiet would make the sorcerers in dragon-hunting parties disappear.
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's get to it!"
Arthur rubbed his hands together, looking very much like he intended to crack the Ambassador's skull open like a walnut. The diplomat shrieked in terror:
"What are you doing? Do you want to provoke a diplomatic incident?!"
"Why must you insist on scaring him?" Mousesack gave Arthur a light shove, then turned to Borch. "Between the two of us, who goes first?"
The Great Lazy Dragon shrugged. "If you're taking over, I'll stay out of it. Just send word when you've tracked down Corve."
Mousesack shook his head. "Our tasks are different. I want to find a way to break the mind control without damaging the subject. But as for detecting the distribution of magic within a brain from a distance—that is a specialty of your kin."
"Fine, I'll go first then."
Borch pulled over a chair and sat directly across from the Ambassador. His pupils shifted into burning gold slits, staring unblinkingly into the man's eyes. Then, he clapped his hands together sharply.
"Done! I've completely mapped the way that magic functions in his brain. Next time I see someone like this, I'll know it at a glance!"
The Golden Dragon threw his hands up in a theatrical gesture. "Well? Where is the cheering? Where is the applause? The Great Lord Borch has solved your dilemma in the blink of an eye!"
He waited for ten seconds. There was neither applause nor cheering.
"What? Is this how you treat a friend's achievement?" Borch frowned, raising a hand to manifest an illusion of a human brain. Clusters of violet magic sat firmly in various regions, looking like invisible nails driven into the grey matter. "Look at it! How intuitive! Next time you see magic distributed like this in someone's head, you'll know they're compromised."
"Your method is brilliant, but it's useless to us," Arthur said, choosing his words carefully as he pointed to Borch's eyes. "We are humans. We don't have dragon-pupils capable of seeing through a skull to the magic within. Even with detection spells, we have to place our hands directly on the person's head. Unless... you've suddenly become industrious enough to accompany us and point out every compromised individual one by one?"
Borch's shoulders slumped, and he sat back on the bed, his face a mask of defeat. "I suppose I'll have to find a way to craft a detection spell that you humans can actually use..."
"Heh, actually, the model you've created is quite useful for treatment," Mousesack said, patting the dragon on the shoulder to console him.
Then, just as Arthur had described, the old man raised his palm—broad and heavy as a cattail fan—and pressed it squarely against the crown of the Ambassador's head.
"Good sir... I won't be turned into an imbecile, will I?"
The Ambassador wore a mournful expression, his head twitching nervously. "I've heard that when His Majesty wants someone silenced forever, he has his court sorcerers weave needles of raw Chaos to churn the victim's brain into a pulp..."
Mousesack used his free hand to touch the stone pendant hanging at his chest, speaking in a soothing tone. "Banish such thoughts. I am a druid of the Circle, a follower of the Natural Way. I do not wantonly destroy life."
In the past, people associated druids with being "stubborn" or "inflexible," but in this moment, those traits served as the ultimate guarantee. Though the Ambassador remained tense, he finally stopped squirming.
"Deep breaths. Dizziness is perfectly normal."
Having given his final instruction, Mousesack closed both his eyes and his mouth. The Ambassador's body began to tremble slightly, and low, involuntary moans escaped his lips.
"Oho, the old man is playing for keeps!" Borch remarked.
"Is there a problem?"
Seeing Arthur's confusion, Borch manifested the illusion again, but this time it was dynamic. In the projection, one could clearly see the Ambassador's mind; alongside the violet magic left by Corve, Mousesack's emerald-green energy was now surging inward in a continuous stream.
Suddenly, the violet magic seemed to sense a threat. It began to thrash and surge wildly against its surroundings. Fortunately, the green magic had implemented a strategy of "divide and conquer" from the start. Possessing a massive numerical advantage, it managed to pin down the chaotic violet flares and suppress the scope of the disturbance.
The image was silent, yet Arthur's palms broke into a cold sweat. As a practitioner of the Arts, he understood exactly how perilous the situation was. When uncontrolled magic is scattered into small trickles, it is manageable, but once it coalesces into a concentrated surge, it can instantly tear through any tissue in its path—nerves, blood vessels, muscle, or even bone.
Yennefer—the sorceress whose memory had left Geralt so despondent lately—had been turned into a hunchbacked deformity in her youth precisely because she had lacked the knowledge to control such surges.
Borch pointed at the Ambassador and asked Arthur, "What's the connection between this fellow and the old man? A bastard son?"
"Impossible!"
Arthur shot Borch a glare, the phrase 'How dare you slander a man's character' nearly escaping his lips. But looking at the violent clash of violet and green in the illusion, he felt a nagging sense that Borch's jest might not be entirely baseless—the effort Mousesack was exerting was extraordinary.
Their exchange didn't affect Mousesack in the slightest. His expression was that of a man lost in a deep dream, or perhaps one reminiscing about a distant past. Beads of sweat poured from his forehead like a leak that could not be plugged.
When Mousesack finally withdrew his hand from the Ambassador's head, he was as drenched as if he had been fished out of a river. White steam rose from beneath his hat, drifting all the way to the ceiling.
"How is it? Do you feel better now?"
Though he was masking an undeniable exhaustion, the old druid's first priority was the Ambassador.
"I feel... as if I've just woken from a very long nightmare..."
The Ambassador's gaze swept across the room, looking dazed. "No, not a nightmare. It felt as if I were cursed. Looking back now, I did so many idiotic things, yet at the time, I didn't see any problem with my actions at all!"
Mousesack explained wearily, "The magic Corve left behind exerted a powerful suppression on the regions of the brain responsible for logic and common sense. Without those, there is very little difference between a man and a lunatic."