The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6)

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The Pit of No Return (The King Henry Tapes Book 6) Page 43

by Richard Raley


  And that would be the real reason he didn’t chase after me yesterday, was still sleeping it off. “Any of those stories worth sharing?”

  Plutarch grunted, single eye misty with the past, but didn’t expound on whatever memory he was reliving. “Maybe when you’re older.”

  “Yeah, that’s always the excuse.”

  “Being old isn’t worth all the knowledge in the world, Junior, trust me. Youth is worth some ignorance. All I know, all I can do with Elementalism, and can I get a pretty girl to smile at me? Run from one end of the house to the other without becoming winded? Worrying about every bowel movement like it might be my last one . . .”

  “So you couldn’t tell Root anything about the murder then?” I tried to steer him, especially away from bowel movements.

  “Accident,” he corrected immediately.

  I scowled at that idea. It being the official story or not. “Accident. That’s what they say.”

  “So that’s what’s wrong,” Plutarch realized, lips flashing with mirth even though it showed off his missing front teeth. “King Henry Price caught the fish and he don’t like the taste of tuna.”

  “Something is fucked up about all this!” I couldn’t help an outburst.

  Unlike the Lady or even Ceinwyn, Plutarch thought it all over before correcting me. In fact, he didn’t correct me, just put his own thoughts out there. “Root . . . always an impressive boy. Used to teach Elementalism years ago and he was one of mine. Almost one of my last, still long before Gullick took over. Frederick Welf and Boris Hunting ran that class politically, but it was Root with the best grades. Had a rough time of it, even if his family’s pedigree is older than this country. One of those oddities of Elementalism that is further away from human than most of us. Closer to an anima concentration. Doesn’t understand us, doesn’t connect like we do. Views the world in his own special way.”

  “Like Isabel,” I said.

  He gave me an odd look before the name clicked. “The Everchanging,” he said her fairy title, I think. “Yes, that one is very odd too.”

  I thought it over. Wasn’t about the murder or accident or whatever you wanted to call it really, just about the past. “Given the way you don’t even know most of our names, it’s weird to think you used to have students.”

  “Taught for a long time at this school before . . . well, before I couldn’t any longer,” was all Plutarch said on the subject of his reclusiveness.

  Lot I could’ve asked. Some serious opportunity cost with the moment. Frederick Welf as much of a fucktard as his son? What was Miranda’s grandma like? Knowledge closer to my present predicament won out. “You like Root at all?”

  Plutarch chuckled a little bit, taking another sip of his coffee. Me, I’d barely touched mine. “He doesn’t like you much, I imagine.”

  “Likes the rules too much to ever like me,” I grumbled, forcing a sip. Felt good. Coffee . . . might as well call them earth beans.

  “Root does indeed. Always a stickler, always did what we told him to. Not a man to take consideration about the spirit of the law, but only the letter of the law and the power from which it is derived. He’ll make a horrible Dean if he somehow manages to snatch it away after Maudette dies. Hopefully I’m dead too by then . . . don’t think I want to see the way the school falls to ruin with Dean Root at the helm. Not that I’m positive the Dale girl will do a better job. If only we had twenty more years . . .”

  Ignored the rose-colored glasses and again stuck with the present. “As if it ain’t in ruins already.”

  “Two students dead in three days. Not one of Maudette’s best weeks,” Plutarch agreed. “But maybe you’re being too hard on her. Think about all the work she’s done to convince you children that Elementalism is safe. Not just you children but the world really. Just a little skill . . . just a little oddity here and there. Convinced us so well that it’s almost affected reality and made it so. Hell of a woman.”

  “If you say so . . .”

  “She was a looker in her day,” Plutarch did some more remembering.

  I didn’t have to fake the retching I did.

  Smile appeared on his scarred up face. “Wait until you’re one-hundred, see if you don’t look worse, Junior.”

  “Ain’t gonna live that long, Pappy.”

  “Not if you don’t get your head straight and stop making mistakes,” he barked, bit of his glow fading away. “Think drunken brawls or suicide is the only way an Artificer can die?”

  “I know I made a mistake and I won’t do it again. You got your fucking point across,” I told him. “Give me the problem again and I’ll prove it to you.”

  “Did I. You sure? Not just death you have to worry about. What will you do when you have a fight with some woman and all you can think about is how mad you are at her? Or if a friend gets hurt and you’re filled with worry for him? What if one of your children gets sick?”

  “Why would I do something as stupid as having kids?” I mused aloud.

  Got a deep guffaw from him this time. “That’s the point. Always another problem, especially unexpected ones. You know it. More than most even. An Artificer doesn’t have the liberty of being distracted or of having a bad day. We have to be focused on our task or our task will kill us. Every single artifact you make, no matter how many times you’ve made it before. The risk remains.”

  “Made. Your. Point,” I told him again.

  He didn’t seem comforted by my words at all. “Did I?” he repeated.

  “Yeah. Easy to compartmentalize it all most days,” I tried to come to grips with my own emotions aloud. “You’re right, I don’t care about Hardy or Leo or . . . about most people. Ain’t like I’m Root, like I don’t see nothing but cogs supposed to mind the law, but . . . yeah, it’s hard for me to give a shit most days. Ain’t even about being wrong . . . or right, somehow. Still can’t believe it was just a mentimancer . . .”

  “Why not? Maudette told me about your little show before the Council. You made quiet a scene. Frederick Welf having a bastard girl . . . didn’t even know that one myself no matter how many spies I have. Moira Jenkins, now she was after my time. So was your Miss Dale. Nothing but the Artificer teacher by then, thankless job that it is.”

  “Wages, house to yourself, no student but one every three or four years, sounds like hell alright,” I deadpanned some more.

  “Would you want to have to teach King Henry Price?” he shot back.

  “Deserve a medal for it, Pappy, I’ll admit that, even if you started it all by burying me in the dirt.” Still hadn’t forgiven him. Especially the part about me having to shit in the woods.

  “That what I need to do again get your head straight?” he threatened. “Put you in the dirt?”

  “No,” I mumbled. Stayed silent for a while before going back to why I felt distracted, “Just . . . it’s not that it switched up on me. Or that Catherine got away with whatever she was doing. It’s that . . . decide to cross Miss Dale and the Lady, to have my own investigation while Root does whatever it is he does, get about doing it, piss off Mama Welf and make her an enemy for life even . . . and before I can finish everything gets ripped out of my hands. No agency for King Henry this time, just Fate farting on his face and I ain’t into that kinky shit.”

  “Complaining about agency.” Plutarch rolled his eyes my way. “You sound like a bloody suffragette done nothing but read books and never walked through the real, hard world in her life.”

  I stared at him for awhile. “Fuck are you old.”

  A warning finger pointed at me. “Don’t start.”

  “Suffragette?” I couldn’t believe it. “You want me to go down to the telegraph station and pick you up a Sears catalog, Pappy? Maybe have me learn some blacksmithing so I can shoe horses with Geomancy? Or I can make one of those horseless carriages, I heard they’re all the rage!”

  “I can have you in a hole in five minutes, Junior,” he threatened me, maybe a little serious about it.

  “Or you c
ould bring the clay back and let me finish this problem.”

  Even if it’s not the problem I want to solve.

  Problem I want to solve . . . it solved itself.

  Pappy talked about real life, but when had problems ever solved themselves in real life?

  And why did no one else seem worried about that?

  [CLICK]

  Plutarch not only let me finish the channel problem, he gave me two more that were even harder. First time he had me make spectro-channels. Damn, those things are tiny. Can’t wait until he lets me do all this with anima. When I started at the Asylum I figured I’d be making artifacts by this point. Still said as much once I started working on the spectro-anima sized channels in that clay. Grumpy as always, Plutarch told me he might let me make a very simple one at the end of the Hep. First time I’d heard him admitting it was even a possibility, so I took that as a bright spot for this shitty week. He also told me that only a couple of his students had managed it in his entire teaching career.

  Knew he was trying to set a challenge before me, to take up the spot of the one I was still sore about losing, but it put some pep back in my step all the same. The same pep that had disappeared when I heard about Hardy dying. Pep went bye bye along with my chance at proving Catherine responsible for Leo’s fall.

  Maybe that is part of it. Proving everyone wrong. Root, Ceinwyn, the Lady, all my class. Being able to point at the mentimancer and Catherine and say, ha fucking ha, it was them and I was right about it, bitches!

  Wanted to drop the mic.

  Instead, the mic stuffed itself up my ass and I couldn’t talk in anything but auto-tune.

  Nothing I could do about it anyway.

  Plutarch was right.

  Val was right.

  World was right.

  Just King Henry Price that was wrong.

  Should let it go.

  World as it was Meant To Be. World as a shithole, no one gets to drop the mic, especially not King Henry Price. Just gets Fate farting on his face. Was right about it being a mentimancer. Should be happy about that small victory. I tried, didn’t I? Decided to take matters in my own hands, fuck the system. Important step. Still got it in me. Was closer to the truth than Root was too. More than a small victory that. No one was happy . . . something that fucked up should make me content.

  German words and all that.

  Not the one about punchable faces either.

  Although . . . Welf was out of the Holding Room now . . .

  Or just finally punch Catherine like I wanted to.

  Point out how Mary and Teresa will never go along with her for another play. That it was over. Three Queens will graduate and then they’ll be gone. She’ll have to live the rest of her life knowing she wasn’t good enough to pull it off, anymore than I was good enough to solve it before Scott Hardy took matters out of my hands.

  Yeah, maybe I could live with that.

  Sounded good.

  Pep.

  Is.

  Back.

  Too bad it was Tuesday and not Friday. Daddy would’ve loved some fish tacos to celebrate.

  Went to my room first before heading over to the Cafeteria. Bit roundabout and not like I had a backpack or homework or anything, but they usually dropped off food packages and toiletry supplies from Admin about this time and I liked to pick them up as early as possible. Sure, anyone could order anything they wanted from a catalog and have it the next day, but that don’t mean bitches won’t steal your generic Dr. Pepper just cuz.

  Also, I plugged Plutarch’s toilet about ten times in the first month and he won’t let me use it anymore.

  Wasn’t until I’d taken said shit, washed my hands, and exited my bathroom, all leading up to me planning on having victorious seconds at dinner, that I noticed the note pushed inside of my door.

  Not completely unheard of at the Asylum. Easy way to communicate with a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Still—given how the week had gone—mysterious note was pretty worrying. Didn’t pick it up right away. Just stared at it. Let my imagination run wild with what could be inside of it and who might have written it. Catherine wanting a showdown. I’ll give it to her. Teresa wanting to tell me the truth. She was broken up, but not that broken up. A thank you note from Welf. Heh, get that bitch framed. More likely, from Vicky. Ain’t pink paper though, so maybe not. Letter telling me to keep my mouth shut with a check from Mama Welf for a few hundred thousand. Buy me a couple jet-skis.

  Finally bent down to grab it.

  Flipped it around.

  King Henry.

  Not Foul Mouth. Not Mr. Price.

  Nice lettering. Cursive even. Kind of cursive they don’t bother teaching at public school no more. Kind of cursive the better among us take pride in using. Opened the envelop and pulled out the note, expecting the name Welf at the bottom.

  Wasn’t his.

  Athir Al-Qasimi.

  Huh.

  Dirt eyes drifted up.

  Please meet me in the same part of the Park where we conversed the day before. I do not know what to believe any longer. You are the only one who seems to understand Scott would never do this. It is not easy to betray one of your own, even if they have betrayed you first.

  Putting the note down on my kitchen countertop, I glared up at the ceiling. “Are you fucking kidding me, Fate? Stop jerking me around, you’re gonna give a fellow blue balls! And no more of that face farting shit, that’s just wrong!”

  Session 172

  Ceinwyn actually took it worse than T-Bone had.

  Which I think is saying something.

  Also, kind of a dick move on my part to spring the trip on her like that, but I really enjoy getting an honest reaction to all the mushroom trees and the lichen grass . . . and Poug. Who was standing right there as we appeared, as shocked at Ceinwyn as she was with him.

  Now there’s some decent matchmaking possibilities. Get her knocked up by a Black Elf lives four-hundred years and I might buy the world a few centuries . . .

  Hey, Ceinwyn does it to me all the time, it’s only fair!

  Sure, she thinks he’s a legendary evil monster threatening at any moment to overrun human civilization, but . . . love conquers all, right?

  Just look at the way they were staring at each other.

  Like . . . one of them might grow fangs at any moment.

  Despite the fact the real monsters out there don’t have any fangs.

  I actually do believe her. Not the story Amarusa gave the collected mancer elite, but that the collected mancer elite were more than happy to accept it as the truth. Our traditional enemy willing to forge a new world against a greater threat, a greater threat that’s hundreds of years from ever even being trouble for us, and only if we don’t keep this new set of regulations. A new excuse to further decouple the supernatural world away from mundane affairs. Likely even looked like the right choice for decades, what with mancers sitting out of WW2 and peace with the Vamps all the way until the sixties.

  I could see it, see how swallowing all the terms and lies and burying the questioning few came about. Could see the few lone dissenters pointing out population growth and math and facts about how quickly we could actually reach some of those teaching caps and what happens then?

  That’s a century away, Jimbo! Go back to your fruit flies, you weird fucker!

  Knowing it all, I finally saw why the Learning Council acted the way it did. Why Ceinwyn could be so frustrated as Head of Recruiting. Why Ultras and Old Mancy families so jealously defend their spots at the schools. Why killing or locking up mancers with Anima Madness seemed preferable to curing them. Cured, they would just add their anima to the Quota. Dead . . . they zeroed out. Locked up . . . they not only zeroed out, they still took up a spot in the Ratio of Anima Dispersion.

  It’s why they locked up Isabel instead of killing her. The Maximus of the Body, the Thousandface locked up in the Pit. How much anima was that saving the world? I’m even starting to see why Paine reached his decision to make his anim
a WMD . . . he saw it as the only way out.

  Only that wasn’t his goal now. Just like me, Paine saw through the lies. Thanks to me even. Now he doesn’t want to keep the world under the Quota at any cost . . . he wants to understand the Realms, the dragons. He was doing all he could to break the Quota, I realized. He wasn’t just collecting strays and castoffs and the unwanted so they would produce anima for his Artificer work, he was also creating a gray area of anima use that the Learning Council couldn’t account for in their figures.

  We’re already on the tipping point.

  Unless someone stopped him.

  But I’m not sure he’s wrong.

  Was everything I’d learned going to stop me from curing Anima Madness just to uphold some shitty treaty people had signed a century ago? While abandoned mancers like my mom died every day? Fuck no.

  More to this than what Amarusa had told a hundred years ago. Other sides. The losing side. Worse, those who had been obliterated in the war. And who knows where mancers are on that scale? Maybe we were in the right, maybe we’re slaves and food to the Divines, or maybe we’re the real bad guys in it all.

  History is a shit sandwich.

  You’re gonna need a bucket of salt and a keg of booze to get it down your throat.

  “Dirt King,” Poug finally greeted me as he forced his sapphire eyes off of Ceinwyn. “You brought another ally?”

  “He speaks English,” Ceinwyn whispered in shock.

  “She thought you were a fragment of the past locked away forever as long as we listened to vampire advice,” I explained. “Apparently, every elite of my world chugs down that explanation from morning to sunset, and let the Vamps do whatever they want after sunset, as long as it ain’t to mancers.”

  “You will receive no aid from the leaders of your world then . . . ever,” Poug pointed out with a solemn face.

  “And you know him,” Ceinwyn whispered some more, still darting her eyes about to look at just about everything. Sapphire eyes there too, or at least how I sometimes described them. Only next to Poug’s they weren’t nearly as bright. Or nearly as ageless. “There are giant mushrooms . . . I think I see a farmhouse . . . and . . . and he’s so . . .”

 

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