City of Games

by Jeff Deck

  But before the card hits the playing surface, it transforms into a five of hammer and tongs—the “five fingers,” the Hand That Never Closes. Top trionfo wins. It’s my first trick, though of course the real trick is how the card changed.

  Thanks, Hand. I know I’m gonna pay for this later…

  I still can’t pierce the silence. But I don’t need my hearing to understand the turmoil that overtakes Chaum. It vaults up from its seat and points an accusing metal finger at the “five fingers” on the Relic. The soldier to my left wrenches my remaining cards out of my hand to look at them. They shimmer and turn to fives of hammer and tongs as well.

  I’d love to drop an epic burn on the bastard. If only either the burner or burnee could actually hear right now. I’m left to mentally sneer: Maybe you shouldn’t have spurned your god after all, bitch!

  Highly unsatisfying.

  The Soldier Lord bolts up from the gaming table. I’m sure it’s bellowing its tin head off right now. The other two players grab for Chaum and miss. It backpedals from the table—as it turns out, the worst possible thing it could do.

  I remember Ulrich asking Priest Lord Guhnach what would happen if a Wagerer abandoned a game before it was complete. I remember its reply, too:

  “The Hand will not suffer it to live.”

  First my severed ears fly from the surface of the Relic and reattach themselves to my head. Before I can react, before we can do anything but watch, the Relic, still glowing, shoots up from the table and floats several feet above Chaum. Rapidly a tall column of grey mist coalesces beneath the Relic—a bent, finger-shaped column, with the Relic as its nail.

  The misty finger smashes down on the Soldier Lord with the force of steel. Chaum’s armor explodes outward in a spray of pink goo and wayward teeth. I scream and hurl myself backward, onto the stone floor. That’s a landing my body doesn’t appreciate, but it’s better than being pierced by a hundred fangs.

  The Hand’s insubstantial finger rears up again, as if seeking its next target, but then the mist disappears and the Relic clatters down onto the wreck of Chaum.

  No one moves, stunned into inaction. The will of the Hand That Never Closes is abundantly clear—and it’s on my side. Now that’s power. Could this now be my army, if I wanted one?

  Jeong appears above me, offering a hand. “You okay, Divya?”

  I let him help me up, moving slowly and painfully. My face, too, still throbs. “Sure. Never better.”

  “Then… you want to explain to me what on earth happened here?!”

  I shake my head. Not yet. I circle the table and crouch beside the Soldier Lord’s remains until I see the object it dropped. I pick up the tidal rod and straighten. Now I notice: the soldiers are looking to me for orders. To me. A cold thrill washes through me.

  The possibilities.

  With the silver Avariccians under my command, I could crush the Portsmouth City Council. I could make them all pay—well, at least the guilty ones, though why stop there?—pay with their lives for what they did to you. I could fix as many Wagers as I want and become a god myself… and the monster Portsmouth already dreams I am.

  “Allard?” Milly says.

  I sag. I slip the tidal rod in my pocket. And I say to the soldiers, “Go into the Tower and escort the Merchant Lord here. Unharmed.”

  Three of them march out the door. The rest linger. I address them in their own tongue:

  “You want orders? Never cross into Earth. Ever. None of you belong there. So say I, and the Hand That Never Closes will back me up.”

  The soldiers chorus in Avariccian: “Yes, Lord!”

  “Letting the power go to your head, I see,” Grieg says. “That is the danger—one of the many dangers—of Port-walking. At least for the inexperienced.”

  “When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you,” I say.

  Jeong puts his arm around Milly, who leans against him, exhausted. “What are you doing, Allard? We need to get out of here. Milly needs a doctor.”

  “Trying to fix what Shaughnessy broke.”

  Finally the three soldiers return with an Avariccian in a shiny gold suit; its mask depicts an androgynous face distorted by fear.

  “Uench, I presume,” I say. “Let it go.”

  The silver Avariccians step away from the Merchant Lord. Uench takes in the carnage of the Feast hall. “Who are you… human?”

  “I’m the bearer of good news,” I say in its language. “You no longer have anything to fear from the Soldier Lord—look over there, that puddle used to be Chaum—and you’re the most powerful Avariccian in the City of Games.”

  Merchant Lord Uench takes a few steps toward what used to be Chaum. Then it says, “You—you killed Chaum? And the Doxe?! Guhnach too?”

  “Only Chaum,” I say hurriedly. “But… yeah, I am a powerful sorcerer, like the one that corrupted Chaum’s mind. I could easily turn on you, too, if you don’t follow my instructions to the letter.”

  The gold Avariccian trembles.

  I go on: “Your job is to reconcile the other castes and allow them to pick new Lords and Sublords for themselves. Each caste gets its Relic back. In fact, the City of Games had better return to the way it was before the other sorcerer ever arrived. It’s your new duty to ensure that happens, or I’ll come back and correct you. Do you understand?”

  Uench’s frightened mask nods once, twice, three times in rapid succession. “Yes, sorcerer. Avariccia will return to its original principles of five castes in harmony. I will work with my Sublord right away to begin the process.”

  “Oh, uh…” I say. “You’re going to need to appoint a new one of those too. Sorry.”

  “Oh.”

  I gesture at the company of Chaum’s soldiers. All of them, even Mauguh, straighten. “These highly trained peacekeepers will assist you in your efforts. Go, all of you. Begin rebuilding this fucked-up society immediately. You know what’ll happen if you don’t.”

  “We will, Lord,” says Uench along with the silver Avariccians. Then they all hurry out together.

  “Wise words and wise actions,” Jeong says in relief.

  “Let’s go,” I say, “before I change my mind.”

  I take the tidal rod with me—I have no intention of using it, but I can’t leave it in the mailed gloves of the Avariccians, lest I create another Chaum. I tuck it into the leather case that belonged to the late Scott Shaughnessy. Then we depart the gore-stained Feast hall.

  I trust Grieg as I would a fanged adder, so I keep him under guard while Jeong helps sightless Milly along. Forming an awkward procession, the four of us cross through the city streets.

  “There’s one thing I still don’t understand,” I say as we’re walking, “and I hope you don’t mind the question, Milly: how did you get mixed up with Shaughnessy?”

  She smiles ruefully. “I responded to a call late one night that took me to Round Island; caught a ride with the Coast Guard. Ilana had a night off, so Natalie, the maid, was all alone with the old man, and she got scared—thought she heard someone sneaking around the island. I didn’t find any intruders… but I did get a strange vibe about Shaughnessy, and the house itself. I don’t know how to explain it. Something seemed off.”

  Hmm. I wonder if there was someone on the island who left before Milly got there. An early exploration by Hector Ferreira before he got caught, or else another cultist.

  “I couldn’t help thinking about what had happened with you, and your ‘evil twin,’ and the police station,” Milly goes on. “Strangeness seemed to be cropping up in Portsmouth more often. But I couldn’t really learn more about Shaughnessy and his household unless I maintained contact. So… I befriended the old man.”

  Who was happy, in turn, to maintain his demented charade and to return the friendship while he figured out what this officer was up to. Was she on to him? Did she know about the Port? Two could play this game of deception. Two could wear masks while pursuing their own ends.

  “He seemed to like gambling. I had
no idea about… this place, I just thought it was an innocent hobby. So I took him to the slots at Hampton, and eventually Foxwoods down in Connecticut. I tried to learn more about him—how he had come to live on the island, what was the history of the house—but every time we had a conversation of any real substance, he would conveniently lose track of what we were saying.”

  “Did he tell you he was putting you in his will?” Jeong asks.

  “What! No, did he do that?!”

  “He was setting you up the whole time,” I say. “To look like the bad guy, manipulating a poor old dementia-ridden gent to get at his millions.”

  “Yeah… I guess it makes sense now,” she says quietly. “I thought I was in control, but he was playing me. One day someone left the attic door unlocked—maybe it was on purpose—and I found the strange doorway up there. I turned to see Shaughnessy there, looking much more alert than he ever had before, and he had this little thing in his hand. It… controlled me. It made me go along with him through the doorway, and participate in Wagers I didn’t want to.”

  “Including Wagering your own eyes against Chaum,” I say.

  “Yeah. What a nightmare. And now I guess I’ll never get them back…”

  We arrive at the Five-Petaled Temple unmolested. The Port stands open, waiting for us. Thankfully nobody troubled to close it this time, so we won’t have to make another sacrifice to get home. Once we’re on the other side, though, we’ll have a hard decision to make. So much blood has been sacrificed to the Hand already.

  “Want to say goodbye to this place before we go?” Jeong asks Milly lightly as they step toward the Port.

  “Oh my God, you’re a heartless jerk,” Milly answers. “This is the best moment of my life.”

  “You’ll feel a tingle,” Jeong says, and he nudges her through. He follows quickly after her.

  I wave Ethan’s gun at Grieg. “You next.”

  “Yeah, sure,” the lawyer says bitterly. “So you can slaughter me as soon as we get through the Port, to close it up. No fucking way.”

  “You’d rather stay here?”

  Grieg eyes me. “I can be persuasive. At least I’d have a chance.”

  Though the thought of erasing this dickhead from existence did cross my mind, I say, “No. I’m not a monster like you, Sandy old pal. I don’t kill people who are inconvenient to me, or to resolve an inconvenience.”

  “An open Port like this is more than an inconvenience,” says Grieg. “It’s a threat to humanity until it’s closed.”

  “Then I’ll leave it up to you, if you’re so concerned. Feel free to kill yourself after we’ve crossed through, and I’ll happily put your blood to good use.”

  Grieg looks at me openmouthed. Then, finally, he says, “You’re stupider than I thought, Detective. I’m disappointed.”

  He must be convinced that I won’t kill him, because now he steps through the Port. I’m the last one left in Avariccia.

  I look around at the temple floor strewn with corpses. What a terrible legacy to leave behind. I guess I shouldn’t expect gratitude from the Hand That Never Closes for simply fixing other humans’ mistakes. But I have received a prize of sorts; I’ll be carrying pieces of Avariccia wherever I go. I have Chaum’s hearing until the day I die.

  I give the City of Games my middle finger and go through the Port.

  I hope I never feel this wrenching sensation again.

  16

  The four of us blink at each other in Shaughnessy’s attic. We’re home. But I don’t feel relieved, and Jeong and Milly don’t look that way either. Jeong kneels and unties Barnes, who regards him with suspicion until he explains what happened.

  “It’s going to stay open,” Milly says. “Until someone’s life blood closes it.”

  “Yeah, we know,” Jeong says.

  I grit my teeth. “Maybe we don’t have to worry about this… yet. The silver soldiers promised me they wouldn’t try to conquer Earth. Those Avariccians seem to stick to their word.”

  “With the notable exception of Soldier Lord Chaum!” Jeong protests.

  “Shaughnessy poisoned his mind,” I say. “His soldiers were following his lead.”

  “Jesus, I don’t know,” Jeong grumbles. “Those soldiers aren’t the only ones I’m worried about, either. You know, Ivanov and the Boston braintrust are itching to make some inroads into Ports ASAP, in the name of the United States Government. They’d find a lot to like in the City of Games if I told them about it.”

  “Which you’re not going to,” I say, alarmed. “Right?”

  He hesitates. “My job’s on the line.”

  “The fate of the fucking Earth is on the line!”

  “Yeah,” Jeong says impatiently. “I—want you to know the stakes for me, okay? We aren’t exactly even, in what we’re sacrificing.”

  In that moment, I’m ready to show him just how many sacrifices I’ve made within the past couple of days. Fortunately for him, I’ve learned a little anger control over the last month or so. All that manifests is a furious growl, followed by my terse words: “I don’t think you know what you’re saying, Ethan.”

  He bows slightly and gives me a sheepish grin. “You’re right. I’m being an idiot… sorry.”

  Then he looks toward Grieg. “So. Things got pretty hairy over there,” he says. “The lawyer could have gotten killed in the heat of conflict. Sure, his body would be on the wrong side of the Port, but we’ve got some deep water here…”

  “Ah,” says Grieg, shooting a look at me.

  “No, Ethan,” I say. “We’re not killing anyone. That’s not who I am, or who you are either.”

  “I was thinking out loud,” he says. “So what are we going to do?”

  Milly surprises me by saying, “I’ll take the hit. My stupidity led you all into the City of Games in the first place, looking for me.”

  “No, you were the reason we even discovered Shaughnessy was up to no good,” I say. “Stop it, Milly.”

  “My career is over,” she says, jabbing a finger toward the smooth flesh where her eyes should be. “What am I going to do now? At least I can be useful with this last act, rather than living a life of blind uselessness.”

  Now I’m worried. I’m not going to let Milly sacrifice herself to the Port, but what will happen when she’s a week, a month, six months into her new condition? What might she do to herself?

  “Listen,” I say harshly. “You’ve got a lifetime’s worth of usefulness ahead of you. Frankly, what you’re saying is offensive to blind people, and I demand you take it back.”

  “What? Allard, screw you!”

  “Take it back,” I go on, my mouth twisting in a bitter grin. “Do I have to start naming blind icons in the arts and sciences? Don’t make me, Milly.”

  She scoffs angrily. “Fine! The blind are important contributors to society. I can’t wait to join their ranks. I’m so excited. But seriously, what are you going to do about this Port?”

  “It’s on an island,” Jeong says slowly. “It’s defensible. We’ll have the Coast Guard keep people away. Especially city councilors. Shaughnessy’s dead—he was the biggest threat. Maybe we can keep people from knowing about it.”

  “I know about it,” Grieg says. “Since you’ve decided to keep me alive, that’ll be an ongoing annoyance for you. But, of course, the little junkie twit knows about it too, and he’s out in the public. Doubtless he’s already told the rest of the cultists. What’s going to keep them away?”

  “Are you arguing for me to kill you?” Jeong snaps in exasperation.

  I intercede with my hands waving. “Let’s table this! No one’s going to die anytime soon. The Port stays open. Station an agent out here, Jeong, until we figure out otherwise.”

  “Not it,” says Barnes.

  “Right, I wouldn’t do that to you,” Jeong says. “I’ll find someone. A plum assignment for some lazy ass. Now, we need to get Milly to the hospital.”

  “Portsmouth Hospital?” Milly asks. “How the hell would
we explain this?”

  Jeong shakes his head. “No, there’s a special medical facility that understands the… mission of my resident agency. They’ll understand. Maybe there’ll even be something they can do for you.”

  “No!” I say.

  Jeong looks at me, and I quickly go on: “Ethan, I really appreciate all your help here, but—I don’t trust the rest of the FBI. Someone like Ivanov could decide that Milly is the new fascinating specimen, then take her for ‘study’ down in Boston. No, I’m going to find a different place for her.”

  “Where?” he protests.

  Nadia might have an idea. “Never you mind that,” I say. “I’m taking Milly into my protection. Milly, that okay with you?”

  “Whatever,” Milly says.

  Barnes gestures at Grieg. “Wait. What about this guy. What are we going to do with him?”

  “At the very least, we’ve got him on interfering with a federal investigation,” Jeong says. “I’m sure we can make other charges stick too. Take him into your custody, Agent Barnes.”

  “With pleasure,” she says, and she cuffs the attorney.

  So, the aftermath.

  I took Milly to the Tenacious Trainers gym and asked Nadia to help us. Seeing how drastically Milly had suffered, Nadia overcame her distrust of this particular police officer, at least, and offered Milly a trip to see the medical professionals in Stroyer’s Axle. But going through another Port was the last thing Milly wanted to do, she made clear to me. So Nadia arranged for the evaluation to come to her, in the form of Durmaz 1N, who was trained in the medical technology of his home city. Milly’s been camped out in a cult safehouse while Durmaz tends to her.

  Last I heard, Durmaz was hopeful about setting up Milly with some kind of assistive visual tech, but we’ll see. At the very least she’s becoming more adapted to her new circumstances—no more talk of self-destruction—and she’s getting a crash course in the crazy hidden struggles between councilors and cultists. She had only stumbled into this conspiratorial maze by accident, but there’s no escaping it now.