Chapter 24 #2
The priest folded his hands at his jeweled waist. “I imagine that idea might be difficult for someone from a godsforsaken land like yours. You never learned how to hear the call of divinity in your ear.” False, condescending empathy oozed from the priest’s words.
Sonofabitch.
Topp smiled and glanced out the window before responding. “I don’t need to hear a voice to know when someone’s full of shit. I can do that all on my own.”
The high priest pretended to be confused. “Why would I work to petition an audience for you when you hold such disregard for our practices? I couldn’t in good conscience call in my god to be greeted by such sacrilegious sentiment.”
Gods, this was why his father didn’t force him to do the endless meetings.
Inevitably, there always came a point where the bullshit was so thick that he cracked—and apparently, he wasn’t supposed to call the bullshit, bullshit.
That was offensive. People didn’t like that.
Too bad he didn’t care. “You’ll do it because I’ll pay you. ”
The priest nodded and considered this. “There is a high price, indeed, to feel the presence of the god of gods.”
Topp’s voice became dry. “How else would you pay for your tasteless art?”
He kept his composure as he waited for the priest to reveal his price. The price didn’t matter. Because whatever price they demanded was one he couldn’t pay. It wasn’t like he had access to the royal coffers—he’d left his own capital city in a wagon of corpses.
The priest adjusted his stance, his warm turquoise robes rustling with the movement. “Our house, as you can see, is not in need of funds.”
Topp grew impatient. “So, name your price.”
The priest finally dropped the polite veneer. “We want to know where the girl is. Your ex-girlfriend, betrothed? Wanted by the king of Kava and rumored to be courting death. So much mystery surrounds her, don’t you think?”
Topp fought his beast, overcome with the desire to grab his axes or divest this toad of the air in his lungs. Externally, his mask never slipped. “If it’s not her bounty or mine you’re after, then what could you possibly want?”
“Your father is readying to move into Sagondia. When the time comes and he marches into the White Sands, we want a bargaining tool to keep him out of our temple. We decided she’d be easier to hold than someone like yourself.
” The priest sniffed as if Topp was a wild animal better left outside than in their unholy temple.
Sagondia. Gods. They really were running out of time.
He expected his father to go after easier kingdoms, ones he could have ransacked without his foul powers, but Sagondia?
Garrison would have to sail the Valvere Sea and navigate the dense, jungle-ridden mountains that swept most of the land.
The roads weren’t straight or even connected, and the majority of villages and cities weren’t on maps because of their kingdom’s intense paranoia around outsiders.
Kava might have been a larger kingdom, but Sagondia was a military culture—every single child went through warfare and combat training no matter their economic status or eventual career goals.
They grew up believing attacks could happen at any time and that it was their duty to preserve the land and their people.
If it was true that the king planned to hit Sagondia first, then his father’s goal was to eviscerate any and all hope within the less defense-oriented kingdoms. If Sagondia fell, then so could anyone.
Topp met the priest’s eyes with steady ease. “I have no idea where she is, but trust me, you couldn’t hold her if you found her. The woman’s like an eel.” And he meant that as a compliment.
The high priest’s eyes darkened. “I suggest finding her if it’s an audience you want.” With that, he stalked out, robes flaring as the door slammed in anger.
Instantly, the air within the room began to pressurize until Rollie waved his arms and clapped his hands in front of Topp’s face. “HEY. Don’t you dare make thunder in here, you overgrown assmunch. Go outside if you want to do that.”
The pressure vanished as Topp cracked a grin despite himself. “Did you just call me an assmunch?”
“I’ve called you worse,” Rollie muttered. He eyed Topp suspiciously as if he might strike him with lightning for such a statement.
“You’ve been calling me names since we were kids. You told my girlfriend to break up with me repeatedly for years. Do you really think I’m going to lash out at you now?”
“Like I know what you’re going to do. You almost just ruined our chances to assuage your masculine ego.”
“My masculine ego?” He couldn’t be serious. “That would have involved punching that twat in the face.” Which he hadn’t.
“Yes,” Rollie shot back. “Ohhh, they insulted my ex-girlfriend’s honor. I must rage like an animal now.”
“Are you done?”
“Are you done jeopardizing this mission?”
“Mission?” More amusement crept into Topp’s voice.
“What else do you call this?” Rollie filled himself a glass of water. “I think we should bargain with them. Pretend we can get Elysia.”
He disagreed. “They couldn’t get us an audience with their god even if they wanted to—look at this place. There’s no god here. You’d be more likely to find the guy in Kava.”
Rollie rested on a matching wicker chair and stared out the glass doors that led to the balcony. Dark green plants rustled in the breeze and a tiny lizard darted along the railing. “You might be right. What do you know about the original god—not the one they claim now?”
“He was a god of storms and beasts. Nature oriented. About as far from a god of wealth as you can get.”
Rollickus raised his eyebrows and stared at Topp as if he was waiting.
“What?”
Rollie grunted in impatience. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“I think you should operate under the assumption that what is obvious to you is generally not obvious to others.”
Rollie’s brow crinkled. “Interesting thought, but the goddess of pleasure stated that neither of us are her children, implying we belong to other houses. I think you could be one of the storm god’s mortals.”
Topp scoffed. “Should I run around calling out for my storm sky daddy? See if he answers?”
Rollie threw him a look and opened the glass patio doors wide to stand in the breeze. He kicked a dusty shoe at the shiny white walls. “Somewhere beneath all of this nonsense is the original temple, correct?”
He stepped past Rollie out onto the balcony. The smell of roasted meats and spices beckoned him to forget the temple and wander the streets in search of meat and fruit and sun. Maybe drink until his brain no longer knew how to rage or grieve, but only how to breathe and piss.
He leaned his hands against the balcony, forcing himself back to the conversation at hand.
“That’s what I was told. Not sure how much was demolished to build this monstrosity.
” He stared at a statue of what was presumably the god of the undead gods holding his own gilded cock. And people thought he was arrogant.
Rollie chewed his lip. “Just how destructive can your magic be?”
Topp’s eyes slid to Rollie with a grin. “Are you asking me to desecrate a temple, Rollickus Timmons?”
Heat crept up Rollie’s face, mixing with his sunburn, and he adjusted his glasses. “Turning in Elysia isn’t an option, and I think it could work.”
Topp had to agree. There wasn't a single bone in his body that believed the sleazy priests would be able to conjure a god even if they handed Elysia over tied up in ribbons and bows.
A smirk stretched across his face as he pushed off the balcony. He didn’t care whether it worked or not. He was going to destroy this shithole. He pointed at Rollie. “Best advisor the Crown’s ever had.”
Topp finally had his sandwich of spiced roasted meats. Sauce dripped down his arm, and in between bites, he sipped on a cool rose mint tea. It was exactly what he had wanted.
At least it would have been, if he wasn’t eating it with an arrow pointed at his chest. The man staring at him had a strange handheld contraption loaded with an arrow, and he had no doubt it would hurt like the underrealm if the man decided to shoot him.
Rollie, oblivious, was arguing with the shopkeeper in the common tongue they had all learned as children of the Crown over the price of powders.
Powders that Topp was afraid to ask about but would undoubtedly cause destruction when wielded by Timmons.
All in all, not the worst evening he’d had. He took another bite and smiled with his cheeks full of meat at the sweaty, portly man still holding him at arrowpoint. He swallowed.
“What’s that called?” He gestured at the device currently dipping a little too low for his comfort.
The man just grunted.
Right. He glanced at Rollie, who was now fixing the shopkeeper with the famous Rollickus Timmons you’re dumber than shit stare while the man babbled about price margins and something about illegal substances.
Rollie marched over, knocking the man’s arrow device out of the way as he grabbed Topp and pulled him aside with his gaze hard on the shopkeeper. “How good are you at stealing?”
Topp looked at him. The man was dead serious. Wanted him to swipe the gods only knew what while the shopkeeper and grunting enforcer were close enough to smell their breath. How were smart people so dumb?
“Not that good.”
Rollie heaved a sigh through his nose. “Sorry about this.”
Topp’s brow creased, but Rollie’s pale hands were already launching him with unexpected strength straight into the enforcer.
Their large frames tangled, arms grasping for balance and pulling down wooden shelving as they crashed.
Spices and herbs poofed into a nose-tickling aromatic cloud, both men now sneezing as they rolled.
Rollickus was busy shoving goods into a cloth crossbody bag and yelling for Topp to get off his ass, but the enforcer had already wrapped a sweaty forearm around his neck, squeezing in hopes of cutting off his air.
He was going to kill Rollie. Slamming his head backward, he broke the man’s nose and sent his elbow at a sharp, downward angle, driving into the man’s groin.
There was a strange pew sound and rush of air, and then Topp let loose the roar of a wounded animal.
The bastard had fired that child-sized weapon straight into his ass from no more than a hair away. He shook off the enforcer and clambered to his feet, stomping on the weapon before ripping the arrow out of his ass and throwing it at the man’s face.
Chest heaving and blood pouring out his ass, Topp glared at Rollie standing over the shopkeeper, who now had a smattering of a dark purple powder smeared on his face. Rollie shrugged. “He’ll be okay in an hour or two.”
Topp made a restrained noise and practically flung Rollie outside.
They hustled through the masses of people, darting in and out of perfume- and sweat-scented bodies, squinting in the light of the lowering sun.
Several streets away, they ducked under a colorful awning in front of a fruit stand with their hands on their knees and breaths heavy.
“Your buttock is bleeding.”
Unbelievable. “Yes, Rollie, my ass is bleeding because you threw me at a man with a weapon and no warning.”
Rollie stood with his hands clasped behind his head as he tried to catch his breath. “I needed those powders.”
“And I need to not die!”
Rollie let out a petulant sound. “Sorry.”
“I take back what I said about you being an advisor. You’d have me dead within weeks.”
Rollie’s head went side to side as he considered this before finally conceding. “That is possible. But that doesn’t negate me being an excellent advisor. Case in point, we got the powders we needed, and your butt will be fine.”
Topp wiped sweat from his stinging eyes. “Let’s just get back to the temple before you get us killed.”