Thirty-Six
The carriage ride isn’t long, but there’s plenty of time for my brain, fogged by exhaustion, to finally pick its way through what Ky had been saying.
Heat creeps up under my collar, along with an urge to tell Alzimyth to go fuck himself and rush back to the house, but there’s no point now.
Besides, one doesn’t blow off an invitation from a visitor from Above, especially when he’s judging the tournament.
Alzimyth is staying in a small (by Hod standards) guest house not far from the tournament grounds.
In spite of its limited size, it practically groans under the weight of its decorations, the facade crammed with every precious material and aesthetic flourish Hod has to offer.
The overall effect is a little bit desperate, too eager to impress.
The runic carriage pulls around to the front door, and I immediately spot Gestian and Devon Dreikin outside, talking with heads together.
It occurs to me abruptly that this might be a trap, with a dozen Arbiters—or Quech and Vripiai—waiting in the shadows to tear me apart.
For a moment I wonder if I should flee. But the house’s massive door is already swinging open; Alzimyth strides out, waving the pair away as though they were servants.
I get out of the carriage and give them a pointed look as they retreat, getting a poisonous glare from Gestian in return.
“Taj,” Alzimyth says, ignoring the most powerful man on Hod. “Come in.”
I follow him into a magnificently appointed sitting room. Servants bustle after us, placing crystal glasses and a basket full of strange fruits on a small table. The knight waves them away impatiently. When we’re along, he pulls a metal flask from an inner pocket and offers it to me.
“Drink?” The corner of his lip curls upward. “I guarantee it’s nothing you’ve ever tasted.”
I hesitate, then nod. It seems to be a night for finding new flavors, and how often do you get to try a drink from Above, after all? Alzimyth pours a half centimeter of cloudy gray liquid into two glasses and hands me one, then stands waiting until I take a sip.
The taste is simple—a little acid, a little salt.
But it seems to unfold as it passes over my tongue, and keep unfolding, an expanding geometry of strangeness that opens up the inside of my head and splays the inner parts naked to the cool evening air.
I blink, not even aware of swallowing, and set the glass down on a table that suddenly seems a thousand kilometers away.
Fortunately, my arm is equally long and has acquired a dozen extra joints.
“That’s… interesting.” I shake my head. It feels like something inside sloshes back and forth. “Maybe a little strong for me.”
“Perhaps.” He tosses back his own glass and just breathes for a moment with a satisfied smile. “Are you looking forward to the final match?”
“I’m looking forward to winning,” I say, a little more forcefully than I intended. The strange sensations are fading, but my heart still pounds and my blood feels fizzy.
“Confidence,” Alzimyth says. “I respect that.” He sets the empty glass down beside mine. “And I understand you are not even from Hod?”
“I’m not.” I wonder if he’s about to call me a barbarian.
“One of the other levels, then.”
“Below them, even. On the floor of the cavern. We call it the Heap.”
“The… Heap.”
“Where all the junk ends up, after it falls from the”—I almost say Asshole, but I recall Ky’s more polite word—“terminus.”
The knight looks dubious. “People live there? Really?”
“Thousands.”
“Hmm.” He clasps his hands behind his back. “And you worked your way up, is that it?”
It comes to me that this man, this visitor from the surface and beyond, knows nothing about our world.
He’s never been beyond this one tiny part of Hod.
And his perfunctory tone—the forced manner of someone taking an interest for the sake of being seen to take an interest—makes it clear he doesn’t care, either.
Even the Ascent is irrelevant to him, a dull duty he has to perform for reasons far beyond my understanding.
So what is he doing here? And why summon me for a chat?
“In… a manner of speaking,” I tell him.
“Excellent. Initiative. Drive. All valuable.”
“Thank you.”
“And your runic.” His tone sharpens. “You told me you built it yourself?”
I nod.
“From… scraps.”
“For the most part.”
For some reason this earns me a chuckle. The knight leans forward, his narrow face taking on a conspiratorial air.
“And these weapons you’ve demonstrated in the last two rounds. The bombs, and the force blast that defeated the tiger. Did you find the sigils for those in your Heap?”
Alzimyth’s deep-set eyes bore into me. He knows, I realize. Somehow, he already knows.
“No,” I admit.
“And you didn’t buy them.”
“No. I drew them myself.”
“Ahhhhh.” The knight lets out a breath, and his smile widens. I should be excited at this visitor from Above taking an interest in me, but right now all I can feel is danger. His grin has something predatory in it.
“Half of Malkuth makes a living scribing sigils in the workhouses,” I venture. “I just thought I would try my hand, that’s all.”
“But you’d never seen the sigils you used in those weapons,” he says with complete confidence. “And yet you were able to draw them on your own.”
I swallow. “I suppose I got lucky.”
“Lucky.” He shakes his head slightly. “A flower growing in a dung heap.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t.” He reaches out to pat my shoulder awkwardly, giving the impression that he’s seen this gesture before but never had the chance to try it himself.
“Let me offer you a deal, Taj Fara. There’s no need for the risk of a final round against that brute.
Leave him his petty prize, and I will take you with me when I leave. ”
“Take me with you?” My head swims with the aftereffects of the liquor. “To where?”
“To a place your talents can find their fullest expression! I promise you will live in luxury beyond anything you can dream of. Whatever you desire—things you don’t even yet know you desire—you can attain.”
“I have family—”
“They will be provided for,” he says dismissively. “I will leave instructions with the Hod Council that they be kept in comfort for the rest of their lives. A direct edict from Above.” He chuckles again. “Is that sufficient?”
“I don’t understand,” I say again.
“Only natural!” He does the shoulder pat a second time. “Just say yes, and you will come to understand everything.”
“But why? Why me?”
He leans close, as though afraid of being overheard. “Because you are a sigilist, boy! You think it’s a small thing you’ve done, inventing your own sigils, but in all the world there are only a handful who can accomplish it. And the world is so much larger than you can possibly imagine.”
Sigilist. I’ve never heard the word before. Alzimyth’s eyes are shining, and for a moment my suspicion collapses. I want to trust him. I want to go Above, and find out what the Keter Apex is, and what being a Hesed Knight means. Most of all, I want to find out what I can really do.
“Ky. My sponsor. She needs the money from the tournament to—”
“She’ll have it. Double the grand prize.”
“And my family.” I hesitate. “It’s… very generous, what you’ve offered. But the thought that I’d never see them again…”
“In time, you can bring them to live with you,” Alzimyth says, waving a hand as though the matter is of little importance. “Once you’ve completed your training. Sigilists have a great deal of influence.”
My mouth is dry, my heart beating fast. “And Star will come along, I assume?”
“Ah.” Alzimyth withdraws a fraction, his expression hardening.
“It will. But it will become the property of your tutors, at least for a time.” Watching me, he adds, “It’s for everyone’s safety.
A sigilist’s creations are powerful, but they can also be extremely dangerous.
Eventually, you will learn enough that your control of Star will be unbreakable, and then it will be returned to you.
By then, of course, you’ll have crafted far more powerful runics of your own. ”
I pause and go quiet for a while. Alzimyth regards me sidelong, a complicated expression on his face.
“Speaking of Star,” he says with forced casualness.
“I had a question for you. Just a matter of curiosity. I can normally guess at a runic’s foundation sigil from their behavior; OBEY is different from PROTECT, and so on.
But Star is… unusual, and I find myself at a loss. Can you tell me what it is?”
All my distrust comes roaring back. There’s something wrong here, something nakedly avaricious in the knight’s expression.
It’s not just that he’s lying, although I think he is; it’s that he’s lying badly, and he doesn’t care.
As though, for all his praise, I’m beneath contempt. A child who’ll believe anything.
[Query: are you all right?]
Strong emotion sometimes leaks through my link to Star, and the last few minutes have been a whirlwind of it. I’m okay, I reassure him.
[Query: what are you doing out there?]
I close my eyes.
Right now, I’m about to tell the representative from Above to go fuck himself.
“I am obviously… very flattered,” I say after a few moments of silence. “But everything you’ve described sounds a little too good to be true.”
“It is too good to be true, for anyone else,” Alzimyth says. “Believe me. I could come here for generations and only find one or two with your talent.”
“Be that as it may. I think I’d prefer to ascend on my own merits.”
“You… what?” He stares at me, uncomprehending. “You… refuse?”
“I do.”
He chuckles weakly. “But that’s absurd.”
“Nevertheless.”
“I don’t think you understand what I’m offering you.”
“I’m sure I don’t. But that’s part of why I’m not going to take it.”
“This is foolish.” Alzimyth turns away from me, shaking his head, and stalks across the room. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Probably not.”
“You’ll likely die tomorrow, do you understand that? This Quech is the largest brute in a world of brutes.”
“Maybe. But I think Star and I can take him.”
“But why bother, it’s just—” He presses his palms against his forehead. “Apex defend us, the waste. How can I make you understand?”
“You don’t need to. I’ll fight tomorrow, and if I win I can go Above regardless, right?” Whether I actually plan to or not. “Once I know a little more we can meet again, and—”
“You arrogant little savage,” he snaps, all trace of friendliness gone from his tone.
“You think you’re being clever, don’t you?
But you’re like a baby crawling through a boiler room.
You look at your pathetic cage of a world and imagine that what’s beyond is more of the same.
” He lets out a long breath. “I can tell you this much. What you get for winning the Ascent isn’t a free pass to…
to Above, you understand? You get to continue the tournament.
And in the next round you and your little toy runic will be ripped to shreds before you can blink.
What I’m offering is so much more than that, a chance to become genuinely powerful—”
“But if I take it, you’ll own me, right?”
It’s exactly what I’d worried about, when Ky first made her offer. Going to Hod with her placed me completely in her world, in her power, with no appeal. But after Malkuth and the Heap and nearly dying more often than I can count, I trust Ky. I don’t trust Alzimyth farther than Star can throw him.
“It’s—” He glares at me. “It’s not like that.”
“Besides, Star is mine and nobody else’s.” That had rubbed me the wrong way, too. I certainly wasn’t going to hand him over to some tutor because they think he’s dangerous. I know what happens to dangerous things. “So I think I’ll take my chances.”
“You utter fool,” the knight growls. His jaw works back and forth, grinding his teeth. “I could take you. Have the Arbiters bind you and then drag you along.”
“I don’t think you can.”
“Don’t assume you know anything about what I can and can’t—”
“Because,” I interrupt, “if you could, I think you would have done it already. You wouldn’t go through this charade if you didn’t have to. It doesn’t suit you, you know.” I grin at him. “There are rules, aren’t there? And you can’t break them.”
“Worm,” he spits. “Insect. Even if you win tomorrow, all you’ll be is a roach, waiting for the first boot to smash it into paste.”
“You’ve never lived down in the Heap,” I tell him. “Stomping a roach is no easy business. The damned things just keep getting back up again.”