I suppose the correct thing to do was panic.
To feel my blood go cold, to let my mouth hang open, to fumble for the words I needed for the sight before me. Or, at the very least, it would have been good manners to raise an alarm and go shrieking through the streets.
“How did you like the opera?”
But monsters are a funny thing.
Think of a beast that hunts you through the forest or breaks down your door and you’ve got something to fear—something that can run faster, hit harder, and go longer than your puny human frame can handle is scary. But think of a beast that can slay you without any effort at all and it somehow seems… less impressive, doesn’t it? If it can always kill you whenever it wants, there’s no real reason to be afraid of it, is there? After all, it’s not like you can do anything about it.
Torle of the Void, who’d slain thousands with a thought earlier, could just as easily kill me. He could make my head explode or turn my guts to acid inside me or transform me into a toad… maybe. I thought I heard he could do that.
Besides, I’d been a Prodigy, too, once. They aren’t that impressive.
“You knew I was watching?” Torle of the Void asked me.
“I assumed you wouldn’t miss it, if you knew it was there,” I replied. “And if you knew I was here, you probably knew everything else about the city, too. So.” I gestured to him. “I ask again. What did you think?”
“I have seen better, if I am being honest,” he replied, absently glancing into his untouched cup of tea. “The role of the Fearsome Tailor is meant to have at least a modicum of timidity—the boldness of this diva’s portrayal was refreshing, I will agree. However, I can’t help but lament the slow death of the classic.”
“A classic is only a classic until you forget it.” I sipped my tea. “What’s refreshing today will be classic tomorrow and what’s classic today will be forgotten.”
“Mm. A bleak commentary.” He smiled at his teacup, poetic. “Perhaps comforting, too, to know that all greatness is eventually consigned to the ashes of history, no matter how long it takes. The Imperium, too, shall one day fade from memory. As shall we.”
I drank my tea, poured another.
“I must commend you,” he added, “I confess that few people would be able to engage with a Prodigy of the Imperium so calmly.”
I glanced at the table. “You haven’t touched your tea.”
I tapped the cup in front of him. In the tea, his reflection did not stare back at us.
“But how can you if you’re not actually here?”
He grinned, winked, like a grandpa whose grandchild just learned how a charming little trick worked.
That made my blood go colder.
“Curious, isn’t it? I am here.” He tapped his temple. “I am simply here. My consciousness projected upon yours. Interesting trick, no? I did not learn how to do it until long after I had retired.”
I grunted, poured another cup of tea.
“I often wonder what you would have learned, what gifts you could have shared with us all, Salazanca,” Torle said, smiling gently. “How far could you have taken the Imperium, had your powers never been robbed from you? How far could you have gone?”
I paused. There was a time when that sort of talk would make me happy. Make me think of days where I flew. But now, it felt like his words were thick, cloying honey funneled into my ears—sticky, smothering.
“I know how you aren’t here,” I said, “so why don’t you tell me why you are? Because I sure as shit know it wasn’t to talk about the Fearsome Tailor.”
“Oh, come now. Surely, there is no reason we can’t—”
“Torle.” I met his gaze, clasped it in mine. “You either respect me or you don’t.”
His face fell swiftly this time. The warmth and charm did not so much drain away as flood out, leaving behind something cold and hard as the dark creeping in through the windows. His posture straightened severely. His hands folded together.
“If you wish.”
The room became darker. Closer. The furniture felt as though it crowded around, grew hateful consciousness and leveled it toward us. I kept my breath steady, my mind clear—it was him, I told myself. He was in my head.
“You know that I am aware of your location.” He stared over his folded hands at me. “As I am aware of this great snub of a city. An insult to the Imperium.”
“What snub? They’re out here clinging to a dry, acrid asshole of a land.”
“And they claim that this atrocity of a realm is preferable to the embrace of the Empress,” he replied. “They claim that the battles you and I bled for were for nothing, that all the efforts to tame this land were for nothing. The service, the sacrifice we have given the nuls and they reject it, all of our efforts, to go play opera in the desert.” His eyes narrowed. “I would not suffer this insult were it given to my lowest servant, let alone my colleagues and my Empress.”
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “Yeah? Is that why you’re pissed? Or is it because they don’t have to dedicate their lives to an Imperium and we did?”
Generally, it’s considered not wise to tease people whose thoughts are in your thoughts. But I couldn’t help it. It was like a joke I just now got.
“I would advise you to focus on another implication,” Torle said. “You have no doubt understood that the Imperium is aware of this city. And that my focus has been turned on it.”
I said nothing, poured another cup.
“The Empress tires of distractions. She wishes the Recivilizing to be a message to the entirety of the Scar, including this city.” He let those words weigh heavy on my shoulders. “You, likewise, understand that this city has little chance against me, no?”
“Almost none.”
The barest, coldest smile plucked at his lips. “Then you understand the futility of defiance. This can end well, Salazanca. You can help it end well. The Empress is willing to show mercy. Simply help the people of this city see—”
“No.”
If you ever want to know how a person stronger than you feels about you, tell them that word. If they love you, they’ll cry hot tears over the fear that they’ve hurt you. If they hate you, they’ll sneer and laugh and pretend they don’t care. But if they’re like most people, they’ll do what Torle did.
He simply sighed, like he was speaking to a stupid child.
“Be reasonable,” he said. “You are a collection of deserters. You stand no chance against the Imperium.”
“Or against the Revolution,” I agreed. “Honestly, a team of motivated people with sufficiently harsh language stands a fair chance of taking this city apart.”
“Then you see the futility.”
“I do, yeah.”
“Then you also, no doubt, see the wisdom in surrender.”
“I take exception to that ‘no doubt’ bit, but I agree.”
“Then what is the debate?”
I admit—I took just a little bit of joy in the frustration creeping into Torle’s voice.
“You can no doubt compel this city to submit. You can save thousands.”
“There’s three problems with that,” I replied, holding up a finger. “First and foremost, this isn’t my place. I’m just visiting. So, it’d be kind of rude for me to come in and start telling them how to do things, wouldn’t it? I mean, how awkward.”
Torle sighed. “Salazanca…”
“Second, since you’re so smart, you also know the Revolution is gunning for this place,” I said, counting off another finger. “And while I have no doubt the Imperial asshole is a little chafed at the idea of New Vigil, I can’t believe that a rabble of nobodies is of more concern to the Empress than the Great General.”
People like Torle—people whose strength comes from only one place—aren’t great liars. They have no need to be. He didn’t bother cajoling or denying. His face simply fell, frozen, as I spoke.
“So I have to wonder why you’re not concerned with that, either,” I continued, “since, if you know I’m here, you must also know they’re around.” My scarred eye twitched. “So you either think I’m too stupid to have forgotten that or you just hoped I didn’t notice. Either way, I’m a little insulted.”
He recoiled, looked like he’d be happier if I’d kicked him between the legs. “I would never stoop so low as to insult a fellow traveler, Salazanca.”
“Then don’t,” I said. “Tell me why you’re not worried about the Revolution.”
Torle scares me. I don’t feel any shame saying that and I don’t think anyone would disagree—anyone would fear a man who could sink cities. I was scared when he did that, no doubt.
But not as scared as I was when he started smiling, delighted that I was finally catching on.
“Did you know there are scholars among the Revolution?” he said softly. “We’re all told that they have no culture, no education, no curiosity—for the nuls’ sake, I presume. But after I retired, I found that they, too, had their thinkers as any society does. And they were no less interested in more… obscure subjects.
“Did you know they know about Scraths?” His voice grew more excited. I’d never heard that before. “More than even I knew. The Revolution has such intimate knowledge about them, more than we ever gave them credit for, including their feeding.”
His smile grew cold, morbidly fascinated, like a quiet kid with a dead bird in the road and a sharp stick to poke it with.
“Emotions, you see,” he whispered. “Doubt. Fear. Passion. Lust. The errant thoughts that torment the mortal mind so easily are their meat and milk. They crave it. They’re drawn to it. To us. Even you or I, the earth-shattering power we command—they care for none of it. It’s so trivial to them, they don’t even notice. They left everything behind when they became what they are, every concern and worry and desire. Everything but the hunger.”
I held his gaze, though I wanted desperately to blink. I held up a third finger, though my hands shook terribly. I spoke the words, though I wanted nothing more than to say anything else.
“Three,” I said, “why are you talking to the Revolution about Scraths?”
And if you ever truly, truly want to know what a person stronger than you is thinking, see what they look like when you ask them something like this. Not about Scraths, just about something they’re interested in enough not to pretend to be humble.
And when you do, if the smile that creases their face looks anything like the one that creased Torle’s, you have my truest sympathies.
“Now, then, I should really be asking you something like that, shouldn’t I?” he asked. “After all, don’t you feel just a little remorseful hiding a secret like Eldest from me?”
My eyes narrowed. My jaw set. My pulse quickened.
“One of the children, accompanying your companion,” he said, shaking his head. “It was mere feet from me back at my encampment. I could have learned so much.”
“Stop,” I growled.
“Does she feel it inside her? Does she hear its thoughts? What does it feel like when it begins to consume her?”
“Torle, stop it.”
“Aren’t you curious? Aren’t you fascinated? Secrets beyond anything we’ve known, beyond the reaches of what even the Imperium can teach us, and it all lies within—”
“DON’T.” I slammed my fist on the table. Cups upturned. Tea splattered onto the floor. “Don’t keep talking. Don’t finish that fucking sentence. Don’t say her fucking name.”
Torle stared at me, scrutinizing me with an expression that suggested I’d said more than I wanted to. But he stayed silent, at least. For one merciful moment.
“The limit of the Empress’s curiosity has proved something of a difficulty in my research,” he continued, after a time. “I am certain she will be quite cross to understand that the Great General and I have come to something of an understanding regarding this city and our mutual intentions toward it.”
“An understanding?” I asked, sneering. “Torle of the Void won’t stoop so low as to insult a Vagrant, but he’ll commit treason?”
“When it comes to knowledge,” he said, “there are no factions. No nations. No cultures. The Empress may one day strike me from her graces and my name from our history. The pain of that will be intense.” He stared at his own hands. “But I will have taken my seat at the black table by then. And the pain of not knowing… of being so close and not knowing… it’s worse. It is a pain deeper than anything I could ever know.”
“Then you know even less than you thought you did.”
So, don’t get me wrong—Torle of the Void is an unstoppable mage. He could destroy me with a flick of fingers and a nasty thought, if he wanted. He still might have. But when the record of how he killed me comes out, I want it noted that, after I said that to him, he looked like he was about to cry.
Make sure you tell them that when they’re sweeping up my ashes.
“Your antagonism is unwise, Salazanca.”
“Oh yeah? What are you going to do? Kill me worse than you already were going to?” I sneered at him across the table, folded my arms. “Why are you even bothering telling me? Why not just come in and kill us all?”
“Courtesy and compassion,” he replied. “I am still recovering from my last expenditure. You still have time to save lives here.”
“Birdshit. If you wanted something this bad, you wouldn’t let that stop you. And you have more than enough strength to come get what you want. You’re not holding off out of charity.”
My eyes widened as the realization struck me like a brick to the face.
“You’re holding off,” I whispered, “because I’m not the only one who knows you’re here.”
The room grew darker. The last traces of the light and heat—the embers from the hearth, the lone candle on the counter—were snuffed out. And though a cold wind rapped lightly on the windowpanes, the room began to grow warm.
Papers left on tables began to crinkle and smoke. Tea began to boil in its cups and pots. The candle’s wax began to melt. In the distant dark, from somewhere far too close, a gaze peered out and settled upon us. An unseen smile, brimming with cinders, split open in the dark somewhere.
The Cacophony did so love it when someone talked about him.
“You’re afraid of him,” I whispered. “You’re afraid of the gun.”
Torle said nothing. His form grew hazier, insubstantial—as though his body were a tapestry that someone had just plucked a stray thread from.
“See reason,” he whispered, urgent. “You cannot win this. Not with every weapon, not with any weapon. I can help you. You can help everyone.”
“I agree with that, too,” I replied. “I can’t win.”
“Then you see—”
“I don’t think I even know what ‘winning’ looks like, at this point,” I continued. “And when I try to picture it, I can’t. All I’ve been trying to do is survive and I’m not even sure I can do that.” I stared at him across the table. “But I know what losing looks like. I know what will kill me. Giving her to you, that’ll kill me. Giving up, that’ll kill me. But coming after me?”
I rose out of my chair. His body continued to warp and diminish, steam coiling off his body. The Cacophony was reaching out for him—and even through this mental magic, he could touch him.
“That’ll kill you, Torle,” I said. “That’ll kill everyone you love, everything you ever held dear. If you come after me, after this city, after her… then all your service, all your knowledge, all the questions you don’t know, I will turn to ash. Whether I’m alive or dead, I don’t fucking care and I won’t let that stop me.”
He sneered through a fading face. “You are exaggerating.”
“Then say her name,” I said, “and see for yourself.”
He stirred, as if to do just that. But even that movement attracted too much attention. He winced with the effort. Smoke continued to rise off of his image—the Cacophony’s burning fingers tightened around him, reaching through his spell, his very thoughts, to covetously seize him.
A projection. A simple mental image. No more than thoughts and memories. But the pain on Torle’s face was real enough. As was the horror to learn that there was something out there in that big wide world that could hurt him.
“I am disappointed, Salazanca,” he hissed as his form continued to smolder away. “I had hoped we could be civil about this, as colleagues. I had even concealed your presence as a courtesy.”
I furrowed my brow. “Huh? Concealed it from what?”
“I had intended to take care of it for you as a kindness. Alas.” His body began to fade, a bad dream leaving behind only a smoky stain. “A final courtesy. He is a Doormage. I would advise you to be aware of your surroundings.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
I was talking to ashes by that point. The ghost of Torle’s spell ignited, the remains of it burning away like cheap paper. The Cacophony’s growl, frustrated at being denied a taste, filled the room.
And between the notes of his anger, I heard the barest echo of a noise.
A single note of the Lady’s song. Crystalline. Clear.
Right above me.