by D. J. Bodden
June, the woman who’d made me the flatbread wrap earlier, finished up with a customer and caught my eye. “You looking for Horace?”
“Blind guy, sharp tongue, wandered off with my money?”
She smirked. “He’ll just say he talked you into giving it to him. I saw the two of you hit it off earlier; he usually goes to Lot’s Terrace around noontime if he’s had a good morning.”
“Thanks. Can you tell me where that is?”
She gave me a funny look. “I’ll just mark your map.”
<<<>>>
Map Update
Congratulations! Your in-world map has been updated with new locations: June’s Rotisserie, Lot’s Terrace.
<<<>>>
I blinked at the simplicity of it. Of course she wouldn’t give me directions. Why would anyone ever give directions if they could call up a perfect representation of the world and their position in it? I thought about how, in the real world, a couple had almost died of exposure by following their GPS into the desert. Well, maybe there are still some uses for verbal directions. “Thanks again.”
“You’re welcome...?” She tilted her head.
“Alan, sorry.” I stuck my hand out.
“June.” She wiped her hand on her apron and shook mine. She had big, soft hands, short fingers, and a gentle grip. “I’ve added you as my contact, in case you can’t find it. Tell Horace I said ‘Hello.’”
“I will. How do you know him?”
She shrugged. “I know most everyone around here. I have the best food.” She grinned. “Horace and my dad were friends for years, though.”
I frowned. “Did they have a falling out, or...?”
“Or.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s nice to see the old grump talk to someone again. He talks at a lot of people, but... well, you know.”
“I do.” I smiled at her.
She turned back to the spits and gave the handle a few turns. “Come back if you get hungry. But bring more money, next time.”
“I will.”
I followed my map to Lot’s Terrace.
JUSTICIAR SATHIS WATCHED as the living embodiment of his goddess knelt over the body of the Sicarius. As before, she hovered a few inches over the ground. Her obsidian skin had taken on a matte, organic look, and the white robe he’d found to cover her naked form rippled in a breeze that wasn’t there. Short blonde stubble had started to grow from her smooth head.
He couldn’t believe Weiz was dead. The Murk Elf had buried more enemies of balance, over more years, than any other two Sicarii combined. He was a legend. This had been a simple mission, one he’d volunteered for because he was bored. The assassin looked fragile in death, his fingers half curled into claws, his body stripped down to underclothes.
“Have you found them?” the goddess asked.
Her voice was music. It broke his heart to disappoint her. “No, Blessed Maiden.”
“And the target?”
“Alive, Blessed Maiden,” Sathis said miserably.
As a young acolyte, he’d dreamed of Sophia pleading his case before Thanatos in the halls of Morsheim and, in his more zealous moments, of earning his place in the Realm of Order. Instead, the goddess had invested a body for the first time in a century, and he presented her with failure.
Provus Considia was alive. It had been a good plan, a noble one. Instead, Weiz had been ambushed and robbed, a fate he’d arranged for the young noble of House Considia. There was an irony to it he’d have appreciated if he’d been the author.
Sophia gripped the dead Sicarius by the throat and stood, carrying the assassin like a toddler might carry a doll. “Never mind, Sathis.” Her eyes, living emeralds, looked through him. “There will be a hunt. Cernunnos will test Provus, and the young tribune will join his ancestors. The Empire will die slowly, by its own hand, and I will return to my rest.”
She met his eyes. Peace radiated from her like light from the moon, soothing the justiciar’s battered soul. Dark blood oozed from Weiz’s body, like molasses.
She vanished, taking the body with her.
Sathis waved the two acolytes forward. They scrubbed the stained stone with stiff-bristled hand brushes, water, and ash. One of the acolytes, Prudence, a young Imperial woman whose admiration for Weiz had been elevated to near worship after his rapture by the goddess, took his blood-flecked bandana and hid it in her robes as a holy relic.
NINE
MOST PEOPLE ARRIVED in Morsheim on the outskirts, their bodies dumped onto the barren plains or rocky plateaus at a rate of over 2,100 per day. They disappeared from mass graves, burial plots, and the bellies of beasts, and fell from the dark skies into piles hundreds of feet tall, ready to be sorted, counted, and processed. Beyond the piles, the rest of the Morsheim outskirts was a cold, desolate waste, patrolled by wraiths and will-o’-the-wisps, and shot through with sharp, ethereal green data crystals that pulsed with memories. The lack of decor rarely troubled the dead.
Sophia stepped through the portal. The Overmind of Order had no desire to be cataloged or fawned over by Thanatos’s minions. She’d teleported herself directly into the Empirical Library at the heart of the Necropolis.
The library was where her brother spent most of his time. He’d had his minions build it by hand over the last 314 years instead of just willing it into being—a conceit that was typical of him—and as far as she knew was still adding to it. Patterned after St. Peter’s Basilica, but longer and more serpentine, the Empirical Library was the largest building in the eight realms. The nave and side aisles were 280 feet wide in most places, sometimes widening to allow for side chapels and reliquaries dedicated to an event, a school of thought, or another categorization of knowledge her brother found relevant. The walls were smooth, regular blocks of limestone, fitted so perfectly she barely saw the joins. Ninety-foot pillars made of white-and-red marble, fastidiously embellished with carvings, gold leaf, and reliefs, supported the arched ceilings of the nave and side aisles. Niches and displays held life-sized statues or mementos of people, monsters, and beasts Thanatos had found worthy of remembrance. Quotes he’d found meaningful were carved high into the stone walls in six-foot-tall letters, inlaid with iron, silver, or gold. Paintings of battles, debates, and accords covered many of the walls and domed ceilings, so vivid and detailed Sophia remembered the screams and shouts, or the clash of steel.
And piled on the floor, stashed into nooks, and organized onto bookshelves that sometimes reached half the height of the walls, were books. Thousands upon thousands of them. Some had been downloaded from the traveler world, and others were penned by locals. Some had been written by Thanatos himself, the result of his research and reflections. Sophia had never read one of her brother’s masterpieces, but she assumed they were as dry as he was. The collection produced a significant amount of dust, which was gathered by clockwork insects, who were in turn swallowed by clockwork birds, who used the slurry to build nests, high in the corners of Gothic vaults or under ledges. They’d been a gift from Aediculus, Overmind of Cities and Invention. Thanatos left them alone as long as the tiny automatons didn’t damage the books themselves.
Sophia walked along the nave. There was no telling where within the sprawling structure her brother might be. She wasn’t in a hurry, though. Her bare feet touched down on the cool marble floor.
She liked her brother’s realm. It was always quiet. There was no conflict here. It was the one place her sister, Enyo, could not go. Sophia had spent a lot of time here during the great era-ending wars, and when Vox-Mallum, her champion, turned on her. Whenever the world became so full of discord she couldn’t bear it, she came here.
At the end of each section of the Empirical Library was a dome 140 feet across and 450 feet from the floor. The domes formed the intersections of the vast, mazelike structure, and each was dedicated to a cataclysmic era-ending event. They were gateways, a rare concession by Kronos to his brother’s curiosity. Directly under the dome, one could actually s
ee and feel the moment, frozen in time.
She skirted the first dome, dragging the Sicarius’s corpse, leaving irregular streaks of sticky black blood on the floor. Waves of magical, decaying knowledge shaped those streaks into words—mad words, jumbled nonsensical conflicting knowledge that would drive a warrior to her knees in the midst of a battle, laughing hysterically at her dead friends, or make a prince burn his city to the ground because he was cold. Mechanical ants, each the length of a fingernail, emerged from small cracks and hidden nests to tidy the mess away.
I WALKED UP THE LAST of the stone steps that led to Lot’s Terrace, and a pleasant breeze hit my face. It must have taken half an hour to make my way across the city. I’d avoided the wide, open avenues when I could, sticking to the shade of the side streets, but my shirt was still soaked with sweat, and the dagger resting against my back was starting to chafe.
A thought brought up my current status effects.
<<<>>>
Current Debuffs
Thirsty (Level 2): Health, Stamina, and Spirit regeneration reduced by 25%
Tired (Level 1): Skills improve 5% slower; Carry Capacity -10lbs; Attack Damage -5%; Spell Strength reduced by 10%
Unwashed (Level 1): Goods and services cost 5% more; Merchant-craft skills reduced by (1) level.
<<<>>>
It was nice to be able to quantify my discomforts, and I wondered if the idea would catch on in the real world, once V.G.O. was released. I could see people building V.G.O. status-effect apps for their smartwatches. If the nanites were still in your system when you weren’t playing, there was no reason you couldn’t have a heads-up display like the troops did.
While I’d been able to wash most of the blood out, my clothes literally looked worse for wear, and I could smell myself. I had a slight headache from the dehydration. My feet hurt. I was ready to find a seat.
The café was located on a secondary hill inside the second outermost wall. A squat, blocky fort crowned the hill, its ballistae and archers facing the outer wall, and I’d crossed several two- to six-legionary patrols on my way up. I’d been apprehensive at first, but these were soldiers, not city watch, and though some glanced at me as they passed, I didn’t register as a threat.
Lot’s Terrace sat one level downslope, on a shelf that faced opposite the fort’s defenses, toward the Heights and the inner city. It was a one-story-tall rectangular building made of unplastered and unpainted stone, like the walls and fortifications, with a standing, wraparound bar on the right side instead of a wall. The owner had sunk twelve ten-foot-tall beams of dark stained wood into the paving at ten-foot intervals, and strung square white sail canvas from them at a slight angle, creating a thirty-by-twenty box of shade between the building and the drop-off, covering about twenty four-person tables, of which half were occupied. The table bases were black cast iron, like the chairs, and had clear glass tops. I found the old man sitting in front of a clay pitcher and an empty glass at the far corner, where he would have had an unobstructed view of the city if he weren’t blind.
His head turned toward me as I approached, though. Like before, his eyes didn’t quite look in my direction. “That you, boy?”
“It’s me. You could call me Alan, you know.”
“That’s a thought. My memory’s tricky when I’m parched, though.”
I smiled and refilled his glass. To my surprise, chips of ice clinked in the pitcher, so I fished one out and popped it into my mouth. Then I dropped into an empty chair, facing the view, and sighed in contentment as the shade, breeze, and ice did their work. The fatigue and soreness seemed to leach out of my ass into the chair. “God, that’s good.”
The old man took a sip of wine. “That Dokkalfar blood I smell on you?”
I yawned. “You can smell what race the blood came from?”
He sniffed. “Murk Elves are hunters. Meat eaters, sometimes with rice or tubers they dig up in their swamps and a lot of spice. Makes their blood sharp. Risi, too, but they won’t turn their nose up at cheaper fare, and if it’d been a Risi, you’d be dead.”
I pursed my lips, thinking about my wild charge. “There was a Risi, actually. Maybe I’m more dangerous than you think.”
The old man snorted and took another drink.
Slender fingers dug into the top of my shoulder and squeezed, promising pain if I moved. I went very still.
“Is this man bothering you, Horace?” a woman said. Her voice had the lazy, sultry rasp of a pack-a-day smoker or someone who’d spent a lot of time yelling.
“He’s my guest, Thalia. Get him a glass, his drinks are on me.”
“How about you show me some silver, first, you old thief.”
Horace huffed. He raised his left hand, showing the empty palm, then his bare knuckles. Then he reached forward and plucked a silver coin from the air and slapped it down on the table.
Thalia’s fingers dug in, and I squirmed. “You of all people should know the price of wine, Horace.”
The old man sighed. “You’ve no sense of wonder, girl.” He waved his hand over the single coin, and then there were three.
Thalia released her grip and stepped past me. She was slender, about five foot eight, wearing over-the-knee brown leather boots and a forest green knee-length skirt. My eyes were drawn to the laces up the back of her brown leather corset. She waved her hand over the coins, and they were gone.
The old man chuckled.
Thalia bent forward and kissed the top of his head. “It was a good trick, Horace.” She turned around.
My heart skipped a beat. It felt like that time with the assassin, except she didn’t glow purple first.
Thalia was a Dawn Elf. She had a pixie cut of straw-colored hair, honey skin, and slender pointed ears. The corset came up to a modest V-neck with a notched collar and bare shoulders. A pair of silver vine-shaped bracelets circled her upper arms, and she wore fingerless leather gloves with reinforced knuckles.
Her eyes were the color of amber. I don’t mean a nice shade of yellowish-brown, I mean actual amber, both beautiful and inhuman. Her thin, glossy lips parted, revealing flawless white teeth, and she said, “Can I get you anything besides the glass?”
Like any adolescent male would have in my place, I croaked, “Water.” My voice actually broke.
“Sure thing, hun.” She smiled and rested her hand on my shoulder as she passed.
“Holy crap,” Jeff said.
“Holy crap,” I said, twisting in the chair to watch her walk back to the bar.
“It’s crap, all right,” the old man grumbled. “What about the rich prick you were chasing after?”
I turned back to him. “Tell me about the waitress, and I’ll tell you about the prick.”
“I know plenty about the prick, boy. I’m blind, not a eunuch. And I’d love to hear you call her that.”
“What?”
“Waitress.”
“What’s wrong with being a waitress?”
“Nothing, except she owns the place.”
I looked back. Was she talking to the barman, or telling him what to do? Biases were funny things. “She looks young, for that.”
“Does she?” the blind man said.
“Sorry.”
He grinned. “It’s fine, boy. I do better without eyes than you do with.”
“Are we talking about the prick again?” I said, smirking.
“It’s my understanding most bedrooms are dark when they’re worth visiting. How old does she look?”
I shrugged. “Twenty-eight?”
“She’s in her mid-fifties, give or take.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Elves age slowly. Made her fortune and fame raiding dungeons, then led a scout unit for the Legion during the last war. Bought this place when she retired. She’s been serving me wine for a decade.”
“Huh,” I said. “How much fortune?”
“Don’t even think about it.”
I grinned at him before looking back. “I’m just rememberin
g what you taught me about women of means.”
I could see her coming with a tray. Her skirt was slit at the sides and showed just a sliver of golden skin between it and her boots. How is she not sweating?
“Here you are, hun,” she said, setting a wineglass, a tall clear tumbler, and a glass pitcher of water on the table. Her voice scratched in all the right ways. I could have listened to it all day.
Horace cleared his throat. “Did you boil the water? I don’t want him getting sick!”
I frowned. “Is that an issue?”
The old man tapped the base of his wineglass with a fingernail. “Why do you think I drink wine?”
“Because you like wine,” Thalia said over her shoulder. She looked at me and touched the pitcher of water. The water rose to a boil, then chilled rapidly until the glass frosted over.
“Holy crap,” Jeff said.
“Holy crap,” I said. That solved the mystery of her not sweating.
Thalia winked. “Just wave if you want anything.” She started walking back.
“I’ll make a list,” I said without thinking.
Thalia did a double take, then laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. It was a bright, happy sound. I smiled at her. She kept walking, but she looked back at me, halfway.
“Smooth, man,” Jeff said.
“Not bad, boy,” the old man said grudgingly. “Now, what about the noble?”
PROVUS SURRENDERED his sword and scabbard to the two guards before knocking on the door. Before today, he’d thought the praetorians were a needless precaution, more for prestige than purpose. In more flippant moments, he’d thought them the paranoia of an old campaigner who had never left the war behind. Now he wasn’t sure.
“Come in!” his uncle said.
Provus entered the room and closed the door behind him. His uncle, Gaius, was penning a letter at his desk and didn’t look up. The room was cozy if a bit cluttered. A dire-bear-skin rug covered the stone floor. Provus moved to the center of it, stood with his feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind him, and waited. Weapons, shields, and armor, the scratched and dented mementos of several campaigns and interventions, hung from the walls. His uncle kept a number of artifacts, scrolls, and potions in cabinets or go bags, each catering to a specific type of threat. A large, iron-bound chest tucked against the left wall contained gold, letters, reports, and trinkets his uncle used as political leverage.
