by Aaron Jay
After what happened in the dungeon before, I knew that whoever Tasha assigned to this task were going to be stone cold professionals. If I wanted them to break their ambush, I’d have to do better.
“I know you are out there. There are supposed to be some random kobolds spawning around this dungeon. Where are they? Look. I’ll wait here while you kick my message up the ladder. I want to talk with Maya or Tasha or anyone who has the authority to make a deal. I’ll wait.”
I sat down by the edge of the barrier and made myself comfortable. Or, as comfortable as you can make yourself at the entrance to an abandoned mine.
I took out some meat I had turned into jerky and nibbled on it. To pass the time, I did my best to look at the terrain and figure out where the ambush was laid. After an hour or so I was giving myself odds of five to seven that a particular boulder and a dead tree next to it made up the blind they were using.
That is why I jumped when someone in rogue/assassin leathers faded into view just to one side of me across the barrier. I couldn’t make out much of his features, but I saw his eyes glimmer with amusement that he had gotten the drop on me. Startling the crap out of people must be a part of that build that never gets old.
“Be at the Eastman Central Arcology in three hours. You will be met.”
“Who am I meeting?”
Not bothering to answer, the assassin took out a dagger polished to a fine shine and idly used it to clean under a fingernail. The dagger reflected the sun into my eyes. I blinked and looked away for less than a second but that was enough. The smug bastard was gone. Not gone gone, I was sure. But I had no idea where he was anymore.
Already, I had learned something valuable. Leaving the instance without the Eastmans bringing me down was clearly impossible.
I moved back into the mine and logged out. No reason why Maya’s clan needed to be able to see exactly when I came and went from the game.
*** ***
Three hours later, I arrived for my appointment.
A mammoth building dominated this part of the city. It loomed over all the buildings around it. It had been thrown up in desperation and then added onto throughout the fall of civilization. It had stood through attacks and calamity. It had been added to as its defenses grew, or as they fell and needed to be rebuilt. I expect it bore a lot in common with the castles and walled cities of the middle ages that inspired much of the Game. It was power inside and out of both worlds.
Even in our modern world, where people mostly didn’t go anywhere, there was a small but steady trickle of people making pilgrimage to beg of, sell to, or buy from one of the great clans that controlled the world. People came from far and wide to kiss Tasha Eastman’s ring.
If the Eastmans were going to try to do something to me, I didn’t think they would be brazen enough to just take me out when I came openly to their demesne. Their desire to be seen as the valiant saviors of mankind should keep me safe here. I was counting on their need to be seen this way in a number of ways.
I joined the stream of people heading through the mammoth gatehouse and checkpoint. The clan really kept the whole feudal vibe going even here in real life. Guards, courtiers and functionaries who would have looked appropriate in Game dealt with the people coming and going.
Tapestries, rugs and wood desks and other furniture dotted the great hall. The textiles looked real and so did the wood in the furniture. Using biomass for decoration was another sign of status and paradigm. The Game and feudal loyalties were the source of the Party’s power and the justifications for its existence. Part of me wanted to sneer at its pretension. A more primitive voice inside of me urged me to begin grasping this kind of power and status. I shook the voice off and went up to the man in doublet and hose acting as receptionist.
Have you ever had someone you didn’t want to see? Perhaps you have an ex-girlfriend you cheated on. It ended a mess. After the guilt, shame and regret, you evolve and reform. Time passes. Excited, you manage a first date with a new girl you really like. You hope that you have your idiocies out of your system and that, older and wiser, you now have a chance at something better than you were capable of before. Something with a girl you like more than you ever did your ex. You and your new hope have a moment of connection over dinner in a restaurant. Which is, of course, exactly when the host seats your ex and her friends at the table next to you. All you can do is wave hello as the world you thought you were in just a moment before dissolves.
Maybe you have a family member whose special day you lied to avoid. But you aren’t sick or out of town or anything else. Which makes it painful and awkward when you run into them on the street. You mumble an awkward greeting through your shame and guilt. They mumble something back through their humiliation. You know that you will have this hanging between you for the rest of your life and now every family get together will be contaminated with guilt.
We have all done wrong and we all have to live with ourselves and our sins.
What you may or may not have noticed with my little parables was that in the face of intense social awkwardness all we have to rely upon is social convention.
Jude saw that I had arrived and just said, “Hi, Miles. How have you been?”
“Hi, Jude. I’m doing better than I deserve.” I replied.
You may be thinking that this was a pathetic response. This son of a bitch betrayed me to my enemies, led a team to murder and enslave me, and generally fucked me over. You think I should have said something cutting, clever and cool. Something that would put him in his place. Something that would hurt him like he hurt me. Something that would make him think that he hadn’t hurt me. Well, if you know what words can do that, let me know. I don’t think they exist.
When you find yourself confronting your former best friend and betrayer, habitual courtesy is about all your brain can handle. He nodded me farther into the arcology. We stopped in an empty waiting room.
“You want some water or something to eat?” he asked me. He looked about the same as he always had. Tall and slim with sharp angles to his cheeks. His hair was maybe a bit longer than he used to wear it and seemed more styled than I recalled. He looked just the same as he used to and like a complete stranger.
He seemed to have real concern in his voice. Like he really cared if I was hungry or thirsty and would want me to eat or drink if I was. It was odd that I couldn’t tell if he meant what he said. Even such a simple offer of food or drink.
Being betrayed weighs on different people differently. So does being the betrayer. Dante Alighieri, who my dad taught me wrote the first complete walk-through for all levels of the afterlife, showed betrayal as the lowest level of hell. You had to really max out your evil experience points to end up down there. Neither murder, nor theft, nor lying accomplishments could unlock the bottom floor. It was reserved for those who betrayed. A lot of content in that walk-through. The end-boss is Satan himself. Dante described the ninth and final level of hell as ice/frost themed. Kind of has a cool mechanic to it. It is Satan’s wings that cause the freezing effects. You have to cross this frozen lake and then climb Satan to escape the level.
Those who betrayed are buried up to their necks in the perfectly clear lake frozen by the wind of Satan’s wings. Jude and I may not have been up to our necks in Cocytus (that frozen lake) but the mood in our little room was cold.
“No. I’m ok. Not hungry.” I replied.
He nodded as if he understood more than my rejection of the food and water.
“I thought it would be better if I met you alone here rather than with Tasha or Maya. Tasha granted my request,” he said.
“Am I supposed to say thanks?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I wish things had worked out differently.”
“Ok. Well, now what?” I said, ignoring his remark. If I let myself think about his non-apology apology I might… I don’t really know what I might do. There was only darkness in considering those words, so I didn’t consider them.
“We wait here t
ill Tasha has time to see you.”
“So she sets the time and place and then makes me wait.”
“She is a busy woman.”
“Sure. Evil schemes don’t plot themselves. The hurry up and wait thing is sort of overkill after you make people come to see you at your castle. You’ve already maxed out the dominance games.”
He gave me a faint smile.
“The lion does its utmost even to kill a rabbit if it wants to eat,” he said.
“Eastmans have you learning fortune cookie wisdom now?”
“No. They teach us that overkill gets the job done. The saying is from this Xuanhuan I’ve been reading. You got me addicted to reading the classics.”
Neither of us were mentioning that her real dominance move was making me sit here with Jude. It was a pretty killer strategy to make me as off balance as possible before she dealt with me. But it wasn’t like I was going to try to take this opportunity to--what was the term from the olden days?--“Get closure” or “hash it out”. I sat.
Jude and I were frozen with nothing else to say. There was no point in making more small talk and there was no point in trying to talk about what had happened between us. That’s the thing about betrayal. It freezes and blocks the things that connect people together. Betrayal destroys the thing that lets you trust and believe that someone else wants good things for you. It punishes you for making yourself vulnerable to someone.
So I sat, bored and let’s call it annoyed. Certainly, let’s not call it mad with the desire to grab Jude by the throat and make him explain how he could have betrayed me.
After nearly an hour, I got the feeling that my meeting with Tasha wouldn’t happen until whoever was observing the room saw some evidence that this was getting to me. I wondered if Tasha’s calendar and the rooms in this hallway were all filled with people sitting and being psychologically tormented as they waited for their scheduled meeting.
I laughed. Jude looked over, curious. I waved his attention away.
“I couldn’t explain what made me laugh. You keeping me waiting till I crack under the pressure?”
He grunted and nodded a tacit admission that we were under observation. I stood up and went to the door. It was locked.
“Am I a prisoner?”
“What? No. Leave if you want. You asked for the meeting.”
“Oh yeah. I’ve been sitting here so long I forgot.”
I sat back down and slumped with my legs laid out and crossed at the ankles. I wished I had a hat I could slouch down over my eyes to show everyone just how relaxed I was. Best I could do was close my eyes to slits and pretend to nap.
A guy I had seen once before came through the door. His mustache was still impressive. Maya had called him Sir Brauer or something like that. He was a heavy-hitter in the Eastman clan who had led the expedition to throw me in the mines.
“Come on. She is ready for him,” he informed Jude.
“Maybe I should let her wait while I finish my nap,” I cracked.
He looked me over like something he had found stuck to the bottom of his shoe. He opened his mouth to say something, but I leaped up before he was able to get started.
“Come on. She is waiting,” I said, pushing past Brauer and off into the hallway.
Jude didn’t bother to say anything as he followed.
*** ***
Brauer and Jude led me through halls filled with trophies and paintings of the glorious triumphs of the Party and the Eastmans in particular. It is funny what my father taught me. I could see that the paintings were in the style of Aleksandr Deyneka or Boris Ioganson, masters of Soviet realism. I preferred my Frazetta. The pictures and trophies had little placards titling them.
“The People Triumph over the Frost Giant Jarl!”
Or
“Obsidian Crown of Snurre Iron-Belly claimed by the Party on behalf of Humanity”
According to the placards, everything was done by the Party for humanity. But all the loot, trophies, and idolatry were directed toward the Eastmans. And none were more often portrayed than Tasha Eastman.
We entered a mid-sized room that I wanted to call a salon or parlor, not that I really know which name you use for which fancy room. They are all designed just for people to talk to each other and there is no difference I can tell between them. Maybe the name salon versus parlor depends on whether the room has a piano or other musical instrument in it. This one didn’t.
It did have the damndest thing I think I had ever seen. There was a fireplace. A real working fireplace that was actually burning wood. In comparison, Brady with his books was a piker in showing just how wealthy and powerful he was. Lilith’s garden was a contender, but flat out burning biomass just to generate heat was sending a message. The small voice that had been whispering to me lately thought that I should get one.
Tasha was sitting by the fire with her daughter and a handful of men and women I didn’t know. They were dressed elaborately enough that I knew they must be important.
“This is Miles Boone. Numitor’s boy,” she said by way of introduction to the rest of the people in the room. She didn’t bother to introduce the rest of the people to me and I didn’t bother to ask who they were.
“Hello Clan Leader. Hi Maya,” I said in greeting to the only two people I knew in the room. Manners are important.
Maya just glared at me.
“Why have you come to see me, Miles?” Tasha asked.
I guess the small talk part of our meeting was over.
“I’d appreciate it if you would stop having Brady pillage his land to keep me from playing.”
She stared at me carefully. Maya looked surprised. Jude looked the same as always. So Tasha must have arranged this without their knowledge or input. Maya looked at her mother, who ignored her. Except for the few sentences we had exchanged, Jude had basically been playing statue the whole time we had been forced together. He continued the stony-faced thing.
“Interesting. And if I am doing such a thing, why should I stop?”
“Because it defies the spirit of the bet between your daughter and me,” I replied.
Tasha chuckled.
“And I care about the spirit of the bet because…?” the Clan Leader asked.
“Oh, you don’t of course. I won’t speak to you of honor or right or any of that. You don’t care about such things.”
“You wound me,” she said with no shred of either hurt or irony in her voice.
“I will if I can. Which is why you should care about letting the bet play out. You may not care about honor or right or cheating but you certainly have to act like you do. Everyone you play the Game with cares whether you can be counted on to act appropriately. You get Brady to stop pillaging where I am playing, or I will let everyone know what you’re doing.”
“What Brady does with his territory is his business and not mine. It doesn’t matter anyway. You are out of play in those mines. I have filed you away in finished business.”
“Sure. Well, I know what I know. And I will tell whoever I can what kind of players you all are.”
“What makes you think anyone will believe you? Or that they won’t just shut up about it out of fear of me and what I will do to them?”
I looked over at Maya and Jude and laughed. Everyone else’s eyes followed mine.
“Look at your daughter. Look at Jude. They believe me. You need true believers Tasha. If no one believes you, how long can your little system survive? You disappoint enough of your followers by not being who you claim to be, what kind of future will the Eastmans have?”
She looked at me even more carefully than before.
“I should fear being libeled as a cheat. To avoid this, you are attempting to blackmail me into making Brady stop whatever he has chosen to do with his lands.”
“Truth is a defense against libel.”
“Yes it is. I admire your audacity. Truly.”
She sat and thought over my statement for long moments, tapping her fingers on the arm of her
chair. I noticed that her chair was the only one that had arms on it. Her chair’s arms and feet were carved with the paws and claws of a lion. The back had curved waves of a lions mane. The Party really didn’t let up with the status games. The same little voice I had been hearing lately whispered to me that I should get a throne as well.
“Miles, you don’t know who you are dealing with. Please give my condolences to your father if you see him. Truly.”
“So that is a no?”
“Correct Miles. That is a no.”
And with that I was ushered from the room and then out of the building. Jude didn’t come with me on the return journey.
Our meeting was considerably shorter and with less back-and-forth than I thought I’d get out of it. As I was forcefully escorted out, I thought of making some sort of commotion in the hopes that someone would let something slip but Tasha was too experienced, Maya didn’t know anything, and if Jude was going to say something useful he would have in the hour we sat together. Why did Tasha agree to talk with me and then end the meeting so abruptly? I wondered if I should have handled any of it differently.
I wandered away from the Eastman arcology. I couldn’t figure out where to go. Heading back to the Pitts was pointless until I could figure out what to do about my Game. I thought of going to my father’s. Nothing had changed from his perspective. A little voice inside of me reminded me that there were many pleasant ways to pass the time at Lilith’s if I couldn’t figure out anything better to do. Why not make it a vacation until I could figure out something better? I didn’t know what to do. I decided to walk and just let my feet do some thinking for me and maybe my brain would kick into gear later.
It wasn’t like I had really thought confronting Tasha would work. When you have a problem, it’s always a temptation to want to do something. And by something, I mean anything. If you don’t have a lot of decent options, you get less concerned about whether the something you are going to do will work or be helpful. Unfortunately, sometimes doing something just because you can’t think of anything better to do makes things worse.
