Slumrat Rising

Conjin felt off. Not in the sense of it being a trap. In the sense that Truth couldn’t feel the logic of the place. The geography threw him. It was another instance of Truth's education not giving him the language to describe something he intuitively experienced. All he could say was that the lack of a ring road felt weird. The sharply tapered triangle of the city narrowed as it ran inland, with the bulk stretching along the concave curve of the coast. It felt alien. Off. A city built for some inhuman purpose.

He jogged into the city, trying to figure out what would be a good base of operations. There was plenty of public transport, he was happy to see. Rail lines ran through the small city, radiating out from the port in more or less straight lines. The buses provided vertical support to the rail’s horizontal service, curving north-south along the bend of the coast. No central transit hub, he noticed, except for the port itself. There was an airfield north of the city, with a dedicated freight line from the port running to it. It plainly handled mostly cargo, with little passenger traffic.

Truth kept his eye out for anything that looked like a good place to crash. To his morbid amusement, his usual hotel trick probably wouldn’t work here. Most of the places he saw were hot-sheet motels with plastic-wrapped mattresses and well-fed air demons cleaning between the quarter-hour rentals.

Only slightly more upscale were the overnight spots for sailors on shore leave or the railroad workers. Those weren’t packed, exactly, but the turnover rate was so high any given room would be needed on a regular basis. No expensive “Supreme Golden Summit Deluxe Suite” here.

There was likewise a complete absence of high-end luxury condominiums, mansions, or attractive suburban homes. There were apartment buildings, yes. Quite similar to the slum blocks he grew up in, though shorter. There were some single-family houses, too, and they managed to look less welcoming and more unsafe than the tower blocks. Something about the way the long grass bent over the concrete steps into the houses, or the way the windows were open but all you could see inside was darkness.

Not cursed, Truth thought. At least not in the sense of needing an exorcist. It was just Jeon. And since this was Jeon, there should be an enclave of the rich and powerful here. Not many, maybe, in a place like this. But someone here got rich running the docks, and their house had to be somewhere.

Truth decided to combine house hunting with his actual job- finding the dead drop. Now, the instructions he had memorized said that to call for a meeting, he should break the window for an apartment above the Six Bells Bar on 135th Street. Except, the instructions didn't give him the cross street, so he had to trawl the length of the long road trying to find it. And he didn’t find it.

An hour of fruitless, depressing walking later, Truth gave up and started asking people where the bar was.

“Never heard of it.”

“You want a bar? My friends and I love to party. Come, come! We show you a real good time.”

“Nah, you want Lou’s, on 129th and Liberation Ave. Great wings.”

“Twenty wen, and I’ll take you there myself.”

“You don’t need a bar, honey. You need some company. I’m a lot of fun.”

“Isn’t that a folk music dive? I don’t listen to folk. Well, some of it’s ok.”

After a second fruitless hour, Truth was officially driven to the point of madness. He concluded that there were two reasonable approaches here. The first was summoning a demon, a being of unimaginable cruelty from Hell itself, and by certain signs and spells compelling it to provide directions to the bar. The other was asking a police officer. After weighing the pros and cons, Truth decided the demon was a safer bet.

Truth had a powerful moment of missing Thrush. The demon was stuck in its summoning token, which was in his duffel bag, buried next to the bird suit, way the Hell back in the mountains. It would be a minute until Truth could go and collect him again. Possibly even two minutes.

He found an office building with an impressively optimistic “Leases Available” sign, walked in, and found an empty office suite. He had a lot to choose from. Couldn’t imagine why everyone would be breaking their leases all of a sudden. He had a moment of sympathy for commercial landlords lasting the exact smallest unit of time theoretically possible and started carving the summoning glyphs into the concrete floor. They could just throw a rug over it. Or something. He was damned if he cared even slightly.

It was a pretty generic summoning, as he didn’t have a particular demon in mind and he was really grabbing the first available imp. He hesitated a moment, but figuring this was a port city, he opted for a water demon. Smarter than earth demons, not quite as smart as fire demons, lethargic and cold. Well, there were worse things.

Truth activated the formation, watching blue-green wash around the carved glyphs. A ball of brownish water condensed in the central circle. Truth made sure the bindings were in place, then spoke.

“You will be known as Drip. Your purpose is to give me directions to the place I seek. Upon doing so to my satisfaction, you will be rewarded with some of my cosmic energy. Fail to do so, or play any games with me, and I will see how much I learned about torturing demons.”

“As the Magus wills.” The voice was surprisingly soft and pleasant, obedient. “This little imp is happy to provide what guidance it can.”

“Good. Somewhere in this city is a drinking establishment known as the Six Bells Bar. It is located on 135th Street. Which is theoretically this street, but I cannot find it. Where is it.”

The ball of water rippled for a moment. “At the risk of angering the Magus, the Six Bells Bar is located on 135th Street in this very city.” Truth called the Tongue into his hand. There were infinite imps to summon, and he didn’t feel like getting creative in torturing this non-entity. “Ah! Mercy, Great One! It is in the city below!”

Truth checked his swing. “The city below?”

“Yes, Magus. This city exists in two parts- the part ashore for the slaves, and the part below, where their masters live. The Six Bells Bar is a reputable drinking establishment for those who have reached the third circle of the initiates realm. And any magus in this city above the first circle lives in the city below.”

“Below what?”

“The waves, Magus. The coastline drops quite sharply only a little ways off shore. A place of dreaming spires and flowing thoughts, drifting between twilight and night. Terrible things are born there, the sight of which inspires cruel laughter which rings through the halls and alleyways. A cold city, filled with colder people, trying to warm themselves with the blood and entrails of their kin.”

“You feel right at home?”

“I hate it and everything about it, Magus.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“My nature is cold and torment and lingering cruelty. The city seems a pale mockery of my task and calling. Mortals should live as mortals- clinging to the light and life those great ones bless them with, breeding and drawing warmth to one another.”

“Can’t understand the torments of Hell without knowing joy first?”

“Simply put.”

Truth knew demons well enough to translate that as “You have failed to comprehend even a tiny fraction of the meaning I expressed. I will use that fact to hurt you, given the slightest opportunity.” Imps talked sweetly when you had them bound, but that never made them safe.

“How do I get to the city below?”

“At the port, there is a private garage. In the private garage, there is a pool of water spirits. They will carry you to the city below once you prove your status.”

“Which status?”

“Full citizen or above, Level Two and above, Magus.”

“No proof of residency requirement?”

“None. It is common for ship captains to disembark from their ships and go directly to the city below.”

“I see.” Truth tried to think if he had any more questions. He did not. “Our contract is complete.” He poured the necessary magic into the spell, making the imp ripple slightly before it was banished. The thought of keeping him around never crossed his mind. One imp in his pocket was plenty. A second was begging for trouble.

He looked around the bare office space. It was, well, bare office space. The carpets had been ripped up. Holes in the wall were plastered over but unpainted. There were piles of construction waste scattered around, leftover trash from whatever business had operated here before. He’d rather hide out in the mountains. It had been a long day already, but he’d push on anyhow. Time to go to the city below.

It wasn’t hard to find the port. Finding the private garage in the port was a pain, as the carriages had their own entrances, and no signs were provided. The demon controlling the carriage would know the way, after all. Eventually, he just asked someone and began the long, boring trek through the warehouses, the stacked crates, the cranes, the rushing humanity. Even with the world collapsing, even with off-world exports blockaded, things moved around the seas.

He took a moment to admire the ships. These were cargo haulers, huge, towering things carefully engineered to survive rough seas and rougher sea demons. The fierce painted eyes on their prows darted around, even here at dock, alert for danger.

In a fit of nostalgia, Truth walked into one of the warehouses. There was the inspector, running his wand around the boxes as they came in. Waiting for it to turn green, then put his stamp on the crate. Two terminally bored guards leaned up against the wall, smoking. Not Starbrite, not PMC. Not looking away when the inspector just stamped boxes without checking them. No need these days. What did smuggling amount to now?

The thought was darkly funny. He didn’t give a damn about smuggling then, either. All that mattered was that it made his superiors happy and brought in extra cash. What did he care about the “law?” The law had never protected him or anything he cared about.

Oh, well, maybe “the law” had. He did go to a public school, after all. There were roads and subways and buses and all that. But those weren’t for him, really. They were for the rich people in the city, making sure the “help” could get where they were needed, when they were needed, with the skills that were needed. And if “the help” were already broken and made obedient by life, so much the better.

Truth shook off the odd moment and finished his walk to the private garage. There were security guards by the door, a recording talisman on every corner, and even some lightly concealed golems. A “high security” garage. He walked straight past them all, ignoring them every bit as much as they ignored him.

The garage was packed, though most of the carriages were covered by tarps. It seemed that this was a more long-term storage location. Not a lot of commuting from the city below, apparently. Made sense to him- he had only been in Conjin a few hours and he couldn’t wait to leave and never return.

If all the rich and powerful of Conjin lived in the City Below, then he wouldn’t be able to move unseen. It was usually better to adopt a low status, invisible persona, but under the circumstances, that was the wrong move. He needed his rich-prick persona. He frowned at the thought a moment, feeling the phoniness of the phrase.

What was the crux of the Sadistic Boss in all those romance novels? It wasn’t the money. It was the power. The money was just another way of exercising power. So important, so desperately needed by the heroine, and so worthless to the Boss. It was the gap in power that made them sexy and appealing. What she could never do, he could do in an instant. To sell the persona of a rich, powerful heir of an ancient, secret clan, his aura must be one of power.

There was a word for that sort of person. Prince. He was the prince of the ancient Medici Clan. Hidden for millenia, prospering invisibly all through the long centuries. Only making their move now, at the end of the world. The persona settled around him comfortably. His back straightened even further, his face grew colder.

There was a line of reclining chairs queued up by a waterway that led out of the garage and into the bay. By the pond was a staggeringly attractive water demon. He watched it morph into a more classically female form when he approached. It was guessing, but credit where it was due, it had an eye for aesthetics.

“May I see the honorable mages’ sigil and proof of rank?” The demon softly asked. It had been wonderfully trained. Truth presented it with the scribbled-on sigil of a high aristocrat and followed up with letting a trickle of his power reach the demon. It straightened up sharply and quickly bowed at the waist.

“My apologies, my Lord. Take whichever seat pleases you. It will be our honor to carry you to the true Conjin, the City of Dreaming Waters.

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