by D. J. Bodden
She shrugged. “He’s the only one who stands up to you anymore, Gaius.” Her body was already fading. “Don’t you miss me? You loved me, once.”
“I did.” Gaius Considia gave her a sincere smile as she disappeared completely. “Decimus!” he barked, his voice still strong enough to command a phalanx in the field.
One of the praetorians guarding his door looked inside. “Yes, General?”
“The tribune’s sword, please.”
Decimus brought it in, then laid it on the desk with Gaius’s permission before leaving. There was dried and partially congealed blood on the blade and in the scabbard. An Enchanter would make good use of it.
He glanced back at the empty corner. He’d given himself over to war when he was a young man. He’d fed off the thrill and fear, the high stakes... He still surrounded himself with memories of the times he’d spent on the edge, chasing Enyo wherever she led out of duty to his ancestors and for the glory of the Empire, but now he had too much to lose. His infatuation with the goddess of discord was like a youthful romance, passionate and shortsighted. He was going to have to act quickly to stop her from coming back.
TEN
“SO, IN SUMMARY,” HORACE said, pausing to knock back the rest of his glass of wine, “you know nothing.”
“I know his name,” I protested, looking at my own glass. Was it half empty, or half full?
“Fine. What is it then?”
“What?”
“His name.”
“House Considia,” I answered, solving the dilemma by finishing the glass.
“House Considia’s not a name, boy. It’s a family.”
“A family name.”
“No. Yes, that also, but it’s not.” He twisted in his chair and waved for Thalia. He wasn’t looking remotely in the right direction, but she saw him and headed our way, grinning. “House Considia is several families, all descended from the same ancestor. There are dozens of branches and hundreds of sons, daughters, and bastards, famous and unknown, rich and poor, powerful and—”
“Unpowerful, yes,” I added, filling my glass and finishing the pitcher.
“You boys seem to be discussing matters of great importance,” Thalia said, smirking. “Mind if I interrupt?”
Horace smiled. “Thalia, my heart, the daughter I never had!”
“You’re just old enough to make that work. What’ll it be?”
“Wine.”
“Can you afford wine?” she asked.
Horace put a silver coin on the table.
“I’m waiting for the magic trick, Horace.”
The old man put on a mournful look. “I’m too low on Spirit to cast that spell, love, but I’ll be good for it tomorrow.”
“Then you can drink it tomorrow. How about I bring you a beer, your pretty friend finishes his glass, and I leave you with enough to buy dinner?”
Horace gave her a dirty look. “Bah. Fine. But it’s elder abuse, and I’ll report you someday.”
Thalia shook her head and took the silver, then counted out six coppers, clicking them on the table one by one. Horace swiped them off and tucked them away with a dexterity that put the lie to how much I’d seen him drink.
I’d finished my water and drunk two glasses of the cold spring wine. The first glass had tasted like perfumed jet fuel, and the fumes almost made me choke. The second glass, which I sipped slowly, started to show signs of complexity, with the tart tang of cranberries whispering through the chilling bite. I was feeling pleasantly mellow, and my jokes felt like they’d gotten funnier. It was a good place to linger.
Horace had had five glasses, assuming I’d arrived at the end of his first. He drank it like water, sometimes pausing mid-sip, eyes fixed and nostrils flaring, lips tight, as if the taste had carried him somewhere else. He’d sit back after that and turn his head toward the city.
“So there are a lot of Considias,” I said.
“No, but there are a lot of people in House Considia.”
“Are there a lot who might obligate the entirety of the House?”
“Obliga-what-now?”
“It means compel to a legal or moral duty.”
Horace stared at me.
“They owe me.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“I thought I did. So, how many?”
“How many what?”
“How many people could obligate the whole House?”
“About a dozen.”
“Any of them my age?”
The old man screwed up his face and shifted in his seat. “Did he look like this?” He slapped a copper on the table, heads up.
I looked at the profile. The nose and jaw looked familiar, if you can recognize anyone from a coin. “Maybe?”
“That’d be Provus, then,” the old man said, retrieving the coin. “Provus Considia.”
“I thought you were blind.”
“I am. A blind beggar. They call those coins a consideration.”
“As in Considia?”
“As in, ‘Begging your consideration, my lord.’” He flapped his hand and dipped his head in a mock bow.
“And I thought you weren’t a beggar.”
“Then you won’t make me ask for your glass,” the old man said, suddenly sharp, with a smile and a wink.
I chuckled. “Well earned, sir.” I slid it over to him. To be honest, I was glad to let it go.
He took the stem between his fingers and twisted the glass, but didn’t pick it up.
“Isn’t Provus a bit young to have his face on a coin? Or did he age slowly, too?”
“That’s his father, the Griffin of New Viridia, last of the great generals. I’ve heard they look exactly alike.”
“Then this ‘Griffin’ owes us a favor.”
Horace bobbed his head from side to side. “Indirectly. Provus is his bastard.”
“I thought you said his family name was—”
“He’s also a Considia. His father’s his uncle.”
“Oh.”
Horace shrugged.
I looked toward the bar, over my shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be right here,” Horace answered, taking a sip and turning toward the city.
I stood and made my way to the bar. Most of the other patrons had settled their tabs and left to get on with their day. Thalia was sitting on a stool, tracing the rim of a tumbler with her middle finger. The barman was nowhere to be seen. About five yards out, she turned to watch me approach with hooded eyes.
“I’m not drunk,” I started, and then I blushed. That woman did the most amazing things to my tongue.
“No, you’re not,” she said, dipping her finger in her drink and then tasting it. “But you’re feeling brave. What can I do for you, hun?” She crossed her legs. The slit in her skirt showed bare skin to mid-thigh.
I can be very single-minded. Once I’ve decided to do something, I have trouble redirecting in spite of all the warning signals. I’d only just met Thalia, but I liked her, and I liked the idea of spending more time with her. “Can you teach me magic?” I asked.
Her eyebrows shot up. She recovered quickly, uncrossing her legs and rising from the stool. “Oh honey, that’s sweet. Have you ever heard the sound a man makes after you light him on fire?” Her eyes glowed like coals. She touched the tip of my nose. I jerked my head back and almost fell. Her finger had been red-hot. “I want you to think long and hard about that, and other things, and maybe we’ll talk again when you’re completely sober.”
She seemed terrifying all of a sudden. A flame-haired and fire-eyed avatar of destruction.
“Head on back to your table, hun. I’ll bring Horace his beer as soon as Freddie finishes tapping that new keg.”
I nodded and did what I was told. She’d looked strong and terrible, and a little sad.
“Holy crap,” Jeff said.
I winced. “Not this time, buddy. This time, it was a little too real.”
I sat back down at the table, wishing I
hadn’t been so quick to give up my wine.
“She turn you down?” Horace asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Not for what you think, though.”
The old man snorted. “How do you know what I think, boy? She likes you. She told you so in ten different ways. There’s only one thing she’d turn you down for. You asked for the wrong thing.”
I swallowed. “Yeah, maybe.” But I wasn’t sure. I’d been amazed when she boiled the water, and almost laughed when she chilled it right after. There was an elemental fierceness to her I was drawn to, and at the same time, her question about setting people aflame was... horrible. She was fire incarnate, fascinating and harmful. I still wanted to kiss lips as cool as ice and skin as warm as beach sand.
“You’re not a fighter,” the old man pronounced.
I scowled. I’d never been fond of people putting me into boxes. “I foiled an assassination plot.”
“You tipped the balance in Provus’s favor. Would you have wanted to fight those three if he hadn’t been there?”
I snorted. “Of course not. I’m not an idiot.” That Risi would have torn me in half.
The old man shrugged. “Like I said.”
“I’m not a coward, old man,” I said, a little louder than I meant to.
Thalia cleared her throat as she walked by. “Here’s your beer, Horace.”
Damn. Thalia turned outward, probably so she wouldn’t have to make eye contact, and started to leave. “Thalia?” I said.
She stopped and looked at me, lips pressed together, one eyebrow raised.
I held her stare. “I’ll be back for that talk.”
Her eyes searched mine for a moment. She left without saying a word, but she didn’t tell me to fuck off, either.
“I never said you aren’t brave, boy. It’s almost to the point of stupidity with you, but you’re no coward. You’re drawn to power. Power is most often in the hands of the old, so you find friends among old men and lovers among older women, or women with some fight in them. You’d probably do well in the Legion if we could keep you away from the battlefield.”
“So I’m brave but useless?” I said, swiping the old man’s beer and taking a swig. It was a light, pale brew with fruity notes and a tart finish, perfectly poured with very little foam.
“No, but you’ve got an inferiority complex the size of the Heights, and you need to accept that you’re better with words than with a blade or a fireball.”
I took another pull of the beer. “Well, that’s a problem, isn’t it, old man? I want power, but all I have is words.”
Horace sighed. “I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way. You see the end of the paving, where the hill gets steep?”
I looked toward the downslope and the city. “Yeah, what about it?”
“You want to walk off the edge,” he said.
That sounded like a pretty good idea. I set the beer down on the table, stood, and walked to the edge of the terrace. And I kept walking. It wasn’t until I felt the emptiness—that same feeling you get when you think the last step of a staircase is the ground, but it isn’t—that I realized something was wrong. By then, it was too late to stop.
JEFF LEANED FORWARD and squinted at the screen. Was he really going to—
“Oh, dude!” Jeff said as Alan’s view started to tumble, and Jeff started to laugh. He saw the ground, the sky, the ground, a slight pause with a view of the city as the slope dipped even more, and then the ground blurred by as Alan skidded face-first down the grassy hillside. Alan was yelling the whole time. He narrowly avoided one of those teardrop-shaped pines, went sideways in the process and started to roll on his side. It was like a video shot from the inside of a washing machine, if the washing machine was skiing down an ancient Roman hill.
Then the screen was full of small green leaves and yellow buds. Alan had landed in some kind of bush. Jeff clutched his ribs and bent over in his chair, he was laughing so hard. “Oh my God, dude. That old blind guy just owned you so hard.”
“I’m glad you’re getting something out of this, Jeff. I really am,” Alan said. Jeff saw arms flailing on the screen, and the view shifted to the sky. “Oh God, I don’t feel good.”
“Damn, bro. You were like, ‘I only have words,’” Jeff said in a whiny voice.
“Yep.”
“And he was like, ‘Guess we’ll have to do this the hard way,’” Jeff said in his normal, deeper voice.
“Oh, yeah. I was there, Jeff.”
“Dude.”
“Yeah, Jeff.”
“I’m so glad I’m recording all this.”
“You’re such an asshole, man.”
“No, no... I gotta tell you, it makes up for a lot.” Jeff burst out laughing again.
After a few seconds, the hilariousness of the situation died down a bit, and he remembered to check the readouts. “Well, the good news is that your body’s doing fine, bud. Your heart rate barely spiked on that one.”
“Great.”
Jeff frowned. “Alan, you’re not seriously pissed that I laughed at you, are you?”
Alan paused. “I fell off a hill, Jeff. It’s not like a Jackass movie or anything, you know? I mean, it freaking hurt.”
Jeff leaned forward. “Okay, hold on, dude. For starters, I just had to wipe your ass, okay? I changed your diaper like thirty minutes ago.”
“For real?”
“For real, real. As in the real world. And you didn’t get me latex gloves or anything. You’re lucky the nurses left me a box from when they were doing the nanite injections.”
“Okay, that’s rough.”
“Yeah. So you’re in there fighting assassins, drinking wine, and getting your flirt on with the stripper queen of the elves—”
“She’s a nice—”
“She’s not real, bro. She’s an NPC, dits and dahs, ones and zeroes. I can delete her with a keystroke, and I will still have seen your taint today.”
Alan exhaled and stared at the sky. Jeff started to think maybe he’d pushed the guy too hard, but then Alan said, “I’m sorry, man. I guess you’re right. It’s actually pretty hard to remember I’m in a game, sometimes.”
Jeff sat back. For all he disliked Alan sometimes, he was actually a pretty good guy. Jeff wasn’t sure he’d have been able to ramp down like that. He scratched his arm. “So it’s that good?”
“Jeff, it’s amazing. Seriously. It’s going to change everything. You’ve done something incredible.”
Jeff designed the bridge. And Alan crossed it. Jeff bit his lip. “Yeah.”
“Man, I really blew it with Thalia, didn’t I?” Alan said.
“Who?”
“Stripper queen of the elves.”
Jeff grinned. “I wouldn’t worry about it, man. Me and my wife found each other again after years of being apart. If you and your virtual blow-up doll are meant to be, you’re meant to be.”
“Thanks, man. You’re a big help.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So you’re happily married?” Alan asked.
“Yeah,” Jeff said, stroking his scars.
He’d started cutting during his sophomore year at Penn. He’d had trouble connecting with the other students, and his relationship with his dad had only gotten more distant with him working long hours at a new job and Jeff being mad at him for making them move. His mom was a kind but fragile person. When he was older, he found out that she was clinically depressed, and part of the reason they’d moved was so she’d have access to better care, but no one told him that at sixteen, or even nineteen, so he got isolated, slipped into a funk, and almost flunked out of school.
The first time he’d done it had been an accident. He’d been working on a cardboard mockup for a structural engineering class when he cut into the second joint of his index finger with a craft knife. There had been blood and pain, and he remembered hating himself for sucking at everything. But then there had been a kind of stark clarity. It was like there had been this noise in the background of
his life drowning everything out, and suddenly, quiet. He felt like himself.
He finished the project. He finished the year. The cuts after that first time weren’t accidental, they were planned, measured, and hidden. Then he went home—not to Baltimore, but to Middletown. He got a job for the summer. He’d found Cheryl.
“Sixteen years,” Jeff said.
“Wow. You look young for an old dude!”
Jeff smirked. “Now who’s the asshole?”
“I believe I was from the moment I stepped off the terrace. Any kids?”
“Just the one daughter,” Jeff said.
“Cool. Listen, man, I think I have company, but seriously... you like what you saw down there?”
Jeff made a face. “I’m posting that video of you falling on YouTube as soon as the project goes public.”
“Sounds good, man. Gotta go.”
“YOU ALIVE, BOY? YOU must be, though I think you must have hit your head on the way down. I could hear you yapping.”
I flailed my arms and legs one more time and managed to get into a sitting position. I was facing uphill. For a moment, I thought I saw Thalia standing near the edge I’d just walked off, but whoever it was turned away as soon as I got up. I looked over my left shoulder, then my right and saw the old man standing on a small paved path that went up the hill, between two buildings, and into the city.
“Okay,” I said. “What the hell was that?”
“I can’t hear you, boy. I’m old, and I’m weak. Come on out of that bush, and let’s talk in the shade.”
I gritted my teeth. More energetic flailing got me flipped over with my toes touching the ground, and I pushed myself back onto my feet. I brushed the little leaves, yellow pods, and broken sticks off and out of my tunic and pants, which just couldn’t catch a break today. And I smelled... Damn it. I’d landed in sagebrush. Deer like it. Antelope love it. I think it smells skunky, like pot, and the “flowers” smell like rotten wood.
<<<>>>
Current Debuffs
Unwashed (Level 2): Goods and services cost 10% more; Merchant-craft skills reduced by (2) levels
<<<>>>
And I’m the smelly kid in class.
