Slumrat Rising

Truth quickly considered Mary’s request. He was The Prince, and the core of the Prince was power- the power to rule over others. This meant securing the willing cooperation of his lessers. His personal dignity, his glory, therefore mattered a great deal. Without it, they would not be obedient. The other thing was fortune, but that was a matter for another time.

So what to do about Mary’s grandson? Delegate. Make his people problem someone else’s problem. Because nothing says personal power like putting other people to work.

“I have no need for additional servants, nor is my retinue easily entered. I will offer it an opportunity at the end of my stay. It will remain in the care of… I will call you Butler,” he nodded at the stolen succubus, “who will see to its education and moral reform. Should it learn how to be useful, it may yet be redeemed as a human.”

“My thanks, Prince. I am certain Barton-” Truth lips slightly curved up. “I am certain it will work hard.” Truth nodded slightly.

“Good. Is my cultivation chamber ready?”

Mary blinked.

“See to it.” Truth dismissed her. She bowed and departed silently. Leaving her grandson shivering on the floor. Truth looked down on the clerk. He had no reason to be cruel to him. His persona was now well established, his needs were being met, even his wants were being satisfied. Still. The dignity of the Prince must be maintained. Always. And this thing had offended him too many times.

“Your prior instructions stand. It will come to fear and hate all it ever loved and everything that used to bring it comfort or pleasure. It will love only me, and derive comfort and satisfaction only from serving me. However, I do not want it ruined. It must be able to lead a reasonably independent life as it serves.”

“As you command, my Prince. This lowly Succubus is infinitely grateful to receive the name and nature you have bestowed upon it, that it might better serve you.” Butler murmured. The maid looked murderously jealous, then quickly hid her expression behind bland indifference.

Truth nodded as he stood and stripped off his bathrobe. “Dismissed.” He looked over at the maid. “Dress me.” She hurried to obey, as the former desk clerk was packed back into his little suitcase.

The cultivation chamber was frankly disappointing. Others might have found it luxurious; he would likely have found it luxurious, once, but now it just felt claustrophobic. A little cell with a cushion to sit on and an incense burner, should it be needed. There was a cosmic ray gathering array built into the room, which must have been utterly necessary in a city under this much water and several layers of wards. The cosmic rays didn’t feel any thinner than up on the surface, but he still believed it. Cultivation should happen under the stars, not in a little box.

It was better than nothing. He got to it. A satisfactory round of cultivation, and a very satisfactory round of meditation, later, he exited the room and set out.

The private library that Mary arranged for him to visit was owned by a wealthy eccentric, which was really saying something in Chojin. The old woman let her freak flag fly by having the perverse audacity to look old. Her skin was paper thin. Its wrinkles and folds were the result, she happily informed Truth, of hundreds of painstaking hours of design work by elite cosmetic glamour designers working in conjunction with top surgeons. She was still fighting fit at barely over a century. She just liked being different.

Her library was also, equally, unique. It was two floors of haphazard shelving, with books shoved in any which way, seemingly without the slightest effort to organize. Polished wood so dark it was almost black was used for the book cases. The tables and chairs were made of the same stuff. The lighting was dim and yellowy. It all looked very fascinating, but it made actually finding and reading things a nightmare.

And she had specifically told him to put everything back exactly as he had found it. Madness.

Hey, remember waaaay back in, I think, Boule, you had that read all the books on possession quest, with a reward of “one hour treasure finder, library edition” or something?

>

Delegation is the key skill of management. Now, the word of the day is Manda. Who is it, and what can we learn about them? Clearly some kind of stellar entity, almost certainly an angel, and a pretty senior one, for all that I have never heard of them.

>

Truth sighed. He didn’t really have anywhere else to be today. Lucky, really. He got to it. Shelf after shelf, aisle after aisle. It took him hours.

So what has she got?

Ducks and How to Make Them Pay, to a clearly well loved edition of Chale’s The Divinity of the Rural Train Station.>>

Anything more relevant?

>

Truth carefully eased out almost a dozen volumes. Some thick reference texts, some more focused catalogs of the known stellar eminences, a few slim volumes on magical theory. It seemed almost random, but he trusted the System on this.

The reading process went quickly. He wasn’t particularly interested in any of the topics in the books, so he just flipped the pages, letting the System pick up the words and sort through them.

>Truth found the passage the System had spotted.

Flowing down like the river from the mountain peaks, like the river of stars pouring down the night sky, so too does the lifegiving wisdom flow down from above. That which reveals the truth is not the truth itself but its servant, the light in the dark woods, the sea-bell in the fog. To be visited by Manda is to be blessed, but the blessing is a curse for those who are unable to receive it. Like drowning in the life-giving river because you never learned to swim, like wrecking on the rocks in the fog because you never learned to sail.

The book then went on to describe a particularly grim institutional dinner. He flipped back a couple of pages, trying to find out more. Apparently this was the memoir of a mage who visited insane asylums and interviewed the residents, on the theory that they might have had, continue to have, or were more likely to have, divine revelations.

Alright… so he is associated with revelation? Not sure how that connects to what Cup and Knife does.

>

In a volume on Praegerite criticism of seeking truth by revelation-

The differences are simply too many to enumerate without expanding this volume to encyclopedic length. The simplest is incoherence. The person receiving the revelation claims to now possess some higher understanding of the world, yet when called upon to explain their “wisdom,” fails utterly. Take, for example, the “wisdom” granted by Manda- spreading the long disproven lie that Hell is not eternal. Note well how some “prophets” describe Manda, an angel of the highest order, as either a young boy or a lusty man.

Truth noted instead how many exclamation marks were in the book. It was a lot. Still not particularly useful or on point. Though an angel that could pass for human was unusual, to put it very mildly.

Later, in a collection of essays on life amongst dolphins called Longing For Death- My Life On A Tropical Island With A Pod Of Dolphins-

Words couldn’t express how brutally the pod had worked me over. Their noses seem soft and blunted, but when driven by the powerful muscles of their sleek forms, it was enough to break ribs. I thought I would drown. I nearly did drown. They did… no, this is not the time for that. I washed ashore, hardly able to breathe through the pain, yet desperate for air. I saw the world bend. Perhaps it was my lightheadedness, but I saw the world as though it was a picture painted on glass. My nose wasn’t buried in burning sand, it was pressed against that painted glass, so close it was all I could see. There was a being of light next to me, looking down on me. Saying that it didn’t have to be this way. Manda. It was called Manda. Then I passed out, and the moment was gone.

Truth nodded slightly. On the right track, there. That sense of unreality, the thin film of existence. He had felt it too. Several times now. A different book, this one on alchemy, of all things. A subject on which he was gloriously ignorant, and happy to remain so.

We now turn to the works of that most energetic, yet enigmatic, magus, Johannes Vek. In the four hundred and seventy(!) spells attributed to Magus Vek, no less than a hundred and fifty touch directly upon alchemy, and arguably another two hundred touch upon it indirectly. Consider, for example, his famed “Cup and Knife,”

Truth felt faint. Answers. Actual, specific answers. Incredible!

Which is intended as an exorcist’s tool but does a marvelous job in purifying base metals and treating certain invisible diseases of herbs which may badly damage the final product. I strongly counsel patience for this section, as Vek’s methodology is notoriously difficult and idiosyncratic. The same could be said for his equally challenging patron, Manda, a being who seems to defy easy categorization. Vek is included for reference, as his work was foundational in several sub-fields. However, most modern mages have switched to more reliable spells, especially in conjunction with the newer generation of talismans and tools.

Truth nodded happily. Cup and Knife, compiled by a Johannes Vek, and inspired by the enigmatic, revelation focused angel Manda. Progress. Sweet progress! Although, speaking of sweet, it had to be dinner time.

Truth had relaxed the scales a little bit while he was reading. The presence of the Prince was faint. But it was time to return to the world of seemings. He pulled it back onto him, like he was wearing the robes of state. Raised his head. Strode out the door. The room was perfectly restored to order. The Prince was a king in waiting, not a spoiled child.

Dinner was, again, exquisite. A delicate soup, followed by a tiny salad, then medallions of duck with a sort of root vegetable puree and a reddish brown sauce spread liberally around the plate. Dessert was a tiny, but exquisite, cake. Once again, the food had been enriched with cosmic energy. The effort must have been enormous.

“The kitchen did well with dinner.”

“They will be overjoyed to hear that, My Prince,” the maid murmured.

“Mmm. A half hour neck and shoulder massage, then prepare my shower and turn down my bed for the evening.”

“As you command, My Prince.”

As the maid’s fingers started digging into his neck, Truth came to an odd sort of peace. It had been a remarkably productive day, even if it was quietly spent in a library. He was well fed, comfortable, clean, and content. He had found answers to questions with a minimum of faffing about. His cover remained impeccable, and better still, people were going out of their way to not see him. All the little surveillance devices in the room had been switched off. Not that they had been able to break through his own magic, but it showed a certain mentality on the part of Mary.

He groaned slightly. No surprise the succubus was good at this. He’d have to remember how it did it. He had never let Etenesh massage him. Truth would bet cash she would love to give him a neck and shoulder massage at the end of a productive day. But in the meantime, he would be The Prince, and take his due.

There was something about this persona. He didn’t know where the instinct came from, but he felt that it was important to explore it. What did it mean to be The Prince? He didn’t know what he was looking for. He would take his time. It would come.

Incisive gathered around him, like a snake drawing in its coils. He didn’t see how the maid shuddered with pleasure, or how the room started ever so subtly to warp around him. He was Truth Medici, Prince of the kingdom to come. Already, his word was law. His goals were achieved. He was given honor and obedience. Tomorrow, he would pin fortune to the floor and take it. But tonight, he would enjoy the massage, the luxurious shower, and the exquisite bed.

He had entirely forgotten the former desk clerk, zipped up in a carry-on sized suitcase in the basement. A thing whose mind was being steadily broken and rewritten at his whim. It didn’t matter, after all. It was just a whim.

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