Truth sat on a bench, watching the people pass. Nobody looked happy. Most looked indifferent. Truth was from Jeon, though. That wasn’t apathy. That was their mask. The thin lips, stiff shoulders, and quick steps. The way people shoved in front of each other over minuscule advantages, like the first to cross the street when the light changed.
Then the mask slipped. People shoving each other, screaming to get at time-limited sales. Yelling at their kids, their families, or lovers. He saw a manager dress down a waiter right on the street, then fire him. Screaming abuse. “Take off your apron and get out! I’m deducting what you cost me from your last paycheck! In fact, you are lucky I don’t sue you!” Red-faced with anger, as the waiter stared at their feet. Their face an apathetic mask.
Eating the hate. Eating the humiliation. Truth knew that taste very well. How long until the waiter rebels? Well… how long had it taken Truth?
The waiter wouldn’t rebel. He couldn’t see through all the fists the world was throwing at him. All his plans, his dreams- meaningless. The waiter was wrong to dream. Wrong to hope. He had no agency, no choices. He wasn't even allowed to serve his masters joyfully. See? His life was ruined at the manager’s whim.
What was it that the fat man in his vision had said? Something about the best argument for a boss on earth was a boss in heaven? Sounds right. Well, Starbrite was the heavens, and this world had all kinds of local bosses.
Why did that demon get summoned, and why did the plates blow up? Why was everything rigged to explode? The plates obviously came from Starbrite, a security mechanism, but the demon thing? He hadn’t heard of any demon outbreaks, so presumably, this wasn’t super-common. Was it just Huelle? If so, why? Not enough information. About anything. He stood up from the bench. He would go back to De’Porte, collect his fee for the Huelle hit, and line up the next job. Get more information. Keep pushing the System Astrologica towards collapse.
He stood, dusted himself off, and went. Some part of him wanted to “deal” with the manager. He ignored it. There were bigger rats to hunt.
____________________________________________
“You do good work, but you can’t be here. Take the money and go.”
“Wait, what?” Truth was startled. He wasn’t expecting this from DePonte.“You look like you got rolled. I have seen actual bums better put together than you. You are damaging the vibes here just by existing, and the club isn’t open yet. Look, you want more work? Wothera Hersch, hotel manager at the Hanging Orchid Hotel on Czerni Square. I’m only paying you if you turn up in new, clean clothes and don’t smell.”
It had been a while since he had a shower, hadn’t it? The whole “people aren’t allowed to be aware of you without permission” thing was clearly affecting his grasp on normal behavior. Alarmingly fast. Actually, couldn’t he turn that off? But then the infinite surveillance systems of Jeon would pick him up in no time, with all the horror that would cause.
“Fair enough. I’ll do that.”
“Good, good. Now go get her, and don’t come back until it’s done. Until it’s ALL done.”
____________________________________________
Occupancy was unsurprisingly low at the Hanging Orchard Hotel. Czerni Square was just off of what passed for the financial district in this little city- a place of glass and steel monuments to unfounded optimism. To maximize rentable floor space, the developers built the towers right up to the edge of the narrow sidewalk, and in several cases, the sidewalk was actually covered by the overhang of the building. It always creeped Truth out, seeing a narrow stem holding up an entire skyscraper. Spells at work, presumably.
Dark, windy, and cold. That was the financial district at three in the afternoon. He went to the hotel front desk.
“Hi, I’m supposed to be meeting Ms. Dechau. I think she’s in the Presidential Suite?”
“Are you sure? We don’t have a Presidential Suite. Our Grand Deluxe Supreme Diamond Suite is currently unoccupied. Want me to look her up in the book?”
“Please.”
A few moments later.
“I don’t see her name here.”
Truth sighed. “Looks like I got stood up.”
“Sorry.”
“Maybe it’s my clothes. Any good stores around here?”
“Depends on your budget. There is a Marq’s right in Czerni Square. Maybe try there.”
“Thanks.”
Truth took the elevator as high as he could go without a keycard, then the stairs the rest of the way up. Eggshell paint over cinderblock. Same everywhere. Supposedly, the doors were locked on the stairwell side. Seems people were no longer bothering with such basic precautions.
He found the suite without too much trouble. When he was a bodyguard for Starbrite, hotel doors were notoriously easy to bypass. He was trained to always put a wedge under the door and, if possible, his own wards. Now presumably, in the last five years, they had…
Done absolutely nothing, and it’s the same exact lock! Truth swore. It was too damn embarrassing. Five years! Five whole years! More, even! And they are still using the same crappy locks. Why? Why be so dumb? Then he felt depressed. Money. Changing locks costs money. So why not keep them? Not like it was their stuff getting stolen.
He took a thorough shower. The shampoo and conditioner had a wonderful smell- some kind of cool, not-quite-mint smell, and it made his scalp tingle. The soap was pretty great too- some kind of bright citrus. There were no towels, of course. There was a water expulsion enchantment right along the edge of the walk-in shower that simply trapped all the steam and wet inside. You walked out dry as could be. They did, however, provide impossibly fluffy bathrobes. Truth tried one on. Too small. Damn.
He flopped onto the bed. Too many questions and not enough answers. Not even enough leads to answers. Too soon to get depressed. He enjoyed the mattress a minute longer, removed all traces of himself from the room, and went to get himself a new set of clothes.
___________________________________________
Wothera Hersch, hotel manager at the Hanging Orchard Hotel on Czerni Square, was solidly in her middle years. Level One, with no ambitions of climbing higher. No ambitions beyond hanging on to this job, as far as Truth could tell. She had a perpetual customer service smile in public, but the second she thought she was alone in her office, the smile fell off her face. She just looked tired. Scared. She must not have known about the recording talisman in the ceiling, watching her every move, reporting it up the corporate ladder.
Or perhaps she did and was so beaten she stopped trying to hide her fear. She was certainly keeping a close eye on her employees through the discreet recording talismans covering the lobby, hallways, break rooms, and even the staff-only toilets. Can’t have them getting high on the job, Truth guessed. Or stealing from the guests.
She did not have a swollen pitz ball for a belly. She was slim, prematurely aging, and so utterly ordinary Truth couldn’t stand it. He casually searched the office around her and found nothing of interest.
Out of sheer frustration, he dumped out her almost overflowing wastepaper basket and had a poke around. She got a mountain of junk mail. Entire magazines of products she clearly didn’t want to buy, offers to supply cleaning chemicals, invitations for “a quick chat about your laundry services solutions provider,” and a host of other things that she couldn’t even ask corporate to approve.
It was bleakly funny. “Hotel Manager” sounded like an important job. You supervised an awful lot of people. But in the grand scheme of things? Just another slumrat, barely distinguishable from the rest. Truth poked through the letters, flyers, and magazines with morbid interest. Lots and lots of job applications. She had only unfolded them enough to check what they were, then tossed them directly in the trash. Some envelopes didn’t even get opened.
Truth picked up a particularly spicy looking one. Handwritten label on a heavy paper envelope. No enchantment, so it was clearly carried here by hand rather than turned into a spell bird. Something quite heavy in the envelope, sliding around. “To The Breeder Hersch: The Best Offer You Will Get.”
He’d have thrown it in the bin too. He tore open the side, remembering the many, many warnings he had heard about opening envelopes from the long edge. The contents spilled out onto a table- a letter, and a two centimeter wide coin shaped silver token. The letter read-
To the Breeder Hersch-
The name was in a different handwriting, clearly made to fit in the line.
Congratulations! On behalf of the Jeon Society of Social Renewal, I am happy to inform you that you have been selected as a future Mother of the Nation. As one of the candidates for the first round of our highly exclusive executive development program, you will be provided with the training, equipment and network necessary to ensure that you not only survive these trying times- you will turn calamity into triumph!
To ensure the privacy and security of our Mothers, we provide a significant weekly stipend and 24/7 security from high-level specialists. To get a full breakdown of both our privacy rules as well as the program benefits, please squeeze the included token in your left hand, and say “I accept the Terms and Conditions.” Your first stipend and personal security service will be provided at once by special courier.
I am truly excited to be working with you. Together, we shall make Jeon the land of dreams it was always meant to be.
Sincerely,
The Enlightened Runcible Bosch, J.D., D.Thaum,
Vice-President For Human Resources, JSSR
Well, he had seen scammier letters. Not… a lot scammier. Maybe some of the flyers Mom brought home from her various MLM’s. Those were always shady as hell. Even as a kid, he could smell the lies on them. Though, in fairness to Mom, they didn’t whiff of the literal infernal the way this thing did.
Hadn’t thought about Mom in a while. Happy thought- maybe she was already burning in Hell.
He gingerly picked up the token. On one side was a goat’s face, wise looking with its little beard. The longer he looked at the goat’s eyes, the more he was convinced this goat had seen things. Terrible things. It had survived, but now it wanted to show those terrible things to many, many others.
On the reverse was a landscape of a brilliant sun hanging over rolling hills dotted with towers. Probably very symbolic, but of what, he didn’t know. The edges were deeply milled. The milling looked odd, a matte color when you would expect them to be shiny. He brought the token closer to his eye and squinted. Then squinted harder.
System-
>
What exactly is this?
> Truth could feel the System gasping with laughter. Some sick bastard wrote an entire demon possession contract on the milling on the token. Talk about reading the fine print! That’s genius.>>
A demon possession contract?
>
Wait… wasn’t Huelle a man?
>
Speaking as a Level Four human, it’s pretty damn relevant!
literal demon needs an literal womb any more than the maggots breeding in an open wound.>>
Truth “admired” the token a bit more. Oh, that’s extra dumb. Huelle’s guards. He didn’t have ‘em because he had the demon and probably didn’t understand what he agreed to. The prick was too cheap to pay for human guards when he had a “free” demon.
> The System agreed.
Truth pocketed the letter, envelope, and token, then tidied up the spilled trash as a thank you for the lead. Then, out of sheer mischief and because he did have an outstanding contract on Manager Hersch, he whispered in her ear-
“There is no end to this. They are always going to make you scared, right up until they take it all away from you. Time to start thinking about what you need to feel good. This story will never have a happy ending. So what do you need to be happy right now? People only pretend the rules still apply, but we all know that’s a lie. They don’t apply at all, at least if you have guts. Time to do whatever the hell you feel like, and if they don’t like it, they can come at you. Better than being scared all the time.”
He had no idea if the idea would take, but it would be pretty interesting to see if anything came of it. For now, he had a lead. Time to track down The Enlightened Runcible Bosch.
_______________________________________
Truth sat at his workstation in his favorite office- a random bench just off a busy street. “Bench” might have been an over-generous description. It was poured concrete in the rough shape of a bench but with a three-centimeter peak running along the middle of it to discourage rough sleepers. This, obviously, was not useful for his purposes, so he used his Level Four privilege to smooth it out with Incisive. Now that the surface was glass smooth and perfectly level, he got to work.
The talisman he was making was carved on a little metal disk he cut out of a bit of street sign. He punched a little hole and hung it from a lanyard. Then, with exacting care, he started carving. The pattern was quite simple, but the consequences of messing it up could be dramatic. Steadily, steadily, that was the way. He thought about adding a few embellishments he learned in Siphios. Strictly speaking, they were redundant, but there was no real reason he couldn’t. He added them in.
The carving got him thinking. You were supposed to do ten hours of class work per year to keep your Talisman Maintenance Tech Certification current. He was well behind on that. He should pick up some books on the subject while he was here in Jeon. Siphios had its advantages, but Jeon simply blew them out of the water in terms of Talisman design and technology.
Truth carefully finished tracing the little channels, checked he had all the geometry correct, and verified the variables. All was as it should be. He smiled a little. Then added a few more refinements just in case.
He pressed the talisman gently on the stone and ran a thread of cosmic energy through it. “By the Laws of the Most Holy, by the Names of ZHR YHIVI, RHW DMW, NXJQ and G’RXT, by the Terror and Obedience owed to those most high, and by my own will, I summon you! Appear before me in a form pleasing to the eye at once!”
There was a distortion in the air, a shuddering feeling. A heartbroken cry as a mother watched her child drown in front of her-
“Knock it off, wiseass.”
“How good to see you once again, Dread Magus,” murmured Thrush.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter