The walk through Kaer Trolde's inner halls passed in near silence. Seb kept his eyes forward, jaw tight, hands still faintly trembling from a fight that had cost him nothing physical and everything else. Geralt walked half a step behind him, saying nothing either, which was its own kind of eloquence from a man who rarely said much in the first place. Somewhere behind them a servant was already shouting for buckets to deal with the burning gate, and neither witcher so much as glanced back at the commotion.
Ermion's laboratory, when they finally reached it, was a warm, cluttered, green-smelling refuge from the cold stone of the rest of the keep, shelves of jarred roots and dried herbs, a fire banked low in the hearth, and at the center of it all, resting on a stand of black driftwood, an artifact, the very thing Ermion was working on.
"Welcome to my humble laboratory, Sebastian," Ermion said, setting his staff by the door, "I have heard much about you from Geralt over the years he has been here. He speaks of you often, you know. He told me how you trained with Cirilla in Kaer Morhen, how you grew up alongside her." He paused, his voice softening. "She was under my protection once, you know. Myself and Geralt made it possible for her to escape Cintra before the Nilfgaardian host arrived. It was a desperate time, but we managed."
Sebastian nodded. "I know that. Geralt told me the story years ago, back at Kaer Morhen. I know what you did for her, what you risked. I have always been grateful for that."
Ermion studied him a moment longer. "I know you're feeling as though you've been dropped in the middle of a swamp with no boots on, boy. But believe it or not, you've just interrupted two old men in the middle of finding a way to her." He gestured, almost lazily, toward the artifact on its stand. "With this."
Seb crossed the room before he'd fully decided to. He stopped in front of the driftwood stand, and his eyes went wide as they traced the pale, spidering script carved into its surface.
"That's.." His voice caught. "That's the exact same words.. The exact same elder speech words.. Just like my mask."
Ermion's eyebrows shot up, "Mask?"
Geralt stepped forward, "What mask, Seb? What are you talking about?"
Seb dragged a hand down his face. "An elven artifact, just like this one." He gestured toward the round object on the table. "I obtained it in Novigrad, at an illegal auction. It was pure chance I was in the right place at the right time, and I knew immediately that it was something special. Soon after, I learned that it is incredibly powerful. It can even open portals between worlds, a space-time artifact, something that should not exist in the hands of common folk. It was made originally for a wielder of Elder Blood, to help them master their own gift. A mage without that blood can still work it, I'm told, but only ever partway." He swallowed. "I wanted to break the seal on it. I meant to give it to Ciri. God knows she's spent her whole life fighting her own power instead of holding it.. I thought, if anything could help her hold the reins on that, it'd be this."
Ermion circled the artifact slowly, one hand hovering just above its surface without quite touching it, his expression gone distant. "It seems I was wrong then, I originally thought this artifcat of mine was unique, but this is no isolated relic it seems," he said. "This is part of a set. And if I'm not mistaken these artifacts are older than Lara Dorren herself, perhaps even the Conjunction of the Spheres. They are relics of a time when the Elder Blood was more... understood."
"You have this mask now?" Geralt asked, already reading the answer in Seb's face before he gave it.
No." The word came out rough. Seb turned away from the artifact, dragging a hand back through his hair. "I thought I'd need help to work it properly, so I went to Temeria, to Triss. She agreed to help. But before we could get far with it, I took a Job that Foltest asked of me personally, to serve as his Kingsguard for a while. We went to Rivia together. There was a summit there, a secret one, dressed up as a celebration, a year since the Second Northern War ended, officially. Unofficially, the Northern kings meeting in one room to decide how in every hell they were going to stop Nilfgaard from finishing what it started."
He went quiet for a long moment, staring at nothing.
"I was there as Foltest's sworn shield. Took the job partly for him, partly because it meant Triss could keep working the mask while I stood watch. And during that summit.." his hands curled slowly into fists at his sides, "..I was stupid enough to let Philippa Eilhart and her whole nest of vipers help. For speed. For a faster result." He said with bitterness in his voice. "She turned on us. Both of us. Used the mask to tear open doors to worlds already dead and dying under the White Frost, and when I tried to stop her, she threw me through a portal. And I found myself here, in Skellige."
Geralt and Ermion traded a long look over his shoulder.
"You were a fool to trust that woman, I have known Philippa Eilhart for longer than you have been alive. She has always been ambitious.. too ambitious for her own good. And she has never let loyalty stand in the way of her goals." Ermion said, not unkindly, but not gently either. It was simply a fact.
"I know that now." Seb's fist came down on the nearest table hard enough to rattle every jar on the shelf above it, and for a moment none of them said anything at all. "Her plan all along was to see the Northern kings dead, one way or another, and I handed her the weapon and the fool to blame it on!"
"Shit happens," Geralt said. "She'll answer for it one way or another, eventually." A pause. "Is Triss all right?"
"I don't know." Seb's voice dropped, all the fury bleeding out of it into something far more tired. "I don't think Philippa would kill her outright, and there's history between them besides. My best guess is she got clear the moment I was thrown through, before anyone could stop her. Took the other sorceresses with her, she kept most of them in the dark about her true plans."
"This would serve Nilfgaard's interests well, whether Philippa intended it or not. The destabilization of the North is exactly what Emhyr has been waiting for." Ermion said thoughtfully, "unless, of course, she is secretly serving the Emperor herself."
Seb shook his head at once. "Her ambitions are far too large to bend the knee to any crowned head. Nilfgaardian or otherwise. Whatever she's playing at, she's playing it for herself." He straightened, some of the old resolve creeping back into his shoulders. "I need that mask back. Because I know where Ciri is."
Geralt's voice was sharp, his eyes narrowing. "You do? How?"
Sebastian nodded. "The elven sage, Avallac'h, can only take her to one place, his home world. Tir Na Lia, the world of the Aen Elle. That is where she is being held." He paused, his voice dropping. "I am sure of it. There is nowhere else he would go."
"I'd already guessed as much myself," Ermion said. "And I think you're forgetting something rather important, Sebastian.. if this truly is part of a set with yours, there's no reason mine can't achieve the very same thing."
Seb turned to look at him properly for the first time since entering the room. "You really believe that?"
"What in the world do you think Geralt and I have been doing, holed up in here?" A dry, weary smile crossed the old druid's face. "I've already sent word to the other druids of the isles to lend their strength to me. We mean to carry this out in a forest, well away from any hearth or hall, this sort of working demands more magic than four walls can safely contain, and I suspect you already know that better than most." He tilted his head. "Besides. You came to the keep looking for me. Didn't you?"
"I did." Seb exhaled, some of the tension finally leaving his body. "The moment I realized where Philippa had thrown me, that I was standing in Kaer Trolde of all places, I knew I had to find you. I meant to ask you to send me back to Rivia."
"Unwise," Geralt said flatly.
"Indeed," Ermion agreed. "The moment you set foot in that city, I'd wager good coin they arrest you for regicide before you've said three words in your own defence. You were sworn to protect that king, Sebastian, and as far as anyone there knows, he's dead and you vanished the very same day. You didn't just fail the job. You're very likely a wanted man now."
"I already knew that was a risk before I ever considered going back. I'm was planning to go anyway." Something flickered across Seb's face, worry. "Dandelion and Zoltan are still there too. They were out in the city when it happened, not in the castle, but.."
"You met them in Novigrad and they just decided to tag along?" Geralt's mouth twitched, the ghost of something almost fond. "Of course they did. Don't waste your worry there, Seb, those two have crawled out of worse graves than this one. They always do, somehow." He reached out and set a hand on Seb's shoulder, solid and grounding.
Seb looked at him for a long moment, really looked, the way a man looks at someone he's trusted with more than swordwork over the years and something in his chest finally loosened.
"I'll take your word for it," he said. "I'll believe in them."
/-\
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