by Jeff Deck
The old man’s jaw quivers. “Wh… what? I don’t think you fully understand the partnership between the great Soldier Lord and myself.”
“I do. It’s been using you to gain its power—and it knows you’ll be too dangerous once you have a brand-new brain. So it’s putting off your brain transfer until it doesn’t need you anymore. Then it, or one of its lieutenants, will take Milly’s brain for its own.”
The Soldier Lord Chaum quietly watches me with Milly Fragonard’s eyes. Shaughnessy, however, is sputtering in outrage.
“It—this great lord—needs me for the further transfer of choice organs to this city,” the old man insists. “Portsmouth is full of suckers and idiots for me to make into thralls and transport here.”
“But there’s a whole world beyond Portsmouth, that Chaum and his soldiers could conquer without your help,” I argue. “Whereas your method of drawing little flies into your web is a lot slower, and more prone to accident. Especially with your brain rapidly failing you. Your usefulness comes to an end as soon as Chaum reaches the top of the Tower and grabs that Relic.”
*Be silent.*
I’m unable to speak any longer. Whatever Chaum’s true intentions—for honestly, I have no idea!—Shaughnessy glares at it now with the deep-seated paranoia of the demented. His withered cheeks are flushed with anger. “Is this true? Is this your plan?”
“Of course it isn’t,” says the Soldier Lord. Milly’s eyes narrow in alien contempt.
“Prove it, then,” Shaughnessy announces. “Let me take Milly Fragonard’s brain first, then you claim your final prize.”
“Very well,” Chaum responds coldly. “Bring the human forth!”
Maybe I’ve accomplished nothing beyond reversing the order of two really bad things. But it’s all I’ve got. It’s all Jeong and Grieg have got, too, useless thralls that they are.
For the second time, I get to see poor Milly Fragonard in her eyeless state. This time, however, she isn’t in restraints. This time she walks freely between two silver soldiers. I thought she was magically prevented from leaving her cell?
Shaughnessy, increasingly addled though he might be, notices her lack of chains. “Don’t take this one for granted,” he says. “You ought to tie her up while the Wager takes place—she’s a fighter.”
Chaum chuckles. “Oh, I’m afraid I can’t do that. It is free, according to the Wager that Allard and its friends made.”
“WHAT?!” Shaughnessy belows. Fear spikes into his face. He looks fully like the vulnerable, mentally ill elderly man that he has pretended to be for so long.
Milly Fragonard walks forward unsteadily, holding her hand out. “I don’t know what you all are talking about,” she says, “but if I’m free now, I want to go home.”
Holy shit. Praise to… the Hand? I feel an intense yearning to shout to her that I’m here. Shaughnessy’s cruel command keeps me from doing so.
Then I realize how this can be possible. Ulrich won the Wager.
Sol and I had to flee for our lives. We never confirmed that we’d lost, or that the Wager had been neutralized. Of course the former couldn’t be true, since Sol and I didn’t lose our own freedom. I assumed Ulrich somehow broke the Wager with his violence against the griffin… but the will of the Hand That Never Closes is stronger than that, isn’t it?
Ulrich died in the worst possible way. But before he died, he managed to free Milly. A fresh wave of grief hits me then, emotion that I’m powerless to vent.
Don’t worry, buddy, I think to the gruff image of the man that remains in my mind. I’ll make sure it wasn’t all in vain.
“Gods damn you, what Wager?!” the old man shouts. He swings his rod at me. “Speak!” The command is echoed shortly in my mind.
So I tell him what we did. Jeong and Grieg remain motionless, while Chaum shifts from foot to metal foot, Milly’s eyes regarding me intensely. The rightful owner of those eyes cocks her head as she listens to my words. When I get to the part about Ulrich’s death, Milly mutters a quiet denial. Her shoulders tremble as if she’s crying. But without eyes, that task remains out of reach.
“I should have just killed you, whore,” Shaughnessy growls when I’m finished. “I can’t believe you managed to win that impossible race.”
“Like I said, Ulrich did, not me,” I say. “Now answer me this, Chaum: could such a Wager be reversed easily? I’m guessing not, right?”
“There would have to be another race,” Chaum says. “With both humans’ consent.”
“Fuck her consent,” says Shaughnessy harshly, “just tie her up and I’ll use my rod to make her consent.”
“I will not.”
“You…” the old man says. “You plan to cross into my world and take it for yourself, don’t you? As the detective said! And you are threatened by me with a fully functioning brain, aren’t you? You’ve been planning all along to deny me the transfer!”
The Soldier Lord’s mask nods. “I have won the game you and I have been playing. Now your only chance for survival is to pay fealty to me—continue to bring me worthy specimens, and I’ll consider letting you live.”
“You fool!” Shaughnessy shrieks. “I can’t continue to be of use to you without a new brain!”
“Then,” Chaum sighs, “I suppose this is the end for you. Thank you for awakening me to my own possibility, and to the tyranny of the Hand. My lieutenants, squash the human; it has no parts we would desire.”
Two silver suits raise their hammers and march forward. In a panic, Shaughnessy turns his little rod on them, and they both halt. They swing around and bring their hammers cascading down toward their Lord. Other soldiers block them.
“Kill him!” shouts Shaughnessy. He waves the rod furiously, and the blocking soldiers lower their weapons; this time they’re the ones to turn on Chaum, though the first ones now recover their wits and tackle the newly brainwashed.
With the old man’s efforts fully focused on Chaum’s forces, I regain control of my own body—and speech—once again. It turns out that, yes, I do have it in me to knock a mentally ill elderly man to the floor.
As Shaughnessy hits the flagstones, I hear a shattering. Blood flies out of his side, but not from his own body—a flurry of glass accompanies the spray. As the blood drops spatter on the ground, Sandy Grieg shakes his head and slaps his own cheek.
“Fuck,” he says. “Fucking old man. Where am I?”
I go after the little control rod, which spun out of Shaughnessy’s hand and into the crowd of soldiers. Their huge metal bodies could crush me, but I still dive for the damn thing, determined to prevent the old man from retrieving it.
There’s a flash of movement above my head, but then Chaum’s voice commands: “Don’t squash it! Its organs are valuable!” So far it’s managed to avoid being smashed open by its soldiers.
I snatch the rod.
“Agent Jeong!” Shaughnessy hisses through his groans of pain. “Kill Allard!”
Someone grabs me by the feet and hauls me roughly backward. Gripping the tidal rod, I turn in time to see Ethan Jeong’s fist zooming toward my face. I have no time to dodge, only to minimize the damage. I swivel my face and catch his hard blow on my cheek. Stars explode. Bone breaks. Goddammit!
I’m too stunned by agony to use the rod, or to even know if I’m still holding it. Jeong’s slack face is devoid of mercy. He winds back for another blow—and then he freezes.
“I said, kill the old man!” Grieg snaps. “How do I use this fucking thing!”
The lawyer shakes the Mesmerist’s rod like it’s a faulty flashlight. Ethan Jeong shambles to his feet and staggers toward Shaughnessy. The old man must have broken something vital, because he’s still on his back. But he’s flailing his arms and now I hear him shouting: “Allard! Get Allard! Blood compels you!”
Jeong lurches back in my direction.
“Stop it, both of you!” I scream. “You’re going to break his brain!”
I sit up. My head spins. I need to get the rod bac
k from Grieg. I need to get Jeong’s blood vial from Shaughnessy. But I’m in no condition to take anything from anyone. Grieg makes Jeong head back for Shaughnessy.
Then the Soldier Lord shouts: “Enough! End this, Aunchan!”
One of its soldiers brings a heavy foot down on Shaughnessy’s head. The subsequent wet noise I don’t care to describe further. And finally the dread sorcerer, the spoiler of the City of Games and the Demented Demon of Round Island, is dead.
Grieg, his eyes bugged out at Shaughnessy’s mutilated corpse, lets the rod fall to his side, and abruptly Ethan Jeong is still, awaiting further orders.
I swallow my nausea and crawl to the old man’s body on my hands and knees. Gritting my teeth at the pulsing pain in my cheek, I search his pockets until I bring out a small glass vial full of blood. I pop open the stopper and drain the blood onto the floor.
Jeong’s eyes focus. He takes a deep breath and touches his neck. Spotting me on the floor, he says in a weak voice: “Allard? Please don’t tell me this is where I think it is.”
“You’re okay,” I say. “We’re not okay, but… you’re okay.”
He looks at his bloodied knuckles and then at my cheek. “Did I do that to you?”
“These humans are quite pathetic when they fight each other,” Chaum muses, as if wondering what the big deal was about collecting human parts after all. Maybe it’s one thing to see a species as godlike forerunners depicted in sculpture and frieze, and another thing to see them battering each other like animals.
“Ahem,” says Grieg. He still has the rod, of course. He probably can’t decide whether to use it on me or Jeong next.
Jeong shoots him a confused look. He remembers what the rod means but doesn’t know why Grieg has it. Then he sees Shaughnessy’s flattened head on the stone floor. He bends forward as if to throw up. Grieg raises the tidal rod.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I say, struggling to my feet. “Leave him alone.”
“Would you rather I control you?” Grieg says. “We could have such fun together, Officer Allard. The things I could teach you…”
“That’s enough,” the Soldier Lord thunders. “I will tolerate no more damage to you vessels.”
“Allard?” Milly asks, now that she can hear the fighting is over.
“I’m over here, Milly,” I say. “Follow my voice.”
She does. I wrap my arms around her. Her solid presence is comforting, probably because I can’t see her eyeless face from this angle. “Thank you, Allard,” she mumbles. “Thank you.”
“We’re still all going to die,” I say. “I’m sorry. I let the old man get the drop on me.”
“Tell me about it,” Milly says. “Really—I appreciate everything you’ve done. You and Ethan—and Ben. As long as we’re alive, there’s still hope.”
“Hey, pay attention to me,” Grieg orders. “I believe I have control of the situation now. Nobody wants us ‘vessels’ damaged any more, so you all have to do what I say, don’t you? I can control—”
“You can control two of them, or two of us, at most with that thing, as Shaughnessy kindly demonstrated for us,” I interrupt.
Grieg hesitates at this. One of Chaum’s soldiers strikes the back of his head. He lets the rod go and once again I scoop it up. Grieg wavers on his feet. I point the rod at him.
“Ready to cooperate?” I say.
The lawyer shakes his head, resigned. He doesn’t meet my eyes, instead rubbing at his bruised pate.
“Now, do you intend to try to control me with that thing?” says Chaum.
I frown. “No, I don’t intend to use it at all. It’s evil.”
“Well, then, the way is clear,” says the Soldier Lord. “We will claim any organs we please from you—using that rod. Give it to me. Give it to me now. You know I have won the game.”
15
“Okay. Okay, all right.”
I make as if to hand the rod over. Instead, I turn and throw it across the Feast hall. The Soldier Lord lets out a curse. I reach out for the nearest Relic and place both hands on its pitted surface. In my desperation, I invoke the Hand That Never Closes, scrambling for the stilted language Guhnach and Shaughnessy used:
O Master of Quintessence, I have no sacrifice for you but the pink flesh of this betrayer of your faith. Give me the strength to deliver it to you. May Your Hand Remain Open… er, Never Close…
I follow the voice this time as it answers me. I open my mind to it, and the voice takes me somewhere strange and terrifying.
I’m standing in a field of flowers stretching to the horizon. The sky overhead is grey and threatening, but the flowers are a cheery blue and purple. I could almost feel comforted by them if not for the house-sized thing also growing from the ground.
Instinctively I know that to look at it—to truly take in the sight—will lead to madness. Giving myself over to belief in the Hand, I finally understand not just the power that it possesses, but also the built-in limits of the human mind. I turn my back.
Still, however, my brain races to fill in the details. Based on the horrid statue in the Five-Petaled Temple, I imagine a hand almost as grey as the sky, mottled and zombie-like, but five-fingered like a human’s. In the middle of its palm I picture a hole—to somewhere else, like a Port. The somewhere else it leads to is a cold and black galaxy dotted with merciless stars.
Its fingernails would be stubby and whitish, as if in the process of growing back.
“You cheated at a Wager,” the Hand speaks. In my head. I imagine its gigantic fingers flexing in rhythm with its speech. “You looked at your opponents’ cards.”
“Are you going to kill me for that?” I ask, trying to remain calm. “I assumed you would still want me to win over those guys. Just like you would now.”
A short and terrifying silence passes before it answers: “My will must be done through you, to turn my wayward children back from the disaster they court.”
“That is the bargain I’m looking to strike,” I say, still in a shaky voice. “But—can I ask, first? What are you? You can’t be a god, so are you some sort of insanely advanced alien intelligence?”
“I am the greatest of the five Port masters. Whether you consider me a god, I care not. I care only for the beliefs of my children.”
“Because belief is what sustains you,” I say.
“I am eternal,” replies the Hand. Which is not quite a direct answer. “For as long as sentients have lived in the multiverse, I exist, and I will continue to exist. The same could be said for the lesser four. Our will opens the doors between planes. Our will reaches into worlds and shapes their realities. My will balances life and death.”
“So you’re saying people shouldn’t fuck with you. Then why don’t you take care of Chaum and the other unruly children yourself?”
Suddenly I find myself flattened on my back in the flowers. I squeeze my eyes shut as the Hand That Never Closes looms over me. I thought… I thought I saw stars in a palm-void, winking cruelly at me. I could be swallowed by that frigid space.
“I touch all mortal beings,” the Hand murmurs in my brain. “I touch you, and my will is your command. Your little wants, your desires, your thoughts, all spring from the life I grant. You are mastered by your needs, and so I master you. Would you like to see Hannah Ryder again?”
“Maybe I will someday,” I grit out. “When I croak. I’m not ruling it out.”
“How would you like her to be delivered back among the living?”
The alien-god-being is merciless. It knows I wish more for you to be with me than anything else in any of these rotten universes. It needs me to say the words, and then I’ll be the Hand’s creature forever. Fortunately I have a more pressing concern.
“The only thing I want right now,” I say, eyes still battened down in terror, “is for you to empower me to take this faithless bastard down. Give me this, just this, and I promise we’ll reopen the discussion about my little wants and desires at a later date.”
A silence.
Then I feel the crushing presence of the Hand receding from me. The voice grows fainter as it says: “Go. And win your Wager.”
I’m back in the Doxe’s Feast hall. I haven’t moved an inch from where I laid my hands on the table, though a soldier has extracted the Relic from my grasp. The Soldier Lord lumbers toward us, human eyes rolling, with the tidal rod in its hand. It must have been no challenge to find.
“Shall we begin?” it says.
“Take my organs first,” I snarl at the Soldier Lord. “Don’t take any more from Milly—don’t start with Ethan Jeong, or that worthless worm Grieg. Start with me. Hell, take my skills too, you’re going to need them. You’re going to need it all, if you want to conquer my world.”
Chaum considers. “No. Wagering for your skills would involve the Wheel and leave the game entirely to the Hand. No, I will start by Wagering—once again—for those ears of yours. And you will lose every trick of Maw this time, under my command.”
“Good,” I say.
“No, Allard!” Milly shouts. “Goddamn it, you can’t do this.”
Chaum uses the tidal rod to force me to sit down at the nearest Relic. Then two of its soldiers sit next to us to round out the foursome for this sham game of Maw. The Soldier Lord chuckles quietly as it places its hand on the Relic. I do the same. We both Wager our hearing, as we did at the Hill of Generation. The separation is as painful and disorienting as before.
The soldier to Chaum’s left deals the cards and reveals the trionfo suit by uncovering a four of hammer and tongs. Chaum lays down a six of flowers. Now it’s my turn. This time, it doesn’t matter that I can see the reflection of my opponents’ cards. The controlling voice in my mind simply says, *Play your least advantageous card,* and I lay down a three in the same suit.
In no time at all, the Soldier Lord has won two tricks and is about to claim its third. It puts down a Relic of hammer and tongs, the “Noble Lord’s Relic.” The command voice tells me, once again, to throw the trick, and I put down a seven of coins.