RE: Monarch

I was outside the apothecary when he found me, leaned up against the back wall and out of sight from the main road that passed by the apothecary and led into the mercantile district.

I held my pipe to my lips and cautiously puffed, careful to take only a small amount into my lungs. The yellow-green mix of herbs cherried red and blackened. Bitter, but it wasn’t supposed to taste good. Then there was an explosion of stinging in the back of my throat and I lapsed into a fit of coughing.

It was the damn nettles. It didn’t seem to matter what I did to them, how I cured or soaked or prepared them, they always stung. The positive psychological effects were immediately undercut by the physical discomfort.

My alchemy had grown by leaps and bounds, becoming innately tied with the process of apothecary itself, and I’d begun to experiment. At the time I was looking for a less-expensive, more efficient replacement for some key components in the mage-bane potion. And it wasn’t going well. After a few weeks of fruitless experimentation I was almost ready to throw up the white flag.

“Excuse me ser, I have this rash. It won’t go away.”

I closed my eyes in irritation. I’d made a habit of taking my breaks at the back of the apothecary for a reason. The locals had grown used to me, and now, peppering the child-prince on matters of apothecary had become something of a daily novelty. Casikas appreciated the extra business, but still, it grated when it took me away from more important things.

Still, I had a business to represent. I said without looking at the offered arm, “If you’ll head in through the front door and take a seat in the waiting room, the master apothecary is in and should be able to see you within the hour.”

“A quality rebuff. Chilly, without being anything less than polite.” The infernal chuckled. A familiar, warm sound, and the smile broached my face before I looked up. Kilvius was grinning down at me, sleeve still rolled up, his skin pristine.

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. That looks like a case of severe hypochondria. Terminal.” I stepped forward and offered an arm. He hugged me instead, and I felt an irritating crawl of emotion in my chest. I held my still burning pipe out to the side, so the smoke didn’t mar his clothes with scent, and after a moment, I hugged him back. “It’s good to see you, my friend.”

“And you as well.” Kilvius stepped away and flicked an overly long lock of blonde hair out of my face. “Lord below, what have you done with your hair?”

“Thinking of growing it out.”

“With that oval, effeminate face? Really?”

“Fuck off,” I said, but the frank evaluation drew a laugh out of me regardless.

Kilvius pointed to my pipe. “What’s this?”

“A failed experiment.” I sighed.

He took the pipe from me and held it to his lips. I almost warned him, but decided to have a little fun at his expense for comment on my features. It wasn’t my fault I took after my mother. To my great disappointment, Kilvius didn’t cough, but his light eyes immediately took on a glossy, reddish tinge.

“I see your problem,” he said, his voice rasping.

“It’s awful, really. Can’t seem to find a balance. At this point, it’s probably better if I just move on.”

“Maybe. But you have a tendency to give up to early.” Kilvius took another, shallower pull from the pipe.

“And here I thought you didn’t smoke.”

He rolled his eyes and breathed out. “Trying to be a good influence on my wife doesn’t make me a saint. Legacy of a misspent youth and so on. Alright, so I can feel the calming effect.” He focused inward and frowned. “Maybe slightly more focused?”

I took the pipe back from him and dumped the ash into the gutter. “Ever taken an iron-lung potion?” When he nodded, I continued. “Then you know it has a strong calming effect. Sharpens awareness. Reduces anxiety to almost nothing, makes it easier to think under pressure. To plan, even when everything’s burning down around you.”

“And you wanted a method of recreating that without it costing a golden sliver every time.” Kilvius mused.

“Exactly. The effect is almost invaluable, but only almost. It’s exorbitantly expensive.”

“And are you looking to reduce costs out of mere frugalness? Or because you want an inexhaustible supply?” Kilvius asked. There was no judgement in his voice, but I knew he must have been thinking of the vurseng.

I frowned, and let the silence hang. There was an undeniable upside to having people who knew me intimately, knew my weaknesses and foibles. The downside was moments like this, where any justification or excuse I made would be seen through immediately. I knew it as well as he did: I was looking for an edge at best, or a crutch at worst. The only difference between the two was the quantity I managed to get my hands on.

Kilvius leaned against the apothecary building next to me. “Back in the old days, when I was running with Persephone, we had a pre-job ritual.”

“Oh?”

“We’d pour a shot of the strongest liquor we could find. And I do mean strong. Foul.” He wrinkled his nose. “Pure rotgut. Our resources were limited, so usually something someone had distilled in a sink of questionable cleanliness.”

I shuddered. I’d gone through a firewater phase back in Whitefall, after Lillian had disappeared, when the traditional spirits no longer felt strong enough, and I stopped caring about petty things like taste. The only thing that stopped me was a—thankfully temporary—loss of sight in one eye.

“Ah. You’re familiar with it.”

“A bit.”

“It always calmed me, more than I thought it should. And I was something of an expert.” He chuckled. “Always drank more than I smoked. Anyway I pestered Persephone about it. Wanted to know what exactly went into the ritual drink. She brought me in the other room and let me watch. Before she poured, she took a pinch of red powder and put it into the bottom of the glass.”

I blinked. Based on Kilvius’s background and the description, it could only really be one thing. “Ether dust?”

He leveled a look. “You really know more about these things than you should.”

I recited the symptoms from my knowledge of the golden poppy it came from. “Heightened acuity, mild time dilation, at the cost of delusions of grandeur and eventual psychosis.”

“I was furious.” Kilvius leaned his head against the wall. “I thought she’d been building up our dependence, using it to keep us in line.”

“But it wasn’t that?”

“No. Turns out, if you keep the dose small, spread out—and again, we weren’t insane. We only hit the big jobs every couple of weeks—you get the benefits of a partial dose. Tranquility under fire, a somewhat ungodly confidence, with very little of the downsides.”

I considered that for a moment. Replacing the problematic nettles with the ether poppy instead. I’d need to test it, but it could potentially work with some replacement and rearrangement of the rest of the ingredients. A possible solution. The downside was, due to the nature of the poppy, I wouldn’t be able to use it as a crutch. Which I suspected was at least part of the reason Kilvius had been willing to share this particular anecdote.

“It’s hard to picture,” I admitted.

“Using the poppy?”

“No. You being the person you were.” I looked over at him and raised my hand up and down. “You’re so… decent. Well-adjusted and responsible. A proper family-man.”

His eyebrow raised. “As opposed to the lying, thieving rogue doing ether laced shots?”

“Well, yes.”

“It didn’t happen overnight, I can tell you that.” He laughed. “But Nethtari never gave up on me. She was just starting out back then, didn’t know how to distance herself professionally. Took everything so damn personally. Almost tanked her own career pulling my ass from the fire.”

“She changed you?” I asked. I’d heard some of the story, but only bits and pieces.

“It was…” he hesitated. “It was less that she changed me. More that she made me want to change. To be a better person. She believed in me, when no one else did. I didn’t know what to do with that. Saw passed the angry orphan. Saw something else.” His eyes glazed over. “I thought she was a fool. Naive. Figured she’d spook at the first sign of trouble and leave me out to dry the way so many others did. But she stayed with me. She raised me up. And at some point, I guess I caved and decided to start being the man she thought I was.”

A face flickered up in my mind. I banished it, as quickly as it appeared. “It raises an interesting question. Causality. Was the change spontaneous? Or were you always that person, somewhere deep down?”

“Who knows?” Kilvius stepped away from the wall and cracked his knuckles, one at a time. He looked at me seriously, his face devoid of the usual humor and mirth. “But I’ll tell you the same thing I told Jorra. You find someone like that, you grab on. You grab on and never let go. And if the world says otherwise, well, fuck the world.”

“Sage words,” I said, and replaced the pipe in my pocket.

“You’re welcome to dinner. It’s Nethtari’s night. She’s making a curry.” His smile returned.

My stomach rumbled. Damn him. He knew exactly what he was doing, offering me that. Nethtari’s curry was to die for. “Depends on what time I finish here. Need to get this mixture right. Sooner, rather than later.”

“Of course. Open offer.” He waved and disappeared around the front of the apothecary.

----

“Wake up Saladius,” I hissed to Vogrin. I moved in silent concert with Maya and Jorra to gather our things, stuffing items frantically into bags. Bell sat on the edge of her cot, fidgeting as we worked. She had wanted to help, but we told her to save her strength. I snuck a glance at her as I packed. Her forehead was dotted with a half-dozen beads of sweat. It meant that her fever was broken, but she looked pale and nervous. I didn’t know how much help she’d be.

“He’s already awake.” Vogrin said.

“I thought they were on their way out.”

“They were.” Vogrin said, emphasizing the last word with irritation.

“Why didn’t you warn me sooner, as soon as they changed directions?”

“Because I am not omniscient.” He snapped. “You knew this. Constant surveillance was not possible, unless you want to be completely drained of mana at the first sign of trouble.”

Maya put a hand on my arm, and I breathed, trying to calm myself. “Fine. Fine. When did they diverge from the trail?”

“Best estimate?” Vogrin cocked his head from side to side. “Two, maybe three hours ago.”

I froze in the middle of attaching my bedroll to my travel pack. The numbers didn’t add up.

“They’re not here yet.”

“No.”

“But the perimeter was breached?”

“Correct. A third party, I would guess.”

Dammit. The associate Thoth warned me about. He would be a mage. A good one. That was far worse than a band of infernal children showing up on our doorstep. My mind began to race. This whole situation reminded me of Kholis. Being surrounded on all sides. Only, the variables had changed. My companions were less experienced in some ways but more powerful in others. Vogrin had given us an edge. An early warning before the pincer could snap closed.

“I can’t find my extra control orbs,” Jorra said, panic rising in his voice. He was referring to the beads of water sown into his whip that gave him higher control.

“Leave them.” I said, trying to curtail the panic.

“But—“

“Jorra,” Maya cut in, “We’re already outnumbered. Time is critical. If we take too long we lose our ability to control the battlefield.” I caught Maya’s gaze for a moment. She’d steeled herself. There was none of the latent panic from our encounters before the sanctum. She was ready for this, perhaps she’d been ready since the moment we left the heart. Still, I felt for the others. Bell and Jorra. Outside of sparring and training this was the first time either of them had been in this kind of situation, and they were up against their own.

“Don’t panic,” I said. “Focus on everything you need to do, one task at a time.”

“Okay,” Jorra said, “Okay.”

I bent down in front of Bell, “Can you walk?” I asked.

“I think so. It’s not as bad today,” she said, her voice small, quiet. She stood with an audible grunt and swayed on her feet. No. That wasn’t going to work. I shifted my pack and hefted her up onto my back. She made a surprised noise and looped her arm around my neck, careful not to choke me. It always caught me off-guard how small her hands were, considering her strength.

“Are we going to kill them?” She asked. The words carried to Jorra, who paused, listening for the answer.

I thought about it. They outnumbered us. They were likely stronger and more experienced. It might come down to that. But no. I didn’t like the precedent it set. Playing by Thoth’s rules.

I shook my head. “Not if we can help it.”

She didn’t answer, and I took that as silent assent. We assembled in the main room behind Elder Saladius, who stood in thin night clothes, staring at the door. He had no visible weapons.

“Whoever this is,” Elder Saladius said slowly, his words stone sober. “He thinks he’s hot shit.”

“He’s here?”

“Nearby,” Saladius confirmed. “But he’s not hiding. He’s leaking aura, to the extent I genuinely doubt it’s anything but intentional.”

The words clicked. “He’s baiting you,” I realized.

“That would be my assumption, yes.”

The intent was to divide, then. I worked through it, slowly. We had two options. Retreat, or move forward. Thoth’s associate had likely been the one to alter the path of the roving infernals, sending them towards us. He wouldn’t be a heavy-hitter, then. Or at least not so heavy he felt confident in fighting us all with no backup. Something else. Something more underhanded, maybe. Now he was presenting himself. The goal was clear: to flush us out, divide us from Saladius and use the infernals to pick us off. Vogrin had missed him, which made me suspect he’d been aware of the scouting and intentionally avoided it. Assuming that, it made sense that his intent was to make us retreat the way we'd come.

Which meant we had to move forward through the incoming group.

Elder Saladius looked us over, just a touch of fondness in his face before he opened the door and stepped out. We followed behind him. It wasn’t dark, exactly. There wasn’t much to mark the passage of time within the sanctum, but the light was dimmer, the sand cool. Elder Saladius stared at a distant outcropping.

The man in the cowl stared back.

My breath caught. It was him. The one that had laughed before anyone else in Whitefall, the night of the attack. The one that had been waiting for me alongside Thoth when I woke up in the carriage that first day in the Everwood.

Elder Saladius didn’t blink. Didn’t break his gaze for a second. Then he stretched his arms and yawned, looking utterly unconcerned by the situation.

“Cairn,” He said. It was the first time he’d spoken my name.

“Yes?” I asked.

“The sanctum can be a trial, even in the best of circumstances. Keep your head. Make sure they keep theirs. Don’t lose yourself in this place.” The wind ruffled his nightgown.

“I will.” I promised. “Will you be okay?”

“Of course.” Elder Saladius grinned. “I’ve been waiting for this for a very, very long time. Go.”

We turned and ran, away from the exit, in the direction of the infernals that had been chasing us. Distantly, I heard the cowled man laugh once more. 

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