Editing City Series:Volume6e Chapter2 (section)

===Part 3===

Schweitzer still stood in the light.

The journal resting on his prosthetic arm was opened to the final page.

His eyes were still staring down at the journal, but he suddenly lowered his head.

A drop of sweat dripped from his forehead to his cheek before reaching his chin and falling to the floor.

And once it did…

“Bermark.”

“Do you need something?”

“I will omit any unnecessary questions. Does this journal describe our entire truth?”

“Yes, that is everything we are now. The past comes from a thousand years of history, but the present comes from the twenty years of history that began with Lady Frobel’s journal.”

“So this journal is the borderline between the past and the present.”

Schweitzer flipped through the pages. Old German written in sharp, hurried handwriting had been rewritten in places while describing the events in chronological order.

“It even includes me suggesting the Gard-class’s 2nd ship be used to build Tristan.”

“Lady Frobel and Sir Lowenheit were both skilled Sofort Lesers.”

“And they left this journal with Lowenzahn. So she could fulfill her role as our commander. Did she know her mother’s maiden name was Ilfheim?”

“No. Lady Frobel came from a family that managed the Naylor knowledge stockpile, but that was recorded as a Naylor branch family. Sirs Graham, Heiliger, and Bertecht kept her secret and sent the fräulein to a rural home after Lady Frobel’s death so the information would not get out.” Bermark took a breath. “But as fate would have it, she happened to see a distant relative at Borderson last year.”

“She was very insistent after learning of the wedding. She may have had her suspicions.”

Schweitzer wrinkled his brow even deeper and flipped another page. He kept flipping.

The sound of turning pages filled the space and they produced small gusts of wind as they turned.

“Bermark, did anyone other than you know of these prophecies?”

“Originally, it was only those of us who were close to Lady Frobel before World War One and were involved in the creation of the Geheimnis Agency: Sir Graham, Lady Rose, Sir Karl, and me. Later on, Lady Lillie who was taken in by Sir Graham…and then Sir Heiliger heard it from the fräulein herself a month ago. Also…”

“Marsch?”

“Because some excerpts from the prophecies were installed as plates in the underground knowledge stockpile.”

“I see.” Schweitzer continued flipping pages. “The final page.”

There was nothing beyond this page. 

“This isn’t a prophecy.”

A short passage was confidently written across the two pages. There were none of the previous diagrams or explanatory notes. Simply a confident statement meant to convey something.

When skimming through it, the words “war”, “Nibelung”, “’43”, and “sin” jumped out at him. When his eyes reached the end of the page, he noticed the final words.

Unlike the rest, the last bit was scribbled out in a hurry. A date and a postscript were added below.

“January 16, 1919. PS. I will be emblemizing this text and placing it underground.”

“Do you recognize that date, Captain Schweitzer?”

Schweitzer looked up for just a moment.

“One week before my father died.”

Then he looked back down at the hurried text.

As soon as he read it, he shut the journal with enough force to make Bermark tilt his head.

“Why not read it more carefully?”

“I want to read that final page after I have calmed down some. Can I take this from here?”

“If you wish. I am sure Lady Frobel would be delighted for it to be in the hands of someone the fräulein entrusted with the key.”

Schweitzer grabbed the journal in his biological hand and stuck it in his coat pocket.

Afterwards, he slowly lowered his prosthetic arm. It produced a mechanical noise as he rotated the elbow halfway around and lowered the shoulder. He kept his eyes on that arm.

“Has anyone other than Lowenzahn read this?”

“You already know the answer to that, don’t you? A portion of the prophecies and that final page were carved into a plate in 1919 and placed below Munich’s central hospital. The man who decoded it ordered to have it carved away so no one else would know what it had said.”

“Did Frobel Naylor – no, Frobel Ilfheim – know that Marsch would be the one to read it?”

“Yes. When the plate was embedded there, she knew everything – including that the people would rebel and that your father Bertecht would die protecting the hospital.”

“I can’t believe this.” Schweitzer let the words fall to the floor. “To be honest, I feel some anger toward the way this journal views the world. And at what Lowenzahn did. But I also feel like there was nothing I could have done if that was what she wanted.” He took a breath, shut his eyes, and shook his head. “I don’t understand that final sentence.”

“You have a heart of your own and you still do not understand it?”

“It may be that heart that keeps me from understanding. If she was going to use her own daughter as a component in a machine then how could she also send that daughter to us for-”

He stopped there, gasping and spinning around to look to the right.

Some Unreif Germane reliefs were embedded in the wall there.

One of the brick reliefs was glowing.

The one depicting the knights battling a black dragon was emitting a bright light.

He lowered himself to a fighting stance as the black dragon relief reacted.

It vanished. No, it fell away into the wall.

“What?”

He watched as all the other reliefs fell into the wall and vanished too.

After around 30 of them had fallen, a 3yd diameter hole appeared there.

There shouldn’t have been anything but a wall there, but it instead opened out onto a different place altogether.

There was a black forest inside.

But that wasn’t all.

Two things toppled into the room like felled trees.

Except these were people not trees. One was short and the other tall.

The short one wore a cloak stained brown and the tall one wore a suit of amor straight out of a medieval painting.

The brown cloak made a rustling sound as it fell to the floor and the armor made a metallic sound as it clattered to the floor.

Both men were old. Schweitzer recognized them both and opened his mouth to speak.

But Bermark spoke up before he could.

“These are Intelligence Division Chief Witzmann and Development Division Chief Elrich.”

And he casually added one more thing.

“They appear to enjoy dressing up as medieval knights.”