Slumrat Rising

Truth picked the first recliner and got comfortable. Then convulsively shivered and got even more comfortable. This might well be the single most comfortable chair he had ever sat in. Supportive, yet soft. Ergonomically designed to make you feel almost weightless, as the body weight is distributed and diffused through the dense cushions. He didn’t know what material it was upholstered with. It felt soft, softer than velvet, and even more smooth. He even liked the sage green color.

“Are the chairs for sale?”

“I believe they have been discontinued, my Lord,” murmured the water demon. “They were produced by the Ghale and Penn Company, a local firm, which was bought out by Vamri some five years ago. They maintain an office in Conjin if you wish to demand they recreate it.”

Truth just nodded. He hid his dissatisfaction. He didn’t have anywhere to ship the chair. Sending it to Siphios would be a spectacularly dumb way to break Op Sec. When you got right down to it, he wasn’t big on furniture beyond the occasional gangster sofa. And yet, he WANTED one of these chairs. But worst of all, he should never have asked about buying something. He took, and others gratefully received what they were given.

A thin stream of water was summoned under the chair, gently carrying it to the covered waterway that led out into the bay. The demon’s magic wrapped around the chair as it smoothly sank under the water. The waters parted as an eggshell of magic formed around the chair. The water had looked deep green, almost black, from the surface. Not so below.

The night sky danced under Conjin Bay. Tiny lights danced and swirled, moving in shimmering shoals, scattering when some predator swam through. The bigger fish were decked in neon oranges and powder whites, with electric strokes of blue and lightning yellow flashing across their tarnished silver scales.

Scattered across the inverted heavens were the sea demons. Some conducted the shimmering shoals of lights, others played with the fish or each other, furiously battling, eroticaly entwined, or just playfully tagging one another and racing about like lovesick teens. A handsome devil with golden scales and coral-red fingers conducted a quartet of mermaids. The Mermaids opened their mouths unnaturally wide, singing wordless songs tuned to the distorted acoustics of the water.

Conjin, the City of Dreaming Waters. On land, there was only bleak reality. The grim practicalities of moving thousands of tonnes of goods every day required efficiency. Organization. Consistency. Art and whimsy had been banished to better serve the shareholders. Banished, along with the shareholders, to the sky under the sea.

“How do those on shore not know?” Truth asked. The demon faded into view, swimming alongside the bubble its magic had conjured.

“Some do, of course, in a vague sort of way. They cannot see what you are seeing. It’s all really there but concealed in the dark waters. It is part of my magic that you can see through the murk and enjoy the wonders performed for you.”

“Who funds the magic?”

“In theory? The “generous support of leading public figures.”

“In practice, a levy is charged to those ashore, one way or another. And that’s part of the fun.” Truth concluded. It had been an obvious question in retrospect. He internally frowned again. It was a struggle finding the groove here. The Prince was not chatty, particularly with the servants. Silence was the rule, used strategically. His every word is imperishable as gold, and unbreakable as adamantium.

“I believe it’s a tax on narcotics, alcohol, prostitution and gambling, as well as certain other forms of entertainment. Dreams should not be excessive. Things done to excess become vices, after all. Though what counts as excess depends on the person.”

Truth nodded faintly as he watched the show. Here and there were scattered little stories and mysteries. A broken statue of a beautiful woman, half hidden in a kelp forest. Elsewhere, an octopus hid from hunting fishes, trying to conceal the eggs behind it. Two demons dueled with sabers, silver lights flashing as the blades crossed and clashed, high to low and back again. Truth smiled a little at them- two beings who clearly knew how to fight, pretending to fight. Funny.

Something about the way they cut and parried, high, low, high, low, then one hopped back and aggressively presented the point, keeping distance and gaining space to breathe. The other tried to beat away the point, but the first disengaged with the slightest dip, his point never moving away from the other’s chest. Then they were at it again, cuts raining down on each other. Swords flashing in the rain and the smell of horses and wet blankets. The rattle of metal wings.

“Szabla.”

“Pardon, my Lord?” The water demon asked.

Truth shook his head and flicked the demon away with his fingers. Where had that word come from? That memory? A previous life? He didn’t believe that reincarnation was real, not really. It had never been convincingly proven. On the other hand, he had never ridden a flesh-and-blood horse, so how did he know what they smelled like in the rain?

The memory, brief and fragmentary as it was, soon faded. With a silent groan, he asked, System, did you catch that?

>

That word I said…

>

It’s something to do with sabers, and fencing.

>

I just know.

The chair fell through the heavenly wonder. Silent. Sinking down to the City of Dreaming Waters.

The chair drifted to a stop on a platform made of aqua colored glass and stones raised from the ocean floor.The lights were warm and dim, flickering, the light passing through the glass and bouncing off the stone, sending fleeting shadows racing through the platform. The platform was connected by a short walkway to a receiving building. A building that looked like some madman’s notion of a temple in miniature, and painted eye searing magenta and cyan, with heavy black details.

There wasn’t a lick of sense to designing things this way, or if there was, Truth couldn’t see it.

“Water held out by a barrier?”

“Indeed, magus.” The water demon agreed.

“Have the rabble panicked yet?”

“Not at all. The dreamers are only more furiously determined to enjoy their slumber. Any who threaten to rouse them are met with terrible rage. And punishment.”

Truth nodded slightly and walked away.

“It was my honor to serve you, my Lord. May the screams of your prey be sweet in your ears.”

Truth walked into the sunken city without looking back. The System Astrologica had trained him well.

The Prince was starting to fit better, or perhaps he was simply becoming accustomed to it, like an uncomfortably comfortable pair of leather pants. He didn’t really like what the easy arrogance and sadism said about him.

Not that anyone would ever complain. Not if they valued their tiny lives. He had endless ways of making someone disappear, and endless ways of making their departure the stuff of nightmares and urban legends. He looked over the odd, twisting shapes of the buildings, the narrow, winding streets, and the curious lights and paper creatures swimming through the air. Just the place for a nightmare.

The city was a maze of mazes, each street deliberately designed to look wide and straightforward- until you realized it actually slightly curved, and with the overhanging signs and oddly bent buildings and irregular city blocks, the street was not as wide as it seemed. Then there were the people, broadly defined.

The mages of Conjin were no monochrome lot. They had gone mad with illusions, glamorous, with grafting the flesh of curious things to themselves. Things not so simple to define as “monster,” “demon,” or “chimera.” Soft and warm human flesh was replaced here and there with the rubbery shine of an octopus or the brilliant silver scales of a mackerel. Tentacles sprouted from the back of a woman in a business suit- one holding the saucer and the other her coffee cup as she chatted gayly with her friend. A man in comfortable slacks and little else clinked his mug with an equally shirtless companion, the dozens of little tongues that had replaced their eyes dancing in the effervescence of the beer.

Everywhere was decked in colors contrasted against the dim light of the city and the ever-present black trim. Aquas and turquoises and lapis lazuli houses and shops and offices, some over cobblestone streets with no sidewalks, others over crushed gravel, others still over modern, well-drained roads and raised sidewalks. Some streets transition from one to the other in the space of a single step. Others enjoyed a more gradual blending.

Demons of all sorts moved through the city. Infernal, natural, most in keeping with the aquatic theme, but there were birds as well- air demons decked out as gulls or sandpipers, keeping the streets as clean as their masters wished. No more, no less. A trio of horned, goatlike demons played trumpets on a street corner, a hat full of tiny seashells at their hooves.

And naturally, the streets were not numbered. What was the point? It’s not like there was a grid system. There were Elm Streets and Laurel Streets and Prospect and Broadway, Phlebotomy Circus and the A-3. Somewhere would be 135th Street. Who could say where? A local, presumably.

Truth found himself caught in a dilemma. The Prince did not walk. The Prince traveled in comfort and style. But he certainly wasn’t going to buy things. A weakling could wave money about. The core of The Prince was power. Fortunately the dilemma had a straightforward solution.

There was a sedan chair proceeding down the street, carried by fish spirits swimming through air like it was water. Truth released his aura- the raw power of his level, the demon abolishing power of the Bronze Sea, the murderousness granted by his rough patron. The sedan chair stopped dead, the spirits rolling in place to display their bellies in supplication.

“Has this little brother done something to displease the senior?” A middle aged man, his push-broom mustache replaced with the tentacles of a sea anemone, immediately leapt from the carriage and bowed at a ninety degree angle.

“I am taking your sedan chair.”

“Senior…” There was a long pause. Truth just looked at him, watching the sweat bead on the back of the man’s neck. Letting the reality bending power of Incisive beat on the man, preying on the obedience to hierarchy that was the birthright of every child of Jeon. “I am so grateful you chose my meager conveyance! Happy journey to you.”

Truth didn’t acknowledge him, simply stepping into the sedan chair and sitting. He glared at the fish spirits, who shivered into action and set off. Once he was away from the still-bowing man, he informed them of where he would be carried. He briefly debated blinding the impudent fellow but eventually decided that his business was more important than removing a pair of useless eyes.

The fish demons swam quickly, not asking questions, not even speculating in their minds about what purpose could lead such a young monster to so mediocre a bar. Between their bindings and the Blessing of the Brass Sea, they knew their place. The Six Bells was not too far. Decorated with pictures of yachts, superfluous rope, and tattered sales. The dreams of capsized luxuries, where the “drowned” rich could drink and play. How dull. Breaking a window seemed like the perfect thing to do here.

He hopped out, pulled a cobblestone out of the street, and whipped it through the correct window above the entrance. He then returned to the sedan chair.

“Take me to a hotel that combines supreme comfort with equal discretion. Drop me two blocks away. Better to arrive on foot than in… this.”

The fish swam on for another fifteen minutes before alighting next to a dimly lit sidewalk. “My Lord, the boutique hotel “Mary’s Garden” is two blocks up this road. The building is painted all black, with a single torch out front that shifts between blues and reds. There is no other sign. Our master repeatedly expressed his wish that one day he could afford to stay there.”

Truth nodded. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and strode into the endless night.

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