by D. J. Bodden
Around 7:00 PM, with the sun almost touching the rooftops to the west, June wandered over with a packet wrapped in grease paper tucked under her arm. “You okay, Horace?”
“You know me, little one. I’ll make do.”
“How about you, Alan? Do you have a place to stay?”
I wasn’t sure if I was reading into the question, but it sounded like she was offering me her couch, or whatever the Viridian equivalent was. It was a touching offer; I was dirty, dressed in burlap, and she’d only met me a few hours ago. I don’t think I would have done it. I’d certainly never invited one of the homeless people in LA or San Diego to crash with me for the night.
Maybe I should have accepted, but like I said, I’ve never been great at closing that last gap to intimacy with strangers. “I’m good, June, but thanks. We’ve both had a good day, and I owe Horace a meal and a drink for his mentorship.” I gave her a wink.
She smiled. “Okay, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She left through the alley, not the archway. Maybe she had a place nearby.
“We should probably get on ourselves,” Horace said, standing up with a wince. “We won’t get murdered, but we might lose some coins and pick up a few bruises, sticking around after dark.
“Where to?”
“Depends on how much you want to spend. There’s a Sophitian shelter on the other side of the Broad Way that will give us water, porridge, and a straw pallet for three coppers and a prayer each.”
“Sophitian? Is that some kind of religious thing?”
“Disciples of Sophia, the goddess of balance.”
Huh. It hadn’t occurred to me that the AIs would have an overt interaction with the NPCs. I was almost curious enough to choose that just to see if the NPCs had a full mythos built up around their “gods,” but not enough to spend three coppers on gruel and forced contemplation. “What’s the next option?”
“We could go to an inn with a common room for around a silver. The Rutting Boar is nice. The food is decent, and it’s a good place to practice some of the things you’ve learned.”
“You had me at ‘Rutting,’” I said, and offered him my arm.
THALIA STOOD AT THE edge of the terrace as she often did in the evenings, when her customers had gone home and Freddie was busy closing up shop. She watched with half-lidded eyes and the patience of the long-lived Hvitalfar as the color of the sky changed and the molten disc of the sun sunk until it touched the Heights. She watched as the flame engulfed the homes, offices, and shops of New Viridia’s aristocracy, nursing a liqueur made from wildflowers, letting her long lashes filter out part of the glare, and smiled.
She’d seen this city burn, once, about ten years ago. It had been the end of the war; the main players were sitting at the negotiating table, and the few remaining splinter groups went crazy in a bid for plunder or revenge before a truce could be declared. A Wode raiding party made it inside the walls. She and a turned Dokkalfar assassin named Weiz Anaxios had taken them down, one by one.
“Hey, boss?” Freddie said.
She turned around, frowning. He knew not to disturb her when she was enjoying the view. “Are you done locking up?”
Freddie nodded, looking at his feet. “Um, yeah, but that’s not why... there’s someone here to see you.”
Thalia leaned right and looked past her bartender. Justiciar Sathis waited by the shuttered bar. “Go home, Freddie.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Freddie was a twenty-seven-year-old Frostlock—a Sorcerer who worked with ice. He kept her cool room cold and had the patience and memory she lacked when it came to orders and cocktail recipes. The two of them would have been diametrical opposites on the battlefield, but he kept a perfectly stocked and ordered cellar, while she ensured return clients. It was such a good mix, she’d put him off-limits to herself, even though she sometimes liked the shy ones.
Once Freddie was gone, she made her way to the priest with the friendliness of a stalking jaguar. “What do you want, Sathis?”
The justiciar gave her a kind but pained smile, the kind that showed her how long-suffering the priest was in the face of the world’s ignorance. It made her want to burn his toes to the nub, one by one. “It’s good to see you, Thalia. How long has it been?”
“Four years and still too soon.”
His eyes were full of patience and compassion. She wondered if that was flammable. “I came to let you know about recent developments in the Church.”
“I heard. They butchered some vagrants and a few of your acolytes on the Via Carmin. I’d say Gaia was laughing.”
“Weiz was killed,” Sathis said.
“No.”
Sathis tucked his hands in his sleeves and waited.
“I don’t know what game you’re playing, Sathis, but Weiz wasn’t killed by legionaries, not even praetorians. He’s too good. The Red Way would have been painted in legionary blood, and the Griffin would have the city under martial law.”
Sathis smiled in that infuriatingly compassionate way again.
“If you think he’s dead, then I’m glad because he played you. You didn’t recover a body, did you? He’s halfway to—”
“I saw his body, Thalia. He’d been stripped to his underclothes and robbed like an ordinary man, but I saw him, just before the goddess Herself took him away.”
Thalia shuddered. Of course she came for him. He’s always been faithful above all else. Her eyes stung. “Who?”
“We don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me, Sathis. I’m not one of your dew-eyed acolytes. I’ll burn the answer out of you if I have to.”
Sathis swallowed. “He was on a mission. His target was Tribune Provus Considia.”
Thalia gaped. “The Griffin’s son? For the love of the gods, Sathis, have you gone mad?”
Sathis shifted on his feet. “He was a vocal supporter of restoring the Legion and conquering the rest of Eldgard. He had to be stopped.”
“Why wasn’t he? Don’t tell me the pampered son of a general murdered the greatest executor the Church has ever known.”
“Second greatest,” Sathis said, inclining his head to her. “And it doesn’t matter, Thalia. I don’t need you emotional. We need to finish the work.”
Thalia felt the temperature rise around her.
Sathis took a step back. She could see the coals of her irises reflected in his black, piggy eyes. “You don’t control me, Sathis.”
“The goddess—”
“Does not control me either. You want Provus dead? Fine, I’ll end him. I’ll turn him into a signal fire for the death of the Empire. But you do not tell me what’s important. Why is Weiz dead?”
“Provus killed him.”
Light flared. Her hair lifted, rippling and glowing like a candle flame. “Not alone. He would never have seen Weiz coming.”
“There was an interloper. A commoner. He interrupted the killing.”
Thalia stepped forward. Her skin was glowing from the heat. “Lies. Did you set him up, Sathis? Did he finally decide he wanted out?”
Sathis fell over backward. “It’s true! The legionaries took him! They have him in the precinct near the Piazza Navona!”
Thalia felt herself cool. The light dimmed. She would take care of Provus second, and this “interloper” first. Maybe he was a bystander—wrong place and wrong time—but Gaia was known to choose her champions by the flip of a coin or the shape of stars in the night sky. Far more likely he was an agent of the Griffin, long undercover and now pulled in for debriefing after a job well done. She’d make sure he received a more lasting reward. “Send an acolyte to watch the precinct,” she said, walking past the fallen priest.
“Where will you be?”
“I’m going to the temple by the East Gate,” she said. “Send the rest of the children to me.” She didn’t hear his response as she started down the steps, but he would obey. She was Thalia Daceran of the Hvitalfar, warmaiden, hero of the Legion, and now once again Mistress of the Sicarii, a title she�
��d set aside but never given up.
I WALKED INTO THE RUTTING Boar with Horace on my arm. It was just like the old man described, a large common room with a bar in the far corner and two long tables with benches on each side. It had a low ceiling of stained wood planks and pitch, crossed in the middle by two massive beams, and the dim lighting came from several small clay lamps on the tables and the massive fireplace. The innkeeper, a friendly looking man with hairy forearms and a slight blush to his cheeks, looked up from the large pot he was tending. I was still wearing my crappy clothes, and Horace was a blind beggar, so he didn’t hurry, but his tone was friendly when he reached us. “Hey, fellas. My name’s Henry. What’ll it be?”
“What’ll it cost, Henry?” I asked.
His smile drooped a bit—I guess he thought I was making fun of him—but he said, “Five coppers for a bowl of stew, two for beer, six each if you spend the night, but I’ll throw in the beers for free.”
“We’ll take two for the stew, beer, and beds,” I said, pulling the gold coin from my pocket.
The innkeeper’s eyes widened slightly. He leaned in as he handed me the seven silvers and eight coppers’ change. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, dressed as you are, but you might be more careful showing that much coin.” He straightened. “Have a seat, fellas. I’ll bring your food and drink in a moment,” he said loudly, with a smile.
I led the old man to a seat and sat next to him. There was a Svartalfar sitting to my left and a Risi to our right, next to Horace. Both tables were close to full, and there wasn’t a single woman in the place, even though, from what I’d seen, V.G.O. was a little more gender-balanced than the real world.
“Is this a men-only inn?” I asked Horace.
“Only by custom. There are also inns where men are welcome for a meal, but they kick you out before the turning off the lights. It’s just safer that way.”
I nodded. Then I said, “I guess that makes sense.” There’s nothing like hanging out with a blind person for a day to make you realize how much of your communication is nonverbal.
“Here’s the beer, then,” Henry said, dropping off two mugs filled to the brim and slopping over with foam.
“Thanks,” Horace said, pulling his toward him.
“Be right back,” Henry said, and headed over to the fireplace and the pot.
“To the Janissaries,” Horace said, raising his mug.
“To the Janissaries,” I echoed, knocking my mug against his. “Though I think it’s my silver we’re drinking with.”
“I just said I’d toast him, boy. Let’s not get hung up on the details.”
I chuckled and gave my beer a sip. It was frothy and a little sour, but generously alcoholic. “I hope he’ll be okay.”
Horace finished his own, longer pull, smacked his lips, and said, “Keep him in mind, boy. Maybe Sophia will keep him safe, or Enyo will grant him strength in battle. Maybe Gaia will save his life, or kill him to break your heart. There are no guarantees, but the gods watch and listen. Through desire, we shape the world.”
When he said the last sentence, a small pop-up told me I’d gotten 100 XP. Huh, I thought. Maybe it was like the experience you got from reading lore books in other games.
“So, how was your first day in Eldgard, boy?”
I almost spit up my beer. “Excuse me?”
“What? It’s as obvious as the fact that Henry, our host, is a self-taught brewer.” Horace took a pull from his mug and screwed up his face. “Sour as vinegar. And you, Alan Campbell, are not from this world.”
THIRTEEN
GAIUS RUBBED HIS EYES and yawned. It had been an eventful day, and writing by lamplight was getting harder each year.
There was a knock, and Decimus stuck his head through the doorway.
“General, there’s a merchant here to see you.”
“Send him away,” Gaius said. He had enough complaints, demands, and requests for information on his desk without entertaining the delusions of grandeur of the wealthy middle class.
“I did, sir, but he insisted. He said it was hard to make it all the way to the palace on his cane.”
Gaius sat back. “Scrawny fellow with glasses and a waistcoat?”
“Yes, General.”
“Send him to me.”
Gaius wiped the nib of his pen and set it down. He stood and stepped around his desk, standing at the edge of the dire-bear carpet with his hands clasped behind his back to wait for this “merchant.” He fought to keep the grin from his face.
The door opened, and Titus walked in, followed by Gaius’s senior bodyguard. Decimus saw the general standing, and his eyebrows shot up.
“That will be all, Decimus,” Gaius said, his face severe.
“I... yes, General.” Decimus left. The door shut.
Gaius stepped forward and embraced his old friend, an open smile on his face. He didn’t hesitate or check for weapons; the day Titus came for him he was dead and probably deserved it. “It’s been too long, Titus.”
Titus hugged him back. “It’s good to see you’re keeping well.”
Gaius released his friend and stepped back to look at him, arms still on Titus’s shoulders. He frowned. “I wish I could say the same about you, you old fool. You look like a scrawny old man.”
“And you look like you’d barely fit into that golden monstrosity you call a cuirass anymore. What do you do, use screws to tighten it up once they’ve squeezed you into it? And a general! I liked you better as a decurion. I bet they have to use butter to grease your head into your helmet.”
Gaius looked at the man with a fondness he didn’t feel for anyone still living, not even his son. “I am getting a bit soft, aren’t I? Too much time behind a desk. But what brings you to visit this humble soldier?”
“I have an unusual set of armor I thought you might take an interest in.”
Gaius smiled. “I don’t collect anymore, Titus. What you see on the walls, I keep for the memories, not for use or glory. I find, too often, I need them so I don’t forget.”
Titus gave a little half shrug and stuck his lower lip out, but his eyes almost twinkled with mischief. “I only caught half a story, and I’ve been out of the game for a few years, but I think this piece might have more significance to you than you might think.”
He pulled the Dokkalfar assassin’s armor out of his inventory and set it on the desk in a neat display. He even pulled the throwing spikes a few inches from the bracers, showing them off. He’d been a merchant, at least in name, for almost as long as he’d known Gaius.
“Where did you get this?” Gaius asked.
“A young man brought it by my shop, and he told me the most exciting story. But first, my friend, why don’t you dig through those boxes and cabinets of yours and see if you can find us some wine?”
I LEANED TOWARD HORACE and whispered, “How do you know I’m from another world?”
Horace looked at me, or kind of in my direction, as if I were a little slow. “Why are you whispering?”
I straightened. “I wasn’t aware being from another world was commonplace.”
Horace shrugged. “It isn’t. But it isn’t unheard of. There are at least seven realms, one for each of the gods—the Realms of Time, Death, Order, Chaos, Invention, and the Monstrous Dimension.”
I counted them off in my head. “What about Gaia’s realm?”
Horace gave me that look again. “You’re in it. How did you get here without knowing where you were going?”
I took another drink to give myself time to think. “I guess things here have been a little different from what I expected.”
Henry, the innkeeper, returned with warm bowls of vegetable stew and two wooden spoons. There was also a hunk of bread in each bowl. “Here ya go, fellas. Enjoy.”
I should say something about stew. I don’t know much about my father’s family; my mother had me through IVF and never talked about the donor. But her family, from her siblings to Grandmom and the scattering of cousins back
on the Emerald Isle, were Irish to the core, so much so that Grandmom kept her name, and so did her daughter. It was probably why Pops, a proud Spaniard, went home to Spain when Grandmom died.
But I digress. I have feelings about stew. It’s not the best meat, the freshest vegetables, or the subtlest seasonings that make a stew. It’s time. Time is what takes a hodgepodge of often cheap ingredients and turns them into a thick, hearty dish of gravy and texture that warms the heart and settles the soul.
I took a bite and relaxed. It wasn’t Grandmom’s stew—couldn’t be without beef and tomatoes—but it was a passable pottage, which is peasant for “whatever the nobles didn’t pinch.” The carrots were tender, the potatoes present enough to give it weight, the turnips, onions, and leeks cut to just the right size so they weren’t overpowering, and there was just enough spice to make my lips burn as I worked my way through half the bowl. While many things seemed to mirror the economy of the ancient world, I was grateful the availability of salt, pepper, and various herbs wasn’t one of them.
When I felt like staying silent any longer would be rude, I said, “So what gave it away?”
Horace set his spoon down. “Well, no one from this world would be caught dead wearing that fabric,” he said, and grinned. “I felt it when I took your arm. Is that comfortable?”
“No.”
“Right. So it stands to reason anyone who’d been here for more time would have found something else to wear. And you leveled up, what, twice today?”
“I did.”
Horace tapped his nose. “I thought I felt the difference. A man your age—you’re twenty-eight?”
“Thirty-one.”
“A thirty-one-year-old in this world would be at least a level ten or eleven. Short of a quest from the gods and Gaia’s favor, there was no way for you to level up that many times in such a short timeframe.”