It was morning, and I was supposed to wait for the meeting, but I couldn't sit still. Theories about how and what happened raced through my mind and wouldn't let me relax. So I decided to turn to the one thing that always managed to distract me.
Magic.
I made my way to the storage, but this time, I didn't go for one of the tomes lying openly on the shelves. I opened one of the coffers. Some books were considered unimportant. Of course, my father still made me read them, but I never used them afterward.
They were the books on summoning and dimensional magic, as well as a couple of tomes of magic of the fifth circle and higher. I picked a magic book on summoning.
During my teachings, I was made to go through the motions of all the rituals to understand how to cast them. I remembered how one of the old servants was made to act the part of the demon, trying to trap me in an unfavorable contract. I lost many times because I couldn't take my old nanny calling me a 'pathetic mortal' seriously.
Chuckling at the memory, I opened the book and started studying its contents with renewed interest, hoping to use the knowledge soon. I spent the next few hours studying arcane texts until midday.
Until the time for the meeting slowly came.
***
I arrived at one of the wealthier apartment complexes. Nothing for millionaires, mind you, but the building was renovated recently, and I could see the garden taken care of and a security man reading a newspaper in the booth.
Apartment 23, there it was. I knocked on the door and waited as I heard shuffling inside.
"Yes, honey?" came the voice of an elderly woman.
"Hello, Miss. I'm here to pet the cats," I replied happily, like an excited teenager, cringing at the procedure I had to undergo.
After that, I could hear lock after lock being opened, and focusing on the magic, I could sense several seals being deactivated. Finally, the door opened.
Inside stood an elderly woman who looked like a stereotypical grandmother with a head of gray hair, glasses as thick as bottle bottoms, barely holding for dear life at the end of her nose, and a hunched back. Behind her, there was the inseparable entourage of all cat ladies–the cats.
Many of them, in different shapes and sizes, wandered about doing cat things. But I could see that a couple of them always observed me, a spark of recognition in their gazes.
I made my way inside.
"Tea? Coffee?" asked the woman.
"No thank y-"
"I just baked cookies. Wait, I will get you some," she cut me off, apparently having already made the decision.
"You really-" I started as the woman turned her back and went to the kitchen. "Don't have to," I called after her, though she was already gone.
Sighing, I sat by the table, moving one of the cats from its sitting place, which earned me an irritated meow, and then waited, looking around the room.
It was a typical elderly apartment, from the old wooden furniture to the mandatory old, gray, creepy photos and a sewing kit inside a cookie box, aside from a few enchantments that could've taken my head off if triggered. The place also had a massive number of pictures of cats that somehow posed for them like an employee for a badge photo.
The lady carrying a tray with cookies and tea entered from the kitchen. I knew arguing was pointless, so I took the tea and a cookie and quickly devoured them to get it over with. The grandma just sat there smiling with a motherly smile as I ate and made some small talk.
Finally, three cookies and a tea later, she stood up and went to the doors leading further into the apartment.
"There you go, honey." She opened the doors to reveal a lavishly decorated room with red Persian carpets on the walls and floor and a couple of distinctly Egyptian decorations, making it even more Middle Eastern.
There were only a couple of cats present. In the middle of the room was a small table with a comfortable-looking chair on one side and a stand with a massive pillow on the other. On the pillow sat a giant Maine Coon cat, it was large even by the breed's standards.
The cat looked at me, smiling a bit, and opened his mouth. "Hello, Samuel. Long time no see."
"Hello, Q'shar," I greeted back.
"Shar is enough, as you know." The tail, showing irritation, swung behind the cat. "I see you were already served some cookies and tea. She really perfected the recipe, didn't she? Do you want something more concrete? Wine, whiskey, beer? Blood of the innocent?" The cat purred, apparently happy about the joke, if you can call it that.
"The blood's only for special occasions, you know, dark rituals, world domination, that stuff," I answer flatly.
To this, he made a surprised face and then shook his head in supposed disappointment in himself. "Ah, yes. How could I have forgotten?"
"Your priestesses are getting older and older. If my memory serves me right, you were once cared for by Pharaohs and only the most beautiful of young priestesses, and now an old lady and her cookies?" I asked with the fakest curiosity I could muster.
"Well, I heard your family had a mansion and a vault instead of an apartment and a warehouse. Times change I guess." He snapped back.
"I guess so." I locked eyes with the animal.
"Well, then, let's get to the point." Now his face turned serious. "Leave us."
At that firm command, the cats got up and left without any questions. A couple of silencing and anti-spying enchantments activated as the doors closed.
"Ok, did you know about the veins?" I asked immediately.
He answered without any hesitation. "No, the thing I said on the phone was true. We had no idea."
"Why send me to this case?" I still pressed the issue.
But the cat didn't hesitate in his answer, "Because it was weird."
"Look, I know you tend to speak in riddles as all members of Frumentarii, but I didn't come here to solve them. I know you and my father knew something. And I want to know what it was." I said, leaning forward in the chair.
The cat sighed in resignation. "Well, we don't know much. Honestly, all we knew was that your father knew something."
"Oh, come o-" I started to speak, before he cut me off.
"Let me finish, and then you can whine," he scolded and continued, "Look, the theory that the magic will return was just that, a theory. And after two thousand years without anything happening, the theory itself was practically forgotten. We thought that we were a dying breed. Just a couple of groups remembering the old ways," The cat paused, locking eyes with me, "And even those that practice magic do it sparsely these days."
"I know, every spell cast, every enchantment, every ritual brings us closer to oblivion. But it's not like we are that close to the end, though. There are still thousands of people practicing the old ways, just to a much lower level, and not like all creatures need mana to sustain themselves, some are still out and about." I stated in return, it's not like magic would die with my generation.
"Yes, but I'm talking about the mindset. Even families with massive resources left were, well, how to describe that." He paused for a second, closing his eyes, looking for the correct description. "'Defeatist' I think, would be the word. They practiced teaching their children a glorious history, knowing they were but a shadow of it. It's more like a couple of old groups still holding onto old ways out of honor and melancholy."
I nodded a bit. "But you knew something, now that I look at it, you always gave me the strange requests. The more there was not explained, the more you insisted."
"We didn't know anything. We suspect the only person who knew something more concrete was your father, and he was well…" The cat stopped, looking a bit uncomfortable, like he didn't know how to put into words what he wanted to say.
"A madman." I offered, "I know. With all my love for the man, or what was left of him, you don't have to sugarcoat it with me. He was a madman."
"Yes, a genius in the art of magic. But a madman." He agreed, smiling a bit. "So the world of the old ways, which was slowly stagnating into death, shook 27 years ago when your father created you. He was around for over 1300 years, and with his condition, it was not an easy task to create an heir. But exactly 27 years ago, he did it. Not only that, but he burned through half of your family's resources to train you. Your power rise was unprecedented, similar to that of a mage in the mythical era, meaning you were able to cast spells daily, which is not cheap. Moreover, your family's financial resources were also spent, and unlike the artifacts, you did not have much money left. Your bank account was practically cleared for testing sites and travel all over the world."
The cat paused for a breath as I remembered my childhood. Magic, books, and traveling to distinguished groups around the world to learn about them and their ways. Old servants carried my father to be shown the ways of the dead of Egypt, the alchemy of English witches, the Japanese spirit arts, and many more. Those were the good times. The wealth needed for contracts and travel was massive, but my father burned through it without a second thought.
He continued, breaking me out of the quick trip down memory lane. "So when you came about and were raised that way, some thought that maybe it is a sign that something massive will happen if your father wanted a well-trained apprentice. Some even started to prepare for war, but then what no one could predict happened."
I knew what he was talking about. "My father died."
"Yes, the man died after 1300 years, and for a couple of years, nothing happened. People thought that was it. Whatever held him clinging to life was running out, and he made the decision to pass on the knowledge out of desperation." The cat lowered its voice into a conspiratorial whisper. "But only a few people and I knew it made no sense. Only we knew the nature of technology holding him alive."
"You knew?" I asked, surprised.
The cat chuckled knowingly, "Information is my specialty, and your father needed that covered up, so I was informed of the details to blur the picture better."
Still, the technology was a dangerous secret. To reveal it to someone was a massive show of trust. If leaked, we would have the entire world after us.
"The tech holding your father was created by the great race of Yith, and 1300 years is nothing to them. If your father's life support ran out, that meant it was supposed to. I assumed that when your father made the deal with Yith, they wouldn't just let him live forever. He probably bargained for a specific amount of time or a specific event…"
"You thought my father made a deal not to preserve his life but to live until the time of myth returns." I finished.
"No, the return of magic was such an impossibility that we just assumed something substantial would happen. Like god descending or something. So, ever since you started to work, I have had my eyes and ears open for anything unusual."
I chuckled at the thought. "You looked for some demon awakening or some spirit or artifact, and instead, we ran face-first into the impossible. Right into the return of the age of magic."