Chapter 1190 — Bayila's Suspicion

"Ritual is merely the garnish of life—if I lived entirely by ritual, I'd start dropping leaves from malnutrition by tomorrow," Bayila said flatly and offhandedly. Then she picked up the teapot, filled the two cups on the round table halfway each, and extended an invitation to Bard. "Sit down and have a cup of tea first. I just grew this."

Bard was just about to walk toward the round table when he stumbled mid-step, staring in disbelief at the former Dark High Priestess. "Wait—you grew these tea leaves yourself?! You're brewing tea from leaves you grew off your own body?!"

Bayila seemed a little resigned to Bard's fussing. She shook her head, reached for her own cup—and this time did not pour it over her head, but instead dipped her fingers into the water, so that the liquid in the cup was absorbed at a rate visible to the naked eye. Then she glanced at Bard and said in a tone of perfect matter-of-factness, "Leaves fall and return to their roots; the fallen leaves of autumn go back to the soil and become nourishment for the tree in the coming year. I merely added a pot of boiling water to that process—Mr. Bard, why such a fuss?"

With an exceedingly strange expression, Bard sat down at the round table. He had to admit that this "Tree Lady" actually made sense—logically, at least, he had no rebuttal—but that did not stop the odd feeling in his heart as he looked at the cup of tea before him (and the few tender leaves floating in it). Soon, however, he recalled the Soren tree fruit so popular in the region, and the local specialty candied fruits and preserves developed from it, and the odd feeling was quickly diluted into acceptance. He lifted the cup and took a shallow sip; the singular fragrance finally calmed his somewhat disordered thoughts. "Thank you. It's very good, Lady Bayila."

A faint smile appeared on Bayila's face. "Good. It seems the tea is working—you've calmed down, and that makes it convenient for us to discuss business."

Bard was caught between laughter and tears, thinking that if not for this confounded tea he would have had no need of any "calming" at all—his thoughts had been perfectly clear to begin with. But before Bayila, he did not voice any of this in the end. Instead he offered only a slightly awkward smile. "What did you want to see me about today?"

"Some... old matters from the days of the Dark Cult," Bayila said, drawing her fingers from the cup and watching the last trace of moisture on them vanish swiftly, absorbed without a trace. There was a faint heaviness in her tone. "Among the High Priestesses of that time, there was a pair of elven sisters... Do you still remember them?"

"Lerna and Ferna?" Bard thought for a moment and quickly recalled them. "Of course, I remember them—they were in charge of many things in the eastern and central regions of old Ansú, and I dealt with them a fair number of times while operating in those two areas. Why? What makes you bring up those two all of a sudden?"

Bayila did not answer directly, but casually asked another question: "Do you know where they went after the cult fell?"

"That... I heard they tried for a time to win over Typhon, and after that failed they fled into the Wasteland," Bard said, not entirely certain. "You should know more about that than I do."

"Yes, they fled into the Wasteland," Bayila nodded. "And there are leads suggesting they may have colluded with the band of Myriad Hush cultists entrenched there, and are scheming after the power buried in the old capital of Gondor—that is why His Majesty has been investigating the matter, and has learned a great deal from me about those elven twins..."

"I've heard a thing or two about that as well." Bard nodded.

"So now I want to hear the 'impression' you were left with," Bayila said. "Regarding the Ferna sisters—did you ever sense something... particularly incongruous about them?"

"Particularly incongruous?" Bard frowned. "That's a rather broad question... The way I see it, plenty about them was incongruous—in fact, back then every single one of the cult's upper echelons was more or less abnormal, myself included. Lady Bayila, you know as well as I do that in the All-Ending Society of those days it was hard to find a sane, normal person; everyone had their quirks and habits. As for the elven twins... their manner of speech, the way they never distinguished between each other, their interwoven personalities and memories—none of it was right. Especially after the Theocracy Council disclosed certain materials and I learned that they were in fact sharing a single soul... the feeling became even stranger."

"All right, it seems my question wasn't specific enough," Bayila shook her head. "What I mean is—did you ever sense anything inhuman about them? Whether in the knowledge they possessed, the way of thinking revealed in their words and deeds, or their perspective on the world, the power they occasionally let slip—was there anything that felt inhuman?"

"Inhuman?" Bard paused, frowning slightly. "I'd like to say that as elves they were 'inhuman' to begin with, but I suspect that's not what you mean... Sorry, I really can't think of anything offhand. My rank back then went no higher than Withering Priest, a level below the High Priestesses. My dealings with the Ferna sisters were mostly accepting their orders and carrying out tasks—I didn't have much chance to observe them closely... Come to think of it, why come to me about these things? I don't consider myself a very good—"

"Because on this land, you are the only surviving Myriad Hush cultist besides myself," Bayila cut him off before he could finish. "Of course, Pi Yun also had some connection with the old cult... but he's even less suitable than you as a source of intelligence."

Bard blinked, understanding Bayila's helplessness, and at the same time something occurred to him. "Sounds like you've dug something up in your investigations recently? Or did you suddenly arrive at some conjecture?"

"I've been doing some... things lately, and by coincidence I discovered certain leads. I've begun to suspect that those elven sisters deceived everyone from the very beginning—from the Gondor era a thousand years ago."

Bard's eyes went wide. He had already guessed from Bayila's manner that those elven twins must have been problematic as far back as the age of the All-Ending, but he had never imagined this matter could reach further back—all the way back to the Gondor Empire of a thousand years ago. Clearly, this was more complicated than he had thought.

He looked at Beiyila without the slightest attempt to hide the doubt in his expression, and the latter hesitated only briefly before rising from the round table. "Come with me. I'll show you something, and then you'll understand what clue I've found."

(End of this chapter)